Authors: Johnnie Clark
“Chan, do you still have your little camera?”
“Of course.”
“Let’s take a picture of the tank behind us.”
“Oh, brother. Look, Baby-san, is it a permanent ingredient of your basic nature to become excited about everything?”
“Just take the picture, will ya? And I want a copy when we get home.”
Chan snapped the picture just as our tank pulled off the road and slammed on the brakes. The gunny jumped off first, shouting as he landed, “Get off! Move it! Move it!”
I jumped down and stumbled into a column already forming.
Freckle-faced Sudsy trotted up to us. “Lieutenant wants to know if you’d mind switching to an M16 for this sweep? We got a gunner with no gun in Third Platoon, and they’re setting up a blocking action for the sweep.”
“He actually asked me?”
“Yeah.” Sudsy blew a small bubble from what had to be an ancient piece of bubble gum. “He said you gunners are a strange breed, once you get used to a gun.”
“Well, I sure ain’t that used to it yet.”
“Ol’ Red sure was,” Sudsy said. “The guy you’re giving it to is up front.” He turned and started back toward the front of the column with Chan and me following.
“What did you mean, Red sure was?” I shouted over the rumbling of diesel engines.
“The lieutenant tried to get the gun away from Red once when we were up at Hai Van Pass and ol’ Red wouldn’t let him have it.”
Lieutenant Campbell looked happy to see us. He was talking to the gunner from Third Platoon.
“Thanks, John. We’ll get your gun back to you right after this sweep. This M16 is going to be a lot easier to carry across that field.” He handed me the plastic M16 as I gave the M60 to the Third Platoon gunner. I felt like I was abandoning an old, trusted friend. The little M16
rifle felt like a toy. The lieutenant held Chan’s rifle while he removed four hundred rounds from around his neck.
“Is this a major operation, Lieutenant?” Chan asked.
“A spotter plane saw a lot of fresh dirt out there. It looks like they may be doing some digging.” He looked at me and smiled. “I bet it feels good to get rid of that gun, doesn’t it?”
“No, sir.”
“What?”
“I’m better with the gun than the M16.”
“He’s telling the truth, Lieutenant,” Chan added. “Don’t ask me why. Our instructor at Lejeune said he was a natural gunner.”
“I’ll get it back to you as soon as this sweep is over.” His face looked happily puzzled. He patted me on the back and turned to look for Sudsy.
A few minutes later the sweep started across a treeless field. The huge steel monsters led the way, churning deep paths into the moist earth for fifty meters. Having tanks in front of us was a new phenomenon. Hiding behind a thirty-ton caterpillar with cannon gave me a new sense of confidence.
That confidence was short-lived. We reached a ledge with a twenty-five-foot drop that no tank could possibly negotiate. The tanks lined up along the ledge overlooking a relatively flat, unwooded area. Small ridges of earth covered with brush dotted the terrain like some gigantic gopher had pushed up long mounds of dirt.
We climbed down the embankment, fanned out on line, and proceeded cautiously across the field. Suddenly my foot sank into an ankle-deep hole and I fell forward. I caught myself with my rifle. I realized immediately what I’d done. The barrel of my rifle, the notoriously jam-mable M16, was rammed full of mud.
I wanted to tell someone, but we were past the point of talking. Visions of meeting the enemy, pulling the trigger, and nothing happening flashed through my head. Then
an even worse vision of the barrel blowing up in my face flashed across my mind.
One hundred meters across the field I smelled a faint whiff of smoke. I wasn’t sure if anyone else smelled it or not. Chan, looking straight ahead, moved slowly fifteen feet to my right. I looked quickly to my left. Jackson had come to a stop. He was looking down into a large hole in the ground. Ten feet in front of us was the first of the long mounds of dirt, six feet tall and about thirty feet long.
I didn’t like the embankment in front of me. I looked at it, then at Jackson, and then back at the embankment.
“Ohhh, gooks!”
Jackson turned away from the hole and jumped backwards. Three shots followed in quick succession. I dropped to one knee. Green plastic flew from the hole, followed by a small cloud of smoke. Three men jumped out of the hole carrying rifles. I opened fire as they scrambled over the embankment. My rifle worked! The last one staggered at the top of the embankment then fell forward to the other side. We ran forward, taking cover against the embankment.
I pulled a grenade off my cartridge belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it over the embankment. A moment later Chan did the same. We leaned against the dirt, bracing for the explosions. I put in a new clip of ammo. Suddenly I realized that they could be doing the same thing. My grenade exploded, then Chan’s. I ran around to the end of the mound and fired the entire clip full automatic into the prone bodies of two of the NVA and dove back behind the mound.
I yanked the empty clip out and jammed another full one into the M16. Adrenaline shot through my system. My hands were shaking. I gasped for air like a panting dog. I pulled another grenade off my flak jacket, straightened the pin, pulled, and threw it over the mound. Gunpowder smoke filled the air. My second grenade exploded. I darted around the end of the mound again, unleashed
an eighteen-round burst, firing from the hip, and jumped back behind the mound.
Marines were screaming something twenty yards to my left. I pulled out the empty clip and reloaded. My fear had been replaced by the sheer thrill that comes with a life-and-death situation. The thought of getting shot when I stepped around the mound had not even occurred to me until Swift Eagle slid in beside me breathing hard and looking mad.
“Don’t fire that way again! Some of your rounds almost hit the First Platoon. They’re flanking the gooks. Are you trying to get yourself killed, boot?”
“I don’t know what happened, Chief. I just really got into it.”
“You keep playing John Wayne and you’re not going to make it out of here.”
“Cease fire! We’re movin’ in!” Lieutenant Campbell ran over to Swift Eagle and me. “Okay, Chief, let’s see what we bagged.” Swift Eagle turned and shouted, “Give us cover! We’re going in for a count!”
We ran around the mound and spread out. I could see one body but not the other two. I wondered if they got away—but how could anyone survive all those grenades?
“Here’s one, Lieutenant!” Swift Eagle shouted and pointed at a body I didn’t see.
We moved forward cautiously.
“Are you sure there were just three?” Lieutenant Campbell asked.
“That’s all I saw, Lieutenant,” I said, not daring to move my eyes from straight ahead.
“Where’s the third?” I looked to my right. Swift Eagle stood over a khaki-clad corpse. “This one’s been shot. He’s yours, John.” The Indian’s expression didn’t change. Business as usual. “Looks like a kid.”
I walked over to the chief and stared down at the dead man. He was face up. His single-shot Russian SKS rifle lay beside him. It was a grotesque scene. Singularly odd.
The skull was split in half, like a watermelon. The morbidly yellow face lay fully intact but separate from the rest of the skull and looking up with a ludicrous expression of almost childish shock. I felt riveted to the ground. I wanted to pull my eyes away but couldn’t. I could hear voices drifting in and out around me. The gray brains of the dead man slid lazily onto the ground, carried by a tiny river of dark-red blood. My mouth tasted like bitter cotton. Sweat streamed out of every pore on my body.
“Quit admiring your work and see if he’s got any papers on him.” I didn’t recognize the voice, but it struck a nerve. I turned around slowly. By the time I faced the voice, tears were trying to force their way out of my eyes. I dropped the M16 and started toward a short, stocky corporal with a thick brown mustache. Someone grabbed me in a bear hug.
“Don’t!” It was Chan. “It’s not worth it!” He turned to the corporal. “What platoon are you in?”
“First.”
“I would suggest that you take your posterior back to First Platoon before I decide to let him put his foot up it.”
“I gave that jerk an order to check the gook’s papers, and he better—” The corporal stopped in mid-sentence with the help of a pincer-like grip from a large reddish-brown hand now attached to the back of his neck. Swift Eagle turned the corporal’s head toward him like it was a hand puppet. The big Indian nodded his head in the direction of First Platoon, released the corporal’s neck, and stared down at him with his icy black eyes. The corporal slid away like a wounded dog with his tail between his legs. Not another word was spoken.
Chan released me from the bear hug. I walked back over to the dead face. For a moment I felt sick, but it passed. I leaned down to search his pockets, holding my breath to keep from getting sick. I found a thin brown wallet wrapped in green plastic. I tossed it to Chan.
“Check this out.”
I took a deep breath and searched his shirt pockets. They were caked with quickly drying blood. From inside his left shirt pocket I pulled out a scratched-up Timex watch.
“He was only fourteen,” mumbled Chan, still looking at a paper from the dead man’s wallet.
“Fourteen?”
“Yeah.”
I didn’t have to turn to see who made the next remark. “Well, at least you know there’s someone in this war younger than you are, Baby-san.” The coarse laugh that followed identified Sam the Blooper Man.
“Hey, Doc!” shouted the gunny. He was leaning over one of the NVA. “Get over here. This one’s still alive.”
Doc jogged over to the gunny. I wandered over to see how bad he was. He was shot through the back and out through the chest and stomach. One ear was shot off and bleeding badly.
“He might make it if we medevac him.” Doc peered down under his glasses at the bleeding NVA. He sounded disinterested. His Massachusetts arrogance showing itself again. He’d made no secret of the fact that he joined the Navy to stay as far away from Vietnam as possible and to avoid being drafted into the Army. He considered himself a genius and Marines cretins. In all his genius he neglected to discover that the Marines don’t have medics. The Navy provides corpsmen for that duty. It felt good to see the arrogant snob as dirty as the rest of us.
Chan strolled over to the wounded NVA, bent down on one knee, and checked his wounds. “He can make it, Gunny. If we hurry. The wound’s not sucking.”
“Thanks, Chan,” Gunny said. He turned and looked up at Doc. “You better watch it, Squid. You don’t want to get on my bad side. Sudsy! Let’s get a medevac in here ASAP!” He spit a shot of tobacco on Doc’s boot. “Sorry.”
“Check this out!” Jackson appeared from the other side of the mound holding something in the palms of his
hands. “I went down in that hole to see what was smokin’. These guys were smokin’ dope!”
I’d never seen marijuana before except for a couple of goofy movies in high school. Sam forced out a hoarse laugh.
“Now that’s a bad trip, man!” An odd smile spread across Sam’s pitted face.
“Hurry up and get that medevac in here, Sudsy!” Gunny shouted.
“He’s on his way, Gunny.”
Jackson flipped the marijuana into the air and did a quick-step over to one of the dead men’s SKS Russian sniper rifle. He laid his M16 down and snatched up the bolt-action Russian rifle.
“Who gets the rifles, Lieutenant?”
“John gets one.”
“Can I have one? There’s three of ’em here.”
“I guess so. Make sure you tag it before that chopper gets here.”
My eyes drifted back to the dead face. It looked even more yellow than before.
“Hurry up, John. Tag the SKS you want. It’s single shot; you can bring that dude home when you rotate.” Jackson’s voice sounded far away.
“He doesn’t feel well,” Chan said. “I’ll tag it for him.”
“Fourteen. It’s a shame, isn’t it?” Someone put his hand on my shoulder. I managed to pull away from the dead face to see who was talking. His name was Jack Ellenwood, a corporal with the Third Platoon. He stood a good four inches taller than me. His face looked round but he wasn’t chubby. Just the slow soothing tone of his voice calmed me. He sounded honestly regretful, as if he knew exactly how I felt. “You probably shouldn’t stare at it any longer, John. As it is, I imagine you’re going to remember this scene the rest of your life.”
“How did you know my name?”
“You took over Red’s gun, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve heard you’re going to be as good as he was.”
“No way. Red was a Marine’s Marine. I could never be as hard-Corps as Red.”
“I had a good friend who looked exactly like you when he got his first confirmed. Only difference was he puked. We came over together. I named my new baby after him. Want to see a picture?” Jack didn’t wait for an answer. He took his helmet off and produced a thick black wallet. His face was already beaming with pride and he hadn’t even found the picture yet. “Here. Here it is.” He patted me on the back and gave up fighting back a giant grin. “Isn’t he something?” It was the usual: a fat little baby on a blanket looking up.
“Yeah, he’s great. What’s his name?”
“Red.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. Finally I managed the only word that made any sense.
“Thanks, Jack.”
“Are you married?”
“No,” I said.
“That’s good. Kamikazes shouldn’t get married; besides, you don’t look old enough.”
“I’m not. Why ‘kamikaze’?”
“That’s what I call gung-ho gunners. All you’re missing is the plane.” He laughed. A hearty laugh. The kind that makes you feel good just to hear it. Then I felt a solid slap on the back of my flak jacket.
“Are you okay?” It was Chan.
“Yeah, I guess so. Chan, do you know Jack Ellenwood?”
“Third Platoon, right?”
“That’s me.” Jack stuck out his hand and Chan shook it
“Thanks for talking to Baby-san.”
“Pay no attention to him, Jack. Chan is my A-gunner and built-in big brother since boot camp.”
“His mother asked me to take care of him.” Chan’s smirk nearly made me laugh.