The gun mount had a spotlight on both sides of the gun so you could see what you were shooting at in the dark. This was undoubtedly designed by someone who had never thought the situation through. I had no intention of ever using them to aim, as doing so would be about the same as drawing a bull's eye on your nose and shining a light on your face. But the lights were good for surveillance. I would duck below the armor plate, flip on the lights and look through a small hole drilled in the plate while swinging the gun back and forth to illuminate the landscape.

"It was impossible for me to stay aware of how dangerous Vietnam was on a continuous basis and still maintain the ability to function. But every so often a reminder would jolt me back into the paralyzing fear, and once again I'd just have to hang on and wait until it slowly drifted away."

The night was very dark. I had just flipped on the lights and started moving the gun, when right in front of me almost to the concertina wire a VC sapper jumped up and started running. I was startled for a second, but yanked the charging handle, swung the gun around on him, and totally forgetting what an easy target I made, started shooting. As the tracers caught up to him, he dove below one of the dikes of a paddy. By this time someone had popped a hand flare, and the landscape was bathed in the eerie Halloween glow of its flame. The only sound was the hissing of the flare drifting down from far above on its little parachute. Suddenly the man jumped up a short distance from where he had disappeared and began zig-zagging away across the landscape. I started firing, following him with tracers, but every time the rounds caught up to him he would dive and disappear again. This went on for quite a few minutes until he finally made it into the cover of a cane field and was gone for good. If I'd hit him he never showed it. I yelled out at the night "Motherfucker, you DESERVE to get away!" and really meant it. I was laughing with the stress and adrenaline rush, but was absolutely furious at myself for missing him. I was a pretty good shot and I wanted that bastard DEAD! He had been only seconds away from lobbing a satchel charge or two into my truck, and that could have very easily ended in disaster for me. That, plus the sick and all too common conviction men are subliminally taught from boyhood, that killing a man would make me more of one, only added to the anger. Very quickly those feelings were tempered with the awareness that I had just witnessed the bravest thing I had ever seen. That guy had single-handedly crept up to a perimeter of barbed wire, claymore mines and trip flares, backed by bunkers filled with soldiers equipped with quite an array of deadly weapons, and all for the purpose of destroying one lousy truck. Or he had possibly not been alone, but had taken the heat on himself to save his friends. Either way it was amazing. I think we were all stunned by the display of courage and skill we had just seen. It had been something totally outside my previous experience. Then as I began to realize how close I had skirted death, the raw reality of our situation set in once again. It was impossible for me to stay aware of how dangerous Vietnam was on a continuous basis and still maintain the ability to function. But every so often a reminder would jolt me back into the paralyzing fear, and once again I'd just have to hang on and wait until it slowly drifted away.

"But on those nowadays rare nights when I wake up feeling lost, alone, and afraid, with Vietnam all around me, the relief of not having killed him helps me find my way back to my warm, safe bed a lot sooner than those old feelings used to. Love and kindness are such beautiful, healing things."

The anger that I'd felt on failing to kill that man, along with many other terrible memories, ate at me for years. But slowly, as time passed, my mind began to heal, and I found my heart opening to a more loving, kind, and spiritual way of life. The anger turned to acceptance, and then one fine day to gratitude. I am so very glad I don't have the death of another human being on my conscience. He was an enemy soldier fully intending to kill me if he could, and if I had killed him I'm sure I could accept it as just another part of my life and a necessary action at the time. But on those nowadays rare nights when I wake up feeling lost, alone, and afraid, with Vietnam all around me, the relief of not having killed him helps me find my way back to my warm, safe bed a lot sooner than those old feelings used to. Love and kindness are such beautiful, healing things.

"Harris" was a friend of mine. He was a tall, lanky, soft-spoken black man with an easy smile. A gentle man with a kind disposition and a wry sense of humor. Sometimes we'd pull guard together and talk quietly in the eerie silence of the bunkers at night. Solving the troubles of mankind, or talking about what we were going to do when we got back to "The World" helped ease the fear and tension of our situation and also helped keep us from falling asleep. Harris somehow transmitted confidence to me just by being around. He was one of those people it was hard to imagine God allowing anything bad to happen to, and being around him just felt somehow "safer".

He was in one of our bunkers that VC sappers blew up one night. He was also one of the few wounded "lightly" enough to come back to the company out of all the guys that had been in those bunkers. I never saw most of those guys again, but old Harris came walking back one day and I was so very glad to see him. But something was wrong. He was distant and cold. It was like he didn't even know me. He was scary and alien, and from then on I kept my distance. It hurt, but he had been through an experience I hadn't, and looking at him I knew that it must have been much stranger and more horrible than I could imagine.

"I suddenly found myself with a choking arm around my neck, and a knee in my back with the pressure steadily increasing to the level of very serious pain. Harris began to laugh. But the sound he made was like a horrifying caricature of someone insane."

Months later, a few of us had been drinking beer and celebrating our soon-to-be homecoming. We were staying in a large, relatively safe basecamp at Pleiku in a sandbagged shack my company used as a transit barracks. We were processing out to go home! Home! We couldn't believe it (we had yet to experience the "Welcome Home" of the 1960s for Vietnam vets). The other guys had gone somewhere, and as I was sitting alone reveling in the awesome feeling that it was almost over, who should walk in but Harris! It was great to see him before I left, and I greeted him with a smile and feeling of love in my heart.

He looked at me with a funny smile, then came over and sat next to me on the bunk. He stared at me for a minute and then said "I knooow who you are! I knooow about your kind!" in an eerie, wavering voice. He sounded so much like an actor in a scary movie I thought he was kidding and waited for the punchline. But what happened next was so quick and surprising, I didn't realize what had occurred until it was over. I suddenly found myself with a choking arm around my neck, and a knee in my back with the pressure steadily increasing to the level of very serious pain. Harris began to laugh. But the sound he made was like a horrifying caricature of someone insane. It dawned on me then that this was no joke. He wasn't kidding. He was really, truly out of it, and I might be in terrible trouble. I still couldn't believe it. Then he said "I'm going to kill you now! I'm going to snap your spine! I know who you really are!" and that's when the terror kicked in. He began to slowly push in with his knee while choking me tighter, and the pain became unbelievable. The shock of what was happening was almost worse than the pain. All of a sudden the pressure was released, and I dropped to the floor. My buddies had returned, and seeing what was happening had crept up behind Harris and yanked him off of me. He didn't even fight or say anything, just sat on the bunk and stared at me looking totally vacant and emotionless. He was the most frightening person I've ever seen, then or since.

I don't know what happened to him. I don't know what weird place his mind went after the attack that awful night. And I never will know. It's just one of those things I've had to learn to accept. But something I find much harder to accept is that Harris wasn't alone. What happened to his mind happened to many, many more than just him. Who knows how many? And who knows what kind of torturous horrors they've lived with since, and may live with until the day they die? Those thoughts I sometimes find very hard to accept. But as with so many things, I'm powerless over it all. I just try to be thankful to God for the life he's given me. Thankful that I wasn't in that bunker with him. It was very close.

Harris was a kind and loving man. I like to think he found his way back. He was my friend, and I miss him.

Continued—»