For some of us, the soldier’s sense of duty lingers unfulfilled for decades. Mine began as a promise made in the windy sky high above the Vietnam jungle’s triple canopy. At my feet was the ashen face of a fellow soldier who had lost his life — Staff Sergeant Charles M. Andujar. His body and the litter he was lying on were vibrating with the rest of us in the belly of the dustoff on our way to the field hospital at Fire Support Base Blackhorse, where we of Delta Company, 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade (199th LIB) were based during that time in the spring of 1969.

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During the flight, a voice in my head seemed to say that if this were a novel, we would be at the place where the soldier who survives has to go to the man’s family and explain what happened to his KIA buddy. Then I said to myself: ‘I hardly know this man. I’m just a draftee, a private first class. The Army will notify the family.’

Still, my thoughts kept churning. ‘What if they have questions? How would a fellow ever find his folks? Why even think about this now, when I may not make it out alive, either?’

But soon the matter seemed to get settled. Like many a soldier in any war, I began to consider the equalizing question: ‘What if I were this man and he were me?’ I began to work past the issue with the promise, ‘If I make it home, I should try to find his family in case they want to talk to me about this day.’

Unfortunately, I was not very tenacious with that promise. In my travels, I would occasionally look for the name Andujar in the phone book. Later, using the Internet, I found a few people with the name but none knew the staff sergeant as one of their family. Three decades evaporated.

I had been drafted after college and assigned to an infantry unit in Vietnam. For draftees like me, ripped from a secure and sheltered existence, entering the Army felt like being thrown into a snake pit and being forced to hiss and slither with the rest of them in order to survive. Infantry training teaches you to make buddies but not close friends. We were told we would be able to face the violence and death better if we were not too attached to the men in our platoon.

Personal survival and the survival of the fighting unit depended upon our ability to place the mission above emotion. All of this seems a bit incomprehensible now, as I look back at the experiences I shared with the other soldiers. Indeed, I now feel a tremendous respect and a sense of honor to have served with the men of Delta Company.

On that day in 1969, we were working out of FSB Blackhorse in terrain spotted with a few old French plantations but mostly jungle. The 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (11th ACR) had been operating in the area, sending out periodic armored patrols along tank and armored personnel carrier (APC) trails that carved up the landscape at five- to 10-mile intervals. In the spring of 1969 their orders were to relinquish part of the area. Elements of the 199th LIB were moved northeast, out of the rice and pineapple regions of Long An and Hau Nghia, south and east of Saigon. I remember the names of Firebases Elvira and Claudette from those early months. Soon Delta Company would know life in the jungle and frequent camps named Bear Cat, Blackhorse and Joy. Our new mission was to maintain part of the territory made secure by the 11th ACR. In reality, the jungles around Blackhorse were infested with NVA regiments, dug in and camping in the patchwork between the cavalry trails. No doubt they had been entrenched there for years.

Stateside, our nation had lost its resolve by 1969. By early April, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird was announcing cuts in the defense budget. Within a few weeks, President Richard Nixon announced that 25,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn from South Vietnam by the end of August. From our perspective as foot soldiers, troop strength and resupply for our unit had already come under noticeable stress. Part of the predicament was that since the 199th LIB was a small unit, response to our requests for helicopters and supplies was often delayed. The larger divisions would help us if their troops were taken care of first, but without our own dedicated support we often felt we were getting the short end of the stick. When equipment failed, when weapons needed parts, or when men were taken out of the field wounded, killed or simply because they had completed their time, Delta Company seemed to find replacements a long time in coming.

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