"Don't call me `sir,' goddammit!" he shouted. "I work for a living! Now, you ladies only have five minutes. Move it!"
He stood, hands and clipboard on hips, glaring, until the trio hurriedly exited the room. From the looks on their faces, it was painfully obvious they had no idea what sin they had committed. The remainder of us could only guess what they had done. They were all from the same unit-after all, the sergeant major had said, "Return to your unit" not "units." We could only guess that, probably, they had celebrated their pending graduation from NCO School a little too early, gotten drunk, and caused a ruckus. Their rapid departure became a catalyst for the many rumors about to follow as our classmates exited the room.
"Sergeant Lewis, resume your class," the sergeant major commanded.
Staff Sergeant Lewis cleared his throat and resumed his role as instructor. It was obvious that even he didn't know what had just occurred. He was as wide-eyed as the rest of us. But only for a second. He tried to pick up where he had left off on Marine Corps history.
No one was listening. Seventy-seven minds were conjuring up what in hell had just happened.
The sergeant had just started in on World War II. Somewhere between the Marines' heroic defense on Wake Island and the first offensive of the war at Guadalcanal, a process, imperceptible at first, began to grow insidiously until it became an avalanche, impossible to stopexcept with the truth: "Pssst! What unit were those guys from?"
"Motor-T," whispered back a corporal who sat next to me. By the time Staff Sergeant Lewis reached 1943, the entire class knew that our three departed classmates were from a motor transport outfit. In fact, they were truck drivers-an important clue that went unnoticed at first.
No sooner had we shared this vital information than the door banged open again. The sergeant major strutted up the aisle, ever-ready clipboard in one hand.
Once again he took over the class and called off eight more names from his board. "Pack up your gear," he ordered them, "and report back to your unit on the double!"
There it was again-not "units" plural, but that singular "unit"; and the second time that a specific group was told to report back to its regular unit. Something was unfolding: Why were the parent units calling their people back? We had no idea.
The sergeant major also had to tell this second group to move it. Not even Superman could move fast enough for a sergeant major. There were suddenly eight fewer NCOs than a moment before, eliminated.
On every military base, regardless of the branch of service, the rumor mill can take on enormous proportions. Life had just been breathed into the mill at Las Pulgas, and for all we knew, into all of Camp Pendleton as well.
"What the fuck is going on?" we whispered under our breath. Each of us in the room scanned the faces of the others, looking for the slightest indication that someone knew something-anything. All we saw were our own dumbfounded expressions mirrored back.
Staff Sergeant Lewis, equally perplexed by the morning's events, tried to drag us back to a history lesson about Tarawa-as if, all by himself, he could impede the grindings of the rumor mill.
"As I was saying, most of the Second Marine Division had to wade in water chest-high to reach a shore five hundred meters away...."
For all we cared, he might as well have left the planet. No one was listening.
That same question-"Pssst! What unit were they from?"raced around the room. Seconds later, back came the answer: "Thirteenth Marines."
That's really strange, I thought to myself. The 13th Marines was an artillery regiment made up of men we called "cannon cockers." No sooner had we swallowed this latest crumb than the door slammed open once again. As if given a command in close-order drill, the entire class turned in their seats in unison. In strutted the now all-too-familiar sergeant major.
"Excuse me, Sergeant Lewis," he said, once more telling, more than asking, our instructor to stand down. Up came his clipboard once again, and he began reading off names again-too many, on a list I thought was never going to end. No need to ask what unit these men were from. They had to be infantry.
"Report back to your units immediately," he ordered. "Move out, Marines!" There was that word again, but this time it was plural. Whatever was going on, clearly it involved all the infantry units of the 5th Marine Division.
The classroom became a lot noisier, as forty people began to gather their personal belongings. With each man's hasty exit, the little room seemed to grow that much larger.
That latest list of names had liberally oiled the rumor mill. Up until then, we had been oblivious to noise outside the building, but now suddenly it magnified in volume. Our classroom was near the main road that circumnavigated the entire base. As people left, opening and closing the door like a camera's shutter, we glimpsed snapshots of trucks and more trucks as they roared by, each one laden with troops.
Those of us not on the sergeant major's list could only look at one another in bewilderment. The departure of half the class so disrupted the rest of us that the befuddled Staff Sergeant Lewis told us to take a fifteen-minute break. We bolted for the door.
Filing outside, we lit up cigarettes and watched the departure of our ex-classmates, each with his sea bag on one shoulder, heading for the main road to catch the base bus. Then the buzz began.
"What the hell is going on?" we asked one another.
Following a short lull in the road traffic, another convoy of trucks roared by, most towing howitzers behind them. Something was definitely in the wind. "Whatever it is, the cannon cockers are involved too," said one corporal as he pointed to the artillery pieces in tow behind the trucks.
We all knew that the Marine Corps didn't move artillery pieces around on a whim, but we were clueless as to why. The tension among us rose, and with each passing truck, we grew more apprehensive. You could feel the electric anticipation in the air. Who would be called out next?
Then one of our classmates observed the first piece of solid information. "Hey!" The corporal next to me pointed at the umpteenth truck full of Marines as it disappeared around the bend in the road, "I know that guy. He's with the Twenty-seventh Marines."
The 27th was one of three infantry regiments that made up the 5th Marine Division (the 26th and 28th being the other two, each with about four thousand men). The 26th Marines had deployed to Vietnam the year before and, at that very moment, was entering Marine Corps lore with its heroic stand, halfway around the world, at a surrounded remote fire base called Khe Sanh.
Even more unsettling was that everyone sitting in the entire convoy of trucks had on his helmet and flak jacket. They were holding onto M16 rifles between their legs, the muzzles pointed up. The trucks and the men inside them looked like they meant business. This was no training exercise! They were loaded for bear, packed full of men and equipment. A major infantry unit was definitely mounting out-but where? And more important, why? What had happened in the world that we weren't yet unaware of?
As the last truck drove out of sight, the rumor machine began hitting on all eight cylinders. What would warrant such a rapid deployment of America's best? You had to be dead not to feel the hairs tingling on the backs of our necks. We tried to evaluate everything we knew. The most mundane occurrences had us looking for profound implications.
In 1968, the world situation was a potential tinderbox, and rumors ran rampant. Speculations had those loaded trucks being shipped out on forays to all sorts of destinations, each with its own logical justification. Only two weeks earlier, North Korea had seized the USS Pueblo. The Tet Offensive in South Vietnam had just begun. Television footage had shown us fighting inside the U.S. embassy in Saigon. Another rumor had us going up to Los Angeles to put down riots in Watts, but this was the wrong time of year for that sort of thing. Other little hot spots, all around the world, could flare up in a heartbeat: Korea, Cuba, and Quemoy and Matsu, two islands off the Chinese mainland that were sporadically shelled by the Red Chinese. And of course, there was NATO and its Iron Curtain nemesis, the Warsaw Pact,
and the always-volatile Middle East.
Our speculations were brought back to earth when we were ordered to return to class. Just as we started inside, a Marine whom none of us knew walked past and gave us a tidbit that shook us to the bone.
"The base has been closed to all outgoing traffic!" he said. "I just got that from an SP!"
"They can't close it," someone said in disbelief. "There's too many Marines and civilians living off base!"
"They're rounding up anyone on liberty in Oceanside," the stranger volunteered, "telling them to get back to their units immediately!"
Oceanside was the town just outside Camp Pendleton. For many of us, it was often the first stop on a weekend pass, our first link to the sanity of the outside civilian world, and it was now off limits! He said the SPs- the Shore Patrol-were cruising the streets, entering every bar and eatery, sending anyone with crewcuts (remember, this was the long-haired 1960s) back to the base and to their units, on the double.
What had begun as a cold morning was warming up in more ways than one. As soon as we got back in the classroom, we shared this latest scuttlebutt with Staff Sergeant Lewis. "Pendleton is closed," he confirmed. "I just heard it from my office people."
Our first question was, "When was the last time they closed the base?" We hoped the practice wasn't unusual. Secretly, of course, we all knew better.
"I've never heard of it being closed except during the mount-out for Korea, back in nineteen-fifty. Speaking of Korea," he added, trying to retreat into his history lesson, "Who said, `Retreat? Hell, no! We're just attacking in another direction!'?"
Nobody heard him. We were all someplace else again, busy processing his latest morsel: The last time they shut down the base was Korea. So whatever was going down must be of a similar magnitude. Who had been invaded? Who needed rescuing? We were desperate for a radio or any communication with the outside world.
We didn't get too long to wonder about it. We all jumped in our seats to a sound that should have been familiar by then and turned to see the sergeant major making another grand entrance, clipboard in hand.
Staff Sergeant Lewis silently stepped aside.
Uppermost in our minds were two questions: Who's next? and Will it be me? If not in that order. A small part of me wanted to be on the sergeant major's clipboard, just to find out what was going on. On the other hand, maybe staying in Southern California wasn't such a bad deal after all. I slid down in my seat.
He called off three names. We were all tank crewmen. I was now caught up in whatever it was that was going down.
In some way, it was a relief. Now maybe I could get a few answers to the thousand questions on my mind.
The three of us packed our gear and waited for the base bus to take us back to Las Flores and the 5th Tank Battalion. As soon as we climbed the steps of the bus, we asked the driver what was going on. He had nothing to tell us, but he did confirm that the entire base was in a state of more hectic activity than he'd ever seen.
We glued our faces to the windows, looking for any clue as to what was going on. Traffic on the road was unusually heavy, with all sorts of vehicles, including civilian tractor-trailers-an uncommon sight.
The bus let us off and pulled away in a cloud of dust. For a full minute we stood in disbelief, trying to take it all in.
There in front of us was Las Flores, swarming like an ant farm with people and trucks, military and civilian. The heaviest activity was at the rear of the base, up on the ramp where all the tanks were located.
"Whatever it is," said one of my classmates, "tanks are definitely part of it!"
Spread out before us was a sea of activity, with every individual apparently on his own mission. Civilian trucks were lined up on the road that led up to the tank park. Men were crawling over, in, and out of the seventy tanks that made up 5th Tank Battalion.
A tank park, more commonly referred to as "the ramp," was a huge expanse of concrete for all the battalion's tanks. Fifth Tank Battalion was made up of five companies. Four were gun-tank companies, and the fifth was a headquarters company. Each gun-tank company was made up of three platoons, each of which fielded five tanks.
The tanks sat in neatly ordered rows, all precisely aligned. They were always spotless, and their insides even cleaner-which I thought strange, because there was no way to hide dirt in the white-painted interior of the dirtiest dirt-making combat vehicle in the whole Marine Corps. I knew people who wouldn't buy a car with a white interior because it required too much upkeep. Keeping a tank clean was a full-time job.
Alpha Company had shipped out for Okinawa the year before, but Bravo, Charlie, and Delta Companies were still at Las Flores. Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie were medium gun-tank companies equipped with the M48A3 Patton tank. Delta Company was made up of heavy tanks-M103s. Large as they were useless, they were often called "ramp queens," because they seldom left the tank ramp. I had been in Charlie Company for the past thirteen months, ever since the day I left Tank School. I loved my job and was very good at it.
Crossing even the roughest of terrain, the 52-ton Patton tank rode every bit as easily as a Cadillac. It was powered by a Continental V-12 turbo-charged diesel engine that developed 750 horsepower. There was nothing like being able to drive something anywhere, over and through anything. For a young kid into cars and performance, it was the ultimate machine. Luckily, diesel fuel was free, because the M48 chugged a hefty two gallons per mile.
The first time I got in the driver's seat I discovered it had a steering wheel and an automatic transmission; I had been expecting it to drive like a bulldozer, with levers. There wasn't anywhere we couldn't go-or so we thought until we heard the stories of returning Vietnam veterans.
Tanks are large vehicles manned by four crewmen, three of them in the fighting compartment. The driver is isolated in his own compartment, right up front, in the center of the vehicle. The three other jobs were the loader, whose job it was to keep the .30-caliber machine gun fed and the 90mm main gun loaded with its four-foot long rounds; the gunner, who aimed and fired the weapons and never saw the outside world except through his periscope and gun sights; and the tank commander, the man in charge of the vehicle who also had his own mini-turret, which housed a .50-caliber machine gun. I loved any job around the beasts, but driving was everybody's favorite.
After getting off the bus and staring in disbelief at all the activity that lay before us, we crossed the road and headed to our barracks, closer to all the commotion up on the ramp. Each tank had its tarp spread out in front of it, with all its equipment neatly placed on top. By itself, this was no unusual sight. Every three months, each tank's tools, equipment, and crew were inventoried and inspected.
"Is this what it's all about?" I wondered aloud. "Just a silly inspection?"
A classmate offered the first good explanation I'd heard all day: "Maybe it's part of our readiness response test." He was referring to a test that occurred once a year, at random, to check how well prepared we were.
Carrying our sea bags into the barracks, we asked the first man we saw what was going on?"
"Bravo Company's mounting out," he said. "The Twenty-seventh Marines are boarding planes right now!"
We looked at him in disbelief. "Where are they going?"
"Rumor has it, to rescue the crew of the Pueblo."
Even in Los Flores, the rumor machine was alive and well, I thought. When it became obvious that we hadn't brought any new information with us, the Marine dropped us as quickly as an ugly girl on a blind date.
Then I bumped into John Cash, whom we all called Johnny, because he played country guitar just like his musical namesake. "What gives?" I asked.
"Nobody's saying, but rumors are that Bravo Company's going to The Nam-tanks and all!"
That was the second time someone had mentioned Bravo Company. I breathed a sigh of relief, hoping my billet with Charlie Company would keep me out of whatever was going down. But Bravo Company couldn't possibly be going to Vietnam. It was made up of recently re
turned Nam veterans, who were assured a year in the States before they could be rotated back to Indochina. At least that's what we liked to think. The truth was, they could send you anywhere they liked, except Vietnam. Your "year away" could mean a six-month stay at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, followed by a six-month Mediterranean cruise, then back to The Nam. Therefore, using flawless logic, Bravo Company was obviously going somewhere, but it wasn't RVN (Republic of South Vietnam).
Another thing didn't sound right. This was 1968, and already there was so much equipment in Vietnam that everyone flew there; no one went with his tank. It was common knowledge that once you flew to Vietnam you would be assigned to either the 1st or the 3rd Tank Battalion. Both had been in-country since 1965. Getting orders for Vietnam always brought fear to any tanker or other supporting-arms Marine, because there was no guarantee you'd end up in a tank unit. If they were desperate to fill grunt positions, you could be snoopin' and poopin' in the grass and never see a tank except from your foxhole. That was not the travel package any tanker wanted!
I didn't know that this scenario, in a slightly different form, had taken place prior to my getting back to Las Flores. I was about to learn what I had been lucky enough to miss.
I quickly got to my barracks, unpacked my stuff, stowed it in my locker, and sought out my tank commander. I had been told that Sergeant Molocko was up on the ramp, so I started the short walk past the other barracks. Even the mess hall was a flurry of activity. Metal carts piled with sandwiches, along with several large drink dispensers and other foodstuffs, were making their way to the ramp.
This was the first time I had ever seen food brought to the men. Something really big was in the air. The closer I got to the ramp, the more nervous and inquisitive I got.
Most tanks were parked behind the battalion's maintenance building. When I passed the building, I saw two civilian tractor-trailers. One was disgorging the new-style searchlights we had been a waiting for more than a year to get. Now, magically, they were here. The other truck was unloading large wooden crates, one of which a forklift was delivering to each Bravo Company tank.
Praying for Slack: A Marine Corps Tank Commander in Viet Nam Page 2
