Thistle

by Joe Milosch

Sergeant Bunge walked by throwing his legs forward, as if he thought his starched fatigues could crease the air like plow blades mark the earth. I liked him because he went Airborne jumped in Europe, Korea, served in Nam. His first day in the company he lined up the platoon, inspected the cut of our hair and the shine of our belt buckles. “You’ve heard of Brasso? If you look like a soldier, you’ll be a soldier.”

Then he cursed, as though it was written in a manual for Sergeants, and his curses merged with the metal slapping air sound of a prop turbine. I heard his voice sputter, as if fueled by anger so deep inside he had to pump it out using every muscle in his stomach, back and neck.  He cursed, rocking with the effort until his voice became a high-pitched hum.

One Friday he talked about the greatness of the American rancher. “Ranchers built the west by teaching their cowhands the meaning of loyalty.” I replied, “I’m not impressed by a rancher who feeds grade A hay to his steers while his men eat warmed-over beans.”

After morning formation he’d stand outside the hangar door. He would light his cherry wood pipe, blowing rings, and watching them turn oblique. He’d ask “Do you support the VC? Jane Fonda? Have you read Mao or Marx?” Sarge, I replied, “you wouldn’t know a Communist if he had a C branded into his forehead.” For this he took me off flight duty.

Sarge liked the fact I worked all day breaking only for lunch, or to share coffee with him. He wanted me to be serious, to explain my distrust of the president. He told me his dad was a plumber, his two brothers were plumbers. One died in Korea.

His family had fought for America. He showed me the scar on his stomach.

I knew he had a fear of something tied to retirement. The tone of his voice asked, do you think I wasted my life? His urge to question himself made him angry. He wanted his truth set in concrete. He believed he fought for love for his country, believed manhood was determined by hand to hand combat, and that he protected his wife.

I told Bunge Bars make Nixon uncomfortable, how can you trust him? How can you believe Nixon when he says, “I will pull out of Nam, end the war with honor.” Sarge closed his eyes. Did he see behind his eyelids a dying man who rolled onto his stomach as if kissing the ground? Sarge sighed, and looked at his hands as if he’d collected blood dried and flaking from uniforms. Quickly he brushed his hands in the manner a gardener wipes soil and petals from his hands.

Sarge said, “I don’t want to believe I’ve been lied to about this war. Maybe, Was I lied to about Korea? Joe, we had to fight the Nazis. I saw the camps, the Jews were living death. Believe me.” He told me he had plastic intestines, and this had to have some meaning. I could have asked him about threading pipe, or jumping at night in a war zone. I could have simply let silence be drawn like a curtain between us. Then we could swallow our myths with our coffee.

Today, I look at the scars on my hand. The one in my right palm came from cutting copper pipes without gloves. The five hammer scars on my thumb formed blow by blow; each scar is a memory of a job, a year, but memories are not excuses. I tell myself there was something easier than being my Sergeant. Sarge, you jumped from great heights with shrapnel under the scars on your ribs. You took me under your wing; saw in me more than the shadow of what I might be. You refused to call me by my nickname.

You invited me to your retirement party. There I saw your 34 years in the gold chevrons marking your arms. Saw you look skyward as if you saw the traces of yourself continue to slowly sink, slowly move earth bound. Below my hand scars are memories of blood-wetted wood, wounds closing, and the memory of the way I treated you appears in my palm as a sandy splinter of flesh, which is an open thistle thin-edged, purple, and stuck beneath a dirt stain.

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