Machine Dreams (36 page)

love, Billy

Feb. 20, 1970

Dear Danner. Mitch already wrote me the case was finally dropped in Florida and you are officially a free woman—too bad, you could have dropped by to see me on your way back to trial in Naples! He took care to check and you don’t have a record. Now you can think of the whole thing as a business deal that took some suffering. I don’t know about being glad it happened (to see what jail is like? a day and a night don’t count)—that’s like me being glad I’m here. So far am keeping my head straight, only ones that get harassed real bad are the fat ones who just can’t make it. Made a good friend, Rick Singleton from Merrimac, Ky., not too far from here, so we met his girl and her friend on a weekend pass. Had several letters from Kato, sent me clippings of weddings she wrote up, pretty funny. Some of them she just talks to the mothers on the phone. You wanted to know what it’s like here—get up at three when it’s dark out and cold as hell in the barracks—gets fucking cold in Kentucky no matter what you heard. Make tight beds, 45-degree angle creases the DI measures if he wants to give us shit, sweep, mop, wax floor, line up footgear in rows. Then double time to parade ground for reveille, still dark, damp as hell, no snow but thick white frost on the ground and mist and weird, all these silent guys lined up like tenpins waiting for a giant bowling ball. Uniforms a big deal. Buttons buttoned or the DI pulls them off and hands them to you to sew on again. Later: All you swinging dicks wake up, sleep in Basic, die in Nam. That shit is the fuck of it but they don’t get to me much. Truth is I like the physical
stuff—being in top shape and passing all their tests, even the screwball shit like night infiltration, crawling around under barbed wire through ditches while they fire machine guns over our heads. Can’t see shit, only tracers. Then everyone gets up at the end and marches back to the barracks in the dark. It’s a real setup and the DIs are real assholes, but it’s hard to believe all this is really going to lead to anything later, like Nam, you know? Some guys in the platoon saw your picture and asked me if you wanted to write them or if you have any girlfriends who want to write letters. I told them your friends were a bunch of hippies and they thought that sounded fine.

FORT DIX, NEW JERSEY

Dear Mom. Arrived here at AIT about four days ago, assigned to Weapons Platoon. Similar barracks etc but colder now than was in Ky in Jan. Some of the same drills and phys. cond. courses but mostly training on the M-60 since my MOS is machine gunner. Got your letter about you and Danner coming up—I think that would be fine, maybe late in the month. Will apply for a pass but anyway will be able to go off base to dinner, etc. There is a Family Welcome Center that runs tours of the base and some reasonable motels nearby. Whole unit is doing well so far, so PX privileges are up. Food about the same as Fort Knox unfortunately, I’m looking forward to my May leave so I can get a good hamburger. Hope your job is going well and you are feeling good—may still be cold there but don’t be depressed, spring will be coming before you know it.

love,
Billy

April 2, 1970

Dear Dad. Sorry no letters back lately, but I have been real busy. Am real familiar by now with the M-60, step up from the M-16’s at Fort Knox—gun is a 7.62 standard round with an interchangeable lock mechanism, weighs about thirty pounds, heavy sucker to lug around but have gotten used to the noise and am pretty good in practice, am developing an affection for the thing. Since it looks like I will get sent over, am getting used to the idea, have been thinking of volunteering as a chopper door gunner—carrying the M-60 through triple-canopy jungle for a year does not appeal to me much. Have talked to my CO about it and will make up my mind in two weeks or so whether to put in a request for duty. Have always wanted to fly tho would rather do it over the Carolinas or Kentucky—actually I could use VA benefits for pilot training after I get out, would get plenty of experience in a chopper crew. Tell Aunt Bess and Katie thanks for the socks and scarf they sent last month, but real glad I don’t need them anymore. As for what I do with spare time, not much—nearest towns are Wrightstown and Sykesville, smaller than Bellington, kind of deserted almost or look that way by nine at night. Mt. Holly a little bigger but real drab. In the company we call them Cities of Abuse. Some of the guys wrote up a petition for passes to Saigon as a joke.

All the best to
everyone,      
Billy             

April 27, 1970

Dear Danner. Yes I’ve been getting your letters and I understand, but this is my thing and you’ll have to try to accept it. If you were me you might do the same. The nightmare is going to be on the
ground, that is clear, no matter what the statistics about gunners (where do you
get
all this shit?), and we hear plenty here based on the real stuff—I want to be up, moving over it with my own gun in front of me. If I get hit I want to get hit with plenty of metal around me. This is not crazy logic—we are not talking about the same world, and there is no way to play it safe. I’ve hauled the M-60 all over Fort Dix, and any fucker dragging it through paddies and setting it up in hill country is going to be plenty vulnerable—they always go for the gunners, to put them out, whether they’re in the air or not—so whatever choice I had was gone when I got assigned Weapons and the M-60 before AIT. My choice is ground or air, and I know I feel less like a sitting chickenshit in the air. I only tell you this because I know you will keep it to yourself. My real feeling is that I’m not so scared of being dead, if it’s fast—I’m scared as shit of lying in some jungle all fucked up, waiting for a dustoff that can’t get in because the zone is too hot. That’s what I have the dreams about. What do you mean, aren’t I scared? What kind of fucking question is that? If I go down in a chopper there will be another chopper in fast, to get me and to protect the machine. Now that I know I’m going to Nam, I would just as soon go, stop thinking and waiting. Probably when I get there the only familiar thing will be the gun and I will be feeling like holding on to it. It’s nothing like John Wayne or that show we used to watch after school—what was it?—12 O’Clock High. Used to love that show and the bomber jackets. When you get finished firing fourteen rounds on an M-60, you get this vibration in your body that’s like the
ack-ack
of the ammo, except it’s silent, and a hot flash like a drug hit as you step away. But no bomber jacket. Sorry I hardly ever write, I do read all your letters, some of the best entertainment around here, and I mean that. We can talk more on my leave—I’ll be home by the night of the 5th. Mitch is driving up to spare this poor grunt the bus ride.

PS—Enclosed a Kodak of me and Cindy, the girl from Merrimac I went out with at Fort Knox. She came up and I got a pass & we
went to Normandy Beach, ocean still cold but real pretty. She made me give her your address in case I go back on my promise to write from the Nam. See you soon. Hope you ace your finals.

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

Pfc. Hampson/RA 11949711
US Army Personnel Center
Oakland CA
May 24, 1970

Dear Danner. You wanted a post card of the Golden Gate, so here it is! I hear it really
is
red but haven’t seen it myself. Am flying out of here tonight on a chartered Braniff. Will write on arrival.

Billy

LONG BINH, SOUTH VIETNAM

Dear Mom. Arrived in good shape, landed at Tan Son Nhut Airport in Saigon and joined 93rd Replacement Bn at Long Binh Base Camp for reassignment probably to a chopper out of Lai Khe. Don’t worry, I will stay light on my feet. Temp, here is 100 plus and real humid, so am glad I’ll be in the air, cooler at 1500 ft. If you look at the map on the envelope (I guess the army is trying to explain to parents etc where we are, I sure don’t know), I am near Bien Hoa. No address yet, so don’t write until my next letter, have told Mitch the same. Talked to some guys waiting to go on R&R (one going home) at the Enlisted Men’s Club but haven’t
seen much except the Base and the land as we came in—even from the air, it didn’t look like anywhere I’ve ever been. Travel broadens the mind—Nam is my first foreign country, will keep you posted. Write often, I like to hear all the news. Unlike the guys on the ground, I will come back to a base every night with the choppers and have an actual workday, will get letters within 2 weeks or so. Don’t know what else to say to reassure you, except it’s probably better not to watch the news—they show the hot spots. The war is hot in Cambodia as the news says, but combat assaults are rotated and a lot of the days will be mostly routine, mail drops, resupply runs, what is routine here.

PS—Mom, I had a real nice time on leave and I want to thank you for all the fine meals and for throwing the party for me. Good to see all the high school crowd, and Kato had a great time, too.

LAI KHE, SOUTH VIETNAM

Dear Danner. Am at Lai Khe, 3 days OJT now, am assigned to a Huey UH1-D chopper crew-chiefed by a guy from Oklahoma named Luke Berringer, short-timer gunner everyone calls The Luke. Pilots and copilots are rotated and I’ll be the resident twinkie on any crew for awhile. Berringer will be training me. He goes on about how The Luke is my shepherd etc and calls the chopper Barbarella. This is his second tour & he says he has an understanding with Barbarella. I share a hooch (square shack made out of plyboard & ammo boxes, sandbagged walls) with him and two other gunners, Gonzalez (Texas) and Taylor, a black guy from LA. They’ve all been here six months or more, know what
they’re doing. These pilots do some incredible maneuvering and we’re all plugged into helmets, earphones, eyeshields, mouthpieces, like some kind of futuristic air riders—better than bomber jackets. Glad I’m not out there humping at night, wrapped in a poncho in the jungle rot. Instead, I come back here if I get my ass thru the day, and drink slightly cold beer. Lot of dope around but too soon to fuck my head up, all of a sudden there’s no doubt I’m here. You asked how it was at the very first—got off the plane, these American stewardesses and Muzak behind me, a sergeant checking the bathrooms to make sure no one was hiding in the can. Right out of the air conditioning you step into this furnace, I mean the air is cooked, 105 degrees, but the weight is worse than the heat, the air smells, sort of ripe and spoiled, like rotting vegetation or something burning that was rotten. Turns out they burn all the shit from the latrines. Guess they have to burn shit in this heat or it would get up and walk. Well, that’s all the (you guessed it) shit from here. I’m not feeling too bad. Take care of yourself and drop me a line.

love,
Billy

June 8, 1970

Dear Danner. Thanks for writing and also for the pictures you sent. Kato sent me some pictures from the going-away party at Mom’s. Don’t hold it against her for going out with anyone—I don’t expect her to be waiting for me like a nun. As for what I’m really doing, right now we’re doing combat assaults into Cambodia. Seven or eight a day from sunrise on, as well as resupply and mail runs. At least seven choppers, carrying six grunts or eight ARVN. We go in from Song Be or Brown or one of the other close Firebases. Circle for about ten minutes while the base fires artillery prep, sounds like the finale at a fireworks display. Then the Cobras (AH1 gunships) go in, clear the treeline with rockets. They break off on both sides and we’re on short final, quarter of a mile from touching down, gunners firing their asses off. All
sounds good but the Cong figured it out a long time ago—they just hide about 20 ft. down in their holes, listen for the prep to stop, listen for the Cobras to drop and pull off, listen for the choppers coming in. Then they crawl up into the trees with their AK-47’s & their rpg rockets and fire at us from about 50 ft away. You never see them, you see muzzle flashes. Women’s Lib is real big with the NVA and the Cong—sometimes it’s women trying to waste us. You’re up there in the
chump-chump
of the blades, spotting flashes and firing while the chopper drops low enough to land the grunts. If you’re carrying ARVN and the zone is hot, they might lay down on the floor of the chopper and have to be shoved out the fucking door. On the ground it can be hell and crazy and you still never see any Cong but dead ones. It’s like they’ve just been there and turned everything to fuck or they’re invisible, raining ammo in. Like cowboys and Indians, except the Indians are ghosts and they can’t lose because nothing really kills them. Listen, I write Dad part of this and I don’t write it to Mom at all. I’m glad you’re staying at home this summer, but I can’t do anything about Mom’s being depressed. I guess she’ll get used to it. Right now her nerves are the least of my problems. I guess I sound pissed. I am pissed but not at you. I don’t know. Keep writing to me but don’t tell me shit about Mom.

Billy

June 17

Dear Danner. Am at Firebase X-Ray, about midnight here. Funny to get mail from you in the drop we’d brought out to X-Ray since our mail stays at Lai Khe. Your letter was in the bag by mistake. Weird because today was the hottest LZ I’d come into. Air Force prep had blasted out a zone with daisy-cutters, 5000 lbs of bomb that goes off at the treeline and knocks everything down so the choppers can land. Jungle green and waving and charred at the edges, and there were twenty choppers or more, red flares up for the dustoffs, everyone scrambling in or out of machines in this orange air. There were so many wounded we took on WIAs coming
back from every run. The Medivacs were filled. Luke had a medic kit & bandaged the ones so fucked up the medics hadn’t found all their wounds, while I stayed on the gun. We did four runs into that zone, coming thru fire meant to score choppers before they could land reinforcements, but the last one was the worst. One of the choppers just below us as we lifted off took a rocket and we were close enough to bounce as it blew. Explosion hit in the center and took the whole bird. We were taking pops ourselves and had to pull away. After we got back, Luke told me that was my first day—air hot enough to char the asshole was always the first day. Not much time to sit on my ass here wondering is the war right or wrong—right is getting thru and pulling everyone else thru, getting bodies back if we can’t get anything else. I’m with Luke and the crew and we live in the chopper. These guys are the only country I know of and they’re what I’m defending—I’m not stupid enough to think my country is over here. Luke and me joke about how clicked in we are to Barbarella. He’s been shot down twice but says she’s not like those other cunts, etc. Wants to take her back to Oklahoma and fly her over Bluestem Lake until they both die of old age. His grandmother is an Osage & says charms. Luke says B. is an Osage chopper living in the Nam just to save our asses. Can you believe it? Sometimes it seems like I dreamed everything but this, because what I remember was in the World. Well, my ass is beat. Like we said, keep my letters to yourself. See you in 344 days. I’m getting shorter all the time.