Building 419 Revisited

       More Letters From Paradise
        Building 419 Revisited

Building 419 is no more. It had long been a race between the termites and a wrecking ball. But one time this warehouse was the most important building on Sand Island, Honolulu. For it was here that the bodies were returned to from Vietnam. And the dusty, empty building was believed to be     haunted with ghosts.

Standing in the now empty building you could have heard voices:
          "Hay Sarge."
          "What do you want?"
       "How many did we get today?"
              "Ten."
       "Easy day, for a change."
         "Yeah. an easy day."
   "How many did we get last month?"
            "Eighty."
"Goddam war, they say we are winning."
    "Not from the looks of it."
"You guys had better move your asses."
"The chaplin will be here soon for the service."
"Get the lead out!"

"Well, I'll be damned."
"I saw a guy's name on one of the body bags, and I knew him."
"So what, a lot of guys you probably knew passed through here on their way back home."
"I really knew this guy, we spent three lovely days in a shell hole in the jungle. He had just gotten married when he was drafted.  The poor sonofoabitch. What a way to go home."
        "Yeah, all of them."
 "Don't you guys forget the flags."
   "Yeah, those fucking flags."

I wrote this in memory of two of my students, Vince LaRocca and Bob Perry, who passed through building 419 on their way back home to Petersburg, Michigan.
      Aloha
      Grant