Doc was different
I mean the first thing was he had an education a real one not just high school and a little college like some of us but he finished Johnny Hooks over in the second squad can’t even write his own name but what does a Alabama sharecropper need to write for but Doc knew things he read books and used to talk about some French guy named Sart
I remember once he was readin’ this book about Nam and he tells us Nam used to be part of China like we couldn’t tell and the name meant the place south of some river and not the asshole of the universe the dinks never gave up they fought the Chinese for years and finally beat ’em and he tried to tell us what this war was all about but we didn’t give a shit so soon he figured it out and gave up but Doc was real smart
The other thing I noticed ‘bout Doc was he never carried a weapon all the other medics at least carried a forty-five hell Little Doc over in the third platoon carried a grenade launcher
So I asks ‘im about it and he tells me he’s a conscientious objector so I asks ‘im what the hell he is doing in the army what he do miss the last bus to Canada but Doc said no he was drafted so he went
When he got to basic he told ’em he wouldn’t shoot nobody at first they screamed at him called him a faggot a pussy a fuckin’ coward and all the rest a that shit they do to make you think you’re the one whose crazy and not them one night his platoon gives him a blanket party and just about sends ‘im to the hospital because the drill sergeant told ’em they wouldn’t get a pass till Doc shaped up
When that shit didn’t work they told Doc they’d throw him in the stockade cause he refused to fire on the rifle range finally they send Doc over to see some chaplain who tells ‘im he was shaming his parents if he got killed in Nam they’d be proud of ‘im he’d go to heaven or some bullshit like that
Doc hung in there said he’d stay in the two years cause they drafted him but he wasn’t gonna shoot nobody
So just to prove it has a sense of humor the army made him a medic sent him over to Nam and put him out in the bush with the rest of us probably thought Doc would pick up a weapon pretty quick just to save his own ass but no Doc went everywhere we went and never carried a weapon
Doc was no pussy I remember the day Blinky caught one in the leg down in front of a dink bunker the rest of us were pinned down and the dinks let Blinky lay out there screamin’ for us to come get him they even pumped one into his other leg to make him yell louder
Blinky’s screamin’ was drivin’ us nuts but we couldn’t move there was nothin’ we could do but get our damn selves killed the next thing we know Doc comes runnin’ outta the woodline right out in front a that fuckin’ bunker with nothin’ but his medical bag so we blew as many rounds down range at the dinks as we could to make ’em get their heads down while Doc dragged Blinky back into the bush
I tell ya we all thought Doc was outta his fuckin’ mind runnin’ out in front of that bunker like that but I tell ya he made some friends that day me I decided that I’d stay close to him from then on if he wouldn’t grease any of the little bastards I’d do it for him
Yeah Doc was different
There was somethin’ else about Doc I didn’t pick up on it at first like when we sat around and talked about women the wives and girlfriends back home or the girls on R&R Doc never said nothin’ or when we went down to visit the babysahns at the water point I mean Doc didn’t give us lectures about the clap or the black syph or nothin’ like that
He just kinda disappeared
We were in basecamp on stand-down me and Doc were sitting outside our hooch drinkin’ some rotgut dink rum God were we fucked up I don’t remember what Doc said but all of a sudden it hit me Doc was queer he liked guys God was I pissed at him for that how could he do that
The next morning I didn’t know what to do my head hurt so bad I thought I was gonna puke so I asks him right out Doc you queer he said yeah he preferred to say gay but yeah then I just cursed him out called him a stinkin’ faggot
Doc didn’t say nothin’ he just looked kinda sad like he’d heard all this shit before but didn’t expect it from me it took me a while to get over it but it was stand-down and nobody else noticed and I just kept my mouth shut
When we got back out to the field I told Doc I was sorry it didn’t mean nothin’ him bein’ queer as long as we do our jobs we’d be okay
This is not like the world out here in the world we could hate each other all we wanted but here it’s different we’re stuck in this shit hole together and we need each other and as long as we do our jobs and look out for each other nothin’ else mattered
I meant it too I mean I didn’t talk to Doc about women anymore I didn’t say anything to the other guys either Doc was one of us even if he was different bein’ queer makes no difference like what race you are and where you’re from makes no difference all of us gotta stick together to get through this shit
We lost Doc up at the volcano the dinks had dug into an old volcano up in the highlands near the border and division wanted us to dig ‘em out
This is the worst kind a shit if you gotta hit some shit you wanna be down in a nice deep bunker and grease the little bastards when they come runnin’ at you but when you go after them you gotta run into their shit maybe you get one a them for every three of you so a lotta guys get fucked up
The 105’s tried to blow the shit outta the volcano but we knew it wasn’t any good it just made the dinks get down deep and let them know we were comin’
They let us get ‘bout half way up and let loose with everything they had and our own goddamn artillery hadn’t shifted and was hittin’ in the trees behind us the old man’s RTO was screamin’ for them to lift the fire but the two guys next to me caught some shrapnel from a tree burst and went down
I got down into a hole the dinks were shooting in front a me and the artillery was hitting behind me so I wasn’t goin’ nowhere then I saw Doc crouched down by a tree behind me and I knew he was goin’ to try to get to those guys who got hit with the shrapnel so I waved at him to get down but he didn’t even look at me he got up just as I heard our artillery let loose behind us
Doc got about two steps when the rounds burst in the trees he stopped looked right at me for a second and went down
When it was over I went and found Doc but the shrapnel made a mess a him so I wrapped him up in his poncho and me and a couple of the guys from our squad got him down to the LZ the two guys Doc tried to help were sittin’ down there waiting for the choppers to take ‘em out
They’d get out before Doc the dead always went out last
Doc was different from us
He ate the same lousy food drank the same dirty water slept in the same muddy holes sucked the same shit but he was different
Sometimes I wonder if Doc had somebody back in the world you know somebody who cared about him and hurts everytime he remembers him
Yeah Doc was different
September, 1993
Evanston IL
All Rights Reserved: No part of this story may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the Author.
For information, contact Ray Gleason at ray@raygleason.com
