[XPQ21]

I'm sorry if this has already been posted.

http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/mis/5237173491.html

[Cronus]

Quote:

I met you in the rain on the last day of 1972, the same day I resolved to kill myself.

One week prior, at the behest of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, I'd flown four B-52 sorties over Hanoi. I dropped forty-eight bombs. How many homes I destroyed, how many lives I ended, I'll never know. But in the eyes of my superiors, I had served my country honorably, and I was thusly discharged with such distinction.

And so on the morning of that New Year's Eve, I found myself in a barren studio apartment on Beacon and Hereford with a fifth of Tennessee rye and the pang of shame permeating the recesses of my soul. When the bottle was empty, I made for the door and vowed, upon returning, that I would retrieve the Smith & Wesson Model 15 from the closet and give myself the discharge I deserved.

I walked for hours. I looped around the Fenway before snaking back past Symphony Hall and up to Trinity Church. Then I roamed through the Common, scaled the hill with its golden dome, and meandered into that charming labyrinth divided by Hanover Street. By the time I reached the waterfront, a charcoal sky had opened and a drizzle became a shower. That shower soon gave way to a deluge. While the other pedestrians darted for awnings and lobbies, I trudged into the rain. I suppose I thought, or rather hoped, that it might wash away the patina of guilt that had coagulated around my heart. It didn't, of course, so I started back to the apartment.

And then I saw you.

You'd taken shelter under the balcony of the Old State House. You were wearing a teal ball gown, which appeared to me both regal and ridiculous. Your brown hair was matted to the right side of your face, and a galaxy of freckles dusted your shoulders. I'd never seen anything so beautiful.

When I joined you under the balcony, you looked at me with your big green eyes, and I could tell that you'd been crying. I asked if you were okay. You said you'd been better. I asked if you'd like to have a cup of coffee. You said only if I would join you. Before I could smile, you snatched my hand and led me on a dash through Downtown Crossing and into Neisner's.

We sat at the counter of that five and dime and talked like old friends. We laughed as easily as we lamented, and you confessed over pecan pie that you were engaged to a man you didn't love, a banker from some line of Boston nobility. A Cabot, or maybe a Chaffee. Either way, his parents were hosting a soirée to ring in the New Year, hence the dress.

For my part, I shared more of myself than I could have imagined possible at that time. I didn't mention Vietnam, but I got the sense that you could see there was a war waging inside me. Still, your eyes offered no pity, and I loved you for it.

After an hour or so, I excused myself to use the restroom. I remember consulting my reflection in the mirror. Wondering if I should kiss you, if I should tell you what I'd done from the cockpit of that bomber a week before, if I should return to the Smith & Wesson that waited for me. I decided, ultimately, that I was unworthy of the resuscitation this stranger in the teal ball gown had given me, and to turn my back on such sweet serendipity would be the real disgrace.

On the way back to the counter, my heart thumped in my chest like an angry judge's gavel, and a future -- our future -- flickered in my mind. But when I reached the stools, you were gone. No phone number. No note. Nothing.

As strangely as our union had begun, so too had it ended. I was devastated. I went back to Neisner's every day for a year, but I never saw you again. Ironically, the torture of your abandonment seemed to swallow my self-loathing, and the prospect of suicide was suddenly less appealing than the prospect of discovering what had happened in that restaurant. The truth is I never really stopped wondering.

I'm an old man now, and only recently did I recount this story to someone for the first time, a friend from the VFW. He suggested I look for you on Facebook. I told him I didn't know anything about Facebook, and all I knew about you was your first name and that you had lived in Boston once. And even if by some miracle I happened upon your profile, I'm not sure I would recognize you. Time is cruel that way.

This same friend has a particularly sentimental daughter. She's the one who led me here to Craigslist and these Missed Connections. But as I cast this virtual coin into the wishing well of the cosmos, it occurs to me, after a million what-ifs and a lifetime of lost sleep, that our connection wasn't missed at all.

You see, in these intervening forty-two years I've lived a good life. I've loved a good woman. I've raised a good man. I've seen the world. And I've forgiven myself. And you were the source of all of it. You breathed your spirit into my lungs one rainy afternoon, and you can't possibly imagine my gratitude.

I have hard days, too. My wife passed four years ago. My son, the year after. I cry a lot. Sometimes from the loneliness, sometimes I don't know why. Sometimes I can still smell the smoke over Hanoi. And then, a few dozen times a year, I'll receive a gift. The sky will glower, and the clouds will hide the sun, and the rain will begin to fall. And I'll remember.

So wherever you've been, wherever you are, and wherever you're going, know this: you're with me still.

Put it in the forum dawg.

[XPQ21]

Quote:

Still, your eyes offered no pity, and I loved you for it.

Quote:

I went back to Neisner's every day for a year, but I never saw you again.

This story has been making the rounds on Facebook apparently. Naturally, girls come out of the woodwork to comment on how charming it is. I guess insanity becomes charming given 40 years and the female brain.

[aphelion]

Well, at least he didn't blow his brains out. Sounds like he overcame some heavy adversity. That's not so bad.

[Tactician]

I liked this story. Except for going back to Neisner's for one year, the rest didn't seem very beta.

[Cronus]

(10-09-2015 03:17 PM)aphelion Wrote:  

Well, at least he didn't blow his brains out. Sounds like he overcame some heavy adversity. That's not so bad.

I'm with Aphelion. It has beta qualities but the context is different. He wasn't going to kill himself over a woman. Kinda overkill to go back everyday for year, but it brought him back from ceasing his existence. When your life is in the dark a random event can bring you back to reality. It's what you do after that event that matters.

[kaotic]

He didn't hug close.

#gamelivesmatter

[AnonymousBosch]

Calling it now: absolutely-fake.

There is not an ounce of verisimilitude in that story: the war experience, the period, the meeting. Everything about it is stylistically-affected and woefully-pretentious. I guarantee the - terrible, terrible - author is using this as a way of gaining attention for their writing, hoping to land some kind of viral book deal out if it.

Hell, it's so affected and pretentious I'd expect the author is not in his 60's and looks something like this:

[Monty_Brogan]

You don't get to call a Vietnam vet a "Beta," kid.

While you probably spent your 20's chasing tail and bonging beers, this man had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Nice try though.

[Easy_C]

(10-09-2015 03:28 PM)Tactician Wrote:  

I liked this story. Except for going back to Neisner's for one year, the rest didn't seem very beta.

What makes it beta is the thirst.

Remove that and you just have a heartwarming story of two strangers who unwittingly helped each other out by sharing an open moment.

[AnonymousBosch]

(10-09-2015 04:00 PM)Monty_Brogan Wrote:  

You don't get to call a Vietnam vet a "Beta," kid.

I guarantee you the person who wrote it

had been in country

had read extensively about Vietnam

had seen a lot of movies about Vietnam

owns an unironic copy of 'Born In The USA'

owns a Criterion Edition of Apocalypse Now.



Uncle was a 'Nam Vet. I guarantee him and none of his friends would ever write such flowery, purple prose crap. It reeks of inauthenticity.

[Tex Cruise]

Fake as fake. I know fake when I read it, and that is some made-to-go-viral bullshit.

[Dr. Howard]

I thought this was going to be a link to that '27 way to be a modern man' article.

[XPQ21]

(10-09-2015 04:00 PM)Monty_Brogan Wrote:  

You don't get to call a Vietnam vet a "Beta," kid.

While you probably spent your 20's chasing tail and bonging beers, this man had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Nice try though.

Assuming for the moment that the story is true (which, as others have pointed out, it likely isn't), this guy wasn't some grunt who was drafted and put through hell in the meat grinder - he was an officer/warrant officer on a flight crew. Nobody forced him to join the military, or pilot bombers, or become a part of an unwinnable Cold War proxy conflict for a corrupt government that we never should have been involved in.

Sorry you feel bad about bombing kids. He could have filed for conscientious objector status any time he wished, and as an air force officer he likely could have been quietly reassigned or been discharged, even during 'Nam.

You knew that when you signed up to pilot the BUFF you weren't going to be learning how to air-deliver ice cream cones and freedom fries; precision munitions were in their infancy back then. The B-52 was for carpet bombing, napalm, and nukes, and all the "collateral damage" that comes along with those weapons.

[Yatagan]

To add on to others saying this story is bullshit, i'm pretty skeptical that after four sorties he only dropped 48 bombs from a B-52.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88jrZjsNHPc (embedding is disabled)

[Guitarman]

"Calling it now: absolutely-fake."
I agree, hoax BS. Can smell it a mile off.

[XPQ21]

(10-09-2015 08:47 PM)Guitarman Wrote:  

"Calling it now: absolutely-fake."
I agree, hoax BS. Can smell it a mile off.

Regardless, it is an interesting commentary observing the positive reaction that it gets from women.

If it had just been some random story about a man and his Vietnam war experience, women on social media wouldn't give a shit. They only care because the experience is filtered through the lens of the female character and plays to their own vanity and (false) sentimentality. Most seem unable to even entertain the concept that the entire thing is an elaborate fiction. Plenty of male comments saying "ugh fake", very few women stating the same.

The ultimate female power fantasy - that an incidental contact with her amazing persona, in which she had to give really nothing of herself and he poured all his emotional energy into her, and had the ability to alter the trajectory his life forever.

It sort of reads like it was written by a woman.

[Tex Cruise]

(10-09-2015 09:06 PM)XPQ21 Wrote:  

(10-09-2015 08:47 PM)Guitarman Wrote:  

"Calling it now: absolutely-fake."
I agree, hoax BS. Can smell it a mile off.

Regardless, it is an interesting commentary observing the positive reaction that it gets from women.

If it had just been some random story about a man and his Vietnam war experience, women on social media wouldn't give a shit. They only care because the experience is filtered through the lens of the female character and plays to their own vanity and (false) sentimentality. Most seem unable to even entertain the concept that the entire thing is an elaborate fiction. Plenty of male comments saying "ugh fake", very few women stating the same.

The ultimate female power fantasy - that an incidental contact with her amazing persona, in which she had to give really nothing of herself and he poured all his emotional energy into her, and had the ability to alter the trajectory his life forever.

It sort of reads like it was written by a woman.

Almost.
I considered that possibility but I'm willing to bet it was one of the following two;
a) Corporate, written by someone who gets paid to create things that go viral for commercial purposes or
b) Some guy who is somewhat fatter, older and less "cool" than Bosch suggested who is so brainwashed by a lifetime of romance movies/books that he is sitting at home looking at all the likes and shares of his story thinking "...But look how romantic I am...Why can't I get laid?"

[BortimusPrime]

(10-09-2015 04:00 PM)Monty_Brogan Wrote:  

You don't get to call a Vietnam vet a "Beta," kid.

While you probably spent your 20's chasing tail and bonging beers, this man had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Nice try though.

[Veloce]

There are many, many letters from Vietnam vets available to the public. I've read a lot of them, including my dad's.

This is 100% fake.

[Thoroughbred]

Who cares if it's fake, or if it beta, which it isn't.

Read a story, enjoy the possibilities it's contemplation brings up. Then go about your day.