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Memories of a fallen hero

"Show me a hero ... I'll write you a tragedy," said F. Scott Fitzgerald.

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Waterville now has another hero and another tragedy. Wade A. Slack, U.S. Army Specialist, 21 years of age, has joined the fallen.

I did not know Spc. Wade A. Slack of the U.S. Army. I do not recognize the boy in the camouflage uniform in the picture on the front of my newspaper. I knew the Wade Slack whom I saw coming out of the front door of Waterville High. I knew the boy popping out of the Indian Teepee his father had erected for his children in his back yard. I knew the Wade Slack who cooked delicious food in the restaurant where I often dined.

When I would, on occasion, bump into him on the street, I would call him "Mr. Slack," I don't know why. Perhaps it was because he always seemed so serious, somewhat older than his years. But it made him smile.

I remember the tall boy who walked home from school in the autumn, kicking the leaves in front of him. I waved to him. He waved back. I remember that boy. I remember that I often confused him with his brothers. They all seemed to look so much alike.

Like so many of the town's children whom I came to know, I had no reason not to imagine that one day he would vanish and then reappear, back from college. I would congratulate him and shake his hand.

I had no reason not to imagine, as I did of so many over the years, that I would see him again, this time with a girl, then a wife, then with children. I would call him "Mr. Slack" and he would smile as he did before.

I probably came to think of him, as I did other children I had seen grow up here, as George Gibbs of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town." Waterville was sort of like Grover's Corners when I first came here, and I imagined he would meet his "Emily" and grow old.

In Wilder's play, Emily dies in childbirth. I had forgotten that part and didn't care to bring it to mind. I just imagined Wade growing old as George did. But there was no war in Grover's Corners. There was no Spc. George Gibbs. There was only George. Here on the streets of my adopted city, there was only Wade and many boys like him.

One day Wade vanished from the streets of Waterville. I had no idea that he had joined the army and gone to war. But he did. He went to a dusty piece of Afghanistan called Jaghatu, and there he performed his job in the service of his country, and there he fell into the earth like a fallen sparrow, and with him he took his memories of childhood and the kicking of autumn leaves.

Today, here in his hometown, Spc. Wade Slack will be laid to rest in full military honors. I know the drill. I have been there many times. There will be, I expect, a 20-gun salute and someone will play "Taps" and someone will hand his mother a carefully folded flag and the sun will go down and that will be the end of the day.

But it will not end for his mother and family. Wade died of his wounds. The living go on living with their wounds, the ones that go deeper, into the shattered heart and the soul, the ones that never heal.

I am reminded that his father, Alan, a veterinarian, on a cold autumn evening many years ago, saved the life of my beloved tiny bird. With care and gentleness and expertise, he brought the bird back to life. I wish today, that I could repay him in turn. I wish I could bring back his fallen sparrow to life. But this is not about miracles. This is about a hero ... and a tragedy.

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.