“We’re all going to die!” Butler screamed. He had been screaming this ever since the squadron received its orders to Vietnam, so no one paid much attention except Peters, who punched him out for interrupting. I respected Peters even more and winked at Gearheardt, who was in his footlocker drinking a beer and peeking out through the barely open top. Alcohol was not allowed on board ship, and Gearheardt only drank in his footlocker. I never figured out where he stored his stuff. He stuck out his fist and gave me a thumbs up, and then let the lid close back.
“ … and second of all, we’ve got to quit letting these Navy assholes know they’re getting to us.”
“This isn’t one of those ‘turn the other cheek’ speeches is it, Peters?” Buzz asked. “You the chaplain now?”
Everybody laughed, even the chaplain, who was lying in Gearheardt’s bunk in his skivvies, trying to be one of the boys. His name was A. G. Thomas, which before he could explain otherwise, we decided stood for “Assistant God.”
Peters was a blond surfer type from Southern California, a lot smarter than he looked. He actually looked like an All-American boy, which was why everybody thought he was Jack Armstrong. Everybody but me, of course, because I was Jack Armstrong except when I was Tom Dexter.
“No, this is a ‘lie low and get ’em when they least expect it’ speech. Don’t any of you assholes know anything about tactics? Here’s the plan. Nobody say anything to any swabbie. Act like nothing is wrong. In fact, we’re going to have to eat our vomit so they won’t even know they’ve been making us sick.”
A couple of the younger lieutenants, Daniels and Becker, threw up.
“Pritchard! Eat your own!” Peters grimaced and turned away. Pritchard had a fine coat of red hair down his back, and everyone knew he was dangerous. “The next thing we do—”
“ATTENTION ON DECK.”
The XO of the squadron bounced into the room. We had called him Pepe since he first bounced into the Three-sixty-three ready room just before we got our orders to Vietnam. Our old executive officer had given the obligatory Friday afternoon Don’t Drink and Drive lecture to the squadron, then tanked up at nickel drink night at the O club and wrapped his car around the sentry shack at the main gate. The group docs had grounded him to teach him a lesson. The new XO, Major Gonzales, had this bubbly kind of personality usually only found in high school cheerleaders and people on drugs. We suspected he was both. But that wasn’t why we hated him. We hated him because he always brought bad news. And you could tell he loved doing it, hating us equally. He was short and wiry and had thick, black, curly hair and a black curly mustache.
“A very good morning, men. Listen up. You can be at ease.” He stood on a footlocker so that everyone could see him. The lieutenants went back to lying around and scratching their nuts. “Flight operations tomorrow. It should be a beautiful day for flying.” Loud groans and a couple of “aw shits” from the back of the room. “If you’re on the schedule, breakfast, I hear there’ll be French toast with real maple syrup, at oh-five-thirty, brief in the three-six-three ready room at oh-six-thirty, launch at oh-seven-hundred. Any questions? Good. Next …” He consulted a clipboard. “Next, the skipper wants everyone in the ready room this morning at eleven hundred. He’s going to cover some rules of etiquette for our stay in Japan and Okinawa on the way to Vietnam. Beautiful countries, and I know that you all will be entertained. Also I will announce the results of the ‘name the squadron’ contest. A disgusting affair, I’m afraid, but more on that later. I will also give the rules for the ‘name the enemy’ contest, which is the last one before we get to Japan. I think that you’ll all agree that the skipper’s games have made the trip go faster.” The major pulled nervously on his black mustache. “Any questions?”
“Yeah, are we almost there?” Harrington asked it every chance he got.
The major ignored him. “Any complaints that I could pass along?” He assumed a majorly stance, hands on hips, and methodically looked from face to face. He stopped at Pritchard’s. “What in hell is that dripping down your chin, Lieutenant?”
“Becker’s puke, sir.”
The XO swallowed hard, and it seemed he was searching for a response. Then he bounced down off of the footlocker and through the hatch without looking back. “Eleven hundred hours in the ready room!” he yelled over his shoulder and disappeared.
“Thanks, Pepe!” Weatherly shouted in a falsetto voice.
Buzz and Peters faced each other in the center of the zoo. There had been a rivalry for leadership of the lieutenant pilots since the two joined the squadron. Nobody really gave a damn except for a few of the junior second lieutenants. I certainly didn’t. Not only because Gearheardt and I were almost captains, but also because I didn’t see how it would affect my life in the slightest. After a moment Buzz grinned and walked over to his bunk. “Okay, Peters, we’ll go with you on this one. No one set fire to the ship, boys.”
At eleven hundred hours we were all in the ready room. The three majors sat in the front row, the captains behind them, and then all of the lieutenants. Maps, charts, briefing boards, photos of airplanes, and all sorts of aircraft paraphernalia hung from the steel walls. Helmets, kneeboards, and pistols in shoulder holsters hung from the pilots’ seats. The ceiling was low and crisscrossed with pipes and tubes; all painted gray and labeled with stenciled letter: P-I-P-E, 78935. USN, or B-L-K-H-D, SEC. 2-G, USN.
At eleven hundred hours and one minute the Skipper walked into the ready room.
“ATTENTION ON DECK,” the XO yelled.
The Skipper, Lieutenant Colonel Bradley J. Coats, strode through the squadron and faced us from behind the briefing podium. “At ease, men,” he said, and smiled. He was a distinguished figure, with prematurely gray hair, a neatly trimmed gray mustache, and an equally trim five-foot-eleven, 170-pound frame. He had been a fighter pilot in Korea. He had a tendency to be rather aloof and had never, to anyone’s knowledge, spoken to a lieutenant in the squadron, except in the cockpit, where he jabbered like a gibbon. We all liked him and respected his apparent disdain for us.
He fidgeted with a notebook on the pulpit-like stand before he looked back up at us, all seated again. “Good morning, gentlemen. I’m sure that Major Gonzales has alerted you to flight operations tomorrow. We will also commence night operations tomorrow evening at nineteen hundred.”
There was a collective, muttered “Shit.” The dickhead major had certainly not mentioned it, probably fearing for his life in the zoo. The craziest bastard in the squadron wasn’t crazy enough to like night flying off the carrier. Maybe nonpilots thought that it was easy in a helicopter. It was anything but. You had to get down close to the water, which you couldn’t see, and when you came back aboard by matching your speed to the boat and moving sideways onto it, you completely lost sight of the boat until you hit it, one way or another. Baxter used to say the only good thing about night flying off the boat was that it gave him a chance to shit his pants and not get teased about it.
The murmuring quieted down, and the Skipper continued. He picked a memo from his pile and held it chest high, looking as if he were trying not to squint as he read it. “You men in the zoo should be prepared for a couple of new pilots that will be joining us in Japan. This directive says four, but I believe that it’s in error. Three-sixty-three will receive two Negro pilots, one Jewish pilot and one American Indian pilot. That’s what the directive from HQMC says.”
He looked around the room and found Captain Shinn, the squadron administrative office.
“Captain, don’t we already have a Negro pilot and a Jewish pilot? Didn’t you get back to HQ with that word like I asked?”
Captain Shinn jumped to his feet.
“Yes, sir. The colonel is correct. However Directive 33-71, the latest, says that our table of organization has to have a spare Negro pilot. I have requested a Negro Jewish pilot, since we would have to get rid of one of our current pilots in order to billet two new pilots. Lieutenant Bearhead qualifies as our American Indian pilot, and I have notif
ied HQ, sir. The American Indian awaiting our arrival in Japan will have to find another squadron. 33-71 does not call for a spare American Indian pilot.”
The Skipper looked confused. “So we will have how many pilots joining us in Japan? Not counting the American Indian. That’s two Negro and one Jewish, or just one of each?”
Lieutenant Feldonstein jumped to his feet. “Sir, I could stay in Japan with the Indian and let the new Jew come on board.” Noah Feldonstein was always nervous that people would discover that he wasn’t Jewish. His family name was originally Feldon but had been changed to Feldonstein to sound more Jewish, since the family had been persecuted for generations for no good reason.
The Skipper, bewildered, looked to his staff sitting in the front row.
“Who in the hell is that?”
“Lieutenant Feldonstein, sir. Goes by Sky-Kyke. He’s been the squadron’s Jew since last April. Good man, too. Keeps the zoo shipshape, I’ve heard.” Major Bartly, the squadron logistics officer, had never been to the zoo.
Now the Skipper was clearly pissed. He had probably only read the directive to the squadron so that he could appear to be in the thick of things running the squadron, and now he was lost.
“Okay, listen up. Next item.”
Feldonstein slowly sat down, a hurt look on his face. A self-effacing fellow, it was he who had given himself the Sky-Kyke name and had drawn the Star of David with wings on the back of his flight suits. A nice friendly kid who would later make the fatal mistake of flying a burning helicopter upside down with bullets in his body.
The Skipper droned on through the bulletins that poured forth daily from the ship’s communications room. A nervous Headquarters Marine Corps giving last-minute instructions to its boys heading for war. Care of the rotor blades. Care of the engines. Care of the feet, hands, back, neck, and head. Logistical minutiae. Bulletins for flight operations, field kitchens, latrine construction and maintenance—the list went on and on. Bulletins correcting or amending previous bulletins. When the entire squadron was asleep behind their dark aviator sunglasses, the Skipper paused, sat back on his captain’s stool, and dozed off himself.
This was the way that Major Gonzales found the squadron when he returned from his mission to try to placate the ship’s captain, whose tiny room sink had been shit in—again. I had awakened when Pepe gently closed the door. Fifty sleeping men sat in the room, the Skipper in front reflecting them from his aviator glasses. The major cleared his throat loudly. A few of the lieutenants stirred. The Skipper started and dropped the bundle of memos and directives he had in his lap. I wasn’t sure whether he had actually been asleep or was just afraid of being the only one awake. He spotted the XO in the back of the ready room and beckoned him to the front. “Take over, Major,” the Skipper said.
The XO bounce-walked to the front of the room and took the podium. “Men,” he said, “this afternoon at fourteen hundred, the Skipper will lead the discussion on the treatment of women in Japan, Okinawa, and Vietnam. You will all attend. Any questions? No, not you, Harrington. A number of you have not been out of CONUS for any extended time, and the Skipper feels he needs to give you some guidelines and instructions. If there’re no questions, we’ll get to the ‘name the squadron’ results and then on up to chow.”
Major Gonzales reached to the inside pocket of his leather flight jacket and pulled out a folded legal-size paper. His face darkened as he carefully smoothed it out on the lectern. He finally raised his eyes to look at the roomful of pilots. He took a deep breath.
“very funny, gentlemen. Very funny. I would have expected this from a group of high school boys. But from commissioned officers in the U.S. Marine Corps, well, I am disappointed.” He looked back at the Skipper, who was playing with the zipper on the calf of his flight suit.
“Just get on with it, Major,” the Skipper said.
The XO set his jaw and narrowed his eyes toward the squadron. “First of all, I want to congratulate you all for taking the time to submit your choices.” He was still so new to the squadron that he thought someone might give a shit. A number of the pilots applauded, the sarcasm too subtle for those who believed defecating in the captain’s sink was a clever practical joke. “Knock it off!” the major growled.
“I won’t read the results in their entirety. They speak volumes of your intellect, your spirit, and your love for the squadron.” He held up the legal pad and shook it at them.
“Let me read some of them to you. Fucking Ravens, Fucking Flying Dicks, the Fucking Assholes, all of these got five votes. Next we have the Shitheads, the Dickheads, the Fuckheads, and the Fucking Shitheads. Those all got two votes. One vote apiece for Greasy Assholes, Cunt Lickers, and my personal favorite, the Fucking Dickhead Greasy Asshole Pussy Lickers. You men should be proud of yourselves. Oh yes, there were four ballots that just said, ‘Fuck You.’ I have chosen not to take that personally.”
He folded the yellow paper and put it away in his pocket. “After consultation with Colonel Coats, we have decided to call the squadron the Purple Tigers.” A number of the pilots groaned. Pepe continued, “And we also decided not to—”
“Why Purple Tigers?” Lieutenant Bensen asked.
“Yeah,” Lieutenant Crowley chimed in, “why not just call ourselves the Lavender Gay Guys With No Dicks? That would save the other squadrons the effort of thinking of it.”
“Two Sixty Four got to call themselves the Rat Bastards. Let’s vote again.” This from Winston, the lieutenant everybody called Fatass because he had an enormous ass.
“Knock it off. We’re the Purple Tigers. I don’t want to hear any more about it. I’ve warned you about excessive profanity. I certainly won’t, or I should say the Skipper won’t have it in the official squadron nickname. And as I started to say, the ‘name the enemy’ contest is not going forward, although I can imagine what you men would have come up with in any case.” There were quiet boos from the back of the room. “Okay, knock it off. The Skipper has decided, upon my recommendation, to go with the official enemy name from Directive 17-55, Victor Charlie, or Charlie for short.”
There was a stunned silence in the ready room. Finally Lieutenant Harrington raised his hand. “Sir, could I ask a question?”
“It better not be ‘Are we almost there?,’ Lieutenant. That joke is getting old.”
“Yes, sir. I wanted to know if Charlie is a Vietnamese name. It doesn’t seem right to have an enemy named Charlie.”
The major smiled. “The name is from the phonetic representation of Viet Cong or VC. It isn’t really a name.” He laughed nervously. “This is no big deal. Now the next item—”
“Can we call him Bruce?” someone shouted from the rear of the room.
The major frowned. “Very funny. That’s enough about the name. Now at fourteen hundred—”
“How about Fucking Bruce?” It was another voice, and the major didn’t look up quick enough to see where it came from.
“Knock it off! No more names. I’m not going to—”
“Bruce the Dickhead!” Shouts of agreement.
“LOOK. I don’t give a DAMN what you want to call the enemy. THE OFFICIAL NAME IS CHARLIE. NOW, NO MORE ENEMY NAMES!”
The Skipper stood and stepped to the major’s side, putting a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Calm down, Major,” he said with a chuckle. “The men are just playing with you because they think you’re an asshole.” He patted the major’s shoulder again and gave him a little shove toward the front row of seats. “Okay, gentlemen, let’s drop the crap about the squadron name. We’ll call ourselves Rat Bastards and call the enemy the same thing. How’s that?” No one spoke. The Skipper aimed his reflective lenses around the room. “Settled then.”
Major Gonzales couldn’t let it pass. With an aggrieved look he stood up and addressed the squadron commander. “Sir, I think you may have misunderstood. Two-sixty-four are the Rat Bastards. Plus, it might be confusing to call ourselves and the enemy by the same name.”
“Well, we’r
e all called Marines. No one seems to be confused by that, Major.”
“Yes, sir, but the point of naming the squadron is to distinguish ourselves from the others.” He struggled to keep the anger from his voice.
The Skipper didn’t. “Damn it, Major. You may want to distinguish yourself by calling yourself a Piece of Dipshit or whatever it was you suggested. But as long as I’m commander of this squadron, we’re not sinking to that level. It’s Rat Bastards and that’s enough about names.”
“But, sir.”
“Let’s hit the wardroom, gentleman. The Navy doesn’t like us late for chow.” He stepped quickly toward the rear of the ready room.
“Squadron, attention!” the operations office yelled.
Gearheardt and I started to follow our squadron-mates out of the ready room. I was hungry, and Gearheardt felt he needed to line his stomach before he began the afternoon’s experiment in drinking aviation fuel distillation mixed with grapefruit juice. Just as we reached the hatch, another Navy term we had to endure, Major Gonzales caught up with us.
“You two, you’re Gearheardt and Armstrong aren’t you?”
Gearheardt was about to give a wiseass answer but I felt sorry for the XO after the name fiasco. “Yessir, that’s us,” I said.
“You two need to be in the captain’s quarters at thirteen hundred. You know where that is?”
“No sir, and I don’t know where his sink is either,” Gearheardt answered.
“This has nothing to do with that,” the major said dismissively, indicating the meeting was on far more important things. “Be there at thirteen hundred.” He stepped through the hatch and his flight boots clomped down the steel deck in the passageway.
Gearheardt grabbed my upper arm before I could follow the major. “Look at this,” he said, holding out the yellow paper that I had last seen go into the major’s flight jacket. I took it and read the agenda for the meeting just held, including the list of suggested squadron names. Gearheardt’s finger directed my eyes to the bottom of the page. The last item listed was “Barbonella.” In my head, full of hundreds of movies I’d seen, dramatic music came up. In my skivvies, my sphincter tightened.
Nam-A-Rama Page 9
