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Cherry Blossom Time

by

Moe Haagensen

With the last and final step off of the airplane’s stairwell I felt like a person standing in a frying pan with the stove still on! The tarmac had been soaking under the Asian sun for at least ten hours. Man it was hot!

We new troops, or “Cherrys” as we were called, were shuffled like a deck of cards upon our arrival in Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam. After arriving, in country, we Cherrys were to be sent throughout this most astonishing area of the Far East as replacement troops. As replacement troops, we were put anywhere or anyplace the United States Army had an opening.

My feet were still burning as the air base gave me an elusive view of my new surroundings through a wavy mirage of heat. Suddenly my name and number bellowed from the PA system. My twelve-month tour of duty had just begun.

The very next day my body was relocated by airplane and helicopter to the northern section of the southern half of what used to be one entire country. The country had been separated by an invisible line that theoretically ran straight across it’s mid-section. This line known as the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) was also referred to as the 17^th parallel.

I had been relocated to a place known as “Camp Evans,” about twenty miles south of this invisible line.

I was a soldier, trained in mortar fire, and I was pretty good at it. This certain battalion of the 101^st Airborne (3^rd Battalion / 187^th Infantry) did not have a Company with a mortar platoon and did not need any trained mortar men!

I was assigned to a three-man sniper team. Presently my team was holding their position “somewhere out in the field.” What did I know about “somewhere out in the field?” I was a Cherry!

The senior NCO (non-commissioned officer) assigned my rank and file to a nightly ambush squad until I could be placed with my three-man team somewhere, out there. I now had about three hours to obtain the necessary gear such as a guns, ammo, grenades, knife, face paint, backpack, cigarettes etc. to be of service. What if it rained?

I was twenty days shy of a nineteenth birthday not knowing that all hell was about to break loose later that evening.

The sun had already begun to set when our squad exited the western gate of Camp Evans. We traveled on foot for about an hour in one direction. Darkness fell upon us ten minutes out of camp. Darkness really fell on us maybe thirty minutes later when a clouded night sky would not permit us to have any more light than was reflected by a waning moon.

Our ten man squad then circled itself to form a loose oval perimeter as some soldiers belly-crawled through four foot tall elephant grass to set trip wires attached to small and easily portable land mines known as “claymores.”

The troop whose area I was to be in support of was a man from San Bernardino, California. He called himself Hooker P. Nose but his real name was Randy Leman. Inside of the tall elephant grass, Hooker said to me, using a low and stern whisper, “Cherry! You are a goddamned Cherry! Keep yer mouth shut and make yer eyes stay open cause if I hafta die for somthin’ you did I’m gonna take you with me!” By this time my asshole was a little more than puckered up.

I was scared shitless when the first claymore mine exploded followed by incessant and uncontrolled volleys of gun-fire, whistling, through the tall grass. Lying on my stomach in the womb created by the elephant grass, I began to pull the trigger of my weapon. One magazine clip later and the night felt darker. Relieving a bandoleer, of ammunition, from my shoulder I grabbed another clip and proceeded to do the same thing all over again. And again. And again.

In the darkness the elephant grass began to have a shape and a formation as helicopters dropped flares from the sky. An eerie and hideous hue of pale yellowish-like illumination filled the night. The womb of grass surrounding me slowly became more comforting as the night wore on, and I traded fire with the unseen.

The mornings first traces of natural light were beginning to soak through the tall elephant grass. The jungle was turning itself from night into day as Hooker P. Nose softly whispered into my ear, “Goddamn it Blondie! Can you believe this shit? A dirt mound! A fuckin’ dirt mound! All night long we fired into a dirt mound!”

I replied by not making any noise.

“How many clips you got left?” he again whispered.

When Randy Leman whispered into my ear I knew I had been saved. I wasn’t a “Cherry” anymore.

The new sun began to rise in the eastern sky. Gazing gently toward the west, then looking directly overhead, I closed my eyes for the longest second of my life and said thank-you to the One above us all, while holding out two fingers for Randy to see.