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Joseph Patrick Meissner, Veteran of Viet Nam What I most remember
about being in the war in Viet Nam is the terrible uncertainty that
burdened all of us soldiers
Would we get through this day? Would we get through this month?
Would our luck run out and we wound up in a body bag?
Almost every American soldier who came to Viet Nam would initially
start a calendar and mark off each day as it went by. Each of us had
a sentence of 365 days. Every day was a minor triumph. Every month
was a victory.
I can remember standing in the hallway of our headquarters building
in Nha Trang City. There was a large display with names on metal
plates attached to the display. These were the soldiers who had
given their lives. I calculated how many soldiers had been in Viet
Nam with my unit and how many had been killed. I tried to figure
what were my chances and probabilities.
Also events could happen very quickly. I remember one young
lieutenant who had only been “in country” for one week. He was sent
out to the border with his unit to take back part of an “A’ Camp
that had been partly overrun a few days before. The enemy was
holding on and seemed determined to wipe out the entire camp. So the
young lieutenant raced up the outer hill of the camp, urging his men
onward, and attacked the enemy holding camp tranches. The enemy
bullets cut into the attackers’ ranks and the lieutenant fell,
mortally wounded. The camp was retaken because of this aggressive
spirit, but at the supreme cost. All the training, all the sweat,
all the courage, and one week was one soldier’s career and life.
Another time on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, the enemy rocketed our
base. All of the base soldiers spent the afternoon and evening
hunkered down in the bunkers in full battle gear. Where was I?
Earlier that day I had a few hours off which allowed me and some
fellow soldiers to head to a sandy white beach several miles away
from the base. So we enjoyed a few hours of rest, a barbecue dinner,
and even swam in the warm bay waters. When we returned late in the
evening, we found the base at full alert. War had these contrasting
moments when one group of soldiers were going through hell while
another group was headed for Rest and Recreation in Bangkok or Hong
Kong.
Many times I took helicopter trips to various places including
remote “A” camps on the borders and returned safely to our base
camp. I marveled at how the pilots flew their patterns and sometimes
dropped to tree level in order to avoid enemy fire. Again we were
playing a form of Russian roulette. Our helicopter made it through,
other copters would be shot down and their passengers wounded or
killed.
For all of us, death was always nearby. Early one morning our base
was rocketed by the enemy. Their normal procedure was to fire a few
long range mortars from the low nearby hills, hurt or kill some of
us, and then race away before we could return fire. At about 7:00, I
headed across the base and approached our office building. In the
roof there was a huge hole. A rocket had smashed into our building
and sprayed deadly fragments everywhere. As one of the other
soldiers reported at the morning briefing, “If we had been at work
earlier, we would all be casualties.”
The strange fact was that anything could happen at any time and in
any place. Even in the “rear areas,” there was always the risk of
death or injury, even while walking down a street filled with
people. At the same time, soldier could go weeks patrolling out in
the jungles and never hear an angry shot or spot enemy activity.
So I endured my time and finally received my orders to return to the
United States. I packed my six boxes of various items, taped them
tight, and sent them to the base post office. All of the boxes
survived and reached my home in Ohio. I bought various gifts and
gave them to the local Vietnamese whom I had come to friends. I had
books and jewelry boxes and other PX items. To one woman who had
been our year long interpreter, I gave her a heavy red English
dictionary.
Later, when she and her family had to leave Viet Nam in 1975, all of
them resettled in our Cleveland area. She had the dictionary with
her.
War is a terrible and unexplainable human activity. There are over
fifty eight thousand American soldiers who gave their lives in Viet
Nam. There are so many wounded and crippled. There are also
thousands of soldiers who came home physically all right, but even
to this day they have not returned in heart and mind. They are the
ongoing victims of the battles. At the same time, many of us forget
there were over 300,000 Vietnamese soldiers who gave their lives in
the war for a free country. And the enemy? They suffered losses of
over 600,000. These statistics do not even begin to count all the
civilians—the old people, and the women and the children—who were
hurt or killed.
It is now over forty years later and yet I can still remember the
smells of colored smokes, the smell of the shells, and the sweet
horrible odor of bodies rotting after a battle. I was lucky and the
roll of the dice has left me alive. Every day I thank God for that
and I try to remember how much I owe to those who did not make it
back alive. Finally, there must be a better way for all of us on
this planet to resolve our problems than to resort to killing and
war.
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