THE GOOD SOLDIER

by Paul C. Steffy

  “I do.” I smiled and raised my hand for John to see.

  “Next week, I know they are having a huge veterans’ get-together at one of the downtown hotel convention centers. It’s the first one organized on this grand of a scale. It’s for vets of all services and all wars, and it’s open to the public. The planners are expecting several thousand visitors during the five days. They’ll have speakers, videos, movies, actual news footage of military operations, displays of memorabilia, food and drinks, and plenty more. If I were going to be in town, I’d sure go. A friend told me about it last night when he called me to pass on the word about it. He said that any veterans may bring anything related to souvenirs or memorabilia—except no guns, of course—to be put on display. You will be loaning it to the convention for the full five days. I remember you mentioning those two paintings from the village you finally located on your last day. This might be the perfect time to display them. You could write a few sentences about how you received them and how you found the village on this trip. Anyway, it’s just a thought. I think you’ll still enjoy going, even if you don’t display the paintings. If nothing else, you might meet fellows you knew in Vietnam.”

  “I’ll think about that,” I said. “I’ve actually heard about the upcoming convention and saw a few ads in several places around town.”

  “Oh yes, and I heard from Wes this morning.”

  “Yes, I called him, too. If you didn’t give us an update, I was going to mention it myself.”

  “He’ll be leaving the hospital today at noon. He didn’t have a full-blown heart attack. The doctor called it a ‘heart event.’ I’m taking him to the airport in three days, and he’ll go back then. He was lucky; the airline had an American family of four cancel on that day. OK, let’s go outside and get your bags, everyone. You can take them inside the terminal and get checked in.”

  John went inside with us. He made sure everything was in order. Then he told us that should the flight be delayed longer than two hours or canceled, he’d come back with the bus, and we’d see how soon the next flight would be leaving. If necessary, he told us we could go back to the hotel and stay another night. It hadn’t happened yet on any of his tours, but he didn’t want us to be stranded at the airport if something should change our plans. Then he said his good-byes.

  We had an extra hour before our departure, which was plenty of time to people-watch. I exchanged cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses with the other guys, but I doubted we’d use them. No one else lived near California, and I hadn’t spent much time with any of them on our trip. When I knew for sure our flight was leaving, I called Sue one more time. I don’t know which one of us sounded happier!

  “Well, little lady, it won’t be long now. I’ll be back in San Francisco and in your arms in one more day.”

  “Yes, I know. I can hardly wait to see you. If you’re delayed for any reason, call me, or I’ll be worried sick!”

  “I will. I’ll be thinking about you all the way home.” We said our long-distance good-byes reluctantly.

  The flight departed on time. It was smooth, the service was great, the food was tasty, and I slept a lot. Now, going home, the people in my group didn’t have much to say. The seventeen-hour trip wasn’t too bad, all things considered.

  I transferred in Los Angeles to a San Francisco flight, but it departed thirty minutes late because of fog in San Francisco. Then I rode in another airporter bus to downtown San Francisco and took a taxi home to my nice, quiet, safe apartment. It was great to be home!

  The next thing I did was call Sue. I couldn’t wait to hear her voice.

  “I’ll bet I didn’t wake you up this time,” I said.

  “No, you sure didn’t. But you were close. I know it’s about nine in the morning, but for some reason, I couldn’t sleep that well last night—something about a guy I know who’s coming back to see me—and I had to sleep in this morning to get caught up!”

  “This guy you’re talking about, how long since you’ve seen him?”

  “It feels like it’s been months. I wonder how he feels about it.”

  “He feels the same. I know for a fact that he wants to hold you in his arms—and that’s not all! It’s only the beginning. He wants me to ask you, where it’s going to be?”

  “Where’s what going to be, and which where?”

  “OK, silly—my place or yours?”

  “Oh, you mean we can spend some time together, just you and me, between the sheets?”

  “I thought you’d never ask!”

  “Well, I like the view from your apartment best. You can see for miles over this magnificent city. It’s already sunny with blue skies out there. At my place, I can see to the other side of the courtyard, and the sky isn’t included.”

  “So what’s your decision?”

  “I prefer sunshine and a great view.”

  “All right, give me an hour. Then you call a taxi, and I’ll be waiting for you to arrive downstairs at my front entrance.”

  “Yes, sir! Whatever you say, sir! Anything else, sir?”

  “Yes, there is. Don’t forget your toothbrush! Better yet, bring your spare, and plan on leaving it!”

  Epilogue

  I loaned both Vietnamese paintings to the veterans’ convention for all five display days. I had devoted two hours to drafting and editing (many times) what I hoped would be a most informative one-page description of the circumstances surrounding the unique paintings. I described the sincere woman and her apparent motive, the man who had painted the delicate works and his intentions, and the circumstances of how I had received the paintings. I also included what had probably happened in the village later, after I had returned to the United States, at the hands of the VC terrorists in mid-1969. While I composed the narrative, I shed many tears—not for the paintings, but because of my sad memories of Vietnam and in remembrance of my many friends who didn’t survive.

  At the convention, I met one of the organizers, who was a history professor at San Francisco State University. He was going to retire that year. He’d been in Vietnam in 1970 but not in the infantry. He asked me if I would allow him to display the two paintings, along with the narrative, in his classroom. The paintings would be inside a locked display case, and he wanted to borrow them for one month or as long as I would allow.

  I met and talked with many others at the convention. We talked about the paintings in a most pleasing and positive way. A reporter from a San Francisco newspaper asked me if he could write a piece about the paintings. Members of two veterans’ groups, one from San Francisco and the other from Sacramento, asked me if they could display the paintings at their meeting facilities. In all, over the next month, I received seventeen other requests from veteran organizations, Boy Scout packs, high-school history clubs, two college history professors from different schools, a Rotary Club, and other notable organizations. I am currently waiting to hear if the national chapter of the largest veterans’ organization in the country wants the paintings for permanent display. I feel proud and very pleased at the outpouring of gracious comments and interest in the two paintings from a family in a rural village in South Vietnam from 1968. After these many years, the proper time and place to present them to the American people has finally arrived.

  On the second day of the convention, a man my age stopped by the booth I shared with two other veterans who had items to display. He was my height, although slightly heavier, and his dark brown eyes had a friendly, relaxed, and trusting look. His baseball cap mentioned a famous professional team from the Midwest. He stood alone, as if in a reverie of his own, in a silence he preferred. He viewed the paintings, read the narrative for a few minutes, and touched his handkerchief to his eyes a few times. He put his handkerchief away and walked toward me. Then he saw my nametag. He stepped closer and held out his hand.

  “Hi. Bill Daniels. It’s great to see you again. You may not remember m
e. I arrived one month before you came back to The World. We didn’t talk much, but I liked you and trusted you since you’d managed to survive over there for eleven months. I thought that you must have good luck, and I wanted to stay close to you because it might rub off. I remember those paintings. I heard what the ARVN lieutenant told you about the old woman’s story as he translated for her. Sometimes, my memories of Vietnam are cloudy or nonexistent, but on this, I remember almost all of it. On that day, we both looked at the paintings for a minute. Then you rolled them up and put them inside your rucksack, at the top. Later, on the way back to base camp, you cut a piece of bamboo to roll inside of them. You said you didn’t want them to bend or for the paint to crack.”

  I was astonished that Bill remembered all this. He and I talked for another half an hour.

  “There’s some things I’ve got to know” I said. “Do you know what happened to the village and the people? On the Vietnam tour I was just on, our leader, a retired army colonel, said the VC burned it down in mid-1969. Did that happen?”

  “Yes, it did. When I had two months left in Vietnam, we did another recon patrol through that area. I saw what was left of the hootches and the mess. All of them were burned to the ground. The good news was that most of the villagers had managed to escape. The VC thought they were helping the US Army with information about local VC attacks.”

  “Answer two more questions for me, please. Then I’ll know we’re talking about the same village. Was there a river near this village?”

  “There was a river, and it was narrow and shallow where it passed the village. A sturdy bamboo bridge crossed the water, and it was strong enough for us to use. Of the few times we used it, we crossed one man at a time—it was safer that way.”

  “How close was it?”

  “It was so close I could have thrown a baseball into the water from the nearest hut.”

  After a brief pause, I said, “I’m glad we met. Where do you live?”

  “We just moved to Sausalito last month. My wife’s parents went into a nursing home two months ago, so we sold our house in Chicago and moved out here. She’s an only child, and she’d get the house anyway. Her parents think it’s a great idea. They’re glad it’s staying in the family.”

  Bill and I exchanged contact information, and then he had to leave.

  I’m sure glad he happened to stop at my booth to see the paintings. I think I do remember him after all these years.

  As for Sue and me, once I returned from my weeklong Vietnam tour, most of my worst, most sorrowful memories stopped haunting me almost immediately. Now Sue and I are the happiest, most devoted, most head-over-heels-in-love couple you’ll ever meet. We aren’t afraid to tell and show the world how we feel about each other and the great new meaning we share in our lives.

  Thank you for reading The Good Soldier. If you enjoyed this story, please submit a review.

  Contact Paul C. Steffy at: pcsbooksonline@gmail.com or thru facebook at: Paul C. Steffy