Chapter 3 Entering the Darkness 120224

     As my parents and I waited in the boarding area, I remember running into Dennis Winstead. He was also traveling to Oakland, California on the same flight. Dennis was from Norfolk, Virginia and I had met him for the first time at basic training in June of 1966 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. We immediately became friends. After finishing that nine weeks of training, our platoon was assembled together for the last time to receive our orders for our next duty station. Our well respected Korean veteran platoon sergeant called each man’s name from a list. It was the list which informed us of our next duty assignment and type of training. He hastily read the list until he got to the w's. Dennis Winstead and Wayne Wade were near the bottom of the list. He paused and looked at the both of us, standing side by side. “Wade and Winstead”, he said, in a very sober tone, “You two men are to report to Fort Polk for Jungle warfare training, and I don't think that I need to tell you where you will be headed from there". Dennis and I where the only members of our 40 man platoon to be assigned to Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Out of forty men in this platoon, he and I were the only two earmarked to serve as 11B10 riflemen in a combat squad. At that time this was the most dangerous job assignment in the military. Roughly 50% of those men who later served with Dennis, and I became casualties. The nature of this type of warfare also meant that he and I would be exposed to enemy activity day-in and day-out for an entire year. Statistically, the average American infantry soldier who served a one year tour in Vietnam was exposed to a combat environment for a much longer period than any other American soldier in history of our nation. On average, it was 240 days. After going through the largest ground operation of the entire war (Junction City), Dennis volunteered to become a helicopter door gunner and was shot down three times. He won the Distinguished Flying Cross as a door gunner, and I also believe he won a bronze star while serving with me. My friend Dennis died January 18, 2015.

     He and I didn’t talk much on the long flight to Oakland, but we had already developed a friendship in basic training simply because we had so much in common. He liked the outdoors and loved to hunt as did I. He breezed through the training at Fort Jackson and Fort Polk and was an excellent shot with a rifle and machine gun. Since we had some free time before we were due to report into the depot at Oakland, we decided to grab a cab and spend the night in downtown San Francisco. I don’t think he was much of a drinker because he would not have hung out very long with me if he had been. I remember he and I walked the streets that one night in San Francisco, saying to each other over and over that we just wanted to be able to remember the sights of a big, beautiful city like San Francisco before going to a backward war torn place like Vietnam. Of course, I am sure we both knew what the other was really thinking. I remember that he and I eventually found an upscale restaurant on the ground floor of one of the downtown hotels and decided to splurge one last time on a fancy meal. We were in uniform and were the only patrons in this place except for an elderly couple, who were sitting at the bar. We finished our meal and asked the waiter for the ticket. He quickly explained to us that there would be no charge because the woman and man at the bar had paid for everything, including the tip. It was and is to this day the kindest gesture I have ever received from strangers for my military service. I am sure it was the kindest gesture for Dennis also. Amazingly, he and I were assigned to the same unit in Vietnam, the 1/18th infantry battalion of the First Infantry Division, but we would not find that out until later. It was a real miracle that we remained together for so long, which helped us both go through what was to be the most horrendous transition of our young lives. Although I had turned my back on God, he had not turned His back on me. Deu. 31:8 says, "It is the Lord, who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed".

     I spent about 3 days at the Army Depot in Oakland, Ca. before my number came up to board a bus to be transported to the airport. At this point Dennis and I were separated. We were not placed on the same flight to Vietnam. From the airport, the army flew me and several hundred other G.I.’s on one of Howard Hughes’ Pan Am commercial jets non-stop across the Pacific to Tokyo, Japan. We stayed on board while refueling and then flew on to Saigon. It took a total of eighteen hours. We bucked the trade winds all the way. The meals and service was great. As we approached the airport near Saigon, the pilot announced that he would have to circle a while because the landing strip was being mortared. The wait wasn't long but who cared? I really wasn’t in any big hurry to land anyway. I had absolutely no idea what to expect as I walked down the stairway to be lined up in formation. Buses soon arrived to take us to “God knows where”.

    The first thing that made me realize that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore was the smell. I had spent a lot of time around cattle, barns and hay fields in western Virginia. They had their share of foul odors including the odor of manure piles. This was much stronger than that. Generations of small Appalachian farmers used cow manure as fertilizer to spread over their fields. It was spread with manure spreaders pulled by horses and later with tractors. This smell was much more potent, but it was definitely coming from the nearby rice fields, which we passed in our bus. I was told later that the Vietnamese used human excrement as manure.     

     Soon, our bus left the open expanses of flooded rice fields and entered the very narrow city streets of a "shanty town". I suppose it was in a part of Saigon, but I really don't know. The narrow streets were crowded with mostly Lambrettas and bicycles. The view out my window only allowed me to see crammed-together tin shacks on all sides. Our driver squeezed into a compound composed of screened, rectangular buildings with tin roofs. The scene surrounding the compound was similar to pictures I had seen in magazines of places in Africa. The cultural shock to my teenage mind could have been no greater than what I imagine it would have been if I were entering a third world penitentiary for the first time. Shiny helmed M.P.s were everywhere. I felt like I was actually going to prison which I was. The living conditions here were the most horrible conditions I had ever seen in my entire short life. Yet, it was not scary. I didn't fear for my life. That would come later. There was no small talk made amongst us inmates. Everyone was in shock. I could feel myself withdrawing into a place in my mind where I had never been before. When the bus stopped, we gathered our duffle bags and were hustled through a line in a building were there were piles of fatigues and soldiers handing out different sizes to those who needed them. I believe that it was also here where we were issued jungle boots. We were also handed out a box lunch. It was at least better than cold C-rations. I don't remember much else about this day. I slept in a fold up canvas cot under a screened-in tin roof for one night and that is all that I remember about this place. The next day we were loaded onto buses and were taken to a place called Long Binh. The stench of this place followed us all the way.

      At Long Binh, I became the guest of the 90th replacement Battalion and was quickly lined up in formation with probably about a hundred other new arrivals. We were given the standard welcoming orientation to Vietnam. Here is a short version of what I remember about my stay at Long Binh. My cot was clean. I got three hot meals a day and my visit only lasted about four or five days before I was assigned to the First Infantry Division headquartered at a place called Di An (Pronounced Zi An). It was located just several miles North of Saigon and less than six miles from Long Binh. There were a couple other memories of Long Binh which have stuck with me. We had a lot of free time while waiting on our orders to come through. It gave me a lot of time to think, as I mingled with hundreds of other G. I.s waiting to be assigned to units. I remember seeing the walking wounded dispersed amongst the rest of us, wearing their combat unit patches on their left shoulder, where the green fatigue shoulders of new recruits like me were just blank sleeves.

    I was particularly drawn to one soldier who was just standing around and who had the distinctive yellow and black First Cavalry shoulder patch with a horse’s head on it. His right arm was in a cast that covered his elbow forcing the arm to stay bent at a ninety degree angle. A shoulder sling also supported it. It was obvious that he had sustained a very bad injury to that arm. The new people standing near us were ignoring him, but I couldn’t do that. Something inside compelled me to find out more about his situation. Now, there are only four voices which compel us to do everything that we do in life. The first voice is our own thoughts. The second is the voice of others. The third is that of the Holy Spirit. The fourth is the voice of Satan and/or his demons.

     I don’t remember how I began addressing this wounded soldier, as I approached him, but it didn't matter. I simply had to know how he was wounded. So, after saying a few words to get his attention, I abruptly asked what had happened to his arm. He didn't hesitate to reply. He readily began talking about it. As he did, I couldn’t help but notice how calm he was as he described what happened. He said that he had been wounded in a fire fight by a bullet from an M-1 carbine. The Viet Cong used these in large numbers during this period of my tour. However, later in my tour these were replaced more and more by AK-47s. He went on to say that being shot with an M-1 was not as bad as one might think. He then explained that a bullet from an M-1 usually passed through the body, doing little damage, unless it hit a vital organ or bone. I was amazed at how he talked about being shot in such a matter of fact and detached way. It seemed to be no big deal to him. I was so stunned by the lack of emotion and calm demeanor, that I could not respond. I just looked at him in silence. His assessment of what happened was absolutely logical, but it was the way he said it, which troubled me. The truth about what he had experienced painted a much more trauma ridden picture in my mind than he was conveying. However, I kept my mouth shut. I am sure he didn't realize how disturbing I found our conversation to be. He had obviously accepted getting shot every other day, as if it was just another day, at the office. At the end of that conversation, I was sure of one thing. I could never be like this guy. 

    Until very recently, one day in my life had been pretty much like the next. There was food on the table, clean clothes to wear and a nice clean bed to sleep in. Compared to what many kids went through, while growing up, I had it made. However, now, in this surreal world, I was really beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland. I felt that I had stumbled into a rabbit hole and landed in another world altogether. In this world, one thing was becoming painfully apparent. The only person who seemed to care, in the least, about taking care of Wayne was Wayne. I could no longer just go with the flow, and I surely couldn't turn to Momma for advice. I, myself, desperately needed to do something, because this helpless feeling was growing. First, there was the mortar attack on Tan Son Nhut Air Base before we landed. Now, I had listened to a wounded veteran’s passive description of how life can be fine, while getting riddled with bullets every now and again. Since arriving at Long Binh, I could hear the distant sound of explosions and occasional machine gun fire. Soon, a voice inside was saying, "If someone is going to get shot then I am going to try, with all my might, to be the one doing the shooting". I'll let the reader decide which of those four voices was talking. I really don't know. I do know this, however. That voice began to speak louder. Finally, it said, “Man alive, please give me a gun". You see, I was an unarmed soldier in a war zone. Bombs and machine guns were going off. Yet, I had no gun. What if the enemy, who had just mortared the safest place in Vietnam, Saigon Airport,  decided to attack us? There were hundreds of us walking around unarmed. We were all setting ducks. Not only had we not been issued weapons but there had been no mention of how to obtain a weapon in case of an attack. The only people carrying weapons were a few guards and the M.P.s. So, why not volunteer for guard duty, because guards were issued weapons and ammunition? That's exactly what I did. With a loaded weapon in my hands, I started to feel a sense of control returning. The fear subsided. At least I could shoot back if we were attacked.

     Here is a little side note on fear. Fear is a great motivator, but it usually motivates us to do the wrong thing. Proactive choices are much better in the long run. Getting my hands on a rifle in a war zone was a proactive choice. Yet, I would soon learn that it was going to take more than a rifle to get me out of the trouble I was in.

    Once I was assigned to the First Infantry Division and arrived at Di An, I remember being held for processing in another very congested area. Like sardines, we were placed in this large holding area lined with rows of screened-in huts with tin roofs. They had concrete floors and enough folding canvas cots to sleep about fifty men. The tension was high amongst the other sardines around me. Many of them spent their time getting drunk at the enlisted man’s club. I witnessed one fight while I was there. It started when one drunk soldier peed on another, while he was asleep in his cot. The ensuing commotion woke me up. The man, who was peed on, beat the snot out of the drunk guy, who did the peeing. He then threw the man out of the hooch. It was raining. This now drenched guy was covered in mud. He began to wail in a loud voice, until the guy he peed on started to feel sorry for him. I watched as he got up and went out in the pouring rain and brought this crying man back inside. He then helped the guy get into his cot where he fell asleep almost immediately. Everything got really quiet, and everyone went back to sleep. About an hour later, I was awakened again by the screams of the man who had gotten peed on earlier. The same man who had peed on him earlier was now peeing on him again. This time he threw the peeing drunk guy out of our hooch for good. We had to listen to his pitiful whining for the rest of that night. I was glad when I was finally assigned to a battalion unit. I caught a ride on a deuce and a half truck going in the direction of my unit's location within Di An. Di An was a huge place. The 1/18th Infantry headquarters hooch was probably a quarter mile away from our processing area on the north side of Di An’s perimeter fencing. There were about six guys in my little group hitching a ride with me. When we got to the unit area, we were instructed to line up in front of the 1/18's headquarters hooch. A sergeant soon came out of the building, to give us further instructions. He addressed us with a very simple question. At the time, I had no idea how much my failure to speak up was going to impact my life.

    “Who can Type?” He asked. No one said anything. He ask the question again. “Who can type?” Again, not a single one of us answered him. “Who can type?” He asked for a third time. Still there was silence. Finally, after asking in a much louder voice, a guy on the other end of the formation opposite me raised his hand and said, “I can type with two fingers”. "Well, anyone can type with two fingers", I thought to myself. Even I could type with two fingers. The sergeant motioned for this guy to follow him into the building behind us. That was it. This guy became the unit clerk for his entire tour. He got three hot meals a day, a clean cot and a hooch to sleep in out of the rain for the entire time he served in Vietnam. In an instant, in a blink of an eye, fear of failing had cheated me out of accepting what could have become God’s escape plan for the next year. Frozen in that fear, and not realizing what had just happened, I had now consented, by my inaction, to being exposed to the horrors of a vain war. The truth is this. I would have made a great clerk. I had an eye for details, and I was a perfectionist, to boot. I would have been sure to follow procedures to a "T".

    Here's what I have to say about the fear I felt that day. Feeling fear, when we are faced with life's circumstances, is not a sin. It actually is quite normal. On the other hand, allowing that feeling of fear to make decisions for us is a sin. On this day, as I stood in a line in front of that orderly room, I allowed fear to rule me. I didn't raise my hand. That choice would cost me dearly. I had a high school classmate named Howard Thomas, who did serve as a clerk at Di An and I am sure the interpersonal skills he developed there, while honorably serving his country, contributed greatly to the successful career he later enjoyed. Had I understood how to deal with fear, my entire life would have changed for the better much sooner than it did. Fear exacts such a high price for those of us who have lived under its control. The reader may think that a decorated combat veteran has overcome his fear more than the average person, but that would be a false assumption. There is a spirit of fear which inhabits the entire world. It is one of many deceiving spirits and little is known by most, about how it operates. For one, as we move further from the will of God for our lives, the fear generated by this spirit can actually abate, luring us deeper and deeper into its downward spiral of wrong decisions. You see, while I was in the Army, I was much more afraid of my leaders than I was of enemy bullets. I would shrink in fear from what could have been rewarding decisions, promoting personal growth in my interactions with my superiors. Yet, that same fear was not there when I engaged the enemy. Common sense says that this was nonsense. A bullet kills. The worst thing that my leaders could have done to me was to throw me in jail. Yet, I went on feelings, which caused me to withdraw from the very circumstances which would have made me a much better version of myself. For many years, I chose actions which generated the least amount of fear. I did not realize that my entire life was being controlled by fear.    

     Now, as I continued to let fear rule, I was shown where I would sleep for the next few days. It was a large army tent with room for about forty or fifty men. I had been assigned to B Company's third platoon. When we entered the tent, it was empty. Most of the men sleeping here were either in the field or pulling details around the area. After dropping off our duffle bags, we were marched to the supply hooch to be issued a rifle, jungle fatigues, and other combat equipment that we would need for the next year. The next day my little group started a refresher course on what we had already learned in basic training. That training lasted about a week. It was boring because it covered stuff which had already been drilled into us time and time again. There was about 15 of us new guys who went through this refresher class. To my great surprise, Dennis Winstead showed up. He went to the week of training with me. We spent much of our down time together that week. Later, it became impossible to do that, because we had been assigned to different platoons. You see, although platoons may have been separated by only a few feet, for the most part, each platoon was a world unto its self. I would get a glimpse of him from time to time and maybe say a couple words. That was it.

    The finale to our week's training was a real patrol through a thick patch of jungle located just outside Di An. That was my first experience with a tropical jungle environment, and it wasn’t very pleasant. An older Sergeant, who was probably in his mid-thirties, rounded us up for the patrol. It was in the middle of the day, which was also the hottest time of the day. We followed him past the perimeter bunkers and fencing into a dense thicket maybe a hundred yards or so further on. To get there we walked through a cleared area with tree stumps and roots and broken tree limbs. It was easy to walk in this open area. When we reached the jungle, that became a different story. There were no huge trees, but there were a lot of smaller ones. These were mixed with thick patches of bamboo. We had to go single file through the bamboo or go around, because some of it was impenetrable. I was used to spending time in the woods back home. I was also an avid hunter with both a gun and a bow. In 1967 there were few young people my age who liked to bow hunt. Yet, I was very passionate about it throughout my teen aged years. This meant that I was probably not feeling as out of my element as some of the others on this patrol. I realized this was a training exercise and quite frankly expected to learn nothing from it. Although we carried loaded weapons, I felt no sense of danger. I was not at all apprehensive. I just kept my mouth shut and followed along.

    After walking, maybe 300 meters we took a break. The smokers were permitted to light up. I didn’t smoke so I found a place to set down and lean against a small tree. I had rested this way many times while roaming through the Virginia Woods back home. It took only about thirty seconds to discover that sitting on the jungle flooring was not nearly as pleasant as sitting against an oak tree in the hardwood forests back home. A major reason for that unpleasantry was black ants. We didn't have these cursed  little insects in my good old Virginia home. Almost immediately, after sitting down, my butt was on fire. I jumped to my feet and grabbed my behind. Looking down, I saw hundreds of black ants about a quarter inch long scurrying all over the jungle floor. The little devils had stingers as well as mandibles. These had to be the source of my pain. Everyone standing around me was saved from the same torment, because I was the first to sit down. After seeing what happened to me, everyone kept standing. Later, I learned that these black ants went underground at night, so it was okay to lay on the ground at night, but not during the day. During the day anyone sitting on the ground learned to use their steel helmets, as seats. Never mind the piece of shrapnel that might slam into the side of a man’s unprotected head. We became much more concerned with being stung by a black ant, then we were about shrapnel wounds to the head. I wondered how many soldiers had to endure these little devil’s stings during a fire fight. There was no choice then, but to come in contact with the ground. Fortunately, that never happened to me, which was just a blessing from God. There were also red ants. They lived in trees and did not have stingers. They could do nothing but pinch with their mandibles, so I did not find them to be all that bad. There were also scorpions, which were not as numerous, and their habitat was predictable. Scorpions liked hanging around old bunkers and rotten structures. For me, black ants were the worst. Their sting was as painful as a wasp's.  

      A little later on this same patrol, while ducking under a vine, I raised my head and came in contact with what I thought was a cloud of swarming gnats. However, they were not gnats. They were a swarm of tiny bees. They left big red welts on my face. No one said a word, as I mumbled in pain and swatted at these horrible little creatures. Again, I was the only one stung. Another thing which got to me on that first training patrol was the intense heat. About half way through the patrol I began to feel like I was in a car on a summer’s day with all the windows rolled up. It was an awful feeling. I have never felt that hot since. I really was not expecting to be affected by the heat. Everyone, including me, made it back okay. I probably fared the worst but all in all there was nothing difficult about this patrol. After being dismissed, I am sure we all checked out the cold water showers and dressed in clean fatigues in time for evening mess. I remember the food being very good. The men of B Company returned from field operations a couple days after we went on that practice patrol.  

    They had been patrolling too, on what was called search and destroy missions. The first thing that I remember about joining up with the veterans in my platoon was how they seemed to go out of their way to ignore me. I don't remember my squad leader saying a single word to me when he first entered the tent. Our second lieutenant platoon leader never gave us the time of day. This standoffishness definitely set the tone for a very negative beginning. I was greatly offended. My immediate response was to return the favor. How could I do otherwise? If I tried to break the ice, that would make me look weak. I had never experienced anything quite like this in my entire life. Even in basic training, I had developed rapports with everyone. That didn't mean that we became bosom buddies, but we never ignored each other. There were bullies and I hated bullies. I actually got into a minor physical altercation with a bully in A.I.T. defending one of the weaker guys who couldn't defend himself. Yet even that situation never prevented the bully and I from having a rapport. Neither of us would have ever tried to totally ignore the other. These guys were just downright weird, and I couldn't understand why. They didn't know me and yet they seemed to be holding a grudge.            

    No, it wasn't a good beginning. Unlike basic training, Things in Vietnam were Chaotic from the beginning. For starters, we had been greeted with the mortaring of Tan Son Nhut Air Base. That said to anyone who had half a brain that something was terribly wrong with our military strategy. We now had over 380,000 troops in country. How could this be happening? I only needed this first glance, to convince me that whoever was running the show was incompetent. If we weren't able to protect our most important city and air base from the enemy, how were we ever going to be able to protect the entire country? Another problem, which I immediately noticed, was how new arrivals were handled. We were immediately placed in claustrophobic quarters, in the middle of shanty town. Long Binh distribution center was much better, but we should never have been exposed to wounded soldiers returning for duty. Wounded soldiers should never be allowed to mingle with new arrivals in any war zone. After reaching my assigned unit’s headquarters, I was again warehoused at Di An for several nights. Here, we were given access to all the alcohol that we could swallow, while going through one of the most traumatic transitions of our young lives. We were not professional soldiers. This was not smart. It was not smart at all. It led to the peeing and fisticuffs incident, which I witnessed within hours after arriving. Furthermore, there was not a single buck sergeant there to prevent that kind of thing from happening. Now, I was getting the cold shoulder from men, who would be going into combat with me. It was the last straw. I had scored in the top ten on my P.T. test at Fort Polk, Louisiana. I also qualified for Officer Candidate School. The only reason that I had not made number one on the physical training test was because I refused to run the mile. Instead, I walked it, just to show my distain for those Fort Polk drill sergeants, watching me. To top things off, I had no special girl waiting for me to come home. However, after proving to myself that I could perform as well as I had in basic training, I now felt just cocky enough to try to do something about this present situation. In many western movies, I had seen what happened to the guy who didn't stand up for himself. He was usually shot or even worse he became the comic relief. That wasn't going to be me. Besides, being shunned like this just wasn't right. I wasn't about to let this type of thing happen to me or anyone else for that matter. I had already taken care of a couple bullies during basic training. It infuriated me to think that anyone had to put up with this kind of treatment. These were my feelings, as a young believer in Christ who had removed himself far from the love of his Father in Heaven. I am not defending these thoughts. I am just trying honestly to express how I felt.

     As these thoughts continued to dominate my mind, every single veteran in that tent made it worse by continuing to ignore me. There were many times when I became angry with my father and he with me. However, during all those years together, the one thing that he had never done was to ignore me. I may have had distain for the way my training sergeants at Fort Polk treated us, but they never ignored us. This was a completely new and very unsettling experience. As I said, I would be going into combat with these men. We had to communicate. I was not about to take this silent treatment sitting down.    

    It is important to say this before I continue. I was nineteen. I and many others serving in Vietnam were still adolescents. An adolescent mind lives in the present much more than someone who is twenty five. Adolescents do not normally have enough experience in life, to realize that things are not always going to be the same as they are in this present tense. Circumstances and attitudes change over time. If this shunning had happened when I was older, I would have realized that it was probably not going to last. At nineteen, I didn't know that. Another notable characteristic of the adolescent mind is the inability to understand that bad behavior directed at another person is not always as it seems. It could be happening, and usually is happening, because that other person is reacting to completely unrelated bad experiences in their own life. 

    However, at nineteen, I was oblivious to these facts of life. I was starting to feel that same hopeless feeling that I felt that night when I drove over a hundred miles an hour through the Hampton Roads Tunnel. I would not know until years later about the trauma that my returning platoon members had just experienced. They had just lost two of eleven men on an ambush patrol gone wrong. Several others were wounded. Sal Cemelli and Gary Harbin were the names of the two men who were killed. They were well respected members of my platoon. It would be more than fifty years before I learned of this. At the time, I was being ignored and that was all that mattered to me. I was being ignored and I had to do something. Rising up inside me was an overwhelming compulsion to push the pedal all the way to the floor but how could I do that without earning an all-expense paid trip to Long Binh jail? Anyway, it didn't seem like this car had a gas pedal. Heck, it wasn't even a car. So, I just stood in the middle of that tent and blurted out for all to hear, “Who wants to arm wrestle?”

    Why did I do that? Sure, it was definitely a way to get noticed and I did think that I could beat most of the men in my unit. I had already sized them up. I had worked out all through high school with weights and did a lot of swimming, so I had good arm strength for a guy my size. I had also done quite well in the physical training tests in basic training, as I have already mentioned. To be honest, I really didn't know why I did what I did. It was so out of character for me to take center stage like this. Most who knew me, probably considered me to be just another guy in the crowd which is exactly who I tried to be most of the time. I now believe the idea to do this came from the Holy Spirit. I believe the idea was given to me, by Him, as a safety relief valve, to defuse my more self-destructive impulses. Immediately, I sensed a mood change in that tent. My challenge seemed to break a more morbid tension in the air.

     To my surprise, someone responded, “How about arm wrestling Charlie Bell over there. Do you think you can beat Charlie Bell?”, the anonymous voice ask.

     “Who the heck is Charlie Bell?”, I thought to myself. Now all eyes were on this guy, so it wasn’t hard for me to spot him. He was a really dark skinned guy, and he was standing across the tent from me, all by himself. As our eyes met, his face broke out into one of the most beautiful and confident smiles that I had ever seen. I could spot a loner, and he just had the look of that same kind of self-contained loner that I pictured myself becoming. He was about 6’ 2’, maybe 230 lbs., and solid muscle. Sure, loners are drawn to loners, and that's one side of things. However, now I was going to be forced to arm wrestle him. One look told me that there was no chance I was going to beat him. Fortunately for me, my mamma didn't raise any dummies. I knew there would be no big blow to my standing in the unit, if I lost. Heck, I had no standing in the first place. Everyone could tell, that he was the strongest man in the entire company, maybe even the Battalion. I also realized something else. There was just an outside chance that I wouldn’t lose. Yes, it was a sure bet that I was not going to be able to put his arm down, because his arms were solid muscle and almost twice as big as mine. However, I also knew that I was strong enough to lock my arm in place. I had done that before with bigger guys, and it had prevented them from slamming it down. So, win we griped hands that’s exactly what I did. I concentrated all my strength on keeping my arm upright and locked in position. Fortunately, he did not try to twist my wrist out of position, or all would have been lost. The match was a draw. I certainly couldn't put his arm down but more importantly he wasn't able to put mine down either. Try as he did, he could not break my locked arm, to the amazement of everyone looking on, including me. Every one of the onlookers then just dispersed while Charlie Bell and I just sat for a moment grinning at each other. The tension drained away. Immediately I felt more at ease because I was getting eye contact from everyone. They weren't just staring past me like before. They still didn't talk, but somehow that was now okay. That arm wrestling match seemed like such a little thing, but years later I realized that it was a big thing which had been orchestrated by the Holy Spirit. To most nineteen year old people almost everything is about the way they feel. Feelings changed after the arm wrestling match. Walls came down. However, nowhere had those walls crumbled more than between Charlie Bell and me. Charlie Bell was now my friend, and I was his too. We became inseparable. We were just like salt and pepper until he transferred out of the unit about a month later. He took a job offer in the rear. I was glad for him but really sorry to see him go.