A collection of photo illustrated war and post war vignettes, short stories, war nightmares, war poetry and travel writing by a Vietnam combat medic. Site includes war related videos and documents. There is some harsh language.
First published in Ragaire Literary Magazine Winter, Issue 2, Autumn/Winter 2024
Made drowsy by the stifling air inside the converted American school bus, I caught the guidebook as it slipped from my grasp, sat up, and continued reading. “Few tourists visit its lovely beach of dark volcanic sand,” claimed the well-traveled author. “From Tegucigalpa, a worthwhile trip to this part of El Salvador.” Setting the book down, I listened to the quick steps of the boy who scurried across the roof. I imagined the child securing items passengers hoisted to him with nylon rope: the sacks of grain, boxes of fruit, bundles of clothes, chickens in wicker baskets. Satisfied that each item held fast, the boy adeptly swung through the rear door and methodically made his way down the narrow center aisle.
“Boletas!” he called out. “Boletas!”
The bus held fifty passengers. Each seat was taken.
At my turn, I handed him my ticket. Quickly, quickly the child, not more than ten, ripped the paper square apart, returned one half to me, momentarily studied my sleepy American face, my American traveler’s clothes, and moved on.
“Boletas!”
The driver, a thin short-haired man, reluctantly flung his cigarette out the window and started the engine. A sooty black plume jetted from the rusted tail pipe. The overloaded vehicle lurched forward.
Once the bus had passed the city’s squalid barrios, modern high rises, the Honduran army’s ubiquitous sandbag check points, at each small town where the bus pulled in, frantic young men poked snacks impaled on wood sticks through the open windows or surged inside. “Coka! Coka!” they shouted. Made thirsty by the relentless heat, nearly all the passengers – mostly peasants returning to their communities – bought the warm sugary drinks, eagerly guzzling them down. With confident hands the slim youths collected the empty bottles and placed them in worn wood crates, departed the vehicle, assembled themselves on the curb and waited for the next packed transport to arrive.
Hours – or was it years later – standing outside the sweltering bus, I called to the boy. “The blue one,” I said, pointing to the heavy canvas ruck. “El azul.”
Dragging my pack to the roof’s edge, the sweating child tilted it haphazardly into my outstretched arms.
“Donde está El Tamarindo?” I asked.
The boy pointed to a dirt road which led through a forest. Beyond it, the seaside town, once, it was said, a hub of guerilla activity.
I searched in my pants’ pockets, grasped a handful of coins and watched the child’s small hand curl upon the curved money.
“Gracias,” he said, and before he disappeared inside the bus, which would return tomorrow, flashed a smile.
Hoisting the pack to my shoulders, I plodded forward. At a bend in the road an immense pig, submerged in a pool of mud, startled by my footsteps, raised its snout, grunted loudly and sniffed the air. I approached the animal. Playfully, I mimicked its coarse guttural voice, looked straight into its human-like eyes. The bewildered creature roused itself up, pawed at the rich brown muck and wagged its hideous porcine head, shook its immense body defiantly and plumped itself down.
“You win,” I muttered. And again, with a sort of kindness I sometimes summon, “You win.” One mile past the town plaza and small family shops, past the ubiquitous comedors whose small kitchens offered inexpensive meals lay the secluded harbor, just as the guidebook foretold, where five wooden trawlers lay anchored, fishing gear neatly stowed on their decks, wavelets softly slapping their white painted prows. A lone gull sailed overhead.
The clear blue sky, the cooling breezes, the comforting calmness of it all, brought back memories of six pleasant days in Saigon. I recalled how thousands of bicyclists silently pedaled their identical black bicycles along the tree-lined boulevards. I recollected the bustling outdoor markets selling all manner of goods, the delightful French style cafes, the fantastical neon night life. On my last evening in town, the bright lit street went suddenly quiet, the girl on my arm casually drifted away. A sudden terrific whooossh, a deafening roar, the force of the blast knocking me down. Dazed, bleeding heavily, I managed to half-stand, half-crawl into an open doorway. The Viet Cong were everywhere and nowhere. * * * The pleasing crunch of my sandals on the black volcanic sand mingled pleasantly with the tides eternal roll and retreat. As I had hoped, the beach was deserted. I found a tree-shaded spot and slipped off the heavy ruck, placed my valuables inside it. I stripped, put on my swim trunks, unfurled a towel, lay upon it and at last closed my eyes. A moment later I bolted upright.
Of the two little girls approaching, the eldest spoke first. They were sisters, she said. Eight and five years old. The younger girl asked for money. There was no need to explain. The army of El Salvador – backed by the Americans, it was said – had recently signed a truce with the popular guerillas. For more than a decade, government troops had terrorized the people. Thousands had died or were disappeared. Desaparecido. How long would it take for the country to heal? I unzipped the pack, sought my wallet, gave them money.
When the children had gone, for some reason I stood and walked straight into the welcoming sea, which stung and cleansed my traveler’s skin. I waded out, and when the clear cold water reached to my chest, I inhaled three times and ducked beneath its glimmering surface. I grasped my knees to my chest and listened carefully to the mysterious sounds of the ocean, to the slow rhythmic beat of my heart. I imagined that one minute passed. Then two. Little by little my heart rate increased, until it pounded wildly, and my lungs, depleted of air, screamed for mercy. I unfurled my arms, flexed my legs, and with great effort pushed off from the cold sandy bottom. Breaking the surface, water streaming from my hair and body, I shook my head free of water and gasped in great lungfuls of air.
What was that? I opened my eyes to see an army of pigs, prodded by an old man. The muddy leviathan in the lead, was marching straight down the beach toward my irreplaceable blue pack. The grunting swine, nosing about, were sure to trample it. Gouge and chew my passport, money, valuables. Rip and tear my clothes apart. In a panic, I half-swam, half-sprinted to shore, my feet seeming to punch holes in the tranquil water.
The old man seemed puzzled by my panic. “Aqui, es muy tranquilo,” he said, and swept his hand across the cloudless horizon.
I felt like a fool but would not show it. “Si,” I said, catching my breath. “Muy tranquilo.” With a whip-like motion, the pig herder snapped a slender green branch over the gathered pigs, who snorted in unison, then ventured forward, their hundred hooves kicking tufts of fine dark sand into the air. Thirty yards on the old fellow turned and waved to me. I managed a smile and nodded farewell.
After a time, I returned to the water. Leaning backward, arms held wide, legs extended together, I allowed myself to float, uneasily at first. Soon enough, I permitted the rhythmic swells of sunlit waves to buoy me up, set me down. It was lovely. So lovely. I had not known such tranquillity in quite some time. * * * On the way through town I’d noticed a sign in a window for a room to let. “Habitacion,” it had said. Now, walking back from the beach, I decided to inquire of it. An elderly soft-spoken woman came to the door. Yes, the room was available. How long? Okay. Please come in. I asked her name. Marta, she said. Here is the room. I looked about. Sunlight poured in through the large open window. Bed. Sink. Towel. Chair. Exactly what I hoped for.
After paying Marta for the night I walked to the plaza, found a place for a meal, ate and admired the crowd gathering nearby.
Every year, on September 15th, Central America celebrates its independence from Spain. In Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama – each the object of American trespass – the people, no matter how hard the blows to their lives, for hours on end joyfully celebrate their liberty. Even here, in backwater, volcanic sand, pig-infested El Tamarindo, fireworks, dancing and drinking will mark El Día de la Independencia. To maintain order, it is claimed, the army – El Ejercito – will keep a watchful eye on the celebrants.
I could not help but notice how the local men and women strode defiantly past the heavily armed soldiers who ringed the plaza. How confidently they danced to festive music which blared from mounted speakers. I felt transported by their thrown back heads, flashing smiles, the graceful women’s swirling skirts.
My camera. I had forgotten my camera. Left it in my pack on the narrow bed. Oh well. Years from now I would relive in my mind the arduous trip, the quaint town, the rocking boats, the little girls and army of pigs, this night of yearly freedom.
At the first explosion I dropped to the pavement, all the better to hide and steal away. Repeatedly, there came flashes of white light, ear-splitting crack bangs, a cloud of fluttering shrapnel. At each concussive blast, involuntarily I cringed or wheeled about, terrified, searching, where are they? Too much liquor, the gleeful Salvadorans must be thinking. Why else would a gringo do that? Their children continued to ignite the handmade fuses.
“Uno! Dos! Tres!” they shouted and flung the crimson spheres into the night air.
CrackBANG!
Bombas, they are called. Their one ounce of silvery gunpowder tightly wrapped in newsprint and topped with red tissue, explodes with a blinding flash, a burst of harmless confetti. CrackBANG! Surrounded by armed uniformed soldiers, traveling backward in time, I heard once more the far away boom of enemy mortar shells. Heard them soar overhead, beheld their fiery blasts, feared once more the whirling jagged steel that could tear men in half. “Look to the left!” the lieutenant shouted when the enemy suddenly opened fire. “Look to the left! They’ll try to outflank us!” He slumped forward. Someone knelt beside him.
“Que pasa, amigo? Too much to drink? Amigo, are you all right?”
I opened my eyes, stood up and thanked the young stranger. “Si,” I said. “Estoy bien.”
Somehow I found my way to the colorful booth near where the children had flocked to buy their fireworks.
“Cuánto?” I asked the woman behind the counter.
“Cinco pesos,” she said, and pointed with pride to a shelf of short-necked bottles. I purchased one bottle, removed the cap, and drank half the liquor. What next? Somewhat unsteadily I strode past the soldiers back to the plaza.
In my simple Spanish, as I swayed slightly and pointed skyward, I asked the children,
“Will you share your toys with me? Will you allow me to show you what I can do?”
“A las estrellas?” asked an astonished child.
“But of course!” I said. “I will throw them…to the stars!”
The children clapped wildly. With the civil war ended, the sight of drunken adults was not uncommon. But a gringo in such a state? A gringo?
“A las estrellas!” they shouted. And again, “Las estrellas!”
Until the festival lights dimmed, the soldiers and villagers departed, again and again I lit the paper bombs, hurled them high, witnessed without fear the bright white bang, the prettily fluttering shrapnel.
“Bombas away!” I shouted, and each time laughed loud until tears streamed down my face. How I returned to my little room with its narrow bed I do not know.
The next morning, as I waited for the bus at the far end of town, what stuck in my mind was the goodness of Marta.
“Tranquilo, señor,” she had whispered as I struggled to sleep. “Tranquilo y dulce sueños.”
El Tamarindo
First published in Ragaire Literary Magazine Winter, Issue 2, Autumn/Winter 2024
“Boletas!” he called out. “Boletas!”
The bus held fifty passengers. Each seat was taken.
At my turn, I handed him my ticket. Quickly, quickly the child, not more than ten, ripped the paper square apart, returned one half to me, momentarily studied my sleepy American face, my American traveler’s clothes, and moved on.
“Boletas!”
The driver, a thin short-haired man, reluctantly flung his cigarette out the window and started the engine. A sooty black plume jetted from the rusted tail pipe. The overloaded vehicle lurched forward.
Once the bus had passed the city’s squalid barrios, modern high rises, the Honduran army’s ubiquitous sandbag check points, at each small town where the bus pulled in, frantic young men poked snacks impaled on wood sticks through the open windows or surged inside. “Coka! Coka!” they shouted. Made thirsty by the relentless heat, nearly all the passengers – mostly peasants returning to their communities – bought the warm sugary drinks, eagerly guzzling them down. With confident hands the slim youths collected the empty bottles and placed them in worn wood crates, departed the vehicle, assembled themselves on the curb and waited for the next packed transport to arrive.
Hours – or was it years later – standing outside the sweltering bus, I called to the boy. “The blue one,” I said, pointing to the heavy canvas ruck. “El azul.”
Dragging my pack to the roof’s edge, the sweating child tilted it haphazardly into my outstretched arms.
“Donde está El Tamarindo?” I asked.
The boy pointed to a dirt road which led through a forest. Beyond it, the seaside town, once, it was said, a hub of guerilla activity.
I searched in my pants’ pockets, grasped a handful of coins and watched the child’s small hand curl upon the curved money.
“Gracias,” he said, and before he disappeared inside the bus, which would return tomorrow, flashed a smile.
Hoisting the pack to my shoulders, I plodded forward. At a bend in the road an immense pig,
submerged in a pool of mud, startled by my footsteps, raised its snout, grunted loudly and sniffed the air. I approached the animal. Playfully, I mimicked its coarse guttural voice, looked straight into its human-like eyes. The bewildered creature roused itself up, pawed at the rich brown muck and wagged its hideous porcine head, shook its immense body defiantly and plumped itself down.
“You win,” I muttered. And again, with a sort of kindness I sometimes summon, “You win.”
One mile past the town plaza and small family shops, past the ubiquitous comedors whose small kitchens offered inexpensive meals lay the secluded harbor, just as the guidebook foretold, where five wooden trawlers lay anchored, fishing gear neatly stowed on their decks, wavelets softly slapping their white painted prows. A lone gull sailed overhead.
The clear blue sky, the cooling breezes, the comforting calmness of it all, brought back memories of six pleasant days in Saigon. I recalled how thousands of bicyclists silently pedaled their identical black bicycles along the tree-lined boulevards. I recollected the bustling outdoor markets selling all manner of goods, the delightful French style cafes, the fantastical neon night life. On my last evening in town, the bright lit street went suddenly quiet, the girl on my arm casually drifted away. A sudden terrific whooossh, a deafening roar, the force of the blast knocking me down. Dazed, bleeding heavily, I managed to half-stand, half-crawl into an open doorway. The Viet Cong were everywhere and nowhere.
* * *
The pleasing crunch of my sandals on the black volcanic sand mingled pleasantly with the tides eternal roll and retreat. As I had hoped, the beach was deserted. I found a tree-shaded spot and slipped off the heavy ruck, placed my valuables inside it. I stripped, put on my swim trunks, unfurled a towel, lay upon it and at last closed my eyes. A moment later I bolted upright.
When the children had gone, for some reason I stood and walked straight into the welcoming sea, which stung and cleansed my traveler’s skin. I waded out, and when the clear cold water reached to my chest, I inhaled three times and ducked beneath its glimmering surface. I grasped my knees to my chest and listened carefully to the mysterious sounds of the ocean, to the slow rhythmic beat of my heart. I imagined that one minute passed. Then two. Little by little my heart rate increased, until it pounded wildly, and my lungs, depleted of air, screamed for mercy. I unfurled my arms, flexed my legs, and with great effort pushed off from the cold sandy bottom. Breaking the surface, water streaming from my hair and body, I shook my head free of water and gasped in great lungfuls of air.
What was that? I opened my eyes to see an army of pigs, prodded by an old man. The muddy leviathan in the lead, was marching straight down the beach toward my irreplaceable blue pack. The grunting swine, nosing about, were sure to trample it. Gouge and chew my passport, money, valuables. Rip and tear my clothes apart. In a panic, I half-swam, half-sprinted to shore, my feet seeming to punch holes in the tranquil water.
I felt like a fool but would not show it. “Si,” I said, catching my breath. “Muy tranquilo.”
With a whip-like motion, the pig herder snapped a slender green branch over the gathered pigs, who snorted in unison, then ventured forward, their hundred hooves kicking tufts of fine dark sand into the air. Thirty yards on the old fellow turned and waved to me. I managed a smile and nodded farewell.
After a time, I returned to the water. Leaning backward, arms held wide, legs extended together, I allowed myself to float, uneasily at first. Soon enough, I permitted the rhythmic swells of sunlit waves to buoy me up, set me down. It was lovely. So lovely. I had not known such tranquillity in quite some time.
* * *
On the way through town I’d noticed a sign in a window for a room to let. “Habitacion,” it had said. Now, walking back from the beach, I decided to inquire of it. An elderly soft-spoken woman came to the door. Yes, the room was available. How long? Okay. Please come in. I asked her name. Marta, she said. Here is the room. I looked about. Sunlight poured in through the large open window. Bed. Sink. Towel. Chair. Exactly what I hoped for.
After paying Marta for the night I walked to the plaza, found a place for a meal, ate and admired the crowd gathering nearby.
Every year, on September 15th, Central America celebrates its independence from Spain. In Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama – each the object of American trespass – the people, no matter how hard the blows to their lives, for hours on end joyfully celebrate their liberty. Even here, in backwater, volcanic sand, pig-infested El Tamarindo, fireworks, dancing and drinking will mark El Día de la Independencia. To maintain order, it is claimed, the army – El Ejercito – will keep a watchful eye on the celebrants.
I could not help but notice how the local men and women strode defiantly past the heavily armed soldiers who ringed the plaza. How confidently they danced to festive music which blared from mounted speakers. I felt transported by their thrown back heads, flashing smiles, the graceful women’s swirling skirts.
My camera. I had forgotten my camera. Left it in my pack on the narrow bed. Oh well. Years from now I would relive in my mind the arduous trip, the quaint town, the rocking boats, the little girls and army of pigs, this night of yearly freedom.
“Uno! Dos! Tres!” they shouted and flung the crimson spheres into the night air.
CrackBANG!
Bombas, they are called. Their one ounce of silvery gunpowder tightly wrapped in newsprint and topped with red tissue, explodes with a blinding flash, a burst of harmless confetti. CrackBANG!
Surrounded by armed uniformed soldiers, traveling backward in time, I heard once more the far away boom of enemy mortar shells. Heard them soar overhead, beheld their fiery blasts, feared once more the whirling jagged steel that could tear men in half. “Look to the left!” the lieutenant shouted when the enemy suddenly opened fire. “Look to the left! They’ll try to outflank us!” He slumped forward. Someone knelt beside him.
“Que pasa, amigo? Too much to drink? Amigo, are you all right?”
I opened my eyes, stood up and thanked the young stranger. “Si,” I said. “Estoy bien.”
Somehow I found my way to the colorful booth near where the children had flocked to buy their fireworks.
“Cuánto?” I asked the woman behind the counter.
“Cinco pesos,” she said, and pointed with pride to a shelf of short-necked bottles. I purchased one bottle, removed the cap, and drank half the liquor. What next? Somewhat unsteadily I strode past the soldiers back to the plaza.
In my simple Spanish, as I swayed slightly and pointed skyward, I asked the children,
“Will you share your toys with me? Will you allow me to show you what I can do?”
“A las estrellas?” asked an astonished child.
“But of course!” I said. “I will throw them…to the stars!”
The children clapped wildly. With the civil war ended, the sight of drunken adults was not uncommon. But a gringo in such a state? A gringo?
“A las estrellas!” they shouted. And again, “Las estrellas!”
Until the festival lights dimmed, the soldiers and villagers departed, again and again I lit the paper bombs, hurled them high, witnessed without fear the bright white bang, the prettily fluttering shrapnel.
“Bombas away!” I shouted, and each time laughed loud until tears streamed down my face. How I returned to my little room with its narrow bed I do not know.
The next morning, as I waited for the bus at the far end of town, what stuck in my mind was the goodness of Marta.
“Tranquilo, señor,” she had whispered as I struggled to sleep. “Tranquilo y dulce sueños.”
My dreams that night were nearly pleasant.
________________
Wikipedia / El Salvador civil war
Video :De La independencia En El Tamarindo 2024
Report of the UN Truth Commission on El Salvador
A photographer’s devastating documentation of El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980s
The People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP)
Ray Bonner / New York Times / El Mozote / 1982
El Mozote: 40 years later victims still calling for justice