Ezra Ray and I grew up together in a small South Georgia town of no more than three thousand persons. We were the same age, neighbors, and constant companions as we explored the pine thickets, swamps, and creeks that were plentiful in our neighborhood. Ezra Ray could always be counted on to add some element of danger to anything we were involved in. He was a risk taker, and after so many hours and days together, I became one, too. We were two tow-headed, blue-eyed youngsters, baked to bronze by the hot Georgia sun. It was, to repeat a trite phrase, an idyllic existence.
Ezra Ray lived with his momma. There was no Mr. Couey around. It never entered my mind to question that fact. Ezra Ray came with just his momma, and that was that. The two of them were part and parcel of the community just the way they were.
Ezar Ray’s momma had a loud, strident voice that could penetrate the atmosphere over long distances. When she got ready for him to come inside, she would let go with a prolonged “EZ-RA RAY! EZ-RA RAY!” that reverberated around the neighborhood. Ezra Ray never dallied but went straight home. He was very much a momma’s boy.
Our favorite game we played over and over again was World War II. Ezra Ray insisted on playing a particular brand of the game called “Peleliu.” We were Marines invading a remote island to subdue the Japanese who occupied it. I never realized why he insisted on playing this game, although had I been less of a dunderhead, I might have discerned the reason when he once, and only once, remarked, “My daddy is on Peleliu.” Although this statement came when we were burying our imaginary dead friends, its significance did not come until many years later. In my ignorance, I simply accepted the name as an imaginary place he had created out of whole cloth, the way young boys do.
Our idyllic little world suffered a severe blow when, in our thirteenth summer, Ezra Ray was struck by a mysterious illness in the middle of the hottest and wettest summer we had ever seen. One day, he was fine, but the next he was in the hospital where he stayed the rest of the summer. I knew what he had contracted was bad because his illness brought an eagle-eyed watchfulness from my mother who restricted play to our yard. Hushed conversations between adults, overheard by a curious and bored youngster, eventually revealed that Ezra Ray had contracted something called meningitis, an often-deadly viral disease. That meant that all the children in the neighborhood were susceptible—and the parents limited activities for us all in fear of catching this highly contagious sickness.
Ezra Ray survived meningitis, but at a terrible cost. He was no longer the energetic and imaginative playmate of before. He was listless and stayed home, unwilling and unable to roam the woods again. When school started, Ezra Ray joined our class as usual, but he was not now the bright student he had been. Instead, he seemed to be much slower on the uptake, much less interested in reading or studying, and much more intent on staying close to home and the comfort of his mother. Gradually, his sustained lethargy and lack of further social and intellectual development led most of our friends to simply forget about Ezra Ray, and he joined that unfortunate slice of southern society that some referred to as “peculiar” people.
Ezra Ray was not crazy or even stupid. He was simply slow to learn and slow to react to new things. I guess we all thought he would stay home and work some simple job in town, destined to live a gray, orderly, and undistinguished life. I couldn’t understand the changes meningitis had caused, but he remained my friend and I tried to include him in as many activities as I could. Although hormones and societal demands meant that we didn’t spend too much time together, he remained my friend.
When I made the decision to join the army in 1963, Ezra Ray was the first person I told—not my parents, not my siblings, not even my girlfriend of long standing, but Ezra Ray.
“I’m joining up, Ezra Ray,” I told him. “I’m joining the army. Going to play Peleliu for real.”
Ezra Ray just looked at me, quietly got up from the kitchen table where we were sitting drinking iced tea and disappeared into his bedroom. For a second, I thought he was leaving me alone, but he quickly came back with something in his hand. He shoved what he was holding at me.
“This is what I have that belonged to my daddy. They sent this to Momma after Peleliu. If you’re going there, could you take it back to him and tell him we miss him?”
It was a Purple Heart medal, worn from constant touching and rubbing.
I didn’t know what to say. Finally, I managed to utter a few words, “Ezra Ray, I can’t take that. It belongs to you. I don’t think I’ll be going to Peleliu. Keep it and remember your father. And, Ezra Ray, remember me. I’ll always be your friend.”
With that I got up and left, leaving Ezra Ray holding the medal.
I spent three years in the army during the mid-1960s. The Vietnam War was raging, and the American public was getting a daily dose of casualty figures, details on the number of body bags that were brought into Dover Air Force Base, and a steady and relentless barrage of public statements by politicians about the domino theory and godless communism. No community and few families escaped being touched by the war. Names of the fallen were constantly being added to the granite markers that occupied town squares across the nation.
I was lucky. The army sent me to Eritrea, thousands of miles from Vietnam and safe from battle. But I knew people who went and fought and died there. I knew people whose experiences left them shell-shocked and afraid. I knew people whose lives would never be the same. I knew people who managed to find their way to Canada or Mexico. I knew people who understood exemptions and how to get them.
I knew people who still fight that war each night in their nightmares fifty odd years later. I knew people.
I also knew that there were people who protested the war mightily, cursing politicians and generals for leading the war effort while wrongly blaming the individual soldier for carrying out the actual shooting. The war over a divided country created another divided country—ours.
When I got my discharge and made it home, I spent a couple of days reconnecting with my family. My first venture out and about was to Ezra Ray’s house. His mother, aged now and noticeably carrying a greater emotional burden than before, opened the door and hugged me tightly.
“Come in,” she insisted. “Tell me all about the army.”
“Mrs. Couey, ma’am, I want to see Ezra Ray first. Is he here?”
She looked at me for a long moment. Sad and silent. Frowning.
“No, son, he’s not. Come in and I’ll tell you about it.”
It seems that the army, searching for recruits to fill the ranks in Vietnam, was not above enlisting marginal recruits like Ezra Ray. Although he could function at a basic level, there was no way in hell that he had the wherewithal to become a soldier. It was all about filling recruiting quotas and exceptions were made. Ezra Ray could read, he could walk, and he could even operate a rifle—but Ezra Ray was no soldier. Yet, the army had recruited him and sent him to Vietnam, where he had paid the ultimate sacrifice on a small Highlands plateau called Pleiku. It wasn’t war—it was murder.
She reached for an object—a small wooden box sitting on the mantle of the fireplace. Without saying a word, she handed it to me. Mounted inside were two Purple Heart medals, one worn and faded and the other bright and shiny. Two medals—father and son. Peleliu and Pleiku!
When well-meaning people tell me to have a happy Memorial Day, I merely nod. In my mind, however, one image comes to me—EZ-RA RAY! How many were like him?
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(Photo: Geoff Mckay/ flickr.com/ CC BY-ND 2.0)
- Ezra Ray by Nick Wynne - October 5, 2023