The Gong Show
The next morning every low-ranking enlisted man in the 601st was outside raking or sweeping or scrubbing or painting. Homer Harwell, NCO in Charge of combat documentation, had gotten back from TDY at Than Son Nhut in time to supervise the operation, assigning Tom Wheeler, Larry Zelinsky and me to paint the white ComDoc admin trailer white. We did such a great job that we were rewarded with the opportunity to do the same thing with the latrine trailer, which was only the slightest bit smaller. “What the hell does General Gong care about the paint job on a trailer?” asked Wheeler, removing his field cap a moment to brush long strands of his surfer blond hair out of his eyes.
“Maybe because he doesn’t have a clue what goes on inside a photo lab,” Zelinsky answered, “but he knows his white paint.” Zelinsky’s uniform looked especially shabby with the harsh sun beaming down on his frayed pockets and paint-splattered boots.
“Link says we’ll be painting this all over again if and when Nixon and Kissinger actually come through,” Wheeler said with a sigh.
“But that’s only a couple months from now!” I groaned.
“You greenhorns are starting to catch on,” said Jack Wu, coming from the direction of the admin trailer, his beloved Nikon hanging comfortably around his neck. “Harwell wanted me to look in on you before I head over to the lab to see how Price and Perez are doing polishing up the developing tank. Before I forget, though—are we still taking that group trip to the elephant roundup in Surin? It’s only a few weeks off.”
We told him to count us in. “And don’t forget Lek and Pueng,” said Tom.
“Leary, what about your new girlfriend?” Zelinsky asked.
“Unless you’re taking her—no way.”
“Sorry I asked.”
“I’m pretty excited,” said Wu, checking over his camera and lens, “I heard that last year two of the old bulls went on a rampage and knocked down a couple of the refreshment stands. Sure would have liked to have gotten some shots of that! I’m hoping that 1000mm telephoto and the monopod I ordered from Hong Kong get here in time.”
He gave our handiwork a once-over. “The trailers look good, gentlemen. And so does the bicycle race, from what Lieutenant Liscomb’s been telling me.”
“Our meeting with Colonel Grimsley couldn’t have gone better,” I said.
“He’s completely on board,” added Zelinsky. “Anything we want, just ask.”
“As soon as we get General Gong out of here, I’ll stop by the NCO Club and brief Sagittarius Smith,” Wu responded happily. As he headed off, he called back to us, “The Saturday before Nixon meets Chairman Mao should be a perfect day for a bicycle race!”
Once he was around the corner, Zelinsky started laughing. “That guy should be a cruise-ship activity director.”
“When he isn’t spying for the OSI with that new telephoto lens,” I added.
“Brendan,” Wheeler asked, “what was all that jabbering about this morning between you and Sii-da?
“I was reminding her that she needs to move her butt out today,” I answered, slapping my brush a little harder than necessary onto the side of the trailer.
“Now what?”
“Why did I allow Lek to push me so hard to let her stick around?”
“Maybe Lek’s using Sii-da to keep Tukada away so she can have you all to herself when I go back to the World,” said Tom, squinting his eyes in thought.
“Lek may be clever, but she’s wasting her time,” I replied. “Get this—when I was leaving for work this morning B. J. next door asks me if I knew Sii-da’s been turning tricks in my bed while I’ve been out flying over the Ho Chi Minh Trail.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Zelinsky said. “At least you weren’t sleeping in it.”
“If I am, Larry, can I send her over to your room?”
Wheeler sounded the alarm. “Pretend you’re working.”
“Over here, sir,” said Harwell, leading the perpetually sunburned Billy Hill around the corner of our trailer. We started slapping on paint in silence. Harwell and Lieutenant Hill gave it a quick once-over and couldn’t find anything to complain about.
“Boys,” the lieutenant announced proudly, “you’ve done so well here on the exterior of the latrine that we’ve got another job for you on the inside. There’s been entirely too much graffiti-writin’ goin’ on. So we’re—I mean you’re—gonna take down the walls on the latrine stalls.”
Wheeler looked worried about losing the privacy he needed for his daytime rock tooting and pot smoking. “Lieutenant, don’t you think that’s a little drastic? Isn’t this really just a practice inspection in case Kissinger and Nixon come in February?”
“You’ve got something better in mind?” asked Harwell.
“Yes, I do,” Wheeler replied.
He whispered something in Hill’s ear, who thought about it a moment and then replied loudly, “Okay, but if I don’t like it, those walls come down.”
An hour and a half later General Gong’s staff car was sitting conspicuously in the middle of the Rat Pack driveway, a blue pennant with three white stars mounted on the front fender. The driver and an Air Policeman in dress blues were standing alongside it, and two other staff cars were parked behind it. General Gong, Captain English, First Lieutenant Hill and Second Lieutenant Liscomb came out the lab trailer, followed by an entourage of rear-echelon staff officers and ComDoc NCOs. “Very impressive, gentlemen, all that bomb damage assessment footage being processed and edited right here. Sergeant Wu, that is one of the shiniest motion picture processing tanks I’ve ever seen.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Wu, beaming a smile so ruggedly handsome and nonchalant that he looked like a Taiwanese Errol Flynn.
“And Sergeant Harwell and Sergeant Link, that silver recovery unit on the film processing tanks is ingenious.”
Harwell and Link gave the general a couple of their craggy, crooked good-ole-boy smiles and said thanks.
“And they didn’t even tell the general the most ingenious part about selling the recovered silver downtown to Indian Joe,” whispered Zelinsky.
“Before I leave, could someone point me to the latrine?” asked General Gong.
“I’d be happy to, sir,” said Lieutenant Hill. “The Rat Pack has even done some innovating there that might come in handy if the President decides to pay us a visit.”
“Is that so?” Gong replied. “Colonel Watley—come with me and take notes. The rest of you men—at ease!”
Most of the general’s entourage waited outside. Wheeler, Zelinsky and I managed to get a view peering in a small side window from the back of the Rat Pack pickup truck. Billy Hill proudly opened the door to the first stall. The walls were covered with Plexiglas; red china markers and clean white rags hung in front of each panel. General Gong was mildly amused until he squinted, stepped closer and saw “General Gong is a horse’s ass” scrawled boldly next to the toilet bowl. “Graffiti like that used to be a problem, sir,” explained Hill, recovering quickly. With a flourish he took the rag and wiped the wall clean.
After a moment of scrutiny, Gong smiled. “Well done, Hill. Colonel Watley, see to it that these are put in anywhere that President Nixon and Secretary Kissinger might be visiting on their way to China.”
Watley duly noted the command on his clipboard. “I was tempted to steal the cleaning rags,” laughed Zelinsky as we climbed down from the truck. The caravan drove away, and most of the Rat Pack went back to work. Zelinsky, Wheeler and I went into the shiny white latrine trailer to clean ourselves up. Zelinsky was drying his hands when his eyes caught Wheeler’s back reflected in the mirror. Wheeler stepped away, revealing “Zelinsky did it!” on the Plexiglas door. Larry walked over to wipe off his name when he noticed someone had stolen his idea and taken the rags. “Cute,” he said as we headed back to work.
I stopped by the ready room and checked the board. I wasn’t scheduled to fly and headed over to editorial to hang out some more with Zelinsky while he finished up the latest Hits of the Week. During one long sequence, the F-4s flew through exploding cloud after cloud of smoke and flame, so close to the treetops that it seemed like they should be blowing themselves up with their own ordnance. The good news for cameramen was that whenever gun cameras were mounted on Wolf Pack fighter-bombers, there was no need to send a photographer along in the back seat.
I fixed myself a cup of coffee and was settling in for a pleasant discussion of our plans for the weekend when Harwell barged in, followed by Wheeler. Harwell looked serious. “Gather ’round, men.”
It amazed me how many of us were tucked away in the sundry cubbyholes of a single trailer. Shahbazian came in and joined Zelinsky, along with Price, Perez, the rest of the lab guys and a couple of passersby like me and Washington. Watching Wu coming through the revolving door of the darkroom, I speculated on what the heck he was really up to in there—prepping bomb damage assessment footage for the developing tank, processing film for the undercover OSI work that we half-believed he actually did, or putting his heart and soul into sorting slides of his latest travels?
Wheeler posted the announcement on our bulletin board while Harwell read his copy. “Boys, we’re going on Red Alert. Might just be for the night, but for all you slimeballs living downtown, get yourself mentally prepared to be without your tii-rahks for a couple of weeks. We’re all staying on base, and there will be bed checks. I’ll have some teddy bears over at my office for any of you guys that have trouble sleeping alone.”
It had been a quiet year in Ubon Province. We hadn’t been on anything but an hour or two of Yellow Alerts, and they had always been called off in time for us to get downtown by nightfall, which for many of my fellow airmen on the Thai-Lao frontier was their reason for living. “It’ll be nice to tip a few beers with Woody over at the patio,” I said philosophically to Zelinsky. “I just wish I could be sure Sii-da has moved her butt out.”
Zelinsky wasn’t so philosophical. He had wedding plans to make and had finally gotten a hop on a C-47 set up to take him and Pueng over to Chiang Mai to order their teak furniture. “Excuse me, Sarge, but I thought the inspection today and the bicycle race and the President going to shake hands with his old friend Mao Tse-tung was all because the friggin’ war was supposed to be winding down.”
“Apparently somebody forgot to tell our local Communist insurgents,” Harwell snarled.
Captain English stepped into the trailer wearing freshly starched fatigues, followed by Senior Master Sergeant Link, who scared the hell out of us with a Strategic Air Command “Ten hut!”
No sooner had English put us at ease than Wu raised his hand. “A buddy of mine over at In-tell told me a hard-core NVA battalion has been spotted moving west out of Attapeu. Is there any connection?”
“Sergeant Wu,” replied English, “an experienced NCO like you should know better than to speculate. You know as well as I do that the only Bad Guys who have ever turned up in Ubon were rag-tag Thai insurgents fighting their own private war.”
Zelinsky’s chubby hand shot up. “Sir, these Thai insurgents you just mentioned. Any connection to the train robbers over in Surin Province?”
English smiled condescendingly. “I think you can answer that for yourself, Sergeant Zelinsky. In Surin you had a couple of criminals try to stick up the Bangkok train. Out here and up at Udorn and NKP we’ve had an occasional platoon of local malcontents, probably stirred up by some Pathet Lao propaganda, go on a suicide mission and get their butts kicked. How in the world could there be a connection?”
“Drat!” cried Wu. “You’ve just reminded me—a big elephant festival is coming up in two weeks over in Surin. A bunch of us were planning to go.”
“I can’t imagine we’ll still be stuck here in two weeks,” English replied.
“Thanks!” smiled Wu. “I’ve got a new lens and a monopod coming in from Hong Kong that I ordered especially for the festival.”
“Mark my words,” said English boldly, “the 1971 Surin Elephant Festival will go on, and you’ll be there to see it!”
My Rat Pack brethren were inspired, applauding wildly before Captain English, Sergeant Harwell and First Sergeant Link turned to leave. “Carry on,” growled Link.