Ahn Khe was an okay place by our standards: showers that sometimes worked, barracks with honest to god bunks, a short airstrip, and a Battalion Aid Station with a MD all courtesy of the 1st. Cav.
One day the Bn. Aid put out a call for all medics to report. This wouldn't be good. I went with another medic to find out.
I can't remember what I was feeling as we reported in but I'm sure it included a mixture of fear and dread at what I was about to see. I'm sure because I do remember the relief that came over me when I realized that the casualties lying all over the floor were Vietnamese.
At this point in my tour I had changed. I often felt numb. We were under constant pressure to dehumanize the Vietnamese. I no longer cared about things I once felt firmly about. I was prone to react without thinking things through.
A clerk logged us and our equipment in. He told us that there were no U.S. casualties and the MD wanted any arriving medics to just pick a casualty. He suggested we pick something we were interested in or needed practice on. This was not protocol for handling mass casualties; it was far too casual. Life was cheap in Nam, especially for the Vietnamese.
The clerk volunteered that these dinks were riding on the back of a big truck loaded with logs and trees when they hit a particularly effective N.V.A. ambush. Their truck rolled in the explosion so there were all sorts of wounded.
With that, the clerk wandered off, clipboard in hand. The MD had his hands full and the Bn. Aid medics were all engaged with their casualties. We never spoke to anyone aside from the clerk. I doubt we were even noticed. It was pure chaos.
I turned to the other medic and we decided to work as a team. I expressed an interest in head wounds. We picked our way through the men, some dying and others crying out, looking for an interesting casualty.
This memory always plays silently; I think that it must be that I'm not ready for the truth of what it sounded like. We passed over all those broken bodies, shopping for a good head wound.
I made a selection and we knelt down by a young guy, practically a kid. I could see the fear and panic in his eyes, the helpless look of someone too badly hurt to help themselves. We applied dressings and did a few things to improve his situation.
I lit a couple of cigarettes and gave one to the casualty. I had to hold the kid's smoke while we held a brief discussion on his limited chances of surviving. It's unlikely that he could follow our conversation but there could be no mistaking our casual "don't give a shit" attitudes.
I'm sure he thought we were cold. I'm certain the other casualties were all hoping someone would come to them next.
Instead we stood up and said words to the effect of "fuck this" and walked out of that horrible room. I told the clerk that the kid needed an urgent medivac if he was going to make it.
We just walked out, knowing that no one would get that kid a medivac. We didn't really care either; we just wanted to get away from it. No leader stepped up to stop us. No one cared.
Now I wish I could go back to that day and try to regain some of my humanity. Regrets of this type are difficult to reconcile.
I think about this moment frequently, sometimes I can't get it out of my mind. I feel like my behavior was inexcusable, but I was simply to numb to care and I had become overwhelmed.
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