I couldn’t believe my ears. This was May 1967, and here were two asshole Army MPs, complete with an Army MP jeep with a blinking red light. They asked for my military ID card, which was old and still had me marked down as a PFC. They then asked for my outfit and unit, which I gladly gave them. They said, “If you think this is a big joke, wait till you get busted to Private and get office hours.” I asked these two overfed ex-football heroes how long they had been in the country. They said it was none of my business. I told them I was one of the original Marines who had made China Beach and Marble Mountain safe for mankind by killing all the Viet Cong in the local village between both places.
The head MP was the kind of person who liked to beat people up. If I’ve met one, I’ve met a hundred of his kind. They are scared to death when the zips open fire on them, but otherwise they break everyone’s balls, especially the Marines’. They were worse than the Navy Shore Patrol who simply locked you up. These two goons wanted to play beat up a Marine—they were nothing but Army draftee assholes who made MPs because of their size. They spent half their life in a smelly gym, lifting weights and looking at themselves in the mirror.
I told them I had more time in ’Nam than they did sitting on their Army toilets and they couldn’t hold a candle to the Marines, who were all volunteers for four years. To make a long story short, I had half a load on and was lucky I didn’t get beat up and handcuffed. They looked at my pistol and knew I was a helicopter gunner, and that if the shit hit the fan they would be fly-covered, stone dead MPs killed by the local Viet Cong guerrillas.
I hitched a ride back to Marble Mountain and caught my flight back to Ky Ha. It was a nice visit to my old outfit, and it was always good to break First Sergeant Prick’s balls with good war stories. Two days after I returned, Corporal Wiseass called me into the S-1 Office and said I was in big trouble. He opened the morning mail pouch and I had been written up for visiting a whorehouse, giving the MPs a hard time, and even threatening them with violence. We both laughed, and I said I had concrete evidence he had stolen First Sergeant Rocky’s poker money. We both laughed again and burned the paper in the trashcan. Screw the US Army MPs. We didn’t need MPs in ’Nam; we needed fighting men with M-16 rifles. What a waste of manpower!
SECOND PASSPORT TREK, SAIGON
I returned to the S-1 office and informed Major Misery there were no passports in the Da Nang Embassy and that I needed another set of temporary orders to travel to the main Embassy in Saigon. Once again Major Misery said I was a total pain in the ass, and asked why I couldn’t simply go to the USA, and once again I recited that I could go to any Free World country.
Corporal Wiseass typed up another set of temporary orders with a big grin on his face. He knew I was getting more time off in the Marines. Gunny Sergeant Miller or, as I called him, Gunny Mickey, when I found out his real name was Mickey Miller, was annoyed to lose me again and told me to make the trip short and sweet. I took his liquor card and told him I would return with three bottles of Black and White scotch from the big PX at Saigon. This cheered him up. I packed my gear and wore my MP-38 pistol under my flack vest. I took my M-14 rifle, cartridge belt and helmet. I was ready for anything I would run into in Saigon.
I hitched a ride down to the main runway at Chu Lai on the mail jeep and reported to flight operations. The only thing going out was a C-130 transport filled with new draftees headed to Nha Trang. Flight operations said they would take me halfway there and I could then bum a ride on the next C-130 for the short trip from Nha Trang to Saigon. I went down to the C-130 and ran into a herd of Army draftees who seemed scared shitless of going to their new assignment. All of them were cherries, aka FNGs, dressed in new tropical green uniforms that even the Marines didn’t have yet. All their gear was brand new—they even had new nylon duffel bags. Except for four or five NCOs armed with .45-autos they were unarmed. Forty were black, about twenty five were Puerto Rican, and thirty-five were white. They took one look at me and thought I was a Marine Recon crazy. I wished I was.
They asked me how long I had been in ’Nam. “One year, and I just signed up for another one,” I replied. When they asked me what I did in the Marines, I told them I laid souls to waste as a hired gun for LBJ. They said I was a crazy white dude who enjoyed killing people. I replied that I was a UH-IE door gunner with over 200 confirmed kills. This was total bullshit, for most of the time we never really knew how many zips we had dusted.
I told them Vietnam was a tropical paradise with cheap beer, free ammo, plenty of targets, and all the whores you ever wanted. This drove them crazy. They had never seen an M-14 with tripods and a selector with double-taped magazines, and were impressed with my upside down K-bar knife and back-up MP-38 pistol. In short, they were scared of me and what I stood for: duty, honor, country and my beloved Marine Corps.
At Nha Trang I ate with the new draftee recruits in the Army mess hall, and then was assigned temporary transit barracks for my overnight stay. The transit barracks was total confusion. The four troop handlers left and all the Army guys started arguing about money to buy weed and booze. A few guys collected—or rather extorted—money from the weaker draftees, and somehow got their hands on cases of cold Miller and reefers. I had never even seen a marijuana cigarette in my life, although I had smelled the stuff walking by the soul brothers’ hootch at Marble Mountain. They shared their beer with me and wanted to get me high, but I refused to smoke their weed. This pissed off the black recruits.
They were afraid I would rat them out to the Army NCO troop handlers. I moved my cot next to the door and said, “I don’t give a shit what you do. Just don’t mess with me, or you will be in a zip-up body bag headed back to Ghettoland, USA.” As they got higher and drunker, their behavior got ruder and more violent. One big loudmouth called me a Marine pussy. I then showed him a small bag I kept in my jacket that had dried apricots in it. I told him they were seven shriveled-up ears off dead VCs I had personally killed during the famous Marble Mountain attack. In the dim 40-watt light of the tent, the shriveled-up apricots looked like VC ears. I said his right ear would go great with my collection. A black ear. He almost threw up and called me a barbarian madman. Thus I slept with one eye open and a hand on my pistol. They partied until they dropped, moaning and bitching about how many days they had left in ’Nam.
The next day, I ate a fast breakfast, got down to the flight line and got another hop in a C-130 carrying caskets to Saigon. There was just the crew of this big C-130 and row after row of caskets. Not a promising sight, but a ride is a ride. On arrival at Tan Son Nhut Airfield, I was driven in an Army jeep over to the American Embassy compound in Saigon. I was the first combat Marine those personnel had ever seen in Saigon except for the Embassy guards.
Once you arrived in Saigon you had to check in your weapons. This pissed me off, but rules are rules. I handed in my M-14 and cartridge belt but I kept my MP pistol and a handful of .38 special ammo. I was given a receipt and driven over to the impressively modern Embassy compound. I was guarded by a company of Marines equipped with Beretta submachine guns. I was envious of their quality firepower and wished I owned a Beretta like they had.
I handed in my two passport pictures and in 45 minutes I had my new passport and was on my way out the door. Once again the passport supervisor was a ball-less wonder in a super-paying job. There was very little chitchat: I told them I had signed up for another year in this tropical paradise and needed a passport to travel to Australia, and they replied that only Marines were crazy enough to like this country, and wished me luck.
THE MOTORCYCLE BANDITS
In 1967, Saigon was like a Yukon Gold Rush boomtown. Crossing the street downtown was a life-or-death situation. There were thousands of cabs, buses, motorcycles, military jeeps, trucks and pedicabs. There were beautiful hotels and other buildings that the French had built, elegant homes on private streets, tin-roofed shacks and dismal slums. There were a million bars and whorehouses to play in, plus endless steam baths and black market booths
that sold just about anything you needed. The black market in US goods was in full swing. The people who ran the PX system were making millions selling the latest walk-in refrigerators, bar equipment, air conditioners and TV sets to zip bar owners.
I went to the Super PX and purchased three bottles of Black and White scotch for Gunny Miller, and three bottles of Canadian Club for myself. I rented a hotel room in a sleazy zip hotel that had air-conditioning, hot and cold running water and showers, then cleaned up and headed out to party. I went into the Club Papillion and picked up a first-class zip hooker go-go girl. I soon realized that it would cost me a small fortune just to buy her fake drinks. Thus I told her I would be back at 10:00 PM to pick her up for a “long-time,” or all-nighter, at my hotel room. I then headed for the local USO and ate a real hamburger and French fries. I was the only combat Marine in the place. The rest was filled with rear-echelon personnel wearing polished boots, starched uniforms and shiny brass who had never snapped a cap on a gook. They took one look at my enlisted man’s Air Wing medal and knew I was a Marine helicopter gunner. They wanted to hear some war stories from I-Corps, so I spent a few hours telling them how we wasted gooks. They took me to a local bar and I got shit-faced drunk.
My Army buddies left me in their local hangout bar because of a military curfew that I knew nothing about. When I left, the bar and the streets were quiet and deserted. I was walking back to the Papillion when I was almost run over by a zip on a motorcycle. A rider on the back tried to grab my Instamatic camera out of my pocket. I had heard of these Vietnamese cowboy thieves on motorbikes, but I never imagined I would run into any of them. They missed their first pass at me. I was further amazed that they wore ARVN uniform pants. I already knew the Army of the Republic of Vietnam guys were worthless cowards, but thieves too?
It was time to show the scumbags what a drunken Marine could do. Suddenly there were two guys on bikes and one had a baseball bat. I grabbed a trashcan lid and deflected his blow at me. I then pulled out my pistol and shot the rear tire out of one of their bikes, causing it to crash into the wall, and both zips to dee-dee. The second team was real pissed and drove at me with a broken beer bottle, trying to cut me. I shot the zip with the bottle through his wrist, then knocked the driver off his cycle and pistol-whipped his face into a bloody pulp. He shit his ARVN military pants as I beat his worthless ass until he crawled away like a snake hit by a truck. I then wasted the remaining bullets in my gun on their bikes. I was sober by this time and must admit I enjoyed the whole episode. I had decided to reload my pistol, when I ran into two Australian Military Police.
They were dressed differently than our Army MPs or Navy Shore Patrol. They yelled for me to drop my weapon, and I gently laid my MP-38 on the ground. I had zip blood all over my arms and tropical jungle jacket. The MPs were amazed I had taken on four cowboy thieves and lived. They also were pissed I was an American Marine, drunk with a pistol after curfew, and that I really didn’t give a shit if I killed the cowboys or not. The Vietnamese white mice police came along and wanted to lock me up for attacking innocent teenagers and trying to destroy their motorbikes. The Australians handcuffed me, picked up my pistol, and told the useless white mice cop that I was under their jurisdiction, and basically that if he had been doing his job, there wouldn’t be any cowboys out robbing military personnel. Once we were in the Australians’ Land Rover, they asked me what a Marine was doing in Saigon. Was I a deserter running dope? I told them I’d re-upped for another tour of ’Nam and had come down to get my passport because I was headed for the Land Down Under. This blew their minds but they checked my orders and it was all written in black and white.
I then asked them where I should go and where I should stay in Australia. They were overjoyed that a Yank was headed to their home-land. I told them a bullshit story, saying I was the first Marine enlisted person sent down to check out their country’s facilities for R&R trips, and they drove me back to my sleaze hotel and uncuffed me. They said to wash the blood off my shirt and try to be good, and they would return at 7:30 AM with my pistol and a ride to the airport. They even gave me two aspirins for my headache. They still couldn’t believe what I had done to the cowboy motorcycle thieves. God sure was watching over me that night.
MY RETURN TRIP TO CHU LAI
The next morning, the Australians drove me to pick up my M-14 at the Saigon MP weapons check-in station. Then, to my surprise, they took me to their camp for breakfast. Since they had read my orders, they knew I was really going to Australia. I had a great breakfast and got a quick history lesson about Australia and its customs. One guy gave me his Sydney address and asked me to visit his mother and tell her he was doing okay.
Both officers and enlisted personnel treated me with a great deal of respect and all seemed to admire that I was a Marine helicopter gunner who liked ’Nam enough to stay another year. I was the only Marine they had ever seen, except for the guards at the American Embassy. I was then driven over to the Tan Son Nhut Airport and, believe it or not, hopped a ride on the same C-130 that had delivered caskets. Only this time, the caskets were filled with dead Army guys. No one wanted to hop a ride with them, but I figured what the heck, and by now I knew the cargo guys by name. We flew nonstop to the main runway at Chu Lai, where they landed to pick up more filled caskets that this time probably had both Marine and Army guys inside. Their next stop was Da Nang, then over to Okinawa where a larger jet would take the caskets nonstop to Dover, Delaware, the end of the line for the dead.
I hopped off, thanked the cargo guys and pilots, then bummed a ride on the mail truck up to Ky Ha, about five miles up the road. Gunny Miller was very happy to get his scotch, and asked a million questions about Saigon. I could only tell him it was like Philadelphia with hotels, bars, whores, thieves on motorbikes, and a million ARVN soldiers walking around doing nothing. The Army lived in air-conditioned apartment houses with sandbags all around the entrances. There was a street called Tu Do that had a million bars. All the bars were filled with pretty zip whores and most were set up like go-go bars, with girls dancing in flimsy outfits. It was a great place to visit.
Major Misery was pissed that I had had a good time and returned in one piece. When the other Marines heard of my great passport trip, some re-upped for another year just to visit Saigon and party. The Major hated me even more for being a trendsetter. Well, all I can say is, tough shit!
AUSTRALIA, HERE I COME
By now I was more than ready for my 30-day vacation and 5- to 15-day travel time package. I withdrew $4,000 back pay in twenty-dollar bills and packed my bag, taking my tiger stripe BDUs. Then off I went back down on the mail truck to the main runway at Chu Lai, where I caught a ride up to Da Nang on a C-130 transport filled with men going home. I spent a night at Da Nang and got a ride to Okinawa on another C-130. I was dressed in my new lightweight tropical green BDU outfit with bloused jungle boots. Everyone else on the plane was either dressed in Marine tropical short-sleeve uniforms with a tie, or Army uniforms.
When we landed on the Rock, I ran headlong into a ball-breaking Second Lieutenant who had only a National Defense ribbon on his uniform. He wanted to know why I was wearing tropical BDUs and jungle boots instead of the proper uniform of the day. I showed him my orders and told him I was on vacation, not headed home like the other guys. He couldn’t believe my orders and ordered me to put on civilian clothes at once. We didn’t want to offend our Okinawa neighbors with men walking around with ’Nam clothing on. It would bring back memories of World War II.
Since I had already been stationed at Fatima Air Base for four months, I couldn’t have cared less about our Jap allies, who only 20 years ago had been killing Marines on the very ground we were standing on. The rear area Second Lieutenant tried to break my balls in front of all the guys going home. I asked him what he was going to do—ship me back to ’Nam? I grabbed my orders out of his hand, told him happy trails, and caught a cab to New Cosa Doza Street. I checked into a Jap hotel where the owner was having a birthday p
arty. He saw I was a combat Marine and told me he was once a Jap officer—no hard feelings. I took a hot shower, put on a set of civilian clothes, hid my pile of twenty-dollar bills under the rug, and went downstairs to his birthday party. Now this hotel wasn’t a Holiday Inn run by dot heads like in the USA. It had only ten rooms, but it was clean and cheap and was a good deal. I had never partied before with a complete Jap family, only bar girls. The hotel owner insisted I take part as an honored guest.
We had an outstanding, five-course meal with all types of good food. I ate shark-fin soup and all kinds of shrimp and fish. The whole time, we kept downing shots of sake. I got drunk and the old Jap fell asleep, so I hailed a cab and headed to my favorite bar, the Black Cat Lounge. When I arrived at 2:00 AM, it was closed. So many Army soldiers and Marines stationed on Okinawa had left for ’Nam that the bars had started missing the business and closed early.
The street was filled with bars, though, and I went into one called The Last Chance that had a sign proclaiming, “It’s Never Too Late to Party!” Sounded good. It was an upstairs bar, so I walked up, got a cold can of Miller’s, and looked over the supply of party girls. I picked out a girl named Nico—in fact, they all seemed to be named Nico. We had a few drinks. I paid the Mama San $20.00 US for a “long-time” and hailed a cab with Nico back to my hotel.
Nico spoke broken English, so I told her to open a cold beer while I took a shower to sober up. When I came out, she was gone. I checked under the rug and all my money was there, but still, I had paid 20 bucks and the bitch had split.
I hailed a taxi back to The Last Chance and wanted my money back from Mama San, who acted like she didn’t even know me. I reminded her I had just given her $20.00 US for a long-time with Nico. She was closing up and said, “Tough shit, GI.” Well, I had a pretty good sake load on, and that was not the correct answer. I said I wanted my $20.00 back, or I was going to take it out of the cash register. Mama San ran over to her cash register, took out the key that locked the cash drawer, and put it down her dress between her boobs. I said, “No problem. I’ll take three bottles of whiskey and we’ll call it square.”
LBJ's Hired Gun Page 22