Guns Up!

by Johnnie Clark

  Anger swept across the faces of the column. The gunny sent two men ahead to see what had happened. The rest of the column sat down, as silent as the jungle itself. Only the staccato sound of the rain bouncing off my helmet broke the dead silence. The ground vibrated with a second explosion.

  The man in front of me turned. “Get into a perimeter. Pass the word.”

  We spread into a hasty perimeter. Swift Eagle called for his squad. Seven men ran forward. I grabbed Chan.

  “They need a gun team.”

  Chan was already up and removing his pack.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  I stood up. A friendly hand pushed me back down. Corporal James stood over me.

  “Stay here, John. I already sent Paunchy’s team up.” Sanchez was the platoon’s only other gunner, known as Paunchy Villa because he was short, chunky, and Mexican-American. A huge black mustache that covered his mouth, and machine-gun ammo crisscrossing his chest, made the image complete.

  We waited. Ten minutes passed. Still no sounds.

  “Hold your fire! We’re comin’ in with wounded!”

  Friendly helmets poked through the tangled brush. Two men carrying one wounded Marine by his feet and arms struggled through knee-deep mud. It started raining more heavily. I couldn’t see Jackson yet. Then more helmets came through the brush. Three men carried another wounded Marine, his face streaked red and white with blood and rain. Then Swift Eagle burst through the brush with Jackson over his shoulder.

  “Corpsman!”

  Doc rushed over to the chief and helped him lay Jackson down gently.

  “How are the others, Doc? Cudar looked bad.” Swift Eagle’s expression never changed, but his tone was serious.

  “Cudar’s dead,” the corpsman answered without looking away from bandaging Jackson.

  I shouted at the chief, “How’s Jackson?”

  Sudsy tossed a green smoke grenade into the center of the perimeter and started spitting coordinates into his radio faster than any mouth in the Corps.

  “Hey, Doc,” I shouted. “How’s Jackson?”

  “He’s okay.”

  Twenty minutes later a rickety Korean War–era helicopter with a giant purple heart painted on both sides followed the swirling green smoke to the ground. It landed with a splash, throwing mud into the faces of the men who rushed toward it with the wounded. A boyish face peered hesitantly from the hatchway of the old chopper. The baby-faced replacement jumped out, sinking into mud up to his knees. From the far side of the perimeter someone started cursing. Sanchez ran at the chopper, screaming curses half in Spanish and half in English. “I told you I’d kick your butt!”

  All eyes turned to the center of the perimeter. The chopper lifted off with the dead and the wounded as Sanchez reached the freckle-faced boot who was still stuck in the mud. Sanchez sloshed up to the replacement and started slapping him senseless with both hands. The freckle-faced replacement regained his balance from the assault and managed to wrestle Sanchez to the ground.

  Two men from Sanchez’s gun team finally pulled them apart, only to have both men lunge at each other again. This time they hugged each other like lost brothers.

  Sudsy got the scoop on the story and passed it on as we moved out again. The replacement’s name was Simmons. He and Sanchez were best friends from the same Indianapolis high school. Sanchez had told him to join anything but the Corps. Normally the whole scene would be worth a couple of laughs, but Jackson was the seventh casualty in ten days, and we hadn’t fired a shot. It was hard to smile. Out of the other six casualties, two were probably crippled for life and Cudar was dead.

  My skin felt like cellophane holding in anger. I wanted revenge. I was beginning to hate. I forced any thoughts of God out of my mind. I didn’t want my hatred softened.

  The rest of the day drifted into obscurity, like the day before and the day after. Each hour went by one step at a time: watching for trip wires with every movement, trying to put your foot exactly where the man in front of you put his. It felt like the kid’s game of avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk, the only difference being the penalty. Hitting the crack in this game might cost you a portion of your body.

  Someone in Alpha took the fatal step every day or so. Sudsy picked up medevac calls over his radio and kept us posted on the bad news. The news never came easy. We all had friends in the other platoons. I felt helpless. Agonizingly helpless. The feeling was becoming too common. Morale bottomed out.

  We had started out as individuals. We looked at things in different ways. Some feelings weren’t different; they were contagious. Feeling the wet, sticky debris of what was a friend a second earlier hit you in the face after he steps on a 155 round sends hatred through a man like very few things can. The hatred builds when there’s no fighting back.

  After weeks of this we no longer looked at anything differently. We became a unit. An angry unit, with no exceptions. We had one intention. Find the little slimes and “take names.” I hadn’t heard that phrase so much since boot camp. It meant find the enemy, in this case the 308th NVA Regiment, and kill so many of them that they would no longer be considered a combat unit.

  Craving for revenge infected us like a virus and built steadily with each new casualty. I wanted to kill as many as possible. I looked forward to it with lust. I felt older each day, eighteen going on forty.

  April 30th. We started humping back toward An Hoa. I knew what was up. They brought us in to base camp every couple of months for new jungle utilities (clothes), weapon repairs, ammo, and one hot meal. We usually went back to the bush the same day. No sense spoiling us.

  Three thousand meters later Private Jones fainted from heat exhaustion. It wasn’t unusual. If anyone forgot their salt tablets, the heat would get them. Doc rushed by me to tend to Jones, and from the look on his face I wasn’t sure if it was a mission of mercy or murder.

  “Take your time, Doc. I need the rest,” I said as he stumbled over the M60 beside me.

  “He didn’t forget his salt tabs!” fumed the young corpsman. “He just wants out of the bush!”

  I looked at Chan as Doc stormed on to the front of the column.

  “Boy, he’s ticked at the Corps today,” I said.

  “I don’t blame him,” Chan said. “He joined the Navy to avoid combat. Did you get a chance to talk to that boot, Simmons?”

  “Yeah, I did. He said the Beatles put out a new double album, and protesters and fags were holding hands in marches, and skirts were so short he couldn’t talk about it. I love legs!”

  “He asked me why everyone was so angry,” said Chan. “I told him how many men we lost this month. Poor guy, I think I scared him to death.”

  “We must really have picked up his spirits,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “ ‘Cause I told him if he didn’t get killed the first three months he’d make it.”

  “Saddle up!” The eternal order sifted through the column.

  The march to An Hoa felt like an angry funeral procession. The only thing missing was a casket. I tried not to think about the lost friends, but it was no use. Even my eyes felt violent. The faces near me looked about as unfriendly as I felt. It should have been a routine resupply march. It wasn’t. Except for the constant marching, nothing felt routine.

  The timing was all wrong for a twenty-four-hour trip into civilization where typewriter pushers, rear-echelon pogues, and base camp artillerymen were having an interesting trip to the Far East. They drank cold beer, ate hot meals, slept out of the rain, smoked dope, played with village harlots, and wrote the folks back home more war stories than Ernie Pyle. I was jealous and bitter, and I knew it.

  As we entered the village of An Hoa, we looked as if a giant rock ape had dragged the platoon through the swamp by its heels. Vietnam had its own unique way of ripping, rotting, and eating away your clothes, your body, and your sanity. There was constant rain, mud, blistering heat, and hungry insect life. There was the stink of the Vietnamese jungle and the
sickening sweet smell of rotting dead. A touch of malaria was burning my body. The bottom of my left foot looked like raw hamburger from a rotting fungus infection. And of course there was the fatigue. Marching all day and fear of death at night induced utter weariness always.

  Some of the men were half naked. I was one of them. I had torn the seat and crotch out of my trousers because of dysentery. No stopping for head calls. I drained as we marched. More than clothes got tattered; I was walking on my morale.

  The men’s faces looked drawn with fatigue. Each had the same menacing stare—like drunks about to get nasty. Some had full beards. I envied them. I wanted to look as mean as I felt, but I couldn’t grow one yet. Others just looked hard. We hadn’t used soap and water for a couple of months. Toothbrushes cleaned and oiled your weapon. Your weapon was your life. As the old gunny so aptly put it, “Our breath could knock a buzzard off a crap wagon from twenty yards.”

  Our appearance and odor were nothing new, but the tight, murderous faces had just been unwrapped. It went beyond the gung-ho Marine look. Revenge became personal. Each brow pinched as though straining under a heavy invisible burden. Anger clearly stamped into each face. Not one man smiling.

  It was visible to the children of An Hoa. I’d never once seen them miss a chance to beg C-rations off returning Marines. Not this time. They ran at us as usual, some yelling, “You okay, GI?” others just yelling like any kids in a school yard. They stopped cold on the edge of the dirt road as if sensing danger, staring silently at our faces filing by.

  A group of ARVN soldiers stood laughing together near the barbed-wire gate that separated the village from the camp. They spoke that language that has no pause, just a continuous chatter that grated on one’s nerves. It was like a scratch on a blackboard to my ears.

  One of the ARVNs pointed at us and cackled with laughter, like we were clowns in a parade. His uniform was tailored and starched. A voice behind me yelled at Sam, “Hey Sam, what good’s an ARVN?”

  Sam shouted from the rear of the column, “An ARVN ain’t worth a pimple on a Marine’s rear end!”

  The ARVN stopped laughing and shouted, “Du-me, Marine. De-de mow, Marine!” I wasn’t sure of the exact translation, but it didn’t mean “Have a nice day.”

  That lit an already short fuse. I hit the laugher with the butt of my M60. For a second I felt good. I watched as the rest of the ARVNs got clobbered by the men around me. By the time the lieutenant reached the scene, seven ARVNs lay in various positions of semi-unconsciousness. I was sorry for what I’d started.

  The lieutenant stomped out his cigarette. He looked mad. He turned away from the battered ARVNs and scanned across the silent faces of the Marines.

  “Swift Eagle! Are any of ’em dead?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What happened, Corporal?”

  “They wondered what it was like to defend their own country, sir.”

  “Are you saying, Corporal, that they requested a demonstration of Marine Corps hand-to-hand combat techniques in order to better defend themselves and their country?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Very well. Move out.”

  For the first time in a week a smile stretched across the hard face of the platoon. I felt a little better, but not much. I liked Lieutenant Campbell more now than I ever had before.

  An Hoa base camp consisted of one portable airstrip made of pierced steel planking. One artillery unit, one chow hall, one bar for officers, one bar for office pogues, and rows of large, dust-covered tents for troops coming and going. A few small, slightly more permanent structures dotted the camp for various supply purposes. The camp was hidden away behind three large rolls of concertina barbed wire, sandbag machine-gun bunkers, and an array of trip flares and claymore mines.

  After a quick formation we got two free hours to sleep before the big event—hot food. The big, dusty tents were lined with cots. Not as soft as the mud I was used to, but a luxury I wasted no time in taking advantage of. I slipped into a lovely coma only to be slapped into consciousness by the roar of what was unmistakably an angry Indian.

  “Pogues!”

  My eyes opened like I’d been stabbed with a cattle prod. Men instinctively jumped from their cots to the ground while others with their eyes still closed groped for their weapons. Swift Eagle stood at the open end of the tent with clenched fists.

  The chief rarely complained, but when he did it seemed intelligent to keep your distance and be agreeable. He had been wounded seven times and had a couple of medals for bravery, for what specific action I never knew. This was his fourth tour in Vietnam, all four as a grunt. He refused to stay in America.

  Sam stood up, fidgeting with an unlit cigarette. “What’s wrong, Chief?” he asked hurriedly as he glanced outside the tent.

  The Indian looked at Sam indifferently. “Those typewriter pushers are wearing camouflage utilities! Not a single grunt in Alpha has camouflage!”

  “I noticed that too,” Sam said. “Maybe they’re hidin’ from all that ink. Let’s kick butt on a couple of pogues our size and go back to the bush in style.”

  The chief just stared. He didn’t talk much, but when he did it was short and to the point. An Indian John Wayne if ever there was one. The blacks in the platoon put it best: “He’s the dude who keeps you out of the green plastic bag.”

  Everyone in the tent looked ready to do anything he said. Just then two MPs and a frail-looking man wearing nothing but his boxer shorts and brand-new jungle boots burst into the tent in a rage. Boxer Shorts looked like he’d been mugged by a bear. He glared at every face in the tent, which wasn’t easy considering one eye was a throbbing purple plum and the other swollen shut, with the eyebrow covering the eyelid. He evidently didn’t see what he wanted and stormed out, cursing, raging in a frenzy toward the next tent, with the MPs glued to his rear end.

  A grin tried its best to crack through the stonelike face of Swift Eagle. All eyes riveted to the chief. I personally had yet to see him actually smile, though some of his expressions seemed more pleased than others.

  He took a quick glance outside the tent, then reached inside his shirt and proudly pulled out a brand-new set of camouflage utilities. The tent erupted in a gut-busting, sorely needed belly laugh. I laughed until I cried. Then I saw it. A confirmed, documented grin broke across the stone face of the Indian.

  Twenty minutes later the company stood at attention in front of the top sergeant for full inspection. Beside the top stood the frail office pogue sporting another new set of starched camouflage utilities. A fine pair they made, camouflaged from head to toe, and with a Marine Corps shine glistening off their new jungle boots. Corporal Boxer Shorts now had eyes as black as his boots. I bit my lip to keep from laughing. The top sergeant breathed in heavily and stuck out his lower lip.

  “No man will enter the chow line without a Marine Corps cover on his Marine Corps head. There will be another inspection before chow. Any man with unshined boots and improper Marine dress will not enter the chow line.” The top rambled on with his insanity. Men began shuffling their feet. Others started spitting and kicking at the dirt like angry children being scolded. It felt like any positive gains we may have acquired by getting a day’s rest had just been negated.

  Chan looked at me with a blank stare. “Ghastly timing. He is obviously uninformed.” Chan sounded almost sad. He turned his stare back to the top sergeant, who was beginning to shout through his list of commands.

  “Every man will have a haircut and shave.…”

  By the end of the inspection the mood was complete. Completely hostile. We got one piece of good news. We’d be staying in An Hoa overnight.

  At midnight I was awakened by the explosion of two grenades.

  “Did that sound close?” Swift Eagle asked the question for me. No one answered.

  Outgoing artillery serenaded us the rest of the night. The next morning in formation the lieutenant informed us that the top sergeant had been fragged. He wasn’t dead but had lost
both legs. I knew there would be an investigation, but even Sherlock Holmes couldn’t find fingerprints on a grenade.

  It sure wasn’t the first time a Marine got murdered by another Marine, but in this case it left a bad taste in my mouth. It would have been better if he had died. The whole incident had the smell of pettiness.

  Talking was at a minimum on the way out of An Hoa. If anyone knew who fragged the top, they were keeping it to themselves. Whoever it was had to be worried. Justice could be swift and cruel in Vietnam. If the identity of the person or persons was discovered, their next firefight would probably be their last.

  The top sergeant wasn’t exactly popular, but he was still a Marine. He had been through World War II and Korea.

  Ten miles out we found ourselves sloshing through seemingly endless fields of rice paddies. It looked like a treeless desert of knee-deep mud and blood-sucking leeches. We tightroped along the paddy dikes of an especially wide paddy, trying hopelessly to keep our feet dry. Halfway across, a sniper started taking potshots at us. The distant sound of his AK47 told me he was too far away to hit anything. No one paid any attention except the new boot, Private Simmons. Simmons dove into the mud face first. I laughed until my eyes watered.

  An eternity later we came upon a small oasis of solid ground with trees, bushes, and overgrown hedgerows.

  Chan nudged me from behind with his M16. “This farmer must have truly appreciated his solitude,” he said.

  “I don’t blame the little hermit. If I lived in this hole, I’d want to be as far away from people as possible.” I slung the M60 machine gun off my shoulder as we neared the oasis. “That shade sure looks good. It has to be a hundred twenty today.”

  “At least that,” Chan said. “My brain feels like an overbaked potato. I hate this helmet. We should be wearing soft covers instead of these ten-pound pots.”

  Chan rambled on, uncharacteristically, about the intense heat.

  “My, my, PFC Chan,” I taunted. “Feeling a bit feisty today, are we? Maybe you thought you were joining the Navy.”

  Chan gave a response that sounded Chinese, though he swore he couldn’t speak the language.