A war medal.
One by one, veterans stepped forward, stood alone, ripped medals off of their chests, and threw them, clanging, onto the steps. Purple Hearts, Bronze Stars, Good Conduct Medals, dog tags. Some hit the steps and clanked against the sudden silence of the crowd. Barb let go of Frankie, pushed her way to the front of the crowd, and threw her first lieutenant’s bars onto the steps.
Police in riot gear—helmeted, with plastic shields up—arrived in a blare of whistles. They charged the crowd, began hauling the protesters away.
The crowd broke up; pandemonium filled the streets.
Frankie was knocked off her feet, fell hard. In the confusion, she curled into a small ball and rolled away, trying to protect herself from both protesters and police. She edged toward the chain-link fence barricade and lay there, panting, feeling bruised. Tear gas floated through the air, stung Frankie’s eyes, and blurred her vision until she could barely see.
How long did she lie there, blinking, her eyes on fire? She didn’t know.
Slowly, she got to her feet, trying to focus. The street was full of police in riot gear, hauling protesters away, cars honking, driving away, news vans following.
Half-blind, Frankie stumbled forward, unable to quite comprehend everything she’d just seen, the deep and utter wrongness of it. The street was littered with cigarette butts, protest brochures, broken signs, ripped-up draft cards.
On the steps of the Capitol, behind the temporary chain-link fencing, hundreds of medals glittered in the sunlight. Medals that had cost each recipient so much, thrown away in protest.
A lone policeman began picking them up. What would happen to them, the medals men had sacrificed and bled for?
Frankie grabbed the chain-link fence, shook it hard. “Don’t you touch those!”
A man grabbed her by the arm. “Don’t,” he said. “They’ll arrest you.”
She tried to pull free. “I don’t care.” Suddenly she was furious. How dare the American government do these things to her own citizens; stop mothers from honoring their fallen sons, ignore the meaning of a medal thrown through the air? She wiped her eyes again, tried to clear her vision. “They shouldn’t be allowed to touch those medals.”
“The vets made their point. A damn good one,” the man said. “That image will stay with people: a vet in a wheelchair throwing his Purple Heart away? Powerful, man.”
Frankie pulled back, wrenched her arm free. The man who’d stopped her wasn’t what she expected. In the first place, he was older than most of the protesters, certainly older than most of the Vietnam vets. Long dark hair fell in feathery layers almost to his shoulders and was threaded through with gray. A thick mustache covered his upper lip. He wore round John Lennon sunglasses, but even so she could see how green his eyes were.
“You’re a Vietnam vet?” she said, trying to find her calm again. All of this had upset her, dredged up emotions she didn’t want to feel. She had to dial it back. And fast. Loosing her Vietnam emotions was never good.
“No. Just someone who’s against the war. Henry Acevedo.” He held out his hand.
She shook it distractedly. “Frankie McGrath. Did you have a son in Vietnam?”
He laughed. “I’m not that old. I’m here for the same reason you are: to say enough is goddamn enough.”
“Yeah. Well. Thanks, Henry.” Frankie walked away.
Henry fell into step beside her.
“Do you think these protests will do any good?” she asked.
“We have to try,” was his answer.
Yeah, Frankie thought, it’s true. She’d seen people hauled away by the police today, risking their freedom to protest a war many of them hadn’t even fought. Civilians were being arrested for exercising the fundamental American right to protest their government; at Kent State and in Jackson, they’d been shot for it.
She didn’t know if protesting and marching and making signs could actually effect change, but she damn sure knew that America wasn’t preserving democracy or fighting communism in Vietnam, and it certainly wasn’t winning. Ultimately too many lives would be lost in pursuit of nothing.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Henry asked.
Frankie had almost forgotten the older man was with her; she’d been lost in the wilds of her own past. They’d walked almost two blocks together. She stopped, looked at him.
Long, wild hair, bright green eyes, lines that hinted at sorrow, a nose that looked as if it had been broken more than once. Worn, faded Levi’s, a Rolling Stones T-shirt. Sandals. He looked like a Berkeley philosophy professor.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Why not? I feel … bereft, I guess. That was tough to watch.”
What man used the word bereft?
“Are you a philosophy professor? Or a surfer, maybe?”
“Good guess. Psychiatrist. And yeah, I surf. Grew up in La Jolla. That’s in Southern California.”
Frankie smiled. “I’m a Coronado Island girl. My brother and I used to surf Trestles and Black’s Beach.”
“Small world.”
Frankie felt a kinship with him. She liked that he was a surfer, that he knew Trestles, and that he was here, standing against a war he’d had no part in. “I could use a drink. I’m supposed to meet my girlfriend at the Hay Adams. We got separated.”
They turned in tandem, heading toward the hotel.
Across the street, a small table had been positioned beneath a banner that read DON’T LET THEM BE FORGOTTEN.
At the table, behind stacks of anti-war flyers, two long-haired men with unruly sideburns sat in folding chairs. “Hey, lady, want to buy a bracelet and help bring a POW home?”
Frankie walked over to the table, looked down at a cardboard box full of silver metal bracelets.
“They’re five bucks apiece,” the guy behind the table said.
Frankie pulled one of the bracelets out. It was a thin silver cuff, with MAJ ROBERT WELCH 1–16–1967 engraved on it.
“We’re a student organization,” one of the kids said. “We’re raising money. We work with the League of POW/MIA Families. It’s a new organization.”
“League of Families?” Frankie asked.
“Navy wives, mostly, fighting to bring their husbands home. There’s a fundraiser in town next week, if you’d like to join the effort. Here’s a flyer. They need donations.”
Frankie took the flyer, handed the guy ten dollars, and put the bracelet on.
She and Henry walked to the hotel, passed a worried-looking doorman who seemed ready to stop them, but didn’t. They went downstairs, into the sexy basement bar where it was rumored that much of the country’s governing decisions were made by men drinking martinis. They chose a booth in the back; he ordered a beer, she a gin martini. On the table in front of them, a pair of coasters showed a caricature of President Nixon. Frankie realized her hands were shaking so she lit up a cigarette.
The bartender brought over a small bowl full of homemade potato chips.
She sipped her drink, which helped to ease the slight tremor in her hands. Her eyes still stung, but her vision had cleared. Cigarette smoke wafted between them. Someone in here was smoking a cigar, too.
“Who did you lose to Vietnam?” Henry asked.
She put down her glass. There was something in the way he looked at her, a quiet compassion, maybe, a depth of caring she was unused to. “It’s a long list.”
“A brother?”
“He was the first. Yeah. But … there were … others.”
He said nothing more but didn’t look away. She had a feeling he saw more than most people. The silence became unnerving.
“I was there,” she said in a soft voice, surprising herself with the admission.
“I see the pin,” he said. “Your caduceus. Wings. You’re a nurse. I’ve heard stories about women like you.”
“How? No one talks about the war. No one who was there, anyway.”