The Vietnam Reader (52 page)

I said, “Only two things can happen to you. You can get wounded and go home early. Or you can die. And then you really don’t give a shit. You’re just dead. I’m planning to go home, and I think when it’s your turn to go home, the best way to go home is whole. If you stick with me, stick it out and learn from the guys who are here, you won’t get wounded. You won’t die. If you stick the whole fucking year out here and go home, that’s the worst possible thing that can happen, and that’s what you should look forward to.” I believed it. I really believed it. And that’s what we did. We really tried to do that.

You didn’t want to get close to anyone over there. I was trained not to get close to my men. I was trained to keep a distance. And it wasn’t simply because they would lose respect for you, but because you would never be able to control them, you would never be objective in your decisions if you had friends. You’d stay with them, it’s only logical. That was really hard, being an officer. I mean, it’s just a tide, being an officer. And it’s a strange thing that the men hate you, but when the bullet goes off, they look to you: “What now, Lieutenant?” Everyone wants to say, “Get down. Let’s not do anything.” In the field you always look to the leaders. In the military it just so happens that they’re preordained by rank—not necessarily by skill or competence or anything else for that matter. I mean, one of the things is realizing that because somebody has more rank or is older than you, it doesn’t make him any smarter.

Another thing I learned after going to Vietnam. I grew up and was in the kind of crowd in high school that was the all-American bunch. But back there I didn’t realize that having the last name of Santos made me different, until I found out later on that it had an effect on me in the Army in how people treated me. Having a Hispanic surname—I didn’t even think about it. I just thought I was white like
everyone else. I grew up in a clique that ran the school, the officers of all the clubs. We were the athletes, all that bullshit.

I mean, I was in the Airborne. Airborne guys are tough and all that bullshit, and they’re the best outfit. So I looked around for some kind of support. Of course, I looked at the guys who I thought identified with me: “Oh, he went to college. Hey, you’re an athlete. Hey, you’re this. Great.” Well, they’re not all from New York City, much less from Long Island. They’re from all parts of the country.

I found out that bullshit is not an indicator of what you’re going to do under stress. It’s so artificial, the world we live in. And in the service, tall, short, thin, fat, good-looking, homely, ugly—it didn’t matter. Name, color—it meant nothing under combat. Bullets have no discrimination. And I think some of the smallest guys carried more weight than the biggest guys because they could psychologically do it. They could take more abuse physically, mentally, because they were stronger.

For me it really wasn’t a limit of confidence. I was determined. And part of my determination came out of the fact that I was responsible for bringing these guys home. Eight of my men died over there and two got wounded. All I was determined to do was protect us. I wrote very few letters home because there was nothing to talk about. And I would watch the mail come in. The mail was dropped off at the CP [command post] and I’d watch. Let’s say Jones got letters this week and then I noticed there was a break in his mail. I’d watch the guy to see if it had an effect on him, would depress him. And if in the second mail call he got nothing again, then I would go sit down with him.

Or I always had a three-man point and I was always number three because I felt I couldn’t ask the men to do something that I wouldn’t do. So I would be first. If I died, then they knew better to do it themselves. Right? It was kind of a sick psychology, but I think it was appropriate for my position by virtue of survival and fairness. But I’d go along on point with the guy and say, “Damnit, I didn’t get a letter again.” Kind of compassion by identification. And within a couple of steps, the guy would lay the whole story out on me, what happened, if
it was important. If it wasn’t important I’d just move on. But if the guy was really hurting, I’d stay.

I was like a father and a mother to these guys, even though they didn’t know that. They carried more ammo or weapons than anybody else. A lot of times in between when you need it, it’s just a pain in the ass to carry all of it around. But I wanted to bring back thirty guys. I didn’t. I remember when they died. I remember their names periodically, but I can’t remember all eight at the same time. But I do remember them. Still to this day.

I can almost picture my platoon, how tall they were, where they were from, what they did—I mean, who cried and who didn’t cry. I had a lot of deep feelings for those people. I say “my men,” but the average age of the platoon was around nineteen. We had an old guy, Coogan. He was twenty-eight, “the Old Man.”

One time after I got wounded and was waiting in base camp to go back out to the field, this new guy came to me. His name was Peterson. He was a young guy—I mean, he was a kid. They sent him over to me. He wanted to talk to somebody. He didn’t want to stay in country. His brother was in the Navy stationed on a ship somewhere, and he wanted to know if this could get him out of Vietnam. I explained to him what I understood the rules to be. I said to him, “As far as I understand it, you’re going to be in the field. What company are you assigned to?” He said Charlie Company. I said, “Look, when you get out there, tell them you want to be in the 3rd Platoon. That’s the best goddamn platoon out there. They’ll take care of you.”

He was really upset and he left. I called the field and said this guy’s coming out—I wanted him in my platoon. I got out there about two days later. He was sitting down and they were trying to explain things to him. He was a kid.

It wasn’t so much that he was younger than us, but he was a kid by our standards. We got old fast. We were exposed to so much shit and you find out so much about yourself—your good, your bad, your strengths and your weaknesses—if you’re honest with yourself—so quickly that you might as well have aged. You might as well be eighty years old looking back or looking forward, however you want to talk about it. It’s the only way to survive.

I had to know how everyone would be responding because of that old thing: the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. I would always keep my weakest link protected. I would never put my weakest link on point, never put him out on flank. At the same time I made everyone think that the weakest link was pulling his share. So it was very confusing at times, giving orders to the platoon and rotating responsibilities. But Peterson came in March, and I think it was by May—two months later—that Peterson was for all intents and purposes a strack [exemplary] trooper. I mean, this guy had confidence. We had built him. We had taken him in that sense, a guy who was crying and scared, no confidence whatsoever, and made him feel confident. He was in some contact, but the men protected him and kept him away from things. He was so sure of himself, and it was really a pleasure, like watching your kid grow up. Everybody kind of took him along as the kid brother.

Well, it was a day where nothing was going to happen. We hadn’t had any contact in a while. He wanted to go on point. I said, “Who’s on point?” They said, “Peterson.” I said, “What’s he doing out there?” He wanted to go on point. I used an unorthodox formation. I was in the middle, so the point he was going on was a right flank because there were people on the trail. We’re out in an open area. We’re relatively safe. Some of the in-house rules: If you get wounded, don’t say a word, don’t scream. Sit still. We know where you are. We know where you went down. We’ll get there.

There’s people on the trail and we were lax, I guess. Shots rang out and somebody yelled, “Peterson.” So we immediately went forward. I ran over. I never asked my men to go forward without me. I always went with them. I was up on that trail. Peterson starts screaming. Two more shots rang out. Silence. I just stopped. Peterson’s dead. And of course, no one could believe that. We wanted to go forward to get him. I said, “He’s dead. Leave him be.” We got pinned down going to the left.

The battalion commander was in a chopper right above us. He says, “I don’t see you guys.” I say, “You’re not supposed to see us. That’s what we’re trained for, to conceal ourselves. I can see you. I know
where the chopper’s pointing and I’m going to give you a direction on it—a compass reading—to tell you where we are. I see two guys over there. That’s them. Hit them.” He says, “I can’t take a chance. It might be your men.” I said, “We’re not anywhere near that kind of terrain. You’re facing them. Just shoot out of the goddamn chopper, you’ll hit them. We’re behind you.” He refused to do it. We never found those two guys.

We got to Peterson. Since we heard Peterson yell, we knew he was hit twice. The first shot was in the arm. The second shot was in the head. If he hadn’t screamed he would’ve lived. There’s no question, he would’ve lived. He freaked. He broke.

One thing I did over there I think to this day is valid, though I think in one point in time it was one of the most cruel things you could do to someone. After every time someone was wounded or someone was killed, you’re psychologically most vulnerable to suggestion. I knew what I was going to say. I pulled the platoon together and told them that the wounded person, the dead person, their buddy, their friend, fucked up because he did something I told him not to do. He did something he was trained not to do. And by virtue of doing that he risked all our lives. Sure, feel sorry for him, but now you know why he died. You want to end up the way he did? You want us to feel about you the way you feel about him? Then go ahead and fuck up. But this is what he did wrong …

All I know is that psychologically we had to stay up. And this is when I hit them, when they were most vulnerable, smashed them down—and they might not have liked it, but they never forgot what I said. It was important.

That day when Peterson … I asked the platoon to move forward and I left them in the field and I sat down and tried to cry. It was the first time and … I moved my platoon forward because in basic training at Fort Hood our drill sergeant was sick one time from the flu. He made the platoon do an about-face while we heard him throw up—timed it so we wouldn’t see him. We knew what he was doing. It stuck in my mind. And that day, certainly risking my life, I moved the platoon forward because I knew they knew what I was feeling. I had
Peterson’s personal effects, and there was a letter addressed to, I suspect, his girlfriend. He had flowers on the envelope. Nineteen years old. When he arrived he was eighteen. He was a young kid. He was our guy that we were going to take care of. We adopted him in a sense. We were going to bring him through. The one guy we didn’t want killed. He didn’t belong there any more than we belonged there. He belonged there even less.

See, I never cried in Vietnam. I cried that one time. I cried inside all the time. I was so unhappy. But I never cried. Not because you’re a man or not a man, but as an officer you weren’t supposed to cry, no emotion.

I didn’t know of anybody in my entire platoon that wanted to kill, who ever killed before. There was one guy, Haynor, who was like a cowboy, young, brash: “Hey, this is an adventure.” He saved my life and left the field wounded as a result of saving my life. He was the only guy I felt was like that. Man, it was just … you become tight or you don’t become tight.

I remember freezing at night and wanting to crawl up next to the RTO—we spent ten months together and there was no sexual overtone or anything else. I was freezing. He was someone who had been with me every day, every minute, and I just wanted to hold the two bodies together. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it because of the fact that I would show weakness. I would become too close psychologically and I would be really upset. What a lonely fucking place.

I was convinced my platoon had to carry more ammo, more weapons, and that I had to carry more ammo than anybody else in my platoon. Because once the company ran out of ammo and we were the only ones left with some, so we held the ground while the other platoons backed off. From then on I was convinced you had to carry it. You never know. What you did saved their lives, but they hate you for it. They’re feeling guilty now, but they’re living and they’re going to hate me for saving their lives. If they’re miserable when that took place, they’ll hate me for making them miserable. You know, it’s that—or I’ve earned their respect. I’ll never—I mean, once or twice people will say something to me and you get the feeling that you
earned their respect. But the whole time doing it, it’s hard to make decisions that tomorrow …

We caught a VC rice harvest and were given a stand-down as our big break. The colonel came down, battalion commander, and said, “The general’s coming down to give you a medal.” I said, “Well, that’s nice. What about my men?” He says, “What about your men?” I say, “Don’t they get anything? You can’t do it without them.” And the lieutenant commander says, “Well, what should we do about his men?” True to form, the colonel said, “Well, sir, they could use some baths and haircuts.” And he turned to me—the colonel had been an NCO and got commissioned and worked his way up—and said, “What do you think, Lieutenant?” I said, “Well, I think they could get laid and drunk, personally. A couple of men just died.” You don’t talk to a colonel like that, but that was my feeling—that was what my men wanted. They didn’t give a shit about showers, we washed with rain water plenty of times, we never had showers. The colonel left, the general came. But shortly after the colonel left, two motor scooters came down with cases of beer on the back and women.

The lieutenant commander just looked at it all and said, “Okay, all of the guys get Airborne haircuts.” Vietnam? Airborne? I had long hair. So I called all my men together in formation. I said, “All right, you guys, you heard what the captain said. You’re getting Airborne haircuts. Now line up. Dress-right-dress.”

They were grouching, “Fucking Vietnam. Say, jerk, what’s going on?” So I marched them over to the barber chair that was set up. I turned around and pulled the old Sergeant Rock routine. If I had a cigar I would’ve put it in my mouth. “All right, you guys, you’re going to get haircuts just like mine.” The guys really thought I flipped. I sat down and told the guy, “Cut it just one snip. That’s it.” I got back up and said, “All right, next … next … next …” Just like mine. We just didn’t want short hair. We always shaved. We were clean. We fought. But any feeling was that if it’s going to make us happy, then give it to us. Just give us that one concession. And no one could say anything to me because I happened to have gotten a lot of medals when I first got there. I got a reputation of being a great soldier,
leader, combat leader. My platoon got lots of medals. So we did whatever we wanted within bounds and we got away with it. You have long hair—no other platoon has short haircuts. That’s stupid, really dumb to cut a guy’s hair. Doesn’t make you a better soldier. There’s one way to go—and that’s home.