Dear Alex,
By now, Lieutenant Breckenridge has probably gotten ahold of you—he promised he would—to tell you about my court-martial and sentencing. My mail can be censored, and there are a lot of things I can’t write about now that I’m in Long Binh. I’m doing as well as can be expected. I wonder when you’ll receive this letter.
My leg is much better, but the doc said even if I wanted to go back into combat, I couldn’t ’cause I chipped one of the bones and it won’t stand for the kind of punishment a recon would put on it. He said that heavy construction work was out for me, too. Guess I’d better change my idea of careers, huh? I had thought of going home and apprenticing as a construction worker after my tour was up. I like working with my hands. A lot of hill folk go down to the city and work in the walnut factory where they make bowls and other wood products for the tourists. I don’t know if I want to spend the rest of my life cutting and shaping bowls from walnut wood.
How are you doing? Is your shoulder healing? I think about you a lot. Lieutenant Breckenridge mentioned you went round and round with your father, and that he was het up. That’s Missouri slang for being angry. I hope you’ve made peace with him and you’re now back getting ready to graduate after summer school.
I really don’t expect you to write, Alex. I just wanted to let you know I’m well and things will settle down now that I’m in prison. They gave me four months, a bad conduct discharge, busted me down to private and fined me. Aside from that, I’m alive. I want you to go on and live your life and forget about what happened here in Nam. You deserve only the best. I got a letter from Ma the other day, and she said you came to visit them right after you got Stateside. For that, I owe you plenty, gal. Her letter made me cry. They forgave me for my decision. Even my pa, who can’t write much at all (he only had sixth-grade book learnin’), penned me a few lines. I don’t know what you did, Alex, but whatever it was, they think I’m some kind of hero instead of an undesirable jailbird. Thank you, gal. You’re the kindest, purtiest lady I’ve ever met, and I pray for your happiness back in the real world.
Your friend,
Jim McKenzie
Alex sat curled up on the small sofa in the apartment she shared with two other nursing students. Tears blurred Jim’s handwritten pages. His white stationery was stained with sweat and dirt smudges. Outside the apartment, the June breeze barely moved the yellow curtains that framed the window.
Another letter, this one from Lieutenant Breckenridge, had arrived two days earlier. Alex reached down and opened it up again, her stomach twisting with fear for Jim.
Dear Alex,
Jim McKenzie was sentenced to four months at hard-rock labor at Long Binh jail, down near Saigon. I had hoped he’d get less of a sentence, but the local military machine wasn’t going to show much leniency. The appointed counsel for Jim told me after the sentencing that two years had been talked about earlier. The counsel felt all your work, the publicity and the threat of further media spotlighting of Jim’s case forced them to give him a “light” sentence. Right now, I’m in the midst of an appeal process for him. It will be slow, but Jim is worth fighting for.
What Jim won’t be able to tell you are the conditions he’ll be under at Long Binh. Deserters, malingerers (men who maim or injure themselves on purpose to get out of combat duty) and AWOL individuals are housed at this facility. All the mail is read by censors. Further, Jim can’t say anything “bad” about his jailers, the jail itself, his living conditions, or anything that might be viewed as a negative. You’re really going to have to read between the lines of his letters to glean the truth.
I’m sure Jim will get his mail. I believe the military wants this whole thing to blow over and be forgotten. I don’t think they’ll fail to deliver your mail to Jim for fear you’ll start granting more interviews.
I’ll miss Jim out on recon missions. He was one of the best, and I told him so. I also realize that each of us has a limit that, once it’s reached, we can’t go beyond. Jim reached his. I don’t see his decision as negative. I respect what he did. I just hope I don’t hit my limit. I’m going back in the bush, so this is the last letter you’ll get from me for a while, but I will keep you posted on the appeal’s progress. However, if you do have problems getting mail to Jim, write and let me know. I’ll see what I can do from my end.
Sincerely, Matt Breckenridge
Both letters lay in her lap as Alex mulled over the situation. Jim’s folks were warm, simple people, and seeing them had helped heal some of her unseen wounds. It had also increased her love of Jim, and her commitment to him. Getting up, Alex moved to her study table. She was in the middle of summer school and wanted to pen Jim a long letter before she sat down to hit the books.
June 20, 1965
Dear Jim,
I hope you know how important and wonderful it was getting your letter. I just got back from one of my summer-school classes, and your letter was waiting in my mailbox at the apartment building where I live off campus.
I realize more than you know that you can’t talk about a lot of things. That’s okay, I understand. I can’t see you spending your life in a wood factory turning out walnut bowls, either. Why not reach for the stars? Go after something that may seem impossible but really isn’t? You were so good with me when we were under fire. Your calmness, your common sense and practicality are skills not everyone has. And why think only of menial jobs when you get out of jail? You have a good head on your shoulders. How about college? I’m going to send you my college’s catalog of courses. Maybe there’s something in there that interests you. What about starting a correspondence course? Why let the time in jail be a waste? Let it be a concentrated period of learning, instead. I know you have to perform physical labor there, but surely you would have time to study, too.
I’m afraid my father and I aren’t getting along at all. He’s still “het up” over my active participation on your behalf, so we aren’t talking much. I still do go home on weekends. Mom and I get along fine, and she understands my feelings. My father’s a proud man with stubborn opinions. I wish he could bend, like you did, Jim. But I don’t think he will. Mom says with time he will get over being angry with me.
My shoulder wound is healing well. I’m undergoing some physical therapy to get full use of it, but right now I’ve got about eighty percent mobility. Around school I’m a heroine, if you will. Everyone wanted to know what happened, because they’d read magazine and newspaper accounts—which I’m sending on to you—of the crash and you rescuing me. They all think it’s neat, but I don’t. War is a terrible thing, and I try to get them to understand that. They tend to look at me sort of funny, think I’m crazy for saying it and shrug it off.
I’ve talked to my college counselor, Mrs. Riddell, who was an army nurse in a medical unit during the Korean War! So far, she’s the only one who understands what I’m going through. Yes, I get nightmares (I could hear you asking that question as soon as I wrote the above sentence!) and whenever I hear a car backfire or something, I wince. Or, worse, I break out in a cold sweat. Twice now I’ve had vivid flashes of the time we were in the jungle getting bombed by the B-52’s. Mrs. Riddell told me she had similar reactions to things that happened to her in Korea. We share a commonality.
I’ve talked to Dr. George Fielding, the head of the psychiatric department here at the college, and asked him if these kinds of reactions had been reported by men in other wars. He got so interested in my observations of my own responses that he wants me to start compiling them. I think we’re onto something, Jim. Mrs. Riddell has agreed to help me make up a questionnaire because of her combat-duty experience. I don’t know where this all is leading, but I’m bound and determined to try and help our returning men adjust after this awful war.
I enjoyed my time with your parents. Your mother is so warm and outgoing—like you. Once I had told them the whole story, she cried. Your father is a kind man, too. You have his sensitivity, Jim. He asked me a whole bunch of questions about the circumstances surrounding your decision, and when I was done answering them (hours later!), he nodded. I asked him if he was angry with you and he said no, that he understood exactly what had happened. There was this look in his blue eyes, a faraway look, Jim. I know your father was a marine in World War II, and I wonder if some terrible atrocity happened to him, too, and that’s why he understands your situation. I’m sure you two will have a lot to talk about when you come home.
I’m going to be sending you a big “care package” of material—something to keep your mind busy while your body’s imprisoned, so to speak. If you want to sign up for a correspondence course, let me know, and I’ll help you.
I’m counting the days until you get home. And I’ll be waiting for you. This isn’t goodbye. You’re not getting rid of me, Jim McKenzie. There’s so much I’d like to say, but knowing my letters are going to be read by a stranger before they reach you stops me from being too private. I hope you understand. I pray for you every night, and I know your parents do, too. My love to you.
Alex
Jim sat in his cell, the darkness chased away by lights in the aisle outside the bars. Alex’s letter sent an incredible wave of joy through him. Spread across his thin mattress was a heap of material, mostly college-related. His hands shook as he folded the pale pink stationery. Alex had thoughtfully daubed a bit of perfume on each page, and compared to the sweaty, stale air of the jail, the scent was heavenly.
His cellmate, an army private who had gone AWOL, was asleep in the upper bunk. Frowning, Jim looked at the date of Alex’s letter: mid-June. It was already mid-July. Were they holding up his mail? Probably, as part of the subtle and not-so-subtle punishment they meted out to him on a daily basis. He’d read Alex’s letter so many times that the edges of the paper were sweat-stained and dog-eared.
He appreciated the box of information she’d sent. It sure beat sitting around at night with nothing to do. Jim could stand anything except inactivity. Working hard made the daytime hours go by rapidly, but when evening fell, he felt like a trapped animal wanting to howl out his pain at being imprisoned. Night was when the full weight of his tortured conscience came to life, when he felt deeply about Kim’s death. Night was something he dreaded even more than the regular harassment from the guards.
In Alex’s box were not only several college catalogs, but paper, envelopes and stamps so that he would write back to her. His mouth curved into a slight smile. He knew the brig guards would already have gone through the contents thoroughly. Alex had baked a tin of cookies and the tin was there, but all that was in it were a few crumbs as a blatant reminder of who was in control.
Anger threaded through Jim, but he understood the mentality of the brig guards: they hated the prisoners because in some way, each had broken strict military rules, labeling them misfits. And in the Marine Corps, especially, there was no place for a misfit. The cookie tin was painted with bright spring flowers, and Jim looked at it a long time before setting it aside. There were newspaper and magazine articles about himself and Alex. Those he read with hungry intensity. One newspaper quoted Alex’s father as saying that Jim deserved a firing squad, not publicity, for what he’d done. Silently, Jim agreed that he deserved it—but for killing Kim, not for refusing to carry out a superior officer’s order to pick up a rifle and kill.
What was Alex really going through with her father? Jim wondered. He laid the items aside and thought again about her letter. It was so frustrating that she couldn’t write how she truly felt about many things, understanding that censors read his mail. He dug deeper into the box. There were several hardbound books by Carl G. Jung, a psychiatric pioneer and student of Freud. Alex had penned on the outside of the first volume:
Jim, start reading these cover to cover! I love Jung, and I love his understanding of the human psyche. I found myself in these volumes as I read them last year, and wanted to share them with you. See if you find yourself!
“Hey, McKenzie.”
Jim saw Private First Class Wood, an army guard, outside his cell. “Yes?”
Wood grinned and held up a colored photograph. “Your girl sent this, but we didn’t think you deserved to keep it.”
Frowning, Jim realized Alex had sent a small color photo of herself. He could barely make it out in the dim light. “That belongs to me.”
Wood’s smile broadened as he held up the photo. “Like hell it does. You know, those cookies she made for you were real good. Peanut butter. Too bad you didn’t deserve them, either. As for this picture...well...” He slowly tore it in two, letting the pieces flutter to the concrete floor.
It took everything Jim had not to leap off the bunk and make a grab for Wood. But he knew better. Ever since he’d gotten to Long Binh, they’d been pushing him to blow up. They wanted to find any excuse to take him into solitary, where they’d beat the hell out of him with rubber hoses. Rubber didn’t leave as many bruises as wooden billy clubs. Jim had seen other prisoners goaded beyond their limits, and the resulting beatings they took at the hands of the brig guards. His mouth compressed as Wood stood belligerently, waiting for Jim to lose control.
Jim kept his roiling emotions in tight check, forcing himself to return to the box before him and say nothing. If he said one word, he knew Wood could drag him out of the cell and force hours of calisthenics on him at the very least. At worst, Wood had his buddies waiting outside the outer door, salivating to give Jim a beating.
“What this girl sees in you is beyond us,” Wood shouted, and he took the heel of his boot and ground it into the torn photo lying on the deck.
Clenching his teeth, Jim ignored the brig guard. Under his anger, he realized with startling clarity that the picture of Alex he held in his heart could never be taken from him. His dreams about her were beautiful and poignant. They were only dreams, but they were important to keeping his sanity in this insane environment.
July 15, 1965
Dear Alex,
Your box arrived and it was a real surprise—but a nice one. Your letter meant a lot to me. Thanks for the cookies and the photograph. I’ve looked through the correspondence courses you sent along and have made a choice: sociology looks good to me. And those books by Jung are real interesting. I think I’ll read the one on dreams first, as I have a lot of those.
I’m filling out the correspondence-course forms in hope that you can help me get started. Ask my folks for the money you’ll need—I had an allotment sent home monthly since I’ve been in Nam. The money’s in a special bank account, and I know my ma can help you with that.
I’m doing fine. The leg is pretty much healed up now, and the cast comes off next week. I get a lot of physical exercise, which I don’t mind, and it helps the hours go by. I hope your father realizes the bravery of his daughter, her goodness, her courage and the hope she gives to others.
Your letters are sunlight to me. The picture I hold of you in my heart is even more important than the photo you sent. I’ll bet you’re looking forward to ending summer classes so you can graduate this September. I wish I could be there to see it all.
I’ll look forward to hearing from the college on this sociology correspondence course. I owe you so much, Alex, I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you, gal.
Your friend, Jim McKenzie
August 20, 1965
Dear Jim,
I guess our mail is having trouble reaching us. I just got your July letter. That bothers me. I’m going to make some inquiries to see if our lines of communication can’t be straightened out.
I’ve already contacted the college for you, and driven over to see your folks again. I shared the letters from you with them, and they were beside themselves. Your mother withdrew the money from your savings, and the correspondence course is paid for. You should be receiving the first lesson shortly. If you don’t, let me know.
I had a wonderful time with your folks! I spent the weekend with them, and guess what? They let me have your bedroom! I didn’t realize you slept in the attic! Your mother was so emotional when I came. She told me that I was more like a daughter than an “outsider”—you know, one of those city folk from some other state! She’s kept your room exactly as you left it. I loved seeing the photo of you in your marine uniform. It’s proudly displayed on the wall of their living room.
Your mother showed me all the wonderful animals that you’ve carved since you were a kid. I never knew you were such an artist! She has them all up on a small walnut shelf in your bedroom, and dusts them weekly. She told me the stories behind each of the carved animals, and they made me cry. But they were tears of happiness, not sadness, Jim. To be able to touch the smooth wood, to run my fingers along that wonderfully sleek surface told me much about you, your discipline, your attention to detail, and the care you take with all things in your life. My favorite is the turtle. Ma, as she insists I call her, told me that you saved a box turtle from being killed by rescuing it off the highway after it had been struck. She said the turtle, who you called Priscilla, had her shell cracked. Ma said you taped up Prissy’s shell, kept her in a nice box with dry grass and hand fed her until she got well. I cried.
Your father is so shy...he just sort of hangs back watching Ma and me. But I can tell he’s glad I came. Last night after dinner, he took me into their bedroom and showed me his old trunk. We must have sat in there looking over the contents for three hours, Jim. He told me about his six years as a marine and showed me his uniforms. How proud he is of them, and well he should be. Probably the most touching was when he let me hold the silver star he’d earned and given to you. When he told me how he’d earned it, I cried for him, for you, myself and all the people who have to fight wars. Now I know where you got your bravery. He’s also proud of the silver star you earned last year. So am I.
Your ma is swearing to make me a good Missouri hill cook! She’s been drilling me on slang, and giving me recipes like blue john and corn pone, showing me the difference between good pork bacon and fat back. I’m learning how to make the most wonderful-tasting corn bread in the world! I brought the recipe back to my mother. I’m sure she’ll love it, too.
I was sad to leave your folks, but had to get home. I’ll graduate from college in just two more weeks and become an RN. My folks will come to the ceremony. My father grumps that I should think about getting a commission and joining the navy or air force, but I told him no. I only wish you could be here to see me graduate.
I’ve sent my résumé to a VA hospital in Portland, Oregon, so keep your fingers crossed for me! I should hear shortly, Mrs. Riddell said. speaking of her, we finished off my battle-fatigue questionnaire. I hope to pursue the project at my new job. She feels it’s a worthwhile project, and so do I. And she pointed out to me that my understanding of what war can do is a plus to the patients I’ll care for. She’s right. What’s the old adage: It Takes One to Know One?
My shoulder is doing really well. I’ve got about ninety-five percent mobility back now, and all that’s left is a pink scar. It gets cranky during damp weather, particularly just before a rainstorm. Maybe I’ll be a barometer. Ha ha.
Things are settling down with my father. He’s speaking to me again, albeit stiffly. At least we’re talking. Mother says he’s got his mind on too many other things at the Hill to stay angry at me much longer. Someday, I hope I can sit down and talk quietly and without anger to him about the choices I’ve made. I wish Father could be more like you—easy to talk to. You never lose your temper, and I’m in awe of that ability.
Oh, I’m sending over a tin of homemade Missouri corn bread from your mother’s recipe. It’s a little slice of home, and I know you’ll appreciate it. You are always in my dreams, Jim, and my heart. Time hasn’t dulled my feelings for you; it’s only made them stronger. I hope it’s the same for you.
With love, Alex
September 3, 1965
Dear Alex,
I sure got your last letter in a hurry. Congratulations on your graduation! I hope by the time my letter reaches you, you’ve got that job you want in Portland. Reading your letter was like being home. I wish I’d been there to hold you when you cried over Prissy’s story, or when my pa opened up his trunk and shared it with you. I hope you know he considers you real special. I didn’t get to see anything in that trunk until I told him I wanted to join up with the marines. You’re special, Alexandra Vance. Very special in my eyes and heart.
The corn bread arrived. Thank you. I’ve received the first lesson of my correspondence course. The more I think about it, I believe sociology’s a good place for me to start. I’ve always been interested in what makes people tick.
My leg is fine now, and I’m out doing my duty a full ten or twelve hours a day along with everyone else. By the time I get back to my cell, I’m pretty tired. We don’t get much word about what’s going on out in the real world, or even here in Nam. I appreciate the magazines and newspapers you’re sending. A lot of times I fall asleep halfway through an article, but that’s okay.
I know that your being with Ma is helping her a lot through this period. I’m sure you’re sunlight to them, like you are to me. My pa isn’t one to say much, he just watches and studies people from a distance. He’s a pretty shy man, and I guess I’m a lot like him in that way. In my heart, I know your being there for both of them has eased their pain over what I’ve gotten myself into. I owe you so much, gal. Please keep writing.
Your friend, Jim McKenzie
Alex reread Jim’s letter for the sixth time, trying to ferret out the true meaning of his words—reading between the lines, as Matt Breckenridge had warned she’d have to do. The mild October breeze flowed through her newly rented home in Portland, Oregon. The VA hospital had eagerly hired her, and within two weeks Alex had moved from one coast to the other. Never had she been happier—or more lonely. This was the first time in her life she was without the proximity of her family. Most of all, she missed quiet talks with her understanding mother. Going to work at the VA hospital was helping her pass the time until Jim came home. Alex frowned. What had happened to the other letters she’d sent? Since August, she had sent five letters and none of them had garnered responses. Was Jim not getting them? Was he not answering them? Or were they holding up his mail back to her?
Frustrated, Alex poured herself a glass of iced tea and leaned against the kitchen counter. The linoleum felt cool beneath her bare feet. She worried for Jim, for the hard labor he was obviously doing. More importantly, he’d asked her to keep writing to him, as if he’d finally accepted that she wasn’t going to abandon him—no matter what. Still, he hadn’t ever signed a letter “love,” as she did.
Chewing her lower lip, Alex tried to grapple with her feelings. She knew she loved Jim. But he’d never said he loved her. Was it really a one-way street? Alex moved slowly through the kitchen and back into the small living room. She sat down on the couch and curled her legs beneath her.
Jim would be released from Long Binh in late November, according to a recent letter from Lieutenant Breckenridge. He hadn’t known the exact date, but said Jim would more than likely write and let her know. Would Jim come and see her? Would he say goodbye to her in one of his letters before he left Vietnam? Everything was so tenuous, and disappointment thrummed through Alex. She couldn’t pose such questions to Jim via letters, because of the censors. Alex would just have to wait, the hardest thing in the world for her to do. November couldn’t come too soon.