by Piers Platt
A Patchwork of Yarns: A Collection of Short Stories
By Piers Platt
Welcome Home
Oh, you’ll like this one, sir. It ain’t another one o’ those heartbreak war stories.” The NCO shivered adroitly out of his heavy PRC-25 radio pack, shifting the bulky machinery down onto the grass and unclipping his entrenching tool from the back of the rucksack.
“Good,” the lieutenant grunted. “I can do without the heartbreak tonight. Someone’s got to make it out of here alive, right?”
“That’s a rog, sir. This guy makes it, all right.”
Sergeant Stevens liked his new lieutenant. He had just taken over the platoon as a replacement for their last LT, a guy named Porter, who had earned himself a Purple Heart and a trip to Japan after stepping on a VietCong mine. The new lieutenant was fresh in-country, and hence had zero combat experience, but his men were his first priority, and that was the best thing you could say about an officer, Stevens knew. The kid was smart enough to take his NCOs’ advice too, and that made him ten times better than some officers.
Stevens tweaked the radio’s numerous knobs, switched to a longer antenna, and then spoke briefly into the radio’s handset. On hearing a reply, he gave a quick thumbs-up to the LT. Satisfied, the lieutenant grabbed his rifle and headed off to direct the emplacement of his troops along the platoon’s perimeter, overseeing the defense of their hilltop position for the night. It was muggy, as always, and the noise of the platoon digging into the thick clay was jarring in the hushed jungle evening.
Stevens set to work excavating a two man foxhole for himself and the lieutenant at the center of the rough circle the platoon occupied. The lieutenant soon joined him, the two men taking turns digging into the red earth, and providing cover for the other. When they had finished, Stevens took advantage of the waning light to clean his weapons. He laid out his M-16 on a spare undershirt, disassembled it, cleaned the bolt, the carrier group, and the upper receiver, and ran a rod down the barrel twice. Satisfied, he applied a light coat of oil, reassembled the weapon, did a function check to ensure everything was working properly, and reloaded it. The lieutenant took a final tour of the unit’s defenses, and, satisfied with the security, he dropped back into their foxhole. Stevens pulled out two C-rations and began heating them over a squat field stove. As the sun sank below the mountains and twilight began to set in, Stevens began his story.
“A couple months back, I got a slot at LRRP school – you know, the long range patrol thing they’re trying out? I figured I’d be able to catch up on some sleep, take a break from all this patrolling.”
The lieutenant gave him a dubious look, and Stevens laughed. “Yeah, I know – fat chance … those six weeks were worse than all of Basic combined. They had us humping 60, 70 pound rucks all night, morning PT went on ‘til lunchtime, and we had classes all afternoon. But at least no one was shooting at us for a while. Only one weekend of liberty, most of us spent it sacked out. Anyway, my bunkmate back at the barracks was a kid named Jack Frost. No bullshit, sir … Jack Frost from the frozen depths of Maine. We gave him some shit about that, but he’d heard it all since grade school, didn’t spook him a bit. Real nice guy, and a hell of a soldier. Top of his Basic class, big guy, blonde hair, blue eyes, baseball All-American, Airborne, Ranger tab, you name it. This guy had been to every training school the Army’s got. We got to be pretty good friends, and by the end of the program we partnered up for the final Field Exercise.”
Stevens handed a meal to the lieutenant, and then cranked the lid of off his own, sniffing cautiously. “Fuck. Turkey Loaf again.”
“Looks like you got pound cake with that, if it helps any.”
Stevens shrugged unenthusiastically, but dug in. Between mouthfuls, he continued.
“Where was I … FieldEx, right? So Jack and I gotta crawl 30 miles across this stinking swamp in three days, observe the ‘enemy’ position, and raid it on the fourth night, while the instructors patrolled the whole area. We spent the last night actually in the swamp, and to keep our minds off all the creepy-crawlies in there with us, we swapped life stories to pass the time. Turned out Frost lived way up on the U.S.-Canada border, and I mean right on the border, sir. His granddad used to do a good deal of bootlegging back in the ‘20s, and his dad had gone off to WWII, and his older brother to Korea, the usual story. Thing is, though, Frost wasn’t so sure he wanted to come over here, carry on the family tradition and all that. Turned out he had signed up for all of those schools just so he could avoid actual combat duty. Said he didn’t ever want to have to kill a man.”
* * *
Jack Frost was twelve when he shot a rabbit with his father’s .22 rifle. It was not his first kill, so his initial reaction was elation at having hit his target. But when he walked up to the patch of grass where the animal had fallen, he found it still alive. He could tell that it was mortally wounded, but it made no sound – no squeals or whimpering – just rapid, short breaths, puffing in and out of its tiny body. Afterwards, he would never remember what made him do so, but he found himself laying his hand on the rabbit’s side. The fur was soft and warm, and he could feel its heart beating rapidly. The rabbit did not move, but instead closed its eyes, as if comforted by his presence.
That the rabbit might accept his touch and be grateful for it shocked him, and a deep sense of guilt and sorrow stuck with him long after the rise and fall of the rabbit’s chest slowed and then stopped. Though his father and brother didn’t notice it, he never hunted again. He knew it wasn’t cowardice. He remembered other times in his childhood when he wished he had been braver, but he also remembered times when he wished he hadn’t been quite so brave. That broken collarbone stealing third base, for instance.
The day Jack Frost’s draft card arrived, he took the afternoon off of work and went home to talk with his parents. He found his father first, reading his newspaper in the living room. His father took the card, and a shadow crossed his face briefly, but was quickly replaced with his usual gruff expression.
“Congratulations, Jack. Your country has called, and it’s time for you to answer that call. I’m … well, I’m proud to know that you’ll be serving America, just as I did. See that you do good things over there, Jack. Don’t be foolish, and you’ll come back all right, and more of a man for it.”
His mother was in the kitchen, fixing dinner. He showed her the card, and she sat down, reading the whole thing through twice.
“A week, James? Only one week? As if this family hasn’t done enough for our country, now another one has to go. Your father … well, he hasn’t told you everything about what he did in the war, you know. I don’t know that he can talk about it with anyone.” She glanced furtively towards the living room. “For god’s sake go into the Coast Guard or the Navy or … well, anywhere, but not over there, not as an infantryman.”
Jack went outside, sat down on the porch, and waited. He waited all afternoon and into the evening, watching as kids out chasing fireflies were called in to dinner by aproned mothers. The wind died down, the flag in their front yard drooped around its pole, and the moon appeared on the horizon. Jack went in for dinner when his mother called, ate in silence, and then returned to the porch. At eleven his parents’ light went out, and Jack stood up and went inside. He emerged from the back door carrying a backpack stuffed with a change of clothes and his life savings, as little as they were. Jack set out across the backyard, and despite the darkness he found the path down to the creek easily. Minutes later, he came to the stream, a swift, cold rush of water with a rickety wooden bridge connecting the path from bank to bank. Three feet across the bridge, at the halfway point, he stopped to touch the sign he and his brother had made so many summers ago. On this side it read: “Welcome to
Canada,” and on the reverse: “Welcome Home.” He remembered straddling that midpoint as a boy, hopping from one foot to the other: America, Canada, America, Canada … it had been highly amusing at the time. Jack Frost continued across and sat down on the other side, his elbows on his knees, facing back across the water, and weighed his options.
Can’t go into the Navy or Coast Guard. Dad would kill me, kick me out of the family, call me a coward. Can’t go to war, can’t fight, can’t try to hurt or kill another man. What did that leave? Run away from it all, go to Canada, live a cowardly life in exile. Or join up and kill.
A friend of his from high school had talked about medical discharges, but Jack knew he would have trouble getting one in his physical condition, and getting one dishonestly would be just as cowardly in his father’s eyes. He had read in the paper of exceptions for people in college, but his parents didn’t have the money to send him to college. He knew he could apply for conscientious objector status, but he wasn’t one of those anti-war hippies – he supported his country, he just knew he himself could never kill. Besides, he knew what his father would have to say about that option, and he had seen the way his brother looked down on anti-war protesters. At least if he went to Canada, he would never have to face his family again. But wouldn’t it be possible to survive a war without ever killing someone? Jack stood and walked back over the bridge to his house.
Every night for that remaining week, he crossed the bridge into Canada, torn between his family and his conscience. On the seventh night he stood squarely in the middle of the bridge until the first blush of dawn touched the eastern horizon. America, Canada, America, Canada …
That morning he walked home, kissed his tearful mother goodbye, left a note for his brother, shook his father’s hand, and walked straight to the address on the draft card. A day later he was halfway down the eastern seaboard, and by the end of Basic Training, he had worked out a plan.
* * *
“Since Frost was best soldier in his class, he secured for himself his choice of assignments, sir, and started with Airborne school. After infantry training, they sent him right on to Benning for jump school, and from there, he got himself into Ranger School. Y’see sir, Frost figured he could put himself through all the courses the Army had to offer, every single one of them, and by the time he was through, either the war would be over, or his time would be up. After Ranger, he was angling for sniper school, since he still had five months to go on his ticket.”
Stevens paused to settle more comfortably in the hole, and the lieutenant rummaged in his pack for the tapioca cans he had scrounged up from the cafeteria back at their patrol base.
“Well, seems some asshole clerk at Benning caught on that Frost was the best trained man in the U.S. Army who had never even seen combat, and after qualifying for his Ranger tab, Frost got orders to deploy – they shipped his ass out on the next available flight.”
Stevens took the proffered can and used his bayonet to punch a hole in the top of the can. The lieutenant smiled.
“That is the most ass-backwards way of eating tapioca I have ever seen, Sergeant.”
“Yes sir, it is. After a couple months more, you’ll understand better why anything good over here is worth savoring, sir.” Stevens put the can to his lips and sucked gently, focusing all of his senses on the sweet custard trickling onto his tongue. “Now all we need are a coupla kegs for the platoon, and we’d be set for the night!”
“I’m sure Charlie would be happy to oblige us, Stevens.”
“Mm-hmm.” Stevens put down his can. “Anyway, Frost arrived in-country just when LRRP school really started to kick off, and he managed to get a slot by sweet-talking the in-processing folks in Saigon. Don’t get me wrong, this guy wasn’t no pussy, he’d have run into a burning building to save little old ladies just as quickly as you and me, but somethin’ ‘bout shooting a man he couldn’t handle. Hell, it fucks with everyone’s head to a certain extent. Pulling the trigger’s easy … it’s the quiet times afterwards when it … well, you’ll see, sir. Shit, I guess Frost wasn’t that different from a lot of us.” Stevens paused, lost in his thoughts. Embarrassed, the lieutenant looked away, poking at a lump of clay with a stick.
“… but he did put a higher value on a man’s life, even for Charlie. Anyway, back to LRRP school and that goddamn swamp: Frost gives me his life story while we’re sitting there in this shithole, slinking away from instructors and trying to keep an eye on our target area. He lets it all out, how he’s trying to ride out all of his time in training schools, how he can’t stand killing but he didn’t want to let his father down, and now he doesn’t want to let me and his brothers-in-arms down, all of it. He tells me he’s just applied for Officer Candidate School back in the States, figures he can try to become an officer, too, play for a little more time. We make it through LRRP school all right, but on graduation day, Frost gets two letters. First one is his rejection from OCS, and the second one is his assignment with the same LRRP platoon I get. He’s happy we got the same unit, but I know there’s a lot goin’ on in his head.”
“Next day we catch a resupply chopper out to our post and report in, and the Intel Captain lets us know to be up and ready at dawn tomorrow: three week patrol along the Cambodian border. We’re supposed to be snooping on convoys as they move across the border into ‘Nam.”
“Jack’s real nervous from the get-go that morning, and for the next week he can’t sleep a wink. I never let on, but the LT out with us that trip catches him one day with an unloaded rifle and gives him hell, threatens court-martial if he doesn’t keep his weapon locked and loaded at all times. We finally arrive at the site after ten days belly-crawling and other such nonsense, and we set up to watch Charlie for the next few days. On the fourth night, Charlie tries to sneak a convoy of trucks across this ford in a creek we’re watching, and as soon as they come into ‘Nam from Cambodia we call in the Air Force and watch those trucks get blasted. I’m pretty sure Frost was sick at the sight. Next night, Charlie goes for it again, but this time he sets up two of those Russian Surface-to-Air Missile trucks on the riverbank. We radio that in, and the zoomies decide to still send out a couple of Phantoms, but one of ‘em takes a near-miss from a heat-seeker and they bug out. Command decides it must be a pretty important shipment if Charlie’s so concerned about security, and wouldn’t you know it? Our mission changes from reconnaissance/surveillance into a raid. The supply trucks are long gone, but someone figured taking out the SAM trucks would look good on a report somewhere, so the eight of us move in and set up for a quick raid. The LT sets us all in position, me and Frost manning one of the rocket launchers we’re gonna take out the SAM trucks with. We move up and wait for the signal, and Frost suddenly takes out this pad and pen and starts writing like mad. Without a word he pushes it over to me, and I can see how much it hurt him to write it – he couldn’t look me in the eye. He gets up and disappears off into the jungle towards the river and the Cambodian border … I never saw him again.”
Stevens paused again to finish his tapioca and toss the empty can out of the foxhole. He took a swig from his canteen, and then fished a battered piece of paper out of his breast pocket and handed it to the lieutenant.
You know I won’t be of any use in this fight. If anything I will just get you killed. I hope you can forgive me for this, though I don’t think I will be able to forgive myself.
-J.F.
“What did you do?”
“Christ, sir, what was I supposed to do? I was so confused I was still trying to think what to do when our machine gun opened up, and I had to blast that SAM truck to hell. Thinking back on it, I don’t think I would have done anything different. We wasted those trucks and set up some vehicle mines in the ford, then called for a dustoff. I just told our lieutenant I lost track of Frost during the firefight.”
“A couple of weeks ago, I ran into some Green Berets back at the LRRP base who had been over the border into Cambodia a couple times, so I asked him if he ever hear
d of any Americans going missing in action in that area. He looked at me all funny. He said that on their last patrol, they searched a small hut and found ten U.S. dollars on the old man living there. They figured he took the cash off the body of a downed pilot, but the guy swore up and down he had an American soldier sneak into the village one night and then pay him for some rice and water for his canteens. They asked him which way the American went, and he pointed west, toward Phnom Penh. They figured he was full of shit, but I like to think it was Jack Frost. He must have walked all through those training schools and Vietnam still carrying his life savings in his rucksack. I think the son of a bitch bought himself rides all the way back to Canada and now half of Cambodia can cash your paycheck with American dollars!”
“Sergeant Stevens, I hope you’re not advocating desertion from the U.S. Army …”
“No sir, but I think … well, sometimes exceptions can be made, sir. I would request that you not pursue any legal actions against me in regard to the incident.”
“Relax, Sarge. Uncle Sam’s busy enough without having to prosecute every dumbass NCO in this war.”
Stevens let a rare smile cross his face. “Yessir.”
Above the trees, the moon was rising. Stevens nestled his rifle in the crook of his arm and tipped his helmet back to get a better look at the stars.
* * *
Sergeant James Frost emerged from the trees at the stream’s edge and stepped onto the splintered wood of the bridge. He stopped halfway across, the familiar planks creaking beneath his feet, and gently touched the weathered sign. Through the trees ahead, he could see a light on in the kitchen window, and he pictured his mother at the sink, washing dishes and humming quietly to herself. On impulse, he pulled his dog tags off over his head, and hung them from the sign. Then he turned and made his way back into Canada.
