by James Estep
“To him, it’s probably a gourmet delight,” Blair responded and then, turning back to our prisoner, said, “Just another of America’s delicacies, my newfound friend, prepared for those of truly distinguished tastes in some of our country’s finest dog-food-producing facilities.”
By now, in between bites, boy soldier was smiling, talking freely, and sometimes even laughing at something his ex-NVA compatriot, our Kit Carson, said.
A short time later the evening log bird landed on our needlepoint LZ, dropping off ammo, water, more C rations—and the company’s mail. The battalion S-2, accompanying the log bird, picked up boy soldier and flew him away.
A half hour or so after they had departed, Major Byson called, passed along another well done, and, tongue in cheek, said he had decided to leave us where we were for the night. I thanked him profusely.
The first day of the 1968 Tet offensive had ended for Charlie Company.
18. Second Day of the Tet Offensive: 31 January
At first light, Charlie Company descended the mountain, searching for remnants of its evasive foe on the way down. We found nothing other than a few enemy corpses that would later be tabulated into a “we-they” body count ratio at echelons far above ours.
Upon reaching the valley floor, we set up a hasty perimeter and awaited the morning log bird, hoping it would have aboard it a substantial C&D—a mermite of coffee would be especially welcome. In the meantime, the less optimistic broke out their heat tabs and charlie rats. They were premature in doing so. Minutes later the log bird landed, bringing with it an assortment of fresh fruit, scrambled eggs, bread, SOS, milk, and, of course, hot coffee. We were enjoying this breakfast feast when Blair passed me his handset, reciting his familiar, “Three’s on the horn, sir.”
“Comanche, this is Arizona Three inbound your location to parley. See you on the ground in ‘bout one zero.”
The Bull and I met the battalion C&C when it landed in a paddy a short distance from our perimeter ten minutes later.
“How’s it going, Jim, First Sergeant?” Major Byson said, more as a greeting than a question. “Got us a hell of a war going now, don’t we?”
“Yes, sir,” Sullivan and I said in unison.
“Well, listen, I want to pass on what we know of the situation, so you all can get the word down to your troops before they read ‘bout it in Stars and Stripes. And I gotta be frank with you. We still don’t know a hell of an awful lot. Still real sketchy. Anyway, seems to be a general offensive going on throughout the country. As you know, Charlie hit Binh Dinh night before last. Think the situation here’s pretty well stabilized; however, last night enemy struck big time both north and south of us, again mostly in the populated areas. They hit Hue! They hit Saigon! They attacked Tan Son Nhut. Last we heard Charlie was in the U.S. embassy! Believe that? Our goddamn embassy in downtown Saigon!”
He paused momentarily to allow us an opportunity to appreciate the gravity of his words. He needn’t have. We both knew that if the enemy had captured our embassy (they had not, by the way), the situation was serious indeed.
“From what we gather—and again, info’s still real sketchy—there’s a hell of a fight going on in and around Saigon. President Thieu will probably declare martial law ‘fore the day is out, if he hasn’t already. One of the problems, of course, is that we had no combat troops in the city. Hell, they’re using cooks, clerks, and jerks trying to defend the air base.”
“Super!” the Bull interrupted, grinning broadly. “That should keep them off the golf course for a day or two!”
“Uh … private joke, sir. Please continue,” I said soberly, as Major Byson looked at the Bull, baffled by his remark.
“Right. Well, that’s really about all we know right now. Intelligence thinks Charlie may have screwed up here in Binh Dinh. Got his dates mixed up and hit us a day early, either that or hit last night’s targets a day late. But from what we hear coming out of Saigon, it didn’t make a lot of difference. Our folk were still caught with their pants down.
Anyway, the point you all should stress to your men is that the enemy, so far, hasn’t done a goddamn thing except piss the population off and lose an awful lot of his soldiers. I mean, yesterday’s numbers are phenomenal! Here we been waiting years for Charlie to surface and fight, and now he’s doing just that—and getting his clock cleaned! Good chance he’ll never recover from it. Stacking up to be a great tactical error on his part.”
Again he paused as Sullivan and I continued to jot notes.
“Appreciate the info, sir,” I said, “and we’ll pass it along. Been getting some questions, but to tell you the truth, it’s pretty much been business as usual for us out here. ‘Course, like Sergeant Sullivan said, it was a hell of a noisy truce that first night. What about us now, sir? What you got in store for Charlie Company?”
“Nothing for the next couple of hours or so. Got other inserts going in, so air assets are a bit scarce right now. Besides, you all could probably use a little rest, right? If nothing else comes up, I’ll probably be moving you back to your old stomping grounds later this afternoon—say, 1500 hours. And that’ll be a four, plus two, plus two, by the way. Any questions?”
“None here,” I responded.
“No questions,” Sullivan said, “but, sir, how about seeing what you can do ‘bout getting us in for a shower? Troops ain’t had access to a fucking shower head … uh … bath unit since we left the bridge.”
“Good point, Top,” I commented. “They need it, and I should’ve thought of it myself.”
“You all need it,” Byson said in jest. “That’s why I’m standing upwind from you. Seriously, everybody’s in the same boat right now, but soon as things return to the norm, I’ll get you in for a hot one, promise.”
We gave him a snappy Fifth Cav “Ready” salute, and he departed.
After the helicopter had lifted off, the Bull turned to me and said,
“Gee, sir, I hope they didn’t hurt the golf course.”
We spent most of the second day of the Year of the Monkey in a “combat recoup.” The log bird had dropped off clean sets of jungle fatigues and socks and our (usually) weekly issue of sundries. These so-called comfort packs contained cigarettes, toiletries, pens and station ery, porgy bait (candy and gum)—in short, the little necessities and luxuries our soldiers would have spent their money on in a PX if they had had access to one. So we cleaned our weapons, did what we could to clean ourselves, napped, and talked of those things that soldiers talk about when they are far from home. And we wrote letters.
“Hey, Short Round,” one of our less than highly literate soldiers, sitting under a palm, his back against its trunk, yelled. “How you spell caress?”
“Crest?” Short Round replied. “What are you doing, asking your old lady for a tube of toothpaste?”
“No, man, goddamn it! Caress, caress! You know, I’m trying to tell her, in a nice way, what I’m gonna do to her as soon as I get back to the world.”
“Oh! Well, in that case, you spell caress f-u-c-k.”
“Fuck you, Short Round!”
“And your mother, Knife.”
Short Round, Knife, Lean Man, Boom Boom. Where do they get these names for each other? Hell, they all have given names like Tom, Dick, Bill, and Joe. Why don’t they use them?
Sweet Willie Dubray, meanwhile, was telling us of his recent R&R exploits in Bangkok. “Yeah, you can pick one out right at the airport when you land. Or, if you’re wanting to, you can wait till you get to the hotel, then do it. And for fifty U.S. dollars she’s yours to boomboom the whole fucking week—do anything you want, I mean around the world and back again, turn you every which way but loose. But that ain’t all. She’ll help you shopping too, show you where’s the best buys. You know, gold, jewelry, clothes—shit, you can save fifty bucks right there. And if you’re wanting to, she’ll even take you ‘round and show you the sights, you know, temples and stuff like that. ‘Course, I never bothered with none of that shit.”
/> “You are a cretin, Dubray, you know that?” Blair remarked. “You had an opportunity to learn something about one of the world’s oldest and richest cultures, and you forfeited it merely to satisfy your repulsive, insatiable, putrid appetite.”
Dubray looked at Blair inquisitively a moment and then said, “You talking ‘bout food? Let me tell you ‘bout that! See, three or four of us, we went to this here special restaurant we heard about for lunch.
Lunch! You fucking believe it! They sit you down at this big round table what has on it a long tablecloth, and after they bring you your chow, they stick a girl under the table. And the first one what smiles—well, he gotta pay for lunch!”
“A dullard. You’re an absolute, completely immoral dullard, Willie,”
Blair said, smiling in resignation.
The afternoon of the last day in January 1968 wore on, and around two-thirty Byson informed us our pickup had been slipped to 1600 hours. Fine, an extra hour of downtime won’t hurt any of us. Besides, they can put us down anywhere near Daisy and we’ll find a good NDP in a matter of minutes.
At 1545 hours the company was in stick order, awaiting its liftoff birds. But they didn’t arrive at 1600, or 1610, or 1620. Becoming concerned at not hearing anything from Major Byson, I gave the S-3 a call, only to be told, “Stand by. Out.” Minutes later, Byson was on the air.
“Comanche Six, this is Arizona Three. Change of mission. Say again, change of mission. Inbound with twelve, that’s one two, plus zero, plus two in one five. Arclight has opened up enemy bunker complex on hilltop to your southwest. It’s another needlepoint one-bird LZ. How copy? Over.”
“Roger, good copy. Standing by for pickup.”
“One-ship LZ!” the Bull said. “Now, where the fuck are they putting us down, atop the Washington monument?”
“Naw,” Dubray chimed. “Ain’t you heared, Top? Old Ho Chi Minh, ‘cause he’s getting his ass kicked so bad like on this here ‘tack of his, up and died last night with a hard-on, and we gonna set down atop his …”
“Okay, that’s enough,” I said. “Let’s saddle up and get ready to move.”
How does Dubray come up with these stories? If he lives through this, he ought to publish a book. Wouldn’t be “socially redeeming,” but it sure would be spicy reading!
Waiting for our liftoff, I found myself reflecting back on Dubray’s somewhat precarious initial tenure with the company. I recalled that first time I had heard his name mentioned, back on the bridge the morning after I’d arrived in the company.
“Sir, got papers here on one of my men,” Lieutenant MacCarty said.
“Chapter case … uh … unsuitability. Name’s Dubray, Private E-2 ‘Sweet’ Willie Dubray. Outgoing Six was gonna sign them, but now that you’re in command, guess it’s up to you.”
“What’s his problem?” I asked. “Pee in bed or something?”
“No, sir, nothing like that. He’s just a screw-up, and I don’t think intentionally so. I mean he’s just not too smart, you know, comes from somewhere in the backwash of Arkansas’s swamps and can’t seem to do anything right.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant,” I said, “I’m not tracking. What specifically is the young soldier’s problem?”
“Okay. Well, he was assigned initially to Three Six, but that didn’t work out, so the old man put him in Four Six. But he couldn’t even figure out how to cut charges, and no one in the company wants someone on our tubes who cuts the wrong charge. So I took him, blit shit, he was tripping over his own trip flares and spooking the hell out of my people. So …”
“Right. I get the picture, Lieutenant MacCarty. What about Dubray? Does he want to be chaptered?”
“Well, honestly, sir—no. But I really feel … we really feel that it’s best for the company, and in the end, for the soldier concerned, to proceed with an administrative discharge.”
“Okay. I’ll read this over tonight and talk to the young man first thing in the morning.”
And I did.
“Private Dubray, do you know what this is?” I asked the following morning, gesturing at the administrative packet atop the army field desk.
“Yes, sir,” Sweet Willie Dubray responded, rather bleakly. “It’s a chapter discharge. Means you all gonna throw me out of the Army.”
“Not throwing you out, Dubray, processing you out on the grounds of unsuitability. Which is not something to be ashamed of. It merely means you don’t adapt suitably to those tasks commonly required of an infantry soldier. It’s a discharge that’s normally granted without prejudice, in other words, under honorable conditions.”
“Yes, sir, I understand that,” he replied, meekly, his head lowered.
“Fine. Now if I sign this, it’s only a recommendation that you be processed for such a discharge. However, I want to be level with you. Although anyone in the chain of command above me can reject my recommendation, they usually go along with the individual’s—that’s you, Dubray—commander’s recommendation. So, what’ll it be? If I sign it, we can have it out to battalion on the evening log bird, and you could be on your way back to the States in a week or so. Want me to sign it?”
For a brief moment he looked at me uncomprehendingly, and then, suddenly aware that our meeting was more than a mere formality, and that his fate was not necessarily foreordained, he said, “Don’t you sign it, sir! Sir, I ain’t wanting to get out of the Army! Hell, my pappy, he’ll beat me like a hound that won’t point if I get kicked out of the Army.”
“But, Dubray, it appears from what’s written here and from what your leaders tell me, that you simply can’t adjust. Hell, you’ve been from rifleman to weapons platoon ammo bearer and back to rifleman again and haven’t performed adequately in any of these positions.”
“Yes, sir, I know. That’s surely the truth. But I try. I really do, sir. And I’ll try harder. It’s just—well, I don’t catch on quick like, you know, like the other fellows. I ain’t meaning to mess up all the time. It’s just that, shit, seems sometimes like I’m the only fellow what can take a silk purse and turn it to a sow’s ear.”
I had to smile at this colorful self-appraisal. Then, regaining my composure, I looked at him sternly and said what I’d pretty much decided the night before. “Okay, Private Dubray, I’m not gonna sign this. I’m gonna hold onto it for a month—thirty days—and see how you perform in a new, final job. If you do well, I’ll tear this thing up a month from now. If you continue to screw up, I’ll just redate it, and you’ll be on your merry way home. Fair?”
“Yes, sir!” he replied enthusiastically. “I’ll soldier my fucking ass … uh … my shorts off! Just wait and see!”
He paused and then innocently said, “Uh … ‘course, we don’t wear no shorts here in the boonies, ‘cause they rot so quick like. Cause jungle rot on your private parts, too. Mean, you just getting here and all, sir, you probably ain’t knowing that, huh?”
“Well, no, I didn’t, Dubray,” I replied, aware that I was losing control of our counseling session but unsure how it had happened.
Buoyantly, smiling broadly, he said, “Well, I’ll tell you, sir, I didn’t neither, and ‘bout a week what with being in the boonies, my nuts got ‘bout big as ripe crab apples—‘bout as red too. And burn and itch, whew! I tell you, sir, I was a feeling like one ‘em hounds that wouldn’t point right, and Pappy, he not wanting him ‘round the house no more, took a corncob and rubbed his ass raw, then he took a good dab of turpentine and …”
“Uh … yes, Dubray, I get the picture. And I understand you’re gonna do the best you can to soldier your way back for us. Now let me talk to First Sergeant Sullivan about your new duties. In the meantime, you report back to Lieutenant MacCarty and tell him … well, just tell him to come and see me. And that’ll be all now, Dubray.”
He departed, and I went searching for my first sergeant. Upon finding him, I said, “It’s about Gomer Pyle, First Sergeant.”
“Who, sir?”
“Dubray, 2d Platoon’s chapter case.�
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“Yes, sir. Mistake, and I told the young lieutenant as much. Willie’s only problem is he’s just a little bit slower on the uptake than the rest of us. But he wants to do right, and, by God, I’d rather have a dumb soldier who wants to soldier than a college draftee who doesn’t!”
“Glad to hear you say that, First Sergeant,” I replied. “He’s yours.”
“Ah, say what, sir?”
“I’m holding the chapter in abeyance for thirty days pending an evaluation of his performance in a new job. Sergeant Sullivan, please find Sweet Willie Dubray a new job.”
Sullivan looked at me suspiciously a moment, and then a glimmer of a smile formed. “Okay, sir. Think I might have just the job for him.”
Later that afternoon, sitting in my sandbagged CP on the bridge’s southern approach, occupied with a change-of-command inventory, I overheard the Bull conversing with our problem child just outside the bunker.
“Now listen, Willie, and listen closely. From now on you’re attached to company headquarters, and you have only one task to perform. That’s to make goddamn sure me and the old man always—and Willie, I mean always—have hot coffee. I don’t care if it’s night or day, sun or rain, moving or stationary, you make sure me and the old man have our coffee. Understand?”
“Yes, First Sergeant,” Dubray complaisantly replied.
“Now, Willie,” Sullivan continued, “that means you don’t have to worry ‘bout cutting charges, or aligning aiming stakes, or plotting fires, or anything else. All you gotta do is make sure me and the captain have our coffee.”
A somewhat unorthodox approach, but I guess it’s a start.
It was a good start! The Bull had found the key to Sweet Willie.
He wasn’t a bad or a dumb soldier, merely a young man who lacked the educational advantages enjoyed by most of us. A young man who had been given too many things to do too quickly and had lost confidence in himself. But he soon excelled in preparing hot instant Cration coffee under the most trying of conditions. Rain or shine, dark or light, on valley floor or in mountain’s tropical rain forest, Willie was always there with a canteen cup of coffee in his hand.
