Sand in the Wind (21 page)

“No he doesn’t.”

“Well how come he’s always on your ass?”

In exasperation, Cowen finally said what he didn’t want to say. “Because he’s a Jew.”

“Green?”

“Him?”

“You shittin’ me, Abie?”

“No!”

“He is?”

"Abie said ‘No.’
 
”

“No, I said he was.”

Remembering how the black drill instructors beat Stevens, Chalice was sure Cowen was right. “God, I never would have believed it.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Cowen mumbled just loud enough for Chalice to hear.

Embarrassed, Chalice was trying to think of something to say when he noticed his hands were stained red from the pistachio nuts. “God, look at this.” He tried to rub the dye off on his pants.

“You better not let Morton see that.”

“Tell him it’s blood.”

“It will be.”

“What about the duty roster?”

“Yeah?”

“What duty roster?”

Chalice stood at attention in his Dress Green Uniform, thinking about the time he’d spent polishing his shoes and brass, feeling ridiculous. Morton’s eyes passed over him as he glanced down the row of men.

“This is it, hogaroos: Command Inspection. If the candyass colonel likes the way you look, you’ll be leaving Parris Island in two days. You know the questions he’ll probably ask you; and you
better know
the answers. I don’t want to hear any stammering. Shout right in his face. If he asks you what you cleaned your rifles with, don’t say WD-40. They don’t like us using it.”

The colonel arrived on time. He had a question for each man. Chalice watched him move down the ranks, distrustful of the way the colonel tried to seem friendly without sacrificing his stiff, military bearing.

“Private, where are you from?”

“Sir, the Private’s from Turtletown, Tennessee,” Boyd answered.

“Where exactly is that, Private?”

“Sir, it’s about ten miles outside of Ducktown.”

Chalice tightened his facial muscles to keep from smiling. Boyd had probably been waiting for that question. Chalice glanced at the men around him, admitting that they were smarter than he’d first thought.

The colonel moved to the next man. “Private Brown, you did a fine job on your rifle. How’d you manage to get it so clean?”

“
Sir, the Private used WD-40.
”

Chalice winced. ‘Some of them are smarter.’

As soon as the colonel left, Morton stepped back into the aisle. He glanced at his men, making little attempt to hide the pride in his expression. “Hogaroos, you did all right today
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
and you’ll do all right in Nam. There’s not a man here I’d be afraid to fight alongside
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
at least not more than one or two. We got rid of the real shitbirds. When you get off Parris Island, you’re supposed to be Marines. That’s a lot of bullshit. It’ll take Nam to make you Marines, and you might end up corpses first. Marines or not, you’re the best trained fighting men in the world. Don’t
ever
fucking forget it.”

Amused while Morton had been talking, Chalice was a little disappointed when the speech ended. He’d expected more, at the same time knowing that anything Morton could have said would have seemed ridiculous. ‘Green could have done better,’ he told himself. But this didn’t matter — not what they said. He looked at the men around him, surprised by the confidence he had in them. They’d undergone everything he had, more than seemed possible. He didn’t hate Morton or Hacker, or even Green; but more surprisingly, he respected them. They lived in their own simple world — competitive, destructive, brutal. But in this imaginary world, all their actions had made sense. Absurd as this world seemed, within itself it contained no absurdities. They had succeeded. They’d turned seventy-two “civilian pieces of shit” into Marines, whatever that meant. Chalice stared at the faces around him — confident, likable,
brutal.
Marines: one thing he was sure the word meant — “professional killers in the service of the United States government.”

5.
The Cemetery

A truck with supplies came out to the bridge. As the men unloaded it, a Marine jumped off and asked for Sergeant Kovacs. Kovacs was sitting outside his hootch cutting his toenails. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a new pair of boots walking towards him. ‘New man, we can use him,’ he thought without looking up. The boots stopped directly in front of him.

“I’ve been assigned to this platoon.”

“Congratulations, what’s your last name?” he asked, still cutting his toenails.

“Kramer.”

“Okay Kramer, you’ll be in Charlie Squad. Go find Valdez.”

“I’d rather not.”

‘Just what I need, another wise guy.’ Kovacs finally looked up. “What
would
you like to do, hotshot?”

“I think I’d like to be Platoon Commander.”

Suppressing a grin, Kovacs slowly rose to his feet and stuck out his hand. “Glad to meet you, Lieutenant Kramer. Wanna take a look around?”

“No hurry.” Kramer took off his pack and they both sat down. “How long ago did Lieutenant— your last lieutenant get killed?”

“None of us could pronounce his name either. We called him Lieutenant S. Got killed about three months ago.”

Kramer stretched out on the ground and rested his head on his pack. He lit a cigarette and took a few drags while Kovacs went back to cutting his nails. “What kind of platoon have we got here?”

“They’re the best, more brains than the rest of the company combined
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
a few shitbirds too. In a place like this where there isn’t much chance of getting hit, they’re a little more trouble than most platoons; but when the shit does hit the fan, they’re a bunch of cool heads.”

“What was Lieutenant S like?”

“If you’re worried about the men comparing you to him, you’ve got a lot to worry about.”

“Not worried, just curious.”

“He was a hell of a dude. The first time I reported to the platoon, they were out in the Arizona and I was choppered in with some supplies. Right after I got off the chopper this guy wearing a couple a strings of love beads and a peace symbol comes swinging up to me. Right away he sticks out the glad hand, and I’m standing there thinking, ‘No shit, it’s the Chamber of Commerce.’ We stood there talking for about ten minutes — you know, the usual stuff: Where’re you from? Who do you know? Do you eat pussy? I couldn’t think of the lieutenant’s name, so I asked, ‘What’s Lieutenant What’s-His-Fuck like?’ He told me he was the greatest; good guy, knew his shit, lotta guts, didn’t bug anybody. I said, ‘I better check in with him. Where is he?’ He says, ‘You’re talking to him.’
 
”

Kramer sat up, shaking his head with amusement. “You really have a knack for making good first impressions with your lieutenants.”

“Yeah, I guess I do.
  
.
 
.
 
. You want me to call the squad leaders up here now, sir?”

“No, I can meet them later when I check out the perimeter. You always call your lieutenants ‘sir’?”

“Not if I don’t have to.”

“You don’t have to.”

Whereas Kovacs seemed indifferent, Kramer noticed that most of the other members of the platoon carefully avoided him — doing so without exhibiting any outward hostility, but at the same time refusing to recognize him as their lieutenant. He realized that they thought of him as an outsider and wasn’t particularly bothered, certainly not to the point of doing anything about it. The inward hostility of the older members of the platoon would have been more evident to him if he could have heard them talk among themselves — not by any direct comments about him, but by their reminiscences about Lieutenant S. The real reason for their hostility was always carefully avoided. To them Vietnam had become a question of odds. Kramer had changed these odds. Every day that had passed, every round that had missed them, and even every friend killed had improved the chances of their own survival, or so they thought. To them it was merely a question of their tours running out before their luck. So far it had been good, but now the odds had changed and so could their luck. In the backs of their minds was the same thought: ‘A few days ago somebody steps off a truck and says he’s our new lieutenant, so now our lives depend on him even though Kovacs knows more shit than he’ll ever know, and all he has to do is make one little mistake and a few more of us get blown away.’

Alpha’s next patrol was a short one with little chance of contact. Harmon took advantage of it to give Chalice some experience at walking point. Even though he realized this, Chalice still felt a deep sense of responsibility for the other members of his squad as he carefully led them along a thick tree line. Upon reaching the end of it, he saw a small stream. His eyes followed its course until, fifty yards in the distance, they came upon an old Vietnamese peasant talking to a younger man. At first his mind attributed little importance to what he was watching, then suddenly he became conscious of the actual situation and the danger involved in anything unusual. He passed the word back and was told to sneak up on them. Before they could get close, the younger man hurried off into a huge tree line.

“
Haul ass!
” Harmon shouted. The old man saw them running towards him and froze. When they reached him, he immediately started jabbering with a forced smile on his face. Harmon told Chalice to ask him who the young man was. Chalice had trouble understanding his answers, but he finally made out that the old man claimed to have just met him. Harmon felt he was a VC sympathizer, but he realized that they didn’t have any evidence and he’d just be let go if they brought him in. He decided to have Payne radio back to the bridge and find out what Kramer wanted them to do. Kramer radioed Trippitt and was told not to bother with the old man. Harmon ordered Chalice to start heading back to the bridge. As they left, the old man nervously bowed and mumbled continuous thank-yous.

Upon returning to the perimeter, they found supplies and mail waiting for them. Hamilton had gotten a big package full of candy bars, Kool-Aid, and canned food. The whole squad stood around eagerly while he passed out a few of the candy bars. As Payne got one, he said, “Hey Hamilton, this is the first time I’ve ever seen you get a package when we didn’t have to move-out.”

“Yeah, that pisses me off.”

Just then Harmon walked over. “Well, I guess you know what the story is.”

“Whata you talking about?” Payne asked.

“Hamilton got a package, didn’t he?”

“Are you shitting me? Are we moving out?”

“There it is.”

“Where the fuck to?”

“Ladybird Park.”

Hamilton, who had been holding a can of ravioli in his hand, threw it violently into the box and shouted, “I don’t
fucking
believe it!” As everybody started walking away, he called out different names and flipped each man something out of his package until it was empty. Turning to Tony 5, he said, “I sure as hell wasn’t gonna hump all that shit.”

Forsythe and Chalice had just started to tear down their hootch when Harmon called out for everybody to pick up six meals of C-rations. Chalice threw down his poncho in disgust. “Why can’t they drop off the supplies at the place we’re going instead of making us hump them?”

“I dunno,” Forsythe answered. “I can’t ever remember moving out except on a day we got supplied.”

After the men finished tearing down their hootches and fixing their packs, they had to sit around for an hour until First Platoon arrived to relieve them. They gathered in small groups wherever they could find some shade. Though Ladybird Park was only three kilometers away, nobody was very happy about moving out. As soon as First Platoon arrived, they headed back in the direction of Hill 65 following the road all the way.

Chalice expected the march to be easy because it was short and he now knew what to expect. After only a few minutes of marching, he felt exhausted and the shorter distance seemed unimportant. Only the psychological advantage of knowing exactly how far he had to go made this march any easier than the previous ones.

Ladybird Park was on the river side of the road and separated from it by a marsh. A small ville fronted the road on the opposite side. Three dikelike paths led across the marsh to the park. As soon as the platoon turned off the road onto one of them, a few dozen Vietnamese kids came running from the ville. They tagged along, palms outstretched, begging for food and cigarettes.

“Hey Marine, you souvenir me chop-chop?”

“You give me sigmoke?”

Most of the men were exhausted and simply ignored the kids. Chalice noticed Appleton reach into his pocket and throw a small object to them. One of the smaller kids snatched it up. He unwrapped it and was about to put it into his mouth when an older boy grabbed it away, at the same time yelling at Appleton, “You bullshit, this no chop-chop. This heat tab.” As soon as they crossed the marsh, Chalice saw why the place was called Ladybird State Park. Wide canopied shade trees dotted an area of white beach sand a hundred yards long and almost as wide, giving it the appearance of a picnic ground. Alpha Squad was assigned the side of the perimeter that fronted the river. Their positions were fifty yards from the bank, the area in between being free of obstacles and resembling a beach. First Platoon had left up the frames of their hootches, so setting up new ones involved little effort. The foxholes were already dug, and everybody just sat around and rested during the hour before dusk.

Kramer found little to complain about, and had even enjoyed his first  week in the bush. Effortlessly, he’d fallen into the role of platoon commander. The narrow bounds of this role necessitated little thinking or decisiveness. The situations and choices were familiar — all of them covered by the boring nonsense he’d learned in OCS. The lines that circumscribed him were those he’d read in leadership manuals. All he had to do was remember them, to pick and choose the most appropriate. “An officer must—” and he was that officer, that military cliché. It wasn’t the role that Kramer enjoyed, but rather the freedom from freedom it afforded him. However distasteful the military, it had a skill for rigid simplification.