Raising A Soul Surfer (7 page)

Most Army doctors had never seen a surf knot, and so the first batch of surfers to show up for an induction physical were stamped 4-F—physically unfit for military service. Of course, most of the surfers appreciated the irony of being rejected, and certainly they weren’t letting on that this mysterious affliction that marred an otherwise fit and athletic-looking man would shrink harmlessly away after a few months off the surfboard.

Bolstered by these assertions of a 4-F stamp, Tom waited for the date of his physical and drove the 70 miles to Philadelphia. The induction center was jammed with guys like him, all 18 to 20 years old. Tom filled out a few forms and was ushered into a room where he was given a multiple-page test that started with a basic problem such as drawing a line from the picture of a screwdriver to the object that matched it; nut, nail or screw.

Of course, whole rows of guys intentionally answered every question wrong, thus guaranteeing themselves a position in the infantry. Tom answered the questions honestly, trusting in his 4-F knees, feet and eyesight. After the test, Tom was conducted to a locker room where everything he had on besides his undies were stripped off and stashed away. Paperwork in hand, he was told to follow the white line to the physical evaluation station. Tom looked down at his knotty knees and gnarled feet and trudged along without complaining.

What he didn’t know was how great the military’s appetite for new troops had grown and that the acceptable physical standards were dropping rapidly. Tom passed the physical with flying colors and was told he had three months of freedom before he belonged wholly and irrevocably to the United States Armed Forces.

Right about then, Tom paid attention to the war his nation was wrestling with. As his time on the outside dwindled, he dreaded being stuck crawling neck-deep in jungle mud as a grunt—avoiding land mines, snipers, booby traps; lying in foxholes; catching malaria. You name it—he knew he didn’t want any part of it.

Tom’s swim coach turned out to be a commander in the Navy Reserves, and he graciously used his connections to help Tom get an enlistment into the Navy. This is an example of when “who you know” counts at a turning point in your life.

At the end of his three months, he reported to Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, for boot camp, and boy did he get a rude awakening.

The life of a surfer has its own sort of regimentation, its own discipline and endurance. But the military regimentation, discipline and tests of endurance are a far cry from the self-imposed life of a dedicated surfer. Being yelled at by drill sergeants; called every name in the book and all the ones not in the book; being forced to march, stand, wake, eat, dig holes, fill holes, at any time, with no seeming rhyme or reason—all were a bit of an adjustment for Tom. He still laughs about being “leader of the pack” to do punitive pushups.

Boot camp spit him out, and soon after, Tom got his orders. Only four months after his California Dreamin’ surf trip, Tom
found himself heading back to California, to North Island Naval Station in San Diego, where he was assigned to the Navy destroyer
USS Hanson
.

Because he could type well, Tom ended up with the opportunity to work in and be in charge of the ship’s post office—a particularly enviable job in the days before electronic media, because a letter or package from home was the only way that family and friends could communicate with their loved ones at sea. The postmaster was appreciated by the crew, so much so that Tom was often given little gifts by happy sailors out of the care packages he delivered—homemade cookies, dried fruit and then some.

While most of the time the ship’s postman was treated like a good fellow by most of the crew, there was one petty officer who resented the fact that Tom, a wet-behind-the-ears kid, had pulled such light duty. He took every chance to harass Tom until one day it came to a head. The two men found themselves in a “smoker”—an officially sanctioned boxing match where enlisted men could settle their grievances by pure force.

The officer was bigger and more experienced than Tom, but Tom’s father was a true fighting Irishman who’d won many bouts in his youth, including a national championship at age 12. He passed on a few of his fatherly fighting tips to his son, and after years of surfing, Tom was in better shape. He eventually knocked the other guy down and finished the fight. But that only made things worse. Ego bruised, the officer’s grudge burned fiercer.

Tom decided that there was a better way to fight back, and since direct action hadn’t worked, this time he’d try something non-confrontational but effective. Every time the mail came in for Tom to sort, he quietly hid anything destined for the petty officer in the ship’s safe—which only he and the captain had access to.

Every mail call, the officer watched as everyone else got letters and packages from home while he got nothing. The officer couldn’t understand it; his wife wrote him regularly, even numbering the letters.

Tom could see the suspicion and frustration building. The guy knew something was up, but he couldn’t prove anything. Four mail calls later, Tom handed the officer a huge packet of numbered mail wrapped in rubber bands. Tom never gloated or threatened, but from that moment on the harassment ended.

For a while, Tom and the
USS Hanson
patrolled on standby along the California coast. The crew was kept busy with menial tasks of sanding, painting and scrubbing. While the Vietnam War raged on, and the nation fractured over it, it looked like they wouldn’t be deployed. When the call came down, they had only three days’ notice before getting underway for the Gulf of Tonkin and war.

But war was still distant in Tom’s mind. He enjoyed being out on the open ocean and would often escape the sights, sounds and smells of seasick crewmen below deck by climbing the signalman’s bridge to stand in the open air and watch waves bowl over the bow of the ship during storms.

Love of the ocean kept him up there even when it meant getting thoroughly soaked. And the deep, rolling Pacific, miles from shore, fed his soul. He would look out across the expanse of never-ending blue and think of perfect waves peeling along some hidden coast.

Tom had already figured out who the surfers were aboard the
Hanson
because of the surf magazines coming to them through the mail. One of them was a young body surfer named Rob, who
hailed from Oahu. Rob was always talking about the brutal shore break at Makapu’u, or about how much better the waves were in Hawaii than anywhere else.

“You should surf some
real
waves!” he would kid Tom, “Not those itty-bitty-kiddie waves they have in California or the East Coast.” Instead of being goaded to defend his home breaks, Tom recalled the pictures splashed across every other page in the surfing magazines, showing Hawaii as a surf Mecca, a tropical feast of nonstop perfect waves.

You can imagine how excited Tom was in knowing that the first port of call was Pearl Harbor. At last he’d made it to Hawaii, though arriving by Navy destroyer was not the way he’d imagined. Tom couldn’t wait to get off the ship. It was only a short stop, but Tom and some of the others managed to surf Waikiki. It was Tom’s first experience with the warm Hawaiian waves.

“And just think, if you moved to Hawaii you would never have to wear a wetsuit again!” Rob told him with a grin.

He had no idea just how appealing this was to Tom.

But the day drew to a close and they had to report back to the ship. In the morning, they sailed out of the peaceful fiftieth state and toward war.

There were a few other ports of call, and though Tom had never been out of the country, unlike a lot of the men on his ship, he was not particularly enchanted with the seedy rows of flesh dens, grimy bars and alleys full of con artists aggressively trying to hustle any sailor they could. In particular, he remembers Subic Bay in the Philippines as inciting both pity and revulsion for the desperation with which people hounded the sailors—offering everything, including themselves, for money or cigarettes or trinkets.

Not to mention that Tom recalls that sick bay was always full after the more infamous ports.

From Subic Bay, Tom’s ship escorted the aircraft carrier
Kitty Hawk
to Vietnam, where they anchored a mile offshore, providing fire support for the marines and army onshore.

The blast of the huge guns spewing explosive shells deep into the jungle was exhilarating at first, but when Tom started to listen in on the accuracy reports, he was faced with war in a way that conflicted and disturbed him. Over the headset, he heard artillery spotters report that the shells had missed their mark and landed on a village of “friendlies.” Tom sat in silence, trying not to imagine the innocent men, women and children snuffed out by his ship’s guns. He tried to dismiss them as collateral damage, like the guy on the radio did, but it haunted him.

Still, he had an enviably safe job, miles offshore, far from the brutal field conditions and persistent violence and horrors of war. Sometimes he got to head into the nearby base via helicopter, on a “milk run,” ferrying bags of mail to and from the ship. But overall, his war experience was cushy. The things that happened in the wet jungles couldn’t touch him.

Tom’s nonchalant sense of security came to an end during a standard milk run over a dense rain forest that was supposed to be enemy-free.

The Vietnam War had come for Tom.

To this day, Tom won’t talk about it. So I let what happened remain in obscurity. Maybe someday he’ll be ready to talk about it, or maybe not. I can respect that he doesn’t want to ever revisit his experience.

But I do believe that the shock of “this can’t be happening to me!” that Tom got that day in Vietnam was a kind of preparation, or maybe a dress rehearsal, for the similar dismantling of our own nest of casual security when we first heard that our daughter, Bethany, had been viciously mauled by the second most dangerous shark in the world.

Vietnam could be blamed on politicians and revolutionaries. In the case of Bethany, when Tom wrestled with the very real possibility of losing his daughter forever, there seemed to be only one person to blame . . . God.

My times are in your hands
.
PSALM 31:15,
NIV