are you? Why are you here?
We land in Da Nang at night, a group of us, mixed up and mismatched, none of us in the same unit. We’ve come to replace those who have gone home, gotten hurt, or gotten killed. We have no assignment, yet. We await our orders, our destination, our destiny.
We fly commercial, served by merry flight attendants, until we begin our descent, when the flight attendants lie down on the floor and cover their heads. I blink at them, confused. Someone explains that the enemy typically lobs rockets and mortars at arriving airliners. We land then, the plane bouncing, thumping, grinding to a stop, and loud voices usher us off the aircraft. We step over and around the flight attendants on the floor.
Lugging my duffel, I walk onto the landing strip. I have no idea where I should go. A staff sergeant materializes and asks to see my papers. A few of us from the flight cluster around him and he nods at our paperwork, directing each of us with his thumb, like a hitchhiker, “You, go there. You, over there.”
He stares at my papers, murmurs, “Doc.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go to the hospital. You know where that is?”
“No, sir.”
He points vaguely toward a shadowy hut in the distance. “Up there. They’ll tell you what to do.”
I hustle over to the hut, find a M*A*S*H unit, busy, frantic, overwhelmed, chaotic. I stand aside, bide my time, wait for a break in the action. I walk to a gunnery sergeant, who sighs heavily as I approach.
“Excuse me, sir, staff sergeant told me to see you, sir.”
He grunts. He looks exhausted, his face grimy and lined. He wears the wizened expression of a much older man. He looks me over, then asks, “Are you coming or going, son?”
I wait to answer his question, which seems both philosophical and a golden opportunity. I don’t have the sense or presence of mind to tell him I’m leaving, on my way out, so I mutter the truth, “I just arrived, sir.”
The gunny grunts, gestures to another hut nearby. “Go over there, take a shower, grab some chow, come see me tomorrow.”
He turns away. I stand stuck to my spot, holding for 30 seconds before I can move. I trudge toward the second hut, seeing no one, not a soul. The landscape I’ve trod though is barren, dark, the air heavy and smoky. I feel as if I’m in a science fiction movie, the lone inhabitant of barren, unknown planet. Suddenly, I feel a kick of loneliness so sharp I lose my breath. I gather myself, walk into the building, slowly undress, shower, rustle up something to eat in the chow area, all by myself, so alone my shadow abandons me.
I spend the next three days in this way, alone, periodically asking the gunnery sergeant where I should go. At last, he tells me to report to headquarters, found in a vague location somewhere in the dark behind us, over a hill five miles away. I march to a road where after a few minutes, a supply truck rumbles to a stop, picks me up, and brings me to a cluster of buildings, my ultimate destination. At headquarters, the sergeant in charge studies me, shakes his head slowly, and asks, “Who are you? Why are you here?”
The Heart of Darkness, I want to say. And I’m not sure who I am anymore.
I quickly identify myself, at least for the next year. I am Doc Bulleit, corpsman. I’ll run sickbays and patrols and do the best I can.
As duties go, I can’t complain. Or I won’t.
* * *
I’m surprised, at first, by the fog, by the heavy, sauna-like heat that crushes my skin like a weight, and by the thick squadrons of mosquitoes that swarm every night and into the morning. I’m also surprised by the country’s beauty, green hills rising out of the mist and rice paddies dotted several hundred feet below, the South China Sea glimmering blue in the distance. Mostly, I’m surprised by the camaraderie, the familiar, comfortable feeling of guys hanging out together, almost as if we’ve relocated Phi Delta frat house to the northern perimeter of Da Nang. I’m lonely sometimes, confused often, bored some, but mainly happy—yes, happy—to be in this company of good men. We laugh more than I would have thought and more than I would have imagined, and when we watch the Viet Cong launch rockets at us from the other side of the mountain and see them splash harmlessly into the rice paddies, we not only laugh, we sing “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, and “Light My Fire” by The Doors, and we dance.
Then things change.
* * *
Guided by moonlight, we move. I march, then crouch in our company of Marines, hugging both sides of the road, edging toward the Haiphong Pass. Our assignment: take back the bunker at the top of the pass previously held by us, recently overrun and seized by the Viet Cong. In a nighttime ambush, the Viet Cong slaughtered seven Marines.
As we approach the bunker, rocket fire explodes, blazing blue. The distant thunder of big guns blast, rocking the ground, then the clack, clack, clack, clack of AK47s screeches overhead, behind us, on both sides of us. Voices ring out in the dark. Cries. Grunts. Hollers. Four men in front of me, a soldier topples. I drop down next to him, identify a clean entry and exit wound in his forearm. I apply battle dressing, tag his hand, turn him around, send him back, alive, prayerful. He hasn’t dodged a bullet. But he has dodged the bullet. The mortal bullet.
We arrive at the base of Haiphong Pass. Three Marines lie on the ground. The first one I come to is dead. The next one groans, bloodied, his body ripped by shrapnel. He will survive, I think, unless the shrapnel has severed an artery. Then I can’t save him. Above my pay grade. Above everyone’s pay grade, except God’s. Two Marines attend the third man down. They’ve cut his pants leg to his thigh and wrapped a tourniquet above his knee. I launch myself between them, search for excessive bleeding, administer morphine. He’ll live, I believe. He’ll live, I pray.
The sergeant’s order, a subdued shout, pierces the air like a gunshot, “Up the hill, men. Squads two and four left, three and five right, squad one in the center. Doc, you’re with two. Go!”
We begin the climb and a hail of grenades arches toward us. We duck, we tumble, we zigzag away from the fiery explosions, dirty smoke, kicked-up dirt, the dull light. Then—screaming, shouting, and I find three men from squad three heaped in a crevice on the hill. Two lift each other up, stand unsteadily, their backs swaying, their bodies weaving, and descend the hill. I grab the third Marine, squat, sling him over my back, and carry him down, following the others. At the bottom of the hill, I hand him off to an awaiting circle of Marines, then turn and crabwalk back uphill, clinging to a low wall of spiked brush, pulling myself upward. Above me, mortar rounds and tracers light up the night. Battered moonlight, I think, and then I see shadows dancing, darting, flailing, or … wait … I believe I see them. I don’t know. But then I come to more men on the ground, wounded, some able to walk, others I fear may never walk again. The walking wounded help their fallen brothers. I sift through bodies. I come to the dead. I leave them. I have to. I have no other choice.
The smoke from gunfire and mortar fire rolls in, thick as fog. Machine gun fire cracks all around me, a brutal drumbeat, a blistering soundtrack. I help another wounded man down the hill, panting as I go, my body aching, my back straining. I turn to make the climb again, catch two wounded soldiers hobbling from the dark side of the hill.
“It’s easier up the backside, Doc,” one says, pointing in that direction.
I go that way, and do
