Drafted
Page 23
I elbowed Harbury and pointed to two small holes in the rounded cowling above the open left door beside us. We could see light from the sky shining through those two holes. I hadn’t seen them before—granted I didn’t do a visual inspection when I got on the chopper—but the bright holes called attention to themselves. They were the first things I noticed after Captain Harbury got back in his seat. I saw no damage to the padding strapped to the ceiling. No puncture holes, no cotton stuffing or nylon fibers protruded from the padding’s olive drab canvas. So the line of fire—the trajectory—could not have been on our left because the bullets would have to have been fired from slightly above us. The rounds that made those two holes had to come from the ground on our right—at considerable distance from our flight path—zinging up from the open door on our right, almost nicking the floor’s edge, angling across the space in front of us, and through the rounded cowling over the left door. I thought back to whether I’d heard a tick or bap, but I recalled no sound of that kind.
The bullets had zipped within several feet of our noses.
We dropped Captain Harbury off at Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base. He was required to report and deliver his papers to the generals at MACV. He wouldn’t dare walk around MACV without something on his head, so he must have borrowed or bought a new helmet or jungle hat before entering MACV grounds.
We lifted off from Tan Son Nhut and flew to Long Binh. Approaching or leaving Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base in our open-door Huey always gave me a squirt of adrenaline. We had to tree-hop under incoming and departing airplanes. Flying that low, we had to move fast so we’d be a difficult target to hit. One time, for a lark, the pilot took us down a base camp access road. We flew tipped forward, about twenty feet above the road, trees flashing past us on either side. We scared Vietnamese motor bikes, pickup trucks, and buffalo carts off the road and into the ditches. We didn’t do that often. If we set a pattern doing it, some day we’d fly into steel cables strung across the road between the trees. But oh man, it was a larky ride while it lasted.
We landed at Long Binh sometime around 8:30 in the morning. I disembarked the chopper and immediately began sweating after the chilly ride in the Huey. I rolled up my sleeves and walked in hot sun and humid air to the 85th Engineer Group Headquarters and turned in my papers.
At Long Binh I was now free and on my own until I picked up return papers and caught the afternoon chopper to Tan Son Nhut and then back to Cu Chi. Sometimes we stopped at Bien Hoa, too, but not today.
Couriers were ED, “Exempt from Duty,” meaning no KP, no de-drumming at the asphalt plant, no perimeter guard duty, and no CQ runner. Not only was I exempt from extra duty, I had no assigned work at all, except to courier documents early in the morning and late in the afternoon.
I had been assigned my new job while Janice and I were on R & R in Hawaii. While I was gone, the previous courier DEROSED. The top brass didn’t know he was going home and he didn’t mention it to Adjutant Harris. The guys in personnel and the clerk in Headquarters Company got their asses reamed. They all thought it was somebody else’s responsibility to inform the adjutant or the XO about the courier’s DEROS date. Adjutant Harris took some heat, too, because he’s the courier’s immediate supervisor. But Harris saw the guy only once or twice a day for moments at a time, so he wasn’t high on Harris’s radar.
A substitute courier did the job a few days and then, while I was on R & R, Major Roberts chose me as permanent courier. He told Harris to distribute my awards and typing responsibilities among the other S-1 clerks. When I found out, I was both surprised and offended. Wasn’t Major Roberts pleased with the work I was doing in S-1? Nobody could have put in more time and effort, even enthusiasm, on the newspaper or awards jobs.
But my new courier job lasted only three weeks. They found another courier and I was reassigned back to S-1. From then on I served as substitute courier whenever the regular guy was sick or on R & R.
When I returned to S-1, the award recommendations were backed up and the files were scrambled. Several officers and NCOs had complained to Harris and Roberts about not having my help writing recommendations. Hackett wanted me returned to awards, too. He said he missed my editing and screening work. But nobody complained about the one missing edition of The Road Paver.
When I was working as courier, I spent my layover every day at Long Binh. It was a major base camp and headquarters complex. It had stores, restaurants, movie houses, swimming pools, massage parlors, and bars. I was told early in my tour that Long Binh had 50,000 personnel stationed there. Seems like a lot. Maybe that figure includes non-military support and supply people. After I dropped off my papers in the morning, I always walked to a place called Jake’s Bar.
Jake was a Native American Indian—Apache Tribe—maybe forty years old. He always wore a flannel red-and-black checkered shirt in his super-cooled, air-conditioned bar. His wide-set eyes and high cheekbones were creased in a perpetual smile. Stubby black hair on his broad head looked like bristles on the back of a wild boar. When the bar started filling up in the afternoons, he’d walk among the men and lay his big hand on a man’s shoulder, or give a quick rub to another man’s back, or trade shadow punches with muscle-bound bozos like a coach giving attaboys to his team. He had a calm sense of masculinity he never had to back up with posturing.
The sign on Jake’s door was flipped to Open. I pulled the wooden handle on the spring-hinged, wood-slat door and stepped from searing hot sunlight and steaming humidity into florescent-blue, cool air and the fermented smell and smoke of a well-used bar. The cement floor and white Formica table tops, and two-by-fours that ran waist high along the plywood walls, were cluttered with beer cans, peanut shells, and crumpled potato chip bags from the night before. I walked across the littered room and pulled myself up on a stool at the plywood counter that passed for a bar.
“Hey, engineer.” Jake’s voice boomed from the storage room behind the bar. He walked through the open door and leaned against the rear edge of the plywood counter. “Second pot o’ coffee’s still brewing, good buddy.”
“Thanks, but I’ve already had a morning wake-up call. I’d rather have a beer if you have one handy.”
Jake slid open a Coke cooler and pulled out a Bud and one of the glasses he kept cold for special customers. I sometimes helped him clean tables and sweep the floor.
“Trouble out there this morning?”
“Sniper took a few shots at the chopper. No big deal. Chopper maneuvers were what caught my attention. That and a newbie Tropic Lightning courier playing Mr. Macho. Didn’t fasten his seatbelt and darn near fell out the door.”
“Damn.” Jake whistled.
I popped the can’s tab and poured the beer down the side of the frosty glass. I wiped sweat from my forehead and drank half the beer in two swallows. It plowed an iceberg down my throat, and chilled my stomach and then my head like crystallizing ice. I shivered.
“Nothing like that first swallow on a hot day in Vietnam.” I turned and looked around the room.
A GI was hunched over his beer at a table in the corner. He looked up at me. He had a long, hound-dog face and large ears. I’d seen him somewhere before. His fatigues were clean. He hadn’t come in from the boonies.
“How you doing?” I asked.
No answer.
I glanced at Jake. He shrugged.
“I’m in Vietnam,” the man said.
I chuckled. “Doesn’t get much worse than that.”
He was silent. Then low and sarcastic, “Yeah, right.”
I tried again. “Between assignments or just laying low for the day?”
No response.
I nodded and waved goodbye. I turned back to Jake, but the GI in the corner spoke again. I swiveled on my stool. “Excuse me, I didn’t catch that.”
“You stationed at Cu Chi?”
“182nd Engineer Battalion. I’m doing their courier work right now. Ordinarily I’m in the S-1 office.” I took a swallow of beer. “Do I know you?”
I got off my stool and walked toward his table. “What’s your name?” I was squinting, trying to recall those early days when we processed into the battalion.
“Martin. Sulley Martin. Pull up a chair if you want.”
I went back to the bar and got my beer. I returned to Martin’s table. On his shoulder patches he had the white-headed eagle of the 101st Airborne Division.
Martin tipped back his head and looked down his nose at me. “So you took sniper fire on your chopper this morning?”
“A few rounds. No major damage.” I held up my glass in a half-hearted toast.
“Must’ve scared you pretty bad after sitting at a desk half your tour.”
I smiled. “Were you in Echo or Bravo Company in the 182nd? Most of the Eleven Bravos were assigned to one of those companies.”
“We hauled and dug as best we could,” Martin sipped his beer, “but I guess not good enough to stay in an engineering unit.” He raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes in feigned puzzlement and wonder. “So what’d you do to stay in the 182nd?”
“I made myself useful to the colonel and the major. When the call came down from the 101st for all the Eleven Bravos, Major Roberts had my MOS records changed to clerical.”
Martin’s eyes got heavy with contempt. “You’re college, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You try ducking the draft, too?”
“I stayed in school until I finished—”
“An’ sucked ass soon as you got here. An honest-to-God, Rear Echelon Mother Fucker. The genuine article! How do you do?” He stuck out his hand as though wanting to shake mine.
I glared at him. “How about you? You sucking anything in Long Binh?”
Martin snorted and dropped his hand. “Been on R & R. Went to Thailand.”
We sat for a moment without talking. My face was hot. I wanted to get away from this man. “How were the girls?”
Martin looked at me, puzzled. “What girls?”
“In Thailand.”
“Oh. They was okay.” Martin crumpled his beer can between his hands. “Hey, Jake,” he called, “how ’bout another one?”
Jake was across the room collecting empty beer cans in a clear plastic bag. “You guys get your own beer,” he called. “Leave the money on the counter.”
Martin got up, tall and large-boned. He pointed at my glass. “You want a reload?”
“Ah … sure. I’ll have another one.”
I studied his long angular body while he got our beers and returned to the table. I popped the tab on my beer and topped off my glass.
“You’re not too enthusiastic about seven days of boom-boom,” I said. “Asian girls don’t suit you?”
“Whole time all I thought about was coming back here.”
We sat silent drinking our beers. Then he said, “Been AWOL three days wandering Long Binh like a lost dog.” He chugged his beer, slap-banged the empty can on the table, and belched a low rumble.
“Pretty tough in the 101st?” It was a stupid question, but I was seriously off balance.
“Ain’t been on a base camp more’n eight days since I left Cu Chi.” He swiped at the surface of the table, sweeping something I couldn’t see onto the floor. “We come in for a day or two and then back out in the boonies for weeks at a time.”
“See much action out there?”
“You heard of the A Shau Valley? Near the Laotian border?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Ho Chi Minh Trail snakes in from Laos through the A Shau.”
I nodded.
“Ever hear of Ap Bia Mountain?”
I shook my head and shrugged.
“You clerks don’t know shit about what’s going on in Vietnam, do you?”
“You involved in operations up there?”
“Hamburger Hill mean anything to you?” He wagged his head at me.
“Sure. Stars and Stripes said it was the worst battle so far. Denounced by Senator Kennedy as pointless carnage.”
“I don’t know anything about that shit, but Hamburger Hill’s in the A Shau Valley. That’s what we called Ap Bia Mountain.”
“You were at Hamburger Hill?”
He looked at me, sneering. “Other Eleven Bravos from the 182nd was there, too.”
“Jesus. I knew you guys went to the 101st, but it never occurred to me…. In May, right?”
“Ten days in May. Took eleven assaults to capture that mountain.”
I heard a noise behind me. I turned and saw Jake walking toward our table with his plastic bag of empty beer cans. He was looking at Martin.
“Did I hear you say you were at Hamburger Hill?” Jake set the bag of cans on the floor, pulled out a chair, and sat down at our table, all while staring at Martin. “You must’ve seen some heavy action.”
“More’n I ever plan to see again.” Martin’s voice was flat, laying down the truth. “I ain’t no coward, but I ain’t no hero, either.”
“No need to explain that to us,” Jake said.
“Who said I was explaining anything?” Martin’s eyes shifted to me. “I don’t need to explain anything to anybody.”
“You got that straight, buddy. But right now you’re in Jake’s Bar.” Jake smiled and briefly rested his big hand on Martin’s shoulder. “And that’s a good place to be. Am I right?”
Martin looked at Jake and nodded his head. “It’s a good place to be.” His eyes glazed with moisture.
“That’s why we pull together,” Jake said. He looked at me and looked back at Martin. “If people back home knew half this shit, they’d pull us out right now.”
“Well, you tell ’em we took that mountain,” Martin said, his voice rising. He pushed back from the table. “You hear me, Goddamn it?” He was yelling, tears in his eyes, jabbing his finger at Jake. “We took that mountain after the bravest man I ever knew got killed up there and the fucking brass give it back to the gooks a week later. Jesus Christ this war’s fucked up.” Martin suddenly stood up, knocking over his chair, and threw his empty beer can across the room.
“Hey, I hear you,” Jake said, looking up at Martin. “The hell with this screwed-up war.”
“I’m sorry about your friend,” I said. “I’m really sorry.”
“Fuck you, suckass,” Martin said, glaring down at me. “You don’t even know what it’s all about.”
“Hey, hey, wait a minute,” Jake said, standing up, too. “We had a couple beers, okay? And maybe we’re saying things we wouldn’t otherwise say.”
I stayed in my seat, looking at the two men. I tried to appear calm.
“Fuck that shit,” Martin said. “He can’t be sorry when he sucked ass to get out of it. He let somebody else do his job for him.”
Jake looked at me and then back at Martin. He stepped back several paces, picked up a steel-framed chair by its back, looked at us again, and hauled off and flung the chair across the room. I jumped up and watched the chair bounce end-over-end on the tops of two tables before crashing into the plywood wall.
“Let’s break some furniture,” Jake said. “Here.” Jake picked up another chair and held it out to Martin.
Martin’s mouth hung open. “You’re fuckin’ crazy.”
“You gonna throw this goddamned chair or pussy out?”
Martin grabbed the chair. Jake and I backed away. Martin, tall and unsteady, whirled like a discus thrower and sailed the chair into a metal post off to his left eight feet away. It clanged and clattered to the floor.
“Okay, your turn, engineer.” Jake held out a chair. I grabbed it and whirled like Martin did, but I let go of the chair at too low an angle. It caught on the nearest table and bounced to the floor in front of us. We jumped out of the way.
“Didn’t get much altitude, there, engineer,” Jake said. He picked up the chair and handed it to M
artin. “Show him how to do it.” Martin sailed the chair past the post and over the nearest table, and crashed it into the wall.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Jake said. Martin and I laughed. “Give me some skin,” Jake ordered. He held out his hand, palm up, first to Martin and then to me. We each slapped his broad hand and he slapped ours. “Now let’s sit down so I can hear about Hamburger Hill.”
We pulled chairs from nearby tables and sat down again.
Martin glared at me. “You should’ve been there.”
“How many of our guys went up the hill?”
“Don’t know. Eight. Maybe more. They split us up.”
“Any casualties?”
“Remember Wilcox? Pimples on his face? Or Ben Grady, the guy with the picture of the naked girl in bed? They got hit. Messed up bad. Dusted off.”
“My God.” But I did not remember those men. I felt hollow. Exposed.
Jake asked, “Why didn’t they just bomb the hell out of that mountain and be done with it?”
“They did. Shelled it. Bombed it. Napalmed it. Looked like the moon in some places. Blown apart trees scattered all over. But the NVA was dug in deep. So the brass said we had to do regular assaults to get ’em out. But when we couldn’t do it with a couple assaults, the brass kept sending us back up the mountain ’til we did. Then they walked us off and gave it back to the gooks.” Martin’s jaw clamped shut. He blinked hard several times.
I examined my glass and quietly asked, “What was it like to be up there? I’d like to know.”
Jake suddenly raised his hand as though being sworn into office. “Hey, you know what? I got a CAV unit coming in from the boonies tonight, and if I don’t get this place ready I’m gonna be messed-up real good.” He stood up. “You guys go ahead and talk.”
Jake walked to the front door, opened it, flipped the sign to Closed, and locked the door. Then he walked behind the bar and came back with two more beers and set them on our table. “I’ll be unloading a truck out back.” He nodded his head at Martin. “We’ll talk another time.” Jake picked up his plastic bag of empty cans and walked past the counter to the back room.
Martin and I studied our beers for several minutes.