Pat Vincent commands a lot of respect at Great Balls of Fire. When it’s his turn to bowl everybody around him — teammates, opponents, spectators — stop to watch his “unique” style, as his bowling friends describe it.

Vincent, a 66-year-old whose family moved to McAlester from Berkeley, Calif., when he was 3, takes a few steps forward, then releases his 15-pound ball. It doesn’t travel forward so much as drop, crashing to the floor directly in front of Vincent’s thin frame. With so much downward force that it rolls forward at all seems nearly miraculous. But roll forward it does, slowly chewing up the 60 feet from the line to the pins.

And then, almost at random, the ball starts drifting to the left. The change in direction seems to come out of nowhere, as if the ball itself decides when to drift. But the drift always happens, and it’s always to the left.

Sometimes the ball drifts to that perfect spot, toppling all 10 pins. Sometimes Vincent pieces a spare together out of two drifts. Sometimes the ball drifts all the way into the left gutter, at which point his bowling cohorts aren’t above a bit of playful mocking. But beneath that is an undeniable respect.

“That man is my hero,” local bowler Ken Miller said Thursday.

A radioman and second class petty officer in the Navy, Vincent returned from a two-year stint on a supply ship near Yokuska, Japan, to McAlester in 1967. Vincent was good with numbers, but he couldn’t find work in McAlester, so he went back into the Navy.

“I wanted to go any place but Vietnam, but Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam, here I come,” said Vincent.

After a two-week survival camp in San Diego in September 1968, Vincent arrived in Vietnam on Oct. 1. Just four days later, a military vehicle, driven without lights at night by enemy soldiers, struck Vincent. The blow caused his brain to swell, forcing a corpsman to drill holes into his skull to relieve the pressure. Vincent fell into a coma that didn’t end until he awoke on Nov. 11 at a naval air station hospital in Millington, Tenn.

Vincent, by the way, had to learn that entire story through military reports.

“I have no idea (what happened),” said Vincent, adding: “From around May ’68 until Nov. 11 or approximately then, it was just a big blank.”

The accident had damaged his memory and, according to Vincent, this type of injury had a 40-percent chance of permanent and severe brain damage. Thankfully, Vincent’s injury didn’t result in quite that level of impairment.

“OU and Texas games, I’ve always been interested in that,” Vincent said. “(My parents) came out one weekend and told me OU had won (a game) in October. The next week, they came out and told me again, and I said, ‘y’all told me that last week.’”

Vincent said he’s always enjoyed University of Oklahoma football.

“I was 12 years old in 1957, and OU lost their first game in 47 games,” he said. “Notre Dame beat them 7-0. I cried.”

Vincent left Millington for a Veterans Affairs hospital in Oklahoma City in April 1969, and in late July had a plastic plate inserted beneath his scalp. You can still feel the plate, a hard surface beneath a dent wide enough to encompass a fingertip.

Though Vincent’s memory wasn’t destroyed by the accident, it was still damaged, in particular his ability to remember names. The ease with numbers after years in communications remained, but between the partial memory loss and the struggles Vincent occasionally still has with balance, he never worked again, instead drawing a compensation from the VA as a 100-percent disabled veteran.

Needing a way to get exercise — his equilibrium problems made most conventional methods impossible — and stay part of the community, Vincent began bowling in 1970 at Rocket Bowl on U.S. Highway 69.

“The first time I bowled, I didn’t know whether me or the ball or both were going down the lane,” Vincent said. But he enjoyed it enough to keep coming back, even joining a Sunday night league with his wife, Gerry, whom he met when she was a waitress at the Motor Inn. Gerry is now 74, and the two recently celebrated their 35th anniversary.

“We were on the same team, and I got very fortunate (one night) and happened to bowl a 212,” said Vincent. “I bowled a 212. She bowled a 213.”

Vincent said his memory has improved somewhat over the years, but he still carries around a little red notebook, just in case. He credits his reintegration into civilian life to organizations like the VFW and the American Legion.

And, of course, bowling.