A Matter of Semantics - A Young Officer's Decision: Duty or Loyalty in the Vietnam War

Chapter 1

Here I am. My first night in Vietnam. I’m naked, sitting in a muddy hole in the ground, listening to a macabre symphony. Welcome to Nam.

Brandt leaned back against the wall of the bunker, breathing hard, his heart racing. All he could see were dancing balls of color in deep darkness.

I’m safe.

The ground shook. The wall of the bunker shoved Brandt away. Sand sprinkled onto his head from above.

Damn. That was close.

He brushed sand from his head.

Well, not completely safe. Got no rifle. I’m helpless.

Danger wrapped in a veneer of safety.

Brandt’s attention shifted. Some guys had been counting the incoming rounds but stopped because too many rounds hit at once, beating a strange rhythm of varying frequency and intensity. Explosions ranged from cracks to thuds to thumps, depending on how far away the rounds landed. He listened. He waited and listened. The bunker filled up fast. Grunts and splashes died down, replaced by names called in low tones as friends checked on each other. Brandt ached to hear his own name, to call someone else’s name, but he knew no one.

He flexed the fingers in his clenched fists, inhaled deeply, and exhaled slowly. His breathing and pulse gradually returned to normal, followed by an unusual sensation. Brandt’s brow furrowed; his head tilted to the side. He remembered lying awake in the oppressive heat, stripping off every stitch of clothing and tossing the sweat-soaked sheet against the wall. Only then had he been able to drift into sleep. Brandt laughed to himself, and calm replaced initial terror. His balls were resting on the muddy floor of the bunker.

He leaned back against the cool dampness of the sandbags and closed his eyes.

How the hell did I get here?

Confusion subsided and he replayed the scenes from his memory.

The deafening blasts jolted him awake. He scrambled out of a top bunk, one foot on the floor and the other in mid-air, eyes blinking, and heart pounding. Bursts of light illuminated unfamiliar surroundings. Rows of beds flanked him. Other men struggled to the floor. Orange-and-white glare alternated with solid darkness. Men seemed to move in stiff, jerky motions, like in an old movie. A siren pierced the thundering of the shells. Sounds and flashes registered as explosions. Someone shouted, “Mortars. Mortars!”

Fully awake, Lieutenant Bill Brandt remembered that he was in Long Binh, Vietnam. His first night in-country. He completed his second stride and sprinted toward the door. Brandt threw his forearm up as he collided with the screen door, flung it open, and leaped into the muddy street. He made a sharp turn to the right but slid in a wide arc through slick mud. Out of the corner of his eye, Brandt saw a human flash flood choked into a doorway funnel.

Brandt lowered his head and charged to a bunker alongside the barracks. The ground beneath him shook, and a wall of solid air hit his right side and slammed him to the ground. He landed on his left shoulder and plowed a wide muddy furrow. Brandt clawed at the edge of consciousness and struggled to think, to see, in the stroboscopic storm around him. He began to drift into the personal silence of semiconsciousness. He heard a voice inside himself, one he’d always heard people describe as “soft, little, or small.” It screamed, “Move! Move!”

Brandt blinked, looked around, and spotted the dark bunker opening ten meters to his left. He gathered his feet under him to make another dash when he heard someone yell, “Crawl, you dumb shit. Don’t run.” Brandt started a crawl, more like a swim, through the muck of the street. An agonized cry pierced the explosions just to his right. He froze, poised between safety and danger. Every fiber of his being drove him toward shelter. His training demanded that he turn away.

A few muddy strokes brought him to the source of the cries. Brandt reached out and felt a warm, soft slickness. His hand recoiled like a rattlesnake after striking. He searched the darkness again, found an arm, and pulled. No movement. Brandt placed the arm back, reached across the body, grabbed under the opposite armpit. His forearm and biceps felt warm slickness. He pulled again, but the body only moved a few inches.

“Whaddya got?” The same voice that had told him to crawl came from the other side of the body.

“He’s wounded,” Brandt gasped.

“No shit. Well, you pull from the shoulders. I’ll push from the waist,” he ordered. “Go, Cherry.”

Brandt pulled. This time, the body slid over the muddy ground. At the entrance to the bunker, he looked over his shoulder.

“We’re here.”

A flash of light revealed the face of his helper. Not a hulking, grizzled sergeant. The man staring back at him looked smaller and younger than himself.

“Go in first; then pull him through. I’ll push.”

Brandt started to look down at the wounded man.

“Get in there,” the younger man said.

Brandt dove through the entrance, slithered on his belly, spun around, and felt for shoulders.

“O.K., I have him.”

Brandt tugged. The body slid through the low, narrow tunnel.

“Let’s move him to the back. Got to make room behind us.”

Inside, the man-made cave widened. Brandt bumped his head on the low ceiling and had to duckwalk, the floor muddy as the street, the darkness deeper than the night, the air muggy and rank. Mud oozed up between his toes with each step.

A raspy voice drifted through the darkness. “You’re at the back. Who’s there?”

“Bill Brandt. How’d you get in here so fast?”

“I was already in here. I’m going home tomorrow,” he said. “No way in hell are they going to get me tonight.”

A gurgling scream wrenched Brandt’s thoughts back to the present.

Now what do I do? I can’t even see the man. I don’t even know what he looks like.

The now-familiar voice called, “Anybody in here a medic or a doctor? We got a man hurt bad. Shoulder and chest. It’s sucking.”

Squishing approached from the opposite wall. “I’m a doctor. Anybody got a lighter or matches? I hate this fucking medicine by Braille.”

Squishing sounds converged on the doctor, and several lighters clicked on and cast a weak glow. Brandt gasped. The crimson chest glistened. Ragged pieces of flesh stuck up through the pooling blood. A thick smear of mud obscured the face, the man’s mouth and lips, the only features Brandt could see.

Doc cleared the airway.

“Anybody got a shirt on? Drape it over the entrance,” somebody yelled. “Don’t let any light out.”

“I got a T-shirt,” a voice called. “You wanna use it for bandages?”

“Hell, yes. Get it over here,” the doctor ordered. “Anybody got a piece of plastic, get it over here quick.” One of the men with a lighter pulled the plastic wrapping off a pack of cigarettes and handed it to the doctor.

The wheezing sound turned into a gurgle.

Plastic? Oh, yeah. It’s a sucking chest wound. Air is going directly into the lung through the hole in the chest. The plastic will plug the hole.

Brandt leaned closer, transfixed.

This isn’t a demonstration class.

The doctor’s hands flew in a blur over his patient. His voice became soft but strong.

“What’s your name, son? Can you hear me?”

Silence.

“Hell, I know you can hear me. Hang in there with me, kid,” the doctor ordered. He listened again. This time he pleaded, “Help me, kid.”

A long, slow breath blew through the doctor’s lips. His shoulders slumped. He looked up. “Anybody else hurt?”

After a silent moment, he withdrew.

The man spending the night in the bunker moved past Brandt, knelt next to the body, cleaned the face with his shirt and placed a hand on the forehead.

The lighters clicked shut. Darkness reclaimed the bunker.

“He drowned in his own blood,” Brandt blurted.

A hand grasped Brandt’s arm. “It don’t mean nothin’,” said the familiar voice, shaky and punctuated with sniffling sounds. He’s out of this fucking place.” A deep breath.

“Ya done good, Cherry.” Strong voice again. “You just might make it to your DEROS if you go down to the aid station and get the doc to give you some cure for that natural stupidity.”

“Thanks,” Brandt answered.

Did a man just die? Right next to me. Someone I held a few minutes ago? I don’t even know his name. No one does. Death is an acceptable way out?...