Free Walking on Water: A Novel by Richard Paul Evans

VC created remarkable underground bunker complexes. I remember Tac Fuhn saying to me, “We are close to a bunker.” I said, “Where?” He pointed to the ground and said, “We are standing on it. See the airhole?”
    There is one firefight that stands out to me more than the others. We had stumbled upon a huge VC complex. We were extremely outnumbered and taking a lot of fire. I called in a B-52 strike. By the time the planes arrived, most of the enemy had scattered into the jungle, disappearing like sand through our fingers.
    Following a major firefight we were required to report a body count, so after the ground was secure and our wounded cared for, we patrolled the compound for dead VC. There was one casualty I’ll never forget. As I approached the still body of a dead soldier I found that she was a woman and pregnant. Her eyes were wide open, and her hand was on her stomach. There were two bullets through her throat, one through her forehead, and one through her abdomen. I don’t know what she was doing in combat, but she had been carrying a gun, which made her a justifiable target.
    Justifiable or not, I dreamed about the woman many times. Her wide, lifeless eyes would suddenly blink and she would stare at me, her face distorted with fear and hatred. Then she would ask, “Why?”
    The environment itself seemed to be our enemy. I arrived in Nam during the monsoon season, and coming from Colorado I had never seen anything like it. Rain would fall,uninterrupted, for weeks on end. We were always wet. We didn’t wear socks, as they would only cause fungus to grow. There were times we went more than a week without being dry.
    There were also snakes. There was a particularly nasty little green pit viper, with bright red eyes, that hung from trees. They were hard to see and I had a few snap at me as I brushed by. They posed enough of a danger that our medics carried antivenom for them. One of our guys was bit, and even with the antivenom it was several days before he was himself again.
    Maybe the most annoying of Nam’s creatures were the leeches. One morning one of my men woke with a leech on his eyelid. By the time we got it off, his eye was pretty messed up. We wore leech garters to keep them from climbing up to the soft tissue of our crotches.
    IV
    Coming Home
    I had been in the jungle for nearly ten months when our platoon was engaged in our largest firefight. Twenty-two of my thirty men were injured and had to be medevaced out. With most of my men out of commission, I was brought back with them to Long Binh. I assumed I would be given a new platoon, something I wasn’t happy about.
    While waiting for my orders in Long Binh, I was informed by my commander that my request for an early release to attend college had been granted. I was done. The war was over for me. Two days later it was me walking on the other side of the fence watching as frightened newbieslined up to take their assignments. As the plane lifted, everyone on board spontaneously broke into applause.
    We flew into the Oakland airport, and I kissed the tarmac as I got off. We were taken to a big hangar to be processed out. It took three days for me to be released.
    I was still in my uniform as I flew from Oakland to Denver. I didn’t see what some returning Vietnam veterans reported—angry, jeering crowds calling us “baby killers” or spitting on us. I’m not saying it didn’t happen, it just didn’t happen to me. My mother met me at the airport. It had been only eleven months since she’d sent me off from Fort Carson, but it felt like a lifetime. She had changed a lot since I’d seen her last. She had aged. Her hair was completely gray, and she seemed weary.
    Just two weeks later I was a student at the University of Colorado in Boulder, wearing bell-bottom jeans and a polyester disco shirt. Reentry into civilian life had its challenges, but having been in Vietnam gave my life context. I remember talking to a fellow student who was upset about