August 21, 2017--Jack: Missing In Action

"I was wondering if I'd ever hear from you or see you again."

It had been a couple of weeks since Jack called or showed up at the Bristol Diner. I had a feeling why that might be, but I didn't want to let him off the hook. So I phoned to give him the business.

Sounding chipper, Jack said, "I've been busy with visitors. You know, it's the busiest week of the summer and, if you can believe it, I had 18 house guests. People were sleeping everywhere--some in the barn where I set up a kind of dorm for the young ones. They had a ball. Still are. About 10 remain. I've been running around stocking up on food and drinks and snacks." 

I let him rattle on. He never brings up domestic matters. All we ever talk about and spat about is politics. Especially how Trump is doing.

"We're having a cookout later today so I don't have a lot of time. I need to get to Hannifords before they run out of chopped meat, hot dogs, and all sorts of accompaniments. Then, over to Reilly's for corn. They have the best corn in the area and I need about a bushel. If I don't get there soon they'll run out and our friends will be disappointed. We do this every year. The corn and Mrs. Chase's pie are the hit of the weekend. So, I have to get three pies. And of course ice cream. People love Gifford's ice cream. Chocolate and vanilla for the pies. And . . ."

Since it was only 9:30 I knew there was no danger of anything being out of stock. So, I said, "I won't keep you, but we know each other well enough for me to see you're vamping."

"Vamping? That's a new one. Actually, sounds funky. I like funky."

"Meaning you're dodging the issue at hand. I would have thought you'd be all over me. What, with everything that's been going on. You of course know what I'm talking about and why you haven't been to the diner. I know about all the guests you have every year in mid-August. In fact, it's during those times that you always come to the diner. To take a break. To hide out for a couple of hours. So don't try to sound so innocent. It's not working with me. If you didn't want to talk you could have ignored my call--I assume you have caller ID. All this bull about hot dogs and corn is a distraction. But then again, you did answer the phone. So what's the story?"

Jack was uncharacteristically silent.

"You have nothing to say about Steve Bannon being fired? Nothing on your mind about Charlottesville? Nothing about what Trump had to say? His initial comments, his phony written statement on Monday and then on Tuesday at that scary news conference when he spoke about what he really believes? About all this you have nothing to say? You, who for two years haven't been able to stop talking about 'your boy' Trump? If you had any integrity you would have been eager to talk about all this. I'm sure, spouting White House spin. Placing blame on the counter demonstrators. Blaming the whole thing on the Black-Lives-Matter people. Maybe even trying to work Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton into the scenario. How it was all their fault that there was violence and murder."

I was furious about what has been going on and Jack's silence.

"So, you're just going to sit there listening to my ranting, pretending you have to go food shopping? The country is coming apart at the seams thanks to the person you helped elect and have been pimping for for two years and you have nothing to say? The world is in turmoil, North Korea hasn't gone away, nor, thank God, has Mueller and his investigators, and you're talking to me about chopped meat?"

I thought I heard Jack groan.

"I'm about finished with you," I said, almost spitting, "Either you start talking or stop coming to the diner and never call me again. I too have caller ID. I'm being serious. You have 10 seconds and then I'm hanging up." I began to count down--"10, 9, 8, 7 . . ."

"I'm also . . . " He was speaking so softly that I couldn't understand what he was saying.

"Speak up, Jack, you know I don't hear that well. I think you mumbled something." I resumed counting--"7, 6, 5 . . ."

In a hushed voice, he said, "My father, bless his soul, was in the army. In combat. The Second World War. In Europe. He landed in Normandy in the third wave. A lot of his comrades were killed even before they reached the beach. They fought their way across France. Pushing toward Germany. Then the Jerries counterattacked. It was the Battle of the Bulge. My father's division was almost surrounded. Cut off. Decimated. More buddies blown up and wounded. 

"He was only 19 years old. I have grandchildren that old. It was a miracle he made it through. Many of his guys were captured and spent the rest of the war in German POW camps. Somehow, the others managed to break out of the trap and kept pushing east. Toward Germany. Along the way, they came to Buchenwald. The concentration camp. Where he learned later 43,000 mainly Jews were exterminated. They liberated the survivors. Who were like living skeletons. More than half dead."

I could hear Jack breathing deeply.

He resumed, "My father, like many GIs, never talked about any of this. Not until he was dying from cancer. When he was 81. That was the first time I heard what he had experienced. The hardest part for him was not what happened to the boys in his platoon. That was hard enough. But Buchenwald, about that . . ."

Jack couldn't finish the story. I waiting for a least a minute, not saying anything, listening to his breathing.

Finally, he said, "Now maybe you understand." Again, he paused.

"I think I do, but I need to hear you say it."

"You're torturing me."

"Not really. I want you to tell me what's going on with you about this."

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Yes and no."

"OK. I really need to go shopping, so here goes--

"I hated, yes hated, what Trump said at that so-called news conference. He never even served though he went to military school and fancies himself a tough guy. And I wonder how many of those KKK and neo-Nazis served. My guess, none of them. Not that that's the meaning of life. Being in the army. But you can't pretend to be a warrior and hide behind deferments. Trump, I think, had four or five. But that's a distraction--about who served and who didn't. 

"The problem is," Jack continued, "that you can't, no one can, particularly a president cannot say anything whatsoever good about the Ku Klux Klan and especially the Nazis. Nothing. How are the people on TV talking about this? As Morally equivalent?"

"Equivalency. Moral equivalency."

"There is no such thing as that when it comes to Nazis. There's nothing equivalent. Nazis are evil. Anyone calling himself a Nazi today is also evil. It's that simple. Maybe those guys in Charlottesville didn't have anything directly to do with concentration camps and killing Jews. But if you're a self-proclaimed Nazi that becomes part of your baggage."

After waiting another half minute, I posed the really biggest question--"Does that include Trump? Is that also part of his baggage?"

I let a minute pass. "Does it? He's your boy. Whatever he is or isn't, he's yours. You bear some responsibility for him. I mean for his being president."

" . . . "

"I didn't hear you. As I told you . . ."

Jack rasped, "It does. It does include him."

"So what are you going to do?"

More silence.

"I don't know. I still like a lot of things about him, but . . ."

"But what?"

"Like I said, I don't know."

Buchenwald Liberation Photo