A Minnesota PBS Initiative
The Death of Bill McCarron
The file stretches off into the jungle ahead. Sonny is behind me. Dave and Bob are in front of me. We are near the end of the file. Dave and Bob, breaking the exasperating boredom, are talking in low, but animated voices. McCarron is up front near Lt. Kelley, who wants a machine gun – McCarron carries one of the two in the platoon – close by. The lieutenant always wants to be close to the action, and a gun, like a radio, has to be near him.
McCarron is tall and thin, with a handsome, friendly face and a manner that seems somehow disconnected from the nasty business of war. One would not apply the soldierly terms ‘tough,’ or ‘gritty,’ to McCarron, more aptly, ‘fun-loving,’ and ‘puppyish.’ But McCarron is a good soldier. He moves when told, even when the fire is intense. A couple weeks ago, his assistant gunner, Shaaf, was thrown to the ground when a bullet lodged in the sole of his boot. But McCarron was firing the gun.
Bill McCarron.
Dave and Bob are still talking in a low, light chatter. “Tell those guys in front to spread out and quiet down,” Sonny, behind me, says. I relay the word, readily, sharply.
We stop and I bend over to get the pack off my shoulders. “If I ever get outta this jungle alive,” I think, “I’ll never carry a heavy pack again in my life,” I think.
McCarron would be waiting patiently up front. Perhaps even smiling at some wayward thought. Of his fiancée, Sue, perhaps. Or the long commute to his job in New York City. Or maybe his rambunctious younger brother and sister, who, like all the family, love his fiancée as much as he does.
That’s the thing about McCarron – the inclination to smile, which is strong and spontaneous. No doubt, a loving mother and father hovering over him. We have become fast friends.
Dave steps forward and I straighten up, taking back the weight of the pack with a low groan. We move on – a step at a time. Will this ever end?
At the start of this mission, we had sat all day long in the hot sun waiting for choppers to carry us to the jump-off site. Waiting can be the hardest. The boredom becomes almost unbearable. Then, as on several other occasions, it was McCarron who broke the tedium with his unshakeable good humor.
He’s something of a pain and a delight at the same time, a jokester with a good humor that defies even the jungle, but deadly serious about his job as a soldier. By nature I was standoffish, but he was drawing me into his orbit, irresistibly.
Bill was generous with the frequent packages he got from home. His mother must have been a superb cook, or at least baker of cookies and other good things.
All of a sudden, a cacophony of sound, harsh and insulting, splits the jungle stillness wide open.
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I fall to the ground and crawl for cover. I roll out of my rucksack and check my weapon and ammo. Everything slows down. Every nerve in my body is alight as a crashing wave of fear washes over me, numbing me. A machine gun is going and rifle fire. Even at this distance, the sound is terrific. I look about frantically, but can only see Dave. He’s wide-eyed, shaking his head, as if to say, “Damn, not again!”
Sonny appears, standing, waving frantically and shouting, “Get to the front! Get to the front!”
Dave, Bob and I scramble forward, running at a crouch, dodging from tree to tree. We pass a soldier who is folded up behind a tree, his head in his hands. We keep going, pressing forward toward the focus of the roar. We pass another soldier half-lying behind a tree, watching us hurry past, waving his hand and saying, “Go on. Go on.” As we get closer to the firing, we crouch more and dodge more from tree to tree.
We come to the front. “Over there,” Sonny yells, waving to the right, “form a line.”
I see Lt. Kelley, Blake, McCarron, Shaaf, Bob and Mahaffey strung out through the area of contact. I get on line with the others, kneeling and laying down fire to our front. I can’t see a target, but fire single rounds. McCarron is to my left; Bob is to my right.
“All right,” Sonny yells, “move forward with fire. Move! Move! Let’s go. Keep the line in order.”
We fire, fall and roll over, get up and scramble forward a few strides. Fire, fall, scramble forward. Fire, fall, scramble forward. I can’t identify a target or detect any return fire. We keep moving through the area of contact. Fire, fall, scramble forward. The sound is horrendous.
Off to my left, I catch a glimpse of a man crying out sharply and throwing his hands to his face as he drops like a rag doll, hidden in the grass. At the same time, Blake yells and looks at me, crazed, holding up a bloody thumb.
“Get back,” I yell at him.
“Medic!” someone yells off to my left.
A few seconds later, Lt. Kelley shouts, “Grenade!” and scrambles forward, grabs a grenade and throws it away, like a pitcher throwing a baseball.
I fire and move again, alongside Bob, whose weapon jams. He swears fiercely. I tell him to go back, and he scrambles off.
I see Lt. Kelley fire a long burst into the grass where an NVA soldier is hidden.
We keep firing and moving. Someone is still screaming for a medic. Finally, the firing dies down, like a passing thunderstorm of incredible ferocity. Blake has gone back.
I stop behind a bamboo thicket, looking about desperately, now even more scared to death. I have never been thirstier; sweat streams out of me; my fatigue shirt is soaked. My ears are ringing. An acrid odor fills the air.
“How is he, Doc?” Lt. Kelley shouts.
“He’s hopeless, Sir,” the medic, Doc Wyce, says, his voice downcast.
The body is long and thin. The arms are out-stretched. The shirt, which is open and flaps limply in the downwash, and the torso are crimson.
What seems like a long time passes, though probably only minutes, when I hear the thudding of chopper blades in the distance, then louder and louder, until it is right overhead, its downwash roiling the tree tops. Soon a cable has come down and I see through the foliage several people working at something in the grass. They stand back. In a little while, I see a body hanging from the cable and rising up through the jungle. The face is shrouded in blood and unrecognizable. The body is long and thin. The arms are out-stretched. The shirt, which is open and flaps limply in the downwash, and the torso are crimson. The body rises above the foliage. The chopper leans forward and flies off. I am very thirsty and think sourly of death and killing.
Sonny calls me back to the center of the position.
I see Doc Wyce hunched over and obviously depressed. The thought hits me.
“Who got hit, Doc?”
“McCarron,” he mumbles, turning away.
My ears are numb and I don’t hear him. “Who?” I say, pushing him on the back.
“McCarron,” he whines loudly, looking back at me.
I’ve never seen a man look more hurt.
For those who knew him, forty-seven years later, his memory is fresh and alive. I’ll never forget the soldier with the irrepressible smile, forever young.
It was Bill, of course, I had seen being pulled up out of the jungle. It would be 44 years before I would see his face again (in a photo sent by Sue). Later, I wrote a letter to her. She wrote back to the platoon. That ended the events surrounding Bill McCarron’s death. But the memory of Bill would reverberate down through the years. For those who knew him, forty-seven years later, his memory is fresh and alive.
I’ll never forget the soldier with the irrepressible smile, forever young.
Biographical Details
Submitted From: Inver Grove Heights, MN
Primary Location During Vietnam: Xuan Loc, Vietnam 
Story Subject: Military Service
Military Branch: U.S. Army
Dates of Service: 1968 - 1970
Unit: 199th Light Infantry Brigade
Specialty: Infantry
Story Themes: 1969, 1970, 199th Light Infantry Brigade, Army, Bill McCarron, Combat, Death and Loss, Firefight, Inver Grove Heights, KIA, Killed in Action, Memorial, Pat O'Regan, Patrick O'Regan, Read, Reflection, Relationships, William McCarron, Xuan Loc
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