A Blog of Flashbacks

Quilt of Valor

August 2026

Quilt of Valor
His eyes glaze—
he returns to Pleiku––Dong Tam—
to schoolmates who did not come home—

He left the room—returned to the jungle.
Did not hear what the quilt maker started to say.
His face turned red from heat.
His wife knew better than to interrupt.
She saw his actions controlled, his urges squelched
as he trailed back—
thanked the quilt maker, but
No thank you, someone needs it
more than I.

Would you like to see it before she leaves? his wife asked.
It’s made? She brought it? Yes, I’ll see it.
It’s beautiful! Yes, I’ll keep it. I thought it would be
Full of military…the 325th and…and things and symbols.
But take off my oak leaf and caduceus.

His wife jumped at the order.
Put valor and honor back in the heartwood box
secreted in company with his other retired insignia,
the box of honor that sits in her study,
the heartwood box he does not know she keeps.

I am honored. He crossed the room
to shake the quilt maker’s hand,
moved to hug his appreciation.

He took his quilt to his childhood home,
the home he deployed from—returned to—
placed it carefully
on the guestroom bed.
Chose peaceful paintings for the walls as
one more part of him came home.

If you think you can’t read poetry, read it aloud as if it’s a story. That’s all a poem is: a story.

When I first looked at the quilt at Karla’s house, I admired its Amish simplicity. Yes, this is one that Robert will like. The back piece is a forest scene with eagles and fir trees. He doesn’t like to display that he was in the military. He wears no hat or other indication. He is, however, grateful when others thank him for his service.

The quilt sat folded in our guest room in Alaska till Robert decided to take it to our house in Oregon, the house he’d grown up in. This is the house he left when he joined the Army and went to basic training, then medical training at Brooks Army Hospital at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio, then to Madigan at Ft. Lewis before going across the Pacific to Vietnam. This is the house he returned to when he first came home after two years deployed. He always says 22 months. He stayed home for a few weeks then wandered to various friends’ houses before landing jobs as a surgical tech at a couple of Oregon hospitals.

After the quilt sat in our Alaska guest room for about six weeks, he took it home to Lakeview. He first decided to give it to his sister whose Lewy body dementia had seriously progressed. Whether it was the three quilts that people had made and already given to her or something else inside him, he decided to keep his quilt. I wanted to tell him it was his quilt of valor and belonged to no one else. I long ago learned not to tell him what to do with or about anything related to his military career. Okay, one time I did tell him. He was about to get rid of his last military uniform, a Class A jacket. I said, “Not before I take off all the insignia.” He agreed but said “Just don’t put it in a frame and hang it on a wall.” Don’t worry, I won’t. They all rested quietly in my top bureau drawer for years till I bought a box for them. He’s not a nosy person and has never wondered what’s in that box in my Alaska study.

When we next went to Lakeview, he immediately put the quilt on the bed. Now, each time we leave, he folds it, covers it, and puts it in the closet. He rarely talks about it, but he takes excellent care of it.