I had a dream. Well, it was more of a nightmare. I still have them every once in a while. They’re always Vietnam related. Many of them involve me being drafted again and back in Vietnam because the war is still raging. It usually has something to do with the army being short of medics so they’re calling up old buggers like me because we have experience.
Up until the other night, one of my more interesting dreams involved Roy Rogers. I had been drafted and sent to Vietnam again, where I was assigned to my old 4th Infantry unit. I was really ticked about it until I found out my Sergeant would be Roy Rogers. One night we were on an ambush patrol when we realized we were completely surrounded by the enemy. We could hear them out there in the dark as they crawled closer and closer. There were only six of us and it seemed like there were hundreds of them when they all opened up on us. We sat in a small circle, back to back, as bullets flew all around us. But, I wasn’t afraid because Roy Rogers was on our side. As they closed in on us, I woke up, so I don’t know if we survived or not! With Roy on our side, we must have won the battle.
The other night I had my most interesting nightmare. You guessed it. I was back in Vietnam again. We were getting ready to head out to the boonies for several days on another ambush patrol. My old buddy, Big Lee from California, was also a part of this adventure. As we were packing up, blackening our faces with camouflage, and loading our M-16 magazines, Big Lee said, “I’m getting tired of us going out there and getting shot at all the time. It seems like they always know where we are.”
“I know what you mean,” I said, “But I’ve got a plan.”
When we showed up at the chopper that would fly us to our drop-off point, I was ready. Big Lee took one look at me and said, “Doc, what the H… do you think you’re doing in that?”
“Trust me,” I told him. “I know what I’m doing.” I was dressed for battle in my deer hunting outfit. I was wearing my blaze orange coveralls, blaze orange stocking cap, and blaze orange gloves. I ‘d even tied blaze orange strips on my rucksack. You can’t go deer hunting without your long underwear, so I had put them on too. By the way, the temperature was approaching 100 degrees as we prepared to board the chopper, and I was already sweating profusely.
The other four patrol members arrived, Elmer Wischmeier, Harlan Springborn, Larry Skolos, and Don Hanson. Elmer from Missouri, said, “What the h…’s going on here. Is it Halloween already? Has Doc lost his marbles?”
“Trust me,” I told Elmer. “I know what I’m doing. Back in Wisconsin when we go deer hunting, everyone has to wear blaze orange so other hunters can see us and not shoot at us. Trust me. It works.” They all just shook their heads in disgust.
After the chopper dropped us off, we headed out single file into the brush. After walking for a couple hours, we came to what appeared to be an old, overgrown railroad bed. It looked very familiar. We followed it and came to a marshy area. As we began crossing to the other side, we came under heavy fire from the wooded area at the edge of the marsh. We dropped into the wet marsh and crawled for any cover we could find. Big Lee and I settled in behind a big log and started returning fire.
As I sighted my M-16 over the log, the area in front of me looked just like the edge of the marsh in Tanner Flowage near Black River Falls, Wisconsin. That’s why the old railroad bed had looked so familiar. We had hunted deer in that area for many years when I was young. I didn’t see any deer now, but the woods was full of guys in black, all shooting at us. It seemed like every one of them had zeroed in on me. The bark began peeling off the log as bullets slammed into it. Bullets were stripping the leaves and branches from the small trees around us. We just hunkered down behind the log hoping they’d run out of ammunition. I was sweating profusely from all the heavy clothes. An explosion shook the ground nearby. Now they were lobbing mortar rounds on us too. They came whistling in and exploded all around me. That’s when I realized I was all alone.
I looked around and saw my patrol buddies, Big Lee, Elmer, Harlan, Larry, and Don, sitting and relaxing in the shade of a nearby tree. They had broken out their c-rations and were eating and watching the fireworks, all directed at me. No one was shooting at them.
Then I heard Big Lee yelling to me above the din of the battle. “Hey Doc, you were right when you said we should trust you. Nobody’s shooting at us. This is great! You gotta’ wear your deer huntin’ outfit more often.” “Amen to that, brother,” the others yelled!
That’s when I woke up.
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