I’m grateful for my bed, happy it’s not the rack on the USS Trippe, where I slept during the war, in its tiny berthing compartment, that I shared with 21 shipmates. I prayed each night in Viet Nam, wishing I was having a nightmare, hoping I would wake up in my own bedroom, back home. None of us woke up the next morning from the nightmare.
When our ship visited
Karachi, Pakistan, I witnessed a truck
drive slowly down a Karachi street, along a park. The truck stopped. A man got
out of the passenger side and began kicking the people who were sleeping. I
asked our driver why. He told me to watch. If the truck person kicked someone
and they moved, he walked to the next person. If the person he kicked did not move, he
called for the driver, who got out of the truck and helped toss the body into
the truck. My heart sank. They were picking up the people who died without a bed, on the street, during the
night.
I am grateful for my
bed. I get to share it with the woman I cherish. Our bedroom is bigger than the
berthing compartment I shared with 21 shipmates.
