Last Man Out

by James E. Parker, Jr.

  Later I went to Fort Bragg, home of the Special Forces, and bought a jungle hammock from the post exchange. It was made for Vietnam, and I wondered why the battalion hadn’t been issued similar types. If I could pack a 12-gauge shotgun in those antitank weapon boxes, then I could squeeze in a hammock. I put it in the duffel bag along with the shotgun.

  When I was ready to leave, my parents told me to be careful. I laughed and said, “Okay.”

  “Come home,” Dad said, shaking my hand. Mom, with tears in her eyes, twisted her mouth to one side and looked off to the side. I put my arms around her and she looked at me, tears now rolling down her cheeks. She kissed me and said softly, “Please come back.”

  I went to Pope Air Force Base to catch a space-available military aircraft hop to Fort Riley, but was bumped and rerouted twice. In Chicago the morning after I was supposed to return to base, I finally got Pete on the telephone. He said, “You are where?” and added that Woolley was pissed. Movement had been rescheduled and we were leaving within the week. Woolley himself had taken a forty-eight-hour pass to go somewhere, and I had better be there when he returned.

  At reveille the next morning, I was back under the oak tree by the orderly room. The battalion was moving out to Vietnam in five days.

  Railroad tracks ran beside the highway dissecting Fort Riley. For days passenger cars and engines came through the base to make up a train to transport the brigade to Oakland Naval Base, California.

  I had the company armorer take off most of the barrel of my shotgun. It changed the balance, but I thought that the weapon would have a broader shot pattern and I could point it quicker at close range. Bratcher, King, and I packed it with the jungle hammock in an antitank weapon box. King called it the “lieutenant’s survival kit.”

  There were surprisingly few problems in packing out the company. We did not have that much equipment; the infantry operates with what it can carry. The antitank weapons and mortars were our biggest pieces, and after those were packed we killed time doing PT, waiting for the last of the platoon to return from leave.

  Captain Woolley and I were at battalion headquarters one morning doing administrative chores when the sergeant major motioned us into Colonel Haldane’s office. “What are we going to do about this guy, Private Beck?” Haldane asked.

  Woolley, in his usual good-mannered way with the battalion commander, said, “Well, sir, Beck’s a pretty good soldier according to Parker here. We think he’ll do okay.”

  “The sergeant major says we can get him paroled to the 1st/28th. But if he proves to be disruptive or criminal, what’s the point?” Haldane looked at me as he finished.

  “He’ll do fine, sir,” I replied. I briefly considered telling the colonel that the man had bribed his way to the 1st Division, but that sounded loopy as I thought about it, so I continued to hold the colonel’s gaze without further comment.

  “Okay, we’ll do what’s necessary here. He’s the only man in the battalion in this kind of situation. He’s supposed to already be out of the service with a DD. How did he get here, anyway?” Haldane asked. I looked at Woolley and he shrugged.

  Later I told Beck that he was going to Vietnam because I had stood in front of the colonel and vouched for him. “You better not make me look bad.”

  Standing as tall as he could, Beck said, “I won’t let you down.”

  When the train was finally assembled, formal movement orders were posted in the battalion area. We were to leave at 1500 hours on 17 September 1965.

  Pete and I packed out of our BOQ the night before and left our gear in the orderly room while we went into Junction City for one last beer at the seedy bar we had gone to my first night at Fort Riley. Pete and I sat on the edge of a damaged pool table and watched the colorful mix of prostitutes, drifters, and other patrons going about their Thursday night business, which probably wasn’t much different from any other night. About to start a trip halfway around the world, we had no idea what awaited us. The common night crawlers who frequented that bar couldn’t have cared less, and we smiled about that.

  “We gotta remember this scene,” Pete said. “It means something. I don’t know what exactly, but I think this is America, if we’re ever going to wonder about that later. I mean if we’re ever going to try and put our finger on what we’re doing over there, who we’re fighting for, just remember this lineup at the bar.”

  A bum came over and begged a dollar to buy a beer.

  After he left, Pete and I agreed that we might very well be that guy in a few years. We were just going through a phase, our short-haircut phase. I wondered aloud what lay ahead—the adventures to come, the danger.

  “Any last-minute things that we needed to do?” I asked Pete.

  “Well,” Pete said, “we’ll mail those insurance forms on the way back to base and that’s it. We’re set to go warring.”

  Earlier that afternoon we had filled out the change-of-beneficiary forms for our ten-thousand-dollar policies. If I were killed, Pete would get ten grand, tax-free. If Pete died, I would get the same amount. The change-of-beneficiary forms were in my jacket. On the way back to Fort Riley, I got out of the car and walked to a mail drop, but then the devil overcame me. I put Pete’s change-of-beneficiary form in the drop but put the envelope with my form back into my jacket. If I died, Mother would get the ten thousand.

  There is something very rotten about this, I thought, but then I smiled. Naw. Walking back to the car, I figured the people back in that beer joint would have given me a hand; it was their kind of thing. Naw, I thought, this is rotten. Later. I’ll mail it later. It made me smile, because we did not expect to die, neither one of us. We were doing it for bragging rights with Dunn and McCoy. Plus I could always say I was worried that Pete might shoot me for the money.… I’d just give it some time to make sure he was honest. Then I’d mail it in.

  All the men in my platoon had returned except Sergeant Castro. He had called from Puerto Rico the previous morning, and I had told him to be back by 1200 hours the next day or he’d miss movement. I had trouble understanding his accent, but I thought that he had only one thing to do and he’d be on his way. I said, “You’re in Puerto Rico—you’re out of the country—you’ve got just a few hours to get to Kansas and you’ve got something else to do before you leave?” There was no answer. “Castro,” I said, “are you crazy?”

  “I be there, I be there, I be there,” he kept saying.

  He still wasn’t back by 1500 hours the next day as we started to assemble in the company street. I had Bratcher bring out Castro’s duffel bag and put it in formation. Castro was the only man missing in the 3d Platoon. We stacked arms, loaded our duffel bags into trucks, and milled around. At 1600 hours Captain Woolley called us to attention and said, “Let’s go kick some ass.”

  We were marching out of the company area when a taxi screamed up and Castro leaned out the front passenger window. Bratcher told him that his uniform was on his bunk, we had already packed his duffel bag. Castro motioned the taxi driver to drive on.

  The train cars stretched out of sight in both directions. Air hissed from brake lines. Everyone in my platoon was talking and laughing as we marched along the tracks. I stopped the platoon beside our assigned cars and had the men climb aboard. From across a nearby congested parking lot, Castro’s yellow cab, speeding dangerously, made its way in our direction and stopped almost at the tracks. Castro was putting on his field uniform as he got out of the cab. Everyone in the platoon cheered. He paid the driver and waddled past me quickly to the train. I followed him up the train stairs. The men clapped their hands in unison and shouted.

  “I told you I be here!” he called out to me before he slumped down in a seat.

  Children on the shoulders of their parents, old people, farmers, and businessmen lined the road. People in cars drove slowly by. Some late-arriving wives and girlfriends raced by us on foot and asked soldiers leaning out of windows what unit they were with. One soldier down the line reached out and kissed a gi
rl for a long time. She finally stood back with tears in her eyes. Another GI reached down and took a small child into the train and played with him for a few minutes before returning the boy to his crying wife. The division band was playing at the front of the train.

  The sun had begun to set over the western prairies when, without warning, the train lurched and started to move. It went slowly at first, and the well-wishers easily kept up with it. Then it picked up speed and only a few people could keep pace. As our section of the train pulled through the main post area we saw signs that read, “God Save America,” and “The Big Red One.” Well-dressed civilians stood by large cars in the parking lot of division headquarters.

  We stopped at Laramie, Wyoming, where the snow was two feet deep, so the men could disembark and stretch their legs. Back under way, we traveled over the Rocky Mountains. Somewhere east of the Oakland Naval Terminal the train came to a stop again. Scuttlebutt sourced to battalion headquarters in the front of the train was that a large demonstration of peaceniks blocked the train tracks into the terminal.

  “Hell,” Lyons said, “put me on top of the engine with some live ammo and I’ll clear the tracks.”

  On Monday, 20 September, three days after leaving Fort Riley, the long train pulled into a railroad terminal inside the naval base. Sections of the train were pushed down a pier beside an enormous gray World War II troop carrier, the USNS Mann. We had to lean out the window and look up to see the deck. After waiting for hours to disembark, we walked in single file along the pier toward the gangplank with our duffel bags over our shoulders. Grandmotherly-looking Red Cross workers stood smiling behind tables filled with pastries and coffee.

  The endless line in front continued up a gangplank to the deck, across a passageway, and down into the bowels of the ship. Once we arrived at the fifth level down, we found the company’s area in a large compartment with bunks stacked five high. There was barely enough room to pass down the rows of bunks. The men were happy about leaving the train, and began settling into the smaller spaces of the ship in good humor. A card game, started on the train before we left Fort Riley, picked up again in the latrine. I noticed that there wasn’t much air circulation. I was thinking it was going to be a long Pacific crossing for me down in this hold, when a Marine told me that the officers’ quarters were above. I wished Bratcher well, told him it was better he than me down here, and left. Pete, McCoy, and Dunn had already secured a four-bunk stateroom off the main officers mess. I stood inside the hatch and looked at our plush, spacious cabin.

  “Goddamned if I don’t feel a little guilty about this,” I said. “Those men are crammed together like cattle down below.”

  Dunn reminded me that in the U.S. Army, a second lieutenant took what was given to him and said thank you.

  Troops boarded the ship all that day and throughout most of the night. Eventually twenty-eight hundred soldiers of the 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, boarded the Mann.

  Around two o’clock the next day the ship’s horn blew and I went out on deck. Halfway down the pier a military band stood at the ready. The Red Cross women were cleaning up around their tables. Longshoremen disengaged heavy ropes from cleats on the pier. Fewer than a dozen civilians stood below looking up at the huge ship. Another whistle blew and the band started to play. The women stopped picking up trash and looked up. One out in front waved, and then the others joined in. The longshoremen heaved the ropes away, tugs moved the ship from the pier, and, under her own power at last, the Mann headed into San Francisco Bay.

  We sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge and headed out to sea.

  FOUR

  Sea Voyage

  The second day at sea I began preparing and delivering training classes on small-unit tactics and field hygiene to the company. Later, support personnel from brigade headquarters delivered a series of lectures on Vietnam and its history. These were held on the open deck where movies were shown at night. The movies were better received.

  When not involved in training, the men waited in line for meals, for the PX, for the latrine, for space on deck. If a soldier wanted to see a movie, he had to get in the mess line for dinner at 1600—everyone was supposed to go through the chow line for every meal whether or not they ate it—in order to be finished in time to get in line for the limited movie seats on deck. The card game in the latrine never stopped, and I often stood and watched. Conversation was biting, with much bragging, much bluffing, and some shouting. Friendly smiles were few. Stakes were high. New players came and went, leaving their money behind with the regulars. Not a game for sissies.

  I often used Bratcher’s bunk for my office/couch when I was in the hold. Once I was sitting with him, wondering out loud what kind of operations we were going to be involved in.

  “It’s no big deal,” he said. “It’s a police action. Stopping cars, checking ID cards. The U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Marines against one little pipsqueak country. Come on, Lieutenant, get serious. We’ll blow ’em away.” He smiled and his jaw jerked to the right.

  The officers mess had clean, starched white tablecloths at each meal, and Filipino stewards served us. We had plenty of seats for our movies, and coffee, soft drinks, and sweet cakes were on a table should we want refreshments. We had the run of most of the ship. At night Dunn, Peterson, McCoy, and I often climbed to one of the uppermost decks to talk and joke. Dunn was the master of ceremonies.

  Late in the morning of the eleventh day at sea I went down in the hold to see Bratcher, but he wasn’t around. I picked up the platoon roster from his bunk and went over to Spencer’s bunk to read it. Spencer was reading an old, dog-eared letter.

  Directing his comments to no one in particular but speaking so that only I could hear, he said, “Da man is coming down to the slave quarters to look after da field niggers, huh?” He smiled faintly. Although not educated or well-read, Spencer was probably the brightest man in the platoon. Aware of what was going on in the States in the mid-1960s, he was angry that his country had tolerated segregation for so long and felt that the law of the land was still stacked against him—that he didn’t have the same opportunities that the white man did. “Discrimination is as American as apple pie” was his phrase before something like that became part of the national black/white dialogue. Spencer was angry and sassy and was, in our platoon, the king of jive.

  “Spencer, you know I didn’t make the reservations for this cruise. You’ve got a right to complain, I reckon, but then so do a few thousand other good men on this boat.”

  “It seems strange to me that it’s never anyone’s fault. It ain’t the man’s fault, he was born white, it’s his society, his laws. Problem sure ain’t the black man’s fault, he ain’t never had nothing. Don’t have no stuff, don’t have no voice. We got ourselves a society that is fucked up, dude, and there ain’t no one to blame, no one to fix it. White man likes it like it is. Negro ain’t got no power. Nothing ever’s going to change. You understand what I’m saying? In our society Negroes don’t get due consideration, though I note we’re more than well represented in this group being sent to some godforsaken place to get shot at ’cause it’s what some white man has decided to do. Ain’t nothing in it for me or my kind. Understand, Lieutenant?”

  “Nope, Spencer, I don’t,” I told him. “It ain’t my job. You’d be surprised all the things I don’t understand. All I know for sure is that, for whatever reason, we’re on this boat together, going somewhere where we have to work together. Shit you’re talking about don’t matter. I didn’t ask to be born white, you didn’t ask to be born black—you just supposed to make the best of what you given. That’s what I know.”

  Bratcher walked up and sat down on Spencer’s bunk with us. He and I talked for a few minutes about a class coming up, and then I left. Later I told Bratcher in passing that Spencer had made some point about our changing social consciousness, and that I understood his frustrations.

  “What da fuck is that, Lieutenant?” Bratcher exclaimed. “S
pencer is a private, E-3. Rifleman. Period. That is all you should think of when you see that person. Rifleman. Do not let him talk to you about nothing that doesn’t have to do with him being a rifleman and you being the platoon leader. Not now on this boat and certainly not in Vietnam. Don’t be his friend. Don’t listen to his shit. Let another rifleman listen. Don’t make this any more complicated than it is. Sitting on that private’s bunk talking some intellectual-sounding bullshit don’t help you do your job, and it don’t help me, and it don’t help him. You understand the concept here, Lieutenant?”

  Bratcher was glaring at me, his jaw twitching. His points were well taken, but he was testing the limits of our relationship. I couldn’t let him take over.

  “Sergeant,” I said, mustering as much authority as I could, “let’s understand each other. If I go down and hold that man’s hand and talk about poetry, that’s okay. Because it’s my fucking platoon. Not yours. I set the standard. I talk about whatever I want to talk about. You don’t tell me what to talk about. Be careful giving me advice when I don’t ask for it. You understand this concept, Sergeant?”

  Things were chilly for a couple of days with Bratcher, but they returned to normal by the end of the first week at sea when we heard about the 1st Cav’s first skirmishes in the A Shau valley.

  Rumors began circulating over breakfast regarding an operation by one of the 1st Cav brigades in the central highlands of South Vietnam. It was the first big engagement of an American unit in the war. Some companies, we heard, had taken heavy casualties.