{"id":938,"date":"2017-04-08T13:34:55","date_gmt":"2017-04-08T17:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/takethepatience.com\/?p=938"},"modified":"2017-04-08T13:59:24","modified_gmt":"2017-04-08T17:59:24","slug":"95-america-street-chapter-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takethepatience.com\/?p=938","title":{"rendered":"95 America Street, Chapter 11"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 11th<\/sup>, 2010<\/em><\/p>\n

When I moved in, there was not much work to be done.\u00a0 I had been unknowingly getting the house ready for my arrival for the past five years.\u00a0 With that said, there was one major renovation that needed to be done \u2013 the disco kitchen.\u00a0 I began work on it a week after my arrival.\u00a0 When I pulled the refrigerator out, I noticed a letter with my name taped to the wall. \u00a0I sat down at the table and read it.<\/p>\n

Dear Chris,<\/p>\n

We often don\u2019t have the luxury of choosing how we die or the amount of time we have left once we know the end is near.\u00a0 If God gives me an encounter with you right before my time, then you\u2019ll already know the contents of this letter.<\/p>\n

By now you\u2019ve taken over The Castle!\u00a0 Congratulations\u2026and you\u2019re welcome.\u00a0 I know you well enough to know you\u2019re saying thank you right now but you don\u2019t need to thank me.\u00a0 I need to thank you.\u00a0 As it turns out, you can\u2019t take it with you.\u00a0 By \u201cit\u201d, I mean wealth and possessions.\u00a0 Sure, I could have given it to a distant relative or a charity but I\u2019ve watched you closely for the years that I\u2019ve known you and I can tell that you will end up being the best investment I\u2019ve ever made.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I also know you well enough to know that you wouldn\u2019t waste time in remodeling the kitchen.\u00a0 The ancient nature of the kitchen and my refusal to update it has caused many a grimace for you, I\u2019m sure.\u00a0 Knowing this, I knew I had discovered the perfect hiding place for this letter.<\/p>\n

Something else I\u2019ve known about you is that you\u2019ve wondered about the Nazi dagger.\u00a0 You\u2019ve known there\u2019s a great significance behind it but you could sense I didn\u2019t want to discuss it so you tactfully left it alone.\u00a0 I would have rather told you the story behind it in person.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure why I didn\u2019t tell you earlier.\u00a0 Perhaps it is because the lesson it holds should be the last lesson I give you.\u00a0 Delivering the lesson in this manner ensures it is the last lesson I give you.<\/p>\n

During the late winter and early spring of 1945 in Germany, I was part of General Patton\u2019s renowned 3rd<\/sup> Army.\u00a0 The pace at which we gobbled up enemy territory and soldiers was comparable of that to an out of control forest fire after a long drought.\u00a0 Although success seemed to come easily during this time, there was one mission that failed miserably. \u00a0On the evening of March 26, under the command of Captain Abraham Baum, about 300 of us went 50 miles behind enemy lines.\u00a0 Our mission was to free the prisoners of Camp Hammelburg.\u00a0 At first, this sounds noble but we weren\u2019t given enough men for the job.\u00a0 Our Lt. Colonel wanted his entire command to go but he was overruled.\u00a0 We also weren\u2019t given enough maps.\u00a0 Along the way, we had to stop and ask the locals where to go!\u00a0 But the biggest kick in the proverbial pants was our reason for going.\u00a0 Although he never admitted it, General Patton\u2019s biggest motivating factor for this mission was to free his son in law who was located in Camp Hammelburg.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing this was why he made this mission secret and didn\u2019t tell Eisenhower about it.\u00a0 All of us were happy to free Allied troops.\u00a0 We just wanted to go about it in the right way and for the right reason.\u00a0 Even if we were undermanned and underequipped, most of us would have been happy to attempt the mission as long as it wasn\u2019t for one man\u2019s personal reasons.\u00a0 Over three hundred set out, thirty-two were killed and only thirty-five made it back.\u00a0 I was one of those 35 (eventually).<\/p>\n

I have since made my peace with this event but at the time we were being ambushed by German troops in H\u00f6llrich, I was confused and angry and felt my life and the lives of my fellow soldiers were being wasted in an ill-planned mission.\u00a0 As we regrouped on a nearby hill, I thought how these poor prisoners we \u201crescued\u201d would have been safer had they remained in the camp.\u00a0 Just after dawn on March 28th<\/sup>, we formed into a column and tried to head back.\u00a0 The German\u2019s attacked us with brutal force, so much so that Captain Baum gave his last order of that mission: every man for himself.<\/p>\n

Did I ever mention I was a good runner?\u00a0 I ran a 4:22 in the mile in college.\u00a0 I wish someone timed my retreat that day; I must have set at least an American record for the first mile.\u00a0 \u00a0As fast as I went, I remember seeing death all around me.\u00a0 I recall seeing a fragile, ill, malnourished prisoner gunned down with no remorse as he attempted an escape.\u00a0 It was horrific.\u00a0 Never before that moment or after had I seen man in such a despicable, soulless, and evil form.\u00a0 Its impact on me was immediate.<\/p>\n

I must have ran five miles deep into a forest before my body gave way to exhaustion and emotion.\u00a0 I kept seeing that prisoner being shot to his death as he tried to run.\u00a0 I think he was Serbian.\u00a0 He was wearing a gray uniform.\u00a0 He was probably my age but the harsh conditions he endured cruelly aged him.\u00a0 When we first arrived at the camp, we actually fired at the Serbian section, thinking they were German soldiers in their gray uniforms.\u00a0 What must have been going through this man\u2019s mind as he died?\u00a0 Was he cursing the Americans for being a bigger threat to his life than the Germans?\u00a0 Was he thinking how if he stayed in the prison, he would have survived?\u00a0 Maybe he was glad it was over.\u00a0 The more I thought, the more I cried.\u00a0 The more I cried, the angrier I became.\u00a0 The sadness eventually left me but the anger did not which is unlike me.\u00a0 Anger typically leaves me before too long.<\/p>\n

I sat against a tree for about an hour.\u00a0 At some point I looked down and realized I had no weapons or food or water on me.\u00a0 They must have fallen off during my retreat or perhaps I got rid of them as I ran to increase my speed; I can\u2019t remember.\u00a0 I then heard the sound of twigs breaking somewhere behind me so I slowly peered around my tree and saw somebody about 30 yards away running perpendicularly to my position.\u00a0 I focused in on them and could see it was a German officer.\u00a0 He looked as tired if not more so than me.\u00a0 Judging by his direction, I don\u2019t think he was running from my battle.\u00a0 My guess is that he was retreating from some other battle.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know why, but I felt compelled to follow him.\u00a0 With each step, my anger accelerated.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t realize it at the time but this man was progressively becoming the answer to all the pain and frustration I had just endured over the past two days.\u00a0 He had a German uniform on.\u00a0 That was his sin.\u00a0 That was the only reason I needed to hunt him.<\/p>\n

But one large problem prevailed.\u00a0 I had no weapon and he had at least a dagger and a pistol.\u00a0 I continued to follow him from a safe distance, stopping when he stopped, scavenging for berries and water when he did.\u00a0 I was not trained for such a maneuver as this.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know how to survive in the wild like this.\u00a0 Thankfully, my prey did and I mimicked his actions.\u00a0 It was ironic that the man I intended to kill was unknowingly keeping me alive.\u00a0 At one point, I noticed that this whole time I had been running in the opposite direction of the line I should have been trying to cross but I was obeying the call of a misplaced revenge, not logic.\u00a0 I was amazed with the amount of focus my anger provided me.\u00a0 It gave me patience.\u00a0 It gave me energy even though I did not sleep for three days.\u00a0 It told me the moment had to be just right for me to attack.\u00a0 His guard had to be let down.\u00a0 I thought that the first night would provide me an opportunity to take his life but it did not (neither did the second night).\u00a0 Even at night this man would not stop and sleep as I thought he would.\u00a0 He would rest a little but kept going.\u00a0 He avoided people.\u00a0\u00a0 At first I wondered why.\u00a0 Can\u2019t he walk up to any house and ask to spend the night?\u00a0 He\u2019s in his own country.\u00a0 Then it dawned on me: he may be viewed as a deserter.\u00a0 But that still didn\u2019t explain why he didn\u2019t sleep.\u00a0 Why was he in such a hurry?\u00a0 Where was he going? \u00a0The moment I had painfully been waiting for finally arrived.\u00a0 It was about two days after the chase began.<\/p>\n

It was cool and sunny.\u00a0 I could see my breath but at the same time, it somehow felt like it was going to be a warm day.\u00a0 We must have moving east at that moment because the sun was low and almost blinding me.\u00a0 The woods we made our way through were about to end.\u00a0 From what I could tell, a field laid beyond them.\u00a0 This unknown enemy of mine stepped into the field and stopped.\u00a0 From behind, the sunlight surrounded his figure and made him look on fire and for the first time, powerful.\u00a0 He was doing something but I couldn\u2019t tell what it was.\u00a0 As I moved closer, I could see he was clearly distracted by something he saw.\u00a0 Whatever he was looking at was down a slight hill and out of my view.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It appeared my moment had arrived.\u00a0 I was now closer to him than I had been in the past two days.\u00a0 I could now see details about him that I had not been able to before.\u00a0 There were several tears in his gray uniform and his black boots looked like an alligator mistook them for beef jerky.\u00a0 Dirt and grass stains covered him to the point it looked like he had rolled his way to this point.\u00a0 His uniform was beyond wrinkled, beyond crumpled.\u00a0 It looked like a newspaper that someone had crumpled up and sat on for a month.\u00a0 He perfectly paralleled the state of the German army at that point in time: once glorious and pristine but now reduced to a dirty frightened animal on the run.<\/p>\n

I crept up to him closer.\u00a0 Thankfully there was a decent wind that blew some leaves around that masked any sound I made.\u00a0 I could see he had some sort of sheathed dagger on his left hip and a pistol on his right.\u00a0 I thought at such a moment I would pause or hesitate but I did not.\u00a0 My anger which had not abated in the slightest over the past two days kept me motivated and confident.\u00a0 More even, my anger allowed me to come up with a plan of attack in the time it took me to make my final ten-foot approach.<\/p>\n

His left hand was up near his face.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t tell if he was waving at someone or shielding his eyes from the sun.\u00a0 From behind, I wrapped my arms around his waist, allowing my hands to join at his dagger on his left hip.\u00a0 With my left, I gripped the sheath of the dagger and with the right, I drew the blade out.\u00a0 I was now being blinded by the sun but it didn\u2019t matter, I had the advantage and was doing everything by feel.\u00a0 By the time he started to react, my left hand was now travelling up to his throat while rendering his left arm useless, keeping it pinned up high.\u00a0 I grabbed his throat hard with my left hand which stunned him as I now sunk the dagger deep into his abdomen.\u00a0 I knew little of exactly where a lethal strike would be so once the blade was in, I moved it around a great deal.\u00a0 He still resisted but I could feel his strength diminishing.\u00a0 I said nothing and he said nothing.\u00a0 I took the knife out and stabbed him again in each lung.\u00a0 As his body slid down mine, I snatched the sheath and it ripped off his hip.\u00a0 I put the dagger back in the sheath and held it in my right hand.<\/p>\n

I looked down the slight slope and now I could see what he was looking at: a young girl of about seven.\u00a0 She stood more still than any of the inanimate objects in my field of vision.\u00a0 She was about 40 feet away from me.\u00a0 I too now stood with absolutely no motion.\u00a0 Who was this girl?\u00a0 Her expression of blank shock did not lend me any clues.\u00a0 After some time, my victim\u2019s hand moved slightly.\u00a0 The young girl looked at it and her face was now expressing confusion and a pain that not even the greatest actor could mimic.\u00a0 I looked down at my enemy who stopped moving and appeared to be dead.<\/p>\n

I had killed a man who was simply trying to come home to his daughter.<\/p>\n

I stepped back and tripped.\u00a0 My eyes filled with tears.\u00a0 I got back on my feet and between the sun and the tears, I could hardly tell where I was.\u00a0 I shut my eyes forcefully to try and remove some of the water.\u00a0 I ran away from the sun and the little girl.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After a mile of running, I stopped and finally noticed that I still had the dagger in my hand.\u00a0 It was strange that I didn\u2019t simply throw it down.\u00a0 I carried it with me the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

I eventually made it back to camp and to many smiling faces.\u00a0 When they asked where I had been, I told them I was lost.\u00a0 I told no one the truth.\u00a0 My fear was that I would have been congratulated for my efforts or worse, received some promotion or medal.<\/p>\n

So why didn\u2019t I dispose of the dagger in the woods?\u00a0 Why did it keep it among my other war memorabilia for the rest of my life?<\/p>\n

To be honest, I don\u2019t know why I held on to it on my way back in the woods.\u00a0 Some force overrode my mind and commanded me to hold onto it.\u00a0 After I returned from the war, I realized why I needed to continue holding onto this grotesque instrument.<\/p>\n

As God\u2019s \u201cchosen\u201d creatures, we have two very great powers.\u00a0 The first is to take and the other is to give.\u00a0 We need to take a little to survive but often greed and rage and all of their cousins cause us to take far beyond our needs.\u00a0 Suddenly, our desire to take becomes a destructive, cancerous force that will kill all around it and ultimately the host.\u00a0 To give, however, is to create.\u00a0 There are practically no limits to giving.\u00a0 To give is to exercise one of the most underrated traits of all time: humility.\u00a0 To be humble is to remove the focus from yourself and to become part of something greater than yourself.\u00a0 Ironically, the more you give and the less you concern yourself with yourself, the more powerful you become.\u00a0 Those that take try to fill an abyss that simply cannot be filled and sadly miss out on the greatest power of all: the beautiful power of not just belonging to something greater than themselves but becoming that very thing that is greater than themselves.<\/p>\n

That day in Germany, I took.\u00a0 Some would say it was okay because it was during a war and I killed an enemy.\u00a0 Or it was a Nazi and all Nazis are evil and deserve death.\u00a0 There is no argument I encountered that made me feel at peace with taking that man\u2019s life that day.\u00a0 Believe me, I\u2019ve gone through all the possible arguments of why it would be okay to kill that man and none have brought me peace.\u00a0 What did bring me peace was using that terrible, dark moment as a motivating force to always do the opposite of what I did that day.\u00a0 When I looked at that knife, I no longer saw the evil forces of the Nazi movement or the life that it allowed me to take, I saw it as a reminder to give and create.<\/p>\n

I do hope you don\u2019t have to go through what I went through to learn about the beauty of giving.\u00a0 I hope this story is enough.\u00a0 Everything I have observed about you tells me you understand this vital lesson.<\/p>\n

You can throw the knife away, if you want.\u00a0 It is pretty disturbing!\u00a0 Moreover, it has served its purpose.<\/p>\n

Yours,<\/p>\n

TAP<\/p>\n

I put the letter down.\u00a0 I also put my tools down for the rest of the day.\u00a0 That was a big episode to digest.\u00a0 I started to walk towards James\u2019s Gate in efforts to find something that would help me digest.\u00a0 It was time to medicate as I ruminate.\u00a0 As I waited for a hole in the traffic on Washington Street that would allow me to cross over, l realized that I was standing next to Doyle\u2019s.\u00a0 Someone stopped their car to let me cross but I looked at Doyle\u2019s, looked back at the courteous driver, waved the nicest \u201cno thank you\u201d I could muster, received a slightly annoyed look, and then headed into Doyle\u2019s.<\/p>\n

As I sat at the bar and sipped my stout, I read over parts of the letter again.\u00a0 Damn, that was intense.\u00a0 For some reason, my mind was able to form a picture of this little girl that I never met in my mind.\u00a0 Her hair was dark and long and parted on one side.\u00a0 It had a little wave to it.\u00a0 Her eyes were dark too.\u00a0 She was in a white sleeping gown but quickly threw on some shoes that she didn\u2019t tie so she could run out to greet her father once she saw him.\u00a0 She ran out of her house and towards this man that she was overjoyed and relieved to see.\u00a0 \u201cIt was over\u201d, she must have thought, \u201cand now I no longer have to worry about my father.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then, unknowingly, Thomas Aloysius Pemberton stepped in and with one move that took a few seconds to execute, killed a man and probably ruined the life of an innocent girl (not to mention the rest of her family).<\/p>\n

Perhaps this is why he never had children.\u00a0 I never asked why he didn\u2019t have children and he never offered it up but I think it\u2019s safe to say what the reason was.\u00a0 Knowing Mr. Pemberton, he most likely and sadly thought that he didn\u2019t deserve to have children.\u00a0 A life alone would be his penance for this deed.<\/p>\n

Elsa!\u00a0 The German lady from the funeral!\u00a0 That is the young girl Mr. Pemberton is referring to in his letter.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t hit me until my third beer but when it did, I tried my best to recreate the moments from the funeral.\u00a0 I closed my eyes very hard, put my hand to my head and re-watched all the scenes from that day in my mind that involved Elsa.\u00a0 But why would she be at the funeral?\u00a0 It made no sense that Elsa was the one from the letter but I just knew it was.\u00a0 When I opened my eyes, the bartender was looking at me.\u00a0 I gave him a small wave to let him know I was alright.\u00a0 I chugged down the rest of my beer and left.<\/p>\n

I needed an answer to Elsa\u2019s presence right away.\u00a0 I called Frank Rosenberg.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi Frank.\u00a0 This is Chris.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cChris!\u00a0 Great to hear from you!\u00a0 How are you making out with the house?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat.\u00a0 Lots of work to be done but great.\u00a0 Um, Frank, I apologize if I\u2019m sticking my nose where it doesn\u2019t belong but why was Elsa at the funeral?\u201d<\/p>\n

Considering how great Frank was with words, the silence my question created was something to behold.<\/p>\n

I continued, \u201cI found Mr. Pemberton\u2019s letter.\u00a0 He told me what happened in the war\u2026about the German soldier and her daughter.\u00a0 I just can\u2019t understand why\u2026unless TAP somehow helped\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

I could tell Frank was smiling. \u201cYou know TAP well enough to know the kind of man he was.\u00a0 That<\/em> kind of man would do everything in his power to repay such a large debt.\u00a0 TAP knew it could never be repaid but he decided to die trying and this is why Elsa was at the funeral.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut how has he been helping her?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween you, me, and the wall\u2026he sent her money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat must have been an awkward process to initiate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Elsa thought the money was coming from some German military benefit thing that very few families qualified for.\u00a0 TAP spent a decent amount of time and money figuring out how to make it look legitimate, how to make it look like the German government was paying the surviving members of a family some sort of military life insurance that the fallen soldier had.\u00a0 He even paid some German shoe salesman he met in the war to pretend to be her dedicated account rep so if she had any questions about the payments, she would call the number on the letter, thinking she was calling some government employee when in fact she was talking to a guy that owned a shoe store in Munich.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWow\u2026and that worked?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt did for many years until she found out the truth.\u00a0 The shoe salesman died unexpectedly one day.\u00a0 Before the news even got to TAP, she happened to call the shoe salesman with a question, something she rarely did.\u00a0 A relative of the deceased picked up the phone and essentially told her the man she had been dealing with regarding her payments was a shoe salesman and not a government employee.\u00a0 Confused, she did a lot of digging and found out where the payments were coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid she call him?\u00a0 Was she angry?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had no idea who Thomas Aloysius Pemberton was so she actually flew over with her husband to find out who the source of this mysterious money was.\u00a0 I remember the day she showed up to our office, looking for TAP.\u00a0 Their encounter was unlike anything I\u2019ve ever seen or will again.\u00a0 Even though they saw each other for a few seconds, years before, it took them a fraction of a second to recognize each other that day in our office.\u00a0 Elsa literally collapsed and had to be reminded to breathe by her husband.\u00a0 The short of it is that they somehow became friends after all this.\u00a0 They had this unlikely, eerie bond that lasted through the years. \u00a0It\u2019s strange but the two of them coming together helped them both recover from an old psychological wound.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what to say, Frank.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be worried if you did know what to say after a tale like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December 11th, 2010 When I moved in, there was not much work to be done.\u00a0 I had been unknowingly getting the house ready for my arrival for the past five years.\u00a0 With that said, there was one major renovation that needed to be done \u2013 the disco kitchen.\u00a0 I began work on it a week … <\/p>\n

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