Day 32 - Eureka, KS to Erie, KS (Part I)

82 Miles / Day 32 of 50 / Eureka, KS to Erie, KS (Part I)

From getting in much later than normal yesterday we accidentally slept through our 5 am alarm and woke up at 7:30 am. We started the night with our sleeping bags on top of the tables under the shelter. The bugs got the best of us. We fended off the mosquitoes but decided to put up the tent in the dark when we looked down and saw a few hundred cockroaches scurrying across the cement floor.

After packing up our campsite and eating our routine box of cereal and half gallon of milk we were ready to hit the road at around 10 am. Yesterday we were 45 miles into the day. Sleeping in can really throw the routine off.

By three hours into the ride our water bottles were almost empty and stomachs in search of food. Thankfully the small town of Benidict (pop. 40) was in sight. Benidict was were we met Joe. Joe ran the only store in Benidict. It was a converted three bedroom house that he had bought for $8,000 cash and built a store inside of.

The store had an incredibly homey feel. The coolers were old fridges. There were different foods and trinkets scattered and placed on various homemade shelf's that seemed to come out from the walls at any and all angles.

We sat in front of the fans and cooled off with Gatorade's, sandwiches and candy bars. Joe started to share his story as we caught our breathe.

Lesson #70: History is dark and painful. Growing up we don't hear anything close to the full story of this pain.

Joe was born in 1941. Growing up in World War II America he enlisted in the Army after the war when he turned 17. He ended up on the American Army base that was now occupying the German Nazi concentration camp in Dachau.

The stories he told of Dachau were chilling. He talked about deconstructing the concentration camp with his fellow soldiers and the horrors it held. He talked about unearthing mass graves of bones the size of football fields. He talked about the hallow and stomach dropping eeriness of taking apart the showers where poison was run through the pipes so the prisoners would die after showering.

While in Germany his speciality became sniping. And he was darn good at it. While not working on the base he traveled throughout Europe to train other American and ally soldiers as Europe was rebuilding. Eventually by the early sixties he and his friend Jerry had developed quite a reputation as being top snipers. Before long the CIA showed up on the base and Joe and Jerry started leaving the base to carry out CIA missions throughout Europe. He wouldn't go into too much detail about what he was doing for the CIA but you could hear the sorrow in his voice, and the pain of being the crucial pawn who carried out orders on the CIA's chessboard.

One day Joe and  were working on a platform in a American hanger near Dachau about 65 feet in the air. Two CIA agents appeared asking where Joe and James were. The Lieutenant pointed up to where they were and left the hanger. The hit that Joe and James had last carried out was apparently illegal and the CIA was in hot water as the country they had operated in had caught wind of their operation. The last two things Joe remembers after being pushed off of the platform were going in and out of consciousness as he laid mangled on the floor 65 feet below and being thrown in a ditch in the countryside as the Lieutenant told the CIA agents to get their bodies out of the base because he didn't want them dying there.

The next time he was awake he was in a full body cast in an Army hospital in New Jersey. He took a two years to fully recover and described how he kept falling and re-breaking bones as he would try to re-learn how to walk.

He became addicted to morphine during his recovery. His morphine addiction turned to street drugs once he assimilated back to mainstream culture. After hitting rock bottom multiple times throughout the country and racking up arrests and warrants in the process he checked into the Teen Challenge rehab in Phoenix, Arizona. He described the pain from with drawl he experienced at Teen Challenge as more intense than anything he had experienced before. Joe found Jesus through rehab and left Teen Challenge a year later to start his career in construction.

Jack and I pigged out at Joe's store and ran a tab of close to $20. Our total bill was $5.44 plus tax. He gave us all the ice and water we could drink (and carry) for free along with Gatorade's. Joe told us "You gotta give people their flowers while they can still smell 'em."

Lesson #71: Let go.

I couldn't believe that Joe could share his story with such calmness. I was outraged. And confused. He talked about how his experience at Dachau got him out of serving in Vietnam and how thankful he was for that.

Thank you Joe for sharing your story and being so generous with your store.