The Enigma of Heroism

         Phil Conklin was eighty when he died. His death hit Joe McManus like a sledgehammer blow to the stomach. For forty years, McManus joked that Phil would live forever. In his heart of hearts, he believed it was true.  

         A two-year battle with lung cancer reduced Phil to a shell of the man he had once been. When Joe visited him two days before he died, Phil’s white hair was so thin it resembled the remains of a spider web, blown asunder by a gust of wind. But it was his eyes that most depressed Joe. They were opaque, almost translucent, not the deep blue Joe had known. He had seen unfathomable sadness and great joy in those eyes. That is how he wanted to remember them, full of feeling, conveying the best and worst of what life offered.

         Phil’s brother asked Joe to do the eulogy. He was honored but doubted he could talk about his friend without breaking down. The stoicism of his youth was gone. He had become sentimental in old age. Despite these reservations, he wanted to do it. He wanted to tell everyone in Logansport they had lost a great man.

         At eight o’clock, the night before Phil’s funeral, he sat down at his kitchen table intending to write. His tools included a pad of lined paper, half a dozen pencils, two books of poetry and a bottle of Jack Daniels. There was so much to say. How do you put eighty years into a twenty-minute tribute?

         Memories of their childhood adventures and their success on the high school football field made him smile, but uninvited flashbacks from World War II quickly intervened. The cruelty exhibited on the battlefield was breathtaking. Phil had done extraordinary things and his actions troubled some, including Joe at first. It took him months to reconcile his core beliefs with Phil’s sense of duty. When that day came, he knew he’d witnessed acts of bravery too rare to be acknowledged. No explanation would satisfy his superiors. They were chained to an archaic moral code, the Gatling Gun of the self-righteous. Knowing Phil had his own code, one that he would never abandon, brought Joe immense comfort. But an immense feeling of loneliness had replaced comfort. He knew he could be the last person on earth who knew what Phil had done to save his men.

         Joe and Phil were born two days apart at Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Logansport. Joe, the first-born, retained his lead on Phil throughout their lives. He was always in the right place at the right time. His father was a local politician who became Mayor of Logansport when Joe was a sophomore in high school. Joe never sought advantage from his father’s position, but he didn’t mind the favors that came with it either.

         At five feet ten inches tall and 160 pounds, Joe was not a big guy, but quick and very athletic. He also played center field and captained the high school baseball team. In his senior year, his team was runner-up to the state champion, a large school from Harrisburg.

         Several colleges offered Joe an athletic scholarship, but he wasn’t interested in continuing his education. He wanted to start his own business at the earliest opportunity.

         Joe had inherited his father’s good looks. His dark hair and dark eyes coupled with his stature in the community made him every girl’s dream date. Phil was his opposite in appearance. He was blond, blue-eyed, and taller than Joe, with a nose slightly too big for his face. A serious case of acne left his face pocked with small moonscape craters. But he was the strongest kid in high school, working out with weights long before it was expected of athletes. A quiet, shy teenager, he never sought attention but was always supportive of the underdog. He came from a large Catholic family, but he was not particularly religious. His sense of justice was part of his DNA, rather than his upbringing.

         Joe and Phil were hunters, but hunting was one thing they did not do together. Joe reveled in the fellowship of the group hunt, spending long weekends with his father, uncle, two brothers and their guests in their cabin during deer hunting season. It wasn’t just rehashing the day’s hunt or the card games in the evening that Joe enjoyed. The hunt provided him an opportunity to observe human behavior, teaching him things he could never learn in high school classes. That was what he loved most about hunting.

         By the time he was fifteen, he knew the best hunters saw movement long before others did. They possessed a natural ability to stay calm and respond quickly when their chance came. There was no fumbling with the gun’s safety, no quick movement that sent their prey scurrying into heavy brush. Joe would observe new members of the group and before the hunt began in earnest, he knew who would get a deer and who would go home with nothing to show for their time in the woods.

         His father often described Joe’s ability to observe and then predict human behavior as his “savant quality.” Joe quickly sensed if a hunter was a danger to others in the group. He would relay his fears to his father at lunch on the first day of the hunt. Both would keep a watchful eye on the problem hunter, quietly offering advice as they took their stations. As a result, their safety record was unblemished. By the year 2000, over forty different hunters had used their cabin. The group never had a hunting accident. There were first time guests who were never again asked to join the group. A few were sent home early because Joe said it was necessary.

         Phil hunted alone with bow and arrow. As hunting season approached, he would hope for an early snowfall. Snow muffled all sound, bringing an ethereal silence to the forest that Phil described as “holy.” He would track deer for hours, marveling at their ability to disappear, then rematerialize as they moved like lovely ghosts gliding through the snow. He sensed the deer knew there was an alien in the woods. He also sensed they grew less fearful as time passed without incident. That was when Phil struck.

         Phil’s light complexion and blond hair belied his heritage. One of his grandfathers was a full-blooded Iroquois. Phil’s brothers and sisters all inherited the black hair and dark complexion of their Indian heritage. But Phil inherited something far more important from his grandfather; a love of the outdoors and the peace he felt when he was alone in the forest.

         Phil’s interest in bow hunting made him his grandfather’s favorite. He taught Phil how to track prey and instilled in him appreciation for the dignity of all things wild. Phil never completely resolved the conflict created by his love of hunting and his feelings for wildlife. He always seemed stunned by what he had done when he approached a dead or dying deer. It was as if he could not connect the hunt with the result.

         He hid his conflict from friends and family, insisting that hunting was necessary to put meat on the table and cull the herd. By the time he died in 2004, Phil had hunted for fifty-six years with bow and arrow. Every one of those autumns there was venison in the Conklin freezer. His last hunt was in 2001. Although physically strong enough to go out the following year, the anguish he experienced in killing was more than the old man could endure.

         Joe and Phil graduated from high school in 1942. The depression had not yet ended in Logansport and Phil had no money for college. He was a good student and would have gone had funds been available. Phil and Joe intended to work for a few years for Joe’s uncle, save their money and start their own construction company. But fate had other plans for boys born in 1924. The Second World War was underway. Two months after graduating, they enlisted. Their recruiter assured them they would be assigned to the same unit.

         Joe’s focus abruptly shifted to the Battle of the Bulge. The first four days of that battle were among the most intense of the war and they stayed with Joe forever. Yet, he’d never spoken to Phil about those days in the Hurtgen Forest.  Although it pained him, Joe forced himself to remember every detail of those days. Only then could he write the eulogy Phil deserved.

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         At one o’clock in the morning Joe McManus was still sitting at the kitchen table. His bottle of Jack Daniels was down about five ounces, but he had not written a word. His tour through the past had regenerated his appreciation for his life and he was grateful to have known Phil Conklin.

         Phil’s Funeral Mass was scheduled at eleven the next morning. Time was running out and Joe knew he needed to find the discipline to put a decent eulogy together. He owed Phil that and more, so he began writing. When he finally put pen to paper, the words poured out of him. He was done by two a.m. and ready to sleep.

         The next morning, he was in the church a half hour before the service began. Phil’s eulogy was handwritten on white lined paper. Joe had skipped every other line, spacing his words to make them easy to read. At eighty, his eyesight was not what it had been.

         For the first time in years, he was wearing a suit. It was navy blue, and he had chosen a dark blue tie and a white shirt. Grey was infiltrating his thick black hair, producing the color of slate found on Pennsylvania hillsides. Skin sagged around his jawline and deep lines ran down his face. Still, he remained a handsome man. He’d been surprised to find his suit still fit him. It had been fifteen years since he purchased it. He worked hard to stay in shape, but, in the last few years, he had to force himself to exercise. He managed to get to the YMCA pool three times a week where he swam laps. He would swim a mile, then spend forty minutes in the weight room.

         Joe wasn’t Catholic but had been to enough Masses during his lifetime to know how things progressed. About twenty minutes into the service, he would stride to the pulpit to eulogize the friend of seventy-five years. He wondered that If Phil had outlived him, would he have had so much trouble deciding what to include and what to leave out about his life? Would Phil be as sentimental and as nervous as he was? No, he decided, Phil was ready for everything that life served up. He never heard Phil give a speech, but he knew he was a man of principle who would rise to the occasion.

         Joe, the son of Logansport’s mayor, entered politics after the war and served as Sheriff for over thirty years. An elected official, he gave plenty of speeches. He never thought of himself as an orator, but he was clear, concise, and always told the truth. He felt that no talk was more important than the one he was about to give.

         When the time came, McMannus strode to the pulpit, took the eulogy from the inside pocket of his jacket, and looked out at the assembled mourners. Phil’s children, his siblings and their families filled the first three pews. Joe knew them all. Four old men in the back of the church caught his attention. He hadn’t seen their faces in nearly sixty years, but he recognized them instantly. He had fought beside them in the Battle of the Bulge in the forests of Eastern France. He wondered how they knew Phil had passed. Seeing men from his platoon at Phil’s funeral touched him deeply.   

         He began. “It is wonderful to see Phil’s family and his friends gather to pay their respects to the best man I have ever known. I am honored to be here and grateful for the trust you put in me. “Phil was my best friend, my teammate, and the most courageous man I have ever known.

         “This is a day I thought I would never see. I believed Phil would live forever. I imagine many of you felt the same way. We knew him as a force of nature on the football field, on the battlefield, in every theater of life. The greater the challenge, the stronger his response. He loved his family, his country, and his fellow man.

         “There are seventy-five years of events to share, and I could talk for hours about things we did together, of people we loved, of those we watched die. Some of those memories would make you laugh, and laughter would help chase our grief to the sidelines. Other stories would make you weep because Phil saw things no man should ever see. But stories, wonderful as they may be, never completely convey the essence of a man.

         “Phil lived for eighty years. He experienced everything life deals out: joy, cruelty, success, failure, love, and hate. It is impossible to portray the full nature of the man with a mere recitation of events. So, you see, I struggled putting this eulogy together. Late last night, I determined the only way to convey the essence of Phil Conklin was to address him directly instead of you, his family and friends. This allows me to say all the things I should have said to him long ago. I want him…and you… to know how much I loved and admired him. I ask your indulgence. Allow me to express my gratitude to him for a life superbly lived.

         “Phil, life asked so much from you; mandating actions that few even dared to consider. You did all that was asked of you, but never strayed from what you knew to be right, what you knew to be kind, what you knew was compassionate.

         “There were times I questioned your actions. But that was before I understood you were born with a wisdom that took me a lifetime to acquire. My only regret is I didn’t do more to help you through times that undoubtedly scarred your soul. I am sorry I was not always there when you most needed a friend. It must have been a lonely time for you, but you never complained. You never mentioned my lack of understanding, my lack of compassion. You understood my limitations and never blamed me for my failings.”

         Looking at the four men in the back of the church, Joe deviated from his text. “Phil, there are four special men here today to pay you tribute. I haven’t seen them in sixty years, but they never forgot you. They are among the few who know what you did for us during the war. Thank you, Reed, Chuck, Sam, and Bill for being here. It would have meant so much to Phil. It means so much to me. Please stay so we can talk after the service.”

         Joe returned to his prepared text. “Phil, you took care of your family as few have ever done. You were always there in time of need, never holding back, never failing to give everything you had to give. You were a wonderful father, grandfather, uncle, and cousin to many.

         “When we die, we are remembered for the wealth we accumulated, the books we wrote, the songs we sang, the children conceived or aid we provided to others. Though you never attained the fame afforded some, you touched many lives, brightened many days, and made us all better than we would have been without you. I am so grateful to have been your friend. Rest in peace, Philip Conklin. No one deserves it more.

         “The rest of us must learn to move on without you. I will close with a few lines from my favorite poem, ‘From Out the Cave’ by Joyce Sutphen. I found the poem when my wife, Emma, died four years ago. It tells us we will endure, that the gloom will fade away, and the sun will shine again.

                                    when it has been centuries

                                    since you watched the sun set

                                    or the rain fall, and the clouds,

                                     drifting overhead pass as flat

                                     as anything on a postcard;

                                     when, in the midst of these

                                      everyday nightmares, you

                                      understand that you could

                                      wake up,

                                      you could turn

                                      and go back

                                      to the last thing you

                                      remember doing with your whole heart.

                                      then you wake,

                                      you stumble from your cave,

                                      blinking in the sun, naming every shadow

                                      as it slips.”

         At the end of the service, Joe strode to the back of the church to greet four men from his past. It was sixty years since he last saw them, but he knew them well. And he no longer felt alone, for they shared the knowledge of Phil Conklin’s gift to every man in their platoon.