Legacy by Howard Fast

Author:Howard Fast
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media

Four

The death of Sergeant Rubio Truaz, born in the Napa Valley of Northern California, twenty-one years old, a Chicano — which term indicates a Mexican of California birth — was witnessed by millions of people. Such is the miraculous nature of our time and the wonder of television. Sergeant Truaz was on patrol. Or perhaps not yet on patrol, because the TV cameras don’t move out on patrol. Or possibly the patrol was starting, or finishing. That point was never really clarified, but what was very clear was that the camera, loaded with color film, was on Sergeant Truaz when the bullet struck him. The bullet struck a grenade that was attached to Sergeant Truaz’s belt, and the grenade exploded, sheathing Sergeant Truaz from head to foot in burning chemicals. The incendiary grenade covered him with green fire, and the microphone of the TV crew picked up his wild screams of pain as he leaped around in his agony and then rolled over and over on the ground until at least two of his comrades managed to fling a body bag over him and thus put out the flames. Afterwards it was said that his screaming was a wild track, put into the film by the TV people to heighten the effect, but this was not the case. The screams belonged to Sergeant Truaz; they were his very own, and they went on for seven minutes before a medic reached him and gave him a shot of morphine, which probably did little to alleviate the pain. A few minutes later he lapsed into unconsciousness, and about an hour after that he died.

They ran the film on network television without identifying the soldier in question, and that was followed by anger from many quarters, accusations and counteraccusations, but it was not the first and would not be the last time this was done in the course of the Vietnam war. Cameramen risked their lives to get shots of men in action, and thereby bring the war directly into every American living room, and what better perception of front-line action than to see a man take a bullet or a shell fragment.

And since such photography was done under nerve-racking conditions, it was impossible to pause to get the name and rank and whatever of every miserable, filthy grunt the camera rested on — not to mention the red tape one would be enmeshed in if one tried to clear each name with the army or the marines.

So it happened that the death of Sergeant Truaz, an extraordinary glimpse of what war can be like, an incredible piece of photography, was witnessed by millions. Among these millions was May Ling.

Barbara was at a cocktail party that evening, so she was spared the tiny, unimportant incident in a very large war that titillated or shocked or horrified or stunned or sickened or entertained so many millions of others. She had come to New York during this spring of 1966 for the publication of her new book, The President’s Wife.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.