[stylist] 'Crying' prompt response

[Robert Leslie Newman]

Chris

The thing I like about your story, is how you the author showed the feeling
side of all your male characters. American men, too often are portrayed to
be too much of one type or another, but we (the best of us) are
multidimensional, strong and tough, but also with sensitivity,
responsibility for others, and with the ability to tear-up with real emotion
for the beauty and/or the sadness of life. Thanks for the men who can live,
feel and learn.

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Chris Kuell
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2012 10:19 AM
To: Stylist
Subject: [stylist] 'Crying' prompt response


 

Johnny Get Your Gun

 

By Chris Kuell

 

I sat working at my computer on the morning of April 4, 2011. When the phone
rang, I listened to the caller ID, which gave a familiar 423 area code. My
friend Susan in Tennessee.

 

"Hey Susan-how's it going?"   

 

Susan answered with her usual, "Hey Chris," drawing out Chris with her
Southern twang until it was almost a three-syllable word. Then she sniffed
and I knew something was wrong. "Jonathan. Jonathan stepped on an IED."

 

I can't say with any certainty what she said right after that. It's
absolutely amazing to me how fast the human body can react. Within the
course of a millisecond or two, tears filled my eyes, my blackened visual
cortex turned a translucent gray and a sheen of sweat covered my back and
chest

 

".two days ago. He's alive, but he's hurt real bad."

 

I steadied myself enough to try to give my friend some comfort over her son.
I learned that Jonathan had been flown to Germany where doctors were trying
to stabilize him. Despite the military's suggestions that she sit tight and
wait, Susan was getting on a plane to Germany later that day. She asked that
I pray for her son, and to please ask everyone I knew to pray for him too. I
assured her I would, hung up, then fell to pieces.

 

In June of 2003, I talked my family into driving me to West Virginia for a
three day writing conference. I had been toying with the idea of trying
freelance writing, and decided to attend the conference to learn, to
network, and meet other writers. My wife drove the 680 miles, and as I got
out of the car and stretched my back, a woman got out of the car next to us.

 

"Hi," she said. "I'm Susan."

 

We exchanged pleasantries over the course of the conference, Susan being one
of only a handful of people not put off by my blindness. 

 And then she sat across from me at the Saturday evening banquet and we
really got a chance to chat. She was working on a novel about a strong
Southern woman in a bad relationship, and after attending a seminar for
first time novelists, I felt juiced up to start a novel about a
working-class family dealing with Alzheimer's. I learned that Susan had two
kids, a boy and a girl like me, and our sons were both eleven.   

 

After the conference we emailed each other and critiqued each other's work.
We developed a weekly writing challenge to urge each other on, and became
good friends in the process. I saw Susan again at the 2004 West Virginia
Writer's conference, where I consumed a little too much authentic West
Virginia moonshine and she helped pilot me back to my room. We talked on the
phone, and I heard about her husband losing his job, her daughter's
pregnancy, and her son Jonathon advancing belt by belt through his karate
classes. At the 2007 conference, we both pitched our novels to a New York
literary agent. He shot me down, but Susan was one of only three people out
of 52 to get a full manuscript request. 

 

The following year, as summer approached, Susan called me in tears. Her
son's best friend had been found that morning dead in his room. He had died
from something called Robo-trippin', which I'd never heard of. Apparently,
he and Jonathan had both downed an entire bottle of Robitussin cough syrup,
which is purported to give the consumer a buzz. He was fine when Jonathan
and he parted ways the previous evening, but his heart failed in the night.


 

This was the start of a downward trend for Jonathan. His grades dropped, he
quit karate, he started staying out late and partying with the type of
friends Susan and her husband wanted him to stay away from. 

 

He managed to graduate high school, barely, and was continually fighting
with his parents. As a graduation gift I sent him a copy of Cormack
McCarthy's 'The Road' and 'What Color is My Parachute' in hopes he might get
some direction in life. I also sent him a seven page personal letter, which
he probably threw out without reading. The truth is, I wasn't all that
different than Jonathan when I was his age. I once talked my best friend out
of killing himself on a long, dark night, and I always had the drive to get
myself through college, but I wasn't exactly law-abiding with Rhodes
Scholars for friends.

 

Jonathan went to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville for a semester in
the fall-his parent's choice, not his. He was sent home after one semester
and asked not to return. 

The following spring the cops pulled him over and busted him with beer and
an ounce of weed in his car. He spent the night in jail, then Susan and her
husband bailed him out. In court he was found guilty of possession with the
intent to distribute, driving under the influence, possession of alcohol
while underage, and a handful of assorted traffic violations. The judge
fined him $2500 plus 100 hours of community service. Jonathan told the judge
that what he really wanted to do was join the service. The judge agreed that
if Jonathan did, he'd waive the fine. Jonathan completed his community
service, and a month later was a United States marine.     

 

This seemed to have a positive impact. When he came home from boot camp, he
was a changed man. He was proud and respectful and except for picking up the
habit of smoking cigarettes he was the perfect son. When he returned for
more training, he found, as is the case with many a country boy used to
shooting squirrels out of trees with a .22 at a hundred yards, he was a good
shot. A real good shot. Uncle Sam decided to turn Jonathan into a sniper.  

 

He trained, learned about the latest weaponry, laser scopes and where to
place a kill shot. On January 18, 2011, he and the rest of his regiment left
the good old USA and landed in Afghanistan. Seventy-four days later, as
Jonathan himself said, "I was walking a path where 200 other guys had walked
before me, and I was the unlucky sum-bitch to step on the mine."

 

Although I'd never met Jonathan, I couldn't get the image of him out of my
mind. Susan had said he'd lost most of his left foot, and all the bones in
both legs and his right foot were shattered. As I dwelled on that image, the
sadness would hit me like an iron mallet and I'd find myself crying again.
When my wife came home from work, I couldn't get through the story without
losing it yet again. Why was I having such a powerful reaction to this kid,
this punk really, who I'd never even met?

 

Firstly, it wasn't just any kid, but it was the son of a good friend. He was
my own son's age, and while they were walking very different paths in life,
I could still imagine the pain of every mother and father who had lost or
nearly lost a son or daughter in this terrible war. As of August 2011, there
were 4,700 deaths and nearly 33,000 American troop casualties in Iraq and
Afghanistan, most of them soldiers between the ages of 18 and 22. And for
what? Is the world a better place? If so, only slightly. Any gains are
precarious at best, and certainly not worth the cost. 

 

As a parent, I can imagine no greater pain than the suffering or death of my
children. Give me cancer, Parkinson's, muscular dystrophy, chop off my legs,
but please God, leave my kids alone. I know that tragedy knocks on
everyone's door, but I'd bargain anything I could to keep it from my kid's
porches as long as possible. As I'm sure most parents would.  And when I
open my heart to it, I can feel all those parents pain and sorrow.  

 

I thought about Jonathan, a mere nineteen years old, and the entire trauma
that he's already experienced. First was the death of his best friend, which
he must feel guilty over, yet never received the mental health therapy he
undoubtedly needed. This caused him to act out, and his folks, being
Bible-belters, tried the 'spare the rod and spoil the child' approach to
parenting-which of course, failed miserably. Jonathan rebelled, got into
deeper trouble and took what I thought at the time was a reasonable step by
joining the Marines. Then, just as he was feeling like his life was on track
again, he found himself thrust into the horror of war. By early May, he was
at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, his left leg amputated below
the knee, his right leg full of screws and rods, both legs and hips encased
in plaster while he healed. At least, physically.

 

There is a small ray of sunshine amid the bleakness of this story. By all
accounts, the medical attention Jonathan has received from the US Military
has been superb. Unlike the horror stories of wounded soldiers lying in
their own waste, infected wounds left untreated at Walter Reed during the
bush administration, Susan was invited to come and stay with her son, which
she did for three months. That gave them time to heal their personal wounds
and grow closer. Despite his protests, Jonathan had long sessions of
physical therapy every day. Two custom prosthetics were made for him-one for
everyday use and one for doing athletic activities. When he was able, a
group of wounded soldiers and their families got to sit in the first row
behind the plate at a Washington Nationals game. They went to New York City
for a weekend to tour and see a Broadway show. They were flown to Las Vegas
for a weekend. Jonathan has had his picture taken with a dozen or more
celebrities. Tim Allen makes it a practice to stop by Bethesda Naval
hospital (Walter Reed was officially closed last August) as do Holly Hunter
and Gary Sinise. They walk around and chat with the wounded soldiers, which
really makes their days. I can't say how proud I am that my tax dollars are
used to help and care for our wounded veterans.      

 

Three weeks ago Jonathan was skiing in Colorado when he got a phone call
from one of his Marine buddies. At boot camp, during training and for his
short stint in Afghanistan, Jonathan had made two close friends-Harrison and
Mathews. Harrison was the first person to get to Jonathon and applied the
tourniquet which probably saved his life. The other guys had completed their
yearlong tour and returned to Camp Merrill in Georgia in early February,
2012. A week later, safe on US soil, Harrison shot himself in the head. The
phone call was from Mathews. Jonathon caught the first plane he could and
attended the funeral in full military uniform.   

 

At this point, Jonathan is patiently waiting for his discharge. Despite his
parents urging, he doesn't believe he needs to talk to a psychiatrist or
therapist. He is thinking again about attending college, or perhaps a trade
school to learn to be an electrician.  

 

What happened to Jonathon, who turned twenty last fall, wasn't ordinary

y. Yet, it was truly devastating, and I'm not sure he's dealt with all the
ramifications. It's also not a huge leap to worry what might befall my own
son, although there's no danger of him stepping on an IED. Last year two
students died at UConn (where he goes to school); one was stabbed at a party
and another was hit by a shuttle bus. A few years ago my friend Becky's son
died at 19 of a drug overdose. A few weeks ago another friend's son was hit
by a car while riding his bicycle home from a party. He's still in a coma,
but doctors have said they anticipate he will be fully paralyzed. He's just
twenty-four years old. 

 

These kids, these beings we love into existence and then give them our
hearts. We do our best to watch over them, to teach them, to urge them to be
smart. but there's only so much we can do. Entropy, or chaos, is part of
what keeps this planet going no matter how much I fear or loathe it. Tears
will come, they'll be wiped away, and somehow we have to find the strength
to carry on.

  

7 March 2012 



 
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