Called to Arms Again: A Tribute to the Greatest Generation

by J. L. Salter

  She was thinking about Mitch and about those several aspects of their relationship which had worried her. Well, not so much “worried” her as they peeved her. Her need for space, her sense that she must maintain a certain distance… her desire for time to herself. Somehow, after what happened at the barricade on Drill Day, those stipulations seemed less paramount. There was still no way that Kelly would allow her own existence to be subsumed by anyone else, but she realized now it was comforting to have a strong loving man who cared enough to feel jealous occasionally. She understood that being accountable to Mitch didn’t mean that he owned her — merely that she accepted his protectiveness and reciprocated. She’d tried to convey some of this to Mitch, but had not found words sufficient to explain how she felt or why it seemed different now. Maybe later.

  After late lunch at a crowded local fish place, Kelly and Mitch returned to her cabin.

  It was heavy jacket weather, but the afternoon air was still tolerable because of the brightly shining sun. Instead of going inside, they sat on Kelly’s porch rockers, hands in coat pockets and collars up around their necks.

  “Last night, Ellie and Pop explained why they stayed and fought.” Mitch shivered very slightly. “So why did you stick out your neck for those old folks?”

  “Started out not to. Then I saw the look in the eyes of Pop, Ellie, and others.” Kelly closed her own eyes as she remembered. “It was like something grabbed hold of my insides and told me to stay.”

  “But most of them were just strangers. Wasn’t that the first day you’d even laid eyes on Pete and Irene?”

  Kelly stopped rocking at the front of the chair’s arc. “Yeah, but even so, Pete felt like somebody I’ve known all my life. Somehow.”

  “But you didn’t owe them anything.”

  “That’s what I told myself when I was about to leave.” She leaned forward with forearms on her knees. “But when I saw Irene look up at her husband with such pride in her eyes, I realized I do owe something. To that whole generation.”

  “I’m also a student of history, Kelly. I understand a sense of generational gratitude, but I figured it to be more theoretical somehow. Not practical, not real. Not, um, dangerous.”

  “I think that’s what Gene Coffey tried to explain when I interviewed him. Gratitude to the generations that came before us and duty to the ones who’ll follow.”

  “Still not sure I understand why you remained in an obviously dangerous situation to help strangers.” Mitch looked into her face.

  “I guess the simplest explanation goes back to the Henleys. Pete stood up and Irene said she’d help. That’s the very thing they both did over sixty-five years ago — one way or the other. He went across the Atlantic to fight the Nazis and she sacrificed through the homeland struggle.” Kelly paused. “I think they really are the greatest generation.”

  “Or maybe the generation with the most grit.”

  “Both, probably.” Greatest and grittiest.

  As the afternoon air got cooler, Kelly stood to go inside the cabin. “Coffey also asked why I’d stayed to help.”

  Inside, Mitch took off his jacket and laid it on back of the loveseat. “What’d you tell him?”

  “I mentioned something Miss Dottie had urged us about not letting barbarians through the gate. But it’s more what I didn’t tell him.”

  Mitch looked puzzled.

  “I didn’t think of it then. Maybe the adrenaline was still messing with my brain functions.” Kelly put her keys on the table by the door and her carryall purse on the kitchen counter. “But I realized later it was partly about asking for help.”

  “Did somebody directly ask you to stay?”

  Kelly shook her head. “Not a one. If they had, maybe I would’ve or could’ve said, ‘Sorry, I’m outta here’. But no one asked for help. Those residents stayed because it was their property — like pioneer families defending their homestead.”

  “There were a lot more than residents who remained.”

  “True, the Firing Squad guys helped because those folks were friends — or acquaintances, anyway — and they felt it was their duty.” Kelly sat on the recliner. “But neither reason really applied to my decision. Other than half a dozen friends being guests there, I had nothing to draw me.”

  “So why?”

  Kelly’s lips moved slightly as she tried to formulate the right words. “The looks on their faces, in their eyes. Their expressions conveyed how much they knew they needed help — a handful of geriatrics against a gang of armed hoodlums.”

  “Definitely outgunned.”

  Kelly nodded. “They knew they’d probably be overrun and very likely injured, at the very least, but they stood and resisted. I saw in those faces a resolve that they would do whatever they could, with physical limitations and available weapons, whether they had any additional help or not.” Kelly bit her lip slightly. “When I saw that, I just couldn’t abandon them.”

  Mitch shifted to lessen the weight on his obviously sore hip.

  “I’ll never forget the look on their faces, especially in their eyes, as they stood there ready to fight and needing assistance but not apparently able to ask for it.”

  “Their generation was molded that way. The Depression, the war. Those experiences fundamentally shaped them.” Mitch’s chin moved outward a bit. “There’s a lot of fierce pride in that bunch.”

  “A lot of nobility too.”

  “Ellie told me that noble and sacrifice trumps stupid.”

  “You think it was stupid for us to help? Me and Diane on the barricade holding garden tools. Roger and Joe riding as Wild Wade’s Warriors. You running a pair of cut-throats and two indistinguishable old brothers right into the enemy’s back door. You think all that was stupid?”

  Mitch grinned. “About as stupid as stupid gets.”

  Kelly thought for a moment. “But stupid is also trumped by duty.”

  “Ellie didn’t mention that, but, yeah.” Mitch stretched. “Duty.”

  Kelly leaned way over to the loveseat and kissed his lips lightly. Then she sat back in her recliner. “So, you’ve squeezed a monologue out of me. I’ve never heard why you stayed to help.”

  He had no hesitation. “You.” Mitch rose from the loveseat.

  She stood and hugged him tightly. Kelly wanted to hear more, much more.

  “I knew you’d remain, probably before you realized it. Knowing that, I couldn’t think of any reason to leave or any place else I should be.”

  Kelly could hear his words vibrate down in his chest. Her own response was muffled since her face was buried in his shirt. Kelly squeezed his lower ribcage and clung to him like she feared he’d otherwise fall from a high peak.

  They stayed that way for a good while. He breathed in the aroma of her hair and she listened to his heartbeat.

  “Walk with me down to my mailbox.”

  “All that way just for mail?” Mitch groaned. “Why not wait ‘til you’re going to drive by anyway?”

  “I need to leave a bill for pickup, if I can beat the mailman.” She pointed. “It’s only down the hill, across the dry creek bed, and up the opposite bank.”

  Mitch knew the route. “Yeah and then back again.”

  “Okay, you and your sore hip just sit on the porch and watch. I’ll go by myself.” After she’d put on her jacket and descended the front porch steps, Mitch closed the door and watched through the glass.

  It turned out to be a small parade, attended by Perra and the neighbor dog across Macon Circle. Helping Mitch watch was a seemingly disinterested Maine Coon cat, lying on the top of the over-stuffed chair with a towel draped over the back.

  Kelly’s footpath was worn down through the hay across Disappearing Creek. Since there had not been a second cut, it was dry, scraggly, sparse, and just past Kelly’s calves. Also wet because of the heavy recent rain.

  After climbing the opposite slope of the ancient river bed, Kelly bent over to peer into the back of her mailbox. She reached way inside, retrieved
a small package, held it near her ear, and shook it lightly.

  Shortly, her entourage, minus the neighbor dog, approached the cabin porch. Mitch grabbed his jacket again and met them outside. Kelly hit the porch steps slightly out of breath from the steep slope.

  “He beat me. Have to mail my bill later.” She waggled it petulantly. “Got a little package though. That’s unusual.”

  “Who’s it from?” He sat in a rocker, hands in his jacket pockets.

  “No name, no return address.” Kelly plopped on the seat next to Mitch and opened the package slowly.

  Mitch scooted his chair closer. Inside the brown paper was a dark green hinged case.

  “It’s a military medal. I’ve been decorated.” Kelly laughed at first, then felt quite serious. “Wonder which medal it is?” She handed the case to Mitch.

  Mitch flipped over the medallion hanging below the rich purple ribbon with a narrow white stripe along each side. “Says on the back For Military Merit, but it’s for being wounded in action.” He unhooked it from inside the flip-top case and held it out toward Kelly. “Looks like you’ve been awarded a Purple Heart.”

  Below the ribbon hung a gold profile of George Washington resting in the middle of a rich purple heart shape, which was inside a gold-colored, heart-shaped frame.

  Kelly held the medal in front of her sternum. “Which side?”

  Mitch pointed.

  Taking care to avoid the injury below her collar bone, she placed the ribbon over her left breast and held it there lightly with two fingers.

  Mitch stared at the Purple Heart still resting on top of Kelly’s actual heart and covered the area with his large hand.

  She could feel her own heart thumping loudly under the Band-Aid covering the ricochet wound, below her shirt, beneath her windbreaker, behind the military decoration. Beneath her fingertips holding the medal. Surely Mitch could feel her heart speaking to him. She covered his fingers with her own left hand and pressed lightly. Kelly looked up into his face.

  “A purple heart is a bruised heart. Not yet fully healed.” He removed his hand and hugged her gently. “I want to be with you, Kelly, but I’m not going to get in your way or trip you up. I’m not going to push you either.” He barely whispered the last part. “But I’ll stay very close, until you’re ready.”

  “Oh, Mitch.” Her lips were wet with tears when they kissed. She’d realized she was ready when she saw him — covered in sweat, gunpowder residue, and adrenaline — limp up the hill of Placid Lane. She just hadn’t had an opportunity to express it. Her quotas of space and distance and time could be worked out… or maybe they no longer held their former preeminence. Because of that improbable stand at the barricade against invasion, maybe their relationship had taken a quantum leap in its formerly slow evolution.

  Kelly and Mitch stood together on the porch for a long moment.

  After a while, both went inside and removed their jackets. At the back cabin window, Kelly looked outside to the woods in the west. Those trees would soon be bare and forlorn, feelings which she had been processing for the past several years.

  Mitch came up behind her, very close. “Well, congratulations on your decoration. I’m proud of you.” Mitch placed his hands on her hips.

  With him near, Kelly felt protected and warm. She turned, very slowly, and reached around his waist. Then, standing on her toes, she kissed him deeply. “I’m ready, Mitch. I’ve been ready.”

  If Kelly and Mitch had still been looking, they would have seen the first leaves — of Pulaski’s very short, rather early, autumn — dropping to the chilly ground. It was an announcement of the first seasonal frost coming the following morning.

  But Kelly and Mitch were otherwise engaged.

  Afterword

  Inspired by the strength and sacrifices of the Greatest Generation, this novel weaves together themes of patriotism, pioneer spirit, self-reliance, and the willingness to fight for your own present as well as the future of generations to follow. A portion of this fictional plot pits an assembly of aging World War II veterans – plus friends and neighbors of both genders – against a gang of young opportunistic criminals.

  Called to Arms Again features fictional members of the real-life Honor Guard of American Legion Post 38, which (over the eighteen year period, 1989-2007) had provided military burial honors to nearly 2000 veterans buried within Pulaski County. [In the five years since that tally, they’ve provided military burial honors to over 530 additional veterans.]

  Though about 980 WW II vets die each day, their lives and stories won’t necessarily be forgotten if we continue to honor them in fiction and non-fiction.

  Featured prominently in this novel – as in two other as-yet-unpublished manuscripts – is a fictional figure inspired by certain characteristics of my late father-in-law, a long-time member of the Post 38 firing squad.

  I had just resumed serious work on this novel when my father-in-law was hospitalized in early February, 2008. From February 2 through April 1, I worked on this manuscript for sixty consecutive days (often until midnight), trying to finish it… in hopes that Dad would remain alive and alert long enough to read it. I had given him updates on my progress during both of his stays in the hospital – thirteen days and seventeen days – as well as the approximately four weeks in between when he was at home but still very ill.

  He had read my other two novels, which also featured “his” character, and seemed eager to read Called to Arms Again. But he never had the chance: I couldn’t produce it quickly enough, though I wore myself out trying. In the few moments I had to say my final words to him on April 1, I also told Dad I had finally completed my first draft — still quite rough, but readable. He and I both knew he would never get to read any of it. I reminded my dying father-in-law that my novel was inspired by him and members of his honor guard. I’ve already forgotten the specific words in his reply, but he grinned and said, in essence, “I’ll bet it’s a corker.”

  I think it is a corker and I believe Dad would have loved it.

  Jeffrey L. Salter

  P.S. Twenty members of the Post 38 Honor Guard were in uniform at the funeral service of Charles A. Williams.

  Acknowledgements

  I continue to be profoundly grateful to Stephanie Taylor, founder and CEO of Astraea Press, for graciously opening her door to me and treating my stories like they truly mattered. I greatly appreciate the expertise and patience of senior editor Kay Springsteen and dedicated proofer Traci Pollitt. I love my cover from the talented and creative Elaina Lee.

  No manuscript could become a published novel without readers along the way. I especially appreciate my brother, Charles A. Salter, for reading and critiquing an early draft and helping with the blurb and synopsis. Also: my wife Denise Williams Salter, who provided valuable input at several stages (including proofreading), and my friend Dean Spradlin, who gave many helpful suggestions and significantly encouraged my own faith in this story.

  Other helpful readers of early drafts were: Richard Jasper, Dr. Jerry Weigel, John Jones III, Rita Williams, Dottie R. Salter, Jeffrey Williams, Julie S. Moers, and Scott Warner.

  Additionally, I appreciate the several others who volunteered to read earlier versions: Gene Hansford, Linda Broocks, Dale Fulton, Carol W. Meyers, Cathy W. Lenox, Lynette Buchannan, Hubert Jasper, and Jack Moers.

  Author’s Notes

  Venus Ramey is the real name of 1944’s Miss America, who had Kentucky roots and retired to a farm near Waynesburg. She was the featured guest for the fiftieth reunion (in 1993) of Somerset High School’s Class of 1943. Stories of Ms. Ramey’s actual encounter with one or more alleged thieves appeared on April 20, 2007, in the Associated Press, World Net Daily, and WYKT, among other outlets. The most complete version appeared in the [Somerset/Pulaski County] Commonwealth-Journal a day or two earlier.

  The successful program, Operation UNITE, was created and implemented with direct involvement and support of Congressman Hal Rogers. An acronym for Unlawful Narcotics: Inv
estigations, Treatment, and Education, the UNITE program has dramatically helped with the drug problem in this multi-county area.

  With the exception of those above and certain other well-known American public figures briefly mentioned in the text, all other characters in this novel are fictional.

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  I am indebted to the following individuals for relating actual events in their lives. [For the purposes of this work of fiction, however, I have significantly modified and abbreviated these accounts.]

  C.E. Hansford’s actual rescue of his wounded lieutenant… and his Silver Star awarded some five decades later.

  Certain real-life experiences of Charles A. Williams, growing up in Possum Trot during the Great Depression.

  My late mother-in-law, Rita Roudebush Williams, who provided many helpful details after her husband’s death and was also the inspiration for my character, Irene Henley.

  My mother, Doris Robinson Salter, who is the inspiration for my character, Miss Dottie.

  The military exploits of a former Honor Guard member, whose name I do not know, who (at a veteran’s funeral in the mid 1990s) showed me the shrapnel in his knee.

  My wife has twenty-three first cousins and more second cousins than anybody can count. At least three — though I’m not saying which ones — directly inspired certain of my supporting characters in this novel.

  The novel’s action and dialog of my fictional characters (to whom I’ve ascribed my altered versions of these events) do not represent any of these real-life individuals.

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  Gato and Perra are based on real life animals, Sipper and Belle, who reside in the author’s house when it pleases them… or when the pet hatch is closed. [Since this manuscript was submitted, however, Belle has passed away.]