[stylist] 'Crying' prompt response

Wed Mar 7 20:02:21 UTC 2012

Okay, I know it's not a contest, but this one wins for me.  My friends' kids 
and my nieces and nephews are just now beginning to come of age--the oldest 
will be 20 this year.  Sounds like it's been a tough place in your world for 
the past year
or so.  I don't even know what to say so I'll end here.  Good job, as usual, 
Chris.
Barbara

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance. -- Carl Sandburg
-----Original Message----- 
From: 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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