How Can You Mend This Purple Heart by T. L. Gould Page A

fuck kind of name is Moose?” Earl chuckled sarcastically back.
    The ward wasn’t so long that a slightly raised voice could be heard from one end to the other, and both Earl and Moose turned down the volume.
    â€œA nickname. Got it my first tour in-country. We were in thick brush following an ambush. I heard rustling in the tall grass, so I opened fire with my M60. Shredded a water buffalo in a thousand pieces. I took shit for a month. Got a tattoo on my left arm with my new name.”
    â€œYou got a left arm?” Earl asked with a bit of pride.
    â€œNot all of it. Lost part of it with the bottom half of my left leg,” Moose replied casually, his voice lowering a bit more.
    â€œYou mobile?” Earl asked.
    â€œNope. Won’t be for a while,” Moose told him.
    Earl spun his three-quarter right leg around, sat on the edge of his bed, and slid into his wheelchair.
    â€œDon’t dyou tell me I don’t know sheet about it.” Ski told him again.
    â€œYeah, I know, Ski. Sorry, man.”
    â€œDamn dright.”
    Earl Ray rolled down to the south end of the ward to chat with this Marine named Moose. He would deal with his thoughts of Jennifer after lights out.
    As he wheeled past my bed, he stared a hard, hating glare, one of eternal disgust. He puffed the air up from the corner of his mouth and squinted at me, as if to swipe me from his memory. I really can’t say what Earl was feeling about me just then. I saw a look of hatred, anger, and machismo from a war-hardened, young, proud Marine. The stark reality of our different reasons for being here in this place at the same time was like a punch in the face to me. I thought we had made some progress, but with Earl, it was day by day. I think he felt I didn’t deserve to be in the same hospital, let alone on the same ward, with him and his fellow wounded.
    I stared back, but certainly not with the same intensity. How could I? I had come from a party with a girl on my lap, and he had come from Hell with a bomb under his feet. Still, the feeling of being looked at with that kind of hate made me want to hate him, too. I blankly rubbed the redness on my neck.
    â€œHe’ll come around,” Ski said. “He’s just being a badass. Eet’s what he knows.”
    I didn’t respond. I felt guilty, ashamed, and pissed. Badass or not, and for whatever reasons, we each had made our own choices.
    Moose was a straightforward, no-nonsense Marine with a jovial, Hoss Cartwright-like stature and a broad, easy smile. His left arm was blown off just below the elbow and the word “Moose” was tattooed in a half circle below a green shamrock on his upper arm. His left leg had been blown off about three inches below the knee, and no other shrapnel wounds were visible anywhere. He didn’t have a catheter, but it wasn’t needed. He could hold the piss pot with his fully functional right hand.
    Moose was from a small rural town in central Pennsylvania and never spoke of his mother or dad or any family. No one ever came to visit, and he got no phone calls or mail. He could read a person within the first minute of conversation and decide whether he would spend the next minute talking or just ask him to leave. He could care less what other people thought of him, but he cared very much for his fellow wounded Marines. Moose was the only name we ever knew him by.
    He was assigned to a Navy patrol boat unit when they came under mortar fire. A direct hit to the riverboat took his leg and arm.
    Moose had a quick laugh and an easy sense of humor. He would jump in feet first at anything he attempted, which included getting back on his feet again.
    Earl Ray made his way back down the ward after a long visit with Moose. He paused at the foot of my bed, and the look he gave me wasn’t so hateful.
    â€œHey non-combat motherfucker, Moose agreed with me. I’m Head Motherfucker in Charge.”
    â€œI never doubted it, Earl. At