Those Who Came to Die

By Kwame Toshambe

Most stories start with the words In the beginning, something happened a long time ago. There was a great country, and if we could turn back the clock and watch the years, months, and days go idly by, we could make time do our bidding. We could start with the Assyrians, Babylonians, Julius Caesar, and Cleopatra. Maybe we will find out why the Sphinx was built and who is entombed within it. There are a number of other dynasties that were created by time, and those who rose to power and then by the magic of time were only names written in some history book that some researcher may read on some sunny afternoon in a classroom, in a library or maybe archived in a distant land, where one or many are doing research into the rise and fall of those who wanted to rule over the dreams of others and perhaps we might end up with. Who knows, with more than just a thought.

With great power comes great responsibility and challenges for the future. During that time of the building of a nation, there are many problems externally and internally. That nation, endowed by its victories over tyranny and regimes that rule with fear and intimidation, can only survive if those who fought for the freedoms somehow gave them up to the few who want power all for themselves. And from the Bible, Greater hath no man than those who would give their lives for their fellow man. Greater love for liberty and the pursuit of what makes the populous happy. Sometimes the leaders of the populous wants what somebody else has or they want to force upon them, their beliefs (Manifestos).

I read something that I would like to quote:

Better to be poor with integrity than rich and crooked in ones ways, desire without knowledge is not good and whoever acts hastily blunders.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543465471

Kwame Toshambe

My name is Kwame F. Toshambe, sergeant, US Air Force, retired. I served in the Pacific and the European theater. My education was a flat zero. I have a GED that I acquired while serving with the armed forces. I attended local colleges when I wasnt on duty. Then I was hurt and could no longer serve. I returned to school, and I got a job at Grumman Corporation. While there, I was assigned to work as an engineering draftsman on all the aircraft they manufactured for the navy. I am proud to say that I, along with approximately 375,000 or more, worked on the LEM (Luna Excursion Module) that landed a man on the moon and returned him safely to earth. I was married, I had two kids, a boy and a girl. What G-d gives, he takes away for reasons that may become known to me one day. My wife was taken, as were my brothers. I was left with two sisters; one is a nurse, and they both look after me. I have some cousins and nieces and nephews. I am not alone in the world, and most of all I have my fellow vets and their stories to make the days come and go. I have some medals but I am far from a hero. I am told that twenty-two vets take their lives everyday. The question is why? I dedicate this book to all my fellow veterans.

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Copyright © 2017 by Kwame Toshambe.

Library of Congress Control Number:          2017917441

ISBN:              Hardcover                 978-1-5434-6549-5

                        Softcover                   978-1-5434-6548-8

                        eBook                        978-1-5434-6547-1

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Rev. date: 12/12/2017

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CONTENTS

Introduction

The Intern

On Foreign Shores

Once Upon a Time at the VA

I Want to Leave

Do You Want to Shoot Me?

Frances

Another Dusty Road

Studee Remembers

The Month Is November

Forty-Third Bomb Group

Nurse’s Corp

Lola in the Military

Marla and the Lieutenant

Who Is Mina?

Munitions Handler

Mission Alpha

They Called Her Mary Jo

Martha

Nurse Gee G

Bernie

Did They Come to Die?

This Is Echo Calling

This Is Gamma

Ladies Pass in Review

Bernard

The Beginning of the Storm

Olga

The Never-Ending Story

They Who Came to Die

Backward Shall We March

Subhead Here?

Christmas Is Over

The Dusty Road

Charley

A Thought

Jodi, Flight Attendant

Mark

Albert

The Lieutenant

Subtitle Here?

Flight 109

Touch and Go

Her Name Is Marla

Serenity

Was It a Vision?

Glocca Morra

Peter Finnegan

Heroes We Aren’t

Harry

Thelmersa Lucinda

Immortality

Who Am I?

Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen

Samuel

The Evening Nurse

Shotgun Wedding

The Life and Times of Private Thomas L. Callwood

Through the Looking Glass

Anthony

A Vet Named Ralph

Dialysis Today

A Few Words and a Thought

A Vet on Guard

Mildred and Frank

A Hospital

My Fair Lady

Lorena’s Notes

A Private

The Battlefields of Life

Subtitle Here?

Our Jeffrey

Community Living Center, Nursing Home-

I

dedicate these vignettes to the following:

• Joe Studerman, whose input made this book possible.

• All the staff at the dialysis clinic.

• All the veterans at the Northport Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center. There are too many to name, but each one was an inspiration. Every day, one of the vets would say something that became a vignette in this book.

• All the nurses, cooks, and janitors and other staff at the Northport VA.

• My family, including my cousins, nieces, and nephews.

• The patients at the Community Living Center (CLC) and the doctors, nurses, and aides.

• Julia, who feeds Mike and me.

I hope my fellow veterans will remember me.

INTRODUCTION

Most stories start with the words similar to the following

In the beginning, there was a great country; if only we could turn back the clock and watch the years months and days go by. We could start with the Assyrians, Babylonians, Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. Maybe we would find out why the Sphinx was built and who was entombed within it. A number of dynasties were created, and those who rose to power had their names written in history books. Many centuries later, some researcher would read about them on a sunny afternoon in a classroom or a library in a distant land.

Today, many researchers are looking into the rise and fall of those who wanted to rule over the dreams of others. With great power comes great responsibility. A nation in the process of being built faces many challenges and problems, externally and internally. The nation that emerges victorious over tyranny and regimes that ruled with fear and intimidation can survive only if those who fought for freedom do not seek to hold all the power themselves. The Bible says, Greater hath no man than those who would give their lives for their fellow man. Sometimes leaders want what somebody else has or they force their beliefs, their manifestos, on the people.

Better to be poor with integrity than rich and crooked in one’s ways; desire without knowledge is not good and whoever acts hastily blunders.

THE INTERN

She was a person with educational ambition, studying for a PhD in psychology. There were many with whom she could have chosen to parry her thoughts, but she chose to conduct her thoughtful inquiry in those areas where learning was more than an interrogation about someone’s educational background.

This was a group meeting, with three or four patients at the table, but the doctor was not there. Some of us wondered why. Perhaps it was a test to see if the intern could conduct the meeting and take notes.

We talked about many issues that affected our lives at the hospital and things in general. Many veterans had problems that were beyond the confines of the institution. The patients wanted to know what she, the internist, wanted to know about them. Sometimes a more direct question leads to an answer. If the query is about people’s activities while they were serving their country, the answer would be less direct.

She learned that if you ask a vet how many enemy combatants he’d killed, there would be a moment of silence, a period of thoughtful recollection about time and events. He might make up a story with some embellishments. Either he killed a large number of people or he didn’t kill anyone at all.

There are those who can’t kill—the conscientious objectors. They are making a statement against war. They wear the uniform but refuse to take weapons in hand. In truth there is no peace on earth and good will to all men— just violence for violence’s sake—and yet we serve. Why? Just a thought.

ON FOREIGN SHORES

Vets have been to many places over the decades, including some where the sun sets and the moon rises almost simultaneously. Vets call them the lover twins, that is, you can’t have one without the other. Much has been written about the harvest moon and the setting sun, but in the places where the vets were stationed, there were no dances to go to and no ladies with orchid corsages on their dresses. The only musical notes came from firing cannons, and the drums were the marching feet of soldiers beating against the gravel, sounding like one, two, three, four; never more, never more.

Winter was coming, so we looked to see the leaves of the passing summer dance across the earthen floor. I called it a waltz in three-quarter time.

There was a slight chill on the windowpane, a redness in the sky. And the dancing leaves gazed at the setting sun, which has reached its summit early. It was a sign that the days of summer would soon end., and the giants of winter would be upon us. Worry not what tomorrow will bring. Remember that in some place it’s an early spring.

Today is tomorrow’s history, and tomorrow’s events are yet to be. Yesterday is the history that is being written as today.

It’s just a wistful thought, with a smile.

Spring, summer, winter, and fall—all things in this existence seem to remain the same. And we ask our elders and the church, What is the meaning of it all? Were we placed here just to kill, maim, and destroy? And one day in the distant future, will we plant our seeds on a distant star? And then begin again. It’s just a thought.

ONCE UPON A TIME

AT THE VA

At night, someone calls out, Help me! The moonlight reflects the tears streaming down the side of his face. He is a World War II vet, after some reflective thought, he says, How could she leave me after all these years? How could she leave me here? What did I do that was so wrong? Can someone help me, please?

On this night, one can hear this tale of woe, but it has happened many times in the past, and perhaps will happen again in the future. The choices we made, way back when, are now affecting the ones who made promises in the moment, promises diluted by the passion of the night. Promises were made by many, but in the light of day, it is clear they were not meant to be kept. They had many faces, these men who forgot for what and for whom they fought—the little ones. They fought for those who dreamed in secret, hoping that their dreams would stay up where sweet dreams and nightmares hide. In the light of day, they hid what was said in the height of passion, in the moment, in the darkness of the night. They hid what was said amid the passionate groans of pleasure.

In a moment, you forgot the little lady, your kids, the house with picket fence that needed painting and the bedroom door that squeaked when you tried to tiptoe in, not wanting to awaken your child bride. She was the one whom you promised—in the presence of family and friends—to love for all eternity. Perhaps it was just a promise made in the moment.

What goes up must come down. Landing can be hard. In the night, the songbird sings a whale of a tune: What did I do wrong? These men did not believe they did anything wrong; they didn’t break their vows. They found themselves in a magical moment where all things were temporarily forgotten. They made love not to a person but to the idea of love and the passion that went with its dream. The women they slept with were faceless. They were from another country, another culture. The men thought, This is now, and tomorrow we may die. This is but a moment.

On the ceiling in many rooms are movie screens, but these are magic screens, for they look back into the past. As the vision clears, one can see a distant shore after a pounding by heavy guns and planes hitting targets that the enemy thought could not be destroyed. Under the cover of night, some commandos go ashore to take care of enemy installations that could not be hit from the air. The ship’s sixteen-inch guns make all opposing forces fade away.

The landing goes well. The opposition is light, and the troops march through the streets. People cry, Hail, hail, the Americans are here!

There is dancing and drinking, more dancing and drinking, and when you awaken, there was someone lying beside you. You know that she is not your wife. That headache is the least of your worries, not your wife’s face in you head. Then you remember you were in a distant land, and you were not at home. When your head cleared, you thought, This is war, and these things happen. Except there wasn’t any love; just an empty bottle that once held booze. You want to wake up, and although you try, you cannot. This is real.

This is something you can’t write home about. There is a lot of truth in the saying, I wish I were dead. You wash your face, and drag yourself back to your company.

In the days that follow, you see a lot of Michelle. You feel there is no harm in a little off-duty activity. But all good things must and do come to an end. Like most GIs, you tell this little midnight matinee that you will write. You make promises and plans, and you tell her stories about this wonderful land across the sea, where all men are free to build and dream and raise a family. You tell her that you have to go. You tell her that are things you have to take care of back home. You are telling her the truth: that you will write and, when the war is over, you will return. The only thing is you don’t know her last name, and her address is the bar or the joint where you met her and the little room near the base that you got for her, where you and she spent many a night talking about all the things that you would do. All that bombardment has given you a lapse of memory, that is, a memory about a wife across the big pond.

The eventful day comes; it is time to go. There’s the last night together, which people make movies about. The promises, the promises.

As you pack your bags and talk to your fellow men-at-arms about what you’ll do when you get back home, the memories of the nights that you spent with the little flower fade little by little. As you board the plane, the cities and towns get dimmer and dimmer in your thoughts. You cannot remember the name of the bar.

The plans you’d made fade as the plane gathers speed, and as it gains altitude, the villages below turn into very small dots, and the promises grow fainter and fainter, until they are a memory, and then nothing.

The skyline of the United States appears over the wing. There she was in all her glory, our lady, the Statue of Liberty.

Your aircraft passes over the skyscrapers, which seem so close that you can almost reach out and touch them. The pilot announces that a ballgame is being played. Our America, a beautiful sight to behold. Over the loudspeaker the pilot says, Buckle up; we are about to land. Then the aircraft touches down and the brakes grab hold of Mother Earth. You are home. The land of the free.

Nurse Adelaide comes in the room, and your movie on the ceiling ends. Adel wants to take your vitals, blood pressure and temperature.

She asks, What were you looking at on the ceiling?

You reply, after some thought, Just a promise, just a promise I made in a land far away.

As Adel leaves the room, she says to Mel, the World War II vet, Your wife’s lawyer is here. Do you want to see him?

What lawyer? Is this some kind of joke? What the hell is going on here? First she dumps me here and I have to see her lawyer. If this is a joke, I am not laughing! he shouts at the nurse.

The lawyer leaves some papers and a picture. Mel sits up in bed, wondering, What picture? It was a photo of a man who was approximately thirty-seven years old and next to him was a little lady—the reason for the divorce. On the back of the photo two words are written: You promised. And there’s a letter with three scrawled words Here’s your son.

Can someone help me? Mel cries into the night.

Reader, Mel is one of many veterans who were left holding onto nothing more than a lot of ancient memories after the promises they made caught up with them in the twilight years of their lives. It’s just a thought.

I WANT TO LEAVE

His name is Studerfrank. He weighed approximately 150 pounds, and he was ninety years young. He had worked all his life after serving his country for a number of years. He woke up one morning and discovered that he was old. He said to himself, How in the hell did this happen? Looking into the mirror, he said to himself, G-d, I am old. He didn’t remember how it had happened; where did the years go? "One