This country cannot escape its destiny as the champion of the free world—there is no running away from it.
February 1966
The beach was slippery red clay. Connors claimed that it was better than the Caribbean. “In the Caribbean you can’t slide into the water because of the sand.”
True. If you sat on this beach without holding on to a bush, you slipped into the warm red water. Stepping toward the center of the pond, your feet accumulated layers of adhesive clay that made it seem like you were touching bottom when you weren’t. When I was chin deep, I stopped to watch the others.
Banjo ducked under and disappeared completely, an act of great courage in this slime, to reappear several feet away.
“Man, how can you stick your head under that shit?” said Kaiser. Kaiser, like me, wouldn’t go under for anything, but stood chin deep, soaking in the relative coolness.
Banjo only laughed and ducked under again. An old Vietnamese lady laughed at him while she weeded the fields around the pond. Four or five women and two men watched us skinny-dip in the buffalo watering pond. The women grinned self-consciously. These naked foreigners were clearly making fools of themselves. We interpreted their smiles as friendly approval.
An ROK road patrol guarding a bridge a hundred feet away laughed, too. I found out later that the Koreans were forbidden to undress around the Vietnamese because it was a sign of vulnerability to be thus exposed in front of your enemy.
Nate was sitting on his clothes on the beach, sunning himself, when a Cola girl materialized. When he noticed her, he modestly crossed his legs.
Cola girls were ubiquitous. They arrived at our laagers carrying Cokes in plastic netting.
“Fifty cents, GI. Buy Croakacrola?” They were inevitably young and cute, so I never bought a Coke. I was convinced the soda was poisoned.
“Hey, Nate, I can see your pecker,” yelled Connors. Nate glanced at him while he declined the coke and tightened his legs.
“I’m trolling, wise-ass.”
“Hey. So that’s how it’s done. But the bait is so small.”
Everyone laughed.
“I don’t know where you get off, Connors. You could play a record with your cock.”
“So, you’re going to do it?” I said.
“Yeah. You oughta think about it, too,” said Kaiser.
“Air America. Who are they?”
“Well, they’re supposed to be a civilian helicopter service, but it’s a CIA front.”
“How much do they pay?” I asked.
“That’s the good part. They guarantee twenty thousand and the average is thirty-five. Plus you get PX privileges, an airline discount, and ten days of R&R every month.”
“Twenty thousand?” I was paid seven.
“Yeah. And you can join them right now, before you get out of the army.”
“You doing that?”
“Well, I’ve only got two months left in service, so I’m going to finish up and move to Saigon as a civilian.” Kaiser slapped an envelope against his hand. “Got the letter today. It’s all fixed. What do you think, Mason? You want me to give you the address?”
“Naw. I think I’d rather fly crop dusters in Florida than sneak around with the CIA in Vietnam.”
“You’re going to be a CIA agent?” Nate said to Kaiser.
“Not an agent, a pilot. You know, Air America.”
“So, you like this line of work, do you?”
“Shit, they never fly assaults. They mostly do courier work and fly radio teams into Cambodia. Or pick up downed pilots where the army isn’t supposed to go. We take a lot more chances than they do, and we do it for peanuts.”
“So why do you think they’d let somebody as stupid as you even get close to their operation?”
“Not all of us are morons, Nate. You’ll see. In two months I’ll be pulling in twenty thou for doing a lot less work and for taking a lot less chances than you.”
Nate set a record on top of a box. In one corner of the box there was a fold-out tone arm.
“That’s a record player?” I said.
“Yeah. Neat, huh? My wife sent it for Christmas, but it just got here.”
Music played. “You’re kidding me!” said Kaiser. “ ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’? I’m sick!” He got up and left.
“Eat your heart out, Kaiser!” Nate hummed along with the song.
Barber, Wendall’s buddy, ducked in through the flap. “Mason, you seen Wendall?”
“No.”
“I have. He’s over toward the mess tent digging a hole,” said Nate.
“Thanks.” Barber left.
“What’s he digging a hole for?” I asked.
“He keeps saying we’re going to get hit. I think he’s beginning to take Hanoi Hanna seriously,” said Nate.
“Puff the Magic Dragon” was making me uncomfortable. It was the saccharine song that had inspired the naming of the murderous gatling-gun-armed C-47s. I couldn’t listen. “I’m going to check out Wendall.”
It was twilight, and I could see a small pile of dirt next to the other platoon tent. When I got closer, I saw what looked like a cap sitting on the ground. The cap moved, and Wendall’s smile brightened under the brim. “Hi, Mason.”
“Hi, Wendall. Nice hole you got there.”
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
“No. Really.”
Wendall tried to hold his chin up at the edge of the five-foot shaft while his shoulders strained low to reach something on the bottom. A large tin can full of sand squeezed up between his chest and the tight walls. He dumped it on the pile around him.
“The VC love mortars, and we have no protection,” he said.
“They say we can’t dig holes. We’re supposed to use that big gully over there.”
“That gully’s too wide. If a mortar round went off in it, you’d have hamburger. That’s why I built this like I did. I’m below ground level and I present the minimum target.”
“Pretty smart.”
“Not really. It just looks smart compared to what the morons told us to do.” He was referring to the Cav’s no-digging policy, which was still in effect to keep us from disfiguring the landscape. “Sometimes I think this war is being run by a gardener,” he added.
I walked over to the maintenance area and took a time-exposure shot of Reacher and some other guys working on a Huey in the glare of floodlights. Thousands of moths flitted around the lights while Reacher and Rubenski, armed with wrenches and screwdrivers, worked to get the ship flyable for the morning. They did it every night. Our ships were parked in a long row, nose to tail, along with eight or so other Hueys, at the Rifle Range. The rest were invisible in the moonless night.
The music was off when I returned, and Nate was asleep. I stripped to my underwear and crawled under my poncho liner.
I could not sleep. Why couldn’t I be more like Kaiser? Get a job with Air America and get out of all this? Imagine twenty thousand dollars a year. Patience had been complaining in her letters about our money problems. We were paying for the new Volvo, a much too expensive bed-and-dresser set, life insurance, and high rent at Cape Coral. Twenty thousand would sure be a whole new world. But it would have to be in this stinking country. Anything was better than that.
A mosquito pierced my arm, but I didn’t flinch. A guy I knew in another company was still in Japan living in a hotel while they treated him for malaria.
I was jumpy, worried. My nights were getting harder to bear. I thought of jerking off, but it seemed like too much trouble. You had to be very careful because the slightest noise or creak of the bed might cause some wise-ass to yell, “Hey. I hear somebody fucking his fist!” That would cause a few moments of catcalls, which masturbating men use to cover their last, quick strokes. So far I hadn’t been discovered. I knew it was only a matter of time.