Larry's Story
The Draft
I was drafted in 1968, had a diploma but no college.
I worked in a New York bank as a proof clerk.
I was good at math but didn't know it at the time.
The building was in a couple of movies: Marine
Midland Bank. I took a military leave of absence
because of the draft. This was the time before contracts,
so the sergeant asked me about signing for three years
instead of two. Then you get the dream sheet, pick
what you want. I served in Germany for about
half a year. Then I got my orders for Vietnam.
No, I didn't ask to go. I was ordered to go there.
I kept saying to myself, Holy Shit! Holy Shit! Holy Shit!
Deployment to Vietnam
My base camp was in Pleiku. We landed first in Cam Ranh Bay
in the evening, over the beach. Beautiful sand, forests,
ocean. I thought what a paradise this place would be.
Probably is now. But the temperature was 90 degrees,
and the humidity made it feel like 100. I couldn't breathe.
I lived in a quonset hut for the first ten days. All about training.
How do you get trained in ten days? We took a Chinook
helicopter to Pleiku. I was assigned to a howitzer battalion.
We landed on an LZ--that's a Landing Zone, by the way.
I was with the 4th Infantry. We were sent out on hip shoots.
The battery consisted of six guns. It depended on enemy movement,
which was based on recon. We used a previous encampment,
went in with two guns, the other four positions remained
vacant. We dug holes in the ground to build hootches
with sandbags, plastic, and psp. That's perforated steel plating.
It's corrugated, has holes. It's used for roofing material.
VC Attacks
There was a radio post up on a hill. The VC were always
trying to knock it out. Cobra gunships did strafing runs,
600 rounds per minute. Tracer rounds in a solid red line.
That's how fast they came out. It was less than a mile away,
like watching a drive-in movie. We went out there, cheering
them on, jumping up and down. Yelling, Go get 'em!
We had no fear! Saw no danger! The instructor came out,
What the fuck are you guys doin'? You have no idea
what you're doin'! Get under cover! Right now!
Another time, a couple of crazy ones came charging
right up the side of the hill. Just two VC firing AK-47s.
They were finished off in no time. It could've been
a diversion, but no one came up the other side.
It's like Mission Impossible, except I don't think
they had much of a choice to accept it or not.
They're either on drugs or told to attack or die.
They carried a satchel charge on their backs
to blow themselves up if they needed to.
The Howitzer
A howitzer is like a cannon. We had no ear protection.
This was our ear protection: I put my arms over my head
just like this. It had a range of nine miles. We set the fuse
a maximum of 99 seconds. I hope this information is right.
The standard illumination round was like a flare attached
to a parachute. It would float down and light up the area.
A firecracker round had sixteen hand grenades that detonated
either at point of destination by scattering or in the air.
The basic incendiary round contained white phosphorous,
the baddest thing there is. It burned right through you.
Then there's the beehive round. Let me preface this
by saying, It is remarkable how many things can be
invented to mutilate the human body. It's a point blank
weapon. If the enemy got the perimeter wire down
and they were attacking, this was the last resort. It's shot
at point blank range. Three or four feet in front of you.
It's 80,000 arrows that can pepper through trees,
helmets, ammo cans filled with sand. It spreads out
like buck shot, a 90 degree angle each way.
The South Vietnamese officers' jaws dropped
when they saw this. They whispered, We gotta get this.
Young people have no idea about war but what they see
in movies. Once you understand what war is, what it
does to people, you would never want to do it again.
Firing a Howitzer
A howitzer held 105, 155, 175 millimeter and 8-inch
shells. A shell came in two pieces: a projectile with
the butt-end tapered the last two inches to accommodate
a brass shell casing. Inside there was a firing pin,
about this big. Gun powder bags around the pin,
like pellets sowed in cloth bags, seven in a line
with string. Charge seven was as far as it would go.
Charge one the shortest. Someone would yell,
Charge one! Charge seven! We considered windage
and elevation from a forward observer. We would hear
Good landing! or Good hit! We could drop shells
into the same crater. That's how accurate this was.
We were mostly not targeting the enemy. It was just
support. I had no idea about casualties. That might
have been a good thing for my self-preservation.
Cruelties of War
They set up claymore mines. Blew two VC in half.
They hung the body parts over a tree limb. Just celebrating.
They could cut off an ear and keep it. Like an X on a plane.
It says, I was there. To get captured VC to talk, they take 'em
up in a helicopter. On the ground, they set up some concertina
wire, razor wire, like on the walls of a prison, and they make
a circle. In the middle, they put a metal post, an engineer's
stake, with the point up, like a bull's eye. They show it
to the prisoners, then take them up in a helicopter. First guy's
turn to talk. Nothing to say? Okay out you go. Didn't matter
if he hit the center. It was never about that. It was about intel.
You couldn't shut the next guys up. They always talked.
LZ Oasis
A funny story actually happened on Landing Zone Oasis.
It was twilight, after a meal. We're all shootin' the breeze.
One guy goes out for some food. He trips and falls over
a 14-foot python. Scared the shit outta him. Got his M-16
and peppered it. A lot of rodents near the mess hall.
We held the snake up, eight guys in a row for a picture.
It weighed maybe 100 to 150 pounds. Later we traded it
to the South Vietnamese for food. They liked to eat snake.
Larry's Injury
We generated a lot of trash. The shell tubes are cardboard.
They're about this big, weigh about 45 pounds. Someone
policed the perimeter and inadvertently tossed either
a hand grenade or an M-79 grenade launcher into
the trash pile. We carried around a lot of extra equipment.
We weren't infantry, but we carried defensive weapons.
I was standing next to the hole when it exploded.
My right side was facing the fire. I didn't know I was hit.
My first instinct was to just start booking outta there,
so I ran as fast as I could. The Executive Officer saw
my side was bleeding. He lay me down and put a sandbag
under my head. I had trouble breathing, but the medic
couldn't give me anything for my pain. It screwed up
your breathing. Turned out, I had a collapsed lung.
My liver and diaphragm had been hit by shrapnel.
I was medevaced out by helicopter. They cut my
clothes off before going to the operating room.
I apologized to the nurse for throwing up on her
from the Nasal-Gastric tube they stuck down my nose.
I was wounded on October 31, 1969, my 21st birthday.
I never did collect the shrapnel they pulled out of me.
Hospitalization
I was in the 4th Infantry Division hospital in Pleiku
for about 18 days. Then I went to Camp Drake in Tokyo
to convalesce. I had a chest tube to remove mucus,
a T-tube for liver bile, and two IVs. When the catheter
was taken out, I walked to the bathroom looking
like an octopus. I lost 35 pounds in eleven days.
Can you guess how I had to replace the bile? By drinking it.
In Tokyo, I took a day trip to Ginza--that's Broadway,
the main drag. I saw a USO show. Families from the States
were there to talk to the guys, make them feel comfortable,
lift their spirits. On the Air Force plane, cots were stacked
four high. I was on the bottom because I needed my tubes.
The guy across the way was conscious. He was hit by a mine.
He had no arms and no legs. I saw similar things in the ward
in Pleiku. A villager was hit by napalm. A Vietnamese teen.
Maybe a soldier. He had 8 to 10 skin grafts. Twelve more to go.
All skin was grafted from his body that was not burned.
He had no nose, no hair. His eyes were all burnt.
Montagnards
You know the South Vietnamese villagers? The Montagnards?
They were like American Indians. They didn't look like
the South Vietnamese or the North Vietnamese. Their facial
features were not as sharp. They were nice people, made friends
easy. They would trade you chickens, bananas, pineapples.
Just don't mess with the females. They'd cut your nuts off
with a banana machete. Young girls were clothed from head
to foot before marriage. Once married, they were topless
from then on. Can you imagine the uproar it would bring?
A mother in the ward had a dehydrated baby that needed
to regain nutrients. She was just 17 or 18 years old.
Every time they gave her a pajama top, she just kept taking
it off as soon as the nurses left. I tell you it kept guys up nights,
in more ways than one. At least those who could manage it.
Meeting Stars
I was in the hospitable ward at Camp Drake. It was two or three
in the morning. I didn't feel like walking 100 feet to the bathroom,
and I had to take a piss. So I took a bottle. As I'm pissing, I hear
footsteps behind me. It was a sergeant, a lieutenant, and a woman.
The woman was a lieutenant colonel. Turns out it was Martha Raye.
She told me, It's all right, I'm a nurse. She was visiting soldiers.
I got to meet a celebrity while taking a piss on the side of my bed.
Then I met Walter and Gracie Lantz. He was at least 70 at the time.
Did you know she was the voice of Woody Woodpecker?
They were so friendly. But no one believed her story.
So she did Woody's laugh. Ha-ha-ha-HA-ha! We all cracked up.
Embellishments
I started to embellish stories when I told them. The standard
guilt of mortality. I tried to make a more dangerous situation
when I told a story. I never felt like I did enough to deserve
any credit. Once during a convoy explosion, a vehicle hit
a land mine. One guy rushed down the edge of the road
to help out. People shouted, What the hell are you doin'?
Get back in the fucking truck! He got blown to pieces
just for trying to help out. When I told the story,
I said I knew him personally. I didn't. It was a lie.
I said he was a great guy. He was, but I didn't know him.
My therapist told me, You almost died! You were in a war!
You were there for five months! Don't feel guilty!
I'd see guys coming in. I never felt like I did enough.
He told me, Guilt is so common you wouldn't believe it,
especially when I talk to them one on one. He asked me,
How much more real does it have to be for you?
by Contributing Poet Jimmy Pappas Copyright © 2019
VWP 2020 First published in Jimmy's book, Scream Wounds by A15 Press 2019
The Draft
I was drafted in 1968, had a diploma but no college.
I worked in a New York bank as a proof clerk.
I was good at math but didn't know it at the time.
The building was in a couple of movies: Marine
Midland Bank. I took a military leave of absence
because of the draft. This was the time before contracts,
so the sergeant asked me about signing for three years
instead of two. Then you get the dream sheet, pick
what you want. I served in Germany for about
half a year. Then I got my orders for Vietnam.
No, I didn't ask to go. I was ordered to go there.
I kept saying to myself, Holy Shit! Holy Shit! Holy Shit!
Deployment to Vietnam
My base camp was in Pleiku. We landed first in Cam Ranh Bay
in the evening, over the beach. Beautiful sand, forests,
ocean. I thought what a paradise this place would be.
Probably is now. But the temperature was 90 degrees,
and the humidity made it feel like 100. I couldn't breathe.
I lived in a quonset hut for the first ten days. All about training.
How do you get trained in ten days? We took a Chinook
helicopter to Pleiku. I was assigned to a howitzer battalion.
We landed on an LZ--that's a Landing Zone, by the way.
I was with the 4th Infantry. We were sent out on hip shoots.
The battery consisted of six guns. It depended on enemy movement,
which was based on recon. We used a previous encampment,
went in with two guns, the other four positions remained
vacant. We dug holes in the ground to build hootches
with sandbags, plastic, and psp. That's perforated steel plating.
It's corrugated, has holes. It's used for roofing material.
VC Attacks
There was a radio post up on a hill. The VC were always
trying to knock it out. Cobra gunships did strafing runs,
600 rounds per minute. Tracer rounds in a solid red line.
That's how fast they came out. It was less than a mile away,
like watching a drive-in movie. We went out there, cheering
them on, jumping up and down. Yelling, Go get 'em!
We had no fear! Saw no danger! The instructor came out,
What the fuck are you guys doin'? You have no idea
what you're doin'! Get under cover! Right now!
Another time, a couple of crazy ones came charging
right up the side of the hill. Just two VC firing AK-47s.
They were finished off in no time. It could've been
a diversion, but no one came up the other side.
It's like Mission Impossible, except I don't think
they had much of a choice to accept it or not.
They're either on drugs or told to attack or die.
They carried a satchel charge on their backs
to blow themselves up if they needed to.
The Howitzer
A howitzer is like a cannon. We had no ear protection.
This was our ear protection: I put my arms over my head
just like this. It had a range of nine miles. We set the fuse
a maximum of 99 seconds. I hope this information is right.
The standard illumination round was like a flare attached
to a parachute. It would float down and light up the area.
A firecracker round had sixteen hand grenades that detonated
either at point of destination by scattering or in the air.
The basic incendiary round contained white phosphorous,
the baddest thing there is. It burned right through you.
Then there's the beehive round. Let me preface this
by saying, It is remarkable how many things can be
invented to mutilate the human body. It's a point blank
weapon. If the enemy got the perimeter wire down
and they were attacking, this was the last resort. It's shot
at point blank range. Three or four feet in front of you.
It's 80,000 arrows that can pepper through trees,
helmets, ammo cans filled with sand. It spreads out
like buck shot, a 90 degree angle each way.
The South Vietnamese officers' jaws dropped
when they saw this. They whispered, We gotta get this.
Young people have no idea about war but what they see
in movies. Once you understand what war is, what it
does to people, you would never want to do it again.
Firing a Howitzer
A howitzer held 105, 155, 175 millimeter and 8-inch
shells. A shell came in two pieces: a projectile with
the butt-end tapered the last two inches to accommodate
a brass shell casing. Inside there was a firing pin,
about this big. Gun powder bags around the pin,
like pellets sowed in cloth bags, seven in a line
with string. Charge seven was as far as it would go.
Charge one the shortest. Someone would yell,
Charge one! Charge seven! We considered windage
and elevation from a forward observer. We would hear
Good landing! or Good hit! We could drop shells
into the same crater. That's how accurate this was.
We were mostly not targeting the enemy. It was just
support. I had no idea about casualties. That might
have been a good thing for my self-preservation.
Cruelties of War
They set up claymore mines. Blew two VC in half.
They hung the body parts over a tree limb. Just celebrating.
They could cut off an ear and keep it. Like an X on a plane.
It says, I was there. To get captured VC to talk, they take 'em
up in a helicopter. On the ground, they set up some concertina
wire, razor wire, like on the walls of a prison, and they make
a circle. In the middle, they put a metal post, an engineer's
stake, with the point up, like a bull's eye. They show it
to the prisoners, then take them up in a helicopter. First guy's
turn to talk. Nothing to say? Okay out you go. Didn't matter
if he hit the center. It was never about that. It was about intel.
You couldn't shut the next guys up. They always talked.
LZ Oasis
A funny story actually happened on Landing Zone Oasis.
It was twilight, after a meal. We're all shootin' the breeze.
One guy goes out for some food. He trips and falls over
a 14-foot python. Scared the shit outta him. Got his M-16
and peppered it. A lot of rodents near the mess hall.
We held the snake up, eight guys in a row for a picture.
It weighed maybe 100 to 150 pounds. Later we traded it
to the South Vietnamese for food. They liked to eat snake.
Larry's Injury
We generated a lot of trash. The shell tubes are cardboard.
They're about this big, weigh about 45 pounds. Someone
policed the perimeter and inadvertently tossed either
a hand grenade or an M-79 grenade launcher into
the trash pile. We carried around a lot of extra equipment.
We weren't infantry, but we carried defensive weapons.
I was standing next to the hole when it exploded.
My right side was facing the fire. I didn't know I was hit.
My first instinct was to just start booking outta there,
so I ran as fast as I could. The Executive Officer saw
my side was bleeding. He lay me down and put a sandbag
under my head. I had trouble breathing, but the medic
couldn't give me anything for my pain. It screwed up
your breathing. Turned out, I had a collapsed lung.
My liver and diaphragm had been hit by shrapnel.
I was medevaced out by helicopter. They cut my
clothes off before going to the operating room.
I apologized to the nurse for throwing up on her
from the Nasal-Gastric tube they stuck down my nose.
I was wounded on October 31, 1969, my 21st birthday.
I never did collect the shrapnel they pulled out of me.
Hospitalization
I was in the 4th Infantry Division hospital in Pleiku
for about 18 days. Then I went to Camp Drake in Tokyo
to convalesce. I had a chest tube to remove mucus,
a T-tube for liver bile, and two IVs. When the catheter
was taken out, I walked to the bathroom looking
like an octopus. I lost 35 pounds in eleven days.
Can you guess how I had to replace the bile? By drinking it.
In Tokyo, I took a day trip to Ginza--that's Broadway,
the main drag. I saw a USO show. Families from the States
were there to talk to the guys, make them feel comfortable,
lift their spirits. On the Air Force plane, cots were stacked
four high. I was on the bottom because I needed my tubes.
The guy across the way was conscious. He was hit by a mine.
He had no arms and no legs. I saw similar things in the ward
in Pleiku. A villager was hit by napalm. A Vietnamese teen.
Maybe a soldier. He had 8 to 10 skin grafts. Twelve more to go.
All skin was grafted from his body that was not burned.
He had no nose, no hair. His eyes were all burnt.
Montagnards
You know the South Vietnamese villagers? The Montagnards?
They were like American Indians. They didn't look like
the South Vietnamese or the North Vietnamese. Their facial
features were not as sharp. They were nice people, made friends
easy. They would trade you chickens, bananas, pineapples.
Just don't mess with the females. They'd cut your nuts off
with a banana machete. Young girls were clothed from head
to foot before marriage. Once married, they were topless
from then on. Can you imagine the uproar it would bring?
A mother in the ward had a dehydrated baby that needed
to regain nutrients. She was just 17 or 18 years old.
Every time they gave her a pajama top, she just kept taking
it off as soon as the nurses left. I tell you it kept guys up nights,
in more ways than one. At least those who could manage it.
Meeting Stars
I was in the hospitable ward at Camp Drake. It was two or three
in the morning. I didn't feel like walking 100 feet to the bathroom,
and I had to take a piss. So I took a bottle. As I'm pissing, I hear
footsteps behind me. It was a sergeant, a lieutenant, and a woman.
The woman was a lieutenant colonel. Turns out it was Martha Raye.
She told me, It's all right, I'm a nurse. She was visiting soldiers.
I got to meet a celebrity while taking a piss on the side of my bed.
Then I met Walter and Gracie Lantz. He was at least 70 at the time.
Did you know she was the voice of Woody Woodpecker?
They were so friendly. But no one believed her story.
So she did Woody's laugh. Ha-ha-ha-HA-ha! We all cracked up.
Embellishments
I started to embellish stories when I told them. The standard
guilt of mortality. I tried to make a more dangerous situation
when I told a story. I never felt like I did enough to deserve
any credit. Once during a convoy explosion, a vehicle hit
a land mine. One guy rushed down the edge of the road
to help out. People shouted, What the hell are you doin'?
Get back in the fucking truck! He got blown to pieces
just for trying to help out. When I told the story,
I said I knew him personally. I didn't. It was a lie.
I said he was a great guy. He was, but I didn't know him.
My therapist told me, You almost died! You were in a war!
You were there for five months! Don't feel guilty!
I'd see guys coming in. I never felt like I did enough.
He told me, Guilt is so common you wouldn't believe it,
especially when I talk to them one on one. He asked me,
How much more real does it have to be for you?
by Contributing Poet Jimmy Pappas Copyright © 2019
VWP 2020 First published in Jimmy's book, Scream Wounds by A15 Press 2019
Bio: Jimmy Pappas served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War as an English language instructor
training South Vietnamese soldiers in Saigon from September 1969 to October 1970.
Jimmy received his BA in English at Bridgewater State University
and an MA in English literature from Rivier University.
He is a retired teacher whose poems have been published in over 80 journals.
He is the Vice-President of the Poetry Society of NH.
His poem, Bobby's Story, about a Vietnam veteran was one of ten finalists in the 2017 Rattle Poetry Contest
and was the winner of the 2018 Readers Choice Award.
training South Vietnamese soldiers in Saigon from September 1969 to October 1970.
Jimmy received his BA in English at Bridgewater State University
and an MA in English literature from Rivier University.
He is a retired teacher whose poems have been published in over 80 journals.
He is the Vice-President of the Poetry Society of NH.
His poem, Bobby's Story, about a Vietnam veteran was one of ten finalists in the 2017 Rattle Poetry Contest
and was the winner of the 2018 Readers Choice Award.
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