War Year (3 page)

“That's your first warning. You'll get lots more in the next week. There'll be training every day from 0600 in the morning—pay attention to every word these men tell you. They're all combat veterans, and they'll be trying to teach you how to stay alive for a year.

“Now I'm going to turn you over to Sergeant Ford, who'll help you fill out the forms. Good luck.”

A short blond sergeant, with a face like a monkey, who had been sitting on the floor, walked to the center of the room. “Okay, troops, listen up!” A sergeant knows nobody ever listens to him, so he has to say “listen up” before he says anything important.

“The pink slip of paper on top there is what they call a release. The army's going to send a telegram to your old lady if you get killed or hurt really bad. If you can read, you'll see that this pink form asks whether you want a telegram sent if you're ‘lightly wounded.' Just check ‘yes' or ‘no' and sign it. If you're smart, you'll check ‘no.' You don't want your old lady to freak out just because you got a little hole in your head. Right?”

That made sense, even if I didn't care for the way he said it. I checked “no” and signed it.

It went on like that for a couple of hours, while we filled out the rest of the forms. Some of them could scare you if you stopped to think about what they meant, like that first one, and the one that took care of where to send your body… but most of them were just regular army stuff, about your pay and where you were born and how old your mother is and all that stuff.

I must have written my address a hundred times. When we finally got up to leave, my hand was ready to fall off from writing so much.

We left that place and walked through the scorching sun to Supply, another big shack like all the others. We just walked through in a line and they piled stuff in our arms—some clothes, first-aid packet, a canteen and mess gear so we could eat and drink, a steel helmet—steel “pot,” they call it—to keep our brains inside in case there was an attack, and for sleeping, a couple of sheets, a mosquito net, and a blanket—must be 130 degrees out there, and they give us a blanket! We each got two boxes of malaria pills and a little bottle of pills for purifying water.

Then they led us to our billet and showed us how to tie the mosquito nets over our bunks, to keep from being eaten alive during the night. I hadn't noticed any mosquitoes around, but they said they really get thick after sundown.

By the time I got my bed made and the net strung up, almost everybody else had left for lunch. I took my mess kit—just a metal bowl with knife, fork, and spoon attached—and went out to find the chow hall.

Turns out I walked right by it, on the wrong side. I waded through the thick dust for a couple of blocks—the dust was fine as talcum powder, dark red, and piled up in drifts above your ankles. Finally I stopped a guy and asked directions. He sent me back to the mess hall, and this time I passed the right side. There was a long line, not moving, and I went to the end of it.

Just then a siren started to blow. I nearly jumped out of my skin and started looking for a bunker to run to.

The guy in front of me turned around and smiled. “Man, don't sweat it…that's just the noontime whistle. Don't mean anything unless it blows some other time—then you wanta jump.”

“Thanks—guess I'm a little jumpy.” I stuck out my hand. “Name's John Farmer.”

“Wally Lewis.” He was short and stocky. “Guess you're new around this place—been assigned yet?”

“No, just got here today. They say we've got to go to a bunch of classes before we get assigned.”

“Right… you get to play soldier for a few days. Just hope you don't have to
be
one, though. A lot of guys get assigned here in base camp. Never have to shoot a gun again, after that first week.”

“That'd suit me fine. I never asked to be part of this war.”

Wally laughed. “Man, who ever did?”

We talked for about twenty minutes, while the line moved up. Wally was a clerk for one of the infantry companies. Wasn't always a clerk, though—he started out as a rifleman. After six weeks in the boonies he got shot in the arm. He showed me the scar, bright pink against his brown skin. When he got out of the hospital, the clerk job was open and he grabbed it. He'd been behind a desk ever since.

Like the major, Wally said nobody had ever gotten killed inside the base camp, Camp Enari. But it still paid to be careful. People had been hurt in three rocket and mortar attacks, and it was just luck that nobody had died.

There was a rumor, Wally said, that Enari would get another attack around midnight. But that rumor came around at least twice a week. He said it wasn't worth worrying about.

Wally was only in this part of camp—Fourth Admin—to round up some new men who had been assigned to his outfit. After chow he went off to find them and I went back to my billet.

Some guys were sitting in little groups talking, and a bunch of old sergeants were sitting in the back playing cards and passing around a bottle of whiskey. I flopped down on my bunk and tried to get some sleep. It was too noisy and too hot.

After a while a sergeant came in and rounded us up. We walked out to a black metal shed in back of our billet.

“This here is called a tock,” the sergeant said. “There's enough M-16's in here to give you each one and have some left over. Now who's the highest ranking man here?”

One of the sergeants who'd been drinking whiskey, almost bald with a little fringe of white hair, stepped up. “That'd be me, I guess. Master Sergeant Jack O'Donnell.”

He opened the tock and gave the key to O'Donnell. “Sarge, you're in charge of givin' these weapons out. Two different times you give 'em out.”

He walked inside the dark tock and came out with a clipboard. “When you give 'em out for training, have somebody write down everybody's name and the serial number on the weapon he gets. Use this clipboard and have him put it back in the tock when he's through.

“If there's an attack, just open it up and pass out the guns as fast as you can. I'll come by with ammunition if Charlie gets inside the camp.

“If you leave the area at night, to go to the NCO club or somethin', give the key to someone who'll stay around 'til you get back. Charlie doesn't usually attack before midnight—try to be back by then.

“Now this goes for everybody. Any time you go out after dark, take your steel pot, canteen, and first-aid packet. If there's an attack, get in the nearest trench or bunker. Try to get back here. This is the only place you're goin' to get a gun. Be back here by midnight ev'ry night.

“That's about all for today. You can do whatever you want as long as you're back by midnight. The PX closes in an hour and a half. You probably won't get there for another couple of days, so better go now if you need cigarettes or shavin' stuff. The clubs open at six—that's 1800 for you hard-core types. There'll be a movie outside here soon as it gets dark. Dismissed.”

I really wanted something to drink after breathing that dust all day. Since we had a couple of hours before the Enlisted Men's club opened, I followed a bunch of guys down to the PX. I thought maybe I could get a Coke there.

The PX was huge, the size of a big supermarket, and it had just about everything. Everything but Cokes, that is. I picked up some comic books and a little can of pineapple juice. The little Oriental checkout girl opened the can for me.

The juice was good but it just made me thirstier. I went back to the Admin company area and emptied my canteen down my throat. Then I went up to the mess hall to beat the line for dinner. I should have known better.

I was sitting in the shade in front of the mess hall with two other guys, reading about the Fantastic Four. The mess sergeant grabbed the three of us and put us on “serving detail.” So I got to eat early, but spent the next hour spooning out mashed potatoes to guys who were smart enough to come late.

After he finally let us go, I was dead tired. I stumbled back to the billet and flopped in my bunk. It had been a rough day, but it was still so hot and noisy that I just couldn't sleep.

A bunch of guys came in wearing just towels and boots. They were actually clean. I looked at myself—red dirt ground into every bit of skin—and asked one of them who told me where the shower was. So I stripped down—looked like a cartoon Indian; the dust goes right through your clothes—locked up my wallet and watch, and went to find the shower.

It was a pretty crude arrangement, but it worked. Just a wooden floor with plywood walls, and water dripping down from a discarded jet fuel tank overhead, the kind that goes on the wing-tip. I wondered what had happened to the rest of the jet. There were twelve or thirteen guys standing shoulder-to-shoulder under the tank, scrubbing like mad. When one of them popped out I squeezed into his place. Then I found out why everyone was in such a hurry—the water was freezing! I lathered up, rinsed off, and jumped out, my teeth chattering. While I was drying myself, one of the guys waiting in line for the shower spoke up.

“Seems pretty cold, doesn't it?”

“Like ice water!”

“Man, it's not that cold. Just that your blood's gettin' thin. It's livin' in the tropics that does it. I've been here a week, and if I wasn't so fuckin' cruddy you couldn't
pay
me to get under that thing.”

“That's great. That's really great.”

“Well, they're supposed to heat it—see that little oil burner underneath the tank? Whoever's in charge of it's been slackin' off—we got hot water one time this week. And it didn't last long.”

I got dry and walked back to the billet, walking carefully so as not to stir up dust onto my clean skin. The sun was setting, and I had to admit it looked real pretty. We had good sunsets in Oklahoma, too, but nothing like this; bright splashes of crimson and purple just glowing in the dark sky. Must have been all the dust in the air.

Back in Basic, somebody had told me that Vietnam used to be a vacation spot for rich Europeans. I guess it
would
look pretty nice if you got rid of all the barbed wire and guns and mickey-mouse army shacks. While I was getting dressed I tried to picture what Cam Ranh Bay would look like with the army gone… suntanned dolls in bikinis, fat old rich men sitting under beach umbrellas with frosty tropical drinks, speedboats pulling water skiers through the bay…weird.

With a brand-new uniform, I felt like a human being again. It was ten minutes to six—1750 if you want to get technical—so I gathered up my comic books and went off to wait for the club to open.

I waited about half an hour—nothing good ever starts on time in the army—and this rough-looking master sergeant walked up to unlock the place.

“Ain't none of you guys comin' in here without you got yer canteen, yer pistol belt, yer first-aid pack, and yer steel pot. So jus' high-tail it back to yer billet an' get straight.

“What you gonna do if ol' Charlie, he decides to hit tonight while yer in there gettin' drunk? You gonna stroll back t'yer billet and get yer stuff? No, you ain't. You gonna carry it with you all the time.

“And soljer, get them sleeves rolled down. Ev'y day at 1700 you gotta roll yer sleeves down cuz that's when the skeeters come out. One o' them malaria skeeters bites you and yer gonna wish you had that sleeve down.

“Them comic books ain't gonna keep the frags outa yer head, soljer. Go on back and getcher stuff.”

I went back to the billet, feeling kind of stupid, and got out my stuff. I fastened the first-aid packet and the canteen to the pistol belt, rolled it all up and stuffed it in the steel pot. After all, he didn't say we had to
wear
the junk.

The beer was fairly cool. Somebody had managed to get some ice. The club was just a shack, but they actually had a juke box. I listened to the music for a while, reading my comics. Then a guy sat down across from me, dropping his helmet on the concrete floor with a loud clatter. “You're a new guy too, aren't ya?” he asked.

“Sure… how can you tell?”

“Take a look around. We're the only ones in here carryin'
this
shit around.” He gave the helmet a kick. “They say this is the safest place in the whole fuckin' Central Highlands.”

“Well, that's good to hear.”

“Yeah.” He stuck out his hand. “Willy Horowitz.”

“Farmer, John Farmer. Just come in today?”

“Yeah, same plane as you, I think.” He sucked down about half the can of beer. “What you do, back in the world?”

“Nothin' much. Just got out of school last June. Pumped gas for a few months, then got a job typing at the courthouse in Enid, Oklahoma.”

“Didn't wanta go to college?”

“Thought about it—didn't have the grades to get a scholarship, though. Said the hell with it. How 'bout you?”

“I went for a year. City College, New York—guess I partied too much, flunked chemistry and got kicked out, for half a year, anyhow. Plenty of time to get drafted—you didn't
join up,
did you?”

“Hell, no. All I did was turn nineteen.”

“Where'd you do Basic?”

“Fort Leonard Wood. That's in—”

“Yeah, I know, Missouri. Asshole of the world. I got my Engineer training there.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Bet we were there about the same time.”

“Our cycle got out the end of December.”

“Same here—what company?”

“Bravo.”

“How 'bout that—I was in Charlie. We were practically next-door neighbors.”

“I'll drink to that… hell, I'll drink to anything.” He crunched the beer can double and stood up. “Ready for another?”

“Yeah—here.” I pushed a dollar at him.

“Shit, keep it. I been playin' poker, got more damn MPC's than I know what to do with.”