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To Dwight Laws, KIA 10/30/66 inside the C Company perimeter near Hill 55, to Lurch Donohue, KIA 3/1/67 in a deserted ville near Route 4, and to Jerry Georges, KIA 3/23/67 near Hill 55. They were good men.

Photo: Me, Mike Noumov, and Jeff Wiseman at the rear on Hill 55 on my return (bearing gifts) from R&R. Over and over again we were playing the Byrds album with Turn! Turn! Turn! on it - "a time to be born, a time to die; a time to kill, a time to heal; a time to laugh, a time to weep; a time for peace, I swear its not too late."

Here is the whole story of how Donohue was killed. For the first ten years after I came home, there was never a day that I did not run this through my mind at least once like some kind of video. It had a name: How Donohue got it. Then in 1978 I spent a week in a retreat with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Stephen Levine, and others. That was the first time I told this story aloud. After that, I ran it through my mind less. The second time I told it was in 1998 to my brother, Jeff (who identified Donohue's body back at battalion). This is the third and last time.

We were on patrol north of the bend in Route 4, the dirt road that went by C Company's position. There were no civilians left in this area (where 1/9 got its name, The Walking Dead) - a ghostly overgrown area of deserted villes and fields. Donohue was my A-gunner. We were digging in the first night of the patrol and he seemed down, and more to the point, wasn't doing his part of the digging. I asked him what was going on and he had trouble answering, but finally said he wasn't going to make it. He was really sad. I said something like, "Bullshit, man - we've been here too long to not make it." I dug us in and gave him a smoke (though I don't remember that he smoked - I'm not sure about this). But he was essentially inconsolable. He knew.

The next day we saddled up and I gave him my machine-gun. Not too much greater love than to give up your gun for another man - because my M-60 was my hope, my ticket home. I loved that gun; and I was pretty good with it. We moved out, into a deserted ville. I was walking left flank point and came to a hedgerow of bamboo with a closed gate the only way through. Going through that gate was death - there was no question that there was a mine somewhere. I was crouched down trying to figure out a way to stay on line without dying when there was a powerful explosion off to my right and someone started screaming "Corpsman! Corpsman!" In a heartbeat I knew Donohue was the explosion.

I took off up the trail and there was a man standing frozen in the trail still screaming for the corpsman and my recollection is that I ran literally up and over him and then I saw Donohue. He was on the ground with his legs blown off. I ran up to him and saw that one short stump was left and his guts were spilled out of where the other one had been. He was still alive! He was moaning and moving around a little bit. I was on my knees beside him and I think we were receiving some fire by then. I was struggling with whether to go ahead and kill him, because he was definitely going to die. Then he died. I'm grateful I didn't finish him off. We returned the fire and then had to find my gun, as it wasn't by the body. I remember walking through the underbrush looking for the gun and there were little pink/grey gobbets of Donohue everywhere and on my face and hands too. The smell. I found his foot before I found my gun. The foot was heavy and the gun was out of commission. For some reason, this whole deal was the last straw - just too much. I mean, what for?

I didn't have much hope after that. We had been in the field about eight months: Out on patrol 3-4 days, back to company for a day, night ambush, another day in, and back out on patrol 3-4 days - week after week, month after month and every day, at least one casualty. I realized there were hardly any of the original men left. We were a company of mostly FNGs and there was nobody I wanted to even talk to.

I was also having weird thoughts. Like maybe I could just walk out of the perimeter a couple of klicks to a ville we'd been through a few times where a one-legged girl lived and I could take her an adjustable crutch so she wouldn't have to walk in the bent and twisted way she walked with her too-short stick of a crutch. A time to heal. Or maybe I could slip out and maybe run across a VC or two and instead of killing each other we could sit down in a clearing somewhere and drink a bottle of whiskey together and have a few smokes and talk about our girlfriends. You know, have a good time. Be normal. A time to laugh. These sounded like really good ideas to me and I was thinking about them a lot - all the time. Now I realize that I've spent much of the past 25 years taking a crutch to that girl.

A few weeks after Donohue was killed we were out on a night ambush and ran into another patrol from our company. The word had not been passed that they were coming by us. I was on point and when I saw the first man in the dark - like about 10 feet away, man - I started shooting. I shot the point man in the other patrol in the leg, hip, and chest (lucky for him I was carrying an M-14 instead of the 60); and the man behind me shot him in the chest with a grenade launcher. I remember watching one of my rounds (tracer) hit and fly off at an angle. We were so close that the M-79 round didn't spin enough to arm, hence didn't explode and ended up lodged in his neck. Incredibly, he lived. There was an article in Stars and Stripes about the surgery to remove the round. Brave surgeon probably got a medal. Yeah, right, big deal. (I don't remember the name of the man I shot, except that we called him the Red-Headed Mexican and he was a good guy. I remember him going crazy in Dodge City and charging a VC position right after Zamora was killed. Three helicopters shot down that day. Keep on rockin in the free world.) There was an investigation and the punk lawyer conducting the investigation wanted me to change my story to protect the man who was responsible for not passing the word. I did not change my story and not long after was transferred out of 1/26. Thank you Jeff. To everything, Turn! Turn! Turn! there is a season, Turn! Turn! Turn! And a time to every purpose under heaven, Turn! Turn! Turn!

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Cambodian Outreach Mission: Mosquito nets, medications, education - make a difference! Lance Rasbridge (the man who makes the Mission happen) and I have worked together for many years. Small project. A time to be born.

Friends Without a Border Pediatric hospital in Cambodia. Don't waste your life! Go there.

Ross Avenue Center (at Ross Avenue Baptist Church) - Ross Avenue Center, Ross Avenue Baptist, ESL, CHM clinic site, more.

The 26th Marine Regiment Site - Semper Fidelis - See the names of the men who payed the ultimate price. Guns Up!

Vietnam War Photographs - Good photograph site. Inside the Cone of Fire, others . . . through these fields of destruction . . .

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Below: At the Hill Fights with 1/9

Brothers in Arms (Dire Straits - better music than poetry - Our Song)

These mist covered mountains

Are home now for me now

But my home is the low lands

And always will be

 

Someday you'll return to

Your valley and your farms

And you'll no longer burn

To be brothers in arms

 

Through these fields of destruction

Baptisms of fire

I've witnessed your suffering

As the battles raged higher

 

And though they did hurt me so bad

In the fear and alarm

You did not desert me

My brothers in arms

 

There's so many different worlds

So many different suns

And we have just one world

But we live in different ones

 

Now the sun's gone to heaven

And the moon's riding high

Let me bid you farewell

Every man has to die

 

But its written in the starlight

And every line in your palm

We're fools to make war

On our brothers in arms

World War I Poems: "For an old bitch gone in the teeth"

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Photographs of Burma - We see the beauty of the land and people and we honor Aung San Suu Kyi (below to right) - who is paying a heavy price for freedom.

 

A Common Reader - Lovely, stimulating books for people who love books.

CGFA Art - The best art site I've found. When you find a picture you like, right click on it and select Set as Wallpaper.

Tam Lin - This "Personal Links" is kind of a grim page overall. So, visit the Tam Lin page for a respite. If you don't already know, Tam Lin is a part of old Anglo heritage. Its a faerie tale (not the same as a child's tale) in ballad form that "deals with transformations, courage, and the relationship between the faeries and the mortals" (quote from the Tam Lin site). The first time I heard Tam Lin, I was enchanted. You may be also.

Fighting against child predators - The Preda Foundation: Grass roots organization in the Philippines fighting against the sexual exploitation of children.

No Quarter - No quarter means no prisoners. Neither side took very many. This site is about American casualties in Vietnam.

Remember

Rage Against the Machine - Against the Culture of Death - Remember Kitty Genovese - Rage Against the Machine - Against the Culture of Death - Remember the Girls in the Birmingham Church - Rage Against the Machine - Against the Culture of Death - Remember Thich Quang Duc - Rage Against the Machine - Against the Culture of Death - Remember the Warsaw Ghetto - Rage Against the Machine - Against the Culture of Death - Remember Medgar Evers - Rage Against the Machine - Against the Culture of Death - Remember Oscar Romero - Rage Against the Machine - Against the Culture of Death - Remember Tienamen Square - Rage Against the Machine - Against the Culture of Death - Remember Tuol Sleng - Rage Against the Machine - Against the Culture of Death - "I love you. I will never forget you. I will tell my daughter about you when she grows up and can understand." written on the coffin of a woman murdered in El Salvador -Rage Against the Machine - Against the Culture of Death - Remember

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A Poem for Good Old Goldy

Goldy, David, & Judo (Buddy)

A House Dog's Grave

I've changed my ways a little;

I cannot now Run with you in the evenings along the shore,

Except in a kind of dream; and you, if you dream a moment,

You see me there.

 

So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door

Where I used to scratch to go out or in,

And you'd soon open; leave on the kitchen floor

The marks of my drinking pan.

 

I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do

On the warm stone,

Nor at the foot of your bed;

No, all the nights through I lie alone.

 

 

But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet

Outside your window where firelight so often plays

And where you sit to read and, I fear, often grieving for me--

Every night your lamplight lies on my place.

 

You, man and woman, live so long, it is

Hard to think of you ever dying.

A little dog would get tired, living so long.

I hope that when you are lying

Under the ground like me your lives will appear

As good and joyful as mine.

No, dears, that's too much hope;

You are not so well cared for

 

And never have known the passionate undivided

Fidelities that I knew.

Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided...

But to me you were true.

You were never masters, but friends.

I was your friend. I loved you well, and was loved.

Deep love endures

To the end and far past the end.

If this is my end, I am not lonely. I am not afraid.

I am still yours.

by Robinson Jeffers

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