I Keep a Watch,
I Do Not HAVE a Watch
Hello, Little Man.
Boy, I sure heard a bunch about you.
See, I was a good friend of your dad's.
We were in that Hanoi pit of hell together over five years.
Hopefully, you'll never have to experience this yourself, but when two men are in a situation like me and your dad were for as long as we were,
You take on certain responsibilities of The Other.
If it'd been me who'd - not made it, Major Coolidge'd be talking right now to my son Jim.
But the way it turned out, I'm talking to you.
Butch. I got somethin' for ya.
This watch I got here was first purchased by your great-grandfather during the first World War.
It was bought in a little general store in Knoxville, Tennessee.
[ It's a Pocket Watch mounted onto a wrist strap ]
Made by the first company to ever make wrist watches.
Up 'til then, people just carried pocket watches.
It was bought by Private Doughboy Erine Coolidge on the day he set sail for Paris.
This was your great-grandfather's war watch and he wore it everyday he was in that war, and when he'd done his duty, he went home to your great-grandmother, took the watch off, put it in an old coffee can, and in that can it stayed until your granddad, Dane Coolidge, was called upon by his country to go overseas and fight the Germans once again.
This time they called it World War II.
Your great-grandfather gave this watch to your granddad for good luck.
Unfortunately,
Dane's luck wasn't as good as his old man's.
[ Hamlet ]
Dane's luck wasn't as good as his old man's.
[ Hamlet ]
Dane was a Marine and he was killed -- along with all the other Marines at the battle of Wake Island.
Your granddad was facing death.
He knew it.
None of those boys had any illusions about ever leavin' that island alive, so three days before the Japanese took the island,
Your granddad asked a gunner on an Air Force transport, name of Winocki
- a man he had never met before in his life -
to deliver to his infant son who he'd never seen in the flesh,
his gold watch.
Three days later, your granddad was dead,
but Winocki kept his word.
After the war was over, he paid a visit to your grandmother, delivering to your infant father his dad's gold watch.
This watch.
[He holds the watch up]
This watch was on your daddy's wrist when he was shot down over Hanoi.
He was captured, put in a Vietnamese prison camp.
He knew that if the gooks ever saw the watch, it'd be confiscated and taken away.
The way your Dad looked at it, this watch was your birthright.
He'd be damned if any slope's gonna put their greasy, yellow hands on his boy's birthright, so he hid it in one place he knew he could hide something - his ass.
Five long years he wore this watch up his ass.
And when, he died of dysentery, he gave me the watch.
I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass two years.
Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family.
Now, little man, I give the watch to you.
