Thirty Days Has September

by James Strauss

  I stood watching the whole operation, wanting to see the Marines we’d lost but not wanting to make a thing of it at that time. The noise was daunting and a bit overwhelming. The chopper’s rotors never stopped turning, although they’d slowed considerably from the landing. The gunships rotated close in, sounding like hunting banshees, their rotor blades making the distinctive Huey whup-whup-whup, but the sounds much closer spaced than regular Hueys. I’d never seen the Huey Cobra helicopters before. In training we’d used the old Sea Knight helicopters for transport and only heard about the ferocious Huey gunships.

  The dirt and heat was oppressive. I crouched down to await the supply choppers departure so I could glean what I could from the supplies unloaded. The crew chief walked as far toward me as his communications cord would allow, and then waved me toward him. I scrabbled a few feet toward him, wondering what he wanted.

  “What size boots?” he asked, yelling the question between cupped hands to penetrate the sound and short distance between us.

  “Eight,” I yelled back, and then held up two hands with eight fingers extended.

  He nodded, taking out a pencil and scribbling briefly.

  “My name?” I asked, wondering how they’d know to get the boots to me.

  “Junior,” he answered, giving me a thumb’s up before walking to the rear of the chopper and climbing in the fast closing opening.

  I watched the chopper pull up, dive its nose down and then pull away sharply into a curving departure making it look like it had to crash, but it didn’t. In seconds all the choppers disappeared. I went for the supplies. I was Junior, I thought to myself. Not Lieutenant Junior or Junior, Sir. I didn’t like it at all, but I took some satisfaction in at least being something, and I was not yet in one of those black body bags.

  fourteen

  The Fourth Day : Third Part

  On the second day there was no meeting to plan the fake attack on Hill 110.

  The Gunny drifted by when the big Double Trouble CH46 lifted off from resupply, loaded with body bags, the wounded, and one Marine who’d served out his time. Actually, he was six days short of the thirteen months, but he was called back to be processed out, whatever arcane procedure that might be. When I asked the Gunny about how someone ended up out with us to finish his tour, since most knew that if you lasted six months you got to go to the rear, he shrugged and said it was the luck of the draw. When I stared back at him with one raised eyebrow he relented.

  “Pissed somebody off, like you,” he said, squatting down to brew some coffee and to drop off a large unmarked cardboard box. “Start the attack fire with artillery and then cut it back after a few hours,” he instructed. “That’ll give us enough time to take the hill.”

  “And then we wait,” I responded. “We wait for orders to move on or for me to be transported to Okinawa for a general court martial.” The Gunny looked up at me, hesitating for a few seconds while stirring the instant coffee mix into his canteen holder. From behind me I heard suppressed laughing. Fessman, nearby, joined in. Pretty soon the Gunny was laughing too. The laughing grew louder. I just sat there looking around in wonder.

  “That’s good,” the Gunny said, putting his coffee down to wipe his yes. “That’s really good, Junior, like you’re going to Okinawa?” Things settled down to the way they were after a few minutes.

  “What’s so funny?” I finally asked. “You’re not getting out of here to go to Okinawa or anyplace else,” the Gunny said, matter-of-factly. “None of us are. Magnussen got out because he was only here a week. Someone sent him in to kill him. We kept him off the perimeter and well back from point. He made it. We’re not making it.”

  “Why him and not the rest of us?” I asked, my tone dark and negative.

  “Because you’re the Company commander,” the Gunny replied. “Here, these are for you, and the problems that come with them.” He pushed the box across my tiny moat and onto the edge of my poncho cover. I took the box and pried open the paper sealed top. The box was filled with the distinctive plastic mosquito repellent bottles. According to a white slip glued to the back of the cover there were sixty of them.

  “I’ve already got plenty,” I said, my voice questioning.

  “There’s something about that stuff you don’t know,” The Gunny said. “If you take half a bottle, put it on your feet and wear clean socks for a day or two, then your feet break out and infection sets in so bad you can’t walk anymore.”

  I peered closely at the side of the bottle. The ingredients listed a whole load of chemicals I’d never heard of or seen written anywhere.

  “And this has to do with me how?” I asked, although in the back of my mind I was already thinking about pouring half a bottle in each of my socks.

  “Got three cases this morning,” the Gunny said. “If we medevac them because they can’t walk then the whole company will be pouring that crap on their feet until they get out too. We can’t medevac them and they can’t function in the field.”

  “And this has to do with me how?” I repeated, although this time my tone was low and sad.

  “You’re the company commander,” the Gunny concluded.

  “So,” I said, pausing to catch my breath. “I get to mount the phony attack that I can’t get court martialed for and then handle the problem of three Marines who can’t be taken out of the field but can’t stay in the field either. And the day is just beginning.” By the time I finished, my tone was acidic. The Gunny had also referred to me as “Junior” and I didn’t like that one bit either. I hated him but I couldn’t hate him because he’d saved my life, and was likely to do so again if I was to have any chance of making it. I hated it all. The Marines, the mud, the bugs, the bug spray, the C-Rations, the battalion, and even the country that had lied so knowingly and awfully in throwing me away in hell. I felt paralyzed with hate. Too frozen to even speak further.

  The Gunny watched me closely, nudging the steaming mud in front of him to put the remains of the composition B explosive out.

  “Not quite,” he said so low it was almost a whisper.

  “Not quite what,” I forced out.

  “Zero,” the Gunny replied. “Lance Corporal Zero. He’s a problem. I can’t fit him anywhere.”

  “Fit?” I asked, incredulously. “How can a Lance Corporal be out of place in any Marine company, for Christ’s sake?” I asked, feeling like I was reaching the end of whatever tether I had left. The Gunny didn’t reply, probably gauging the level of my emotion. I was angrier than I’d ever been in my life, it was true, but not with a heated anger. My anger was cold and seething and the more horrible for it. I could not truly express it at all, except by nuance.

  “Okay, so tell me,” I began, my voice flat and level. “What color are the Marines with the athlete’s foot problem?”

  “Good guess,” the Gunny replied. “All white. Cracker white. The black Marines don’t do the foot thing. They lay down and won’t fight or fire back at night so we can’t put them on perimeter. It’s different.”

  “And the corpsmen are all white, am I right there too?” I asked.

  “They marked them for medevac but we can’t do it,” the Gunny said, putting his canteen rig back together, and then motioned to someone waiting behind the heavy brush. A big, black Marine came forth and walked over to the Gunny and squatted down next to him.

  “This the guy?” the man who was obviously Zero, I asked.

  “He can’t go out by medevac and he can’t stay here,” I said, no question in my voice. “He can’t be with the crackers and he can’t be with the blacks for some reason.” Both Marines looked at me like I was something less than an intelligent human. Neither said “no shit,” which I was somehow thankful for.

  “He won’t lay down and wants to do what he’s supposed to do as a Marine. And the whites will have something happen to him if I assign one knuckle-knocker to them.”

&n
bsp; “Finally, an easy one,” I said to the Gunny with a cold unfeeling smile, having seen the procedure of knuckle-knocking many of the blacks did when they ran into one another, but not understanding it all except the obvious fact that it was so visibly and totally anti-white.

  “He’s now a scout working for my scout sergeant,” I ordered. “And I presume the repellent is for me to decide whether it gets distributed or not. It can’t be distributed without Marines putting it in their socks so they can’t walk. It has to be distributed because without it the mosquitoes will drive anyone totally insane, not that they aren’t already. So hand it out.”

  “What about the three?” the Gunny asked. “You’ll be running up against our three corpsmen if you don’t let them leave and you may need a corpsman yourself at some time.” The Gunny finished and lingered a bit before getting up and walking away without the answer I didn’t have for him. I not only didn’t know what to do I didn’t want to know that I didn’t know. The Gunny had summed it up nicely. The decision was impossible. I couldn’t shoot them all in the butt. We had to keep them in the company somehow and the Gunny didn’t want to be denied help if he was wounded by going against the corpsmen.

  “They call you Junior?” the big black corporal asked.

  “You report to Stevens back there behind me somewhere,” I said, pointing beyond the raised edge of my poncho cover where I couldn’t see. “You don’t have to call me anything.”

  I knew my last sentence didn’t mean anything either but I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say. I didn’t want to tell anyone in the entire unit to call me sir. The sun would go down and everything would descend into the real jungle of the night and there were no “sirs” living in that jungle night. There were not supposed to be any factions in a Marine unit, other than the “factions” of platoons, squads, and fire teams. My company, if I was to call it that, was divided and sub-divided into tribal groups based upon function, experience, race, and quite possibly religion. There were those who apparently wouldn’t fight at all and those who’d fight but use every crooked device possible to get out of the fight. I gestured for Fessman and then called in the strike upon Hill 110. Hours of 105 and 155 artillery dropped onto every aspect of the hill. Using high-arc indirect fire I even rained shells down on the backside of the hill.

  The Gunny came back when the earth-shaking and noise came to an end. He brewed another cup in front of me, saying nothing.

  “We won?” I asked him.

  “I sent the message to Battalion,” he answered.

  “But that’s not all of it, is it,” I said, reading his worried expression.

  “No,” he came right back. “Lima Company on our flank has a couple of 81mm mortars. Battalion’s sending them over with a squad to support our defense of the hill.”

  I laughed out loud. “This just gets better and better. I suppose we have to do a casualty report. Should we make up KIA and WIA reports and then wait for the night for our guys to kill one another?”

  The Gunny said nothing. “How do we handle the Lima problem,” I asked him. “Fire mission while they’re on the way?”

  The Gunny stared, his eyes getting wider. “You’re kidding, right?”

  I just looked back at him, realizing I really didn’t give a damn whether the Marine Corps might have one little mortar squad or another go missing or not.

  “Get a grip,” the Gunny finally said. “I’ll handle it. I’ll talk to them.”

  “Big of you,” I answered, sarcastically. “I’ll lay here and worry about going to Okinawa.” I regretted the words when I said them. The Gunny was doing his best in an insane situation. “Sorry,” I got out, standing to face him. “Don’t worry about those guys…or yourself either. No fire mission.”

  The Gunny exhaled loudly, turning away. “Just don’t tell me shit like that anymore.”

  He walked off into the jungle. I looked at my growing tribe of scouts, all crouching over their own cooking fire behind my poncho liner half-tent. I didn’t understand what the Gunny’s last comment meant. I didn’t understand the blacks, the whites, the corpsmen, trouble with the repellent or any of it. I also didn’t understand why I was supposed to understand any of it. I had no training at all, really, only in artillery and map reading. I wished that I had the old Waffen SS field manual I’d read so many years ago, about the Germans who had to fight the Vietnamese before me. Night would be coming and my tracers would not be in until the following dawn if resupply went then. I laid down, wondering what the Gunny was going to do with the Lima Marines, opening a can of Ham and Mothers and taking out the stuff I needed to write my third letter home. A third letter about the pleasing fauna, lovely flora, and acceptably comfortable weather.

  fifteen

  The Fourth Night

  Once the artillery barrage of Hill 110 was over, the surrounding low growth jungle area subsided into a windy silence.

  The hot air wafted like blown cobwebs sweeping slowly back and forth across the face and body of anyone standing. I lay in my hooch, waiting. The night was coming and my fear was rising once again. I hated that the Gunny was right and that I was starting to get used to being terrified to death, not that the terror lessened. It didn’t. Somehow I could maintain control while going through it. Maybe, for the first time, when the sun went fully down, the terror would not be as bad as it had been every night before. It was only my fourth night but thinking back to the airliner ride into Da Nang was like mentally going back a year in relative time. The only good thing about the night was the coming of the next day, if I lived. Resupply, with tracers. Another day closer to getting a letter from home, or even a package or tape. Anything. Home was in the music from the radios and from the notes in the cigarette cartons. And the letter hastily written to Mary in my front pocket. That was it.

  “Stevens, front,” I ordered, leaning out toward my little dry moat. There was a scurrying sound before my three scouts appeared before me, each looking compliant and ready for whatever I might order. They resembled the Marines in combat I’d been led to believe I’d be leading. But in only four days and nights I knew better. They were each independent thinking machines making decisions based upon their own survival strategies. How to get them to do what I wanted or needed them to do because they wanted to do it occupied much of my thinking.

  “Stevens, go on over to First Platoon and tell the commander of that unit that he’s going to have his men carry the Marines who can’t walk when we leave here,” I ordered.

  “The Gunny’s not going to like that,” Stevens replied, not moving an inch. I was ready for his response, however, so I showed none of the mild exasperation I felt at not being instantly obeyed. My mission was to lead to the extent that I survived, nothing more and nothing less. I too had quickly become an independent thinking machine dedicated to my own survival strategy. The other Marines in my unit kept their strategies secret, for the most part, unless they were dumb enough to frag or injure themselves to the point of attempting to get out. I had to go along to get along. I had to keep my own secrets, even from the Gunny.

  “Then tell the Gunny on your way, but don’t come back here until you’ve told Jurgens what I ordered,” I said, my voice going soft and casual. Stevens still made no move, as he considered his options, not wanting to be the bearer of bad news to racially volatile First Platoon’s command post. Mentally, my right hand slid marginally closer to the butt of my .45, but physically I made no move. I could not openly threaten any of the men under my command, not with full darkness on the way. My mind worked as if on two levels, one deadly lethal and wanting to kill anything that was the slightest threat to my potential survival, and the other totally shocked at being able to think such awful and foreign thoughts about any other human being without hesitation or regret. Stevens stared into my eyes. My eyes did not blink as I looked back. I tried to soften my facial features while we stared back and forth, so the man would not unde
rstand the battle going on in my mind. Suddenly, Stevens got to his feet, motioned to Nguyen and was gone. The last glance he’d given me told me I’d succeeded somewhat. He hadn’t picked up on my conflict although his frown indicated he wasn’t happy with my leadership decision. Nobody was being evacuated, not without having their ass literally shot off. Zero moved to join the departed scouts.

  “Stay,” I ordered, before the man got fully underway.

  “Why do they call you Zero?” I asked, as he settled his huge bulk back down in front of me.

  “Wrestling,” he replied, looking wistfully after Stevens and Nguyen. “I wrestled at 285, what they used to call Heavy Weight. But I was so big they said I was off the chart so they called me Zero. My wife lives in Japan.”

  I looked over at the giant child. The wife comment came out of nowhere so I pursued it.

  “What’s her name and where does she live?” I asked, not really caring but trying to come to grips with what I had to deal with in the man and why he would not participate in whatever was going on in Fourth Platoon.

  “Yokosuka,” he replied. “Namika.”

  I frowned. Which one was the place and which one was the name? I didn’t know and didn’t want to embarrass myself by asking.