By the Grace of God: Chapter 8

Vietnam killed us all, some just took longer to die than others.

Chappy’s revelation took me by surprise, his energy was so positive and uplifting it seemed unfathomable that he would take his own life.

It brought the realities of mental health to the front of the line again, refuting the notion that those who are suicidal can be identified through their behaviour or words. Chappy’s current energy would reflect what his energy was like at the end of his life. It was clear he did not exhibit what most people would consider normal suicidal actions when he ended his life. Chappy noticed my reaction.

Surprised? A chuckle belied the somber topic. Many people were. Everyone thought I adjusted back into civilian life. No one sensed the bubble of loneliness enveloping me, the pitying looks, or the way others treated me like an invalid. Yes, I was missing most of my left leg, but that didn’t mean I was less than a man.

There were women in my life. Plenty of women wondered what being with a one-legged man was like and once they fulfilled their curiosity, they moved on. That was the problem. They moved on. Women didn’t consider me a vital, loving, or sexy man.

That war ruined my life, but I refused to let anyone see that. I didn’t want to admit defeat or that the gooks won, but they did. I may have won the battle by coming home, but they won the war when they killed me.

Chappy looked me in the eye, no apology, just a hint of regret. He was firm in his words to get his point across.

Make no mistake, those gooks killed me in Everett as they tried to in that village in Vietnam. I guess there were things requiring my attention back home, they just didn’t pan out the way I wanted them to.

I saw defeat and regret in his body language. Their scream of wishing things turned out differently was deafening. His eyes reflected the trauma of the war and the emotional fallout he experienced after he got home.

It was difficult for me to join that line when my time came. As I pulled the trigger, I realized I didn’t want to kill myself, but it was too late. I needed that realization before I pulled the trigger. If it had occurred to me before the gun went off, my fate may have been different. A second chance would have been nice, but I wasn’t given one.

When I reflect on the years after Vietnam, I understand the moments where my behaviour dictated the course of events. The life I wanted was within my reach, I wallowed in negativity instead. To be in control of what happened, instead of allowing things to happen around me was what I wanted but my demons led me astray. I am glad mental health is more important now than it was then, but it is still not important enough. People suffer and slip through the cracks because no one is there to pull them out of their pits of depression.

Chappy picked at a loose thread on his pants, a nervous picking that betrayed the anxiety he suffered.

I watched one guy I served with, First Lieutenant Yarrow, struggle with his experiences in Vietnam. He acted like he suffered from acute cases of undiagnosed depression and bipolar disorder brought about by his experiences in Vietnam. Back then, you didn’t want a mental health diagnosis because the only answer was judgement and commitment. People judged you as a nutcase and committed you to a psych ward. Once you got committed to a psych ward, the world ignored and forgot you. No one seemed to understand that those who suffered from mental illness never got to escape it, whether or not they were committed.

Chappy, sounds like Yarrow suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, what they used to call battle fatigue. He maybe wasn’t bipolar at all.

Corporal Chapman raised his eyebrows as he digested this thought.

You could be right, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good for him. It took him somewhere he should never have been.

He wandered off into the jungle one afternoon, service pistol drawn, thinking he was unseen. I not only saw him, I followed him. His energy appeared off, and I needed to make sure he was okay.

He was very much not okay.

When I caught up to him, he was sitting on a large root leaning against a big sweet gum tree, staring at the pistol in his hand. He spoke without looking up.

“Don’t come any closer, Chappy. You shouldn’t be here. This has nothing to do with you.”

“Yarrow, what the hell, man? What are you doing?”

He stared at the gun, turning it around and around in his hands. Then he babbled. His whole body shook with tremors, like he was freezing in the jungle’s heat.

“Yarrow, we can get through this. I got your six. Tell me what I can do to help you.”

“Nothing, Chappy, nothing. There ain’t nothing you or anyone else can do for me.” His haunted eyes looked up at me, begging for help. “Do you know how many of my guys I’ve sent home in body bags? How many guys the gooks shot to shit? Do you?”

Tears welled up in his eyes while he talked, falling faster until he was sobbing by the end. I didn’t know how many guys he’d lost, but I was betting it was a fair number.

“No, I don’t, but the guys who are still here owe their lives to you. You keep this unit going, we need you to continue doing that, for our sake and yours. Come on, now. Let’s get back to camp. We’ll get a drink and something to eat. You’ll see things clear after that.”

Biting back panic, his sobs barely contained, Yarrow looked at me again, his eyes reflecting the desolation in his heart.

“No, man, no. I ain’t going back there. The camp is done for me. I’ve got nothing left to give to the Corps, nothing left to give to my guys. Nothing left to give to myself. I’m done.”

He put the gun under his chin and I panicked.

“Yarrow, no, no, man, not like this. This is not the answer. It won’t solve anything. We can sort this out, together. I’m here for you. No man left behind, remember?”

Yarrow kept the gun under his chin, his grip on the trigger erratic. With a shake of his head, he put the barrel into his mouth and mimed pulling the trigger. He didn’t like that and changed his mind again, putting the gun to his right temple. His body still wracked with tremors, Yarrow looked me straight in the eye and cried.

“It’s not what I want, Chappy, it’s what they have driven me to. I want to live, I don’t want to die, but I can’t live here and I don’t know how to live anywhere else. Can’t do it anymore. Can’t send one more guy home in a bag or write one more letter to grieving families. There have been so many body bags. So many letters, man. So many letters telling strangers how sorry I was their son/brother/husband/father died in a pointless war for an ungrateful country. I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t.

No one can help me, not you, not the Corps, not anyone. The Corps’ idea of helping is the same as the Army, Navy and AirForce’s ideas of helping. They’ll send me off on a Section 8 and I’ll end up hospitalized, medicated and left for dead. No, man, no. If that happens, I might as well be dead, cause I won’t have a life left. So here I sit with the last option open to me.

I don’t want no more fragged jarheads. I can’t have no more brains splattered all over my fatigues. We can’t trust the gooks, hell we can’t even trust each other. I am tired of being stuck in this hellhole fighting just to survive. I’m sorry, I don’t want to let anyone down, but I am just plain bone tired. Tired of living like this.”

By this point, I was crying like a baby. I knew what he meant and understood what he was going through. Every soldier who ever served in Vietnam could understand him at that point.

Yarrow mouthed an apology at me, tears streaming down his face and squeezed the trigger. That shot was deafening.

With his pistol in one hand, I threw him over my shoulder and took him back to camp. I was still crying when I started walking, but dry-eyed by the time I entered camp. The sight of my fatigues splattered with blood and brains alarmed my unit and they came running.

Yarrow, our CO, laid on the ground in the sun so we could all pay our respects to him. Everyone wanted to know what happened, but I kept his secrets. I told them I found a gook holding a gun to Yarrow’s head, and he shot him when I showed up. There were cheers all around when I told them I shot the gook to shit and left him for the scavengers.

With one last look at Yarrow’s body, his spirit standing beside it, I sent a dispatch off to Command outlining the official story of what happened to First Lieutenant Yarrow. They appointed a sergeant amongst us interim CO until they could send a replacement. He was an okay CO, for a sergeant.

With a sly look at Loo, Chappy burst into laughter.

That interim CO was the only one who challenged my story about what happened to Yarrow. He was a bit of a pain in the ass, as COs go, but I wouldn’t have traded him for anyone else. He grinned again. Well, except for Reynolds. I would have traded you for him in a heartbeat, Loo. Ha, you would have, too. You did good your first run as a CO, best we had, other than Reynolds.

Loo nodded, grinning himself. With raised eyebrows, he sent Chappy back to his story.

I never forgot the look on Yarrow’s face, or the anguish in his voice, Sarah. As his final words echoed through my mind, over the years, I knew it was only by the grace of God I escaped his fate in Vietnam. I wasn’t so lucky once I got back home. The same look Yarrow wore in the jungle that day, the one that haunted my dreams, was the same one I wore seven years later, to the day. That war caught up to us seven years apart, but we understood each other in those moments. That’s why they called those of us who came home the Walking Dead. Vietnam killed us all, some just took longer to die than others.

Chappy paused there, his eyes distant, his face reflecting the anguish in his soul.

It was difficult to hear stories like Chappy’s and not have them affect me.

Continue reading with By the Grace of God: Chapter 9 here:

To start at the beginning, see By the Grace of God: Chapter 1 here: