Nam Sense (23 page)

The thirty-minute trip was across a forbidding wasteland where the Army strip-bulldozed the vegetation to eliminate potential VC hiding places. There were no farms, villages, trees, or hills. The only features were the spotty scrub brush and the shallow Khe River. It looked nearly as desolate as the surface of Mars.

At the hospital I collected my gear, but with no transportation going south I walked to the Quang Tri city limits gate to hitch a ride back to Camp Evans. The traffic was unusually light, but eventually a US Marine driving a water tank truck gave me a lift. Unfortunately, he was only going to the Khe River to fill the tank with water before returning to Quang Tri. After a ten-minute ride, the truck stopped on a low bridge above the river. Before I got out of the cab, the driver asked me to stay for a while.

“A guard usually comes with me but he didn’t show up today. Do you think you could cover me while I’m getting the water? Rumors are snipers are shooting at trucks.”

“Sure,” I nodded, still hoping he would still give me a ride to Camp Evans. “Since no one is with you, how about bringing me the rest of the way? Nobody will know.”

“Sorry, but I’ve got to get this water back so the officers can take their showers. They’ll have my ass if I’m late.”

“Typical REMFs,” I mumbled to myself.

The driver dropped a large hose over the railing that noisily splashed into the tranquil river and began drawing up the water through a suction pump. Since there was no screen on the end of the hose, I wondered if any fish ever got pulled in. During the twenty-minute fill up, dozens of potential rides passed by. The loading was uneventful, so after the truck drove away, I continued toward Camp Evans on foot. As American vehicles ignored me, I couldn’t imagine why I was unable to get a ride. I supposed that with my two rifles and extra bandoleers of ammo I looked menacing enough that the few US vehicles dared stop, though most slowed for a look. Yelling out “Fuckin’ REMFs!” as they drove past probably didn’t help, either.

It was getting late and as dusk emerged, the already sparse traffic ceased altogether. The eerie stillness reminded me of the suspense movie “North by Northwest,” in which the lead character is dropped off in the middle of nowhere to meet a man who doesn’t exist. I was alone on that road, or hoped I was, and trying not to panic.

It was bad enough to be ten miles from the nearest friendly lines but worse still, no one knew I was out there. No one, that is, except perhaps the VC. I was a fully exposed and very inviting target. I could not safely continue walking because after dark I could meet either the enemy just as easily as a US patrol. Worse yet, the Army monitored several battery-powered acoustic and seismic sensors to warn of enemy troop movements in the area. Triggering a device could result in artillery or mortar rounds coming my way.

It was just light enough to see a mile in either direction when I took a long, last look, pleading with the horizon to materialize a truck. Nothing. I began searching for a natural depression, low shrubs, rocks, anywhere to hide for the night. Suddenly, a distant flash caught my eye. It was the headlights of a jeep speeding toward me.

I ran to the middle of the road waving my arms. The vehicle stopped three hundred feet away. Over the glare of the lights I could barely distinguish the outline of the jeep’s two occupants. They had to be GIs because the average VC did not have anything to drive, but at that distance I was not recognizable as a fellow American. As far as they knew, I could be an AWOL GI, a VC, or a crazed ARVN. When I approached the vehicle, they backed up. When I stopped, they stopped too. Then I ran at them and they backed up faster and farther. I yelled, but they couldn’t hear me over the engine noise. Then I remembered a hand flare in my rucksack. When I shot it skyward, the jeep inched forward until I was recognized as a GI. Finally, they pulled up to give me a ride. That was close. If those soldiers had not come along I would have been left to spend an interesting night in the middle of nowhere alone (assuming I survived to talk about it).

A few days later, the aid station doctor declared my prostate fully healed and released me for field duty. I had gotten so used to the safety of the rear that I had to mentally prepare myself before going back to the boonies. Even so, it felt good knowing that I ghosted away 21 days, probably a record for someone with a bleeding penis.

Early the next morning, I went to the chopper pad to catch a Chinook flight to the DMZ. Waiting there ahead of me was a new guy, PFC Bernson. I gave him a token nod as I sat on a stack of C-rations. I sensed him staring at me but when I glanced in his direction, he spun around to fumble with his equipment.

“Fuckin’ Cherry,” I whispered, shaking my head.

Bernson looked out of place. He was slightly overweight, had frizzy hair, wore glasses, and his new fatigues still smelled of mothballs. He seemed more like a library clerk than a Grunt. Yet, Bernson’s goofy image reminded me of my first time going to the field: scared shitless and wondering how anyone could survive a year in the jungle. I felt the weight of his stare again.

“Nervous?” I asked, casually tightening my bootlaces.

“Boy am I,” he answered, relieved I had acknowledged him without denigrating his existence. “Have you been here long? Are you a veteran … I mean an old-timer?”

“I’ve been here seven months,” I said examining the horizon. I finally looked him in the eye. “So I guess that makes me an old-timer.”

“What’s it like out there…in the jungle? I mean…what does it take to survive? I’ve heard so many different stories that I don’t know what to believe.”

I didn’t know what to say. No one had ever asked me that. I just assumed that Cherries picked up on things and, if they watched and learned carefully, became old-timers like me. But Bernson had a sadness that made me feel obligated to tell him what I had learned about the war.

“The way I see it,” I slowly began, “Grunts face three wars in Vietnam. The first is against Mother Nature. In the dry season, it’s so hot during the day that we hardly move for fear of heat exhaustion, and at night we use our energy staring into the darkness while fending off hordes of mosquitoes. During the monsoon, it’s cold because we’re wet all the time, and we end up sloshing through muddy ditches, rice paddies, or a rain forest. Bad weather also delays our re-supply causing us to miss out on mail and food.”

“What about the enemy?” he asked, thirsty for information. “How bad is that part? Is there a lot of fighting?”

I laughed to myself remembering how seldom we had actually engaged the enemy. I scooped a handful of pebbles and sifted them through my fingers before speaking again.

“That’s the second war,” I said, pitching a stone. “In my seven months, we’ve only encountered Gooks eight or nine times. That may not sound like much, but just being in the field is a battle in itself, mainly because we are constantly at risk. It’s tough knowing that someone is out there aiming to kill you. Although we usually come out on top, like when we kicked the shit out of the NVA on Hamburger Hill, but we still lost more than fifty guys in that battle. But that was six months ago and the Gooks haven’t been fighting face-to-face like that lately. Instead, they observe our habits and strike when it’s to their advantage, either by ambush or with booby traps.”

“Geez,” Bernson moaned, rolling his eyes, “how do you keep from getting killed or wounded? There’s got to be a secret to surviving all this.”

“You could be a Ghoster like me,” I said grinning. “But seriously, the key to staying alive is common sense and alertness. It’s that simple. You have to think about the consequences of your every move. Bad things can happen fast if you do something stupid or don’t pay attention to details. That means you have to watch where you walk, sit, sleep, and even where you shit. There is no relaxing; a Grunt’s workday is twenty-four hours of hunting and being hunted. When we drop our guard—that’s when the Gooks are the most likely to pounce.”

“You said there were three wars,” Bernson said quizzically. “What could be worse than the weather and the enemy?”

“The third war is the worst war,” I growled fiendishly. “It’s the one between the Lifers and the Grunts. A Grunt’s goal is to make it home alive. A Lifer’s goal is to win the war regardless of who gets zapped. Lifers love the war for the power it gives them over people’s lives. I’ve met only a few good ones; the rest are arrogant pricks who rarely feel what the Grunt feels. Sure, Lifers are out in the bush too, but they usually don’t go on recon or LP, they never walk point or carry the machine gun, and the only guard duty they pull is radio watch from the safety of the perimeter CP.”

I probably told Bernson too much too fast. He looked more depressed than before. I only wanted to educate him, not blow his mind.

“Everything you’ve told me sounds so bad,” he lamented. “Isn’t there anything good about being here?”

I brushed my hands against the seat of my pants before answering his question. “There is only one good thing about being in Vietnam. It’s the day you get on a Freedom Bird to go home. But it’s a long year, and the only way to get back to the World is to just finish your time. Most Grunts make it home without a scratch. The guys who get screwed-up usually did something stupid, like listening to a Lifer. But don’t worry, you’ll be all right. We have a lot of good men out there and everyone looks after one another. Hell, before long, you’ll be teaching new guys how to survive.”

A Chinook landed at the chopper pad and we climbed aboard. The hour-long ride to the DMZ was ominous but it always felt that way when returning to the field. We landed at the Mai Loc base camp and separated to two different supply choppers going to the company LZ. The slick I was in landed first. After the supplies were unloaded, Silig and two other GIs gently slid in a body bag with a dead GI. I looked at the bag and felt an emotional tug.

“Who’s in the bag?” I asked Silig, knowing that it really didn’t matter.

“Nobody you know,” he answered in a resigned tone. “He was a Cherry who went outside the night perimeter to take a crap but didn’t bother telling anyone. He got lost in the dark and was thrashing around in front of one of the other positions. Our guys assumed he was an NVA, so they shot him.”

“How are the shooter’s handling it?”

“Not good. The whole company is shook up over this. Friendly fire is a tough way to die.”

After the second chopper landed, GIs milled around the LZ helping to move the supplies. Then disaster struck. As the chopper lifted off, a malfunction caused it to tilt sideways, ramming into a tree. A rotor blade broke loose and reeled toward the crowd like a huge sword, killing six GIs instantly. Doc Meehan was one of them. He was cut in half. Alongside Meehan lay several other GIs who met the same gruesome fate. One was PFC Bernson. An eerie chill ran through me. The deaths were horrifying in themselves, but it was unimaginable that my survival advice to Bernson should also have included freak accidents.

It was bad enough for a GI to die at the hands of the enemy, but when we killed our own, especially on consecutive days, it was difficult to accept. As the bad news circulated some men moaned and hollered over the senseless deaths. A small group threw down their weapons yelling “We quit! Fuck this war!” Others joined in, but the mutiny quickly turned from bitterness to mourning as several GIs openly wept. The platoon leaders moved to break it up, but Captain Hartwell, disregarding normal military protocol, gave us time to grieve for the deceased. This was the first outlet for our emotions, and we unleashed months of suppressed anguish.

Our “rebellion” lasted less than an hour. We made a stand, then gradually rejoined our units. One of the men summed it up with a resigned grumble, “Fuck it. Don’t mean nothin.’” We knew we weren’t going to change anything by allowing ourselves the luxury of compassion. In the violent world of combat we had learned more about death than life, so the only thing to do was continue numbing ourselves and soldiering on.

When I returned to my platoon, I found that we had a new leader, 2nd Lieutenant Alexander Cramer. But before meeting him, Silig took me aside to warn me about Cramer’s erratic behavior.

“You are not going to believe this new Lieutenant,” Silig began, noticeably concerned. “He’s a nut case who never stops babbling about killing Gooks. The first thing he did was to put the machine gun on LP to “surprise the enemy.” He didn’t care that the LP is supposed to be manned by rifleman for early warning; he wanted offense.”

“Where the hell was Wakefield?” I asked, irritated at Cramer’s audacity. “He’s supposed to stop shit like this.”

“Wakefield is too busy sucking-up to make any waves. Besides, Cramer is the real problem. He also tried to RIF over too big an area in thick vegetation. Two men got disoriented and were lost for nearly an hour. They were pretty shaken up when we finally found them but Cramer shrugged it off as a strategy lesson.”

“I just don’t understand why cherry officers have such giant egos,” I said angrily, shaking my head. “They establish themselves as war authorities before experiencing it and without getting advice from who’s been fighting it. No one should ever be put in danger because of some gung-ho Lifer. The time has come to stop that kind of bullshit.” Silig nodded in agreement as I went to confront our new platoon leader.

Lieutenant Cramer motioned me to wait while he talked on the radio. At first glance, he appeared to be an ordinary guy about twenty-five years old with average stature. While watching him speak, I noticed his not so ordinary presence. He reminded me of the comic strip character “Pigpen,” disheveled and dirty from head to toe. But Cramer wasn’t just dirty like the rest of us; he was filthy from falling in the mud so much. Both bootlaces were untied and his extra-long pants belt hung loose. Ink from a leaky ballpoint pen had found its way from his hands to the side of his face. The slob picture was complete as he constantly scratched his head.

When Cramer finished talking on the radio, he took two steps toward me then tripped on a vine and fell flat on his face. Rather than stand up where he fell, Cramer crawled to a small tree to pull himself upright. He casually dusted himself off as if his appearance and clumsiness were routine. Though I planned to form my own opinion about Lieutenant Cramer, this first impression left me agreeing with Silig’s warning of incompetence. I wondered how such a klutz ever made it through Officer’s Candidate School.