Uncle Sam
Ain’t Released Me Yet
Memoirs of a REMF
Copyright©
2016 by Robert B. Martin, IV
All
Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express
written permission from the copyright owner, except for the use of brief
quotations in a book review or scholarly journal. I have attempted to recreate
events, locales, and conversations from my memories of them.
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Chapter 46
The
Orphanage in Hue
“A child who has seen war cannot be compared
with a child who doesn’t know what war is except, from television.”................Sophia
Loren
The Kim Long Catholic
Orphanage was—and still is—located on the Southeastern side of Hue, about 12 miles from Phu Bai. The Sisters
of St. Paul de Chartres operated—and I suppose still do—this very crowded orphanage,
where most of the children were war orphans. The children slept on pallets
placed side-by-side on the floor, which made it difficult to walk through the
rooms without stepping on someone. The orphanage was built in the French Colonial
style and sat beside the Perfume River, which contrary to its name, smelled
like an open sewer.
Our battalion donated
money and supplies to the orphanage and Headquarters Battery “adopted” two little
boys named Bac and Ben; both were about five or six years old. They spoke no
English and rarely uttered a word in any language.
It was customary for
someone from the battery to drive to the orphanage on Sunday and bring them
back to Camp Eagle for the day. The sisters would have them bathed and dressed
in their tailor-made jungle fatigues sporting various 101st Airborne Division
patches. They looked like miniature 101st troopers; I guess you could say they
were our battery mascots. They got plenty to eat, candy, a toy or two, but most
of all, a lot of attention when they visited at Camp Eagle.
I made the Sunday trip
to Hue many times, usually with Ray Orchelle driving the BC’s jeep. On the
drive into Hue, we would pass the Notre Dame Cathedral, an impressive structure,
which combined a distinct Oriental flavor with French architecture.
After passing the
Cathedral, the highway followed the Perfume River for about two miles before
crossing the bridge into Hue proper. Small houses lined the river, and behind
each house was a long, narrow pier made of scrap lumber suspended a few feet
above the river by bamboo poles. At the end of each pier, was a small structure
about the size of a closet with a tin roof. These small structures were the
reasons for the Perfume River smelling like a sewer. They were Vietnamese
outhouses. The human waste dropped straight into the Perfume River.
On
one of our trips to the orphanage, we passed by a troop of Boy Scouts. The boys
wore Vietnamese Boy Scout uniforms and had pitched their tents in a cemetery
amid the tombstones. Flying from some of the taller tombstones were colorful
troop flags and guidons. I couldn’t believe it; the Boy Scouts were actually
camping in a cemetery! The scene was rather ironic to me. Boy Scouts camped in
a cemetery with a war going on around them.
We
were required to carry our weapons when outside the gates of Camp Eagle. I
always carried my M-16 and a couple of bandoliers of ammunition (just in case).
Ray, as I have already remarked, only carried his .45 caliber semi-automatic
pistol. Ray loved that pistol and seemed to think it was all he needed when
outside the wire of Camp Eagle. When Ray wasn’t busy, he was constantly
breaking down and cleaning his pistol. Anyone with a question or a problem with
a .45 caliber pistol went to see Ray. He was our unofficial expert.
It was necessary to
chain and padlock the spare gas can that was carried on the back of the jeep
when driving outside of Camp Eagle. Kids would steal the gas can from the rear
of the jeep when you stopped in traffic if it wasn’t locked. It only took them
a few seconds to grab it, and chasing the thieves was out of the question
because the jeep might not be there when you returned. One day, on a trip into Hue,
Ray and I stopped at the PX, made some purchases, and placed the shopping bags
in the back of the jeep before continuing on to Hue. I had a new 35mm SLR camera
(Yashica DL Super) and wanted to stop at the Cathedral to take some photos. Although
stopping to sightsee was against military rules, as long as the MP’s didn’t
drive by, we would be okay.
The attack happened
suddenly. I had just stepped out of the jeep to take the photographs when Ray
and I were taken completely by surprise. They seemed to come out of nowhere and
had us surrounded before we knew what was happening. Hands were reaching for us
and into the jeep for our belongings. I had to do something fast, so I grabbed
my M-16, clicked off the safety, and fired a round into the air. It frightened
the mob of kids and they ran, which is exactly what Ray and I had to do. We had
to get out of there before anyone else—such as the MP’s—arrived. We continued
on to the orphanage without shooting any kids, picked up Bac and Ben, and
safely returned to Camp Eagle with them.
On another Sunday, I
was getting ready to go into Hue for Bac and Ben, but Ray was unable to go for a
reason I don’t remember. Two other GIs (I don’t remember their names) were
going with me. One of the two (let’s call him Joe) thought it would be cool to
strap a .45 on his hip, so he borrowed one from 1SG Corbett. As I said, 1SG Corbett
was a very nice guy. As we were getting our gear together, Joe loaded the .45’s
magazine, slid it into the pistol, and pulled the slide back to chamber a round.
The pistol jammed when he released the slide and he was unable to clear the jam.
Someone suggested that we take it down to Ray’s hooch and let him help us. After
all, Ray was our unofficial expert.
We found Ray in his
hooch and Joe asked him if he would clear the jam. As Ray took the pistol, I
said, “Ray, there is a round in the chamber,” but I don’t know if he heard me
or not. The three of us were standing in a semi-circle facing Ray. He gripped the
weapon in his right hand and quickly slapped the business end of the barrel
against his open left palm. The slide snapped closed, the weapon discharged in
an ear splitting explosion, and the bullet passed through Ray’s left hand, the
wall of the hooch, and into the sandbags around the outside wall. Ray
immediately dropped the pistol and grabbed his left hand with his right. Before
he had fallen to his knees, I was shouting “MEDIC!” as loud as I could.
The time from the
weapon’s discharge until I yelled for the medic couldn’t have been more than a
second or two, if that. Blood was spurting from the hole in Ray’s hand. Ray’s
laundry bag was hanging on the wall, next to where he had fallen. I reached
into the bag and grabbed a handful of dirty underwear, and while Joe held Ray’s
arm up, I packed underwear on both sides (entry and exit wounds) of Ray’s left
hand and applied pressure until the medics arrived. They grabbed a roll of tape,
and without removing the dirty—and now bloody—underwear, they wound the tape
tightly around Ray’s underwear-bandaged hand. They placed him on a stretcher
and the last image I remember of Ray as they carried him off was of him lying
on the stretcher and pointing to the sky with what appeared to be a basketball
in his hand.
It was a “million-dollar
wound,” and it got Ray out of Vietnam. After being treated at the Evacuation
Hospital, he was flown to a military hospital in Japan for surgery. He was
extremely fortunate as the bullet passed clean through the hand, apparently
without hitting any bone, which made clean and neat entry and exit wounds. A
bullet normally does much more damage upon exit from the body than it does upon
entry, but not in this case. He was sent back to the World after his surgery,
and I later heard that he recovered most of the function of his left hand after
about a year of rehabilitation therapy at a VA hospital. I don’t remember if we
still made the trip to Hue or not.
The accidental
shooting attracted a lot of attention. Mostly the unwanted type. The Army was
required to conduct an investigation to determine whether the wound had been
accidental as reported or intentionally self-inflicted to get out of Vietnam. Agents
from the Army’s CID (Criminal Investigation Division) showed up within a couple
of days. They interrogated 1SG Corbett and the three of us who were standing
with Ray when the weapon discharged. We signed written statements after the
interrogations, and the CID agents then left. The CID found the wound to be accidental
rather than intentional, and I never heard any more about the incident.
The bullet had passed
more than a few inches from where the three of us were standing. I thanked my
lucky stars that the bullet’s trajectory sent it through the wall of the hooch
instead of through me or one of the other guys.
Continued in Chapter 47, The State Flag Debacle.…
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