3/22/18 Amazing Story Dad Just Threw At Me?

    My folks were here this past weekend and my dad didn't do much of leaving the house, but he had been sick so I get if he just wanted to rest and take it easy.  Saturday morning when we were sitting around just drinking coffee and reading news and crap online, he started talking about one of his worst nights during his service in Vietnam.  Most of the time I gather things were under control, but this one night a group of black guys who were always joking around were put on patrol at night.  They were supposed to keep an eye at the surrounding environment and alert if they were being attacked or be the first line of defense perched up on the watch towers.  These guys were always high according to my dad, and because of this and their joking about, they seriously dropped the ball.
    Sometime during the middle of the night, a small group of Vietcong came around and since the eyes and ears assigned weren't paying attention, they got on the grounds, and instead of doing any counter fighting the black guys fled, they just took off running.  In all the commotion, the small group of 20 or so Vietcong were able to get in and kill a few Americans who were not armed or were asleep.  My dad said he was standing about 5 or 10 feet from an American guy, he mentioned his name, as in he knew him, but the Vietcong blew him up with some type of ammo you would have shot at a tank with, a double deuce something or other.
    They got a report over the speakers to go hide in the bunkers and eventually they bombed the entire area to clean up the mess.  In the morning, my dad said he was assigned to help pick up the pieces of the guy that was killed in front of him, all he said he could find in the area was fingers.  He said it felt disrespectful somehow to pick up parts from a dead person and put them in a box that was carrying grenades or mortars right before.
    Dad said this messed him up because not only could it have been him, he was already switching gears to getting out of that hell.  He said that day he had 22 more days to go before being done with his service and coming home.  I asked what about the black guys, did they get any shit?  He said they were court martialed and locked up for abandoning their post.
    I understand why he has never really talked about this time in his life, and this one quickie story made me drop my jaw.  These military guys really go through the worst of things, not only watching friends get killed, but then to have to clean them up or pick up their pieces seems like a hell I wouldn't wish on an enemy.