"No Road Back Home"

Europe (Part Two, of Three Parts)

"No Road Back Home"

Chapter One
Frankfurt


I traveled all night, had a passport, and my military ID card I had reached Germany without trouble. I had taken the recommendations of the Captain, AWOL. I had seen enough protests in America, and the usual reports in the newspapers of those objectors to the War in Vietnam going to Canada, but I went to Europe. Of course I always knew protesters preceded wars. I saw trains full of American soldiers, you’d think the war was in Europe not Vietnam. A few of the young soldieries like I was, spoke, they were convinced that Europe was under threat, and they were needed here, and were worried they’d be hauled out of Europe to go to Vietnam, like many of their buddies. I was twenty two years old, I told them I served my time in the states and I was just traveling around Europe. I was in Frankfurt and took a room at a small hotel. It was spring, March of 1970, the tourist season was picking up I noticed. I was traveling light, a knapsack was all, it was filled with civilian cloths, and a few Army things I kept. I had stop in Minnesota to talk to my mother and brother and relax for that last month of my real life, I mean, I be on the run thereafter, but I didn’t tell her I was abandoning the army, just like Mark Twain did. I thought it would be the best thing to leave it alone.
The city was full of hikers, and bikers, and soldiers. I paid my room rent for a month in advance.
I walked the streets the next day to get the feel of the city, and kind of hid from the police and Officers when they came by. Seeing a lone young man as I was, was suspicious, or at least so I felt. I spent some time looking over the bridges into the River, looking at the dim shapes of the fishes. I thought, look here, you got the whole river to yourself, and all you got to watch out for is a hook, but he like me I suppose had limits, he had but one river and perhaps some tributaries, I had all of Europe to run around in, both running from the hook. Then I walked farther down the river, there really was no harmony this first day, this spring afternoon.
I went back to my hotel room, slept a few hours. I had but a once of confidence, but it would have to do.

I heard a knock at my door, I opened it, it as the US Military Police (I would find out later my landlady was in fear I was, just what I was, AWOL).
“What are you doing here?” asked the two tall white Military Police.
I protested that I was an innocent American Tourist, but that didn’t help much, they insisted I go with them to the military station, and if they were wrong, they’d give me their apologies.
“Tell them at your headquarters, I’m a free citizen of the US…” and was looking about wondering how to escape. But there was really no way, I’d have to talk my way out at their headquarters I told myself, and they each stepped to a side of me and walked me down the two flight of stairs. They seemed to be just his right distance alongside of me; one was a foot behind me. Had I run, I could not have made ten feet I believe, and would have given myself away.
At the Military Headquarters, one of the two soldiers opened up a door to a little room, “Go side there,” he told me, “The Latinate will see you in a minute.” There I waited to be questioned for about fifteen minutes. And a fat officer came in, but it was a captain. And he said, “I’m Latinate Goodman, how are you?”
“Fine Latinate,” said in return, knowing he was a captain, and not referring to him as an officer.
“You really have nothing to worry about, we get a lot of AWOL folks about, you know, just walking aimless trying to find a way back home, but of course this is not your case, right.”
“I’m not worried,” I said, taking off my jacket. “So start your questioning, I’m busy, I just got in yesterday and want to get a railroad pass, and see a few things.”
A tall military guard came in, said, “Captain, we got two more out here waiting.” Then the captain looked at me, with a smile, “It never stops.” I looked around the room as if I had never seen a military room before, which actually I had not, in Europe. The small window was barred, and the door was heavy and solid, locked from the other side, thus the Captain had to knock to get out. I could hear movement on the other side of the door.
I sat and waited for his next question. It was dreary, and I gave him that look, realizing, most civilians would take it that way, whereas a soldier has to smile and endure. It was getting close to lunch, and I cold smell coffee.
“Bring me a cup and my lunch,” ordered the captain, and the door opened, and he and I looked at the two soldiers waiting for him. I pretended to be hungry also. He was easier going than the Military Police. Finally I said, “Do you want my passport or what do you want?” My next statement was going to be a threat I could not fulfill, I was going to say, I want to talk to an official from the Embassy, but I feared it would endanger my position now. And said nothing, and cooperated.
“What were you doing when the police picked you up?” he asked.
“I was in my hotel room sleeping!” I said
“What…!” he said aloud, the door open, and the guard bringing in his coffee.
“Maybe they got you confused, hotel room.”
“I was enjoying the view of the Rhine before that,” I said smiling, “As I told them and you, I’m a tourist, not a smuggler or whatever.”
I saw the two soldiers had duffle bags, no wonder they got caught I told myself. A knapsack or shoulder bag looked more like a young mans travel bag.
“I think my landlady got suspicious and rushed out to find the Military Police, and the excitement started,” I added.
“The landlady,” said the captain,” I held my breath, I stated my name although he had read it in on the introductory form he held in front of him, no real report yet “Christopher Hunger I’m from Minnesota, I have never been in trouble, no police recorded, and if you are not going to charge me with an offense, I am hungry.”
The guard at the door grunted and looked up, as if he knew something but wasn’t sure.
“Yes, yes…” I he said, now looking at my passport, “that is a fact. I stretched out my hand to take back the passport, as if it was my property, and he handed it back.”
“So that’s it, Mr. Hunter, you’re free to go, sorry about the inconvenience.” Said the Captain with a smile, I raised the palms of my two hands, as if being satisfied, and of course, got up off my chair and left that little room as fast as I could without raising
a hair.
“Have a good lunch,” said the Captain as I was walking to the front doors, I never turned about. I quickly went back to the hotel, it was safe there now for a month I felt, and then I’d be on my way, but only a month, I needed to get out of this military infested city. I had five hundred dollars on me, and $25, 800 dollars in the back, my mother had saved for me for college, if need be I could tap into that.





Chapter Two
Paris




On Notre Dam Cathedral




I noticed the month I walked around Frankfurt, so may unhappy faces, perhaps it was because I was unhappy, guarded, looking over my shoulder. People, who are unhappy, can usually count the others that are gloomy like them. I went to Paris and found a rooming house there, a small hotel down by the banks of the Seine. I was on the second floor, and the steps winded upward like spiral stairway.
From my window you could see Notre-Dame and a few bridges that crossed the Seine. I had the sense things would be different here, it was April, 1970, and there was a coolness in the air. The phony Vietnam War was still active, and I heard they were scaling down, from 500,000 troops to 200,000 and downward from there.
I didn’t feel I existed in this city, I just was, and so I seemed to walk around the city, numb, but alive. I went daily to “Shakespeare and Co,” a bookstore where Hemingway, Joyce, and the rest of the 1920s writers hung out, and I bought some cheap books, and read upstairs in what I called their loft, fell to sleep now and then on the coach they had, and lived on books, and sandwiches, and in a cheap hotel room.
When people asked me, Americans that often came to the bookstore, asked what I did, I answered truthfully, I didn’t work, and that I had in year prior in a range of trades. I didn’t seem to sense the French cared one way or the other who I was as long as I had an up-to-date passport, and money. But this second life I was living was getting boring, I wanted to work, do something, yes I thing that is the most correct for the time, I was bored, felt discarded in a world famous city, with no regrets, but having no work to do; legally I was a tourist I suppose, so it wasn’t anyone’s fault I feared on trying to get a work permit, lest they find whom I was, but again I doubt they’d had cared, they didn’t like the Vietnam war anymore than I, but I didn’t know of what connections they had with the US Military, or what kind of information they handed over to the FBI, so I left it alone.
I drank expensive coffee at the Café de Flora; I suppose that was because Hemingway ate and drank there, it felt homelike to me. I had a few ham and cheese sandwiches there, when I felt rich, because they were not cheep, but most of the time I just ate at a local café down by Notre Dame, where I could get a meal for a buck.
I had a lot of time to do nothing, my world was empty, and I needed not be so guarded, and that had filled my time before, I mean, I felt my world was a tinge more packed, now it was that I felt ahead of time, looking for things to do. I suppose I looked at a few of the friends I met at the bookstore with desperate appeal, eyes that said, help, but they didn’t believe I really needed it so they didn’t bring it up.
I was tired most of the time in Paris, or bored, or depressed I suppose. I called it, content without interest, a time of fantasies about nothing. I talked to myself a lot. I learned Paris was not the city to be alone in.

I was sleeping in my room, and the door opened, I pretended not to notice I was tired, it was my third month in Paris (the end of July, 1970), and I was naked on my bed, it was hot. They were talking in French, I noticed as they talked to one another, all maids, they were fascinated, wither with my white skin, or me being an American or whatever, I was drowsy, one was cute the other were ok, all with white garments on. I think they were thinking was mad to lay naked, a logical madness I suppose, but they were determined to look, stare for the longest time, and I had too much boredom to stop them, nor did I care to analyze it. Then the door shut. But I had gotten a good glimpse of one.
I got up, walked down the hallway, it was perhaps an hour since they three had gone into my room, they were at the end of the hallway by the steps, I walked by them, smiled a the cute one, I think there is an animal that lives in all of us, I wanted to digest her right there, but I moved on. It consumes you with you think someone is interested in you, and perhaps they are not, just in the moment of disbelief of an event. I was thinking nonsense, I told myself, I hated such conversations with my second self, but I didn’t like drugs, but I got to liking beer and wine while on my run in Europe. And I was not so depressed I was going to take my life.
A thought passed through my mind as I walked down those stairs, I would leave tomorrow morning, go someplace, figure it out in the evening. Yes, just disappear. When I got back to my room, Carla was cleaning it, the girl I had seen, the cute one. She looked more Italian, or Spanish than, French, she spoke a variation of English and Spanish and French. I can’t write it, it is too difficult, but she was attracted to me, and it was hard not to be attracted to her. Tomorrow Morning, I told myself, or maybe a few days more.
“You take me out to a nightclub, and we dance,” she said.
“Good gosh,” I said, “why not,” I said breathlessly. She could save my boring life. I smiled a bit sadly, and I sat on my bed, and she also, I couldn’t think of a thing to say, but she was making me human again. As I looked at her, her age was about right, my age or perhaps two or three years older.
“I am twenty-six,” she said.
“I’ll be twenty three, in October,” I responded.
“Have you got somebody you like back home?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied, “my mother” and she laughed.
“Me too,” she said.
For a moment there, we didn’t seem to be so strange to each other, an interest was being painted in our minds, and then a cold something run through me, like magic, I grabbed her and kissed her. And we lay on the bed, and she took off her close, almost all the way, and she closed her self up, said, “I can’t.” I was in such turmoil, emotionally I didn’t know what to say, but laid back. And we sat up, and all of a sudden I thought, I didn’t have a visa. I mean it wasn’t hard to get, but I didn’t have one for France, and no one checked me on the train, and I was on leave when I got one for Germany, and here I was, how was I going to leave, or perhaps leave, and hope I didn’t get check, or if I did, just ask for one. Funny how things like that seep into your mind when you get rejected, and I guess she was speaking to me, but I didn’t hear her.
The next day, she turned up in my room, and cleaned it, not a word said. This time I left it is, although I knew she came in person to see me. And there I stood with a smile, in my hotel room. Carla’s friends walked by as if to see what was going to take palace, they were both more broad-shouldered than she. One was perhaps two hundred pounds, the other, quite small and thin, not sure if they were the same girls I had seen with Carla before or not.
“Stay right here,” I told Carla, and walked outside of my room, to show them nothing was happening, and they walked back towards the spiral stairway. Slowly Carla rose from making my bed, turned around and we fond our bodies to be a food from each other, and we kissed. She started to push away, but decided for what it was worth, not to. She said calmly, in her broken English, “I wish you’d stay in Paris!”
“No,” I said, adding, “Unfortunately I can’t. But never mind, I will be leaving soon.” And I let go of her, my hands were around her thin waist. I knew if I stayed too long in one place, they’d find me, and put me in prison. Carla was taken back a moment, not sure what her next move would be. We both seemed to be in a deep concentration. I felt like a worm, but contemptuously, I felt I had to live with it.



Chapter Three
Luxembourg


I said goodbye to Carla, I didn’t want to but I did, breathlessly. I didn’t go to the French consulate, or any consulate, I was going to Luxembourg, Luxembourg, with Carla’s girlfriend, a German Jew, Sandy Schmaltz, who was going there for her work, a business trip for a day or so, thirty-six hours I guess. I said I’d pay half the gas and so we made a deal. Carla said she’d wait for me to return, but you know how that goes, it all consumes itself hen the next attraction passes you by.
We passed though the border check at Belgium without showing my papers, I think Sandy saved me, by having her ready, and I being an American with a youthful diplomatic look, the guard had better things to do than to hold me accountable.
In the long term of things I knew there could be no happy ending, the unforeseen future was at best a theatrical twist, with a hopeless ending.
At the boarder of Luxembourg, the policeman at the gate had much to talk about with the girls in the car inform of us, gave us a stare, and waved us though.
“I have to go to Zurich tomorrow, if you want to keep me company, pay half the gas, meet me at the Guest house, the one I’ll drop you off at, around 11:00 AM.”
Fate had dropped me a morsel, or so I felt.
She had left, and I was talking with the landlady and her husband of the Guesthouse. We had traveled the whole night, and I was hungry, so I sat outside by a little wooden table, and she brought me coffee, bread, jam, orange juice, and poached eggs, they were not hard enough for me, but I ate them, I was hungry.
I figured I’d meet Sandy tomorrow; we’d cross the boarder to Germany and head on to Zurich. I was not inspired to stay any longer than I had to in Luxembourg, it didn’t seem all that accommodating for me.
“Not much baggage,” replied the landlady after breakfast.
“Just one bag,” I said.
I paid her the full days rent and went walking about the city. I must had climbed 100-steps up to this cemetery of sorts, and checked out the old dates on the tombstones, 1713, was the oldest, then I counted hem as I walked back down, there were 93—!

A car pulled up, an American girl poked her head out, “Come with us,” she said, we’re up for fun.”
“What?” I asked.
“Where you staying,” she asked.
“At a small guesthouse, not sure what the name is, why?” then I walked up to the car, a young American was at the wheel, and another girl in the back seat beside her, “Come on soldier, come over to our pad and booze it up, we got lots of chicks there, and it will not cost you anymore than a hotel.” And or the novelty of it I jumped into the back seat with the girls.
On the way to their apartment, she picked up another girlfriend, and she sat on my lap, no pants on, and a dress, I thought: now what, but learned it was not uncommon.
When we got to the house they were renting out, she told me her name was Karin, and she’d be my girlfriend if I lived there, but Peter was her until he left. She aid I’d not have any trouble finding a mate until then. And there was pot and other substances about. But it I felt I just didn’t fit into this scene. I stayed about fifteen minutes, walked about aimlessly, and noticed several guys, all American soldiers on the run, about to be sent to Vietnam.
“Don’t worry, we’ll find you someone in-between my time with Peter.” Karin assured me. But I continued to the door, all my fellow Americans were out of it, either drunk, or high.
A large fellow stood by the door, “If you’re not coming back, I suggest you forget this address.” He said to me in a threatening way. As if I would chance it. I smiled, said, “I don’t even know where I’m at,” and it was true.
It started to rain as I caught a taxi back to my hotel; I had the hotel’s name written down on a piece of paper. At the hotel, I bought a bottle of Mosel wine and drank myself to sleep.



Chapter Four
Switzerland


“How was your day?” asked Sandy.
I was waiting outside the guesthouse, having a cup of coffee; it was 11:00 AM. She had parked her 1967-Red VW, and walked up to greet me.
“I ended up at some club house, strangers all high on dope, didn’t like the scene, and left early, and drank myself to sleep.
“Sound more exciting than my day, just business at the local bank here, stocks, they are going down, the dollar is going down, lost $50,000-dollars, everyone’s buying marks again.”
“Some bad luck haw?” I said.
“Just the name of the game I suppose.”
“Thanks for keeping my seat,” I said to Sandy, looking at her profile as we drove off. She was very pretty, light brown hair, hazel blue eyes, a think shape, not much in the breast area, but a nice smile. She was twenty-seven years old, I, going on twenty-three.
As we drove off, I really didn’t know what too do, I peered out the window a lot, I couldn’t insistent on much either. By mid afternoon we were back on German soil, and I haply showed my German visa at the checkpoint, I think Sandy felt a bit more comfortable at that.
We stopped at the bratwurst stand, and I got out of the car, ate two down quickly.
“You Americans eat fast,” said Sandy.


My thoughts now were on crossing the Swiss boarder. As I looked out the window I saw the cars zooming by, flying by. I have to admit, the speed of the cars and the fresh air hitting my face gave me a relief, I untied my shoes, it would be a long ride.
I was annoyed with myself, thinking I should have stayed with Carla in Paris. I wanted to go back, but I didn’t, it wasn’t the money, perhaps I felt safer on the run, some kind of hypocritical happiness.
“Sandy,” I interrupted her driving concentration, moved over toward her. She answered, “What is it?”
“In Switzerland why not share a room together?
There was kind of a desperate tone to my voice; then a moment of impatience. I next, said to myself: here is now a frightened woman in a car with me, or so I thought.
“Yes, that will do:” my eye brows hit my forehead.
We both sat quiet for a few minutes. I seemed to be sweating.
“Are we in Switzerland?” I asked dumfounded, for lack of a better conversation.
Actually I could now see far ahead the stationmaster waving a flag. My companion dug into her purse for her Id. Why I did what I did I didn’t know, but I pulled out my green military card, knowing it would be better than being caught without a visa.
“You’re a soldier,” said Sandy.
“I was,” I replied.
“Well, now we are in Switzerland,” confirmed Sandy.
“Of course,” I said.
“Was a soldier,” she asked.
“I finally got out after two years,” I told her.
“Oh,” she said, a bit puzzled, perhaps because I was not providing any complicated answer, if anything oversimplifying.
“Now Sandy, I can do as I please, when I please.”
A small witness filled the middle of her closed lips, she stared at me, with unruffled calm, and at the stop sigh, and she leaned over and kissed me, lightly on my lips.
“You’re a brave man,” she said.
I was not of the same opinion.
“Americans seem always to be making war, why?”
“Lost of money in Armaments,” I said kidding.
“I quite agree with that, first time I ever heard anyone say it thought.

Switzerland was a natural country, I thought it might be safe here for a while. Perhaps the landlady wouldn’t get into my business, or so I hopped.
I took my bag and Sand her suite case, and we went into a hotel downtown Zurich. It was mid afternoon.
Downstairs, in the lobby was a heath, and six folks were sitting around a fire, lightly lit, with wine and beer, and cheese and crackers. They asked us to join them, and we did, and w sang and drank until about 10:00 PM, and went to our room to bed.
She wore a gold chain around her naked waist, and one around her ankle, and we lay in bed and made love, and we fell to sleep.
We stayed in Zurich for a week and made love for a week straight. Went to a few clubs, walked down along the river, and I bought her a music box. And we parted.



Chapter Five
Lisbon


There was a group of Japanese tourist at the small hotel I was at. The day Sandy left, they came. And after a week of getting to know them, Kiekie, asked were I was heading to, she was much older than I, perhaps in her mid thirties. A nurse she said. Divorced, It old her I was headed for Lisbon.
“Can I come with?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said without hesitation, not sure why, but it seemed I did not want to argue about it; Carla had sent me a letter also wanting me to return to Paris or perhaps meet her at another location, city.
Along with a bottle of wine, my knapsack, and Kiekie, I grabbed a couple of sandwiches from the cook at the hotel, put them in a sack, inside my knapsack, and bought a ticket, and my companion bought hers.
“You’ve ever been to Lisbon?” she asked as we sat looking out the window.
“No,” I said.
“I hear it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world?”
“I couldn’t say, “ I responded.
“Then why have you picked out the city in the first place to see.” She asked.
“A quest,” I said, “I want to see as much of Europe as I can.”
“Oh yes, I do agree,” she said in a high squeaky voice, “You Americans are like that, us Japanese, are becoming like you.”
I laughed, and said, “Let’s not worry about why’s.” She nodded ok.
Once in Lisbon, after getting a hotel room, I took her to bed, not sure why I did it so quickly, but we both wanted to. The following morning we went up to see the castle on the hill, St. George. And to the Iron tower, a café was on top of it. Off and on during the week we remained there, we went to bed like old married couples. What for, other than sex, I don’t rightly know, nothing special, nothing of any importance, but lots of company, the kind we don’t talk about.
On the 8th day, I said to her, “It is good you came with me,” I kind of whispered it, adding, “I have someone in Paris, I think I may be going back to see her.”
I felt I had to say that, I really could not have taken it any longer. Love me, kiss me, andlet’s have sex. But it was not love, it was fun and lust. Love was in Paris, or so I felt. She did leave on the next plane out, and I did appreciate her not asking any questions that long week.



End Chapter
Babenhausen Germany


Carla met me in Babenhausen, Germany, it was safer for me to be in Germany without a visa from another country, I just had to pick out a small town than Frankfurt, and Carla said, Sandy had relatives in Babenhausen and we could meet there. We met and stayed at Gunter Gunderson’s house, a spare apartment he had, and round the corner was an old tower, 1714 AD, it was built.
We stayed here for a few weeks, went down to a local bar where they had music, and. We’d dance there, the twist, and lindy, and a few other dances. Why I stayed along from her so long was beyond me, we clicked, that was love I suppose, what else it could be.
We sat down at a table, ordered a beer and sandwich, and she asked, “So you and Sandy went to Zurich together?”
I kind of gave a feeble smile. “Why don’t we just go?”
“Where?” she asked.
“This place is dead now, no more dancing…!” As I looked about, I saw many young men like me, all playing soldier, ready for war. I paid the waiter then we stepped out into the glorious night, stars over Germany were heavy this evening. We embraced, I never answered her question, and she never asked again. The night was clear, so many stars. We walked back to the apartment, and a little further up, toward the old tower, I liked it, it was dark. We stood a while in silence by the tower, across from it, a few lights from up the street. I wasn’t going to answer any such questions for her. I know she had sent me letters in Lisbon, and Switzerland but to me it was just adventures. This was the time of my life, I seemed to have one after another adventures hurled at me, and no need to destroy the normal life romances and dreams of a tormented soldier.
Zurich looked back on me, it filled my mind, Sandy was nice, and we had a good time in Luxemburg also, not much time, but a good conversation; Zurich was different, we were both lonely. Sandy gave me something I thought I had lost, not sure exactly what it was, perhaps my sense of humor, a diluted death, for before that I felt I was dropping off the face of he earth. Carla was my stimulates, my love, I liked the combination, it gave me a chemical charge, one person cannot do everything for you. I kind of wanted to buy back my life, go back into the Army, go to Vietnam, and prove myself. I wasn’t a cowered, I don’t think so, but Vietnam just seemed to me to be acid, and why be forced feed to drink it; but was I a coward? It was harder to run and hide than be disappointed in ones self.
Babenhausen was a sparkling little city at night. Carla seemed almost moonstruck, she laid her back against me, the tower across from us, her heart alive, beating fast, I looked down the street, it looked like a black hollow, a long stone wall, with foliage on top of it.
“Who are we?” I asked Carla. “I mean, if I was just a memory to you, how would you want it to be? Can it be, we are never completely the other persons? Will you ever be completely mine? Under our skulls we are a festival of things.”
“You sound like a poet,” said Carla. I suppose I felt like one.
“This is the placed Carla, we shall always remember, the place, the tower, the high-ceiling of our apartment, Paris, this is it, there will be no more to be had, our live will be the highest here. Yes I had a good time with Sandy in Switzerland, we were not afraid of life, but I always seemed to paralyze myself with I thought of you. I still do. You shock life into me.” Somehow she nodded that she understood, but I doubt she did. She smiled, and I knew she would, as long as there was no danger lingers too close.
As we made love that evening, I thought, here was a woman I barely know, met in Paris, received some letters from, uneventful past for the most part, but here we were lost in life’s power, hemmed in to each other, evaporated into each others soul, like poison.

Military Compound

A week later, the impossible happened, I went to the Babenhausen Military Compound, turned myself in, I had been AWOL for five months. What mattered to me was to prove I was not a coward. To give Carla a good memory of me, should I not make it back from a War, because I knew I was going. Yes, oh yes, that was my reason, and to me that was enough. During the following week, the military was kind I suppose you could say.
I explained it all to Carla, and she said she’d wait for me, I’d have to serve my time, I had something like 16-months to go. The summer was almost over, and I felt a little more carefree, and thoroughly unreal for I was no longer hiding, or running. I wanted to Marry Carla, but I couldn’t, not yet, not until I got through this strange situation. But she strengthen me, our feelings for each other were strong. The new surroundings intensely became real. And then I was sent to Fort Lewis, Washington state, for jungle training for Vietnam.
And during all this, Carla hovered over my mind, and she never finished in the mist, in my dreams.
After I finished my training I ended up a second time at the hospital. I couldn’t run like the other soldiers, I had dropped a bomb on it during Advance Training, after boot camp, it broke three of my toes, and I shifted some of my weight (fourteen pounds of it) from my right wounded leg to my left, thus they were in the process of giving me a deferment from war, I would be sent to another location. I didn’t like this at all, thus, when the day came to go to Vietnam, I was suppose to have been in the hospital, but I took my old orders and jumped on the plane. When I got to Vietnam, the in processing clerk laughed, said “…you’re suppose to be in the hospital in Washington, why you here!”
My eyes darted form one medic to the next, we all laughed and one of the said in a common interest, “I guess you’re here now…!” and stamped my in processing card, valid, and there I was. It was pure enthusiasm to be in a war zone, I was even delighted, but a month later I received a letter from Carla. It was hard to read the second time, and even harder the third. Two such congenial people, is it unusual to find this or not. I was now twenty-three years old.
It was a Dear John Letter, and it read something like this: I can’t write you anymore, I do not wish to have to worry about if you are alive or dead, or will return back with something missing. It is better to call it off now.
Perhaps she was right, I was healthy, and my muscles were hard, my nerves ok, but who knows, I told myself I would not write back, and I didn’t.


Epitaph

Christopher Hunter died in Vietnam, in 1971. The shadowy arm of fate caught him, reached across the jungles and set him free. No visa needed. I’m sure Carla never forgot him, I don’t know. I guess he is still laying there someplace. I went to Cambodia to find his remains, hearing he may have been in that area, I did find his lighter, at what is known as the Russian Market, in Pham Pen, funny how things work out. I still have his lighter. Who am I? I’m just an old friend that knew him.
He did tell me thought, “Carla never talked me into going back into the Army, I wouldn’t have gone had she done that. But I am satisfied.”
“Yes,” I said, “you seem to be.” He was the kind of person I would have liked to have travel with, we did sit up many a nights and talk, and he went on all those so called special missions, those I never did. We ate together, we talked and drank together, but he died alone. I don’t know of any better to say.