RIDING HIGH WITH MANGUS
Paving roads in a guerrilla war zone is one of the lunacies about Vietnam that can make you smile. Charlie knows where we are and what we’re doing, and he knows we’re focused on our equipment and not on him. And Charlie can’t miss the equipment. It’s big.
Asphalt pavers. Bulldozers. Road graders. Earth movers. Oil sprayers and water-weighted road rollers. Fuel tankers. Asphalt haulers. And the men operating all that heavy equipment, their shirts off, sweat glinting in the tropical sun, sit high in the cabs of their machines and muscle the wheels and gears of bellowing engines, pushing dirt with their dozers, peeling ground with their graders, trucking asphalt to the pavers, and waiting to get slapped in the head by a bullet from a rice-paddy dike four hundred meters out from either side of the road.
One God-awful hot afternoon, while I was checking out new roadway for a story Major Roberts asked me to write for The Road Paver, the entire road crew went nuts from the uncertainty and tension. I had hopped a ride out to the site with an asphalt trucker named Mangus and we were in line with the other asphalt haulers waiting to hook up and funnel our load into the paver. The air in the cab was thick with the smell of hot tar and high quality reefer.
I’d asked Mangus a few questions when I first got in the truck, but he waved them away and shook his head, so I backed off and sat silent for awhile. He didn’t say anything until we stopped for a few ready rolls, and then he spoke only to ask if I wanted some reefer. “Sure,” I said, hoping smoking together would loosen him up. I figured I wouldn’t ask any questions until he gave me a sign he was willing to talk.
By the time we got to the paving site and pulled in line behind the other waiting truckers, we’d finished a Kool’s pack ready-roll that Mangus had declared was “good shit,” definitely better than any state-side dope he’d ever smoked. It was get-it-on-the-edge, kick-ass grass of the highest Vietnam quality. You could focus on a nit’s nose on a bug’s ass thirty feet away and watch it wiggle.
After we sat waiting a few minutes behind the other asphalt haulers, Mangus glanced at me with an appraising look and then turned away. “You be honest with me if I ask you something?”
His black, peat moss chest, muscular shoulders, and thick contoured biceps sparkled with rivulets of perspiration as he leaned against the steering wheel, craning his head back and forth, looking through the windshield and then through the side windows in constant survey of the countryside.
“You a smart man, that right?” He still wasn’t looking at me.
“No smarter than you. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Don’t mess with me, man. You got a college education and you’re working at battalion headquarters, right?”
As he spoke, the trucks in front of us moved one length ahead toward the asphalt paver. Mangus depressed the clutch and throttled the engine two belching roars, yanked down on the gearshift post, and moved us up the line one more notch.
“I’m not walking that road, Mangus. We’re doing just fine. You got us some good shit, but now you’re fucking with my mind.”
“I’m not fucking with you, man, I’m asking a question, and you know so much you think you know what I’m gonna ask.”
“God it’s hot. And the smell of that asphalt … whew! What’d you do back in the States, Mangus?”
“Don’t you want to hear my question?”
“Sure. I want to hear your question. What’s your question?” I’d gotten better at recognizing and controlling my high since I first smoked with Jerry, but high is high, and I left myself open when I told Mangus I wanted to hear his question.
He turned his head and squinted at me. “Why do you white dudes like pussy licking so much? No, no, I’m serious. Why don’t you just fuck the bitch? Why you gotta stick your nose up her snatch? All you white dudes be the same. Always smellin’ it. Makes me sick.”
“You’re fucking with me, Mangus.”
“I told you, I’m not fucking with you. I never asked a white college boy this before and I thought you could explain to me why every white boy I meet is a pussy licker or a cocksucker.”
“Mangus, is this shit making you wacko or something? Or maybe there’s something about pussy licking you need to get off your chest? Maybe you tried it and you got the wrong hole? What’s your problem?”
“I got no problem, Office Boy, and any problem I do got, I can blow away and toss in the trash.”
“Look, Mangus, I can’t help I’m not a Brother, okay?”
Mangus gave me one of those you’re-a-piece-of-shit stares, hawked up a gob from the back of his throat, and spit over his left shoulder out the window.
Forgetting I was high and maybe lacking good judgment, I lifted my M16 from where it leaned in the corner between the dashboard and the door, raised it vertically between my legs, and clunked the butt on the cab floor.
“Is that the problem? Is that it? You want us to go out there in the field and blow each other away? Is that what you want? Okay, let’s do it, if that’s what you want. I don't have anything against black fuckers, particularly a black fucker who shares good shit with me. But if you want us to blow each other away, then let’s go do it right now. Let’s go. Let’s get it over with.”
Mangus looked at me. Hard. Uncertain.
“But you better know this before you step in that field.” I looked him square in the face. “Before I kill you, I’m gonna blow your nuts off.”
Mangus burst out laughing, and I did too. “You ain’t nothin’ but a piece a Wonderbread,” he said. Then we did the handshake thing, which I screwed up.
But then he froze. He stared past me out my window at the tree line four hundred meters out from the road. I snapped my head around and looked out my window.
“What’d you see?”
“A flash. Those fuckers are sniping us again. Goddamned motherfuckers. Those cocksuckers....” Mangus grabbed his M16 leaning against the seat between us and opened his door and jumped out. “I’m gonna kill those slant-eyed motherfuckers.”
I tipped my M16’s muzzle to the floor, locked and loaded, and scrunched down as low as I could go while looking over the edge of the window at the wood line. My heart was beating so hard and so fast I was gasping for air.
I was about to crawl across the seat to Mangus’s open door and jump to the safety of the ditch when I looked through the windshield and saw Mangus on the hood of the truck. I stared at him, my mouth open, stunned by his full-body exposure to enemy fire.
He had his right foot on the wheel fender and his left foot up on the hood. I leaned forward so I could see him better through the windshield. He raised his M16 horizontally, high in the air, like a salute to a passing general, and started yelling. “Come on you motherfuckers. Kill me. You got your chance.” Mangus lowered his M16 and jabbed the air with the middle finger of his left hand. “You cocksuckers! You fucking slope heads!”
He looked down and saw me staring at him through the windshield, then locked and loaded and raised his M16 to his shoulder and fired on full automatic toward the woods. The recoil knocked him off balance, and he fell backward, off the truck, and sprayed M16 rounds in a semicircle from one side of the road, up and over, to the other side. It happened so fast, I didn’t have the sense to duck.
I jumped out of the cab and ran around to see how he was. He’d landed on his shoulder and his right elbow was bleeding, but he seemed okay. I put my hand out and he grabbed it and pulled himself up. We laughed while he picked up and checked out his M16. We got back in the truck.
“So did you see anything or not?” I asked.
“Didn’t see a fucking thing, but I scared your lily white ass, didn’t I?”
But by then the guys in the other asphalt trucks had spooked on Mangus’s joke. They assumed Mangus was returning received fire, and they fired randomly toward the woods at an increasing rate as more and more men fired their weapons out of the need to shoot at what they feared but couldn’t see.
Then our heavy equipment operators heard the tru
ckers firing and stopped work and everybody got low and fired their weapons. We got real noisy when Tropic Lightning’s half-track, at the rear of the construction site, opened up with its quad-fifties. That’s always a special sight to see: four 50-caliber machine guns all firing at the same time. Gives a man a feeling of accomplishment.
I tried hitting a few nearby trees while Mangus merrily blew off three more magazines of ammo. But then I crouched low in the cab and waited for a bullet to ricochet through the door. Some of the men were shooting at nearby rocks, and tracers were twanging away in every direction. Assholes probably high on dope.
After the firing stopped, a sergeant walked down the line and asked everybody what started all the shooting. Mangus said we saw a couple muzzle flashes along the wood line. “Somebody else must have seen them, too,” he said. I nodded, eyes all wide and fearful, like the office-clerk-ride-along I really was.
During the trip back to the base camp for another load of asphalt, Mangus and I got along fine. He was funny. And smart. He answered all my questions about the ups and downs of driving an asphalt truck in a guerrilla war zone.
After I got the road project’s big picture from the officer in charge, I wrote the article using Mangus as the lead-in to what I saw the pavers doing on the road. I didn’t write anything about smoking dope, of course, but I wrote a few lines about the “sniping” and our superior fire power response. Then I switched over to the project officer. I reported what he said about the over-all road plan and threw in a few details he gave me about the technical stuff. I liked the article and submitted it to Major Roberts for his approval.
Roberts liked it, too.
It was the lead story in the next edition of The Road Paver.
****
Saturday, Sept. 6, - Cu Chi Base Camp
Dear Janice:
Tonight I’m CQ runner for HQ Company. I have tomorrow off to get some sleep.
A “Charge of Quarters runner” is the eyes and ears of his unit while everybody else is asleep. Each night there’s a CQ runner in every company’s HQ office, every battalion’s HQ office, and every division’s HQ office. If there’s an emergency or the Sergeant of the Guard calls and says there’s an assault on the perimeter, the CQ Runner runs around and wakes up everybody to do what needs to be done, including starting the siren if needed. Then the CQ Runner goes back to the office and waits for something else to run around about.
Hope you’re having a good day. So far, I’m having a good night.
Love, Andrew.
Friday, Sept. 19, 1969 - Cu Chi Base Camp
Dear Janice:
Won’t be long before we’re together on R & R in Hawaii.
When I think about how warm and snuggly you are naked in bed, and we’re arm-in-arm together, and every place I touch you you’re silky smooth, and I slide my hand up and down your back, and over your butt and….
Oh, God, help the needy! Help the needy!
Love, Andrew
GOING OUT IN TRUCKS
After a busy day at the office and early release time for collecting gear back at the hooch, I was outfitted for war. I wore a standard issue, three-pound helmet; a flack jacket with grenades hung from its shoulder clips; two cloth ammo bandoleers crisscrossed on my chest; an equipment belt hooked around my waist with attached water canteen, rain poncho, and a pouch for my gas mask; and, finally, my M16 slung on my shoulder with its safety on and a full, eighteen-round magazine slapped in its receiver.
I walked with other off-duty Headquarters Company clerks, cooks, and motor pool mechanics to the late-afternoon briefing of the perimeter guards. A similar briefing was held every day in front of the communications bunker at 1700 hours (or, as draftees say, 5:00 p.m.). But off-duty personnel, like me that night, are called to the briefing only when a night attack is expected.
Perimeter guards aren’t needed during the day. A few lookouts are sufficient because our roving Cobra gunships can spot the enemy from the air before they get near the perimeter and can annihilate them with rockets, mini-gun fire, and grenades from automatic grenade launchers. But the VC and NVA own the night.
We joined other off-duty soldiers from every company in the battalion and stood behind a rag-tag formation of unlucky men whose duty rotations assigned them perimeter guard duty the night of an expected attack. Standing in front of that loose formation, the Officer of the Guard called the guards to attention in the style commonly used in a combat zone.
“All right, listen up,” he yelled. He had his hands on his hips and his feet spread apart. He was outfitted like the rest of us with a helmet, a flack jacket with attached grenades, ammo bandoleers, and a M16 hung on his shoulder.
“I’m Captain Blaine from Charlie Company and I’m your Officer of the Guard tonight. The 25th Infantry Division informed us that NVA activity has been detected during the last several days at scattered points north of Cu Chi. An NVA scout was captured last night by an ambush patrol one klick out from the camp and he gave up an assault plan during his interrogation.”
Blaine stopped talking. He paced back and forth looking at the ground, pursing his lips. We stared at him. Tracked him with our eyes. He was tall. His face long, finely chiseled and aristocratic. He turned and faced us.
“We’re not sure they’ll attack tonight, but if they do, expect mortar and sapper attacks followed by an assault on the perimeter. Phone the Sergeant of the Guard as soon as you detect movement so we can call up the Cobras for suppressing fire before the NVA get too close.”
Blaine paused again and surveyed his troops. He had our full attention.
“We just discovered that communications with bunkers four, five, and six are down. We’re not sure why, but we think Vietnamese day workers cut the commo lines. We’ve got a team working to get those bunkers plugged back in the system. If you men in those bunkers see movement beyond accurate firing range, pop smoke and I’ll send a runner for details. Otherwise, the roving guard will keep you tied in with info.”
One of the perimeter guards raised his hand. “Captain Blaine?”
“Yes, you in back.”
“Are we getting reinforcements?”
“Reinforcements will be deployed by order of Major Roberts in the commo bunker if an attack occurs.” Another soldier raised his hand. “Yes, you at the end.”
“We getting extra ammo? And what’s the password?”
“The password is Fair Weather. I repeat, the password is Fair Weather. Pick up extra ammo, flares, and grenades from the supply truck by the commo bunker on your walk out to the perimeter. As always, a roving guard—ah, Specialist Peters—will be walking back and forth along the supply road behind the bunkers checking for sappers. He will periodically visit your bunker and announce himself with the password. Those of you not assigned regular guard duty are to reassemble, immediately after this briefing, in front of your company headquarters buildings for further instructions. Any other questions?” Blaine looked gravely at the guards. “Good. Stay alert. Challenge anyone approaching your bunker. If they don’t stop or don’t know the password, blow ’em away. You’re dismissed.”
The other off-duty Headquarters Company personnel and I headed back to the Headquarters Company HQ building.
When we got there, Emanuel Tibbot, our new first sergeant, was standing on an empty ammo box at the head of the formation yard. Apparently he wanted to make sure everybody could see him. Tibbot was short and paunchy. He looked even shorter with his helmet off and us with our helmets on. His helmet was between his feet on the ammo box. Several men chuckled as we walked toward him.
“Give him a little push and he’ll fall over.”
“Gather ’round,” Tibbot called. His face was round, his eyes squeezed thin by puffy cheeks. His voice was pitched higher than usual. He waved us toward him, his plump little hands whirling and waving over his head like a choirmaster drawing more volume from the tenors. “Don’t be afraid to move a little closer,” he called. A tiny gold Crucifix we’d named Jesus’ Bull’s
Eye glinted from the buttoned flap over his left shirt pocket.
We formed a circle around Tibbot, about sixty of us. Somebody said quietly, “Now this is scary.” Nobody laughed. We looked with uncertainty at each other. Where was Captain Kirby? Or Lieutenant Ashley?
We knew from Tibbot’s personnel file that this was his first assignment in a combat zone. Which meant he had no combat experience whatsoever, since we’d had no enemy activity at the base camp during the previous three weeks that Tibbot was in our battalion. We also knew that Tibbot’s original MOS was Chaplain’s Assistant, but he’d been assigned outside that MOS for ten years prior to his current assignment with us. He had been a warehouse supply manager at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Three days after Tibbot arrived in our battalion he started stopping us in the company area and asking, “Where’s your hat soldier?” or “You ever polish that belt buckle?” You don’t ask that kind of chicken shit stuff of heavily armed soldiers in a war zone—unless you’re stationed with MACV at Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base, or you’re working in the offices of some other high-level command like the Big Red One at Lai Khe or Tropic Lightning here at Cu Chi.
“Our assignment,” Tibbot shouted, perspiration dripping off his chin despite the evening breeze, “is to provide reinforcements to our sector of the perimeter.”
We knew that. It was our Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). Our company was one of two companies in our battalion closest to the perimeter.
“You can return to your hooches,” Tibbot announced, “but sleep with your boots on and laces tied. When you hear the Full Alert siren, get over here in front of HQ on the double in your combat gear. The first thirty-two of you—four reinforcements for each bunker—will board trucks and be driven out to the perimeter. The rest of us will wait in the company’s underground bunker until I receive further deployment orders from Major Roberts. Any questions?”
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