WHEN CAN I STOP RUNNING?
by
John Podlaski
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT ‘WHEN CAN I STOP RUNNING?’
“In a brilliant follow-up to his novel ‘Cherries’, John Podlaski weaves frightening events of his youth into a vivid depiction of a terrifying night as an infantryman on a Listening Post during the Vietnam War.”
– Joe Campolo, Jr., Author of ‘The Kansas NCO’ and ‘Back To the World.’
“What makes When Can I Stop Running? a different read from Cherries are the interludes where Polack’s memories are brought to the surface as he warily watches for any movement near the LP, during which time he recalls his many adventures with school friends – some terrifying, some funny – while growing up in Detroit during the 1960’s. It is in these stories – so familiar to those of us of the Boomer generation – that the author treats us to some of his finest writing. His childhood comes to life in his rich, poetic descriptions. It is a lost world which haunts all of our generation’s memories, just as we are haunted by our memories of the central and defining event of our generation, the Vietnam War. Highly recommended!”
– Christopher Gaynor, newspaper journalist and author of ‘A Soldier Boy Hears the Distant Guns’. Mr. Gaynor’s work includes a feature story and photos in Time Magazine.
“Warrior and Vietnam author John Podlaski pulls out the stops in a very personal story interweaving some of his childhood experiences with his telling of his unnerving night spent in a listening post. A vividly written, yet tasteful, account of a nightmare experience... hair-raising and touching at the same time.”
– William E. Peterson, International Best Selling and Award Winning Author: ‘Missions Of Fire And Mercy – Until Death Do Us Part’ and ‘Chopper Warriors –Kicking The Hornet’s Nest’. Peterson’s next work, coming in July 2016: ‘Chopper Heroes.’
“John does a magical job in his second book of weaving the terrors of boyhood adventure with the terrors of war. His words had me laughing and crying while recalling and reliving some of my childhood adventures and the terror of pitch black nights alone on the floor of jungles of Vietnam. Thank you, John, for another great adventure!”
– Stephen Perry, Author of ‘Bright Light: Untold Stories of the Top Secret War in Vietnam.’
“As I read, ‘When Can I Stop Running’ and got deeper into the story, it brought all the images forward of those things I feared most – total darkness, rotting jungle, insects, and strange noises. I cringed at every turn, often asking myself if I had the bravado to do what they were doing. Today, soldiers use Night Vision Devices to see in the dark, quite a contrast from the Vietnam Era, when soldiers only had their hearing, sense of smell, and a vivid imagination to guide them in the pitch black jungle. I also appreciate the author’s stories of his youth; the adventures are both frightening and funny, yet, I could relate to similar experiences while growing up. This book is the real deal! Great job, Mr. Podlaski!”
– R. Scott Ormond (Sgt-5 ReCon Scout and Tank Section 3d/33d Armor, Germany 1971-73)
Dolby Digital Edition
Copyright © 2016 John Podlaski
Published by John Podlaski
All rights reserved
Barbara Battestilli, Copy / Content Editor
Story Coordination by Janice J. Podlaski
Cover design by Nicole A. Patrick
Edition License Notes:
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be re-sold or passed on for others to read. If you would like to share this e-book with people, please purchase an additional copy for each of them. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, please return to the e-book website and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Author’s note:
While ‘When Can I Stop Running?’ is largely a work of fiction, many of the events and anecdotes described in the novel are based upon the actual experiences of the author. The places and units mentioned were real and did exist. All characters portrayed are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events, and locales, are entirely coincidental.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank all who have contributed to this work; your persistence, and faith in me kept my spirit alive. Special thanks to Barbara Battestilli, whose hard work, patience and great attention to detail polished my story and contributed to its readability. Finally, and most importantly, sincere thanks to my wife, Janice – without her love, sacrifices, and support over the years, this second work would not exist. I also want to recognize my pals, Paul and Wayne – you two made growing up a true adventure.
Dedication
For Janice and Nicole – my loves forever!
God Bless America’s soldiers – past, present, and future. Thank you for your service and my freedom!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
ONE – Firebase Lynch & Listening Post
TWO – The Basement
THREE – Listening Post (2000 Hours)
FOUR – Summer Camp
FIVE – Listening Post (2100 Hours)
SIX – The Cemetery
SEVEN – Listening Post (2200 Hours)
EIGHT – Ghost Stories
NINE – Listening Post (Midnight)
TEN – Listening Post (0100 Hours)
ELEVEN – The Sister Witches
TWELVE – Listening Post (0200 Hours)
THIRTEEN – Belle Isle: Swimming in the River
FOURTEEN – Listening Post (0400 Hours)
FIFTEEN – Belle Isle Woods: Initiation
SIXTEEN – Listening Post (0500 Hours)
SEVENTEEN – Returning to the Firebase
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Good Luck Charms and Superstitions
About the Author
PREFACE
Have you ever been afraid? Truly afraid?
I’m talking about gut-wrenching fear – the kind you might experience when your very life is in danger. If so, chances are high that your feelings of terror occurred at night.
And why is night, in particular, the scariest part of the 24-hour day?
We all know that the dark of night can be daunting and may hide mysterious things. It’s the time of day when sound carries, and a person may be unable to identify sudden strange noises, shifting shadows or other potential threats that may or may not be real. As a result, the imagination kicks in – supposedly to help the brain make decisions – but that just adds to the uncertainty and fear.
So what exactly is fear? The Dictionary defines it as, “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous and likely to cause pain. A threat; something that causes feelings of dread or apprehension; the anticipation that something unpleasant will occur.”
Impending danger, evil, pain – whether the threat is real or imagined – arouse this distressing emotion. Most of the time, what you don’t see is more unnerving than what you do see.
Fear is a human adaptive response. It’s normal and even helpful to experience fear in dangerous situations. It serves a protective purpose, activating the “fight-or-flight” response in all of us. Without fear, we’d jump headlong into things we shouldn’t. With our bodies and minds alert and ready for action, we can respond quickly and protect ourselves.
Protect us from what? In most cases, the unknown!
Experiencing fear as children, the usual reaction was to call out to our parents for help. If they weren’t around, then diving under a blanket or running away as fast as our legs could carry us seemed like the solution.
Of course, it’s only natural that at that young age, certain events were terr
ifying to us. As adults, in retrospect, we may laugh at the memory of many of those things that frightened us when we were adolescents. However, other harrowing episodes may have left unhealed scars in our psyche, and looking back, they are not the least bit humorous to us.
For some, the very memory of being in hair-raising situations is nearly as traumatic as experiencing the actual event. Think about those men and women in the military who had deployed to a war zone, be it Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else in the world. Step into their shoes for a moment and join them during a single patrol to seek out the enemy. It’s like walking through a House of Horrors at a carnival. Everyone on the team expects something to happen at any moment. It might be an attack from an enemy soldier poised to kill you or a fellow infantryman, an unseen booby trap, or some other potentially fatal danger lurking around any corner. Fear is constantly present and running is not an option!
Bravery is the quality of spirit that enables you to face danger or pain, while conquering your fear. It demonstrates having the utmost confidence in your training. That is how many of us in the military survived.
‘When Can I Stop Running?’ is a story about fear and how the author (‘Polack’) dealt with it, both in Vietnam and throughout his childhood. Readers will accompany the author and his friend and fellow grunt (‘LG’) during a night-long mission in the jungles of Vietnam. The two lone soldiers are manning a “Listening Post,” hiding in the dense shrubbery, some 500 meters outside the firebase perimeter. The author juxtaposes his nightmarish hours in the bush with some of his most heart-pounding childhood escapades. Readers may relate to the childish antics with amusement; military veterans will find themselves relating to both captivating collections.
“THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR IS FEAR ITSELF”
– FDR’S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS
ONE – FIREBASE LYNCH & LISTENING POST
John Kowalski and Louis Gladwell (aka ‘Polack’ and ‘LG’) drew the short straws earlier that afternoon, which meant they would be spending the night by themselves in a Listening Post roughly 500 meters outside the wire – deep in the Iron Triangle jungles of Vietnam. In that morning’s company briefing, First Squad of First Platoon was delegated to provide two warm bodies to man one of the four Listening Posts (LP’s) for that night. As there were seven members in the squad, they elected to use varied lengths of straws; the shortest two drawn would get the “coveted” assignment – the assignment dreaded by all.
Four LP teams of two would be going out that night, each heading out on a compass azimuth to position themselves evenly around Firebase Lynch. Dubbed “human early warning systems” and “bait for the enemy,” their job was only to hide, listen, and report any potential threats to the firebase. Polack and LG were assigned the approaches from the east. Ambush patrols were also leaving at the same time, but those squad-sized elements would be looking for a fight and would set up two clicks farther out. Two companies, Alpha and Charlie, were providing security for the forward artillery base and would remain on ready alert in the event of a ground attack on the base, or in case one of the ambush teams got into trouble.
Both soldiers were from the Detroit area; their homes were only four miles apart on the east side of the city. The two ‘hometown boys’ quickly discovered each other in the base and gave one another a complete run down of any news from their common neighborhood – an extremely welcome touch of home some thousands of miles away.
John was six feet tall, weighed 170 pounds, and was normally fair-complected, but the hot tropical sun had baked his skin to a dark bronze. He sported medium-brown hair, somewhat bleached out now, and a light mustache, both slightly longer than regulation. He’d been away from the main base camp and forward fire support bases for almost a month. Out in the jungles, personal grooming is way down on the list of daily priorities. There’s no one to impress, and nobody cares how you look. His shaggy hair was definitely not an issue.
Louis stood a couple of inches taller, but his build was slightly on the lankier side than John’s. He was African-American, with light, caramel-colored skin. His face was long and narrow, and his forehead and cheeks were lightly pitted with old scars. His frizzy black Afro was picked out a little more than three inches into a perfect circle surrounding his head. An olive drab-colored boony hat rested atop of his puff of hair, swaying and shimmying about, reacting to each movement. LG tried growing a goatee since arriving in-country but had only acquired a dozen or so half-inch long hairs that spread across his chin. He checked his hand mirror daily, anxious for any signs of goatee progress, not willing to give up the plan.
LG played basketball at Detroit’s Pershing High School and was named to the “All-State” team during his final two years. He carried a newspaper clipping detailing his success in his wallet and was extremely proud of that achievement. John also played basketball, but he had attended a Catholic high school with only two-hundred students. Both graduated in 1969, but never had a chance to play against one another because of the separation of leagues within the city. St. Thomas Apostle was a ‘Class D’ school due to its small size, and Pershing, a ‘Class A’ with over a thousand students. LG flunked some classes in his first semester at college and had his scholarship revoked; Uncle Sam was quick to find him afterward. Whenever Alpha Company spent a day or two in Cu Chi or one of these firebases, John and LG would both play basketball wherever they found a hoop mounted on a backboard. Pick-up games were always available but they never played on the same team. LG’s team, always the dominant force, seldom lost a game.
Polack had arrived at the main base camp for the 25th Infantry Division in Cu Chi a month before LG – which meant he had experienced a full 30 more days of bunker guard, going out on patrols, and living through ambushes while humping through the jungle. You learned quickly in-county – there was no other choice – but time passed slowly, and a month of experience was worth a great deal there. Because he was grateful to his own mentors after his arrival at the camp, Polack was eager to help other ‘Cherries’ learn the ropes. LG – as irrepressible as he was – sensed Polack’s sincerity, and appreciated his comraderie. LG had a quick smile, and a mischievous sense of humor. It wasn’t long before the two became best buds. Although they were not in the same squad, both were part of the 1st platoon, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Wolfhounds, which operated in the areas northwest of Saigon.
“Hey brother man,” Polack called over to his partner, a smirk growing on his face, “you gonna tie down that boony hat?”
LG looked at Polack with an incredulous look on his face. Before he could respond, Polack added, “You do know that if you sneeze, or there’s a sudden breeze, that hat’s gonna take flight and fly with the wind.”
LG suddenly realized the dig, rolled his eyes and shot Polack a one finger salute. “You know, man, I don’t understand why I gotta wear this thing at all. It’s fucking up my ‘do!” LG reached up to ensure that his boony hat was still in place, and the ball of hair remained centered above his head.
“You’re trippin, man! If you go out without a hat, you’ll come back with a commune of bugs living in your hair. You should put it on the right way,” Polack suggested.
“It ain’t gonna happen, my brother. I sprayed bug juice in my hair – notice the sheen?” LG primped his hair again. “That should stop them bugs from getting in. Besides, I’ve worked too hard on this over the last week just to let it get fucked up on an overnight.”
Polack laughed, “Don’t forget that RTO’s get picked off by snipers because of their antennae, which, by the way, are much shorter than you and your floating lid.”
“Ha – Ha,” LG mocked sarcastically, “It don’t mean nothin’.”
Just as LG finished his sentence, another shirtless African-American soldier arrived. His Afro hairstyle was identical to LG’s, but instead of a hat, a long, black metal hair pick (“rake”) stuck out from his ball of hair. It sat off to the side, and, worn like a tilted crown, reminded John of how Jughead wore his hat
in the ‘Archie’ comic books. His skin color was like dark chocolate, and there was a twenty-inch braided black shoelace encircling his neck; a four-inch braided cross hung from the necklace and dangled over his chest. A similarly fashioned two-inch wide black bracelet ringed his right wrist. His boots were untied and unlaced from half of the eyelets; the laces tucked inside. ‘Exceptionally casual today... he must think he’s back home in Alabama,’ John thought.
The soldier wore a black leather holster on his right hip, the flap securing a military .45 caliber pistol. His jungle fatigues were worn, faded, and two sizes too big. James smiled and his perfect white teeth gleamed in the receding sunlight. A member of the First Platoon, he was a scrawny guy from Mobile and stood at least six inches shorter than the rest of his brethren in the platoon. As a result of his size, James often volunteered to check out enemy tunnels whenever the First Platoon uncovered them. As a tunnel rat, he’d soon find himself spending a lot of time underground after the Wolfhounds would discover dozens of tunnels and caches in this area during the coming months.
James and his squad spent the day humping through the jungle and turned up in the general area where Polack and LG were staying that night.
“Hey, Bloooooods,” he called, dragging out the pronunciation of the second word in a long drawl. In his left hand, James held an ice-cold can of Coke, which sweated profusely in the humid air, moisture running down and dripping onto the ground. He moved in front of LG, held out his right fist waist-high between the two men, and then began a ritual handshake referred to as ‘DAP.’ Their hands moved up and down each other’s arms, touching shoulders, snapping fingers, beating chests, slapping palms, bumping fists, and finally ending in a traditional brotherhood handshake.
When Can I Stop Running? Page 1