Guns Up! (36 page)

“Who says?” he asked.

“I asked the lieutenant about the gunny and Chief. The gunny’s going to make it, and he thought the chief would.”

I turned to look for Sudsy. He’d know the casualty status. I couldn’t find his antenna or his freckled face. “Did you ask Sudsy who got hit?” I asked, still looking for him in the column.

“He was medevaced out. I think he’s KIA.”

“What?” My stomach rolled and sank, and for a moment I felt sick.

“He didn’t make it to the first tank the second time across.”

“Saddle up! I want the squad leaders to put your squads in three-man positions around the top of this hill and down the sides. The gooks still control the next hill, so don’t go giving them any targets! Is that clear?” Then the lieutenant started again without waiting for an answer. “The CP is going to be right here where I’m standing.”

We moved up the narrow path. The heat pressed heavily on the back of my neck. Empty C-ration boxes
lay strewn about everywhere. The higher we climbed, the clearer the enemy hill became. It stood taller than the one we were on. The tributary took a sharp left below us. It separated us from them. Its cold water looked beautiful and inviting, splashing against huge round boulders jutting up from the water.

“Hey! Look!” A shout echoed from behind me to the head of the column. Suddenly I saw the reason for the commotion. One hundred meters below, leaning out over a large round boulder, was an NVA soldier filling his American-looking canteen. An AK47 lay beside him. Two more NVA stood behind him on the huge boulder, chatting nonchalantly, with rifles slung over their shoulders. Before anyone fired a shot the three of them casually disappeared back into the lush green canopy of trees and leafy jungle vines. I was shocked. For the NVA to be so brazen there must be a ton of ’em, I thought. The column stopped. Corporal James and Corporal Murphy started setting their squads up in three-man positions around the top of the hill and down the sides, splitting it down the center.

“I want your gun team over there,” James said. I looked to the right of the path where he pointed. It looked good. There was even a small level area like a tiny shelf on the hillside where we could sleep without rolling to the bottom.

“It’ll have to be just you and Doyle tonight.”

“Great,” I mumbled sarcastically. “I’m too tired to sleep tonight anyway.”

An hour later the sun turned into a moon and the shadowy fears of the night held my eyes open, but just barely. I wondered where Chan was. I knew he was positioned at the bottom of the hill somewhere. My eyes felt heavy. The moon disappeared behind a layer of clouds. I wondered about our positioning. It seemed haphazard. I wasn’t even sure where the other positions were, except for the one ten yards below us. I knew the chief had made
mistakes. He wasn’t perfect. Still, I wanted him back. I wanted the gunny back, too. God! I’m one of the only salts left! I gotta talk to God about this. Things are looking real grim.

“Wow!” Doyle whispered from the other side of the M60. “This is the big time!” The sky behind the enemy hill lit up in pink, red, and pastels, silhouetting the steep dark mountains of Thuong Duc four miles away. Bright white flashes sent booming shock waves of sound that shook the earth beneath me.

“Pssst!”
Another whisper came from the darkness below us.

“You guys see that?” Another series of shock waves and flashes lit up the sky for miles around. It felt like God was waking everything up. “What is it?” the voice whispered from below.

“It’s arc-light raids,” I whispered.

“What’s that?”

“B-52s, man,” Doyle whispered impatiently. “Must be another boot.”

The brutal light show was awesome. It went on and on until it seemed impossible for anyone to live through it, yet I knew some would, somehow. Maybe without eardrums, but still able to pull a trigger.

Suddenly a quick burst of AK fire opened up above us, followed immediately by five semi-automatic shots from an M16.

Something heavy rolled through the brush. Then silence. Doyle sat up. Something thudded into the bushes beside him. A ripping explosion shattered the silence. My night vision was gone. All I saw were bright spots. Doyle cried. I started firing the M60 into the brush in front of us until the gun went silent.

“I’m hit! I’m hit!” Doyle screamed.

“Corpsman!” a voice shouted from above us.

“Johnnie, I’m hit!”

“I know it. Don’t talk. I can’t see yet.”

“I’m hurt!”

“Shut up! They’re right on top of us!” I opened my eyes as wide as I could. My vision was coming back. I could see the outline of a tree silhouetted by the flashes of the arc-light raids. Finally I could see Doyle holding his knee and shaking his head back and forth. His teeth shined white from the moon’s glare as he clenched them in pain. Someone was coming up the path fast, breathing hard and stumbling in the dark.

“Corpsman coming in! Don’t fire!”

“Doc!” I called. “We got wounded over here!”

“Coming in!” He turned right, off the path, and stumbled over a thornbush. “Where?” He looked up from all fours. “Where are you?”

“Straight ahead! Ten meters!”

He crawled forward until he could see us, then stood to a crouch and walked over to us. “Who’s hit?”

“Doyle,” I said.

“Hurry up!” Doyle said angrily.

Doc moved closer to Doyle. “Can you walk if I help?”

“I think so.”

“Let’s go. I want to get you below, where I can work on you.”

“Doc,” I said. “Somebody else got hit up above us.”

“Can you hold on for a few minutes while I go check it out?” Doc said.

“Yeah. But hurry, Doc,” Doyle whispered.

Doc moved back toward the path. Five minutes later I heard him again.
“Pssst.”

“Over here,” I said.

He stumbled over the same thornbush, hitting the ground harder this time. I held back a laugh. He crawled over to us.

“You ready?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Doyle said. He struggled to his feet with Doc’s help.

“What happened up there?” I asked.

“A gook crawled up to the top of the hill and opened up. Killed one guy. His buddy killed the gook. Better keep your eyes open. They might be probing for an all-outer.”

“Tell ’em down at the CP I’m down to a one-man gun team.”

“Right,” Doc answered as he helped Doyle hobble toward the path.

“Hey, Doyle,” I whispered. They stopped and Doyle looked over his shoulder. “Have a good trip home.”

“I got your address, John. I’m going to be looking you up.”

“Send me a hot sauce when you get back,” I said. “And the little fishes—you know, sardines!”

“Semper fi, buddy.” Doyle gave me a thumbs up. I returned it. They disappeared into the darkness. I sank into the lowest, loneliest, bluest funk I’d ever been in. I’d never make it home. No one will even remember that I died over here. Doyle’s boot to me, and even he’s going home. I should be happy for him. It’s not his fault he’s lucky. That turd. He’s really a good person. That turd.

An hour later the war went silent again. Corporal James and Striker crawled in from the darkness and spent the night. Early the next morning the whirring blades of a medevac chopper greeted the sunrise. I walked over to the path to get a better look at Doyle’s departure.

“Look out!” The stumbling feet of men carrying something heavy accompanied the shout. I turned in time to see two Marines carrying something wrapped in a drab green poncho. The poncho ripped in half. The stiff heavy body of a dead Marine with ash-blond hair rolled straight at me. I was too shocked to move. He rolled into my shins and stopped. He felt like a bag of cement. I didn’t move. I stared down at him until the other two Marines started asking me something.

“Hey, you got a poncho we can use? We got to hurry and get him on that chopper!”

“Yeah, sure. Here, hold him and I’ll get it.” I ran back to the gun and got my poncho out of my pack. My hands were shaking. It made me mad. I gave the men the poncho and watched as they struggled down the steep hill with the heavy weight. I watched until the chopper was out of sight.

“Me and Striker are sitting with you until we get some replacements.”

I turned to see Corporal James take a spoonful of beef and rocks then spit out a potato in disgust.

“I haven’t had a decent bite of food since Bangkok!”

“R&R!”

“What?” he asked with a puzzled look on his face.

“That’s what’s wrong with me. I haven’t had an R&R yet. Do you know that I’ve been here over nine months without an R&R?”

“I thought you and Chan went to Australia?” James turned his head and spit out another potato.

“That’s when we got hit. Do you think Bangkok is better than Australia?”

“Well, I don’t know. Australia has round-eyed women. I loved Bangkok, though. I bought a Corvette through the PX in Bangkok.”

“You’re kidding?”

“It’s waiting on me right now in California. Emerald green.” James drifted off just thinking about it.

“Clark!” I looked down the path. A black boot Marine still wearing stateside utilities and stateside boots with a glaring shine on them made his way up the path with a handful of mail.

“Up here!” I said. He looked up. Something was odd about him. No rifle! “Hey, boot! Where’s your rifle?”

“I left it down there,” he said indignantly, as if it were none of my business.

“Give me the mail.”

He handed me four letters. “No. Give it all to me. I’ll hand it out. Now, you go get your rifle, and don’t make a
move without it from now on.” He looked defiant and cocky.

“And tie those dog tags into your boot laces and blacken ’em so they don’t shine. If you get blown away the boots usually stay in one piece so you’ll get identified.” He started to say something, but I didn’t give him time. “Don’t forget your salt tabs, not even once.” I could hear Red’s words coming out of my mouth. Then I heard the chief. “And don’t put the twenty-round maximum in your magazines. It weakens the spring and it’ll jam on you and get you KIA’d.” The cocky look on the black Marine’s face melted into one of apprehension. “Now go get that rifle and keep it clean and maybe you won’t make the trip home in a plastic bag.”

He handed me the mail, turned, and went back down the hill without saying a word. I turned to Corporal James. He smiled.

“Feeling salty today?”

“I don’t know. I just miss a lot of friends. I need an R&R.” I looked at the mail and found a letter for James and two for Striker. I handed them to him and went up the hill. I found the position where the ash-blond guy got killed. His buddy sat alone against a tree with one hand over his eyes and the other on his M16. I didn’t speak. A dead gook with no shirt and bullet holes scattered from his face to his navel lay spread-eagled in the weeds a few feet away. Flies by the thousands buzzed around the bloody body. I walked over to it and started to give it a shove with my boot to roll it down the hill toward the tributary.

“What are you doing?” The young, dirty, thin-faced Marine stared at me blankly.

“I was going to push this stiff down the hill so you wouldn’t have to smell him.”

“No.” He spoke quickly, barely moving his lips, with no change of expression in his blank stare. “I want ’em
to come after his body so I can kill some more of ’em.” His voice was a monotone, like a talking robot’s.

I walked away, then looked back. His stare hadn’t changed, even though I wasn’t there to stare at. I handed out the remaining mail, then went back to my position and opened mine. The first one was a birthday card from Polly.

“Hey! Today’s my birthday!” I shouted.

“Happy birthday, Baby-san!” Corporal James surprised me with his friendliness. “How old?”

“Nineteen!”

“Columbus Day’s your birthday?” Striker asked without looking up from oiling his rifle.

“Yep,” I said.

“Nineteen! Were you seventeen when you joined the Crotch?”

“Yeah.” A photo fell out of the birthday card.

“Hey, she sent a picture!”

Striker and James dropped what they were doing. A picture from home was like a quick trip back to civilization, proof that it still existed. It was a color photo of Polly at a party in her college dormitory in Missouri. “She says her girlfriends and her had a birthday party for me!” Polly stood with her arms around two girls who held a bottle of beer in each hand. They all wore mini-skirts eight inches above the knees.

“Boy, looks like
they’re
having a good time!” Striker said as he hung over my right shoulder.

“Look at that fag in the background! He’s got hair longer than the chicks,” Corporal James said angrily.

“You know …” Striker paused to consider the rest of his statement. “When I get home”—he paused again—”I’m gonna deck the first hippie I see, just for the guys in the Nam.” I looked at Striker. He sounded like he meant it. Striker was big and strong and not particularly handsome with that big black mole between his eyes. I started
to feel sorry for the first hippie he was going to meet. Then I reconsidered.

“I like that idea. I might do that too,” I said. “If I ever get home.”

“Six more weeks, bro.” Striker fell back with his hands behind his head. “I’m so short the gooks probably can’t see me.”

“You ain’t as short as me, brother,” James said. “I could walk under doors!”

“How short are you?” I asked.

“Four weeks! November 12. I’ll be on the freedom bird heading for my Vette.”

“I don’t know if I even remember how to drive,” I said.

“Are you Corporal James?” a hesitant high-pitched voice asked from behind us. We all turned back to the path. Four boot Marines stood together. They all had stateside utilities on and stateside boots. They were clean-shaven and healthy-faced, with white-sidewall haircuts.

“Yeah, I’m James,” he said gruffly.

“Lieutenant says we’re in your squad for now.” The high-pitched voice came from a boot with snow-white skin.

“Man,” Striker said. “The sun is sure going to tear him up!”

Corporal James led the boots up the hill to position them. The rest of the day passed noisily by. We didn’t move. We just watched as Phantoms and Cobras and Huey gunships strafed and bombed and bombed and strafed all around us. The lush green jungle on the other side of the river geysered up wildly until it was marred with ugly brown patches. The green hills on our side of the wide Vu Gia River became potted and cratered like a picture of the moon. Then came the napalm and fiery death. The night brought Puff the Magic Dragon and the massive roar of its quavering mini-guns. Sporadic green
single tracers spit into the dark sky in defiance of the enormous wavering golden rod.