Vietnam: New Year’s Eve in 1969, our platoon was out in the “boonies,” waiting in ambush for the Viet Cong (VC) to move at night, since they didn’t recognize New Year’s Eve as we do. I was on guard, and since it was the dry season and Vietnam in the tropics, there was not a cloud, enabling the heavens to be ablaze with stars — much more than you can count. Most dim, some bright. Most far away, some near. Most stars, a few planets.
These were the same heavens seen by Mary and Joseph, and the Wise Men and the shepherds, plus the goats and the sheep, and maybe a rooster or two with hens about. The very same. I thought about that, as the stars did their dance.
Looking up, I observed the Milky Way, our galaxy, which resembled a cloud of bright and dim lights, arcing across the heavens. I could identify some constellations, especially Orion slowly traversing the sky. I had not known that it moved (to our eyes), but being up on guard twice a night, I saw that it did.
Seen without the interference of city lights at night, our luminous skies continue to be a sight to behold and connect us to the ancients.
Around my platoon that New Year’s Eve, it was stone-cold quiet. Not even a whisper of merriment. We were far away from villages, so no sound of people or of animals. No sound of gunfire. No choppers firing in the distance with their tracers illuminating brighter but briefer than the stars. No sound from the jungle, not even from my favorite, the F… You Lizard. It was quiet. Spooky.
We were not in the jungle, but in the savannah, or in what presumably had been rice fields, just outside the jungle. We had a clear view, and we thought the VC would have seen us move into position after our choppers dropped us off. Our mission: reconnaissance. We were to search for VC activity. Not only did the VC know our location, they knew our small number.
At the “guard” position, I had my M-16, of course, my ammo belt, and our platoon’s radio, which I knew well since I was our platoon’s RTO (Radio Telephone Operator). Carefully arranged there on an empty, canvas claymore bag were 3 or 4 fragmentation grenades; 2 or 3 flares (an illumination parachute flare in case we were attacked so our choppers overhead could see our attackers in the darkness; and a starburst flare to mark our position for choppers at night in case of attack or to pick up wounded; please Google them); and about five or ten clackers, each pointing in the direction in which the claymore mine fired. All laid out in a series of concentric circles, so the person on guard, regardless of how dark it was, could find what was needed, and fire.
All of that was routine. Every night we laid out all of this in the same way at the guard position, whether we were in a c. 6-man team, c. 12-man squad, or c. 20-man platoon. One could not be fumbling around in the dark. Seconds mattered.
I think of that tonight, this New Year’s Eve. “The past is not dead,” wrote William Faulkner, “It is not even past.” Today I can’t even remember the names of some guys in my platoon, but at that time, I would have given my life to help one of them if wounded or maybe killed, and they (I trust) would have done the same for me. I know because I did it. That’s what a good soldier does.
You play hurt. I learned that lesson in life while playing football at The Lovett School in Atlanta. I remember going back out on the field after a punt, and my leg gave way, for I had been hit in the back of my thigh, but you didn’t let it show. You sucked it up. You managed to play.
Other platoons may have been similar or different, but that’s the way ours was. As at Lovett, it was my team. In Vietnam, the stakes were life and death, but regardless, you sucked it up and played.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George W. McDaniel, PhD, is the President of McDaniel Consulting, LLC, a strategy firm that helps organizations use history to build bridges within itself and to its broader constituents. For 25 years, he served as the Executive Director of Drayton Hall, a historic site in Charleston, SC. A native of Atlanta, he earned a BA from Sewanee, a MAT (history) from Brown University, and PhD (history) from Duke. Interspersed through those years were travels to many places — Europe, Africa, Vietnam — where he saw peace and war and learned by experience about cultural differences and commonalities. For 40 years, he built a career working in education and history museums, beginning with the Smithsonian Institution, and earning awards at the local, state, and national levels.
A frequent writer, speaker, and facilitator, reach him at gmcdaniel4444@gmail.com or through his website www.mcdanielconsulting.net.
Images courtesy of the author unless otherwise noted.
McDaniel Consulting LLC is a strategy firm that helps organizations use history to build bridges within itself and its broader constituents. 