by Peter Colt
“I was in military intelligence, I was a colonel, and I had to work with several American officers. You had no stomach to fight the war. You didn’t understand the Vietnamese, the Viet Cong. You would tell us what to do as though we were servants even though it was our country. At least the French brought us some culture.... You brought Coca-Cola.
“You had stupid rules and didn’t want to get your hands dirty. How could you hope to win? Your government wasn’t committed to the war. To winning. Look at how they treated your soldiers. They squandered them.” Tran sounded bitter. I had to agree with him about some of it. I had seen the Saigon Cowboys who only came to the field for the mopping up. Even worse were the high-ranking officers who stopped in-country on a junket so they could collect hazardous duty pay for the month. The only thing worse were the Gung Ho types who didn’t understand how to fight a guerilla war.
I had seen the ARVN intel people torture enough people to know it was a waste of time. Most of the war was a waste. Villages destroyed and people killed to either protect democracy or promote the revolution. It had been a mess of a war.
“Well, Colonel, looks like it’s time. Are you boys going to shoot or leave?” Tran sighed and stood up. He came around the desk, the Llama now tucked into his waistband.
“Trung Si Roark, I don’t imagine I could convince you to walk away from this?”
“You blew up my car, you killed a girl, and you tried to kill me here. What do you think?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“I really liked that car.” They walked out, the colonel, the son, and, last, the Salvation Army man. He smiled at me. His teeth were brown from nicotine and too much of the sweet Vietnamese coffee. He turned back from my anteroom and cocked his hand like a pistol at me, made a noise, and brought his thumb down, like a gun firing. He smiled and laughed and walked away down the hall.
As soon as I was sure they were gone, I put the pin back in the grenade, then found some duct tape, and, just to be sure, taped the spoon down. I put it on my desk and put the .45 back in its holster. I put the grenade back in my pocket and the .38 in my other one. Then I spent the next five minutes shaking and thinking about the effects of fragmentation grenades in small spaces.
Then I called Pan Am to see about flights to San Francisco. They quoted me times and prices. I was not looking forward to folding my sore self into an airline seat for seven hours but there was no way around it.
Chapter 15
The flight from Logan Airport to San Francisco was as good as one could expect. The stewardesses were leggy in their blue dresses, pretty and as impersonal as bank tellers. When the captain came on the PA system, he sounded confident and assured. The food was sealed in plastic and microwaved within an inch of turning it into rubber. The liquor came in small, overpriced bottles. My seat was cramped and uncomfortable. The five-year-old behind me seemed tireless in his efforts to kick the back of my seat. His mother was determined to allow him the latitude to continue to “express himself.” In short, it was everything that one could expect from a flight in the jet era.
My head still hurt. Takeoff and the cabin pressure didn’t help. My ears still had a slight ringing in them from the car blowing up. I kept wondering what would have happened to Thuy if the car hadn’t blown up. I didn’t love her but I wouldn’t have minded getting to know her better. It was hard to think of her as an enemy agent, but it was also hard to think of her like any other girl.
When I told Watts what my plan was, she told me that I was nuts and that she thought I had a concussion. She agreed to take Sir Leominster in while I was away. No sense in him getting blown up, too. He wasn’t as experienced with hand grenades as I was. Junior behind me decided that his foot was tired from his self-expression. I built up a small collection of tiny, empty whiskey bottles. I wanted to sleep but my head hurt too much.
The first time I flew to San Francisco, it had been on the way to Vietnam. That flight hadn’t been too cheerful. Tony, Chris, and I had been pals during Special Forces training. We each had different job skills and graduated the Q Course at different times. All three of us wanted to go to Vietnam and agreed to look out for each other. Tony graduated first and was in-country first. I followed a couple of months later. I was hoping that he hadn’t forgotten us.
When I landed at Tan Son Nhat Airport in Saigon, someone called my name, and it was an overweight master sergeant. I didn’t know they could fit an REMF (Rear Echelon Motherfucker), a Leg (nonairborne), and a lifer all in one person, but his ample belly helped me understand how they pulled it off. He told me I was on the next plane to Da Nang and if I hustled I could make the next C-130. I ignored what looked like a barbecue sauce stain near his neatly starched and pressed pocket and moved out smartly.
The flight to Da Nang wasn’t long, which was good. The C-130 was fitted with canvas jump seats. The crew chief was not easygoing enough to let us stretch out and sleep on the floor; the good ones do. The wheels of the plane touched down, and we taxied to the terminal. The engines stopped turning, and the ramp went down. A wave of hot, moist air enveloped us. Already rumpled fatigues, the starch long abused out of them, seemed to wilt even more.
Before anyone could move, a booming voice with a thick New York accent commanded, “Hold it, troops. We have a way of doing things here at Da Nang, and that is the Army way. Due to a priority request, all Special Forces personnel will stand up and debark first. Then officers, NCOs, and enlisted men. Now, SF soldiers, hustle up—don’t want to make the officers and men wait.”
I stood up, as did a few other guys. I took my duffel bag and walked off the plane. Tony was standing there, his big pearly white grin sheltered by a magnificent mustache that was nowhere near being within the regulation. He pointed out a jeep to the other guys and wrapped me in a bear hug. He was wearing faded Tiger Stripe fatigues, mirrored aviators, and his beret. He looked like the poster child for Special Forces. His voice was deep and gravelly. “Red, it is good to see you. Come get in the jeep before the Air Force gets here and fucks everything up.”
I didn’t wait to be told twice. I got in, and he drove us to another part of the airfield and let the other guys out by the terminal. He gave the quick instructions but had put a calloused hand on my arm. After the other guys split, Tony lit a Chesterfield and offered me one. While I was lighting it, he asked, “Red, did you have any idea what you want to do here in-country?”
“Dunno, figured get on a team or try to go to Mike force.... I just want to be in the shit. You know?” I was young enough to think that it would mean something, getting shot at. That I might make a difference. I was eager to get to it.
“Have you heard of the Studies and Observation Group, SOG?”
“No, it sounds like a desk job. I’m not interested in that shit.”
“Red, it isn’t what it sounds like. If you really want to be in the shit, do the dangerous shit, you want to be in SOG. I talked to the Sergeant Major. He knows you’re coming and will give you a shot, because he thinks I’m not a fuckup. I gotta know right now, because you have orders to go to Saigon to work at MACV headquarters. I had a guy I know at the terminal make sure you got on this plane.”
“What the fuck?”
“Someone heard that you’re smart and that you can type.”
“Fuck that. Where do I sign up?”
“Relax. Just sit back and let your old eye-talian Uncle Tony drive you while you take in the sights of scenic South Vietnam, pearl of the Orient.”
“Thanks, man. For a spaghetti bender and a Yankees fan, you’re all right.”
“Well, we gotta take pity on you simple folk from Boston who actually think that the Red Sox might win a World Series someday.”
He handed me a Swedish K-gun, a regular one without a silencer. I checked the bolt and casually laid it across my knees, facing out. It was comforting to have the compact weapon on my lap, thirty-six rounds of 9mm ammunition on tap if I needed it. Tony slung a shortened version of the M-16, known as a CAR-15, over
his neck so it rested on his lap and he could fire it one handed.
We took off as he double clutched the jeep. I had a million questions, but Tony’s driving didn’t allow for much conversation. Even if I could have talked, I was taken by the scenery. It was lush and green, rolling hills and mountains that reached high into the clouds. There were rice paddies and rivers, and the land by the road was so green I wondered if this was what Ireland looked like. There were roads that were paved, and others were ribbons of red clay cut in the greenery. There were peasants working the paddies, water buffalos, motor scooters, and women in conical hats and ao dais. The deep South had been exotic compared to South Boston.... Vietnam was like another planet.
On the other hand, it smelled bad, and the heat was like driving through a really humid blast furnace. Fort Bragg had been hot and humid, but that was nothing compared to Vietnam. In basic training, then at Fort Bragg, people noticed that when it got really hot my face turned red. That was how I got the nickname.
It took an hour to get to the camp. We barely slowed as the Vietnamese gate guard raised the barrier, and we were inside the first set of wire driving up a hill. It might have had grass once, but it was long gone. Fields of fire had been cleared, sandbags had been filled, and fighting positions, mortar pits, and bunkers had all been built. They had all taken their toll on the greenery.
There was an elaborate system of trenches and watchtowers that allowed the guards to see the terrain. Everything was surrounded by a triple strand of concertina wire, razor sharp and six feet high. Cans with pebbles were strung throughout the wire as an early warning system. Claymore mines were everywhere, and there were machine gun positions in the towers and bunkers.
As we approached an inner wire wall, I could make out the shape of a Quad-50 that could cover the road in or be swiveled to cover the hillside. The tips of metal fifty-five-gallon drums stuck out here and there facing away from the camp, toward the wire. Foo Gas, homemade napalm in sealed barrel. The front of the barrel was wrapped in detonation cord, and there was an explosive charge in the bottom or back of the drum. When fired, the det cord went off a split second before the main charge, blasting the can open. The rear charge then went off almost simultaneously, igniting the napalm and launching it out of the can. It was like a giant single-shot flamethrower designed to stop or slow a human wave attack. It was always impressive to see the new and elaborate ways man came up with to destroy his fellow man.
We pulled up to another gate, and a small brown man with an M1 carbine slung upside down saluted Tony, and they exchanged pleasantries in a dialect I had never heard. That was the first Montagnard I had ever seen. Tony drove into the compound within a compound and brought me over to a long, low building that served as the command post and living quarters for the CO and sergeant major. It had a tin roof, and the walls were reinforced with sandbags. The building was half buried in the ground, and we had to step down into the cool interior. Everything seemed just slightly damp and mildewy. There was an ever-present droning noise that I found out was the sound of the ten-kilowatt generators.
The camp had two, and one was always running twenty-four hours a day. The generators would run a day then rest a day, alternating the burden of providing what was essentially a small barbed-wire-enclosed town’s electrical needs. Inside the building, the generator noise was matched by the constant hum of radios, their static broken only by transmissions. We made our way past crude desks, map boards, and banks of radios to a plywood door. Tony knocked and waited.
“Come in!” We went in and both stood at parade rest in front of a desk. The black man behind the desk had a massive shaven bald head, thick neck, and truly impressive shoulders, arms, and hands. He wore a shiny Magnum revolver in a shoulder holster under his left arm. “This the new guy?”
“Yes, Sergeant Major, this is Sergeant Andy Roark. We call him Red.” The Sergeant Major stood up and towered over both of us. He stuck out a hand that made mine look like a small child’s in his. He crushed all of the bones in my right while saying, “I am Sergeant Major Billy Justice. Welcome to SOG, you are gonna get the chance to do Recon work. I hope it works out. I think a lot of Tony and hope his confidence in you isn’t misplaced. I like him enough to ignore the fact that he is trying to put Yankees on all my teams.
“We will get you trained up and figure out what team to send you to when the time comes. You have to earn your way out here. If you can’t cut it, we will find you work: Mike Force or an A-team. Recon work is scary, dangerous shit. It isn’t for everyone and not everyone can do it. If you look like Recon work is for you we will find you a spot. That will be up to the One-Zero. If he wants to take a shot on you, then he will. If no one wants you . . . well, I heard a rumor you know how to type. I could always use a cracker house mouse, even one from Bahstin.” Billy Justice laughed, and I tried like hell not to be angry. Sergeant Major smiled at me. He had a gold tooth in place of one of his front teeth, and his smile was not comforting or warm.
“Thank you, Sergeant Major. I appreciate the chance.” I wanted to tell him I would try my best, that in a few short minutes I knew that I wanted to be in this unit, on a team, or I would die trying.
“Good, good, I hope you do. Tony, get him squared away in one of the team hooches. Get him gear and a weapon and generally squared away.”
Tony took me to another low building like the Tactical Operations Center (TOC), also known as The Head Shed. This one was broken up into a series of small rooms separated by plywood partitions, each with two bunks with mosquito nets and crude wooden shelves made of plywood for clothes and gear. There were two wall lockers that had been old when this had been a French war in the early 1950’s. I threw my duffel bag on a bunk.
“This was RT Rhino’s, but they got beat up pretty bad. For now, you can bunk here until they rebuild the team or assign you to a different one.”
“Thanks. What happened to them?”
“Bad luck, bad tactics, who knows? Out here, one is just as fatal as the other. You will see that. Out here, you can do everything right and still get greased. They landed and were compromised shortly after the choppers split. They tried to di di mau out of there but got lit up pretty bad. Most of the Yards were KIA, a couple of Americans, too. The team leader didn’t make it.”
We walked to another low building where supplies and ammo were kept. He helped me draw my web gear, rucksack, and other equipment. It was nice having Tony there, because he helped me take only what I would need. I drew an M-16—twenty magazines each could hold twenty rounds—and a Colt Government Model 45. Tony handed me a bunch of grenades and a pen flare. I noticed that everyone, everywhere was always armed. They had, at a minimum, a holstered pistol. He gave me ammunition and a black windbreaker.
“Right now, take these. You never leave our compound without long gun. Always have a pistol on you. If Charlie attacks, you want more in your hand than your winning personality. Later, we will get you fitted out with whatever weapons and special gear you need for the field. Get used to being armed. Get used to cleaning your weapons religiously. Practice rucking.... You aren’t used to the heat and humidity yet. Then in a couple of months when Chris gets in-country, you can square him away. We will send you to the next Recon school in a couple of weeks.” He was referring to the SOG Recon school we all went to before being turned loose in the field.
It didn’t seem possible that I would ever not be green, and it seemed impossible that I would be experienced, confident like Tony. Except two months later, I was sitting in a repainted jeep stolen from the air force waiting for Chris at the terminal in Da Nang. I had survived a couple of missions and convinced everyone that I was not a complete fuckup.
* * *
I woke up when the plane started to make its decent into San Francisco. I had fallen asleep, lost in the memories of my war long gone by. The airport there is bordered by buildings, mountains, and lots of red tape. The locals really don’t like the jet noises. It was like some sort of ride that let people e
xperience what it is like to land in a combat zone. The plane came in fast on a steep angle, and then flared, and the wheels kissed the runway. The only thing worse than landing there was taking off.
The last time I had flown into San Francisco, it was three years ago. A client felt the need to impress upon me how wealthy she was and how much she wanted my service. She flew me out to convince me to take a job that ultimately had almost taken my life. It had cost me my friendship with Danny Sullivan, my oldest friend.
I liked San Francisco, despite the chilly welcome I received there after Vietnam. I never held the spit and the insults against the city. Hell, some of the fights might have been fun if I hadn’t been too drunk to remember them.
I came up the jetway, made my way past the hard, plastic chairs in their legions in the gate area. I went past the check-in area, my canvas mailbag bouncing against my hip. I had packed a couple of days’ worth of clothes, a shaving kit, and an Inspector Maigret novel. I hadn’t read on the plane because of the headache. Now the bad version of “I’m Always Drunk in San Francisco” that was being piped in through speakers hurt my head almost as bad as the explosion.
I walked out into the main terminal. There were people everywhere: businesspeople, families, nouveau hippies, bikers, and a battered private eye who needed a drink. A tall biker-looking guy in jeans, a dark shirt, and a leather vest peeled himself off of the column he had been leaning against with one black biker-booted foot. He had a beard, mustache, and mess of shaggy blond hair. An earring glinted in his right ear. He headed toward me like he was getting paid for it.
“Hey, weirdo, where the fuck you think you are going?” His accent had been Southern once. He was big, broad through the shoulders and thick in the chest. His hands were big and scarred, and just by looking at him you knew that fighting was part of his life.
“Dunno, where is your sister selling her ass?”
“Probably the same place your momma is.” He stepped forward and wrapped me in a bear hug that crushed the breath from my lungs. It would have made my ribs and head ache if I weren’t already bruised . . . except I was.