By the Grace of God: Chapter 6
It’s as if we were waiting for the other shoe to drop
Loo chuckled again as he thought of the guys he knew in Vietnam.
Windy wasn’t the first to make a fatal mistake in Vietnam, nor the last. A lot of guys like Windy ended up dead in Vietnam. Guys who thought only of themselves. I preferred guys comparable to Chappy, Puck, or Captain Reynolds. Stand up guys you could count on in a pinch.
I recognized two of the names he mentioned.
Chappy? You’ve not mentioned him. Is he someone who served with you?
Loo laughed. You’ll meet him, keep listening. Eyes twinkling, he continued his story.
Guys you could depend on became invaluable in Vietnam because we needed to watch each other’s backs out on patrol. Things could go pear-shaped in a heartbeat, so we relied on one another to get us home safe.
The terrain demanded primarily infantry units in Vietnam, motorized vehicles were few, but mighty.
We walked everywhere, packs filled with whatever we needed heavy on our backs. It was harder than people gave us credit.
Jeeps had their purpose in Vietnam, but the military didn’t have many tanks in country because their lack of off-road capabilities lessened their efficacy.
The picture of an off-roading tank makes you laugh, doesn’t it? Ha!
Loo’s infectious laugh drew me into his vision like a lonely kid into a comic book.
Loo, I can see a tank going off-roading, bouncing around like a dune buggy and I can’t stop laughing. What a sight to see!
He showed me a scene with three tanks travelling along a rudimentary road in Vietnam. Civilians walked along the side of the road, old men, women, and children. Dummy sticks slung across their shoulders, a basket hanging from each end, they carried food, water, and even young children long distances.
A network of canals surrounded the road, suggesting water as the main method of transportation for the territory. Along this meagre road ambled two tanks, a small open-bed truck and two jeeps. One tank led the procession, followed by the jeeps and the truck loaded with grunts, rifles at the ready. The second tank brought up the rear, ambling along in a show of force.
It was a remarkable sight, Sarah. Rice paddies to one side of us, jungle to the other, a dirt track running through the middle with armoured vehicles driving on it. Amongst the rice paddies and jungle was the last place you might expect to find armoured vehicles.
The civilians were unhappy to have us in their country. They feared us and hated us as much as we feared and hated them.
We made our way to a village near the border with North Vietnam. Our recon reported the village as being neutral and we hoped to set up a base camp there. It sat on the edge of NVA territory and appeared to be the perfect spot for our base camp. Close enough to keep watch on the North Vietnamese and far enough away to be difficult for them to escape back over the border.
Most of the civilians scattered as our tanks thundered into the village, the very young and the ancient stopped to watch our arrival. The young ones who didn’t run stood by, daring us to say or do something to them.
Our radio man, Chappy, saved our asses more than once over there with his uncanny ability to sense danger. Chappy’s instinct was bang on more often than not, something our COs learned the hard way.
Loo paused and winked at me with an ‘I told you I’d get to introducing you to our man, Chappy.’
“Hey Major, can I have a word?” Chappy’s words carried weight, so when he called to Major Higgins, he stopped to listen. “I don’t think things are what they suggest. Something isn’t right. It feels wrong.”
Chappy’s eyes darted around the village, from one civilian to another, his uneasiness plain to see.
“What do you mean, Chap? What’s wrong?” Major Higgins listened, knowing deaths were unavoidable if he didn’t.
“Major, look at the civilians. The elderly, women and children are running, but the men, and they are young men, are watching our every move. It is as if they are daring us to act against them. They are too comfortable with our presence. We don’t see too many young men in the villages these days, Major.”
Major Higgins looked around with fresh eyes then, noticing everything Chappy told him, and more. He called his circle of command to him so they could discuss their plight. Chappy moved to leave them to it, but Major Higgins included him in their meeting. That told us something was wrong. His gut was twinging again. We needed to pay attention now.
“So why’s Chappy part of that pow-wow? He’s just a Corporal, isn’t he? Since when is a Corporal part of the Major’s inner circle?” Lang, the newest member of our unit, sat as we watched the officers’ discussing the mission.
Lang was still trying to figure shit out. He’d joined us as we got ready for this mission. His arrogance matched his lack of experience. Lang was full of opinions on how best to manage the Marines and the unit. He should have kept them to himself. They often landed him in messes he found difficult to clean up again.
“You best figure out now, Fucking New Guy, that Chappy is the only one to listen to sometimes. He may be ‘just a Corporal’ to you, but he’s saved our necks from the noose more times than I can count. If he’s in that meeting, something’s wrong.”
Heads nodded amongst the surrounding group, anxiety and apprehension growing by the minute. When the meeting broke up, they briefed us on the game plan and we continued on with our business. The Fucking New Guy wasn’t convinced of this change of events, but he’d figure it out soon enough. It was a lesson they should have taught him in Basic Training, 101 ways to keep his mouth shut and live to tell the tale.
Loo laughed at his witticism, its timbre invited me to join him in the joke. I did, enjoying his sense of humour.
Our unit set up a base camp and made ourselves comfortable in the village. We went on with our tasks while remaining on high alert.
Convinced the village was an NVA stronghold, not neutral as intel reported, we made clandestine preparations for the NVA’s attack on us. It was a juggling act to get this done while the villagers watched us, but we pretended nothing was wrong. We were better actors than we thought.
By day three post arrival we were relaxing and getting complacent. Chappy and the circle of command was still on high alert, while the rest of us were relaxing our guard.
Day four post arrival dawned with Chappy unsettled and on edge. He found it difficult to get things done and spent most of his time pacing and patrolling the perimeter of the village. The guys thought he was full of shit, paranoid and seeing boogeymen where there were none, but I believed him. They ended up believing him, too, but it was too late by then. I joined him in his patrols, too.
That was not the first time Chappy saved our unit’s asses, nor the last. To doubt Chappy was to risk your own life, and those of your unit. I was not willing to put any of us in jeopardy by disregarding him now.
Day five post arrival dawned, foggy and water-logged. It was a miserable day. Chappy still expected trouble and the whole unit was more on edge than it was a day earlier.
“Hey, Walters, do you feel it? It’s as if we are waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something’s going down and I don’t like it.”
I knew what he meant. The air felt different, expectant, as if the jungle itself was waiting for something to happen. We didn’t have to wait long.
Just after lunch, when we were full and lethargic, the first sounds of an impending attack came to our ears. There was yelling, sounds of struggles and civilians darting around the village, more civilians than the day before, as if they shipped them in just for us.
Chappy and I straightened our spines, guns at the ready, before running off to the tanks to make sure they were operational. We were less than three yards from the tanks when the first one blew up, knocking us backwards. The second one exploded before we could stand again.
We shared a resigned look. Chappy grimaced as we headed into the mayhem.
“Well, I guess that was the other shoe, was it?”
That battle lasted long enough to deplete our munitions and get our back-up unit mobilized. Major Higgins contacted Command as soon as Chappy reported his worries to him on that first day. They brought reinforcements up, setting up camp near enough to see the smoke rising from the village the day of the attack.
The battle was in full swing by the time our back-up got there, but we were glad to see them all the same. Their presence tipped the scales in our favour. We got the upper hand and finished what the NVA started that day.
The NVA incurred the most casualties, but we lost a few guys, too. The Fucking New Guy, his disbelief in Chappy and his gut instinct still on his lips, was the first to fall. He got so complacent that he ignored everything and didn’t even have his gun with him when the ambush began. They cut him clean in half with a machine gun spray when he stood to get it from the hut behind him. Poor bastard never stood a chance. Major Higgins got wounded and sent Stateside, to Parris Island, where he trained new recruits.
Then there was Chappy and I. Chappy was standing just a few feet from me when he got hit. A shot from a Russian-made PK machine gun tore through his thigh. It took his entire left leg off, not sure how he kept from bleeding out, but he did.
I got a flesh wound in my shoulder, but kept fighting. Two weeks later I was back to full duties.
Major Higgins, before he got sent Stateside, made sure our new CO got debriefed on the battle and how trusting his guys was paramount. His replacement, a no-nonsense, humble Lieutenant with a reputation of getting things done was not much older than me. You may know him. Loo laughed then, eyes twinkling. Captain Reynolds was my CO for three months before they replaced him.
He was the one who taught me to be the CO I was at Camp WhoopAss. I will be forever grateful to him for that. Sure my guys were, too.
So, I’m assuming Chappy got sent home? Losing a leg is an automatic discharge, isn’t it?
Yeah, he went Stateside as soon as he could travel.
Lieutenant Walters looked impressed with my question, I returned his look with a raised eyebrow. I shook my head in amusement.
I’ve been paying attention these past few days, Lieutenant.
I can see that. He grinned and continued. Chappy got sent home and spent several months at Walter Reed VA hospital in Washington. He hated every second. We were great pen-pals, him and I, and stayed in touch after his discharge.
Chappy and I were best friends. I missed him when they sent him home. I was glad we stayed in touch after I went Stateside. We wrote to each other for over a year, while I remained in ‘Nam and he recovered from losing his leg. He saved my ass, even from the other side of the Pacific.
I can’t tell you how many letters he sent me describing incidents to look out for and how best to handle them. His gut was right so many times, I always listened to those letters. I read those bits out loud to the guys in the unit and then we’d be on the lookout for what he described. My whole unit listened to Chappy’s gut, even the ones who never met him.
If he didn’t have time to send me a letter warning me of danger, he visited me in my dreams. He always warned me of trouble. Until the day I died he came to me in dreams.
Chappy is the reason I am here today. He was my guardian angel.
Continue reading with By the Grace of God: Chapter 7 here:
To start at the beginning, see By the Grace of God: Chapter 1 here: