PANIC

Recently I was involved in a too cpmplicated situation to tell. It had to do with an animal rescue and a neighbor who paniced, thinking her precious cat was gone. She loves that cat. With not a small bit of relief, we located the animal.  But, the paniced owner lreminded me of an experience in Nam, which most things do. We were approaching this little ville. In Vietnam, a ville could be two or three huts or two dozen; thatched roofs, peasants, the whole nine yards. We were about two clicks away. We could see the huts. This was a Free Fire Zone which basically meant that any living/breathing person could be killed because they weren't suppose to be there. I never paid any attention to the powers that be about FFZs (free fire zones); these poor people were leaving their homes.

This was Christmas Eve and we were moving into our position for the Christmas truce. A truce at Christmas? Seemed a little weird. It did happen during WWl in 1924 but this is 1968. We were about at the forst hut when we heard the most gosh awful sound. As we got closer, we recognized it not as thought, crying but actual wailing. A slight 30ish Vietnamese woman wailed, she wailed. It was a sound that I had never heard. It was as though her very insides were being dissipated to the waftling air. Her sadness and despair permeated every fiber of her being as well as ours. What we came to speculate as we saw the cradled body of the lifeless youngster in her arms; killed by an American air strike. We were stopped in our tracks, touched in such a way that we would never recover.