I visited my grampa last week. He’s an ex marine who got drafted into the Vietnam War in 1965 and fought until the end. He also fought in the Korean War. His father had fought in WW2 and his son (my dad) fought in Afghanistan.
I visited him every few months since I turned 6. I’m now 18 and have been thinking about following in my forefathers footsteps and joining the U.S military. My grandfather knows this and asked me to speak to him before I put in my papers to sign up.
He usually tells me the same story about the war. How he met hist best friends there and how he fell in love with and married a nurse who was also in Vietnam.
The story he tells me about the end of the war is kind of cliché. They were the last regiment held up in Saigon when the Vietkong attacked and over powered the last of the U.S forces. He had this look in his eye like he wasn’t saying the full story, he was very skittish, always looking over his shoulder.
Last week when I saw him, he made me leave my phone and apple watch outside of his room. I didn’t question it, as it was probably his paranoia. He told me to lock every door and shut every blind in the house. I went along with it. Then I finally sat it his room and he told me the truth.
“It was never really about the communists. Hell, we couldn’t have cared less about those bastards. It wasn’t them that killed us, the strongest army in the world didn’t lose to a bunch of yellow rice farmers. No it wasn’t them, wasn’t the soviets, wasn’t even human.”
“Grandpa, what do you mean wasn’t even human?” I inquired.
“You see, they told us it was for freedom, and in a way it was but what they really wanted us to fight was what the locals called the quái vật không thể xuyên thủng. I’ll never forget my first encounter with these impenetrable beasts. I was hiding with my squad captain in a village, on a bridge waiting for the Vietkong to make a push. Well something did push, it wasn’t them.
6 massive lions came out of the tree line, there were bigger than a bear but smaller than an elephant. The front limbs of these animals were 2 times longer than the back.
The captain ordered us to open fire and take out each with a clean shot. As soon and the first round of 5.56 hit the skull of the lion the bloodbath ensued. The screaming of my 500 other comrades were so frightful, these men that survived hell, were now cowering at the sight of these lions.”
“What does this have to do with anything Grandad? It’s just a bunch of animals.”
“No. They weren’t just animals. They were monsters from not of this earth. None of them died, me and my captain put hundreds of round of ammo into them but they kept on going. Eventually only me and my captain were left on that bridge.
That’s when the lions stood up… like a human. They broke their way through every door of every house in that village looking for us. When they made their way to the bridge, there were able to reach it, and in one swift move they cut it down. As they feasted on my captain I fell into the river and was swept away.
I was found by a U.S general and escorted to a room where he asked about what I’d seen. I told him about the massacre and about the lions. I was then escorted to a green room where they tortured me in an attempt to make me forget the incident.
It worked and I forgot about the lions until they attacked again, and again. I saw them kill hundreds of thousands of people and after each attack I was escorted to a green room and brainwashed to make me forget. But the scream were still in my head, and unlike every other vet I remembered these demons. And in Saigon I didn’t even pick up my gun, I just waited in a corner listening to everyone get slaughtered until me and everyone else who hid in a corner got picked up by U.S boats and went back home.”
“Grandpa I don’t underwhere, why would they hide this, what were those things?”
“You see grandson I stayed in the military to find out more and I only got so little information.”
It was getting late so I was grabbing my things to go when my grandpa asked me to go to a pharmacy and get his refill for his heartburn meds. I did so and then said goodbye to him and went home.
Today when I came home from my pharmacy for picking up my adhd meds there was a lawyer at my door. This lawyer informed me that 3 days ago my grandfather had died of cardiac arrest, and he had left me something in his will. It was a scrap book he made.
When I opened the scrapbook it was filled with his handwriting and pictures of bombs and planes and writing. The text reads:
“1965- operation rolling thunder, attempt to kill monsters unsuccessful
1945- different monsters spotted in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, attempts to kill were unsuccessful
1954- castle bravo failed to kill monsters still on the loose.”
I feel like the public should know about this which is why I’m posting this here, also to honor my grandpa. R.I.P