by Dennis Foley
Again, Hollister was careful not to complain. “It’s just that I’d sure like to have a crack at commanding a rifle company if I’m going to be over there anyway, sir.”
“Listen, Hollister, I hear what you’re saying. I don’t blame you, and I think we should have enough folks that would be just as happy to get a soft MACV job and not have to spend their year humping the boonies. But it doesn’t seem to work out that way. We have to try to spread out the workload except in special situations.”
“Ah, can I ask what constitutes a special situation, sir?”
“Well, hypothetically, you can ask for a choice of assignments if you volunteer to go.”
“But I thought you said I was close to getting orders now.”
“You are. You’ve got maybe sixty days before you get alert instructions for a will-proceed date of, say … a hundred ’n’ twenty days. So, hypothetically, if I were to get a 1049 from you asking for voluntary assignment with a request for troop duty with a U.S. unit, I just might be able to fulfill a requirement like that before you get tapped for an advisory assignment. The thing is that you’d have to ask for the job before we give you one. Got it?”
As the colonel talked three of the other Ranger instructors entered the team room talking loud and making a racket with their gear. Hollister waved at them and gave them a motion and expression that he was making a serious call. In a matter of seconds they realized he was talking to OPO. They all quieted down and pulled up folding metal chairs in a silent semicircle around Hollister.
Hollister quickly responded to the colonel, his voice brightened with the promise of avoiding the advisory assignment. “Got it, sir!”
“We straight on that?” the colonel asked.
“Yes, sir. You can expect a 1049 as fast as I can get one typed up,” Hollister said.
“Okay, listen, while I’ve got your file open here I need to give you a couple of pointers. You look like you have got a pretty solid start on a career, but you have got to get that college in, partner.”
“I’m taking night courses here at Columbus College, sir.”
“Good, good! Now, I know that you aren’t going to finish anytime soon, but I want you to get your ass over to the education center on post and make sure that they are carrying you as enrolled and that we get a copy of your grades as soon as we can. It’s important that folks see that you are working on it when your file gets reviewed for assignments and promotions—ya hear me?”
“Yes, sir, I’ll get right on it.”
“And, Hollister, I understand your feelings. I’d be unhappy to hear that you were trying to get out of more duty in Vietnam, but you’re not. I have two advisory tours under my belt already—one with the old MAAG and one with MACV down in the Delta. I’m hoping to get a battalion in the Cav next time around. So get me the paperwork, youngster, and I’ll do my best to slot you in a U.S. troop billet.”
“I sure do appreciate your help, sir.”
“All right, Ranger. Keep your ass down, and don’t go easy on those kids down there. I’ll be looking for your request. Now I have to get to a meeting myself. Nice talking to you.”
“Yes sir, thank you for the help and the advice,” Hollister said, looking up and making eye contact with one of the lieutenants seated in front of him.
The phone wobbled to a rest on its Bakelite base. Hollister took his hand off the receiver and reached into his upturned patrolling cap for his pack of cigarettes.
“Well? What the hell did he say?” one of the lieutenants asked.
Waiting for the tip of his cigarette to glow, Hollister paused before answering. He snapped the lid closed on his Zippo and threw the cigarette pack and the lighter back into his cap. “Says if I put in a 1049 to go early, he might be able to get me an assignment in an American unit.”
“How soon?”
“Gotta get him the 1049 ASAP.”
No one responded. They all knew that what Hollister was saying was that the turnaround time was getting shorter and shorter. They wouldn’t be at Benning much longer.
After a long silence one of them asked the question they were all thinking, “What are you gonna tell Susan?”
The Custer Terrace Officers Club was one of only two places on post where officers could congregate for a drink in fatigues. The informal attire was befitting for the informal behavior. On any night the large room with a bar running down one wall was packed with the tired, dirty, and often muddy instructors and student officers. The beer flowed freely, and the chance of carrying on a serious conversation was severely hampered by the frequent rock bands that performed against the wall opposite the bar.
“S’your turn to buy, Hollister!” a voice called out from the room filled with fatigue uniforms seated below the layer of cigarette smoke that hugged the ceiling.
A smile crossed Hollister’s face at the sight of Lieutenant Morgan Rogers, a fellow Ranger who had served with Hollister in his Long Range Patrol Detachment in Vietnam. He raised his hand, letting Rogers know that he was able to pick him out of the crowd.
“You out on a kitchen pass?” Hollister asked as he pulled a chair away from Rogers’s table, spun it around, and straddled it.
Rogers pushed an empty glass toward Hollister, one of two on the table. He then filled it from a half-full pitcher of beer. “No, she’s on her way over here. It’s a trade-off. I get to knock back a few beers if I buy dinner.”
Reminded of the hour, Hollister looked at his watch, wondering if he should pass on the beer.
“Why don’t you call Susan, and we can wipe out the burger supply here?”
By the time Susan and Ann Rogers showed up, Hollister and Morgan Rogers had gone through a second and part of a third pitcher of beer. The room was packed with young officers, some with dates and wives—most without. The band had arrived, warmed up, and begun playing. The huge walnut organ on the low stage vibrated two glasses together at the foursome’s table as the band pounded out its version of Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour.”
“We never get a chance to see you two,” Susan said, pushing a french fry clear of the puddle of ketchup on the corner of her plate.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Ann Rogers replied. “This is the earliest I’ve seen Morgan in over two months. He comes home after walking a lane out at Camp Darby, and he crashes just as fast as he gets out of the shower. The next thing I know, it’s quarter of three and he’s bent over the foot of the bed lacing his boonie boots on again.”
“Hey… hey… You all complain when we are home and when we are gone. Is it some kind of wife rule?” Rogers asked, kidding Ann and Susan.
“I’d like to see more of Jim. But it seems like if he’s home and conscious he is reading, studying, or watching Cronkite.”
Just the word “Cronkite” changed the tone at the table. It was almost code for “Vietnam” or “the war.” Rogers picked up on the reference and went with the obvious. “So, what is the news today?”
“You want this week’s statistics?” Susan said, a trace of sarcasm in her voice.
No one at the table bit on Susan’s question. They were all disturbed by the announcements of weekly casualties, and it was a topic rarely discussed at Fort Benning.
“Well, I caught it before Jim called. Seems like the Yippies are converging on Washington and the troop ceiling in Vietnam reached four hundred sixty-four thousand this week,” Susan said, matter-of-factly.
“How do you know all this stuff?” Ann asked.
“She’s a journalist—even at Benning School for Boys,” Hollister said.
“What’s a Yippie again? I can’t keep ’em all straight anymore,” Morgan Rogers asked.
“Youth International Party. Hippies with some college. They hope to shut down the capital for the weekend to end the war,” Hollister said.
“Long-haired, no-account—”
“Can’t we talk about something else?” Ann asked.
“We could talk about Jim’s orders. When is it you have to b
e in-country?” Morgan asked.
Susan’s head snapped up, surprised at the mention of orders. “What orders?”
“How could you do this? How could you make such an important decision without talking to me?” Susan yelled, her face flushing with anger.
“Look, I was going anyway. A little early isn’t that big a deal. I just had to do something to get out of a job with the ARVNs,” Hollister said, refolding the copy of the alert notification and slipping it back into the envelope.
“What kind of answer is that?”
“Well, what good would it have done to discuss it with you? I didn’t know if I could pull it off, and if I couldn’t there was no sense in getting you upset.”
“I’m not upset. I’m hurt. Am I not part of this whole thing? Am I of no consideration? Jesus, Jimmy, give me some credit …”
He knew there would be nothing he could say that would make her feel any better. She was never going to understand. He didn’t answer.
Susan gave up and silently threw her hands in the air in desperation. Getting to her feet, she walked toward the only bathroom in their quarters. “So?”
“So what?”
“So when do you have to go?”
“I have to report to Oakland December twenty-second.”
She turned, tears in her eyes. “Oh no, Jimmy. No Christmas, either? What other bad news have you got?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. Her pain turned to more anger, and she stepped into the bathroom and forcefully slammed the door.
The summer was fading fast in Columbus, Georgia, and the nights out in the kudzu with the Ranger students were becoming more of a chore for Hollister. Since receiving his orders his mind had been occupied with thoughts of going back to Vietnam and the things he expected to be there for him. He tried to focus on the business of training at Fort Benning, but he found himself getting less patient with students, and things between Susan and him were more strained as he got closer to his departure date.
His student patrol was doing an adequate job of land navigation through the cross-compartment, vine-covered terrain near Camp Darby, though the acting patrol leader was not showing signs of leadership—only competence with movement and security. Hollister considered stopping the patrol and having a short talk with the Ranger student about his seeming indifference to the mood and confidence of his charges, but he knew that it would delay the patrol from reaching its rendezvous point and what he had to say could wait.
As the student patrol reached a dirt road, Hollister held them up and walked forward from the concealment of the vegetation to the openness of the red dirt range road. Looking around to get his bearings, he quickly confirmed his location and walked toward a nearby intersection, less than a hundred yards to his left.
After confirming that the patrol had held up in a defensive position to prepare for a dawn raid, he left them to find his replacement. As he approached the intersection, he could make out the dark image of a jeep against the lighter color of the red-clay roadway.
“That you, Hollister?” a voice asked from the jeep.
“Yeah—Scott?”
Lieutenant Scott, Hollister’s replacement, stepped out of the jeep. As he did, he turned his GI flashlight up and flicked it on for a second. The light painted his facial features in a ghoulish manner. “Yessir, it’s me. Slayer of dragons, virgin converter, and Ranger extraordinaire.”
“I hope that your sense of humor stays with you through your leg of this patrol. I had to take this patrol leader’s pulse a couple of times to make sure he wasn’t dead.”
Scott and Hollister entered the rotting, one-room range shack near the intersection where they had met. Scott pumped up the pressure on a Coleman lantern and turned up the wick. The room filled with its yellow-white light and hissing sounds. In the corner bunks two other instructors tried to catch some sleep on top of their army sleeping bags under haphazardly hung mosquito nets.
Without waiting to be asked, Hollister dropped the paperwork on the homemade table that held the lantern: names of the students on his patrol, a copy of the patrol order, some notes for emergency numbers to call and frequencies to use in the event of accident or injury.
No longer worried about not setting the example in front of the students, he pulled out his cigarettes and lit one. He inhaled deeply and dropped heavily onto the empty ammo crate nearby. All he wanted to do was get his jungle boots off and get a few hours’ sleep before he would have to link up with Scott and the patrol later that morning to give a critique of the students’ performance on his leg of the patrol.
“These fuckin’ mosquitoes make me nuts,” Scott said as he reached into his parachute kit bag and pulled out a can of GI DDT.
“You won’t have to worry about them out there in the boonies tonight. The heat and humidity will drown them before they land on you.”
Scott laughed in a hushed tone in order not to wake up the other instructors as he pointed the DDT can up toward the mosquitoes hovering near the ceiling. He waved his arm and sprayed a healthy fan of the bug killer.
The suddenness of the urge to vomit caught Hollister totally unaware. Frightened by the complete loss of control, he instinctively spun toward the open doorway and leaped through it. No sooner had he cleared the doorway than he began to vomit uncontrollably. As he retched on the ground outside the shack, he saw the bodies of soldiers from his long-range patrol unit in Vietnam. They were there—then gone, but nonetheless vivid. The horror of their grotesque wounds was mixed with the awareness of the smell of DDT and the foul smell of burst intestines.
Faces, wounds, smells, names ripped through Hollister’s mind at a lightning pace between the violent vomiting eruptions that racked his body and kept him retching even after his stomach was empty of its contents.
Not sure of what was happening, Scott dropped the spray can and ran outside. There he found Hollister racked with convulsive spasms.
“Damn, man. What is it? What happened? A snakebite … or what?” Scott asked, frantically searching for some explanation for Hollister’s condition.
The calming affect of Hollister’s damp jungle fatigues quickly turned to a chill in the back of the cracker-box ambulance. Lieutenant Scott and the other two instructors at the range shack could think of no other way to calm Hollister’s convulsions, so they’d drenched him with the five-gallon can of drinking water they had on hand.
The shivering quickly replaced the vomiting and the convulsions, but Hollister was most aware of the foul taste in his mouth and the rawness of his throat from the continuous vomiting. His mind raced from the ambulance to the unreal, dreamlike images that flashed through his mind too quickly to identify, but were nevertheless disturbing.
His mind continued to spin as he heard voices and saw mental images: wooden cargo pallets—Sears window fans—fingers touching small holes in a tiger fatigue shirt—“claymore wounds. Damn!”
Suddenly, Hollister started to feel claustrophobic. He shivered again, and things swam in his head. The images blurred, and he drifted off into a twilight.
“I think you are gonna live,” the white-coated doctor said with a little chuckle.
The disorientation faded, and Hollister realized that he was on an examining table in the emergency room of Fort Benning’s Martin Army Hospital. The room was floor-to-ceiling aqua tiles, and the table made noise as each move he made crinkled the long strip of paper that covered its leatherette surface.
He lifted his head slightly and scanned his own body. He was naked, save a small green drape that covered his thighs and genitals. The first thing he felt besides the chill was the pinch on his right forearm. An IV needle was taped into a vein, and a clear fluid dripped through a tube.
“I’m sorry—but I have—”
“No idea,” the doctor finished the sentence.
Recognizing the captain’s bars on the doctor’s khaki shirt collar peeking out from under his lab coat, Hollister reverted to automatic military courtesy pounded into him years before, when he was an
enlisted man. “Yessir. I mean, no, sir. I wreck my car or what?”
“I really don’t have a guess. You came in here puking your guts up in pretty violent convulsions. Could be a lot of things, but we have it cornered right now.
“Can’t find any insect bites on you, and your chart doesn’t seem to show any indications of allergies. But there are many things that could cause such a violent reaction. Nothing in your stomach seems to be kicking it up. Could be a reaction to something in your history. But I’m not a shrink, and I’m not going to worry about that.”
Hollister quickly responded to cover any suspicion that he might be losing it. “Doubt if it’s anything like that, sir. I’m just an infantryman with a boring history. I’ve never even met a shrink.”
The memory of the convulsions and the recollections that fired through his brain came back to him. Those moments had really happened to him. And he knew that something had made him relive pieces of those moments. The loss of control over his mind and body was very upsetting. What if someone found out? What if his friends, or Susan, thought he was a head case?
Without any further thought, he knew that the one thing he had to do was keep it to himself. If anyone knew that he had flipped out over remembering how awful it was to have to identify the bodies of fallen comrades, no one would ever treat him the same. He was sure. He would just keep it to himself.
The bag hanging on the IV pole was half empty. The doctor reached up and turned it with his finger to read the label—cross-checking to see if his instructions had been carried out.
“That mean it’s over?” Hollister asked.
“For now. We are going to run a few tests. I think you need to get some sleep, and let me refill your tank,” the doctor said, taking his hand away from the IV bag.
“This kinda puts me off my game, sir.”
“You’re lucky. It could have put you out. Good thing we got you in here before you did some damage. Another hour of what you were doing might have busted up some of your plumbing. You are going to be sore in the morning, and I’ll have some more to look at from the lab. So we’re going to check you in and let you bunk down here. I’ll see you in the morning,” the doctor said as he turned and simply exited without giving Hollister a chance to ask any other questions.