Loon - Jack McLean [45]
Love,
Jack
Confident that I’ll be all right?
I had no confidence whatsoever that I would be all right, let alone that I would see nightfall. My lesson for that day was that the line between life and death was random and arbitrary.
I elected not to share that revelation with my mother.
On December 6, 1967, the small group of us new guys had been officially baptized into the fraternity of combat-tested United States Marines. Although it was a rite of passage, it didn’t feel that way to me. I hadn’t killed anybody. I hadn’t really even shot at anybody that I could see.
It had been eerie, frightening, invigorating, chaotic, and surreal.
Welcome to combat.
It was not like in the movies.
16
SEVERAL UNEVENTFUL WEEKS FOLLOWED. CHARLIE AND Delta companies moved back and forth across the Firebreak without incident, save the nightly mortar visits from the NVA. The rain subsided. The sun came out. Although still cool in the shade, it was almost warm, and we each grabbed every opportunity to dry our soggy gear and selves.
All agreed that there had never been a night like December sixth.
On a quiet night weeks later, I was standing an uneventful third watch thinking of home and wondering what the scene was in Brookline. It was Christmas Eve—my first ever away from home and family. A little before midnight, preparing to wake my watch relief, I took a final scan out over the parapet toward the desolately black DMZ beyond.
My rifle lay before me with a full magazine, a chambered round, and the safety in the off position. There were several hand grenades by my side—fragmentation in case they got close, illumination in case I heard a scary noise. There was also a little switch that connected to a wire that led to a claymore mine that I had placed twenty feet in front of me. When activated, a claymore would eliminate all living things within fifteen feet of its face—plants, rats, humans. It was a nasty little weapon that provided great peace of mind to any weary marine on a late watch.
I had a fresh canteen of water and a half-smoked pack of Camels. I pulled one out and lit it—ever careful to shroud the ignition lest I expose my position. I was saving the remnants of a joint as a special treat for later.
I wasn’t certain that I had ever been up at midnight on Christmas Eve. Dad and Ruthie used to go to the midnight church service sometimes, but I never found the idea very appealing. The faster I got to bed, the faster Christmas would come. I continued to believe that long after I stopped believing in Santa Claus.
Yet here we really were—caught in an unfathomably peculiar limbo between war and peace.
War—the previous two weeks had been cold, wet, mud, horror, death, wounded, scared, oh my God so scared.
Peace—a three-day Christmas cease-fire during which there was no noise, no movement, no patrols, no incoming artillery or mortars, and no outgoing.
At midnight, as I was preparing to give my watch relief a gentle nudge, a dull distant boom broke the silence. It was a distinctive muzzle blast from far to our south. Dong Ha? Quang Tri? Then another—boom. I thought it must be night defensive fire from the rear.
Why were we shooting?
More drumming boomed on top of the other. So much for Christmas. Then, all at once, the familiar whistling sound from far above was followed by a friendly pop.
A white illumination flare exploded across a jet-black sky … and then another. Alert. Senses spiked. Enemy activity? Eyes sharp, Jack. Adjust. Adjust. Use your peripheral vision. Look away from the lowering flare. Look for movement, any movement. Is the claymore still there? Yes. Thank God. Then again from high above a green flare ignited a sky that was already sprayed with a million stars, followed by a red flare.
A red flare.
Christmas Eve.
The silence of the cease-fire continued all through Christmas Day except for a brief early-morning flyover by a spotter plane with speakers that serenaded us with Christmas carols. It was very cool. No patrols were sent out, although the watch schedules were maintained.