Forgotten Heroes

          Old faces filled with tired weary lines looked back at me, with eyes that seemed to plead for something other than waiting for the Reapers kiss. Looking at these ancient wheelchair-bound relics in their current condition, you would never have guessed that many of them were once war heroes. Some ran head-on into battle welcoming Valhalla's gates, but most were just scared kids without a choice. Now they simply want to live their last days receiving the respect so courageously earned long ago.

          Walking through the wide halls of the Idaho State Veterans Home allowed me to notice just how sterile it all was. Even the bathrooms with their clean polished tiles and sparkling porcelain commodes were immaculate. The offices, though cramped, seemed tidy and well organized, while not seeming canned and generic at the same time. The only thing that I disliked about the facility, and still do, was that overwhelming hospital smell that stinks of Lysol cleansed death. It is overwhelming how commonplace someone's demise becomes in a place like that.

As with any new job, I was required to go through a certain amount of orientation and training to familiarize myself with the duties I was to perform. I became the instant shadow of Julie, my trainer for the activities team. Her job was to teach me the basic rules and introduce me to the facility's current residents. You could tell Julie had been there a pretty long time because of the phony permanent smile she wore at work. Many of the people working at the Vet home carried that lie around on their face.

          There were two residents that I remember quite well because of their diminished conditions. One old vet (I'll refer to as F) was trapped in a wheelchair, like the majority of the patients, but F was in obviously in incredible pain. As I sat there and visited him, I could tell by his cavernous fatigued eyes and his rag doll slumping body that he had given up; he could already hear the drumming of earth on his coffin. When I had visited F for a while, I asked him if it would be okay if I stopped by and visited every other day. F just looked away and whispered dejectedly that he just didn't care. As I left his room I glanced back at his weak emaciated form, I felt sick to my stomach.

          My next visit was with a man named W; he was sitting up in a chair in front of his television with all the animation of a dead fish. Julie and I talked to him as if he knew we were there, receiving little response. We kept up the charade for awhile until we started to notice a viscus, orange brown fluid streaming down his old red chin. Julie cleaned this up; I was ashamed at how completely repulsed I was by this man's shameful existence. Julie mentioned to W that later that day, a puppy was going to be brought around and there was an immediate change in him; it was obvious that on some level he was pleased with this.

          Later that day, as promised, I took a very rambunctious puppy to see W after the other residents had been given time with it. I was pretty exited to get to his room to see how he would react. I thought that if he did like the puppy, maybe that would make me feel a little better about my personal feelings towards W earlier in the day. He was in bed and I tried for about five minutes to rouse him; he would be pleased to see this little black and white wonder I had brought. I told W that he was missing out and that this puppy would really miss him if he didn't get out of bed and play with it some. I finally left defeated, not finding out until later that he had been dead the entire time I had been in his room. Now, I can think back and remember the fetid smell of his emptied bowels and the complete lack of breathing sounds, but I just didn't make the connection at the time.

          With family surrounding him the whole time, F's spirit was finally released from his tormented, ruined body to walk freely with the warriors of the past. When he became a soldier, I am sure he imagined himself as a man who would die honorably during a hard fought battle at the business end of the enemy's rifle. He didn't imagine himself dying in his sleep on the business end of an I. V. line with the only enemy being his own failing body. The sad truth is when war heroes survive all the battles, spitting in Grim's face, the Angel of Death will be truly vindictive; it will take the forgotten heroes lives in the cruelest way possible, through the slow passage of time and the measured erosion of the spirit.