Widowmaker

Drew Martensen

Description

“This is the most poignant Vietnam War book I have read and without any selfbravado. It ranks up there with the famous WWI trench books. One could never again glorify war after reading this book.”

Hugo Trux, Marketing Director

“I half-heartedly picked up Widowmaker one day and was quickly immersed into one of the most riveting real life adventures I have ever read.” The Honorable Jon Spahr, JD, Licking County Court, Ohio

“I reluctantly picked up Widowmaker one day and couldn’t put it down. This is the best book I have ever read and believe it would make a great movie.” Jim Shulman, PhD, CEO (retired)

“I usually don’t have time to read novels; however, I picked up Widowmaker and completed reading it in eight hours. It has been extremely helpful in my practice with treating PTSD and is one of the best books I have ever read.” Judith Box, MD,
Psychiatrist

“I was 7 years old when my brother served in Vietnam. Thirty years later, he still has never spoken a word about Vietnam. After reading Widowmaker, I understood his silence. Drew’s book profoundly affected me and I have read it several times.” Carol Bennett

Sujets

• Histoire
• Military
• Vietnam War
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 05 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456808228
• Langue: English

Extrait

WIDOWMAKER
 
 
 
 
 
 
By Drew Martensen
 
Copyright © 2010 by Drew Martensen.
Library of Congress Control Number:
2010916347
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-4568-0821-1

Softcover
978-1-4568-0820-4

Ebook
978-1-4568-0822-8

 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
1-888-795-4274
www.Xlibris.com
89322
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I ran into Chick Smith in July, 1967 at Camp Pendleton in staging battalion a few weeks before leaving for Vietnam. He had the broad smile and proud face of a Navy corpsman getting ready to serve with Marines in combat. Chick was from my home-town and we had a great time talking about friends and family whom already seemed a world away. We were young, headstrong, gung-ho, accidents waiting to happen. We shook hands and gingerly said good-bye to one another and headed back to our units.
Six months later I returned on a stretcher and 13 months later Chick walked straight out of the jungle and onto the streets of America. We were alike in many ways after returning from Vietnam with injured hearts, minds, and hell-bent on self-destruction. We remained silent about the atrocities and struggled as outcasts from our own friends and country. Trying to blend in as civilians was nearly impossible. We suffocated in alcohol, felt unworthy to make eye contact, were clumsy around women, liked sleeping in the woods, and woke up in strange beds longing for the protection of our foxholes. We found it hard to get a job because of our Vietnam reputation. Chick was taking showers with his clothes on and crying a lot. One night he drove into the garage, left his car running, closed the door and went to sleep for good.
Too many young men and women came back from Vietnam and died as though they had been taken down by a full metal jacket. Chick is one of thousands and their spirits envelope the Wall even though their names are not enshrouded in the black granite.
To all the men and women who suffered and died during and after returning from the Vietnam War, I thank you.
CONTENTS
WIDOWMAKER, PART I
Chapter 1 Love, Mom
Chapter 2 The Face of Death
Chapter 3 Rite of Passage
Chapter 4 The Black Magic Carpet
Chapter 5 The Devil
Chapter 6 The Riviera
Chapter 7 Sugar Report
Chapter 8 The Dead Marine Zone
Chapter 9 Blue Eyes
Chapter 10 War Lepers
WIDOWMAKER, PART II
Chapter 11 Homecoming
Chapter 12 Mr. Light
Chapter 13 The Blackout
Chapter 14 Recovery
Chapter 15 The Night is Over
Widowmaker, Part I
“Even the bravest men are frightened by sudden terrors.”
— Publius Cornelius Tacitus
CHAPTER I Love, Mom
August 1967
I slowly open my eyes from a slumber as our plane begins a quiet descent toward the airfield at DaNang, South Vietnam. Four hours earlier our company of 200 grunts had been partying in Okinawa celebrating our departure from the good old USA. I look below at the rolling surf of the South China Sea which appears more like a vacation paradise rather than a war zone. Within minutes our plane drops onto the DaNang airstrip and I catch a glimpse of bomb craters and damaged planes along the runway. “Damn, we’re really here,” I murmur.
The captain announces over the intercom, “Marines, we’re at your destination. I promise we’ll be back to pick each and everyone of you up in thirteen months. May God be with you.” Tearful stewardesses squeeze our hands and kiss our cheeks as we leave the plane giving me an ominous feeling about what may lie ahead. I walk out of the air-conditioned cabin onto the tarmac which is radiating heat like a furnace and quickly understand why our drill instructors worked us day and night in the scorching, snake infested back-woods of south Carolina. Jet engines scream, helicopter blades thump, sergeants bark orders, and tank engines roar rattling my eardrums. I hold my head high and proudly walk toward the receiving area.
My heart pounds as we board trucks and ride through the steamy streets of a city shaking with anxiety from nightly Vietcong rocket attacks. Prostitutes, pimps, and drug dealers call out, “Good dope, good boom-boom for Marine!” Dilapidated huts made of cardboard and bamboo line the narrow streets, looking like the houses we built as kids with poker cards. A Marine barters with two men wearing black pajamas and coolie hats holding out what looks like clumps of black tar heroine for wads of cash. We turn a corner and a voluptuous woman clad only in pajama bottoms hangs her clothes out to dry. Nearby, a group of kids beg an MP for candy while hollering the enemy leader’s name, “Ho Chi Minh, no good!” An old woman shouts angrily and waves her fist at us, as if we had done something wrong. From the truck radio the voice of Hanoi Hanna, the Communist propagandist from North Vietnam pleads, “Please, Marines, give up the fighting, you can’t win!” while groups of teenage Marines roam the streets armed with guns and knives. I wonder if this place is gonna’ make the world safe for democracy.
At twilight our truck enters regiment headquarters. We grab our gear and rush into our sleeping quarters. A burly sergeant shouts, “Don’t get too comfortable ladies but do enjoy your last night of peaceful sleep.”
I toss my gear on a bunk next to a guy named Cars, whom I met just prior to leaving the States. His full name is Lee Carson but infantrymen, or grunts, are usually called by a shortened form of their last name. Cars is from a small hollow in Tennessee and lets me know he’s proud of it. Cars calls everyone from the North “damn Yankees,” and you’d think the South had won the Civil War. I like Cars because he never hesitates to say what he’s thinking. He has a Southern accent, bushy mustache, sandy hair, and stands about 5 feet 8 inches. His features seem much larger than his 150 pound frame suggests. Cars is sitting on his rack singing a country ballad off key, “That no good drunken Injun, yeah, the Marine named Ira Hayes.”
“Who the hell’s Ira Hayes?” I ask in agony.
“You don’t know Ira Hayes?” he quips. “He’s the World War II Indian who helped raise the flag at Iwo Jima. After the war he had problems with booze and ended up dyin’ of drinkin’ too much. My old man told me a lot of guys were messed up after they came back, but nobody talked about it. He said they saw the beyond and returned with the thousand-yard stare.”
“What’s this thousand-yard stare?” I ask.
“That’s when a grunt sees too much combat and they get this look about ’em like they’re starin’ at something far away.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “I guess my dad’s brother had it when he came home on leave from the Big One. Dad said Uncle Jerry sat most of the day looking out the window like he had something real serious on his mind.”
“He saw the bogeyman!” Cars says. “Old Man Death was out to get him but missed. That’s when you get the stare.”
“Where you goin’ after you get back from the war, Cars?” I shrug.
“Tennessee. I’m goin’ back there in 13 months after I do this temporary duty in the Nam, then I’m AMF—adios motherfucker, outta this Marine Corps Crotch.” Then he continues singing that ballad Ira Hayes off-key—“That no good drunken Injun, yeah, the Marine named Ira Hayes.”
I lie back on my cot listening to Cars and think about what our new duty station might be like. Those of us who arrived on the plane are heading for duty stations somewhere away from the Marine stronghold of DaNang, which is about 100 miles south of the Demilitarized Zone. The DMZ divides North Vietnam from the South. All the area 200 miles south from the DMZ is considered the I Corps and defended by U.S. Marines. The I Corps is a pivotal area, since the North Vietnamese troops travel through it to get to the central and southern regions of Vietnam where the U.S. Army is stationed. Two smaller cities north of DaNang are much closer to the DMZ: Quang Tri, 25 miles south of the DMZ, and Hue, about 50 miles south. The territories between these three cities have been hotbeds of enemy activity since early 1967. Drill instructors used buzz words like “Hill 881,” “Operation Hastings,” and “The Rockpile” to motivate us. They told stories of grunts who fought and died in these areas as legends for the rest of us to uphold and follow. I heard in boot camp that Marine casualty rates run at least 50 percent in these areas and that one in four Marines will wear his medals posthumously. The odds are fifty-fifty that I will get wounded, however, some battalions have casualty rates as high as 90 percent. They call them “Widowmakers.”
“Think we might end up in a Widowmaker battalion, Cars?”
“Better hope not, ’cause there ain’t no swingin’ dicks that make it out of the Widowmaker. Anyway, there’s only a couple of those Widowmaker battalions, and they’re both up north along the DMZ doin’ beach landings. We ain’t headin’ that way, we’re goin’ somewhere outside DaNang.”
Cars and I bed down for the night next to a couple of guys we had met on the plane named Demarco and Matthews. We are alike in many ways: young, immature, head-strong, accidents waiting to happen. It’s more important for us to fight in Nam than to have fought for deferments. Night sweeps over the regiment while we talk new-guy stuff. “Where you guys f