(From “The Long Way Home, by Richard Goche)

Mail traveled toward an APO (American Post Office) number on any vehicle that moved in that direction. It usually came with the food ration transport. Care packages, letters from home along with movie films lifted the troop’s spirits. We’d hang a screen on a palm tree and Headquarters Company would run a film. I saw “The Red Stallion” six times in a row.

GIs sat up front and acres of natives sat so quietly behind us they weren’t noticed until the movie ended and they applauded.

When a batch of letters came sequencing my letters by date and reading them was like a spiritual ceremony. I’d read them over many times but the first reading was the most precious and was done very slowly. One letter stood out among the rest and was one I re-read immediately.

Mom wrote: “I met Mrs. Ash in town and we exchanged reading letters from our boys. John Ash has an address very similar to yours. You should try and look him up.”

According to the address, his Battalion had just arrived and set up on the south side of the road. I was giddy with anticipation. John and I had competed with each other at the County Play Days all through grade school and alternately took the Blue or Red Ribbon for high jump, broad jump, foot races and baseball distance throw.

Our competition continued in high school but we were on the same team. He’d been at the New Year’s Dance just after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The last time I saw him he was in uniform, getting into his dad’s car and we waved as I drove past his house. I should have stopped but I knew he was anxious to get where he was going on a Saturday night. All this was racing through my mind as I hurried toward his company clerk’s office for directions to John’s tent.

The company clerk appeared overstressed with paper work, was brief, but he did step into the captain’s tent before giving me directions. He told me to contact the sergeant at a squad and tent number. After a couple of inquiries I located the Sergeant I was supposed to contact and was invited into his tent. The mention of John Ash brought a solemn response. When he motioned that I should sit on a cot I became apprehensive.

He said, “We called him Jack. He isn’t with this unit anymore. So, what’s your connection with Jack, relative or friend?”

I told him I’d known Jack all my life. We went to the same high school and played football together. My brother and I were linemen and Jack was our running back.

He said, “I hate to tell you this, but Jack was on a combat mission that didn’t make it back. It’s the captain’s duty to make these reports, but I was on search and rescue that returned the bodies. Now, do you want the short version or the long version?”

I wiped sweat, lit a cigarette and asked for the medium version.

Natives had reported a Japanese holdout at Sanga Sanga, Bongao, a small Philippine island. Jack volunteered to go with his special buddy as a support group. It was a mopping up operation that backfired. Making contact under heavy fire, requesting immediate support at coordinate so and so on the map, was the last radio contact. Search and rescue moved out immediately when further radio contact couldn’t be made.

Nightfall delayed rescue until the next morning. Two machine gun nests were destroyed before the bodies could be retrieved. No survivors. All were accounted for.

The sergeant explained that the lack of enemy troop count and weapons descriptions were a constant problem in mopping-up exercises. Information reported by non-military native translations made it difficult to determine the force necessary to subdue enemy stragglers and holdouts.

I tried to thank him for the special consideration without displaying a shaky voice and wet eyes that older experienced combat men seem to squelch. They look far off into the distance. He explained to me that trying to prevent personal attachments was a way of survival to guard your sanity.

Seeing new men coming in and getting wiped out was an endless burden you try to ignore. He told me Jack was one of those premium soldiers that volunteered to do more than his share. He just volunteered for the wrong mission.

I walked away from that place with enough emotional stress for one day. I couldn’t help imagining Jack coming up the Company street, giving me a good strong handshake and a quick smile from that happy, pink cheeked healthy face of his. War was making its mark on my soul and I hadn’t dodged a single bullet.

How should the rest of a hapless day be spent? Burying a burden inside one’s self is a personal project. Talking combat, death and shock of loss was something old soldiers shied from and young men attempted to ignore. Contacting our hometown boys and sharing my grief didn’t provide any degree of satisfaction.

I sat against a palm tree and prayed for Jack’s happiness and against my despair. Looking towards the sky to see if God was listening drew my attention to coconuts overhead. What a stupid place to sit. I’d trained and come all this way to have my skull busted by a falling coconut? Headlines would read ” Local Soldier Killed by Falling Coconut.”

Through the mail delay, Mom had known of Jack’s death long before I had. After chow, I wrote Mom and Dad a long letter. The three other men in my tent turned their backs to my flickering candle in a beer bottle and fell asleep.

I felt there was something more to do in memory of Jack. I began to write. Thoughts began to flow. I envisioned Jack’s spirit and the spirits of his fallen comrades. I pictured a green field with a patch of white crosses and wept.