First published on CounterPunch on 28 May 2021. I worked on this piece for hours; it worked on me for years.
After eight months, two hundred and forty-four days of patrols, jungle, ambush, monsoon, the occasional firebase perimeter guard, I’m off to a rear job where I’ll sleep in a bed, wear clean clothes, eat hot meals, perform safe menial labor.
Soon the men will stuff their nylon packs with tinned and dehydrated food, water and ammo. They will stagger aboard the trembling choppers, which will rise up, briefly hover, nose left or right, zoom gracefully forward, whisking them high over the beautiful canopy. After a time the choppers will descend, the door gunners will fire into the tree line. As the choppers touch down the anxious grunts will jump out, run forward, drop to the ground—and if there is no shooting, no enemy waiting in ambush–anxiously reassemble. The squad leaders and officers will check their topo maps. Take magnetic compass bearings. The point man will take the first of many steps into the green unknown, followed by the long green line of helmeted men slinking forward into the beautiful maze of infinite jungle.
My replacement is clearly unfit for patching up gun shot or shrapnel stung men writhing in pain. Look at him. He is clumsy, careless, slow at packing the medical gear; knowing how to use it.
“You mean like this? Oh, like this!” he exclaims.
He is too friendly. Too unconcerned with what lies ahead. “Number 10,” the Vietnamese might say, or “No beaucoup.” I help him adjust his nylon Alice pack. Explain the contents of his medical aid bag: the myriad plastic bottles filled with antibiotics, analgesics, antihistamines. The tubes of topical cremes and antifungal ointments. The glass bottle of orange antiseptic. Here is the surgical scissor and rolls of paper tape. Here, in the Claymore bag, worn around the neck, six cotton bandages wrapped in thick transparent plastic. A half dozen morphine syrettes. And I give him my precious forty-five caliber pistol and U.S. Cavalry holster. And wish this man, this clumsy, naive, innocent man taking my place, my platoon, good luck.
One month later third platoon went out on ambush. Spied upon by the enemy as they returned, a hail of small arms and machine gun fire cut down the first four men; the pointman nearly torn in half.
Fact: After an ambush or fire fight unfurls its sudden havoc, after the medevac, hovering overhead, kicks out a canvas litter, it is necessary to settle the flailing or shocked out or half-dead man upon the rigid stretcher, to secure him with canvas straps, hook the chopper’s winch D-ring to the head of the litter. Before the medevac lifts the casualty away, you must speak convincingly to the lightly wounded or conscious man words of encouragement, conjure for him a world without war or unbearable pain. But do not, I say again, do not good-luck pat or slap or tenderly tap the casualty’s gunshot or shrapnel-flayed wounds, as I once did. The poor man screamed bloody murder, and may never forgive me. Instead, you must stand aside, trapped in the rotor blades mechanical whirlwind, waving goodbye as the medevac crew haul the wounded man up and up, pull him in, drift away. You must stand in the whirlwind until they are gone.
With all the sadness I have ever known, when I heard what happened to my platoon, what my replacement did and didn’t do, I hated that man with all my heart. Four months earlier I had nicknamed the gawky, nervous, ninety-five pound FNG from Illinois “Skinny Bob,” and the nick name stuck, and we grew to like him, and his FNG buddy Big Ken, a robust good-natured farm boy from somewhere out West. In the eye of your mind see the unlikely pair, flung from the depths of a Steinbeck novel into a hopeless war, now terribly wounded, in the hopeless hands of my replacement. Bungling the evac, they are hoisted ten yards upside down, their blood whipped about in the rotating wind of the chopper.
Thirty years later I met a man who survived my replacement. A better man than I, he might have said many cruel things about him. But his tone of voice and use of simple obscenities were sufficient.
I felt guilty too about the loss of Skinny Bob and Ken. For eight months I had taken good care of third platoon. Daily tended to their cuts and scratches, coughs and colds, head and belly aches, fevers, rashes, leeches, blisters. In firefights patched up the wounded. Would never have slung them upside down. How could he do that? I should have been there.
Twenty years ago I located my replacement. I wanted to hear from him what happened. For thirty minutes we conversed amicably. Patiently, I listened while the boy-man gaily recounted his combat tour. After a time, gingerly, I asked about that one particular ambush. With certainty he recalled the event, made no mention of the inverted men. Not a single haunted whisper. In those moments I chose not to express my anger, my sorrow. Why, I thought, cause additional harm for what could not be undone? Besides, he was a reverend now, with a Baptist congregation.
“Take care,” I said, wishing him well.
“God bless you,” replied the man of god.
The other day, for no apparent reason, I wondered if he were still alive. A few clicks on the keyboard and I learned he had passed. Odd how the obit mentioned the Army but left out Vietnam. Odd too, how the good Reverend met his maker. Alone one night, he flew over the handlebars of his all-terrain vehicle and died on impact. I could almost see him sailing through the air, crashing with great force into the dark impersonal earth. Could almost see his awestruck face before all went black. It took me years to think kindly of that young man. Memento mori. To be kind.
_____________________________
Top image: The Lord Answering Job From the Whirlwind.
William Blake, pen and ink and water color / 1803-1805
The biblical Job, a wealthy and devout man, had his faith tested by a series of catastrophes and afflictions. The image depicts Job at the height of his torments experiencing a mystical vision of the Lord, whom Blake referred to as The Ancient of Days. In reply to Blake’s pleading to know what he had done to deserve such pain it is as if the deity replies, “You ask the wrong questions. I am that I am.” Job is awed by this revelation. His friends, unable to bear the divine presence, hide their faces. Photo – National Galleries of Scotland
Trapped in the Whirlwind
First published on CounterPunch on 28 May 2021. I worked on this piece for hours; it worked on me for years.
Soon the men will stuff their nylon packs with tinned and dehydrated food, water and ammo. They will stagger aboard the trembling choppers, which will rise up, briefly hover, nose left or right, zoom gracefully forward, whisking them high over the beautiful canopy. After a time the choppers will descend, the door gunners will fire into the tree line. As the choppers touch down the anxious grunts will jump out, run forward, drop to the ground—and if there is no shooting, no enemy waiting in ambush–anxiously reassemble. The squad leaders and officers will check their topo maps. Take magnetic compass bearings. The point man will take the first of many steps into the green unknown, followed by the long green line of helmeted men slinking forward into the beautiful maze of infinite jungle.
My replacement is clearly unfit for patching up gun shot or shrapnel stung men writhing in pain. Look at him. He is clumsy, careless, slow at packing the medical gear; knowing how to use it.
“You mean like this? Oh, like this!” he exclaims.
He is too friendly. Too unconcerned with what lies ahead. “Number 10,” the Vietnamese might say, or “No beaucoup.” I help him adjust his nylon Alice pack. Explain the contents
of his medical aid bag: the myriad plastic bottles filled with antibiotics, analgesics, antihistamines. The tubes of topical cremes and antifungal ointments. The glass bottle of orange antiseptic. Here is the surgical scissor and rolls of paper tape. Here, in the Claymore bag, worn around the neck, six cotton bandages wrapped in thick transparent plastic. A half dozen morphine syrettes. And I give him my precious forty-five caliber pistol and U.S. Cavalry holster. And wish this man, this clumsy, naive, innocent man taking my place, my platoon, good luck.
One month later third platoon went out on ambush. Spied upon by the enemy as they returned, a hail of small arms and machine gun fire cut down the first four men; the pointman nearly torn in half.
Fact: After an ambush or fire fight unfurls its sudden havoc, after the medevac, hovering overhead, kicks out a canvas litter, it is necessary to settle the flailing or shocked out or half-dead man upon the rigid stretcher, to secure him with canvas straps, hook the chopper’s winch D-ring to the head of the litter. Before the medevac lifts the casualty away, you must speak convincingly to the lightly wounded or conscious man words of encouragement, conjure for him a world without war or unbearable pain. But do not, I say again, do not good-luck pat or slap or tenderly tap the casualty’s gunshot or shrapnel-flayed wounds, as I once did. The poor man screamed bloody murder, and may never forgive me. Instead, you must stand aside, trapped in the rotor blades mechanical whirlwind, waving goodbye as the medevac crew haul the wounded man up and up, pull him in, drift away. You must stand in the whirlwind until they are gone.
Thirty years later I met a man who survived my replacement. A better man than I, he might have said many cruel things about him. But his tone of voice and use of simple obscenities were sufficient.
I felt guilty too about the loss of Skinny Bob and Ken. For eight months I had taken good
care of third platoon. Daily tended to their cuts and scratches, coughs and colds, head and belly aches, fevers, rashes, leeches, blisters. In firefights patched up the wounded. Would never have slung them upside down. How could he do that? I should have been there.
Twenty years ago I located my replacement. I wanted to hear from him what happened. For thirty minutes we conversed amicably. Patiently, I listened while the boy-man gaily recounted his combat tour. After a time, gingerly, I asked about that one particular ambush. With certainty he recalled the event, made no mention of the inverted men. Not a single haunted whisper. In those moments I chose not to express my anger, my sorrow. Why, I thought, cause additional harm for what could not be undone? Besides, he was a reverend now, with a Baptist congregation.
“Take care,” I said, wishing him well.
“God bless you,” replied the man of god.
_____________________________
Top image: The Lord Answering Job From the Whirlwind.
William Blake, pen and ink and water color / 1803-1805
The biblical Job, a wealthy and devout man, had his faith tested by a series of catastrophes and afflictions. The image depicts Job at the height of his torments experiencing a mystical vision of the Lord, whom Blake referred to as The Ancient of Days. In reply to Blake’s pleading to know what he had done to deserve such pain it is as if the deity replies, “You ask the wrong questions. I am that I am.” Job is awed by this revelation. His friends, unable to bear the divine presence, hide their faces. Photo – National Galleries of Scotland