Rick looked me over and said, “Here, put my poncho on. That outfit is like wearing a sign that says, ‘Shoot me, I’m from New York.’”
Rick was more bulked up than when I saw him last, having engaged in dozens of combat missions already. He had political ties back home that could have gotten him a desk job, but he hadn’t pulled any of them.
By now, it was twilight. I was looking around for a small building, anything—but there was nothing. I had no idea where we were headed, and it didn’t feel good.
We went out beyond the perimeter. Picture a large circle, with all the troops inside. There was no fence. About two hundred yards out, on the forward perimeter, were a dozen or so guys. They would sit out there all night as lookouts, so that if anybody was coming in to attack, they would hit them first.
When we arrived at the forward perimeter, one of the GIs appeared taken aback. “Who the hell is this?” he asked.
“Believe it or not,” said Rick, “he’s from my neighborhood.”
They looked at each other, then back at me, and then another soldier said, “Wait a minute—you’re telling me you don’t have to be here, and you’re here?!”
“You mean, did he recently escape from the asylum?” Rick said. “No, he just came to show us support.”
They looked at one another again.
“Better yet, he brought us some beer,” Rick added.
“Yeah!” more than one of them said.
“That’s the good news. The bad news is you can’t have it on ambush patrol. You have to wait till tomorrow. And that’s an order.”
They accepted it without a peep.
The GIs were peppering me with questions about what was going on back home. Is Vince Lombardi really going to retire from coaching football? How short are the girls’ skirts now? Do you think they’ll have another Summer of Love this year? Are people still rioting? Are they still protesting? Did the Airplane come out with another album? Does everybody have a color TV now? Have you gotten to drive a Mustang? And, the big one: Do you think the war will be over soon?
I answered as best I could.
The stories went on past dark. They were telling us tales from wherever they called home, everything from two-headed sheep, to sharks biting surfboards, to low-rider cars, and we were telling them stories about New York City.
“Is it really true what Sergeant Duggan told us: that a guy in your neighborhood drove his Volkswagen into a bar and then out the side doors?”
“It was a bar-restaurant and yep, it’s true. Pete McGee—through Bickford’s, where they have swinging double doors on two sides. He got breakfast to go.”
“Is it true that you guys would dive off ninety-foot cliffs in some city river, and you’d have to swim home fast or else get caught in the sewage when they released it right into the river?”
“Spuyten Duyvil Creek, yep.”
“Wow,” said the kid. “Sergeant Duggan, no disrespect, but we were always skeptical of your stories before. We believe you now.” I think, for a few minutes, they forgot they were in the middle of a war.
At this point, I was pretty exhausted. “Where do I sleep?” I asked Rick.
“In the foxhole, with me and him,” Rick answered, indicating one of the younger GIs. “We sleep on the ground.”
The other GIs split up into groups and hopped into various foxholes.
One guy had an air mattress in his pack that he blew up for me, which I really appreciated. Then another guy, from Detroit, handed me a .45 pistol.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Well, if we’re overrun, try to use it on the enemy—or, if you have to, yourself,” the guy said. “Use your judgment.”
Great! Use my judgment. I gave it back. I was four years out of the marines, and I was more afraid of shooting one of the soldiers. I was shot once, by accident, when my friend Foxy Moran and I were teenagers and fighting over a rifle in the park, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
But now the guy had awakened me to the reality around us, and as they decided who would take turns sleeping for a couple of hours, I couldn’t even close my eyes. Rick got the first turn, and I asked, “How the hell are you going to be able to fall asleep?”
“Well, when it’s your turn to sleep, you have to sleep, period,” Rick explained. “You hike seven, eight miles a day through thick jungle, and then you dig a foxhole, and come nighttime, you’ve got to sleep. Because there’s nothing between you and the enemy but mosquitoes. And leeches. And the monsoon.”
The other guys chuckled, but within a couple of minutes, Rick was there on the ground, out like a light. But I was up like an owl.