Silent Night

By

Larry Buege

4^th Infantry Division 1967-68

 

Spider touches my shoulder and instantly I am awake.  “It’s two o’clock,” he says. 

I flick on a flashlight beneath my poncho and check my watch.  Under the red light the dial on my watch confirms the time.  It is not that I do not trust Spider, but it feels like I had just gotten to sleep.  My watch begins at two. When my hour is up, I can return to sleep. Sleep is my escape from reality.

“Is anything going on?” I ask in a low whisper.

“Same-O, Same-O,” he says. “Nothing unusual.”

“Did you do the radio check?”

“No.” 

Spider is wrapping himself in his poncho liner, showing no intention of making the call.  I place the radio’s receiver up to my ear and key the mike. 

“Sawbones 83 to Deadwood.”  I wait for a reply.

“Sawbones 83, this is Deadwood.  Go ahead.  Over.”

“Sawbones 83 to Deadwood.  How do you read us?  Over.”

“I read you lima charlie (loud and clear). Over.”

“Sawbones 83…out.”

I sit back against the trunk of a large bamboo tree and stare into the darkness.  If they come, they will come from the front.  Behind me large bamboo shoots rise up like thick prison bars.  With a sharp machete one might make fifty feet an hour.  No, if they come they will attack from the front where the land had once been cleared for farming.  Tall grass has since reclaimed the clearing.

Spider is already breathing deeply in the early stages of sleep.  War teaches one how to master sleep.  Tonight I sleep in the grass at the edge of a bamboo thicket; two months ago it had been up against the still-warm foundation of a burned-out schoolhouse in downtown Pleiku—compliments of the Tet offensive.

I again stare into the darkness.  Anything beyond ten feet is little more than a shadow.  My mind drifts off to the real world.  It is exactly twelve hours away.  At home it is also two o’clock.  My father will be getting out of work early.  My mother would normally be working as a waitress at a local diner, but she will have the day off.  I have a brother in the Peace Corps in Panama.  There is no telling what he might be doing.  Loneliness begins to set in.  Back home Christmas Eve is approaching.  Over here every eve is the same. 

“How can I be lonely with so many people around me?” you ask.  “They are my friends,” you say.

I am forced to acknowledge the wisdom of your argument.  Around me are ten riflemen, a sergeant, and a newly minted second lieutenant.  They are my friends.  People back home assume we are fighting for our country—out of patriotism.  What we fight for, when the bullets begin to fly, is not patriotism; it is for the guy in the foxhole beside us.  That is what we fight for.  It’s as simple as that—nothing more.  I will offer my life for the people beside me, as they will for me.  Two days ago, before the recon patrol began, we had been strangers.  I didn’t even know their names.  Now I do.  One is named Spider, one is Juice, and we have a Tex.  Every unit has a Tex.  No matter what name I might have offered for myself, my name would be Doc.  I am their medic. Those are all the names we need to know.  Anything more is superfluous.

Perhaps loneliness is not the best term to express my feelings.  Perhaps it is deeper than that—more of a feeling of insignificance.  I look above me.  In a gap of the bamboo shoots I see a portion of the sky with its endless stars. The cleared area on the ground in front of me appears to zoom out like a cheap Hollywood movie stunt.  It soon disappears, and the globe of the earth materializes.  That too becomes smaller as the camera continues its outward zoom until the earth is only a speck, a small blue dot in some inconspicuous corner of the universe.  I can now see myself from the viewpoint of the stars that have been shining down on earth for eternity. 

“In the realm of the endless and eternal universe…do you believe a man sitting at the edge of a clearing with an M-16 in his lap really makes a difference?” the stars ask. 

I can offer no reply.

In the sky that hangs loosely over the clearing are more stars.  One of them is moving toward me. It has to be a plane or helicopter.  At this time of night, it is more likely the former. A mile south of me, it begins to circle.  I see the glowing, orange ribbon first.  It looks like a streamer of crepe paper someone is waving in the nighttime sky.  But the fiery brilliance is breathtaking.  Seconds later the sound reaches my ears.  It is a low moan, like a painful wail from some mythical monster.

The Air Force calls them AC-47s, twin-engine planes equipped with three mini-guns each capable of spitting out 6,000 rounds a minute.  Those of us unfortunate enough to have seen them in action from the ground called them “Spooky” or “Puff the Magic Dragon.”

I watch the plane circle around spitting out its tracer fire.  On the last round, it comes within 1,000 yards of our position.  I key the mike on our radio.

“Sawbones 83 to Deadwood, over.”

“Sawbones 83, this is Deadwood.  Go ahead, over.”

“Be advised we have Spooky at our doorstep.  Does he know we’re here?  Does he have our coordinates? Over.”

“Wait one, Sawbones 83…”

I visualize Deadwood back at base camp with his feet upon some desk.  He will have a coffee mug in his left hand and will now be reaching for a sandwich with his right.  After he has taken a couple of bites, he will pick up the landline and place a call to whoever is in charge of Spooky.  It might not be fair, but that is the image lodged in my mind.

“Sawbones 83, this is Deadwood. Over.”

“Deadwood, this is Sawbones 83.  We’re still here.  We’re not going anywhere.”

“Be advised S-2 (military intelligence) has reason to believe Charlie is visiting your sector.  Spooky was dispatched in your honor.  When he leaves they’ll place H and I rounds (harassment and interdiction) around your perimeter to keep Charlie honest.”

“Roger that, Deadwood.  Sawbones 83, out.”

I hope my voice sounded calm and professional over the radio.  It is not the way I feel.  One small error and Spooky will be raining bullets down upon us like a summer hailstorm.  Friendly fire won’t even earn a purple heart.  Does a wound from friendly fire hurt less?  I wonder how well our lieutenant scored in his map-reading class at OCS.

I wait in the darkness, watching Puff do her thing.  The ribbons of fire created by the tracers are almost a work of art as they lace through the nighttime sky.  The moaning sound is unsettling, sending a chill through my body.  It reminds me of the song They Call the Wind Maria from the musical Paint Your Wagon.  How does that verse go?… “Maria makes the mountains sound like folks was out there dying.”

Is someone out there dying under that deluge of gunfire? I wonder.  Maybe no one will ever know.

“If someone in a woods cries out in pain and there is no one there to hear his cry, does he still suffer pain?” I ask.

“That’s stupid,” I reply.  “The pain is just as real.”

“Must you two always bicker?” a third voice says.

“Yes, we must,” they reply in unison.

They are both right, of course—each in his own way.  Somewhere, as I sit here in the dark, a woman is being raped.  Not a sensual sex act, but a brutal, violent attack that is every bit as traumatic as anything this war has to offer.  Somewhere, there is a young child suffering pain from the terminal stages of cancer.  Somewhere, there is a mother or wife receiving a notice from a military chaplain.  But I do not know them; therefore, they do not exist.  They never happened.

“That is precisely the point I was trying to make,” I say.

“But it’s still real to the people involved,” I reply.

It is obvious those two are not about to let it rest.  I don’t know why I put up with them.  Spider doesn’t suffer from such conflicts.  He described his hour as “nothing unusual.”

I lay my M-16 on the ground and reach into my rucksack for what remains of my dinner.  It is a can of ham and lima beans from the C-ration pack.  It has no commercial value, as it cannot be traded for anything.  It is literally the bottom of the food chain.  When you’re hungry, you’ll eat anything.  I open the can with my P-38 can opener and scoop out the contents with my plastic spoon.  It isn’t the tastiest meal, but it gives me something to do and prevents my mind from wandering.

I finish the beans with a polite, but subdued, burp and toss the can to the side.  It will have to be picked up in the morning—nothing will be left to confirm our existence.  But then it will be daylight.  We will be able to see what we are doing.

I reach out with my right hand for my M-16—it isn’t there.  I am overtaken with panic.  My heart races within my chest.  I begin to hyperventilate.  With both hands I begin patting the ground.  It only takes a moment or two to find the weapon, but my heart continues to race.  I hold it close to my chest.  I don’t know why.  My M-16 is still a virgin.  It has never been fired in anger.  Hopefully, it never will.  Every time the fecal matter hits the proverbial fan, a medic is too busy to need a weapon.  Still, it is my security blanket and I need it.  I have dreams at night about losing my gun.  Some people have dreams about having no clothes.  I have dreams about having no gun.  I am sure other people do not share such dreams.  Sometimes I worry about my mental stability.  Even emotionally stable people have cracked during wartime.

I clutch my M-16 to my chest like a mother clutching an infant just rescued from perilous danger; then I feel foolish.  I pull my poncho over my head and turn on my flashlight: it is two-thirty.  My watch is half done.

I stare into the darkness for another ten minutes.  In the darkness, there is nothing to see.  With no wind, there is nothing to hear.  Except for the lingering smell of ham and lima beans, there is nothing to smell.  A university psychology department could not have constructed a better sensory-deprivation lab.  It is good, but not perfect.  About every five minutes, an artillery shell falls around our perimeter.  They do provide more personal space than Spooky did.  None fall closer than half a mile.  No one in our squad is even awakened.

Those noises I can overlook.  Those noises I can understand.  What is disconcerting are the occasional noises coming from in front of me.  They are subtle to be sure, perhaps just my imagination.  A lonely watch can do that to you.  If someone else were present, the noise would qualify for a “Did you hear that?” Nothing more.

Sometimes the noises are real, but that does not make them sinister.  Every land has its share of wildlife capable of creating noises in the night.  I stare more closely at the distant shadows—they appear to be moving.  I rub my eyes and look again.  Sometimes when there is no background for reference, objects appear to move.  Psychologists call it auto-kinesis.  The shadows continue to move.  I focus on two shadows, paying particular attention to the space between them—the space remains constant.  The movement is probably my imagination.

On the practical side, it would make no difference if they were real or imaginary.  We are a recon team. We must avoid contact.  We are motionless and silent.  With the trees at our back eliminating visible shadows, we will see them long before they see us.

What would happen if I did come face-to-face with my counterpart?  Would I hesitate?  Would he hesitate?  Our country has been in many wars.  All our old enemies are now our friends.  Can I kill a man tonight who tomorrow could have been my friend?  If I were to pretend I don’t see him, would he pretend he doesn’t see me and walk away?

I push my thoughts into the far recesses of my brain, but they are like articles of clothing in an over-stuffed suitcase—they resist closure.

I remain in place leaning against my bamboo backrest and give the chimerical bogey the right of passage.  The next fifteen minutes are uneventful.  I again crawl under my poncho to check the time: It is now five minutes to three; my watch is almost over.  I key the mike on the radio.  It is time for our hourly radio check.

“Sawbones 83 to Deadwood.”  There is no answer.

“Sawbones 83 to Deadwood.”  I again wait for a reply.

“Sawbones 83, this is Deadwood.  Go ahead, over.”

I can hear radio music in the background.  Deadwood obviously does not get as much fresh air as we do.

“Sawbones 83 to Deadwood, how do you read us, over?”

“I read you lima charlie, over.”

“Sawbones 83, out.”

It should now be three o’clock.  I crawl over to Juice and touch him on the shoulder.  He is instantly awake.

“It’s three o’clock…time for your watch,” I whisper.

Juice rubs his eyes in hopes it will help him see into the darkness; it does not.

“Anything happen on your watch?” he asks.

“Same-O, Same-O,” I reply, “Nothing unusual.”

 

 

                                           

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