The Soldier- Operation Charlie Ridge
COPYRIGHTS © 2013 SOUTHERN ACTS
THIS IS A REAL LIFE STORY ABOUT A BOY THAT WENT TO WAR JUST FOR YOUR RIGHT TO LIVE FREE, AND SO I COULD BE WHAT I WANTED TO BE.
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THE
SOLDIER
VOLUME ONE
OPERATION
CHARLIE RIDGE
BY
THE MISFORTUNES
COPYRIGHTS © 2013 SOUTHERN ACTS
THE SOLDIER TO BE A MARINE IS TO DO OR DIE
Those are the words
They taught us to live and die by
You heard them from the time you woke up till you went to bed
IF YOU WENT TO BED
THIS IS A REAL STORY OF A BOY THAT WENT TO WAR
TO FIGHT FOR YOUR FREEDOM
NOW SET ME FREE TO BE WHAT
I WANT TO BE
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE.. 5
Out for a Daily walk.. 5
CHAPER TWO.. 12
Morning comes early in war time…... 12
CHAPTER THREE.. 19
Out for another walk again today, 19
INTRODUCTION
HERE I AM 62 YEARS OLD NOW AND STILL WALK THROUGH TIME INTO THE PAST THAT I LIVED LONG AGO.
I AM NOT PROUD OF WHAT I HAD TO DO THERE JUST FOR FREEDOM,
WHEN I CAME HOME FROM VIETNAM I WAS CALLED A BABY KILLER AND HAD BRICKS THROWN AT ME WHEN I WAS IN UNIFORM.
I AM NOT SURE WHAT WE WERE FIGHTING FOR, BUT I STILL DO NOT HAVE MY FREEDOM,
BECAUSE YOU HAVE JUDGED ME WHEN YOU DID NOT KNOW ME.
AFTER YOU HAVE READ THIS
THEN YOU JUDGE ME.
CHAPTER ONE
Out for a Daily walk
I’ll walk with you along the trials and through the rice paddies and the jungles of South Vietnam. It was a year that myself and so many others cannot and will never forget, and it doesn’t matter how hard we try to or want to, we cannot forget those times. There are something’s that just do not go away.
We were all just a bunch of kids that had some training for a few months, now we were killers looking for the enemy. Little did we know that the real enemy would be us.
You may wonder why I say this, it is because we were the ones that were wrong for being there in the first place, they did not want our help because of the way they were, they did not care about their own much less us, we were the enemy there.
These people had lived like this all their lives and nothing there would ever change. It has been that way long before we got there.
They choose to live like rats and fight for everything there was. They were doing it with the French and they were doing it with someone else before that, so it is and will be the only thing they know how to do. We were there just because some rich needed to be richer. And the country need a boost in the job market and it needed people to die to make room.
You may not like this,
There were times when death is all we saw.
That is what wars are for…
People need to die to make room to bring in new life, that is a fact, and it will always have to be. Sorry, but, can you just think of what it would be like to see 45/50 soldiers, either wounded or killed in less than 45 minutes of your life, I have been there.
There are things here that are hurting me to tell, because, I have to remember these things as well as tell them. Sometimes, I find myself lost in deep thought of those times in my old life, and wonder why I needed to make this change. Maybe I felt the need to bury the man that walked through those jungles and had to kill for a living.
Being point man did have its advantages, I could carry any weapon I wanted to, so I had a 45 pistol and what they call a M79 grenade launcher.
You did not want to be standing in front of me.
When I first got to the Nam, I was put with the 26th Marine Div. It was real bad there because we were right at the DMZ, and the enemy came at night in full force. There were times when you did not get any sleep, and there were times when you could not leave the hill.
The enemy, (Charlie/North Vietnamese) had tunnels dug all over the place, you never knew where he would come up from in the ground. At night you could see them coming across the valley carrying the rice they had got from the people to feed the soldiers. It was our job to stop them from getting through.
Some of these guys, had been there for a long while and some of them, I think, had been there way too long. They did some things that I will not even try to tell you. I am sure they made their Mothers proud when they sent them the ear of a human being to wear around their neck, like a necklace.
I know that I had just got there and there where things that I needed to learn, but what I saw, was not what I wanted to learn. I had only been in country for 3 months when the company got orders to pull out of the Nam, there was a reason they got those orders. There was a price on the head of every man in that company for war crimes against the Vietnamese soldiers. Their leaders put a price of 126 dollars of their money on our heads, which was a year’s pay for their soldiers.
But when they pulled out, there were about 30 of us that did not get to go back home with them, we had to stay there. For a while there was no where to send us, we just found us a little village and moved in. We guarded them and they helped us with food and water.
After living around the village for a while we finally got put with another unit, that is when I was put with the 1st. Marines Div.
Now I was the first of the first Marines
Now you need to keep in mind
I am now living as a woman and I was just trying to live up to being a man. That was something that you wanted me to be. Something I did not want to be to start with. Now just realize that I had to deal with all this at that time. This is why I just wanted to bury that man in me. I did not like him anymore. I was only 18 years old and just want to be set free from all this crap, because I knew what my life would be like at home.
I have still a lot more to tell. this is hard on me to talk about all this, yet I find the need more and more to just let it all out. I have had this locked up inside me so long, not sure how I have not just screamed by now.
Hope that you are feeling what it would be like to have walked in my shoes and lived that life. I am glad that you did not have to.
I guess that is why there were men like me, to do just that, kill for your rights to live here in America free from all that carp like they live in. I have but one regret, and that is I did not die there.
But then I would not be me now if I would have.
CHAPTER TWO
Morning comes early in war time…
Every day we count the time down. There were what we called the short timers, and they are getting close to going home. When you get down to the last 20 days hopefully they will not send you back out to the bush. Everyone makes their own little page with the days marked on them and they mark each one off as they get closer to the last one.
We get up and hit the road or trail, as you would call it, it can led us into a whole world of shit. There was a time when we were on Charlie Ridge and walking through the jungles as I did not like to follow a trail, because of the booby traps, I would make my own trail sometimes cutting through thick jungle grass as tall as we were. It could take an hour just to move 100 feet, but if the trails were not safe, we had no choose.
Anyway, I came to an old dried up river bed, and had to cross it.
That would prove to be more fun than you could think off.
There was an old log that had fallen across the rocks, so I thought I would use the log to cross, but as I got to the middle of it......there was gun fire, and I was in the middle of it all, because they were just shooting at me.
I than had no choice but to jump off the log and down into the rocks. When I looked back there was no one but me there, the others guys had made it back to the side of the river bank and found cover. I was left out there all alone, oh yeah, and the shit really got good when I tried to fire my rifle and found out that the gas cider plug had fallen out and the only way I could change the bullets was to cock the rifle one at a time. So now I am being shot at and pinned down, with no help from the rest of the men.
I just said go for it and started running up those rocks and toward the enemy. Uphill now… I had no choice anymore, so I started yelling out and going crazy up that hill. I'll bet those Vietnamese soldiers thought I was nuts. When I got to the top there was a bunker there and the guys that were in it had gone, but they left the machine gun sitting there.
When I looked over the top of the hill I almost shit, because I all could see were roof tops that looked like a village and it was pretty big. The enemy had dug out the side of the mountain and had caves everywhere in it. Then they built these roofs out of bamboo to hide the big holes in the side of the mountain so that the spotter planes could not spot them.
The other side of the Charlie Ridge was in Cambodia
For the next three days we just stayed there and made sure the enemy did not come back. It turned out to be what looked like a resting place for them to get food and supplies, but most of all much needed medical help. We checked out everything there was, I found a lot of T&T about 200 pounds worth and two cans of sardines, so I thought, they were two cans that were now bombs that I had been carrying around crawling through those tunnels. They claim that over 30,000 Vietnamese soldiers could stay there at one time. I got a chance to go in some tunnels and I found old rifles, like a M1 carbine from World War Two. And some Russian rifles as well. I had five all together.
After three days of rest,
it was time to get back to work.
We had 12 miles down the mountain to travel.
It was time to blow up the top of this mountain and close it off to everything, man or beast, we had plans for it. They had sent us some barrels with some of the worst chemicals you could have known. This stuff was so bad that it would kill anything in a 10 mile radius around where it was set off, and nothing, I mean nothing would grow there for 10 years, plants or animals. We had to set these off by hand now, there was no high-tech junk back then, this meant that someone had to stay there and set them off, guest who just had to raise his hand another chance to die is the way I saw it.
Two others and I choose to do this, so we let all the rest get down the hill before we set the bombs off.
This was the beginning of the end.
Now all we had to do was run like hell was on our tail…
We only had 12 miles down the side of the mountain to go, so we got down about 1 mile then set everything off, now it was time to go, running our asses off, down we went.
After about three miles we knew that it was too late for us, there was no way that we would not have to breath in some of the gas, we just kept running as fast and hard as we could. There were times when I didn’t think I was running any more just falling and rolling down the hill. It had rained some the night before so there were places where it was too wet to stand, so we just kind of sat and slipped down the wet spots. I guess we had gotten far enough ahead of the worst part and managed to keep ahead of it.
I’m still live, maybe screwed up, but alive.
(Not funny)
We had made it down to the bottom of the hill and we were still alive and kicking, the doc, checked us out and said it was ok for us to just keep going, if we had any problems, let him know, you don’t want to know what kind of problems he told us to watch out for.
Vietnam was a lovely place at one time, war can and does change all that, Think of what it would look like here if we had a war.
Where would the beauty go?
You do not see your own beauty till you see what is not, War can change things like people and countries, it is bad, but we do not stop, why is that, I am 62 now and still do not understand why we must kill each other.
CHAPTER THREE
Out for another walk again today,
come and join me as I take you down the trails of War in Vietnam. It is early morning and everyone has tried to get some much needed rest. Today we start a long walk through the valley and it will not be a good one.
Little did we know just how bad it would be.
Though I walk through the valley of death
I will fear no evil
For I am the meanest MF in the valley!!!!
Today I will take you through this valley with myself and the whole company. We were to be the lead squad to move in and start this long walk. As I said earlier, I was the point man, and I did not like to follow anyone, this is just me I guest, some of us were born to be followers, and some born to be leaders.
I Am a leader and have been a leader all my life, I felt, that I just needed to be in front,
I think that I felt that if someone just had to die, then I would put myself first. Maybe I did go there to die, it is what I believed would be the best thing for me. I had already talked with my mother about some of the feelings I was having and she said I needed to become a priest and give my life to God, I did think about it for about two minutes, not for me, I love God and trust in him, I do believe that he has protected me throughout all these years, but I think he had other plans for me. I have helped a lot of people in my life and I have given way more then I have received, yet I don’t regret a minute of my life, just don’t like some of it.
We were called “Grunt’s” it was
because we were the ground troops.
We lived in the blood and guts of others before us.
Ok, here we go. There was our radio man, who was married and only had 21 days left in country and they would not send him back to the rear on a chopper, so that meant that he would have to hump it with the rest of us through the valley, there was but one problem for him.
The radio man would have to use what is called a whip antenna on the radio, because of all the tall grass. It was called elephant grass because it was so tall.
We had to think of something, so here I go again, putting my hand up, not wanting to miss that shot at dying again, I guess I would never learn. I had been training some kid, (yea, listen to me, I am 18 now guys) to take my place on point, so I thought that I might could let him do the thing. I put another soldier I thought was ok with him to help him out, then I took the radio on my back and let the radio man go.
Now I was the target for the snipers.
With that antenna on the radio, it was like a big sign. Here I am, shoot me, lol, off we go into the tall grass, you could not get over 10 feet away from someone because you would not be able to see them anymore. We were doing pretty good I thought and it looked like everything would be ok, the kid up in front was doing well. I was walking behind the squad leader and was not even thinking much about what was going on up there, when I realized that he had stopped in front of me. Now, I didn’t think much of all this and maybe I should have, it would have made a big difference in our lives, both our lives. He was down on one knee when I got to him, tying a boot, so I stopped and leaned forward to pull that damn radio up on my back,
that thing was heavy and you needed to keep it tight up on your back.
So now, there he was on the ground and I was about three or four feet behind him,
pulling my radio up when the whip came down and at that point and time there was this loud nothing and the first thing I knew was that I was about 20 or more feet from where I had been. I was laying in a hole full of bad water, water that had been there for a long time, full of all kinds of shit. Laying there I felt something warm running down my neck and I put my hand there to see what I could feel. When I looked at my hand it was covered with blood, my blood, and I just thought it might be my throat that was cut open, all I knew at that time was to hold my hand there as tight as I could, till help came. The first one that got to me was the boy that I was carrying the radio for. He just stepped right in there trying to do what he could for me.
He yelled for a corpsman
(Military doc.) to come to me
When the first one got to me, I told him that I did not know where the squad leader was, please go find him, I think he got the worst of it, I was not sure of anything at that point and time, I just knew it was the right thing for me to say, I knew that I was still alive, him I didn’t know about. So the corpsman went on, then the next one got to me and when he looked at me he f**king froze up, I mean froze like he couldn’t do or say anything, just stood there mouth wide open, in shock. So now here I am really starting to bleed real bad and I think I was in some kind of shock or just screwed up bad. I could feel the warm blood, and the thought of my throat being cut open wasn’t that great.
The boy or maybe I should say the young man (the radio man) stayed with me, trying his damnedest to stop the bleeding, but he could not.
He put 21 bandages around my head, hoping that he could help me that was in his heart, I could see it in his eyes that he was hurt, and wanted only to be there for me at this point. He would not leave me.
Finally some of the others came to help. They carried me up to the top of that hole I was in and laid me down up there. I think someone give me a shot of something, or I was feeling the weakness of losing so much blood, not sure what was happening to me, yet I was still there with the living. I was sitting up as I tried to look around and I saw them carrying the squad leader now.
They were carrying him and then, they hit another mine. These were what we called box mines that were buried in the ground. They were little boxes that had all, and anything that they could find to put in them like nails, glass, and more, even human shit, yes shit, just to make it worst. Well when they hit that one there were about three more men hurt.
I was just sitting there when one of the men landed in my lap. Like wow, there I was now looking at his leg and wondering why I couldn’t tell his foot from his boot, they were one, just so messed up, I just tried to get the boot off. He was a friend of mine and when we got home I was going to meet his folks in Texas, but that never happened, I did write to his parents and tell them what happen and let them know that I would have loved to have meet them, under better conditions, but not then. Anyway all I knew was someone garbed me and told me that I was in no shape to help anyone, just to lay there. I could hear the choppers coming now, and then I was being put on one of them. My friend the radio man was there again with me, my head was on his lap, and when we got to the hospital and the corpsman came on the chopper to get us off, they thought that he was bleeding all around his belly,
He told them, it was my blood
So they took me into the ER, I was not sure what was going on, yet I could still hear. It was kind of weird that I could not see, yet hear. It was like being out of my body and looking down into the crowd of people, looking over “my body”. I thought I might be dead, or close to it.
Like I said, I was just laying there when the nurse started taking off the bandages and she said,
where is his ear???, a Doctor stopped her and I could hear him getting on her ass about talking like that, he said sometimes the patients could still hear, so they didn’t say anything that would cause someone to go into shock.
Well anyway, like yes hello, where was my ear?
It had been ripped almost off and was just hanging there.
The blood was pumping out of my ear drum every time my heart would beat; I lost over 4 pints of blood. They had me in there for half a day trying to put me back in one piece. You see the metal from the box mine had cut my ear almost off and had cut into my chin and face leaving holes that had to be graphed. The Doc. told me then that if I lived to be 50, the inside of my body would be like a 70 or 80 year old person. And I have been there for some time now. Trust me.
Anyway, it was 4 days before they would allow me look at myself in a mirror, they did not want me to go into shock not being able to see my face, it was all bandaged up and stayed that way for 4 or 5 days, then they started to slowly take it off and show me.
Yes I was afraid of what I would see, all I had going for me was my looks, and did not want to lose that.
I guess I was lucky, because it didn’t look as bad as I thought it might. It was rough and there was a lot of cleaning to do now. There was this nurse that came in every day and worked with me to get it back all cleaned up and helped me to get out all the little pieces of strap metal that was still in there. I was in intensive care for 11 days. I was the lucky one here, my squad leader had lose an eye and both legs and his right arm, but they have taken good care of him and he walks now just like you. Not sure about my two friends, never heard any more about them, I was shipped to a hospital to recover and wait orders to go home.
For the next month or so, I was just moved around till I was sent home to try and start my life over. I did get the Purple Heart for being wounded in action.
I had to have 173 stitches in the left side of my face and had to have skin graphed to my chin as well
Yes I really was the lucky one. I could have come home looking like the monster I had become.
Death is the price so many had to pay for your freedom to do, to live, to say what you want to, think about who those people were that gave their lives for you. They were people just like me, with a dream and a need. When we went to war, we did not judge you or care what you wanted to do with your life, we just went and fought for your rights to exist, so the next time you see someone like me or anyone, think about just what we had to do to get where we are.
I stand proud of all the men and women that have given their lives for freedom, stand with me please.
I am ex Marine Corp Sgt. B. J. Chiasson
And
I Salute You Soldier.
I am now going to walk away from this trip back in time and hope that I now may find some kind of peace with myself for what I had done there. I was not a killer when I left home, yet I had become one, and that is not just something you can let go of. There have been times in my life when the need to do what I have to, to protect myself and the ones I love….. Today I would gladly stand for the ones that cannot stand up for themselves, and I will do what I have to, when pushed into a corner.
REMEMBER I DID ALL THAT AND I DID NOT EVEN WANT TO BE A MAN IN THE FIRST PLACE, SO I FEEL THAT I HAVE EARNED THE RIGHT TO BE THE BEST DAMN WOMAN I CAN BE, BECAUSE I WAS TAUGHT BY THE BEST, TO BE THE BEST YOU CAN, WITH THE FEW, THE BRAVE, THE MARINES.
SIMPFI DO OR DIE
I will say thank you to all those that have followed me this far. I really should go now; there are tears that I cannot fight much more.
BECAUSE OF YOU I DO THE THINGS I DO.
SOUTHERN ACTS PRESENTS
"THE MISFORTUNES"
WRITTEN BY BOBBIE JEAN CHIASSON
EDITED BY STEVEN LAWHORN
SOLELY FOR THE USE BY SOUTHERN ACTS
COPYRIGHTS © 2013 SOUTHERN ACTS
SOLDIER
VOLUME ONE
OPERATION
CHARLIE RIDGE
BY
THE MISFORTUNES
COPYRIGHTS © 2013 SOUTHERN ACTS
THE SOLDIER TO BE A MARINE IS TO DO OR DIE
Those are the words
They taught us to live and die by
You heard them from the time you woke up till you went to bed
IF YOU WENT TO BED
THIS IS A REAL STORY OF A BOY THAT WENT TO WAR
TO FIGHT FOR YOUR FREEDOM
NOW SET ME FREE TO BE WHAT
I WANT TO BE
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE.. 5
Out for a Daily walk.. 5
CHAPER TWO.. 12
Morning comes early in war time…... 12
CHAPTER THREE.. 19
Out for another walk again today, 19
INTRODUCTION
HERE I AM 62 YEARS OLD NOW AND STILL WALK THROUGH TIME INTO THE PAST THAT I LIVED LONG AGO.
I AM NOT PROUD OF WHAT I HAD TO DO THERE JUST FOR FREEDOM,
WHEN I CAME HOME FROM VIETNAM I WAS CALLED A BABY KILLER AND HAD BRICKS THROWN AT ME WHEN I WAS IN UNIFORM.
I AM NOT SURE WHAT WE WERE FIGHTING FOR, BUT I STILL DO NOT HAVE MY FREEDOM,
BECAUSE YOU HAVE JUDGED ME WHEN YOU DID NOT KNOW ME.
AFTER YOU HAVE READ THIS
THEN YOU JUDGE ME.
CHAPTER ONE
Out for a Daily walk
I’ll walk with you along the trials and through the rice paddies and the jungles of South Vietnam. It was a year that myself and so many others cannot and will never forget, and it doesn’t matter how hard we try to or want to, we cannot forget those times. There are something’s that just do not go away.
We were all just a bunch of kids that had some training for a few months, now we were killers looking for the enemy. Little did we know that the real enemy would be us.
You may wonder why I say this, it is because we were the ones that were wrong for being there in the first place, they did not want our help because of the way they were, they did not care about their own much less us, we were the enemy there.
These people had lived like this all their lives and nothing there would ever change. It has been that way long before we got there.
They choose to live like rats and fight for everything there was. They were doing it with the French and they were doing it with someone else before that, so it is and will be the only thing they know how to do. We were there just because some rich needed to be richer. And the country need a boost in the job market and it needed people to die to make room.
You may not like this,
There were times when death is all we saw.
That is what wars are for…
People need to die to make room to bring in new life, that is a fact, and it will always have to be. Sorry, but, can you just think of what it would be like to see 45/50 soldiers, either wounded or killed in less than 45 minutes of your life, I have been there.
There are things here that are hurting me to tell, because, I have to remember these things as well as tell them. Sometimes, I find myself lost in deep thought of those times in my old life, and wonder why I needed to make this change. Maybe I felt the need to bury the man that walked through those jungles and had to kill for a living.
Being point man did have its advantages, I could carry any weapon I wanted to, so I had a 45 pistol and what they call a M79 grenade launcher.
You did not want to be standing in front of me.
When I first got to the Nam, I was put with the 26th Marine Div. It was real bad there because we were right at the DMZ, and the enemy came at night in full force. There were times when you did not get any sleep, and there were times when you could not leave the hill.
The enemy, (Charlie/North Vietnamese) had tunnels dug all over the place, you never knew where he would come up from in the ground. At night you could see them coming across the valley carrying the rice they had got from the people to feed the soldiers. It was our job to stop them from getting through.
Some of these guys, had been there for a long while and some of them, I think, had been there way too long. They did some things that I will not even try to tell you. I am sure they made their Mothers proud when they sent them the ear of a human being to wear around their neck, like a necklace.
I know that I had just got there and there where things that I needed to learn, but what I saw, was not what I wanted to learn. I had only been in country for 3 months when the company got orders to pull out of the Nam, there was a reason they got those orders. There was a price on the head of every man in that company for war crimes against the Vietnamese soldiers. Their leaders put a price of 126 dollars of their money on our heads, which was a year’s pay for their soldiers.
But when they pulled out, there were about 30 of us that did not get to go back home with them, we had to stay there. For a while there was no where to send us, we just found us a little village and moved in. We guarded them and they helped us with food and water.
After living around the village for a while we finally got put with another unit, that is when I was put with the 1st. Marines Div.
Now I was the first of the first Marines
Now you need to keep in mind
I am now living as a woman and I was just trying to live up to being a man. That was something that you wanted me to be. Something I did not want to be to start with. Now just realize that I had to deal with all this at that time. This is why I just wanted to bury that man in me. I did not like him anymore. I was only 18 years old and just want to be set free from all this crap, because I knew what my life would be like at home.
I have still a lot more to tell. this is hard on me to talk about all this, yet I find the need more and more to just let it all out. I have had this locked up inside me so long, not sure how I have not just screamed by now.
Hope that you are feeling what it would be like to have walked in my shoes and lived that life. I am glad that you did not have to.
I guess that is why there were men like me, to do just that, kill for your rights to live here in America free from all that carp like they live in. I have but one regret, and that is I did not die there.
But then I would not be me now if I would have.
CHAPTER TWO
Morning comes early in war time…
Every day we count the time down. There were what we called the short timers, and they are getting close to going home. When you get down to the last 20 days hopefully they will not send you back out to the bush. Everyone makes their own little page with the days marked on them and they mark each one off as they get closer to the last one.
We get up and hit the road or trail, as you would call it, it can led us into a whole world of shit. There was a time when we were on Charlie Ridge and walking through the jungles as I did not like to follow a trail, because of the booby traps, I would make my own trail sometimes cutting through thick jungle grass as tall as we were. It could take an hour just to move 100 feet, but if the trails were not safe, we had no choose.
Anyway, I came to an old dried up river bed, and had to cross it.
That would prove to be more fun than you could think off.
There was an old log that had fallen across the rocks, so I thought I would use the log to cross, but as I got to the middle of it......there was gun fire, and I was in the middle of it all, because they were just shooting at me.
I than had no choice but to jump off the log and down into the rocks. When I looked back there was no one but me there, the others guys had made it back to the side of the river bank and found cover. I was left out there all alone, oh yeah, and the shit really got good when I tried to fire my rifle and found out that the gas cider plug had fallen out and the only way I could change the bullets was to cock the rifle one at a time. So now I am being shot at and pinned down, with no help from the rest of the men.
I just said go for it and started running up those rocks and toward the enemy. Uphill now… I had no choice anymore, so I started yelling out and going crazy up that hill. I'll bet those Vietnamese soldiers thought I was nuts. When I got to the top there was a bunker there and the guys that were in it had gone, but they left the machine gun sitting there.
When I looked over the top of the hill I almost shit, because I all could see were roof tops that looked like a village and it was pretty big. The enemy had dug out the side of the mountain and had caves everywhere in it. Then they built these roofs out of bamboo to hide the big holes in the side of the mountain so that the spotter planes could not spot them.
The other side of the Charlie Ridge was in Cambodia
For the next three days we just stayed there and made sure the enemy did not come back. It turned out to be what looked like a resting place for them to get food and supplies, but most of all much needed medical help. We checked out everything there was, I found a lot of T&T about 200 pounds worth and two cans of sardines, so I thought, they were two cans that were now bombs that I had been carrying around crawling through those tunnels. They claim that over 30,000 Vietnamese soldiers could stay there at one time. I got a chance to go in some tunnels and I found old rifles, like a M1 carbine from World War Two. And some Russian rifles as well. I had five all together.
After three days of rest,
it was time to get back to work.
We had 12 miles down the mountain to travel.
It was time to blow up the top of this mountain and close it off to everything, man or beast, we had plans for it. They had sent us some barrels with some of the worst chemicals you could have known. This stuff was so bad that it would kill anything in a 10 mile radius around where it was set off, and nothing, I mean nothing would grow there for 10 years, plants or animals. We had to set these off by hand now, there was no high-tech junk back then, this meant that someone had to stay there and set them off, guest who just had to raise his hand another chance to die is the way I saw it.
Two others and I choose to do this, so we let all the rest get down the hill before we set the bombs off.
This was the beginning of the end.
Now all we had to do was run like hell was on our tail…
We only had 12 miles down the side of the mountain to go, so we got down about 1 mile then set everything off, now it was time to go, running our asses off, down we went.
After about three miles we knew that it was too late for us, there was no way that we would not have to breath in some of the gas, we just kept running as fast and hard as we could. There were times when I didn’t think I was running any more just falling and rolling down the hill. It had rained some the night before so there were places where it was too wet to stand, so we just kind of sat and slipped down the wet spots. I guess we had gotten far enough ahead of the worst part and managed to keep ahead of it.
I’m still live, maybe screwed up, but alive.
(Not funny)
We had made it down to the bottom of the hill and we were still alive and kicking, the doc, checked us out and said it was ok for us to just keep going, if we had any problems, let him know, you don’t want to know what kind of problems he told us to watch out for.
Vietnam was a lovely place at one time, war can and does change all that, Think of what it would look like here if we had a war.
Where would the beauty go?
You do not see your own beauty till you see what is not, War can change things like people and countries, it is bad, but we do not stop, why is that, I am 62 now and still do not understand why we must kill each other.
CHAPTER THREE
Out for another walk again today,
come and join me as I take you down the trails of War in Vietnam. It is early morning and everyone has tried to get some much needed rest. Today we start a long walk through the valley and it will not be a good one.
Little did we know just how bad it would be.
Though I walk through the valley of death
I will fear no evil
For I am the meanest MF in the valley!!!!
Today I will take you through this valley with myself and the whole company. We were to be the lead squad to move in and start this long walk. As I said earlier, I was the point man, and I did not like to follow anyone, this is just me I guest, some of us were born to be followers, and some born to be leaders.
I Am a leader and have been a leader all my life, I felt, that I just needed to be in front,
I think that I felt that if someone just had to die, then I would put myself first. Maybe I did go there to die, it is what I believed would be the best thing for me. I had already talked with my mother about some of the feelings I was having and she said I needed to become a priest and give my life to God, I did think about it for about two minutes, not for me, I love God and trust in him, I do believe that he has protected me throughout all these years, but I think he had other plans for me. I have helped a lot of people in my life and I have given way more then I have received, yet I don’t regret a minute of my life, just don’t like some of it.
We were called “Grunt’s” it was
because we were the ground troops.
We lived in the blood and guts of others before us.
Ok, here we go. There was our radio man, who was married and only had 21 days left in country and they would not send him back to the rear on a chopper, so that meant that he would have to hump it with the rest of us through the valley, there was but one problem for him.
The radio man would have to use what is called a whip antenna on the radio, because of all the tall grass. It was called elephant grass because it was so tall.
We had to think of something, so here I go again, putting my hand up, not wanting to miss that shot at dying again, I guess I would never learn. I had been training some kid, (yea, listen to me, I am 18 now guys) to take my place on point, so I thought that I might could let him do the thing. I put another soldier I thought was ok with him to help him out, then I took the radio on my back and let the radio man go.
Now I was the target for the snipers.
With that antenna on the radio, it was like a big sign. Here I am, shoot me, lol, off we go into the tall grass, you could not get over 10 feet away from someone because you would not be able to see them anymore. We were doing pretty good I thought and it looked like everything would be ok, the kid up in front was doing well. I was walking behind the squad leader and was not even thinking much about what was going on up there, when I realized that he had stopped in front of me. Now, I didn’t think much of all this and maybe I should have, it would have made a big difference in our lives, both our lives. He was down on one knee when I got to him, tying a boot, so I stopped and leaned forward to pull that damn radio up on my back,
that thing was heavy and you needed to keep it tight up on your back.
So now, there he was on the ground and I was about three or four feet behind him,
pulling my radio up when the whip came down and at that point and time there was this loud nothing and the first thing I knew was that I was about 20 or more feet from where I had been. I was laying in a hole full of bad water, water that had been there for a long time, full of all kinds of shit. Laying there I felt something warm running down my neck and I put my hand there to see what I could feel. When I looked at my hand it was covered with blood, my blood, and I just thought it might be my throat that was cut open, all I knew at that time was to hold my hand there as tight as I could, till help came. The first one that got to me was the boy that I was carrying the radio for. He just stepped right in there trying to do what he could for me.
He yelled for a corpsman
(Military doc.) to come to me
When the first one got to me, I told him that I did not know where the squad leader was, please go find him, I think he got the worst of it, I was not sure of anything at that point and time, I just knew it was the right thing for me to say, I knew that I was still alive, him I didn’t know about. So the corpsman went on, then the next one got to me and when he looked at me he f**king froze up, I mean froze like he couldn’t do or say anything, just stood there mouth wide open, in shock. So now here I am really starting to bleed real bad and I think I was in some kind of shock or just screwed up bad. I could feel the warm blood, and the thought of my throat being cut open wasn’t that great.
The boy or maybe I should say the young man (the radio man) stayed with me, trying his damnedest to stop the bleeding, but he could not.
He put 21 bandages around my head, hoping that he could help me that was in his heart, I could see it in his eyes that he was hurt, and wanted only to be there for me at this point. He would not leave me.
Finally some of the others came to help. They carried me up to the top of that hole I was in and laid me down up there. I think someone give me a shot of something, or I was feeling the weakness of losing so much blood, not sure what was happening to me, yet I was still there with the living. I was sitting up as I tried to look around and I saw them carrying the squad leader now.
They were carrying him and then, they hit another mine. These were what we called box mines that were buried in the ground. They were little boxes that had all, and anything that they could find to put in them like nails, glass, and more, even human shit, yes shit, just to make it worst. Well when they hit that one there were about three more men hurt.
I was just sitting there when one of the men landed in my lap. Like wow, there I was now looking at his leg and wondering why I couldn’t tell his foot from his boot, they were one, just so messed up, I just tried to get the boot off. He was a friend of mine and when we got home I was going to meet his folks in Texas, but that never happened, I did write to his parents and tell them what happen and let them know that I would have loved to have meet them, under better conditions, but not then. Anyway all I knew was someone garbed me and told me that I was in no shape to help anyone, just to lay there. I could hear the choppers coming now, and then I was being put on one of them. My friend the radio man was there again with me, my head was on his lap, and when we got to the hospital and the corpsman came on the chopper to get us off, they thought that he was bleeding all around his belly,
He told them, it was my blood
So they took me into the ER, I was not sure what was going on, yet I could still hear. It was kind of weird that I could not see, yet hear. It was like being out of my body and looking down into the crowd of people, looking over “my body”. I thought I might be dead, or close to it.
Like I said, I was just laying there when the nurse started taking off the bandages and she said,
where is his ear???, a Doctor stopped her and I could hear him getting on her ass about talking like that, he said sometimes the patients could still hear, so they didn’t say anything that would cause someone to go into shock.
Well anyway, like yes hello, where was my ear?
It had been ripped almost off and was just hanging there.
The blood was pumping out of my ear drum every time my heart would beat; I lost over 4 pints of blood. They had me in there for half a day trying to put me back in one piece. You see the metal from the box mine had cut my ear almost off and had cut into my chin and face leaving holes that had to be graphed. The Doc. told me then that if I lived to be 50, the inside of my body would be like a 70 or 80 year old person. And I have been there for some time now. Trust me.
Anyway, it was 4 days before they would allow me look at myself in a mirror, they did not want me to go into shock not being able to see my face, it was all bandaged up and stayed that way for 4 or 5 days, then they started to slowly take it off and show me.
Yes I was afraid of what I would see, all I had going for me was my looks, and did not want to lose that.
I guess I was lucky, because it didn’t look as bad as I thought it might. It was rough and there was a lot of cleaning to do now. There was this nurse that came in every day and worked with me to get it back all cleaned up and helped me to get out all the little pieces of strap metal that was still in there. I was in intensive care for 11 days. I was the lucky one here, my squad leader had lose an eye and both legs and his right arm, but they have taken good care of him and he walks now just like you. Not sure about my two friends, never heard any more about them, I was shipped to a hospital to recover and wait orders to go home.
For the next month or so, I was just moved around till I was sent home to try and start my life over. I did get the Purple Heart for being wounded in action.
I had to have 173 stitches in the left side of my face and had to have skin graphed to my chin as well
Yes I really was the lucky one. I could have come home looking like the monster I had become.
Death is the price so many had to pay for your freedom to do, to live, to say what you want to, think about who those people were that gave their lives for you. They were people just like me, with a dream and a need. When we went to war, we did not judge you or care what you wanted to do with your life, we just went and fought for your rights to exist, so the next time you see someone like me or anyone, think about just what we had to do to get where we are.
I stand proud of all the men and women that have given their lives for freedom, stand with me please.
I am ex Marine Corp Sgt. B. J. Chiasson
And
I Salute You Soldier.
I am now going to walk away from this trip back in time and hope that I now may find some kind of peace with myself for what I had done there. I was not a killer when I left home, yet I had become one, and that is not just something you can let go of. There have been times in my life when the need to do what I have to, to protect myself and the ones I love….. Today I would gladly stand for the ones that cannot stand up for themselves, and I will do what I have to, when pushed into a corner.
REMEMBER I DID ALL THAT AND I DID NOT EVEN WANT TO BE A MAN IN THE FIRST PLACE, SO I FEEL THAT I HAVE EARNED THE RIGHT TO BE THE BEST DAMN WOMAN I CAN BE, BECAUSE I WAS TAUGHT BY THE BEST, TO BE THE BEST YOU CAN, WITH THE FEW, THE BRAVE, THE MARINES.
SIMPFI DO OR DIE
I will say thank you to all those that have followed me this far. I really should go now; there are tears that I cannot fight much more.
BECAUSE OF YOU I DO THE THINGS I DO.
SOUTHERN ACTS PRESENTS
"THE MISFORTUNES"
WRITTEN BY BOBBIE JEAN CHIASSON
EDITED BY STEVEN LAWHORN
SOLELY FOR THE USE BY SOUTHERN ACTS
COPYRIGHTS © 2013 SOUTHERN ACTS
