Making a separate peace

Old soldiers don’t die — they just redeploy — Anonymous Curmudgeon

This is about two old soldiers who knew of each other.

In 1983 one drove down a remote road in North Dakota. At a roadblock a gunfight ensued. Two law enforcement officers died and he fled. He died in another shootout in Arkansas. His name was Gordon Kahl.

I once found the other old soldier on another remote road and that is my favorite memory of him. This is his story.

In 1984 I was driving on a gravel road in North Dakota and saw a car at the side of the road. I stopped and walked to the driver’s side of the car to offer aid. I was delighted to see my favorite uncle. I had just arrived from Alaska and had not seen him in years. He was reading a newspaper and my aunt was knitting. They seemed perfectly relaxed.

I asked if they needed help. My uncle replied “no” and went on to say that the car had a habit of quitting once in a while but could be restarted in a few minutes. He reasoned that he now had sufficient evidence to “puzzle through” and correct the problem in his own garage. He was 77 years old and as strong as ever. He was a skilled farmer, trapper, carpenter, and mechanic.

My uncle and my father were two of the most peaceable people I have known. They were quiet, steady men who had “made do” and “puzzled through” all of their lives. My uncle and Gordon Kahl were both North Dakota farm boys who fought in World War II. Each was an expert gunner and highly decorated, but they dealt with issues very differently. Why?

If there is an answer to my question, perhaps it will help research into the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.

My uncle was the eldest of three brothers and was born in a homestead sod house in 1907. In 1917 his parents built a two-story frame house. The brothers slept upstairs. Sometimes in the winter, drinks left near the beds would freeze. In the summer they often slept outside on the ground to escape the heat of the second story.

There and then, education was in a one-classroom schoolhouse a mile walk from the farm down a dirt road. As with most rural youth, schooling ended for my uncle at the eighth grade. Then he spent almost 20 years as a farm hand.

Lodging was usually provided by the employer, but could have been in a stack of hay or a barn. Alternatively, boarding houses were available.

Food was plentiful on farms and came with the wages. A farmhand would be used to eating lots of meat, fish and poultry — both wild and raised. There was always locally grown fresh or canned produce.

At that time social life was not technology-driven, so people entertained themselves. Since farms were where the food was, farmers and farm workers ate well. This was not true of urban areas during the Great Depression.

After trying for years to get into the Army, my uncle was inducted in 1941. At the time, he could have carried everything he owned in a car. The country was getting ready for war. Many inductees from urban areas were underweight and unfit because of malnutrition. Residents of Rural America were in better shape. At 34 he was a big, powerful man, well fed and well muscled from years working on farms.

He did not talk about what he did to the enemy in combat, but he did talk about the third time he was wounded: he made a separate peace with the war. He told himself that if he survived, he would never let anything bother him again. And he never did.

News accounts are that Gordon Kahl had conflicts with government and law enforcement going back to 1967. He justified such conflicts with an extreme right-wing doctrine. Did this man who served his country against the greatest evil ever known — as did my uncle — have PTSD? I don’t know. Neither do I know how my uncle lived the rest of his long life without any outward signs of PTSD.

My uncle was older than most when he entered the Army. At 34 his maturity may have been a factor or perhaps his family history. His father was a harsh and autocratic man but my grandmother was the opposite. My father and my uncle were their mother’s sons.

I don’t have an answer, but I do believe that it is as important to understand why some veterans do not have PTSD as it is to understand why some veterans do.

My uncle was very well read and well informed. On one occasion he noticed that I was reading a magazine article and asked me about it. I told him that the article was about the most decorated Marine in history. He said, “Do you know that some big-shots tried to make him dictator?”

Next: Smedley’s War

Tim Johnson is a computer programmer who lives in Palmer and is owner of AKWebsoft. Read more at TJ49.com.