Learning to be Stupid

         They were there waiting for us. A half dozen of them. It was the young snarlers who came to the bus doors, screamin' and foamin' at the mouth. Their flood of foul language slammed us like like a tidal wave. Odd though. There wasn't a four letter word in the bunch. Just that they had a way of spittin' words like maggot or scum bag like they were curses. Gave us a new outlook on foul language. And their words carried meaning. Like all true cussing should. Didn't exactly know what that meaning was but we all got the idea there was no fun in our immediate futures. That it was best to agree with them even if we really didn't.
     Mainly the snarlers wanted us off the buses. Fast. And what we considered fast didn't cut mustard with them. They were giving us our first lesson in never being fast enough, strong enough, smart enough, man enough, no matter what we did.
     Turned out they weren't forest rangers even though they were wearin' hats just like Smokey Bear. Weren't sergeants neither. I got clued into that real quick. All she took was one of the screamers to go nose to nose with a trainee and share a rainbow of saliva wrapped around "I ain't a sergeant you frickin' loser. I AM A DRILL SERGEANT!" Yup, that was a clue alright.
     So there we stood. Four wavy lines of fear, trying to not make eye contact with any of the demons. Trying to be invisible. Praying we'd be overlooked, passed by. All the while knowing someone was going to get singled out and killed, right there in front of us, as an example of what could happen for making a mistake. And the poor bugger not even knowing what the mistake was.
     However, at one point or another during this eternal, hour long introduction to hell, most everyone of us got the nose-to-nose, saliva sprayed description of our low-life selves, our complete uselessness, our failure at being men, our excellent chances of being left to rot and die in some leech-infested swamp. And followed that with a detailed description of what they would do with our girlfriends, wives or fiances now that the ladies finally had a chance to meet a real man, all while we were still in our body bags.
     One of the Drill Sergeants - the one who was married to the blonde lady in the new Mustang. She wasn't exactly old enough to be his mother, unless they met in Texas. You see, he went out of his way one day to point her out and let us know how old she was. Yeah, she was a fine looking woman. My guess was they had the ceremony where they met, in the NCO Club with Jim Beam as best man. But keep in mind I'm a judgmental northern boy who don't know any better - broke the four letter word ban. Couldn't blame him one bit 'cause he'd had two wisdom teeth pulled that morning. Bein' a man among men he probably didn't have any novocaine. Had 'em ripped out with a pair of rusted lineman's pliers. Now he was in a world of hurt and taking his mind off it by being nasty as hell. Only he called it "jumping dead in our shit." Over the next couple of months I heard that phrase a lot. Didn't take but one hearing to pick up its gist. Learned quickly I didn't want anybody messin' with my shit. No sir. Came to be as protective of my shit as the King of Hawaii. Wrote me a mental note: Be careful with my shit. 
     After our Welcome to Your New Home in the Army meeting we were divided up into four equal sized groups, alphabetically by last name. Seemed someone in the office was on the ball. Made me feel a little better there was some civilization nearby. Maybe keep a leash on the pit bulls in the Smokey Bear hats. Then we grabbed our duffles and set off screaming and running to the barracks buildings.
     You remember the buildings? The ones about which it be said if you put flame to both a cigarette and the barracks at the same time it'd be a close race to ash. My bunk was upstairs on the top. Jim Weldon had the bottom bunk as they were double-deckers. Up a flight of stairs, yeah they were wood stairs, don't think the Army had a handle on concrete back in 1940, and through the front door. Straight ahead was another set of stairs. To the left was the latrine. Above the latrine was Corporal Myrick's room. He was one seriously strack troop. Strack being a compliment. He put the spit in shine. Told us how to make a bunk. Arrange our foot and wall lockers, stand at attention, parade rest, where to hide our Johnsons. Mostly his job was keeping us from getting ourselves in a world of hurt. Figured that was because he wanted his life to flow as smoothly as possible. If we screwed up, his Johnson was in trouble. Not sure the pecking order of Johnson and shit. Not even sure what Johnson was. But you didn't want anyone stepping in or on your Johnson. Or your shit. Maybe they were the same?
    Upstairs our home consisted of a double row of bunks. The rows were separated down the middle by holy ground. The only time a Trainee - that's what we were - ever stepped there it was in stocking feet. And with scrub buckets, mops, floor wax and buffing rags in hand. Make that floor as clean and shiny as the Pope's soul. If you walked that linoleum in boots you best have at least three stripes on your sleeve.
     Along the walls were our lockers, olive drab green in color. Everything just so. Underwear folded just so. Socks rolled into perfect little footballs. Shaving brush and cup in just the right spot. Didn't know what the hell that was all about. Didn't anybody use that brush. Someone had a scam going on. But that's the kind of Army we were in. Nothing seemed to make much sense. And top that off with the Drill Sergeants bein' pissed off all the time. I mean all the time.
     At the top of the stairs sat two garbage cans. Didn't know at first what it was that made me uneasy when I first saw them. If I had any hair left on my head it'd been standin' on end when I walked by. Kind of a vortex of unseen power. Took a day or two before I learned the reason. Those cans were the barracks gods. Kinda on the level of a woods nymph. Not a whole lot of power but you didn't want to mess with them.
     So it's a regular kind of training day. Hum-tiddly-um, Winnie-the-Pooh kind. Nothin' special. But somehow a Trainee screws up. Trainees always screw up. Didn't even know he screwed up until he found his ass on the ground with a coupla DI's standin' above him and sprayin' spit all over the place. He be thinkin' it's all history after a minute of misery. But he be wrong. Corporal Myrick comes to pay him a visit after chow. Tells him to get his can of Brasso. Now Brasso is something a regular human being don't have much use for. But a trainee learns it's his best friend. Polishes buttons, belt buckles and gold tooth crowns. Also garbage cans. Like the ones at the top of the stairs. The ones worn smooth and thin after thousands of rubbings. Looked like stainless steel. Glowed in the dark. We all got intimate with those cans over the two months. On our knees, polishing and praying that when we be done Corporal Myrick will smile. Let us go back to our gear and get ready for morning. Happy with that lesser misery.
     The latrine was the closest thing we had to a happy place. Nobody with stripes comes in to actually jump in our shit when they had a spittin' chance. The room was divided in half by a wall. One side for crappin', peein' and shavin' as one big, happy family. You get to know someone real well when you can't hide from what they smell like on the inside. Don't nobody seem to smell good in there.
     The shower was a great place if you liked bein' in the middle of twenty naked men. Singing, tellin' tales and playing the ever popular, grab-ass. Can't tell you what grab-ass was. That's 'cause I don't know. Maybe we did. Best ask my big brother. He used to use those words a lot when talking 'bout his days in the beer Army of mid-50s Germany. Can't say that there was any actual ass grabbing goin' on even there. But who knows? There were a lot of lonely GIs in Germany with time on their hands, maybe also an ass or two, while they waited for the Russians to come storming over the border. Whatever the case, crappin' and being naked with your buddies went a long way towards making us an Army to be feared.
     Once I was assigned to a unit, I had an address. Since I had an address, people could write me letters. But first I had to send them one so's they'd know where I was. The new address was A/5/1, Fort Campbell, KY. With a zip code I've long since forgotten. Over the weeks and months I wrote to Lois nearly every day. That's 'cause we were in love. And she's the one I missed till I hurt something awful. Yup, I was a wimp. I don't want to include those letters. Kinda too personal in an embarrassing way. But I do want to include the one's I sent to others. Maybe they're not exactly how I wrote them. Lucky for me I can write what I want and remember it the way I'd like it to have been. Generally speaking they're the truth.

 Dear Mom,

     I don't know if being in the Army is better or worse than I expected. And ain't even sure what it was I expected. First off we get yelled at a lot. Seems the Drill Sergeants are always mad about something. No matter what we do it seems to be wrong. About the best I can hope for is to not be noticed. You don't get noticed by not screwing up. Guess that's what they're looking for.
     Right now I'm sittin' on my bunk upstairs in the Fourth Platoon barracks of Alpha Company. The cadre tell us we're Alphagators. Can't say for sure if that's intentional or not. From the way the Drill Sergeants talk, it might be a misspelling. I'd ask them but I'm not that stupid.
     On the first day we were set up with Trainee squad and platoon leaders. Kinda like fake sergeants. Seems they chose the guys who said they'd had ROTC. I suspect they intended that ROTC to have been in college. But some of them ain't but eighteen. Maybe they thought the Boy Scouts was the same thing. Anyway, I'm not one of them.
     Bein' young's all well and good but our Trainee Platoon Leader is a full-fledge psycho by the name of  Williamson. He is a throw back to the days of knuckle-draggers who's only use for hands, besides countin' that is, is to beat the living bejeezus out of most anyone who don't think the sun rises and sets out of his backside. Wouldn't be so bad if he was a little guy but he ain't. Six foot five and raw boned. Got a feel about him like he'd have a fine time workin' the rack in hell someday. Rumor has it he blinded a nun who passed between him and his paper bag wrapped bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 while he was layin' in the gutter and tryin' to remember where he'd left his pants.
     I steer clear of him but he do pose a temptation every night. Lays in his bunk after lights out and sets to moanin' about how horny he is. And how good he had it in prison with what he called his Fifi bag. Then go into a detailed description of how to make one. Figure the two of them coulda walked hand-in-hand off into the sunset.
     My temptation is to sneak up on his bunk after he falls asleep and hold a pillow over his face till he stops wiggling. I know I'd just get a whuppin' out of it, so I don't. But the thought gives me some comfort and I fall to sleep with a smile on my face.

Your son,
Mark

PS. His name ain't really Williamson but I figure if he ever sees this letter, that's all she wrote.

     We slept in double decker bunks. The Army had our best interests in mind when they had us in alternating directions. My head above Weldon's feet. Mostly I think the idea was to have our assholes to line up. Don't know why but in the over-all scheme of the way the Army does things, that's the part of the body that matters most. On the other hand, they told us it slowed down the spread of disease. Seemed to make sense. If they wanted our bodies killed, Vietnam called for far less explaining than Kentucky.
     Outside of Williamson most everybody was easy to get along with. 'Bout the only thing most of them seemed to want was to put this Army business behind them. Half of us were from Minnesota. The other from Tennessee. There was a bunch from Memphis and a whole lot of good old boys from the Smokies to the east. The guys from the hills had a way of talking that put you at ease. One of the nicest men I ever met was Elmer who said he was from Maryville. Only he softened the whole word up to Marraville. Then he'd say, "I ain't really from Maryville. Only you probably never heard of where I'm truly from." Truth was I'd never heard of Maryville.
     The best part about our first day was it being a Friday. As nasty as the Drill Sergeants seemed to be, they were probably in a good mood. To them the Army was a job. And like any job, TGIF. They had a whole weekend to rest up so they could be extra mean come Monday.
     Having a weekend right off was a good thing for us also. Time to get used to living in a bedroom with two dozen roommates. Learn that though each is different, we all fart. Couldn't go anywhere. We were confined to the Company area for the first six weeks. That was okay. I had no money and didn't know where to go if I did. The best part was having Corporal Myrick around. He taught us most everything we needed to know about the day to day basics. He was dark, medium tall, a whippet. Had more starch in his fatigues than cloth. They coulda stood by themselves. Wasn't a screamer so when he talked, we listened. From him we learned it was best to give a shit or we'd be in a world of hurt, no doubt give our Company Commander a case of the ass,  or have someone with stripes jump dead on our Johnsons. Good man.
     Growing up in Minnesota, the land of the liberal, I'd learned that the line between religion and government was never crossed. Even our Republicans were Democrats and believed in the separation strongly. So I was looking forward to Sunday and a chance to attend Mass. Army couldn't get me there. Can't say I was ever an out going or devout Catholic. But I never missed Mass. It was meditation time for me. A chance to think things over. Even drag God into the process. So, come Sunday morning, me and about twenty other of the lost hopped on the bus. A chance to sink deep inside and mull things over.
     Well, my Mass attending days lasted about three weeks. Had no problem with the religion part but the priest was another story. Turned out to be a kind of Drill Priest. Apparently our responses during service weren't loud enough. Gave him a case of the ass. He didn't come out and use that word 'cause in the Bible it only refers to donkeys. He did, however, boom out for us to sound off like we were in formation. Meditation didn't seem to fit in. Figuring on an infinite God, that's what the Baltimore Catechism taught us, I went looking elsewhere. And found the Supreme Being in the quiet of the Sunday morning barracks. Everyone pretty much stayed to themselves. Time to read, write letters home, organize your gear at a leisurely pace. Mosey around once in a while, quietly get to know everyone. Kinda more like what Jesus had in mind should He have been stuck in Basic Training during war time. Sundays became my happy place.
     Monday. Screamin' Monday. Hello world, where am I? Boot hits wooden stair. Door creaks open. Hand slaps lights. Rise and shine trainees! Assholes and elbows! Out of your fart sacks and on the street in fifteen minutes! Couldn't shake the cobwebs outta my head. Stumbled around thinkin' about assholes and elbows. Nothin' to be thinkin' about when there's a bunk to be made and uniform to put on. Move fast boy. No sooner do I grab my Johnson and put it in my pocket than that voice downstairs starts screamin' again. And twenty-four bodies trot down the stairs. Seems the Army ain't interested in stair trottin'. Flyin' is more their speed and they let us know. But for the moment they've got other fish for us to fry. Set us off to the main road, hang a right and go a couple of blocks to a big field where we do our morning two mile double time. Some of the boys try to drop out. Bad move. Coupla D.I.s pay them a visit and encourage them to rejoin us. Help 'em on their way with a spit-shined boot to the hind quarters. When they start flaggin' again it's up to us to drag them along. Make our lives miserable and build teamwork. More than anything it built an Us against Them attitude.
 

      Memory of those days is waning. My crutch is a memoir written a decade ago. Time flies. Memory rots. Top that off with where I'm sitting. Overlooking Perdido Bay in Alabama. Fourteenth floor. Seventy above in January. Sure not a courier or grunt place to be. Honestly embarrassing.
     Seems like I'm zig-zagging down the center line of a life full of contradictions. What I want is to be on the water. Without salt in it. My mind keeps drifting back to catching bass on a slip bobber rig last October. Late enough in the year to be surrounded by bare hardwoods and miles of silence so profound I could here the chattering of squirrels a half mile away. A pleasure. Even catching bass on a lake where they have a love of sacrifice was a hoot. But the best was being alone with my thoughts. A planet for them to roam uninterrupted. Letting my mind run free is what I do best. Start it up one direction then she runs off where she wants. Where she needs. Unseen hand in action. When I break free of the reverie there's the million dollar view.
     No need to hurry the day out there on the water. Goes fast enough on its own. Seems like no day is long enough. Always more to do. Always more time to waste.
     What happens after death is beyond my ken. There's a bucket full of theories on that. Some even say they know. But I kind of doubt that. As to knowledge of what's going on, in and beyond this universe, we don't know squat. Probably never will. But if I had my druthers after I bite the big one, sitting on a lake, all by myself, surrounded by the life of the northwoods and catching a fat largemouth once in a while, wouldn't be a bad place to spend eternity. Sure beats the hell outta layin' in a box with worms eatin' your innards. Like that's avoidable. Whatever it turns out to be, should be interesting. Or nada.


     'Course over the weeks our marching to and from the morning run got a lot better. We even began to look like real soldiers. But that gettin' up at 4 a.m. never got easy. After a week of it, wake up time became a part of me. Eyes would pop open. I'd say a little prayer, "Dear Lord please let it be no later than one. I need the sleep. How am I gonna kill Vietcong if I'm tired all the time?" But it'd always be 3:59:59 and then the boot would hit the stair.
     Guess we were lucky. Lights out was 8 p.m. The Army wanted us to get our eight hours sleep. Next door it was another story. Seems Alpha Company always won the ribbon as the best training company of our battalion. Cycle after cycle it was always the same. Had so many award ribbons on our guidon it looked like a pom-pon. Maybe we were lucky. Maybe good. Maybe our DI's had friends in high places. Whatever, the Senior Drill Sergeant of Bravo Company didn't much care. Had his boys up at 3:30 every training morning. Screamin' and a yellin' at the top of his lungs. How anyone could be so pissed off that early was beyond me. Look up the phrase "has the ass" in the Lexicon of Military Jargon and no doubt you'll see his picture. Made us feel like a bunch of candy-assed, prima donnas sleepin' to four o'clock.
     After the morning trot it was fall back into the barracks, clean it up and get our shit ready for the training day. All the while knowing there was bacon frying in the mess hall. Could smell it on the march back from the field. Smell it in the barracks. Can even smell it now. I smell bacon, I think Basic Training. Don't eat it much anymore but I'll smell it anytime. Mmm-mmm. Even the bad times have their good times.
     Breakfast in the mess hall wasn't nothin' like eating in a restaurant. Had to get there running and yelling. That's the way we went anywhere when out of the barracks. Runnin' and yellin'. The boys in the Smokey Bear hats liked to know where we were. Didn't want us sneakin' up on them. Scarin' them so's they dropped a load and ruined their fine starch jobs.
     Once at the mess hall it was an up and down the horizontal ladder. Couldn't get in line till you made it both ways. Then it was get in line time. Stand at parade rest. Total silence. Like monks. Unless you were a fat boy. Now I mean no disrespect toward the fat boys. Compared to the fat boys in the today's world, ours weren't but sightly oversized. But the Army didn't like any kind of fat boys back then. It was their joy to get them on the slant board to the side of the horizontal ladder. Doin' sit ups till the Drill Sergeant leaning over them got tired of being mean-mouthed. If they didn't lose weight fast enough they got sent to the fat farm. Not sure what that was like but I figure hunger was a big part.
     The food inside wasn't much as I recall. On the other hand we were so hungry it didn't matter a lot what they did to the food. All I wanted was more. Hungry all the time. Inside, wolfing down food, I had my first piece of corn bread. Creamed, chipped beef on toast. Known for decades as shit on a shingle. Didn't know what it was. Looked like oatmeal to me. Put milk and sugar on it. Never did that again.
     I'm a little worried those few of you who read this will think I'm going off the deep end as far as cursing. But that ain't true. Not calling creamed, chipped beef shit on a shingle would be doing the Army a disservice. Lose a piece of Americana. It's the way it was.
     In defense of the food, the best pork chop I ever ate was at Fort Campbell. Pulled an untouched one off a sergeant's plate rather than throw it in the garbage. Stood at the exit door cleaning trays and savoring that chop.
     The 4th Platoon didn't have a drill Sergeant. Not that we minded. Instead we had Sergeant Richar. He was our bad boy buddy. "Don't call me Drill Sergeant, I work for my money." As to off the wall, he was a case in point. Rumor had him being from Canada. Had a gruff bulldog voice. Not a big man but had a huge ego. God's gift to mankind. Man's man with a tendency toward alcohol and nicotine. Been in the Army for a dozen years and still a buck sergeant. Didn't know if he'd been up and down the rank ladder or just reached his level of incompetence. Liked to point at his Combat Infantryman's Badge and say, "You know what this says? Says I'm a paid killer." 'Course the bulk of us Trainees were a half year from saying the same.
     And that's where these entries are heading. Yeah, we were bozos in basic. Didn't know squat. Takin' it one day at a time. But there wasn't much danger of anyone dying at Fort Campbell. Can't say anybody I met along the way wanted to die. Didn't want to think about it either. The blessing of basic was that combat seemed so far in the future. Too far away to be real. Too far from the lives we'd led to be real. How the heck can war seem real to someone like a baby boomer. We were children. I was 21. Not too far over the average. The subtitle for Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five was The Children's Crusade. Not sure what you'd call Vietnam. On the average we were a year or two younger. Oops, there I go whinin' again. Didn't have to go, so I shouldn't complain.

How and Why

     In some ways I was smart. Still am. In others, dumb as a stump. Still am. I've heard consistency is a good thing. Also heard if you don't shake it up a bit once in a while, something will be waiting down the trail for its 10:47 AM snack to come traipsing along. That would be me. Being digested would speed up the composting though it might be painful. Vague though it might be, this is the starting point of this remembrance. So here goes:

     It's May, 1967. Near the end of my second year of college. Good year. Much better than my first that had me thankful for skin teeth. I was still hoofing, hitching and bussing my way around town. No license, no car. Un-American is what I was. Twenty years old and no car? '67 was the Summer of Love. Hippies, Be-ins, free love, anti-war, anti-normal. Yeah, hoofin', hitchin' and busin' fit right in. But, I was no hippie. Wasn't in fact much of anything but confused. Knew where I'd been but had no idea where I was going.
     Then it changed. My brother called and said there was a car for sale at the dealership where he worked. '59 VW, sunroof, custom, metallic gold paint job (lipstick on a pig). Also said I should buy it. So I did. A week later he called and said there was a job open at the same dealership running cars to and from the shop. Good summer job. Of course I still didn't have a license but got plenty of practice for the driver's test in other people's cars. Don't think that'd fly these days.
     The VW opened up my life. Still had no direction but when I chose one, there were wheels under me. American, open road and an automobile. Can't say I saw myself that way but that's the way I was. Somehow I made it through fall quarter okay then dropped out of school for the winter. Too much fun to be had by not hitting the books.
     Long story short, time passed, a little over a year after buying the VW I found myself broke, no college in the immediate future, in love and the relationship going nowhere unless I made a drastic leap to clear up all the deadweight in my life. Lacking a creative choice, I did what any number of short-sighted young men did back then, I volunteered for the draft. Yup, that was a stupid thing to do. Like begging to be put in the infantry and shipped off to Vietnam. 'Course I didn't see it that way. To me it was a liberation. In one fell swoop I solved lots of problems. And maybe created only one, a life and death one. I knew that was a possibility. Knew it so deep I was completely unaware of what I had gone and done. But one thing was for sure, I'd gone and done it.

     So that's the five hundred words or less as to why. What follows is the result:

     Back in 10th grade geometry, Mr. Petrovich - in '62, having a Russian name was a big deal. Cold War times. Commie spies infiltrating the PTA. Motherhood in danger. So his name always caught your ear. Mr. P's Christmas spiel, an effort no doubt to dispel the boring image earned by geometry teachers, was to translate his name back to Russian, Simon Simonovich Petrovich. Then back to English, Sam Samson Peterson. Not exactly side-splitting but it beat the pants off of theorems and postulates - laid a definition on us that's stuck with me for a half century. Simple enough but with a depth that descends as far as you'd care to dig. A point has no dimension, no length, no width. It's there, but it's not. Kinda like my attention span these days. Like a singularity in cosmology. Everything squeezed so tight it's almost not there. One more than infinity. In short, a point is as close to nothing as you can get. And nothing's gotta be plenty for me.
     The geometric point is not the kind I'm working toward but the definition fits perfectly. Life turns on points and you jump off into your future from them. Most of them are too subtle to be noticed. Some are haymakers. Shit hits the fan kind.
     Sigurd Olson wrote of jumping off places in Runes of the North as starting points. Heading into the unknown. He wrote that preparation, though important, didn't cover all possibilities. Water levels, wind, and illness can wreak havoc with any plans. Life is in constant flux. No river is ever the same. Second Cranberry Lake can be a glassed-out joy one way and comber-filled danger the other. Seems a starting point will get you somewhere, but where that somewhere is, is never certain.
     Sittin' at the keyboard in 2011, I can lay out with some accuracy some of the starting and turning points of my life. The luxury of retrospect makes it all seem so obvious and inevitable. Predestination as a constant. Couldn't be any other way. But from the other end, say '68 or '61, looking forward, it looked more like a free-will crap shoot. If you'd told me I'd end up here, at this moment, crow's feet from eye to chin, I'd have accepted that possibility. Or any of a thousand others.
      Possibility sure is a fine word. I like seeing a lot of open doors in front of me. And don't like to close the ones I've passed through. There's an inevitable finality down the road, it's a humdinger and fills all my finality needs in one stop. So I guess, full circle wise, finality and nothing are about the same. At least from my point of view. I'll let you chew on that. Raise your hands when ready to move on.
     Took twenty-one years of turning points for me to reach a dead-end. Stone wall. No way around. That was before I realized every fork in the road has an invisible third path. Most times when you don't know which way to turn it's because both directions are wrong. The third choice, the right one, comes by way of inspiration. Like your life wants you to head in an altogether new direction. Dump the old path. Clear the slate. At least that's how I see it from forty-three years in the future. Maybe I had those same eyes back then. Hidden deep. Powerful, unseen hand deep. Something like we're our own time machine. We can feel the future and see the past. Like where we'll end up is there waiting for us and shaping our flow so we get there on time.
     So there was a third way. The draft was an inevitability. My immediate future had nothing going for it. What the hell, why not? Be done with it. Headed for the closest recruiting office. Seeing as how I wasn't interested in a three year enlistment, they directed me to my local draft board. Land of the Living Dead. Now those were some seriously old dudes. Like walking into a nursing home that had the power of life and death over young whippersnappers like me. They were licking their chops when I walked through that door. Fresh meat. One of 'em shot in a fresh layer of Polident so his false teeth wouldn't come loose when he set to gnawing my bones. I was the best thing they'd had to eat all week. Walked out a volunteered man. A dedicated man. Took a while before it really sunk in as to what I was now dedicated for.
     Two weeks passed. The President of the United States sent me greetings. Nice of him to do so seeing as how he was a sitting duck. He headed back to the ranch two months before I headed to the tropics. Thanks Lyndon! A month later, after a fine going away party thrown by my mom on Sunday, Lois drove me to a six a.m. Monday meeting at the Federal Building in downtown Minneapolis. That building still gives me the heebie-jeebies. There they gave me a free Bible, safety razor, looked up my ass in hope of finding enlightenment and said I was now their man for the next two years. I was beginning to have my doubts as to the wisdom of what I'd gone and done. Scared down to my shoes.
     An entry or two ago I brought up the story of how Zilch got his name. Lord knows what his real name was. No doubt something normal. He was a little guy. Not easy to notice even in the small crowd of Minnesota's finest in the oath-taking room. But on the bus ride to the airport he stood out like the Star of Bethlehem. Seeing as how it's almost Christmas that seasonal analogy popped up in my brain like, well, kind of like the Star of Bethlehem. While we rumbled through downtown in a school bus, little old Zilch hung his whole body out the window, shaggy long hair flapping in the breeze. And proceeded to yell at every passer-by. Called them all zilches, and accompanied each zilch with a creative modifier. Didn't know there were that many different kind of zilches in the world. And what he claimed he'd do to a grey-haired lady I don't care to remember. Seemed Zilch was missing his calling in life. He'd have made a fine shepherd. Would never have suffered a lonely night. Or day for that matter.
     Now Zilch was not a handsome man. Not even close. You'd have thought his scraggily hair wasn't doing him any favors in the looks department. I know I did. But a couple of days later when we all got our head shaving and walked around for the next couple of hours stroking our skulls, the reason for his long hair became apparent. My, oh my. Some things are better off partially hidden. Don't know what ever happened to him. If he died in Vietnam, they must have used his real name on that wall in Washington D.C. Not a zilch to be found there. I don't mean to be doin' the man any wrong with this memory. What I wrote is hand-in-glove with the truth. Gotta give him credit. Took our minds off where we were heading for a few minutes.
     S'pose I should warn the few of you out there who read this gibberish that my side ramble may go on for a while. So if you want to move onto better things, go for it. Mostly I do this 'cause I like to write. And, since I'm retired, having the time's no problem. You write about what you know and seeing as how I'm too lazy to do a bunch of research, I've got me to write about. As for my time in the Army, having forty plus years of separation sheds a lot of light on the joke that it was. No one knows for sure how many people died laughing in the fiasco that was Vietnam. But it was a lot. Funny war indeed.
     Should also warn you that in the middle of all that humor, I was miserable most of the time. Seems a shame to have had the opportunity to go hiking in Asia free of charge and then stumbled around wanting to be elsewhere. Didn't take the time to smell the napalm and burning shit. Poor me. And to think, we even got clean clothes and cheap, canned beer when we were in on stand-down. So, looking back on it, I think I'll lean on the lighter side of war. As to the misery part, if you ain't been there, you probably don't much give a damn anyhow. Such is life. I didn't much give a damn myself until I voluntarily stuck my head in the wringer.
     Got my first airplane ride that day, October 28, 1968. And it was on a jet. Zoomed all the way to St. Louis. To show you how dumb the Army was back then, I was put in charge of the group. Have no idea why. Maybe because I wore glasses. In the world of the Army that made me an intellectual. Guess I looked like someone who'd wrecked his eyes by reading serious literature. The kind that has no three page centerfold. They were willing to judge me by my cover. Also, I already knew all about being in charge of a bunch of civilian clothed inductees. Both read the book and seen the movie, No Time for Sergeants. Held onto the folder of induction papers and kept my mouth shut. Didn't mess with anyone. Didn't call anybody a plowboy. Didn't want to get in trouble with nobody. Covered my ass.
     In St. Louis, we began a process that set the tone for air transport in the Army. The smaller the craft, the more miserable the destination. The one we hopped aboard in St. Louis had propellers. That was fine with me. I was in no hurry to get anywhere. If it took two years getting to Fort Campbell, I could turn right around and head home, my hitch done. Yee-hah! 'Course I wouldn't be able to brag about how I helped save the world from the Red Peril or attend military reunions and get stinking drunk while bragging about how we all helped save the world from the Red Peril. But seeing as how I avoid that kind of stuff anyhow, I wouldn't have missed a thing.
     Might have been around 2:30 in the morning when we landed and got on a bus, this one not orange, for the home of the 101st Airborne. Screaming Eagles. Didn't know that at the time. And like I said earlier, I didn't care. Knew we were going somewhere and when we arrived, that's where we'd be. The driver was a PFC who had an attitude problem. And a damn fine job. Coulda been up in the Au Shau Valley near the DMZ , out on an ambush and hoping to not pee his pants should anyone come down the trail. Seemed his function in military life was to cut all the right hand turns as tight as possible so as to hit the stop signs with his side mirror. And let out a whoop when he did. Gotta hand it to the guy. He definitely had a skill. And with a little luck, he's still behind the wheel in some great metropolitan area, terrorizing immigrants and the poor.
     It's after 3:00 when we're delivered to an ancient clapboard-sided building. There we were greeted by an eleven-year-old corporal and told to find a seat at any of the school desks scattered about. That was followed by a passing out of forms and pencils. The man knew for a fact that we'd screw the process up no matter how loud he yelled. But he went ahead and yelled anyway. And just to show him he was right, we did our best to do everything he told us not to. At 3:15 in the morning, what we didn't mess up accidentally, we messed up on purpose. He also knew from past experience that at least a third of the pencils would disappear. Recovery would require a full body search including every cavity. Not on his list of things to do in the dark. Even though the government paid its usual cost plus seven thousand percent for each pencil, the corporal figured it wasn't his problem. In truth about the only thing of necessity was for us to put down our last name first, first name last, and middle initial somewhere on the form. So they had a list of who'd showed up. They knew for a fact we weren't going anywhere except to Vietnam or the stockade. The choice was ours from the moment we got on the bus in Minneapolis. Some choice, eh? One down and seven hundred, twenty-nine to go.
     Once all the forms were handed in, we were herded off to an abandoned barracks. Now, the barracks at Fort Campbell were some seriously old buildings. Read somewhere they'd been built in a hurry to accommodate the flood of GI's in WWII. Temporary was what they called them. Might have been the driest wood in the western hemisphere. Burn to the ground in a heartbeat. At 4 a.m. we weren't complaining. Unfolded the thin mattresses, grabbed a blanket, flicked off a couple of dead cockroaches and it was beddie-bye time in Kentucky.
     The bunks were double-deckers. Me and a bulldog built guy ended up at the same rack. I took one look at fat boy, exhaled a pitying sigh, said I'd take the top bunk. Gotta tell you, I was a saint. Fat boy shook his head no. Who was I to argue? Moved to the side so's he wouldn't crush my sorry ass should he gain some height. Well, he commenced to grabbin' the frame like it was his intention to fold the whole shebang up. Bring the mountain to Mohammed. Most everybody turned to look when the building shook as he clambered up. Turned out Denny was a power lifter. Wasn't so much a fat boy as a bulky boy. Also Minnesota push-up champ. Spent most of his time in Basic Training whinin' about not gettin' enough exercise. Finally the Drill Sergeants took pity on the man. Let him go to the gym for an hour after the training day.
     Sun rose in the morning as we began our slow descent into military life. For uniforms we were given olive-drab baseball hats to go with our single set of civilian clothes. Crumpled, beat-up, broken-visored caps, perfect wear for bozos like us. All of those caps seemed way too small till we were taken to the barbers where we got our first military head shaving. Razor set to an eighth of an inch. Twelve passes over the skull. Couldn't help but lovingly stroke your head when you walked out. Twenty seconds plus a buck and a quarter sure made my head feel closer to my hand. Kinda good actually. Rub, rub, rub.
      Followed that with three days of testin', inspectin', uniformin', and injection. One line to another. Raggedy marching from stop to stop. Once in a while we'd pass by a training company marching just like in the movies. Singing chants about wanting to kill Viet Cong. Figured for sure we'd end up looking like those boys in a few weeks. Precise and all. Didn't know so much that I wanted to kill anybody or go anywhere the killing was going on. Killing just never sounded all that healthy to me. But sure wanted to look as fancy paradin' down the street learnin' our lefts from our rights.
     The injections were something else. We were all men. That is if being at least eighteen made us men. Wasn't gonna let no needle in the arm get a whimper out of us. Plus the Army didn't use needles anymore. Fired the stuff in us with air guns. Piece of cake. But the sight of blood running down each and every arm did set me to thinking that the medics doing the injecting were a bunch of sadistic sons-a-bitches. Also had the ability to blow the cap off your head by cracking open an ammonia ampule under your nose. I can personally vouch for that. Never did that again.
     Somewhere along the way we took a battery of tests. Must have been at least a half dozen of them. There was one called a Personality Profile Evaluation. This was where my time in the Boundary Waters got me in serious trouble. Gimme a break. Can't help it that I had a good time up there. I didn't know what the hell they were driving at. I was just a dumb, inexperienced fool who figured the government and every branch of it was on my side. On everybody's side. We elected them and they were doin' the best danged job they could. So when they asked me questions like:
     Do you like the outdoors?
     Ain't camping great?
     How'd you like to take long hikes through the jungle with a shitload of weight on your back?
     Them Commies sure are an evil bunch of sumnabucks, ain't they?
     I answered them all truthfully, to the best of my ability, in total ignorance and complete stupidity. Truth was, I shoulda seen where they were goin' and where they wanted me to be goin'.
     About the last hour of the last day of processing, we all got a talk with The Man. The Man had two gold bars on each shoulder. About four rows of ribbons on his chest, crease in his pants that could slice bread and the voice of a man who could sell you a four door Rambler and make you thank him. Seems he functioned as a direction changer. Took two year draftees and turned 'em into three year future lifers. And he had a powerful argument helping him out. I didn't know all this till I was shown into the man's office. He smiled all fatherly at me and commenced,
     "Have a seat son. No need to get formal with me. I'm here to help you out. Set you straight. Maybe even save your life. Let's see. Looks like you broke the Post record for the Infantry test. Damn, I've never seen a score anywhere near that high. You're a regular Einstein of future grunts. Now, you know what a grunt is, don't you son? A score like that and I could probably send you right off to Vietnam. Don't hardly need any training at all. But the law - damned law - says we can't do that. It's a natural born shame too. Half a dozen killers like you and we'd have those Reds on the run inside a week. 
     Tell you what. Gotta be honest. Someone of your high minded patriotism's bound to get his ass shot off sooner or later. And your mom sure ain't gonna like you comin' home in a body bag. Mothers, God bless 'em, just don't take to their kids being killed in a shit hole like Vietnam.
     So here's the deal. I discharge you right now. And you're a free man. So long as you immediately enlist for three years as a Regular Army hero. Let you sign up for some other specialty besides infantry. We'll train you. Give you a skill that'll stand you in good stead should you ever re-enter civilian life."
     Then he pulled out a brochure listing all the specialties I could sign up for. Right off, my eye landed on The Pershing Missile School. We were still in the Space Age. I was hip to that. "Where do I sign, Cap'n? I been into rockets since Sputnik I." Guess he'd been through this drill before. "No can do kid, you're color blind. Says so right on your physical. Gotta be able to tell red from green so's you push the right button."
     Damnation! From the fun of rockets I sank a couple of steps down the ladder toward practical, the Electronics School. "I'd like to help ya son but that one's all full up. Been full up since that sampan tried to ram one of our ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. Dumb-ass gooks didn't know what they were lettin' themselves in for. Think about it boy. If a body has half a brain they'll grab onto all the pretty straws first off. Most everything's full up. Ain't nothin' left but Quartermaster and Infantry."
     I ask him what Quartermaster be. He says, "Supply. You know, handin' out stuff like guns and underwear." That sure had no appeal for me. Already dealt with those jerks for the last three days. So I'm stuck between stayin' as I am, infantry, Vietnam and two years. Or infantry, Vietnam and three years. Somehow, an extra year for the same crap didn't seem to make much sense to my way of thinking. So I kindly thanked the Man and silently wished I had the guts to tell him to stuff this whole Army business up his ass. But didn't think it'll all fit up there and quietly walked out the door.
     Now here's the rub. Irony with a capital I. Over the two years I came to discover that the Army travels on its irony. Travel on medals and stomachs once in a while but irony, all but every other Thursday. In Vietnam I came to meet up with a couple of GI's who signed up for Quartermaster. Only they were turned into grunts in the field just like me. Seems they didn't read the fine print before they signed. Oh, they were gonna get their underwear training alright. But not till after they survived a foot tour in The Nam. Hoo-hah! 'Course, if they got themselves killed or maimed the only training they could hope for was re-hab. Gotta love that.
     Four days passed and we found ourselves in something resembling a company formation. In baggy-assed uniforms sittin' on brand new stuffed-to-the-gills, duffel bags, scared looking faces, going somewhere that we intuitively knew wasn't gonna be anything close to fun. End of the road for processing. Waiting for busses taking us to our next eight weeks. Myself, I wasn't thinking one bit about ending up in Vietnam. Wasn't actually thinking about anything but wanting to be somewhere else, anywhere else but where we were going. Inevitably the busses came. And we got on board like good little boys, just like our mommies and daddies taught us.

Moc Hoa

     A good friend of mine, Bob Johnston, served a tour in Vietnam as a medic and has the ribbons to prove it. Irony struck him while there the same as it struck many others. In my case the dice usually turned up sevens, in Bob's it was more a slap in the face. He spent his year with a mechanized unit and I guess the Army didn't figure tanks, APCs and whatnot were ever involved in combat. Somehow that strikes me as odd. Anyhow, though he was wounded three times and awarded several medals for heroism, to include going in and pulling a crew out of a burning APC, the Army in its wisdom never awarded him a Combat Medics Badge. Seems he had to be with a leg unit for that to happen. Talk about being pissed on. Oh well, such things went hand-in-glove with the pointless war that was Vietnam.

     Bob and I have know each other since sixth grade. We were browbeat by the same nuns and, in our own ways, never seemed to fit in, except with others who didn't seem to fit in. We began to drift apart in high school maybe because we attended different schools. He went the parochial route and wished he hadn't. I spent my years at a public high school and have since thought how much different my life would have been had I gone with Bob to De LaSalle. Can't say my life would have been better, just different.

     After our time in the Army we saw each other rarely; years between meetings. Then, a couple of years ago it changed. We now keep in touch and spend, with our wives, two months together each winter down on the Gulf Coast. Bob is a good man and the world needs more like him.

     Lois and I visited Judy and Bob this last summer. During our time together he loaned me a hand-typed copy of a Vietnam remembrance written by his immediate commander, Lt. Christopher Noble. It has some weight to it but, in fits and starts, I've finally made it through to the end. While reading this morning, the area along the Cambodian border called Moc Hoa came to mind and I realized I'd never written of Bravo Company's week there patrolling and helping build a fire support base. It wasn't till years later that I learned it's exact location. Yup, that's where it was alright, up in a corner under a little finger of Cambodia that pointed like an arrow at Saigon.
     I think I have a photo somewhere of Tom Smith (that's Thomas C. Smith as opposed to Thomas A. Smith or Thomas E. Smith, we had all three in Bravo Company) and 'Iron' Mike Whitworth (we called him 'Iron' Mike cause he was about five-seven and a hundred-twenty pounds. Maybe it was short for ironic) standing on a tarmac, waiting for an Eagle Flight, and sharing a bottle of Tiger beer.  If the photo actually exists, I must have been the one who shot it.  I did have a Kodak Instamatic camera and did shoot a few pictures.  My intention was to take many more but it never seemed all that important when the time came to buy more film.  And then my time was up.  Never made it to the end of the first roll.  The last couple of snaps were of Schofield Barracks.
     I must have shot it between naps on the tarmac.  In truth I never actually napped.  But I did lay back, head in helmet, eyes closed.  No one messed with me when I did that.  Sleeping dogs and all that.  It was the only way I could be alone with my thoughts while in a crowd of antsy men.  Yeah, it was my method of dealing with fear by drawing inward behind my eyelids so I could head off to my happy place.  Some people call it self-hypnosis.  Some, mediation.  I didn't call it anything, it was just what I did when we were on the edge of total shit.  Figured that the shit was gonna happen regardless of what I feared of ruminated on, so there was no point in dwelling on it.  When we were in the middle of whatever was up ahead, escape was impossible.  Then it was time for complete concentration on what was coming down.  When death entered the game it was time for a grunt to stay on his toes.  And no one had to remind him to pay attention.  He couldn't help it.  Totally real?  You bet.
     'Iron' Mike walked point for the first squad.  Tom was his back up.  It was a normal thing, almost a requirement, that the first two men in a squad become friends and those two were no different.  Mike, a taciturn kid from Texas who liked alcohol in all its forms, and Tom, a grinning, easy going surfer from California, made an odd pair, but a pair nonetheless.  Once they were even dusted off together after riling up a beehive of colossal, black bumble bees.  If that ain't friendship I don't know what is.
     This time we were on a tarmac waiting for a ride.  At putzed, a few batteries of six and eight inch guns were hammering an area of Snoopy's nose with the intention of giving the beagle a nosebleed before us grunts were flown in to teach those evil VC bastards a lesson they'd, or more accurately, I'd never forget.   This was to be a battalion sized operation with Bravo as one of the sweeping groups.
     Sittin' there waiting for our Eagle Flight, I doubt if any of us gave a lot of thought as to the effect an artillery barrage would actually have.  I know that it never crossed my mind.  Being young, ignorant, and stupid goes a long way in building unfounded military confidence.
     WWII seemed to tell us that if the enemy was hunkered down it mattered little how many tons of ordinance was shot at or dropped on them.  From my meager experience in the Delta I'd say the same was true for us.  You'd have thought someone up in the ranks was keeping notes about those kind of things, even back in the ancient times of the 1940's.  Something like:
      "Hammered Okinawa for three days.  Bombs, artillery, and leaflets that insulted the                                      Emperor's bad taste in footwear.  Not a tree or hill left standing.  Thousand's of us died when we hit the beaches.  Get's you to thinking there must be a better way."                  
     Random shelling seems to kill people only if it lands on top of them.  A crap shoot with little chance of success.
     In our case it did do a fine job of sending a calling card to the VC telling them that we were coming in force and pinpoint the location where we'd be knocking on their door.  All they had to do was figure on us arriving a few minutes after the shelling stopped and set up an appropriate ambush.  Fortunately for them, they were good at ambushes and we were even better at walking into them.
     My happy place was back home, even if that meant weeding the garden.  A nothing special happy place where doing ordinary things seemed wonderful.  We constantly forget how good it is to have food on the table, a roof over our heads, and no one ordering, "Let's all of us saddle up and go get our shit blown away!".
     But I wasn't thinking about the killing part.  Death could take care of itself just fine.  Didn't need my help at all.  I was lost in thoughts of being alive with people I loved, most of all Lois.  She wrote me every day and I carried her most recent letters with me to wear out until new ones arrived.
     Everything was there, back home where I wanted to be.  But, for the moment,  I was laying on my back on a tarmac in Southeast Asia waiting for the choppers to come take us to a place that would no doubt send a few of us home in bags.  Kinda sucks doesn't it?  Wasn't like this was anything new for us or those who came before, so no one whined about it.  For better or worse we were in it together.  Each of us, alone with our thoughts and looking down the scattergun barrel of the democracy that is death in combat.
     The operation must have used nearly every chopper in the Ninth Division, even the one that had NAM SUCKS emblazoned in large white letters on its underbelly.  Gotta like that.  We came down in the quiet of large, dried out rice paddies.  Looked as abandoned as the last time we were at Snoopy's Nose.  Should have brought some beer on ice, lawn chairs and the horseshoes.  A regular picnic in paddyland.
     This time we didn't set out on patrol in single file, fifteen meters apart.  Instead we stretched out in a single horizontal line, every man-jack in a row.  Left to right it was First, Second, and Third Platoon.  All of us faced forward, then started walking.  The order of the day was to squeeze off a round now and then to encourage anything and anyone in front of us to hightail it toward the blocking force.  Which I expect was some other Company.  A plan for sure.  Maybe even given a lot of thought.
     I take that back.  Yes, it was a plan but it wasn't all that well thought out.  Like our artillery barrage we were saying to the VC, "We're off the choppers now and making a lot of noise just so you can know exactly where we are and where we're heading."  Made us look like a bunch of Red Coats in the American Revolution.
     I guess our Colonel forgot all about what he'd learned about fighting guerrilla forces back in his grade school history class.  As in, "Us Brits will put on bright red uniforms and march along out in the open.  You yankees go hide in the trees and ambush us just like a bunch of wild Indians."
     Down the row from me in the middle of the Second Platoon was a man from Texas who fired his M-60 from the hip.  Yeah, he was a big guy.  Later Bravo Six recalled watching him as we moved forward.  Said that the only thing moving as the man spit out bursts from his machine gun was his shirt that rippled with each trigger squeeze, "Yeah, he was a real hoss."
     A few weeks later, The Farmer tried the same trick.  Now, The Farmer was a strong man, no doubt about it.  Had hands the size of a farmer, mostly 'cause that's what he was and that's why we called him The Farmer.  But Frank wasn't but a welterweight in size.  After a couple of his hip high, machine gun bursts we received a call from Bravo Six, a half mile away.  Seemed he was wondering who was firing at him and his command group.  Not that Frank wasn't an excellent soldier but it took a man of serious size to counter-balance and hold down a hip fired M-60.
    We were moving at a full walking pace.  Why not?  It was open, dry field from one side of the company to the other.  Eventually we came upon a small, pocket swamp with a stand of trees in it.  Not something you'd want to walk through.  Mud, leeches, snakes and big-assed bugs that'd take you down and eat you when properly tenderized and cured.  Mainly, we'd been dry to this point and intended to stay that way.  No sir, we were all for gettin' through this day and this year as quickly and cleanly as possible.
     I was butt up against the left flank of Second Platoon and walking straight at the swamp and had a decision to make.  Passing on getting wet, two of us First Platooners hung a right with Second and the rest of the First passed the swamp on its left.  Truthfully, I never gave a thought to having pulled a bonehead move.  Neither did anyone else.  But boneheaded is what it was.
     A moment's consideration would have told a good soldier that some form of cover was necessary to set up an ambush.  Seeing as how every patch of ground behind us was wide open there was no possibility of an ambush there.  But a swamp with brush and trees?  If I was gonna hide, that would be the place (an even better place to hide would have been Winnipeg).
     Forty yards later, the swamp behind us, me and the other First Platooner angled back left and rejoined our group.  Second Platoon continued straight ahead, leaving a gap between the two platoons of about fifty yards as I recall.  Don't quote me on the yardage, but it's in the ballpark.
     Believe me, I didn't think about it at the time.  It took a couple of decades to realize what we'd done when we bypassed the swamp and never gave it a look-see.  From my personal survival point of view, not looking might have been the best thing I could have done.  Instead, I walked into and out of an ambush in complete, oblivious ignorance.
     As it was, our open field was ending.  A woods stood a short chip shot past the swamp.  Midway between the two Second Platoon found themselves in a crossfire.  If I described it as withering I wouldn't be far off.  By then my platoon was far enough away to see nothing of what was going on.  But we could hear.  By both radio and rifle fire.  They were in a world of hurt and calling for some kind of relief.
     We were ordered to hold our ground until a plan of action was decided on.  So that's what we did.  Cracked open c-rations and took a break.  All the while Second Platoon was being picked off one at a time.  They went to the field with no more than twenty-seven men.  As I recall, when all was said and done they took twenty-two casualties, three of which were KIAs.  It was a slaughter.  Fish in a barrel.
     First Platoon sat there while it was happening.  I had my boots off briefly to air my feet. Even soaked them in a little rectangular pool that had probably once been part of a farmstead.  Soothing, cool water that refreshed my feet but did nothing to improve the circumstances.
     And listened to the happenings on my radio.  Like tuning into a Gopher's football game back home while raking leaves in the fall.  Believe me, we felt for those poor souls over there but you see, they were over there getting shot and we were here, not getting shot.  What could we do but sit there and wait for the word, while Bravo Six no doubt talked with the Battalion Commander whose plans were falling apart man by man?  Must have been tough on the Colonel knowing his possible promotion was now going to be based on his ability to write and put a positive spin on this fiasco.  Hell, from what I saw, most of the war reporting was fiction anyhow, what was one more puny battle in the scheme of things?
     How long did we sit there?  Seemed like hours but was probably more along the lines of fifteen minutes.  Or an eternity if you were laying out in the open in a pool of a friend's blood.
     I guess none of us were in a hurry to do anything 'cause we knew, sooner or later, a plan would be hatched and we'd be among the feature players.  No doubt in my mind when that time came, our little world would turn into total shit.
     All the while, in the background, then buzzing around from person to person like a fly that had been following too many dogs, was the leader of First Squad, a sergeant who claimed to be one of only two real soldiers in Bravo Company.  Over and over he told everyone, and no one, that he was having a heat stroke and needed to be dusted off.  Did it with so much energy there was no doubt what his real problem was.  Everyone within earshot either turned a cold shoulder or told him to kiss their ass.  On and on and on he ranted with no luck or sympathy.  We knew what his problem was and it was the same one that we'd all be facing in a few minutes.
     Also coming into play was our new point man, George Steele, who we all called Weasel 'cause that's what he told us to call him.  Weasel was nervous, as was his backup, Bruce Rolland, who we eventually called Papa-san 'cause he was the oldest man in Bravo Company outside of the First Sergeant.  Both were National Guardsmen who'd been activated for the war.  They were both fresh in country and for some reason or other, thought I was an old-timer.  Guess I'd aged a lot in seven weeks. The three of us hit it off from the get-go.  Even teamed up on bunker guard back at Moore.
     Weasel was nervous, probably border line terrified, since this was his first operation at point.  To this moment it hadn't mattered.  Now it did.  Big time.  If we moved out to rescue Second Platoon, guess who would probably lead the way?  He asked, 'cause of my aura of sagacity, if he thought he would be made to lead us into a sure fire hell hole.  Of course I said he wouldn't.  It made no sense.  Why send a rookie who knew nothing, up front where he'd jeopardize all of our lives?  Let First Squad walk point.  Better yet, put their Sergeant up front.
     Of course I was wrong.  The plan was for First Platoon to slip around behind the gunmen in the wood line and trap them as they'd trapped us.  We set out with Weasel in the lead and moving at a pace similar to growing hair or continental drift.  We followed a small dike, overgrown with trees and brush, all the while keeping the gunmen to our right.
     Didn't take long for me to get a call from our Platoon Leader asking Weasel to step it up.  I passed it on.  Seemed Weasel was scoping out every blade of grass for the fishing line that meant booby trap or possibly a Mickey Mantle rookie card to add to his collection.  The idea of speeding up held no appeal for the man.  He called back in a voice easily heard at the rear of our line, "If you want to go any faster, get your ass up here and lead the way!"  We resumed the pace of Weasel.
     Our goal was to pass the VC on their right, form a line to their rear, and trap them between us and the remnants of Second Platoon reinforced by the Third.  Might have worked.  Never did find out.  Along the way, our squad leader came upon a canteen perched on a dike.  Not one to pass up a freebie or to keep Vietnam from being over-littered, he reached for it and was shot in the hand.  Almost like it was a set up.
     Here's where irony lent its twisted hand again.  The night before, that sergeant and I had gotten into a a war of egos on the way into our night position.  I have no recollection what it was about.  Probably something along the line of angels dancing on the head of a pin.  Whatever it was, there was no way in hell I was backing down even though his stripes and the entire US Army said I should.  One thing was for sure, I was no soldier, just a civilian in green with an occasionally missing sense of reality, and a mouth.  Lord how a mouth can get a man in trouble.
     Finally, he laid one on me that was one retort away from ending the discussion.  Along the lines of something like, "When we get in on stand down I'm gonna kill you.  That's no bullshit.  As sure as I'm standing here I'm gonna empty a clip in your useless carcass and laugh all the while I'm blastin' away."
     Those probably weren't the exact words but the gist is there.  As far as he was concerned at the time, I was a deadman.  No doubt my response was something along the line of "Oooh, tough guy.  That the best you've got?  Why not eat my body when you're done killing me?"
     Not only was he shot in the hand by reaching for the canteen, he was shot in the thumb.  Nearly tore the sucker off.  A million dollar wound and a one way ticket back to the world.  He left on the dustoff with a smile on his face.  I have to admit I felt no disappointment in not being killed on our next stand down.  As for the First Squad's leader, the one feigning heat stroke, he was allow to climb aboard simply to get his demoralizing self away from us.
     The odd thing, and a normal combat thing, was that, had we any sense, we'd have all climbed aboard.  War be damned.  But not a one of us would have even if Bravo Six had come up and asked for volunteers.  I'd sure as hell like to tell you exactly why we wouldn't but it's a total mystery to me.  Nothin' new.  Most things in life are a mystery from why anything exists in the first place to all the idiots walkin' around with their eyes glued to a smart phone.  Thank God at least the phone is smart.
     We left the dustoff behind and continued on at Weasel's barely movin' pace.
     Time to cut to the chase.  And in this case. that's exactly what she was.  We never did make it to the rear of the VC.  No more than a minute into our move, a call came over the radio sayin' three VC had materialized out of a spider hole and high-tailed it for God know's where with Third Platoon in pursuit, no doubt hot.
     Here my memory gets a little fuzzy but I do remember the basics.  Somehow or other the VC made it to the protection of a mud bunker of sorts.  I think they learned to make those things when they were kids 'cause they didn't have Legos to play with.  Third Platoon had squeezed off a few rounds during their pursuit but it ain't all that easy to hit a moving target, 'specially when you're also moving, with a pack bouncin' away on your back.  From personal experience, it also ain't easy to hit one that just sits there and lets you take aim.
     And that bunker was between us and Third Platoon with us covering the back side.  Kinda funny when you think of it.  Nearly all my days in the Army were spent covering my own backside.  As it turned out, my backside was a lot less dangerous.
     Right off the bat there was a plan.  Since bullets weren't strong enough to penetrate the dried mud of the bunker and there were no volunteers to low crawl up to it and drop a 'please surrender your sorry asses' note through the opening in the form of a GI grenade, it was decided to fire up the LAW.  Most every platoon carried one, no doubt in the hopes we'd come across a Panzer Division that had made a wrong turn back in WWII, and in this case, the LAW turned out to be the weapon of choice.
     The choice of a LAW was pretty cool.  Only problem I could see with using one was our lack of training with it.  Back in AIT we'd each fired it once.  That's it.  Hard to get real good with a weapon when about all you know is how to squeeze the trigger and hope you don't go deaf.
     As I saw it, three things could happen, 1) the round would be fired low to no effect, 2) on the money and we win the war, go home to mom and apple pie or, 3) the round overshoots and, remember which platoon is on the backside, lands in someone's hip pocket and blows their balls off.
     When we get the call, all of us in First Platoon hunker seriously down.  Remind ourselves the paddy is our friend.  Me, I recite the Infantryman's Mantra of "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," till boom time.  Turned out choice number two was the winner.  A perfect shot right through the window.  Unfortunately, the VC were unscathed.  Not good.  On the other hand, they were scared and once again took off running only to be gunned down by the Third Platoon.
     As it was on that day, Second Platoon took twenty-two casualties, three of them KIA.  From my reading on body count calculations, here's my best guess of what was reported by Division Command.  Battalion Command figured that with our total casualty count of twenty three, plus one heat stroke, we must have killed more than three of the buggers and bumped it up to six.  Brigade couldn't believe the embarrassingly low ratio and pushed the number of VC dead to eleven.  Finally, Division reported to the Stars and Stripes a successful mission by the 3/39th involving sixteen dead VC and a cache of recovered weapons, ammunition and Ho Chi Minh's mustache.  Our Battalion Commander is given a Silver Star for his brilliance and the Division Commander puts himself in for a Congressional Medal of Honor from the pain of returning the salute of a PFC he passed while on the way to the Officer's Club.  Or something like that.
     Of course that's not the end of this tale.  Once in a while we had an E-7 tag along with us, as he did on this day.  Three things I recall about the man, he always carried a pint of Bacardi rum with him, which he was willing to share and his weapon of choice was a sawed off AR-15.  He also proved beyond any doubt that it's not easy to kill or be killed even with a fully automatic weapon.
     While we were filing back to the meadow for our ride home he tagged along at the end of the line.  It was his sudden volley of rifle fire and its companion return from inside the wood line that drew our attention.  I originally wrote that we'd snapped around but I don't recall that as being true.  After the day we'd had, what was another three dozen rounds?
     Turned out he'd spotted an armed man in the woods.  Seeing has how the man didn't have a water buffalo with him there was little doubt as to his political affiliation.  One clip fired one way on full bursts of rock and roll.  Another returned.  No one hurt.  Sergeant York where are you?  A comic and fitting ending to the day.
     We road out on Chinook, lacking any true poets in the Army we called them Shithooks, helicopters.  For some of us, we had another Chinook ride in our near futures.  That one would be to Saigon and our flight to Hawaii.  The second one was better but the first wasn't bad at all.