WOUNDED!                        
                   By Robert F. Marcuson               

On April 3, 1968, Bravo Company of the 3/60th infantry

battalion had been in the large American base at Dong Tam,

Vietnam only two days.  We had suffered many casualties in 

the last few weeks, so it was a relief for everybody when we

learned we would stay at the relatively safe, easy-duty base

for six weeks.

     There was no way of knowing that within forty-eight hours

of moving into my new home, I would be in surgery from the 

accidental discharge of one of our own rifles.

     Our billets were the standard Vietnam-type troop barracks; 

economically constructed two-story buildings of unpainted plank

and plywood.  Sand-bagged bunkers lay between the buildings for

protection from small arms fire and especially mortar rounds. 

We had been instructed to leave all our individual weapons and 

ammunition in these bunkers, both as a safety factor and so we 

wouldn't waste time collecting our gear in case of attack.

     I was on the second floor of the barracks lying on my bunk, 

or rather a dusty canvas cot, reading a book.  Although it was 

after nine o'clock at night, it was still hot and humid and I 

had taken off my fatigue shirt.  It was peacefully calm and many 

GI's on other cots were asleep, when suddenly I was seized with 

terror by the close sound of automatic gunfire. 
     
     Reflexes took hold of me instantaneously and I was rolling 

off my bunk as I had a horrible vision of machine gun bullets 

ripping through the flimsy sides of the barracks and Viet Cong 

rushing up the stairway to finish off those weaponless GI's who 

could not flee.  I hit the floor and lay there on my stomach, 

spread-eagled, conscious of swearing and yelling in the barracks 

and of a tremendous ache from my left side.  The firing, which had 

come from directly beneath me on the first floor, had stopped.

     Several seconds must have passed before I moved my arm to 

discover what was wrong.  Several inches from my side, my hand 

stopped.  It had run into something wet, soft and, without looking,

I knew that it was my intestine.  A bullet had torn a large hole in

the side of my abdomen.

     My hand jerked back by itself.  I felt my face convulse in 

horror as I turned my head to keep from looking down at my side.  

I felt like screaming but could not, and for a moment I knew that I 

was dying.                          

     My motto since that day in basic training when I learned I was 

going into the infantry and to Vietnam had been simple: If I was to 

die, it would be so, but in no way would it be my own fault.  This 

slogan had kept me attentive through many a dull class during 

infantry training and awake on my guard watches in Vietnam.  I had 

tried to learn from those more experienced.  I watched carefully 

for booby traps while on patrol and had tried to program myself to 

react on reflex should shooting start.  But lecture and training 

cannot teach a man how to react when he's wounded.  My slogan may 

have saved my life, for rather than continue my panic, I screwed my 

eyes shut and screamed to myself, "I will not die!  I will not die!"

     The yelling and confusion had begun and people were picking 

themselves up from the floor; except for my friend Smitty, who'd 

been in the cot next to mine.

     "Is everybody all right?"

     "What happened?"                 

     "Smitty's been hit!"

     Only seconds had passed and I had yet to utter a sound.  I was 

on the verge of calling "medic" when I was discovered.

     "Oh my God!" somebody said.

     "Doc!  Come here quick!  Marcuson needs help."

     "Somebody get some blood."

     "Take it easy, Marc.  Doc's here."

     "I'll take care of Smitty, Doc.  He'll be all right."

     Through this confusion and babble of voices, I resolved to 

remain as calm as possible.  As long as I remained conscious, I 

was alive.

     I thought of my family and how they would react if I died.  I 

realized that, eventually, they would get over it, and this made me 

feel better.   

     The platoon medic began to apply first aid and to bandage my 

side as the other members of my platoon stood by, offering whatever 

encouragement they could: 

     "Take it easy, Marc.  You're going to be all right."

     "In a month you'11 be back in the field with the rest of us."

     "I wish I were in your place.  Wait till you see those pretty 

nurses."  

     "You're going to be all right, Marc.  I've been shot in the 

stomach too, and I'm fine," said one young specialist, who had been 

slightly wounded a few weeks earlier.

     I was to weak to reply to any of these encouraging voices.  And 

I had felt the wound with my hand.  I knew, from the expressions on 

their faces and the anxiety in their voices, that they expected me 

to die any moment.

     One man had meant to say I'd be healed in a couple months, but 

made a slip of the tongue and said "years" instead.

     I tried to shut my eyes, to relax, but whenever I did, somebody

would tell me to keep them open.

     Unable to close my eyes, I lay on that dusty floor looking at a

line of small holes which marked the paths of nearly twenty M-16 

slugs which had torn through the thin plywood at over three thousand

feet per second.  I saw my friend Smitty lying only a few feet from 

me, a blood-stained bandage wrapped around his head.  He was very 

lucky - he had only been grazed. The book I had been reading lay 

face down.  It was spotted, as was the floor, with tiny droplets of

blood that had burst into the air and then fallen down.  I was 

saddened to think that I might never finish reading it.

     I glanced upward at the upright clothes locker that stood 

against the wall to see a large stain where blood and disintegrating

flesh had literally splashed against its side.  Immediately I looked

down again and shut my eyes.

     "Keep your eyes open," somebody said again. "That's good. Keep

them open.  The ambulance jeep is on the way.  You'll be at the 

hospital in just a few minutes."  

     A couple of hours earlier that day, Smitty had given me a carved

animal head to replace a good luck charm I had lost a few days before.

Now, Smitty looked over at me and said, "I guess the lucky piece 

didn't work."

     In reply, I gasped, "Don't knock my lucky piece."  Those were 

the only words I spoke until I got to the hospital.  It was such an 

effort to pronounce just those five words that Doc told me not to 

speak.  But I was not in a mood for talk anyway.

     I shifted my body slightly and felt that I was lying in a pool 

of blood that extended from the middle of my chest to the middle of 

my thigh. It was warm and strangely comforting.  Every few minutes 

there was a call for more plasma to replace the fluids I continued to

lose.  I was relatively calm and not as afraid as I had been earlier.

By accepting the fact that I might still die, much of the fear had 

left me.

     Finally the ambulance arrived and a stretcher was brought up. 

It was laid beside me on the side away from the wound.  Three men 

knelt on the side of the stretcher and three by my wounded side.  

Then with one man at my shoulder, another at my hips, and another 

holding my legs, I was rolled over onto my back on the stretcher.

I could still hear the words of encouragement as we went 

through the door and down the stairway to the waiting jeep.

     The night air, wafting over my blood and sweat soaked body, 

felt cool and comfortable.  It seemed to me that there could be no 

greater joy than simply enjoying a comfortable, peaceful evening 

out-of-doors.  

     It struck me then how hideous and unfair was warfare. Whether 

men fight for communism or democracy, Christianity or paganism, 

because they're black or white. Ideologies are small next to the 

stark, bloody realities of men and pain.  This emotion was so strong 

that I very much wanted to cry, not only for myself, but for those 

millions of men in the past who had suffered and died, and for those 

who would do so in the future.

     The trip to the hospital in that bouncy jeep was rough but 

short.  I should probably have felt more pain, but my entire body was 

numb.  After we arrived at the hospital and I was moved inside, the 

bable began again.

     "Lay him down over here!"

     "Take it easy, Marc.  The doctors will take care of you now."

     "We'll need more blood."

     "How long ago did this happen?"

     "About twenty minutes, sir."   
     
     A doctor unwrapped my bandages while another began shav�ing my 

torso and abdomen for surgery.  I began to feel very cold.  My leg 

started to shake.  The doctor told me to concentrate and control it. 

For a moment I could, but then it became uncontrollably spasmodic 

and somebody was needed to hold it still. 

     I felt a peculiar sensation start in my legs and move rapidly 

up my body towards my head.  My body became incredibly stiff and 

tight.  Feeling that I was on the verge of losing consciousness, I 

shut my eyes tightly and concentrated on the equation: consciousness 

equals survival.  The sensation became so strong that, in my 

desperate concentration, all awareness of my surroundings and what 

had happened left me.  I could feel, hear, see and think of nothing

except the words "consciousness - survival" resounding through my 

head over and over again.        
      
     Gradually, I became aware of being spoken to and the tighness 

left as quickly as it had come.  I opened my eyes again, feeling 

weaker but knowing that, by some miracle, I had just not died.

     The table I was lying on was wheeled into the operating room 

and I was aware of more people standing about.  The room was a 

nicely painted light-blue, seeming pleasant in contrast to the 

usually depressing army greens.

     During the time I spent in the hospital, I never felt self 

pity. I always found somebody in the ward who was in worse shape 

than myself.  It's a miracle that I'm alive, but then it's a 

miracle any time a man lives through combat, whether or not he 

thinks of it that way. 

     But a thought keeps recurring to me and I want to cry whenever 

I think of those long moments I lay on that dirty, bloody floor in 

Dong Tam.  After a hundred thousand years on this planet, at a time 

when Man can walk on the moon, it seems that we could find a better 

way than hatred for settling our individual differences.