Another Voice From Vietnam

James was a student in college in 1971 when I met him. A large personable black man just a few months out of the military and his year in Vietnam.

I heard him tell the following story twice. Both times there was no deviation and no body language or facial expressions to indicate he wasn't telling the truth. He could have been a great actor/storyteller and what he said may have been a common tale passed among the troops.Whether literally true or not, the analogy conveyed holds a lot of truth for today.

“We were out on patrol, three white guys and me, looking for God knows what in the steaming jungle. Just reluctantly following orders as we always did and trying to make it through one more day. We were all on the downhill side of going home and none of us was going to re-up.

It all happened so fast. Shots rang out and before I could even raise my rifle there was one stuck in my face with voices screaming in that native language probably telling me to drop it. So I did. Glancing around I saw that my partners were obviously dead and my only thoughts were that I am too.

There were four of them. They tied my hands behind my back, blindfolded me and pushed me to walk with a gun in my back.

I was scared. I'm either to become a POW or killed somewhere deep in the jungle never to be found.

We walked for what seemed like a long ways, probably for about an hour and stopped. They took off the blindfold and pointed for me to sit down. We were in a small camp.

One man, he seemed a little older than the rest, sat beside me and told me he spoke English. Broken English but understandable. Before he said another word he broke out a pouch and rolled a big fat joint of some local weed and told me to take it. We passed it around. I figured it was like giving a man his last smoke before the execution.

He began speaking directly to me.

“You are black. The whites call you “nigger”. They call me “gook”. I know of the struggles your race has faced in America. Your struggles are much the same as ours here. We both face the oppressions of American imperialism and repression. We both have the same enemy. In many ways we are brothers.”

The talk went on for awhile. I mostly nodded in agreement. The last thing he said was; “We will let you live if you go back and tell this story so that others will know who we are and who is the real enemy.”

We ate, they again tied me up and afterward I fell asleep, not knowing if I would ever wake up.

At daybreak I was blindfolded again and marched back into the jungle. We went back to the spot of the ambush where my three fellow soldiers lay. No one had found them.

The Viet Cong took off the blindfold, untied me and slipped back into the jungle. I made my way back to base, got help and recovered the bodies. My story at the time was that I hid out all night after being separated from the rest and hearing the shots ring out. I didn't think anyone would believe what had really happened. I was still in shock and my superiors didn't ask too many questions.”

James kept his word about telling the story. I'm sure he repeated it as often as people would listen.

He ended it with “We are all brothers and sisters in the struggle of this time”.

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© 2008 Kenny

SOURCE: http://kennysideshow.blogspot.com/2008/07/when-your-enemy-just-really-may-be-your.html

URL: http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2008/07/10/when_your_enemy_just_really_may_be_your_