I saw a veteran yesterday whose eyes were focused on the past. I wonder if he had fought on land, in the air, or on the sea. I spoke to him, yet he could not speak to me. Did he serve on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor long ago? Or was he a marine who fought for Iwo? Did he fly high in the sky in a B-17 or B-24 over Germany's war-scared floor? Perhaps he wasn't there at all. Maybe he came ashore on D-Day at Omaha Beach, and saw his best friend killed, whom he could not reach!

Could it be at the Battle of the Bulge he rode a tank to face the German foe? Since he cannot speak, we may never know.

He may have been a Merchant Marine who ferried war supplies to our troops on British shores.

If he were such, he saw much carnage from the Wolfe-Pac U-Boats, which left few ships afloat.

He may have seen his ship-mates floating on the foam, now a citizen of the Deep, never ever to return home.

He could have been a Para-Trooper of the 82nd or one-hundred first, who jumped into France from a C-47 Gooney Bird just prior to D-Day's morn. If so, he saw thousands of his kind fill the skies, and, no doubt, heard their dying cries as they lay dying or wounded upon the soil of France. (I wonder if France has forgotten those cries of Para-Troopers, as they died!) It could be, that on that day, fear took his voice away!

Could he have been a gunner on an island, whose name he has forgot? (Now the name flashes before me, but left again ere I could write it down...back it now comes; Guadalcanal; that place we came ashore early in the Pacific War.) Maybe he sailed down "The Slot" in a Destroyer seeking out enemy ships in the dark. Now Iron Bottom Sound could rob one of his voice, as well as his life!

But he may have served as a gunner on a famed PT Boat in the Pacific, though one cannot be specific.

Could have been on Corrigador and became a Prisoner of War. Now that could take away your voice, leaving another choice, for I know some POW's who were there and have heard them speak, and have seen their stare---that same stare I saw in the eyes of an old Veteran as he sat in his chair with wheels! Oh, America, do you care about old veterans who sit in that strange chair?

The distant look of those eyes I saw, broke my heart and made me wish that some comfort I could impart!

I wonder if this old Vet was a tail gunner on a B-29, flying out of Saipan, or Tinian, for his frame was small. Perhaps he saw a companion B-29 fall from the sky, taking with it eleven men to die in the yawning mouth of The Pacific, with no Super Dumbo to call a sub in time. Gone are they, with the Mighty B-29, never to land at Iwo Jima or Tinian. Perhaps he died inside that day though his heart goes on pumping blood, and has continued for all these years!

Or perhaps exploding flak over Kobe or Tokyo took away his voice, though he's still a man.

How many Purple Hearts lie dusty in some bedroom drawer, earned by him on some flying mission from Saipan or close-by Tinian, of that War so long ago? I cannot know.

I rather think that he could fire a .50 caliber in quick succession, at nine O'clock or at four.

Did he down a Zero, a Betty, or a Zeke. This starry-eyed man could have been a gunner freak!

His machine gun, against The Rising Sun, may have saved his crew and a Mighty B-29, which survived to fly and fight again, from its place high up in the sky.

Could I have seen him as a younger man on some strange-sounding Island land in the Blue Pacific? I'll never know who he is or what he did in WWII, so long ago, for he cannot talk, nor can he walk, for he looked "at home" in that chair on wheels. I wonder just how he feels and "if he feels" as he sits in that chair on wheels?

He sleeps tonight in the desert City of Albuquerque---or maybe he's awake like myself long before the rising of the sun, thinking back to the war we won. The nights are long and often lonely for old Vets of WWII, at least for me; how about you?

But the War has been won---and at what cost, for some Vets cannot talk and some cannot walk, and some have not come home, and never shall, for they are lost. America, count the cost!

(This was written after seeing the old Vet at the VA in Albuquerque 10/1/02)

Copyright © C. Douglas Caffey
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