One day an eight man patrol attacked a Vietcong encampment containing at least a thousand enemy and drove them out of the camp in into a barrage of airstrikes. None of us were hurt. We were all fantastically brave that day, but no one got any medals. On a subsequent day, a six man patrol containing several of the same people—myself included—spotted a huge enemy force crossing the river below us. Some of us wanted to be practical—back off and tell the larger units behind us what we had seen. Others, like myself, were keen to hit them and face the consequences that we might be over-run. We had a cliff-face behind us and so were very badly placed if they counter-attacked. We were over-ruled and retreated, and so we copped the brand of cowards, despite our early exploits. They knew that I had argued against it, so the brand did not extend to me. But after that, I was often asked what it felt like to be operating with a bunch of gutless wonders.

Sometimes it's a mistake to read the book first. They Came to Cordura by Glendon Swarthout was a fair medium effort but really it was a waste of a great idea. They made it into the film the concept deserved, with Gary Cooper playing the officer who leads a bunch of acknowledged heroes through a difficult journey in which they reveal their true colours, which is anything but brave. Until the end the weak bastards kill the officer because they discover that he was the only real hero amongst them. But in the movie, they just couldn’t bring themselves to knock Cooper off. He died at the end of Beau Geste and For Whom the Bells Tolls—maybe this would have been one too many.
    Now this issue of courage and cowardice ought to have mattered to us fighting soldiers. And it did, but not in the way the movies talked about it. Certainly, we all wanted to do something very brave, perhaps win a medal. Rescuing a mate from danger was the big fantasy. But it was just that—a fantasy. I rescued mates a couple of times for which they were thankful, but I didn’t feel like a hero and no one offered any medals. And the fantasy was undamaged by the real experience and continued unabated.
    Cowardice was a bigger concern. What worried all of us most was that we would fail to respond bravely at some point and get someone else killed. This was our deepest concern. Some men were branded cowards. It was the worst of condemnations, and oddly, courage shown by them at other times did not remove the coward brand. You could be both, simultaneously, but once branded, no redemption is possible. The coward who makes good heroically in the end is another of the great lies in fiction..