I was drinking coffee from a canteen cup as I listened to one of my squad leaders, an E-5 sergeant, squatting next to a heat-tab making his cup of coffee, while talking to members of his squad.

“You’re a ‘two-digit midget’. (Two-digit midget is Marine terminology for having less than 100 days left on your enlistment contract). Any thoughts about what you’re going to do?”

“If these two FNG’s don’t get me killed in the next 29 days (FNG- abbreviation for Fucking New Guy-a new member of the platoon, usually with less than 30 days in country) I am going to take my 60 days leave, go home and forget I was ever in either the crotch or Nam.” (crotch—Marine slang meaning ‘The Marine Corps’. ‘Nam’ is Vietnam.)

“That’s what I thought I was going to do after my first tour. But listen to what happened.

My mom and dad planned a big ‘coming home’ celebration. My older sister came home from the university; my younger brother stayed home from school as did my six cousins. All my aunts and uncles were there. We were all sitting on the front porch waiting for Momma to call us in for dinner when my brother asked me to tell a ‘war story’. My sister spoke up, “Yes tell us about killing women and children!”

I looked at her, hard, and thought for a minute. Then I grinned, I had the perfect story for her! I began.

A couple of months ago we were on a search and destroy patrol. As we passed through a village, a woman ran out of her hooch (living quarters) carrying a kid about 7 years old. He had a badly infected cut on his leg. I figured he got that cut from stepping in one of those holes with the shit covered stakes. (You needed to watch where you stepped in Nam.) Anyway, the Lieutenant tells our Doc (Navy Corpsman) to ‘see to’ the boy. As Doc begins cleaning the wound another kid runs up behind the Lt. This kid has a ‘zip-gun’ under his shirt. (A zip gun is a home-made, one-shot weapon). He pulls it out and shoots the Lt. in the back. Luckily the Lt. turned just enough so that the bullet did not enter his back. He’ll have a scar but nothing serious. Anyway, this kid takes off running through the village. As he passes me, I swing my rifle like a baseball bat. I hit a fucking homerun! The blow struck him just above his nose and took off the top of his fucking gook head! (gook is a derogatory word used to describe the Vietnamese). I was grinning as I stared into her shocked face! I then looked down into his dead eyes, his brains leaking out onto the ground, and spit a stream of tobacco juice in his face. (Chewing tobacco helps with the stomach parasites, not the leeches.) That’s when I heard her scream. His mother was running towards me with a knife in her hand. I taught her the reason you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. In a second she was on the ground next to the kid.”