10/10/04
Victor Charlie, Hero Of The Anti-Tobacco Movement

I remember only a fragment. I was watching something on TV at night with Dad. They showed a strange waterfall in the jungle--it just looked like little isolated streamlets of water cascading out of this big lumpy wall of green. I looked at it in curiosity. I knew--perhaps because of a narrator?--that this was in Vietnam, and I turned to Dad as if for confirmation. Dad, who fought in Vietnam, nodded.

"That's what they look like," he said, referring to Vietnam's waterfalls. I looked back at it in interest.

We got involved in a discussion about the Vietnam War. I don't recall all the details, but at some point I think the images grew darker, indicating night, and I was asking Dad about his experiences over there. Maybe I asked about the water and the humidity in the jungle and about spiders and such. When the picture got darker I asked, "How did you guys see your way around over there in the jungle, after nightfall? Wouldn't you trip over and run into things and get shot at and stuff...?" The mere thought of him and all the other soldiers wandering around in the dark, in such a hostile environment, was enough to make me shiver.

I think I either started to ask for clarification, or Dad started to explain; I assumed they might not move around at night, or else they'd use really powerful flashlights. O_o It's like Dad was talking but I was either talking at the same time or not paying much attention. It got confusing. Finally I think I just asked him again--"How did you see your way around there at night without running into anything? Didn't you ever get attacked?" I then saw an image of a cigarette or a few cigarettes lighting up in the dark--it was just a black background, with the little orange flaring tips of lit cigarettes showing up.

Dad spoke up clearly now, saying, "If you so much as lit up a cigarette, the VC would spot you and blow you to pieces!"--indicating how truly dangerous it was to be spotted, even in the dark, in the jungles of Vietnam. I asked him to tell me more but after a bit he seemed to grow distracted and I did not learn much more about his war experiences.

No real-life associations I can think of, except to say that Dad does not smoke (Ma does), and that I have made a point of NOT asking my dad about his Vietnam experiences, and I fully intend to keep it that way.



2004 Dreams
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