Drop Your Helmet and Howl (Part 2 of 6)

A night spent drinking with young veterans suffering from PTSD

“Fireworks suck. People suck. Life sucks.”

- Army Specialist Kyle Allen, to himself, while sitting outside his truck watching the rushing Arkansas River.

The bartender at The Warehouse brings us another round of drinks, on the house. Kyle comes in a lot, he tells me, and the people behind the bar always try to do their part to thank those who served.

“Yeah, he’s a good guy,” Kyle says, lifting the glass in salute.

“Hell of a guy,” Fielding echoes. They laugh together like it’s some inside joke. They mean it too. They don’t throw around those phrases lightly. Bartenders, it seems, are the only ones who show any respect for what these two went through.

Kyle turns to me. “You got to respect the people who respect you, y’know? Like, you always hear us saying that people suck, and it’s because, for the most part, they do. Never really noticed it before I left, but since I’ve been back, yeah, people suck.”

It’s not hard, after talking with him for awhile, to see why he thinks this way. His first time on leave, he was given two weeks back home. He had been overseas for four months, had turned twenty-one while he was over there, and was looking forward to being welcomed home as a hero. His final connection was the flight from Dallas to Tulsa and the pilot had him come up to the cabin to personally thank him and make sure that he had everything he needed for the flight. The stewardesses kept coming by to talk with him, refilled his drinks, gave him extra snacks. And when they were beginning their final descent, the pilot’s voice came over the intercom.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I could just have a moment of your time. We have a young man on this plane that has been serving our country in Afghanistan. I would like to personally thank him for his service as I‘m sure all of you do as well. He hasn’t seen his family for a long time so when we land, please remain seated and allow him to exit the plane first.”

When he had finished, the cabin returned to normal, there was no applause, no one looked around. The lady seated next to him gave him a smile but returned to reading her book. And when the plane landed, everyone rose and flooded the aisle, grabbing their own bags.

“Why the hell were they in a rush,” Kyle says, leaning back in his chair. You can tell he is still just as confused and hurt as he was then. “So what you had a business trip? Was that hard for you? You really need the extra two seconds instead of sitting and letting me get off the freakin’ plane?”

Kyle sat for a moment, hoping someone would say something, would ask others to move. But no one did, so he rose, gathered his things, and lowered his shoulder as he shoved through the passengers clogging the aisle. The pilot gave him a sympathetic smile as he passed but Kyle barely noticed, just kept walking.

When he emerged out of the terminal, his parents were the only two people waiting for him. None of his aunts or uncles, none of his cousins, none of his friends. Just James and Beth Allen, waiting to take their son home.

“I wasn’t wanting a party or anything. But in my head I was thinking, I could die in two weeks. Hell my truck got blown up the day before I came home. I shouldn’t even be here. I just wanted to see that what I was doing mattered to people back here.”

Fielding nods in agreement, looking down at his hands. “I’ll tell you what though,” he adds, “When you get back to Afghanistan after something like that, the world feels a whole lot more lonely.”

For Kyle, home didn’t feel like home in those two weeks. He stayed out drinking until the bars closed, would drive home and sleep until his parents woke him up. He did an interview with Channel six in Tulsa he barely remembers. It’s a testament to the skill of the editors at the station that anything usable came out of that interview. Kyle’s dad, James, says Kyle answered most of the questions with “what do you want me to say, it fuggin’ sucks” and he would stay silent for many of the others.

At the end of the two weeks, he left the same way he arrived, on a flight between Dallas and Tulsa with no one but his parents at the airport to let him know he was loved.

“Grandpa told me but I never listened,” he says. Our grandfather fought in the Pacific during World War Two. Fielding says he has to take a piss and heads towards the back.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “I thought he wanted you to join?

He shakes his head. “No I thought he would be proud, or excited or something. I went to see him after I signed my papers. It was a couple months before he died. I used to visit him a lot back then.”

Kyle had just graduated from a military boarding school in Missouri when he signed his papers. He wore his school uniform, with its many medals and badges, when he visited. Our grandfather’s room was at the end of a long hallway and Kyle let his fingers trail along the stucco wall as he went. Of all the conversations he had to have after signing, this, he figured, would be the easiest.

Our grandfather never talked about his time in the war. Since he returned in 1945, the family has only ever heard two stories. The first he’s only told to a select few. In this he describes being pinned down in a hut in India after his plane was shot down behind enemy lines, defending himself from enemy fire and praying that someone would come his way. He was able to survive the night, using the rations and ammunition of those who had died in the crash. He was picked up by a unit of American forces on assignment into enemy territory, a hard-core unit, a predecessor to Special Forces. Our grandfather marched with them, fought with them, hid in muddy ditches and ate whatever happened to crawl nearby with them. And when he returned after several weeks of this, he was no longer an easy-going Oklahoman boy, but a reserved and silent soldier, unable to open up even to those he loved.

The second story is easier for him to tell. It became his shield, when those who hadn’t fought asked about the war. He tells of a time when, marching through the jungles of India, his platoon was attacked by a tiger which they quickly killed. The guide who was with them searched nearby and found the cubs the mother had been attempting to protect when she jumped out at my grandfather and his buddies. They were told to leave them and continue on, but one of the men took a cub with him and brought it back to their ship. The men kept it below decks, feeding it and doing their best to hide it from their superior officers. But eventually it got loose, running up to the top deck and surprising the hell out of a lieutenant. The men laughed, but the soldier who had brought the tiger aboard was forced to give it to a zoo once they returned to the United States. My grandfather said the man cried more when he left that tiger than he ever had when leaving his wife. Kyle remembers thinking that maybe, now that he too was going to fight for his country, his grandfather would tell him more, would view him as being among the initiated.

He knocked on Grandpa’s door, pausing before he turned the knob and went in. The old soldier sat at his computer, playing solitaire, and didn’t look up when Kyle entered, just waved absentmindedly and gestured towards the couch.

“Hey Grandpa. How’ve you been?”

“Oh I’m alright.” On his computer he placed the final card and there was a flicking noise as the cards exploded out over the screen. He sighed and turned towards Kyle, his eyes bright, clearer than they had been for a long time.

When Kyle told him why he had come, told him that he had signed the paper, told him that he was going to basic training at the end of summer and would eventually be deployed, my grandfather was silent for a long time. And then, as Kyle sat there waiting for a response, he did what he had refused to do for sixty years. He began to cry.

“I had this pit open up in my chest,” Kyle says, finishing off his drink. “I don’t think anyone has seen Grandpa cry. I didn’t know what to do. So I just sat there.”

Grandpa begged him not to join the military but Kyle said it was too late. He had made his decision. They talked for awhile, Kyle refuses to tell anyone more detail than that, but as Kyle rose to leave, Grandpa put his head in his hands and said, “Why would you serve a country who doesn’t give a damn about you when you come home.”

“I didn’t understand what he meant back then.” Just for a moment I swear I can see my grandfather’s face reflected in Kyle’s eyes. “But I sure as hell do now.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes, until the bartender brings us our checks. Kyle grabs his coat. Stands up. Rubs his hands over his face.

“I’ll show you our favorite bar. Called the Twisted Lizard. Come on, lets find Pete. I just know that shithead got himself in trouble.”