Good Morning,
Standing in line at the pharmacy for some of my monthly meds, I met a rather gregarious gray haired gentleman. His name was Joel. He was talking with a woman about the current political scene in Washington and how things are getting screwed up with health care. It isn’t difficult these days, especially in our community of pre-baby-boomers, to find someone with concerns. Actually I only need to look in the mirror for that.
Back to the gentleman… he was mentioning how well he was treated in the VA Hospital after the war. The war was Vietnam, which put him right in my era of time. When the woman went up to get her prescription, I asked his age and he told me he was 68. He had joined the U. S. Navy right out of high school to serve his country.
Since the Vietnam War was not a naval battle I was curious how he was wounded. So I asked and it turns out that he was a Navy Seal. They were doing a mission in Cambodia. Cambodia? If I recall the government denied that we were even in Cambodia. Anyway, there were seven of them in his team and when their mission was completed something happened and they couldn’t be picked back up. They had to walk out through the jungle and hostile territory. Three days into their trek, the Viet Cong ambushed them. It was during that attack that he took a bayonet in the side, which as he later found out had nicked his right kidney. When Joel got to this point in his story, he became very maudlin and his countenance changed. I noticed his eyes begin to tear up and his voice softened as he told me that three of his men did not survive the ambush. Mind you, this was about 40 years ago. He did not go into any sensationalistic details about the attack other than they were killed, which told me that he kept a certain reverence about the whole incident. I was left to assume that since he was now standing in front of me, they had thwarted the attack. These men were Navy Seals; they were experts at their craft and knew how to fight and survive.
There is a well-known code among our fighting men and that is to leave no man behind. For the next ten days, wounded, the four of them carried their three dead comrades out of that jungle. As if it wasn’t difficult enough just trying to survive in that humid, bug and snake infested jungle while avoiding the Viet Cong; the task had to have been made even more horrendous by having to carry the rapidly decomposing bodies of three close friends for those ten days. Joel stated that one of their fears during this time was that the Viet Cong would be alerted by the smell when they had to hide. He also stated that after seven days the smell it wasn’t as bad.
Now I have had the misfortune to smell a bloated dead cow along a country road years ago and I still remember my tongue hitting the roof of my mouth as I drove by. The smell of death is unmistakable and rotting blood, well there just isn’t anything to compare with that. It is beyond this layman’s comprehension, the incredible angst that these men had to go through for those thirteen hellish days in the jungle of Cambodia, just to survive.
All seven eventually made it back to the states albiet three in boxes and the incident remains today, etched indelibly in Joel’s mind frought with all the emotion as if it 
had happened only last week. By our conversation, I was reminded that this is the type of baggage our servicemen carry with them until their death. They do and see things that should never have to be experienced. “War is Hell” and anyone who has ever seen combat will tell you so.
Thirty years later, Joel lost his right kidney. It took that long for the damage to manifest itself and as he went into surgery, I imagined that he had to have revisited the moment when a Viet Cong thrust that dirty bayonet into his right side. Joel is a survivor as with so many who have served our country. Some with wounds obvious, others still held inside and with it all they are still “Seals”.
As we parted company, I thanked him for his service. He responded with “Thanks, no problem”.
Love, Dad
Do not pass up the opportunity to thank someone in the military when you see them. It will do you and them good.
Seven Seals on the beach: U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communications Specialist Robert J. Fluegel/Released Along with this photo you will find an article concerning “Political Correctness” I’ll save that for another time.
