The Forgotten Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t know what was in the letter? How can that be?”
    “You know how that can be,” replied Robert. “I don’t care how old or out of it Dad is. If he doesn’t want you to read a letter he has, you ain’t reading it. He can still kick ass even at his age. There’s not a doctor in the VA system who could take him or would ever want to try.”
    “Okay, Bobby, I’ll head over now.”
    “John, all bullshit aside, you okay?”
    “All bullshit aside, no, Bobby, I’m not okay.”
    “What are you going to do about it?”
    “I’m in the Army.”
    “Meaning what exactly?”
    “Meaning I’m going to soldier on.”
    “You can always talk to somebody. The Army has lots of specialists who do just that. You went through a lot of shit in West Virginia. It would screw anybody up. Like PTSD.”
    “I don’t need to talk to anybody.”
    “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
    “Puller men don’t talk about their troubles.”
    Puller could imagine his brother shaking his head in disappointment.
    “Is that family rule number three or four?”
    Puller said, “For me, right now, it’s rule number one.”

6
    A S HE WALKED DOWN the hall at the VA hospital Puller wondered whether he would end up in one himself when he got older. As he looked around at the elderly sick and disabled former soldiers his spirits dropped even more.
    Maybe a shot to the head when the time comes would be better.
    He knew where his father’s room was and so bypassed the nurse’s desk. He actually heard his old man long before he saw him. John Puller Sr. had always possessed a voice like a bullhorn, and age and his other infirmities had done nothing to lessen its power. Indeed, in some ways, it seemed even more strident than before.
    As Puller approached the door to his father’s room it opened and a frazzled-looking nurse stepped out.
    “God, am I glad you’re here,” she said, staring up at Puller. He was not in uniform but she apparently had easily recognized him.
    “What’s the problem?” asked Puller.
    “
He’s
the problem,” she replied. “He’s been asking for you for the last twenty-four hours. He won’t let it go.”
    Puller put his hand on the knob. “He was a three-star. It’s always personal and they never let anything go. It’s in their DNA.”
    “Good luck,” said the nurse.
    “It’ll have nothing to do with luck,” said Puller as he walked into the room and shut the door behind him.
    Inside the room he put his broad back to the door and gazed around. The place was small, maybe ten by ten, like a prison cell. Actually, it was about the same size as the place his brother would be calling home at USDB for the rest of his life.
    The room was furnished with a hospital bed, a laminated wood nightstand, a curtain for privacy, and a chair that did not look comfortable and felt just how it looked.
    Then there was one window, a tiny closet, and a bathroom with support bars and panic buttons all over the place.
    And then, lastly, his old man, John Puller Sr., the former commander of arguably the Army’s most famous division, the 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles.
    “XO, where the hell you been?” said Puller Sr., staring at his son like he had him lined up over iron gunsights.
    “On assignment, just got back. Hear there’s something up, sir.”
    “Damn right there is.”
    Puller moved forward and stood at ease by the side of the bed where his father lay, wearing a white T-shirt and loose-fitting blue scrub pants. Once nearly as tall as his son, the old man had been shrunken by age to a little over six-one—still tall, but not the near giant he had once been. A white fringe of cottony hair ran around the rim of his head, with nothing else on top. His eyes were ice blue and went from flashing fire to vacant, sometimes in the span of a few seconds.
    The doctors weren’t quite sure what was going on with Puller Sr. They wouldn’t officially call it Alzheimer’s or even dementia. They had begun to say simply that