Take a Vet Fishing

“Over there,” never leaves you.

Don’t matter none where “over there” was, “over there” sticks to you.
Sticks harder to some than others but sticks it does.

No one, NO ONE comes back not wounded, they may not have a limp you can see, but inside, inside, the inside limps are the worse, hurt you can’t see, hurt that comes out in the dark, hurt that comes out in dreams…

…pop a balloon, hurt comes back for you…

…car backfires, hurt comes back for you…

…4th of July, Independence Day for some…

…others 4th of July spent sitting up against a corner in a dark room pillow over their head, pee mixed with puke on the floor.

Don’t tell me we don’t all owe them something, don’t you dare.

Don’t

You

Dare

Candlewood Lake, CT. 5/9/23

The water is blue, the hills that surround it are a little yellow, a little brown, a little Spring green.

Calm water, calm sky.

Fishing water, fishing sky.

Good fishing day.

25 bass boats.

25 volunteer bass boat drivers.

25 veterans.

A dozen or so volunteers on the sandy beach getting ready for weigh-in, several more in a pavilion around the corner getting lunch ready, trays of pasta, chicken parm, salads, drinks, cookies on the back shelf.

The gig is put on in part by a group called Gaylord Sports Associates something to do with Adaptive Sports, in truth I don’t know much about them, met a nice young lady from there who told me some stuff about Gaylord that seemed cool…

… I don’t pay much attention to the Public Relations types but this woman when she talked to me half the time she looked at me, the other half the time I could see she was looking out at the lake…

…and the vets out there fishing.

Bottom line, I don’t know what Gaylord does, I didn’t take notes, but I do know what I’m standing in and what I’m standing in has a great deal to do with the Gaylord folks.

I could see they care, that won it for me, don’t need a 1099 on someone to know that they are vested in what they do.

Thanks Gaylord, appreciate what you do for these folks even if I’m not totally sure what that is.

Just being honest.

Eyes

The Pacific Theater…calling hand to hand combat, palm tree to palm tree fighting where you can smell the breath of the enemy the freakin’ Pacific Theater as if Star Wars 12 will be playing there next week, is simply, bullsh*t.

An advertising schmuck thought that one up I’m sure.

Call it what it is, Freakin’ Horrible, Inhuman, men crying, men dying, men pieces flying all over the place, call it the Barbaric Theater, call it Lose Your Nuts Theater, call it what it is…

…and maybe, just maybe, we’ll stop doing it to each other.

But I doubt it.

My father fought during World War II on what he would only call, “The Islands,”

Never said much about it while I was growing up punk in his house, later though when I was a father, had my own house a few states away, “The Islands” came roaring back to him over breakfast at a Denny’s back home in Buffalo.

I don’t know what brought it on, not the eggs, not the bacon, not the toast, but as I sat across from him in a corner booth I saw his face go blank, fork in hand, saw his eyes drift up and to the right…

…saw a tear land on his plate.

We were close once, we weren’t close once, we were sort of close now.

I did nothing but look at him.

Wherever he was now, it wasn’t a booth in Denny’s.

Then, in a whisper, barely heard over the clatter of a Denny’s at breakfast, head looking down at his plate came one word drawn out into two long syllables.

“Lu…

…zon.”

Luzon, the Battle of Luzon, Philippines, The Pacific “freaking” Theater.

“Luzon…Donnie…”

I was in Denny’s.

He was still on Luzon…

And then my 70 year old father started crying.

Candlewood

Through my telephoto lens I watched the boats come down the lake…

A few boats turned left and headed to the “new” dock where some wheelchairs were parked…

Other boats turned right and beached on the sand.

The weigh-in tent, filled with “oh’s” some “ah’s” as the fish were put on the scale.

Three pounders, four pounders…and a 6+ pounder that everyone crowded around to see.

In time all the fish were put back into where they came from, all the boats loaded back onto trailers, short drive around a sweeping corner, into a parking lot and under a pavilion filled with picnic tables…

I snuck a cookie and started walking around, some of the anglers I just said Thank You too, I’m sure they had no idea what I was thanking them for, I knew though, I was thanking them for…

…Freedom…

…safety…

…and special thanks for my 4 decade career…

…and Freedom of the Press.

And then I sat down with a couple of them.

Listened to them.

Thanked Them personally.

Now you too can…

…Meet Them.

They are your neighbors.

The old man on the front porch down the street.

The middle-aged lady who walks her dog past your home.

The young man who charged you for your slurpy, the waitress who brought your food, the pilot who flew the airplane to your vacation island, the nurse in the ER that told you it will be okay, the doc on your floor explaining what’s wrong.

The Vets are not giants with big clubs nor Vikings with horns in their hats. They don’t run the 40 in Olympic time, don’t lift 100’s of pounds in one upward jerk, they are just normal us, ordinary arse folks who signed up to do extraordinary things.

They protect us, protect our loved ones and their own, they protect us whether they actually like us or not. They protect a Buffalo Bills fan the same as they protect a New England Patriots fan…even a Miami Dolphins lover.

You may pass them in the grocery aisle or take a seat next to them at the Triple Double Wild Cherry slot machine and never know the person next to you swore an oath to guard you as if you were family.

And that’s key, because, of course, we are all family, here.

No matter the color of your skin, no matter your religious beliefs or the language you speak, or the country you live.

We are all family, if you are human, you are one of us…in fact when you look at our DNA, you, me, that guy in the car next to you, or the lady in line in front of you…your DNA is 99.9% the same as everyone elses on Earth.

THE SAME.

Yep.

We are all related, without the tax deductions though.

Meet Joe Kawalski

These folks are here today because of the work of Joe Kowalski, a good buddy, a man with rugged edges soothed by a gentle heart.

Joe is a good friend, he brings to me an overwhelming sense of caring for fellow veterans.

“I’ve been doing this for 16 years now, end up taking 20-25 vets out fishing every year from all over Connecticut.” Joe, a Marine, served from 1980 until 1993.

Joe, or “Sarge,” as he is known to most, runs a non-profit, a LEGIT 501 (c) (3) charity called: The Maj. Steven Roy Andrews Fishing Outreach Program. (https://www.fishingoutreachprogram.com) “For veterans it gives them a way to deal with issues from their service, be it mental or physical ones.”

In the last 16 years he has taken 357 vets from all branches of service out fishing, and that doesn’t include the tournaments like the one put on today…you could probably add another 200 or so vets to the total if you count the tourneys.

For those who keep count of things, the day’s winning weight was 20.39 pounds, lunker of the day was a 6.56 Smallie.

So, you know, I chose to not interview any of the vets who took part in this event…

…I did write down some names but left without doing any interviews.

I felt that the last thing these folks needed was a reporter asking questions, I got all the answers I needed from their faces, not their resume.

To those in Journalism now, to young folks about to get into the biz, remember this…you are a human being first, never lose your compassion for others, never only see the story and not the person attached to it.

God bless these folks, today would be a day of peace for them.

There you go.

END

It is always to the blue we come, to the water that gives life to this rock in space.
Candlewood is a manmade lake, some 8.4 square miles of blue, 40 feet deep most places.
And to it these vets come every year for, as Sarge told me, “It’s like therapy when I fish, for them too you know.”
Therapy.

My father survived Luzon but Luzon came home with him, was a part of the family at times but he survived it because the light he had within was stronger than the darkness that swirled around him.

For these vets the blue water helps keep the fire within them lit.

This story is dedicated to all those vets whose soul can not forget what their eyes have seen, all are wounded who bear witness to war, some wounds are apparent, many are not.

And for Dad, this story is also for you…

…may you rest in peace…

…with all those who stepped onto Luzon…

…with you.

Love,

db…jr.