"War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead."
Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried
After my brief stay at First Med, I returned to Mike Company, still operating out of LZ Baldy. Returning to the grind of daily patrol and nightly ambush provided a stark contrast to the relative comforts of the hospital, but it was good to see the guys again. All of us were still in a funk about the losses we suffered in the Que Sons, and our unit was severely undermanned.
After a few days, I began to get sick. The illness came on with headaches, late-day fever and loose bowels. Reporting to the aid station, a large tent with plywood walls, I had a thermometer thrust into my mouth and was directed to sit on the floor. After what seemed an eternity, a corpsman came over to record my temperature, and we were both surprised to notice that the thermometer had fallen out of my mouth and had broken after hitting the floor. He was pissed, mumbling something about that being the only thermometer in the entire regiment. During the fifteen minutes I sat there, I’m sure the fever was making me delirious, and at some point I probably lost consciousness and let the device fall from my mouth.
Without further examination, I was transported by “Mule” to the chopper pad so that I could be medically evacuated back to First Med in DaNang. A Mule is kind of a four wheel ATV with a flatbed platform behind the two seats in the front. It is used for all kinds of light supply delivery, and in this case, to take two Marines to the chopper pad. The other guy was unconscious, but the driver and his partner took no care to ensure his safety. At one point, after rounding a curve in the deeply rutted path from the aid station, the poor guy went flying from the vehicle. The driver slammed on the brakes, and he and the other guy unceremoniously swung the guy from the ground back to the flatbed. I found out later that their disdain was the product of the fact that this Marine had intentionally OD’d on some drugs. Medical personnel are particularly resentful of grunts who “do” themselves because they already have enough work to do on those who actually get wounded or sick.
Once I was back at First Med, my temperature was taken and found to be slightly over 105 degrees. An IV was hooked up, and I was taken, holding the IV bottle in the air, by stretcher to a malaria ward. The facility was an inflated Quonset hut and held about eighty sick Marines. Upon arrival, I was stripped naked and placed in a tub filled with ice water. The experience was one of the most unpleasant I’ve ever endured, and afterward I kept trying to pull covers over me. The orderly eventually took the sheet and blanket off the bed and I was left shivering and naked, curled up into the fetal position.
The malaria diagnosis was confirmed and treatment with a quinine-based compound began. Because all of the Marines in this ward were malaria victims, we were all dosed at the same time. One unfortunate side effect of the medicine is that it creates a tremendous volume of intestinal gas, resulting in a cacophony of sound that should have been put to music. With guys seemingly able to fart in varying octaves, the nightly entertainment was downright orchestral!
Temperatures were taken twice each day in the ward, and Marines whose fever rose to 102 degrees were required to leave their beds and go outside to the showers. The effort required to do this when one is as sick as we were was exhausting, but the cold showers helped to bring down the temperature. We also had to defecate daily into a Styrofoam cup so that the remains of the malarial parasites could be quantified and the course of treatment adjusted, if necessary.
Once recovered from the immediate effects of the disease, malaria victims have to spend some time to convalesce; allowing time to replenish the blood cells destroyed by the disease’s cycle. For Marines, this part of the treatment took place in a facility far to the south, at Cam Ranh Bay. This beautiful area of Vietnam was like heaven on earth. The 6th Convalescent Center, an army facility, was located directly on the South China Sea, with white beaches and blue surf. Patients wore blue pajamas and were free to roam the grounds after serving on light-duty working parties. NCO’s wore green jungle shirts and supervised the working parties. While I was simply an E-3 (Lance Corporal), I somehow scored a green shirt with Corporal chevrons and found that all of the army guys were calling me “sarge.” As a result, I was able to supervise working parties and avoid most of the mundane duties to which they were assigned.
There were many nice amenities available at the 6th CC, though not as attractive as those available on R and R. I was scheduled for five days in Hong Kong and was supposed to leave on the day I was admitted to the hospital. While this was disappointing, it was hard to feel sorry for myself as the Red Cross and USO made sure that the 6th CC could qualify as in-country R and R. We could play cards, listen to music, lay on the beach and eat three hot meals each day. It was another nice respite from the rigors of our combat operations, and no one wanted to leave.
Most of the patients at the 6th CC were army grunts, and the fact that Marines were in the minority actually worked out for us. We were generally left alone and free to pursue the nice activities on the base and enjoy the sight of the first American girls—the Red Cross and USO attendants—we had seen in quite a while. Personnel were coming and going, with departures scheduled after the twice weekly visits from the doctors.
At about the time I was due to leave, I told the doctor on his Tuesday visit that I was feeling a little sick and he ordered a fecal examination, which meant that I would not leave until Thursday if everything was normal—which it probably was since I really felt pretty good. Concurrent with the idea of this scam was the arrival of my buddy Nat from Mike Company. (He’s the guy who missed the battle in the Que Sons because of heat exhaustion). Still anxious to atone for his self-inflicted guilt, Nat agreed to shit into my cup, which was presented to the lab with my name on it. Because he was a fresh victim, the test was sure to come back positive—which it did. The result was another week in paradise. Don’t judge!
Eventually, the good times had to come to an end, and I was flown back to LZ Baldy with several other Marines. I got a hearty welcome from my fellow grunts and noticed that there were many new faces among them. In my absence, the Third Marine Division had been ordered to stand down, and Marines from that unit who didn’t have enough time in-country were reassigned to the First Division. Apparently, during my absence, exaggerated stories about the Que Sons began to circulate as the Marines from Mike Company brought the new guys up to speed on our unit’s long and glorious history. Several of us benefitted from this story-telling and I began to sense some deferential treatment from the guys who transferred in. Also, since I was the senior surviving member of the machine gun group, I was assigned the position of squad leader and would no longer be humping “the Gun.” This was a welcome change, and led to a period of time when I forged some of the leadership lessons I would apply for the rest of my life.