God Laughs In Colors
By Tom Skiens
Nov. 12, 2009

I was a tree vet again this year at the local Veterans Day ceremony. Just like the Nam vets in D.C. who hang out in the tree line on the ridge above the bowl that hosts The Wall. I used to occupy a spot in the trees on the southwest corner of the pond. A brown water sailor vet buddy joined me sometimes and things were good. I walked from my house and timed it so I arrived at my spot when the crowd was still moving around. Civilians don’t have their heads on a swivel scanning the tree line both high and low. They are content to look straight ahead or at their shoes or at the person beside them. I would move into position and no one noticed.

Later a civilian wannabe asked if we minded if he joined us. We minded, but let him join anyway. The civilian asked stupid questions and made way too much noise as if to yell, “I am in the trees with the vets, I must be cool.” He moved around too much which gave away our location. He wanted attention and we were in the trees to avoid same. The next year the ceremony organizers plugged in a loud speaker so the tree vets could hear. I stopped attending the Veterans Day ceremony.

I visit the Veterans memorial at the parks and recreation’s Seventh Street Complex in John Day Oregon often. I do it in the dark of night or before daylight in the early morning hours. Several years ago I volunteered to spend many days and hours on my knees laying pavers or screeding sand or chasing a compactor in the construction of this memorial. I learned to mix mortar while helping to build a granite podium that would support the marble engraved centerpiece to the monument.

And now things have come full circle. The memorial was falling apart, in September of 2009 the flag pole broke off. In October of 2009 I saw activity at the memorial and again volunteered. Just like I volunteered for the draft, the infantry, Vietnam, and as a Forward Observer, to go on patrols and ambushes, and to walk through the mine field more than once. I volunteered because someone had to. I volunteered because
God laughs in colors.
It is April 19, 1968. I am the fourth person back in the left column. The other column is less than 10 yards to my right. We should not be this bunched up. God knows we have hit enough booby traps to learn. I see and hear an explosion to my right front less than 15 yards away. I drop to the ground but before my stomach touches I am on my way back up.
I know what this is. It is the same thing as January 13, 1968. A Bouncing Betty leaves us with two dead and eight wounded. Zimmerman and I are the next two unwounded in the column and we must walk the line. Today is not much different.
I move to the right column, drop my rucksack and get the PRC 25 radio from my radio telephone operator. 0900, “grid square BS 533853 Company C request dust off for two KHA, two WHA result bouncing Betty.” I move into the zone making sure the path is clear for the medics. A fucking new guy walking point in the left column has hot steel in his stomach.
The F.N.G. came in on the resupply chopper the night before and has been with the company less than 14 hours. The company put him in first Platoon and first Platoon put him on the point in the left column. First day in the bush and the F.N.G. gets hot steel in his stomach which may result in him going home. The guy at my feet is dead. The next guy is dead. The next guy, Platoon leader, LT. his right foot is blown off and his right hand does not look good, he will probably lose it. He is moaning from shock and pain. His weapon has been thrown to the right, it is destroyed, useless.
I yell at the F.N.G. to stop running around because he may set off another mine. Sgt. Don Fox, who will assume command of 1st platoon because the LT. is down, and Zimmerman talk the F.N.G. to safety. In three days Zimmerman and I will be on our bellies crawling over to Sgt.Fox who will have a bullet in his gut that penetrated through his weapon before entering his body. Higher/higher said it was Automatic weapons fire, but, I was standing four feet away and only remember 1 round. Three days after the Sgt. Fox dust off, Zimmerman, who has gone from PFC to platoon leader in the course of seven days, will be involved in another Bouncing Betty and I will on the radio calling in another dust off for him and three others. Charlie Company’s first platoon, first squad is getting beat up for the second time in our first four months in country.
A medic asks me to help put one of the dead guys on a poncho so we can drag him to the approaching chopper.
I rifle through the guys rucksack to get a poncho while the medic rolls him onto his back. I find pieces of bone and blood on the inside of the grunts rucksack. For the first time I look at the dead guys face. It is my friend John-John.
I am stunned, shocked. This is the day, the hour, the minute and the grid coordinates where the American dream dies for me. Dark clouds invade my mind; a deep numbing pain penetrates my soul. The medic wants me to lift the right side of the body. John-John is pulverized flesh from head to toe, like the Gook on the receiving end of a B-52 package. Concussion and shrapnel have transformed his body into the consistency of firm Jelly. I can’t find anything solid enough to lift.
A year passes, then two, finally I see the middle finger of his right hand, I test it to see if it will stay attached to his body when I lift him. I grab a hand full of bloody pants leg with my right hand and lift the lower part of his body off the ground. I pray that pieces of his body do not come off in my hands as I lift my dark, broken friend high enough to set him on the poncho.
April 19, 1968, 0900 hours, grid BS533853, I died, the dream ends, no preparation, I be zombie. I died because it was the easiest and fastest way to deal with my problem. I could not move forward while packing the weight of the dead and I could not leave them behind. I must sacrifice a part of my soul so my body can move on. I don’t have time to mourn, only to tuck the memory of the mangled bodies into the corners of my mind and keep on humping.
The corners of my mind will meld over time
The visions of the dead come more often.
I’ve recorded their names and absolved them of chains
While I’m busy constructing my own coffin.
God laughs at my notions in green, red and blue. He decided I wouldn’t die. I assure you I went out of my way to prove God wrong. On July 3, 1968 I returned from my Singapore R & R with a 4X4 Orange tarp I planned to use as ground cover in the bush. I sometimes carried this Orange tarp on the outside of my Rucksack. I would have a radio antenna sticking above my head and I would walk point. Laughter is full of colors.

God laughs in colors
I see in black and white.
My fears dark and hidden;
The laughter filled with light

Forty-one years after Gods watercolor wash I have conducted 50 critical incident debriefings, organized 4 interventions, talked three suicides down, provided substance abuse information to hundreds, published the contents of 11,000 pages of documents for my Old Guard battalion, taught my grand children to laugh in colors, built the 7th street memorial a second time and found a fresh site to be a tree vet. I did these things and never accepted a dime, not even for gas. Money would detract from the real reason for doing these things. Money screws things up.

I attended this year’s ceremony and no one saw me. I watched the honor guard fumble with their weapons and get off two of the planned three shots. They never saw me. My hide is secure.

Life is good.

in the
absence of
grace and mercy

rich raitano

I chose the title for this book not for any personal lack of spiritual or religious belief, nor to infer a meaningless or non-existent creator.
I do not intend to refute the faith of any or all who have served in combat, nor that of those who may read this accounting. I speak for no one but myself in this writing.
My experiences in combat, and the carnage it leaves in its wake, has left me with deeply rooted and horrific impressions that give me cause to doubt the presence of anything holy in a war zone other than those beliefs each of us may carry  or develop within that hellacious landscape. There seems to be no reason for God, or any gods to be there, let alone choose to take sides.
The regular combat soldier is nothing more than a reluctant captive serving in a harsh and brutal environment where chance and fate collide endlessly, and staying alive is a day to day, if not moment to moment challenge.
It is my belief, in combat, who lives or dies is not a predestined matter guided by a holy hand, but rather it is determined by the consequences of bitter misfortune and random circumstance. To imagine that a loving “God” would place or remove anyone from the path of death because He had determined “it was, or was not the time” does not make sense in the everyday world let alone on the battlefield.
The brutal violence and slaughter let loose in the arena of warfare cannot be the work of anyone or anything holy. Surely a loving and gracious Deity weeps while Satan feasts in the absence of grace and mercy.

epilogue

March, 2003

My wife and I sat in stunned silence, unable to take our eyes off the television set. A firefight was about to unfold in the early Iraqi morning. I found my eyes searching for movement in the flat two-dimensional distance while men and machine moved into combat positions. My breath quickened and my heart began to pound in my ears as the camera panned up and down the line of troops preparing to engage the Iraqi military.
My wife, her fists clenched tightly in her lap, sat with one leg tucked under her and the other on the floor pushing her into the back of the sofa. Her eyes widened in disbelief as I explained to her what was about to happen.
My muscles tightened, my mouth went dry and my head began to ache as the long sleeping beast, aroused by the adrenalin racing through my veins, fidgeted restlessly within me.
This had never happened before to a television audience…combat, live as it happened.
My war…Vietnam…sent filmed images to the U.S. within hours of an event for broadcast to television audiences as no other conflict before. The tragedy of combat filled the nightly six o’clock news; bitterly dividing the country; sending civilians and veterans alike in the hundreds of thousands to the streets in protest.
And now this, a life and death battle about to unfold in real time, scraped harshly against the senses and reached for old memories and fears to shake them loose.
When the fighting began, my wife curled her whole body onto the sofa and gasped as the rounds began to explode against the distant buildings and emplacements. I watched as she bit her lip and squirmed, her eyes transfixed, wide and horrified. “Oh, my God…my God!” she whimpered softly…”My God”
I turned my eyes back to the melee knowing full well that soon there would be death from this moment forward. Not to diminish the death that was already falling upon this tiny country by the technological superiority of our nations warring capabilities, nor the crude and sadistic death brought to it by the hands of its truly evil leaders…but these soldiers…these young men and women will soon be dying.
Thirty-five years earlier in 1968 I was part of a war that changed me in ways that can never be known by those who have never seen, heard or smelled its horrors.
There is a brotherhood with combatants…a fraternity of wounded spirits and sorrows for things done and friends lost…an intimacy borne of unspoken, half-forgotten and hidden memories. Color of skin or political ideology does not matter. Those who never lived this experience will never know. Never.
Now these young soldiers, miles from home, will join the ranks in the baptism of madness. And this night I watched as my wife grasped just a small piece of the hellish torment.
For thirty-five years I had kept the experience of Vietnam close. I made every attempt to put it behind me and make a “normal” life for me to live. The person I was before entering the service was nothing more than a ghost I pursued. I did not comprehend that my life as it once was had been changed. Who I once was and who I had become could not occupy the same space in time. The conflict lasted nearly forty years.
It was an intensely personal experience for returning VN veterans. We did not return home to parades and cheering crowds the way our fathers had at the end of WWII. We came home one by one, alone with our thoughts and unsure of our place in civilian life.
No one acknowledged us as we made our way home through the country’s airports in our class A uniforms. They did not have time to stop as they hurriedly made their way to their own destinations. Or perhaps they did not know how to approach us; what to say to us as we made our way to our destinations. Or maybe they just didn’t see us.
Perhaps we were nothing more than ghosts unaware of our own death; disembodied spirits trying to make our way home from Vietnam’s killing fields.

By the time I returned home in September, 1968, America was deeply divided by the war, and neither its citizens, nor we returning veterans could comprehend the depth of the restless tempest each of us carried. It was an unspoken message; a deep understanding for us that it was best to keep it hidden away.
Rarely would I risk sharing my experience. Mostly, no one seemed interested in hearing. No one asked, but, when someone did, the retelling left me fidgety, uncomfortable and nearly spastic with deep internal turmoil; stumbling awkwardly over my words as I attempted to answer the questions: Were you afraid? Did you kill anyone? Did you have any friends that died? What can you say to someone who has not lived that reality? How do you answer those questions when that reality is still an oozing wound slowly eating away at you?
They are curiously mystified by the closeness to the combat experience standing next to you offers them. Like the slow gawking procession past an auto accident, they dare to look into the mayhem that trembles before them. How can you put into words the horror and death experiences of war? What could be said that would give them the bleeding raw sense of fear, terror and inconsolable grief that consumes you each day?
Others, as most vets will attest, questioned my service with queries as to why I didn’t choose to go to Canada…or jail. Some simply resorted to the label of “baby killer;” words that struck the heart and spirit like no bullet ever could.
It was not theirs to judge. They were not there and did not have the slightest clue of what living in a war zone was like. They had no idea what the unimaginable dark corners of hell feel like. They did not have to come to terms with their own death or face the specter as it carried away a friend or comrade.
Over the years there have been many times when Vietnam has come to haunt. It often felt like a dream I had sometime in the past; so strong was the desire to forget and the ability to stuff the memory deep. And if it hadn’t been for photographs in a photo album, I might have come to believe that it really had all been a dream. But down deep I knew. I felt its presence in me. I still do.
This accounting has become the path connecting my past with the present…and headed to the future. I am walking towards the gateway to understanding, acceptance, and healing, and I am discovering that others, vets and clinicians, are walking with me; each of us lighting the way for one another.
It is also my wish that those of you who have not lived this experience, a window will open and the view of our world will lead you to an understanding of who we are and why we act the way we do at times. In so many ways you are the lucky ones. No matter the reason, you have not served in combat; your lives were not touched by the beast, but your relationship with the veteran has put you closer than you may be aware.

I do not feel that this telling bears any more value than any other. There have been many retellings by many others over the years, each with its own unique and enlightening perspective. In so many ways it becomes our opportunity to face our past and let loose our demons, if only for a short while.

December 5, 1967

We watched in apprehensive silence as the glittering lights of Waikiki faded slowly into the inky black South Pacific night. It was December 5th, 1967, and our time in the paradise of the Hawaiian Islands had come to its end. Months of training had shaped us, the 11th Light Infantry Brigade, into the Jungle Warriors called to action by General Westmoreland who believed we were ready to battle the communist enemy on the other side of the globe.
Huddled aft on the U.S.S. Gordon, we strained to catch the last fading glimpses of the world we were leaving: warm sandy beaches, tanned and bikinied beauties, and most of all… our youth.
The shoreline shimmered softly like a strand of diamonds resting on the obsidian night as we sailed away to war. It flickered as if to say aloha…and then was gone.
The mood on ship was pensive and solemn as we stared into an empty and dark night. Whispered conversations drifted into the December trade winds as the old gray merchant ship cut its way through the water.
We knew that within the coming year many of us would be killed. The truth of hostile conflict was an unknown; not even sixteen months of training could have prepared us for what lie ahead.
Who amongst us would not return?
The answer was out there…somewhere beyond the horizon… waiting for us.

Casualty Reporter

There’s not much good to be said about keeping track of the dead and wounded. I don’t mean the tedious, disconnected tallying of casualties from a list collected by some unknown gatherer of such things so they can be sorted, categorized and written into a daily report. I’m talking about the collector…the gatherer…the individual who has to personally track the dead and wounded for the one who tallies, who then sorts and categorizes quickly and efficiently so that letters can be sent to loved ones half a world away. Casualty Reporter: The one who gathers names, assess and evaluates the wounded and the cause of death of his fellow soldiers. The one present when the terror filled, shot up, traumatic amputated, sucking chest wounded, vomited breakfast on the litter, strangled screaming, crying for their mothers and wives, gore comes into the ER. The one present to watch as the life goes from their eyes and the last breath gurgles from their lungs. The ER is filled with the pungent stench of torn muscle and flesh, jagged bone, vomit, urine and feces, and entrails that permeate the room like a fouled butcher shop. It sticks to the hairs in your nose and on your clothes. Showers will never wash it away. You suck it up. Shut down. Take a deep fucking breath, ignore the screams in your own head and begin your collecting: Names, service number, wounds (GSW T&T R arm, traumatic amputation L leg AK and R leg BK), details of contact with enemy. One at a time. Two…three…five, sometimes more, sometimes less, they come. It’s always the same: Today… yesterday…tomorrow. Their faces come into focus. You know them! You trained together in ….Hawaii….. This one DOW as the doc’s work on him. That one torn like a rag doll, eyes wild with fear, left to die alone on a liter. More wait patiently at GR wrapped in OD plastic; stored in cold drawers like vegetables in a crisper. More to evaluate and identify. More names and faces. Stop! god-dammit…Stop! Where are you, God? Where the fuck are you!? When will you have had enough? When will you say no more!? Stop this fucking screaming in my head! No more, please. Please, God…no more. God is silent. Heaven is far from near. Suck it up, turn it off the best you can and head back to the hootch. Find something to talk and laugh about with your fellow CR’s. Ain’t no thing. Find a joint, light it up. Draw the cannabis in deep. Kick it with a swig or two of Jack Daniels. And wait. Wait for tomorrow.

Rich Raitano

Medic