Sgt. Roger Malvin’s Burial

Sgt. Malvin was a hell of a guy. I remember, 1968, Chu Lai Vietnam. Rice paddies. Just sitting in the dark.

Waiting.

Waiting for them to get us. 

The sound of crickets, bright stars and black jungle—humidity that makes your shirt stick to your soul. 

That’s what I think of when I hear the name Sgt Malvin. I think of leeches, fear and dirty rice paddies. 

Heroes.

That’s what they called us both when I came home… well, the ones in our Redwood hometown, at least. And ya, they’re right to call him that. But not me. 

No. Not me. 

I’m not a hero… I left that man in a rice patty with a lung hole and no ammunition. 

Every night, I see where he lay in my sleep, as I talk to him through whiskey and agent orange. 

Sometimes he tells me things, and I talk back in grunts and whimpers. We visit in cages and tell the same stories, until I wake again, anew to a bright world of well wishes and cheer. 

“We’re glad that you’re home, son.” They say. “Some don’t come home. They died for their country.”

Right. And some heroes can’t come home. They hand you a pistol and ask you to end it because they can’t walk anymore… and the jungle is moving. 

Then you run like hell through the jungle until you find someone that looks like you. 

Then you get to wear that pistol on your hip walking with the VFW on Fourth of July. It’s ok, the sheriff don’t mind your whisky buzzed at 10:30am. 

It’s no problem, you’re trained. You served. Trustworthy. 

He..

Before he died. Sgt. Malvin told me about his daughter. 

My age. 

Nice girl. 

We talked about her a lot and he wanted me to take his dog tag back to her. 

Let her know he was at peace even though he weren’t there. 

I couldn’t find his tags after I shot him… so I took the pistol. 

Told her I used it to kill that son of a bitch that kilt her daddy. 

She was just like he described her, except more a woman than daughter in my eyes. He’d left some nice details out of his memories. I stayed that night and we wed nine months later.

Even made the paper,” bronze-star winner finds love”. 

And I kept that gun next to our bed. For protection. Sometimes it found itself outside with me. Sometimes I found it in the yard. 

But I always put it back. And she asked me not to after we had Cyrus. 

Ah Daphne. 

You were so right. 

It just took longer than we thought…

No. 

That gun kept us safe from my night terrors. 

Yelling at Sgt. Malvin and finding my family. 

Just alive and awake. 

Then back in the cold. 

I know the spot that I see when I close my eyes as well as I know how long I was in the country. 

Two years, five months, eight days. That’s how long it took to earn this life of mine. 

I measure it in the panic I see on his dead grandfather’s face when I look in my son’s crib. 

Then, eventually, the people don’t like the war. Blame us poor boys forgotten by Uncle Sam and infected with defoliant. 

I love my life though. 

Sometimes. 

Daphne was so like Sgt Malvin, giving her life to me. 

She worked too, when I couldn’t. 

I always put the gun back. 

No matter where it was. 

I put it back. 

I put it back…

Until Sgt Malvin told me to bury it in the jungle. 

Bring him home. 

So I did. 

I buried that gun behind my house. 

I put Sgt Malvin to rest.

 One night I woke up shirtless, out back. 

I never found it. 

I didn’t put it back. 

Cyrus found it. 

It was an accident. 

I was just trying to make things right. 

And—now…

I guess I have. 

Love-

X Reuben Fitzgerald