by Guenther Langohr

He never knew pain like this before, Christmas should never be about pain.

Even when the RPG had shot down the helicopter in Vietnam that pain had quickly transformed into numbness. Probably, it was something to do with the body’s internal shock system. The shrapnel invaded my body in seven different places, the burning fast became a moot numbness, so by the time the pilot fought his way to the jungle floor only my head hurt and that from that concussion against the copter’s door plate. Luckily, the medic on-board was unhurt and soon we all were feeling no pain. Within fifteen minutes another 7th Calvary Medi-Copter was there and all of us evacuated. The only KIA was Lieutenant Yeoman, the gung-ho West Point graduate arriving three weeks ago; he sat directly in the door, seemingly with the mission to continue to maintain fire with the copter’s machine gun. The RPG’s launch came unseen from the jungle floor and ricocheted from one of the rotors, down to the door frame and exploded there. The Lieutenant masked the rest of us from the largest fragments so only the smaller, less lethal, pieces bounced around the helicopter’s interior before finding several soft bodies, including mine, to stop their pinball style flight.

My initial reaction was to hit the floor, since I had no helmet to sit on. That gave me a large shard in my butt, several in my hand, one a fortunate smutch above my left eye, and the final a kiss to my right knee. None hit with force enough to tear through, nor did they hit any major parts; but all did bleed like a fountain. A quick shot of morphine, a few bandages and I was considered the “walking wounded”. Two weeks later, fit for duty, the next six months of my contract I went by unscathed. Not being a regular soldier all I had to do was not renew my contract and took a plane home, vowing never to visit Southeast Asia again, the ardor of killing Asian Men in their own country, long lost.

It was now three months since the highway accident, and the pain was still sharp, strong, and without relief. Morphine would never help that.

Even today, 15 years later, driving on Route 95 in the Tri-State – New York/New Jersey/Connecticut – corridor has in no way been easy or for that matter, enjoyable. While back then while travelling it 3-4 times each week I never enjoyed the drive and many times cursed the idiot drivers and their antics. They had been promising to remove the tool booths for years, Connecticut actually had no right to charge tolls since the construction money for the highway came from the Feds, and consequently, was not a state road. For some unexplained reason, the Connecticut politicians rationalized that the highway followed the route of the Boston Post Road, famous since the 1700’s, and therefore was the state’s and grandfathered into its available toll rolls.

The day-after-day mix of speeding commuters to Manhattan, tourists making the run from New York to Newport or Boston, and the many tractor trailers carrying goods quickly filled to road to over-capacity daily. My trips, from the Rockland County home I shared with Donna, my soon to be fiancé, to her family’s house in Stamford; became at best boring, and often done on auto-pilot while we spoke about the future.

My company in suburban New York had slowly gained momentum; now ready to move from our small building to a local corporate park. That accomplished in September, I now had increased responsibilities, not to mention a much larger rent bill. Conversely, the move also brought me daily closer to the NYS Thruway/95 entrance so it was just a ½ mile away from the business. I could leave 10 minutes later and still arrive on time in Stamford on time. Her office was in White Plains so oft times when she was not out on sales calls; it made no sense for me to pick her up. She would go directly to Stamford. The other times when on the western side of the Hudson she would just meet me at my office, and we drove together.

Then it was the last Friday before Christmas, with the big day coming next Tuesday. In essence, it created a four day weekend for most people not having to work again until Wednesday. Many others would take the whole Christmas to New Year’s week off and that was the case for Donna. Working for a large company gave her four weeks’ vacation, and she had to take the days before the year’s end or lose the days. This put additional pressure on her to reach her quota this being the last day before her end of year. Several contracts had to be signed and visits to White Plains, and Scarsdale had to be made before the day’s end. My schedule was light. We had a company lunch, and then all went home to enjoy their holiday. I went to my local Irish Pub to celebrate with some of the locals. Donna would finish her business, and we would meet in Stamford at 7:00 pm. She had adequate time and with a bit of luck would miss the bulk of the traffic, besides only being 20 minutes away and not worrying about the bottleneck on the Tappan Zee Bridge.

I, in contrast, now had moved farther away from the Thruway entrance and was partying with the entire town. Naturally, I lost track of time only finally noticing the hour at 6:30. Exiting the pub a fine mist rain had started and with the temperature near freezing careful driving was called for; for all intents and purposes opposed to my having to hurry because I was late. At 7:00, I sat on the middle of the bridge, in the world’s longest parking lot, still 30 minutes from Stamford. Cell phones being what they were 15 years ago, no signal was available within the bridge steel, so I couldn’t even call to tell them I would be late. Finally, the toll paid, I zoomed away able to travel ¼ mile before the next backup. The phone signal finally came back, Donna, as usual was not answering her phone; but her mother said not to worry as Donna had not arrived, and they would hold dinner until we both arrived.

With Rt 287 still bumper to bumper I exited and made my way through the back roads towards Stamford. While making my way north-east the traffic reports chimed in about the backups on 287 and Rt 95 north. Arriving at my destination before Donna, everyone just figured she was at a standstill on the highway in the miles of traffic. Two hours later, after calling continuously and only getting voice mail, we surmised Donna had again forgotten to charge her phone, and she was stranded on the roadside. Taking charge, I decided to drive the opposite route she always used figuring I would encounter her on the roadside that way. The 5 miles to Rt 95 were unsuccessful, and getting on the highway seemed fruitless since you could see from the access road Rt 95 was at a dead stop both ways as far as the eye could see. Not having a better plan I just drove back to the house and waited for her to arrive. She never did.

We finally got a visit from the State Police at 10:00 pm. Donna had stopped to pay the toll, and a tractor trailer hit black ice, was unable to stop and smashed into the back of her car. The resulting explosion incinerated everything around, and it took until just now to identify who, if anyone was in the car. Donna, at only 28 years old, was dead. My pain is suppressed still to this day.

The ironic part was four months later Connecticut removed all the toll barriers. Realistically, it had nothing to do with this, or the many other accidents at the booths. No, it was more mercenary than that, the Federal Government dictated that the tolls needed to be removed before Connecticut could receive their Federal Highway Monies. I have not driven the road since.

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