 "Photo: Anthony Souffle")
Editor's note: This is the third article of a four-part series detailing the service of southern Illinois veterans from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the War in Afghanistan.
Through two tours in the height of the Vietnam War, James Scales was never afraid of being killed in the jungle.
What was scary, Scales said, was the thought of dying in a restaurant.
Scales, director of career services at SIUC, served more than 35 years in the Army, going up in the ranks from private to colonel.
His life of combat began in September 1970 when he entered Vietnam five weeks after his college graduation. He said he left Vietnam five years later with a hastily packed away Purple Heart medal, the nickname "Crazy," and a wealth of memories about the horror of what men can do to one another.
Scales said his primary objective throughout the time was surviving. If he was to die, it would happen while he was performing his duty in battle, he said.
This mindset was lost on a colonel who tried to give him a job away from the front lines after several years of duty, he said. When Scales told his superior his reasons for declining the offer, he earned a nickname for life.
"I said, 'I'm comfortable out here in the jungle. I don't want to be blown up in a restaurant trying to have dinner,'" Scales said. "'When that sun goes down, I go into the jungle hunting Charlie. Why? Because Charlie just entered the jungle hunting me.
"'I turn it into a big game. Whoever finds the other one first kills him. That's how simple it is for me.' And he looked at me right there, some of our guys standing around, and said, 'My God, son. You're crazy.'"
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A death away from the battlefield would be too impersonal, he said.
Scales said the mentality was passed on to him by his uncles and late father, who died in the Korean War. He said he was intrigued by the life of an infantryman and relished in the opportunity for foreign travel.
The combat, he said, was simply an "occupational hazard."
For his first 33 days in Vietnam, he said he never met this hazard face to face. He said it was a boring life, mostly filled with tedious chores.
"You cleaned your weapon even though you hadn't used it. You repaired sections of your defense that may have collapsed - sandbags break open, that kind of stuff," he said. "We were trying to figure out, 'What's the hype about Vietnam? This is great. It's like being on a beach except everybody dresses the same way.'"
That all changed on the morning of Oct. 24, 1970, when a call came in that his platoon had to fill a gap in the lines.
As he arrived in a landing zone at 2 a.m., he said he was surprised to see a beet-red sky. He said he found out it was a result of many shells hitting the ground and burning the atmosphere.
Scales said his survival skills set in and he didn't have time to get scared. When he and the other men walked into a group of Viet Cong soldiers who had broken the line, a four-hour firefight ensued.
It was filled with sounds of screaming and smells of smoke and blood. When it was over, he said, he sat on a log, stunned.
He did not know how many men he killed or how many were killed around him. He only knew his rifle and .45 were empty, and his bayonet was missing.
"We grew up that night," Scales said. "We were 22 going on 45. You didn't even know at that time how many of your friends were dead or missing. You just knew that, 'Thank God I'm sitting here.'"
That first battle was just like all of the other battles, he said. He and the others went through the motions, followed their instincts and stopped when someone said the battle was over.
The details of the fight - who won and who lost - were a concern for the higher-ups. It didn't matter to the men on the ground, he said.
The only thing that mattered was that they held their own.
"It became a meat grinder. We'll chew up as many of them as we can. They'll chew up as many of us as they can," he said. "Victory goes in survival, not, 'We've taken the church. We've taken the village. We've taken the hill.'
"That's for the big guys. On the ground, it's, 'I survived. Let's get ready for another battle.'"
That pattern continued until it was time to get a sanctioned rest-and-relaxation trip - where soldiers regained their sanity, or at least what was left of it, he said.
When Scales' trip came, he opted to go to Australia instead of home. He said he worried he would never want to return to Vietnam if he saw his family and the life he was missing.
He also didn't want to return because of the way soldiers from Vietnam were treated back in the United States, he said. He had heard stories of soldiers being spit upon and called "baby killers," and having trouble finding a job because of a stigma of drug use among Vietnam veterans.
He said the biggest misconception among citizens was that the military was to blame for the war.
"That's why guys wound up with two and three tours," he said. "You come back to the states to a place you thought you'd be welcome and they hated you, so you went to Vietnam. That's what I thought: At least I'm of service to people here."
For these reasons, Scales stayed in active duty after his three years of required service were completed. He said he figured the war had to end soon, and he had already gained knowledge about Vietnam that could help his fellow soldiers.
Since he became an officer roughly one year into his time in Vietnam, Scales said he developed a sense of the land, down to the various valleys and creeks. He said he had to know the area as if it were his own, because the enemy was basically fighting in its backyard.
The battlefield and rest areas became a classroom where the men shared knowledge about the Viet Cong's newest weapons and tactics, he said. If a new weapon surprised them, they were vulnerable, Scales said.
Scales said he was caught vulnerable one day when a mortar attack knocked him to the ground and a shell got stuck in the space between his eyes. He thought he was dead because he couldn't hear anything and saw blood running from his head.
He said he realized he wasn't dead when his backside began to hurt as a sergeant dragged him from the scene. After recuperating, Scales said he was awarded a Purple Heart, an award given to soldiers who were wounded or killed in battle.
He said he was presented the award at a rest stop in a ceremony that was formal but wouldn't allow soldiers to get carried away.
"You took the little blue box that it came in and shoved it in your duffle bag. Where in the hell are you going to wear a medal out (there)?" he said. "You didn't want to make a big deal of it because there were any number of your friends that had already died. It's kind of like you were celebrating war."
Scales said he received two more Purple Hearts during a military career that involved assignments in Bosnia, Honduras, Panama, the Persian Gulf and Iraq. He retired as a colonel May 30.
He said his most recent tour in Iraq was strange, mainly because of the bittersweet response he received when coming home. He said he planned to sneak back in the country quietly because he expected the poor treatment by citizens many soldiers received after the Vietnam War.
Instead, many held parades and celebrated his return - a stark contrast to the treatment of Vietnam veterans.
He said citizens need to understand that soldiers in Vietnam were doing their jobs and were not at fault for repercussions or reasons behind the war.
"We weren't the baby killers. We weren't bombing families just for the hell of bombing them. We were there because it was our job," he said. "I'm fighting for that 11 months so we can get the hell out of (there). If it stops communism, fine. But I want to go home."
Sean McGahan can be reached at536-3311 ext. 254 or mcgahan@siu.edu.
