A Troop, 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry 25th ID - Vietnam

Personal Experience Narratives (War Stories)

"Prisoners of our Memories"
by Daniel Chapa

     This really happened…    I write, and I know my writings are sometimes considered dark; dark or not, this article is fact. I have only told a handful of people this story.


     I am a Cavalry man; my unit is A-Troop 3rd Sqdn. 4th Cavalry, 25th Infantry Div. 2nd Platoon, Alpha -24. (RVN, Summer of 1969). This is not a war story, or a story about the proud Cav, but about a powerful humane event that happened to me. I served quietly and proudly with the Cav but late in July 1969, while in a NDP somewhere along the Boi Loi woods, in the wee hours of the morning we got hit hard…I was severely wounded by an RPG that hit my track.


     Many, many years ago, I met a young fellow; I never got his name, or where he was from, or any other bits of information. I think about him to this day and wonder. It was sometime in 1970, about a year or so after being severely wounded in the Nam. I was sent to a military hospital in Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas to recover from my wounds. The time there was horrible and I endured much pain and discomfort.


     The hospital world was one entity I was not familiar with, they used words I never heard of or even knew existed! I was 19 years old. I weighted in at 110 Lbs, I am  6’-0” tall, and my extended injuries left me with heavy casts on both legs all the way up to my hips. I also had a cast over my left arm all the way to my shoulder. I guess all three casts combined equaled my then weight! After much turmoil, I was encouraged if not forced out of bed by the staff and nurses; I thought it was a cruel thing to do at the time, because of the severity of pain I was in, but what the hell do I know! This was SOP, then in that place, and given this there were many a day I felt down; lonely, tired, forgotten, and with every passing day I have an increasing  gutful of pain and hate! I have only one good arm, and these buttheads want me to motor on, in a crappy wooden wheelchair…I curse them mightily, and I blame and cuss God for all my pains and anguish! I cried and my tears ran free, I just did not want to live, I damned God for not letting me die. Their SOP left me sitting there slumped over to one side like a lame dog…


     One unusual day the staff did their routine with me, and sat me on my W/C. Like a wounded deer my head bobbled and I looked around, I heard a voice inside my head that told me to move. With no place to go and nothing to lose, I decided what the hell. I push the rickety wooden W/C around bouncing off beds and walls, where do I go I thought? Where? Anywhere but here I angrily answered myself. So I started to push the chair as best I could using my right arm, I bounced from wall to wall zigzagged along corridors, people walked by  and just looked me and ignored me. Finally I made to the end of the hallway, coincidently by a set of elevators. I sat there looking at them and thought. Then I said, yes…! I have to get to the button to call the elevators. However! I did not have to, one of the doors opened for me and it stayed open for the length of time it took me to maneuver myself inside. OK now I am in the elevator, I have to struggle to reach the panel to direct the elevator, and then I notice the door closes automatically. Great I said, maybe it will take me to the ground floor and I will just get the hell out!


      The elevator moved, I don’t remember which way the elevator went, up or down. Then it stopped and the doors open. Like a flopping fish I pushed and grabble and serpentine until I went through the open door. I find myself in a dimly lit hallway; I don’t know what floor this is and it is very quiet. I decide to go down the hall (for what reason I have no freaking idea, I just did), I grab the wooden railing along the wall and scraping and jostling my w/c I push along – I pass the Nurses Station, there is no one there. I keep going down the hall, all rooms are empty; there is no one on this floor.


     I decide to turn back and go back to the elevator. Then, I thought I heard something like crying or whimpering – I stopped and listened, I heard it again; hey I thought there is somebody else in here! In my hapless joy I think maybe there is another GI here I can talk to and make friends with! I followed the sounds. I wheeled myself up to the last room down the hall, looked in and saw a person. The room is drab no personal things are around, like in the wards… In the middle of the room is a hospital bed with a patient in it. I blindly wheel my self in and park my w/c along side his bed. There is a young black fellow, laying face up, his mouth is gaping and he is trying to make sounds like crying, or gasping. His mouth moves as if he is trying to talk, but no words came out…He is tossing his head side to side, sweat just pours from his brow and face.


     I begin to talk to him to try to comfort him; I pick up some tissues and wipe his forehead and face. I make little jokes, I try to be funny, but it does not work…I tell him who I am where in VN I was, and tell him about my outfit, the ¾ Cav. I continue to talk to the young fellow about the Cav for a time. He never responds to my conversations, he just continues to toss his head side to side and cries and tries to mouth words. I stayed with him for a long while, and tried to talk to him about other things. Realizing I was not making any headway today with him,   I told him I have to go but I will be back to see him again. In an act of friendship and brother hood I reach out to hold his hand, but couldn’t find it, so I search for his arm…But I couldn’t find it either?  Finally I touch a stump by his torso…! (When I entered the room the sheet is draped straight over his body) The young brother starts thrashing back and forth and his sheets begin to slide off. I look down to his legs, and see nothing, I am confused? I look at his face intently then for some reason I pull the sheet off him. He is draped in a hospital gown; I see that he has no arms and legs. This young man has only a torso, I rear back in shock…, my hands shake, I am startled beyond reason, and I am at a lose for words, my mouth gapes, I cannot make a sound, I cringe and draw in, then I scrounge for help, from God from Satan, from anyone…! Large tears burst from my eyes….And I sit there In a forever dead silence …


     I drop my head, I am ashamed, I am sick and disgusted, I am filled with confusion and frustration! I toss my head back and forth…I try to find sense, but I find no sense in all this, why is he alone? Where is everybody? How did he get hurt, and why is he quadruple amputee? Why he is placed in such an isolate state. Adrenaline sets in and I cover him back up and I draw back. I thrashed and push my way out of his room; I pound the walls as I reach for the wooden hand railings on the walls of the corridor. Though I am tearing, I refuse to cry, the anger builds up 100 fold in my being, my heart pounds out of my chest, I cuss and swear at God…!

 

     The picture of this young man keeps haunting me as I make my way back to the elevators. I reach the elevators and coincidentally, there is an elevator door open, as if waiting for me, I go in, then the doors close and it moves by itself. . It takes me to my floor and I wheel out. I return to my beside and sit there forever…, people come and talk to me but I do not hear them. Though when I look at them, I see this young black mans sweaty and tearing face. He tries hard to speak but cannot.


     Days turn to weeks them months, I could never bring myself to talk to any one about this young man, or the floor I went to or whether he lived or died. To this day when I get restless or I am in deep pain and it’s in the wee hours of the deep dark night, I think about my friend. That damn VN war tried to kill but could not. I always said I too dumb die. As for my suffering young black brother maybe God sent him to me to make a point to me, that he was not angry at me, for all the anger I displayed towards him…Maybe that young dark brother was an angel sent to tell me something? …He had little and wanted to live, I had much and wanted to die…The war scarred my body, spirit and soul, yet after I persevered. This scenario was to be play out many, many times in the coming years when I worked as a staff nurse in a burn trauma unit in Pittsburgh, Pa.


      I have never forgotten my nameless brother, and never will, and this incident placed a new meaning in my life, I quelled my anger and I fought to get better, pain or no pain…When I tear in pain, I remember my buddy, all by himself, all alone, and how cruel that must of felt like.   I will never forget the death and the mayhem that war created in my spirit and soul and within the many others like me…!


Happened Yesterday…



Dancinspirit (Apache)
SP 4 Dan Chapa
A Trp, 3rd Sqdn 4th Cav, 25th Inf Div.
RVN, 1969


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