William Short

        I served with the Blue Spaders 1 BN 26 INF First Infantry Division, otherwise known as the “Bloody Red One” from February, 1969 to July, 1969. I was an infantry platoon sergeant with Mike platoon in Alpha Company. My tour of duty was cut short by my own volition.
        My unit patrolled the Michelin rubber plantation, operating in company strength by day and splitting up into platoon-size ambushes for the night. We usually spent three to five days doing this before we rested in a fire support base for a couple of days. Whenever we made contact or blew an ambush the body count came next. I would never view the bodies, I was afraid to. I didn’t want to know what I was doing. So when the guys would say, “Hey Sarge, we got to check out the dead gooks,” I always made up some excuse. I knew it was my responsibility as platoon sergeant to be on top of all situations, but somehow the body count was something I had no desire to be part of. After a firefight I felt drained and empty, it seemed pointless. Our battles were never decisive and tomorrow always came with the welcome of surviving one day only to have to face another. The last thing I wanted to do was count bloody body parts so we could compete with the Second of the Twenty‑eight, the Black Lions, our sister battalion, for first place in the division.
        I carried my weapon and fired many rounds through it, but I always felt protected against taking another life because twenty or eighty other guys fired too. For years after the war, when people would ask the inevitable question, “did you kill anyone?” I always answered I don’t know, but in reality I did.
        On one company-size operation we broke for a rest at midday. My RTO, because he had a feeling, put his claymore mine out, something we only did for ambush. Halfway through our lunch all hell broke loose. Barney blew his claymore, and after a three-hour firefight things were calm again. The attack came from three Viet Cong, two of whom we got. When the body count came I went for the first time to see the remains. Both VC had been killed by the blast from one of our grenades, and as I approached the first thing I noticed was a piece of bone protruding from the hand of one of the bodies. It seemed to glow white hot, I thought it was the brightest thing I had ever seen. The next thing I noticed was how heavy the body seemed to my eyes. It looked as if it were glued to the ground.
        One of the new NCOs, a staff sergeant and second timer, decided we should booby trap the bodies and he asked for my help. We rolled them over and pulled the secondary pins on two grenades leaving the primary detonation lever in place. Each grenade was placed, lever side up and under the rib cage beneath the dead men. Later that night, while positioned in a company-size ambush, I heard the grenades go off. I knew the comrades of the men we had killed had come to claim the bodies and quite possibly had gotten something extra to go with their grief. I knew I was responsible for taking human life. Two months later I refused to go out on any more combat missions.