The sun is going down.
We roll past a tank which has been gutted by B-40 rocket-propelled grenades. On the barrel of the shattered ninety-millimeter gun: BLACK FLAG.
Fifty yards down the road we pass two wasted six-bys. One of the big trucks has been knocked onto its side. The cab of the truck is a broken mass of jagged, twisted steel. The second six-by has burned and is only a skeleton of black iron. The windshields of both trucks have been strung with bright necklaces of bullet holes.
As we roll past Quoc Hoc High School I punch Rafter Man on the arm. "Ho Chi Minh went there," I say. "I wonder if Uncle Ho played varsity basketball. I wonder who Uncle Ho took to the senior prom."
Rafter Man grins.
Shots pop, far away. Single rounds. Short bursts of automatic weapons. The fighting has stopped, for the moment. The shots we hear are just some grunt trying to get lucky.
Near the University of Hue the tank grinds to a halt and Rafter Man and I hop off. The University of Hue is now a collection point for refugees on their way to Phu Bai. Whole families with all of their possessions have occupied the classrooms and corridors since the battle began. The refugees are too tired to run anymore. The refugees look cold and drained the way you look after death sits on your face and smothers you for so long that you get tired of screaming. Outside, the women cook pots of rice. All over the deck there are piles of human shit.
We wave good-bye to the blond tank commander and his tank grumbles and rolls away. The tank's steel cleats crush some bricks which have been thrown into the street by explosions.
Rafter Man and I stare across the River of Perfumes. We stare at the Citadel. The river is ugly. The river is muddy. The steel suspension bridge--The Bridge of the Golden Waters--is down, blown by enemy frogmen. Torn girders jut out of the dark water like the broken bones of a sea serpent.
A hand grenade explodes, far away, inside the Citadel.
Rafter Man and I head for the MAC-V, Military Assistance Command--Viet Nam, compound.
"This is a beautiful place," says Rafter Man.
"It was. It really was. I've been here a few times for award ceremonies. General Cushman was here. I took his picture and he took a picture of me taking a picture of him. And Ky was here, all duded up in his black silk flight jacket with silver general's stars all over it and a black cap with silver general's stars all over that, too. Ky had these pearl-handled pistols and wore a purple ascot. He looked like a Japanese playboy. He had his program squared away, that Ky. He believed in a Viet Nam for the Vietnamese. I guess that's why we kicked him out. But he was beautiful that day. You should have seen all the schoolgirls in their ao dai, purple and white, carrying their little parasols..."
"Where are they now? The girls?"
"Oh, dead, I guess. Did you know that there's a legend that Hue rose from a pool of mud as a lotus flower?"
"Look at that!"
A squad of Arvins are looting a mansion. The Arvins of the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam look funny because all of their equipment is too big for them. In baggy uniforms and oversized helmets they look like little boys playing war.
I say, "Decent. Number one. We got some slack, Rafter. Remember this, Rafter Man, any time you can see an Arvin you are safe from Victor Charlie. The Arvins run like rabbits at the first sign of violence. An Arvin infantry platoon is about as lethal as a garden club of old ladies throwing marshmallows. Don't believe all that scuttlebutt about Arvins being cowards.
They just hate the Green Machine more than we do. They were drafted by the Saigon government, which was drafted by the lifers who drafted us, who were drafted by the lifers who think that they can buy the war. And Arvins are not stupid. The Arvins are not stupid when they are doing something they enjoy, like stealing. Arvins sincerely believe that jewels and money are essential military supplies. So we're safe until the Arvins start yelling,
'Beaucoup VC, beaucoup VC!' and then run away. But be careful. Arvins are always shooting at chickens, other people's pigs, and trees. Arvins will shoot anything except transistor radios, Coca-Colas, sunglasses, money, and the enemy."
"Don't they get money from their government?"
I grin. "Money is their government."
The sun is gone. Rafter Man and I double-time. A sentry challenges us; I tell him to go to hell.
Fifty-six days and a wake-up.
In the morning we wake up inside the MAC-V compound, a white two-story building with bullet-pocked walls. The compound has been enclosed behind a wall of sandbags and concertina wire.
We gather up our gear and prepare to leave while a light colonel reads a statement made by the military mayor of Hue. The statement is a denial that there is looting in Hue and a warning that looters will be shot on sight. A dozen civilian war correspondents sit on the deck, wiping sleep from their eyes, half-listening, yawning. Then the light colonel adds a personal comment. Someone has awarded a Purple Heart to a big white goose that got wounded while the compound was under attack. The light colonel feels that the civilian correspondents do not understand that war is serious business.
Outside, I point to a wasted NVA hanging in the wire. "Was is serious business, son, and this is our gross national product." I kick the corpse, triggering panic in the maggots in the hollow eye sockets and in the grinning mouth and in each of the bullet holes in his chest.
"Gross?"
Rafter Man kneels down to get a better look. "Yes, he is confirmed."
A CBS camera crew appears, surrounded by star-struck grunts who strike combat-Marine poses, pretending to be what they are. They all want Walter Cronkite to meet their sisters. In white short-sleeved shirts the CBS cameramen hurry off to photograph death in living color.
I stop a master sergeant. "Top, we want to get into the shit."
The master sergeant is writing on a piece of yellow paper on a clipboard. He doesn't look up, but jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "Across the river. One-Five. Get a boat ride by the bridge."
"One-Five? Outstanding. Thanks, Top."
The master sergeant walks away, writing on the yellow paper. He ignores four skuzzy grunts who run into the compound, each man holding up one corner of a poncho. On the poncho is a dead Marine. The grunts are screaming for a corpsman and when they put the poncho down, very gently, a pool of dark blood pours out onto the concrete deck.
Rafter Man and I hurry down to the River of Perfumes. We talk to a baby-faced Navy ensign who souvenirs us a ride on a Vietnamese gunboat ferrying reinforcements to the Vietnamese Marines.
As we skim down the river Rafter Man asks, "Are these guys any good?"
I nod. "The best the Arvins got. They're not as tough as the Korean Marines, though. The ROK's are so hard that they got muscles in their shit. The Blue Dragon Brigade. I was on an op with them down by Hoi An."
A shot pops from the shore. The bullet buzzes over.
The gunboat crew opens up with a fifty-caliber machine gun and a forty mike-mike cannon.
Rafter Man watches with joy in his eyes as the bullets knock up thin stalks of water along the river bank. He holds his piece at port arms, first to fight.
The Strawberry Patch, a large triangle of land between the Citadel and the River of Perfumes, is a quiet suburb of Hue. We get off the gunboat at the Strawberry Patch and wander around with the Vietnamese Marines until we see a little Marine with an expensive pump shotgun slung across his back, a case of C rations on his shoulder, and DEADLY DELTA on his flak jacket.
I say, "Hey, bro, where's One-Five?"
The little Marines turns, smiles.
I say, "You need a huss with that?"
"No thanks, Marine. You people One-One?"
"No, sir," I say. Officers do not wear rank insignia in the field but snuffies learn to fix a man's rank by his voice. "We're looking for One-Five. I got a bro in the First Platoon. They call him Cowboy. He wears a cowboy hat."
"I'm Cowboy's platoon commander. The Lusthog Squad is in the platoon area up by the Citadel."
We
walk along with the little Marine.
"I'm Joker, sir. Corporal Joker. This is Rafter Man. We work for Stars and Stripes."
"My name is Bayer. Robert M. Bayer the third. My people call me Shortround, for obvious reasons. You here to make Cowboy famous?"
I laugh. "Never happen."
The gray sky is clearing. The white mist is moving away, exposing Hue to the sun.
First Platoon's area is within sight of the massive walls of the Citadel. While First Platoon waits for the attack to begin, the Lusthog Squad is partying.
Crazy Earl points a forefinger at the three of us. "Resupply! Number one!" Then: "Hey, cowpuncher, the Joker is on deck."
Cowboy looks up and grins. He's holding a large brown bottle of tiger piss--Vietnamese beer.
"Well, no shit. It's the Joker and his New Guy. Lai dai, bros, come on, sit and share, sit and share."
Rafter Man and I sit down in the dirt and Cowboy throws loose stacks of Vietnamese piasters into our laps. I laugh, surprised. I pick up the brightly colored bills, large bills, in large denominations. Cowboy shoves bottles of tiger piss into our hands.
"Hey, Skipper!" says Cowboy. "Souvenir me spaghetti and meatballs, okay? Every time we chow down I pull ham and mothers--the Breakfast of Champions. I hate fucking ham and lima beans."
The little Marine rips open one case of C's, pulls out a cardboard box, pitches it to Cowboy.
Cowboy catches the box, squints at the label. "Number one. Thanks, Skipper."
Crazy Earl throws another stack of piasters into my lap.
Every man in the squad has a pile of money.
"Man, we finally got paid," says Crazy Earl. "You know what I am saying, gentlemen? We been slave-labor mercenaries and now we are rich. We got a million P's here, gentlemen.
Yes, that's beaucoup P's."
I say, "Sir, where'd this money--"
Mr. Shortround shrugs. "Money? I don't see any money." He takes off his helmet. On the back of the helmet: Kill a Commie for Christ. Mr. Shortround lights a cigarette. "About half a million P's. Maybe a thousand dollars per man in American money."
Cowboy says, "You got to write about our John Wayne lieutenant." Cowboy punches Mr.
Shortround on the arm. "Mr. Shortround is a mustang. When the Crotch made him a lieutenant he was just a corporal, just a snuffy like us. He's very little, but he is oh so bad."
Cowboy tilts his head back and sucks in a long swallow of tiger piss. Then: "We were taking this railroad terminal. That's where the safe was. We blew it open with a block of C-4. The gooks were coming down on us with automatic weapons, B-40's, even a fucking mortar. The Lieutenant got six confirmed. Six! He wasted those zipperheads like a born killer."
"There are NVA here," says Crazy Earl. "Many, many of them."
"That's affirmative," says Cowboy. "And they are as hard as slant-eyed drill instructors. They are highly motivated individuals."
Crazy Earl holds his bottle by the neck and smashes it across a fallen statue of a fat, smiling, bald-headed gook. "This ain't a war, it's a series of overlapping riots. We blow them away.
They come up behind us before we're out of sight and shoot us in the ass. I know a guy in One-One that shot a gook and then tied a satchel charge to him and blew him into little invisible pieces because shooting gooks is a waste of time--they come back to life. But these gooks piss you off so bad that you get to shoot something, anything. Bros, half the confirmed kills I got are civilians and the other half is water buffaloes." Earl pauses, burps, drawing the burp out as long as he can. "You should have seen Animal Mother wasting those Arvins. As soon as we hit the shit the Arvins started di-di mau-ing for the rear and Animal Mother spit and then blew them away."
"I miss Stumbling Stewey," says Alice, the black giant. He explains to me and Rafter Man:
"Stumbling Stewey was our honcho before Stoke, the Supergrunt. Stumbling Stewey was real nervous, you know? Very nervous. I mean, he was nervous. The only way the dude could relax was throwing hand grenades. He was always popping frags all over the area.
Then he started holding on to them right up to the last second. So one day ol' Stumbling Stewey pulled the pin and just stood there, staring, just staring and staring at that little ol'
olive-drab egg in his hand..."
Crazy Earl nods, burps. "I was just a New Guy the day Stumbling Stewey blew himself away and Stoke the Supergrunt took the squad. Stoke made me assistant squad leader. He could see that I didn't know nothing, and all that good shit, but he said he liked my personality."
Crazy Earl takes a swallow from another bottle of beer. "Hey, Cowboy, get your horse!
Quick! My crabs are having a rodeo!"
Donlon, the radioman, says, "I hope we stay here. This street fighting is decent duty. We can see them here. We got cover, resupply, even some areas where you can cut a few Z's without digging a hole. No rice paddies full of slope shit to swim in. No immersion foot. No jungle rot. No leeches falling from the trees."
Crazy Earl flips a beer bottle into the air and the bottle arches down and smashes upon a broken wall. "Affirmative, but we blow up all these shrines and temples and the gooks got lots of shit to hide under and we have to dig them out."
Everybody gets a little high. Crazy Earl goes into a long, detailed sea story about how the Montagnard Tribesmen are in fact Viet Cong cavemen. "We said we were going to bomb them back to the Stone Age and we do not lie."
Cowboy suggests that Montagnards are actually Viet Cong Indians and that the secret to winning the war is to issue each grunt a horse. Then Victor Charlie would have to hump while Marines could ride.
Crazy Earl puts his arm across the shoulders of the man next to him. The man has a bush cover pulled down over his face, a beer in his hand, a pile of money in his lap. "This is my bro," says Crazy Earl, removing the bush cover from the man's face. "This is his party. He is the guest of honor. You see, today is his birthday."
Rafter Man looks at me, his mouth open. "Sarge..."
I say, "Don't call me Sarge."
The man next to Crazy Earl is a dead man, a North Vietnamese corporal, a clean-cut Asian kid about seventeen years old with ink-black hair, cropped short.
Crazy Earl hugs the North Vietnamese corporal. He grins. "I made him sleep." Crazy Earl puts his forefinger to his lips and whispers, "Shhh. He's resting now."
Before Rafter Man can start asking questions Animal Mother and another Marine double-time up the road, carrying a large cardboard box between them. They drop the box and reach inside. They throw plastic bags to each of us. "Resupply! Resupply! Get your red-hot bennies. Scarf it up!"
Cowboy snatches up his bag and rips it open. "Long-rats. Outstanding!"
I pick up my bag and I show it to Rafter Man. "This is number one chow, Rafter. The Army eats this shit on humps. Add water and you got real food."
Lieutenant Shortround says, "Okay, Mother, where'd you souvenir the chow?"
Animal Mother spits. He grins, baring rotten teeth. "I stole it."
"You stole it, sir."
"Yeah, I stole it...sir."
"That's looting. They shoot people for that."
"I stole it from the Army...sir."
"Outstanding. It is part of your duty as a Marine to harass our sister services. Carry on."
Cowboy punches the Marine who helped Animal Mother carry the cardboard box. "This is T.
H.E. Rock. Make him famous. He wears that rock around his neck so that when the dinks zap him they'll know who he is."
T.H.E. Rock grins. "You fucking alcoholic. I wish you'd stop telling people about my rock."
He pulls out a rawhide cord and shows us his rock, a quartz crystal mounted in brass.
Animal Mother props his M-60 machine gun against a wall and sits down, cross-legged.
"Man, I almost got me some eatin' pussy."
T.H.E. Rock says, "That's affirmative. Mother was chasing a little gook girl with his dick hanging out...."
Lieutenant Shortround pulls his K-bar from
its sheath and cuts a chunk from a block of C-4
plastic explosive he has extracted from a Claymore mine. He puts the piece of C-4 into a little stove he has made by punching air holes into an empty C rations can. He strikes a match and lights the C-4. He fills a second can with water from his canteen and then holds the can of water over the blue flame. "Mother, you know what I told you last week."
A Phantom F-4 jet roars over and unloads a few rocket pods into the Citadel. Explosions rock the deck.
T.H.E. Rock looks at Animal Mother as he explains: "She was just a baby, sir. Thirteen or fourteen."
Animal Mother grins, spits. "If she's old enough to bleed, she's old enough to butcher."
Mr. Shortround looks at Animal Mother, but doesn't say anything. He takes a white plastic spoon out of his shirt pocket and puts it into the can of boiling water. Then he takes a tinfoil packet of cocoa out of his thigh pocket, tears it open, pours the brown powder into the can of boiling water. He takes hold of the white plastic spoon and begins to stir the hot chocolate slowly. "Animal Mother? Do you hear me? I'm talking to you."
Animal Mother glares at the lieutenant. Then, "Oh, I was just fooling around, Lieutenant."
Mr. Shortround stirs his hot chocolate.
I say, "Animal Mother, how come you think you're so bad?"
Animal Mother looks at me, surprised. "Hey, motherfucker, don't even talk to me. You ain't a grunt. You want your face stomped in? Huh? You want to battle?"
I pick up my M-16.
Animal Mother reaches for his M-60.
Cowboy says, "Man, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's violence. I mean, if you got to blow Mother away, that's outstanding. Nobody likes Mother anyway. Shit, he don't even like himself. But you got to get a real gun, not that toy M-16. If it's Mattel, it's swell." Cowboy unhooks a frag from his flak jacket and tosses it to me. "Here. Use this."
I catch the hand grenade. I toss it up into the air a few times, catching it, still looking at Animal Mother. "No, I'm going to get me an M-60 and then me and this motherfucker are going to have one duel--"
The Short-Timers Page 7