Thursday, December 29, 2011
The Concussion And The Worm
A Concussion And The Worm VN
(mini-TET May 13, 1968)
(C) James J Alonzo
In Viet Nam I was driving in the middle of a 50 truck convoy in the Iron Triangle, going from Long Binh to Cu Chi. On the way through an area that was near the Michelin Rubber Plantation we were ambushed. The area was commonly known as "ambush alley." The enemy tactics was to disable a few of the trucks with road mines, (IED), setting up the convoy to fire small arms, rockets and mortars to destroy the rest of the vehicles.
J J Jackson, 6'3", 200 lbs, african-american, was my best friend and the machine gunner riding in the "shotgun" position of the tractor trailer, (18 wheel vehicle) I was driving. The vehicle was loaded with 155 MM artillery shells, and it was a high explosive load.
Driving through this area we were vigilant, we expected to get ambushed, I just didn't understand, that when it happen, I was still caught completely surprised! As the two lead vehicle were blown up, the small arms firing started, J J Jackson with grim determination on his ebony face opened up with the machine gun laying down heavy grazing fire to suppress the Viet Cong's charge.
Explosions of mortar or rocket fire continued. However, that was the last thing I remembered. Apparently I was near an explosive force from one of these rockets or mortars that landed nearby. My 160 lb. Body was lifted and thrown from the concussion of the blast! I was told later that the force had lifted me and thrown me off the truck landing about 15 feet from the truck.
The convoy commander Lt Best and J J Jackson later told me what had happen; As the fighting started, J J opened up on the enemy with the machine gun, and I was bringing more ammo belts to reload, when the blast occurred and he had ducked down looking back where I was supposed to be. When he saw me flying in the air doing a couple of somersaults and a 1/2 pike before hitting the roadway, landing on my head. Seeing my demise, he knew I wasn't going to be assisting him.
Through the enemy small arms fire and fellow explosions, J J Jackson disconnected the machine gun from the mount on the truck, continued firing at the VC, and ran to my unconscious body to see if I was alive. Having established that I was alive, still carrying the machine gun in one arm, he scooped me up like a baby and ran with me to better cover.
After the battle, I and other wounded soldiers were medivac by chopper, to the 24th EVAC Hospital at Long Binh. I was admitted with concussion of the brain, cuts, and abrasions of my face, hands and arms.
After the doctors finished with me, I was x-rayed, bandaged,and was admitted for 24 hour observation. When I became conscious, I no longer had my clothing, boots and weapons. I found out later that J J Jackson took my weapons back to the my company unit. I was also informed that I had to stick around.
"Ma'am, do I have to stay in bed?" I asked the nurse, who like all the nurses had officer rank, but she was American and pretty and I did stare at the first American women i've seen in long time.
"No, sergeant," the nurse responded, "there's the latrine, and after you clean up put this hospital gown and robe on. Then you're allowed to roam at will. The mess hall is down on 1B, since you can walk, you won't be served. And sergeant,,,,, don't bother the nurses!"
Well that had been clear enough, i just got my orders. As I roamed the other wards that day I heard a lot of laughter and excited talk from the nurse and medic station. Upon approaching the station desk, it became clear that all the attention was focused on a pill bottle that one of the nurses was holding. Seeing me this pretty blonde nurse smiled and said,
"Hey soldier, take a look at this."
The nurse handed me the pill bottle, and I found myself looking at some kind of worm about an inch long, but nothing else that would make me excited like these people.
"I've seen bigger worms in the jungle."
"Look closer, soldier, this is an intestinal worm," she laughed, " I bet you haven't seen one like this with sutures (stitches)!"
Looking closer, I did observe several pieces of knotted thread stitches on this worm.
"Your right, I've never seen anything like this before."
Still excited the nurse said, these are surgical sutures! Can you believe it?"
"Now why would anyone want to suture a worm? I asked puzzled.
"The worm," the nurse laughingly explained, "had been found in a stool sample collected from another soldier that was also wounded very severely in his stomach. We take samples to see if he has intestinal worms as a precaution, since it is common in this country. If he has them we give medicine to make the body evacuate the worms through their stools when they defecate."
"So how did the worm get sutured?" I asked.
"That's what got my attention," she laughed, "we were in surgery, and I noticed the sutures Doctor Johnson had done on the boy's stomach and intestinal area. Doctor Johnson thought the worm was a vessel and had tied it off by mistake. When I showed him the worm, Doctor Johnson was very proud of the sutures!"
She may have thought it funny and that doctor may have been proud, but I didn't see anything to laugh about! All i saw was a big screw up!
"How can a doctor make that kind of mistake?"
"Soldier," she lashed out in defensive tone, " these doctors work long hours in a lot of bloody bodies so they do make mistakes!"
"Right, well I'll see you later," suddenly feeling tired, I was glad that I had only been admitted for a brain concussion. If doctors sew up worms and are proud of this, I didn't want to be operated on.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
An Attempted Mugging Of This Old Man
(C) James J Alonzo
On the early evening of Tuesday, September 25th, 200, two weeks after the terrorist attacks on our country, with the help of an heavy oak cane, I was walking back from the local neighborhood store when an incident occurred that I never thought would happen to me.
I noticed a large black male about 18 years old approaching me with menacing manner. Having had a career in law enforcement I knew menacing, so I became on guard as I continued walking towards this clown.
"Are you a die hard," he asked as I got closer.
I had no clue what this idiot was saying, so I chose to ignore him and continued walking to my home. Hearing his feet shuffle as he turned towards me, I stopped under the street light and turned to face him.
"Hey man. Is you willing to die for things?"
"You got a problem?" I asked, tightening up on my cane, knowing he was at least 30 years younger than me.
"What would happen man if you died tonight?" he asked, as he shrugged his shoulders, jerking his head back ands forth, looking around. I now knew I had a problem here, and my adrenaline started to kick in,
"I'd go on to the next life," I responded sarcastically.
A smug all knowing look came across his face as he said,
I have gun in my pocket old man, which I am going to show you man!"
As he said this he kept slapping his pant pocket with his flattened right hand. I heard the metallic sound from his large ring connecting to his pocket.
("Shit," I thought, "This punk may have a gun!")
"What I want to know cracker," he continued, "are you willing to die for your money?"
("Great,!" I thought, as I felt fear creeping in, "this clown has a gun and the one time I didn't bring mine!")
He asked me the same question, taunting. I refused to respond to this asshole, wondering to myself, was this the way it was going to end for me? I remember from my time in Viet Nam and my career in law enforcement, to remain calm, listen to my instincts. And my instincts were telling me I would get through this, but I will have to fight this clown. So I started to look for an opening to launch a pre-emptive strike, but not in a way he would notice.
He must have gotten impatient, for he sternly said,
"Look man, you hand over your wallet and money or else I'll kill you!"
The time for talk was over for me, the time for me to let my anger flow, it was time to get insane, mad, devil eyed mad! I could feel my heart beating faster, breathing was controlled. The few moments that passed quickly showed him that I was not going to follow his orders. He fooled his eyes and exhaled a deep sigh, shook his head in mock disgust as if to say,
" I guess that means I am going to have to kill you mother-fucker!"
With a smirk on his face, he started to put his hand into his pocket, at which I reacted by stabbing his throat with the handle end of my cane, following up with a smashing blow to his face. As he backed up from the blows, I drove my foot into his groin!
As he fell to the ground, i followed up with more blows from the heavy cane, and I continued to kick him over and over. I was starting to see that even though he was dazed and hurting, he did somehow manage to get to his feet and run down the street.
I started to chase after him, but shit, I was winded, and had to stop to catch my breath. But then I remembered he had a gun, or claimed to have a gun. I saw him halfway down the block under another street light where he had stopped.
I defiantly assumed a fighting stance, but he raised his hands and shook them indicating he had enough, then turned and shuffled off down the street. I should of called the police but that would of been a problem and they might not of left me alone. As I walked home I realized I should of got the gun away from him, if he had one.
It is funny how you can have an incident like this in your life, and then over time sit around and dwell on on "coulda, woulda, shoulda". The war and my law enforcement career had stayed with me on some level of consciousness after all these years. Besides I don't think my instincts allowed me to survive Viet Nam just to be taken out by some punk. It put me to mind and ok'd verse from my combat unit;
"this man means trouble for all your kind,
you shirkers and cowards with a sick soul and mind,
Beware his temper that you do not burst,
For he is a fighter from the 101rst!
Returning Home From Viet Nam PTSDx
Returning Home To The Village
(from Viet Nan)
(C) James J Alonzo
After serving my time in Viet Nam, I was given my 30 day leave prior to following my written orders to report to Ft Hood Texas. I was pissed, I wanted to extend my time in Viet Nam because I only had 9 months left on my enlistment time.
However, when I sent a letter home and explained to my wife, if I extended six months more in Viet nam, I would get an "early out", or a waiver of the last three months. Nanci wrote back that besides her de-nutting me when I got home, she would divorce me!
So I returned to the "world", (USA), without any debriefing or de-sensitizing of any kind. One minute I was in-country, in combat, then 22 hours layer, i'm standing on a sidewalk unarmed, in the USA!
However, the military did give me some "choices" of duty assignments. They asked if I was interested in be assigned to the "Old Guard" at Arlington, Virginia to guard the Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier, and Honor Guard the burials of the deceased soldiers. But I was in no mood to be in such an honor assignment and have that awesome responsibility.
So they gave me a choice of going to drill instructor school at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and then be assigned to a basic training company. I was in no mood in training the "new meat" and send them to that damn war. How was I going to train these kids how to deal with being scared "shitless"! Or how to deal with the stench of death, tagging and bagging the bodies of their buddies, or their buddy's blood on their clothes, the heavy rust smell of blood, treating wounded while under fire, or the heat and humidity of this Asian country. How was I going to train them that if they survived, they weren't going to like the "welcome home" from the US citizens.
Having not picked any of their choices, I received my orders, I was being assigned to Ft Hood, Texas, and I hope Nanci was going to be happy, because I wasn't.
When I arrived in sunny California, standing there in my tailored dress uniform, with my medals, no one prepared us for the American citizens that would be greeting us at the airport! We were greeted by hippy type assholes, screaming accusations, and profanities!
As we walked through the crowd, I saw police officers near by, but they were doing nothing to keep these clowns under control. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing; the insults, the resentment, the terrible comments, all from American citizens towards the military that served their country.
They were taunting us, daring us to assault them, as though they knew the cops on the sideline would arrest us if we attacked.
What have we done to deserve this? Didn't we do our patriotic duty to God, Country, and apple pie? When we were kids, all we heard was when you serve you country, and the citizens will thank you, like they did after World War 2, and the Korean War.
The crowd is angry and hostile, and we had to push back and struggled to make a pathway through these clowns. I am unarmed, however, it is not me that is fearful of being hurt, but my instincts are still razor sharp, and I feel coiled, ready to strike out. Wanting to strike!
Getting to the street curb, I grabbed a taxi, and I feel uncomfortable, for I immediately notice there is no wire mesh over the windows.
"It would be so easy for someone to throw a grenade," I thought, "Never mind, I'm home in the US."
"Take me to the San Francisco airport please." I said.
"How'd you like your welcome?" asked the cab driver, laughing,
"It sucks," I responded.
"Well, I'll give you some free advice. Before you get to the airport, I'll stop at a clothing store, and you get some civilian clothes to wear. There are a lot more protesters at the airport."
"Okay, I don't want to have any run INS like back there."
"It's a good thing there was no fighting," the cab driver said, "If there is fighting the police are ordered to arrest the GI's, but not the hippies."
I followed the cab drivers advice buying civilian clothes, changing into them, he took me to the airport. I went to pay him and he said,
"No son, you don't owe me a thing."
"Thanks again."
"Remember what I told you," he advised, "Don't tell anyone on the plane you served in that Viet Nam war, or you might get spit on!"
As I closed the cab door, I could hear him laughing. I kept thinking, " What the Hell happened? When I left this country, people weren't like this. "
I was in Viet Nam and during that time, Malcolm X, Martin Luthur King,, and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated! Civil Rights riots in the cities! This country has lost it's mind!
I caught the plane to Buffalo by way of Chicago, and there wasn't any further problems. However, i spent too much time in my thoughts, my mind was rapidly scanning through the last couple of years of my life. When I went to war, I was 18 years old, married, a child on the way, and a squad leader in a combat unit. I decided to try and drink away these thoughts, and called on the stewardess to keep the drinks coming.
When I arrived in Buffalo, I was still clear of thought, but yet numb to the strange things I saw. I noted the lack of sand bags, and the fields of fire for these structures.
My family having heard I would be arriving that day poured out of the structure when i arrived. They are in a hurry to greet me outside, but i am in a hurry to get inside, undercover, even though it is now night time, and there shouldn't be any fear of snipers.
Some are people I have known, and some are people I grew up with, and some are family members, however, I feel so detached from all of them. A feeling of shame comes over me with a quick memory of where I had just come from, and I find myself avoiding any conversation.
Besides, I learned that getting to close to anyone means more hurt and heartbreak when they are taken away.
The years have passed as I try to live in my home village of Buffalo, and the fortifications around my home have improved along with the weapons that I keep exceptionally clean and ready to use. The attitude of my fellow citizens has changed to the better, and I associate with others that have been through what I have been through.
We had needed to discuss our memories, or quietly we will meet again when night falls,,,and dream the dreams and walk the walk again,,, here in my home village of Buffalo.
Monday, December 26, 2011
The Viet Nam Experience (trying to understand PTSD)
The VIET NAM Experience
(trying to understand PTSD)
(C) James J Alonzo
I want to share this mostly with those who have not been there. I want to tell you things, and see in your eyes the sudden realization of the experiences of war. Then maybe you will understand.
I am merely trying to let you know what it was like for the Viet Nam combat soldier.
You had a family member that experienced these things. I hope to somehow let you know what it was like for them.
Vietnam was a savage, in your face war where death could and did strike from anywhere with absolutely no warning. No lines, no safe area, no green zone, every inch of soil a potential combat zone. The brave young men and women who fought that war paid an awful price in blood, pain and suffering. Those that survived were also exposed to Agent Orange, the then unknown killer that would complete it's mission years later.
I want to take you to this place, in a far off land, 10,000 miles away from home. The home of our youth, that we in Nam referred to as "the world". And while we were in Viet Nam, we called Viet Nam names like " Nam", "the land of Oz", "Gookland", and other unmentionable profane names.
While in Viet Nam, they saw the denigration of mankind's morality, chaos, ugliness, shocking sites. It is difficult in thinking of ways how to describe it.
I can try to describe the smells, but nothing smells like Nam. The combination of rotting jungle, leeches, snakes, booby traps, both man killers and man maimers, garbage, the rust metal smell human blood and animal and human wastes, gun smoke and cordite, and the smell of rotting bodies.
I can try to write about the colors, but there is no way to show comparison to the many shades of green foliage, the rust red clay soil, the color of blood, all in vivid bright colors.
The weather? Well it was the tropics, wet and hot, humid, heavy rains. Rains that sometimes fall out a cloudless sunny sky. The weather is hot, beyond hot and humidity as high as the temperature.
It is like wearing a plastic sweat suit and pouring hot Maple syrup down inside of it.
After a few days in country You finally give up wiping the sweat off your face and arms
because it does not do any good. You have, mixed with the sweat, anti bug juice, that smells like OFF Repelent, but stronger 60 percent DEET, another carcinogenic.
You learn to own it, the heat and humidity, the stickiness.
Own it and become it. Then it is bearable......almost
The sounds, gunfire, explosions, the buzzing zing of a bullet passing your head, so many things. But my heart knows that unless you were there my writing about those things would only be words to you and you had to be there to experience them in a real way.
Vietnam, a place yes, but more then that. The Vietnam War was not just a place on a map
it was another planet, a different universe and yet, still is part of our very being.
So they came home, not to an appreciative country, but to hippies against them and the war, called baby killers!.
But to their loved ones, they are received happily. However, their loved ones see a quiet person, unemotional, almost cold. The loved ones see the thousand yard stare, but yet behind that stare was the clear sharp alertness, always ready to react. In that stare is sights that can not be talked about, sights of what they had witness. The doubt of the present, And further doubt of what his future held for him, if anything.
War takes the soldier to the very edge, where they must stop all reason, emotion, all caring, all feeling to survive the experience. They had become desensitized to pain, suffering and death.
They had assimilated war's horror and continued on, having experienced too much death, seen too much destruction, Old men in young boys bodies, who will never…be quite the same,
You take his hand and sit for hours, just being there for him, hoping this will bring him back. You are trying to let him know you care. You hope the touch of your hands is all the words that need to be said. But you are confused, you really don't understand. This is not the warm, fun loving, and sweet person that left you for his Viet Nam duty.
You tell him how much you love him, and hope hearing that will make him heal, and the hand in yours tightens a little, but is it from love or for understanding, for approval, or is he asking for forgiveness?
I Tried To Turn Invisible That Day
I Tried to Turn Invisible That Day
© James J. Alonzo
Viet Nam
“Shit!” I said aloud to no one in particular. It’s the morning of January 23, 1968, I awoke, after two hours, with a stiff neck, and I ached all over from having slept on the Viet Nam jungle floor. As I took over my early morning watch, and there’s a heavy fog covering the visibility of the jungle floor. However the rising sun’s rays will quickly disperse the fog.
An hour later we moved out, and I am once again assigned point. Within minutes we were all drenched in sweat, from the hot humid air of the Iron Triangle. As we moved cautiously through the thick overhanging vines and heavy underbrush in this area we named Indian Country. The area was north of Cu Chi, and south of Tay Ninh, a popular ambush area of the supply convoys that ran up and down these roads and known for it’s many booby traps, explosives, road mines, heavy enemy engagements, and fierce fire fights.
As point man, I was on constant vigil looking out for trip wires, hooked to explosives or other nasty booby traps. Patrolling, I was trying to smell the enemy, his body odor laced with a fish smell. In this thick brush, I felt that I would smell them before I saw them.
Behind me I could hear the rest of the platoon following, in a long stretched out column, hoping the VC could not hear them. Sweat stinging my eyes, was flowing in steady trickles from my forehead, neck, and back, soaking my T-shirt and waistband of my soiled, ripped trousers. Tears from the jungle foliage that cut like razors skin and clothing.
It’s the beginning of another day in Viet Nam, and we hadn’t been re-supplied for days, nor eaten in two days except for the C-rations we individually carried, so we were hot, haggard, dirty, hungry, and just down right miserable.
“It’s not a job, it’s an adventure!” I remember the recruiter told me, asshole.
As I was wiping the sweat from my eyes, I stepped out of the thick brush into a small clearing. As I did that, my peripheral vision caught the movement to my right, not 20 feet away, an enemy soldier had just broke through the jungle bush into the same clearing! I froze, and as I did the American soldier behind me not knowing why, still signaled the rest of the platoon to stop movement.
The Viet cong soldier had been looking down, and had his weapon pointed downward parallel to his right leg. Somehow his weapon’s front site and bayonet housing was entangled from protruding vines. As he jerked it free, I tried to turn invisible, but when he turned his head in my direction he saw me. (Shit! It didn’t work!)
We both froze, stood there, except for our heavy breathing, we silently stared at each other. Two, three, five long seconds passed between us. His straight dark black hair wasn’t combed, one side stood up as though he had slept on that side, his black pajama like uniform was dirty, tattered and torn like mine. A skinny man with a like wise skinny bedroll tied and draped over his shoulder, at his waist ammo belt and a bamboo container, they were know to carry rice and such in.
His black eyes now fixed on me revealed much pain, sorrow, and maybe fear. His rifle was still pointed downwards; mine was at waist high pointing at him. We both knew at that moment I had the advantage. Behind us our buddies had no clue what was happening at that moment.
In the next few seconds there was going to be a fierce fire fight, where there would be a lot of splattering of blood, guts, and screams of pain. We would be firing blindly and violently at each other. The area would soon be reek with death and destruction. He knew this as I knew this. Maybe that is why he took a small step backwards, and waited for me to react.
It seemed like life, death and eternity flashed before us. It was so quiet, even the jungle seemed to be lacking the normal noises. I heard his stomach growl, loud and empty, or maybe it was mine? Instead of firing, I too lowered my weapon slightly and also took a step backwards.
Life, it seemed, at that moment, returned between us with it’s promise of tomorrow. His eyes grew big and he released a deep sigh at my step backwards. He took another step backwards, and I followed suit, our eyes never moved and seemed not to blink. He turned to his right and quickly disappeared in the thick jungle, as I turned left to get out of the clearing and behind me the platoon began following again. I never told anyone what had happened that day. I wonder if that enemy soldier is still alive, well I hope he still is.
* * *
A Missed Love VN
A Missed Love
© J.J. Alonzo
It is Jim’s birthday. He painfully awakens on this humid August 6th 2007 morning, startled by birdsong echoing across the garden outside and, for a long time, he stares in confused remembrance towards where the swelling orange sun is burning the faded floral wallpaper across from his tumbled bed. He suddenly remembers that Nanci went to his daughter’s, to baby-sit his sick Grandson Deven, and won‘t be back till nightfall.
he finally realizes. 'I'm fifty-nine today. Where did the years go?' It’s been a bad ten years since he was last healthy. Once a robust man, a former combat soldier in Viet Nam, Private Investigator, Thug, skip-tracer, Deputy, and Head of a Large Security and Fire Safety department. He never realized that he would be this way so young. He has been on disability since 1998.
After a long and constant fight with the Veterans Affairs, the bureaucracy had finally recognized his physical disabilities, because of injuries to his body and mind in the war in Viet Nam. He had a heart attack, a five-bypass surgery, then had a minor stroke, and lost his short-term memory. Now they are treating him for the body and mind.
‘Well at least I still have my long term memories.’
Climbing painfully from his bed, standing in striped pajamas by the window, Jim stares towards the garden. A beautiful garden that his wife Nanci has designed and maintained.
A Garden that is emblematical of the inner beauty that Nanci has. Jim is a man that has never had qualms or ever question himself about his manhood, knowing that most men would not admit it, but he would, that he loved beauty. Beauty of nature, children, horses, dogs, beauty of a woman’s voice, her eyes, and her face, of everything.
Outside in the sunrise the flowers are already awake, clematis climbs like a growing child and all the border marigolds are on fire.
The neighbor’s Leonberger dogs are barking, because they are seeing another neighbor’s cat which has scaled a fence like wall and drops beside its shadow under an apple tree, stalking anxious sparrows with the first sun. Under the broken birdhouse, a mouse plays with a nibble of yesterday's bread. Shadows shrink in bright shyness against all the garden fences and the last star melts into the rise of dawn. There is heat in the breathless August day already.
Jim, is now dressed sitting in his kitchen, listening to the sounds of. silence. The house, holding its breath around him, the roof heavy and oven baked. He prepares toast and tea and sits there, thinking, ‘no birthday breakfast for you Jim.’
Jim's thick veined hands brush toast crumbs from the wood tabletop and when he moves, his slippered feet stirs dust dances giddily on the patched carpet.
He listens to the awakening of the new day: the clock on the kitchen wall ticks hurriedly and the mail box snaps awake from his thoughts.
Jim walks to the front door, and the mail box and picks up bills and ads that promise discounts and holidays abroad.. Jim has traveled to England, Asia, but never to the other tourist places. His tired eyes examine the envelopes at arm's length. There are no birthday cards to sigh over - these days who would know?
Returning to the familiar kitchen he pulls a knife out of his pocket, and slides the knife along his letters, slitting out their folded information. It's better than nothing. Even if they are utility bills and due..
No longer absorbed in his letter opening task Jim looks at the sunlight shining blindly on his glazed, brown teapot and then, laying the bad news aside for later, he pours more lukewarm tea. He sits and thinks about past birthdays. Cakes and ale, songs and celebrations and the caring friends and relative now gone, out of touch, or dead.
'Time flies,'’ he says aloud.
He's talking to himself most days - who else will listen? Up in the still shadowed living room a clock chimes the hour and Jim rises tiredly and prepares to face the day. When he turns on the TV, the CNN news assaults his soul. The world is littered with dead children and pain. It seems that bad news entertains while the ad men slip in a jingle. The world has gone mad with cruelty and nobody seems to have noticed. He flips the remote and foreign voices cackle urgently in the Television. Talking violence in tongues, telling of the rapes of children, no doubt. The media and talking heads, loves abusing the innocent with their excited updates and urgently breaking stories. It was different back then. In the 1950’s It seemed quieter and children could play on the streets. ‘Ring- a- ring- a- rosy!’ Way back when.
Jim smiles at those memories. Then he walks, cane in hand, to the front door, he had already checked the windows, doors and the bolts, all's secure.
Jim swings open the front door and sees
Kim* standing there, smiling like sunlight.
“You must go!”, her doe like eyes wide, fear in her voice, “Boo Coo VC, and they blew up your jeep! “
He used to call her danh từ (honey). Her face said it all, the kindness, beauty, and a no nonsense strength of character. Kim back then was, twenty-two. A single woman, who lived with her elderly parents, younger brothers and sisters. She was employed by the US Army on Long Binh Base, secretary to the Company Commanding Officer.
Jim has been thinking of Kim a lot recently. She walked behind him all the way to the hushed Williamsville library yesterday. And in the late afternoon, when he sat to rest in his yard on the patio, she was standing under a tree, waiting in its shade.
The sun slides down the street and settles on Jim's house and Kim’s face fades like a startled shadow.
“My dear danh từ, Jim whispers sadly with self guilt. “Why didn’t I stay with you; I could of protected you, but you told me you and your family would have been safer with me gone. Oh how I felt. I should of stayed with you that night when the Viet Cong (communists) attacked Saigon.” ***
‘There you go Jimmy,’ Jim sighs, ’You’re getting into the ’could, shoulda, woulda regrets thing.”
However, it is not possible for any person to change the past and therefore we only have options available with us, or to live while missing our old loves, or try to find that old love.
Earlier, that same day, Nanci had left a note and instructions on shopping for food. Jim avoids the supermarket. It's too complicated. Grim checkout people urgent to get home. Kids breathing asthma. Babes bawling immediate needs. Bald headed young men pushing forward, rings in their ears, and violence in their shiftless eyes. Never stare back. Girls demanding more and pushing the morality envelope. Housewives hurrying, car exhausts, liberated women with little freedom. The exhaustion of super markets and too much choice. Too big, too modern, too many people. All too lonely for Jim.
Jim goes to smaller stores, chats with familiar people and gets milk and eggs and a small loaf of fresh bread. Further along, outside the bakery shop, Mrs. Barrett, the neighbor from number forty-seven, nods an inquisitive greeting.
“How are you keeping?” she asks, looking past him at the bargains in the window.
“Great. Yourself?”
Couldn't be better.”
Jim drives home through the hot and humid streets towards his sanctuary, his home in Williamsville, NY.
In his armchair in the living room, looking out on the road. Hearing the clock’s ten time chime and the long day stretching ahead like a dreadful eternity. The terror of ten AM.
Nothing to do and outside he can hear children playing. There are others, hurry through the morning, sun on their heads, time on their hands.
I'm glad I'm not young anymore.
Jim despises this time of day. Already too hot for the garden and nothing to fill the mind until making something at lunchtime. Light sustenance for the long afternoon lengthening drearily ahead like an empty road going nowhere. Jim tries to read but even in glasses the words are a blur. he whispers and her name rings in his head like a tolling bell.
“Kim,”
‘Kim,”
Jim talks with her. Their talks were always so interesting, sweet, never confrontational. His eyes close. He becomes delirious with dreaming and again hears distantly the brass door bell clattering once. Jim shuffles down the hall and when he cautiously opens the wide door Kim is there, twenty-two and lovely, framed in the sun like a miracle. Kim, budding with womanhood and child fresh happiness.
“Will you come out to talk, Jim?”
“I can't Kim. I can’t even find you. I know you are not here, but somewhere in the next life. I wish I was with you.”
Jim goes back to his chair, sitting back daydreaming about Viet Nam. There wasn‘t a day he didn‘t think about Nam, as if the war was burned into his psyche, his soul. How in Nam he drove 10 wheel and 18 wheel trucks in Supply convoys throughout the country side. The ambushes that the VC attempted, the death, the violence, the constant fear.
How he remembered Kim, and how he had first met her on June 13th, 1967.
How the company Commander had hire her, as his secretary, that she could type, spoke five different languages, and she was part French, and part Vietnamese. He remembered her waist length long black hair, her petite figure, her large brown eyes, and alabaster skin. Kim's long hair covering her tiny ears. Kim, quiet and reliable as the moon.
She was 5’tall, and 95 pounds, nicely built lady, that was dressed conservatively in a Ao Dai (ow y eye).**.
As Jim shook her tiny hand, she lowered her eyes with such a smile. When he looked into her face and eyes, He knew he was in love.
Every time Jim was in Base camp, and not in the field on convoys, he would chat with her, and she would teach him Vietnamese Phrases. She told him about her faith Buddhism. Jim became a Buddhist soon after. They became fast friends, Jim and Kim, heads tilted, it seemed that an affection was drawing them closer and closer. As time went on, they talking, laughing, a pair apart from others. In love? They never spoke of it then.
“Will you love me forever?”
'Forever and ever,'
Jim asks Kim silently. But he says aloud, “I really like you.”
Kim assures, squeezing his hand. Jim dreams.
One day, months later, there was a Thanksgiving dinner at Base camp. The Commanding Officer Lieutenant. Best, insisted that Kim stay and learn about our customs, and enjoy the special Turkey dinner that was being helicopter in. The CO planned on Kim spending the night with him, but found out that she was not one of those ladies. She was an aristocrat, from a well to do and powerful Vietnamese family, and turned down his offers. Being an Officer and gentleman, he didn’t push it, but now it was nightfall, and he had to see that she get transported to her home, in Saigon which was 21 miles away, over dangerous roads infested with Viet Cong.
The Lieutenant had no interest in driving her home alone over the roads at night, because the danger was threefold now that it was dark. So Jim and his gunner JJ Jackson was assigned by the first sergeant who had no love for Jim.
“Alonzo!”, He shouted, “You like to sneak off to Saigon and get drunk, so get that gook broad home, and return ASAP****, or I‘ll court martial your fucking ass!“
Jim smiled, because the first Sergeant had been trying to catch him for months, sneaking off to Saigon at night, but the sergeant always seem to miss his chance to catch him.
Jim remembered JJ getting the Gun Jeep, and securing a M-60 Machine gun on the Gun Mount, and loading his M-16.
As Jim loads his weapons, thinking that the Lieutenant was a coward. Kim walks up with the Lieutenant Best, and says to Jim,
“Will you be taking me home?”
Jim feels only half married. (He had married Nanci a year before, back in the USA.) He wonders if in war, is there permission to sin.
“Of course,” says Jim, bowing, ever the gentleman.
Jim remembered that night, the long dangerous drive, ever vigilant, the humid heat of the tropics making sweat trickle down the back of his shirt. But Kim look comfortable, beautiful face forward. Her hair was blowing from the wind, and Jim could smell Jasmine scent from her hair.
J J’s Eyes wide, scanning the roads and terrain, sweat on his chiseled ebony face. A face that sat on top of a 6”2” 180 pound body. The heat is still stifling at 95 degrees, and humidity just as high.
When they arrive in the city limits of Saigon, it is like stepping from one dimension to another, from total darkness, into the bright Las Vegas lights. The noise of the hustle and bustle of the city. It took an hour to get through the streets, and to her home in ‘Cholon’ They parked in the rear of her house as per Kim’s instructions. It was not good if the communist Viet Cong saw the vehicle. Kim got out of the jeep noticing that Jim and JJ didn’t move.
“Don't you want to come in and meet my parents?” Kim asks
“I can’t,“ Jim replies, stomach churning, burning.
There is a sadness that takes over Kim’s Face and eyes. Tears well up in Jim’s eyes. Eyes red with pain. Soul seared by love.
“Kim, we have to go.”
Clock chime. Ding. One. Ding. Two. Et Cetera.
“No. I don't want you too” She says with her eyes.
Jim was trying to be brave and final, but he felt he was only cruel as winter, by not telling her the reasons, even if he knew the reasons..
My darling gone for evermore!
Jim struggles from a dream speaking her name into the listening shadows.
“Kim! “
The pitch dark shadows silent as love words from dead mouths. Marble graveyard lips, cold as stone. Ivy and moss. Memories haunting his present. Jim shivers and steps into the window sun. Rubs his thick veined hands, he sits and meditates. Later he makes lunch. Tomatoes and lettuce. He dreams the day away - half out of life. On the radio a woman sings ‘Four Last Songs.’ You don't have to know the language.
‘Such sweet sorrow.’
Hours later, a seat in the garden looking towards the singing sunset. There is nothing to see except Cardinals, blackbirds and sparrows; nothing to hear except the noise of butterflies' wings.
Even later, late at night, the clock in the living room chimes twelve heartbeats. Night comes hot and bothered. Nanci had already come home and after supper, went to bed.
Proof indeed, you can live in a house with someone and still be lonely.
Climbing into his side of the King size bed, Jim turns off the sidelight and watches the shadows huddling against the floral wallpaper. At night, the nighttime house creaks with its own age, and Jim thinks of burglars and imagined home invasions, and the controlled violence that he plans for the perpetrators.
He keeps a pistol between his mattress. There is a weapon in every room hidden.
Stars look in at his smiling face. A hot August moon in the open window. Soft as silence, quiet as apple blossoms falling, gentle as Kim’s dimpled smile. In his dreams, Kim's same smile standing there by his bed. Lovely Kim, waiting.
“Do you still love me ?”
“Yes! Dear sweet
“Be patient danh tu, soon. And we will happy. Soon you’re your life span will end, and we will be together again!”
.
Forever and forever.
©
*Vietnamese names generally consist of three
(Nyguyen Thị Khiem)
** "Ao Dai" is the traditional dress for Vietnamese women. Developed from Chinese court clothing in the early 1900s. "Ao Dai" is considered to be an elegant, yet demure, garment. Traditionally, long, wide- legged trousers are worn under a high-necked, long-sleeved, fitted tunic with slits along each side. The outfit’s pants reach to the soles of the feet, often trailing along the ground.
danh từ - yes!” Jim says “I can love you now, Kim, If you like. I have finally found you.”
**** ASAP-As Soon As Possible.
*** The Tet Offensive was a military campaign conducted betweenWho said that?Jim despises this time of day. Already too hot for the garden and nothing to fill the mind until making something at lunchtime. Light sustenance for the long afternoon lengthening drearily ahead like an empty road going nowhere. Jim tries to read but even in glasses the words are a blur.
“
The Viet Nam War Stole Their Fathers
The Viet Nam War Stole Their Fathers
(C) James J Alonzo
Someone said, "War is Hell!" But that's a lie. Hell is only for the guilty. War is worse than Hell, war not only destroys a country, kills soldiers on both sides, but it also kills and destroys innocent people. Sometime whole generations.
Viet Nam is where It began, the young men answering the call of their country, after training, received their orders, then they were sent to this exotic country in Southeast Asia. These soldiers got sent to this exotic country, met interesting people, and even kill some of them. Viet Nam was war, gore, heat, death and destruction. A war that stole their father's heart. A war that killed his buddies, his spirit, and hardened the man within
Vietnam was a place that many soldiers left parts of themselves, hurting with fear, and pain.
Viet Nam was a place that over 58,000 of their buddies died. Viet Nam was a war that hundreds of thousands were wounded and maimed. Viet Nam was a war where terror through the night struck hard, as beads of sweat rolled down their faces. Viet Nam was a war that they did not choose.
Viet Nam was the war that they had to listen to the fire of ammunition echoing through the sky, and watching their buddies falling at their sides, their blood beneath spreading across the mud and dirt. Soldiers dead, wounded, crying out "who is caring about me?"
Viet Nam was where they had to stay alive by crawling through the mud, having to improvise, learning to roll with the shock and changes as they came. Young, and naive, struggling to survive with each passing day, never knowing the planes above spraying chemicals that would kill them.
Viet Nam, where soldiers had to drudge through the mud up to their knees, crossing warm rivers with leeches, snakes, and contaminated by dioxin from Agent Orange runoffs. Earth giving soldiers shelter from harm, as they grasp it and hold on to it tight, feeling it beneath their feet pulling them into the darkness of the jungles.
Guns readily at their sides, never allowed to go to sleep. And when they try to sleep, while their buddies watch, nightmares flash through their mind. Flares flicker overhead, fired into the sky to aid in searching for the enemy hiding in the black jungle.
At the end of their tour, the United Sates of America sending them home one by one, scarred by the war, not knowing their minds damaged with PTSD, bodies contaminated with Agent Orange, not knowing that they would also be contaminating their future children.
Back home, no one really understanding the pain and suffering going on. Thousands of tears fall to the ground for the Vietnamese victims of The war, but not for the soldiers coming home one by one. Where was the welcoming home, the support they needed to go on with their lives?
Some wives and children grieving the loss of their dead fathers and husbands. Others, their husbands and fathers, are standing in front of them, but they are spiritually, and emotionally gone forever.
The Black Wall in Washington, Beer, Whiskey, and Cigarettes speaking from the graves of the brothers who died in front of them. To forget, drugs and alcohol are used, a disease that swept across the nation of American combat soldiers. Children and wives left behind, pain and suffering over taking their lives.
Misunderstood, and running away from the memories that still lived inside, screaming murder, blood everywhere. Nightmares, flashbacks, memories in the soldiers head, wrestling day in, day out, all through the night. Combat veterans, no joy or life left in them.
The soldiers that survived Viet Nam, coming home, their children born, filled with defects and illnesses, parents crying through the night. Questions unanswered, walls built up, broken communication, lack of love, relations dissolve. Prayers for the child of the soldier to survive.
The Viet Nam War stole their fathers, damaged family's lives, as the aftermath of Agent Orange spread through their veins one by one. No mercy, no compassion, where is the justice for the American soldier and his family.
(C) James J Alonzo
Someone said, "War is Hell!" But that's a lie. Hell is only for the guilty. War is worse than Hell, war not only destroys a country, kills soldiers on both sides, but it also kills and destroys innocent people. Sometime whole generations.
Viet Nam is where It began, the young men answering the call of their country, after training, received their orders, then they were sent to this exotic country in Southeast Asia. These soldiers got sent to this exotic country, met interesting people, and even kill some of them. Viet Nam was war, gore, heat, death and destruction. A war that stole their father's heart. A war that killed his buddies, his spirit, and hardened the man within
Vietnam was a place that many soldiers left parts of themselves, hurting with fear, and pain.
Viet Nam was a place that over 58,000 of their buddies died. Viet Nam was a war that hundreds of thousands were wounded and maimed. Viet Nam was a war where terror through the night struck hard, as beads of sweat rolled down their faces. Viet Nam was a war that they did not choose.
Viet Nam was the war that they had to listen to the fire of ammunition echoing through the sky, and watching their buddies falling at their sides, their blood beneath spreading across the mud and dirt. Soldiers dead, wounded, crying out "who is caring about me?"
Viet Nam was where they had to stay alive by crawling through the mud, having to improvise, learning to roll with the shock and changes as they came. Young, and naive, struggling to survive with each passing day, never knowing the planes above spraying chemicals that would kill them.
Viet Nam, where soldiers had to drudge through the mud up to their knees, crossing warm rivers with leeches, snakes, and contaminated by dioxin from Agent Orange runoffs. Earth giving soldiers shelter from harm, as they grasp it and hold on to it tight, feeling it beneath their feet pulling them into the darkness of the jungles.
Guns readily at their sides, never allowed to go to sleep. And when they try to sleep, while their buddies watch, nightmares flash through their mind. Flares flicker overhead, fired into the sky to aid in searching for the enemy hiding in the black jungle.
At the end of their tour, the United Sates of America sending them home one by one, scarred by the war, not knowing their minds damaged with PTSD, bodies contaminated with Agent Orange, not knowing that they would also be contaminating their future children.
Back home, no one really understanding the pain and suffering going on. Thousands of tears fall to the ground for the Vietnamese victims of The war, but not for the soldiers coming home one by one. Where was the welcoming home, the support they needed to go on with their lives?
Some wives and children grieving the loss of their dead fathers and husbands. Others, their husbands and fathers, are standing in front of them, but they are spiritually, and emotionally gone forever.
The Black Wall in Washington, Beer, Whiskey, and Cigarettes speaking from the graves of the brothers who died in front of them. To forget, drugs and alcohol are used, a disease that swept across the nation of American combat soldiers. Children and wives left behind, pain and suffering over taking their lives.
Misunderstood, and running away from the memories that still lived inside, screaming murder, blood everywhere. Nightmares, flashbacks, memories in the soldiers head, wrestling day in, day out, all through the night. Combat veterans, no joy or life left in them.
The soldiers that survived Viet Nam, coming home, their children born, filled with defects and illnesses, parents crying through the night. Questions unanswered, walls built up, broken communication, lack of love, relations dissolve. Prayers for the child of the soldier to survive.
The Viet Nam War stole their fathers, damaged family's lives, as the aftermath of Agent Orange spread through their veins one by one. No mercy, no compassion, where is the justice for the American soldier and his family.
During Viet Nam
During Viet Nam
© James J. Alonzo
“During Viet Nam:” We say the words, because the name signifies more than a place, it is an era, a paradigm, a memory, a righteous or a mistake.
“During Viet Nam“, things were the same as they are now for those who are young and poor.
“During Viet Nam”--We were standing around, there was no lack of work or low pay, it was the beginning of our times as men and women, and we were looking to prove ourselves, or looking for a way out.
“During Viet Nam”--Some were patriots and many were the sons of men who had gone to another war and come back admired, and classified as the ’Greatest Generation”.
“During Viet Nam“--There were those of that era who felt it was a wrong war, and stood up for their beliefs.
“During Viet Nam”--I did not remember hearing of any mercenaries, or Blackwater, or highly paid government contractors to do the fighting, because we had a draft back then to fill the ranks.
“During Viet Nam”--We were crossing thresholds, starting to lie to ourselves about things and because we were there, ambitious, patriotic, or desperate, when they passed out weapons, we took them.
“During Viet Nam”--We did not understand the disordered nature of the universe, so disordered humans must try to arrange it, and if they get you young enough, you will help.
I am grieved but not guilty. Sad but not ashamed. That does not mean I sleep well at night, or do not sweat at night. It does not mean it is easy to live.
A Homeless Viet Nam Vet
A Homeless Viet Nam Veteran
March 8, 2010
James J. Alonzo (C)
“My name is Hector, I got Agent Orange. “ said the homeless Viet Nam veteran to the intake clerk.
There are intake clerks at the Service Centers at the local VA Facilities. One of the jobs of these clerks do is to handle any homeless Veterans claims. The weather was getting colder, so all day, the homeless vets had crowded into the reception room and waited impatiently for their turn.
The Sheet in front of the clerk indicated that the Veteran sitting before him was the 25th veteran he had to interview that day. Crowded as it was, the room was noisy and smelled of urine, and other offensive smells.
“I’m sorry Hector” the clerk answered, I didn’t get that. Could you lean closer so I can hear you, and say that again?”
Hector did just that much to the sensitivity of the clerk’s nostrils.
The clerk looked down at the intake form in front of him. They had gotten through about half the intake questions. The clerk had established that Hector was a combat Viet Nam veteran, 1967-1968, a survivor of the bloody TET offensive. The clerk had also established that Hector indeed was registered for Veterans Administration Services, because Hector had shown the clerk his ID card,
“That’s me.” Hector proudly showed his VA photo Identification card, pointing at his photo.
“Caucasian”, asked the clerk as he continued with the questions,
“Yes” replied Hector, “but also I’m part Cherokee too.”
Then the next question, which the clerk had seen before and knew was embarrassing to some of the other homeless Vets.
“Are you homeless now Hector.”
“Yes.” Hector said, dropping his eyes.
The clerk continued the questioning, and was now in the medical section of the questionnaire.
“Flu Shot?”
“No Thanks…well maybe…do you have that pig shot?”
“Do you mean swine flu shot? No, sorry, we don’t.”
“That’s ok, I don’t need it.”
“Do you want a hearing test?”
“No.”
“Do you want a blood test for hepatitis, and HIV-AIDS?”
“Nope.”
“Do you want to speak to someone in our mental health clinic?”
“No.” Hector’s eyes nervously drop down to the desk again.
“Podiatry?”
“Yeah, I really need my feet looked at. They are swollen, and the skin is cracked, and my toe nails are real long and yellow.”
“We’ll get you to the podiatry clinic right away.”
“Good, can I get that skin lotion, my feet are cracked so bad, that they bleed?”
“Yeah, talk to them when you get there. What about Substance Abuse?”
“No, I don’t drink or do drugs!”
“Okay,” The clerk said, “TB Test?”
“You got that?” he asked.
“Yes, we have that.”
“I’ll take that,” Hector said, “I’ve been coughing a lot lately. Sometimes I spit up blood”
The clerk started showing discomfort over the odor Hector was emitting, and pushed back, asking questions from a little farther distance.
“Do you want help with employment Hector? “
“No.”
“Do you get Social Security Disability, or public assistance?”
“No, I’m all set” Hector answered, “I Got Agent Orange. A Hundred Percent.”
“What was that?” The clerk leaned in ignoring the smell. “I didn’t get that?”
“Agent Orange.” answered Hector, “…I get a check every month for Agent Orange. A hundred percent. They send it to my post office box, since I don’t have a home.”
“Now the clerk understood. That is how homeless Hector was “makin’ it on the mean streets. A monthly disability checks from the VA, because of his diagnosis of Dioxin
Poisoning from Viet Nam Service Related Proximity to the herbicide, “Agent Orange”.
The clerk wondered how long it took Hector to get such a disability rating. What kind of struggle did it take Hector so he could subsist on the streets, all by the benefit of his monthly Agent Orange check?
The bottom line for Hector, he is dying.
He told the clerk,
“I need a new kidney. Actually, I need a lot of body parts. But I am not going to get them in time. I got diabetes too. I know I will die before they find the parts I need.”
Hector won’t be the first, or the last, but when Hector does die, maybe it should be noted he died from “friendly fire.”
Hector, as others who served in Nam, was wounded a long time ago, fighting in the Viet Nam, breathing hard, and sucking in the sweet smell of US Administered dioxin defoliant, as it dripped off the jungle canopy. Drinking it from the water, where the dioxin ran off, when it rained.
John And Nancy, Overcoming PTSD
John And Nancy (home from VN)
(fiction)
(C). James J Alonzo
They were children, and they were in love, and having met four years prior at the local 4H picnic in rural Iowa. John and Nancy dated all through high school, went to the prom, and graduated from high school. So now John and Nancy were planning on marrying, having a family and working their own family farm.
Unfortunately John got his draft notice, and they decided the wedding was to be cancelled till he got back from serving his country. The Army wanted him, John didn't resist, his country at war was calling him, and many other young men. America was counting on them to fight in a funny little country called Viet Nam.
So he went to train, to serve, to fight, and learn to kill. When he should of been home, loving Nancy, having children, working the farm, and settling down. It just didn’t seem right that his country told him to leave his young sweetheart for the war.
It seemed like a brief moment that took him from the silence of a rural lifestyle to the raging battlefield. A jungle, hot, humid, bug and snake infested battlefield. The fighting in these engagements with the Viet Cong were always fierce and unrelenting.
Day by day John and his buddies patrolled the jungles in the "Iron Triangle" and eventually dug in every night. The tragedy and chaos of war shook John and often he saw things he wanted to forget .
There were no body armor back then, and one day John stopped a bullet as he provided cover fire on the ground for his buddies. He laid there unable to walk, when one of the medics named Decatur Johnson came to his aid. John was bleeding heavily and in a lot of pain as the medivac chopper having been radioed to get him out of there. Decatur's ebony face was wet with sweat and dirt as he hurriedly started working on John's wounds.
Decatur, after provided Immediate treatment to John's wound, realized as bullets hailed down them both, that John needed to be move to a safer area. The enemy fire was too heavy for others to help Decatur.
When the rockets or morters exploded, Decatur would cover John's body with his own. The shrapnel from the explosions was too hot and getting too close, so Decatur lifted John like a father would a baby, carrying John through the small arms fire of the enemy. Getting cover fire from his buddies. From the fire fight to the LZ (landing zone) was over 150 meters, that was as close the chopper could get near the fire fight, so when Decatur and John arrived, they dropped on the ground in a exhausted heap.
Once at the LZ, Decatur gave John some more treatment to his wound as grenades, rocket fire and bullets hailed down. After the chopper arrived, it took John and other wounded to 93rd Evac hospital at Long Binh.
Later on that day Decatur while attending to more of the wounded, caught a piece of shrapnel through his head and neck killing him instantly. No one reported the heroic deeds the medic performed, the soldiers he saved that day, and the other soldiers never mentioned it.
Most times in battles, heroic deeds are so common place, it is more like expected. The medic did his job saving lives, the machine gunner provided at great risk, cover fire, etc. That was our job, kill the enemy, stay alive and keep our buddies alive. In battle " God and country", never really came into the equation.
After Long Binh, John was sent to the Phillipines, and once stable, John was sent back home to an Iowa VA hospital to recover. John would find out years later who had saved his life.
Unable to remove the bullet from inside him the doctors left it there as a "souvenir" of the war, or a reminder, a reminder that John did his time in hell, and John's time in the hell had come to an end.
He was sent home with a severe injury, calling for a long recovery, but John felt he was sent home dead. However he was "alive", still alive to his family and his sweetheart Nancy.
The war came to an abrupt end for John, and he was still concerned for all his buddies who were still over there. John felt also guilt, guilt that he made it back home, knowing some who would not.
It was a lovely spring day, the birds singing as they began building nests for their families. The spring flowers now blooming and bending to the warm spring breezes. John and Nancy were married in a white painted church in the country and afterward moved in a little house on a small farm.
It was a small farm with a little white house, where both families had helped in buying the farm, and fixing the barn.
John found it hard to adjust back into life after the war . He asked his wife to be patient with him . At first he received some help from a few buddies who were also having problems adjusting.
John and his friends met once a week at the local VFW, and had a few drinks .
What they couldn’t face they cut with alcohol .
Without warning, one of his Nam buddies took their own life and suddenly John was thrown back into a battlefield of his mind. While he was still devastated from his friend's loss, his loving Nancy brought him the news that she was expecting their first child.
That seemed to help John stay focused, and when his disability retirement pay came through he planned to begin a vegetable garden on the little farm . He worked hard every day and vented his anger on the land toiling away in the soil.
Each month his produce was brought from the farm to the local city farmer's markets, where he made money selling Corn and carrots , cabbage and beetroot.
Even though things seemed to be going along reasonably well, Nancy didn't know John had disguised his inner war so well. He couldn’t forget the past and still tried to cut it out of his mind with alcohol and sometimes drugs.
News of another child on the way brought some renewed happiness but that was short lived as the great drought followed .
The farm soon was dry and dusty with no crop in the ground .
In despair John and Nancy took their two young children and left the land for the city in the hope of finding work .
John and his wife had noticed a big difference in the city. People were angry, their attitude were different and cold, which was a challenge but one they had to adapt to . John found a job in construction, although the work didn’t suit him he was glad of a job as many had nothing.
Each day John would come home from work but never talked about his work and just sat quietly in his corner, watching TV, especially when the news was covering the Viet Nam War.
Memories still haunted him and he was troubled with regular flashbacks of the awful events that he had experienced during the war. The nights sweats, and nightmares were always his companion every time he tried to sleep.
The children had grown up fast and were now at school, so they were noticing their father's weird behavior.
Some nights John would wake to the sounds of bombs exploding in his head, bullets whizzing by his ears. As Nancy slept John crept out of bed, consciously unchained by the shackles of a nightmare that haunted him night and day.
Bathed in sweat he let the moment pass like a miniature death before returning to bed where he could not move an inch in a relaxed state. And when he drifted off to sleep chained again to the nightmares that he knew so well.
By the time the kids were in high school they had noticed the photographs of their Dad in army uniform. They found an old suitcase with sketches of the war Jack had drawn, however there
were no details of where and when, the children who were now young adults were intrigued.
Each time they asked questions about the war, they were met with silence and a stern warning look. They learned that there would be no information about the men in the photos or the sketches of places and what it was all about. John most times would just walk away and eventually the children stopped asking questions about the war .
The truth of it was John was still in the jungle and still fighting the battles every day of his life. Somehow he wanted to protect his kids from that experience, and by keeping quiet he thought that might help. He stuck to that throughout their growing years.
At times in the past, they didn’t know why their Dad got angry and smashed things around the house . Nancy made excuses for John and yet couldn’t understand herself what he was going through, She tried to get him help but he always said he was ok .
It came to a head one day when John hit her in fit of rage . Nancy was taken to the hospital . Suspicions arose as Nancy, blacken eyed and bruised, she wept in the ambulance. The doctor in emergency room spoke to her and asked some questions about what was going on.
The sad thing was that Nancy had become "the victim of a victim" and that is the worst kind of victim there is, however she still made excuses for John.
As time went on there were more and more angry outbursts and more Nancy visits to the doctor and hospital .
Eventually Nancy did explain to her doctor what was happening at home . At first the police made a visit. This was followed up by local church groups and then the doctor made a home visit and spoke in private to John.
After a brief consultation John agreed to take some medication, the doctor gave John a list of phone numbers and people to contact at any time should he need to speak to somebody. There was also another list handed to Nancy
For a while the medication seemed to help and apart from being drowsy John was more able to cope with things .
When the medication ran out John didn’t bother to renew the prescription and things soon returned to the way they were. He still had refused to go to the PTSD clinics.
Still unable to talk about his experience in the war John tried to cut it with more alcohol and drugs.
He tried, sometimes successfully, to shut the world out, however his wife and kids finally left him. They could take no more and John soon became a recluse, his marriage was finished.
It was too late, his kids and wife had enough of becoming targets for John's abuse and anger.
Alone and afraid John began to question his own existence. One day he stood in front of a mirror and spat at the man looking back at him. Everything he had was gone.
That evening, after careful planning, John stood on a chair under a tree with a rope suspended from its main branch. When He kicked the chair from underneath his feet, the limb broke from his weight! John finally had realized maybe he had been given a second chance.
He had once been a fighter, and knew with each personal victory there often came a cost. John realized he didn't fight hard enough for his family.
The biggest price he ever paid was losing his wife and kids to a war that wounded his body and his mind. He realized that he was a warrior, so he knew he had to make a stand .
His thoughts now focused on his children, wanting to see them and know what would become of them . He realised how much his wife had gone through and slowly but surely John started to get his life together again by going back to VA Hospital and the veterans PTSD program.
He visited the doctor and went back on medication. The doctor gave him some other ideas and contacts for counseling. He started therapy and joined a war veterans group.
With each step to recovery John grew stronger and faced his fears alone, taking on self discipline, showing up to work on time, keeping his cool.
With his new ability to listen to others who had gone through the same experiences as he did, he now realized he was not alone. All this lead to a healing process over time. A year passed and John was feeling more human, more in control and more in harmony with his life.
During this reconstruction period, a few years had passed. He didn't try to contact his wife or children, he wasn't ready, because it was difficult for him. He had questioned himself, 'what if they reject me? do I deserve it?'
One Christmas John received a card from his kids, one from his daughter, who was getting married, and one from his wife. Through his teared up eyes, he read a return address on the envelopes, and John decided he would show up at the door.
Not knowing if his wife and kids would give him another chance, he prayed hoping that it would be the best chance he had. He took a chance, and with a head filled with New Years resolutions and his arms full of presents, he knocked on the door.
“Merry Christmas. “,He said.
Nancy stood there and looked at him for a few moments, trying to read John. During that silence, he felt like a he was being cut in two.
“Are you well John?",She asked.
"I'm much better sweetheart. I love you!"
“The doctor called me a few weeks ago", Nancy smiled, "He was telling me about how well you are doing."
" How are you ?”, he asked.
“I’m doing ok," she smiled, taking John's hand, "There’s talk of a wedding, and we were wondering if you will give your daughter away. So you better come in .“
When One Becomes Aware Of Their Mortality
When One become aware of their Mortality.
(C) James J Alonzo 1980
When I worked security in 1973, at the General Hospital Cancer Center waiting room one day, I heard a woman and an elderly man in conversation. I assumed he was her father. He said to her,
“When I was 18, I thought I was immortal.” The old man reminisced.
I had thought the same thing — that I was immortal — but at age 44, November 22, 1991, when my first heart attack arrived with a bang, it suddenly occurred to me that I am not!
I found out that my service in Nam, and the injuries, and exposure to Agent Orange was going to haunt me everyday for the rest of my life.
Today, looking back at the man, I acknowledge the poignant realization that life passes by so very quickly.
I know this from watching Deven, my grandson, who grew in no time from a, cuddly baby into a tall, strong, eleven-year-old who is about to go to his karate class this Saturday. I remember when as a 5 year old, Deven used to say,
“I don’t want to get older”,
I also remember when Deven was younger and I was watching him, and he asked each day,
“Am I three now?”
I told him, “Not yet. In two months.”
“Is it a long time?”
“Yes, for you, it’s a long time,” all the while I knew that for me, two months is nothing — just a quick passage of time that would end with Devin’s third birthday and would make me long for the days when my grandson was a baby again.
Life moves at a fast pace. I am sure it did for the elderly man in the hospital waiting room. I heard him reminiscing about his younger days.
“When I was the captain of a DC-3 …” he talked about his past, about flying planes and landing planes and airports. Today, this man is elderly. His skin is wrinkled; his posture slumped. He is fragile — and it made me sad to witness an image of aging, knowing this is what happens as time ticks on. Moreover, it made me sad to see him in the hospital wheel chair, having to receive treatment for an illness that is undoubtedly threatening the life that is already passing him by. However, the man fighting for those precious moments in life also inspired me.
He had no sadness about him. Perhaps with age comes a wisdom that the passing of time is an okay process — it is the way life is meant to be.
In addition, mortality comes with life (diseases, heart attacks, cancer or no cancer) — and being reminded of it is not such a bad thing but a wake-up call to appreciate the small moments that pass by so quickly, like when my grandson Deven said to me one day at the house,
“Papa, you’re funny.”
On the other hand, when another time when I was baby-sitting him, I made him a peanut butter sandwich and he said,
“Good job, Papa!” Both statements I took to be as high praise indeed!
While I sometimes regret that my grand boy is growing so quickly and I am aging right along with him, I would not trade these moments for anything. When I have thoughts of sadness about mortality, I focus on the gift of life that allows me to watch my grandson grow up, however startling and swift the process may be.
I am thankful today for that glimpse of the man in the waiting room. I am thankful for the life I have had with two children, one grandson, and a great wife, Nanci, marriage since 1966.
The Battle, TET Offensive
The Battle
During The TET Offensive 1968
(C) James J Alonzo
That day, There was single flower rising up from the cold, clammy muck, its delicate petals reaching for the warmth of the sun. Meanwhile, all around, laid the broken and mangled bodies of men, some were Americans in olive green clothing, stained with blood, others, the Viet Cong, in blood stained black clothing. All the bodies were mute testimony to the horrors of war. The wounded Americans had been tended too, by our medics, but the Viet Cong had been ignored, and you can hear some of the groans and cries.
Both the Viet Cong dead and wounded were of many ages, young, middle age, and occasionally older. The dead American soldiers, blank dead eyes, their youthful faces were contorted by the fear and shock they felt in their last moments on this earth and my heart was heavy at the sight of them.
It had to be done, after all we had to fight to protect ourselves and our buddies. We were told to kill the enemy because their beliefs differed from ours and in the heat of combat, it was easy to do so, but when the guns have finally been silenced, it gives one time to reflect on what has happened.
That day, the only sound that remained were the helicopters above, coming to pick up the wounded and the dead.
As time passed there was the stillness of death, then and only then do you realize that in the jungle before you, lying in wait is more of the enemy, bent on destroying the world that you know, someone’s father or son, defending their beliefs, wanting to kill you.
I felt my sanity starting to slip, so I quickly brought all my focus to bear on that flower that rose before me. Its petals, blowing gently in the breeze were yellow around the edges with stems of dark green and a round spot of blood red in the center that somehow seemed fitting for that place and that day. It knew no hate or prejudice, no pain or sorrow; it existed simply for the sake of existing. It was beautiful and I longed for its carefree way of life.
“Lock and Load!" shouted the platoon sergeant, meaning check your weapons , ammo, and be ready. The command shouted along the ranks and I felt once more the sour taste of bile rising in my throat. I knew they would come through the jungle again very soon, black clad Viet Cong screaming insults with hate in their eyes and blood in their hearts and once more, the extermination will resume.
I heard the gunfire and angry whine of bullets even before I heard the shouting of the VC and instinctively raised my rifle, my trained eye searching for the culprits. I spotted a boy, probably no older than sixteen coming towards me, his raven black hair flying out behind him, a look of determination and fear vying for dominance on his face. He ran towards me, firing a full magazine then paused, awkwardly trying to load another magazine at the same time and I knew that I can kill him any time I choose.
Once more, instincts and training took over and I raised my rifle, aiming carefully down the sight. I calmed my breathing and gently took up slack on the trigger, and fired a burst of three rounds, center mass, killing him.
Once I believed in that war and what we fought for, but that was many years and many bodies ago and I am not the naive boy that I was then. I only believed in my brothers who fought with me.
After the fire fight, and all was quiet, i sighed heavily, dropping my rifle at my feet and sat down in the bloody mess that surrounded me. Taking my eyes off the dead, I looked over at the flower standing so stalwart beside me and smile, “it truly is beautiful”, I thought to myself.
From the corner of my eye I saw the dead VC boy's body lying there, only now he has joined his dead friends, each having that same look of death. I sighed heavily once more and closed my eyes. I was tired, bone weary but it felt good to rest. I knew when my tour was over, I would be as free as the blessed petals that bloomed before me.
Little did I know,,,
The viet nam war stole their fathers
The Viet Nam War Stole Their Fathers
(C) James J Alonzo
Someone said, "War is Hell!" But that's a lie. Hell is only for the guilty. War is worse than Hell, war not only destroys a country, kills soldiers on both sides, but it also kills and destroys innocent people. Sometime whole generations.
Viet Nam is where It began, the young men answering the call of their country, after training, received their orders, then they were sent to this exotic country in Southeast Asia. These soldiers got sent to this exotic country, met interesting people, and even kill some of them. Viet Nam was war, gore, heat, death and destruction. A war that stole their father's heart. A war that killed his buddies, his spirit, and hardened the man within
Vietnam was a place that many soldiers left parts of themselves, hurting with fear, and pain.
Viet Nam was a place that over 58,000 of their buddies died. Viet Nam was a war that hundreds of thousands were wounded and maimed. Viet Nam was a war where terror through the night struck hard, as beads of sweat rolled down their faces. Viet Nam was a war that they did not choose.
Viet Nam was the war that they had to listen to the fire of ammunition echoing through the sky, and watching their buddies falling at their sides, their blood beneath spreading across the mud and dirt. Soldiers dead, wounded, crying out "who is caring about me?"
Viet Nam was where they had to stay alive by crawling through the mud, having to improvise, learning to roll with the shock and changes as they came. Young, and naive, struggling to survive with each passing day, never knowing the planes above spraying chemicals that would kill them.
Viet Nam, where soldiers had to drudge through the mud up to their knees, crossing warm rivers with leeches, snakes, and contaminated by dioxin from Agent Orange runoffs. Earth giving soldiers shelter from harm, as they grasp it and hold on to it tight, feeling it beneath their feet pulling them into the darkness of the jungles.
Guns readily at their sides, never allowed to go to sleep. And when they try to sleep, while their buddies watch, nightmares flash through their mind. Flares flicker overhead, fired into the sky to aid in searching for the enemy hiding in the black jungle.
At the end of their tour, the United Sates of America sending them home one by one, scarred by the war, not knowing their minds damaged with PTSD, bodies contaminated with Agent Orange, not knowing that they would also be contaminating their future children.
Back home, no one really understanding the pain and suffering going on. Thousands of tears fall to the ground for the Vietnamese victims of The war, but not for the soldiers coming home one by one. Where was the welcoming home, the support they needed to go on with their lives?
Some wives and children grieving the loss of their dead fathers and husbands. Others, their husbands and fathers, are standing in front of them, but they are spiritually, and emotionally gone forever.
The Black Wall in Washington, Beer, Whiskey, and Cigarettes speaking from the graves of the brothers who died in front of them. To forget, drugs and alcohol are used, a disease that swept across the nation of American combat soldiers. Children and wives left behind, pain and suffering over taking their lives.
Misunderstood, and running away from the memories that still lived inside, screaming murder, blood everywhere. Nightmares, flashbacks, memories in the soldiers head, wrestling day in, day out, all through the night. Combat veterans, no joy or life left in them.
The soldiers that survived Viet Nam, coming home, their children born, filled with defects and illnesses, parents crying through the night. Questions unanswered, walls built up, broken communication, lack of love, relations dissolve. Prayers for the child of the soldier to survive.
The Viet Nam War stole their fathers, damaged family's lives, as the aftermath of Agent Orange spread through their veins one by one. No mercy, no compassion, where is the justice for the American soldier and his family.
(C) James J Alonzo
Someone said, "War is Hell!" But that's a lie. Hell is only for the guilty. War is worse than Hell, war not only destroys a country, kills soldiers on both sides, but it also kills and destroys innocent people. Sometime whole generations.
Viet Nam is where It began, the young men answering the call of their country, after training, received their orders, then they were sent to this exotic country in Southeast Asia. These soldiers got sent to this exotic country, met interesting people, and even kill some of them. Viet Nam was war, gore, heat, death and destruction. A war that stole their father's heart. A war that killed his buddies, his spirit, and hardened the man within
Vietnam was a place that many soldiers left parts of themselves, hurting with fear, and pain.
Viet Nam was a place that over 58,000 of their buddies died. Viet Nam was a war that hundreds of thousands were wounded and maimed. Viet Nam was a war where terror through the night struck hard, as beads of sweat rolled down their faces. Viet Nam was a war that they did not choose.
Viet Nam was the war that they had to listen to the fire of ammunition echoing through the sky, and watching their buddies falling at their sides, their blood beneath spreading across the mud and dirt. Soldiers dead, wounded, crying out "who is caring about me?"
Viet Nam was where they had to stay alive by crawling through the mud, having to improvise, learning to roll with the shock and changes as they came. Young, and naive, struggling to survive with each passing day, never knowing the planes above spraying chemicals that would kill them.
Viet Nam, where soldiers had to drudge through the mud up to their knees, crossing warm rivers with leeches, snakes, and contaminated by dioxin from Agent Orange runoffs. Earth giving soldiers shelter from harm, as they grasp it and hold on to it tight, feeling it beneath their feet pulling them into the darkness of the jungles.
Guns readily at their sides, never allowed to go to sleep. And when they try to sleep, while their buddies watch, nightmares flash through their mind. Flares flicker overhead, fired into the sky to aid in searching for the enemy hiding in the black jungle.
At the end of their tour, the United Sates of America sending them home one by one, scarred by the war, not knowing their minds damaged with PTSD, bodies contaminated with Agent Orange, not knowing that they would also be contaminating their future children.
Back home, no one really understanding the pain and suffering going on. Thousands of tears fall to the ground for the Vietnamese victims of The war, but not for the soldiers coming home one by one. Where was the welcoming home, the support they needed to go on with their lives?
Some wives and children grieving the loss of their dead fathers and husbands. Others, their husbands and fathers, are standing in front of them, but they are spiritually, and emotionally gone forever.
The Black Wall in Washington, Beer, Whiskey, and Cigarettes speaking from the graves of the brothers who died in front of them. To forget, drugs and alcohol are used, a disease that swept across the nation of American combat soldiers. Children and wives left behind, pain and suffering over taking their lives.
Misunderstood, and running away from the memories that still lived inside, screaming murder, blood everywhere. Nightmares, flashbacks, memories in the soldiers head, wrestling day in, day out, all through the night. Combat veterans, no joy or life left in them.
The soldiers that survived Viet Nam, coming home, their children born, filled with defects and illnesses, parents crying through the night. Questions unanswered, walls built up, broken communication, lack of love, relations dissolve. Prayers for the child of the soldier to survive.
The Viet Nam War stole their fathers, damaged family's lives, as the aftermath of Agent Orange spread through their veins one by one. No mercy, no compassion, where is the justice for the American soldier and his family.
The Laundry Viet Nam
The laundry VN
(C) James J Alonzo
In Viet Nam, there are places called base camps, and then forward bases. Base camps is kind of like a large area, where the soldiers can rest, clean up his gear, resupply, and general maintenance.
At base camp, in the interest of helping the local economy, women were hired to clean up our tents or hooches, do laundry, clean the mess halls, etc.
I had always had an ability for languages. Being able to speak Spanish and English, it wasn't hard for me to pick up Vietnamese language. Since I was able to understand the vietnamese people, I was often asked to intercede when there was a problem.
Some of the troopers started to complain that they were getting skin rashes. At first there were two or three complaints, and then spread to the others. They referred to the rash as a fungus, and the complaints became an every day occurrence at base camp.
Several of the troopers went to sick call where the medics gave them some kind of salve and were told they must of come in contact with a strange plant in the jungle. One of the medics asked me what I thought about the laundry ladies and maybe the soap. I had a few weeks earlier given Mama-San a large carton of TIDE laundry soap, with instructions that when she needed more to see the supply sergeant, and he would give her more.
We called the older ladies "mama-San" or if she was young "baby-San". Mama-San's wash tub equipment consisted of three garbage cans. They filled the cans up with water from the local river. One can for washing, with a wash board, and the other two cans, for rinsing.
I went over to observe their procedure, and right away I saw they were using some kind of bar soap, and the soap was black in color!
"Mama-San, what you do?, I asked in Vietnamese.
"Ahh! Emnoy, I wash G.I. clothes," she answered with her Beatle-nut smile.
(Beatle nut was a wild plant that was a mild narcotic, and it's users would have their teeth eventually turn black from rotting the enamel. There was no pain, and at the same time it tended to stain the lips red.)
"What kind of soap you use?" picking up a bar of this soap I started to smell it and suddenly snapped my head back from the extreme burning! I was sure I had just burned my nose hair off!!
"I use Vietnamese lye soap," she said laughing at my discomfort, " I get at market. Good soap, clean G.I. clothes real good!"
"But I gave you american soap," I whispered loudly, my throat burning, as my eyes continued tearing. "A big box of TIDE soap, good soap!"
"Ahh! Emnoy, I sell American soap, buy good Vietnamese soap, and get money back! Mama-San keep money!"
Clutching my face, I said through my clenched teeth, " Mama-San, lye soap is bad, number 10! American soap, good, number 1! lye soap, communist! It make G.I. Itchy all over!"
Mama-San was no longer vibrant, but had a confused look on her face. I don't think she understood the rash thing. To her this soap was good enough for her, her family, why not for the G.I., sell the TIDE, buy cheaper soap, and keep the money.
I walked away and went to the supply hooch, and got another carton of TIDE. Picking up one large box, I took it back to Mama-San, praising the soap, giving her new instructions, and how the G.I.'s would be very happy.
"Mama-San! You use TIDE soap, number 1 soap,,,good soap,,,you like, American G.I. happy!"
Mama-San smiled her black tooth smile, nodding her head in agreement. That took care of the problem. Or at that time, I thought!
A week passed and the rash problem became a plague! When I got back from the field, the problem was staring me in the face in the form of the commanding officer standing there, scratching, pissed at me because of his rash!
So I headed down to the laundry area, only to spot Mama-San and baby-San washing clothes with the damn number 10 black bar lye soap!
"Mama-San! What you do?" I questioned.
"Ahh, emnoy, I use lye soap---good soap! Clean clothes good, lye soap number 1!"
"No!" I said, stomping my boots! "Lye soap is communist soap! Not good soap! What you do with number 1 American TIDE soap?" I demanded.
"1take Vietnamese black market," she said proudly. " I sell, make bouqoo pietas (money), buy lye soap, clothes for baby-sans, food, make family very happy!"
I stood there and realized what I needed to do. I went back to the supply hooch and got 2 boxes of TIDE. After extracting a solemn oath from mom-San, I gave mom-San 1 carton soap for G.I. Clothes, and 1 carton for her black market.
. (years later I would think that Agent Orange might have been the cause of some of the skin problems)
Leaving For Viet Nam
On Leave Before Vietnam – 1967
(C) James J. Alonzo
Leaving for Nam -
It was a gloomy, gray, rainy morning, which may have accounted for my morbid thoughts. As I recalled that day many years ago, the trip to the City of Buffalo’s airport. We travelled by cab, my wife Nanci, and my step-dad. Which was odd, but my stepfather Ralph insisted on paying for it. He was paying for the cab, a person known as a cheap person, some would call it thrifty. I realize now that he was a poor man, but back then, I was not aware of it as I am now.
My thirty day pre-Viet Nam leave had come to an end, June 1967. During this leave, I had to worked for my brother Ralph‘s roofing and siding business, to raise money for Nanci, and the baby she was carrying. I didn’t know much about roofing and siding, but I was strong, and being in the Army's 101rst Airborne Division, and a paratrooper, i had no fear of heights.
And now It was time to fly to San Francisco, and Viet Nam. We left my mother at home, crying; too upset that morning to even scramble eggs, never less coming to the airport. I felt for her, for she had lost love ones in WW2 and Korean Wars.
Step dad was quiet during the trip, and it was only years later that I thought about what he must have been thinking. I wondered how it would of been if he had ever been sent to war? (he wasn’t) What would his father have thought, or how he would of seen him off to war.
We had arrived at the airport, and entered the terminal. There were many other service men in uniforms, with duffel bags and overnight bags, a lot of mothers and fathers, wives or maybe girl friends, and even kids, probably siblings. There were even sharply dressed Military Police who patrolled through the terminal. I found this to be an unusual sight, for just the year before, you'd never see Military Police there.
The home front during the Viet Nam war is a study of convoluted extreme contrasts: sorrow and joy, partings and reunions, patriotism and cynicism, parades, demonstrations, anti-war protesters, and funerals.
I was flying American Airlines to San Francisco, and I got into the appropriate line, which comprised of mostly soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen, and even some civilians, who looked like hippies, and who strangely looked uncomfortable being in the same line.
My step dad wanted to wait but it was important that Nanci and I spend some private time, so I talked him out of staying.
"Go a head Pop," I suggested, "Nanci will see me off, and then she will get a cab."
He strongly shook my hand, looking down, and in a whispered voice, he said, “Come home son.”
For a fleeting moment, I thought he was ordering me to leave with him, become a deserter like many others had, and forget this idiocy of war. Then I realized he meant " come home alive". I looked him in the eye and said,
“I will. You take care of Mom.”
“Sure. Good luck Jim.” He said, turned and walked away. A few minutes later, as I was talking to Nanci, I caught a glimpse of him some distance away, watching me. We made eye contact; he then turned and walked away, this time for good. I was apprehensive that my step-dad might reappear, and not give Nanci and I time alone.
After I checked in at the ticket counter, Nanci and I holding hands walked down to the gate, where I would discovered that this is where the other military families had disappeared too. In those days, anyone could go to the departing gates. ( before post 911 security)
Despite the large number of military members my own age from the Buffalo area. I did not see anyone I knew. This is going to be the beginning of a period in my life of looking for familiar faces and imaging them on other people. So I stood there holding Nanci’s hand, alone in our own thoughts, nothing being said but the occasional ‘I love you”. Meanwhile people moved around us stood quietly, talked in low murmurs, or cried softly. I have never seen so much sadness, so many people make so little noise, except at a funeral.
There were City of Buffalo Police officers and Two Military Police officers patrolled at the edge of the crowd looking for signs of problems among the young men who were about to leave for points of embarkation and war, and the anti-war protesters.
In retrospect, this whole scene had made me uncomfortable: the MP’s, the mostly unhappy soldiers, the quiet families; the sum total of which was this very un-American feeling of government control and coercion. But it was wartime, though not my father’s generation war, which was as popular as any war could get. And in wartime, even the most benevolent governments get a little pushy.
This was 1967, and the anti-war movement was in full swing in Buffalo, so therefore there were protesters and demonstrations at Buffalo’s airport. There were a more of them when we landed in San Francisco, and even more of them at the Oakland Army Base, urging the soldiers not to go, carrying signs stating, "Killers! Baby killers", "Make Love Not War!"
I looked into Nanci’s eyes, as always, I saw love that day, but at that moment, but I also saw fear in her eyes, and maybe it was reflecting in my eyes too. I remember I felt a sadness, a sadness that if I should die, what would happen to Nanci, who would love and protect her and the baby she was carrying inside her, as I do now?
This feeling never left me, even after all these years, when I had a heart attack in 1991, or when I get angina, I still ask myself today, aware of my mortality and poor health, who would love and protect her.
The announcer’s voice came on and announced my flight was boarding. So I told her, as I placed my hand on her stomach,
“I love you, take care of both my babies.“ (Meaning her and the baby that will be born in December 1967 while I was on patrol in Viet Nam)
“Don’t cry baby, I will be back, " I promised, "So write me every day.”
She looked at me with her tear filled blue eyes, and said.
“I love you too .“
We kissed and held each other tightly, her being brave, not wanting me to leave, and me, sad and scared, but not wanting to show it.
I walked down the ramp afraid to look back, because I knew if I did I would cry, and I had too much pride to make this mistake.
Nurses In Viet Nam, They Served Too
Nurses in Viet Nam, They served too
(C) James J Alonzo
I Had hired on with the Donner – Hanna Coke Corporation as Director of Security, my job was to protect the facility and 1,000 employees of a Coke Manufacturing plant. My security officers were well trained in weapons, certified first aid, trained Emergency Medical Technicians, and trained Firemen.
In 1975, a few years after my service in Vietnam. I received a call one afternoon from one of my company employees saying he had chest pains. He said he was feeling very ill. I and my partner Phillip Taylor, went to the site in the plant, stabilized the employee and transported him to the hospital in our company ambulance.
A nurse met us at the Emergency room door of Erie County Medical Center and took us immediately into the ER. Over the next couple of hours, the employee was examined by a doctor, given nitro medication, x-ray, and blood tests. Afterward, a nurse approached me and said,
“Sir, He will have to stay and be tested for a few hours or so to make sure he didn’t have any heart attack, and depending on what they find, he may likely will have to stay overnight.
“ Thank you," i responded, "I‘ll hang around for a while”.
I would of left but my partner decided to take another nurse he knew to the cafeteria for coffee, so I was stuck there till he got back. The Nurse I was speaking too, named Joan, must have noticed I had pipe and smoking tobacco in my shirt pocket and asked,
"You have a light?" waving a cigarette at me.
“ You want to go outside with me and have a smoke?”
“Sure,” she said with a smile, “You seem safe.”
So we went out on a private patio like area reserved for doctors and nurses. We introduced ourselves, her name being Joan, as she pulled a smoke out, and I lit her cigarette, and later my pipe.
As we were smoking and speaking small talk for a few minutes, our conversation was interrupted, when I heard the approaching "Life Flight" helicopter approaching from a distance, bringing a critical emergency patient.
We both stopped speaking, as the chopper got closer, and as it started it’s approach to land on the Hospital roof. I noticed Joan puffing on her cigarette as though she was in a hurry. Shortly after she stubbed that cigarette out she wanted me to light another smoke, becoming very fidgety and agitated. As the chopper settled onto the helipad, noticed a haze coming over her eyes.
As I stepped around in front of her to see better I recognized the look as the “1000 yard stare”. I had seen “the stare” many times, in Viet Nam, and in other veteran‘s eyes.
After about 5 seconds she noticed me staring. She was embarrassed and started to apologize.
“No need for that”, I said . “I bet you were a nurse in Nam?”
“Is it that noticeable?” She asked.
“Yes, it is, I have seen it before.”
Joan smiled at me, relaxed, leaned her back against the wall, pulled another smoke out, and I lit it for her as she spoke,
“ I was in Viet Nam at Plieku last part of my tour," she spoke as though she were confessing her sins, "My first part of my tour was at a Medivac hospital, in 1967 and 1968. I had done time on the hospital ship USS Good Hope and also time in the Navy hospital in Da Nang. I saw and treated so many maimed bodies and dying soldiers, and it had really gotten to me! I still have nightmares, and flashbacks. The helicopters arriving at the hospitals, the noise of the rotors always preceded the carnage. So now when I am working here, the wop – wop of the blades of the Life Flight helicopter (vintage UH1E, Hueys) at close range always brings back those memories!”
“I know," I replied, " Some shrinks call it flashbacks“
“When I got back home“, She continued, “I didn’t want to do nursing anymore, but my priest talked me into continuing my nursing career, and now even though it’s difficult at times, I am glad I did.”
We remained there for some time after that, not even speaking, just being in each others presence, and our own thoughts.
After all these years, I don’t even remember what Joan the nurse looked like but the point of this story is “They served too”. Lets us not forget those wonderful women who done their time in Vietnam. Many a soldier who lay dying, the nurse was the last thing he saw. The smile of a combat nurse, the caress of a warm hand, a touch on the cheek or some kind words may have been the last thing they remembered.
Nurses in war, suffer the same as combat veterans
Viet Nam? I Was Just There Last Night
I Was Just There Last Night
© James J. Alonzo
“Jim, do you still think about Viet Nam?’ asked Dr. Tallutto, My PTSD shrink at Veterans Hospital.
“How do you stop thinking about it?" I asked Chuckling, " I think of that place everyday for the last 40 plus years, I wake up with it, go to bed with it. Yeah, I think about it, I can’t quit thinking about it. I don't think it will never end, but most of the time I have learned to live with it. I’m mostly comfortable with the memories, the flashbacks, I’ve learn to stop trying to forget, and I am trying to learn to embrace it. It just doesn’t scare me anymore.”
“Jim, if you weren’t being affected by the experience of war, combat, and death," he instructed, "that would be abnormal."
When he told me that , it was like he’d have just given me a pardon,
“Go ahead and feel something for that place, Jim. It ain’t going nowhere. You’re going to wear it for the rest of your life, so you might as well get to know it.”
A lot of my “brothers" haven’t been so lucky. For them the memories are too painful, their sense of loss to great for them to adjust.
One time I was speaking to my sister, and she said to me,
“Jim, I have a friend, and her husband was in Viet Nam.”
“Yeah.” I responded.
“I asked him when he was there? Do you know what he said?’
“No.”
“He said to me, “Just last Night.”
I had to explain to her what i thought he meant, but it took my sister some time to understand what he and I were talking about.
“Just Last Night.” Yeah I was in Nam, I said, “Just last night”.
During dinner with my wife, on my way to work this morning, during lunch, working in the office.
“Yeah I was just there.”
My kid brother informed me, once, shortly after I had gotten home from Nam,
“You’re not the same brother that went to Viet Nam." He said, "Dad says that when you went to Viet Nam, that the Jim we knew, died over there. That the Jim that came back, is not his son, or my brother.”
"I don't care what you or the old man think!" I said in anger, "You weren't there!"
Another time, my wife Nanci and I were talking,
“You won’t let people get close to you," she said, " not even me.”
“You’re probably right.” I responded. " But you know I do love you, doesn't that count?"
"Yes, but you were gentle and kind then. But now your love is a hard love," she countered, " a cautious love, and at times a cold love."
Ask a veteran about making friends in Nam, and you will find out it is risky. Why? Because we're in the business of death, kill and be killed, death was with us at all times.
It wasn’t the poetic death of, “If I die before I wake.” This was the real thing. The kind where young men scream for their mothers! The kind death that lingers in your mind and becomes more real each time you luck out and cheat Death. You don’t want too many friends that close, when the possibility of their dying is real. When you do,,,friends become a liability.
While in Viet Nam, I feel in love with a Vietnamese woman. Her name was Kim, she was young, 22 years old, smart, educated, beautiful. She lived in ‘Cholon’ a neighborhood or district in Saigon. She worked as a secretary for my commanding officer, and i would meet and chat with her. In a few months, she told me she was in love with me.
When the TET Offensive hit, many communists soldier and Viet Cong attacked many cities at the same time. When they hit Saigon, I was in bed with Kim, and I was AWOL, for I had misappropriated a vehicle, and drove 21 miles from my base camp to Kim’s home that night. We were awakened when the fighting started, gun fire, the explosions of RPG’s and chi com grenades! The vehicle I had used to get there was destroyed!
“You have to go!” Kim demanded, handing my M-16 to me, “There are too many VIet Cong in Saigon, they will kill you and my family, if they see you here!”
I told her I would stay, but she insisted that it would be better for her family if I was gone. After I escaped, i made it to base camp. I was sent to Hue for the battle there. And for the next 45 plus days, on missions, during the TET offensive, I heard nothing of Kim and her family.
After TET, I would find out that she and her family were among the 100,000 south Vietnamese killed for associating or being employed by the Americans.
There will always be a burning emptiness in my heart. But worse, the guilt for not staying with her and her family. Or was it the guilt from their deaths. A responsibility for my association with her and her family. It didn't matter what it was labelled, for it was still overbearing guilt!
"DON”T GET CLOSE TO PEOPLE WHO ARE GOING TO DIE." However, sometimes you can’t help it.
You hear Veterans use the term ”my buddy” when they refer to a guy they spent the war with. “Me and this buddy of mine…”
Friend sounds to intimate, doesn’t it. “Friend” calls up images of being close. If he is a friend, then you are going to be hurt if he dies, and war hurts enough without adding to the pain. "Get close,,,, get hurt," it’s as simple as that.
My wife knows a few people who can get into the soft spots inside my heart. My daughter Sherri, my grandson, and Nanci.
She’s put up with a lot from me. Nanci will tell you that when she signed on for better or worse, she had no idea there was going to be so much of the latter. But with my daughter and her son Devin, it is different. They will be there in my life, and that is the good part of life.
Viet Nam; I can still see the faces, though they all seem to have the same eyes, the thousand yard stare. When I think of us, back in Nam, I always see a line of “dirty soldiers” on patrol, or sitting on the running boards of the convoy trucks or the skids of the choppers. We are caught in the first grey sliver between darkness and light. That first moment when we know we’ve survived another night, and the business of staying alive for one more day is about to begin. There was so much hope in that brief space of time. It’s what we used to pray for, “One more day God. One more day.”
And I can still hear our conversations as if they had just been spoken. I can still hear the way we sounded, the hard cynical jokes, our morbid sense of humor. We were scared to death of dying or being maimed, and trying our best not to show it.
I still recall the smells, too. Our body odor, mixed with the odor of bug repellant, (DEET), the smell of sweat and fear. The way the smell of cordite and gun smoke hangs on the air after a fire-fight. Or the pungent odor of rice paddies, and the mud. So different from the black dirt New York State of farm land. The mud of Viet Nam smells ancient, somehow, like it’s always been there. The smell of rotting jungle vegetation. It is hard to forget the way blood smells, like rusted metal, sticky and drying on my hands. I spent a long night that way once. That memory is etched in my soul.
I remember how the night jungle appears dream like as the pilot of a Cessna ‘forward observer’, at 1200 feet, buzzes over head, dropping parachute flares until morning. The artificial sun light would flicker and make shadows run throughout the jungle foliage. It was worse than not being able to see what was out there sometimes.
During a starless and moonless night, I remember looking at my buddy, J.J. Jackson next to me, as a flare floated slowly down from overhead. The way the light made shadows on his sweat covered ebony face, and around his eyes were so deep, that it looked like his eyes were gone. I reached over and touched him on his arm. And without even looking at me, he touched my hand,
“I know man.” And at that moment he did.
God, I loved those guys, my buddies. I hurt every time one of them died or was severely wounded. We all did, despite our posturing, despite our desire to stay connected, we couldn’t help ourselves.
Even now I hurt when I hear another brother in arms died by agent orange. They died way before their normal life expectancy. "Killed in Nam, died years later at home."
I know why some veterans write their stories, I know what gives other Veterans the ability to create poems so honest. One can cry at their horrible beauty. It’s love. Love for those people who shared the Viet Nam combat experience.
We did our jobs like good soldiers, and we tried our best not to become as hard as our surroundings. In some way, we all touched each other and said,
“I know.”
"I know." Like a mother would say, holding a child in the middle of a nightmare,
“It’s going to be alright.”
We tried not to loose touch with our humanity, we tried to walk the line. We tried to be the good men our parents had raised and not to give into that un-named thing we knew was inside us all.
You want to know what frightening is? It’s a nineteen year old boy-man who’s had a taste of that power over life and death that war gives you. Despite all the things he has been taught, despite his denial, he knows that he likes it.
It’s a nineteen year old who’s lost a friend and is angry, scared, and yet determined that some, “.*&%#$ is going to pay!” To this day, the thought of that boy can wake me up from a sound sleep and leave me staring at the ceiling the rest of the night.
As I write this, I see an image in front of me of two young men, with writing tablets on their laps. One smoking a cigarette, both stare without expression at the camera. They’re writing letters to their loved ones back in the world, staying in touch with places they would rather be. Places and people they hope to see again.
My wife Nanci, doesn’t mind of the love I have for these men, or even of Kim. Nanci knows she’s been included in special company. She knows I’ll always love those people who shared that part of my life, a part she never can. And yet she understands how I feel about the ones I know are out there yet. The one’s who still answer the question. “When were you in Viet Nam?”
“Hell, I was there just last night.”
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