Casualties Of War

War story. (Fiction)

WAR STORY:
Casualties Of War
Robert C Reed

Robert C Reed types his war story on his typewriter. He drifts back to the early 70's, the time of the hippies, Hanoi Jane, Jimmy Hendrix ballads of 'Hey Joe', 'Purple Haze' and 'Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay', wasting time.

It's chaos and carnage. He exhibits that far-away, thousand-yard stare, as he reminisces and writes his war story of Vietnam. Words like, "Napalm sticks to babies," is branded in his brain, chilling voices resonating from POW camp loudspeakers. War is hell! 

Click... click... click... U.S. Army, 5th Special Forces group, Detachment B-43, Chi Lang. Seven Mountains of the Delta, Vietnam -- 25th February 1971. The mission of this 5th Special Forces Detachment was to train Cambodian battalions for redeployment in their home country.

Sergeants Robert Cheatham and Joe Shook had the routine evening patrol. They deployed the 3rd Cambodian Battalion to set up the night ambush as part of a combat training exercise. Cheatham and Shook, along with their interpreter, Pang, found a favorable zone facing a rice paddy dike, tree lines on both sides and overlooking a cow path.

They established a typical field of fire for a line ambush. The main body fingered along the dike and the rear guard on the opposite side of the rice paddy. There was a glitch in the routine. The rear guard lost radio contact with the main body soon after they set up the ambush.

This being the case, they were forced to walk back and forth across the snake-infested rice paddy to use the main group's radio. It was a typical mosquito infested night -- in the life of training the Cambodians in Vietnam.

The continual traffic across the paddy during the night became routine, so routine that when Sergeant Cheatham saw a platoon of soldiers encroaching his position, he concluded that it was his unit until he saw Pang's bug-like eyes widen with fear.

"Hey, what is wrong?" He whispered to Pang.

Pang replied incoherently as Cheatham turned to investigate.

In one glance, he saw that the usual cast of characters was actually a small column of Viet Cong. They wore clad and black pajamas. The gooks trampled through snake-infested rice paddies carrying brown knapsacks and AK-47s. He realized that the s**t was about to hit the proverbial fan.

The VC knew that they had been caught half stepping. Thinking they had walked into the kill zone of an ambush they began to respond. The second line squatted down forcing Cheatham to instinctively grab for his assault weapon. Shook, who had been drinking from his canteen, zipped around to see what all the commotion was about. That was when the VC opened a halo of fire, on full automatic, and sprayed bullets across Cheatham, Pang, and Shook. It was one helluva fire-fight.

Cheatham's body was jerking from the inertial G-force of the rounds hitting him. Joe Shook was down and critically wounded while Pang lay dying in the rice paddy. The Cambodian soldiers laying in ambush, facing the wrong direction, were catapulted into chaos with the commanders down. In spite of his lethal wounds, Sergeant Cheatham crawled to a radio and made an urgent call for help.

An SOS distress call was received by the active duty NCO at the command bunker. The camp was alerted and jerked into action, only to discover that there was no response to their appeal for air support. With nothing immediately available, the frustration wait began for Cheatham and Shook wounded in the rice paddy. Fortunately, for them, the VC had made good their escape during the confusion of the contact.

The two soldiers lay there trying to calm one another. They talked about the seriousness of their wounds and determined that this was the dead end. Shook wished for a final chance to say things to his mom that he had procrastinated about in the past, and Cheatham anticipated a radio reply from Chi Lang.

Finally, two Marine Huey gunships answered the SOS. 50 caliber full metal jackets were loaded with their usual complement of weaponry. The two aircraft touched down at the SF base. In order to perform the rescue, the rocket pods and miniguns had to be removed to reduce the weight of the payload and to make room for the wounded soldiers.

The crew chief, not comfortable with this disarmament, was relieved when the M-60s were left onboard. Captain Purdy, Sergeant Robert C Reed, and I were standing by. Captain Purdy had volunteered to go in on the extraction of Cheatham and Shook to use his expertise to evaluate command and control problems on the ground.

As a 91B4S Medical Specialist, I was going along to evaluate and treat the casualties of war. Before we evacuated the camp, the commander gave us a specific order. "Do NOT stay on the ground!"

Back at the ambush site, the two wounded NCO's heard the crackle of the radio, they concluded that help was on the way. Their immediate thought was, "Our bodies will be extracted and flown back to the states." 

Fortunately, they were able to retrieve and secure their hand-held strobe lights. They maneuvered them into position on their chests pointing skyward.

When we reached the site of the fire-fight the pilots were able to locate the flashing strobe lights to pinpoint the location of the wounded Americans. One of them turned to us and hollered. "Make the pick-up quick. Any sign of trouble and we're out of here."

We could see the bright flashing beacons in the clear night, but they were accompanied by trails of red tracer rounds intermittently piercing the gloom. The distress call had indicated urgency, but there had been no mention of a hot LZ.

The two converted gunships successfully landed 150 meters from the spot where Shook and Cheatham lay wounded. I leaped, sprinted across the rice paddy searching for Joe, as Purdy navigated his way toward Cheatham. My Adrenalin pumped lifeblood through my veins at Mach I.

I was humping a 40-pound medical pack, a CAR-15, and a fully loaded BAR belt and harness system. I dropped to my knees at the side of Sergeant Shook and quickly assessed his medical situation.

The prognosis was bleak. His abdomen looked like meatloaf. It was difficult to establish the entry and exit wounds. The only thing I was sure of was that there were a lot of them. I had another concern. Joe was significantly heavier than I was. Factoring the difference in body weight, the only way to carry him to the hovering helicopter was by improvising a fireman's carry.

Halfway to the chopper, my burden became almost unbearable to handle. Muscle pain was intense, but I knew that Shook was suffering more. The dreaded thought of the skittish Marine pilots taking off without us motivated me to double-time it. The sporadic gunfire continued to rocket rounds our way. I could hear them zoom past my head. Steel metal jackets! I could taste and smell the gunpowder down my throat.

Twenty meters from the helicopter my body began to collapse. My legs failed me. I fell to my knees with Joe and the medical pack in my arms. As I laid there exasperated and belated, two Cambodian soldiers -- boys of 11 and 12 appeared. They assisted me in loading Joe into the Huey. Before the door was securely fastened, the chopper was airborne, it followed an escort chopper carrying Cheatham.

Due to the chaos of the medivac and the fire-fight on the ground, Captain Purdy was appointed field commander. He attempted to gain control over the confounded situation.

Airborne again, the pilot granted permission to turn on a cabin flashlight. I could evaluate the medical situation of Sergeant Shook. A decision had to be made pertaining to -- where to take the wounded soldiers. Should they be taken back to B-43 base camp or escorted to the 3rd Evac hospital.

Shook's condition was terminal. He looked like hamburger meat. I didn't think he would make it to the hospital without fluids. They must have been waiting for a long time. Blood was desperately needed. I announced via the intercom that we were to depart, ASAP, to B-43.

The B-43 team was ready and waiting when we reached the rendezvous point. Double-time they unloaded the two wounded troops onto stretchers and rushed them into the dispensary. Under supervision by our Master Sergeant, everyone pitched in and assisted with the effort to slow the bleeding and patch the superficial wounds.

I screamed, "Start the damn IV!" We had to get these set-up and the bleeding stopped. I established an IV Push on Shook, quickly, but the dispensary Sergeant was having problems getting a vein on Cheatham. He yelled, "I can't do this s**t! Let's get him on a Dustoff to the hospital."

Knowing his veins had probably collapsed while on the table, I screamed loudly, "Do a cut-down! You need to do a cut-down."

Staff Sergeant Peter Follini bellowed for a cut-down kit, but the master sergeant said that he had dismantled them earlier because he had considered them unnecessary. Follini asked a Cambodian medic to go and find a scalpel. Pushing his way to the edge of the table Folini proceeded to do the cut-down on Cheatham. After the procedure was complete, a catheter was threaded into the vein and fluids were "pushed". Thank God for Follini.

The Dustoff helicopters arrived to transport the wounded. We rolled them out to the waiting aircraft and began to load them on board. The pilot of the Medivac shouted over the noise of the engine, "We don't have a medic on board. Sergeant Reed, you've got to come along".

The ship took off a few seconds later for the 3rd Evac Hospital just north of Can To. I rode in the back monitoring vital signs, IV flow and morphine dosage, as the two wounded soldiers continued to fight for their life.

When we set down at the 3rd Evac, Cheatham was rushed immediately into surgery after I gave a synopsis of his medical condition. The severity of the wounds to Shook required that he be taken to the 45th Evac Hospital where they had a gastrointestinal specialist in surgery.

Joe Shook's vitals started to slip during the hour and one-half flight to the 45th. Going forward to the cockpit, I shouted to the pilot over the roar of the straining engines, "Can you kick this contraption in the a*s! We're losing him." The roar grew louder, as I knelt down and began talking to Joe.

Leaning near to his ear and massaging his bandaged scalp, I repeatedly promised, "You'll be okay. I won't let anything happen to you. You're going to make it..."

I attempted to follow Joe through the doors of the operating room, but I was pulled back at the last minute by several people. They thought that I was wounded, but I assured them that I wasn't.

What a sore sight, I was... my uniform stained with blood and field sod. Whatever the reason, I was too exhausted to argue. Seconds later, I collapsed into a somber sleep in a nearby hangar. That was the last time I saw Joe Shook.

Twenty-five years later, promises I had made to Shook haunted me. They existed in my sub conscience thoughts in the form of flashbacks and night tremors. 

Thinking about Sergeant Shook... did I make the right choices in that crisis?"

I never knew how to go about getting in contact with Shook. I always wondered if he survived. We were 'brothers in arms' in Nam.

On 8th August 1996, my companion and cohabitant, Vicki Andrews, was viewing e-mails on her desktop computer. Inquisitively, I asked her if there was any chance that she could find people.

"Of course," she replied. That started my search. She contacted people via e-mail, news media, and the world wide web. She posted messages on military bulletin boards and conducted a database search of U.S. telephone directories. That did it She was able to locate nine people named Joe Shook. I had clues in my hand, addresses, and telephone numbers. It was a good start.

The second call I made was to the only Joe D. Shook (I knew the middle initial was "D" from the military orders I had) on the list. 

I think my first statement was, "Are you the same Joe Shook that served in Special Forces and was wounded at Chi Lang, B-43?" A long, awkward pause followed. He replied, "Yes!"

"Well, I'm Robert C Reed. I carried you out the bush that night."

There was anticipation and celebration in our voices as we communicated. Feelings and flashbacks flooded back... I was standing in the middle of a Vietnam rice paddy decades ago. The dam broke, tears trickled down my face like sap oozing from a maple tree. Panic and happiness set in.

He was emotional. He told me that he had never forgotten my words of courage, to keep fighting and never surrender. These memories of that night twenty-five years ago. He had desired to meet his hero some day, to reunite with his brother in arms that saved him, gave him hope and courage to live. 

Through Joe, I learned of Cheatham and told him that I would look him up on the internet as well. We found the listing for Cheatham, and I was able to locate him the next night on my second call. The search escalated. I contacted several platoon buddies serving in SF Detachment B-43. We reunited, at a reunion, at the Vietnam War Memorial IN D.C. on June 6. That was our deliverance day!

Author's Note

This is a work in progress. there is plenty room for improvement. Suggestions and grammar corrections much appreciated. I will improve it. Enjoy!

Reviews

[Michele Harman]

This was pretty good. Just a few notes to start out with. You need some explanations in places for instance I know that a NCO stands for Non commissioned officer, but not every reader will so some explanation would be necessary. Some dialogue would be good. For instance when you are talking about turning the flashlight on you could have the character ask for permission to turn the light on and the pilot give the permission. Then go in to say how the character looked. You have the facts down very well in the story but not the emotions. Which can be hard but simple things can change it for instance you can say" I felt sick to my stomach as I looked at Shook. He looked more like hamburger than human and i doubted h would make it through the flight. Facts set your story in motion but emotion tends to get the reader to come back for more. Its a really good draft, please do not take my suggestions wrong.

[MightyMouse]

I'm sorry to say I disagree with your previous reviewer. This almost made me cry. I think it is wonderful, it was so well told it made me wonder if it actually happened. I know it didn't, but still. There could be explanations for some of the abbreviations, but I don't think any war hero telling their story would really bother with those kinds of details. When someone gets really into a story, they don't realize that half the things they're saying don't make sense to other people unless those people ask questions. So maybe (as a suggestion) have him actually speaking his story to an audience and have the audience ask him questions throughout to explain those little details. Of course, it sounds fine without that, but just incase you really want to change it.