On a Thursday afternoon in mid-April, an older man walked into the shop. He moved slowly, but he had a spark in his eyes. It was clear from the moment he spoke that, despite being old enough to be my grandfather, his spirit was as young as me.

My coworker Ty and I have a silent agreement to alternate helping customers when it starts getting late and we have no work. Although the man addressed me, Ty got up to assist him. Still, I eavesdropped on the conversation.

The man introduced himself as Jay, a crazy guy with a crazy request. He set a brass-colored bell, about the size you’d find on a small sailboat, on the counter for Ty to examine. When he said it was made out of 105 Howitzer casings, I knew I couldn’t let Ty hog this one.

Jay had been in Vietnam, the NCOIC of a small team of medics. Between his team and the units they backed up, he was responsible for somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 men. He chatted with us for probably close to half an hour, telling us about teaching the Vietnamese where he was stationed new medical techniques.

The bell, Jay told us, was obviously a rough cast, but it was an interesting and important piece of history. Locals had gathered up the shell casings and cast it, and Jay had bought it. I don’t know whether he was joking or not when he said he uses the bell as his back doorbell. Either way, he wanted to get it engraved with its story.

Cast from
105 Howitzer shell casings
Lai Khe, Vietnam
1970

BAC SI Crumlish Sgt.
Dispensary NCOIC
Advisory Team 70

Jay the soldier was exposed to enough Agent Orange that Jay the veteran suffers a number of health problems. Jay the man is the proprietor of a business that makes fine vintage lumber creations. He’s a smallish man, and so pleasant that I instantly felt we had been friends for years. He didn’t have a bad thing to say about anything or anyone… except one chance encounter.

Jay had had a doctor’s appointment, for which he’d dressed nicely, as is common for men and women alike in his generation. (My own grandmother still wears pearls when she goes to the doctor.) After the appointment, he went to a bar to have his single permitted beer. He ended up in conversation with a muscular type who made $100,000+ per year in some sort of office job, the precise nature of which now escapes me. Eventually this man asked Jay where he was coming from, dressed so well. Jay told him, and the man asked if Jay could get him a referral. (Jay was going for his heart, and this other man was looking for a good cardiologist.) Jay politely explained that his doctor was at the VA, so his new acquaintance wouldn’t have much luck seeing him. This chucklehead then proceeds to rant, “I don’t understand why you guys get all these benefits. You were all paid to fight for your country.” I’ll spare you Jay’s breakdown of his meager pay in Vietnam; suffice it to say that he was paid a fraction of a fraction of what his belligerent companion made for exponentially greater work and sacrifice.

Nothing gets my ire up more than folks that don’t support our troops and people who are rude to lovely gentle people. Our nameless bar-goer hit the double whammy on that one. Jay said he’d’ve given him what for if not for the vast difference in size and health. And not a jury in the world would convict him.

It broke my heart to give Jay the “no work” call the next morning. The owner of the store has the greatest compassion for our troops, so he was pretty beat up about having to turn Jay away as well. None of us has the skill necessary to engrave something that complex by hand, and the bell was just too heavy for our engraving machine. I kept Jay’s card, though; I undertook a personal quest to find someone qualified and willing. It’s a story that deserves to be told. Not just because local public broadcasting is doing a 50-year welcome home special for Vietnam and wants to use the bell. Not just because Jay has little money to leave his sons and wants to give them the bell as a little piece of history. Because, in Jay’s words, in a few years, young people will forget, or worse, not care. They – we – need to remember.