I was two years older than my cousin, Billy. I had enlisted in the Navy at age 17, and by the time of my discharge at age 21, the war in Vietnam was raging. I hadn’t been home long when Billy received his draft notice. Although he had been drafted, somehow he ended up in the Marines. After that he became a proud Marine, wearing his dress uniform home on leave. Of course, he eventually ended up in Vietnam. The family worried about him, but Billy wasn’t much of a letter writer so little was known. After about a year word was received that he was in a hospital back in the States, recovering from an injury, not wounds.

At this time I was enrolled in college under the GI Bill. Billy’s father was a farmer, and since Billy had left home his father had purchased a new farm about 25 miles south of the state college I attended. This took place in the spring of 1968. It was a Sunday night in early April, not exactly a pleasant time of year in Minnesota. That night was chilly, wet, with a nasty wind. I had just gotten home from studying at the library when the phone rang. I was shocked to hear Billy’s voice; I hadn’t even known he was coming home.

“Can you come out and see me?” he asked. Something about his voice made my decision easy. “Yeah, man, I’ll drive right out.”

Later I learned more of the story from my younger sister, Mary. Not knowing how to get to his family’s new farm, Billy took a Greyhound bus from Minneapolis to the small town where he knew my sister went to a Lutheran high school.

Mary was in a typing class when one of her girlfriends said there was somebody tapping at the window. Mary looked over to see Billy motioning for her to come out. She received permission and when she got outside he was pressed against the side of the building, as if not wanting to be seen. He was wearing his green Marine uniform, and Mary said he kept looking around. He had two requests—one, could our father pick him up, and two, he needed to talk to me and wanted my phone number. Of course, my father came and drove him and Mary back to our house. My father said he would take him to his family’s place, but Billy said no, he wasn’t ready to see them yet. He also turned down an offer to see our grandmother, simply saying “Not yet.”

After Billy called me, I made the half-hour drive and arrived at the farmhouse around 9 p.m. Even though I hadn’t been in combat, he said he felt he could talk to me as a fellow vet. He and I sat at a table in the kitchen. The house was dark except for one overhead light in the kitchen. The wind howled outside, and the rain turned to sleet. We had one beer apiece for the whole night as Billy talked and I listened. I won’t repeat any of the stories Billy told me that night, for I’ve never gotten his permission, and I never will. My cousin Billy passed away from prostate cancer (Agent Orange?) several years ago. What I will say is it changed my outlook on Vietnam. Up to that night I supported America’s involvement in Vietnam; after that night I became anti-war.

I still have an image in my mind of that night. Two young men sitting at a table facing one another. We played cards without keeping score, some game Billy had played in Vietnam. Some kind of focus, I guess, something to do with our hands and eyes. His eyes were cold and the humor hard, mirthless.

Billy’s tour in-country was almost finished when he severely injured his back jumping out of a helicopter on a combat mission. The helicopter hovered off the ground and the Marines had to jump onto tree branches. The branch Billy grabbed broke, and he injured his back in the fall. He told me story after story after story, stories never again repeated to me, or anybody else as far as I know. It was like he purged himself that night. Maybe that had been his intention when he asked for my phone number. Finally, in the early morning, Billy stopped talking, and I left to return to school. The only time Billy spoke about Vietnam after that was an occasional dark-humored joke.

My mother employed him later that summer to build a patio onto our house. At day’s end she’d bring a beer out to him, and they’d talk, not about the war, just talk. He said the first couple of months back were pretty rough, and she helped him out. Billy became one of the hardest workers imaginable, employed by a phone company, helping out local farmers and later in life at his son’s construction company. Maybe it was a way to keep memories at bay.

Postscript to this story: The girl in typing class who alerted my sister that somebody was outside asked about him. My sister introduced them, and they were married for 48 years. R.I.P., cousin.