"I want to say one thing to the veterans and military men out there. I want you to remember one thing: Never think you aren't important. You are very important."
—Jack Gutman, US Navy
Normandy and Okinawa
Veteran and PTSD survivor
"Well, I'd better hit the restrooms before we get going." Del clapped a hand on Tyler's knee, then heaved himself to his feet and shuffled towards the marked door on the far side of the gym.
Tyler didn't answer, lost in the struggle to process Del's authoritative words with the revelation that he'd probably never seen combat and hadn't even needed to pack a weapon to make it through the war.
It's always the armchair soldiers who think they've seen it all. The bitter taste in his mouth made him swallow, and he slouched back in the metal folding chair, not even caring any more whether he actually made it out of this room or not.
His lips tightened as a laugh rang out from the group of men in the near corner. They were probably a bunch of clerks and jeep jockeys, too, swapping war stories they'd heard but never actually lived, suffering nothing worse than a paper cut or a blister.
"Would you give this to Del when he gets back?"
He jumped to his feet, badly startled by Swede's quiet voice so close behind him. Twisting around, he met the other man's pale blue eyes, then dropped his own gaze to the hand held out to him. A dull gray pin balanced delicately between the thumb and forefinger, and Tyler blinked at the geometrical half circle above a triangle with stylized wings on either side.
"That's a paratrooper's pin," he said, his forehead wrinkling a little in confusion.
"It's Del's pin," Swede said. "He has a bad habit of selling off his memorabilia to help out people he's just met. We keep telling him to call one of us and we'll take up a collection, but he claims that he doesn't mind."
"Where'd he get it?"
Swede smiled, a thin, brittle expression that told Tyler the veteran heard the challenge beneath the question. "He earned it. Fort Benning with the 82nd. That's why it's so valuable. And that's why we've put the word out that if he sells it to let us know so we can buy it back."
Wordlessly, Tyler took the pin. He turned it over in his fingers, noting the little pieces of tarnish in the ridges that spoke silently of its age.
"Don't let that mild mannered exterior fool you," said Swede, coming around the side of the chair. The tension in his lanky body put Tyler on alert. "Del is tougher than he looks. He made it through North Africa and Italy. Even if that doesn't impress you, keep in mind that none of the metal he wears was given away for free."
"Didn't say it was." Tyler closed his fingers over the paratrooper insignia, the edges digging into his skin. "Doesn't change the fact that words are just words. Empty words."
The older man studied him for a long moment. "Del crossed the Waal River."
"A lot of people crossed the Waal." Tyler felt a flash of pride that he recognized the significance of the name. Operation Market Garden had been a vicious battle for control of the waterway's bridges, compounded by the entrenched firepower on the opposite shore. At stake was the continued momentum of the Allied drive. Miscommunications, lack of supplies and spotty intelligence meant that the success of the mission rested entirely on the courage and determination of the men on the ground.
Some things never changed.
"Del crossed it in a canvas boat."
Swede lowered his chin a fraction and stared hard into Tyler's eyes. His spine instinctively straightened, driven by too many occasions where noncoms and officers alike had turned something similar on him. Didn't matter where, didn't matter how many deployments he had under his belt—every single time he reflexively went to attention to avoid calling down the wrath of God on his head.
He might be slow on the uptake sometimes, but he wasn't stupid.
"Maybe you don't know, but I'm going to clue you in on something that might have slipped past you." Swede didn't raise his voice, but the sharpness in it sliced through Tyler's defenses and struck home. "Del didn't have to go."
"Too small?"
The two words slipped out before Tyler could stop them, and he cursed inwardly as Swede took a half step towards him. The older man stopped himself, shaking his head a little as if to dispel the question and the tone it was asked in.
"Del had an iron clad reason to stay home. But he chose to go and he stayed with the men no matter where they were ordered. He earned their respect, and he deserves respect from the generations who come after them. Understand?"
"Yes, sir." Tyler didn't salute, but he could fake the correct tone as well as the next guy. It would satisfy whatever bug crawled up the older veteran's ass and give Tyler the space he needed to ditch the entire affair. Uncle Hal would be disappointed, but by the time he got home tonight, Tyler would be well on his way out of Trenton. Maybe he'd head back to Iowa, or maybe he'd find some place where no one knew him, and no one would care if one day he just wasn't there anymore.
Swede looked like he wanted to keep chewing him out, but the group across the gym was breaking up as the men started moving towards the door. Chairs scraped across the tiled floor, and the older man stepped back.
"Remember what I said," he warned Tyler as he limped away to rejoin his friends.
Tyler had absolutely no intention of remembering anything about this clusterfuck of a day. Once he crossed the city limits, it would all be behind him. All that would be left would be him and the phantoms who chose to stick with him.
A movement in the shadows along the far side of the gym caught his attention, and Tyler pulled his thoughts back to the present. Del shuffled across the floor, moving with the exaggerated care of a man not quite certain of his balance. He hesitated once, stopping to turn and answer a hail from another man, and for a moment Tyler thought he saw a flash of another man, upright and strong, striding through the carnage of war.
He shook his head as Del drew closer. Nope. No matter how good his imagination was, he couldn't make that image fit with the one in front of him—the frail, stooped figure that looked like a gust of wind could knock him over.
"Why don't you quit?"
Del glanced up from the floor, slowing to a stop as his expression changed to confusion. "Quit?"
"Yeah, quit. Give up on this plastic, fake do-gooder shit and admit you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Platitudes don't bring the dead back, and they certainly don't help the living." Ty's voice was quiet, but he might have just as well not been speaking at all for the reaction he got from Del.
The old man shuffled past him, reaching for the uniform jacket folded across the back of the chair. He half-turned away, blocking Ty's view, but the younger man caught a glimpse of the somber lines of his face and felt a pang of guilt for being too harsh.
"I won't quit," said Del, his voice muffled as he shook out the jacket and slid his left arm into it. "And I won't ever give up."
The guilt turned to shock as Del shrugged the jacket over his thin frame and Ty saw the eagles on each shoulder.
Oh, shi—
Then Del shuffled around to face him, and Ty's heart plunged to the bottom of his soul as shocked realization followed it like a lightning strike. The medals resting over the old man's heart flashed in the artificial light, and the thunder of his heart pounded in Ty's ears.
Purple Heart.
Bronze Star.
Bronze Star.
Silver Star.
The darkness crowded close, the phantoms clutching at him with desperate fingers as Ty's gaze rested finally on the pins shining polished and smooth on each lapel of the old man's uniform jacket below the U.S. insignia—the unadorned crosses that explained so very much.
I didn't need a gun for the work I had to do.
The salute was automatic, his spine snapping straight once again as Ty blinked back the tears of shame and guilt that welled up from the emptiness where the memories still shifted and grasped. "Sir!"
Del returned the salute. "I will never quit, and I will never give up…"
He lowered his hand, holding it out to Tyler like a life line. "…as long as there are good men to serve beside."
Tyler looked down at the hand, wanting desperately to take it and let Del lead him back to the life he was losing bit by bit. Wanted to, but didn't know if he had the strength to make that journey.
"Little moments, son," the chaplain said quietly, "and you won't face the big ones alone when they come."
Tyler wrapped his fingers around the old man's hand, and the warmth and strength in the return clasp roused a hope in him that he never thought he'd find again.
Many years later…
Tyler Reeves held out his hand to the young man. The veteran's face was smooth and shiny where even advanced medical technology could not hide the radiation burn damage, and he looked back at Ty with dark eyes as empty and lost as his had once been, when he met an old man sitting alone in a school gym much like this one.
"Little moments, son," he said, thinking of Del, who never stopped reaching out to his brothers, even as his strength slowly ebbed and his body failed with age. "A great man once told me that little moments are where your life changes. Let me help you fight to change yours."
And he prayed as he waited, prayed that this young man would accept the offer and that he would be able to honor Del's dedication and great love by bringing another brother home.
The young man took his hand, and Tyler knew that he would face another battle, and that together they would win through.
Always together.
…Captain Kuehl, Unit Chaplain, acting upon his own initiative and without orders of any kind accompanied the 3d Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment in the initial assault wave of the daring daylight crossing of the Waal River…Captain Kuehl voluntarily remained on the flat, open shore for approximately four hours, rendering first aid to the many injured, supervising the evacuation of the wounded by boats, and aiding in the beaching of subsequent assault waves of troops. Captain Kuehl remained at his post despite the fact that he himself was wounded in the back by a shrapnel fragment and under constant automatic weapons and sniper fire…[his] presence and courageous actions served as marked sources of inspiration for all the assault troops reaching the precarious shore.
—excerpted from the Silver Star Citation
"The Chaplain was everywhere he was needed often within range and a target of enemy fire. He was always looking after and ministering [to the] men.
In testimony to his courage with the troopers in combat he was awarded the Silver Star for Gallantry in Action, 2 Bronze Stars for Heroic Action, a Purple Heart for Wounded in Action and 3 Presidential Unit Citations as part of his Regiment the 504 PIR. This is an extraordinary recognition of bravery for an unarmed Chaplain who continuously risked his life to be with his men."
—James 'Maggie' Megellas
H Company 504 PIR
"Chaplain Kuehl 90th Birthday"