Epiphany

It is in the middle of monsoon season, and the sheets of rain are so thick that they impede your sight to 20-30 feet even with the forest canopy above. We were to set up an ambush some 3 clicks (a little under two miles) beyond a rice paddy that was known to be a favorite hiding place for one specific unit of the Viet Cong. We weren't expecting much action, and never expected an ambush to happen.

We set up a rectangular kill zone with an M-60 machine gun close to the trail, one on the front left and rear right so as not to be sending bullets at one another. Small arms, M-79's (grenade launcher), and claymore mines were on each side of the trail, about 5 meters in. Anyway, we were tired, we were wet, and we wanted a cigarette real bad. Rules of the ambush team: tape your dog tags, absolutely no rattling of gear, no talking, and no smoking - especially at night, don't be sneezing or coughing. A cigarette glow can be seen forever on a dark night. Cigarette smoke will waft though the jungle, staying under the forest canopy for thousands of feet, surely piquing the interest of those that could engage us. Fucking rain, fucking snakes … fucking Viet Nam.

Earlier in the squad hooch (a hole in the ground with sand bag walls and roofs), we listened to the platoon leader. "Don't be fucking heroes guys, it's fucked up muddy, and Charlie AIN'T going to want to fuck with you. Carry your load. In this rain and being a heavily armed squad, Charles will want to go around you." I sure as hell hoped so.

Anyway, back to the woods. It's about 4 AM, the dead hour, the hour before the early light changes the landscape. I was miserable, I itched, I was wet from head to toe, and fatigues clung to my skin making any position unbearable. Just one more hour, I thought, one more miserable fucking hour, I could do it standing on my head. But I didn't have to fucking like it.

In an instant, a micro second, everything changed. From one reality to another, a moment that I see clearly as yesterday, a moment 36 years ago.

I heard a small "click" in the forest, off to my left front. My heart jumped and I was instantly frightened, frozen, trying to listen through the rain. Seconds were like minutes; my hair was standing on the back of my neck. My guts were knotted and I needed to piss. And then, there he was, 20 feet away, his shadow moving slowly, searching, for us. I saw another about eight feet behind the first, and switched the selector from semi auto to "rock and roll" strafing from right to left. The first guy went down quick, and the second was gone as far as I could tell. The squad, used to going from sleep to action was tearing up the area, setting off claymores, throwing grenades, and laying down firepower. Unknown to us, it was a sizable formation. I had been hit in the right thigh by what appeared to be a ricochet, and one of the guys had been hit in the right shoulder. We had popped smoke and radioed for air support and medevacs. By this time we are under heavy incoming fire that was slowly performing a "spread" to encircle us. "Fuck this" I though, a veteran's favorite saying. "Fuck it". I was no longer afraid; I was calmer than I had ever been. Not good for a soldier I think. We worked for maybe 15 minutes to cut them off before the gun ships rolled in. Three AH-1G, "cobras" rolling in with 20 mm Cannons and 7.62 Mini guns blazing, tearing out sections of bamboo with their 17 lb HE (high explosive) rockets. With their help we set up a working perimeter and an LZ (landing zone) for our medevacs and extraction birds. Loading the medevacs, with crew help, it mattered not which side you were on. We also medevac'd the enemy wounded and carried out bodies.

In less than 20 minutes the UH-1 that picked me up was rotating into the 93 rd Evacuation Hospital at Long Binh, leaches still attached to my wet body, my blood mixed with mud and sweat. My combat injury was slight, but when they examined me they found that from a previous injury I had gotten a serious infection, so I got a mandatory two days in the hospital to administer antibiotics.

A soldier was brought in after having hours of surgery, a communist soldier. He was placed on the cot beside mine. He had obviously been hit in the chest and had been through a lot of shit in the OR, sleeping now. He was Viet Cong, the enemy. The hospital was a Quonset hut, with one row of flimsy folding beds on each side. Perhaps 60 beds total. The beds were close. I laid awake in the dimness of the night watching him, listening to his fight for air. Hours passed, I might have slept, but I don't think so. He was awake in the morning, but heavily sedated. Our eyes met … mine of sorrow, his of pain and fear. Through our broken Vietnamese and English, I learned that he had been wounded in an ambush the night before, the very first one hit in an ambush. With the first shot fired, he lay bleeding, surely to die but for the courageous pilots, and the kindness of an enemy. Then it hit me, it was my bullet, he was laying there because of me. Some of the orderlies were rude and rough with him. I would pull rank and chew their asses. He wasn't married but really liked this girl in the village of Long Thanh. That is where he was forced into the Viet Cong under the fear of his family’s death. His family would survive if he would fight. If he declined, his family, his pig, chickens, cats, dogs, would be killed and his village burned. He had been in the unit for almost a year.

That night, in the dim light, I sat on the floor beside his bed and opened a Playboy Magazine. He had never seen colored pages, and certainly not a naked round eye (Caucasian) girl. One time I went to flip the page and his weak hand stopped me. He was transfixed on a page that showed a busy New York City street, and then just as quickly, he slept.

I think he knew the bullet was mine; he touched my hand, a gesture of friendship, forgiveness. I sat there for a bit, closed the magazine and lay on my bed, again listening to him breath. I slept hard, dreaming crazy dreams, dreams where I die. Dreams that when I die, I feel atonement. I woke with a poke from a corpsman, telling me that breakfast was not long away, and the bed beside me was empty. I asked the corpsman about it. "The Gook croaked man." I grabbed a wheelchair and went out into the sun. I don't know how long I cried, I don't care.

That moment, that experience, that day … forever changed my life. From that moment, I knew we were wrong.

No war is just. That one single casualty has had impact on many. This moment in time should forever change humanity.

I was a soldier, and would see many things during two tours in Viet Nam. I did what I felt needed to be done at that time. I will not say that there are no "ghosts" for me. I do have difficulty understanding that 20 year old Buck Sergeant. Understanding the times I had to go "behind my eyes" and just function. It has not come clear to me yet. How could I have possibly been so unaware? To blindly follow without question. That is sooo 1960's, the only people that were right were smoking pot and listening to the music of peace. And we shot them at Kent State, we beat them in the streets. What the hell has gone wrong ge0-politically? Are we to let religion decide who is good and who is bad? Why do some protestants hate catholics and vice versa? They kill each other. It is because of the "trappings" of religion and the law that has it's goundings in religion. Allah doesn't want us dead, zealots do. And yet we send hate. I must be so stupid as to not understand all this.