The Book Shop

 

Stars and Stripes and Shadows: How I Remember Vietnam

Tim Haslam

 FormatISBN Price  
This Book is Available Paperback (6x9)9781425963095 £ 13.10  
This Book is Available Dust Jacket Hardcover (6x9)9781434361714 £ 16.30  
About the Book

     1968 for me was not simply the year I found myself away from home for the first time.  It was not just the year I donned the uniform of a soldier and took up arms against communist aggression, traveling to the jungles of Southeast Asia to do my patriotic duty.  To characterize that year merely as my coming of age fails to recognize the significance of the year itself.  Few intervals of similar duration in the history of our nation have been as important as those twelve months.  Perhaps only 1776 surpasses 1968 in its impact on who and what we as a nation will become thereafter.  The eras of the Civil War and the two World Wars, although of equal or greater significance unfolded over longer spans of time, each more gradually evolving the beliefs and practices of American citizens.  1968 seems to have struck with impatient tenacity, delivering to the United States of America a wake up call from our cultural complacency and the natural acceptance of our assumed righteousness.

     1968 began the polarization of America.  Neutrality of belief or philosophy was no longer to be valued or even tolerated.  The lines were being drawn; lines between left and right; between the old and the new, between generations and perhaps even between clarity and confusion.  What we were as a people, who we were and what we stood for was cast in 1968 under the unflattering spotlight of war and internal conflict as a reaction to that war.

     College students, the children of World War II veterans, raised their voices in opposition to the edicts of the American Government.  Extremists took matters into their own hands and murdered Martin Luther King Junior and Robert Kennedy.  American soldiers committed atrocities at My Lai that shocked a citizenry unable to accept this dissonant view of Americans in uniform and our military and governmental leaders threw up their hands behind closed doors, coming to the same conclusion; we can’t win this war.  On the home front popular music transitioned away from the malt-shop themes of the fifties and early sixties and became a vehicle for conveying political messages, for drawing young people away from the dreamy and into the heuristic.  Being twenty-one in America in 1968 was different than being twenty-one in America in 1967 or any time before. 

     American soldiers in Vietnam in 1968 were caught in a vortex of three worlds; the remembered world they left back home, the real world of violent struggles within the jungles, villages and rice paddies of South Vietnam and the rapidly transitioning world of the United States of America, nine-thousand miles away.

     This is the story of one twenty-one year old American caught in that vortex.

About the Author

     Tim Haslam is the foremost authority on his own life and little else.  He is the keeper of his remembrances; the chief archivist of his dreams and one of the two-and-a-half million qualified experts who can describe the context of the Vietnam War.  He is a writer now because he wanted to tell his story.  He has learned to write telling it; crafting it with color and shade, detail and nuance, image and imagination.  He is a writer now because he wanted to do this right, because he wanted to take his readers to a distant time and place and to help them transcend into that world for a little while; to share in it, to feel it, to think about it perhaps in relationship to the world of today.  He wanted his wife, his sons and his friends to know.  He wanted to see what he could remember.  He wanted to see.

     Tim Haslam has lived the American dream.  Born in Hollywood, California into a comfortable middle class world and raised along with his sister in a traditional suburban household almost as stereotypical of the times as those portrayed on Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver.  His father, Courtney, an executive at 20th Century Fox Studios, kept the excitement and adventure of the motion picture industry close at hand for the family and Tim’s summer jobs at the Studio furthered his appreciation for the arts and crafts associated with molding facts and fantasy into visualizations.

     The only real threat to the American dream came in the Fall of 1967 when Tim, along with thousands of other Americans was drafted into the Army and sent off as an infantryman to Vietnam.  He returned in 1969 to a polarized America, a youth-led cultural revolution and an atmosphere of complexity and doubt unknown to him prior to his experiences in Vietnam.

     With his separation from the military in 1969 he returned to college during this era of revolution, graduating with a degree in Psychology in 1973.  With a college degree in hand but still unsure of his calling and unclear on his aspirations he went out into the world at twenty-seven years of age and looked for work.  He began a business career that has continued to the present, adding a Master’s Degree along the way and working his way up into management and leadership positions.

     Today he continues living the dream in Walnut Creek, California with his wife Diana and his teenage sons Alec and Austin.  He’s a husband, a dad, shortstop on the softball team in the over-forty league and a Director with Kaiser Permanente.  He reads and studies American history and has developed a particular interest in how Americans behave during times of national conflict.

Free Preview

     The patrol and all its discoveries have been put out of my mind as I sit up here on top of our bunker enjoying the quiet pre-twilight atmosphere.  The irritation from the ant bites has faded sufficiently to be indistinguishable from the more general discomforts arrayed over my body.  My attention now is on a new patch of red down on my ankle, just above my left foot.  I don’t remember it being there yesterday and it itches like crazy.  Scraping away at it with my filthy fingernail provides a brief moment of ecstasy.  Maybe I should have Doc take a look at this?

     The radio interrupts my medical evaluation.  An ambush patrol is heading out, two squads from Six-One Platoon on their way down through the LZ.  I’m glad it’s not me.  I’m glad I can sit here, my boots off, smoking a cigarette, deriving pleasure scratching at the little raised, red circle on my ankle.

     “Hey, Doc, take a look at this,” I say to Doc after several more minutes of studying and scratching, after the pleasure of the effort has diminished.

     “It might be ringworm,” Doc says, reaching for his medical bag.

     As Doc starts fishing around inside the bag, another call over the radio gets our attention.

     “Six-Charlie, this is Six-Zero-Charlie…one of our men’s pretty sick.  He’s throwing up.  Sergeant Wells is going to help him back up to your position…over.”

     “Roger that, Six-Zero-Charlie.  How far out are you?  Over.”

     “We’re maybe two-hundred meters down.  Over.”

     “Roger.  Out.”

     The alert goes out that the two men are heading back up toward us.  Everyone that heard the call over the radio wonders what the source of the man’s sickness is; food, water, Malaria?  For some reason I want to get my boots back on. 

     “Let’s deal with this later, Doc.”

     The two men should be getting close now and we’re all curious to find out who it is that’s sick…how sick…why?

     Doc and I have walked over closer to the LZ to see what’s happened. I lug the radio along to keep up with the communications that may clarify things.  There’s just enough daylight left to see out over the LZ, to see the edge of the tree line where we know the trailhead to be.  We’re still walking when an explosion down to the southeast drops us reflexively down into the closest foxhole.

     “Six-Zero-Charlie, this is Six-Charlie…what was that?  Give me a sitrep.  Over.”

     “This is Six-Zero-Charlie…I don’t know.  It was something back up the trail.  It must be Wells and Harrison.  We’re going back up there.  Over.”

     Most of the Bravo Company grunts have gathered over on this side of the Roost with weapons at the ready.  We all know from the sound of the explosion that it was not a mortar round but we’re not really sure what it was or exactly how far away it was.

     “Six-Charlie, this is Six-Zero-Charlie…we’ve reached Wells and Harrison.  Wells must have stepped on a mine and they’re both in pretty bad shape.  Wells’ foot is pretty much blown off and Harrison took a lot of shrap in his chest.  We’re gonna get them back up there as fast as we can.  You need to get a dust-off bird up there.  Over.”

     “Roger that.  Do you want any more medics down there? Over.”

     “Negative, Doc’s doing everything that can be done.  We just need to get them back up there fast.  We’ve got ponchos for litters.  Wells seems to be doing OK but Doc says that Harrison’s going into shock.”

     Fortunately, a medical team had been up at Dak Pek all day inoculating the Yards against something.  Their chopper was just about to head back when our call came in.  They can be up here in six minutes.  That’s about how long it will take the Six-Zero guys to get back up to the LZ. 

     The rest of the guys in Six-Zero hurry down across the clearing and down onto the trail to meet their men coming up.  Doc Charlebois, several others and I make our way down to the edge of the clearing to see if we can help in any way.  Others are spread around the LZ, some with flashlights to help guide the helicopter onto the darkening landing area. 

     “Get a bunch of trip flares ready,” the Captain yells out.  “Spread them around the LZ and set them off as the chopper gets close!” 

     Lieutenant Reese hurries down toward the LZ, his hands full of Starshell flares.  As soon as he reaches the center he drops all but one that he has a firm grasp on.  He slams up the palm of his hand against the lower end of the flare shaft and the skyrocket whooshes out, twisting up above the trees, bursting at its apogee, lighting up the anxious scene.

     Our bunker and trench covered anthill has been transformed by the exploding mine and its aftershocks.  Every one of the inhabitants is somehow engaged.  There are no passive spectators.  More and more men head down toward the trailhead, not to watch but to help.  Others stand by with flares.  Others watch for the inbound chopper, ready to help guide it onto the ground.  The headquarters RTOs are all on their radios coordinating the traffic, alerting people miles to the south of us that wounded men are coming.

     The men with the first litter break out of the trees, obviously exhausted but unwilling to relinquish their hold on the corners of the poncho.  The slippery, narrow trail made it impossible for more than four men to bare the burdens up this far.  As they break out into the clearing others quickly jump in to help.  Men grab at each side.  Two others take hold of the front aiding in the climb up the steep, slippery slope.  The going is still slow and arduous.  There’s no room left for others to assist with the litters, so we assist the men carrying the load.

     Doc and I each reach out to the men on the front corners.  They grasp our hands with their free hands and we add our strength to their effort.  Others quickly come down and grasp our hands.  More and more men come down, reaching out, coupling with the growing chain of determined grunts hauling the wounded men up toward the LZ.  Burning trip flares on the ground and parachute flares falling from above illuminate the human train pulling the men upward.  The spotlight of the hovering Huey adds to the light and shadow array that accompanies the desperate struggle.

     The Huey’s down on the LZ.  The poncho litters are handed off quickly and just as quickly the medevac chopper lifts up and away from the company of frustrated grunts shrinking away below it, fading under the final sputters of the dieing flares, fading back into the blackness of this Ranger’s Roost place; this useless, piece-of-shit place that has just brought out the best in all of us.

     “Harrison’s dead,” Doc Hayes says to us, his eyes tearing up, as we make our way back toward the bunkers.  “He was dead before we reached the clearing.  He didn’t seem to be wounded that bad.  I just couldn’t keep him out of shock.  He was out of it by the time I got to him.  We had to get him back up.  It was too dark.  I didn’t have a chance to do anything for him.”

      Big Doc, as Hayes is known within the Company, needs somehow to feel responsible.  We know and he knows that there was nothing else, nothing more he could have done.  He’s not a doctor, and even if he was he couldn’t counteract the effects of an antipersonnel mine, hidden on a jungle trail, exploding its contents into the fragile tissues of a human body only a few feet away.  He didn’t have the right tools and equipment and chemicals within his little bag to stabilize the damaged man out there in the dark wet jungle.  He never had a chance to ask Harrison where it hurt.

     “What about Wells?”  I ask him.

     “That guy’s somethin’ else, man.  When we got up to them, he was sitting up against a tree, smoking a cigarette.  His foot was pretty much gone.  He’d already fashioned a tourniquet out of a bandolier strap and was talking to Harrison, trying to calm him down.  He didn’t even want any morphine until we were almost back up here.  The pain was getting pretty bad then.  I gave him a Syrette.  He’ll be all right.  He’s one tough mother fucker.”

     “Was it a mine?  What happened?” Doc Charlebois asks.

     “Don’t really know.  Wells didn’t know.  He stepped on something that exploded, lifting him up and forward with most of the blast and shrapnel going back behind him into Harrison.  It could have been a mine…probably was.  It could have been a dud mortar round too.  I don’t know.”

     “You did a good job,” Charlebois says to his brother medic.  “There’s nothing anybody could have done out there.”

     “I know man…I know.  Still, that guy shouldn’t have died.  He wasn’t hurt that bad.”

     “Maybe there was more to the damage than you could see,” Charlebois suggests.  “Maybe a little piece had penetrated an organ or an artery inside or something.  There’s nothing anybody could have done.”

     “I don’t know man.  I don’t know…maybe.”

 

     It will be our last night at the Roost.  We’ll leave tomorrow, to be replaced by grunts from the First of the Eighth.  Our last night here is long, each of us sitting somewhere in the dark solitude of this isolated mountaintop contemplating what happened. A lot of tears tonight; for Harrison, for Wells, for whoever’s next, for whoever’s imprisoned out here in this hostile land.  Each of us is remembering the times our own feet stepped along that same trail. How close did I come?  How come it wasn’t me?  Each of us replays the residual images of flares and spotlights; of the Huey burrowing bravely down out of the night sky; of poncho litters jostled along by exhausted men struggling up through the mud; of anxious eyes watching the medevac helicopter probing it’s way back up through the trees, hopeful ears following the hum and rotor pop fading away to the south toward the 71st Evac.  I will forever carry these pictures in my mind.  It will be one of the worst and best things I have ever experienced.  Another day in the Nam.