SEMPER FI, Part II

"The conditions were awful. It would rain and rain for days. Your clothes would finally begin to rot off you. We lived in a sea of mud. And the heat and bugs. Some of the guys caught malaria bad. Then the stench of death- you could taste it in your mouth. I don't really know how we did it... Had too, I guess."

John Allen Deahl is sitting opposite me in a green leather office chair. He is dressed in his uniform- the one he wears when he does color guard service at military funerals. Behind him is this U.S. Navy flag and the "Welcome Home" banner. He is squinting because of the spotlight I have set up. I am drawing in paint with a brush on the large canvas on my easel- 4 x 6 feet. I am working on the design and composition and am beginning to sketch him into it.

"Pretty soon in them conditions, you lose the idealism, you know the thing that made me go to Pittsbugh on December eighth. You just want to stay alive and you want your buddies to stay alive, so you just make up your mind to kill that Jap bastard that is tryin' to kill you. It comes down finally to killing so you and your buddies will get to go home when the whole sorry mess is over. I still have bad feelin's about the Japs. I won't buy their cars or their TV sets. I saw this commercial the other day about "Mitsubishi" cars. Mitsubishi made the engines in the planes that bombed Pearl Harbor and now they're selling their cars in this country! Crazy!"

"I didn't realize this was goin' to be such a big painting. Makin' a reg'lar production out of this ain't you, Preacher?"

I ask him, "What kept you going?"

"Well, Chloe for one thing. I kept this picture of her in my helmet through the whole thing. The idea of Chloe being here when I came back. I didn't have much of a faith when I left home, but when you see what you see out there, it makes you think. Made me think, anyhow. And, I wanted to get back home and go to work and make a life. Hunt, fish, you know."

"We saw awful things, Preacher. And, we did some awful things. Didn't seem awful then and I still think some of it is funny. We was stackin' these dead Japs one day. Just to get 'em outa the way. There was this dead Jap officer who died with this huge erection- this happens some times when people die in battle. I read once that it happens to hanging victims. Anyhow, here was this Jap officer with this big hard-on, so we just tied a little white flag of surrender to it! I still think that's funny. I haven't even never told my children the stuff I'm tellin' you."

"I mentioned this forgiveness thing, Preacher. I want to forgive these people, but I can't forget what they did. They were horrible, worse than animals- what they did to the Kid and others. What they did to prisoners in them camps. I try to forgive 'em, then I remember something and I'm right back where I started. The Bible says that God forgets when he forgives, so I reckon I haven't forgiven them if I keep remembering stuff. Whatd'ya think."

I tell him that God's forgetting is probably a figure of speech to stress how fully God forgives. God can't not remember, but he chooses to forget in the sense of not holding it against us. We can do the same thing. Forgiveness is not forgetting, but choosing not to hold things against those who have injured us or those we care about. John studies this for a minute.

"I think I like that idea. That's stands to reason about God "can't not remember." I'll think about that, Preacher. How many times will I need to come up here? Not that I'm complaining; I like talkin' with you."

I tell him that three or four sittings will probably be enough and that I can borrow the uniform to work on it and his medals and ribbons without him in it.

In the weeks that follow he talks on and in doing so I think he talks a lot of pain out of his memories- memories over fifty years old.

"There was this sky-pilot, a chaplain, who talked with me near the end about faith in God. Told me God must have had something in mind for me to keep me alive through all those campaigns and all the mess. That's when I started to pray more regular. If I got back home I wanted my life to amount to something."

"Preacher, I'm really glad you decided to do this. All this talking has done me good."

When I finally finish the portrait, I ask Chloe and John to come and see it. Their reaction is mixed.

"I thought you were going to paint him like he was back then," she says. "And he looks so sour, so grim." All John says is, "Preacher, that mole on my face is as big as a Japanese beetle!"

I enter the work in the bi-annual West Virginia Juried Exhibition. It places and hangs in the Capitol complex for three months. I hear that Chloe and John are taking friends and family every week to view the portrait. I have called it "Semper Fi."

Months later the phone rings. "Preacher!" he says. "Come down sometime today when you get time. I want to show you something."

At the end of the day, I drop by. John leads me into his den and asks me to have a seat. Then he goes to his gun cabinet and digs around in it. When he returns he has a bayonet in one hand and his Marine Ka-Bar knife in the other. "I want you to have these. But, don't tell my kids that I gave 'em to you." I am visibly moved and so is he, but he brushes it aside. "I could get into a load of shit if they knew I gave 'em to you."

Years later, I am telling another Marine friend this story.

"He must have thought a hell of lot of you to give you his Ka-Bar and bayonet."

Yes, I think he did.