We Answered the Call: A Novel

By Christopher J. Brady

Scottie Berrand was not unlike many young American men in the late 1960s and early 70s. He enjoyed cars and respected his elders, especially the men in his family who had answered the call of duty in wars dating back to the Civil and Revolutionary Wars. So when Berrand enlisted and went to Vietnam, he felt as if he were doing exactly what those who came before him did answering the call of his country.

Vietnam was a different war though. Combat was horrific, confusing, and near nonstop for the young men on the ground in Southeast Asia.

Upon returning home from a traumatic tour, Scottie struggled with the reception he and other Vietnam veterans received as well as adjustment back into civilian life.

Through the love of a woman and the reconnection with a brother, a fellow combat veteran, he was able to put the war behind him and move on.

We Answered the Call is a must read for those wanting to better understand the life of a combat veteran in Vietnam and the struggles these men endured during the war and in the decades since the war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532021329

Christopher J. Brady

Chris Brady is the son of a Vietnam veteran and author of “Remembering Firebase Ripcord” (Outskirts Press, 2015), which detailed the longest battle of the Vietnam War. “Remembering” included first-hand accounts of the combat veterans, men from the 101st Airborne Division, the last full division left by 1970, as they battled the North Vietnamese Army from March 12 through July 23, 1970, in the rugged jungles and mountainous terrain just west of the A Shau Valley in I Corps, South Vietnam.

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Copyright © 2017 Christopher J. Brady.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-2131-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-2132-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017905245

iUniverse rev. date: 04/18/2017

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

1. Answering the call of duty

2. Service minded

3. Welcome to the jungle

4. Brotherly bonds

5. Lessons learned

6. It never ends

7. Air supremacy

8. Confusing

9. Drifting thoughts

10. Short

11. Dear John

12. Big targets

13. Live to see another day

14. Morning can’t come fast enough

15. Full circle

16. Moving on

17. Home?

18. Spiraling

19. Hope emerges

20. The next step

21. Healing

22. Heavy hearts

23. Bonds

This book is dedicated to the combat soldier.

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States and Allied Forces supreme commander, World War II

Acknowledgments

Only through hundreds of interviews with combat veterans could this book have taken shape. Their many stories weave in and out of my train of thought near daily and serve as a constant reminder of war’s toll on the young men who fight them. Sharing these stories, the stories of the hell a combat soldier experiences, has become a passion for me, as too few in American society realize what it is we ask of our military forces in harm’s way. For decades, we’ve taken for granted the sacrifices of those we put on the front lines across the globe in the name of freedom. They, and their families, deserve our respect and that respect goes beyond flags, ribbons and parades.

Stresses and realities of combat live with troops long after the physical wounds of battle have healed. The wounds no one else can see stay with the combat veteran forever and can be conjured with everyday sights, smells, sounds and even words. These triggers can send someone back into a combat situation that may have nearly claimed their life, or the lives of their brothers in arms.

In October 2015 my first book, Remembering Firebase Ripcord was published. The book proved to be a labor of love that was both rewarding and massively trying. Tackling the topic of the Battle of Firebase Ripcord, the longest battle of the decade-long Vietnam War, was indeed a head-first delve into military history, tactics and personal trauma. No tougher task could have prepared me for this effort than the researching and writing of Remembering.

To understand the United States’ role in Vietnam, one has to go back to the French occupation of the country, the expulsion of the French and the buildup of American advisors going back to the 1950s. Military mistakes were made, yes, however the war was not won or lost by the American soldier. It was lost due to the politics in Washington, D.C. The American soldier was not allowed to complete his job in Vietnam and many remain bitter about that fact to this day.

Much like the men who fought in World War II or Korea, those who fought in Vietnam saw vicious combat. The combat in I Corps was different than that in II Corps, III Corps and IV Corps. There was guerilla warfare unlike anything American soldiers had seen prior and there was troop on troop combat that few understood. Regardless, the American soldier who fought in Vietnam returned home to a largely unsympathetic public. The war remains the most misunderstood war this nation has ever been involved in.

This book is dedicated to combat soldiers, no matter where they fought. Combat soldiers share a bond only they can understand. It is something the rest of us have to come to grips with and something the United States, as a nation, has to realize when it comes to treating these soldiers as they return from the battlefield, whether the fight was last week or five decades ago.

I’d like to thank a few men who have been incredibly forthcoming in the telling of their stories, and not just those stories of intense combat, but those times beyond the combat where life becomes confusing and difficult based on the experiences on battlefields a world away. Eating, sleeping and simply holding down a job become a challenge after dancing that fine line between life and death.

Thanks first to my father, Bruce Brady. While we butted heads numerous times over the course of our lives, the respect and reverence I have for my father and his combat experience, and dedication to family, is without question. Thanks to Frank Marshall, Ken Miller, Ed Ramon and Bruce Whipple, a group of combat veterans with vastly different experiences in combat in Vietnam and proof that war and its effects can never be predicted.

There are also a select group of Marines that served in Northern I Corps that further helped to illustrate what it was like to fight the North Vietnamese on their turf. These men - Richard DeVett (Navy Corpsman), Doc Meckley, Dave Keiser and Tony Lupo - went through their own personal hell in various corners of I Corps and shared the horrors of their months in near-constant combat. Without these stories, context necessary for this project would have been sorely missing.

Without the willingness of combat veterans to open painful chapters in their lives, we would not be able to understand this precarious, combustible period of American history. While everyone stateside was dealing with the political ramifications of a war tens of thousands of miles away, these young men were living in foxholes, enduring hellish weather conditions and trudging through jungles while trying to live to see another day.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the women in these men’s lives as well. Whether it be the mothers, wives or sisters, these women provided - and still provide - comfort, a shoulder, a sounding board and a warm heart when it is most needed. Few men share the entirety of their combat experiences with the women in their lives, but no matter the level of discussion, those women who provide a sympathetic ear and open heart are to be commended.

Relationships are tough for combat veterans, whether the relationship was forged prior to or after deployment. Many marriages suffered under the strain of combat and its effects over time. Over the years I’ve met some truly remarkable women who fought for their men and helped lead them out of some of the darkest depths of depression and the horrific effects derived from post traumatic stress disorder.

Thanks to my stepmother Dr. Karolyn Kruger for the unending support she provided my father over the years. She, like so many, are there to assist these men through some difficult times, as well as accompany them to their first reunions - times that can prove as scary and unnerving as an ambush - and through the great times subsequent reunions provide these men.

We all owe these women a debt of gratitude, and a monumental dose of respect.

We owe the men who understand firsthand the realities of combat warfare a monumental dose of appreciation, and respect. We owe these men for what they did, had to endure and continue to process and deal with.

Prologue

Those who know their history of American combat surely know the answer to the question once posed by a photojournalist to a Marine in the frozen hell of combat in the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea: What would you want if you could have any wish?

Give me tomorrow, the Marine said.

United States Marines, along with Royal Marines from Great Britain, endured some of the most horrific conditions ever known during the battles at Chosin during the winter of 1950. Temperatures plummeted to negative-thirty degrees while a couple thousand Marines fought off tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers streaming south.

Given the context, Give me tomorrow, amounts to a monumental request, an inconceivable desire. Marines are a tough lot, though, and thanks to the leadership of Gen. O.P. Smith and Col. Lewis Chesty Puller, the Marines never quit and they left Chosin with their dead, their equipment and some made it home.

Give me tomorrow. It certainly was a profound request.

It’s a sentiment anyone who has experienced the horror of combat can relate to. It also provides insight to those who have never considered what it is that we do when we ask our young troopers to pick up a rifle and endure the hell that is combat.

It’s no secret that Vietnam veterans never got a fair shake when they returned from brutal combat a world away during the 1960s and ’70s. Some returned home to a country that had turned its back on its veterans called to service. Some of those returning home were protested, teased and tempted to fight by draft dodgers, college students and citizens opposed to the war. Some were passed over for jobs, looked down upon or just simply ignored in social circles.

While time has healed some of the wounds from that era, for the combat soldier who served in Vietnam, not all is forgiven. A resurgence in interest in the American soldiers who served in Vietnam, and even Korea, another misunderstood and often forgotten conflict, has done little to quell the confusion and outright ignorance when it comes to the average American’s understanding of the war in Southeast Asia.

This project stems from hundreds of interviews with combat veterans, both Marines and Army, who fought valiantly in the northern-most reaches of South Vietnam. These men saw horrific conditions and faced a brutal enemy - more often than not North Vietnamese Army regulars who were well equipped and well trained. Perhaps most important to remember is that the North Vietnamese and their comrades in arms, the Viet Cong (VC) who fought more to the south as the war progressed, were defending what they saw as their homeland.

None of the names in this book are associated with anyone who served in Vietnam, however some of the stories are loosely based on actual events that took place during the war. Some have been changed to further protect the identities of those involved, while others are tweaked for editorial content and ease of processing by the reader.

The goal here is to further tell the story of those men who fought in the northern most reaches of South Vietnam - I Corps - an area that produced more than 55 percent of American casualties in the war. Aside from Khe Sahn, Da Nang and the brutal Battle at Hue, little is known about the A Shau Valley and the jungle terrain that stretched for kilometers north and south, east and west, throughout the heart of I Corps. It was an area known for brutal conditions, triple canopy jungles and more importantly - as a haven for North Vietnamese troops. There were no villages in these jungles, no women or children. For the American GI, it was kill or be killed.

This project is meant to illustrate to the reader just what it was our eighteen- and nineteen-year-old GIs were doing when we asked them to take up arms, fly a world away and spend a year in combat with a well-trained, devoted enemy force.

Horrific firefights erupted in these jungles. North Vietnamese Army troops owned these areas, marching through and maintaining bunker positions among the highest peaks and underground systems of storage for ammunition, medical supplies and food. High-speed trails let the Americans know the NVA were there, but there was rarely any indication as to how many, or where they may be at any given time.

Weather was another factor for the American GI, a factor few had considered when the first waves of troops arrived via landing crafts in 1965. Still equipped with World