Black Market (23 page)

“Do you think the other teams will stay and call in air strikes?” The question Woods asked was a good one, one that could
be asked only in the company he was in.

“No.” Arnason was being honest. “Captain Youngbloode will hold his team in place—”

“He’s going out again?” Warner shook his head, but with respect for the captain.

“Like I said, this is heavy shit. Everyone is assigned to a team that has an infantry MOS.” Arnason huffed and continued,
“I don’t know if that’s all good. Anyway, we can rely on three more teams for sure and
maybe
five in addition to that…” Arnason looked at Woods. “I don’t know what Welburg will do; that’s why I made damn sure he was
placed to my northern flank. If
anything
goes wrong I want you and Sanchez to bust loose and head south to my position, you hear?”

Woods nodded along with Sanchez.

“I tried to get Sanchez switched for Warner, but Welburg didn’t want him.”

“Fuck him!” Warner’s feelings had been hurt.

“He doesn’t know your ability to find your way around the jungle or he would have gobbled your ass up!” The comment by Arnason
made Warner feel a lot better. “Anyway, we’ll be about five hundred meters apart, so try and always stay to the south when
you guys set up … OK?”

Woods nodded in agreement.

“Camouflage is the key to making it out of this shit-brained operation. I want all of you to use your parachute capes and
don’t forget to change the camouflage
daily
… if we make it out there that long!” Arnason was referring to the special capes he had had made for his team by a tailor
in Nha Trang that were fashioned out of an old camouflaged-pattern parachute. He had the tailor sew on hundreds of small elastic
cords, where little bunches of fresh vegetation could be inserted that would completely camouflage the wearer of the cape
and make him practically invisible. Or the wearer could reverse the cape, keeping the elastic hooks all on the inside, and
wear it as he moved slowly through the jungle, remaining camouflaged and at the same time preventing his gear from catching
on every vine and twig. Arnason had seen the NVA wearing similar capes and added a little American ingenuity to make them
even better. “Also, wear your STABO harnesses…” Arnason shook his head as if he were disagreeing with himself. “Sometimes
I don’t think it pays to be
too good
! We’ve been given the most dangerous positions along the river in the thickest jungle because we are the only team that knows
how to STABO extract from a jungle site without an LZ!”

“Fuck!” This time it was Koski expressing his frustration. He didn’t like it when his feet left the ground in a STABO extraction.
He preferred walking or running to dangling in the sky from a fifty-foot rope under the belly of a helicopter.

Arnason smiled. “It’s better than getting zapped, Koski!”

The big Pole looked over at him as if he wasn’t too sure what really was worse. He hated it when he lost control and started
spinning on the end of a rope. It was undignified for a warrior to throw up.

“That is basically it. The mission is going to be very dangerous but we have trained very hard, and if anyone is going to
make it through this mess, it’s going to be RT Bad News!” Arnason looked at Woods. “Welburg wants to meet with you and Sanchez
over at his hooch as soon as you can get over there.”

Woods nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

Sergeant Welburg and his two other permanent team members had gone through a full fifth of Jim Beam and were well on their
way to finishing off the second bottle when Woods and Sanchez entered through the east end of the sectioned-off hooch.
RT SOUTHERN HELLIONS
had been painted above the door frame and still looked fresh in the dim light. Since Arnason had given his team a name and
had special caps made up, the other NCOs were trying to raise the morale of their men by copying his leadership tactics.

“Lookee here!” Welburg sat cross-legged on his cot with his back leaning up against the wall. “Our
support
element!”

Welburg’s cronies laughed and passed the bottle between themselves.

“Gi’ Woods a drink! Dammit! Yuh know we’ve got to
share
things with our
fellow
teammates!” Welburg tried leaning forward to grab the floating bottle from his troop’s hand and fell off his cot. “Fuck!”
He fumbled around, got up on all fours, and then used the steel cot frame to pull himself back up onto the bed. He sighed
and closed his eyes.

“Are you going to brief us?” Woods did not even try to conceal the contempt in his voice.

Welburg struggled back up to a sitting position and pointed his finger at Woods. “You listen here, you little motherfucker!
I’m
the team leader here!
Tonight
we’re going to party a little bit and relax.
Tomorrow
morning, I’ll brief the team. Now, if you want to join us for a couple of drinks, that’s fine.” Welburg tried acting tough.
“If you don’t want to socialize with us, then you and your little spick friend can go back to your Daddy and meet us at the
helipad in the morning.”

Woods saw the briefing packet lying on the floor where Welburg had thrown it when he had returned from the company briefing.
“Do you mind if I take that packet with me, seeing that you’re not going to be needing it until morning?”

Welburg thought for a few minutes and then waved for Woods to take it and get out.

Sanchez waited until they were well away from the hooch before risking speech. “That redneck motherfucker!”

Woods just shook his head in response. They were due to fly to LZ Stud at first light and lock in with the Marine Force Recon
Teams for briefings at Vandergrift before deploying either late in the day or early morning the day after.

Arnason was waiting for Woods and Sanchez to return. He didn’t need to be told how the briefing with Welburg had gone.

“I got his briefing packet. Sanchez and I are going to go over it and get our gear ready for tomorrow.”

“Fine, let me help you.” Arnason sat down under the Coleman lantern and opened the map. RT Southern Hellions had been assigned
the AO just north of RT Bad News, and was the last Army recon team before linkup with the force recon teams.

Warner slipped down from his bunk and stood behind Sanchez, looking over his shoulder. He stared at the map Woods and Arnason
had spread out on the table for a couple of minutes and gave Sanchez’s shoulder a hard squeeze before leaving to get back
in bed. Three times Warner woke up to hear Arnason and Woods whispering in the dark interior of the bunker.

The three large CH-47 Chinooks left the Camp Holloway base area a few minutes before dawn and flew to the An Khe fire base.
The recon company had been assembled and were waiting in three long lines by their helipad. Arnason looked over at Woods and
Sanchez standing in the line next to him. Welburg and his two flunkies were sitting on the ground holding their heads. Arnason
shook his head and locked eyes with Woods. Welburg still hadn’t briefed his men on the mission and hadn’t even packed his
gear.

Woods led the line of men onto the chopper and worked with the crew chief to ensure each one of the men used his seatbelt.
Welburg gave him a little trouble but went along with being buckled in after it dawned on the NCO’s still intoxicated mind
that the chopper wasn’t going to take off unless he complied.

The pilot brought the large double-rotored helicopter to a hover and waited for the flight leader to take off. Woods glanced
over at Welburg and saw the man’s face turning green. The pilot received the word over his headset to fall in behind the lead
chopper and he banked sharply to his left and gave the aircraft power. Welburg responded to the maneuver by throwing up all
over the deck in front of him. Within seconds, his flunkies were barfing over themselves and the floor. The smell was bad,
but the crew chief had placed Welburg in the back of the aircraft as soon as he smelled the NCO’s breath and knew that the
man was drunk.

Woods looked over at Sanchez, who started laughing. Welburg tried lifting his head to locate the owner of the voice, but each
time he tried focusing his eyes, he threw up again. The aircraft load of recon men looked at the three members of RT Southern
Hellions with disgust and pitied Woods and Sanchez for having to go on patrol with them.

Woods wished that Captain Youngbloode was riding with them, but that would be expecting too much. Welburg was a fool, and
Woods wasn’t going to let him get Sanchez or himself killed.

Arnason kept looking for Woods’s chopper to unload, and finally the rear tailgate lowered and Welburg came stumbling down
the ramp, dragging his pack behind him. He was followed by his two green-faced flunkies and a smiling Woods. Sanchez was laughing
hard. Arnason couldn’t help smiling when he saw the vomit covering the fronts of Welburg’s “elite” team. As soon as the rest
of the recon company saw what Sanchez was laughing at, they started laughing too. Welburg and his flunkies were infamous for
harassing newly assigned men, and a lot of the team members were getting their revenge.

Captain Youngbloode approached Arnason with a worried look on his face. “Do you think I should call him off the mission?”

There was a long pause before Arnason answered. “Under normal circumstances I would tell you to pull him and court-martial
the worthless bastard, but that wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the teams.”

Youngbloode knew what Arnason was referring to; the whole line would have to be adjusted and new plans made to make up for
the gap Welburg’s team would leave.

“He should be sober before tonight, and for sure before the morning…” Arnason shook his head slowly. The Welburgs were the
kind of NCOs who got more men killed through their own incompetence but would be the big studs back in camp because the deaths
of their men proved that they were seeing a lot of action.

“You can rest assured, when we get back to An Khe, Welburg and his boys are going to be punished, and I’m going to break up
that worthless team once and for all!” Youngbloode left Arnason to meet with the officers from the Marine Force Recon Company.

Woods left Sanchez to finish erecting their poncho hooch for the night and went over to the Marine five-hundred-gallon water
trailer to fill their one-gallon water bags. He saw a Marine gunnery sergeant near the trailer and angled toward him. “Do
you mind if I get some of your water?”

The gunnery sergeant had been talking to a young lance corporal. “Help yourself.” He pointed to the mud-covered trailer. “It
looks bad on the outside, but it’s good water.”

“Thanks.” Woods started to walk away and was stopped by the gunny’s voice.

“Are you with the Army recon teams that are going out to Khe Sanh?” The gunnery sergeant eyed Woods closely as he tried evaluating
him.

“Yes … it’s sort of a classified mission.” Woods tried alerting the Marine NCO that he wasn’t supposed to talk about the mission.

“Yeah, I know … it’s just that…” The gunny looked over at the younger Marine and then back at Woods; they were about the same
age. “We were out there a couple of days ago…”

“On the plateau?” Woods became interested. He could use first-hand intelligence about the area.

“Closer to the river.”

“Hey, look … I need to talk with you about that … maybe you could clue me in to some things.” Woods looked back at Sanchez
and saw that he had finished the hooch and was putting their gear inside so that the night dew wouldn’t get everything wet.
“After we eat, I’d like to get back to you.”

“Sounds good. We’re set up just over there…” The gunny pointed to a small clutter of poncho hooches that made up a section
of the perimeter. “We don’t have a mess set up here on LZ Stud, but you’re welcome to share some C-rations with my engineer
team. We’re
good
at making a goulash.”

“I’d like to bring a couple more people along to hear what you have to say … three or four … is that too many?”

“Hell no! Just a couple more cans of Cs in the pot!” The gunny smiled, but it was not a deep smile. There was something bothering
the man. “I’d dig a couple of foxholes before it gets too dark. We get a
lot
of rocket attacks, usually in the morning around six or seven…”

“Thanks.” Woods carried the two water bags back to his hooch and handed one to Sanchez.

The Marine gunnery sergeant watched the Army sergeant talk to his soldier and then smiled when he saw the two of them start
digging a foxhole next to their hooch. The kid was smart and knew when he got some good advice. He might do for what he had
in mind.

Arnason had watched Woods talking to the Marine NCO and then go back and start digging a foxhole next to his hooch. He scrounged
up a couple of long-handled shovels from the Marine engineers on the landing zone and had his team dig holes too.

The Marine gunnery sergeant started the evening goulash early, using the big Vietnamese pot he had bought back in Quang Tri.
He found that the C-rations tasted better when they were cooked in a larger quantity and some basic spices had been added.
His platoon had gotten very good at making a number of C-ration meals and rarely ate in a Marine enlisted mess anymore.

The five Army recon men left their hooches and walked over to the Marine section of the perimeter together. The gunny noticed
that there was a very relaxed relationship between the senior NCO and his men. The relationship wasn’t based on a buddy-buddy
type thing, but on a lot of respect that they held for each other.

Woods introduced Arnason and the rest of the men to the gunny and to the lance corporal, who seemed very interested in what
the Marine NCO was going to say. The recon teammates ate the surprisingly good goulash and teased Arnason, who would only
eat C-rations back in An Khe, about not inventing the Marine system of mass cooking.

“I’ve got to admit, you’ve got a good thing going here!” Arnason was on his third helping of the seasoned beef and potatoes
from the pot.

“It’s easy to make. Just add in a few greens and some pepper.” The gunny leaned back against a stack of mortar-round crates
and prepared himself mentally for what he was about to say.