John Wayne
McGovern, yes the same name as the politician was working with Willy in one of
C company’s cargo sheds. The platoon sergeant didn't have much for them to
do so he had them cleaning out and riding up the terribly messy equipment shed.
Willy was
sweeping in the back corner of the shed when he heard an “ouch” from McGovern.
McGovern had just stepped into the opening of the doorway and it was common for
bees to build nests in these doorways.
Willy stops
for a second and says, “What happened? Did you get stung by a bee?”
McGovern
continued to squirm and complain about pain in his chest.
Willy walked
over to McGovern, who was holding his chest like a dog with a hurt paw.
“Let me see
what the heck happened.” Willy said.
As McGovern
moved his hands Willy could only see blood coming out of his chest. It wasn't a
gushing amount of blood but enough to know it wasn't a bee sting.
Willy took off his own shirt and tries to blot away the blood to see what had happened.
“Ouch! Damn
it!” McGovern screeched, “Don’t touch it, it hurts like hell.”
After
finally letting Willy examine the wound better he could see what appeared to be
the end of a bullet. “What the hell?” Willie thought to himself.
“I think you've been shot!”
At that
moment McGovern turned as white as a ghost.
“My god! I
knew I’d die over here. It’ll serve my wife right for saying she hopes I die in
Vietnam and don’t come back.”
“Shut the
hell up McGovern! You’re not going to die I can see the ass end of the bullet
right here. If you just hold still I could get a better look.”
Willy knew
it wasn't a life threatening wound but it sure could've been. The only question was where the hell did the bullet come from? It was the middle of the day and
he hadn't even heard a shot.
Willy didn't hesitate though. He ran around the corner, only about 50 yards to the medics shack. One medic was still in the building doing some routine work.
Quickly the
medic ran over to assist McGovern.
After studying the wound for a minute he ran
back to the medic building where he grabbed what looked like to Willy to be a
pair of pliers.
McGovern wasn't really cooperative, but he had been shot and he didn't know how badly.
The medic
wiggled the bullet back and forth, while McGovern screamed but easily pulled
out the bullet from his chest.
The bullet
lodged itself in McGovern’s breast bone but didn't have enough velocity to penetrate the bone.
The medic
wrapped McGovern’s chest in a field dressing and led him over to the
medic’s shack where he drew up some antibiotics, some pain medication, and
called Long Binh for a helicopter.
Sometime
later a huey was overhead and landed in the LZ outside the small 100 man
compound. It picked up McGovern and took him to a better medical facility on
the small city sized post south of C Company’s compound.
Later the
medic and Willy chatted up what had happened earlier. They presumed that what
had happened was someone from a long distance away, maybe in the nearby village
had lobbed up a 7.62 x 39 bullet in the direction of C Company’s compound.
Whether they took a pot shot at movement or just lobbed it up in the direction
of the compound will never be known.
“What an
unlucky son of gone!” Willy said to the medic. “The sad part is that his wife
keeps writing him letters telling him that she hopes he never makes it back.
The worst part is that McGovern can barely read the letters, so I read them to
him. I personally wrote a letter back to her because I was so pissed that she’s
putting him through this kind of mental torture.”
“Yeah, the
damnedest thing is that she almost got her wish in such an unlucky way.” The
Medic said.
“What do you
think they’ll do with McGovern?” Willy asked.
“Well they’ll
probably send him to Japan for a few months and might give him the option to go
home but believe it or not most of the guys who complain all the time about
being over here and get wounded end up coming back by choice.” The Medic
stated.
The medic
was right, Willy thought. Vietnam was a strange place for more reasons than he
could name. A person could get the smallest burn or cut and it would fester and
become infected in no time. It was just a filthy environment.
Willy left
the conversation and headed back to bunker 3, his three-quarters buried home
for year. He couldn't get the thought out of his mind about why so many guys
who were here who hated it, even draftees would opt to come back to this place.
Maybe it was
the camaraderie? Maybe it was fear of what life was like back home?
Who knows, but sure as can be, McGovern was back about three months later.
