His name was Toby and he was black and grew up somewhere in Louisiana. He was my friend. Friendship came quick and fast then, even though it was 1968 and a bad year for America and race relations, with riots and cities burning, and protesters marching, and police brutality at an epidemic against young blacks like Toby. He was 20. I was 21. We were far away from all that social turmoil, 12,000 miles, to be exact.

We were in Vietnam and had other concerns, like coming home alive and being with our families. We knew about all the bad stuff back home and it was something we didn’t talk about much, partly because there wasn’t much idle time and we couldn’t do anything about it anyway and we needed to get along with each other. Since the Tet Offensive started at the end of January, we were working all night, sundown to sunrise, with rarely a day-off. It so happened that Toby and I both got the same day-off and we did about the only thing there was to do, which was hang-out at the NCO Club and drink some beer, but not too much. You did not want to be drunk if the ‘s --- hit the fan’ and your wits and weapons were needed.

At the NCO Club that night, we were sitting around a crowded table with fellow GI’s, drinking good American beer. We did not care for the Vietnamese "33" beer, which GI’s called, "Bom-dee-Bom," a slang soundalike of the Viet language for the number. We were listening to some cute Philippine women do an impression of The Supremes. After a few beers, they began to sound good.

One of our constant preoccupations was thinking, ‘what will I do if we get attacked now?’ You had to have a plan. Always. You had to know where you would go, what you would do. You didn’t want to start thinking about shelter or bunkers while rockets were falling. You wanted to be on your way there beforehand. Invariably, somebody would ask the question out loud and, invariably, everybody would cuss him for being such a wussy, though, of course, they were thinking the same thing. Toby and I had eyed a bunker on the way over to the Club and could make quick tracks to get in it, if the need arose.

Toby was half-kidding when he said, "I don’t know about you guys, but I’m gonna get in a bunker with Mike because he says those funny Catholic prayers and ain’t nothing happened to him." Everybody laughed. Somebody said, "Yet!" The conversation moved on as The Supremes transformed into Aretha Franklin with back-up singers. They were really getting hot. ‘R-E-S-P-E-C-T’ was about as far as they got when the sirens went off. Somebody shouted, "Incoming!" and all hell broke loose.

We made it to the bunker, which was recently-built and sturdy with 3-foot thick sandbag walls, as the first whooshing sounds of a Russian-made, 122mm rocket roared overhead, slamming into the compound a hundred yards distant, and the noise of other blasts came rolling-in, like the sound of nearby lightning. The sirens continued to wail. Rockets were random terror. They were unpredictable and devastating. They were wild and not very accurate, making them very terrorizing, though militarily ineffective weapons.

Mortars were different. They were deadly and this night we heard for the first time the sound of Chinese-made 109mm mortars. They were whumping on a straight line, coming right at us, falling every few seconds, shaking the ground like a giant’s fist being punched into the earth. They were walking across the base, taking 20-25 yard strides, stretching our way.

We lay on our sides, back to back. We did this for the unexpressed purpose of shielding each other. There were few others in our bunker because of the suddenness of the attack and a suffocating hush filled it. Toby whispered, "Mike, would you say one of those prayers….so I can hear it?" He knew I was praying. He added, "If anything happens to me, will you tell my Momma and Daddy that I was proud to serve America and wasn’t afraid?" I promised him I would. The whump-whumps stayed on their line and were fast-closing on us.

"…Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now….."

We heard blasts of a building being blown apart, maybe 50 yards away, on the same line the mortars paced. We both involuntarily shuddered.

"…now, and at the hour of our death. Amen."

Then that sickening sound of a falling mortar, close, maybe 25 yards. The blast shook our bunker and sandbags ripped apart. Dust was in the air and a vacuum pulled at us as the shock went over us, followed by the sound of metal fragments whizzing and slicing the air, tearing into nearby hooches. The next mortar fell past us, and it fell with deadly effect, inside a bunker crammed full of young American boys. All were killed. 14.

We didn’t say anything to each other after that. We didn’t know what to say. We did our duty and kept doing it until we left Vietnam. Toby went home before I did. I don’t know what happened to him. I’ll always remember that he was willing to risk his life for me, knowing that I’d do the same for him. There was a bond there. It went deeper than can be explained. It went beyond race and the riots at home, and all the hatred and anger. We walked through the valley of death and God was with us.

Some nights when I’m out walking my dogs, I think of Toby and remember the way we were then. Though I would not wish the Vietnam experience on any person, I sometimes wish all of us had to lay in a bunker like that, back-to-back, joined in prayer, knowing that your life might be sacrificed for your friend, and that his life would be given for you. It might not make us better persons, but it would make us know that our common humanity reaches far deeper than skin-color, social class, or anything else. Brotherhood, that’s what it was and what we all need.