13th Valley

by John M. Del Vecchio

  “We have pursued this for three years and have never been able to find it. Think why, Gentlemen. This tiny valley, this narrow insignificant gutter, is surrounded by some of the highest mountains in all of Vietnam. This valley will be difficult to enter, hard to traverse. That is why it has remained isolated and untouched. We have been lazy.” The voice of the Old Fox echoing off the front wall of the briefing hall rose and fell. At one moment it seemed very excited, the next very flat. Always the words came perfectly measured.

  “To the west the Khe Ta Laou virtually opens into Laos. To the north the plains are patrolled by a mechanized brigade with no ability to penetrate the ridges surrounding our objective. To the south we have the giant A Shau, a valley we have fought in every year since we—since Screaming Eagles arrived in Vietnam—a valley good for a battle but poor for headquarters. And between, Gentlemen, between.” The colonel clapped his hands together. He gripped each hand with the other and kneaded them together. “Between, the enemy has sat calmly for years, retreated for years to this narrow sanctuary too insignificant for allied forces to be concerned with.

  “Gentlemen, I’m concerned. This will be one of my last operations before I rotate to a duty desk in Washington. I want to leave this country safe. I want to leave our area clean so when the ARVN assumes total responsibility for its own land, we will have left them with a chance for success and not with the seeds of failure.

  “This is the last NVA stronghold in I Corps. We can kick the enemy out of our AO, out of this valley, out of I Corps and out of this country. Gentlemen, it is up to us. We are about to embark upon a historic mission. We must take the world, Gentlemen, as we find it and make it like we want it. We have the equipment, the mobility, the tactics. Air mobility has come of age. We have the planners, the commanders and the men who know how best to exploit this new ability to strike fast and strike hard.

  “Gentlemen, the NVA does not want to make contact with troops of the Third Brigade. They do not want to make contact with the 7th of the 402d SKYHAWKS nor with any battalion of Screaming Eagles. A guerilla force must make contact on its own terms and the 101st no longer allows the North Vietnamese to specify the terms. Since the 1968 Tet Counter-offensive the NVA has lost too many men and too much equipment to Screaming Eagles for too little return, for no solid return. Word has come down from opposition commanders, ‘leave the 101st alone. Pick on easier targets.’ This has created problems for their field commanders. They can pick on the 1st ARVN Division but Screaming Eagles stand in close support of the 1st ARVN. NVA commanders in the field have decided to pull back, pick a few lax targets, a few targets to keep the media pressure on our backs, and to build their strength until we are too weak from withdrawals to respond.

  “This is going to be a massive operation in terms of tactical impact, if limited in scope, manpower and equipment. For security, as always, no one has been told of these plans until this briefing. I am going to ask you not to tell even your men of the location of this operation or of the overall objective. We are on to something very significant. We do not want to make an announcement. If all we come up with is a few tons of rice, there is no point in having the press make us out to be fools. In hindsight, Cambodia was a very great victory, but if you’ve read your papers, the press has crucified us for not having reached our announced objective. If it had never been announced we were looking for a COSVN the incursion could never have been labeled as a failure. They were wrong but let us not fall into their trap. Let’s do it first and release the results later. Action, Gentlemen, speaks louder than words.

  “Now is the time. Let us embark upon our rendezvous with destiny. Thank you.”

  CHAPTER 7

  THE PHOC ROC TOC

  The big soldier sat alone at the bar brooding. Except for Molino and himself the Phoc Roc TOC was empty. The Phoc Roc TOC was not the official name for the enlisted men’s club of the 7th of the 402d however the phonetics expressed an essential emotion all infantrymen bore about those 90 to 100 pound rucksacks carried on their shoulders and backs. Normally the last portion of the name, TOC, an acronym for Tactical Operation Center, was eliminated and a soldier would say to his buddy, “Let’s go get a beer at the Phoc Roc.” After a time the name lost its meaning. No one remembered its origin or thought about its phonetics. Even the battalion commander referred to the EM Club as the Phoc Roc.

  The Phoc Roc was typical temporary hootch construction, wider, a single room 24 x 32, with a galvanized iron roof. Inside, along the back wall was a bar of singed and sanded plywood iced with high gloss polyurethane. Red vinyl had been carefully tacked to the bar’s front and padded gray vinyl covered the edge between top and front. Before the bar twelve small round red and gray Formica tables were randomly scattered, some without chairs, some with four or five.

  During the rear-area workday the club was off-limits although on hot dry season days men would enter, buy a beer from Spec Four Molino, chug it on the spot or conceal it in a large fatigue pocket and return to work. As the sun descended and the Phoc Roc cooled and the workday came to an end, men would come in, buy beer and stay.

  “What’ll it be tonight, Joe?” Molino’d sing out as if he were on stage as the first REMF arrived after mess hall dinner.

  “Got anything different?” the REMF would say.

  “Got Fresca. Got Bud. Got Millers and Schlitz. Even got a special on Fresca. Two cans for the price of none. Drink one, get one free. Drink two and you get a six-pack. Drink three and I’ll call for the Doc. What’ll ya have?”

  “Gimme a beer. How come you got so much Fresca? Why didn’t you buy Coke or somethin?”

  “They only got Fresca at the PX. Dudes down south swipe all the Coke and good shit. Zarno said he’d see bout gettin some Coke from the gooks cause Lyn told him they got beaucoup cases of it in her ville. She says the cowboys trade medical supplies for it. They take the medicine from the villagers after Doc’s MEDCAPs and get the Coke blackmarket cause they know we can’t get it up here and they know they can sell us that shit cause everybody hates Fresca.”

  “Fuck it. I’ll drink beer. Got anything hard?… Not that, asshole. I mean booze.”

  “Suit yerself,” Molino’d say, “I got some special reserve but Zarno don’t let me sell it in here. They got plenty at the PX. You oughta go up and buy some. Hell, it’s cheap as Fresca. Special on vodka this week—seventy cents a quart.”

  Stacked behind the bar forming a solid barrier of cans were cases of Fresca, Budweiser, Miller and the various other beers: Amongst the stacks, a foot off the floor, was Molino’s bed, twenty cases of Fresca covered with a filthy cotton mattress. Above his bed, supported at each end by columns of Fresca cases, were four orderly shelves packed with books and record albums. Shelf one contained classic works and LP records, shelf two military manuals for promotion board study, shelf three paperback and cock-books and shelf four histories and cultural, political, and economic studies on Vietnam. Molino, along with his duties as club manager, was battalion librarian. He checked the books in and out and levied overdue fines at one cent per page per day on the manuals and fifty cents per day on the books. He did not worry about losing the shelf supports.

  The big soldier sitting at the bar late in the afternoon of 12 August was called Whiteboy. He was a very big, very pale soldier with thick lips and a pug nose. He couldn’t have cared less about the Fresca or about Molino’s books or about returning to the detail to which the first sergeant had assigned him. He was seated on the only stool in front of the bar. Since he’d returned from the briefing he’d been sitting on the stool, chatting infrequently with Molino, listening more than speaking, drinking Budweiser, playing solitaire and glancing about with disgust.

  “Lahff’s lahk cards,” Whiteboy drawled slowly. “Lank Ah’ve been wonderin. If Ah played these cards afta shufflin um four time stead a fahve, would Ah have won? Ah don’t reckon Ah know why Ah had ta shuffle um one mo time. Ah only got four cards up there. Lahff’s lahk that.”

  “Com
e on, Man,” Molino shot back in quick short words. “What the fuck’s eatin you?” Molino changed the record. Very carefully he wiped the dust from the Isaac Hayes disc before putting it in the cover and returning it to the first shelf.

  “They stickin it to us ah-gain,” Whiteboy said. “They found um a whole pile a dinks and they stickin us ah-gain. Ah sho do wish Ah could stay back heah this one time.”

  “Hey look,” Molino said. “I’ll tellya somethin. I been here and I been there in the bush.”

  “Ah know that,” Whiteboy said slowly.

  “I was in the bush most of ’69 and most of this year. I was up on 714 and 882 with Bravo.”

  “Ah know that too,” Whiteboy said placing the cards on the bar for another solitaire game. Molino always reminded the boonierats that he had been one of them. He was a REMF now and the reminder grated on Whiteboy as he added a second layer of cards then a third. Whiteboy’s hands moved skillfully, as quick as his speech was slow.

  “They blew away a lot of our people,” Molino said slower, morose, reflecting with calculation. He added with half a smile and a twinkle in his eye, “Then I got this job as club manager. The old man wanted me back in the bush. I said, ‘I can’t go back.’ He says, ‘Why?’ I say, ‘I’ve got this heart murmur.’ He says, ‘What?’ And I say, ‘Yeah. I got this heart murmur.’“ Molino bent forward, cupped his left hand to the left of his mouth and stage-whispered, “It keeps murmuring, ‘Don’t Go. Don’t Go.’”

  Whiteboy guffawed unwillingly. He did not speak. Molino began again, “I’ll tellya somethin, Whiteboy. The rear aint what it’s cracked up ta be. It’s a real horror show. That aint no shit. I mean it. I’m more scared back here than I was out there. Ya know, I built me a bunker behind this place so it aint too far in case of incoming. Shee-it. Eagle got mortared five times last month. Okay. Nothin landed down here but one blew a dude away up at division. Why you think I keep the music so low? It’s so I can hear the rockets before they get here.”

  “Shee-it,” Whiteboy said. “That doan do no good. If it’s goan land on you, you aint goan heah it. You only heah um if they passin on ovah.”

  “I don’t care, Man. I’ll tellya, ya do unnatural things back here. Don’t never take a shit after dark. If ya gotta piss at night ya go to the door. Aint no way ya ee-ven walkin down ta the piss tube. Watch these REMFs, Man. They always keepin one ear on the rap and one listenin for rockets. They got me paranoid. They worse than the field. Every time somebody drops somethin they pausin ta check it out. Shee-it. I don’t even tuck in the mosquito net. It might take half a second longer ta get outa bed. I’ll tellya, Man, I feel more like a savage back here than I did in the bush. These dudes back here, they all lookin out for number fuckin one. Last time the rockets hit, Man, all these dudes jumped into my bunker. I couldn’t even get my fuckin ass in. Shee-it. Echo’s pumpin out mortars, rockets are comin in one every half minute. Reaction team’s runnin round lookin for the cannisters, Cobra’s come up and begin nailin down the perimeter. I figure we got us a ground attack.”

  “Whut happened?”

  “Shee-it. All these REMFs sittin in my bunker, bare ass half of em, their dongs hangin out, all jabberin away about what they was doin when the first rocket landed. What action they took to get ta my bunker.”

  “Whut you do?”

  “Shee-it. I’ll tellya. It’s a rotten helpless feelin. You race to the bunker. You just lay there, Man. Listenin. Listenin to those goddamn fuckers schuss over yer head and explode right behind you. Can’t stop em. Can’t shoot em.”

  “Dammit Milleenee, whut you do?”

  “Mo-lee-noh. You mean to the REMFs in my bunker?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh. I took two cans of Fresca. Shook em up, pulled the tops and threw em in. Then I got my 16 and joined the dudes on the reaction team.”

  Whiteboy guffawed again.

  “Hey look, Man,” Molino said softly, changing his tempo again, “it aint goina be bad. You know the way them briefings are. You aint ee-ven goina have another 714. Man, the dinks have dee-deed. They’ve split, Man. You aint got nothin to worry about.” Molino hit Whiteboy with a light jab on the shoulder. Beneath the loose skin Whiteboy’s muscles were rock hard. “Snap out a it, Man.”

  Whiteboy picked up the cards again and shuffled. He had the strong hands of a mechanic. His fatigue shirt was stretched tight across his wide back. The shirt sleeves were rolled back two turns and the cuffs fit tightly about his heavy muscled forearms. Whiteboy usually moved slowly yet immediately upon seeing him other soldiers knew he could move quickly and with great force if he wanted to.

  “Ya know,” Molino said, still trying to change Whiteboy’s mood, “I put in for Nam. Boy was I dumb. My brother was killed here in ’66. I’ll tellya somethin. Anybody who signs up for Nam is an asshole. What good does it do? It don’t bring nobody back. My mother got ten grand for my brother. Ten thousand big ones. I’ll tellya somethin. She aint gonna get my money. Aint nobody spending my ten grand.”

  “Ah don’t got that long ta go,” Whiteboy said. “Ah’m goan ETS out a heah in two mo months. Ah don’t know whut Ah’m goan do. All Ah know is mah sixty an these cards. An mah sixty don’t lie an neither do these cards. Ah got ten up theah this time. Guess Ah’ll be goan out with all them othah dudes. But Ah’ll tell you, Milleenee—they’s stickin us ah-gain.”

  Whiteboy, Sergeant Clayton Janoff, the biggest man in the Oh-deuce, was machine gunner and squad leader of the 3d Squad, 1st Platoon, Company A.

  As dusk settled men entered the club. Music and whistles and catcalls, floor show language, shrieked in from the theater. Men came in dressed for guard duty then left and others replaced them. No one sat at the bar. When all the chairs became full men stood in clusters but no one stood at Whiteboy’s bar. Whiteboy did not acknowledge the presence of the other men. He did not even turn around. He spoke laconically with Molino and continued laying cards down, playing out the solitaire hands, picking them up and shuffling. He hummed and whistled to himself as he watched the cards, occasionally singing, then returning to his thicklipped whistle.

  “What’s that …” Molino started, was interrupted with the selling of beers, “what you whistlin?” Whiteboy did not answer. He did not look up from the cards. “You whistling ‘Boonie Rats’?” Molino asked. Whiteboy looked up from the cards on the bar. There were only three scoring above the game. His large hands encompassed the game and shoved the cards into a pile. He said nothing. “That’s what I thought,” Molino said sighing, looking far off into the small club. “That aint the way it goes. It goes like this.” He whistled the tune, quiet, melodic. Then he sang the first verse of the first stanza. “I landed in this country,/ One year of life to give,/ My only friend a weapon,/ My only prayer, to live.”

  “Ah figger Ah do it good as the nex fella,” Whiteboy said slowly.

  Whiteboy whistled the tune in near monotone. Molino spoke the words to the remainder of the first stanza to Whiteboy’s flat whistling, trying to elongate the big soldier’s beat on long notes by stretching the vowels of his speech. “I walked away from freedom! And the life that I had known,/ I passed the weary faces/ of the others going home./ Boonie Rats, Boonie Rats,/ Scared but not alone,/ Three hundred days more or less,/ Then I’m going home.”

  “What the fuck!” A seated soldier said loudly to the men he was seated with. He rose and strutted to the far end of the bar. The Phoc Roc’s music system had an amplifier powerful enough to blow out the building’s flimsy walls. The soldier turned the volume up drowning Whiteboy’s and Molino’s duet and the shrieks and hoots from the theater.

  “Keep yer mitts off the dials,” Molino commanded loudly. He threw his fists into the air feeling Whiteboy behind him. “Watch yerself, Cool.” Molino turned the stereo volume down, snarled at the soldier, replaced the record that had been playing with a Cat Stevens album and played “Moonshadow.” Molino sang along with the record.

  “Here come Doc Johnson and the dudes,” Molin
o announced to Whiteboy. “Floor show must be bad.”

  “Ef it ever was my feet,” Jackson sang to Doc and El Paso as they bopped to the bar, Jax’ head down, eyes closed, hunched forward, jiving, snapping his fingers, “All my toes hunt gook meat/ Ef it ever was my feet,/ I won’t have ta hump no maw.”

  Jax looked up, hand out, Molino filled it with a beer. “Hey Dago, ¿que paso?”

  “What’s happenin’s happenin.” Molino exchanged a short dap with the soul brother.

  “I din’t know, my friend Dago, gave beer en toys, to Whiteboys.”

  Whiteboy shrugged. El Paso and the big soldier exchanged an extended handshake though not quite a dap.

  The club filled as more soldiers came from the show in the theater. Outside it became darker and cooler. Inside the men formed into groups around the tables. Most of the soul brothers stayed to one side. The whites formed two groups, one by the bar and one by the door. The chicanos gathered in the middle and mixed with the fringe groups. There were several blacks in the predominantly white group by the bar and several whites in the black group at the side. Whiteboy, Doc, Jax and El Paso picked the last empty table which was in the center of the room, confiscated eight chairs, sat and drank.

  EM clubs generally were restricted to enlisted men, privates to corporals and specialist fours. Some clubs allowed spec fives and E-5 sergeants. The Phoc Roc attracted all the younger men of the 7th of the 402d. No one was surprised to see a young officer or a young anti-army NCO. Lifers stayed away.

  When the floor show ended the club was deluged and a hundred now packed the single room. Molino turned the music up but voices and laughter drowned most of it. The entire club seemed to be in an early, happy, joking stage of intoxication.