There had been silence for almost an hour when I heard a cheer from the bunker next door. Could be anything, I thought, straining in the misty light to see the latest cause of celebration. For a moment, I thought I was hallucinating as I caught the barely discernable silhouette of an animal walking up the road toward our bunker. It trudged in a wobbly but determined way, and as it drew nearer, I understood the cheer. It was Sesame, returning from the dead—or the nearly dead. He’d been downed but not out. We watched in amazement as he climbed to the roof of our bunker with such resolve that we felt he would have been insulted to have been offered a hand. Once on top, he almost disappeared beneath a swarm of hugs and pets from Tennessee, Bruce, and me. But Sesame had never been one to bask in the limelight. He stood up and shook as if trying to dry himself after a swim in the stream and returned to his post at the bunker’s edge.
We’d been in the rear for six days when I happened to run across Neil. He had carried a radio for Capt. Quick for a long time. I realized I hadn’t seen him for months. Though we hadn’t exactly been the best of friends—in fact, I always thought he had ratted on me for smoking dope when I was first in country—he seemed glad to see me, so I went along for the ride. While he chatted away, I became aware of some nebulous shift that had occurred in me during my tour. The concept of friends and enemies—or adversaries, even—seemed odd, artificial, and totally contrived. For me, it no longer applied. There were people with whom I felt no sense of separation at all, like Tennessee, Speed, Bruce, Creeper, and Doc Mock, to name a few. To call them friends seemed absurd and almost demeaning to the quality of our relationship. We called each other brother, but it was far beyond that.
As I mused over this new revelation and tried to formulate what I was feeling, a memory returned to bail me out of my quandary. The platoon had once loggered on the peak of the tallest mountain in sight, and since we’d been told that we would be there for a couple more days, we stayed up well past midnight. Invariably, when we partied, guys sat in a circle. It made it easier to pass pipes and bombers, but this was no major consideration—three guys or thirty, we were always in a circle. This particular night the circle grew to about ten of us, and then we were unexpectedly approached by a guy named Donald Lohman.
Now Donald was an unusual character; he seemed to epitomize the concept of carrying a low profile. He’d been with us for months, but no one claimed to know anything about him except that he was the platoon’s master “ghoster.” Rarely verbal and neither friendly nor standoffish, he’d float along with the platoon for weeks, then he’d suddenly seem to disappear. Usually we’d find out that Doc had diagnosed him with terminal athlete’s foot or some other minor malady and sent him to the rear. In the rear, he’d blend in with the woodwork so well that it would be a month or more before they’d realize that he’d been long since healed up and ship him out to the boonies again. Even his normal voice was almost a whisper. He’d smoked with us from time to time, but not very often; he said it made him feel uncomfortably aware of his internal organs. No one questioned him about this or pressured him in any way. He was free to come and go as he pleased, but this night he was with us.
It was one of those nights when the cool air seemed to bring calm to your very bones. Starry and still, and the circle was quiet, with only reassuring murmurs and the occasional giggle to gently push back the silence. The soft noises waxed and waned rhythmically until suddenly there seemed to be a hole in the sound, a moment of complete silence.
God, it was Lohman’s voice filling the void! An electric anticipation filled the air.
“Ya know, it’s like we’re a flower, and each one of us is a petal.”
Bruce, who was sitting just to my left, let out an altogether too loud, “Wow” and fell over backward, trying to control a case of the giggles. I heard a couple quiet voices say, “Right on” and “Right on, motherfucker, right on,” and I could feel a huge, nodding grin settle over the circle.
Having filled me in on the information I had fumbled for about my past encounters with Donald Lohman, my memory switched off and dropped me back into the here and now. As I looked at Neil, his words were just beginning to register, and I realized what I was trying to articulate about all of us being more than brothers. We were all petals on the same flower. Some of us didn’t know it yet, and some of us weren’t sure. Neil wasn’t sure, but fuck it—that didn’t mean anything.
“And so they dusted me off and sent me to Cam Ranh for a while,” Neil continued, as he rolled up his shirtsleeve, “but I had too much time left in country so they sent me back here. My hand is still pretty stiff, so they made me a reporter for the base paper. It’s an easy detail, and I can get lots of passes to the air base ’cause they have a darkroom there for developing pictures. Hey, they’ve even got an air-conditioned movie theater there, a swimming pool, and a mini-putt golf course. Those air force guys really know how to live. But, anyway, I’ve only got a couple of weeks left, and the colonel is looking for someone to take my place. Ya want the job?”
My mind was spinning as I watched Neil working his left hand, demonstrating how well it worked. He had a nasty purple scar in the middle of his forearm, and it was obvious that the bullet he’d caught had damaged some of the tendons that controlled his fingers; he could only partially close his hand.
I knew that for Neil, working in the rear would have probably been easy. Even in the field, he used to hang out with the lifers, and since he didn’t smoke dope, he had little to hide, but for me, it was a different story. I was one of the guys the colonel had been campaigning against—an unrepentant, nonconformist pothead. Questions filled my mind. Would I be deserting the platoon and shirking my duty helping with the platoon’s newbies? Could I somehow use the position in a subversive way? I felt swamped and confused. But then my mind hit upon the bottom line, and the answer was clear. Could I live with myself if I lost my legs in the last weeks of my tour after having had the opportunity to opt out? The answer was a resounding no. I had to consider that my presence in Vietnam had already allowed someone else in the States to avoid the draft, and the old-timers’ axiom “cover your own ass first” seemed to be more than applicable in this instance.
I heard myself say, “Sure.” I felt as if I were in a dream.
“Ya know how to work a 35mm camera, don’t ya? And develop film?”
“Just vaguely,” I responded, thinking that my lack of experience might extricate me from any guilt regarding my decision.
“Well, don’t worry about it. I’ll get us a couple of passes for the air base. We’ll go down there tomorrow, and I’ll show ya the ropes. There’s nothin’ to it. All we use is black and white.”
In the morning, Neil caught me right after chow, passes in hand. He’d even borrowed the lieutenant’s jeep for the day and seemed extremely anxious to start my apprenticeship. Being still somewhat conflicted about my decision, I could hardly share his enthusiasm but went along for the ride.
“Here’s your first assignment,” he said excitedly. “Did you notice the new flagpoles the colonel had installed in front of headquarters? He wants a picture of them and an article.”
Jesus, I thought to myself as Neil babbled about ASA, depth of field, and shutter speeds. What kind of lifer bullshit is this? With Neil’s coaching, I took a few snaps of the colonel’s prized flagpoles and wondered how to tell Neil that I’d rather not be a reporter. Actually, I hadn’t even noticed them before. Usually we kept a wide berth from headquarters—liferland. On the way to the air base, the open jeep was too windy and noisy to allow much conversation, so I spent much of the time mulling over my dilemma. What was there to say about a pair of flagpoles flying the American and South Vietnamese flags? The thought was revolting, but it made a light go on in my head. Neil didn’t notice my mischievous grin. I’d found an out. I’d tell them what they wanted to hear and then some.
After a day-long crash course in developing film and making prints, Neil introduced me to the typewriter he was confident would soon be mine and left me to my work. Although I felt out of place amid the officers in headquarters and noticed the colonel giving me less than approving looks (probably because of my ragged fatigues, scuffed boots, and the beaded necklace I was determined to keep wearing), I kept to my plan. I wrote how appropriate it was that we had the twin flagpoles and how aptly they symbolized the cooperation between the American and ARVN forces standing side by side in our mutual effort to liberate South Vietnam. I shoveled it on so thick that the pages of my article were oozing with sarcasm and contempt. I slid the article and pictures into a manila envelope and slipped them into the colonel’s in-box with a smile. Anyone who read it would think that the author was either a complete idiot or someone who was trying to make a fool out of the colonel, but I didn’t care. So what if I had to spend a few extra weeks in the field. No sweat, GI.
After my short apprenticeship with Neil, I was returned to the field until it was time for him to go home. Although I’d had a few minor attacks of short-timer’s nerves in the rear, once I was back in the field, it was business as usual. My concentration, clarity, and calm returned with the greatest of ease. By now, there were no conflicting inner voices vying for attention. By the slightest act of will, my thinking mind would obediently retreat into silence, allowing me to slide effortlessly into the relaxed ease of present-centered experience. For the first time, I realized that the guys who had such a hard time being short had experienced a completely different tour. Being aware that one’s tour of duty was only a few weeks from its end—being short or short time, as the Vietnamese called us—opened one to a myriad of distractions if one wasn’t careful, but there was only one way to get nervous about things, and that was to think about them. Evidently, some of the guys were still in that mode at the end of their tour. I couldn’t imagine how they could have survived the suffering without developing the ability to either merge with or detach from the physical and emotional pain, but it happened. Surviving being short had long been recognized as one of the last obstacles confronting soldiers in Vietnam. If one thought about it too much, it added stress upon stress. They’d be easily overwhelmed with the fear that their luck would run out during their last few days in the field. Tragically, some guys did lose it—some mentally, some physically—just before they could go home.
Two weeks slipped by without a hitch. I was fully prepared to start stuffing my pack with Cs when Lt. Anderson motioned for me to come over. He had to holler over the sound of the Huey whining in the center of our LZ as supply sergeants threw off cases of rations. “You’re going back on the next chopper, don’t miss it.”
He offered me a handshake, and I readily accepted. He was a good man. Green as all get-out, but flexible enough and good-hearted enough to survive. I knew that Speed and Tennessee would take good care of him. The Bastard Rat, however, stayed true to form and glared at me. I waved goodbye to him anyhow, and as I made a dash for Tennessee’s place, I heard the lieutenant holler, “Thanks.” With no time for sentimental goodbyes, I got right down to business and emptied my pack of personal effects that might make my buddies’ lives a little easier. Extra shoelaces, a hammock, a dog-eared copy of Siddhartha that my girlfriend had sent me, and a tiny transistor radio seemed paltry gifts in return for all these guys had done for me, but it was all I had. There was time for a few extended handshakes and some back slapping and hugs, and just when I wondered where Captain Speed was, he appeared from the bush with a pipe full of pot. It was lit and cookin’ to the max, and when I saw him take a deep breath and put his mouth over the bowl, I knew I was about to get my last shotgun. For a little guy, he, like Doc, had the lungs of an elephant, and not to be ungrateful, I hung in there with him till the end. I inhaled deeply and held the hit with my eyes closed. Reeling, dizzy, and grinning like the cat that ate the canary, I opened my eyes just in time. Tennessee grabbed me by my shoulders and spun me 180 toward the chopper, which was getting ready to take off. I made a dash for it on wobbly legs, while Tennessee, Bruce, Doc, and Speed laughed loudly at me from behind. No sooner had my butt hit the deck, the chopper started to rise and, with it, my heart. It had been a brief, no-nonsense send-off, but never in my life had I been showered with such genuine affection.
With exactly one month left in my tour, I fully intended to start ghosting as soon as the chopper landed at LZ Uplift, but no such luck. Neil snagged me even before I could sneak into the stand-down barracks and hide under a poncho liner.
“The colonel really liked your article about the flagpoles.” He fell into step with me as I hurried to the barracks. “He wants you to start tomorrow.”
He followed me right inside. My attempt to be invisible was futile. And he continued talking while I sat on a cot with my head in my hands.
“What’s the matter? You sick or something?”
“Nah, I’m all right.”
“You won’t have to crash here anyway. You get your own room. It comes with the job. Come on, I’ll show ya.”
Neil’s excited chatter persisted all the way to my new lodgings. As soon as we got there, however, I got a break; he had to leave on “official” business. I sat on the edge of my new cot with my head in my hands, contemplating the mess I’d gotten myself into. I secured the job of reporter, but—given that the colonel liked my article—I was to be working for probably the most deluded man in Vietnam.
He overestimated the value of the ARVNs, underestimated his own troops, and insisted on bringing petty stateside regulations to a place where they no longer applied. Not only was he a hazard to his own troops but also, ultimately, to himself as well. Miscalculations in the field, with their attendant casualties, and pettiness in the rear made him a man living on borrowed time. He was a walking dead man.
Feeling myself sinking into a blue funk, I rallied myself to action. I hung my nearly empty pack on a nail in the wall and inspected the room’s furnishings. They consisted of the cot and a footlocker nailed to the wall in such a way that its lid, when opened and held level by light chains on either end, could serve as a writing table. The footlocker was empty as a tomb, so I made the trek across the base camp to the truck-trailer PX for some munchies, maybe some magazines, and an ashtray for my Spartan abode. At the PX I noticed newly arrived boxes of large candles, which reminded me that Christmas was rolling around again. Of the two choices, red or green, I chose a red one and bought it along with the munchies.
Later that evening, as twilight receded and my little room began to darken, I took the candle from my brown paper sack of goodies and used an empty C-ration can for a candle holder, dripping some melted wax into the can so the candle wouldn’t fall over. Feeling somewhat oppressed by the sterile solitude of my plywood box of a room, I set the candle on my footlocker lid and gazed at it forlornly. The thought occurred to me that the thick candle, being slightly over a foot long, could be used to mark my remaining time in Vietnam. Using some rough calculations, I determined that if I watched one half inch of the candle burn each night, by the time it was melted down, it would be time for me to leave. Sitting on my cot, I settled in to watch the flickering flame. I focused on it the way I had focused on a trail in the boonies, and I was delighted to discover that the flame was not the static thing I’d been conditioned to believe. It wavered, danced, and sputtered occasionally from the moisture in its wick. In time, it seemed friendly—alive and responsive to subtle changes in my mood. I found myself smiling for no apparent reason. The little flame was bringing me a measure of joy, similar to what I felt watching sunsets, and as my gazing continued, its light became more diffuse, filling the room with a pleasant yellow glow. In spite of the day’s chaos and confusion, all was well once more. Comforted and relaxed, I blew out the flame and went to sleep.
After morning formation and chow, I tried my best to look busy at my new desk so as to not draw much attention to myself. I opened one of the drawers and found a camera that Neil had told me was mine to use for the duration. Fumbling with the camera, I felt Neil’s crash course in photography evaporating from my mind. Although I remembered what most of the levers and buttons did, the functions of a few of them eluded me, which worried me. As I was looking through the viewfinder at the fluorescent light above my desk, the colonel’s voice jolted my nervous system.
“Come with me, Ulander,” he commanded in a senatorial baritone. “You’re going to take some pictures.”
He marched across the street with me in tow, occasionally looking over his shoulder to see if I was keeping up. At the headquarters for Delta Company, one of the enlisted men was waiting, as per orders, for our arrival. He had been seduced into reenlisting in the army for another five years, and the colonel thought that this warranted some special attention. While they posed, awkwardly shaking hands, I stared through the viewfinder of my camera, making adjustments for lighting and focus. When everything seemed right, I pressed the shutter-release button. Nothing happened. If the thing had made the least bit of a click, I would have faked it and gone on “taking” more pictures, but the thing just sat there like a stone. The colonel was not amused. He glared at me with undisguised contempt.
Out of nowhere, Neil arrived to save the day. He looked at the camera for a moment and surmised the problem. I hadn’t pressed the film-advance lever far enough, leaving the camera in limbo. He discretely fumbled with the camera, convincing the colonel that something was wrong with it, then advanced the lever and handed it back to me as if he had fixed it. Emboldened by Neil’s revelation, I took several pictures in rapid succession before the colonel called it quits.
“I’m going to give you guys passes to Phu Cat,” he commanded brusquely. “I want the prints of this on my desk in the morning.”
In less than five minutes, Neil had cleared our passes with the first sergeant and commandeered a jeep. He drove like a madman to the air base, as if these pictures of some poor slob re-upping were of the crash of the Hindenburg or something. We made it to the darkroom in record time, but Neil’s face changed to an interesting collage of white-and-red blotches when he opened my camera. It was empty—no film.
“Hey,” he said in a voice wavering with panic, “you’re going to have to get the hang of this! This is my last day here. I’m going home, and you’re going to have to handle this by yourself.”
Neil’s panic diffused some of my own. When he looked up at me, I gave him my best “What are they going to do? Send me to Vietnam?” smile and shrugged my shoulders. He relaxed a bit and said that we’d best spend the day reviewing his lessons. We stayed in the chemical stink of the darkroom for hours while he explained the mysteries of stop bath and fixers, glossy and matte finish. By the end of the day, I was actually getting the hang of it and fully enjoyed watching ghost images gaining clarity in a tub of developer.
Mercifully, the colonel was inexplicably absent the next morning. I knew that I had to come up with something to justify my existence, or he’d be calling the shots and concocting stories, real or imagined, for me to cover for the rest of my tour. I knew what he wanted—patriotic stuff, gung ho stuff, we’re-kicking-their-asses stuff—and knew that if I didn’t come up with something on my own, he’d find something for me. As I leaned back in my padded office chair, the sound of a Huey gave me an idea. The dust-off crew! That was it. I’d write about the medevac helicopter crew. They were the only guys in Vietnam who were actually doing some good. Granted, they were picking up the pieces of failed policies and ignorant strategies, but that wasn’t their fault. As a former grunt, I had every reason to express my gratitude and appreciation for the great job they did, and what could the colonel say? Diddly. They were part of the army.
I told the colonel of my intentions and made my way to the hootch near the medevac chopper’s pad. I knocked on the thin wooden frame of their screen door and was greeted by a handsome blond guy in his early thirties with captain’s bars on his collar. The insignia on his collar was the only indication of his rank. Almost immediately I sensed that he had nothing of the air of superiority of most of the other officers I’d known, from the lowliest butter-bar lieutenants to the colonel, Mr. Bigwig himself. I told him of my intentions and let him know that even though he’d probably rarely been thanked for doing his job (since most of the guys they picked up were either unconscious or in morphine heaven), the guys in the field really appreciated their work. I was trying to be low-key, but I couldn’t help but tell him that during my entire tour, the dust-offs had always arrived when requested, come hell or high water.
“Well, that’s not always true, ya know,” he said modestly, in a slow Georgia drawl. “There’s been times when we just couldn’t make it. Y’all must have been lucky. Besides, I don’t make the decisions around here; I just fly the thing. There’s three of us here, and we all get an equal vote. Which reminds me. These here guys are the crew. This little guy’s Angel, and this is Ghost. Angel’s our medic, and Ghost’s the crew chief. And me—they call me Cap’n mostly, but every now and again it’s Son of a Bitch.”
As they dealt me in for a game of hearts, I couldn’t get over how young Angel and Ghost seemed. Not that I was ancient, at twenty-one, but Angel’s round, little-boy face looked like it came straight out of a junior high school yearbook. As the game progressed, Cap’n related how they’d been shot down twice, once in the Highlands and once in Cambodia. He nonchalantly explained that even with a shot-up engine, Hueys could be autogyroed to a fairly gentle landing.
“If ya got the altitude, alls ya got to do is bring her into a steep dive. It gets that big ol’ main rotor spinnin’, ya see. Then all ya have to do is pull back on the stick just before ya hit the deck. It ain’t the softest landin’ in the world, but it works okay, don’t it, guys?”
I looked up at Angel and Ghost to see them both smiling and shaking their heads, amused at their pilot’s exaggerated, nonchalant description of the maneuver. In spite of Cap’n’s down-home rendition of the crash-landing, I could tell from their response that it had been a horrifying experience. Having talked to other Huey pilots, I knew that the standard crash-landing technique left much to be desired. If, when the pilot realized his engine was out, he reacted immediately and if he had enough altitude and if he could find a place to set down and if they didn’t draw any more fire and if the pilot made the maneuver with absolutely no hesitation or mistake, they had a chance—maybe. And these guys had done it twice. After only a moment’s reflection on what I knew about Hueys, I found myself smiling and shaking my head along with Angel and Ghost. We all looked at Cap’n, who, seeing our incredulity, grinned and shrugged his shoulders like some old fisherman who’d just been caught telling a whopper. I had no doubt that they’d crash-landed twice, but I knew for sure that it hadn’t been that easy.
Halfway through our game of hearts, the radio on the shelf crackled and sputtered a message. “Lima Zulu, Lima Zulu, this is Hotel Papa. Request Mike Victor at coordinates.…” The crew threw their cards in the middle of the table and began a well-choreographed dance, prepping to fly.
“Get this man here a helmet and a flak jacket, will ya, Ghost?” Cap’n said as he bolted out the door. “I’ll warm her up.”
Cap’n had assumed that since I was writing about them, I’d be flying with them. The thought had never crossed my mind, but it was too late to argue. Ghost motioned for me to take the starboard seat, where a door-gunner would sit, if they’d had one, and he busied himself with his own preparations. Angel sat on the chopper’s floor and grinned. Clearly I was in for the ride of my life. Cap’n lifted the chopper gently at first, but as soon as there was clearance, he lifted the bird’s tail and poured on the heat. Its main rotor slapped viciously at the air, protesting the strain, but soon it got a hold, and we accelerated as fast as the machine would go. No sooner had we gained some airspeed than we were in a steep, banking turn. The Gs of the turn and the sudden view of blue sky almost emptied my bladder, but as we settled in on our course, the carnival ride came to an end—almost. Though he was pushing the chopper to its limits, Cap’n guided the machine with the deftness of a surgeon. By habit or instinct, he kept us low, no more than a couple hundred feet above the coastal highway. If there were any VC looking to get a shot at us, the best sight they would get would be a passing blur.
Angel must have been amused at my reaction, but he caught my attention long enough to motion with his head toward the village directly in our path. It appeared an oasis in the middle of a sea of rice paddies, a cluster of tall palms protruding from an otherwise flat expanse. I had just enough time to wonder whether we could somehow thread the needle between the palms when the chopper rose, tracing their contour like an artist’s brush. For a moment, I considered Cap’n to be something of a cowboy, but considering our mission, I knew he was flying with great skill and professionalism. Speed was the utmost priority. A minute here or there could make the difference between life and death, and keeping us low not only made us a difficult target but also saved precious time. Rather than fly a sloppy, looping arc, Cap’n made a beeline to his destination.
After several minutes of flying, Cap’n veered the chopper ever so slightly west of our northward course and landed near a smoldering green smoke grenade near the edge of a small village. There, an army medic and a small contingent of ARVNs hoisted a stretcher onto the chopper’s floor. Angel skillfully eased the wounded man into position while keeping a keen eye on his IV bottle and the length of plastic tubing that ran to the man’s arm. I had heard enough conversation between the medic on the ground and Angel to determine that the man, an ARVN regular, had tried unsuccessfully to set a booby trap on a trail near the village. It had gone off and peppered him with shrapnel. Though the man was conscious and stable, he needed to be attended to at the aid station at Uplift for removal of the many tiny bits of steel that had riddled his body.
Fully informed about the man’s condition, Cap’n flew the return trip with a tad more ease and caution than on the way up. It afforded me the time to study the crew and take a few pictures.
Through the viewfinder of my camera, I noticed that Cap’n’s helmet had twin peace signs painted in gold over the earphone bulges, as well as an Egyptian ankh on the back. In the frame, I could see that he had installed a child’s squeeze-bulb bicycle horn to the chopper’s ceiling. Angel and Ghost each had neatly painted cartoon characters of their nicknames on their helmets, and Angel’s also sported a rather self-deprecating Band-Aid in the front. Everything about them—their nicknames, the gentle way they treated each other, and their consummate skill—indicated that they both understood and accepted the danger inherent in their job. Though they’d seen more death and destruction than I ever had as a grunt, we shared an unspoken understanding. We all knew—too well, perhaps—the tenuous nature of our existence, and we all were extremely grateful to be alive.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ghost trying to get my attention. He tugged on the coiled cord connected to his helmet and pointed to mine. I reeled it in to find that it had been dangling in the breeze. As soon as he saw that I’d found the plug, he gestured to a receptacle near my seat and motioned for me to plug it in. After some buzzing and a loud pop, music filled my ears. They had hooked up the chopper’s intercom and radio to a tape player. Skimming over the highway with a head full of music was an orgasmic sensory overload, and their selection of tunes was right on target. It was Hendrix’s “All along the Watchtower.” Our heads bobbed in sync to the music, but when Jimi came to the line we were reminded not to talk falsely since the hour was getting late. Angel punctuated it with a huge grin and a thumbs-up.
For the crew of dust-off one niner, this had been a routine, even easy, mission, but I felt completely overwhelmed. I felt as if these guys had torn open my chest and revealed to me the miracle of my own heartbeat. I felt like crying.
When we landed, I thanked them for the fun and made an excuse to leave. I needed time to settle down and compose myself. Though the mission had been no big deal, really, I knew that these were the same guys who had flown in under hostile fire to save some of my friends.
I flew with them several times over the next few days. Joyriding, mostly—things were pretty quiet in the boonies. In the meantime, I’d sit in front of my old beater Underwood typewriter and stare at a piece of blank paper. Finally, disgusted with myself, I let my feelings pour like water from a broken dam onto the paper. The result, though honest, was sure to win me no friends among the lifers in headquarters. In honoring the crew and their mission, there was a palpable sense that I, among many others, resented the fact that they had to do it. After a trip to Phu Cat, where I developed and printed my pictures, I stuffed the prints and my article in a manila envelope and handed them to the colonel. Though I still had three weeks left in country, I had finished my job. I had given them the only printable comment on the war I had, and I would write no more. The hour was getting late.
For the next few days, I ghosted. I was defiantly absent at both morning and evening formations and floated around the base camp trying to be anonymous. Once in a while, I’d stop by my desk to retrieve my camera if some friends wanted me to take some pictures, and on one such occasion, the lieutenant who was second-in-command in the office caught me.
“You’d better show up tomorrow,” he said. “And stop by supply on the way over and pick up a weapon. Recon has found a deserted VC base camp, and the colonel wants you to take pictures of him repelling into it.”
I nodded and left, keeping my thoughts to myself. Of all the vainglorious bullshit, I thought, this had to take the cake. The colonel was as close to the boonies as he’d ever be, and now he wanted pictures of himself repelling into an enemy base camp. I stopped myself short of guessing what sort of stories the colonel might concoct about the adventure and acquiesced to the inevitable. They’d bust me, for sure, for disobeying a direct order.
In the morning, I picked up an M16 from supply and set it and a bandolier of ammunition on my desk when reporting for duty. I waited calmly for orders to head to the chopper pad, but nothing happened. Across the room, I could see the colonel going about his business. His veneer had cracked. It was subtle, but I could see that he was looking ever so slightly sheepish and slightly nervous. Though I knew he was having second thoughts, he acted as if nothing had happened. During the sweltering afternoon in the office, I busied myself with a magazine and tried not to look too bored. At day’s end, I returned the rifle to supply and headed to my hootch to rest.
In the meantime, I discovered that Bravo Company had returned from the field. Anxious to reunite with my old buddies, I hung around while they stood formation and were assigned bunkers for guard duty. It had been a bad move on my part, because as soon as the Bastard Rat spotted me, I realized I was in for trouble. Through attrition, Bravo Company was shorthanded to man their positions, so the Bastard Rat ordered me to get on a deuce and a half with a couple of newbies to man a bunker on searchlight hill. Though I was about to protest that I was no longer assigned to Bravo Company, his mean and determined look told me he knew my thoughts and wasn’t buying it.
As the beast of a truck rumbled up the steep switchbacks that led to the top of the hill, I consoled myself thinking that at least I’d have a great view of the sunset. When we reached the top, there was no one around to give orders, so I made my way to the western-most bunker and settled in for a very promising light show. It was nice, actually—a peaceful spot with a great view of the valley below. No sooner had the deuce and a half made it back to base than I noticed a water truck lumbering up the road to our position. When it arrived, a wiry, blond-haired guy dressed in Levi’s shorts and a t-shirt emerged from one of the central bunkers and handed the driver what looked like a wad of bills. At the same time, another of the permanent denizens of the hill climbed atop the tank and opened the lid. He fished in the tank with one arm and eventually pulled out four young Vietnamese girls. I knew in a flash that they hadn’t been imported in such a clandestine manner to do laundry.
Feeling that discretion was the better part of valor, I ignored the goings-on and contented myself with waiting for the sun to set. A few minutes later, a jeep could be seen following the same circuitous route to our position. Though I lost sight of it during the last few hundred yards of its trip, I recognized the black helmets when it pulled into the center of our perimeter—MPs. They were forty yards away, but the scene needed no dialogue to understand. From his body language, the guy in the jean shorts was confronting them directly and taking no stuff from them. The standoff lasted only a few minutes before the MPs got back in their jeep and headed back down the hill. At this point, the guy in shorts and the four other dudes who permanently manned the position made a mad dash up a ladder to the top of the tower bunker that stood on the apex of the hill. For a second, I thought we were under attack, but at the sound of the first explosion, I knew what they were doing. They escorted the MPs down the hill with a hail of M79 fire. Each shot was placed expertly—twenty-five yards behind the jeep (provided the MPs didn’t slow down)—so the jeep was just barely out of the reach of shrapnel from the little grenades they were firing.
As amusing as it was to see the MPs unceremoniously escorted down the hill, for me, it was yet another indication that the colonel was intent on turning our base camp into a miniature Fort Benning. The guys on the hill had been flaky at times, but the colonel could have talked with them rather than taking the cowardly route and making the MPs do his dirty work. The colonel still hadn’t a clue about the men in his command. I was sure that the guys on the hill, like most of the grunts, considered their shenanigans to be so petty as to be unworthy of any attention at all compared to the real crime, which was the war itself. The colonel’s actions, as persistent as they were ill advised, were sure to make him a focal point for all the outrage and resentment that festered in our hearts. His patriotic, gung ho illusions were sure to send him to an early grave.