by Dennis Foley
I’m not trying to avoid people, just conversations about Vietnam. The people who seem to have the most to say about it are talking out of their hats. It makes me so angry that they pretend to be so concerned about our presence in Vietnam and what our national policy is or should be. Crap, most of them are just worried that they’ll get sucked into it. I could take it if they would just say that outright. But no, they have to run on with crap that pisses me off.
He liked it that she spoke her mind,
From here it’s all so confusing. But there doesn’t seem to be a complete picture anywhere that you can use to form an opinion. I hope you don’t get upset with me for questioning this. It’s just getting to me—because it’s personal for me.
Hollister thought about telling her how confusing it was for him in Vietnam when he wrote back.
Enough about that. It’s not what you need to hear about either. Are you okay? Do you miss me? I am crawling the walls without you! Have you heard anything about meeting on R&R? Is it really possible? It would be so great. I don’t even care where it is. I just want so much to be with you.
He made a mental note to check on his R&R again.
If you can find someone with a camera, would you send me a photo or two? I’m wearing out the ones I have just looking at them.
Okay, honey, I want to get some sleep and get this in the mail the first thing in the morning. I love you.
Good night, my darling.
Susan
Even though it was midday for him, he whispered “Good night” and carefully refolded Susan’s letter.
As he slipped it into his pocket to read again later, his fingers brushed the photograph of Ly. He pulled it out and leaned it up against the canvas case on his field telephone. Her darling would never come home. Hollister felt a twinge of guilt. He wanted to apologize to the woman. He felt himself getting depressed by the photo, by missing Susan, by Lucas.
The sound of an engine snapped Hollister out of it. He looked through the screen. Just outside, a gaudy Vietnamese jeep with two passengers pulled up and stopped. Supplied by the Americans, it was painted with a darker gloss enamel version of an olive-drab. The facing around the instrument panel had been chromed, and the canvas seats had been replaced with more comfortable ones, covered with red fabric.
Captain Michaelson stepped out of the Operations tent, approached the jeep from the far side and greeted the two visitors.
In the front seat sat a fat Vietnamese Army colonel, his Vietnamese rank insignia pinned on the placard of his shirt between his pockets. He carried a walking stick, wore brown riding boots and a black baseball cap with a Vietnamese parachute badge pinned to it. Under the fatigue shirt and around his neck he wore a violet silk scarf. Finally, he wore the most unmilitary-looking wraparound mirrored sunglasses.
Hollister immediately disliked the fat colonel.
An unusually tall American Army colonel jumped from the backseat of the jeep and landed in front of Captain Michaelson.
“Captain, have you met Colonel Le Van Minh, the province chief? I’m John Baird, his new senior advisor.” They saluted and shook hands all around.
Michaelson looked directly at the American colonel. “I think Colonel Minh and I met some months ago at an Operations briefing on an ARVN sweep, but didn’t get to talk. And I’m pleased to meet you, Colonel,” he said to the American. “Is there something I can help you two with?”
“Actually, I’m new in my job and Colonel Minh has been taking me to visit all of the district headquarters in his province. We went by Brigade Headquarters to visit your general. While we were there, we heard a lot about this long range patrol business you folks got down here. I’m not familiar with it and neither is Colonel Minh. So, we thought we’d drop by to find out just what it’s all about. You suppose, Captain, that you could take a few minutes and brief us?”
Captain Michaelson agreed to take the two to Operations for a briefing, but Hollister knew Michaelson well enough to tell that he was just going through the motions, being courteous to the two colonels.
Lighting a cigarette, Hollister watched them cross the compound. He was bothered by how he’d instantly formed a dislike for the pair. He passed it off to his mood. He had a bad attitude toward all advisors. He wasn’t sure if he was jealous of their rear-area attitude, their bungalows, refrigerators, cold beer, television and movies every night—or if it was because they siphoned off so much of the supplies that were destined for the troops. He had seen all the goodies in his few visits to their advisory team houses.
“You shit!” Theodore said, throwing an empty beer can at Vinson. “You can’t sit there and tell us that shit.”
“I can. I have a special sense. I know when we are going to find a VC. I can smell ’em and I can feel ’em moving in the bush,” Vinson said, placing his fingers to his temples.
Davis, Camacho, and the Doc hooted and whistled at Vinson’s claims.
Two-three’s hooch was similar to Hollister’s, but was larger. It was made from an adapted GP Medium, was encircled by a parapet of sandbags, and was erected on a hard stand remaining from a long-demolished civilian structure. No one knew what the old concrete floor had been used for, but it always smelled of fish. Around the margin of the slab, bits of ceramic tile hinted that it had been built during the French occupation of Vietnam. Now it was their home, and they had turned it into a little piece of America. Still, everyone called Team 2-3’s hooch the Fish House.
The Fish House’s comfortable rectangular interior held six cots, wall lockers, footlockers, and two folding field tables. The cots and lockers were crowded together at one end of the hooch to allow for a lounging area. There they had a card table made out of a large wooden cable spool, and a fragile-looking Vietnamese wrought-iron and plastic-weave couch.
A large ammo box lined with two issue ponchos and filled with dirty ice from the village served as the beer cooler.
The team members were passing around a quart of Jim Beam. Each man took a drink, washed it down with some beer, then passed the bottle to the next man.
There was an awkward lull in the laughing and fun-poking. Norris walked to the screened window and looked across the company street at 1-1’s empty hooch. The team was in Operations getting debriefed. “How do you s’pose Lieutenant Lucas is doing?”
“I hear he ain’t gonna make it. They say he took a head shot,” Camacho said without looking up from the Jim Beam bottle. He peeled away at the label with his thumbnail. “I heard that they didn’t even know what hit them.”
“He’s not dead yet,” Hollister said as he entered the Fish House.
“’Tench-hut!” Davis yelled.
The others scrambled up but were stopped when Hollister said, “As you were. I didn’t come over here to break up your party.”
They all fell back to their lounging postures. Doc Norris asked, “You saw him this afternoon, sir. Did they say anything about his chances?”
“No. They were too busy trying to keep him alive.”
“You want a beer, Lieutenant?” Davis asked.
“Sure. Fire one my way.”
Davis pulled a rusty can of Ballantine beer from the cold, murky water and threw it in a high arc to Hollister.
Ready, Hollister caught it in one hand while sidestepping the water that flew along with the can. He reached over to the nearby tent pole, grabbed the end of a boot string tied to a church key, and pierced the can top.
The beer was not great, but it was wet and cold. Hollister sipped it, cautious to avoid rice husks left from the ice and the rust that had formed on the rim of the can. As he did, he watched the team playfully spool down from the excitement of the previous night. It was their calm between storms. They had been back from the ambush patrol just long enough to slow down, but not long enough to start worrying about the next patrol. Patrols were relieved of housekeeping and guard duties for the twenty-four hours after they returned—even if they weren’t as successful as 2-3 had been.
Ev
entually they found themselves back on the duty rosters pulling details, taking training, training the new guys, or out in the company street doing PT, still terribly hung over. But this time they were going to Nha Trang.
Happy they were all alive and home, Hollister raised the beer to his lips again. It was bitter. The troops thought that the beer was exposed to extremely high temperatures in the holds of cargo ships while in transit to Vietnam, and that accounted for the less-than-fresh-brewed taste. Hollister couldn’t do much about the taste, so he just ignored it and drank.
Wearing fatigue trousers, an olive-drab T-shirt, and shower shoes, Theodore stepped over to a small mirror nailed to his crude wooden wall locker. He looked at himself vainly. “You going to Nha Trang with us, sir?”
Hollister wiped the beer from his lips and reached in his pocket for a cigarette. “I’d like to. But the time off was given to you all, not me. I’ll have to check with the Old Man.”
“Hell, sir, the captain can get along without you for a couple of days. I’m guessin’ that the biggest part of the war will still be here when we get back.”
“It isn’t that, Theodore. You have to understand the politics of being the junior officer in a detachment with only two captains and three, ah … two lieutenants,” Hollister said.
Davis jumped in to distract him. “Well, we can send Ho Chi Minh a message and tell him that he’ll have to hold up the fucking war while we go to Nha Trang and get our ashes hauled with some of his slant-eyed beauties.”
The hooch erupted in catcalls and whistles. “Come on, Lieutenant. Tell the Old Man it ain’t good to send us to Nha Trang without no officer. How we gonna get over? We’ll be in the shit with the leg MP’s the minute we get there without you to take the point,” Theodore added.
“Theodore, I have every confidence that you can confuse the system with very little effort.”
“He could fuckin’ derail a concrete train,” Vinson added.
Theodore quickly killed his beer and hurled his empty can at Vinson.
“Incoming!” Vinson yelled as he rolled off his cot, dodging the can.
Hollister liked being included in the grab ass. Too many officers were so stiff that they couldn’t relax, and the troops wouldn’t invite them to. He had always been comfortable with troops, and they with him. He had decided that he could take less credit for personality than being an NCO before he was commissioned. That piece of his background rarely escaped the troops.
The question about Nha Trang was actually a veiled invitation to join the team while they had as much fun as they could pack into their passes. For Hollister to avoid the invitation would work once or maybe twice. But after that, he knew it would sour the feelings that they had for him. They would think that he felt he was too good for them or that he disapproved of their off-duty conduct. “The first sergeant working on the passes?” Hollister asked.
“I already talked to him. He’s gonna have ’em typed up for us tonight. We can skate in the morning if we want,” Davis said.
“You wanna leave then?”
“I’d think that we got the best chance of scrounging transportation if we get an early start. I already called over to the slick company to see if they got any aircraft going in for maintenance. They said that they would—”
The crude screen door opened and a newly assigned PFC stepped in. “’Scuse me, y’all. I’m lookin’ for Lieutenant Hollister.”
“You found him. What is it?” Hollister said.
“Oh, yessir,” the round-faced boy said, his eyes adjusting to the dim light in the hooch. “The first sergeant sent me to get you. Seems the Ol’ Man—I mean the Detachment Commander—wants to see you right away, sir.”
“Okay. I’ll be right there.”
The PFC just stood there, not knowing if he would be dismissed or if he should just go on his own.
“Well? Anything else?” Hollister asked.
“Ah … no. No sir.”
“Okay, then. You can go,” Hollister said flatly.
The PFC self-consciously backed to the doorway and exited without turning his back.
Theodore burst out laughing. “Jeezus Christ! I hope that fucking cherry doesn’t end up on any patrol with me.”
Sergeant Camacho took a long sip of the Jim Beam, then some beer, and wiped his mouth with his tattooed forearm. “Why? He’s a better soldier now than you’re ever gonna be, Theodore.”
Hoots and jeers followed Camacho’s comment. Someone threw an empty beer can at Theodore. Hollister spoke up over the racket. “Sergeant Davis, you make the arrangements. Let me know what you decide. And try to leave part of Nha Trang standing for the REMFs.”
Davis stood up and assumed something near a position of attention, although his left hand held a beer. “Sir, you can count on me. I will take care of everything. I consider it my responsibility to take these youngsters under my wing and show them around the big city.”
“I’m not sure if that’s supposed to make me feel any better,” Hollister said.
Detachment Headquarters was the back half of an old school-house. It was a relic of the French era that had been abandoned some years earlier when the small stream nearby had undercut one end of the school’s foundation. Army Engineers had provided support for the foundation by placing old railroad ties in the space that once was earth. It was the only real building in the LRP compound, and the best thing about it was that it also served as the mess hall. The two functions were divided by a crumbling plaster wall, and Hollister could count on there being something to eat or a cup of hot coffee there.
Captain Michaelson’s office was a small corner room with windows that were simply square holes in the masonry. He looked up when Hollister entered. “Jim, we got some shit in the wind. Brigade wants you to go to Nha Trang and meet with the CID spooks.”
“Me? We screw something up?”
“It’s got something to do with the gooks your patrol greased. But I’ve never in all my time in the army ever heard of a corps headquarters wanting to talk to a platoon leader.”
“You think it has something to do with the captured American weapons, sir?”
“Could be. CID might have found out they were stolen, but why they would want to talk to you is beyond me. There’s a chopper laid on to pick you up at 0515 tomorrow.”
“Yessir. Will that be all?”
“Yes, about that. But I want you to inventory Lucas’s gear for shipment.”
“Oh, no. Did he die? Did you get word?”
“No, not yet. I just left him a half hour ago. He didn’t look any better to me.” Michaelson looked at his watch and gauged the time. “They should be evac’ing him right now. So, let’s get his gear together to get it headed for the States.”
“I’ll take care of it right away, sir.”
In the outer office Easy was hunched over some paperwork on his desk.
“You think you can arrange for someone to pick up Lieutenant Lucas’s gear from my hooch in the morning, Top?”
The first sergeant looked up with a pained expression. “I don’t want to, but I’ll do it.” He took a sip from a coffee mug with a first sergeant’s chevron decal on one side and master parachutist wings on the other. “He was a good man. His platoon’s going to miss him.”
Hollister knew that in spite of all of his bluster, Easy was going to miss Lucas too. They had become close friends, but Easy just didn’t know how to show his loss. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Anyway, I’ll get it inventoried and his stuff will be ready before I leave for Nha Trang in the morning.”
“Airborne, Lieutenant.”
Hollister passed by a team hooch belonging to the first platoon. He could hear Johnny Cash singing “Ring of Fire” on a scratchy portable record player inside. He hadn’t liked country music much as a teenager, but while he was an NCO in Germany, one of his senior sergeants used to drag him to the NCO Club to have someone to drink with. Every night a different country-western band played at the club, and it was always packed. Hol
lister soon learned to like country music, but rarely had a chance to listen to it much since he had started OCS. Candidates thought it wasn’t sophisticated enough for their self-image. Lucas had loved teasing Hollister about his shit-kickin’ music.
It was still dark when the field phone rang in Hollister’s hooch. He stumbled out of his rack and pressed the cold receiver to his face. “Hollister, sir.”
“Good morning, sir,” Specialist Bernard said. “You asked me to call. It’s 0400 and the start of another wonderful day in the Republic of Vietnam.”
“Right … Thanks, Bernard.” Hollister dropped the receiver in the carrier and tried to focus. He found his trousers in the dark and slipped them on. His clothes were cold, wet, and clammy from the high humidity and the night dew.
Buckling his belt, he stepped through the door, opening it with a shoulder.
The smell of mess hall coffee mixed with the ever-present odor of field cook stoves. The portable stoves were all metal, so they were routinely oiled after cleaning. And each time they were fired up, the burning oil overpowered the aromas of breakfast.
“At ease!” yelled Sergeant Kendrick, a large, thirty-year-old career mess sergeant.
“Carry on,” Hollister responded.
“I got some hot coffee over here,” Kendrick said.
“Good. I need something to get my blood moving this morning.”
The sergeant grabbed a coffee mug off the stacks of them near the coffee urn and poured a cup for Hollister. “You want something in it, sir?”
Hollister took the steaming cup from Kendrick and shook his head. He smiled at the handiwork on Kendrick’s paper cook’s cap, which had a ballpoint pen copy of the LRP scroll drawn with the words AIRBORNE MESS SERGEANT in the middle.
Kendrick was one of those men destined to be a cook. He was slightly overweight, gregarious, possessive, and his manhood was not threatened by the job. He took pride in his work, even though it was sometimes awful.
The coffee burned Hollister’s lips, but it was coffee.
“You want some breakfast, sir?”