by rigo-ordaz » Thu Dec 20, 2012 6:49 pm
MICK, SMITTY, AND ALL BROTHERS IN ARMS,
There was something bothering me, and my wife noticed and said, “Is it the children that got killed in the school?” I guess so, I said. I had noticed Jim Hawkins post several days before about the young man that got killed on the 16th of Dec. 1967, Roy Standridge. (I WANTED TO POST-MY COMPUTER GAVE OUT THEN I COULDN'T REMEMBER THE PASSWORD)
We had come out from the Battle of Tam Quan on the 14th of the same month. We were still jittery from the battle we had just experienced. In Delta Company, we had a lot of 11C’s mortar men who were interspersed in line platoons and doing Infantryman work. I remember telling someone, a young enlisted man, how to disarm the Claymore mine. I remember telling him disconnect the plunger(hand generator). He disconnected it and took the wire halfway. I explicitly told him to take out the blasting cap, and showed him with another claymore. A few minutes later we heard the explosion. I took the safety from my M16 and tried to get to my APC. At that time I got showered with gray matter and saw a piece of scalp with bone and hair. Roy probably thought the claymore was safe and started wrapping the wire around it. The wire had enough electricity in it and blew the blasting cap and claymore. This is what I remember and still bothers me till now. Yet I don’t know for sure if he was in our squad or the track next to us. But I was close enough and the horror of being showered with parts of a young man who just minutes before had been alive. Six days before, we lost another man from Oklahoma, Lt. Sodowsky. May they rest in peace. The accumulation of battles and incidences like this plays havoc with my PTSD, yet I’ve maintained.
“SKYTROOPERS IN THE SKY
“WHY DID I DIE” BY RIGO ORDAZ
In a faraway land
In a long forgotten war
58,000 souls or more
From the ground they do cry
“Why did I die”
Was it just to make their mom cry
Wife and kids for their father sigh
I know for sure I will never return
For over there my soul has died
And in a rice paddy my buddies lie.
Oh they told me to “Play the Game”
The Game of war and destruction
To kill the enemy everywhere
It was me that was dying right there
The more I killed
The more I died
Oh why did I die? Oh why did I die?
As I looked up a whirlwind stunned my heart
A herd of Choppers spurting flaming hot
thundering by me gave me quite a start
As thy went by I could hear their mournful cry
Why did I die, why did I die?
Like hellish horses in the sky
A hundred gunships they did ride
I strained my eyes ,in the twilight I could see
Twas my dead buddies singing back to me
Why did I die? Why did I die?
There is no coming home for me
My soul is out there in the field
On a dark monsoon sky
I ask you and everybody else
Before I say Goodby
“Why did I die?”
“Why did I die?