For those in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) true to honor, dignity and valor, at cost of limb and life, Jeffrey’s story may well be their story.
December 24, 1982: Jeffry, young, unmarried, fresh from training and assignment, finally came home – to rest permanently.
That fateful evening, when everybody was celebrating Christmas, Jeffrey passed away.
Found among his possessions were anecdotes, manuscripts, poems and jokes he personally wrote. One manuscript revealed
a soldier’s yearning for home. He titled it Coming Home:
The soldier descended from the bus, holding his haversack and loitered at Dangwa Bus Terminal. Six years ago, he stood at the same terminal, threw it a last glance, believing he will never see Baguio again.
Years of bloody hell from the Mindanao campaign brought searing memories and flooded his thoughts till he realized he was sweating and shaking.
Dangwa Terminal didn’t change much since he left that summer of 1976 for Camp Upi, in Gamu, Isabela. He moved on, aware of the stares of the local toughies roaming the terminal, but fearing to antagonize him.
In fatigues and faded jeans, he looked more of a bandit than a soldier.
His darkened face carried a scar that slashed the flesh of his right eye to his right ear. His long shaggy hair was tied at his back with a long Bontoc woven red band. On his left ear was an earring, probably booty.
He decided to walk for home. He looked at the west, now cradling the setting sun. Reaching home, he sat on their grass lawn and looked long at his family’s garden patch.
The Baguio beans planted by his brothers were already harvested, leaving the plant stubbles to the sun. The russet leaves of reaping crested their maiden-breasted hillocks and curled down the fruitful belly of the undulating hills nearby.
A puff of wind whizzed up a gradient, let loose a spray of dust and whirled into the hills as birds scolded. So good to be home, Jeff welled with emotion.
Another manuscript revealed a soldier’s soul whose heart bled for a forgotten comrade, or a soldier turned derelict. He titled it “Hot lead and Cold Feet Portray the Veteran”:
He could be seen hassling town streets or military camps, perhaps personifying Sad Sack. Call him a wreck, rascal, undesirable or asylum fitter.
And if by chance you get sentimental, call him a hero. Didn’t he do one good deed? He fought for a cause he believed was right.
He is the cripple. Find him in a training camp, holding a stick broom, staring – eyes vacant – at the horizon. A survivor in an infamous charge in a nameless death hill in Jolo. He is that patient in a mental hospital, prisoner of his disorder. Aware? He isn’t. He was once bugler of a depleted company. He was the sniper, waiting for reinforcement that never arrived, and then gave way.
He is the wreck you pass unmindfully, with two ghastly stumps which were once his arms. Ask what happened. He’ll tell: the blinding explosion, shrapnel, cries of pain. He lost what God gave.
Maybe it might be better being dead, draped with the Flag and medals on their cold breasts?
Should you pass through Fort Magsaysay or Camp Upi, throw a glance, and you may see him silhouetted against the sky, with a single leg and clutching a broom, eyes staring, thinking, recalling.
He is the Veteran, now a cripple and forgotten. Was it Paul Simon or Art Garfunkel who sang, “For one forgotten hero, the world that doesn’t care?”
Was it a portent of things to come? After Jeff’s death, he had a poem about man’s passing, and titled it “The Rockies”. He had told his Mom, “When thing will be, Ma, bury my heart at Wounded Knee.”
“The day is clear, the sun is bright, a lizard peeps for a morning light; an angry bee comes flashing by; the stream is near so clear and bright.
The wind whispers gently on the leaves and with a slight answer they wave their kiss; a tiny ant motionless under a shade; tired hunting a little Lee.
The trees stop waving, silent and still, something strange from the sudden change; Old prowlers know tender feet berserk, Mother Nature knows, everything is alert.
Please bury me up, up there in the sky, where it is gloomy and sometimes gay; To live in a land so calm and still, clutching the virgin soil in my hand”.
It’s said that among many tales having to do with Christmas, there’s one which says, on that night, lost things are found again.
Twenty-four years, today, a kin was lost, but in the loss was found a profound meaning in living life, a journey towards a wisdom reaching out across time. It’s celebration of Christ’s birth; for Jeff’s family, it’s reunion with humanity.
In a grassy knoll at Lubas Cemetery, Pines Park, La Trinidad, Benguet, peacefully lay Jeffrey, soldier, writer, poet, cradled by earth’s bosom and at home with his Creator and, surely now having Christmas party with the King of Kings and passing drinks and Christmas presents around.
I should know. For I – Bony, a.k.a. Ah Kong – am Jeffrey’s older brother. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!