by William Gritzbaugh
Our hiking group trudges up the steep trail, rising 3000 feet in three miles from river level to the wildflower-carpeted summit of Dog Mountain in the Columbia Gorge. I’m sweating and breathing hard, but I’ve hiked this mountain before, and still relish making it to the top. The view takes in 20 miles of the Columbia River and the precipitous basalt cliffs hemming in its path between the towering snow-covered Mount Hood, glistening to the south, and Mount Adams on the Washington side of the river.
As usual, my knees remind me of my 76 years, but major discomfort has been forestalled by a siliconecortisone injection a few months back at the Portland VA hospital. On the trail, I’ve reached back a few times for refreshment in the form of water from an Army canteen. There is comfort in the feel and weight of that canteen on my left hip, nestled in a “US” stamped nylon cover and hanging from a cotton web pistol belt issued along with it. Necessity requires that I carry another larger water bottle that has a purification straw filter. But that one is strictly functional, having no sentimental value.
Hiking with a group of similarly aged men and women provides benefits of organization, pooled transportation, safety and social interaction. But military service is rare in the U.S. Population and I seldom meet another veteran on such hikes. Thus, my canteen occasionally draws curious looks and comments. Such folks are bedecked in the latest brand name gear from REI. But my canteen is a talisman that keeps me grounded in the present and connected to the past.
My military service ended at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, January 1971. A civilian lady clerk-typist with flying fingers created my DD-214 record of service and sent me on my way. In a fog of disbelief I returned to my quarters to load my personal belongings. The physical remnants of my service were very few: a dress uniform, my Green Beret, a few well worn sets of fatigues, low quarter shoes, my prized “Corcoran” jump boots, a plaque and painted helmet liner from the cadre of the BCT unit where I’d been assigned as Executive Officer, a dopp kit gift from Anita, a young officer who’d befriended me when I’d arrived bewildered from Vietnam three months prior. Last to go into the cardboard box were a belt cut from a cargo strap that I’d worn daily in Vietnam, and a pistol belt with an attached canteen, canteen cup and nylon cover.
Over the decades, nearly every item has disappeared with the exception of my beret, the dopp kit, the cargo strap belt and the pistol belt with canteen. I have carried that canteen routinely while hiking in the western states where I’ve lived or vacationed. It has hung on my hip to the top of 16 Colorado “14ers” and many peaks of less height, a dozen National Parks, on hundreds of miles of trails and at dozens of campsites. It’s been on road trips, outdoor concerts and beach outings with our California grandchildren. The cover is badly beat up, but is structurally sound. The hard, plastic canteen itself, however, looks like it could have been issued last week.
This particular canteen, Model 1961, was issued to me at Fort Bragg in the summer of 1969. I carried it on six parachute jumps and many miles of field exercises. When I was ordered overseas, I avoided turning it in with my other field gear and left it at my parents’ home on my pre-deployment leave. It has become a treasured old friend, and a regular reminder of a time in my life when uncertainty and risk had been constant and less pleasant companions.
In Vietnam, identical canteens served their purpose on combat patrols and medivac extractions. One particularly pleasant canteen-related memory came on a Monsoon-soaked patrol in the mountains outside my Special Forces camp Ha Thanh. After hours of humping jungle trails in search of the Vietcong, our company of Montagnard and Vietnamese troops chose an overgrown hilltop for its night defensive position. Regular troops slept on the ground around the perimeter, but the SOP for Vietnamese leadership and their American advisors was to string hammocks between stout trees. Should it be raining, a length of nylon line would be stretched between the trees above the hammock witha poncho draped over the line and attached at the corners to create a roof.
Even with the constant drizzle, our canteens were nearly dry after patrolling all day on high jungled ridges. Having finished my roofed hammock shelter, I stacked my pack and Car 15 beneath for protection and easy access should we be attacked. Leaning back in the hammock, I pulled out my two canteens and emptied their less-than pristine contents onto the ground, that water having been drawn from a stream at the bottom of the ridge upon which we were now encamped. As usual, the iodine tablets that should have dissolved to kill critters in the water, came out in the same pill form they’d been when dropped into the canteens hours before. But now, however, I was able to pinch the fabric of the poncho roof creating a channel of fresh, pure rain water that funneled into my canteens. I lay back and sipped and savored that wonderful water. Even dehydrated rations and powdered coffee were much improved by being anointed with my canteen of monsoon moonshine.
Many of the trails I hike near my current home in Oregon are steep and overgrown like those I trekked so long ago in Quang Ngai Province. The soggy, muddy, often root-bound, leafy green pathways generate occasional flashbacks, but my companions aren’t aware nor could they fathom such reaction.
On this day, atop the wildflower-carpeted summit of Dog Mountain, I stop to rest,thank Providence for my wonderful life, take in the view and reach for my canteen. My old friend is there hanging on my web belt and whispers to me, “Hey, take it easy.” With a few snaps of its cover, I feel the familiar shape and heft of sustenance, take a drink and am eased back to the present and away from those other trails and another time.
–
–
–
William Gritzbaugh is a Vietnam veteran (draftee), currently retired, and volunteers with the Red Cross, VA Hospital, and USO. He has several nonfiction works published in As You Were: The Military Review and is the author of a novel, A Long Day to Denver.
–
–
–