the Hill (1995)

by Scott, Leonard B

  “Sir?… Sir!”

  Jason broke from his stare and looked at Taloga. “Are the men ready?”

  Taloga’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, sir, they are, but you’re not. Lieutenant Johnson, you’re gonna have to snap out of it. You’re the best damn officer I’ve ever worked with. You’ve turned this platoon around in just three and a half weeks, but you’re fuckin’ up with this guilt thing about Simon. L-tee, you are going to lose men. This is a fuckin’ war. Men die and get hurt. Face it and start leading this platoon again … we need you. You can’t be worrying about the past. Fuck the past. It’s history. You got thirty men who need you now.”

  Jason’s shoulders sagged. “He shouldn’t have died like that.”

  “Nobody should die, but they do. And they’ll keep on dying because that’s the way it is. You’re good, L-tee, but you’re not that good; you’ll never save all of them. All you can do is what you’ve been doing, making them better soldiers and hoping they don’t die because of stupid mistakes or poor judgment. That action on Cemetery Hill was by the book. It was executed perfectly. You did everything right. Shit, the company commander wants to put you in for a Bronze Star. But we lost a man, one man, and you turn to shit on me. Snap out of it, L-tee, or these men you’ve worked so hard with are going to lose their confidence in you. They might piss and moan about the training and constant questions you ask, but they respect you because they know you care enough to make them better. You’ve got yourself a platoon of men who believe they have a leader. Don’t fuck it up now.”

  Jason lowered his head and stood up slowly. The image of Simon’s face faded away and was replaced by the faces of the men waiting for the choppers. He looked at Taloga and said softly,“Thanks.” He turned and yelled, “Bagley! Call up and see when the birds are coming in! Redford! I still need the list of shit you found in the bunker for the ol’ man. You’ve got three minutes to give it me!”

  Taloga smiled and turned around, hearing the distant whopping sound of the incoming Slicks.

  Hammonds and Caddy strained with the weight of the poncho-covered body as they approached the LZ. Lieutenant Jenkins sighed with relief on seeing them. “About damn time. Where’s Cat?”

  The two men set the body down, and Hammonds gestured behind him. “He’s coming, sir.”

  The captain walked up behind Jenkins. “I want to meet this ‘Cat’ fellow and personally thank him for … what the hell is that?”

  Jenkins glanced over his shoulder at the approaching soldier and dog. “You can meet him right now; that’s him.”

  The captain stiffened at the sight of the young soldier straining to hold the muzzled German shepherd. “Ah … that’s okay, I’ll meet him later. Make sure he turns in that pistol he’s wearing. It’s unauthorized. And find him a helmet.”

  Jenkins smiled to himself. “Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.”

  Sergeant Hammonds gathered his squad next to the LZ and lay back on his rucksack. “I just got briefed from the L-tee. The entire company is being lifted out in a few minutes, and we’re going back to base camp for a five-day stand-down. We’ll all be drinking cold beer tonight.”

  Silk, Bugs, and Caddy all broke into big smiles. Hammonds smiled, saving the best for last. “The L-tee also said he got word that Cowboy is in the rear waiting for us. He’ll be linking up as soon as we get off the birds.”

  The smiles became bigger, and Silk turned around and yelled at Ty, who was keeping the dog away from the commotion. “Ya hear that, Cat? Cowboy is back, man. He gonna have us some stories about da nurse holes, man.”

  A captain whom Hammonds didn’t recognize walked up. “Which one of you men has the K-54 pistol captured this afternoon?”

  Hammonds stood up and eyed the pressed jungle fatigues and spit-shined jungle boots the officer wore. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but who are you?”

  The captain stiffened. “I’m the assistant battalion S-2, intelligence officer. The pistol was reported by the interpreter we sent out, but it wasn’t with the effects of the deceased. I want the pistol. Who has it?”

  Hammonds cocked an eyebrow. “ ‘Deceased’?” Hammonds said. “Oh, you must mean the fucker who tried to kill us. Sir, the reason we don’t send in war trophies to the S-2 is you people never give them back. Somehow, they’re always conveniently lost. I gave all the necessary information to our lieutenant. It was a Chinese 7.62 standard-issue K-54 with holster.”

  The captain’s face turned red. “Sergeant, you are obstructing the intelligence effort of this battalion. I want the pistol turned over to me right now, or I will speak to your company commander.”

  Hammonds heard the approaching helicopters. “Saddle up, First.” He looked at the officer as he hefted his heavy rucksack to his back. “Sir, you’ll find the company commander over there by the hooches. I’m sure he’ll appreciate your ‘intelligence effort,’ since you people said there were only VC tax collectors in the area and didn’t mention booby traps, spider holes, or hardcore VC. Yes, sir, I’m sure the ol’ man will appreciate your ‘effort’ just about as much as me and my squad do.”

  The captain angrily responded, but the first helicopter settling to the ground drowned out his words. Hammonds ignored him and ran to the first chopper with the squad. Ty bumped into the intelligence officer as he labored under the weight of carrying the dog in his arms. The captain caught his balance and saw the pistol strapped to Ty’s waist. He yelled for him to stop, but Ty hopped on the Huey. The captain was still yelling as the bird lifted off with the smiling men of first squad waving good-bye with their middle fingers.

  Jason left the officer’s tent and walked down the dusty road toward the enlisted area. It seemed strange to be away from his men. In the field he was with them twenty-four hours a day, but back in civilization, the traditional separation of officers and enlisted ranks prevailed. It was a strange war. The rear area was nothing more than an island surrounded by barbed wire and bunkers. The only ground that was secured and safe was the ground you stood on. Base camp was a place to drink a beer or Coke, buy a few things from the PX, and sleep without having to rotate on guard or radio watch. It was also a place where the field soldiers had to get haircuts, shine their boots, and salute. The secret was to stay away from sergeant majors and everyone else who wore starched fatigues and spit-shined boots. For some reason, they didn’t seem to know a war was going on and insisted on appearance standards that would make more sense at Fort Benning.

  He stopped on a slight rise overlooking the platoon tents. His men were outside filling sandbags from a huge pile of dirt. He saw Taloga supervising the loading of the green bags onto a truck and yelled to him.

  The big Samoan jogged up the rise and saluted smartly. “Yes, sir.”

  “What the hell y’all doin’? You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”

  Taloga relaxed and shrugged his shoulders. “Sir, the Sergeant Major said we had to fill six hundred sandbags and haul them to the officers’ area before we could kick back.”

  Jason’s jaw muscles tensed. “Stop right now and get our men to the shower point and club. We came here for stand down, not for filling sandbags.”

  “Sir, this is NCO business and …”

  “The hell it is! It’s my platoon and this is my business. Sergeant Major doesn’t run this platoon. Get the platoon moving, now!”

  Taloga turned away but immediately spun around again and saluted. “Yes, sir.”

  Jason noticed his smile and returned a quick salute.

  Taloga jogged down the rise yelling, “The L-tee wants us at the shower point and then to the club in less than thirty minutes. MOVE IT!”

  The men hooted and hollered as they threw down their shovels and sandbags, and ran to the tents for their towels. Jason smiled and began to walk back up the road but saw the starched fatigues of the thin sergeant major, who was striding directly toward him. He squared his shoulders.

  The sergeant saluted offhandedly, as if he had more important things to do. “Lieutenant,
what the hell you think you’re doing?”

  Jason returned a perfect salute. “I don’t think, I know what I’m doing, and that is, I ordered my men to the shower point.”

  The senior sergeant rolled his eyes as if he were dealing with a stubborn child. “Lieutenant, I’m Sergeant Major Littlejol, the camp sergeant major. You just fucked up. I’m going to have to get those men back and fill the sandbags. Why don’t you go back to officer country and let me …”

  Jason raised his hand. “No, Sergeant Major Littlejol, you fucked up. Those men belong to me. Unless you have a written statement from my company commander or he tells me, you aren’t saying shit to my people. This conversation has ended. Good evening.”

  Littlejol’s face contorted and turned beet red. Jason started up the road, his mind already on other matters. He had heard from other officers that the entire brigade had come in for the stand-down, and he was eager to find Ty.

  Littlejol turned and spoke with disdain. “You’ll hear about this, Lieutenant!”

  Jason didn’t look back.

  Silk glanced up from the letter he’d received and gave the rest of the squad a quick warning. “Trouble, dudes.”

  Hammonds stood up from his cot and blocked the lieutenant’s path. “Sir, can I help you?”

  The big blond officer smiled. “Sure can. I’m looking for PFC Nance. A sergeant two tents up said I’d find him here.”

  Hammonds eyed the officer with suspicion. “Are you from Battalion S-2?”

  Jason frowned. “Hell no. I’m from Second Batt. Ty … PFC Nance is my brother.”

  Hammonds grinned and put out his hand. “Sorry about that, sir. Good to meet you. We’ve been looking out for S-2 REMFs hassling the Cat. Cat said he had a brother over here, but I didn’t know you were in the Herd.”

  Silk stood up. “Dig it, dudes. The L-tee is the Cat’s bro.”

  Jason cocked his head. “Cat?”

  Silk strode up with Caddy, Bugs, and Cowboy. “Yes, sir. The Cat is a baaad muthafucker. He deals big time with da Charles. He’s the baddest point in the Fourth Batt. He done …”

  Jason followed Bugs to the perimeter after hearing all about Ty’s exploits. They stopped behind a bunker.

  Bugs pointed. “Cat is in there. He’s kinda keepin’ a low profile. S-2 has been looking for him. Hey, Cat, I got a visitor for ya!”

  Jason put out his hand to Bugs. “Thanks for bringing me here, I …” He stopped in midsentence as Ty emerged from the bunker. My God, Jason thought, he wasn’t nineteen anymore. He looked ten years older, and every inch of him was hardened combat veteran. His face showed the effects of the field by its leanness and dark tan. The sweat-stained, dirty uniform was faded and his boots were scuffed white. The NVA pistol belt strapped around his waist rode low on his right hip, as if he were looking for trouble. The men in the squad were right. The man before him wasn’t Ty—he was the Cat.

  Ty felt weak-kneed as a flood of memories and emotions swept through him. He had put away all the thoughts of home and family for another time and wasn’t prepared. A thousand pictures of himself and his brother passed through his brain and stopped at the one when they were on Red Hill so long ago in another lifetime. He brought up his hand in a salute. “I never saluted a Red Hill Paratrooper before.”

  Jason started to raise his hand in a salute but got only halfway before reaching out and embracing his brother. Then he stepped back. “Damn, if you don’t look good. C-rations do right by you.”

  “Ya lookin’ good yourself,” Ty said, thumping Jason’s chest. “A little skinny maybe, but ya look like a real field soldier. When did ya get here?”

  Jason looked at his watch and patted Ty’s leg. “I guess I’d better get back. We’ve been jaw-jackin’ for over an hour. I’ll come by and see you tomorrow.”

  Ty rose up and took his brother’s hand, pulling him to his feet. “Jay, it’s really good seeing you. We’re going to be here five days, so let’s make use of the time. I wanna know more about home and how the hill is lookin’.”

  Jason was about to speak when Caddy jogged up. “Excuse me, sir, but all hell is breaking loose. We just got word to pack up a basic load and get ready to move. It looks like tomorrow the whole brigade is flying in to Pleiku. Word is we’re going to join the Fourth Division for an operation in the Ia Drang valley.”

  “I gotta get to my platoon,” Jason said. He put his arm around Ty and gave him a quick hug. “You take it easy out there and be careful. Mom wants us Red Hill Paratroopers to make it back in one piece. She told me to tell ya she loves ya … and so do I. Good-bye, brother.”

  Ty smiled and patted his brother’s back as he began to walk away. “Us paratroopers only say, ‘I’ll see ya.’ ”

  Jason grinned as he looked over his shoulder. “I’ll see ya, Cat.”

  “Love ya, big brother,” Ty said. “Keep your ass down.”

  26

  The C-130’s ramp lowered, exposing the rugged mountains of the Central Highlands and a huge lake with a muddy island in its center. Sergeant Hammonds stood and hefted his rucksack. “This is it. Let’s go, First.”

  Bugs took one look at the flooded landscape and shook his head dejectedly. “I already hate this place. What’s the name of it again?”

  “Dak To,” said Hammonds, as he walked down the ramp into an inch of water covering the tarmac.

  A sergeant stood on the runway, pointing across the lake toward a small colllection of buildings on high ground. “You people head straight across to the base camp. Watch your step. There are some deep holes.”

  Hammonds saw a long line of men already crossing the flooded ground and stepped off the tarmac into six inches of muddy water. “Come on. It only looks deep.”

  Silk balked at the edge of the runway. “I ain’t in the damn Navy! Shit, Sarge, I thought we was gonna be in the mountains. This fuckin’ place looks like da delta.”

  “Move your ass. You’re holdin’ up the rest of the platoon,” Hammonds barked. He lifted his rifle and pointed. “Seventeen klicks to the west is Cambodia and Laos. The mountains all around us are supposed to be crawling with NVA.”

  Silk waded into the water and snickered. “Yeah, sure man, just like the Ia Drang valley was supposed to have ’em. Man, we humped for almost a month and only seen blisters and leeches. All I see here is water and straight-up humpin’. This mutha sucks, man.”

  Cowboy looked around at the mountains covered with rain forest. “Cat, this place is bad news. I hope to hell them NVAs ain’t holed up in them hills, or we gonna be in big-time trouble.”

  Ty nodded in agreement. The airfield and Dak To Special Forces Camp sat in a river valley surrounded by mountains. The monsoon rains had flooded the river and all the low-lying areas. Any entrenched NVA in the mountains would enjoy all the advantages. They would know the terrain and could pick the ground of their choosing to defend.

  He looked up at the circling C-130s. Jason was in one of those planes. The Second and Fourth battalions of the brigade were taking part in Operation Greeley, checking out reports of increased enemy activity in the area. His stomach tightened with worry. He had thought about Jason constantly since last seeing him.

  Caddy followed Ty and glanced behind to check on the three new men. “Come on, cherries, I told you all to stay close to Cat and me. Catch up.” He increased his pace and joined Ty. “One good thing—at least getting these cherries almost brings us up to strength.”

  Ty turned and looked at the bewildered faces of the replacements. It was strange but he wasn’t worried about them, as he was his brother. In fact, he wasn’t worried about anybody in the squad. He knew they wouldn’t walk into anything they couldn’t handle. He, the Cat, would make sure of it. He was good and felt completely confident. No NVA could beat him, regardless of the terrain. He didn’t worry about himself or his squad, but Jason was different. Jason was part of home, and he was alone. He was probably a good leader and soldier, but he didn’t understand. He didn’t know how to become the b
uffalo.

  Jason looked up at the threatening sky. More misery was on the way. He stood beside a bunker overlooking the swollen Poko River. The company had flown in an hour before, just behind the Fourth Battalion. His platoon had been ordered to the southern sector of the Dak To airfield perimeter to guard against attack. Bagley had summed up their situation accurately when he said, “The only thing that can attack us across that river is the U.S. Navy.”

  He walked into the bunker where his squad leaders sat around a small fire, trying to dry out their boots. “Looks like it’s going to rain some more,” he said. “I don’t know how long we’re going to be here, but let’s get as comfortable as we can while we have the chance. I want squad positions instead of fire teams so we can get maximum rest. We don’t have a threat, so there’s no use pretending there is. Get back to the squads and move them into the bunkers and report to Taloga when you’re done. I’m going to the company CP and see if I can find out what we’re going to be doing the next couple of days.”

  Sergeant Redford smiled as he stood up, “L-tee, don’t be volunteering us for anything. We’d just as soon stay right here for the rest of the war, protecting the fishes.”

  Jason chuckled. He felt the same way. For the past twenty days, his men had humped everyday in the Ia Drang valley, searching for an enemy that never materialized, although the intelligence reports kept saying they were there.

  Jason tossed his rucksack in the corner. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep my mouth shut. You all just keep your eyes out for the North Vietnam Navy while I’m gone.”

  He was halfway to the command post when the monsoon storm unleashed its torrent. In half a second, he was soaked to the skin. Never had he seen such rain. He stopped, unable to see where he was going. It was as if a huge bucket of water were being poured over him. The rain beat against his helmet. He couldn’t see, hear, smell, or feel anything but the pounding water.