Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Guy in creek

The PBS special has gotten me to thinking a lot about Vietnam.  I wrote a blog, but there are a lot of interesting stories that are not in there, so as things pop into my head I’ll write ‘em up and hopefully you won’t be too bored. 
War stories tend to be full of daring-do and explosions, and heroism and all that, but truthfully I did not have the  full on John Wayne experience.  I was shot at, and shot back, but it was over rather quickly. I called a fire mission or two on suspected enemy locations or weapons stashes, but never called in “danger close” air support or artillery.  I only saw one guy that I shot at and he was200 yards away running down a creek bed after he had probably been planting mines in hiway 9.
We were finished with our minesweeping  chores and were heading for the barn when a marine spotted this guy in the creek. He tried to tell me where the guy was hiding but I couldn’t see. 
“OK, I’m gonna shoot a bullet into the water right next to him.”
The marines were all loaded in their trucks with rifles pointing in the general direction of the mine layer. They couldn’t see him either.  I had two Dusters with twin 40 mm cannons trained in the general direction our spotter was pointing.
BANG! The bullet threw up a splash and the VC took off running down the creek bank. The marines unloaded with their rifles, I unloaded with 40 mm cannons and as luck would have it a helicopter happened to be flying over so he joined in with his rockets. Quite an exciting and noisy show. for one poor man running for his life.
I have no idea if we hit him or not.
After several months of dodging mines, mortars, and booby traps, ducking sniper bullets, insisting enlisted men would not salute me so snipers wouldn’t know I was an officer, hiding in bunkers under rocket attacks, and constant worry about the next attack we FINALLY found an enemy to take action against. We could DO something!
It was exhilarating! As we pulled into our home area I was hooting, hollering and waving my arms like we had just won the state wrestling championship.
But the next part really sticks with me. One of the men in the motor pool was watching me carry on like a high school cheerleader because I had just tried to kill somebody and he looked appalled.  He was embarrassed for me. He was embarrassed for himself. He was a bit sickened by the whole thing. I came down off my high and gave the whole thing some sober thought. In those next few minutes my 21 year old self became incrementally more wise and mature. 
It was one of several “growth experiences” I experienced in my year in Vietnam.

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