Choices…

Choices were made each and every day in Vietnam. Every man held his own. A single shot rang out to pierce the quiet day. It was close. I couldn’t tell if it was incoming or outgoing. We all listened for the second shot. My alertness was distracted by the call for…MEDIC. Of all the sounds, that one word would cue all my sensibilities. I rushed quickly to a wounded soldier.

He looked sheepishly and said, “My gun went off…it just went off by itself.” The soldier had shot himself in the foot. By the look of his boot, I gauged  the round hit in the area of the metatarsal bones. It looked a mite painful.

His boot proved the initial obstruction.  My scissors took care of some of that problem. The wound looked pretty clean, as in possibly missing that whole system of tiny bones. The smaller dressings proved more than adequate, above and below. I used an ace bandage to keep an even  pressure, gently anchoring his wound’s dressings with the ankle. A canteen of tepid water restored his fluids.

Our LT was pissed. There was some exchange between the soldier and him. Our wounded man shifted his story, trying to put himself in the best light.  The pain was beginning to settle in…after the initial shock of the trauma. LT said defiantly, “No morphine Doc” and walked off.

We were getting some replacements. This young 11B (infantryman) was among them. The original members of our unit were all volunteers. Our replacements were assigned to units as needed. We suffered many KIAs and WIAs…we needed bodies. I was looking at a young man who didn’t have a clue of our culture. He had made a painful decision, to take a certain nonfatal wound over the uncertainty of fatality.

The medevac arrived quickly. My man was light…no problem to carry. They gave him his weapon, with no clip and an empty chamber. I never saw the man again. His decision didn’t factor in, that a unit that needed his best…for us all to survive.

Currahees…I may have hesitated and then  honored LT’s order. He broke the code. We Stand Alone…together.