MTB,
I am writing you this letter and mailing this long-lost item to you today. This “Carolina Blue” bandana is rightfully yours. It is threadbare, stained, torn, and tattered–not much of an offering really. If I found it on the road today, I’d probably toss it in the nearest trash can. But its intrinsic value is not in monetary worth, but in indelible memories from days long past; memories that flood forth from some locked away recesses in my mind even as I scrawl these words. It has been in my possession for the last 35 years or so. If I went strictly by statute of limitations, I’m confident I could claim outright ownership, but I want to return it to you on this 1st day of the New Year. Today I am spending time writing letters and gathering thoughts before the year gains momentum on Monday. Somehow, once time gains traction, it seems impossible to rein it in. This item and this letter have been on my mind for a long time. Today is the perfect day to release both.
This bandana and others like it have been part of my daily “kit” my entire life. It has marked trails, stanched wounds, protected hands from coffee pots simmering over white coals, absorbed sweat and snot, wiped baby’s noses and butts, bathed in cool mountain streams, dried tears; filtered dust, stench, smoke, and desert sand, and generally proved indispensable for daily living. I don’t leave home without one, ever.
Marked in permanent ink near a fraying corner in clear, bold, square, print are the initials M.T.B., most clearly visible on the reverse image side as B.T.M. Apparently, at a less noble stage of my life, I tried to cover my malfeasance by ink-blotting my name over yours. In my defense, it was probably in deference to some archaic, arbitrary Naval regulation from yesteryear requiring personal nomenclature on every item in the world you possess, or think you possess. Don’t ever try to sidestep “ships laundry” bylaws without suffering the consequences, like wearing a complete stranger’s underwear… not that in our early twenties we gave a whit. It was always fun to laugh about during PT on the flight-deck…” hmm I wonder which “Jones’s” underwear I’m wearing and how they ended up in my large, meshed laundry bag sealed and secured by that giant, industrial strength safety pin.”
I am reminded of that time in SERE school in Brunswick, Maine in February, we were “persuaded” to don the first set of five-day old, soiled, evasion ripe and well-traveled long underwear you could get your hands on from the huge discard pile. Of course, when you are huddled together, shivering, butt naked, in sub-freezing conditions, fending off water from a fire hose, even a stranger’s filthy rags feel like the finest silk. It’s all about perspective, right?
I can only imagine that this item innocently traded footlockers in that cozy, not-so-tidy, den we proudly called our room on Rosemary Street in Chapel Hill, NC. Just think, we had our own “mancave” years before it became a thing…just no 60” TV… thankfully. Not that they existed in the mid-80’s, nor could we have afforded one anyway on the $100.00/month stipend our NROTC scholarships so thoughtfully included. We did have the musk of seldom washed sheets co-mingled with a hint of Borkum Riff stale pipe tobacco; the late-night rapping of a persnickety typewriter by dim desk light; the shared library that included Hemingway, Melville, Kipling, Clausewitz, and Sun Tzu; not to mention that enormous Anglo-Russian dictionary you always lugged around, which I am convinced, prepared you well for the more-serious rucking you encountered in your subsequent career as a Marine Infantry Officer.
Then of course, there was that inspired classic, The Bible. I recall that we at some point declared all our meager college possessions as “ATC” or “All things Common” inspired by the early church apostles in the Book of Acts. Those were good times shared with a good friend.
So as a testament to these formative years of our youth, when our character was developing and as we were trying to find purpose and meaning on a campus some twenty-thousand strong, we found each other and we made each other better, I think. I hope. I am returning this frayed and tattered icon of our past to you, to travel with you in the years ahead, to keep and to USE (enshrining or framing is strictly prohibited) for the next 35 years… until it is no more, or we are no more.
Grace and Peace, my friend.
Semper Fi.
GLT
___________________________
Tab Taber is a Gold-Star Dad–father of SSG George L. Taber V, a Green Beret Medical Sergeant from 7th SFG who died during a violent storm on Mt. Yonah while in the Mountain phase of Ranger School in August 2022. Tab journals to process his grief and to recollect memories of his son. Occasionally he shares his written thoughts with The Havok Journal and on Instagram @gltiv. He retired from the Military (8 years Marines;15 years Army) in 2014 and now resides in NE Florida where he runs a 4th generation wholesale plant nursery. He can be reached at tabtaber7@gmail.com.
After being Tab’s roommate in college, MTB went on to serve 27 years in the U.S. Marines. Many active, some reserve. Gulf War. OEF. OIF. Other deployments and assignments. High ground of his experience is symbolized with a tattered blue bandanna. He says, no other received ribbons, medals, or parting plaques compare.
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