Long Range Patrol: A Novel of Vietnam (The Jim Hollister Trilogy Book 1)

by Dennis Foley

  Eager to hear it again, Hollister stepped over to the tape deck and flipped it on. The Beatles spilled from the two speakers positioned on top of the wall lockers. It was the mid-chorus of “Eight Days a Week.” Hollister sat down on Lucas’s cot. For that minute he was alone. He missed his friend. He wondered who would fill Lucas’s slot in the first platoon. Who would move into the hooch?

  The irritating, dull rattle of the field phone on his desk snapped Hollister back to the moment. He picked up the handset.

  “Lieutenant Hollister, sir.”

  “Sir, this is Specialist Bernard,” the voice on the other end said.

  “Is it Lucas?”

  “No, sir, no word on him yet. I was told to call you. Captain Shaw wants to finish your patrol’s debriefing now. He needs to get it done right away.”

  “Okay, I’ll be right there. Oh, Bernard?”

  “Yessir.”

  “That banged up M-79, you still got it?”

  “Yessir, it’s in the orderly room with the .45 and the M-16.”

  “Go ahead and turn the other weapons back in to Supply, but hold on to the M-79. I want to see if I can salvage it.”

  “Hell, sir, that thing’s a mess,” Bernard said.

  “Might be useful if I can get an armorer to tinker with it.”

  “You got it, sir.”

  “Thanks, Bernard.”

  By the time Team 2-3 returned to the debriefing, the equipment they had captured was back. Brigade had returned what they no longer needed, the usual items: rucksacks, eating utensils, loose ammunition, ballpoint pens, Ho Chi Minh sandals, weapons cleaning rags, a few cleaning rods, rifle magazines, homemade and ChiCom ammo pouches, and lots of unrecognizable medicines.

  The gear was filthy and smelled of cook fires. Much of it bore holes made by the Claymore frags. All of it was still wet from blood, rain, and mud.

  SFC Marrietta stood at his podium. The captured weapons leaned against the wall behind him. On the podium he had the Tokarev pistol, a small stack of unimportant papers, a few pieces of American web gear, and two wallets—one of them Phuc’s.

  The men from 2-3 had all had a chance to scrape off the grime and get some food. And each man proudly wore fresh tiger-stripe fatigues. The uniforms were clean, starched, and pressed, but they had a shine that came from the hot irons that scorched the rice starch the laundry girls used.

  Except for Hollister, everyone had their trouser cuffs turned up and wore shower shoes without socks. It was Detachment SOP for the field troops to take every chance to dry out their feet in order to prevent foot problems. It was the one policy that none of the NCOs had to encourage.

  “Brigade has no idea what to make of the U.S. gear you all captured. They took the serial numbers and they’re gonna try to find out where the M-16s came from. The other stuff will be harder to track down. It coulda come from Americans, South Viets, or Aussies,” SFC Marrietta said.

  “Did we get the notebook with the diagrams in it back?” Hollister asked.

  “No sir. They want to look at it some more.”

  “When it does come back, I want to go over it with Duc. Okay?”

  “You mean Sergeant Lam,” Marrietta corrected.

  “Lam?”

  “He’s the new interpreter—Duc’s replacement,” Marrietta said.

  “We gonna get Duc back?”

  Marrietta shrugged his shoulders and made a face. “Lieutenant, yer guess is as good as mine. We screwed up when we let Brigade know what a good job Duc was doing. My guess is that’s the last we’ll see of Duc. Next time we should complain.”

  “You’re right. So, how’s this new guy?”

  “He seems to be okay. I think we can get him up to speed.”

  Satisfied, Hollister pulled out his notebook. “So where’d we leave off?”

  “You were finishing your part of the debrief when we got interrupted by One-one’s contact, sir.”

  “Oh, yeah—choppers. I think I made my point on the fuel smell. We ought to put that on the assistant patrol leader’s checklist.”

  Davis looked up from his notes then shrugged slightly, letting Hollister know that he didn’t want the additional work but knew that it had to be done. The added work could save lives.

  “Sergeant Marrietta, will you include that in the debriefing notes and remind me to add it to the patrol briefing checklist?” Captain Shaw said.

  Marrietta nodded. “Yessir.” He then turned back to Hollister. “Go ahead, sir.”

  Hollister looked up from his notes, “While I’m on the subject, let me say that the slick and gun support was absolutely flawless. If all the mission inserts and extractions could go like that, we’d be able to take lots of the pucker factor out of what we do.”

  Captain Michaelson smiled from the back row. “I’ll pass that on to the chopper jocks, but it’ll probably cost you a round of drinks.”

  Hollister waited for the laughter to die down, then continued. “I think we have to talk about radios some more. If we could just get a small radio that would allow the team to talk to nearby stations, like the choppers and listening posts, it would make life a lot easier out there. I know that I’d much rather have some kind of walkie-talkie in my hand than run through the bush with the handset in my fist and the radio on Vinson’s back. We are beating the shit out of the handsets, cords, and sockets. It’s just a matter of time before we rip the cord out of the handset or the backpack again.”

  “I’ve passed that up the chain. They tell me at Brigade Signal that they are trying to find an off-the-shelf civilian radio that will fill the requirement,” Captain Shaw said.

  Hollister looked back down at his notes and then over his shoulder. “I want to take a look at the captured equipment after we finish here. I think we should all know what produced the most casualties. If I find that most of the hits came from the Claymores, I want us all on the firing range again for some more practice.”

  There was a general shuffling and a little grumbling. Nobody wanted to hear that they were bad shots—not in their business.

  “That’s about all I have. I think that we were lucky, though. We could have run into a much larger unit and they could have wrapped themselves around us and blown us away. If I had to do it over,” Hollister added, “I would have made a better recon of the ambush site and laid out some more early warning devices.”

  “Sergeant Davis, I already have your notes,” Marrietta said. He looked up to Captain Michaelson. “We went over his stuff over coffee earlier, sir. It’ll be in the After Action Report.”

  Michaelson nodded.

  “Okay then—Brother Camacho, your notes?” Marrietta said.

  Always a bit nervous speaking in front of others, Sergeant Camacho cleared his throat. “I agree with the lieutenant. If we could get some smaller radios, we could get a lot more done. I had a better view of the enemy patrol and could have told the others what to expect, but there was no way without a radio. If I’da had a radio, I would have told them not to trigger the ambush.”

  “What are you talking about, man?” Davis asked in surprise.

  “I counted more than sixteen that I could see, and I didn’t know how many more there were in the column that I couldn’t see. I had to guess that they had us outnumbered at least four to one. From where I was sittin’ it looked like we coulda got our asses waxed. We just got lucky. If those gooks knew that we were such a small ambush patrol, they would have done a job on us.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Goddamn, man!” Davis said, not knowing what else to say.

  “That sure says something about needing those radios,” Hollister said.

  “You have anything more?” Marrietta asked Camacho.

  “No, other than I’m glad to be here bitchin’ about it.”

  The room broke out in laughter. It was an especially funny comment coming from Camacho, who rarely had much to say.

  “Doc?” Marrietta asked.

  “I’m still havin’ a prob
lem with priorities on ambushes. I only had mortally wounded zips out there last night. But if I’d had one of us shot up, there’s no way I would have worried about any VC wounded … even if they were wounded more seriously than the American.”

  “You keep doing what you are doing. You’re the man on the ground, and we can’t give you a hard and fast rule beyond checking out the Americans first and then deciding who needs your help second,” Captain Michaelson said.

  “Yessir. I roger that. Thank you, sir.”

  “You patch up some zipperhead before you do me and I’ll give you a wound, Jack!” Theodore said.

  The others laughed. But the moral issue was clear to each of them, and none of them envied Doc’s dilemma.

  “Okay, comedian, what you got?” Marrietta said as he stepped forward from the podium and bent down into Theodore’s face.

  “Me? Ah, nothing. It was okay. I mean nobody likes an ambush, but I walked away. Y’know what I mean?” Theodore said nervously, trying to be funny.

  “I’m glad you’re happy, Mr. Theodore. I’d lose sleep if I thought you were out there in the bush not having a good time. Now, let’s get back to this debriefing, if Theodore is finished,” Marrietta said.

  “I’m through, Sarge,” Theodore said.

  But Marrietta kept a steely lock on him.

  “Really, Sarge. I’m through … you can go ahead,” Theodore added nervously.

  “Thank you. Okay, that leaves Vinson.”

  “Of course, I second the small radio request. But I had some trouble from the time we got off the chopper. At our first ambush site, on the first night, I had lots of trouble establishing commo with the net control. It cleared up the second and third days, but the last two days it was a problem again. I had lots of static and sometimes there was no commo at all,” Vinson said.

  Marrietta looked at his notes, “Your commo problems matched the rain pattern. You must have some built-up moisture in the radio or the handset. You change handsets?”

  “Yep, and it didn’t make any difference.”

  “Turn your radio in and we’ll send it over to Signal for a checkup,” Marrietta said.

  “That’s all I have unless I can put in a suggestion that we get some different uniforms. I just can’t seem to get these tigers to ever dry out.”

  “We’re already on it, Vinson. You aren’t the first to bitch about the uniforms,” Marrietta said. He then turned his attention to the officers in the second row. “Sir, you have anything?”

  “No. I just want to say that you did a good job,” Captain Michaelson said. “I think we might have something important in the fact that the bad guys are using U.S. weapons. If it turns out to be something, you were the ones to discover it.”

  Captain Michaelson turned to Hollister. “I think that you ought to give these folks the next seventy-two hours off—no details, no extra duty. I’ll see what I can do about getting them to Nha Trang.”

  There was a unanimous “All right!” from the patrol members. Nha Trang was a plum for them—a beautiful coastal city that had every delight the Orient could hold for an American male.

  His cap in hand, Captain Michaelson stood to leave. “Good work, Two-three.”

  The team members all stood while their commander left the room. Their voices meshed as they all said their thank-yous while saluting Michaelson. Michaelson returned the salute with a simple “Carry on.”

  “Who gets the Tokarev?” Marrietta asked, holding the prize of captured equipment.

  The team members looked to Hollister for a reply.

  “Anybody want it?” he asked.

  All five looked at each other. No one wanted to be the first to speak.

  “Since no one is credited with the kill, it’s not actually anyone’s. What’dya say we give it to the pilots?”

  Davis, sour-faced, spoke up. “I don’t mind givin’ it to the chopper jocks. I just wouldn’t want it to go to some rear echelon motherfuckers up at Brigade, sir. You know those chopper crews—they’d trade their mothers in for a case of steaks or some good imported booze.”

  The others mumbled in agreement. “And if we do give it to them, who do we give it to—the guns or the slicks?” Theodore asked.

  “Let’s let luck decide. If the last digit on the serial number is even, it goes to the slicks; odd, the pistol goes to the gun platoon. Fair ’nough?” Hollister asked.

  “Fair as you need to be with helicopter jocks,” Theodore said.

  “Sergeant Marrietta?” Hollister said, gesturing for him to check the number.

  Marrietta turned the pistol over to read the serial number. “Zero eight two niner niner—guns.”

  Marrietta handed the pistol over to Lieutenant Hollister. “You wanna do the honors, sir?”

  “Okay. What do you all think about having it mounted on a plaque with the date and Team Two-three, and the names of everyone involved engraved on it?”

  “Good idea,” Doc said. “But who is gonna pay for it?”

  “Since it’s the lieutenant’s idea, and since he is makin’ all that big-time officer money and officer jump pay, he ought to pop for the plaque,” Theodore said.

  “Okay, I’ll pay for it,” Hollister said above the laughter. “But you run into the ville and have it made up, Theodore.”

  They all burst out laughing again. Theodore had let his mouth get him into more work again.

  “Okay, okay … fair enough. I’ll do it. But I get to pick what order we list the names, and I think that reverse alphabetical order ought to put me right on top.”

  Vinson looked up from his soft drink. “Where’d you learn how to spell, asshole?”

  Doc threw his patrol cap at Theodore. “Yer so full of shit, Theodore. Let’s go get a beer and figure out what we’re gonna do in Nha Trang.”

  The team whistled, applauded, and cheered at the sound of the words Nha Trang.

  “Sir, we’re going over to the Fish House for a cold one. You comin’?” Davis asked.

  “I’ll be over. You guys save me a beer.”

  “Yessir,” Davis said as he turned to the other four. “Last man there is on my detail list.”

  The team exploded from the briefing area and through the doorway.

  Hollister took a second to enjoy their enthusiasm, and then stepped over to the captured equipment. One of the wallets caught his eye. He opened it. The first thing he found was an ID card. But it was the kind of fake South Vietnamese ID card that was all over Vietnam. He had often wondered why the Americans even bothered to check civilians for ID. It was more likely that if a Viet had an ID, it was a fake.

  He looked through the compartments of the wallet. It had only one other thing in it—Ly’s photo. He looked at it for a long moment. Like Hollister, the dead man who had owned it had someone waiting back home.

  “You want that, sir?” Marrietta asked. “We’re through with it.”

  “Yeah. I’d like to keep it,” Hollister said as he tucked the photo into his shirt pocket. He didn’t know why.

  He just wanted to keep it.

  CHAPTER 6

  PREOCCUPIED WITH THOUGHTS OF Lucas, Hollister sat on his cot. He wondered if there was even a remote chance that Lucas would live, or if he would ever be the same even if he did live. And if he wasn’t the same, would people pity him?

  A painful thought stabbed Hollister—Lucas’s girlfriend, Cindy. Did she know yet? They’d notify his family first. Then his family would surely tell Lucas’s Cindy.

  He didn’t want to think about Lucas anymore. He kept seeing his friend on that gurney with his life oozing out of him.

  Looking for something to distract him, he remembered that he still had a letter from Susan. He was sitting on it. Picking it up, he went over to the field table.

  Ripping it open with a ballpoint, he checked the ten-day-old postmark on the envelope and then began reading.

  Dear Jimmy,

  He loved that Susan was one of the very few people who had ever called him Jimmy.

&
nbsp; It’s been so hot here. The weather forecast is for some rain, but I don’t think we will get any. I just want it to get to something normal.

  How are you, my love? I miss you so much. I keep looking at the calendar on my desk and nothing happens. When you left, I told myself that I would keep busy, but that hasn’t helped me at all. I find that I just miss you while I’m busy.

  He felt the same way. Knowing he had less time left in country than he had already put in helped a lot.

  I never know what to say in these damn letters. There is something so disjointed about you being halfway around the world and in the dark while it’s daylight here. And the differences between your world and mine make me feel like what I write is very petty. If it sounds that way, just know that I’m doing what I can to not make your life any more complicated or make you more homesick. That sure rules out plenty of topics for me.

  The letter you wrote last Sunday got here before the one you wrote on the previous Friday. It doesn’t make much sense to read them out of order. But I just try to rearrange things in my head. And it sure beats not getting mail from you.

  Things at work are the same. I have been staying at work much later than usual. I keep trying to tell myself that it is because I want to stay busy. But the truth is that I’m avoiding the television news. They seem to be covering Vietnam a lot more each night. I wonder if the Korean War would have been much different with television coverage. It’s getting to be all that people talk about. So, I avoid television and people who want to talk about it.

  He wasn’t really sure what she was talking about. There hadn’t been much Vietnam on TV when he left.