Little Al would have been 64 today …

For the sake of privacy the names have been changed.

The weekend had been one of field exercises where ROTC guys played Army out on Blood River. It had been cold, damp and miserable. However, as we packed up everyone seemed reasonably satisfied with the performance.

James Alphonso Caruso, or “Little Al” as we all called him because his Dad was “Big Al,” seemed down and depressed about something. Since he had ridden with me to the back of the bay on Kentucky Lake, I figured we had time to talk it out on the ride back to Murray State.

Little Al was one of my ROTC brothers and we also sat next to each other in Miss Evelyn Bradley’s Psychology 101 class. He was six doors down from my room 404 in White Hall, so it also wasn’t uncommon for us to stand in the hall and visit and now and then even share a pizza.

But something, I was not sure what it was, was bothering Little Al.

A native of upper state New York, a short fellow maybe 5’ 8” at most he had a well-honed and toned body of about 150 pounds. Little Al had beaten the crap out of me in the boxing ring one day during one of our ROTC training bouts. A few days after that, he decided to teach me a few things about “boxing,” none of which complied with the “Queensbury” rules of boxing, of course, but which most assuredly would keep me on my feet and alive to fight another day. I appreciated that and still retain some of that “street knowledge,” which I used on only two occasions — a story for another time. From that day forward we were friends and Little Al, well he had few friends.

Like me, he was an only child.

His Dad was somehow related to doing union business on the docks and his Mom was a teacher in the public school system. He was a brilliant fellow and had scored extremely high on his ACT and SAT tests, a fact his parents told me the first time we met on move in day at Murray State University my first year. Like me he had chosen Murray State because he could get a scholarship and also work part-time. He also liked the Racers ball teams but I never knew where that interest originated.

His Dad frankly looked and even acted “Mafioso” and “macho” while his Mother was demure, quite striking and very polite. Little Al had a private room, which was uncommon in those days as we usually bunked two to a room and shared a bathroom with two other suite mates. I suspect that Little Al wanted it this way though because he was a very serious student and when not excelling in most everything we did in ROTC he was studying to excel in his class work. I did beat him one time on the rifle range and he didn’t take it so well. The next go round though he creamed me in points.

His goal he told me was to become an engineer and make a career out of the Army and never have to go back to upper state New York and work on the docks.

His Dad had fought in the Korean War and was I am sure one tough SOB, at least he acted as if he was.

We really hit if off while sharing Psychology 101 time. He was fascinated with the human mind and how it worked and was always probing and questioning Miss Bradley about this or that in regards to one of her lectures. We both concurred that her teaching style and wealth of knowledge and willingness to be questioned is what led both of us to major in the field of psychology. I would go on to get a degree in behavioral psychology. Little Al never made it out of the freshman year.

On the way back to the campus, I asked Little Al what was up. At first, he denied anything was wrong but as I am prone to do I just listened. I had asked the question and I had realized in my life that if you are silent and patient the person you asked it of will eventually talk.

Little Al finally broke the silence and said that he was concerned that maybe engineering was not his thing. That perplexed me since we were just in our freshman year and we were just at the end of the first semester at Murray. He later explained that the goal of him becoming an engineer was his Dad’s not his. He also really didn’t see making a career out of the Army because he wasn’t sure he was good enough. This coming from a young man that was in the top ten performers in the 80-man company.

In those days all able-bodied men were expected to spend the first two years of their college education in ROTC. It was mandatory unless you were a pacifist, a minister, was physically handicapped or a Quaker, as I recall.

To me, it was a simply a scholarship among the other small scholarships I had scored on and a way to partially pay for my education. I still had to work several jobs but I would not be in debt nor would my parents when I got out. My goal then, as now, is no debt for me or my family.

However, I was confident Little Al was brooding over more than just this. I asked if there was anything else on his mind. Yes, he said he was concerned that he hadn’t made an “A” on his first Military Strategy exam. Hell, neither had I and actually a C in that class would later blow my Magna Cum Laude.

Just as we passed a bend in the road Little Al asked me to turn and pull up into an overgrown old logging road. He got out and walked up a slight rise that overlooked the lake and motioned for me to come see. I walked up and below us lay Kentucky Lake with a flock of geese and ducks. The wind was chilly but the scenery especially on a bright and sunny day would be magnificent. We both remarked how this would be the perfect place for a cabin. When we returned to the car his mood sank again.

Little Al was sad, depressed, frustrated and anxious. He obviously was not a happy camper but then I had been through some of that already myself and there were days when I was in the same boat, so to speak. However, I never expected this would amount to much.

Little Al and I packed our gear back to our rooms, took long hot showers and joined a few other guys for a pizza and cokes down at Gino’s. Yeah, we would have liked to have had pizza and beer but in Murray in 1968 you had to go “South” for a beer and after this weekend no one had any intentions of driving 20-miles down to Hazel and the “Big Apple,” our favorite watering hole.

Sunday evening at about 08:00 hours I called it a night. Little Al had told us he was going to the library and study and signed off with us with his signature “keep your head down bros. – semper fi.”

I didn’t see Little Al for the next 7-days and became concerned on Wednesday of the following week when he didn’t appear in Psych 101. I went down and knocked on his door but there was no answer and none of his other closer acquaintances had seen him since Sunday.

On Sunday morning, December 15, 1968 I awoke very early. It was cold and there was some light snow and a little ice on the ground. Walking the hill to get to the cafeteria was a challenge that morning, me and my roommate and suite mates made it up ever so slowly. George, my roommate, asked me if I had seen Little Al. It seemed that no one had. Then we really became worried. We called Campus Security and they were of little help. I called my Captain and he called the Colonel. No one had seen nor heard from Little Al since Sunday evening, December 8^th.

The only thing we could think of was to check and see if his Jeep was in the compound. You see, if you were a freshman at Murray State in 1968, you were required to keep your car in a special compound as you were not to drive it during the week, yeah right! His Jeep was gone and from the looks of the ice and snow in his parking space it had not been parked there recently.

George and I returned to our room and we called the platoon members. We all agreed we needed to find Little Al. As I recall, we called the 15 members of our platoon and all but one showed up, the one had gone home for the weekend.

We rustled up three cars and piled in. One car would search the streets of Murray; one car would search areas Little Al was known to hang out when he wanted time away down around Ken Lake State Park and Aurora. George, Hugh and I would go out to Blood River on a hunch. Little Al was known to go off “camping” by himself and since we had just been out there maybe he decided he liked it.

We drove out to Blood River on a gray and very gloomy mid-morning. We searched all the areas we had played army in and the areas that were informal campsites and make-out parking places and found nothing of interest.

As it was nearing dark, we started out and headed back to campus that was when I remembered that Little Al had asked me to stop and come see a future cabin site. Driving a 1959 Chevy up an old logging road is not an easy task, so I told my brothers that I would pull in and just walk up the road a bit that I wanted to check something. We were all cold and wet from a bit of snow and sleet fall so George and Hugh chose to stay in the car.

It appeared to me that a vehicle of some kind had gone up the road but not recently. As I topped the rise, there sitting with the front-end facing the lake was Little Al’s Jeep. The first thing I noticed was a piece of flexible plastic pipe was run from the exhaust to the window of the Jeep. I walked to the driver’s window and there sat the remains of Little Al. Tape had secured the window to ensure no leakage. I stood there in what I now realize was shock.

I recall running back to my car and throwing myself against the hood of my car and retching over and over again. George and Hugh immediately jumped out of the car. I did my best to explain what I had seen and kept saying we needed to get to a telephone. Hugh took my keys and we drove about a mile to a cabin and made the call to the Sheriff’s office. We did have presence of mine to not disturb anything.

We would lead the Sheriff’s deputy to the Jeep, later several other law enforcement types showed up from the city of Hazel, Calloway County and the Kentucky State Police. I believe even a Ky Fish and Wildlife officer came but I couldn’t swear to that. Each of them wanted a statement from each of us. We spent several hours giving statements. Eventually, the coroner showed up and pronounced Little Al dead.

I remember sitting in my car that evening giving a statement and hearing in the background the song Abraham, Martin and John.

Little Al’s death was not my first. I had seen my share of car accidents, fire related deaths and even the remains of a murder victim while working at the county newspaper in Princeton during my junior and senior years of high school. Family members had passed and I had gone to those funerals. I thought I had become calloused and hardened about death by some of that experience. I had even done photos at the morgue on a couple of occasions – a story for another time.

However, I had never experienced finding a person in in such a state and the death of someone I knew and counted as a friend. Also, I immediately began to ask the age old question of what could I have done or said to prevent his outcome. In retrospect, only years later would I understand there was nothing I could have done; the decision to take one’s life is a choice that Little Al made.

I can speculate about some of the reasons and there were nonverbals and language and other signs that in retrospect should have been clues but then at 18-years of age you just don’t think through such things.

Little Al left a few notes and letters of explanation. They were on the seat beside him when he turned on the 1959 red hard topped Jeep to let the carbon monoxide carry him over the river. I kept the note that eventually came to me later that year. His Mother sent it to me.

It started, and I recall the opening from memory it was a quote from Joseph Heller: “I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service.” Heller was the author of Catch-22 and an anti-war activist and one of Little Al’s favorite writers.

There were a few other paragraphs mostly trying to explain why he felt he couldn’t live up to his Dad’s dreams. He closed it by saying that he knew that neither I, nor his few friends and or his brothers in the platoon, would understand but that our lives would go on.

His Mom and Dad showed up to pack up his room and have his body sent home later the next week. His Dad had asked if the platoon members that had searched for his son would come over and help pack up his things. We all agreed. He said he wanted to personally thank us.

His Dad said that the autopsy showed he had died on Monday morning, December 9^th shortly after sunrise. As his Dad spoke in so soft a voice you had to strain to hear him, I could see Little Al sitting there dreaming of his cabin, as he drifted off to a final sleep.

His Daddy cried as hard as I have ever seen any man cry as he told us all. His Mom, well she was the strong one and tried to comfort him.

Little Al would have been 64 years old today, February 25^th.