I Pledge Allegiance (4 page)

A
ccording to our mission, we would be having plenty of opportunities to fulfill Huff’s dream of smashings.

The USS
Boston
is a heavy guided missile cruiser that has two primary jobs to do as part of Operation Sea Dragon. We are a kind of big brother escort to our smaller, faster, feistier little brothers like the
Sacramento.
And we are to provide heavy artillery support for our troops doing all the dirty hand-to-hand fighting in-country there in real honest-to-goodness Vietnam.

In-country is what they call that, the gritty land war. As opposed to off-coast, where I am. Makes me sound like a tourist by comparison, huh?

The second function, when you get right down to it, is the reason I am here.

I know my reason is unreasonable.

But that is, I think, the way a guy gets through a situation like this. You have to develop your own small crazy in order to cope with the big crazy that is war. No matter how right the fight, no matter draftee or short
timer or lifer or whatever, the basic truth of a whole bunch of us guys over here trying our best, with all the machinery we have, to pulverize all their guys, and all of their guys using whatever means necessary to wipe out all of ours … well, it puts you in a constant state of mental somethingorother that you’d have to be crazy not to call crazy.

And so yes, this is my small crazy. In my head, I see myself, from my floating post here off the coast of what looks like a pretty lush garden, protecting my lifelong personal friends. That is my mission. They are there, on the ground, right now, and cannot see me for the distance and the foliage. But in my head and the eyes of my small crazy, I can see them. Because I am the overseer. As long as I am here off this coast, firing on my friends’ enemies, we are all going to get through this and come home okay.

I believe that.

The United States Navy has its ideas about what my mission is, as it has pretty clear ideas about everything. And that’s fine. They have trained me and conditioned me to do certain things with the very serious gear they have assembled for the purpose and, again, I say that’s fine. I am an Aviation Electrician’s Mate Third Class (AE3). Sounds a little sad, like my whole designation is
just to be some kind of little buddy — third-class buddy, at that — to the real grown-up electricians on board. But I’m cool with that, as there are about a zillion miles of wiring, plus switches and sockets and transformers on a ship like this, so something minor is always going on the fritz. I get small repair jobs with instructions not to electrocute myself or anyone else. I even carry around a special, official Navy electrician’s knife on my belt. The second blade is a screwdriver, while the longer one is a regular knifing knife, so just in case we get overrun by the enemy, I can give him a quick stabbing and then get back to changing a fuse, thereby fulfilling both of my main duties for my country.

But my duties are not the same thing as my mission. My mission is more my own thing. I don’t think my personal sense of mission necessarily clashes with the Navy’s mission, and as long as that is the case, everybody should manage just fine out of the deal.

As a matter of fact, I have trouble seeing how a guy like me — which is to say, a normal anybody guy like anybody — could manage the big, titanic, official US Navy, Walter Cronkite CBS Evening News–worthy mission without working directly on a small, important mission of his own. That kind of thing is what gets you fighting and keeps you fighting. I don’t know how to stop the spread of Communism (or whatever that even
really is, from what I can tell) throughout Southeast Asia. But I do believe I know how to look out for my guys. All four of us — I’m counting me, because we all need me to come home, too — out there somewhere. And okay, Beck is going to be in the sky mostly, more likely to be overseeing
my
safety, which is a comfort, because he’s Beck. And Beck would hardly even need anybody’s help in the air, on the ground, or in one of those Riverine boat operations that are in the thickest thick of it. But that changes nothing, anyway. I am overseeing the safety of my boys.

My mission. If I carry out my mission well, then the Navy gets what they need from me. They win. We win. The United States wins.

Communism loses. Sorry, Communism, but that’s just how it has to go.

When we finally reach our destination, the country that’s been scaring me out of my wits on the news every night for so long, I realize that as much as I thought I was prepared, I was not prepared.

The sky is alive. There is hardware and fire, noise, thunder, screech jet sounds and rumble deep enough to come right up through the Gulf of Tonkin waters and make all seventeen thousand tons of
Boston
hum beneath us. As I stare at the new world we are steaming
into, it could not seem further removed from the peace of the world we steamed out of just a few weeks before.

“Thank God for violence, huh, Mo?”

It’s a slap on my shoulder and a voice in my ear, only this time it is not Huff, it’s Moses, who most certainly would have caught the nickname Mo if I hadn’t stumbled into it first. I think the military nickname machine was stumped by this turn of events, because everyone seemed to fold and just reverted to calling him Moses. But since he said nobody had called him Moses since sixth grade, when a teacher tried it and he keyed MO into the hood of her car, you could make a case that Moses was now the nickname and Mo the proper fulltime one.

Since we’ve been on board, I cannot think of three things Moses has said that I’ve agreed with. There is no good reason for me to like him.

I just do.

“Not so sure I’m with you on this one, Moses,” I say. I have said this exact sentence to him at least seven times a day since the day I met him. But this is the first time I’ve said it while watching a US Air Force jet scorch low across the sky about a mile in shore, apparently launching whole flocks of grenades randomly in all directions.

“Come on, Mo,” he says quite happily, “institutional, industrial-strength violence, baby — where would we be without it?”

I take a stab. “Home?”

“Exactly,” he says. “I rest my case.”

It’s impossible for me to tell whether he thinks that explains itself to me, or if he just wants me to ask, but I don’t care. I’m satisfied whenever his case rests.

But we don’t have to agree on this: We are sailing into a
world
of violence here.

I know, it’s a war. It should be no surprise.

I’m surprised anyway. And I’m not alone. It’s dusk as our ship pulls close enough to the coast to finally, officially be considered part of the conflict. And as we approach the show, and the noises and the flashes and the projectiles and explosions, and even the smell of the world changes from salty sea mist to smoke and explosives and chemical burn, I am joined at the rail by my new collection of guys. My shipmates.

Moses is leaning heavily on my shoulder now, like we are a couple on a date watching a war movie on a gigantic drive-in screen. He is making small hungry noises.

Huff is there on my other shoulder, giving it perspective. “Holy smokes,” he says, and he is about as right as he could be. We are looking at holy smokes.

The other guys I know from the racks all around me
are at my back now. We are all watching the same light show, which would be a thrill and a treat if the show was something other than what we all know it is. This is the real thing, killing, on a wide scale and with precision. US aircraft fly day and night over the coast, looking for movement of weapons and supplies, and when they see anything, they pick up the horn and call to the command center in Saigon and the center calls to the likes of us, or tanks, or, in this case, aircraft carriers. Jets, probably from the
Kitty Hawk
or
Enterprise,
stationed out in deeper water, are zooming everywhere, pounding the shore mercilessly.

Shells blast from cannons of ships already parked a little farther up the coast, soaring across the sky to land on vehicles, buildings, any structure along the shore. The sound, booming and screaming when the missiles launch, has an even bigger payback on land. The explosions look as if they are generated up out of the earth. Geysers of fire shoot straight up into the air in eighty-foot columns when the blast meets fuel and artillery. The sky gradually fills with spark and ash, smoke and chemicals, turning the fading daylight into grades of orange, blue, brown. From this distance it almost seems like there is no human presence in there at all, like we are just practicing blowing up inanimate stuff like with the fireworks on Jamaica Pond.

But we know better, because reconnaissance tells us so.

Bruce is here. We call him Bruise. He’s the only one who actually gave himself his own nickname after coming on board. Normally, that isn’t allowed, but his name was both so desperate and so hilarious, we had to let it stand. Bruise was trying to add a little bit of ruggedness to himself, before people’s impressions formed and it was too late. Truth is, if Bruise punched with all his might, a banana would not bruise.

“Where do we even start?” says Bruise.

Rascal Cavaliere has an answer for him. It should be noted that Rascal has an answer for everybody, everywhere, always. “We don’t,” he says. “Looks like they’ve got everything covered here. Tell the old man to take a right, we’ll make a beer run to Bangkok.”

“Gotta earn it first, boys,” Huff says. “Fight first, beer later.”

We take in the scene for a while now, the chatter winding down to nothing. This is as big a part of our education, I figure, as anything they showed us in basic training.

Vera Rivera is behind me, too. I can only sense him, because his aim in this life appears to be to see and hear, not be seen, not be heard. Somehow, though, I always sense him.

But one of us is not looking, and we all know why. The last of our little family is still back at “The House.” The House is the name we gave to our sleeping quarters, three racks against one wall, next to three racks on the other wall about an arm’s length away. Not quite a room, and certainly not a house, it is the section of the ship, and therefore the war and the world, that has been set aside for us to live in for now. I think it’s fair to say this family was formed pretty much as naturally as any other family gets formed — by being thrown in together to make the best of it.

And right now, back at The House, making the best of it, is our sixth family member. We call him Seven. Short for Seven Hands Vaughn. He has this small two-thirds-size practice guitar that he plays almost all the time, and he plays it so completely, it sounds indeed like there are seven hands working at it. Rascal came up with that. Rascal was very much on the ball there.

Seven is not with us because Seven has no interest at all in what is going on out there. Seven is in one way, at least, the exact opposite of me. He spends every last possible second of his Navy life back there in The House. If he could do his entire tour and never lay eyes on the country of Vietnam or the South China Sea, I believe he would be one happy guitar-playing boy. “Lemme know how it go” is what he normally says
when anybody is leaving The House. He even has a little bottleneck slide guitar theme he plays when he says it, the high note wobbling away on the words
know
and
go.

It’s a good group. I like them very much, and am glad I’ve got them.

They will never be
the
group, though, will they?

E
verybody stands watch, no matter what else his job is. Six hours on, six hours off, there is always watching to do, around the clock. I’m an electrician third class, and there is plenty for me to do on a ship this size. But not so much that I don’t also do a lot of watching.

I wanted communications. That is what I should be doing, is communications. There is so much communications that happens in the Navy, it is a wonder we have any time left over to be blowing things up. On the
Boston
alone, there are scores of guys spending all day seated in front of these big blinking disks of screens, electronic and computerized systems that build up a picture of what is going on in the sea and on land all around us. The screens look like portholes, and they sort of are, in that they give a peek at what’s outside.

But unlike old-fashioned portholes, these are insanely tricky to learn and to operate. Truth is, at this stage I wouldn’t be up to the job, and we’d probably
bump right into every other ship or sink our own boats if they gave me a shot at it.

Apparently, there are even more people who
want
to be in communications jobs than there are communications jobs, and so I am on a list, fixing coffeepots and stuff while I make my way. Meantime, I watch.

“Man, have you ever felt anything like this?” I ask, walking my little mini patrol along the starboard side of the ship with Moses. “I mean, humid is one thing …”

“Man, this ain’t humid. This is
swimming.”

We have left our position just south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), which is about a two-kilometer band stretching across the whole of the North and South Vietnamese border. Troops from either side aren’t allowed in the zone, as if the land doesn’t belong to either. It belongs to the war, I suppose.

Now we are looking at a whole ‘nother country. North Vietnam. There are a couple of things that make these two places very different. One, North Vietnam, unlike South, has not invited us to be here. That’s kind of important and changes the nature of things considerably for a ship floating off their waters. And two, my mission now is not to provide cover and protection for my boys fighting on the ground of South Vietnam. My mission now is to pound the bejesus out of somebody else’s pals.

I feel like I have left my post. Like I have left them unprotected.

Until, suddenly, that thought gets blown right out of my mind.

The first shot sounds innocent enough, a boom, but muffled. I think first it’s one of our side exploding something on the North Vietnamese. An instant later, though, and the reality hits home.

Bu-bhooom!
A massive explosion, not more than fifty yards in front of us. A geyser of water shoots straight up out of the ocean. Then the muffled boom again, and again.

Bu-bhooom!

Sirens start blasting all over the ship. Guys appear out of nowhere and everywhere, running and climbing into positions and manning battle stations. Because the battle is on. My task in these situations is to run up to the big gun turrets and stand by along with a bunch of other guys, ready to be running ammo up the line.

The sound of our 8”/55 guns is something beyond belief. Again, they prepared us for this, but they didn’t, they couldn’t. I happen to be directly under one of the turrets when the boys start firing back, and I tell you, I have never been as terrified of anything in my life. You could combine
all
the terrors of my life to this point, and they would not add up to this.

And it is relentless.

Boom!    B-B-B-B-B-BOOOM!     B-B-B-B-B-B-BOOOM!

It’s
like a machine gun, only a million times the power, the sound, the size. Everything is faster and bigger and louder. Guys are shouting all over the place — it’s chaos. Except that it isn’t. Because we are trained for this. We are fighting men now, and whatever the fear and the shock and the adrenaline, we are here for this, and deep down nothing is getting in the way of our being here for exactly this. Our mission.

I am petrified. But I am not overwhelmed.

Within the first thirty seconds, I conclude that I am going to die here and now.

Thirty seconds later, when I find that I am not dead, I conclude other things.

I conclude that I am never going to die.

I conclude that I have never been more alive in my life.

I watch our shells trace across the sky, arc majestically, and come crashing down on the very skull of North Vietnam. I find myself yelling, bellowing, for the gunners to step it up. Pound them. Put them away. I don’t even know what I’m looking at out there, but I’m suddenly gesturing, pointing out spots for them to
target there on the distant unknowable shore. As if I know what I am doing. As if anybody would be heeding me even if I did.

That is adrenaline, I guess.

“Did I tell ya? Did I tell ya?” It’s Huff, rushing up beside me, grabbing me as if he’s going to toss me over the side, but just shaking me like a madman instead.

“You told me, Huff.”

“Will I ever have to tell you again?”

“You won’t. This is unbelievable.”

“It doesn’t get much better than this. To be young men, in the warm morning Asian air, pounding the stuffing out of the enemy? And they started it. Right?”

“They started it, Huff. We were just floating here, minding our own business.”

Even as I am saying it, I am aware that this is, at best, an incomplete summary of events. We were floating here, minding our own business, with our hellacious firepower angled in a hostile way toward their country. Would I be so reasonable with them if they were likewise floating off Hyannis?

No.

But so what?

Then as I stare at the action, the real action comes
to me. I get a sharp shove at my side and look to find another sailor waiting to off-load a big shell on me.

“Resupply! Resupply!” I hear from above.

A supply line has formed, and we commence passing the heavy shells up the line to the gunners.

“I cannot wait to get my shot, boy, I tell ya,” Huff says as I hand off to him. Huff is a gunner. But this is not his shift. He will get his turn. “I just want to blow stuff up, y’know. This is cool, but honest, that business down south of the DMZ, that’s the stuff that’s got my name on it. Blowing tunnels and bridges and supply lines right off the map, that’s the stuff that’s gonna show ’em who’s boss, and nobody even needs to get hurt, am I right?”

What he means by nobody getting hurt is that tunnels and bridges and supply lines don’t tend to shell you back. Here in the North, we are taking on the full forces of a country rather than pockets of resistance.

So he’s not right. But again, do I care? Adrenaline says no.

“You’re right, Huff.”

From what I can tell, the enemy stopped firing in our direction quite some time ago. From the explosions and ongoing villages of fire we have created, it seems we got our man, and then some.

But we continue to pound the daylights out of them. We continue to pound, like we get paid by the artillery we use.

And I continue to watch, and my heart pounds every bit as hard as the big, bad 8”/55 guns that are making every other sound in the world meaningless and futile.