|
|
|
"Helicopters continued to land nearby, unloading troops that, darting and dodging, hunched into a half crouch, worked their way into position not far from the village of Phuong Dinh. The men already up there were locked in place, trapped. They could not advance past the deadly .50 caliber machine-gun fire from the Viet Cong defensive perimeter, and they were loathe to retreat through the open field behind them. Phuong Dinh was owned that day by the 1st Viet Cong Regiment." "There was a racket all around. The rotor beat of the UH-34 helicopters coming and going. The yelling of the men evacuating the craft and urging themselves on into combat. Hand grenades and mortar rounds exploding at the edge of the village. The staccato of the Viet Cong defenders' .50 caliber machine guns. The constant background crackle of rifle fire. Concussions from the bombs dropped into the village by the supporting marine jets." "The shit seemed everywhere, and I was simply standing there with the radio handset. Calling my forward observer. Over and over. It seemed to me that we were all just standing there -- everyone in the battalion headquarters group -- while our nearby companies of marines were dancing to some Viet Cong tune. We knew it was going badly, but it seemed to me that we had chosen to let the thing play itself out." "I couldn't raise my forward observer in Echo Company, the one pinned down at the edge of the village's defenses. I was getting madder and madder at him for not responding. And I was getting more and more frustrated at being in the middle of this mess and not being able to do anything about it, not knowing if there was anything I could do." "Then the dead and wounded from the pinned company were being extricated. There was a trail of them leading from the front back to a waiting evacuation helicopter. Marines and Navy Corpsmen were fighting their way across the open field to move our casualties out of there, and in braving the fire to help their comrades, several had become casualties themselves. We were all in deep trouble, and Echo Company was being decimated by any enemy that would not let them loose." "I turned briefly from the village to glance at the men being staged for evacuation. Christ, my FO! Lifeless, he was being carried in a poncho to the helicopter. Something snapped in me, and I determined I would kill them all. I would kill every living thing in that fucking village. And for the remainder of that afternoon, that is exactly what I did." (Excerpted from Images from the Otherland.)
|
|
"The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a short distance from the Lincoln Memorial. It lies roughly parallel to, and about 75 meters from, the Reflecting Pool that connects the Lincoln Memorial with the Washington Monument. It is situated within a cut in the earth, with the monument forming a retaining wall on one side." "The wall is built in the shape of a very wide isosceles triangle with the apex pointed down, so the two equal sides of the triangle form the base of the monument. The top of the granite is about even with the natural level of the park grounds. If you approach it from one side, it is barely visible. On the exposed side of the wall, the facing field has been graded into a gentle, grassed incline down to the center of the monument. A paved path about five feet wide extends along the length of the base. Once you move down the path to the center point, you find the wall to be from ten to twelve feet high. And receding to the left and right are the columns of names cut into the stone." "The landscaping is very nicely done, with pretty trees and walking paths. One of the paths leads from the area of the Lincoln Memorial through the trees and over to the west side of the wall. On that path there are several small podiums; within each there is a book, protected with a sheet of glass (or perhaps Plexiglas), but accessible. Each book contains the names of all those who died in the Vietnam War, the names inscribed on the monument. And across from each name, there is the information you would need to find its location on the wall. I hadn't realized that these books would be there. I hadn't realized how many people had died in Vietnam. Of course I had heard the numbers, but they were just that, only numbers. This thing was like a telephone book. The directory of the dead." "So I thought I would look up the names of men I knew who died in Vietnam. Then I discovered my error - it seemed I had forgotten all the names. I could remember Mauerman, but he didn't die. And I could recall several others from that time who didn't die there - or probably didn't. But I couldn't remember the names of those I saw dead, and I couldn't imagine their faces. I could see them, I could almost smell them, but their faces were blank - their features had been erased." (Excerpted from Images from the Otherland.)
I cannot forget the sight of him being carried from the battlefield of Operation Texas. And I cannot relieve the shame of forgetting his face and his name. Semper Fi.
|
|
With the assistance of a number of Marines, I believe that I have found the identity of the man whose death has haunted me. The realization that I had forgotten him, that I had suppressed his memory for so long, was the event that triggered my effort to remember and to come to terms with my past. To read what I have discovered about him, press the button below.
|
Get your own Free Home Page |
