[Schwarzkopf arranged to join MACV, then finish his West Point assignment.]
In one of the battles I fought with a South Vietnamese airborne unit, three paratroopers had been killed. Unlike some other South Vietnamese units, the airborne went to great lengths to return soldiers’ bodies to their families.
When a U.S. Army helicopter landed with ammunition, the Vietnamese soldiers decided to load the corpses on the helicopter for the return flight to Pleiku. “No bodies!” the crew told them, and tried to push the bodies off while the pilot revved his blades. I ran over and climbed on the skid next to the pilot’s window. He was a captain. I shouted, “What’s going on?”
“We don’t take bodies. They get blood and shit all over the flight deck.” If they had been dead Americans, he wouldn’t have thought twice; that burned me.
“Let me tell you something, sport. Either you take those bodies or you stay here on the ground, because I’m not gonna get off this skid. If you take off, I’m gonna fall off this airplane and die. Are you willing to take responsibility for that? And second, if you try to take off, I’ll shoot your ass!”
Either he didn’t realize I was bluffing, or the fact that I was a major focused his attention: they loaded the bodies on.
Without knowing it, I’d endeared myself forever to the South Vietnamese troops. They saw an American who cared enough about them to climb up on a helicopter skid and make the pilot accept their dead.
[Colonel Schwarzkopf volunteered for Vietnam again as a battalion commander, after studies at the Command and General Staff College, and his marriage in 1969.]
On the morning of May 28, 1970, while I was in my helicopter heading for a mortar position we maintained out by the edge of the peninsula, C Company reported that a soldier had tripped a mine and gotten hurt. As we began to descend, I studied the company’s position. “Goddammit!” I thought. They’d wandered into an old night defensive position, a favorite site for VC booby traps.
Suddenly, bam! another mine went off. I turned and twenty yards away a soldier was on the ground, one of his legs grotesquely twisted. He was thrashing and wailing in agony: “Oh, Jesus! Somebody help me! Somebody help me!” I worried that by flopping around he’d sever an artery and end up bleeding to death. Meanwhile, other guys started to yell: “Oh, my God!” “We’re in the middle of a minefield!” “We’re all gonna die!”
“Knock that bullshit off.” I yelled back. “You’re not all gonna die. We’re going to get you out.“But the wounded man kept screaming and I realize had to get over to him and help him. His cries were causing panic among the troops and the worst thing would be for them to break and run.
I started through the minefield, one slow step at a time, staring at the ground, looking for tell tale bumps or little prongs sticking up from the dirt. My knees were shaking so hard that each time I took a step, I had to grab my leg and steady it with both hands before I could take another. I had to nearly double over to move. It seemed like a thousand years before I reached the kid.
I lay down on top of him because I wanted to stop him from thrashing. I’d been a wrestler at West Point and knew how to pin a guy down; also, I weighed about 240 pounds. I started talking to him: “You’re gonna be okay. We’re gonna get you out of here. Calm down and quit screaming. You’re scaring the shit out of people.”
“Yes, sir,” he gasped, and quieted down.
“Okay. Now let’s get you out of here,” I said. I turned and spotted a bush twenty yards away, right where I’d been standing when we came in. “Cut me a couple of branches to use as a splint,” I yelled to Tom Bratton, my artillery liaison officer. Bratton took one step and boom! a mine blew off his right arm and leg and he went down. I felt shrapnel punch into my chest.
The troops started to panic and I shouted, “Nobody moves! Stand where you are until we can get you out!” I removed the kid’s belt, lashed his wounded leg to his good leg, and ran back to where the company commander and a couple of other guys were bending over Bratton.
I radioed my headquarters and told them we needed an engineer team with mine detectors. Twenty minutes later they flew in and I watched the skids of the helicopter touch down, half expecting it to detonate another mine and kill us all. I told the head engineer, “Clear the landing area first, and mark where you find mines.”
The guy looked stricken. Sir, we don’t have anything to mark them with. We thought you were just gonna walk behind us and let us lead you out.”
“What about all these other guys? We’ve gotta mark paths.” I radioed Fire Base Dottie and said, “Gather up as many cans of shaving cream as you can.”
On the other end of the radio, my executive officer must have thought I’d gone crazy. “Sir?” he said. “Are you sure you want shaving cream?”
“Goddammit! Don’t argue with me! I’ll explain why later!”
The engineers spent the next couple of hours clearing paths with metal detectors to wherever there were men, and marking them with foam. The troops slowly made their way to the helicopter. By the time the last man left, the whole hillside was covered with little white circles.
[Schwarzkopf was transferred back to Washington in the summer of 1970.]
I hated what Vietnam was doing to the United States and I hated what it was doing to the Army. It was a nightmare that the American public had withdrawn its support: our troops in World War I and World War II had never had to doubt for one minute that the people on the home front were fully behind them. We in the military hadn’t chosen the enemy or written the orders-our elected leaders had. Nevertheless, we were taking much of the blame. We soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines were literally the sons and daughters of America, and to lose public support was akin to being rejected by our own parents.
One Saturday evening that next spring, my sister Sally came over for dinner bringing a magnum of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Sally was practically a part of our household: every Thursday she’d come over to play cards, watch TV, or just talk.
After cocktails and a long, lively dinner-Brenda hardly drank, so Sally and I polished off the magnum between us we all settled down in front of the TV. There was a Korean War movie on, and a number of soldiers were moving out across a large open field. I knew what was going to happen: they were walking into a minefield. Sure enough, a guy stepped on a mine, and I recoiled in horror. The other guys kept walking and I heard myself saying, “Don’t do that. Don’t do that. Don’t do that.”
Sally was looking at me in amusement. “Come on, Norman, it’s just a movie. It’s not even about Vietnam. Aren’t you overreacting.?”
“I’m not,” I said. I was shaking.
“Why worry about it? It’s behind us.”
I deeply resented that. “It’s not behind us. It’s still going on. Goddammit, I can’t stand the people in this country who say it’s over, who are trying to put it behind us, who are trying to pretend it never happened! Don’t tell me I shouldn’t react. You sound just like the peaceniks!”
Sally misread how strongly I was reacting. She thought I was just being argumentative and pressed on: “You can’t just dismiss everything the peaceniks say. They have some legitimate points.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. I’d always thought Sally was on my side. But what I was hearing was a dismissal of the war and a willingness to walk away from everything we stood for in Vietnam-an attitude that, to my mind, was contributing to the loss of more American lives. I couldn’t tolerate that. “I’m sorry,” I interrupted, “but if you honestly believe these things, if you honestly feel that way, then I don’t want you in this house.”
Sally bristled. “Well, I honestly do feel that way.”
“Then get out.” I was in tears because I felt so betrayed, and now she was crying, too. “Get out of my house.”
“Oh, now, Norman, I. .
“There’s nothing to talk about! Get out.”
When I woke up the next morning, I remembered what I’d done and some of the things we’d said. I couldn’t believe the insane way in which I’d treated my sister. Lying there, I came to two conclusions. Number one, I had to put Vietnam behind me. I would -never forget the lessons it had taught me, but I couldn’t allow it to consume me and destroy my family. Number two, I reminded myself: “Schwarzkopf, your mother is an alcoholic. What happened last night was largely a result of your having had too much to drink.” I made up my mind that I’d never let booze take control of my life. Then I got up, called Sally, and told her I was sorry.
