Careful

It wasn’t my luck or my keen eyesight

That earned my status in the Corps.

For those around me appreciated those things and this one more;

an ability to have tranquility in the face of death. To look it in the face and say,”Care”.

What else was there to say to the constant possibility in my life?

Pomesan and I were the only grunts I knew during my tour of duty that made it without a purple heart. It was a point of pride with me and I avoided claiming when I had small injuries from combat. The skaters would Purple Heart themselves to get out of action. Being back in Battalion was no guarantee, however, but three purple hearts and you were stateside. That’s where they were going and I wished them Godspeed. Really provoked them. That was my last night drinking hard liquor in Viet Nam. I said as much to “Inky” who had recently joined our platoon. We had been drinking my Mother’s bourbon around an ammo box table in our hooch. He took umbrage at my statement about his purple hearts and got up to shoot me. I was so drunk that I sat there unable to defend myself. A sergeant, more sober than “Inky” and me got up and intercepted him as he put a magazine in his M-16. “Inky” resisted and the sergeant cold cocked him; drove him right down into a cot with one strong fist to the head. “Inky” would have shot me, I’m sure, so I decided my big drinking mouth had to stop. Doobies would have to do me. I wish I remembered that Sergeant’s name but I believe it was “Stormy”.

Another addition to the platoon was Sergeant “Stormy”. He came in like an ill wind. I have a mimeographed sheet he made of all the places he was in in country. It had a large daisy on the page and all the Vietnamese names were written in each petal. He was in his glory as a Marine. He didn’t make my good graces when he tried to kill me on our first nighttime patrol. This village was the first outside the wire from Battalion and hadn’t given ME any bad vibes in my time in. “Stormy” ran our patrol through the heart of that village and made his presence known to many besides me. Slow and meandering we roamed through the village with only “Stormy” speaking in the dark with a loud voice. He had come around to where I was on the other side of a hut when I heard him say,”Lai Dai”, and then the spoon fly on the grenade, I just put my head down on the earth, pressed my body flat, and kissed it all goodbye. The explosion was so close that I didn’t catch a piece of that hot steel. In the deafening silence afterwards, I spoke in a loud and easy voice, “friendlys over here”. He managed to kill one child that night that was wrapped in a shroud on a pier already when we cruised back thru the village at dawn. The villagers remained out of sight. They knew that “Stormy” had little need for provocation to be murderous. Erhman’s reputation preceded him. Funny thing was that Erhman’s reputation wasn’t what Erhman could control. He was lucky like me.

I thought about my luck a lot after close calls. I felt safe with but sad for the men like Erhman who did the actual killing. In Erhman’s case it was all reaction. He thought very slow…like the Minnesota winters were the only thing that could speed him up. The exact opposite of the sandy inland of the sea we patrolled in. He was a straight arrow that ran true to the training. I give him credit for that. He sought out my advice after the first time he shot a man himself; most of the time no one claimed a trophy after a firefight. In individual action, however, it was clear who did what. When Erhman shot that man we were on a squad size patrol going to an island in the paddy for a rest. There was a man in the grove formed by bamboo growing on the edge. I spotted him and called, ”Lai Dai”. He moved away slow then ran into the paddy through the bamboo curtain. Erhman followed first and then me. When I broke through, hearing a gun shot, I looked to Erhman ahead of me. He turned and said that he chased the guy, saw him jump the dike and shot. He said that he fell. I said, “Do you want to go up there? He said,”No.” and we turned back to the little island and joined the others. We moved out in the opposite direction fast and didn’t look back. The report claimed he was a VC tax collector and it made the “Stars and Stripes”. My luck held out that day. We didn’t need to push it any harder.

Erhman wasn’t done with his good luck yet. I was in a bad mood. I’d had to disarm a hand grenade booby trap and dig up a punji pit as well. I stood watch that night in a pure funk. When Erhman’s patrol came in he came over to me to bitch. In a low voice with our cigarettes blazing he recounted the blunder he had made because of the lieutenant. He went out thinking he was in a free fire zone. What he found was a hut with a family in it; in the bunker alongside it to be more precise. He threw a hand grenade into it when he was sure something was in there that was alive and got out of the way. Now a free fire zone says that there are no friendlys where you are going. Shoot anything that moves. When Erhman went into the bunker to check out the damage he was surprised. The parents were dead and their bodies were over their children who were still alive. Gary turned off the flashlight, backed out of the bunker and made his way with his patrol back to the platoon camp seething for the lieutenant’s head. He came to me first. I advised him that there was no winning that one either for himself or the lieutenant. Forget it…learn from your mistake and hope like hell the incident doesn’t make headquarters. He calmed down but wept with me. Sobbing like a twenty-year-old boy would do after doing a terrible thing. He was sorry. I gave him absolution with my words and acceptance.