The approach of every holiday seems to evoke memories for me, more so now than before.  This approaching Christmas caused me to remember an event that happened many years ago when I was a grunt in Vietnam.

My MOS, or Military Occupational Specialty (at least I think this is what it stands for) was 11-C - infantry mortar man.  When we changed areas of operation from the highlands to the flat plains, we got rid of our 81 mm mortar because it was too heavy to hump.  Since I was already used to carrying a twenty-three pound base plate our platoon sergeant chose me to carry the twenty-six pound M-60 machinegun.  The gun was a weapon that I had never even held in my hands, much less shot.

We were in a hot AO (area of operation) and everyone expected contact.  In a clearing, waiting for resupply, I extended the bipod of the gun and pointed it toward the tree line.  I was admiring my handiwork when a voice from behind disturbed my thoughts.

“Better lower the bipod.  If bullets start flying, you want to be as low to the ground as you can get.”

I turned to see a trooper named Denny.  He was white, but had dark black hair and a drooping handlebar moustache.  He was from Michigan, as were many of my fellow boonie rats.  Denny was a veteran of the recent Cambodian campaign and had participated in many firefights with the elusive enemy.

I lowered the bipod and thanked Denny for his sage advice.  Later that night, I could hear the moans of someone suffering horribly.  It was Denny.

“He has malaria,” the First Sergeant told me.  “The Medevac choppers won’t come get him till his temperature reaches a sustained one-oh-four.”

One-oh-four was a number someone in the rear had come up with to prevent troopers from faking illnesses.  The problem was, when a sky trooper’s temperature reached a sustained one-oh-four, he was already almost dead.

The night chopper carried Denny away, and everyone tried to forget that we had ever known him.  It was November, although it seemed more like summer in tropical Vietnam.  Latter that month I left the jungle for good.  I was a college graduate and got a job as a clerk-typist on Firebase Buttons in the rear.  Seems they needed someone that could type more than they needed a soldier that could pull a trigger.

When Christmas neared, the Company Sergeant asked me if I wanted to see the Bob Hope Christmas show.  The gig required spending a night on a forward firebase and none of my fellow clerks wanted to chance being that close to potential combat.  Fresh out of the jungle anyway, I of course said yes.

The night on the forward firebase went without incident, except that a reporter for Newsweek reported that we violated the Christmas truce when everyone on the firebase opened fire for what we called the “mad minute.”

Next day we took a Chinook helicopter to the hospital in Bien Hoa where we would see Bob Hope.  It was there that I saw Denny again.  He was wandering around the grounds in pajamas and a robe.  He did not recognize me.

Denny reminded me of Jack Nicholson in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest – after his full frontal lobotomy, that is.

I didn’t have a good seat and could not see much of the Bob Hope Christmas Show.  It did not matter much because I was thinking of Denny and the masses of other brain and soul-damaged soldiers wandering like wraiths across the grounds of the sprawling hospital.

That Christmas night, I watched the sunset from the back of a departing Chinook, and considered my own mortality.

Happy Holidays Everybody!

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