I was rummaging through some old junk today and came across a Zippo lighter I bought in VN. On one side I had inscribed the artillery insignia (I was an FO, Duh!) and on the other side was, "Yea, tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil for I am the baddest motherfvcker in the valley."
Don't take offense to the bastardized quote. At the time I was raw and ready, locked, cocked and ready to rock as were most of us.
About six months ago I pulled out the few remaining souvenirs I had from VN. I picked up a tightly wrapped piece of cloth. It was my camouglage cover. I read all of the things I had written on it throughout my tour. There was the peace symbol, the "FTA", the names of all the towns and villages I had been through. There was the countdown calendar to my rotation date. There was the picture of Kilroy with his nose hanging over the fence. There was the infamous "13" and other references to the best pot mankind has ever smoked. On one side was "California Dreamin", referring not only to the Mamas and Papas song, but to the state where I was born and raised.
As you might imagine, my eyes got blurry and tears ran down my cheeks. I thought back to an earlier time and the people I had shared life and death with. In my mind I was able to picture with whom I had shared everything, but I couldn't remember their names. I remembered the dirt and the mud. I remembered spending two weeks in an old French bunker on the DMZ cut off from all help with 5 great guys on my team during the monsoons. I relived waking up 25 feet from where I had been standing only a moment before and not being able to hear anything. A movie replayed in my mind of an NVA 152mm airburst that turned a Marine into hamburger and the two other Marines who ran out to get him through the barrage. Images flashed through my mind like a slideshow on hyperdrive. I remembered Christmas eve 1968 in basecamp. One of my buddies and I took a stroll down a dirt road smoking a doobie. We came to a field where half a dozen guys we didn't know were standing around BSing and passing. We joined them. As the evening wore on others wandered down the road and joined the group. Everybody was talking trash about their homes, girlfriends, wives and dreams. The last thing I remembered about that night before waking up in my hooch next morning was that there were at least 100 Army and Marines celebrating Christmas in an empty field in the middle of Hell.
I took the camouglage cover out into my backyard and lit it on fire. I watched it burn. It was time, finally, to put the ghosts away and get on with the present.
Veterans Day, 2002.