Sometime in the late ’90s before my online book was ever planned, my ghosts from Vietnam kept flashing back into my mind, and it disturbed me deeply. It was during the month of October in 1967 that our advisory team suffered a major attack killing some fellow advisors. I had known SSG Hawkins only casually having shared some beers a couple of times. He was some kind of electronics repairman, but I never knew the equipment on which he worked. During the early-morning mortar attack, we all ran to our assigned sector of the sandbagged wall which was some four feet high, double-bag wide. The only fully enclosed bunkers were assigned to full-time guards. Bullets were ricocheting off some metal structure near my position. Mortars were still falling inside our compound. Intercepted radio traffic later determined the enemy was using the blinking red aircraft warning light atop our team's water tower to aim and adjust their mortars. From that day forward the warning light would be turned on only when aircraft were in our area.
A hooch near mine took a direct hit, and I thought surely my hooch would be the next to take a hit. I was concerned about an Asahi Pentex camera I had just recently purchased and briefly thought about running back to my hooch to retrieve it when I heard someone say, “Oh, fuck! Hawkins was in the hooch that just got hit. He went back to get his helmet. I hope he got out before the hit!” I did not want to accept that Hawkins was still in the hooch at the time of the mortar hit. Soon after, a sergeant came around asking us to help take the wounded to the team dispensary. Some four advisors left to help leaving me to secure our assigned sector by myself. I asked one of the advisors to check on Hawkins. “Yeah, I’ll check on him,” he said.
I prayed. And I cursed for placing myself in this damned mess. "I could still be on some rear-support assignment if only I had planned better," I kept telling myself. But knowing that my buddies shared the same grief and fears yet maintained sanity despite the several casualties helped me to cope.
After some twenty minutes, one of the four advisors came back to our sandbag wall and told me, “Man, Hawkins didn’t make it. He was still in the hooch when the mortar hit. We moved his body to the dispensary.” I felt a strange sadness at losing an advisor. “Damn, these things are not supposed to happen like this,” I told myself. SSG Hawkins was the first friend I had ever lost to the enemy.
The attack ended after a few more minutes. It was some thirty minutes before a sergeant came around telling us all that we could return to our hooches. We had additional casualties that night. Once we all got back to our hooch, we removed our boots and put our carbines, flak vests and steel pots close at hand near our cots. We all went to sleep fully clothed in case of a second attack. There was no discussion about the attack. No one spoke. I checked on my Pentex. It was safe.
It was early December 1967 that we gathered to watch a movie. We had a 16-millimeter projector in our team, and every two or three days our mailman would receive movies sent from MACV headquarters. Some ten advisors gathered in the admin office which also served as a makeshift movie theater. The assigned projector operator started threading the film. Movies were luck-of-the-draw. We had just started to watch that night's movie when someone came in with news from the field. “Did you all hear about Kenny Hughes? He took a bullet in the head. His body was recovered.”
Kenny was a radio operator with a battalion advisory team. I had met him on a couple of occasions and found him to be a pleasant, likable person and a year younger than me. The operator stopped the projector. A hush fell over the group. Some walked out without a word. The operator asked, “Anyone still want to watch the movie?” Nobody answered. I got up and left.
Every time an acquaintance met his fate, I always wondered why it is that someone perhaps more deserving of life than I woud become a casualty while I lived to return back home safely. I left Duc Hoa and the misery of Advisory Team 99 when I left that team for Advisory Team 51 in Bac Lieu. For the remainder of my Vietnam tours, I made few friends. We lost several men to enemy attacks while with Advisory Team 51, but I was not friend to any of them. I already had more than my share of ghosts to contend with, and at times and even to this day, they still creep back into my head causing a trace of guilt and misery. I'm told this effect is normal and one of several damning components of PTSD.
Most who join the military and go to war are young - 18, 19 years old - and many have never been away from home. They have little experience of the world, let alone war, death, and killing. For them, and for all soldiers, combat is a complex mix of emotions that define the experience of war and shape the experience of coming home.- Going to War, Michael Epstein, Sebastian Junger, Karl Marlantes
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