by James Webb
“And anyway,” Phony shrugged absently, “they're all VC. Every ville out here is VC. Them can cuocs don't mean a goddamn thing.”
Cat Man agreed. He nodded shyly, his delicate features intense, and addressed Hodges with carefully chosen words. “Wait till you sweep into a ville and it's flying a VC flag for you, Lieutenant. Papasan grins 'cause he thinks we're gonna stick him. If we were just moving through, he wouldn't even wave.”
They found no bodies in the ville. There were numerous blood trails, a blend of blood that joined in a drag line toward the western mountains, a half-dozen dropped grenades, and one abandoned AK-47 rifle, lost in the dark as the enemy retreated.
Hodges was slightly disappointed. No victories without tangible monuments. He was also amazed at the lack of damage to the village. Two burnt hootches, several dozen new pockmarks in the dried earth, and one bleeding mamasan. All those mortar rounds, he marveled. And even the rooster came away unscratched.
The company perimeter was more than a mile away. Speedy and Burgie pulled a bamboo pole off one rended hootch, found a parachute that had once floated down above a huge Basketball flare, and fashioned a hammocklike carrying device for the whimpering mamasan. The patrol then straggled back across the sunbaked valley, walking in the sanctum of the treelines because it was daylight and there would be snipers, then finally cut across the wide, parched paddy that led to the southern tip of Phu Phong (4). Hodges radioed ahead, and a small patrol met them at the base of the hill, near one of the wells. The company corps-man, one of the Vietnamese Kit Carson Scouts, and a fire team for security awaited them in the scrubby shade of the well.
They filed up to the well, the patrol finished. Some walked immediately to it and doused themselves, cooling off from the hump. Others dropped into the shade, greeting the fire team, which was from the other squad in their platoon. Still others moved up to the perimeter without pausing, anxious to eat.
A dozen Marines ambled down from the perimeter when the patrol returned, curious about the previous night's happenings, calling and jibing friends from the returning patrol.
They gathered around the moaning mamasan. The corpsman took her pajama top and topped it at the shoulder, then wrapped her wound with a battle dressing. She winced mightily, still whimpering.
The Kit Carson Scout sauntered slowly over and peered down unemotionally at the woman. Snake put his hand on the man's shoulder, pointing to the mamasan. “Dan. Ask her why she wasn't in the bunker. Why she in fucking hootch when Marines bac-bac VC.”
Dan nodded solemnly, thinking for a moment, then asked her a question in Vietnamese that came out as a song. Mamasan whimpered, responding in a weakened rapid fire, a long, gesturing explanation. Dan pondered the answer, still emotionless, then sent her into tears with a short retort.
Snake leaned in front of Dan, smiling amusedly to him. “What did she say, Dan?”
Dan still stared down at her. His expression had not changed. “She say, Marines, VC bac-bac boo coo long time, she in bunker, gotta take shit. She say, wait all night, go outside to take shit, got boo coo bombs. Go back fucking hootch, Marine come, shoot her.”
The crowd nodded, muttering judiciously. Mamasan still whimpered. Snake nudged Dan. “So, what did you say?”
Dan shrugged absently. “I say, now on, shit in bunker.”
The crowd applauded in appreciation of Dan's wisdom. Dan smiled back impishly, acknowledging the praise. Then he coolly, persistently questioned the weary mamasan, prodding her, trying to discover information about the North Vietnamese unit that had been in her village the night before.
Goodrich watched Dan and the others and, attempting to understand and rationalize their callousness, discovered a basic truth about himself. Even as he searched for some humorous remark that would write off the incident, he knew that he could not accept it. He could understand, condone the massive use of force, but the terrors of its particularizations horrified him. A hundred NVA deaths tallied in a newspaper column would draw an absent nod, but one stinking, suffering old wretched woman who bled from his own bullet, who would be flown by helicopter to an air-conditioned hospital and saved, turned his stomach.
Whoo boy, he fretted, walking by himself up the hill. Only 387 more days of this. Time sure flies when you're having fun.
The mail had arrived on the resupply helicopter and there was a letter from Mark. Goodrich dropped his gear next to his poncho hootch and lit a cigarette, reading it.
You wouldn't believe the faces of my friends when I told them my old college roomy was a Marine! I think they believe I'm an FBI plant! It is kind of funny, you know—me here and you there. I see pictures of the patrols burning down homes, things like that and I just can't picture you there. But if anything I feel a little good, if you insist on making an ass out of yourself. It injects the tiniest bit of credibility to the holocaust. I mean, I sure can't see you burning people, or standing by while someone else does. Pot, maybe, but definitely not people.
The letter was the touch that bottomed out Goodrich's depression. He turned to Ottenburger, who was napping under his poncho hootch. “Hey, Burgie. Where do I turn in my letter of resignation?”
“Say what, Senator?”
Goodrich attempted a smile. “Where do I quit, man?”
Ottenburger snorted. “Talk to Bagger. He knows all about it. He quits at least once a day.”
Speedy overheard them and called almost derisively, fed up with Goodrich. “Tonight, Senator, I'll give you a grenade. You pull your own pin. No sweat. One hand up in the air, boom, bye-bye Senator.”
Goodrich grinned miserably. “Tempting. Tempting. But it might hurt.”
8
WILL GOODRICH
Mark went to Canada. Goodrich went to Vietnam. Everybody else went to grad school.
It was academic, like studying for an exam. The draft counselors schooled you and helped you determine your own best approach, and you worked on it, cultivated it, and usually it worked. After all, Harvard breeds achievers.
John Wilkins Grimsley the Fourth drove up to his father's hunting cabin on the Canadian border and locked himself inside for three weeks before the draft physicals, refusing to talk with anyone. He drove straight to the physical examination center, having stayed up for two nights without sleep, refusing to speak with even the gas station attendants along the way, and went berserk during the exam.
Temporarily, of course. John Wilkins Grimsley the Fourth was awarded a psycho deferment. Now he can go on to medical school. He will be a great doctor some day. Perhaps a psychiatrist.
Michael Murphy was large and slightly overweight.
There was a pill that raised blood pressure and was not detectable in the urinalysis. Michael Murphy was declared 4-F for high blood pressure, which seemed a natural result of his size and weight. Michael Murphy can now be a lawyer, and uphold the standards of integrity, honesty, and obedience to the law.
Sol Levinowitz was a nervous, aggressive little man. He pissed into the cup and then threw his urine into the face of the Army technician. The Army technician sighed and went into another room, where he changed his uniform and washed his face. Sol Levinowitz was not the first person to use him as the object of his “overaggressive” angle. Sol Levinowitz was judged too aggressive to submit himself to the discipline of the Armed Forces, but he has no trouble submitting himself to the disciplines of the classroom. Sol Levinowitz will be a famous professor some day.
Tim Forbes was tall and thin, a soft-spoken scholar. Tim starved himself underweight, down to barely one hundred and twenty pounds on a six-foot frame. Tim worked very hard at it, with admirable discipline. At the draft physical, he expertly manifested carefully researched suicidal tendencies. Tim Forbes was rewarded with a Rhodes Scholarship for his diligence. Some day he will write speeches for great politicians. Tim Forbes will confess his boondoggle, and we will admire his honesty. He only did what everybody else was doing.
Mark Solomon and Goodrich lived in the “loony room.” Mark
cared too much, and Goodrich didn't care at all. For Mark, Vietnam was the most important political happening since the Russian Revolution, a symbolic event that could spell the final end to imperialism. Mark believed in Nuremberg, in the duty of conscience. He had joined several antiwar groups, and had written and distributed leaflets. Vietnam consumed him. He avoided the draft, deciding to go to Canada as an affirmative act, the only weapon in his arsenal that could have a definite, statistical impact.
Goodrich did not care about anything. He was at Harvard because his father and brothers had been to Harvard. He was a menopause baby, younger by fourteen years than his nearest brother. He grew up alone in a world of brothers who were uncles and a sister who was an aunt. He had been locked into prep school at fourteen.
He did not know people, other than the people of Harvard and Groton. He did not know girls. There had been no girls in prep school, and there were no girls at Harvard. Occasionally Mark would arrange a blind date for him and he would end up playing the “Harvard Genius” role. It was the easiest way to hide the fact that he could not, for the life of him, figure out what girls wanted to talk about. He had had one woman, a Manhattan whore who was a birthday present from one of his older brothers. He climaxed in thirty seconds. Other than her, the only women he knew intimately were inside the pages of erotic magazines.
He was twenty, a Harvard Genius, with a world he had never touched at his feet.
LEAVING school was the first decision he had ever made completely by himself. His family was furious and his classmates considered him absolutely insane. He was unable to articulate why he had quit, or what he wanted to do. He tried the Peace Corps, and the interviewer gave him a battery of tests, then told him he was too militant to join. Goodrich had laughed incredulously, amused that anyone would think him militant about anything.
The interviewer explained that it had been Goodrich's response to the question on Vietnam. Goodrich had commented that he thought it was sensible to attempt to restrain an irreversible Communist takeover there, that issues such as elections and political repression in the South were red herrings when one considered the alternative of total repression by a Northern-imposed government.
The interviewer told him that it would be harmful to have people with such beliefs representing the country in under-developed areas. People fear the United States, the interviewer explained. They need to be assured. They need Peace Corps members who will tell them how wrong America has been in Vietnam. Otherwise, the Peace Corps might be considered a beachhead for further American aggression, the interviewer said. The interviewer told Goodrich that, if he felt that way, he should go into the military.
The idea appealed to Goodrich, and grew on him. His father had been a dollar-a-year man in the Navy during World War Two and was proud of his service. It would be a way to mend some fences.
He was an accomplished musician, capable of playing several instruments well. He had seen the Marine Band while it was on tour during his prep-school days, and had remembered the quality of its performance. He decided to enlist in the Marine Band, as a compromise to all competing emotions.
The recruiter could not guarantee the Marine Band on a two-year enlistment, which was the maximum Goodrich would sign for. “It all depends,” smiled the recruiter, “on the needs of the Corps. But if you're good—”
“Oh yes,” Goodrich assured the Sergeant. “I'm very good.”
“Then you've got just as much of a chance as anybody else!”
Which, of course, was zero, equally shared.
9
Finally, after three weeks, a platoon sergeant.
A Staff Sergeant. A Marine who had experienced the Corps before Vietnam filled its ranks with crass, uncaring civilians. Someone who had known parade fields, barracks that shone with polish and pride, firm-faced men older than their years who starched their utilities, shined their boots, and shaved their heads.
Into the chaos of forgotten formalities and jungle sores came Angus Austin. He appeared as the company was setting into the dust and ash of a new perimeter. The resupply helicopter dropped its netted load of food and ammunition, then touched briefly on the earth and excreted three men. And in five minutes the Third Herd had a new Papa Sierra. Like it or not.
He was a humorless, dry-voiced man, old for thirty-one, who had left a small town in Appalachian Pennsylvania, where his father was a high-school janitor, and had given the Marine Corps all of his thirteen adult years. He had enlisted after Korea, and was hopelessly frozen into the rank of Sergeant until Vietnam enlarged the Corps. To be a Staff NCO had been Angus Austin's dream. To make Gunnery Sergeant was little more than a wish.
But not beyond hope. He reported to Hodges, his thick hulk sweating profusely in the late afternoon heat, peppery cheeks coarse with a five o'clock shadow that made them appear darker than his shaved head, and dropped his Army rucksack into the dirt. The pack, which was considered too large and cumbersome by most Marines, bulged with unnecessary gear. It was Hodges’ first warning that Austin was not a bush Marine.
Austin extended his hand. “Staff Sergeant Austin, Lieutenant. I'm your new platoon sergeant.” Austin surveyed the platoon lines, where Marines were digging fighting holes into the latest perimeter. “What the Gunny says, this platoon hasn't had a real Papa Sierra in a long damn time.”
“Well, no.” Hodges scrutinized the stocky, frowning man. “Not a staff NCO, anyway.” Hodges grinned. “Where the hell have all the Staffs been hiding?”
“Lieutenant, we all did this once already. That's where we been hiding. We were here in ’65 and ’66, when these kids were still in school.”
“Where were you?”
Austin turned around. “Sir?”
“In ’65?”
“Da Nang.” Austin did a short stroll, a nervous pace in front of Hodges. “I landed with the Ninth Marines.”
“What was your job?”
Austin appeared a tad embarrassed. “I was Police Sergeant at the air base. I was in charge of the administrative integrity of the perimeter.”
Hodges chuckled. “You mean you supervised trash pickups?”
“Well, not only that, Sir.” Austin had taken on a wounded, irritated look. “But what the Gunny says, you haven't had a real platoon sergeant down here in months. I hear you're new. Now, don't you worry, Lieutenant. We'll get this platoon squared away in no time. Is there anything the Lieutenant wants me to work on right away?”
“No …”
“Well, I know what we have to deal with. These people who end up in the grunts. Lieutenant, you wouldn't have believed the Corps before this Vietnam shit.” Austin had sat down across from Hodges, and was taking out various comforts from his pack. His eyes had a nostalgic look. “Man couldn't have a goddamn parking ticket and get in the Corps before Vietnam. You wouldn't have believed the inspections we had, Lieutenant. And the discipline. A man couldn't even talk to his Lieutenant without going through the chain of command. A Lieutenant was God.”
“Well, I'd just as soon do without all that, Sarge—”
“We'll have 'em treating you right in no time, sir.”
“They already treat me right, Sarge.”
Austin smiled comfortingly to Hodges. “Lieutenant, you don't know how to be treated right until you've had a proper Papa Sierra. In all due respect. Now I've heard you're a damn good Lieutenant, that you know your tactics and your supporting arms. The Gunny told me that, not five minutes ago. Sir. And I intend to make this a platoon you can be proud of.”
“I'm already proud of it, Sarge. Hey.” Hodges shrugged helplessly, smiling in mild bewilderment. “I can't handle all that. I'm a civilian, Sarge.” Austin squinted at the heresy. “I'm just a damn civilian playing Marine for a couple years because there's a war. Know what I mean?” Hodges gestured out toward the lines. “So are they, most of them. Civilians, you know? A bunch of kids who got caught up in all the bullshit. They don't know a request mast from a walk in the woods. The only dress parade they'll ever be in
was when they graduated from boot camp.” Hodges grinned, pondering Austin's overstuffed rucksack. “Don't get me wrong. They know the bush, and they can buckle for your dust, Sarge. But don't turn them all around with that stateside shit.”
Austin drew out a cigarette and studied his new platoon commander with a mix of disbelief and antagonism. He dragged several times on his cigarette, stunned speechless. His brows furrowed as he mulled Hodges’ remarks. Finally, he formulated a response. “Lieutenant. I'm a Marine. Every ounce of me. This is my Corps, and it always will be, and I can't stop being a Marine. And they're Marines. Whether it's for five minutes or fifty years. In all due respect, that is. And if a Marine is out of uniform, or he didn't shave, or he's disrespectful, then it would hurt me to my goddamn heart not to straighten the man out. You can't ask me to do that, Lieutenant. You can't ask me not to do the best job I know how.”
It was Hodges’ turn to be speechless. He lit a Marlboro, thinking of Snake's usual jest to nonsmokers (we are all sucking wind out here). He knew that Austin would take a complaint to the company Gunnery Sergeant, who would in turn inform the company commander, and that he would get an early reputation for running an undisciplined platoon. That would mean trouble for every platoon member from other staff NCOs. He was also confused and somehow moved by Austin's emotional defense of the Corps.
“No. I can't. But Sarge, I want you to know what my priorities are. What's important. We're all Marines. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that like you took it. But it's a different Corps out here.” Austin's face set stubbornly, disagreeing.
Hodges continued. “Out here uniforms aren't important. And when's a man gonna get a haircut, for Christ's sake? The company's been out here fifty days, now.” Austin reached into his rucksack and displayed a set of manual hair clippers. Hodges shook his head in disbelief. “All right. There are ways. But clean weapons are more important. And digging deep holes. Staying spread out on patrol. Carrying the right gear.”