by Ed Miller
Perhaps because of the oddness of the whole situation, our division headquarters sent word that we weren’t allowed to use the motor grader and needed to get rid of it. This seemed so illogical that my fellow Seabees and I agreed that there must have been a miscommunication. Surely, the leaders of our battalion misunderstood, and we would soon be allowed to use the Galion. The grader operators said it was the best grader in our whole inventory.
But no. We soon learned that “get rid of it” meant exactly that, so two groups vied for the prize. The builders of our battalion requested that they be allowed to remove the engine, so they could reconfigure it as a generator to provide electricity to a local school. Their request was denied, as they were told, “If one school has one, then all the schools will want one.” Once again, division headquarters sent word to get rid of the Galion motor grader. The other group, the mechanics, thought it would be sporting to have a contest to see who could guess the correct number of minutes the grader’s engine would run if it had no oil. They drained the oil from the motor and removed the oil filters, and then fired it up and let it run wide open, at full throttle. I think it ran between seven to ten minutes before it rattled its last gasping breath.
After, the mechanics used cutting torches to cut the grader in half and a dozer pushed the Galion into the burial pit its operator had dug. It was then covered, and out of sight. The destruction and burial of an excellent machine was absurd, but nothing compared to the absurdity that came two days later when division headquarters sent word for us to remove the engine so the builders could install it at the aforementioned schoolhouse. Hey, at least the mechanics were excited to have learned the engine could run without oil for up to ten minutes.
Also preposterous: the used pieces of equipment were loaded onto barges and pushed off into the sea. We were told this was cheaper than sending all of it back home, but we should have just left the used equipment for the North Vietnamese to use after Saigon fell.
Two weeks before we left Vietnam, a dozen of us were sent twenty miles north of Camp Haines to complete a road project the previous battalion had not had time to finish. We were housed at an Army firebase, and when dinnertime rolled around on our first night, we only found one chow hall, the Army officers’ mess. We entered, filled our plates, and enjoyed a hot meal while the Army officers glared at us, wondering why we were eating with them. When we left in search of a beer, we noticed the officers’ mess was well lit. Its electricity was being provided by one of our battalion’s generators, and our MCB (US Navy Mobile Construction Battalion) emblems affixed to both sides looked awfully good. This made us proud!
The next morning, we were not so politely ordered to stay out of the officer’s mess. We were enlisted men, not officers, so we were told to eat C rations just like the Army’s enlisted men did. We begrudgingly ate our cold cans of ham and eggs and then headed to the jobsite for the day. For dinner, we were suffering through more C rations when, much to our surprise, an Army officer stopped by our hut and implored us to join them in their mess for meals the remaining few days we were there. That same morning, we had been ordered to get out, but now, he wanted us back. What the hell was going on? Our master chief soon made us aware that he had hooked his jeep to the generator during the day and hauled it to an off-site location. The generator was the Army’s sole source of electricity, and powered their lights, hot water, and, most importantly, the electric stoves in their kitchen. He said that as far as he was concerned, the Army must have misappropriated the generator, since it was clearly labeled as US Navy Seabee property. He informed us that he had rightfully reclaimed what surely belonged to us. This master chief was one of the older recruits who had been instructed by a judge to either join up or go to jail. He was an extremely likeable fellow, and even though he was our boss since his rate was an E-7 and most of us were E-4s or E-5s, he hardly ever cared enough to make decisions. For every nine out of ten questions he was asked, he answered, “Not knowing, I would hesitate to say,” or a similar statement. Truthfully, stealing the generator was probably his only worthwhile act while he was in South Vietnam.
After we accepted the Army officer’s invitation to dine with them, our master chief towed the generator back to the mess hall and reconnected all the wires. We enjoyed hot breakfasts and dinners for the remainder of our stay at the firebase just south of Quảng Trị, and the officers realized that we weren’t such bad guys, even though we were lowly enlisted men. It really is surprising how quickly folks can change their minds when you turn their lights out.
While finishing the previous battalion’s work, our small detachment was assigned several tractors and lowboys, which we used each morning to haul our equipment to the jobsite. We were working in gleaming white sand and the temperature was over one hundred degrees each day. Throughout the day, rain would fall; the sun would come out and cause steam to rise from the sand; it would rain some more; and then more sun and more steam. The weather made us feel like we were in the middle of a gigantic sauna; teak benches would have completed it.
Fortunately, the girls at the convoy point sixty miles away must have had sisters outside Quảng Trị who also knew the drinking habits of American soldiers, and since the temperature required that we stay hydrated, we were more than happy to purchase a few ice-cold beers from them. By the time lunchtime rolled around each day, we had been drinking those soothing beverages for six or seven hours straight. Although our work was physically exerting, we felt no pain thanks to the ice-cold beer.
We were required to keep our weapons with us at all times, but one of the guys, Bob, the friend we’d pulled out of his locker during the mortar attack, figured his M16 would stay much cleaner if he left it in his parked truck rather than having it ride with him on his bulldozer all day. This worked okay for him until we returned to our trucks for lunch one day and he noticed his weapon was no longer there. What a fix he was in—high as a Georgia pine from hours of drinking and now missing his M16.
Earlier that morning, one of our guys observed the usual number of kids around the site, including our angelic beer servers. Now, at lunch, all the boys had hightailed it and were nowhere to be seen. Thankfully, our beer girls stayed on duty.
Bob asked for my help, so we composed ourselves enough to act like badasses, although two shirtless and extremely suntanned guys with Colt 45s resembled armed surfers more than anything else. Beer dictated that our best course of action was to march right into the middle of the closest village and demand the gun back. We knew maybe five or six Vietnamese words or expressions, such as đi đi mau (meaning either go quickly, or get the hell away from me); beaucoup, pronounced “bookoo” (from the French word meaning a lot, or many); numma ten (from our English “number ten,” which they said to mean you’re a cool dude); numma ten thou (from our English “number ten thousand,” which qualifies you to be a piece of shit, and that you can go slam to hell); and boom boom? (meaning “Would you like to have sex?”), so we were sure they’d understand us. Bob and I walked about two miles down a well-worn path to find a small welcoming committee. Somehow, we communicated our need to speak with the village elder, and sure enough, we were led to Papa San’s hut.
By this point, what we really needed were a few more beers, but we accepted Papa San’s (repeated) offers for hot tea, hoping we weren’t about to be poisoned. The tea was poured into regular drinking glasses, and Bob and I watched strange leaves swirling in the liquid. Realizing we had to die someday anyway, we downed the surprisingly tasty glasses of tea, although we declined his offer of refills.
We painstakingly explained Bob’s missing M16 predicament, including the fact of the young boys’ presence at our jobsite. We spoke slowly, enunciating each syllable, and we thought we might be getting our message across to him. All of a sudden, Papa San scared the shit out of us when, quite unexpectedly, he loudly screamed something at another Vietnamese man sitting barely three feet from us in the hut. That man jumped up, ran outside, a
nd began emphatically yelling. Other villagers then started yelling too, and all Bob and I could do was wonder what the hell was going on and what we had done to cause their strange behavior. We figured we were done for and were about to die, but, for some reason, most likely alcohol, these outbursts struck us as just-plumb hilarious, and we damned nearly choked trying to keep from laughing in the old man’s face. Our laughter came close to causing us to spit out our mouthfuls of excellent tea.
While the villagers were yelling, Papa San rose and informed us he would do all he could to find the gun, or at least we think that’s what he said. We offered our thanks by bowing and shaking hands, and then we either walked or staggered back to where the trucks were parked. During our walk, each time we looked at each other, we broke into uncontrollable laughter. Fifteen minutes later, as we related the story to our buddies and were all cackling heartily, Papa San walked up the path to where we stood, accompanied by a sullen kid. He asked, we think, if Bob’s truck had been parked in the same location all day. We assured him that it had not been moved and then watched as he walked over to the truck and stood by the passenger-side running board. From there, he took four or five steps directly away from the truck, and then turned left ninety degrees and took a few more steps. There, he stopped, bent down, and dug in the sand a few inches, and voila—the M16! The kid was looking down and wouldn’t make eye contact with anyone. I’m sure he was thinking of the punishment he’d receive on his return to the village.
Without a doubt, Bob and I were certain of the fact that drinking beer had helped us recover his M16, so we thanked Papa San by giving him a six-pack of cold ones, plus all the C rations we had left. I’ll bet the little culprit’s arms were sore by the time he carried those heavy items back to his village, because Papa San loaded his ass down.
On our last night at the Army camp south of Quảng Trị, our detachment of twelve thought it only fitting to celebrate going home by having a few beers while we rehashed some of our “in country” war stories. Our few beers turned into many beers, our war stories grew in size, and soon we were reveling. Our celebration ended up lasting the entire night. Just about the time the sun was coming up, someone hollered, “Damn, look at Wally!”
We gathered by Wally’s bed as he lay flat on his back. By the looks of it, he had, for quite a long while, been placing his empty beer cans on his chest, and the large number of cans indicated that others had added their own empties. He was bare-chested, owing to it being in hotter-than-hell Vietnam, and his entire chest, stomach, and parts of his thighs were covered by empty cans.
We began applauding Wally’s efforts when the door of our hooch suddenly opened. Our commanding officer strode in, followed closely by his executive officer, and then by more officers than I could count. We just knew our CO had come to thank us for completing the road project on time, and although I don’t remember his exact words after he and the executive officer stopped at the foot of Wally’s bunk, I do remember they were directed at all of us and they were far from complimentary. But to Wally’s credit, he had quite a skill for balancing beer cans (or maybe he was too inebriated to move). He held perfectly still while the CO spoke and didn’t let a single can fall from where it had been placed.
The original orders for that morning had been to pack up and leave Quảng Trị, and take all our equipment back to our base camp. To our dismay, we realized just how badly we had screwed up when we were ordered to “go out there and act like it is just another work day.” Our punishment, even though none of us were anywhere close to sober, was to operate our heavy equipment in the 115-degree heat. The heat had somehow caused some of us to fuck up work we had thought we’d already completed.
I spent all morning sweating and wanting to hurl. But orders being orders, we did our best. In the early afternoon, probably timed to coincide with when everyone was nearing sobriety, we received word to head ’em up and move it out, which meant that we could gather our belongings, including all our earthmoving equipment, and go back to Camp Haines.
Back at the camp, we found our 850 fellow Seabees reveling in the awesomeness of leaving Vietnam the next day. They were having such a good time because the CO hadn’t found them shit-faced at daybreak that morning and they hadn’t been ordered to act like it was just another work day. Instead, they’d spent the day packing their belongings, and various types of contraband, such as M16s, Colt 45s, bayonets, and anything else they could find, into duffle bags and footlockers. The twelve of us coming from Quảng Trị—now sober, but very hungover—were told that we had already celebrated, so we needed to use what time we had left in Vietnam to pack our shit.
I chuckle every time I remember the look on the CO’s face as he stood at the foot of Wally’s bunk, or the look on our executive officer’s face as he looked down at all those empty beer cans perched on Wally’s chest. I could swear his suppressed grin said, “Damn, I wish I could do that.”
Most veterans don’t talk much about their war experiences, and I have mostly been the same way since I left active military service at the end of 1969. But in recent years, memories have returned to me that I have not dwelled on for a very long time—most of them lighthearted, humorous, and alcohol-infused. I do recall difficult times, and certain sounds stick in my head: the thump, thump, thump, thump made as B-52s dropped their bombs along the Hồ Chí Minh trail in the A Shau Valley, twenty miles west of our camp, and the explosions that came from the large craters they blasted, and the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh from sixteen-inch shells fired from the USS New Jersey as they flew over Da Nang. Maybe I have suppressed the worst memories for so long that I can no longer access them. I honestly don’t know.
Of one thing I have crystal clarity: my memories of Vietnam are much different than those of the brave soldiers who had to fight and kill every day; who traipsed through, and slept in, snake-, scorpion-, and leech-infested, Agent Orange-sprayed jungles. Every time I think of the Army soldiers we saw in the Da Nang airport—those possessing the thousand-yard stare—I am very thankful that I have never suffered the nightmares those soldiers probably had, or still have. Nor have I suffered the PSTD symptoms, or the Agent Orange-related health issues that many of those who served in Southeast Asia had. I thank all of them for their service, and I’m grateful I did not have to walk in their shoes.
I admit that many of my memories were either caused, or made much more hilarious, by the enjoyment of alcohol, mostly beer. Without the beverages, what stories would I have? “Arrived at the convoy point, had to sit for five hours with nothing to do, read some, and smoked cigarettes”? I’m not really sure why, but the group of guys I worked with and called friends never smoked pot, otherwise I could have sat at the convoy point in the middle of a purple haze. Lots of the other guys smoked what they claimed to be the best shit they’d ever had, and maybe it was. I suppose drinking was good enough for us. Whatever it takes to get you through.
To be honest, we probably drank so we would not be plumb scared to death of being killed. If I had become an Army ground-pounder after being drafted, I think I could have handled actual combat, but waiting around to be shot at or hit by mortars, or step on a land mine, just left too much to contemplate and worry about. And there were some good perks to being a Seabee. Besides the amazing food we had at our camp, we also were able to enjoy Da Nang’s My Khe Beach, which we called China Beach, from time to time. It had beautiful white sand and was a welcome escape from reality where men and women GIs sunned themselves and cooled off in the South China Sea. It didn’t matter that the beach was ringed with barbed wire, it still gave you a feeling of being somewhere much more serene than war-torn Vietnam.
Being a truck driver also helped make my experience tolerable since it gave me a unique vantage point from which to observe Vietnam’s sights and culture. I drove through the same villages and towns several times each week, including Huế, the Cathedral City. I saw new construction by villagers, some of whom used pilfered telephone po
les for planks or made siding from cardboard C ration boxes. I got to see South Vietnamese people more than some of my fellow soldiers, and they struck me as being mellow and kind. The women, many of whom were quite beautiful, wore white tops, black pants, and large straw or bamboo sun hats. Most either walked or rode bicycles everywhere they went. Many older women chewed betel nuts to achieve a slight buzz and a warming sensation in the body. It wasn’t hard to spot a betel nut chewer; their teeth were dyed red and they were always spitting out the scarlet juices. Small, elderly women could hold more weight on their shoulders than most of the big GIs, sometimes carrying two four-foot-tall bundles of roots. They could also haul two pigs or two baskets full of chickens.
The South Vietnamese kids were curious. They wanted to learn about us Americans, and always smiled at us. They walked, or ran, everywhere on their bare feet, and picked up everything GIs left behind to take home to their families, just knowing something useful would become of these items. The young boys rode water buffaloes as the animals pulled plows through rice paddies. The young girls served us ice-cold beer, and never ran out.
Some Vietnamese military men walked hand-in-hand as they strolled along the roads. Some were cruel, pushing civilians out of their way as they strutted along, and I hardly ever saw them smile. But I doubt I would smile if my country had been at war since 111 BC, when China conquered what is now the northern part of Vietnam.
Smoke was everywhere, ever present, and charcoal choked the air from the burning of various roots. At daybreak each day, you would see the bare asses of hundreds of Vietnamese people of all ages, as they bent over to use the Perfume River, which crosses through Huế, as a giant outhouse. At dawn one day, on a sampan on a tributary of the Perfume River, I saw a woman relieve herself off the leeward side, then draw a pan full of water from the wayward side to use for fixing the family’s breakfast rice.
