When I was accepted into Brown, my father began the stream of jokes that he was going to be my roommate and go through college all over again. When I received my course packet that summer, he flipped through it eagerly, selecting the courses he was going to register for. On the first day of orientation, my dad wore the Class of 2002 baseball cap faithfully. When it was time to say goodbye, he sadly took off the cap and handed it to me, but I handed it right back.
The class that my father did take with me, whether he was aware of it or not, was entitled "Writing Vietnam." The course description began with, "there were many Vietnams," which became apparent as I talked with classmates who had American fathers and Vietnamese mothers, students whose parents had protested the war, and others who had no connection with Vietnam whatsoever, aside from what they had learned in their tenth grade history class. Every Tuesday and Thursday we met, somewhat bleary eyed (it was nine in the morning), and woke ourselves up with a good dose of literature, of talking about the assigned books, of sharing our writing and our experiences, of workshopping various pieces.
The culminating event of the class was a three day Writing Vietnam conference, attended by such writers as Tim O'Brien and Phil Caputo, poets Yusef Komunyakaa and Marilyn McMahon, oral historians Laura Palmer and Frank Grzyb, local vets, community members, students, and scholars. Finally able to walk from lecture to lecture with books in hand, my father dutifully attended every event offered. Together we chatted with the vets and the writers, and with one another at breakfast before the readings, over coffee after the writer's forum and photo exhibit.
After all is said and done, I find myself with a connection through time. As for my father, directly following the Vet-To-Vet workshop he pulled me into a side room and gave me a piece of writing. Maybe he too found a connection through time -- both into the past and into the present, where I stand, over thirty years removed from his experiences overseas. What follows is Vietnam, in my father's own written words...
Kerry, you have asked me to tell you more about the three Marines who were killed while guarding the perimeter at Hill 268 in Da Nang.
I don't think much anymore about the murky past of Vietnam. Like the morning mists that obscured the endless hills west of Da Nang, the "incident," as it came to be called in the reports, comes and goes infrequently now. I used to see it much clearer. As in Tim O'Brien's stories, it was one of the things I carried.
I drew the duty that night. I didn't draw it that often because there were usually enough officers in our Air Support Radar Team to share this little ritual of officer in charge of the late night. After controlling the last mission, somewhere around midnight, the rest of the team drifted out of the oversized box that housed the communications and computer equipment used to control our nightly bombing missions. I began to brief the perimeter guards who would supplement the patrol that had been out on the perimeter since dusk. I checked their equipment: flack jackets, helmets, rifles, night scopes, sniper scopes, binoculars, water, first aid kits, and plastic bottles to pee in.
They got on me because it was always the same briefing. Charlie's last reported position was invariably miles away and all of the perimeter security was up and operating. I responded, prophetically for this night, "OK, tonight let's pretend that Charlie's just on the other side of the mine field."
I wondered who checked the miles of trip wire, the mine fields, and slit trenches that began not far down the slope from our ridgeline home. Another night in Vietnam and another day closer to leaving.
The duty officer sent damage reports on targets that we bombed that day, highlighted with comments about secondary explosions noted by those of us who flew the missions. A nice bright flash was good for a fuel or ammunition dump. A smaller series of flashes could mean a truck park or fortified troop positions. We also received messages on targets to add to the next day's list. And once in awhile we received notice of a hot target that needed to be hit soon, maybe a truck convoy or troop concentrations. For these we woke up the Major, who had to authorize a flight crew scrambling one or two F-4 fighters that could be on target before it went cold.
The rest of the time the staff sergeant and I kept each other awake as best we could.
"Lieutenant, see that sign they painted down at the napalm dump? The one that looks like a squadron insignia, only with the pregnant Vietnamese lady on it? See them words under it? "You make 'em, we bake 'em.' Nice, huh?"
"That's fuckin' disgusting, Sergeant."
And a long and wistful "Yeah, ain't Nam disgusting."
The perimeter checked in by radio every half-hour. "King Lear (our oddly metaphorical squadron call sign), Sector Five, no activity. Over, Sector Four." "King Lear, Sector Four, no activity. Over, Sector Three." "King Lear, Sector Three, we got some movement down in the valley. I think it's a water buffalo. Maybe it's one of the Nam tigers down out of the mountains. We'll try and bag it. Let you know later. Over, Sector Two."
Two more perimeter checks and we couldn't raise Three. "Four, this is King Lear. Do you know what's going on over at Three?" "King Lear, Four. Looks OK from here. They must be keeping their heads down like they're supposed to."
After five more minutes of trying to raise Three, it was, "Shit. Let's mount up and find out what's going on."
"Lieutenant, you'd better get the paperwork ready, because chances are they been doin' drugs since they got to the line."
Simms, Ulrich, Marshall. Until now, I've forgotten most of the details. But I've never forgotten their names. And I've never forgotten what we found after crawling our way down to Three position.
The Sergeant was right, of course. They had been doing drugs. Each was found in the slit trench about twenty yards apart, with a bayonet wound to the chest, their faces frozen in ashen silence. I ran back and forth among them and pleaded for them to answer me until I realized I was bringing chaos to their wake. The sweet smell of hash hung on them like incense for the anointed dead. They looked so young, so innocent. They were our sacrifice.
The perimeter was strangely peaceful and beautiful in the misty new light of another Vietnamese morning. I remember how little I really knew about each of them: What did they expect of life after Vietnam? Who did they love? What did they write home about?
And then I felt Nam again, like a mind-slap. Fuck! Never move a dead man on the perimeter; there's a good chance he's been booby-trapped. Shit! Charlie's probably penetrated the perimeter. I called the general quarters and we ran through hours of confusion, searching, and computer equipment checks. The last thing I remember is what I forgot. I left the dead on the perimeter.
I don't think much about Vietnam. I can't see it as clear. After I left I learned to hate it and now I don't care about it anymore...