Another guy from Charlie Company started out after him. I turned away and started firing at the wood line.
“Move it out! Move it out! We’ll get pinned here!”
Get pinned shit, we were pinned. The wood line was alive with Congs, but we kept moving toward them.
The jet above saw what was going on and came down and raked the wood line. He dropped a bomb that shook the ground. I flinched as the heat from it came over me like a rush. Gearhart was screaming something. I got up and started moving toward the wood line again.
There were fifty, maybe sixty, meters to the next stand of trees. When I got to it, I went down and pushed along on my belly. I saw Lobel pushing along a few meters from me.
The flak jacket caught on everything. I couldn’t move with it on. I took it off.
I felt a hundred pounds lighter. We pushed through the wood line until we reached a clearing.
The firing stopped. For a few seconds there was absolute silence, and then everything started up again as heavily as it had been. It was as if somebody had changed channels and then switched back to the war. From the paddies I could hear the screaming of wounded men, mostly Vietnamese. They cried out in high-pitched voices that sounded almost like cats wailing.
We were under cover and held our position.
Gearhart was running by, saw Johnson, and ran to him. He didn’t say anything, he just collapsed near him. I saw him feel his chest, and I thought he might have been wounded. Then I saw him pull out a cigarette. His hands were shaking too badly to light the cigarette, and Johnson took it and lit it for him.
Gearhart took a deep draw on the cigarette, then seemed to pull himself together.
I looked around for Peewee and saw him and Monaco together. They had got another sixty from somewhere and were firing it across the clearing.
I looked for the soldier from Charlie Company who had been waving his arm at the dike. I saw him, just his shoulders and an outstretched arm out of the water.
Captain Stewart was coming over toward us. Beyond him I saw guys moving out across the open space. We were getting the hell away from the hill, but I didn’t know where we were going. Stewart had blood on his face, but I couldn’t see if he was hit or not.
Gearhart waved me over. He told me to keep an eye on Jamal. I said I would.
“This is too hot for a dust-off area,” Stewart was saying to Gearhart. “There’s a little village down this road. The VC must have it, but their main force is on the hill. The squad the ARVNs chased went back to the mountain.”
“That the Second?”
“I guess so,” Stewart said. “But we can’t sit out here. We need to get to the village and get picked up from there. We can’t hold these positions much longer.”
Stewart told Charlie Company to move out first, but when he saw what was left of it he had us all move out together. Jamal had hurt his hand, maybe even broken it, but he was okay except for being winded.
We went on a forced march for ten minutes toward the village. We knew when we reached it as the first men started to fall.
The ARVN troops, still not reorganized, caught up with us as we formed a perimeter and tried to get into the village. Some of them ran past us. We watched them get hit and start running back. I was afraid they would start firing on us. Then I saw that many of them had even dropped their weapons.
I saw the area that Captain Stewart had been talking about. It would make an iffy dust-off area at best. Choppers could get in and out fairly quickly, but it would be easy for the Cong guns on the hill to hit. Maybe our artillery could keep them quiet. But there was no way the choppers could move in if we didn’t take the village.
Colonel Hai finally got what was left of his outfit together and attacked the village. They went on what looked like a suicide charge into the village. As they ran they began to fall. They fell according to how they were hit. If they were hit in the head they bent backward or whirled around. Sometimes a man hit in the head would go several more stumbling steps before falling.
If they were hit in the body they would just lean forward, as if they were reaching for the ground, and then collapse.
“Let’s go!”
We moved out. Johnson and Monaco were behind us covering us with the sixty. They had given the other sixty to an ARVN squad.
We ran forward, desperately searching for something to get behind as the bullets whined about us, kicking up dirt and snapping branches. A fresh company of ARVNs had swung around the flank. We were closing in on the village.
I was on the ground. I was hurting. My arms and shoulders ached. I loaded another clip, and started firing. It was a hamlet, the same thatched roofs, the same smell of burnt bamboo. We fired into the village, trying to chop down anything we could see.
Johnson moved the sixty up and got it into place. Monaco loaded again. It was time for the rest of us to get up, to charge again.
I was tired, so tired. There was nothing to do but to go on. It came to me that we had the hamlet surrounded, so there was nothing for the Congs to do but to defend the village. We were here, and they were here, and the only thing to take care of was the dying.
I ran on. I saw Peewee throwing a grenade. A good idea. I snatched a grenade from my belt and threw it through the window of a hut. Shit. I had forgotten to take the damn pin out. I started firing through the window when I saw the grenade come out. I jumped away, twisting my body as I saw it bounce. It bounced toward me. My hands went up. I tried to turn my chest away. I didn’t want to see it, but I couldn’t turn away. I looked. It still wasn’t armed.
I grabbed it and pulled the pin out, arming it. I threw it again. It went through the same window. This time it exploded.
I was on my feet. Running toward the hut, firing at nothing, at everything.
So tired. I couldn’t get my arms up. We went from hut to hut. I wanted to rest. Just for a moment. I saw two ARVNs and a GI go into a hut, their pieces ready. Another GI was outside; he tossed a grenade through the window. The explosion ripped away a side of the hut.
It happened in an instant. A split moment of pain and confusion. A guy had just nailed the two ARVNs and the GI who had walked in the door of the hut. In another instant I swung my rifle toward the soldier who had thrown the grenade. He turned right and moved toward another hut as I lowered my weapon and turned left.
A cart, one wheel blasted off, sat in front of a low building that could have been made out of concrete. A soldier sat on the ground, leaning against the wheel. There was an irregular circle of blood spreading over his T-shirt. He seemed to be trying to wipe it away with his hand.
We reached the far end of the hamlet. Monaco was in front when we reached the last hut. I caught up with him. Johnson was lugging the sixty. We flattened ourselves against the sides of the hut, and then Johnson peppered one side of it with the sixty. Monaco took out a cigarette lighter and lit the roof.
“Damn!” Peewee.
I spun around and looked. Peewee was at the far end of the hut toward the wood line trying to get his sixteen to work. It had jammed. Me and Monaco went around the side of the hut and saw two Cong soldiers trying to pull an American into the bushes. Even when we started firing they kept pulling him.
We went after them. Monaco shot one of them and the other stood up and threw his arms into the air.
At his feet the soldier, still alive, was moaning in pain. I looked and saw that they had cut his finger off I looked up into the face of the Cong soldier. He was young, no more than a teenager. He looked scared and tired, the same as me. I squeezed the trigger of the sixteen and watched him hurtle backward.
Then I sat down on the ground to rest.
“Let’s go! Let’s go! Get the perimeter!” Lieutenant Gearhart.
“We need a medic,’’ Peewee said, pointing to the wounded soldier.
“Okay. The medevac’s on its way.”
Somehow I managed to get up. Gearhart went around trying to place guys on the perimeter. It was too much effort to talk. My
lips were dry and I was getting cold. I looked over at Monaco. He was sweating.
We waited. It was 1342. I couldn’t believe that so little time had passed.
The ARVNs set up a perimeter, and we were told that we could rest. Gearhart said that Sergeant Don-gan had been hit. Me and Peewee went over to the medical tent. We found Dongan. They had laid his leg next to him. The other leg was barely attached. But it didn’t matter now. His mouth was slightly open and the lower jaw twisted.
“One of you guys got a poncho?” A black spec five asked.
I looked to see if I still had my poncho. I did and gave it to the spec five. He picked up the leg and put it on Sergeant Dongan’s chest, then wrapped him in the poncho.
Ten minutes later two gunships came in and cleared everything from around the village. Above them I could see the stack of medevac choppers.
It was 1400 hours.
Chapter 19
The ARVNs were the first to start to move out. Word had come that a second North Vietnamese battalion was moving toward the area. We had to get out and get out quickly. We made as many litters as we could to carry out the wounded. The question came up as to what to do with the dead.
Somebody said we should bury them.
“They’ll just dig them up,” Gearhart said. “We got to strip them and bum them.”
Hell. Bodies still warm, limbs that fell as the bodies were moved. Some guys couldn’t do it. Some of us had to. We began stripping the Americans. We took their tags, their gear, and took them to a hut. How many were there? There were too many. Everybody took care of their own. We got Dongan and put him in the hut. Some of the bodies were wrapped in ponchos, some weren’t.
Guys from Charlie Company saw what we were doing and they got their people in. It was better than having the Congs get them, maybe mutilating the bodies.
“Make sure you get all the tags!’’ Gearhart was saying.
I was afraid of the dead guys. I saw them, arms limp, faces sometimes twisted in anguish, mostly calm, and I was afraid of them. They were me. We wore the same uniform, were the same height, had the same face. They were me, and they were dead. No one looked into the faces, into the often still-open eyes. We did what we had to do, and turned away.
The ARVNs who hadn’t already left watched us impassively. They didn’t want any part of what we were doing. They left their dead where they were. They stripped them, took the ammo, and the supplies. They closed their eyes.
“This guy is still alive, man.”
Monaco was looking at a guy in the middle of a pile. The poncho he had been wrapped in came away from his face. He was unconscious, but he was still breathing. Two guys from Charlie Company, who recognized him, ran over and started pushing the bodies off him. I watched as the limbs flew off the pile until they reached the guy who was still alive.
When they uncovered his body, I could see bubbles of blood coming from a gaping wound in his throat. The flies around the pile, crawling over the bodies, into and out of the wound, buzzed in delight.
“Somebody get a medic!”
“Jamal!”
Jamal was outside and Monaco got him. Jamal looked at the guy and shook his head. The front of the guy’s flak jacket was dark with either sweat or blood. When the sweat mixed with the mud it was hard to tell. Jamal opened it and saw another wound. The flesh was burned and puffed away from a wound big enough to put a fist into. I looked back at the throat wound, the bubble of blood still rose and fell rhythmically. How was he still alive?
“Do something for him!” The guy from Charlie Company’s voice was menacing.
“He your friend?” Jamal asked.
“Yeah, he’s my friend!” the guy from Charlie Company said.
“Then you do it,” Jamal said. He stood and walked away.
A couple of us stood and walked out behind Jamal. A moment later we heard the shot. We went back in and piled the bodies back up on the guy.
They got a flame thrower and we moved away from the hut. The smell of burning flesh came quickly. I knew the smell wouldn’t leave me quickly. Maybe it never would.
We started off. I didn’t want to look back. I did. The hut was burning furiously.
“Who’s got the tags?” Gearhart asked Walowick.
Walowick turned and looked at him. His lips were swollen, one side of his face was puffed. There was blood in the corner of his mouth. He didn’t answer Gearhart.
A guy from Charlie Company pointed to another guy from Charlie Company who was supposed to have the tags, and Gearhart went over to him. Then he came back.
“He forgot the tags,” Gearhart said. “He left them in the hut.”
“How they gonna let their folks know they dead?” Peewee said.
Gearhart didn’t answer.
What would they do for a body? Would they send home an empty coffin? Would they scrounge pieces from Graves Registration? What would they say to their parents? Their wives? We lost your son, ma’am. Somewhere in the forests he lies, perhaps behind some rock, some tree?
We burned his body, ma’am. In a rite hurried by fear and panic, we burned what was left of him and ran for our own lives.
Yes, and we re sorry.
Perhaps they would tell them nothing. Not having a body in hand, not having the lifeless form to send with the flag, they would not acknowledge that there was a death at all.
Yes, and we re sorry.
The ARVNs were up ahead of us, pushing through the woods. They were moving quickly. I looked for Peewee and found him. He was behind Gearhart. Gearhart had his head up, his flak jacket was open. We went quickly, stumbling, but somehow in control of ourselves. We were looking out for each other, checking each other out. I stayed with Jamal mostly. I asked how he was doing.
“I don’t believe I’m not dead,” he said. “You know I’m not made for this kind of life.”
The ARVNs were headed for the same pickup zone we were. They cut down along the edge of the paddies, and we took a longer route through the wood line.
The branches ripped at us, vines caught at our feet. It was like a nightmare. The forest itself was our enemy, trying to catch us, trying to hold us in its grip.
Small-arms fire. The ARVNs were under fire. We dove for cover.
“Get up! Get up! Keep moving!”
The voice came from behind us. I saw Captain Stewart look back to see who was talking. I turned. It was Johnson.
“Stay down!” Captain Stewart barked out his order. “Look for the sniper.”
“Let’s move it!” Johnson started forward.
“I said stay down, damn it!” Stewart yelled.
I was on my feet. Monaco was up. We were moving again, following Johnson. The hell with Stewart. We broke through the underbrush. We kept moving.
I looked around. Stewart was coming, too.
Suddenly I wasn’t there. It was as if I were out of my body and looking down at us. And then I was back. What the hell was going on? I shook my head. Everything seemed okay again.
We kept moving. I hoped like hell that somebody knew where we were going.
Monaco was up ahead. He held his hand up, and we dropped where we were. I could feel my heart beating in my temples. I was gasping for air, sucking in tiny fleets of flying bugs. Spitting them out. Sucking in another fleet.
Movement to my right. We were moving again.
Peewee was trying to get Jamal up. I went over to them.
“He hit?”
“No,” Peewee said.
Jamal was shaking, tears were running down his face. He was ugly. God, a man could be ugly when he cried. Peewee punched him in the face and started pulling him up. I got his other arm and started pulling him.
Gearhart was over. He jerked Jamal by the collar.
“Move it, soldier!” he spat the words in Jamal’s face.
Jamal was moving again. He was okay. He was one of us again.
Suddenly I wasn’t there. There was somebody running in my boots, but it wasn’t me. The legs moved mechanica
lly, the weapon stayed in front of the body. I could almost see myself running. I could feel myself running, but it wasn’t me running. What the hell was going on? I stopped.
“Move it, Perry!” Gearhart’s voice.
The ground was passing me faster, but it wasn’t me running. It was someone else, perhaps even some thing else. It was a body moving through a nightmare, a nightmare in which everything knew everything, where the ground pushed your feet away and the vines clutched at your legs while the trees chortled and shook with silent laughter.
We stopped. The sweat was cold against my body. Up ahead Monaco was sitting with his back to a tree. His chest was heaving. He gave hand signals. Gearhart moved up. Johnson moved up. Where did they get the strength? I looked at Peewee. Peewee, my main man. Peewee’s face was dark, there were shadows where his eyes should have been.
The shadows moved, Peewee moved. He was getting up. I didn’t want to get up. I wanted to sit there forever. Where the hell was the popcorn machine? Couldn’t I just watch the rest of this damned war? Couldn’t I just be out of it for a few hours, a few minutes?
We moved up. There were voices, Vietnamese. We moved up. The soft pop-pops of the grenade launchers went off. There was screaming, high-pitched whines that died slowly as the life drained from the body. We pushed up. There was a clearing and nearly a platoon of NVAs. We had them in the open. I couldn’t believe it.
We fired as they started scrambling away.
Suddenly I wasn’t there. There was a sight in front of me, and I stared at bodies trying to move across an open field. There was the sensation of vibration in my hands, against my face, and the distant sound of an M-16 firing. I felt a shoulder moving, perhaps mine, reversing clips I had taped together. There were soldiers trying to move away from the forward sights of a sixteen. They weren’t moving nearly fast enough.
“Get the perimeter!” Captain Stewart again. “You two men get to the other side of this clearing, the sixty will cover you.”