Short Story: Lone Ranger Rock. It literally jutted out from the hillside and when you walked out on it, you could see much of the town, the valley, the railroad tracks, and the small graveyard next to the creek that ran next to the dirt road that went up the other side of the hill. Someone had carved a drawing of the masked Lone Ranger within a heart on the face of the rock and, of course, it was forever named Lone Ranger Rock. We never found out who had carved it, although rumors pointed to Ryan’s grandfather as the aspiring artist. All the kids in our small town grew up knowing Lone Ranger Rock. Sometimes we hiked up there to talk about what was going on in school or at home or what we wanted to be when we grew up. High school kids would sneak up there with a blanket in the night to neck and make out. The long, steep, and winding path up the hill to Lone Ranger Rock was a sleigh riding path in the winter and a place for us to play army during the remainder of the year. With our toy guns in hand, one group of neighborhood kids would defend Lone Ranger Rock and the other would attack from below up the hill and up the path. Of course, we loved the story of the legendary and heroic Lone Ranger. He was the good guy who always stood up for what was right and what was fair and he always won. He represented the American narrative we were taught in school. Lone Ranger Rock was a magical place for us where all was innocent, all was right, and all was good.
It was late spring and Ryan and I hadn’t been up to Lone Ranger Rock since sleigh riding during the big snow in December. We took our time going up the familiar path although it appeared that new undergrowth made it more difficult to follow. When we walked out onto the rock, we could see a funeral taking place in the graveyard below. It was quiet that day and the voices of those conducting the ceremony echoed up to Lone Ranger Rock. We knew the family. We knew everyone in our small town. Sammy Joe, who was 7 years older than we were, had helped coach one of the little league teams and we all thought the world of him. He had been drafted into the army after high school and left for Vietnam in the spring of 65. He was killed just a few days before he was scheduled to come home. He was the first of three young men from our little town to die in Vietnam. Officials from the local American Legion were there and we watched as the American flag on his casket was folded and given to his mother. We could see our friend, Ann, Sammy Joe’s sister, who was in the 6th grade with us. Ann was very close to her brother. Ryan and I were startled by the three-volley gun salute. We could hear Ann and her mother crying as the bugler played Taps. His father could not hold back his tears. He was the first grown man that I had ever seen weep.
As the family left, Ryan and I didn’t say anything to each other. We lay on our backs on Lone Ranger Rock and looked up in the sky. We were deep in our own thoughts. Up to this point in time, war had been heroic but distant and most of the time it was on television or at the movie theatre. The good guys won and lived. The good guys that died were heroes but I didn’t know them personally and this made it easy to accept their deaths. My father never talked about his experience in Korea. He never mentioned those he knew that were killed. My Uncle Tom rarely spoke of the year he was in Vietnam. He also never mentioned those he knew that were killed. I never questioned why we fought a war in Korea or why we were now fighting in Vietnam. Yes, Sammy Joe was a hero and he was dead. But, I knew him. I knew his family. I was, for the first time, seeing war up close and personal, for what it really is. This gave me pause to think and to question my beliefs about patriotism, to question why we were in this war, to question the value of war, to question if there was such a thing as a good war, to question the very idea of serving in the military, to question why a dead hero was of any value to his family or to his country, and to question even the idea of a hero. These questions were no longer black and white, they had become gray and difficult to answer.
I felt so sorry for Ann and her mom and dad. Yes, there would be a picture of Sammy Joe and the flag from his casket hanging in their living room for as long as I can remember, but he was dead. Ann was never able to play with her brother again and never again was she able to tell him that she loved him. Ann confided to me that she and her parents were never the same after the funeral. She came to resent it when teachers and students called her brother a hero as the war continued with more and more young men being killed and with no end in sight.
But, at that moment I was six years from graduation and six years away from making a decision as to whether to go to college or to serve in the military. I figured that the Vietnam War surely would be over by then. So, I guess I really didn’t have to worry about it then. I was safe. I was alive.
Ryan and I walked back down the path and then to our homes. We said very little to each other. Lone Ranger Rock was never again quite the same.
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