Finding yourself in Alaska...

“Why is it that we have to have deep conversations without the comfort of being somewhere where I can smoke?” Logan grumbled as he fiddled with a small can of mints and popped one in his mouth before he began.

He was sitting at a small mom and pop restaurant that smelled of sourdough pancakes and strong black coffee, talking to a group of veterans that had traveled from the lower 48 states to come fishing the famous Alaskan Salmon run.

“I had joined the military to piss off my parents. I had had the grades and brains to go far in college- I had received acceptance letters from all my top choices. My parents were thrilled! Parties were thrown just so they could brag. Yale, Harvard, etc.…. My father spent weeks studying the secret societies at each and made charts on which one would lead to my eventual election as President of the United States.” Logan chuckled as he took a sip of his coffee.

“Can you imagine me as President? I would be the first one to install a slip in slide and an outdoor pool bar with unicorn floaties. I wanted something more, something with excitement, something that would allow me to earn my own honor and name. So, I went to West Point to the dismay of my mother. But I figured you cannot argue with a man who is going to college to serve his country. It is downright anti-American and so off I went to exchange my letterman’s jacket for a pressed uniform and a beautiful and unsharpened sword.”

“The four year flew by. I learned responsibility, leadership, how to give and how to take orders. I was physically fit so none of that stuff bothered me. I was smart, so I was never really stressed. I kept my head down low and my goal on graduation. It’s the only way to get through a school like that. And then the day came, orders to my unit. And to my pleasure, they were deploying overseas. I was young, naïve, filled with four years of training that gave me the idea that I could conquer the world with a small squad, a skillcraft pen, and 6 MRE’s. My mother cried, my father gave me a pocket watch, and off I went.”

“No one explains war really to anyone. No matter how many documentaries you watch on the History Channel or guest speakers who came to talk on some past victorious battle- war is personal and no one has the same story. Needless to say, I got hurt. Shot in the ass. Can you believe it? It was a Tom Hanks moment and I was mortified. I was shipped back stateside to recover as there was some nerve damage in my legs. Damn doctors, I didn’t even get ice cream cones! Instead, they gave me a medical discharge, a monthly check and said ‘Thank you for your service.’ Six years from my high school graduation- I was a cripple with an education.”

Logan took a long drink of his coffee and waved the waitress over for some more. “Six months later, I was sitting at a local coffee shop, writing in my little black notebook because my shrink said I needed to write down my feelings…a horrible exercise of recovery that really turned into observations of the people around me. I was very good at diagnosing and treating strangers by the type of coffee they ordered, just not good at pinpointing my own issues. However, this particular coffee shop had a lending library, a book shelf that covered the whole back wall, and on my trip back from the men’s room I stopped to look. That is when I saw The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.” Logan cleared his throat and quoted “the Jezail bullet which I had brought back in one of my limbs as a relic of my Afghan campaign throbbed with dull persistence.” I felt that damn line in my ass- literally!

My ass and leg decided that moment to have a dance off and I fell off my chair in pain. 911 was called, my mother was called, and I was sitting in a hospital bed within hours waiting on anther surgery. I was mortified- someone had called my mother! But she did bring me the collection of the Sherlock Holmes stories for my recovery. And that is when I realized that I understood who and what Dr. Watson was. I was going to recover, but I would always have a dull persistence of pain hiding in the shadows.”

“But, how did you end up here?” One of the younger veterans asked him.

“Now that is a story for the ages.” Logan laughed. “I had heard that if you want to get lost and find yourself- go to Alaska. And I wanted to get lost! After I got out of the hospital, I booked a ticket on the first thing flying, packed a small bag, and headed north. I was sitting at the Seattle airport, waiting on my next flight while writing in that damn little black notebook, when an old man sat down next to me.

“Heading to Alaska?” He asked.

“Yup.” I replied.

“You going on your own?” He asked. The old man never actually looked at me, just stared ahead out the window watching the rain fall and the planes taxing in.

“Yup.” I replied while writing about how annoyed I was that people wanted to talk while sitting in the airport. Why was this the place where people wanted to bear their souls to complete strangers?

“Having a Into the Wild moment? He asked

“Nope. Never read the book. But I did hear that the movie was a flop.” I responded while reluctantly putting down my notebook.

“Never saw the movie myself. But I did read the book one time. The ending was not really a nail biter if you ask me.” The old man rubbed his left leg as if in pain. “Could have seen that coming from a mile away. It always surprised me how the book ends in a painful death, and people still travel to Alaska to relive the story.”

“Well, that is not what I am doing.” I replied as I pulled out my favorite Sherlock Holmes book. I was not going to read it, but I assumed that it would get the old man to realize that I didn’t want to talk.

“How long ago?” He asked

I looked at him in surprise. “How long ago what?”

“How long ago did you get hurt?” He asked again, looking at me for the first time.

“How did you know?” How did this old man know that my leg was screaming in pain from the 7 hours of cramped airplane spacing that I had already endured?

“My head doc gave me that same black notebook to write my feelings and thoughts down in after I got back.” He answered while pulling out the same Sherlock Holmes book out of his coat pocket. “My favorite character is Watson.”

“Mine too.” I had answered. And that started the friendship. We talked about war, family, friends, women that we had loved and broken their hearts, women that had broken our hearts. We talked about pain and shrinks. We talked about writing in that little black notebook and the fact that while we hated it, we kept doing it. We ended up sitting next to each other on the plane and talked the whole three and half flight into Anchorage. It wasn’t until the announcement came across the intercom that we were approaching our destination that I realized how much time had passed.

“What’s your name old man?” I asked as we were packing up our bags. During the landing, the plane had come in hard and our bags had dumped and everything was spread out in the overhead storage.

“Winston.” He answered.

“Well, it was great talking to you Winston. I am Logan. Maybe we will see each other again?”

Winston chuckled. “Young man, Alaska is a big space. Easy to get lost in. However, it is easy to figure out who you are always if you are able to survive.”

“I will survive.” I replied as I grabbed my bag and stuffed my black notebook into it.

“I know you will. Good luck Logan.”

We walked off the plane in silence, separating at the gate. I have no idea where he was going, but I had one last flight to catch that would take me further into the interior of the great state. I settled into the waiting area after getting a cup of coffee and took out my notebook to write about the man that I had just met. Except it was not my black notebook. I had accidentally taken both of them. I played with the idea of trying to catch the old man to give it back to him, but decided that I didn’t have enough time to run him down. I opened the book to see if there was an address or phone number and a small piece of paper fill out with a sticky note attached to it.

‘The dull persistence of pain hiding in the shadows will never truly go away. But the mystery of Alaska will help dull the pain. Don’t have a Into the Wild moment. Good Luck.’

The note was attached to a $20,000.00 check. In the memo was written – ‘a little something to help find yourself.’ I took that money and his black notebook and used it to help other veterans who need help finding themselves.

Logan pulled out enough small black notebooks for everyone and passed them out.

“So lets talk about your story.”