05/25/2026
WHEN HEROES LEAVE OUR MIDST
-By David Westphall (grandson of Doc & Jeanne)
Summer nights
Were the best nights.
The air was warm
Like a neighbor's heart.
The fireflies lit up the night,
Sentinels in the darkness,
Like a lighthouse
On a dark, rocky shore.
The taste of sweet tea
Was painted to my tongue,
And the aroma of my dad's pipe
Filled the air.
The smell of to***co
With a hint of vanilla,
I'd never smoke it myself,
But I love it.
The coals of the pipe
Illuminate his wrinkling face,
Covered in gray whiskers
And stories.
Stories of smiles
And of tears.
That soldier's been
Through so very much.
We're just a bunch of soldiers,
My family and I.
Air Force, Marines and Army,
Until the day we die.
My mother hates it,
Naturally.
I don't blame her,
She loves us to death.
She worries more
Each night that we're gone.
She's a soldier herself
In reality.
Soldiers are not the only ones
To suffer the wounds of combat.
Mothers are our drill sergeants
For our entire lives.
As cars drive by
My dad points out the headlights,
As if I couldn't see them.
He grunts.
A pair turns toward our road.
I tell myself I'm unsure
That it's a government vehicle,
S**t.
It is.
Two Marines get out,
Take off their hats
And look at each other.
It's a funny kind of thing
When neither party
Wants to break bad news.
We wait.
Each step
That they take toward us
Is more haunting
Than the one before.
Their boots are like blades,
Their approach brings pain
And anguish
That will surely be slow to leave.
I look over at my dad,
He stares forward
As if none of this
Was even happening.
Napoleanic, He sits,
Awaiting for fate
To deal him his losing hand
In this cruel game of poker.
"Mr. Benson,"
One of them says.
I'm not sure which one
Even said it.
I wasn't watching
The movement of their mouths,
I already started
To try and cope.
"Yes, that's me,"
My father said,
Without a hint
Of sorrow in his voice.
So many times
Has he folded a flag
And handed it to a family.
Now he was on the other side.
The long drawn out military report
Had never seemed so tedious
As this very personal one.
It took him awhile to say it.
"I'm sorry, sir,
Your son was killed in action."
More details were described
To my father's nodding head.
I walked in the house,
Shaken.
My mother is sitting alone,
I think she heard.
She's holding a frame
With Josh's immortalized,
Young face smiling at her
Without speaking a word.
She won't look up,
I won't look down.
I go upstairs
Into his old room.
Posters of Marines
Valorously scaling cliff faces
Cover his walls.
He was born a leatherneck.
I sit on his bed,
Run my hands along the comforter
And then up to my face.
I am crying.
I look out the window
And at our old tree house.
I remember the bruises,
The noogies
And Indian rug burns.
He roughed me up,
But he raised me up.
I wish I could do the same now.
I would trade all the torture
I received from my older brother
To see that young smiling face
Just one more time.
I hear my father come in
And I hear the wails come with him.
Each mother wishes
To produce an Achilles of a son.
But bullets and fate
Have their ways of finding their marks
In the most painful of places
Of a human's heart.
Mother and father,
Brother and sister,
Husband and wife,
All the like are never ready for this.
He came into the world
Wrapped in love
And he will leave
Wrapped in the flag of his country.
You know,
I really don't think
That he would want it
Any other way.
NOTE: Author David Westphall is a U.S. Army veteran and is grandson of Dr. Victor "Doc" & Jeanne Westphall, son of Walter & Dorothy Westphall, and namesake of his Uncle David Westphall who was killed in Vietnam on May 22, 1968.
(May 2013 photo of the Chapel at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Angel Fire. Photo Credit: Westphall family)
