Run Between the Raindrops (25 page)

In the morning, Willis is rapping to Philly Dog about the replacements as my guys surround Company Gunny who is handing out C-rations for a hurried breakfast. “Two ways of lookin’ at it, my man. Either they grunt up and do the deed or this gaggle of maggots is gonna get us all killed. That’s the motherfuckin’ gospel.”

There are dark clouds moving toward Hue but a swirling pink dawn gives me more sustenance than the ham and eggs chopped that comes with my meal. On a day that begins as beautifully as this one, combat seems like a sacrilege. Maybe the gooks will see that sky and decide it’s too pretty a day to be killing and dying. And maybe there’s a frog that’s gonna fly right out of my ass. Chances are about the same.

Dog and Willis are stripping unnecessary gear from the replacements, adding extra ammo and grenades to their load. Willis is sporting a couple of sutures on his lip that have totally destroyed his carefully groomed mustache line so he doesn’t have much to say. The former admin clerk in my squad is put to work with a notebook recording everyone’s name, service number, and blood type. He seems happy to be on familiar ground and I leave him to it when Lieutenant Longlegs calls the squad leaders into a briefing on the new day’s activities.

He’s exuberant and trying hard to infuse a little martial spirit into a clutch of beat-up, dog-tired grunts who just stare back at him slack-jawed. It amounts to the same thing we’ve been doing all along in Hue. Get on line and sweep through the structures on a long city block killing all and sundry in opposition to the move. We will have a tank and an Ontos moving just behind us, ready to come up as required.

Back at the assembly area, a line of corpsmen passes carrying stretchers full of wounded from another company that had a bad night. Four of them are struggling with a dead man wrapped in a poncho stained with congealed gore. Vets just stare openly at the familiar sight. The new guys try hard not to notice but they keep sneaking peeks from under their helmets as the evacuation party trundles by us. In the next couple of hours, any one of them could be the oozing lump inside a poncho just like that. Or they could be a little luckier and wind up like some of the other wounded in the passing parade, minus an arm or leg or simply shot full of holes. It’s not hard to read their thoughts. Ain’t that a hell of a deal? What a fucked up way to return to The World.
Code of the Grunt
: War is hell, dude, but combat is a motherfucker. Even the Purple Heart they give you is plastic. It don’t mean nothin’.

See, the dead ones are lucky in a lot of ways. Those that survive to reach the rear minus various body parts necessary to lead a normal life have got yet another war to fight. They’ll wind up back on the block in a country that hates their stupid guts for being wounded, a country that shudders and looks away from the stumps and glass eyes and prosthetics because they are reminders of a fucked-up, inconsequential, and ultimately meaningless war no sane or civilized person wants. Wounded warriors will always be an embarrassment to civilians and that’s a harder situation to handle than the combat that made them invalids in the first place. Lots will fight back by giving the gawkers and critics what they expect. They’ll be the war-crazed psycho-vets everyone expects them to be and have a hell of a time. Others will reject The World’s conventions and just hide out somewhere, grow beards and long hair, and howl at the moon from some patch of woods that reminds them of The Nam. No parades, no free beers, no nothing but pity which is worse than being ignored. There it is and thanks very much for your service.

Lieutenant Longlegs puts the vets on the flanks and assigns my guys to go up the middle through a block of houses. A few of the structures facing us are two story and I remind the replacements to keep looking up as we move. Gooks know the deadly effect of plunging fire on grunts caught in the open. The drill is to muster at some covered point near a house or building, advance a couple of guys under covering fire aimed at facing windows, and begin to clear room by room. And don’t go charging into dark rooms. Frag everything and then go in following the muzzle of your rifle.

New guys are nervous as cats, moving tentatively and way too slowly but we get through the first couple of houses with no problem. They are becoming more confident and more efficient as we pause in a terraced yard outside a low, rambling structure that looks like it might have been some sort of government office. There are South Vietnamese signs on the walls and a portrait of President Thieu prominently displayed on a bulletin board next to the door. We are spread out around the yard waiting for a resupply of grenades to come forward when my admin clerk turned rifleman points at the words painted above the main entryway:
Viet Nam Cong Hoa
. He wants to know what it means.

“Republic of Vietnam—South Vietnam.” There’s more that I recognize and I’m about to translate when it starts over to our right. We can hear the rattle of gook machineguns and the sharp crack of AKs mixed with the tinny pop of M-16s and the thump of blooper rounds responding. Philly Dog’s outfit is in it deep over there. He’s screaming for more fire. There’s no mistaking that booming voice and colorful profanity. Everyone in our area scrunches around behind cover to orient themselves on the fight. The tank that’s been following up the broad street on the right cranks into action and we hear the boom of its .50 caliber adding to the din. At our rear, about half a block away and idling in a cloud of exhaust fumes, is the Ontos with its six side-mounted 106mm recoilless rifles pointed right at our backs. The vehicle commander is up in the turret facing in the direction of the fight but he’s making no move to head over there.

The fight on the right is just a minute or two old when it starts for us. An NVA machinegun team suddenly appears in a window and sends a long, rattling burst over our heads. There are two or three other shooters firing at us, but I can’t see their positions from flat on the ground behind a row of concrete planters. Right beside me is Admin Clerk who wants to know what we should do now. No telling if gook machinegunner and his buddies have hit anyone as yet. We were all behind fairly good cover when the shooting started. These gooks were a little slow off the mark. If they’d opened up when we first got to the building, we’d all be dead. Likely they were waiting for their buddies over on the right to kick off what looks and sounds like an ambush all along our route of advance. There’s no radio to tell me what’s happening but we can hear more firefighting on our left over where Lieutenant Longlegs is running the show.

From behind a nearby gazebo, a couple of M-16s cut loose so at least of couple of my guys are in the fight. Admin Clerk takes the cue, pokes his rifle between the planters, and begins to blaze away at the shooters in the building. What we need is that Ontos to get up here with those 106s. He’s still back there behind us and making no move to close the distance. What the fuck is he doing? He’s got to be able to see we’re in a tight up here.

Admin Clerk rolls over to reach for a fresh magazine and there are the two smoke grenades that I hung on his webbing before we stepped off into this basket of shit. Snatching both of them off his harness, I tell him to keep firing at any muzzle flash he sees. It’s about 30 meters from where we are to the front of the building, no wind to speak of and a full-charge of adrenaline to back my play, so both of the smoke grenades rattle around on the porch of the structure before they erupt in a mixed yellow and purple cloud. We can’t see shit and neither can the gook shooters, but they keep blazing away at us through that colorful, slowly drifting screen. Yelling uselessly for everyone to stay where they are, I take off running toward the Ontos, waving my arms and trying to get the commander’s attention. He sees me sprinting toward him like a lunatic and swivels his .30 caliber machinegun in my direction.

The wide-eyed driver slams his hatch shut which gives me a foothold and I’m up shouting at the commander’s helmeted head in two quick bounds. He pulls the helmet away from his ears so he can hear me over the radio chatter and listens while I shout for him to get up forward and blow a few holes in our disputed building. He shouts back something about RPGs or B-40 rockets. Apparently, the Ontos is particularly vulnerable, much more so than a tank, and he’s worried that the gooks might ambush him with anti-tank rockets.

Just the one machinegun and a couple of AKs, I tell him and wait a long moment while he mumbles into the lip mic on his helmet. The vehicle lurches into gear and begins a rapid run up toward where my squad is pinned down. There’s just time for me to get off the damn thing and run around to the rear away from the rounds that are already beginning to splat and spin off its frontal armor. These Ontos are light and fast, so the vehicle outruns me rapidly and I’m pumping along trying to catch up when it stops and grinds around on the right track bringing the six recoilless rifle tubes to bear directly on target. He’ll be firing in a moment and the last place you want to be is near the ass end of one or more 106’s. An Ontos firing a salvo from all six tubes can take down small buildings with a storm of vicious back-blast.

He fires two from the top rack and the rounds blow sizeable chunks out of the building’s concrete façade. From a doorway off to the side of the Ontos I can see two NVA sprinting out of the building. Admin Clerk takes both of them down neatly with four rounds from his rifle. The Ontos grinds a little bit more on one track, shifting aim and there’s two of my new guys sprinting out of cover and headed for protection behind the vehicle. The commander is buttoned up so he can’t see the two men running at his vehicle from the side. Screaming for them to stop and get down, I step out of the doorway and wave my arms. One of them gets the message. The other man, one of the heavy-equipment mechanics who probably ought to know better, doesn’t. He’s right behind the Ontos when the gunner fires two more 106 rounds. Back-blast slams into him like a hurricane, blowing off his helmet and most of his equipment, and sending him bowling down the street like a spastic ragdoll.

There’s no further fire from the objective building that I can hear or see. The Ontos is slowly backing away up the street. Lieutenant Longlegs and a Corpsman are sprinting toward the back-blast casualty. He’s out of it and peppered with debris but still breathing. All the skin we can see through his ripped uniform is scratched and oozing blood but that’s just topical. The Doc is more worried about the blood showing in his ears. He won’t be hearing much soon—if ever—through those. Doc wants assistance carrying him and I call for the other dumb-shit who narrowly escaped the back-blast. They hustle the unconscious mechanic toward the rear.

Longlegs wants to know what happened. When he hears my brief, he confirms what is becoming obvious. The gooks are standing fast along the line where they triggered the ambushes that hit us in the center and on both flanks. They aren’t going anywhere without a major fight. He tells me to finish up with the building, give it a thorough sweep, and then pull back about half a block. Battalion is going to call in the arty to put some serious dents in the gook line.

Most of what’s left of four NVA inside the building is bits and pieces. The 106 rounds did a job on everyone and everything inside and the cool interior reeks of cordite and fresh blood. There are three little offices off a main passageway but all of them are empty except for a stash of spare AK ammo and some B-40 rocket rounds. There’s no launcher in sight which is great good luck for the Ontos that blew away this hard-point. Outside two new guys are pulling a pair of dead NVA out of some spider holes. One of the newbies has an SKS carbine slung over his back. Legit war trophy and honestly earned if he blew away one or both of the gooks sprawled in the yard. Admin Clerk is still kneeling behind the planters and watching wide-eyed.

“Let’s go!” Admin Clerk turns to me with a puzzled expression on his face. “Check that alley on the other side of the building and then get back here. We’re pulling back.”

Turning to help my two newly minted killers check the gook bodies, I see Admin Clerk follow his muzzle toward the alleyway. He strolls right in front of a small basement window right down at ground level without looking. That’s a bad move and I’m about to let him know that when a burst of fire cuts Admin Clerk’s legs out from under him. Everyone scatters for cover while I curse myself for being stupid. The place clearly has a basement or subterranean crawlway and there’s at least one survivor in there. Either I didn’t notice or ignored it in the excitement with the Ontos.

Admin Clerk is trying to crawl away and the NVA muzzle tracks him waiting for a kill shot. Emptying a magazine to distract the shooter, I grab a grenade and sprint to the side of that window. It’s quiet after the grenade goes but I’m not interested in the results. There’s no more fire, so we pick up Admin Clerk, put him on a door we rip off the building, and hustle him to the rear.

By the time we reach the rally point, high explosive rounds are tearing up the block we just left. Delta has stationed some sharpshooters on nearby rooftops. They are having a field day whacking gooks running into the streets to escape the artillery.

Old Home Week

Delta remains in reserve as three other rifle companies hammer away at enemy hard-points and pockets of resistance in the northern parts of the Citadel. Lieutenant Longlegs says it won’t be long before they’ve got the area secured. ARVN units are filtering in behind our sweeps to hold what’s re-taken. When the situation meets everyone’s satisfaction, we turn around and head south in the direction of the palace compound. It’s what will amount to a last big push. The Vietnamese Marines have got the place nearly surrounded and all that irritating amplified jabber we hear echoing through the city streets is ARVN psyops people trying to talk the remaining defenders into surrendering. There’s been enough damage to this cultural icon and the GVN wants to see if they can avoid turning the Imperial Palace into just another pile of ancient rubble.

Listening to the loudspeakers blare one drizzly night, two old friends suddenly appear in Hue asking for me. Lieutenant Longlegs leads them over to the little parlor where I’ve set up housekeeping with the four New Guys remaining in the third squad. And suddenly we are seven with the addition of Doc Toothpick and Reb the Southerner. Last time I saw the lanky redneck from the Florida Panhandle, he had just talked himself into a cushy job as an assistant supply clerk at a compound down near Liberty Bridge. It was just after they’d given him a Silver Star and a third Purple Heart, an epic story which I wrote up for his hometown newspaper.