WARS & KILLING: I don’t have the right…

 

I don’t have the right…

When I became aware of what was going on in Vietnam, I was a sophomore. By the time I became a senior, I formulated my personal belief concerning my possible participation in a war. Vietnam was raging and I was next to get drafted. I was fortunate to be able to pass the military physical, so I enlisted in the Air Force. I was also truly fortunate to be able to enlist under the U.S. Air Force Delayed Enlistment Program. I joined the multitudes of guys who did not want to get drafted. After I graduated in nineteen sixty-seven, I was finally called in on March eighteen, nineteen sixty-eight.

There were a number of reasons why I enlisted in the Air Force. I decided that I was not going into the Army and fight in Vietnam. Also, the Air Force provided me with the opportunity to take college courses while I was still in, and to attend college on the GI Bill, which was a total farce and disappointment. The GI Education Bill only gave us three hundred and twenty dollars a month to attend college full-time. To survive, I worked part-time, incurred student loans, and received some small scholarships.

Although the college education part was important, it was secondary to my personal belief. I was not going to fight, and I will not go to Canada to avoid the draft.

I passionately believed that I did not have the right to take another man’s life.

We were bombarded with the news of the heavy cost of our invasion of Vietnam. A good friend of mine and a fellow lineman in ninth and tenth grade was killed in Vietnam while the rest of us remained in school. He was expelled from school and was immediately drafted. Mike was not the only Hershey guy that was killed in Vietnam, there were too many others.

As it turned out, I became an Emergency Medic, and I was sent to Cam Ranh Bay Air Base during my third year. After I was in country for two months, Frank Chavez, a new brother Vietnam Veteran and I Shared the night shift as the entire base emergency first responders. Now the safe part about being in the Air Force has rapidly changed.

We worked alone from five PM to the next morning until eight AM. We were it. When the Viet Cong attacked us, it was at night. We were attacked by rockets, mortars, and assassins who snuck in from the adjacent mountains to choose selected targets so they could do the most damage to our operations.

We responded to many emergencies alone. No additional medical or security help, we were alone. Normally, all military personnel responding to emergencies had to wear a helmet, a flack vest, and carry a weapon for our own and our patient’s protection. I refused to do any of that. I was the crazy medic who arrived in our heavy-duty four-wheeled drive ambulance that looked like a tank. The familiar site was me in a blue medical surgery smock, which was not a permitted uniform.

I did not care what happened to me. I was only concerned about the safety of my patients. There were base security who also showed up, so I left the weapons and personal protection to them. Yes, I was shot at, but I was not hit. I believed that the Viet Cong who was doing the shooting would not shoot me if they knew me. However, I knew that was not possible.

On two other occasions, While I was hitchhiking in a rural area of the southern part of the country, I was forced to carry a weapon. I was visiting Mike Larkin and Mike Lalli. The first time, I carried an M-16 rifle, which I really did not know how to use, and the second time, I had a thirty-eight-caliber pistol around my waist, under my jungle fatigues. A Jeep with two MPs stopped me and asked where my weapon was. I left up my shirt and showed them. They said that only officers could wear concealed weapons. I replied that I was a medic and that we don’t usually carry weapons. I finally got two rides on the back of an Army transport truck that was carrying Jungle Grunts to their next fight.

It was during all those situations that my beliefs about not taking another life were tested. Because during emergencies when we were under fire, I could not fire back because I carried no weapon. Even if I did, I would still not shoot back.

Those of you who were not faced with having to serve in the military had no or very little idea about what we guys had to face. There were many guys who fought in the jungle and had to kill another man or be killed themselves. Those men, and women who served, were then and remain my heroes. Nurses also gave their lives while serving in numerous hospitals and surgical units around the country. Our country can never pay back the debt it owes to our Veterans. One thing that I hoped for during my Vietnam year, was that there would never be any other wars and losses of lives. That apparently did not happen.