Daytona Dave is taking the photographs with a black-body Nikon while Chili Vendor says,
"Smile, scumbag. Say, 'shit.' Next."
The grunt next in line kneels down beside a little Vietnamese orphan of undetermined sex.
Chili Vendor slaps a rubber Hershey bar into the grunt's hand. "Smile, scumbag. Say, 'shit.'
Next."
Daytona Dave snaps the picture.
Chili Vendor snatches the grunt's fleetnik with one hand and the rubber Hershey bar with the other. "Next!"
The orphan says, "Her, Marine number one! You! You! You give me chop-chop? You souvenir me?" The orphan grabs at the Hershey bar and jerks it out of Chili Vendor's hand.
He bites the Hershey bar; it's rubber. He tries to tear off the wrapper; he can't. "Chop-chop number ten!"
Chili Vendor snatches the rubber Hershey bar out of the orphan's hands and tosses it to the next grunt in the line. "Keep moving. Don't you guys want to be famous? Some of you dudes probably wasted this kid's family, but back in your hometown you gonna be the big strong Marine with a heart of gold."
I say in my John Wayne voice: "Listen up, pilgrim. You skating again?"
Chili Vendor turns, sees me and grins. "Hey, Joker, que pasa? This might be skating, man, it fucking might be. These gook orphans are hard-core. I think half of them are Viet Cong Marines."
The orphan is walking away, grumbling, kicking the road. Then, as though to prove Chili Vendor's point, the orphan pauses. He turns around and gives us the finger with both hands.
Then he walks on.
Daytona Dave laughs. "That kid runs an NVA rifle company. Somebody blow him away."
I grin. "You ladies are doing an outstanding job. You're both born poges."
Chili Vendor shrugs. "Hey, bro, the Crotch don't send beaners into the field. We're too tough.
We make the grunts look bad."
"You guys getting hit?"
"That's affirmative," says Daytona Dave. "Every night. A few rounds. They're just fucking with us. Of course, I've got so many confirmed kills I lost count. Nobody believes me because the gooks drag off their dead. I do believe that those little yellow enemy folks eat their casualties. Blood trails all over the place, but no confirmed kills. So here I am, a hero, and Captain January has got me doing Mickey Mouse shit with this uppity wetback."
"CORPORAL JOKER!"
"SIR!" Later, people. Come on, Rafter."
Chili Vendor punches Daytona Dave in the chest. "Doubletime up to the ville and souvenir me one cute orphan, man, but be sure you get a dirty one, a really skuzzy one."
"JOKER!"
"AYE-AYE, SIR!"
Captain January is in his plywood cubicle in the back of the ISO hootch. Captain January is the kind of officer who chews an unlit pipe because he thinks that a pipe will help to make him a father figure. He's playing cut-throat Monopoly with Mr. Payback. Mr. Payback has more T.I.--time in--than any other snuffy in our unit. Captain January isn't Captain Queeg, but then he's not Humphrey Bogart, either. He picks up his little silver shoe and moves it to Baltic Avenue, tapping each property along the way.
"I'll buy Baltic. And two houses." Captain January reaches for the white and purple deed to Baltic Avenue. "That's another monopoly, Sergeant." He positions tiny green houses on the board. "Joker, you've scarfed up beaucoup slack in Da Nang and I am sure that now you are squared away to get back into the field. Hump up to Hue. The NVA have overrun the city.
One-One is in the shit."
I hesitate. "Sir, would the Captain happen to know who killed my story on that howitzer crew who wasted a whole squad of NVA with one beehive round? In Da Nang some poges told me that a colonel shit-canned my story. Some colonel said that beehive rounds were a figment of my imagination because the Geneva Convention classified them as 'inhumane' and American fighting men are incapable of being inhumane."
Mr. Payback grunts. "Inhumane? That's a pretty word for it. Ten thousand feathered stainless steel darts. Those flechette canisters do convert gooks into lumps of shitty rags.
There it is."
"Oh, damn," says Captain January. He slaps a card onto the field desk. "Go to jail--go directly to jail--do not pass go--do not collect two hundred dollars." The captain puts his little silver shoe into jail. "I know who killed your beehive story, Joker. What I don't know is who has been tipping off hostile reporters every time we get an adverse incident--like that white Victor Charlies recon wasted last week, the one the snuffies call 'The Phantom Blooper.'
General Motors is ready to bust me down to a grunt because of that leak in our security. You talk; I'll talk. Do we have a deal?"
"No. No, Captain. It's not important."
"Number one! Snake eyes! No sweat, Joker. I've got a big piece of slack for you." Captain January picks up a manila guard mail envelope and pulls out a piece of paper with fancy writing on it. "Congratulations, Sergeant Joker." He hands me the paper.
TO ALL WHO SHALL SEE THESE PRESENTS, GREETING:
KNOW YE THAT REPOSING
SPECIAL TRUST AND CONFIDENCE IN THE FIDELITY OF JAMES T. DAVIS, 2306777/4312, I DO
APPOINT HIM A SERGEANT IN THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS...
I stare at the piece of paper. Then I put the order on Captain January's field desk. "Number ten. I mean, no way, sir."
Captain January stops his little silver shoe in mid-stride. "What did you say, Sergeant?"
"Sir, I rose by sheer military genius to the rank of corporal, as they say, like Hitler and Napoleon. But I'm not a sergeant. I guess I'm just a snuffy at heart."
"Sergeant Joker, you will belay the Mickey Mouse shit. You won a meritorious promotion on Parris Island. You've got an excellent record in country. You've got high enough time-in-grade. You rate this promotion. This is the only war we've got, Sergeant. Your career as a Marine--"
"No, sir. We bomb these people, then we photograph them. My stories are paper bullets fired into the fat black heart of Communism. I've fought to make the world safe for hypocrisy. We have met the enemy and he is us. War is good business--invest your son. Viet Nam means never having to say you're sorry. Arbeit Macht Frei--"
"Sergeant Joker!"
"Negative, Captain. Number ten. I'm a corporal. You can send me to the brig, sir--I know that. Lock me up in Portsmouth Naval Prison until I rot, but let me rot as a corporal, sir. You know I do my job. I write that the Nam is an Asian Eldorado populated by a cute, primitive but determined people. War is a noisy breakfast food. War is fun to eat. War can give you better checkups. War cures cancer--permanently. I don't kill. I write. Grunts kill; I only watch. I'm only young Dr. Goebbels. I'm not a sergeant." I add: "Sir."
Captain January's silver shoe lands on Oriental Avenue. There is a tiny red plastic hotel on Oriental Avenue. Captain January grimaces and then counts out thirty-five dollars in MPC.
He hands Mr. Payback the small colorful bills and then hands him the dice. "Sergeant, you will be wearing chevrons indicating your proper rank the next time I see your or I will definitely jump on your program. Do you want to be a grunt? If not, you will remove that unauthorized peace button from your duty uniform."
I don't say anything.
Captain January looks at Rafter Man. "Who's this? Sound off, Marine."
Rafter Man stutters.
I say, "This is Lance Corporal Compton, sir. The New Guy in Photo."
"Outstanding. Welcome aboard, Marine. Joker, make sleeping sounds here tonight and head up to the Hue in the morning. Walter Cronkite is due here tomorrow so we'll be busy. I'll need Chili Vendor and Daytona here. But your job is important, too. General Motors called me about this personally. We need some good, clear photographs. And some hard-hitting captions. Get me photographs of indigenous civilian personnel who have been executed with their hands tied behind their backs, people buried alive, priests with their throats cut, dead babies--you know what I want. Get me some good body counts. And don't forget to calculate your kill ratios. And Joker..."
"Yes, sir?"
"Aye-aye, sir."
"And Joker..."
"Yes, sir?"
"Get a haircut."
"Aye-aye, sir."
As Mr. Payback release his little silver car Captain January says, "Three houses! Three houses! Park fucking Place! That's...eighty dollars!"
Mr. Payback counts out all of his money. "That breaks me, Captain. I owe you seven bucks."
Captain January rakes up the pile of MPC, a shit-eating grin on his face. "You do not understand a business, Mr. Payback. If we had Marine generals who understood business this war would be over. The secret to winning this war is in public relations. Harry S. Truman once said that the Marine Corps has a propaganda machine almost equal to Stalin's. He was right. In war, truth is the first casualty. Correspondents are more effective than grunts.
Grunts merely kill the enemy. All that matters is what we write, what we photograph.
History may be written with blood and iron but it's printed with ink. Grunts are good show business but we make them what they are. The lesser services like to joke about how every Marine platoon goes into battle accompanied by a platoon of Marine Corps photographers.
That's affirmative. Marines fight harder because Marines have bigger legends to live up to."
Captain January slaps a large package on the floor by his desk. "And this is the final product of all our industry. My wife likes to show an interest in my work. She asked me for a souvenir. I'm sending her a gook."
Rafter Man's expression is so funny that I have to look away to avoid laughing out loud.
"Sir?"
"Yes, Sergeant?"
"Where's the Top?"
"The First shirt went to Da Nang for some in-country R & R. You can see him after you come back from Hue." Captain January looks at his wristwatch. "Seventeen hundred. Chow time."
On the way to chow Rafter Man and I meet Chili Vendor and Daytona Dave and Mr. Payback at the ISO enlisted men's hootch. I give Rafter Man a utility jacket with 101st Airborne patches all over it. My own Army jacket has First Air Cavalry insignia. I select two salty sets of Army collar chevrons and we pin them on. Now we're Spec-5's--Army sergeants. Chili Vendor and Daytona Dave and Mr. Payback are all buck sergeants from the Ninth Infantry Division.
We go to chow down in the Army mess hall. The Army eats real food. Cake, roast beef, ice cream, chocolate milk--all the bennies. Our own mess hall serves Kool-Aid and shit-on-a-shingle--chipped beef on toast--with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dessert.
"When's the Top due back?"
Chili Vendor says, "Oh, maybe tomorrow. January on your program again?"
I nod. "That fucking lifer. He's crazy. He's just plain fucking crazy. He gets crazier every time I see him. Now he's mailing a gook stiff home to his wife."
Daytona says, "There it is. But then the Top is a lifer, too."
"But the Top is decent. I mean, maybe the Crotch is his home, and he makes us do a good job, but he don't harass us with Mickey Mouse shit. He cuts the snuffies some slack when he can. The Top's not a lifer; he's a career Marine. Lifers are a breed. A lifer is anybody who abuses authority he doesn't deserve to have. There are plenty of civilian lifers."
The Army mess sergeant with the big cigar spot-checks I.D.'s.
The Army mess sergeant with the big cigar takes the shiny mess trays out of our hands and throws us out of his mess hall.
We retreat to the Marine mess hall where we eat shit-on-a-shingle and drink lukewarm Kool-Aid and we talk about how the Army could have at least souvenired us some leftovers since that's all the Marine Corps ever gets anyway.
After chow we play tag back to our hootch. Laughing and breathing hard, we take a moment to pull down the green plastic ponchos nailed on the outside of the hootch. During the night the ponchos will keep light in and rain out.
We lie on our racks and swap scuttlebutt. On the ceiling, the combat correspondent's motto in six-inch block letters: FIRST TO GO, LAST TO KNOW, WE WILL DEFEND TO THE
DEATH OUR RIGHT TO BE MISINFORMED.
Mr. Payback performs his sea stories for Rafter Man: "The only difference between a sea story and a fairy tale is that a fairy tale begins with 'Once upon a time...' and a sea story begins with 'This is no shit.' Well, New Guy, listen up, because this is no shit. January orders me to play Monopoly. All fucking day. Every day of the fucking week. There's nothing lower than a lifer. They fuck me over, man, but I don't say a word. I do not say a word. Payback is a motherfucker, New Guy. Remember that. When Luke the gook zaps you in the back and Phantoms bury him in napalm canisters, that's payback. When you shit on people it comes back to you, sooner or later, only worse. My whole program is a mess because of lifers. But Payback will come, sooner or later. I'd walk a mile for a payback."
I laugh. "Payback, you hate lifers because you are a lifer."
Mr. Payback lights up a joint. "You're the one who's tight with the lifers, Joker. Lifers take care of their own."
"Negative. The lifers are afraid to talk to me, I got so many ops."
"Operations? Shit." Mr. Payback turns to Rafter Man. "Joker thinks that the bad bush is down the road in the ville. He's never been in the shit. It's hard to talk about it. Like on Hastings--"
Chili Vendor interrupts: "You weren't on Operation Hastings, Payback. You weren't even in country."
"Oh, eat shit and die, you fucking Spanish American. You poge. I was there, man. I was in the shit with the grunts, man. Those guys have got guts, you know? They are very hard individuals. When you've been in the shit with grunts you're tight with them from then on, you know?"
I grunt. "Sea stories."
"Oh, yeah? How long have you been in country, Joker? Huh? How much T.I. you got?
How much fucking time in? Thirty months, poge. I got thirty months in country. I been there, man."
I say, "Don't listen to any of Mr. Payback's bullshit, Rafter Man. Sometimes he thinks he's John Wayne."
"That's affirmative," says Mr. Payback. "You listen to Joker, New Guy. He knows ti ti--very little. And if he ever does know anything it'll be because he learned it from me. You just know he's never been in the shit. He ain't got the stare."
Rafter Man looks up. "The what?"
"The thousand-yard stare. A Marine gets it after he's been in the shit for too long. It's like you've really seen...beyond. I got it. All field Marines got it. You'll have it, too."
Rafter Man says, "I will?"
Mr. Payback takes a few hits off the joint and then passes it to Chili Vendor. "I used to be an atheist, when I was a New Guy, a long time ago..." Mr. Payback takes his Zippo lighter out of his shirt pocket and hands it to Rafter Man. "See? It says, 'You and me, God--right?'" Mr.
Payback giggles. He seems to be trying to focus his vision on some distant object. "Yes, nobody is an atheist in a foxhole. You'll be praying."
Rafter Man looks at me, grins, hands the lighter back to Mr. Payback. "There sure is a lot of stuff to learn."
I'm whittling a piece of ammo crate with my K-bar jungle knife. I'm carving myself a wooden bayonet.
Daytona Dave says, "Remember that gook kid that tried to eat the candy bar? It bit me. I was down in the ville, scarfing up some orphans and that little Victor Charlie ambushed me. Ran up and bit the shit out of my hand." Daytona holds up his left hand, revealing a little red crescent of tooth marks. "The kids says that our chop-chop is number ten. I bet I get rabies."
Chili Vendor grins. He turns to Rafter Man. "There it is, New Guy. You'll know you're salty when you stop throwing C-ration cans to the kids and start throwing the cans at them."
I say, "I got to get back into the shit. I ain't heard a shot fired in anger in weeks. I'm bored to death. How are we ever going to get used to being back in the World? I mean, a day without blood is like a day without sunshine."
Chili Vendor says, "No sweat. The old mamasan that does our laundry tells us things even the lifers in Intelligence don't know.
She says that in Hue the whole fucking North Vietnamese army is dug in deep inside an old fortress they call the Citadel. You won't come back, Joker.
Victor Charlie is gonna shoot you in the heart. The Crotch will ship your scrawny little ass home in a three-hundred-dollar aluminum box all dressed up like a lifer in a blouse from a set of dress blues. But no white hat. And no pants. They don't give you any pants. Your friends from school and all of the relatives you never liked anyway will be at your funeral and they'll call you a good little Christian and they'll say you were a hero to get wasted defeating Communism and you'll just lie there with a cold ass, dead as a mackerel."
Daytona Dave sits up. "You can be a hero for a little while, sometimes, if you can stop thinking about your own ass long enough, if you give a shit. But civilians don't know what to do, so they put up statues in the park for pigeons to drop turds on. Civilians don't know.
Civilians don't want to know."
I say, "You guys are bitter. Don't you love the American way of life?"
Chili Vendor shakes his head. "No Victor Charlie ever raped my sister. Ho Chi Minh never bombed Pearl Harbor. We're prisoners here. We're prisoners of the war. They've taken away our freedom and they've given it to the gooks, but the gooks don't want it. They'd rather be alive than free."
I grunt. "There it is."
With my magic marker I "X" out a section of thigh on the nude woman outlined on the back of my flak jacket. The number 58 disappears. Fifty-seven days and a wake-up left in country.
Midnight. The boredom becomes unbearable. Chili Vendor suggests that we kill time by wasting our furry little friends.
I say, "Rat race!"
Chili Vendor hops off his canvas cot and into a corner. He breaks up a John Wayne cookie.
In the corner, six inches off the desk, we've nailed a piece of ammo crate to form a triangular pocket. There's a little hole in the charred board. Chili Vendor puts the cookie fragments under the board. Then he snaps off the lights.
I toss Rafter Man one of my booties. Of course, he doesn't know what to do with it.
"What--"
Shhhh.
The Short-Timers Page 5