Excerpts from “StoryTellers Journey” Chapter 1

While standing the QRF (Quick Reation Force) , we were transported near a hamlet in an area called the “Arizona”. Rumor had it the “Agency” had just worked their Phoenix program in that area, focusing on this hamlet. Phoenix was a CIA program designed to identify and destroy the Viet Cong via infiltration, torture, interrogation and assassination. Torture, assassination! Hell, If the rumor mill was true, we’re about to pay a visit to some pissed off villagers.

Once off the helicopter, Dalton and I moved through the bush, down a separate footpath. We were looking for any ammo cache or signs that Charlie had been there. Quickly, yet cautiously, the hunt was on. Suddenly we came upon a fork in the foot trail. Dalton and I looked at each other for a half second. Then with a shrug of my shoulders, I took ownership of the tail and motioned that I’d take the right path. Dalton nodded that he had the “left path”. With thumbs up and a pat on his shoulder, I drifted toward a decade of pseudo-nihilism.

Within minutes of our divergence, an explosion and “corpsman up” rang out, organized chaos ensued. Moving toward the sound, I found Dalton being administered morphine by the corpsman. We begin to set up a secure perimeter and call in a medevac helicopter. The helo arrived and Dalton was carried out on a stretcher. He looked anesthetized and motionless on his back. His left arm was draped over his chest with his right arm curled up by his side. His body was charred, uniform torn and blood stained. The right boot and left leg below the knee was gone. The stretcher team hurried to the medevac helo. This was the last time I saw my friend Bill Dalton.

A Few days later, assuming Dalton was safely in a hospital getting primo care, I asked the first sergeant “how’s Dalton?” Without putting down his binoculars the Top said “he’s gone”, the inference “gone from this life”. That’s how we did it in the bush, no memorial, no eulogy, no “what a great guy he was”. The First Sergeant continued his “binocular gook hunting” and I walked away, emotions drained having just heard Dalton didn’t make it. I continued cleaning my rifle.

My ownership of the “path not travelled” weighted heavy on my core for the next thirteen years. I would be playing the “what if” game for evermore. What if I took the “left path” instead of Dalton, would I have been terminated? Would there not be a Karen and Steve or three wonderful daughters? What would Karen’s grandchildren look like or be like without Steve propagating the family lineage? Would she marry up into a better gene pool? The hereditary genome sequence was mind blowing.

In 1983, on the opening of the Vietnam Memorial, I made a trip to Washington D.C. to visit “The Wall”. At the west end of the entrance to the memorial, stood a podium with a book of 58,000 plus names that were killed in the Vietnam War. I quickly perused the book, noting other Marine brothers lost, but could not find Lance Corporal William Dalton, USMC. This exigent realization was as if someone had thrown a large stone and hit the back of my head.

Dalton wasn’t on the Wall, he wasn’t dead. When I got the word “he’s gone” what the first sergeant must have meant was “he’s gone back to the states” not “he’s gone dead”. Wow, what a transformation in my thought process and a quick rewrite of history. Now it was Dalton surviving the impact of the explosion, losing a leg but living a fine Hoosier life the last thirteen years.

I recalibrate the timeline, flashbacked to “what if I took the left path” and lost my leg. What a head fuck! How would my life have been the last thirteen years? Still married to my high school sweetheart, raising three wonderful daughters and having a career selling insurance. No college football, no continued military career, no Pensacola pilot training or leather flight jacket with aviator sunglasses. OK, so the “left path” was not a mortal wound to Dalton, but did have me rewriting my one-legged history.

Story’s not over. After the 9/11 attack, I was ordered back to active duty. My assignment was in the Pentagon, Washington D.C. On a Sunday afternoon, I made another trip to the Vietnam War Memorial. The “Book of Dead” was still on the podium near the entrance to the Wall, albeit, with a few names added since 1983. I bypassed the book and went directly to the Wall with a different “search query”. Staring at the Wall, I focused on the 1970 thru 1971 time period. I read the names engraved on the black granite and saw the faces of Bennett, Kempel, Aston, Trotta, Tucker, Ward, Rowley.

Then, like having a tequila hangover and a linebacker body slamming you, there it was. I struggled to not vomit, my head was pounding and a violent spasm overtook my body. Engraved in the black granite was the last name Daulton, spelled with a “U”. The “what if” game returned with a vengeance. The explosion near a shitty little hamlet, in a shitty little country, did kill my friend, Lance Corporal William Daulton. The only thing that changed from that explosive day, thirty-two years ago, was the spelling of “Daulton”.

DAULTON

Knew a man from Indiana…. Daulton was his name

Friendly smile, lanky frame… only claim to fame

We shared each other’s memories

Thoughts would fill our songs

Minds were in the jungle… his heart’s in Tara Haute

Traveled out in search of …. Youthful ideas

Filled our packs with comfort lies… water for our thirst

The times that were the hardest, were the ones I remember first

Daulton smiled, took my path

Left me with a curse

Sometimes it rained so hard my tears