Vet
COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL MAY 24, 2017
11A
Continued from A1
camera. A Yashica Lynx--his
$35 pay-off from a guy who he
beat with a better hand.
"He was going home the next
day and said he'd send me the
$35. I was young and dumb but
I wasn't stupid," Marc says.
A brief negotiation, won Marc
the camera around the soldier's
neck and he started snapping
away. Anything and everything.
Combat, R and R time, prepa-
rations and those nightly poker
games.
His fellow soldiers would
shoo him away and insist no
one cared.
"But I said, 'No, people are
going to want to see this.' I was
wrong."
He'd been so sure because
he grew up enthralled with war
history. From books to mov-
ies to boyhood games. He ab-
sorbed every piece of narrative
from pens that had been on the
ground, in the thick of war.
Maybe that's where it started.
Of course, it could have been
years after the war when, after
receiving the typical reception
granted to Vietnam soldiers,
Marc stuffed his pictures into
a box and forgot about the war.
He forgot about his three tours.
About how he lay on the fl oor
of the jungle with bullet holes in
his body, in between his friends
and the enemy, one waiting for
the other to blink and come re-
trieve him. He forgot about the
pictures. And he forgot about
the fi lm. He forgot about ev-
erything as he walked with his
wife, on vacation, and stumbled
upon the traveling Vietnam Vet-
eran Memorial wall.
"I saw it. And then I saw peo-
ple laying mementos. I saw how
they decorated. I saw all the
names," he said.
He saw a glass box with a ted-
dy bear. And a note.
"You could never sleep with-
out this bear, Johnny. I hope
now you can rest in peace," it
was signed "Mom."
Marc remembered. "I'd been
in Vietnam." He remembered
the pictures and he remembered
the fi lm.
The 80s came and with it, per-
mission to make movies about
Vietnam. Marc was working in
Hollywood, a gig that would
later garner him an Emmy. On
a visit home, he told his moth-
er he was collecting his photos
and home movies again. He was
going to help. He was going to
show the world what had hap-
pened in that jungle.
"She says, 'Oh. You might
need these, then,' and she comes
back with a shoe box. It's every
letter that I wrote her while I
was over there in chronological
order."
Maybe it started there.
Through occasional tears
and pats to Ben, Marc recalls
the hours that turned into days
that turned into weeks and the
years that went by. There were
visits to his Marine friends for
interviews about their time to-
gether in Vietnam. A divorce.
A partnership with a music
producer to put his experience
into song. A purchase of a Har-
ley motorcycle because it's not
about having a destination, it's
about fi nding a road and see-
ing how far it goes. There was
a self-published photo book. A
call that a friend had committed
suicide. And then another. The
son he was raising alone fell ill
with leukemia, recovered. And
then fell ill again. He sold his
Harley. He kept going.
"I was living with my ex-wife
at the time because she was rais-
ing my grandson. My daughter
was an addict and I thought the
least I could do is provide fi nan-
cial support for my ex who had
taken on this job of raising our
grandson," Marc said.
That's when his book arrived.
And maybe that's where it start-
ed.
"I was showing it to a friend.
We went down to a bar and sat
at the counter. I saw a man there
and said, 'Hey, let me buy you
a drink.'"
The man was wearing a Ma-
rine's hat, on the Marine's birth-
day.
"That's when my friend
shoved the book in front of us
and said, 'Oh you were in Viet-
nam, look, he just published this
book of photographs.'"
The man took the book. He
sat in the booth with his wife.
Marc and his friend found a ta-
ble of their own.
"We're talking and I look
back and his wife is out of her
seat and on his side of the booth.
She's petting his head and he's
turning pages and pointing and
pointing. And she has tears run-
ning down her face. They were
talking. That's healing. That's
healing happening," Marc said.
That's where it started.
It's been more than 20 years
of counseling now. A disability
label due to the PTSD suffered
at the hands of Vietnam. But ev-
ery day, Marc says he wakes up
with one thought: The book.
It's his memoir. It will accom-
pany his photo book, published
by Stack House and eventual-
ly, an album of those songs he
worked on and a documenta-
ry made up of all those home
movies and interviews with his
fellow veterans. The photos and
letters from the shoe box.
"I don't get any money, really.
It's not about money. It's about
saving people and healing peo-
ple. A veteran has killed himself
in the time we have been here
talking," he said.
He'll hold a book signing for
his photo book at the Book Mine
this Friday during the Art Walk.
Ben will be at his side as he has
been for the last fi ve years. He's
not sure when the documentary
will debut--he needs a venue
fi rst.
But that's just the logistics.
It's been 31 years and he knows
he can wait a week more. He
knows when he wakes up to-
morrow, it will be with a bit of
a sentence to scratch out for his
memoir or a touch of a memory
that may send Ben closer to his
side.
And that's all he wants now.
To continue his work with his
constant companion. And if he
can do it on a Harley, even bet-
ter.
"This is my life's work," he
M AY I S M E N TA L H E A LT H
AWARENESS MONTH
says with the weight of tears
pinning his words. "It's my life.
And if I can do anything else
while I'm doing this it would
be to get another Harley with a
side car for Ben. And we would
get in it and we would head to-
wards Drain. There's a road up
there and I want to see how far it
goes. That's what it's about. Get-
ting on the bike, leaving the city,
fi nding the highway and just go-
ing. It gets quiet. If I get hun-
gry, we stop at a diner. If I get
tired, we'll stop at a motel. But
it's not about a destination. It's
about traveling the road when
you don't know where it goes or
where it ends."
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