Old Flame Faces Hardship, Divorce, Alienation on Return from Iraq

When I was in the fifth grade, all I wanted to do was grow up and marry Kenny Catlinger. A year older than me, he was in the Sixth grade and I thought he was quite sophisticated. He was the first boy I ever held hands with, back when holding hands was a Big Deal.

I've often wondered, over the years, what happened to Kenny. I heard he got married and had some kids, but I haven't seen him in years.

Last week, I was at the grocery store and a very tall lean man came up and tapped me on the shoulder. When I looked into that weathered, scarred face there was no hint of the boy I used to know, and I have to confess that I had no idea who he was until he started talking. It was Kenny, but not the Kenny I knew and, as it turns out, not one that he knew very well anymore either.

Over coffee, Kenny told me about the last 20-something years of his life. He did, indeed get married; He married Mandy Stanby and had three little girls. He brought some fading pictures out of a battered old wallet and smiled for the first time when I told him how pretty his daughters are. He joined the Army right out of High School, and then stayed in the Reserves after he was released from active duty. He got called to duty in Iraq, and then got caught in the Stop Loss act and ended up staying in Iraq for nearly twenty-eight months. He was wounded once when a homemade bomb went off outside a building he was guarding with some of his fellow soldiers.

When he told me about Mandy divorcing him while he was deployed, his voice got very low and he was very careful to explain that he didn't blame her. Life is hard for an Army wife, and after so many years of moving and starting over and waiting for him to come home "she just got worn out on it" he said in his plainspoken mountain way. He retired from the military and came home eight months after his divorce was final. His mother was now in a nursing home, and his children seemed like strangers to him. In fact, everyone felt like a stranger to him. It took him nearly a year to realize that he himself was the true stranger. He started drinking, and spent six months in jail due to two DUI convictions. He couldn't find a job when he came home and didn't want to relocate because of his children. He now lives with his younger sister and her family, and spends his days picking up cans for cigarette and liquor money.

He says he has no regrets, and that he is proud that he served his country. But he does wonder sometimes if his country is proud of him. He wonders if he will ever sleep through the night again, or hear a car backfire and not want to dive facedown in the dirt. He wonders if he would still be married if he hadn't been gone so long. He wonders if his daughters are ashamed of him.

"All I know how to do anymore is just survive. I don't know how to make small talk and havin' lots of people around makes me nervous". This he offers in a slightly embarrassed tone, as if his social ineptness is a weakness of character. I tell him that he can be proud of himself, that he was nothing to be ashamed of. As I say that, I myself am embarrassed. As an American, I owe this man for my quality of life. It's not just a faceless sea of camouflage and M16's, after all.

I haven't seen Kenny again, and I don't know that I will. It's painful to see the destruction of another human being. Yet that conversation was not wasted. Since I talked to Kenny, I look at the old bums that gather around the courthouse in downtown Ripley with a fresh pair of eyes. They're not throw-away people. They're husbands and fathers and soldiers and perhaps most important of all, human beings.

Thank you, Kenny, for not only protecting my rights and my freedom, but for showing me that where you are in life is not necessarily who you are.