WAR AND SILENCE

In 1968 and '69 my home as a U.S. soldier in Vietnam was a lonely mountaintop in the jungle called Landing Zone Bayonet, north of Quang Ngai and southwest of Chu Lai. Our "LZ" was as active and as noisy a place as any in the war with the continual movement of equipment and the high-pitched sounds of helicopters--Hueys and Chinooks--re-supplying the troops in the field with food and ammunition. Huge spider-like Sikorsky Flying Cranes lifted heavy artillery pieces and water tanks, and the tiny mosquito-like Light Observation Helicopters that gave the commanders birds-eye views of firefights were landing and taking off all day long.

When night began to fall a thankful quiescence came over the Landing Zone and peace reigned for a time in the netherworld between light and dark. But under the cover of darkness the enemy snipers would begin their sniping from the rice paddies and the tree line outside the wire ringing the perimeter. It was the duty of those of us on guard to root them out. Our nights began with the test firing of our freshly cleaned M-16's, their working parts greased, firing chambers and barrels brushed and oiled. No matter how dim or bright the moon might be we sprayed bullets across the paddies and into the jungle reminding the enemy, Charlie, of our presence. We displayed our fierceness by firing our machine guns; stealthy and reliable M-60's and the powerful 50-calibers that would send their bullets a mile. All the while the mortar pit popped white phosphorous illumination rounds high into the darkening sky above the LZ. As the flares settled down to earth under their toy-like parachutes they transformed our tiny tabletop ville into an eerie otherworldly place of moving light and shadows.

The bunkers in which we spent our nights were square holes with sandbags protecting three sides above ground and a roof. Three soldiers were assigned to a post; two slept while one stood guard, alternating shifts every few hours until morning--three hours asleep and two on guard. If the man on guard's eyes or ears tricked him into thinking Charlie was hiding in close in the tall rice or in the bush in front of our post he woke the two asleep, and together we pulled the pins on fragmentation grenades aiming them at the sounds. Cupping our ears, we hunkered inside the bunker hoping the explosions didn't backfire and the blasts didn't break our eardrums. But even louder and more deadly were the Claymore mines we set in front of our posts. Whenever they were needed a quick press of a button on a hand-held device unleashed a fearsome blast sending a sea of metal pellets into anything in their path.

If the sounds in the darkness outside the concertina wire still remained, we swept the area again with our M-16's, firing off magazines eighteen rounds at a clip until we were satisfied we'd done the dirty deed. But even then, if we were still ill at ease, we'd call in mortars upon the unseen.

When radio calls came in from further in the field giving the co-ordinates of enemy positions, 150-millimeter howitzers blasted their powerful projectiles, their muzzles lighting up the night. The sound was deafening but far off in the hills where the shells were landing the sounds were even louder. The exploding shells dug an instant crater ten feet across killing anything nearby. When more firepower was needed Apache gun ships were called. Their presence alone, nearly invisible against the black sky, was enough to send shivers up anyone's spine. All that could be seen was an eerie green glow from the instrument panel lighting up the faces of the pilot and his gunner. The Apache's five-barreled mini-guns sputtered a most evil sound, an accelerated crackling noise that sounded something like wildly overheated popcorn.

If F-4 Phantom jets flew over to deliver the final death blow, the supersonic dives that sent them screaming to within a few hundred feet above our heads sent us diving as well onto our stomachs on the bunker's floor. We imagined Charlie, in the Phantom's gun sites, scurrying like a chipmunk into his spider hole. When the Phantom's rockets hit, the powerful explosions sent shock waves through the earth penetrating everyone's skin and rattling his bones--both Charlie's and ours together.

At some point in the night when it was believed Charlie surely must have departed--either scared away or dead--the artillery stopped firing and the Phantoms screamed back to the airbase in Chu Lai. But long after we soldiers on guard had tired of chucking grenades and shooting our weapons, the Phantom's high-pitched sound still screeched through our brains.

The man on guard would often climb up onto the roof of the bunker for a better view across the paddies but often simply to enjoy a seat beneath the canopy of stars. Sometimes still later in the night, lest he forget there was a war going on, he might hear a distant B-52 air strike out on the Ho Chi Minh Trail near Laos. But only heavy muffled thuds from the explosions of the 10,000-pound bombs reached our mountaintop--a deep seated "thump, thump, thump" as if the boots of a giant were pounding along the trail. All that was visible was a faint yellow glow low in the sky to the west. When the high-flying B-52's had passed and once again the ticking of the insects in the jungle returned and the comforting crackle of crickets and maybe the distant cry of an ocelot signaling "all clear"--only then the guard began to feel all might be well. Only the moon and stars remained in the sky, along with the infinite blackness of space in between, and the Blessed Silence made itself known, settling down upon us as if someone had laid a calming blanket over our lonely mountaintop.

After I had my chance to sleep I'd be awakened again sometime in the night by the guard before me, and after rubbing the sleep from my eyes it would be my turn to stare into the dark for the next two hours. My time would begin by listening intently for any movement in the jungle, maybe something the guard had warned me about. But after he'd fallen asleep, I'd slowly become aware of the subtle sounds contained within the quiet.

Guards become skilled at listening in a deeper way than usual and also at penetrating into the empty void around them. I became practiced in trying to see and hear what might or might not, in reality, exist. Performing this task nearly every night, week after week and month after month, taught me how to discern the different qualities of silence. Beneath the level of seemingly no sound at all, an earthly hum would appear. I reasoned that it might be the sound of the planet spinning. Eventually, when listened to for too long, the hum could become loud as a scream. This made me want to go deeper, if only to escape its torturous drone. But either from tiredness or trickery of some sort--I'm not sure which--the hum would slowly fade or suddenly be gone until only stillness returned. I'd remain suspended in that quiet until a noise from the jungle frightened me back to earth.

I knew of The Buddha's teachings by then. I'd read about the silent, deathless place even before I'd been drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam. My hours spent during the lonely nights on guard taught me where to find it. Sometimes it came spontaneously after my mind had worn itself out from processing too many frightful thoughts. When, by grace, the thoughts had stopped and my mind began to settle back into itself, the sky would take on a golden hue more beautiful than anything I'd seen beneath the sun. The night air became so soft and thick you could move your finger through it and leave a trail.

I was sure the glow was there to protect me from any harm, to soothe me and to remind me of my fearlessness. It let me know that bullets could not kill the one I undeniably knew I was. The sky was radiant, as if the little specks of light seen behind closed eyes had gathered and formed a subtle golden veil. I understood this to be the substance of life itself. But I knew this was yet another thing to let go of and go beyond. So I would let go, sinking deeper, until the "I" itself disappeared. It seemed simple: as long as "I" was no longer there, who would remain to experience my pain and suffering? I was willing to cease being me--even to go beyond being "the one who isn't" because I was sure even that wasn't who I was. All I can say is this: after leaving my self behind, I went someplace I could not go.

More than that I cannot explain, because Blessed Silence cannot be described.

Although I would've liked to, I never dared take the chance to close my eyes knowing that, almost certainly, I'd fall asleep. Though I knew that in that place I could not die from one of Charlie's bullets, I owed it to my buddies asleep in the bunker to stay awake. I often delayed, however, waking the next man on guard, giving him an extra hour's sleep so I could remain there a little longer until the precious night finally melted into the sunrise. Once I saw myself asking a question of a teacher that I would have someday. "Did I make this up; this war with all its noise, hatefulness and killing; this place where even Buddhists are Vietcong and you can't tell one from the other?" I heard him tell me this: "The war exists because you are there. And there is no difference between a Buddhist and a Vietcong--all of us are both these things!"

When I returned to "the world" from Vietnam I went to California to study with a teacher who led me to Europe and India in my quest to find the path to nibbana. Although I already knew of the Blessed Silence, I had begun to doubt my experience of it. I could no longer believe I had found it on my own, as if that would be too simple. Also, I thought mine might not be the proper path for climbing to such an exalted place, and surely there must be much more than what I know about it! But, in the end, whatever techniques I was taught became annoyances like mosquitoes on the skin--a different way to follow the breath or a sacred mantra, even imparted in the earnestness that they were, ultimately became directions leading me further from the truth. The more I studied the more I found that words and knowledge never equaled what I'd experienced during those nights on guard. What I realized, after struggling for years, was what I already knew.

But what I learned from my seeking was this: although Blessed Silence is sometimes difficult to detect beneath the noise of the world, especially when the sounds are as loud as in a war, It is never far away. I have found that, for all the commotion, The Silence has no place to go.

View War and Silence as a pdf file.

Posted by Tony at March 5, 2008 11:30 AM