1968 Read online

  The paper today says that an average of 26 GIs died every day last year in Vietnam, and 170 were wounded. Do you think that’s the truth? I mean, you had so many GIs coming in when you worked at that awful place, and that was just one little part of the country, right? I think they’re lying. But then I’m turning into a radical. Mother would just shit. (She doesn’t know I’m going down into Southeast every weekend to work with Negroes. Please don’t mention it to your Mother either, I know they talk.)

  Hanoi sent another peace feeler out, I don’t know whether they tell you about things like that. Some people are saying its just a bluff, and Ho Chi Minh just wants to stop the bombing for awhile. Well, who wouldn’t? Bobby Kennedy says that if negotiations don’t work we can always go back to killing each other. I’m sort of caught in the middle myself. I like Bobby Kennedy, and I don’t like anybody being bombed, but he doesn’t have a boyfriend in Vietnam, and I know that at least some of the bombs are to keep the enemy out of the south. Keep them from getting even stronger. (Lee doesn’t like to hear me talk like that, but then Lee doesn’t have a boyfriend in Vietnam either.)

  Another cold snap. Got down to 11 last night. (Bet you’d trade!) I’m getting around okay now on snow tires with chains.

  Well, I can’t keep my eyes open, I’m going to bed.

  Love,

  Beverly

  P.S. Look at this new stamp—can you believe 10¢ for airmail?

  Spider didn’t want to tell the truth to Beverly, and he didn’t want to lie:

  6 Jan 68

  Dear Bev,

  God am I bushed. We had a little mortar attack last night after we were dug in. Nobody killed, one guy wounded, just in the legs. They sent a medevac to get him in the middle of the night, which is more than I would expect from the FA. But everybody had to stay up all night, on guard.

  Since the sun came up we’ve been on “two on, two off,” that is, sleep two hours and be on guard two hours. I was up for the first two, and managed to keep my eyes open. (It’s not too hard to stay awake in the dark, especially after an attack like that. But once it gets light you stop seeing ghosts.) (Actually I shouldn’t say that—a guy on guard in the position next to me fell asleep last night about three and started to snore. Somebody kicked him.)

  Smoked some dope that might have had something else in it. Kept me pretty jumpy all night, which I guess was a good thing.

  Anyhow I better get some sleep. Will write more later on.

  (Later) Chopper coming in, they say with mail. Better put this in an envelope and send it off, don’t know how long it’ll be before the next mailbag goes out.

  Love,

  Spider

  Edged weapons

  The mailbag brought Spider a late Christmas present from his Uncle Terry: an impossibly shiny, impossibly keen Randall Made Fighting Knife, in a leather sheath that smelled like new shoes, like civilization.

  The message inside was not too civilized, because Uncle Terry wasn’t: “Wish I could have sent you my old Randall from Korea, but I left it in a gook.” Spider wondered whether they actually called the enemy gooks back then, or was that just Uncle Terry trying to be cool?

  (It was kind of sad. Spider’s father told him that everybody knew Uncle Terry never saw actual combat in Korea; he served six weeks in the Quartermaster Corps and then broke both legs in a traffic accident. He had all kinds of vivid stories that weren’t true.)

  He did need a sheath knife. The M-7 bayonet that was issued with the M16 was useless as a cutting tool, having a blade about as sharp as a butter knife’s, made of metal so soft a fairly strong man could bend it without its breaking. The design was visually impressive, a sleek black dagger to match the sleek blackness of the rifle. It spoiled the balance of the rifle, though, and nobody expected ever to be in a situation where he would have to fix bayonets and charge. So most of them were thrown away. Some came back.

  A lot of grunts carried some version of the Marine’s kabar, a no-nonsense sturdy utility knife. They weren’t issued to Army personnel, but you could buy one at the PX for $7.50, and what else was there to spend money on? (A very few old hands had kabars actually made by Ka-Bar, the original factory, that stopped manufacturing them after World War II.)

  The Gerber Mark 2 Combat Knife was a big number, and Bucks were also popular. Handmade knives were the ultimate cachet, though. Probably nine out of ten of them came from the Randall factory in Orlando, Florida (which in pre-Disney 1968 was a small town with no other claim to fame). General Westmoreland carried an ivory-handled Randall Model No. 1 on his belt.

  It made Spider feel a little silly. As much as he needed a sheath knife, and he couldn’t have asked for a better one, but God, Randalls were for lifers!

  He tried wearing it tucked inside his boot, but that was uncomfortable. The sheath wouldn’t fit on the wide canvas web belt that held his first-aid kit and ammo pouches and two canteens, and he didn’t have a regular belt. So he put it inside his rucksack. If an enemy ever got close enough to stab with a knife, Spider could fire his one bullet at him.

  Luck of the draw

  Batman and Moses walked over to Spider’s perimeter bunker, looking unhappy. Batman waved for Killer to join them. “Look,” Batman said, “they’re gonna send a patrol over to that mortar position. They need a X-Ray volunteer. Anybody want to do it?”

  “Shit,” Killer and Spider said simultaneously. Moses had already testified.

  “Draw straws,” Batman said, and stooped to pick some grass. He arranged the stems with his back to them, then turned around and offered them to Moses. The one he chose was obviously long, and he breathed relief. Killer’s was also long.

  Spider stared at the two bits of grass protruding from the black man’s fist, trying to see some sign but convinced he would draw the short one. He did.

  All four were silent for a moment. “Shouldn’t be much,” Batman said. “Carry the demo bag; we already got our LZ.”

  Spider was about to protest that he’d never blown an LZ, but a more pressing objection came to mind: “But my M16 doesn’t work. Somebody trade?”

  Everybody looked at each other. “Here,” Killer said, shrugging out of the shoulder harness. He handed Spider his precious Magnum. “It’s single action. You got to pull the hammer back.”

  Spider hefted it. The weight was reassuring. He laughed nervously. “Like in a cowboy movie?”

  “Right. Here.” Spider helped him thread the harness over his shoulders and adjust it. “Just bring it back clean, okay? And remember you just got six shots?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Spider felt light-headed, almost to the point of fainting. He realized Batman was holding out the demo bag, and took it.

  “So saddle up and get over to the RTO’s position,” Batman said, looking at the watch pinned to his shirt pocket. “You got five minutes.”

  “Saddle up? Got to carry Cs and everything?”

  “Sure.” Batman slapped him on the back, not hard. “Just ’case you get lost.” Moses agreed to take over the perimeter guard. Spider shuffled back toward his own bunker. How many people were in a patrol? What was he walking into? Get lost?

  Spider stacked the stuff in his rucksack as efficiently as possible; searching, he found that the Randall knife fit into a side pocket on the left, where he could reach it if he stretched. Then he went back to the LZ to top off the canteen he’d been drinking from (he’d already filled three canteens and a gallon plastic sack from the water cans the slick had brought in) and pick up a carton of Camels.

  He carried his burden over to where the RTO was sitting in dappled shade, drinking coffee with about fifteen men. The slick had brought coffee in, too, in a large insulated container, and it smelled good. White paper cups looked incongruous in the scruffy setting; every one that had been touched by a soldier was fingerprinted brown.

  “You the X-Ray?” said a man Spider didn’t recognize, reclining with stiff casualness on his clean rucksack. His fatigues were clean.

  “That’s right,
sir.”

  “Don’t-call-me-sir-I-work-for-a-living”: a sergeant’s stock reply upon being mistaken for an officer. Both men were following ritual. No one wore rank insignia in combat, and when you came upon a stranger in his late twenties or thirties, it was a lot safer to “mistake” a sergeant for an officer than the other way around. “You’re new; you got a name?”

  “John Speidel, Sergeant. They call me Spider.” He took the cup the RTO offered him and tipped some coffee into it.

  “I’m Sarge. Don’t they give you guys M16s anymore?”

  “Mine’s busted, Sarge.” He patted the butt of the Magnum. “Bummed this from a friend.”

  “It’s really fucked up,” the RTO said. “Won’t chamber. I looked at it yesterday.”

  Sarge nodded, staring intently at the space between the two men. He was a formidable and strange-looking man, very black but with pale gray eyes, head completely shaved, long weightlifter’s body. He moved slowly and carefully, as if coiled to spring. “Homer, you go over to Pig and get that spare AK.” To Spider: “Have you ever fired an AK-47?”

  “Uh, no.” In fact, Spider had only fired thirty-six rounds through an M16, in training, and although not many of them hit the target, he was rated Expert. Someone stateside had declared that no one should be sent into combat in Vietnam unless he had attained an Expert rating on the M16. So no one came to Vietnam without an Expert rating, whether or not he had ever seen an M16. “Is it a lot different?”

  “Somewhat, yes.” He picked up his own M16 by the barrel and pointed it at Spider. “Here, I’ll take the AK. You didn’t break your 16, did you?”

  Spider gingerly took the weapon. “No, Sarge. It came that way.”

  “Fuckin’ army,” he said with no inflection. Homer brought the AK with two banana clips. Sarge slid a magazine into place and jacked a round into the chamber. Satisfied, he cleared the weapon and snapped the round back into the top of the magazine. He peered around, counting heads. “Missing one.”

  “Freeling,” the RTO said without looking. “Went to take a crap.”

  “Of course.” He turned to Spider. “I’m usually Bravo’s platoon sergeant. Been on R&R.”

  “Pussy patrol,” a white boy with a southern accent sang out.

  “Gone to see you’ momma,” he growled, scowling.

  “You like my momma?”

  “She one ugly piece a ass, man, wonder how you ever got born.”

  “Daddy always put a bag over her head.”

  “Me too.” He gave the guy a gleaming smile. “But first I cuts a hole in de bag. I lo-o-oves dem white mommas wit’ no teef.”

  Some of the laughter was nervous. The white guy tried to mimic Sarge’s accent: “Someday I’m gonna find you’ momma.”

  “Oh, you’ve found her.” He plucked at his uniform. “You already married her ass. Two years, anyhow.” He grinned. “She fuckin’ you all day and night.”

  A man who was evidently Freeling came out of the woods, carrying an M16 and a shovel, looking agitated. “Sarge?” He swiveled to stare at him. “Look, I don’t wanta be chickenshit. But I’m, I’m too short for this fuckin’ detail.”

  “How short is that?”

  “Twelve … fuckin’ … days.”

  “Hmm.” Sarge squeezed his eyes shut and kneaded his forehead, as if trying to imagine such a state. “We don’t expect any contact. But okay. You go help X-Ray, you know Batman?” The man nodded. “Tell him I detailed you over. They’re puttin’ out wire today.”

  “Wire?” Homer said. “We’re gonna stay in this goddamn place?”

  “Think they tell me anything? I just heard a confirm on four strands of concertina.” He took a pair of reading glasses out of a plastic bag and unfolded a topographical map. “Gather round if you want to see where you’re goin’.”

  He tapped two places that had Xs penciled in. “This is us and this is where the mortar position was. Bearing’s one-forty-two degrees, but we won’t hardly need a compass. We just go downhill until we cross the little stream, and then go uphill until we get to the mortar position. Shouldn’t take but two hours, maybe three.”

  “It’s pretty thick,” the RTO said. “No trails?”

  “Huh uh.” His finger traced a pencil line halfway around the other hill. “This here’s a game trail some lurps found a couple of months ago. “We could follow the stream around until we find it. But that wouldn’t be too smart.”

  “Is this just a fuckin’ body count?” someone asked.

  “Yeah, and ‘confiscate or DX enemy ordnance.’ Plus we’re humpin’ three AP mines to put up there in case Charles comes back.” He folded up the map and checked his watch. “Let’s saddle up. We hustle, maybe we get back by 1500.” He put his arms through the straps and kneeled forward to lift the rucksack onto his back. Something heavy inside clanked; the anti-personnel mines. He stood gracefully. “Single file, I’ll take point. Everybody lock an’ load when you pass the perimeter.”

  “Shit,” Homer said. “Charlie’s Country.”

  “Nah. A walk in the park,” the sergeant said, and ambled off on a bearing of 142 degrees. Spider checked the time: exactly ten.

  All you need is love

  The clock downstairs chimed ten. Beverly looked at Lee’s handsome features, silhouetted against the night-light. He took a drag on the joint and his face glowed orange.

  “I wonder what Spider’s doing,” she whispered. “It’s ten in the morning there.”

  He paused. “I wonder,” he said. “Nothing much fun.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Take a toke.” He held the joint out.

  “Not now.” Her throat was sore. The banana was easier, symmetrical; Lee’s penis hooked to the left. She took another sip of water. “I can’t send him a Dear John letter. He’s too depressed already.”

  “That’s true. But writing him’s not the problem.”

  “No … it’s if he—it’s when …” She sobbed once and tears ran down her cheeks. She groped for a tissue and couldn’t find a dry one; blew her nose into semen musk.

  “You can say ‘if.’ If he comes back.”

  “Oh, yuck.” She wiped her chin and mouth with the back of her hand. “I don’t want to say it. Seems like bad luck.”

  “You got freaked out by that fucking bulletin.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.” An American company had been boxed in by an NVA division. After fighting all night, all but 24 of the 103 GIs had been killed, wounded, or captured. “If they tell us about that, God knows what worse things are going on.”

  “Oh, don’t start. Sometimes they must tell the truth.”

  “When it suits them or when they get caught,” he said harshly. “Sorry. I shouldn’t bring politics into bed with me.”

  “That’s all right; I shouldn’t bring another man. But you’re right. That film got to me.” She knuckled her eyes. “I don’t even love him. Or I do, but like a brother-sister thing, y’know?”

  “You can’t tell him that, though.”

  “No.”

  Lee took a deep drag and held it in, thinking. There was no doubt in his mind that Spider was going to die in Vietnam. Karma, kismet. “Look, he comes back, when he comes back, I just fade for a couple of months. You make sure he meets lots of girls, let him down easy.”

  “You … you’d wait for me?”

  “You have to ask?” He barely got the joint out of the way as she enveloped him in a crushing, desperate hug.

  Her warm tears trickled down his neck. “You’re the most loving man,” she said, muffled.

  “Where it’s at, baby,” he said, not consciously mocking himself. He stared at the glowing ember. “Love is all we have.”

  A walk in the park (2)

  Spider tried to be conscientious about not bunching up; he tried to keep at least three meters between him and Homer, the grenadier in front of him. The rationale was inarguable. The first enemy grenade or mortar round or spray of machine-gun f
ire ought not to kill more than one person. Still, he could usually see only one person beyond Homer, and if he fell back and lost both of them, he wouldn’t have any idea of which way to go, except downhill, and he might lead the five or six people behind him straight into doom. He tried to fight rising panic, tried not to make noise, strained to hear the noise from the people behind him.

  Every now and then, he thought of the phrase “a walk in the park.” Under other circumstances, this could be a lot of fun. He had sort of liked Boy Scouts, enjoyed hiking and camping, and could remember a time when being allowed to carry a gun while hiking would have been the ultimate in cool. (His parents hadn’t even let him own an air rifle.) But none of the scenarios he’d acted out in his childhood had covered the situations of gagging over rotting flesh, screaming with indescribable pain, having your pecker shot off.

  He tried not to make any noise but felt like a walking symphony of clanks, snaps, and scrapes. The guys behind and in front of him seemed to be moving as silently as Indian scouts. Guess who the enemy would zero in on. His skin was cold and greasy in the jungle heat.

  They made it down to the stream without being blown to bits. Spider checked his watch and was surprised to read 10:44. He visualized the map and revised his estimate of the scale. It might not be too bad.

  The stream was about two meters of black water, too wide to jump. The water was tepid and came up to his knees. When he got out, he’d added the sound of socks squishing to his repertoire.

  He realized he had it pretty easy, being about tenth in line. The other guys had worn down a temporary path by the time he came along. Sarge was probably making more noise than anybody, breaking trail. But then of course they don’t shoot the point man. He studied the thick forest around him and remembered the camouflage demonstration at Fort Leonard Wood. That had been familiar scrub pine and berry bushes, but the trainees had all walked right by a machine-gun position with two men. It opened up on them with blanks, enough to kill everybody, and then they were marched back by it again. Knowing where to look, you could see the two men. But you could have walked by them a dozen times. What could be hiding in this thick welter of vines and brambles? A tank, if they could get it down here.