1968: The Year of the Monkey

1968

Year of The Monkey There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under Heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

1968: Year of the Monkey

Copyright Š 2012 by Bryan Smothers

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author It is 100% fiction based on 100% reality, 100% experience, 100% fear and 100% terror. ( I had to put that disclaimer in to protect myself from getting sued by some prick.)

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This is my letter to the world, that never wrote to me the simple news that nature told with tender majesty.

Her message is committed to hands I can not see; for love of her sweet countrymen judge tenderly of me!

- Emily Dickinson I believe that every generation Is greater than the last, However, in the eyes of many, We Vietnam veterans don’t measure up to the great generations of the past...

But we gave all that we had.

So carve us the epitaphs of wise men, and give us not epitaphs of fools...

For we did not suffer and die in vain...

If you believe.

- Bryan Smothers

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Be careful what you wish for.

A singular obscenity spoke volumes.

Don’t want to be in the Nam no mo’.

All aboard the Crazy Train to Crazy Town.

It doesn’t scare me as much anymore.

Children, with power over life and death.

Young men, screaming for their mommies.

Make the insanity go away.

I’m going home in a fucking bag.

Had we forsaken God? Great sadness, emptiness, loneliness.

Despair.

War is hell… but combat is a Motherfucker.

The Beast is hungry, it consumes all.

Physically and mentally depleted.

We have met the enemy, and they are us.

So what are you going to do, send me to Vietnam?

Ugliness was in the hearts of many.

I am the Boogie Man under the bed.

Things that go bump in the night carried AK-47s The stench was unbearable.

The streets echoed with screams.

Such misery, it was a lovely fucking war.

Cry... sometimes for no reason.

Ten miles south of North Vietnam, twenty miles east of Laos, and only one step from Hell.

Better him than me.

Napalm... was Hell released.

Had I sunk that low?

Innocence, childhood, dreams… all casualties.

Ramblings by your typical, deranged Vietnam Vet

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Dedication

Papa Was Never Much on Thinking My Dearest Daughter, When I look at you, I don’t see the passage of time nor do I see the beautiful, intelligent, successful woman you have become. I see the darkeyed bundle of energy I bounced on my knee. I see my little girl playing dress up, running across the yard, and swinging on a swing with sunlight dancing on her blacker-than-black hair. From the very first day you came into our life, your mom and I have only wanted the best for you; to share our lives with you; to teach you religion, morals, integrity, respect, values, and most importantly... love. Not only love for us, but love for yourself, your fellow man, and all of God’s creatures.

Your mother and I are proud to be your parents. We gifted you with things that were never within our grasp when we were young, but at the same time, we withheld materialistic items that you desired... spare the rod, spoil the child.

I have another gift for you, inspired by two simple statements that you made. I once asked you, not that many years ago, if I had ever done anything, said anything, or failed to say anything during your adolescent years that might have mentally scarred you? You looked at me as if I had two heads and said, “Are you out of your mind, Dad? You and Mom provided me with a fairy-tale childhood.” Then, only a few years back, a co-worker asked you if I had ever been in the military. You said you thought I had been in the Army and was pretty sure I was a General. Oh, you poor thing. That encouraged me to tell you about the first chapter of my life so that you will never say after I’m gone, “Dad never talked about the war.”

Your love, along with your mother’s love for me, has given me courage to finally write this bedtime story for you... the story that I never had the audacity to tell until now. Not that I didn’t want to, not that I didn’t want to scream back at the world that had forgotten about me, not that I didn’t want to protect you from the Boogieman under your bed... but selfishly; I held my tongue to shield myself from things that go bump in the night. I hope it brings you closer to understanding why dad is dad.

Bianca, after you read this in its entirety, can you please find it in your heart to forgive me for my blazing indiscretions, immaturity, obscenities, and dark side? And know that there will never be another man in your life who has a greater or more unconditional love for you than I. I may no longer be able to carry you in my arms, but until its last beat, I will carry you in my heart.

This is for you, little one.

Dad

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Preface and Introduction

1968: Year of the Monkey started as only a few paragraphs to prove my sanity, if only to myself. What began as a trickle of words from a rusty dim memory, soon turned into a flashflood. A torrent of memories eroding the walls I had subconsciously built to keep the Beast at bay.

We were wide-eyed, immature, pimple faced boys, suffering through twelve months of an abbreviated youth in a distant war ravaged country where the possibility of our demise was one unforgiving step away.

Physically and mentally, we battled a stealthy, cunning enemy that had strewn the trails with lethal surprises and booby-trapped the tree canopies with Claymore mines that, when detonated, decapitated, maimed, ripped, and shredded bodies. Only days after that last helicopter had swooped down and carried us away from the killing fields of South-East Asia, concluding our tour of duty in Hell, we returned to our country, the land of the free, the home of the brave, where the biased, elite news media filled the airwaves, newspapers, and magazines with word mines. Firing unrelenting salvo after salvo of hate talk at us, killing the last ruminates of dignity and pride we possessed. Collectively, we were cast as monsters, because of the misdeeds of a few. So thank you Mr. Five O’clock Newsman. Thank you for sitting on your pompous, arrogant ass, reading the evening news and calling us “Baby Killers” as America sat down for dinner. I’m sure you made our fellow countrymen, and especially our moms, proud of their baby boys.

Just as we had to adapt and became one with the tropical jungle in order to survive, we Vets adapted to the urban jungle by building walls, impenetrable citadels, bastilles filled with our nightmares and fears. We constructed obstacles and thresholds that no one, except for a chosen few, would ever be permitted to cross.

I returned from the war approaching my mid twenties. Now it was a time to build my walls, a time to marry, a time to give life, a time to raise a family, a time for a career, a time to accept God into my life.

As I enter my mid-sixties, it is time to tear down those walls, a time to expose my weaknesses and fear, a time to face the Beast, a time to stop suffering in silence. What’s beautiful about my letter to the world is that it could have been written by any Vietnam grunt, friend or foe. My goal is that perhaps one day, it will help daughters and sons of all Veterans understand why... well, why dad is different. He laughs his head off at a joke, and then abruptly walks away to be by himself. With any luck, our wives will forgive us for the sleepless nights and understand why we became distant and indifferent during our journeys back to Crazy Town.

Hopefully, other Vets might read this someday and understand that it’s okay - it’s okay to cry, it’s okay to talk about it, it’s okay to expose your fears, the Beast can no longer harm you. ix

Just like back in the day... In-Country... when misery was all around us, and it was a really bad day, off to a really bad start, that shortly after sunrise turned into a really bad shit storm, and we would mumble under our breath, “Fuck it. Don’t mean nothing... Drive on.”

So sit back my brothers and sisters, rest your weary eyes, listen to the seductive sirens’ song, hum along if you like, to the lullaby of the dying days of our youth and innocence... “Whop, Whop, Whop, Whop, Whop...”

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Prologue Friday's Child

Loving and Giving— January 3, 1947, a blue northern had blown in, and Houston was gripped in the midst of an ice storm. It was after midnight when my Mom started slapping Dad awake saying, "Jack get up; my water has broken."

Seven hours later, at 7:27 a.m., St. Joseph Hospital, home of Houston's Baby Boomers, out popped a dark-haired, blue-eyed baby boy to be known to all as Bryan Dale.

Bryan was my father's given name. He hated it. He thought it wasn't masculine enough, so he changed his name to Jack. What the hell? So they named me Bryan? Why not Linda Sue or Heather? Fortunately, I like my name. It's two syllables, when said properly, roll off puckered lips like an exotic romantic name, but on the down side, it almost comes out like the beginning of a burp. But DALE? Did they have to name me after a cartoon chipmunk?

We lived in the north side of Houston, a neighborhood of small, white clapboard WW II GI houses in need of another coat of paint. Did I say small?

I meant to say tiny. Our home was huge compared to those of most my friends: three bedrooms, one bath, a living room, a proper dining room, and a kitchen large enough for the six of us to have meals at the same table. And we had all the conveniences, including natural gas from the Gas Company and electricity from the Light Company, and a telephone from Bell Telephone. (Those were the proper names of the utility companies back in the day when you paid your utility bill at the grocery store.) We had a water well that produced sandy water, and a septic tank that overflowed and became useless on rainy days. But we counted our blessings. Several of my friends had no inside plumbing whatsoever. Overall, it was a blue collar neighborhood. Moms stayed at home, and Dads went to work six days a week. I guess you could say I grew up poor, but if I did, I didn't know it. I always had brand spanking new clothes, bought the last of August for the upcoming school year. Of course, my blue jeans were always a size too big, taking into account that I would grow and that the jeans would shrink.

There were always three meals on the table, and Mom was a good cook with good old Irish-German discipline. You could tell what day of the week it was by what was on the table at supper time. Not to be confused with dinner, because in Texas, dinner is what we call lunch. Our dinning calendar was as follows: Monday, Pork Chops; Tuesday, Hamburger Casserole; Wednesday, Tuna Casserole; Thursday, Steaks; Friday, Fish; Saturday, Cold Cuts (sandwiches); Sunday, Pot Roast. Not to mention all of the tasty xi

vegetables prepared Southern style: cooked with bacon grease until they fell apart, and potatoes swimming in real butter. Yum. I have three older siblings: a brother nine years my senior, and two sisters, eight and five years older. Growing up, we were very close. I'm sure, at times, they resented me being the baby, because Mom and Dad cut me more slack, but it was obvious that they loved me. Sadly, we have grown apart over the years, but I love my brother and older sister as much as ever.

When not in school, we spent our days outside playing from sunrise to way past sunset. My brother, sisters, and I never played any traditional games, other than board games. For the most part, we improvised and made up our own games, and those games were the best.

One of the classics was Hockey Stick. No, this was not the northern game on ice that you may be thinking of. For Pete's sake, we lived in the south and had no clue what the sport of hockey was. What we would do was pick up a stick about three feet long, stick the tip in a fresh pile of dog excrement (hence the name Hockey Stick), then chase each other. That game did inspire one to run as fast as the wind.

Then there was Bat Stick. We would take a ten foot cane fishing pole, tie a white rag on the tip, and wait until thirty minutes after sunset when the bats came out. Then, we would hold the pole above our heads, wave the white rag to attract the bats, and swat them out of the air. Idiots! Can you spell Rabies?

Another game was Wine Making. There was a Mulberry tree next to the drive that produced fruit as if it was a direct descendant from the fish and bread baskets of Bethsaida, where Jesus feed the multitude. One day, and I don't know what inspired us to do this, we filled a wash tub with Mulberries to smash into wine. Jeannine, the sister five years my elder, took off her shoes and socks, and started stomping the berries. Here she was, holding her dress up, dancing around as if she were Lucille Ball in the famous TV episode, singing Italian songs, which was odd, since we were of Irish and German ancestry. I'm sure the only Italian we might have known was Spaghetti and Chef Boyardee. Mom, who had eyes in the back of her head, saw what we were up to, opened the back door and screamed, "You Goddamn idiot! Look at your legs." Jeannine had blue juice stains almost up to her knees. Mom scrubbed her legs with Twenty Mule Team Borax to no avail; the stains would have to wear off with time. Jeannine wailed like a coyote.

We also played Cowboys and Indians, but once, and only once, for a very good reason. We tied Jeannine, with her permission, to a pine tree, then gathered pine needles in a pile around her feet. You see, she was the pioneer woman captured by the red savages (my brother Freddy and me), who were going to burn her at the stake, because that's what us red savages xii

do best. My older sister, Marie, was to be the long tall Texan wearing a white hat who would ride up to save her at the last minute. So the game began, Jeannine loosely tied to the tree, pine needles piled up around the paleface woman, with us two savages with war paint on our faces (remember the Mulberry tree?), running around the tree screaming war whoops. Now it was time to sacrifice the golden haired woman to our Almighty War God. A match was struck. Do you know how fast dry pine needles burn? Neither did we! Again, Mom to the rescue. She came busting through the screen door screaming (I think the profanity was plural), "You Goddamn fools, are you trying to kill your Goddamn sister?" Did I mention that Jeannine estranged herself from the family in 1969? Odd, don't you think?

Once, my brother put three marbles in his mouth, walked into the living room, and told Mom that he thought something was wrong, because when he shook his head, his brain rattled. Mom said, "Really, let me see!"

So Freddy vigorously shook his head, and the marbles rattled together inside his mouth. Oh the look on Mom’s face before she fainted.

I bought a trick plastic ring at a novelty shop that had a squeeze rubber bulb that fit in the palm of your hand. The trick was that you filled the bulb with water, and when squeezed, water would shoot out the ring’s setting, a fake diamond. With trick flower ring loaded, I walked into the kitchen and said, “Hey Mom, look at the ring I bought my girlfriend.” Mom, not having her reading glasses on, took my hand and held it close to her face to see it. I squeezed the bulb, water shot straight up her nose! She started choking and coughing. Son-of-a-bitch! I water boarded my own Mom! I loved my mom and dad, and it destroyed me when they passed. Dad was much older than Mom, about thirty years older. Holy shit! Thirty years?

Back then after the "Big War" it was different. There were many marriages of convenience, a lot of winter/summer romances. Dad (Jack Bryan) was a big man with a great Irish wit, quick with a joke. He worked hard to provide for us. Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack when I was seventeen. Mom was tiny thing: five-foot-one, one-hundred pounds, and very sweet and pretty. I was so in love with her as a young lad; in fact, I wanted to marry her. Until that fateful day when I was five years old and found out she was already married - to my father of all people! Can you imagine that?

"Married? Married, to whom? What? Not Dad, how could you?" I was heartbroken not to mention stupid. I also believed my dad when he told me he used to be Sitting Bull. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

School... I think it is obvious to all who know me that I was no scholar. I was bored and because of my immaturity, could not pay attention. But with all its wisdom, H.I.S.D. held me back one semester, then double-promoted me a year later because I was more intelligent and mature than my fellow classmates. I was bored in school and probably needed to be challenged. xiii

Almost every report card had a hand written note from a teacher to my parents that said "Bryan needs to work hard to keep up." This was way before modern day diseases such as Dyslexia, or A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder). We just had your everyday D.U.M.B. or S.T.U.P.I.D. diseases that had no cure, other than an ass beating. And the punishment that was dealt out at that time by parents is legendary. I mean all parents. On report card day, you could walk down any street on the North Side and hear the cries coming from the different houses. It sounded like souls in Hell being tormented. "No child of mine is going to make grades like that."

WHACK!!! "As sure as God made little green apples, I will beat you within an inch of your life." WHACK!!!

I cannot tell you how many times I was held by one arm above my head, dancing around the kitchen floor on my tip-toes, as I got my butt spanked.

Once, I thought I would out smart Dad before I received a spanking by sticking a four by nine-inch, hardback spelling book down the seat of my pants. I walked into the kitchen to receive my punishment with a smirk on my face. The smirk really set my parents off. Mom grabbed me and swatted my butt; the spelling book damn near broke her hand. The following assault on my skinny little body by Dad was... let's just say there was hell to pay.

But I don't know what hurt the most - Mom crying in pain because of her broken little finger, or the beating I took. It was a very confusing time in our lives, because we were told by our parents that a spanking hurt them more than it hurt us! And to top it off, our teachers were given permission to spank us. On teacher/ parent night, after the rare time a teacher would praise me, Mom or Dad would say, out of the blue, "Well, you got my permission the beat him if he disobeys." WTF did that come from, and why?

Thank God I didn't go to Catholic school. The Nuns from the convent of Our Lady in Great Agony would have delighted in submerging me in Holy Water, then beating the devil out of me with a ruler.

I have no resentment against my parents for the discipline; I think it made a better person. Don't get me wrong, we were not abused by any stretch of the imagination. The truth be known, we were only swatted, spanked, slapped, or beat because of bad grades or sassing our parents.

Mom's ability to throw a house shoe with accuracy and distance was legendary. It didn't matter if we were in the privacy of our home, at the grocery store, a neighbor or relative’s house, if you said, or did something smart-alecky, within seconds, there would be a pink projectile flying across the room, smacking you in the head. Jim Bowie could have taken lessons from that woman.

School sports - I excelled in football and track because of my speed (refer back to Hockey Stick). xiv

Girls - I discovered them in the fifth grade. I think the difference between girls and boys was pointed out by a fellow classmate. I wish I could remember his name to thank him publicly. My goodness, the thoughts I had of girls, and “goodness� was not in any of my thoughts. Although shy, I never had a problem meeting the young ladies, I think because I was pretty.

Seriously, most people thought I was too pretty to be a boy - dark complexion, coal black hair, blue-green eyes, with long eyelashes. My first girl was Elaine S., who I met at the Saturday movies when I was twelve years old. I also had a crush on her two girlfriends, Laura and Bobbie. At school, at the same time I was going steady with Elaine, I had crushes on Joyce B., Marilyn M., Gale C., Linda M., Sherry L., Connie H., Linda VW., (last names held back to protect my vestal virgins). Then I met Jackie H. who broke my heart. She left me for another boy when we were in the eighth grade. It was years before I recovered from that stab to the heart. Then I started going through the ugly, awkward, teenage years. I looked like I had been hit with the ugly stick. But finally, the pimples dried up, and I had little sweeties again. What helped with my popularity was that I started surfing and playing drums in a garage band. Those were the best years for meeting girls.

Brand X Surf Club, established 1965 - What great years, what a great bunch of guys to hang with. I have very fond memories of those years.

During the last five years, I have become reacquainted with nine of the members (and their cute little sisters), we all have picked up our friendship as if it's only been a week since we were on the beach together. A sign of true friendship. The summer of '66 and the spring of '67 were the last days of our carefree lives: whiling away the days on a beach, sporting sun streaked hair, golden tans, and reeking of coconut sun tan oil. Then... most of us marched off to war.

Nothing in my childhood and upbringing, other than the game of Hockey Stick, prepared me for the next chapter of my life.

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CHAPTER ONE

THE WORDS GET IN THE WAY Vietnam. It was as if I had descended into Hell.

When was I in Vietnam?

I’ve been asked that many times, and the first thought that jumps to mind is, I was there just last night.

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Be Careful What You Wish For.

War in Vietnam was raging The most exciting thing that was happening in my generation, and I desperately wanted to be part of it. We were young, we were beautiful, full of ourselves, America’s best, children of Rock and Roll. Really, only children. Whoever wrote, “War is hours of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror,” did not serve in Vietnam’s Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), I Corp area of operations, in 1968.

Fragging

It Was All The Rage En vogue, all of us cool guys were doing it. By definition, fragging is assassination. If a soldier had a problem with a superior officer or a fellow soldier, a fragmentation grenade would be thrown into that person’s sleeping quarters, or possibly they would be shot in the back during a firefight. If a soldier had a problem with anything, he simply killed it.

This is my way of apologizing, with a play on words, for a fragmented, half-assed and haphazardly written account of my time at war. I could write something like: “As the tropical evening sun began to set, its warm rays changed this paradise into a Gauguin canvas. As the river flowed ever so slowly on its southerly journey, its shimmering surface reflected the lush jungle--reflections that were broken only by swirls of hungry fish. Tropical sunlight transformed this river into liquid gold, and as nocturnal fog formed, it took on the golden hue of the river - a magnificent liquid highway rising to meet Heaven. As I watched a sampan and listened to its motor’s steady droning, puttering along with the current, I wondered what exotic port would be this aging boat’s destination. What treasures of the Orient were stored in its compartments? I was brought back to harsh reality when …” …but that would be romantic bullshit. There are no glamorous words to describe war-torn Vietnam. REMFs (Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers) can write romance novels about it, but not me. This is written in Army speak, one and two-syllable words, acronyms, obscenities. That’s all that was ever needed. Sometimes a look said it all, a singular obscenity spoke volumes, a harsh glare communicated your pent-up hatred. There would be time for intelligent conversation later. If my memories were written any other way, I would be deceiving you and masking my emotions.

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Make no mistake, this is not a history book or a read for young impressionable minds; it’s a collection of stories and observations by a manchild who was caught up in the madness of war in a far away land across the sea.

Consider yourself fragged. Xin Loi. (Vietnamese for “Sorry About That”)

A Tale to Tell

TRUE! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I have been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses--not destroyed--not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the Heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! And observe how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

- Edgar Allan Poe It’s funny how journeys begin. Some are planned with great detail.

Others are spur of the moment, like road trips. Mine has been a cerebral expedition of pushing, pulling, and dragging. I’ve been reluctantly dragging out the hurt and fear engraved in my heart; at the same time, I’ve been pushing away memories that are too painful to relive. At times, it’s as if I have Tourette’s Syndrome, the dark memories are blurted out. I’ve traveled the world over, from Alaska to Argentina, Kansas to Korea to Kuwait. But never in my wildest imagination did I think I would allow myself to embark on a journey that would take me back in time, back to an age of naïve innocence, returning to a woeful destination that I swore I would never revisit, but as the saying goes, “Never say never”.

One of my very best friends recommended I consider Dear Bryan/Sincerely Bryan as a title of my recollections, because after all is said and done, my writings are to myself. My letter-journal-message-scribbling has been written in an unusual format. As the random memories and emotions erupt to the surface like the festering mental sores they have been, I write about them. Searching for an explanation, an answer, trying to understand, justify, and become at ease with what I experienced.

Desperately seeking an end to my silent anguish.

I didn’t plan for it to go this far, only a few notes or paragraphs, but it has taken on a life of its own. My ramblings are a series of dispatches -dispatches from a cluttered mind and redundant notes of what I did and failed to do. Primarily, this has been written as a message to me; a reminder that the Beast lurks. And if I’m not vigilant, it will bite me in the butt. My style of writing makes for a perplexing and at times obscure read, written in 4

a code only I can decipher. I’m obviously not completely ready to reopen the door to hell.

Vietnam was the rite of passage for many of us young men of that era.

I’ve tried to explain it on many occasions, but it is impossible for the uninitiated to understand the complicated psychic and physical realities of what we went through. The war was oxymoronic and ironic. Men would wear rosaries around their necks and write obscenities on their helmets; claim that Jesus was their savior and then cuss God. Everything that was supposed to be cold was hot, or if it was supposed to be hot… guess what?

What we were good at was morally wrong. Combat was a gritty corrupt human ordeal. We would shoot the enemy, then bandage him; give a wounded enemy soldier a drink of water, then assassinate him. It was confusing to say the least; we were mentally and morally pulled in different directions.

Have you ever noticed how Vietnam Vets, complete strangers, will hug and hold on to each other like no other Vets? It’s because we were there, as simple as that. To this day I refuse, absolutely refuse, to believe that the war was political masturbation. The death and misery that my brothers and I suffered surely was not in vain. One day, history will portray us as victors.

To Conquer Oneself is a Greater Victory than to Conquer Thousands in Battle - Buddha

Charlie Don’t Surf

Don’t Ask Him He doesn’t want to talk about the war. Okay, to begin with, don’t start worrying about me. I’m the same Bryan you all have known and loved. I have had a wonderful life, abundantly blessed by God and the luck of the Irish. But best of all, I have very loving, understanding friends and family.

Nothing is different; I’m as happy and as mentally well-adjusted as any of you. Perhaps even better adjusted than most of you. It’s just time to release my personal demon.

By the grace of God, none of my friends and family have ever seen war.

Therefore no one, absolutely no one, understands. I’ve had to endure blank, uninterested stares when telling stories, listen to cute little quotes of battle that someone once read, look at teary eyes, uncomfortable body language, and suffer through awkward moments (that seemed like hours) when someone asked what I did to receive a specific medal. I have never thought 5

that anyone really wanted to know. My one desire has been to tell what was given and what the Beast took. But the words get in the way.

This is not, I repeat, not a call for help. These are only memories that need to be told to prove my sanity, even if only to myself. My war memories are no different than those of my youth - recollections of the beach brought to life with the wonderful aroma of coconut suntan oil.

Memories of the warm summer sun, salty Gulf winds, emerging teen lust, the gritty taste of beachside hamburgers, sleeping on the hood of a car, suffering from the pain of a sunburn, fatigued from a day of surfing, and dreading the terror of getting my ass chewed out by mom for not calling home.

Short Term, Long Term Memory Loss

Ain’t It a Bitch When people learn that I’m a Vietnam Vet, they almost always say I should write a book about my experience. Truth be told, I don’t remember much. Hell, I don’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning.

Firefights happened fast, they might have lasted seconds, minutes, hours even days. Sometimes, only a single bullet punctuated a day of battle.

My memories are a subconscious blur, fragmented. I’ve blocked things out. I know positively that many black memories have been pushed back deep. Let me state right now before you get the wrong impression, I was, by no means, a hero. I served in the company of heroes and witnessed unbelievable acts of bravery, courage, kindness, generosity, and compassion.

The U.S. Army rewarded me for acts they mistook as bravery. But I’m here by the grace of God to tell you I only did them for survival. Too often there was only one way out of a bad situation and that was to go through some bastard. More than anything, I wanted to live.

After being in country for a few months, I started to deteriorate mentally. I realized I had made a terrible mistake. I did not want to be in the “Nam no mo.” I wanted to be home surfing, playing drums, and making out in the back seat of my car with my ample-breasted girlfriend or the flavor of the night. I was robbed of my childhood, my innocence, and fifteen months of my life that I will never get back.

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I Just Dropped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In

This is primarily being written as a challenge. Can I actually write about my experiences? I damn well can’t communicate it with spoken words.

My writings began in late two-thousand and nine when a psychiatrist acquaintance of my wife found out that I had served in Vietnam. Well, the doctor freaked out and told Maria that I needed to go to the VA Hospital and visit with one of its doctors, because they were doing wonderful things for the vets, helping them with PTSD. Upon being told what the good doctor had said, I smiled at my wife and assured her that I was fine. But it got me thinking. Am I? Can I express my feelings? Can I be honest, even with myself? Do I even want to? So I sat down to write a paragraph or two to prove the good doctor wrong, and the memories started pouring out. I’m confident there is no need for me to be evaluated for Delayed Stress Syndrome or what’s now properly called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I’ve known since I was twenty-three that I was suffering and that there was a problem. I just didn’t know how to describe it. It’s not sadness, depression, anger, guilt. It’s just… well, my wife, Maria, says I become distant at times. I really am at a loss for a word to describe it. Perhaps she is right. Distant, distant and maybe a wee bit callous. If only I could stop my tears.

The first time I experienced PTSD was in 1970. It was a Sunday evening and I was taking a bath, lying back and relaxing in the warm soapy water. For no apparent reason, I started crying. Tears were flowing, nose running. I cupped my face in my hands, rocked back and forth, and started bawling.

Thinking back, I was reminded of one of the famous photographs of the war, an image from the massacre of Hue (pronounced Way). Shortly after the battle for Hue, while patrolling the city and its out-skirts, we started discovering mass grave after mass grave. The holocaust and ethnic cleansing the communist had infected upon the citizens, intellectuals, and captured soldiers of the city was mind numbing. The families that had miraculously survived had come out to identify the dead. The sight of them holding, caressing, bodies wrapped in plastic was heart breaking; I felt sorrow not for only the families, but for myself, as well. Because within one of the graves, I also had a loved one. They were crying uncontrollably, noses running, long strings of mucus running over their lips and chins, dripping onto their shirts.

That was me, two years later, in Houston Texas, in my bathtub, crying. My bride of only a few months heard me and walked into the bathroom. She looked at me, I looked at her, held my arms up as if in surrender, or more like WTF and shook my head no. My wife knelt down and held me, never saying a word other than “What’s wrong honey?” I thought… I didn’t know what to think. It was a long, quiet evening… poor Maria… poor Agnes*.

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The second time was a Sunday afternoon, February 23, 1975. Bianca, my daughter, had been born the previous Wednesday, and now that she was home, our house was filled with all the women folk in Maria’s family. There was nothing for me to do except entertain myself; after all, what do I know about child birthing? It was a surprisingly warm day for February. I was outside on my hands and knees digging and starting to sweat as I planted a boxwood hedge by the back door. I could smell diesel fuel fumes from our car and about that time, a military helicopter flew over - whop, whop, whop, whop, whop. I started to cry, crying as if my best friend had died.

PTSD seems to be keyed when least expected: while watching TV, a news program on the Sixties, or perhaps even a special on classic Rock and Roll (Woodstock). The producer always seems to insert Vietnam combat footage taking me by surprise and putting me aboard my crazy train… All Aboard! If I knew in advance what to expect, what was going to be televised, I could probably deal with it. It is the little surprises that freak me out. Maria is correct; I do ride my crazy train back forty years to a distant place.

Normal. The memories and drama have been in my life for so long that, at one time I convinced myself that it was normal. The lowest point of my life was realizing that most people don’t have memories like these. It’s not normal. Whenever I have these flashbacks, I don’t dwell on them. They are pushed away, far away. Mostly by using humor. So if you see me with a crooked smile, tearing up, and telling a joke, I’m probably flashing.

In many ways, it’s as if I’m possessed and leading two lives.

Unknowingly and probably unwillingly, my wife has begun to share these lives with me. On New Year’s Day, 2010, we were having lunch with our best friends and our daughter. The subject of Scotch Whiskey came up, and Maria commented that Scotch was one alcohol she has asked me never to drink again. It changes me. I become callous, insensitive, feeling no emotional attachment to my loved ones. I board my crazy train and retreat to my distant world, glaring outward in pompous contempt at others. Their only crime is that they weren’t there.

I glanced up at my wife, my eyes started to tear and then a dreaded nervous uneasiness washed over me. My wife looked at me and her eyes began to widen. Without speaking, she asked if I was aboard my crazy train.

Biting my bottom lip, I nodded my head yes. Maria closed her eyes and softly shook her head, silently communicating to me that she understood and that it would pass. It was like a loving mother patting a child’s hand with reassurance.

Discovering and accepting that my emotionally intense memories are not normal has been an awakening, a turning point in my life. I have stopped trying to forget about them. They aren’t going anywhere, so instead, I’m 8

embracing them. I still wake up at night, sometimes from daydreams with fight or flight, but it just doesn’t scare me as much anymore.

Why is it that we Vietnam combat vets are so obsessed with our experiences? Why can we not let it go? Let me put it in perspective for you.

Imagine if you were involved in a horrendous auto accident with massive fatalities every day for three-hundred and sixty-five days. What would your mental health be?

Haunting memories. It’s not PTSD, it’s the memories that are screwing with me.

Poets remember... War dismembers. I’m trying my best not to be vulgar with details. I don’t want to go down that path. But some accounts need an explanation. This is simply an account of my Vietnam Experience for my family, friends, loved ones, and to appease the Beast. My language is salty at times and shall remain so. If you read it and are offended or insulted, Piss Off. * See page_ _ _

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CHAPTER TWO I AIN’T YOUR FORTUNATE SON “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.” (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960)

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Did you ever have to make up your mind?

“Greetings: You Are Hereby Ordered For Induction…”

Selective Service. A five-dollar word for the draft board; it was government bureaucracy gone wild. How it worked was simple: At age eighteen, every young boy was obligated to enroll. Then, when it was ready, the government drafted the oldest eligible young men first and gave deferment to those who were in college or married. Needless to say, there was a rush for marriage licenses and school enrollment. Later in the war when casualties were mounting, “Big Brother” announced that the only deferment for married men would be if they had children. There was a lot of fast and furious banging in America that night! Of course, a lot of young men did not have to go because of jobs such as postman, policeman, firefighter, or if they had physical or mental disabilities (refer back to Postmen). Some even chose to be gay deceivers! (More on that later.) Only a handful of National Guard or Reserve soldiers were ever sent to Vietnam, so that became a favored way of draft avoidance, especially if their dads were rich and had connections. Then there was enlistment to avoid any combat-related job. The problem with enlistment was that you were obligated to serve in the military for three to four long years. Well, my daddy wasn’t rich, so the Reserves were out, nor did I want to serve one additional day more than I had to for Uncle Sam. But we did have a choice: be drafted into the Army or Marines and die; join the Army, Marines, Air Force, Navy and die; become a fireman, policeman and die; or become a postman and...

In December of ‘69, the government came up with the Lotto to randomly choose draftees. It was like today’s Power Ball Lotto, but not as much fun or as rewarding. One hundred thousand men chose to flee the country, mostly to Canada, as a last resort to avoid the draft. And some just absolutely refused to be drafted, figuring that two years spent in a federal prison were better than in a far away jungle. One notable person who refused to be drafted was Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali). Because of his conversion to the Nation of Islam, he proclaimed himself a conscientious objector. He also proclaimed that war was against the teachings of the Holy Qur’an. I find that rather interesting after reading today’s headlines. The draft dodgers were hunted down and prosecuted by the government, but in the end, President Jimmy Carter granted all draft evaders an unconditional pardon. A slap in my face... shit, I could have been surfing the icy waves of Canada, “Eh.” On my big day, I arrived promptly at eight a.m. along with hundreds of other young men of all different sizes and colors. After registering, we were herded into a large room, told to strip down to our underwear and step up to the white line painted on the floor for the first part of our physical. Now, 13

that was a shocker. Some guys were wearing panty hose or ladies underwear!!! What they were doing was playing the gay card to avoid the draft.

As I recall, a doctor went down the roll, asking each person a series of questions and looking at our overall physical condition. There were two guys standing to the right of me. The first kid was short, scrawny, and wiry. He held his right hand up and showed the doctor his mangled little finger and the two fingers next to it. He told the doctor that, as a child, he was climbing a tree and touched a high voltage wire, frying his fingers like bacon.

The doctor asked how his forefinger was. The kid answered by flexing it rapidly back and forth, and the doctor said, “Good, that’s your trigger finger!”

Standing next to the scrawny kid was this guy who was the size of a professional football player, someone who would have been perfect to carry a machine gun. While examining the big guy, the doctor asked about a small scar on the top of his foot. The big guy said that when he was fourteen, he accidently shot himself in the foot with a .22 caliber rifle and although the bullet was still lodged in his foot, it didn’t bother him. The doctor gave him a medical deferment right then and there, and said that the Army needed people, but not that bad. That was the first time in my life that I had positive proof that life was not fair. The scrawny kid, because of his small size, probably went on to be a tunnel rat.

After the doctor talked to each man, he left the room with the guys he had dismissed. We were all standing around in our tighty-whities, arms crossed and hands shoved into our armpits, waiting on the Army that was taking its sweet time. Again, the doctor entered the room and told us to drop our drawers. Oh, how humiliating. Standing next to me, on my left, was a black kid from East Texas. Jesus, I could have jumped rope with his unit! Then the doctor stood before each of us and told us to turn our heads and cough as he felt our balls for a hernia, or so he said. When he came to the guys dressed in ladies attire, he would ask, “Do I have your permission ma’am, or would you prefer a Gynecologist?”

After the ball feeling, the doctor told all the “girls” to report to his orderly who would escort them to another office for a psychiatric exam.

Which brings me to a joke that was popular at the time: So this fellow is drafted and, upon arrival at the draft board on his appointed day to be inducted, he goes before the officer in charge and proclaims that he is gay and not fit to serve in the U.S. Army. The officer tells him he has to be interviewed by a psychiatrist who will make that determination. The doctor plays a one-hundred-question game with the enchanting young man, asking him in great detail about his childhood, his 14

mom, and why he thinks he’s gay. Not quite satisfied with the answers, the psychiatrist then asked the fellow if he could kill a man. The sashaying young lad batted his eyes and answered with his best lisp, “Oh my goodness yes... but it would take me days.”

Some Folks are Born to Wave the Flag

5 May 1967, Cinco de Mayo. What, no piñata?

Basic Training, Ft. Polk, LA.

A bunch of frightened young boys from different walks of life, being herded around at quick step, tripping over our own two left feet. Only the day before, we had stood in the Harris County Courthouse and were sworn into the U.S. Army. Tearful good-byes were said to our moms and girlfriends. The few dads that where there strutted around with chests puffed out because their sons were becoming men, going off to war like they, their fathers and grandpas, had. Firm, strong handshakes, along with advice such as “Keep your head up and your butt down,” and then a barely audible, almost embarrassed, shaky “Don’t be a hero son, come back to us.”

I was somewhat bewildered with my emotions. Although I hid them as best I could, I was a mama’s boy. Seeing mom’s blue eyes fill with tears broke my heart. I tried to console her, telling her I would be careful and that I was almost positive I wouldn’t be sent to Vietnam. My girlfriend cried and promised she would write every day and would wait for me -- promises that were soon broken.

Now, who was going to console me? I was so sad and depressed, I hadn’t even gotten aboard the bus for basic training camp and already I was experiencing homesickness. The U.S. Army had literally torn me from my mother’s arms. It was the first of many changes in my life that would occur over the next three years. Little did I know at the time that, for the next forty-odd years, I would be suffering the consequences of some of my war time actions. That special bond between mom and her baby boy was never the same again.

Basic Training was brutal. I thought I was in good physical condition, being that I was a surfer and fairly active. I thought the training would be a piece of cake. I thought wrong.

That first week at Fort Polk I was punched, kicked, and beaten worse than my father had ever beat me. The cussing and degrading remarks I received from the drill sergeants was shocking, but it didn’t equal the cussing my mom had subjected me to. As a child, I thought my middle name was 15

God-Damn-It, because my parents would scream at the top of their lungs for the entire neighborhood to hear, “Bryan... God-Damn It.” The “Military Haircut” was a trip, but I have to admit that I welcomed it. Being employed before the Army at an Oil and Gas corporation, I had to sport a conservative haircut. I wanted a shaggy surfer cut but, no, my hairdo was a pompadour. It took fifteen minutes, a handful of Dep hair gel and hair spray to set it like concrete every morning; I looked like Conway-FuckingTwitty!

It was the Drill Sergeant’s job to break us down, both physically and mentally, take away our self-esteem, and then issue us U.S. Army green selfconfidence. Starting at five a.m., our day consisted of running, jumping, crawling, marching, force marching, sit-ups, pushups, chinning, squatting, more running, low crawling, polishing, spit polishing, waxing, mopping, commode cleaning, kitchen duty, shooting, grenade throwing, weapons training, even more running, hand-to-hand fighting, and more pushups. I thought I was going to push Louisiana out from underneath me. I remember all too well my first day of Basic Training. At five-thirty a.m., after formation and before breakfast, we ran a mile. I was so sick to my stomach that I couldn’t eat anything, but by ten that morning, my stomach felt as if someone had cut my throat. I wolfed down lunch in record time and never missed another meal.

Mass punishment was the drill sergeant’s favorite form of torture. Over a period of time, they had perfected it from primitive cruelty to a higher art form of anguish. If one GI screwed up, we all paid the price. And what screw-ups were drafted in to the Army at that time! Some of those guys in basic training with me did not know their left foot from their right hand.

During those daily, five-mile forced marches to the rifle qualification range in steaming hot June and July, guys would fall out or lag behind. Those of us who had survived the march were forced to get into the upward pushup position and hold it until every straggler caught up. Then the entire training company did pushups until no one could do another. Boy, those were goodtimes. I might mention that we did not have to screw up to be punished.

Often, the drill sergeants made up excuses. Once, they claimed they had overheard one of us refer to one of them as “Old Sergeant So-and-So.” That wasn’t true, but they made us do PT (Physical Training) until no one could do another pushup or sit-up. They said it was to make us feel old, and it worked.

During that era of the war, the training cadre physically abused us trainees. It felt like Catholic School all over again. It was nothing for a drill sergeant to walk up behind you and club your helmet with a nightstick, knocking you to the ground. Then, he would kick you in the ribs or butt or 16

even punch you in the chest to knock the breath out of you. Almost every one of us developed Stockholm Syndrome for those barbaric sergeants. Drill Sergeant Dugar told me “Son, the best part of you ran down your mother’s leg.”

Leadership School, Fort Benning, Ga. Although the schools were scattered about, the one I attended for a threeweek crash course was a branch of the SOA (School of the Americas). It became better known later and dubbed by the media as School of Assassins. I promise, all they taught my group was leadership skills.

Shake and Bake, 90-Day Wonder, Overnight NCO. Much of the burden of combat leadership fell on the NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer, i.e. sergeant). To meet the demand for the Vietnam War, the Army picked the brightest to attend NCO candidate school. They must have made an exception for me.

Infantry School, Ft. Polk, La. Tiger Land.

Oh My God! What a pit. I thought basic was hard, until I got to that hellhole. All physical training and abuse was stepped up a few levels. We were beaten until morale improved. Besides having the hell beat out of us, trained, drilled and exercised until our muscles quivered and jumped involuntary, we were constantly mentally abused and told how we would die a horrible death in Vietnam if we didn’t improve. “I am the Infantry.

Follow Me.” Jump School, Ft. Bragg, N.C. Home of the Airborne.

Run, run, run, run, run. They should have named it Run School. We ran everywhere -- to chow, training, class, to the barber shop twice a week. We even ran to the track to run five miles three times a day. After graduating, there is a traditional initiation ceremony called “Blood Pinning” (Blood Wings). When we received our Parachutist Badge (wings), the entire training platoon faced each other then hammered the pins that attached the wings to our uniforms into each other’s chest. The more we bled and were bruised, the more prestigious it was. It hurt like hell, but not one of us grimaced in pain. After all, we were macho and now Airborne Troopers.

Did you know that you have to have a fairly high IQ to attend jump school?

Let me get this right, you have to be smart to jump out of a perfectly good airplane? “Only two things fall out of the sky, bird shit and fools.”

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Jungle School, Ft. Sherman, Panama.

Snake Eaters.

It was easier than Ranger School, but it had its moments. I need to go on the record and say that, had all the specialized schools I attended not been abbreviated, there is no way I could have mentally or physically completed them. There was a Jungle School instructor, Sergeant First Class Thompson, who was big as a tree. When he grinned, his teeth looked like a baby grand piano’s ivory keys. And he was as ebony as a moonless night. (How’s that for being P.C.?) Anyway, he was teaching us how to find nourishment in a jungle: berries, plants, small game, etc. However, he said what we needed to find was a big ol’ juicy snake. He reached into a tote sack and pulled out a three-foot snake. He said the first thing to do before you dressed it, was to kill it. Well, Duh! There were many ways to do this: (1) He grabbed the snake by the tail, popped it like a whip, and broke its back; (2) He grabbed another snake from his bag, held it at arm’s length by the tail, and wacked its head off with his KA-BAR knife. Blood spurted everywhere; (3) Then he said that we are all Airborne Rangers, so we should do it the Ranger way. At that point he grabbed a third snake from his bag, stretched it out in front of him and, with one chomp, bit it in half! Freaked us out!!!

Ranger School, Fort Benning Ga., Duc My, Vietnam.

What can I tell you? Life is hard, Ranger School is HARDER. The only way anyone could make it through the intense training was not to think, “If only I can make it the next thirty days, or this week, or even today.” You had to have the mind frame of only making it through the next hour.

“I want to be an Airborne Ranger, lead a life of Blood and Danger.”

So what did I get out of all the intense training besides blisters? What can I bring to the table?

Basic Training: I learned that I was worthless scum, and that I only thought that my mom and Linda Blair could cuss.

Advanced Infantry Training: Shake and Bake School. I realized for the first time in my life that I could absorb information and class work in a short period of time.

Jump School-Ranger School-Jungle School: I was taught that I was the meanest fucker toting a weapon in any jungle in any corner of the world.

I was filled with self-confidence. It was my way or the highway motherfucker, a quality that I possess to this day, except that I’ve learned to 18

be diplomatic. In Vietnam, if I had a problem with anything, I simply shot it.

Today... I smile, and say, “Fuck off!” under my breath.

After graduating from all the advanced schools, I had orders for my next deployment. A captain who had somewhat befriend me at Airborne School, saw me at the airport in San Francisco, and asked where my next assignment was. I replied, “The Republic of Vietnam, Sir. I’m going to kill the yellow commie bastards.” Here was this huge, muscular man standing before me with railroad tracks on his collar, a Ranger tab on his shoulder, silver wings on a chest that was dripping with medals, topped by a Combat Infantryman’s Badge. He held my orders in his hand, silently reading them, and then he looked me in the eye and said, “It seems that they only send the good ones to be slaughtered.”

I’m Not As Smart As I look

After All, It Ain’t Rocket Surgery When first entering the military, all recruits are required to take a battery of tests during week one. These tests are meant to determine each inductee’s intelligence, mental capabilities, and psychological profile. I took the tests very seriously; most other guys didn’t; they would rush through the exams, then go outside to smoke and play grab ass. It had become apparent to me that everyone I knew that was stupid, or acted stupid to keep out of the Army, went directly into infantry training. Mrs. Smothers’ little baby boy didn’t want no part of that. So each test was approached as if it were a college exam. I would answer all questions, review each and every answer, and then ask myself, “Is that how the Army wants me to answer?” I totally screwed myself by doing that. Thousands of young men were going into the Army daily at that time during the war’s escalation taking the same tests as me. Now, I have never been accused of being a mental giant, but my scores were in the top one-half of one percent! No one was more shocked than me.

I was bored throughout school and never applied myself, so this told me that the military was filled with some dumb SOBs. Because of my scores, the Army sent me to advanced schools, enhanced training, and even tried to recruit me for Officers Candidate School (OCS). I turned them down without hesitation. The Army was under a false impression that I was a born leader. This proved my theory that tests don’t mean shit.

I was asked later by more than one officer why I didn’t attend OCS. My stock answer to them was that I wasn’t qualified. Of course, that would rouse their curiosity, so when they inquired why not, I replied, “Well Sir, 19

my parents were married.” Meaning, I wasn’t a Bastard or an SOB. In my opinion, I was stupid, naïve, and so very immature. Can you honestly see me as a commanding officer?

When I arrived in Vietnam, the 101st Airborne Division was also impressed with my test scores. How stupid were the other guys? They thought I would be best utilized as an instructor and liaison officer (a fancy word for a well-trained grunt) between the 101st Airborne Division, the First ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) Airborne Division and the ARVN Rangers. Again, are we talking about me? Seriously?

Next stop Vietnam. Four days leave is all the Army gave me. Was that a crock of shit or what?

A footnote: My first day in the Army I was 5’7”, 120 lbs. Six months later 5’8 1/2”, 175 lbs. After fifteen months in Vietnam, I weighed 115lbs.

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CHAPTER THREE

YOU’RE GOING TO LOVE THE NAM

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Across The Pond

“Good Morning Vietnam!”

What’s so Goddamn good about it?

Oakland Army Base, Oakland CA, was one of the Army’s major transit stations for all deployments to and from East Asia. After two days of doing more paper work, making out a will, buying life insurance and updating my shot records, I boarded my shiny, bright orange, Braniff Airlines Douglas DC-8 Stretch prison bus to Vietnam. A short, seventeen-hour flight to tropical, sunny Vietnam, the fun capital of South East Asia. On the return flight home, the aircraft was known to one and all as a Freedom Bird.

The Republic of Vietnam, November 1, 1967, All Saints Day, known in many countries as the Day of the Dead. Was it an omen? My tour of duty: four hundred and fifty-five days and a wakeup (fifteen months). Hell, I can do that standing on my head, or so I thought. I was very naive. As our flight approached the coastline of Vietnam, the pilot came on the intercom and announced that we had just crossed into the Republic of Vietnam’s airspace, and that he would have us on the ground in a short thirty minutes, so buckle up. Five minutes later, the pilot asked the flight attendants to take a seat.

Then, the plane dropped from the sky, spiraling in a tight circle to avoid possible gunfire. If that didn’t scare us shitless, nothing would. Once safely on the ground with our puckered butts relaxing, the plane taxied to an empty spot on the Tarmac. You couldn’t hear yourself think from all the chatter of us excited troops, making jokes and laughing. That all stopped as soon as our captain shut the engines down and the crewmembers went about opening the doors. Oh, shit! In seconds, the plane filled with hot, humid air, fumes of aviation fuel, and smells of rotting jungle foliage. The unmistakable odor of burning human excrement permeated the cabin. You could have heard a pin drop aboard that plane. At that moment, for me, reality set in. I might die.

People Are Strange

Throughout Basic and Tiger Land infantry training, I forged friendships that I thought would last a lifetime. Men, and I think only men, form a special bond. Whether it is on a sports field or in the military, we share each other’s misery, homesickness, and look into each other’s eyes for strength and encouragement to do one more pushup, or run that one additional mile.

We easily shed all inhibitions and expectations of privacy. We slept, shit, shaved, and shined boots together, twenty-four/ seven. However, in Vietnam I had no close American friends. I don’t know if it was because we 23

didn’t want the pain of a friend losing his life, or we just didn’t give a flying _____, (you fill in the blank). The guys that I had made good buddies with during training, I never saw or heard from again. Many of the GIs that I went to elite training schools with came home in body bags. Nineteen-sixty-eight (The Year of the Monkey) was a tough year.

Bien Hoa, Tan Son Nhut, and Da Nang Air Bases were huge, sprawling facilities, each covering thousands of acres. They were the homes of the USA War Machine, and each reminded me of what I had read about Los Angeles: seventy-two suburbs in search of a city. However, unlike the City of Angels, these USA Military-created cities were filled with REMF assholes. Every soldier or Marine who was stationed at one of those facilities, which was in the tens of thousands, had a serious bug up their butts. They had eight-tofive jobs, saw no combat, and still complained about the hardships. What hardships? Those guys were just plain ole’ mean, rude, and not very polite individuals. As far as I was concerned, they were no different than the jungle parasites that crawled into our rectums. I was dressed down (chewed up and spit out) by officers more in that first week in-country than the entire time I was in the Army, one day by a one star General because I allegedly did not salute him. I have to admit he frightened the hell out of me. Anyone who had a higher pay grade than me found a reason to make my life miserable. I couldn’t wait to be assigned to a combat unit. It was the longest week of my life.

Everything was processed through Bien Hoa, Tan Son Nhut, or Da Nang: every GI, Marine, and Airman that arrived in-country or was going home, walking or in a bag; every ounce of petrol, Jet-A fuel, beer, and milk; weapons, shotgun shells, rifle bullets, pistol bullets, bombs, artillery shells, and Claymore mines; trucks, jeeps, and tanks; uniforms, helmets, boots, and socks; body bags, rolls of toilet paper, Band-Aids, C-Rations, and anything else that was Army olive-drab. And, like the lowly carton of C-Rations, we GI’s and Marines were processed, cataloged, inventoried, and warehoused, then distributed out to different areas of the country.

Trucks of all sizes, rumbled in and out of the bases at all hours, twentyfour/ seven, creating a permanent cloud of dust from the endless parade of vehicles, hauling freight to and from the ports. Buses loaded with troops were being driven back and forth from the airport. Military cargo planes and civilian jet liners continually landed and took off, twenty-four hours a day.

Jet fighters scrambled off on missions with their afterburners roaring. If you were within two miles of the airstrip, all conversations stopped until the fighter jets had gained altitude. Generators of all sizes ran day and night supporting the meager Vietnamese power grid. Rock and Roll belted out from all types and sizes of radios broadcasting the American Forces Vietnam 24

Network. Personal cassette recorders played the latest messages from home, over and over. The Big Daddy of all was the Sony seven-inch, reel-to-reel tape deck, wired to a Pioneer Amp hooked up to big-ass speakers. When cranked up, the music would loosen teeth. Those bases were cities that never slept.

It was also the first time I ever laid eyes on the Vietnamese. My God, they were so… tiny and different looking. I didn’t know what to expect.

The U.S. Military hired the local Vietnamese to do all the menial tasks such as housekeeping, typical grunt work, kitchen work, and office work. You name it, and there was a Vietnamese doing it. Somehow, the young pretty ones got the best jobs. Interesting, how that happened. They were dressed in white or black pajamas and wearing conical straw hats that were ever so foreign to me. Before then, I don’t think I had ever seen a foreigner, or someone who looked of Chinese descent, in my life. My first up-close and personal encounter with the Vietnamese was on the day of my arrival as they served up lunch in the chow hall. Damn, they were strange looking to me, and I could not understand one word they said, even though they spoke almost perfect “Engrish.” They laughed and giggled, threw me kisses, held my hand and patted my butt just to watch me blush. Such flirts. And I’m not talking about the hot babes; I’m talking about the little old ladies.

This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, From this day to the ending of the world But we in it shall be remember’d; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition - William Shakespeare, Henry V, 1598

Bird Shit and Fools, A Rendezvous With Destiny

Chicken Man - Brotherhood of Eagles I was elated to be assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, a very elite, proud, and storied division with epic WW II and Vietnam battle histories.

When the Division was formed on August 19, 1942, the commanding officer, General William Lee, addressed the new recruits and told them that their Division was a unit with no history. However, it had “A Rendezvous with Destiny.” And the Division did indeed make history during the D-Day 25

Invasion and the Battle of the Bulge. Paratroopers, unlike Marines or Army Infantry Divisions, don’t attack the enemy with a frontal assault. Our main purpose is to parachute behind enemy lines, to be surrounded, to fight from the inside out.

The same concept held true in Vietnam, except we were air-lifted in by helicopter.

During the Vietnam War, because of our air-mobility and elite training, Central Command assigned the 101st Airborne Division to I Corps in the most contested area of the country. I Corps was the most northern area of South Vietnam, bordered by North Vietnam and Laos on the west and the South China Sea on the east. It was a vast, varied terrain, consisting of the ever-present rice paddies, rugged mountains, thick jungles, forests, and coastal plains. It was considered a no-man’s land, home of the notorious A Sauh Valley. Because of its proximity to North Vietnam, it was occupied by at least three NVA (North Vietnamese Army) Regiments at all times and easily resupplied with war materials and fresh troops that came down the Ho Chi Minh trail.

My era with the Division earned a place in the history books with the siege on Fire Base Ripcord (a 23 day battle), the Battle of Hamburger Hill, the re-taking of the American Embassy in Saigon during the Tet Offensive of nineteen-sixty-eight, the bloody streets of Hue, and so many more bloody battles. By the time the 101st Airborne Division withdrew from Vietnam after being in-country seven years, it had suffered four-thousand Killed In Action (KIA), twice what the Division had suffered in WW II. Famous members of the Division (besides myself) included Bob Kalsu, an All-American tackle from The University of Oklahoma (class of 1968), who was drafted by the Buffalo Bills. Bob was killed in combat at Fire Base Ripcord in May of 1970. Also killed at Ripcord was Wieland Norris, younger brother of actor Chuck Norris. Another Screaming Eagle was a little, un-known musician by the name of Jimi Hendrix. The Division has an exceptionally recognizable patch, The Screaming Eagle. It is probably known worldwide because of movies like “Band of Brothers” and “Saving Private Ryan,” not to mention the Division’s countless deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Vietnam, the school of thought was to camouflage everything, rank, name, and division patch, all in black, to blend in with the jungle. But we learned that the NVA had orders to break off a firefight when they recognized the Screaming Eagle patch, because our kill ratio in combat was enormous, so we were issued colored patches to wear making it obvious who they were dealing with. There is not a word in the Vietnamese 26

vocabulary, I’ve been told, that translates to “Eagle” so we became known to them as The Big White Chickens, Chicken Men, or Rooster Men. We were eaten up with the airborne mystique. We were hardcore, hard dick, hard charging mothers. We possessed that special esprit de corps know only to paratroopers -- highly motivated, the best of the best, the elite -- that set us apart from many of our fellow combatants. We would snap an officer a salute and say “Airborne.” He would reply with a salute and “All the way.”

Of course, this would always piss off officers who were not Airborne qualified, known as “Legs.” They would chew our ass out, then we would again snap a crisp salute and repeat “Airborne, Above The Rest” just to screw with them a little more. We Paratroopers had a cute little saying, “I’d rather my sister be a whore working in a whorehouse or my cousin be a queer living in San Francisco than my brother be a Leg.” We were not very politically correct, and this was way before Don’t ask, Don’t tell. I am as proud today as I was more than forty years ago that I wore that patch. Once you wear the patch, you never take it off.

“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with Wings as Eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

- Isaiah 40:31

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CHAPTER FOUR MENTAL EXSANGUINATION

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Sometimes It Sucks To Be Me

War was an experience that eroded the boyish innocence I took to a foreign land so far away. Far away, yet so near when certain scents, foul odors, or sounds carry me back to the killing fields.

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This

Nightmares, daydreams, flashbacks.

When I have these, they are not the typical Hollywood renditions.

You’ve seen them in the movies (cue the ghost sound affects) when heads, detached from bodies, float above someone’s bed while they are dreaming, circling in a counter clockwise motion like sugarplums. My memory of the war has been dulled with time. I’ve always said that if I didn’t have flashbacks, I wouldn’t have a memory. Unfortunately my dreams have not been dimmed or fogged. The scary moments have been engraved into my heart. Some are like faded photographs; most are crystal clear. What is so intense about my daydreams and flashbacks are the senses of smell and sound that key them. The nightmares I have, in combination with bed-soaking sweat from fear, make for a fun evening that would be the envy of only the Marquis de Sade. I have had a sound in one of my nightmares jar me to consciousness. I awake with a jerk and leap from my bed… I lie to my wife as to why. I find myself sleeping on the sofa downstairs most evenings.

Flashing back to my private hell. Hearing that certain “snap” a bullet makes, or reliving the experience of almost falling out of a helicopter, causes me great anxiety, a fight-or-flight reaction. Nightmares while I was in Vietnam were intense. I guess they weren’t really nightmares, but just reliving the day in my sleep. In the morning after awakening, if people asked about my dreams, I lied or denied having any memory of them. That had to be the beginning of PTSD.

You Think Woodstock Was Muddy

Juicy Air To this day, I can vividly remember how horrendous the heat and humidity were. Energy-sucking humidity, insane heat. Having grown up in Houston, I was accustomed to the same climate and could somehow tolerate it. But in Vietnam, we did not wear a blend of summer-weight cotton and silks. We were issued long-sleeved jungle fatigues, boots, a three-pound helmet, and a ten-pound flak vest for daily attire. On patrol, the normal 31

grunt carried sixty-five pounds. The body heat generated from all the weight, clothing, and humping the bush was exhausting. The physical exertion, in combination with the sticky tropical heat, absolutely drove us to the brink of insanity. It seemed we would never catch our breath again. We were also issued green ponchos to protect us from rain. The trapped heat these ponchos produced were saunas from hell. We perspired profusely, twenty-four/ seven. Our clothes literally started rotting off our bodies within days. I gave up wearing underwear after a few months for hygiene reasons. Not only was I a commando, I was commando!

It seemed to rain every day. Sometimes for only a few minutes, but if the gods were especially angry, the sky pissed on us all night. I recall shivering from the early morning mountain chill and sleeping on the ground (you never really slept). When it rained while you were asleep, your body became one with the boot-sucking mud. Insect bites, innumerous insect bites, bugs, leaches, all kinds of nasty little fuckers crawled into every orifice and crevice of your body.

Ain’t It Funky Now

Hygiene It was overrated; it consisted of brushing our teeth with canteen water and taking a shower when it started raining. When we could no longer live with our body odor, we would strip down naked (that’s when I learned that men are only created equal in the eyes of God), with the exception of our boots, and soap down. Then pray that it rained long enough to wash the soap off. A shower at base camp with cold water or, if lucky, sun-warmed water or a change of fatigues once a week was a treat, actually a luxury. I had this beautiful golden tan that would have been envied by many; a farmer’s tan yes, but a tan nonetheless. It wasn’t until the first time I took a long hot bath that I discover it was ground-in dirt. Overall, the physical condition of combat troops was disgusting, revolting. The Army tried its best to take excellent care of us, but the climate, living conditions, and the vile tropics ravaged our bodies.

There was tuberculosis, hepatitis A & E, typhoid-yellow-dengue fevers, malaria, encephalitis, bubonic and pneumonic plagues, rabies, roundworms, hookworms, whipworms and HMFD (hand, mouth, foot disease), all spread by mosquitoes and rat bites, and God knows that there was no shortage of that. I can’t tell you how many times I was bit by a damn rat in my sleep.

And then there was the gift that keeps on giving. VD. Venereal, from the Roman Goddess of love, Venus. On any given day, a few soldiers with a 32

typical combat platoon were probably too sick with communicable diseases to be allowed into a hospital.

Run Through the Jungle

I can still hear young men screaming, women and frightened children screaming, animals screaming. Have you ever heard an animal scream? Who would have thought that was even possible.

Chatter of small arms and the unmistakable rattle of an AK-47. The crack of a bullet, inches from your head. The thud of a bullet upon impact, ripping through soft flesh, breaking bones.

Ear-drum-crushing artillery bursts. The concussion rattling your brain and loosening your teeth. The thump, PHAFFFFT, and KKARRump of 60mm and 81mm mortars exploding, followed by men moaning.

The scream of big, incoming 122mm rockets, a whistle that sounded as loud and shrill as a woman on fire screaming. The forty pound warheads of the big rockets exploding with a blinding flash. Shaking, rattling, and destroying material and men alike.

The PHHOOOFFF of RPG’s (Rocket Propelled Grenades) flying by; at times, so many were fired at us simultaneously, the displaced air sounded like tormented souls escaping from Hell.

Helicopter gunships’ electric Gatling guns, reverberating as their arsenals were spit out. They sounded as if they were ray guns of a space ship from an alien world.

Phantom F4 jets diving, breaking the sound barrier with a sonic boom that ripped a hole in the sky during an air strike. We prayed to God they would not drop their ordinance too short., The constant radio chatter and crackling static, Viet Cong voices at night… taunting, taunting.

The screaming and cussing during a firefight, and then realizing that the irritating, wild animal scream was coming from your own mouth.

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Young men, far from home, wounded, screaming in agony for their mommies. That memory, more than any, brings me to tears.

Incoming was mind warping, unadulterated terror.

The raw whistle of the first incoming round, or someone who heard it a split second before you did, screaming “INCOMING,” paralyzed you with fear. Within that first second of hearing it, you are willing to make a pact with the Devil to be spared. Even the atheists among us would break out prayer cards. Hearing the shrill whistle of incoming rounds was the most helpless, completely exposed thing we ever experienced, but your survival instinct went into automatic mode in a nanosecond. You tried to get beneath Mother Earth. Face down, breathing dirt and dust in and out of nostrils, eye lashes batting the soil. Pulling our steel pot helmets down, trying to scrunch our necks and shoulders into the helmets, attempting to roll our bodies into the smallest compact ball possible.

If you were still standing when the second round exploded, well, maybe you deserved to die. Jesus, the screams and moans after the first few explosions! Then seconds later, all hell erupted around us. Three or four high-explosive artillery rounds per minute, and mortar rounds popping in on us as fast as they could be dropped into the firing tubes. At times, the barrages went on for hours. The ground erupted furiously with each explosive impact. The tree canopies exploded, showering us with burning metal and jagged timbers. Whenever the barrage let up, the first thing we would do as a natural instinct was to yank down and rip open our pants, just to make sure our junk was still there. I’ve seen guys with mangled legs do this, and then start laughing with glee because their balls were untouched.

We never stopped to think that we still had arms and hands that allowed us to do this.

At times, I can smell the gasoline, the stench of napalm, and burning clothes, hair, flesh, and grass; sour body odor, gun powder, cordite; blood who knew that blood smelled?; urine, feces; the Perfume River; stomachchurning decomp, an odor that will not go away; the scent of rain; the tang of diesel fumes, Jet A fuel; and mud - Mud in Vietnam somehow smelled ancient; the jungle, it smelled, don’t laugh, green; the wonderful, sweet aroma of smoldering cannabis; the rank stench of your feet slowly rotting away, an odor second only to decomp. I could even smell the sun. Did I mention how bad the body odor was? Flying into an area of operation, a mile away from your LZ (“Landing Zone”) at five hundred feet, if the enemy was there, you could smell him. Musty, sour musk odors that only frightened 34

men in combat secrete. After ten minutes on the ground, the smell vanished.

We smelled identical.

I can remember feeling the searing heat and sucking wind when napalm exploded. Funny, I can’t remember the recoil from a weapon. I can remember how the ground shook from explosions and rolling heavy armor.

The thick tropical air vibrated and pulsated like rolling waves from the swirl of helicopter rotors. Distant rumble of B-52 strikes. We called them Arc Lights - now that’s a charming name.

Seemed like I could never get my teeth clean. I brushed, brushed, and brushed my teeth with no success to remove the taste of decomp. The taste of blood, water purification tablets, Kool-Aid, cannabis, and cotton mouth (a side effect of supercharged adrenalin). Fear tasted like someone had filled your mouth with a nasty-ass handful of coins and threw in some sinus drainage for good measure.

Being with a line company (infantry) was dreadful. There were no, absolutely no luxuries. Pleasures were few and far between; hardships were many. Eating was the only happiness we had, and it was pathetic. Command would promise that a hot meal would be sent to us for a job well done, or because it was Thanksgiving or Christmas day. Many times, that hot meal never showed up for any number of reasons. Maybe it was because it was too late in the day or our LZ was too hot. When I speak of a Landing Zone being too hot, I don’t mean that we needed to break out the sun block or guzzle Gator-Aid to lower our body core temperature. In Army speak: The opposing Army was protesting our presence with an array of superior fire power. In GI speak: Our ass was grass, and the Viet Cong was the lawn mower.

If only I could describe how rank C-Rations tasted: Ham and Eggs in a can… gag! Ham and Mother Fuckers (ham and lima beans), Beans and Baby Dicks (beans and franks), Chicken Cum (scrambled eggs). We mixed anything and everything with the C-Rations to try and improve the taste: peanut butter, grape jelly, Tabasco sauce, beer, steak sauce, and we wondered why we had severe diarrhea.

Elephant grass. Waist high, head high, razor sharp, shredding our clothes and flesh.

Impenetrable bamboo forests. They were saunas, killing zones.

Foreboding, dark mountain forests.

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The Beast lived in the dark corners of Vietnam. The Beast fed in the dark corners of our psyches.

During a firefight, you never looked at anyone directly or made eye contact.

You were afraid to. Somehow the terror and fear imbedded in their eyes might transfer to you.

Sometimes, many times, almost always, all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and have my Mom stroke my head to make the insanity stop.

Relaxation: That was getting high and stoned. I was drinking way too much Johnny Walker Black Label toward the end of my tour. The DEA would have been proud of me; I single-handedly tried to eradicate Southeast Asia of the Devil’s weed.

A Promise: I made a promise to God, after I started acknowledging and speaking to Him again. If He got me back safe and sound, I would go back to the Catholic Church and take catechism classes to become a better Catholic and person. Which I did, but I joke now that God didn’t quite live up to his side of the bargain, so I’m negotiating.

Good times: The kind of good times you wouldn’t trade for anything.

Surely I had them, but I really can’t remember any. Maybe it was a simple act of sharing a cigarette, a doobie, a hot beer or coke, a swig of Scotch, a laugh at a crude joke. Strange that I can’t remember any.

Fear: The fear of being wounded, crippled, or killed. The fear of not knowing what I was made of, the fear of learning that I might be a coward.

Ain’t nuthin’ to it; Better him than me; Don’t mean nothing; Bummer.

Words you mouthed or thought when you saw a GI blown away. For some reason, when you said those simple words over and over, they would push your fear away. The standard answer when you were asked how long you had been in-country was, “All…fucking…day…long.”

You Haven’t Lived Until You’ve Almost Died

I have written and said that I never felt anything when killing. That is such Bull Shit. My disguise was the mask of an assassin to hide from myself. I’ve 36

worn a different mask since I returned home to hide my sinister deeds from a polite society.

With each kill, my emotions ran the gamut - frightened, scared, guilty, ashamed, embarrassed, nauseated, giddy, elated, proud, pompous, arrogant, self-righteous, self-proclaimed God - such supreme power for a child. If a kill ran, was hunted down, or showed terror in his eyes, then the emotion was almost orgasmic. Killing came easy. It was as addictive as any drug.

It was so oxymoronic: it was kill to live, kill or be killed. None of us wanted to take a life in the beginning. Later, we were easily caught up in bloodlust; it was a hunger, a thirst, a brotherhood. Women could not possibly share this trait. Men are animals, primal animals. But - there seems to always be a “But.” Many times, it took all I had to pull a trigger. Face distorted, eyes squinted, lips pulled tight, gritted teeth, beads of sweat trickling down my face, seconds ticking away. It took every muscle in my body to pull that trigger. Every fiber of my being was screaming YES, NO, YES, NO! The trigger would not pull. What the hell? Was the safety on?!

And then the weapon erupted. There is no recoil from an M-16, but somehow it almost flew out of my hands. After what I had done, there was no going back. No re-dos. No do-over’s. Final chapter, written. Other times, it was like a massive ejaculation of emotions. All stress, hate, frustration, evacuated. I was overcome with a ghastly, almost gruesome calm.

I didn’t hate my adversary in the beginning. In a weird way, I respected him. He was good at his job. I hated him for what he believed in, hated him for his cruelty. I saw more severed heads and limbs than could be counted. I was appalled by how cruel the Vietnamese could be. How could they be so indifferent to another’s life and dignity?

It was if God had forsaken us. Nothing, absolutely nothing holy or sacred was observed. Or was it that we had forsaken God? A twenty-one year old with power over life and death, despite all things I had been taught. I came to realize how empowering it was, and loved it.

Scars of our youth never heal. Youth faded from our faces. We looked older than our years, far too early. Our eyes betrayed our facial expressions.

We might be smiling, but our eyes were blank, empty, dead, and spoke with an exhausted sadness. They were fixed with a far away gaze, showing a slight hint of insanity. Exhausted, goofy grins from the after-chill of fear distorted our lips.

“Oh God.” “Mom.” “Tell my wife I love her.” I wished I could tell you that those were the last words that crossed a dying man lips... I wished I could. But mostly it was “Fuck,” or “Cocksuckers.”

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Remarkably, when most men were wounded, they apologized to their superiors like little boys. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry Sergeant, I can’t believe I stepped into shit and let you down.” Funny, I can only remember mental pain, none of the physical pain from wounds. I do remember that when I was wounded, it was more of a shock than anything else. By God, I’m eight feet tall and bulletproof, this can’t be happening to me. I learned through bad luck that I wasn’t a good soldier, but a hell of a good target.

And then there is combat, dreadful combat. General Sherman (American Civil War) coined the phrase, (or was it Hollywood?) “War Is Hell”; we grunts of Vietnam did a twist on it: “War is Hell… but Combat is a Motherfucker.”

There is no glory in combat. Any Hollywood illusion that had been instilled in us of gallantry, or the greater glory of war, soon vanished after seeing life leave a dying man’s eyes, watching someone grasping for a gulp of air from a wind-pipe that had been blown away, or carrying a limp dead child. Only Poets write of the glory of combat.

Most times, we ate with our hands, no forks... no spoons... our hands.

Opened cans of C-Rats were our dinner plates; we scooped the contents out with three fingers, shoved it into our mouths, and choked it down. Our dinning utensils were the same hands we used to clean our weapons, pick our noses, wipe our butts, doctor open sores, bandage the wounded and carry the dead. I ask, where is the glory?

Over forty years ago, and again last night, we heard the rattle of weapons and explosions of ordinance, smelled the putrid foul odor of death and rot, tasted fear in the backs of our mouths, saw the hideous, witnessed the revolting, and listened to that young man (or was it an animal?), scream throughout that long rainy night. Again I ask, where is the glory?

Although the years have passed and the blood has dried, I recall no glory, only misery.

The glory of combat is only to be found in the romantic heart of the poet.

Morals: They were sucked out of us.

There is a fine line separating sneezing, having a orgasm and killing, three ultimate endorphin rushes.

Exhausted, completely spent, physically and mentally depleted. It would have been so much better to receive death early on in our tour of duty. We would not have had to suffer as much. I had an overpowering will to live, but will admit to entertaining thoughts of suicide by VC. 38

Once, I was asked by a Life magazine reporter how I was doing. I just stared at him and replied, “I’m too old for this shit.” I was twenty-one.

Dark nights screwed with your mind. That’s when the boogie bear and all your childhood fears surfaced. Things that went bump in the night carried AK 47s.

Sunrise was a beautiful, welcomed sight. They were always wimpy, weak-ass sunrises, but if you saw one, you had survived another night and were one more day closer to home.

Cry: Sometimes I cry for no reason. Well… I’ve always said for no reason, but the truth is that I have fifteen months of reasons. For years I have been so ashamed, so very ashamed of this weakness. But recently, my wife put it into perspective. She says she has seen WW II Vets cry on TV while being interviewed, so why should I be any different? Her telling me that made me feel better about myself, but I still cry.

Hearts and Minds Campaign: If you win their hearts, their minds will follow.

We grunts liked to say, “If you grab them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”

Fear: If you didn’t have fear in combat, you didn’t have a heartbeat. I’m talking about fear that forces you to clench your teeth, eyes, and asshole the Pucker Factor. A fear that caused you to defecate on yourself. You never see that in the movies, do you? It happened to all of us and when it did, no one said a word. Because if it had not happened to you, you knew it was going to. Did you know that when people die, they lose control of all their body functions? Well, Duh. I meant that they urinate and defecate at the time of death. Oh well, so much for death with dignity.

Blood: It wasn’t being covered with your own blood that was appalling so much as it was being sprayed with someone else’s body fluids and matter.

That was… repugnant.

High Anxiety: Standing in a Viet Cong sympathizer’s hut at three a.m., listening to the rhythm of breathing. Taking the village chief hostage at knife point; if a child woke, we would talk them back to sleep, and if everyone woke…

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Survivor’s Smile: That was an automatic reflex that spread across your face when you heard about some other guys who really got into deep shit.

Occasionally, the stories were so horrible that you didn’t smile.

Adrenalin shock: How can I describe it? You break out into a cold sweat. It’s as if you are looking into the brightest, whitest, most intense light imaginable. Your ears are ringing, you’re weak, you’re dizzy, and you feel as if you are swirling counter-clockwise. Your tongue swells, your mouth feels as if it’s been stuffed with cotton and has a nasty taste; your legs, arms, chest, and cheek muscles start quivering uncontrollably. Your butt puckers, your stomach becomes nauseated to the point that you get the dry heaves.

You have the body odor of a wild animal. (Oh My God! I think I just described a pregnant woman’s morning sickness symptoms.)

The One-Thousand-Yard Stare: A stress-related syndrome. It is to look through the obvious, beyond reality, limp, unfocused. I developed my onethousand-yard stare while at an NCO Club at Camp Eagle. There was a USO show with Pilipino performers. They were HOT. There was this one, I’ll never forget her, a long legged dancer swirling around on stage wearing a somewhat sheer little robe. She would let the robe open to expose herself, Oh, Sweet Joseph, Mary, Jesus and all the Saints. Is that pubic? That’s going into the spank bank!

The Beast

Everyone in combat was bitten by the Beast, and each individual has his own personal definition of what it is. I was only in-country a few weeks when I started hearing GIs talk about the Beast. They would say things such as: “Hey man, you know the Beast is out there waiting for us?” “The Beast is sure ‘nuff hungry.” “What happened to Smith?” “They put him in a rubber room, they say he went insane, he lost it, and the Beast took over his soul.” I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. Was it an animal, some kind of Vietnamese Chupacabra? Well, it became obvious that the Beast had multiple definitions: the enemy, the jungle, the boonies, combat, dread, nightmares, worry, pain. But to most, it meant fear. And the pain of that fear was no different than the sensation of being wounded. When the adrenaline rush wore off, the pain came in unmerciful waves; it consumed you, as did the Beast on dark nights. The most freighting revelation was learning that you, your inner self, might be the Beast.

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Boom Boom Boom Boom

Zapped There were so many ways of losing your life in Vietnam. The country was a bona fide death factory, and the U.S. Military War Machine was the finest instrument ever devised to chew up America’s youth. In combat, the choices of death were many, not that we had a choice, but all of us were afraid of being shot in the head, face, or neck. Our personal fear convinced us that those wounds were not survivable. The worst possible wounds to receive, I’m convinced, were throat wounds - they made a gurgling, soupy, gagging sound, uttered as the victim gulped for oxygen that was not going to his lungs. A chest wound was known as a sucking chest wound. Gasping for breath, a tell-tale, bubbling sound, signaled that the victim was drowning in his own fluids and alerted anyone who witnessed it of their own mortality.

Men could be vaporized, torn apart or shredded by exploding artillery; if they survived that drama, they then might die of shock after seeing their mangled bodies.

With main arteries, severed and squirting, men bled out in minutes.

You could be decapitated by a helicopter, either by the main rotor blade or by running into the tail rotor. The helicopter you just got out of could be shot out of the sky, then fall and crush you. If a gun-shot wasn’t enough to worry about, there were Claymores and Bouncing Betty mines, booby traps with tripwires, Snipers, Punji Pits, and Sappers (suicide bombers). There was also heatstroke, different types of malaria, snake bites, friendly fire, suicide, insanity, weapon malfunction, and we heard of Marine’s and soldiers that was mauled by Tigers near Laos.

If combat wasn’t your choice of death, there were a host of other tragic accidents to choose from: Getting run over and crushed by a truck, jeep, tank, or armored personnel carrier; falling off any of the above and breaking your neck; being sucked into a jet engine or walking into a fixed-wing aircraft’s prop; falling out of a helicopter, or burning to death in the bloodboiling inferno of a helicopter crash. I’ve seen helicopters lift off at fire bases, get one of their skids caught in barbed wire, crash, and kill everyone aboard. I’ve seen helicopters fall out of the sky because of mechanical failure, or accidentally crash into each other in mid-air. Some men died from something as simple as a heart attack, electrocution, drowning, or any number of accidents.

There was a clerk typist at Camp Eagle, headquarters of the 101st Airborne Division, who got up from his desk, walked outside, and dropped dead. An errant, spent, fifty-caliber machine gun bullet from a firefight several miles 41

away hit the ground a few meters in front of him, ricochet up, hit him in the chest, and stopped his heart. If it was painted Army green, more than likely you could be killed by it.

Ain’t It Funny How The Night Moves

Watching a remote firefight at night from a distance was simply spectacular. And I must emphasize, from a distance. The green and red tracers, flares, artillery sky-bursts, and explosions illuminated the distant horizon creating a multi-thousand dollar, psychedelic light show. Cobra Helicopter gunships firing rockets that flew across the night sky at supersonic speed, helicopter mini-guns, spitting out their arsenals with eerie out-ofthis-world reverberations. The firepower from the mini-guns was so rapid, the tracers looked like red-orange florescent water from a garden hose, rising and falling along a horizontal line. Rocket and Recoilless Rifle projectiles were like red ribbons streaming across the black sky, bursting upon impact, spraying white-hot shards of metal in all directions. The explosions of the artillery sounded like far-away thunder, rumbling and echoing through the valleys, accented by the chatter of automatic weapons.

Having experienced nightmarish night battles, only recently have I been able to comfortably sit through a fireworks display without having an anxiety attack.

The first time I was in a helicopter at night that was being fired upon was dreamlike. Fifty-one caliber rounds looked like green Hostess Cupcake Snowballs, floating ever so slowly up from the ground. I thought, “How they do expect to hit anything?” A flurry of lighting bugs danced around the helicopter, with the sound of Buddhist chimes, at two thousand feet.

The following day, when we flew over the same area, it was another story. It was if we had flown into a shit storm. The sky was filled with bullets of all calibers, all of them directed at our helicopter. How in hell we escaped not being knocked out of the sky, I’ll never know. Our pilot’s co-pilot had to be God. I was so engrossed in the light show the night before that I didn’t think about it. But at night, depth and speed perception are distorted, and I didn’t realize that between each of the green Hostess Cupcake Snowballs (tracer rounds) were four additional rounds. The lighting bugs were small arms fire, and the Buddhist bells were rounds hitting our helicopter.

Fear Has No Voice 42

Only A Silent Scream It’s not the dark that I am afraid of, it’s the night. Ugly things come out at night.

It’s remarkable how black it was on moonless nights. You actually could not see your hand in front of your face, but the stars seemed to be within arm’s reach. At no other time in my life have I experienced such complete darkness. It was the complete absence of light that one would only expect to find deep in a cave.

The Heavens put on a spectacular light show most nights, with comets striking across the sky like burning embers popping out of a camp fire.

Growing up Catholic Lite (more on that later), I was no stranger to incense, but the incense burned by Vietnamese Buddhists freaked me out, especially at night. The nearest village might be ten klicks (kilometers) away, but I could still smell it - burning incense, intensified by the spookiness of the night. Freaky.

I hated the night. Correction, I was terrified of the night. I never overcame my fear. The nights were unbelievably long. Punishingly long.

Sitting on a hill, or in the jungle forest as twilight faded, my anxiety built from dread to panic. The three of us in my team would take four-hour shifts of guard duty. It was hell staring into the dark - bugged eyed, exhausted fighting off sleep, trying desperately to stay alert. Yet, when it was my turn to sleep… nothing. It took all my will power just to close my eyelids. I would curl up into a ball, pull my poncho over my head, and try to drift off, escape the night. I’d wake with a jerk, look at my wrist-watch, and realize I had only slept minutes.

My mind would not allow me to rest; it worked overtime like a panicked dog pacing a fence. It was filled with thoughts that had no beginning or end. Asking myself questions that had no answers, and if sleep did come, I was afraid of crying out from a nightmare. The buzz of insects, the screeching, and screaming of animals and nocturnal birds was constant.

Then, the sound would stop. Cold dead. Why? The Beast? Sometimes.

Mostly, it was a night predator stalking its evening dinner. After a few minutes, the bush choir would start all over again until another sound or movement startled them. Then again, silence.

The Beast almost always came at 0330 hours. I awaited him, in the night, the endless night.

This Is One Fucked-Up Fire Mission

“Check your fire, check your fire, check your fire.”

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Friendly Fire: It happened with disturbing frequency. Young men were exhausted, stressed, excited, frightened, confused, green, inexperienced, jumpy, or just fuck-ups. An Officer or NCO would give wrong coordinates to an artillery gun battery, helicopter gunship, or a fast mover (F-4 Fighter), and we would have hell to pay. Sometimes, we fired on a platoon next to us, sometimes at men just thirty feet away. Shit, we ambushed ourselves, almost always with devastating results. Hell, a lot of times we shot back at our own helicopter gunships. “ Gentleman, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.”

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Please General Westmoreland, I Don’t Want To Go

A sense of dread.

That’s when the Spooks (CIA) gave you a set of Tiger Stripe fatigues, exchanged your M-16 for an AK-47, took away your I.D.’s and confiscated all personal items such as letters, wedding bands, rings, rosaries. These things might have been insignificant items to most people, but they were our only possessions. Items that kept us attached to home. A simple twist of a ring your best girl gave you took you back to a happier time.

Then, the Spooks briefed us on our mission, saying that a helicopter would transport us to our drop off point at 1800 (six p.m.) and retrieve us three days later at 0800 (eight a.m.). Be there if you’re alive or you won’t be picked up. There will be no search and rescue helicopter to retrieve your remains. At 1800, three helicopters would arrive, black with no markings, hovering ninety feet or better off the ground with cables dangling. The cables (McGuire Rigs) were our seats. We would strap ourselves into a cable harness and off we’d go - three of us, clinging to each other, dangling one hundred feet or more beneath the helicopters. The other grunts called us dopes on a rope. Cables were used so the helicopter didn’t have to land.

They would simply lower us into the jungle canopy and fly away. This normally meant we were working on the other side of the fence. But of course, we never did that. Can you say Laos? Can you say North Vietnam?

Can you say… WTF! You will not retrieve my remains? I’m Catholic for Christ’s sake; you have to.

I Can See Clearly Now

The Fog of War does not mean a battlefield shrouded in fog. It literally means the confusion of the moment. I always chuckle to myself whenever I hear that expression. No self-respecting soldier with an 11B MOS (Infantry Military Occupational Specialty) would ever say that. It obviously was made up by a Pentagon or White House hack writer. But it’s more polite than saying one’s visibility was impaired while standing in the middle of a shit storm.

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The Boogie Man Under your Bed

Irish Catholic Guilt You just think the Jews have guilt. No comparison! We Irish Catholics have guilt from eating potatoes on Fridays, and dreaming they are stuffed with bacon. How does the saying go? “Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.”

At one time, starting in the late seventies, I became afraid that God was going to get me for the mortal sins I had committed. The Ten Commandments, if not broken, were bent for sure. Some were out and out shattered to bits and pieces. In the Army, we were not taught to be animals; yet in Vietnam, animals we had become. Then, I became afraid that my daughter would one day find out that Dad had a dark side; Dad would no longer be a fairytale father in her eyes. In fact, Dad was the boogieman under the bed. I can’t say I would blame her for hating me. The first time I saw that hideous Beast it scared me shitless. I hated me. I was no better, no different than T. E. Lawrence. Just knowing that my inner Beast lurks below the surface is frightful.

I had completely surrendered my soul to the dark side. No resemblance, not even a trace of a Christian or a human could be detected...where did that innocent young boy of a summer past go?

My guilt was brought on, or surfaced, by the news of My Lai, the darkest hour of the Viet Nam War. My Lai was a small village in Quan Nagi Province where the US Army’s Americal Division operated. The area around My Lai was renowned to be sympathetic to the Viet Cong - a stronghold, heavily mined and booby trapped. The weeks prior to the massacre, the Americal Division had suffered many casualties from land mines and snipers. On that fateful day in March 1968, elements of Charlie Company entered the village on a search and destroy mission. After finding caches of weapons and resistance from the villagers, the frustrated US soldiers forced over three hundred unarmed women, children, and elderly people into a ditch and killed them. The thirty troops who participated in the killings were court-martialed. Charges were later dropped against all except Lt. William Calley, who served prison time.

He was, in my opinion, used as a scapegoat.

You had to have been there to appreciate our frustrations. At one point, I thought the entire country should be exterminated. There were so many My Lai incidents that America suffered an extreme guilt trip in the late seventies. Our government started seeking out and aggressively punishing, GIs caught up in the madness. I looked over my shoulder for years thinking the government might come after me for war crimes almost equal to those at 46

My Lai. Of course, as always Maria bitch-slapped me by saying, “Bryan, you didn’t go to war to make friends.” She probably has saved me from myself.

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Myths About Vietnam and Other Bullshit x Most Vietnam Veterans were drafted. “Two thirds of men who served were volunteers”; I was drafted, but enlisted for an additional year to receive specialized training. (Never said I was smart.) x More blacks were killed in combat. KIAs- “86% were Caucasians, 12% were African-Americans.” So there you go. The Bros in Vietnam had a joke that went something like this: “You know why so many Bros are KIA? Because whenever some Chuck hollered “Get Down,” the Bros stood up and started dancing.” x “The war was fought largely by the poor and undereducated.” OK, I will admit that I grew up Poor White, North Side, Shanty-Irish Trash and proud of it, but “79% [of us] had a high school education or better.” Almost all of the officers in the 101st Airborne Division were West Point grads. And it goes without saying that the Spooks I reported to were well-educated. x The average age of the grunt was nineteen. I don’t care what the song says, “Ni-Ni-Ni-Ni-Nineteen,” the average age was twenty-two. x The fighting was not as intense as in WW II. How many times have I heard that from people who were not in Vietnam? The truth is that an “average infantryman in the South Pacific during [the Big War] saw about forty days of combat in four years.” In Vietnam, we “saw about two hundred and forty days of combat in one year, thanks to the... helicopter.” x The U.S. lost the war in Vietnam. “Bullshit.” We never lost “a battle of any consequence”; “this includes Tet ‘68, which was a major military defeat for the NVA and VC.” “The South Vietnamese military lost the war after the U.S. Congress cut off funding. [They] ran out of fuel, ammunition, and other supplies due to lack of support. The North, however, was very well supplied by China and the Soviet Union.” Sound like today’s headlines? My wife, Maria, a naturalized American citizen, put it in perspective.

“Americans love their freedom, but no longer have the stomach for war and all that it entails in order to keep the freedom that, unfortunately, is nowadays taken for granted. Thank God today’s generation was not around during the American Revolution, or we would still have a monarchy.

Wait… maybe that’s the direction we are heading”.

The Sad and Disturbing Truth x x x

During the war, approximately 2,900,000 Americans served.

More than 58,000 were killed in combat.

To date, there have been 130,000 postwar suicides.

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x Countless numbers are affected by Agent Orange and Agent Purple. x The divorce rate is staggering, and the majority of homeless are combat vets. x Today (2012), there are approximately 800,000 combat veterans alive. x Vietnam combat veterans are dying at an alarming rate. 390 combat veterans die each day, approximately 16 per hour. x Oh, Shit! I’m typing as fast as I can.

source: Roush, Gary. “Statistics About the Vietnam War.” Vietnam Helicopter Flight Crew Network. 2 Jun 2008. Web. 19 Aug 2012.

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CHAPTER FIVE KNOCKING ON HEAVEN’S DOOR Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me.

- Emily Dickinson

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52

Life Is a One Night Stand

The dead.

I never got used to looking at the dead. They seemed small, so very small. No color, no presence; no life, no personality. Empty containers, ash gray in color. When death first comes, the lower extremities turn fish belly blue. The color creeps up from the chest and envelops the face like a mask, a gray mask, with no flesh tones. Even the Brothers turned gray.

I was In-Country only weeks when I saw my first. I stood there staring; I couldn’t turn my eyes away. It was only a torso really, and even though I knew what it was, I didn’t. He… It… had been, for lack of a better word, butterflied from a rocket blast. He had been turned inside out. All of his organs and muscles were exposed for the world to see. Beautiful, like threedimensional, abstract art. Someone walked by and said, “What’s wrong, have you never seen a dead dink before?” I silently mouthed No. It was like the first time I saw photographs of a naked woman. I could not turn away. I felt cheap, ashamed, embarrassed, and yet at the same time, strangely… aroused.

The First Time Ever

The first time I saw a fellow GI get shot and die made a profound impression on me, and that is an understatement. The poor kid caught it right between the eyes. He was standing next to me, and... have you ever had a moment of clarity during complete insanity? The world is circling around you at supersonic speed, you can’t grasp anything, and then abruptly, everything seems to go into slow motion. I swear I saw the impact as the bullet entered his forehead, then exploded out the back - all in slow motion.

I heard the bones in his skull crack over the rattle of M-16s and M-60 machine guns. The look on his face was one of absolute shock. It was if he had unexpectedly stepped into an abyss, wide eyed, mouth gaping, with unreserved astonishment. In that fraction of a second, his expression showed that he knew something was wrong, life-altering wrong. Death came to him almost instantaneously. Surely, he felt no pain. He never expressed it vocally, except for a small groan. He was knocked back onto his butt before he completely collapsed, with his last breath gushing out in a hoarse rattle.

Very unsettling.

I started freaking. TIME OUT! TIME OUT! STOP THE WAR! I was running in circles... tiny, tight circles: six inches to the left, then six inches to the right; six inches forward, then six inches backward; standing, squatting, standing. I didn’t know what to do. Do I tell someone?

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Do I go to the Lieutenant, tug on his shirt, and point out what happened?

Jesus, hasn’t anyone noticed? Am I the only one?

They had noticed, but it was life and death in the bush. They just looked over their shoulders at him and kept returning fire. They would deal with him later; he wasn’t going anywhere.

I had to do something. He was probably dead - hell, I knew he was dead, but maybe there was a chance I could bring him back. I squatted over him and held my hand over the wound in his forehead, ignoring the fact that the back of his head was missing and his eyes were sinking into the cavity that his brain had once occupied, and started screaming “Medic, Medic, Medic!” The Lieutenant hollered at me to snap out of it, get back on line, and return fire.

The dead soldier was the Medic.

Were You There When They Nailed Him To The Tree?

Sometimes, It Causes Me To Tremble On patrol, west-southwest of the city of Hue, twenty kilometers beyond the flat coastal prairie lands that were dotted with rice paddies, past the endless sea of elephant grass where the terrain became hilly, thighpunishing hilly, and where the thick forest began, we came across a captured GI who had been tortured. The scene was like a page torn from the Devil’s illustrated book of Hell. It was eerie, to say the very least - an area that was not meant for an Occidental to set eyes on, reserved only for the eyes of the Asians. Blue-green twilight filtered through the triple canopy. Gnarled tree roots and vines crawled over the ground, slippery black moss blanketed the rocks, and wisps of fog floated knee high. There were no sounds, other than the constant buzz of mosquitoes and the distant serenade of a songbird. Not even the Fuck You lizards were mocking us that afternoon, just that one little bird, singing its heart out. Nowadays, it gives me comfort to think that, perhaps, the unseen little bird was an angel tenderly calling the tortured GI’s soul to come home. I like to think so anyway. It’s funny that, although I was standing in the pit of Hell and the men around me were cursing God, I have vivid memories of that bird’s song.

God only knows what misery, and for how long, that poor GI endured.

He hung there. Crucified. Nailed to a tree. Bugged, lifeless eyes staring into oblivion. His arms were above his head, hands crossed and pinned to the tree with his own KA-BAR knife. The NVA had been skinning him alive for their own amusement. His flesh was an odd color, almost as if they had smoked him over an open-pit fire. The truth is, we couldn’t tell if he was white, brown, or black. He was dangling six inches off the ground, bloodstained 54

pants pulled down to his ankles. They had slit his throat only slightly, just deep enough to sever the vocal cords to mute his screams, but not deep enough to kill him. The last indignity they performed was to cut off his testicles and penis and shove them in his mouth. It was evident by his twisted, distorted face that they had left him hanging there without putting him out of his misery.

I stood there dumbfounded, frustrated, enraged, and ashamed. I was so embarrassed for him.

That was not to be the last time I saw dismemberment like that. Such cruel motherfuckers. And people wonder why some of us cut off ears and tongues.

Ugliness: There was plenty of that to go around; it was in the hearts of many.

Was it weeks, or only days later that I learned cruelty was contagious?

I also learned that I was not inoculated for it.

WHEN YOU GOT NOTHING, YOU GOT NOTHING

19 February 1968 - My first, but not last experience with close quarters combat.

I remember his body odor, soiled light yellow khaki uniform, sweat, body heat, sticky blood, bad breath, moans, grunts. The fear, panic, and hate in his eyes. We screamed, cussed, and insulted each other’s mother. It was an out and out street fight, no resemblance of classic medieval warfare, more like a girls cat fight - pulling hair, gouging eyes, biting, kicking, punching, and rolling around on the ground, pounding each other with broken bricks and shards of glass.

I remember his gentle facial features, flawless complexion, cold black hair, squinty black eyes. He was my age, or within a year or two, five inches shorter, wiry, but a mean son-of-a-bitch.

FLASH! Nothing but white.

My Big Chief red fire truck, with a silver bell and a string attached that I pulled to ring the bell, Dad, Mom, Uncle Earl, my brother, my blue Schwinn bicycle with red and white handle bar streamers, and a piece of cardboard fasten to the frame with a clothes pin so that as it rubbed against the spokes, it sounded like a car muffler, Quackers-my pet duck, sunset at the beach, tall pine trees, WHAT’S HAPPENING?

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Mrs. Christen-my second grade teacher; Joyce Bryant-first secret love; storm surf at Quintana beach; Sunnyside Teen Club, Brownie, Junior, McKay, I CAN’T BREATHE,

drag racing on North Shepherd, cruising Princess Drive-In on Jensen Drive, fish for dinner every Friday night, GASPING FOR A BREATH,

hum of an attic fan, eating ice-cream after my tonsils were removed, Go-Go dancers wearing bikinis in a night club window on South Main street, I CAN’T BREATHE SUCH PRESSURE ON MY THROAT,

my childhood home 3122 Turner Drive, little toy medal soldiers, the tiny sixteen year old whore,

I CAN’T BREATHE,

there was music playing, “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan, how many times had McKay and I listened to that song while sitting on the hood of my car in the parking lot of a teen club, “You said you’d never compromise with the mystery tramp, but now you realize he’s not selling any alibis as you stare into the vacuum of his eyes and say do you want to make a deal? How does feel, how does it feel to be on your own with no direction home like a complete unknown.”

My life was circling the drain. I’m fucking dead. Why? How could that be?

By the grace of God, the tide changes. The cracking of his trachea sounded like a corrugated pipe being crushed. I sat on top of him thinking, why... why couldn’t he, didn’t he… surrender? I was elated to be alive. Almost... pompous. If Dad could see me now.

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Chapter six SWIMMING in testosterone

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58

B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-Bad to the Bone

Our team of three emerged out of the low-hanging, wet valley fog into the brilliant, early morning sunlight two hundred meters from the first of three rolls of razor wire that surrounded the fire base. We were soaked to the bone and shivering; the warm tropical sun that baked the mountain top seemed Heaven-sent at the time. Even though I knew full well that I would be cussing the heat within an hour, at that moment it was a welcome change from the cold valley fog.

Traversing to our left along the outer perimeter, passing sand-bagged bunkers that bristled with machine guns, Claymore mines, and manned by haggard, sleepy GIs, we made our way to the entrance gate manned by ARVN security. That was laughable - ARVN security. The four of us entered without being challenged - that is, unless you call wide-eyed stares by young, frightened boys a challenge.

We had been in the valley for three days on a hunt and being successful gave us that little extra something to hump up the mountain. Filthy, tired, hungry, boots and pants caked with red mud, hands and weapons bloodsplattered, faces blacked with charcoal, boonies hats pulled down tight or pushed back on our heads, we silently marched in a single file through the compound, seeing all, seeing nothing, through bloodshot eyes. Exhausted, yet too wired for sleep, the four of us marched. GIs came out of their bunkers, some stood in doorways, half-dressed, with toothbrushes sticking out of their mouths. Others, dressed in full combat gear, lined the path we were steadily walking, looking on in amazement as if we were a holiday parade. Even the gunners left their big 155mm howitzers to watch us. None would make direct eye contact with us.

We shamelessly took the long route to headquarters. Not unlike Lawrence of Arabia, prancing on the streets of Aqaba, or as Caesar had done, bathing in the glory of his triumphal procession through the gates of Rome with exotic beasts of the Far East in tow. We, too, marched with pride. No one strew our path with roses, nor did bare-breasted virgins embrace us with a wet kiss, but nevertheless, we paraded our trophy. A singular NVA soldier, dressed in fresh khakis, rucksack, pith helmet, and sandals, blindfolded, hog-tied with a rope leash around his neck as if he were a wild beast.

From the time we had entered through the security gate, I listened for it with hearing as acute as it had been on the valley floor. Do we have to make another trip around the firebase to hear our accolades?

Wait for it. . . Wait for it. . . and then it was said, “BAD MOTHERFUCKERS!�

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I’ve Seen England, I’ve Seen France, I See…

Panties Lacy cotton panties. To this day, I cannot believe my good luck. Buddha smiled on me. I had just gotten out of the hospital and needed to catch a flight out to a fire control base. At Division Headquarters’ main helicopter pad, I saw a group of Donut Dollies waiting for a helicopter. So, being unbashful me, I asked the little honeys where they were going. As it turned out, and because of my good Irish luck, they were also flying to the same location.

Let me tell you about Donut Dollies, the first women officially allowed in a combat zone. How they came to be called Donut Dollies is a mystery to me; they never served me a donut, but they did have gallons of coffee and Kool-Aid to offer. They were a branch of the Red Cross: fresh college grads who I’m guessing may have volunteered for this duty to pay off government loans, and to see the world. For whatever reason, they were there, and they served at bases across the country, lifting spirits, helping with day to day needs of the troops, and providing what they called “A touch of home in a combat zone.” They were the girl next door: cheerful, bright, energetic, well-educated girls that we soldiers could laugh with and talk to, and who would help us forget about the war for awhile. They helped and encouraged us to write letters home and entertained the troops with games such as Scrabble®, cards, or dominos - games that no one wanted to play. We just wanted to talk to an American woman. The sad part was that we really had nothing to talk to them about.

One encounter with the DD’s was at The Rock Pile, a Marine Combat Fire Base. I had just gotten out of a helicopter; it was one of those flights where no one smoked or talked. We just stared at our boots, and silently screamed. There had been a lethal six hour firefight near the DMZ, where we had had our asses kicked. Just twelve of us in a huge Marine Air Jolly Green Giant helicopter, sitting amongst the KIA, with not one wounded Marine to care for. As soon as we had landed and departed the aircraft, our weapons were taken from us, and we were told there were refreshments if we cared for them. Refreshments! Refreshments! That was so typical of Vietnam, the land of contrast. “Death, followed by refreshments served on the Veranda at zero-fifteen-hundred.”

As we walked away from the LZ, we passed a tent that had all four canvas sides rolled up, and inside were six Donut Dollies smiling and waving at us. One tiny, cute, fresh-faced girl walked out smiling ear to ear, holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a glass of Kool-Aid in the other: “Hey soldier, I bet a cup of hot coffee or a cold Kool-Aid would taste real good 60

about right now.” A Marine behind me went nuts. He turned blood red, and started slobbering and stammering like a Tasmanian Devil. He couldn’t get the words out fast enough as he verbally assaulted her: “Look at me, you blind bitch! I’m not a fucking soldier, I’m a Marine; all my friends are dead.

Take your coffee and shove it up your lily white ass.” The young lady in the freshly starched dress of blue, dropped the drinks, fell to her knees, slumped back onto her heels, hung her head, and began to cry. At any other time, the eleven of us who had witnessed her youthful innocence being destroyed might have gone to her defense, but there was a Jolly Green Giant helicopter full of dead Marines who would never see another Donut Dolly.

Back to my favorite story: The five of us climb aboard the helicopter, and the crew chief has these four young Donut Dollies sit side-by-side in a row facing the front of the aircraft. I kind of guessed what was going on, so I sat on the floor between the two door-gunners. After being airborne for ten minutes or so, the girls start enjoying the scenery and cool breeze: smiling, giggling, sitting very ladylike with their knees and feet so tight together it was if they were glued, their little baby blue button-up dresses pulled down as far as they could stretch them. They were holding their arms above their heads with their eyes closed, absorbing every ounce of cool air drying the perspiration from their lily-white bodies. At that moment, our crew chief raps on the back panel; pilot and co-pilot both turn around grinning like Jackasses, and then the pilot turns the helicopter sideways.

But before I continue, let me tell you about the pilot. I swear he looked like Yosemite Sam. Of course, I couldn’t see his hair because of his helmet, but he had this huge, red, handlebar mustache and big, blue, bloodshot eyes.

In addition to his comic book appearance, he laughed like a maniac.

Okay, the pilot turned the helicopter sideways so that, with both doors open, wind rushed in at one hundred miles-per-hour. The dresses on these fine young ladies climbed up to their necks, exposing all eight hooters and their southerly charms. Good God!!! PANTIES, WHITE COTTON LACY PANTIES!!! SOME TRIMMED IN BLUE LACE, SOME IN PINK LACE!!!

As hard as they tried, there was no pulling those little dresses down. Wow! Thirty uninterrupted minutes of looking at All American white cotton lacy panties, fluttering in the breeze, a simple pleasure of life. Oh, why had I not sent off for a pair of x-ray glasses like the ones advertised in the back of Dell comic books?

One Is The Loneliest Number 61

I was once asked about a grunt’s time spent in Vietnam. Not the twelve month tour of duty, which equated to three-hundred and sixty-five days or fifty-two weeks, but rather that one second that changed my life. Sitting down and thinking about it, a flood of memories flashed by. I chose to write about the one second, on a rainy Thursday afternoon at age twenty-one, that I spent on a whore’s belly.

My God, it was wonderful. I had been In-Country almost three months and by all accounts, I was seasoned in combat. I had killed many and had witnessed the death of many more, but I had never lain with a woman. And claiming that she was a woman is an exaggeration. Perhaps she was sixteen.

She had the body of a twelve year old - small breasts and a blush of pubic.

She was so young. What was she doing there? She should have been playing with dolls. I guessed she was a war orphan from a small village and had gone to the big city to earn money to provide for her siblings.

Watching her disrobe was exciting. I had never seen a real live nude woman. I had seen flashes of flesh in the back seat of my car, but not naked breasts that I could actually touch without getting slapped. Without taking my eyes off her, I slowly, casually took my clothes off, taking time to neatly fold my pants and shirt, wanting that moment to last forever. It took all I had not to rip my clothes from my body. I left my boots on because I was embarrassed of the foot odor.

She was beautiful. Maybe not Miss America or Miss Saigon, but she was naked and beautiful to me. One of the things I remember most was how gullible I had been. She was vertical, not horizontal, as I had been led to believe that Asia women were. For real, that was the first thing I wanted to see. Lying down next to her, I realized how tiny she was. I’m not a big guy. I weighed one hundred and seventy pounds and was five-foot-nine at that time, but next to me she was so small, doll like.

I started by giving her little baby kisses on her neck, kissing my way down to her tummy with little soft kisses around her navel, and then I kissed up to her nipples. I gave them little caressing nibbles and tugs, pulling at them with my lips. She grabbed my face and pushed it away. In broken English, she more or less told me I had paid three dollars, and it wasn’t to kiss. I was embarrassed. I wanted to be gentle. And wasn’t that what I was supposed to do, foreplay? I was also insulted. It was my three bucks. I wanted my money’s worth.

She pulled me on top of her and inserted me. It was disastrous. Within a second of entry, I exploded! I was so full of twenty-one years of stored up precious bodily fluids, that it almost drove her ovaries up to her brain. A big grin spread across my face, and I had to suppress a giggle. Giggle hell, it was a giant “Whoo-Hoo” I held within. I wanted to run through the streets of 62

Hue naked, waving my hands over my head, screaming that I had scored, went the distance. From now on I would be called King Cutter, The Dude, Stud, A Bang Brother. It was a proud moment in my life. Better than an Eagle Scout getting a merit badge, I guarantee you. I wondered if I should take her to dinner; should I send flowers? At the very least, I should learn her name. The look on her face was one of shock and disbelief. My emotions were satisfaction and jubilation. I was there to please myself, not her. She slapped my naked butt and said, “I no like short time. You Boom-Boom no good.” How many times in my life have I have heard that?

The Summer of ‘69

C-Ration peaches There has never been anything more delicious than canned peaches.

Men would save a can in the event that it would be their last meal, but we almost always fed them to a wounded soldier or gave them to a hungry child.

There was a ritual involved in eating the peaches. Those of us affected with the peach fetish did not just gobble them down; they were to be savored with erotic fervor. I would take the can opener (P-38, John Wayne) that hung on a chain with my dog tags and open the can lid three quarters of the way. I’d bend back the lid, then, with my eyes closed, caress the can with both hands. I’d raise it to my lips as though I were slipping on a surgical mask - so close that the tip of my nose touched the liquid. After long, deep breaths, inhaling the rich fragrance, I’d slowly slurp the thick nectar. Warm syrup coating my mouth, slowly trickling down my throat. Tongue lapping the juices and tickling the sides of the can. Then, I would suck out one peach slice at a time, gently caressing each with my tongue, slightly nibbling, letting it dissolve in my mouth, then slide down my throat. After the can was sadly empty, I would lick it until there was nothing but a tinny taste. Oh my, what sensuous gratification.

My life had degenerated to that. In a horrible place, at a horrible time in my life, canned fruit was my substitute for cunnilingus. I was amorous, starry-eyed, and hopelessly in love with a tin can. The real treat was hours later, when I licked my lips and the corners of my mouth and got that surprise peach taste again. Damn, I’m getting aroused just thinking about it.

War Is Hell 63

Don’t you see? There were two of me: the me you love and the me that the beast consumed. There are two of me, as there are two of every soldier that has tasted combat.

Three little words - War Is Hell - uttered by the American Civil War General William T. Sherman. Three words describing war made famous by history books and Hollywood. Most people mistakenly believe that the good general was speaking of the destruction of property, material and man, but it’s far from the truth. In reality, he spoke of what occurs when the savage beast that lurks within all of us is unleashed by the events of combat, when man becomes a savage beast so vile that his own mother would not recognize him. Traditionally society has released combatants from the bonds of the Fifth Commandment (Thou shall not kill). The question remains though, has God? What this brings to mind is the event on January, 2012, when several US Marines were photographed/videoed urinating on the remains of a dead enemy soldier. Our Secretaries of State and Defense went absolutely ape shit making statements equating those young men to the likes of Ted Bundy the serial killer, and the incident equal to the Massacre at Wounded Knee or My Lai. Calling for military justice and not being satisfied until the young men were hung by their necks until dead.

Can you imagine Americans during WW II being asked to be angry at such a stunt? Those were the days of my parents, when words like victory and success were on every Americans lips, and there were no other options to consider. Our fighting men were actually expected to win wars at all cost back then. Imagine that. I say it’s time for everyone to take a chill pill and put this embarrassing urination video into perspective.

My assumption is that the urinating episode took place shortly after a fierce firefight, when adrenalin was pulsing through their veins, and testosterone was pouring out of the ears of the young Marines. A stupid thing to do? Yes. But you should put yourself in their position before you judge them. Every imaginable super charged endorphin emotion surged through their bodies, competing for dominance. It’s obvious that hate and anger were the winners that January day. Ahhh, the sweet taste of revenge.

Getting back to our dysfunctional government and our War on Terror.

Oh I’m sorry, it’s now politely referred to as “Overseas Contingency Operation.” What a crock of shit. Judging by the reactions of senior government officials and many in the media, you would think that heads had been taken and body parts mutilated by those young Marines. And have you ever noticed that the people who cry the loudest for heads to be taken and severe punishment be dealt have never worn a military uniform?

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In Vietnam, we (yes, myself included) collected ears and tongues as war trophies. I understand that in Korea and in the South Pacific during WWII, it was ball sacks and skulls. During the American Indian Wars, it was scalps and squaws’ breasts to be tanned and used as a tobacco bags. In the American Civil War, fingers were the trophies of choice. And the list goes on and on, back to the Crusades when gold-filled teeth were soldiers’ pay. Don’t for one minute think that American Soldiers have not been dismembered as war trophies.

How soon our news media at home has forgotten about our captured GI’s and Marines being decapitated, and then the video of their horrendous murders and blood curdling screams being posted on the Internet by the AlQaeda.

All I have to say is “War Is Hell... But Combat Is A Motherfucker.” So Semper Fi... and Piss on ‘em.

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CHAPTER seven MANDATORY SUICIDE The Day Destroys the Night A great sadness and loneliness hovered over me

every hour of the day and night, and by God, how I wished I were home.

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Shit, The Cherry Done Busted His Cherry

Virginity I remember everything, every single detail about losing my virginity. It was Christmas Eve, 1967. It took place in a small village, in a tiny hut, ten miles south of the DMZ, a half hour before sunset. A small monsoon shower had swept through earlier in the afternoon, the air was heavy from the humidity, and the mud stuck to my boots like glue. She was a screamer, about thirty years old, short black hair and pretty in a hard way. She could not have weighed more than ninety pounds and was shouldering a twelvepound weapon. I didn’t hesitate.

It was my first day with a combat platoon and I was green - so green, in fact, that someone could have torched me, and I would not have burned.

From a distance of two kilometers, my platoon saw two armed men run into a village, so we gave chase. After sweeping through the village, we started going from hut to hut, looking for the men and/or a weapons stash. I went into a hut by myself, which was really stupid. I’m not sure why I did it. I guess because I was a newly-minted NCO and felt the need to prove myself to the GIs I was supposed to be leading. I ducked into the small entrance, weapon at the ready, as if I were John Wayne, when this young woman turned toward me, pointing an AK-47.

I dropped to one knee, not because it might be a classic firing position, but more or less to play Superman and dodge any speeding bullets coming my way. As I dropped, I opened up with a short burst of automatic fire, three rounds, one hitting her in the shoulder and the other two going God knows where. I was not prepared for what followed.

When someone is shot in the movies, they fall down and that is the end.

That’s how it had worked when I was a child playing Army or Cowboys and Indians. But, instead, my tiny wounded VC woman went completely ballistic, screaming and screaming, blood squirting from her wound, and flailing her good arm above her head as if she was swatting off hornets. She ran around the small hut trying to find a way to escape me. She ran for the entrance but missed it, running into a wall instead. Then, remarkably, she started kicking at the wall like a donkey, all the while screaming and slobbering. I was in a corner of the hut, cowering down in a ball and freaking-out, horrified. What had I done? Did I make a mistake? Was I in trouble? Was I going to be court-martialed?

Squatting, rolled up in a tight ball, my arms wrapped around me, I wanted to cover my eyes and ears to make the insanity go away. I mentally reverted back to two incidents of my childhood that were of the same fear factor.

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The first was on a hot August afternoon. My buddies and I were walking the drainage ditch that ran next to my house, gigging bullfrogs and tormenting birds with BB guns. Whatever possessed me to do what I did next is a mystery to me, even to this day. For the hell of it, I picked up a tin can that had washed downstream and threw it up in the air. What goes up must come down, and the can hit my best friend, Billy Price, on the top of his head. As blood poured from the gash, I became queasy and everything went white. I started seeing spots and sweating profusely. I couldn’t stand up and had to sit to avoid passing out. You would have thought that I was the one that had been injured.

Then there was another memory, from junior high school, after a track meet. After running my three events, I had taken off my track shoes, stupidly wrapped them together, spikes out, and thrown them in the ditty bag that I shared with my buddy Tommy Rust. I then collapsed under the shade of a Live Oak tree, trying to recover from the mid-May heat and my three sprinting races. Tommy came staggering up, white as a sheet after completing his mile race. The first thing he did was grab the ditty bag that we shared, throw it down by the tree I was sitting under, and flop his ass down on top of it. The blood-curdling scream he let out was... I’ll just say I never want to hear anything like that again. He jumped up, but the bag was attached to his backside. All sixteen of the spikes from one of my track shoes were impaled in his butt and lower left thigh.

Besides hurting my very best friends, I was terrified after each of these episodes at the prospect of getting my ass torn up by my dad when he found out about my stupid deeds.

And now this! What had I done? I knew right away that a band-aid and a little iodine weren’t going to fix her. She was screaming; I was screaming. If the phrase “I didn’t know whether to shit or go blind” ever fit a situation, it was then. I was paralyzed with fear.

She kicked her way out of the hut, climbed through the new entrance she had created, and collapsed to the ground outside. I finally gathered up enough intestinal fortitude to follow her. She was on her side, kicking her legs, going around in a circle like a break-dancer, still screaming. I watched her do her dance of agony and then approached her, I’m not sure why... perhaps to administer first aid. As I got within reach, she kicked me in the groin. Within a flash, I got sick to my stomach and was completely bent over, paralyzed in pain. She somehow got to her feet and started beating me with her good arm. I stood up and hit her harder than I had ever hit a man, knocking her to the ground. As she collapsed, I popped her with three more rounds, one missing, one hitting her in the back of her neck, and the other striking her in the head. Her left jawbone cart-wheeled across the dirt path.

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Her head exploded back on to me. I wasn’t prepared for that. Nothing in life, and no amount of training the Army had given me, had prepared me for that explosion.

I went into an uncontrollable panic, quivering as if I was being electrocuted. I started screaming like a little girl, EEW, GET IT OFF ME, GET IT OFF ME! I dropped my weapon and started wiping and scooping her matter off of me with my bare hands. I couldn’t get it off fast enough.

Scrubbing like a mad man, I wiped my face on my shoulder and got a taste of her in my mouth. No amount of spitting, gagging and wiping my lips would eradicate the taste. I was already queasy from being kicked in the balls. I started vomiting: first, down on my hands and knees, then, near dehydration, face down in the mud, blood, and vomit, with my butt arched up like a cat. Retching. I remember, or I was told, that a black soldier with a hell of a lot more experience than I had stood over me and said, mostly for his own entertainment, “Shit, the cherry done busted his cherry. It’s better than sex, ain’t it white boy.”

I’ll Be Home For Christmas

25 December 1967 Mentally... I was absent that day. I did nothing but think about the woman I had killed the day before and the significance of Christmas day. I went about playing soldier, going through all the motions, humping up and down hills, setting up ambushes for more killing, more senseless killing. But who was she, what about her mom and dad? Did she have a husband, children, brothers and sisters? I smelled her blood all day, there was no escaping it. I was covered in it, a semi-sweet, sickening, putrid copper smell.

I thought of Christmas as a child, mentally searching for a fond memory, but only remembering the scars of a depressing childhood. Which was the most depressing? Perhaps the times when my intoxicated parents would get into fist fights, serious fist fights. Or the time my older teenage brother, drunk from Irish whiskey stolen from our uncle, locked himself in the bathroom and announced that he was going to kill himself? Of course, his only available weapon was a tube of toothpaste. In the end, the police were called and they broke into the bathroom, only to find my brother passed out in the tub.

Then there was the time my drunken parents passed out in bed with a lit cigarette. The mattress caught fire, but fortunately, they woke in time to drag it outside. In the process, they caught the Christmas tree on fire. Now, 71

instead of glistening snow and Reindeer paw prints on our front lawn, we had a smoldering mattress and a charred Christmas tree, complete with lights, melted silver icicles, and broken ornaments.

But by far, the memory that cut the deepest was the year that my brother, older by nine years, took it upon himself to tell me there was no Santa Claus. What?!!! I cried and screamed as if I’d lost an arm. Our mom rushed to me and, once I could catch my breath, wiped my snotty nose on her housedress. I told her, with heaving breaths, what dreadful news I had been given. I was heartbroken. Mom beat the living daylights out of my brother, telling him that he was an SOB (an ironic truism, don’t you think?) for doing that to me. These recollections of my less-than-ideal childhood made me even more depressed.

And now, for the first time, I had taken another human life. I’m not ashamed to tell you that I cried, more for myself than for the woman’s blood that I had spilled the previous day. From that day forward, every hardship, every death - and there were many - pushed me further away from God. After all, He had forsaken me, in that God-forsaken land. I questioned His existence. This was no loving, all-forgiving God. He was to be my point man as I walked through the valley of death, was He not? What’s next? Would I discover that Jesus was a myth, like the Easter Bunny?

Only after I married Maria, and because of her strong religious conviction, did I start attending Mass. I started to believe again, and began to be thankful for all I had been given. The birth of our daughter, Bianca, certainly erased any doubt that I might have had about the existence of a supreme being.

I might just be the luckiest person I know. Because of the two most important women in my life, I have been able to accept and embrace a forgiving God, a loving God, and experience the true joy of Christmas.

Seeing the happiness on my daughter’s face and the magic of Santa that danced in her bright, dark eyes on those Christmas mornings of her youth, has enabled me to make peace with my childhood innocence, and the faith... that died... in that small muddy village... in that tiny hut... ten miles south of the DMZ... on Christmas Eve... so many years ago.

Moonlight Through The Pines

By late December of 1968, most of the original troops of the 101st Airborne Division had rotated back home. Having another two months left to serve on my fifteen-month sentence, I was assigned the pleasant little duty of training new officers, familiarizing them with my area of operations in I 72

Corps. I was temporarily attached to a Platoon of the 1st of the 501st Infantry Company, and my main purpose was to keep the young, over-zealous LTs from shelling friendly villages or ARVN forces operating in the same area.

We were fifteen klicks northwest of Hue in a beautiful forest of typical Southeast Asian trees. There was one particular type of tree whose roots grew above the ground, which we incorrectly referred to as Banyan or Gook Trees. The truth is, we referred to everything we didn’t know the correct name of as “gook.” Even the cute little Heinz 57 puppies were called gook dogs. Not cats, however. I guess they were called delicious. Among this forest of Gook trees, in the absolute middle of nowhere, was a mini-forest of beautiful, graceful pines, and the surrounding forest floor was covered with fallen pine needles. I had been to this location several times before, but for the first time, maybe because it wasn’t the rainy season and the needles were dry, or perhaps because it was late December, it smelled of Christmas back home. It was reminiscent of the afternoons I had spent tromping through an East Texas forest in search of mistletoe. I had learned earlier during my tour of duty that, in ancient times, whenever a king or someone of great importance had died, someone was sent out into the forest to plant a pine tree in their honor.

It was noon, time to choke down a little lunch, and the heat was horrendous under the trees - damn near too hot to eat. Adding to our discomfort was the blinding, high noon sunlight glaring through the tree canopy, an extreme mix of harsh light and shadows. Most guys sought out shade under the large trees to take a nap. The new recruits had their first unpleasant experience with forest leeches. Capt. Lone busied himself preparing our lunch, cutting off a chunk of C-4 explosive and using it to start a small, intense fire for boiling rice. Lt. Phong dug through my C-Rations for something to mix with it. He first grabbed a can of Chicken Cum (Scrambled Eggs). I told him I would put a bullet between the eyes if he used it. He blushed and smiled sheepishly. He knew full well I was kidding, but again, he had witnessed my dark side. Phong said that sliced beef would be just fine.

I was sitting on my flak jacket in the sun, kicked back, spread eagle with my pants pulled down, completely naked from my ankles up, doctoring and drying the crotch-rot sores that were eating away at my little buddy and the boys, while watching two GIs thirty feet across from me play a game of grab ass. One, whose rank was Specialist-Fourth Class, had been in-country maybe six months and looked much older than his years. He obviously had seen a lot of combat. The other fellow was a fresh replacement trooper everyone called New Kid. He had survived a month in the bush, so he had been promoted from Cherry and NFG (New Fucking Guy) to New Kid. The 73

next step was for someone to actually care what his name was. He was from . . . well, the truth is, I never learned where he was from or what his name was. I’m guessing he was from Minnesota. He looked it, probably a farm boy. He had a Viking look about him, small in stature, muscular, alabaster white complexion with rosy cheeks, green eyes as translucent as a cat’s, and a shock of blond hair. Even with his hair cut short in the airborne fashion, you could tell how thick it was. He had more hair than the law should allow.

Actually, it was more yellow than blond, and he reminded me of a tennis ball. I thought that would be a great nick-name for him, “Yo, Tennis Ball!”

Well, Tennis Ball was playing grab ass (horsing around) with his best bud, the Spec-4. I’m sure the game has a name, but maybe not. It’s when you sit directly across from your opponent with both of your mouths open, and you and your opponent try to dart your index fingers into each other’s mouths while locked in eye-to-eye contact. The purpose of the game is to bite your opponent’s finger, and not have your finger bitten. Whew! What a tough explanation.

Capt. Lone, Lt. Phong, and I were sitting in a circle, starting to eat our rice concoction, when we heard Tennis Ball scream at the top of his lungs.

While playing their little game, Tennis Ball was too slow at withdrawing his finger, and his buddy had bitten the shit out of him. He jumped up, stuck his bloody hand between his legs and hopped out into the clearing, cursing his friend. We were laughing at him when there was an explosion. Tennis Ball was knocked backward, onto his ass.

It turns out that one of the NFGs was cleaning his weapons and had cleared his M79 grenade launcher without realizing it was loaded. The projectile hit Tennis Ball, penetrating his chest cavity directly below the sternum. Tennis Ball was on his back, arms extended above his head, holding his bloody finger, crying in pain, convulsing and asking what had happened while kicking his legs in agony. As his buddy and a green LT rushed in to administer first aid, I screamed at them to get away from him. “It’s a live fucking grenade. He’s fucking dead.” The thing about M79 rounds is that, once they leave the barrel, they have to rotate so many times before they are armed to explode. I had no clue how many times, and I didn’t know how many times the round that hit Tennis Ball had rotated.

The LT quickly scurried away, but Tennis Ball’s buddy stayed by his side, speaking to his friend in a soft tone, consoling him, wiping tears from his cheeks, and making false promises. Then they did the most remarkable thing. They stood up together, and the Specialist-Fourth Class held Tennis Ball in a bear hug, then waltzed him into the shade of the beautiful stand of pines.

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On crisp autumn days, when the scent of burning pine needles hangs heavily in the air and blue-white smoke weaves its way through the tree limbs on its skyward journey, I think of those young men. Two paratroopers, with silver wings pinned on their chests.

The Specialist-Fourth Class lay crumpled and smoldering over the gook tree roots, pine needles ablaze. Tennis Ball was draped over the tree limbs.

We never found his head. And to add insult to injury, their families didn’t receive Purple Hearts on behalf of their sons; it was considered “friendly fire.”

Paranoia Strikes Deep

Standing next to Highway One, twenty miles southwest of Quan Tri, ten thousand miles west, and three weeks away from home. Gazing across the rich, green rice paddies at the ragged mountains enveloped in fog. I was captivated by the sight of thick fog, cascading like a lazy river, rolling slowly down the sides of the mountains. Remnants of the late afternoon light had taken on an eerie blue cast under heavy monsoon clouds. The unrelenting, drizzling mist was maddening, adding to my anxiety, as I kept wiping my face with a soiled bandana. I was sweating profusely, not so much from the heat and humidity, but from stress. I had an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if I were going to be sick. Had someone kicked me in the nuts? I was bent over, my hands on my waist, taking deep breaths and exhaling through puckered lips. I was in anguish about crossing the rice paddies, thinking of the miseries and lethal surprises they held: leeches, snakes, disease-carrying mosquitoes, and Bouncing Betty land mines. The paddies were ideal killing fields with trees on three sides - perfect for crossfire ambushes. The dikes offered little or no protection. My heart was in my throat. I was terrified, consumed with paranoia. I had been in-county for over fourteen months, and fretting that my luck had run out, I started vomiting.

We saddled up and started our journey, a spread-out formation, our combat team of three walking single file across the muddy dikes. Capt. Lone walked point, I was the slack man, and Lt Phong brought up the rear of our three-man caravan. As we began, the skies grew even darker. Lightning lit the evening sky. Thunder rumbled above the rice paddies, announcing in a sadistic voice that we were screwed again. Heavy, stinging rain pelted us, giant drops splashed the stagnant rice paddy water four inches high and melted the earthen dikes.

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Each arduous step became more grueling than the last. The stench of human feces released with every boot step. Lt. Phong kept repeating “Cac” (Vietnamese for shit) over and over, as we sloshed across an ancient cesspool. Our lungs labored for the next breath, I was as white as a sheet, and every breath of air raced through my body to feed my starving lungs. I was afraid that I might go into cardiac arrest. The dikes were in full meltdown, and each step sank almost knee deep into the primitive toilet.

Bunched up, all military discipline was a distant memory as we struggled, pulling, tugging each other out of the feces quicksand. The thought that I might die, and that one day my remains would be recovered and sent home to my mother encased in a turd, crossed my mind. The devil stared talking to me, and I started doubting my physical abilities. My lungs were killing me, my heart was pounding. I had been sapped of all strength. It would have been so easy to lie back and submerge into that shit bath, sinking to the bottom. The rigorous Airborne All The Way training I had been given was the only thing that saved me -- “Don’t give up, hang tough.”

Finally reaching the edge of the forest, the three of us were caked in gooey sludge. Slimy shit-mud oozed out of our boots. The rain became even more intense as it washed forest leeches, maggots, and all sorts of nastiness out of the forest. We wheezed, mucus stringing from our nostrils. Lt Phong gave me a disgusted look, then plucked a revolting shit leech from my cheek.

The three of us, for the longest time, stared at the forest. The worst was yet to come. Beyond the paddies loomed the dark mountain forest, and within that forest was a small village. I carried a black Ace of Spades (a death card) with a person’s name. I knew what awaited me. I didn’t know my fate, but I knew what I must do. I was so sick and weary of killing.

Sent Me Off To Vietnam, To Go and Kill The Yellow Man… Born in the USA

Thirty seven CKs: At the end of my tour, 37 Charlie Kilos. It seemed like so many more. There were many more. Charlie Kilo is Army-speak for “confirmed kills.” The CKs went into your service record if they were witnessed by an officer or confirmed by other means. I got to use that gruesome number later in life when my daughter and her boyfriend, who were both seventeen at the time, asked permission to go to Galveston’s Mardi Gras for the weekend. I looked her boyfriend directly in the eye with an icy cold stare, almost a thousand-yard stare, and I told him, “Yes, but son, you have to understand that you are traveling with precious cargo. I will hold you directly responsible if any little thing happens to her. I need to tell 76

you that I have, by my own hand, killed thirty-seven men and will not hesitate to make it thirty-eight.� I was being halfhearted in my threat.

However, I found out years later from his mom that I had scared the shit out of him and perhaps had even scarred him for life.

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CHAPTER eight S.N.A.F.U.

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Well, I Guess You Had To Be There

Humor Perhaps I should say lack of humor. It was as if I flew in from another planet. Very few appreciated my humor, not unlike today. On occasion, a CIA officer would respond to one of my wisecracks - a week later, when I saw him again, by shaking his head and repeating the joke. I could write a chapter on my sarcastic remarks.

Nothing was sacred, just as it had been with our fathers and grandfathers before us (“Kilroy was here”). We had our own graffiti. Inscribed on Zippo lighters or written and drawn on our helmets were cartoon characters such as Charlie Brown humping Lucy, Snoopy humping Lucy, Charlie, Snoopy, and Lucy in a three-way, or Lucy pregnant with her speech balloon saying “Goddamn you, Charlie Brown.” Another popular one was Snoopy lying on his back, on top of his doghouse, with his balloon saying, “Fuck it, I’m short.”

Then we had the little sayings: “When I die I’ll go to Heaven because I served my time in Hell.”

“When I die, bury me face down so the world can kiss my ass.”

“If I die in a combat zone, box me up and send me home.”

“The wind in Vietnam doesn’t blow. Like everything else, it sucks.”

“Let me win your heart and mind, or I will burn your Goddamn hut down.”

“Death is our business, and business is good.”

“Ours is not to do or die; ours is to smoke and stay high.”

“If you don’t know what Hell is like, fuck with me and find out.”

“I love the fucking Army, and the Army loves fucking with me.”

The one for the religious GIs: “Yea, thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, because I am the meanest Motherfucker in the valley.”

Our moms would have been so proud of us.

Dark Humor -

“I never really felt anything when it came to killing, except maybe rifle recoil.” Sorry, that was an old and sick joke. Sure, I had my personal terror to contend with and it was huge… HUGE. It was GI dark humor that kept us sane. We built walls between our morals and reality with sick humor.

“Man, did you see his fucking head explode? He is going to have one big-ass headache tomorrow.”

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“Going to make you a Napalm Charlie, Bar-B-Q Gook for dinner tonight, boys.”

“You wonder where the yellow went, when you napalm the Orient.”

“He’s one Crispy Critter.”

Really Dark Humor -

Laurence, a CIA officer that I had worked with on several missions, received a promotion and was posted to a new station in Bangkok. It was a real cushy nine-to-five desk job. His replacement, Sherman, who was his best friend and had gone through the farm with him, thought it would be hilarious to package up and send his buddy a severed head. You can’t mosey down to the PX and pick one up or acquisition one through general supplies, so good old Sherman asked me to acquire one on my next hunting trip. I’ve got to admit, it was a strange request, even by Vietnam standards. I eventually attained one, but it took a while; after all they don’t grow on trees. It was then boxed up and sent off to Bangkok for Laurence. The humor being, what do you do with a head? You can’t just drop it into your wastebasket. Well, I thought it was funny at the time. I found out later that this was becoming a common thing for the Spooks to do to their buddies.

Washington got word of it, went ape-shit, and shut it down. I must say that it was a heady experience.

A Classic Drunk -

A couple of fellow paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division and I got really shit-faced one evening. We decided we needed Mohawk haircuts, thinking it would be so retro, reminiscent of WWII paratroopers in the D Day invasion. The commanders went ballistic when they saw us and made us shave our heads. But that was about the worst they could do to us. After all, they couldn’t send us to Vietnam.

Are You Fucking With Me?

Well fuck me! The world seemed to have turned upside down.

We were just a little bit south of the city of Quan Tri, walking through a French bunker complex we had just routed a squad of NVA from. One of the GI’s with the combat platoon I was working with that week must have stepped on a trip wire detonating a bobby trap. A brick, rock, body part, can of Spam or God knows what hit me in the back of my head and drove me to my knees.

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Immediately, I had a massive headache, my vision went blurry and, as always, I imagined I was hemorrhaging and my brains were running out of my ears.

I asked a Medic “How bad is it doc? “ He said that I wasn’t really bleeding, and there didn’t look like there was any damage, but my right eye…

“My eye, what’s wrong with my eye?”

He said “Well, it’s...”

“It’s what?” I asked.

He said “It’s dangling out of the socket!”

“It’s dangling out of the socket?” Immediately, I reached up to cup it in my hand.

He assured me it was no big deal, and told me to lie back and he would push it into place with his thumb… shouldn’t hurt a bit.

I screamed, “You’re going to use your filthy-ass hands?”

Again he assured me it would be OK. “Just lie back, close your eyes and don’t look.”

I couldn’t believe my fucking ears. “Don’t look? Don’t fucking look?

Close my eyes and don’t fucking look? In case you haven’t fucking noticed doc, my fucking eye, is in my fucking hand. Close my fucking eyes? How in the fuck do I do that?”

Captain Zippo

Everyone carried a Zippo lighter and a pack of cigarettes, even if they didn’t smoke. The reason being that you would always have a waterproof lighter to ignite a little C4 to warm a meal or coffee, plus it was ever so handy to use as a torch to burn down a village hut, or the entire village. So sad. I knew of a Captain who was so into burning down villages that he earned the nickname Captain Zippo. What about the cigarettes? The pack’s cellophane wrapping was wonderful first aid to stop sucking chest wounds. SUCKING CHEST WOUNDS? WTF?

Where Were You, When The Shit Hit The Fan? Talk About Shit

Okay, I know I wasn’t going to, but I didn’t know how to start this story.

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The FNG (Fucking New Guy). Privates who had not yet been assigned to a company had to hang around Division headquarters and do shit jobs, pun intended. One job was to clean the outhouses; this consisted of dragging out cut-down fifty-five gallon barrels that were receptacles for the above mentioned, and then pour in kerosene to burn off the waste matter.

At Camp Eagle, two FNGs were assigned this pleasant little duty, no pun intended. But with no supervision, they used gasoline instead of kerosene. BAM! When it was lit, it blew up bigger than shit. Fortunately for them, the explosion knocked them on their asses, with no injuries. The nearby camp headquarters was not as lucky. Everything was peppered with burning shit, and the First Sergeant went crazy. I’ll bet those two guys burned shit for the next three hundred and sixty-five days and nights.

Now that I am talking shit, did you know - I didn’t - there is not much of a public waste system in South East Asia? It was something that I never sat around and thought about for hours on end. Growing up in the land of plenty, I took the act of flushing a toilet as a God-given right. In Vietnam, a flush toilet was a unobtainable dream, being there was no sewer system, and it’s probably not much better today. In the large cities, the Government buildings, first class hotels, and mansions had flush toilets, but that’s it. I’m guessing the inner city folk had private or public outhouses, or used honey jars in place of the necessary facilities. In big and small villages, if you had to go, you marched out to the communal field designated for copping a squat.

It was obvious which field it was because of the toilet paper snow drifts. It was not uncommon to see a beautiful woman on the side of the road drop her pants to take a leak. Now, being a guy, well, you know how we are, we will whip it out and piss on anything, except our own leg. But I never got used to seeing a woman do the same thing. We Americans expect a little privacy when nature calls; after all, God forbid that someone sneak a peep at our wee-wee’s another thing, babies and toddlers never wore diapers, only t-shirts. I guess that took the confusion out of mistakenly calling a little boy a girl.

No More Yanky My Wankie

Don’t Care If I Do Die, Do Die, Do Die I recall the smaller miserable things such as massive swarms of mosquitoes. Shit, I thought south Texas had hungry mosquitoes; those diminutive, wannabe Dracula’s tried to drain me of my blood. Clouds of little-bitty-ass gnats, so thick they would clog your nose and ears. Fuck-You 83

lizards, we named them because of the sound they made sounded like “Fuck You.” Insane heat, salty sweat, running down our foreheads, trickling into our eyes and burning the daylights out of them. The weight of a helmet, compressing our vertebrae. Monday morning squirts - a side effect of malaria pills. Nasty-ass leaches, those slimy little bastards gave us the willies. Open, runny sores that would not heal. Eye and ear infections, body rashes. Our armpits and crotches were raw from skin rashes.

Ass Fuckers, little parasites that invaded our rectums; their only purpose in life was to irritate us. The insides of our butt cheeks were raw from poor hygiene, and our testicles were blue and swollen from straining. Our hands, cracked and bleeding; feet, rotting away; arms and legs, scratched and covered with infected sores. And the headaches, massive blinding headaches, were with us every hour of the day.

There was, however, one part of our bodies that was kept spic and span.

It was most important to keep your weapon and gun polished and ready for action. I’m not saying it was epidemic, or that entire platoons sat around and had a circle jerk. I’m just saying we all did it. It was a way to release stress, sexual desire, and for most of us, being virgins, it was the only sex we ever had. I’m just saying, you know?

There are always abusers. Some GIs turned this simple bodily gratification into an art form, masturbating six, eight, ten, twelve times a day, anytime, anywhere. We had nicknames for those guys. GI Hand Job, GI Spanky, GI Jerk, GI Jack, GI Whack Job, GI Wanker, and my favorite… GI Yanky Go Home. Those guys had some serious-as-a-heart attack mental problems, but you have to give them credit for taking matters into their own hands.

I can’t help but ask myself, “How many possibly great Presidents of the United States were spurted out and rotted on the jungle floor of Vietnam?”

A theory based on our last Presidential elections. I don’t care what your political affiliation is, I’m just saying.

No Stems, No Seeds, That You Don’t Need The Dude Abides

Well…I guess it’s a no-brainer, inevitable, that I would write about the herbs of the East. Smoking grass was a big part of the Vietnam experience.

Before I went to Vietnam, in fact, all of my teen years, I was under the impression that smoking marijuana was as evil as doing heroin. Smoked only by loser dope fiends and blues musicians, it was the Devil’s weed for sure.

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When I arrived in Vietnam, Wow! What an eye opener! Well, the truth is, it made you Chinese eyed. It was everywhere and being smoked by everyone. However, I was not convinced it was the smart thing to do in a war zone. I held myself in higher esteem than those losers. How stupid can those guys be?

One evening, at base camp, I walked into one of the officers’ bunkers to visit with my Captain. To my surprise, there were ten officers passing a couple of blunts around. Talk about being dumbfounded.

One of the 2nd Louies offered me a hit. I looked at my Captain for approval or disapproval, and he nodded his head yes, so I start thinking (always a mistake when I think), “These guys are all West Point grads; they ain’t stupid. So maybe it’s not all that bad.” I reluctantly accepted the joint and took a hit. Of course, I didn’t know how, but they were glad to show me, and I damn near coughed my lungs up. Jesus, how could they do it?

They were laughing their asses off at the cherry. After fifteen minutes, it was mastered. I’ve always been a quick learner.

As I said, it was everywhere and sold every which way. You could purchase a truckload, a block, a kilo, a baggie, a joint, or an entire package of American cigarettes stuffed with wacky tobacky. The packers (is that an occupation?) would get a pack of cigarettes, cut the cellophane at the bottom to disassemble it, remove the tobacco from each cigarette, and replace it with pot. Then, they’d put everything back together like new. Very clever, those Orientals.

I’m here to tell you (somehow), that it was some badass shit. It is legendary. Even today; all grass is measured to the shit we smoked in The Nam. Powerful Hemp. After a couple hits of the good stuff, you would start seeing vivid colors, and stationary objects seem to move with a blur, almost as if you were on an LSD trip. On more than one occasion, while sharing a doobie with a buddy, we would get so tuned in that we would finish each other’s sentence. It was if we had ESP, or was it ESPN? There were many ways to smoke it, and some took team effort. You had your traditional ways: wrapped in rolling paper, in a pipe or water pipe, or you could put a shotgun barrel in your mouth, and a buddy would blow smoke into the breach, down the barrel. Now, if you were hardcore, you would slip on a gas mask and two buddies would blow smoke in from both sides… wow! Not that I ever did that, you understand. It was intense, so strong that you would, on occasion, vomit, sometimes before you could remove the mask. Had we had access to a tank, we might had stuffed it full of shit, fired it up and sucked on the barrel.

And then there was really good Primo shit: Thai Sticks. They had to be laced with some other drug, probably opium. The urban (jungle) legend was 85

that the Viet Cong put chemicals in the weed that would get us hooked, so we would become pacifists and not fight. Another rumor was that there was a drug in it that kept us from getting a hard-on, which was supposedly to keep us from mating with their women. I obviously never smoked any of that.

The heavy drug use in Vietnam that everyone has read about happened in the early seventies. GI’s stationed in Germany who had a drug dependency would be busted, then sent to Vietnam for their punishment, even if they only had three months left on their enlistment. It didn’t cure them; they simply brought their habit with them and infected other soldiers with it. In no way did I ever get stoned in the boonies; I kept my wits about me. My mom would have been pissed if the U.S. Army sent her baby boy home in a pine box wrapped in Zig Zag’s.

Put That Away, You Could Poke Someone’s Eye Out One Eyed Monster

I probably should not tell this story, but it’s too funny and embarrassing not to share. Also, my Mom is not around anymore to read it.

I was spending a couple of days at the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) compound in Hue, just resting, eating, sleeping, and drinking too much in the evenings. The last night there, before crashing, I asked my hooch mates to please wake me up at seven because I had to get my shit together and meet a helicopter at eight. Long story short, they didn’t do it. Later, when asked, they said I was sleeping too well.

WARNING…this is the part that frightens most people. If you scare easily, skip over it.

I was asleep on a top bunk, feeling a constant tapping on my shoulder.

Someone was trying to wake me. I opened one eye and realized that it was Miss Quan, one of the Vietnamese maids at MACV. Holy Shit! It must have been past eight. Those guys didn’t wake me.

At this point, it’s important to note that the following episode took place in thirty seconds, starting at the moment Quan shook me awake. I saw her, threw back my sheet and leapt out of the top bunk wearing only boxer shorts. Quan looked at me, threw her arms above her head, started squealing and running backwards, then tripped and fell. Here I was, standing in boxer shorts with a huge erection sticking out (Johnny Wad Holmes would have been proud). It was like a flagpole. I was looking at Quan, blushing, and 86

fighting with Mr. Happy, trying to confine him with no luck. He’s always had a mind of his own and has always done most of my thinking. (There has to be some sort of statistical relationship between a twenty-one year old man, sunrise, and when the cock crows). I was trying to stuff him in with both hands, but he wasn’t having anything to do with that. He was angry. I gave up, grabbed my pants and boots, and slipped them on. By the time I got my flak vest on, still no luck, he was not surrendering easily. I had to be a sight. I raced out to the helicopter pad with my boots untied and my shirt around my neck, wearing only my pants, flak vest, and helmet, carrying my weapon and trying to stuff my gun into my pants. Miraculously, the helicopter was still there. I tried to tell the story, but was laughing too hard.

The copilot told me to button my pants. He said he was a short-timer and didn’t want to get shot in the back of the head.

Poor Miss Quan. She probably had to get hours of psychological help to erase that memory. The good news is that I became very popular with the young girls around the compound after Quan told them of my superhuman blood pressure. Whenever I was at the MACV compound and the young maids would see me, they would start giggling, laughing, and talking among themselves. They would sneak a peek at me, but they never looked above my waistline.

I’ve Got Those Hup, Two, Three, Four G.I. Blues

I have a business associate friend and on a recent business trip, we were trading war stories and other tall tales. He told me he had graduated from college in the late 1960s with a computer science degree, which was pretty impressive, because back then, we thought only Astronauts had the brainpower to operate a computer. Anyway, right after he graduated, he was drafted into the Army. After Basic Training, the Army wisely sent him to the Army computer school for his MOS (Military Occupation Specialty). His first duty assignment... Vietnam.

Upon arrival in Da Nang, he was assigned to the 1st Air Cavalry Division. “WHAT?! A terrible mistake has been made. I’m supposed to be in an air-conditioned room at Army Headquarters, not with a combat division,” so thought my friend. He complained to the clerk that gave him his orders, but to no avail. “Move on buddy, I don’t make the orders. I just give them out. Next!”

My buddy was bewildered. Hell, he wasn’t trained for combat... shit!

He went outside and saw a crusty old Sergeant sitting in a jeep with a big 1st 87

Air Cav patch on his shoulder. My buddy walked over to the jeep, showed his orders to the Sergeant, and said that a terrible mistake had been made, that he only knew computers. The Sergeant stared a hole through my friend, slowly got out of the jeep, grabbed an M-16 rifle, turned the weapon sideways and shoved it into my friend’s chest. And with his best southern drawl, said to my buddy, “Son... in the 1st Air Cavalry... this is a computer.” Of course, the Sergeant was just having fun my friend Charlie.

He did go on to spend the next twelve months sitting in an air-conditioned bunker with all of his whirling, light blinking, gigantic computers.

I Ain’t Seen The Sunshine,

Since I Don’t Know When LBJ - Long Binh Jail, near Saigon, was also known as The LBJ Ranch, named after then-president Johnson’s Texas retreat. It was the military prison in Vietnam for U.S. soldiers in need of behavior modification, a funny description. I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of that facility, nor did I know anyone who was incarcerated there. But it has always intrigued me: how bad did you have to be, to be thrown in there? I repeat. How Bad Did You Have To Be? What heinous (I love that word) crime did you have to commit? It was Vietnam for Christ’s sake. How did they weed out the good murderers from the bad murderers?

R &R

Rest and Relaxation The Army can call it whatever they want, but we all knew that R&R stood for Rape and Reload.

I was lucky enough to snag two: one to Bangkok (Bad Cock), Thailand; it was… as advertised. The second was to Sydney, Australia. After our flight arrived and parked at the gate in Sydney, and before we were allowed to disembark, four customs inspectors walked through the cabin spraying a cloud of disinfectant. If that wasn’t degrading enough, when we exited the stairway, we were forced to walk in ankle deep sheep dip. Welcome to Australia Mates!

Posted at the R&R reception center was a list of Australian families that would take in a GI for a few days or a week. I elected to go that route, as opposed to hanging with a bunch fellow Americans who only wanted to have their Kangaroos tied down and keep their Cockatoo cool.

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My family was the Brady’s: husband, wife, a young son, and a daughter a really nice Irish family. The dad told me they were so Irish, they still wore ankle chains, in reference to when Australia was a penal colony. The kid was cool: a skater with long blond hair swept across his forehead. The daughter was fun, my age, but she had a butter face. You know, great body... but her face! And, of course, her name was Shelia. They lived in a pretty, two-story home south of town, a block from a beach with a wonderful sea breeze. The first forty-eight hours, I did absolutely nothing but sleep. Mrs. Brady told me she was worried, and that she would look in on me every hour to make sure that I was breathing.

My last night with them, I took their daughter Shelia out for dinner and drinks, lots of drinks. Needless to say, we got home late and not very sober.

The following morning, when I staggered downstairs for coffee, Mrs. Brady asked if I had knocked Shelia up. WHAT! WHAT DID YOU SAY? She repeated herself. I was dumbfounded. The answer was NO, but I couldn’t say anything. It was like in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, when someone gets hit in the face with a frying pan. I’m guessing because my mouth was open and a stupid, blank look was on my face that Mrs. Brady repeated herself slowly, “Did you knock Sheila up; did you knock on her door on your way down?”

Oh!

Love Me Two Times Girl Once For Today Women. It was such fun to flirt with the toothless mama sans,

teenyboppers, and hot, hard body twenty-somethings. Children were the best, so innocent, with no language barriers and always smiling. The kids could be waist deep in shit and they would smile. I can’t remember the women who were in their thirties. Maybe at that age, they lost their teeth and became old overnight. We had a cute little nickname for the whores: L.B.F.M.s - Little Brown Fucking Machines. It’s not that I ever used their services, mind you, but a friend of mine did, and I made him tell me everything in great detail.

But that’s not where I wanted to go with this. I wanted to talk about my favorite graffiti. It was written on a shithouse wall (pardon my French), at the Tan Son Nhut Air Base. One GI wrote a line, and then it was expanded upon by other GIs. It went something like this: I can’t relate to Vietnamese women.

You don’t relate to them, you fuck them.

How do you know which ones to fuck, half have VD. 89

That’s right, and the other half have TB. The last line read So just fuck the ones that cough.

Take a Walk on the Wild Side

You just never know.

Capt. Lone, Lt. Phong and I had a fairly lucrative business selling war souvenirs to the guys at Camp Eagle. After we had amassed about a thousand bucks, Lt. Phong recommended we celebrate with a night out on the town and added that he knew the perfect spot, Social Francais du Club.

The following Saturday night, the three of us met up and went by scooter cab to Hue’s old citadel city, a part of town that was not familiar to me. In fact, I didn’t know it existed. Here, there were three blocks of French-facade colonial buildings almost untouched by the war. Only seven months earlier, the war had been raging within the walls of the citadel, but here was a chunk of Paris, miraculously in pristine condition.

After much jabbering in Vietnamese and money exchanging hands at the front door, we were allowed to enter. We were seated at a white linencovered table with a full array of crystal and silver. Within seconds of our sitting, champagne was poured, and poured, and poured. I wasn’t aware that we had ordered dinner, but all these little guys dressed in white (I never saw the same waiter twice) paraded by our table and served us food. Had you asked me at the time, I would have told you we had eaten slugs in juice, stew meat with taters, a slab of stinky cheese with fruit, and some kind of custard.

Never in my life had I experienced such gourmet cuisine, other than spaghetti and catsup. It was delicious. It sure as hell was better than the ham and motherfucker C-Rations I had been eating. Since then, I have been out once or twice to finer dining establishments, and have learned that it was a prix fixe menu of escargot, boeuf bourguignon, a plateau de fromages, and creme brulee.

Finally, it was time to move to the nightclub for an evening of libations, lust, and debauchery. It looked like a movie scene from the fifties. Being dressed in starched jungle fatigues, I felt like a pair of brown shoes at a Black Tie event. There were beautiful Eurasians dressed to the Nines. (I’m not sure what that means, but I’ve been led to believe it’s good). Chubby Chinese fellows in western style business suits were bellied up to the bar, buying giggling girls champagne cocktails. Leftover French expats from the glory days of Indochina were dressed in tropical white casual attire, in complete denial that their time had passed. It reminded me of the Rams Club 90

back in my hometown of Houston, a private club that was a little shabby around the edges and had lived past its prime.

Throbbing soul music (James Brown) was playing, and the dance floor was packed with swaying, humping bodies, copulating with imaginary partners. There she was. A long-legged beauty, dressed in a mini skirt, spike heels, and a sheer silk blouse, with gravity-defying breasts that threatened to burst out of her top. She had long, Cher Bono-style hair, dark Asian eyes, pouting lips, and I was thinking she was a French import.

Grinning like a jackass, I asked Capt. Lone what the deal was with the women. He told me they were here for our pleasure. They didn’t look like any whores I had seen. “Expensive?” I asked him. He said, “Not really, but I’m not sure you want to pay the price,” before going into full throttle laughter.

Having gained carnal knowledge only a few months earlier, and having spent most of my paychecks on working girls at five dollars a pop, I thought, what the hell, I’ll pay two months of Army salary to spend one evening with this French Goddess.

Having consumed several glasses of courage with bubbles, I walked out onto the dance floor and stood before her. Making eye contact, she seductively bit her bottom lip, locked her hands together on the back of her head, moved into me, and started grinding to the music, all the while sucking me into her sepia-colored eyes: hypnotic and intoxicating. She was as seductive as a Greek mythology Siren. I could not stop looking at her perfectly round, perky breasts with dark areolas showing through her almost transparent blouse.

The music changed to a slow song by Etta James: “At Last.” She melted into my arms. I realized that she was a tad taller than me, and she smelled of... I guessed what Paris must smell like... all things exotic. Her coffeewith-cream complexion glistened with perspiration. Me, being a guy... I was sweating. We were inseparable. I was glued to her as I had been to teenage queens at sock-hops, but unlike the teeny-bobbers, Frenchie grabbed my package. I was sprung!

I invited her to join us for champagne. Capt. Lone and Lt. Phong spoke to her in French, making small talk and laughing without bothering to include me in their conversation. When she excused herself to go to the ladies room, I told Lone that this just might be the best night of my life. He roared laughing and said that at the very least it would be different. Then they both put their heads on the table and started crying with laughter. I kept asking, “What? What? What is it? What’s so funny?” Only after they knew I was getting pissed, they said, “She is gargon-fille,” and started laughing again.

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By then, I was pissed. “Fuck you. You know I don’t speak Vietnamese that well.” You would have thought that I was a standup comic by their bursts of laughter. I had had about all of their bullshit that I could take.

Phong stopped laughing and said that it wasn’t Vietnamese, it was French, gargon-fille means boy-girl. “WHAT! Are you shitting me?”

That was then, this is now. Since then, I have become more worldly, have traveled the globe extensively, tasted life, and will admit that I have rented a porn movie or two. The world is strange. Boys will be boys, girls will be girls, and sometimes boys will be girls. I don’t judge. I accept people for their worth.

Funerals

Funny thing about funerals - They are identical to weddings, only different. And so is life. Keep reading. You will see what I mean.

Two years ago, I was at a funeral and like at weddings, you see people you have not seen in years. At this particular funeral, I was reacquainted with a young man I had not seen in years, Eric. The last time had been twentyfour years prior, when he was three years old. Now standing before me was this beautiful twenty-seven year old young lady, Erica. Can you guess where I’m going with this? Perfection. One of the most beautiful Latino women I had ever seen. His/her hands were a little too big and there was the tell-tale Adam’s apple, but other than those two flaws, perfection. The next day, a friend who could not attend the funeral dropped by and asked me to give him all the details about Eric/Erica. I said, “Well dude, that bitch was so fine that I would have totally sucked her dick.”

‘Cause you’re puny

Even The Women Are Bigger Than You. Fear. I’ve been trying to find the words to describe true fear. Not fright, alarm, apprehension, concern, or terror, but true fear. Not the times in combat, or in that split second before an auto accident, when I thought I might die. I’m talking about that moment when I knew I was going to die. I don’t know if it’s my inner defense mechanism that will not let me go to the scary vault where I’ve stored those memories, or that the plain and simple truth is that I can’t find the words, but I will try.

My family and I, one Sunday afternoon, were having lunch at one of Houston’s old institutions, The Log Cabin Family Style Restaurant. It’s 92

closed now, I’m sad to say, but it was located deep in the North Side on Airline Drive, a huge building, actually a log cabin (what else?), with a sprawling dirt parking lot always filled to capacity with pickup trucks. The food was wonderful; it was so good yet, at the same time, so bad for you.

All the tables were boarding house style where the wait staff would seat 1012 people at the same table. A small family like mine (three) often sat with people we had never seen before. But because of the atmosphere, and the fact that the food was served family style, passing fried chicken, mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas, okra, melt-in-your-mouth bread, plus a gazillion other vegetables up and down the table, by the end of the meal, everyone had become good friends and exchanged telephone numbers. On this Sunday that I’m recalling, the three of us were finishing up dinner. The other diners at our table had arrived before us and departed. My daughter, out of the blue, asked if I had ever been in a fistfight. I was a bit puzzled at her question and afraid to look over my shoulder, but I responded with a ‘yes’ and a nervous glance around the dining room. I’ve been in a few. She then asked, “Did you win any?”

Bianca was about ten at the time, an age of discovery, and she wasn’t all that impressed with what she had been discovering about dear Dad. I didn’t compare to her super heroes: Mighty Mouse, Popeye the Sailor Man, and Kevin Bacon. The list of complaints she had against me were long, and her Mom relished hearing her go down the list of my shortcomings. I would just sit there with a hangdog expression on my face, shoulders slumped exaggerating cringes as each of my faults was announced. I did this just to add to the humor and to let her know that I didn’t take them seriously. I asked her why she had asked about me fighting, and where did that even come from? As she looked over her shoulder, surveying the crowd that had gathered to dine, she said, and not in a hushed voice, “Everyone in here is big, and you are pretty puny. Even the women have bigger arms than you.”

Out of the mouths of babes.

That had always been one of my many favorite Bianca stories, and it has reminded me of the first time I realized true fear. Growing up, I was afraid of nothing. I would get on my bike and ride it from sunrise to sunset. My buddies and I would ride to all areas of town within a fifteen-mile radius of home. Never afraid of traffic, getting kidnapped, abducted, or beat up. I guess God really does protect drunks and fools. When I think of the classic bike mishaps I had, it causes me to wonder how I got past my teen years.

How many times had I popped the front wheel of my bike off the ground, and rode on the back wheel just to show off, only to have the front wheel fall off because I had not tightened the nuts correctly? And with no front wheel, I gained firsthand knowledge of Isaac Newton’s law of gravity. The front of 93

the bike would drop, the wheel forks would dig into the street’s soft asphalt, and I would fly over the handlebars, miraculously not breaking my neck. The homemade push carts and go karts we made were even more dangerous death traps with no brakes. Who needed brakes? We would accidentally run into a curb or a tree, and why the steering wheels didn’t puncture our lungs is a mystery. We’d ride in a go-kart at thirty miles per hour, hit a rut or small ditch that slammed the kart into a break-neck stop, then fly twelve feet in the air and land on our heads. Damn that was fun! We would do that little trick over and over to see which of us could fly the longest distance. Idiots.

In Vietnam, I had been shot, damn near blown up, and experienced hand-to-hand combat, and that was terrifying fear. But I was just as bulletproof as I had been in my younger days. The fear of all fear was the one time that I was positive I was going to lose my life. It was a fear that I had never known, and it was at the hands of a fellow American, one of the US Marines’ finest.

I was at a USO show at an MACV compound, sitting in an auditorium of sorts on a folding metal chair. I was seated next to fellow GI, Steve Fulkerson, and nobody, I repeat nobody, called him by his proper last name (use your imagination). Let me tell you a little about Steve. He grew up in North Dakota on an Indian reservation. His dad worked for the U.S. Government as an Indian agent, seeing to the needs of the Prairie People (Honest Injun, that’s what he did). Steve had this thing for ketchup, a serious addiction. He used it on everything - steaks, French fries, pasta, chips, eggs, toast, cookies. I swear, the boy needed mental help. Now, back to me shaking hands with the Grim Reaper.

We were both smoking, watching the stage show when Steve flicks the ashes from his cigarette. However, the fire flips off and lands on the back of the chair in front of us that was occupied by a huge Marine security guard.

Steve and I look at each other but said nothing. In short order, the Marine’s shirt starts smoldering, then bursts into a small fire. He jumped up, ripped off his shirt, then looked at us smoking. Well, I was. Steve was holding a mangled cigarette. Before we knew it, he jumped up and started beating us.

First, he attacked with one of the folding chairs, swinging it madly. Before I knew it, I was on the floor taking the blunt of his fury. Fulkerson looked like he had been killed: bleeding from his scalp, eyes closed, crumpled up in a ball. I, on the other hand, was now being kicked to death by this mountain of a man. The blows were coming too fast for me to fight back. At best, I protected, or tried to protect myself with my arms. Tired of kicking me, he grabbed me by the shirt collar, held me up in the air like a rag doll and began to pound me with his fist. He would hit me in the side of my head and snot would fly. Really. The expression is true. He was delivering so many blows 94

so quickly, it was like I was getting beat up by an octopus. That infuriated Marine hit me so hard that my own arms - held up for protection - were pounded against my face, busting my lips and cutting one of my eyebrows. I was truly afraid I was going to be beaten to death because of this guy’s unbridled rage.

The beating I took lasted less than a minute before he was pulled off of me, but I had never had an ass kicking like that nor have I ever seen anyone else ass-whooped like that. He truly opened a can of whop-ass on me and literally beat me within an inch of my life. The next day, I couldn’t get out of bed, peed blood for three days and was sore for a month. Fulkerson was alright. He told me that he had played possum.

What a MotherFulkerson.

Please Sir, I Want Some More

Tastes Like Shit I don’t know about anyone else, but I never saw a Kim Son Vietnamese restaurant (a popular restaurant in Houston, Texas) on every street corner in Vietnam. In fact, I never saw or tasted anything remotely close to Kim Son. I must admit to having a few French-influenced meals that were quite tasty, but, for the most part, it was dreadful eats. The French bread at roadside food stands was delicious, full of Boll Weevils, yummy protein, but that is where the comparison to western food stops. A good friend recently treated me to a surprise lunch. He said it was going to be a taste from my past. Of all places, he took me to a Vietnamese sandwich shop! Perfectly baked French bread, piled high with grilled beef, cilantro, cucumber, shredded carrot, lettuce and bean sprouts. I was speechless. I told him that he no clue where I had been; that after all those hours of conversation we had about my Vietnam experience, he had never caught on. I told him to think deep dark Africa, or South America, so deep that they have to pump sunshine in.

Dude, I ate out of a can, or the meals I shared in small villages were what you would consider road kill. A Vietnamese sandwich shop, good God dude, really?

My Vietnamese counterparts and I would, on occasion, visit small Hmong villages with the purpose of building goodwill, or bribing or paying off a Village Chief for information. Of course, the chief would insist that we eat with him. We would first be served endless shots of a powerful home brew. I don’t know what it was made from, how it was made, or who made it, and I don’t want to know. But I do know that it was so strong that one of my testicles shrank up. (I have this mental image of some little old woman 95

with black stained teeth, squatting in a dank hut, chewing on some type of herb, and spitting it into a jar of water buffalo piss and sugar cane, then allowing the ingredients to ferment in the sun.) Then, the Chief would offer us things to eat that, to this day, remain a mystery to me. I can’t even describe the taste, but if I had to guess, I would say an armpit.

Now, you have to visualize this picture. Here we were, the six of us -the Chief and two elders from the village, my two counterparts, and me -sitting cross-legged in a circle on a dirt floor in the middle of the Chief’s hut.

It was sweltering inside that hut; cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air and would swirl around like a lazy ghost whenever someone made an arm gesture. The Hmong were wearing loincloths and nothing else, yet sweat still rolled off them. Having sweated completely through my fatigues, I unbuttoned my shirt and fanned myself with it, then removed it altogether. I might have removed my pants had I been wearing any underwear. I was barefoot, having taken off my boots out of respect for the chief’s home, but looking back, I probably disrespected him, because my foot odor was so vile.

My feet were covered with open sores from a condition the Army called Trench Foot; we grunts called it “jungle-rot,” and as I pulled off my socks, as always, the scabs from the sores that were partially healed came off with them. Blood and clear liquid ran from open sores. The bottom of my feet were covered with a eighth inch of hard gray-white cracked flesh that was pulling away at the heal like a worn out boot sole. The jungle rot was aggressively eating my feet away.

Everyone in that hut was joking about the odor, holding their noses, and acting like they were throwing up. Ha Ha, very funny. The rocket fuel that they had been pouring down us started taking effect. My face was twitching; one eyebrow was rapidly moving up and down like a Mexican jumping bean.

I hallucinated that everyone in that hut was moving in slow motion; my lips were numb. I lost sight in one eye, and my arms were as limp as boiled spaghetti. I could not stop rocking back and forth. I had an urge to dance to an imaginary drummer. The Vietnamese had turned beet red and were laughing their asses off, so drunk that they stopped making fun of my feet.

All self-respect had gone out the window. The Hmong sitting across from me were spread-eagle, exposing their tiny little Asian tally whackers. Now that was a giggle. Flies were there in the hundreds. They lit on everything except my feet (Flies do have their standards, don’t you know).

Then, there was the main course, simple and meager, but they shared it with pride. Being an honored guest, and I’m sure to fuck with the American, they gave me the choice pieces. Normally, there were your typical everyday items to eat: lizards, rodents and other cute little furry critters. But at this particular dinner soiree, they pulled out all the stops. Looking down at my 96

bowl of soup, ol’ lucky me, I saw floating around not only a chicken’s foot, but also its head - complete with beak, eyes… you name it. I have to tell you, it was delicious (You really can’t screw up a chicken). In addition to being tasty, the chicken toenails could also be used as tooth picks.

One other thing I had been offered to eat in those little villages that time had forgotten was monkey. They would take that little rascal and smoke it on an open flame. They didn’t bother to shave it or skin it. They just singed off the fur, ran a stick up its ass and through its mouth, then stuck the little dude over a fire. I could never get past the mental image that it looked like a small child; nor could I ignore the pungent smell. I did taste it once, to save face with a Village Chief, and can honestly tell you... it tasted like chicken.

(Just joking. It tasted like a water buffalo’s asshole.) I wonder if we ever ate dog? I do remember that I was almost run over by a truck once; I was sitting in the middle of the road licking my balls when...

They didn’t call us snake-eaters for nothing.

Who Made The Salad?

During the twenty-first summer of my youth, on a hot humid July afternoon, my two Vietnamese counterparts and I visited a tiny village where the calendar had not flipped a day since Marco Polo aimlessly wandered the Far East. After a two hour helicopter journey and a body punishing one hour climb up a muddy, densely forested hill only a short distance from Uncle Ho’s Trail, we reached our destination. A Hmong village that I’m positive no other Occidental had ever laid eyes on. In that small village, that time and the world had forgotten, I experienced gourmet cuisine that I would never forget the rest of my life.

The following is a recipe for a backyard cook out that was inspired by the exotic cuisine of Southeast Asia. Please forgive me for taking your taste-buds to the dark side.

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Open Pit Roasted Monkey, aka “Monkey On A Stick PREP TIME: Varies depending on monkey catching skills COOK TIME: 45 mins or until eyes pop out INGREDIENTS: 1 roaring fire 1 large rock or brick 1 first aid kit 1 face towel 1 (3-foot) stick 1 radio 1 live monkey PROCEDURE Remove live monkey from trap. Use extreme care when you do this; the hairy little beast will bite the shit out of you. Then, using the rock, bash the disgusting little motherfucker in the head. You may have to hit it more than once; however, try not to crack the skull. The brains are very delicious, and by no means do you want them to leak out. Use face towel to wipe monkey blood from your face. Once you have rendered the little shit unconscious, thread the three-foot stick gently through the rectum until it pokes out the mouth, using care not to puncture any organs. Place MOAS near enough to the fire to singe off all body hair without actually cooking the monkey. This will also seal in most of the body fluids. If the monkey is still alive, you might want to turn up the radio volume to drown out the screams. When you are satisfied that you have removed most of the hair and fleas, roast the monkey over the open flames, turning often so it cooks evenly.

Bon Appétit! * If you have time and a horde to feed, you might consider Chicken Foot Soup as a starter, and for an appetizer... your neighbor’s cat.

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That’s Easy For You To Say

Vietnamese Lemonade, yummyness in a glass.

Fresh lemons, squeezed and mixed with local non-potable water, a pound of sugar, then poured into a questionably clean glass. You could see all kinds of shit floating around in a swirling motion, floating… hell, maybe it was swimming. I didn’t give a rat’s ass. I could drink it with no ill effects.

At that age, my stomach was cast-iron, and I possessed a twenty-four-hour erection. God, that lemonade was delicious; it was Heaven. I would walk up to one of the little beverage stands found in every village of any size and with my best Vietnamese, order up a big, ice cold (it never was) glass of nook die.

The little girls behind the counter would giggle. How cute is that? The American with his cute little accent ordering a drink. So I thought. (You have to understand that Vietnamese is a highly tonal, inflected language, for Christ’s sake; it has over twenty dialects.)

Back to where I was, with just the right - or wrong - raising or lowering of vocal tone and emphasis, a word can drastically alter its meaning from polite to crude. Now, me speaking Vietnamese is the equivalent of me saying, “Let me order the wine, I know all about it, having spent a week in Paris last summer.” As it turns out, the correct Vietnamese word, or I should say the phonetic pronunciation of lemonade is nook chanh. I was saying nook die, which translates to, “I would like a glass of piss.” It took me a while to learn that.

You’re Going To Put That In Your Mouth?

Tiger Piss Ba Moi Ba (33) is the local beer of South Vietnam. It was first brewed by French settlers back in the day when Southeast Asia was called French Indochina. Now, I have no problem with the French. In fact, I like them but by no means am I a Froggiephile. They keep a great kitchen and their wines are wonderful, but what screw-ups in Indochina! The single thing they taught the Vietnamese military was... well, how to drop a weapon and run.

The other bad thing, damn near dangerous thing the French did, was to construct a beer brewery. Ba Moi Ba beer - It was terrible - instant headache in a bottle. There was a Tiger Logo prominently placed on the label, so it became known to us grunts as Tiger Piss. Ba Moi Ba means ‘thirty-three’ in Vietnamese; no one knows why thirty-three. We joked that it was because the contents were thirty-three percent formaldehyde. Cheap, that was its only redeeming value. Hell, it was the only good thing.

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Spicy food consumed by the Vietnamese would take your breath away.

I’m convinced that, on occasion, it took some unsuspecting American’s life away. The Vietnamese ability to wolf down fiery food and not break a sweat would shame almost any fire-eating Mexican that I know. I eat red-hot peppery food, but I met my match with those folks. At that time, I had a cast-iron stomach as mentioned before, but I’m here to tell you (by the grace of God), those chilies they ate would blister your lips, knock your dick in the dirt, and upset your stomach in a heartbeat. As the saying goes, “You can crap through a screen door from twenty feet away.” That bodily function became a sport: “Out-Going.” Guys are so gross.

And the magic sauce they ate (gag), Nuoc Mam, a fermented fish sauce mixed with sticky rice, veggies and other foods, was black, mushy-looking, and stank. It smelled like… like death, and made your eyes water. It was fermented fish sauce for Christ’s sake. It negated the old saying, “Once you get past the smell, you got it licked.” It was made using wooden kegs, with layer upon layer of whole fish, coated with salt, stacked until the keg was full. Then, the keg of fish was allowed to ferment in the sun for months, and presto! The decomp juice was drained off and canned. Yummy, I’ll take two gallons please.

The older women would chew, with the few teeth they had, Betel Nut. Which is actually a combo of betel leaf, areca nut, lime, and clove, rolled up and chewed as a mild stimulant. It could be compared to drinking a strong cup of coffee. It had a side effect that the Vietnamese thought was a sign of beauty; it would stain teeth black. “Wow, Ba would be a hot Mamacita if her teeth weren’t so white!”

The Candy Man, Oh the Candy Man Can

Sick Dude Okay, now that I am on this guilt trip, I’ll tell another story that I’m not proud of. It started out innocently enough. The slingshot I had asked my mom for became a big hit around the MACV compound. I originally acquired it to interrogate prisoners (but I’m not going into that). Everyone started writing home for one. Now, these were not your every day jack-off GI’s. They were Special Forces, Rangers, Recon Marines, Army Intelligence Officers, and a few CIA guys who got into it. We started this game of sniping each other; the one rule was that you could only shoot your target in the ass, and it had to be witnessed. Whoever racked up the most ass-crack shots won a case of beer. Well... being bored, childish, and mean, I started another little game. Children on the street became my toys; with my 100

slingshot, I would lob hard candy over the fence to them. Once I had gathered a crowd of kids, I waited for my target, a bicyclist. At a precise moment, I would shoot candy toward a bicyclist; my flock of children would rush after the candy and knock over my bicycle target. The person on the bike, man or woman (I was an equal opportunity asshole), would start yelling, cussing, and be pissed off at me. Now if they were a real asshole, I would wait until they were back on their bike and do it again. I was such a dick.

Was It Something I Said?

Slang Words

In all wars, soldiers use degrading names to dehumanize their adversaries. I don’t think an explanation as to why is required.

Enemy -

Charlie Chas Chink Chuck Dicks Dink

Gomers Gook Mr. Charles Slant Slope Slope Head

VA (North Vietnamese Army) VC (Viet Cong) Victor Charles Zip Zipper Head Zit

Combat -

Walking Point Slack Man (second man behind man walking point Zapped (shot or killed) Bac Bac (to shoot) KIA (killed in action) WIA (wounded in action) GSW (gunshot wound) MFW (multiple frag wounds) MIA (missing in action) Mas-Cal (mass casualties) Wasted (killed) Killing Zone (area of combat) Killing Fields (ambush area) Friendly Fire (killed or wounded by friendly fire) Contact (combat, fire fight, in the Shit) Hot (area under fire) 101

Widow Makers (combatants) Cau Dau (I kill you) Peanuts (wounded in action) T&T (shot through and through) Expectants (expected casualties) Capping (shooting) Rock and Roll, Cook Off (weapon on full automatic) Lit Up (fired at) Mad Minute (concentrated fire power) Lay Chilly (don’t move) FFZ (free fire zone) Bring Smoke (artillery strike) Pop Smoke (throw smoke grenade) CAS (close air support) TOT (time on target) Zippo Raid (burn a village) UH-1 Helicopter (Huey) Bird (helicopter) Slick (helicopter without guns) Guns (helicopter with guns) Snake ( Cobra, AH-1G, gunship) Dust Off (medivac by helicopter) Shit-hook (Chinook Helicopter) Little Birds (LOH Helicopters) Jesus Nut (holds helicopter rotor blade in place) Crispy Critter (helicopter pilot) Peter Pilot (co-pilot) Chicken Plate (chest armor worn by helicopter crew) Fast Movers, Fours (F-4 Phantom jets) ARC Light (B-52 Strikes) BUFF (B-52, big ugly flying fucker) Nape (napalm) Willey Peter (White Phosphorus, High Explosives Bomb/ Artillery Round) Blooper (M-79 grenade launcher) Puff the Magic Dragon, Spooky (AC-47 heavily-armed airplanes with crewserved guns operated by the CIA) Arty (artillery) Big Shot Gun (106mm recoilless rifle) Dime Nickel (105 howitzer) Glad Bags (body bags) Horn-Freq.-Prick-25 (radio) 102

Pucker Factor (fear) Funny Papers (map) In The Shit, Deep Serious Shit (worst possible position)

People -

Boot, Cheery, Turtles, Newbie (new recruits-new in country) Lifers (career Army) RA (regular Army - joined or signed up) US (drafted, also known as unwilling soldier) Ring Knockers (West Point Grads.)

Band-Aid (medic) Red Legs-Cannon Cockers (artilleryman) Jar-heads, Yellow Legs, Devil-dogs (Marines) Swabbies, Squids (Navy) Zoomies (Air Force) LT (Lieutenant) Old Man ( Senior Officer in Charge) Grunts, Ground Pounders (Army) Troopers, Bird Shit (Paratroopers) Spooks, Ghosts (CIA Officers) Sneaky Petes (Special Forces, Rangers, Green Berets, Navy SEALS) Sky Pilot ( Chaplin or Priest) Shake And Bake (enlisted man who attended NCO school) Bro, Spade, Brother (African-American) Honkey, Chuck, Cracker (white boy) Gung-Ho (see lifer)

What We Said -

Fuck (the most commonly used word), a classless word, one word that seemed to encompass all.

I’m too short for this shit, Cut me some Slack, Flaky, Bummer, Bumming Hard, No Sweat (easy) Sorry ‘bout that, ______days and a wake up (how many days until you went home), Bookoo, beaucoup (many) Tee-Tee (little) Boom-Boom or Short Time (sex) Di Di Mau (get out of here) Chop-Chop (food) Dinkey-Dau (crazy) Di-Wee (Captain) 103

Trung Si (Sergeant) The World (U.S.A.) Freedom Bird (airplane home) John Wayne (can opener) Slacking, Shamming, Skate, Ghosting (screwing off) Tight (friends) Hump (march) Saddle Up (move out) Choke (peanut-butter) Boondocks, Boonies, Bush, Brush (jungle)

Zipped In (Body Bag) MARINE (Muscles Are Required Intelligence Not Essential) Classics -

FNG (fucking new guy) AMF (adios motherfucker) Charlie Foxtrot (Cluster Fuck) Cluster Fuck (self explanatory) NDG (No Damn Good) SNAFU (situation normal all fucked up) FUBAR (fucked up beyond all recognition) Fugazi (fucked or screwed up) BOHICA (bend over, here it or comes again) CYA (cover your ass) FIGMO (fuck it, I got my orders) BTDTBTTS (Been There, Done That, Bought The T-Shirt) DILLIGAFF (Do I Look Like I Give A Flying Fuck?)

It’s All Good, But Some Is Better Than The Rest Recently an acquaintance of mine, an airline pilot, told me a story that

an old friend of hers had told her. Her friend, a fellow pilot and ex-Marine fighter pilot, said that the two most intense times in his life were flying combat missions over North Vietnam and group sex! I told her to email her buddy and tell him I said, “The two most frightening times in my life, were during combat and group sex. Both times I was afraid that I would be hit with friendly fire.”

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Obscene -

A young man I have known since he was in preschool with my daughter has been a Navy Seal for well over ten years now. He and his three brothers grew up with my daughter, and Maria and I have socialized with his parents through church, the kids’ schools, parties, and neighborhood functions. He was home on leave sometime last year, so his mom dropped him off at my house to visit. He had just returned from his fourth tour in Afghanistan. It didn’t take long for the two of us to realize that we were members of the same country club. When his Mom picked him up, she recommended that we all meet the next morning for breakfast. Cool, I’m a breakfast kind of guy. I was at the restaurant the next morning waiting for them and in walks Tony without his Mom. So “Where’s Mom?” I asked? Tony kind of blushed and said that, while telling her about making plans for breakfast yesterday, he mentioned that I had said “fuck,” and she did not feel comfortable having breakfast with me. WHAT? I’ve known these people forever. The four brothers think it’s an Olympic sport to fart in public. They piss like racehorses with the bathroom door open, they cuss like drunken sailors in front of their Mom and Dad. What? Has his Mom gone Charismatic Catholic on me? “Wait,” I said, “You, her son, Tony, a Navy Seal, who calls in air strikes and napalm on the Taliban? And she thinks that I’m obscene? Tell your mom to go fuck herself.” Tony just grinned.

Dead Man Walking

The US Army, in all its wisdom, decided I should go to Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol School. That was ludicrous… I had been doing just that for seven months. But what the hell do I know? Not much, apparently.

The instructors became so pissed at me that they kicked me out of school at the end of the first week. They wrote to my commanding officer that I had developed so many bad habits, I should be dead. And because of my insistence in correcting the instructors, they were afraid I would infect the rest of the class. Well, excuse me. Send me to Vietnam, why don’t you?

Snnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnake!!!!!!

Scared Shitless I was assigned to light duty as I was trying to get over a case of pneumonia. I wasn’t all that sick; I just had a persistent fever that sapped my energy. So, the Army had me doing a little paper work and driving officers 105

around Camp Eagle. One additional duty every evening was to drive a Lt. and the GIs who were pulling guard duty that night to defense bunkers along the perimeter. We would drive to bunker number one, drop off group number one, then drive to bunker number two and drop off group two, wait for them to make field radio contact with group number one, then drive to bunker number three, and so on. We arrived at bunker number four, dropped off the guys, and waited for them to hook up their radio when all of a sudden the guy hooking up their radio started screaming. He was getting the shit shocked out of himself as the GIs at bunker three cranked the hell out of their field radio, sending a surge of electricity. Finally, when bunker four’s radio was hooked up, the GIs at bunker number three were ringing the field radio and screaming their heads off. Seems there was a snake at their bunker. So the Lt. and I drove back to bunker number three. Sure enough, there was a snake. A six-foot King Cobra, sound asleep, sunning itself. An ugly, slimy, nasty-looking motherfucker. Holy shit! What do we do? We couldn’t shoot it; that would have set off panic throughout the camp. I knew that I couldn’t charm the snake. So we collectively decided it would be best to beat it to death with clubs. We gathered up pieces of rebar, two-by-fours, and a tire iron - anything that could be used as a club. We stood in front of the snake, and someone recommended that we throw a rock to wake it up so we could then chase it down and kill it. Sounded like a plan to me. So the rock was thrown, the snake was startled, and that slimy motherfucker came toward us about a hundred miles an hour! We hauled ass in five different directions. We stopped, turned around, and what a sight! The 2nd Lt. was standing there all by himself with the snake between his legs. He was beating the shit out of it. I would have gone back to help, but I was holding my dress over my head, not to mention I had wet my lacy panties.

You Know It’s Swell,

It’s Made By Mattel Toy Store - In many ways, the Army was like being in a big boy’s toy store. They gave us tanks, big beautiful Army green tanks. “It can’t get any better than this.” What? Helicopters?! Whirly Birds?! “Say it’s not so.” M16s, “You know its swell. It’s made by Mattel.” M79 Grenade Launchers. “Oh, My God! Bloopers!” Smoke too? Colored Smoke? “Noooooooooooooooo!”

Anytime a smoke was popped, someone would have a comment, and I never got tired of hearing them:

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Purple Smoke - “Purple Haze all in my brain, lately things just don’t seem the same, actin’ funny, but I don’t know why, ‘Scuse me while I kiss this Guy;” Yellow Smoke - “They call me Mellow Yellow, Quite rightly, They call me Mellow Yellow;” White Smoke - “We skipped the light fandango, turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor, I was feeling kinda seasick, but the crowd called out for Whores.”

I loved smoke, but as it turned out, it had a practical use. We used it to mark our location for close air support or a dust-off. During one firefight, I was working with a Cobra Gunship pilot. He could not tell us apart from the bad guys because of dense foliage. I told him I would pop yellow smoke to mark my location. He said “Roger that, but I see two yellow smokes.” “OK then, I’ll pop purple,” I replied. He said “Roger that, I see two purple smokes.” The NVA had apparently captured smoke and a radio and was listing in on our frequency, So I told the pilot I was popping white smoke.

He replied that he saw a white and a yellow smoke. I said, “Great. Attack the white smoke.” I had popped yellow.

Woodstock?

Got Wood The only wood stock that I was familiar with was the butt stock of a M79, 6.45 pound, 40mm anti-personnel grenade launcher.

They Say it’s Your Birthday

Born To Kill 3 January 1968; “I’m a man, spelled m-a-n… man, a manly man.” I don’t know about women. In fact, I don’t know anything about women, but I do know that young boys of my era measured manhood by age. We daydreamed that, on our twenty-first birthdays, we would walk into a bar of our choice, maybe one where we had already been buying booze illegally, slap down our IDs and order a beer. Our joys and expectations of life were not all that high.

I had been on a small convoy returning from Da Nang to Hue. We had gotten a late start and night was approaching, so we were driving as fast as the road would allow. At about four o’clock, the lead truck’s windshield 107

exploded. We were under fire. Shots started pinging all around us. I had absolutely no clue about where the shots were coming from. I rolled out of the jeep, and shots continued to ping everywhere. Looking around, once I had the courage to do so, I noticed I was the only one on my side of the vehicles. Everyone else had piled into a ditch on the far side, so it didn’t take long to realize what a mistake I had made. I crawled under the trucks, hoping that I would not be shot in the ass, and took refuge in the muddy ditch with everyone else.

Because of the echoes, the gunfire seemed to be coming from several directions. We couldn’t tell how many snipers there were or where they were. The RTO (radio operator) called for assistance, but we were told that Headquarters couldn’t send help because of the late hour. There was a chance that a helicopter might be in the air and diverted to provide support, but no helicopter ever showed up. So, we had to stay in our position for the rest of the evening. It would have been suicide to do otherwise.

By 2300 hours (11:00 p.m.), we had been lying in that ditch for seven hours, harassed by snipers who were not all that good, but persistent. Our nickname for snipers was “Ma Bell,” because they could “reach out and touch someone,” an advertising slogan for AT&T that was popular at the time.

They kept us cowering in the muddy ditch, soaking wet, and we were thinking that, at some time during the night, we would be rushed. We decided to conserve our ammo for the ground attack that never came. So here it was, 2300, and I started laughing, laughing like a maniac. Everyone in that muddy ditch thought I had snapped. After composing myself, I announced that today was my twenty-first birthday… everyone started singing “Happy Birthday” to me. I’m sure our persistent snipers thought we were idiots.

Having a birthday nine days after Christmas, and only three days after New Year’s Eve, had never been very rewarding, gift wise. Most of my family was broke, or weary of buying gifts for Christmas, not to mention that my special day was only a few days after the last holiday party, so no one was in a festive mood to celebrate. However, my twenty-first birthday was certainly different than the past twenty had been. I was twenty-one and, most importantly, alive.

As it turned out, the snipers were two women hiding in spider holes.

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CHAPTER nine DOGS OF WAR And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared for war; and upon their heads as it were crowns like unto gold, and their faces were as men’s faces.

And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as teeth of lions.

And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to war. And they have tails like unto scorpions, and stings; and in their tails is their power to hurt men five months.

Revelation 9:5-10.

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Do Your Balls Hang Low, Can You Sling them Over Your Shoulder Big, Big Bollocks

Men with the biggest balls had to be the helicopter pilots and crewmembers. The famous Vietnam War reporter, Joe Galloway, said it best when he coined the phrase describing them as “God’s Own Lunatics.”

Standing before The Wall (Vietnam War Memorial), addressing the VHPA (Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association) in July, 2000, Mr. Galloway said in part, “Is there anyone here today who does not thrill to the sound of those Huey blades? That familiar whop, whop, whop is the soundtrack of our war... the lullaby of our younger days. To someone who spent his time in Nam with the grunts, I’ve got to tell you that that noise was always a great comfort. It meant someone was coming to help… someone was coming to get our wounded... someone was coming to bring us water and ammo... someone was coming to take our dead brothers home... someone was coming to give us a ride out of hell. Even today when I hear it, I stop, catch my breath, and think back to those days. I love you guys as only an Infantryman can love you. No matter how bad things were... if we called, you came. Down through the green tracers and other visible signs of a real bad day, off to a bad start. To us, you seemed beyond brave and fearless... that you would come to us in the middle of battle in those flimsy, thinskinned crates. And in the storm of fire, you would sit up there behind that Plexiglas, seeming so patient, so calm, and so vulnerable... waiting for the off-loading and on-loading. We thought you were God’s own lunatics... and we loved you. Still do.

Mr. Joe Galloway nailed it with those simple, elegant words.

The summer of 2011, I was fortunate enough to have a long conversation with a WW II Veteran. After talking about his experiences during the big war, and me telling him about Vietnam (basically we were swapping lies), he said something that struck me as odd - not at the time he said it, but later while reflecting on what he had said, “Gallantry died after Vietnam.” He said this because, in his words, war nowadays is a push button war.

Not true, kind Sir, not true. I think of the young men and women in uniform today, and how much they have done for us these past years, and 112

how much we owe them. In Vietnam, yours truly certainly showed no signs of being gallant. In fact, I never observed one grunt show a hint of gallantry.

Bravery, yes. Men display unbelievable amounts of courage and bravery, but never gallantry. During ground combat, firefights, animal instincts take over and that, in a word, is survival. In those brief minutes of insanity, there is no mercy shown, no chivalry. It’s dog eat dog; whatever is necessary to be able to take one more breath tomorrow is done. However, there was one exception, which I witnessed day in and day out, and that was the gallant helicopter pilots and their crews. Those magnificent men and their flying machines. I cannot bestow enough praise on those men who would put our lives above their own. Wondered what the military fed those men (that wasn’t fed to me), that caused them to grow one-hundred pound balls. They are the original first responders, and they are to me, a word that I don’t use carelessly, Heroes.

Riders On The Storm There’s A Killer On The Road

Door Gunners. They thought of themselves as the hip kids on the block, too cool for school, wild and wooly cowboys of the sky. Besides riding around in a cool machine all day, they slept in beds at night, had three hot meals, wore clean, crisply ironed fatigues or jump suits, and had the coolest fucking space age-looking helmets. They were pompous, arrogant, pretentious pricks, mean-spirited schoolyard bullies. Maniacs with machine guns. Their four-foot by eight-foot cavern in the back of a slick (a helicopter without guns, other than door guns), was their kingdom. And you did exactly what they told you. They didn’t give a shit what your rank was. If you did something stupid... look out. I’ve seen them give officers far above their pay grade an ass chewing as vicious as any I had ever received from my mom. Because they could. It was the crew chief’s responsibility to keep the helicopter flying. He made sure it was serviced and armed and he, and he alone, could ground his aircraft if he chose to. He had more power than the pilots, and perhaps more power than God. We were so envious of them, we all wanted to be a door-gunner. What a cool job.

During the height of the war in ‘68, their casualty rate was horrendous; helicopters were being shot out of the sky like clay pigeons. The Army could not train replacements fast enough, so the aviation companies would come out to the field to recruit grunts (Eleven Bravos/infantry soldiers). The Army’s thinking was that we were desperate and insane enough to jump at the chance to volunteer. Back in the day, and even nowadays, we Vets tell 113

jokes about the Army coming out to the bush to recruit us. We would be up to our waists in mud, soaked to the bone from the constant rain, covered with leeches, with heat rash eating away at our armpits and crotches when the Army popped the question. Our response was, “What, and give up all this?”

When arriving at an LZ (Landing Zone), it was a door gunner’s responsibility to get everyone out as soon as possible, if not faster. After all, they were in a big, green target hovering three feet off the ground. One incursion that I remember was into a really hot LZ. A Marine was sitting in the doorway, and the gunner panicked and shoved him out. The problem was that we were still twenty feet in the air. When the helicopter got within five feet of terra firma, we all started to de-ass the slick. The last Marine out grabbed the door-gunner by his arm and pulled him out with us, and then his helicopter flew away. He was forced to play grunt for a day. His air squad did not return until the next day to pick him up.

The Marine he prematurely threw out? The lucky bastard only suffered a broken arm. Our new grunt/door-gunner’s pride was wounded, and he had a serious case of red ass. I have great respect for the helicopter crews.

They saved us, absolutely saved us, more than once.

Que Huevos

Band Of Brothers Although I served proudly with the 101st Airborne Division, I didn’t have the Hollywood experience of making BFF’s with Dallas from Oklahoma, Tex from Los Angeles, or Tad from Houston. My guys were Capt. Lone and Lt. Phong of the Hoc Boa (Vietnamese Rangers) First ARVN Division that I was attached to as a liaison officer to coordinate LRRPs (Long Range Recon Patrols). So I didn’t bond with many of my fellow American grunts, only officers from Division command and a handful of Spooks. And have you ever tried to warm up to a CIA officer?

Much has been written and said about what bad soldiers the ARVN’s were. Claims that they would shoot their American Advisors, then break and run during a battle... well, hell, that was true. But my guys were hardcore, two of the bravest men I have ever known. I saw Lt. Phong strip down to his underwear, armed only with two grenades, and crawl on his back one hundred yards to be within throwing distance of a machine gun bunker.

What Balls!

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No Balls

There was a Private whose name I forgot a long time ago. He was assigned to the MACV (Military Assistant Command-Vietnam) compound in Hue as an RTO (Radio Telephone Operator) for a Captain. This kid was, for a lack of a better name, a mama’s boy. He didn’t want to be in the Army, didn’t want to be in Vietnam, and didn’t want to ever leave the safety of MACV. He was a real outsider. He didn’t approve of our drinking, dope smoking, or crude jokes. He was most definitely different from the rest of us. In other words, he was a nice guy.

His Gung-ho Captain wanted to helicopter out to a fire base close to Laos for a little trigger time out in the bush. This kid, not being as enthusiastic about dying, did not want to go and made that clear to his Captain and anyone else that would listen. His Captain told him he was going and that was all there was to it, final. So, one bright morning, they packed up and flew off to the boonies. Later that afternoon, I was surprised to see the kid at MACV, and asked him what happened; did he not have to go? He said that he did go, but upon landing he refused to get off the helicopter. His Captain demanded that he get off and threatened him with a court martial or anything else the Army could charge him with. He politely told his Captain that he could go fuck himself. He was not getting out of the helicopter.

The Captain grabbed him and tried to pull him out by his legs, while a door gunner tried to unclench his grip from the safety net. They were not successful; the kid fought them off by kicking his Captain and biting the hands of the door gunner. Finally they gave up, and the helicopter flew back to Hue with him aboard. He told me that during the entire flight back, the crew members stared at him in disgust. He said that he might be a coward, but he was a live coward. You’ve got to hand it to him. He didn’t have balls or intestinal fortitude, and he didn’t give a rat’s ass. How many times did I not want to de-ass a helicopter?

It’s Only Rock And Roll

We were children of Rock and Roll. We cut our teeth on Rock-a-Billy, snapped our fingers to folk music, bobbed our heads and danced to Rock and Roll, then we tripped to Acid Rock. Now, we had our own war, and it was most definitely a Rock and Roll war, a war of cassette Rock and Roll music in one ear and door-gun fire in the other ear. Like today’s athletes getting up for a game by listing to Rap, we too prepared for battle. Psyched up by the 115

sounds of Steppenwolf, “Get your motor running, Head out on the highway, Looking for adventure, In whatever comes our way.” Pump up the volume. Pump up the volume. WHAT THE FUCK! WAIT! STOP THE MUSIC. Patsy Cline? Really Dude?

Helicopter slicks and gunships would arrive at a hot LZ, blaring Rock and Roll, Mozart or classic country through their loudspeakers. One of the funniest things I witnessed - okay, maybe ghoulishly funny - but funny just the same: Two Cobra gunships caught an NVA regiment out in the open in the A Shau Valley. The gunships worked them over, all four of their miniguns were being emptied, rockets continually firing. It was Hell on earth for the NVA, a waste of seasoned troops. All the while, one helicopter’s loudspeaker was playing Brenda Lee, “I’m sorry, so sorry...” After those two Cobras emptied their arsenals and flew away, two more arrived on station, and then Act II played out. Except this time they were playing Three Dog Night, “How can people be so heartless, How can people be so cruel...”

Music. I think I have a better memory of the music than the cold beer, and that’s an easy statement to make because the beer was never cold. Once I remember hearing someone’s cassette playing “Volare” (Nel blu dipinto di blu) by Domenico Modugno, and you thought we were unsophisticated animals.

Good times... sitting around in the evening at a base camp or a fire base, drinking beer, smoking dope listening and singing along with the “tunes.”

Troops locking arms and singing the lyrics to the Animal’s “We gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do.” The Box Tops “Give me a ticket for an aeroplane, Ain’t got time to take a fast train, Lonely days are gone, I’m a goin’ home.” Troops going home countering with the chorus from the Spencer Davis song, Gimme Some Lovin’…”So Glad We Made It, So Glad We Made It.” or CCR’s “They told me, Don’t go walkin’ slow, the devil’s on the loose, Better run through the jungle.” Getting high while grooving on the sounds of Sly and The Family Stone’s “I wanna take you higher, baby, baby light my fire.” Or just getting high while listing to radio static.

Radio Hanoi’s, Hanoi Hannah, the Queen of the North Vietnamese airwaves. Her soft Oxford accent, telling us horseshit war propaganda or that back home, “Jody was doing our wives and girlfriends”; she was a trip. If I remember correctly, her show could be picked up on short-wave radio, late in the afternoon. She would open her broadcast with, “Hello GI Joe, why do you want to die, it’s a long way to Fort Campbell. Then she would name GIs that had been killed during the week, and the urban (jungle) legend was, she gave names of GIs that would receive “Dear John” letters that week. And damned if they didn’t, so they say.

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I’ll give her credit for playing great Rock and Soul music. However, to torture us, she sometimes played classical Vietnamese songs. Oh God, please stop it, I’ll tell you everything. My name, rank, serial number, Division, anything, please stop the music. I swear it sounded like some chick screaming while her eardrums were being pulled out through her nose.

Rock and Roll even influenced our slang. Going “Rock and Roll” was putting our weapons on full automatic. “Get Down and Boogie” was when your body quivered from an adrenaline rush.

“You’ve Lost That Lovin Feeling” was what we sang when someone started pissing and moaning about being in the Army.

There was this disc jockey by the name of Adrian Cronaner with AFVN (American Forces Vietnam Network), who would open the day’s first broadcast with “Goooooooooooood Morning Vietnam.” He would sound “Good” for at least ten to fifteen seconds. Well, we were out in the boonies at a remote firebase, and there was this one GI that was going home that day.

At 0600, when the radio clicked on and the voice over the airwaves belted out “Gooooooooooooood,” he picked up his rifle and smashed the shit out of his radio with the butt of his weapon. He said he had wanted to do that for a year. It was funny, but what made it hysterical was that it wasn’t his radio that he smashed… it was the Captain’s! It was a Loooooooooooooooooooooong day in the boonies for him.

The Bitch And Famous

Robin Leach--Where Are You? Jane Fonda. The biggest BITCH that has walked the face of this earth! I despise her and all who worship her.

Walter Cronkite. I don’t care if he is a homeboy. In this life and the next, Cronkite can kiss my rosy Irish ass. He was often cited as “the most trusted man in America.” After spending a week in Saigon during the middle of February 1968, he announced his outlook for the war on his evening news program. “It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.” He broke our hearts, and he broke middle-America’s will.

Dan Rather. Another homeboy. He was the only big-time reporter I know of that would leave the five-star hotels and bars of Saigon to report on the war 117

from a battle zone. He was a nice guy back in the day, but what an asshole he turned out to be.

Bob Hope. What can I say about Uncle Bob? Not much. I never saw the man.

His shows were only seen by the REMFs and the mobile wounded, pushed up to the front rows for show. Don’t get me wrong. He was a wonderful man and very generous with his time, but I guess TV ratings were more important.

Martha Raye. An absolute angel; old enough to be my grandmother. Funny as hell, she never met a muddy grunt she didn’t hug, kiss, laugh or cry with.

She was the only Hollywood type who would spend the night at a muddy firebase in Bum-fuck wherever, just so she could pour a GI a cup of morning coffee. Upon her death, in appreciation of her work with the USO during WW II, Korea, and Vietnam, special consideration was given to burying her in Arlington National Cemetery. At her request, however, she was ultimately buried with full military honors at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

She is the only woman buried in the Special Forces cemetery. Sleep with the angels Colonel Maggie Ann Margret. I never saw it, but the rumor was that she never wore panties on stage. Another memory I’ve never been able to get out of my mind. To this day, I wake up in the middle of the night and have to take a cold shower.

Joey Heatherton. Took my breath away. If only I could have met her, I just know she would have fallen in love with me.

Capt. Peter Nick Narvarte. (12-22-67) He was my-self appointed protector.

Capt. Nick was the Commanding Officer of Headquarters Company, 101st Airborne Division. He took a liking to me because we were homeboys, him being from San Antonio, Texas, and me from Houston. Plus, he was impressed with my test scores (again with the brainpower?). He thought it would be a waste for me to be chewed up in the boonies. Capt. Nick protected me the best he could, having me do odd jobs around HQ, drive a jeep, deliver reports to Division’s commanding General, post combat reports, etc. Christmas week, he was summoned to Da Nang, a two-hour drive, for a command meeting. He wanted me to stay behind and complete some combat readiness reports. Halfway to Da Nang, his driver stopped for Capt. Nick to take a piss. As he stepped out of his jeep, he was immediately run over by a two-and-a-half ton truck. He died instantly. That was the first and last time I cried for someone. Two days later, I was in the boonies, and 118

later that day, I lost my virginity. Capt. Nick, the old man, died at the age of 29. God rest his soul.

SSgt. Joe Hooper. Friend, drinking buddy, fellow grunt. He became the most decorated soldier in Vietnam. He received the Medal of Honor, two Silver Stars, six Bronze Stars, eight Purple Hearts, and numerous other medals.

Another twist of fate is that Joe is buried at Arlington no more than twenty paces from WWII hero Audie Murphy, my cousin.

War Correspondents. What a group of guys. They looked like typical enlistees, except instead of carrying weapons they were dripping with cameras. I must admit they were most definitely an item of curiosity, especially when we learned they were civilians and didn’t have to be there. “Let me get this straight, you don’t have to be in the middle of this cluster fuck; you volunteered? Man, how much are they paying you?” Some of them were pompous pricks, but most were good guys. They would ask us questions, and we would see who could feed them the biggest line of shit. Give them John Wayne stories and swear that it was the truth. “By the way, I spell Bryan with a Y.” Some correspondents did ask really stupid questions or make inappropriate statements. Those were the reporters we wished death upon. Within days of being with us, the good guys became our Goddamn reporters, a term of endearment. We would find them places to sleep, make sure they had something to eat and drink, and try to keep them out of harm’s way. However, come nightfall or after a few days, they could catch a helicopter out of the boonies, back to safety. That’s when we started to resent and damn near hate them. Three guys I remember well were John Olson, Sean Flynn (Captain Blood) and Dana Stone. I spent many hours talking with them, actually listing to them. They were only six to eight years older but were so much more mature and worldly than any of us. They were extra friendly, funny, and would tirelessly answer questions about cameras.

Flynn was really good looking, almost too pretty; Olson and Stone were wiry, in better shape than most of us - small in stature, but they could hump up a hill and never break a sweat. Plus they always had the best dope to smoke. Looking back, they must have planted the seed for my future occupation. (Photography that is, not smoking dope.)

Eat The Apple, Fuck The Corps Jarheads, Leathernecks, Devil Dogs, Yellow Legs 119

“The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!”

- Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States, 1945 What can I say about the Marines, that Ellie didn’t say? I don’t know where to begin. At the MACV Special Forces compound in Hue, I had worked with personnel from the different armed services: Air Force - they were technical geeks; Navy - see Air Force. But the Marines, they were a throwback to a different time in history. Anything you have ever heard about, read about, or seen in the movies about those guys is true. I’m convinced that Marine must be Latin for “Macho.”

The training cadre at the USMC Boot Camps had taken all these guys from different walks of life and molded them into the same soldier, hence the word uniform (killing machine, highly-honed instruments of war). And what magnificent green killing machines they are.

In my opinion, the Marine officers had their shit together, but it was wound up way too tight. And I might add that they didn’t care too much for me. They thought of me as an Army piece of shit, but that was okay by me. I didn’t think too much of them, either. By US Army standards, the Marine officers were operating with WWII tactics, and that most certainly was not the most efficient method in a hit-and-run, guerilla-style war. The officers only tolerated me because I controlled Air, Naval, and Artillery gunfire during our joint missions, and that really pissed them off. Because they were part of the Navy, they thought that they should control the ordnance from the Battleships stationed offshore. That’s fine and dandy, but there were only one or two ships on station that could deliver firepower at any time, and I had access to all the 101st Airborne Division and ARVN artillery batteries in I Corps.

The grunts - they were not too crazy about me either until I started talking shit, talking the talk, and walking the walk. Sharing my whiskey and grass with them didn’t hurt any. They came close to making me a blood brother but, make no mistake, I was an outsider.

Leathernecks. They are - colorful! Those guys, because of their training and the Marine Corps mentality, were, and I don’t mean this as an insult but as a compliment, they were animals. Dirty, mean, gross, badass, unworldly, scumbags, brutal warriors, and their vocabulary consisted of no more than twenty words at best (all one or two syllables). The first five words were four-letter cuss words, then two compound cuss words, and the remaining thirteen words were different slang words for a woman’s anatomy. And they 120

spoke those words with gusto, such harshness that they could blister the heat shields off a Space Shuttle. I guess what I’m saying is, the Marines and I spoke the same language. Another thing, almost all of them carried a war souvenir photo album that they showed with pride. It goes without saying that all the photos were the same, mutilated VC/NVA bodies, and they had a caption for each image. WHEW! Graphic.

A funny encounter I had with the Marines, besides almost being beaten to death by one in the summer of 1968, took place dockside in Da Nang. For some reason, that to this day has no logical meaning to me, I had to fly down south to Saigon, then travel back up north with the 101st Airborne Division when they changed Division Headquarters to Phu Bia/Camp Eagle. After boarding huge, flat-bottomed LST transport ships and weathering two days of rough seas, our ships arrived at Da Nang’s harbor. Until command could get its act together, we sat there like prisoners, for three days, bored to tears, and broiling under the tropical heat.

On the last day, a ship docked next to us and, Oh My Lord, it was filled with Jarheads. Let the games begin! It started out innocently enough; well, innocently for Paratroopers and Marines. We started hollering insults at each other, insulting the Corps/Army, then progressed to shooting the finger.

Then, it went downhill fast. We Paratroopers had been on deck for several hours exercising and screwing around, but mostly sweltering, so we had our shirts off. The Marines started hollering, “Hi girls, you sure have small tits for girls.” In the beginning, there were only about one hundred Marines deck side, so we, at about company strength, marched up to the side of the ship, shirts off, turned around, dropped our pants and mooned the Jarheads. Oh shit, they went nuts! Marines started appearing from nowhere, like roaches coming out of the woodwork and, in turn, started mooning us. So, on command, with our pants around our ankles, we turned around and started stroking our “GUNS.” Symbolically, we were screwing the Corps in the butt. They didn’t think it was as funny as we did. Had it been possible for them to board our ship, they would have beaten the shit out of us. Thank God they were not armed. Because of all of the commotion, a Naval Officer came up on deck to see what was going on. Now, get this image in your mind: the challenge is to see if you can get it out afterwards. The Naval officer walks outside and sees two-hundred muscular, pasty white Paratroopers with pants dropped, stroking their tally-whackers and threehundred pasty white, hairy-ass Marines, with their pants dropped, bent over with butts in the air!

After being chewed out for twenty minutes, the five hundred of us were told to pull up our pants, then ordered to apologize to our moms, the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the US Army for not conducting ourselves as 121

gentlemen. Then we all sang “The Army Goes Rolling Along” and the “Marine Corps Hymn.” We were told to drop our pants, get down on our backs and do two hundred leg lifts, then roll over onto our stomachs and do two hundred pushups. The ship’s deck was scorching hot, so it did inspire us to keep our ding-dongs off the steel plate.

Ahhh, Marines, I love them. They saved my skinny ass more than once.

I have a special place in my heart for the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, known nowadays as the (Citadel Battalion, which happens to be the most highly decorated battalion in Marine Corps history. The interesting thing is that, for a bunch of guys who were. . .well, let me put it this way: Have you ever seen the evening local news, and perhaps there was a shooting in an area of town that you were embarrassed not only to know that it existed, but perhaps, just perhaps, it was even where you grew up? The TV reporter seems to always interview a redneck, and you cringe that the rest of the nation might see the broadcast, and you just know that in their eyes, he is representing your hometown. The TV conversation always goes like this, “Yessiree, I knowed it gonna happen. That Billy Bob is no good, never had been. Even a blind man coulda saw it coming. Things got badder when he hooked up with that uppity redheaded woman from the trailer park, with all them pit bulls and drinkin’ and such. Smoking dope and that loud Lynyrd Skynyrd rock and roll, I just knowed it was a matter of time before we would funeralize him.” OUCH! I would listen to the Jarheads talk, and think to myself, you dumb SOBs. What’s weird, even the soul brothers talked like that. What the hell was that all about?

For a bunch of savages that were uncouth, uncivilized, foulmouthed, undereducated assholes, they really surprise me today. I know many exVietnam Marines; in fact, two of my best friends from childhood, Ken Bob and Junior, both decorated Marines, are nothing like that or as I imagined they were. Talk about a transformation. The ones I know are well-educated, articulate, and successful in life and business.

Funny. Vets are always ex-Army, ex-Navy, or ex-Air Force, but not the Marines. To this day, no matter how long ago they served, they are proud Marines. Once a Marine, always a Marine. Period.

Semper Fidelis Dudes. Love ya, man.

“The wonderful love of a beautiful maid, The love of a staunch true man, The love of a baby, unafraid, Have existed since time began.

But the greatest of loves, 122

The quintessence of loves, even greater than that of a mother, Is the tender, passionate, infinite love, of one drunken Marine for another.”

- General Louis H. Wilson, Commandant of the Marine Corps Toast given at 203rd Marine Corps Birthday Ball, Camp Lejueune, N.C. 1978

Mom, Look Who Came For Dinner

Women And Children Personally, I have never had anyone directly ask me this question. I have heard it asked of other guys. I’m sure it’s been asked of veterans of all wars.

Probably some of you reading this have thought the same thing. “How can you kill women and children?” Is that one stupid question or what? You can quote me on my answer: “Real Fucking Easy.”

If a woman has shouldered a weapon and is pointing it at you, more than likely she is not going to invite you in for cookies and milk. And I don’t think she is a candidate to take home to meet Mom. Children - now, I’m not talking about cute little toddlers. We are talking about tweenies and teenagers. At that age, they knew exactly what they were doing; they may not have had a grasp of the consequences, but they knew what they were doing.

Those of you that are close to God know that God is the answer. Had only we filled our hearts with His love, there would have been no room for conflict. And yes, you are correct, I could not agree more. In Vietnam, I had a direct line to God and spoke to Him often, begging for mercy on my soul, pleading for a state of grace at the time of my demise, even though, at times I questioned His existence. My sins were numerous and I prayed for redemption. I believe, with my whole heart, that God answered those prayers and made me a good marksman. It was God’s will that I embarked on a journey to a miserable Hell, and it was God’s grace that protected me.

Screwed Six Ways till Sunday

The People How can I even begin to tell you about the Vietnamese? I loved the women, the good ones twice (Someone, please stop me!)

No, I really did like and respect the Vietnamese, but then I have never met a stranger. Even to this day, when I see a Vietnamese person, I’ll strike 123

up a conversation with them, just to let them know that I was there and tried my best. I’ve been to Vietnam Veteran celebrations recently, wearing a Vietnam Tiger striped shirt (that I’m proud to say I can still button), and have seen ex-military Vietnamese. They come up to me, give me a warm embrace, and tell me they love me and appreciate all that I did. It really gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. We Americans were so different from the Vietnamese, a clash of cultures to say the least.

And then there were the Hmong and other indigenous mountain people.

When you walked into one of their villages, it was if the calendar had rolled back two hundred years, maybe more. They, along with most Vietnamese, would stare at my blue eyes and try to touch them, or try to pull my long eyelashes. Complete strangers would walk up and rub and pull the hair on my arms and pinch my flesh to see it turn pink. On a few occasions, little old women in tiny villages would walk up to me and grab a handful of my privates! It was rumored that all Americans were endowed like mythical Gods. Again, there must have been an exception for me. I wasn’t born with, nor did the Army issue, a mythical God thing of huge proportions.

I was very fond of the people, which must had been obvious because, in turn, they showered me with their affections. I’d walk through a friendly village and they would flock around me. Children would hang on my legs or insist that I carry them, and vendors offered me free lemonade. On the rare occasions we would sleep in or near a village, two or three of the ladies would join me on the same evening and take turns, in their words, “souvenir me with a number one Boom-Boom.”

Those poor people had known only war for all their lives. What horrible lives, what a horrible existence. Why more Vietnamese were not insane, I will never understand. And of course, being Occidentals, we completely read the Vietnamese wrong. Death is a perfect example of why we clashed.

The Vietnamese have an infatuation with death. Hell, they would stare at a dead body longer than I would. When they saw a dead American GI, they would stand there, staring at the corpse, and then look up and smile, which really pissed off a lot of GIs. Truth is, they don’t mourn for the dead in the same manner as we do. It’s not that they were being disrespectful or showing glee at the death of a GI. It’s just that they didn’t know what to say or how to say it. They were like children.

If we saw the VC run into their village, we would more than likely burn that village to the ground. After all, they had to be VC sympathizers. If they were nice to us or took things from us, even medical aid, the VC would come into their village at night and murder them or rape their young daughters. It didn’t matter what they did. They were screwed. This was one of the problems of winning real estate during the day and then giving it back 124

to the enemy at night. We could not win and keep their hearts at the same time.

Beauty. Vietnam is a beautiful country. Lush jungles, rugged mountains with low-hanging clouds, white sand beaches, and ancient architecture. I remember many times when I would be on a mountain top looking at a lush valley below or gazing at a beach with pristine white sand and glistening clear water, thinking that one day people will flock here for a vacation destination.

Yeah right, that’s not going to happen. Little did I know!

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CHAPTER ten T ET Stepped Into Shit

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Don’t You Know You’ve Got To Shock The Monkey

Year of the Monkey To some, the name may invoke thoughts of cute little primates swinging from tree limb to tree limb, or small furry critters dressed in diapers, perhaps even a tuxedo. It’s amazing how often we use the word monkey in our everyday speech, monkey around, monkey bars, monkey boy, monkey brain, monkey business, monkey cap, monkey fruit, monkey fuck, monkey hanger, monkey jacket, monkey magic, monkey on your back, monkey shine, monkey shit, monkey see, monkey do, monkey spank, monkey suit, monkey tail, monkey talk, monkey trouble, monkey’s uncle, Monkey Wards, monkey wrench. And the list goes on and on.

My Year of the Monkey has to do with the Chinese Lunar calendar which names each of the twelve years after an animal. They believe the animal ruling the year in which a person is born has a profound influence on personality. “This is the animal that hides in your heart,” so said Buddha. I was born in 1947, the year of the Boar (in more ways than one). According to the Chinese calendar, I am friendly, honest, well-liked by everyone, and thrive in the arts as artist and entertainer. Tet Nguyen Dan, more commonly shortened to Tet, is the Vietnamese Lunar New Year based on the Chinese Lunar Calendar. It is the most important and popular holiday and festival celebrated in Vietnam, much like Christmas, New Years, and Thanksgiving as celebrated in the West, all rolled in to one. The holiday is a time for families to come together, worship ancestors and prepare special foods.

Tet

31 January 1968 Chinese New Year. Year of the Monkey, my ass. To me, it created a porno movie of a Chinese Cluster Monkey Fuck that plays most evenings in my mind. Showtime is normally at three a.m.

Vietnam wasn’t as much fun as a barrel of monkeys. The North Vietnamese used the two-day cease-fire agreement to launch a surprise attack on military and civilian command control centers throughout South Vietnam. Eighty-two thousand communist troops were committed to this assault. Long story short, they were mostly beat back and defeated within hours or days, with the exception of Fire Base Khe San and the siege on Hue, both in I Corp. I had the misfortune of enjoying the hell that Hue became.

Hue was the first and only urban warfare fought during the Vietnam War. Just as in Korea and WW II, the combat was intense: house to house, block by block, and hand to hand. In the end, in the city of Hue, two hundred and 129

sixteen U.S. soldiers and Marines, four hundred and twenty-one ARVN’s lost their lives during those four weeks of battle. Almost all of us were wounded at least once. The communist NVA/VC casualties were more than ten thousand. It is estimated that the NVA massacred six-thousand civilians in the assault on the City of Hue. Countrywide, the casualties (KIA) were 1,536 US, 2,788 ARVN’s, and 45,000 NVA/VC. The communist offense was a military failure. But they beat us on the home front, with the U.S. population losing confidence in the Armed Forces and the politicians who were running the war.

The war in Vietnam was commanded out of Washington D.C., unlike all previous wars that were the sole responsibilities of the Generals in the battle theater. Every battle plan and offensive maneuver was conceived at the Pentagon, then went to the President of the United States and some Congress members for approval. Then, and only then, it was passed down the chain of command to the lowly grunt in the field. Can you wrap your mind around that? Battle plans were made and approved by civilians for the most part, in a time zone twelve hours away. Also, we had to abide by The Rules Of Engagement. We could not shoot at the enemy unless he shouldered a weapon, pointed it at us, and pulled the trigger. We actually fought that war with one hand tied behind our back.

Monkey on a Stick, in addition to the delicious meal mentioned in Chapter Eight, I’ve come to learn that it is also a sexual position! (The elegant act of a female thrusting her backside on top of a male’s penis as quickly as possible.) Now with that juicy morsel of erotic information safely stored away in the spank bank, I might mention that it was also an Asian Scarecrow. In some ancient Southeastern Asian farming communities, in order to keep the disgusting beasts from eating their crops, they would kill a monkey, run a pole up its rectum, then set the pole in the middle of a field like a macabre scarecrow to frighten off the other monkeys. Doubtful that it worked, being that monkeys are smart, territorial, hairy, eating machines, and... well they are monkeys. Besides, being Southeast Asia, I’m sure the other monkeys looked at the monkey on the stick and grunted “Better him than me.”

Symbolically, every U.S. Marine and Soldier was A Monkey on a Stick, and like the sexual position, we were fucked.

In The Shit

Beast Tales

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I’ve been avoiding writing about any combat experience. The more I write, the more memories surface. Everybody wants to hear a good war story; none of mine are that.

War…there is no decency, goodness, or righteousness in war; only vile, obnoxious, immoral evil.

I don’t expect anyone reading this to be uplifted, no more than I expect to regain my innocence.

Again, before you read too far, I don’t want any of you to think I was a hero, or that I think I was a hero because I share the same DNA as Audie Murphy. I was not. I just made split-second decisions that might have put my life in peril to save the life of another or to take the life of another. Would I, could I, do those things again? I would like to think so, but at my age, the answer would have to be HELL NO! Back then, I was young, dumb and full of cum.

I have grown to love life, my loved ones, and friends.

I’ve noticed that, while writing and talking about Vietnam, I revert back to 1968. I don’t have the discipline of a trained, experienced journalist to overcome this fault. In Vietnam, while telling a story or giving an account of an incident, we would speak in breath-long sentences, as if we were afraid that it might be our last breath. I’m not sure, or don’t want to admit, why we did this. Perhaps it was because we didn’t want to give too many details that would relive it, incriminate us, or seem like bragging. Or, maybe, with little boy shyness, we were looking for a superior’s approval.

Battle Not With Monsters, Least Ye Become A Monster…

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Fighting For Peace

Is Like Fucking for Virginity Hue, at 0300. I heard a hell of a racket outside. The city was under a hellacious rocket and artillery barrage. Heavy machine gun fire, light automatic weapon fire, truck traffic, and voices echoed down the streets.

T’was the night before Tet, when all through the whorehouse not a creature was stirring, not even a Pimp.

The stockings and garter belts were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that the M.P.’s would not be there.

The whores were nestled all banging in their beds, while visions of American dollars danced in their heads.

And mamma-son in her thong panties and me with a nightcap, Had just settled in bed and it wasn’t to nap.

When out on the street there rose such a shit storm, 131

I sprung from my bed to sound the alarm.

Away to the window, I flew like a flash, tore open the window and fell back on my ass.

I make light of the Tet Offensive by bastardizing Clement Clark Moore’s poem, but it was a very serious situation. It marked the beginning of 1968, the bloodiest year of the war and perhaps the beginning of the end of America’s involvement. I looked out a second-story window. Holy Shit!

The streets were crawling with the NVA (North Vietnamese Army).

My two Vietnamese counterparts and I had been spending two days in a whorehouse, celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year with a bang, so to speak. Suddenly, Lt. Phong burst through the door of my room, buck-ass naked, wearing only his helmet (if only I could push that vision out of my mind). He screamed that we needed to go up to the roof “NOW” to escape.

I only had time to slip on my pants and boots, grab my weapon, and run out into the hallway. Capt. Lone was already out in the hall wearing only a pistol holster around his waist. If the situation had not been so serious, it would have been comical. Lone started climbing a ladder to the roof ahead of me, and I made the mistake of looking up. Oh, Jesus Christ, poke my eyes out with a sharp stick, PLEASE. As we were climbing to the roof, Lt. Phong said he would be there in a bit. Capt. Lone and I were peeking over the edge of the building, when we heard a grenade explode inside the building. When Lt. Phong joined us, I asked what had happened, what took him so long. He told us that he went back to take care of our three whores because they would have sold us out. Life is cheap.

The NVA were everywhere, ten thousand strong. And there were what, three hundred of us good guys in the city? At sunrise, it became obvious that, to reach the safety of the nearest U.S. compound, two blocks away, we had to clear each building, door-to-door and house-to-house. It took the three of us two days of fighting to do just that - two days to clear two blocks.

We holed up in an old three-story school building across from the U.S. MACV compound, and I went up to the second floor and tried my best to communicate with the guys in the compound. They couldn’t hear me, didn’t see me, or didn’t understand my signals, because they opened up with a hell of a barrage on our position. I dropped to the floor, crawled into the hall, and slid down the stairs on my belly. After the all-hell-release subsided, I went upstairs to the third floor by myself, scared shitless, to try again.

Fortunately, it was empty, except for three enemy soldiers that had been killed by the last barrage of gunfire. No wonder the guys at MACV didn’t believe me. They had seen three armed enemy soldiers on the floor above me.

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I was trying to get someone’s attention at MACV when, by chance, I looked outside the adjacent window and saw an NVA soldier across the street, shouldering an RPG and firing it at me. Fortunately, his rocket hit a window casement, but the concussion blew me out of the window, and I ended up in the side courtyard, on my back, with three cracked ribs, partially deafened and blinded. With such pain, paralyzing pain, it felt like my life was ebbing away. I could only gasp for air. My imagination started running wild. I knew for sure that my entire midsection had been blown away, and that blood was gushing with every beat of my heart. My only thoughts were for my mom and what was she going to do without me. “I’m dying. I’m actually dying.” It was nothing like I thought it would be. I had been taught that the pain would only be momentary and that the glory of Heaven would be eternal, but the pain was excruciating. I prayed that I would die soon.

I was in and out of consciousness. Opening my eyes, I saw an angel. My God, there was a beautiful angel standing over me. With the state of mind I was in, I thought it must be an angel to escort me to Heaven. A beautiful angel, silhouetted against the foggy sky, extended an arm to lift me up, to cradle me and relieve the pain and agony. Even with my muted hearing, I recognized an unmistakable click: It was not an angel of mercy, it was the angel of death. Standing over me was an NVA soldier, pointing his AK-47 at my face and pulling the trigger. Nothing happened; his weapon had jammed.

He cleared it. Again, he pulled the trigger and nothing happened. As he tried to clear it for the third time, I was lucid enough to think, “What the hell am I doing lying here while he is trying to kill me?!” I reached down and, by the grace of God, found my machete and swung it as hard as possible. Again, I must have blacked out from pain. The next thing I knew, the SOB was lying damn near on top of me, mumbling Buddhist prayers. Soon afterwards, or it could have been days later - it was as if time stood still - an Army Medic was treating me for my wounds. He was trying to stop my bleeding. The thing is, I had no bleeding wounds. I was covered with the gook’s blood. The Medic grabbed my arm and yanked me up; I almost screamed my head off. He didn’t realize that my ribs were fractured. That’s when the Medic introduced me to my little buddy, Mr. Morphine, the wonder drug. When the Medic had me up on my feet, I grabbed his side arm and put a .45 round in the gook’s chest.

The defenders of the MACV compound had been watching my drama play out on the street in front of them, so the commander had sent a squad and the medic to rescue me. I do remember a bird colonel inside the compound telling me that he saw what I did, and that I should receive the 133

Congressional Medal of Blowing a Gook Away. Strangely, he then asked if I wanted a beer. A beer, do I want a beer?

Lone and Phong had problems of their own, having been locked in close-quarters combat while my life episode was playing out. The next day, after being bandaged, medicated, and meagerly fed, the three of us were back on the streets of Hue. By now, the Marines were rolling into the city. It had taken them days of heavy fighting to travel ten miles up Highway One from Phu Bia, the home of the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Marines. It was the U.S. Marine Corps’ finest hour. Never had so few done so much with so little to save my skinny ass. Now, with the Marines, the First ARVN Division, and a handful of Army GIs, there were twenty-two hundred of us against ten-thousand.

Now, we can take names and kick ass. (That was sarcasm.)

I Said, Shotgun

House-to-house, door-to-door,9 February 1968 - will it ever be over?

Lt. Phong ran across an alleyway and entered a building. Capt Lone followed close behind him.

Now, it was my turn. As I stepped into the alleyway, I was slammed against a doorway. Everything went white. I saw stars, my ears were ringing, I was frozen... I must have been in a mild state of shock. I had dropped my weapon. It was shattered, my flak jacket was shredded and laid at my feet, my fatigue jacket was smoldering. Had I stepped through a portal to hell?

As I had been stepping into the doorway, a Viet Cong fired a shotgun from twenty feet away; the pellets just grazed me, with my flak jacket absorbing most of the energy. Had he shot two seconds earlier, it would have cut me in half. Before he could get another shot off, a Marine behind me opened up with an M-60 and cut the Viet Cong in half with a burst of automatic fire. The same Marine then beat out my burning shirt, a painful ordeal because my back was full of buckshot. I know for sure that I would have kissed that Marine had he been prettier. Phong and Lone spent the rest of the day picking shot out of my back, and several Marines passing by said we looked like a bunch of monkeys, but not as cute.

With Deepest Sympathy, A Grateful Nation Regrets To Inform You‌ 134

At the end of week one of the Tet Offensive, a U.S. Army officer and Chaplin rang my mother’s doorbell to inform her that I was KIA. They returned the next morning to inform her that I was now listed as MIA. That same afternoon, they returned and said that they honestly did not know my status, but that they had reason to believe that I was alive and safe. In the Army’s defense, and believe me when I tell you I have never stuck up for them in the past, they thought that, since we were on the streets of Hue, I had probably lost my life in the first few hours of the attack. We were just so rapidly overrun they didn’t think it was possible to survive.

Within a few days, Mom was told again that I was, indeed, alive and kicking. “Please accept the U.S. Army’s apologies.” Now here is the kicker: the Army stopped paying me because, after all, I was dead. It took months to prove that I was alive, not to mention that I was chewed out by my commanding officer for not writing to my mom. Now, how was I going to do that? I had been a little busy fighting a war, 24/7, the last month. Besides, I was dead.

Another little tidbit of information is that, after getting out of the Army and returning to work, I ran into Joyce Bryant, my sixth-grade girlfriend.

She looked as if she had seen a ghost when she recognized me. She had been told by her mom, who still lived in my old neighborhood, that I had been killed. She was overjoyed to see me alive. Can you imagine what kind of emotional rollercoaster ride my mom was on?

Holy Mary, Mother of God

Pray For Us Sinners

15 February 1968 The South Vietnamese government finally agreed to the use of air and artillery strikes to break the Siege of Hue. “We had to destroy the city to save it.” We actually didn’t do that much damage, because the NVA had defaced and blown up most everything by then. When the 155mm H.E. (High Explosive) rounds started coming in and exploding, along with small arms, light and heavy machine guns, RPGs and tanks, the din was deafening.

All sounds were bouncing off walls, pumping up the volume twofold.

For weeks, it had been so foggy that it was all but impossible to see across the street. Even if we could have, it would have been impossible to accurately call for air strikes. But by noon on Friday the 16th, the skies were starting to clear. We were dangerously close, within one block of the strikes. The combination of napalm, five-hundred-pound bombs and artillery 135

exploding, Hue City shook. Napalm rolled down the streets and avenues, engulfing all in its path, as if it was a tsunami direct from hell. The streets echoed with screams of the NVA. With wide eyes, we looked at each other, shook our heads, and made the sign of the cross.

17 February 1968 The stench was unbearable. So many lay dead in the streets - six, seven thousand. Jesus Christ, I couldn’t hold anything in my stomach. The rain did things to dead bodies the sun could not even dream of. They simply fucking melted. The river rats feasted in Hue. It was cold. There I was, in the middle of tropical Viet-fucking-Nam, freezing my butt off. It was like back home in late February or early March: cloudy, foggy, rainy, temperature in the fifties. Soaked and chilled bone deep, I could not stop shaking. I would not admit it then, and am very reluctant to do so now, but I was shaking from fear. Days earlier, I had had the shit scared out of me and could not even spit. Now I was scared shitless, and could not stop spitting. What kind of mental reaction was that? I can’t remember ever having a BM or eating. Well, maybe eating, but I can’t remember what, probably peaches.

We would be resting, actually hiding, behind a wall of a destroyed building, when a few guys would stagger in, drop their shit, and collapse.

Lying on bricks, broken glass, or in water puddles, it didn’t really matter.

No one made eye contact. Someone would start cussing a blue streak to mask their crying. The rest of us would look around, asking without speaking, is that what I think it is? Then we would turn our heads away and bite our fists to choke our own fear. No one wanted to leave the safety of the wall, but no place was safe for long. A sniper would pop a round into our sanctuary which would piss us off. We would gun up and say, “Where is that cocksucker; he’s one dead motherfucker.” That was chauvinistic. Many times, the snipers were women. The city was filled with deadly snipers.

They were everywhere.

22 February 1968 History books and news accounts recorded this date as the end of hostilities in Hue. I guess they forgot to tell us, because we had running gun battles into the second week of March.

I have to pay tribute to my brothers of the 101st Airborne Division.

They were assigned a task of flanking the city from the northeast, an NVA resupply and escape route. They were airlifted in, “Airborne, Airmobile, All The Way,” and suffered as many casualties in three day as the Marines did in three weeks. They were fearless. Surprisingly, at the end of the battle, we 136

original defenders of the city had only suffered a little over two-hundredand-thirty KIAs. However, our WIA (wounded in action) rate was onehundred-and-thirty percent. Not only were all original defenders of Hue City mauled, but so were our replacements.

Eloquent Words of Wisdom

Pencil Dick We were leaving the MACV after resupplying for more street fighting when we met a group of news correspondents at the front gate, cowering behind a sandbag wall. They wanted to get in the shit with us for a story. An Army Special Forces officer told them, “You swinging dick reporters need to keep your candy asses here. Charlie has his shit together out there, and we don’t have time to fucking baby-sit you sorry, worthless motherfuckers.

Whatever happens to you out there can’t be corrected with your eraser. Can you pencil dicks give me an affirmative on that?” I wished I had said that.

Greased We just couldn’t, and didn’t, leave the wounded lying in the kill zone.

They had to be rescued at all costs, an instinct that had been instilled into us.

The code of honor: “Leave no man behind. Take care of the wounded and they will, in turn, take care of you.” Now, it was best, if you were wounded, to just lie there and be quiet, because doing otherwise would make you a target. Whoever wrote that rule had never been wounded. Like you are not going to scream your head off? Yeah, right!

During the battle of Hue, we would often turn a corner or walk into a courtyard and be ambushed. The point man was almost always riddled with bullets and collapsed on the ground moaning, crying, screaming, and kicking while we tried to pull him back into cover.

On the twelfth day of the battle, we were attempting to clear the hospital complex of enemy soldiers for the third time. A group of eight of us went into an inside courtyard and all hell broke out. One Marine took a bullet in the neck and dropped, and the rest of us tried to melt into the surrounding walls. The wounded jarhead was in the middle of the courtyard, kicking and moaning with bullets bouncing around him, while the rest of us silently looked at each other. Without hesitation, I set down my weapon, 137

took off my helmet and flak vest, and burst out into the courtyard, screaming like a Texas Comanche Indian on a war path. With super-human strength, I grabbed the Marine, who was twice my size, by the arm to drag him to safety. When I yanked on him, his hand and forearm separated from his body, and I stumbled backwards and fell on my butt. Shit! His arm had been shot off. I then grabbed him by the collar and started dragging. All the time, I could not hear a thing. I heard no sound but my primal scream, echoing in my head. Once we were safe and I got my wits about me, my eardrums almost burst from the echoing gunfire. As soon as I ran out to drag the wounded Marine to safety, two Marines with M60 machine guns ran out with me and were riddling every door, window, balcony and opening with heavy, suppressing gunfire. And here I thought it was my screaming that had frightened the enemy.

Everybody, Get Up and Do the Chicken Dance

Hue was devoid of civilians; the only ones we saw were dead. I was struck by the disproportional number of dead children. Could they not keep up with the hurried exodus when the battle of Hue began? The people had vanished, disappeared, except for whores. They stayed, or came back, to enrich themselves. When the NVA occupied Hue City, the civilians that were lucky escaped to the countryside, living in the fields, I guess. After about fifteen days, they started to reappear. Like all victims or refugees, they returned to their homes to pick up the pieces. What the hell, did they think they were bulletproof? The battle was raging, but I didn’t know at the time that real hell was about to be released.

I’ll try to paint this picture for you.

On one street, approximately two city blocks long, near the University of Hue there were these town folks of all ages, with the exception of young men. They were walking around in the street as if it were a Sunday afternoon stroll, visiting with each other and picking up their belongings or someone else’s from the street. They would walk from one end of a block to the next, begging for food from NVA soldiers or us. We had nothing to give them.

Then, an enemy soldier fired an RPG rocket over our heads. The crowd that had gathered around us, turned and ran toward the NVA. We returned fire and the crowd turned and ran toward us. Then, the enemy lobbed a mortar round toward us, and the crowd turned and ran toward the NVA. Guess what happed next? You got it. We returned fire and the crowd ran toward us. This went on and on. The people looked like a flock of chickens, 138

running and turning en masse. They didn’t know what to do, poor people.

Here, they had probably lost everything, and we were using them for our entertainment. No one was hurt, maybe a skinned knee are two. It was funny. You can look down your nose at me, but it was funny at the time.

Wilderness of the Insane

On the streets of Hue, deep into the ancient Citadel city, Capt. Lone, Lt. Phong, and I turned a corner, and lo and behold! There were an NVA colonel, a captain, and a sergeant sitting in a Chinese jeep. What a prize! All three of us rushed them, dispatched the sergeant to Buddhist Heaven, and overpowered the two officers. I was giddy; I was sure to get another week of R&R for my prize. To remove the bad boy from them, we beat the hell out of the officers with our rifles, and then handcuffed them to me with bicycle chains. Then, ran like bats out of Hell toward the river, dragging them along. We were within two blocks of the river when we started taking fire.

Capt. Lone and Lt. Phong were both hit in the legs and needed help. So here I was, with two NVA officers tied to me, trying to drag my guys from harm’s way, returning fire, and trying to avoid getting shot. My morphine was wearing off, my ribs were killing me, and the bicycle chains that had seemed like a good idea at the time were now cutting into my wrist. If that wasn’t enough, the NVA Captain was starting to resist.

About that time, SSgt. Joe Hooper, who had been watching this drama unfold, came to my rescue with three of his guys. We were rushed by an NVA squad who shot Hooper’s three guys dead right away. So, Joe and I used the NVA officers as shields as the attackers fixed bayonets and charged.

It was like a turkey shoot until I ran out of ammunition, but I had my ole buddy, Mr. Machete. Hooper was fed up with the asshole NVA officer resisting, so he blew his head clean off. Thanks Joe, thanks a lot, that’s all I needed. I was now covered with this guy’s gray matter and blood. I had an NVA Colonel tied to me who had gone into shock and crapped on himself, with a headless Captain tied to him, and was still dragging the wounded Capt.

Lone and Lt. Phong along with me. I had no rifle. My adrenalin was pumping so hard I was throwing up. I had no more strength, my ribs were killing me, and the bicycle chains, I was sure, were cutting my hand off.

Hooper went John Wayne on me and charged the remaining NVA squad while throwing grenades and shooting from the hip. What a cowboy! I was fighting off two gooks that had fixed bayonets, and I thought my arm was going to fall off from swinging that machete. Finally, by the grace of God, I managed to pick up one of the AK-47s lying at my feet and blew the two 139

remaining NVA soldiers away. After we had beaten off the attack, I had a dead, headless Zip attached to me that needed to be taken care of. There was no way to untie the chain, so I started whacking at his arm with my machete.

The NVA Colonel fainted. I could not cut through that guy’s arm. Fatigue forced me to stop and rest, and my arm felt like boiled spaghetti. What the hell was his arm made of - a combination of duct tape and Kryptonite?

Thinking back, I imagine that we looked like a gruesome circus act. Hooper was running around in a circle like a bullet proof American Indian, whooping and hollering. I was standing over Capt. Lone and Lt. Phong, I had two NVA officers chained to me, one without a head, and we were surrounded by mutilated NVA corpses. I was throwing up and could not stop and if that wasn’t bad enough, every time I vomited, the NVA Colonel tied to me would vomit. The long and the short of it: Joe Hooper was awarded the Medal of Honor for his action that day and I wasn’t.

I Fell Out Of Your Embrace

Into the Arms of Sorrow There was a young, beautiful Vietnamese girl, Agnes Long, on whom I had a mad crush. Dare I say that I was in love? Certainly lust, but I’ll go with crush. I adored her. She was an ARVN Officer and I was an NCO, so as far as the military was concerned, it wasn’t going to happen between us. We kept our clandestine rendezvous hidden. I had learned well at the knees of the CIA Spooks. She was so lovely: curvy hips (the fish heads and rice didn’t miss her ass), tiny waist, shiny, thick black hair, a little-girl giggle, and such a big flirt. She looked like an angel in her long, white, traditional ao dai dress.

When she walked, sashaying her curvy hips, she seemed to float. I can even remember how her neck smelled - like sugar water. She was the most exotic woman I had ever met, and just my luck, a good Catholic girl. All we ever did was hold hands and sneak a kiss at every opportunity. I was smitten by her. I had never in my life been with anyone like her. The difference being, prior to her, there had only been giggling, immature, teenage girls; she was a woman and I was intimidated by her.

During the month of February 1968, the Tet offensive was raging in Hue. Poor Agnes was rounded up by the NVA in the early hours, as were so many Vietnamese; they were murdered and thrown into mass graves. It didn’t matter if they were dead or alive to those sons-of-bitches. After three weeks of battle, we had finally fought deep enough into the old citadel town where Agnes lived. I went the house where she had been renting a room in hopes of finding her. The old man and woman who owned the house were 140

lying dead in the front yard. Agnes was nowhere to be found. Capt. Lone found out from neighbors that Agnes had been captured weeks earlier. I was stunned, heartbroken, and sickened at the news. My heart filled with sorrow, but it faded somewhat as time passed and brutal revenge was taken.

Rage consumed me - blind rage and teeth-gritting hate. I had never known hate like that. Stupidly, as a spoiled child, I had told my parents that I hated them when I didn’t get my way, and I should have had my butt kicked for that. I am so ashamed for having said it. But now, it was justice, and I knew the true definition of hate. The next two weeks of the battle was revenge city. I took chances I shouldn’t have, but why not? There was no one waiting on me, just Mom. Being Mom’s baby boy was a problem, but if I had died on the streets of Hue, well, child number three could have been promoted.

The skies had started clearing, and I had access to all the napalm air strikes I could use, and use them I did. The Marines nicknamed me Sgt. Jelly because of all the gelled-gasoline-hell I would bring down on the cornered NVA. I relished hearing them scream and smelling them cook. (You know, you might never eat a piece of grilled meat again after reading this, but it doesn’t smell any different than a backyard cookout.) If only there had been a slower Hell on earth that I could have subjected those SOBs to. Capt. Lone began to worry about me. He was concerned that I might have gone too deep into the dark side, past the point of return. A Marine Captain told me I was carrying it too far. Some of his men were complaining; they thought napalm was being used to excess.

I’m a loving person by nature. I don’t carry a grudge or harbor ill feelings, but Agnes’ death was different. Within weeks after the siege of Hue was broken, we started to find mass graves; 3,000 - 5,000 civilians had been butchered. It was weeks later when I learned positively that my Agnes was among them.

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CHAPTER eleven POINT THIS SIDE TOWARD ENEMY

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Just Another Day At The Beach

Fire Support Base Del Mar To borrow a line from Rod Serling, “Imagine if you will. . .”

Sweltering. We were drowning in our own sweat. Rivers of sweat rolling down our backs and chests, soaking our fatigues. Inescapable heat, body salt clogging the pores of our skin. Pimples, erupting within hours. Festering sores, oozing. Itching so much from heat rash that you wanted, needed, to claw at your flesh.

Everyone’s eyes were burning, bloodshot, aching from gun smoke and sleep deprivation. Our faces were caked in dried mud. It hadn’t rained in months, yet the ever-present red dust, humidity, and sweat had combined to paint our faces like those of primitive, South American tribesmen. With not even a hint of a breeze, a choking cloud of red dust and cordite hovered over the firebase like a dense fog. We smelled of human excrement from having defecated on ourselves during close quarters combat; we weren’t even sure it was our own.

Vomit-stained shirts, matted with blood and other sticky substances, and none of it, I repeat, none of it was from one’s own body. It had been two weeks of battle with constant artillery barrages, probes, and ground attacks.

We had killed many, yet they keep coming. I could have, and should have, kicked my own butt. I didn’t have to be there; we only went to the Fire Support Base because I wanted to get a hot meal, and maybe a shower.

It was the summer of 1968, July. We had been defending Fire Support Base Del Mar, ten miles south of North Vietnam, twenty miles east of Laos, and only one step away from Hell.

I say “Defending,” but we had been fighting for our lives. Men from both sides of the conflict were being ripped apart, blown into the air, landing with heavy thuds or in multiple pieces. Bodies cut in half by heavy machine gun fire, some disintegrating from direct hits by high-explosive artillery. The only evidence that they ever walked this earth was a blood mist. Arms and legs littered the ground like splintered tree limbs. There was no time to provide dignity for the dead. Wounded men’s lungs sucked, gasping for another breath. Heads rolled across the ground as in the movies (Jesus, heads actually do roll!). Blood squirted from severed arteries. Potholes were filled with brownish red water, but how? It hadn’t rained in weeks. We were continually shelled with heavy artillery, mortars, and rockets, forced to take shelter in the trenches and underground bunkers. The NVA let up the bombardments, and the ground attacks started again. The roar was deafening. Moans, screams, cries, hollering, the rattle of automatic assault weapons, explosions, the constant pounding, pounding, pounding report of quad fifty-caliber machine guns. Above it all, you could hear your heart 145

pounding. Pandemonium had set in. I didn’t know if my legs had been shot or if they were frozen from fear. They were like rubber, quivering rubber.

Flares were popping, whistling during their flight, illuminating the night, floating down, casting eerie, artificial light in a lazy, side-to-side motion, night shadows dancing. . . it was hypnotic. With sky-bursts of incoming artillery, fate randomly picked those among us who were to suffer.

Howitzers fired at point-blank range. As the big guns recoiled, they bounced six inches off the ground, adding to the already existing, choking dust cloud. Cobra helicopter gunships hovered above us, emptying their arsenals on the perimeter. Their rotor wash stirred up even more dust, adding insult to injury as our flesh was pelted and burned with dried piss, rocks, and spent cartridges. The gunships were directly - and only ten feet above our heads. I felt the need to duck while running under them. They were so close, we couldn’t hear the tell-tale whop-whop-whop-whop of their rotors, only the mechanical whirl of the turbine engines and mini-guns.

The mini-guns fired at a steady rate of six thousand rounds per minute, the crack of each new round blending with that of the last. They sounded like run-a-way chain saws. As B-52s carpet-bombed the valley floor, the ground shook, and we felt the vibrations in our feet, then up our spines. The Gooks were in the wire again, running like a pack of wild dogs, bayoneting and shooting the wounded, blowing up suicide satchel charges as multicolored red and green tracers flew at waist level throughout the firebase.

Shot-down helicopters were in flames, their aluminum frames melting from the intense heat as their dead crew members cooked, still strapped into their seats. What inner strength kept me from breaking and running? Frustrated from not being able to kill a single enemy enough times, we emptied complete magazines into their already lifeless bodies. Choking the life out of wounded enemy combatants. With every kick and struggle, the frustration and hatred eased, but the monster within grew. Headquarters and the aid station had been blown up from direct hits; there was not a single doctor or medic alive. The last three days (seventy-two hours, four-thousand-three hundred and twenty-minutes) had transformed that barren hilltop into a Freddy Krueger movie set. Every night, two Spookies (AC-130 gunships) circled the hill, pounding the enemy. Had God used the equivalent amount of His awesome power when He punished the children of the Old Testament, it would have turned the sands of the Sahara into glass.

The commanding officer called for our perimeter to be napalmed.

Word was passed around that if an NVA force of substantial size broke through our perimeter, we were to get inside bunkers and protect ourselves as best we could. We were in God’s hands, for Hell was to be released on our coordinates.

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By morning of the seventeenth day, the battle had subsided, it was time to tag our dead and place them in body bags, then dispose of the enemy dead. Bulldozers were trucked in to dig mass graves or crematory pits for the NVA and Viet Cong. There were so many of them. It was time for us to stifle the horror and dig deep within ourselves to regain some fractured semblance of our humanity.

An epic battle, like so many in Vietnam, not witnessed or recorded by the media, lost in history. Remembered only by those who survived.

Cherry Kool-Aid, It’s My Tang

A dear friend of mine may be the best-read person I know. She attacks books as if they were aged steaks, cooked on the rare side. Famished for the written word, she ravenously devours every syllable. Knowing that I have been writing about my Vietnam experience, she told me about Matterhorn, a novel by Karl Marlantes that she has been reading. It was written by the author over a period of thirty years, based on - and written in great detail about - his thirteen-month tour of duty in Vietnam. One story from the novel that she thought was fascinating, and well-written, was the author’s description of men returning from a night ambush. Their lips were stained from Kool-Aid that had been mixed into their canteen water to mask the taste of water purification tablets. With Kool-Aid stained lips and terrorstricken eyes, the soldiers had looked to the author like children returning from a bizarre birthday party where horror movies had been shown.

As she told me the story line, I sat there thinking, “Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.” Why had I not thought to write of that? Of course, I would be accused of, and probably sued for, plagiarism. But, wow! How many times had I seen that and thought the same. Men, who were only pimply-faced children, returning from a night of horror. Some, if not all, had never experienced life, had never experienced the fragrance or taste of a woman, had never known the sensual pleasure of running their hands up a woman’s soft, smooth legs. A few of those guys were probably unable to write a complete sentence, yet could field-strip and clean a complicated weapon during a firefight, and understand an incomprehensible US Army field manual. Now, according to the standards of war, they were men, returning from a night ambush or forward listing post (LP), walking in a single file out of the low-hanging morning fog, shrouded in black ponchos, faces blackened, and with their lips stained red from Kool-Aid. Red stain trails running down from the corners of their mouths to their chins, making them look like amateurishly made up children portraying Count Dracula on 147

Halloween. Their eyes were bloodshot and hollow, swollen from lack of sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come easily for the boys of the night. It’s ironic that I have written these last few paragraphs today, only one day after the thirty-fifth anniversary of the fall of Saigon.

Just this afternoon, May 1, 2010, I was grocery shopping with my wife, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t step aboard my crazy train. I had to turn my head away and fight the tears back, for in the checkout lane was a little boy of three. . . with lips stained red with Kool-Aid.

Into the Garden of Eden

The Wedding Ring - April, 1968.

It was supposed to be an easy (I laugh out loud today, as I did fortysomething years ago, when I was told it was going to be easy... nothing was easy in “The Valley”) two-day excursion to Uncle Ho’s trail in the A Shau Valley for a little search and destroy mission - a typical combined operation of Vietnamese Airborne forces, US Army, and Marines. As the second wave of helicopters arrived, enemy gunfire filled the skies. Within thirty minutes to an hour of being on the ground, we were locked in heavy combat. The dust-offs (MedEvac Helicopters) started arriving and ferried out the wounded and KIA’s all day long. Finally, in the early afternoon on the second day of fighting, the Marine Captain in charge said we’d had enough; they were handing us our asses. It was time to leave, and time to call in Spooky or Puff the Magic Dragon to cover us, followed by B-52 strikes.

My luck: I was on the last sortie out, and it seemed like forever before it arrived, and when it did, it looked like Swiss cheese. It had had the hell shot out of it, and how was it even airworthy? It was three feet off the ground when I made a running leap. I flew in one door and out the other: my helmet going one way, my weapon another. It was if I had slid on greased owl shit.

The deck smelled terrible and for good reason, as I would learn. As soon as I hit the ground, I bounced up and clawed myself back aboard with the assistance of one of the door gunners. Lying on the floor, arms and legs spread eagle, I was clinging to anything I could dig my fingernails into. The door gunner hollered, asking why I didn’t retrieve my weapon. I told him, “Fuck it, let the Army bill me for it.” I was not, I repeat, most definitely not getting out of that helicopter. I was panting like my lungs were going to explode. (Got to stop smoking, got to stop smoking, got to stop smoking.

Why do we say things in triplicate? Because of the Holy Trinity, I wonder?)

The chunk of green metal they still called a helicopter went nose down for takeoff, and then the floor became awash in blood. Jesus. It was one of the 148

slicks they had been using for dust-offs, and the rotor wash had covered everything with blood and God knows what else.

By now, we were getting hammered from ground fire. I started praying, “Get us out of here, get us out of here, get us out of here.” How was that sucker even flying? It was as if someone was outside, beating our helicopter with a baseball bat and a pickax, punching holes into the fuselage. Green tracers flew in one door and out the opposite side. Each hit made the helicopter jerk violently from one side to the other, with the ass end trying to catch up with the front end. All I was worried about was getting my boy parts shot off. Screw a foot or a leg. That would be my ticket home. But not my balls and bat ; I had plans for those guys. I looked around. Everyone had his eyes closed, praying. Then, I saw something on the deck that looked out of place, yet familiar. Is that a ring? Aww man, is that what I think it is? The left hand of the door gunner who had helped me aboard had just been shot off. I just stared at him, in shock. Oh Lord, that can’t be! He just calmly pressed his mangled arm to his thigh, reached down, and picked up his hand.

I sat up, took his severed hand away from him, wrapped it in my bandana, and stuffed it in his shirt side pocket. I can’t remember what my wife Maria and I talked about just this morning, but I will never forget him asking, “What is my wife going to say?”

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

It’s easy for us to lounge around on our easy chairs, watching TV programs or movies about young men going off to battle, whether they are Roman gladiators, WW II dogfaces, or today’s current warriors. Being far removed from the grit, we take so much for granted. In fact, we don’t even think about or consider the misery, hardship, and hell a grunt suffers. We just watch the action unfold, and maybe turn our heads or grimace at a scene or two, with no emotional attachment - unless we’re combat veterans. We relive it. Being intoxicated by battle, we cannot look away from it. We’re afraid to close our eyes because; if we do, we mentally return to a valley, a basin filled with our fears.

A very good friend of mine, JC the Professor, said the above paragraph seemed a bit preachy to him. If it is, so be it. My intent is to set the stage for the reader to better appreciate the fear that gripped us and the isolation and sadness that we carried inside. It’s difficult for most to visualize the depth of the emotional turmoil we suffered. . . suffer.

A Shau Valley. . . again. I was sitting on the edge of an airfield at Camp Eagle, home of the 101st Airborne Division, sweltering under the early 149

morning sun, waiting for the Huey slicks to arrive. Leaning back against my rucksack, I could smell the sweat and body salt that saturated its webbed straps, intermingled with the bag’s scent of canvas, nylon, and dirty socks - a masculine odor, pungent, but not all that unpleasant. The smell of the dyes in my new, unwashed, out-of-the-box tiger-stripe fatigues, however, was almost nauseating. The odor had always reminded me of the store-bought Halloween costumes of my youth, which hadn’t been that many years before. But then again, at that point, it seemed like my youth had ended a lifetime ago.

I was writing home, smoking cigarette after cigarette, sipping on KoolAid laced canteen water, making nervous jokes, laughing at a joke that I only half-heard because I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts. I’m positive I was writing to Mom. With the exception of my sister-in-law, no one else was writing to me. I guess most people had burned out after all those months I had been In-Country. Even the folks with whom I had been corresponding through the Red Cross’s Send a Soldier a Package Program had tired of writing. Capt. Lone and Lt. Phong were squatting next to me, playing craps.

They begged me to join them in a game or two, but being aware of their gambling skills, and knowing that they would clean me out of the measly few bucks the Army paid me, I politely refused by shooting them the finger. My thoughts were of home, Mom, friends, and good times. I thought of my car that was waiting for me, and the brown-eyed, blond girl that didn’t wait.

My hands trembled as if I had Parkinson’s disease. I was dreading going back to the valley. This was my tenth invasion into the valley, and my fear seemed ten times greater than the first time. It had always been a bloodbath.

I was pissed that I was going back, having been there only three days earlier on a three-man LRRP mission and now, after being debriefed by the CIA, I was ordered to go back on a company-size invasion.

I heard the first twenty helicopters approaching from a distance, the telltale sound of their rotor blades slapping at the morning air. As the whop, whop, whop became louder, we started putting everything away, gathering up the letters that had been written home - some for the last time - and asking that they be mailed. We then huddled in tight circles, turned our collars up, and faced away from the landing zone. As the birds began to land, the rotor wash pelted us with dust, small stones, and piss mud, filling our nose and ears with grit.

A master sergeant was directing us to mount up on the helicopters, but we could not comprehend one word he was saying over the noise of the jet turbines. The sergeant ran over to a group of GIs that were the first to mount up and pulled them off the slick, flinging them to the ground as if they were small children, telling them they were stupid sons-of-bitches for 150

getting on the wrong helicopter. Why did it matter? We were all going to the same place, were we not?

When our group was ready, we climbed aboard with Capt. Lone, Lt. Phong and I sitting in the middle, between the two door-gunners. The GIs sitting across from us stared at me in disgust, as if I had walked into a KKK meeting with two soul brothers. The average GI did not think too highly of ARVN soldiers, who were known to break and run during battle. However, my guys were the exception. I trusted them with my life; I had no other option. I glared back at the GIs, and noticed that a couple of the young replacement troops did not have jump wings. I silently wondered if they had what it took to wear the Screaming Eagle patch.

Once we were aboard the bird and strapped in, it started vibrating like it was trying to tear itself apart, straining to lift off. Acidic Jet-A fuel exhaust fumes burned my nostrils. With the jet engines reaching a high-pitched whine, the bird lifted a few feet off the ground, floating in a confused manner, drifting to the left and then right, as if the pilot could not make up his mind. Then, the nose of the helicopter tilted down, and the green machine rushed forward. . . airborne motherfucker. The airfield and base camp perimeter raced past as the helicopter gained altitude and speed, and my inner alarm bells started ringing. Apprehension of what’s to come overtook my thoughts of home.

Fear and anxiety distorted everyone’s faces, muscles pulled taunt over our cheekbones. Our body language spoke volumes. GIs clenched their fists, bit lower lips, wrapped themselves in their arms, closed their eyes, and mouthed silent prayers while rocking back and forth, some fingering rosary beads at the same time. Weapons were checked and rechecked with nervous hands. Legs developed manic jitters, and tears began to flow. There was no shame in crying. Some guys started wailing, shrieking war cries, beating their chests like ancient warriors trying to fend off demons or frighten their enemies. Cool air rushed in, drying the sweat from our bodies, but no amount of air would erase the adrenalin stench.

After an hour of flight time, the mountains came into view, still smoldering from the B-52 strikes. The squadron of helicopters started dipping, performing evasive maneuvers to avoid any possible gunfire.

Simultaneously, without a word being spoken, we all pulled our helmets from our heads and sat on them. We performed this little maneuver in belief - hope - that the helmets would keep us from getting our balls shot off.

We kept flying deeper into the valley. The sheer beauty was breathtaking. Mountain ridges of exposed granite towered above lush, seemingly impenetrable, triple-canopy jungles. The late morning fog was lifting, filtering the tropical sun. Golden shafts of light streaked through the 151

trees. Mountain streams glistened in the sun like silver threads. It would have been a pristine landscape, had the scenery not been sadly pockmarked with bomb craters.

Our helicopter dropped lower, flying at breakneck speed. We had been flying at the same altitude as the mountaintops, but now we were dropping lower and lower at high velocity, twisting and turning as the pilot flew his imaginary slalom course. Without warning, the entire side of the mountain erupted with muzzle flashes. Frightened men started peeing on themselves.

Urine ran down their legs and dripped through the webbed jump seats, but was suspended in mid air by the rotor wash and flung back at us. Not the type of Golden Shower that my sex-charged imagination had been conjuring up. No one uttered a sound, but down deep, we were all screaming like frightened schoolgirls.

The morning sky was turning orange and black from triple A (anti aircraft artillery) fire. The lead helicopter exploded in a ball of flame, ejecting troops at two thousand feet. We stared in horror with gaping mouths as our helicopter swerved to miss the debris and plunged deeper in to the valley. Weak smiles formed on our lips, silently communicating, “Better them than us.” Ragged holes started appearing in the Huey’s fuselage. Our helicopter started bouncing and shuddering violently, as though we were driving over a cobblestone road, not so much from the hits we were taking, but from the air being displaced by the unbelievable amount of firepower directed at us. A GI sitting next to the door on the port side slumped forward. From the bridge of his nose up, his head had been blown off. Lt. Phong looked at me and stuck his tongue out in disgust. We had, for sure, crossed the city limits into Crazy Town, riding an express elevator to Hell.

When our helicopter approached the landing zone, the thick, yellow smoke marking our LZ was caught up in the rotor wash and spiraled upward like mini-tornados. The terrified door-gunners started shooting madly at the tree lines; the deafening report of their M-60s filled the cabin. Above the din of the machine guns, rotors, and men screaming for God to have mercy on their souls, we could hear the muffled crump of exploding artillery rounds.

The LZ looked like the surface of Hell with dirt, grass, black smoke, and flames shooting straight up into the sky. A whiff of gunpowder smoke, cordite, and the odors of battle burned our nostrils. Soon came a familiar, putrid-sweet copper scent. The new guys sniffed like bloodhounds, puzzled expressions covering their faces as they tried to identify the odor. A more experienced GI told them it was the smell of death.

The door-gunners were steadily shooting and at the same time, trying to get us out and on the ground. We were frozen, so they started kicking, 152

cursing, and pushing us off. We were hesitant, because we were thinking that the LZ was too hot, and maybe they would scrap the invasion and fly us back home. (Fuck this air assault shit!) Five NVA soldiers ran from the nearest tree line toward our helicopter with their AK-47s on full automatic mode. Before we returned fire, a Cobra Gunship cut all five of them in half with a withering burst from its mini-guns. The door-gunners went into full panic mode. They dropped their bungee cord mounted machine guns pulled out their side arms, and threatened to shoot us if we didn’t get out. As soon as we were out, running frantically for the tree line, the ground erupted around us with small geysers of dirt from AK-47 rounds. A group of twenty terrified ARVN soldiers and a couple of GIs without helmets, flak vests or weapons sprinted past us toward the helicopters and tried to get aboard. The door-gunners started kicking them in the face, chest, and stomping on their hands. As the helicopters strained to lift off, the more desperate men made a mad dash and clung to the aircraft skids like a train of fire ants. Some climbed up the backs of others, like a human ladder, weighing the helicopters down. There was no way those frightened men could spend another hour in the valley. The door-gunners pulled out their service revolvers and started shooting the ARVN’s in their faces at point-blank range. Lone and Phong looked on in horror at what was happening to their fellow countrymen. I told them to stay close to me and not to look back. “We have met the enemy, and they are us.”

As soon as the helicopters were airborne, a second wave of birds started arriving with more troops, ammo, and body bags, and the scene played out all over again, with the horrified ARVNs attempting to escape the death sentence we had been served.

Throughout the day, with the arrival of each sortie, the landing zone and tree lines erupted with exploding mortar and artillery rounds from the big guns on the mountain. All afternoon and late into the evening, we had gun battles, some so close that you only heard the report of the rifles and not the secondary pop and crack of bullets. During the early morning hours before dawn, we heard military whistles being blown, the North Vietnamese officers barking commands. Then, we waited for the ground attacks. On the third day, midmorning, it looked like the entire side of the mountain was being eroded by a khaki-colored landslide as the NVA charged down to do battle.

There were seven days and nights of this - helicopters landing, dropping off more replacement troops, ammo, and body bags, then leaving with the wounded and dead. Each time the helicopters came, the big guns on the mountains would open up on us. Then the Phantom jets would fly in, bombing and napalming the mountainside. Forest and grass fires broke out, 153

adding another smell to the existing stench of cordite and rotting or burning flesh. By the fourth night, my fear was at the same level as the ARVNs I saw on the first day of my arrival. The NVA whistles and taunts at night and close-quarter combat had done a real number on my nerves. And then, to add to our fears, there were rumors of the NVA having tanks. Not true, but try to convince your fear of that on a moonless night. With the departure of each helicopter, my anxiety grew. I wished that I would be wounded and airlifted far, far away from this valley.

Welcome to the Valley, again. . . say it again.

They are Children of God, Humans

Enraged I couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad guys; may they all burn in hell. Two incidents have haunted me for years, and when I think of them, I shake my head “No,” trying to eject the images from my mind. I write about them now because this is my therapy piece, hoping to eradicate them. I am not sure how to write about this. I’ve been struggling with these memories for weeks. I write it and then delete it. I write it and then delete it. It’s been a struggle between brutal, honest truth and politeness. Guess which won? So I’m going to dive right in. It ain’t pretty.

My two ARVN (Army of the Republic Viet Nam) counterparts, Capt.

Lone, Lt. Phong, and I walked into this village northeast of Hue, near Camp Evans, home of the First Cavalry Division. When I say village, that might be an understatement. It wasn’t as large as a town, yet not as small as a village, so I guess you can say it was a big-ass village. We were on a quest for lemonade, dysentery in a glass, but all shops were closed. All the town people were lining the street, celebrating. Children were laughing, jumping and running next to an APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) that was driving down the street. I was thinking that it must be some kind of celebration or holiday, and they had asked the First Cav. to participate in it. Wrong.

Behind the APC, there was this little old woman in her forties, dressed in black and tied to it with approximately forty feet of rope. The APC would drive up and down the street with this little woman trotting behind it, back and forth, back and forth. Occasionally, the driver would goose the APC, and the worn out little woman would fall and be dragged, and the village people would laugh. Children would laugh and jump over her, like natives jumping over a fire. I didn’t know how long this had been going on before we arrived, but most definitely, too long. The poor woman was completely exhausted. What had she done? Where were her relatives? I asked a 154

Vietnamese fellow standing next to me about her, and he said “She VC, she VC.” So I was thinking, as I looked at this guy who told me about her, What the hell are you? She finally gave up and fell face down and was dragged from one end of town to the other end, over, and over, and over, and over. On the next to last pass, I swear to God, she lifted her head, looked the three of us in the eye and pleaded for mercy. On the following pass, Lt. Phong stepped out into the street and shot her, coup dê grace. Well, the guys in the APC went ape-shit nuts. As they went for their weapons, I locked and loaded with full Rock and Roll on them and said, “Don’t do it, don’t do it.” I was thinking it was going to be OK Corral time. They were screaming that she was a fucking VC, she had killed their Captain, and she was a fucking bitch that needed to suffer. They were pissed at us, and we turned and ran as fast as we could. Those fellows were in a blood lust. Had we stuck around, they would have tied and dragged us, or shot us, for sure.

I’m not being pious, not judging. I did things as cruel, but not in public.

There is a time and place for everything. I asked Phong later why he did what he did. Was it because she was a little old Vietnamese woman? I could not have cared less about her, and she probably did deserve what she got, but I kept my feelings to myself. I was surprised at his response: “No. She human, she human.” I didn’t give a fuck about her. Had I sunk that low?

How did I get there?

A second incident still haunts me: My two Vietnamese officers and I had been inserted by helicopter into a forest one evening, one hilltop over from the old Khe Sanh firebase. In the middle of the night, the good old US Army had put us into the middle of an NVA stronghold. Our mission was just to sit in place and observe, making no contact. That was a difficult task, because the NVA were everywhere. We couldn’t see them, but we could hear their laughter and smell their body odor. By early morning the following day, US Army helicopters covered the sky. Several slicks landed as if they were deploying a platoon, as a decoy, to draw out the enemy. The NVA base camp exploded with activity. They ran toward where the helicopters had landed in hopes of making a quick kill. We decided that this was an opportunity to raid their base camp for documents. We crept into their camp, and thank God it was empty. In the middle of camp, we found the subject of their laughter the night before. Staked out on the ground was an American soldier, butt-ass naked; I couldn’t tell if he was a Marine or a GI. The NVA motherfuckers had been skinning him alive all evening. He was alive, but just barely. There would be no dust-off for him. I’m not going to admit which one of us did it, but I’ll just say that his agony was relieved.

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CHAPTER twelve MISERY

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And The Beat Goes On And So Did The Misery 25 December 1968 - Christmas day, just another day of the week.

3 January 1969 - another birthday, far from home.

It was a lovely fucking war.

To quote Janis Joplin from the song, Ball And Chain, a line not sung, but spoken in rambling remarks, “Tomorrow never comes; it’s just another fucking day, Man.”

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CHAPTER Thirteen DON’T MEAN A THING

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Can You Smell That Smell?

Nowadays, on hot July or August nights, my wife curls up in bed, sleeping peacefully as only those who have never seen combat can. I find myself sitting outside, alone, laboring to breath under the weight of suppressing humidity, when there’s not a hint of a breeze to even stir the Crape Myrtle leaves. It’s three-thirty a.m., and the old Midnight Special is right on time. Looking out the window of my personal Crazy Train as it rolls at high speed through Crazy Town, muted gunfire, blurred faces, and village names long forgotten all seem to race by. But the smell of battle is forever present.

A Desert Storm Vet friend of mine, after reading one of my war stories, asked if I was blood type A. He asked because he had noticed that I often refer to the smells of battle. He is blood type A and while recently visiting a doctor friend who is also a Desert Storm Vet, they began to reminisce and tell each other war stories. My friend said that smells take him back to combat. The doctor said that studies have shown that, generally, people with blood type A seem to be more aware of their senses, plus, they have addictive personalities. Well... I am blood type A, and as for as addictions go... the word “No” is not in my vocabulary.

What I love Touch: Rubbing my fingers over corduroy, silk; cool sheets; finely-sanded wood; my wife’s freshly shaved, cool-to-the-touch legs Sight: The magic hour before sunset, when the last sun rays of the day reflect off the clouds; Shafts of God Rays streaking through the backlit clouds, when the sky changes from royal red to cobalt blue-black; Blue Bird-blue winter skies; erect nipples poking at the material of a sweater or a thin t-shirt; aquato-deep-blue colors of an ocean; lush green grass. And primary warm colors such as red and yellow seem to excite me the most Hearing: Children laughing; little girls’ high-pitched screams; teenage girls giggling; Flow-Master mufflers; rain on a tin roof; a funky bass guitar; soulful saxophones; a big dog snoring; ducks quacking Taste: Mangos or a fresh peach. To me, nothing compares - a taste that seduces.

Smell: Peach and grapefruit trees in blooms; gardenia and jasmine flowers; baby powder; freshly cut grass; rain; expensive leather; suntan lotion; my wife’s neck 163

What I dislike: Touch: Anything gooey or slimy Sight: Blood Hearing: Children or animals crying Taste: Copper Smell: There are too many foul odors that are a complete turn off to list.

It’s interesting how the mind works in combination with our senses.

Just seeing a photograph of a lemon starts the digestive process. I imagine a glistening knife cutting a lemon in half. As the juice runs out and drips onto the counter top, my taste buds explode, lips pucker, nose twitches, and my mouth super-hyper-salivates. My tongue starts the swallowing process, pushing the extra fluids toward the back of my throat, and I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. My imagination convinces me that I can smell the sour citrus juice.

The same holds true when I see a photograph of a dead body. My mind conjures up the repugnant odor of decomposition. If you have ever smelled it, you know what I mean; an odor that never goes away. There is nothing as repulsive. We’ve all smelled a dead rat or perhaps a cow that has died, bloated and exploded. There’s no comparison to that of a human decomposing, an odor that takes me back.

To this day after well over forty years of a wonderful marriage, my wife asks me to smell meat that she suspects might be spoiled. I refuse, but she says “Aww come on, smell it.” Again I refuse, dancing around the kitchen, waving her off. Pleading. Begging. Telling her I can’t. But she insists. She thinks I’m a pussy. If she only knew.

After reading this last paragraph, my beautiful bride, who never cries, with dark eyes glistening, proclaimed she would never ask me to do that again.

Even though she is supportive and wants me to write, to tell the truth, she can’t get past the fact that I awake at three a.m. and board the Crazy Train to Crazy Town. I think she has grown weary of my trauma and honesty. Not unlike those who grew weary of writing me when I was InCountry, when I was desperate, desperate for whatever it was that I needed, which was everything.

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The Saving of Sergeant Bryan

What Is It Boy? Unfortunately, to this day, I will mentally drift back in time for no apparent reason. Then, with a jerk, I return from my trip. It used to startle my wife, but as with most of my idiosyncrasies, she has, over time, become accustomed to them and now pokes fun at me for her own amusement.

A few weeks ago, I was taking my pre-sleep nap on the sofa in front of the TV. Apparently, my crazy train pulled into the station, I boarded it, and went to God only knows which valley. I woke with a jerk, bounced off the sofa, started to take a step, hesitated, and looked around at my surroundings, completely disoriented. Maria then said to me, “What is it boy? Is someone at the door? Did you hear something? Was it a cat? Go get ‘em boy, go get ‘em, sic’em boy.” Little things like that have saved me. They put me at ease.

Humor is the best medicine.

Oh, The Lonely Days Are Gone

We were back in the A Shau Valley, grunting it out, humping up and down ugly hills. Hills so ugly they were only given numbers, not proper names. Hill 881, Hill 937, Hill 927, etc, named with numbers according to their elevation in meters. And who in the hell called them hills? To me, being a South Texas boy, they were mountains.

We played cat and mouse with the North Vietnamese Army during the first two days of the operation, testing each other’s strength. Some GI must have grabbed the Tiger by the tail, because it turned around and bit and clawed the hell out of us. The ensuing thirty-six hours became buttpuckering combat.

It was late afternoon. The dreaded night was closing in fast, and late December monsoon storm clouds were building over the mountains. The gods were angry with us again. Distant thunder assured us that we would endure another punishing night of rain. We couldn’t catch a break. Vietnam was not easy; in a word, it was agony. However, the rain was somewhat welcomed for a change. We were dehydrating from the suppressive heat and humidity, and were mentally and physically fatigued.

For an hour of that fourth afternoon, while waiting on a Medevac helicopter, I cradled a fellow paratrooper in my arms, a complete stranger to me. I whispered sweet nothings to him: “Come on man, hang on, it’s only a flesh wound (ignoring the fact that his leg was shot off). Stay with me, don’t 165

drift off, your mom needs you to cut the front yard.” He bled out. Bastard.

Why couldn’t he have lasted thirty more minutes? As I had done too many times before, I kissed his brow and traced the sign of the cross on his forehead with a muddy forefinger. I felt helpless. What the hell did I know about first-aid? Our original Medic was dead, and the last five replacement Medics were dead, one of whom never made it out of his helicopter before he became KIA. The last resupply helicopters of the day were late, and that wasn’t good.

We could not survive through the night without being resupplied with water, ammunition, night flares, or replacements. At dusk, I heard the pounding of rotor blades in the distance, and I swear they were in sync with the pounding of my heart. What a beautiful sight they were, those green, fire spitting, flying dragons with swirling metallic wings. How we wished they would swoop us up and carry us back home. Was it too much to ask that, for once, the resupply helicopters would bring the hot meals that had been promised, but never delivered? For Christ’s sakes, it was Christmas Eve, was it too much to ask? I prayed to God that there would at least be mail from home.

Mail Call

Letters and care packages from home. What a rush to receive a letter, a two-ounce piece of Heaven that connected us to home. When we received mail, we didn’t rip it open right away. There were several procedures to follow and protocol was a must. We stared at the address, smelled its fragrance, ran our fingers across the print, and closed our eyes to conjure up a mental image of the person who wrote it. Then, we went through the entire process again and again before we opened the letter. It was a ritual, almost as if you were preparing to sample a fine, aged Whiskey. During this entire process, we would have grins on our faces that stretch from ear to ear.

We would read and reread the letters over and over because somehow, with our bad luck, the ink might disappear. After having read and reread the same mail for weeks, we would then share our photos and letters from home with each other. None of us had ever met each other’s families, but that didn’t matter. We were brothers.

I was surprised at how many guys received nude or sexy photos of their wives, which they would show with pride. I was somewhat embarrassed that maybe I was staring too long, but… wow! NAKED BREASTS! Wonderful BREASTS of all sizes. I always wondered who took the photos.

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Writing home. Oh God, what a task! What the hell do you write about?

There were only so many ways you can lie to your mom about how safe you were, that you were eating well, hostilities might be over soon, what a beautiful country it is, Vietnamese people are beautiful, your commanding officer is beautiful, and ending all jokes with “ha ha” (yesterday’s version of LOL). I remember writing a friend I had worked with, telling her that the only thing good that I thought would come out of the Paris Peace talks would be me.

Mom sent me care packages every now and then, and it was like receiving a Christmas gift each and every time. She would include Tabasco sauce, grape juice, Kool-Aid, tuna fish, sardines, Spam, pimento peppers, peanut butter, crackers, cookies, gum, writing paper; you name it, she sent it. Those packages had to have cost Mom a small fortune to mail. My one and only request was for her to send me a slingshot; she thought I had lost my mind. Why in hell would I want a slingshot in the middle of Vietnam? I told her I would use it to shoot candy over the fence to the little kids.

However, my use was more sinister: it was great a tool for interrogating prisoners.

Other GI’s received more or less the same goodies from their moms or wives. We would take the spices/sauces/food products that had been sent and mix them with our C-Rations to improve the taste. You have never had a gourmet epicurean experience until you have tasted C-Ration Ham and Beans, mixed with Tabasco sauce, pimento peppers, and a sprinkling of dry Kool-Aid, washed down with a hot beer. And we were mystified as to why we had crippling diarrhea.

Red Cross care packages - what a treat! Church groups and different organizations teamed up with the Red Cross to gather up and pack goodies to be sent to us in Vietnam. I only received a few during my fifteen-month tour of duty. I think that was largely because I was in the jungle most of the time and not at Division Headquarters where the packages were distributed.

But on occasion, a kind-hearted CIA Spook case officer would snag one for me. The packages were not that much different than what Mom sent. The only exception was that whoever put the box together included a letter or card with words of encouragement. These people became my pen pals; complete strangers became one of my few sources of correspondence back to the world.

There was one Red Cross family, the Owens, from Decatur, Illinois, to whom I had written and thanked for their kindness. They, in turn, bombarded me with letters from every member of their family, including their cute twenty-three-year-old daughter. Oh my, the things that girl would write me!

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We all swapped letters for seven months, just your every day normal chit chat, them telling me about the town they lived close to, the crops in the fields, how harsh the winter had been, and about Aunt Eunice falling and breaking her hip - beautiful letters from America that transported me far away from the insanity. I, in turn, told them about myself, where and how I grew up. I never said much about the war and the hardships we endured.

Occasionally, when I was depressed and sick of the daily violence, I would write Mrs. Owens and vent. Perhaps at times I got a little too personal, writing that I had made a promise to God that if he willed it, and I survived, I would turn my life around. What the hey, they were strangers that I would never see and have to suffer the humiliation of what I wrote, right?

The week after the New Year of 1969, the second holiday season I spent in that Godless hellhole, I received a Christmas gift from the Owens family: a wire bound book of newspaper clippings. They had photo-copied every letter they had sent me, every return letter I had sent them, and given them to their local newspaper, which had printed them as “Letters To America.”

Even the personal ones I had written to Mrs. Owens and her cute daughter... BLUSH! (And where was Spell Check when I needed it?)

I wrote to the Owens family for a few months after I returned home but regrettably, that tapered off as life got in the way. But I did tell them I would treasure the book of letters forever. I didn’t have the heart to tell them the book was destroyed during a vicious artillery barrage and ground attack on Hill 927, in the A Shau Valley, five days before I returned home in February of 1969. However, their kindness and the unselfish time they took to write a lonely soldier remains with me, a treasure forgotten until I mentally revisited the dark days of ‘68.

I left for Vietnam on November 1, 1967. On the Roman Catholic calendar it’s All Saints Day, an observance followed by All Souls Day, celebrated in many cultures as Day of the Dead. I remember asking myself if it was an omen. Mom, following family tradition, went out the Saturday after Thanksgiving of that year, bought a Christmas tree and decorated it.

She busied herself buying gifts for me, knowing full well that I would not be home for Christmas, but it was something she had to do for herself.

Something I did not know at the time was that, over the fifteen months that I was deployed, my mom and my brother had been planning a special welcome home for me, not knowing that if one day I would walk through the door, be carried through, or come home in a bag.

By the grace of God, on the afternoon of February 14, 1969, I did indeed limp through the front door of my home. Standing before me, in all its glory, was the surprise my brother and mom had for me. The Christmas tree mom had purchased for the Christmas of 1967. What a pitiful sight it 168

was. All the needles had fallen off long ago. It looked like a dead West Texas mesquite tree at best. In fact, it could have passed for a spooky Halloween prop. For sure, it was a fire hazard waiting to spontaneously ignite.

It was gorgeous! Decorated with silver icicles and the ornaments that I remembered from my childhood. Beneath it were gifts to me from the Christmas mornings of ‘67 and ‘68, plus gifts to celebrate my twenty-first and twenty-second birthdays. In the center of all the gifts was a bucket of ice with chilled beer and Dr Peppers, something I had not tasted in such a long time.

Beautiful letters from America. Wonderful memories that have stayed with me for a lifetime.

So what I’m saying is, “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, even on St. Valentine’s Day or July 4th.”

Dear John, I’m Hoping That This Finds You Well

Dear John letters.

Yours truly received two on the same day, and yes, perhaps, just perhaps, it was wrong to have two girlfriends simultaneously. Who would have thought they would ever get together? But I ask, what kind of selfish, heartless person would write a GI in a war zone a “Dear John” Letter?

We single guys thought that receiving a kiss-off letter was pretty funny, so we would post them at headquarters for all to read. It truly wasn’t fun receiving a Dear John, but levity was better than moping around. Guys who read the letters posted at headquarters would put a check mark on the cruelest one. Whoever received the most votes won all the hot beer he could drink in one night, while everyone else drank cold beer. The joke being that the winner was screwed over again.

Most of the times the reasons for break-ups were because the girlfriends were so, so lonely. What? Lonely? They were living in the land of plenty, nothing had changed for them. We, on the other hand, had our world turned upside down. How selfish and self-centered, could they be?

Married men rightfully took their letters seriously. On occasion, because of their frustration and depression, they would take their own lives. That was real smart. They certainly showed their ex-wives.

There was this young man we called “New York.” He was actually from New Jersey, but we called him New York because of his accent. New York was a typist for headquarters, a cushy job that would keep him far from harm. Nice guy for a REMF. He was a good-looking kid of Italian descent, with a typically huge extended family. His volume of mail from home was 169

enormous, and he would pass it around for all to read. His letters were a fun read for us guys from the South. We thought that the lifestyle in New Jersey was so foreign compared to ours. He had been wed only one week before his departure to Vietnam and was very much in love. Their wedding was huge, judging from the photos. It looked as if the entire Eastern Seaboard had attended. After being In-Country for three months, he received a Dear John.

His wife was lonely and needed to be held by someone. Bitch. He took it surprisingly well: making jokes, posting the letter at headquarters, going on with life as best he could.

Three weeks later, when I returned to Division to debrief and get drunk, I saw him again, and he seemed like his normal self. Six of us, including New York, were sitting around that evening, outside, on sand bags, making fun of each other, drinking beer and whiskey shots, and smoking a little grass. New York was the life of the party, telling jokes, cutting up, singing along to a cassette recording of The Beatles Sgt. Peppers album, dancing, and trying to teach us the moves to a dance he called The Jersey Shuffle. In the wee hours of the morning, after we had all crashed inside his bunker, New York got up to go take a piss. I was sleeping on the floor and he stepped on me, apologizing to me by telling me to watch it.

Then he paused at the doorway, turned around and grabbed a weapon, which wasn’t all that unusual, and walked outside. Within five minutes we were awaked again by a bang. New York had climbed on top of the bunker, shoved a shot-gun in his mouth, and blew his head off.

Thanks for that memory mother-fucker.

Doctor, Ain’t There Nothin’ I Can Take?

THWUP-THWUP-THWUP-THWUP

“Damn Mom! Do you have the attic fan on super hyper drive?”

The breeze was being sucked through the front screen door at hurricane force. Every window in the house was wide open, THWUP-THWUP-THWUPTHWUP, circulating the humid air through the house, into the attic fan opening, and out the attic vents. It was cool, so very cool, damn near cold.

The sheets were damp to the touch, just another South Texas morning in mid June.

THWUP-THWUP-THWUP-THWUP 170

Who in the hell is this guy holding my hand, where’s Mom, and why are his fingers on my neck? Jesus, he has a red cross, he’s a fucking Crusader, a Templar Knight, and I’m grinning like an idiot clown. It feels like my face is going to shatter. He starts talking to me. Waaa-Waaa-Waaa-Waaa. I know!

He’s Charlie Fucking Brown’s mom, disguised as a Templar Knight in green!

Waaa-Waaa-Waaa. I’m not sure what the language is, but it’s funny and I comprehend it. I find myself shaking my head for yes and no. Oh, stop it.

You’re killing me. That is so funny! I have a severe case of the giggles. Did I smoke a kilo of dope? I grabbed Mrs. Brown/Red Cross/Crusader/Mr. Templar Knight by the blouse/shirt and pulled myself up. “I am so thirsty ma’am/sir. Could I please have a drink of water? And some potato chips would be wonderful. I can’t keep my eyes open, I’m so sleepy.”

THWUP-THWUP-THWUP-THWUP. “It’s so hot! Why am I in the sun? Why can’t I move or roll over? What is that stench? I know that smell. Why are there so many flies? Mom! Turn the attic fan back on. Oh... I know where I am... I don’t want to be here...”

When I started coming out of my U.S. Army-induced morphine trip, the first orderly I saw at triage was a tall, stooped over, skinny, pimply-faced kid with a pasty white complexion. He scared the shit out of me. I thought he was from graves registration.

If you were unfortunate enough to be wounded in battle, you’d receive first aid from a Medic or Corpsman and a dust-off (medevac) helicopter would be called in. There wasn’t much, if any, dignity and comfort during the heat of battle. The wounded sat at the edge of the LZ and when the helicopters arrived, they’d be pelted with debris from the rotor wash. Once I was helping a young trooper who had a broken leg when a chunk of splintered bamboo the size of a pencil was driven into his eye by the rotor’s turbulence. I’m almost positive that freak accident caused him to lose sight in that eye.

The dead would be loaded first, piled up like dirty laundry, and then the more severely wounded would be carried aboard. If there was room, the walking wounded were then helped aboard. We would be loaded in the helicopter, sitting upright, or laid amongst the dead, and flown to a triage center for evaluation of our wounds. There, the dead would be unloaded and lined up in neat rows with the rest of the dead that had been flown in earlier.

Most of the KIA’s were in body bags. Others were covered with canvas tarps or blankets. The flies, my God, there were always so many flies swarming around them.

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Body bags. They were something that no GI wanted to deal with. We would only look at them out of the corners of our eyes, trying to deceive our minds about what we were seeing. Funny thing about the contents of the glad bags (body bags), they were obviously fallen heroes, men who had made the supreme sacrifice. But in rubber bags, they gave us the willies.

The medical personnel at triage would examine us and evaluate the extent of our wounds. They would leave the dying and near dead to themselves and attend to the wounded that were more likely to survive. If they were available, a Priest or Minister would be with the dying.

Sometimes, most times, the dying made peace and absolution with God by themselves.

My wounds were never life threatening; it was the infections that were the enemy. Conditions were so vile in the boonies that you could possibly lose a limb to infection from something as simple as a scratch. So, being hurt meant a clean bed for a night or two. Lucky, lucky me.

Nurses, U.S. Army nurses. Round-eyed, white-skinned, Army nurses.

Florence Nightingales in Olive Drab… Bitches.

I had been wounded and Medevaced out of the field to Pho Bai. The casualties had been so severe that day, their medical center was overwhelmed. So they put the less severe wounded, like me, on a cargo plane and flew us to Da Nang to a larger medical center. The Da Nang US Army Hospital was as large as any hospital complex back home - far from the war, teaming with medical personnel, state of the art OR’s and all of the comforts of home. It was there that I was insulted or made to feel like the scum of the earth.

The older, more seasoned nurses, treated the walking wounded at the triage centers like garbage, just a number; I was shocked. I thought for sure we would be hailed as victors, as Spartans, but many of the nurses had such disdain and contempt for us combatants. We came into their perfect little world and soiled their white sheets. We were not freshly starched, charming officers and gentlemen wearing deodorant and cologne. We were filthy, mud-caked, smelly, bleeding, and in need of compassion. In other words, we were not a catch or husband material, nor were we REMF officers that would ply them with drinks and screw their brains out. The nurses wouldn’t even look us in the eye or acknowledge a simple hello. I’ve read their little books and boohoo stories about how they had to become calloused and unfeeling because there was so much blood and gore, and oh, the things that they saw, horror, horror. Horse shit.

They never saw or heard the agony on a battlefield, held a man’s face together to give him mouth-to-mouth, or wrapped up his intestines. By the time they saw us, we were flying so high on morphine, we could have 172

amputated our own legs. They treated us like dog shit. We could see it in their eyes and hear it in their muttered words. To them, we were the “niggers of Vietnam”, a word I will not apologize for using, for at that one and only time in my life, I knew how degrading it was.

To them, we were sub-human, airborne combat trash. I’m not claiming that all the nurses were that callous; many were sweet and caring, but it only takes a few bad apples. I hope they all have lived long, miserable lives. Not that I’m bitter, you understand.

Take a Load Off Body fatigue - mind-numbing body fatigue. Completely exhausted… at

times, it was all I could do to take one more step.

I Can’t Stand The Rain ‘gainst My Window

It was raining.

Again.

As it had the day before, and the day before that, and as it did the following day, and the days after that, which became weeks and weeks, then months.

The all-weather ponchos were absolutely miserable at times. The heat they trapped, along with ever present humidity and the ambient temperature, generated a diabolical soup of sweat and body salt that all but boiled our brains.

Sloshing through boot-sucking mud, I thought that if I had to stop, pull a boot out of a sink hole, and stick a muddy foot back into a boot one more time, I might shoot my own putrid decaying foot off.

Our faces were covered with beads of sweat, like that of a professional athlete in the third quarter of a championship game. But for us, half time or time out was not until R & R, and our deadly game took three hundred and sixty-five days to play.

Sweat and rain streaked the ground-in dirt on our faces, caking the crevices of premature wrinkles. Our faces looked like twenty miles of a bad Irish road.

Dry mouths. We could not even spit.

Repeatedly popping salt tablets and No Doz® pills as if they were breath mints.

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We were cramping, and had severe cases of the runs, dehydrated from the Monday morning quinine malaria pills. Malaria, the alternative, had to be better than the severe diarrhea that crippled us.

Heads bowed under the weight of our helmets, necks ached. It took an extraordinary amount of energy to lift our heads. Daylight seemed to be super white, and our eyes filled with black floaters and irritating white dots dancing around, clouding our vision, fucking with our minds.

Humping, humping kilometer after kilometer. How many klicks can a person hump, how many times will the heart beat before it explodes?

Squinty eyes cutting a sideward glace at someone next to or behind you, shaking your head side to side, exhaling through puffed cheeks, silently communicating the misery you were in.

Death was so welcome at that point.

Straps of our rucksacks dug into raw, runny pus-infected shoulders. God how I wished that I was dead, I must had been dead and had passed through limbo, surely I was walking through Hell.

And then it happened. A singular gunshot. We would freeze, then all Hell broke loose. We dropped our rucks, returned fire, and charged toward the firefight as if we were Olympic sprinters.

Oh, to be young again.

‘Cause Every Girl’s Crazy ‘bout a Sharp Dressed Man

What We Wore, What We Carried “Killing Is Our Business, And Business Is Good.” What I found interesting is what we wrote and drew on our helmets, or what we referred to as steel pots or brain buckets. I hated the helmets; they were hot, heavy (three pounds), and always falling off. Hell, I spent more time chasing mine than wearing it. I can’t begin to tell you how many I lost. At one point, I stopped wearing the steel pots all together. I chose the cloth boonies hat or black beret instead. But after seeing a lot of massive head wounds, it didn’t take me long to track down a steel pot to wear.

Our scribbling on the helmets ranged from peace symbols, naked women, our names, girlfriend or wife’s name, name of our home state, short timer’s calendar, crucifix, and slogans “Born To Die,” “Short Timer,” “Boom Boom,” “Widow Maker,” “Make Love, Not War,” “Give Peace A Chance,” “Bite Me.” Dirty words and bible verse shared space on our helmets. You name it, and it was scribbled on the camouflaged covering, all part of the well-dressed man’s couture.

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Some fellows lined the inside webbing of their helmets with a pair of their wife’s or girlfriend’s panties or stockings for good luck. The elastic band on the outside that was meant to hold branches and leaves for camouflage was a handy place to carry toilet paper, soap, insect repellant, cigarettes, a bible, and a rosary - even if you were not Catholic, “You and me God…right?”

A lot of guys ripped or tore the sleeves off their shirts, which always mystified me. As I recall, the guys who did this didn’t have arm muscles or the type of bodies Michelangelo would have used as models to carve his David. In fact, they were kind of fat. I’d bet they are the same guys you see today with toothpicks sticking out of the sides of their mouths and sleeves ripped off of their plaid shirts.

Our pockets were stuffed with letters from home. The perfume scented ones were always close at hand. The simple act of pulling out a letter and smelling it took away the pain of the moment.

Lightweight two-and-one-half pound canvas jungle boots were a godsend. But because of the hazard of stepping on something sharp, the Army, with all its wisdom, gave us steel plates to wear in the bottom of our boots. Seriously… steel plates?

Ever present Army green face towels were draped around our necks.

“Sweat rags,” as they were called. Even though they reeked, they were used to wipe sweat and rain from of our faces and grit from our eyes, clean our weapons, and were even used as a makeshift dental tool to wipe the film from our teeth. Thinking back, those simple pieces of cloth might have been one of the most important items of combat gear that we stole from base camp. The towels probably saved many lives as they were used for tourniquets, to plug gunshot holes, or to hold someone’s intestines in until they received proper care. Without them to wipe away the sweat, we might have gone completely insane.

The ten-pound flak vests we wore were supposed to stop shrapnel. The problem was that they didn’t, nor were they bulletproof, but lucky us… they were hot and heavy. And they provided a flat surface to inscribe a dirty saying. Most guys gave up wearing them. Again, like the helmets, after seeing a lot of upper body wounds, I wore mine zipped up almost 24/7, just in case.

We humped heat tabs, salt tablets, cigarettes, Zippo lighters, socks, foot powder, first aid kits, mosquito nets, soap, Playboy magazines, four or five days worth of C-Rations, tooth brushes, water purification tabs, Kool-Aid, three canteens of water, C-4 explosives, machetes, a couple ounces of grass, and colored smoke. The weapons you carried depended on your fear factor and body size. An M-16 assault rifle weighed seven-and-a-half pounds, and 175

the normal supply of twenty loaded magazines weighed fourteen pounds.

The big boys carried the M-60 machine gun, a whopping twenty-five pounds, plus the weight of the ammunition. Besides an M-16 rifle, I carried a shotgun or a six-pound, M-79 grenade launcher, along with ten pounds of rounds. I’ll be honest. I had to hump the sixteen pounds of rounds and grenade launcher, because I can’t throw a grenade. To this day, I throw like a girl. Neither my dad nor anyone else ever took the time to teach me how to throw a baseball. Something I never carried was a KA-BAR knife. I had this phobia that someone would take it away and use it on me.

The green ponchos we carried were used to protect us from the rain and mosquitoes, and to serve as warm covers on rain-soaked evenings on the mountains. They were also used as personal body bags to drag our sorry dead asses out of the jungle. Whenever someone was killed, all the shit and weapons they were carrying had to be humped out of the jungle or down the mountain by one of us.

Eighty-five pounds in all we humped, every day, and the day after that, and the day after.

Every extra ounce we carried drove us that much deeper into the mud.

Eighty-five pounds of war material, two hundred pounds of stress, three hundred pounds of worry, five hundred pounds of fear, and the weight of the world on our shoulders.

But mostly... we carried the burden of being alive.

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN DARK HEARTS

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Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing

Another little duty that wasn’t too pleasant, but rewarding, was going through the pockets of the dead enemy. There was a tremendous amount of info that could be gathered from what they carried: war plans, maps, and intelligence papers that might tell their troop strength, what regiment they were with, etc. Also, based on how much or what kind of money they had, you could tell how long they had been in the South. Going through their wallets, I would see photos of their moms and dads, wives, girlfriends, children. I have to admit that it pulled at my heartstrings. Their kin would never know what happened to them. Oh, well, better him than me.

It was also a dangerous duty because, a lot of times, the NVA and Viet Cong would booby-trap their own dead. Their theory was, just because he was dead didn’t mean he couldn’t kill or maim again. I’ll tell you something else. I wasn’t above robbing the dead of their valuables. I made a small fortune selling war souvenirs to the REMFs (Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers).

Those guys would buy anything. And if it had blood on it, that was even better for me. It drove the value up. Unfortunately, blood was plentiful if we were lucky. (The enemy wasn’t, he was dead.) But if we were lucky, the enemy had only been shot once. The ones that had been riddled or ripped apart we called “Juices” for a good reason. I kept a few souvenirs for myself, one being a wonderful opium pipe that Buddha provided. We were near an ancient cemetery when the enemy launched a hellacious mortar barrage; I tried to become one with mother earth - invisible, lower than a well digger’s butt. A Buddhist priest’s tomb in the cemetery took a direct mortar hit, and oh my goodness, look what landed next to me. A perfect, hand-carved, ivory opium pipe. In hyper-speed, I grabbed it up and stuffed it down my pants leg and into my boot while lying on my back. It might have, just maybe, been considered grave robbing and the penalty for that was death, so. . . want a hit?

Boys Will Be Boys

POWs On occasion, we would be sent out to capture an enemy solider for the Spooks (CIA) to interrogate. It took a three- or four-man team to set up the ambush that was required. We would be inserted into the jungle at night and hide through the rest of the following day. We would then find a stretch of trail that looked well-used, to set up our kill zone. Our method of operation was to have one man at the head of the trail, one or two men in the center, and one man at the back of the trail. Normally, the NVA and VC 179

patrolled in groups of three or five, so we would simultaneously kill the point man and the last man of the patrol with headshots. The enemy would be so freaked out about the heads in front and back of them exploding, they would freeze, or drop their weapons from shock. Then, my two men in the center would capture them. We would radio for a pickup, saying we had extra cargo, which meant we were successful on our hunt. The CIA Spooks would fly out in two helicopters, land, and interrogate the Gooks, usually to no avail. At that point, we would get in one helicopter, and the Spooks would get into the other helicopter with the captured VC to fly back to base camp. On the way back, at about two or three thousand feet, our helicopters would slow to a hover, then one of the captured VC would be thrown out. This little tactic normally gave the other prisoners an incentive to start talking or lying. After seeing this a few times, I could no longer tolerate the stark terror that my prisoners had to endure. From then on, whenever we captured any NVA or VC and learned what information they had, they would be given water and cigarettes, and fed peaches or canned fruit if we had it. After that, in many cases, I saw them die at the hands of their captors. I didn’t like it, but that had to be far more humane than what awaited them at the hands of the boys from Langley.

Pleased To Meet You

Call Me Lucifer Hate. After being In-Country for. . . God, I don’t even know when it started . . . but I became filled with rage. I hated everything - the Army, Vietnam, the people, GIs, Marines, reporters, whores, heat, the damp cold, mud, dust, food, lack of food, hot beer, the jungle, hills, mountains, sweat, humidity, helicopters, writing home, weapons, officers, but most of all, myself. I was pissed off and had a headache every Goddamn day. I had reached a point in the last months of my tour of duty where I was suffering total burnout. It was like being trapped in a job that you despised, and the problem was that I couldn’t say, “Take this job and shove it.” Well, not for another couple of months anyway. I had completely gone over to the dark side. There was not a shred of evidence in my daily life that resembled that of a Christian. I had made too many trips to the valley, and had gone on too many Phoenix Operation assignments. That is until . . . the day I met the Devil.

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Air America

“Anything, Anywhere, Anytime, Professionally” The CIA had its own private airline for cargo and passengers. A diverse fleet of aircraft in all shapes and sizes, from Boeing 727s and Douglas C-47s to Piper Apaches and different types of helicopters, all flown by civilian American pilots. And, of course, all of their aircraft were unmarked, and the flights were of a clandestine nature. It was not uncommon for a “Spook” aircraft to arrive at an out-of-the-way airstrip in the middle of bum-fucknowhere to drop off one person who would immediately walk to the perimeter and melt into the boonies.

Known as “The Company,” the CIA was notorious for hiring mercenaries to do special, dirty little jobs, then taking great pains to keep their identities a secret, denying any knowledge of their existence. I have no firsthand knowledge of what they did, but I’ll bet it was nasty.

The mercenaries were said to be the sharpest minds, recruited from the best universities in America. The truth is they were probably signed up in the bars and whorehouses of the Far East. (What’s ironic is that, when the North Vietnamese overran the country, the last helicopter to evacuate U.S. civilians and South Vietnamese from the U.S. Embassy was an Air America helicopter.)

For the most part, the average GI never saw a hired hand, and if he did, it was probably the stranger who sat in the back of a bar keeping to himself.

However, sometimes our lives did overlap. On several occasions, I met men who, to this day, are a complete mystery. Even though I never had a complete conversation with any of them, other than the few words they spoke, they made a memorable impression.

They lived in the jungle by themselves, and God only knows what unspeakable things they were doing for the CIA. I imagine waging one-man wars against the NVA and VC. I met one of these guys at CIA headquarters in the MACV compound in Hue. He was about six-foot-six, lean, with long blond hair tied up in a knot on top of his head, Chinese style. Dressed in ragged tiger stripes with no boots, just sandals. He had piercing blue Jesus eyes and he walked, moved, and smelled like an animal. I was afraid to look him in the eye, and I suspect most of the CIA agents were also afraid of him.

What I remember being told about him is that he was a Green Beret on his fourth tour of duty in Vietnam. He was wound up so tight, he couldn’t operate with a traditional recon group, and the Army damn sure could not turn him loose in the United States. So, the Army and CIA let him operate in the far reaches of Vietnam or Laos, doing whatever he wanted to do. I’m also sure the Army hoped that he, and the other guys like him, would be killed and no longer be the Army’s responsibility. The only contact the 181

world had with those loners was if they radioed the CIA for rations or an air strike on a target-rich area.

I saw another one of these half-animal/half-man beings in Laos. My group and I had been picked up by helicopter and were airborne only a few minutes when we touched down again in a clearing. A half- naked white man came running out of the tree line, grabbed a case of C-Rations out of the helicopter, then stopped and stared at me with an intensity that seemed to be filled with hate and disgust. I’m thinking he did this because of my youth, and my open-mouthed amazement at what I was seeing. Our eyes locked on to each other’s. I do believe it’s the first time I ever looked into the eyes of the Devil, and if not the devil, pure evil. They were truly Stone Cold Killers, Dogs of War, Phantoms of the jungle.

The Best of the Borsht

Anytime we were on special, little black-ops, a black, unmarked bird would fly us out, and then retrieve us when we had accomplished our mission. This little trip to the border of Laos was no different. We had captured three NVA grunts earlier in the morning, about seven a.m., while they were stopped along the trail taking a leak. Knowing they were probably close to their base camp, and that they would be missed soon, we forcemarched them fifteen kilometers to the center of the valley floor. I radioed my Spook case officer and told him I had three guests for dinner - code for prisoners - and we were promised that a helicopter would pick up the six of us when they had a free bird (and I’m not talking Lynyrd Skynyrd). Minutes turned into hours, and hours turned into long, agonizing hours.

All day we sat there, with Capt. Lone interrogating the prisoners, while I watched the sky and listened for a helicopter. I became more pissed by the hour. A half-hour before sunset, an Air America pilot broke radio silence.

He told me he was ten minutes out and asked if we had a medic. What the fuck? I didn’t even have a Band-Aid! My response to him was, “Negative to your request.” He overflew us, so we popped a white smoke canister to identify our location. He turned and spiraled down to our ops area, bounced hard off the ground, then went through a two-minute cool down period before shutting off his engine. His two door gunners and copilot were all dead. I was thinking, “What the hell did he fly through, and do we have to fly through it, too?” Shaking, and barely able to speak, the pilot released his harness and proclaimed that it was not only too late to fly back to Camp Eagle, but that he couldn’t fly another minute anyhow. Then, he lay down in 182

the back of his helicopter, on top of the goo that had once been his door gunners, and passed out.

At that point, a lone shadow emerged from the back of the slick, stepped over the pilot, and mumbled something like “Worthless piece of shit.” He wasn’t regular Army, nor was he a Spook. He was dressed in blue jeans, an OD green jungle shirt, with an AK 47 at the ready. He didn’t introduce himself, and I didn’t bother with formalities. Our unshaven new friend asked me what was going on. I told him we had captured the three prisoners early in the morning, and that we had been sitting in the middle of the rice paddy all day, and that I didn’t want to be there another minute. I just wanted to get back to base camp, drink a beer, take a dump, and smoke a joint. I added that all that day, Capt. Lone had been beating and interrogating our captives, gaining no information, and who the fuck are you anyway?

My new, very best friend for life pulled out a blunt the size of a cigar, fired it up, and then handed it to me. He then walked over to Capt. Lone and the prisoners, saying something in Vietnamese. Lone stood up and walked over to the helicopter, damn near in a trot. I sat across from them, smoking the joint, when the new guy stooped over the first captive, pressed the AK 47 to his forehead, pulled the trigger, and proclaimed that the Gook was planning an escape. Lone, from a safe distance, asked the other two prisoners a series of questions and received no response. Mr. Mix-Matched Clothes went to the next prisoner, pressed the weapon against his head, pulled the trigger, and said he looked like he wanted to escape. The pilot of the helicopter awoke, saw what was happening and went ape shit. The mercenary glared at the pilot, went to the third prisoner, who was now on his hands and knees crawling away, stood over him, discharged his weapon, and said that he was most definitely trying to escape.

The Spook pilot went nuts, screaming that he was going to file charges against all of us. Then, Mr. Psychotic put three in the pilot’s chest. Lone stared at me in disbelief. I emerged from my cloud of smoke, not wanting to enrage Mr. Bad Ass or see his anger turned on me. In a barely audible tone, I said that now we’re fucked. We have to spend the night in the valley, we have three dead Gooks, two dead door-gunners, two dead pilots, and surely the enemy has heard the gunfire and the helicopter, and why in God’s name did he kill a fellow American? Mr. Almightier than Thou said, “Everyone was killed by NVA gunfire. Stick to that story or you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison.” He stared at me. I asked, “What about a pilot?” He said “Fuck him; I can fly this piece of shit.”

An hour and forty-five minutes later, I was at Camp Eagle, sitting in an outhouse, having a beer, and smoking a joint, all at the same time.

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN HOME IS WHERE YOU DIG IT

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A Rose by any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet

Burning Down the House The war in South Vietnam, as conducted by the US Military, was broken up into four regions: I Corps through IV Corps. Each Corps had several US Army and USMC combat divisions operating in different sectors, often independent of each other, but at times on joint operations. As mentioned before, I was with the US Army 101st Airborne Division in I Corps, which covered an area of ten thousand square miles from the border of North Vietnam to just south of Da Nang, abutting Laos on the west and the South China Sea on the east.

We didn’t wake up each morning, have a cup of Ovaltine or Tang (the preferred drink of the Astronauts), eat breakfast, do a few stretching exercises, aerobics, yoga, and then march out to do battle with the enemy. If so, I would have slept in. How it worked was that we would have different sectors in which to conduct missions, and, of course, with them being part of such a vast area, each needed its own base away from headquarters for closeby air and artillery support. So, the military would build Fire Support Bases on the tops of hills, and oh, what a joy they were!

Let me describe those beauties. Have you ever seen the slums around Mexico City’s airport or the shanty towns of Columbia? Take away the barbed wire fence, and perhaps the sand bags, and then you will have an idea of what they looked like. I couldn’t believe that Americans, one of them being me, were living in third world conditions.

Fire Support Bases

The smaller ones had a battery or two of six 105 or 155 howitzers and an LZ (Landing Zone) for resupply helicopters. The larger ones, Tactical Operation Centers, might have four or more batteries of 105 and 155 howitzers, a couple of tanks, jeep-mounted recoilless rifles, several LZs, a landing strip for resupply airplanes, an aid station, a company or battalion of infantry, plus Special Forces, LRRPs (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols), and a company of Vietnamese Rangers. Normally, several hundred men served on the bases and when not manning howitzers or patrolling the boonies, they lived and slept underground in bunkers, and what shitholes those bunkers were! After only a few weeks of being occupied, the bunkers became dank chambers - gnarly, nasty, revolting, unsanitary pits. It was living the life of a nocturnal animal at its worst, sleeping in a cave and scurrying around in six-foot-deep trenches like rats.

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Being topside for any period of time, unprotected, was a death warrant, exposed to snipers and in-coming. The bunkers were normally carved out of the ground by a bulldozer, the roofs covered with timbers, steel plate if it could be scrounge, and three to four feet of piled up sand bags. The entrances were covered with canvas flaps so no light could be emitted, as if there was any light to emit. The canvas entries soon became as stiff as corrugated cardboard from mud and rot. With any luck, the floors and walls were partially covered with wood from ammo crates, and the walls were plastered with Playboy Magazine pinups, photos of wives, girlfriends, and hardcore pornography to give it that all-American bachelor pad look. The bunkers would sleep six to eight men, and guests were always welcome to sleep on one of the cots or stretchers, especially if they had whiskey or dope to share.

Space was shared with uninvited guests, as well - rats. Some bunkers had more rats than men, and the brave little bastards would bite. The bunkers were dark and damp even in the dry season. The only illumination came from flashlights, lanterns, cans of Sterno, or chunks of C-4 explosive used on individual cooking stoves. The air was stagnant and foul. If someone farted, and everyone did, the odor never left those caves from Hell. Bad breath, body odor, vomit, blood, flesh rot, stale urine and excrement, rotting C-Rations, acidic Sterno fumes, mildewed wet clothes, dirt, sandbags, damp, deteriorating canvas, dead rats, and the smell of fear penetrated everything and remained there until the bunkers were destroyed.

The stink would force a gag reflex. You would be inside one of those shitholes talking, get a whiff of something indescribably foul midway through your sentence, and gag. You’d force yourself to suppress your vomit, but it was the type of reflux spasm that stuck in the back of your throat with a sour, sweet burn. Many times, the stench was so bad, you would retch with no apologies give and none expected. Oddly every bunker smelled different, or should I say reeked differently. The Recons’ and LRRP’s living quarters smelled like musty animal dens, the stench of. . . fear. . . death? The ARVN Rangers’ slums smelled really different, kind of like spoiled fish, rotten vegetables, onion soup, cheap perfume and tooth decay.

The only way on and off those death-trap fire support bases, besides walking, was by helicopter or cargo plane, and that was like being a rabbit in a shooting gallery. As soon as a cargo plane landed, it was being unloaded of supplies and fresh troops... while it was still rolling. At the same time, they were being loaded with the daily body bags, the wounded, and men getting off the hill. Then, the NVA artillery and rockets from the distant hills would start coming in. There would be two different groups of men running to and from the still-rolling or hovering aircraft, never seeing each other, their 189

gazes fixed only on the entrance of the aircraft or a nearby trench. If someone tripped and fell, more than likely he missed the flight out and would have to make this death run the following day. It was organized chaos at its finest.

What’s Your Name?

Names, I can’t remember any names, and that’s a crying shame. I had

known some guys almost twelve months and their names are blanks; it must be because of Agent Orange. I refuse to admit that age has anything to do with it. There have been a few stories that I’ve wanted to tell, if for no reason other than to pay honor to the guys, and that perhaps one of their loved ones might read this someday. What would I write? Sgt. What’s His Name fell on the grenade to save Lt. So & So and Pvt. Parts.

However, there was this one GI whom I will write about. He was assigned to an artillery battery, the 1st of the 11th Artillery; I had become acquainted with him back at Division. Living at a Fire Support Base (FSB) was a miserable life; they were flat spots scraped on a hill top and the living accommodations were terrible. Because of the constant bombardment of artillery, mortars, and rockets, the defenders were forced to live in bunkers that leaked like sieves, when it rained outside, it also rained inside. They said drip, but that’s a bunch of horse-shit; it rained inside. When it was hot, the FBs were dusty, and then it rained and they became a sea of mud. The perimeters were protected with three sets of concertina wire, a fancy name for barbed wire, and claymore mines. Fire Bases were normally in the middle of nowhere, so they were susceptible to ground attacks. If and when that happened, everyone manned a perimeter fighting bunker and started laying out a withering wall of firepower to repel the attack. Howitzers were lowered to zero elevation and fired Beehive Canisters, an anti-personnel round filled with metal darts -- nasty shit.

One evening, I was spending the night at an FSB, sleeping on the guy’s cot whose name I can’t remember; he was sitting up at a makeshift desk writing letters home when the FSB came under a ground attack. The Viet Cong had crawled under the wire unnoticed; all Hell broke loose when they started setting off their satchel charges flares were popped, men hollering, heavy and light automatic weapons being discharged. I set up on the side of the cot, looking at what’s his name, when a Viet Cong soldier entered our bunker. I grabbed what’s his name’s 45 cal. pistol and unloaded on the VC. Each recoil of the 45 damn near broke both my wrists. It was if I was fighting with an unruly serpent. I would level the pistol, pull the trigger, and the 190

recoil yanked both my arms over my head. I kept pulling the trigger over and over. When I emptied the pistol, the VC looked at me, looked at what’s his name, looked down at himself, turned and ran out. At point blank range, I had missed the VC completely with all seven rounds. The only casualties were my wrists -- one that was damn near broken from the recoil -- the roof and walls of the bunker, and sadly, one Playboy centerfold that I had shot.

Two months later the rainy season began, it was a wet one; everything was saturated. On what’s his name last night at the firebase before he left for home, the roof of the bunker that he was sleeping in, collapsed and crushed him. What a low blow. He had spent twelve months in mud, dust, living like an animal, never wounded, and two days before he was to return home‌ life can be so unfair.

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Chapter sixteen ALL JOURNEYS EVETUALLY END IN THE SAME PLACE...HOME

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It’s Been A Long, Long Time Coming

Going Home 10 February 1969 There is a God. I was happy and sad at the same time, mostly happy.

Now that it was time for me to go home to my family, a part of me didn’t want to leave. Capt. Lone and Lt. Phong were my family. Saying goodbye to Lone was impossible. My voice was shaky and cracked when I tried to talk.

Tears welled up in my eyes. Lone just gave me the longest hug and when he pushed away, he was blood red. He smiled, nodded his head, then he walked away. I walked out to a perimeter bunker to be by myself.

After signing out and saying goodbyes at 101st Airborne Division Headquarters, I boarded a packed C130 for a three-hour flight to Saigon. All of the seasoned troops took off their flak jackets and helmets and sat on them. You could tell which guys were REMFs because they didn’t do this and, apparently, had spent no time in helicopters. As soon as we became airborne, a small hole appeared in the upper part of the fuselage. Is anyone not sitting on their flak jacket?

At Army headquarters in Bien Hoa where incoming and outgoing troops processed their papers, I remember seeing a group of NFGs (New Fucking Guys) who looked to me like high school boys. They were pimple-faced lads, each with a bounce in his step, laughing and smiling, wearing fresh new fatigues and shiny, black and green jungle boots. I stopped and stood before them. With gaping mouths, they eyeballed me up and down. Here, standing before them, was this worn out man, hardly resembling a civilized human, with not even a hint of a smile, wearing tattered fatigues and worn out boots. I asked one of them his age; he stood up at attention and snapped the answer with his age and birth date. My God, I was only nine months older, and felt and looked so much older, and so very tired.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

A Change Is Gonna Come Y’all Braniff Airlines was my freedom bird, and what a beauty she was. The flight attendants were absolutely gorgeous. Well . . . they had round, blue eyes, a heartbeat, and they were so, so sweet to us. They smelled like angels.

As they walked down the aisles, all aisle-seat passengers would lean out to watch them shake their perfectly round butts. Angels.

I could not wipe the smile off my face. Not until after we had left Vietnam’s airspace would I let myself relax, safe at last, truly going home.

In less than twenty-four hours, I would be back in the USA, out of the 194

Army. I didn’t want to miss out on anything. I stared at the flight attendants, could not keep my eyes off them, and ate and drank everything they put before me. I did not want to sleep; I just wanted to completely absorb one of the happiest times of my life: going home. I decided to stay awake for the next forty-eight hours, and breathe in every ounce of my freedom.

I woke myself up screaming. I had also awakened everyone sitting around me. They were freaking out, and the flight attendants rushed to the back of the plane to check on me. I had drifted off into a deep sleep and had a nightmare. “Man,” I thought, “I’ve got to control this, I’ve got to change. I cannot go home like this, get your shit together, trooper!”

Welcome Home, Asshole

Just Label Me Mentally Deranged 14 February 1969 Out-Country. Back across the pond. The World. Land of the big PX. Land of round-eyed women. Home. Valentine’s Day. There were no flowers, candy or a parade for me. Speaking of food (I know I wasn’t, but other than sex, that’s all I thought of), one thing we had to look forward to was a steak. It was Army policy to feed you a steak first thing when you returned stateside. I had mine on February 14th, 1969, at Travis Air Force Base, California. A T-bone, medium rare, with mashed potatoes, six overmedium eggs, a side of bacon, Texas toast, two glasses of cold milk, and countless cups of coffee at four a.m. I sat there by myself, ate it all and then cried, cried for joy that I was home, home at long last.

At the San Francisco Airport, while walking to my gate, I was dressed in a spanking new US Army dress green uniform, when all of a sudden, a soft drink went sailing by, damn near hitting me. There was a middle-aged woman standing in front of me. I naively thought that she had slipped and dropped her drink, so I offered to buy her a new one. She started cussing, spitting, and calling me names. About that time a pilot walked over, put his arm around my shoulder, stiff-armed her out of the way, and escorted me to my gate. He turned and said, “Welcome home, son.” Holy Shit, where am I? This is the America I had left? This was not going to be easy. The transition was all but impossible.

Driving home with Mom from the airport was scary as hell. You have to remember that I had not been in a wheeled vehicle that traveled more than 20 MPH in a long time, and here was Mom, zooming down the freeway at the breakneck speed of 50 MPH. “She’s mad I tell you, she’s mad! She is 195

going to kill us all!” We take so much for granted. Flush toilets, light at the flip of a switch, cold or hot anything, and so much more. I had only been away from these items of convenience for a year and a half, but will admit that they were objects of personal entertainment for the first two weeks home.

As I began to readjust to life in the USA, there were some things I had definitely not anticipated. Here, I had returned from the worst experience of anyone’s life, and now everyone wanted to unload on me with their everyday petty bullshit. One evening, my mom was boohooing about how tough her life had been the last year, and I was so sick of hearing it. What a drama queen. I said something that set her off. She exploded, turned, and said that at least I knew where my next meal was coming from. Glaring at her, I snapped back sarcastically, “That’s true, but I didn’t know if I would be alive to eat it.” I never will forget the look of shock on her face. I stormed out of the house, walked to a friend’s home, and crashed on his mom and dad’s sofa for three days. I didn’t talk much during those three days. I just retreated to my little world. I might mention that one of the evenings during the three days I was MIA, my sister was having a little cocktail party for me.

A fucking little cocktail party in my honor. Only nine days before, I had been in my last firefight, and now I was expected to make small talk. I was a no-show. It’s been over forty years now, and she has not spoken to me to this day. I guess the cocktail weenies spoiled. Where are my Frag Grenades?

Mental Scars

That Never Heal It’s amazing how our parents scarred us by the things they said, or failed to say. I guess like being born with original sin, we were also born with parent-induced baggage. I need an exorcist. Shortly after returning home, my Mom told me that the war had changed me, and not for the better, that I was now cruel. She was correct.

I So Horny . . . Boom Boom, Love You Long Time

Things Change During my teen years, I was so naive and dumb that I once fondled a girl’s shoulder at the movies for twenty minutes, thinking it was her boob.

However, soon after arriving in Vietnam, I learned that this affliction could be cured, and it was possible to sample the fruits of the Far East with my 196

charm, boyish good looks and - most importantly - three dollars. I will never forget after my first sexual experience, it became crystal clear: My God, now I know what we are fighting for. I was also a quick learner. I learned in that first three-second episode that it was like riding a bicycle. Once you have done it, you don’t forget how. If the chain slips, or you fall off and skin your knees, you can climb back on and ride some more.

When I left for Vietnam, it was like Victorian times. During those teen years, my hormones were racing like a speeding locomotive, and I could pole vault over a tall building in a single bound, if you get my drift. It was the age of innocence. Girls’ dresses were past their knees, but sweaters were tight. Tight sweaters were a plus as far as I was concerned. I’ve always had a healthy (some say unhealthy) infatuation for mammary glands. It took a half can of Aqua Net for girls to spray their teased hair, and who knows how much starch for their petticoats? The opposite sex smelled so good. Even the salty perspiration, beaded on their necks as we danced glued to each other on a hot summer night, smelled and tasted of honey. You might, just might say, that I was girl crazy. Who could ever forget the penny loafers or the patent leather shoes the young ladies wore? They were the best. If you had really good vision and the girls were standing just right, you could see up their dresses. Well, that was the story I was told about patent leather shoes.

The guys who told me that obviously had better vision, and a more vivid imagination, than me. Oh, teen lust! I could write a book on feverish, sweaty teen lust of the late fifties and early sixties. Guys bragged about their conquests, but that was such bullshit. Coochie was hard to come by, if not impossible. But in February of 1969, when I had returned home from the war, things had changed. Every woman was wearing a miniskirt, even the maxi women. The sexual revolution was in full swing, and I was locked and loaded, with a fixed bayonet.

You Can’t Go Home Again

So lonely I had nothing, absolutely nothing, in common with my old friends.

Awkward. No girlfriend, no car, zero. I went surfing for the first time after my return, May of ‘69, after the weather had warmed. It wasn’t the same as it had been back in the days of my care free youth. I remember driving down to Surfside Beach with my buddy Gerald on a bright, warm, Saturday morning. After we unloaded the surfboards from the car’s roof rack, Gerald grabbed his board and hit the water. I grabbed mine, walked to the water’s edge, stood there, then retreated a few feet and sat in the sand for the rest of 197

the day, looking out beyond the horizon toward . . . a distant place. I never went back to the beach.

Every young lady I had dated before I was drafted would have nothing to do with me. They had moved on or gotten married, but they had one thing in common -- They didn’t remember the good times we had together, only that I had been a jerk. But not all was lost; Houston was a big city, full of talent.

After returning to the work force, to the Oil and Gas Company that was my previous employer, people I worked with thought of me as a war hero, and the young secretaries swooned over me. I will modestly admit that I was arm candy. They all wanted me to date their daughters, granddaughters, nieces, cousins, or the girl who lived next door to them. With me having no money or car, it was understood that we would double date, and that they would not only pick me up, but also pick up the tab. Normally, the following night, the girl I had the blind date with would pick me up for a second date at her expense, then that following Sunday, invite me home to meet Mom and Dad. That was always nice, but the awkward questions always came up, “Tell us about the war, is it true that...?”

It ain’t me babe, it ain’t me your lookin’ for, babe.”

Quite the racket I had going. If it had a heartbeat, I dated it. Can you spell w-h-o-r-e-? There must have been well over thirty women in a short period of time. Not only young girls, but also older women with whom I worked asked me out for drinks. One older woman by the name of Mary Ellen was very blunt and forward: She told me she wanted to get into my pants. I couldn’t help myself, so I said they probably would not fit her.

Things were crazy back then, and I am not exaggerating or bragging about dating over thirty women, nor am I saying I had carnal knowledge with of all them. But I did know a few, and only a few, in the Biblical sense.

I didn’t keep a list or carve notches on my pecker, but I could probably name them if you held my feet to a fire, or threatened to withhold my Pinot Noir.

One thing they had in common was that they were all very pretty, if not downright beautiful. I do have my standards after all, low standards, but standards.

Another scam I had going was divorce court. Jim Tarr, a fellow employee, and I would walk down to the courthouse and check out the honeys. I’m not proud of it, but you have to admit it was clever. Well, okay, maybe I am a little proud of it. More than likely, these young ladies had gotten themselves into bad marriages, had run off and gotten married 198

without parental approval for any number of reasons, and maybe were only married weeks or months. They would be sitting there with their moms, all dressed up to impress the judge. They were hungry, vulnerable, and flirting their tight little asses off. After court, I would stand outside in the hall and wait for them. Without fail, they would approach me and give me their telephone number. The bonus was, you knew they screwed. They had been married, for Pete’s sake.

How Do I Get Out Of This Chicken-Shit Outfit?

Mental Virus Even though I had constant female company, I was very lonely. I desperately needed someone to share my life with. Then I met Maria, beautiful Maria. She had everything I craved: morals, religion, and strong family values. She was exotic and built like a brick shithouse. I fantasized that she had staples in her tummy, because she was worthy of being a Playboy magazine centerfold. Our first date was lunch, Wednesday, May 11, 1969.

Our second date was Saturday, May 14. We then saw each other almost every night until we married on February 7, 1970. I knew by our fifth date that she was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. It took her a lot longer. Thoughts of her filled my head for years. We had been married only months when she discovered she had made the worst mistake of her life.

Poor Maria, she should receive a medal for being married to me all these years.

After the first incident of PTSD, experienced in the bathtub shortly after we married (neither one of us knew at the time what that was all about; I guess we thought I was ovulating), I started having night terrors. One evening, I was having a particularly nasty nightmare. I don’t remember what I was saying, screaming, or doing, but it woke Maria. She touched me to wake me from my dream - big mistake. I jolted upright, grabbed her, and started shaking her, screaming, “Don’t do that, don’t ever touch me again when I’m dreaming!” When I first returned home and was living with my mom, I had bad dreams. Mom, however, was smart. When she heard me talking and cussing in my sleep, she would poke me with a broomstick to awaken me.

Finally, after being married many years to Maria, I started talking to her about Vietnam. I had no one else I fully trusted with my heart. I used her as a sounding board, my father confessor. I was testing my sanity with her; I had to let it out. It was if I had this terrible, flesh-eating mental virus, chewing 199

away at my happiness and well-being. I was never graphic in my accounts, but nevertheless, the worst story she had ever heard until that time was about a great man being nailed to a cross. I know she will not admit to it, but she went to bed many a night wondering what kind of mistake she had made.

What kind of monster had she married? But in true Maria form, she sucked it up and mothered me. As I’ve said, she saved me from myself. I owe her everything; as the Beach Boy’s song goes, “God only knows what I’d be without you.”

There but for the Grace Of God, Go I

The Wall I’ve been to it, physically, but wasn’t really there mentally. I was on a business trip with a client, who I consider a very dear friend. We toured around all the sights of D.C. and walked over to the Vietnam War Memorial. I hesitated, retreated to my safe place, and then caught up with Greg. I had no problem, because I went to that mental safe zone that we all have, you know, the walls that we build, are not unlike the ones at the zoo that separate us from dangerous beasts. Once I was in my personal safe zone, I could face it with no fear. I mentally kept my emotions suppressed. I dealt with being there in the same manner I did with body bags in Vietnam.

I wasn’t ready at that time to face the Beast, one on one, unprotected. I could have with Greg, knowing that he would have held me, rocked me in his arms, dried my tears, and wiped my nose. But I wasn’t ready to expose myself to the public or even to myself.

I’ve seen half-scale models of The Wall that travel the U.S. and, even though they are a good thing to heal our nation, they are not THE WALL. It’s sobering, to say the least, regarding Vietnam casualties. There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added in 2010. The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date, and within each date, the names are alphabetized. It is hard to believe that, at this writing, it has been 36 years since the last casualties.

The Wall: x It is actually two walls, east and west, sunken into the ground, with the earth behind them. From the apex, on panel 1E and going out to the end of the east wall, it appears to recede into the earth (panel 70E - May 25, 1968).

Then, it resumes at the end of the west wall, as the wall emerges from the 200

earth (panel 70W - continuing May 25, 1968), and it ends with a date in 1975. Thus, the war’s beginning and ending meet. The war is complete, coming full circle, yet broken by the earth that binds the angle’s open sides, and contained within the earth itself. x The first known casualty was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth, MA, listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having been killed on June 8, 1956. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept.

7, 1965. x There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Wall. x 39,996 on the Wall were just 22 or younger. x The largest age group, 8,283 were just 19 years old. x 3,103 were 18 years old. x 12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old. x Five soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old. x One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old. x 997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam. x 1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam. x Thirty-one sets of brothers are on the Wall. Thirty-one sets of parents lost two of their sons. x 54 soldiers on the Wall attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia. x Eight women are on the Wall. x 244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War; 153 of them are on the Wall. x Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475, lost six of her sons. x West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation.

There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall. x The Marines of Morenci - They led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 5,058) had ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts.

In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest. And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morenci’s mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. Only three returned home.

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x The Buddies of Midvale - LeRoy Tafoya, Jimmy Martinez, Tom Gonzales were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on Fifth, Sixth and Seventh avenues. They lived only a few yards apart. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. And they all went to Vietnam. In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day. Tom was shot dead assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. x The most casualty deaths in a single day happened on January 31, 1968 245 deaths. x The most casualty deaths in a single month occurred during May 1968 2,415 casualties. That’s 2,415 dead in a single month! source: http://www.onemarinesview.com/one_marines_view/2012/08/the-vietnammemorial-wall.html

Vietnam Veterans What binds us is that we were there. I have recently joined a couple of

associations: the 101st Airborne Division National Association and local Robert G. Cole Chapter, and the 101st Airborne Division Vietnam Veterans Association. I have to admit there is something warm and comforting about being around my brothers, strangers one and all . . . but not.

Don’t Rain On My Parade Stand Down

Memorial Day weekend, Saturday, May 27, 1985 Welcome home. It was a beautiful Saturday morning. I was mowing the front yard, doing all my homeowner duties, but something was nagging me.

I was preoccupied with it, but trying to push it out of my mind. During the previous two weeks, I had heard bits and pieces on the radio about the Stand Down Project. We Vietnam Vets now had a forgiving nation, and it wanted to welcome us home with a parade - the parade we never had, the thank you that was never said. The first words I heard when I got home from Vietnam were, “You need to get out of that uniform and put on normal clothes.” Our great nation had forgotten about us, because it was so ashamed of us baby 202

killers (God, how I cringe when I hear that expression), but now it wanted to party with us. I stopped cutting grass, put the lawn mower away, and walked into the house to confront the voice of reason, Maria. I told her that a Vietnam Veterans parade was going to take place downtown, then terminate at Hermann Park with a free concert of classic rock bands, and I had to go. Maria just looked at me, smiled and said, “Let me change clothes and get Bianca dressed.” I said, “Really, you want to go, with me, be with the Vets?” Maria responded, “Yes, we are your family; Bianca and I are part of you now.” Wow. Maria, who had been for the last fifteen years protecting me, guiding me away from unpleasant memories, was going with me, with no argument.

So we pack up our minivan (yes, a minivan), and off we went. We missed the parade. I didn’t really want to march in it, but part of me did.

We arrived at the park where the organizers had set up a half-scale model of The Wall. There were tables with stacks of books containing the names inscribed on The Wall. The tables were manned by National Guard officers and volunteers who guided us to the names of friends or loved ones on The Wall. I walked up to an officer and gave him my lengthy list, plus the names of Maria’s school buddies. The officer took our list, looked at it, looked up at me and said, “My God, when were you there?” He handed Maria and me a book and said, “Take your time, find your brothers.”

The concert was at Freedom Hill or Hippie Hill, I don’t know if that’s the correct name, but that’s how we native Houstonians refer to it. A number of big-name bands had been booked and were playing their Vietnam-era hits. The place was rocking. The hill was covered with Vets and their families sitting on blankets. Some Vets were dressed in jungle fatigues, maybe a jungle jacket, or in everyday street clothes, as I was. Most all of us had long hair, beards, or a combination of both; we were hippies now. We had become the young men that we had made fun of when we returned home.

At three o’clock in the afternoon, I swear, at three o’clock, straight up, it started to rain, just as it did almost every day in Vietnam. It was a few drops at first, then a light shower, and then the bottom fell out. No one moved. We smiled, and mentally went twelve thousand miles away. Our wives and children looked at us as if we were crazy, but they didn’t bother to seek shelter. So here we all were, sitting on the hill, listening to the musicians playing, singing, and getting electrocuted, with torrents of rainwater running down the hill. We were soaked, and after ten or fifteen minutes, the entire group stood up and said simultaneously, “To Hell with this shit.” But by God, we had our parade, and best of all, our families were with us.

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How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?

Captain Lone Captain Nguyen Lone. I have thought of him often over the years with fondness, great sadness, and guilt. Lt. Phong was okay, but Lone was very special. What a wonderful sense of humor he had. We loved each other as brothers. I remember he would read a newspaper so intensely that he had no clue what was happening around him. On several occasions, I would light the bottom of his paper with my Zippo. It would burst into flames, and he would jump up and stomp on the paper while saying, “Goddamn you Bryan, Goddamn you Bryan”; too F’in funny. We wrote to each other a few times after I left but, regrettably, that tapered off. I have often wondered what happened to him. I have a feeling that he is long gone, probably killed by the death squads after the fall of South Vietnam. I so wish that I could have had the maturity, knowledge, and money to bring him and his family to live with us before that terrible day in April, 1975. I have a haunting guilt over that, but all things happen - or don’t - for a good reason. Can you picture my wife with a house full of Gooks? That would have been disastrous. She would have set back American-Asian relations ten years, if not more. I can hear her now. “Bryan, they have built a wood fire in the oven again,” “Bryan, where is our dog? I can’t understand why our dogs keep running away. “ “Bryan, why do they keep burying bones in the back yard?” “Bryan, why are there footprints on our toilet seat?” “Bryan, will they get any taller?” “Bryan, when will they go away?”

Life is Like a Box Of Chocolates

Looking Back It’s remarkable how so many years of my life have been similar to those of Forrest Gump, in that I have brushed shoulders with greatness or fame.

Music has been a large part of it, like my life has had its own, personal, sound track. At age twelve, Mom and Dad bought me my first drum set.

(It’s funny how people never ask drummers to play them their favorite song.) In the mid-Fifties, Rock and Roll was starting to happen. For sure, it was the Devil’s music, and then I discovered the channel on the far-right of the radio dial. KYOK “Blues.” Like Navin R. Johnson (The Jerk), it moved me. It was a mystery to my parents. “What’s with Bryan? He’s a blue-eyed 204

white boy, and he’s only interested in jungle music!” (or Northside Houston words to that effect.)

After developing a little bit of talent, I posted a note at H&H Music Company, looking to start a band. The phone rang off the wall, because everyone wanted to be the next Rock and Roll star. God only knows how many garages I practiced in. I was probably in more garages than Henry Ford products. Then I met Gary Van Waters, guitar and vocals, and David Kerry, bass. David didn’t own a bass in the beginning, so he restrung his six-string guitar with four bass strings, necessity being the mother of invention. And then there was Laurie Grissom, rhythm guitar, Link Davis Jr., sax, and, on occasion, Billy Tillman, sax. I might mention that David and Link went on to play with Asleep at the Wheel and some big-name San Francisco bands. Billy wound up with Blood, Sweat & Tears. On a sad note, Billy died August of 2012, may he rest in peace.

Our first gig was - you guessed it - in a garage. It was a birthday party for Elaine Simons, my little girlfriend and the first girl I ever kissed. We knew maybe three songs, which we played over and over. Trust me, we got better. We played everywhere - beer joints, icehouses, teen clubs, school dances, night clubs, parties, and once on the bed of a pickup truck. It wasn’t for the money as much as it was for the pleasure of performing... Okay, it was for the girls. The teen clubs and the high school dances were the best.

The girls would, I kid you not, stack up three-deep against the stage.

Drummers are not unlike homecoming queens, in the sense that everyone wants to screw the homecoming queen. I was painfully shy, but the girls were not. I didn’t score, you understand, but I always got the prettiest girl.

My first groupie, okay, not technically a groupie, was Connie Hickman, beautiful Connie Hickman. Sweet, sweet Connie, not doing her act (come on, we were only fourteen!). She was a dark-haired beauty, a little too tall, could have used a few pounds, with points all her own, sitting way up high and firm, and I was in love with her. She was my second teen love; the first ones are the sweetest by far. But cruelly, because I was immature, I threw her away as I did all of them, my fellow band members having convinced me that they were inconvenient arm candy when there was so much talent to pick from.

There is so much to say about my music years, almost as much as Vietnam.

Believe me, they are interwoven, because I am a child of Rock and Roll.

Growing up in Houston was great because of all the home-boy musical talent we were exposed to: Bobby Blue Bland, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Albert Collins, Johnny Winters, Joey Long, and Billy Joe (BJ) Thomas, just to name a few. Plus the national big acts that came to town: Ray Charles, James Brown, Hullabaloo, The Dick Clark Review, T.A.M.I., The Rolling Stones, The British Invasion, and the list went on and on. In those days, you 205

could actually go backstage and meet the recording artists, and even invite them to an after-hours club for a jam session. Those times were my first brushes with fame.

Psychedelic music ushered us into the Vietnam War. It was, without a doubt, the soundtrack of the war. GIs would piss and moan about humping extra ammo or too much other shit on patrol, but by God, they would not leave their battery-operated cassette players behind. Of course, you got to have your tunes. During a fierce gun battle, someone would holler, “Crank it up,” and maybe two or three cassette players would belt out anything from The Doors, Iron Butterfly, or The Beatles. Then, the helicopters gunships would come in with speakers blaring Mozart, Beethoven, Opera, or Country and Western. Now that was fucking freaky. So . . . you want to be a Rock and Roll Star?

My brush with fame or greatness in Vietnam: I met, shook hands, and had a short conversation with General Westmoreland when he awarded me a medal. I also met General George S. Patton III, son of the great WW II general. At that time, General Patton III was commanding officer of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, “Black Horse Regiment.” He sent me a Christmas card the Christmas of ‘68. On the front was a B&W photo of dead VC bodies piled up like cordwood, and on the back it read, “Peace on Earth, Good Will to Man,” Best Wishes, Gen. and Mrs. George S. Patton III.. And I thought I was fucked up! I wish I had saved that card.

In my photography career, I have been fortunate enough to travel the world many times over, see exotic sights very few people have seen, and swim in foreign seas. I have dined with princes of the Middle East, a future king of England, and I’m sure a few queens. I have shaken hands with Presidents of the United States, CEO’s, Captains of Industry, assholes and politicians, but then I repeat myself.

Forrest, with all respect to your mama, it is more like, “Life is like a bowl of jalapeños. What you do today might burn your ass tomorrow.”

Sometimes I Feel I’ve Got To Run Away

From Your Tainted Love Almost elevated too Rock Star status. I’ve been at numerous local venues over the last few years such as airports, football stadiums, baseball parks, shopping malls, and even to grocery stores when I have overheard someone say, “Thank you for your service.” I look around and will see a young man or woman dressed in chocolate chip or ACU fatigues as the recipient of the remark of gratitude. Even though it makes my heart swell 206

with pride that I’m an American, it secretly makes me angry. I might even be bold enough to say that it pisses me off. It’s a strange emotion to explain.

I experience a feeling of resentment, and then, after getting pissed off, I’m immediately overwhelmed with embarrassment that I allowed myself to wallow in self-pity. Only recently have I been thanked for my prior service.

It’s an acknowledgement that I clumsily accept, because one of my many personality quirks is that I’ve never been able to graciously accept a compliment, and somehow, it seems like a hollow “Thank you,” an afterthought brought on by latent guilt. I never received a parade, a thank you, nothing. My own family, friends, and co-workers privately displayed pride in me, but I felt that it was a three-hundred-pound gorilla in the room that masked their unadulterated shame of my Vietnam duty.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very much appreciative of the hardships that young soldiers endure to keep us safe and free. Even before it was fashionable to do so, I’ve gone out of my way to thank them. When I was traveling the world on business, and lavished with first class cabin upgrades by the airlines, I always looked around the sitting area for a young person in uniform. I would stand in the first class cabin, wait for the soldier to board, then ask him or her where they were sitting. They would show me their ticket, which would be coach class, and I would exchange it with mine, saying, “Not today.”

Nowadays, since my business has disintegrated, I no longer travel first class and have been forced to sit in the back with the rest of the riffraff. I still look for military personnel and tell the flight attendant that I will pay for whatever expenses they may incur, “Compliments of a Vietnam Vet.” Perhaps, the years of suffering silently with PTSD, latent fear, and the shame that my country had of me has made me cynical. The one festering wound that has not come to a head - and continues to bleed to this day - is that we were tagged by a war-weary, uncaring, unloving, guilt-ridden nation as baby killers. I’m aware that America turned its back on us, and that the hostility at home was the direct result of the Hollywood/media hate machine, but that’s okay. I take solace in knowing that we did an outstanding job against a far larger force, and we did it simply because it was our duty.

In Vietnam, we never left a wounded fellow soldier on the battlefield.

Today, we Vietnam Vets have promised to never leave another Vet behind.

I just had to vent. I’m working it out . . . one word at a time.

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Epilogue Even though I have written over seventy thousand words, I can honestly tell you that there are only two words to describe the war: It Sucked.

Dragging out more than four decades of suppressed memories these past few years has been an interesting, trippy psychological journey, except without the pretty colors and paisley prints. At times it’s as if I was never there. Did I read about it, see it in a movie, make it up, or dream it?

Dreaming would be the ideal scenario, because, with luck, I’d wake up from this nightmare.

But unfortunately, I have to sleep, and the night is when the Beast lurks.

The Vietnam experience is something I wish on no one. However, it was a path I walked that shaped me into the person I am today. A journey filled with ups and downs, happiness and sorrows, challenges and a test of my faith and convictions. Step by step, on every trail I walked, I gradually left my boyish innocence behind and at the ripe old age of 21, had experienced more than any man should have to experience. A course that hardened me in many ways, yet filled my heart with compassion and love for my fellow man.

Now that this has come to a close, and I’ve turned another page, I realize that during these past forty-some years, not only did I occasionally board my Crazy Train, I was the Engineer Most of the time, I was the same Bryan I have always been: happy go lucky with acidic sarcasm, and a stellar humor. I’ve been successful monetarily, but my life’s riches and blessings from God are un-measurable.

Best of all, I have been greatly rewarded emotionally by writing about the dark days of 1968, finally letting it go, and it feels great to bitch slap the Beast.

I pray you find it in yourselves to do the same for your family, wives and children.

Welcome home brothers.

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Death, death is nothing at all. I have only stepped into the next room. I am and you are whatever we were to each other and we shall always be that. Call me by my old familiar name, speak of me in the easy way which you always used, put no difference in your tone, no sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together…pray…smile…think of me…pray for me. Let my name be ever the household name that it always was. Let it be spoken without effort, without a trace of sadness in it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. Why should I be out of mine because I’m out of sight? I am waiting for you, somewhere, very near. All is well.

- Henry Scott Holland

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About the Author Bryan Smothers is a decorated Vietnam Veteran who proudly served with the 101st Airborne Division. He is an award winning professional photographer a has traveled the world on assignment. He is now semiretired, living in his hometown of Houston, Texas. He counts as his four greatest accomplishments in life being a loyal friend, a loving husband, a devoted father to his daughter, and having the ability to make people laugh.

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