Nam-A-Rama

by Phillip Jennings

  The corporal immediately appeared, squinting in the bright sun.

  “Get this man’s team rounded up and get him squared away.”

  “Sir, his team is burning the shitter. Do you want me to—”

  “Get someone else to burn the shitter. We got a mission tomorrow, and this man’s got to get snapped in. I’m not heading into that goddamned area without boo-koo air support.” The major smiled at me and grabbed my arm above the elbow. “G-2 says the North Vietnamese got .50s, antitank guns, and are dug in like gophers. Gotta have lots of air support or we’ll get creamed.”

  “Sir, I don’t think I’ll—”

  “Ain’t paying you to think, Lieutenant. You just get those Phantoms on station tomorrow with lots of goddamned bombs and shit. Good man.” He squeezed my arm and left. I briefly wondered what Downey would think if I used his desk to cry. My only hope was that my team knew what the hell I was supposed to do.

  “Sir, there’s your radioman and humper. The bumper is the guy that carries all your gear,” Downey explained when I looked puzzled at the term.

  I should have known that the battalion wasn’t going to give me their top men. A quick look at the two Marines strolling casually toward us between the tents pretty well confirmed it. The taller of the two was at least six and a half feet tall and weighed maybe one hundred thirty pounds wet. He bent over at the neck as if his dogtags were pulling him down. The Marine beside him appeared to be some sort of simian in uniform. The effect of a widow’s peak, which met a single dark eyebrow above his eyes, gave him a strange owl-like appearance without any hint of intelligence.

  The fact that my life was no doubt in the hands of these two scrambled my thought process momentarily. When I recovered, they were directly in front of me, saluting. Their names were Barker, the tall one, and Granger, the Neanderthal. After I returned the salute, Barker spoke. His voice was a high screech as if someone had recently hit him in his incredibly prominent Adam’s apple.

  “Why’er we took off shitter burning detail, Lieutenant? Sergeant said we could have shitter burning detail till the cows come home.”

  “You’re Barker, right? Well, Corporal Barker, in the air wing the latrine burning detail is about the lowest job you can get. Why are you asking?”

  Barker looked down at Granger, who shrugged. Then he narrowed his eyes and looked back at me.

  “You ever been on a FACing mission, Lieutenant?”

  “I attended forward air control school last year. But no, I haven’t actually been on a mission in country.”

  “Well, sir, on shitter burning detail Granger and I get to go into the battalion four-holers, about eight of ‘em, and roll out the fifty gallon drums of piss and shit. Then we haul ’em over yonder against that dune and pour JP-4 into ’em and about half the time when we strike a match they blow like a bastard ‘fore we can run off, and shit and piss goes everwhere. Then we haul ’em back to the four-holers and crawl under them and re-install the barrels whilst a bunch of damn Marines try to shit on us. Then the end of the day, we clean up so we’s can start all over the next day. So the thing is, Lieutenant, Granger and I’d just as soon stay on shitter burning detail than go back out there to that FACing, if it’s all the same to you.” The primate nodded his head in agreement.

  My mind was trying to process this while dealing with the very strong aroma of four-holer. Fighting back the nausea, whether from fear or shitter fumes I wasn’t sure, I took charge.

  “Barker, I don’t intend to become the first lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps to personally handle latrine burning detail. Since we’re a team, that leaves me with only one choice, handling the forward air controlling for the battalion. And that’s what I intend to do. You and Granger get your gear, your radios, your whatever else we need out there, and report to me in thirty minutes. We’re going to go through a quick FAM session, get a briefing from G-2, and then begin lining up air support for tomorrow. Any questions?”

  Corporal Barker shook his head, no. Private Granger, who had not moved a muscle since he had appeared in front of me, didn’t move a muscle again. In fact, he didn’t appear to be breathing. I put my face closer to his and saw his eyes move.

  “Granger, can you hear me? Is he deaf or something, Barker?”

  “Nossir. He just cain’t open his mouth. Grunt told him that shitter molecubes floats all around and that breathing is just like eatin’ shit molecubes. So Granger don’t open his mouth all day. He told me he can breathe through his ears. I reckon he can.”

  I straightened up and decided that I didn’t care if Downey saw me cry. “Okay, men. See you in half an hour at the operations tent.”

  Barker and Granger turned and started away. I called out to Barker.

  “Son, how many FAC missions have you been on? With the other FACs, I mean.”

  “Ain’t been on many, sir. Lieutenant Wilson, he’s the lieutenant before you and after Dobson and Kramer, he said if I showed up on a FACin’ mission again he’d tie me in a knot with my dick. I love that Lieutenant Wilson. Saved my life. I’se the one that gathered him up and put him in the bag, sir. If you don’t make me go on this FACin’ mission, I’ll do the same for you, sir. Cross my heart.”

  Tears welled in my eyes. “How about Granger? Has he been on a mission?”

  “Oh you bet, Lieutenant. He’s been on all of ’em for this battalion.”

  Granger grinned, the first animation I had seen other than walking and saluting.

  “So you know all about this stuff, Granger?”

  He shook his head, still showing his large yellow teeth.

  “Why is it that he’s survived, Barker?” I asked, assuming that Granger wasn’t ready to open his mouth just yet.

  “Beats me, Lieutenant. Ain’t never heard him talk about it. Reckon he’s just real careful.”

  “Well, at least he looks like about the best humper a team could get, Barker. He could carry a tank out there I’ll bet.”

  Barker laughed, and then covered his mouth as if embarrassed. “He ain’t no humper, Lieutenant. He’s your radioman. I’m the humper.”

  “Of course,” I muttered to myself as they walked away, their smell parting the chow line ahead of them.

  I hadn’t had butterflies in my stomach for a long time, but when the choppers carrying the company that I was attached to fell toward the strike zone at 0730 the next morning, the butterflies were giant fanged bats fighting each other. The world was shooting, and I couldn’t tell which was friendly and which was enemy. In the helicopter a kid in a helmet ten sizes too big for him sat on the bench across from me pumping his knee up and down and fingering his M-16. He looked like he was the last kid on the bench and the coach was about to put him into a game with the varsity. He saw me looking at him and gave me a thumbs up. I wanted to stay in the belly of the chopper, knowing I could plead with the pilot to let me ride home with him. Except when it sounded like some asshole began beating on the side of the chopper with a ballpeen hammer—it was so hard to believe that someone was actually trying to shoot you—and I could see little bits of sky through little holes that were opening up in the sides of the aircraft, I wanted off.

  When we hit the ground I jumped out and landed on top of a Marine who had been shot in the throat. I tried to avoid looking down at his face, because I didn’t want it to be the kid with freckles and a nervous knee. Blood pumped up over my boot and pant-leg, and then I was past and headed for the shallow indentation in the field that provided the only cover. Barker and Granger were right on top of me, literally right on top of me as we dove into the ditch. When I looked back, I saw the crew chief jump out, pick up the Marine shot in the neck, throw him into the chopper in one swift motion and then they were gone.

  “Barker, get that gear set up! Granger, get Red Hat on the hom and see what we’ve got on station!” I found that I could actually function, a tiny life-sustaining cell structure in my brain sending the message that if I thought about what the hell was going on I would lose all co
ntrol. Unfortunately, the same structure was not working with my small team. They lay comatose beside me, Barker jabbering unintelligibly about the noise and Granger lying on his back smiling at the sky in what seemed perfect contentment. Had not the air been heavy with “molecubes” of sound and fear, I’m sure I could have heard him humming.

  The last of the choppers disgorged their troops and left the zone. Now only the steady, rapid, death-carrying crack of the small arms and the thumping of the heavy machine guns sucked rational thought out of your skull. I could actually hear the air parting above me as the metal bullets, ours and theirs, crisscrossed the football fieldsized landing zone. I knew that the green tracers that occasionally sped by were from AK-47s, and it incensed me that the crazy little bastards in the treeline would try to kill me. The tracers were the most real thing about the zone. They moved at their own speed. They owned their space. I thought about how pretty the zone would look at night with their green tracers and our red tracers crisscrossing it and believed that I had become, with very good reason, crazy as a loon. My mind raced around, trying to think of something, but no thought was sticky enough.

  I raised my head in time to see a Marine look over the paddy dike, empty his M-16 into the treeline ahead of him, raise himself up to get a view of his target and then slowly let himself back to earth, a red spot spreading on his chest, and a jagged tear in the back of his flak jacket. I had been in the zone for about twenty seconds. When I looked at my “team,” Granger was ready. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for just a moment, searching for the Marine inside.

  Granger handed the radio handset to me. “We got two flights of Phantoms and a flight of A-4s, Lieutenant.” He showed his big yellow teeth. “Phantoms are Camelot Lead.”

  “Camelot Lead, you read Fish Barrel?” Some asshole at Group HQ probably thought that call sign was funny when he assigned it.

  “Roger, Fish Barrel, Camelot Lead on station. We have two napes, eight five-hundred-pounders, and all the 20 Mike Mike you could ever dream of. You got a target?”

  “That’s affirm, Camelot. I’m popping purple smoke. Got us in sight?”

  “Got the purple smoke, Fish Barrel.”

  “Roger, Camelot. Let me have the napalm in those trees at one o’clock from the smoke. Stay in the trees. We have friendlies fifty yards from them. You copy?”

  “Roger, Fish. Camelot lead is rolling in with 20 Mike-Mike. If I’m on target give me an Affirm and Camelot Two and Three will drop the napalm.”

  I heard him before I saw him. The Phantom came across the zone at a shallow angle and the treeline began disintegrating with hundreds of small explosions as the twenty millimeter cannon in the F-4’s pods roared like machinery.

  “Camelot, that’s affirm. You’re dead on.”

  “Roger, Fish. Camelot Two and Three let’s get the barbecue lit.”

  “Camelot Two in.” A roar overhead and then the treeline was fire. Hot, boiling, black, oily fire. I gasped for air, rolling over on my back.

  “Camelot Three in.” Another roar and the fire became more, hotter fire. I couldn’t breathe, and it was impossible not to think about the bastards crouched in the treeline in their stinking black pajamas becoming standing rib roasts. I was glad.

  The black smoke rose above the trees and had just begun to dissipate when the rib roasts began firing at us again, the first fusillade taking down the gunny and a dumb-looking kid from Brooklyn who had gone up on one knee to watch the napalm.

  I hated those rib roasts with everything I had. They had just been napalmed for God’s sake! The rotten little bastards still wanted to shoot us. Stupid asshole shit-brained dick-headed slopes.

  Barker was still blubbering, but Granger had turned out to be a champ. He was on the horn before I even asked him, bringing the other aircraft into position over our zone, giving battle damage reports to the departing flights, and grinning with those big yellow teeth.

  The Marines were now organized in the LZ. We were taking heavy small-arms fire from three sides and the Marines were returning it and lobbing round after round of 40mm back at the trees. It occurred to me that we were pinned down. There obviously were a hell of a lot more NVA surrounding us than we expected, and I gave a moment’s hatred to the dumb assholes somewhere who’d decided it would be a good idea to land us in the middle of a bunch of enemy. What were good ideas in war? Why am I lying in a dry rice paddy surrounded on three sides by people whose names I couldn’t pronounce willing to have their meat charred off their bones just for a chance to get me in their sights and put two grams of metal through my head? I am crazy as a mule on locoweed. I directed two flights of Phantoms and a flight of A-4s around the zone, feeling the dirt and debris fall on me after their bombs hit in front of us. I was mad at them too, the A-4 pilots.

  The NVA seemed to increase their fire after every bombing and strafing run. I prayed that we did not have some loony company commander who would decide we should charge the treeline. I called Red Hat, the airborne command aircraft, and told him to get more help on station.

  The redheaded major crouch-ran over and fell down beside me. He looked like Yosemite Sam. The hair on his neck and arms gleamed in the sun.

  “I picked a fine fucking time to go into the field with one of my companies, didn’t I, flyman?” He adjusted his body so that he could peer up over my indentation at the treeline in front of us. “Captain Howard was feeling poorly, and I decided to lead the boys myself. Battalion is going to have my ass when I get back.”

  I took comfort that he had actually said something about getting back.

  “Lieutenant, we need to get some support in here. I’ve radioed HQ and they’re sending another company. And they’re putting another company behind that ville.” He pointed to the remains of a village through the trees to our left. “Be sure and tell the fast movers that we’ll have Marines over there. And we need some ammo in and medevac out. Can you get that for me?” He left, crouch-running like a cartoon, with tracers, red and green, crossing above him. I called in the mission requests.

  We were in stalemate. My first damn mission as a grunt and we were stalemated. The firepower of the aircraft kept the NVA in the trees, but we couldn’t advance and couldn’t pull back. I lit a cigarette and looked at my team. Really looked at them for the first time.

  They were two of the ugliest human beings in the world. Barker had stopped blubbering long enough to dig a small foxhole for himself, and he crouched in it, reading. Reading a paperback. He picked his nose and wiped it on his pants.

  Granger was dozing, his yellow teeth to the sun in his open mouth. Drool ran his down his cheek, a trail of pale skin showing through the dirt. He had been wide awake minutes before.

  I didn’t want to die with these men. And they weren’t anybody whose picture I wanted on the bookshelf beside the fireplace in the den, their arms draped over the shoulders of their lieutenant, grinning in their combat gear, funny haircuts, and hat-hair. Me with a cigarette in my hand and no shirt.

  I felt strangely calm. I was scared silly, but I also felt amazingly safe in the midst of these Marines. Around me they performed whatever tasks were at hand professionally and almost matter-of-factly, directing concentrated fire by means of a few hand signals, moving forward when directed without questioning the sanity of the order, and treating the increasing wounded with the reverence of sacred religious icons. The Navy corpsmen assigned to us crept to every post and pillar of our assembled group, giving medicine and comfort to those unfortunate few who took hot metal into their bodies.

  The groundfire, which had slacked off, picked up again, and I decided to believe in God. He would get me out of this. I decided that He would be more likely to listen, since I hadn’t been in contact in quite a while, if I just asked for a couple of small favors. I would stay in Vietnam if he would just get me back to the squadron. I didn’t want to be a grunt anymore. These poor bastards had to do shit, whoops, sorry God, stuff like this every day, and I just had better things to do. I ha
d all that pilot training. I promised God that I wouldn’t bitch if I got killed as a pilot.

  It was about a million degrees. Between directing flights of fighters we lay in the sun in the LZ. Heat waves rose up between us and the treeline, which now danced the hula when we tried to spot targets. I tried to trick God by asking Him only to let me see the cool water of the South China Sea again, nothing else, knowing that if I could see the water I would not be pinned down in this stinking hell with a stinking floor of dirt mixed with human waste carried over the centuries to these fields for fertilizer, and a ceiling of a devil’s patchwork of lead in invisible angles and patterns stitched together with more flesh-seeking lead. I ran out of water and would have stolen Granger’s, but he had forgotten to bring any. Why couldn’t I remember that I had the two biggest fuckups in the battalion? Of course he didn’t have any water. I made Barker give him some of his. They began arguing about who was going to do what when they got back on shitter burning detail. We had about twenty minutes before any other aircraft could be on station. We rested.

  God was leaving to play golf. He had on a lovely beige cashmere sweater over chinos. I mentioned to him that His alligator golf shoes were exquisite and wondered briefly if it would be considered rude to ask Him how much He paid for them. “Could we just talk for a moment before you go, God? I’ve really got a problem and I need Your help.”

  He looked at his Rolex and smiled. It was a beautiful smile, and I noticed how much he looked like my father, particularly around the eyes. “Son,” He said gently, “I’ve had this tee time for six months. Now isn’t very convenient. I am truly sorry.”

  An angel landed on His shoulder and whispered in His ear. He raised His eyebrows and shook His head slightly. “Stay a grunt until I get back.” He left, and I hit the angel. It fell and I began kicking it as it tried to roll away.

  “Lieutenant!” It was Granger, holding the radio handset up to my face. “The Sandys are on station.” Sandys were A-ls, the most beautiful, wonderful thing in the whole world, prop planes that could get low and slow and pound the enemy with individual attention. They each carried more armament than a B-29 in World War II. Now we would teach those bastards in the trees. I directed the A-1s pass after pass. It was now two million degrees in the landing zone. The choppers came up on Guard and let me know that they were a minute out of the zone with ammo. They wanted me to pop smoke where they should land to pick up the wounded. I threw green smoke and they said they had it in sight. The Sandys unloaded the last of their ordnance into the treeline and pulled off. Four Marine Cobras began low passes, strafing and firing rockets. Behind me just above the horizon I saw the H-34s begin their descent into the zone.