by Brooke Palmer
I was sitting in the park, working, writing, when I noticed a vagrant older man standing nearby, looking at me questioningly. “I am not a bad person,” he said, and I thought that was a prelude to him asking for something, for change or cigarettes. But I did not respond and so he timidly approached my blanket and sat in the grass near me, but knowingly not too near, so as not to make me uncomfortable. He was timid like a stray cat who knows not to trust people from bad experiences, but who still wants love and attention.
“I’m Daryl. I’m 56 years old and I don’t know what to do with me life. I don’t know what to do with my life.”
“I think a lot of people feel that way,” I answered.
“Maybe not so many, maybe not so many,” he answered. “I just don’t know where to put my life, I just don’t know where to put it!” (He looked on the verge of tears).
He began to remove something from his bag. “Do you mind? It’s just milk.” he asked, as if I needed to give permission for him to drink his milk. “Well, I’ve got some beer in here, too, but..” he trailed off. He felt a need to explain himself, that he was only going to drink milk and not beer, yet he felt the need to be honest and admit that the had the beer. I said no and he began to drink his milk, filling his gray beard with white droplets.
“I do a lot of reading and a lot of writing.”
“What do you write?” I asked. I just happened to have my laptop and an interview just happened to happen.
“Stuff about Cambodia mainly. But I don’t do nothing with it! I don’t do nothing with it!”
“You should give me some writings, I publish a magazine,” I said. He didn’t really respond to that but began to tell his story in vague ramblings. I could sense that he wanted me to write it down. He wanted me to record what he had to say, to care enough to record it.
“What did they do with my captain in Cambodia? Nobody knows? What did they do with my sergeant? Know body knows. What did they do with my whole patrol? I don’t know where to put my life. Lt. Rogers from Maryland. He never came back to America. Staff Sgt. Summers. He never came back. I remember this stuff. I remember this stuff. And that’s what’s so bad. I remember it.
“Barney from Buffalo. Michael from Luckabrouck, Texas; he never came back. They are dead. We were doing a thing for the army. I was marine core. We did something for the army and all of us never came back.
“Where did they take the second marines? They took us to Cambodia is exactly where they took us. My Lt was Lt Rogers. My commander was staff Srg. Conners. There was Michael, there was Brain.
“For some reason, thirty something years later, does anyone give a heck-darn? Does anyone give a heck-darn? People should have returned that should have returned. Why has it hit me today? I really do not know. The last two weeks, the last two weeks, it’s killing me!”
He drinks milk and head is down.
“Why did I come to Texas….I don’t…why am I in Texas? There was something I need to do and I don’t remember what it is, I really don’t. I really don’t. There was some…..I need to do, and I don’t know what it is.
“Barney, his name is Barney, from Buffalo NY. Brian is from Kenton, Ohio. I remember that because that’s where my daddy’s from. There’s a lot that went on in Cambodia that nobody knows. A LOT. Lady, I was there, I was there, I was there. A lot went on that shouldn’t have gone on. Does anyone ever give a heck darn about it? Probably not, probably not. I do. That was in 1971, 1972.
“Now listen to what I’m saying because it’s gonna happen all over again. We had China, we had Russia, there was what we called the NVA, and what we called Charlie, which was the normal people that lived in the community. Everybody hated us. I went to two places up north that were bad, bad, bad, bad places. One was called Kayson Quinetree. I don’t know how you spell it but that’s how you pronounce it. Quinetree. When we left out of Danang to go up there and nobody could figure out what to do, what to do, what to do, and nobody could figure nothing out, nobody could figure nothing out.
“So they sent us to Cambodia, and we’re shooting people and we don’t even know who we’re shooting. Cambodia is going on at the same time as the Vietnam War was. But nobody knew what the hell was going on. Nobody knew. I didn’t even know and I was in the Marine Core.
“Ma’am, I’m gonna give you my service number. It belongs to my name, nobody else’s name, it belongs to me: 2649120. That’s my Marine Core military number. My social security number is 408866458. Do these numbers do anything for you now? I was in the Marines for 1969, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74. Those numbers don’t do nothing for me today. They don’t do nothing.
“My name is Daryl Daherty and I was in the Marine Core.”
He gets up and gathers his milk and chips and begins to walk off.
“Ma’am I’m not a bad person, I’m really not.”
“I wish you well,” I said.
“I know you do,” he responded, and walked off. By the time I finished writing this part, I looked up and he was gone.
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