I Never Learned to Surrender
There are battles I never learned or thought I'd have to fight. The thought of surrender or of giving up on anything I wanted has always been an anathema to me. I learned at what should have been my childhood that respect was won and took hard work and courage. It meant that on a wintry night in waters off of Punalu'u when in twelve feet of water as a ten year old when I encountered a five foot reef white tip that appeared dead in the dim light of an eveready flashlight wrapped in two Love's bread bags, entangled in the "pocket" of the family gill nets who when I tried to untangle him/her turned out to be very much alive and willing to strike out at its captor (me), that I didn't panic or admit to my own terror though it would be my nightmare until replaced by more horrifying things. Not wanting to be thought cowardly or as a shirker I continued to retrieve fish from the nets till I left home to enter the US Army. There were several more such shark incidents though I was cautious enough not to be bitten though did get battered a few times landing large ones in a 16' Boston Whaler a time or two.
Sometime later in my early teens I surfaced from a dive to find that my boat was dragging anchor and was drifting away. I swam that day with only a Mae West for floatation wearing twin 71.2cu.ft. tanks like I'd never swum in my life out to sea to catch that boat. The only thought I had at the time was how much trouble I'd be in if I lost it at sea. Better to die chasing it down than return home to tell my family I'd lost the boat. My 'partner' swam towards shore after calling me an idiot. I picked him up later on the way in floating there in his Mae West because he'd given up.
That determination was what I took with me to fulfill my life's ambition of becoming a Soldier. It stood up to the second and third phases of Ranger School when having found that I was afraid of snakes, snakes were placed down my fatigue shirt, in my bedding, dropped on my head, in my boots while I slept and even down my pants. I wasn't afraid of snakes I was terrified of them I knew very little about them at the time and couldn't tell a non-poisonous snake from a poisonous one. After all, in Hawaii there's only one species of blind cave snake that gets to be all of a few inches in length. The TACs found my terror amusing since nothing else seemed to phase me. What they didn't realize was that as frightened as I was, as terrified as the feel of a snake dropping down the front of my pants to the bottom of my bloused pant leg and then coiling around my leg might make me as I expected to be bitten at any moment. Nothing they could do would cause me to quit, being a Soldier was my single goal and aspiration in life and I was going to be the best Soldier I could be. Later would come the Special Forces Qualification Course, it was designed to be mentally and physically stressful. It was all about putting out maximum effort and initiative both as a member of a team and as an individual. You were neither encouraged nor discouraged from giving up. The fact is, that most people did. At the end, those who would not surrender to being too hot/cold, hungry, tired, wet and pushed to your physical and mental limits earned their Green Berets. Pure stubborness earned me mine.
My third Purple Heart marks the only two times I've ever given up in life and the reasons and strength I've found never to do so again. I don't remember much about the event itself just some disjointed snatches and shadows of memories. The first memory I truly have at the time was of rising into consciousness as if through a deep ocean. I became aware of sounds I couldn't quite identify and the sensation of a general achy pain with sharp edges about my head and face. My throat was dry and hurt terribly and my tongue wasn't working right. I couldn't open my mouth and when I tried to open my eyes, all I saw was darkness. I panicked reaching up I found my hands were bandaged and sharper pains came when I tried to feel my face. My mind raced in terror trying to figure out what had happened. I could feel and cut my tongue on wire sutures. I tried to get up from my recumbent position. About that time, hands roughly pushed me back down, my hands, feet and torso were strapped down and a needle went into my arm. Sounds that were familiar told me I was in a medical facility of some kind. It was then, I realized that I couldn't smell anything either. Tranquilizers additional analgesics and a sedative took effect in a short time. Sometime later, I resurfaced into consciousness. This time a doctor and several others were there. The doctor began to explain the nature and extent of my wounds without the aid of bedside manner. It was a painful and clinical explanation devoid of almost any trace of humanity. A strange thought flickered through my mind that I'd fallen into one of Ray Bradbury's short stories in the Illustrated Man. The thought amused me in a macabre manner. At the same time another part of my brain was absorbing, "...multiple skull fractures including missing bone fragments, mandible fractured in three places, Right cheekbone and lower orbit of the Maxilla shattered...you were lucky, whatever happened "stripped" the skin and muscle of your face from just behind your ear to the left side of your nose. There's some nerve damage to the plexus in the cheekbone that we don't think can be repaired. A little later he disclosed what they'd done so far to repair me "wired" jaw and parts of Maxilla, begun recunstruction of the nose, and re-attached the facial musculature and skin...Naso-gastric tube, endo-tracheal tube, IV for antibiotic, nutrition and hydration...may be partially or completely blind, loss of hearing in right ear, possible nerve damage and chronic pain, with some disfigurment. When he left and I was pretty sure I was unattended, I decided to surrender to my wounds and pulled out my oxygen and feeding tubes along with both IVs. I'd have slit my throat but couldn't find anything that would work. Although I made an attempt at stabbing the carotid artery with an IV needle. Damn thing's not easy to hit. Needless to say in very short order several people swarmed me and I found myself once more under restraint with lots of sedatives and tranquilizers. I couldn't even quit competently much less die competently. I also gave up on the idea of suicide at that point.
The next morning I had visitors, Paul, my former XO and The Apache, my oft-time partner in mischief and adventure. I don't recall the exact words from normally quiet Paul, I am sure that if I did I wouldn't repeat them in mixed company, but I do recall that for a man who cussed very seldom to the point most people believed he never did. He managed to lay into me with a command of invective that was impressive. The gist of it was, that there were people who looked up to me. People who believed that I was someone to emulate and follow. How dare I do what I'd done! It struck me oddly at the time that he never once uttered or acknwledged the name of the deed I'd attempted. As Paul wound down, the Apache spoke his piece. He told me that I was of The People (Apache) and that meant I have a home no matter what and a place to share my wisdom. He told me that it was selfish not to teach young warriors not just what I know of battle but of life. They didn't leave me and watched over me. I felt ashamed that they felt the need to do so and even greater shame at the weakness that possessed me to think that my life was my own. Their lesson would see me through the loss of my beloved Andie and my son Ben.
It would take some 92 surgeries from that point to restore me and almost a year of Physical Torture, I mean Therapy to get it where I could create the illusion of bi-lateral symetry in my facial movements or learn not to bite my cheek and tongue regularly when I eat. It took longer still to make other accommodations. Throughout, whenever it was difficult and whenever I started to think it was hopeless. I remembered that I wasn't just doing it for myself but for the other people who I knew or didn't know were watching and taking their example from what I did or didn't do. I learned even more clearly than ever that every battle was worth fightng, every river worth fording, every mountain worth fighting and even dying for. In short, I learned that everything counts no matter how seemingly infinitesimal. Today, most people don't know I can't feel most of the right side of my face or that every facial expression is a concious effort of willing muscles I can't feel to move to a certain pattern of tension. God, gave me skin that scars very slightly and disappears quickly. Something I hated as a youth with lots of 'extra skin'. I have a 15% loss of high frequency hearing from the norm and it took some additional surgeries to restore my vision. I have no tear ducts in the right orbit and in order to keep the area moist it was opened to my maxillary sinus. Some wire and two cerosium "bones" remind me painfully of their presence in winter. They only affect my performance slightly in that I have to watch where I swim without a mask. My plastic surgeons were absolute artists and there's very little most people ever notice. I think only Andie after her own reconstruction surgeries really saw just how exquisite the surgery to my face really is.
So it is today as I face the end of my career. Almost no one I know understands or even relates to the death knell keening for my lifelong dream, love, ambition and calling. Very few understand how much pain is involved. Most people I know don't know what it means when I say that what is left to me is duty to my boys, Winston and my promises. I will do everything in my power to keep my promises. I'm not allowed to quit or surrender to what I want. A creature of duty and honor.
But God, I wish to say this, "Legate command me not to go...here where time, custom, grief and toil, memory, service, love have rooted me...Here is my heart, my soul, my mind - the only life I know. I cannot leave it all behind command me not to go."
Sometime later in my early teens I surfaced from a dive to find that my boat was dragging anchor and was drifting away. I swam that day with only a Mae West for floatation wearing twin 71.2cu.ft. tanks like I'd never swum in my life out to sea to catch that boat. The only thought I had at the time was how much trouble I'd be in if I lost it at sea. Better to die chasing it down than return home to tell my family I'd lost the boat. My 'partner' swam towards shore after calling me an idiot. I picked him up later on the way in floating there in his Mae West because he'd given up.
That determination was what I took with me to fulfill my life's ambition of becoming a Soldier. It stood up to the second and third phases of Ranger School when having found that I was afraid of snakes, snakes were placed down my fatigue shirt, in my bedding, dropped on my head, in my boots while I slept and even down my pants. I wasn't afraid of snakes I was terrified of them I knew very little about them at the time and couldn't tell a non-poisonous snake from a poisonous one. After all, in Hawaii there's only one species of blind cave snake that gets to be all of a few inches in length. The TACs found my terror amusing since nothing else seemed to phase me. What they didn't realize was that as frightened as I was, as terrified as the feel of a snake dropping down the front of my pants to the bottom of my bloused pant leg and then coiling around my leg might make me as I expected to be bitten at any moment. Nothing they could do would cause me to quit, being a Soldier was my single goal and aspiration in life and I was going to be the best Soldier I could be. Later would come the Special Forces Qualification Course, it was designed to be mentally and physically stressful. It was all about putting out maximum effort and initiative both as a member of a team and as an individual. You were neither encouraged nor discouraged from giving up. The fact is, that most people did. At the end, those who would not surrender to being too hot/cold, hungry, tired, wet and pushed to your physical and mental limits earned their Green Berets. Pure stubborness earned me mine.
My third Purple Heart marks the only two times I've ever given up in life and the reasons and strength I've found never to do so again. I don't remember much about the event itself just some disjointed snatches and shadows of memories. The first memory I truly have at the time was of rising into consciousness as if through a deep ocean. I became aware of sounds I couldn't quite identify and the sensation of a general achy pain with sharp edges about my head and face. My throat was dry and hurt terribly and my tongue wasn't working right. I couldn't open my mouth and when I tried to open my eyes, all I saw was darkness. I panicked reaching up I found my hands were bandaged and sharper pains came when I tried to feel my face. My mind raced in terror trying to figure out what had happened. I could feel and cut my tongue on wire sutures. I tried to get up from my recumbent position. About that time, hands roughly pushed me back down, my hands, feet and torso were strapped down and a needle went into my arm. Sounds that were familiar told me I was in a medical facility of some kind. It was then, I realized that I couldn't smell anything either. Tranquilizers additional analgesics and a sedative took effect in a short time. Sometime later, I resurfaced into consciousness. This time a doctor and several others were there. The doctor began to explain the nature and extent of my wounds without the aid of bedside manner. It was a painful and clinical explanation devoid of almost any trace of humanity. A strange thought flickered through my mind that I'd fallen into one of Ray Bradbury's short stories in the Illustrated Man. The thought amused me in a macabre manner. At the same time another part of my brain was absorbing, "...multiple skull fractures including missing bone fragments, mandible fractured in three places, Right cheekbone and lower orbit of the Maxilla shattered...you were lucky, whatever happened "stripped" the skin and muscle of your face from just behind your ear to the left side of your nose. There's some nerve damage to the plexus in the cheekbone that we don't think can be repaired. A little later he disclosed what they'd done so far to repair me "wired" jaw and parts of Maxilla, begun recunstruction of the nose, and re-attached the facial musculature and skin...Naso-gastric tube, endo-tracheal tube, IV for antibiotic, nutrition and hydration...may be partially or completely blind, loss of hearing in right ear, possible nerve damage and chronic pain, with some disfigurment. When he left and I was pretty sure I was unattended, I decided to surrender to my wounds and pulled out my oxygen and feeding tubes along with both IVs. I'd have slit my throat but couldn't find anything that would work. Although I made an attempt at stabbing the carotid artery with an IV needle. Damn thing's not easy to hit. Needless to say in very short order several people swarmed me and I found myself once more under restraint with lots of sedatives and tranquilizers. I couldn't even quit competently much less die competently. I also gave up on the idea of suicide at that point.
The next morning I had visitors, Paul, my former XO and The Apache, my oft-time partner in mischief and adventure. I don't recall the exact words from normally quiet Paul, I am sure that if I did I wouldn't repeat them in mixed company, but I do recall that for a man who cussed very seldom to the point most people believed he never did. He managed to lay into me with a command of invective that was impressive. The gist of it was, that there were people who looked up to me. People who believed that I was someone to emulate and follow. How dare I do what I'd done! It struck me oddly at the time that he never once uttered or acknwledged the name of the deed I'd attempted. As Paul wound down, the Apache spoke his piece. He told me that I was of The People (Apache) and that meant I have a home no matter what and a place to share my wisdom. He told me that it was selfish not to teach young warriors not just what I know of battle but of life. They didn't leave me and watched over me. I felt ashamed that they felt the need to do so and even greater shame at the weakness that possessed me to think that my life was my own. Their lesson would see me through the loss of my beloved Andie and my son Ben.
It would take some 92 surgeries from that point to restore me and almost a year of Physical Torture, I mean Therapy to get it where I could create the illusion of bi-lateral symetry in my facial movements or learn not to bite my cheek and tongue regularly when I eat. It took longer still to make other accommodations. Throughout, whenever it was difficult and whenever I started to think it was hopeless. I remembered that I wasn't just doing it for myself but for the other people who I knew or didn't know were watching and taking their example from what I did or didn't do. I learned even more clearly than ever that every battle was worth fightng, every river worth fording, every mountain worth fighting and even dying for. In short, I learned that everything counts no matter how seemingly infinitesimal. Today, most people don't know I can't feel most of the right side of my face or that every facial expression is a concious effort of willing muscles I can't feel to move to a certain pattern of tension. God, gave me skin that scars very slightly and disappears quickly. Something I hated as a youth with lots of 'extra skin'. I have a 15% loss of high frequency hearing from the norm and it took some additional surgeries to restore my vision. I have no tear ducts in the right orbit and in order to keep the area moist it was opened to my maxillary sinus. Some wire and two cerosium "bones" remind me painfully of their presence in winter. They only affect my performance slightly in that I have to watch where I swim without a mask. My plastic surgeons were absolute artists and there's very little most people ever notice. I think only Andie after her own reconstruction surgeries really saw just how exquisite the surgery to my face really is.
So it is today as I face the end of my career. Almost no one I know understands or even relates to the death knell keening for my lifelong dream, love, ambition and calling. Very few understand how much pain is involved. Most people I know don't know what it means when I say that what is left to me is duty to my boys, Winston and my promises. I will do everything in my power to keep my promises. I'm not allowed to quit or surrender to what I want. A creature of duty and honor.
But God, I wish to say this, "Legate command me not to go...here where time, custom, grief and toil, memory, service, love have rooted me...Here is my heart, my soul, my mind - the only life I know. I cannot leave it all behind command me not to go."