Chapter 02: 21 Days and a Wakeup

Don rotated the following month and we picked up a new 'reject' as we were called. Bob was a grunt that got tired of hoofing it and figured riding a truck would a lot easier. On his first trip out he was in the rear truck when shit hit the fan. Talk about baptism by fire. A round grazed his helmet as he and the rest of us opened up on them. There could have been a hundred or one lone shooter, we never knew. We just killed everything that was or wasn't there.

I lasted another two weeks before I requested a job transfer, I was tired of being out there everyday and we were now taking fire almost every other trip. Most of the people shooting at us couldn't hit shit, but I didn't want to be around if one got lucky.

After that, I was assigned to be the number two gunner on a chopper for about two and a half months. I'd always wanted to fly but because of a stigmatism in both of my eyes it was never an option. I was told the best I could hope for was to be a navigator on a flight crew but that just didn't appeal to me. So, flying in anything that left the ground was high on my list. What we did every day was simple. We would drop off patrols and pick them back up at their rendezvous point either that day or the next. This time I had a thirty-caliber machine gun that would go through anything anyone could throw at us. On the way back to base, I would listen as the Captain would describe to me how the helicopter flew and said if I stuck around long enough he would show me enough to give me a taste of what it was like to fly it.

I guess you could say I went from the frying pan into the fire as we took on fire most trips even when we were just cruising back and forth. Everyone, it seemed, always wanted to take a pot shot at us; didn't they understand I was getting short? On one hot pickup, the Captain took a round through the leg and that ended my meager flight training. His replacement was not open to my idea of taking his bird for a spin so for the third time I transferred out. This time I decided to keep both feet on the ground.

Everyone had to qualify at the range once a year, even in a war zone. In boot camp we'd used M14's but here we were using our M16's. They were good for what we were using them for, throwing out a lot of lead, but were no way as accurate as the M14's. I shot well enough to qualify as expert again and this time I also qualified with a forty-five caliber pistol. When I'd finished, I stuck around and watched a group on the far side of the range shooting sniper rifles.

These guys were good, hell; these guys were figgin' Daniel Boones. They were shooting in the prone position, at five hundred yards, and were putting five shot groups in a two-inch diameter circle.

I must have watched them for about an hour when one of the guys asked if I wanted to take a turn with his rifle.

"Hell yes," was out of my mouth before he'd even finished.

I got in position, lined up my sights and let my first shot fly. Low and to the right about six inches. I looked at the guy behind me and wasn't about to screw up his setting without asking him first.

"Go ahead and adjust it if you think you can," he told me.

It took me two more adjustments before I had it almost dead on. The guy next to me stopped and told me I was jerking off my shots.

"Relax, take a deep breath and let out most of it, take up the trigger slack and gently squeeze off the round."

The first one caught me a little by surprise because I had misjudged the trigger tension, but the next two were much better. I sent the next hour squeezing off round after round and was having the time of my life. When my shoulder got sore enough I stopped and handled the rifle back.

"That's a nice piece you've got there, are you a sniper or something?" I asked.

"No way, those guys are shooting at up to a thousand yards, these are just their old training rifles. The head of the range lets us take them out every once in a while to fool around with. If you're interested we shoot once a week usually on Thursdays or Sundays; you're more than welcome to join us." I made it a point to shoot every Sunday with them. After a month the range officer put my name on one of the rifles and even let me modify it.

My days were now filed watching Vietnamese workers on base, picking up replacements from the Da Nang airport and doing either daytime or nighttime patrols. I was kept busy but it was pretty much safe duties.

I was at the range Sunday afternoons and after firing about fifty rounds at five hundred yards I moved back to about seven hundred feet. I was reaching my maximum distance for any type of accuracy but just wanted to see what I could do. It took me around ten to fifteen shots to get me somewhere in close. My biggest problem was my glasses fogging up from my breath no matter how easy I was breathing. I had modified my stock for a more comfortable thumb rest and changed slings to one that would give me a more solid resting position without cutting off the blood to my arm. I fired my last magazine, cleared my rifle and called it a day. I was pretty happy at my progress.

On the day before my next patrol, I asked Captain Evan if I could switch my M16 for the rifle I'd been shooting at the range for the last month.

"Sir, I know it doest have the rapid fire power of the M16, but it's a whole lot more accurate and I can shoot out the eye of a knat at a hundred yards; you never know when that might come in handy," I explained to him.

"All right, but one fuckup and I'll have your ass on permanent mess duty until you rotate; you got that?"

"Yes sir," I said clicking my heels together. I now got to take my toy with me wherever I went.

I practiced in the field, on patrol and put a round through it whenever I got the chance. We were just leaving a village that we'd searched for weapons when my squad leader saw someone running across the rice beds carrying what appeared to be two rifles. He shot in the air once, then twice before asking me to stop him. I guess I kind of hesitated for a split second before he yell at me again to stop the motherfucker.

It was a long shot, almost four hundred yards. My first shot was close but behind him. He stopped for a brief second, turned around as my second one caught him in the chest. He crumbled and went down. Two guys ran down to where he was and confirmed he was dead.

"He was carrying a M16 and a Russian SKS rifle; no wonder he took off," Lassiter told the staff sergeant as he showed them each.

"Nice shot, but don't hesitate next time, he almost got away," he told me.

And so my life went from that day forth. One guy shooting at us from a tree was next, two N.V.A. manning a machine gun were an easy shot from where I eventually caught them. One V.C. in the tall grass and two more in a fire fight one night about three quarters of a mile outside of our base. I picked off four in two vehicles in an early morning ambush and a couple more before we celebrated the Vietnamese New Year, called Tet. It seemed that time of year every crazy with a gun was out there. Luckily it was nothing like the Tet of 1968 when we got our butts kicked but it wasn't calm and quiet either.

As my body count increased, I thought less and less about what I was doing, more so did just what I'd been trained to do without any feeling; was it possible to get that fucking numb? I'd been this happy go lucky practical joker before entering the service but had become hardened by what I was doing and everything around me. I just wanted out, it was time for me to go home.

When a mother threw her kid in front of a convey of trucks to get the five hundred dollar death fee I was appalled but when I saw a fellow Marine blow away a eight year kid, over five dollars worth of marijuana, I got sick to my stomach. Drugs were everywhere and you could even get them even while on guard duty. All you had to do was put your money in a tin can and toss it over the fence. Kids on the other side would put in either hash or marijuana and throw the can back to you. Everyone, including the officers, knew what was going on and didn't do jack shit about it. I want to say about ten percent of the guys were always fucked-up on guard duty, didn't make me feel too safe.

During the late sixties we were dealing with the black versus white scenario just like they were state side. Back home they were having race riots and over here we had the same types of problems but in a combat zone where everyone carried knives and guns. When two people got stabbed at the club one night the base commander took notice. When a staff hut got fragged we had our first lock down. The MP's searched the hut area and came up with more than they expected. Grenades, drugs and a ton of unauthorized weapons were found and more than a few people were charged and demoted. I just wanted out.

Three months before I rotated I was given a meritorious combat promotion to Sergeant. I was placed over a hut that had six blacks, one Puerto Rican and myself; be still my heart. I just told them that I wouldn't fuck with them if they didn't fuck with me.

"Just do your jobs, keep your area clean, and we'll all survive this shit," I told them. Hell, no one wanted to be there, we just wanted to put in our time and get back home in one piece.

I ended up having only three problems in my hut before I left. The first one was pretty easy. One guy had an eight-track player but only had one tape, Isaac Hayes The Thrill Is Gone. After hearing it for the hundredth time, I told him to put a lid on it and if I heard that song one more time, I would smash his player into a million pieces; he bought another tape. To this day, I still hate that fucking song.

My second problem proved to be a lot more serious. Robert was a tall black guy from Fort Worth, Texas. He was about six foot four, well over two hundred pounds and dumb as a rock. He got a lot of shit jobs, that took no brains to do, and I guess he kind of got tired of being fucked over. He started sneaking out of the hut at night and beating up the guards patrolling the perimeter but only 'white guards'. The night he slit the throat of one of the guards he got caught. Luckily for the guard he didn't cut the jugular and put two slugs in Robert. To say it was a bloody mess would be an understatement. I think Robert is still in Leavenworth to this day.

My last problem concerned alcohol and a lifer who couldn't control his intake. There was a gunny who always made it a point to get hammered most nights at the NCO club, come back to the hut area and fuck with whomever crossed his path. Unluckily, my hut was just adjacent to his, and he kept getting the huts messed up. More than once he staggered into our hut, thinking it was his, and going nuts when he thought someone was in his bed. This went on for months and after a while I think he did it just to piss off the black guys in my hut. I complained on deaf ears until the night he came in drunk and picked a fight with one of the guys in my hut.

When he screamed out, " I'm going to kill you motherfucker," I'd had enough. I grabbed my rifle by the barrel and laid the stock across the side of his head before he even got close to reaching for his forty-five. He went down and ended up in the hospital with a concussion.

I got office hours and reduced down to an E4 but nothing happened to the gunny; as they say rank has its privileges. The one thing it did do was to make the guys in my hut even closer to one another, including me. I was now their token white guy. However, if I'd ever thought about re-upping, that about finished me.

I was sorry to see Lassiter rotate. He, Turk and I were about as close as three guys could be but I also knew Turk and I would be the next two out. Life went on and like everyone else on base; we were counting down the days. My letters from home came like clockwork, it helped to have nine brothers and sisters, but Ann's started to trail off. I guess there was only so much you can say in a letter after eleven months.

It was late when we got back in from patrol. I was hot, wet and I felt like shit. The monsoons had been going on for about two months and no matter what you did, you were always wet. I had rigged up a light bulb in one of my lockers and always had a fresh change of clothes under the light. I took off my wet clothes; dried off and put baby powder on my feet before putting on a pair of clean dry socks. The warm dry clothing felt like heaven and I hung up my poncho to dry before sitting on my bunk. You had two choices during the monsoons. You could get soaked with sweat wearing rain gear, or you could get soaked with rain not wearing any; no matter what, you were going to get wet.

I garbed my latest letter from Ann and had just opened it when I noticed the change; 'Dear Steve.' It didn't start off honey, lover, sweetheart or anything like that, only Dear Steve. I read about four lines before I put it down and lit up a cigarette. "Fuck," was the only word that came to mind. I grabbed my poncho and headed out to the club and closed it for the first time ever.

I didn't pick that letter back up for almost a whole week. And the only reason I did was when we got some bad news.

"Lassiter's dead," Turk yelled as he ran into my hut.

"What the fuck? How? When?"

One of the guys in Bravo Company who's from the same town got a letter from home telling him all about it. The reason his girl stopped writing him, was because she found a new guy. Can you believe it, she didn't even have the balls to tell him?" Turk said pacing back and forth. "Fuck, all his buddies knew and not a one told him ahead of time. I guess he made it home and went to her parent's house. They told him she was out with some friends but they didn't know where. I guess Lassiter and his brother went looking for her and found her with her new boyfriend. I guess he was all over her and when Lassiter got in his face and told him he'd been replaced, he fucking lost it. Steve, he beat that guy to death with a chair leg and messed up his girl pretty bad also. He probably would have killed her too if his brother hadn't pulled him off her. Word has it they went back to his parent's house and the cops got there ten minutes later. They killed him man, they shot him dead in his front yard when he came out; he wasn't even armed." Turk was upset and I was angry.

"That poor son of a bitch wanted nothing more than to get back to his fucking girl. He survived twelve months in this hellhole only to be shot in his fucking front yard. And for what? A stupid cunt who didn't have the decency to tell him she'd found another prick while he was gone. Bitch got what she deserved but not Lassiter," I told Turk.

I got his home address and we, along with a bunch of other guys who knew him, sent his mom letters telling her what a fine Marine and what a good friend her son was. I wasn't religious anymore, but if I had been, I would have prayed for his soul; he didn't deserve what he got. It was pretty somber around here for the next couple of days.

Turk was rotating in two days and was wired. He was off all duty and was getting rid of all the stuff he wasn't taking with him.

"You want any of this shit?" he asked me.

"Naw, I'm right behind you, give it to one of the newbies, they'll need it more than me.

"I can't fucking wait to get the hell out of here," he said stuffing clothes into his duffel bag. I've turned in all my stuff and I don't think I'm going to sleep a wink tonight. Just as well, I'd rather sleep on the plane anyway. Hell, you've got only two and a wakeup yourself."

"Your girl know your coming home?" I asked.

"Yeah, sent her a letter two days ago saying it would probably be Sunday morning. I wasn't taking any chances." We both knew to what he was referring to.

"You going to the club tonight?"

"Nope, just going to sit here and wait until 0700 tomorrow. Then I'm on the bus to Da Nang and my date with a silver bird."

We said our goodbyes and told each other we'd write and stay in touch but we both knew when we got home we'd want to forget everything that happened over here. I gave him one more hug and I was out of there. Everyone I'd been tight with were now all gone and it was my turn next.

My time came like everyone else's. I colored in my last square of my short timers calendar, gave a bunch of stuff away and turned in my gear and rifle.

"Make sure whoever gets it takes care of it," I told the range staff sergeant. "It took care of me and I don't want some asshole fucking it up." That was the last thing I has to do.

I stopped at the club and had two drinks before calling it a night. I wasn't wired, just bone tired from the inside out. I think I smoked a half a pack that last night as I almost waited for something to happen, but nothing did. I got on the bus with seven other Marines and headed out; I didn't even take one look back. We stowed our gear and got on a 727 bound for Okinawa.

It was dead quiet on the plane. It was about three quarters full and no one was saying a word, just looking at one another. When we taxied down the runway and powered up everyone was a little tense. When we finally took off and were airborne I think everyone was waiting for the same thing. When we heard the landing gear raise up and lock in, everyone went nuts cheering and now laughing, including myself. Three months earlier a plane leaving the airport had come under fire and that was on everyone's mind.

I spent two and a half days in Okinawa and was finally back on a flight to the U.S. of A. and home. We flew into San Diego and I caught a late flight for home. Like Lassiter, no one knew I was coming home. It was quiet and most people were trying to sleep when I turned on my light. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a letter and started to read it again.

"Dear Steve. I know you won't want to hear this, but I've found someone else I think I have feelings for. I didn't mean for it to happen, it just did," she wrote.

I put the letter away again for the third time. I still had hours left on my flight and maybe next time I'd get past the first couple of lines and see what else she had to say. I turned off my light, closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

I wasn't a short timer anymore; I was finally done.