A kind of remarkable thing happened to me this past Memorial Day. It actually started a week or so before Memorial Day, when out of the blue I received an email from a very nice man named Dave Fesmire, a member of the 1st Infantry Division’s Darkhorse Troop that I had served with in Vietnam. He had apparently put together a website that included information on the Aero Rifle Platoon (ARPS) that had been my home from July 4, 1969 to July 5, 1970. Anyway, a friend of his had somehow got hold of an old column I had written ages ago memorializing Michael Lawhon, a very young soldier in my squad who had been killed in the war, and Dave wanted to invite me to check out his website and also attend a reunion the unit is holding later this summer in San Antonio, Texas. Although I really had no intention of going to a Vietnam War reunion, I did find myself reading every word of the wonderful website Dave had put together and also reluctantly dusting off the cobwebs on some very old memories. When I had finished, I decided to email Dave back, give him my phone number and the snail mail address he had requested, and ask him one very big favor.
“Dave, would you happen to know whatever became of Sergeant Jim Gratton, who was my squad leader when I was first with the ARPS? He was the most remarkable soldier I met in Vietnam, and he was responsible on more than one occasion for helping me get safely back to the world. Do you happen to have an email address for him where I could send him a little `thank you’ note?”
“Gratton was at our last reunion and is alive and well and living just north of you up in Willits where he built himself a retirement home,” came the surprising reply, “but he doesn’t do computers. Here’s his phone number and I’m sure he would be glad to hear from you.”
As our exchange of emails continued, I tried to explain to Dave that I would never think of calling up Sergeant Gratton out of the blue (I wasn’t even sure he would remember me), and that I had made a conscious effort over the years not to contact any of the guys I had known in the war, the goal being to keep a little promise I had made to myself when I left Vietnam to leave as many of those memories as possible back there where they belonged. Anyway, since Dave didn’t have a mailing address for Jim, he had just kindly agreed to hand-carry a little letter from me and give it to Jim at the reunion when my phone suddenly rang. Unbeknownst to me, Dave had apparently decided to just cut to the chase and on the other end of the line was a deep and matter-of-fact voice saying, “Is this Fisher?”
“This is Fisher,” I answered, not having a clue who was calling.
“This is Gratton, and of course I remember you. I even remember the day you were wounded. I didn’t realize you lived so close. How are you?”
It had been more than 35 years since I had heard the voice of Jim Gratton, but it was still as forceful and commanding as ever, even though I learned he was recovering from open heart surgery, apparently the result of many years of smoking and some serious hard living. He also told me he had recently left the Bay Area to live on 20 peaceful acres of land up in the redwoods and that I had an open invitation to visit him any old time I wished.
As our conversation continued, I tried to tell Jim how much I appreciated all he had done for me while I was in his squad, but he would have none of it. Like any combat soldier who has seen war for what it really is, he knows that heroes aren’t made in heaven, they are simply cornered somewhere on earth, and he is genuinely modest about his actions under fire, although I know for a fact that they resulted in both the Silver Star and the Bronze Star for valor. And when I would remind him of some of the truly courageous things I personally saw him do, he would only say that we were all in it together, and that he had been too busy at the time to really remember any of it in much detail.
It wasn’t just Jim’s specific actions that often saved the day for our little Aero Rifle Platoon in general and our point squad in particular, it was the way he went about doing things. He was by nature aggressive and fearless, and when an ambush or firefight would erupt, while most everyone else was trying to find cover and make sense out of all the chaos, Jim was fighting back. And even if he wasn’t exactly sure where the enemy was, grenades were flying out of his hand and his loud rifle fire was making our attackers think twice about sticking their heads up too high. He seemed to intuitively understand what most soldiers (especially young ones new to combat) don’t, that a good offense is the key to a good defense, and his courage and fighting spirit would eventually rub off on most everyone else and many a day was saved because of it.
“The thing about Vietnam,” recalled Jim, “was that when it was over it took a lot of us quite a few years to get our lives straightened out again. So even though I’m not much for telling war stories, I really have enjoyed going to the reunions and finding out how things turned out for everyone. And it’s nice to know that everything worked out okay for you, too.”
After our conversation had finally ended, for days I was flooded by memories of Jim Gratton. But the one that remains the strongest is of him pinned down with his trusted RTO, Terry Houck (I even remember the date – July 28, 1969) behind a tiny mound of dirt, fighting for his life at the beginning of what turned out to be a deadly ambush that would take our platoon (with the help of armored reinforcements and lots of air support) all day to extricate ourselves from. I remember it so well because I had just joined the ARPS, didn’t have a clue what in the world I was doing, but had been lucky enough to have been placed in Jim Gratton’s squad. So, as I clung to the dusty earth with enemy bullets flying all over the darn place, I could clearly see Jim up ahead of me, bare headed because his steel pot had been shot off, giving as good as he got, and that sight alone gave me hope that everything was somehow going to be okay.
And even though I have now finally at least given it a good try, there really is no way to properly thank the person who gave you the courage to get through the scariest day of your life.