CHAPTER 19

15 AUGUST 1970

It was two hours past midnight. The moon was rising behind fast tumbling clouds and the sky was illuminated with eerie turbulence. The ground fog was thick and sticky. Alpha was in column, moving, stumbling, bitching. They had humped off the east side of the peak, then, following a compass course, they circled the peak to the south then west and finally northwest where they picked up the trail along the flat ridge down through the shallow draw and up toward the isolated peak that 2d Plt had reconned with helicopter at point the previous afternoon. From there until they reached their objective eleven days away the inertia of their forward motion would keep them in motion, never stopping, never slowing, gradually accelerating in their spiral descent into hell.

The path of Alpha’s movement was very dark because of the ground mist. The soldiers felt insecure moving in the blackness, feeling their way toward a possible ambush. They bitched. They were tired. They had been working since before dawn. They had stopped long enough to dig in and set up and now they were moving through the unknown.

Night vision is a gift but a gift which each receiver must develop. Brooks had excellent night vision as did Jackson and Numbnuts Willis, who never let anyone know. Part of the ambient knowledge within the infantry was how to exploit the gift. To see at night it is necessary to look NOT directly at the object of sight but to look left or right of it about 15°. That way the image passing through the eye’s lens hits the side of the retina where the rods, black/white receptors, are concentrated and not the center of the retina where the cones, color receptors, are clustered. Cherry knew all this but he had never practiced it before and on the night march he was nearly blind. Oh God. Oh God. This is fucked. Oh God, this is fucked. He was shaking.

As important as night vision is kinesthesis, the ability to comprehend the signals of the muscles, tendons and joints and to know the precise location and movement of one’s body and bodily components. It is through the understanding of those sensory experiences one knows one’s environment and one’s position in it. Cherry knew this also. He had had enough psychology and physiology classes to know in detail the theories and even the history of their development. But the knowledge without practice was nearly useless.

Egan had scant knowledge of the theory of night vision and only slightly more knowledge of kinesthesis. But Egan was a mole. He had an immense amount of practice in night moving and he took considerable pride in his ability. He asked, volunteered, cajoled and forced the L-T to allow him to walk point. Behind him was Pop Randalph and behind them the bitching was universal.

The column was in a black cave of unknowns. They groped for the contours of the trail, the slope, the holes, the protruding roots. They stumbled forward in a long line, trying to be silent, listening to the swishing soundlessness of the good infantrymen, listening to the quick slip, topple—” Oooophs, oh shit! Fuck this, Man”—of the bad. They followed Egan into dips and over crests, generally downward toward the valley then generally upward toward the peak.

As they moved in column Egan thought of the NVA soldiers who would also be moving now. Bitching, he thought, just like these assholes. Every army’s made up of assholes. They’re the only fuckers dumb enough to fight. It gave him strength because he was not bitching. It made him feel secure and superior and happy. Egan thought about the NVA sergeants and lieutenants who surely had to be leading equally unwilling, lazy, scared NVA soldiers. They’re just like us. Egan felt warm. He felt warmth for the bitching assholes he was leading and warmth for the NVA assholes being lead toward him. Only one thing ruined Egan’s night march, spider webs. Spider webs seemed to cross his path a hundred times.

Pop Randalph at Egan’s slack was oblivious to everything. His body behaved perfectly, mechanically, without his consciousness. His eyes saw nothing but black void and only if the void were disturbed would his mind register. 2d Plt followed, then the company CP, 3d Plt and 1st at rear security. In the middle of 1st Cherry stumbled along swearing, one hand on Lt. Thomaston’s ruck before him, one holding his M-16. He could feel the edginess of the others about him, the fear of being ambushed.

Behind Cherry Jackson was raging pissed. What that fuckin Marcus think I ken do? Jax snarled wildly in the dark. He think I ken jest git up an walk away. Where to? Fucka. An who gowin listen ta me if I says, ‘Throw down yo weapons Brotha Boonierats. The word has come, Marcus has declared this war ended.’ Mothafuckin dinks id love it. Walk right up en fuck everyone a us up. Then whut I got to be proud a? Pap sick, huh? Dat too bad. Aint my fault. Fucka tryin make me feel guilt. Can’t that mothafucka Marcus see? Can’t he see? Hey! I’s somebody. I aint no nigger-slave soldier. I’s somebody out here. He jest aint seen them people in Hue or Phu Luong. I am here fightin for freedom an justice an I’s somebody. That the difference, Mista Marcus. I’s really important here, dig? This the first time I ever been somebody. Every fucka here depend on me, depend on Jax keepin the gooks from comin through his side a the perimeter. That aint no shit. And when I comes home, stand back! That’s right Mista. Pap’ll be proud. He proud now. I know. An ef the revolution do come, I am ready. I am trained. I am experienced. I am ready to lead my company fo my people gainst any mothafuckin white honky pig.

Cherry entered a tiny clearing. The velvet dark below the canopy was a void: no light, no brush, no breeze, no sound. The column had stopped. The bitching had stopped. He had lost hand contact with Thomaston’s ruck. No one was holding him from behind. He stood still, exhausted, too tired to be frightened anymore, too tired to make the effort to sit. Everything had vanished. The men of Company A had melted into the mist and moist humus of the trail.

“We’re NDPing here,” Egan’s whisper oozed from the void. “Settle down right there. I’m goina check the squads. Make sure we got everybody.”

Cherry nodded. He walked forward several steps and bumped into Thomaston. He stepped back, set his ruck down quietly, removed his helmet and sat down. Egan’s whisper oozed from the void again. “Just rest. I got first radio watch. We’re set up in a straight line on the trail.” Egan grabbed Cherry’s right arm, shook it gently. “There’s our people behind you”—he pushed Cherry’s body—” and up that way.” He rocked Cherry back and forth. “This way here or that way there, if you see somebody, shoot em. I’ll be back in one-five.”

Cherry sat very still. He was very tired and the thick mist had condensed to make him soggy. He was too tired to fear an enemy probe yet a chill ran over his shoulders and across his neck. He closed his eyes. He could see the face of the enemy soldier he had shot. The face would not leave him alone. The soldier moved cautiously, slowly. Cherry stared into the man’s dark eyes. Cherry shook his head, looked elsewhere. The eyes stayed before him. The soldier was looking directly back at Cherry. Surely he could see Cherry behind the brush aiming his M-16 directly at the soldier’s face. The face came forward, the eyes twinkled, a smile came to the man’s lips. The image of the black post of the M-16 sight covered the man’s mouth. The man laughed. He laughed uproariously. He laughed at Cherry and stepped forward. The face enlarged, the eyes were wild, frenzied. Cherry stared back, growled, slowly squeezed the trigger of his weapon. The gun barked explosively, the muzzle flashing, the soldier’s head …

“Hey! Cherry!” It was Egan. “Come with me. Bring the radio. L-T wants your radio to the CP.”

How can one explain the anticipation, the tremendous suspense and expectation of R&R. It affects every move, every thought. Perhaps the old system of being in for the duration is better. Brooks had been a platoon leader with Bravo Company, 7/402, for five months when he left the boonies for R&R. In those last days of December 1969 it had been for him as if every effort, every night in the monsoon slime, every incoming round was endured solely for the reward of spending six nights away from Nam, six nights with Lila. Brooks had not had any specific expectations before he left, just the general anticipation of his sweet lady in a Hawaiian wonderland.

It began as he expected. He savored the very first passionate kiss in ten months, savored her lips as they embraced. They neither noticed nor would they have cared that the scene was repeated a hundred times about them by a hundred soldiers and soldiers’ wives. Brooks was speechless. God, she was warm.

They kissed and embraced and kissed and embraced and in the taxi leaving the airport for their hotel they devoured each other, not even noticing the demonstrators greeting the arrivals from Vietnam with their shouted chant:

HEY, BABYKILLER, PLEASE

SHOOT YOURSELF, NOT VIETNAMESE.

But in all the anticipation, all the expectation, there is no thought, no preparation. That comes later, after the return to Nam, comes while trying to piece together what happened. For Lieutenant Rufus Brooks it was a dreaded thought with dreamlike qualities but not truly a dream for he would be conscious and he could run from the thoughts and hide in his work. During the night march the thoughts of R&R overpowered the concerns of work, overran the fleeting intellectualizations on conflict. The thought condensed to one day, a repetition of one day of his life as if time were a record with a scratch and on each revolution the needle jumped back to the same day, the same horrid day.

The beginning of that day was glorious. When they finally broke away from each other long enough to speak, Rufus held Lila at arm’s length and softly cooed, “Let me look at you.” She giggled and breathed back, “And you. You’ve lost so much weight. Aren’t they taking care of you?”

“I’m fine,” Rufus said squeezing her again. He wanted to sprint upstairs to their room. He squeezed her tightly and she squeezed him back. He could feel the soft firmness of her breasts through his uniform, the warmth of her thighs against his legs. Rufus had always had a strong hard body but the months of field duty had made his legs tighter, harder, had flattened his belly and made his chest more solid. Lila stroked his arms, his back, his neck. He felt alive again, vibrant.

He held her at arm’s length again. “Hey, what’s this?” he asked. “What’d you do to your eyes?”

“Do you like them?”

“Hey, they’re green. What’d you do? You don’t have green eyes.”

Lila raised her eyebrows flashing her sparkling eyes at him, smiling, teasing and tempting him. “Colored contacts,” she grinned. Rufus pulled her to him, squeezed, then held her at arm’s length again and covered her shoulders with his huge hands, massaging gently, lightly feeling the tops of her breasts with his thumbs. Lila’s eyes were beautiful but they made him feel uneasy, as if he did not know her.

“Should we, ah, get a drink or something?” he asked anxiously. “Tell me everything that’s been happening to you.”

“Let’s just go upstairs,” she whispered coyly. “Let’s go upstairs.” He ran his hand down her back to her small solid round buttocks. “Ooooh, Rufus! Please! Not here. People are looking. Let’s go upstairs and get you out of that uniform. I bought you some clothes this morning.”

Upstairs they leaped to the bed. Rufus pulled at Lila’s clothes wildly, festively, feverishly. Lila twisted and turned helping him. She covered her breasts with her hands. She stroked her nipples. He ripped at his own shirt exposing the strong shoulders and chest, the powerful neck and arms. She ran her hands down her thighs, hungry for him, wanting to feel his weight on her. He pulled at her panties and she raised her thighs, brought her knees up allowing him to whisk the last stitch of cloth away. She covered her body coquettishly, eyes sparkling, smiling, giggling as he tore his pants off. She squealed and squiggled and feinted squeamish shock at his exposure. And they made love. They loved each other over and over.

To her, he had never felt so wonderful, so warm, so light yet so firm. He had never moved so smoothly. He had never touched her in so many places simultaneously. To him her mouth had never been so sweet, her tongue so sensual. Her excitement rose higher, higher, faster, tauter.

“Oooooo,” she groaned. “Oooh Rufus, Rufus, Rufus. Oooh Rufus. Make me pregnant.” Love exploded from her. “Make me pregnant. Oooh Rufus, I want all of you.”

“Oh my sweet Lila, I love you so. I love you so much. I’ve missed you so much. Lila. Lila.”

Rufus had never been so excited, Lila never so exciting. The nearness of her wonderful glowing body, the newness, renewedness of their love was overwhelming. They relaxed, kissed, lay in the bed. She teased him, tickled his side, kissed his scrotum. Nibbling at him she watched his excitement rise. He ran his fingers down her back onto her ass. He followed his fingers with his tongue. Lila lay on her back and he kissed her body, her proud body. She arched her back as he mouthed her breasts, licked and rolled the nipples with his tongue. Their passion had never known the variety. They loved again and again and then they relaxed.

“It’s going to be wonderful,” Lila said. “There’s so much to see and to do. Let’s not waste any time doing nothing.”

Rufus agreed fully. It was wonderful. It was wonderful having her to make the decisions. He gave himself to her totally, trustingly. “Lila,” he confessed, “I’ve thought about you so much. All the time. You’re on my mind all the time.” It was as if he needed her to carry him now. “You’re everything to me,” he said. With the last sentence he felt he had made a mistake, had given too much, even to a wife. Lila did not return his loneliness confession with one of her own.

“It’s going to be wonderful,” she said laying her head on his chest. They did not say anything for several minutes. Rufus felt pleasantly tired. Yet he was anxious. He thought about his platoon, about each of the men in his platoon. He chose his words carefully, trying to be lighthearted, “I wonder,” he said, “where those poor bastards are sleeping tonight?” Lila rose up on her forearms on his chest and looked into his eyes. He avoided her gaze. “This is the first real bed,” he chuckled, “I’ve been in in ten months. I’ve slept on the ground or on a cot every night for ten months. I’ve slept in my clothes on the ground ever since July when I went to the Oh-deuce.”

“Is it bad?” Lila asked sympathetically.

“No. That part’s not bad,” Rufus said. “I was just wondering where they were. It’s raining there now and we’re in the mountains.” He changed his tone to sound more cheerful. “It’s wonderful to be here with you.”

“Rufus,” she asked. He knew what was coming. Everyone in Nam who had returned from R&R said wives always asked it on the first night. “Rufus,” Lila asked. She put her head down on his chest again. “Have you killed anyone?”

He paused and sighed. He took a deep breath. “Why don’t you ask me if I’ve saved anyone’s life?” he said.

“L-T. Bravo’s gettin hit.” It was El Paso. He had been monitoring all three CP radios while Cahalan and Brown slept. A light rain had begun falling. It was very cool and a shiver ran up Brooks’ back. Sporadic rifle shots cracked from across the valley. Bravo Company had been inserted on the north escarpment of the Khe Ta Laou on the 13th, had moved north, uphill and NDPed. On the 14th they had engaged three NVA soldiers in a brief firefight and had pursued them south across their insertion LZ toward the valley. The Bravo troops had lost the NVA trail and had returned to the LZ for their NDP. They were now north northwest of Alpha by 21/2 kilometers with only lower hills and the valley between. More rifles chattered. The NVA were probing Bravo first from one side then another. A few frags exploded.

“Put everyone on alert,” Brooks directed El Paso. “Monitor Bravo’s internal and have Egan’s cherry bring his radio up here.”

An illumination flare popped above Bravo’s position. Then another and another. Several popped over the center of the valley. The light pierced the canopy and fell eerily upon the boonierats of Company A. Brooks hated calling for illumination. The light fell indiscriminately, silhouetting enemy and friendly forces alike. Usually US forces NDPed on high ground and the illumination actually helped the NVA kill more Americans than vice versa.

El Paso, Cahalan and Brown along with Doc, Minh and FO clustered low close about Brooks. “We’re going to run into a lot of shit in this AO,” FO said quietly to the RTOs.

“I hope we don’t get hit by mortars again,” Brown said. “I hate those fucken things.”

“Anything comin at you is bad shit,” El Paso said. Artillery from Barnett began firing Bravo’s DTs.

“Down south,” FO said getting everyone’s attention, “we used to use a doughnut. We’d use a full brigade to encircle the enemy just before dark. All night long they’d pour in artillery and air strikes. The dinks’d try to move out. In the morning we’d go in and mop up.”

Egan and Cherry joined the CP circle. Egan had led Cherry to the CP during a break from the illumination. Cherry slapped at a mosquito. Egan grabbed his hand. “Keep the fuckin noise down,” he snarled. Doc handed Cherry a small plastic bottle of insect repellent. Cherry squirted some into his hands and wiped it on his face and neck and passed it back. It passed around the circle. The mosquitos had come out with the rain.

Nine men with four radios sat quietly listening to the valley noises and to the faint rushing air sound of the radios. The probe of Bravo had slackened. It had lasted less than ten minutes. The artillery crews on Barnett ceased shooting illumination and DTs for Bravo and returned to the random H & I fire, the blasts rumbling and echoing in the dark. It seemed peaceful. Cherry had not slept when the column stopped. He had not rested before the night move. With the security of being at the center of the company and surrounded by eight others he tried to close his eyes. It was peaceful.

A new sound entered the night. It was that most horrible of sounds, that light concussion of air non-sound, a mortar being fired. And everyone of them knew it was not friendly mortars. They had no sister units that close, in that direction, below them east in the valley. FO, Egan and Brooks instinctively pulled out lensmatic compasses and fixed on the sound. Everyone else froze. There was no place to move. No holes had been dug. Along the column men, already on the ground, lay flatter, condensed their bodies. Sweat sprouted in beads on foreheads, phaffft. Hearts slowing, eyes widening, balls clinging climbing, rectums constricting and sphincters clamping down in anticipation, phaffft. phaffft. Ten times. Twelve times. Ears like radar searching the sky. Then lightning bursts in the mist and karrumph … karrumph … Flashes across the valley, karrumph. karrumph.

Radios crackled lowly. Panicked voices could be heard. “Bravo’s FO is hit,” Cahalan reported. Rounds continued to explode at Bravo’s location. Twelve, sixteen, twenty times. “They got three dudes hit.” Then rifles chattered. AKs, RPD machine guns clattered and were answered by M-16s and M-60s. The fire intensified. Hand grenades and RPGs and thumpers exchanged percussion. The howitzers on Barnett reacted firing Bravo’s DTs. “Drop one hundred, left fifty.” The caller was working the howitzer rounds around his perimeter.

Amid the explosions and the continuous small arms cacophony came the popping sounds of the NVA mortar tube below Company A. The enemy mortar team was firing furiously. Brooks grabbed Cahalan’s handset, threw it back and scrambled for Brown’s. He keyed the handset bar furiously, interrupting Bravo’s artillery adjustments. “Armageddon Two, Armageddon Two, this is Quiet Rover Four, over.” He unkeyed. “Come on you bastard, I got a fix on the tube.” Brooks keyed again. “Armageddon …” He paused. Everyone else had frozen. The twelve howitzers on Barnett were all firing. The booming from Barnett and the explosions across the valley increased. Brooks violently shoved the handset into FO’s hand. “Get Arty. Tell em you hear the tube. Tell em you’ll adjust by sound.” El Paso covered Brooks with a poncho and Egan produced a flashlight and topo map. They could still hear the NVA mortar rounds being launched. “We are receiving incoming mortars at our sierra,” an RTO in the TOC bunker on Barnett reported. “Firebase gettin hit,” FO reported to the group. FO reached the FDC at Barnett. He calmly explained the situation. “Armageddon Two, Rover Four. Fire mission. Over.” FO gave the direction and approximate location of the target as Egan and Brooks deciphered the coordinates from the map. FO casually suggested the type of projectile and fuse action and adjustment. Then he added, “Now fo Gawd sakes fire the Gawddamned thang.”

“Stand by for shot,” the radio rasped.

“Standin by,” FO said coolly.

The popping sound had stopped. It now began popping again, popping over and over. Again the boonierats of Alpha clung to the earth. Had the NVA mortar team adjusted to their, Alpha’s, position? The small arms fire from Bravo never ceased.

“Shot out,” the radio rasped.

“Shot out,” FO repeated.

FLASH!KARRUMP! The first NVA mortar rounds exploded, the noise following the flash by half a breath. Flash! KARRUMP! Flash! KARRUMP! Flash!KARRUMP!

“Shee-it,” Doc smiled.

The howitzer round from Barnett exploded near to where the sound of the popping tube had come. “Right fifty,” FO called. “Yo on the money. Fire for effect.”

KARRUMP! The NVA mortar rounds were exploding on Alpha’s old NDP, on their location of three hours earlier. “Shee-it,” Doc laughed. He turned to Minh and punched him on the shoulder. Up and down the column troops were breathing easier.

KARABABOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM! Six US 105mm howitzer rounds exploded in the valley very close below Company A. The entire peak rocked. KARABABOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM! Another volley exploded. “Get em, Arty.” Another volley. The earth shook. Rifle fire was still clattering from Bravo’s position. KARABABOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM! Silent cheers arose, imaginary banners, waved. Silent bands played. The cavalry rode across ninety unseeable TV screens. The pioneers were saved.

The frequency of artillery explosions in the valley increased. The 105s from Barnett were joined by huge 175mm and eight-inch howitzers from distant firebases. The small arms chatter at Bravo ceased, then erupted, then ceased again. It settled down to sporadic crackings in the wet drizzle night sky.

“Bravo’s requesting an emergency Dust-Off,” Cahalan reported to the group.

“No fucken way, Man,” Brown said.

“How in fuck they gonna get them dudes out?” Doc whispered angrily. “How they gonna get a bird inta the middle a dis mothafuck?”

“Their FO’s dead,” Cahalan said. “They got three urgent, one priority, one tactical urgent. And their FO.”

“Oh this fucken valley,” El Paso said. “It’s socked in tighter en shit in yer ass when hell’s rainin down.”

Cherry’s hands and legs were quivering. He had his radio on company internal freq and monitored the routine sit-reps from his squads and the other platoon CPs. His whole body shook. Oh God. Don’t let any of us get blown away. Please God.

The sounds of the valley diminished. The small arms fire at Bravo’s location ceased. The NVA mortar tube was silent. US artillery slowed but continued to erupt in the valley. Waiting dragged heavily.

“How will they get the wounded out?” Cherry whispered to Egan.

“They’ll get em,” Egan said. “Medevac pilots got big brass balls.”

Doc Johnson was sick, nauseous. The inability to help, to affect the situation at all, always made him ill with frustration and anger. You trah, trah, trah, Doc thought, an what it get you? You trah bein good, doin right, an it doan change a fucken thing, Mista. Not a fucken thing. It was the same in the rear and the lowlands as it was in the boonies. It was even the same back in the World.

Doc was a large dark brown man, large and heavy for an infantryman. He had a large head and fuzzy black coarse hair and a scant fuzzy moustache that came to the corners of his mouth and curled back into itself. His chin was covered with coarse stubble. Over his left eye there was a deep scar, pink against his deep brown skin, that ran to the bridge of his nose and obliterated the eyebrow. In all, Doc had a heavy thick look which many people automatically associated with slowness, dullness and dumbness.

Doc, Sergeant Alexander Vernon Johnson, was a city black. He was born and raised in New York, Manhattan, up at 143d Street with a turf extending from the Hudson River east across all of Harlem, mixed neighborhoods, mixed ghetto of Puerto Ricans and blacks, some whites, old Irish and Jewish remnants. Doc’s family had been lured from the South in the 1920s by the prospect of high-paying employment in the factories of the northeast, lured with tens of thousands of southern blacks migrating for a better life. Long before he was born, in 1949, his people had settled into a pattern of male nomadic job searching and broken matriarchal families. Alexander was raised by a woman who was not his mother in a family where the siblings were not blood brothers and sisters in a street culture which was more tribal than cognatic. Alexander had no father but many fathers, no mother but many mothers and no siblings but brothers and sisters everywhere on the turf.

For a boy growing up in the city, the street was a good place, the best place. Inside it was dull, dingy gray close and dirty with age, the kind of dirt cleaning does not affect. Inside was where the winos laid in the hallways, where the roaches spawned in the moisture beneath sinks and behind tipping commodes. Inside the paint had all yellowed and cracked and chipped, and the plaster walls and ceilings had cracks running like veins in science book pictures of the human body. In the street there was handball and stickball and stoopball, and over at the school there was basketball. On the street the buildings had color and the walls carried ads for skin bleach and hair straightener. On the street there was music and dance. The street never, never was completely dark.

Street life connotates a harsh nastiness to the uninitiated but to a boy who knew the street it was communal, pleasant. Alexander knew from very early on that someone or thing would watch out for his welfare by forcing him to school or by rapping with him when he needed a man to talk to or by protecting him when a rival gang invaded his turf. He was an inner-city poor black child who did not know he was poor and who scoffed at the social worker’s condescension. For a time he was a city cowboy, a small time street hustler, good friend, bad enemy.

Alexander was the kind of teenager his country calls first when it needs men for war, the kind of man his country, even its military, rejects when there is no need for strong hands to carry rifles and strong backs to carry the dead.

So it was with Alexander Johnson in 1966. At seventeen, his country decided it would like to use his services. Perhaps he was lucky to have had a brother advise him to enlist for a school instead of simply being drafted or perhaps he was wise enough to accept the advice or perhaps it was the vein-cracked walls and the science book diagram, for Alexander signed up for four years and a guarantee of medical corps training. Perhaps that was not luck at all.

When Alexander left New York for basic training in early ’67, he thought New York would be an easy place to forget, the kind of place a man turns from easily. But almost immediately he missed his home, his siblings and his sister who was not his sister at all: his delightful little sister Marlena, three months apart in age and always together.

When Alexander came home after basic training and before he was shipped to Texas for twenty-six weeks of medical training, he spent his week’s leave on the streets with old friends, but mostly he spent time with Marlena. One evening they had come through the streets and upon a street meeting. There were lots of young children running about and older people on the stoops sitting and talking and some older men sitting together drinking wine and several hard-looking women standing by the curb watching the street. It was late March and it was warm for the first time since the January thaw. Down the block, away from the meeting, Puerto Rican punks were playing stickball with stones, trying to clear the street and hit the windows in the buildings on the far side with their triples and homers.

On the center stoop there were two sisters and three brothers. One sister raised up her arms and started to sing and the others joined in. Marlena’s eyes lit as she watched and listened and Alexander watched her as she watched the meeting.

A white couple approached, crossed the street and passed, then recrossed the street and continued on their way. “Look at them folk,” Marlena sighed, “all dressed up in their white skin and their threads just so. That make me sad.”

“That jus crazy,” Alexander said. “White folk is crazy. I’ll tell you bout them in Basic. Lena, white folk is a crazy cluster.”

Marlena slipped her arm around Alexander’s waist and he put his arm about her shoulder and they looked at each other and gave each other a squeeze and she said, “Let’s go listen to some sounds and maybe do some boogyin.”

The schools for army medics in San Antonio lasted from twelve to forty weeks depending upon the specialty. Draftees with two year commitments generally were run through a short course that concentrated on basic combat first aid—traumatic amputation, sucking chest wounds, shock. Enlistees, Regular Army personnel with more promising service length, were trained in all the various medical fields from operating room technicians to physical therapists. For most, when their schooling was over, their first duty assignment placed them with medical detachments attached to combat units; they became grunt medics. It was thus with Alexander, twenty-six weeks of intensive medical training followed by a month’s leave and a year with the First Cavalry Division, November ’67 to November ’68, in I Corps, the Republic of Vietnam, as a grunt with a big bag of medical supplies.

During the time of his paramedical training it was discovered that Marlena was suffering from a blood disease of the sickle-cell syndrome, a lethal disease where increasing numbers of red blood cells deform, become excessively fragile and finally burst in great numbers releasing toxins into the victim’s system. Treating the symptoms can elongate a victim’s life but the disease is painful, unstoppable and incurable.

After a year with the Cav, Doc was assigned to the RNV training school at Fort Riley, Kansas, an assignment stimulating at first but terribly isolated and finally completely unacceptable.

In July of ’69 Marlena died from untreated internal lung ulcerations and the complications of pneumonia. She died as much from lack of treatment as from the disease. “Died, Mothafucka,” Doc had screamed in drunken nauseous vomiting when he’d heard, “cause she was a beautiful black lady inheritin bad genes from some badass fucka seven thousand years ago. Died cause them people, my people, don’t yet know that they don’t have ta die.” On request, Doc was transferred back to Vietnam and in December of ’69 he was assigned to the 326th Medical Battalion Detachment attached to the First Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile).

During the early months of his second tour Doc was in charge of the Oh-deuce MEDCAPs, Medical Civil Assistance Program. He and another medic and an interpreter and usually one or two boonierats temporarily in from the bush would go from hamlet to hamlet on a scheduled route. They tried to visit each of their eleven assigned hamlets once every week to ten days. At first that had given Doc Johnson a great deal of satisfaction but then the despair, the depression, the nausea set in. Doc Johnson once described it to El Paso.

“There one thing, Mista, you gotta know first,” Doc had said. “It’s old age that hold traditional Vietnamese society together. You remember Quay, one fine Marvin de ARVN? Quay was my interpreter fo three months. He tell me how the Buddhist and the Taoist and the Confucianist all hold there to be a proper order in the universe. Like that’s their religion. Ya know what I mean? Everybody gotta respect the old cause that’s their proper place. You doan never be sarcastic to a old papa-san. He is like the man, the key of their social structure.

“We go to a ville like Luong Vinh. There’d be dogs layin outside and baby-sans runnin round naked amongst the grass shacks. We go up to the school buildin which our own engineers built a corrugated steel in the center of the ville and Quay’d look for the village chief.

“Mista, people’d jam inta that tin shack ta see me. They be round the corner standin in line. All a em barefoot. Quay’d go out, explain to em that I’d see all the baby-sans first, then the mamas with small children and then the old. People be standin on tiptoes ta see what I doin. Be jus like a circus tent. I’m maybe about done. Some old lady come up an I know she got TB or pneumonia an she gonna die. So I give her maybe some vitamins or somethin cause I know I can’t do nothin fo her. Or an old man come up and talk to Quay and Quay, he say to me, ‘Doc, you give this man some medicine. He an old man. He have no money. He need something to trade fo food.’ Like that.

“Then I realized it, Mista. You understand what I’m sayin? There a reign a terror in them villes. It aint the Cong. It aint the NVA. It’s the cowboys. All these young bucks who aint been drafted yet. They like a gang back on the block cept worse. They approach, little kids dee-dee. Mamasans run. I give this one old man some Sing to, vitamins, and some nitrofurizone fo ring-worm. He leave the school house an four wiseass cowboys take half a what I give’m. They rough him up tee-tee then let’m go. Like a protection racket, Mista. The old man whimper his shit ta some baby-sans but he powerless.

“Cowboys. That’s pure Americanization. They take half a everybody’s shit an sell it on the black market. All the middle-aged men been drafted. Or killed. They the link between the young and the old. These kids grow up without discipline. They’re like animals. The whole social structure fallin apart, Mista. An you know why? You know why, Mista? Nixon pushed Saigon inta passin one hundred percent mobilization an they draft every dude from eighteen to thirty-eight. And they put the seventeen and the thirty-nine ta forty-three-year-olds in the popular forces. Aint nobody left home ta mind the ville and the ville probably a refugee camp tha’s overcrowded anyway. Break my heart, Man. It break my fuckin heart.”

It was the same feeling Doc Johnson had now, that same feeling he suffered when he had a boonierat brother lying with his intestines on the ground and blood flowing from a dozen holes in his body and the valley’s socked in and he could not get a medevac. It made him sick. The frustration went very deep. It went back to his sister’s death. Poor Marlena. She could have been helped but he could not, did not, help. It came from being black, from being low class ghetto, from speaking low ghetto English. You trah, Man. You trah, trah, trah. If only I could be a doctor, a real doctor. If only I could go to school, I could be a researcher or a doctor.

Cherry could not stop shaking. His arms and back were quivering with the cold and his teeth chattered. “Maybe I’m coming down with malaria,” he whispered to himself. “Oh God, please let us get out of here.” Cherry had not been to church in over four years. He had been raised Roman Catholic, been baptized and confirmed and then he had broken away. Before coming to the boonies he had not prayed in years. Now he prayed hard. He thought of every prayer he had ever memorized as a child and he mouthed them. He said Hail Marys and The Lord’s Prayer and the Act of Contrition.

“GreenMan’s on the horn to Bravo’s niner,” Cahalan’s voice slid into the wet blackness. “They got a Dust-Off comin out.” Cahalan reported in short low bursts, listening then speaking then listening.

“Bout fuckin time,” Egan said.

“They tried earlier,” Cahalan said. “First bird got lost comin up the Sông Bo. Ran low on fuel and returned.”

Random artillery had been exploding in the valley. It stopped as the helicopters approached. For a moment everything was completely silent. Then the soft thwack of rotor blades reached the valley and quickly the noise level rose. The birds either had come out without lights on or the rainmist obscured and diffused the light completely. To Alpha they were only noise.

“Little people gonna lay-n-wait fo the evac,” FO said.

“They goina want that bird,” Egan agreed.

“Oh God,” Cherry said aloud.

The sound of the rotor blades slapping the night air caused an eerie sensation. It was difficult to distinguish what had arrived. There were at least two Cobras, one very large bird, possibly a Chinook, and three, maybe four Hueys.

Bravo’s Senior RTO, Joe Escalato, was directing the birds to his location by sound. Escalato was well known to the old-timers of Alpha. He had been Lt. Brooks’ RTO when the L-T was a platoon leader with Bravo, and Escalato was a good friend of El Paso’s. “You can do it, Babe,” El Paso quietly cheered him. El Paso monitored Escalato’s net. Bravo troops popped two green star clusters, handheld flares that fired vertically a hundred feet then burst like small skyrockets.

“I’ve two lime stars.” The Dust-Off commander identified Bravo’s signal. The medical evacuation helicopter began its descent toward Bravo company. The large helicopter circling above began dropping parachute flares. Dozens of them. The burning white phosphorus splashed brightness throughout the valley and sent flat white light down through the canopy to the wet jungle floor. “I’ve my LZ marked with four reds at the corners,” Escalato informed the pilot. The flare ship circled Bravo again, dropping a second ring of flares. The lights rocked gently beneath the parachutes, descended, sputtered and went out. The flare ship renewed the lights with each pass. Alpha troops froze. “Bird’s makin a pass,” El Paso reported. “The center of my LZ is marked with a strobe,” Escalato’s voice came from the radio. “Bird’s comin in,” El Paso informed the group. With all the light from the flares it was still not possible for Alpha to see Bravo. The sky glowed like the inside of a frosted light bulb.

When the medevac helicopter was still about 100 meters in the air Bravo company opened up like a mad minute, 16s, 60s, 79s, frags. They showered the jungle with suppressive fire. The intensity slowed as they reloaded. “Bird’s in,” El Paso said. Loud exploding pops from AKs intermingled with the blasting chatter of the friendly fire. “They’re loadin up,” El Paso reported. “Bird’s comin out.” The suppressive fire continued the entire time the helicopter was on the ground and as it lifted, the firing intensified. Sporadic fire came from AKs, as if the NVA were toying with Bravo, simply letting them know their mad minute was a joke. The medevac was up. The helicopters retreated from the valley. The flares sank and went out.

The night was peaceful again. Only the exploding H & I rounds disrupted the black velvet mistdrizzle. At the CP they passed the time softly discussing whatever came to mind. FO told several stories of units he had been with in the Mekong Delta on an earlier tour. El Paso jumped on an opportunity to tell Cherry about the history of Vietnam and Egan added his views of the present political situation. Doc spoke a little about the proper treatment for various wounds he suspected Bravo troops had sustained. No one mentioned Bravo’s dead FO. At one point the L-T said a few lines about the causes of war and violence and Cherry said he believed it was genetically predestined by the structure of the brain. “I want to hear more about that,” Brooks said. In their exhaustion none of them went into much detail. The GreenMan radioed Brooks and told him to speed up Alpha’s movement and get into the valley. “You gotta get in there and hurt those little people,” he said. He also congratulated Brooks on evading the NVA mortars. It was Cherry’s first CP rap session. He enjoyed it immensely. For the others it was a repeat of many previous nights. Cahalan, Brown, Doc and Minh slept. At 0455 the NVA began a full scale assault on Bravo Company.

“Oh them fuckas,” Doc said waking.