In the Shadow of the Wall

Copyright © 2007 by Janet L. Herrick.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Prologue The Muddle of Life

Chapter 1 Innocence

Chapter 2 Body Armor

Chapter 3 Camouflage

Chapter 4 The Army Wife

Chapter 5 Day to Day

Chapter 6 Reconnaissance

Chapter 7 Crazy Time

Chapter 8 Commitment

Chapter 9 Fight or Flight

Chapter 10 Offensive

Chapter 11 POWs and MIAs

Chapter 12 Happy New Year

Chapter 13 Shrapnel

Chapter 14 Shadows Lengthen

Chapter 15 Ongoing Firefights

Chapter 16 Peace Talks

Chapter 17 Final Truce

Epilogue Beyond the Shadows

Dedication

To the memory of my husband,

Lt. Col. Christopher Q. Herrick, and all the men and women who served in Vietnam, the families who supported them, and all those touched by the shadows of the Wall.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all those who willingly provided me with their wisdom and guidance, support and caring, for they are the ones who allowed me to transform the challenges of life into grateful life lessons.

I thank the two men who have been my life partners; Robert, the romantic love of my youth and innocence, and Chris, the joyful compassionate love of my midlife.

Finally and most gratefully, I profoundly thank my daughter Caroline and my son Peter. I feel privileged to be your mom, and to call you my most trusted friends and supporters.

Introduction

Mine is but one of thousands of stories born out of the Vietnam era, more than forty years ago. It is not more or less important than any other story, but it is the one I know best and the one that has taught me many life lessons.

Attempting to respond to a friend’s question as to why I added to my already-full plate, the mission of committing these thoughts and recollection to paper, my immediate response was without pretense and surprisingly lacking any careful formulation of words. I simply stated, I just have to get this book out of me! That was several years ago, while the story was still unfolding. Now, having revisited those pages, adding and subtracting from them, a multitude of images and their lingering memories and emotions emerge like scenes flitting by the windows of a moving train. Looking back is like remembering a dream and questioning if it really happened, but knowing that it really did.

Putting fingers to the keyboard was at first an attempt to give voice to a wave of events over which I had little control. Writing about them gave credence to my feelings and the overwhelming crush of steady loss and sorrow. Writing the story then was an end in itself. As in so many aspects of life, the journey was as important, if not more so, as the arrival at the destination. Reflection, both then and now, required me to look deeply at my life without judgment and learn from each decision and choice, each event and hurdle, each success and failure. Observing in this way, I see people and events, even eras of my life, from a new perspective. I now have a deep appreciation for all the happenings, those previously judged good or bad, and I embrace each one, simply because it made a contribution to the woman I am today. All of us struggle to maintain balance as we navigate through the inevitable challenges of life. The lessons learned along the journey can be a continual guide to future decisions and actions.

The emotion of love, the experience of joy in reliving happy or even the silly times, contributed to stirring enough warmth in my heart to bring a smile to my face these many years later. Harbored feelings of hurt softened and eventually began to melt away. I forgave. I felt forgiveness and was even able to release the pain of facing my own shortcomings. Distance and time add perspective and a newfound wisdom. Reviewing allows us to scrutinize through a softer lens, and the things that once were powerful enough to control us suddenly loosen their grasp. When we view ourselves and others through the eyes of compassion, we are truly free. Out of an understanding of the common woundedness of all humanity, we can let go of resentments, once and for all. We are all connected in life by our experience of pain, hurt, and sorrow, just as we are bonded together by our familiarity with the emotions of joy, love, and happiness.

The short response I gave as to why I decided to write my story led me to another insight. I want our families to be aware of what I know to be the truth, in the hope that awareness will bring about peace, comfort, and understanding. My desire is that those who enter into my reflections may come away sharing in the healing that this writing practice has accomplished for me. If my words reach or touch anyone beyond those who already loved and cared for Chris or me, or serve to assist them in some way, it is a gift that I gladly give. I consider it an honor to be able to give back to others some of the unselfish love, support, and encouragement that has been shown to me by so many throughout this journey.

Prologue

The Muddle of Life

In the heart of the nation’s capital in Washington DC, beneath the level of the streets, lies a monument unlike any other in the city. It is not visible from the tourist buses like the famous Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, or the Washington Monument. It can neither be picked out from the rest of the buildings and landscape when approaching the city from the air. On the contrary, it is hidden, like so many of the stories of the individuals whose names are etched into its cold stone. The visitor does not just happen upon it. The pilgrim must seek it out. Even the casual tourist, wishing to see all the noteworthy spots on the DC map from a car, finds that viewing it is not a quick stop.

One is required to experience this memorial in a special way. The visitor must enter into it, even though it has no interior space. To really visit the National Vietnam Veterans Memorial, one must choose to be a part of it, choose to allow its stories to speak and be heard, then allow them to touch us. There are fifty-eight thousand names imprinted on the surface of the Wall. Every name has a story. Every name was a person with parents, brothers and sisters, wife or husband, girlfriend or boyfriend, lover, children, comrades, friends, and families, whose lives were also forever changed because of that war.

Those who died made the choice to go to war. They might have struggled with their decision, or they may have easily followed a call that they felt was theirs. Maybe they volunteered, choosing not to run to Canada or elsewhere to await the end of the war and amnesty like some others. The soldier’s names, both men and women, written on the Wall may have been people who elected to serve their country, but someone else sealed their ultimate fate, placing them together as comrades etched together forever in stone.

Encountering the Wall, we can only look to the past, to the stories of the fallen sons and daughters of our country, for help in learning how to make sense of the choices we make for our future. The families and friends of the thousands who died in that war in Southeast Asia, mourned their loved ones, and then had to decide to move on. Those who returned home to their country to rejoin life had to choose to make the same decision. Those who welcomed them home had to choose as well.

Even on a good day, life is a muddle of choices. We may blame the decisions we have made on others. Those people may have come our way to stay, remaining as constants in our lives, or they may have made a brief appearance with their influence upon us, lasting only for a moment in time. We may blame our decisions on our circumstances. However we delude ourselves, our choices are up to us.

Each dawn presents us with a new dilemma. Do we get out of bed upon waking or stay cozy and warm under the covers? It is the first crucial choice of the day. Do we do something with those early-morning hours, which are filled, as the Chinese say, with the most creative and invigorating Chi energy of the day? If we make a different choice, what are the consequences for us?

The day goes on, the quandaries continue . . . little choices, which influence larger choices, which mold our days, contour our years, and sculpt our future. No decision is insignificant. Will it be leftover pizza for breakfast or a scrambled egg? One by one, choices form the fabric of our lives, each one influencing the next, and so on and so on.

Finding myself in private thoughts, I have wanted desperately to blame someone or even something for many of the happenings in my sixty-plus years. When the truth is difficult to bear, we naturally try to ignore it. Yet, even with all the protest and inner turmoil, the truth of the quandary is that in the end I alone am responsible for the decisions I have made in life. So, too, it must follow that I then must accept the consequences of those decisions. Each of us crosses the line to adulthood by accepting the reality that the person we are is the result of who we have allowed ourselves to become. Our lives are what we each have made them. Every life is what we elected to make it. All the bitter punctuated with the ever so sweet, the mundane and routine selections, the ordinary and tragic decisions, we make one choice at a time. We create our own reality.

In protest, one might say, I couldn’t have helped being in the accident that day. The car came out of nowhere and ran right into me! How did you arrive at that exact moment, at that exact spot? Was it not the decisions you made earlier that day that placed you in harm’s way? It was not my fault that my family had little money to send me to college. If only I could have gone, I would have a better job and would never have gotten laid off. We can all add our own if only followed by how we feel we have been victimized.

No, it is not some vengeful God sitting on a cloud, looking down and proclaiming that a little hardship will build character. As surely as I am writing this, the God of my understanding is here, loving me through the drawing of my every breath. This Divine Force dwells in each person, in everything living and in all of creation. This is what makes the entire universe and all existence sacred and holy. The loving and nurturing Source that we call God allows us to freely make each of our choices, all of them, even the one of believing in God’s very existence, or of who or what God is to each of us.

The downside of all this philosophizing about the nature of judgments, making and choosing them, is that other little entity—the variable. I may soundly and thoughtfully choose, but there is a world of humanity out there making selections as well. The decisions made by others have impacts beyond the individual themselves. The man who caused the accident chose to go faster than the speed limit allowed, in order to beat the red light. We certainly did not choose to meet him in the intersection.

The teenage high school student may have elected to stay home from school to avoid a test. His logic tells him that it is a very sound decision, especially since he is not adequately prepared for the upcoming examination. Better to take a makeup and do better. There could be any number of reasonable factors for his preference to stay home. On the other hand, his mother may have a completely different view of the situation; thus, her insistence for him to get to school vastly overrules the teen’s choice to hang out at home.

A graduating high school student might make the decision to take a job instead of going on to college. In the late 1960s, the consequences of this kind of a resolve may have added innumerable variables into the equation. There were always the possibilities of a future of lower-paying jobs, not reaching the individual’s potential, narrowing their circle of friends, and the like. However, in the decade of the ‘60s, choosing a job instead of college could have meant being drafted into military service. College students would be worrying about preparing for exams. The draftee would be concerned with the preparation of boot camp for war. College students complained about cafeteria meals, often choosing instead to eat from vending machines. Soldiers were eating in mess halls or from cans of C rations out in the field of combat. One worried about the loss of sleep sustained in staying up late to cram for tests. The other lost sleep over the worries of being shot, killed, or captured. The student might eventually have their name inscribed on a diploma, while the soldier might end up among the names written on the Vietnam Wall.

These examples illustrate the millions of unforeseen circumstances that affect how and what we decide from childhood through adulthood, day in and day out. Some individuals go through a painstaking process prior to making a decision. Even this effort can be faltered by twists of fate. I love the quote from John Lennon: Life happens while we are making other plans. How true! We are each able to tell unique tales of how this simple truth has played itself out in our own lives.

The bottom line, however, is a mixture of all these facts. We do the best we can with what we are dealt. I believe that there are very few human beings who set out to consciously make bad decisions in life. We instinctively choose what we conceive to be the best thing for us in any given circumstance. We select the best from among the number of possibilities presented. We make the next best decision we can.

If I go to my favorite store on Monday browsing for a bargain, I may find two outfits that attract my attention. I try them on in the fitting room. One is eliminated immediately, when I catch a glimpse in the mirror of my overly accentuated hips. The horrible revelation of seeing my most detested figure flaw staring at me under fluorescent lighting is quickly dispelled by grasping for the other selection. The second outfit may not just look better; it looks great! I have suddenly eliminated several of those unsightly pounds around my waist, and the cut of the shoulders focus the eye away from the dreaded hipline. The mirror is now my friend, and with spirits lifted, I proceed to the cashier to prove that retail therapy does have a positive side. The choice was easy, and the dress is now mine.

Wednesday of the following week finds me in the same store again. I casually check out the same rack. This time, there are four things that catch my eye. Trying them on one at a time, the first is a bad choice (doesn’t fit), but all three others look as good as, or better than the purchase I made last week. Now, the selection is harder to make, in addition, I am second-guessing last week’s decision. An all-too-common daily dilemma! Faced with too many choices, infinite choices, how can we ever hope to make the right decision? We can’t! With variables changing on a daily, hourly, or momentary basis, we are forced to make the best decision we can at the time. There are no perfect choices!

Making the leap from clothing to life may seem like the difference between a trip across town and a journey to the moon, but the basis for making judgments is still the same. Selecting a life partner from the people met while attending high school versus choosing one from among the acquaintances gathered in college, or four years of working experience, greatly widens not only the pool from which the selection is made, but also increases the variables. Someone who has made the choice of a life partner out of the first group (high school friends) and is then exposed to the wider variety of individuals from the second group (college and career friends) may well find that they are second-guessing the suitability of their mate. No doubt, the situation sets itself up to be challenging, but there are as many possible results as there are personalities and individuals.

If all this may be sounding much too unrefined, I ask that you think back to those days of sweet wisdom and innocence that were our teen years. How has it been put? When I was a teenager, I thought that my parents knew nothing. As I grew older, it was amazing how much smarter they became, or something to that effect. With maturity, our absolutes become less absolute. Black-and-white fades to shades of gray. But choosing? Does it ever become easy? Perhaps it is the wisdom that comes from years of facing life, facing choices, and then living bravely with the consequences of our decisions that permits us the levity to be content with making best choices.

There is nothing really gained from the energy expended from second-guessing the decisions of life that have caused us pain or hurt. There is no place for wishing things had been different. The wisdom in these resolves is that in viewing all of life as a journey, the only right choice any of us can make is to continue. We must continue living fully each day of our lives as if it were our last, using all the lessons learned along the way for courage.

Chapter 1

Innocence

Invincibility seems to be ingrained in each of us as we enter our teen years. It is that belief, which sustains us as we attempt to stand on our own and test the waters, while we prepare to enter the young adult stage of our lives. A belief in our invincibility allows us to fearlessly get behind the wheel of a car packed with friends and drive too fast or too recklessly. It prompts us to take a dare or to drop out of school. It is the ladder from which we view the world—thinking we are surely on top of it, and most certainly located smack-dab in the very center of it as well. The world is our oyster, and it is there for us to explore and enjoy. This feeling of being indestructible can be joyful, but it is also the origin of sprouting many a gray hair on the temples of our parents. It is a necessary boost to our egos so that we can do the work of the adolescent which leads to emancipation. The feeling of invincibility has its place, but for those of us who are sheltered from many of the harsher realities of life by well-meaning parents, invincibility can be coupled with naiveté. In the sixties or today, this state of mind melds willingly with the American dreams of the day, and for me, it made sacrifice for a noble cause and early marriage appropriate choices.

I was in college when the news broadcasts about the Vietnam conflict began to have real meaning for me. I watched and listened to the happenings around the world, but until then, exams, reports, and all the required reading for classes seemed to come first. Studies did not come that easily to me then, and failure on any level in school was not something I would allow to happen. It was at this same time that a young man entered my life, and he, being a cadet at West Point, would be seriously impacted by the conflict in that little Far Eastern country halfway around the world.

My own political ignorance had much to do with my feelings, and I don’t ever remember considering the Vietnam War to be a choice of any kind at that time. Scattered news items of those protesting the war appeared on TV and in the papers, but they seemed to be made up of a minority of individuals who surely were not properly informed about the situation. College students and few other people, for that matter, would consider second-guessing our government’s decisions and action with regard to something as serious as war. Authority was authority, not to be questioned. The United States would never get involved with the horror of war without the noblest of reasons. If people I know personally could die in a foreign land, surely there must be serious justification for such high risks. I will inevitably go, my fiancée said, it is only a matter of planning to predict when. There were choices he could make showing his preferences for assignment after graduation. Clearly, he would never think of avoiding his duty. The powers that be would make the final determination of the opening tracks of his military career. Difficult as it might be, we had to wait with all the other members and fiancées of the class for the outcome of first assignments. Not everyone would go to Vietnam immediately after graduation. There were many stateside assignments to be filled, and those to go first to Vietnam were those who had gone infantry, that is, those who had chosen the infantry as their branch of the army. Robert’s future branch was Air Defense Artillery, and the fates smiled on us as his orders came assigning him to a slot at a Nike Hercules Defense Site in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This two-year assignment would allow me to finish college, since I was a year behind him in school. Even with my graduation in June of 1966, we could still have a West Point wedding before setting up our first home at his duty station in Milwaukee. This seemed like the perfect solution. We would have at least one full year together before any reassignment would happen. My thoughts were that many things could happen in two years. The political tide could change, and we might elude the threat of Vietnam even longer or completely. Perhaps it would be over soon. Being young, in love, and feeling quite invincible, my picture of the future only held positive dreams.

My fiancée’s graduation, my last year of college, and the much-awaited wedding all came to pass, and I found myself adjusting not only to married life, but also to the phenomenon of military life. The whirl and excitement of my new lifestyle and my wholeheartedly accepted adult status was compounded in less than six months by the suspicion of a pregnancy. My cousin Nick would not be surprised, since he had predicted that as a good Catholic girl I would no doubt start a family immediately after, if not on the first night of the honeymoon.

There will always be those who decide to solemnly choose a marriage partner in their twenties, but today’s statistics show that the majority of couples are much older, waiting at least a decade longer to make the leap to this blissful legal union. Young people today have no conception of the mores of our society less than fifty years ago. When a period film makes reference to premarital sex, couples living together or having children born out of wedlock, it may shock them, but for totally opposite reasons. Mores, like styles or even technology, change with the times, and though some may find themselves kicking and screaming into their acceptance of change of this or any other kind, it does not stem the momentum of them coming into fruition. Waiting a year to have your first baby used to be considered lengthy. With the advent of effective and safe methods of birth control in the sixties, more and more couples began to do their best to consider the appropriate timing for bringing a new life into their families. Even the subject of procreation as a choice was hotly debated during that time. What is now a norm was then thought by some to be the work of the devil. Marriage and babies went together, and no chemist, voodoo doctor, or scientist should ever get in the way.

Suspicions of my pregnancy in the winter of 1966 were confirmed by the doctor, and we were thrilled. I did choose to take the Pill. After all, I was an educated modern woman, but it wasn’t long before I was lost in the romance of love, marriage and babies, and allowing what would be to be by closing the little blue compact of pills and putting it aside in the drawer. Sadly it was only a few weeks later that I found myself in a Milwaukee hospital having miscarried this dream of the perfect family. One afternoon, as my second lieutenant husband consoled me from his bedside chair we were disturbed by the intrusion of the telephone ringing on my nightstand. He answered it. The tone of his side of the conversation said that the call was actually for him. I lamented him being called back to the base, but his expression and his voice pointed to something more serious than the scheduling of another shift at the base.

The commander was calling to let him know that assignment orders had come from the Pentagon for him and several other men. He might want to come back to the base to get the news. The information was too pressing to drive all the way back to the site on the shore of Lake Michigan; instead, he gave the okay to have the orders read over the phone. It was my worst fear. His orders were for Nam. In less than six months, we would be saying awkward goodbyes at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. The time in between would be filled with preparations for his departure on his thirteen-month tour of duty in Bong Song, Vietnam. In those six months, it was necessary to squeeze in travel from Wisconsin to New York, from New York to North Carolina, North Carolina to Texas and finally back to New York and on to his point of departure in New Jersey.

It seems that travel is no stranger to anyone these days. Most children today make their first airline flight before their first birthday. Hopping from place to place used to be the fate of those in the military and a scarce few other lines of work, but we have become a mobile society. Not only do we change jobs more often, but we change cities and even countries to meet mounting needs of businesses and corporations. Even though we Americans will never part with the freedom of the privately owned vehicle, perhaps using it for long-distance travel has become more of the dinosaurs’ means of mobility. In 1967, flight was reserved for special occasions.

Before the huge military contracted airliner taxied down the runway at McGuire field, our travels took Robert to four months of intensive language training and briefings for his assignment as an advisor to Vietnamese troops. Of course, there were preparations for storing our meager furniture, which were mostly hand-me-downs from relatives and friends, and our still-boxed wedding gifts. We also needed to consider a place for me to stay while he was away. This detail was decided easily because my folks were eager to help and anxious to have me home again, if only for a while.

Another monumental occurrence during those brief months was my joining the growing number of women to be left barefoot and pregnant while the husbands went marching off to war. The conception took place romantically in a run-down mobile home just outside of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. We never openly discussed, decided, or planned this pregnancy; neither did we do anything to prevent it, and there was a silent