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    Gonna Stick My Sword in the Golden Sand: A Vietnam Soldier's Story
    Gonna Stick My Sword in the Golden Sand: A Vietnam Soldier's Story
    Gonna Stick My Sword in the Golden Sand: A Vietnam Soldier's Story
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    Gonna Stick My Sword in the Golden Sand: A Vietnam Soldier's Story

    By RW Holmen

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    About this ebook

    "Golden Sand" is less about patriotism and heroism than about the gut-wrenching reality for the Vietnam combat soldiers who are celebrated for simply doing their best to get by, not as superheroes, but as young men who often acted heroically but sometimes foolishly in circumstances not of their own choosing. One reviewer commented, "the bond and the folly of immortal combat ring loud and clear from the page, and the story's told with all the realism, language and pathos of experience." The mood of "Golden Sand" is dark and somber rather than triumphalistic: a hauntingly honest and brutally true retelling rather than a glorification of the Vietnam experience.

    The story opens as a young soldier receives combat infantry training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and he soon lands in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, as the rest of the world celebrates Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon. After a torturous twenty-three day hump through the jungle, the now seasoned-veteran volunteers for the LRRPs. The LRRPs of Vietnam (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol) were the cavalry scouts of their war, traveling by helicopter rather than mustangs into remote and unfriendly territory. The mountainous jungles of the central highlands were especially inhospitable, filled with snakes and wild animals, and criss-crossed with the tributaries of the Ho Chi Minh trail that lay hidden beneath the thick, triple-canopy jungle foliage. It was the job of small teams of LRRPs to penetrate the ridges and valleys of the rainforest to track and identify enemy activity. The remaining chapters of "Golden Sand" chronicle hair-raising missions to the field as well as the stand down time in the rear base camps.

    The author refers to "Golden Sand" as "autobiographical fiction." True incidents serve as inspiration for the book, but the stories are told with literary embellishment. The author served with K Company, 75th Infantry (Rangers) in the central highlands of Vietnam in 1969-70, and he was twice awarded a bronze star for valor in combat.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRW Holmen
    Release dateSep 11, 2014
    ISBN9781310352324
    Gonna Stick My Sword in the Golden Sand: A Vietnam Soldier's Story
    Author

    RW Holmen

    Former trial attorney. Frequent public speaker. Indie author. "A Wretched Man, a novel of Paul the apostle," "Gonna Stick My Sword in the Golden Sand: A Vietnam Soldier's Story," "Queer Clergy: A History of Gay and Lesbian Ministry in American Protestantism." Spirit of a Liberal blog.

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      Book preview

      Gonna Stick My Sword in the Golden Sand - RW Holmen

      Gonna Stick my Sword in the Golden Sand

      A Vietnam soldier’s story

      RW Holmen

      Golden Sand was previously published by the author under the title Prowl, which has now been withdrawn from publication. Golden Sand includes modified material from the earlier book as well as new content.

      Copyright 2014 RW Holmen.

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work.

      Smashwords Edition

      Visit the author’s website at www.rwholmen.com

      Cover design by SelfPubBookCovers.com/ktarrier.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Epigraph

      Eleven Bravo

      Humping

      Here Comes Charlie

      Cat Quiet

      Whiskey in the Rain

      Chasing After Wind

      Elijah Fire

      Donut Dollies

      Down by the Riverside

      About the Author

      Epigraph

      Gonna stick my sword in the golden sand;

      Down By the riverside

      Down by the riverside

      Down by the riverside

      Gonna stick my sword in the golden sand

      Down by the riverside

      Gonna study war no more.

      I ain't gonna study war no more,

      I ain't gonna study war no more,

      Study war no more.

      I ain't gonna study war no more,

      I ain't gonna study war no more,

      Study war no more.

      From Down by the Riverside, a traditional gospel song.

      Eleven Bravo

      "Now therefore proclaim this in the hearing of the troops, ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home.’ Then the LORD said to Gideon, The troops are still too many; take them down to the water and I will sift them out for you there. When I say, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go with you; and when I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.

      Judges 7:3-4 (excerpt)

      If’n one of them coral snakes bites you, here’s the proper military procedure, droned the drill sergeant. Smokey hat tilted forward over dark glasses, uniform tight and full of starch, the tall and lean instructor stalked the stage of the outdoor amphitheater with a manner that said this was his domain.

      In May of 1969, hot winds whistled through the tall pines of Tiger Village in Fort Polk, Louisiana, the training center for Vietnam-bound infantrymen. The poor bastards called this place Fort Puke, the armpit of America.

      Who knew the army had a sense of humor? The joke was on us. The irony slapped you in the face on that day near the end of basic training when they posted the lists for advanced training assignments. The screw-ups in basic training--the swinging dicks who couldn't hang on to the monkey bars outside the mess hall, who puked during forced marches, and who shot holes in the sky during rifle training--found themselves on this list or that one, but not on the list for 11B: the infantry, the basic foot soldiers of armies ancient and modern. Grunts. Straight legs. Ground pounders.

      ... You can also use this procedure for the cobras of Vietnam, if'n one of them crawls into yer bunker when yer sleeping, the sergeant continued.

      The pine slab benches sagged with fools like me, baking in the sun. Our reward for running fast and shooting straight was to be placed on the list. Eleven fucking Bravo. While the other lists learned their specialty training here and there in comfortable camps around the country, the Eleven Bravos were sweltering in the Louisiana humidity and learning how to treat snake bite.

      Spread yer legs to a comfortable military stance ...

      Normally, we had a hard time keeping our eyes open during training sessions, and you didn't want to be caught checking your eyelids for pinholes, or the sergeants would poke you in the ribs. Not today. Not when the drill instructor told tales of the rattlers, water moccasins, black-widow spiders, and small but deadly red-yellow-black banded coral snakes that crawled the hill country of northwest Louisiana ... and the cobras of Vietnam. Today, we had no trouble staying awake.

      ... Put yer hands on yer knees ...

      Wouldn't it be the shits to get snake bit before shipping out for the Nam? Course, if you're gonna catch a bullet anyway.

      .... Bend down at the waist as far as you can ...

      The drill instructor removed his Smokey hat and wiped the sweat from his shaved head, glancing up at the merciless sun. Next, he removed his wire-rimmed dark glasses and wiped them clean as he scanned the peach-fuzz faces of the innocents. Then, he offered his wisdom, his enlightenment, his sage advice, probably like he did every day to countless Eleven Bravos who passed through his outdoor classroom on their way to on-the-job training in the Nam.

      ... and kiss yer sweet ass goodbye.

      We landed in Alaska. Even in the land of the midnight sun, it was pitch black when the jet set down on some God-forsaken spit of land somewhere out in the Aleutians, and we didn't see much from the inside of the plane. I suppose we could have seen Siberia if it had been daytime. The Soviets were the smart ones. They sent their AK-47s and their anti-aircraft batteries, but they let Charlie do their fighting.

      We stayed on the ground just long enough for a crew change and refueling, and then we roared off into the dark night ... next stop, Cam Ranh Bay. I was surprised when we boarded a commercial jetliner back at Fort Lewis, Washington, rather than a military plane, and I wondered if they would be passing out weapons before touching down in Vietnam--I mean it was wartime and all and who knew where Charlie might be hiding? The flight attendants didn't seem too concerned but not real friendly either, and they didn't serve drinks.

      There were others on the plane that I knew: three black guys from Fort Polk who completed Eleven Bravo training with me a month earlier. When my thirty-day leave was up, and I arrived at Fort Lewis to be processed for Vietnam, I spied their familiar faces, even if a bit unfriendly, and I had sidled up next to them in formation with all the others headed for the Nam. I surprised them. There really wasn't a race problem back at Fort Polk, but not a lot of mixing either. There was a bit of a brew stirring when some black guys started letting the other blacks into the chow line ahead of the whites, but then a sergeant laid down the law.

      Charlie won't care what color you are when he lines you up in his gun sights. You dickheads will be in a heap of shit anyway, and you better figure out now that you're all on the same side.

      I don't think one of those guys had ever hung out with a white guy before because he wasn't quite sure about it, and it puzzled him that the other two were congenial toward me during

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