Hello all. Happy Decoration Day. My great-great grandfather William Herring was known as “the father of Decoration Day” because it was he who introduced the bill codifying the holiday to the New York State Assembly in 1870, a mere five years after the conclusion of the bloodiest war America has ever fought. In a way, we’re still fighting it because it’s hard for many Americans to accept the more brutal facts of our history: systemic racism, genocide, thievery, enslavement, deliberate cruelty and scorn for the poor and downtrodden. These behaviors are in direct contradiction to our ideals, and most of us are unwilling participants. We believe we have the capacity to change this system, to make it more like the advertising, but we all think that this change will probably happen later––if at all.
Here’s a story for you about war. It’s fiction, but it’s true.
We're standing in the garage after Saturday supper. I'd graduated high school the day before.
"You know what One-A means?" my old man asks.
When I was a kid, he used smack me when I answered wrong. It's been years, but I'm still flinchy. I say nothing.
"One-A means that the government says you're fit to fight," he says. "You'll get drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam."
I stare at the floor. This has been on my mind a lot lately.
"I’ll give it to you straight, son. It pains me to say this, but you're a pussy. No way could you hack combat."
The old man was a Marine during World War 2, so he speaks with the authority of first-hand experience.
My eyes fill with tears. "That's what you think."
"I just knew you'd start crying. You're a fucking crybaby. Always were. Anything bad happens you start crying. Goddamned coward is all you'll ever be. Pains me to say."
I won't argue. I've never been able to control my emotions. I cry all the time. Anything can touch it off. A sad movie, a corny song. Worse than that, he's right about me being a coward. In grade school they called me squealer because when picked on I’d always run crying to the teacher. In high school I never went out for sports. I was even too scared to ask a girl out. The only thing I was good at was Scouting because I could get away by myself. By myself I'm fine.
He reaches around to his back pocket and pulls out a folded letter. "This came today. It's for you. From Selective Service."
I feel my stomach drop.
"Before I give it to you, I have a suggestion."
"What's that?"
"You and me drive to the Des Moines Naval Recruitment center."
"What for?"
“So you can enlist.”
“In the Navy?”
"Listen," he says, stern as I ever saw him. "This is a draft letter. You’ll probably make it through Army basic, so they'll send you into action where it’s practically guaranteed you’ll die and maybe get your buddies killed too. I seen it a hundred times, pussy cowards like you losing their shit during a firefight, endangering everybody while they disgrace themselves."
"Why do you think the Navy would be different?" I ask.
"North Vietnamese don't have ships or bombers. There's almost no danger at sea. I met sailors when I was on troop ships. They have a soft life by comparison. Three squares, a mattress to sleep on, hot showers. As long as you haven't opened this letter, you still have a choice."
"What about the Air Force?"
He snorts. "You're not smart enough."
I stare at the envelope in his hand. "Okay."
"Just remember one thing."
"What's that?"
"Anybody asks for volunteers, never raise your hand."
Graduation day. We stand rigid as CPO Green gives us a final inspection. He returns to center and pivots to face us.
"At ease," he barks.
We set our feet shoulder-width apart, hands clasped behind us, eyes forward. It's hardly relaxing, but less grueling than full attention.
"You maggots are starting to resemble sailors," he bellows. "I may even let you go to the graduation ceremony. But first gimme a show of hands. Who here was a Boy Scout?"
Nobody moves. Eight straight weeks of Chief Green hollering profanity in our faces for every infraction real or imagined has made us cagy as rabbits.
"Come on, maggots. Who was a Scout?"
A few reluctant hands. He seems pleased, so I raise mine too.
"Fucking A!" says Chief Green. "Anybody an Eagle Scout?"
I leave my hand up, instantly regretting it. I am the only one.
Chief Green steps over and stops two inches from my face. "Weepy? Are you fucking kidding me?"
Weepy is his nickname for me, so everybody calls me that. The first day of boot camp Chief Green screamed in my face for five solid minutes. I'd started to cry, but I stood tall, fighting it back until he moved onto the next guy. Chief Green abused everyone in turn, giving each man a derogatory nickname based on a physical trait, ethnic name, or skin color. We were all equally pathetic in Chief Green’s opinion.
"You're an Eagle Scout?" he yells.
"Aye, Chief!" I yell back.
"You know first aid?"
"Aye, Chief!"
"Can you read and write?"
"Aye Chief!"
"Hallelujah! I'm going to put you in for training as a pharmacist's mate. That work for you, Weepy?"
"Aye, Chief!"
"Good. Report to the duty hut tomorrow at 0500. And please, no crying."
I am sent to Medical Corps School on Balboa Island. The atmosphere is so relaxed I can almost forget I am in the Navy. Five weeks of physiology, anatomy, biology, with some pharmacology thrown in. I'm better at the academics than I ever was in high school. Maybe I’ll enroll in college when my hitch is up.
And I haven’t cried even once.
The last day of class we're summoned to the auditorium. A Marine major tells us that we will be detached to the First Marine Division as medical corpsmen. Ninety percent of us will be deployed to combat operations in Vietnam.
I’m instantly overcome by stark terror. Eyes burning, I choke back the sobs.
The next morning, we board a bus to south San Diego for field medical training. The first two days they show us movies from the Korean War depicting the gruesome and horrifying wounds we are likely to encounter. Then they show us the stumps and reconstructions of the healed. The message is clear: Stabilize the wounded and get them to a hospital.
The training lasts three weeks. For field exercises we scuttle around while they fire live rounds over our heads. Marines lie writhing in simulated agony as we treat whatever wound is written on their label. Gunshot: upper chest. Shrapnel: right leg and torso. To help desensitize us to battle conditions, the instructors dumped mangled hog carcasses everywhere, intestines and viscera heaped in bloody piles all over the ground. The stench is overpowering for everyone, so my own crying goes unnoticed.
After a forty-eight-hour flight I stagger down the ramp of a C-130 onto the tarmac of Da Nang Air Force Base. The sun on my shoulders feels like a weighted blanket, the air so thick it's like I’m wading through it. Odors of jungle, wet earth and woodsmoke, of diesel fuel and cordite and rot.
An Air Force sergeant with a clipboard directs me to the operations hut. Standing outside is a group of Marines in smoke-blackened utilities emblazoned with skulls, knives, and other demonic designs. Most of them carry weapons I barely recognize, machine guns slathered with camouflage paint, wicked sawed-off shotguns, M-79 grenade launchers and bandoliers of shells. One man wears a necklace of what looks like human fingers, black and dried into wicked claws.
As we walk past them in our new green uniforms, they stare like scientists studying mice in a glass box, their bored detachment tinged with fatalistic sadism. They are like ancient gods of war and destruction. I’m suddenly terrified of them and barely manage to keep a grip on myself.
I’m assigned to Bravo Company, Third Battalion, Fourth Marines. A grinning gunnery sergeant comes over to me and slaps me on the back.
"I'm Gunny Bracegirdle," he says. "Welcome aboard, Doc."
Gunny picks up my seabag, a sign of deference I later learn is reserved for corpsmen alone. I follow him across the compound to a line of jeeps. He tosses my bag into the back and gets behind the wheel.
"Jump in, Doc. I'll run you to the billet. We'll be moving out in a day or two, so stay close." He starts the jeep but doesn't put into gear. He turns in his seat. "I'll be straight with you, Doc. A lot of our guys been getting killed since Tet. Keep your eyes open. Our last corpsman got careless. Stepped on a Bouncing Betty that cut him in half. Pow."
The words land in my stomach like blocks of ice. I clamp my jaw tight, but the tears start rolling down my face.
Gunny isn’t looking at me. We roar off toward a cluster of tents on the far perimeter.
"Never forget that every Marine in Bravo Company will die to protect you," he yells into the slipstream. "Because they know when the shit hits the fan, you'll be there to save their ass. Don't you ever let them down."
I wipe my eyes with my sleeve. "Aye Gunny."
He doesn’t seem to notice I’m crying. Or maybe he doesn’t care.
Three weeks later our company is making its slow way up a densely forested mountain. Smothery heat, the whine of insects, the steep path churned to mud by our boots. I walk next to our radioman. He lugs a heavy PR-77 unit with an extra-long whip antenna. Rumor has it that in combat a radioman's life expectancy is five minutes, but this is just a training exercise to get us used to the country. We're a long way from the DMZ, so back here’s probably the safest place to be.
We reach a clearing and are told to dig in for the night. I unsling my entrenching tool. The Marines around me are grouped in twos and threes, but none of them invites me to join them or even offers to help. Despite what Gunny told me, I don't feel that the men of Bravo Company like me much.
We spend the afternoon setting up our position. I don't have much to do, so I sit on the hillside and watch a Vietnamese family planting a rice paddy below. Everybody is working, the old people and the little kids and even the ox. Seeing them, it's hard to believe there is war here.
A flight of A-6 Intruders streaks across the sky toward a distant mountain ridge. I watch the glitter of silver napalm bombs drop from their bellies. The hillside erupts in a blossom of orange flame, the soft crump of explosions reaching me a few seconds later. I watch the greasy smoke boil up into the sky for a long time.
The moonless night is so black I can't see my hand in front of my face. Mosquitoes ravage my skin despite the tube of oily insect repellent I slathered on myself. I roll onto my side and try to sleep.
A blinding white flash and a series of explosions rips the trees to my right. My body lurches awake, instantly drenched with icy sweat. I lie quaking, my head in my hands.
"Corpsman! Corpsman!" somebody screams.
I remember Gunny's words. Save their asses.
Sobbing, I fumble in the dark for my medical kit, then crawl on all fours toward the voice.
"Coming!" I yell, my throat catching. I can't see the wounded man, but I hear him.
"Oh God oh God. It fucking hurts." His hand grabs at me. "God it fucking hurts."
"Where? Where does it hurt?" I ask, running my hands over him. His clothes are sopping wet.
"Everywhere. Oh God."
The darkness is like a black hood over my face. He clutches my arm like a drowning man. I pry his fingers loose and feel along his body. His chest is a pulpy mess. I pull his shirt open. The skin is wet and sticky, peppered with holes that make a gurgling sound. I pull out a packet of Vaseline-soaked bandages designed for sucking chest wounds and try to cover the holes. I can't see anything, so it's impossible to tell if I got them all.
"Oh god it hurts it hurts," says the Marine. "Give me some fucking morphine, Doc."
"I need to get you stabilized first."
"Fuck you, Doc! Give me some fucking morphine!" He grabs my arm. "Goddamn you. I'll fucking kill you!"
I start crying in earnest as I secure the bandages around his chest. "Sorry, man. Sorry."
"Goddamn you," he says quietly.
A Marine with a flashlight comes up and shines it on us. It's Gunny. "Holy Christ," he says. The Marine and I are both covered in blood, obscenely red in the glaring light.
"We need to get him to the LZ," says Gunny. He pulls out his poncho. "Roll him onto this and we'll carry him to the jeep."
Gunny and I and carry him down the path. The Marine cries in pain with every jolt and jostle. I'm crying along with him. We get to the jeep and lift him onto the stretcher strapped to the hood.
"Take us down to the LZ," Gunny tells the driver.
In the headlights I can see the Marine's face. I bend down by his mouth. I can’t detect any respiration.
"Wait!” I call. “He’s not breathing."
"Do something!" Gunny yells.
I reach under his neck and bend his head back, wipe the blood from his mouth and put mine over it. His lips are coarse and chapped. I take a deep breath and blow. Nothing happens. I try again. Same thing.
"What's wrong?" asks Gunny.
"His airway's blocked," I say.
"Fucking fix it!" yells Gunny. "Do not let this man die!"
Wiping my eyes, I rummage my kit for a scalpel. I slice into his trachea and insert the barrel of my Bic pen. I blow and his chest rises.
"Okay," I say. "Let’s go."
I blow into the tube as we drive, watching his chest rise and fall. We pull into the LZ clearing. Gunny and I lift the stretcher onto the ground.
"Get to a radio and request a dust-off," Gunny tells the driver.
"Aye Gunny," says the driver, and speeds away.
I feel the Marine's wrist. "His heart has stopped," I sob.
"Then start it!" yells Gunny. "Quit your blubbering and do your fucking job!"
I wipe my eyes again. "Take over blowing. I'll give him cardiac massage."
I straddle the Marine and compress his chest. Gunny blows through the tube. I compress. Gunny blows.
It seems to go on forever.
"Where the hell is the chopper?" I ask.
"It can take a while."
"Because of the enemy?"
"This wasn't the Zips. Fucking lieutenant accidentally tripped a magnesium flare. Asshole panicked and threw his jacket over it." He blows into the tube. "Motherfucker forgot he had grenades strapped to the jacket. Killed himself and three others. This one’s the sole survivor."
By now it's obvious the Marine is dead, but I keep working anyway.
Gunny practically has to pry me away from the body.
I cry harder than I ever have in my life.
Gunny puts his arm around me.
"You did good, Doc. You did all you could. You tried. You'll save the next one."
It’s then I realize he's right.
I did all I could.
There will be a next one.
Maybe I'll save him.
It takes me quite a while to notice I'm no longer crying.