War Story 14: What is that smell?

Veterans Day...FOR THOSE WHO KNOW WHAT IT IS ABOUT...

WHAT IS THAT SMELL IN THE AIR?

It is May 2020, and I am “locked down” in my condo watching television about the Pandemic War and the “COVID Crisis”.

It is hard to believe that America has been attacked by a hidden enemy that has killed more Americans in 100 days than killed during the Vietnam War over a decade. Over a million would die in America and millions more around the world.

Major hotspots included New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and more. Again, it’s hard to accept what is happened. Hundreds die every day. The entire economy of the United States was shut down overnight. Lives and livelihoods lost. Freedoms were restricted: no Church or religious worship, no family gatherings, no unnecessary travel on land, sea, or air, stores closed, schools closed and replaced with Zoom, and businesses went bankrupt.

And still, the body count rose, but the lies or some would say, misinformation, continued.

Fifty years ago this month, I was dealing with body counts in a different war. Yes, 1970 would be a defining year for me and so many others in a distant war that was fought in the rice paddies, the beaches, the jungles, and the mountains of South Vietnam.

On patrol southwest of Danang, the scenery is surreal. All your senses are in overdrive. I can still feel the hot, humid air, and the stench from knee-deep rice paddies we labored to cross to reach local villages. We were loaded down with heavy rucksacks, ammo, potable water, Claymore mines, weapons, and more ammo.

The smell of smoke from the village cooking fires penetrated your nostrils. Half-starved dogs were just trying to survive. But wait, dogs barking, and no men present. I gave the heartless order to kill the dogs. They were mangy mutts making enough noise to alert the enemy.

One never knows what will happen. In a split second, your life is changed forever. One of my soldiers entered the doorway of a grass hut. One man with an AK-47 dashed out the backside as I stood to the side of the front entrance. I was less than 20 yards away and yelled at the enemy to stop. I emptied my M-16 accurately.

My first reaction, beyond the race of adrenaline, was that it was such a waste. He was such a young man in filthy, black clothes and so skinny but very dangerous. I shook my head in frustration and moved my platoon along.

At every step, I assessed chances for an ambush, trying to anticipate all possibilities.  I was caught once in an ambush, months later, when I lost one soldier and another badly wounded. As the 23-year-old Lieutenant, my decisions were about life or death. I was responsible. No mercy given for wrong decisions.

We reached the edge of one large rice paddy and entered a thick, tropical forest with wide, banana-like leaves. My platoon of 23 men set up a night defensive perimeter and used the thick grass and leaves to quietly bed down for the night. It was strict, noise discipline.

Darkness fell. It was just the sound of all kinds of bugs and the crackling of trees and leaves against a soft breeze that barely moved the air. The ground was wet and musty. I cursed that I did not get all my leeches off me before darkness.

Restless, I woke up just before dawn with a beetle on my face. I scanned the area in the dim light. To my shock, I found one of my guards had fallen asleep. To this day, I kick myself for not punching his lights out. But as an officer, I focused on control and discipline. He was also our lone medic.

We were lucky.

Even so, we soon had sightings of the enemy on the run. Gunshots rang out, and the rush of “contact” made you jump into action. Each time, it was over in 10 minutes, but then you felt overwhelming exhaustion.

At one point, the heat was so suffocating that I remember pouring valuable, clean water over my head to cool me down. I sat down, took off my heavy helmet, and tried to breathe. I could feel the blistering heat rising from the straw and dead leaves. My eyes went wide open as my heart raced.

A few minutes later, I collected myself and motioned to move out. Can’t stay in any one place very long after contact is made. The enemy knows where you are.

Hours later, we approached a river cautiously and caught one enemy taking a bath. Given we lost several teammates in the past few weeks to booby-traps, what we call IED’s today, the resentment was pure anger. They demanded to let them handle it. I knew what that meant.

The massacre at My Lai was fresh on my mind. I refused and called for a Huey to evacuate the prisoner. Several in the platoon were upset.

By mid-afternoon, we had to reconnect with the rest of Bravo Company. Since we were still in the booby-trapped area, we deliberately marched in a single file. We approached a long line of thick bushes to our front that was quite tall. Searching for a space to break through it, my squad leader found a slight opening, and as he stepped forward, “BOOM!”.

The projectile nearly took his head off. It was an awful scene.

Another unseen enemy took a life quickly, and the whop-whop of a Medivac Huey came and went efficiently. 

Emotions ran high. Scared. Angry. Frustrated. Revengeful.

As we entered the Company’s giant circular perimeter with three other platoons, relief sensed that this one day was nearly over, only 300 to go.

Unfortunately, it would be over for some well before the end of the one-year tour of duty. 

While my platoon was filling defensive positions, a massive bomb went off inside the perimeter and killed my machine gunner, James Gibson. I was standing too close to him and felt the explosion blow me to the ground, face down, like a rag doll. I felt rocks pelting my back, my ears ringing, and a sense of being in a dream.

Dazed but semi-conscious, I heard someone yelling, “Lieutenant! L-T”! Slowly, I sat up. I searched my body to see if anything was missing.  All good. My head was buzzing. I started yelling, “booby trap!” Freeze!

Gibson was cut in half. The reflexive last gasps from the upper half of his body became a frozen image in my brain. Over a half-dozen others were severely injured, most in the mortar squad.

I discovered my “Red Badge of Courage”; blood ran from a slight wound on my arm, and dirt covered my tattered fatigues. I lost my sense of time, and I remember being half-conscious and dizzy. It seemed immediately Huey’s were waiting for all the wounded to return to Hawk Hill, a large firebase.

I still love the sound of a Huey… ” Whop, whop, whop!” I remember staggering with others wounded but able to walk to the Med Station and waking up two days later, only to be transported to the hospital in Chu Lai. 

After minor surgery, I returned to the killing fields two weeks later to lead my platoon. I worried if any had been killed or wounded in my absence. Lieutenants were in short supply and the need was great.

Once you smell death in the air, you never forget it.

Every Memorial Day and Veterans Day, I remember it. The memories are vivid.

In that year of 2020, the smell of death is everywhere for me. So many loved ones were ambushed by a secret enemy called the Coronavirus, including those 70 Veterans cut down in a Holyoke, Massachusetts, soldier’s nursing home.

But the smell of death is now (2023) in Europe with the Ukraine War that has taken over 250,000 lives in the past year and no end in sight.

For many, the reality of war, death, and the smells will be frozen forever in their memory.

Pray for all of them.