Senseless Death

Prose by Ed Leonard

DEDICAR A DEJESUS

I met the tall dark smiling
Mexican sitting on a sandbag.
101st Airborne Division
Headquarters, Vietnam 1969.

he was playing the
most beautiful music
on a 12 string guitar.
surrounded by American
boys in uniform
too serious for their ages,
some carrying weapons.

we spoke several times.
he was drafted into the
Army of his newfound country
from a poor Mexican
neighborhood in California.
operating in a language
foreign to him, tending to
withdraw into his music.
always smiling.

the Commanding General
of the 101st was a cultured man.
he required DeJesus to play
in his mess hall during meals.

this was no place for his training
as a ground pounder infantry man.
so he was listed in charge of the
3,500 watt generator
tucked into a dugout
on the side of a hill
providing power for
the whole company.
there was one power pole
and a single supply line
stretching over the dirt road
to our barracks.
with no training or
certification,
DeJesus kept the generator
running 24 hours a day...
it was a loud,touchy,
cantankerous old machine
converted to burn jet fuel.

one rainy day
I heard an inhuman
undulating screeching sound
I will never forget.
I ran out to the road
to see the pole just as 
his harness released.

he fell straddling
straight down the pole
and landed sitting up
unconscious
forehead to the pole.

dead.

of all the death I witnessed
the death of DeJesus
has a special place...
the unjust ironic
unnecessary
tragic loss
still makes me sob
40 years later.