Distinctly Montana Magazine

26 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 2 3 edge supported down the middle by a ridge pole and staked to the ground along two sides. With both ends open, wind-driven rain still soaked three Marines packed like sardines beneath this makeshift shelter). I sat on the edge of our thigh-deep foxhole, peering into the night. By moonlight I watched as clouds gathered above a line of hills on the horizon. The air took on a telltale smell. Monkeys chattered somewhere in the jungle. The night's tranquility was about to end. During that year in 'Nam, there were plenty of stormy days and nights. But none like this. The mountaintop where Kilo Company, my unit, had dug in for the night was nearly treeless. Artillery shells from an earlier bombardment had seen to that. From my top-row seat in this wildland arena stretched a panoramic view across the rainforest canopy—a welcome reprieve from being enveloped in it. As the clouds charged closer, I expected everything to disappear in wind and rain and blackness. Instead, the cloud- bank, laden with cold moist air, plunged into the valley. Then the fireworks began. Lightning blasted through the rolling, swirling blackness. Rather than brewing above, the storm boiled at eye level and below me, as if I were watching it from an aircraft. Streak after streak, every few seconds, illuminated the clouds from within. All the while I was washed in moonlight with only shreds of ragged clouds billowing up to obscure its glow. It was an eerie feeling that brought on a touch of vertigo. Then in an instant, the mass of clouds swept upward like a furious beast. The storm overtook me, my unit, and the mountain. Scurrying figures lit up in blazing flashes clutched their hooches to save them from being sucked skyward like Dorothy and Toto. The next morning, a chopper med-evaced two Marines who'd been partially paralyzed by a lightning strike near our perimeter. More than five decades later, only the most vivid details from my year in Vietnam do I recall, like that night's otherworldly thunderstorm. Some of the most poignant images, time has allowed me to block out. But there are others that I hang on to be- cause they buoyed my spirits and reminded me of all the goodness in the world. One such transcendent moment was a still night when the moon shone through slits in the forest canopy. It was again my turn on watch. Standing watch could be spooky and tense. Just keeping alert was demanding enough after a long day of ground-pounding with fifteen pounds of gear on my back, The author's "hooch," photo taken with a Kodak Instamatic back in 1969, the only camera combat Marines typically had. Of course, its graininess is part of its nostalgia.

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