Reflections - A Tragic Memory

While in Vietnam, on a chilly, rainy night, a memory returns that I would rather forget

The evening air was cool. No, it was cold, sending that all too familiar chill down my spine. Twilight, what little there had been, fast fading into darkness now, faster than I wanted, to be certain. The drizzle of the monsoon had started an hour ago and it was coming down harder every minute. What little light that had been promised by the experts at the distant airfield, light from the stars above, was nowhere to be found this night. As had been the case for the past 5 weeks, the night promised nothing but cold, wet, misery and it’s ever, present mate, fear.

The squad had been assigned bunkers on the north side of the compound this dreary January night. What the hell was wrong with these people?  How dare those that were in charge of us send us out here with no supervision, our only link to experience through the olive drab radio handset in each bunker. The rains came down heavier, as they did each night. Visibility was near zero unless you counted the reflection off the heavy rains from the occasional illumination round launched when someone heard a strange noise on the other side of the barbed wire.

The oldest of us was just 21 years old, from a small farming community in Iowa. Jimmy had never been away from home. That is, until receiving his draft notice in the mail. He had been drafted but unfortunate for him he lost a coin toss that sent him to the Marines instead of the Army. So it was with the rest of the eleven young men, boys still, doing what was required of them now, the most difficult of tasks, a man’s job, going to war. I had turned 18 years old, just 4 months and 3 days prior. Landing here exactly 7 weeks after that 18th birthday, the nightmares begin.

My memory wanders into the night.  I will never forget that day I walked off the plane after landing at the airfield in Danang. The sun was bright and it was so hot, it was like walking into an oven. Heat waves rose from the concrete runways, so thick everything appeared to be wavy. Looking into the bright sky, there were thick dark clouds looming in the northwest and rain could be seen falling heavily out of them. That must be the monsoons they had constantly talked about during our training.

The airfield was a busy place. People of all ranks rushed about performing various tasks, those only required at an airfield in a combat zone. Combat Zone? What the hell have I done, volunteering to come here? I surely had lost my mind and someone would see that I was very clearly a nut case that needed to be hospitalized. Just as surely, they would pack me up and send me back home. Was it too late to change my mind? Damn, I am so stupid sometimes!

As I looked around the busy airfield for the place the young lieutenant had said we would claim our duffle bags, I froze, as my eyes became full of the red, white and blue. No, it wasn’t from the patriotism that had been instilled in me all during my upbringing, nor was it from the flag blowing in the stiff breezes above the air terminal.

My eyes had fallen upon one of those little baggage vehicles that pulled flat, covered carts behind it. A similar one back home would be full of traveler’s luggage. This one resembled a long train, but the carts were flat and uncovered. There were 9 or 10 of the carts attached to the vehicle and loaded on each cart were 4 flag draped rectangular boxes, coffins. No doubt, each contained the remains of a young man who had been sent to do a man’s job and who had paid the ultimate price. I was totally shocked. There were so many of them. And, I saw yet another of these trains being loaded with even more of the coffins at the rear of the terminal.

I suddenly realized that my mouth was as dry as cotton and a huge lump formed in the back of my throat. My eyes welled up with huge tears. They began slowly rolling down my cheeks, and before I knew it they gave way to a flood of tears that blurred my vision.

It was so sad to see the finality of it all. A thousand thoughts flooded through my mind all at once. Boys had been sent to this horrible war torn country of Vietnam and were now being sent home to their families in a box. I wondered where they were from, how old they were, how long they had been here before the war had claimed their lives.

I looked around to see if I was being watched and quickly wiped the tears away. I wasn’t even in that too near jungle yet and already the chills started to creep up the back of my neck. Would this be my end? Would I be going home in one of these boxes? How soon would it be before I was being loaded onto one of those carts? A thousand, no a million questions in my mind, none with answers.

As I turned to go claim my gear, I once again wiped tears from my eyes. I snapped to attention and gave a slow farewell salute to these my fallen brothers as they were being loaded onto that plane. I vowed to myself right then and there, I would NOT leave this country as so many of these once proud warriors were leaving it now. I vowed to myself I would survive no matter what it took.

Just as suddenly as that memory flooded into my mind, the thump, thud of a grenade launcher sending an illumination round overhead shook me back to the present. The winds had shifted and the cold rains of the monsoon were pelting me in the face, and soaking my jungle fatigues underneath. I turned away from the storm so the pancho I was wearing partially blocked the rains.

 

I looked out over the valley below one more time and softly whispered a prayer for those fallen heroes I had seen that day on the airfield, and for those that were waiting their turn, just as I was waiting. When our time came to go home, would we walk onto that plane or would we be loaded onto it, broken warriors, sent home to heartbroken families?

The cold winds howled, the thunder clapped and the rains poured from the dark, swollen clouds above. I ducked back into the bunker below out of the weather and I shivered, not from the cold rains, but from the thoughts in my mind this night.

Author's Note

Was the story long enough to get my thoughts presented well?