I realized the other day, while I was getting Uncle Ray to write down all these stories about my family, life and just plain old silly happenings, I kind of left Mr. Grover Sessuls out. Y’all might remember I told y’all he treats us Hegelunds like family; he don’t have no family of his own, so he has to make do with us.

We think of him just like family too; he comes over every Sunday for dinner after church and always brings the family something. He comes over at Christmas, New Years Eve, or New Years Day, and some other holidays like Veteran’s Day, and the Fourth of July. Yeah, and he whittles a lot and plays ham radio with Uncle Muddy.

This Sunday, after Christmas dinner last week he came by and we all had our meal. He gave us some good Christmas presents this year too. He got Shady a military-style flashlight, with different color lenses. He whittled me a wooden cat, and whittled Jewel a tiny little wooden heart for me to give to her. He also brought ME a six pack of expensive ginger root beer, which is my absolute favorite.

Of course he got Uncle Muddy a six pack or two, and gave Double Mamaw a tin of expensive, imported Turkish snuff. She seemed to like it too. He got Mamaw her favorite cordial cherries, and made her a nice wooden “worry box.” He said, “When you get to worrying, you just write it on a note, and put your note in that box. That way you don’t worry no more about a thing!”

Generally on Sunday, somebody will tell a story, a whopper, or share the latest gossip and happenings in town. Mr. Grover was in a fine mood, and he started talking about the Vietnam War. I will switch you over to Mr. Grover, so I won’t get in the way of his story:

Grover Sessuls: “Folks, did I ever tell y’all any of them stories about when I was in Vietnam for the war?” We nodded yes, but let him know we would like to hear some new ones. “Well I got a new one for you and its kind of funny, so I aim to tell it, if my old brain can still recollect them memories enough.” We nodded in excitement and egged him on.

“I was a cook pretty much the whole time I was in Vietnam. I was a good cook too, so I always got picked for stuff, by the military brass. I was at several locations, but I think this was when I was at Da Nang, may have been Saigon but I ain’t sure. I spent pretty much my whole time on military bases; but a few times before big military operations I was sent out as a field cook. I grew up in the sticks and we were poor, so the idea of sleeping in a tent wasn’t too bad, as long as nobody was a-shootin’ at me”

He went on, “I remember this one particular night there was a little bit of moonlight, and I had just cooked all day long for about 14 hours straight. Now in the field, you don’t get much sleep, since everybody had a few extra duties. Since I was not the head cook, I got assigned to night watch duty, and I was some kind of sleepy. I hadn’t had but three hours sleep a night for a long time, and I was pretty much moving in slow motion. You could have pushed me over with a feather I was so tired.”

“The wildest thing I ever went through over there was that night. Some guys were out on night patrol were just at the edge of our perimeter, walking around and making sure there wasn’t no enemy out there just a-laying for us. Our camp perimeter was right at the edge of the woods, and I was walking my path up and down, on my watch. Just over the perimeter boundary fence, pretty far from the chow hall though, right by my walk path was a graveyard. You could tell it too, there was lots of markers and a crumbling old wood fence around it, and you just knowed it was a burial site.”

Mr. Grover’s voice got lower, “The thing that made it noticeable, is that somebody or a bunch of somebodys – friendlies probably – had just dug fresh graves out there. There was nigh on to six or seven of them fresh graves, and they weren’t more than a day old. Right about the time I noticed that I was near the graveyard and them fresh graves, shots rang out. I perked up, and tried to hear which direction they was coming from. I started hearing more shooting, and it was getting closer, and coming up behind ME!”

“Well, I knowed not to get scared, but the gunfire was going off something fierce. I had my rifle of course, but I wasn’t gonna start shooting until I saw who the varmints was that was shooting. I didn’t stick around to find out neither; I glanced back briefly, then started hunting me somewhere to hide, step behind, anything for cover. Only problem was, is that part of my path was not close to the chow hall, like I said, and it was flat; the only cover was a tiny group of trees about 400 yards behind me on either side of that path, and whoever was doing the shooting was coming up behind me closer. I heard voices, and I got a little uneasy for sure!”

Mr. Grover scooted down in his chair for emphasis, “I looked in front of me, and there was nothing to hide behind there either. The nearest good cover was about 400 yards ahead on the path in the corner turn. I must have walked that little path on watch a hundred times, up and down. The voices behind me got real close and I could hear them foreign people speaking, so I knowed it wasn’t my guys neither.”

“I could kind of see the chow hall, the rows of tents, and the various things like jeeps and artillery, but I could not make it back to the chow hall with them a-running up on me. I had my radio, but I couldn’t risk giving away my position during a firefight. Nobody else was chattering on it either, so that would not work. The only thing I could think to do was run and jump over that perimeter fence, and get in one of them graves. And that is exactly what I done. My heels was hitting me in the back of the head running, and I got over that fence fast!”

Mr. Grover was very animated by this point, “I shined my little flashlight real quick down in that closest grave, and it didn’t have no water in it, and it was about four feet deep I reckon, and I jumped in it, and landed pretty hard. I didn’t break any bones, so that was good. Right after I caught my breath, I could hear them voices clear just a-jabbering, close to right where I was standing on that path earlier. Then one of the men jabbered something loud, and I started hearing gunshots real close! I could feel the concussion from the guns going off and smell the burnt gunpowder. They was right next to the fence, but I was on the other side in a dang grave!”

“I kind of figured they may have saw me briefly, but like I said I didn’t stick around to find out! Now something about them enemies y’all might not know, is that they are very reverent about their dead, and they don’t seem superstitious about graveyards. At least that is what I gathered being over there. So I knew they might come looking for me at some point and find me hunkering down in there, so I played possum the best I could, quiet as I could.”

Mr. Grover quieted down a bit, “Now a lot of those flood towns over there would bury their dead above ground, just like some of them folks do in New Orleans. I wasn’t quite sure who had dug them in the ground graves, but we never got no floods where we were at in that area. It rained a lot, but it wasn’t too bad when I was there. After what seemed to be about ten minutes, the gunfire got less. I looked at my watch and it said 3:00 am, so I decided I would take me a nap.”

“I must have went to sleep fast, because the next thing I knowed was the sun was shining, and my wristwatch said 10:30 am, and I kept hearing people yelling for me, hollering my name over and over. I tried to climb out of that grave, but the sides just kept giving away; before I could try again I heard several voices real close hollering for me, so I hollered back, “I am over here, in the graveyard!”

“One of the men found me of course, and got down to reach me a hand to get out of that grave and helped pull me out. When I got out, I explained to them what had happened, and those men told me they had been hunting for me all morning, and was hoping their favorite cook wasn’t killed! We were all laughing at that point; I went to the showers and got cleaned up and reported to the kitchen for duty. The mess sergeant took one look at me, even though I was fresh and spiffy, and told me to take the day off. I looked pretty tired. So that is what I did, and that is what happened.”

Mr. Grover let out a little sigh, and told us a little more, “One more thing; them guys there never let me live that down neither. They was calling me “Ghost Cook,” “Haint,” “Bloody Bones” and such, and I loved the attention and laughed right along with them. Some of them even said stuff like, “You ain’t supposed to be buried BEFORE you meet your maker!” I would tell them stuff, mock threats, “You boys don’t cut out that “Ghost” nonsense, I will make sure you eat tapioca and rice pudding for the rest of the time you over here!”

“Yeah, its funny now, but it was kind of scary then. Just so you know, if you ever need to hide out somewhere that is peaceful, and nobody will mess with you, find you a graveyard and get right in the middle of it, near the biggest headstone. You will sleep real peaceful, and almost NOBODY will mess with you in a graveyard!”

Cactus Pete: That was a real good story, but I am sure Mr. Grover missed a few details here and there. I was wondering how he didn’t see that group of men when there wasn’t much cover for them to hide behind neither. But I guess he remembers the most of it, so I am glad he told us about it. Uncle Muddy does not talk about his military time at all; I guess he might have a few ghosts too.