A war story

Major Schorr was platoon leader of Third Scout Platoon (Huey gunships). One day din the Flight Operations tent, the Flight Operations Officer said to Major Schorr: "There was a report yesterday of three bodies found east of Base Camp. You were in the area. Did you see anything?"

Major Schorr: "Were they (the dead people) VC?"

Ops Officer: "Yes. They were all identified as Viet Cong."

Major Schorr: "We killed 'em."

Not A War Story

This happened in Vietnam, and was told as true, but it does not fit the strict parameters of A War Story.

A War Story: (a) has no moral, no axiom, no lesson learned; and, (b) at the end of A War Story, no one can ask, “What happened then?” In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien gives as an example of A War Story: Three grunts are walking through the jungle. One trips a trip wire, and the trip wire is attached to the biggest explosive ever, tons of C4, two 500-pound bombs, four 155mm rounds. The blast blows up everything within a 100-meter radius – trees, bushes, monkeys, birds. The three grunts go flying into the air, and just before Finality, two look at the one who tripped the trip wire. “The fuck, man?” both say. The third shrugs, says, “Story of my life, man. Story of my life.”

See? No moral, no questions asked. Like if somebody says, “Why are you in Vietnam?” and the reply is “Story of my life, man. Story of my life.” That’s all there is.

This was in late December 1966, early January 1967. A platoon from one of the 11th Armored Cavalry’s tank companies was busting jungle with a cav troop, when a gook machine gun opens up from a bunker. ACAVs return fire -- M60 machine guns, .50-cals, M79s -- and the tanks join in with .50-cals and 90mm main guns. But this is a strong bunker, really strong, with big logs and sand bags – really thick. Everybody shoots at everybody else for a while, but neither side is getting the upper hand.

After a while, the TC on one of the tanks goes into “I’m tired of this shit” mode. He tells his driver to drive to the bunker. The driver goes as fast as terrain allows and then presses the brake pedal when the TC says, “Driver stop.” Machine gun bullets are bouncing off the tank, and you know the two or three gooks inside the bunker must be passing rice like there’s no tomorrow. And for them, there isn't.

With his TC override control, the TC lowers the main gun tube and says, “Driver forward. Slow.” The TC places the gun tube as close to the firing aperture as possible, says “Driver stop” and squeezes the trigger.

The man who relayed this story said, “Man, there was logs and dirt and gooks and shit flying everywhere!”

This has a moral, so it isn’t A War Story.

The moral is: Don’t fuck with a tank when all you’ve got is a machine gun.

Lara

(A chapter in a story of a war in which a young captain leads a company of drafted known delinquents, all under 18.)


Lara


Lara flowed over and down the rubble and leaped onto the soldier. She wrapped her legs around his waist, lifted his chin with her left hand, slit his throat, rode the body onto the pavement and then flowed up and over the opposite rubble pile.

I stood paralyzed, transfixed by the impossibility of what I had seen. She is as quiet as a shadow. First Sergeant Malaski said that, and I had witnessed … Only a small part of Lara’s abilities when she killed the two Phalangists who guarded me and then she slid between me and the one who held my shirt. She cut his throat as easily as you or I breathe.

But this … This silent movement down a pile of rubble, this slicing and then silently climbing additional rubble and the Phalangists did not hear her.

This … And then the four remaining heard their comrade’s body rattle on the rubble. They turned. They saw me, standing at the top of the rubble.

I remembered the submachine gun in my hands; I remembered the safety and the trigger. I fired from the waist, a two-second burst of thirty rounds into chests and shoulders and heads and then I ran down the backside of the rubble, across a smaller pile, between others, down a sidewalk amazingly clear of broken concrete, into a shadow that once contained a door, into a large room, to the middle of the room and into a pile of shadows inside a cavern made of large broken commercial tables and desks.

And I waited.

Ten minutes later, Lara was beside me. Her lips almost touched my ear. “You killed the other four?”

“Yes.”

Our heads touched and we talked in voices more quiet than whispers.

She asked, “Have you reloaded your weapon?”

“As I ran. What you did is impossible.”

“I know.”

I heard the smile in her voice. I wanted to see her face. My mind made a picture -- Lara’s short, curled blonde hair and her pale face and the smile of satisfaction. Shadows hid her from me.

I said, “What do we do now?”

“You are the captain.”

I waited a moment. “Yes, but you are the hunter.”

She said, “I will tell you a thing. I am my mother and my grandmother. I am my daughter and her daughter.”

I had wondered … “Your brother’s father was not your father.”

“No. I am David’s mother and his sister.”

“You are older than sixteen.”

I saw the glint of moonlight in her eyes. “I am older than one hundred sixteen.”

She stiffened then and through a gap in the jumbled tables I saw five Phalangists enter the room. They walked from shadow to moonlight to shadow, right to left, toward a stairway. They made no noise.

“We will leave,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“You will lead.”

“As you wish.”

The Phalangists reached the marble stairs and then walked up the stairs, each holding his rifle angled, prepared for battle, yet none knowing his greatest danger sat hidden in a jumble of broken furniture.

Lara and I waited. She touched my cheek. I started to speak, but she pressed a finger against my lips.

After a time, she eased from the pile of shadows. I followed.