The Short-Timers

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The Short-Timers Page 4

by Gustav Hasford


  "Yes you are. I'm only a lance corporal."

  Rafter Man and I stop by the USO and exchange a few off-color jokes with the round-eyed Red Cross girls, who give us donuts. We ask the Red Cross girls if they expect us to satisfy our lust with a donut and they explain that a donut hole is all we rate.

  In the USO there are barrels and barrels of letters which have been written to us by children back in the World:

  Dear Soldiers in Red Alert:

  We have learned that men in Vietnam alive or dead are the bravest.

  We are all trying to help you all

  to come home to your house. We'll buy bonds. We help the Red Cross to help soldiers.

  We'll help

  you and your allies to come back. If possible, we'll send you gifts.

  From Your Country,

  Cheri

  Dear Friend in Battle:

  I am eight years old. I have one brother. I have one sister. It must be sad over there.

  Sincerely,

  Jeff

  Dear American:

  I wish I could see you instead of talking on this Card. We have a dog, and it is so cute.

  It is black

  and has long hair. My name is Lori. I will always remember you in my prayers.

  Tell everyone I love

  them and I love you too, so good-bye.

  Your Friend,

  Lori

  Rafter Man reads the letters out loud. He can still be touched by them.

  To me, the letters are like shoes for the dead, who do not walk.

  As dusk approaches, Rafter Man and I hitchhike back to the ISO hootch in the First Marine Division HQ area.

  Rafter Man writes a letter to his mother.

  I take my black Magic Marker and I make a thick X over the number 59 on the shapely thigh of a the life-sized nude woman I've drawn on the plywood partition behind my rack. There is a smaller version of the same woman on the back of my flak jacket.

  Almost every Marine in Viet Nam carries a short-timer's calendar of his tour of duty--the usual 365 days--plus a bonus of 20 days for being a Marine. Some are drawn on flak jackets with Magic Markers. Some are drawn on helmets. Some are tattoos. Others are mimeographed drawings of Snoopy, his beagle body cut up by pale blue ink, or a helmet on a pair of boots--"The Short-Timer." The designs vary, but the most popular design is a big-busted woman-child cut up into pieces like a puzzle. Each day another fragment of her delicious anatomy is inked out, her crotch being reserved, of course, for those last few days in country.

  Sitting on my rack, I type out my story about Hill 327, the serviceman's oasis, about how all of us fine young American boys are assured our daily ration of pogey bait and about how those of us who are lucky enough to visit the rear areas get to see Mr. John Wayne karate-chop Victor Charlie to death in a Technicolor cartoon about some other Viet Nam.

  The article I actually write is a masterpiece. It takes talent to convince people that war is a beautiful experience. Come one, come all to exotic Viet Nam, the jewel of Southeast Asia, meet interesting, stimulating people of an ancient culture...and kill them. Be the first kid on your block to get a confirmed kill.

  I fall into my rack. I try to sleep.

  The setting sun pours orange across the rice paddies beyond our wire.

  Midnight. Down in Dogpatch, in the ville, the gooks are shooting off fireworks to celebrate the Vietnamese New Year. Rafter Man and I sit on the tin roof of our hootch so that we can watch the more impressive fireworks on the Da Nang airfield. One hundred-and-twenty-two-millimeter rockets are falling from the dark sky. I open a B-3 unit and we eat John Wayne cookies, dipping them in pineapple jam.

  Chewing. Rafter Man says, "I thought this was supposed to be a truce on account of Tet is their big holiday."

  I shrug. "Well, I guess it's hard not to shoot somebody you've been trying to shoot for a long time just because it's a holiday."

  A sudden swooosssh...

  Incoming.

  I jump off the roof.

  Rafter Man stands up, his mouth open. He looks down at me like I'm crazy. "What--"

  A rocket hits the deck fifty yards away.

  Rafter Man falls off the roof.

  I jerk Rafter Man to his feet. I shove him. He falls into a sandbagged bunker.

  All around the hill orange machine-gun tracers flash up into the sky. Outgoing mortars.

  Outgoing artillery. Incoming rockets. All kinds of noise. Illumination rounds pop high above the rice paddies. The flares sway down, glowing, suspended beneath little parachutes.

  I listen for a few moments and then I grab Rafter Man and I pull him into our hootch. "Get your piece."

  I pick up my M-16. I snap in a magazine. I throw a bandolier of full magazines to Rafter Man. "Lock and load, recruit. Lock and load."

  "But that's against regulations."

  "Do it."

  Outside, headquarters personnel from the surrounding hootches are stumbling into rifle pits on the perimeter. They crouch down in the damp holes in their skivvies. They stare out through the wire.

  Down on the airfield in Da Nang Victor Charlie's rockets are raining down on the concrete corrals where the Marine Air Wing parks its F-4 Phantom fighter bombers. The rockets blink like flashbulbs. The flashbulbs pop. And then the sound of drums.

  The Informational Services Office on the hill is a carnival with green performers--many, many of them. The lifers are all being fearless leaders. The New Guys are about to wet their pants. Everyone is talking. Everyone is pacing and looking, pacing and looking. Most of these guys have never been in the shit. Violence doesn't excite them the way it excites me because they don't understand it the way I do. They're afraid. Death is not yet their friend.

  So they don't know what they're supposed to say. They don't know what they're expected to do.

  Major Lynch, our commanding officer, marches in and squares us away. He tells us that Victor Charlie has used the Tet holiday to launch an offensive all over Viet Nam. Every major military target in Viet Nam has been hit. In Saigon, the United States Embassy has been overrun by suicide squads. Khe Sanh is standing by to be overrun, a second Dien Bien Phu. The term "secure area" no longer has any meaning. Only fifty yards up the hill, near the commanding general's private quarters, a Viet Cong sapper squad has blown apart a communications center with a satchel charge. Our "defeated" enemy is lashing out with a power that is shocking.

  Everybody starts talking at once.

  Major Lynch is calm. He stands in the center of chaos and tries to give us orders. Nobody listens. He makes us listen. His words snap out like bullets from a machine gun. "Zip up those flak jackets. Put on that helmet, Marine. Load your weapons but do not put a round in the chamber. Everybody will shut the fuck up. Joker!"

  "Aye-aye, sir."

  Major Lynch stands in front of the Marine Corps flag--blood red, with an eagle, globe, and anchor of gold, U.S.M.C. and Semper Fidelis. He taps my chest with his finger. "Joker, you will take off that damned button. How is it going to look if you get killed wearing a peace symbol?"

  "Aye-aye, sir!"

  "Get up to Phu Bai. Captain January will need all his people."

  Rafter Man steps forward. "Sir? Could I go with Joker?"

  "What? Sound off."

  "I'm Compton, sir. Lance Corporal Compton. From Photo. I want to get into the shit."

  "Permission granted. And welcome aboard." The major turns, starts yelling at the New Guys.

  I say, "Sir, I don't think that--"

  Major Lynch turns back to me, irritated. "You still here? Vanish, Joker, most ricky-tick. And take the New Guy with you. You're responsible for him." The major turns and starts snapping out orders for the defense of the First Marine Division's Informational Services Office.

  Chaos at the Da Nang airfield; enemy rockets have wasted hootches, Marines, and Phantom jets. I talk to a poge in thick glasses. The poge is reading a comic book. By using my voice as an instrument of command I convince the poge that I'm an office
r and that I'm on a personal errand for the Commandant of the Marine Corps. Rafter Man and I are given a priority rating and have to wait only nine hours before we're stuffed into the cavernous belly of a C-130 Hercules cargo plane with a hundred Marine Corps lifers.

  Thousands of feet below, Viet Nam is a narrow stripe of dried dragon shit upon which God has sprinkled toy tanks and airplanes and a lot of trees, flies, and Marines.

  As we descend for a landing at Phu Bai Combat Base, Rafter Man hugs his three black-body Nikons like metal babies.

  I laugh. "When the grunts see that the famous Rafter Man is here, they'll just know that the war must be over."

  Rafter Man grins.

  Rafter Man won his nickname the night he fell out of the rafters at the Thunderbird Club, the enlisted men's slop chute back in the First Marine Division headquarters area. An Australian comedian and two fat Korean belly dancers were entertaining an SRO audience. Rafter Man was hammered, but so was I, so I couldn't stop him. We were back near the entrance and Rafter Man decided that the only way he was going to get a good look at the seminude belly dancers was to climb up into the rafters and crawl out above the mass of green Marines.

  General Motors and his staff had stopped by to catch the show. They did that sometimes.

  General Motors liked to keep in touch with his Marines.

  Rafter Man fell off the rafters like a green bomb, crashing through the general's table, spilling beer, smashing pretzels, and knocking the general and four of his staff officers on their brass behinds.

  Hundreds of enlisted men, having assumed that Rafter Man was some kind of unconventional mortar round, were one mass of green laundry. Then heads began to pop up.

  The staff officers jerked Rafter Man to his feet and started yelling for the M.P.'s.

  General Motors raised his hand and there was silence. Unlike many Marine Corps generals, General Motors looked exactly like a Marine Corps general, eyes as gray as gun metal, a face that was tough but sensitive--a Cro-Magnon holy man's face. His jungle utilities were starched, razor-creased, with shirt-sleeves rolled up neatly.

  Rafter Man stood there, staring at the general, grinning like a goddamn fool. He wobbled.

  He tried to walk but he couldn't. He was having enough trouble just standing in one place.

  General Motors ordered the broken table cleared away. Then he offered Rafter Man his chair.

  Rafter Man hesitated, looked at the general, then at the staff officers, who were still pissed off, then at me, then he looked at the general again. He grinned and sat down on the metal folding chair.

  The general nodded, then sat down on the floor next to Rafter Man. With a wave of his hand he ordered the staff officers to sit on the floor behind him, which they did, still pissed off.

  With another wave of his hand the general ordered the performers to go on with the show.

  The Australian comedian and the sweating belly dancers hesitated.

  Rafter Man stood up.

  He wobbled, then sank down to the deck beside the general. He put his arm around the general's shoulders. General Motors looked at him without expression. Rafter Man said,

  "Hey, bro, I can fly. Did you see me fly?" He paused. "You think...am I drunk? I mean, am I hammered or am I hammered?" He looked around. "Joker? Where's Joker?" But I was still stumbling over angry poges. "Joker's my bro, sir. We enlisted personnel are tight, you know? Indubitably. I am in love with those sexy women. I roger that..." His face got serious. "Who'll take me through the wire? Sir? Where's Joker?" He looked around, but didn't see me. "I'll fall in the wire. Or blow myself up. Sir? SIR? I'll step on a mine. I got to find my bro, sir. I don't want to fall into the wire, not again. JOKER!"

  General Motors looked at Rafter Man and smiled. "Don't worry, son. Marines never abandon their wounded."

  Rafter Man looked at the general the way drunks look at people who say things they don't understand. Then he smiled. He nodded. "Aye-aye, sir."

  The Australian comedian and the meaty belly dancers resumed their act, which consisted primarily of double-takes from the comedian every time one of the belly dancers slung a big tender breast out of her tiny golden costume. The act was a smashing success.

  By the time the show was over, Rafter Man could stand only if he had a wall to hold onto.

  General Motors took Rafter Man's arm and put it over his shoulders and helped Rafter Man out of the E.M. club and, leaving the staff officer's behind, helped Rafter Man to stagger down the hill, along the narrow path through the tangle-foot and the concertina wire.

  As the enlisted men left the Thunderbird Club, they watched this small event and they smiled and nodded and said, "Decent. Number one."

  And: "There it is."

  Now the C-130 Hercules propjet is taxiing to a stop. The heavy cargo door drops and slams into the runway. Rafter Man and I hop out with our fellow passengers.

  There are three damaged C-130's pushed together on the port side of the airfield. On the starboard side of the airfield is the gutted carcass of another C-130, charred, still smoking.

  Men in tinfoil spacesuits are squirting the torn metal with white foam.

  Rafter Man and I ditty-bop off the airfield and we hump down a freshly oiled dirt road until we come to the perimeter of Phu Bai Combat Base, about a mile from the airfield and thirty-four miles from the DMZ.

  Phu Bai is a vast mud puddle cut into sections by perfectly aligned rows of frame hootches.

  The largest structure at Phu Bai is HQ for the Third Marine Division. The big wooden building stands as a symbol of our power and as a temple of those who love the power.

  We stop at the guard bunker. A big dumb M.P. orders us to clear our weapons. I click the magazine out of my M-16. Rafter Man does the same. I stare back at the big dumb M.P. to assert my principles. He is scribbling on a clipboard with a stubby yellow pencil.

  Suddenly the M.P. punches Rafter Man in the chest with his walnut baton. "You a New Guy?

  " Rafter Man nods. "I got a working party for you. You're going to fill sandbags for my bunkers." The M.P. hooks his thumb toward the guard bunker in the center of the road. A big bite has been taken out of the bunker. A mortar shell has blasted through one layer of sandbags and has split open a second layer, spilling sand.

  I say, "He's with me."

  Sneering, the sergeant draws himself up inside his crisp, clean stateside utilities, his white helmet liner with Military Police stenciled in red, his white rifle belt with its gold buckle bearing the eagle, globe and anchor, his shiny new forty-five automatic pistol, and his black spit-shined stateside shoes. The big dumb M.P. is smugly enthroned in his power to exact the trivial. "He'll do what I say, motherfucker. Cor-poral." He thumps his black metal collar chevrons with the tip of his walnut baton. "I'm a sergeant."

  I nod. "Affirmative. That's affirmative, you fucking lifer. But this man is only a lance corporal. And he takes his orders from me."

  The big dumb M.P. shrugs. "Okay. Okay, motherfucker. You can tell him what to do. You can fill my sandbags, corporal. Many, many of them."

  I look at the deck. An explosion is building up inside me. I experience fear, and a terrible strain, as the pressure grows and grows, and then release, relief. "No, you dumb redneck.

  Negative, you fucking pig. No, I'm not going to fall out for any Mickey Mouse working party. You know why? Huh?" I slam the magazine back into my M-16 and I snap the bolt, chambering a round.

  I'm smiling now. I'm smiling as I jam the flash supressor into the big dumb M.P.'s jelly belly and then I wait for him to make one sound, any sound, or just the slightest movement and then I'm going to pull the trigger.

  The big dumb M.P.'s mouth falls open. He doesn't have anything else to say. I don't think he wants me to fill his sandbags anymore.

  The clipboard and the pencil fall.

  Then, walking backward, the big dumb M.P. retreats into his bunker, mouth open, hands up.

  Rafter Man is too scared to say anything for a while.

 
; I say, "You'll get used to this place. You'll change. You'll understand."

  Rafter Man remains quiet. We walk. Then, "You weren't bluffing. You would have killed that guy. For nothing."

  I say, "There it is."

  Rafter Man is looking at me as though he's seeing something new. "Is everybody like that? I mean, you were laughing. Like..."

  "It's not the kind of thing you can talk about. There's no way to explain stuff like that. After you've been in the shit, after you've got your first confirmed kill, you'll understand."

  Rafter Man is silent. His questions are silent.

  "At ease," I say. "Don't kid yourself, Rafter Man, this is a slaughter. In this world of shit you won't have time to understand. What you do, you become. You better learn to flow with it.

  You owe it to yourself."

  Rafter Man nods, but he doesn't reply. I know how he feels.

  The Informational Services Office for Task Force X-Ray, a unit assigned to cover elements of the First Division temporarily operating in the Third Division's area, is a small frame hootch, constructed with two-by-fours and slave labor. Nailed to the screen door is a red sign with yellow letters: TFX-ISO. Roofed with sheets of galvanized tin and walled with fine-mesh screening, the hootch is designed to protect us from the heat. The Seabees have nailed green plastic ponchos along the side of the hootch. These dusty flaps are rolled up during the furnace of the day and are rolled down at night to keep out the fierce monsoon rain.

  Chili Vendor and Daytona Dave are doing fleetniks in front of the ISO hootch. Chili Vendor is a tough Chicano from East L.A. and Daytona Dave is an easy-going surf bum from a wealthy family in Florida. They have absolutely nothing in common. They are the best of friends.

  About a hundred grunts have stuffed themselves into every available piece of shade in the area. Each grunt has been given a fleetnik, a printed form with spaces for all the necessary biographical data required to send a photograph of the grunt to his hometown newspaper.

 

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