Guns Up! (3 page)

“Saddle up!”

My stomach jumped up to my throat. This was it, not a daydream. I was really going into battle. Half of me wanted to get into this war and get it over with. The other half wanted my mommy to wake me up for school before this dream got carried away.

Ten minutes later I found myself in the back of a deuce-and-a-half truck bouncing up Highway 1 toward Hue. I didn’t even remember getting in the truck. “Are you all right?” The voice was coming out of a fog. “John, are you okay?” It was Chan.

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

Red was sleeping against the tailgate. It was good to see him. I’d only known the guy for a couple of days, and I was hard-pressed to squeeze more than a sentence at a time out of him, but he radiated self-confidence, and some special quality in him, possibly his honesty, made me trust him immediately.

The ride down Highway 1 was slow and bumpy. We passed another deuce-and-a-half that had been pushed to the side of the road. Its cab stuck into the air, and the front wheels lay mangled nearby.

The ride got slower. Two huge American tanks appeared from somewhere to lead the convoy. A strange-looking vehicle pulled out from a smaller dirt road and was now bringing up the rear.

“Chan, what’s that?” I pointed to the odd-looking vehicle. It had the bottom of a tank, but instead of a turret it had six big cannons, three on each side.

“That’s an Ontos. A tank killer. Those are six 106s.”

“That thing could knock out this whole convoy!”

Chan looked at me with a friendly look of disdain. “Brilliant, Sherlock.”

I did sound a bit “Gee-whiz,” but emotions I had never known were bouncing around from my brain to my stomach. My body tingled. I felt overwhelmed with expectation. I felt exhilaration like never before, then paranoia, then excited again. This is crazy, I had to keep telling myself. I have to control myself or I’m going to get killed for sure.

I thought I heard artillery. A flight of Phantom fighter planes roared over our truck just above treetop level. Now the sounds of war echoed more clearly. My hands were clammy. My mouth tasted like vinegar. A skinny Marine sitting close to Red knocked on his helmet. Red peered from underneath the helmet with one groggy eye. The other eye remained closed.

“Yeah?”

The skinny guy hesitated then blurted out, “What’s it like?”

“It’s a job.”

“How bad is Hue?” asked another Marine. “I heard we’re takin’ heavy casualties.”

Red pulled out a cigarette, then took his helmet off and removed a pack of matches from inside the liner straps. He looked like a Marlboro poster.

“If you want to keep anything dry you better put it in your helmet right now.” The men started fumbling for their wallets. Chan and I had already done that. “Don’t
worry about Hue. Just don’t go playing John Wayne. The battle is just about over. I heard we’re getting bridge duty.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“We guard the bridges on Highway 1.”

“Is it bad?” blurted the skinny guy.

“It’s skate duty. Slack city. You don’t have to hump through the bush except for a few patrols, and sometimes you get beer or Cokes off the trucks going by. Take advantage of it, man. It won’t last long. You’ll know what war is when you start humping thirty klicks a day in the bush with two hours’ sleep a night.”

“What’s a klick?” a Marine beside me asked, already squinting like he was afraid of the answer.

“One klick is a thousand meters. It’s for calling in artillery.”

The men moved in closer to Red, hoping for that one piece of advice that might keep them alive. Everyone started asking questions at once. He held up one hand to stop the onslaught.

“Now listen up. The smartest thing each of you can do is this: When you get to your squad, find a salt, somebody who’s been here awhile. Ask him what you have to know, stick with him, and do what he says. Keep that M16 clean or it’ll jam on ya. If you fall asleep on line, one of your own men might kill you and you’ll deserve it.”

Twenty questions later we pulled off the road on the outskirts of the city. Sporadic gunfire echoed from somewhere up ahead. An old gunnery sergeant ran by our truck shouting, “Get off those trucks and spread out! Move it! Move it!”

The trucks turned around and headed for Phu Bai as soon as we were out. The gunny shouted us into two columns, one on each side of the road, with a ten-yard interval between each man. Then he spotted Red. “Red, is that you? It’s good to see you. Boy, do we need a gunner.” He walked over to Red, turned his head, and spit out a shot of tobacco like a major leaguer. They
shook hands. The gunny lowered his voice to say something only Red was supposed to hear. I heard two words too many: “…   got killed.” The butt of a pump shotgun rested on the gunny’s hip. He wore special bandoliers full of shotgun shells, and small leather pouches full of more shells on his cartridge belt. He looked like my grandpa coming back from a hunting trip in West Virginia. He even spit like Grandpa. I didn’t know the Marine Corps allowed men to carry any weapon other than Marine Corps issue.

Red followed the gunny to the front of the column, then we started a slow nervous walk down the dirt road. Sweat poured down me like a sticky shower, but a cool breeze blew over my face. Twenty meters later the breeze blew a sickening, rotting odor into my nose. I had the uneasy feeling I had just smelled my first corpse.

Two hundred meters and a thousand horrible imaginings later we came to a small bamboo hootch. The hut turned out to be battalion headquarters. A quick roll call and we were sent to our respective platoons. I still couldn’t see the city, but the steady pounding of heavy machine guns rang closer. Black smoke billowed above the treetops and into the gray sky, then an explosion. A Phantom whisked by.

Chan and I followed Red down a well-trodden path with heavy brush on both sides. We came to a small clearing and another hootch. A group of tired, dirty men stood near the grass and plywood huts sipping coffee out of C-ration cans. A tall, lanky character spotted Red first. His pitted face opened into a wide, ugly smile as he ran up with his hand out. He smelled worse than he looked.

“You big mother!” He shook Red’s hand and slapped him on the back. “Man, you missed some real heavy crap. How was the hospital? Get any Red Cross girls?”

“It’s good to see ya, Sam.”

“I thought I heard you out here.” A young officer who
looked as if he were just out of college stood grinning in the door of the hootch.

“How’ve you been, Lieutenant?” Red gave a casual salute.

“A lot better now.” The lieutenant came forward with his hand out. They exchanged a quick, firm handshake.

“Who do you have with you?” the lieutenant looked at me.

“Boots,” said Red. “0331s.”

“Outstanding! Sam, take Red and these two down to the chief’s squad.”

We turned to follow the ugly Sam. I noticed something pinned to his camouflaged helmet cover. Whatever it was, it was covered with flies. I moved closer to get a better look. It was an ear. A human ear. It looked brittle and baked grayish green from the sun. I wanted to ask him about it, but I hesitated, trying to remember his name.

“Sam,” I said. Before I got another word out, the lieutenant started speaking.

“And Red, send that stupid mortar man back to mortars before he kills himself with the gun. Break in the boots. They’re your new gun team.”

“Sam,” I said again. “Is that an ear pinned to your helmet?”

“Yeah, man. I used to have more, but they drew too many flies. I saved this one to suck on. Want a lick?”

I laughed. “No thanks.”

“Well, I do.” He took his helmet off and unpinned the ear, then stuck it in his mouth and sucked on it like a lollipop. I don’t know what my face looked like, but my mouth had no response. Even Chan was left speechless.

Sam led us down a narrow path for about two hundred meters when a driving rainstorm hit us with the monsoon fury we’d been told about. When we reached the squad, the men were relaxing in a muddy circle behind the remains of a cement wall and making no effort to stay dry. Faces seemed to light up as they recognized
Red, and the most excited one belonged to a short, rather chunky Marine with “
DON’T SHOOT I’M NOT A GRUNT
” printed on his helmet and flak jacket.

When Red said he was taking over the gun, the fat little man actually jumped into the air and clicked his heels. “Take this bull’s-eye off my back. I’m going back to mortars, baby!” With that, he threw on his pack and disappeared without so much as a goodbye or good luck.

My stomach tightened. The situation looked worse every time somebody opened their mouth. Suddenly a machine gun opened up from the city. I hit the ground with a splash. When I opened my eyes I discovered Chan and I were the only ones ducking. The rest of the squad stood looking over the cement wall and laughing.

I stood up cautiously and peered over the wall. Running down the street directly to my front was a black Marine. He weaved back and forth, trying to present a difficult target, but that wasn’t what was funny. He was pushing a small Honda motorcycle while balancing a television set on the seat. The machine gun opened up again. It sounded bigger, slower, and more powerful than the M60.

“Chief!” Red shouted. “That’s a fifty! I thought the city was cleaned up?”

“You thought wrong,” a deep voice answered. It belonged to a tall, dark-skinned corporal with a nose like a Roman’s and a chin that looked like it had been cast from iron. Though the closest I’d ever been to a real Indian was Tonto, even I could tell that this guy was the real thing. He was the only one not laughing. “There’s still a couple of fifties left. They chained ’em to walls so they couldn’t run. They’re too doped up to surrender.” The big Indian looked bored.

The black Marine reached the cover of the cement wall, gasping for air and grinning an utterly happy grin. He hung on to the TV like it was a kid he had just rescued from a fire. He crumpled to the ground still smiling.
No one noticed the lieutenant until he slid in like he was stealing third base. He looked at the black Marine as if he’d never seen him before. His mouth opened to speak, but the words weren’t forming very well.

“Jackson! Where do you think you are, Marine! This ain’t no riot in Watts!”

“Spoils of war, Lieutenant.” Jackson’s big smile was catching. Just looking at him made me grin too.

“The guy who owned the store was dead anyway, Lieutenant. Would you mind keeping this stuff for me till we go back to Phu Bai so I can mail it home?” The lieutenant looked horrified.

“And look at this!” Jackson lifted his chin, revealing a vicious-looking green rubber snake with bloody teeth that clamped onto Jackson’s shirt like a clothespin.

“Drop that garbage and saddle up. We’re moving out in ten minutes.”

“What?” the Indian corporal asked.

“That’s right, Chief.”

“Why?”

“To preserve the honor of the South Vietnamese we’re pulling out so they can mop up. Saddle up! We got choppers on the way.”

An hour later I jumped off a troop helicopter in Phu Bai. The base looked strangely different this time, no longer dangerous and foreign, but actually safe.

Early the next morning the whole company was bouncing down Highway 1 away from Hue City. We reached the first bridge in twenty-five minutes. The convoy stopped. The first platoon was shouted out of the last two trucks in the column.

The rest of the convoy started up again. A mile down the road we came to a stop at a large old steel bridge that was painted black. It looked like an old suspension bridge for trains, but it was strictly for road traffic. It stretched across a wide jungle river that was reddish
black from decaying leaves that swirled near its surface and lay in piles on its bed. Rolls of barbed wire encircled the bridge, and thick, five-foot-high sandbag bunkers guarded each end. Another sandbag bunker sat on a huge cement piling that supported the center of the bridge.

The big Indian corporal jumped out of our truck and started shouting, “Truoi Bridge! Second Platoon, get out! Move it! Move it! Hurry up, you’re makin’ a great target!” We lined up in formation in front of a rusting old tank with a French emblem on the turret. Twenty yards to the right of the tank stood a three-story sandbag bunker with the barrel of a .30-caliber machine gun sticking out near the top.

Just to the left of the bridge and behind the three-story bunker sat five small white cement-block buildings with tin roofs. Directly in front of us on the other side of the road was a long cement-block building riddled with bullet holes. Vietnamese children ran around it, screaming like normal kids in a playground. Thirty meters to the right of that building was a huge camouflaged parachute spread fully open and tied to three trees. Under the parachute, sheltered from the murderous sun, sat twelve Marines. Some were playing cards; others were sleeping.

“Who are they?” I asked Red.

“That’s a Civil Action Patrol unit. CAP, they’re called. They work with the villagers. They try to keep ’em on our side, protect their rice, and give ’em medical aid.”

On the south end of the bridge was a long village that paralleled the river for as far as I could see. ARVNs (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) walked in and out of the white block buildings. Most of them didn’t carry weapons. The lieutenant stood at the door of the smallest block building talking to an ARVN major. The major first pointed to the largest of the buildings, then pointed at us. They exchanged salutes, and the lieutenant strode over to us.

“Listen up!”

Chan and I were the only two who did. The rest of the platoon kept chattering. Then the big Indian said the same thing, only different: “Shut up!” The chatter stopped. “Okay, Lieutenant.”

“We’re spending the night in the ARVN compound.” He pointed to the nearest and largest of the tin-roofed buildings. “The ARVNs are standing lines tonight so we can get some sleep. If we’re lucky, we will probably be here for a couple of weeks. Go ahead and stow your gear.” He turned to the Indian corporal. “Swift Eagle, I want a guard on the gear so our ARVNs don’t pick something up by mistake.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed!”