Memorial Day - Point Man

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This article was originally published in the Orlando Sentinel, May 29th, 1983. It is copyrighted by the author, who spent 27 months with the U.S. Army in Vietnam.


Point Man

By Carter Harrison



I remember you, Bill Kroske.

I remember the last day I saw you back in 1969 in Song Be Province. You brought your new reconnaissance team, RT Hammer, down from our base in Ban Me Thuot the day before, in preparation for another mission into Cambodia. No Americans were there, according to Washington. And despite the fact that Cambodia was crawling with North Vietnamese regulars and dotted with large permanent North Vietnamese Army base camps, Hanoi insisted that none of its troops were there either.

We were supposed to track NVA movements in Cambodia so that U.S. and South Vietnamese units on our side of the fence wouldn’t be surprised when the NVA roared out of their sanctuaries. But because we weren’t supposed to be there, we had to volunteer for the missions. To make it easier for Washington if we were killed or captured, we carried only foreign weapons, no identification, and we wore “sterile” uniforms. And if we got into trouble – which happened about 97 percent of the time – only the small helicopter unit directly assigned to support our operations could come to our aid. We weren’t allowed to tell our wives or parents where we were or what we did. We joked about real high unit esprit. We didn’t joke about real high casualty rates.

That evening, after you checked your team’s eating and sleeping facilities, you came over to my tent and sat down on a spare cot where you would spend the night. You reached down in your kit bag and pulled out a bottle of Chivas Regal, your favorite libation, and you poured two stiff belts into a couple of dusty canteen cups sitting on an empty ammunition crate I used for a nightstand.

You gave me one of the cups and raised the one you kept: “Here’s to you, Captain, to your new railroad tracks, you sorry --- ---.” We laughed and downed the straight scotch. I absentmindedly wiped away the sweat beading on my face as you poured another round and lay back on the bare canvas cot.

You said something to the effect that it was funny how things went, that when I had come into the unit 8 months ago, you had taken an instant dislike to me. I recalled that then, as now, you had been considered the bigger-than-life, badder-than-bad main man who had more guts than sense. And nobody except Jerry Shriver, now missing in action, ever challenged your claim to be the meanest mother in the valley.

I didn’t mention what we both knew, that because of your reputation for recklessness, only the equally rash or newcomers who didn’t know any better would run missions with you. I recall now that your assistant team leader on that day in ’69 was a new kid who had never run a mission before.

As the sun and the heat went down and the moon and your blood-alcohol level came up, you rambled on about what had transpired over the preceding months. You had just returned from a 30-day leave in the States, earned because you asked for another six months tacked on to your Vietnam tour. You talked about a new song popular back in the World that perfectly fit your credo. It was called “I Gotta Be Me.”

You mentioned your disdain for those who criticized the way you performed in the field. You alluded to the two prisoners you had managed to snatch as proof that your “system” worked better than caution. You didn’t mention your tactics: Sit by a heavily traveled trail. Wait for an NVA unit to pass by, unaware that your team of two Americans and four Chinese or Montagnard mercenaries is deployed less than two meters away. When a straggler passes by, you leap out and butt-stroke him to the head, slapping on the handcuffs before he can cry out. You sling him over your shoulder and dash for a landing zone, your assistant team leader calling frantically for the choppers to get you out of there before the other NVA realize what’s going on.

You recited the names of our dead or missing buddies and mentioned that we had both lost a couple of roommates and than now we share a room back at Ban Me Thuot. You decided that despite my preference for bourbon over scotch, and my being from Virginia rather than a more civilized place like your native New Jersey, maybe, I was fit to share your hooch after all. Then you laughed about earlier in the day when we were using the open-air latrine and a Chinook landed so close by it nearly blew us off our roosts.

Draining another three fingers of warm scotch, you said, “Well, you old --- head. We’ve fought each other. We’ve fought Charles together. We’ve taken a --- together and we’ve gotten blitzed together. I guess that makes us friends.”

I had more work to do, so I went a little easy on the mouthwash. When I returned and readied for sleep, I watched you carefully fold and secure your maps, then run a whetstone over the gleaming blade of your Gerber. The black turtleneck jersey stretched over your barrel chest made your bull neck look even more massive. Your close-cropped black hair, three-day beard, deep-set dark brown eyes and broken nose completed the image of a tough guy par excellence, a beefy Jean-Paul Belmondo.

We didn’t speak all that much the next day.

At first light we flew out to select your primary and two alternate landing zones. Neither one of us liked what we saw. Instead of the usual rolling hills and thick vegetation, the terrain was flat and had been recent burned by a huge brush fire. You elected to make a last-light insert. We returned to the launch site and began the briefing procedures.

Even people who didn’t have to be there came to listen to your briefing. You knew how to do it. You were the pro. In the final harried hustle to get ready, you called me aside and reached down into your kit bag. You pulled out two bottles of French champagne, a fine vintage, if I recall. You said that you originally planned to share them with me when you got back.

I remember that you paused, handed me the bottles, smiled and said, “Take ‘em now. You never know…”

Forty minutes later I was directing your team’s insertion from my Huey, 1,200 feet above. I remember cursing in horror at the sight of the cloud of ash and burned grass raised by your chopper as it hovered for only an instant while your team leaped out and scrambled away. The cloud formed a distinct column in the purple dusk, a smoky finger pointing out for miles around to anyone who could see it that “something is going on right here.”

You sent the “all clear” message, and we returned to camp.

We got word a little later that you were in trouble. The unit scrambled and conducted a nightmarish effort in the darkness to recover your team. We got them all. Except you.

Your assistant team leader, the new kid running his first mission, said that less than 30 minutes after you had been inserted, you heard movement coming toward you. You deployed the team and moved to the point. He swore that as the NVA approached, you stood up and said in your terrible Vietnamese, “V.C. come over here.”

Instead of complying, they opened up with full automatic fire. He said the first rounds hit you in your groin and the others walked up your chest. He said that he tried to get to you but couldn’t. He then made a fast and correct decision to concentrate on the living and get the rest of the team to safety. He did a good job, Bill. You trained him well.

I hadn’t thought much about Memorial Day until a couple of days ago, when I heard someone mention it in passing. Your face flashed instantly to mind, my friend, after all these years. I wrote down the details of our last hours together in my diary the day you died. I read it every now and again.

And Bill, every day that I turn those brittle pages is Memorial Day.

"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest" ~Samuel Clemens

MB#4300
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