“I think I'm beginning to get it,” said Jannick. “You got yourself substituted for another guy, then you created a new identity, and you've been living that identity all this time.”
“Goin’ on two years now, man.”
“You've been over here two years?”
“You got it, man.”
“Didn't you want to go home when your tour was up?”
“Home? Where's that?”
“How come?”
“Nothin’ for me back in the world, man. At least over here I had the weapons platoon, man.”
“You'd rather stay with the weapons platoon than go home?”
“Hey, dude. It's what I do. Like, I walk point, see? ‘S what I do, man. They ain't got no jobs walkin’ point back in the world, man. Even you got to know that.”
“And you did this . . . you walked point ... for the weapons platoon?”
“Yeah, man. We had it fuckin’ good, man. Had ourselves our own little logger out in the fuckin’ bush, man. Nobody out there jumpin’ in our shit alla time. Jus’ the Lieutenant and Sergeant Davis and the rest of the dudes and me. Like a family, y'know, man? They was like the only family I ever had.”
“And now they're gone. The old weapons platoon, I mean.”
“Yeah. Now I got nothin’. Now I ain't even got my platoon no more. They done disappeared, just like me.”
“What happened? Where did they go?”
“Gone like immediate, man, w-w-w-w-w-w-h-h-h-h-h-h-t-t-p-t, just like that, man.” The man with red eyes lifted his hand and waved it away, like he was shooing a fly.
“Gonzo, man. So fuckin’ quick you'd a’ thought a fuckin’ typhoon done got ‘em. Gone, man. W-w-w-w-w-w-h-h-h-h-h-h-t-t-t-p-p-p. In the fuckin’ air, gonzo, man, whew, like that. Speed-a-light style, man. Scary.”
“What happened to the weapons platoon? How come they, uh, disappeared them?”
“We was out on this patrol one night, ‘bout a week ago, man. I was, like, walkin’ point. Jus’ like always.”
“Who? Who was on the patrol?”
“Me. The Lieutenant. Whoopie Cushion. Strosher. Woodley. Moonface. Dirtball. That's all of ‘em.”
“You were on patrol ...” Jannick reminded the red-eyed man. His eyes kept drifting off, and his head would loll to the side and he'd look as if he was going to fall asleep, then his head would snap upright, his eyes would focus, his jaw muscles would tense, and he'd start talking again.
“We was on this little ol’ patrol one night, supposed to go outside the wire a coupla kliks and set up a little ol’ ambush. We was jus’ about two kliks out when we come up on this clearin’ and there was this plane and they was loadin’ it fulla these big bundles and the Lieutenant, he sees it's a bunch of ‘Merican dudes around the plane, so he stands up and says, ‘Hey, fellas,’ and they started firin’ at us with about twenty Kalashnikovs, and Strosher got hit, an'—”
“Wait. Wait! Who was loading what plane? Who fired at you? Who shot your guy Strosher?”
“Buncha ‘Merican dudes wearin’ blue jeans and T-shirts. They was throwin’ them bales on that plane to beat the fuckin’ band, man. They start firin’ at us, and all hell broke loose. Moonface, he laid down some M-60 fire on ‘em, and we pulled Strosher in, and the plane took off and the dudes, the ‘Merican dudes I mean, they went into the woodline across the clearin’ and the whole fuckin’ thing was over, man, in like a minute.”
“What kind of plane did you say it was?”
“I didn't say. The Eltee, he said it was a fuckin’ DC-3, but I wouldn't fuckin’ know one fuckin’ plane from another fuckin’ plane. I guess it was a fuckin’ DC-3. Eltee said it was.”
The red-eyed man was losing it. He kept drifting off, head lolling from side to side. Jannick took his arm and sat him down behind a sandbagged ammunition bunker.
“Then what happened?”
“We set up our little fuckin’ ambush, and in the mornin’ we got ourselves back inside the wire, and the Eltee, he goes to see the CO about Strosher gettin’ killed by friendly fire . . . you know, you got to file one a’ them reports every time a dude gets hit by friendly fire. Anyway. The Eltee goes to see the CO and he comes back out to the perimeter later that afternoon and the next mornin’ he was gone and by afternoon the whole platoon comes back in here from the bush for the stand-down, and the rest of ‘em was gone.”
“Except for you.”
“ ‘Cept for Repatch.”
“They just disappeared.”
“One minute they was here, next minute a coupla choppers come in and they was gone, man.”
“Did you get a chance to talk to the Lieutenant before he left?”
“Nope.”
“What was he like? Lieutenant Blue, I mean?”
“Lieutenant Blue? Pretty good dude for a Pointer, you know what I'm sayin'?”
“Not really.”
“He was straight, didn't take no shit from us, none from upstairs neither. Good platoon leader, Lieutenant Blue. Best one I ever had. Don't ‘spect I'll see ‘nother like ‘im.”
“How about the others? Did they feel the way you did about Lieutenant Blue?”
“You fuckin'-A right they did. Dude stood up for our asses more'n once, tell you that. Got our asses paid by Finance out in the bush when that Battalion wasn't payin’ nobody in no bush. Used to chopper us back to Division so's we could go to the PX an’ shit. Not many men in this man's Army care no more. But Lieutenant Blue, he cared about shit. He cared about us.”
“Did you see or talk to any of the others before they left?”
“Nope. Soon as I seen what was happenin’, man, I hightailed my ass back to my hole and I laid low for a while. Them choppers lifted off an’ that was the last I seen of ‘em.”
“When did they get these replacements in?”
“Next day.”
“How about you? Nobody noticed you were still here?”
“Hey, man. Nobody notices Repatch, ‘less I care for it to happen, you dig?”
“Yeah. Sort of.”
“I ain't here, man.”
“Right.”
“You didn't see me, man. You ain't seem’ me right now. It ain't me you're listening to.”
“Got you.”
“You turn around, man, and I'm gone from here, ‘fore you know it, gone like a cool breeze on a hot day, man.”
Jannick looked into the man's red eyes. The man put his hand on Jannick's shoulder, right where he had first felt it. The man gave a little push, turning him around. Jannick staggered a few steps and looked around.
Repatch had disappeared.
FIVE
* * *
* * *
A Refuge in the Facts
Firebase Zulu-Foxtrot Day Five
* * *
* * *
He sat on the aluminum side bench inside his track, typing on the Olivetti his mother had given him, which rested on a stack of sandbags across from him. He typed automatically, half-dead with fatigue from being awake all night on patrol, half-alive from the adrenaline that poured through him like hot sauce, spiking his emotions, zeroing him out, focusing every cell in his body on the task at hand. He licked his lips. They were dry and cracked, and his mouth felt as though hot wind was blowing across sand on his tongue. Sweat poured off his brow into his eyes. He blinked in the dim light inside the track. He couldn't see the paper in the typewriter, so he followed a form in his head like a path through the madness.
Subject. To. Thru. Paragraph one. Paragraph two. Paragraph three . . .
And in there, too, he could hear the echo of his father's voice, softly chanting ...
Just tell the truth, son. Just tell the truth, son. Just tell the truth, son.
Okay, Dad . . .
The Lieutenant was angry and afraid. He'd lost a man to friendly fire, and it was his fault. If he hadn't stepped from the treeline and hailed the men loading the plane . . .
If... if... if...
If he could just get through this r
eport, somehow things would be different. Somehow he'd understand. Somehow he'd make them understand . . .
The men could hear the click-click-click of the Olivetti through the open ramp of the track as they sat around on ammunition crates and C-ration boxes, shoveling in cold breakfast C's. They were still dug in where they'd been the night before, in a perimeter some six kliks south of the battalion night logger.
They were still in Laos.
Subject: Casualty Due to Friendly Fire
To: Lt. Col. Henson W. Halleck, Bn CO
Thru: Capt. Henry G. Gardner, Co CO
1. The Weapons Platoon suffered a KIA due to friendly fire last night, 12 Oct 1969, at approx. 0200 hrs.
2. The dead man is Cpl. Lester G. Strosher, Serial #865-09-3466, U.S. Army Reserves.
3. The circumstances surrounding the casualty due to friendly fire are as follows:
At approx. 0100 hrs., I was contacted on the company net by Rattail Six, Capt. Gardner, and ordered to send out an ambush patrol approx. 2,000 meters NW of my plt. position at grid coordinates 77560834 on Bn sector map 24-Lima. I immediately organized a six-man ambush patrol with myself commanding. We left the wire at 0125 hrs. and headed NW for approx. ½ hr. Approx. 1500 meters out, near a trail intersection in the approx. area of the intended ambush, I halted the patrol. At that time, my patrol point man reported the sighting of something suspicious about 150 meters ahead. I joined the point man and using my binoculars determined that a crude grass airstrip had been fashioned in a clearing in the trees, and what looked to be an unmarked DC-3 was being loaded at the far end of the field. Approx. 15 men were loading and guarding the DC-3. Because I did not at that time know the status, friendly or unfriendly, of those loading and guarding the DC-3, I ordered the patrol forward along the woodline next to the grass airstrip.
When the patrol was opposite the DC-3, I determined, again using binoculars, that those doing both the loading and guarding of the DC-3 were American male civilians dressed in what looked to be blue jeans and camouflage T-shirts. The guards were armed with weapons appearing to be Kalashnikov assault rifles. We could hear the guards closest to us conversing in English. At this time I attempted to contact Rattail Six on the company net, but due to a malfunction of the PRC-25 or the distance of our position from Rattail Six's location, I was unable to raise him on the radio. Because the civilians were clearly American, I stepped out of the woodline and attempted to contact the civilians verbally. The moment I called out to them, the guards turned their weapons and laid down intense fire on our position. Cpl. Strosher was hit in the stomach by this fire and died shortly thereafter.
I dropped back into the woodline and ordered the patrol to return fire. There then ensued a firefight lasting approx. three minutes. During this time, the civilians completed loading the DC-3 and the airplane took off. Once the DC-3 was gone, the remaining guards retreated into the woodline on the far side of the grass strip, and I gave the order to cease fire.
4. Because the wound suffered by Cpl. Strosher had killed him, and no one else was in need of medical attention, and because I had no way of knowing the intentions or the whereabouts of the American civilians who fired on the patrol, I decided against attempting to return to the platoon night defensive perimeter and risking running into the American civilians with whom we had the firefight. I continued the patrol and established a patrol ambush at grid coordinates 76420941, Bn sector map 24-Lima. There was no further contact with either NVA regulars or American civilians for the duration of the hours of darkness.
5. Ambush patrol was terminated at 0515 hrs., 13 Oct, and the patrol returned to platoon night defensive perimeter at 0535 hrs.
6. The DC-3 observed during last night's patrol was unpainted and unmarked. The civilians loading the plane and guarding it wore no distinguishing insignia of unit, rank, or branch of service, though all were dressed similarly in a mock uniform of blue jeans and camouflage T-shirts.
7. The packages being loaded into the DC-3 were approx. 1 ft. by 2 ft. by 2 ft., brown in color, appearing to be burlap-wrapped.
8. Cpl. Strosher was medevaced at 0545 hrs. and removed to the battalion night defensive perimeter to graves registration.
9. There was no other loss of platoon manpower or duty hours due to the friendly fire taken by the patrol.
Matthew Nelson Blue IV
2nd Lt., Inf, USA
Plt Ldr, Wpns Plt
The Lieutenant signed the casualty report with a pen his grandfather had given him on the day he graduated from West Point. He attached a memo cover slip to the casualty report, shoved both into an inter-unit routing envelope, and waited for the resupply chopper.
Thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap . . . the resupply chopper's rotors cut the early morning mist . . . thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap . . . chopping the mist like meat . . . thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap . . . chunk-chunking in over the trees . . . shoop-shoop-shoop-shoop-shoop . . . settling into the red dust . . . shoop-shoop-shoop-shoop-shoop . . . shutting down the green bird . . . shoop-shoop-shoop-shoop-shoop . . . the sad sweet song of the air war coming to rest.
Mallick and Sergeant Davis and a few others unloaded boxes of ammunition, Woodley picked up some medical supplies, Dirtball sniffed around, looking for warm food, Whoopie Cushion was directly in front of the chopper with his arms out, twirling twirling in the dust, imitating the chopper coming in for a landing.
The Lieutenant wandered over and handed the routing envelope to the pilot, instructing him to hand-deliver it to Captain Gardner when he got back to Battalion. The pilot, a warrant officer who couldn't have been a day over eighteen, screwed his face into a look of Official Recognition and bassoed as low as he could:
“Rodge, suh.” He drew out the word “rodge,” short for “roger,” like an F-4 pilot who had fifty missions too many under his belt and a twenty-year fondness for cheap cigars and John Wayne. The Lieutenant looked at the kid and shrugged.
Whatever.
He wandered back to his track and lay down on his air mattress. Dirtball brought him a cup of coffee hot off Sergeant Davis's breakfast fire.
“You oughta check on Repatch ‘fore he gits himself into somethin’ he ought'n to, sir. He's looking a bit blinky, you ask me, Eltee. But then agin, you didn't ask me . . .”
The Lieutenant didn't have to penetrate the grime on Dirtball's face to see concern in his expression. They needed Repatch. The platoon needed him. The next night patrol needed him. The Lieutenant needed him. Repatch seemed to be able to make a kind of awkward sense of the war. At times the Lieutenant thought Repatch was all that stood between himself and madness.
“Where is he?” he asked.
“Over there behind his track, sir,” said Dirtball. “He ain't lookin’ too good, Eltee. I wouldn't be botherin’ you, sir, if n it wasn't that Repatch .. . you know, sir . . .”
“Yeah, I know,” said the Lieutenant.
He shuffled through the dust to Repatch's track and found him standing on his head beside the track, his back and legs against the outer aluminum wall of the track, forearms forming a V with his forehead resting between his index fingers and thumbs, which were joined together in a triangle.
The Lieutenant was so tired he could barely move or think. But this was Repatch. He needed Repatch tonight. He would need him tomorrow night. He had to do something. He tried to think fast, but all he could come up with was:
“Hey, Repatch, what's going on, man?”
It wasn't often that he was “familiar” with his troops, but this was one of the times. They said at West Point that an officer should never get “familiar” with his troops, but they were full of shit, and the sad thing was, they knew it. How do you fight a war next to a man and not care about him and show that you care?
You can't.
“Gettin’ me some rest, sir,” said Repatch. He opened his eyes and looked at the Lieutenant and grinned.
“You okay, Repatch? I mean . . .”
“Looks a little funny, I know, sir, but it's good
for the circulation,” said Repatch. “Clears things up, ya know?”
“I guess.”
“Some bad shit last night, sir. Out on patrol, I mean. Them dudes was serious ‘bout gettin’ in our shit. You know who they was, sir?”
“I don't have a clue, Repatch. I imagine I'll be hearing something about them tomorrow. I just filed my casualty report. Battalion ought to get back to me pretty soon. My guess is, either they'll know what that was all about, or they'll be as curious as I am about what was going on out there last night.”
Just then the morning resupply chopper thwap-thwap-thwap-thwapped its way overhead on its way back to Battalion.
“Get some sleep, Repatch. We're probably going to be putting out another patrol tonight. It's looking like we're going to be here for a while.”
Repatch slumped into the dust and rolled to his feet like a cat. It was surprising how agile he was, especially after having been out on patrol all night. His eyes were coal black, red-rimmed with fatigue. His fingers were long and bony and clawlike, and when he rubbed his eyes he looked like a great bird grooming himself.
“Right on, sir,” said Repatch. “I'll be ready for ya.”
He glided away, soundless and scrawny and hawklike in the morning sun.
The Lieutenant took his own advice and shuffled back to his track and curled up on his air mattress atop the sandbags. He was asleep the moment his head touched the rolled-up olive-drab towel he used for a pillow. He did not dream. He just lay there like he was dead, but he wasn't. He was alive.
It was noon. Sunlight flooded the inside of the track when the Lieutenant opened his eyes. Someone was tugging at his shoulder.
“Eltee! Eltee!” It was Dirtball. “Eltee! Cap'n wants you on the radio.”
“Yeah? What's up?”
Army Blue Page 23
