I didn’t intend to drop out of college. After two years I was tired and just decided to take a semester off. Everyone told me not to do it, but I didn’t listen. That time I should have. Two weeks after school started, without me, I got the infamous letter from my draft board. The one that began, “Greetings from your friends and neighbors…” and ended with instructions on when and where I should report for induction into the Armed Forces.
Being a member of an “Armed Force” hadn’t been on my list of things to do that fall, but that didn’t matter to my “friends and neighbors” at the local draft board. The same people who had counseled me to stay in school now told me that the only way to avoid the Army and a trip to Vietnam was to announce that I was gay, claim to be conscientious objector, or hang it all up and go to Canada
That happened in October 1968; nine months later I had been in Vietnam Vietnam
Both programs accepted only volunteers. To borrow a phrase from James Lee Burke, “sometimes only old time rock and roll is on my juke box.” That was one of those times.
The first thing I was told after signing into my unit, about 35 miles south of Saigon, in a hastily built camp in the middle of a triple canopy jungle, was that the radio operator, in a Long Range Recon Platoon, had a life expectancy of a little less than six months.
In my first month I went on two patrols, one for a week, the other for five days, and I didn’t hear a round fired in anger on either of them but I knew that was just dumb luck and I wasn’t so sure that the six month life expectancy was a joke. I began to wonder what it would be like to die and I began to think that I shouldn’t be expected to find out, certainly not this far away from all that I knew and cared about. If anyone else thought those thoughts they didn’t talk about it. Of course I didn’t talk about it either. Now I know that everyone thought the same thoughts that I did but we were all more afraid of talking about them than dying.
On the Monday morning that marked the beginning of my fifth week in country the Lieutenant informed us that we would leave camp an hour before dark that day to begin a ten day recon of an area roughly thirty miles south of us. There had been reports of North Vietnamese Regulars assisting the local VC. It was our job to find out if there was any truth to the reports.
At the last minute our helicopter insertion was canceled and the Brigade Commander determined that rather than delay our patrol we would walk to our target area. There was a lot of bitching about that decision, most of it focused on the fact that it was easy for the Colonel to decide that we would walk thirty miles since he wasn’t going to walk a single one of them. In any case, we were five miles south of the base camp when darkness fell. We settled in to a small clearing in the elephant grass and ate cold C rations while we waited for the moon to rise. At 9:30, under a half moon, we were on the move again. When the sun came up we were another eight miles further from camp than we had been when we stopped for supper. With a couple of guys keeping watch we made ourselves as comfortable as we could, mostly napping, trading C’s and whispering lies about what we did back home and what we would do if we ever got back.
When the moon rose again we did too – this time covering over fifteen miles before the sun came up then we settled in, on the edge of our target area. We were near a rural road and we saw a few ox carts, one bus, and numerous motor scooters pass in both directions. As near as we could tell, no one suspected that we were there.
As radio operator I was exempt from guard duty but I was subject to the sleep patterns, or lack of sleep patterns of our insomniac First Lieutenant. At noon he had me get headquarters on the radio. I did and listened as he gave a routine time and position report. Finished he looked at me and said, “That’ll do for now Jenkins, catch some sleep, and I’ll wake you if I need you.”
The Lieutenant didn’t wake me; the Viet Cong took care of that. Just before 2 PM the quiet afternoon was blown up, literally, as mortars and rockets rained down on us. The Lieutenant screamed, “Corporal, get headquarters on the horn.” We had been lying in the tall grass near a rice paddy. When the shells began hitting we took the only shelter around; the rice paddy. I got headquarters on the radio and gave the handset to the Lieutenant. The duty officer wanted to know where the fire was coming from. Our Lieutenant, not the brightest light on the block, stood to see over the elephant grass. He must have spotted the location of the rocket launchers and mortar tubes because he began giving the coordinates, then he asked for artillery support and helicopter extraction.
That was as far as he got in his report and request. The VC he spotted had also spotted him and a wave of mortars zeroed in on us. I don’t know how many rounds hit, I was busy trying to get invisible behind the dike of the rice paddy but that was a waste of time. A mortar round landed a few feet behind us, the Lieutenant, who was still standing when it exploded, disappeared in a geyser of water and rice plants. I felt a massive blow strike my back. It knocked all of the wind out of me and frankly, for a moment, I thought I’d died five months before I was supposed to.
I don’t know how long it took to catch my breath, not very long though, in fact, I don’t think I missed a thing. I looked around, realized that I wasn’t in hell or heaven and figured that being the case I must still be in the middle of the firefight. I looked for the Lieutenant and spotted him, face down, half in the water of the paddy and half draped over the dike. I crawled to him, screaming “Medic” at the top of my voice. Fifty feet away I saw Dodger, our old, at twenty-five, Medic, rise up from behind a dike and begin making his way toward me.
Dodger was a tall drink of water, and it was almost comical watching him, bent at the waist in order to present the smallest possible target, making his way toward us. I didn’t laugh though. I figured I’d save it for later. The white circle with a red cross in the middle on Dodger’s helmet was almost as good a target as the Lieutenant had been when he stood up.
Another round of mortars fell but this time they were long and Dodger kept coming. He had almost made it when he stepped on a Bouncing Betty, a devious mine designed to maim, not kill. When activated a Betty springs up a couple of feet and goes off with about a third the power of a hand grenade. The objective is to wound a man, thus requiring the aid of a number of solders to protect him and ultimately move him to safety.
When Dodger went down I scrambled to him. He was lying on his back with his head raised as far as he could raise it so to inspect the damage to his leg. When I slid in beside him he handed me his bag and said, “Get out the biggest bandage in there, I’m not bleeding bad but my leg is broken.” Then he smiled and said, “Don’t look so sad kid, I’m going to get some time off, that’s all. You don’t see me crying do you?”
I opened his bag, found the bandage and gave it to him. He held it on the wound and told me how to secure it and I did. “Did the Lieutenant get through to headquarters?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Did he give them our coordinates and ask for support.”
“Yep, he did that too.”
“Good, then help is on the way.” He looked at me then said turn around so I can see your back. I twisted around and he laughed, “You can take off what’s left of your radio. It saved your ass but that’s the last useful thing it’s ever going to do.”
I wiggled out of the radio harness and looked at what was left of what had a few minutes before been the cutting edge of military field communications. “Throw it away,” Dodger said, and then added, “You have a new job.”
Just then someone screamed, “Medic!” Dodger sniggered, “That’s you, Jenkins. You’re now the platoon Medic.”
“But, Dodger, I don’t know a damn thing about that.”
“That’s alright. I’m going to tell you all the official Medic secrets and I’m going to do it in two minutes.”
I protested and he fixed me with a stare that could have stopped a charging water buffalo. I shut up. “First, take my bag.”
I strapped it on.
“Now, go as quickly as you can to whoever is screaming for a medic. Open the bag and you will find what you will know that you need,” he paused, then said, “Trust me, you’ll know what that is. Do what you know to do and that’s all there is to it.”
“That’s it?”
“Yep, that’s it. Here, take my helmet, that gives you authority and no one will question it.” Dodger paused, looked right in my eyes and added, “And Jenkins, there is one more thing.”
He shut up again. I waited. Finally he smiled and said softly, “There is a magic medic’s phrase and if you memorize it, believe it, and use it, everything will be fine.”
He shut up again. This time I couldn’t keep quiet. “What is it, Dodger?” I screamed. Behind us I heard the shout, “Medic,” again, this time more urgently.
Dodger looked straight in my eyes and said, “Everybody you work on is going to ask you the same question. That question is, ‘Am I going to die.’ The magic phrase is; and remember, if you don’t say this nothing you do will work, if you do say it, everything you do will work.”
Again the shout, “Medic,” came across the elephant grass.
I screamed, “What is it Dodger? What is the magic phrase?”
“Jenkins, you just look right in their eyes, believe what you’re saying, and say, ‘You are going to be fine, Soldier. You are going to be just fine. Now say it to me.”
Again the shout came, “MEDIC!”
“Say it Jenkins.”
I looked right in Dodger’s eyes, “You’re going to fine, Soldier. You are going to be just fine.”
Dodger smiled, “Perfect. Now, put the helmet on Jenkins and go do your job.”
On his command and without another question about what I was about to do, I moved away, in a half crouch, through the elephant grass, toward the voice that was shouting for a Medic.
I had only gone a few yards when I realized that no one was shooting or lobbing rockets or mortar rounds at me. I straightened from my crouch, reoriented myself, and heard the call again, “Medic! Medic!” I saw an arm waving from the edge of the rice paddy ahead. In seconds I slid down beside two men, the one who had called and waved his arm and a second one who had been hit in the chest. Though I’d never seen a sucking chest wound, we’d covered them extensively in the first aid course that was part of my Ranger training. I relaxed a bit. I knew what to do with this one.
As I applied the bandage, especially made for this particular type of injury, over the gaping wound, I explained to the second man how to hold it in place. Finished, I looked at the wounded man, color was returning to his face and he was breathing easier. I started to stand and he grabbed my arm, pulling me back to his side, “Am I going to die?” he asked, his eyes locked unwaveringly to mine. Dodger’s words came to my mind and spilled out of my mouth, “You’re going to fine, Soldier, just fine, I guarantee it. There’s a dust off on the way. You’ll be in a massage parlor in Saigon before you know it.” He released my arm and relaxed. The intensity in his eyes softened and he said, “Thanks, Doc, I really appreciate it.”
The next man was a hundred yards further along toward the tree line, the tree line that has been the hiding place of our attackers, the tree line that had been silent since the retaliatory artillery strike called in by the Lieutenant had stuck with absolute accuracy.
My second patient was laying on his back in a shallow ditch, three dead comrades at his side. He was shouting, “Medic, Medic, I can’t see, help me…”
I was a few feet away from him I called out, “Hang on, Son, I’m here.”
He calmed instantly, turned toward me, his sightless eyes registering nothing, “Are you the Medic?” he asked.
“I am,” I said, “Just lie still while I clear some working room.”
I rolled a badly mangled body away from his right side. It looked like the soldier had taken the full force of a 122 mm rocket. The two bodies on the other side of the blind soldier appeared to have taken most of the force from a second rocket. I suspected the blind infantryman’s optic nerve had been damaged by the two concussions.
When I took a position beside him, he said, “Am I going to die? Tell me the truth, am I going to die.”
I laughed, “Of course not, soldier. The blindness is temporary; it will wear off pretty quick. Until then, I’m going to bandage your eyes they won’t be damaged when your vision comes back.” I worked quickly because I could hear someone else calling up ahead. With his eyes wrapped, I told him to lie still and keep his head straight, and then I soaked two large gauze pads with water and placed one on each eye. “Now, take your fingertips and hold these two pads in place. I’ve soaked them in a special ointment; when the Medic on the dust-off, gets here, he’ll take them off and you’ll see just like nothing happened, just don’t move until the dust-off gets here.”
I stood up and he said, “Thanks, Doc. Thanks a lot.”
My next patient was almost to the tree line. I figured he was the sentry protecting our flank. He had knife protruding from his gut; both of his hands were wrapped around it. The wound wasn’t gushing but it was bleeding heavily. Beside him was a dead VC, a kid from the look of him. Apparently his job had been to kill the sentry silently. He had failed, giving his life in the attempt.
The sentry was propped up in a shallow ditch, the VC, forgotten, in a heap at his feet. He looked at me and said, “God am I glad you’re here. I’m bleeding to death inside. I can hear it. I can hear it.”
“Relax,” I said, and took his wrist in my right hand pretending to take his pulse. “Relax,” I said. “The fighting is over. There is no more danger but it’s essential that you relax. Do you want to live?”
“Yes. Yes, I want to live.”
“OK, you’ll live if you do exactly what I tell you. Will you do that?”
“Hell yes, what is it?”
“Twist yourself around until you’re flat on your back. Move slowly and I’ll help you”
In seconds he was on his back. I folded his poncho and put it under his head. “Now close your eyes, relax, and think of lying in a field, half asleep, watching the clouds drift by. Close your eyes and don’t open them again until the dust-off gets here. When you hear the chopper coming wave the bandage I’m going to put in hand. Above all, do not touch or even think about the knife. You do those things and you’ll be fine. I have to go now, tell the guys on the dust-off that I’m going into the trees, I heard someone calling from there.”
“OK, Doc, I’ll tell them, and thanks.”
Fifty feet into the trees I found the enemy, or what was left of them. As near as I could tell there must have been seven or eight of them, kids, obviously inexperienced or they would have never been grouped together like they were. Now they were dead, all but one of them, and he was barely hanging on. I didn’t know where to start he was so mangled. I covered his major wounds with large gauze pads then begin wrapping. When I was done he looked like a mummy.
Sensing I was done he opened his eyes. I saw the question he didn’t know how to ask and hoped he would understand when I placed my hand on his forehead and said, “You’re going to be fine, Son. Now close your eyes and rest.”
His eyes closed and his breathing took on a slow, even cadence. I stood, wondering what to do next, when I heard a woman’s voice calling, “Hey, you, are you a Medic?”
I turned toward the voice and saw a nun, standing some twenty feet away.
Too much had happened for me to be shocked or surprised again. “Yes, I am a Medic.”
“Come with me,” she said with the authority of someone used to getting what they asked for.
I followed her for a half mile until we came to a small village. She didn’t slow until we reached the last hootch on the far side. It was white, its walls appeared to be stucco, freshly painted white, with a large blue cross painted on the right side of the front door. Other than the stucco and the paint it looked just like the other houses in the village. I followed her inside. When my eyes adjusted I saw two rows of small beds in a large, main room. There were smaller rooms off the main one; I suppose they were offices and nun’s rooms, maybe a kitchen and a dining room.
“This is an orphanage. We have a dozen children who live here. The three sisters who work here with me have taken them into the jungle in case there are more attacks. This little girl was near the edge of the jungle when the fighting started. Can you help her?”
Without thinking I said, “Yes, I can, she will be fine.”
She gave me a strange look, and then a smile, the first she had shown me, lit up her face, “Yes, I believe that you can.”
I knelt beside the tiny bed. The girl, five or six years old, I guess, had been hit in the stomach, by what I suspected was a small piece of shrapnel. It had entered her just to the right of her navel and gone straight through. The nuns had bandaged both the entrance and the exit wound and there was little else for me to do. I said, “There’s no reason for me to remove the bandages, but we have to get her to a hospital. There are dust-off helicopters on the way. I’ll carry her back to the clearing where the wounded are and I’ll get her to Saigon. Will you go with us?”
“Yes, I will.”
I picked up the almost weightless body, carefully placing her in the curve of my left arm and put my left hand on the exit wound. I slid my right arm around her legs and placed my right hand on the entrance wound and stood. We walked in silence through the village and the strip of jungle that separated it from the clearing where the firefight had occurred.
As we walked I watched the girl’s small face and saw color begin to return to it. In the clearing I heard the sounds of three or four dust-off helicopters that were already on the ground. In the sky gun ships circled. When we stepped into the clearing one of them broke away and flew directly toward us. Fifty feet away it stopped then gently settled onto the ground. Within seconds, the crew chief jumped out and headed toward us at a run.
I knelt and the nun knelt beside me. She put her hand on my arm and shouting to be heard above the spinning rotor blade of the dust-off said, “She is fine now. You did what you said you would do.”
I looked down at the child. Her eyes opened and she smiled.
The nun said, “She wants to stand, let here.”
I gently released my hold on the girl and she stood, said something to the nun in Vietnamese, turned back to me, and bowed slightly. The nun took her hand, looked in my eyes and said, “Today you have brought a miracle.” Then she turned and the two of them walked away.
Before I could say anything or move to stop her a strong hand grabbed my arm and heard, “Are you the Medic?”
I spun around, looked the crew chief in the eyes and said, “Yes I am.”
He pointed toward the idling chopper and said, “The Commander wants to talk to you. You ride with us.”
On the way to Saigon the dust-off company commander told me that he had never seen anything like it. I asked what he meant and he said, there were almost a dozen dead but there was no wounded. “Does that mean everyone I treated died?”
He laughed, “Far from it, Corporal.” He paused, gave me a strange look, then continued. “First we found a man whose buddy said he had a sucking chest wound that you treated. We checked the man. There was a lot of blood and a major hole in his flak jacket and his fatigue jacket was shredded, but there was no wound. Then we found a man who said he had been blinded. He told us what you had done and we checked him.” He paused, looked at me again, then said, “Hell, he could see better than me. Then there was a man holding a bloody knife with an eight inch blade who said when you came along the knife had been stuck in his stomach. His uniform confirmed his story. We even found a VC, wrapped like a mummy, sound asleep and bloody but without a single wound that we could find, and when we landed I saw you release a little girl, that I suspect was somehow wounded in this mess but now is fine. Can you explain any of this, Corporal?”
I thought about everything he had said, remembered what Dodger had told me, and decided to keep it to myself. I looked at the commander and said, “No, Sir, I can’t, but I guess that’s because I’m not really the Medic, I’m just the radio operator.
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