VIETNAM: THE IMPOSSIBLE WAR

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth

	It was a cold, winter day.  The setting sun pierced the 
distant blue sky, coloring the countryside in a shade of orange.  
The few bare trees that dotted the land protruded reluctantly from 
the frozen ground, and a thick sheet of ice held a solitary pond 
captive.  Through this desolate land a hungry, homeless man trudged 
forward.  He wore dirty gym-shoes that revealed his toes, blue-jeans 
infested with tears, and an army jacket that bore the stains of
a lifetime.  On his jacket-sleeve stood a faded imprint of an 
American flag and the black stripes of a sergeant.  The name that 
formerly stood on the man's left breast was now merely a shapeless
 stain on the jacket.  The most perceptible aspect of this man's
 appearance, however, was his horribly disfigured face.  Jagged scars
 crisscrossed his dry, taut skin; his colorless, mangled lips sloped
 upwards into no apparent shape; the tip of his nose was absent; 
and his forehead was conspicuously marked by a distorted mound of
skin.  Through this grotesque face large blue eyes peered forward into
nothingness.  The man cursed these eyes.  They chained him to the 
1969 world of blinding flashes, scorching heat, and perplexing, 
swirling colors.  In 1969 he was in a green inferno somewhere in Asia,
 where the crack of a twig, the ruffle of grass or the miscalculation 
of a step could jolt the thread of life into oblivion.  The terror that 
swept the boys who walked this green hell suffocated them.  Some 
bombarded their twenty-year old bodies with alcohol, marijuana, and 
heroin in a frantic effort to escape.  They became chemical containers 
on eternal highs--the terror remained.  The sight of a comrade clinging
 to his intestines as they spilled from his stomach, the sound of a man 
crying for his mother as he realized that his shredded lower body lied 
independently besides him, and the smell of a friend's rotting body 
were embedded into the boys'minds.  The memories of a year in this 
green abyss defined the rest of their existences.   
	The man finally came to a stone cottage that stood alone. 
Approaching the dwelling, the man quickened his pace until he halted
abruptly at the front door.  He momentarily lingered, then pulled a 
silver key from his pocket and opened the door.  Except for the stolid
ticking of a clock the cottage was quiet.  The few furniture pieces 
were hidden by sheets, the blinds were shut, and the quiescent air was 
stale.  He examined peripheral rooms and failed to find another human. 
Saddened, he descended a flight of stairs and found himself in a 
bedroom.  He skillfully tinkered with an old puzzle and scrutinized the 
portraits on the wall.  A tear fell.  Although the faces were familiar 
to him he didn’t know the individuals behind them.  They were
elements of a different time.  A time never again to be found.  He then
sorted through a stack of records, occasionally stopping to recall the
sounds of a happier time.  Another tear fell.    	
	The man did not find the old woman who was asleep upstairs.  
Sheonce had been a vibrant, colorful lady.  However, when her only son
perished because of a government that chose to sacrifice its 
twenty-year old boys to protect its business endeavors, she 
disassociated herself from the external world.  Or it disassociated 
itself from her.  Her husband had died of grief when he realized that 
the jungles of Vietnam had captured his son and wife.  Her friends had 
also left her.  Nonetheless, she clung to life.  She would have
to greet her son when he returned.  For twenty years, the widow awaited
and prepared for the return of her son.  People told her that MIA meant
deceased.... She waited.  She left his room intact, as he would like 
it.  The sheets were ruffled from the last time her son slept in the
house, his dirty laundry was still sprawled on the ground, and the 
music player held the last record he had listened.
  	When the old lady awoke the following day, she went into her
son's room and noticed a figure in his bed.  She cautiously approached
the bed, yearning to rediscover her life.  Instead, she found the 
sergeant.  The sight of his distorted face and scrawny body elicited 
mercy from the widow. However, her consternation was soon replaced by 
an insurmountable rage that rose from the depths of her grief.  This 
deformed, pitiful man had disturbed her son's room.  He threatened her
existence.  If she aided the sergeant her attention would divert from 
her son, thus betraying him and hindering her preparation for his 
return.  She fetched a shotgun and again faced the dormant figure. 
The woman put the muzzle to the man's heart and sustained her aim.  
As she pulled the trigger, the sergeant opened his eyes and noticed his
assassin.  His eyes sparkled, he smiled, and he closed  his eyes for
the last time with a sigh of relief.  Meanwhile, the woman’s gaze
transcended the unpleasant scars and she stared into the face of her son.  

A Soldier's Diary

October 26, 1965

Dear Diary,

My CO, Lieutenant Frank Cooper, says that we should keep a 
diary out here. He says that it’ll keep us sane.  So, 
here you are.  And here I am.  The name’s 
Enders.  Nice to meet you. I’m new here.  Just came 
yesterday.  Already, though, I’ve met some pretty 
crazy people.  That one guy, Larfaccio (I think he’s 
a medic), he took me into Gia Nghia, a small village
near base, the first day I got here. He brought me to 
this mama-san he knows pretty well and treated me to 
my “first time.”  People around here I guess waste no 
time in making friends.  Everyone here knows everybody
else.  That’s real nice if you ask me. 
    Hey journal, how’m I doing so far?  I don’t really
know what kind of writing you’re used to, so I hope 
I’m doing well. I never really was the writing, 
scholar-like type.  You see, before I enlisted, I 
helped my dad move crates and stuff down by the pier. 
I never did too well in school.  My teachers said I 
wasn’t “mentally focused.”  Oh well, what the hell, 
says I.  While I’m introducing myself and telling you 
what my life was like back home, I guess I should tell
you about my love life.  I bet all the guys tell their
journals about their honeys and what they did with 
them the night before leaving for training.  You don’t
get to hear any of that, lucky you.  I will confess 
right now, to get it over with, that I was a social 
reject.  A real loser.  I was getting such poor marks 
in school, I just stopped going.  Down at the pier, 
though, you don’t meet too many people your age.  
All day long I was treated to the company of forty year
-old, pot-bellied, chain smoking, dirty, disgusting men
with words like “MOM,” “DEATH,” and “HATE,” tattooed on
their arms.  There was, of course, that man with the 
word “BALLET” tattooed on his arms, but he stayed to 
himself.  Oh, and there was that guy with a “LOVE” 
tattoo, but no one was ever really certain whether he 
was a man or a woman.  Oh well, what the hell, says I.  
	Anyhow, I didn’t really have any friends.  No 
pals; no sweethearts.  In that respect, this place may 
be better than home.  I have six friends already after 
only one day, and I was laid within twenty four hours 
of arrival.  Some country!  Who knows, though, what 
this country has in store for me?  I know it won’t be 
all fun and games.  I know the army is more than just
a chance to see the world.  Hell, I know what war is.  
War is hell, right?  Well, I’ll see for myself.  In the
meantime, though, why not have a hell of a time? You 
only live once.  So, I will be the best marine I can 
possibly be, but at the same time, I will make friends,
I will enjoy myself, and I will make the best of this 
beautiful, tropical, lush, green, surreal country.  
Goodnight, diary.  I’m off to a party the CO is holding
for all the new privates.  

************************************************************************

November 30, 1965

Dear diary,

I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, journal.  I spent
 mine on duty doing Zippo raids.  We toasted three or 
four villages last week with only one or two firefights.
Our platoon wasn’t hit too hard, but we lost 
Larfaccio. We were trekking down this trail on the way 
to a village that was supposedly VC sympathetic, and it
was hot.  It had to be like 107; hot enough to roast a 
hen, I swear.  Anyway, we stop to rest for a minute.  
Larfaccio wasn’t the only one to do so, but he had 
taken most of his gear off, including his helmet.  Next
thing we know, Charlie hits.  Fzzzzzzzzzzt.  A tracer 
whizzes right by my head, nicking my ear.  I turn 
around, and I see Larfaccio on the floor, only he’s no
longer Larfaccio.  He’s got a huge gaping hole where 
his cowlick used to be.   I turn him over, and I see 
he’s also got a huge gaping hole where his right eye 
used to be.  Looked sort of like a bowling ball.  I 
started puking.  I think I might have cried. The rest 
of the platoon, they paid Charlie back.  When the six 
or seven VCs were found, they weren’t executed nice and
proper.  Larfaccio’s best friend, Caressi, the only 
other Italian in Cooper’s command, led the shindig.  
First he lined the fuckers up in a row.  They were 
surprisingly calm.  They didn’t cry out for their 
mothers like I’d seen some of our guys do when they got
in trouble.  They didn’t get on their knees and beg 
for their lives.  They didn’t even pray.  They just 
stood there and waited with shut eyes for whatever was
about to come.  I was impressed. You should have seen
Caressi, though.  He was acting as the VC should have 
been.  He’d gone insane.  I felt sorry for the guy.  
His face wasn’t simply red; it was like neon or 
something.  I kept waiting for the veins in his 
forehead to pop.  He was wailing, too.  Like a baby. 
 I’m thinking now maybe I should have stopped him.  
Shot after shot- to their kneecaps, their groins, 
their ears, their arms, their legs, their noses.  
They were his personal firing range.  
We all watched and didn’t say a word.  Why?  We pitied
him.  We didn’t want to further anger him.  No, those 
are excuses.  Why, really?  We would have done the 
same.  To tell you the truth, I sort of enjoyed 
watching it.  Something, though, disturbed me.  I’m not
sure what, but I think it had something to do with the
VC reaction.  It didn’t sit right with me.  You’re 
slowly getting killed, you don’t sit back and let it 
happen.  I think I even saw one of them smile.  What 
the fuck is there to smile at when some brute’s jammed 
a gun up your ass?  I think I even heard another 
Charlie laugh once as he spat out his teeth in a pile 
of blood.  

************************************************************************

January 30, 1966

Dear diary, 

I saw something today.  We were humping through a 
freefire zone during a standard S&D, and the men both 
directly in front of me and behind me were shot in the
 head by sniper fire. Half our battalion was wiped out 
in battle today.  For all intents and purposes, I was 
killed today. The VC have something we don’t.  I don’t
 know what it is, but I have to find out.  What is it 
that enables them to calmly stand in a ditch while 
some one is shooting their limbs off one by one?  
What is it that enables the VC to keep at it despite 
heavy bombing, despite being outmanned and outgunned, 
despite getting the shit kicked out of them?  I have 
to know, and I will do anything to find out.  I will 
not be writing for a while.  Dead men don’t write.  
I must learn what needs to be learned.  Goodbye, diary.
If and when I see you next, circumstances will be quite
different.

************************************************************************

January 30, 1968

Hey, hey, hey diary,

Miss me much?  I missed you.  I can imagine sitting in
 a duffel bag for two years can get rather lonesome.  
Well, now you have me, and we’re going to back to 
America.  Okay, I’ll tell you the truth.  We’re going
 to prison!  Wahoo!  Cooper says Daddy’s a sick 
motherfucker.  He says Daddy’s never going to see the 
light of day again.  He says it’s people like Daddy 
that give war a bad name.  Oh well, what the hell, 
says I. That’s the bad news.  I have to leave ‘Nam.  
Some people would throw their hands up to God in praise
for such an opportunity.  Not me, though.  I found the
secret.  That’s the good news.  Remember all that shit
I was telling you two years ago about going on a quest 
to learn what needs to be learned?  Well, quest’s over.
 The trick to steel balls is so simple.  The trick the 
VC are taught from an early age that enables them to 
keep fighting is so incredibly, mindfuckingly simple. 
Ready?  Here it is: just want to fight and not care 
about anything. Okay, it takes a little more than that.
You have to establish mental domination over your 
opponent.  Mental focus is the trick.  Once you’ve got
 that you can do anything.  That’s what those 7 VC 
Caressi killed had.  That’s what Caressi didn’t have.
That’s what I have. It took a while to find, but once 
I found it and practiced it, it was barrels of fun.  
Big, huge, overflowing bloody barrels.  I think my 
final tally for the two years was something like 78, 
each one an orgasmic experience.  They never get away.
Oh, they certainly try alright, but no one can outrun 
a tracer.  One sweet little girl I met dodged a bullet 
once (I was very impressed), but I got her with the 
second shot.  Right in the leg.  Remember the time I 
got shot in the ear?  Well, judging by the reaction 
of my gook “friends,” being shot in a limb is nothing 
like that.  The thought of having that happen to me 
doesn’t tickle my fancy…but watching it does.  That’s 
just the start of my patented process, though.  
Once I’ve got them weakened, they’re mine.  Have you 
ever had utter power over another human, my friend? 
Of course you haven’t.  You’re inanimate.  Well, just 
dreaming about it is a wet dream.  Reality, of course,
is ten times sweeter.  When they realize what’s going 
down, they beg you to stop in that beautiful gook 
gibberish of theirs; they try to get away; they
sometimes hit you feebly.  But they know, and you know;
 they can’t do shit ‘cause they’re too fuckin’ weak!  
And that’s what it comes down to: power…complete 
fuckin’ power. You’re not getting off in the dick; 
you’re getting off in the cerebellum, man.  You’re 
pulling the strings.  You’ve got all the power.When I 
finish that, they can’t move.  That gives me a perfect
canvas.  I take out my set of army-issued knives 
(ranging from penknives for the delicate, detail work 
to machetes for the larger jobs) and start drawing away.
‘Nam and its beautiful landscape really taught me to 
appreciate art and beauty.  I told you I’d make the 
best of this country.  I found I have a talent for 
carving landscapes out of human flesh.  It’s really 
spectacular if you ask me.  Don’t worry, though.  I 
never kill ‘em.  The fun’s in having them know you 
could at any time.  Remember, mental domination; not
physical.  It’s much more effective.  
   When I finish this, I clean up the mess and bring 
them back to their parents’ hut and watch from a 
distance.  Surprisingly, most parents don’t appreciate 
what I’ve given them.  It’s a bit discouraging, but oh 
well, what the hell, says I.  
	78 times I’ve done this, and each one’s better 
than all the others combined. I’m ultraviolent; I want
to fight.  I’m a marine.  I’m better than a marine.  
I’m a marine who loves his job.  Maybe it’s people like
me who give war a bad name, but it’s people like me 
who win.  Cooper’s got it all wrong.  War is not 
politics; war is not democracy versus communism.  War
is trenches filled with blood. War is gooks getting 
their limbs blown off. War is people becoming bowling 
balls.  
    War is hell, right?  Well, I’ve been to Hell and 
back and went again for seconds.  Shit, I am the king
of Hell.  I am fucking Satan.  I don’t care if they put
me in the slammer.  I don’t blame them.  They can do 
anything to me, but nothing will phase me.  I have the
talent.  I am the most mentally fucking focused man 
alive.  If only my teachers could see me now.




P.S.  Cooper was right about one thing.  You have kept
me sane.


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