by Peter Colt
“I know what you mean. Boston is the same way. Between the yuppies and the college kids, the whole face of the town is changing.” I didn’t even bother to mention the traffic or the near impossibility of finding a parking spot.
The ship’s chandlery was in a small building wedged in between two old industrial buildings. They were made of brick and smelled of saltwater and dried fish. Inside, we were in a place wholly dedicated to things nautical. It was filled with different samples of rope, brass fittings, polishes, preservatives, and paint. They had radios and electronics, depth sounders, radar, Loran receivers, and lots of things that I couldn’t afford, to go with the yacht I didn’t have. They had racks of foul weather gear, rubber boots, and wool fisherman’s sweaters. If I needed a knife with a marlinspike or a flare pistol, this was the place to get it. Lastly, in one corner were several oak barrels with rolled charts stuffed into them.
We picked through them and found the one of the San Francisco Bay and Suisun Bay. They also had regular U.S. Geological Survey maps of the area, and we grabbed 1:50,000 map sections we needed. I spent more on an excellent pair of rubberized Steiner binoculars than I would have if it were my money. I added two portable marine radios. They were like walkie-talkies but made for use on the ocean. We weren’t exactly sure why we would need them, but our time in Special Forces left us with a pathological need to call for more guns or ride home.
Next, we went to an army/navy surplus store, where I spent some money on a blue wool commando sweater, the kind with the patches on the elbows, shoulders, and left side of the chest. I added green fatigue pants in my size, a West German Army undershirt, a black knit watch cap, and a U.S. wool long sleeve undershirt to the growing pile of gear. I found a pair of dark blue Converse Chuck Taylor high tops, the cheapest jungle boot and dive shoe in use the world over. I added a used KA-BAR sheath knife, Marine Corps issue, one of the best all-around knives made. To all of this, I added a camouflage poncho, an army issue lensatic compass, two canteens, and a couple of the new army issue MREs in their brown plastic bags.
Chris threw in a camo stick, army camouflage face paint in an aluminum tube, and an angle head three-color flashlight. Some kid at the Presidio probably sold them to make some extra cash to get him through to payday. Sometimes it can be a long ride until the eagle shits, and a weekend pass can make payday seem awfully far away.
I was looking for a camera. I wasn’t looking to spend any more than I had to. Chris suggested a pawnshop. We had gone to several down in the Tenderloin district. We stepped around the addicts and prostitutes and made our way past the seedy tattoo parlors, check-cashing outfits, bail bondsmen, dealers, pimps, and downtrodden. The people they don’t make television shows about had to end up somewhere. In San Francisco, it was the Tenderloin. They were people like you, like me, like Chris, but they were just living harder and dying faster. Life was hard, and it was harder for these people. Some had made bad choices: crime, drug addiction, etc. Others had it thrust upon them by poverty, victimization, bad luck, or just were born into bad situations. Some of them were there as the end result of a lifetime’s series of bad decisions. It didn’t matter; they were in the same place at the same time struggling to survive.
After pounding the pavement for a while, we found what I was looking for. It was a Nikon, a waterproof 35mm. It came with a telephoto lens that was more like a telescope and a soft case. It was worth a few hundred dollars to get a camera set up valued at almost a thousand. The pawnshop owner threw in a few rolls of film. It was afternoon by this point, and we decided to go back to Chris’s for beer and a map Recon of the Suisun Bay.
When we got back with our purchases, I cleared Chris’s table, and we rolled out our maps. The chart was a stark pen and ink: black lines, plus signs, and numbers denoting depth. The USGS map was more familiar territory for me. It was a topographical map similar to what we had used for years in the army. The colors were old familiar friends: green for vegetation, black for man-made structures, buildings, roads, and railways. Red was for contour intervals, weird wavy lines that showed you elevation but also provided clues as to how steep hills were or where you might be able to hide or make a hasty path. Blue was for water, rivers, ponds, and oceans. A love child of green and blue usually meant a swamp or wetland. I loved maps. My time in the army had taught me to appreciate them as excellent tools, but there was more to it than that. Tracing my finger along contour lines, streams, and rivers, I had a sense of the earth beyond what I could see with my own eyes. That was a rare thing. The colors on the maps had meaning, revealed secrets and ultimately had meant the difference between life and death.
I placed cups, saltshakers, and glasses down to hold down the maps and chart. Chris brought us two excellent Anchor Steam beers. We stood shoulder to shoulder leaning over the maps and the chart. It felt like mission-planning sessions when I was in Vietnam. All we needed were the aerial Reconnaissance photos. But this wasn’t Vietnam. We weren’t at war, and it wasn’t god-awfully hot and humid.
Suisun Bay started its life as the mighty Pacific Ocean, whose vastness poured violently into the San Francisco Bay, which flowed almost forty miles inland to the east. It hugged Alcatraz Island in its cold, choppy embrace and turned south to give Oakland some waterfront. Farther south, it was caught in a basin by San Jose. In the opposite direction, it flowed by San Quentin, keeping the tenants cold in the yard during the winter and offering the barest hint of sea air in the cells in summer. The Pacific Ocean flowed under the I-580 and into San Pablo Bay, moving inland, moving east, invading inland to meet a series of river deltas. It spread north toward Vallejo, but that was just a tease. The bulk of it headed east inland toward Benicia and the Suisun Bay.
The bay was home to sturgeon fishing and the site of the catastrophic Port Chicago explosion during World War II. Port Chicago was on the southern part of the bay. The navy had an ammunition-handling facility where they loaded shells for the war in the Pacific onto cargo ships. One day, due to bad luck, poor policies, or, worse, leadership, there was an explosion that leveled Port Chicago. Scores were killed, and the damage was unimaginable. Most of the dead sailors were black men loading the ships. It was one thing to be killed fighting for your country but another to be killed by a lack of caring.
To the immediate north across the brackish, brown water stirred by the near constant winds were Roe Island, Ryer Island, a whole bunch of marshlands, and Grizzly Bay, and farther north, Travis Air Force Base. Sandwiched between Grizzly Bay and Honker Bay were the marshes. The map showed black lines crisscrossing through them and leading to the water.
To the west was Suisun Bay and the Mothball Fleet. The fleet was anchored off some marshy area, slough for all of the industries, tank farms, refineries, and the Goodyear factory to empty into. Even though it was only thirty miles from San Francisco, the area was a mix of remote nature and industrial splendor. The ships, a collection of Liberty ships, Freedom ships, tankers, and other assorted vessels, were a couple hundred in number and were moored parallel to the northwestern shore, on the Goodyear side of things. It looked isolated and any traffic by land or water would be regular and not tourists. The security forces, the maintenance workers, and Coast Guard ships on patrol were vying for space in the channel with tankers, freighters, and fishing boats.
We started with the fleet and worked outward. We looked at waterways, terrain features, islands, roads and highways. We traced the routes back to San Francisco. We figured straight line distances and map distances, calculated different routes and the time it would take. We talked about what I wanted to do and the best way to do it. We worked the problem inside out and back again, developing a plan of action. It would be a two-phase Reconnaissance. First, find a place to lay up and watch the fleet, then figure out their security measures. Second, get out onto the ship and see if there was any gold on it. The ship was monitored around the clock, and it was U.S. government property, so if I got caught, I was dealing with the Feds, not cops.
The plan was
to get on board under the cover of darkness, poke around, then slip back out. I didn’t know what we could do if there was gold on board. Gold bars are heavy and there would be no inconspicuous way to move them. It didn’t seem feasible, but I was putting the cart before the horse. I had never planned a gold heist before.
We decided that we needed dinner and that Chris didn’t want to cook. Chris suggested pizza, and the thought of cheese and sauce seemed undeniably good. Chris said there was a place around the corner, and we stepped outside. The warm, windy March day had turned into a raw, chilly evening. As we walked the few blocks to the restaurant, he told me funny stories from Angola and Rhodesia. Some involved drunkenness while spending time on leave or the difficulties of working in an environment where several different languages were spoken by the soldiers. He told me stories about the monkeys and the mischief they would get into. The monkeys in Rhodesia and Angola weren’t much different from those in Vietnam when it came to getting up to no good.
The pizza place was nothing special on the outside, a couple of windows with neon bar signs, but you couldn’t really see very far into the restaurant. Inside was an eclectic collection of chairs and tables with red checked oilcloth on them. They had the standard shakers of red pepper flakes, Parmesan cheese, and granulated garlic in the center. The walls were decorated with a mix of posters advertising Fellini films and old rock concerts. The lights were dim, and the floors were made of roughly finished planks. Chris told me to let him order and went up to the counter. No two chairs or tables were the same. They were all refugees from furniture stores, thrift stores, and estate sales.
He came back with a pitcher of beer and two glasses. He sat down, and I poured us a couple of beers. Chris drank deeply from his and wiped the foam out of his beard with the back of his hand. The beer was cold and good, but it wasn’t Anchor Steam.
“Red, how come you didn’t stay in the army? I figured you for a lifer, Green Beret all the way. It seemed like you were born to do it, being a One-One, then One-Zero, and then riding Covey.” A One-Zero was the Recon team’s team leader. He wasn’t always the highest-ranking man, but he was always the best man for the job, which meant an experienced Recon man who had been a One-One and One-Two. He had to be selected by the CO and the sergeant major. Which meant that the sergeant major told the CO whom he wanted as a One-Zero and the CO signed the orders. It was a real honor. A One-One was the assistant team leader. He usually watched the back trail, was responsible for covering up the team’s tracks and ensuring they didn’t get caught by surprise from the rear. A One-Two was the team radioman, humping the heavy PRC-25 radio and making sure that the team could call for help or a ride home.
Covey was the Covey Rider, which was a whole different beast from Recon. Covey was an experienced Recon man riding in an Air Force Forward Air Controller’s (FAC) plane. Covey was the link on the radio. Covey checked in on you morning and night. Covey was the one you called when shit went south, went bad. Covey coordinated planes and Cobra gunships and, if you were in range, artillery. Covey could, in an emergency, bring every available aircraft in Vietnam to your aid. Covey was the calm voice on the radio telling you that you were going to make it. Telling you where he needed you to maneuver to get pulled out on a chopper. Covey was the cat who saved your team’s ass.
When Sergeant Major Billy Justice felt that I was too fried, too far gone to run Recon anymore, he sent me to be a Covey Rider. He saved my life, and I repaid him by helping save other lives on the ground. It wasn’t that riding Covey wasn’t dangerous. Guys got shot down or crashed. The NVA and Cong loved to shoot at anything in the air. Covey Riders and their pilots did insane shit, like flying through weather Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer wouldn’t dream of flying in. Riding Covey was just a different type of danger. Which was funny about Vietnam—it offered a wide variety of ways to get dead.
Everyone started out as a One-Two. Not everyone was good enough or even wanted to be a One-Zero. It was an awesome responsibility. One-Zeros were wholly responsible for the teams. They decided what training was undertaken. They planned the missions and then led them. They were responsible for the safety of the men and the mission’s success. They made decisions that were usually left to company commanders and field grade officers, captains and majors. Not sergeants.
Small teams were hard because everyone knew everyone intimately. We lived, trained, and fought together. We ate together, drank together, and became very, very close. Inevitably, everyone’s luck would run out. For most people that meant being killed, captured, or at best wounded. For a One-Zero, that meant you lost men who were your responsibility, but they were also your brothers. My great curse was that I survived. My men were dead; I had failed them and had had the temerity to live.
It wasn’t just the Americans either. We got to know our Montagnards and trusted them with our lives. They were like our little brothers. Some teams used Vietnamese soldiers, or in some rare cases, Chinese mercenaries. I could never trust the Vietnamese we worked with. There were too many stories about their being infiltrated by the VC. We trusted the Yards because they hated the communists, and they hated the Vietnamese. They were so discriminated against by the Vietnamese that they loathed them whether they were from the North or the South. They were loyal to us because we treated them like people. We ate with them, provided medical care to their families, and genuinely appreciated them. They were tough, loyal, and outstanding in the field.
“Shit, man, I don’t know. I loved the army. Loved SF and loved the war. But it was changing. It turned into a meat grinder. We lost so many Recon men. I lost my One-One, my One-Two, and half of my Yards.... I lived. Toward the end, we were shorthanded, and Saigon kept demanding that we take more and more risks. I started contemplating taking missions that I shouldn’t and risks that were insane. It just seemed like we were throwing away our most talented soldiers. I didn’t think the war would end.... I figured I could always go back, then I couldn’t.” It had been a while since I had thought about my fortune.
I could talk to Chris about it—he knew. I couldn’t talk to anyone else about it. Commanders should not live, and their men die. Our job, after the mission, is to safeguard our men . . . except that war, combat, is fundamentally unsafe. There is an element of randomness to it. You can do everything right and still get dead. I felt like a parent who had outlived his children. I felt hollowed out, carved from the inside, with nothing left but emptiness and raw hurt.
I felt Chris’s hand on my shoulder, a big hunk of granite, composed of moving parts that squeezed my shoulder. I would have winced, but I was too busy noticing the tears that seemed to be fleeing from the tyranny of my eyes. Like a rain squall, it passed quickly. I wasn’t in Vietnam but in a funky pizza place in San Francisco.
The pizza arrived, giving me a moment to collect myself. It was the size of a manhole cover. Living above Marconi’s, I found that my experience with pizza was that they came in two sizes, small and large, not manhole cover. At home, the crust was thick, the sauce was red, and usually they came with pepperoni, maybe sausage. The only vegetables I remember seeing on them were black olives or mushrooms, maybe onions or peppers, but nothing exotic. I had never seen anyone order anchovies and knew that Marconi kept a couple of cans on hand in case of small fish-based emergencies.
The pizza that lay before me was like nothing I had ever seen. It was, as I said, the size of a manhole cover. The crust was some sort of whole wheat and rolled very, very thin. Instead of red sauce, it was covered with green pesto sauce. The pepperoni was nowhere to be seen, but instead, thin slices of tomato were laid in the green sauce. There were big globs of melted white cheese that tasted like nothing I had ever had before. It was fresh mozzarella. Then sprinkled in was some sort of cooked, salty ham. Chris told me it was prosciutto, and I was in love. It was nothing short of amazing.
When I recovered my senses, I asked Chris, “What about you? You were good at it. You would be a sergeant major right now?” He put down the slice he was
working on and picked up his glass of beer. I was impressed that he didn’t accidentally crush it in his giant mitt.
“Red, I loved it. I hated losing guys, but I loved the war. I loved the army. I was a good Southern boy. . . . I was from a county that was so Southern Baptist, so Holy Roller that the county was dry, and anything other than being married with kids was suspect. The army was eye opening. I met people from different backgrounds—weird Irish dudes from Boston or New Yorkers like Tony. It was enlightening seeing the world . . . going on R&R in exotic places, the camaraderie.... It was all the things I missed in life. In the end, I knew I had to leave. I couldn’t stay and take Uncle Sugar’s pay.”
“Why not, man?”
“Red . . . I don’t know how to tell you this . . . I’m gay.” Chris was looking down at his beer. It was clear to me that he didn’t know how I was going to take it. It was a huge thing to tell another guy from our world. Ours was a world where men would fight over someone questioning their word, challenging their integrity. Men didn’t lie to each other because trust was a fundamental necessity. Not everyone lived by that code, and there were guys who were subpar . . . but not us. Also, in the sixties, in the army, we were not super enlightened. Homosexuality was taboo.
“Huh.” I didn’t know what to say.
“Yeah . . . you still want to sleep on my couch?”
“Jesus, Chris, what does your being gay have to do with us being friends? After all the shit we have been through. We became brothers, by choice, by being in that shitty war, years ago.” He looked up and smiled, and for a moment I could see the dopey kid with the crew cut that I had met almost fifteen years ago.
“Red, you know . . .”
“Hey, man, you are one of the toughest guys I know. You were always there for me; you saved my ass. You were there for any one of us. We are friends. What does it matter who you love?” Chris had been a fearless medic. He risked himself, literally, countless times to save guys, treating them under fire or volunteering to ride into hot LZs on extraction choppers.