Vietnam Story Book

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Vietnam Story Book

By William L. Smutko

Table of Contents

Prelude to a Combat Zone p1

Potato Pancakes p3

Crossing the Big Hole p8

Battle p68

Fidget p79

The Short Lived Joy 0f Tommy Nelson p88

The Death of a Warrior p93

Last man Fallen p102

The Raft p109

Physical Therapy p130

Prelude to a Combat Zone

The luminous dial on my watch says it’s only three A.M. I look through the dark at the ceiling, my mind a wind mill, a kaleidoscope of thoughts.

Where will the C. O. assign me?

How will the troops react to me?

Will the mechanics know their jobs? What will I do if they don’t?

Will the Platoon Sergeant be a help or a hindrance? How will I work around him?

I flop over and burry my head under the thin pillow trying to jam the gears of the windmill.

How will I react in a combat situation? I hope to God I don’t freeze or worse, run.

The telephone on the bedside table rings turning off the kaleidoscope. “It’s six thirty Lieutenant

Galloway.” says the voice coming out of the hand set.

Time to get up and moving. I think.

It’s drizzling and still dark when we board the bus. The rain picks up and drums a bleak tattoo on the roof of the vehicle as it wallows along toward the airport.

There are no brass bands or young women throwing flowers and blowing kisses to see us off.

There is a group of sodden protestors at the airport wielding waterlogged signs proclaiming

Make Love not War and Baby Killers.

I climb aboard a DC-8 with Saturn painted on the fuselage. Saturn is appropriate. I could just as easily be headed there. The rain escalates into a thunderstorm. Thunder from a close by lightning strike is as deafening as 8 an inch cannon report and the rain ricochets off the fuselage like automatic weapons fire.

I find my seat between two Captains and sit down wide eyed and wired. Thoughts from the kaleidoscope cascading.

Will there be enough spare parts? Three quarter ton truck starters were impossible to get at Ft.

Benning.

Potato Pancakes

I’m in the middle of a very large un-lighted metal building near the center of the Long Binh

Army Depot. Truck starters clutter the gray concrete floor all around me, hundreds of them, unfortunately they are 5 ton truck starters. I’m looking for ¾ ton truck starters. I’m on a mission from “C” Company 709th Maintenance battalion. I’ve been ordered by my company

commander, he told me it was time I lost my cherry, to find at least three of them. The Third

Brigade is desperate for them. Three vehicles are dead-lined for the lack of one. Company,

Battalion, Brigade and Division Commanders consider a dead-lined vehicle an abomination.

I’ve only been in country a month. But, as Maintenance Supply Platoon Leader it’s my job to

find the parts needed. I was valedictorian of both my high school graduating class and of my

class at Virginia Military Institute. I should be able to solve this problem.

I am being helped solving this problem by Sergeant First Class Steven Kolodziejski. I’ve heard

the rumors about him; that as an eighteen year old the judge gave him the option of enlisting or

going to jail, that he has been promoted and demoted so many times his stripes have zippers on

them, that he is part owner of the Palace Hotel, the best whore house in Saigon. They’re just

rumors.

I know for sure that he likes to be called Fix because Kolodziejski means something like

repairman in Polish. I know that he arrived in Vietnam in December 1965 with the 1st Logistics

Command and transferred to the 709th Maintenance Battalion in 1967 as the Non-Commissioned

Officer in Charge of the Battalion’s Expediter Detachment here at Long Binh. He has been at the depot in one capacity or another since his arrival in country four years ago and knows it better than the troops now trying to run it. He finds parts no one else can. And he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor, for his bravery during the

Tet Offensive. He’s a legend in the 709th

Fix and I are at the Depot looking into every possible storage location and cubby hole where

starters might have been misplaced. I’ve already looked at the jeep starters with no luck. I checked

the locations for 2 ½ ton, ¾ ton and jeep alternators hoping a clerk didn’t know the difference

between a starter and an alternator. Not there. Fix has checked new shipments and talked with

the expediter teams from the other divisions. He’s even called the Navy and Air Force with no

joy.

I hear voices near the door. They get louder and more heated. I walk quietly toward the entrance.

A short stocky man in a South Korean Army uniform and a Specialist 6 are off in a dimly lit corner.

The Korean and the Spec. 6 appear to be haggling over a wooden box with a red ball painted on

it. The Specialist reluctantly hands over the box. The Korean’s left arm passes through a shaft of

sunlight from a hole in the roof as he hands the Specialist a wad of cash. I notice that he has a

scorpion tattoo on the back of his left hand and that the box holds truck parts.

I walk quietly back to my starters. “That soldier was selling parts, selling out the troops in the field.” I don’t want to believe it, but I saw it and can’t un-see it, thieves and blackmarketeers, guys who put their own wants first.”

Fix and I are now sitting outside the Expediter Detachment’s three room, shrapnel and bullet pitted plywood hooch. The late afternoon sun warms the patio made of wooden pallets covered with plywood. The razor wire perimeter is about twenty five yards to the east of us.

I agonize over how to tell my commanding officer that I was unable to complete my mission.

Fix uses a church key to punch two holes in the tops of a couple of cans of Schlitz and hands me one. He is preparing to grill pork chops on a home-made charcoal grill.

I take a sip of my beer. “If you had a grater, a couple of potatoes, an onion, some flour, and an egg or two I could make some potato pancakes to go with those.”

“Fuckin’ great idea. Potato pancakes, the army just doesn’t teach its fuckin’ cooks how to make that stuff.

Fix finds an empty three pound coffee can, a hammer and a large nail. He starts punching even rows of holes into the side of the can at an angle so the rough edges form many cutting surfaces.

It is very crude but it should work.

I start grating potatoes and think of my failed mission and of a G.I. who would steal parts for the black market.

“What was Tet like?” I ask, trying to derail my train of thought about the mission.

“Somethin’ else, the fuckin’ NVA started with a mortar barrage. All the cooks and clerks crouched

down along the perimeter and waited it out. We took a few casualties from the mortars but they

didn’t do much damage. The cock suckers charged and we opened fuckin’ fire when they were

about one hundred yards out and kept firing. Stopped them at the fuckin’ wire. When it was over there were sixty fuckin’ bodies in the wire in front of us. Some of the guys went down and took trophies. One guy thought he was a fuckin’ bullfighter and took a couple of ears. We had some wounded on our part of the perimeter but, no one was killed.”

“How much fuckin’ flour are you putting in those, LT? You’re not making potato bread!”

“These are Slovakian style like my Baba makes. Only a couple of tablespoons. It helps hold them together.”

“My mother used to put caraway seeds in them too.” Fix says

“I wish we had some” I say. I take another slug from my beer. “That and some sauerkraut”.

“Can’t help with the sauerkraut but, kim chi is a lot like it, and that I can get. I’m going to call an

old friend.”

I use a coffee cup to ladle grated potato, onion, egg and flour onto the griddle on the Coleman

gasoline fired camp stove.

“Have you made enough potato pancakes for one more? Asks Fix. “I have invited Mr. Ryu Mal-

Chin, a South Korean Warrant Officer, to dinner. He’s bringing the kim chi.”

“Yes but, you won’t have any left over for lunch tomorrow.”

“Want another beer?” He asks.

I reply in the affirmative. Fix punches holes in the tops of two more Schlitz cans and hands me one and starts grilling pork chops. I’m trying not to think about my failed mission.

Fix picks up the plate of pork chops and moves inside the hooch. I follow with the potato pancakes.

The aromas of the pork chops and potato pancakes that fill the room is enhanced by the hoppy taste of the beer.

Fix gets up to answer a knock on the door. A short, broad shouldered man wearing a South Korean

Army uniform and a wide friendly grin is standing on the threshold holding a wooden box in front of him.

“Welcome my friend.” Says Fix. Clapping him on the shoulder.

“Lieutenant this is Mr. Ryu. Mr. Ryu this is Lieutenant Bushanic. Mr. Ryu has brought some presents.”

The Korean strides into the hooch and sets the box on the table. I see the red ball, painted on the side. As he puts the box down, I see the tattoo of a scorpion on the back of his left hand.

My mind rushes back to the warehouse.

Crossing the Big Hole

…I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy

Yankee Doodle, do or die

A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam

Born on the fourth of July…

George M. Cohen 1904

The other kids in my first grade class and I are being taught to “duck and cover” in the cloak

room when the air raid sirens go off. Sky Watchers search the sky for Russian bombers.

Daddy flies one of the F-80s.at the Air Force Base at Duluth his job is to shoot down any of those bombers that try to sneak across the North Pole. I want to do what my Daddy does.

A scratchy bugle call blasts from the base loud speakers. Daddy is standing at attention saluting

the flag being lowered at base headquarters across the green grass of the parade ground. He’s

wearing an olive drab flight suit and blue garrison cap, the gold oak leaf on it shines in the late

afternoon sun. I’m standing next to him dressed in black and white Keds, blue jeans and a red

and white striped T– shirt. I’m at a very stiff attention with my right hands over my heart like daddy taught me. My mother and younger brother Hans are waiting in the car.

Hans and I are exploring Miller Creek about a mile from our house, shooting deer to eat and

fighting off attacking bears. We. The leaves of the poplar and birch trees shade us from the bright afternoon sun as we follow the trail. The smell of pine trees is heavy in the air. We walk onto a beach covered with small, smooth black and white stones so we start chucking them into the creek. A fish jumps out of the water, it’s all shiny and silver with a bright red stripe along its side and looks very big.

“I sure would like to catch that fish.” I say to Hans. “I’ve never caught one.”

“Me neither.” Says Hans. “I wonder if Daddy would let us use one of his fishing rods.”

Catching it is all we talk about on the way home.

As soon as daddy parks the car in front of the house Hans and I mob him.

“Daddy, Daddy.” We shout. “We saw a big beautiful fish and want to catch it.”

With voices full of excitement we tell him about the fish and beg him to give us a fishing rod so

we can catch it.

After dinner he tells us the fish is probably a rainbow trout and gives us an old bamboo fly rod

with fishing line tied to the end of it with a hook and a small lead sinker tied to the end of the

line. He shows us how to use the pole to put the hook where we want it.

The next morning Hans and I look through the garbage which smells like coffee grounds and rotten bananas for something to hold bait and find an empty green bean can. We dig up a dozen worms in the back yard, put them and some dirt in the can then run through the morning sunshine to the creek to catch the trout. Because I’m six and a year older I’m carrying the rod.

Hans gets to carry the bait can.

We find the gravel beach. I pull a worm out of the bait can. It’s slimy and wiggles making it hard to hold onto as I try to run the point of the hook through it. I take the first cast and manage to get the baited hook into the creek. The moving water pulls it quickly downstream and against the bank. My next try puts the hook farther upstream but the current still pulls it down and into the bank. Hans takes a couple of tries with no luck. We spend an hour or so at it then head home for lunch.

We’re watching the evening news on our new TV in our Edina Minnesota Home. Daddy has been transferred to the air base at Fort Snelling. Chet Huntly is talking about the French having to surrender Dien Bien Phu, their last out post in Indochina. “That’s another win for the

Communists.” Daddy says.

Hans and I are lying on the hard golden oak floor of the living room. We snuck out of our bedroom to watch TV. Mom and dad are asleep. We’re using the family Labrador retriever Tar as a pillow while we watch Boston Blackie. The show ends at midnight. As the local station signs off and before the test pattern comes on, the station shows a waving American flag and plays the National Anthem. At the first notes of the song I Jump up and run to our room, put on my blue Cub Scout shirt and hat and return to salute the flag in uniform.

“You’re crazy.” Hans says.

The aroma of pot roast and Apple Betty fill the house on Sunday afternoon making it feel especially warm and safe. Dad, Hans and I are sitting on the living room sofa watching “Air

Power” with Walter Cronkite. It’s clear to me that Dad is up there in his P-38. Every time he sees a B-17 go down he counts the parachutes and hollers “Jump! Jump!”

Dad has brought me and all the boys in my Cub Scout den to the air base. I’m sitting in the cockpit of an F-86 Sabre Jet wearing a crash helmet and oxygen mask and can feel the weight of the safety harness on my shoulders. I move the joy stick around pretending I’m shooting down a

MIG fighter. There’s a big grin on my dad’s face. I really want to do what my Daddy does.

The grasshoppers jump and fly away chirring as we walk through the tall grass along Four Mile

Creek. It’s a warm summer day and Hans and I are fishing for crawdads. We’re catching them on a piece of bacon tied to a long piece of string. We’ve brought along a blue Maxwell House coffee can, a couple of apples and a box of red and white tipped strike anywhere matches in

Dad’s old U.S. Army field pack. We’ve caught a dozen so we build a fire of drift wood, boil the crayfish in creek water and when they are cool enough we suck the sweet, nutty meat out of the tails and eat them for lunch along with our apples.

That evening during dinner Chet Huntley is reporting that the Warsaw Pact nations, led by the

Soviet Union, have invaded Hungary to put down the October Revolution.

I turned ten last summer so mother enrolled me in the confirmation class at St. Stephen’s

Episcopal Church in Edina. Twenty five of us met with the priest in the Sunday school room

every Wednesdays during the school year. Today we are being confirmed.

The lawns are bright green and freshly mowed, the poplar and birch trees have leafed out and the daffodils and tulips are in bloom. The Bishop is sitting on an ornately carved high-backed chair with red leather upholstery just inside the alter rail. He’s wearing a red miter and cope

embroidered with gold. I’m dressed in a new blue wool suit which makes my legs itch, a white

shirt, a bright red tie and very shiny Buster Brown shoes. I approach the Bishop and kneel before

him.

The parish priest says “I present Vincent Van Goehner to be confirmed.”

The bishop lays his hands on my head, anoints it with oil and says “The Blessing of God

Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be upon you, and remain with you forever.

Amen”.

I kneel at the alter rail to receive the Eucharist for the first time. I can feel the sturdiness of the alter floor under the scratchy wool of my suit trousers. The fragrance of the incense from the sensor fills my head as the sunlight filters through the stained glass windows. I’m almost

shaking in anticipation. The Bishop places the wafer on my outstretched hand. I put it into my mouth then take a small sip of wine from the cup. A fire is kindled.

Dad’s been transferred to Ramstein A.F.B. Germany. The local television news announcer for

The Armed Forces Television Network is reporting that American Soldiers were killed in

Vietnam yesterday when the Viet Cong over ran their compound.

Hans and I’ve joined the Boy Scouts here. The troop is at Camp Freedom which has a fishing pond stocked with trout but, none of us has brought fishing tackle.

Hans and I race off to the trading post. It smells of candy, plastic lanyards and sweaty young boys. The trading post doesn’t have any tackle either but amid the candy, neckerchief slide kits and camp T-shirts are fly tying kits and spools of fishing line. We pool our money and buy a fly tying kit and a spool of monofilament line and take them back to our tent.

We run through the soft, musty leaves of the beech woods till we find a sapling about ten feet long and two inches in diameter then use our pocket knives to cut it down. Hans and I continue to the camp’s maintenance building and talk the guy in charge out of a few small rusty nuts and bolts. I pick up a dry piece of wood on our way back to the camp site and put it in my pocket.

Back at the tent my cot sags under our combined weights. I cut the top foot or so off the sapling, then Hans ties the end of the monofilament to it and rolls off enough line to reach the butt end. I open the fly tying kit and pull a box of small hooks from the midst of the bags of gaudy feathers

and different colors of fur. I shake a hook out of the box and tie it to the line about a foot from

the end then tie one of the small nuts to the end. I push the end of the hook into the soft wood of

the sapling.

Hans grabs the fishing pole, I collect a half dozen worms and we trot off through camp toward

the fish pond. At the pond I take the piece of wood out of my pocket and tie it in about four feet

above the hook. We flip a quarter to see who gets to fish first.

“Tails.” Hans calls.

It’s heads. I thread a slimy, wiggly worm on to the hook, then swing the weight and baited hook out over the water as far as I can. The piece of wood bobs in the shining ripples and just floats there for what seems a long time. The wood starts to bounce a bit more forcefully, then goes under. I lift the tip of the pole and set the hook. I keep lifting and hoist a twisting, silvery ten inch rainbow trout onto the grassy bank.

Hans and I don’t’ see much of dad these days. The East Germans have been building a wall through Berlin closing off the Communist side. And he’s been spending a lot of very long days at base headquarters.

Dust motes sparkle in the spot light shining down on the auditorium stage. I’m standing at parade rest along with the other 19 Boy Scouts and Explorer Scouts. The Commanding General calls my name. I fight down my nervousness and come to attention, march to the podium, and salute. The General returns my salute and pins the Eagle Scout rank on my pale blue Air

Explorer shirt then turns to the audience and informs them that I’m also being presented with

The Episcopal Church’s God and Country Award. He pins the crimson ribbon with the

Episcopal shield medal on my uniform shirt as well. I salute again, execute an about face and march back to my place in line.

Dad had a couple of martinis before dinner, the smoke from his Winston mingles with the smells

of gin and spaghetti. It’s a Thursday evening in the spring of my junior year. The Cuban Missile

Crisis has been over for a few months and he’s being unusually open with Hans and me about

some of his experiences during WW II.

“The military is as much a calling as the priesthood. It requires as much sacrifice.” He says as

he pulls another Winston from the pack on the table and lights it. “We had a couple of guys in

the squadron whose aircraft always developed engine trouble.” He says exhaling smoke. “They

would abort and return to base. They were cowards.”

“The biggest rush I ever had was when an enemy pilot and I were chasing each other with loaded

weapons.”

“I was hitchhiking in uniform from my flight training base in Texas to our home town in

Pennsylvania. “I had $2.50 in my pocket when I left the base in Texas. When I got home three

days later I still had $2.50. I barely had to walk at all. I was in uniform and the first car or truck to come by usually picked me up, and no one would let me buy a meal.”

“I was on a troop train to the east coast to catch the HMS Queen Mary to join a fighter squadron

in England. The train stopped in North Platte NE. The terminal was full of tables loaded with

sandwiches, fruit, cakes, pies, milk, lemonade and coffee, all served by young women. The

people of North Platte had given up their rationed meat and sugar so the troops could have home cooked food at this stop.”

Dad’s stories had a big impression on what I should do with my life, how I should live it and what to expect from society in return.

It’s Friday afternoon, I can’t wait for school to be over for the week-end. My U. S. Government book is open in front of me on the desk. I’m waiting impatiently for class to start. Amidst all the chatter I make remarks about the civil rights movement to the girl sitting in front of me. They’re calculated to elicit a heated response. It’s too easy. She takes the bait every time.

At 2: 40, Mr. Kolb is lecturing on the Bill Of Rights, the loud speaker over the door crackles and in a somber, shocked voice the Principle, comes through. “President Kennedy has been assassinated in Dallas.” Chalk dust glints in the afternoon sunlight. The room is silent but for the quiet sobbing of three girls.

We’re sitting on the hard plastic chairs of East Hall dorm’s TV room watching the evening news after dinner. Walter Cronkite is reporting that two North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the

USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin today. I’m a freshman in Penn State’s school of business and enrolled in Army R.O.T.C. My eyes aren’t good enough for the Air Force program.

It’s the fall of my Senior Year and I have had the good luck to get into George Harvey’s fly fishing class. It turns out that Dad knows Mr. Harvey and was able to get Hans into this class with me. He’s a year behind me in the school of engineering.

We’re learning fly fishing from the expert. And we’re learning on the very beautiful and challenging spring creeks of the Nittany Valley. Mr. Harvey is teaching us how to match a rod with the correct line, how to tie leaders, how to cast, how to match the hatch and how to get a good drift. With Mr. Harvey as Guru, Fly fishing becomes meditation, the casting rhythm our mantra.

Neither Hans nor I has Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday classes so, we are spending a lot of time on the creeks near Bellefonte and Pleasant Gap. We enjoy fishing together, congratulate each other on good drifts through difficult currents and fish caught. And we razz each other about hooking a tree on a back cast or letting the line slap the water. We talk of great deeds to be done and beautiful women to be won.

The air smells of water, moss, grass and trees. The reds, yellows and golds of the autumn hardwoods contrast with the green grass and are reflected in the clear water. I kneel beside

Spring Creek and watch as Hans ties a very small Blue Dunn to his fine tippet. It’s cool and cloudy, so the mayflies are hatching and the trout are feeding freely. The water is clear, so clear it’s almost as if it isn’t there and the trout are floating in air. Hans kneels to keep his profile low, raises our Grandfather’s white fiberglass Wonder Rod and starts his false casts. I can tell he’s making music with the line as it runs through the guides, he’s in the groove. He casts to a good sized brown that’s actively feeding about 30 feet upstream to his left. The fly floats drag free in the trout’s feeding lane. The feeding fish looks a lot like a surfacing submarine as it rises up and sips in the fly. Hans sets the hook gently and he and the fish are joined. Hans manages to keep enough pressure on the fish to tire it without breaking off the fly. The fish jumps clear of the water three times. The tip of Hans’ rod is bent low. The contest lasts for fifteen minutes or so before Hans can land the fish. I figure the brown weighs about four pounds, a very nice fish. I admire it as Hans gently releases it back into the almost invisible water.

I give Hans a bear hug. “That’s a very good fish and you did it well. Congratulations.” I tell him. We pry the tops off a couple of Rolling Rocks left in the stream to keep cold and toast the fish.

Hans and I spend a lot of time together fishing the next spring and summer, we’re as close as brothers can be.

I graduate at the end of August and am commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United

States Army and prepare for going to Vietnam. Hans leaves for Canada to avoid the draft.

You’re in the Army now

You’re not behind a plow

You’ll never get rich

You’re diggin’ a ditch

You’re in the Army Now

Unknown

Officer basic behind me, I’m stationed at Fort Riley, KS. The buildings on post are WWII era white clapboard with dusky green asphalt roofs, oxblood painted concrete floors and walls so warped you can see daylight in many places. The building where I work was so cold last winter it would take up to an hour for it to warm up enough to get any work done. This summer it’s so hot the windows have to be left open so everything’s covered in dust and anything not weighted down is blown off the desks.

Because of the riots in Washington, D.C., Watts and Detroit, the army is training all its’ stateside units in riot control. We work with rifles at port arms and keep close to each other. We practice walls to hold a line and wedges to break through a crowd.

Dr. Martin Luther King has been assassinated. It’s the first thing I hear that morning. We spend a very anxious day waiting to be sent to quell riots in Kansas City. I’m surprised and very relieved we are not deployed. I’m more afraid of riot control than I am going to Vietnam.

I have my orders for Viet Nam. I leave in two weeks but I’ve been assigned to lead a detachment of soldiers to escort the color guard at the Kansas State, Colorado State football game in nearby Manhattan today.

We’re here to help celebrate the grand opening of Kansas State’s new football stadium. The sky

is a milky blue. A very warm August wind is blowing from the south pushing the flags

outperpendicular to their staffs and making it difficult for the soldiers carrying them. My

detachment and I are wearing our forest green class A dress Uniforms, spit-shined shoes shining

in the sun. I can feel the sweat running down between my shoulder blades. The field has been

freshly mowed and lined and the end zones colored purple and white. The air smells of fresh cut

grass and lime. The Kansas State band overpowers the loud murmur from the stands with Stars

and Stripes Forever.

The color guard does a wheel right to face the west stands and the press box. We form up behind

them.

The band finishes the march and the University President, Athletic Director and other dignitaries

come onto the field, make their speeches and presentations then go back into the stands.

The opening notes of The Star Spangled Banner float over the field. I command “Detachment,

Atten…tion! Present, arms!”

I stand at attention saluting my country’s flag which is standing out in the wind against the pale

blue sky. A chill runs up my spine and a sense of pride and purpose fills me. The song ends and

a cheer goes up from the stadium. I put my emotions on hold, and follow the color guard off the

field. I halt the detachment on the sidelines and they file into their assigned seats in the K State student section. As the soldiers file into their seats the students already there start booing us and chanting “Baby killers”.

10 The DC 8 has Saturn painted on the fuselage and is on its way to Ton Son Nut Air Base with me

and about one hundred eighty other guys. It’s cramped, no movies, no pillows and the smell of anxiety is thick. The stewardesses are not the least bit friendly and could be my mother’s high school classmates. Top this sundae with a flower child in the airport in San Francisco with long dirty hair, a scraggly beard and dirty clothes who spit on me and called me a baby killer.

There is nothing to do except think about who, what and where you left behind and the possibilities the destination holds. It’s a long unenjoyable flight.

After three days in the cool, almost cold of San Francisco the heat radiating off the flight line at

Ton Son Nut is like standing next to a Pittsburg blast furnace. We’re bussed to the “Repo

Depot” at Long Binh and line up to be issued OD underwear, jungle fatigues, jungle boots, steel pot and flak jacket. The next day some of us board a dusty, olive drab bus with heavy steel mesh welded over the windows and are taken south on a sweltering two hour ride to Dong Tam on the

Mekong River, headquarters of the 9th Infantry Division. I’m taken to 709th Maintenance

Battalion headquarters and sent on to “C” company, a forward support company at Ben Luc, to be the Tech Supply Platoon Leader.

Ben Luc is a village of about a thousand farmers and shop keepers. It’s an amalgamation of

white stucco buildings with burnt orange tile roofs and shanties made of old packing crates with

dirt floors. There are no lawns. There are vegetable gardens and pens populated with the ever-

present white ducks and black pigs. Venders offer gasoline in glass liter bottles to families of

four on Honda 90 motor bikes. Short, thin, brown men constantly smoking, squat with their

behinds and feet firmly on the ground. They offer clothing on tables and pineapples on carts

next to highway 1A the Main Supply Route between Long Binh and Dong Tam. Shirtless, thin,

brown boys herd water buffalo on the edge of the village. Black-clad farmers in conical straw hats are doubled over in the paddies tending the young rice plants. Ben Luc is surrounded for

miles by green rice paddies and irrigation ditches.

Ben Luc, the military post is adjacent to Ben Luc the village. It is a collection of olive drab

tents, olive drab trucks and trailers, olive drab shipping containers “connexes”, olive drab sand

bags and black Mekong Delta dirt / mud. It smells of diesel exhaust, dust and mold. The shop

areas and mess hall are in tents. The parts storage is in the trailers. Everyone lives in sand bag

sided squad tents which feel more like WWI dugouts. Company headquarters and the “bomb

shelter” are sand bag covered connexes. The compound is in a secure area but, it still has a

defensive perimeter. A ring of forty five sand bag rimmed fox holes behind concertina wire and claymore mines surrounds the outpost. Each platoon has an area of responsibility and every person is assigned a firing position.

Life is monotonous, cloistered, it’s almost monastic. The company regiments its day with

scratchy bugle calls broadcast through olive drab loud speakers.

My alarm goes off at 0530. It is 75 degrees Fahrenheit with a 70 degree dew point. I rub the white blonde stubble on the top of my head, hook my glasses over my ears and roll out of bed on

to the rough plywood floor and start my stretches. Religious in maintaining my physical

conditioning, I go from stretches to pushups, sweat rolling off my back in rivers soaking the

waist band of my skivvies. After fifty pushup I roll over and start doing sit-ups. I’m on number

fifteen of the thirty leg-lift part of my morning work-out when First Call blares the rest of the compound awake.

Reveille sounds and the flag is raised over the compound at 0630. I slip my feet into flip-flops, put on my bathrobe, grab a towel and head for the shower tent.

In the mess tent I pick up a plastic tray and thin steel table ware and ease my way along the serving line. I stop in front of a Specialist 4th class who rebuilds carburetors. He serves me two

big fresh biscuits and ladles sausage gravy over them. A cook’s helper fries two duck eggs over easy and deposits them on top of the biscuits and gravy. A Private First Class who drives a

wrecker adds fresh pineapple. First Lieutenant Sid Galloway who leads the Maintenance platoon

is sitting at the officers’ table, I join him.

“’Morning Sid. How does your day look?”

“Just like yesterday and tomorrow.” He says.

The bright yellow yolks of the eggs flow into and through the gravy. I take a big fork full and

wash it down with a glass of the coconut flavored whole milk from the iron cow.

After breakfast I head for the sandbagged tent that houses the inventory card decks and my field desk and meet with my Platoon Sergeant.

“Johnson has latrine duty, Wojcik and Li are on K.P. and Ortega, Williams, Booth and Goldberg

are on guard tonight.” He says.

After the Platoon Sergeant leaves I check over the parts requisitions from yesterday.

I grab a note pad and soft lead pencil, head to the parts storage trailers and inspect for neatness. I

randomly check thirty storage locations, write down the part each bin holds and how many are

there. I check the card decks and compare what was actually there against what the cards say.

The Specialist 5th Class who supervises the card section has a degree in math and sees to it that

any discrepancies are corrected.

Bologna and cheese sandwiches with yellow mustard are what’s for lunch. They’re made with

the dense, almost hard army white bread. I add an apple and a glass of milk.

Sid has low card so he shuffles the deck of blue bicycle playing cards. I cut and he deals us each six cards. “My crib.” He says. We get two hands in before it’s time to go back to work.

At the repair parts tent I collect the buff requisition cards for each of the supported units and

walk to the distribution boxes. Each unit we support has a pick-up box. It’s locked on the

outside but open inside the tent. I check the parts in the bins against their requisition cards.

Then I reversed my morning spot check process, start with the card decks and compared them to what was actually in the bin.

At 1530 hrs. I walk over to the motor pool and find the two and a half ton truck used to resupply parts from battalion H. Q. in Dong Tam. I check the entries in the log book and then pull the dip stick for the engine oil and the caps on the radiator and battery cells and checked the fluid levels.

I repeat the process with one of the three five ton tractors that pulls the repair parts trailers.

At 1600 it’s time to inspect my platoon’s section of the defensive perimeter. I’m looking for fallen over sand bags, fox holes that need water pumped out or razor wire that needs repaired.

Retreat ends the work day at 1730 hrs. After a light supper of a half portion of chili and rice I return to my desk to study for the shop officer course I’m taking from the Ordnance School by mail. At 2100 I close my books, turn off the light and head for the club.

I order a Jack Daniel’s neat.

“Fifteen two, fifteen four, three of a kind makes it ten and his nibs for eleven which puts me out.” Says Sid. “You know Johannsen the useless piece of trash over in armament? The First

Sergeant took him for a walk around the perimeter this afternoon. It seems that Johannsen fell and broke his nose on that walk. You knew that Top used to box professionally before joining the army didn’t you?

“I know now.” I say shuffling the cards.

I’m in bed by Taps.

The Division Chaplain has licensed me to read Morning Prayer. On Sundays I lead the service

from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. We, there are usually five of us, hold it in the

mess hall after breakfast surrounded by olive drab with the smell of bacon and burnt toast still in

the air.

I’m good at being Supply Platoon Leader. I figured out that I should hide a water pump for a ¾

ton truck under my bed rather than keep it in stock. There are not enough water pumps available

enough for every unit to have a spare in its motor pool. With my having the one spare that is

available, if a truck from one of the units we support goes down for a water pump I can

miraculously find it. I’ve started a daily inventory so that every line item is inventoried every

three months. My platoon is effective and efficient. The combat units we support are making headway in the delta. I feel useful, that my life has a purpose.

The monsoon rains have pushed the water in from the rice paddies, filling the ditch that runs through a culvert under our front gate.

“Fifteen two, fifteen four and a pair is six.” Sid says as he pegs. “We should get a couple of bamboo poles and fish the ditch, it comes from the river through the rice paddies. It would be a diversion from the monotony, the underlying anxiety of an enemy attack and the feeling of being imprisoned by the perimeter. And, it would help my sanity. I miss trout fishing”

“So do I.” I say

I give our hooch girl money to buy Sid and me each a bamboo fishing pole. He and I build a pier of wooden pallets near the gate out to the water. We use raw bacon from the mess hall to bait our hooks. “When I was a kid my brother and I used to use this to catch crawdads.” I tell him as

we put the baited hooks into the muddy water. It’s a diversion, much like the weekly movie

night. I enjoy the fight of a fish on the end of a line, but there’s no music. We manage to catch

several large, what look like catfish which we give to the girl.

It’s 1400 hrs. on a warm March day. The Company Commander has called for all the officers

and senior NCOs to meet him in the mess hall. In the tent along with the C O is the 709th

Maintenance Battalion’s S-2, intelligence and security, officer. He tells us that Division has information from one of their prisoners of war that a large Viet Cong force is going to attack one of the outlying units. It is to happen sometime in the next week to ten days.

Ben Luc is in a supposedly secure area but is surrounded by miles of rice paddies that are empty at night and our Battalion Commander wants to make sure that we are prepared for any attack that might come. The S-2 says that there will be a platoon of Cobra Gunships and two air mobile infantry companies ready at Tan An Air Field seven miles away. They will respond when needed as soon as the troops are loaded and engines fired up.

We open our eyes wider and pay more attention to what is going on around us. We aren’t combat troops and we’re anxious. We double the guard at night and we sleep with our boots on and our weapons and ammunition close at hand.

It’s sundown on the seventeenth of March and I’m Officer of the Guard. In the tropics it gets dark quickly. There is no lingering dusk. It goes from sundown to dark in a few minutes. When that dark comes with no moon it is almost as dark as being one hundred feet into a coal mine with no lights.

I look into the surrounding emptiness and imagine two hundred individual Viet Cong trickling out of their villages under a sliver of moon and filtering through the miles of rice paddies like

water. They have brought the weapons of assault with them. They have light mortars to open

holes in the razor wire. There are RPGs to knock out hard targets and one hundred eighty of the

omnipresent 7.62mm AK-47 assault rifles.

I’m looking through the “starlight scope” and see movement about a hundred fifty yards out

from the wire. A second look and I see the conical hats and weapons. I call the company commander on the land line. “We have V.C. at one hundred fifty yards and moving in.”

“Send up parachute flares and open fire.” He says.

The sound of our gunfire brings the others to their fox holes and they begin firing on the attacking V.C.

Viet Cong mortar shells start landing in the wire working their way toward our firing positions.

RPGs start exploding in the compound hitting parked vehicles and setting tents on fire. 7.62mm bullets are snapping all around, two carom off my helmet, another creases my flak jacket just over my right kidney. The intense sound from four hundred automatic rifles, machine guns, exploding mortar shells and RPGs is making my ears bleed.

My platoon is under heavy pressure. Tom Payne, one of my supply clerks is shredded by an

RPG and I see a furrow plowed across SP4 Rogers’ upper left arm.

The light produced by muzzle flashes, exploding shells and RPGs is strobe-like and surreal.

I ‘m directing the platoon’s fire and seeing that everyone has ammunition. I have four bandoliers

of M-16 ammunition in my left hand and my M1911 Colt .45 cal. automatic in my right as I work my way to my Platoon Sergeant’s position on my left. Two Viet Cong run out in front of me. I react without thinking and put a .45 cal. round in the chest of each before they can fire.

The V. C. are close enough to me that arterial blood from the second splatters my right hand and face.

The smell of burnt gunpowder and blood saturates my sense of smell. Shrapnel from an RPG rips through my right thigh and puts me down.

Friendly artillery fire and gunships from Tan An drive off the remaining Viet Cong. The battle only lasts thirty minutes.

Twenty other members of “C” company and I are medevac’d to the Division hospital at Dong

Tam. There I’m stabilized and sent on to the theater hospital at Long Binh. The wound in my thigh is large and deep. After a week at Long Binh I’m air-lifted to McChord A.F.B.

Washington and then taken to Madigan Army Hospital in Tacoma. I’m awarded the Silver Star for my actions during the Battle.

When Johnny comes marching home again,

Hurrah! Hurrah!

We’ll give him a hearty welcome then

Hurrah! Hurrah!

The men will cheer, the boys will shout

The ladies they will all turn out…

The village lads and lassies say

With roses they will strew the way

Patrick Gilmore 1863

As part of my recovery I’ve been assigned temporary duty at the Presidio in San Francisco, CA to investigate some equipment losses. I walk with a cane to help take the pressure off my wounded leg. It’s taking a long time to heal and it’s painful but, the investigation isn’t physically demanding, mostly a lot of phone calls and studying supply documents.

I buy a pale yellow and white 1969 International four wheel drive Scout. It will get me around post or into the back country fishing when my leg is better.

One Sunday about three weeks into the investigation I decide to go to church at Grace Cathedral in downtown San Francisco instead of the chapel on base. The Bishop is in residence and will celebrate the Eucharist and preach.

Sitting at the top of Nob Hill, Grace Cathedral is an imposing structure, stately and elegant, radiating the essence of my faith. I have to use my cane and the hand rail to stabilize myself and it takes me fifteen minute to push and pull myself up the forty dirty gray stairs.

I position myself on the outside of a pew on the east aisle so I can stick my injured right leg into the aisle. The sun shines through the rose window illuminating the interior with muted colored lights as the pipe organ fills the nave with the prelude.

The verger, wearing a hat that looks as if it came out of a sixteenth century Flemish painting and carrying a long slender stick leads the procession. The Bishop, vested in a finely embroidered

cope and miter has the place of honor at the rear. As they enter the nave a thirty member choir

and over two hundred worshipers lift their voices in the processional hymn. My eyes mist over,

I’m unable to sing. This rises so far above my reading Morning Prayer in a bacon smelling, olive drab tent to four guys.

After the Gospel reading the Bishop climbs to the pulpit and begins his sermon.

I sit, stunned, as if a concussion grenade has exploded next to me. My ears ring. The Bishop has just called me and every other member of the United States military a murderer. He calls us all a

Genghis Kahn with no humanity who would carry guilt to our deaths. I stand up and walk out.

With my Silver Star, two Bronze Stars for Meritorious Service, Purple Heart and the very high

score my commanding officer gave me on my evaluation, I’m considered in the top five percent

of first lieutenants in the Ordnance Corps. More great things are expected of me.

I complete my investigation and the report on my findings and am promoted to captain. I’m

transferred back to Aberdeen Proving Ground as the most junior captain in the Advanced

Course. My dream of becoming a successful career military officer like my father is unfolding before me.

I return to my sustainable and directed routine. I’m up at 0500, do my pushups, sit ups, leg lifts, and pull ups then work with my wounded leg on running. I’m in the mess hall by 0700 having my usual large breakfast.

As part of the artillery section we learn how to call in artillery fire. We are even required to load, aim and fire a 105mm howitzer. My team and I clear the breach of the gun and load another round. When the lanyard is pulled and the howitzer fires the concussive muzzle blast is unsettling.

In the armor section we learn about echelons left and right, and super elevation. We learn about

hard and soft target ammunition. I drive an M60A1 tank and have the main gun fire at a target.

The detonation of this round also upsets me.

During our infantry section my classmates and I study infantry organization and tactics. We plan

defenses and attacks on maps. We spend several hours one night in steel pots and flak jackets

carrying M-16s loaded with blanks moving as quietly as possible through the dark and “wait a minute” vines to set up an ambush to catch an aggressor unit moving through. My leg makes it

difficult for me to move quietly and it throbs while we’re waiting in ambush. When we open fire the smell of gun powder and the strobe-like muzzle flashes in the sticky pre-dawn send me back to Ben Luc.

As part of the Project Management section the class is divided into six teams of four. Each team is given the same specifications for a clothes caddy. The teams are to design, price and build a caddy at the school wood shop. My team divided up the building part of the project. I drew the job of building the legs and spindles.

I’m at the shop every night for a week till they close at 9 P.M. I turn the spindles and legs on the lathe, then use fine sand paper to sand them smooth, smooth as nylon. I stop by the Officers’

Club for a night cap on my way back to bed by eleven. I use cotton balls and black Kiwi shoe polish to spit shine my shoes every night before I go to bed. Then, I get up at 0500 to work out before class.

The third Friday in April I’m to give the commencement address to a class graduating from engine mechanic’s school. I will be finished with my speech by 1400 and have nothing after. I will be free for a slightly extended weekend and I feel the need to go fishing.

After the commencement ceremony I load my tackle, gear and two thermoses of black coffee into the Scout and head north to Dover A.F.B. I check into the B.O.Q. and pick up a Colonel Sanders

3 piece meal. And drive northeast to Lewes.

At Lewes there’s a bait and tackle shop that’s still open. I buy a fishing license, steel leaders, weights, hooks, clams for bait and a six pack of Carling Black Label beer. I also buy ice to keep the bait and beer cold. I load my purchases into the Scout and drive into Cape Henlopen State

Park.

My 1970 International Scout‘s four wheel drive handles the sand well. I drive as close to the high water mark as I can and park it. The smell of salt and seaweed washes away the five hours of automobile exhaust and black coffee.

There is little traction in the soft sand, it gives way with each step. It takes me three trips through it to get the Coleman lantern, cooler with the beer and bait, waders, surf rod and lawn chair down close to the surf. The muscles in my legs complain loudly.

I’ve found a very good place to intercept striped bass on their way from their spawning grounds to the open ocean to feed. Cape Henlopen is at the mouth of the Delaware River where it empties into the Atlantic.

My stomach reminds me I’ve had nothing but two quarts of strong black coffee since lunch seven hours earlier. I trudge back up to the scout and retrieve the Col. Sanders three piece meal.

Eighteen to twenty hour days have been the norm for quite a while. Late to bed and early to rise makes a person exhausted. It takes me three tries to set up my lawn chair, I’m not focusing well. My legs welcome it when I finally sit down. A church key helps me punch two holes in the top of one of the beers. There is no one else around. I have all I can see to myself. The only sound is the lulling surf as I eat the spicy chicken and follow it with drinks of cold malty beer.

An orange and very big full moon rises out of the ocean.

I’d been reading about surf fishing for spring striped bass in Sports Afield. I thought that since

I’m within a few hours’ drive of the beach and feel an extreme need to go fishing I should go. I called the B.O.Q at Dover Air Force Base and made arrangements to stay there tonight and tomorrow night.

High tide will be about midnight. I plan to fish till then. I unpack my Coleman lantern and pump it up. My hands don’t want to work, it takes me four matches to light it. I slowly and deliberately tie a twelve inch steel leader to the end of my braided casting line, then snap a two

way swivel to the end of that. I attach an eighteen inch steel leader with a four ounce pyramid

weight to one of the swivel rings. To the other I snap on another twelve inch steel leader with a

4/0 hook onto which I weave three fresh clams.

I lean over and jam the butt of the surf rod into the sand so it will stand upright. I wobble a bit as

I lean back. The chest waders come on over my jeans and field jacket. I stand up, pull the rod

out of the sand and head for the surf. The fifty degree water wrestles with my legs until I’m up to my knees.

I slowly come to realize I have no idea of where to cast the bait. I watch as the waves roll ashore and retreat. It’s difficult for my mind to stay focused. After a while I notice a slot that seems to run faster than the rest. My first cast to it stops abruptly and the clams go sailing free. I reel in

the line and slog back to the beach to re-bait the hook. It takes four more casts before I deliver

the bait where I want it. The lead weight hits the water with a musical plunk. I let it sink, take

the slack out of the line then started retrieving it very slowly to keep the line tight.

On my tenth cast into the rip I feel a heavy weight pull against the rod. I raise the tip to set the

hook and the fish takes off for deep water. I start reeling in line with the rod tip high and the butt

jammed into my gut and start backing out of the water. The fish heads for the open ocean again

and takes more line from the reel. I raise the rod tip as high as it will go pulling the fish back

toward the beach then reel hard to get the line back as I lower the rod tip. It takes me thirty

minutes to finally get the fish on the beach.

It lies there on the sand exhausted and gasping as I reel the line up to it. The fish is sleek and

beautiful, shiny silver with horizontal black stripes. It is over three feet long and I guess it

weighs about thirty pounds. The cold water has stiffened my hands making it difficult to use my pliers to work the hook out of the fish’s jaw. When I finally unhook the fish I carry it back into the surf and hold it upright in the water till it regains its strength and leaves on its own.

I stand up and I feel throbbing in my wounded leg and a deep, incredible weariness, exhausted as the fish I’ve just released. I hobble back to the lawn chair, shuck my waders, load the gear back into the Scout and drive back to Dover A.F.B.

I slam and lock the door of the Scout on the wet waders and cooler with the bait and beer, but take the surf rod and reel into the room with me. There’s a fifth of Jack Daniel’s in my bag. I pour three fingers into a glass. I’m drained, more tired than I can remember ever being. My chin hit my chest several times on the drive back. I drink half the whiskey, shed my clothes and fall into bed.

Being really hungry wakes me up. It is still dark out but I’m wide awake and alert, no sleep webs clog my brain. The clock on the night stand says half past two. My stomach catches my attention, and I remember an all-night diner just down the road from the main gate. I roll out of bed and head for the bathroom the healed shrapnel wound a heavy red welt on the back of my right thigh.

My stomach keeps up a conversation with me during my shower and all the way to the diner. It constantly reminds me how hungry I am. I take a seat at the counter near the center. Aromas of

coffee, hot grease and grilled meat fill the place. The counterman is sitting on a stool at the end near the cash register. He’s smoking a non-filtered cigarette, his eyes squinting from the smoke, flipping through a copy of Life magazine. He puts the cigarette in the ash tray and comes right over, a white paper cap on his head and a stained white apron around his waist.

“What’ll ya have?” He asks.

“Start with coffee, then hash browns with sausage gravy over them, topped with two eggs over easy and a toasted English muffin to sop it up with.” I say.

I’m sipping my coffee when the newspaper carrier comes in. He changes out the old papers on the rack by the cash register for the new edition. I look at my watch, really wanting breakfast.

I notice that the papers the guy is putting in the rack are really thick, thick like a Sunday paper.

“What day is it?” I ask the counterman, who is busy browning potatoes on the grill.

“It’s Sunday.” He replies over his shoulder

I realize I‘d slept ‘round the clock. Saturday’s gone, disappeared, vanished. It was sucked into the black hole of a dreamless sleep.

I think about how my plans should change while I power shovel egg, potato and sausage gravy into my mouth. It should take me about an hour and a half to get back to Aberdeen if I leave early this morning, or about three and a half if I wait to join everyone returning from the shore later in the day.

I finish my breakfast and go back out to the Scout. I pick up a slight odor of rotten fish and

remember the bait in the cooler. It has been thirty six hours since I added ice. I don’t even bother to open the cooler. I just take it around back of the diner and leave it with the rest of the garbage.

I fish ‘till just before noon. I manage to land a couple more stripers before I quit and drive back to Aberdeen Proving Ground.

My leg has healed and is getting stronger. I’m running with eighty percent of my stride. My thigh isn’t completely functional but I can hobble through a mile in eighteen minutes. I do this every day along with my fifty push-ups, fifteen pull-ups and ten minutes of leg lifts.

My team receives the highest score in the class for our caddy.

After the Advanced Course, I’m assigned to the 704th Maintenance Battalion at Ft. Carson, south

of Colorado Springs, CO. as the battalion S-2, intelligence and security, officer.

I still get up at 0500 every morning and work out, the endorphins make it all good.

I’m usually in uniform eighteen hours a day. I like wearing it. I rarely climb out of my fatigues till I go to bed, even when I’m studying for the correspondence course I’m taking for my

master’s degree.

Things have changed in the two years since I was last stationed with a unit in the States.

Discipline’s a big problem. There aren’t parts enough to keep the men busy repairing vehicles,

the parts are going to Vietnam and there is little money in the budget for in the field training.

Idle hands are the devil’s playground. The First Sergeant at Division Head Quarters had his pay screwed up because his pay records were sent to Saudi Arabia by short timer finance clerks just returned from Vietnam who didn’t want to and, didn’t feel they had to play the game anymore.

Since Ben Luc, security is of prime importance with me. I personally check the battalion’s guards between one and five in the morning at least once a week. Early one morning in January

I stop at Battalion Head Quarters.

“Good Morning, LT Okamoto would you care to join me checking the guards?” I ask the

Officer-of-the-Day. “We’ll take your jeep.”

“Yes Sir!” He says.

We take the O.D.’s jeep to the mess hall where we pickup cups and a container of soup then drive through the cold night to the shop areas. The guards are at their posts, cold and grudgingly awake. The O.D. and I ladle out a cup of hot soup to each guard as we check his post.

The guard from the number two post in the motor pool is missing.

“LT you work east and I’ll go west. Look in the cab of every vehicle and in every office.” I say.

“And walk quietly. We don’t want to wake him if he’s asleep.”

I find the man asleep in the cab of a 5 ton truck. He is wrapped in a sleeping bag and has an alarm clock on the dash to wake him before the guard changes. He is from C Company’s

Recovery section and is recently returned from Vietnam with only two months of active duty left. He didn’t see the need to interrupt his night’s sleep to guard something that no one was going to try to steal any way.

It is the end of March when I receive my first severe weather warning from Division to pass on to the Battalion C.O. and the Company Commanders. Low pressure has settled in over

Albuquerque, NM which will pull moist air up from the Gulf of Mexico and slam it into Pikes

Peak and the foot hills depositing feet of heavy wet snow along the Front Range from Pueblo to

Monument. The sun rises on April 1st reflecting off thirty inches of snow.

Nothing but snow plows move.

There is no trace of it left on Ft. Cason three days later when the auto thefts start.

I recommend to my Battalion Commander that we add one more guard post which will patrol the

outside of the Battalion’s parking lot. He agrees. I set up the location with the C.O.’s approval

and the Company First Sergeants each add two more positions to the duty roster.

Two weeks later when checking the guards I find the guard at the parking lot on the pavement.

He has a broken jaw. Four of his teeth are missing. He has a deep cut over his right eye. His left eye is swollen shut. His upper lip has been almost severed from his face. And, it looks like three of his ribs are broken.

I feel the need to wash the guard’s blood off in a trout stream I can still feel and smell it. I Early

that following Saturday I drive south on Colorado Highway 115 toward the Arkansas River. The

red sandstone formations along the west side of the road are ignited by the rising sun giving

contrast to the dark green of the junipers. At Penrose I pick up U.S. 50 and head west through

Canyon City, then through the Arkansas River Canyon to a small collection of buildings called

Texas Creek. The river flattens out between here and Cotopaxi.

I pull off the road onto the red gravel shoulder a couple of miles further west, just beyond a road house that occupies a wide spot on the river side of the road. The bitter scent of cottonwoods

perfumes the air and I can hear the river as it flows over and around the rocks.

I recommended one more guard post that would patrol the outside of the battalion’s parking lot

be added. The guard was my responsibility.

With the two pieces of my 7 weight fly rod joined, I push the front foot of the reel into the slot

under the hand grip and screw the reel seat forward ‘till it’s tight over the rear one. A kingfisher

flying up river screeches and it echoes off the ochre canyon walls. The folded over green double

taper floating line slips through the guides then I pull the tippet through a piece of inner tube to

straighten it. I slide my chest waders up over my jeans and field jacket, cinch a belt around my

waist and put on my fishing vest.

A check of the parking lot in daylight revealed that two cars had been stolen; a ’66 Mustang and a ’67 Camaro. The investigation by the C.I.D. revealed that guard had been attacked by five individuals wearing ski masks. He had been grabbed by three men half way around the perimeter on his first circuit of the parking lot. Two had held him while three had taken turns

beating and kicking him. He was my responsibility.

The gin smell of the junipers rises with the heat of the sun, mixes with the cottonwood fragrance

and makes me think of dad’s martinis. I sit for twenty minutes focusing on the river, blocking

out the guard, the large, smooth red granite rock pressing into my butt. I’m looking through the

sunlight reflecting off the water, watching for activity. There is none so I dig around in the

colorful rocks and gravel in the shallows to see what’s there, just like George Harvey taught me.

I find a few caddis and mayfly nymphs and a lot of stone fly nymphs.

The cold water is making my fingers ache. I warm them in my arm pits for a few minutes then

work at blocking out everything but the task. I clip the last six feet from the leader and pull a

slim metal fly box from my vest. I choose a size 10 Royal Wulff and tie it to the end of the

shortened tippet. I tie two feet of 4x tippet material to the bend of the hook of the gaudy dry,

then add four feet of 5x and tie a size 14 Brown Stonefly nymph to the end of the 5x. The guard

was my responsibility.

The April water begins pulling heat from my feet and legs as soon as I enter it. I set my lead foot

firmly before I move the next. I take five careful steps out from the bank and Cast my line

toward the submerged rocks near the bank upstream to my left. The line takes the fly along and

drops it three feet from shore. I let the nymph sink then start retrieving line as I watch the

indicator drift with the current. The white wings of the showy fly twitch so I lift the rod tip. The

nymph was just bumping on the bottom.

The rhythm of my casting is in harmony with my breathing, the rod, river and I meld. I can hear

the music the line makes as it runs through the guides.

I cast again a little further out and continue to work the water aware of nothing else.

Eventually I’m casting to the center of the river in six to eight feet of water. The calf tail wings on the Wulff stop. I raise the rod tip and set the hook. A few minutes later I net a sixteen inch brown trout.

I fish until I can’t see the fly on the water and let the river wash out my brain.

The Secretary of The Army has implemented Project “VOLAR” in a move toward an all-

volunteer army. The pay is raised and soldiers can check out trucks, jeeps and other equipment

for personal use. The Commanding General of the 4th Infantry Division decides a little color

would be good. So, Infantry units are issued powder blue baseball caps. Artillery gets artillery

red and the armor and cavalry units are given yellow. The Ordnance Corps color is rose. So, the

men of the 704th are given what all the combat units called “titty pink” hats.

I’ve spent a year as the Battalion S-2. In December the Commanding Officer of B Company

received permanent change of station orders to Ft. Wainwright AK. The Battalion Commander

has assigned me as the replacement “Bravo” Company Commander.

The company’s First Sergeant is a twenty year veteran, a Senior Master Sergeant with grease in

his blood. He started out as an engine mechanic and worked his way up to shop foreman and

Maintenance Platoon Sergeant. He has been a First Sergeant for three years and knows about all there is to know about a forward support company. The Company’s Executive Officer, worked in armament. He knows the ins and outs of weapons. He can change the spring in an M-1911

.45 cal. automatic pistol or determine if the barrel on an 8 inch howitzer is still good. And, the

Company Clerk is on his second enlistment and knows the paperwork, Morning Reports to Duty

Rosters. I have a competent and professional headquarters. My job is to put it all together and build on what I was given. I’m fulfilling my calling to make a career in the military.

I still work out every morning at 0500. But now, I also join my company every morning doing the Daily Dozen. My time in the mile is down to eight minutes and my leg doesn’t scream at me anymore. The endorphins and week-end fishing excursions help me maintain my equilibrium.

I return to what had worked for me in Ben Luc, attention to detail, and put my nose to the grind

stone. I spend four hours each week one-on-one with each of the Platoon Leaders working on

training schedules, setting goals and inspecting their areas, helping them to become better

soldiers and officers.

I visit with the infantry and armor units of the brigade we support working with the logistics and

Motor Pool Officers trying to understand their needs and figure out the best way we can help

them. My having seen combat in the Battle for Ben Luc gives me empathy with the combat units

and my Silver Star and Purple Heart help remove most of the rear area stigma that goes with the

“titty-pink” hat.

With the scarcity of parts there isn’t much real maintenance that can be performed so I set up

M.O.S. rodeos once a month. I have soldiers compete against each other in their occupational

specialties. Diesel mechanics brake down a 2 1/2 ton truck engine against the clock. Stock

record clerks are given use data for five different parts and are required to establish stocking

levels for each. The winner is given a three day pass. And I keep running and fishing.

The Battalion Commander of the 4th Battalion 70th armor, one of the units my company supports,

is relieved of his command by the Brigade Commander for physically pushing one of his troops

to get him moving in the right direction. The Army is definitely changing.

For something different I promise a three day pass to any member of “Bravo” Company who

finishes the Pikes Peak Marathon. A third of the company starts training for the marathon along

with me. On Sunday the 13th of August all of my officers, twenty seven other men and I actually

enter and finish the Pikes Peak Marathon. I love those endorphins.

On the 22nd of August the well-known American actress Jane Fonda broadcasts a radio address

from Hanoi lauding the North Vietnamese people and condemning our military as murderers

who intentionally kill non-combatants.

I start swimming at lunch, more endorphins, and tying flies.

I have been reading the fly of the month in Fly Fisherman magazine since April and am eager to

give my fishing experience more depth by catching trout on flies I have tied. I buy a beginners

fly tying kit at the Post Exchange, it’s not that different than the one my brother Hans and I

bought at scout camp years ago. It consists of an adequate vice, hackle pliers, two thread

bobbins several packages of hackle feathers, tying thread, brilliantly colored embroidery floss,

three sizes of dry fly hooks, one box of streamer hooks and four colors of fur. I also bought a

copy of Ray Bergman’s Trout which has good instruction, diagrams and photographs on how to

tie.

After leaving post I change into Levis and a sweat shirt, the starch in the fatigues is starting to

get to me, finish any work I brought home then tie flies until midnight. I work hard at perfecting my skill and by October I’m ordering hackle necks, fur, more and smaller hooks, and other supplies from Kaufman’s Streamborn Anglers out of Tigard, OR.

I’ve researched what aquatic insects are most prevalent in the waters I fish and made a list of the

twelve most abundant and started production tying. I pick a pattern and size, then wrap the

thread base and build the body for and attach the tail to a dozen hooks. Next I tie in the wings on

all twelve, then I wrap on the hackle, whip finish and cement the head on each one. I put the

dozen flies in a fly box, pour myself exactly one ounce of Jack Daniel’s and go to bed, usually between midnight and one in the morning.

I’m buying some clothes that fit in the men’s department of the Post Exchange. The marathon

cost me ten pounds I didn’t have to loose. My body fat is at one percent. My cheeks are

sunken. And I’m wearing civvies more often now.

On my way to check out I see the watch, a Rolex, like the Special Forces wear. It is the most

accurate watch that can be bought and is as rugged. The watch draws me to it almost as if it had

its’ own gravitational field.

I buy the Rolex so that I will know exactly what time it is. Every Monday at 0700 I call the number in Boulder at the National Bureau of Standards and reset it with the atomic clock. After that I always walk into the weekly battalion staff meeting at exactly 0858hrs.

On Tuesday the 10th of October I’m at the barbershop in the PX at 0900. It’s not open yet as it is

supposed to be. I feel a rage that I’m just able to control when the barber opens the door at 0902.

On October 18th one of my lieutenants is five minutes late for a meeting with me. I tear into him as a drill instructor would a new recruit. I’m in his face explaining the virtues of punctuality, my vituperative words a whip flaying confidence and dignity from the younger man

At 2:43 A.M .on Monday the 11th of December I wake up gasping for air like someone who had been held under water. I’m drenched with sweat and my mind is filled with terror. The light is on (for the last month or so I haven’t been able to go to sleep in the dark).

I stare at the mirror on the dresser across from the foot of the bed. I’m trying to recognize what

I’m looking at and understand what has terrified me. After what seems a long time I finally recognize my reflection. But, I can’t remember the nightmare.

It takes a while before I get back to sleep but, when the alarm goes off at 0500 I immediately roll out of bed. I put on sweats and running shoes and start my morning exercise routine as if anticipating great pleasure. I spend a few minutes stretching, do my push-ups, pull-ups and sit- ups then head outside to do the mile run. I run with abandon, like a wild horse across an empty prairie. The sweat seeps from my body carrying some of the poisons with it.

On December 29th I am again awakened from sleep by an incredible, unremembered terror.

When I clear my head from the terror, I notice a rash on my wrists and neck where the collar and cuffs of my heavily starched fatigues rub.

Saturday January 6th I seek out a used furniture store. Among the stained mattresses and threadbare overstuffed sofas I find what I’m looking for, a small wardrobe, seven feet tall, thirty inches deep and three feet wide. It’s old and scuffed and some of the veneer is warped. But, it’s exactly what I want. I pay for it and the shop owner helps me load it into my Scout.

It’s cold driving back to post. I have to leave the tail gate and rear window open for the wardrobe to fit. I drive the Scout to my office and recruit the Charge of Quarters to help me move the wardrobe into my office. I drive back to my apartment and load all my uniforms, five

pair of fatigues (five are in the laundry) and my class “A” greens, winter and summer. I get my khakis and dress blues, both pairs of combat boots and the mirror shined black dress shoes. I grab my saucer hat and garrison cap and the two “titty pink” and one olive drab baseball caps. I load it all into the Scout. As an afterthought I go back into the apartment and get my uniform socks, ribbons and insignia pins as well.

I drive back to post and put the uniforms, socks and pins into the wardrobe and lock it. My fatigues would now be even crisper in the morning without being rumpled by the drive in and there would be less time for the fatigues to chafe my wrists and neck.

The Army has been losing its shine for a while. In Vietnam I felt useful. Here I feel as if I’m marching in place. By the end of January the polish is completely scuffed over. I’m now arriving on post just in time to change into my uniform for the official start of the day. I still do my job, and do it well, but I’m digging deeper into my soul to make it happen.

My eyes don’t want to focus, I have to keep blinking to see the # 16 light wire hook. It has a moose hair fiber tail, a gray muskrat fur body and blue dun hackle tips for wings. I wrap the gray tying thread around the quill of a blue dun hackle and grab it with my hackle pliers, make two wraps with it and tie it off. My eyes roll back in my head. Loud snoring wakes me up. I finish the fly, it’s the last of a dozen, pour myself two fingers of Jack Daniel’s, and go to bed.

It’s about 10 P.M.

Mid-March is unseasonably warm and the weather guys are predicting thunder storms for tonight. About 11:30 they roll in. Round after round of thunder boom very close. My psyche

hears a mortar barrage and RPGs exploding. The rain comes hard and heavy ricocheting off the

window, automatic weapons fire. Perspiration soaks the sheets on my bed. I can smell the gun

powder. I scream commands as I relive the battle. When I wake, I remember the nightmare. I

don’t get back to sleep.

Showered, and shaved I put on my fatigues. The heavily starched, olive drab cotton isn’t on my

body five minutes before any bare skin that touches it boils up a prickly rash that takes Benadryl

to calm down.

I have my company clerk type a request for my release from active duty. The letter goes into the

morning mail and the rash starts to disappear. I feel the need to be fishing and as far away from

the Army as possible.

I’ve been reading about the Big Hole River in southwestern MT, its Salmon Fly hatch and the

big browns that have been caught out of it. The Army owes me ninety days leave, so I take a

week to fish the Big Hole. It’s way too early for the giant stone fly hatch but the big browns will

still be there.

I leave Colorado Springs at 6:00 A. M. on Saturday and with the help of three quarts of black

coffee and no speed limit through Wyoming and Montana I am in Dillon MT. by 7:00 that

evening. I park the Scout and check in to the hotel. It’s old but clean.

I go down the creaking wood steps to the restaurant and bar to get some dinner. The aroma of

frying onions makes my mouth water. I walk across the stained wood floor to an empty table.

The waitress comes over and asks. “Can I get you something from the bar?”

“Jack Daniel’s on the rocks please, and a medium rare rib eye with fried onions and mushrooms and a baked potato.”

She brings the whiskey over. I lean back in the wooden chair and breathe in the caramel aroma

as I take a sip. It tastes good after my long drive. Three exuberant guys at the next table are

talking loudly about fishing.

I get up and walk over. “My name’s Vince Van Goener. I heard you talking about fishing. Can you tell me anything about fishing the Big Hole?”

“Pull up a chair.” Says the old man of the group. He’s a weathered old guy, looks to be in his sixties, wearing a well stained light tan cowboy hat and wire rimmed glasses. There’s a pipe going in the ashtray next to his right arm and what looks like a whiskey and water on the table next to it. “Name’s George Smith. That’s where we spent the day.” He extends his right hand.

“Where’re you from?”

“Ft. Carson, just south of Colorado Springs. Had to get away from the Army for a while.” I reply taking a drink. I can smell the steak as it cooks and hear plates rattle in the kitchen.

“Name’s Fred Jenkins.” Says one of the two better dressed guys who look to be in their mid- forties. He has a glass of what appears to be whiskey on the rocks. “Caught a couple over three pounds today. Spend time in Vietnam?”

“I’d rather talk about fishing. Like the three pounders you caught today.” I said sipping my

Jack. It’s starting to take the edge off the coffee.

“Herb Petersen.” Says the other sticking out his hand. He also has a glass of something on the rocks.

The waitress brings my steak.

“We’ve eaten but you’re welcome to join us.” George says.

“Thanks, I will.” I say and order a round for the table.

The rib eye is juicy and delicious, the potato soft and creamy.

“Where have you fished?” Fred asks

“I learned to fly fish around State College PA.” I say taking a bite of steak.

“Did George Harvey Teach you?” George asks.

I finish chewing and reply. “Yes. Do you know him?”

“No. But I’d truly like to meet him.” He says.

“We had our best luck on a #2 Bitch Creek fished deep.” Says Herb taking a sip from his glass.

“We caught the big ones in the hole below Maiden Rock camp ground.” Adds Fred. “What do you think of the new graphite rods?” He hails the waitress to order another round.

“All I know is what I’ve read.” I say sipping my whiskey.

George breaks in. “I fished with a couple of guys who had graphite rods. They were very light, you can feel your fly bumping on the bottom and they can cast into the middle of next week.”

We continue the conversation into the evening. Several more rounds are bought.

It’s 8:00 A. M., I have cotton mouth, a bad headache and am a bit shaky. I shower, it doesn’t help much, put on my fishing clothes and go downstairs for some breakfast. The smell of rancid, stale beer puts my stomach on edge. Several cups of coffee, sausage gravy, eggs and hash browned potatoes later I feel just a bit better. The food helps.

After breakfast I go back up the creaky stairs to brush my teeth and get my fishing gear. I load the gear into the Scout and drive up the street to the Sinclair station to buy a fishing license. I also purchase two cans of Vienna sausages, a box of crackers, a six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon and a bag of ice.

The ice and beer go in the cooler and the sausages and crackers on the back seat and I head north on Interstate 15 to the Maiden Rock Camp Ground.

My shaky hands make it difficult to get the rod, reel and line together. It takes me fifteen minutes. I barely manage to tie a #2 Bitch Creek to the 3X tippet. I lay the rod across the hood of the vehicle, get into my chest waders, and put on my fishing vest, zipping it up tight. I look around inside the scout for my wader belt, but can’t find it. In the fog of my hangover I must have left it in the hotel room.

I almost trip as I cross the railroad tracks. I continue downstream to a long deep run below the island and keep walking through the short, dusty, dry grass to the shallows at the bottom of the pool. The hills are covered with buck brush which is still gray brown from winter. The trees and bushes along the river are bare of leaves and the sky is overcast. Blue-gray mayflies are hatching and trout are rising to them. I clip off the Bitch Creek and work at adding three feet of 5X tippet and tying on a # 16 Blue Dunn. I step into the river, my headache still pounding. The footing is treacherous, I almost lose my balance walking into the water. It’s cold around my legs. The river bottom is a jumble of rocks from golf ball size and smaller to bowling ball size and bigger.

I start fishing. I’m flat. There’s no music with my motions. My casts are sloppy. I’m putting fish down.

I move up river and deeper into it, over my waist. The Big Hole River is running at over six hundred cubic feet per second. That’s sixty nine tons of water moving down river each second.

I can definitely feel the force of the river pushing against me. It’s all I can do to stand. I’m pushing the line leaving no margin for safety.

A big one is sipping the tiny mayflies near the far bank. I take a step closer. My right foot comes down on a flat rock that is delicately balanced on the round one beneath it. The flat rock tips and I go down. I have no belt around my waders to keep the water out, so they fill almost immediately pulling me under, burying me under sixty nine tons of water.

Battle

I am in the right seat of a light observation helicopter before daylight. During the ride I use a

stick of black camouflage paint to put wide streaks across the bridge of my nose, cheek bones

and chin to break up their outline. Then I fill in with green and brown and spray myself with

insect repellent.

The pilot is flying the LOH ten to fifteen feet off the ground which makes me a little dizzy if I

look at the ground under the chopper for more than a minute. He slips in next to a tree line a few

feet off the ground. I jump out of the aircraft with my rifle and gear and immediately disappear

into the tall, rotor washed grass. The chopper leaves and I remain motionless in the grass for

thirty minutes.

I’m sure no one knows I’m here so I make the sign of the cross and pray.

Heavenly father keep me safe on this mission and give me the strength and will to perform it.

I low crawl to a large palm in the tree line, rise to my knees and survey the area thoroughly in ever increasing circles then do it again using the scope on my rifle. There’s no one in sight so I

stand up and pick up my left foot, carefully looking where I place it. I examine the area for a

hundred yards in a full circle around me before taking another step. It takes me twenty five

minutes to cover the ten yard depth of the tree line.

At the far edge of the trees I kneel down and slowly begin collecting foliage, cutting a clump of tall grass with my bayonet. Then I wait ten minutes before harvesting a branch I want to use to help camouflage my M-14. I finish gathering the grass and foliage and camouflaging my rifle, jungle fatigues, and jungle hat.

When I’m satisfied I lower myself into the prone position and lay there for an hour to establish my being part of the terrain. The spot I’m going to shoot from is about a mile away across a field of small shrubs and grass. The hour is up. I move toward where I want to go about one half inch and stop for five seconds, then move another half inch. The technique of a stalk is to move without appearing to do so, as a glacier does.

After two hours the stalk becomes unconscious and automatic, almost like breathing.

I enter the Major’s office stop in front of his desk and salute. He returns my salute. “At ease

Sergeant Walton. Take a seat. You’re our best sniper. Because of that, there is a special mission for you. Intelligence has discovered that a North Vietnamese Army General is in a large camp near the Cambodian border. The plan is to eliminate him with sniper fire. Then, in the following leadership vacuum pound the enemy troops with air strikes and artillery. Your task, as you’ve probably guessed, is to eliminate the general.”

The dew is gone and the ground is getting hot under the morning sun. I can smell the herbs and grasses that are being crushed beneath me. Sweat trickles off my nose and runs off my back into my fatigues. My muscles are starting to criticize my choice to remain in the same position for so long. I close my mind to them as a marathon runner does.

Lord, strengthen my will.

It’s dark and clear, a cold twenty six degrees, six degrees below freezing. The dew that had fallen out in the early evening has turned to frost. It’s thick on the trail making it slippery. I have to walk more slowly than I like. The deer stand, a seat nailed ten feet up in an old oak overlooking a major deer trail, is still a mile up the trail.

I move steadily forward one half inch at a time. My belly reminds me that I’ve had nothing to eat or drink since early this morning. Again, I lock them out of my mind, focusing on the objective.

Lord, strengthen my will.

I’m sitting with my back against a palm in the line of trees two hundred yards beyond the berm at Dong Tam. My rifle has a starlight scope on it for night operations. I’m dressed in tiger stipe camouflage jungle fatigues and jungle hat in their many shades of green and my face and hands are painted with a medley of green, brown and black camouflage paint. Division Intelligence

said that a Viet Cong sniper is in the area.

I see him move from a dike toward the tree line a little after dark. I put the Starlight Scope’s crosshairs on his chest. The fingers of my right hand begin to tingle slightly. I squeeze the trigger and watch as he crumples into the mud.

Turning around I look back toward the Dong Tam perimeter. I see three helmets clustered together showing above the berm. They would have been a perfect target for the V. C. sniper. I

put the cross hairs about two feet below the top of the berm in line with the center soldier and

watch them scatter as my bullet hits harmlessly below them.

I wish I could risk the movement of bringing my canteen up to take a drink and my stomach is

rumbling. I force the thought out of my mind and continue inching along toward the target.

Lord, strengthen my will.

My partner, Chris Montoya and I are in the free fire zone between Tan Tru and Binh Phuoc. In

startling contrast to our camouflage we are each wearing white sneakers. Anything that moves

in the free fire zone is considered a target, unless it’s wearing white sneakers. We had been

inserted by helicopter an hour before dark and then split up. I work my way to a cluster of trees

about three hundred yards west of a known trail and look around the trees for a place to hide. A

banded krait slithers away. I build my nest at the base of different one.

I’ve been in position about an hour when I see targets moving along the trail in single file. The rifle nestles into my shoulder and the scope aligns with my right eye. I look through it and count fifteen V. C. The crosshairs settle on the one in front and I start to squeeze the trigger. My trigger finger starts going numb. I continue squeezing and drop the target then move to the next in line and kill that one as well. I move my scope to the rear of the formation and kill the last two then I dissolve into the jungle. There is no feeling in my trigger finger at all as I crawl through the leaves and twigs of the jungle floor.

Angel of God my guardian dear

Whom God’s love commits me here

Ever this day be at my side

To light and guard, to rule and guide

I am six years old kneeling at the side of my bed, my mother behind me watching.

The prayer and scene from my childhood has crept into my mind’s eye.

It is hot and sweat drips off my chin and seeps into the waist band of my skivvies as I inch along.

Lord, strengthen my will.

My parents, my three sisters, my older brother and I are seated at the family table in the dining room. In the center of the table is a platter of chicken that my mother had marinated in buttermilk overnight. She had breaded and fried it that morning after Mass. Next to it is a bowl of creamy white mashed potatoes with turnips and a bowl of collard greens with bacon. There are buttermilk biscuits, a thick, rich chicken gravy and a sweating pitcher of sweet iced tea.

I am with the point platoon slogging through the rice paddies west of Tan Tru. The point has stopped our movement and has called up the Platoon Leader. The Lieutenant comes back and takes me forward. The point man is lying against a dike and gesturing ahead. A group of eight to ten Viet Cong are about five hundred yards in front of us. The V.C. are out of range for the

M-16s the men in the platoon are carrying and will disappear before artillery can be called in on them. I lay down in the mud and putrid water of the rice paddy and rest my M-14 across the top of the dike. I center the cross hairs of the scope on the spine between the shoulders of the closest

V.C. and squeeze the trigger. That V.C. goes down. I move to the next and repeat the process. I

kill three of them before they understand that they are under attack and find cover. When it is

over my hands start to shake and it takes all I have to keep my breakfast down. They are my

first kills.

It is mid-afternoon and the sun is very hot. The ground under my chest and thighs is almost

burning and I hear a tiger chuffing in the trees off to my left. I force the discomfort and fear out

of my awareness.

Lord, strengthen my will.

It is well after dark in the free fire zone when targets show up. I’m using a starlight scope on my

rifle again. Five green images appear in the scope.

I put the crosshairs on the center one, take a deep breath and let half of it out and begin squeezing the trigger. My right hand is starting to go numb. I managed to kill two V. C. before it goes completely dead.

I continue my autonomic movements toward my target a coat of sweat covering my body and wanting a drink of water very badly.

Lord, strengthen my will.

The sun goes down. I’ve been creeping toward my target for twelve hours. I’m only about five hundred yards closer. I get my compass out and take a reading on my target and set an azimuth to follow when it will be too dark to see where I am going.

I use the cover of darkness to change my position slightly, drink some sun heated, plastic tasting water and eat one of the dry, hard d-ration bars. In the darkness I pick up my pace to three

quarters of an inch. The mosquito and other insect bites are starting to creep into my awareness.

I block them out. I hear the tiger again. It seems to be closer this time.

Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee

Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus

Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

Like a song that leaks out of your memory into your brain and won’t leave, this prayer washes around in my skull for what seems a long time.

I continue my unique mode of movement ignoring the pain and fatigue, glacially moving closer to my target.

It has been six hours since the sun has gone down. I have been using my compass to maintain direction. I can smell the cinnamon trees and hear the bats flying around above.

The cinnamon makes me think of Helle spooned up next to me, the silkiness of her naked back and hips against my chest and thighs. We are in bed in my hotel room in Kuala Lumpur. I am on R&R. She is on vacation from her job as a stewardess with Lufthansa. We had caught each other’s eye near the pool four days earlier. Her soft even breathing tells me she’s asleep. She smells of cinnamon soap, perfume and sex. Her warmth creeps into me and loosens my emotional Charlie Horses.

As the sky lightens before dawn I drink some more water and eat another d-ration bar. I still

have three hundred yard to my shooting spot. To narrow the worm trail I am leaving, I roll to my

side and restart the half inch at a time.

Another prayer creeps into my mind.

Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done one earth as it is in Heaven

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses

As we forgive others who have trespassed against us.

And lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil

Amen

I can see enemy soldiers moving around between me and my objective. But, they don’t act as if they’ve discovered me. I continue worming my way toward the grass covered rise I will shoot

from.

More and more soldiers are moving around near my objective. About fifty yards from the

shooting spot two NVA soldiers walk within three feet of me on either side.

The platoon leader, point squad, and I walk up on my fifty sixth kill. The V. C. is carrying a

Rocket Propelled Grenade launcher and two R.P.G.s but he is a boy of about ten. I am not

successful at keeping my lunch down this time.

I’ve worked my way to the shooting spot and can see the tents designated by intelligence as the

command post and the general’s quarters.

My muscles are contemplating mutiny. I am very thirsty, just this side of dehydrated. Adrenalin and an intense sense of mission is all that is keeping me going. I wait and the prayers keep coming.

O my God, I am heartily sorry

For having offended thee

And I detest all my sins

Because of Thy just punishments

But most of all because they offend Thee my God

Who art all good and deserving of all my love

I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace

To sin no more and avoid the near occasion of sin

Amen

The sun is hovering over the trees to the west when the general comes out of the command center and heads for his quarters. I am looking through the scope on my M-14. The general calls out and a woman and two teenage children come out of his tent. I concentrate on the general and can see the mustached lips lift into a large smile. The crosshairs in the scope are on his heart. I center my breathing and try to squeeze the trigger. My right hand refuses to respond. None of the fingers on my right hand will move.

Fidget

Army instructors teach their trainees that there is a right way to do something, a wrong way to do

it and the Army way. My new boss, First Lieutenant George Owens, does a lot of things his

way. This gives the brass hats indigestion and leaves me wondering what bad thing I have done

to deserve him.

Behind his back the hooch girls and laundresses call him Truong Uy Fidget. It fits. He looks

rumpled in freshly pressed fatigues. If he’s awake he has a lit Winston clamped between the first

two fingers of his right hand or in a nearby ash tray, sometimes both. When he can’t smoke he

has a stack of quarters in his left hand. He unconsciously and continuously moves them from bottom to top and top to bottom.

I can’t figure out how he got through Officer Candidate School.

Fidget is the Assistant Platoon Leader of the Maintenance Supply Platoon. Our platoon operates

a division level repair parts depot. He is the Officer in Charge of the stock records section which

uses an NCR 500 to keep track of our spare parts inventory. I’m his Non-Commissioned Officer

in Charge.

The white painted walls of the computer van reflect the fluorescent lights bathing everything in

blue white light and making the paper dust from the keypunch machines shine. He’s at his olive drab field desk cross-checking the paperwork on the parts we received today from Long Binh

Army Depot. The damned quarters are in his left hand. The movement of the quarters increases gradually over time. The longer he sits the faster they move.

It’s driving me nuts.

Fifteen minutes later he suddenly stands up and walks the thirty feet to the other end of the van and back to his desk. He walks the circuit five times then sits back down. He starts the cross- checking again, the quarters moving more slowly.

All I can do is shake my head.

He has ear plugs in his ears to block out the sounds of the keypunch machines and the Armed

Forces Radio Network blasting out Bad Moon Rising and Good Morning Starshine. The rotation

of the quarters starts to slightly increase in speed.

“Attention!” I shout as Major Martin Epps, the Battalion Executive officer, and First Lieutenant

Jerry Brooks, our Platoon Leader, enter the van. Because of the ear plugs Fidget doesn’t hear the

command and continues sitting at his desk with his back to the door. LT. Brooks walks over and

taps him on the shoulder. Fidget turns around, stands up quickly and takes the ear plugs out

when he see what’s going on.

Major Epps is about five six, he carries a riding crop as a swagger stick and sports a pencil thin moustache. His jungle fatigues are heavily starched and look freshly pressed even this late in the morning.

“As you were.” Commands the Major. “What’s with the ear plugs Lieutenant?”

”The men perform better with music and I do better with no distractions. It’s a productive compromise, Sir.” Fidget replies.

“I don’t like it, but I’ll accept it.” Epps says and begins his inspection. He looks through all the trash cans for any parts request forms that have been thrown away rather than have a computer card punched for them. He looks for signs of eating, drinking or smoking, none of which is authorized in the computer van.

The Major leaves. It’s lunch time so we all leave for the company mess hall a half mile away along the dusty Dong Tam streets. The noon sun is high and hot.

Fidget walks with me. I can’t think of a way to get out of it.

“Sergeant Fowler.” He says. “I got a letter from my mom yesterday. She says my Sister Marcy, she’s a senior in High school, managed to get herself pregnant and that my uncle Herman, my father’s older brother was disbarred for embezzling.”

This is a whole lot more personal information about him than I want. I listen politely (he writes my evaluation) and nod my head.

“My uncle Herman used to take me duck hunting at his private club. They had deer hunting too.

The club had an octagonal building with a cupula in the center. Each member had a shooting

window and could shoot any deer within his 45 degree arc. They had a pile of apples directly in

line with each window about one hundred yards out from the building. There was a bar and a

buffet in the center of the building and tables and chairs between the bar and buffet and the

shooting windows so the gentlemen could relax.

I keep nodding, wishing he’d shut up.

“A game watcher sat up in the cupula and announced if a deer was in front of a shooting

window. Doesn’t seem fair does it. Not much challenge. I like still hunting deer. Walking ever

so slowly through the woods. Stopping every two or three steps to look closely at what’s around you. That’s how the infantry walk when their on patrol. My dad walked up on a bull elk out in

Colorado. He didn’t see it till it jumped up out of its bed and ran through the timber. He said he almost shit his pants when that elk jumped up.”

He finally shuts up as we enter the shade of the mess hall. It’s loud with the sound of clattering mess trays and hundreds of people talking.

We’re going through the line and Fidget notices Specialist 4 Bob Hamre scooping potatoes onto lunch trays. “Specialist Hamre, I hear your girlfriend sent you a Dear John.” He blurts out

There’s nowhere for me to hide.

Fidget isn’t around so LT Brooks is telling Platoon Sergeant Brown and me what happened in

the officers’ shower earlier this morning.

“Fidget told Major Epps that he noticed the major was missing his pubic hair and asked if the

major was fighting crabs.” Says Brooks. “If it weren’t for the running water you could have

heard a cockroach fart. Then the Major responded with the best come back I’ve ever Heard. He

asked Fidget if he had hemorrhoids. Owens replied in the negative. So the Major asked him if he had piles. Again Fidget answered no. Then Epps tossed him the put-down. Just as I thought, you’re a perfect asshole. The heavy laughter drowned out the showers.” Says Brooks.

The platoon Sergeant and I are laughing so hard we have to lean against the wall for support. I quit laughing when I realize the Major will be all over my section because of Fidget.

That afternoon Major Epps again enters the computer van. Since his last visit Fidget has had a light rigged up on his desk that I am to turn on whenever a senior officer enters the van.

Attention!” I holler as I turn on Fidget’s light. Everyone comes to attention.

“As you were.” The Major says. “The light’s a clever idea Lieutenant. But, I’m here to inform you that the Battalion Commander has assigned you to lead the rapid response platoon. It‘s to react to any enemy attack on our sector of the berm. Sergeant Fowler you are assigned as the

Ready Response Platoon Sergeant”

“Fuck” I say to myself. “Just what I wanted, more of Truong Uy Fidget’s leadership.”

Major Epps ramps up his inspections and the duty roster cycles through.

The siren for the all clear is blaring across the compound. The other men and I are filing out of the timber and sand bag bomb shelter back to our rooms and barracks. The lights are still out because the mortar attack has knocked out a generator. I climb the stairs to the walkway ten feet above the ground that provides access to the rooms on the second floor of the building and walk through the dark to my room.

The narrow bed has a very thin mattress over the springs and is not very comfortable. I’m in my olive drab boxers trying to get to sleep and notice light outside the widow. They must have gotten the generators back on line. I get out of bed and go to the door.

I open the door the same time the shock wave hits. It blows me over backwards, all the way to the opposite wall.

The next thing I know, I’m in the bomb shelter shaking so badly I can’t get my pants on.

“I thought a mortar round landed right in front of my door.” I stammer to the First Sergeant who is standing next to me in the shelter.

“There was a mushroom cloud!” He says. “Are they using nukes?”

“I must’ve jumped from the deck.” I respond. “There’s only a little bit of dirt between the concrete side walk and the shelter, but I must have hit it.”

“It wasn’t a nuke.” Barks the Sergeant Major, who has just entered the shelter. “The V. C. managed to hit the division ammo dump. Sergeant Fowler, get the rapid response platoon together and head to our section of the berm in case of a follow up attack.”

I run back up to my room, put on my jungle boots, flak jacket and steel pot and meet Fidget at the company bunker to collect the men.

He and I spend a sleepless night on the berm watching for an enemy that never shows. Fidget yammers all night about anything and everything.

One week and four inspections from Major Epps later, Fidget comes into the van and informs me that we are to deploy our rapid response platoon on the airfield right now. “They are expecting a sapper attack against the choppers. We’re to intercept and kill any sappers that make it onto the air field.” He says. “We need to assemble our men and head for the airfield. The Battalion

Intelligence Officer will meet us there and brief us.”

Dong Tam was built on dirt dredged up from the bottom of the Mekong River and leveled out.

The airfield has the added benefit of interlocking metal planks so it is less soggy when it rains.

Scattered across the metal planking are six foot sections of three foot diameter steel culvert halves covered with a layer of sand bags.

“Those are your individual bunkers for tonight.” The Intelligence Officer says. “We anticipate a mortar barrage before any attempt by sappers to take out choppers. Keep your heads down in the bunkers until the mortars stop. When they do, climb out and eliminate any sappers that make it this far.”

The barrage starts shortly after intelligence leaves. Fidget and I jump into the jeep and speed

along the metal planking making sure all our men are in their bunkers. Mortar rounds are going

off all over the airfield as we race back to our bunkers and crawl in.

I am scrunched up in the culvert watching the incoming barrage blow gaping holes in the air

field. There’s a blinding flash. My ears hurt and there is a searing pain in my left thigh. A round has hit directly on my culvert. The next thing I’m aware of is that Fidget has pulled me

out of the wreckage of my bunker. Mortar rounds keep exploding all over the air field as he

applies my field dressing to the wound. Direct pressure isn’t stopping the flow. I feel the warm

sticky wetness of my blood seeping into my fatigue pants. He takes my belt off me and wraps it around my leg above the wound. He removes the magazine from my M-16 and clears it of any ammunition then uses the barrel to twist the belt tight, cutting off the blood flow.

The mortar attack stops but no Sappers get into the compound. Fidget gets on the radio and calls battalion Headquarters to have them send an ambulance for me.

I’m in my bed at the division hospital. Through the haze of the pain meds I see Fidget walking through the ward between the rows of poncho liner covered beds toward mine.

He saved my life!

Lt. Brooks was in earlier and told me that Major Epps had recommended Fidget for a Bronze

Star medal for Valor.

Fidget saved my life! He saved my life!

Fidget arrives at my bed side the same time as my nurse. He looks at the red haired Captain and asks. “Did you have reconstructive surgery for that hare lip?”

The Short Lived Joy of Tommy Nelson

Billy Sikes and two of his friends see me alone kicking a football around on the dry hockey rink

and run up from the playground. Billy yells. ”Hey dummy” and pushes me down. Another

grabs the ball. I keep trying to get up but Billy and the second one keep pushing me down onto

the gravel. The first one pulls out a pocket knife and threatens to cut up the ball.

Harry Sigurdsson and his older brother Gunnar see what’s going on and run across the playground to stop them. The one with the knife points it at Harry. Harry looks him in the eye with a hard stare and quietly tells him to put the knife away or be ready to eat it. Billy and the

other two leave. Harry and Gunnar help me up and take me back to the main playground. It is a

nice September day here in Palmyra, WI. The leaves on the oak trees have turned a pretty shade

of red. The sky is blue and the sun is bright.

It is nine o’clock on a Wednesday night in mid-May. It’s my senior year. A soft rain is coming

down that will help the corn and soy beans that my father planted, and the vegetables in the large

garden my mother takes care of. I am studying for an American Government test with my

mother. I need to pass this test to graduate. Mom is taking it slow, having me read a paragraph and then asking me about what I’ve just read. It takes us ‘till midnight but we get through it and I feel like I remember enough to pass.

I get a C- on the test. Mr. Wulff, my teacher accuses me of cheating.

The Monday after graduation I drive to the Army Recruiting Office in Waukesha and enlist. I want to serve my country like my dad did. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara created

Project One Hundred Thousand that lets me.

Two weeks later I am at Ft. Bliss, TX starting Basic Combat Training. The Desert is hot and dry. There are no trees or grass. There is nothing but concrete, gravel and sand. The concrete and gravel make it hotter and reflect the sunlight that blinds you. It is very, very different from the green of Wisconsin. The wind blows dust and sand through the cracks in the siding of our barracks. I can never get my fill of water.

Staff Sergeant Alvarez has been to Vietnam twice and has the medals to prove it. He’s been given the job of making sure that other members of what he calls his “Moron Squad” and me pass our tests on first aid, The Uniform Code of Military Justice and such.

It takes me two weeks of constant drilling just to learn The General Orders. SSGT. Alvarez calls me a dumb fucking moron when I couldn’t say them at the end of the first week.

First aid is very hard. I have to know what a sucking chest wound is and how to treat it and a crushed trachea. SSG Alvarez has me stand in front of the whole platoon and tells them I don’t know how to treat a sucking chest wound. And asks them if they would want me in combat next to them if I couldn’t help them if they were wounded. They all shouted no.

It’s about a week before Christmas and they are playing Christmas Carols over the loud speakers.

I have a large family, both sets of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins that get together several times between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. The Carols make me more home sick than if Christmas was forgotten.

It takes me three times through Basic to graduate.

I’m at Ft. Lee, VA for Advanced Individual Training as a general warehouseman.

I’ve been here about two weeks and one of the guys in my squad offers me some Oreo cookies.

This makes me really happy. I take two. When I bite into the first one it’s filled with toothpaste not icing. All the guys start laughing at me. It makes me sad but I start laughing too.

I was passed through at Ft. Lee. I’m at the Defense Construction Supply Center in Columbus,

OH. It feels like I’m always on K.P. or latrine duty. They won’t let me do the job I was trained for.

I have been put on the first group to Vietnam. It seems to me no one wants to keep me around.

I arrive in Dong Tam in late June and am assigned to the Maintenance Supply Platoon of Head

Quarters and Head Quarters Company of the 709th Maintenance Battalion. First Lieutenant

Brooks is my Platoon leader and a nice guy.

I’ve made friends with two other guys in the platoon already. We get along great together. We bunk together, eat together and sit together at the weekly movie night. Where one of us is the other two are close by.

LT. Brooks has us doing things we don’t have to think too much about, like unloading truck tires and putting them in a specific warehouse location or sweeping the warehouse floor. Whatever the job is we work hard at it ‘till it is done, then go ask LT. Brooks for something else to do.

I’ve been promoted to Specialist Fourth Class. I feel useful and needed.

It’s a dusty Sunday afternoon in September. My two buddies and I are in the day room playing pool. Two “Doughnut Dollies”, Red Cross Girls, walk through the door. Mary Cosgrove and

Amy Strong are all smiles and perfume in their pale blue uniforms. Mary is tall, slim and blonde.

Amy is small and has auburn hair and a really bright smile.

Amy starts “Proud Mary” on her guitar and asks us to join in. When the song’s done Mary starts laying Playboy center-folds on the floor. After we all have a good look she turns them over and has us playing a home-made game of concentration.

After about a half hour Mary starts asking each guy his name and where he is from. I get up when it’s my turn and say “My name is Tommy Nelson and I’m from Palmyra, WI”. Amy runs over to me and gives me a big hug. “I know Palmyra well. ”She says. “I’m from Whitewater eleven miles away. The guys start to laugh and I blush all over.

We play charades and end the visit with a loud “We Gotta Get out of This Place” Amy and Mary

ask me and another guy to walk them back to their hooch.

Amy and I talk about swimming in the cool Wisconsin lakes and the snow that will be on the ground there soon. We talk about Whitewater and Palmyra and find out we have friends we both know. We get to the girls’ hooch and Amy gives me a kiss on the cheek and says good afternoon.

I am in a high-hover all the way back to the company day room where my two buddies are full of questions about what happened on the way to the girls’ hooch. All I can do is smile.

LT. Brooks has the three of us stacking large equipment tires against the outside of the

warehouse. I’ve been in a fog the whole morning. My buddies have to keep telling me to stop

day-dreaming about Amy and get to work. It’s hot and I’m dripping with sweat as I roll the six foot tall rough terrain forklift tire up against the side of the warehouse.

A rocket propelled grenade roars in from across the river with the sound of a very large piece of

cardboard being dragged across a concrete floor and explodes on the forklift tire.

The Death of a Warrior

It must be after 2:00. The noise from the merrymakers in the bar across the street has stopped.

The full moon is shining down and reflects off Lake Michigan illuminating the city of Chicago.

I’m lying in bed in physical pain from lack of sleep but wide awake. The memory of this afternoon’s visit has replaced any joy that remained in my soul.

Hank Keller and I had been to visit Mrs. Roger Guthrie. We were there to inform her of her son,

Roger Jr.’s death in combat in Vietnam. She was shaking and had tears welling up in her eyes when she answered the door. She collapsed when I gave her the formal notification of her son’s death. Mrs. Guthrie is a widow. Her husband, Roger Sr. had been killed during the battle for

Okinawa.

The alarm on my bedside table clangs like a fire house bell. I open my eyes, and look at it. A very small bit of my consciousness is aware that I needed to turn it off and get out of bed, the rest of me is held in place, as if by thousands of spider webs.

That small bit of awareness fights against the tethers holding down my mind and body. Bit by bit it gains ground. An hour later I am able to shut off the alarm and roll out of bed onto the floor. From the carpet next to the bed I fight my way upright and to the bathroom.

I over slept again. This is the second time this week. I only have Thirty five days of my tour of active duty left to serve. It shouldn’t matter. I’m a short timer. But, it does matter.

Major Bartimaeus, Bart, Johnson, a career officer whose myopia has kept him from serving in

any of the combat branches, was trained as a mortician before joining the Army. He is the

Detachment Commander. “Where the hell is Sigurdsson?” He’s shouting. As I arrive.

My tardiness irritates him. We have a job to do. A soldier’s family has the right to a timely and

dignified notification of their son’s death.

I’m an hour late. “Sir, I apologize for being late I just couldn’t get out of bed. “Hank, I’m Sorry.”

First Lieutenant Henry Keller is a Lutheran Chaplain. He has only been working with me for

four months. When making an official notification I give the family the bad news. Hank then

offers such comfort as he can to the grieving family.

Except for my three months of Airborne and Ranger training all of my two years of active duty

has been served with the U. S. Army’s 13th Family Notification Detachment. My older brother

Gunnar was killed in an ambush while serving with the 4th Infantry Division in Pleiku, Vietnam.

As a sole surviving son I cannot be sent to a combat zone.

As senior officer of the team, I pick up the information on the three notifications we have to make today. Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Wilson, 1103 W 61st St., Chicago, IL; Mr. and Mrs. Tobias

Brock, 138th St. and Carey Road, East Chicago, IN; Mr. And Mrs. Thomas Nelson, West Marsh

Rd., Palmyra, WI. The last one awakens old memories.

I collect maps of Chicago and East Chicago and a 1969 Rand McNally Road Atlas. Then Hank

and I plot out a route to the Wilson house in Chicago and to the Brock house in East Chicago.

We load our maps and paperwork into the staff car and head for our first encounter. I push the

‘64 olive drab Rambler through the Chicago traffic south to Englewood. At 60th and South

Aberdeen I slow down to reconnoiter the area and locate the target house.

I fight against the overwhelming sadness that is assaulting me. I locate the house, circle the block and park in front. It is a white clapboard house wedged between two large row houses.

We exit the vehicle. We are dressed in our forest green class ”A” uniforms. The brass insignia and buttons shine in the bright sunlight. We slowly approach the next of kin’s home, ring the front doorbell and wait. A couple of minutes pass before a slight woman in her late forties wearing a house dress answers the door. I recognize the dread in her eyes. I have seen it hundreds of times.

The walls of the front room are painted sky blue and it’s furnished with a floral print living room suit.

“I’m sorry Mrs. Wilson, I’m here to inform you of the death of your son Robert.” She collapses into a chair.

Keller takes over. “Is there anyone I can call for you, your husband, a pastor?”

We wait for Mr. Wilson and their pastor to arrive. The sadness charges again as we wait. I am only able to hold it off by concentrating on her pain.

Out on the sidewalk several young children are walking with their mothers in the beautiful fall weather. They are all giggles and laughter. It has no effect on me.

Back in the staff car I retrieve a swagger stick from my bag. It is twenty two inches long about an inch in diameter and carved to look like a rolled up scroll. The scroll part is covered with

shallow notches in neat rows evenly spaced, following the axis of the stick. I take a pocket knife

from my right front trouser pocket, open it and carve another notch into the scroll, number 726.

Keller takes the wheel for the next encounter. “Harry, It’s a beautiful day isn’t it?” He asks.

Those children sure were happy weren’t they? Nothing quite as enlivening as children’s laughter

is there? The Wilson’s pastor sure seemed good at giving comfort didn’t he?” He talks the entire trip to East Chicago. I just listen, nod my head occasionally and do battle with the

sadness.

In East Chicago we do a “recon” of the neighborhood before parking in front of the house on the

corner of 138th St. and Carey Rd. It’s a red brick house with a white front porch with stained

glass in the window of the front door.

We exit the vehicle and approach the house with dignity and solemnity. Again the doorbell is

answered by a woman. Mrs. Brock is in her late thirties or early forties. Her eyes show anguish

and fear brought by the two men in uniform who stand on her front porch. She collapses onto the

couch in tears as soon as I start the official notification. Hank again takes over. He calls her

husband and her sister, both of whom are soon at the house which smells of apples, cinnamon

and cloves. Mrs. Brock had taken an apple pie from the oven just before she answered the door.

I can smell it but it brings no pleasure.

Back in the staff car I pull the swagger stick from my bag and cut another notch in it, 727.

It is almost 2:00 P. M. when we find a place to have lunch, which we eat in silence.

The drive through the colorful fall countryside of Wisconsin perks Keller up a bit but brings no

joy to me.

It is 4:30 when we find the Nelson house on West Marsh Road. The white farm house looks

recently painted and is surrounded by a quarter acre of well-kept lawn, a large vegetable garden

and lots of flowers. I am driving and turn up the long gravel drive to the house. The sadness is

attacking again.

Mr. and Mrs. Nelson are both at the door waiting for us when we reach the front porch. They are a stout farm couple in their mid-fifties. Her eyes are full of panic, his anger.

Tommy had arrived late in their lives and had been a little slow witted but was passionate about serving his country as his father had. Defense Seretary McNamara’s Project 100,000 lowered the requirements so that he had been able to enlist. He had served proudly as a warehouseman for HHC 709th Maintenance Battalion. A rocket propelled grenade had hit on the warehouse

wall right next to him.

The sadness attacks again with more vigor. I am barely able to repulse it. I was a year ahead of

Tommy in grade school.

Back in the staff car I dig out the swagger stick, pull out my pocket knife and carve another

notch in the scroll, 728. The last cut fills the scroll. There is no space left for any more.

On the trip back to Chicago even Hank is quiet. “Harry, you’re going to have to carve a new swagger stick.” He says.

It is 6:00 A.M. and I‘m awake. I spent the night repelling attack after attack of the sadness.

I slowly sit up in bed, swing my legs over the edge and stand up. I have the next two days off.

The idea of hiding in this castle keep while the sadness lays siege to it has no appeal. I shower, shave, put on a pair of Levi 501s, a cotton flannel shirt and a pair of black Converse sneakers. In the kitchenette I put the electric coffee pot on to perk and open the refrigerator. A half empty milk container and the box containing the pizza left over from last night’s dinner are the only occupants. I remove the pizza and sit it on the table. A few minutes later the coffee stops perking. I pour myself a cup and pick up a slice of pizza and start half-heartedly nibbling at it.

I see the Chicago phone book is lying on the table. I pick it up and flip through the yellow pages chewing the cold pizza. I don’t taste the pepperoni, tomato sauce, or cheese. It is as if my pleasure sensors are turned off. I find what I am looking for, a business that rents canoes. My whole life I have been told of how beautiful the Horicon Marsh is especially when it is full of migrating birds as it will be now. It is only three hours up there and the canoe rental place is on the way. Maybe an adventure will help keep the sadness at bay.

I leave my apartment at 7:00. I am at the canoe rental place by 7:30 when it opens. I rent a 10 ft. aluminum canoe and a roof top carrier that hooks to the rain gutters over the windows of my ‘64

Chevy II Nova Coupe. The canoe comes with a paddle and life jacket, I put them in the trunk and tie the canoe to the roof rack and the front and rear bumpers.

I am on I-94 headed for Milwaukee by 8:00. Once out of Chicago I cruise at 85 M.P.H., pushing

my car to its limit. I am trying hard to leave the sadness behind. In Milwaukee I pick up U. S.

41. Ten miles out of Milwaukee it changes from a four lane highway to a two lane road with a

third central “suicide” passing lane. The Chevy II spends a lot of time in the “suicide” lane as I

pass slower vehicles. .

At Wisconsin State Road 28 I turn off toward Mayville. In the village of Theresa I realize I am almost out of fuel. I turn off the road to a country store with a gas pump. A young man comes out of the store. “You need gas?” The boy asks.

“Fill it.” I reply and go into the store.

I realize that I have brought nothing to eat or drink. I purchase four tins of Crown Prince

Sardines in mustard sauce, a box of Premium saltines and a six pack of Leinenkugel beer. I pay for the gasoline and head south to Mayville. The sadness finds me and starts a reconnaissance in force. I fight it off.

In Mayville I check the road map and turn onto county road TW, heading north to Dyke Road

where I turn west and head to the West Branch of the Rock River.

There is a pull-off where Dyke Road meets the river. I pull off the road. It is 10:00. The sun is shining in a cloudless sky, the temperature in the low 70’s. There is a southerly breeze about ten miles per hour. The leaves on the poplar trees at the turn-off have turned a brilliant yellow. The grass is an emerald green from a recent rain and the cattail leaves are golden in the sunlight. The sky is a brilliant blue and full of water fowl, ducks, geese cranes and swans.

I focus on the mission. I untie the canoe from the front and rear bumpers, unhook it from the roof

top carrier and lift it down off the top of the car and carry it to the water. I gather the provisions

from the front passenger’s seat, then go around to the back of the car, open the trunk and collect the paddle and life preserver. I load everything into the center of the canoe and push it into the water. I climb into the stern and push off the bank. The light current and south wind fight with each other for control of the vessel. I pull the paddle from in front of me and start paddling upstream toward the center of the thirty two thousand acres of cattail marsh. The wind at my back helps me move upriver more quickly. As I get further into the marsh the current becomes more of a suggestion than a force.

Under the blue sky, bright sunshine and amidst all the flying birds the sadness attacks. I dig in deeper and faster with the paddle trying to out run it. An hour of intense paddling pushes me

farther into the marsh. The sadness is not far behind.

I come upon a small grass covered island with a lone white birch tree and beach the canoe. I am

tired, hungry and thirsty. I pry the lid off one of the beers, open a tube of crackers and two tins

of sardines. I put the bottle to my mouth and suck down half of the amber liquid. I dig a sardine

out of its tin, put it between two crackers and wolf it down looking over my shoulder for the

sadness. I devour another sardine cracker sandwich and drain the beer. I eat both tins of

sardines and drink three beers.

Even sitting under the warm sun I can feel the sadness gaining. I gather up what is left of my

provisions and my trash and put it in the canoe and push off into the marsh.

100

At 2:27 a cold front drops down from Ontario across Lake Superior and into Wisconsin. The

wind blows out of the north and the temperature drops twenty degrees to the mid-fifties. At 2:42 a thunderstorm pops up with high winds and heavy rain. I am soaked to the skin. I am very cold and start to shiver. I paddle harder. The shivering becomes more intense. The sadness senses weakness and attacks in full strength. I succumb to the 728 cuts. Shivering with cold and

intense sadness I curl up into a ball in the stern of the canoe.

By 4:00 all movement has ceased in the canoe caught in the cattails.

The sun comes up. The canoe has worked free of the cattails and is floating in open water. The

oboe like calls of a family of loons fills the morning. Six swans flank the canoe, three on each

side and swam with it as it floats into the morning mist.

101

Last Man Fallen

Five of us; Tom Hansen, the Air Cushion Vehicle Squadron Commander, Steve Rodgers, the

Brigade logistics Officer, Jim Futa, assistant Brigade logistics officer; Hank Gunther, an infantry

Platoon Leader, and me, the other Assistant Logistics Officer have been drinking beer since ten

A.M. and are getting ready to spend the rest of the day playing poker. We’re a bit unsteady as we move from the bar to the table and sit down. It is one in the afternoon on a Tuesday.

We’re playing cards because we have nothing else to do. Our unit, the 3rd Brigade of the 9th

Infantry Division, has stood down. We are going home. We have survived our time in harm’s way. In two days we’ll climb on board an airplane that will return us to the land of Big Macs,

Kentucky Fried Chicken and pizza by the slice. There will be no more mortar or RPG attacks or being as much imprisoned as protected by the perimeter’s razor wire and claymore mines.

“Gentlemen, before we get started,” Hank Gunther says, “I feel the need to warn you that I was voted the luckiest cadet in my class at Wentworth Military Academy.”

“Why?” Hansen asks. He lights a camel and gulps from one of the open cans of Miller High Life in front of him.

102

“I’m gifted I guess. Luck follows me everywhere.” Gunther glances around the table. “My senior year at Wentworth, when I was home for Christmas, I hit some black ice at sixty miles an hour. The car rolled four times. I walked away with a slightly sprained wrist. The car was totaled. It scared the shit out of me. But what a rush. I loved it.”

“You’re still Mister Lucky. I heard you cheated death, again. Two weeks ago. Your platoon flipped an ambush set for you.” I say.

“Another rush,” Gunther said. You could tell he was excited just thinking about it. “While on patrol we changed into an assault formation for practice. The gooks thought we had spotted their ambush and opened fire too soon. Body count, us-zero, gooks-thirty five. Fucking exhilarating.

I get a hard-on just talking about it.”

“Okay, Mister Lucky, let’s test that luck.” Rodgers says. “Seven card Stud, High Chicago. A dime to play.”

The cigarette and cigar smoke is almost a fog around the table and there is at least one open can of beer in front of each of us.

“Turned the ACVs over to ARVN this morning,” Hansen says. He pushes his dime chip into the center of the table. “Happy to feel the weight of them off my shoulders”

103

“Wonder how long they’ll last under ARVN maintenance,” Futa says. He antes, then takes a

long draw from his Pall Mall.

Rodgers finishes dealing, two hole cards and one face up to each of us.

“Jim you’re high card. Start the betting,” Rogers says. He picks up his Cuesta Rey 898 cigar,

takes a long drag on it. The aroma drifts above our heads.

Futa looks at his hole cards. “Nickel.” He says. He drops a white chip into the center and sips

beer.

“In.” I say. I toss the chip to the pot, a Winston smoking in the ash tray next to me.

Everybody calls

Rodgers deals out the next five cards. “Tom, Jack of hearts, possible straight. Hank, four of hearts. Not so lucky, Mister lucky. Jim, five of spades, no help. Sid, ten of clubs possible straight. A five of clubs for me. Jim, your ace is still high card.”

“Check,” Futa says.

“Check.”

“Same.”

“I’ll go with the flow,” Hansen says. He drains his Miller High Life.

“Dime,” Gunther says.

104

Five red chips make their way to the stack.

“Lady Luck sitting on your lap, is she Gunther?” asks Rodgers

“And wiggling her ass against my pecker.”

Rogers deals the next card to each player.

“I’m high, pair showing.” I bet a dime and take a drag from the Winston in the ash tray.

Rodgers and Hansen fold. Gunther raises a nickel and Futa flips a white chip onto the pile. I put in my nickel.

Rodgers deals the last card down to Gunther, Futa and me.

“Sid, you’re still high hand”

“Dime to ya Hank”

“Raise you a quarter.” He chuckles and slides a red and a blue chip toward the pile in the center of the table.

“I’m out,” Futa says. He empties his beer.

“Call” I say. I drop a blue chip on the pile. “What’ve ya got besides the high spade?”

“Captain Galloway, my jacks beat your tens and here is the king of spades,” Gunther says. He flips over two of his hole cards.

“You are one lucky son-of-a-bitch,” I say. “That jack was your last card. Maybe we shouldn’t be playing cards with you after all.”

105

Rodgers hands the cards to me and says “Your deal.”

Futa’s folding chair clacks like castanets as he slides it back across the concrete floor. He stands wobbling. “I’m going for another beer. Any of you short timers want one? What the hell, I’ll just get a round.” He says weaving slightly as he makes his way to the plywood bar.

I start shuffling the deck slowly and deliberately. Being half in the bag has slowed me down.

“Five card draw. Buy in’s a dime”

Jim returns with five green and gold Miller High Life cans. The humidity condensing on them shines like an early morning frost. He passes the beers around and slides a red chip to join the four others in the center of the table.

I deal five cards to each player and say to Rodgers “Your bet.”

“A dime. When I get home I’m playing thirty six holes of golf every day for a week.”

Everyone stays. “How many cards?” I ask

We all take three, except Gunther, who takes one.

“Trying to fill that straight, Mister Lucky?” I ask. “Your bet.” I say to Rodgers.

“Dime again.”

“Raise a dime. My wife already got tickets to the Packers, Bears game,” Hansen says. He pushes two red chips into the pot.

“Make it thirty cents,” Gunther says. He adds his chips to the pile.

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“Guessing he filled that damn straight. So I’m out. I’m going to find the best restaurant in

Baltimore and eat until I can’t move,” Futa says.

“Out. Don’t think I can beat lucky boy,” I say. “There’s a stretch of the South Platte River Just

below Cheeseman Dam they call the Miracle Mile. The water is clear and cold and the trout get

big as tunas. I’m going to fish there every day for a year.”

“In,” Rodgers says.

“I’m calling you’re bluff,” Hansen says. He adds another dime.

“Read ‘em an’ weep,” Gunther says. “Seven high straight. Luck doesn’t even begin to describe me. Wish I’d been here during Tet. It would have been one fucking long adrenaline high! Shit, I almost wish I weren’t going home.”

“You’re not lucky, you’re nuts,” I say, very glad I am going home.

We play eight more hands of poker and each of us buys a round of beer. Hank wins four of the eight, including the last one which he wins with two pair, aces and eights, the infamous dead- man’s-hand.

“Guess we’re done here,” Gunther says. “And just to show you guys how much I appreciate your

company. I’m going to buy a round of Jim Beam with a beer chaser. Then I need to pack it in, I

signed up for one last ride along with B troop tomorrow on an insertion.”

“Mister Lucky,” I say. “Just can’t stand down from the rush.”

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Gunther laughs and waves to us as he heads to his hooch.

The next day, about noon, Rodgers calls Jim Futa and me to his office.

“Hank Gunther was killed this morning.” He says. “The helicopter he was in was lifting off after unloading its troops when an RPG hit the door frame right next to him. The chopper went down.

Gunther was dead before it hit the ground.”

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The Raft

The vinyl one man raft in the back of my Scout is dark gray, the color of oxidized lead. It’s

contained in a heavy-duty nylon carrying bag of the same color and it’s next to my back pack

which is loaded with camping gear, food, extra clothes and fishing tackle. The raft weighs

twenty pounds, twenty pounds more than I really want to carry, but I feel the raft is essential to my quest.

It is noon on Monday the 28th of June, the clerk at the personnel office at Ft. Carson, CO is

signing off on my clearance papers and says “Captain Galloway you are no longer on active

duty.”

I jump into the Scout, turn the key, push in the clutch, drop it into first gear and lay a little rubber

as I leave post, bad memories and nightmares in my rearview mirror.

The windows rolled down, the wind in my face, I start singing the chorus from the Animals hit.

“We gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do, we gotta get out of this place if

it’s the last thing we ever do, ‘cause girl there’s a better place for me and you.”

Maybe this trip will settle me down, fishing seems to help keep me stable.

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I gas up in Gunnison and continue west to Colorado 149 and turn south past Powderhorn and the

Old Lot Mine.

As I turn east onto a Forrest Service road toward the trail head the Gunnison radio station plays

Tony Orlando and Dawn singing:

“I’m comin’ home I’ve done my time

Now I need to know what is and isn’t mine

If you received my letter telling you I’d soon be free

Then you’ll know just what to do.

If you still want me, if you still want me

Whoa, tie a yellow ribbon ‘round the old oak tree

It’s been three long years, do you still want me?

If I don’t see a ribbon round the ole oak tree

I’ll get back on the bus, forget about us, put the blame on me….”

It’s about six and the shadows are getting longer when I reach the end of the road and pull into a grove of aspens to set up camp. I’ve brought along a sixteen ounce flask of Tullamore Dew for celebrating the completion of my quest, catching a Golden Trout out of Cup Lake. I’ve also brought a T-bone steak, salad and a large baking potato to celebrate my separation from the army

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and the beginning of my journey. I cover the potato in mud he put it into the coals of the fire.

An hour later in the firelight I’m feasting on steak, baked potato, salad and four ounces of Irish whiskey in celebration.

I swallow the last spoon full of oatmeal, and follow it with the remaining few ounces of coffee.

I clean and pack up the cooking gear, burn my trash then pour a pot full of water on the camp fire. I roll up my sleeping bag, cram it into its waterproof stuff sack and tie it to the bottom of my pack frame. I take down the lean-to, fold up the nylon fly and put it into the top of the pack bag. I roll up the sleeping pad and lay it on top of the nylon fly and pull the cover of the bag tight. The quarter inch nylon rope that held up the lean-to I coil up and put in the smaller bottom compartment of my pack bag.

I lock the Scout and sit down on the ground, slide my arms into the pack harness and climb to my feet. I adjust the shoulder straps and cinch up the hip belt of my pack.

“Let’s go Georgie. That’s a good name for you, Georgie.” I say as I pick up the raft. It’s a deep knee bend with sixty pounds on my back. My legs are strong so I am able to get down fairly easily. But, the weight and awkwardness of the raft nearly pulls me off my feet. I barely manage to keep my balance.

I pick up my left foot, move it forward and plant the well-oiled size ten D hiking boot on the trail then follow it with the right and head up the trail. “I love to go a wandering along a mountain track…” I sing ‘till the weight of the pack and raft press the song out of me. I carry the raft in

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my left hand for a while then switch it to my right shifting the weight as I walk.

A half hour up the trail I’m breathing hard. I stop and look around. I know not to admire the scenery as I walk, I need to look where I will put my feet. Carrying eighty pounds of baggage, one misstep could leave me with a twisted ankle or worse. The scenery isn’t much any way, it’s still sage brush. I take a pull from my canteen then continue up the trail more slowly than I’d like. The raft is even more of a burden than I thought it would be. It is a lot of added weight. It is also very unwieldy and hard to carry.

It’s noon and I’m in a grove of aspens next to a small stream. In three hours I’ve come only three miles instead of the five I’d estimated when planning this trip. The burden and awkwardness of the raft are really slowing me down.

I put the raft down and take off my pack, drop down on the ground, and pull jerky, gorp and my canteen out of my pack. I take a big drink from the canteen and a bite of jerky followed by a handful of gorp.

“Well Georgie girl, you’re really holding me back.” I say through the mouth full of food.

The summer sun is high and warm. I’m tired. Drifting into a state of near-sleep, my mind regurgitates the encounter with the self-righteous anti-war protesters. The remembered anger startles and provokes me. With the adrenaline roused by anger, I pick the pack off the ground as if it weighed twenty pounds instead of sixty. I shove my arms under the shoulder straps, thrust the two pieces of the chest strap buckle together and slam the buckle to the hip belt together.

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Then I lean down and snatch up the raft and stride up the trail trying to fill my head with the

smell of the mountains.

Slowed by weight of the raft, I reach my first campsite an hour and a half later than originally

planned. There is a mostly level spot for the lean-to and a stream nearby for water. I put down

the raft, get out of my pack and set up camp. I change into my camp booties and get my fishing

gear out. I want to catch a couple of Brookies to augment my freeze dried supper.

The three pieces of my rod put together, I attach the reel to it, thread the line through the guides

and grab a box of flies. The creek has a beaver pond on it about eighty yards upstream. I tie a

#16 black gnat to the end of the leader and head up-stream to the beaver pond.

I wade into the water on the down-stream side of the beaver dam. The cold makes my feet ache a little, but my heavy wool socks and nylon booties keep it bearable. Raising my head above the dam I look for any surface activity. I see the dimple of a rise twenty feet away and slightly to my right. Standing up just enough so my false cast clears the willows surrounding the pond, the fly drops about two feet beyond where the rise had been. I let the ripples from the cast fade away then start a dead slow hand twist retrieve. Three feet into the retrieve an eight inch Brookie takes the fly. I ease the fish to the dam and lift it out of the water and over the dam to my side. I grab the fish and smack its head on a rock to kill it, thread a willow stick through its gills and out its mouth, put the fish in a safe spot and cast again. I catch eight more Brookies but only keep four, two each for supper and breakfast. The others I release into the stream below the dam.

After Supper I change out of my wet booties and socks and hang them up to dry. I straighten up camp and build a comfort fire close to the lean-to. Lying down near the fire I use the raft as a

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pillow. In my mind I discuss the best way to use the raft, the best way to deploy the sea anchor,

how to paddle and fish at the same time.

The sun has gone down so I pull the raft into my shelter, take off my boots and climb into my

sleeping bag. The inside of the sleeping bag finally warms up, so I take off my clothes and use

them for a pillow. Rolling over I pull the raft to me and snuggled up to it.

The day dawns clear and bright, a repeat of the previous one. I fix and eat breakfast and study

the cliff-like hillside I have to climb. The map shows the canyon wall to be about two hundred

feet high and the trail going to the top about a mile and a half of switch backs.

It is 7:30 when I find an easy ford across the creek above the beaver pond. The creek banks are gently sloped and the creek runs over a piece of flat smooth rock. I put the raft down, take off

my pack, and then sit down and take off my boots and socks. I stuff the socks into the boots and

tie the boots together and hang them around my neck. I pull the pack frame up onto my back,

pick up the raft bag and cross the stream barefoot. On the other side of the stream I put my socks

and boots back on and head toward the canyon wall.

About one hundred yards from the creek the trail starts to angle to the left and head up the steep

cliff-like canyon side. The trail is narrow. The footing is tricky, there are many loose rocks and

parts of the trail have been washed out.

I am forced to carry the raft in front of me like a very large, gray, sack of groceries. There isn’t

room enough between me and the canyon wall to carry it in my left hand. When I try to carry the

raft in the other it wants to pull me over the edge.

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With the gray mass in front of me I can’t see the trail. I have to feel it with my feet. I pick up my back foot and lightly put it down in front of and touching the other one. Then I gently slide it

forward feeling the trail for a full stride, my back leg holds all my one hundred sixty pounds and

the eighty pounds of gear. Then I repeat it.

This climb is a will check. There is no place to put the raft down and slake my intense thirst.

My arms are aching from holding the raft.

About an hour into the climb and about half way up the canyon wall my lead foot slides into a

wash out and I lose my balance. I throw the raft away from me and lean into the canyon wall. It

offers stabilization and a rock outcrop to hang onto while I find my footing.

With my arms now free I reach for my canteen. It’s a challenge because they are almost too tired

to work. I force myself to drink slowly as I turn on the trail and spot the raft about half way

between me and the bottom of the canyon wedged between two rocks. I decide to climb to the

top of the mesa, leave my pack and then climb back down and retrieve the raft.

At the top of the mesa I drop my pack and sprawl on the ground and drink slowly from my

canteen. I eat some jerky and gorp and rest for half an hour, then go back down the trail to

retrieve the raft. When I get there I scold it, “Georgie! You gigantic molded over dog turd! You

damn near killed me!”

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Back at the top I rest another half hour. At about12:30 I put the pack on my back, cinch it up, pick up the heavy raft and start the hike across the mesa into the next drainage.

I trudge up the creek another three miles before making camp. It is about 3:30, early for camp but a storm is rolling in and I’m all but spent.

I build my camp. The lean-to is open to the east about thirty yards down off the ridge line in the pines. Using a little plastic garden trowel, I trench around the camp site to offer any water another way to go. About a half hour later the storm opens up with heavy artillery. The first round of thunder and lightning are close, violent. There is no time-lapse between the flash and bang. My ears ring. “Shit! Incoming!” I scream dropping flat on the ground. “Thunder.” I say when I realize where I am and get back up. There are five lightning strikes near me in the first ten minutes. The rain, when it gets here, is heavy and hard. It sounds like automatic weapons fire as it ricochets off the taught nylon shelter.

The storm moves on.

16That night I keep the camp fire going late drinking tea and thinking about my response to the tempest. “That was some storm wasn’t it Georgie girl?” When I finally shake the anxiety I climb into my sleeping bag and pull the raft bag tight to me.

In the morning I ford the creek and start the slog up the ridge to drop into Cat Creek drainage.

On the other side of the ridge the trail leads into a stand of black timber, lodge pole pines growing so close together that very little light gets through to the ground. The trail weaves its way into it. Dead trees lay across the trail forcing me to detour around them. I feel I have to

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turn sideways every third step. Branches reach out and grab at my pack, a deadfall snags the raft. “Georgie, Leave the damn trees alone” I holler. Half a dozen times I have to leave the raft, work my way across twenty five to fifty yards of deadfall, take off the pack, go back and get the raft and work my way back through the maze a second time. It takes me two and a half hours to fight my way through the timber, my face and arms bleeding from the many cuts and scratches inflicted by the trees.

On the other side I find a sunny spot out of the wind behind a big rock. I drop the raft, take off my pack, flop down on the sparse grass and pull out my canteen. I take a long, healthy drink, then another, then a third.

I rest about twenty minutes then slowly get up to resume the day’s hike. I look around for the trail but can find no trace of it, no worn ground, no stone cairn markers, nothing. Somewhere in the timber the trail disappeared.

“Georgie! You sack of shit! You’ve made me loose the trail,”

Frustrated, I take my pack off again and I get out my compass and map. There are two mountains in front of me that I can find on the map. I orient the map for true north and use the compass to shoot an azimuth to each peak then draw a back azimuth from each of the peaks on the map. Where the two lines cross is my location. The map shows the trail about a quarter mile up-hill from where I am. I put the map and compass away, pull the pack up onto my back, hoist the raft and head for the trail.

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About two in the afternoon a rain shower rolls in. I’m Weary from the exertion of having to

fight my way through the black timber twice and not thinking clearly.

“Just barrel through the last two miles,” I think to himself. “What’s a little rain?”

In ten minutes I’m soaked to the skin. Twenty minutes later I’m shivering hard.

“Hypothermia is setting in, I better do something quickly.” I say out loud.

Up the trail I see a small line shack made of logs. I toss the raft in and crawl in after. It’s full of

hay. I take off my pack and unroll the sleeping bag.

“I better get these wet clothes off.” I stammer.

Shaking badly, I take them off and fill them with hay to dry them out. I dry off my quivering body with hay and climb into the bag, then break out the jerky and gorp to help stoke my fire.

I’m shivering almost uncontrollably and trying to stuff gorp into my mouth with hands and arms

I can barely control. With all the hay I can’t use my stove to heat water for a hot meal or drink, but the sleeping bag and food are warming me up. With the exhausting hike and the added stress of hypothermia I drift toward sleep. Shivering less, I nestle deeper into my bag and the hay

pulling the raft close.

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The line shack is in Gordon Creek drainage. Cup and Saucer lakes are just six miles up-stream.

I hike along above it, the sides of the ravine are steep and the trail runs along the top. As I get farther upstream the creek becomes very narrow and filled with car sized boulders, the water flows around and under them. Dead, two foot diameter spruce trees are strewn across it like so many pick-up-sticks.

As I get closer to Cup and Saucer Lakes I look for a way across. About a quarter mile below the lakes I can look over and see the flat area where I want to set up camp.

Up the trail about a fifty yards, I find a game trail angling down into the ravine. After my experience with the canyon wall, I decide to leave the raft and come back for it after I find a way across. “Wait here Georgie,” I Say to the raft wedging it between two large boulders. I work my way down the game trail watching where I place my feet and leaning into the side of the ravine.

At the bottom, I study the boulders looking for a possible way across. I examine each rock looking for a way up and over. After half an hour I think I see a way. Reaching up I grab hold of a sturdy limb attached to one of the dead trees. I use it to pull myself up on top of the boulders. Once on top I lean into the higher upstream boulder to steady myself as I work my way from boulder to boulder to the opposite bank.

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I take a breather and a couple of drinks from my canteen. I secure my pack and work my way back over the rocks and up the game trail to retrieve the raft.

Back at the bottom of the ravine I toss the raft up to get it onto the boulder. It slides back down and hits me on the head, stunning me and leaving a goose egg.

“You God Damn Bitch!” I roar and slam the raft into the rock.

My fourth try puts the raft on top of the boulder. I grab the branch and pull myself up after it. I work my way across the boulders again. “Here’s home for a while.” I say tossing the raft onto the grass on the opposite shore and step over.

The area I have chosen as my campsite is park-like with tall, orange barked ponderosa pines interspersed across the flat. Several rills seep out of Saucer Lake, run across the flat and join

Gordon Creek.

I set up my lean-to about ten yards from one of the rills between two ponderosa pines with the opening facing east. I complete my camp chores, stuff my fly box and reel into my collapsible nylon day bag, grab my rod and head out to recon the lake.

A trail leads through the pines in the general direction of the lake so I follow it.

When I reach Saucer Lake I find what I had expected, a chute about fifty yards wide by one hundred fifty yards long. It catches the overflow from Cup Lake. “No trout here. It’s too shallow to support fish over winter.”

The trail continues along the right side of the lake as I face it. Setting my feet carefully I climb up through the scree that borders the lake.

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The part of Cup Lake farthest from the mountain side pushes out in an arc. The shores of the

lake reaching out from the mountain are about two hundred yards long giving it an abbreviated

circular shape. There are no trees around the lake, just granite boulders and scree. The water is

clear. I can see boulders on the bottom and golden trout swimming around them.

I put my fingers into it, they ache almost immediately. “Damn that’s cold.” I say yanking them

out.

The dam face that had once been the leading edge of the glacier that formed the lake seems to be

the best place to cast from.

I put my fly rod together, work my way out there and tie a #16 mayfly nymph to the end of my

tippet.

The breeze is fairly stiff and gusting. On my first cast the wind blows the line and fly back into

me and the fly hooks on my shirt. I work it free and try again, backhand this time. The wind blows it into the rocks. “This is for the birds.” I say.

On my third try I am able to get the fly out about twenty feet. The fish ignore it. I change to a

#18 caddis nymph. A few casts later I get that fly into the water. Again, indifference from the

fish. I try stone fly nymphs and small streamers, all with no effect.

Casting is as difficult as I had expected it to be. I was able to get only one in eight casts where I

wanted to put it.

“Looks like Georgie might be worth the effort it took to get her here.” I say.

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After climbing down from the lake I prepare my freeze dried chicken and rice, build a camp fire and think about the easiest way to get the raft up to the lake.

“The only way that makes any sense is to carry you up to Cup Lake and inflate you there.” I say to the raft laying near me.

Even with the exertions of the day I don’t fall asleep easily. It is well-passed midnight when my brain gives up adjusting my cast for the wind and searching Lee Wulff and Ray Bergman for clues on what hatch to match.

I wake up with the first pink shadings of the dawn. I break the ice from the edge of the rill to collect water and boil it for coffee and breakfast. I eat and clean up quickly.

“Let’s get this show on the road.” I say

I stuff my reel, fly box, some jerky, and gorp into the day bag. I attach the rod case to the back of my belt and hook my canteen on as well.

“Up you go, Georgie.” I say hoisting the raft onto my right shoulder.

I hike up through the pines stopping every hundred yards or so to change shoulders. The scree between Saucer and Cup Lakes holds my attention. I look for sure footing among the loose stones and make sure each foot placement is solid before I transfer my weight.

The morning is still cold and windy when I reach the lake. I find a sheltered spot in the lee of some large boulders. “A fire would be nice.” I say to myself. I collect some dry wood and build one.

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I study the lake looking for clues about what fly to use. I can see no surface action because of

the wind generated waves. I move closer to the water and start turning over rocks and use a small dip net to scoop up samples of squirming insect life. What I find most of is a small, #18, bluish mayfly larvae.

My fly box has three mayfly nymph patterns. I have olive, brown and gray but no blue. Gray is the closest I have. So, I tie a # 18 gray mayfly nymph on to the end of my tippet. I put the set up rod in a secure niche in the rocks where it won’t be knocked over and damaged, add some wood to the fire and turn my attention to the raft.

“OK Georgie girl, let’s get you ready for action.” I say to the bag as I unzip it, pull out the raft and unfold it. As I lift the last fold I see the broken pump and the jagged hole it had cut in the main air tube. The raft is beyond repair. It is useless.

“You God Damned faithless whore!” I scream at it.

Angry and frustrated I give it a kick strengthened with pent up rage and anxiety. The kick lifts the raft off the ground, a gust of wind catches it and it blows on to the warming fire. I’m slow to react. The fire melts and ignites the vinyl. Soon it is sending an oily black sacrificial plume skyward. Emotionally drained, I throw the broken pump and paddle and bag on the fire as well.

I sit down and watch the raft as it melts and is consumed by the fire. I sit for a long time staring through the fire not focusing on anything, my mind numb. My soul opens up and sobs explode from me and tears cascade off my chin. I cry for an hour and a half, emptying myself.

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The fire burns to nothing and goes out. I cover the ash with rocks, gather up my rod and its case, canteen and day bag then stumble down the trail toward camp. Racking sobs and flowing tears make for a slow decent. I trip a dozen times, fall twice, banging my knees and hands pretty badly. Somehow I manage to not damage my rod or reel.

In camp I pull out my canteen and the flask of Tulamore Dew for the victory celebration. I climb into my sleeping bag boots, clothes and all. I drink water from the canteen, then start sipping the whiskey from the flask. I drink all twelve ounces of the whiskey then fall asleep.

Much later the booze has worked its way through my system and I wake up. Aware of nothing but the sound of my heart beating I go back to sleep.

The iron gray rod of clouds to the east starts to glow red, the color of molten Steel. The sun comes up, its rays bouncing off the mica in the granite like sparks in a forge, appropriate for the

4th of July.

The sun shining in my eyes and the squabbling of a pair of Canadian Jays wake me up. I push my way out of the sleeping bag

John Denver’s lyrics burst from my soul like the cry of a newborn.

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“He was born in the summer of his twenty seventh year

Coming home to a place he’d never been before

He’d left yesterday behind him, you might say he’d been born again

You might say he’d found a key for every door

But the Colorado Rocky mountain high

I’ve seen it rain fire in the sky

The shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullaby

Rocky Mountain high, Colorado”

I heat water, take off my clothes and use a bar of soap and a terry cloth rag to wash off all the accumulated blood and grime.

I get a fresh set of clothes out of a stuff sack and put them on

I fire up the camp stove to boil water for coffee and breakfast.

For the first time I notice how tasteless the freeze-dried eggs really are.

The sun is shining brightly and the morning has warmed up. I heat more water for tea and put

Neosporin on my cuts and scrapes.

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I put my fly tying kit in the nylon day bag. I take it and my tea and walk over to a downed

ponderosa pine in a park-like area near camp. Near the log I find the remains of a blue grouse.

There are bluish feathers in a five foot circle. The cape is mostly in one piece. I pick it up and put it in the day bag.

I hear the marmots up in the rocks whistling to each other.

The sun warms my back and shines over my shoulder lighting the vise. I take out the tying vise and pound its nail like end into the log then clamp a small nymph hook into it. I take a Sip of my tea and rummage through the kit looking for gray tying thread. I suck the thread through the

bobbin’s tube then wrap the gray thread on to the hook all the way to the bend. I pull a feather

with a lot of blue in it from the grouse neck, remove three hackle fibers and tie them in as a tail.

I tie one of the bluer hackles in at the bend.

The sun is warming my back and loosening all the knots in it.

I wrap some very fine lead from the base of the hook up to the eye and follow it with the tying thread.

I notice several humming birds feeding in a patch of red-orange Indian paintbrush.

I riffle through my kit and find some light gray body fur and spin it onto the thread and cover most of the shaft of the hook with it, build a heavier thorax, then work the fur coated thread up to the eye and tie it in.

The late morning sun has warmed the pine trees and their scent fills the area.

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I grab the blue feather with my hackle pliers and wrapped it around the body back up to the eye where I tie it in. I whip finish the head, then put a drop of head cement on the thread at the eye to hold it all together.

“A nice blue mayfly nymph.”

I make five more nymphs then make six #18 dry blue mayflies. I hope it will match the hatch I saw at the lake.

It is almost lunch time and I want some fresh brook trout. I build a six foot leader from tippet material and tie it to a limber aspen stick about as big around as a ball point pen. To the other end of the leader I tie a small elk hair caddis. I work my way down Gordon creek ‘till I find a small pool deep enough to hold fish. I edge the stick out over the water and skitter the fly across the surface and am rewarded with a six inch brook trout.

I catch three more the same size and take them back to camp and roast them on a stick, like hot dogs, over an open fire of aspen with salt, pepper and margarine and eat them with biscuits nibbling the delicate meat off the bones. It’s delicious, fresh and flavorful.

I’ve been dozing in the sun. A storm rolls in. I hunker down under the lean-to with my tea to wait it out. The lightning strikes are close, the immediate and very loud thunder is a bit startling.

The rain is heavy and loud against the rubberized nylon fly but only rain, cold and wet.

Listening to the storm, I remember that the wind usually drops off before sun down. That would give me an hour or so to fish before it gets dark.

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When the storm blows away I tape a gauze pad to my right palm, grab my gear and day bag and head for the trail to the lake.

It takes me an hour to switch back through the wet scree up to Cup Lake. The sun is hovering just above the peaks to the west throwing long shadows across the lake. I take off my day bag

and canteen and assemble my rod. I attach the reel to it and thread the line through the guides.

I still see no activity on the surface. Because I have no idea whether a nymph or a dry will be more successful, I attach one of the blue dry mayfly I tied to end of the tippet. Then I tie a four foot length of 5X tippet to the bend of the dry fly. To the other end I tie one of the Blue mayfly

nymphs.

I stoop as low as I can so I don’t spook the fish and work my way to my left so I won’t have the

mountain behind me to mess with my back cast. As I get out to where I want to cast from, the

sun is sitting on top of the western peaks, the wind dies off and the surface of the lake becomes a

mosaic with the dimples of feeding trout. I let out some line, make three false casts, the line

sings as it moves through the guides, and drop the flies thirty feet out in the midst of several

dimples. I gather in the slack and start a slow hand twist retrieve. The fly only moves two feet

when it disappears into one of the dimples. I lift the rod tip to vertical and set the hook. Easing

the pressure off the line, I let the fish take some from my left hand. I want to fight it from the

reel.

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The tip of my rod is in a deep bend and bouncing with life. This fish seems to be too big for the fine tippet. I let him have line but make him work for it. After a few minutes I can feel it tire, so

I start cranking line back onto the reel. Five minutes later I find out why the fish was fighting so hard. It isn’t just one fish. There is a trout on each fly. When I finally get them up on the rocks I have a twelve inch, one pound golden trout on each fly.

I admire the beautiful fish for a minute or so then shake the hooks loose and released them.

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Physical Therapy

I’m waiting for an orderly to help me to the fourth floor for my 2:00 P.M. physical therapy

appointment with Karl Freud. I commented on the P.T.’s name on my first visit. Though I’m

sure he’d heard it a thousand times Karl had smiled and acknowledged the comment.

The chrome and Naugahyde chair I’m sitting in is near the elevators in the lobby of the V. A.

Medical Center. I enjoy coming here. I feel comfortable here. It is efficient and well-run. I rarely have to wait for a scheduled appointment. Everyone is courteous, if not downright kind and very helpful. They are respectful almost to the point of over doing it.

My hands are resting on the cane between my Knees. The skin on them is parchment like and

covered with brown age spots. I’ve taped two small L. E. D. flashlights to the cane. One is

mounted high and at a slight angle out from the cane to illuminate out in front of me the other is

mounted low to light up where the cane is going so I won’t put it down on something unstable.

When did I get old?

I have never talked with the others here, especially the Vietnam Vets, but I watch them while I

wait. The younger ones, my son’s age, are veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, the ones my age are

Vietnam Vets, the older ones from the Korean War. There are hardly any WWII vets around anymore.

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I feel a twinge of compassion when I see someone missing an arm, or with an obvious prosthesis,

especially on the younger ones. I presume them to be from combat. The older ones with

obviously new amputations I speculate to be the result of diabetes. Quite a few have bad teeth

from lack of care. The ones in wheel chairs have, what I guess to be, a wife pushing the chair.

There are younger people escorting what I figure to be an ageing parent. I see a lot of young

women.

Some wear baseball caps proclaiming them to be a veteran of Korea or Vietnam. Some have unit

pins identifying the 1st Cav. Or the 101st Airborne or the Marine Corps. There seem to be a lot

of Marines. But, I’ve never seen anyone wearing a 9th Infantry Div. patch or pin.

A guy sits down next to me. He’s about my age but in better shape. He walked over to the chair

with a ramrod straight back and a purposeful gait and sat down without having to grab the arm to balance himself.

He turns to me and says “first visit. To get a baseline. You?”

I answer him. “This is the sixth since my stroke.”

The other fellow sticks out his hand. “Mike Wilson.” He says.

“Sid Galloway.” I say as I shake the outstretched hand.

“What branch of the service were you?” Mike asks.

“Army”.

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“Me too” Says Mike. “What unit?

“709th Maintenance Battalion 9th Infantry Division”

“I’m 9th ID as well. 5th battalion 60th Infantry.” Says Mike. “Where were you stationed?”

“I was there for two years. Ben Luc for the first and Tan An for the second.”

When were you there?” Asks Mike.

“November ’68 through October’70” I say.

“Where you in Ben Luc in March of ‘69” Asks mike.

“Yes. Why?”

“My platoon and I were in some of those Hueys that responded to the attack on your base camp that night.” Says Mike.

“A sincere if much belated thanks! I lost a couple of friends in that attack.”

“For REMFs you guys seemed to have held your own.” Says Mike.

“It’s amazing how determined you can become and how much of your combat training you remember when your life is on the line.” I open up. I haven’t talked to anyone about my experiences in Vietnam since I got back. “One of my friends was awarded the Silver Star for his actions during that battle.” I continue. “I heard he drowned on a fishing trip to Montana a couple of years later.”

“We took no casualties that night. They had all didi maued out of there after the artillery and

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gunships worked them over. Our job was to secure the area and do a body count.” Replied Mike.

“Where do you live?” I ask.

“Gretna. I retired from the Army after twenty and have been selling real estate since.” Replied

Mike. “What about you?

I have a small orchard between Missouri Valley and Mondamin over in Iowa.”

“Time to go.” Says Mike. “I don’t want to be late for the doctor” He heads off for the Blue clinic.

An orderly shows up with a wheel chair and holds it steady while I rise from the chair with the help of my cane and turn around, reach back, grab the arms of the chair and lower myself in to it.

The orderly wheels me over to the elevators and pushes the up button.

That wasn’t at all painful like I’d imagined.

We wait as an elevator descends from the tenth floor.

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