Bloods

by Wallace Terry

  Thank God I’ve tapered off the drinking. I didn’t realize it, but I was drinking two quarts of Old Grand-Dad 100 proof everyday in Vietnam. I was buying liquor by the gallon. You drank it, and you just sweat it out. You needed it to keep going, I guess. You got tired, real tired. You saw so much happening. You would do some good, rebuild something. And then you went back tomorrow, and it was torn down, or somebody was hurt or got killed. And nobody thought our program was the greatest. So I was constantly battling people. And I knew that the Vietnamese would be friends by the day, but at night you could find enemies.

  Wherever I’m stationed now, I get assigned to drug programs. I have to keep my head together. So I don’t drink.

  It’s funny how nobody has said anything to me about Vietnam. My relatives, my friends, nobody has asked me anything, or said they were glad I’m back or proud that I served.

  Sometimes I get angry when I see guys I grew up with just hanging around doing nothing, drinking wine, and talking about how they beat this person up or jumped this old lady for her pocketbook. I say to myself I spent all this time over there so my friends could have a better life. I think about my friends that died that shouldn’t have. And there these guys are ready to gang up on a brother or a sister for a few dollars. It makes me angry.

  And it’s funny, too, when people are trying to beat me getting on the bus. Pushing and shoving to get on the bus. I have had old women shove me and push me. I guess I learned in Vietnam, I guess, nobody can slip behind me. Nobody. I don’t want you to sit behind me. I watch you, and I keep thinking that you might do something to me. So many people I see walking around downtown look like they want to do you harm. I’m always ready to take care of myself. But I can’t go out and relax in an atmosphere like that. I keep reverting back to Vietnam, when I had to watch all the time. I stayed over there so long if a rocket would fire 10 miles away, I’d be up and out of there and out of reach when the rocket hit because I could hear 10 miles away. I’ve conditioned myself. I see stuff that other people don’t see, so I’m always looking for something. I’m always on guard.

  Specialist 4

  Haywood T. “The Kid”

  Kirkland

  (Ari Sesu Merretazon)

  Washington, D.C.

  Recoilless Rifleman

  25th Infantry Division

  4th Infantry Division

  U.S. Army

  Duc Pho

  May 1967–April 1968

  I never told anyone this. Not even my wife.

  When I was twelve years old something very strange happened to me, which has always been with me, even today.

  It was 1960. I hadn’t never heard the word Vietnam.

  It was about eight-thirty in the morning. It was warm for that time of day. It felt like it was about 70 degrees. Something made me want to get out of the house. So I walks down to the poolroom. Of course, it was closed. So I just sits on this two-step-type stoop in front of the building next door.

  All this is clear as day right now. It was the most vivid day of my life.

  I was sitting there, and it seemed like I had this great vision. I saw two things. I saw myself on this wall, just clear as day. I mean just clear. I saw myself in a war. Then I saw myself in prison for five years. The number was right there. Five years.

  It shook me up, but I didn’t tell anybody.

  I was basically a C-type student in high school. I guess I didn’t care much about anything except pool. By the time I was sixteen, I had won a lot of championships at the Boy’s Club. But the real competition was at the poolroom.

  They only allowed me in the poolroom ’cause I could play so good. A lot of the older brothers used to bet on me. Basically nine-ball, and a little straight pool. One time I made about $300 in one of those type of six-hour sessions. I beat the owner of the poolroom. And then they started calling me the Kid.

  My parents came from South Carolina to Washington. My father was a chef in the restaurant at George Washington University, and my mother worked in basically the same type of thing in the cafeteria at the Department of Transportation. They didn’t have much money, because they was 11 of us children.

  I got drafted on November 22, 1966. I had been working for a book distributor and as a stock boy in some stores coming out of high school. A lot of dudes were trying to do things to get deferments. One of my brothers put some kind of liquid in his eye and said he had an eye problem at the physical. He never went.

  I didn’t try anything. I knew when I got drafted I was going to Vietnam, no matter what I did. I knew because of the vision I had when I was twelve.

  As soon as I hit boot camp in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, they tried to change your total personality. Transform you out of that civilian mentality to a military mind.

  Right away they told us not to call them Vietnamese. Call everybody gooks, dinks.

  Then they told us when you go over in Vietnam, you gonna be face to face with Charlie, the Viet Cong. They were like animals, or something other than human. They ain’t have no regard for life. They’d blow up little babies just to kill one GI. They wouldn’t allow you to talk about them as if they were people. They told us they’re not to be treated with any type of mercy or apprehension. That’s what they engraved into you. That killer instinct. Just go away and do destruction.

  Even the chaplains would turn the thing around in the Ten Commandments. They’d say, “Thou shall not murder,” instead of “Thou shall not kill.” Basically, you had a right to kill, to take and seize territory, or to protect lives of each other. Our conscience was not to bother us once we engaged in that kind of killing. As long as we didn’t murder, it was like the chaplain would give you his blessings. But you knew all of that was murder anyway.

  On May 15, 1967, I came into Vietnam as a replacement in the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Division. The Cacti Green. It was the task-force brigade that went anywhere there was trouble. The division was down in Cu Chi, but we operated all over II Corps and Eye Corps.

  At the time I basically had a gung ho attitude about being a soldier. But could I get in the best situation and not get hurt was a legitimate concern of mine. So I checked out that the line companies—ones making all the heavy contact—are the ones who are getting overran. I thought maybe I should avoid that and volunteer for one of these long-range recon patrols. It was a smaller group, and I had an opportunity to share my ideas and help make some decisions. With a line company, you’re really just a pin on the map for sure.

  The recon unit was basically to search out the enemy and call in air strikes or a larger military force to engage the enemy. Most of our activities was at night. We was hide by day, and out by night.

  The politics of the war just had not set in when I got there. They told us not to fire unless fired upon. But once we enter into a village, we literally did anything that we wanted to do. There was no rules at all. I began to see a lot of the politics.

  When I had just got into my squad, Tango squad, I said, “Anybody here from D.C.?”

  There was one brother, Richard Streeter, from D.C., who I used to go with his wife in high school. I mean they weren’t married when I was in high school.

  Then this white brother said, “Say, hey. I’m from D.C.”

  I said, “Okay. Just soon as I set up we’ll get together.”

  He began to set up, too. He went down to the water hole to fill up his canteen. On his way back, he stepped on a 500-pound bomb that was laid in a tank track.

  You don’t walk in no tank tracks, because that’s where the bombs are usually. Charlie would use the rationale that most tanks would follow their tracks, and they would booby-trap tank tracks.

  We didn’t see that white brother anymore. All we saw was a big crater, maybe 6 feet deep. And some remains. You know, guts and stuff. And the dirt had just enveloped the stuff. It looked like batter on fish and batter on chicken pieces. His body looked like that.

  That freaked me out, but I wasn’t scared yet.

  It was those ti
mes when information was gotten to us that we were in a bad spot and there’s no way you can get out—those were the times that was the most fearful times. Times when I began to understand what fear was all about. It’s just that anticipation of something happening as opposed to being in the heat of the battle. In the heat of the battle I don’t think people think about getting hurt. In the fire fight, the thought of getting hurt never dawned upon me. You think about doing a blow to the person you’re fighting.

  The most fearful moment was when we got choppered into the wrong area, right on the perimeter of an NVA camp. It was a pretty huge complex. And there was only about 22 of us. You could smell the food and even feel the heat coming up out of the ground where they was cooking right under us. We could hear them, the muffled sounds. We felt their presence. We was ordered not to make a move in no direction. Everything was 100 percent alert. We just couldn’t get out till the morning. They said no way in the world they’d come in there with a chopper at night. Everybody felt the pressure. Everybody felt the stress. Only 22 men. We was gonna get overran. That’s the fear of any recon platoon.

  The choppers came in bright and early.

  Another time we heard there was a NVA batallion coming our way. And our directions was not to move, just hold up and wait till morning again. It was near LZ Montezuma. One of our LURP teams had got wiped out, five of them. We was out there to find they bodies. During the monsoon season. And it was raining sheets and sheets of rain. You couldn’t even see the next person past up from you. And we was in the rice paddies in the lowlands, and the water just rose and rose. Next thing I know I was sleeping in water up to my chest. Weapons were basically submerged in water. Nothing happened, but the fear, the fear, man.

  I remember night movement in that monsoon. I’m trying to grab hold of the man in front of me, trying to find him, ’cause you have to do that in the monsoon at night. I just fell. I fell into a well about 8 feet deep. My heart just fell. It hit rock bottom. And I couldn’t signal anyone real loud. All I could say was “Hey,” in a little breath-type thing. And when the lightning came on, the E-6, my platoon sergeant, he spotted me. And he pulled me right out with my weapon.

  The other thing we mainly did was search and destroy mission. On a search and destroy mission you just clear the village and burn the hootches because the village is suspected of a Viet Cong stronghold or Viet Cong sympathizers. We did not have the capacity as a platoon to take them and hold them. We just cleared them, because we wanted them secure.

  If we were doing this combat assault of the village, the CP would set up in the center of the village. The CP would have the platoon leader, the medics, and the air observers. The squads would pass the CP, and we would throw off our big heavy gear and keep our weapons. Then the squads would set up a perimeter around the command post. So the lieutenant really didn’t have any idea what was going on in the rest of the village itself.

  One time, in a village near Danang, we was making a perimeter. We passed these two black guys raping this woman at the door of the hootch. She was down on her back on this porchlike thing. Nothing more than a little mud slab. They had stripped off her top. She was struggling. They was from another squad. And the protocol of the folks in my squad was just keep moving, not to interfere, everything was all right.

  Most of the time we just rounded the women and children up, and they were literally ran out of the village. Then we start putting fire in the holes, throwing grenades inside the hootches, inside of little bunkers, down the wells. Hoping that we could ferret out a couple of VC. Then we burn the village. That was like a standard operation procedure when we went into a village.

  My platoon did that to 50 to 75 villages. Like being in Vietnam, there are little villages all over the place.

  If we use the figure 50 villages, we found suspects in 12 of them. Maybe 30 suspects in all of them. We very rarely found a real VC.

  When a squad caught a suspect, they would put a rope around they neck, kick them in the butt, and knock them out with they fist. Anything short of killing them, ’specially when the lieutenant was aware of the fact that we found someone. Really, it was the squad leader, the E-5, who makes a lot of the decisions about the lives, because most often we were operating about 2 kilometers away from the lieutenant. We would call the CP and say we ran across a dink or two. If it looks like he has no weapons, we would decide to move on. Never telling that we kicked him, knocked him out, or searched him down for drugs.

  One time, the VC we found in the village we was going to take back, because we found him with a .50-caliber machine gun—an antiaircraft-type gun—and a lot of ammo. We felt that this man knows something.

  This brother and the squad leader, a white dude, for some reason they felt they could interrogate this man. This man wasn’t speaking any English. They did not speak any Vietnamese. I could not understand that at all. But they hollerin’, “Where you come from? How many you?” And they callin’ him everything. Dink. Good. Motherfucker. He couldn’t say anything. He was scared.

  The next thing I knew, the man was out of the helicopter.

  I turned around and I asked the folks what happened to him.

  They told me he jumped out.

  I said, “Naw, man. The man ain’t jumped out.”

  The brother said, “Yes, he did. He one of those tough VC.”

  I didn’t believe it. The brother was lying to me, really.

  I turned around, and the man was gone. I didn’t actually see him pushed, but he was gone. It took a long time for me to believe it. I just kept looking where he sat at. And I couldn’t deal with it.

  There was two white guys I will never forget. This very young lieutenant, straight out of West Point. He had been out in the field a week and already was doin’ things that could get you killed. And Studs Armstrong, this gung ho squad leader. He was the first person that I run into that I now know as a mercenary-type soldier in Vietnam.

  One time we were chasing a VC, and the VC run into this hole. The lieutenant wanted one of our men to crawl into the hole after him. In fact, he was telling this little brother, Bobby Williams from Philadelphia, because Bobby was the smallest one.

  That was ridiculous. Because those tunnels may look like to be a little hole but may end up to be a total complex. Many times the holes are dug in off the entrance. VC go in and crawl into this little slot. If a man crawled in behind them, he were subject to get his head blown off.

  I said, “Bobby, don’t go in there. You crazy?”

  So I said let’s throw some fire in the hole as opposed to sending one of our men in that hole. Do that, and we’ll pull Bobby out by his ankles and he won’t have a head.

  Bobby did not go in. And we put fire in the hole. And the VC did not come out.

  Studs Armstrong. I’ll never forget him. It was the first time I was introduced to what Philadelphia is all about. He always used to talk about South Philly this. South Philly that. I’m livin’ in Philadelphia now, and I see how racist it is.

  Armstrong was ruthless, man, really ruthless. If there was an ambush to be set, he wanted his squad to be the ones to lead the ambush. At the time I was in his squad, it was because his men had got injured and we had to balance off the squad. I dreaded being there, because he was always going to volunteer me for something, and me and him would have to get into some type of altercation.

  Armstrong had reenlisted three time to stay in Vietnam.

  One night we set up near Quang Tri, and two VC walked down the trail right upon us. We didn’t bury them. We just left them out there in full display with a little card on them showing the cactus. The name of our unit.

  Armstrong immediately started cutting ears off and put them in his rucksack. Then he cut one man’s neck off, and stuck the whole head inside.

  It got so funky the lieutenant told Armstrong to get rid of it.

  Armstrong said, “Listen. I do what I want. This is my war.”

  Like he ran his own show. Three tours in Vietnam. He wasn’t going
to let any young lieutenant tell him what to do.

  The lieutenant had to threaten him with court-martial to make him give up that head, but Armstrong kept his ears. Those was his souvenirs.

  I didn’t lose a close, close friend towards being killed in Vietnam. But I lost a very close friend in terms of his mental functioning.

  His name was Richard Streeter. Like I said, I knew his wife in high school. I had known him then, too. We used to play football on opposite teams. He used to play for the Stonewalls, and I used to play for the Romans. We were like rivalry.

  Streeter was in Vietnam about, I think, sixty days before I got there. He received me in the squad. He was a very gung ho individual. Very gung ho. He used to lead fire fights, lead ambushes. That was one of the most impacting things on me. Studs was ruthless. Streeter was brave. Until that particular night at 2 A.M.

  We saw two Viet Cong running across the rice paddy through our starlight scopes. So the lieutenant calls in illumination. The VC runs into this village, so the lieutenant tells Whiskey squad to chase them.

  They ran right in behind them and got ambushed. The first three men got hit with grenades.

  So then the lieutenant hollered Tango squad move in. We dashed into the village and got ambushed, too. We were trapped. They had machine gun fire on us, and we didn’t know where it was coming from. All we could feel was it hitting up around us. And they were shooting M-79 grenade launchers at us they got off Whiskey squad. We could tell that they were our weapons, because we know the sound of them. Poop. And then the blast. We could not raise our heads.

  Bobby was behind me. A Spanish brother named Martinez was behind Bobby. Streeter, our fire team leader, was in front. Lloyd, the squad leader, and two white dudes was on the side.

  Then Bobby screamed, “I got hit.” He was shot in the butt.