As I grabbed the bottles, her bartender came at me with a baseball bat. Like he was going to hurt a United States Marine Corporal who made a living killing zips. He took a swing at me and I pulled up a bar stool and deflected it, knocking the bat on the bar room floor. I then picked up the bat and started swinging, knocking over all the bar stools that the bartender had just stacked on top of the bar. They all crashed down like a big chain of dominos. I let out the yell of a crazy Viking warrior, and the bartender ran down the stairs to get the cops and MPs. Mama San had an old flunky clean-up boy come at me with his floor mop. I took one swing at him and broke the handle of his mop in half, then grabbed him and threw him over the bar.
While all this was going on, Mama San was yelling, “Help! Murder! Police! MPs!” I told her “Shut up, Jap bitch!” then calmly picked up my three bottles of whiskey, put them in a paper bag, and prepared to leave by the rear exit-only door. The problem was that the door had a million locks on it and wouldn’t open. Thus I found myself in an upstairs bar with a large crowd of Japs gathered downstairs waiting for the MPs and Jap cops to come and lock my drunken ass up. I figured if I acted like a Viking berserk warrior, I could intimidate them and get away. So I ran down the steps like a roaring bear and the crowd ran for their lives. I then ran out behind the building and encountered an endless maze of alleys. I jumped a couple of fences and ran into the third alley over. I could see the crowd running and looking for me with the bartender leading them. I still had the baseball bat in one hand and the booze in the other. I climbed a few more fences and suddenly it was quiet. I walked down the alley and encountered a drunken Jap sitting against a wall. I offered him a swig of my Canadian Club, and he took it and smiled. I sat down and had a few swigs myself, happy that I had gotten away from the bar, cops and an ugly crowd of pissed off Japs.
I finally got up and decided to try to catch a taxi at one of the intersections. By a miracle, one was coming down the alley. “Holy shit,” I thought, “I am home free.” As I opened the door and the light came on, what did I see but a Marine MP and an Army MP. Neither could believe the hornet’s nest I had stirred up, and both said I was under arrest. I told the skinny Marine MP to please hold my bag while I beat the shit out of the Army MP with the baseball bat. He pulled out his club and I told him it would be a fight to the finish. The Marine asked who I was and I told him I was a helicopter gunner from Chu Lai on vacation awaiting my plane to Australia. He was amazed and told me to settle down before the Jap cops arrived.
Well, Mr. Cab Driver called his dispatcher and the next thing I knew the lynch mob was there, complete with Mama San, the bartender and the janitor still holding the broken mop. The Jap cops came zooming up and pulled out their pistols, which were on white lanyards. They put their spotlight and headlights on me and I felt like I was on the Ed Sullivan Show. All the Japs were yelling and screaming and I thought it was comical. I told them that Mama San had robbed me of $20.00 for a whore who split, and I wanted to press charges. The Marine laughed and took my baseball bat and said quietly he had to get me out of there before I got lynched. He pulled out his .45-automatic and said I was a Marine who came under his jurisdiction. I let him cuff me and put me in the taxi, which drove out of the maze of alleys back to where the MPs had parked their jeep. The Marine MP gave Mama San her booze back and returned the bat to the bartender. We then headed for the brig.
I asked him what they were going to do—send me to Vietnam? I told him I had a plane to catch to Australia and didn’t have time to play chickenshit MP bullshit. I was a mean, green killing machine. The Marine MP asked for a copy of my orders, which I had in my Hawaiian shirt. When he saw I was telling the truth, they drove me to the hotel, unhandcuffed me and returned my orders, then walked me to my room and told me to behave myself. The Marine MP was an okay guy and cut me some slack. The Army MP was scared shitless of me and thought I was crazy for volunteering for another year in ’Nam. I told them that sooner or later they would be in the war, and to look me up in Chu Lai. I was with Klondike #7 Gunbird. They were shocked when I told them the bodies were piling up and we needed all the dicks we could get—both Army and Marines.
They actually put me in my bed and told Papa San, who still had half a load on from his birthday party, to lock the door and not to let me out until 8:00 AM. I slept like a baby.
MY THIRTY-DAY VACATION
I had to get a taxi down to Naha Airport, where I purchased a one-way ticket to Sydney, Australia. No sooner had I purchased the ticket for $900 one way than two Army MPs and a CID (Criminal Intelligence Department) agent escorted me into a private room. The CID clown was in the Navy. I had heard such people existed but, being in combat, I had never run into one. They’re like Nazi Gestapo agents who wear civilian clothing and work for the armed services. This asshole would not have been found in ’Nam except hiding under a rock like a cockroach, but in Okinawa he thought he was safe to screw with people like me. Wrong!
“Let me see your orders,” he said. “Who the hell are you,” I replied, “a secret agent from East Berlin, working for the Russians? Let me see your ID, buddy!” This made the MPs laugh at the CID guy. He flipped his badge, which I quickly took out of his hand and examined. Sure as hell, he was a CID agent. I asked him how come he wasn’t in Saigon chasing the Army Special Service NCOs who were selling complete liquor collections to the local bar owners. “Don’t you have the balls to do your job in ’Nam?” This pissed off detective Joe Friday and made the MPs laugh even harder. He then looked over my orders and passport and looked in my flight bag. I guess he was looking for dope. Who knows?
Next I was questioned about why I was going to Australia instead of the good old USA. I said if I went to the USA, I would make the Kent State massacre look like a Sunday picnic. I hated dope-smoking hippy rich kids who are war-protesting coward dogs. He then asked what I intended to do in Australia. I told him straight to his Dick Tracy face, “I am going to find them, feel them, fuck them and forget them.” This was beyond his stock 327 brain-housing unit to understand. “Who do you mean?” he asked. I said, “Australian women, you moron!”
He then said I had the wrong attitude, and I told him that when I returned, he could come back with me to my outfit, Klondike, and I would show him how we fought and wasted the local population of no-good VC and NVA soldiers. I said I would show him how to aim low and hit their legs to make them crawl around like worms before we called in napalm and torched them. Nothing like the burned smell of a crispy critter. He then either spat or threw up in a trashcan and said I was a barbarian. I said, “Not only am I a barbarian, but I track my family line to the Vikings, especially the Berserk tribe.” I was escorted to my plane and the MPs shook my hand and wished me luck. The CID agent was in the rest room cleaning mucus or puke off his white shirt. Both MPs said they had never met a Marine helicopter machine gunner before and that they were honored. Then I took off to my next stop—Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong I had to show my shot card to the airport medical staff. God forbid some bad germs would travel to Australia! I had to get a booster shot, and off I went on Quantas Airways. It took forever to get to Sydney. I couldn’t believe the plane could stay in the air that long. Finally we landed, and I had to go through Australian Customs. They confiscated all of my Playboy magazines and took all of my gear out of my flight bag and checked it. They even opened up my toothpaste. These custom agents were real serious. “Do you have any drugs hidden on your body?” I looked the guy in the face and said, “Do I look like a drug addict?” “Is your trip business or pleasure?” I said, “I am the first Marine sent down here by III MAF Marine Headquarters to check out the hotels and leisure facilities for possible R&R for fellow Marines. I want respect and to be treated like the goodwill ambassador I am.” He then asked why they didn’t send an officer instead of a Corporal. I said my mission was to see the real Australia, not the VIP officer, country club, tea party side.
He said I was a cocky Yank and I told him he was a nosy pain in the a
ss. “If fellow Marines on R&R are harassed like this again,” I informed him, “you and your country can forget about us sending men down here. Marines on R&R need women, booze and a good time, with no bullshit in a rinky-dink airport.” Then off I went to check in with the American Embassy in Sydney.
THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, SYDNEY
At the American Embassy, you would never have known there was a war going on. The glad flies were busy planning an afternoon soccer match with their British counterparts. It all confirmed my theory that they all had been born into a rich kingdom of do-nothings or had donated a large sum of money to the campaign of some President.
It was a big inconvenience even to stamp my orders and check my passport. They had never even met a US fighting Marine. Of course, once again they had Marines guarding the Embassy, but they were just for show. Never had any of them fired a shot in anger. To cut a zip’s ear off with a K-bar knife would probably have made one of these pretty boys blanche!
I was asked why I picked Australia, and I said if it were good enough for Captain Cook it would be good enough for Corporal Gebhart. Then they asked me how the war was going, and I replied we were kicking ass and taking names, at least in I-Corps where the Marines operate.
I got in and out as quickly as possible because these rich scumbags with draft-dodging kids back in the USA couldn’t have cared less if I got killed or not. Their main concerns were proper invitations, flower arrangements, and whether the outside tent would be adequate for the next reception. Try living in a pup tent and eating C-rations for a month with real bullets whistling by your head in the pouring monsoon rain. This was the Philadelphia Country Club set and I wanted no part of them.
HEAVEN DOWN UNDER
Once I finished checking in with the snobs at the American embassy, I grabbed a taxi and went to a high-class $79.00-a-night hotel. I felt kind of strange walking around without my M-14 rifle, my helmet and the rest of my web gear. I took a walk to a nearby park and sat down and watched normal people having fun walking their dogs and playing ball. All this seemed like a different world to me. No sounds of helicopters coming and going, no mortar rounds landing nearby, no K-bar knife on my belt, no body bags and no machine guns firing. It took some time to realize that I was no longer in a war zone.
As I walked around and took in the sights, I ran into one of the most beautiful blondes I have ever seen in my entire life. Her name was Erica. She was 21 and, as they say in South Philly, drop-dead beautiful. I introduced myself to her and hoped I could bullshit her up to my hotel room. She was amazed to meet a real Marine and related how her mother had met a Marine in Sydney during World War II.
I took her back to my hotel room and had two steak dinners sent up with a bottle of brut champagne. We had a relaxed dinner and she gave me a mind-boggling back massage that completely relaxed me. I then slowly undressed her and laid her completely naked body on my bed. I took what was left of our ice cream dessert, spread it on her magnificent body, then slowly licked the ice cream off her. I think I spent a half hour just licking her until she cried out for me to screw her brains out. I made love to her like a man who has been marooned on an island for a year without a woman. It’s lucky I was in such good physical condition or she would have screwed me to death.
Erica showed me Sydney’s top tourist attractions, and I wined and dined her like the golden-haired Viking goddess that she was. I even went to a kangaroo zoo and played with little kangaroos for hours upon hours. I loved the look men gave me when I walked into a nightclub with Erica. Australian men seemed to treat their women like a piece of jewelry. I guess they were used to having the women hanging all over them, so they came to ignore them. If they had their key chain, okay; if they left it home, okay. I think they loved rugby more than their beautiful women.
I spent a day at the home of Sergeant Birkshire of the Australian Military Police, whom I had met in Saigon. I kept my word and got a taxi out to his mother’s home. He had written his family that a crazy Marine helicopter gunner was coming to vacation in Australia, thus they were ready for my surprise visit. Sergeant Berkshire had told his mother all about our episode with the Vietnamese white mice police in Saigon.
I knocked on her door and she was overjoyed to see me, like I was one of her long-lost sons. I only knew her son for about three hours, but she asked me a million questions about how he was doing. I said he had it made—he lived in a nice air-conditioned building and had a great job as a Military Police officer. I said I had had breakfast with his unit and they even had a good cook. That was about all I could tell her, except that he was a stand-up guy who saved my ass. Australia had its share of anti-war protesters like the USA. The war was not very popular down in Australia, but both of her sons had joined up.
She was a very proud woman and insisted that I stay for dinner. I tried to talk my way out of this, but she was insistent. She lived in a quiet neighborhood called Rose Hill, I believe. Her house had a fine garden and she even had cold beer for me. She went to a lot of trouble to make me feel at home, God bless her for the effort. We both had T-bone steaks and they were excellent. We had cake and ice cream and I got a chance to watch some old American TV shows that were new to the Australians. I’d always wondered what had happened to the old Gunsmoke shows.
I did my best to cheer her up and tell her not to worry. Saigon was like downtown Sydney, and her son was not in any real danger except from drunken GIs. She called me a taxi and kissed my cheek with tears coming down her face. I took my handkerchief and wiped away the tears and told her God was watching over her son and, for that matter, everyone’s sons in ’Nam. I kissed her hand and said she had done a great job of raising a wonderful son. That put a smile on her face and I got the hell out of there. I hate when women cry.
Unfortunately, Erica was a model and had to work. I heard of Bundee Beach, where all the women went topless, so I grabbed a taxi and headed out. Summer was over and the beautiful beach looked like Wildwood, New Jersey in mid-November. There were just a few people walking their dogs. After five days it started getting cold, and I wasn’t used to that. I needed to travel to the warm part of Australia. Erica advised me to try Queensland.
I flew up the coast to Queensland and got a ride to a cheap guesthouse called Greenmount Guest Home that was filled with young people. Every week they elected a new guesthouse leader, and after the first week, I was elected President. Their motto was, “Although we stay out late at night, we are always fit and bright. Who are we? We are Greenmount by the sea! GREENMOUNT, HOORAY!”
I have to honestly say I never had a better three weeks in my entire life. Marines had been stationed in the town during World War II, and there were streets with names like Marine Boulevard. Some of the young people had parents who had married Americans, and some of the couples had moved to the States while others stayed in Australia. There was such great respect for Marines in the town that some days I never spent a dime for anything. I learned how to play rugby on the beach, which was something like touch football but a lot rougher. I went to a million parties, and at some we dressed like pirates. I had a blast and forgot the war. I had a different woman every night and could hardly handle them all. It was like I had died and gone to heaven.
In all honesty, I should mention that I told them I was the first Marine to come from III MAF Headquarters in Da Nang, Vietnam to check out their country for possible R&R trips. I also learned there wasn’t much love lost between Australia and England. They were part of the Commonwealth and had an English flag of sorts, but they all reminded me that Australia had started as a penal colony for criminals and political prisoners. They looked upon the Queen and the royal family as a total waste of money.
I finally said goodbye to the Greenmount Guest Home crew and headed back to Sydney. I had spent about 20 days playing in the sun. I rejoined Erica and partied for another ten days. I had 30 days plus 15 days travel time, so I had to get moving. I had just about enough money to buy a one-way ticket to Hong Kong. I had to say goodbye to my
blonde-haired Viking goddess. There was a song that came out years after the war, “You Light Up My Life.” Whenever I hear this particular song, I think of Erica and how she took a beat-up warrior and showed me how to relax and live again. A woman of this caliber comes along only once or twice in the average man’s lifetime.
I arrived back in Hong Kong with about $100 to my name. Since I had been there before and had ordered about $800 worth of suits from a famous Hong Kong tailor, I knew I could borrow money from him. Also, I had spent a small fortune on Latasha there on a previous R&R, so I did have friends to take care of me. I partied with her for another five days, which left me broke and living off her earnings. She was a living legend in my squadron among both enlisted men and officers, and did a very good business with Klondike, so she didn’t complain about paying for dinner and booze. Her apartment was very nice, on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong, and she was still being driven around in Mama San’s Rolls Royce. Everyone in Hong Kong was making a killing on the war and the men on R&R coming there to party and spend a fortune.
When I was down to two days and broke, Latasha gave me a ride to the airport where they had a C-130 transport plane to take me back to Vietnam. I showed an MP my orders and he said I could bum a ride back to Da Nang, but I needed $2.00 for a box lunch. I had to bum the $2.00 from him. He was Army, but got a kick out of the way Marines spent every dime they had on R&R. When I finally arrived at Da Nang, I was down to day 44. I knew Major Misery already had Corporal Wiseass typing up my court-martial papers. If I didn’t get the first flight out next morning to Chu Lai, I would be a Lance Corporal again.
LBJ's Hired Gun Page 23