If I Die in a Combat Zone

by Tim O'Brien

  On Sundays I didn’t take the usual bus ride into Seattle or Tacoma. Instead, I wrote letters to my family, a teacher, and some friends, trying to explain my position. The letters to hometown America were tough to write. Worse to read, of course. I explained the grounds for my desertion in the letters, and I talked about the problems of conscience in participating in the war. Mostly, though, I tried to say how difficult it is to embarrass people you love. I hid the letters and decided to mail them from Canada, my first stop.

  A week or two before Christmas I had enough money, the right documents, and a final plan. I was sick with bronchitis, but the little spurts of nausea and coughing pushed me on. It was a symptom of another disease, and there was absolutely no doubt about the cure. I was given a weekend pass.

  The bus ride into Seattle was a jolt. It was a Friday evening, cold as ever, and a little snow had replaced the rain. The inside of the Greyhound was unlighted, except for cigarette glows. Everyone was in uniform, even the bus driver, and green berets jutted up here and there over the high-backed seats. The officers wore their Nazi-styled billed caps and dress greens and medals.

  I was scared. I was also a little sick. My throat was filled with phlegm. Nausea flirted up and down my belly.

  A lieutenant sat beside me, and he asked if I were heading home for Christmas. I said, “No sir, just a pass.”

  “Gonna hit Seattle, huh? Not a bad place. Better than Nam, that’s for sure.”

  “Ah, you’ve been to Nam?”

  “Nope, I’m just going. Day after tomorrow. The bastards wouldn’t hold it till after the holiday.”

  “Too bad.”

  “What’s your MOS?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Infantry.”

  “Drafted, I’ll bet. Me too. I signed up for OCS. Didn’t really want to be an officer, but at least it delayed Nam for a while. Hell, I almost thought they forgot about me. In another month—this February—I could have been in Germany. My whole unit’s going there.”

  “You got screwed, sir.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “But I guess that’s what I’ve been training for. Actually, I sort of want to try out all the stuff I’ve learned. I think I’m better than those dinks.”

  The Greyhound turned out of the fort. There is a long highway, three and four lanes, and it takes you through the black forests straight into Seattle. My head hurt, and I leaned back and sort of fell asleep, not a deep sleep, but enough to hallucinate. I dreamed that my old basic drill sergeant, Blyton, was sitting there beside me, grinning and telling me I was doomed. “I’ll have you in the stockade, in chains, with bread and water. My man never gets away.”

  In Seattle, the depot was jammed full of MPs and cops. I went into the men’s room and stripped. I stuffed my greens into the black AWOL bag and changed into slacks and a shirt. No one said a word.

  I found a cheap hotel where I could hole up and think the whole thing through for one final night. An old lady at the desk handed me a key without a glance. The Seattle Times sports page was spread out in front of her. Like a gentleman, I said good evening. She muttered good evening. I dropped the bag onto my bed, then wandered out of the hotel and toward the docks. I found a sailor and asked for a good place to eat. “Over yonder,” he said. “Good fish, and cheap. You ain’t got a dime?” I had clam chowder, which helped my headache; then I went to a telephone booth and called a taxi and took it to the University of Washington.

  I walked into a sorority house and rang a button. A girl came down in jeans. Black hair, and blue-rimmed glasses. I told her I was from Minnesota, that one of my fraternity friends there had said I might find a date if I just rang for a girl in this house. She asked for my friend’s name, and I manufactured one. She asked about the fraternity, and, not knowing any of the names, I said Phi Gamma Omega. She said she’d never heard of Phi Gamma Omega, but she crossed her arms and hooked one ankle around the other and seemed willing to talk.

  “Actually,” I said, “I’m not a sex maniac. I’m just visiting Seattle, and I didn’t want to waste the night. Maybe a movie or something?”

  “Jeez,” the girl said. “You look like a pretty nice guy. But you know how it is, I have to study. Big exam tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday. You have classes on Saturday?”

  “No, not really. The test’s Monday. It just slipped out, I guess.”

  “Well,” I said, “the truth is, I didn’t think you’d want to go. But maybe you know somebody.”

  “Sorry. But it’s just before Christmas break. We’re having finals, you know, and all my friends are at the books.” She smiled. “Besides, this is no way to conduct human relations.”

  So I left, embarrassed, and went to downtown Seattle. I walked around in the simmering red and gold neon light, past a theater showing Finian’s Rainbow—“… if I’m not near the girl that I love, I love the girl I’m near!”—and past another theater showing The Graduate, which made me think about my college sweetheart. I walked along, whistling “Old Devil Moon” until my headache started again.

  Farther up the street, toward the harbor, the lights faded. A prostitute hooked me with her umbrella and asked if I needed a date.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I feel kind of sick tonight.”

  “Well, then, can you spare a buck or two?” she asked.

  “Sorry. I really need the money. You don’t know how much I need it.”

  I vomited in my hotel room. I fell asleep, awakened, slept again, awakened to hear it raining. I looked down at the street, and the snow was gone and it was all gray slush. I sat at the desk. The AWOL bag was ready to go, but I wasn’t. I slept some more, dreaming, and when I awakened I vomited and saw it was getting light. I burned the letters to my family. I read the others and burned them, too. It was over. I simply couldn’t bring myself to flee. Family, the home town, friends, history, tradition, fear, confusion, exile: I could not run. I went into the hallway and bought a Coke. When I finished it I felt better, clearer-headed, and burned the plans. I was a coward. I was sick.

  All day Saturday I was sick. And restless and hopeless. On Sunday morning I caught a bus to the fort. I went to the library and read, ate a doughnut in the doughnut shop, and went on back to the barracks. The rest of the men were loud coming in from pass, drunk and squabbling and howling and talking about Christmas. There was just no place to be alone.

  Seven

  Arrival

  First there is some mist. Then, when the plane begins its descent, there are pale gray mountains. The plane slides down, and the mountains darken and take on a sinister cragginess. You see the outlines of crevices, and you consider whether, of all the places opening up below, you might finally walk to that spot and die. Or that spot, or that spot. In the far distance are green patches, the sea is below, a stretch of sand winds along the coast. Two hundred men draw their breath. You feel dread. But it is senseless to let it go too far, so you joke: There are only 365 days to go. The stewardess wishes you luck over the loudspeaker. At the door she gives out some kisses, mainly to the extroverts.

  From Cam Ranh Bay another plane takes you to Chu Lai, a big base to the south of Danang, headquarters for the Americal Division. You spend a week there, in a place called the Combat Center. It’s a resortlike place, tucked in alongside the South China Sea, complete with sand and native girls and a miniature golf course and floor shows with every variety of the grinding female pelvis. There beside the sea you get your now-or-never training. You pitch hand grenades, practice walking through mine fields, learn to use a minesweeper. Mostly, though, you wonder about dying. You wonder how it feels, what it looks like inside you. Sometimes you stop, and your body tingles. You feel your blood and nerves working. At night you sit on the beach and watch fire fights off where the war is being fought. There are movies at night, and a place to buy beer. Carefully, you mark six days off your pocket calendar; you start a journal, vaguely hoping it will never be read.

  Arriving in Vietnam as a foot soldier is much like arriving at
boot camp as a recruit. Things are new, and you ascribe evil to the simplest physical objects: You see red in the sand, swarms of angels and avatars in the sky, pity in the eyes of the chaplain, concealed anger in the eyes of the girls who sell you Coke. You are not sure how to conduct yourself—whether to show fear, to live secretly with it, to show resignation or disgust. You wish it were all over. You begin the countdown. You take the inky, mildew smell of Vietnam into your lungs.

  After a week at the Combat Center, a truck took six of us down Highway One to a hill called LZ Gator.

  A sergeant welcomed us, staring at us like he was buying meat, and he explained that LZ Gator was headquarters for the Fifth Battalion, Forty-Sixth Infantry, and that the place was our new home.

  “But I don’t want you guys getting too used to Gator,” he said. “You won’t be here long. You’re gonna fill out some forms in a few minutes, then we’ll get you all assigned to rifle companies, then you’re going out to the boonies. Got it? Just like learning to swim. We just toss you in and let you hoof it and eat some C rations and get a little action under your belts. It’s better that way than sitting around worrying about it.

  “Okay, that’s enough bullshit. Just don’t get no illusions.” He softened his voice a trifle. “Of course, don’t get too scared. We lose some men, sure, but it ain’t near as bad as ’66, believe me, I was in the Nam in ’66, an’ it was bad shit then, getting our butts kicked around. And this area—you guys lucked out a little, there’s worse places in the Nam. We got mines, that’s the big thing here, plenty of ’em. But this ain’t the Delta, we ain’t got many NVA, so you’re lucky. We got some mines and some local VC, that’s it. Anyhow, enough bullshit, like I say, it ain’t all that bad. Okay, we got some personnel cards here, so fill ’em out, and we’ll chow you down.”

  Then the battalion Re-Up NCO came along. “I seen some action. I got me two purple hearts, so listen up good. I’m not saying you’re gonna get zapped out there. I made it. But you’re gonna come motherfuckin’ close, Jesus, you’re gonna hear bullets tickling your asshole. And sure as I’m standing here, one or two of you men are gonna get your legs blown off. Or killed. One or two of you, it’s gotta happen.”

  He paused and stared around like a salesman, from man to man, letting it sink in. “I’m just telling you the facts of life, I’m not trying to scare shit out of you. But you better sure as hell be scared, it’s gotta happen. One or two of you men, your ass is grass.

  “So—what can you do about it? Well, like Sarge says, you can be careful, you can watch for the mines and all that, and, who knows, you might come out looking like a rose. But careful guys get killed too. So what can you do about it then? Nothing. Except you can re-up.”

  The men looked at the ground and shuffled around grinning. “Sure, sure—I know. Nobody likes to re-up. But just think about it a second. Just say you do it—you take your burst of three years, starting today; three more years of army life. Then what? Well, I’ll tell you what, it’ll save your ass, that’s what, it’ll save your ass. You re-up and I can get you a job in Chu Lai. I got jobs for mechanics, typists, clerks, damn near anything you want, I got it. So you get your nice, safe rear job. You get some on-the-job training, the works. You get a skill. You sleep in a bed. Hell, you laugh, but you sleep in the goddamn monsoons for two months on end, you try that sometime, and you won’t be laughing. So. You lose a little time to Uncle Sam. Big deal. You save your ass. So, I got my desk inside. If you come in and sign the papers—it’ll take ten minutes—I’ll have you on the first truck going back to Chu Lai, no shit. Anybody game?” No one budged, and he shrugged and went down to the mess hall.

  LZ Gator seemed a safe place to be. You could see pieces of the ocean on clear days. A little village called Nuoc Mau was at the foot of the hill, filled with pleasant, smiling people, places to have your laundry done, a whorehouse. Except when on perimeter guard at night, everyone went about the fire base with unloaded weapons. The atmosphere was dull and hot, but there were movies and floor shows and sheds-ful of beer.

  I was assigned to Alpha Company.

  “Shit, you poor sonofabitch,” the mail clerk said, grinning. “Shit. How many days you got left in Nam? 358, right? 357? Shit. You poor mother. I got twenty-three days left, twenty-three days, and I’m sorry but I’m gone! Gone! I’m so short I need a stepladder to hand out mail. What’s your name?”

  The mail clerk shook hands with me. “Well, at least you’re a lucky sonofabitch. Irish guys never get wasted, not in Alpha. Blacks and spies get wasted, but you micks make it every goddamn time. Hell, I’m black as the colonel’s shoe polish, so you can bet your ass I’m not safe till that ol’ freedom bird lands me back in Seattle. Twenty-three days, you poor mother.”

  He took me to the first sergeant. The first sergeant said to forget all the bullshit about going straight out to the field. He lounged in front of a fan, dressed in his underwear (dyed green, apparently to camouflage him from some incredibly sneaky VC), and he waved a beer at me. “Shit, O’Brien, take it easy. Alpha’s a good square-shooting company, so don’t sweat it. Keep your nose clean and I’ll just keep you here on Gator till the company comes back for a break. No sense sending you out there now, they’re coming in to Gator day after tomorrow.” He curled his toe around a cord and pulled the fan closer. “Go see a movie tonight, get a beer or something.”

  He assigned me to the third platoon and hollered at the supply sergeant to issue me some gear. The supply sergeant hollered back for him to go to hell, and they laughed, and I got a rifle and ammunition and a helmet, camouflage cover, poncho, poncho liner, back pack, clean clothes, and a box of cigarettes and candy. Then it got dark, and I watched Elvira Madigan and her friend romp through all the colors, get hungry, get desperate, and stupidly—so stupidly that you could only pity their need for common sense—end their lives. The guy, Elvira’s lover, was a deserter. You had the impression he deserted for an ideal of love and butterflies, balmy days and the simple life, and that when he saw he couldn’t have it, not even with blond and blue-eyed Elvira, he decided he could never have it. But, Jesus, to kill because of hunger, for fear to hold a menial job. Disgusted, I went off to an empty barracks and pushed some M-16 ammo and hand grenades off my cot and went to sleep.

  In two days Alpha Company came to LZ Gator. They were dirty, loud, coarse, intent on getting drunk, happy, curt, and not interested in saying much to me. They drank through the afternoon and into the night. There was a fight that ended in more beer, they smoked some dope, they started sleeping or passed out around midnight.

  At one or two in the morning—at first I thought I was dreaming, then I thought it was nothing serious—explosions popped somewhere outside the barracks. The first sergeant came through the barracks with a flashlight. “Jesus,” he hollered. “Get the hell out of here! We’re being hit! Wake up!”

  I scrambled for a helmet for my head. For an armored vest. For my boots, for my rifle, for my ammo.

  It was pitch dark. The explosions continued to pop; it seemed a long distance away.

  I went outside. The base was lit up by flares, and the mortar pits were firing rounds out into the paddies. I hid behind a metal shed they kept the beer in.

  No one else came out of the barracks. I waited, and finally one man ambled out, holding a beer. Then another man, holding a beer.

  They sat on some sandbags in their underwear, drinking the beer and laughing, pointing out at the paddies and watching our mortar rounds land.

  Later two or three more men straggled out. No helmets, no weapons. They laughed and joked and drank. The first sergeant started shouting. But the men just giggled and sat on sandbags in their underwear.

  Enemy rounds crashed in. The earth split. Most of Alpha Company slept.

  A lieutenant came by. He told the men to get their gear together, but no one moved, and he walked away. Then some of the men spotted the flash of an enemy mortar tube.

  They set up a machine gun and fired out at it, over the heads
of everyone in the fire base.

  In seconds the enemy tube flashed again. The wind whistled, and the round dug into a road twenty feet from my beer shed. Shrapnel slammed into the beer shed. I hugged the Bud and Black Label, panting, no thoughts.

  Charlie was zeroing in on their machine gun, and everyone scattered, and the next round slammed down even closer. More giggling and hooting.

  The lieutenant hurried back. He argued with a platoon sergeant, but this time the lieutenant was firm. He ordered us to double-time out to the perimeter. Muttering about how the company needed a rest and that this had turned into one hell of a rest and that they’d rather be out in the boonies, the men put on helmets and took up their rifles and followed the lieutenant past the mess hall and out to the perimeter.

  Three of the men refused and went into the barracks and went to sleep.

  Out on the perimeter, there were two dead GIs. Fifty-caliber machine guns fired out into the paddies, and the sky was filled with flares. Two or three of our men, forgetting about the war, went off to chase parachutes blowing around the bunkers. The chutes came from the flares, and they made good souvenirs.

  In the morning the first sergeant roused us out of bed, and we swept the fire base for bodies. Eight dead VC were lying about. One was crouched beside a roll of barbed wire, the top of his head resting on the ground like he was ready to do a somersault. A Squad of men was detailed to throw the corpses into a truck. They wore gloves and didn’t like the job, but they joked. The rest of us walked into the rice paddy and followed a tracker dog out toward the VC mortar positions. From there the dog took us into a village, but there was nothing to see but some children and women. We walked around until noon. Then the lieutenant turned us around, and we were back at LZ Gator in time for chow.