One Day in Nam (for Chuck)

My recollection of some of the details of that day are not that clear. My recollection of the following events of that night and the next morning has haunted me for thirty years. Just prior to my trying to go lay down and drop off into what to this day I call my "black sleep," (a dreamless near comatose state), someone came around and said they needed guys from our platoon for an Ambush Patrol. Having not too long before become the 2-3 squad leader I was called upon to choose someone for the ambush patrol from my squad or go myself. Being certain I would fall asleep and put everyone else in jeopardy, I asked for a volunteer from my fellow squad members. Eddie Bivens offered to go but they still wanted one more guy. Around this time my feelings of uneasiness were increasing, I asked whomever was in charge that night if perhaps the 2-3 squad could be let off the hook for that night, making the Ambush Patrol up out of the remaining three Second platoon squads.( This was not an uncommon practice to cover for each other, but at that time the company strength was kind of low.) I was told a resounding NO. I was then derided for my poor skills as a squad leader, I had never asked for the job, no one else would take it, so I did. I finally spoke with my friend Chuck Schall who agreed to go. We were speaking for only a short while when an overwhelming sense of doom came over me. Chuck confessed he had been having the same sense of uneasiness that I had. The person in charge interrupted our conversation to say that they had to leave A.S.A.P.. Before leaving Chuck and I again spoke, then Chuck did something truly odd, he asked me for my C.I.B., I didn't know what to make of it. As I handed it him and he handed me his, a chill passed over me. We both said that if he didn't come back we would never speak to each other again, a little combat humor thing we used to do, showing concern but pretending we would be angry. Chuck said to keep the C.I.B. forever so that I would always remember him. Chuck left and I went to lay down.

I slept briefly and woke up with an even stronger sense that something was terribly wrong. When I got out of the cot I saw that even though it was the middle of the night a lot of the guys in the company were up and walking around. I asked what was going on? No one seemed to know, someone said we hadn't heard from the Ambush Patrol in quite a while, someone else went to check. I couldn't find anyone who knew. I waited, we all did.

At sunrise we (the Company) all mounted up on our tracks and headed for the location of the Ambush Patrol. I remember we were in fairly deep water in one of the paddies when I first spotted Eddie Bivens, who was another member of my squad, and Hodges (whose first name I cannot remember) hanging onto each other looking injured even from a distance. When we got up to them someone spoke to them then sent them back to our base camp on another track. I didn't get to talk to them. I was getting more and more anxious as we finally approached the area where the Ambush Patrol had set up the night before. As we got there I saw Sgt. Peace, another second platoon member, leaning on a tree in broad daylight waving a strobe light up and down as if to signal in a dustoff during the night. The rest of that morning is a blur, somehow I had learned that out of ten Second platoon members, seven had been killed, Chuck was amongst the dead. I remember sending Ernie Strimback to help with the retrieval of bodies. When he finally did come back he refused to talk about it. I felt a tremendous sense of guilt, I was sure that had I been there I would have been able to do something that would have prevented the deaths of my friends.

Chuck I will never forget you, and I am sorry.

Love, Fats