A Belated Memorial Day Story

                                                                                     

The best laid plans of mice and men

                                                               

      On Memorial Day, I drove to the Los Angeles National Cemetery, twice, late Saturday afternoon and again on Sunday, Memorial Day. By the time I arrived Saturday all the small flags had been placed in front of each gravestone. I pulled my car onto the cemetery grounds. Nearly everyone was gone, except for few people walking around observing the gravestones.

     I noticed thirty or forty portable chairs set up beside the stage, a permanent structure in the cemetery where they hold most celebrations. The small flags came right up to the stage, so I couldn’t imagine much of a ceremony, or people would be trampling over the graves.

     I cruised through the cemetery recalling friends I’d lost in Vietnam. I thought of the older generations who fought in Europe and the Pacific, but I wasn’t much in the mood to reminisce, so I just inched my way through and took in the spirit of the place. I wondered why we do such terrible things to each other, and how those with the less money and influence always get the worst of it.

     I returned the next morning. There were quite a few people inside the grounds, including servicemen and women in uniform. As I drove up to the entrance, I noticed a sign telling visitors to park outside. I wasn’t in the mood to find a parking spot and walk, still not even sure about the program, if there was a program. I guess I also wasn't in the mood to hear speeches.

     I drove across the main boulevard, Sepulveda, under the freeway overpass, and into the main V.A. grounds, to the right, a new, attractive outdoor mausoleum to hold the remains of cremated veterans. There was no more room for traditional burials inside the overcrowded cemetery grounds on the other side of the street. One cemetery official told me veterans who want a regular burial will have to be buried in Riverside. “That’s a long way,” I said.

     If I hadn't made it home from Vietnam, I wondered, where would my parents have buried me, here at the National Cemetery for veterans or at Holy Cross, the Catholic cemetery in Culver City, where most of our family is buried today.

     A strange thought, though, if I had died during my tour in ‘66’-’67, at 19 years of age, my grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts would have still been alive, so I would have been the first one buried at Holy Cross. I really can’t imagine my mother burying me at the National Cemetery for veterans, even if it is closer to my parents' home on L.A.’s westside, and my uncle Nick is buried there.

     My mom, a pretty hardcore liberal, politically, would have blamed the government for my death and wouldn’t trust them with my journey into eternity. She’d put her trust into the Virgin’s hands and all the powers of heaven. My dad wasn’t much a supporter of the war either, but here’s the thing, back then, I didn't doubt I'd be home from Vietnam in a year. Maybe we all felt that way. I don't know.

     When I joined my unit in Vietnam, I had it all worked out. I was so sure I’d be fine I decided to take my five-day out-of-country R & R on my last week in Vietnam. That way, when I returned from five glorious days of fun and adventure, I’d be ready to go home. Some guys took their R & R’s right away, barely a month in-country. “Why?” I asked one guy. “You just got here. What if you need a break later, and you used up your only R & R?”

     He answered, “Shit, man. We could be dead tomorrow, and I ain’t missing out on my R & R.”

     Sure, there was always a chance I “might” be killed, but I refused to give “might” much thought. Something about being 19, a certain feeling of invincibility. 

     I did pause, though, when I saw my first dead American G.I. We’d set up a firebase, six howitzers and a command center, put out the perimeter guards, and settled in for the night. It started with small arms fire and grenade launchers on one of the outposts, eerie silences, an artillery round blasting and a flare attached to a parachute lighting up the night, like being a movie. It lasted about an hour. The corporal next to me said, “They’re just probing us. No big deal.”

     Taking turns pulling guard and sleeping, we all woke the next morning to a beautiful blue sky, the jungle around us shimmering in different shades of green, and hot. It was always hot. There was a commotion. Officers and NCOs bunched up talking in low voices, something about a Medivac. A friend told me a soldier from the infantry unit pulling perimeter outpost had been killed. He pointed at the body covered in a plastic poncho, only the soles of the kid’s muddy boots visible.

     I had trouble believing my eyes. I didn't think Americans could die. Sounds ignorant, I know, but something about the myth of the United States, our training, uniforms, and weapons, like we couldn’t be hurt, for sure not killed. A chopper landed. They loaded up the kid and flew off, his poncho flapping in the wind. 

     Another friend came up beside me and said, “He left his post to take a leak. He didn’t tell anybody. On his way back, another guy woke up, heard noises, thought it was a Charlie, and blew him away, just like that.” So, the first dead American I see wasn’t even killed by communists but by his own buddy. Though it rattled me, even that didn’t change my R & R plan.

     Over the next eleven months, it was kind of like that first operation, making friends, spending a lot of time together, joking, drinking in strange Vietnamese towns and villages, sounds and smells of war, explosions, rifle fire, rockets, mortars, 105 howitzers, close calls, other bodies under ponchos, Medivacs and all sorts of choppers flying in and out. It was all mixed together.

     My last days in-country neared. We were on a mountaintop outside Chu Lai, the Central Highlands, Charlie's world, and a full-scale operation. The first sergeant came up to me and said if I didn’t want to miss my R & R I better pack my gear and jump on the next chopper out. I only had about ten days left on my tour.

     I spent five-days in Bangkok, Thailand, counting two travel days, one going and one returning, that made seven days. I had three days left on my tour, just like I’d planned it. From Thailand, a military transport dropped us off at the Cam Rahn Bay Air Force Base, and a bus took us to our barracks at the new replacement center. Once we checked-in, the clerks would give us our orders and put us a plane back to our units. I knew I had to return to our base camp at Phan Rang for out-processing.

     I got to talking to this guy who told me they could still send me back to the field even if I only had a few days left. He advised me not to check-in and just hang out for as long as possible, one or two days. Every day counted. So, I followed his advice.

     I was in my dress khakis, lugging my duffle bag and a hefty pile of “weed,” inside. Some friends asked me to buy it for them, just in case my plan didn’t work, I could take it to them if I got sent back to the field. What can I say? I was ignorant.

      I moved from one barrack to another. If I saw a group of guys hanging out, I’d join them, hoping no officer or NCO would notice me. That worked okay, except, I found out the guys had their orders and were waiting for an officer to come and tell them it was time to catch a flight back to their units. I tried to keep moving. It was hot, and I couldn’t stop sweating. I’d talk to guys and tell them what I was up to. One guy told me to get rid of the weed. He said if I got caught, I’d already be in enough trouble being AWOL. “You don’t need a marijuana rap added to it.”

     “AWOL?”

     “Yeah, you didn’t check in, so you’ll be listed as missing then as AWOL.”

     I flushed the weed down the nearest toilet. It was getting late, and I’d been at it all day, in and out of barracks, hiding in bathrooms, evading officers and NCOs. I was tiring. I needed rest and time to think. I found a bunk in an empty barracks, lay back, closed my eyes, and before I knew it, I was asleep. A voice woke me up. I looked into the blue eyes of a second lieutenant staring down at me. I jumped up and saluted him.

     He asked for my orders. I told him I’d just returned from R & R in Bangkok and hadn’t yet checked in. Like a seasoned investigator, he questioned me, and I stumbled over every sentence. I decided to tell him the truth, from the beginning, my plan to take R & R my last week in-country, so I could go home right after. I could see he sympathized. He asked, "What's your unit?"

     "101st Airborne, 320th Artillery."

     Now it looked he was downright sad for me. “Okay,” he said, “this is what I’ll do. We’ll get you checked in and get your orders. I’ll call your battery commander and tell him you’re here, only have a couple of days left, and are ready to go home. Whatever he decides, that’s what you’ll do.”

     I thanked him and said that would be great.

    He took me to headquarters, pulled my orders, and gave them to me. Keeping his word, instead of sending me immediately to the airport, he picked up the phone and made a call. Somehow, after one transfer then another, he reached my first sergeant out in the field at our fire base, outside a small town of Tam Ky. I heard him tell the first sergeant everything. The lieutenant turned to me and handed me the telephone receiver. “He wants to talk to you.”

     “Cano,” I heard the familiar voice blare into the receiver, “get your ass on the next plane and back out here in the field or I’ll have you court marshalled.”

     After two plane flights on C-130 cargo planes, a long drive in a deuce-and-a-half, and a helicopter ride, I finally made it back into the field the following afternoon. My friends were pissed at me when I told them I had to flush the weed down the toilet. “Man, they would’ve never searched you.” He was right, no one ever did search me. It rained the rest of the afternoon, the October monsoons.

     I spent one more night in the field. The next afternoon, I caught the lunch chopper back to our front area base camp. I attended an outside movie and drank too much beer. Early the next morning, about 1:00 or 2:00 A.M., Vietcong and NVA forces overran the firebase, killing many of my friends and wounding others. 

     The guys put up a valiant fight, hand-to-hand combat, rare in Vietnam. They leveled the artillery pieces and fired anti-personnel rounds at point-blank range. That ended the assault. The news really shook me up bad. I didn't even want to go to the infirmary to see my wounded friends. I was in a different world, mentally. 

     I hitched a ride on a three-quarter truck to the Chu Lai air base, caught a flight to our main base camp, turned in my weapons, packed up my things, caught another flight back to Cam Rahn Bay, and the next day, I was on my way back to Los Angeles by way of Fort Lewis, Washington. From LAX, I caught a taxi home. Nobody knew I was coming. The house was empty. It was strange sitting in my parents' den so soon after so much. It broke me, even if my plan did work out in the end.