They were the most upbeat group I had ever been around. None of us imagined this would be the last time ever we could all share our experiences with men who understood, who knew the rush of still being alive. It was the last time we would have to wake up in this god-awful country. No more standing watch or burning shitters. We were outta here!
That evening, we tried to sleep but were like kids on Christmas Eve. We knew dawn would come faster if we slept, but we were all too pumped up. The jokes, particularly those about how short we were, lasted all through the night. We talked about our girls back home and what kind of cars we were going to buy. I had wedding plans in the making; I was due to get married on March 29—only nine days away. I still had to spend four or five days on Okinawa before we caught our plane for California, so my bride-to-be was getting a little nervous that I wouldn’t make it in time.
At 10:30 p.m. we all jumped at the familiar ga-womp of an incoming rocket. All through the hootch went the cry of “Incoming!” We piled out of the building and into a slit trench nearby.
Out loud, each of us was saying the same thing: “I’m too short for this shit!” One guy, in a trance, had squatted down against the sandbag wall. Another was weeping that he’d never make it home. The entire trench turned on him and told him to shut up, which he did—but he continued to whimper.
It was impossible to tell where Charlie’s rockets landed, but they were somewhere in the distance, maybe at the other end of the airbase. A likely target was the hundreds of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft that packed the airfield. With so much hardware parked all over, it would be hard to miss. And every combat veteran in our trench knew that rockets sometimes preceded a ground attack. Not one of us had a weapon. Probably for the first time in thirteen months, everyone was totally defenseless—except me. I still had my M14 with four full magazines, each holding twenty rounds.
All of us watched the night sky, looking for the dreaded red star cluster that signaled an enemy ground attack. I positioned myself at one end of the slit trench, waiting for anyone or anything that came our way.
So far, the rockets were impacting a long way off. Men were speculating that it would affect tomorrow’s flight.
Someone said loudly, “Charlie, you can’t even let me get out of here without more shit, can you?” That drew a big laugh, because we were all thinking the same thing. All were praying, Please, just let me get out of here!
If I report the phrase, “I’m too short for this shit,” just one more time here, that night I must have heard it five thousand times. It was a mantra that we uttered over and over again.
The rockets subsided after about ten minutes and an all-clear sounded, and we went back inside our hooches. After that, no way was anyone getting any sleep!
Late the next morning, an Air Force bus took us out to the tarmac, where we stood in a loose formation next to a Continental Airlines DC-8, waiting for it to unload its cargo—a fresh batch of FNGs. It was a changing of the guard. They had all just enjoyed twelve hours of airborne air conditioning, so when each new guy reached the doorway to exit the plane, he usually took a step back, as if he’d been hit in the face with the blast of a Pittsburgh coke furnace.
One by one, they staggered down the stairs and past a gauntlet of mangy veterans, calling out to them, “Hey, you think this is hot? You ain’t seen shit yet!” They were taunted with questions like, “Hey, FNG! Don’t you wish you was us? We’re so short we could use a blade of grass for a hammock!” And reminders like, “Look at the bright side; you’ve only got three hundred and ninety-four and a wake-up!” And horrible threats like, “They got a plastic bag with your name on it!”
It was then that I realized just how fortunate I had been twelve months earlier to arrive by sea. I had never had to face a chanting group of happy short-timers, nor the sudden plunge into this hellhole’s heat. I never had to face a crowd of men my own age wearing tattered uniforms, whose eyes looked ten years older than they had looked only a year before.
We climbed the stairs to the DC-8, thanking God we were not one of those men, who each had a whole year in front of him. There was a lot of joking, singing, and grab-assing as the first in our group entered the plane. Something has to go wrong, I thought. This plane just has to have some mechanical problem—something bad has to happen!
No sooner did the first guy disappear into the plane’s door, than he bounded back out. “Round eyes!” he yelled down to the rest of us. “We got us some round-eyed ladies on this here plane!”
From below him, the assembled horny souls let out a collective scream of catcalls. We couldn’t believe it—female stewardesses… American female stewardesses… in dresses!
We taxied out. Our freedom bird started down the runway. Inside, there was an absolute hush. No one uttered a word—yet silently, to ourselves, each of us said the same thing: Don’t fuck with me now, Charlie. Just let me get out of here!
We held onto our armrests for dear life. The guy next to me had his fingers crossed on both hands. Some had their eyes shut, others just glanced from one face to another, seeking reassurance that we were going to make it.
Gaining speed, the airplane made a slow turn and began to climb out of the Stone Age. The higher we got, the safer we each began to feel. But nobody uttered a peep.
Finally the captain came over the intercom: “Guys, we have just left the airspace of the Republic of Vietnam!”
Cheers, whistles, yells, and foot stomping engulfed the cabin. Hats were thrown in the air. We had made it! Never have I had such an exhilarating feeling. The uproar lasted for five straight minutes, unabated.
When it finally died down, one of the stews announced that there could be no playing of radios or cassette players. They could affect the plane’s navigation equipment, she explained.
A few seconds later, her announcement was followed by a voice I could only assume was the captain’s: “Hey, guys, don’t worry about it! We don’t know how to navigate anyway!”
With that, the entire cabin broke into hysterics.
“Ma’am, could you get me a pillow, please?”
After that first guy, everyone wanted a pillow or a blanket, just to watch the stews lean forward and reach up into the overhead bins, their skirts raising up a little. With every request, the whistling started anew.
I felt sorry for the girls, but they were very gracious about the whole thing. After all, their passengers had just been through hell. They even looked as if they enjoyed it just a bit.
AND SO ENDED MY THIRTEEN-MONTH TOUR. Waiting for me was my future bride and the chance to go to college. I was twenty-two, going on forty.
We were all returning heroes—or so we thought. We never imagined what awaited us when we landed in the States. I had no anger at the moment. That would come later, not to be overcome until I wrote this book.
I was alive. I sat next to the window and gazed out among the clouds, a million thoughts running through my mind. I pulled out a pack of Camels, flicked the wheel on my Zippo, and lifted the flame to my cigarette.
Engraved on my lighter were the words from that sign outside Con Thien:
For those who must fight for it, life has a certain flavor the protected will never know.
Yes it does, I thought.
Yes, it does.
Photographs
