CUE: Up on Cripple Creek, THE BAND
The helicopter settled to earth on the landing pad, and the heat from the Asian soil once more seemed to envelop me. My time on the mountain had been relatively cool by comparison, and my return to the earth below was a heavy reminder of the withering heat that was very much the signature of that land.
I had been set down in the tiny fire-support base that was all that was left of what had been the huge 1st Division base camp of Dau Tieng. When the 1st Division was rotated back to the States, Dau Tieng had been handed over to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The only portion of a whole division base camp that was to remain American was a tiny corner that would house resupply and repair for the mechanized companies that worked nearby and a small artillery contingent. In their typically ruthless mercantile fervor, the ARVN commanders had removed and sold everything they could lay their hands on. This left the small group of Americans surrounded by the skeletal remains of what was once a formidable military establishment. It was pretty scary. From the summit of the mountain, I had watched this tiny camp take enemy mortar fire, night after night, and I had no desire to spend any time there if I could avoid it.
I was directed to the headquarters building, which was the typical tin shed. Once inside, I came face to face with the army that I had forgotten entirely. I was once again a number and an inconvenience to the clerk who shuffled papers for a living. I was asked to sign all kinds of forms and then instructed to hand in a number of items, which the clerk in turn had to sign for. I turned in an M-16 rifle, my helmet, and the rest of my gear, and then was asked for a flak jacket. I explained that I had never had a flak jacket. The supply clerk, who was eating a Hershey bar, explained to me that I had to have been issued a flak jacket. I explained to him that had to or not, I was never given a flak jacket and did not have one to turn in. The discussion turned heated at this point. The Hershey-eating clerk insisted I would have to turn in a flak jacket or he could not sign my release papers and I would not be going anywhere. My retort is not printable here, but it did prompt the clerk to give me an alternative. He said he could sign off on my release if my last commanding officer signed off on the form indicating I had not been issued a flak jacket in the first place.
I was stunned. What this rear-echelon creep was suggesting was that I wait around until a chopper could take me back to the top of Nui Ba Den and I could get the commanding officer to sign on the dotted line about a flak jacket I had never even seen. Then I would have to wait around until another wayward bird dropped in out of the clouds and had room enough to fly me back down to Dau Tieng. The possibility of getting fogged in for days was very real, not to mention the fact that the NVA attack that had never materialized while I was assigned to the mountain might just take place while I was chasing the paper trail of the missing flak jacket.
I left the supply office and went across the dirt street to sit under the shade of a tin awning and drink a cold soda, hoping that a miracle, or at least inspiration, would come my way. While I was sitting there, I saw the same supply clerk who had given me such military grief leave the tin building and walk off down the street. I squinted hard at the building, and inspiration did, indeed, come to me. I sat there another fifteen minutes, watching to see if the clerk returned. When there was no sign of him, I walked to the bartender of the outdoor soda stand and borrowed his pen. I located the box on the printed form that indicated I had turned in a flak jacket to the supply clerk on the mountain, and I marked it boldly. I finished my soda and walked calmly back across the road and into the tin building, where I was processed out by a pasty-faced clerk who had never seen me before. I was given travel orders to the 25th Division base camp of Cu Chi. It was all so crooked, and yet so simple.
The stripping of the Dau Tieng base camp by the ARVN had caused more than a few problems for the American troops left there. One of the big ones was the fact that the airstrip was no longer inside the wire. Whenever a plane landed, troopers with machine guns mounted on jeeps made their way out to the asphalt strip and set up a perimeter to protect the planes while they were on the ground. Consequently, planes didn't linger long at Dau Tieng. That afternoon, three of us were hauled out in the back of a jeep to try to flag down a ride out of the place before dark came and the mortars began to fall. To say we were overanxious was an understatement. I began to notice that the penetrating calm that had been forced on me as a combat troop was beginning to give way. I was no longer acting like a soldier but rather like a scared American boy who wanted out of this place and to get back home. I suspect the untimely death of Joe Raber was on my mind. He had gotten so close to being out of the insanity when fate caught up to him. I did not want to run into a similar destiny this close to going home.
We heard motors and saw an Air Force Caribou plane circling and turning to land. All three of us stood up, gathered our belongings, and started walking toward the flight line, even before the small plane touched down. The sun was fading and we knew there would be no other flights after dark.
The plane slipped onto the runway and taxied to the place where the jeeps and we hitchhiking orphans stood. Two crewmen opened the door and threw out some red mailbags and some bundled packages. Then they started to close the door. We three hitchhikers ran up to the plane and yelled over the din of the motors, asking if they were going to Cu Chi. One airman shook his head and pointed north, indicating they were not headed south to the 25th Division base camp.
“Where you going?” the airman yelled over the roar of the spinning props.
“Home.” My voice must have had a bit of ache in it, for the airman looked at all three of us and shook his head.
“Sorry,” he said, and turned back into the aircraft, shutting the door behind him.
We stood there, watching silently, as the Caribou turned and taxied down the runway to get into position for takeoff. At the other end of the concrete strip the plane stopped and seemed to sit there for an unusually long time, then slowly it turned around and returned to the place we were standing. The back cargo door opened, and the airman stepped out waving to us. “Get in,” he yelled over the roar of the propellers. From that day on, I have had a special place in my heart for the Air Force.
Once delivered to Cu Chi, I was checked out medically and financially, and my service record was amended to reflect all that I had been through. I discovered that I had a bit of a hearing loss, which would plague me in later years, and a few combat ribbons I wasn't even aware of. Then I discovered I was stuck in Cu Chi.
The employees of the airlines that flew troops into and out of Vietnam had taken that precise moment to go on strike, demanding some sort of increased compensation or other. The upshot of the situation was that no one was leaving Vietnam until this contract dispute was settled. I was informed that there were over five thousand men backed up and waiting at the 90th Replacement depot and Bien Hoa Air Base. Until they started to move, no one was going anywhere.
The replacement depot personnel were putting up tents and placing cots out on the runways to house the refugees. The army mindset being what it is, it was not going to let such a large group of men sit around doing nothing, so details and projects were created to keep the waiting troops busy. All of them were, of course, unpleasant. I would have been one of those tent-incarcerated inmates, but I ran into an old buddy who changed my luck and my residence.
Since I had no actual billet and no mess hall to eat in, I walked over to a building that bore a big sign designating it as the 25th Division snack bar. I figured there must be some form of food inside. There was, and there was also a surprise. Rick Morris—the soldier who had been in my infantry training platoon at Fort Ord and had been saved from combat duty by a quirk of fate a year before—was running this joint.
As it turned out, Rick was the quintessential lucky soldier. It was completely true that his talents would have been wasted in the infantry. He had found his true calling since I had last seen him. He was not only the boss of this overpriced hamburger joint but virtually king of all he surveyed. He served hamburgers and Kool-Aid to every soldier in sight while also managing a burgeoning business in local labor, provided by a bevy of Vietnamese women who were hired by the army to provide laundry and housekeeping services for the rear-echelon types.
Rick was aware of my situation and took pity on me. He saved me from having to be the man in charge of some garbage detail by making me one of the security guards at the fenced compound where the Vietnamese women were housed. I spent my days watching the gate to see that only those with work passes got in or out. I spent my nights visiting this enlisted men's club or that around the area of Cu Chi. I would return late at night to Rick's quarters and sleep in a bed with sheets, under the artificial breeze of a huge electric fan. One night I started to go out for a beer but was dissuaded by an unusually attractive young Vietnamese woman who was in charge of the ladies in the compound and I suspect was Rick's romantic interest. She kept me in the compound by plying me with a really awful Asian beer and asking me questions about life back in Texas. I finally became sleepy and gave up the thought of going out. Late that night there were several explosions in various spots around the base camp. I will never know whether the young woman knew of the sapper attacks and kept me out of harm's way or not. All I do know is that after the war, the army found huge tunnels under the base camp, some of which came up under the women's compounds like the one I had guarded. The tunnels of Cu Chi are now a part of the legend of the Vietnam War. I may have been closer to them than I knew.
I stayed in Cu Chi for five days, then was released to go on to the 90th Replacement Depot in Long Binh. The rain seemed to accompany me. Thousands of men were still stranded in Long Binh. The planes were not flying yet, and men were scattered everywhere, trying to keep out of the rain and to keep an ear open for word that their number was ready to board. In the midst of all this wet confusion, I ran into Chester Johnson, whom I had flown into Vietnam with and had promised that we would meet on the way home a year later. A year had passed, and there we were, both still alive and getting darned wet.
In the middle of the night I was awakened by a great deal of noise coming from all around me. I had been sleeping under a deuce-and-a-half truck, and when I crawled out into the rain, I discovered that groups were being called to begin the process of boarding aircraft that were headed out. The next few hours were a bit confused, but eventually I found myself sitting in a jet airliner awaiting takeoff. It did not seem real. The plane was air-conditioned, and the cool air seemed much colder after the dampness and the heat outside. A set of earphones were hanging in the seat pocket just in front of me. I picked them up and placed them in my ears to find a glorious orchestrated version of “The Yellow Rose Of Texas” playing as we taxied down the runway and rose into the air. For a Texas boy, it was thrilling.
The plane rose sharply and then leveled off and flew a straight course for a few minutes. Then the intercom clicked on and the voice of the captain came through those terribly metallic-sounding speakers.
“Gentlemen, we have just cleared the airspace of the Republic of South Vietnam.”
The cheer that roared through the cabin was ear splitting. Oddly enough, I don't remember uttering a sound. My heart was beating too hard and fast. I looked about me and all I could see were the faces of very young men. Young faces that told varied stories. Some were hardened with the experience of combat. Some were tanned from the Asian sun. Some bore scars they would carry for a lifetime, but all glowed with elation to be going home.
The trip would take us to Japan, Wake Island, and Hawaii. After landing at Honolulu International Airport, our airplane developed a mechanical complaint that caused us all to be disembarked and herded into a baggage-check area inside the huge airport. There we were locked up like puppies in a pet store window. Since we were still refugees from a combat zone, and since we had not been cleared through US customs, we were kept away from the native population and the chance that one of us might just walk away, never to be seen again.
The baggage-claim area was a large room with glass walls, which allowed us to look out onto the passing civilian world with a great deal of longing. As I remember it, people walked by trying not to notice our suntanned faces as we stared at them, wide-eyed, through the transparent barrier. Couples carrying bags and bedecked with flowers slipped by, along with nubile females wearing nothing but bikinis who obviously noticed the stir they were causing and giggled to each other as our eyes tracked them. We were in this odd purgatory for a little better than three hours, watching what seemed like heaven pass by only inches away yet unable to partake of it.
Just when we were all beginning to think of making a mass jailbreak, an Air Force officer came in and explained that our plane would not be continuing the trip. He then began directing us into three groups. I have no idea what happened to the other two, but the group I was placed in boarded a commercial flight headed for San Francisco. As we walked down the aisle of the passenger jet to be seated in the rear, we could see the looks in the eyes of the civilians. It was hard to get a grip on. Some of the people were smiling and obviously glad to see us. Some simply would not look in our direction. One lady, assigned to an aisle seat, looked at me with tears streaming down her face. When she became aware that I was looking back, she covered her face and began sobbing, quietly. To this day I have no idea what she was thinking.
I realize now that we were getting an intimate preview of what we would encounter when we returned home. As the plane rose into the night skies over the Pacific and headed us on the last leg of the journey, we sat in uneasy anticipation of what we would find in the world we had left behind. It would be a changed world from what we had lived in, before the days of blood and uncertainty. Then again, maybe it was we who had changed.