Walk for Warriors, Epilogue

Still dressed in my walking gear and drenched with sweat, I climbed aboard the old truck and floored it so that I could reach Vicksburg by 2000 hrs. Piece a cake.

I have become very fond of the all that is the South. I love the smell of the rain hitting hard upon her fertile ground; the trees, heavy laden with the moss of wisdom and pain; her second gear tempo and the thick and savory gravy that awaited me whenever I sat down for supper. Her voice, soft and measured, serenaded me with rounded tones of, “’Yes sir,’ ‘No Ma’am,’ and ‘God bless you.’” No one paid any attention to the color of my license plate and I felt welcomed under her heavy bow, on the banks of her streams that ran cool and slow with unsweetened tea.

I crossed the Chattahoochee in my dream state and pointed myself in the direction of Montgomery. A surprise to me, Alabama was so clean and well run. Even the ubiquitous forests that filled up all the empty space in the state were well defined and squared. In between the forests of uniform height and density there were towns and factories and examples of disciplined human activity. I passed by a Mercedes factory, a Hyundai factory, paper mills, and a steel mill all of which struck me for some reason as incongruous.

My eight days in southern Alabama were pleasant and provided me with some time at beaches and flat ground upon which to gain mileage. My hang-outs of Perdido, Pensacola and Gulf Shores had inviting coastlines of fine white sand and warm gulf water. Then of course there was the oil spill and the workers toiling in the hot sun and their bosses who looked upon my questions with disdain and antipathy. Globs of red-brown goo floated ashore and mixed with the normally clear, blue-green waters to produce an opaque liquid that no longer resembled something worth diving into.

Once, back in Mississippi I felt comfortable, more at home. Driving past Toomsuba I thought of the local Baptist Church, all pink and clean, and the red earth under my feet. I wondered if the platoon of horse flies with the bad eyes knew I was coming. Driving through Meridian so fast made me wonder if I had fallen down on a previous promise made to her. The counter man at the gas station on the outskirts of town said, “Oh, Meridian is okay but if you want a real city, Jackson is the place.” I was too tired to argue the point. I knew what I wanted from a place.

By the time I entered Vicksburg the sun had dipped below the Mississippi and my eyelids wanted desperately to join it. I took the first motel I could find and stumbled into the room knowing I had to finish my final post entry summarizing the day at Fort Benning. I started typing as a hard knock on the door announced the arrival of a grotesquely over-sized Dominoes pizza and a twenty-ounce Coke was handed to me. I kept thinking as I wrote, “Now where did I put that Alka-Seltzer?”

Crossing the mighty Mississippi always held a mythical ring to it. My crossing was done as the morning gray still covered the land. I drove slowly over the bridge between Mississippi and Louisiana without regard for anything beyond looking down over the railing to see the giant swirls of current and a barge stuffed to great height with the refuse of historic Vicksburg. The thought came into my mind of how I would use those powerful currents to save my life if I should fall into her vastness. That thought was quickly replaced by the utter enjoyment of seeing the neat furrows of Louisiana farmland again.

On my way to Rustin I stopped in at a Love’s gas station and convenience store. As I paid my tab for gas and a small bag of hickory flavored jerky a soldier walked in with a 10th Mountain Division patch on his shoulder. I approached the Sergeant and asked, “Good morning Sergeant, are you in the 10th Mountain?”

“I was sir but now I’m done with all that. I am a recruiter here.”

“Congratulations,” I said to him for having survived multiple tours in Afghanistan.

“My son is in the 10th,” I said as he stretched out his and to shake mine.

“Well, tell him, thank you for his service.”

“Thank you and best of luck to you, Sergeant.”

As I have said, I prefer having the sun at my back while walking or driving or doing just about anything. The light is always best when it shines from behind. Louisiana allowed me my preference as I drove by signs that read Lake Bistineau, Lake D’Arbonne, and Claiborne Lake State Park. I was pleased to say goodbye to these forests and lakes that had allowed me such solitude and mileage under their parasols of green. I remembered details of swarms of dragon flies and seeing big fish in shaded waters. I was transported once again to the antebellum barber shop in Homer and enjoyed hearing the gossip about people I would never meet.

Soon I was gliding over the Red River at Shreveport which meant that Texas was no more than a stone’s throw way. Texas loomed as the great expanse over which I had to steam both coming and going. I broke it up into sections in my mind so as to not fret about how many miles I would have to travel. First there was Marshall, then Tyler, then Dallas. I figured if I made Dallas by noon I would be in El Paso by ten o’clock.

I only know one strand of Texas that includes Lamesa, Abilene, and the great greens of East Texas, but I know enough to say that I really love Texas and Texans. Meandering through and around the parks on the eastern shore of Wright-Patman Lake provided me with a great sense of solitude and quiet. The lake drew me in to where I could watch the birds on the water and the fish crashing the surface in chase of bait fish. My daily conversations with Park Rangers, policemen, farmers, pipe fitters, waitresses and laborers with muddy boots kept me in touch with the Texas universe.

I will never forget being stopped by two octogenarians who leaned against the fence on CR 96 to tell me their stories which included accounts of friends and relatives who had endured the Bataan Death March. I was walking in the middle of nowhere and found two friends who wanted to talk a spell even as a thunderstorm readied itself to cry a river.

Everywhere I went I became a strange conduit to a military story: A World War II enlistment, a brother who lost a limb in Iraq, a pilot’s tale of training in Coronado’s North Island in the run up to the Korean conflict. This was not something I experienced exclusively in Texas. On the contrary, every place I landed I encountered some story of personal sacrifice during a time of war. I was in the heartland of America where joining the Armed Forces was something you just do.

The drive from Abilene to El Paso had me skirting floods and thunderstorms for hours. Every once in a while a black sky would appear for thirty minutes and dump its charge right over me, making me slow down to a crawling twenty miles an hour. Sometimes I couldn’t see ten feet in front of the truck. I listened to local radio and found out that it had flooded up in Lubbock and was threatening to do the same in my old haunts of Seminole and Lamesa.

I was in the rolling hills and escarpments of that region for a couple hundred miles. Sometimes the sun would burst through the black and startle me. The scenery was a mix of roaming cattle and oil wells with those rocking horse pumps going at it non-stop. I heard a radio show out of Lamesa talking about how the county comptroller was fixin’ to spend two million dollars for a new jail. It was a lively debate that kept my interest until I slipped in a CD of the “Working Man’s Dead”. I cranked up the volume when a live version of “Easy Wind” played.

Night had fallen and I knew that El Paso was just around the bend. Big rolling eighteen wheelers blew by me like I was standing still. What did I care? I knew I would arrive at the time I was meant to go to sleep. El Paso lay before me as some wonderful Norteno music blared on the AM radio. Shimmering lights blurred before me as my energy had been drawn down to sleepy time. I took the first hotel room I could and asked the night clerk to please wake me at 0345. “No problem, Senor. I will be glad to call you.” Somehow I knew he wouldn’t call. No matter, at exactly 3:40 AM my internal alarm went off and I was out on the road at exactly 4:00 AM.

As I drove by the exit to Picacho Road in Las Cruces I waved to my friends Phil and Nellie. I had thought of stopping by to say hello, but they might not have appreciated a visitor at such an early hour. I recalled listening to Phil and his pal J.J. talking about all those bombing runs over meaningless targets in North Vietnam during their war. All in all, I could tell that with everything that happened to them and their comrades, they had the time of their lives flying fast and tempting fate.

From the first moment that I decided to make the journey across the country for wounded warriors and their families, I kept the singular goal in mind: make it all the way to Fort Benning. Each day was about the walk. Anything else was secondary. My banner was the yellow Team Fisher House jersey that I wore whenever I felt a special need to share my purpose.

My morning routine of brewing the coffee and stirring my oatmeal was an important ritual that set the tone for the walk and the rest of the day. I didn’t want to let any distractions upset that routine. Sometimes I had to improvise and that worked out when absolutely needed but I couldn’t wait to get right back out there, starting with my coffee and a bowl of mush.

And my goal of raising awareness about the wounded and their families remained on my mind always. I felt that the funds for Fisher House would come but the main focus was the families of the wounded. Without that motivation I am not sure I would have had the energy to walk for ninety-eight days straight, sleep in my truck, and take the brunt of exposure to ungodly quantities of gravy. Most of all I tried to stay psyched up for action every day.

I made it home in record time and I have been sleeping for much of the time since. Looking back on the hundreds of people I have met along the way has brought me great joy. I can still hear their voices and the myriad stories, often about a loved one who came home from war disabled, or they themselves had lost an arm, or someone they loved didn’t come home at all. I was fortunate to laugh a lot more than I cried.

I want to thank the legions of people who contacted me throughout my journey encouraging me to keep going. Some of these were old friends, family members, relatives, strangers and strangers who became friends. To all of you – Thank You, From The Bottom of My heart!

It is my greatest hope that you will remember the wounded and their families as their numbers steadily increase over time. Be assured that without our involvement in their care many will be left outside of society’s hold. Let’s join together in supporting those who fight so bravely for us in foreign lands who often come home in need of a helping hand.

©2010 John Van Dyke Cote’
All Rights Reserved

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