Guns Up!

by Johnnie Clark

  With those last encouraging remarks, Red rolled over and went back to sleep. I thought he meant well, but he had planted a seed of doubt in me that was quickly growing into a large tree. I tapped him on the shoulder. I felt like one of the little people waking up Gulliver. “You weren’t kidding just a little were you?” I asked quietly. “I mean, we can’t be the only three gunners in all of Alpha Company.”

  “We are unless they got some more boots while I was in the hospital.” He opened his eyes again. “Look, you guys, don’t worry about it, ‘cause it won’t help. Find a salt when you get to the unit and stick with him like glue. If you don’t get killed the first couple of months you’ll be okay.”

  “What should we do to get ready? I mean is there anything we should know?” I asked.

  “You probably oughta take your dog tags off the chain. They make noise at night; it’ll get you killed. If your head gets blown off they probably won’t find the tags and you won’t be identified. String ’em into your boot laces. The boots usually hold together, and they won’t make noise. And color ’em up with something so they won’t shine with the sun- or moonlight. If you got anything you want to keep dry, put it in plastic and stick it between your helmet and helmet liner.” He pointed at our grenades lying on my cot. “Bend the pins on those frags right now. When you hump through the bush, sticks get caught in the ring and pull out the pin and you get blown away.”

  Red’s advice made me realize for the first time all of the assorted ways I could get myself killed in this place. His information scared me, but I knew it was important, and I was thankful for it.

  “Don’t ever take your boots off unless you’re in some area like Phu Bai. Put your crap-paper in plastic if you want any hope of keeping it dry—writing paper, too. If you don’t put Halazone tablets in each canteen of water you’ll get dysentery with the first drink. When it’s a hundred and twenty degrees you’ll drink a lot of water. Take your malaria pills every day or you’ll get malaria and it’ll stay with you even when you go home. The salt tabs, too. Forget your salt tab and you’ll pass out from heat exhaustion. And take your helmet off when you get the chance. I saw one boot get his brain fried ‘cause he left that pot on all day when it was about a hundred and twenty degrees. Ask whoever is writing you to send some care packages with Kool-Aid and stuff that won’t spoil in the heat.”

  “Does the M16 rifle malfunction consistently under jungle conditions as projected?” Chan asked with his usual overdose of vocabulary.

  Red looked at me quizzically. “Does he always talk like that?”

  I nodded the affirmative.

  Red chuckled, then answered, “No, not if you keep it clean. Clean it every single day or it’ll jam. The M60 too. Use lots of oil. During the monsoon season your weapon will start to rust every few hours. If you light a cigarette up at night, you can kiss your butt goodbye. If the gooks don’t kill you another Marine probably will. More important for you two than anything else is this: When you hear ‘Guns up!’ you got to get that gun to a firing position and open up.”

  With the end of that list Red rolled back over to try sleeping again. Then he rolled back as if he had remembered one last thing. “I almost forgot. Don’t pull off the leeches. Burn ’em off with a match, or the head of the leech will stay in your skin. Tie the strings real tight at the bottom of your trousers and you can keep some of them out.”

  After that Red went to sleep. I had a thousand more questions, but I didn’t dare wake him again. I couldn’t understand how he managed to sleep. The tent was full of flies, the heat was sweltering, and every time a truck went by, heavy clouds of dust poured into the tent like the receiving bag of a vacuum cleaner.

  Chan leaned back on his cot, using his pack for a pillow. He pulled his writing paper out of his shirt pocket.

  “Tell Valerie hi for me,” I said.

  “I’m writing my parents.” I wasn’t surprised. Chan seemed very close to his parents.

  “How’s it been going with you and Valerie?” I asked.

  “She loves me, and I love her.” He paused, then shook his head dejectedly. “But her mother’s another story. Mrs. Gallina is doing everything she can to stop our relationship.”

  “Because you’re Chinese?”

  “That’s part of it. But the main reason is because I’m not Italian and I’m not Catholic.”

  “But you know the Bible backwards.”

  “That doesn’t matter to Valerie’s mother. She doesn’t know the Old Testament from the New. She worships a religious system and doesn’t really know the Lord at all.” Chan didn’t sound angry. He spoke as if he pitied her, as if he was honestly worried about her. Chan often said we were best friends because we were alike in many ways. Maybe, but I would have told this meddling Gallina broad to shove it up her diddy-bag. I leaned back on my cot and stared at the roof until it was too dark to see.

  A heavy rain pelted the tent all night and didn’t stop until morning. I knew because I was too excited to sleep. The day started like all the other days in the Corps, with a formation. The mud was drying fast. It was 6 A.M., and I was already grimy with sweat. We marched to the chow hall, where I received my first clue to what the country of Vietnam was all about: dysentery.

  My stomach felt like it was getting an oil change. I wanted to puke, but I was too busy putting it out the other end. Chan thought it was hilariously funny until he came down with the same thing. We spent the rest of the day and the majority of the next as close to a row of outhouses as possible.

  On the third day the entire group of boots was herded into a large tent with sandbag walls. The atmosphere was serious. Fifty to seventy-five of us crowded in, and no one spoke. I felt nervous. Ten rows of benches made the tent look like a chapel. A large blackboard surrounded by two large maps stood at the front. Someone yelled, “Attention!” We jumped to our feet. I felt like I was in a movie, getting orders to bomb Germany.

  A small man with prematurely gray hair and dark sunglasses strode into the tent. He hustled to a platform in front of the maps. He looked more like a stockbroker than a major in the Marine Corps. “At ease.” He picked up a pointer stick and began to talk.

  “You are members of the Fifth Marines. The Fifth is now completing Operation Hue City. Hue has always been treated as an open city in recognition of its place as the ancient imperial capital and cultural seat of Vietnam. This is the only reason we have not bombed the NVA into dust. Hue has never been heavily fortified like Da Nang. The First ARVN Division has its headquarters in a corner of the Citadel. There is also the Black Panther Company, an elite unit of the Vietnamese Marines. That is the substance of the Vietnamese Army strength within the city. The Fifth Marines have been given the job of retaking Hue, which was occupied by the NVA on 31 January. By February 9 the enemy death count had reached 1,053. It is estimated that two enemy battalions had been destroyed by that point. All we have left can be considered mopping up. That does not mean people won’t be shooting at you. If an enemy soldier shouts ‘Chieu Hoi!’ he is surrendering and is not to be fired upon. The Chieu Hoi program must be respected. We have dropped hundreds of thousands of leaflets telling the NVA soldier that he can drop his weapon and shout ‘Chieu Hoi’ and that he will be treated well. These prisoners are changing sides. They will fight for the South Vietnamese Government. Now, I know you all have a lot of questions, but this is all you have to know: You are United States Marines, the finest fighting men in the history of the world. We have never lost a major battle. No other fighting unit on earth can make such a claim. Now, attention!”

  The tent full of white sidewall haircuts snapped to attention. “Repeat after me: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”—the chorus of youthful voices stuttered out the words like they had never heard them before—”I shall fear no evil.” We repeated the second part more clearly: “For I am the meanest mother in the valley!” I loved it! I didn’t feel quite right about using the Lord’s word in vain, but I felt psyched enough to
go all the way to Russia and stop this crap where it started.

  “Saddle up!”

  My stomach jumped up to my throat. This was it, not a daydream. I was really going into battle. Half of me wanted to get into this war and get it over with. The other half wanted my mommy to wake me up for school before this dream got carried away.

  Ten minutes later I found myself in the back of a deuce-and-a-half truck bouncing up Highway 1 toward Hue. I didn’t even remember getting in the truck. “Are you all right?” The voice was coming out of a fog. “John, are you okay?” It was Chan.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  Red was sleeping against the tailgate. It was good to see him. I’d only known the guy for a couple of days, and I was hard-pressed to squeeze more than a sentence at a time out of him, but he radiated self-confidence, and some special quality in him, possibly his honesty, made me trust him immediately.

  The ride down Highway 1 was slow and bumpy. We passed another deuce-and-a-half that had been pushed to the side of the road. Its cab stuck into the air, and the front wheels lay mangled nearby.

  The ride got slower. Two huge American tanks appeared from somewhere to lead the convoy. A strange-looking vehicle pulled out from a smaller dirt road and was now bringing up the rear.

  “Chan, what’s that?” I pointed to the odd-looking vehicle. It had the bottom of a tank, but instead of a turret it had six big cannons, three on each side.

  “That’s an Ontos. A tank killer. Those are six 106s.”

  “That thing could knock out this whole convoy!”

  Chan looked at me with a friendly look of disdain. “Brilliant, Sherlock.”

  I did sound a bit “Gee-whiz,” but emotions I had never known were bouncing around from my brain to my stomach. My body tingled. I felt overwhelmed with expectation. I felt exhilaration like never before, then paranoia, then excited again. This is crazy, I had to keep telling myself. I have to control myself or I’m going to get killed for sure.

  I thought I heard artillery. A flight of Phantom fighter planes roared over our truck just above treetop level. Now the sounds of war echoed more clearly. My hands were clammy. My mouth tasted like vinegar. A skinny Marine sitting close to Red knocked on his helmet. Red peered from underneath the helmet with one groggy eye. The other eye remained closed.

  “Yeah?”

  The skinny guy hesitated then blurted out, “What’s it like?”

  “It’s a job.”

  “How bad is Hue?” asked another Marine. “I heard we’re takin’ heavy casualties.”

  Red pulled out a cigarette, then took his helmet off and removed a pack of matches from inside the liner straps. He looked like a Marlboro poster.

  “If you want to keep anything dry you better put it in your helmet right now.” The men started fumbling for their wallets. Chan and I had already done that. “Don’t worry about Hue. Just don’t go playing John Wayne. The battle is just about over. I heard we’re getting bridge duty.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “We guard the bridges on Highway 1.”

  “Is it bad?” blurted the skinny guy.

  “It’s skate duty. Slack city. You don’t have to hump through the bush except for a few patrols, and sometimes you get beer or Cokes off the trucks going by. Take advantage of it, man. It won’t last long. You’ll know what war is when you start humping thirty klicks a day in the bush with two hours’ sleep a night.”

  “What’s a klick?” a Marine beside me asked, already squinting like he was afraid of the answer.

  “One klick is a thousand meters. It’s for calling in artillery.”

  The men moved in closer to Red, hoping for that one piece of advice that might keep them alive. Everyone started asking questions at once. He held up one hand to stop the onslaught.

  “Now listen up. The smartest thing each of you can do is this: When you get to your squad, find a salt, somebody who’s been here awhile. Ask him what you have to know, stick with him, and do what he says. Keep that M16 clean or it’ll jam on ya. If you fall asleep on line, one of your own men might kill you and you’ll deserve it.”

  Twenty questions later we pulled off the road on the outskirts of the city. Sporadic gunfire echoed from somewhere up ahead. An old gunnery sergeant ran by our truck shouting, “Get off those trucks and spread out! Move it! Move it!”

  The trucks turned around and headed for Phu Bai as soon as we were out. The gunny shouted us into two columns, one on each side of the road, with a ten-yard interval between each man. Then he spotted Red. “Red, is that you? It’s good to see you. Boy, do we need a gunner.” He walked over to Red, turned his head, and spit out a shot of tobacco like a major leaguer. They shook hands. The gunny lowered his voice to say something only Red was supposed to hear. I heard two words too many: “… got killed.” The butt of a pump shotgun rested on the gunny’s hip. He wore special bandoliers full of shotgun shells, and small leather pouches full of more shells on his cartridge belt. He looked like my grandpa coming back from a hunting trip in West Virginia. He even spit like Grandpa. I didn’t know the Marine Corps allowed men to carry any weapon other than Marine Corps issue.

  Red followed the gunny to the front of the column, then we started a slow nervous walk down the dirt road. Sweat poured down me like a sticky shower, but a cool breeze blew over my face. Twenty meters later the breeze blew a sickening, rotting odor into my nose. I had the uneasy feeling I had just smelled my first corpse.

  Two hundred meters and a thousand horrible imaginings later we came to a small bamboo hootch. The hut turned out to be battalion headquarters. A quick roll call and we were sent to our respective platoons. I still couldn’t see the city, but the steady pounding of heavy machine guns rang closer. Black smoke billowed above the treetops and into the gray sky, then an explosion. A Phantom whisked by.

  Chan and I followed Red down a well-trodden path with heavy brush on both sides. We came to a small clearing and another hootch. A group of tired, dirty men stood near the grass and plywood huts sipping coffee out of C-ration cans. A tall, lanky character spotted Red first. His pitted face opened into a wide, ugly smile as he ran up with his hand out. He smelled worse than he looked.

  “You big mother!” He shook Red’s hand and slapped him on the back. “Man, you missed some real heavy crap. How was the hospital? Get any Red Cross girls?”

  “It’s good to see ya, Sam.”

  “I thought I heard you out here.” A young officer who looked as if he were just out of college stood grinning in the door of the hootch.

  “How’ve you been, Lieutenant?” Red gave a casual salute.

  “A lot better now.” The lieutenant came forward with his hand out. They exchanged a quick, firm handshake.

  “Who do you have with you?” the lieutenant looked at me.

  “Boots,” said Red. “0331s.”

  “Outstanding! Sam, take Red and these two down to the chief’s squad.”

  We turned to follow the ugly Sam. I noticed something pinned to his camouflaged helmet cover. Whatever it was, it was covered with flies. I moved closer to get a better look. It was an ear. A human ear. It looked brittle and baked grayish green from the sun. I wanted to ask him about it, but I hesitated, trying to remember his name.

  “Sam,” I said. Before I got another word out, the lieutenant started speaking.

  “And Red, send that stupid mortar man back to mortars before he kills himself with the gun. Break in the boots. They’re your new gun team.”

  “Sam,” I said again. “Is that an ear pinned to your helmet?”

  “Yeah, man. I used to have more, but they drew too many flies. I saved this one to suck on. Want a lick?”

  I laughed. “No thanks.”

  “Well, I do.” He took his helmet off and unpinned the ear, then stuck it in his mouth and sucked on it like a lollipop. I don’t know what my face looked like, but my mouth had no response. Even Chan was left speechless.

  Sam led us down a narrow path for about
two hundred meters when a driving rainstorm hit us with the monsoon fury we’d been told about. When we reached the squad, the men were relaxing in a muddy circle behind the remains of a cement wall and making no effort to stay dry. Faces seemed to light up as they recognized Red, and the most excited one belonged to a short, rather chunky Marine with “DON’T SHOOT I’M NOT A GRUNT” printed on his helmet and flak jacket.

  When Red said he was taking over the gun, the fat little man actually jumped into the air and clicked his heels. “Take this bull’s-eye off my back. I’m going back to mortars, baby!” With that, he threw on his pack and disappeared without so much as a goodbye or good luck.

  My stomach tightened. The situation looked worse every time somebody opened their mouth. Suddenly a machine gun opened up from the city. I hit the ground with a splash. When I opened my eyes I discovered Chan and I were the only ones ducking. The rest of the squad stood looking over the cement wall and laughing.

  I stood up cautiously and peered over the wall. Running down the street directly to my front was a black Marine. He weaved back and forth, trying to present a difficult target, but that wasn’t what was funny. He was pushing a small Honda motorcycle while balancing a television set on the seat. The machine gun opened up again. It sounded bigger, slower, and more powerful than the M60.

  “Chief!” Red shouted. “That’s a fifty! I thought the city was cleaned up?”

  “You thought wrong,” a deep voice answered. It belonged to a tall, dark-skinned corporal with a nose like a Roman’s and a chin that looked like it had been cast from iron. Though the closest I’d ever been to a real Indian was Tonto, even I could tell that this guy was the real thing. He was the only one not laughing. “There’s still a couple of fifties left. They chained ’em to walls so they couldn’t run. They’re too doped up to surrender.” The big Indian looked bored.

  The black Marine reached the cover of the cement wall, gasping for air and grinning an utterly happy grin. He hung on to the TV like it was a kid he had just rescued from a fire. He crumpled to the ground still smiling. No one noticed the lieutenant until he slid in like he was stealing third base. He looked at the black Marine as if he’d never seen him before. His mouth opened to speak, but the words weren’t forming very well.