“Mothafucka gave away his position,” El Paso smiled.
“Well,” Monk continued, “that aint the half of it. McDonald says they go out and rout the NVA anyway. Then it turns out that sometime later they in the same area and they catch this NVA feller. And MI’s talkin to him and gettin a little information, cache here, booby trap there, you know. MI, they begin gettin this dude’s history in combat and this little dude begins talkin about that crazy time when they ambushed a bunch of USAs right in that same AO and there was a crazy dude with some bagpipes. That dink look up at the dudes from MI and says, This crazy Americano start playin him bagpipe right in the middle of the firefight and everybody stop shooting. I never hear bagpipe play so bad before,’ the gook says. That man not fit to call water buffalo with bagpipe. My squad, we all look at each other and laugh. Then we draw straws to see who gets honor of returning honorable peace to our ears and Tho, my friend, he wins and he places bullet in middle of bagpipe man’s head and for a little while everything is quiet again and only the sound of rifles can be heard.’”
“Shee-it,” Cherry said. He was now a little drunk himself. “You guys have been just playin with me.”
Whiteboy guffawed and everybody laughed and Whiteboy said, “Cherry, you doan gotta worry bout nothin. Doan gotta worry bout the bullet with your name on it. It aint been made yet. The one you gotta watch for is one thaht sez ‘To Whom It May Concern.’” Whiteboy guffawed even louder and most of the soldiers laughed at his laugh.
More soldiers departed the club and the noise level fell to where the music could be heard again. The Monk left and Whiteboy became so drunk he laid his head on the table for a rest and passed out.
“Hey,” El Paso announced, “we’ve got some latecomers. Hey, L-T, Egan, over here. Hey L-T, guess what? We got us a psychologist. Now we got us just about everything.”
“Yous guys still drinking?” the lieutenant asked. Jax handed the lieutenant a beer. “Say hey, Little Bro,” Brooks grasped Jax’ hand in a soul handclasp. “We’re movin out at oh-four hundred.”
“That aint nothin, L-T,” Whiteboy said raising his head about three inches off the table. “We sh’till got fo hours ta party.”
Egan did not sit immediately at the center table. He went to the bar and bought a case of beer. Ridgefield was there joking quietly now with his closest friends, Snell, Nahele and McQueen. Egan nodded to them. Ridgefield nodded back with detached respect. They were the informal leaders of their respective platoons and the competition between them, although concealed, was ardent. Their styles were very different. Ridgefield was Rafe the Rapper, always joking and entertaining. He was a very good soldier. Egan was quiet, disciplined, the man who would take any risk to protect his men, a soldier’s soldier, The Boonierat. Egan left Rafe a six-pack, grabbed a seat and pulled up at the center table.
Alpha Company, 7th of the 402d, like all infantry units in the 101st in which officers were rotated more quickly than enlisted men, had developed a substructure of leadership. In the year preceding the assault on the Khe Ta Laou Company A had had four commanders. There had developed a structured bureaucracy within Alpha in which was placed a significant degree of decision making. The bureaucracy was mostly comprised of old-timers: platoon sergeants, the senior RTO and medic and several riflemen. Jackson, Doc Johnson, El Paso, Whiteboy, they were the core, the nucleus, the very heart of the company. They had been through it all together, for ten, fourteen, sixteen months. Each had had his reason to extend his tour in Vietnam although the only reason anyone ever admitted was that his hate for the army had driven him to extend his tour until he would have less than one hundred and fifty days remaining in his enlistment when he DEROSd. With less than one hundred and fifty he would be automatically discharged. Ridgefield and his friends were the bureaucracy at platoon level in 3d Plt. Egan was it in 1st. As platoon sergeant Egan ran 1st Plt. The platoon leader, Lieutenant Thomaston, deferred all the tactical as well as the daily decisions to Egan. Thomaston put his authority behind Egan and followed. At company level the bureaucracy was a mix of CP old-timers and the platoon bureaucrats.
Brooks had been in-country for seventeen months. He’d been with the 7th of the 402d for thirteen of those months and with Company A for three. They accepted him though he was not one of them. He was the commander, the computer center, the brain of the unit and these men were now his heart, ears and eyes. They were like one body. Men like Silvers and Moneski, Lairds and Brunak were the skin. They were essential to have but somehow not an inside part. Chelini was a new cell and neither he nor the others knew how he would grow.
“If it aint Bro Boon,” Egan laughed at Jackson as he pulled up his chair.
“Is that Bro Boon like in Bro Coon,” Jax intonated with mock arrogant disgust, “or is that Bro Boon like in Bro Boonierat?”
Egan reached over and exchanged a dap with Jax and said, “Bro Boonierat.” Then he looked around the table and greeted each soldier with a nod. To Egan’s right was El Paso, then Whiteboy with his head back on the table, then Doc, Jax, Silvers, Cherry and L-T B. They spoke quickly, easily, except for Cherry, without restraint.
“Who’s a psychologist?” Brooks asked.
“Cherry here,” Silvers answered.
“Great.”
“Ah, I’m not really a psychologist. I’ve got a degree in psych. It’s just a B.A.”
“Egan’s an engineer,” Brooks gestured toward Egan, “and El Paso’s in history and law.”
“L-T is a Philosopher,” Jax said proudly.
“It’s good to have someone with a new perspective,” Brooks said. His speech was confident, the voice of a teacher well versed in his subject and in control of his pupils. “We can use all the help we can get,” Brooks said. “What we try to do is bring everything we have to everything we do in every situation, then we choose the best way to go. I’ll be looking to you for contributions.”
Chelini shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t sure if he should speak. “I don’t know anything about this,” he said.
“You will,” El Paso laughed. “You will soon enough.”
“We all have different methods of ordering the world around us,” Brooks said. There was no note of condescension in his voice. “The method of historical extrapolation, the engineering method of generating alternatives, scientific analysis and common sense are all valid manners of seeking truths of forecasting probable results of alternative courses of action. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” Cherry said seriously. He was not certain he understood but everyone else seemed to understand. He wasn’t about to say no.
“We’re happy to have you with us,” Brooks said. “With Jax for an inductive leap and Minh for an Eastern mind … where’s Minh anyway? … and Whiteboy putting it together with his diagrams on the ground, with everyone pulling together, contributing, this unit runs safe and smooth.”
“Yo a boonierat now,” Jax said with pride. He was always proud when the L-T spoke. “Doan ever forget it.”
“Ya know,” Egan said, “early in the war, guys used to be sent here and right off they had them setting up bases and perimeters that had to be defended the night they arrived. I remember, just after I got here, talkin to guys who’d come in around Da Nang. They arrived, some of em, in ’67. They’d say that they’d come from the World as a cherry unit and the entire unit would be moved to a ville or someplace to defend and they’d be there the day they arrived. No SERTS, no in-country processing stations, no battalion P-training. Just right to the boonies. They didn’t even have time to get acclimated. That’s why so many of em had their shit scattered. They weren’t comin in as one cherry among one hundred dudes with time in-country. They were virgin units who’d never been shot at. Didn’t take long before they knew the score but by then only half of em were still around.”
“Cherry,” Doc said, “we gonna take care of you.”
“There’s a lot of crazy fuckin dudes in this battalion,” Silvers said. “They think they’re gettin over
on the green machine. They say, ‘gotta get over on them cause they gettin over on us.’ That don’t ee-ven cut it.”
“Only dude yo gettin over on in the boonies ef yo ghostin is yoself,” Jax added.
“Some people back here are on fire,” Brooks warned. “Anti-war, anti-government, anti-white, anti-black. Leave that stuff back there. I want you to be anti just one thing—and that’s anti-getting killed.”
“That, I can be,” Cherry tried to joke. The others did not laugh.
“Politics don’t have no place out here,” El Paso said.
“Shee-it,” Doc nudged Jax, “Jax plannin a revolution back in the fucken World. By his fucken self. But it aint fo the bush. Neva hear the man talk bout it. Neva.” Now Doc could not hold it and he laughed loudly and slapped the tabletop. “Neva.”
“I got some dudes need dealin on,” Jax scowled.
“We all got dealin ta do,” Egan said, “but not out there. This is our company and we don’t let no one fuck it up.” Egan’s voice was harsh, unmistakably serious. “All the papers from the World, they all the time tellin how this place is fucked up,” he said. “Everybody gets letters askin why we so fucked up. Mothers cryin, askin if their little Joey-boy is smokin dope or rottin with the sif. Tellin em ta cover his ass, take care and come home in one piece cause nobody there wants ta take care of a two-piece man. Man, they just don’t know. This here’s a good unit. We’re winnin this fuckin war.” Egan shouted at the table. “Winnin it by our-A-number-fuckin-one-selves. You should a seen this place two years ago.” He directed his voice not to Chelini but to every troop newer than he. “Two years ago the NVA had I Corps by the balls. Last year you couldn’t ee-ven go out to Birmingham without a convoy. Now you can walk down 547 all the way to Veghel without a weapon and you’ll be safer than drivin down Route 22 from Allentown to Harrisburg. Shee-it. We are A-okay. We don’t want no fuckups in Alpha.”
“When yer kids ask ya,” Doc got carried away in Egan’s speech,” ‘Who the night belong to over there?’ tell em, ‘The night belong to the Oh-deuce.’”
“Right on!” Jax shouted.
“Hey, why you comin down so hard on the cherry?” Silvers asked, calming them. “He hasn’t done nothin.”
“It is my job to see we all work together,” Brooks took over again. “And we all get out of here in one piece. I don’t care about your politics, just your sorry cherry ass. Don’t let any dudes fuck with your mind.”
“We talk about the revolution comin,” El Paso said, “and about the trainin we’re gettin, but that’s not for here.”
“And bout wastin Jody’s mothafuckin ass for messin with our ladies,” Egan added. “But that’s when we get back.”
“We soldiers,” Doc said. “Boonierats. Brothers. Here we are one.”
“There it is,” Jax said. “Unanimous. We are the one gonna take charge. A new World order wid all power to the people. Blow em all away. I aint gowin back out. I jus decide. It’s time fo peace. I declarin peace here en now so I doan have ta fight on two fronts.”
“That’s cool,” Doc said. “Let’s declare it over and have peace.”
“What’s so God-fuckin-whore-good about peace?” Egan scoffed. “Jesus! Peace is a fuckin bore.”
“Egan, yer crazy,” Silvers said.
“Shit. Maybe we oughta eliminate all the ways to die,” Egan snarled. “No more war. No more cars. No more fires or heart attacks. We’ll outlaw all that. Pass a law. Nobody can die on Sundays. Then everybody can get cancer and sit around and watch their bodies rot. War aint so bad. It’s natural, a natural state. Why is everybody fuckin with nature?”
“There’s one thing for sure,” El Paso said. “There’s one thing totally indisputable throughout history. Everyone, no matter how good or important or bad, everyone, in the end, dies. Death aint no sin.”
“Yeah,” Egan said, “and I don’t know if killin is either.”
“Aren’t you guys carrying that a bit too far?” Cherry asked.
“No,” El Paso said quickly. “I don’t believe death is important. What is important is how you live. While you’re here, how do you justify your existence. When it’s all over it won’t be enough to say, ‘I never killed a man.’”
“However,” Brooks said slowly, always in control, “it might be enough to say, ‘I saved a man’s life.’”
The conversation continued, the soldiers kept drinking. At times they spoke passionately, at times they laughed undefensively. To Cherry it seemed everything they did, everything they said, was done purely to educate and to socialize him into the new culture. For his part he listened intently and tried to repay his perceived debt by buying beer. Several times he went to the bar and purchased a round from Molino. On his return to the table he served the beers as if he were a waiter.
At nearly one in the morning Cherry rose and went out to the EM four-holer and defecated for the first time in two days. Phhoo! he thought. Must be nervous. Me in the infantry. I can’t believe it.
Yet he fully believed it. His head buzzed. He was beer-warmed. Somehow too he felt warmed by being in the infantry. Here, in the 7th Battalion, 402d Infantry, he would learn war in a way he would never learn war in a signal battalion repairing wires or setting up telephone systems. A wireman or an infantryman. There was no comparison. One was the real thing, one was make-believe soldiering.
Soon, he thought, I will know war. I will learn from these crazy men. Death is not a sin and neither is killing. Crazy. How can anyone say that? How can one of them say that and nobody even flinch?
When Chelini re-entered the Phoc Roc TOC he tried to see them from a different perspective, as if he were one of them. They’re really tight, he thought standing inside the door watching the center table through moving bodies and smoke. They’re like brothers. He worked his way through a group of soldiers dancing. At the table Chelini sat down in his same seat. They had reserved it for him.
More men left the club and the various groups thinned until there were only a half-dozen seated blacks to one side, a dozen or so whites standing at the bar and the group of men seated at the table in the center.
Jax was again talking about settling a score. “I gowin blow that mothafucka off the face of the fucken World, that white fucken honky. It time the white man in this country learn that the black man is a man. Those that doan learn, burn. Simple as that.”
“Amen,” Doc said.
“Hey,” Egan said, “I know some pretty cool white dudes.”
“Honkys,” Jax spat.
“That’s yer problem, Jax,” Egan snapped. “I can accept the black race as equal to the white race—every fuckin bit equal. It’s you that can’t accept it. You keep yerself down.”
“Doan give him lip, Man,” Doc said. “He’s drunk.”
“I aint fucken drunk, Nigger,” Jax leered at Doc.
“Hey,” Brooks stopped them. “Keep that shit out of this company. Why do you guys always have to bicker? Why the conflict? I’ve been thinking a lot about this,” Brooks said. “You know, the way we see something determines how we react to it and the way we’re taught about it determines to a great extent how we see it. All whites are not honkys. All blacks are not niggers. The culture …”
“Honkys,” Jax yelled. “Oreos en honkys.”
That quieted them. They sat angry, not looking at one another. Doc took out a pack of cigarettes, took one, lit it and threw the pack on the table. Silvers, Egan and the L-T helped themselves. Conversation at the fringe of the group had stopped as they had become louder. Now murmuring picked up about the group. Chelini did not know what to make of the talk. Jax was in a huff of anger and beer. Someone farted. The odor was disgusting.
“Who done that?” Doc said.
“Done what?” Whiteboy asked raising his head.
“Done stinked up the fucken table,”
“Won’t me,” Whiteboy said.
“Hey, Eg,” El Paso said to change the subject. “Rumor has it you was shackin with a tattooed lady i
n Sydney.”
“Man,” Egan smiled, laughed. “The tattooed one was a dog but let me tell you bout Michele. Sweet sixteen, round-eyed Michele …”
“Fuck you with that roun-eyed shit,” Jax’ teeth flashed with hate. “Mothafucka, what you mean is white.”
“Fuck that shit,” Silvers said disgustedly. “I’m goin. Look dudes, it is like gettin really late, like inta the tee-tee hours of the mornin. I’m goina crash. Catchya at first light.”
“Hey,” Brooks said. “I’m going too. We’ve got to be ready to move in three hours. All of yous should get some sleep.”
“Whiteboy. Hey. Come on.” Silvers grabbed the big soldier and shook him. “I’ll lead ya to the hootch. You comin, Cherry?”
As the L-T, Whiteboy and Silvers left, the awakened Whiteboy bellowed out in coarse drunken monotone a verse from “Boonie Rats.”
The first few days were hectic
As they psyched my mind for war,
I often got the feeling
They’re trying to tie the score.
The mood of the soldiers remaining in the Phoc Roc instantly mellowed. At one time there had been a light black or dark white soldier, no one knew which, who would come to the Phoc Roc and sit in the corner by the stereo. From a small leather case the man would produce and assemble a clarinet. The stereo would be turned off, the lights lowered. Musical notes connected by a blue ribbon of jazz would wind out, spiral up fluttering into the darkness.
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