Sally Boy (18 page)

Sal rose quickly from the bed and went to
her. Romantically, he embraced the adolescent beauty and asked
sweetly, “How you doing?”

The girl trembled as if unaccustomed to
kindness or possibly frightened by the impending acts of
perversion. Light from a full moon shown through the window onto
the girl’s face making it easier to gage her age and prompting Sal
to inquire, “Hey, how old are you?”

Wearing too much makeup in a feeble attempt
to look older, the frightened little mouse squeaked out with a
Vietnamese accent, “Sixteen.”

“Hell no! How old are you really?”

“Fourteen.”

“Tell that lady to send me another girl. I
ain’t...I can’t...I’m sorry.” Sal hurriedly headed toward the door
as if he were going to leave. Chasing after him, the girl took hold
of Sal’s uniform and stopped him. “Please don’t go!”

“Look, it ain’t personal. I think you’re
very cute. It’s just...I can’t do this.”

“Why not? I’m a woman and you’re a man.”

Holding back a laugh, Sal kindly explained,
“I know. But I’m too old for you.”

“If you refuse me, they will beat me, and
throw me out into the street.”

Sal shook his head in disgust. “I don’t
wanna see you get hurt. But I don’t know what else to do.” Sal sat
down on the edge of the bed and scratched his head. Gazing down on
his troubled face, the Asian beauty asked sheepishly, “You do not
find me desirable?”

Nodding, Sal stated enthusiastically, “I
find you very desirable. It’s just that where I come from we
don’t...you’re just too young for me.”

“I’ve been with many American men much older
than you.”

“What the hell are you doing here, anyways?”
Sal fired back, angered by her circumstances.

“I do not have any place to go.”

“Where’s your family?”

“I’ve been working all day. May I please sit
down?”

“Sure. Lay down. Relax.”

Stretching out on the bed, the girl
requested politely, “Please lie down next to me.”

“Awright,” Sal replied kindly and slid into
bed next to her.

“My family fled to Laos after the Tet lunar
New Year.”

“Why didn’t you go with ’em?”

“I was on my way to meet them. But something
terrible happened to me.”

“What happened?”

“I stopped to buy some fruit for our
journey, when a young boy who had a grenade hidden in his clothes
blew himself up. He was trying to kill some American soldiers
seated in a nearby cafe. I was sent to a hospital. My family didn’t
know where I was. They were told by the American nurses at the
hospital that I was killed in the explosion. My family had little
time, so they left for Laos. The nurses at the hospital promised my
mother they would see that I was given a proper burial.”

“That’s terrible. Do you have any idea where
your family is?”

“Yes, I know exactly where they are. They
live with my uncle in a small village just across the border.”

“So why don’t you just head over there?”

“It’s very dangerous. If I can save up
enough money I can bribe the soldiers and pay a guide to take me
safely across the border so I can be with my family.”

“How much do you need?”

“One hundred American dollars,” the girl
said, sounding desperate.

“How much do you got?”

“They pay me one dollar per customer here. I
have twenty dollars saved.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Why are you angry?”

“It ain’t right that you gotta do this. I
guess it ain’t right for me to be here either. But that’s a
different story completely.”

“You are a very nice man. I can see kindness
and honor in your eyes,” the girl said as she reached out and
gently stroked Sal’s cheeks.

“You can see all that just from looking into
my eyes, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow I’ll be out in the jungle hunting
and killing your people. What do you think about me now?”

Affectionately, she smiled. “I think you are
a good man who is in a very, very bad place.”

“You’re pretty smart for a little girl.”
Reaching into his pocket Sal pulled out every dollar he had left.
“Here, I got a hundred and twenty dollars. It’s all I got. It’s
yours. Just promise me that you’ll use the money to find your
family.”

“I cannot take your money.”

“Sure you can. If you don’t, I’ll just use
it for something stupid, or lose it gambling. I’d rather see it go
for something good. Please, take it. Find your family. My God,
you’re just a baby. You deserve a better life than this.” Sal
placed the money into the girl’s hand and closed her fingers
tightly around the cash.

“I will. I promise. Only a man of honor
would do this for a stranger.”

The sound of squeaking bedsprings could be
heard from Angel’s room. Slowly, Sal’s eyes moved over the girl’s
body. “Yeah, I’m a real prince.”

* * * * *

The sun hadn’t even made its presence felt
by the time Delta Company loaded up onto the choppers. The Huey’s
lifted-off from the base camp heliports and sliced through the
moon-lit sky like birds of prey. The aircrafts were cramped, and
each soldier struggled to find a comfortable position. Eventually,
the blade slap fell into a rhythmic, almost hypnotic cadence, and
the men’s minds began to drift. The flight was long and uneventful,
giving the soldiers too much time to think about wives,
girlfriends, and families: thoughts that might freeze up new
recruits in a fire-fight and get themselves or someone else
killed.

As the sun climbed over the horizon it
ignited another scorching hot, humid day in the jungle. Unbeknownst
to the men of First Platoon, they were on a mission that would soon
dramatically alter the course of many lives. Shattering the quiet
on the lead Huey, Sergeant Beckman shouted, “Get ready, assholes.
We’re going in.”

The helicopter descended quickly. Promptly,
that Huey was followed by the next chopper, and so on. Leveling off
several feet above the ground, the experienced combat pilots slowed
their forward progress, maintaining just enough speed to avoid
being a stationary target. M-60 door gunners opened up, spraying
the surrounding terrain with cover-fire. Leaping from the
helicopters, the men sprinted from the LZ toward the concealment of
the jungle. After the last man had jumped, the Huey’s quickly
ascended with the M-60 gunners continuing to pepper the
landscape.

Instinctively, every veteran soldier knew by
the uneasy feeling in his stomach that they were deep in enemy
territory. The jungle held many dangers, but the knowledge that the
crafty enemy had the ultimate home-field advantage caused them the
greatest discomfort. Knowing that a VC ambush might be waiting
behind the next, never ending wall of green was quite
unnerving.

These fears, whether real or imagined, made
every man tighten up just a little more. Understanding that there
were only two ways out of the bush, either on your feet or in a
bag, each man carried on.

Beckman raised his hand and shouted, “First
Platoon over here!” The men fell into formation as the sergeant
singled out his favorite target. “Scalise, I want you on point. Big
fucking surprise, huh?”

“You know Beck, just once I’d like you to
forget my name.”

“I’m gonna make you famous, Scalise. You’re
gonna be the Guinea’s answer to Sergeant York and Audie
Murphy.”

“Fuck you,” Sal fired back in lighthearted
tone.

“Scalise, if you wasn’t my best point man,
I’d kick your little wop ass all the way back to the Bronx,” the
sergeant threatened in a jovial tone.

“You mean you’d try, fat man.”

“Come here, Sal. I wanna talk to you for a
second.”

“‘Sal?’ You never call me ‘Sal.’ This must
be pretty fucking important.”

Leading Sal away from the Platoon, the
sergeant looked around to ensure that they were out of earshot.

“What’s the matter, Beck? You’re acting
like...like you’re fucking scared or something.”

“Shut the fuck up, Scalise. Look, I know
we’re gonna run into something pretty fucking hairy out there. Our
Platoon is the bait to bring ’em out. The Intel on this is all
screwed up and that asshole Lieutenant Symonds is dumber than shit.
He volunteered our Platoon to lead out on this operation against my
advisement not to. That bootlicker must be looking to make Captain
with our blood.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“You’re the only one I can count on. Take us
out slow and don’t let the men get too spread out. They’re fucking
out there. If they catch us with our pants down there’s gonna be a
fucking massacre. I ain’t gonna leave here with our tails between
our legs like the fucking French. So don’t let our strength get cut
in half. Roger that?”

“Yeah, I roger that.”

“Keep the radio operator close and your grid
map handy if we need air support.”

“No problem.” Sal started to move out.

Taking hold of Sal’s arm, Beckman hesitantly
confessed, “Yeah, I am. Scared, I mean. If you had any fucking
sense in that thick guinea skull of yours, you’d be too.”

“Thanks for the pep talk, Beck.” Feeling
even more ill at ease, Sal made his way over to the radio operator.
Bobby Thompson was a tall, thin, good-looking, nineteen-year-old
kid from Philadelphia. “What’s up, Sal?” Bobby asked.

“I don’t fucking know, man. Nonea this shit
feels right to me. Bobby, you better stick close. If things get
shitty, we’re gonna need arty and air support to get the fuck outta
here with our balls intact.”

“Roger that. I’ll be right behind you,”
Bobby assured.

After negotiating several hundred meters of
unforgiving terrain, Sal looked back over his shoulder. Making
every effort possible to keep the men moving at their proper
intervals, Sal noted, through no fault of his own, that the platoon
had thinned out far too much. Most of the men were falling farther
behind than advisable. Faintly, Sal could hear Beckman’s steady
flow of obscenities and insults directed at the slower men. Sal
watched as the sergeant fell back, disappearing into the dense
brush behind him.

Stalling for time to give the other men a
chance to re-establish their intervals, Sal removed his canteen
from his web gear. Swallowing a few mouthfuls of the precious
liquid, he turned to Bobby. “You want a sip?”

“No thanks, Sal.”

A terrible, sharp whizzing sliced the air.
Tracer rounds whistled by their heads and men dropped all around,
screaming, “I’m hit! I’m hit!” Knowing that First Platoon had
wandered into the trap, Sal screamed as loud as he could to alert
the men further back, “Take cover! Take cover!”

Enemy mortar rounds fell like a sudden
downpour from the sky. Agonizing shrieks of “Medic!” rose over the
distinctive rat-a-tat-tat of the enemy’s AK-47 automatic gunfire.
Streaking toward cover, Sal and Bobby took up a position in the
high ground near a cluster of trees. They laid down three-second
bursts of suppressive fire while Sal attempted to assess the
Platoon’s situation. Gut instinct told him that he and First
Platoon were in deep shit. Pulling his map from his pocket, Sal
intently studied it. “We need air support right now! Call it in,
Bobby, coordinates 09er326.”

Excitedly, Bobby repeated the coordinates
back to Sal, “09er326, you got it!” Urgently, he yelled into the
handset, “Charlie Six this is Charlie Three, over.” He waited for a
response. “Charlie Six this is Charlie Three, over...Charlie Six
this is Charlie Three, over.” Bobby turned to Sal. “They’re not
responding!”

“Keep fucking trying. This is it, man!”
Firing several more bursts of gunfire, Sal pulled the pin on one of
his grenades and hurled it down range toward an enemy muzzle
flash.

“Charlie Six this is Charlie Three. If you
can hear me we need air support at coordinates 09er326. We have
encountered a large enemy force and are in danger of being
over-run, over.”

“Bobby, where the fuck is Beck? He should be
up here by now.”

“I don’t know, Sal.” Bobby looked around.
“Maybe he’s dead!”

As he surveyed the surrounding terrain, Sal
recognized that First Platoon was vulnerable on their left. Worried
the enemy would maneuver into a position that would give them the
advantage, Sal ordered, “Bobby Get Six on the horn. We need air
support right now! We gotta protect our left flank. If they get us
in a crossfire, we are truly fucked. I ain’t fucking going out like
that!”

Finally, Six responded: “Charlie Three this
is Charlie Six, over.”

“Thank God!” Bobby shouted back. “Charlie
Six this is Charlie Three. We need air support ASAP. We’re getting
the shit blown out of us, over.”

“Charlie Three this is Charlie Six. We were
experiencing technical problems. We did receive your initial
transmissions and have birds on the way. They should be there
shortly but you’re gonna have to talk them in and drop smoke,
over.”

“Roger that, Charlie Six.” Looking up, Bobby
saw a squadron of F-100 Supersabre’s rapidly approaching. “Charlie
Six this is Charlie Three. We got the birds in sight and are
dropping smoke, over.”

“Hang in there, Charlie Three. If you need
us we’ll be here. This is Six, out.”

Ripping a canister of colored smoke off his
web gear, Sal popped it and tossed it as far ahead of his position
as he could. Speedily, he popped another and another, tossing them
down range. The green mist slowly rose up into the air, marking the
furthest forward progress of First Platoon, and giving the pilots
an accurate indicator of the enemy’s position.

The veteran combat pilots descended quickly.
The aircraft came in fast and low, firing deadly salvos of rockets,
and spraying the enemy ground troops with their 50-caliber guns.
Other planes dropped their payloads directly onto the NVA soldiers
who had dug-in positions.