As I sit here enjoying the crash and rumble of an early morning summer storm, my thoughts wander to other moments and places and a sense of calm and peace has crept within me.
My mind embraces the days when I was a soldier.
I recall the driving rains and steaming heat of Panama and long weeks of isolation spent guarding the locks, dams and vital installations against sabotage.
I recall the day my first child was born and the look of happiness and satisfaction in my wife's eyes as I drove her and our daughter from the hospital to our Fort Kobbe quarters.
I remember the harshness of the Korean landscape and the shivering cold winter and the stifling parch of summer. I remember sitting in a fox hole and waiting.
My mind's eye pauses on a scene of the snow capped Bavarian Alps and I see men with backs bent from heavy rucksacks breaking trail in hip deep snow to reach the top of the next mountain peak.
A crash of thunder and the sound of the rain suddenly transports me to the rice fields of south Vietnam's Mekong Delta and I can smell the thatched roofs of the huts and feel the tingle of danger.
The pleasure of this reverie is made sweeter by the emergence of faces of fellow soldiers I served with long, long ago but, as I enjoy the moments, I ponder the questions:
Why do I remember the gift of a can of C ration spaghetti from Gil Neuman one cold, black night 41 years ago in Korea?
Why do I recall the long days on Fort Benning ranges with Rod Kasper and Pete Soukup 37 years ago?
Why to I recall the hot cup of tea shared with Mike Mohar and Dave Grayson on a lava bed drop zone in Sardina 33 years ago?
Why do I remember the warm bottle of root beer given to me by Private Ky after a battle near Can Tho 29 years ago?
Why do I remember a bugle playing Taps over the Plains of Fort Riley or the echo of a drum beat of a marching band at Fort Bragg or a cup of coffee with a classmate at Fort Benning or the exhaust flames of a C119 disapearing in the distance or the Stars and Stripes snapping in the breeze at Flint Kaserne or a helping hand during a night movement in Turkey or the firm handshake of a friend departing Fort Leavenworth or Bill Bond's Shined Boots, Helmet and M16 at Long Binh or crying while holding a dying comrade?
Why do I remember these moments, places and people? Because they live within me to make me who I am and if I forget these moments, these places, then I may no longer remember who I am!
So, I remember when I was a soldier and I feel alive again.
De Oppresso Liber!
Ben F. Ivey, Jr.
Soldier
(7 December 1927 - 27 February 1998)
Written by Ben on 27 June 1994