Combat Veteran

This snapshot was taken at least five months into my tour in Vietnam.  I can tell because those are sergeant stripes on my left shoulder just below the 1st Cavalry patch.  I made sergeant in May, 1970.  You can just make out what is a silver, beaded chain around my neck.  The chain held my my dog-tags.  They were framed in plastic to keep them from rattling.  We had to be out in the jungle on patrol for at least ten days because my hair is plastered down from wearing my steel pot (helmet).  Out of site on the jungle floor below me are my pack, rifle, and steel pot.  We were resting.

The picture was taken by a friend with his Yashica, 35mm camera.  As you can see, he used black and white film.  What is most striking about the picture to me is the expression on my face.  This is not the face of an FNG (F-in New Guy).  Instead, what you see is a battle-hardened veteran.  I look sure of myself, as if I had seen it all out there.  I felt in control, determined, and unafraid.  I was about a month away from being wounded.  The shock of getting hit by shrapnel erased some of that confidence you see.

My grandson Nate, who is five years old, would tell you I have a boo-boo-face.  I show him this face now and then though it's not my intent.  It used to scare him because he thought maybe he had done something wrong.  I am not even aware that I do it or why.  But I do believe it is a remnant of  Vietnam that has stayed with me.
    
Behind me is a bamboo forest.  The bamboo is similar in size to four pieces I had cut with a machete and shipped home a month or two before.  I converted one piece into a pencil holder.  You can see the pens and pencils peaking out over the top.  If you look closely you can see the cut marks from the machete on top.  It was very easy to cut bamboo with a swipe of a machete back then because it was alive and saturated with water.  Now it is dead, dried out and hard-as-a-rock.