A Ranger Born: A Memoir of Combat and Valor from Korea to Vietnam by Robert W. Black

Author:Robert W. Black [Black, Robert W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T06:00:00+00:00

She would place her damp hands under her young breasts and push upward. “You like?” she would ask.

To spare her feelings, I would pat my pockets and say, “Have no money.”

“Thieu ta,” her child’s face bright and shining. “You give me ten ammo boxes, I love you too much.”

The discussion would be broken off by a sharp cry from her mother, who would send her back to the wash line, but her lips usually formed the words “Ten ammo boxes.” I learned that she propositioned other Americans in the same way. I do not recall her true name. Everyone called this little miss with big dreams “Ten Ammo Boxes.”

Beyond the wash area was the white-painted dispensary. It was formerly the private home of a wealthy family, but they were executed by the Viet Cong in 1964 when the Communists had control of the district. Some of the townspeople, who had nowhere else to go, remained in the district and suffered or prospered according to their support of the Communist government. Other people fled to Saigon and returned only when American power had destroyed the major enemy forces. A great number of the Vietnamese had collaborated with the Communists, just as many now collaborated with the South Vietnamese government. Unless the collaboration had been blatant, resulting in the death of a relative, residents were wary of discussing who had supported the Communists. One never knew when circumstances might change again.

The midwife and my team medic worked together to help the people of the district. One large room in the dispensary had been converted to a ward. The remainder consisted of an office, an operating room, and a small room used by the midwife for her bedroom and kitchen. The ward was filled with female patients, mostly in late pregnancy or recovering from childbirth. Some were recovering from shrapnel wounds. The heavy shutters were kept open during the day, allowing the sunlight to offset the peeling dark green paint on the walls. The female patients lay on rice mats, hands resting on swollen bellies, or guiding eager young mouths to filled breasts.

To a Vietnamese, pain and suffering was life as it had been lived for centuries. To a twentieth-century American, the medical situation was intolerable. What American could imagine thirty thousand people without a single doctor to look after them? The accidents of life and war and the illnesses of our species produced a stream of desperate people needing help, yet there was so little available. People bore pain with a stoicism that was remarkable. Americans helped when and where they could. Army medical personnel worked wonders with outreach programs to the Vietnamese while accomplishing their own mission of providing care for our troops. The infantry battalion surgeon had a weekly medcap (Medical Civilian Action Program), when he would treat Vietnamese civilians, but his primary duty was to our soldiers. Their needs had to come first.

I told my team medic to make a wish list and let his imagination run wild. I

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