By Larry Shurilla
As I climbed the stage in the banquet hall of the Pfister Hotel, bits of sharp-edged confetti stung my face while a barrage of clustered red, white, and blue balloons floated softly to the floor and bounced like pulsating jellyfish. My wife and kids swarmed around me, hugging me, and everyone was jumping up and down amid a deafening clash of campaign music and cheers. Behind the stage and hanging some10 feet above was a gigantic banner that read “Congratulations Senator Justin Thao!”
Jerry Strong took the podium and started clapping his hands over his head. The crowd, sensing Jerry’s intention, joined him in unison and filled the hall with a thunderous beat—the drumbeat of victory. As I took my seat in the front row of the stage, I noticed a security man standing near the door that led to the hallway. Besides the typical short blue coat, matching pants, and walkie-talkie strapped to his waist, I noticed he was wearing a bright red St. Louis Cardinals’ baseball hat.
*****
“Check out all the cardinals!” my sister Katie shouted into the glass pane of the window that looked out into our small back yard. There I saw a tree with a half dozen cardinals looking like an apple tree in the early fall, except this was a maple tree in the middle of the summer. “And look! Grandpa Xeng is at the bottom, holding the tree trunk again!”
As a wiry boy of 13, I was ready to run at any time of the day or night. Just point me in a direction and I was off, like a fun-seeking-missile on a seek-and-annoy mission, and this time my target was Grandpa Xeng.
“Grandpa, what are you doing?” I asked. Grandpa Xeng didn’t make a move. He just stood there, holding the tree with a smile on his face and his eyes fixed on the birds.
He never turned around as he said, “Don’t make so much noise, Justin. You’ll scare the cardinals away.”
“How did you know it was me, Grandpa?” I asked, but Grandpa Xeng never turned around. I tapped him on his shoulder and for the first time he looked at me and gently put both hands on my face. I repeated, “How did you know it was me, Grandpa?”
Grandpa Xeng was looking very intently at my lips and said, “You run heavy, like a bouatay.”
“What’s a bouatay?”
“It’s a wild boar, like a small buffalo. There were many bouatay in our native land of Laos.”
“Oh! A buffalo, like on the back of an old nickel, Grandpa?”
“No, Justin, like in the back of our yard. I knew you were coming the moment I felt the door slam. Now be still, Justin, and listen to the cardinals’ music.”
Grandpa Xeng gave the back of my neck a squeeze and then returned his hands to the tree trunk. “They won’t stay long, Justin. The cardinal song is very beautiful, but they have much to do and little to say. They are God’s messengers. I sometimes wish people were more like cardinals.”
I finally thought the right moment had come for me to ask Grandpa Xeng what his accident was all about, how he lost his hearing. I tapped him on the arm again and when he looked at me I asked, “What happened to your ears, Grandpa? Why can’t you hear?”
“I had an accident, long ago, Justin.”
“Grandma Blia already told me you had an accident, but I want to know what kind of accident! Did you hurt your ears swimming in the Mekong River? I saw you on Grandma’s tapestry swimming in a big river. Did you get sick and not have good medicine? What happened, Grandpa?”
Grandpa Xeng looked away and said, “You are too young, Justin.”
“I’m not too young, Grandpa! If it’s a war story, don’t be afraid to tell me! I’ve seen war movies on TV that show people’s heads blown off! I can take it, Grandpa! Plus, I‘ve played M-rated war games too! I can take it!”
Grandpa looked away from the tree and seemed to stare off into space. His smile was gone now and I knew by looking at the lines in his forehead that his mind had gone to a place with pain.
“My story is no movie, Justin–no video game.”
“Grandma Blia said one day you would tell me the story of your accident. I know you can’t hear, Grandpa, but I will listen well! You’ll only have to tell me once and I’ll remember; I promise.”
“Perhaps it is time, Justin, time for you to know. I am growing old and my memory is fading. What I tell you now, you must always remember and tell your own children someday. Our road to America was not an easy one. My story is your story. It is your father’s story. It is our people’s story. We must always be thankful that God has led us here to America.
“To understand my accident, you must first understand more about me. I was born long ago about a day’s walk from Phou Bia in the country of Laos. Phou Bia is a beautiful mountain, Justin. Phou means “mountain” in Laotian. It’s over 9,000 feet tall and is the highest mountain in all of Laos. Sometimes living here in Wisconsin, I feel so unsheltered, like I’m on top of the world and the wind will blow me right off! When there’s a mountain always looking down at you, you somehow feel protected and watched over. I grew up with Phou Bia watching over me.
“About 100 miles southwest of Phou Bia is the Capital of Laos-Vientiane, which we visited often. My parents were born in China and moved to Laos before I was born. I went to school in Laos everyday until I was 15. Then I decided to join the Phatoo, the Laotian army, and I served for many years under the famous general, Vangpao. At that time, our country, Laos, was at war with North Vietnam. It was my job to guard the northern part of Laos and make sure the North Vietnamese didn’t invade our land. Do you know about the Vietnam War, Justin?”
“I saw a movie about Vietnam once, with a lot of American helicopters and people in the jungle fighting! Did you work with the Americans, Grandpa?”
“Yes and no. The Americans came to us and asked us to help defeat the North Vietnamese, secretly. I never saw a lot of Americans, but we usually had an advisor or two helping us to plan attacks and disrupt the North Vietnamese operations.”
“Did you ever get shot, Grandpa? Did you ever see any real action?”
Grandpa Xeng didn’t answer a word. He simply held up his left hand and pointed to a round scar the size of an acorn between his thumb and forefinger. “A bullet went through my hand, right here,” he said.
*****
“It was a hot and rainy evening in August, 1972. I was on patrol near Phou Tong in northern Laos close to the Vietnamese border. Our scouts had reported hearing some movement in the jungle about 300 yards from our base camp. I was sent as a part of two patrols of 8 men each, to investigate the area.
“Nighttime in the jungle is especially dangerous, Justin. The enemy can be hiding in a bush right next to you and you can’t see them. The only thing that helped us was that the North Vietnamese army wore yellow uniforms. They stood out much easier against the jungle than did our own green uniforms, but the nighttime blends the colors. Without sunlight, there is no color in the jungle. All things appear in shades of gray and black, just shadows, dark and darker spots. We were looking for the shapes of men, men holding rifles.
“Because our vision was so limited at night, our hearing became very good. You may think that is funny now, Justin, but there was a time when I didn’t have to look at people’s lips to understand what they were saying. When I stood still in the night, I could hear the breathing of my fellow soldiers many feet away. If anyone or anything made a sudden movement, even if it was nothing more than someone scratching his shoulder, I could hear it! When you’re on patrol, you’re even more sensitive to sound because your life could depend on what you hear or what you don’t hear.
“We spread out in a searching pattern that we often used. At first we could only hear the wind as it passed through the heavy jungle leaves. Suddenly we heard a hissing sound above us!
“Five of us pointed our rifles toward the sky and were ready to shoot at the slightest movement in the trees. Without any warning, one of my friends, Meng, screamed as something fell on his bare arm and bit him!”
“What bit him, Grandpa?!” I asked.
“It was a Nanblong, a leaf snake. They are about one meter long and an inch thick. Nanblong are green and have red eyes, like a devil. They have very sharp teeth and are extremely poisonous. If you are bitten by one, you will become very hot with fever and after a few days in the steamy jungle, you will die. There was no cure for their venom.
“After Meng was bitten, we saw many nanblong in the trees above us and their hissing sounded like many tires losing air. With Meng groaning and the nanblong hissing, the North Vietnamese had a fix on us and opened fire. Within seconds, the air was filled with the loud cracking of rifle fire and the pffffft of bullets slicing through the thick night air. I fired in the direction of most of the rifle flashes until my rifle flew out of my hands and then I felt a burning in my left hand like someone was pushing a red hot stake into it. I fell to the ground and grabbed my left hand with my right and felt hot liquid oozing through my fingers. It looked like black water in the nighttime, Justin, but it only took a moment to realize it was my own blood.
“When the shooting finally stopped, we heard the North Vietnamese soldiers shouting insults and running away into the night. We took a few more shots in their general direction and then cared for our wounded. Five soldiers in my platoon of 20, five of my friends, lay dead in the tall, elephant grass. I was one of the lucky ones. I was only shot through my hand. Meng made it through the firefight with the Viet Cong, that was the name of the North Vietnamese Army, but the fire of the nanblong in his veins took his life four days later.”