CUE: Signs, FIVE MAN ELECTRICAL BAND
As anybody who has ever been in a modern army can testify, there must be a covert-operations unit somewhere, probably in a secret office in the Pentagon, that does nothing but think up ridiculous signs that confirm the notion that the average GI has no native intelligence at all. This is most obviously confirmed by the raised and boldly printed letters on the front of a Claymore mine, which plainly read Front Toward Enemy. If this still leaves some doubt as to the upper echelon's opinion of the decision-making capabilities of the average line troop, all one has to do is look at the back of the Claymore. Printed there, in the same raised characters, is the word back.
I suppose every walk of life needs a certain amount of written direction. Signs are the most elementary form of such necessary instruction. Signs bear directions and information such as Stop, Walk, Don't Walk, No Smoking, No Trespassing, and, my personal favorite, Clothing-Optional Beach. Military installations are no exception to the signs rule. In fact, they may be more prone to the penchant for printed directives than civilian organizations. Mine Field, Keep Out would be a good example.
The first army sign I remember seeing the day I was inducted was hand-lettered on a piece of white poster board hanging over a water fountain. The bold lettering announced: Do Not Expectorate in Fountain.
Signs were everywhere in an army base. There must have been a huge contingent of men assigned to each unit to do nothing but paint signs. There were signs announcing unit headquarters, complete with artwork. There were signs indicating where to go and where not to go. There were signs reminding the local inhabitants of personal hygiene and the protocols of military courtesy. There were even signs telling you what you could and could not discuss. If this were not enough, in Vietnam one had to learn the meanings of signs written in a foreign tongue, such as Cam Vao. This was a general warning to keep out of an area that had been mined or booby-trapped. It was a good thing to know if you had any ambition of going home with your body mostly intact. There were signs everywhere, yet I must admit to never having seen anybody actually painting a sign.
Once in the field, signs became more of a source of personal expression for most American units. In the mechanized companies there were no barracks or buildings, so the tracks themselves became the bearers of art and ingenuity. Much like the nose art on aircraft from past wars, painted designs and sayings appeared on the sides and machine-gun shields of the armored personnel carriers. Such artistic expressions were often as much the opinion of the men onboard as the name of the track. I remember one that declared in boldly painted letters, “If it eats rice, shoot it!”
When I was assigned to the mountaintop relay station of Nui Ba Den, a steep path led up to the orderly room in the old pagoda. The path wound its way through heavy boulders on which were painted sayings you could read as you ascended: “Remember the Alamo. Remember the Maine. Remember Pearl Harbor. Try to forget Nui Ba Den.” Everyone who had ever been on that godforsaken mountain seemed to have scribbled his name on the rock below this last sentiment. I wonder if the communists or the weather have washed away all those names.
Signs are not always words painted on something. In a war zone they are often much more subtle, but just as revealing. Little things told you a great deal about a man, without his ever saying a word.
The uniform in Vietnam was called jungle, or tropical, fatigues. The sleeves were made to be rolled up or left down, and the pants had huge pockets that were intended to be useful to a man who must haul everything he needs to sustain life. The boots were made for life in a hot and terribly wet environment. They had metal plates in the soles to deflect sharpened bamboo stakes, and screened vent holes were included to let the monsoon water drain out. The boots had black leather toes and heels, but the rest of the footgear was made of a green material that would hold up to the strain of infantry life. The odd part of it was that only 10 percent of the troops in Vietnam were combat troops, yet all of them wore the same boots, pants, and shirts. It was the way in which these uniforms were worn that became a sign of the men who wore them.
The required headgear for men who served in the rear echelon was the green GI baseball cap. Infantry troops were forbidden to wear such caps. Aside from the battle-worn steel helmets, the infantry soldier wore the bush, or boonie, hat. The mech-unit soldiers often ran a wire from the C-ration boxes through the seam of the brim and placed stiff ovals of cardboard, from those same C-ration boxes, into the crown, causing the bush hat to have a particularly rakish look. It was a sign that they were cavalry troops.
A man's fatigues faded with his time out in the sun. The longer a man had been in-country, the more faded his fatigues became. It was a sign of experience. When new guys came to the unit as replacements, their fresh green fatigues stood out as a mark of their inexperience. Similarly, the boots of a line troop set him apart from others.
The rear-echelon troops, working in offices and warehouses in the base camps, were held to a rule of military decorum that the troops of the mechanized units could not be. The garrison troops were inspected and regulated as to haircuts and shined boots and all the normal military trappings of soldiering. The mech soldiers were recognizable at a glance by the very absence of such military cleanliness. Living constantly beyond the wire, the mech units simply could not comply with the regimented dress code of other units, and so their somewhat earthy appearance became a sign of their service.
Those troops who did duty in the base camps and reached the mark of having less than thirty days left to go on their tours graduated to that revered status of being short timers. Many of them would carry a specially made baton or swagger stick that was a sign they were close to going home. This revered symbol was called a short timer's stick. No short timer sticks were carried in the field. Time in-country was kept by each man on a small calendar, and the only mark of his extended time in the line was a subtle yet discernable look in his eyes, sometimes called the thousand-yard stare. The look defies description, yet is unforgettable to any who have seen it. The truly odd phenomenon is that combat soldiers from many wars have testified to recognizing the look in others, yet none of them ever admits to having seen it in himself. Perhaps this is a sign as well.