Soldiers in the Barbershop, 1953 by Don Almeida

I was hired to deliver newspapers for an early morning paper route and took on a daily job of cleaning a nearby barber shop after school.  My day started at five a.m. and a one mile walk to open the barber shop for cleaning.  I then picked up a canvas bag of Boston newspapers to walk my two-mile paper route.  I got home by 7:15 am to wash up, change clothes, and was due at school before 8:30 am.  School ended at 2:30. I cleaned the Barber shop daily at 3 pm when I didn’t have after-school activities. 

​Once, I was asked by the barber-manager to help him remove a large venetian blind needing repair.  It was Monday, his day off, and we met late in the afternoon to avoid the glaring sun.  We took the cumbersome, heavy blind down and placed it on some chairs.  He then started to erupt into one of his many coughing fits, but this time he couldn’t stop.  He wheezed while struggling to breathe in between coughs.  His face turned red, and then purple.  He started foaming at the mouth.  Suddenly, he collapsed and landed on his back.  The foam continued to flow as he quietly moaned.  

I ran outside to O’Conner’s lunchroom and paper store screaming for help!  A local doctor just happened to be sitting at the lunch counter sipping coffee while holding a newspaper and chatting with a police officer.  We all ran to the barber shop.  The doctor then rushed to his nearby car and returned with a bag, gave the barber a shot and felt his pulse.  The barber stopped breathing and died peacefully.  Ironically, it was just after sundown, and darkness had just set in.  I suddenly realized that I was the last person he saw and had spoken to in his lifetime before he passed away.  I wept softly and was driven home by the police officer.

​This poor man was a World War One veteran.  It was called The Great War.  He was a victim of chemical warfare, a foot soldier who was attacked by a floating cloud of mustard gas drifting toward his unit on a battlefield in France causing permanent damage to his lungs which led to a fragile, lifelong heart condition.  His head was bald on top with wisps of snow-white hair on the sides, and a pale, wrinkled face, aged far beyond his years -- an old man at fifty-five.  The war had ended in 1918 yet prematurely took his life away in 1953 as if the war had never ended for him.  And here we stood silently, a doctor, a policeman, and a young paper boy witnessing the death of this wounded soldier on his final day, across the street from the town’s World War One Memorial.

Gold stars are added next to the engraved names of soldiers, sailors and marines killed in battle.  Yet, many veterans returned home and eventually died after suffering from their battlefield wounds. I call them the invisible Gold Stars.  They are honored at their funerals with the sharp, crackling rifle bursts of a firing squad followed by a nearby bugler’s slow, delicate melody of Taps echoed hauntingly by another distant bugler’s notes eloquently trailing off. 

This quiet man originally came from the South and the only family he had was a wife. The funeral was private, without Taps, without honors, as if he were unknown.  His name was Charles Ford.  Rest in peace Charlie.  Rest in peace Doctor Brenner and Officer Carl Palm, all veterans of The Great War.
 
Thank you Don for a moving tribute.

​Anne Wooster Drury