More Than A Memory: Reflections of Viet Nam Book Trailer

More Than A Memory: Reflections of Viet Nam Book Trailer by Rich Raitano

ETS

I watched them come in numbers,
Bodies torn and shattered
Day upon day;
With wild eyes and
Bloodied strangled cries,
They came to face the beast.
The fetid smell of death
On the angry dragon’s breath
Did show no mercy nor peace.
No knightly savior,
Sword of life in hand,
Riding nigh.
This…
and only this…
To watch them slowly die.

Kindle eBook edition of More Than a Memory

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Richard Boes 2010 Award Winning Book

Richard Boes (R.I.P.)

The 2010 Richard Boes Memorial Award goes to Charles M. Grist for his book My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran’s Tour in Iraq (ISBN 9781440152689)

The award is a $100 cash prize for best debut book by a veteran (fiction or memoir) and is sponsored by Modern History Press. The contest is administered by Reader Views Inc., which includes a general book award contest as well.

Richard enlisted into the US Army and served in Vietnam in 1969 – 1970 with the First Air Cav. He is the author of two books, The Last Dead Soldier Left Alive (2007) a firsthand inquiry into why thousands of Vietnam veterans have committed suicide and Last Train Out (2008). Right up to his death Richard was writing a third, In the Valley of Dry Bones. He passed away on Feb 21st, 2009 at the VA Hospital in Albany, NY.

Leaving Da Nang

Leaving Da Nang 

It was one of those moments when sound collapses into an eerie silence and time somehow ceases to move and deposits you into an altered, yet clear reality. I had been plucked from the moment and set down in the space between time. But I was not alone. I turned my head and our eyes met as if guided by some mysterious contrivance of fate. In a bustling, chaotic crowd of many, only he stood out; a slight smile on his lips.

I had recently returned to Chu Lai from an assignment at the NSAH (Naval Support Activity Hospital) in Da Nang. Our unit was working an AO in the area and the battalion commander wanted a casualty reporter nearby. It was a quiet three weeks and an opportunity for me to use it as an in-country R & R; one that I badly needed. It may have been why I was sent to Da Nang. Activity was constant down south, and I clearly was showing the signs of sensory overload.

I was back in familiar territory and working the ER, GR, and wards when I received a call from Percy that Captain Rice (not his real name) wanted me to accompany him to visit wounded at the hospital in Da Nang. He arrived mid-day in his jeep, and we made the 60 mile trip north. Captain Rice drove and I held his Thompson in my lap. My M-16 was in storage in the 2^nd Surg. armory.

The trip was uneventful as we raced passed villages and sandbagged outposts. Farmers bent over in their fields and young children standing on the roadside with outstretched hand, babies on their hips, greeted us along the way. A column of thick black smoke rose in the distance on my left as we neared Da Nang. I kept my eyes fixed in that direction until I was satisfied there was nothing of consequence in progress. Captain Rice sped on, his eyes fixed on the road.

Once we arrived, Captain Rice told me to meet him at the hospital in two hours. I made my way to the hospital barracks to find Walt and others I had met while in Da Nang.  I found Walt and we sat and BS’d until the two hours had passed. I said my goodbyes and made my way back to the hospital only to find that Captain Rice planned on visiting for another two hours and was not ready to go. It was nearly 1400 hours (2:00 p.m.). Curfew was four hours away at 1800.

Walt was surprised to see me stroll back into the barracks. When I told him that we weren’t going to leave for another two hours or so, he suggested I should tell the captain that I refuse to leave, spend the night, and leave in the morning. It sounded like a good plan to me; I did not want to be on the road so close to curfew. Two lightly armed American soldiers would present an easy target.

The time passed and I walked back to the hospital only to find that Captain Rice was not where we had planned to meet. Nervously glancing at my watch, I sat and waited for him to show. It was after 4:30 when he strolled into the reception area, Thompson in hand, and signaled for me to follow him. He jumped into the drivers seat, handed his weapon to me, started the jeep, and we began our return journey south to Chu Lai.

The Thompson rested, barrel out, across my lap; my left hand resting on the trigger guard as we made our way out of Da Nang. The village on the outskirts of town was busy with U.S and ARVN military traffic and locals on foot making their way in from the fields. Curfew was a little over an hour away and they did not want to get caught in the open. After 1800 hours, anyone beyond the last guard post would be considered an enemy combatant in a free fire zone and subject to be killed.

We crawled to a stop as we approached a narrow one lane bridge filled with lumbering vehicles, horns honking, and nervous villagers rushing back from the fields, dōn gánh (bamboo carrying bar with woven baskets hanging on each end) filled with produce, swaying on their shoulders. The sooner they were in from the fields the better off they were. It was not uncommon for a late straggler to be gunned down before 1800 hours.

I watched these villagers closely as they raced across the bridge, snarling angrily  and shouting at the passing vehicles forcing them to walk an even narrower path against the steel girders of the bridge; their loads bumped and spilling on the road. I was growing nervous as it became obvious we would not beat the curfew before reaching Chu Lai. I asked Captain Rice if he thought it best to return and stay at the hospital for the night. He shook his head and frustrated, laid on the horn. I continued my watch.

It was in that moment, stopped at the foot of the bridge amidst all the noise and erratic commotion, when the forward flow of time ceased. I was on high alert and being drawn to something. I scanned the blurred faces of the villagers as they raced past me, my eyes searching for what beckoned me. Nothing. I looked past the parade of humanity and into a crowd standing at the entrance of a market and saw only him standing there; his arms folded across his chest.

            He was wearing a black shirt, purple shorts and Ho Chi Minh sandals; dark black hair sat atop his weathered face; old for a young man. Our eyes locked. Safety off, my finger moved imperceptibly towards the trigger. He slowly moved his left arm away from his body to reveal a pistol in his right hand, tucked under his armpit. With a feint, non-threatening smile on his lips, he nodded lightly. Eyes still locked, I returned his nod. The jeep lurched forward suddenly and caused me to lose eye contact. Time had restarted and we were moving. I quickly turned to look back toward the market. He was gone.

Something unexplainable happened at the foot of that bridge that day. I did not feel threatened or frightened. We both had somehow found ourselves in the same space and time apart from the chaos that whirled around us and acknowledged that it was not the place or time for death.

Captain Rice sped across the bridge; a basket hit our windshield and a shrill litany of Vietnamese curses followed us as we passed the last guard post and headed for the open road and Chu Lai.  

~

Nothing was said as we sped down the road at full speed in a race to get somewhere-anywhere-before curfew and darkness set in. Nothing was visible. Animals, people, birds…nothing. It was as if 1800 hours had become such a way of life that all living things made themselves scarce and dared not be seen in the open. I thought about what Walt had said and wished I had stayed behind. I was not comfortable, and I could see by the tension on his face, neither was Captain Rice.

            Coming out of a turn we heard a pop and the jeep began to shimmy and swerve. We had blown a rear tire and we had no spare. Never slowing, Captain Rice said “Fuck it” and we continued to race down the road. Even if we did have a spare, stopping to change a tire in the middle of nowhere after curfew was not a good idea.

            Conversation now began to flow between the captain and me. He kept repeating “Fuck!” over and over, “We need to find a place to stop…soon. Keep an eye out for a friendly place. Fuck!” 

“No shit, sir.”

As dusk cleared daylight for dark we spotted a Marine outpost and pulled up to the gate. The sentries exited their sandbagged guardhouse and approached us. They were surprised to see two G.I’s cruising the road after curfew. Captain Rice explained our situation and pointed to the now shredded remains of a tire and battered rim. Letting us in and directing us to the command post I could see the laughter in their looks…“Army…figures”

            Captain Rice stopped the vehicle and entered the command bunker. I waited in the jeep feeling a hell of a lot better about my circumstances, no matter what the sentries thought. Captain Rice exited the bunker minutes later with a Marine captain who was taking us to a location where we could grab some C’s and sleep for the night.

Leaving the jeep behind for their mechanics to repair, we followed our Marine savior to our sanctuary for the night. As we walked away, I heard the two sentries talking in low voices and giggling. They might have been laughing about something else, but I was sure we had to be object of their delight.

            After chatting a while with a couple of Marine grunts, I settled down on a borrowed sleeping bag and drifted off to sleep. Morning came; our jeep was delivered with a replaced rim and tire, and we set off to finish our journey. Captain Rice let me off at 2^nd Surg. and went on his way. Two weeks later a couple of friends, battalion medics, stopped by to visit. In our conversations I told them of the journey from Da Nang. They laughed and let me know that Captain Rice had been reprimanded by the battalion CO for placing me in danger. Hell, the government did that.

Rich Raitano

GOD LAUGHS IN COLORS

God Laughs In Colors
By Tom Skiens
Nov. 12, 2009

I was a tree vet again this year at the local Veterans Day ceremony. Just like the Nam vets in D.C. who hang out in the tree line on the ridge above the bowl that hosts The Wall. I used to occupy a spot in the trees on the southwest corner of the pond. A brown water sailor vet buddy joined me sometimes and things were good. I walked from my house and timed it so I arrived at my spot when the crowd was still moving around. Civilians don’t have their heads on a swivel scanning the tree line both high and low. They are content to look straight ahead or at their shoes or at the person beside them. I would move into position and no one noticed.

Later a civilian wannabe asked if we minded if he joined us. We minded, but let him join anyway. The civilian asked stupid questions and made way too much noise as if to yell, “I am in the trees with the vets, I must be cool.” He moved around too much which gave away our location. He wanted attention and we were in the trees to avoid same. The next year the ceremony organizers plugged in a loud speaker so the tree vets could hear. I stopped attending the Veterans Day ceremony.

I visit the Veterans memorial at the parks and recreation’s Seventh Street Complex in John Day Oregon often. I do it in the dark of night or before daylight in the early morning hours. Several years ago I volunteered to spend many days and hours on my knees laying pavers or screeding sand or chasing a compactor in the construction of this memorial. I learned to mix mortar while helping to build a granite podium that would support the marble engraved centerpiece to the monument.

And now things have come full circle. The memorial was falling apart, in September of 2009 the flag pole broke off. In October of 2009 I saw activity at the memorial and again volunteered. Just like I volunteered for the draft, the infantry, Vietnam, and as a Forward Observer, to go on patrols and ambushes, and to walk through the mine field more than once. I volunteered because someone had to. I volunteered because
God laughs in colors.
It is April 19, 1968. I am the fourth person back in the left column. The other column is less than 10 yards to my right. We should not be this bunched up. God knows we have hit enough booby traps to learn. I see and hear an explosion to my right front less than 15 yards away. I drop to the ground but before my stomach touches I am on my way back up.
I know what this is. It is the same thing as January 13, 1968. A Bouncing Betty leaves us with two dead and eight wounded. Zimmerman and I are the next two unwounded in the column and we must walk the line. Today is not much different.
I move to the right column, drop my rucksack and get the PRC 25 radio from my radio telephone operator. 0900, “grid square BS 533853 Company C request dust off for two KHA, two WHA result bouncing Betty.” I move into the zone making sure the path is clear for the medics. A fucking new guy walking point in the left column has hot steel in his stomach.
The F.N.G. came in on the resupply chopper the night before and has been with the company less than 14 hours. The company put him in first Platoon and first Platoon put him on the point in the left column. First day in the bush and the F.N.G. gets hot steel in his stomach which may result in him going home. The guy at my feet is dead. The next guy is dead. The next guy, Platoon leader, LT. his right foot is blown off and his right hand does not look good, he will probably lose it. He is moaning from shock and pain. His weapon has been thrown to the right, it is destroyed, useless.
I yell at the F.N.G. to stop running around because he may set off another mine. Sgt. Don Fox, who will assume command of 1st platoon because the LT. is down, and Zimmerman talk the F.N.G. to safety. In three days Zimmerman and I will be on our bellies crawling over to Sgt.Fox who will have a bullet in his gut that penetrated through his weapon before entering his body. Higher/higher said it was Automatic weapons fire, but, I was standing four feet away and only remember 1 round. Three days after the Sgt. Fox dust off, Zimmerman, who has gone from PFC to platoon leader in the course of seven days, will be involved in another Bouncing Betty and I will on the radio calling in another dust off for him and three others. Charlie Company’s first platoon, first squad is getting beat up for the second time in our first four months in country.
A medic asks me to help put one of the dead guys on a poncho so we can drag him to the approaching chopper.
I rifle through the guys rucksack to get a poncho while the medic rolls him onto his back. I find pieces of bone and blood on the inside of the grunts rucksack. For the first time I look at the dead guys face. It is my friend John-John.
I am stunned, shocked. This is the day, the hour, the minute and the grid coordinates where the American dream dies for me. Dark clouds invade my mind; a deep numbing pain penetrates my soul. The medic wants me to lift the right side of the body. John-John is pulverized flesh from head to toe, like the Gook on the receiving end of a B-52 package. Concussion and shrapnel have transformed his body into the consistency of firm Jelly. I can’t find anything solid enough to lift.
A year passes, then two, finally I see the middle finger of his right hand, I test it to see if it will stay attached to his body when I lift him. I grab a hand full of bloody pants leg with my right hand and lift the lower part of his body off the ground. I pray that pieces of his body do not come off in my hands as I lift my dark, broken friend high enough to set him on the poncho.
April 19, 1968, 0900 hours, grid BS533853, I died, the dream ends, no preparation, I be zombie. I died because it was the easiest and fastest way to deal with my problem. I could not move forward while packing the weight of the dead and I could not leave them behind. I must sacrifice a part of my soul so my body can move on. I don’t have time to mourn, only to tuck the memory of the mangled bodies into the corners of my mind and keep on humping.
The corners of my mind will meld over time
The visions of the dead come more often.
I’ve recorded their names and absolved them of chains
While I’m busy constructing my own coffin.
God laughs at my notions in green, red and blue. He decided I wouldn’t die. I assure you I went out of my way to prove God wrong. On July 3, 1968 I returned from my Singapore R & R with a 4X4 Orange tarp I planned to use as ground cover in the bush. I sometimes carried this Orange tarp on the outside of my Rucksack. I would have a radio antenna sticking above my head and I would walk point. Laughter is full of colors.

God laughs in colors
I see in black and white.
My fears dark and hidden;
The laughter filled with light

Forty-one years after Gods watercolor wash I have conducted 50 critical incident debriefings, organized 4 interventions, talked three suicides down, provided substance abuse information to hundreds, published the contents of 11,000 pages of documents for my Old Guard battalion, taught my grand children to laugh in colors, built the 7th street memorial a second time and found a fresh site to be a tree vet. I did these things and never accepted a dime, not even for gas. Money would detract from the real reason for doing these things. Money screws things up.

I attended this year’s ceremony and no one saw me. I watched the honor guard fumble with their weapons and get off two of the planned three shots. They never saw me. My hide is secure.

Life is good.

Vet writers encouraged to submit work to RTS Journal

Absence of Grace and Mercy

in the
absence of
grace and mercy

rich raitano

I chose the title for this book not for any personal lack of spiritual or religious belief, nor to infer a meaningless or non-existent creator.
I do not intend to refute the faith of any or all who have served in combat, nor that of those who may read this accounting. I speak for no one but myself in this writing.
My experiences in combat, and the carnage it leaves in its wake, has left me with deeply rooted and horrific impressions that give me cause to doubt the presence of anything holy in a war zone other than those beliefs each of us may carry  or develop within that hellacious landscape. There seems to be no reason for God, or any gods to be there, let alone choose to take sides.
The regular combat soldier is nothing more than a reluctant captive serving in a harsh and brutal environment where chance and fate collide endlessly, and staying alive is a day to day, if not moment to moment challenge.
It is my belief, in combat, who lives or dies is not a predestined matter guided by a holy hand, but rather it is determined by the consequences of bitter misfortune and random circumstance. To imagine that a loving “God” would place or remove anyone from the path of death because He had determined “it was, or was not the time” does not make sense in the everyday world let alone on the battlefield.
The brutal violence and slaughter let loose in the arena of warfare cannot be the work of anyone or anything holy. Surely a loving and gracious Deity weeps while Satan feasts in the absence of grace and mercy.

epilogue

March, 2003

My wife and I sat in stunned silence, unable to take our eyes off the television set. A firefight was about to unfold in the early Iraqi morning. I found my eyes searching for movement in the flat two-dimensional distance while men and machine moved into combat positions. My breath quickened and my heart began to pound in my ears as the camera panned up and down the line of troops preparing to engage the Iraqi military.
My wife, her fists clenched tightly in her lap, sat with one leg tucked under her and the other on the floor pushing her into the back of the sofa. Her eyes widened in disbelief as I explained to her what was about to happen.
My muscles tightened, my mouth went dry and my head began to ache as the long sleeping beast, aroused by the adrenalin racing through my veins, fidgeted restlessly within me.
This had never happened before to a television audience…combat, live as it happened.
My war…Vietnam…sent filmed images to the U.S. within hours of an event for broadcast to television audiences as no other conflict before. The tragedy of combat filled the nightly six o’clock news; bitterly dividing the country; sending civilians and veterans alike in the hundreds of thousands to the streets in protest.
And now this, a life and death battle about to unfold in real time, scraped harshly against the senses and reached for old memories and fears to shake them loose.
When the fighting began, my wife curled her whole body onto the sofa and gasped as the rounds began to explode against the distant buildings and emplacements. I watched as she bit her lip and squirmed, her eyes transfixed, wide and horrified. “Oh, my God…my God!” she whimpered softly…”My God”
I turned my eyes back to the melee knowing full well that soon there would be death from this moment forward. Not to diminish the death that was already falling upon this tiny country by the technological superiority of our nations warring capabilities, nor the crude and sadistic death brought to it by the hands of its truly evil leaders…but these soldiers…these young men and women will soon be dying.
Thirty-five years earlier in 1968 I was part of a war that changed me in ways that can never be known by those who have never seen, heard or smelled its horrors.
There is a brotherhood with combatants…a fraternity of wounded spirits and sorrows for things done and friends lost…an intimacy borne of unspoken, half-forgotten and hidden memories. Color of skin or political ideology does not matter. Those who never lived this experience will never know. Never.
Now these young soldiers, miles from home, will join the ranks in the baptism of madness. And this night I watched as my wife grasped just a small piece of the hellish torment.
For thirty-five years I had kept the experience of Vietnam close. I made every attempt to put it behind me and make a “normal” life for me to live. The person I was before entering the service was nothing more than a ghost I pursued. I did not comprehend that my life as it once was had been changed. Who I now was and who I had become could not occupy the same space in time. The conflict lasted nearly forty years.
It was an intensely personal experience for returning VN veterans. We did not return home to parades and cheering crowds the way our fathers had at the end of WWII. We came home one by one, alone with our thoughts and unsure of our place in civilian life.
No one acknowledged us as we made our way home through the country’s airports in our class A uniforms. They did not have time to stop as they hurriedly made their way to their own destinations. Or perhaps they did not know how to approach us; what to say to us as we made our way to our destinations. Or maybe they just didn’t see us.
Perhaps we were nothing more than ghosts unaware of our own death; disembodied spirits trying to make our way home from Vietnam’s killing fields.

By the time I returned home in September, 1968, America was deeply divided by the war, and neither its citizens, nor we returning veterans could comprehend the depth of the restless tempest each of us carried. It was an unspoken message; a deep understanding for us that it was best to keep it hidden away.
Rarely would I risk sharing my experience. Mostly, no one seemed interested in hearing. No one asked, but, when someone did, the retelling left me fidgety, uncomfortable and nearly spastic with deep internal turmoil; stumbling awkwardly over my words as I attempted to answer the questions: Were you afraid? Did you kill anyone? Did you have any friends that died? What can you say to someone who has not lived that reality? How do you answer those questions when that reality is still an oozing wound slowly eating away at you?
They are curiously mystified by the closeness to the combat experience standing next to you offers them. Like the slow gawking procession past an auto accident, they dare to look into the mayhem that trembles before them. How can you put into words the horror and death experiences of war? What could be said that would give them the bleeding raw sense of fear, terror and inconsolable grief that consumes you each day?
Others, as most vets will attest, questioned my service with queries as to why I didn’t choose to go to Canada…or jail. Some simply resorted to the label of “baby killer;” words that struck the heart and spirit like no bullet ever could.
It was not theirs to judge. They were not there and did not have the slightest clue of what living in a war zone was like. They had no idea what the unimaginable dark corners of hell feel like. They did not have to come to terms with their own death or face the specter as it carried away a friend or comrade.
Over the years there have been many times when Vietnam has come to haunt. It often felt like a dream I had sometime in the past; so strong was the desire to forget and the ability to stuff the memory deep. And if it hadn’t been for photographs in a photo album, I might have come to believe that it really had all been a dream. But down deep I knew. I felt its presence in me. I still do.
This accounting has become the path connecting my past with the present…and headed to the future. I am walking towards the gateway to understanding, acceptance, and healing, and I am discovering that others, vets and clinicians, are walking with me; each of us lighting the way for one another.
It is also my wish that those of you who have not lived this experience, a window will open and the view of our world will lead you to an understanding of who we are and why we act the way we do at times. In so many ways you are the lucky ones. No matter the reason, you have not served in combat; your lives were not touched by the beast, but your relationship with the veteran has put you closer than you may be aware.

I do not feel that this telling bears any more value than any other. There have been many retellings by many others over the years, each with its own unique and enlightening perspective. In so many ways it becomes our opportunity to face our past and let loose our demons, if only for a short while.

December 5, 1967

We watched in apprehensive silence as the glittering lights of Waikiki faded slowly into the inky black South Pacific night. It was December 5th, 1967, and our time in the paradise of the Hawaiian Islands had come to its end. Months of training had shaped us, the 11th Light Infantry Brigade, into the Jungle Warriors called to action by General Westmoreland who believed we were ready to battle the communist enemy on the other side of the globe.
Huddled aft on the U.S.S. Gordon, we strained to catch the last fading glimpses of the world we were leaving: warm sandy beaches, tanned and bikinied beauties, and most of all… our youth.
The shoreline shimmered softly like a strand of diamonds resting on the obsidian night as we sailed away to war. It flickered as if to say aloha…and then was gone.
The mood on ship was pensive and solemn as we stared into an empty and dark night. Whispered conversations drifted into the December trade winds as the old gray merchant ship cut its way through the water.
We knew that within the coming year many of us would be killed. The truth of hostile conflict was an unknown; not even sixteen months of training could have prepared us for what lie ahead.
Who amongst us would not return?
The answer was out there…somewhere beyond the horizon… waiting for us.

The Watch

THE WATCH 

There’s not much good to be said about keeping track of the dead and wounded. I don’t mean the tedious, disconnected tallying of casualties from a list collected by some unknown gatherer of such things so they can be sorted, categorized and written into a daily report. I’m talking about the collector…the gatherer…the individual who has to personally track the dead and wounded for the one who tallies, who then sorts and categorizes quickly and efficiently so that letters can be sent to loved ones half a world away. Casualty Reporter: The one who gathers names, assess and evaluates the wounded and the cause of death of his fellow soldiers. The one present when the terror filled, shot up, traumatic amputated, sucking chest wounded, vomited breakfast on the litter, strangled screaming, crying for their mothers and wives, gore comes into the ER. The one present to watch as the life goes from their eyes and the last breath gurgles from their lungs. The ER is filled with the pungent stench of torn muscle and flesh, jagged bone, vomit, urine and feces, and entrails that permeate the room like a fouled butcher shop. It sticks to the hairs in your nose and on your clothes. Showers will never wash it away. You suck it up. Shut down. Take a deep fucking breath, ignore the screams in your own head and begin your collecting: Names, service number, wounds (GSW T&T R arm, traumatic amputation L leg AK and R leg BK), details of contact with enemy. One at a time. Two…three…five, sometimes more, sometimes less, they come. It’s always the same: Today… yesterday…tomorrow. Their faces come into focus. You know them! You trained together in ….Hawaii….. This one DOW as the doc’s work on him. That one torn like a rag doll, eyes wild with fear, left to die alone on a liter. More wait patiently at GR wrapped in OD plastic; stored in cold drawers like vegetables in a crisper. More to evaluate and identify. More names and faces. Stop! god-dammit…Stop! Where are you, God? Where the fuck are you!? When will you have had enough? When will you say no more!? Stop this fucking screaming in my head! No more, please. Please, God…no more. God is silent. Heaven is far from near. Suck it up, turn it off the best you can and head back to the hootch. Find something to talk and laugh about with your fellow CR’s. Ain’t no thing. Find a joint, light it up. Draw the cannabis in deep. Kick it with a swig or two of Jack Daniels. And wait. Wait for tomorrow.

Rich Raitano

Medic

Hush puppies, hookers and hammocks

Hush puppies, hookers and hammocks

By Tom Skiens

I bought a pare of size 8 1/2 hush puppies at the retail shop on the ground floor of the Singapore Ambassador hotel. The hush puppies were the “in thing” on my 21st birthday, June 21st 1968. I also bought a Hammock, a 4X4 orange tarp and a hooker of Indian nationality. In order to make my 21st birthday complete I visited three Indian snake charmers with a cobra in a jar and a bag of weed in their hand. I stayed away from the snake but I took possession of the weed.

As the day moved on I traded in my Indian nationality hooker for a younger model. The mommasan pimp didn’t mind. Her standard advertisement was, “you like boom boom number one cherry girl, she love you long time”.

The Ambassador hotel was filled to overflowing with G.I’s fresh out of Vietnam and all of them were looking for the same thing. Showers, flush toilets, clean sheets, music, booze, women and a telephone call back to the world. The kind of a call where after you finish speaking you must say “over” and then after your mom on the other end of the line finishes talking she must say, “over”. This makes for a difficult conversation but talking to my mom on my 21st birthday from Singapore, priceless.

The hotel was making a mint off the American servicemen on their one week escape from Vietnam. It made no difference if the G.I. job was in the rear with the gear, humping the bush, hurling 60 tons of steel down highway one, a cannon cocker, a rotor head or a rubber tired mine magnet, the goal was the same. Get laid before you get laid and get drunk while you are doing it. Everybody at the hotel got rich and the G.I had the best R&R story he could ever have dreamed of. I did not make friends with the other G.I’s at the hotel. I would say Hi in passing and that was about it. I felt like all my friends were dead and so was I. The most conversation I had was with college students who played music at the bar. The students were in the middle of a revolution, declaring Singapore a Free city state and breaking away from China. I found out years later that they were successful.

I told my hooker friend a story about my life. It goes like this. I wave goodbye to my mother and thank her for washing my Basketball uniform as I open the door of the “47″ Ford I bought for $50.00 with money I had earned thinning trees with a chainsaw the summer before. “If I didn’t wash your uniform, who would”, she says. I smile and say, ” Sorry mom, I will give you more warning next time but they just told us about the pictures this morning. I have to go, the Varsity photos are scheduled in less than 10 minutes. By, love you”

I back out of the driveway being careful not to scrape the white picket fence. I drive 1/2 of a mile north on Egan street and take a left on W. Tyler street. It is five blocks from here to Hwy. 395 and then less than a 200 yards to the high school. I travel four blocks and begin to slow down for the approaching intersection. All of a sudden the front of my car explodes, my windshield is shattered but still intact. What the hell has happened? My car glides to a stop. I try to open the drivers door but it is jammed. What the hell has happened?

I slam into the door as hard as I can with my left shoulder, the door begins to move with the metal on metal scraping of steel bent against steel sound. I hit the door again and it opens enough to allow me to exit. My windshield is broken with a thousand lines going off in as many different directions. What the hell has happened? I turn around and see a Honda motor bike lying twisted and broken on the road to my east. I walk four steps toward the rear of my car. I see the legs of a person on the pavement. I take two more steps. I hear a girl screaming and I see her boyfriend, the senior class president and honor student lying on the ground. Randy will lay there forever. The ambulance will come and take him to the hospital. Randy will die a week later, His family will grieve and the ramifications for the other lives involved will begin to mature.

My mother will tell me as she dies of cancer how she crossed the street for more than 20 years to avoid coming face to face with Randy’s mother. On one occasion, Mrs. Russell followed my mother across the street and cornered her in an isle of a store. She begged my mother to quit avoiding her and said that she held no blame for anyone in our family concerning her son’s death. My mother and I both cried together.

I am tasked to ask the question,” why him and not me”? I will go to war to search for the meaning of life. I will come to know death in the war but I will struggle to have a relationship with life.

I ask my hooker friend what she thought about my story and she said,” I no understand English so good. You want boom boom now”. I was glad she neither spoke nor understood English. I needed to tell someone about Randy who would not attempt to absolve or blame. She was the perfect listener. I gave her all my money when I left town.

The return flight from Singapore to Vietnam is filled with a ghost like silence. Everyone partied hardy the last night of the R&R. Leaving no drink standing, no hooker unrewarded, no laugh repressed, no lie untold, we did our job well.

I have made love, not to the one I love. I have slept with, showered with, not the one I love. I return to a place where I know I will die. It is just a matter of time. It is more certain than the notion of living. I can visualize my death but I cannot visualize my life.

The Asian heat of Singapore is similar to that of Vietnam. It sucks the air from my lungs, sticking to my body like Elmer’s glue. The heat and memories of a weeks worth of sex, a hangover, a meal plus the steady rhythm of the jet engine lead me to a dream filled sleep.

In my dream it is April 19, 1968. I am the fourth person back in the left column. The other column is less than 10 yards to my right. We should not be this bunched up. God knows we have hit enough booby traps to learn. I see and hear an explosion to my right front less than 15 yards away. I drop to the ground but before my stomach touches I am on my way back up.

I know what this is. It is the same thing as January 13, 1968. A Bouncing Betty leaves us with two dead and eight wounded. Zimmerman and I are the next two unwounded in the column and we must walk the line. (See: “Betty“.) Today is not much different.

I move to the right column, drop my rucksack and get the PRC 25 radio from my radio telephone operator. 0900, grid square BS 533853, Company C request dust off for two KHA, two WHA result bouncing Betty. I move into the zone making sure the path is clear for the medics. A fucking new guy walking point in the left column has hot steel in his stomach.

The F.N.G. came in on the resupply chopper the night before and has been with the company less than 14 hours. The company put him in first Platoon and first Platoon put him on the point in the left column. First day in the bush and the F.N.G. gets hot steel in his stomach which may result in him going home. The guy at my feet, dead. The next guy, dead. The next guy, Platoon leader, LT. his right foot is blown off and his right hand doesn’t look good, he will probably lose it. He is moaning from shock and pain. His weapon has been thrown to the right, it is destroyed, useless.

I yell at the F.N.G. to stop running around because he may set off another mine. Sgt. Don fox and Zimmerman talk the F.N.G. to safety. In three days Zimmerman and I will be on our bellies crawling over to Sgt. Fox who will have a bullet in his belly that pentrated through his weapon befor entering his body. Higher/higher said it was Auitomatic weapons fire but I was standing next to him and only remember 1 round. Two days after the Sgt. Fox dust off Zimmerman will be involved in another Bouncing Betty and I will on the radio calling in another dustoff. Charlie 1/1 is getting beat up.

A medic asks me to help put one of the dead on a poncho so we can drag him to the approaching chopper.

I rifle through the guys rucksack to get a poncho while the medic rolls him onto his back. I find pieces of bone and blood on the inside of the grunts rucksack. For the first time I look at the dead guys face. It is my friend John John.

I am stunned, shocked. This is the day, the hour, the minute and the grid coordinates where the American dream dies for me. Dark clouds invade my mind, a deep numbing pain penetrates my soul. The medic wants me to lift the right side of the body. John John is pulverized flesh from head to toe, like the Gook on the receiving end of a B-52 package. Concussion and shrapnel have transformed his body to the consistency of firm Jelly. I can’t find anything solid enough to lift.

A year passes, then two, finally I see the middle finger of his right hand, I test it to see if it will stay attached to his body as I lift. I grab a hand full of bloody pants leg with my right hand and lift the lower part of his body off the ground. I pray that pieces of his body do not come off in my hands as I lift my dark broken friend high enough to set him on the poncho.

April 19, 1968, 0900 hours, grid BS533853, I died, the dream ends, no preparation, I be zombie. I died because it was the easiest and fastest way to deal with my problem. I could not move forward while packing the weight of the dead and I could not leave them behind. I must sacrifice a part of my soul so my body can move on. I don’t have time to morn, only to tuck the memory of the mangled bodies into the corners of my mind and keep on humping.

The corners of my mind will meld over time
The visions of the dead come more often
I’ve recorded their names and absolved them of chains
While I’m busy constructing my own coffin

A zombie gets off the return flight from the Singapore R&R in Chu Lai July 3rd 1968 and finds his company waiting on the tarmac for a C-130 to take them north. He goes to the orderly room and puts together his gear including: Rucksack, weapon, ammo, C’s, smoke grenades, steel pot, Poncho, Pancho liner, Jungle knife, 4 canteens, smokes, matches, Bug juice, TP and lots of shoe strings because they are the only thing in this Army that you can get plenty of and they always work.

I use shoe strings to tie around my legs, above my calves so that they will keep the leeches lower. Shoe strings to tie the souls of my boots on when they come apart in the jungle. Shoe strings to tie my poncho to stakes and pegs to make a hooch for the night. Shoe strings to tie the PRC 25 mike close to my ear so only I can hear. Shoe strings to tie my socks to the outside of a rucksack so they can air out. Shoe strings for splints and slings. The strings that keep the grunts alive exist only because the black market finds no profit in them.

I packed my Hush Puppies, the Hammock and the orange 4X4 tarp. The C-130 takes us north about 45 minutes and lands at a well developed fire base. These guys have the works, tanks, APC’s, bunkers with 5 sandbag roofs, NCO club, showers plus heavy artillery like the 175 MM and the 155 MM Howitzer.

We would spend some days here and then choppers would take us to a place not so developed. The Zombie doesn’t know he is dead but he knows how to act like he wants to die. He wears the 4X4 orange tarp on the outside of his rucksack. Sticking up above his head is the antenna from the PRC. 25 radio he carries. He sometimes walks point adorned in this fashion. The orange tarp and antenna a tempting piece of sniper bate.

I had planned to use The Hush Puppy shoes I bought in Singapore when we dug in for a couple of days near a water source. I hoped to get out of my boots for a couple of hours, go down to the water hole in my Hush Puppies, steel pot, M-16 and nothing on but the armed forces radio network. I never did find that waterhole.

At the first opportunity I dug out the Hammock and tied it between two trees. I quickly realized that if we were to get hit the hammock would be the worst possible place to be. I chucked the hammock and went back to sleeping on the ground where all grunts belong, near a foxhole, curled around a rock with the edge of my steel pot as a pillow.

I used the Orange 4×4 tarp as ground cover for a time. I think it wore out. If I packed it on the outside of my Rucksack much it would not have lasted long. The jungle would surround, choke and destroy it like it did everything else. I think the jungle ate my Hush Puppies.

A final word on the Hooker. I didn’t even know her name. When I left Singapore I did not promise to write her and she did not promise to write me. We both kept our word. If either of us had tried to write I am certain a letter addressed to ” Hooker ” or “GI from Oregon ” would have a difficult time finding the RIGHT “Hooker” or “GI from Oregon.” I for one have never received such a letter.

Susan Moger reviews More Than A Memory

More Than a Memory, Reflections of Viet Nam

More Than a Memory,
Reflections of Viet Nam
Victor R. Volkman, Editor

Modern History Press, 2009; 224 pages; $21.95
ISBN 978-1-932690-64-4; paper

http://www.modernhistorypress.com/more-than-a-memory

by Susan Moger

The writers who contributed to More Than a Memory, Reflections of Viet Nam, edited by Victor R. Volkman (Modern History Press, 2009) grab us by the lapels, lean in close, and compel our attention. And “attention must be paid” (in Arthur Miller’s words) to these stories, not only by those of us who lived through the Vietnam era, but also by those who know it only as history.

The pieces in More Than a Memory are not easy stories and poems to digest; it took courage to write them and requires a measure of courage to read them. But the rewards are many—an understanding of what war meant to these particular men; an appreciation of the abiding power of memory and of storytelling, and satisfaction in paying due attention to ordinary men who “lived to tell the tale.”

The power of recall is a thread running through More Than a Memory. Prose or poetry, polished or raw, these pieces were written by men who know the truth of Marc Levy’s words, “…whatever you did in war will always be with you. Always.” (p. 206) Memories of homecomings, of killings, of betrayals, of flashbacks, and nightmares are told in rushed, awkward sentences, or short, stuttered phrases, in imagery-packed paragraphs or tight, heartfelt expletives.

The stories and poems are mirrors, in which readers are repeatedly challenged to see themselves. The most discomfiting piece, for this reader, was Tom Skiens’ “Witness to Rape.” The piece demands not only, “what would you have done?” but “what would you have had me do?” Skiens’ powerful account of a rape spares the reader nothing. He describes the second-by-second reactions of the onlooker—including the hope that “God would fill these three grunts [the rapists] with a lifetime of guilt and shame and remorse.”

But Skiens doesn’t let us think that this was an isolated event. He includes the chilling statement, “As a result of this one experience I learned to recognize the sounds of rape at a great distance…Over the next two months I would hear this sound on the average of once every third day.” Nor did the event described end in the distant past. “This event occurred in 1968 and it still has an impact on my…relationships with women.”

But “Witness to Rape” goes further. Skiens includes descriptions of subsequent encounters with rapists…on film and in real life, among Vietnam veterans he met after the war. His piece ends with this challenge to readers: “…you had to be there to make a call.”

I single out “Witness to Rape” because it represents both the undeniable power of these pieces and editing that occasionally lets writers off the hook with careless language. In Skiens’ piece, for example, he writes, “I wonder about the gook chick” (referencing, years later, the girl in the first rape he describes) and “I wonder if the three grunts give a shit” (talking about the rapists now). This is first-draft phrasing that doesn’t serve the story and that an editor should have questioned.

I single out three other pieces all very powerful that could have been even more effective with additional editing. I felt these authors, and all the authors in the book, were speaking directly to me, confronting me, challenging my assumptions and my complacency.

Tony Swindell says “Call It Sleep” (pp. 86-87) was “written in 1991 for Dr. Jonathan Shay…to document symptoms of post-traumatic stress.” The piece, appropriately included in the section “Poems IV, describes nightmares experienced by the author and incorporates stunning sensory details—”blinding silent flashes”; “hot sand whipping against my face”; “buzzing sounds of shrapnel.” The piece describes Swindell’s experiences as of 1991. It would be useful to have a postscript in which Swindell or the editor addresses these questions: How did writing about these nightmares, this “literal hell…right in front of me” help the author at the time? Does he still have nightmares in 2009 and if so are they the same?

Richard Boes’ “My Blue Block of Wood” (p.7) is another example of fine writing that would have benefited from copy edits and proofreading. A sentence like this one on p. 11 is confusing without correct punctuation: “Yeah, I was feeling anxious, afraid, guilty I think about coming home.” And a capital “F” in “After” (last paragraph on p.11) gives an impression that the book was incompletely proofread pre-publication.

None of this detracts from the actual homecoming Boes describes. It is heart-stoppingly intense, a tribute to his powerful writing. “I felt this knot in my stomach like the whole fucking war was twisting up inside me…” Once home, Boes’ narrator’s memories of the war ambush him unexpectedly. For example, “…downstairs, Bugs Bunny [is] askin’ “What’s up, Doc?” Doc took one tiny piece of shrapnel in the temple sitting on his cot reading letters from home…” His comment, “This wasn’t the place I thought home would be” is reinforced in the final paragraph after he threatens his young sister, seeing her as the enemy. He writes, “This fear [in the family's eyes], it’s mine, I thought, from the depths of the dead and the missing….I’d brought the trauma home. I’m the fuckin’ enemy here.”

“My Blue Block of Wood” is a terrific choice for the first piece in the book. The reader believes him when he says “I’m the enemy here” and is ready to explore the reasons behind that feeling, in the pieces that follow.

If Boes’ piece is a fitting opening to More Than a Memory, then Marc Levy’s magnificent “Whatever You Did in the War Will Always Be with You” is a fitting conclusion—summing up and putting in a context the stories that precede it and allowing readers closure, a chance to move on and deal with wars of the present and future. It’s a powerful combination of personal reflection and factual information about PTSD. From the opening paragraphs: “I’m kneeling. Tears streak my face, drip down, fall to earth. It’s only my second time in combat…That was thirty-seven years ago. Or was it last night?” to the final chilling run-down of wars, past and present, Levy’s “Whatever You Did in the War Will Always Be with You” is gripping, sobering, and as practical as a tourniquet on a spurting wound.

Levy’s comprehensive list of “the symptoms of PTSD, in plain bloody English…” is an invaluable, plain-spoken summary that includes the following illustration of Denial: “Problems? What problem? I don’t have a fuckin’ problem.” The summary concludes with a moving definition of PTSD: “These symptoms are normal responses to extraordinary events outside the range of normal human experience…” This piece should be required reading in every high school in the U.S.

All of Marc Levy’s work in this collection is outstanding. In the case of “How Stevie Nearly Lost the War” and “Torque in Angkor Wat,” his voice and his artistry reach the highest literary achievement. Both short stories address war and its aftermath in the author’s masterfully controlled-yet-seemingly-out-of-control style. In “Stevie” Levy depicts a combat vet struggling through a typical post-war day that includes his approach-avoidance attempts to relate to a woman he seems to genuinely like. The various threads of the story—some hopeful, some sad, some crazy—marry past and present in a virtuosic linguistic brew that boils over in sentences like this: “Stevie’s words jet from his mouth like thunderous out-going shells, like sleek napalm canisters spinning through air, like the pure pop pop pop of forty mike mike grenades fired by Cobras going in for the kill.”

“Torque in Angkor Wat” is a disquieting travel tale, where the protagonist, a Nam vet, tours the ruins of Angkor Wat. The eternal beauties of the setting contrast with the turmoils of his inner world, which come to a head during a surreal scene where war memories and a Frisbee game intersect: “Howling with laughter, Jack picks up the Frisbee and tosses it to me. But I don’t want to see it. Where are the foxholes? Where are the Claymore mines?…The war is everywhere and Jack is blind to it.” Writing like Levy’s lifts readers out of their comfort zones and into the scary heights it is impossible to be “blind to war.”

“Kangaroo Court Martial” is in a category all its own (the authors are not listed in the alphabetical list of authors in the Acknowledgments) and needs editorial notations to be truly useful to 2009 readers. Notes to explain the context are essential for polemic like this. For example, what is the date of the account of the case starting on page 109? Why are an address and phone number for the ASU and a promo/price for The BOND included in this 2009 book? The account says the accused are “presently” serving time. An Editor’s note or introduction would help readers who might think this refers to 2009. I’m sure other readers will wonder: What is the date of “An Appeal from the Brig,” p. 119? What was the ultimate fate of Daniels and Harvey? Is the ASU still “the foremost organization of soldiers in the US Armed Forces”?

Regarding the arrangement of the book’s contents, I found that the alternate prose and poetry sections (and the grouping of poems within sections) was useful and flowed well. The photographs that are included were welcome, but more, and more descriptive captions, would have been even better. Present-day comments on images of the past would have been ideal. For example, there are two pictures of Marc Levy (pages 50 and 71). I would be interested in his comments on the evolution of the man from age 19 in 1970 (p. 50 ) to the man who posed with an ex-NVA sapper and writer in 1998 (p. 71). (A note on layout: the photo of Marc Levy on p. 50 would ideally have appeared in a spread with his poem, “At Nineteen,” on page 49, rather than on the page following.)

Another editing opportunity related to photographs: the photo caption on p. 87 focuses on the man in the center (“one of my buddies”), perhaps because he is the only one whose face is visible. But readers will wonder about the Vietnamese people in the foreground—why they are there, what they are doing.

I understand that several formatting issues have been addressed in the hardback edition of More Than a Memory.

Cavils aside, a rousing “bravo” to all the writers and to Victor R. Volkman for paying attention to their stories and collecting, editing, and sharing them with us.