On April 1, 1968, I was wounded in Vietnam by Friendly Fire. What that means I was injured by ordinance from US forces. It is not unusual, and is part of the "Fog" of war. This resulted in wounds all along the left side of my body and my return stateside.
After being wounded, I was treated at the Aid Station that I worked at when I was not a patient. I was sent to a Mobile Hospital for any surgical stabilization, and on to the Philippines. I was there on April 4, 1968, when Martin Luther King was assassinated.
Other than the fact that I was troubled and sad by this event, nothing else was unusual, except one of the patients there expressed that he glad that that "Communist" was dead. The US Military was desegregated since Truman, but there were still racists in the Army.
During TET the Army open a "Graves Registration" unit right next to our Aid Station so they could make use of our Helicopter landing zone. The result was that when wounded patients were brought in out of the field, dead soldiers were also flown in to us. At this time I was basically a litter bearer so it was my job to take the deceased soldiers to the Graves Registration Tent.
One time the person I was taking to Graves Registration was a Black Soldier. The other litter bearer said, "that's another good Ni**er". I was stunned that even while we were in the heat of battle that racism toward a fellow soldier was still so strong. It has always haunted me. We in the USA like to think that Racism is a thing of the past, but I have known all along that ugly racism is alive and well.
One thing the Current Administration has made clear is that racism is alive and well. It was in 1968 in the Streets of the United States, and in some of the soldiers in Vietnam and it is now.
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