CHAPLAIN'S CORNER

- Sparky -

The story of Sparky is perhaps the greatest human tragedy that I have ever known. And yet there is a deep element of eternal hope to it that overshadows the sadness. It is now over fifty years after World War II, and still I can't begin to articulate Sparky's drama without breaking down.

I met Melvin "Sparky" Sharp in 1946 in the Philadelphia Naval Hospital when we were patients. We both had been seriously wounded in two different deadly battles in the Pacific. Sparky had lost both eyes in the devastating invasion of Iwo Jima and I had lost most of my voice on Okinawa, which battle took place a few weeks after Iwo. We were kind of a beat up pair, but between Sparky's voice and my eyes we really got around. Many a time I was his hoarse, wheezing seeing-eye dog in Philadelphia.

Shaking hands with Sparky was a kind of ritual. At the same moment I had been shot through the neck, possibly the same bullet had gone through my trigger-finger, shattering it beyond repair.

Because Sparky was now blind he seemed to always desire little signs of familiarity to reconfirm identities. In my case, even though he could tell me by my hoarse whisper, when we shook hands he always held my right hand in both of his hands. Then for several seconds he would stand there with the fingers of his left hand carefully feeling the stump of my right forefinger. Finally he seemed to be satisfied.

There was no other name for this Marine but Sparky. It fit him to the proverbial "T." Even his sightless eyes seemed to sparkle. The moment he came into your presence you could hardly resist his contagious liveliness and humble charm. Sparky's one and only battle experience in the US Marine Corps was on the sands of Iwo Jima. Full of excitement and a desire for action, he entered the Corps as a young teenager. With a mixture of fear and anticipated adventure, fate carried Sparky toward the meatgrinder of Iwo.

Sparky made it through the first day and night of horror, in which 566 Marines and Navy Corpsmen lay dead or dying on the invasion beach. Robert Sherwood, noted combat correspondent, described Iwo this way, "The first night on Iwo can only be described as a nightmare in hell."

Sparky was part of a 60 millimeter mortar crew. Doggedly they fought their way inland against fanatical Japanese resistance.

An incoming Japanese mortar shell accurately and effectively knocked out the weapon Sparky served. He and several others were literally lifted off their feet and blown several yards through the air.

lwo's "nightmare in hell" for Sparky became a personal agony as he lay mangled and partially buried in the now blood-black sand. His whole body from the lower waist up was one agonizing, pitted mass of wounds. Mercifully the shock of his extensive injuries caused him to dazedly pass in and out of' consciousness.

A Corpsman who reached Sparky at first thought him to be beyond repair and dying. Though he had tended many badly wounded men, the medic audibly gasped when he saw Sparky's face and upper body. He almost moved away to tend other wounded but an invisible hand held him. He went to work.

The strong will of the human spirit to survive surged in Sparky's inner being. Through innumerable transfusions and surgeries over the ensuing months, he slowly regained physical strength and emotional confidence in the midst of his dark world. Both eyes were so badly damaged that the sockets were surgically removed. In time he was fitted with two prostheses that were a medical work of art. The dark brown color of these eyes was so realistic that only the slight, cocked backward tilt of Sparky's head when you talked to him gave away the secret that he lived in physical darkness.

When I first met Sparky in Philly, my eyes riveted to his face. Small black pits pockmarked his face and neck. The exploding shell had driven the black volcanic sand into and under Sparky's skin. It was as if a drunken tattoo artist had been at work indiscriminately making his needle marks. For about a year US Naval surgeons removed as much of the black imbedded sand and shrapnel as possible.

During Sparky's long tenure in the Philadelphia Naval Hospital, and in between operations and the learning of braille, he attended a downtown church. Inevitably he fell in love with and eventually made plans to marry a girl named Virginia. He asked me to be his best man.

The big day came. Sparky and I spent some time reading a portion of God's Word and then prayed together. As I guided him down the aisle to become one with a girl he had never seen, I thanked God for the privilege of knowing this physically sightless, but faith-filled, vibrant human being. His hope, courage and enthusiasm were contagious

A few months later in February 1947 I was discharged from the Marine Corps and headed back to my home on the West Coast, Salem, Oregon.Over the next few years I kept track of Sparky through a mutual friend, Andy Kohan. One day in about 1950, a letter came from Andy telling me that Sparky had been confined to a US Veteran's Hospital in Pennsylvania. It was Sparky's lot to continue to suffer ... a trust given to him by the living God. Humanly, Sparky's tragedy continued to grow, but our perspective on suffering is often not the same as God's.

As soon as I could get the funds together and got a break from work, I headed for Philadelphia. Andy drove me to the Veteran's Hospital in the Pennsylvania countryside near Coatesville. I wasn't sure of the exact condition of my old buddy, but geared myself for the worst. I was not wrong in doing that. An orderly took us onto the ward and led us to a sun porch at the far end. Sparky was in a wheelchair. He made no response to my greetings, but just faced blankly straight ahead.

Could this be the vibrant, tough, sightless comrade I had known in the hospital? He was not wearing his familiar dark brown, plastic eyepieces. There was no need for them now. Sparky was grossly overweight. I was dazed and then had a difficult time accepting the changes that had come into my buddy's life. I felt helpless and humanly hopeless for Sparky. Was there any way we could communicate - could there possibly be any recognition from this friend who had vegetated into such a pitiful coiiditioii?

As I spoke to him again, I took his right hand for a prolonged handshake. Slowly his left hand came over and he began the ritual as in our Philadelphia Naval Hospital days. As his right hand held mine, his left hand began to feel the nub of my missing right forefinger. Sparky tried his best to speak, but only unintelligible sounds came out. However, I knew that behind all the layers of multiplied darkness there were shadows of recognition and response. My broken heart alternately rejoiced and despaired.

The battle of Iwo jiwa was slowly finishing its deadly business. The slivers of shrapnel and the round volcanic sand that had taken out Sparky's eyes and disfigured his skin, had also minutely pierced his brain. Spinal miningitis had struck, almost taking his life. In the process it had claimed some of his brain functions, mainly his speech and memory.

I knew that very possibly I would never see Sparky again in this life. I opened my Bible and read several portions to him, concluding with the incomparable Psalm 23:

Sparky gripped my hand hard. I felt that down in his inner depths of darkness, this beautiful Psalm of power and comfort was reaching him. As I said goodbye to Sparky to return to the West Coast, I hugged him and again he rubbed the place where my forefinger had been.

Andy Kohan faithfully visited Sparky for over 40 years. A few years ago I received a letter from Andy only about a year before God mercifully released Sparky from his pitiful state and took him to be with Christ:

Sparky's walk through the valley of the shadow of death was a painful, lonely, weary and prolonged one. It eventually led him face to face with Jesus Christ his Savior, whom he loved and worshipped despite the darkness of the shadows in the valley.

The eternal hope that overshadows the human sadness of Sparky's life can well be expressed in these verses:

So we always keep confident, knouing well enough that being at home in the body means being absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. But we have courage and we prefer to be absent from the body, and at home with the Lord. So we make it our heartfelt aim to be pleasing to Him, whether absent or present.

Bob Boardman,