Easter on Hill 17

Editor’s Note: Galen Meyer was a chaplain to the First Battalion, Seventh Marines, during the Vietnam War. The experiences of the following piece are his own, but the story is a fictionalized account, bringing together events occurring on separate occasions.

It wasn’t the perfect Easter morning. Chaplain Harris and his assistant, Lance Corporal Bullins, wormed their way down a rutted, muddy road from battalion headquarters to a bleak place the marines called Hill 17. The road, a fairly straight, flat ribbon of dust when dry, always turned into a six-inch layer of reddish-brown glue after a rain.

A steady drizzle now in its third day continued to fall as the jeep slipped in and out of the main ruts. Both men, steel pots on their heads and ponchos over their shoulders, rode in silence except for the persistent growl of the engine. Bullins stared intently at the road, keeping a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, constantly turning it a little each way in an effort to keep the vehicle precisely in the middle of the road.

The chaplain, sitting on the passenger side and cradling Bullins’s loaded and locked M-16 rifle, nervously rubbed his hand over the weapon, trying to be alert for anything along the sides of the road, behind rice paddy dikes and thin lines of scrub trees. It was hard for him not to divert his attention to the road itself. Hitting a land mine along this route, after all, was a far greater possibility than crossing the sights of some enemy sniper’s rifle.

Though the mine-sweep teams had cleared the road at least as far as Hill 17 (a daily chore commencing at dawn), it was no guarantee of anyone’s safety, including the two in the jeep who were just beginning their round of four Easter services within the battalion’s “tactical area of responsibility” (or TAOR).

The marines who swept the roads used the kind of equipment that could detect buried metal, such as an artillery shell rigged to explode when a vehicle passed over the spot where it lay hidden. The Vietcong, however, often used caches of plastic explosives rather than dud artillery shells for their land mines, deadly stuff that had to be sighted by eye since the mine-sweeping equipment could not detect it. Finding the plastic mines was difficult enough when the road was dry, and nearly impossible when it was wet.

The two water-slicked men in the jeep that morning had seen a small bus loaded with Vietnamese civilians hit one of those mines a few weeks earlier. It had gone up like a geyser from the road, about a hundred meters in front of them. Out of about two dozen people in the vehicle only three survived, little girls whose legs were reduced to a crumpled mass of bone and flesh. They hadn’t cried but sat upright on the ground, their mangled legs before them, and called for help in pathetic and confused voices. The chaplain and Bullins had helped to clear the area and evacuate the injured by helicopter.

The experience made a deep impression on them. They talked about it a long time that night. Besides venting their anger and grief at the awful waste of human life around them, they discussed the practical issue of their own security on the road. Traveling by road was simply inevitable if they were to visit regularly all seven of the battalion outposts.

They decided, however, to be as safe about it as they could. Because the mines were usually placed in the softer shoulders of the road rather than the hardened center, Bullins would make certain to keep the jeep in the two main tracks. They also decided to take the sandbags out of the jeep, something the men in the motor pool had put in all the unit vehicles to blunt the force of a possible road mine. They agreed that a quick death was preferable to surviving a mine horribly maimed. Besides, the chaplain had long legs, and the sandbags beneath his feet forced his knees uncomfortably close to his chin.

The agreement, however, did not keep them from throwing their flak jackets on their seats and sitting on them whenever they had to drive somewhere. They knew the jackets would provide scant protection if they actually hit a mine. It was just the thought of catching an explosion on their behinds that made them do this—though they never discussed it.

In spite of the tension twisting his stomach like an old dishrag, the chaplain grinned a bit over the irony of his situation. This is crazy, he thought. Even the weather is out of place this morning. Easter is supposed to be a day of warm sunshine, but here I sit in an open jeep with a chilly rain spattering against my helmet and running into my lap.

It wasn’t the weather, however, that kept the tight-lipped grin on his face and made him shake his head in persistent disbelief. Rather, it was the nagging contradiction between his own faith and his feelings. Hill 17 was in view. Soon he would lead an Easter service.

He would read the gospel account of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and speak to the men about the meaning of that event of long ago, how it promised victory over death to all who bound themselves to Jesus through faith in him. In the meantime, while the jeep pushed its way along the muddy road, he was anxious and fearful of his own sudden death, wondering how it would feel to have the vehicle in which he rode shredded beneath him, his body torn into bits and thrown into the air to fall to the ground like so many drops of rain. At precisely what point, he wondered, would he feel nothing at all?

The gloomy day and dangerous road made the chaplain somewhat envious of his seminary classmates who were undoubtedly celebrating Easter in a far more pleasant environment. He thought especially of Ned, a roommate during part of his senior year. Ned was now the pastor of a suburban church in Michigan. He would very likely walk the short distance between his parsonage and church this Easter Sunday, wearing a neatly pressed gray suit. His wife and two little girls would follow a short while later to take their places in the pew reserved for the pastor’s family.

Ned would meet with the choir and brass players, going through their last-minute rehearsal of the music that always makes Easter a soul-stirring event. Then he would check the sanctuary and see that the banks of Easter lilies around the pulpit had been beautifully arranged by the ladies’ circle. He would inhale the cleanliness and freshness of it all and proceed to the council room, where he would meet with the elders until it was time for the joyful processional hymn, “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today.”

The chaplain tried to pretend for a minute that he and Bullins were actually on their way to Ned’s church rather than Hill 17. They would soon wheel the mud-encrusted jeep into a sun-washed parking lot and pull up alongside a clean and waxed Buick station wagon. The chaplain played out the bizarre scene in his imagination: two dirty soldiers in fatigues and helmets, one carrying a rifle, tramping into church with muddy boots, nodding, smiling, and saying “Happy Easter” to the startled worshipers assembling for the service. It was ridiculously incongruent, and he laughed aloud. “What’s so funny, sir?” asked Bullins in his Georgian drawl.

“Sorry, Bullins. Nothing at all, really,” the chaplain replied, a little embarrassed. “Let’s just watch the road.”

The two remained silent as they soon left the muddy road to follow a winding trail of crushed rock up Hill 17, a low, flat hill that sat like a great egg yolk on the riceland around it. There was a Combined Action Platoon (or CAP) on this hill. It was made up of 12 marines and one navy corpsman. These men lived close to the Vietnamese peasants and worked with the local Popular Forces (PF’S), in order to provide government security to the area and frustrate the grassroots political strategy of the Vietcong. They were also the men who bore the heaviest share of the responsibility to “win the hearts and minds of the people,” the accomplishment of which would presumably make the U.S. war effort a success.

The men who comprised a CAP, generally volunteers, were a tough-minded bunch. They had to be; this “combined action” business was dangerous. Each CAP operated from a small outpost, always vulnerable to a large-scale enemy attack. Adding to their danger was the fact that the PF’S who actually lived within the CAP compound could never be fully trusted. There were always Vietcong agents among them, making it necessary for all CAP members to be constantly vigilant and keep a PRK-25 radio close by—with its power on—just in case they had to call for air support or other kinds of reinforcement. Even when they gathered with the chaplain for a weekly worship service, the radio hissed in the background.

Still, the men liked this kind of duty at least better than some with which they could get stuck in Vietnam. Sometimes they actually found their work personally gratifying, especially when they offered basic medical services to the people. Most of all, however, they enjoyed their independence as enlisted men, having their own operation apart from the daily supervision of an officer.

The CAP compound itself, constructed mostly of bulging sandbags laid with the precision of an experienced mason, had a stubborn, almost challenging look. Near the center, two 16 × 32-foot tin-roofed hooches hunkered down between thick sandbag walls, nearly as high as the eaves. A number of strategically placed fighting holes with sandbag rims and heavy sandbag overheads looked out over cleared fields of fire. A well-fortified 61 mm mortar pit with its accompanying ammunition bunker was the rivet that fixed the drab outpost to this spot on the planet.

A defensive trench lined with more sandbags zigzagged around the compound, and, outside of that, were stacks of closely coiled rolls of concertina wire fixed with thousands of razorlike blades that threatened to slice into thin strips even the unfortunate sparrow that happened to fly through.

Bullins parked the jeep at the gate to the compound just behind a small crowd of marines and PF’S. He gave the handbrake a sharp yank. A stocky, blond marine in charge of the CAP, Sgt. Harm Peterson, immediately left the group and ambled over to the side of the vehicle with his M-16 casually slung over his shoulder.

“Morning, Padre,” he said as the chaplain climbed out of the jeep and stretched his cramped legs.

“Good to see you, Peterson. Happy Easter!”

Peterson grunted his response, then continued, “Had a little excitement last night. The ambush patrol got lucky and nailed five VC coolies carrying ammo and a couple of 122s. Have a look.”

Sergeant Peterson escorted the chaplain through the crowd of marines and laughing, bantering PF’S to the object of everyone’s attention. There on the ground lay three gray 122mm Soviet-made rockets, each about six feet long and tipped with a black warhead. Next to them lay the bodies of five young men—boys, really—wearing the remnants of Vietcong uniforms or “black pajamas.” The bodies had been mutilated by the claymore mines and rifle fire of the ambush. A dark mixture of blood and mud smeared every part of their faces and bodies. Their wounds lay open and bloodless. The rain continued to fall softly and quietly, perhaps in pity for the dead, trying to wash them clean for burial. But it had no effect.

“Well, Padre,” said Peterson, “that’s the enemy kill. I think we finally got some of the gooks who’ve been setting booby traps around here. The ambush team just dragged them in before you came.”

The five marines who had been part of the team, along with as many PF’S, stood in a cluster across from the chaplain on the other side of the muddied corpses. Wet, dirty, bone-weary and quiet, they met the chaplain’s look with a blank stare. He had been prepared to greet every man on Hill 17 with “Happy Easter.” Now he felt as empty as they of anything to say.

Feeling a sudden impulse to do something, as though the accomplishment of a planned routine would make everything ordinary and acceptable, the chaplain turned to Sergeant Peterson. “Sarge,” he said quickly, “I’ve come to conduct an Easter service. Think we can get the men together up at the mortar pit?”

“Yes, sir,” Peterson replied, “in a little while. We let word out in the village down the hill that we’d killed five VC. We’re waiting to see who comes to cry the most and take the bodies. It’s just one way of finding out who’s connected to the Vietcong around here.”

As Peterson spoke, the chaplain noticed a string of Vietnamese peasants, mostly women, holding on to their round straw hats as they half ran up the slippery trail from the village on the far slope of the hill to the CAP compound. The crowd of marines and PF’S quickly parted as they approached. With a high-pitched wail that belied anything ever said about Asians not feeling the pain of death the same way people in the West do, they gathered around the dead, cradled their heads in loving arms, and wiped the mud-smeared faces with wet sleeves.

Sergeant Peterson, the chaplain, the other marines, and even the PF’S gradually backed away from the scene, allowing the people to have their grief.

Though Peterson wanted to be able to identify the VC connections in the village—for the CAP’S security if nothing else—he was not ready to get that information from the crying face of a widow or mother.

“Come on, Padre,” said Peterson, “let’s go to the mortar pit. I’ll get the men together.”

Bullins and the chaplain headed for the designated spot inside the compound. It was a circular pit about three feet deep and ten feet in diameter, completely lined with sandbags. The mortar, when set up for use, stood in the center on a brace of legs and a heavy base plate. The chaplain was accustomed to using the pit as a small amphitheater in which to hold worship services. He stood on one side and the men sat on the sandbagged edge in a semicircle in front of him.

Soon the chaplain would be reading the gospel’s resurrection account. But while the jeep pushed its way along the muddy road, he was fearful of driving over a buried mine. At precisely what point, he wondered, would he feel nothing at all?

When they reached the pit, Bullins unstrapped the canvas “chaplain’s kit” he always carried on these excursions. Taking out a small silver cross, he placed it on an empty ammo crate set on end in the middle of the pit. It glistened rather brightly in the gloom of the day. Because of the persistent drizzle, he left the rest of the worship paraphernalia in the bag: two short, white candles on silver holders, and a Bible that would normally be placed in an open position in front of the cross.

The chaplain paced slowly around the pit, looking over the Easter account in the Gospel of Luke and trying to organize his thoughts for the service. It was difficult. He could not push from his mind the scene he had just left. He kept glancing at the Vietnamese women, black-clad and wet, some bending over the dead young men, some rocking back and forth while seated on the ground with the torn bodies in their laps, and others simply moving about the rest—but all wailing. It didn’t matter whether the chaplain looked straight at them or in another direction entirely; he could see them even with his eyes shut.

Having secured the captured rockets in the ammo bunker, Sergeant Peterson and nine of the CAP members stepped into the mortar pit with the chaplain and Bullins. Tired and wet, their ponchos useful at this point only for retaining their body heat, they sat down on the edge of the pit with their rifles between their knees. The liturgical formality of an invocation and salutation didn’t mean much around here. The chaplain simply faced the men and began the service by quietly greeting each man personally: “Good to see you, Dex, Rozey, Fred, Miranda, Doc.” So he went down the line as each man responded with a nod or “Good Morning.”

“It’s Easter,” the chaplain said, “when we remember the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. Today Christians all over the world will celebrate the victory of Christ over the grave, of life over death. Of course, most of them will be meeting in fancier places than a mortar pit. They’ll enjoy lots of grand music, too, I’m sure.” He thought of Ned again. “Out here, things will be different, though. No beautiful church. No choir, organ. No brass instruments. Just the clouds, the rain—and death.”

He looked past the marines in front of him to the black-shrouded women huddled over their fallen sons and husbands, wailing in the same high-pitched moan that chafed his nerves. “Still,” he continued slowly, almost to himself, “if there isn’t a message for us in the Easter story this morning, I don’t know where else to find one.”

With that the chaplain folded his hands and invited the men to join him in a prayer. “O God,” he pleaded, the sound of the women humming in his ears, “we are oppressed by death. It is outside of us and inside of us. We feel like corpses that still move a little and barely think. If you live, please raise us from the dead. Bless us with the experience of your love. Give us just a little Easter joy today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Opening his damp New Testament, the chaplain turned to the Gospel of Luke. Summarizing the last part of chapter 23, he told the men how Joseph of Arimathea requested permission from Pilate to bury the crucified body of Jesus and how certain women from Galilee watched the burial, then went home to prepare spices and ointments for the corpse. He continued by reading from the twenty-fourth chapter:

“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel; and as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead?’ ”

The chaplain usually kept his messages brief, but none were ever as short as this Easter homily. Actually, the steady drizzle and wailing women had nothing to do with the fact that he came so quickly to his conclusion. There simply are times in every preacher’s experience when the Scripture passage itself says all that needs to be said or, for that matter, all that can be said.

The story from Luke’s gospel about the death and resurrection of Jesus needed no intermediary, ordained or otherwise, to weave itself into the lives of the little congregation. The chaplain read it aloud, of course, but even he was only one of the listeners. When the story revealed how Jesus’ body was taken from the cross, everyone in the mortar pit actually saw it in sharp detail, bloody and torn.

It looked remarkably like the body of a friend killed in this war, once warm and lively, eating C-rations, crying, laughing, joking, and cursing, but now with everything vital blown out of it. The body they saw in the story also strangely resembled those for whom they had been sent to Vietnam, both to help and to kill; its face was as Asian as it was American. The chaplain himself was startled enough in his reading of the story to pause and look again beyond the marines to the gate of the CAP compound. The brow and closed eyes of the crucified Christ he saw in his own imagination looked so much like those of one of the ambush victims lying there.

Death out here was not something that anyone could explain away as “just a natural thing” or, worse yet, “all a part of life.” It sat in front of the men like some ugly, snarling monster defying them to take it for anything but what it was: a gross violation of life, a wretched curse that whacked the life out of its victims, leaving corpses behind. They heard its boisterous, cynical “Ha!” in every rifle report and every exploding artillery shell, bomb, and land mine. It was their daily companion. Sometimes it went after them, and sometimes they were its allies.

But if death could not be made more agreeable here, as it might in the polite visiting-room conversation of the funeral home, neither was it possible to clean up the resurrection story a bit and turn it into a religious allegory or metaphor. Clean, well-dressed worshipers in new, spring fashions anticipating a sumptuous Easter ham after the service might need that sort of transformation of the story. But not here.

The wet “grunts” in the mortar pit listened to Luke’s account of Jesus rising from the dead and found it a macabre, bizarre story, full of divine wonder. Just as clearly as they had seen the torn, bloody body taken from the cross and laid in a tomb, so clearly did they see that same body begin to move, regain its warmth, open its eyes, sit up, rub its arms, and walk, squinting, into the bright morning sun.

The Gospel of Luke left its mark on the chaplain that morning, though he would have been hard pressed to explain how with any precision. The most he could say was that it was a feeling of quiet reassurance that, at best, bordered joy.

The feeling did not last, of course, any more than that rare “moment in time” when one is surprised by beauty and hope for the whole miserable universe in the happy chirping of a brown sparrow on a snowy twig. Yet, like the unpredictable but recurring moment, the feeling he first sensed in the mortar pit flitted back into his consciousness periodically in the weeks that followed. Whenever it came, it brought the awful consolation that in the body of Christ, God himself had suffered even the agony of Vietnam. More important, however, it always dropped the tantalizing hint that God’s raising of Jesus from the dead was only the beginning of a cosmic rising and rejuvenation that would include even Vietnam’s broken bodies.

The Easter service ended as informally as it began. After delivering the benediction that God “bless and keep” the small congregation “and make his face to shine upon them and give them peace,” the chaplain shook hands with each man and engaged in casual conversation about the mail, food, home, and the hundred other things that fill a soldier’s mind. When they had left the mortar pit and gone back to their tasks for the day, Bullins wiped the silver cross on his sleeve and put it back in the canvas bag. Then he and the chaplain climbed out of the pit themselves and headed back to the jeep.

The crowd at the gate to the CAP compound had gone. No PF’S were around. Four of the five dead VC had apparently been carried away by the grieving women. Only one woman remained, kneeling in her drenched black clothes, hair wet against her head and face, her round hat on the ground beside her.

In her arms she continued to hold the corpse of her loved one. She was silent now, but still rocked a little back and forth with her burden. The chaplain stopped in front of her. He wanted to say something or do something, but couldn’t. She looked up at him. Nothing passed between them—no words, gestures, nor even that rare, mutual recognition of each other’s sorrow poignantly conveyed through the eyes. Still, the chaplain was struck deeply by the figure before him, cradling her dead. She was a Pietá transformed from Italian marble to Asian flesh.

Not knowing what else to do, the chaplain lifted his right hand and spoke the benediction he had just given the marines. Easter is for her too, he thought, but I don’t know how to tell her. He backed away from her several steps, then turned and joined Bullins in the jeep for the trip to the next service.

Galen Meyer is teacher of Bible and English at South Christian High School, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is also a chaplain (at the rank of colonel) in the U.S. Army Reserve, and has written for The Banner and Christian Educator’s Journal.

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