Dead Soldiers and Teaberry Gum

By James Erlinger

“The ugliness of war cannot be hidden or unseen; it lingers in the sight of fallen soldiers.”— George Washington

On a sultry afternoon in September, we landed at an obscure firebase in a pelting rain. The name of the firebase I can’t remember, what I saw there I can’t forget. Rotor blades flopped wildly in the wind and rain, refusing to be tied down. I struggled to secure them.

Rain should have cleansed the place of its stench, but it hadn’t. Every firebase is plagued with a lingering miasma: the smells of rotten garbage, human waste, smoke, wet mud, Cordite, burning jet fuel and any number of difficult to describe odors that once enter your nose take up residence and refuse to leave. This place was no different. The rain passed, the sun came back out and it became so hot and humid and smelly that I found it difficult to breathe.

When the colonel stepped out of the helicopter a young lieutenant approached and stupidly began to salute but stopped halfway. Instead, he greeted him with a nod. They chatted a moment and he led the colonel to four U.S. soldiers’ bodies covered with green ponchos. One of the ponchos covered a body with an arm grotesquely twisted out of shape and missing a leg. I saw only a single jungle boot sticking out the side; the site of it looked like a jumbled ensemble of re-assembled body parts. Under another poncho was the remains of a soldier with no boots sticking out, just the top half of him lying in a pool of dark congealed blood mingled with the mud beneath him. The two other ponchos concealed what appeared to be whole bodies lying on their backs with hands folded as I remember my grandfather’s hands folded holding his rosary at his funeral. 

The lieutenant stared down at the already rigid corpses avoiding eye contact with the colonel. He was nervous. He almost seemed scared. His mannerisms were businesslike as if he were trying to make a favorable impression. He next began the matter-of-fact report of what happened that morning: “We were just eating breakfast, sir. We took some sniper fire and scrambled to get our weapons. We returned fire and then a half dozen RPGs came in on us. We continued to return fire and disappeared into the bush.”

An unexpected breakfast firefight had led to four soldier’s deaths.

“Who disappeared into the bush?” the colonel asked.

“Charlie, sir.”

A skinny grunt leisurely walked up to our bird, handed me a stick of Teaberry chewing gum and asked if I had any weed. “I don’t, I said, but thanks, I love Teaberry gum. I haven’t had Teaberry gum since I was a kid. I remember it was my favorite.”

The grunt stood next to me as we watched two medics unzip body bags, laying one beside each of the bodies. There was an intentional precision in their movements which made me think they had done this before. The medics then reverently pulled back the ponchos and there they were—four mother’s little baby boys, two of them blown apart, lying in the mud, dead, for everyone to see. 

“Man, if you like Teaberry gum you’ll love Black Jack,” the grunt said, unaffected by the grotesque scene of mutilated human remains.

“You’re right, I love Black Jack,” I replied, “but if I have to pick one, I think I like Teaberry better.”

The one with both legs blown off was young. He looked like he was right out of high school. His eyes were wide open, his mouth was taut across his teeth in what looked like a grin; more likely a terrified primeval scream captured in time. His eyes had made contact with something for sure, perhaps the angel of death himself, but whatever it was, he had been looking right at it when he died. The other soldier, the one in pieces, was already a chalky pale grey. I saw what looked like panic on his frozen face, as if he too had seen something so horrific that the site of it had him screaming when he died. One eye was shut, the other eye was open. The open eye was the lightest shade of pale, baby blue eye I’d ever seen.

It was a beautiful eye.

It was covered with a glossy shine like the teary eyes of a crying baby and appeared to be staring at something far off in the distance. One of the whole soldiers, who had not been blown in pieces, had a look of peace on his face which made me think he may have seen his guardian angel and had been comforted by the vision of it. The other whole soldier’s eyes were closed but his mouth was open, and his jaw was hanging down, creating a skull-like look of terror on his face.

They were too young to die.

Their deaths were not the normal peaceful kind of deaths from old age, the kind of death one hopes for with family and loved ones gathered round, nor were they welcome kind of death one prays for when racked with pain and illness, or the kind of death that comes when the body simply wears out and quits after too many years of living.

“They just got here,” the lieutenant said, “FNGs. Kids. They were huddled next to each other, hit by a rocket, died side-by-side. Both bled out. Bled out together. Nobody really knew ‘em. I think they were friends. Could be anyone of us.” 

The scene of the four corpses produced no emotion in me. My mind refused to process what I was seeing. I was detached from the ugliness of it. I felt hollow. I felt less than human. I had already seen enough death to not be affected by it. I had devolved into a curious spectator casually observing another surreal and unimaginable event. As I looked down, I had no empathy or pity for them, rather I wondered what had happened to me. I was disgusted with myself. How could I witness such brutal horror and feel nothing? Why was there no compassion or pain or anger left in me? I thought one of those emotions should be left; but they were gone. It was like something had been cracked open in me and all of my feelings of empathy, compassion and sorrow had somehow leaked away. I tried to reassure myself that the gruesome scene of four young dead boys had nothing to do with me, that I need not be concerned, and my lack of any feeling was because I didn’t know them.

I chided myself; not for the unavoidable escape of my feelings, but for being callous, indifferent and being numb to such human suffering.

My only thoughts were of leaving that place and getting back to Biên Hòa where I’d be able to relax and where I’d plan out my selfish search for Teaberry gum. Thoughts of Black Jack gum, also a distant taste of home, crowded my mind. I’d get a bunch of Black Jack too if they had it. Both would be great. But if I could only find one, I hoped it would be Teaberry. I saw myself hoarding packs of each of them, wondering where I’d hide them. I wasn’t gonna get any Clove though. Clove had a funny almost bitter taste. It didn’t have the sweet, berry freshness of Teaberry, or the earthy, tobacco almost metallic explosive taste of Black Jack.

I hated myself.

“The other two hit in the chest,” the lieutenant continued. “Sniper fire, nothing we could do, a hole right through each of them, both blew right out the back.”

The colonel continued his downward gaze at the dead soldiers but said nothing.

It began to drizzle.

“A shot in the chest and be dead I can take. But a rocket that blows your legs off and leaves you bleeding to death or hits you in the belly and you’re grabbing your guts while they’re hanging out, that’s another thing,” I said to the grunt, as I chewed the Teaberry gum faster and faster trying to soften it up so I could blow a bubble.

“We’re all gonna die, one way or another,” the grunt wisely replied, for someone too young to have reckoned with so much death.

“We’re all just pacin’ and waitin’ around ‘til somethin’ gets us, hopin’ it ain’t at night or in the rain and your guts ain’t hangin’ out. I ain’t never gonna sleep right ever again or be able to settle down. You sure you don’t have any weed, chief? How about your gunner over there?”

“I’ve told them a million times,” the now angry lieutenant continued almost blaming himself, “I’ve told them to get down the minute they hear shots fired. Don’t matter if you look stupid, just fuckin’get down. These new guys don’t get down, they just stand there and look around. Sorry for the language, colonel, sir.” 

The medics began the gruesome task of putting the soldiers to rest in the body bags. 

Just then it began to rain harder and harder as the fountains of heaven burst open and great sheets of rain fell like waterfalls from the sky. The cool liquid was a gift. It began cleansing the dead soldiers, washing them, absolving them, taking away their sins.

I looked again at their faces as the bags were carefully zipped. 

I still felt nothing. 

At first, I tried to fool myself into thinking the dead soldiers weren’t really dead, merely sleeping corpses who could reassemble themselves if some higher command gave the order. My mind attempted to trick me; they were not our soldiers but recovered bodies of dead VC who deserved to die.

No, they were our soldiers, and they were dead.

All their thoughts, all their dreams, all their plans for their futures were dead.

Gone forever dead.

As I stared at them, I had a vision. And in my vision, I saw their spirits rising up from the bags and going straight to heaven. No purgatory. No hell for them. They had already been to hell. Their spirits were destined to rise straight into the hands of their almighty Father. I knew the teachings of my church about spending time in purgatory and about hell and the need for absolution and doing penance and about judgement. But I knew these young boys weren’t going to be judged. Judged for what? For cheating on a homework assignment? For having teenage sex with some girl in the back of their father’s car? For stealing a few records and cigarettes and a pack of gum from the local drugstore? No, they were going straight to heaven, straight to their Heavenly Father. How could He not instantly run to them as the prodigal son’s father had, when he’d see them coming from afar. How could he not hug them and comfort them as any loving father would?

I thought of their fathers. 

I could not imagine their pain of losing a son. So young, so maimed, so far from home without the chance to say goodbye.

I thought of their mothers.

Their baby boys who they once protected deep inside their wombs were now lying unprotected in the mud and I thought of how the sight of their mangled bodies would destroy them.

I wondered if they had lovers, certainly not; they seemed too young to have lovers. 

“Lizard, the colonel wants to go,” Chico yelled out. I could not help but take one more look. “Thanks for the gum, brother, I love Teaberry gum,” I said to the grunt as he walked away. He turned around, nodded a ‘nice to meet you’ nod and hollered back one more time, “Sure you don’t have any weed chief? Did you ask your gunner?”

“No, sorry, I don’t smoke it,” I hollered back. Maybe I should, I said to myself. Maybe I should.

Four young men I didn’t know, blown to pieces without their mothers or fathers to cry over them, were laid to rest in a dark, wet, muddy, blood-stained bag in the rain. I began to think unwelcome thoughts of my own mother and father seeing me blown apart. I prayed, not for the dead soldiers who didn’t need prayers anymore, but for their families who’d need all the prayers the world has in a few short days. And I prayed for myself. It was a selfish prayer of gratitude that it wasn’t me dead, lying alone in the mud, zipped up in a bag in the rain. 

War is a filthy disease that infects everyone exposed to it. 

It’s difficult to understand but war has a way of numbing your mind and your mind has a way of numbing your soul. It’s a blessing though, for if your soul wasn’t numb; you wouldn’t be able to stand it. 

Exhausted from flying in the rain and haunted by the scenes of death and tired and hungry and cold and wet, I was anxious to get back to the relative normalcy of Biên Hòa.

Chico got on board. I closed his door, and he started the engine. The colonel got on board and sat down. He remained silent. As we lifted off and the filth and ugliness and stench of that place was left behind in the rain, I looked over at him,

“Cigarette, colonel?”

“No, thanks.”

“I’m glad we’re leaving that place, sir.”

“You’ll never leave that place, Lizard, you never will.”

****

James Erlinger, a native of St. Louis, Missouri, is a devoted husband, proud father of four, and doting grandfather of seven. Drafted in 1970, he served as a helicopter crew chief in the First Cavalry Division in Vietnam. Post-war, he became an agricultural broker, built cabins, and has found solace in fly-fishing, golf and prayer. His Vietnam experiences, kept silent for over fifty years, find voice in his debut memoir, “The Lady and the Lizard.” His fictional work, “The Boy from Bo Tuc,” will appear in the November 2024 publication of Proud to Be: Writing from America’s Warriors (Missouri Humanities and Southeast Missouri State Press).