Even In War

In April of 1964, I enlisted in the Marine Corps. at 17; in Vietnam at 18, and within days, had my first taste of battle. Pretty much every day, a battle went on somewhere there. Bodies fell from both sides, and as history has showed, it was a battle neither side could win.

But this isn’t about war, and blood and death. It’s about a single human life, one I never thought I would be, in part, responsible for.

As part of a recon-team we were sent to scout enemy positions as well as any villages that may have been hiding the Viet-Cong. One village, outside the province of Hai Phong, we encountered about 250 villagers, who had recently been sacked (raided) by the Viet-Cong.

Inside one hut, sat a woman, young girl actually, would guess she was younger than me, dirty and unkempt, and very frightened, and very pregnant. There was myself and another Marine standing in the doorway looking at her as well as taking in the room which also could be a bedroom/kitchen/living area in one. One small table, one chair and a mat to sleep on. One corner held a cooking pot hanging from a thick pice of metal balanced over two boards and under it would be the hearth, where a fire would be lit to heat water and cook food.

Before either of us knew what was going on, she started screaming and back then, I knew little of the language, but her movements made it clear. She was about to have her baby.

Chester and I looked at each other. We had zero experience in delivering babies. But I figured all those doctor shows (Ben Casey, Marcus Welby MD) I watched, if I just thought it out, we could make this work.

We put water in the pot, heated it, took some of our extra pairs of t-shirts, soaked them and kept two fresh ones for the baby. With her on her back and me making idiotic gestures to breathe in and out and for her to push, and Chester holding her down so she wouldn’t twist around so much, the baby started to enter into the world. It was the longest eight minutes of my life then. She gave birth to a baby girl.

When it was over and we cleaned the baby as best we could, handed her baby back to her, and we got up and I nodded to the girl who never once looked at us but kept her eyes on her daughter. We left her hut, rejoined the team and continued to do our job until we returned back to base.

But that day, no death. That day, a human life was given the chance to grow up.

August 12, 1967, a date I will never forget. As to what became of them, I have no idea. But that was a good day.

(... and this telling wasn’t fudged.)