USS MULLINNIX DD-944
Vietnam 1972 - Page 16
Emotions of a Vietnam Sailor
"I wanted to kill them. Probably more emotion, not an intention. But one really never knows. They were killing our allies on the ground, weren’t they? Kids really. Most should still be in high school or freshmen at State U. Boom-boom as I pulled my trigger again. The slight echo-like delay caused by the machinery in MT52 as it matched MT53’s anger. Die you red-fucks!"
He was walking down a gravel road, shoes crunching on the loose stone, as the smell from the sea grew stronger. Salt and diesel fuel were in the air, mixing with wood smoke and the faint order of cabbage. The scent of war.
He awoke with a start, his heart cannon balled into his bowels, taking his lungs along for the ride. He was sweating – trickling down his spine into the crack of his ass – nice.
The problem with an adrenaline high, unlike one driven by booze, is that you cannot sustain it. When the heart-thundering rush subsides, when the pungent smell of ignited cordite is blown away by the wind, you find yourself in the same kind of dead zone that a drunk lives in. You awake in the morning to white noise that is like a television set turned up full volume on an empty screen. The ship seems empty, the sky brittle, the air stained with industrial-like odors you do not associate with morning. The sun is white overhead, the way a flashbulb is white, and the forested coast line offers neither birdsong nor shade. Whatever you touch has a sharp edge to it, remorse and ineptitude seem to wrap themselves around your thoughts. You spend to much time rationalizing and justifying and eventually you are someone you don’t recognize. It’s like stepping around a corner onto a street in which there are no people. It’s not an experience you come back from easily.
We I killed other men in Vietnam. You think about that - sometimes a lot. You can only say, it was war. Thinking of home and family, the war made everything else fade into the past, losing value as the hard, grinding realities of combat, death, and destruction sink in. Time would tell if the crew was up to the task.
Tension builds in many ways. It was hard to sleep even when we got the chance. There was no time to really rest. There was fuel to take on, ammunition and stores to take aboard. You’d get so dog tired sometimes it was hard to function.
You would resort to your old mantra that you had recited many times before: “I only occupy one tiny space. The shells have all the rest of the South China Sea to hit.” You’d think - war can be such devastation for the living and for those who are not sure any longer where they fit in.
A thought would race so quickly through your mind, like a MIG whizzing through the South China Sea crammed with destroyers, that you were unable to shoot it down. Something about - what? It would come back. You knew your mind had never let you down. Well, there was, of course, that time in Subic Bay… but that had been, under the circumstances, forgivable.
Was the Mullinnix crew up to the task, you ask? Yes – in SPADES as it turned out! We needed only to look into one another’s faces to reassure ourselves that none of us would die. We wouldn't, would we?
Its peace that lets you live to the fullest, lets you appreciates existence and it’s potential. Excitement is destruction.
Someone may ask you, “Were you in Vietnam?
“Yeah, a few months.”
“You come back with spiders in your head?”
“A couple...”
Still ridden with dreams from Vietnam, you sleep like the dead - if you’re lucky.
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" Went aboard the Mux in 1971. Onboard until I got out in 74. Couldn't wait to get out at the time, but sure have some fond memories of the ship and crew. Went to Nam in '72, and the Captain of Desron 2 (I believe... think we'd been 32...can't remember for sure now...gettin old) decided to stay on the Mux. It was hell for us radioman having to keep communications for the entire navy gunline...messages to CNO, CINPACFLT, etc. etc. every 6 hours...who shot what...how many rounds, etc. etc. But she was a good ship and the CO on the cruise was J.R. Cannon. we called him 'Boom Boom'. God, we shot a lot. Anyway, the pictures made me get teary-eyed. Good bye to a home, a job, and a way of life."
Gordon Smith RM2
Yes, it stays with you for a very, very long time...
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