Army Blue

by Lucian K. Truscott

  Finally, he made sure that a helipad had been cleared of obstructions so that the CO's chopper could land without blowing up too much debris, all neat and clean and tidy. It was.

  “Eltee,” called a voice from the other side of one of the 113s. “Can I see you for a short-short?”

  The Lieutenant found his platoon sergeant, Elroy Davis, hunkered down over a small fire, cooking his breakfast. A carcass of indeterminate origin was leaning over the fire, skewered on a bayonet. Lieutenant Blue didn't ask what it was. Sargeant Elroy Davis was a couple of years older than the Lieutenant, a career soldier from a place called Hot Coffee, Mississippi, and in Hot Coffee, not much was wasted in the way of edibles.

  “What's up, Sarge?”

  “We've got three dudes ain't got boonie hats or steel pots neither.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Simpleton, Repatch, and Strosher.”

  “When did you find this out?”

  “This mornin’. I knowed that new major's gonna be dippin’ in our shit, so's I had ‘em all do a uniform count. Simpleton, he ain't got no fatigue shirt neither.”

  “Well, you were on the ball checking that out for me, Sarge. Thanks. We'll cover the hat thing, and as far as other missing uniform parts, I'll tell him we've got a lot of shit out to the laundry. What's he going to know?”

  “Way I hear it, that new CO couldn't find his ass with a flashlight.”

  “Watch what you say, Sarge. Stuff has a way of coming back around and biting you right on your tail end.”

  “Yeah, I hear that, sir.” Davis turned his bayonet over to cook the other side of his breakfast.

  “You know when this colonel dude be comin’, sir?”

  “Nobody's even told me he's coming yet, Sarge. I just figure he'll show up, based on what happened last night.”

  “Yeah, Dirtball done tole me whatchew done on the radio. The men, they be owin’ you a trick or two for that one, sir.”

  “Forget you heard what you heard from Dirtball, Davis. Tell the rest of the men the same thing.”

  “Me? I heard somethin'? Not this little red rooster, sir.” Davis poked at the creature being grilled on the point of his bayonet and licked his finger.

  “Mmmm. Y'know what really gets it, sir? I sprinkle me some instant coffee, like a barbecue sauce. Gets that flavorfulness out there where's you can taste it.”

  “I'll remember that next time I'm cooking in the backyard, Sarge.”

  Davis smiled, wrinkling his eyes like a Buddha's.

  “You gots to get yo'self down to the Delta when this shit war's behind us, sir. I can show you some eatin’ you jus’ won't believe.”

  I'll bet, thought Lieutenant Blue. He swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Will do, Sarge.”

  Thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap . . . chopper blades cut the air into great chunks of sound . . . thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap . . . down below in the red dirt, it was an unnerving, dangerous noise . .. thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap . . . but up there in the air over the treetops, out of small-arms range . . . thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap . . . pure thriller-diller godlike motion with a rock-and-roll soundtrack . . . thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap . . . you knew you were on your way when you jumped a chopper and headed out there high above the jungle swoop-swoop-swooping deep into the war and safe above it at the same time.

  It was magic, it was Coney Island, it was TV, it was noisy, it was supercharged thrillhead willy-dilly, it was the Rolling Stones turned up to 10, it was dreamy and so wonderful and so . . . so . . . so . . . evil . . .

  The Lieutenant tilted his head back and shielded his eyes, looking over the treetops for the source of the noise. He wondered if it was breakfast or Lieutenant Colonel Halleck. On the one hand, he was hungry; on the other, he didn't give a shit. He was still half asleep, swathed in a cotton-candy fog, nothing could get through to him, everything sounded good, breakfast colonels, colonel breakfast, gimme a hot meal on the objective and I'll float myself over the edge into that daydream zone, a-whapdap slapback lovefalling whoopdeedoo bang-bang-thang like . . .

  Bring it on, man,

  dreamsicle lift-off

  thwapple-popple-dopple

  you know how it is,

  slip it on me

  hang it on me

  yak it down

  baby baby baby

  bring it on . . .

  After a while out there you started daydreaming in the Temptations mode, the Platters mode, the Contours mode, the Don Covay mode, the Sam and Dave mode . . . everything had a beat, you were always moving and grooving and swaying and baying and wherever you were you were dancing, dancing on “American Bandstand,” dancing in the street, dancing up the wall, dancing tight and close and slow with your nose in her neck and your hand on her butt, dancing dancing dancing to the music in your head, and all the girls in your dreams had bouffant hair and tight skirts and high heels all the boys wore white socks and blue jeans and knew the words to “Do You Love Me?” . . .

  "Do you love me?

  Do you love me?

  Do you love me?

  Now that I can dance . . .

  Watch me now

  Hey, shoop, shoop,

  Hey, whoop it up baby,

  Shoop, shoop,

  Hey, you driving me crazy,

  Shoop, shoop,

  Now that I can dance.”

  Thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap, in came the chopper, making music over the treetops, dropping dropping dropping straight into the LZ, whooooooosh the dusty wind whooooooosh, shoop-shoop-shoop -shoop it was shutting down, rotors slower slower slowly slowly dying dying . . .

  Hot meal! Yeah! Bring it on!

  The weapons platoon emerged from tracks and holes and bunkers and racks and latrines and surrounded the fat bird, lining up eager-faced for scrambled eggs and shit-on-a-shingle and coffee and canned juice and soggy toast and bacon that looked like worn-out shoe leather but smelled just like Mom's kitchen.

  Lieutenant Blue watched Sergeant Davis organize a make-believe line, something that would satisfy the mess-hall rats unlucky enough to have been picked for this boonie visit, slopping steaming piles on mess kits, pouring the bitter coffee, always looking over their shoulders like some gook was going to blast out of the treeline with a bullet with their names on it. Over on the side, two company clerks barked out the weapons platoon Mail Call, delivering love letters and bills and third-class promises of cruise vacations and nineteen-inch TVs, if only you'll send for this one-time-special-offer insurance policy, sir.

  Sir? they'd joke later. Ain't no sir out here but us assholes, and the only insurance policy we got is paranoia, puking in your poncho you're so scared, eat some speed, eat some more, man, stay awake all night and all day and eat some more speed and wait wait wait wait for incoming wait for ‘em to come through the wire on their bellies sappers and dappers and mean-ass little fuckers with knives in their teeth and death in their eyes . . .

  Insurance policies, yeah, that was a good one.

  The weapons platoon didn't mind the visitation from the real world, hooch-rat motherfuckers or no hooch-rat motherfuckers, they dug into the grits with a blistering determination that could have come from only one thing—three days of C-rations and empty promises and warm canteen swill water and heating up GI instant coffee over little piles of C-4 plastique explosive dug out of the backs of Claymore mines, boonie cuisine, gut-ream ookie-dookie that kept you up holding onto your balls puking and hoping your lunch was all you'd lose.

  “How ‘bout this shit, Eltee,” said Whoopie Cushion Ridgely, who got his name because he was always carrying around some kind of inflatable device the purpose of which was the supposed lessening of the pain of his hemorrhoids. Nobody believed Whoopie Cushion's hemmies. They just thought he was weird. He was hell on wheels with a grenade launcher, though, shot a fat round up a water buffalo's ass one time, clean as a whistle, left water buffalo all over the side of a freshly stuccoed gook hooch, grab-ass good-time graffiti, Whoopie Cushion called it. Weird guy.

 
“Good grits, Ridgely,” said the Lieutenant, digging into his plate.

  “They bringin’ us more a’ this shit tonight, Eltee?” asked Whoopie Cushion with a mouthful of eggs.

  “I doubt it, Ridgely. The way things are going, I'm not sure we'll be here tonight.”

  “Shit, Eltee.”

  “Yeah, Ridgely, shit.”

  Before the platoon finished eating, the breakfast chopper lifted up and away and was gone, thwap-thwap-thwap-thwapping its way back to the land of hooch honeys and hot showers and deodorant sticks and an immediately noticeable absence of incoming. Hooch-rat cooks and clerks and jerks hung out the chopper door, waving like they were lifting off from a fifty-yard-line appearance at a homecoming game. All that was missing was a marching band in white shoes and hats with big purple pompoms bouncing on top.

  It was the middle of the afternoon when the chopper carrying Lieutenant Colonel Halleck thwap-thwap-thwap-thwapped its way over the jungle and dropped into Firebase Zulu-Foxtrot. By that time, even Dirtball had dragged a razor over his cheeks, the weapons platoon looked as good as it was ever going to look, and all the red dirt they could find had been redistributed from one weapon to another in a kind of red-dirt musical chairs run to ground on a Wilson Pickett soul man soundtrack supplied by AFN, the Armed Forces Network, the military radio station that supplied the rock-and-roll soundtrack of the war.

  He was beautiful.

  Lieutenant Colonel Halleck stepped out of the chopper and straightened the crease of his fatigue pants and rubbed each boot toe behind his knees, shining, polishing, getting that mean gleam burnish on his boots.

  Halleck looked just beautiful, everybody could see it, like a rock star stepping on stage, he was so fine. His fatigues weren't a uniform, they were pure costume, starched fresh, boots shined, you'd have gone blind if you caught the reflection off his white-sidewall head shave. The sun hit him like a super-trooper spotlight, center stage. He squinted and smiled and shielded his eyes with his hand and he was perfect, just delicious, his own mother wouldn't have recognized him, he was so beautiful.

  Lieutenant Blue waited until the chopper's rotors had shut down, then he advanced toward the new CO and reported.

  “Lieutenant Blue reporting, sir. Welcome to Firebase Zulu-Foxtrot.”

  “I thought you called this place Firebase Bravo,” said Halleck, returning his salute.

  “We changed it, sir. Bravo was bad luck. Zulu-Foxtrot is working for us. We haven't been mortared in twenty-four hours.”

  “Well, we're going to have to fix that, aren't we, Lieutenant? If you're not drawing fire, you're not doing your job, is what I always say.”

  “Yes, sir. That's what I say, too.” The Lieutenant spun on his heel and headed away from the chopper, concealing the grimace on his face. Over by his track, the weapons platoon was lined up for inspection.

  Sergeant Davis saluted.

  “Weapons platoon ready for inspection, sir.” Lieutenant Blue could smell whatever Davis had grilled for breakfast from ten feet away. Halleck returned Davis's salute and headed down the line, apparently oblivious of the stench. So far so good. Twenty-four of them lined up standing at attention, twenty-one men short of Table of Operations & Equipment regulation forty-five-man platoon strength. Typical. Never enough bodies to go around. Everybody was short. Everybody but the VC. They had a seemingly endless supply of bodies. Their TO&E read “unlimited.”

  Lieutenant Blue followed Halleck as he walked the line. Halleck paused and executed a left-face in front of each man, bantering with the troops, where-you-froming them, when-did-you-last-write-homing them, how's-the-chowing them. The Lieutenant looked over Halleck's shoulder, down the line. Four men away was Repatch. He didn't have a boonie hat. Halleck was chatting with Whoopie Cushion, and Cushion was laying his hemorrhoid rap on him. Blue saw Thompson's hat pass behind the men's backs down the line until it got to Repatch. Repatch put it on and grinned. Halleck moved down a man. Whoopie Cushion doffed his hat as Halleck left-faced, and Cushion's hat made its way down the line hand to hand. Mallick grabbed it and put it on. Down the line went Halleck, and down the line behind the platoon's backs went the boonie hats. He commented to the six who weren't wearing proper fatigue shirts, and they in turn gave the standard uniforms-out-to-the-laundry-sir excuse, which seemed to satisfy him. He was big on the laundry, bigger still on starch, a panacea for many soldierly ills.

  “Starch ‘em up and shine ‘em up and they'll follow you to the end of the earth,” Halleck told Lieutenant Blue as Sergeant Davis dismissed the platoon.

  “Yes, sir, I agree wholeheartedly,” said the Lieutenant, leading the way to his 113, where Dirtball waited with coffee and doughnuts copped from the breakfast chopper. Dirtball was heating the coffee in a canteen cup over a little pile of C-4 behind the 113. The Lieutenant could smell it. He wrinkled his nose. Nothing like C-4 coffee. No, sir.

  Halleck stopped at the 113 and rested a beautifully shined jungle boot on the ramp.

  “I want to talk to you about that radio transmission last night, Lieutenant,” he said, looking sternly at Blue.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don't know, sir. Radio just went out, I guess.”

  “I tried to raise you for two hours, Lieutenant Blue. Did you know that?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Where's your RTO?”

  “He's making coffee, sir.”

  “What has he got to say? Does your radio have a dead battery?”

  “No, sir. Magee caught a hop back to Battalion yesterday and brought six batteries back with him. The battery is okay.”

  “Then how do you explain all the static? How do you explain your radio going dead on you?”

  “Jamming, sir?” said the Lieutenant, trying hard to sound confused and uncertain.

  “Jamming. Mmmmm. Never thought about that,” said Halleck. “I've got a memo about jamming on my desk right now. Mmmmm. Jamming. Could be it.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the Lieutenant, trying hard to sound hopeful.

  “Now I want to talk to you about the men's haircuts. And your haircut.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You know how I want them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have the men sent back to Battalion three at a time until you get this haircut thing under control. You first, Lieutenant. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dirtball interrupted with a cup of lukewarm coffee and a stale doughnut. Halleck munched and sipped happily, seated on the 113's ramp in the shade. Dirtball gave him a napkin. Halleck used it on his boots, polishing their toes. Dirtball looked at the Lieutenant and shrugged. The Lieutenant signaled him to get the hell away from the track. Dirtball disappeared.

  After he was finished with his snack, Halleck took a stroll around the perimeter, checking out the platoon fortifications and fields of fire. He just strolled and nodded, strolled and nodded, hands clasped behind his back in the manner of Winston Churchill. Everything was apparently neat and clean and tidy.

  When the perimeter inspection was complete, Halleck reminded the Lieutenant about the haircut schedule and bade him farewell. The Lieutenant saluted. Halleck walked over to his chopper, and the pilot started his engine, the great rotor blades shoop-shoop-shoop-shooping through the air. But that's all they did . . . shoop-shoop-shoop-shoop . . . shoop-shoop-shoop-shoop. The engine wouldn't catch. The rotor blades shoop-shoop-shoop-shoopedto a stop. Halleck got out of the chopper.

  “Do you mind if I use your jeep to get back to Battalion?” asked Halleck. “The chopper won't crank.”

  “No, sir. Welcome to it,” said the Lieutenant. “I'll have Mallick drive you.”

  The Lieutenant signaled Mallick to get the jeep. In a moment, Mallick pulled up to Halleck and the Lieutenant, who were crouched in the shade of the Lieutenant's 113.

  Halleck climbed in the jeep's passenger seat, and Mallick started the engine. Then Halleck said something to Mallick and he cut the eng
ine. Halleck walked over to the Lieutenant. He called him aside.

  “Are these roads around here secure?” he asked the Lieutenant, checking his watch. It was seven-thirty.

  “Gee, I don't know, sir. You tell me. You've sent me out on three night missions on these roads. You've got better intelligence at Battalion than I have out here. You tell me if they're secure, sir.”

  Halleck glared at him. He checked his watch again.

  “Lieutenant Blue, I seem to have left my weapon back at headquarters. Do you think I could have the loan of your M-79 until tomorrow?”

  The Lieutenant looked at Halleck for an instant and smiled.

  “No, sir. That would be against Army regulations, which forbid the loaning of weapons signed to you.”

  Halleck glared at him. He walked back to the jeep and sat in the passenger's seat for a few moments, obviously calculating his chances of making it back to the battalion base camp, traveling down dirt roads unattended by American troops at this time of night. The sun was low on the horizon, just over the lip of the jungle. There were maybe forty-five minutes until it got dark.

  Lieutenant Blue stood there next to his 113, watching Halleck fret. The Lieutenant just stood there, arms folded across his chest. Around the perimeter he could see most of the men watching the scene unfold.

  Finally, Halleck climbed out of the jeep and walked over to the Lieutenant.

  “I need to use your radio, Lieutenant,” he said softly.

  “Dirtball? Get the radio,” the Lieutenant commanded. Dirtball arrived with the radio, cleared the whip antenna of obstructions, and switched it on.

  Halleck called back to Battalion and ordered another helicopter. He did so in a very low voice. Then he glared at the Lieutenant again and walked over to the helicopter and waited.

  Twenty minutes later, the replacement chopper thwap-thwap-thwap-thwapped into view. The chopper landed and Halleck and the other chopper pilot got on board and the chopper thwap-thwap-thwap-thwapped over the treetops into the gathering darkness and out of sight.

  The Lieutenant watched the fat bird until it disappeared, then he turned around. The whole weapons platoon was standing behind him, waving their T-shirts and boonie hats good-bye.