No Band of Brothers

The sudden ring of the phone in the darkest part of the night jars me. This is probably not good.

“Hey, Corporal. Oops—Lieutenant, how are they hanging?” a very boozy, familiar voice from my past says, slurring his words. I served with him in 1967 in the Vietnam War. First when I was an enlisted man and then later after being promoted to Mustang Lieutenant. Now it’s the 1970s and I’m trying to forget that part of my past as much as possible.

“OK, Joe. . . . Except it’s very late and I’m rocking my infant daughter Heidi, who has the collywobbles and—”

“Has what?” he yells, perturbed.

“Colic. Wicked stomach cramps and can’t sleep,” I snap. “Not a good time for me to talk right now, Joe.” I’m hoping it’s obvious I’m disturbed by his jarring interruption. He ignores the signal.

“At least you’re living. . . . I feel like I’m dying, Timmer! So, do you remember that time Sargent Martinez got shot through the helmet and blood was pouring down his face? We all thought he was dead, right? But it turned out he wasn’t! His helmet was not on right; he had tightened the webbing so much that it was just basically sitting on top of his head like an umbrella. Bullet just grazed the top of his head.” Joe pauses, laughing. “He had a bloody groove straight across the top middle of his head, like a reverse mohawk! You remember that, Timmer?”

It’s 2 a.m. and I’m in my daughter Heidi’s bedroom, rocking her back and forth because she has severe abdominal pains and screams endlessly at night unless she’s comforted. And I’m always the one who has to get up because if my wife doesn’t get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep . . . well, let’s just say, life is not good. So, I’m prepared for these frequent, late-night events.

I wake up as soon as she starts whimpering. Any unusual noise instantly wakes me and I get up. I always take the phone with the long cord with me into her bedroom, which is right next to ours, and close the door. We sit in a rocking chair facing the window, so I can peer into the darkness while I rock her back and forth, usually holding her on my chest, alternating between gently massaging her stomach or patting/rubbing her back. She’s now screaming and sobbing alternately, out of control. Before Joe called, I had her calmed down somewhat and she was mostly just whimpering.

“Come on, Joe! Life can’t be that bad!” I say, knowing full well that nightmares from my combat past often cause me a great deal of discomfort in the middle of the night. Undoubtedly, Joe has night terrors, too, so I’m empathetic. Sometimes I also drink to ameliorate these discomforting events. But I never call anyone. I don’t have any of the phone numbers of the guys from that time, so they always call me.

“Hey, Lieutenant, it’s OK though right? We’re a band of brothers. We got each other’s back. . . . Do you ever feel like killing yourself?”

“Come on Joe—that’s not a good idea. Night terrors are not real!” I can hear a strange, indistinguishable clicking noise coming from Joe’s end of the line.

Click. Click. Click.

“Well, you remember that deal with Martinez—he survived the mohawk cut and then a few days later stepped on a Claymore and was vaporized. Maybe he was the lucky one. Anyways, that’s what I’m thinking.” Click. Click.

“Well Joe, I’m sure that’s not what his family thinks. All they know is a lot of pain and sorrow whenever they think of him. . . . So, no I don’t think he’s in a better place than we are. . . . Why would you say that? Besides, you have Trudy, I think. Wasn’t that the girl you were writing letters to when we were in Nam? You married her right? And where are you? And what is that clicking noise?”

“Well I don’t know, Lieutenant. . . . I hate the middle of the night most of the time! And Trudy left me. What a witch she turned out to be! Always nagging me, usually about my drinking.”

I really don’t want to be having this conversation I think to myself. These old comrades calling me drunk in the middle of the night is not helping me out at all.

“Yeah. . . . Well, Joe. I don’t think I really want to have this conversation right now. I’m going to school full-time and working three part-time jobs to make ends meet so I’m lucky if I get three or four hours of sleep at night.”

Click. Click. Click.

“What is that clicking noise anyways? You can hear it right? Are you making it?” I ask.

“Actually, Timmer. . . . I didn’t want her to leave me. I did love her. She was really great in the sack. After a while though, all we did was argue and fight. But then when she finally did leave, I actually felt relieved. Mainly because then I could drink as much as I wanted without having to listen to all the crap. It hurt like hell though when she did leave.” Joe pauses, beginning to sob. “I asked her why she was leaving and she said ‘Well, I can do better than you. . . . I met someone else.’ I got to tell you, Timmer, that hurt like hell.” His sobbing continues. “But oh well.” Click. Click.

“Jesus, Joe! Sorry to hear that! Seems to me like she was what kept you going in Vietnam. You couldn’t wait to get home. . . . What is that clicking noise?” Click.

“Yeah, well, Timmer, you should know what this sound is,” Joe says ominously. Suddenly the metallic clicking sound grows louder as if Joe has moved whatever it is closer to the phone. It takes me a moment, but then I realize—it’s the sound of a revolver’s cylinder being rotated. Not a good sound, late at night.

“Joe, are you playing around with a revolver?” Suddenly, I hear Click. Clank. Clunk! The son-of-a-bitch just dry fired it! At least it landed on an empty chamber.

Joe sounds hysterical, laughing like a maniac.

“What the hell Joe!” I say, scared. “Is that what I think it is? You playing with a revolver? That sounded like you cocked and then pulled the trigger, and it hit an empty cylinder.”

“What do you think it is, smart ass!” Joe says very unkindly. “Have you ever played Russian roulette before, Timmer?” He laughs, nervous.

“Come on, Joe, this isn’t funny. What are you doing that for? Are you thinking about killing yourself? Where are you anyways? I think you told me once you live somewhere in New Jersey? Do you want me to call someone to come and . . . I don’t know. Hang out with you? And what is your phone number?” Meanwhile, I’m thinking, Holy shit is he really suicidal? Is he planning to shoot himself talking to me on the phone? I need this problem like a hole in the head. And that’s not even funny.

“What do you care, Timmer? Nobody really gives a shit about us. Hell! They think we’re baby killers? Maybe death would be like a warm, fuzzy blanket on one of those freezing nights when we were shivering all night long during the monsoon because there was no way to stay dry or warm,” Joe says, his voice cackling and cracking. “Remember those nights, Tim? Maybe I just want it all to end.”

“Where are you, Joe? Give me an address. Maybe I can get someone to come and give you a hand.”

Clickety. Clink. Bang!

“Joe, are you OK?” I yell, jumping up and almost dropping Heidi, who starts screaming again because I jostled her. I stand frozen in time and place holding her tightly to my chest. Finally, I hear some breathing and then soft chortling. I exhale and start hyperventilating a little bit. I slowly sit back down in the rocking chair, gently rubbing Heidi’s back. Dammit all to hell.

Joe seems hysterical, laughing and then coughing, totally out of control.

“Joe, give me your address. And put that damn thing down. What are you doing, man?”

“Don’t try to tell me what to do, Lieutenant. You can’t order me around anymore,” Joe says, snarling and then giggling. “You don’t really care anyway . . . nobody does. Nobody understands. We should’ve all died out there.” He starts crying.

“Come on, Joe. Give me your address and phone number and I ‘ll get you some help. Maybe I’ll come myself. It doesn’t have to be like this, man. Or at least tell me where you are.”

“You don’t care, Timmer. Besides, it doesn’t make any difference. I’ve already made up my mind,” he says, slurring his words even worse. “I took some pain killers . . . that ’s funny . . . pain . . . killers. Do you get it, Timmer?”

“Come on, Joe! I’ll help you, but you gotta tell me where you are.”

“Fuck that, Lieutenant! I’m not going to let you ruin a good farewell party.”

“Well, Joe, give me your address or I’m gonna hang up. If you won’t let me help you then I have to get off the line. And I’ll never talk to you again.”

“You don’t have the balls, Timmer!” Joe says in a very low, malevolent voice.

“One last chance, Joe,” I say, resolute. “I don’t have time for this shit!”

Joe laughs. “Like I said, Lieutenant, I always knew you were chickenshit and a coward and that . . . ”

I slowly put the phone back on the receiver sitting on the floor and it goes dead. A few involuntary tears leak out the corners of my eyes and slide slowly down my cheeks. I know I can’t do this anymore.

I love you, Joe, but . . . I think, sitting there, wiping my tears away, looking down at the phone in the cradle. Dammit it all! I can’t stand the thought of suicide.

*

That first night in Vietnam there was a grunt—he was going home the next day—who shot himself in the head after reading the latest letter from his girlfriend. Her letter said she met someone else, had a whirlwind romance, and she married him. Some kind of “sorry” that was.

The grunt’s spontaneous anguish was so overwhelming he couldn’t stand it. He reached down, probably without even thinking, picked up his pistol, jammed it against his temple, and pulled the trigger.

*

As that shocking event ping-pongs around my brain, I relive the incomprehensible anxiety I felt fantasizing about the unknown terrors ahead. And I didn’t even know that man. I know Joe. We went through a lot together in Nam. Dammit all to hell.

And Joe wouldn’t even let me help him. I probably couldn’t do anything for him even if he had. I have to take care of myself or I won’t survive. Little did I know then that, many years later, I too would be suicidal, fueled by the depressive nature of the alcohol I imbibed to obliterate my feelings. I had no idea when I hung up on Joe how bad it would get for me.

Should I have done more? That son of a bitch didn’t even give me a way to help him! I don’t even know where he is. I can’t call the police. I can’t do anything—I sit there for a moment, my mind spinning. You’re just making excuses, Rand, I tell myself.

I look at the phone on the floor and pick it up several times while holding Heidi tight to my chest. Who can I call? No one, really. I put Heidi back in her crib, take the phone back into my bedroom, and snuggle back in bed with my wife, knowing I probably won’t fall back asleep. My wife briefly wriggles against my body but never wakes up and has no idea what I’m going through. I will never tell her anything. I have to be strong.

A short time later, I get out of bed and go to work, trying to deflect my sorrow by focusing on job details. Late that evening, after putting Heidi to bed, I drink my brains out, trying to smother the emotional turmoil from Joe’s call and my dramatic past that always seems to come back and haunt me.

*

Over the next year, when I get phone calls in the middle of the night from other old, drunk comrades, I gently but firmly tell each one I don’t want them to call me anymore.

Several years later, I run into an old school buddy who was in the Marine Corps and served at the same time I did in Vietnam. He asks me if I ever hear from any of the old comrades anymore.

“Not really.”

He asks me why I don’t attend any of the Veterans stuff going on around where we live.

“I just . . . can’t do that stuff anymore.”

“Not even the Veterans of Foreign Wars?” he says. “I go every Friday night. Stop by and we’ll tip a few and talk about the good old days.”

“No. I’m going to pass on that, Roger. I donate money every year to the Marine Corps League for their donor programs and that’s my only connection to the past. Sorry, but that’s the way it has to be for me.”

I don’t know what happened to Joe or Roger or most of the other men. A couple of them whom I grew up with died over the next couple of decades. Tragic deaths. Alcohol was often involved, if not directly, at least indirectly.

Eventually it almost got me, too.

*

For a while after the war—and after getting out of the Marine Corps—I’d occasionally think about how amazing it was that I didn’t seem to be affected by the trauma I’d experienced along with so many of my fellow soldiers. It was almost like it never happened. At least, it felt that way for a while.

One night I was inexplicably in the midst of a horrific battle, heavy with the noises, smells, and shockwaves of the past. I was sitting on the ground, trying to stuff my innards back into my stomach. Someone had bayonetted me. I started screaming when I realized there was no fixing it.

Suddenly, I was wide awake surrounded by white light. My wife was over by the light switch she had just flicked on, staring at me with huge, wide eyes. It was the middle of the night, and I was in my own bed. I wasn’t covered in blood. I was covered in sweat. But I did smell the gore. . . . I had voided myself and filled the bed with my own manure and urine. Staring at each other in that moment of suspension, we both knew I wasn’t alright. That was the beginning of a steady stream of various combat-oriented nightmares. I began to drink heavily before bed. Nighttime became my enemy.

*

Over the next four decades, I kept very busy, working sixty hours per week in my professional career as an attorney, buying small businesses, being a weekend warrior, dragging the kids along running marathons and races, trying to avoid the horrific nightmares from my past with fatigue and alcohol. Eventually, the kids were gone, and I was pretty much alone. That’s when spiritus (Latin for “alcohol”) took over my soul.

That takeover became so all-encompassing that I eventually found myself with the barrel of a Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 in my mouth. My wife had just left me, saying “I can do better than you,” just like that grunt’s girlfriend had said—the grunt back in Nam who’d shot himself. I was in my early fifties at the time. Her words stung me to my core. I was hopeless, hurt, and alone.

Thank God I wasn’t in a black out and I remembered my kids, deciding they didn’t need to deal with that consequence. Even so, after that I ended up in the hospital several times on suicide watch, wondering how the hell I got there. Finally, I knew I had to do something different or I wasn’t going to survive.

*

I started going to an alcohol recovery program, but I was desperately hanging onto my right to drink because I couldn’t figure out how to live without my medication. I kept relapsing. At the turning point, I was on a ten-day air-vodka-vacation and decided to end it all by drinking an overwhelming amount. I was sitting on a guy’s front steps because the liquor store didn’t open for two hours. His name was Billy. It turned out he was a thirty-year-recovered alcoholic, and he took me to the hospital and spent the whole day with me in the emergency room telling me how he got sober.

Finally, I decided to give up and do what he did. He told me to pray to the God I didn’t believe in, or I would get drunk again. I didn’t want to drink anymore, so I started praying—first thing every day—almost twelve years ago, and I have not had a drink since. I had to do a lot more stuff and I had some close calls, but I never picked the bottle back up.

*

There was one time that stands out in my memory, a time I wanted to drink so badly for no good reason and I had my car keys in my hand, ready to walk out the door and go to the liquor store. I froze and heard Billy’s voice say, “At some point you will think you have to drink again and you won’t call me. When that happens, get on your knees and pray to that God, the one you are trying to make a relationship with, to help you so you won’t get drunk again.” I fell on the floor in the fetal position, begging God to help me, and when I got up, I didn’t want to drink anymore. It was the first time in my adult life that, when I had the overwhelming feeling that I had to drink, I did not drink. So, I worked the program. And I have been helping other men continuously since then—which has in turn helped me a lot.

I learned that if I am powerless over something and it is killing me, then I need a power outside of me that is greater than my power to help me. And I had to take that awesome willpower I used to do all those difficult things throughout my life, align it with God’s will to not drink, and pray, go to meetings, work with other drunks . . . and, miraculously, it worked! It worked so well, I was even able to hike the twenty-two-hundred-mile Appalachian Trail with my brother in my early seventies.

I continue to live the program every day in order to maintain my positive relationship with the fellowship and the higher power that enables me to exist as a sober man and continue to assist others. My life has become a joy!

Joe may have never got to make the choices I made, but every morning I do—and twelve years later, I’m still choosing to pick up the phone when life calls.