“Of course not.” I reached over and pulled him into my chest.
“That’s what war does,” he said into my ear. “It’s hard to talk about even now, but I need you to understand my decision.”
I pulled away. “What decision?”
“To not go back.”
“But you did go back.”
He shook his head. “I never boarded the plane from Honolulu to ’Nam. I was given a fake Canadian passport with the name Nick McCarthy. Then I took a jet to Vancouver, where I met up with this dude who works with an organization that helps American soldiers blend into Canada.”
My mouth dropped open. My bulging eyes met his. “Youdeserted?”
“It was either that or suicide. I couldn’t do that to Mama. Or you.”
“God, no,” I said as a horrific thought crossed my mind. “Don’t they shoot soldiers for that?”
“Not since World War II.”
“Don’t they send them to jail?”
“Not if the soldier goes to Canada. But honestly, I’d rather be in jail than Vietnam.”
Like Joan Baez’s husband.I didn’t know what to say. Desertion was the last thing I had expected to hear. “So that’s where you live now? Canada?”
He nodded. “Along with fifty or sixty thousand other American war resisters. I live in Montreal. About six hours from New York City.”
This was difficult to hear. My head spun from one end of Yasgur’s farm to the other before another hideous thought crossed my mind. “Does Dad know?”
Ron grimaced, gnawing on his bottom lip. “He knows I never reported back to ’Nam. Someone from the State Department called to tell him. But he doesn’t know where I am now. There’s nothing he or the US government can do about it. Canada harbors American deserters. Sweden offers amnesty, but that’s too far away from you.”
I released the breath I’d been holding. “No wonder Dad’s been so hateful. He got progressively meaner after you left, but much worse after Mama got back from Hawaii.” I pictured him breaking my records over his knee and considered the anger behind each crash, all the hateful things he had said to me.
“I’m so sorry, sis.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah it is. I shamed him in front of his military comrades. Worst thing I could have done. It’s not like I’m proud of it—truth is I feel like the scum of the earth most days. When I wake up every morning, the first voice I hear is his. ‘Good morning, coward,’” he said, in Dad’s voice, then peered at me with a deep longing. “Please don’t hate me, SuSu.”
Looking at my brother—with his hair hanging in front of his face, hiding his war wounds—aroused deep anger. Not at him. At Dad, the army, President Johnson, Robert McNamara, and President Nixon. Livy was right. Vietnam was a horrific, senseless war. I leaned over and pulled us together. “I’d never hate you. I understand why you left.”
Ron laid his head on my shoulder. “I couldn’t bear one more day of war.” He lowered his voice. “I couldn’t kill one more person.”
A chill froze my body as his reality sunk in. I pulled away then touched his marred cheek. “Ron. Listen to me. You are not a coward. Cowards don’t have scars like this.”
“I feel like one most of the time. Giving up my country is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I just didn’t see another way out.”
“Does that mean you can never come home?”
“Not unless the government changes its stance.”
I let go of a frustrated sigh. “That makes me so sad.”
“Makes me even sadder.” He hung his head for a moment, staring at the ground. Then met my gaze. “I honestly don’t know how or why I made it home alive. I feel guilty about that too.”
We sat in silence awhile before I asked, “How did you get here? To the festival, I mean.”
“Hitched a ride.”
