Twenty-five Cents and the Gift of Conviction

My grandfather has this quarter he is absolutely obsessed with. It cannot be replaced with just any old quarter. He has memorized every detail of this specific quarter – the date, the scratches, the tarnish of the metal. It’s a 1957 Philadelphia mint. It has a gash through Washington’s head that makes it distinguishable from other quarters and it has a chip on the tails side at the two o’clock position. I know this because he made me go through an entire cash register to find it. I took it from his nightstand one evening to go buy gum at the Quick Mart. The old man nearly lost his mind when he saw it missing. He was on all fours with a flashlight searching every nook and cranny, trying to retrace his steps, looking like he was about to cry. I was scared at first, scared by his behavior, scared to confess I spent it. I didn’t understand the importance of such an object. To me, it was loose change, no different than the other coins I scrounged up above the washer and under the couch cushions. I did my best to act normal, but I think I over did it and looked suspicious. Chewing the gum might have given me away as well. His eyes were like spotlights shining in my face as he questioned me about the gum. They weren’t real lights, but I was sweating nonetheless and broke, confessing. He sent me back to the store with the description of the coin and told me not to come home until I had it. Luckily, the guy behind the counter was understanding and not busy. He dumped the quarters out on the counter and helped me search. I felt like a fool going back up there to swap quarters. When I got home, I asked my grandfather what was so special about this one particular quarter.

The year was 1962 when my grandfather, a seventeen-year-old Richard ‘Dick’ Gibbons, stepped onto Vietnamese soil for the first time. He was proud to serve his country the way his father and grandfather had before him, but he quickly saw the reality of war etched on the faces of young soldiers as they shuffled about the basecamp. Some of those young men were just returning from missions, their clothes and faces stained with dirt, sweat, and blood, their demeanor downtrodden. He was assigned to one such platoon. They barely had enough time to grab fresh socks and a slice of Spam before their captain explained to them their mission details. Dick felt his reserve weaken as he was faced with his first mission. He asked what it was like out there and his platoon looked at him in silence. A grizzled veteran of thirty years on his third tour, Sergeant Amos Wilkes, took Dick aside and explained to him the realities of jungle warfare as they geared up.

“You never know where they’re coming from, kid. It’s their jungle. They’ll see you before you see them. The heat, the fatigue, the fear, it’s going to play with your mind. You won’t be able to tell a monkey’s screech from an enemy signal, a snake in the grass from an attacking foe. Keep your head on a swivel and your eyes and ears open at all times. What do you have for luck?”

Dick shrugged, “I don’t believe in luck.”

“Where we’re going, kid, a little luck doesn’t hurt. I keep the bullet that missed my heart by less than a centimeter during my first tour with me at all times. I got lucky and I take that luck with me wherever I go. Priest over there, he carries a pocket bible with him. Sanches has a Saint Jude pendant around his neck. Even the captain keeps a picture of his fiancé with him for good luck. Don’t underestimate the power of belief. Whether a person believes in something tangible or intangible, no matter how ridiculous it sounds, that belief has great power to comfort and embolden people through difficult times.”

On their second day out, they were patrolling the jungle when they heard a jungle creature, something sounding like a large bird crying out. The sound made the captain halt and throw up his fist. Everyone stopped, surveying the area. Something shiny caught Dick’s eye on the ground. It was a quarter. He thought it was odd that a piece of American currency found its way around the world into an Asian jungle. He took it as a sign of good luck and bent over to pick it up as a gunshot rang out and a bullet zipped right over him and into another private’s thigh. Dick laid in the weeds staring in disbelief as the medic dragged the private to safety. A firefight broke out. With every click and bang, Dick flinched and flattened himself closer to the ground. Wilkes came running at him in a crouch through the weeds.

“Get in the fight,” Wilkes commanded as he grabbed him by the collar and pulled him along. “We’ve got them on the run!”

Dick ran alongside the sergeant who was following the captain in their pursuit of enemy soldiers. The jungle opened up to a village with some makeshift stick huts and acres of rice fields in the background. The captain signaled search details. Dick was sent into one of the huts. He held his breath, trying to remain steady as he entered the hut. It was dark inside, not much light getting in except through cracks in the walls which just cast an eerie glow. He was immediately attacked, surprised by a man with a knife. It was close-quarters hand-to-hand combat and Dick was outmatched. The enemy had him pinned to the ground and was shoving his knife into his chest when Wilkes ended the altercation with a pistol shot to the man’s head. Dick pushed the man off him and scurried back against the wall. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the quarter which now had a gash in George Washington’s head. He held it up for the sergeant to see and said, “I think I found my lucky piece.”

That was day two of a two-year tour. My grandfather said he witnessed some atrocious things in Vietnam, things he wouldn’t even tell me about. He said when he returned stateside, those things haunted him, keeping him awake at night. He said he could still hear the distant cries of soldiers being stabbed to death in the night. He said he could still see the faces of the dying, pleading for help, crying for their mothers with their limbs and guts lying beside them. He said he could still feel the cold breath of death on his neck when he was alone at night. He returned to his old habit of flipping the quarter from knuckle to knuckle just as he did in his fox hole at night in the jungle. The screaming stopped. The faces disappeared. Death didn’t feel so imminent. So, maybe his sergeant was right, belief is a powerful thing in the minds of those who believe, especially when that belief is resolute enough to be called conviction. I wouldn’t have spent that quarter had I known its significance to my grandfather. It was humbling listening to his story. He lived through something I can’t even imagine living through and he attributes his survival to his quarter. Besides, if believing in something gets him through the night, who am I to judge.