Milo Von Strom's story part two

Kathie: Here is a brief account of why I have PTSD problems...one out of 365 or more other stories that I remember from my over seas moments.

This incident happened in and around 3rd or 4th of September 1969 at Cam Rahn Bay in South , Vietnam. I arrived at Cam Rahn Bay in Vietnam at a very hot time. It was hard at first to get use to walking in the sand , which was everywhere. It seemed like every step I took, I went 2 steps backwards. Anyway it felt like you never got anywhere at all. I just hung around the place eating and drinking allot of water and doing nothing for about 3 days, because I didn't have any transportation to my assigned unit. Then a couple of us were told to go to the helicopter to the LZ (landing zone) and wait for our ride. Little did I know that it would be a ride I would never forget.

A few minutes after we arrived at the LZ a copter set down and a sergeant with a armful of M-16's got off and approached us. He stood there with us without saying anything for a brief moment. He looked us over like cattleman examining fresh meat. It gave me the creeps. Then he told the 3 of us to get into the helicopter. I took out my orders and tried to show them to him and he didn't even glance at them. He just placed his right hand on his holstered 45 cal. revolver and loudly ordered us onto the helicopter. Not knowing what to do in this situation and fearing for my personal safety I got into the copter and away we went. I had never flown in a helicopter before , so I was nervous, especially when we were flying a few hundred feet over the rocky shoreline of the South China Sea . We were heading North for quite away and then suddenly the helicopter took a sharp left . I was freaking out! I was at the helicopter door without a seat belt on staring at the jagged rocks directly below me. I thought that I was going to fall out as the helicopter flew sideways for a while. The sergeant told me not to worry and that I wouldn't fall out . That didn't reassure me very much at the time. It seemed like we flew over the jungle for about 20 or so minutes and set down on a LZ near a fire base that was right out of John Wayne's movie " The Green Beret " . Now I was really losing it! I was supposed to be going to Phan Rang Air force Base , which was much safer than that place seemed to be and in the opposite direction.

I was quite upset and asked to see the fire base commander as soon as I walked through the barbed wire covered gate with Vietnamese guards. The officer in charge seemed to be no more than 21 or 22 ,at the most, with an black I Core on his uniform. The patch caught my eye , because I was in an I Core unit in Korea. He had on a booney hat on, sun glasses , colorful shorts and Ho Chi Min sandals . He was a weird sight to behold. I gave him my orders and explained to him that this must a big mistake. For a moment he glanced over my orders and then just dropped them into a fire barrel, next to him , and turned around and politely asked me in a nice voice...can I see your orders specialist Strom. I stood there in disbelief and reminded him that he just burned my orders. He turned to the sergeant and told him to assign me to a bunker and a 155mm gun crew and walked away. I realized at that moment I was screwed and up shit creek without a paddle. In other word, welcome to a new reality.

My memory from this point on is rather vague, because so many things started happening in a row that I can't remember their true order. My lack of certain details has bothered me since those days. I feel that it lead to the nightmares that I keep having to this day. I only remember the black soldier that I shared the bunker with. I thought at the time that he was a strange person, because he filled his pillows to the rim with marijuana and we had to drink our water out of an aluminum trash can . It was a taste I won't ever forget. The water always tasted like metal, which made the warm beer even taste better. We didn't have any ice. I can't remember any of my crews names just their faces and this isn't like me, so I know what I don't remember was to traumatic for my immature brain to comprehend at the time.

The only thing that makes any sense is that we were attacked before anyone became familiar to me, because I still can remember certain people that I served with in Korea in 1967. I was there for 14 months. I spent 6 months of that time with I Core's 175mm track tanks in a field unit bordering the 38th parallel or DMZ.

This is why I am puzzled by my certain so-called memory loss . Anyway, the first and almost only thing that I recall was when we came under attack in the daytime, soon after I arrived. I recall this very well because the sergeant yelled at me to load the 155mm canon and fire back. I tried to tell him that I had never been trained to do that. It was then that he kicked the hell out of me in front of everyone there in the mass confusion of the moment. Like I said, we were being fired on with mortars and automatic weapon fire at that time, so everyone was fearing for their lives and my sergeant didn't care to teach me a new trade at this particular time. I tried to do what he wanted, but I accidentally dropped one of the live rounds that had an activated detonator on it and nearly killed everyone. The round landed on it's back side and didn't explode, but the sergeant had already punched me in the jaw and was now kicking every part of my body with his hard combat boots. I crunched up in the fetal position and tried to survive the blows. Then I was jerked back to my feet by him and ordered to keep loading and firing the 155mm. It was a fricking nightmare. I hadn't even turned 20 yet, that is why I know about when this incident occurred.

I vividly recall the nightfall. We had already lost a young man in our crew, who went up on the top of our sand bagged hooch to man the 50 caliber machine gun under fire. He was either very brave or just fricken stupid. I was scared to death and unless the VC came right in the hooch after me I was staying put .. A few minutes later, the young man's machine gun stopped firing and when I checked on him...I lost it. He was still sitting up with both his hands glued to the machine gun, but I noticed that he no longer had a head. There was just a bloody piece of flesh where his head used to be. I climbed down and tried to block it from my mind. My bunk partner asked me what happened and I replied, the dumb ass just got his fricken head blow off. And then I heard the young captain on his radio repeating Charlie company needs air support right now and he was giving someone our location or that's what I thought I heard considering we came under heavy again. I little while later, I heard a loud humming sound. The sound was creepy and I couldn't see anything except a bunch of flares that were lighting up the black sky. And then there was a red highway like a liquid tongue, that descended from the sky and licked the ground before it ricocheted skyward again. I had no idea that highway was made up of tracer tipped rounds from a gun ship called " Shadow or Spooky " . I guess that is what my bunker partner called it. He said that every 3rd round was a tracer and that it fired 3,000 rounds a minute. So I guess that all I was seeing were the tracers. It was almost too freaky to comprehend. But it did look cool , yet intense. And if you can believe this, it was very quiet after the Shadow left that night.

Here is where it gets confusing to me. Earlier in the day I was asked to help pick up the bodies of the VC. I will never forget the sweet sickening odor that stuck in my nose and made my skin crawl. I was told that it was the smell of rotting flesh that blew on the breeze. I then asked one of the radio guys how many VC were killed last night and he replied 1100 KIA. Whether he was just bullshitting me I'll never know, but the gun ship pasted over our fire base a few times and fired long bursts each time . Oh and back to picking up the dead, I couldn't do it. I guess... I am an artist and not a born killer. I was very upset, because of all the lives lost even if they were the enemy. I did not want to look into the faces of all those dead people who had wives, girlfriends and children. Others quickly were picked, but I bet to this day that they wished that they didn't to it. I realize that someone had to do it and I wish that I had been stronger, but I wasn't. Oh...did I mention, two other young soldiers lost their lives to mines on the way out to recover the bodies, because of badly placed tags marking where mines were found...to much for my mind to handle . I guess this incident happened on a different day. Who knows?

We were under attack again and we fired at the ridge line for many hours. There was this one time I wouldn't go out and help fire the 155mm canon , because I noticed that the VC had zeroed in on our par-pit with their motor rounds and that it would have been sheer suicide . I would bet you that even a dumb farmer wouldn't have went out there to fire back in that certain situation. I was a farmer before I enlisted, but not a dumb one. The sergeant called me a coward and many other derogatory names but when he put his hand on his 45cal. handgun and threatened me I reached for my weapon and it ended in a draw. He got pissed off and left.

Some other guys bet my stoned bunker partner, that he couldn't run from the bunker and touch the 155mm gun and run back to the bunker while the mortars were landing. He took their dare and ran out of the bunker. A second later, we heard an explosion and seen him kicking around in a circle like a chicken with it's head chopped off. There was a spiral stream of white smoke coming from about a 4 inch wound on his right leg . One of the guys said, what a stupid idiot as they dragged him back into the bunker. I heard someone mumble, at least he gets to go home... now.

Then as it got dark once again we were in allot of trouble. The sergeant just came to my bunker and told me that we are evacuating the fire base. He then informs me that I have to run around and make sure that I drop white phosphorus canisters down the tubes of the 155mm canons and place one in the center of a couple truck motors, so the VC won't be able to use any of our equipment. The sergeant reminded me that there would be only 2 helicopters coming and if I didn't get done. I knew what he meant by that. I ran around doing what I had been instructed to do with tears blurring my eyes. I was very scared that he would actually leave me anyway. I hated the bastard's guts ! When I finished with the last truck, I knew that there wasn't much time left. There were explosions and tracers flying everywhere around me. I saw the helicopter and it looked like it was leaving , so I ran as fast as I could and the sergeant pulled me aboard. As we lifted off from the fire base all I could see was VC running throughout the base and quite a number of our men running in every direction for their lives. I asked the sergeant where their helicopter was and he said, this is the last one...and we flew off.

A while later we landed at Phan Rang Air Force Base and I was let off. I thought the sergeant was right behind me as I ducked and got away from the helicopter. When I turned and looked back at the helicopter he just gestured at me and flew away. I call it leaving me holding the bag. (Thanks allot ass hole.)

I walked into Service Battery of the 5/27th and right to the First Sergeant's desk and told him my story. He replied, this is over my head and sent me over to the supply building to get a new issue of clothing and a new weapon. And to beat it all , the supply sergeant wanted me to pay for all my missing supplies. After I explained everything to him, he just shook his head and told me what barracks I would be sleeping in. Later I was assigned to ammo section, where I began delivering ammo to fire bases in the surrounding area. And all this happened a week after I was in country. I at least know this , because I celebrated my 20th birthday at Phan Rang Air Force Base on the 21st of September 1969.

And what gets me mad is that I was put through all this and there is not one thing about this in my military files about the fire base incident. I think about this all the time when I have a bad day and wonder what if I was one of those young men that they left behind. To this day I can't prove any of what I just said and I have searched the Internet for any war time incident that is even similar to what I experienced. I have come to the conclusion that I was at a place that we weren't supposed to be. But I swear before God that everything is true to my best recollection. I have told this story to people at the VA and nobody seems to want to hear about it. It was mentioned to me that I must have been needed at the time. I can live with that, but the sergeant kidnapping, beating me and threatening my life is not right in any way. I still have nightmare about it and have to take medication from time to time to just sleep.

It looks like he could use some help from someone who was there or knows anything about all of this. If you're a Vietnam vet who served in the area, help him out. Email me and I'll get you in touch with him.