1968

“Five bucks a piece, c’mon, You can’t beat that.”

The year is 1968. the place is Vietnam, up near the DMZ, close to the Laotian border. His name is Stein and he’s my platoon buddy in the 501st Infantry Company of the 101st Airborne Division. We’re dug in for the night; perimeter set, claymore mines out. It’s nearly dark and he’s trying to sell, to a few of us, a folding lockback knife. A relative of his from back in the World has sent three or four in with his food packages and assorted goodies. Some of the other guys need a good sales pitch, but not me; I love knives, always have. I may have heard of the Buck name before, but I’m not sure. Anyway, it looks good and it’s the perfect size for the boonies. Folds up nice and fits into my side pocket. A friend from home sent me a fixed blade a few weeks ago, but I never got it. It was probably stolen when it got in-country. Somebody figured out it was a knife, and that was it. But for five bucks I can have this folder. I pay the five dollars and I’m real happy. I look it over, open and close it a few times, checking out the mechanism. I like the wooden handle, the weight of it, and the shape of the clip blade.

I’m using the knife for everything; cutting branches, picking at the dirt in tight places on my M-16. I even try to shave with it one time, and I slip and cut my thumb. I’ll bet it leaves a scar, since I’m never really clean, living out here like this.

What I like about it is at the bottom of the blade it says BUCK U.S.A., and that makes me very proud. About as proud as the U.S.A. across the front of my jungle fatigues. But there’s more than that. It’s my personal little protector. I don’t mean like my M-16 protects me, not like that, but in a different way, special. When my tour in ‘Nam is over, I’ll have to turn in my M-16, but not my knife. I’m taking this baby home with me.

When I was about nine or ten, my dad gave me a Davy Crockett knife. Little thing with one blade, yellow handles and a picture of Davy himself right there in the middle of the handle. It’s funny, but holding this Buck now, far away from home, reminds me of that little yellow knife. I’m pretty sure I know just where it is; top left hand drawer of my dresser underneath my socks, right along with what’s her name’s high school ring. The one I never gave back.

I always had that Davy Crockett knife with me when I was a kid. It served its purpose and was right for the time back then. And this Buck is right for now. When I get home I’m going to find out more about Buck knives.

So I’m in-country for five months now, had the knife for about three, and it’s holding up pretty well under these conditions. I mean I’m always wet. It’s either raining and I’m wet, or it’s 100 degrees and I’m sweating wet. The knife is always in my left pocket, and there are no signs of rust on the blade or warping handles.

We come to a clearing; a break from the thick brush, like a big bald spot on a head otherwise full of hair. It’s what we do to the jungle, air strike the hell out of it and make it look ugly. I walk across this patch of sandy earth and wouldn’t you know it, I drop my knife. I had taken it out of my pocket to dig at some caked up mud on my front site and it almost disappears in the sand. I scoop it up, wipe it off, and figure that I’ll deal with the grit at the base of the blade later. I open and close it a few times and it still snaps like a champ. Old reliable Mr. Buck.

Up ahead somebody lets off a couple of rounds and a few seconds later there’s a couple more. Only these shots are farther off. I’m thinking, ‘we’re about to be in a firefight.’ The word comes back to spread out, get off the trail. It’s tough going, all uphill since that sandy patch below. I’m maneuvering around, picking places in the brush to put my feet, thinking that I look a little like Vic Morrow in “Combat.” Only I’m not having a whole lot of luck. I’m tripping on roots and getting my rucksack caught on every low hanging branch that I can find. But I’m off the trail, following orders. I like to think that I’m a good grunt. Up ahead the firing is more consistent. Everybody’s getting the act. And there’s commotion; guys are frantic to spread out and stay clear of the trail. My platoon leader is calling for the M-60 machine gunner to get up front. For all our training and preparation to be soldiers, like a fighting unit, it’s almost every man for himself. I can’t see my buddies anywhere. There’s plenty of shouting, the sounds of brush being trampled, the rat-a-tat-tat going on all around, and I’m moving to find some cover, when I hear this terrific explosion. Somebody must have dropped a grenade. Man, that was close by. There’s a blank space of time in my head, something I can’t figure, and suddenly I’m looking at little puffs of dust five feet or so in front of me. Another blank space, then it hits me, real hard. I’m being fired at. Quick thoughts like little darts run through my head. This is a movie and I’m in one of the starring roles. No, this is real and it’s happening to me and suddenly it’s all in focus. I’m thinking that I really should move. Get as far away from those little dust puffs as I can. Only I can’t. I can’t move, and besides, it finally dawns on me, that I’m looking at everything upside down. My feet are in the air and my head is crunched up against my rucksack. Oh, this is just great. If it really is a movie that we’re making, we are going to have to do this scene over. I’m thinking I’ve got to get my feet down because right now they’re perfect little targets. I can’t believe the effort it takes to swing down and lie flat on the ground. But it’s done and now I need to find some cover. Only I can’t move. And I don’t feel anything.

Then I figure it out, the genius that I am, that I’ve been hit. The explosion must have come from a grenade which was wired across the trail. In my effort to get off the trail, I guess I tripped it and set it off, and nearly took a trip to the moon, into the bargain. While this is all going on, I don’t remember hearing anything, like somebody cut the volume down at the movies. But now the sound is back and everyone is screaming all at once. My platoon leader is calling for a medic. My knife buddy, Stein, is giving out directions. He keeps telling us all that we’re over here, over here. The medic pulls up with his little bag of miracle drugs and pills and, looking at him from over my shoulder, while flat on my stomach, I realize that all this commotion is for yours truly. He starts tearing at my trousers, then my shorts, or what’s left of them, to get a better look at whatever my little mishap has done to the backside of me. Now don’t I feel like the center of attention. The whole squad is stretching their necks by now for a peek and somebody is asking me if I can move, and if I can feel anything. I’ll have to check the “no” box on both questions because I can’t and I don’t, and by this time I’m getting a little nervous. There’s no feeling at all from around the middle of my belly on down. And I’m thinking well maybe there’s not a whole lot left for any kind of feeling, and not a minute too soon, the medic is informing me that it looks like I’m O.K. The rest of my pant legs are cut away and I’m enjoying the cool breeze when I hear the wup-wup of a chopper getting closer by the second. I grab at my helmet like I’m going to crawl right up into it and shield my eyes along with everyone else from the dust and debris being kicked up by the chopper’s blades. The next thing I know, there’s a steel basket about as long as I am hovering right over me, and everyone’s lending a hand to set me into it and strapped down before the platoon leader gives the word to the chopper pilot, and I’m up and away. I’m watching my platoon pals getting smaller, feeling like a bird with a bad wing until they disappear from sight behind a mountain of green and brown. Then another mountain and it all becomes a blur of the chopper’s wup-wup, dirt and debris, upside down faces and everybody shouting at the same time.

The basket and I come down with a thump as hands and arms try to separate us, only we’re giving them a hard time. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to come away from the basket. I’m feeling no pain as I watch myself stretch like a spring. Then set back down as everyone realizes what’s going on. I’m thinking that I give a whole new meaning to what a war hero looks like. My manhood stuck in a basket mesh, lying on my belly, naked from the waist down. A couple more pulls and I’m free and lifted then set across the back of a topless jeep. Off we go, the driver, a shotgun rider, a medic and me, bouncing and weaving along the countryside. The medic informs me that I’ve been messed up pretty good but in his opinion I should come out of it well enough. He’s telling me that I took what looks like a chunk of ripe old pineapple grenade across my right buttock and various pieces of shrapnel along the back of both thighs.

“You’re out of the boonies, man. You’re goin’ home. Back to the World.”

I’m headed south, to a field hospital in Phu Dai, then most likely to Okinawa, Japan, where I can R and R like a champ, and think about getting on that freedom bird back to the world. As I’m being transferred from the jeep to another chopper, he places along side of me a crumpled piece of my fatigue bottoms wrapped around my personal effects that they somehow managed to save and keep with me.

This chopper ride takes all of five minutes before I’m transferred to a small aircraft with a cockpit and stretchers down the length of either side. I’m placed into one of them, this time on my back, and lay there staring at the bottom of the stretcher above me, not five inches from the end of my nose. I’m sharing the ride with other fallen comrades, and we each take a turn at personal versions of John Wayne stories until I feel myself slipping away into a blackness and a calm like I’ve never known before.

1999

Thirty-plus years later, and I’ve tried to tell my story the way I remember it, and with a sense of humor. I was nineteen then, brash and a smart-alec. I thought I was invincible and that nothing could hurt me, but I suppose those are some of the reasons I was able to survive. I never thought about the dangers, and I never saw the complete picture.

When I first got home, I tried to put it all aside. I went to work for my father, helping him with his business. I lived a normal life, spending time with my friends, dating and falling in love. It took several years before the questions started to come up. I read everything I could find about the war, looking for reasons and trying to find a justification for it all. I came away with an inner peace and explanations I could live with for the things that I was a part of while I was there. I began to talk about it more freely and became willing to discuss it and answer questions from anyone who was inclined to inquire.

And then I pulled that old Buck knife out of the drawer. I left it alone for many years, along side the little Davy Crockett until I had the urge to see it and handle it again. It’s in pieces now, the blade broken at the base, the rivets loose, the handle warped and separated from the frame. But this knife was a part of my survival. Tucked inside my left pocket, it took a lot of the impact from the grenade that I tripwired. I developed a bond with Buck and I began to delve into the world of knives, accumulation then, becoming fascinated with the different patterns and appreciating the workmanship involved. I joined knife clubs, one of which is the Buck Collectors, and discovered through a network of people with a common interest that almost any knife could be found. I set about, intent on locating a knife like the one I carried in Vietnam. I placed an ad in the classified section of the Buck club newsletter disclosing the year of manufacture in which I was interested. Within a few weeks’ time I received a letter from fellow Buck member Robert Schrap stating that he had found two 110 Hunters fitting my description at the Atlanta Blade Show. I called him, full of excitement and closed the ‘deal.’ The three knives are now displayed together in a wooden box atop of which I’ve carved the words ‘The Knives, Vietnam, Buck USA.’

I feel as though a chapter in my life has been completed, one that had remained open for many years. I look at these knives and think about the past. I am filled with pride. Pride over my service to the country. Pride for an American cutlery company that became a part of that service, and an inner peace for the full circle in which I’ve come. Pride for all the wonderful people whom I’ve met along the way, in and out of the world of knives.

Copyright 1999, Knife World Publications