by Byron Craft
The tour of duty was termed short, a brief two years in ones life as my Draft Board so kindly put it, one year stateside and one year fighting the VC. Nevertheless, it was a hell of a long time to a boy with a young bride waiting back home. I had decided to make the best of it though and attempted to remain as light hearted as possible in my daily letters home.
The letters became fewer and more difficult to write after arriving in Southeast Asia trying to keep up the pretensions of a safe and secure atmosphere. The years have slowly elapsed and most of my stay in Nam has mercifully blended together into a vague blur of images, making it impossible for me to reclaim from memory any one particular day, week, or at times whole months from one another. I put in my time. That is all that was required of me. Fill out your 365 days and stay alive. Thank God it was labeled a “Police Action” and not a war or I would have been there for the duration.
I went through the motions of battle like most. When a fire fight broke out I’d discharge my M-16 into the open air then took cover until it was over. Seizing upon the first opportunity to fall back, I would retreat to my platoon. This was not a conventional war like many thought. This was not the class of “45”. It was guerrilla warfare. One moment everything was peaceful and the next some bush or rubber tree would erupt, raining death and destruction.
There is no benefit in lying, especially to myself. If these tapes are ever heard by anyone I want them to know the whole truth. So I better make a clean breast of it. I have always been afraid of any physical confrontations. I guess every one of us experiences different forms of anxiety in these situations but I would run from the first sign of trouble. Even as a child, growing up in an inner city public school, I avoided the common tussles that children often got into. Still, when I knew that I was physically the superior, I could not summon the inner strength needed to make a fist and strike a blow. Subsequently I was always the one who got beat up, making me an easy target for any bully that came along; leaving me disgraced in front of my friends. It was almost as if I preferred the humiliation rather than a victory.
I’ve been this way most of my life but as I got older, I developed other defenses. Psychological intimidation has always worked well for me. Looking someone straight in the eye with a few carefully chosen words normally has the right effect. It’s been successful heading off conflicts and can be very useful in business negotiations. In most cases, it has left me free of victimization but somehow deep inside I felt less a man for it.
The reason I bring this up is that just two weeks before my discharge, a cowardly act on my part marked my unexpected but early release from Nam. It is the only memory during that period of my life that has stayed completely in tack. I guess it will always be with me like a scar from a third degree burn. Just too much for the old subconscious to handle.
Like most short timers I was counting off the minutes to my discharge and with the thoughts of going home so near I became extremely cautious of my safety, more than I had in the past. I had known of other short timers who had become careless on the verge of returning to the states, with thoughts of seeing their loved ones fresh in their minds or daydreaming about the first thing they were going to do the moment of their homecoming. These all but tangible sugar plums would dance in their heads concealing the dangers that surrounded them. In the thin veil of fantasy, these poor souls would walk haphazardly through a mine field, or lost in the minds internal heaven, fail to take cover when the order was issued.
I became paranoid of my surroundings more than was usual. Determined to return home in one piece, I called upon the things I knew best. The gift of sight has always been very precious to me going back as far as I can remember. My grandmother lived with us until I was twelve. She was blind and partially crippled and had to be constantly looked after, until the day they came and took her away. I was her favorite and she would often tell me I was special, referring to me as her “eyes.” Probably the reason I chose photography as a career; an extension of our visual sense. I can freeze the special moments on film. At any rate I mentally charted each and every move I made carefully as if frame by frame on a strip of film, envisioning that hell hole and myself through an imaginary view finder of a camera.
Everything I did was calculated with “my” safety in mind. I put entire thoughts of returning home out of my head, became reclusive within my thoughts, seeking an inner asylum, alienating myself from the other men and all conversations entertaining any considerations of a homecoming. I had to be cautious. I didn’t want to end up like so many I had known. I was determined to live out my last two weeks in Nam as safely as possible.
It was while being occupied with this self control that I became conscious of an unusual turn of events. Not quite as strange or fantastic as it has currently been but in retrospect I relate it only with those moments in Vietnam and not the terrifying implications which have recently taken place and which some of you, no doubt, have read about in My Uncle Todesfall’s notebook and Janet’s diary.
My last few months in Vietnam were spent bordering the nearby village of Dai Sut. Upon returning from patrols the platoons occupying that region were in the habit of marching along a half-mile-long trail through thick stalks of towering bamboo and eventually through Dai Sut. The villagers were Montagnards, a nomadic tribe numbering about ninety, considered savages by the lowland Vietnamese.
Bloch, our platoon sergeant, said that they had claimed the highlands of Indochina for themselves several centuries ago but had always been peaceful. The only violence he had ever witnessed was the occasional sacrifice of a buffalo or the hunting of tiger with crossbows and spears.
When Americans first came to Dai Sut the locals would line the mud caked paths on both sides and silently watch the procession. By the time our platoon moved in to relieve the fifth detachment of battle worn troops, the fascination for the American soldiers grew old and we would usually pass through unnoticed. A few of the older tribesmen would occasionally monitor our passing. Faab, the medicine man from the village, was among them.
Like all the men in the village he wore a woven loin cloth. His teeth were black and had been filed to points. Faab’s earlobes were perforated and filled with silver discs. Around his wrists he wore several silver bracelets. He was very ancient looking. He was a skeleton of a man who limped when he walked with elbows that looked knobby and a very visible rib cage. By way of some unknown appointment, the old man would carefully scrutinize each and every one of us that marched by, as if he was searching our faces for some mysterious element.
At first I took no particular notice of him but later learned that this was an honor bestowed upon us that none of the recent detachments of soldiers had witnessed. It was about that same period, just a few weeks before my discharge, that I became conscious of the old witch Doctor’s special interest toward me. In the beginning I chalked it up to my imagination that he took more than a casual notice of me. His stare was long...piercing, and each day I went by, his gaze stayed with me longer than before.
I was a little uneasy about it and started to become nervous at the sight of him. I would try to avoid his eyes but the urge to look at him eventually overcame me before I left on the path to the camp and I’d stare back into his wrinkled features.
One afternoon returning from a firefight completely caught up in thoughts of caution, I had forgotten about him. Lost in thought, he was the farthest thing from my mind. Then for a peculiar reason, I don’t know why, I broke concentration and looked up. I saw him, not at the side of the path where he usually was but at the end where the road made a sharp bend to the left away from the village toward the Ban Hai river in the direction of our camp.
He stood with his scrawny arms folded about his chest peering directly at me. I couldn’t have been more than ten feet from him. He reached out with a wrinkled hand and motioned me toward him with the bending movement of a long boney finger. I felt compelled to follow, but took charge of myself, turned abruptly to the left and stayed in procession.
That night the stoic face of the old medicine man occupied my dreams, beckoning, calling to me from the village.
The incident was repeated on the following three days.
On the fourth day we returned after a skirmish with the NVA. Our casualties were low and my spirits were high. I had made it through another day and nearing my last, which would be heralded by a flight home on a C-130.
I slipped mentally, for only a minute or so buried in the excitement of that afternoon’s victory and wasn’t prepared for a meeting with the old Montagnards. When I realized his presence and compelling stare it was too late. I was caught off guard and some of the guys noticing my surprise made light of it remarking that maybe he had a daughter or better still, a granddaughter, he wanted me to meet.
Embarrassed, I didn’t want to look like a fool in front of the guys so I approached the old man. “What the hell do you want?” I said. I was standing less than an arm’s length in front of him.
He was holding a small clay jar in both hands with a short length of bamboo sticking out of its top. He didn’t say anything. Instead he raised the jar and held it in front of my face. My platoon moved along without me, trailed by a succession of jeering cat calls and obscene gestures.
The harassment heightened my embarrassment. Faab still did not speak. I felt like an idiot. I looked back and saw the last of our troopers rounding the bend towards camp. A stabbing fear shot through me. I did not want to be left behind. I ran after them pulling up the rear just as they were going out of sight of the village. The old medicine man stayed at the foot of the path clutching the clay jar in his hands.
On the fifth and sixth days our platoon wasn’t sent out on detail and there wasn’t any reason for us to leave camp. When our compliment of grunts were in base camp, we were generally allowed a certain degree of slack. We burned shitters and filled sandbags when it was necessary but we were normally excused from any tedious work so we could rest up and hopefully recover some of the sanity that had been lost during our weeks in the jungle.
Just twenty yards south of our hooch was an old VC bunker which had become a makeshift enlisted men’s club. I had gone there on our second day of rest out of boredom. I had been withdrawn for quite a while and needed some conversation. We were on R-and-R and I didn’t see any harm in breaking my self imposed discipline on my day off. Who the hell was going to know besides me. Tomorrow I would go back to my regular routine.
The ceiling of the bunker was low and most of us sat on the dirt floor or stretched out on woven mats. On one of the concrete walls hung three tattered Playboy Magazine foldouts; Miss April, May and July. I have no idea what became of Miss June. In a corner, stacked up were the latest editions of the “Stars and Stripes,” an old ammo box overflowing with DC and Marvel Comics. A dog eared copy of “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” rested on the pile of magazines. The room was dark and filled with cigarette and hashish smoke. Weed was very prevalent in Nam. The Montagnards would trade a large bag of the dope for a couple of Marlboros.
There were only seven of us in the dimly lit room. “The original seven” we had started calling ourselves by then. There were 40 of us to begin with. With the exception of Sgt. Bloch we had all shared a Saigon-bound flight a year ago with over 100 other men. Of that original group, ten had been killed in action, 19 had been wounded severely enough to be medevac’d home early, three were MIAs, and Purdy, our corporal, had been stabbed to death by a roving gang of Danang orphans. One-by-one they had all been effortlessly replaced by new recruits. Young men just like me who stood shivering on the hot tarmac of an airstrip knowing that they were about to start day one in the combat zone.
Bloch, the only lifer amongst us, sat in the corner next to the door and watched Stash, an ex-biker from the Toledo branch of the Outlaws, rolling joints on the top of his mess kit. Stash’s fingers moved with meticulous skill. He was wrapping his third Zig Zag around a small mound of cleaned marijuana when I came in.
“Your joints always look tailored made,” I said sitting down.
“Comes from years of practice, man,” he answered, never looking up.
Ike Washington, a large black man sat cross-legged to Stash’s right. A lit candle rested on the dirt in front of him. He wore a beaded stitched headband and no shirt. His eyes were closed and he was humming something to himself. At that moment, Ike did not look like the streetwise black from Chicago. Instead, he resembled a Native American.
Reese Combs sat with his back to the wall gazing at the ceiling occasionally sipping on a warm can of San Miguel. Reese was lost in thought, probably daydreaming about the hills of Tennessee, the back woods and the farm he was raised on.
Over in the corner, his head resting on the pile of comics, slept Rinaldi. Rinaldi (his first name escapes me now) was promoted to Corporal after Purdy was killed. Besides being amongst the three that made it back home alive, the only other thing I remember about his background was that he was from Philadelphia.
Stretched out on a mat between the sleeping Rinaldi and Reese Combs was Bill Gibson. Bill had been my closest friend in Vietnam. We shared a hooch together along with Stash and Reese and had done most of our serious drinking together. Bill had pulled my ass out of trouble more than once in the past year. I owed him my life on at least three separate occasions. Even though there was only a few months difference in our ages, I looked up to him like a big brother. He always looked after me. I guess he knew that left alone long enough I could really foul things up. He was from Jackson, Michigan and he had a wife and little girl that he talked about often. We had the recognition of being the only two married men in our platoon and the only two with college educations. We were also scheduled to receive our discharge papers on the same day.
Bill had been adjusting the tuner on his transistor radio when I came in. Richard Nixon was giving a speech in which he said he would get us out of Vietnam. Bill leaned over and yelled at the radio, “Where were you when we needed you!”
“In the friggin’ Oval Office man,” Stash added. “No gooks are gonna shoot at you there.”
“They’d shoot your ass if you was there.”
We all turned around surprised to hear Rinaldi. His position was still unchanged, his eyes were still closed. “I thought you were asleep,” I laughed.
“What the hell you mean they’d shoot me if I was there?” asked Stash.
Rinaldi, position still unchanged, “Stash, if you were in the big guy’s office they’d probably import fifty of the little gook bastards to assassinate you.”
“No. Not me man. You wouldn’t catch me in there.” He wet the Zig Zag with his tongue and smoothed out the wrinkles in the paper. His eyes were bloodshot. “I don’t like round rooms. No corners to hide in.” He giggled softly.
It was right then that I remembered one of the reasons why I was starving for conversation. I got up and started to leave.
“Sit your ass down, Church,” ordered Bill. I sat back down. “Where were you off to?”
“No place,” I replied.
“You’ve been all wound up lately. You need to relax, unwind that mainspring of yours. Here!” He tossed an alligator clip to me with the butt end of the joint stuck between the metal jaws. “We haven’t gotten high together in a while.”
The roach was less than an inch long. It was black with resin. Vietnam dope was heavy with THC unlike the poorer grades of Mexican or Columbian we had smoked in college. I lit the end with my military issue Zippo tilting my head sideways away from the flame so I wouldn’t burn my nose. A thick blue smoke curled upwards. A seed popped spewing sparks onto the dirt floor. I drew the smoke deep into my lungs. It had a strong musty taste. I fought against the urge to cough.
“That’s right,” Bill said slowly. “Just what the Doctor ordered.”
“Heap big medicine,” Ike muttered coming out of his trance. He turned, looked at me and smiled.
Bill tuned in another station and the radio played “I am the Walrus.” “Hey, Church-Boy, you know wh
at today is don’t ya?” slurred Stash.
“No,” I said, coughing out the smoke.
“It’s the day before Tet...the lunar New Year.”
“Oh?” still coughing.
“Yeah, that’s heap big shit in these parts,” Ike added in a poor imitation of an American Indian.
“You’re all heaps of shit,” growled Bloch from his corner.
Everyone turned and stared at him. Reese stopped gazing at the ceiling. Even Rinaldi opened his eyes and propped himself up on one elbow to see what was happening. I had not noticed the eight or nine crushed empties of beer littered across the ground in front of Bloch until then. Sergeant Bloch was not a man to cross when sober and if he had been drinking he was like the song says, “...meaner than a junkyard dog.”
The atmosphere became tense. Everyone was aware that the Sergeant’s short fuse could ignite with little provocation. Everyone except Stash who was probably too stoned to notice or care.
Bloch shifted his position on the empty C-ration carton he sat on and leaned forward. “Give me a reefer, shit-for-brains.”
Stash didn’t reply. I grabbed one of the joints off the mess tin and held it out to him hoping to avoid a confrontation. Bloch slapped it out of my hand with a quick movement.
“Not you asshole,” he shouted, “I want the Hell’s Angel here to give me one.”
“I ain’t no Angel, Sarge,” he answered in a stupor. “I’m an Outlaw!”
“Was, shit-for-brains. You’re mine now and will be until you’re dead or medevaced out of here.” Stash defiantly picked up one of his “tailor mades”, bent over and lit the end of it with the candle. Straightening up he stared back eye-to-eye with Sergeant Bloch. No emotion on his face.
Ike visibly worried piped in, “give him the damn joint Stash!” Stash smiled, with deliberate slow movement removed the marijuana cigarette from between his lips and offered it to the glaring Bloch.
