Sand in the Wind (65 page)

Those men closest backed away, and others approached until Trippitt and the squad leader were completely encircled. The squad leader was discernibly shaken, but he stared directly at Trippitt as he answered, “We were coming in from our ambush.”

Trippitt and everyone else knew this was a lie. Being lied to would have easily been enough to anger Trippitt, but having this happen in front of the whole company enraged him. “
Bullshit!
What do you take me for?” he screamed, his face within inches of the squad leader’s. “Since when do you start back from an ambush without radioing in?” The squad leader remained silent, but he continued glaring back at Trippitt. “You were sandbagging, weren’t you?” Again the squad leader remained silent. “You chickenshit motherfucker, you were sandbagging,
weren’t you?
”

The squad leader moved his head in short, nervous jerks as he glanced warily around him. Tears of rage came to his eyes. He started backing away from Trippitt, at the same time screaming in anger and fear, “You’re damn right we sandbagged, and it was
my
fucking idea!” He continued to back up as Trippitt advanced on him. “How many of us do you want to kill with your fucking ambushes? When the colonel’s around you don’t send us all over the Arizona.”

“Shut up!” Trippitt hissed through gritted teeth.

The circle around them enlarged as Trippitt continued advancing on the squad leader, who wouldn’t shut up, but screamed back instead, “How many more of my friends wouldn’t be dead if they’d sandbagged? You
killed
them! You killed them just as sure as if you’d used a gun. You and the rest of the CP lying around while we kill ourselves. Go on your own fucking ambushes. They’re my men. I’m protecting ’em from you, you
cocksucking
lifer!”

The squad leader stopped back-stepping and gained control of himself. Trippitt continued to advance on him until they were chest to chest and Trippitt screamed, saliva spurting from his mouth, “You chickenshit motherfucker, you call yourself a
Marine?"
The squad leader shoved Trippitt back. Within seconds they were both on the ground with Trippitt’s hands around the squad leader’s neck. Sugar Bear reached them first, and with Tony 5’s help he pulled Trippitt off and flung him back. The squad leader scrambled to his feet, but now Sugar Bear, Tony 5, and a few other men stood between them, glaring at Trippitt. This stunned him for a second, but he quickly turned to the company radioman and shouted, “Get me a chopper! Tell them we’ve got a prisoner.” Trippitt turned back towards the squad leader who was still blocked from his view. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m gonna see you in the brig. You’re under arrest for cowardice under fire and assaulting an officer.
  
.
 
.
 
. Somebody bring me his rifle.”

No one moved. Trippitt quickly turned and walked away, knowing by the silence that all eyes were glaring at his back. The squad leader, his head hanging down, started to walk away. The men moved with him, some of them placing their hands on his shoulders, their voices saying, “Don’t sweat it, man. They can’t do shit to you.”

“That took guts.”

“I’m a squad leader and I sandbag. They’ll have to court-martial all of us.”

“Hey man, take it easy. You’re the closest thing to a hero we’ve got in this company.”

It was over an hour before the helicopter arrived. Almost every man in the company gathered around it and stood watching as the squad leader from First Platoon went aboard. Trippitt immediately gave the order to form up. Within minutes they were marching to their new camp. The pace was unusually slow, and the condition of the men’s feet wasn’t the only reason. Each slow step frustrated Trippitt. Only by clenching his teeth was he able to keep from yelling the order to speed up. His memory assaulted him with all the absurd orders he’d ever had to follow, all the bastards that had owned him because they’d had one more stripe on their arms. But that was the idea — the reason the Marine Corps was something different — larger than anyone in it and all of them put together — being able to take it — keeping your mouth shut and doing what you were told. Ten years he had taken all the shit without ever regretting it; but these brats had to be different, thinking they’re gonna change the system, turn the Marine Corps into the Cub Scouts. In his frustrated rage, Trippitt bumped into the man in front of him and immediately yelled, “
Speed it up!
” Teeth clenched, he waited for his order to be followed, finally yelling again, and one more time. But the pace remained the same. It was happening. He was losing control of his men. Rage and disbelief confused his thoughts as he pondered what to do, realizing his career, possibly his life was now at stake.

The company finally reached the irregularly shaped patch of high ground that was to be its camp. As Martin walked around to survey the area, he was startled by the sight of a small puppy’s head sticking out of the pouch on a soldier’s pack. “Hey, you!” he called out in anger and disbelief. A number of soldiers turned towards him, but Roads wasn’t one of them. Martin’s voice became louder and angrier. “
Hey
you with the dog—” Again Roads failed to turn around. Martin circled in front of Roads and stood face to face with him only to be met by an impassive yet belligerent stare. “Are you deaf?”

Roads answered with calm insolence, “
 
‘Hey you’ isn’t my name. It’s Roads, Lance Corporal Roads.”

Martin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Oh, is that right? Well let me tell you something,
Lance Corporal Roads:
This is a rifle company, not a
pet show.
See that you get rid of that dog or I’ll do it for you.” Before Martin could walk away, Roads turned his back on him and Martin again found himself exchanging stares with the puppy.

As soon as Martin had arranged the positions, he began looking for Trippitt, all the while mumbling incoherently. He couldn’t believe what was happening — this was nothing like Korea. He’d noticed the difference immediately after arriving in Vietnam, and had become increasingly perplexed by it. These weren’t Marines. They were a bunch of wise-ass punks. They had no pride in the Marine Corps, acted as if they’d been tricked into joining — no respect for the finest, proudest organization there was,
his
Marine Corps, the only meaningful thing in a world full of bullshit; and they were trying to destroy it. Someday they’d be sorry — when they got back to the States and found themselves walking around in civilian clothes — feeling like nobodies. Then they’d remember what it was like to be a Marine. He didn’t demand that they love the Marine Corps. That was too much to ask of the punks. But they didn’t even respect it, take pride in it. They tried to make a joke of it — right in front of him. They wanted to destroy the only meaningful thing in his life.

Martin was even more unnerved by the time he reached Trippitt, ‘sitting on his ass, doing nothing.’ It took all his self-control not to shout with outraged and indiscriminate anger the agitated warning that he finally issued from between clenched teeth. “We’ve got to do something fast.”

Trippitt knew exactly what Martin meant. “Yeah, but what?”

“Something, we gotta do something before this gets out of hand.” Trippitt was more puzzled by what was happening than by what he should do about it. “I don’t understand it. You try and go by the book — I was an enlisted man just like them,
nine years.
I’m not one of those college jerks just out of OCS. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Sure it does. That’s just it. We can’t run this company by ourselves. How we gonna control the men when all we’ve got for platoon commanders is a bunch of college clowns? The only decent one is Forest, and he’s as dumb as any of ’em.
  
.
 
.
 
. There’s no discipline!”

Martin hadn’t told him anything he didn’t already know. “Yeah, but what am I supposed to do about it? I tried to treat them like men.”

“That’s just it. You can’t do that anymore. They don’t even
act
like Marines!”

“It ain’t their guts. I’ve seen them in action.”

“Sure it isn’t. But they don’t know how to take orders. There’s no
discipline!
Just look at them. Some of them haven’t shaved in a week. Look at their hair.”

“It isn’t what they look like.”

“I
know
that,” Martin insisted. “They think they’re too smart. Their heads are so full of ideas, they can’t even
hear
orders.”

“Maybe it’s this war. They don’t realize how many people’d give their left nut to be in a war.”

“That’s not it! There’s no more discipline.
  
.
 
.
 
. Maybe if they looked like Marines, they’d act like them too.”

Trippitt realized it was more than this, but he wasn’t sure what. “I don’t know. It’s for their own good. How we gonna get through to them?”

“Not through their platoon commanders. That’s for sure.”

“Maybe if I talked to them,” Trippitt said without conviction. He’d always felt at a disadvantage when he had to rely on words, and speaking directly to his men seemed something he shouldn’t have to do. ‘What’s the chain of command for?’ he asked himself.

Martin found the idea of Trippitt talking to the men ridiculous, but refrained from telling him so. “Yeah, maybe; but we’ve got to do more. You can’t instill discipline with words. Let’s get them to look like Marines first —
have an inspection!
”

“An inspection,
here?
”

“Well
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
we’ve gotta do something.”

Trippitt realized this was true, but he was still at a loss about what that something should be. After a long pause, he finally said, “I’ll talk to them.” Word was quickly passed for the men to form up at the center of the perimeter. They milled around like a disorganized mob while Trippitt watched from a distance. This irritated him, and he remembered what Martin had said about the platoon commanders. Tempted to order them into a formation, he decided not to. There was silence as he took his place before them, studying their faces and the tattered conditions of their uniforms, thinking, ‘It ain’t their guts.’

He began speaking in an uncomfortable, but calm and fatherly tone: “We’ve been through a lot these last few months. Many of us didn’t make it, your friends and my men. There’s a difference, but not that much of one. Mistakes have been made, some of them mine.” The men eyed Trippitt suspiciously, but few of them were not disarmed by his tone and the surprising sincerity of his words. For many of them, it was the first time they’d ever looked on him as anything even resembling a human being. “When mistakes are made in a place like this, people die. That’s the way it is.” Trippitt hadn’t even thought about what he was going to say. The words began to come more slowly, and with greater effort. The fear that he was showing weakness caused his tone to gradually harden. “We’re in this together, whether we like it or not. They can’t keep us out here much longer. It’s just a matter of time. I know some of you hate my guts, but that’s the way it is. I’ve tried to go by the book.” With this phrase he lost them. Sensing what had happened without knowing why, Trippitt became even more uneasy. “Charlie isn’t gonna come to us. We have to go to him. I’ve done everything I could to see that we’d lose as few men as possible.” Trippitt actually believed this as he said it, but no one else did. The stares of the men became colder, and he could feel their distrust. Words teased and evaded him. The faces of his men seemed even more hostile than they were. He felt trapped and wanted to get away from them, but didn’t know how to end his speech. For one of the very few times in his life he knew fear, intensified by his ignorance of its source, suddenly transformed into anger by the stare of one of his men, fervent with hatred, drawing Trippitt’s own outraged stare. He wanted to strike out at it. “Discipline, we have to have discipline,” he said without conviction. Still unable to look away from that one leering scowl, he didn’t even realize it was coming from a single man. All the faces before him became duplicates of it. “
Discipline!
” he shouted harshly, and this time with conviction. “The Marine Corps is built on discipline. That’s why we’re the greatest fighting force in the world. Look at you! You don’t even look like Marines. Some of you haven’t shaved in a week. Look at your
hair!
I’m telling all of you right now; if we have nothing else around here, we’ll have discipline, and we’ll start right now. You have one hour to shave, cut you hair, and report back here,
in formation,
for an inspection.
Dis
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
missed!”

Even before he turned his back on his men, Trippitt realized he had made a mistake; and he spent the time before the inspection brooding over it. His men spent this time differently. The idea of an inspection seemed so absurd to them, it was more ludicrous than irritating. Because there weren’t enough razors to go around, many of them had to shave by placing their index fingers through the slots of double-edged blades. Gunny Martin had the only pair of scissors, so no one attempted to get his hair cut. The men spent the rest of the hour jokingly calling out to each other for Brasso, shoe polish, and other items they hadn’t seen in months.

Most of the men were smiling when the company formed up at the center of the perimeter. Trippitt stared on somberly, for the first time realizing the danger of keeping the men in formation. But it was too late now. He ordered the platoon commanders to inspect their men.

Kramer was struck by the absurdity of what was happening, and he couldn’t keep from grinning. The rain became harder as the men stood motionless in their worn boots and tattered, mud-covered uniforms. The seams of many of their trousers had rotted away, and these men’s testicles hung down conspicuously in front of them. Nearly every face was mottled by patches of unshaved whiskers. When the platoon commanders had finished, Gunny Martin walked behind the formation and picked out over a dozen men for haircuts. After ten minutes of standing in the rain, the formation was dismissed and most of the men walked away smiling.