Flying with the Spooks: Memoir of a Navy Linguist in the Vietnam War by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2022-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Stress

“Never a dull day in Da Nang” was a true saying. Life moved at a rapid pace with dangerous or exciting events frequently happening. The stress of flying, rocket attacks, jets crash landing or blowing up on takeoff, and just the daily routine of being in a war zone produced stress in one form or another in most of us, and I also experienced it, especially during the rainy season. During this gray period, my days were a succession of hollow-stomached mornings in anticipation of the afternoon and evening flights on the A-3. I was so keyed up that I could not easily swallow food at meals. It seemed to stick in my throat. For weeks I lived off soup, mashed potatoes, beanie-weenies, Hungarian goulash, and cokes. Anything with particles, like rice or the granules of hamburgers, choked me. At breakfast I sometimes started up from the table, spilling my coffee, and ran gasping for air to the entrance of the mess hall to spit out the mass of unswallowable food. On those rainy mornings, I stood outside in the bleak, gray light of dawn, coughing and spitting, cursing to myself in frustration.

I had a row of paperbacks on the windowsill of my room, but at night when I tried to read, the books that had once pleased made me restless. If I sat down to read and try to relax, I became antsy after only a moment and laid the book aside, preferring to sit on the steps of the barracks, watching the jets take off and listening to the talk of friends remembering girls back in the world. I discovered that only Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs calmed me, and I read it in small increments, only two or three pages a day—that was all I could endure—taking a month to complete it, although it is a short book. The tranquility of the Maine seacoast village that she described, the lore about garden herbs, and the sturdy but eccentric characters depicted gave me some relief from my anxiety. I still have the book, and Jewett’s beautiful writing continues to hold a special place in my affections.

Every morning before a flight, I became anxious, and a strong sense of helplessness came over me. The hollow sensation in my stomach returned, and I seemed to be choking on my own saliva. Sometimes I would clench my teeth and say in angry, hushed words to myself, “One day! Just one lousy day on the ground! Just one time when my name and number do not appear on the flight bill. That’s all I ask! One lousy, stinking day!” Then the next day when the CTA posted the flight bill, there was my name again with my social security number stretched out below it like a printed scream.

During this desperate period, I was awakened one night with a flashlight in my face. It was the duty driver. He had come to take me to the workspaces because the A-3 on track had developed a problem and had to return to base.

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