Bloods (28 page)

I said, “Thank you.”

They had just cut the foot portion off, making me a Syme’s amputee. My leg went just straight down. The ankle joint was still there, and the heel flap was folded over to make a big fist.

When they took me to Japan, I had to go to surgery
twice, because the bone marrow at the stump was rotting, and they wanted to drill some holes in the bone to get the calcium to come down to get it to grow.

I got back to the States on February 8. And when they were taking me from the plane at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia, I saw my mother for the first time. They were carrying me on a litter. And she just got on the litter with me. And she was crying and hugging me.

I had never seen my mother cry before. She was very strong. Very strong.

My mother, she’s a guidance counselor in the junior high school in Millen. She went to Savannah State College and had a master’s degree from Fort Valley State.

I played the trombone in the marching band in high school. I was into sports, too, but I never really got to play. I tried out for basketball, but you didn’t get to play unless you were extremely good or tall. And I was neither. My mother came and just yanked me out of practice. She said, “You know you can’t play basketball. And your nose bleeds besides.”

So I just kept playing the trombone, and when I went to Savannah State, I was in the marching band. Mama started buying me this expensive Conn bass trombone. It was beautiful.

After the first quarter, I told Mama, “I’m not going back to school.”

She said, “Why not? I’ve got your money for the next quarter.”

I said, “I’m in the Army. I volunteered.”

She was stunned. She couldn’t believe it. I had just turned eighteen. It was a very unpopular decision. Small town. Teacher’s son. Parents want you to go to college, get married, buy a home, live happily ever after. The great American dream.

But I wanted to play in the Army band. I had seen them on television and in my hometown. I heard a lot of groups play. But it was just something about those doggone Army bands. I guess the pomp and circumstances.

Before I left for boot camp, Mama told me not to worry if I ended up in the war. She said you could be sitting here in the backyard and you could get killed by a stray bullet. She was very strong.

When I got to Fort Benning, these guys started yelling at you to get in line, do this, and do that, and we don’t even have fatigues yet. I knew then, I ain’t gonna like this man’s army.

I called my mother and I said, “Mama, I don’t think I want to be in the Army. I want to go back to school.”

She said, “Well, I can’t help you. You can’t get out now.”

I thought it would be just that easy. Call Mama, and I’ll go home. But no. It wasn’t that easy.

At the time, I did not know why we were being pushed so, drilled so hard, being brainwashed. Trained in guerrilla warfare. Told the Vietnamese were killers. Told to be prepared to defend yourself 24 hours a day. As you would approach the hills, you would see villages that were just replicas of what they had in Vietnam. As we advanced, even in the classroom setting everything became more and more like a war zone. We would sit in foxholes and eat C-rations. And even at noon, they would have aggressors attack us. It really became warlike.

When I went in, I had a lack of interest in the war. I didn’t even have contact with the war through the media. It was like it wasn’t there. But after a while, I began to see myself almost as a soldier in Vietnam without having been there.

I didn’t get in the Army band. I auditioned at Fort Benning, but they said, “We don’t need any more trombone players. Maybe you can join one when you get to Vietnam.”

And it was strange, because I want to go to Vietnam now, because I want to shoot just one Communist to see how he looks when he falls. That’s stupid as hell, but this is the way they had me programmed. I’ve been playing war games. The Communism wants to captivate our allies. And if we’re going to have allies, then we’re going to have to come to their rescue. I’m an American fighting man. I serve the forces which guard democracy, my country. Gung ho. All the way. Not from enthusiasm, but from training. This is my profession.

When we were approaching Tan Son Nhut airport, I saw some heavy terrain. My fears are coming to play. But we still have on our dress greens, and I’m thinking the
war must be some other place. Then they took us to the 9th Replacement unit nearby, and I hear this
whoosh
. I was told they had a fire mission. Nothing is incoming, but I’m afraid as hell. This is something they can’t train you for back home. You know about the weapons, how to attack a hill. But they don’t train the ears.

I had my first meal in this service club. This lady brought me this half-baked, half-fried chicken. She must have knocked the garlic over on it. I can do without garlic. And there were brothers sitting around in their fatigues, feet up in the chairs, smoking their cigarettes, drinking beer. But I’m thinking with every lift of the fork, When is the top coming off this place?

The first three months in country I was a forward observer. Carried a radio for a sergeant, small as I am, carried a doggone radio, extra battery, grenades, smoke, and an M-16. Suppose to be a mortarman. Helicopters would pick us up for eagle flights in the morning, or we would go on night ambush at night. We would make contact, depending on the strength of the enemy forces, or we would call in artillery or an air strike. I had auditioned for the band at Dau Tieng, and this warrant officer told me if you can get yourself transferred to the band, we’ll take you.

I’m a PFC. How in hell am I going to get myself transferred out of the field in Vietnam?

Excuse me. I didn’t curse until I went to Vietnam. That’s where I learned to curse. Learned to drink. Pabst Blue Ribbon. Learned to smoke. Kools.

One time we were completing a sweep, and we got hit in an ambush. It was maybe one o’clock in the afternoon. After lunch. We were a little sluggish. Smoking cigarettes. On our way to the purple out-zone, where we catch the helicopter to go back in.

We were coming down this old trail. The weeds had grown up. Walking along the hedgerow. And this man opened up with everything he’s got. Grenades. Machine guns. AK-47s. It’s just like
voooom
. It’s on you. I mean they are all over you. About 50 yards out. And I had read it in the book. You approach an area when most of you are going to be killed when they open up the ambush.
They allow you to get in there. The killing zone. We are in the killing zone.

Luckily, the sergeant yelled, “Pull back. Pull back.”

I started running back. I ran by this Mexican-American. With the radio on, I didn’t think of helping him. Somebody would grab him. His glasses was knocked off. His chest was torn open. His mouth was just going. But he wasn’t saying anything. I just saw all this blood and everything.

We called in the Cobras. And after they worked over the area, they went out and got him, and put him in a bag and sent him in.

One night we set up an L-shaped ambush at this crossing outside this village. Charlie is suppose to come down this street. All of a sudden GIs—I guess about 15 of us—are taking off guns, hats, shirts, pants, everything. This place is just loaded with black ants, and they would sting. Man, those ants burnt our behinds up. It was like we were standing in hot water.

We were making so much noise when somebody said, “Here comes Charlie.”

I’m thinking, Well, damn, you know they have to know where we are. They had to hear us.

But they just came walking right on up the trail. I still can’t understand this. We sprung the doggone ambush in our undershorts, supposedly killed four of ’em. And we don’t have no bodies. Haven’t got a damn thing to show for it. You can go out there and see where there was some blood.

I don’t know where these guys go when you kill ’em. It’s just that they just vanish. Somewhere. I don’t know. Maybe the Twilight Zone.

When they moved us from Cu Chi to Dau Tieng, that’s when the shit got bad. The Iron Triangle. Oh, man. That place is not fit for God, let alone man. That was a tough assignment. And after we got pinned down, that’s when I began to rebel.

I mean you have to know my mother. How quiet I was when I grew up. I would do boyish things and get punished. But if Mama said do A and B, I would do A and B and that’s all. I would not tarry over to C’s territory.

Now I’m really afraid. I’m walking around constantly in fear. And I’m thinking about survival first.

Then one night this brother, a medic, has to go out to show his replacement how to get set up on ambush. The brother has been through Tet, all this shit, never been wounded. He rotates out of the field next week to go home. I don’t remember his name, but he was a good guy. The new medic comes in. Big thick mustache, gung ho White guy. Wants to do his job. Brother has got to show him. Luckily I didn’t have to go out that night. They’re gone 20, 30 minutes. We hear boom. That’s all. All of a sudden, rat race. We’ve got to go and get these guys.

They hit a trip wire, artillery round attached to it. The brother is gone and two other guys. The new medic didn’t get a scratch on him. Not one scratch. It was really disheartening on everyone, black and white.

Then one day the entire company is working in that Iron Triangle. In very tall weeds. The darn man must have hit us from behind. We had to figure now how the hell we going to get out. If Charlie had been up high, he could have just picked us off. Apparently he was down on ground level, and they would fire every once in a while to let you know they’re still there.

There is no direct visibility, the weeds are so tall. But from the weeds moving, Charlie knows where we are. And I got on the radio with the damn antenna. And you move, and the darn thing makes a lot of noise. I can’t be quiet.

The rest of the company is standing out of the way, just laughing and saying, “Y’all better get your butts over here. We gettin’ ready to get out of here.”

We decided we would throw grenades, put our guns at our sides, and run like hell. Charlie would shoot at you in a minute. But if you’d run, he’d leave you alone. Charlie didn’t follow you too much over there.

Then this black sergeant pushed me on the shoulder and told me to go first. I told him I was carrying a radio, so I’m not walking point. He turned to some other brother and told him to do it. He said, “I ain’t doin’ it.”

He pushed me again. “Get your ass on up there.”

I said, “I’m not suppose to walk point.”

We stood and argued for a few minutes.

And he said, “Goddammit. Get your ass in the back.”

And he took off. He led the way. Nobody else would do it. I kept my eyes open behind me. And we got out okay.

When I came in country, there were two forward observers like me. So I’m waiting for another guy to come in country, so I can rotate out and don’t have to do this ground pounding. I can sit around reading Mickey Spillane.

When the third guy comes in, Sergeant O’Hanlon, this big Irishman, decides we need three forward observers. That means I don’t get out of the field. I’m highly pissed about it. And he tells me about the heavy shit he’s been through and calls me a coward. I was not. I wanted some equality, to be treated just like he had done my predecessors. And they were all white.

I guess there was this racial tension between us. O’Hanlon is monitoring my daily operation, scrutinizing everything that I do. I was like a thorn in his side. I was just a dangling participle that you don’t know what to do with.

So one night he asked me to go out on ambush with this black sergeant. The one who told me to walk point. I went slugging over there with my radio. The black sergeant said, “You going out with us tonight?”

I said, “Yep.”

“Goddammit. You don’t have to go. You keep your ass here.”

I waited until they got out of sight and walked back to my platoon. O’Hanlon saw me coming. Oh, my goodness. Sergeant O’Hanlon had a fit. He gave me hell for not going. Told me I was a goddamn coward.

I said, “Hell, Sergeant. You can call me anything you want.” I just never was aggressive, and this war is no place to be aggressive in.

All of a sudden, he decided to take me out of the field. He will give me an assignment that’s going to keep me in the back all day. Company barber. That would be my job. I’d never have to go in the field again. But first I would have to cut his hair.

I told him I didn’t know how to cut hair. So I didn’t
want to cut his hair. I had never even seen a white guy get his hair cut.

The sergeant said, “Nope. You gonna be the company barber. You got to cut everybody’s hair. You gonna cut mine first.”

I darn near cried. Here is my chance to have a permanent job out of the field, and I can’t cut this man’s hair.

Johnson put this thing around the sergeant’s neck and gave me these damn clippers and some scissors. Johnson was trying to tell me about comb it up and clip it. Comb and clip. It just didn’t make any sense.

When I finished, it was indescribable. It was terrible.

O’Hanlon cursed me. “You goddamn ass. Look at my head.”

When he cooled down, he said, “You just stay there and work that damn gun.” That’s where I was suppose to rotate to in the first place. That’s what they trained me to be. Mortarman.

After I got to Vietnam, I see the Vietnamese people are some hundred years behind us. People got oxes pulling carts. You know, I’m thinking, something is wrong here. These people have been left behind, and I don’t know why. I just stayed away from them.

One day I did walk through the village that was just outside the wire. Every other evening, it seemed, we’d get sniper fire from the village. Sniper fire, sniper fire, sniper fire. Walk through there, nothing but women and kids. Well, somebody’s shooting at us.

So we got a fire mission to stop the sniper fire. I was the gunner, the one that looks through the sites, sets the elevation and the deflection. We might have fired six rounds from my gun and more from the other two. That was a pretty heavy dropping for this little area. And afterwards, nobody would shoot at us from that village anymore.