The Tis Bottle - Part Two
This entry was posted on December 19, 2007 1:47 PM and is filed under the troops.
The Tis Bottle is a short story written by R. Richard Higdon. R. Richard is a combat-harden Vietnam Veteran; a Marine who I met a Hines VA Hospital in Maywood, Illinois. The Tis Bottle is a story he wrote more that 18-years ago. It is his dream to have this short story published and to get it out to the troops. I thought I'd start by publishing the story on my blog, and then fulfill his dream by printing copies and passing them out to the troops once our tour starts. Not one word has been changed or edited. Be sure and scroll down and read part-one first.
Enjoy part two of "The Tis Bottle"
"Jer, I've seen you pull those little bottles out from inside your gas mask, protected by the folded rubber, many times in the field. And always after the most difficult times; our guys getting zapped. Booby traps so horrible that our men beg to die as they lay impaled upon punji sticks. Mortars and mine fields that blow our guys to bits. Hand-to-hand combat, where our guys get bayonets stuck through their throats and genitals. Ambushes that slash us to ribbons with cross-firing machine guns precisely aligned, cutting off any avenue of escape. Our guys on sentry duty that when dusk descends to dawn, lay speechless in frozen agony; their throats slit with K-bars and piano wire. American servicemen screaming amidst the still night air having been captured and tortured. A flair interrupts the darkness as we desperately run towards the vanishing sobs of terror. Our frantic arrival is always the same; too late, and we realize that it could've been us as we gaze at the leftovers that was once a human being ... butchered by the same.
Many more untold atrocities too terrible to mention. A few of our men go crazy, some go AWOL and still others inflict injury upon themselves to insure evacuation by chopper to the nearest hospital.
Yet, all the while you get stronger. If the CO told you to go and flush out 50 Viet Cong from the jungle, you wouldn't bat an eyelash. You'd return the second hour, the second day or the second week ... whatever time it takes to zap 50 Viet Cong. You wouldn't return until your mission was complete. Even if you were starving, you'd live off the land. If you suffered from fever or heat exhaustion, you'd find a rice paddy and heal yourself, even with the enemy nearby. Somehow, you would survive. I've never seen you scared. I've never seen you frightened. I've never seen you tremble. You always know what to do, when to do it and how to do it. You're the perfect killing machine and the perfect survivor all rolled into one, yet you carry all the wars burdens upon your shoulders. Man's inhumanity to man, makes you sick to your stomach. Yet, somehow, you are able to rise above it and still do your job without anything effecting your performance. You've already extended five more months, so you've been in Nam for eighteen months altogether, and I'm sure you want to stay longer.
The regular tour is 12-months and 20-days and every man is counting each single, never-ending day. The last 52-days they use a 'short-timers deck.' One playing card is thrown away per day until one is left holding the Ace of Spades, which is the last and final day. Hell Jer, I bet you haven't counted down one day since you've been here ... nor do you intend to. You don't drink, you don't smoke and you don't bother with sex. I bet you haven't had one day of R & R since you've been in Nam. Maybe your purpose is different from the rest of us ... I don't know. I do know that you hate this war and that "killing" and "glory" you hold with equal disdain. So, if all of your talent and effectiveness as a soldier stems from those itsy-bitsy bottles, then I wish for 100,000 of them to disburse to our men so we can win this war, get the hell out of here, and go home.
Bill, realizing that he was becoming emotional, forced a poker face, "Jeron, hang in there and get well." It worked perfectly ... only the trembling lip and quaking voice wasn't in unison with the expressionless, non-caring face.
"I'll do that Bill Johnson," I said, reading my friends inner struggle. "And tell our fire team that I'll be back with them at Con Thien and Chu Lai very soon."
On that note, Bill smiled, gave me a "thumbs-up" and quickly vanished through the sickbay door with a simple, "Catch ya later." The churning emotion that comes from sharing the same hell and feeling closer than brothers went along with us.
In spite of my objectives, I was shipped out a few days later on the USS Repose. When I hit the shores of the good ole' USA, I was placed in a stateside military hospital. A few months later, my body having slowly healed, I was released from the hospital and shortly thereafter my Marine Corps enlistment ended. I returned to Chicago on my twenty-third birthday, 17 November, 1967. I visited the orphanage in La Grange, Illinois, located at 339 South Ninth Avenue, where I had grown up from preschool to high school graduation. I was placed in the orphanage after my father and mother had died when their Volkswagen overturned on the way home from the circus. Although I was only four, it seemed like yesterday. My father had almost forgot to pick Mom up from a teachers meeting at school. I had survived the crash despite losing a lot of blood. May God rest their souls.
I thought the surroundings of the orphanage would have a familiar comforting effect. I glanced at the cement based flagpole two stories tall remembering as a young boy, when I raised the gigantic flag at dawn and lowered it at dusk. In all those years, I never let it touch the ground.
I realize that too many things had happened since leaving the orphanage at seventeen until the present age of twenty-three. I recalled a famous movie celebrity visiting Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, and declaring, "... what a wonderful place to live, with all the freedom that a person could possibly desire." They nicknamed her "Hanoi Jane." She also said the United States was at fault for contributing to the escalation of the war in Vietnam.
Another incident occurred when two American officers, arriving via commercial airline, were returning home from Vietnam. While they were waving from atop the roll-away stairs, they were killed by anti-war sympathizers. A feeling of intense discomfort swelled within me. I quickly reached for my carrier of empty bottles and held them gently within my grasp. The fourth compartment had remained vacant. I still was in constant search for the Tis bottle.
I was accepted for employment by the Illinois Central Railroad at their headquarters; Roosevelt Street Station, located at 12th Street and Michigan Avenue in Chicago. I was now at least earning, if but a pittance, to carry on my quest. During the weekends, I would frequent the antique stores and flea markets searching for any empty bottles hoping to find the Tis bottle. After exhausting all of the Chicago and suburban facilities, I expanded my vigil to cosmetic bottling factories, pharmaceutical bottling laboratories and garbage dumps. When this failed, I began traveling to various cities and towns throughout Illinois, including nearby states, as well as rural routes and major municipalities. True, I could have had a Tis bottle formed by a local glass blower, but I wished to find it among the billions of bottles that already existed. I am being driven by an inner passion that is compelling me to continue my search so that I may realize a profound purpose that is much greater and of truer worth than my inner self. Life's many paths are varied ... often with traps, pitfalls, and swindles. Every person, whether of riches or squalor, when the disguise and pretense is removed, is but a fragile seeker of purpose amidst life's blessings and misfortunes. And yet, a frail, brittle seeker can be transformed into a strength of reinforced-forged steel, solely from the proper selection and quality of his purpose.
As the years rolled by, I felt as if I was a stranger in a foreign land. I had known that many Vietnam Veterans became alcoholics while others checked into mental hospitals. I was desperately trying to understand if the American people considered us outcasts or if our own mind and conscience were guilt, inducing ourselves because of the delicate balance of intangibles that are needed to kill our own specie and then look in the mirror, smile and say, "okay, we now can like ourselves!" I reached for my carrier of bottles, holding them gently within my hands. I wish I knew that answer.
It is November 1986, twenty-years have pass since the war ended for me. I am taking a "Tis bottle seeking" day off because today is a very special day. Today, I am attending the Vietnam Veterans Parade downtown on Michigan Avenue. I didn't march but I heard former General Westmoreland's speech honoring the living and the fallen. Although I was suppose to have felt relieved, the speech was almost as painful as the war itself. There is a replica of "The Wall," in Washington D.C., on display in Chicago. It's black, mirror-like surface engulfed me as I gazed at the inscriptions of soldiers that had died; their names etched in gold. I stared in awe at the seemingly endless columns of names, each name representing an entire human life, extinguished because the price of freedom is often purchased with the blood of its believers.
My eyes scanned the columns, standing taller than I, as the black reflections took on a foreboding presence of serious finality. Its monumental, grandiose structure invoked a mute silence. Human words could not describe the feeling ... it is beyond life, yet larger than death, My gaze abruptly halted upon a name etched in gold ... L/Cpl William Johnson.
My mind reeled, hoping that maybe this was a different Bill Johnson from the one I knew. I turned and walked away as I reached for my bottles, squeezing them gently.
Enjoy part two of "The Tis Bottle"
"Jer, I've seen you pull those little bottles out from inside your gas mask, protected by the folded rubber, many times in the field. And always after the most difficult times; our guys getting zapped. Booby traps so horrible that our men beg to die as they lay impaled upon punji sticks. Mortars and mine fields that blow our guys to bits. Hand-to-hand combat, where our guys get bayonets stuck through their throats and genitals. Ambushes that slash us to ribbons with cross-firing machine guns precisely aligned, cutting off any avenue of escape. Our guys on sentry duty that when dusk descends to dawn, lay speechless in frozen agony; their throats slit with K-bars and piano wire. American servicemen screaming amidst the still night air having been captured and tortured. A flair interrupts the darkness as we desperately run towards the vanishing sobs of terror. Our frantic arrival is always the same; too late, and we realize that it could've been us as we gaze at the leftovers that was once a human being ... butchered by the same.
Many more untold atrocities too terrible to mention. A few of our men go crazy, some go AWOL and still others inflict injury upon themselves to insure evacuation by chopper to the nearest hospital.
Yet, all the while you get stronger. If the CO told you to go and flush out 50 Viet Cong from the jungle, you wouldn't bat an eyelash. You'd return the second hour, the second day or the second week ... whatever time it takes to zap 50 Viet Cong. You wouldn't return until your mission was complete. Even if you were starving, you'd live off the land. If you suffered from fever or heat exhaustion, you'd find a rice paddy and heal yourself, even with the enemy nearby. Somehow, you would survive. I've never seen you scared. I've never seen you frightened. I've never seen you tremble. You always know what to do, when to do it and how to do it. You're the perfect killing machine and the perfect survivor all rolled into one, yet you carry all the wars burdens upon your shoulders. Man's inhumanity to man, makes you sick to your stomach. Yet, somehow, you are able to rise above it and still do your job without anything effecting your performance. You've already extended five more months, so you've been in Nam for eighteen months altogether, and I'm sure you want to stay longer.
The regular tour is 12-months and 20-days and every man is counting each single, never-ending day. The last 52-days they use a 'short-timers deck.' One playing card is thrown away per day until one is left holding the Ace of Spades, which is the last and final day. Hell Jer, I bet you haven't counted down one day since you've been here ... nor do you intend to. You don't drink, you don't smoke and you don't bother with sex. I bet you haven't had one day of R & R since you've been in Nam. Maybe your purpose is different from the rest of us ... I don't know. I do know that you hate this war and that "killing" and "glory" you hold with equal disdain. So, if all of your talent and effectiveness as a soldier stems from those itsy-bitsy bottles, then I wish for 100,000 of them to disburse to our men so we can win this war, get the hell out of here, and go home.
Bill, realizing that he was becoming emotional, forced a poker face, "Jeron, hang in there and get well." It worked perfectly ... only the trembling lip and quaking voice wasn't in unison with the expressionless, non-caring face.
"I'll do that Bill Johnson," I said, reading my friends inner struggle. "And tell our fire team that I'll be back with them at Con Thien and Chu Lai very soon."
On that note, Bill smiled, gave me a "thumbs-up" and quickly vanished through the sickbay door with a simple, "Catch ya later." The churning emotion that comes from sharing the same hell and feeling closer than brothers went along with us.
In spite of my objectives, I was shipped out a few days later on the USS Repose. When I hit the shores of the good ole' USA, I was placed in a stateside military hospital. A few months later, my body having slowly healed, I was released from the hospital and shortly thereafter my Marine Corps enlistment ended. I returned to Chicago on my twenty-third birthday, 17 November, 1967. I visited the orphanage in La Grange, Illinois, located at 339 South Ninth Avenue, where I had grown up from preschool to high school graduation. I was placed in the orphanage after my father and mother had died when their Volkswagen overturned on the way home from the circus. Although I was only four, it seemed like yesterday. My father had almost forgot to pick Mom up from a teachers meeting at school. I had survived the crash despite losing a lot of blood. May God rest their souls.
I thought the surroundings of the orphanage would have a familiar comforting effect. I glanced at the cement based flagpole two stories tall remembering as a young boy, when I raised the gigantic flag at dawn and lowered it at dusk. In all those years, I never let it touch the ground.
I realize that too many things had happened since leaving the orphanage at seventeen until the present age of twenty-three. I recalled a famous movie celebrity visiting Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, and declaring, "... what a wonderful place to live, with all the freedom that a person could possibly desire." They nicknamed her "Hanoi Jane." She also said the United States was at fault for contributing to the escalation of the war in Vietnam.
Another incident occurred when two American officers, arriving via commercial airline, were returning home from Vietnam. While they were waving from atop the roll-away stairs, they were killed by anti-war sympathizers. A feeling of intense discomfort swelled within me. I quickly reached for my carrier of empty bottles and held them gently within my grasp. The fourth compartment had remained vacant. I still was in constant search for the Tis bottle.
I was accepted for employment by the Illinois Central Railroad at their headquarters; Roosevelt Street Station, located at 12th Street and Michigan Avenue in Chicago. I was now at least earning, if but a pittance, to carry on my quest. During the weekends, I would frequent the antique stores and flea markets searching for any empty bottles hoping to find the Tis bottle. After exhausting all of the Chicago and suburban facilities, I expanded my vigil to cosmetic bottling factories, pharmaceutical bottling laboratories and garbage dumps. When this failed, I began traveling to various cities and towns throughout Illinois, including nearby states, as well as rural routes and major municipalities. True, I could have had a Tis bottle formed by a local glass blower, but I wished to find it among the billions of bottles that already existed. I am being driven by an inner passion that is compelling me to continue my search so that I may realize a profound purpose that is much greater and of truer worth than my inner self. Life's many paths are varied ... often with traps, pitfalls, and swindles. Every person, whether of riches or squalor, when the disguise and pretense is removed, is but a fragile seeker of purpose amidst life's blessings and misfortunes. And yet, a frail, brittle seeker can be transformed into a strength of reinforced-forged steel, solely from the proper selection and quality of his purpose.
As the years rolled by, I felt as if I was a stranger in a foreign land. I had known that many Vietnam Veterans became alcoholics while others checked into mental hospitals. I was desperately trying to understand if the American people considered us outcasts or if our own mind and conscience were guilt, inducing ourselves because of the delicate balance of intangibles that are needed to kill our own specie and then look in the mirror, smile and say, "okay, we now can like ourselves!" I reached for my carrier of bottles, holding them gently within my hands. I wish I knew that answer.
It is November 1986, twenty-years have pass since the war ended for me. I am taking a "Tis bottle seeking" day off because today is a very special day. Today, I am attending the Vietnam Veterans Parade downtown on Michigan Avenue. I didn't march but I heard former General Westmoreland's speech honoring the living and the fallen. Although I was suppose to have felt relieved, the speech was almost as painful as the war itself. There is a replica of "The Wall," in Washington D.C., on display in Chicago. It's black, mirror-like surface engulfed me as I gazed at the inscriptions of soldiers that had died; their names etched in gold. I stared in awe at the seemingly endless columns of names, each name representing an entire human life, extinguished because the price of freedom is often purchased with the blood of its believers.
My eyes scanned the columns, standing taller than I, as the black reflections took on a foreboding presence of serious finality. Its monumental, grandiose structure invoked a mute silence. Human words could not describe the feeling ... it is beyond life, yet larger than death, My gaze abruptly halted upon a name etched in gold ... L/Cpl William Johnson.
My mind reeled, hoping that maybe this was a different Bill Johnson from the one I knew. I turned and walked away as I reached for my bottles, squeezing them gently.