Memorial Day

This is the second year we honor my brother, Denny. He was named for our Uncle Dennis Smallwood, who was killed on Iwo Jima. Today, we memorialize all those who died in service to their country.

Back in 1967, my brother’s number was up. Yes, young men’s lives were auctioned off by chance. But Denny held a religious deferment as he declared he would be a Christian minister.

Some months passed, and my father initiated a severe conversation with his son. Was he serious about becoming a minister? If not, was he being truthful with the Draft Board? Denny joined the Marine Corps.

I held nothing in my mind as to what each of them thought at the time. I wonder now if Dad ever regretted that conversation or if Denny would have reacted differently had Dad not challenged him.

Here was a guy who gave all of his body and mind in Vietnam and came home to deal with that loss. He built a radio station there and had a show. He counted bodies. He sent out endless letters as a public relations soldier. He led his men on countless patrols, and too often, he returned to base without some of them. And while he was out in the jungle-like terrain, the U.S. Military sprayed a killer defoliant. It was called Agent Orange. Denny got some of it.

Back at home, he was sent to Hawaii and then Arizona to serve as a recruiter. I never understood how he could do that. One time, when he was telling stories, he asked me, “Can you imagine being so scared that you literally climbed into your helmet? That’s what all of us felt.” It’s still a mystery to me why anyone would volunteer when there was a good chance they’d wind up in horrible conditions with guns pointed at them.

After he left the Corps, Denny suffered physically and sometimes mentally. He met periodically with a psychiatrist.

Denny was poisoned by his own country. He developed tumors in his back. He was born with only one kidney, and that one failed. He developed 5-minute seizures. I know his wife, Bev, could furnish a longer list. He spent half of his life in a wheelchair, one he could maneuver around in. In the end, he developed cancer of the esophagus, and it was untreatable.

The Veterans Hospital in Reno was semi-good to Denny. Often, they sent him to other, more suitable hospitals for treatment not available at the VA. Bev fought the bureaucracy with bear-like fervor to get him the care he needed–and deserved. She was strapped to help load him and his chair into an ill-fitted van, put him in his chair, help him to the toilet and back, and act as his 24/7 caregiver. Was she able? Not entirely, but she did it anyway.

A few months before Denny made the choice to discontinue dialysis and die, the VA declared him 100% disabled.

It took dying to get it done. Today, my brother is on my mind. He gave all.