CUE: Folsom Prison Blues, JOHNNY CASH
Every man who has ever stood in the line of battle has had to come to the realization that death is a part of that endeavor. Each soldier finds his own way into and out of the mindset that must accompany combat, and each must deal with it in his own way. Most make that difficult journey in the company of their comrades and come out of it emotionally scarred but a bit wiser in the realities of life at a more elemental level. Some wait until civilian life has resumed in a more peaceful place to deal with the emotional impact. Some never deal with it at all. I suppose there has never been a war that has not left some of its emotionally shattered veterans standing hollow-eyed on street corners, still traumatized by the human price such wars always exact. Certainly the war in Vietnam was no exception.
I have often thought about those war-shattered personalities that have never been able to shake off the emotional effects of a year in the fray, so many decades ago. It is a subject that has haunted me and made me search my own soul and my own experience for an answer. Why did I and so many like me manage to come home and reenter society without being socially and emotionally crippled by regret of actions taken in combat? After years of reflection on the subject, I think I may have stumbled on an answer. I don't know why I never thought about it before now.
As a boy who was raised in the ranch country of west Texas, I was schooled in the art of shooting from the earliest age. The men of my family were all great hunters, and my father was one of the greatest wing shots in America. He was chosen as a member of the US Marine Corps Skeet Team, which gives some credence to my brags about his prowess with a gun. Safety was always a big thing with my father, and so when it was my time to begin shooting, he introduced me to the power of the gun in an unforgettable way.
On a cool autumn morning, we walked out to the open pit my family used as a shooting backdrop. My father carried his shotgun under his arm, and I was excited at the prospect of beginning my lessons on shooting. As we neared the far end of the shooting pit, I saw that there was a small wire cage there. Inside was a full-grown hen, white and quite pretty, with a red comb that seemed to flip this way and that as she cocked her head to see what we were doing. As we approached, my father slipped the gun from under his arm and jacked a shell into the chamber. His hand came to my shoulder, and steadily he brought me up to stand next to him, facing the cage and the chicken inside. He bent low and said to me, in a soft but serious voice, “I want you to remember this. Never point a gun at anybody.” He then stood erect, placed the shotgun to his shoulder and fired, point blank, at the helpless chicken in the cage. Instantly the living thing was turned into a bloody, palpitating mess before my young eyes.
I never forgot that moment or the lesson it imparted. From the first time a firearm was placed in my hands, there was never a doubt in my mind what devastating things it could do to a living body. The scene came back to me again and again as a young man, but never as strongly as it did on the first night I stood over the limp form of a human being who had died by my hands. Other nights would follow, until the remembrance of my father's words faded. They slipped away to be replaced by a sort of apathy. It was a feeling that seemed to come from the fatigue of the long, dark nights and the determination that I would get back home, no matter what it took. As time went by, I began to recognize the same look in the eyes of those with whom I shared those dark nights. There was recognition between us that was a sort of wordless understanding, never spoken, only seen in the lackluster stare that was the hallmark of those who had met combat head on. Somehow the faces of the dead seemed to fade away until they all seemed to have only one face. Oddly enough, everyone agreed that it was the face of the first one.
If these are the thoughts that haunt those who seem never to have gotten over the Vietnam experience, then there must be a reason. There has to be a reason why some transcend their military horrors and move on, and others do not. I believe the secret lies in choices made during that tumultuous time. The choices made could actually be the key to self-salvation. I am fairly certain this was true in my case.
Sometime in March, or maybe it was April, we were on our way to an ambush position in an area known as War Zone C. We had been out for many nights and were all bordering on the edge of exhaustion. As usual, we moved out on a circuitous route and hid in the underbrush, waiting for the dark to cover us. As we lay there in the shade of the trees, several of the guys were silently playing cards. I had never been particularly lucky at the poker table, so I took out a paperback book and began to read.
After an hour or so, I put down the book and began to stretch. It was then I caught sight of a movement in the tree line about a hundred yards to our left. I froze and watched carefully, until I could see the full form of a man as he walked out of the trees and stopped, facing away from our group's position. I held my breath as I watched him lay his rifle against a tree and begin to urinate, completely unaware I was watching him. My eyes swept the tree line until I was sure he was alone, then I reached across the prone and napping figure of Dennis Kinney, picked up his M-16 rifle, and softly brought it up to my shoulder. I still carried the tommy gun, which was not made for single shots at so great a distance. Kinney's rifle was the weapon I needed. I held my breath and drew a bead, square in the middle of the back of the unsuspecting VC. It was an easy shot for me, and I knew it would drop him without a second shot being fired. I held my breath and placed my finger on the trigger, waiting until I was sure he was perfectly still. I waited a second longer and then found myself smiling. I held my fire and said to myself, “Not today, Victor Charlie.” I took the rifle from my shoulder and watched as the unsuspecting enemy finished his biological function, picked up his rifle, and disappeared into the woods. I let him go.
I never told any of the guys about this encounter. I didn't think about it again for many years. When I did, I came to realize that this one action might be the very reason I was saved some of the anguish so many experienced after the war. When I had time to think about it, it seemed to me I had been given a choice that day. I was like so many others who had been given no choice at all in where we would go or what we would do in Vietnam. It was not our choice that sent us into harm's way or placed us in those moments that haunted the memories of so many. We simply had no choice in the matter. But on this day I was given a clear choice. I was given a moment in which it was my choice alone whether a man would live or die, and in that singular moment, I chose to let him go. In that fleeting instant, I discovered that I was still a feeling human being.
Such a moment never came again. At least, I never made the same decision again. But somewhere, if he lived through the war, there is a man who has no idea that I held his life in my hands and chose to let him keep it. What is even more bizarre is the possibility that this same man, by the act of being in such a position, may have saved me from the recurring horrors that so many returned from the war to face. He gave me the chance to see whether I was still a decent human being. He gave me the chance to make a decision for life in a place where life had become cheap, and I sense that I owe him something for that.
I will always think that most of us had some similar moment in our war experience. I tend to believe that those who returned with an incurable cancer on their soul may have faced such a moment and made a decision that haunts them to this very day.