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Hutch

RobertM

RobertM

New Member
File Under: Non-Fiction

'Hutch'

A Tribute for Memorial Day

Well, I was in the old Regular Army back in the Seventies, but I didn't see any action. In fact, I joined up the month after Saigon fell and never got past Missouri.
So, my service was pretty minimal.

Every Memorial Day I think about my old friend Hutch. He's gone now. Hutch died in 1988 after his second heart attack. I think he was about forty-two years old, but I never knew exactly. We did a lot of things together like camping and fishing and hanging out in his garage. He didn't talk about himself much.

Hutch was a door gunner on a Huey for two tours in Vietnam. He never offered any details and I didn't ask.

I knew he'd been to 'Nam, but it was six or seven years before he told me how he got that Silver Star I spotted by accident at his house. I had never seen the medal before, and he never talked about it, but after a bottle of scotch out in his garage, he finally opened up a little.

Hutch and the crew landed in a wide-open field to pick up some men who were under heavy mortar and machine-gun fire from the tree line. Several Hueys were already on the ground doing the same thing. When Hutch saw a mortar shell explode a hundred yards away, he also saw a guy fall to the ground where the shell hit. Hutch left his weapon and ran out to pick the guy up.

When he got there, he discovered it was his best friend - they had joined up together. On their first tour they served in the same unit. On Hutch's second tour, they were separated. The guy had taken a hit to the legs. Hutch grabbed the guy by his armpits and dragged him toward the Huey. Bullets were zipping past and mortar shells were exploding everywhere.

About halfway to the Huey, one shell dropped directly between the wounded man's legs as Hutch dragged him along. His friend was killed instantly, and a lot of him ended up on Hutch. But Hutch was almost untouched because his friend's body took the blast.

Hutch dragged him back to the Huey and they made a quick escape.

You could say Hutch was never the same after that. He told me he came home and people spit on him at the airport. He knocked the holy shit out of one of them and landed in jail for a few days. He began drinking heavily and ended up as a Delayed-Stress case.

Hutch eventually found a nice girlfriend and they lived together for many years. She managed to keep him from going completely off the deep end. He was able to hold a job, but he smoked three packs a day and drank a half bottle of liquor nearly every day. This finally brought him serious heart problems. He had his second heart attack while leaving his parents' house - right on their front doorstep. Bam. That was it.

Every Memorial Day I think about him. If I'm camping I fire off a few shots and say something.

Hutch told me once, and I quote, "The Fourth of July ain't shit...Memorial Day. That's MY day." He was really a nice guy. No name on the Wall, he was just another 'unofficial' casualty of the war.

RobertM
 
Seven asks:

"Unless I missed it, why exactly did people spit on him at the airport?"
Click to expand...

Young man, (lol) you just gave away your age as very likely less than 30.

Protesters would hang out at airports during the war and watch for servicemen returning from Vietnam. There was little security back then at airports, not like now. The usual thing was to walk up to them and call them names like 'baby-killer' or spit on them. Stuff like that...

It got worse after the incident at My Lai ('Me-Lie') when Lt. Calley and company killed most of the people in a certain village of the same name.

If you think the Iraq war has divided America, you should have seen what was going on during Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of people rioting, protesting the war. Of course, they had a draft back then, too...
 
I was in the navy (65-78) and was apalled at the attitude after I got back to the states in 69. I'd been stationed on Guam for a year and a half and then on a cruiser on the Tonkin Gulf, so I didn't know how the political climate had changed. I was reviled for the uniform I wore so proudly.

While I supposedly saw combat, it was nothing like the hell that the guys in-country went through, including a lot of sailors on riverboats. Believe me, I think about them every Memorial Day, those friends I lost and the ones who still, today, are unsuited for coping with life.

Sadly, I'm seeing a lot of the same attitude today, as an older and (hopefully) wiser man. The country is just as divided today; the only reason there's not protest in the street is that there's no draft, or conscription.

I totally support our troops around the world, who are volunteers doing the bidding of their country. I urge everyone to do the same.

JohnB
 
Yes, Robert, I'm 16--I'm sure that I've mentioned that somewhere in these threads before but I could be wrong. Anyhow, in that case, the piece is excellent (I think so, anyway), and I would like to say you captured the spirit well, but as you've caught whiff of, this was before my time.

John, seeing as you were in that, why not write something of it? A novel regarding a characters emotions to it or something?

And, on second (third?), note, didn't Stephen King write a novel about Vietnam? Hearts In Atlantis, I think it was? Who knows.
 
Sevenwritez,

I have started a novel based on my experiences then, but it kind of withered on the vine. Maybe I'll get back to it soon.

Yes, I've read King's Hearts in Atlantis (listened to audio version, actually, which sets the tone by including music from the era) and it's one of his best works. But it's not a war novel, it's 4 novellas that he put together about this time in history, pulled together by a 5th novella. It's one of his best works, in my opinion.

Take care,

JohnB
 
John,

Yeah, if it's something you can attach your actual emotions to, then it'd probably be best to jump in and stretch.

As for Hearts in Atlantis, thanks for that little tidbit of (praise? I dunno), info, as I've been thinking of reading it. I'm actually finishing up The Shining right now and Life of Pi.

As much as I didn't want to agree with a lot of the once-devout-King readers, I'm starting to see how the young Stephen King completely beats the crap out of the old one.

But hey, I still loved Lisey's Story, so it's all good.
 
SevenWritez says, in part:

"I'm starting to see how the young Stephen King completely beats the crap out of the old one."

Agreed. I have a theory that may explain some of this. I believe King's writing has suffered a bit since his terrible accident, i.e. being hit by that van (?) and being tossed twenty feet or so through the air. He appeared on the Tonight Show some time back and discussed the accident. Sounded horrible...you would think it would have some effect.
 
I wonder if he's just gotten verbose, and can get away with it because of his rep. I was at an antique mall yesterday and they had "The Stand" in the original manuscript format. It was 130,00 words longer than the edited version.

To me a story needs to be tight. By that, I mean that the tension should not be lost and a rambling exposition, like the older King tends to favor, takes you out of the story.

JohnB
 
I hang around King's website occasionally, just a lurker. They take a day or two to post anything because of moderation...

He reads ALL the time. Updates constantly, tells you if he liked it or not. Sounds pretty active to me.

Stephen King
 
I honestly don't think the car did it. Let's look at this at a more introspective angle (at least let's try to).

Stephen King has been around for quite some time. He's made himself rich as %&^# off writing. Now, when he already has the money to retire, should he stick with a simple prose of writing that makes him money, or is it possible that he's become bored with his younger style and wants something else? This is only a hunch, and probably a wrong one, but even so, Stephen King has mentioned somewhere before that he takes different approaches to writing to keep himself from becoming bored with the craft. If he wanted to become more verbose, then so be it--if I was as rich as he was off writing, after a few years I'd meld myself into a different style, too. He more or less writes completely for himself now--money really isn't as big a problem as it used to be.
 
I think it's a mistake to point to the money and give that as a reason for feeling King's work has suffered over the last few years. However, I'm not going to sit here and try to tell you that his present work is as good as some of his past work...it is not.

I still believe the accident is a factor. It's taking the easy way out pointing to the fact that King has become rich through his writing. The really great writers keep cranking out good stuff whether they become rich or not...if they are driven to write good stuff.

Truth is, no one knows why King's work has gone down a bit. Maybe he's reached his apex, which happens to a lot of writers. King was luckier than most, because his career has spanned a few decades and he has more work that can be declared 'classic' than many other writers. Very few writers can churn out absolute-top work for their entire lives without eventually reaching a point where some work is probably not as good as earlier work. It just happens.

One exception could be James Michener, but he was an exception, rather than the rule. At the other end of the spectrum are those writers who are known for one world-class, everyone-knows-the-title book...and who never wrote another thing of any substance. There are a few of those, too.

All we can do with King is hope he finds it within himself to do another 'big' work or two. Sometime.
 
Well, let's just say he's gotten old then.

Also, I was not pointing towards the money as a factor but more as a supplement to my main point. Stephen King had become bored with how he originally wrote and wanted something new. Now, it's debatable whether his new work is up to par with his old work, since quality is subjective dependent on the reader, at least I think so. Those who stuck with King from the beginning hate it, because it's not what they remember. Those who might enjoy it won't ever look at it, because King's name is slapped on the front, and they've already decided they don't like him.

I like a lot of his "old," work--The Green Mile, Bag of Bones, Lisey's Story, and yes, I enjoyed Cell as well.

And of course I love his earlier shots--The Stand, The Shining (but I was kind of iffy on this one), Cujo, ??The Dark Half?? and actually now I just picked up It and can't wait to get started.

Money isn't a real issue with him, which is one reason he may have so unabashedly changed his writing--he knows if the transition is accepted well or not, he still has the time and the funds to go back and start over. Also, notice that his books still are selling. I find it funny to see many people criticize him, then go out and buy his books.

"God, Cell sucked...so did Lisey's Story..."
"Did you read them?"
"Yeah"
"Shut up."

That's my mindset. I've never understood how someone could finish a novel if they hated it so much. I made it halfway through Heart-Shaped Box and was sick enough of it so that I dumped it back at the library. I still had enough of the crap stored under my belt to criticize it if I wanted, I wasn't going to swallow the whole goddamned thing.

Anyhow, I pretty much went on a tangent there, I think (I have a problem with finger pointing). Saying Stephen King's writing has dipped in quality due to money is a weak choice, but so is saying that the accident hurt him. His mind was still intact.

*omg*

It was the crack. Yeah, once he become sober his works started sucking. It all makes sense now. King needs more cocaine.
 
A long time ago I started reading the works of Alistair Maclean. Went right up the list from the first book, 'HMS Ulysses', 'The Guns of Navarone', 'South by Java Head', 'The Secret Ways' etc.

All fantastic works.

Then...he started to slip. The books became worse, the plots thin, the characters two-dimensional. What happened to the guy who wrote 'Navarone'? I asked.

Later, I found out. Too much scotch...it eventually killed him. :(
 
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