Drafted

by Andrew Atherton

  When I asked him if I could go with him, he said, “O’ course. How else?” Then, still back in the barracks, Robinson asked if he could go with Carson, too. “Even a bro from the Bronx knows when a Tennessee squirrel shooter is a ticket home.” We laughed and gave each other high fives.

  Carson was our point man. Robinson watched for camp guards in our right and right-rear sectors. I watched in our left and left-rear sectors. Carson waved contemptuously at the men crashing through the underbrush ahead of us. “Too noisy. Moving too fast.”

  “Maybe they’ll draw out the ambush teams,” I offered.

  “Unless the ambush teams wait for stragglers,” Robinson said.

  Carson motioned for quiet. We followed him without talking, as quietly as we could, for about forty-five minutes. During that time, clouds moved in and covered the sky. The forest darkened.

  We came to a field of waist-high grass. Carson led us into the field and walked us along the left tree line.

  I was uneasy about going into the clearing. It was too easy. It was the route a city dweller would choose. But Carson was our woodsman, so I kept my mouth shut. But I squinted and peered extra hard into the black shadows on my left beyond the tree line.

  “Ambush!” Robinson shouted. Five guards jumped up from the tall grass on our right.

  “Halt,” yelled a guard.

  “Stop and you won’t get hurt,” yelled another guard.

  I froze for several seconds, petrified. Then instinct kicked in, and I turned and ran into the woods as if fired from a slingshot. I ricocheted from tree to tree. Branches whipped my face and arms with no more feeling than wind on a blustery day. Guards ran close behind, but only at first.

  “Damn jack rabbit!” yelled a guard. Rifle blanks popped behind me.

  I ran mindlessly. I have no idea how long I ran, but eventually the guards fell behind. My frenzied running ended when I turned to look behind me, missed my footing, slipped on a big mossy log, and fell in a shallow gully on the other side.

  I scrambled to my knees, sucking air, trying to get my breath. I stuck my head up and looked around, listened for the guards, but heard only my own panting. I stayed in that position, motionless, until my breathing slowed and I could hear the sounds around me.

  I was alone.

  I sat down and rested my back against the log. I was physically and emotionally exhausted from my frantic run, but also from a long day of exercises.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and wondered how it would end. How all of it would end.

  I’m not a hunter. I haven’t killed anything other than a bird with a BB gun when I was a kid. Even that made me sick.

  A little sparrow. Fell from the branch but wasn’t dead. I had to stomp on it in four inches of snow, but it wouldn’t die. God, it was awful. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I whispered as I stomped it again and again, crying, looking around, hoping nobody saw what I was doing. Never again, I said. Never, ever again, will I kill anything.

  Well, mosquitoes and flies. Spiders in the house. Which is a shame, too. Ingenious engineers. Circular strands sticky, anchoring strands not.

  Why the hell didn’t I go to Canada?

  Why? Because I had to prove I wasn’t a coward. What a ridiculous reason for going to war! So what happens now? What happens when I get out of these goddamned woods and I’m slogging through some rice paddy in Vietnam? What happens when I have to kill a man? Am I prepared to do that? Can I do that?

  I was so frightened back there. The guard called me a jack rabbit. I’m sure I looked pretty silly running crazy like that. Will I run like that in Vietnam? Like a coward?

  But what if they’d caught me? How far would I go to keep from getting stuffed in a fifty-five-gallon drum? If I’m scared shitless of that, how would I feel getting chased through the jungle by Viet Cong?

  What will it be like when I’m forced to be a real soldier?

  But what about now? How am I going to find my way out of this woods?

  And then I woke up.

  I couldn’t believe it. I’d dozed off! Talk about stupid!

  I stood, staggered a moment, and started walking. Then I stopped.

  The night was darker than before. I looked up and turned around. Clouds covered the entire sky. Light filtering through the clouds showed a fine-grained mist floating between the trees.

  I had no idea which direction I should take. And the light coming through the clouds provided no hint of the positions of the moon or stars.

  I started walking again. I walked into so many low-hanging twigs and branches I worried I’d poke my eyes out. So I held my arms out to shield my face.

  As I walked, I reflected on what had happened at the ambush. To be captured, the guards had to physically restrain me. Their rifles, loaded with blanks, posed no threat unless they used them as clubs. And that gave me an idea.

  I found a small tree limb on the ground. I wedged it between two trees and broke it smaller. The wood was dead, but the limb was heavy and solid, the size of a baseball bat. No guard would take me without a fight.

  I began walking through the dark forest again. This time with a weapon. Two hours later—at least it seemed that long—I passed a big mossy log beside a shallow gully. I stopped and took a closer look.

  It was the same log. The one I slipped on.

  I had walked at least two hours in a perfect circle in a dark forest. I didn’t know that was even possible. I was stunned. I would walk in circles all night and in the morning they’d come looking for me.

  I resumed walking. Hopeless. Despondent. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be forced into a fifty-five gallon drum, pushing and kicking, trying to get away. Or twisting upside down, hanging from a tree, and throwing up. Getting it in my nose and on my face and in my hair.

  And then, ahead of me, I saw what looked like a river of silver behind black silhouetted trees. It was a gravel road reflecting light from the clouds!

  Maybe I’ll make it out after all... unless it’s the same road we started from.

  Then I heard a strange sound. A bird whistle? I stood and listened. There it was again. A chirpy whistle. But this time two chirps. I heard nothing more.

  I dropped to my belly, cradled the club in my arms, and slowly crawled through dry leaves—as quietly as I could—toward the gravel road. I stopped behind a line of bushes eight feet from the gravel. I watched for movement and listened for sounds. I saw and heard nothing.

  I got to my feet. With the club in my right hand, I started running.

  But I’d run only several steps when two guards jumped from bushes on the opposite side of the road.

  I skidded to a stop on the gravel and crouched in panic. I cocked back my club in self-defense.

  “Watch out, he’s got a stick,” said a voice behind me.

  I turned halfway around and at the same time swung the club down and behind, aiming for the man’s legs. But I missed. He was too far away.

  Frantic, I hopped back and forth, looking front and back.

  One of the two guards in front of me threw up his hands in disgust. “We got a live one.”

  “Throw that thing down,” yelled the guard behind me, “you’re captured.”

  “Get away from me.” My voice was hoarse, barely audible. My tongue was thick. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. My body buzzed like a high-voltage transformer.

  Suddenly, without thinking, I stepped toward the guard in front of me and swung the club hard, up toward his head. In that split second he looked surprised.

  The club hit along his chin and ear, and snapped his head over on his right shoulder. He dropped like a falling tree, without catching himself. I quickly turned to the man behind me. He was standing bug-eyed, open-mouthed, looking at his fallen comrade. I rammed the end of the club into his chest. It hit his sternum with a “crack.” He fell backward, his eyes wide and mouth open, clawing at his chest.

  I turned toward the third man. He stood slack-jawed, unbelieving. He saw me coming and tu
rned to run, but too late. I dropped the club, ran several steps, and tackled him. He rolled over to defend himself, and I jumped like a frog from his ankles to his waist. As his hands went to my chest, I went for his eyes. I jammed my thumbs in the sockets. He screamed, flipped on his belly beneath me, and kept on screaming. I got up and swung back my boot and kicked him as hard as I could. His ribs snapped like uncooked spaghetti.

  “Whoa, fella, we don’t want any trouble,” the nearest guard said as he backed away from me. He held up his hand like a traffic cop and looked at the other guards. “This guy’s lost it. I say let him go.”

  “Hey, buddy,” called the guard behind me. He pointed down the road. “Walk maybe twenty minutes to a winding path on the left that runs perpendicular to the road. Follow it to friendly lines. Okay? Anybody stops you, tell ’em Sergeant Meltzer said to let you go.”

  I followed the guard’s directions, and forty-five minutes later I discovered a field blazing with electric lights powered by portable generators. Trainees milled around collapsible tables loaded with coffee urns and boxes of donuts. Transport trucks waited in the shadows.

  Carson and Robinson had arrived an hour earlier. Both men outran the guards at the clearing and proceeded without further trouble.

  “How’d it go for you?” Carson asked. He squinted at me. “You run through a briar patch?” His eyes tracked the scratches and dried blood trails on my face.

  “I got lost for a while, but I made it out okay. How many men still in the woods?”

  “Last I heard it was fourteen,” Robinson said. He started speculating about who the guards might have caught.

  They questioned me no further. I volunteered nothing. I was too embarrassed to admit how I’d made it to “friendly lines.”

  Most of the trainees in my transport truck dozed off during our ride back to the barracks. I spent the time thinking about killing the guards.

  When the truck arrived at our barracks, my jaw ached from clenching my teeth. My eyes burned. My arms thrummed like power lines in a lightning storm. I had never felt such invincible, destructive power, and I loved it.

  ****

  Sunday, Oct. 20, 1968

  Dear Janice:

  Got some bad news. Yesterday they assigned us our MOS (Military Occupational Specialty), and I got assigned 11B10 (we call it “Eleven Bravo”). That means I’ll be an infantryman.

  I’ll be doing my Advanced Individual Training at Fort Lewis, Washington. The forests near Fort Lewis are used as training grounds for infantrymen going to Vietnam. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to Vietnam, but….

  Looking forward to seeing you Friday for Graduation Exercises. I can’t wait to feel you in my arms … and in my bed….

  Love, Andrew

  ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL TRAINING

  Fort Lewis, Washington

  Tuesday, Oct. 29, 1968

  Dear Janice:

  AIT here at Fort Lewis is better than Basic Training at Fort Campbell. We’re treated with more dignity, and we’re encouraged to have pride in being Eleven Bravos.

  They told us the emphasis will be less on physical training (PT) and more on weapons, combat techniques, and “live fire” training.

  It was great to see you at Basic Training Graduation last weekend. You looked spectacular. Being in bed with you was wonderful and I miss you already. And I’m sorry I upset you. But we did have fun. Didn’t we? You and the Nipple Nibbler? Huh? Yes?

  Are you really proud of me? You said you are. Do you mean it?

  Love, Andrew

  Tuesday, Nov. 5, 1968

  Dear Janice:

  Sorry I haven’t written for a few days, but they’re keeping us very busy. Lots of classes and training in the woods. And we’re spending much of our time on target practice firing the M16 and other weapons.

  I know I upset you when you came to Fort Campbell, and I said I was sorry. I don’t want to dwell on what happened. Just know that I was excited to see you and be with you, and I’m glad you came.

  We’re being told most of us will go to Vietnam.The company in the barracks next to ours received their orders yesterday. Every one of them is going.

  Love, Andrew

  Thursday-Friday, Nov. 7-8, 1968

  Dear Janice:

  In your last letter you said you want more communication from me. I haven’t written every night because there’s not much to tell, and sometimes I’m just too tired. All I do is go to class, train with weapons, and do PT.

  I guess I could tell you about the weapons we’re learning to use. Actually, they’re quite interesting. Here’s some info about the weapons we trained with so far this week.

  Monday morning we trained with the M-79 Grenade Launcher. It’s a nifty weapon. The M-79 is about the length of a man’s arm. It looks like a pregnant shotgun. The grenade it fires is a little smaller than a man’s fist and explodes into hundreds of jagged pieces that produce casualties within a five-meter radius.

  Tuesday and Wednesday we had classes on explosives and booby traps. We started off with TNT, plastic explosives, and det-cord.

  Det-cord is an explosive that feels and looks like plastic clothesline but explodes at five miles a second. It’s used to detonate a collection of explosive charges all at the same time, each charge at a different place (like bridge trusses), by stringing det-cord from one charge to another and then attaching a blasting cap to any one of the explosives. We all took turns rigging charges of TNT and plastic explosives. It was a boy’s dream come true. The explosions were great!

  We also learned about Claymore anti-personnel mines. A Claymore is the size of a thick paperback, but curved or bent round a little bit, and has a hard plastic casing. You set the Claymore on its edge (on little metal fold-out feet), the convex side facing the enemy, and you insert a blasting cap in one of two holes in the top edge. Then you run electrical wires from the blasting cap back to your foxhole, or wherever you’re going to hide, and connect the wires to a “clacker” (a hand-operated detonator). A Claymore is packed with a pound of plastic explosive. In front of the plastic explosive are layers of steel balls. Since the Claymore is shaped like a crescent moon, the plastic explosive blows the steel balls outward, left-middle-right, while the concave shape in the back blows part of the explosion against itself, reducing the effects of the backside concussion. So the soldier who squeezes the “clacker” fifty feet behind the Claymore is safe as long as he keeps his head down. Anything in the left-to-right arc out in front of the Claymore is blown apart or pepper-shot with shrapnel.

  Took two earlier drafts to get the descriptions right. Hope it’s interesting to you.

  Love, Andrew

  Sunday, Nov. 10, 1968

  Dear Janice:

  Yesterday I pulled KP all day. In a way, that was good. Every time I looked outside I saw drizzly rain. The other guys told me training was especially cold and miserable.

  Friday we had a class on the M-72 LAW (Light Anti-Tank Weapon). We went out in a field after class and fired the LAW at old tanks and personnel carriers.

  The LAW is constructed of two plastic telescoping tubes (about 2½ inches in diameter) with a rocket fixed inside at the end of the rear tube. When the tubes are nested with the caps on, the whole thing is under three feet long and weighs about 5½ pounds, so it’s easy to sling its strap over your shoulder and carry it on your back.

  To fire the LAW you pull the caps off the tubes, telescope the tubes out, rest them on your shoulder, make sure your buddies are clear of the blast area behind you, aim, and press the trigger-button on top. The rocket fires its entire propellant charge while still in the tube, so the backward blast of the propellant doesn’t flash out in front as the rocket leaves the tubes and burn the face of the guy who fired it. The effective range of the rocket is about 200 meters. Once it’s launched, the plastic tubes are discarded.

  When the rocket hits the tank, the shaped charge in the rocket focuses the explosion to the size of a silver dollar and punches a hole through the
armor plating. This “deactivates the crew with flying fragments and explosive forces bouncing inside the tank like a clapper in a giant bell” (that’s our drill sergeant’s description—he’s cool). The LAW is our version of the VC’s RPG (rocket propelled grenade).

  Do you find this stuff interesting? Took me a couple drafts to get the LAW description right. It’s really the only kind of thing I think about these days. Not much time or energy for anything else.

  Except you. I always miss you.

  Love, Andrew

  Tuesday, Nov. 12, 1968

  Dear Janice:

  The weather is turning cold. We don’t feel it at first when we leave the barracks, and it doesn’t bother us when we’re marching or running, but when we sit in the bleachers for an outdoor class, the cold seeps into our bones like ice water. Particularly after we’ve worked up a sweat from PT.

  You keep saying I’m not writing frequently enough and I’m not telling you what I’m really thinking. You keep bringing up the Ft. Campbell graduation and how upset you still are by my behavior. I know we didn’t have the best time, and I’ve already told you I’m sorry. And I’m sorry you don’t like the way I speak now. But how could it be otherwise? I don’t know what else to tell you.

  Love, Andrew

  Thursday, Nov. 14, 1968

  Dear Janice:

  I’ve got a sore throat and a runny nose. Coughing a lot. We lie on the ground at the firing range or out in the woods and the damp ground sucks all the heat out of us.

  Why are you still writing about Fort Campbell? And why are you so concerned about my swearing during your visit and my “new fascination” with weapons? I’ve always been curious about guns and explosives, ever since I was a little boy. I’m training to be a soldier—I am a soldier. You said you wanted to know what’s going on in my mind while I’m away from you, so that's what I’ve been writing about.