What He Carries by Christina Graves

It’s all in there, you know. All jumbled up together. You’d need a key to get in. No matter how much you beg and knock, he denies access. He wants to forget. It’s a burden he has carried for over three decades. He still lives it in his dreams, sometimes, with new and old faces. He carries its sights. He carries its smells. He carries its memory. He carries Nam.

Being in the Army for twenty-four years gives you memories. I know this through my father. He went to Vietnam as a young major and returned a lieutenant colonel. He wanted to be a pilot in the Air Force, but his sight wasn’t good enough, so he joined the Army.

I had been playing hide and seek with my dad and had found the perfect hiding place. I was deep, down, and all the way to the back of my father’s office closet. Something glistened in the few specks of light escaping through the slits in the door, around the TV, and between the hanging garments. It looked like a gold coin floating a few inches away. Like most little girls, I was curious.

I must have made some sort of noise because my dad threw back the doors and started to dig in search of me. He found me, and I squealed, in both surprise and delight. Then he sat me on his knee, and before he could say a word, I blurted out about finding a floating gold coin. Just to please his daughter, my father started to investigate. When he realized what I had seen, he swooped me up in his arms and started to tickle me till I could hardly breathe. Having the attention span of a six-year-old, I soon forgot about the coin and roughhoused with my dad.

A few years later I was going through the very same closet looking for items to put in our yard sale the next day. It was mostly junk that belonged to my dad. As I pulled back the royal blue ski parka that my dad used to wear, I noticed something like nothing that I had ever seen before. A suit. Not just any suit. A green one. A green that my mother could only describe as military drab. It reminded me somewhat of a Christmas tree. It was decorated with multicolored stripes on the top of the two shoulders, a pin with purple, patches and gold buttons that were neatly arranged, evenly spaced out, vertically in line, like ants on the sidewalk.

Something about the way those buttons shown in the light seemed unusually familiar. To an eight-year-old girl, this was a masterpiece. Hanging there, without a single wrinkle, I was too afraid to touch it for fear that it might transform into an ordinary suit like the ones encompassing it. I didn’t want to leave for fear that it might vanish and just be a vision in my head.

I ran to get my dad to show him what I had found. As I dragged him up to the open closet door and pulled back that royal blue parka, I pointed in the direction of my newly found treasure and begged him to take it out of the closet so I could get a better look.

He hesitated for a minute, as his forehead seemed to wrinkle in bad thought. I noticed, and felt as though I had said something wrong to cause it.

I lied. I told him that it wasn’t the stunning suit that had caught my eye, but the carving of a dog hidden behind it. His face smoothed out and his jaw relaxed as he smiled at me. Cradling the skilled workmanship, he put it on the corner of his desk as we both crouched down, eyelevel with the tabletop. He told me how his daddy had carved it for him when he went off to college and had to leave Shorty, his favorite dog, behind.

Even though there was a twinkle in his eye and a wide toothy smile on his face as he told of old times with beloved Shorty, I couldn’t help but think about the expression my dad’s face had held and what I had done to cause him such grief.

I later told my mom what happened. When I showed her my newfound treasure she understood what I had been jabbering about. She told me to wait until my dad left to run some errands. I did. As his taillights disappeared around the curve, I ran and told mom, we went to the closet. She started to open the door, hesitated, turned to me, and told not to peep a word of this till dad told me about it or she said I could. I promised, she continued on.

That day I learned a lot about my dad. He had been a major, promoted to lieutenant colonel in Vietnam. He led many men, friends, most of who never returned. He was loved by them. Many were wounded protecting him. One had given his life to save my dad's. They were close friends. My dad had been shot, but survived.

It wasn't until I was fourteen years old that my dad told me about it. What he did. Where he went. The best way to take out the most men from ground level. How to position the cover for maximum protection. Where to be when attacking. What to do when caught in the line of fire. The safest place to be.

My dad is an optimistic fellow. Being in some of the situations that he described, he'd have to be to make it out alive or keep from going crazy. Sometimes he'll answer questions for me, but he doesn't like to talk about it. He wants to forget. Lift the burden. He lived it. It's a part of him. He will always carry it. He will always carry Nam.