File #510: "Mosaic vol. 1 1993_020.jpg"

We are carried directly to the hospital ship U.S.S. Sanctuary. The doctors, nurses, and corpmen have had a busy day today from the casualties of last night, and the activities today. Men are fighting and dying all over our sector.
Frenchie' will return to our platoon tomorrow, carried back by the choppers that bring back even more casualties. llot Dog' will return to the platoon in a few days. "Poncho' and I will return in two weeks. The assistant gunner who lost his arm and half his face was sent to Hawaii
When Poncho' and I return to our platoon it is good to see old faces. Some are not there. So much has happened since ve have been gone. It is not so good to see the new faces. New friends to make, and loose. We are already scarred and there is no hope for us. All we can do is stand back and watch these new men as that gleam in their eyes of hope, home, and a future is transposed into that thousand year stare that looks at nothing, yet sees everything. They too will have memories that they will never forget.
My time passes and home I am bound. I survived, or have I? Was surviving really worth it? I am changed and I can not help it. Things will never be the same. Every emotion was intensified to heights that will never be reached again. It was the highest high, and the lowest low. It was the happiest glad, and the saddest sorrow. I don't believe I will ever know fear again. I have loaded my friends' bodies aboard choppers and watched those choppers fly away: only to watch them return again for still more another day. Can I forget them? Would I forget them even if I could?
I lost something there. I don't know what it was, can't put my finger on it, but it's gone and I can never have it again. But I gained as well. The pride of having known and served with the greatest bunch of people I have ever known. Contrary to how we have been portrayed, we were not an unruly, undisciplined mob of raping, murderous teenagers with a license to kill. I am not at all ashamed of anyone I served with. They were all brave, loyal, outgoing, honest, honorable men. We were close, sharing everything from the water in our canteen, our last cigarette, chow, even our letters from home. Often we knew as much about each others family and friends as we did our own. There were bonds where we placed the life of a friend above our own. This was the caliber of men I served with. In an atmosphere of death and killing there was compassion and concern. I have a picture of Bear' and a little Vietnamese girl from a village we patrolled when not on operations. We called her "Round Eyes". They loved each other. She would always look for him and he always made sure to save up his chocolate and gun for her. We all tried to help the villages when we could. We helped build and repair huts. It wasn't unlikely to see us in the paddy dikes harvesting rice or sugar cane. Along the road it was possible to see one of us "dumb gruntTM Marines relieving Mamma-san of her load of rice, a bundle of sugar cane, or a bunch of bananas and adding that to our own back-breaking loads.
When we returned to Chu-Lia, I found Round Eyes looking for "Bear'. She knew I was his friend, so she came to me. I told her that Bear' had gone home. She cried the tears that I could not cry, but I cried for her. She to had lost a very special friend. Beat' had gone home, but it wasn't in that blg. silver "freedom bird", instead he was on an Air Force C-141, in a small gray box.
We were all changed in so many ways. Our values have changed. Some mean more, while others mean nothing. Death is a familiar face for we have all seen his smiling grin, and his crooked, bony finger pointing at us, reminding us that he will return. At eighteen and nineteen we had not seen life, but we Saw so much more.
I remember a day when one of our men pointed a hand, full of cuts and scratches at a plant with a soft petalled lower and said. Damn! That's the first thing I've seen today that didn't have thorns on it. The plant was also symbolic of Viet Nam. It is a country of thorns and cuts, with guns, meridan and of very little hope. Yet in the mist of it all a beautiful thought, a gesture, even a person can arise among it waving bravely at the death that bores down upon it. Someday this place will be burned by Napalm, and the little flower will crackle up and die among the thorns. Yet that flower will always live in the memory of a tired, wet Marine.
It was twenty-four years ago that I entered a world that changed my life. I did my job and served proudly. It's unfortunate that this pride cannot be shared. You would be as proud as I am of these brave men. We lived and dreamed to come home, yet upon arriving we were scorned, ridiculed, and treated like scum. I was glad to see the change in our country in the way our Desert Stormtroops were treated, although I must admit I was somewhat jealous. I was thankful that they did not receive the same reception that we received.
All in all though, I am proud to have served, and as strange as it may sound, if I had it all to do over again, I would. I would make one change though, I would not survive. wouldn't want to.
I
"The Nature of Man"
By: Paul Keller
All men possess an inherent ability to recognize and exhibit both "good" and "evil." While a man's conscious decisions may be influenced by his or her own environment, he or she is not predisposed to any one course of action. It is through the individual conscience that man defines his or her own existence. While religion, society, and governments each impose their own standards, the ultimate "nature of men is left to the discretion of a higher authority.