Bill McComber on Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a tough day for me.

It recalls to mind a different time in my life. Remembering can be a curse when you spent the first 20 years after being in Viet Nam trying to forget it.

It's even worse when you get mad at yourself for not being able to remember now that I try to bring it all back. It's strange that you forget so many things you want to remember and remember so much that you really want to forget.I didn't even spend a full year there, just 10 months and a few wake ups in sunny Southeast Asia. I came back physically whole. By the grace of God, barely adequate training and just plain dumb luck, I wasn't wearing a "tag" when I arrived back in the world in late October of 1968.

I suffered no more than a moderate hearing loss, a gash on the head and since, 33 years of mixed emotions and memories. I was cursed at and pissed on while standing in full dress greens at parade rest at the Pentagon in 1967 and cursed at and spit on upon my return to California in 1968. Those two events probably shaped my memory of my service time.

But Memorial Day is not a day for my self-evaluation or selfish thoughts. It's a day of remembering other people, other places, thoughts of other events.

I remember the heat. Heat that kept you from catching a full breath and held you in a vice as you stepped off that plane at Tan Son Nhut airbase. A blast furnace heat that slapped you in the face and sapped your strength so that you were always one step beyond exhaustion. Heat that deprived you of sleep and numbed your brain. Heat that made 70 degrees feel like freezing cold. My parents wondered where I was when I sent for long johns....

I remember the lush green mountains that always went up, never down. The red clay earth that when wet could immobilize any piece of machinery you could stick in it, when dry produced towering clouds of dust you choked on....

I remember the sun. The sun that created the most spectacular sunrises and sunsets I've ever been blessed to witness. A sun so bright you could feel the brightness, sense it through layers of canopy casting its rays through the myriad shadows, fading your fatigues and turning your skin to leather....

I remember the rice paddies, the terraces so beautiful from the air. They could get you killed or save your life, dikes that would stop bullets or leave you exposed if you chose to walk on them...

I remember the smells, an ethereal mixture of diesel fuel, sweat, charcoal, rotting vegetation and human waste....and the bugs they wrought, especially the pesky mosquitoes and gnats....and the disease they brought....

I remember the rain, rain that finally broke the intolerable heat and then never stopped. Rain that was as gentle as silk or as stinging as a wasp's nest. Along with the rain, the lightning and thunder. God warning us. The rains that cleansed your body and soul but created the mire that rotted the skin on your feet....

I remember the moon that shone so bright you could read a map by its light. The moonlight dancing on the foliage so that you saw beauty one moment and imagined slinking VC the next....

I remember the beauty of the orange and green tracers dancing lazily through the night sky, at the same time the prayers that none would come to roost with me....I remember the colors and sounds of explosions, close at hand. The white center bleeding out to a yellow ring surrounded by black rolling smoke. So beautiful and terrifying at the same time. The sound of a hundred freight trains all crashing at once. The ringing in my head that has never quite gone away....

But above all, I remember the people. The faces, the personalities and human events which still crowd my memories and dreams with pleasure and pain. I can remember entire conversations and events in explicit detail. But, I cannot remember the last names of those who were my brothers that short, short year. I try to remember but can't and don't know why--we knew each other so well. Shouldn't all this be the other way around?

I remember Hagbag, who was leaving as I was arriving, but took the time to help me find my way.

I remember Fat Eddy, who drove a jeep over a buried 105 shell buried in the road.

I remembered the kid from New York, who with his guitar helped transform some of our evenings into near normalcy.

I remember holding my best friend, Jerry, a quiet guy from Moline who assured me I was all right after he had just stepped on a bobby trap that blew away his legs. He died on the slick ride back to Pleiku. Jerry, I called your wife yesterday. She says she still loves you.

I remember Dusty, who fell asleep on guard duty one night after 48 straight hours of duty. Dusty, God forgive me for not doing more to get you out of LBJ. And Smitty and the other guy who were standing watch in a guard tower in the middle of the night, but forgot to look straight down. And so many others that are just a blank spot in my mind....

I remember Rousseau, a gentle bear of a black man who transformed our rations from unpalatable to bearable and cooked us feasts at least once a week. So likable, so quite, so opposite of the man who went over the edge one dark night after accidentally shooting his best friend.

I remember the Captain of infantry, a leader of men, who I only knew for 24 hours while sharing a ride in the back of a cargo plane, who two weeks after arriving back home, shot the family dogs and then himself. I only knew him as Dave on that long plane ride home.

Of the hundreds I knew, I kick myself for remembering so few. Especially on this day of remembrance when I should remember them all. They are the ones who paid for this Memorial Day and I will carry their message as long as I can.

Bill McComber , Professional Land Surveyor CO.