I felt the pang of loss but put it aside to think of my son. “I understand, Beau. I was your age once, and a lot less mature. You will stand on your own two feet.”
“You’re not upset I’m going away? Because it sure seems like Mom gets upset every time I mention a school in LA, or out of state.”
I took a breath. “I’ll miss you, Beau, because I love you. Your mother loves you. You and she have always had a special bond. You should take pride in that. Some parents can’t wait for their kids to go away. Not us.”
“I never knew growing up could be this hard.”
“Just be happy you have the chance. So many, for so many reasons, never do.”
I recall looking at my son in the bright Los Angeles sunshine, with the smell of hot dogs and popcorn and beer all around us, and I realized my son would not go to school in the Bay Area. It wasn’t Chris’s death and the difficulties that followed that had led Beau to his decision, though they certainly had been a factor. It was just time for Beau to go. And it was time for Elizabeth and me to let him go. Time to let him live through his own experiences and grow up. It was time to let him find the man he would become, the type of man he wanted to be, the type of person he wanted to be. I realized no one was better suited to choose what was best for Beau than Beau. And I took some pride in that. Elizabeth and I had raised a good young man.
I smiled. “Let’s enjoy the game. Tomorrow we’ll go to the beach.”
“What about the camp tomorrow?”
“What about it?”
“You paid for it. You paid for the airfare and the hotels.”
“Have you ever been to a Southern California beach?” I had been many times as a young man while attending UCLA law school, but I was thinking of William’s story at this moment.
“No.”
“Trust me, you won’t be disappointed. It’s sunshine and bikinis.”
I smiled, though tears pooled in my eyes, thankfully hidden behind sunglasses so my son would not feel guilty about what he had to do, so he would not make a decision to please his dad or his mom, or Chris. I wanted him to make a decision to please himself, and along the way, I hoped—no, I was certain—he’d find the man he wanted to be, a man of whom his mother and I would be more than proud.
But oh, letting him go hurt.
And it would for a long time.
November 14, 1968
I never thought I’d say this, but I miss the guys, though there aren’t many left from when I first flew into Firebase Phoenix. It’s just Cruz, Bean, and me now. Dominoes finished his tour. Whippet is headed home. They couldn’t save his entire foot. They amputated three toes. Last I saw him, in this hospital, he was hobbling on crutches.
After being in the bush for months, things in the rear don’t seem real. I can’t sleep at night; the beds are too soft. Most times I sleep on the ground. It’s also too quiet. I can’t hear the rhythm of the bush. I can’t hear the insects, the buzz of the mosquitos that tortured me, or the persistent rains that came as regular as the mosquitos, every morning and every night. I feel out of place. I go to the bathroom and they have toilets with seats and toilet paper. They have showers with hot water and soap. My body is clean for the first time in months. I no longer smell like the bush. I got my hair washed and cut, and I shaved, just to fit in with everybody else.
In the mess hall I eat real food from real plates with real utensils. I ate real eggs. I hadn’t had real eggs in seven months. I drink from cups, fresh brewed coffee and clean water, not the shitty stuff we’d drink from the rice paddies with iodine tablets. My utilities were thrown away. I wear freshly laundered ones. I stepped from the shower this morning and I saw my naked reflection for the first time in months. I don’t look like me. I don’t look like the marine I didn’t recognize in my bunker mirror before I went outside the wire on my first lurp. I’m twice removed from the person I once knew. I can see my ribs and my collarbones. I can see my chin and jawbone. My eyes are sunken, like a cancer patient after months of chemotherapy.
I don’t have a weapon. I don’t have my M-16 or my .45, and that makes me really feel naked. I don’t have to be on guard twenty-four seven, watching my back and the backs of the guys around me. I also don’t have my camera. I assume it was turned in here at the lab.
I can’t get used to it here. I sat eating at a table in the mess tent and someone dropped a tray behind me. I slid under the table for cover. People in the mess hall looked at me like I was crazy. They’re the ones who are crazy. Don’t they know what’s happening out there? They’re living in their castle here while young men are dying in the bush.