The Veteran

Digging through the archives... this one's from December 2006.  I think of this man everytime I sit down to write.  His name wasn't really Ron.



“ I can tell you a funny story, but not really one about the war.” I had just met Ron in a barroom I’d never been to before. He was probably in his later fifties, grey-haired and wrinkled, and passionate about life. He had spent the night cracking jokes and flirting with the bartender, and making conversation with every stranger he could attract. That’s where I came in. I seem to attract the life of the party in places like this. We spoke for a little while about hockey and literature as he bought me a few drinks. He meant no harm. When in the run of our conversation he mentioned he had served in Vietnam, it piqued my interest.


“What was it like to be there? I’m sure it wasn’t how the textbooks say.” I quickly explained to him that I was writing a book about war, and that I was looking for an honest account. He eyed me carefully.

“What are they teaching you?” he asked.

“They teach us lots of things. In high school they taught us that soldiers went to World War One and died for our freedom. In history classes they taught us that propaganda was behind the whole thing. In university they taught us that the thought of going to war was the most glorious sacrifice a man could make for his country, and in English classes they taught us that the glory was a golden lie. But not many people teach us what the soldiers actually went through.”

“You listen to me, little girl. There is nothing glorious about war. You wanna know what goes through a soldier’s head? It’s ‘get me the fuck out of here.’ And if it’s a high-ranking official, it’s ‘get my men the fuck out of here.’ Glory? It’s fucking propaganda.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“It’s the truth. And you know something? There is no worse feeling than bombing the shit out of a town and seeing for yourself what you did. I once had to see the damage I did to a town. Our first orders were to blow the town to smithereens, and we did. But the regiment that was supposed to finish the job wasn’t there, so they told us to go into the town and finish the job. I followed my orders. I went into the town, and saw all the buildings destroyed, bodies lying in the street with their skin burned off, blood everywhere. And do you know what it was that made me cry?”

“What?” I asked.

“A dog. A dog who had lost one of its legs. In the army, they teach you only how to kill. They train you not to care. But here was a crippled dog in a destroyed city, and it was all my fault. You know what I did when I saw that? I followed my orders, and finished my job.”

“That must have been horrible. I mean, to go into the village and see all of the people you killed.”

“Sweetheart, I never said I killed anyone.”

“You’re right,” I said, “you didn’t. That couldn’t have made things any easier.”

“No. But don’t you dare think there’s any glory in the war. I know exactly what I did, but don’t take it as offence if I don’t actually say it.”

“I don’t.” We left the heavy topic for awhile and spoke a little more about hockey. Ron introduced me to a friend of his, Howard, a native Canadian who had a daughter in university studying English. We cracked a few jokes and toasted to the finer things in life. There was a twinkle in Ron’s eye, a sense of true joy that only a man of experience could show. A few minutes later, though, Ron pulled me aside. He wasn’t smiling or laughing anymore, the way he had been before we spoke. His mood had changed in a heartbeat, and I was afraid that perhaps I had awoken a demon that would have preferred to stay dormant. Ron wanted to speak to me alone – he was serious. I obliged. I wanted to hear what he had to say. For some reason, this stranger whose slightly wrinkled face and twinkling eyes had smiled at me a short while ago from across the room wanted to confide in me. We stood away from everyone else.

“You want the truth, Natalie, I’ll tell you the truth. And you can spread the word.” I was no longer ‘little girl’ or ‘young lady’. He was calling me by name. “I don’t like talking about these things. That war was thirty years ago, and I still get nightmares when I think about it. You try to move on with your life, but how can you? You know something? I was in a POW camp in Vietnam.” Ron started to quiver. He stopped blinking altogether. “I was in a POW camp, and I escaped. I escaped on foot, with a razorblade.” Ron’s face started turning red, and he squinted as he spoke, as though he had just been jabbed in the rib. “How do you think I escaped with just a razorblade? What do you think I had to do?” Ron’s unblinking eyes were red, bulging out of their sockets as the shaking got more and more violent. His voice started breaking as he spoke, and I was certain that Ron was going to cry. But somehow he held himself together. In his position, I’m not sure I could have. But then, they had trained him not to care, had they not? I saw this guilty, angry man standing before me, shaking and quivering, forced suddenly to think about the men whose throats he had slit, and I couldn’t speak. What was I to say? This is what the war did to our soldiers! This is what the soldiers signed up for! Were sent out for! And here I stood before a broken man, and I had robbed him, if only for a moment, of his joy and zest for life! In his now-shaky voice he continued. “Natalie, not a day goes by when I don’t think about it. I remember each one of their faces. It was one thing to shoot weapons from far away, but how do you kill a man face to face? And I had to. It was all I could do! I watched as my friends had the shit shot out of them! I saw what happened to the people in the POW camp, and all I could think was ‘It’s not happening to me,’ and I got my hands on a razorblade and did what I had to do.”

“Oh man,” I said. What else could I say? Ron hadn’t blinked in well over three minutes now. His face burned red. My heart sank. “I’m so sorry.” I wanted to cry, myself. I was choking up inside and holding back the tears. It was what I wanted to hear, wasn’t it? The things they never taught us in school. The reality behind the phrase ‘war is hell’ had never struck me quite so sharply. There was no comforting Ron. He wasn’t looking for comfort. And yet, for some reason, for perhaps the same reason I had asked, he wanted me to know.

“They sent us out there to kill,” said Ron, “and we killed. I think about it everyday. And when we got back, they didn’t want us. The only job I could get when I came back was as a cook! They wouldn’t let us into the Legions because we’d lost the war. We didn’t lose the war! We shouldn’t have been there. They never wanted us there! I don’t want pity. I was a soldier, doing what I had to do to survive. But you know, the circumstances don’t matter. The war doesn’t matter, and the danger doesn’t matter. There’s only one word for what happened that day in the POW camp, and it’s Murder. I did what I had to do, but I just wish there had been another way.” It was then that tears sprang from his eyes. A grown man crying, with no support. When he placed a hand on my shoulder, I let him leave it there. It was the most I could do.

Ron wasn’t finished talking, but when he calmed down we rejoined his friend. The redness in his face faded, and he started blinking again. His shaking slowed down a little, and he regained control of his voice. “At the Legion, we never talk about what we’ve been through,” he told me. “We go there for a drink, for a laugh. We ignore the rest of it. Nobody wants to think about being a soldier. Nobody wants to think about fighting in a war. The guys over there, they know the truth.” A few minutes passed, and then Ron went on.

“I look at what’s going on these days in the Middle East. All these kids they’re sending out, sending home in coffins. It’s such a waste. A buddy of mine asked me how long it would take me to take down a town out there, and I told him twenty minutes – and I’d flatten everything in the way.” Ron’s voice was starting to break again. He had tears in his eyes, and he started struggling to catch his breath. He didn’t like what he was saying, and I could see it. “They’re sending kids out there who don’t know what they’re doing. They should send us old guys. I mean, I know I can’t fit into a tank like I used to, but dammit, we’ve done it before! We’d get the job done quicker! We’d do it right!” Ron looked at me for a second as though I was on my deathbed, and he was looking at me for the last time. For all I knew, it could very well be the last time I would speak to this stranger. For a minute I thought I sensed a bit of pity. “This world’s a mess, and us old guys should clean up the mess for you young people. You shouldn’t be out there, learning how to kill from scratch. People your age should be studying, and partying, and making love. . .”

“And writing books,” I interrupted. For the first time in awhile, Ron smiled. He cupped my face with his hands, and then hugged me.

“God bless you,” he said. “You put this in your book. But don’t ever say there’s anything glorious about war.”