On my 21st birthday my grandfather gave me an army jacket. It had a hole above the right chest pocket. “Kid, if the bullethole bothers you, no problem, just ask your mother to fix it up. You know the saying, a stitch in time saves nine.” That was mildly surprising given that the jacket looked rather worn and so old I thought the hole could have been patched up right after the Battle of Bunker Hill.
The more I looked at it, the more the bullethole intrigued me. “What’s the story with the hole?” Grandpa turned away but I insisted. “There’s no sign of exit wound. The lead stayed in the body, probably flattened on a bone.”
The old man murmured something, then slowly rose from his seat and went to the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee. When he came back he turned on the TV. “Platoon” was playing, he immediately changed the channel, then it was “Apocalypse Now,” and he flipped it again. “I am looking for sports or that whatshisface reporter riding through South America on an old bike.”
“Don’t ask him about Viet Nam,” my father told me later. “He was there only for a few months, at the end game. By then pretty much everybody and his brother knew it was a lost cause. Wasn’t injured himself but must’ve witnessed some terrible things over there. All I know he’s refused to talk about it, not even to my mother.”
I decided the hole didn’t need stitching.
I had the jacket on next day when I went to the library to pick up free DVD’s. The manager first frowned, probably thinking another bum came in from the street to use the bathroom, but noticing the bullethole and my fairly acceptable personal hygiene, he gifted me with a Civil War book. “Thank you for your service,” he said.
Since then I always remember to put on the jacket when I go back, and the manager gives me another war or weapons book, thanking me for my service. Soon I’ll have my private library on how to kill very many people.
The post Hole in the Soul first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by J.S. O’Keefe.