“You know, Jon, he may not show up at all. Not even for his own going-away party,” O’Connor said, shrugging as he buttoned his shirt. “You’ve always got tomorrow, the weekend, and all day Monday to catch him and have that talk before he flies out Tuesday. Besides, we may see our buddy Wayne and that sweet-looking Gwen Ebberhardt at the club. He said he had to meet her in town, at the hotel by the consulate, and that they would probably drop by the Officers’ Club before the luau.”
“True,” Kirkwood said, and picked up his shirt off the corner of his wall locker door. “I had almost forgotten that she had lain over here this week, and will fly out with McKay and the colonel. Will Tarzan and Jane be back at China Beach this weekend?”
“They’re committed to the party tonight, but with Friday, Saturday, and Sunday wide open, my bet’s with yours and China Beach,” O’Connor said and then laughed. “I want to see Dicky Doo and Stanley when she shows up.”
Michael Carter frowned and bit his fingernail, thinking.
“What’s wrong?” O’Connor asked the tall, skinny man, putting his arm over his shoulder.
“I know it’s been a few months ago, but didn’t Wayne say that his wife had told the major and Stanley on that flight to Okinawa that her name was Crookshank, and that Gwen Ebberhardt worked on another crew?” Carter said, still gnawing on his finger.
“Oh, my! That’s right!” O’Connor said and laughed. “Wayne had his weekly MARS [Military Affiliate Radio System] telephone call with her right after that shitty flight, and said then that he hoped she and Dicky Doo never met in a social setting, because she had lied to the major about who she was.”
“Well, you know he has always blamed the old
papa-san
in the coffee shop at the passenger terminal for his and Stanley’s shitty ordeal,” Kirkwood said, and shrugged, chuckling. “Suspecting a flight attendant of intentionally giving him the trots would be a reach for him, I think, especially when Dicky Doo has the local Vietnamese so convenient to persecute. He’ll probably just blow off the identity thing to female fickleness, and her not wanting to get familiar with him and Stanley while she was working. You know, guys like those two have built-in rejection acceptance when it comes to attractive women.”
“That’s right, he still insists that the old guy that does the cooking over there is a Viet Cong spy,” O’Connor said with a laugh, walking toward the door with his two friends. “I think he still has the counterintelligence guys pestering that poor fellow at least once a week.”
“Stinky sure has it in for that unfortunate old fart at the gedunk,” Kirkwood said, pulling open the screen door. “I thought I would bust a gut laughing when Buck Taylor relayed what his buddy who made that same flight had told him about Tufts squirting his drawers full and smelling up the entire airplane. Halfway to Okinawa, and he shits all over himself. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
“Stinky Stanley Tufts,” Carter said, laughing. “I like that nickname almost as much as the one the troops gave that cockroach that flew out of Heyster’s tobacco, and they now keep fed and protected in Major Dickinson’s office. Holy cow! I thought Charlie would uncork one and sock you when you told him to say hello to Chopper.”
NO ONE EVER questioned Sergeant Michael Fryer’s toughness until Major Sidney Rich took charge of Second Battalion and put him to the test. Captain Jesse Holt stood up for Fryer and the other men of Echo Company, but when Major Rich pressed the subordinate commander, he always folded. This pissed off the black sergeant, who led First Platoon without benefit of a lieutenant to command the small unit and keep peace with the brass. So Fryer, desperate for his men, went to general quarters, finally vocalizing his frustrations, after the forty-second man in his company had died in combat, with no sense of concern for the losses expressed by the major.
“Press on, men,” he would say. “Suck it up. That’s what Marines do. Come home carrying your shield or lying on it. We live by the Spartan ethic.”
“Fuck the Spartans,” Fryer had said to Captain Holt one evening after he overheard four of the men in his second squad plotting to frag the captain and Major Rich. “We don’t operate as a team no more. We zombies now days. He keep going to the head of the line for every operation that nobody else want. Shit too dangerous, so leave it to Major Rich to volunteer us. We ain’t seen a day off in three months. Not one day off!”
Then two days ago, twelve men in his platoon died in an ambush that left Echo Company in total disarray, bringing the unit’s body count to fifty-four brothers killed in action. Then this morning two more from his platoon died after the major had ordered the company back into the same area the same day they had bugged out, facing an enemy regiment with vastly superior numbers, and taking them on again within hours of their retreat, with no improved firepower or additional supporting arms. Michael Fryer and Captain Holt both agreed that Major Rich had decided to put them right back in the meat grinder, without rest or even a meal, as a harsh lesson for their previous failure. He had looked bad at regiment, and was determined to wipe out that blot before anyone could write the score in the book.
This time Echo Company killed seventy-six North Vietnamese soldiers in the regiment that they took on, surprising the enemy in an insane counterattack while licking their wounds, and Sergeant Fryer lost two friends from his platoon.
Staggering from fatigue after so many days in battle, the black sergeant wearily marched his Marines through the wire at Fire Base Ryder: the last platoon from Echo Company to reach home. The sergeant felt certain they would find a hot meal welcoming them back, and a congratulatory greeting from the battalion commander for kicking serious ass. Yet what he found was Captain Holt standing atop a bunker with the first sergeant, going over a list of housekeeping items, and the men hard at work with picks, shovels, and hundreds of empty sandbags. Several cases of C rations sat on a pallet by the skipper’s command post tent: Echo Company’s dinner.
“What the fuck, sir?” Fryer said, dropping his pack by the bunker where the captain stood.
“Division and Three-MAF got the commanding generals heading our way first thing in the morning,” Holt said, shaking his head at the tired sergeant. “Major Rich has everybody turned to improving positions, policing the area, polishing brass. You name it and we got to do it.”
“This ain’t right, sir,” Fryer said to the captain, and then looked at First Sergeant Eddie Lyle, who shared in the sergeant’s frustration but agreed with Captain Jesse Holt that arguing with the battalion commander would only leave them having their virility put to question by Major Sidney Rich.
Along with his hardness on the men, Rich allowed himself no slack either. He hardly slept, and had no qualms of walking out to the forward listening posts in the middle of the night, just to see if he could catch a Marine dozing off. He would march and never lose step, even with blood oozing out the air vents in the sides of his jungle boots.
“Spartans recognize no pain. We block it from our consciousness. We endure, and we win,” he would boast with his blistered feet soaking in a pot of salt water turned pink with his blood from the long march.
“Sergeant Fryer, I know what you feel,” First Sergeant Lyle told the Marine NCO, wrapping an arm around his neck and walking him back to his platoon area. “The skipper and I talk about that insane fuck all the time. There’s nothing we can do.”
“I can talk to the major,” Fryer said, stopping and then looking back at Captain Holt.
“He’ll humiliate you and make you feel worse,” Holt said, jumping off the bunker and walking to where the first sergeant and the platoon sergeant stood.
“So be it, then,” Fryer said, taking off his helmet and wiping his forehead with his bare arm. “Two-thirds of my platoon is way past due for some R and R, and the rest are coming due now. I know the whole company ain’t much different.”
“We’re all due for a trip to China Beach at least,” Holt said and shook his head. “No way he gonna stand us down for even a day. Hell, man! He ain’t even giving us a break this afternoon for the Fourth of July!”
“I want to just ask him, sir, anyway,” Fryer said, taking a deep breath. “I owe my men to at least see me going to bat for them.”
“If you’re willing to take an ass-whipping so your troops feel better, then more power to you,” the captain said, and put his arm around Fryer. “I admire your spirit. Give it a shot, but don’t count on a damned thing but bitter disappointment.”
Michael Fryer walked back to his platoon area with a renewed spring in his step, carrying his pack and his rifle in his hands. After he delegated the housekeeping duties to his three squad leaders, he washed the dirt off his face and trudged with his rifle slung on his shoulder to the battalion commander’s tent, with Captain Holt at his side.
“Sir, I have a Marine who wishes to speak to you,” the company commander said as he stepped inside the major’s command post tent, where Rich busily drew a new battle plan on a plastic overlay he had spread atop a tactical map.
“Make it quick, Captain Holt,” the major said, looking up from his work. “Head-shed brass coming down tomorrow to take a look at us. We’re the hottest battalion in either division. We got more body count than some regiments, in fact.”
“Does that mean we have some relief in sight?” the captain asked, hoping that the answer might negate Sergeant Fryer’s request.
“We have a war to fight, sir,” the major said with a frown. “No rest for the wicked, I’m afraid.”
“Our men, they’ve been in the bush too long, Major. They have more grass time than most guys with six months edge on them. They need some R and R now. At least a day or two off,” Fryer said, stepping in front of his captain, who gladly faded back through the tent’s doorway and disappeared down the hill. The black Marine sergeant looked at the major’s expressionless face and waited for a response.
“That it?” the major asked. “I thought you had something that was different to convince me that your men deserved more than any other platoon in the battalion. Look around, Sergeant Fryer. Tell me if I’m wrong, but do you see any squad that isn’t bone skinny and dogged to death? We’ve been the meat hanging on the end of the stick, and there’s no relief in sight.
“If I had my way, I’d move this whole battalion off the line and down to China Beach for two weeks, or a month. Every man deserves it. Not just your men.
“Remember this, Sergeant. We’re Marines. As Marines it’s the mission. The mission and only the mission. Men die. Privates and lance corporals die first and most often. That’s the way it is. We spend their lives to accomplish the mission. We don’t ask why. We just do it.
“Until regiment changes our mission, we will keep on here. We will patrol and we will bust our asses, and your buddies and my Marines will die. We don’t have time to send people off to get drunk and screwed. As long as I’m in command, we will fight this war my way. The Marine Corps way. All of us together and with every ounce of muscle we have.
“I’m not letting up on you or anyone in this battalion. Got that? There will be no R and R. There will be no free time. We have a mission, and that’s all that should concern you. Now get out of here. I know that you have more important matters to attend.”
Fryer stood at attention while fine beads of sweat glittered on his face like diamonds on black satin. It was as though he spoke to a rock wall. Nothing seemed to daunt the major. Nothing seemed to clue him in that the men were near the end of their ropes. Didn’t he know that he can push men only so far? Didn’t he realize that to accomplish the mission the team had to work together? Didn’t he know that for the team to work, they had to be motivated, and not just hung out like meat on a stick?
Fryer started to excuse himself and leave, but his frustration kept him in front of the major.
“Sir,” Fryer managed to summon up from his dry throat, “can I ask you something, and not have you go off on me like I mean disrespect or something?”
“If it’s disrespectful, don’t say it, Sergeant Fryer,” the major cautioned. “Just because you excuse yourself by saying no disrespect intended doesn’t mean it isn’t disrespectful. You be the judge. I’ll listen, but maintain your bearing.”
“Yes, sir,” Fryer said firmly. “Sir, I wonder if the major is not aware of the great deal of frustration and bad morale among the men?”
“We’re Marines, Sergeant,” the major growled through clenched teeth in a voice that rose in both firmness and volume. “We don’t quit. Discipline. Remember, it is discipline that keeps us tough. Keeps us alive. Discipline! Spartan discipline!”
The major’s face became flushed red as he glared at Fryer, who stood locked at attention, afraid even to blink. The tension made every muscle in the major’s face and arms stand out hard, and as he spoke, he tightened both of his fists bloodless white, pressing them down on the tabletop, where he worked on the tactical map and overlay that placed battalion positions, lines of departure, and points of coordination for a battle he had planned.
“If there is a morale problem among your troops,” the major said, continuing his angry volley of words, “I would suggest disciplining the cry-babies who cause the problem. That’s leadership, Sergeant Fryer. Reward those who deserve rewards. Discipline those who do not hack it. Make them tough. Marines, Sergeant. Marines! Think tough. Get tough. We’re at war!
“Now, I’ve heard what you have to say. You know my thoughts on the subject. The men will get R and R when we stand down from this position. It may take weeks or months, but I expect every man to pull the load, do his work here, and keep the patrols sharp.”
“Yes, sir,” Fryer said, feeling hopelessly frustrated. He knew that R and R was normally handled on an individual rotation, not unit by unit. He knew that there would be no R and R.
He wanted to tell the major what he really thought. What he knew to be true. What the men were all saying. He felt like telling the major, “Fuck your success. Fuck your promotions. Fuck the body count. Fuck the mission!”