The first nights I came home I couldn’t sleep. My room was the back room of my parents’ house. I couldn’t sleep in the bed, so I had to get on the floor. I woke up in the middle of the night, and looking out my back window, all you see is trees. So I see all these trees, and I’m thinkin’ I’m still in Vietnam. And I can’t find my weapon. And I can’t find Davis. I can’t find nobody. And I guess I scared my mother and father half to death ’cause I got to hollering, “Come on, where are you? Where are you? Davis. Davis. SIR DAVIS.” I thought I had got captured or something.
The first thing I did Monday was went to the store and bought me a .38. And bought me a .22.
It was right after the Fourth of July, and kids were still throwing firecrackers. I couldn’t deal with it. Hear the noise, I hit the ground. I was down on 7th and F, downtown. I had this little .22. A kid threw firecrackers, and I was trying to duck. And some guys laughed at me, right? So I fired the pistol back at them and watched them duck. I said, “It’s not funny now, is it?” I didn’t go out of my way to mess with nobody, but I demanded respect.
One day, me and my mother and my wife were coming home from church, up Illinois Avenue. I made a left turn, and four white guys in a car cut in front of me and blew the horn. They had been drinking. They gave me the finger. And, man, I forgot all about my mother and wife was in the car. I took off after them. I had the .22 and was firing out the window at them. I just forgot where—and Vietnam does that to you—you forget where you are. It was open season. I’m shooting out the window. My mother said, “Oh, my God. Please, please help him.”
Got home and it was, “You need help. You need help.” But I was like that. I just couldn’t adjust to it. Couldn’t adjust to coming back home, and people think you dirty ’cause you went to Vietnam.
The Army sent me to Walter Reed Hospital for therapy. For two weeks. It was for guys who had been involved in a lot of combat. They said that I was hyper. And they pumped me up with a whole bunch of tranquilizers.
I’ll never forget this goddamn officer. I’m looking at him. He’s got a Good Conduct ribbon on. He’s a major. He’s reading my jacket, and he’s looking with his glasses at me. I’m just sitting there. So he says, “Ford, you were very lucky. I see you got these commendations. You were very lucky to come back.” So I told him, “No, I’m not lucky. You’re lucky. You didn’t go. You sitting there with a Good Conduct Medal on your chest and haven’t been outside the States. You volunteered for service. You should have went. I didn’t volunteer for Vietnam. They made me go.”
There was 12 guys in the therapy session up there at Walter Reed. It was six white, and it was six black. I was the only combat person up there in the class. These guys were having flashbacks and had no combat experience. I can relate to it now, but at that point I couldn’t understand. I said, “What y’all talking ’bout? You was in artillery. At the base camp. You fired guns from five miles away and talking ’bout flashbacks?” Other guys was truck drivers or supply. Nobody done hand-to-hand combat. I said, “You bring me somebody in here with a CIB. We can sit down and talk. But I can’t talk to none of y’all ’cause y’all wasn’t there.”
You know, they decorated me in Vietnam. Two Bronze Stars. The whiteys did. I was wounded three times. The officers, the generals, and whoever came out to the hospital to see you. They respected you and pat you on the back. They said, “You brave. And you courageous. You America’s finest. America’s best.” Back in the States the same officers that pat me on the back wouldn’t even speak to me. They wanted that salute, that attention, ’til they holler at ease. I didn’t get the respect that I thought I was gonna get.
I had six months to go. So now they trying to figure out where they can put me for six months. They said my time was too short to qualify for school. Then up pop my medical record. The one they couldn’t find when they sent me to ’Nam. The one say I shouldn’t even be runnin’, my knees so bad. They tell me I can’t learn no skill. Drive no jeep. ’Cause of my knees. So they put me in charge of the poolroom at Fort Meade.
They lost my medical records when they wanted to. Now they got ’em back when they wanted to. They just wanted another black in the field. Uncle Sam, he didn’t give me no justice. You had a job to do, you did it, you home. Back where you started. They didn’t even ask me to reenlist.
I graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1966 and was working for the Food and Drug Administration as a lab technician when I was drafted. My father was administrator of a halfway house for Lorton, and my mother was on the Board of Elections in D.C. I was nineteen, and they took me to Fort Bragg. Airborne.
We were really earmarked for Vietnam. Even the drill sergeant and the first sergeant in basic told us that we was going to Vietnam. From basic we went straight to jungle warfare AIT in South Carolina. Before I went to Vietnam, three medical doctors at Fort Dix examined my knees. They trained us so hard in Fort Bragg the cartilages were roughed up. The doctors signed the medical record. It was a permanent profile. Said they would find something in the rear for you. A little desk job, clerk, or medic aid. But they didn’t. I was sent straight to the infantry.
I really thought Vietnam was really a civil war between that country, and we had no business in there. But it seems that by the Russians getting involved and supplying so many weapons to the North Vietnamese that the United States should send troops in.
When I stepped off the plane in Tan Son Nhut, that heat that was coming from the ground hit me in the face. And the odor from the climate was so strong. It hit me. I said, Goddamn, where am I? What is this?
While we was walking off the plane, guys were coming toward the plane. And guys said, “Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, Happy Easter. I’ll write your mom.” They kept going. In other words, you gon’ have Easter here, gonna have a birthday here, and you gonna have Christmas here. And good luck.
It was in June 1967. My MOS was mortarman, but they made me be a rifleman first and sent me to Company C, 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division. We was operating in Chu Lai, but we was a floatin’ battalion.
It was really weird how the old guys would ask you what you want to carry. It wasn’t a thing where you get assigned an M-14, M-16. If you want to carry an M-16, they say how many rounds of ammo do you want to carry? If you want to carry 2,000, we got it for you. How many grenades do you want? It was really something. We were so in the spirit that we hurt ourself. Guys would want to look like John Wayne. The dudes would just get in the country and say, “I want a .45. I want eight grenades. I want a bandolier. I want a thousand rounds ammo. I want ten clips. I want the works, right?” We never knew what the weight of this ammo is gon’ be.
A lot of times guys be walkin’ them hills, choppin’ through them mountains, and the grenades start gettin’ heavy. And you start throwin’ your grenades under bushes and takin’ your bandoliers off. It wasn’t ever questioned. We got back in the rear, and it wasn’t questioned if you felt like goin’ to get the same thing again next time.
Once I threw away about 200 rounds of ammo. They designated me to carry ammo for the M-60 machine gun. We was going through a stream above Chu Lai. I’m carrying my C rations, my air mattress, poncho, five quarts of water, everything that you own. The ammo was just too heavy. I threw away the ammo going through the river. I said it got lost. The terrain was so terrible, so thick, nobody could question that you lost it.
I come from a very religious family. So I’m carrying my sister’s Bible, too. All my letters that I saved. And a little bottle of olive oil that my pastor gave me. Blessed olive oil. But I found it was a lot of guys in basic with me that were atheist. When we got to Vietnam there were no atheist. There was not one atheist in my unit. When we got hit, everybody hollered, “Oh, God, please help, please.” And everybody want to wear a cross. Put a cross on their helmet. Something to psych you up.
Black guys would wear sunglasses, too. We would put on sunglasses walking in the jungle. Think about it, now. It was ridiculous. But we want to show how bad
we are. How we’re not scared. We be saying, “The Communists haven’t made a bullet that can kill me.” We had this attitude that I don’t give a damn. That made us more aggressive, more ruthless, more careless. And a little more luckier than the person that was scared.
I guess that’s why I volunteered for the LURPs and they brought me into Nha Trang. And it was six other black fellas to go to this school at the 5th Special Forces. And we would always be together in the field. Sometimes it would be Captain Park, this Korean, with us. Most of the time it was us, five or six black dudes making our own war, doing our thing alone.
There was Larry Hill from New York. Garland from Baltimore. Holmes from Georgia. Louis Ford from New Orleans. Moon from Detroit, too. They called him Sir Drawers, ’cause he wouldn’t wear underwear. Said it gave him a rash. And this guy from Baton Rouge named Albert Davis. He was only 5 feet 9. Only 120 pounds. He was a terrific soldier. A lot of guts, a lot of heart. He was Sir Davis. I was Sir Ford. Like Knights of the Round Table. We be immortal. No one can kill us.
I didn’t believe Nha Trang was still part of Vietnam, because they had barracks, hot water, had mess halls with three hot meals and air conditioning. Nha Trang was like a beach, a resort. They was ridin’ around on paved streets. They be playing football and basketball. Nobody walked around with weapons. They were white. And that’s what really freaked me out. All these white guys in the rear.
They told us we had to take our weapons to the armory and lock ’em up. We said naw. So they decided to let us keep our weapons till we went to this show.
It was a big club. Looked like 80 or 90 guys. Almost everybody is white. They had girls dancing and groups singin’. They reacted like we was some kind of animals, like we these guys from the boonies. They a little off. I don’t know if I was paranoid or what. But they stare at you when you first come in. All of us got drunk and carryin’ on. I didn’t get drunk, ’cause I didn’t drink. And we started firin’ the weapons at the ceiling. Telling everybody to get out. “Y’all not in the war.” We was frustrated because all these whites were in the back having a big show. And they were clerks. Next thing I know, about a hundred MPs all around the club. Well, they took our weapons. That was all.
The next day Davis got in trouble ’cause he wouldn’t salute this little second lieutenant. See, we weren’t allowed to salute anybody in the field. Officers didn’t want you to. A sniper might blow his head off. The captain wanted to be average. He say, “I’m just like you, brother.” When we got in the rear, it was hard for us to adjust to salutin’ automatically.
When we got to be LURPs, we operated from Hill 54. Then they’d bring us in for like three days. They’d give you steak, all the beer you could drink. They know it’s your last time. Some of us not coming back. We’d eat half the steaks, throw ’em away, have a ball. Go into town, and tear the town up.
Davis couldn’t make no rank ’cause he got court-martialed for somethin’ we do in town. We stole a jeep. Went to town. Tuy Hoa was off limits. Davis turned the jeep over comin’ around one of them curves. But Davis was a born leader. He went back to the unit and got some more fools to get another jeep to push this jeep up. But he got court-martialed for stealin’ the jeep. And for having United States currency.
Davis would take American money into town. Somebody send him $50, he get 3 to 1. Black market. First chance we go to town, he go get some cash. ’Cause he stayed high all the time. Smokin’ marijuana, hashish. At mama san’s house.
And some guys used to play this game. They would smoke this opium. They’d put a plastic bag over their head. Smoke all this smoke. See how long you could hold it. Lot of guys would pass out.
In the field most of the guys stayed high. Lot of them couldn’t face it. In a sense, if you was high, it seemed like a game you was in. You didn’t take it serious. It stopped a lot of nervous breakdown.
See, the thing about the field that was so bad was this. If I’m working on the job with you stateside and you’re my friend, if you get killed, there’s a compassion. My boss say, “Well, you better take a couple of days off. Get yourself together.” But in the field, we can be the best of friends and you get blown away. They put a poncho around you and send you back. They tell ’em to keep moving.
We had a medic that give us a shot of morphine anytime you want one. I’m not talkin’ about for wounded. I’m talkin’ about when you want to just get high. So you can face it.
In the rear sometimes we get a grenade, dump the gunpowder out, break the firing pin. Then you’ll go inside one of them little bourgeois clubs. Or go in the barracks where the supply guys are, sitting around playing bid whist and doing nothing. We act real crazy. Yell out, “Kill all y’all motherfuckers.” Pull the pin and throw the grenade. And everybody would haul ass and get out. It would make a little pop sound. And we would laugh. You didn’t see anybody jumpin’ on them grenades.
One time in the field, though, I saw a white boy jump on a grenade. But I believe he was pushed. It ain’t kill him. He lost both his legs.
The racial incidents didn’t happen in the field. Just when we went to the back. It wasn’t so much that they were against us. It was just that we felt that we were being taken advantage of, ’cause it seemed like more blacks in the field than in the rear.
In the rear we saw a bunch of rebel flags. They didn’t mean nothing by the rebel flag. It was just saying we for the South. It didn’t mean that they hated blacks. But after you in the field, you took the flags very personally.
One time we saw these flags in Nha Trang on the MP barracks. They was playing hillbilly music. Had their shoes off dancing. Had nice, pretty bunks. Mosquito nets over top the bunks. And had the nerve to have this camouflaged covers. Air conditioning. Cement floors. We just came out the jungles. We dirty, we smelly, hadn’t shaved. We just went off. Said, “Y’all the real enemy. We stayin’ here.” We turned the bunks over, started tearing up the stereo. They just ran out. Next morning, they shipped us back up.
In the field, we had the utmost respect for each other, because when a fire fight is going on and everybody is facing north, you don’t want to see nobody looking around south. If you was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, you didn’t tell nobody.
Take them guys from West Virginia, Kentucky. First time they ever seen blacks was when they went in the service. One of them told me that the only thing he hate about the service was he had to leave his sheep. He said he used to never wear boots or shoes. He tell us how he cut a stump, put the sheep across the stump, and he would rape the sheep. Those guys were dumb, strong, but with no problems about us blacks. Matter of fact, the whites catered to the blacks in the infantry in the field.
Captain one time asked Davis what kind of car he gonna have when he get back in the States. Davis told him, “I’m not gonna get a car, sir. I’m gonna get me a Exxon station and give gas away to the brothers. Let them finish burnin’ down what they leave.” It wasn’t funny if he said it in the stateside. But all of ’em bust out laughing.
We used to bathe in the stream. Shave and everything. Captain was telling Davis he had some Ivory soap. Davis said, “I don’t take baths. Water rusts iron and put knots on the alligator’s back.” Creole talk. Everybody laugh. They know he don’t bathe, but he was a terrific soldier. Small fella. He had one of the Napoleon complexes. Always had to prove something. He wasn’t scared. He had more heart than anybody. They respected him, and they knew if you need fire cover or need help, he right there.
Right after Tet, the mail chopper got shot down. We moved to Tam Ky. We didn’t have any mail in about three weeks. Then this lady by the name of Hanoi Helen come on the radio. She had a letter belong to Sir Drawers. From the chopper that was shot down. She read the letter from his wife about how she miss him. But that didn’t unsettle the brothers as much as when she got on the air after Martin Luther King died, and they was rioting back home. She was saying, “Soul brothers, go home. Whitey raping your mothers and your daughters, burning down your homes. What you over he
re for? This is not your war. The war is a trick of the Capitalist empire to get rid of the blacks.” I really thought—I really started believing it, because it was too many blacks than there should be in infantry.
And take the Montagnards, the brothers considered them brothers because they were dark. They had some of the prettiest ladies, pretty complexion, long hair, and they didn’t wear no tops. Breasts would be exposed. And the Montagnard be walking with his water buffalo, his family, his crossbow. You waved at them, kept on walking. The people in Saigon didn’t have anything to do with Montagnards. It was almost like white people in the States didn’t have anything to do with blacks in the ghetto. So we would compare them with us.
I remember when we was stealing bananas in Pleiku and here come a bunch of Montagnards. Some white guys were talking about them: “Now I’d like to bang one of them.” I remember Davis said, “Yeah. But you get that thought out your mind, ’cause I’ll blow your brains out just for thinking it.”
In the field, I wasn’t about to do nothing crazy. Not like Davis. I got two Bronze Stars for valor by accident. It wasn’t intentional.
The first time, it was really weird. We hadn’t had any activity for about three weeks. Not even a sniper round. We was sitting at the bottom of this hill, sitting around joking. Some guys smoking, eating C-rations, talking about their homes. I saw this little animal run into this bush about 50 yards away. I told everybody, “Quiet. I saw a gook.” Everybody grabbed their weapons, got quiet.
Well, I knew it wasn’t no dink. I had the machine gun. I was just gon’ play with the guys. I’ma get this little fox, little weasel, whatever, and bring him back down the hill. So I gets up to where I saw him runnin’ in this real thick terrain. So I opened up with this M-60. About 20 rounds. Goddamn if three dinks ain’t jump up. They was hiding in the terrain. I’m shooting at them on the joke, right? When they jumped up, I fell all the way back down the hill ’cause they scared me half to death. Then the rest of us moved on up. The dinks had about 100 rounds of ammo, ’bout 12 grenades. I had killed all three of them.
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