By Lawrence Boyd
EDITOR’S NOTE: Memphis and Millington area native Lawrence Boyd submitted his thoughts from an encounter during the Vietnam War as part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade of the U.S. Army. Boyd is a Purple Heart recipient from June 19, 1968 for being wounded that March.
On March 8, 1968, we were called to help save a unit that the Viet Cong had pinned down. We came in, I was on point with Sullivan, we could hear the guns and the B-40 rockets, but we knew what we had to do. Those men needed help.
It was not our first time. As we moved out. The Viet Cong had Sullivan and myself pin down because we were on point. I was out front with Sullivan. He was hit and killed.
Then I was hit but I was behind a mound of dirt. As rounds passed over me, I knew it was the end for me. Then, I began to see my life from a young boy in a town called Millington.
As I laid there, I began to think about people I did not like because I was a stutter. How I was made fun of. I saw the front of our house on Raleigh-Millington Road. In front of our house was a sign with a black woman advertising hair products.
That night someone came and set the sign on fire. People came over from the North End. As we were sitting around watching the fire, we were talking about who we hate and why. My father saw us and told us you bring hate into this house and said, “Don’t you ever let me hear you talk about who you hate.”
Those boys (who set the fire) were told who to hate. Then my father asked me, “What did those boys ever do to you?”
As I began to think, I was told who to hate (from somewhere). Even if they never did anything to me. As I was laying there after being hit behind that dirt mound. It came to me that I was told who to hate, the sergeant in the Army.
The teacher that whipped me when I couldn’t get a word out in the spelling bee. We were told to hate the Vietnamese people. All of this came to me as I laid there. I thought when I die, who will help carry me as I helped carry Watson?
I pictured them carrying my body, putting it in a dark body bag. I could see myself in the dark box at the First Baptist Church in Millington on Church Street. Being lower in the dark cold grave.
As I lay there, I could see my mother and the rest of my siblings crying. But all types of things went through my mind. I began to pray to God.
I made promises saying that if he would save me, I would stop hating people and I would treat people right. I said, “Got I would fulfill all of them.” As I laid there knowing I was going to die, then out of nowhere I could hear the people I was told to hate saying, “We are coming to get you, Short Round.”
I was called “Short Round” out of the gunfire and all of the noise. We only knew each other by our nicknames.
As I laid there the pat came back to me. I remembered getting a whipping many times in school when I had to tell what the poem “Invictus” meant to me, stuttering so bad, no words would come out. That poem came to me. Out of nowhere, Doc crawled over to me and I told him to help Sullivan. But that cold look on his face I knew Sullivan was gone.
Doctor said, “He is gone. I could see the life had drained from his body.” Then the poem came to me when Doc was helping me up the hill… “Invictus.”
I enlisted in the Army right out of high school, Class of 1966 Woodstock High School in the Millington area. I signed up for jump school in Ft. Benny, Ga., as we trained we sang marching songs.
My pay was $95 per month and I sent my mother $50 plus, $6.50 saving bond each month. That left me with $17, going airborne, I will get more money and that there was a war going on. I signed up to go to a place called Vietnam.
I went to Vietnam by boat and when we got there all we could hear was the war ongoing in a place called dak To on Hill 875. I was in the 3/503 173. So many were killed on Hill 875.
Part of the unit was sent to Dak To as a replacement. I went there in the 173 2/503 but the day we got there was the day the unit came off the Hill.
When we got to Dak To, we were picked up by Sgt. Darnell Diggs of Millington. He was crying after he saw me. We talked about our time at Woodstock High School.
We went to a fire base and it looked like hell. Even had body parts lying around and that night I pulled guard duty with PFC Watson. Still talking about people we were told to dislike. The first patrol we went on the next day, Watson was killed.
What changed me was how the medic (a white soldier) was trying all he could to save Watson (a black soldier) trying to stop the bleeding.
They said, “Doc he is gone.”
Doc was still trying to blow life back into Watson. Doc had to be pulled from him. Sgt. Diggs told me I would help carry the body. He said get a leg, it’s easier to lift. It was my first time I put my hands on a dead body. My God it was not my last.
