Drafted

by Andrew Atherton

I turned my attention back to the bunker.

  While I was thinking about Berry, several guys had said, “Yeah, man,” agreeing with Bruno’s call to get out of the bunker. I looked at Tibbot for his reaction.

  A red strap mark from his helmet ran across his sweaty pink forehead. He cupped his hand over the phone’s receiver and yelled, “Bruno, sit down.”

  Bruno did not sit down. Several more men stood up. I did, too.

  “We stay topside behind hooch sandbags during ground assaults,” Bruno loudly explained. “If reinforcements are needed on the perimeter, they send us a runner who calls out the password so we know he’s okay.”

  “I’m telling you one last time,” Tibbot shouted, “sit down and shut up.”

  We did not sit down.

  Tibbot yelled, “You men at the exits.” He waited for a reply, glared at us, and yelled again, this time louder. “Hey, you lookouts at the exits, answer me!”

  “Yes, First Sergeant,” they called back in unison.

  “Don’t let anybody leave this bunker until I give the order.”

  “Oh, sure,” one lookout yelled back. “I got my safety off right now.”

  The other lookout yelled, “I’ll kick their dinky-dong asses back down the steps.”

  We all laughed. Several men hooted and thumped the floor with their boots. Bruno sat down, laughing, shaking his head in disbelief. The rest of us sat down, too.

  I was relieved. I wanted out of the bunker, but—

  The lights went out.

  “What the hell—”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Anybody got a flashlight?”

  “I got one, but the stupid—”

  “Turn on the emergency lights!”

  “Anybody got a flashlight?”

  “Shut the fuck up, okay? If anybody’s got a flashlight they’ll turn it on.”

  “Eat a big one, dick head.”

  Several men flicked on their cigarette lighters, but that didn’t last long. We sat several long moments in the dark, yelling and cursing at each other. Then a light blinked on at Tibbot’s end of the tunnel. Tibbot had located the switch on a battery-operated emergency light on the endwall of the bunker beside the steps. But the battery was old and corroded by the tropical climate. The light was dim.

  “Everybody stay where you are,” Tibbot yelled. “You at the other end, turn on the battery light.”

  “I’m trying to,” Corrigan yelled, “but it won’t come on.”

  When our eyes adjusted, we saw silver light flickering down the bunker exits from flares floating into our company area that were popped by men up on ground level in other companies.

  “Hey,” Bruno whispered. “You guys hear Tibbot assign anybody topside to guard the company area?”

  “I didn’t,” somebody whispered.

  Logan, the colonel’s driver, sitting opposite me said, “I didn’t either.”

  “Then sappers could be in the company area,” Bruno said quietly, “and we wouldn’t know it.”

  Somebody at the dark end of the tunnel whispered loudly, “I gotta get out of here. This is crazy.”

  “You didn’t complain when Tibbot was telling us his asshole plan,” Bruno said.

  “Hey, you didn’t either.”

  “Hell, I thought Atherton was gonna blow him into hamburger.”

  The guy on my left leaned against me and whispered, “You shoulda done it.”

  “Let’s grease Tibbot and get the fuck out of here,” Gerhardt whispered. Gerhardt was a mechanic who looked like a Cro-Magnon exhibit at the Smithsonian.

  I suddenly yelled, “Hey Tweeze, you down here?” Tweeze was another mechanic, a friend of mine.

  “You bring your grease gun?” somebody asked Gerhardt with a chuckle.

  “You’re fucking A-right I brought my grease gun.”

  “Tweeze boarded one of the trucks,” yelled a guy down the line.

  “You guys do that in the bunker,” Logan whispered, “and all of us’ll be court-martialed.”

  Frank Hensley, ordinarily a quiet, rather mousy personnel clerk, said, “Let’s hold off a while and see what happens.”

  “Oh, that’s a good idea,” Bruno said. He leaned forward in the dim light and spit between his legs. “Let’s just sit here and wait for a grenade to come bouncing down the stairs. Any other suggestions, Einstein?”

  “Maybe the guy nearest the grenade could chuck it out the door.”

  Gerhardt snorted with derision. “The guy’s pissing his pants, scared shitless, and he’s gonna feel around in the dark for the fucking grenade.”

  “So you come up with a better plan since you know it all.”

  “I say move out of here right now,” Gerhardt whispered in a hoarse voice. “If Tibbot tries to stop us, we walk his ass topside and waste him up there.”

  “Hey, I’m tired of talking,” Bruno said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Gerhardt stood up. “Let’s do it.” He locked and loaded his M16. Then Bruno stood up, too.

  “Wait a minute,” I whispered, motioning for everybody to calm down. “Why haven’t I heard incoming for a while?”

  Gerhardt grunted. “Figure it out. The gooks pushed through the perimeter. They don’t wanna mortar their own men.”

  “Jesus,” somebody said quietly.

  “Fuck this shit,” Bruno said, “I’m getting out of here.”

  Several more men rose to their feet.

  “First Sergeant Tibbot,” Gerhardt shouted, “we’re going topside.”

  “Shut up so I can hear the phone,” Tibbot yelled. “I’m getting a status report from Major Roberts right now.”

  “Hold off until he finishes listening to Roberts,” I said quietly. I stood up with the others, sweat dripping in my eyes.

  “One more minute, phone or no phone,” Gerhardt said, “and I’m going up those goddamned steps.”

  “I’m with you,” Bruno said.

  Tibbot hung up the phone. “Okay, listen up,” he yelled. All of us were standing. “The perimeter is secure. Fighting has ended for the time being. Sappers were reported in Echo Company, but they—”

  “Sappers are in the base camp?” Gerhardt shouted.

  “Major Roberts just received the reported sighting and he—”

  “If sappers are in the area,” Bruno yelled, “why aren’t you ordering us the fuck out of here?”

  “I’ve given you all … If Major Roberts wants—”

  “Fuck this shit,” Gerhardt yelled, “I am not gonna die down here with this motherfucker. Let’s get out of this goddamn bunker.”

  Men started walking up the stairs, shoving heavily past Tibbot.

  “Okay, everybody topside,” Tibbot yelled. “Search the area—”

  Tibbot was still shouting orders in the bunker as I hobbled, in the light of overhead flares, toward a wall of waist-high sandbags circling the nearest hooch. My M16 was locked and loaded and flipped on automatic, and I was ready to shoot any moving figure who didn’t shout Fair Weather when challenged.

  ****

  The attack lasted only forty-five minutes. We found no sappers in the company area. A hooch in Headquarters Company had taken a direct hit from a mortar round and was now a pile of mangled tin and scattered boots, fans, cots, blankets, and hi-fi equipment. The generator shed was hit too. Rumor was that four men had been injured by the mortar rounds, but that wasn’t confirmed until later in the morning. Soon after daybreak a runner informed us to “stand down” and assemble in front of our company’s HQ building at 0700 hours.

  We assembled in early morning sunlight. The air was warming. Everything was damp. We were tired but catching our second wind and happy to be alive.

  Captain Kirby stood fully erect and dignified at the head of our formation yard, a somber look on his dirty face. He called for us to quiet down and listen up. First Sergeant Tibbot and Lieutenant Ashley stood off to one side. Tibbot’s face was washed and he’d changed into clean fatigues. Lieutenant Ashley’s face,
like Captain Kirby’s, was dusty and streaked with sweat. The fatigues of both Kirby and Ashley were caked with dirt and black with perspiration.

  “Cu Chi Base Camp was attacked by one, maybe two harassing companies of NVA,” Kirby announced. “One contact point was our three bunkers with cut commo lines. Lieutenant Ashley and I would have returned from our temporary assignments to be with you men, but we encountered commo glitches and then other problems I’m not at liberty to discuss. We suspect this sabotage was done by Vietnamese day workers who were possibly coerced into doing it by the VC—if they aren’t VC themselves. Interrogations begin later today when workers arrive on base.”

  Kirby paused. He looked at us and nodded his approval. “I want you men to know I’m proud of you.” Then his face turned grim. “Now the bad news. Headquarters Company sustained four minor injuries from a mortar round hitting a hooch. Those men are being treated at the dispensary right now. But our worst casualties are indeed grievous. Two men were killed and seven injured—three severely—when sappers attacked reinforcements on their way to the perimeter. Their truck was hit by RPGs and small arms fire.” Kirby read the names of the casualties from a piece of paper he had in his hand. One of the men killed was Jeremiah Faulkenberry.

  Tweeze was okay—his name wasn’t on Kirby’s list—but Berry-Ain’t-Cherry was dead!

  I turned and stumbled out of formation before we were dismissed. If somebody called after me I didn’t hear them.

  I knew what Kirby said—the words circled round and round in my head—but they didn’t mean anything to me. What could it possibly mean that Berry was dead? How could the world be without Berry?

  I walked around the company area until I found myself leaning against the outer wall of the mess hall kitchen. I was trying to fit Berry’s death into my head, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Everywhere I turned his death was already there sucking out meaning and value—trees, grass, hooches, other men. Everything soon meant nothing to me.

  I didn’t know him well, but he was one of the bright spots in my Vietnam life. A source of fun and happiness every time I saw him. Never again would I be served chipped beef gravy by a man who could make me laugh every time I saw him.

  “Ain’t gettin’ none this good shit no place ’cept here, ean’ yo mama’s kitchen.”

  I walked around about an hour. Got chewed out by the adjutant for reporting to work later than everybody else. Stayed for thirty minutes and left. Told Adjutant Harris I was sick.

  I again walked around the company grounds. I began to form the idea that if I took my bayonet and placed its point against my chest, left of my solar plexus, and pulled it in, hard and quick with both fists on the handle, I could get Berry’s death in there with the steel.

  The loss I felt for this man was so deep and hurt so much I couldn’t hold still. For long moments I felt like I was drowning and couldn’t get my breath. Then I’d hold still, motionless for twenty minutes at a time, thinking about Berry-Ain’t-Cherry entertaining the men lined up in the mess hall. KP with Berry in charge was like being a straight man for a comedian. He never turned off. Until now.

  I’ll miss you, Berry-Ain’t-Cherry. And if it weren’t for your mention of belief in a black Jesus—“he be a Jew, but some a’ them motherfuckers be black like me, too”—I’d cuss God from now until my last breath for sleeping on the job when He could have been protecting you.

  Jeremiah? Jeremiah Faulkenberry?

  Huh. No wonder the crazy fucker made up a name for himself.

  Later, in the S-1 office, David Connors, our head clerk, called the medics for updates regarding the wounded. One man would likely lose an eye. Another man might lose a leg. Yet another was near death. These men were dusted off to Long Binh. From there they’d be flown to Japan or to a hospital ship off the coast.

  I didn’t report to Tibbot’s office that morning as he had ordered me to. I was afraid I’d lose control. If he wanted to court-martial me, he knew where to find me.

  He never came looking.

  Two days after the attack a story floated around Headquarters Company that Tibbot found a fragmentation grenade in the bottom drawer of his desk. The straightened pin, according to the story, was nearly pulled from the grenade by a string tied to a crossbar above the drawer. Several men winked and nodded at me during conversations about the rumor. I pleaded innocent but confessed disappointment it hadn’t worked.

  First Sergeant Tibbot never charged me or anybody else in our company with insubordination or threatening a superior. Nor did he ever again send us out to the perimeter in trucks. One week after the NVA ground assault, Tibbot was reassigned out of our battalion.

  ****

  Sunday, Oct. 5, 1969 - Cu Chi Base Camp

  Dear Janice:

  I’ve been rereading The Plague by Albert Camus. It’s a powerful and disturbing book. Particularly in light of what’s going on over here.

  We’re infected with a sickness that blinds us to the sick things it causes us to do. Neither the men over here nor the people at home appear to comprehend what we’re really doing ... until somebody we care about gets mangled or killed.

  I look forward to us holding each other.

  Love, Andrew

  Friday, Oct. 25, 1969 - Cu Chi Base Camp

  Dear Janice:

  What did I like most about R & R in Hawaii? YOU!!

  You looked fantastic! I missed you so much, and suddenly you were in my arms. What a great time we had. Let’s do a lot more of that when I get back home!

  Love, Andrew

  PURE DUMB LUCK

  We banked hard to the left and dropped like a stone. From the open side door of the Huey, I looked straight down through four thousand feet of air at rice paddies the size of postage stamps.

  I braced my feet on the tilted floor, pushed back against the motor housing, and gripped the belt that held my courier satchel to the canvas seat on my right. But I wasn’t in any danger. My seat belt held me securely to the motor housing. I could not fall out.

  But Captain Harbury, the newbie courier for the 25th Infantry Division, had not fastened his seat belt when he boarded the chopper. He had been seated on my left, beside the open door and empty space. I yelled at him before we lifted off, “I always fasten my seat belt,” but he ignored me.

  Was he trying to be macho? Did he think this flight was always el primo smooth because it was scheduled primarily for the 25th Infantry Division’s courier? Did he think he was too important to take a friendly warning from a piggyback-riding, SPC-4 battalion courier? I don’t know.

  The moment the chopper banked to the left, Harbury flopped over and grabbed my legs like a drowning man clutching a floating log. I reached over his back and grabbed his belt. His silver tinted aviator sunglasses flipped off his face and fell out the door along with his new glossy helmet with lightning bolts painted on the sides. He had trouble keeping his knees from slipping toward the edge of the floor. He wasn’t getting much traction, but he sure was getting religion, because I could hear him calling into my lap, “Jesus, Jesus, oh Jesus.”

  Nobody except me noticed what was happening. Or maybe somebody noticed and thought Harbury was hanging on to me and I was hanging on to him good enough. But I’m pretty sure the left door gunner didn’t see Harbury because I looked back and he was suspended almost face down with his feet crossed and braced against the M60 gun post yelling, “Get that fucker! Get that fucker!”

  The rice paddies were getting bigger. I pulled harder on Harbury’s belt. Maybe the clutch housing was hit. Maybe the Jesus nut was cracked. But the chopper’s rotor was forcefully beating the air with unusual force, WACK-WACK-WACK, as we dropped and circled to the left.

  At the last moment, when I could see individual clods of dirt on rice paddy dikes down below, we straightened our forward motion and leveled out. As was later explained to me, we had circled back two miles and were now flying our original flight path again.

  Harbury held onto my legs while he swiveled his butt
up on the steel-framed canvas seat. He fastened his seat belt and half-turned and looked up at the steel engine housing we were seated against to make sure his courier pouch was still hanging on the spring-loaded hook used by medics to hang their IV bags. Then he turned to me and shook my hand, his face white as typing paper.

  The left door gunner yelled, “Bring him on. His ass is mine.”

  That’s when I knew for sure we’d taken fire from the ground. Somebody in the chopper must have seen muzzle flashes in the brush far below or maybe tracer rounds streaking up at us, since the distant sound of firing could not be heard through all the noise from the rotor and motor and rushing wind. Even the sound of rounds striking the chopper—tick, tick—could be missed in all the commotion.

  The chopper tipped forward and accelerated to maximum speed, over one hundred miles an hour. We were no more than fifteen feet above rice paddy water. At the last second we rose up over trees bordering the paddies and then dropped back down to water-skimming again.

  The door gunner had his M60 machine gun angled forward. He began firing and quickly swung the gun to the rear. A stand of trees flashed by, strafed by the gunner’s string of red tracers. He stopped firing, leaned out the gun well against his anchoring strap, and raised his middle finger toward the clump of trees now far behind us.

  “Okay, okay, I know,” he yelled in his helmet mike. He dropped back in his gunner’s seat and saluted the copilot who turned and looked back at him with a grin on his face. The chopper was flying straight ahead and gaining altitude.

  The door gunner leaned his head forward so he could see us better and tapped us on our shoulders. Painted on his helmet were the words Chief Hot Copper. He gave us a thumbs-up.

  “What’s the pucker factor?” he yelled. He seemed unaware of what had happened to Captain Harbury.

  Harbury nodded vigorously and held up an index finger for “Number One.” I tried to grin, but the muscles in my face were rigid.