by Dennis Foley
“You were knocked on your ass by an RPG,” Michaelson said. “You have a concussion and lots of bruises. Lemme tell you, I’ve seen people hit by trucks not get knocked as hard or as far as you were!”
“Musta landed on my head! But how ’bout the others?”
“Theodore is in another ward. They have a bunch of tubes in the kid. He took a couple of rounds in his chest and hip. He’s hanging in there for now. The others on Camacho’s team—well, Briskin was killed, Vinson and Gerhart were wounded and are going home. They’re gonna be okay. Wyman was slightly wounded and returned to light duty.”
“And Easy?” Hollister asked.
“They evac’d him to Japan last night.”
“That it?”
“He lost his leg, Jim. He’s gonna live, but they just couldn’t do anything with his leg. I saw him before they wheeled him out. He said for me to tell you that you’ll have to get your own scotch from now on.”
Hollister let the casualties sink in for a few seconds as he opened his eyes. Tears welled up as he spoke—almost inaudibly. “You know, this sucks. It really sucks.”
Michaelson reached over, grasped Hollister’s arm and gave it a firm squeeze. “I know, Jim. I know how you feel.”
Hollister just stared up in the direction of the ridge pole holding up the tent. He was motionless and speechless for the longest time as he thought of Easy and Theodore and the others. He then painfully turned his head and looked at Michaelson. “What do we do now?”
“You remember that day in the swamps? The lightning?”
“Yessir.”
“We do the same thing. We drive on, Ranger,” Michaelson said.
Hollister dropped his eyes, not eager to hear that. “Yessir. Guess there’s nothing else we can do.”
The next day, Michaelson came back to see Hollister.
“Am I glad to see you, boss!” Hollister said with more energy than before. “I’m on somebody’s shit list here. I’ve been trying to find out where they’re keeping Theodore, and all they keep telling me is that I shouldn’t get out of bed and he can’t have visitors right now.”
“Well—” Michaelson started to reply.
“Shit, I’m not a visitor. I’m his platoon leader. He’s my RTO, for Chrissakes!”
Michaelson took his floppy hat off, put his hands on his hips and looked down at the floor. “Jim—Theodore died last night.”
Hollister felt like someone had hit him in the chest with a shovel. Not Theodore, too. He mustered up the strength, then threw the covers back. Pushing his feet over the side of the bed, he clenched his teeth and made a muffled sound as he overcame the pain. “I gotta get out of here!”
“No! There’s not a thing you can do. Now, lay your ass back down and give it time. You’ve got a head injury and God knows what else,” Michaelson said, reaching out as much to stop Hollister as to catch him.
“I have to get up. I got to go strangle some artillery fuck!”
“Now hold on!”
“If I’d been able to adjust fire on those gook positions, there might have been no one to shoot our asses up on the PZ!”
“It wasn’t Brigade arty’s fault. They couldn’t get clearance from the ARVNs. They were complaining that you were too close to friendly villages to clear the fire mission.”
Hollister’s face went red with anger. “ARVNs? It was that goddamn Colonel Minh! Wasn’t it?” He tried to straighten up to stand on the floor, and had to reach out for the bed frame as his knees buckled.
“Whoa! Just a minute! You will stay in that rack! Now, lay down and quit running your mouth,” Michaelson said forcefully. “You let me handle this. It’s my job. Your job is to get better and get back to duty as soon as you can.”
Drained by the effort, Hollister slumped back onto the bed and dropped his head—despondent over the developments. “Yessir,” he said weakly.
Michaelson squeezed Hollister’s shoulder. “I need you, Jim. We’re in a world of hurt back at the detachment. We’ve got to look forward and get it back together or we won’t have a detachment.
“I can’t do it alone. I’ve got to have you back. But I don’t want you for duty pissed and hurt. Get well, get over it, and get back in the saddle.”
By the end of the third day in the hospital, Hollister was getting anxious. He wanted out of bed and out of the hospital. Still, he knew that it was a chance to rest, collect his thoughts, go over what had happened and think about what he had to do.
He dozed fitfully and drifted in and out of sleep. He had muddled dreams that seemed real but couldn’t be. He awoke from one of them around nine at night and found Sergeant Davis sitting in a chair next to his bed.
“How ya doin’, sir?”
Still foggy, Hollister reached out to touch Davis, making sure that he was real. He then sat up and reached for the cup of water next to his bed. His pajama top was wet with sweat from the neck to the hem. “Been better. You?”
“I’m overworked, underpaid, and unloved. The Old Man moved Marrietta to Easy’s job, and I’m doubling as Ops NCO till we can get some more bodies in.”
“Good. That’s good. You need the experience. It’ll help get you some E-7 stripes.”
Davis laughed. “C’mon, Lieutenant. I’m a boonie rat, not headquarters material.”
Thinking of the flap over the artillery, Hollister replied, “But that’s what we need—more boonie rats in more headquarters slots.” The bitterness was unmistakable in his tone.
“You got that shit right.”
Watching the expression on Davis’s face, Hollister realized that he was just bumming both of them out and tried to change the mood. He lowered his voice and leaned toward Davis. “How can we get me out of this place?”
Davis looked around to make sure no one was listening. “You want, we can bust you out of here tomorrow. Give me a chance to get back to the platoon and get some firepower.”
They both laughed at Davis’s suggestion that they blast Hollister out.
In spite of the fact that it hurt his chest to laugh, Hollister loved to see Davis laugh. He did it so rarely that Hollister knew it was genuine when he did.
Holding his ribs with one arm, Hollister shuffled to the latrine outside the ward, just barely managing to keep the poorly designed paper hospital slippers on his feet.
The latrine was a semipermanent structure; the toilets were holes cut into plywood boxes, and the sink was a sheet-metal trough with garden spigots—cold only. The portable army showers were made of a pole topped with heads pointing down in four directions. The sinks and showers were fed by a large hose that snaked into the latrine from a water truck outside.
The one item of sophistication in the latrine was the row of metal mirrors mounted over the sink trough. They were very scratched and reflected the viewer as more like a fun-house image than reality.
Scuffing to one, Hollister leaned over the sink to the mirror and ran his hand over the stubble on his face. At first he thought he saw streaks of camouflage paint, but as he got closer to the mirror he could tell that his face had multiple lacerations that must have happened when the RPG upended him. He examined them for a moment and decided that they would probably heal without much scarring.
While he shaved, two other patients entered the latrine and took showers. Both reacted with a start at the shock of the first spray of cold water.
He had to laugh at himself. The cold shower, the dull razor blade, and the distorted mirror were all symbols of a level of luxury that he had often craved while sitting in his own filth on the floor of the Vietnamese rain forest.
“While I reorganize the detachment, I have to accomplish several things,” Michaelson said to the assembled LRPs. “I’ve got to find more replacements while freeing up enough of you to do a good job training them and still continuing operations.
“The fact that we racked up some VC bodies and a few weapons on that fucked-up snatch mission will not compensate for the losses we took. It means that many of you wi
ll double up on duties, and I’m expecting a lot out of you. I just want you to know that I have confidence in you and I want you to put your efforts into getting us back to fighting shape and not on licking wounds.”
There were approving comments from the crowd. The only intelligible one was the repeated use of the word “Airborne” as a sign of support for Michaelson’s goals.
Sitting in the back of the room, Hollister was amazed at the stamina of the detachment and the faith they had in themselves and in Captain Michaelson. He shared their feeling for Michaelson, but was still a little shaky about his own capabilities. The soreness in his chest was still with him, and it reminded him of his vulnerability.
Susan’s letter was filled with excited anticipation. They were under sixty days. And she was counting every one of them until she could be with him again. Her enthusiasm made it easy for Hollister to write a reply.
As he did, he found himself getting used to the idea of going home and starting a real life with Susan. It had seemed so far off before. They had been dating for three years, but he was never in one place long enough for them to set any real goals.
He finished his letter and raised the envelope to lick it. As he did, he spotted the picture of Phuc’s wife, Ly, still tacked over his desk. There was something different about looking at Ly’s photo—different than before.
He had spent months chasing an enemy that was so effective and so unpredictable, only to realize that he could only recognize one face as that of a Communist—Ly’s. A twinge of frustration went through his body as he remembered the glimpse of Theodore and Easy in the chopper when they were extracted. Men who wouldn’t be going home would still be laying in wait for Easy’s, Theodore’s, and his own replacements. He clenched his fist and reminded himself that he could do something about that—more than Michaelson expected of him.
“Got a minute?” Michaelson’s voice interrupted Hollister’s thoughts as he stepped into the hooch.
Hollister stood. “Yessir. C’mon in.”
Michaelson spun the chair around and put his foot up on it. He pulled out a cigar and unwrapped it.
“What’s that?” Michaelson asked.
“A photo we took off a VC sometime back,” Hollister answered.
Leaning over to take a long look at it, Michaelson lit his cigar and spoke. “They’re funny people. They may not have a pot to piss in, but they can find the money to have their picture taken. If they closed all the photo shops in Vietnam, the economy would go under.”
“I look at her picture when I get really fuckin’ pissed. It helps me remember that they’re people. I really don’t want to think of them as animals. ’Cause I’m afraid of what I’d do if I—”
“Jim, you’ve had a pretty tough year. I’ve been here a little longer than you and I understand what you’re thinking and how you’re feeling. My recommendation is that you do more work and less thinking. It’ll help the days go by, and you’ll see the results of good, hard training. You know I’m right, don’t you?”
“Yessir, but I was in that rack at the hospital thinking about Easy and Theodore and the others. I feel kinda funny about packing up soon and just getting on a 707.”
“Don’t do it. You think too hard about the guys that we lost, and the next thing I know you’ll be bustin’ into my office wanting to extend your tour over here.”
Hollister looked up, surprised, as if Michaelson was reading his mind.
“No. Disapproved! You’re going home. What you’re feeling is the wrong way to extend—it’s called revenge. No one wants to work with someone who has it out for the gooks. And I don’t want anyone in this outfit with that kind of shark in their gut.”
Michaelson had to relight his cigar. He took a few short puffs to get it going and changed his tone. “The reason I came over here is to talk to you about this thing with Province and Colonel Minh. I’ve done some pretty loud yelling up at Brigade and I feel bad weather coming. It could solve itself, but my guess is that a shit storm is brewing. I want you to just lay low and stay out of it. Whatever can be done—I’ll do. You got that?”
A flush of anger gripped Hollister and he started to protest.
Michaelson raised his palm to stop him. “You just get on with the business of reorganizing and retraining your teams. We don’t need to discuss this with anyone else. I’ll make sure we don’t have to rely on zip artillery clearance in the future, and we’ll let Brigade follow up on my bitching. Otherwise, it stays with us. Wouldn’t do the troops any good to know that they can’t trust the ARVNs. I know they’ve got wind of all this, but let’s not feed it.” He stood, not waiting for any more discussion.
Hollister stood, moving slowly.
“You feeling better?”
“Yessir.”
“Good—take the rest of the day off, and I’ll see you at PT in the morning.” With that, Michaelson kicked the door open and stepped out of the hooch.
The training went on for two weeks, with only light missions outside the wire. They were used as shakedown patrols. Hollister’s hours were longer than ever before and his mood was darker. Everyone around him missed his sense of humor, but no one gave him low marks in training.
He tested and retested each man in the platoon in immediate actions drills, marksmanship, patrolling, movement, and a list of other techniques that made the difference between a failed patrol and a successful one.
After the last class in terrain navigation ended, Hollister stood on the perimeter berm, drinking a beer and looking out into the night. Tracers were silently arcing across the sky. It was hard for him to tell who was doing the shooting. From the direction, it could have been the ARVN outpost along Highway 1, the Regional Force compound, or some maneuver unit that was temporarily in the area.
He wasn’t sure if he was even interested in knowing the answer. He only knew that he had never felt the way he was feeling. His energy was down, he was sullen, and he had an angry mass inside him that kept a slow fire burning in his belly. He wasn’t happy with who he was. He didn’t like being short-fused and testy all the time. On top of all that, he knew he couldn’t tell anyone how he felt. It would certainly be taken as a sign of weakness.
It was still important to him how people felt about him as a leader. He had no idea if he would stay in the army or not. But he did know that he didn’t want to get a reputation for being a weak sister or a complainer. He would tough it out. It was how things were done. He needed another beer.
“Lieutenant?”
Hollister turned around and found Sergeant Camacho standing behind the berm.
“The Old Man told me to tell you he has a warning order to issue in an hour. He wants you in Operations.”
“Thanks, Sergeant Camacho. I’ll be there.”
Camacho began to turn, and then remembered something. “Oh, I forgot.” He reached into his trouser side pocket and pulled out an envelope. “There was some late mail that just came in. There’s one for you.”
The announcement shot a small guilt pang through Hollister. He knew he was way behind in his letter writing again. He reached out for the envelope.
“It’s from Easy, sir.”
The return address was Camp Drake in Japan. Drake was one of the army hospitals that served as way stations for the wounded on their way back to the States. From the postmark, it had taken over a week for it to get to An Hoa.
Easy wrote the letter with a blunt handwriting style that was a perfect match for his personality. In it he complained about the rear echelon types who were running the hospital and the skating they were doing. He had little use for soldiers who punched a clock and spent the evenings and weekends on the Ginza while there were Airborne soldiers in Vietnam picking leeches off their testicles and eating canned lima beans.
He told Hollister that he was scheduled to leave Japan the next day for Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver.
Another pang of guilt shot through Hollister as he realized that he didn’t even know where Easy’s hometown was. H
e wondered if Fitzsimmons was the nearest hospital to his home or if he was being sent there because they had some medical specialty that Easy needed. He hoped that Easy was from Denver.
Easy spent the rest of the letter asking how everyone was back at An Hoa and who was doing what. His mood sounded positive and optimistic. It was better than Hollister’s. It made Hollister feel guilty about his own sullenness after what Easy had been through.
Easy included the Denver address for Hollister and hinted that he could use some mail from some real soldiers after being surrounded by hospital pukes and other patients who were complaining with hemorrhoids and hernias.
What was missing from his letter was any personal complaints—real ones. He said nothing about the loss of his leg or about any prognosis. He was most concerned with the men in the detachment, and made a strong point of asking Hollister to look out for Captain Michaelson.
Easy had risked his life to save Theodore and Hollister, and it cost him a leg. Yet nowhere in the letter was there any mention of his pain or his sacrifice.
Hollister folded the letter to keep it.
In the Operations tent, Hollister found some paper and started a reply with the time he had before meeting with Michaelson. It was effortless. He could talk to Easy about what he was feeling and what was going on in the detachment. He didn’t have to protect him from anything. He was happy to have the opportunity.
CHAPTER 28
THE SUN BEAT DOWN on the group assembled outside the large tent that had been erected for the investigation. There were soldiers and officers from Brigade Artillery, LRPs, and even some of the pilots.
The small cluster from the Artillery Fire Direction Center stayed together and avoided anything more than polite conversation with the LRPs and their pilots.
One at a time, each man was called into the tent to be questioned. The LRPs blew the whole morning waiting for the artillerymen to finish.
The battery commander of the supporting battery stepped out of the tent and gave the LRPs a confident smile, got into his jeep and rode off. He was followed by a starched and spit-shined lieutenant from Brigade Headquarters who announced that they would break for lunch. The LRPs and pilots could eat in the headquarters mess a few hundred yards away.