My Husband and his bout with death
I am blogging this story – because like many of Jose’s stories it’s funny – and because I feel a little bad because I haven’t blogged lately. So anyway… When Jose and I were first dating – seriously dating – serious enough that I had seen him with his shirt off anyway but hadn’t yet used the “when we get married” phrase that would be noted as a proposal – I noticed that Jose had a small round scar on his chest right above his heart, and another larger scar under his arm. When I asked him about hit, he told me that he had been shot – and here things get a bit fuzzy – he may have said I got shot by the National Guard army or he may have said he was shot by the army. What I heard was that he’d been shot when he was in the army. And I was duly impressed. A battle scar, a close call with death. And close it was. He told me that he had been shot and that he had almost died because it took him about 3 days to get to the hospital and his lungs were filling up with blood. That’s why he had the second scar, to drain the fluid from his lungs. Just a real soldier story.
Now, like so many of the things that Jose told me during the first months of our relationship, there was some miscommunication. If I haven’t told you about the age thing – then let me know and I’ll post that blog later – or the Franklin thing – really there are so many little things. Anyway, by the time that I finally found out the real story, I was probably forcing him to retell the story to some family member – and most likely we were already married – so that gives us about 9 months to a year from the original telling of the story. It would seem that Jose didn’t receive his battle wound bravely in battle defending his nation. No the real reason was a bit less, umm, dramatic.
Here’s the real story. Jose’s parents live in a small town called El Paisnal. It is in the central portion of El Salvador and remote. Until 6 years ago, they had no electricity. They have just gotten phone lines and a paved road. During the civil war in El Salvador, El Paisnal was close to a guerilla base. Guerillas are the bad guys – or at least our government thought so – though as El Salvador doesn’t have any oil I can’t imagine why we really cared – based on past humanitarian efforts. Anyway, because the the guerilla encampments nearby, most residents of El Paisnal tended to stay close to home. Better safe than sorry, as the Guerillas didn’t really care who they killed. However, Jose and a few of his friends – in what can only be considered male ignorance – must have been sitting around one afternoon trying to figure out what to do with the day. There is a little river that is close to Jose’s house – an easy walking trip and one that they took often when they were younger, before the war escalated. And like men, they used their big male brains and decided with the Guerillas camped so closely, for so long, that probably no one had been fishing in that stream for a long time. They could probably go and catch a lot of fish pretty quickly. To be fair, they were often reduced to eating small sparrow like birds and iguanas, if they could catch them, because meat was meat and money was scarce. So, Jose and his friends grabbed their gear and headed out to the river. And while they were fishing, a national guard (good guys) patrol saw them fishing. And like any good soldiers, saw scruffy men fishing in a Guerilla infested area and shot first. Jose was shot in the chest. He says that he stood up with his fishing pole and was telling them to take it easy. However, one of his friends was a little more fight or flight oriented and was running out of the area as fast as he could. I think Jose said he was shot in the butt on his way out. Anyway, the guardsmen took Jose and his other friend into custody. But they didn’t rush him to the hospital – it took them three days to get to the hospital. During that time Jose’s family didn’t have any idea where he was – and suspected that he was most likely dead – especially when they contacted the area hospitals and there was no report of his being there.
So anyway – it’s still kind of dramatic – the near life experience – really beats my ruptured appendix on a Friday when I wanted to skip school and not having surgery until a Monday because it’s better to be sure that you’re really sick instead of paying a doctor’s bill for nothing. But still – it would have been really nice to have the story accompanied by a – I was on guard duty protecting the orphanage. I heard a twig snap in the woods and was on full alert. Suddenly, before I had a chance to make a sound – I heard gunfire and felt this stinging pain in my chest. The last thing I remember is the face of my enemy looking over me. I woke up three days later . . . something like that – but no – my ever pragmatic husband simply has the daddy of all fish tales.
