Heat hung in the air like a shroud enveloping everything in its sticky wetness. Bugs feasted on my skin, while sweat dripped constantly from every pore in my body. I sat perched in the ship’s crow’s nest, on guard in a land far removed from my Texas roots. I unconsciously scanned the horizon for “the enemy”, an enemy that was almost impossible to detect. It wasn’t so much that they hid in the reeds or grasses that surrounded this murky river, but that they hid in plain sight. The enemy wore no uniform, but dressed as every villager did. “The enemy” had no defined age or gender, which made my job nearly impossible. My confinement (imprisonment) in Viet Nam had been merely months, but it felt like decades. Nothing in my life could have ever prepared me for the devastation, the horror that I’d witnessed in the past six months.

As I scanned the horizon, a bright red glow lit up the late afternoon sky, yet this was no beautiful sunset that I’d point out to my mates. Tension Apprehension set in because I knew there was spread through my body like hot flames when I heard the resonance thunderous bombing close by advancing rapidly towards the river. I couldn’t tell whose side was bombing; theirs or ours, but what mattered most at this moment in time was that we make it safely away from the hostility. Suddenly, I felt the sheer shock of the shelling as it drew even closer to us. The reverberation of an explosion not fifty yards from our boat created a tidal wave effect, which forcefully threw us towards the shore. Our commander shouted orders, but I couldn’t make out a word of what he said. The deafening explosion had rendered me useless. I gasped for air and hit at my ears, trying desperately to overcome this moment of deafness. I watched helplessly from my perch in the crow’s nest as bodies scrambled quickly to move the boat out of the danger zone. I gazed down at the commander. He waved frantically trying to get demanding that I follow his orders, but before I could make out what he said, a third explosion hit less than twenty yards from the stern of our boat. At this point, the adrenaline kicked in, and I fell back into my role of spotter.

A smoky, orange haze covered the sky, the water, the whole dang earth, but it was my job to direct the boat away from danger. A sense of hopelessness filled me, yet I knew I had to overcome it and take command. I heard a shrill whistling sound coming from behind me. I knew this bomb would hit us dead on if I didn’t do something fast. I signaled the crew to head north. The commander barked out orders to change course, and the sudden motion jerked caused the boat to rock dangerously as the captain turned it rapidly steered us away from imminent danger. the commander ordered the crew to change course. The crew manned the guns, firing off rounds at the dense trees and brush alongside the river. We had no way of knowing how close the enemy was, but we couldn’t take any chances.

Another bomb exploded on the nearby shore, shaking the trees until they uprooted and fell from sheer weariness, hung suspended momentarily in the air, and then dropped as if from sheer weariness.  As the trees buried themselves in their watery graves, we sped north in hopes of finding friendly forces.