War Story

        It was a going to be a late night, or at least that was what I had hoped for.  It was hard work training for war, but that’s what we did in the 101st Airborne.  We trained for every possible enemy on every possible battlefield.  It had been a long three weeks out in the field, but now we were all home.  Now we would celebrate.
         The plan was just for a couple of my fellow non-commissioned officers and me to go to a bar and drink a few.  The two other men I had planned on meeting were Sergeants Chris Baffy and Paul Shuart.  Chris was the other section sergeant in the shop I worked in, and Paul was in charge of the arms room. 
         At about 1900, or 7:00 PM for you civilians, we left for the NCO club.  We took a cab so that we wouldn’t have to drive home drunk.  And we knew that we would be getting drunk. 
         Once we arrived, Chris and Paul got a table while I got the first round.  While I was standing at the bar waiting for the beer, I looked over and saw another NCO from my company.  His name was Norman Haberkorn.  He hadn’t seen me yet, so I turned away from him because I knew that once he saw us he wouldn’t leave us be.  He was a good guy, don’t get me wrong.  It’s just that he would get very drunk before the night was over and he was one of those loud and obnoxious drunks. 
         Once I got the beers, I walked back over to our table.  Luckily, they had chosen a table by the wall, so maybe we would be inconspicuous.  “Hey,” I said, “we need to be careful.  I saw Haberkorn by the bar.”
         “Oh boy,” Paul said. 
         “Maybe he’s drunk enough already that he won’t see us,” Chris said.
         “You know that we aren’t that lucky,” I said.  “How long do you think before he comes over here and starts aggravating us?” I said.
         “I’d give him ‘til he’s pissed off the bartender and she tells him to go sit down somewhere,” Paul said.
         “I’d say that he just did that,” I said, “because he’s headed this way.”
         “Hey guys, what’s up?” Sergeant Haberkorn said.
         “Not much, sergeant,” I said.  “What’s going on with you?”  I almost cringed asking him that, hoping he was going to say that he was on his way out the door.  Unfortunately, I was hoping wrong.
         “I thought I would have a drink or two with you,” Sergeant Haberkorn said.  “And call me Norman.  We’re off duty.”
         “Well, have a seat Norman,” Chris said.
         Norman’s drink or two eventually turned into six, and we were all sitting around waiting for him to leave.  We weren’t that lucky.  He acted like he was one of our best friends, when in reality he outranked us and worked in a different section.  For the most part, our conversation revolved around the field exercise that we had just done.
         By the time we made it to about a dozen beers each, Norman was getting really animated, but we had long since quit caring about him being there.  He had actually been telling some funny stories about the exercise, as we all had, and I was starting to get along with him. 
         Paul was telling a very funny story about how our First Sergeant had walked out during the night and managed to walk straight into the perimeter fence.  What made it so funny was that the perimeter fence is concertina wire, and it was about five feet high.  He had gotten himself so tangled up in it that he had to have somebody cut him out.  We all laughed pretty hard, and then Norman had to ruin the whole thing. 
         “Hell, I remember this one time in ‘Nam,” Norman said. 
         “Norman, you weren’t in Vietnam,” I said.
         “Of coarse I was,” he said.  “I’m older than you think.”
         I looked at him for a minute, as did Paul and Chris.  I don’t think either of them believed him either.  He took another long gulp of his beer, and then looked straight across at me.
         “No shit, man, there I was,” Norman said.  “We were in the A Shau Valley, conducting a recon.  I was the point man.  We had already done our recon, and were waiting for the Huey to pick us up and take us back to base.  That’s when all hell broke loose.  We started taking fire from a nearby hill.”
         Norman paused for a minute to finish off his beer and order another one from the waitress.  He yawned, and then looked at his watch. 
         “Where was I?” he said.  “Oh yeah, we were taking fire from a nearby hill.  I immediately got on the ground and low-crawled to a nearby tree to use for cover.  After a couple of minutes of trying to find a decent target, I located a machine gun position at the base of the hill and started firing on it.  I silenced that gun, and I thought that was it.  It got real quiet for about a minute, and then they hit us hard.  We began taking fire from in front and both sides.  Lieutenant Cody called in both artillery and close-air support to take out their positions, and then things got really hairy.”
         Norman paused a second time, taking a long swallow of his beer.  “They started rushing us.  Fortunately, we had the 60 set up in the right place, and my buddy Johnson began to really mow them down.  That’s when I looked over to the right and saw a Charlie rushing me.  I turned to shoot, but my rifle jammed.  He tried to bayonet me, but I blocked his thrust with my rifle and we both fell to the ground fighting.  I had never really fought a man that close.  I managed to get my boot knife loose, and I stuck it straight through his heart.  The last thing that man ever saw was my face.  The whole time I was there I never killed a man that close.  I still can remember the look he had on his face when he died.”
         Norman stopped talking for a minute and looked away.  I could tell he didn’t want to talk anymore.  I went to the bar and got a round of whiskey shots.  When I got back to the table, it was still quiet.  I passed out the shots and toasted Norman, the hero we didn’t know we worked with.  He never finished his story, and he didn’t have to.  We didn’t want to make him have to remember it anymore. 
         After the shots, we called it a night.  Norman said he was going to stay a little longer and drink another beer, but we all headed out.  We had found a new respect for a man we usually joked about.  I just wished we would have found it a little sooner.  Norman decided to drive home that night, but being very drunk, he never made it.