LBJ's Hired Gun

by John J. Gebhart

  Corporal Bruce put the AK-47 in his footlocker, planning to take it apart and mail it back home. About three weeks later, the brass decided to have a massive shakedown to look for contraband and drugs. Their main target was the Motor Pool, but they checked everyone’s stuff. When they checked my footlocker they found seven extra sets of utilities. I told them I saved old, beat-up ragged utilities that I found in the trash and turned them in for new ones, so I had extra sets for the rainy season. The officer laughed and called me a pack rat.

  When he searched Corporal Bruce’s footlocker, he found the AK-47 and magazines, and asked where he got them. He said he had killed a zip when we got attacked and had taken it as a souvenir. They said he wasn’t allowed to send home a fully automatic AK-47 rifle, so they confiscated it and sent First Sergeant Prick to find the dead zip. First Sergeant Prick got sick at the sight of the blue-black dead VC with his head turned backward. The smell alone almost made him throw up, but he then believed Corporal Bruce’s story. The brass wanted to put Corporal Bruce in for a Navy Commendation Medal with Combat V, but all Corporal Bruce wanted was the AK-47. They got into a big argument and Corporal Bruce said he was writing his Congressman, whom his father worked for as a Democratic ward leader in Bayonne.

  He did indeed write, recounting that he had killed a VC and wasn’t allowed to keep his rifle. The Congressman called the Commandant of the Marine Corps and asked why Corporal Bruce could not have the AK-47 as a war souvenir. There was a big stink, and finally the armory took a welding torch, cut the barrel of the AK-47, and returned it to Corporal Bruce, who was overjoyed. The Marine Corps made a special exception in his case, and Corporal Bruce was the only Marine anyone ever heard of who was allowed to take home an AK-47, even if it was cut by a torch. You were allowed one souvenir, provided it didn’t shoot fully automatic. The Commanding Officer signed a letter stating that you personally had to carry the weapon home with a tag on it, one gun per man. Usually, only the grunts got to take guns home; the Air Wing, which carried out massive VC killings, never got their hands on any weapons. The ground troops picked up the pistols, rifles and flags for themselves.

  Corporal Bruce flew home with his AK-47 eternally happy, and the brass were happy to get the Congressman off their case. It’s hard to believe Corporal Bruce’s father had that much pull, but apparently a ward leader in Bayonne, New Jersey has a lot of connections.

  SERGEANT KILPATRICK

  When we first arrived in Da Nang, all the Marines caught the clap, so the brass came out with a new Marine Corps order. No one was allowed in Da Nang unless they were going to the USO. Grunt guards drove us over, watched us go in, and waited until we came out. What a joke. The USO was a depressing place, filled with fat, ugly women who wanted to be your den mother like in the Cub Scouts. They were annoying, like marriage. “Where’s your hometown? Do you have a special girl back home? Would you like a pen pal to write to? How about an American magazine and some popcorn?” Answer: “I’m from hell and am here to take as many zip souls back home with me as possible. My special girl friend left me for a long-haired hippie who also happens to be a rich coward dog. I don’t need a pen pal. I need a shot of whiskey. Do you have any Playboy magazines for me to drool over? Can I shoot some rats in the alley behind this depressing place while they eat your popcorn? I don’t want a friendly American fat girl, I want a slut to get drunk with in a sleazy, dimly lit go-go dive bar!”

  The local zips decided to supply whores and dope and other stuff across the street from the entrance to Marble Mountain. They took all our empty beer cans, cut the tops and bottoms off, stretched out the aluminum and made a town of Bud, Miller and Pabst Blue Ribbon cans. Rather ingenious. It was the first time we had recycling, and we didn’t even know it. Then the brass came out with a new order that if you got the clap you would be busted one rank. This meant that if you snuck over to party and got plumbing problems, you had to figure out how to cure them yourself.

  The Navy ran sickbay and reported your sick dick to your First Sergeant so you got busted. I had been stationed at Memphis Naval Air Station where they had a school for Navy Corpsmen. Most Marines picked on the Medics, never realizing in their mind that these guys might some day save their lives. I had kept a couple of Medics from getting killed in a few nasty bar fights, including one guy, Navy Corpsman Cure-All, who was a buddy of mine. He volunteered for ’Nam, and by the luck of the draw he was stationed at Marble Mountain. I worked out a deal with him: $10.00 a Marine for two anti-clap shots, one in each cheek of their sorry ass, cash up front and keep your mouth shut. He made house calls only for people I personally trusted, who had enough on me and my guys to get us all transferred out of an aviation unit and into a grunt unit. Our system worked out very well. Corpsman Cure-All split his take 60/40, $6.00 for him and $4.00 for me per customer, and did about 20 guys a week. It was an easy way to get beer money.

  Sergeant Kilpatrick was screwing a zip whore who lived in a house of beer cans across the street from his bunker. She had a baby and a couple of teenage brothers who were probably VCs, and an old man or husband with an amputated foot. We watched him a couple of times looking at us with binoculars. He was always watching our gunbirds taking off, and we wondered if he might be listening in on our military radio transmissions. We thought he was a VC for sure.

  Sergeant Kilpatrick, whom I will call Sergeant Kill from here on, caught the clap. We teased him about it, things like he was ruined for life and could never get married. He was a religious crazy from Utah from the Church of the Latter Day Saints, or the Mormons. All he had to do was pay me $10.00 and get two penicillin shots in his lily-white ass and that was that. But no, he wanted to kill the whore and blow up her beer-can house. Coming from a Mormon, his attitude surprised me. A good Catholic would forgive the girl for being a slut and wear a rubber the next time he had sex with her. As far as I could see, Mormons talked fire and brimstone, but in reality they wanted to screw 14-year-old girls and have ten wives. If Sergeant Kill couldn’t even handle a $10.00 whore, how did he expect to have ten teenage wives out in the middle of Utah? Really, one wife telling you to cut the lawn is enough, but ten yelling at you to do all your chores, forget it! He lived in the land of Ali Ky Zam!

  One night after he finally paid $10.00 to Corpsman Cure-All and got his shots, Sergeant Kill was filled with anger. At 12:05 AM on a dark Vietnamese night, he grabbed his trusty M-79 grenade launcher and shot six well placed shots at his ex-girlfriend’s house. He killed her, her baby and the guy with the binoculars, and wounded the two teenage brothers. The whole front line bunker opened fire and once again had a mad minute. First Sergeant Prick was the first guy across the road in a well-armed jeep convoy to inspect the damage at dawn. He found the dead whore, the baby and the guy with the binoculars. He also found an ARVN radio that had been taken off a dead ARVN soldier.

  First Sergeant Prick congratulated Sergeant Kill for killing a VC spy. We all felt sorry for the whore, who was okay, and wondered how Sergeant Kill could live with himself after killing her baby. We considered him a freak; a Bible-quoting, save-the-world Mormon baby killer. We were LBJ’s hired guns, but we didn’t deliberately kill women and babies.

  We all stayed out of his way and shunned him. Since he didn’t drink, we didn’t have to put up with him at the Enlisted Men’s Club. Most Marines wouldn’t even sit at the same chow hall table with him. He was alone! I guess God was a little pissed too. One day Sergeant Kill walked too close to the mines in the secret passageway through the minefields and got himself blown up. Baby killer! They tagged and bagged what was left of him and COD’d him back to Utah. I guess he wouldn’t be marrying any 14-year old virgins after all. Amen!

  MY DOG PRINCE

  It wasn’t too long before stray dogs started coming to our base at Marble Mountain. I befriended a black pup and named him Prince. I wrote home and my mother sent me dog food, a flea collar, leash, rubber bowl, and a million other Hartz Mountain products. Prince was a great watchdog, and I grew to love him a
s my only child. One night, his bark alerted us to three VCs sneaking through the minefield. We called for flares that lit the sky and five bunkers with M-60s made them into ground beef burgers. We let their remains rot in the sun so the other zips could see they had better not mess with the Marines. Boy, did they stink the place up. Believe it or not, the Chaplain came to our bunker and wanted volunteers to go into the minefields and bury what was left of them. Sure!

  After a while, every bunker had a dog and a lot of Marines had their personal pets. The doctor and his Corpsmen were worried that we would all catch rabies and go mad. To be a Marine in combat you have to be mad already! So, they came out with a brainstorm edict: one dog would be allowed to each squadron, to be picked from a hat with all the dogs’ names in it. The dogs that were not picked were to be shot. I yelled that if anyone shot my dog Prince, that I would personally see that he went home in a wooden box to Dover, Delaware, looking like Swiss cheese that had lain out in the sun too long at a picnic. There was a great sadness—once again, the Navy wanted to screw us. We had to figure out how to save our dogs. Our Colonel shut his face, not wanting to go against the Navy doctor or Corpsmen. Real leadership! I’ll hide my head in the sand like an ostrich and the problem will go away. So we had to guard our guard dogs against possible execution by Corpsmen, as well guard ourselves against the zips. In short, we had to guard everything!

  Since I had been involved in killing seven VCs, I was no longer looked upon as a shitbird, but as a leader and hero. I got the bright idea that we could load all the dogs in three helicopters and airlift them to good homes with the Montagnards, who lived up in the mountains. I delivered mail one day to a Green Beret outpost, a place on the Laotian border at Heip Duc. I asked the Operations Officer, Major Fine, who was also my boss in S-3, if we could transfer the dogs, and he said I was a genius. Everyone was happy with the dog-lift idea.

  The next sunny day, everyone came down to the flight line with their pet dogs and their leashes, dog food, bowls and equipment. Every Marine there was sad we had to give up the dogs, but they were also happy that the dogs would not be shot by the Navy. We carefully loaded all the dogs and their supplies inside three slick choppers that still had doors on them and were used for VIP transportation. We also sent two gunbirds to guard and protect them. When we reached Heip Duc, I helped unload the dogs and their equipment, and handed them out to the villagers and the Green Beret who was in charge of the camp, who helped translate the dogs’ names to the new Montagnard owners. I handed Prince over to the village chief. I figured he lived in a cement house so my dog would be treated better.

  We left the camp of Heip Duc happy, knowing our dogs had found good homes. I can still remember the smile on the Green Berets’ faces as our chopper left their landing zone. We returned to base and marked the mission accomplished. As a training hop everyone was happy, even the Colonel, who didn’t want to get involved. I gained new respect, even from some of the officers, who thought the dog transfer was a good idea.

  Were we in for the shock of our lives! After about two weeks, I became curious about how the dogs, especially Prince, were doing. I talked Major Fine into doing a mail run to the Green Beret camp and taking me along to check the condition of our dogs. We launched two gunbirds for the dawn patrol and then diverted them to a mail run to Heip Duc.

  As our gunbirds landed, I saw only one dog running around the camp. I thought this rather odd, since we had delivered over 30 dogs. I next witnessed the Montagnards, or “Yards,” as we called them, wearing the dog collars as jewelry, and saw their kids eating out of our rubber and plastic dog bowls. One Yard was using a dog leash to walk his water buffalo. “What happened to the dogs?” I asked the head Green Beret, who was carrying a Swedish K submachine gun and wearing a custom-made vest filled with M-26 hand grenades. He gave me a sad look and said in a straight and truthful way, “The Yards ate them. Dog is considered a delicacy to them, like filet mignon to us.” I said, “You’re kidding me—the savages ate our dogs for lunch?” He replied that when he first took over the base, the Yards were armed with bows and arrows, but they had come a long way since. They could now shoot M-16 rifles and the M-79 grenade launchers, and wear underwear and tiger striped UDs, but they still had some old ways that needed to be corrected. They would rather eat dog than C-rations.

  Both crews of the gunbirds were in shock. We didn’t know what to say. The Major was pissed. I wanted to call an air strike and make a parking lot out of the area, but it was an Army camp, so we couldn’t blow it up because we might kill the Green Berets who were running it. We dropped off their mail, saddled up and left. There was silence all the way back to our base. Everyone was sick in the stomach from the Yards’ eating habits.

  Since transferring the dogs was my bright idea, the Major said I better tell the men. I waited until we were in mess hall, then stood up on a table, and relayed the tragic end to our sad adoption story. There was total silence for a minute, then every Marine there started yelling things like, “Fucking savages! Dog-eating savages! Scumbag zip assholes! Everything in this fucking country is fucked up!”

  We all went to the Enlisted Club and got falling-down drunk. A very good deed we had done had ended in tragedy. We learned we could not trust anyone in the whole dog-eating country. Later I learned they ate cats too. Luckily, we didn’t have any of them around. All the Marines in my unit were fed up with Vietnam and its wasted inhabitants—we were not there to save people who ate dogs and cats. We had been there two months, and could already see that none of their mess was worth getting killed over. The war then became for each Marine to save every other Marine. We fought for our own survival and for our salvation—the zips could rot, the lazy ARVN, NVA and VC, all of them.

  THE M-48 TANK VISIT

  Gunny Sergeant Woods, my Okinawa boss, bullshitted his way from squadron level Operations Chief to Wing Operations Chief, and moved to MAC-V Headquarters, III MAF, Da Nang. My new boss was Gunny Sergeant Easy. He was about 45 years old, a fat, out-of-shape guy who hated Second Lieutenants and loved to drink rotgut whiskey. He was from Dead Horse, Oklahoma, or some other home-on-the-range place out West, and had never met a good bullshit artist like me. As his moniker implies, he was easy to get over on.

  One day, I asked him if I could go over to Da Nang Air Base to get a haircut and visit the PX. He said no way. I said, “Cut me some slack, Gunny, and I’ll buy whatever you need. Plus, if you give me your ration card, I’ll pick up your three bottles of whiskey.” I believed any Sergeant, E-5 and up, got a white ration card to purchase hard liquor. His eyes lit up. He not only gave me his money and ration card, but also called PFC Washington at Motor Pool to drive me over in a jeep.

  On the way down to the main gate we grabbed (or rather kidnapped) Corporal Laid, who was worn out from all-night guard duty and only wanted to sleep. I told him we had a jeep, money and a driver. It was party time, and he could sleep when he was dead! He slept for the half hour ride, we purchased the booze, and I got a haircut. We bought a lot of stuff at the PX, then headed to Da Nang for the bars and whores. The driver started to bitch, so we paid to get him laid and shut him up. Everyone was happy.

  We got half a load on and returned to the huge Enlisted Men’s Club at Da Nang Air Base, where we met some crazies from the 7th Marines who were our neighbors over on the other side of Marble Mountain. The mountain contained a Buddhist shrine, and the locals extracted marble there. The guys from the 7th Marines said they were bored shitless because they had signed up for tanks and armor, but never saw any action. They had an M-48 tank hidden in a sandbag revetment or fort with only its barrel sticking out, but only used it as a heavy artillery piece. Every day they ran the engine to keep the battery up, but seldom took it out for a ride.

  I told them that I was on the last bunker on the flight line about four miles up the road from their position, and that a VC with field glasses looked at my position from 700 or 800 yards out just about every morning. I had a spotting scope and he usually came out o
f a hole to take a piss and look around with his binoculars, which sometimes glared in the sun. A couple of times, he saw me looking at him and gave me the finger. Since I was in the very last bunker and the helicopters made a lot of noise around 6:00 AM, sometimes I could get a pot shot off at him without anyone hearing it, but I never got him. The bullet probably didn’t have too much get-up-and-go to hurt him at that distance anyway.

  I drew a map of my bunker on a bar napkin, indicated the exact spot where the zip was located, and explained it all in great detail. Then the driver started bitching again about driving the jeep back at night from Da Nang Air Base to Marble Mountain, and how the zips would ambush us, so we said goodbye to the 7th Marines. We wondered if they really had a tank or were just bullshitting us.

  PFC Washington (not related to George Washington) was scared shitless driving back. Corporal Laid loaded one magazine, put a cigar in his mouth and took a swig of Gunny’s whiskey. “Let them come on,” he said. “Let’s take the battle to them.” On the back road, after the beautiful two-lane bridge we built for the ungrateful Vietnamese, we took some sniper fire from a small group of huts near the road. Corporal Laid had all tracer rounds in his magazine and he opened up on them. I turned around in the rear seat of the jeep and opened up full auto on the two huts. Corporal Laid’s tracers caught the huts on fire. Someone came out shooting and we wasted him.