The things the medic carried. Quan Loi. While on Green Line with D 1/7 Cav 1969.

A lifer gave me the forty-five. The story begins with me wearing a retainer in the bush. You know, the plastic and wire mouth piece the dentist gave you after the braces come off. Every night I took that thing out, let it soak in a C ration can made bubbly with Efferdent bought at a PX on Quan Loi. And brushed my teeth often. Yes, because in war we must fight Mr. Tooth Decay. But one night the retainer broke and the jagged edge caused much pain. In Bien Hoi I found a dentist who fixed it. While waiting at the airport I started talking with a lifer. He asked if medics carried weapons. I said yeah, and told him what I carried. He asked if I wanted a forty five. I said yeah. What you got, man? What you got? We go to an alley and he whips out a chrome-plated-never-been-fired-parade-drill-beauty and I take it. Thank you very much. Your welcome. I get a box of green tracers. I get a holster. One day someone's M-16 breaks and the LT says got to give him mine. Then we go on patrol. Me and the boys and the forty-five. Men look at me like I'm crazy. Nothing happened on that patrol. Later the pistol got good use. Beneath it, a LRRP meal. Claymore bag carried bandages and morphine. Smoke. Baseball grenade. Pretty sure the book is by Robert Gover, author of One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding, and The Return of JC.

Brother Al. Quan Loi Green Line D 1/7 Cav 1969. Photo Marc Levy

Brother Al was a militant son-of-a-bitch. Black Power vs the White Man's War. Well and good and maybe true (some might say more than maybe; some might not) but what do you say or do or think about a man who drags the sixty ammo, stuffed in a claymore bag, along the ground as we walk patrol in the rubber. I'll tell you this: the first dead American I saw was black. Carried to an LZ by another platoon who'd walked into an ambush. It was cold and muddy and they'd wrapped his body in a poncho. We followed a deuce and a half to the tree line and helped them pass the corpse hand over hand, like a fire brigade, as if the dead man were a bucket, only dead weight is hard to move when it's not stiff and the steam was rising from his jungle fatigues and a hard rain was beating and his eyes were not blinking and it was the saddest sight I'd ever seen black or white no matter.

Mini Cav 3rd Squad Third Platoon D 1/7 Cav LZ Compton An Loc 1969 Photo Marc Levy

They line up like this: First Row left: Shake 'N Bake. Didn't know him well but he did the job. Gary William's, with beer can (zoom in, it's Pabst!) got his ear drum blown out by the 60. Lamb on thegun had one PH, the long thin scar stitched like a constellation over his right fore arm. Melhop, heart of gold, hard as nails. Back Row, left: Derrig, shot by an NVA at close range after a ninety day wonder order him out on flank with the 60. One bullet traveled up the barrel of the gun
and lodged atop his arm. The other went elsewhere and was not pleasant. Waiting for the medivac he threw me his dope. Didn't want to get caught with that in the rear. Ray William's, cross in the helmet, kicked a hand lume the day after a mad minute. It ignited, hit him square in the nose, then shot skyward, deployed, and floated to earth, hissing, as I patched him up. He returned a month later. Lawrence Knowles, aka Knuckles, farm boy from a Southern state who took charge of log days and made it look easy. Should have been Spec 4 quick but the Captain, as the story goes, put in orders for "Knuckles," which the company clerks tossed out. Roop the Troop, with his warm Oklahoma voice, oldest of the lot at twenty-one. Dorio, teen age New York tough guy. Cursed me when I wouldn't medvac him after he took shrap and the platoon was down to nine men. The head medic made the right call and sent him to back. Nothing happened on this patrol. Just another vill blown away by artillery and rockets.