Born on the Fourth of July (20 page)

The lieutenant came by and ordered the men to put the pieces on a stretcher. Sergeant Bo was my friend and now he was dead. They were going to put him in a plastic bag. They were going to do that with the pieces just like they were going to do with MacCarthy and like they'd done with the corporal from Georgia whom I'd killed the month before. Out by the command bunker they had all the dead lined up in a neat long line. They were all stripped of their clothes and staring up at the sky. Bo and Mac were there with a lot of others I hadn't seen before. About eleven men had been killed in the attack.

There were scores of wounded. Sergeant Peters had been hit in the eye and Corporal Swanson was lying in the command tent with a large piece of metal still stuck in his head. I went up to him and held his hand, telling him everything was going to be all right. He told me to send a letter right away to his wife in California and tell her what had happened. I promised him I'd do it that night but I never did and I never heard from him again.

The men were beginning to relax a little more now. Everyone was smoking cigarettes and feeling a little closer to everyone else. Maybe, I thought, the men would stop talking about me behind my back now. Maybe with all that blown-away flesh the killing of the corporal from Georgia wouldn't mean that much anymore.

He was just another body, he thought, just like the rest of them, the ones who had all been blown to pieces. For some crazy reason he began feeling a lot better about everything. The more the better, he thought, the more that looked like the corporal the better. Maybe, he thought, they would get confused and forget in all the madness that he had murdered the kid from Georgia. Maybe they would understand the mistake of putting the slug in the corporal's neck. He wanted to cry for all his friends who had died that day but he couldn't. He couldn't feel too much anymore.

W
E STOPPED
going out on patrols in the beginning of the new year. We began to take showers every morning and even eat three meals a day again. It seemed like the perfect time to fix up the tent. Michaelson brought in a can of dark oil that we swept all over the wood floor. Even more work was put in on the bunker.

There was news one morning of a big fight a little up north and we began getting restless and edgy. A lieutenant from the battalion had been killed there. I knelt over him with the chaplain when they brought his body in. He was covered with a raincoat. There was a small bullet hole in his forehead and the whole back of his head had been shot out. He was dead like all the rest, and for some reason right then I felt something big was about to happen.

The major called me over and told me to get the men ready to move out. We were going north across the river.

When I got back to the tent, Michaelson told me he would see me in heaven after today. He was to die that afternoon. Every one of us seemed to have a funny feeling. I kept thinking over and over that I was going to get hit—that nothing would be quite the same after this day.

We went to get some chow and I remember the major yelled at me for not putting helmets on the men. We'd never used them in the past and I couldn't understand why on this day the major wanted us to wear helmets and flak jackets. We had to walk all the way back to our tents and put the stuff on. We felt like supermen in the cumbersome jackets as we got into the truck that took us to the southern bank of the river. We all got out and waited for a while and then a small boat took us to the other side, where everybody else was getting ready to sweep up north to where the lieutenant's squad had been wiped out.

I remember moving along the beach beside the ocean later. There were sand dunes that reminded me of home and lots of scrub pine trees. The men were in a very sloppy formation. It seemed everyone was carrying far too much equipment. The sky was clear and the Vietnamese were walking and fishing. Except for the noise of the tanks and Amtracs that were moving slowly along with us, it seemed like a Sunday stroll with everyone dressed up in costume. It was hard to remember that at any moment the whole thing might bust wide open and you might get killed like all the other dead losers. There was that salt air that smelled so familiar.

Then the whole procession suddenly came to a stop and we were told to go back. There was something happening in the village on the north bank of the river. A big fight was going on and the Popular Forces were pinned down and in lots of trouble. I ran up to the captain who had given the order and asked him was he sure we weren't supposed to continue going up north. The men didn't want to go back, I said. Was it the major who had given the order? I asked. The captain said he'd try to get confirmation. I waited with the Amtrac engines roaring in my ears while he radioed the rear. When he got off the radio, he told me the major had changed his mind. The scouts would now lead the attack into the village.

I climbed on one of the Amtracs to talk to the men. They seemed very quiet. They had the same feeling I did that it was all about to come down, that this walk in the sand might be the last one for all of us.

There was going to be some kind of crazy tactical maneuver where we were going to march west along the bank of the river and make a direct assault on the village after crossing the razorback, which was the biggest sand dune in the area. A group of us would dismount from one of the Amtracs and lead the primary assault and the other two Amtracs would sweep from north to south through the graveyard and attack from another flank. It all sounded so crazy and simple. I kept trying to get my thoughts together, trying to think how much I wanted to prove to myself that I was a brave man, a good marine. No matter what happened out there, I thought to myself, I could never retreat. I had to be courageous. Here was my chance to win a medal, here was my chance to fight against the real enemy, to make up for everything that had happened.

This was it, he thought, everything he had been praying for, the whole thing up for grabs.

There were ten of them walking toward the village, and he felt the rosary beads in his top pocket and knew that the little black Bible they had given them all on the planes coming in was in his other pocket too. The other men were getting off the 'tracs in the graveyard. He could see the heat still coming up from the big engines and the men looked real small in the distance, like little toy soldiers jumping off tanks. He looked to the left and they were all there, it was a perfect line. He had trained the scouts well and everything looked good. There was a big pagoda up ahead and a long trench full of Popular Forces. There wasn't any firing going on and he asked the commander of the Viet unit to help him in the assault that was about to take place. The Viet officer said they were staying put and none of them was even going to think about attacking the village. He was angry as he moved the scouts over the top of the long trench line. They're a bunch of fucking cowards, he thought. “Look at them!” he shouted to the scouts. “They're sitting out the war in that trench like a bunch of babies.”

“Let's go!” he said. And now they began to move into a wide and open area. They were ten men armed to the teeth, walking in a sweeping line toward the village. It was beautiful, just like the movies.

The firing first started in the graveyard. There were loud cracks, and then the whole thing sounded like someone had set off a whole string of fireworks. He could hear the mortars popping out, crashing like cymbals when they landed on top of the 'tracs. The whole graveyard was being raked by mortars and heavy machine-gun fire coming out of the village.

I remember we all sort of stopped and watched for a moment. Then all of a sudden the cracks were blasting all around our heads and everybody was running all over the place. We started firing back with full automatics. I emptied a whole clip into the pagoda and the village. I was yelling to the men. I kept telling them to hold their ground and keep firing, though no one knew what we were firing at. I looked to my left flank and all the men were gone. They had run away, all run away to the trees near the river, and I yelled and cursed at them to come back but nobody came. I kept emptying everything I had into the village, blasting holes through the pagoda and ripping bullets into the tree line. There was someone to my right lying on the ground still firing.

I had started walking toward the village when the first bullet hit me. There was a sound like firecrackers going off all around my feet. Then a real loud crack and my leg went numb below the knee. I looked down at my foot and there was blood at the back of it. The bullet had come through the front and blew out nearly the whole of my heel.

I had been shot. The war had finally caught up with my body. I felt good inside. Finally the war was with me and I had been shot by the enemy. I was getting out of the war and I was going to be a hero. I kept firing my rifle into the tree line and boldly, with my new wound, moved closer to the village, daring them to hit me again. For a moment I felt like running back to the rear with my new million-dollar wound but I decided to keep fighting out in the open. A great surge of strength went through me as I yelled for the other men to come out from the trees and join me. I was limping now and the foot was beginning to hurt so much, I finally lay down in almost a kneeling position, still firing into the village, still unable to see anyone. I seemed to be the only one left firing a rifle. Someone came up from behind me, took off my boot and began to bandage my foot. The whole thing was incredibly stupid, we were sitting ducks, but he bandaged my foot and then he took off back into the tree line.

For a few seconds it was silent. I lay down prone and waited for the next bullet to hit me. It was only a matter of time, I thought. I wasn't retreating, I wasn't going back, I was lying right there and blasting everything I had into the pagoda. The rifle was full of sand and it was jamming. I had to pull the bolt back now each time trying to get a round into the chamber. It was impossible and I started to get up and a loud crack went off next to my right ear as a thirty-caliber slug tore through my right shoulder, blasted through my lung, and smashed my spinal cord to pieces.

I felt that everything from my chest down was completely gone. I waited to die. I threw my hand back and felt my legs still there. I couldn't feel them but they were still there. I was still alive. And for some reason I started believing, I started believing I might not die, I might make it out of there and live and feel and go back home again. I could hardly breathe and was taking short little sucks with the one lung I had left. The blood was rolling off my flak jacket from the hole in my shoulder and I couldn't feel the pain in my foot anymore, I couldn't even feel my body. I was frightened to death. I didn't think about praying, all I could feel was cheated.

All I could feel was the worthlessness of dying right here in this place at this moment for nothing.

T
HE BACK YARD
, that was the place to be, it was where all the plans for the future, the trips to Africa, the romances with young high-school girls, it was where all those wonderful things took place. Remember the hula hoop, everyone including my mother doing it and my sister, yes my sister, teaching me the twist in the basement. Then out on the basketball court with all the young fine-looking girls watching. Then back on the fence for a walk around the whole back yard. Up there! Can you see me balancing like Houdini? Can you see me hiding in a box, in a submarine, on a jet? Can you see me flying a kite, making a model, breeching a stream?

It was all sort of easy, it had all come and gone, the snowstorms, the street lamps telling us there was no school at midnight, the couch, the heater with all of us rolled up beside it in the thick blankets, the dogs, it was lovely. Getting nailed at home plate, studying the cub scout handbook, tying knots, playing Ping-Pong, reading National Geographic. Mickey Mantle was my hero and Joan Marfe was the girl I liked best. It all ended with a bang and it was lovely.

There was a song called “Runaway” by a guy named Del Shannon playing one Saturday at the baseball field. I remember it was a beautiful spring day and we were young back then and really alive and the air smelled fresh. This song was playing and I really got into it and was hitting baseballs and feeling like I could live forever.

It was all sort of easy.

It had all come and gone.

POSTSCRIPT

14 February 1968

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Kovic,

Just prior to your son Ron's departure from Vietnam, he very kindly sent me a copy of the letter in which he informed you of his wounds and his paralytic condition. That letter was the most inspirational one I have ever received from any of our Marines in Vietnam—and I receive quite a few. I have written to Ron and my next thought was to write to you to express my sympathy. As I re-read the letter, however, it came to me that, while I quite naturally feel sympathy for Ron and for you, condolence is not what I want to express, but rather gratitude. I am extremely grateful that our country is composed of people like you who can raise so fine a son. Ron's faith in God, his dedication to his country, and his strength of character reflect the highest credit on the upbringing you gave him. Despite the fact that he is partially paralyzed, I know that his spirit and his faith will continue to flourish and that his future contribution toward a free and peaceful world will be equally as worthy, if not more so, as that which he so gallantly contributed in Vietnam.

You have my deepest respect and admiration, as does Ron. He is the type of young man of which Americans and free men everywhere can be proud.

Sincerely,

L.W. Walt

Lieutenant General, U.S. Marine Corps

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, I'd like to thank my friend and editor, Joyce Johnson, for the countless hours, including much of her own time, spent helping construct this book, giving it the necessary shape and form. The book could not have been completed without her help and exceptional skills and talents.