The Last Word
Carpenter, Dan
THE LAST WORD Dan Carpenter Gifts from an Old Soldier His politics were pretty much meat-and-potatoes blue-collar conservative. He didn't like Democrats because they raised taxes, and he didn't...
...That prayer was answered, not by the absence of war but by the luck of the draw...
...he was drafted, and he served...
...He didn't like Democrats because they raised taxes, and he didn't like Republicans because they favored the rich...
...I just hope," he said, "that my son never has to fight in a war...
...Justice by computer...
...Government by accountant...
...The soldier who survived lived to be seventy-seven years old...
...It was then the GI noticed that his buddy was dead...
...To the kids it was glamorous, redolent of Audie Murphy and Randolph Scott...
...He could be persuaded to reel off the bawdy lyrics of "Mademoiselle from Armentieres...
...Buy a Congressman's kid some skiing lessons...
...When he died, his entitlements as a veteran kicked in...
...U Somewhere in Europe, sometime in the 1940s, two soldiers were walking across a field, savoring a respite from combat...
...We'll take the money, figuring anything you get from the Government is gravy...
...He was a medic, and he never relished war stories like this one, though his children, as they grew, hounded him to tell some...
...The young man was still walking from momentum, but he had been hit in the face by a mortar shell fired from so far away they had not heard it...
...But all he really wanted from the Army was away...
...What the war was to the soldier was simply past...
...Gramm-Rudman," the VA representative explained...
...After four years of shooting and succoring, their father*had come back alive, just like in the movies...
...His final gift to us—a little money and a big reminder...
...They liked to look at the snapshots, too—gray images of grinning men in baggy pants and calf-length boots, posing next to tents and ambulances...
...He would have told them to keep the rest of the money as well...
...If I didn't go," he said, "somebody else would have to go in my place...
...A diabolical enemy vanquished, home folks dancing in the streets...
...If he had any opinion about the young men who were spared the trip to Vietnam, the soldier kept it to himself...
...He had promised himself that while wearing an eight-pound helmet in the field...
...Comparatively speaking, it was an easy way to go...
...They looked straight ahead as they talked, more thinking out loud than conversing...
...In fifty-six years of eligibility as a voter, he never cast a ballot...
...Gramm-Rudman...
...The Good War, as Studs Terkel calls it...
...The family was also told it was owed a burial benefit of $ 150 from the Veterans Administration—except the benefit would be not $150 but $138...
...For the last forty years of his life, he never wore a hat...
...His family was presented with a folded flag at the burial, turned down the opportunity to have "Taps" played— a bit much, they thought—and received a certificate signed by Ronald Reagan, President of the United States...
...All you did in the Army, he said, was hurry up and wait...
...He also went out of his way to avoid standing in line for anything...
...He kept a few souvenirs—a Colt automatic pistol, a lovely German knife with a swastika-embossed scabbard, a few medals...
...Congress told the agency it had to cut, and this was one of the places it chose to cut...
...Dan Carpenter is a reporter for the Indianapolis Star...
...Like so many who have seen war full in the face, he was less than enthusiastic about the use of American power as a global billy club...
...When one of them asked a question and got no answer, he turned toward his buddy...
...He was no hero and he was no flag-waver...
...The soldier would have loved the final call for sacrifice...
Vol. 50 • September 1986 • No. 9
