When you get down to it, most of the NVA are probably just guys like us — who happen to be Vietnamese. But, a grunt is a grunt, I figure. We do all the dirty work, while a bunch of politicians and generals sit around in air-conditioned offices and make up really dumb plans. For all I know, their civilians back in Hanoi even whine that they’re jerks for serving their country.
We actually got mail today. Second time this week. Division finally figured out a resupply plan that works. It’s called “Super Gaggle,” and it’s pretty impressive. Instead of sending choppers out here all by their lonesome, now they have escorts. Lots of escorts.
First, some jets come swooping in and drop bombs and napalm. A couple more jets follow that with cannisters of tear gas, and two more are right on their trail dropping smoke to screen the NVA’s view of our hill. Then, as more jets release another load of bombs, a bunch of CH-46 helicopters come flying in to the hill to bring in our supplies and — too often — take out casualties. They’re escorted by Huey gunships, helicopters that shoot up the whole area with rockets, and machine gun fire from their door-gunners. We call that “strafing.”
And, hey, just so we don’t feel left out, the helicopter support teams up here throw more smoke on the LZs, while the rest of us fire off a couple of magazines apiece. In my case, I blast through two or three belts of ammo, hosing down the terrain in front of me, while the other machine gunners do the same.
Do we still get mortared during all of this? Well, yeah, more often than not. But, a lot more supplies are getting through now.
Can’t tell you how great it is to have mail. I got 14 letters, and a small package of stuff from my family. One of the letters from my mother asked me if I liked the dictionary she sent — which must have been in one of the cargo loads that landed outside the perimeter during the last few weeks. One of the ones we had to blow up. Unless some NVA guy snuck in and got there first, and is sitting in his foxhole right now, expanding his vocabulary and all.
Jackson, who’s been here — well, I forget how long — got a box of chocolate chip cookies from his grandmother, plus two cans of cashew nuts and some Vienna sausages. So, he’s pretty popular at the moment. Rotgut is, too, because he got two cartons of cigarettes and a plastic container full of whiskey from some guy he knows stationed down at Long Binh.
From my family’s letters, I can tell that most—if not all — of my mail is getting through. So they know that I’m okay. They’re really worried about me being “under siege.” Khe Sanh is a huge story back in the States, apparently. Front page headlines, magazine cover stories, Walter Cronkite broadcasting about us every night. Under siege? Man, that stinks. Makes it sound like we’re all crying and hiding and ready to surrender — when instead, we’re chomping (champing? Hell, I don’t know) at the bit to get out there and take the NVA on, face-to-face. I don’t call that a siege. Leave sieges for the boys at the Alamo — not the Marines.
All of which I plan to write back to them, in a long, gung-ho letter.
“We’re under siege,” I told the Professor, who was sitting next to me in the trench. We were just outside our bunny holes, so we’d have enough light to read.
“I know,” he said, and indicated the letters he was reading from his family. “I heard.”
Molly sent me Audrey’s address off at college — so I owe her one. So far, I can handle all of this war stuff, but, okay, the thought of sending Audrey a letter makes me a little nervous. I’ll have to think about that. I wonder if she’s turned into an I-Hate-the-War hippie, and marches around carrying signs and all. I also wonder if Keith is still in the picture. But, I could still write her, and just say hi. How hard would that be?
Pretty hard.
Pugsley must have written home about how cold and damp it gets up here, especially at night. Because his mother sent him a brand-new slicker. The funny part? It’s bright orange.
“Put it on, then turn around so I can draw a big old target sign on your back,” Bebop suggested.
The sweet part is that you know his mother really meant well, and would be horrified if she realized her son would be in terrible danger if he ever wore it. Pugsley just shrugged and said he’s going to use it to decorate the inside of his bunny hole. It’ll definitely brighten the place up! We’ll need sunglasses in there.
I saved my package for last, because I knew it would be the most fun. My family had sent me a bunch of Kool-Aid packets, some iced tea mix, half-melted Milky Way bars, a few articles about the Red Sox getting ready for spring training, a deck of cards, more pens and paper, a pair of socks, and some raisins. When I took out the socks, everybody nearby looked at me and I felt really guilty that there was only one pair. Makes it really hard to share.
“Swap you your socks for my new jacket,” Pugsley said.
Oh, yeah. That’s gonna happen.
“I could maybe just wear one, and someone else could have the other,” I said, even though it was a pretty dumb idea.
“Take off your boots,” Rotgut said. “Let’s see how bad they are.”
Like almost everyone else, my feet are really disgusting and I have some rotten kind of fungus growing all over them. I guess it’s what they call immersion foot. My boots were already unlaced — since we weren’t planning on leaving the trenches until it got dark — and I pulled the right one off to show my half-rotten, full of holes sock.
“Keep them socks for you’self,” Tyler, who’s a high school dropout from West Virginia, said.
Even though Tyler’s a new guy, everyone else seemed to agree with him. So, I put on my new socks before any of them changed their minds. I was about to throw the grungy old ones up out of the trench, but Bebop stopped me.
“Leave them near our hole,” he said. “I think the smell might kill the rats.”
Like his smelled any better? But I grinned and dropped the filthy socks in the dirt.
Man, talk about luxury. New socks.
February 29, 1968
Wouldn’t it just figure that this would be a leap year? That means, like it or not, we all have to serve an extra day on our tours.
Terrific.
March 3, 1968
It’s really late, and I’ve been guarding the line all night. Bebop has some pretty bad dysentery, so I’ve been letting him get some extra sleep. He did the same for me, a few nights ago, when I had a terrible headache. Anyway, I decided I’d write a few paragraphs, just to try and stay awake. I probably won’t be able to read any of this later, since it’s so dark — but I don’t have enough water to make coffee, and I have to find a way to stay alert.
We had some noise out on the wire before. Another probe, I guess. Unless it was rock apes — there are a lot of them in the jungle around here. One of them actually came right through the perimeter once. Scared the guy who saw him so much that the kid almost passed out before firing a whole magazine at him. People laughed pretty hard about it the next day because even with all of those bullets at short-range, he missed. No dead rock ape in front of his position. Not even any blood out there. If the guy in the next hole hadn’t seen the whole thing, I would have figured that the kid was making it all up. But I’d be really scared, too, if some huge, furry thing on two legs decided to lurch right up to me in the middle of the night.
Resupply sends us so many grenades that we throw them if we even think we hear someone out there. Most of us have about a case apiece stored in our bunkers. If you shoot, you just give away your position, because of the muzzle flashes and tracer rounds. And with me on the M60 these days, they’d be aiming at me, first. So I’m glad the skipper lets us use grenades whenever we’re in doubt. (Okay, and sometimes when we’re just bored.)
I never get used to standing guard by myself at night. I know I’m not alone, but it sure feels that way. And I’ve seen the other hills get attacked, so there’s no reason why they won’t decide to overrun us some night. I know we’d
fight until the last man, but they could definitely “put a hurt on us,” like the guys always say.
The B-52s fly night sorties, as well as the day missions, and it’s always a shock when some ridge out in front of you erupts into flames unexpectedly. The fast movers streak by, too, but at least you can see and hear them coming, so you know that more bombs are about to explode out there.
My favorite to watch is Puff the Magic Dragon. Puffs are these old AC-47 gunships, outfitted with Gatling guns. Some people call them “Spooky,” but I like “Puff.” Everyone says they can fill a whole football field with lead in about a minute. I don’t like to think of bullets and football fields in the same sentence, but Puff’s firepower is really something. It can fire one hundred rounds a second. Even though only every fifth round is a tracer, you just see this endless stream of red drifting down to the ground. It looks so pretty that you forget that you’re watching bullets being fired. Instead, it’s just Puff, painting red streaks across the sky.
Even when it’s pitch black or fogged out, NVA snipers and machine gunners still fire at us at night. Talk about a shot in the dark. But it’s scary when you hear those .51 caliber rounds go buzzing by, or see green tracers heading toward the hill. Our howitzers or the recoilless rifles usually pump a few answering rounds out there, but unless there’s a secondary explosion in the hills — from striking an NVA ammo cache or something — there’s no way of knowing whether they hit anything.
And, even though it makes sense logically, I can’t figure out why both sides use different colored tracers. Seems too civilized. Should a war really be logical like that? I’d rather throw a few green tracers out there sometimes, try to fake the NVA out.
I keep waiting for some commander to ask me my opinion about stuff like this, but so far, no dice. For the people in charge back in Washington, I think this is all one big war game to them. They’re not the ones watching their friends lying on the LZ in ponchos or body bags, while we wait a couple of days for a chopper to come pick up these “routine” medevacs.
Must be fun to run a war when you don’t actually have to fight in it.
March 9, 1968
I’m really homesick today. It’s my little sister’s birthday, and I’m not there. I wrote her a long birthday letter the other week, but it’s not like I could get her a decent present — or really any present at all. The Professor’s parents developed a bunch of rolls of film he sent home and mailed them back, so he let me have a good one of me goofing around with Bebop, Pugsley, and Perez, and I stuck it in her birthday envelope. I mean, what else do I have to send her — a can of C rat peanut butter? A bottle of bug juice? Cigarettes? Some bullets? You know, it feels like Perez was evacuated out of here years ago, but I’m not sure it’s been even two months. Things are so intense over here that time gets confusing.
Anyway, she’s turning sixteen, so it’s a big one.
Oh, here’s a horrible thought — Molly, behind the wheel. Boston had better look out for her. Knowing Molly, she’ll bring a book along to read at red lights. At least, I hope it’s only at red lights.
I bet it’ll be a great party, though. Mom’ll bake a huge layer cake — probably chocolate with vanilla frosting. Roast chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots, beets — which only Molly and my mother even like. Brenda will probably bake bread and bring the kids over, and Hank will come, too, if he’s not working. Some aunts and uncles and cousins will probably stop by. Molly will definitely invite her friend Theresa, and probably a couple of other friends. And whenever there’s a party, you can count on a few firefighters to show up.
But you know that this time, Dad’s going to be watching like a hawk to make sure none of them starts making a move on her, since Brenda and Hank met when she was sixteen. If I was there, I’d go up to Dad every so often, and say, “Watch out, Fitzy was just holding her hand!” and stuff like that. I’d probably be able to get away with it at least twice before he figured out that I was just pulling his leg.
My parents were a little mad at me on my birthday last summer, because I went marching off downtown first thing in the morning, to sign up at the USMC recruiting station. They knew I was going to do it — but they weren’t that happy. I think they were proud, though — or, anyway, my father was. Secretly. My mother was just worried.
We’re all so hungry that we spend hours talking about food up here. I think we talk more about food than we do girls — which only goes to show that we are not in our right minds.
Girls come in a close second, though — no contest. In fact, I got my nerve up and wrote Audrey a letter today. I couldn’t think of much to put in it, but at least I said hi. Told her where I was, what I was doing — and that I really wished that before we graduated, I’d told her that I thought she was cool. I kept it pretty short, so that if she doesn’t write back, it won’t bother me as much. But I hope she —
Just looked at my watch, and it’s almost time for me to go take my time on OP. Observation posts are just like LPs, except they take place during the day, and you’re usually out there alone — with a pair of binoculars, if you’re lucky. I’m going to be on the east side of the hill today, out past the perimeter. It’s one of the most dangerous things we have to do around here, since we’re really exposed out there, if the weather is clear.
Like today.
Can’t wait.
March 14, 1968
Shadow came back to the unit from the hospital today — and never made it off the LZ. I was asleep in my bunny hole and didn’t actually see him, but Pugsley told me about it later. Three of our artillery guys were being medevaced — one of the howitzers took a direct hit this morning, and only one of the guys in the gun pit managed to get out of the way in time. A CH-46 was already heading in with a few new replacements, including Shadow, so they were going to take out the WIAs, too.
Pugsley says Shadow ran out of the helicopter, but then stopped to help get one of the makeshift stretchers — we keep running out of real ones and they won’t send us more — inside. His reward? A round through the shoulder, that nearly took his arm off. The crew chief yanked him back into the chopper, and they left.
Almost two months in the hospital from the 881N battle, and Shadow didn’t even last back on the hill for a full minute.
I hope he’s going to be okay.
March 17, 1968
It’s St. Patrick’s Day today, which I think of as being my own personal holiday. Irish on both sides of the family, on top of being named for the guy? We both even hate snakes.
Wonder how he felt about rats.
At least I’m wearing green. I think my uniform’s still green, under all of the dirt. It’s also possible that my skin isn’t actually made of red clay — but you couldn’t prove it by looking at me. At any of us. When replacements show up, their skin — black, white, anything in-between — looks so bright and shiny. Until they start to get grungy like us, they really stick out.
Regiment Command let us have a little fun today, though, because every unit was authorized to fire off all of their green smoke. I threw about six green smoke grenades myself, since everyone kept giving them to me and the other Irish guys. Amazing how many of us there are here — we’ve got McCarthys, O’Reillys, and Callahans coming out of our ears. (Just to name a few.) And you’ll never meet anyone Irish — at least I never have — who isn’t totally proud of it.
Which reminds me. One of my buddies from high school, Eddie Finnegan, is over here, too. We were on the baseball team together, and he was the scrappiest kid you’d ever want to meet. No catchers blocked the plate when Eddie came sliding in. Broke up double plays right and left, too. Picked fights, too, in the parking lot afterwards.
Some other guys from my school have either joined up, or already gotten back to the World, if they were a grade or two ahead of me. And — yeah — a couple didn’t make it home. Brighton High School is definitely doing its share, bu
t I think Eddie’s the only other guy who’s also in-country right now. I don’t have his address, but last I heard, he was down near Chu Lai, with the Americal. So, he’s a doggie, but in this one case, I’ll let that pass. Odds are, he’s a good doggie.
I’m going to have to ask my mother if she can get his address for me — she and Mrs. Finnegan are both in the St. Anthony’s Rosary & Altar Society and everything. It’d be nice to write to a guy who would really understand what I was talking about — and who I’ve known since I was little. I guess with its being St. Patrick’s Day, I automatically started thinking about him.
Wonder what kind of war he’s having.
March 23, 1968
I can’t believe it. I got hit. It’s not even that bad, but they still made me go down to Charlie Med at the main base. Probably because I was knocked out for a couple of minutes, and that made Doc Jarvis worry.
I guess I should be glad it happened when I was doing my job, not just skylarking. I pulled a really crummy detail today — bodyguard duty. We have these two forward observers stationed up on the hill who work for tactical air control and spot targets of opportunity for the jets and artillery and gunships to hit. Because they have to concentrate on what they’re doing, the shipper assigns a grunt to each of them for protection. While the FOs peer out at the jungle and the hills through their binoculars, we’re supposed to make sure they don’t get hurt. So, we stay on watch, and if mortars start coming in or something, we hustle them over to a trench. If there isn’t enough time to get out of the way, we’re under orders to knock them down and cover them with our bodies so that they won’t get hit with any shrapnel.
Could be just me, but no one seems too worried about us getting hit with shrapnel.
It’s not such bad duty when it’s foggy, but the weather has been much more clear the last couple of weeks. So, the FOs have even more missions to call in than usual, but they’re also better targets for the NVA. We try to keep them near decent cover, but since they’re balancing a radio, maps, and their binoculars all at the same time, they tend to get really distracted. Being an FO is a hard job, though — takes a lot more patience than I have.
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