by Dennis Foley
“Well, I’ll be damned! Look who came back from the dead.”
The RTOs, Captain Vance, and Lieutenant Thurman, the new Artillery LNO, all turned, cheered, and then taunted Hollister for goofing off. Through all the heckling, Hollister could tell they were really very glad to have him back.
Things quieted down about ten P.M., and Vance turned the duty over to Lieutenant Thurman for the night. He let Thurman know where he could be reached and then led Hollister from Operations across the compound to the officers’ billets.
The building was a combination of sleeping quarters, a club, and a dayroom of sorts. All the company’s officers lived there, the lieutenants two to a room. The captains and Major Sangean each had their own room. Hollister was impressed.
Sangean was over at IIFFV for a late coordination meeting and was expected to make it back by midnight. Vance gave Hollister a few minutes to drop his gear in his new room.
The room was a pleasant surprise. It had a metal bunk, a desk, a sink, and a shower. At the opposite end was a window, and on the wall above the bed a Japanese electric fan whirred whisperlike as it oscillated.
Surprised by the comforts the room afforded, Hollister dropped his bag on the desk and opened the plywood door to the built-in closet. All his personal gear had been moved from Cu Chi, and his rifle and shredded claymore bag had even been recovered and brought back to Bien Hoa.
“Not bad, huh?” gunship commander Stanton said, stopping by the open doorway, a sweating can of soda in his hand.
“I’ll say. Shouldn’t I have to pay for a place like this?”
“This is the way you’re supposed to live in aviation units. We’re putting up with this place when we’re away from our compound on the other side of Bien Hoa,” Stanton said, teasing Hollister. He swapped the can to his free hand and wiped his wet one on his trousers. He stuck his hand out and took Hollister’s. “Welcome back, buddy. You okay?”
“Yeah, thanks. I’m okay. Probably ended my track scholarship offers. But I’m okay.”
“Good. We sure missed you around here.” He jabbed his thumb toward the club. “Vance is damn near worn out. He’ll never admit it, but he needs a break.”
“Yeah. How’s everything else?”
“Better—and not. Same shit with allies and regular units. Better AO. My pilots are getting good at this shit, and your guys are getting bigger balls.”
“Okay. I can live with that. Where you headed now?”
He raised the soft drink. “Taking this out to my front-seater. I’m on tonight. I’ll catch you later.”
The shower was a shock to Hollister. The water was piped into the room, but it was at whatever temperature the sun had raised it to in the large black tank on the platform outside the building. Either it had been overcast in Vietnam that day or the engineers had just filled the tank.
After several tries, Hollister got used to the icy water and took his shower. Cold or not, he felt the miles of flying grime rinse off his tired frame and slide down the hole in the concrete floor of the shower stall.
Back in clean cammies, Hollister walked from his room down the short covered hallway to the very small Officers Club. The club was a cement-floored room, roofed and walled in corrugated aluminum. Four flimsy Vietnamese tables with chairs filled the center of the room, while an off-level Ping-Pong table filled one end. At the opposite end, a homemade bar stood a few feet from the wall. Seated on one of the four barstools was Captain Vance. He was leaning over some paperwork—no doubt from his executive officer duties. He held a mess-hall cup of coffee in one hand.
“You sure we’re still in the army?”
Vance turned and smiled at Hollister. “Like being in the air force—ain’t it?”
“I’ll say.”
“What’s your poison? We have almost a full bar,” Vance asked.
“Oh, ah … Scotch. Any kind as long as it will burn on the way down.”
Vance turned and hollered out the open doorway behind the bar. “Hey, what does a guy have to do to get some service around here?”
A diminutive Vietnamese girl stepped behind the bar. She carried a plastic washtub filled with just-washed glasses and a few pieces of silverware.
“Yes?”
“This is Captain Hollister. He needs Scotch—right now.”
“Who is this?” Hollister asked.
“This is Nguyen Te Tich. We can’t seem to get her name right, so she is T.T. to us.”
“Chao, co,” Hollister said.
She nodded, and replied in unsteady English, “Hello, Cap-tan Hor, Horis …”
“Jim. Call me Jim. Can you do that?”
“Oh, yes. Can do.”
She wiped her hands on the ragged dishrag she had over her shoulder, blew a stray strand of hair from her face, and quickly poured Hollister a Scotch over crushed ice from a small ice machine behind the bar.
“Where’d she come from?” Before he let Vance answer Hollister noticed the ice machine. “Damn! An ice machine, too?”
“You have to ask where an ice machine came from with Peter Vance on the job?”
He raised the Scotch, nodded to Vance and T.T., and took a long drink. He coughed at the startling taste and put down the glass. “And T.T.?”
“She’s Hoi Chanh.”
“A Hoi Chanh? We need an ex-VC bartender?”
“No,” Vance said. “Bui got her for us from the ARVNs. He knows her. At first we used her to translate medical instructions to our team Hoi Chanhs, and then we found out that she had lots of useful skills. So we put her behind the bar, and we pay her like she’s a local hire.”
“What kind of useful skills?” Hollister asked suspiciously.
“Oh, no. It’s nothing like you think,” Vance said. “I think she and Bui are doing the thing on their own time.”
T.T. looked up from the glass she was drying off. Her expression showed her dismay at what they were talking about. She may not have understood all the words, but she got the tone.
“Okay, okay,” Hollister said to her. “Let me say I am glad to meet you. Maybe you can teach me some Vietnamese. Huh?”
She looked at Vance and then at Hollister. “Can do, easy, Dai Uy.”
They had a good laugh, and she topped off Hollister’s Scotch.
“So,” Hollister said to Vance, “guess I have a lot of catching up to do?”
For the next week Hollister divided his time between catching up and getting on with his duties as Operations officer. He took double shifts on call to cover for Vance while he tried to catch up on the things that had fallen behind for him. The AO was different, the attitude in Juliet Company was different, and the level of combat effectiveness had improved with experience.
It was still obvious to Hollister that they could never fully count on other American or South Vietnamese units. There were too many conflicting demands on them, too many echelons involved in making rapid-mission changes to provide reliable assistance to the LRPs, and too many petty jealousies that tended to slow down reaction times.
He knew if he wanted to get support, he needed to set it up himself and make sure they were covered—and not just covered on paper.
Each day started for Hollister with a warm-up run before the company went out for their formation run. He found he needed it to get the stiffness out of his leg and reduce his tendency to limp. He would then join the company on its run. For him, the usual discomfort of the morning Airborne run was a much more painful experience than it had been before he was wounded.
Hardly a morning went by when he didn’t remember Major Urbanik’s words about healing. Neither could he avoid Susan’s words and her pain. He didn’t know what he was going to do. Just walking away from the army and the LRPs was easy to say—but not so easy to do.
He had been out over the new AO every day since he had been back, but he still wasn’t comfortable with it. At altitude it wasn’t real for him, and he felt kind of phony putting teams into an area he couldn’t feel and see in his own mind.
Susan kept tugging at his thoughts. He kept trying to focus on the demands he could expect for the day. Still, she kept creeping into his thoughts with the gentle, but forceful, demands of her own. She had never been a nagging girlfriend or wife. But it was clear to Hollister that she wanted some stability, some future, and a family. He loved the fact that she was strong and independent. And he loved the fact that she was smart enough not to nag him to make decisions too soon.
He had to face facts. He would be finishing a second tour in Vietnam in less than five months, and his moves at that point might well set the course for his future. If he accepted orders to go to the Infantry Officer’s Career Course he would be obligated for another year after that. That year could easily be a third tour in Vietnam—if the war dragged on that long.
The political football game that Vietnam had become put Hollister and a half million other Americans in a state of limbo that could end in death for any of them. He didn’t believe the campaign promises he had read in the papers in Japan. He knew he had to make a worst-case decision—assuming that the war would drag on.
As Hollister approached the LRP compound after one of his warm-up runs, he met the rest of the company just leaving on its ran. One of the lieutenants led the run, the platoons following him and the guidon bearer. Hollister fell into the rear of the formation with Sangean and Vance.
“Mornin’,” Hollister said as he slipped into the slot between them.
Vance grunted comically, indicating his unreadiness for the hour. Sangean waved his hand and kept his eye on the company stretched out ahead of him.
“This is a pretty good turnout,” Hollister said.
“With only five teams on the ground and finally reaching ninety percent foxhole strength, they better be out here,” Sangean growled.
“Glad we’re filling up. New bodies from Recondo School are a good shot in the arm,” Hollister said.
“Yes. Say, you got some time this morning?” Sangean asked.
“Yessir. I’ve got a team to brief after breakfast, and then I’m open—I think.”
“Let’s talk. G-2 is putting the heat on G-3 for a prisoner. They’re confused about what we’ve been turning over in the AO.”
Waving his hand and nodding as he reached for some air and tried to force down the pain growing in his leg, Hollister let Sangean know he would be there. He ran on for a few hundred yards thinking about the mission—a snatch.
Over breakfast Hollister read the Intelligence Summaries that had been sent down from IIFFV. The company had been in the AO almost two months. They had been successful at interdicting enemy movement of supplies, slowing down the infiltration of small units into the Saigon-Long Binh area, and interrupting the messenger communications between enemy units hidden in War Zone D and those they were supporting and reinforcing. But they didn’t really have the big picture: Who was in the AO? What were they doing? Did they have a coordinated mission? Where were they getting their support? The questions went on. And for each one that was unanswered Hollister was uneasy. He still disliked planning patrols and giving the teams missions in an area he felt so unsure about.
The team briefing over, Hollister went across the compound to Sangean’s office in the Orderly Room. Inside he bumped into the new first sergeant—McCullen. “Morning, First Sergeant. How’s the paper war going?” Hollister asked, rubbing it in a bit. He knew how McCullen hated the new job and longed to be back in a platoon or a line job.
McCullen smiled at Hollister. “You really know how to hurt a guy, don’t you, Cap’n?”
“Hey—nobody said it was easy, moving up the flagpole. The boss in?”
“Yessir. He’s waiting for you.”
“Come in here, Hollister,” Sangean said from his office.
Pulling his notebook from his shirt pocket and his map from his trouser pocket, Hollister stepped into Sangean’s small office and waited to be told to take a seat.
Sangean pointed at a chair while he cradled the phone in the crook of his neck. “Yes, I know. I’m sure your job is made infinitely more difficult by our existence, but I would guess that you wouldn’t have much of a job if we didn’t exist,” Sangean said sarcastically.
There was little doubt that Sangean was talking to Major Fowler. Fowler seemed to be unrelenting in his continuing obnoxious behavior. It amazed Hollister that Sangean was able to spar with Fowler and not allow him really to get under his skin.
Sangean finished the call and hung up, showing a little frustration in the way he kicked his feet off his desk and snapped to an upright sitting position.
“More obstacles?”
“You gotta ask?”
“No,” Hollister said. “I guess not. He got a new bee up his butt?”
“Not big enough to suit me,” Sangean said. He leaned forward and interlaced his fingers. “Rang Rang.”
“Rang Rang?” Hollister asked.
“I want to send a heavy team in there and snatch a prisoner—like I said this morning.”
“Why Rang Rang?”
“Seems to me that there is more individual foot traffic in that area. All the spot reports, the photos, and agent reports tell us that the major messenger traffic through Zone D comes through those converging trails near the old abandoned airstrip at Rang Rang.”
Hollister pulled his map out and looked at Rang Rang. The dirt airstrip probably had a history as interesting as the Vietnamese wars were long. He remembered using it as a reference point on his first recon flight over the AO. It was not very impressive, a rutted and sparsely overgrown red dirt runway with the stubble of old building foundations on the margin at its midline. Near the runway were several paths and trails that generally ran from north to south, converging and often crossing over at slight angles to other trails.
“You got a problem?” Sangean asked.
“No, sir. Just looking at it and trying to get a handle on where and how.”
“We’ll let the patrol leader come in with a plan.”
“I want to take this one out.”
“No.”
“Sir,” Hollister said, risking a butt chewing for arguing with Sangean, “I’m feeling pretty shaky about this AO. I’ve never been in there, don’t know the real estate, and just want to get out on the ground for a quick one.”
“Your leg?”
“It’ll be fine. The terrain isn’t that rough, and I’d probably do it some good by setting up a snatch and missing a few morning runs.”
Sangean let go with as much of a smile as he ever displayed and nodded. “Okay. But I don’t want any hot-dogging. I’m not going without an Ops officer again. You get tagged again, and I’m finding a replacement for you.”
“I’ll be careful. I promise.”
“Good. There’s one other thing.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“I want you to take Bui with you.”
“Bui?” Hollister said, his voice rising in surprise. “He’s not a field troop, and he’s got a bum leg, and …”
“And he’s been taking some shit from the other Hoi Chanhs about being a REMF. He’s been bugging the shit out of me to go out. It’s a face thing with them, and he was a field soldier when he was captured.”
“What about his bum leg?”
“What about yours? You gonna hump so fast he’ll slow you-all down, and you’re not?” Sangean asked.
Hollister raised his hands in mock surrender.
“Anyway, it’s a snatch. Either you are going to pluck some solitary zip off the trail or sit tight—no ambush, no long humps.”
Sangean paused.
“Bui’s really turned out to be a terrific resource around here. I’d hate to see him embarrassed in front of the others because he can’t go to the field. And I think he thinks he needs to prove something to T.T.”
Without saying so, Hollister made a face that questioned Sangean’s judgment.
Sangean raised his hands. “Okay, I would never do this for an American to impress his friends and
his girlfriend. But this is Vietnam, and nothing is like we would do it.”
“That’s for sure,” Hollister said. He flipped open his notepad and waited for the details.
“Take the next two teams up on the roster, and make ’em a heavy. Find someone who is due for R and R, and let Bui replace him. Do what you want about the Hoi Chanhs if both teams have them. Don’t know how you feel about taking them.”
“I’ll see how the team leaders feel.”
“Good idea. Want you on the ground in seventy-two hours. You fill in the details. Just bring back a talker.”
Standing, Hollister flipped his notebook closed and folded his map case, dumping it into his open trouser pocket. He waited for Sangean to dismiss him.
“You sure about that leg?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, don’t take forever on this one. You can’t be a cowboy forever. There is lots of staff work that needs to be done, and you and I both know it is stacking up each day you’re on the ground.”
Walking back to his room, Hollister felt a slight twinge of guilt for being behind in his work. Sangean was right. It wasn’t a captain’s job. But Sangean was letting him go anyway. Hollister thought it just might be his last patrol or ground operation until the day he got to command his own rifle company.
Commanding a rifle company was every infantry officer’s dream. The thought gripped Hollister in conflicting emotions. The thought of being a combat company commander was a prized job. But that assumed that he had already returned for yet another tour in Vietnam. He pictured Susan—crying at that Japanese hotel. He needed a drink.
The list of available teams turned up with 1-3 and 3-1 next to go. 1-3 was Sergeant DeSouza’s team—short one American, but with a Hoi Chanh. Three-1 was Lopaka’s team, which was full strength and also had a Hoi Chanh.
After lunch Hollister called Lopaka and DeSouza over to the mess hall to talk about the mission. They had already received a warning order from Kurzikowski and knew they were going out as a heavy team, but not much more than the liftoff time and that it was a snatch mission.
Lopaka and DeSouza couldn’t have been more different. The stocky Hawaiian was high energy and conversational. DeSouza was thin to the point of near concern for his health and very self-contained. He was also tight with a word or a reaction.