Tag: Viet Nam War

Paco’s Story, by Larry Heinemann – 1986 [Paul Bacon] [Updated post…]

(First posted in November of 2017, “this” revision includes an excerpt from Larry Heinemann’s novel…)

God’s Marvellous Plan.
Our man Paco, not dead but sure as shit should be,
lies flat on his back and wide to the sky,
with slashing lacerations,
big watery burn blisters,
and broken, splintered, ruined legs.
He wallows in this greasy, silken muck that covers him
and everything else for a stone’s throw and dries to a stinking sandy crust.
He lies there that night and all the next day,
the next night and half the second day,
with his heels hooked on a gnarled, charred,
nearly fire-hardened vine root; immobile.
And he comes to consciousness in the dark of that first long night
with a heavy dew already soaked through the rags of his clothes,
and he doesn’t know what hit him.

Am I ever fucked up, he thinks to himself,
but he doesn’t so much say this or even think it as he imagines looking down at his own body,
seeing – vividly – every gaping shrapnel nick,
every pucker burn scar,
every splintery compound fracture.

And at first he encounters his whole considerable attention on listening –
for the cries, the hoarse, gulped breathing,
the whispering supplication of the other wounded,
for water,
for Jigs the medic,
for God’s simple mercy.
(Swear to God, James, you have not heard anything in this life
until you have heard small clear voices in the dark of night calling distinctly, “Help me, please” –
though they say the crying of wounded horses is worse.
Paco waits with closed eyes and stilled breath,
to shiver and be appalled at the dry raspy voices;
waits patiently to whisper back in answer.
But he hears, of course, nothing.
(pp. 18-19)

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Paul Bacon’s cover art

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Larry Heinemann

Starlight, by Scott Ely – 1987 [John Dispenza] [Updated post…]

(“This” post was created in November of 2017.  It’s now been updated, to include an excerpt from Scott Ely’s novel…)

Jackson walked across the compound toward the bunker line,
looking for a bunker that looked like the one he had just seen in the scope. 
Suddenly mortar rounds started dropping. 
Jackson dived into the nearest shelter, a recoilless rifle emplacement. 
The firebase’s mortars and 105s replied.

“Hey, it’s fucking Alabama,” a soldier said.

“Hale kick you out of the TOC?” another soldier asked.

“I –“ Jackson began.

Rounds began to drop close to the emplacement and men scrambled for cover. 
Jackson heard the shrapnel whistle overhead.

“Get the fuck out of here, Alabama!”, a soldier yelled. 
“You’re drawing fire just like fucking Light.”

The firing had stopped and someone shoved Jackson out of the emplacement.

“Go get somebody else fucked,” a voice yelled after him.

Jackson ran for the radar bunker.

Alfred could still be all right. 
Maybe it was the next incoming that was going to get him, Jackson thought.

But when Jackson reached the radar bunker,
he found the bunker had taken a direct hit which had collapsed the roof. 
A group of soldiers were already trying to dig out Alfred’s body.

I don’t want to know this fucking shit before it happens, Jackson thought,
gasping for breath.

Jackson returned to the TOC and sat up on the roof for a long time in the light rain. 
Although he kept turning the starlight on, it remained dark.

After Alfred’s death Jackson wanted to put the starlight away and never look at it again. 
He understood why Light wanted to get rid of it
and how Light had known nothing was going to happen to him
all those times Jackson had gone out in the bush to meet him. 
But other soldiers had died during the attack,
and who was to say one of them, not Alfred,
was the doomed soldier he had watched in the scope. 
The soldier might have died somewhere else, at Firebase Mary Lou or even in Laos.

Yet every night, Jackson looked at the scope because he wanted to know what the future held for him. 
But he never saw himself in the scope, although he saw other soldiers die,
always shadowy forms whose identities were uncertain. 
Jackson was sure he would recognize himself if he appeared in the scope. 
Jackson was never more afraid, choking and gasping for breath,
than when he watched a doomed man’s image take form in the scope.

But Jackson gave no more warnings. 
He had learned how useless that was by his experience with Alfred. 
He never knew for sure who was going to die. 
No one would believe him, and soon his reputation would be similar to Light’s. 
Hale might banish him to the jungle.

Every night Jackson called Light on the radio but received no reply.  
He thought about going out to find Light but Light had warned him to stay at the firebase. 
Perhaps Light had seen something in the scope.

So Jackson kept watching men die in the scope,
the starlight glowing the green light,
the men’s bodies torn by shrapnel or bullets,
and as the glow faded and the screen turned dark,
Jackson was left breathless and afraid.  (pp. 130-131)

Dirty Work, by Larry Brown – 1989 [Glennray Tutor]

“I was in a rifle company. 
Joined the marines when I was eighteen. 
I had to go. 
The army was fixing to draft me. 
Back when they had that lottery system, my birthday was number one. 
And hell, I’d already had my physical. 
I was 1-A. 
So I knew I was gone. 
The lady who ran the draft board in town called my mama and told her I had about two weeks to join something if I wanted to, because after that the army would get me. 
So I joined the marines. 
I figured they were the toughest thing going. 
My old man, he … he really resisted me going. 
Both of them did. 
It was getting worse and worse all the time. 
I guess you were over there before I was. 
He was in World War II. 
He stayed in for four years. 
Walked all the way across Europe with the infantry, was wounded once. 
He knew what it was like to have to fight with a rifle. 
He taught me how to shoot. 
We’d hunt squirrels with a .22. 
Shoot em in the head.
“He was in prison for a while. 
A long time ago. 
Twice.

“I was over there within six months. 
Did it smell like something dead the whole time you were over there? 
Same here. 
I thought I’d never get out of there alive. 
I couldn’t sleep for a long time. 
I couldn’t sleep at all without a rifle next to me. 
I was usually always the biggest so I usually always kept the M60. 
Twenty-six pounds. 
I loved that damned gun. 
Kept it clean. 
I could by God shoot it, too.”

– Larry Brown –

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Larry Brown (Photo by Susie James)