[stylist] 'Crying' prompt response

[loristay at aol.com]

Beautifully done, Chris!
Lori



-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Kuell <ckuell at comcast.net>
To: Stylist <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wed, Mar 7, 2012 4:33 pm
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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