Into No Man's Land

by Ellen Emerson White

  It wasn’t until the next afternoon that four other guys and me were told to go wait for this Sea Knight CH-46 supply chopper to fly up to Khe Sanh. One of the guys was on his way back from R&R, and I figured he knew what was going on. He seemed pretty salty, like they say, so I paid attention to the way he did things, in case I could pick up some stuff. Like he kept the chin-strap on his helmet unsnapped, and he covered the end of his rifle with a little piece of plastic. Since it was raining like crazy, maybe that was to keep it dry? Either way, seemed like a good idea to me. He also double-checked all of his grenades to make sure the pins were bent, so they wouldn’t go off by accident, and put them inside pouches.

  He saw me copying him, and grinned. “Not bad, newby!” he yelled over the sound of the choppers landing and taking off all over the place. “You might not get killed this week!”

  Once we were in the air, it was too loud to talk, but the guy tapped his right boot with one hand, to show me the dog tag he had laced there. Then he pulled out the one around his neck, which was covered with black tape. Finally, he took out one of his M16 magazines, held up ten fingers, and then seven fingers. In other words, only put seventeen bullets in, instead of twenty. I nodded, and the guy grinned again and made an “OK” sign at me.

  The flight was noisy, and pretty rough. When we landed, the base was bigger than I expected. The salty guy said, “Semper fi, man,” and then took off. That left me and the three other guys standing by the side of the airstrip, not sure what to do. A gunny came hustling over, and ordered us to help unload all of the ammo crates and C rations from the chopper, which took forever. Sergeants just aren’t happy if they aren’t telling someone what to do.

  It was hard not to be scared, but everyone seemed pretty casual — flak jackets hanging open, rifles slung over their shoulders, that sort of thing. Their uniforms and boots were covered with reddish mud, and a lot of them hadn’t shaved for a while. I asked a big blond kid where I could find Golf Company, 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines, and he wanted to know if I thought he looked like an information booth. I told him, no, he looked like a dumb hillbilly who was going to go home and marry his first cousin. So he called me a stupid potato head, and we kind of went at it. I managed to pop the guy a couple of times — and took a good one in the mouth, but the gunny broke it up pretty fast and swore at us a lot. Save it for the enemy, and all that.

  By the time I got to Golf Company’s part of the perimeter, on the northwest side of the base, it was almost dark. The skipper was all business, and told me to go check in with the third platoon and get squared away, because we were going on a five-day patrol first thing in the morning, and I’d be pulling perimeter guard on and off tonight.

  Welcome to Vietnam, boot.

  Later —

  I don’t have much time to write, because I have to go out on a listening post (LP) with the three other guys on my fire-team in a little while. We’ll be maybe a few hundred meters outside the wire from 2200 to 0200. (That’s ten o’clock until two in the morning.) The idea is to sneak out there, set up our position, and then wait to see if we hear anything or get attacked. If the North Vietnamese show up, our LP is pretty much out of luck, but at least we’ll have time to warn the rest of the base. That’s the theory, anyway.

  We got in from our five-day sweep around the hills west of the base late this afternoon. The rumor is, we went all the way to Laos, but it’s not like we got to a “You are now leaving Vietnam; Welcome to Laos” sign or anything. Basically, the whole patrol was what Marines call “a walk in the woods.” And, mostly, a walk in the pouring rain. Whenever I heard a sound while we were out there, I was ready to fire off every round I had — or else, maybe just fall down and cry. But — nothing happened. No attacks, no shooting, no contact, no anything. It was pretty much just walking around this dark, prehistoric jungle all by ourselves. There are supposed to be tigers and elephants in this part of the country, but all I saw were monkeys and birds.

  Except that sometimes, people found footprints. A few empty bunker complexes. And once, a pan of rice that was still warm. There were definitely enemy soldiers out there, but either they were hiding, or — I don’t know. Kind of spooky. Nobody talked much, because we were out in the field and supposed to be observing noise discipline. I tried to watch all of the salts, and learn as much as I could. But, man, talk about lonely. I wrote about ten letters home, even though I know I won’t get mail anytime soon, since my family probably doesn’t even have my address yet. Which is really depressing.

  I could tell that my squad was keeping an eye on me the whole time, trying to decide if I was a guy they could trust — and so, worth getting to know. Was I going to be the type who fell apart the first time we hit trouble, or would I suck it up and stay cool?

  Wish I knew the answer to that one, myself.

  My squad leader seems like an okay guy. He’s a corporal, real thin and quiet and serious, named Rodriguez — except everyone calls him “Shadow.” Everyone seems to listen up when he talks, so I figure he knows what he’s doing.

  Maybe I’ve seen too many movies, but have to admit, I was disappointed that we don’t have a big guy named “Tiny,” or a street-smart guy from Brooklyn. I mean, come on, what kind of squad is that? Actually, there weren’t any Brooklyn guys in my platoon at Parris Island, either. When I went to my Infantry Training Regiment (ITR) program right after boot camp, though, we had one from the Bronx — and I figure that counts.

  Lots of Southern guys in the squad. Lots of Southern guys in the Marines, for that matter. They call anyone from up north a Yankee. Which, as a Red Sox fan, really ticks me off. There’s a tall, gawky all-elbows kind of guy from Kentucky who goes by the name Fox. I was sure there’d be some good story behind that, but turns out, it’s just his last name. He’s the squad’s RTO — radio/telephone operator — which means that he carries the radio. Then there’s a baby-faced black kid from Alabama — I figure he lied to the recruiters, and he’s not eighteen yet — who answers to Mooch. Mainly because he’s always hungry, and keeps trying to get people to give him any part of their C rations they aren’t going to eat.

  We have only one machine gunner right now — I heard the other one got hit by a sniper a few weeks ago. Apparently, he was still alive when he got to Delta Med, but no one knows what happened after that. Anyway, our M60 man is this huge, loud, pug-ugly guy from Texas. In fact, his nickname is Smedley, after the old Marine bulldog mascot. I bet a hundred to one that he played football, but I haven’t asked him yet.

  So, go figure, me — usually the guy who talks his head off, and gets elected captain of the team, only now I’m feeling so out of it, I’ve barely even introduced myself to anyone. They all call me “Boot” or “Newby,” although some of them just say, “Hey, you! Mick!” I don’t even think I look all that Irish, but — okay. Fine. I heard it a lot at P.I., too.

  The assistant gunner’s a mean-eyed guy with a thick brown mustache and even thicker black-framed glasses. He’s from Baltimore, and his nickname’s Rotgut. Apparently, even by Marine standards, he drinks a lot. From what they say, he’d chug down lighter fluid, if he thought it would give him a buzz. He spits a lot, too. Mr. Tough Guy.

  Apollo is a stocky little black guy from North Carolina, who carries an M79 grenade launcher. He thinks the space program is the coolest thing in the world, and wants more than anything to go to the moon — and maybe even Mars — someday. He seems pretty friendly, compared to most of the others, and even asked me my name once. He forgot it right away, but at least he asked.

  Finally, there’s the three guys on my fire-team. Hollywood is this really good-looking blond guy, who seems to have about five different girlfriends writing to him. Just looking at him, I thought he was from California, but I think he’s actually from Colorado or Wyoming or someplace. Cowboy country. Professor is older than everyone else — I think he might be twenty — and he dropped out of college to join the
Marines. Even our squad leader, Shadow, is only nineteen. Professor seems to be pretty smart, but maybe that’s because he doesn’t swear as much as the rest of us. Actually, Mooch doesn’t really swear, either, and he’s always reading from a bible.

  I don’t really like Bebop, the last guy in our squad, so doesn’t it just figure that we keep getting put in the same fighting hole and on perimeter guard together? He’s this lean black guy from Detroit, who thinks he’s really smooth. I think he’s weird, because ever since we got back to the combat base today, he’s been playing on this clarinet mouthpiece he carries in his pocket. He can do lots of different notes, and scales — which I guess is cool — but every time he looks at me, I think he’s going to —

  Okay, that could have been ugly. Bebop just got in my face, wanting to know how come I keep looking at him, and if I hate being around brothers, like everyone else from Boston. I got mad, since that hadn’t even crossed my mind — and I never told him I’m from Boston.

  “Every time you open your mouth, we know you’re from Boston,” the Professor said, real quiet, behind us.

  I don’t even think I have an accent, so I don’t get why people are always telling me that, ever since I joined up. If you ask me, they’re the ones with accents.

  “Come on, Boston, let’s go,” Bebop kept saying. “You think I can’t take you?”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what I think,” I said. “So, back off, Motown.”

  Then Shadow came over. “What’s going on?” he asked. “You got a problem, Boston?”

  And I said that yeah, it was Christmas, I was in freakin’ Vietnam, I suddenly seemed to have a really dumb nickname, instead of a cool one — and some kid from Detroit wouldn’t shut up with his stupid kazoo already.

  Just about the whole squad was standing around us now, and they all thought about that.

  “Man, that is a whole lot of problems for just one guy,” Apollo said, and even I laughed.

  Hollywood’s contribution was, “But hey, you got your health.”

  The malaria pills we have to take every day are making me sick. I’m covered with maybe a thousand mosquito bites, I’ve had a headache ever since I got in-country, and my boots don’t fit. Good thing Marines don’t complain, huh? So, all I said was that on top of everything else, no one — not even one person — in the whole squad had shared any cookies from their Christmas boxes with me.

  Since it was true, most of them nodded, and then everyone looked at Bebop to see what he thought.

  “It’s not a kazoo, it’s a tenor sax mouthpiece,” he said, sounding really stiff. “And I’m sharing a hole with some dumb mick from Boston who never talks, and I’m stuck in frigging Vietnam, too.”

  Hard to disagree with any of that. Except maybe for the “dumb” part. I hope.

  “Want some cookies?” Mooch asked, with a big grin on his little-kid face.

  So, Bebop and I both had some cookies before we went out on LP with Hollywood and the Professor. It wasn’t peace — but at least it wasn’t war.

  Merry Christmas.

  December 26, 1967, Hill 881S

  I’m not sure anyone in the squad likes me, but at least they’re talking to me now. Except for Rotgut, and I don’t think he talks to anyone. Pretty scary, that guy — don’t think I’d want him behind me in a dark alley. They’re all calling me “Boston,” and — well, it’s better than “Mick.”

  I thought our platoon was going on patrol this morning, but then the skipper passed the word down that we were being choppered over to some hill outpost west of the base, instead. A lot of the guys who’ve been in-country for a while looked nervous, so I guess it’s bad news. It’s just going to be us, some real hush-hush radio relay team doing intelligence-gathering, an 81mm mortars platoon, plus some artillery guys with 106mm recoilless rifles and 105mm howitzers out there. So we’re going from being on a combat base with a few thousand Marines and an airstrip and mess hall and aid station and all, to maybe a couple of hundred guys up alone on top of a hill about eight klicks away. That works out to about four miles, give or take.

  Last spring, there were some really bad fights out here. There’s our hill, 881S (for South), and Hill 881N, and Hill 861. You’d think they get more interesting names, but they use numbers, depending on how many meters above sea level each hill is. Since we’re in the middle of the mountains, there are a bunch of hills, but those are the main three. I guess we lost a lot of good Marines during those fights. They won the hills, and took out a whole lot more enemy NVA, but — well, I hope it was for something, you know? I wouldn’t have volunteered if I wasn’t willing to die for my country, but if it happens, I want there to be a reason.

  It’s actually really pretty out here — all these rolling hills, and more colors of green than I even knew existed. But it’s also way out in the boonies, and I’m not sure why we’d be fighting for a place that’s pretty much deserted. The Professor says some Montanyard (Montagyard? Montangyard? I don’t know. Never heard of them before.) tribes live out here, but that’s about it. They’re supposed to be on our side, and I think some of them are working as soldiers for the Special Forces guys at Lang Vei, down near Route 9.

  It’s Montagnard. I just asked. They’re kind of like aborigines, in Australia, except they’ve been living in the mountains here for hundreds of years. Really primitive, traditional, able to take care of themselves. A couple of the guys who’ve been here for a while wear these metal bracelets the Montagnards make. It’s this really sacred symbol of friendship and brotherhood, and even if they don’t admit it, everyone wants one. (Can you tell the Professor just loves to tell you stuff? All you have to do is get him started, and he’s off to the races.) Not that I mind, since I’m finally starting to feel like maybe I’m part of something here. It’s put me in a whole lot better mood, I’ll tell you that much.

  Anyway, we got out here around 1400, and boy, were the guys we replaced glad to be getting off the hill. I guess they’ve been here for a couple of months, or something. Their uniforms were plain crusted with red clay, and all ragged. And, man, oh, man, what a stench! Guess they didn’t get a shower that whole time. Most of them had beards — if they were old enough to grow them — and they all seemed pretty wild and edgy. The whole top of the hill’s not much bigger than a football field, and being out here alone must make you kind of stir-crazy.

  Gee. Can’t hardly wait to find out for myself.

  Our platoon commander is a second lieutenant named Fanelli, and he started assigning us positions right away. He wants us dug in and set up before we lose the light. Plus, he wants us to check all the concertina wire around the perimeter, make sure the claymore mines are facing in the right direction — away from us — and that sort of thing.

  It’s not exactly raining today, but it’s getting all misty and overcast. The choppers usually can’t fly in weather like this, so we probably won’t get any more supplies today than whatever’s already here. Seems like we have a decent amount of ammo — hope we don’t need it any time soon — but we’ll have to make do with whatever C rations and water we brought along with us.

  Better go dig for a while. More later.

  Around 2100

  I’ve got blisters like you wouldn’t believe. Not that I mind, or anything — nope, too tough to care — but I have to say, they’re nasty. I spent just about the whole afternoon digging. The guys we replaced set up pretty decent bunkers, but they aren’t deep enough. After a while, they must have gotten lazy, because there’s also garbage all over the place. Empty C rat boxes and cans, old shell casings, smoke grenade cannisters, dud pop-up flares, stained bandages, empty bug juice bottles, lots of grenade pins, pieces of frayed comm wire, half-rotted web gear, dented M14 and M16 magazines — just a lot of junk. Guess they didn’t care too much about policing up. Or else, they figured we’d come along and do it for them.

  Looks like they g
uessed right.

  We ate dinner sitting either on sandbags, or on top of our helmets. Hollywood showed me how to make a little stove, by using an empty B-2 can from my C rations. You cut off the lid with a P-38 (it’s a little can opener — I keep mine stuck underneath my helmet band), then you make three holes down low in the can for ventilation. So, for once, I had a hot meal. Sort of hot, anyway. We have these little blue heat-tabs, which you can light and drop in the bottom of the stove. They take forever to heat anything up, though, so most of the guys use pieces of C-4 explosive. It looks sort of like white putty. You just tear off a little piece, light it up, and whoosh! Boy, does it burn fast and hot. You can boil up a can of water for coffee in no time.

  I never drank coffee until I went to boot camp, but now I really like it. Maybe it doesn’t always taste so great, but it sure helps keep you awake. I’ve seen guys just shake the little packets straight into their mouths and crunch it up dry — especially on guard duty.

  C rations aren’t that great, but they’re okay. Besides, I’m usually so hungry that I’m not that picky. At home, when I’d get back after practice, I would sit right down at the table and drink a quart of milk, with a loaf of bread and peanut butter. After that, I’d be ready for dinner. My sisters thought I was a big pig — and I’d give them a nice round of burps, just to keep my reputation up. In the pig category, I’d say I’m pretty much undefeated.

  Tonight, I had meatballs with beans in tomato sauce. I kind of scorched the bottom with the C-4, but I was able to scrape up most of it. People swap parts of their C rations for stuff they might like better, and it feels like the lunchroom at my elementary school, when no one wanted their apples. I finished up with crackers and cheddar cheese spread, and then some pretty foul fruitcake.

  There are a bunch of huge rats up here — probably because the other unit left the place in such a mess. So, Lieutenant Fanelli told us to be sure and throw away everything in the garbage dump on the side of the hill. We’re not supposed to leave out anything edible in our bunkers that might attract them.