I drew orders out of parachute school to the 82d Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Clerks checked my GT aptitude scores. You had to have a minimum GT of 115 to become a parachute rigger while 110 got you into Officer Candidate School. Riggers had to be smarter than officers. My GT was 122.
“Alexander, Ronald? You want to go to rigger school and learn how to pack parachutes?”
I hesitated. “What are my options?”
The clerk shrugged. It was no hair off his balls either way. “You can stay with the company and walk in the woods, mud and rain and eat C-rats. Or you can be a parachute rigger and work normal hours in an air-conditioned building. You get a chow break and two coffee breaks a day. Come four o’clock, you’re off-duty.”
What a deal. Sign me up. I had this man’s army dicked.
By the time I returned to the 82d as an honor graduate rigger, the rumble and black clouds of Vietnam on the horizon were drawing nearer. LBJ had not yet sent combat troops, but a lot of rumors were floating around. Since the 82d was a reaction force, trained to drop our socks, grab our cocks and be ready to go when the balloon went up, we expected to be the first on line. By April 1965 I could at least pick out Vietnam on the map.
The 82d was always on alert. You were either IRF or RRF. The IRF, Immediate Reaction Force, had to be ready to go immediately, your shit already packed in one rucksack. The RRF, Ready Reaction Force, had two or three days to get ready. On a warm spring evening in April, a bunch of the guys and I were hanging around the barracks bullshitting in our skivvies just before taps and lights out. We were on IRF and confined to quarters. The NCO on duty at HQ burst in like somebody had stuck a rocket up his butt.
“This is an alert!” he shouted. “This ain’t no drill!”
War? We were going to war? Where were we going to war at?
“How the hell should I know?” the NCO snapped.
“Vietnam? Is it Vietnam?”
“All I know is this is the real thing. Grab your cocks and socks and draw your M16s. Transportation is waiting outside. Double time, troopers!”
Nothing like a little This is the real thing! to poke a stick down your anthill.
In the event of an action, parachute riggers bailed out with the assault force to recover ‘chutes and equipment. Ten IRF riggers with Staff Sergeant Johnston in charge drew our M16 rifles and were helmeted, rucked-up and climbing into the back of a truck within a few minutes. Although it was near the middle of the night, Smoke Bomb Hill at Fort Bragg blazed with enough energy, electrical and otherwise, to power the entire state of North Carolina. Soldiers and vehicles filled with soldiers rushed madly about. Trucks loaded with artillery, ammunition, and other supplies rumbled toward Pope Airfield, the martialing area. A single question rocketed back and forth. It became a standard inquiry. Where are we going?
Damn. I didn’t know war happened this fast. But, damn, wasn’t it exciting for a nineteen-year-old American boy to be part of something like this? Getting out of it never even occurred to me. I wanted in.
The airfield was lit up from one end to the other. C-130 Hercules aircraft parked noses to tails lined the ramps, APUs already hooked up to them and ready to start cranking their engines. Pallets laden with materiel formed mazes, down which blunt-nosed forklifts scurried like cockroaches, moving stuff here and there and poking other stuff up the open rear ramps of the C-130s.
If you were nothing but a lowly grunt, one of the privates, you never saw the Big Picture of what was going on. You simply followed orders. Go there, do this, get that You bitched about it, naturally, because as an enlisted man you doubted the colonels and generals knew what they were doing. You still did what you were ordered to do. That this was the real thing took some of the edge off the chickenshit. That it was the real thing became even more clear when trucks drove up and issued parachutes and live ammo and grenades. It was a little sobering, what with the initial excitement wearing off.
“What do you think, Shorty?” a buddy asked.
“I think we’re gonna win combat jump wings.”
“It can’t be Vietnam. They wouldn’t be issuing us ammo and parachutes now. Maybe it’s a race riot.”
“They wouldn’t send out a whole brigade for a riot.”
Sergeants with their jaws stuck out and their shoulders hunched stalked around shouting, like they were afraid of being shouted at by officers unless they shouted at us first.
“Okay, people. Get a move on. Draw your ‘chutes and gear. Goddamnit, people. This ain’t no fucking tea party, ladies. Get your asses moving. Formation in front of the big hangar in ten minutes.”
Somehow, even though the colonels and generals didn’t know what they were doing, the entire brigade formed up in battalions and companies on the ramp in front of the hangar. Every swinging dick was helmeted and rucked and loaded down with weapons and ammo and parachutes still in kit bags. Everyone went silent. Silent and so tense you couldn’t have driven a hat pin up an asshole with a sledgehammer.
The brigade commander climbed up on a forklift to address the troops. The scuffing of his boots echoed against the front of the hangar. Floodlights behind chased his shadow across the formation. Out on the ramps, APUs shot juice to the C-130s. Props started to turn.
“Men,” roared the commander in his best leader’s voice, “our destination is Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic—”
“Where the hell is Santo Domingo?” the trooper next to me whispered.
“Weren’t you listening?” I shot back. “It’s in the Dominican Republic.”
“At ease!” sergeants yelled to quell the muttering in ranks. “At ease!”
The commander stared directly at us as he continued.
“Rebel forces supported by Communists have captured strongholds in the city and are attempting to overthrow the duly constituted government. The Eighty-second Airborne, the All American Division, is tasked with taking them out of there—and, men, that’s what we’re going to do. We start right now. We’re skying-up immediately. You can rig parachutes en route. We will combat jump onto the Santo Domingo Airport, which we believe is being held by rebels. You’ll receive your briefings and combat orders from your subordinate leaders. Okay, men. We have a job to do. Let’s go do it . . . !”