Dead Men Walking

The old man tottered into the exam room, deftly placed his cane against the chair and took a seat. It was our first visit together. I was his new doctor.

“Good Morning, Sir!” I greeted him.

He rose to greet me with a firm handshake. In spite his 93 years, his wizened, proud bearing and firm grip betrayed a distant past.

We discussed a few formalities and then I asked him if he had ever served in the military.

“U.S. Army, 1944-1947,” he responded.

“What theater?”

“Pacific. New Guinea, Philippines, and Occupied Japan.”

He went on to tell me his story. A slight kid. 5 foot 2 inches, 120 lbs. He begged to enlist in spite of his 4F status. He was the only military-aged male left in his small rural Virginia town. The embarrassment was too much. He finally convinced a recruiter to turn a blind eye and before he knew it he was slugging it out in New Guinea. Due to his small stature, he became his unit’s “tunnel rat.” His job: descend into enemy tunnels armed with a knife and revolver and clear the tunnel. It was harrowing work.

From there, it was the Philippines with McArthur and more of the same.

“Does one day or moment stand out as the most difficult time for you while you were there?” I asked.

His response was halting and teary eyed as he described awakening in his foxhole in New Guinea one night to see his best friend’s throat slashed right in front of him. His friend had dozed off on watch, only to be overcome by a Japanese infiltrator. After killing his friend, the Japanese soldier leaped upon him. He vividly recalled the glint of Japanese steel covered in his buddy’s blood coming down on top of him. He twisted just enough to evade the full brunt of the knife, quickly dispatching the Japanese soldier with his own knife tucked under his ruck sack. “That was my toughest day.”

“How about your best day?”

A smile broke across his face. “That’s easy. 6 August 1945.”

“I thought it would’ve been August 15, VJ day.”

“Well, that was a good day too, but 6 August was my best day. It was the day Truman dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.”

“Why was that day the best day?” I inquired.

The old man’s countenance turned grim. He continued. “We had heard of the carnage on Okinawa. And we are all in the Philippines training and preparing for the invasion of Japan. None of us expected to survive the invasion. We were ‘Dead Men Walking.’ And when we received news of Hiroshima, a glimmer of hope rose up within us that we might, just might, see our families and girlfriends again. We had hope again. We were alive again. It was a really, really good day.”