I don't know that
I've seen a good movie about the Vietnam War. Perhaps because I expect
them to reflect what it was really like. Those of us who were there know
that most of the time we were just marking time. Move here, move there,
hurry up and wait. Heat, rain, sweat, bugs, mountains. Not exactly the
makings of a Hollywood blockbuster.
To me a movie about the real
Vietnam War would be about Bob and Jim.
They weren't heroes, at
least not in the Hollywood sense of the word. I don't recall them taking
out machine gun nests with nothing but bayonets in their teeth. But they
were men of courage. They were men of duty. And they were friends.
They were friends. In a world gone mad with violence, in a world
where many of us were afraid to make friends just to lose them the next
day, they did what friends do. They joked and laughed about the army,
and the army supplied then with plenty of things to laugh at. They read
their mail together, ate their meals together, and watched each other's
backs. If I try really hard I can see them digging a foxhole, grumbling
about how deep it had to be, but digging anyway. Misery loves company.
The day that Bob and Jim died they were sitting together. Third
squad, my squad, was on point that day. We stopped for lunch and I
remember telling them to go out about ten to fifteen yard in front of
us. Others provided the same security on the flanks and behind us. It
was normal procedure. Jerry remembers it differently. He says that we
all plunked down together, and that the LT came by and told us to spread
out. Bob and Jim moved off a little way and sat down. While we ate, LT
called for artillery or mortar fire well out beyond us. A defective
round fell short. It ended Jim and Bob's tour of duty, but it didn't end
their friendship.
Bob and Jim had known each other before the
war, been friends in Seattle. They trained together at Ft. Lewis,
Washington, became soldiers and infantrymen together, and were lucky
enough to be posted to the 35th Infantry Regiment together. Bob arrived
in Vietnam the same day that I did, June 12, 1969. I imagine that Jim
did too.
Jerry recalls a conversation with Bob, in which Bob
told him that Jim was going to teach him to snow ski when they got back
to the "world". Jim was quite a "ski bum", as his brother Brian says.
In Vietnam it was through our friendships that we maintained our
humanity, a corner of normalcy inside our heads. Jim and Bob had a link
to home and the "normal" world in their friendship.
The tragedy
of any friendship is that it may evaporate over the years. We drift
apart. Bob and Jim died together, their friendship intact. They were
truly friends to the end.
Personally, I believe that they are
friends even now.
Dave Muxo
B 1/35th 69-70
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