A couple of weeks ago I ran into a Marine Lance Corporal. He came up to talk about Sally. He proceeded to tell me that he saw our picture in the newspaper. He took the article to his Sergeant and told him to “Check out this Doc, He has almost as many ribbons as you do.” From what the Lance Corporal told me the Sergeant turned around and told him that I was his Corpsman at one time and I had a lot more ribbons than he did. The Sergeant told the Cooley that his confidence in me was what helped to bring him home, knowing that if he got hurt I would be there to work on him. The Sergeant then told him about what has happened to me. This young Lance Cooley then walked up to me and shook my hand and said it was his pleasure to meet someone like me, a “Flesh and Blood, Ghost”. I know when he said that the look on my face had to be one of complete confusion. The comment had caught me sooo off guard there was no way to hide it. The Cooley caught on to my confusion, and proceeded to explain the comment. He told me that it seems that I have lost 2 lives. First is the family that I don’t remember. Second is a military career that I had served honorably and apparently did a real good job at. By not being able to remember either of these, he said it was as if I gave both of those lives and now seemed to be living in chaos. Kind of what he imagined a ghost would be doing. Leave it to a Lance Cooley!!
The next day I got a phone call that my MedBoard results were in and I needed to go in and review them. As they were being explained to me the figures defiantly weren’t what I had been told to expect. As I left I realized that with what was being proposed I needed to do a lot of thinking and plan on moving. Where I have no idea but there was no way I could be able to afford to stay in the area that I am in. The rest of the day I sat trying to figure out a lot of things. The only thing that I definitely came up with was the fact that I needed to start packing as from what I was told I could be out of the Navy within 30-90 days. So that weekend I started to go through boxes and bins.
This is where the dead man’s house comes in.
As I go through the boxes and bins here at the house I can’t help but get the feeling that I am going through someone else’s life, someone elses private life. I have found cards from his ex-wife, his ex in-laws. Cards and pictures from his kids. Letters and notes from his Marines. Thank you cards from his Marine’s families, for bringing them home or just having been there with them. Pictures that although the faces and places look familiar, there is no recognition there. Awards and evals for a Corpsman that I would like to meet. A bin full of dried roses that mean nothing to me. All kinds of things that are really confusing. Part of me knows that all of these things are mine, and I am that Corpsman that I have read about. But it gets very frustrating when I still cannot connect to any of it. It is hard to try and figure out what this other person would want me to hold onto in case he ever were to come back. Then again I really hope he never does. Although there are a lot of things that I have read that makes me think I would like to meet him there are other things that I have heard about him that I would just as soon kick the s&^# out of him instead of shaking his hand. Makes things really confusing!! And frustrating.
On a lighter note Sally has now began to like bath days. I told her earlier that it was bath day and she went back and laid down in the bathroom as if she were waiting for me to come in and start her bath. What a change from the first time when I had to pick her up and put her into the tub. I guess I am going to go and get the bath started. Will write more later.
