You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
The attack.
I’m staring at the Vietnam Vet. He’s a frail man, all of 120 pounds. He has scraggly grey hair and a hard leather face. The man’s skull has a golf ball sized knot. It is black and blue and there is a crusty blood scab forming.
We are in the Casey Homes, a place in East Nashville affectionately nick named the bricks because each row house, made of bricks, looks just like the next.
The man is surrounded by his wife and daughter. They are eager to talk, to tell me about the attack.
“How you doing?” I say to the veteran, shaking his hand.
He looks a little wobbly on his feet. His eyes are clear, but they dart around as we shake.
“I have a speech impediment,” he says with a stutter, accentuated by a lisp.
I can see that this interview will be challenging.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I was attacked,” he says.
His words are muted, like strained through petroleum jelly.
“Attacked,” I parrot.
“Yes,” he says.
“By whom?” I ask.
“Teenagers,” he mumbles.
“Teenagers?” I again parrot for the viewer at home.
I have done this before. I usually interview people of other nationalities this way, when their English is broken and I can help the viewer at home understand what they said.
It’s easier than making graphics and forcing the viewer to read when all they want to do is relax and watch the news.
The grandfather of 4 will tell me that he was going to the store to buy milk for his grandbabies. The police report will indicate that teens playing basketball attacked the 64 year old.
“They hit me in the head with a sock filled with canned goods,” he says his mouth full of mashed potatoes and gravel.
I stare at the knot on his head. It is pronounced.
The family shows me a photograph taken shortly after the savagery.
The man’s face is lathered in blood. He has a bandage on his skull, soaked red.
His eyes are glassy and his face in shock.
“Oh My God,” his wife of 30 plus years interjects.
“This happened before. He had surgery. And now they’ve done it again.”
The family has a right to be incensed.
One month ago, in a terrible version of De Ja Vu, the Vietnam Vet was walking to the store near his house and young thugs jumped him and beat him with a small tree branch.
“How do you know that is the tree branch?” I ask.
The man holds up the heavy piece of wood and says “I came back and found it covered with my blood.”
His words are muffled and truncated.
I look at the heavy piece of wood. I cannot imagine my father being assaulted in suc a manner
For whatever reason, these young thugs swung the heavy lumber like a baseball bat. The impact must have been ferocious as wood broke bones in his face and cheek.
He had surgery, $29,000 worth. He got out. Nobody was arrested. Still the antagonistic behavior continued.
The family will tell me about bottle rockets fired at their home. The family will tell me about threats made.
“Why are they doing this to your dad?” I ask the daughter.
She stares right at the camera and says without reservation. “I think they are racist. We are white and they are other colors.”
“Those are strong words, racism,” I remark.
She doesn’t hesitate. “That’s the way I feel,” she says.
“Look right in that camera,” I say. “What would you say to those guys who attacked you?”
He is determined. He is strong willed. His eyes target the lens with ferocity.
“I’m not afraid of nothing,” he says his words dissipating like so much water running into a storm sewer.
“I saw men die. I was in the war. I want vengeance.”
I understand every word clearly.
The American before me just wants what we all want.
A chance to live his life without fear. The Vietnam Vet just wants to be able to walk to the store and buy his grand babies milk.”
It’s not too much to ask.
Now the police have to do their job. The bad guys must be held accountable.
I thank the man and his family and I leave.
It’s a powerful story, a sad story.
It will air and it will elicit immediate reaction.
“How can I help the vet in your story,” the email reads.
“I want to get him a carry gun permit,” another suggests.
I am glad that I can tell this man’s story.
I hope it has a happy ending with a bad guy being lead into a police car in handcuffs and he and hi family walking to the store at a leisurely pace.
Life’s Crazy™