Nam Sense (14 page)

In the morning, we went ashore to get some sleep before the next night’s guard duty but decided instead to visit the nearby town. The civilian area was supposed to be off-limits, but there were US military personnel in the town; we decided to go, too.

The bay area was densely populated with townspeople living as poorly as the villagers of Phong Dien. Their dirt floor shanty houses, made from discarded packing crates, sat almost on top of each other. There was no plumbing and sewage flowed in an open ditch alongside the pathway. It was a depressing sight and the stench was awful. As we walked along, a young boy standing in a doorway called out to us in Pidgin English.

“Hey GI, come here. I got what you want.”

We walked to the front of the shanty.

“You want numba one boom-boom?” he asked. “We got. My sister is a virgin and wants to make love with you.”

“A virgin?” Scoggins asked grinning.

“Yes,” he continued. “Mama-san very sick, cannot support family. You make love to my sister. Only five dolla MPC.”

“Five bucks for both of us?” I asked hopefully.

“What? You crazy?” he answered pointing. “Five dolla for you and five dolla for you.”

I pulled Scoggins aside, “What do you think, should we do it?”

“Let’s go for it. I have six months to go and if I get killed without getting laid, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Okay, but you go first. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“You never got laid?”

“Sure I did, but not with a prostitute…with my girl,” I reminisced, “before I left to come over here…sex was my going away present.”

“That’s a good one. Do you think she’s gonna wait for you?”

“What makes you think she won’t?” I asked, irritated at his insinuation.

“Are you kidding?” he asked in disbelief. “Girls back in the World got better things to do than sit at home waiting for us. They get lonely too, and there’s no shortage of horny guys with draft deferments ready to take them out. My girl already quit waiting for me, she sent me a ‘Dear John’ two months ago. Come on, anything is better than beating your meat.”

We paid the fee and Scoggins went first. I waited outside, fantasizing about the sexual delights I would soon experience. Ten minutes ticked by before Scoggins finally came out.

“How was it?” I eagerly asked.

“Okay,” he said, running his fingers through his hair and grinning, “but I don’t think she’s a virgin. She wasn’t very shy.”

“Did you use a rubber?”

“You bet I did. I ain’t gonna get Black VD (venereal disease).”

“Black VD—what’s that?” I asked, cringing.

“That’s when your balls turn black and your cock falls off.”

“Bullshit,” I sneered as Scoggins laughed.

The boy came out and pointed at me, “You next GI.”

I stepped into the building where a portly middle-aged woman known simply as Mama-san greeted me. I supposed she was the boy’s mother. Mama-san did not speak or show emotion. She waved her hands directing me towards an adjoining room separated by a blanket over the doorway. I entered a cubicle and was surprised by the sparseness of the interior. The walls were simply the inside of the packing crates that made up the shanty. Furnishings were skimpy; a small bed, a wooden folding chair, and a braided rug. A foggy plastic sheet serving as a window flapped with the wind. The room smelled.

The girl sat on the chair with her legs crossed, smoking a cigarette and looking at a magazine. She had a large bath towel wrapped loosely around her. I guessed her age to be about eighteen. She was slender, with straight black hair but not especially attractive.

“Take clothes off,” she commanded without glancing up from her magazine. “You want rubber?”

“Yeah…sure,” I answered timidly.

She called out to Mama-san and an arm appearing from behind the hanging blanket handed her a condom. I quietly undressed as she put the magazine down. The girl glanced over just long enough to be sure I was naked. Then she removed the towel and crawled onto the bed. Still smoking, she handed me the condom saying, “No suckie, only fuckie.”

That blew my mind. Nothing was happening like I had imagined. Her pimp brother hustled us, her mother in the next room handed her a rubber, and I’m her second trick in less than fifteen minutes. This unprofessional setup so unnerved me that I began fumbling with the condom, unrolling it like it was a toy. She chided me with a sarcastic laugh when she saw that I didn’t know what I was doing.

“You not need rubber,” she said. “I no got VD.”

“Good,” I said, pulling the condom off until it snapped in my hand. She shook her head and laughed again, probably realizing I was an amateur. I climbed onto the bed and asked her to put out the cigarette.

“No way, GI,” she said firmly. “I smoke, you make love.”

I guessed that kissing would be out too. So much for romance.

I satisfied myself but hardly enjoyed it. As soon as I had finished, the girl nudged me aside and pulled a basin of water out from under the bed. She squatted over it, giving herself a hand douche. It should not have struck me as strange after all I had seen from this family run business. I dressed quickly and dashed outside to join Scoggins.

I was too embarrassed to look at him. I felt I had just dishonored my family. I was also afraid that my girlfriend would somehow find out what I had done. I just wanted to get far away from there. As we were leaving, Mama-san and the boy yelled at me.

“Hey GI, you numba ten!” they shouted. “You owe one dolla for rubber!”

“Bullshit!” I shot back. “I didn’t use it.”

“No matter. What GI will use it now? You pay!”

“I ain’t paying nothing. I never got my five dollars worth. That bitch wouldn’t put out her cigarette or kiss me or anything.”

“Kiss you?” Scoggins asked, rolling his eyes as if I was nuts. “Are you out of your mind? You don’t kiss a prostitute!”

The boy picked up several baseball-sized rocks and motioned as if to throw them at us. I didn’t want any trouble so I tossed at dollar at his feet. He scooped it up and ran back to the shack. After that, we decided to stay out of town and stick to our sentry duties on the dredge. We wondered what was worse, being killed by someone in the jungle, queer-raped by a deranged worker on a ship, or attacked by a rock-throwing adolescent pimp who had just sold us his sister.

For each of three nights our platoon members were spread around the bay guarding everything from air conditioners to pipe insulation. Eventually, we rejoined for a platoon-size guard duty at a US Navy fuel depot located on a river channel that snaked through Da Nang. To get to the depot, a US Navy utility ship motored us up the waterway.

On both sides of the channel, homes built on wooden stilts hung out over the water. As we rounded a bend we spotted Vietnamese kids swimming in the river. When they saw us coming, the kids yelled a warning to each other and quickly scampered from the water. I could not understand why they were so afraid. We weren’t going fast, the ship was not close to shore, and no one threatened them. I supposed the ship’s wake made for difficult swimming. I was wrong. The kids were scared for good reason. The ship’s pilot and signalman spotted a slow swimmer and tossed a concussion grenade at him. Concussion grenades are used to stun enemy soldiers without killing them and are most effective in tight quarters like bunkers, tunnels, and underwater.

“What the hell are you doing?!” I yelled at the signalman in disbelief. “Those are just kids! What have they done to deserve that?!”

“Sergeant,” the pilot calmly answered, “don’t you know that those kids are the future VC? We’re just letting them know who’s in charge here.”

“You guys are sadistic,” I shot back. “We’re supposed to win the hearts and minds of the people, not turn them against us.” They shook their heads as if I was crazy. With attitudes like theirs, we deserved to be hated and I was embarrassed to be a part of it.

A few minutes later the ship dropped us off at the depot. The tiny supply base was about the size of two football fields. A thirty-foot high chain-link fence enclosed three sides. The dockside of the compound had no protective barrier at all, just the channel. One hundred feet beyond the fence, Vietnamese homes were crowded together. It looked like a middle-class neighborhood because the houses were permanent concrete buildings and not the packing crate variety. At night, some of the residents congregated outside the fence beneath huge floodlights until the 10:00 p.m. curfew.

The depot was in a safe area that had not seen a VC or act of sabotage in nearly a year. The area is protected by weekly rotations of infantry platoons that needed a rest but not a vacation. Our guard posts and sleeping quarters were located in eight huge bunkers strategically placed throughout the compound. Each bunker had two fighting positions and accommodations for up to ten men.

The depot itself consisted of three 50,000-gallon fuel tanks and four US Navy buildings; a barracks, an operations center, a supply room and a mess hall. Each night around 8:00 p.m. the mess hall converted into a liquor bar.

On our first night, there was a going-away party for a homeward bound sailor. We were invited for free snacks and drinks but before that, we had to endure boring speeches about a guy we didn’t know. Not many of our men were interested, but to be sociable I hung around for a few beers.

At 9:00 p.m. the party quieted down so I went outside to check on the guards. I was surprised to see that most of the bunkers were not occupied. Instead, several men waited in a line near the doorway of the corner bunker.

“What’s going on here?” I asked the last man.

“Boom-boom,” he said, pointing to the front of the line. “There’s a whore inside taking on everyone for five bucks a pop.”

“What?” I asked, stunned at his nonchalance. “How did she get in the compound?”

“There’s a hole in the fence so the local talent can sneak in and take turns each night.”

A hole in the fence? I could not believe it. The Navy had their own rotating supply of boom-boom girls? I thought about joining in, because now I was experienced with Vietnamese prostitutes. Unfortunately, I was nearly broke. When I turned to leave, the line had grown longer behind me. I didn’t want to look like a first-timer turned chicken, so I stayed. I thought it might be fun to see what my last two dollars could get me with a five-dollar whore.

After half an hour, it was my turn. I scooted inside to be nauseated by the stench of sweat and stale beer—and worse. The bunker was dimly lit with incense-coated candles that didn’t help the odor much. The girl was about twenty with a homely scowl that made her look like she had crawled through the fence one time too many. Her arms and legs had bruises and her neck bore small scars. She stood in the middle of the bunker with a blanket drooped over her shoulders.

“Five dolla,” she demanded with an outstretched hand. “You pay now.”

“Not so fast,” I shot back. “Don’t I get to see what I’m paying for?”

“Okay wise guy.” She dropped the blanket and struck a pose. “You pay now!”

“Uh…turn around for me.”

She rotated but would not turn completely around.

“Now turn the other way.”

She turned but was getting aggravated.

When I said, “Now bend over,” she reached for a baseball bat carried for people like me. As soon as I saw the bat I ran out the door. She charged after me yelling a combination of profanities. She was still naked and stopped just outside the door. The men in line gave her a few catcalls and sent a few in my direction as well. They were afraid that if I got her pissed-off they would not get laid. But she calmed down and went back to work. Since the free show did not cost me anything, I certainly got my money’s worth, but I could not understand how anyone would be willing to pay for sloppy sixteenths or seventeenths. Those guys must have been in the field too long. At least when Scoggins and I had our prostitute, I only had to contend with sloppy seconds—and he had worn a condom.

Our platoon stayed at the depot for a week’s worth of bunker sex and booze before returning to the flatlands of Phong Dien.

Our platoon’s next area of operation was about ten miles northwest of Camp Evans. There we came upon a giant old-growth bamboo thicket where the trees grew fifty feet tall and as much as three inches in diameter. The thicket was eerie because the dense canopy prevented the sun’s rays from ever reaching the ground. Even in broad daylight the thicket was a shaded twilight world. At night it was so dark that even the night creatures stayed away. The trees grew far enough apart to make for easy movement, but the terrain was littered with dry bamboo leaves that crunched when we walked on them. To maintain noise discipline, we brushed the leaves aside to make a series of quiet walking paths to each perimeter position.

“It’s kind of spooky in here,” Howard Siner whispered, looking cautiously around, “it reminds me of an eclipse of the sun.”

“It reminds me of the enchanted forest in the movie The Wizard of Oz,” I said. “The only thing missing is the flying monkeys.”

“The bamboo is as big as drain pipes,” Dennis Silig added. “I just hope the VC are afraid of places like this, because I sure don’t like it.”

“What the hell are you guys worried about?” chided Stan Alcon. “I don’t mind this bamboo because we can hear anybody coming a thousand feet away. Besides, as bad as you think this is, anything is better than being in the A Shau Valley.” We all nodded in agreement.

Each morning, two six-man teams went on a daylong ambush at a trail junction bordering the thicket. No one ever showed. At sunset, the platoon retreated into the bamboo to ambush any VC who tried walking through it in the dark. No one ever showed up there, either.

On our third night, a frantic radio call came from battalion headquarters ordering us to move to the nearest LZ and prepare for immediate extraction. The entire company was regrouping to intercept a platoon of VC spotted on the outskirts of a village hamlet.

The quickest route to a natural LZ was directly through the thicket and out the other side a half-mile away. Our toughest obstacle was the inky blackness of the bamboo forest. In order for us to proceed without losing anyone, each man held onto the web gear of the man in front of him, forming a human chain. This linked procession voided all noise discipline, so every fifty feet we stopped to listen for sounds other than ours. There were none.

Our advance was too slow to suit Sergeant Krol, so he fired a flare skyward to illuminate the route. It shot through the bamboo canopy and we never saw it again. Krol then fired a second flare parallel to the ground, which provided an instant sight line, but the luminous trail ended abruptly where the flare smacked into a tree. The flare exploded on impact and ignited the dry leaves on fire, providing adequate light to see by. The problem was that if there were any VC around, now they knew our position, and as the fire quickly spread, the smoke rose only a short distance because most of it could not escape through the canopy. To keep from choking on the fumes, we rushed to get out. Just a few hundred feet outside the bamboo was a large natural clearing we could use for an LZ.

After a brief wait, hand-held strobe lights guided five helicopters to our position. The pilots were reluctant to land because from the air they didn’t know what to make of the fire glow under the nearby bamboo. After we convinced the pilots that the situation was under control, all five choppers descended at once. When the helicopters neared the ground, powerful landing lights were turned on, obliterating our night vision. As each slick touched down, we stumbled aboard.

This was our first night ride and we couldn’t see anything until our eyes readjusted to the dark. I wondered how the pilots saw where they were going. I couldn’t even distinguish the bodies of the helicopters flying beside us; I only saw their forward green light and a flashing red taillight. Inside our chopper, the glowing instrument panel cast a pale reflection on our silent faces as we exchanged worried glances over what lay ahead.

When our five helicopters met the choppers carrying the rest of the company, an unseen US Air Force Douglas AC-47 gunship dropped huge parachuted flares to illuminate our synchronized landings. The Air Force gunship, nicknamed “Spooky” or “Puff-The-Magic-Dragon,” is a slow-moving transport plane armed with three multi-barrel electric-driven 7.62mm machine guns, each capable of firing 6,000 rounds per minute. Since every fifth bullet is a tracer, when Spooky is shooting, the plane looks like it is attached to an orange column of fire.

Our descent was quick and the landings were completed without incident. We found ourselves in grassy flatlands dotted with patches of short brush and irregular hedgerows. We promptly formed an assault line nearly a half-mile long with each man ten to twenty feet apart. As many as ten flares were in the air simultaneously, lighting the night skies and our surroundings with a bright amber glow. The flares drifting slowly earthward, causing the shadows to dance about. That made it difficult to determine whether enemy soldiers were lurking out in front of us.

As Spooky lit the way, our assault line moved toward the area where the VC were last seen. We pushed forward at a fast pace, stimulated by the magnitude of the operation and the firepower waiting to be unleashed. If our tactics were successful, the VC would be flushed into the open where they would get cut down by Spooky’s guns.

During the first hour, nervous Cherries fired occasional shots into the shadows though no enemy was sighted. By the time the second hour passed, the operation was obviously a bust. We finally gave up. The helicopters and flares must have scattered the Gooks in so many directions they would never be found.

As the last of the flares died out, the company broke down into platoons, each securing a knoll for the remainder of the night. We tried to pull 50% guard duty, but with all the earlier excitement we were now exhausted, and hardly anyone could stay awake. Besides, since every VC within ten miles already knew where we were, there was little concern that any of them would be stupid enough to try sneaking past our positions. As a result, most guys slept through an uneventful night.

When I awoke at first light, I discovered that of the entire platoon, only two other men were awake. Rather than going around waking everyone, I decided to make enough noise so they would get up on their own. As I dug into my rucksack I noticed movement behind a hedgerow about one hundred feet away. I studied the area and caught glimpses of a Vietnamese man walking toward our position. I was confused by his blatant approach so I crawled over and woke up Krol.

“Sergeant Krol,” I whispered. “There’s a Gook just outside the perimeter and he’s coming this way.”

“He’s probably a farmer,” Krol said, rubbing the sleep from his face. “Go see what he wants.”

“But it’s too early for them to be way out here. The sun isn’t up yet and we’re not that close to the village.”

“Just go see what he wants.”

That sounded nuts to me, so I returned to my position and patted two sleeping men on the shoulder. “Gook,” I said in a quiet urgency. “Wake up.”

With my rifle at the ready position, I watched as the man materialized from behind a bush less than fifty feet away. When I saw an AK-47 rifle slung across his chest, I realized he was a Viet Cong. I froze at that moment of recognition, unsure of why he was being so bold. He glanced casually in my direction, then said something in Vietnamese.

“Chieu Hoi!” I yelled back at him.

He laughed and continued closer, apparently thinking I was one of his comrades making a joke. As several GIs quickly gathered behind me I thought he was coming in to give himself up. When Freddie Shaw yelled, “He’s got a weapon!” the VC halted.

For a split second, the enemy soldier and I made sharp eye contact, both of us realizing that our thinking was wrong. His expression instantly changed from bewilderment to defeat, but rather than be taken prisoner the VC turned to flee. I could not let him escape, so I quickly reeled off a dozen rounds as five men behind me simultaneously opened fire. Even before the VC hit the ground, rifle and machine gun bursts had cut him to ribbons. As his legs gave out, he managed to shoot a volley of six rounds at us. Our maniacal firing continued until somebody threw a hand grenade, engulfing the VC in an explosion of dust and debris. When the shooting stopped, Dennis Silig joked, “Do you think we got him?”

We looked around to make sure none of us had been hit. Everyone was okay. That’s when we spotted Krol crouched behind his rucksack.

“Sergeant Krol,” I called, shocked to see he was hiding from the action. “What are you doing behind your rucksack?”

“He shot at me!”

“He shot at you?” I asked, amazed Krol thought he was in more danger than us. “He shot at all of us. Are you hit?”

“I’m not hit, but there could be more of them!”

“He was alone…you can come out now.”

We were stunned. Had Sergeant Krol turned chicken or was he always a coward finally exposed by this incident. No one dwelled on his behavior. Instead, we rushed to examine our kill. We surrounded the riddled body and silently watched a reflex twitch and a labored last breath. The VC was dead.

“That was the third time in two months an enemy soldier walked up to one of our positions,” Siner remarked.

“Maybe the VC draft requirements have been lowered,” joked Silig. “They’re either stupid, need glasses, or both.”

“The VC aren’t stupid.” I said, knowingly. “We’ve just been lucky that none of us have been blown away. Let’s make a quick patrol of the area to make sure none of his friends are hanging around.”

Finding nothing, we returned to the perimeter where Krol and Lieutenant Petry were searching the body. They found a pouch with documents and maps and a wallet with 800 piasters, which Krol pocketed.

“What about us,” Silig protested. “That money should be split among the shooters.”

“Negative,” Krol answered, shaking his head. “Rank has its privileges. This is one of them.”

Nothing else was said, but now Krol’s complete character had been exposed. He was a coward without a conscience and to the men who realized it, Krol would no longer be trusted or respected. With the excitement over, we returned to our positions for morning chow.

The dead VC was about thirty feet from my position. I looked at the lifeless form, wondering why it didn’t repulse me. I remembered when I could not eat for two days after we killed a VC girl early in my tour. And now there I was, eating while looking at a corpse that wasn’t even stiff yet. My attitude change had been so gradual it went unnoticed. The violence of the war, no longer shocking, had turned me into a hard-core veteran.

We left the VC to rot and humped two miles to a daytime ambush position. In the meantime, the villagers complained to us that the body could not be left where it was because their farmland would be cursed. Late that afternoon we were ordered back to bury the VC. Since my squad did the killing, we were chosen to do the burying.

By the time we returned to the scene the body had bloated from lying under the hot sun all day. Dozens of buzzing and crawling insects magnified the disgusting image. We didn’t want to stay any longer than necessary so we quickly dug a shallow grave, which later turned out to be too small. When the VC was rolled into the hole his feet stuck out. We knew the grave should be deeper and longer but no one wanted to touch the body again. We finished the job with everything buried except his feet. The next morning we received an angry radio call from battalion headquarters about our sloppy burial of the VC. The villagers now complained that his feet sticking out of the ground not only scared the shit out of the local kids, but was an insult to the land.

We returned to the grave site once more. This time we dug up the corpse, which stunk so bad I almost vomited. We slipped the Gook into a body bag. Handling the dead VC for a second time made me feel like death had embedded itself into my hands. It was difficult to shake the sensation. A short time later, a pickup truck arrived to take the body to a more suitable location, probably a mass grave. The entire episode confused me. I thought our job was to kill the enemy, not to conduct burial services for them.

Our next assignment was one of our best ever. We were sent to guard a US Navy Seabee construction site on the banks of the Bo River between Hue City and Camp Evans. The Seabees were rebuilding a two hundred-foot span of railroad bridge that was destroyed six months earlier by VC sappers. It was the kind of guard duty Grunts dream of: hot meals each day, swimming whenever we wanted, and plenty of time to catch up on lost sleep. The rest of our duty was spent lazily watching the local fishermen and other boat traffic on the river. If there were no boats, we turned our attention to the villager’s constant procession along a timeworn path connecting two nearby hamlets.

The Seabee compound was no bigger than a suburban house lot, which made it easy to defend. It had the familiar bunkers and concertina wire, but it also had a forty-foot tall concrete railroad tower. The tower provided such a commanding view of the terrain that a two-man team perched within it was the only daytime defense the compound needed. The only drawback was that we had to send out a daily RIF so any nearby VC knew we were actively patrolling the area.

On one RIF, we were walking in a four-foot deep gully when a sniper shot at us from a nearby hedgerow. The bullet zipped over our heads. We figured the sniper was either on his first mission or just plain stupid, because he pinned us down in a location that offered protection and maneuverability. Lieutenant Petry radioed in the situation as we positioned ourselves for an attack. Just when we were ready to shoot back, Petry told us to hold our fire. It turned out that a squad of ARVNs had mistaken us for a group of enemy soldiers they thought were preparing to launch a daring daylight attack on the village. What assholes. We couldn’t imagine how the ARVNs had confused us with the VC. After that, we returned to the Seabee compound and never sent out another RIF.

A few days later, Siner and I were on guard in the railroad tower. The view of the distant hedgerows and thickets was picturesque, but being on that lookout all day was a drag. To amuse ourselves, we spied on Sergeant Krol, who spent most of the day relaxing in a hammock under a shade tree.