PTSD: Haunted By A Child

For some reason this morning I thought about the war; something that happens each day. But this time, I had been thinking about my three daughters. I remember what they looked like at age two, and that’s when the little Vietnamese girl always comes back to haunt me.

I was with 1/3 and we had just finished an operation in the Street Without Joy in late 1967. We were picked up on some road out in the boonies by trucks from B Company 7^th Motors; an outfit I would be sent to in a few more months.

Someone had a large bright red Russian flag captured during the operation and it was flying like a trophy above the lead vehicle. We slowly passed a village on the left near a sharp bend where a crowd of children came to beg food from us.

We would punch holes in the C-rat cans so they would have to eat it instead of giving it to the VC. I’m talking about many little children of all ages, dirty and starving and dressed in rags. I couldn’t imagine them giving food up to anyone, but we always poked holes in the cans.

Some of the children got so close to the trucks I thought they would get run over. And that’s when I saw the little girl in what looked like a small granny dress with colored flowers. I thought of my little sister. The girl was probably two years old. She had no shoes and very little hair. I kept thinking why a mother would let such a young child come out and beg like that…but that was an American thought process, not a Vietnam reality.

I don’t remember what food can I had in my hand, but I poked a hole in it with the c-rat can opener. We were going slowly enough for me to lean over and drop the can in front of her because she would have never been able to catch it. Others ran toward her and I yelled and startled them so she was able to grab the can. She looked up at me and half-smiled.

That’s when a boy about age thirteen ran over and punched her in the face as hard as he could and grabbed the can away from her. She flew in the air like some broken doll and sat up screaming like all babies do when hurt badly. I went into a rage as the truck sped up. I wanted to shoot that boy and pick up the little girl and hold her and make everything okay again.

In a moment, we were gone and there was nothing I could do. I would never see that village or the little girl again. I realized more than ever that there was nothing I could do about anything in that country. One act of kindness is lost against a background of terror. Reality in Vietnam was horror, and all a person could do was try to survive it.

She would probably be about forty-six if she had lived, but the odds against that were extremely high. I like to imagine she grew up and maybe came to America. That she has children of her own and they don’t have to beg for food. The little girl is always alive in my mind. She represents all the horror in the world and the personal loss I’ve felt since I left Vietnam almost forty-three years ago. Out of all the bad things I saw in country, she affects me more than anything because I could do nothing to save her.