Operation: Vietnam
Sarah Greene

I never thought that I would have to end as many lives as I did in Vietnam.  I never imagined that Fate would choose me to experience the horrors of war.  I saw my brothers die in my arms. Hundreds slaughtered and burned with napalm.  My friends shot down by Communist fire and some disappear to only God knows where.  This was war, and war was hell.
This mess in Vietnam started when Ho Chi Minh formed the Communist Party of Vietnam.  The president at the time was John F. Kennedy.  I don’t think he knew very much about how to handle war.  Then again, neither did I at that point it time.  Personally, I knew that there was a better way to deal with the commies other than rushing over there to fight them.  I wasn’t sure what that better way was, but if you can avoid war, then more power to it.  
But things don’t always go the way the people want it to.  I knew that stopping the spread of communism was an honorable cause, one that I would fight for.  Fathers, brothers, husbands, you know that feeling: you’ll give your life for your family, no matter what the cause.  I felt that many times when I heard about the draft for the war.  I was willing to do anything for my wife Noelle and my children, Jenny and Donovan.  
I got the call on a Sunday, right after we got home from church.  Noelle answered the phone, and I knew that something was horribly wrong when she burst into tears.  I gently took the phone from her hands and spoke into the receiver.
“Hello, this is Allen Small.”
A gruff voice answered me. “Mr. Small, this is Lt. Gerard Millard.  You have been selected to serve under Lt. Col. Hal Moore with 449 other draftees to fight in Vietnam.”
My heart dropped.  This was it.  I answered with more confidence than I felt.  “Yes sir.  What do I need to do?”
Lt. Millard told me the where and when and how much time I had.  When I hung up, I went to the bedroom, where I found Noelle clutching her favorite throw pillow, silent sobs shaking her slight frame.  I sat down next to her on the bed and put my arm around her shoulders.
“Noelle, baby, please don’t cry.  Everything’s going to be okay.”
She turned to me, her pretty blue eyes red with tears.  “You don’t know that!  How do you know that you won’t get killed by some Vietnamese fool over there?  How…”  She never finished her sentence.  She broke down again.
I drew her head to my chest and held her close.  I had never loved another woman as much as I loved my Noelle.  I whispered to her, “Baby, I promise you that I’ll be fine.  Nothing’s going to happen to me.”  I just faintly heard her reply.  “What’ll I tell Jenny and Donovan?  They’re so young…”
“I know, honey.  We’ll just have to tell them the truth.  What else can we do?”
She was quiet, and then she spoke. “You’re right.  Baby, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you…”
She pulled away from me and looked into my questioning eyes.  She took a deep breath.  “Allen, I’m pregnant!”
All else in that moment just melted away.  I was filled with a sorrowful joy.  “Y-you mean it?  We’re going to have another?”
She tilted her head and her brow furrowed.  “Aren’t you happy?  You’d always said that you’d love to have another.”
I took Noelle’s face in my hands.  “Oh, yes!  Aw, Noelle, yes!  Wow! Aw, wow!”  I gave in to my overwhelming joy and started to jump all around the room, laughing and thanking God that I was going to be a father of three, count ‘em, three!!!  Noelle was laughing, too.  We danced around the room until we were out of breath.  
I stood up.  “Well, I need to get some things ready.” That seemed to bring Noelle back down to earth.  
“Oh, yeah.  Okay, I need to run some errands, anyway.”  As she turned to get her purse, I spun her around and planted a long kiss on her lips.

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Days passed, and eventually I was on the train to the boot camp.  I’d heard that the camp was the toughest part, aside from actually fighting.  To make a long story short, the drill sergeant was the meanest guy you’ll ever meet, but, but if the recruits under his command weren’t the best trained, then I don’t know who could have topped him.
Eventually, we were put on the plane to Vietnam.  Imagine having to sleep in a tent out in the humidity every night, having guard duty every three hours for another three hours, and always having to take extra precautions to make sure that your throat wasn’t slit during the night by a Viet Cong.  It’d wear on your nerves, right?  Well that was everyday stuff in the Nam.  
When I met Lt. Col. Moore, I had never met someone I respected and liked more than him.  He was a disciplined soldier and a strong leader, but he never missed a chance to just hang out with those under his command.  That’s why we never tried mutiny and we never hated his guts—we liked him too much!  
We got our taste of real Vietnam action when we got to Ia Drang.  We could sense the VC before we saw them.  We all knew they were there, the feeling of foreboding hung heavy in the air.  Before he’d been called for his duty in Ia Drang, Moore had read up on the VC commander’s papers, how he’d defeated the French.  That sap had had his tactics published!  Moore knew that he’d probably try the same thing with us.  That was how he could counter attack every move that the VC made when the fighting finally got underway.  
Let me tell you, I never want to see what I did when I fought in the Ia Drang valley ever again.  Those horrific memories will probably be carved into my conscience forever.  
Want an example?  Here’s one anyway.  You know, when you drop napalm, it doesn’t always land on the enemy alone.  Sometimes it can go just a hair off target and hit the good guys.  I saw napalm hit my best friend and send him flying.  When the coast was clear, I ran over to him.  He wasn’t dead, but I wished to God that he’d get that way.  He was screaming in pain and agony, and I didn’t blame him.  The whole left side of his face was nothing but mushy remains of skin and muscle.  Another one of my buddies and I tried to carry him back to the chopper by grabbing his arms and legs.  When I took hold of his legs, his flesh just peeled down like a pair of oversized tube socks.  He let out another shriek.  I threw him over my shoulder and ran to the chopper, ignoring the pain in my own legs.  As I laid him gently down on the floor, he grabbed my hand and said, “Tell my wife I love her…and my baby!”  The last thing I heard before the chopper lifted off was another scream.  
After the battle was over, I saw Moore and went to go stand by him.  He was crying.  I spoke to him.  “Sir, why are you crying?”
He looked me straight in the face.  “Because they had to die instead of me.”  
I didn’t know what to say to that.  He saw that I was not going to reply, so he spoke to the remainder of his troops who had also gathered around him.  “Locate all the Viet Cong bodies and put them in a pile.  They’ll come back and do what they will with their dead.  Leave none of ours behind.”  
We stepped off that godforsaken battlefield onto the chopper and headed for the airport.  We were told that we were to change into civilian clothing because soldiers in uniform in America were getting spit on and even attacked.  I longed to see my family.

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It was about 7:30 on a Thursday night when I walked up the porch steps to my house.  I rang the doorbell like any guest would so I could surprise my family.  Through the glass in the door, I could see Noelle in her favorite yellow sundress coming.  She opened the door and saw me standing there with my olive drab duffel bag and just stood there looking at me.  When it finally registered that it was me, Allen Small, her husband who had promised her that he’d return, she let out a scream of joy and threw herself into my arms.  The kids had heard their mom scream and ran to see what the matter was.  When they saw me, I heard twin squeals of, “Daddeeeee!!!!!!!!” and was hit by two little adorable flying children.  I gathered them both up into my arms and held them close.


And that’s the story of my fight at Ia Drang, in the Vietnam War.