OPINION — SECOND CHANCES: Masked Patriots, unite

My wife has had a tough time the past few weeks. She had two major surgeries and has been in the hospital twice. When she has been home, like now, I have been her nurse, clerk, cook and majordomo, or all-around servant. I am very happy to have her home, recovering. Today, as I left the house to pick up some medications for her at the pharmacy, it occurred to me just how nice a feeling it is being needed, at least until she can fend for herself once again and we can continue with our lives and love on an equal basis.

I realized on that same pharmacy run that there have been times in my 72 years that I was unable to help people I loved deeply. Even now I sometimes feel I failed them though there was nothing I could have done. How utterly useless facts are when they confront feelings. I am not talking expected endings to life such as we experience with the terminally ill. I am talking about those who are suddenly snatched from us long before their three score and ten, as the Bible describes a normal life span.

For me, it started with the loss of my college roommate and fellow U.S. Marine, Chuck Grandoville, in Vietnam in May 1967. Chuck and I had played, laughed and trained together. We had each other’s backs which has a lot of meaning during war. Chuck was 19. I could not save him from death. I felt helpless then and to this day I still do when I think of his battlefield demise so far from home in Iowa. I was not even present when Chuck died but that does not matter much — the one time he needed for me to have his back I was not there.

Not long afterward, Lance Corporal John Sebode died in my arms during the Battle of Dai Do, also in May but the following year, 1968. He died as we discussed his home in Louisiana and I tried not to be obvious as I stared at the hole in his fatigues about the size of a Good and Plenty. I told him it was a small hole probably caused by shrapnel and that I was sure he was going to be all right. In spite of my reassurance, he closed his eyes and departed this life — held by a 20-year-old grunt and fellow Marine who had no idea what to do or say and who was so terrified he thought he was having an out of body experience and was watching from above a different Marine holding a different soldier who had just died. Son of a bitch, you say, this cannot be happening, but it is and somehow you need to find a way to deal with it as helpless and scared as you are.

These young Marines were Patriots. I guess I am a Patriot, too, though I wear such titles uneasily. Had there been anything to keep them from harm’s way, to protect their right to human life, to keep them alive, I would have willingly complied. And had our places been switched, I know they would have done the same.

Today they would be Masked Patriots, eager to do everything they could to keep mankind safe. And so, when I don my mask, I feel as though I am joining them and their heritage. As we were taught in Marine Corps. boot camp, keep your weapon clean, your ammunition belt full, and your gas mask pouch free of Playboy magazines because those pictures cannot save you. But lessons on what to do when a fellow Patriot is dying in your arms and neither of you is 21 years old yet and you are scared and helpless? That you have to learn on your own. But other things they taught us apply, such as wearing masks to protect the health of others.

Taking care of my wife is a second chance for this Masked Patriot. What I could not manage for Chuck and John, I can for her. We do not get that many second chances in life and I am cherishing every minute of mine. Semper Fi from this Masked Patriot.

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Dennis Michael Doyle is a Coeur d’Alene resident.