By Tom Ewart
 When
I spotted him hanging back from the edges of the crowd, I
recognized him as a kid in one of my freshman
dorms. I made my way to him and said, "Hey, Jack."
"Oh, hi, Dean Ewart," he said.
"Are you thinking of going up?" I asked.
"Sort of," he said. "My family could use the tuition help from ROTC."
I was a 27-year-old Vietnam veteran (in-country as a medic just after the '68
Tet Offensive), two months into this new job as an assistant dean of students,
when the Marines landed at Holy Cross to recruit. Nov. 1, 1971 was sunny and
clear. Two grunts had positioned themselves at a table on the rear steps of
Hogan Center.
The student dissenters had elected to hold a silent
vigil to protest the military presence. They agreed not to crowd the recruiting
table and to leave an aisle
of access for anyone who wished to speak to the recruiters.
Like a truce at Christmas, this arrangement lasted about
15 minutes. Then the demonstrators rushed the wire, bunching up to the edge of
the recruiting table,
nose-to-nose with the men in dress blue; the DMZ disappeared and the access
path closed up like a triple canopy over a jungle trail. Not one to stay pinned
down, I worked the fringes of the crowd, offering escort to any students who
wanted it. That brought me to Jack.
"Well," I said, "if you want to go, I'll walk up with you. But can I tell you
a story first?" The issue of the day had to do with free speech and I wanted
to get my two cents in.
"Yeah," Jack said. "I guess."
"I was drafted right after college," I told him, "and served two years in the
Army, some of that in 'Nam. The summer before I went over, I was assigned temporary
duty as the medic to a ROTC training camp."
Jack looked at me askance. "The one where the college juniors do their basic?"
"The same," I nodded, "right up at Fort Devens. Only the kid I met there was
a graduated senior. A guy from B.C. Something had kept him out of camp the previous
year. You remind me of him."
I could tell he was waiting for me to get to the point.
"Now hear me out," I said. "This kid from B.C. used to come to sick call a lot,
skin rashes and blisters. I nursed him along with salves and powders. We hung
out a bit; he was only two years younger than me. He was a good kid."
"And?"
"I saw him again in Vietnam," I said. "Not all at once, though. First, I saw
his legs."
"His legs?" Jack asked.
"Yeah, they were tagged with his name in a stack of amputated limbs outside the
OR door. I worked in the field hospital. This kid had stepped on a mine. The
docs whacked his legs off. But we saved them for a while, bagged in the cooler,
just in case."
Jack was hooked. "In case of what?" he asked.
"In case the kid died," I said. "Which is what he did, by the way. That's when
I saw the rest of him. See, if the patient stabilizes enough to fly the coop
to Japan or Stateside, then we bulldozed the leftover limbs into a ditch. But
if someone dies before we can ship him out, we add the available limbs back into
the body bag."
Jack's mouth began to drop; I'd seen that look of horrible realization a few
times before.
"Dean," he said, "you're kidding me."
"I kid you not, Jack. If nothing else, I'm semper fi to
what I see. So that's the story I wanted to tell you. Now, do you want to walk up and talk to
the recruiters?"
Jack looked at his watch. "Actually, Dean, I've got a class in about 20 minutes."
I held up my hands; I was only doing my job.
"Tell your parents to talk to financial aid," I said
as he ran off.
That week, 21 of our own died in Vietnam, and 63 were
wounded. All of those leftover arms and legs
had made a conservationist out of me; I wanted to save
what I could. As I began to scout the crowd
for more takers, I hoped I had my done small part to keep one more name off a
later list, and maybe one more
limb out of a bag or a ditch.
Back up on the steps of Hogan, the Marines continued
to hold the line.
Back to "What Didn't
Happen Here" Feature >
Tom Ewart is a free-lance journalist living
in Worcester.
|
