Chicken Soup for the Cat & Dog Lover's Soul (39 page)

“Look at that crazy cowboy, Butch, he's talking to his horse.”

Reprinted by permission of Dave Carpenter.

Soldier Dog

During the monsoon season of 1968, after several months of combat following the Tet Offensive, my army unit was moved from the mountains of northern South Vietnam to the coastal plain, north of Da Nang. We had been assigned to provide security for a battalion of Seabees. It rained torrentially for most of each day and night, but we tried to stay as warm and dry as we could.

As a medic, my life was pretty good at this assignment. I didn’t have to pull guard duty, just hold sick call and do radio watch for a couple of hours each night. Sure, I was halfway around the world, separated from my family and my home, but the Seabees had supplies. We even got fresh food, which sure beat the freeze-dried and canned rations that were issued for consumption in the jungle. But best of all, I could buy a beer each evening and relax and try to forget the terror that had been with me since the beginning of the Tet Offensive.

I was aware of the dramatic changes my personality had undergone in the short time I had been in Vietnam. I distrusted everything and everyone I came in contact with. Like the times when I treated Vietnamese civilians in their villages for their ailments.

This was an attempt by the army to win the hearts and minds of the local population. The army’s public information officer wanted some photographs showing that the First Brigade of the 101st Airborne, the toughest of the tough, was also the most caring. On such occasions, the villagers would lay out a meal, sometimes consisting of rice and meat, with great formality. This was intended as a respectful greeting to me, and courtesy demanded that I eat first. But I was suspicious, and fearing that the food might be poisoned, I always insisted that the Village Chief be the first to take a bite, thus managing to thoroughly offend our hosts. But I didn’t care; my sole concern at that time was surviving to make it home.

One night, after some revelry in the galley, I walked back to our camp and knelt down to slide into my damp living space. As I crawled in headfirst, I felt a wet, furry body brush my forehead. I grabbed my pistol and my flashlight and prepared to kill the rat in my bedroll.

But it wasn’t a rat. In the light, I saw before me a shivering brown puppy that looked like a Chihuahua. Its big eyes were imploring, as if it knew that its life was almost over. I reengaged the safety catch and picked up the little body, so cold, so wet and so scared.
We’re a lot alike
, I thought.

I dug around in my gear and found a can of beef slices from an old meal unit. I opened the can, broke up the meat into little bites, and put it in front of this intruder, who snapped it up quickly. Then I rinsed the can out and filled it with clean water so he could drink.

That night, when I curled up to go to sleep, I wasn’t remembering the girl back home; I had a living, breathing being snuggled next to me trying to gain security and warmth from my existence. And I didn’t dream of the girl back home, either. Instead I dreamed of my beagle, who always curled up at the foot of my bed when I came home from school on vacations, and who went with me everywhere.

The next morning, I went to breakfast and got extra eggs, bacon and sausages. My new little friend wolfed them down.

I decided to name him Charger, after our battalion commander. Every time I called out “Charger!” I offered him a tidbit of food, so he learned his name in no time. He also learned some simple tricks, and seemed to grow very attached to me. Wherever I went, that little ring-tailed mutt of dubious parentage was right there with me, and I grew very fond of him.

One day I was in the nearby village of Lang Co, where I went every day except Sunday, to treat the villagers for their various ailments, which ranged from ringworm and pinworm to elephantiasis. While I dispensed different pills and salves, I noticed my little friend frolicking with the fire team that had accompanied me for security. As I watched him darting after the sticks they threw for him and prancing proudly back with the stick clamped firmly in his teeth, I had to smile. I turned back to the Vietnamese child I was examining, and I saw an answering smile light up his small face. Little Charger was effecting a remarkable change in my personality. I realized that I had begun to care about the local people. I really wanted to cure their illnesses, whereas earlier I had just been going through the motions to please the army public relations machine. Charger was helping me to recover some of the humanity that I feared I had lost.

I was soon to be separated from my new friend, however. After a few short weeks, my company was ordered back to the mountains. After numerous inquiries, I was able to find someone in the mortar platoon at our battalion fire base to adopt Charger. I left him there, knowing that I would miss him but trying not to look back as I walked with my company toward the jungle, returning to the harsh reality of war.

I served more than seven months with the infantry, before I was reassigned to a medevac unit. I had not forgotten Charger, and as I came through the fire base on my way to my new assignment, I had already decided that I would bring my little friend with me to my new unit. We recognized each other instantly, and our reunion was ecstatic.

I spent the day at the fire base and soon noticed that something was different there. Talking with the soldiers, I registered that the level of profanity and vulgarity had dropped. And the men seemed more caring towards each other. A large number of them called to Charger as he trotted by, often stopping to scratch his head or give him a treat or two in passing. Charger was working the same magic for his new friends in the mortar platoon that he had worked for me.

With my heart breaking, and on the verge of tears, I left Charger with his newfound friends, for they seemed to need him even more than I did.

That was the last time I ever saw Charger. My medevac chopper was shot down about two months later. I was evacuated, and regained consciousness in a hospital in Japan. I tried to find out about Charger, but only heard a vague rumor that he had been taken back to the States. I hoped it was true.

I still remember him now, more than thirty years later. He lives on in my heart. And whenever I think back to that rainy and miserable night in Vietnam when our paths first crossed, it seems impossible to know just who rescued whom.

Ron St. James

Mr. Reed

People often ask me why I’ve devoted half of my fifty-eight years to working with pet birds. I usually answer by recounting the story of Mr. Reed.

We first met in the early 1980s. Back then Mr. Reed was like many of the elderly people I encountered in nursing homes and senior citizen residences near the pet store I run. The Great Depression had stripped Mr. Reed early in life not only of his money and pride but also of his ability to trust in mankind. As far as I knew, he had never married, he had no children, and after four decades of isolation in different institutions, he was withdrawn and uncommunicative.

Now in his eighties, Mr. Reed hid his loneliness behind thick black-rimmed glasses that dwarfed his weathered blue eyes. He shuffled about inside the quiet nursing home, unwilling to smile or converse with anyone. Mr. Reed’s only companions, it seemed to me, were whatever memories he kept to himself.

Yet, despite his aloofness, Mr. Reed was always quite interested in the activities going on in the nursing home lobby. On this particular day I arrived with a pair of gregarious green lovebirds. They were about five inches long, chunky in stature, with blue rumps and bright peach-colored foreheads.

I was scheduled to deliver the two lovebirds for placement inside this nursing home’s lobby, where I hoped they would enliven the sterile surroundings. Although the nursing home’s staff was officially responsible for the care of the animals, lonesome patients looking for companionship often assumed the feeding and other responsibilities themselves. Birds made particularly suitable pets in a location like this because they stayed caged, were often chatty and could eat almost any type of people food without fear of upset tummies. Looking after the birds often instilled a sense of purpose in the patients’ otherwise monotonous lives. As for the birds, they were blessed with attentive care from people who had few other obligations.

That fall day I situated the pair of lovebirds in a semicircular silver cage, which I hung against a wall next to a fading picture of the home’s rather stern-looking founder. Underneath the cage, I placed a small book about their care. The barren, medicinal-smelling lobby quickly warmed with the delightful sound of their chirping and wing-flapping.

Seniors passed by with their walkers and canes, peering at the creatures. Although a few residents seemed wary, most could barely conceal their curiosity, pointing wrinkled fingers at the cage and grinning when the birds jumped about.

Mr. Reed, meanwhile, circled the room nervously, keeping to himself and trying to conceal his interest in the excited lovebirds. Finally, after the room cleared out for lunch, he stopped directly beside their cage. Glancing to see who was watching, he picked up the bird book, eased into a nearby chair and began reading. For hours he remained by the birds’ side, studiously examining the guide.

When my day’s visit ended, I approached him cautiously. “Would you like to help take care of these birds for a few days?” I asked. He looked up, his dulled eyes flickering behind his glasses. Then he nodded, a tiny tentative smile creeping onto his lips.

As the weeks progressed, I learned from the nursing home staff that Mr. Reed had gradually assumed all the care and feeding of the lovebirds. One morning I received a call from the home saying Mr. Reed felt the birds were ready to mate. I drove over to check, and indeed, Mr. Reed’s diagnosis was correct—it seems he’d learned a great deal from studying the little book I’d left behind. Together, Mr. Reed and I offered the lovebirds a small wooden box, which they gladly accepted and began filling with shredded newspaper and other materials to create a nest. Throughout the afternoon, as Mr. Reed watched protectively, the carefree birds sang love songs and bustled about constructing a fine crib for their eggs.

A few days later I stopped by to appraise the lovebirds’ progress and noticed a very odd white and brown material lining the nest. “What a strange-looking nest, Mr. Reed,” I noted. “Do you mind my asking what’s in there?”

“Toast,” he replied in a proud voice. “Every morning I save a piece of my breakfast toast for the birds. They seem to like it.”

I nodded and marveled at the profound change in this man. Not long ago he had been tired and reclusive; now he interacted regularly with the staff while caring for these lovebirds with the devotion of a conscientious innkeeper. Watching them eat and nest, he would chuckle as they bobbed their heads about, dancing as if they knew it brought him pleasure. After years of speaking only when spoken to, Mr. Reed would invite other residents to witness the lovebirds’ antics.

These creatures, I realized, had become much more than transient boarders passing through Mr. Reed’s life. If their relationship had begun as tenant and landlord, the birds and Mr. Reed were now each other’s only family. Through some mutual agreement struck gradually over mornings of shared breakfast and evenings of simple conversation, the birds had decided to keep Mr. Reed, and he in turn agreed to spend his remaining years with them. It seemed a fair bargain.

Soon the lovebirds produced two charming babies whom we moved into Mr. Reed’s room, along with their mother and father. The babies also attached themselves to Mr. Reed, and we trimmed their wing feathers so they could venture outside their cage to interact with him.

Several times I saw him gently placing one of the baby birds in the trembling hands of other senior citizens, assuring them that the birds would cause no harm. Every Sunday there was at least one resident whose family would fail to show up for a visit as promised. Mr. Reed always made certain the lovebirds spent extra time cuddling in the arms of that senior. In many ways Mr. Reed became the center of social activity at the home.

One winter evening, after a pleasant dinner with his chattering charges, Mr. Reed went to bed, as usual, at nine o’clock. The next morning, when the lovebirds cried for his attention, he did not wake up, for sometime in the predawn hours, Mr. Reed had died peacefully in his sleep.

To this day I keep a picture of Mr. Reed in my store. In the photo, the little lovebirds are cuddling beneath the crisp collar of the old man’s shirt, their green heads peeking out to rest on his fuzzy black cardigan. But it is his face that my eye always returns to. It is alight with affection and love—the face of a man surrounded by his family.

Ruth Hanessian with Wendy Bounds
Excerpted from
Birds on the Couch

A Moggy for Michael

B
y associating with the cat, one only risks
becoming richer.

Colette

One summer evening, about eight o’clock, the phone rang. “Sherlock Bones, here,” I said.

“Are you the man that looks for lost cats?” a child’s voice asked.

“That’s right,” I replied. “What can I do for you?”

“I want you to help me find Sam. He’s gray with black stripes. My mom gave him to me, but he’s been gone four days.”

“I see. Could I talk to your mom for a minute?” Whenever kids call me, I make sure to talk to their parents and let them know what’s going on. In a minute, a man came to the phone.