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Trinity Lutheran

Chapter II

The Real Thing

4^th Platoon Company C-2/12 1^st Calvary Division Airmobile

We joined our company on about August 1, 1968 and were soon informed that on 29 July the company had been ambushed and had suffered several KIA s and many MIAs. We would hear the 29th of July stories until the last man present on the deadly day had gone back to the states. War strikes daily fear into a person, fear of the future, fear of losing friends and fear of death. Little boys play war, shoot their friends with bam bam bam, crawl on the ground, drink water form canteens and argue about "I got you" and you are dead or "No I got your first". Young men worry about dieing and having friends die, sleep on the ground, eat cold meals, live like animals and smell bad.

Our first few days with the company were spent at LZ Hardcore training on the mortar and competing with our fellows to see what job we got. The fastest man setting up the mortar got the best job and my friend Bill Mazejko, 19 from Baltimore was the quick draw kid and got to be the gunner. Bill is still my dear friend 37 years later. I have a connection with Bill like no other man in my life. My other friend Ray Woodward; who I had been in Advanced Infantry School with got the second job. I ended up carrying mortar rounds as I was not fast on the mortar set up. When we were not training we would swim with the farm kids in a river that ran next to our bunker, reading books, writing letters or getting to know our new friends. At night we would take shifts on guard duty at the bunker. For a couple nights we had a platoon of Armored Personal Carriers (APC) guarding the fire base with us. The APCs would set up "trip flares" outside the fire base at night; one night a dog set off a trip flare. The APC soldiers were convinced that it was a VC that had set off the trip flare and started fire M79 grenades into the field, hitting the roof of the house where the little family we swam with during the day lived. They called out over the radio that a "Victor Charlie" (VC) had set off the flare and so continued to fire into the darkness while the family of Vietnamese ran from their home. We called back on the radio to cease fire that they were shooting at a Delta Oscar Golf (dog). The excitement soon ended and the poor family went back into their home but I am certain they did not sleep well.

After about a week at LZ Hardcore we moved into the "Field". Almost immediately we started receiving mortar fire and were ordered to set up our mortar and fire back at God knows what. The firing soon stopped and we move into a village. No sooner than part of the company moved into the village we received mortar fire again, this time several of
our men were wounded. One of those wounded was our new friend Bruce Lumpkin who had come with us to the company just a few days before. During our first day in the field one of our new friends, along with several others, was already wounded. "This could be a long 365 days!" Our friend Bruce was wounded and after his recovery he was able to get a job in a rear area so we only saw him one more time when he came to visit us a few months later. During the next few days we would witness a number of men wounded by booby traps. We would witness air strikes and the beginning reality of war. Our first night in the field was spent in an old cemetery. I went to sleep wondering if I would be alive to witness the morning. It rained that afternoon and we were in an area with sandy soil so my M-16 was jammed with wet sand making it impossible to function or even clean in the dark. Prior to going to sleep I fixed my bayonet knowing for sure that before the night was over I would be defending myself in hand to hand combat, this time the target would not be bails of straw. We awoke safe, the only attack being from an army of mosquitoes. Fear of the next moment is the constant companion of the new soldier; who would be the next man wounded or killed, will it be me? Time mellows the fear but I believe that lingering daily fear, acknowledged or not is one of the components of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We are told by Psychologist that humans have a "Fight or Flee" component to our Psyche; anytime we are stressed we select one of the options. Since "Flee" in the military is not an option the "Fight" is all that is left.

In the Viet Nam War most of the time the enemy was hidden; attacking at night, planting booby traps, sniping from a distance so the soldier was left with the fear not knowing for certain how to fight back. The flee option took the form of internalization or in some cases use of alcohol or drugs to escape. Men being men, not wanting to show their fear, the impulse was to internalize the fear. I believe that the long term suppression of any emotion takes a devastating toll on the human mind. We had men shoot themselves in the foot, fake a rat bite, develop Malaria from not taking Malaria pills or volunteer for rear jobs a humiliating as burning human waste in order to get out the field. One poor guy
tried to shoot himself in the toe, the round went between his toes and rather than getting out of the field he ended up with disciplinary action against him. Desperate people take desperate actions.

From the lowlands a few miles south of the DMZ and a few miles west of the South China Sea we moved perhaps 20 miles west into the rolling scrub brushed hills out side LZ Nancy. Our first night in that area provided a feast for the local mosquitoes and a massive expenditure of fire from the US Air Force in the form of a Spooky Gun Ship; a modified DC3 that dropped flares that lit the sky and ground below. Fire from its "Mini Gun", every fifth round a tracer, had the appearance of a solid chain of fire from the sky. Our sense was that nothing could live through the hell fire the Air Force was laying down. To our dismay when we searched the area the next morning the only sign of results for the fire storm was one NVA helmet with a bullet hole in it. The measure of results in this war was "body count". That evening turned out to be expensive in terms of dollars with no body count

The result of training, living conditions, and seeing friends killed or wounded made us long for killing the enemy. How the Army had changed us form fun loving kids on the block to trained killers longing for the blood of another human. I recall being discussed with bayonet training at Fort Lewis, driving a bayonet into a bale of straw thinking "they
are training us to do this to another human being". Months later we were now hoping to see a dead black haired, slanted eyed SOB of a gook. A few weeks later when I witnessed my first young Asian man with the back of his head removed by a 50 Caliber machine gun I had a new sense of war. This was a young man like me; he carried a wallet with money, photos of family, personal information. He was a boy with parents that loved and missed him , perhaps a wife and a child who would never see him again.  His body was left in the bamboo thicket maybe to dry and rot in the sun or be eaten by animals. He would not go home and though I had not fired a shot I was a willing participant in the lust for his termination.

War turns men into animals who long for blood and revel in the death of the enemy. When our company had its first "body count" in months the ambush team used ropes to drag the bodies back to show the rest of us. Like game hunters they wanted to show their trophy. When our cat drags home a dead bird or mouse to leave at the door it reminds me of that day. Later in the morning we flew off in helicopters I looked out on the scene of those bodies lying on the ground near where we had built a fire to burn the garbage of our previous night. The image of those cold dead boys is indelibly printed on my mind. A few hours earlier I had fired illumination rounds from our mortar to reveal their escape route after they had stumbled upon our position in the dark. They would escape the too late fire from our sleeping guards but moments later would walk into the kill zone of our ambush down the trail. Now families would never see their love one again.


Young men that have grown up with the teaching "Thou shall not kill" are not natural born killer though the military during a few short weeks of training attempts to instill the desire to have no value for the life of the enemy; to hate and to kill. All soldiers in every war soon pick up names for the current enemy; Krauts, Japs, Dinks, Gooks, Sand Rats; all meant to degrade another human being, fuel hate and the desire to kill.

Me, a 24 year old boy who had grown up in a loving middle class family, attended church with some regularity, longed for the comforting words of the battalion chaplain when he visited, had a college education, cared for my fellow man and yet very naive about the world had now turned into a blood thirsty warrior. Years later when I reflect on that year in hell, those who did not come home, those who suffer far more than I, those who have taken their own lives years later as a result of the mental trauma , the millions of Vietnamese that died and suffered as a result of our government's action executed by the hands of young men and women such as myself I feel shame, regret, anger and yet a gratefulness that I came home mostly whole and that I have gained a revised prospective on the false promise of political leader regarding the need for war.



THIS STORY IS A WORK IN PROGRESS BUT I WANTED TO GET MY FEELING AND MEMORIES DOWN SO PLEASE EXCUSE. MY INTENT IN WRITING THESE RECOLLECTIONS IS PARTIALLY TO RECORD MY MEMORIES, PARTIALLY FOR SELF HEALING AND HOPEFULLY TO INFLUENCE THE MINDS OF THOSE WHO BELIEVE THAT WAR OFFERS A SOLUTION TO PROBLEMS THAT MAY BE RESOLVED BY OTHER MEANS. IN MY BELIEF WAR IS THE LAST CHOICE METHOD FOR RESOLVING HUMAN DIFFERENCES AND IS SELDOM IF EVER JUSTIFIED.  SEE MY QUOTES & THOUGHTS LINK TO SEE WHAT SOME US PRESIDENTS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THE SUBJECT.