'Boulder Joe' gets the girl

This article first appeared in The Berkshire Eagle.

By Felix Carroll

PITTSFIELD — Larry Caprari, having put the coffee on and flipped the window sign to affirm that 99 First Street is hereby open on this Monday morning, takes a seat behind the desk and announces the name of every man who steps inside — including, eventually, Joseph Mack, who has just returned home from a trip to Minnesota with a new nickname.

"There's a Marine — Franny Tremblay," says Caprari. And "George Moran, Navy." And "Richard Robert, Army." And "another Marine, Tyrone Belanger." And "Bob `Doc' Miller, Navy."

Yes, they're all here, in this yellow, wood-paneled storefront with the drop-down ceiling and mismatched coffee mugs — the headquarters for the Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 65. They sit upon a scruffy fleet of matching desk chairs. They drink coffee. They rib each other. They talk about family, the community, and sometimes the war. Only sometimes. They make plans. Then they say farewell till next time, maybe Wednesday, maybe Friday, these retired men with achy joints, and none achier than those belonging to the man with the new nickname.

His entrance prompts a unified chorus of "Joey Mack!" It's Joey Mack, limping in as he does from the sun-baked sidewalk, his cane in his hand. He wears a flat cap hat pressed tightly around his skull. He's got with him his 4-year-old grandson, Elliot, "my best buddy," a mini-Joey Mack, who, in homage to his grandpa, is known to carry his own cane, only his is equipped with a bicycle horn.

"They all call me `Boulder Joe' now," said Joey Mack, having returned from Minnesota, where he attended a Vietnam vet reunion for the Army's Charlie Company.

"Boulder Joe," the men repeat at 99 First St., kicking the tires of a new nickname.

Here in the headquarters of Chapter 65, founded in 1982 by Caprari and others to support fellow vets and to clear a few matters up about that confusing war, Mack needs no prompting. For the sake of those in the room not in the know, he explains about that boulder, about how back in 1968, after months spent in fearsome firefights, it wasn't a Viet Cong bullet that put him onto an airplane home. Rather, it was a big, stupid boulder. Mack was smoking cigarettes, shooting the breeze, and filling sandbags by a bunker when that large boulder slid down a small incline and came to a stop on top of him, twisting his body into unnatural angles, rupturing his bladder, fracturing his pelvis and dislocating his left hip. It was all a fluke.

At the reunion, he met up with a lieutenant he hadn't seen since that man rushed to his side those 49 years ago and proceeded to dig him out using a trenching tool. For the rest of the reunion, Mack was introduced as that guy they had heard about, the guy that got pinned down by a boulder: You know, "Boulder Joe!"

Back at 99 First St., the question that had been going around the room is then posed to Joey Mack. And so: Has he watched "The Vietnam War," the 10-part, 18-hour documentary film series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, which has opened old wounds and aired out a nation's dirty laundry?

Mack said he watched the first two episodes and, because of his travels, recorded the rest. "Amazing," he declares, shaking his head. "You just see how we got sucked into that war."

"We should have been out of there in '65," says Belanger.

"There are things in that series I didn't know about," says Caprari.

"Yeah, guys over there serving, they didn't know this stuff," says Moran. "All they could think about was staying alive and helping their brothers stay alive."

Mack agrees with the others that the series has served the noble cause of validating the sacrifices made by the Vietnam veteran and of codifying for the history books the grave mistakes made by our leaders that should not be repeated, yet continue to be repeated.

"The bottom line for us," says Caprari, "condemn the war, not the warrior."

"Yep," says Tremblay, the president of this here outfit, which works in unison with the city's other veterans groups to visit fellow vets in nursing homes and independent care centers, put on school programs, provide color guards and honor guards for parades and funerals, and award scholarships. This is the work of the American military veteran, the product of an intimate lesson learned from war. The lesson being: If you were lucky to survive, never take civilization for granted; spend the rest of your life serving your community. Never stop serving your community.

Speaking of which, Caprari reminds the crew that Joey Mack was just named Pittsfield's Veteran of the Year.

"Thank you for that," Mack nods.

"It was a unanimous vote," says Moran.

"No, it wasn't," ribs Miller.

"Well, it's an honor," says Mack, who then tips his cap and says goodbye for now. He's got a busy day. He's taking a census of the vets living in the city's nursing homes and independent care facilities. They each will receive a Christmas present from the city's veterans. This is how the city's Veteran of the Year spends his days. He'll also pull the car over off South Street to clean up any trash along the war memorial. Then he'll go home to his bride, Aggie, his wife of 48 years.

Just before he was shipped off to Vietnam, the 18-year-old Joey Mack asked Aggie, "Are you going to wait for me?"

She replied, "Yes, if you get me my diamond ring."

Together, they stepped into a jewelry store downtown and put a deposit on a diamond ring, and then he was off to get shot at.

He earned a Silver Star "for gallantry in action" and the Army Commendation Medal for Heroism. All the while, Mack didn't think he'd live to ever slip that ring onto Aggie's finger. But then that boulder slipped on top of him and he found himself face to face with his left foot. Then, he knew. A medic ran up to him, got down onto his elbows and asked, "Mack, are you all right?"

Mack, who thereafter would be two inches shorter on his left side, responded, "I'm going home."