Jim Dyer died in April, but the news of his death and his formal obituary bracketed Memorial Day. That was fitting, for although the former state representative, state senator and Marine did not fit the official definition of those we remember on that holiday, he nonetheless should be.
Veterans Day recognizes all who served in the U.S. military. Memorial Day is to commemorate those who died in America’s wars. But there is no holiday in the middle. Perhaps Memorial Day should include the wounded – and it seems to me that just about anyone who went to war is in some way wounded.
Writing in The New York Times, Kayla M. Williams, a former Veterans Affairs official and Iraq veteran, addresses that. Today, there are more things that kill people slowly – Iraq burn pits, for example.
So is suicide. Williams wrote that in 2020, more than 6,000 vets killed themselves. How many of those deaths resulted from war? Yet, Williams said, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial lists only names of those who died within 120 days of being injured.
A guy called Fuzzy comes to mind, as does my father. Neither were killed in combat.
I met Fuzzy in the fifth grade. He joined the Marines right out of high school and was sent to Vietnam. To understand what happened to him there, ask a vet about “Willy Pete.” And keep your eyes on his face.
Willy Pete stands for white phosphorus. It erupts into flame spontaneously in contact with air and creates starbursts of white smoke. It is used as a marker, an incendiary and as an anti-personnel weapon. It produces gruesome wounds.
Fuzzy was in a combat area when he was sprayed with white phosphorus from the middle of his thighs down. He was treated in a field hospital, a hospital at a base and on a hospital ship. He was then sent to a naval hospital in Oakland, California.
My then girlfriend and I visited him there. His bed was done up like a Conestoga wagon and bare bone was visible on his shins. He did not lose his legs but there was little about them that resembled human limbs. He had a good life after that, just never in short pants or hard shoes.
My parents met before World War II. And I have mementos that demonstrate their love throughout the war – marble bookends engraved with my mother’s maiden name and “Italy” and “1944,” as well as an oil painting of her done in Austria from my father’s snapshot.
In three years of war, my father was never really wounded. But my parents waited for two years after his return before getting married.
They waited until they could be reasonably sure he would not dive under the altar if a passing car backfired. He had malarial shakes for 20 years after the war. It was only later that I heard the truth about his war – like the stench of the concentration camp at Dachau. I came to understand that much of what I saw growing up was post-traumatic stress disorder.
I liked Dyer and respected him, but we were not close. I have no idea if or what demons visited him.
I do know what Fuzzy and my father went through and after three tours in Vietnam, I cannot imagine that Jim’s deepest thoughts were always as cheery as he presented outwardly.
Cigarettes got Fuzzy and my father. I suspect that for Dyer, it was the calendar as much as anything. Nonetheless, guys like them deserve to be remembered as much as those killed in battle.
Bill Roberts was a former Opinion editor for The Durango Herald from 1990 to 2017.
