Vietnam: Stories from a War

By Chuck Smith

I have met, spoken to, and shared stories with Vietnam veterans. Most were combat troopers and warriors. Some combat veterans are now authors and have written books about their war. They lived it and survived it. Theirs are war stories. Mine are stories set in that place during that time.

In these stories, you will meet soldiers, deserters, truckers, dopers, drinkers, veterans, and Teamsters. You’ll find them to be philosophical, erudite, crude, likeable, and possibly despicable. They are all these things and more. Few are identified by their real names and many are a composite of more than one person. The stories are my fiction, the characters are not.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781387342587

Chuck Smith

Chuck Smith enjoys reading books from a wide range of authors. Inspired by their work Chuck decided to write a book of his own. This book is designed to be easy to read, packed with excitement scene by scene, and no fluff.

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Vietnam: Stories from a War

Vietnam: Stories from a War

Chuck Smith

Edited by Claire Gould

Illustrated by April Sage

CG

2017

Vietnam: Stories from a War

Copyright © 2017 by Chuck Smith.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2017.

ISBN: 978-1-387-27715-5

Published by Claire Gould through Lulu.

These stories are dedicated to

Abe, Doug, Johnny, Louie, Moe, Nick, Ralph and the thousands of others who served honorably during our divisive war.

There were no dominoes.

Foreword

These stories are not war stories. There was certainly a war in Vietnam and these stories are about that time and that place, but…

I was not a warrior. I was trained to be one thing and, due to changes in Vietnam and within MAC-V before my arrival, I wound up doing a great many things. My personal perspective during my two years in-country is simply an individual soldier’s 50-meter view. It is only with hindsight that we can see a bigger picture.

I have met, spoken to, and shared stories with Vietnam veterans. Most were combat troopers and warriors. Some combat veterans are now authors and have written books about their war. They lived it and survived it. Theirs are war stories. Mine are stories set in that place during that time.

In these stories, you will meet soldiers, deserters, truckers, dopers, drinkers, veterans, and Teamsters. You’ll find them to be philosophical, erudite, crude, likeable, and possibly despicable. They are all these things and more. Few are identified by their real names and many are a composite of more than one person. The stories are my fiction, the characters are not.

I have met, spoken to, shared a joint or a beer with each character in these stories. Whether it’s the retired Teamster, the two-war vet who needs medical attention, or the farmer who walked away from basic training, each deserves a level of respect. War forms or informs us but should not, by itself, define us.

Fair warning to readers: If you read Stories from Potomac County and were shocked by language or situations in any of those stories, you may not want to read these stories. If you are easily offended, this is probably not the book for you. These stories are about people in trying situations: a wounded warrior patched up and returned to the Zone, another invalided out and back in The World before he’s old enough to vote — young Americans caught up in a war they don’t understand, fighting an enemy they often can’t identify. Their language can be shocking, crude, and blunt. You should be offended, but the context is true. Don’t judge the speaker before considering the situation.

The Vietnam War and Americans’ reactions to it caused the greatest divide in our society since the Civil War, a hundred years prior. Some of that disagreement and those divisions can still be felt in the nation today. These stories are intended to neither glorify the Vietnam War nor to condemn it. 

Should any of my brothers and sisters read these stories, I hope they make you smile, perhaps somewhat ruefully. My having waited 50 years to write them, there are bound to be errors in terminology, confusion over dates and locations, and other mistakes. Forgive me. It’s been a long time.

Acknowledgements

This is my second time acknowledging people who have been instrumental and helpful in putting together a collection of stories. I will leave someone or maybe many someones out, not because you weren’t helpful, but because the memory portion of my brain is very porous and important things get lost. Please, know that it is not intentional.

My friend Tai Vajda, born and raised in Vietnam, has answered my mostly ignorant questions about locales, word translations, and some of the pre-Gulf of Tonkin political situation. I am grateful to her and so glad that she was able to leave Saigon in April 1975.

Colonel Ron Stewart (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Retired) kept me straight on some longstanding military terminology as well as acronyms and expressions that only make sense to military veterans. He also must be credited for telling me about a conex container packed full of all the same meal. Ron didn’t load that conex but he was able to enjoy eating the same meal three times each day over many days.

There are other vets I need to thank, mostly not by name but as the characters they are in these stories. Three people who are largely responsible for my coming through my time in-country unscathed are Specialist Malcolm Stanford, First Sergeant Anderson, and Sergeant Lewis. Their decency to a green boy from rural Virginia kept me from becoming a client of either LBJ or 93rd Evac. Thanks to all our brothers and sisters, known and unknown.

Heartfelt thanks go to my family:

•                      My wife Sharon, for allowing me the time to write and for taking care of us while my thoughts are occupied with real and imagined events from 50 years ago.

•                      Our kids for their encouragement, for reading the raw, for honest comments, and for being good, decent humans.

•                      The furry children, Fergus and Lacey, who make me a better person just by being who they are. They refuse to read the stories but wouldn’t have any worthwhile suggestions if they did.

Emily Smith, our daughter, did the cover photography. It takes a good eye and infinite patience to shoot pictures for demanding clients, and we were demanding. Thanks, Emily for all you’ve done.

Thanks, again, to our illustrator April Sage. Even though she’s busy with big projects, she is willing to take the time for ours.

Andrew De Lisle has been our go-to guy for most of the militaria questions. He knows more about America’s historic soldiering than anyone I know. He’s kept me as honest as possible and been willing to read before it’s right. He’s also smart enough that he married the best, most patient editor in my world.

My editor, Claire Gould De Lisle, is absolutely responsible for making my stories readable. If you enjoy anything that I’ve written, that enjoyment is down to Claire’s talent. She makes a better movie than I can shoot. 

Every veteran, from every era, deserves our thanks. We wish that it didn’t have to be done, but when it was necessary, they did it. Thanks and welcome home.

Arnie

I couldn't get the old man with the plastic bucket out of my mind.

Usually I'm able to resist beggars, and my wife is always able to turn away; that's what happened this time, when we saw him on the side of the road at a major intersection in town. We had no cash, and even though this guy was in the median almost directly beside our car, we ignored him and drove home.

But this old man, with his long hair, old clothes, beat-up bucket and a sign that read Homeless Vet, Please Help, stuck with me the rest of the afternoon, even through walking the dogs, reading a heavy tome and subsequently falling into a long nap. Upon waking I offered to make supper, an offer my wife politely and prudently declined. As I watched her in the kitchen, the beggar was still with me. I kept wondering if this panhandler, this bum, could really be a veteran.

I’m going to the grocery, I said, getting cash out of my not-well-hidden stash. We need anything?

What are you going for?

Truth was, I didn’t have a reason besides looking for the bum with his sign, and I didn’t want to admit that. Beer. After a pause, I said, And dog bread.

Rightfully, my wife pointed out, You have at least four different kinds of beer and the dogs aren’t out of bread.

I wanted to—uh—try some of that new microbrewery’s stout. The grocery has it in cans, better for recycling, you know? Even I could hear how foolish I sounded.

OK. Go ahead and no, we don’t need anything.

The intersection where I’d seen the old beggar was near the grocery store, so I parked in their lot and walked toward the median where he’d been. Of course, he wasn’t there.

Attached to the grocery was a short strip of small shops: nail salons, coffee roasters, sub sandwiches, an eye doctor, a walk-in clinic, and a closed-for-the-weekend paint store. I walked the length of the strip, looking in the coffee roaster, sub shop, and clinic. He wasn’t around.

I gave up and took my cash into the grocery store to buy beer I didn’t really want and bread the dogs didn’t need. There he was, near the fresh produce. Now that I’d found him, I had no idea how to approach him or what to say. He was standing between the bananas and the fake meats. I inspected the extra-firm tofu. The homeless guy seemed to be talking to himself while inspecting various bunches of bananas.

I said aloud, Bananas seem to be a bargain, now.

He replied, Yeah. They are here. Lots of places don’t have them or charge too much.

Are you from here? I still wasn’t making eye contact, looking at the bananas while trying to engage him in conversation.

Nah. West Virginia, in the coal fields. South of Pittsburgh. Been trying to get into the V.A. in Hampton.

I turned to face him. He was white, about 5’10 tall, with long grey hair and about a week’s worth of whiskers. He looked a little older than I, perhaps mid-70s. His neck and ears seemed clean, like he had bathed recently. His clothing — carpenter jeans, a green field jacket, a floppy bush hat, and decent looking work shoes — was rough but wasn’t dirty. I didn’t get any odor off him. You’re a vet?"

Yeah. Didn’t you read my sign? You looked right at it.

Busted! He remembered seeing us. Yeah—uh—we were heading home and didn’t have any money with us.

S’OK, before I was the beggar, I never gave money to panhandlers. A woman in the car? Shit, I wouldn’t of rolled down my window.

I’m a Vietnam veteran. I told him my name and asked, When were you in?

I was Army from 1972, Vietnam up until Desert Storm. He paused, considering whether to continue. Seeing I was still interested, he resumed.

With over 19 years, I walked away. I was in Nam right there at the end. Two months of basic, two more at Benning for infantry training, two weeks at jungle school in the bayous, two weeks home, and dropped my 18-year-old self slam down in the 25th Infantry the second week of June, 1972. We was up-country. I signed in, some three-striper showed me a hooch, and said to drop my duffle on an empty bunk. Next thing I know, this Spec-4 is helping me put stuff in a rucksack: socks, bug dope, smokes, toilet paper, and about a dozen magazines of ammo, then, gives me a brand-damn-new M-16 and said, ‘You’re going on the chow-bird. It lifts off at 1100 hours so fill all three canteens at the Listerbag, then put on your flak-jacket and strap up. You only got about 10 minutes.’

I had to laugh. When I’d got to my company in 1966 it was the same way. Yeah, I signed in, dropped my gear, got a two-minute lesson on the M3A1 .45-caliber grease gun, climbed into the off-side seat of a jeep, and headed south to the Delta. Nice to know that nothing changed during the six years between me and you.

Standing there in the produce aisle, we swapped a couple more stories about how screwed up things could get by doing them the Army way instead of using common sense. He picked up a large bunch of bananas and put them on the scales, then pulled that bunch off and put a smaller bunch on the scale. He said, I only got six bucks and I want to get some cheese and bread but bananas are a lot to eat for the money.

I looked at the per-pound price, did the math in my head, as he was obviously doing, and said, How about I treat you to a package of cheese and a loaf of bread? I’m buying bread anyway.

He looked shamed by my suggestion. No, man. Shit, you’re a vet like me. You just kept yourself together while I’m the one on the road. No need…

Goddamn. I was going to buy bread to make toast for my dogs. Talk about being ashamed. I interrupted him with, Hell yes, that’s why I’m getting the bread and cheese. And put those damn bananas in the basket as well.

In short order, I had my beer, the dog’s bread, his bread, a package of sliced cheddar, his bananas, and a two-liter Pepsi. When we checked out, the whole order was still less than 25 bucks. I had them put it in two bags. Outside the store, he tried to give me his six dollars but I refused. Then a thought occurred to me. "Let me buy you a sandwich before you hit the