I’ve always felt a bit of guilt about having had such a comfortable war, no danger, no risk, no personal discomfort, no fear, no impossible moral dilemmas, no pain, no lifetime of nightmares. So many of my generation paid a terrible price for Viet Nam, and we all wound up with so little to show for it. I’ve always had the suspicion I simply got away with it. Even the draft dodgers who went to Canada took a bigger risk, and paid a greater price, than I did.

All I really did was show up, which I guess is something. But even that wasn’t pure luck. I’ll be the first to admit I was free to pick my service in such a way as to make it as easy and safe as I could for myself. I would like to think that if push came to shove, I would have done my duty, for my shipmates, my country, even my own self-respect. But I guess there’s no way I can ever know that for sure.

Even back then, I knew war was not like in the movies, wisecracking, manly thirtysomethings grimly but determinedly facing oblivion. We were all just homesick teenagers who had no clue what we had gotten ourselves into. Death and maiming doesn’t come in heroic combat; its usually random, when least expected, artillery from miles away, a hidden mine on the trail, an ambush you never see coming. You don’t go fight a war, you just go walk a tightrope across an impersonal, mindless meat grinder. Bravery has nothing to do with it. Mostly, its just dumb luck. The vast majority do get lucky, too, stuck in support roles far from the killing zone. Like me.

It is said that when a Roman cohort broke formation and ran from the enemy in battle, the survivors were punished with decimation. One in ten were chosen by lot and executed for cowardice. It didn’t matter if they had been cowards themselves, or simply ran when their comrades deserted them. It was an impersonal, random discipline inflicted on the entire unit. And it taught each man that even in victory, a certain portion of each legion was going to fall. It was a reminder that when you took your country’s salt that you didn’t offer yourself to fight, you offered yourself to die.

He could have ended up like Bob Woodruff.

Sorry Bowser, this was meant to be posted under ER

For instance, I remember an area being designated a free-fire zone, and being told to take some new ordnance out there to practice with (a grenade launcher, which turned out to be a nifty little item.)

I went out to the area, and there was a fellow plowing with a water buffalo. That’s my latest memory. I also remember women (with and without children) planting rice, I remember hooches.

I went back to the CO and told him there were people out there pursuing legitimate activities. He repeated forcefully that was a free-fire zone.

That’s all I’ll guarantee about that event. It was occupied. My memory, for instance, of how many were out there is pure confabulation.

My first sponsor was a wise man. And eye-witness testimony is not good, sometimes, even though I might pass a lie detector exam about some of it.