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None of us was prepared for the scene we encountered at the office on October 29. When we walked through the door, we found the center overrun with officers, mostly first and second lieutenants but also an occasional captain, all wearing sidearms. One man--God only knew where he acquired it--had a second world war M-1 carbine slung over his shoulder. They were everywhere in the building, walking, standing, sitting. We couldn't use our desks because they were occupied by officers counting stacks of money. One of the other clerks told us that these officers, called class A agents, came to 92d Finance every month exactly two days before payday to pick up the money to pay the men in their units. Some drove into Cam Ranh, and others from the outlying areas came by helicopter. Before they signed for these mountains of cash, the officers meticulously counted every bill to verify the total they were receiving. There was a buzz about one lieutenant who was returning as a class A agent for the first time since a disastrous incident four months earlier. Traveling alone, he had placed the canvas bag containing the money next to him on the front seat of the jeep. As the vehicle was rolling across the My Ca float bridge, it bounced, and the bag with the cash had been thrown over the side of the bridge into the water. Because the current was swift there, the $65,000 payroll had vanished completely, never to be found. For several months it was widely reported, according to our source, that the lieutenant would be made to pay back the money from his salary, which a conservative reckoning showed he could do if he stayed in the army until he was 85 years old. After a thorough investigation, however, the young officer had been exonerated of any wrongdoing and released from the liability, much to his relief. The commotion in the office lasted only two hours, after which the officers were gone, leaving us to our daily routine. Later in the morning Sergeant Barker informed all the members of our team that a new helicopter company had arrived in Dong Ba Thin, and since this unit was billeted next to the 14th Engineers, pay team #10 had been chosen to go to DBT and in-process the company. The artillerymen on our team acted as though we engineers were responsible for their misfortune in drawing this extra work, but we assuaged them somewhat by making them believe that DBT was a fun place to be, a fabrication that would be dispelled the instant we arrived. When Barker first told us about the work to be done across the bay, I was hoping we would go the next day because I was scheduled for company detail then, and I could have avoided it. Unfortunately, the DBT trip was the day after, which meant I had to spend the next day cleaning the latrine, the washroom, and the shower, with the help of some other men. The washroom was a mess these days, ever since we had been ordered not to shave in the barracks, an edict that I was sure originated in Colonel Landry's office. When Sergeant Slatz had informed us of the new shaving rule, Bradley had jokingly suggested that soon Landry would have us standing for a barracks inspection. Wagner, however, had scoffed at the idea, saying no one was that crazy, not even Colonel Landry. The company detail was more work than I had anticipated because it poured down rain the whole day, and everyone tracked wet sand into the latrine and washroom, making them impossible to keep clean. By day's end, I was sick of cleaning supplies and mops and buckets, and I actually said a faint prayer to Anyone who might be up there, asking to be promoted to E-5 so I could have my name removed from all the extra duty rosters. Going back to DBT for the first time in a month was very peculiar for several reasons. First, the trip up Q/L 1 made me nervous and brought back the dreadful feeling of wanting to look over my shoulder all the time to see if I was being shot at. Second, while the compound was still familiar, I had the sense that I had been gone for many months, rather than 30 days. Also, returning to DBT created in me that feeling of spatial displacement I always experienced when I visited as an adult some place I had lived as a child. Somehow, everything was smaller in reality than I remembered it to be. Sergeant Barker helped us set up shop in the headquarters office of the aviation company, and we worked steadily till noon, when we broke for lunch. After eating, Bradley, Wagner, and I went to our former barracks to see what remained of the old crew. The few we still knew were there: Altman, Penney, Stone, and Benson, the 1st Cav reject. While they greeted us warmly enough, I had the feeling we were perceived as escapees who had sneaked back to some evil place of imprisonment to view the wretched plight of those left behind. Since we didn't have long to talk and swap stories, Altman suggested we ask Barker if we could stay behind for dinner, and he, Altman, would drive us back to Cam Ranh later in the evening. Like so many things people do without thinking, this seemed a good idea at the time, so we did it. Barker hardly needed persuading, probably because he thought we were old enough to take care of ourselves. In any event, he agreed to the plan. The afternoon went slower than the morning had, which permitted me an opportunity to look more closely at the pay records we were working with. The vouchers for this unit had been computer generated for the last six months by some kind of automated system whose output I had never seen before. Sergeant Barker was only vaguely familiar with the program himself, and he said he thought the vouchers all came off a computer at the Finance Center in Indianapolis. Whatever it was, it must have been experimental still, because the records were replete with errors. One man I in-processed told me he had been trying to have a mistake in his allotment corrected for four months, and every time a new voucher arrived in his file, it had the same error as the one before. Since there was nothing I could do to help him, I simply told him that all progress involved some pain, an easy thing for me to say since the suffering wasn't mine. Barker and the artillerymen packed it in and left without us about 4:30 P.M., when we had finished the job. We engineers went to the EM club after dinner with the four we had visited at noon, and later we all repaired to the bunker outside the barracks to drink warm beer in the dark and watch the jets take off across the bay. Penney talked about some sinister, but murky, rumors that the battalion would be moving north to Quang Tri. Nothing concrete had ever come of these rumblings, he said, and they had died out. This news caused me some momentary anxiety, impacting as it did our already uncertain tenure at the 92d Finance Detachment. If the battalion moved, no doubt we would move with it, which to me would be a very unwelcome turn of events, now that I was safe in Cam Ranh. Altman said that things in the 14th weren't as fun as they had been before Steiger, Alvarez, and the others departed. Everybody in headquarters company took life too seriously now, he said, which made the days and weeks seem longer and tougher to get through. The other three appeared to agree with this assessment. I sympathized with their situation, but I found myself feeling glad I had moved across the bay to Cam Ranh, where my new surroundings isolated me from these comparisons with the past. I was fairly certain that Bradley and Wagner were of the same mind as I, for they listened to Altman's lament with nothing to say. By 8 P.M. we were all fairly looped, including Altman, who was to drive us back. We left anyway in a deuce-and-a-half with Penney in the cab next to Altman, and Stone, Bradley, Wagner, Benson, and me riding in the back. Everybody had his weapon, except the three of us from the 92d. I talked to Benson, who, though he was quite drunk, chatted amiably about stereo equipment and other items he wanted to buy before he rotated back to the U.S. in less than two months. Though he wasn't the brightest guy in the world, Benson was sociable enough, and I never could understand why Steiger had taken such an instant dislike to him. After going over the float bridge, we stopped near the airfield at the end of the runway to watch the jets come screaming in over our heads. It had been a long time since I had done this, and I loved the experience tonight as much as ever because it was such a rush. It also brought back memories of my early days with the battalion. After twenty minutes or so, two MP's in a jeep stopped on the road and asked us to move on, which we did without any argument since Altman didn't want them to find out he was driving under the influence. We had gone approximately ten miles when suddenly Altman decided to leave the main highway at a place where he shouldn't have, and we all yelled at him to stop. He said the dirt road we had entered was a back way to our barracks that he had discovered on one of his runs to the 92d. Satisfied with that explanation, we let him continue. The road was very bumpy because it was only roughly graded, plus there were no street lights at all and no oncoming traffic. In fact, our vehicle was the only thing moving in either direction, which made it so dark it was eerie. After what seemed an interminable time, we had arrived nowhere, so everybody began grousing at the driver. Finally, Benson shouted for Altman to stop so he could get off the truck and take a leak, and we came to a halt abruptly, still on the road, going up a hill. Bradley, Benson, and I jumped off the back and stumbled through the dark a short distance to urinate. Afterward, instead of climbing up the side of the vehicle, where the ascent was easy, we all leaped up at the back. Bradley and I made it in just fine, but Benson fell off, disappearing completely from view. Thinking we were all in, Altman took his foot off the brake, causing the truck to roll backward several feet before the clutch could engage. "Stop, stop, Goddamn it," Bradley screamed. Altman hit the brake, and the truck finally came to a halt. "Jesus, I hope we didn't crush him," Wagner said, his voice shaking. I jumped down to the ground immediately, half terrified at what I would find beneath the right back wheels, which was where Benson would have hit the ground. It was so dark below the vehicle I had trouble seeing at first, but then I saw Benson's prostrate form. The tires had stopped about 18 inches from his head, and he was just lying there, laughing to himself, seemingly oblivious to the danger he had faced. I grabbed his arm and pulled his body toward the center of the truck, fearing it might roll back further. He crawled out and stood up, still laughing, and I pushed on his butt to help him into the truck. "Jesus, you gave us a real scare," Bradley said, extending a hand to Benson. "Don't do that again." Five minutes later we crested the hill and saw our barracks in the distance. When we arrived, Altman and the others came inside to inspect our new refrigerator, and they were suitably impressed by it, as well as the bunk beds. "Cool place you got here," Stone said. "I wish I could get assigned somewhere in Cam Ranh." After the others left, I told Bradley and Wagner how scared I had been when I thought the truck had run over Benson, and though we talked about this incident for awhile, I couldn't get it off my mind until I fell asleep. On Thursday and Friday I was put on sandbag detail all day, even though I was behind schedule with my work at the office. Though it was November now, the temperature both days hovered around 95 degrees. It was so humid, I thought I had died and gone to hell. At the end of each day, my shirt was crusted white with salt from the sweat on my back, and, on Friday, the shower remained empty until the water truck arrived at 9:30 P.M. The next day, Saturday, November 4, I went before a promotion board at headquarters of the 35th Engineer Group in Cam Ranh, and, of 20 men, I finished second in scoring by the panel. By Sunday, I was almost exhausted, so Bradley, Wagner, the Chief, and I agreed we would go to the Vietnamese village to unwind. None of us had been there before. Though referred to as "the village," it was only a small assemblage of rickety buildings down on the water's edge on the bay side of the peninsula near the wharves. The sides of the structures were made of the same beer can steel sheets I had seen everywhere in Vietnam, and most of the establishments in the village were bars catering to GI's. As we stood in the street trying to decide which house should have our custom, we noticed a Vietnamese girl about ten years old leading a blind man--possibly her father--by the hand from bar to bar. He played the guitar and sang Vietnamese songs, while the girl passed a hat to take up money. I couldn't help wondering whether the singer had lost his sight in the war, either this one or the last. We went into one of the joints and sat at a table covered with a red and white checkered cloth. Within minutes a young Vietnamese woman had taken our order for a round of no-name beer. Music was playing, and everyone in the bar seemed to be in a festive mood. This would be fun, I thought. We could just sit here and pass some time drinking, while watching the interaction of the soldiers and the hookers. If one had a powerful enough imagination and could overlook the fact that all the men were dressed in OD green clothes, one might almost believe he was somewhere in the world other than Vietnam. Unfortunately, my powers of invention were not that meteoric, so I settled for the notion of simply enjoying some time away from the barracks. When our waitress brought the beer bottles, she did a curious trick in opening them. Her bottle opener had a rag about ten inches long attached to the butt end. After slipping the opener under the edge of the bottle cap, she pulled the rag taut against the side of the bottle, where she held it in place with her left hand. With her right hand, she slapped down hard on the butt end of the opener, causing the bottlecap to snap off and fly through the air like a projectile. This feat was very amusing, and soon we began to applaud the outcome whenever it was repeated, no doubt a sign of how desperate we were for any kind of entertainment. There were approximately 50 EM in the bar and probably 8 to 10 mostly young prostitutes, not all of whom were in the bar proper at the same time. These women would go from table to table, talking and flirting with the soldiers, in the hope of soliciting some business. When they discovered a likely mark, they would take a chair at the table if one were available, or, if not, continue to stand, bantering with the potential customer until the enterprise came to fruition or fell through, in which latter case they moved on to another table. When one of the women found a taker, she invited him to a series of cubicles at the back of the bar, where the requisite activity occurred, provided the vendee was not too intoxicated to perform, which was often the case. The cubicles were no more than six feet by four feet, with ceilings sometimes as low as five feet, requiring most of the men to crawl into them, after lifting a flimsy curtain that covered the entryway. Usually, the only furniture was a thin mattress or a straw mat. It was amusing to watch the men disappear into the hallway behind the bar, one or two at a time, each with the girl of his choice, and to see them emerge five or ten minutes later, disheveled and sweaty. Five dollars didn't buy much time, to say nothing of love, even in Vietnam. Some of the johns were so drunk they would return to the bar in their underpants, with the rest of their attire draped over an arm or wrapped around their neck. An unpleasant aspect of this trade, for those who bothered to notice, was the frequent failure of the girls to "freshen up" between customers. Also, while condoms were constantly recommended by the military, they were no more than an unpopular option with the enlisted crowd, and, consequently, venereal disease--usually gonorrhea--was prevalent. There was a running joke about one man at the 92d who had been in country for ten months and who had contracted the clap as many times. His routine was to go to the village and, in a fit of passion, to expose himself to the disease. Three days later, with symptoms of painful urination, he would go to the medics, who injected him with penicillin and told him not to consume any alcohol for three weeks, at the end of which time he was pronounced cured. After which, he immediately returned to the village for another shot of the clap. This chain of events occurred regularly on a 30 day cycle, more or less, perpetuated by a man who was, in all other respects, an intelligent person. The apocryphal part of the story went like this: our hero experienced such frequent discomfort while standing over the urinal, he asked the command to install a handrail on the wall, so he could squeeze it to help endure the pain. We stayed at the bar for two hours, enjoying our "33" beer and soaking up the ambiance, such as it was. Later, while standing at the bus stop several blocks away, we saw a Vietnamese man trotting down the road bearing a load of cardboard. Disassembled and flattened, cardboard boxes had been banded together to form two large bundles about two feet thick, each attached by ropes to a wooden rod which the man bore across his shoulders. Conservatively, the cardboard weighed 200 pounds, while the man carrying it, at about 5 feet 4 inches tall, couldn't have weighed more than 90 pounds. The trick apparently was in the gait, for as the man slid his feet along in a slow run, the two bundles moved rhythmically up and down, alternately bending and unbending the rod over his shoulders. "That cardboard must be worth some money," Bradley said. We continued to watch till the man was out of sight. "It's nice to see somebody profiting from this stupid war," the Chief said. "It might as well be them as anybody else. God knows I'm not getting rich." "Amen to that," Wagner added. On November 16th I received my promotion orders advancing me to Spec-5. At last, I was a "bird sergeant," a position so exalted that I was permitted to buy hard liquor for the first time since coming to Vietnam. The first thing I did, however, was to go to the NCO in charge of the duty rosters and give him a copy of my orders, which would relieve me from KP and the other company details, such as cleaning the latrine and showers. The next thing I would have to do, when I had the chance, was venture to the PX to buy cigars for my friends, in keeping with a long-standing tradition of unknown origin. Later, in the barracks, Bradley read my promotion orders and said, "Congratulations, you're a speedy-5. Does that mean I get my Southern Comfort now?" "Maybe," I said. "It depends on how much respect I get from here on out." "I suppose you'll be moving across the way," the Chief said sarcastically. "I don't know," I said. "I haven't given it much thought." The Chief was referring to my eligibility to move into the lower floor of the barracks next door, which was reserved for EM in grades E-5 and above. The advantage was that, as a resident there, I would never have to fall out for any formations, a privilege of some merit. I thought about the Chief's question for what must have been a solid 30 seconds. "No, I don't think so," I said. "Having to live with a bunch of lifers would be more than I could bear." Suddenly, the very thought of it sent a shiver down my back, shaking my whole body, as though an earthquake had rumbled under my bunk. "Wow, what an unpleasant idea that was," I said. "No, I'll just stay here with you guys, formations and all. At least I won't have KP." Despite my promotion, no one cut me any slack at the office. Sergeant Barker came to our pay team the following day and informed us that ten more helicopter companies were coming into the 92d's administration, and we would be expected to help with the in-processing. More likely than not, he said, our team would be permanently assigned one or two of the new payrolls. This news staggered us all, though in truth, we were becoming so numbed to such shocks, they almost didn't faze us. The saying was: when you're already in dung up to your neck, one more bucketful doesn't make much difference. Cynicism such as this, when uttered, were invariably followed by someone saying in a prayerful voice, "This too shall pass," a thing we seemed to be saying often of late. Barker was unsure when this newest beneficence would come our way. Feigning a headache, I asked Sergeant Barker if I could return to the barracks to lie down. Instead, I walked down the hill to the liquor store, where I brandished my promotion orders in front of the clerk and purchased the fixings for a good martini. The economy of the thing was amazing: one imperial quart of Gordon's gin, $1.25; one fifth of Martini & Rossi vermouth, $1.00; and one bottle of green olives, $0.45. Truly an alcoholic's paradise. Before leaving, I picked up a bottle of champagne to share at the movie with the Chief, and I bought a pint of Southern Comfort for Bradley. Though I had hoped he would forget, the clerk didn't, and he punched my ration card. "You shouldn't buy these pints," he said, holding up Bradley's Southern Comfort. "We have to punch your card for this, the same as we would for a fifth or a quart. But I won't count it this time, since you didn't know." "Thanks," I said, "I appreciate that." Outside, I examined my somewhat tattered card to see what remained for the month of November. Good, I thought, only one of the four blocks for hard liquor had been punched. Since it was already more than halfway through November, I decided I should make it a point to use up the remaining squares before I lost them at the end of the month. This liquor rationing was a good thing, for sure. It gave me something to occupy my mind--a bit of husbandry, so to speak. On my way to the bus stop, I went to Mrs. Doan's to pick up my laundry and to give Mrs. Doan, if she were there, my wife's measurements for the ao dai. As I walked past the rear of the laundry, I heard the chatter of Vietnamese women, so I paused and looked over the fence. There, in the back yard were huge caldrons of steaming water and eight women washing or rinsing garments. I couldn't even count the number of clothes lines that stretched across the lawn between the side fences. So, this operation was no different from mamasan's up at the barracks; it was simply on a larger scale. As soon as I went through the door, I saw that Mrs. Doan was present, working behind the counter with some kind of ledger. Instead of the traditional ao dai, she wore a brown, western style dress that reached near her ankles and, beneath that, tan leather boots. Her long black hair was pulled up at the back of her head, and her face looked particularly radiant, I thought. After retrieving my bundle of clean clothes, I approached Mrs. Doan, fearing she wouldn't remember our previous conversation. "Well, hello again," she said, looking up from her journal. "You're the young man who wished to purchase the ao dai, are you not?" "Yes, ma'am," I said. "I have my wife's measurements now." I offered her the piece of paper on which I had transcribed the numbers from my wife's letter, and Mrs. Doan studied it for a moment. "This will do quite nicely," she said, smiling at me. "Now, as to the colors for the blouse, I have some swatches here to help you decide." She displayed for me ten pieces of colored fabric, all pastels, from which I chose a light blue. "Excellent," she said. "The pants, of course, are always white or black rayon. Which would you prefer?" "Gosh, I don't know," I said, somewhat at a loss. "What do you suggest?" "Well, the black is more or less for everyday wear, while the white is more formal." "Oh, in that case, the white," I replied. "Definitely the white." "Very good," she said. "It should be ready in two weeks at most, and it will cost approximately $20.00. Is that satisfactory?" "That's just fine," I said. "Do you want me to pay for it now?" "No, that's not necessary," she said, touching my arm. "You look like an honest young man. You can pay when you come to collect it." I thanked her and left, thrilled that I had been enterprising enough to have an ensemble tailored for my wife. Thrilled too, in an anxious sort of way, that Mrs. Doan had touched my arm. This was crazy, I thought. I had never been attracted to an older woman before, ever. But when I was near Mrs. Doan, I became suffused with a warm liquid feeling that seemed to start in my abdomen and spread outward toward my limbs. I decided it was best to forget these strange visceral urges brought on by Mrs. Doan, for if these yearnings ever spread to my brain, I might be in big trouble. Life was confusing enough as it was. On the following Saturday night, I underwent my first Chinese fire drill. It was shortly after 11 P.M., and Bradley and I had just turned in, when Sergeant Greesel came into the barracks completely drunk. He walked unsteadily the length of the barracks instructing everyone in very slurred speech to go to bed immediately and to turn off all lights and radios. On his way back, he staggered badly and had to catch his balance by holding onto the ends of the bunk beds. "Hey, look," someone yelled, "it's the grease man." Those still awake laughed, and other voices joined the attack. "What'cha doin' greaseball?" "Need another drink, Sarge?" "Hey, Sarge, did your mother ever have any kids that lived?" Greesel stood near his door, weaving slightly back and forth. Suddenly, he yelled, "I smell smoke, I smell smoke. Fire drill. Everyone outside now!" Not knowing for sure whether there was a fire or not, all of us jumped out of bed, and, pulling on our boots and enough clothes to be decent, we ran down the barracks stairs. Outside, Greesel made us fall into a ragged formation, and it was soon apparent there was no fire. In fact, those on the first floor hadn't even turned out for the drill. Greesel let most of us go after a few moments, but he held back a half-dozen men, who he railed at in a drunken fit for ten minutes. When we returned upstairs, Bradley said, "That guy Greesel is starting to get on my nerves. He'd better watch out." The day before Thanksgiving Sergeant Barker announced that the pay clerks of the 14th Engineers would be assuming responsibility for the payroll of the 92d Aviation Company, one of the ten helicopter companies recently arrived in country. Barker also told us that anyone wanting to eat Thanksgiving dinner in the mess hall would have to wear his khakis. None of this was good news. The 92d Aviation had 250 records, and we would have to prepare a November and December voucher for each man, with the former due no later than November 28, six days hence. Consequently, we worked at night till 9:30 P.M. from the 24th to the 30th of the month, during which time it poured down rain constantly, every day but one. None of us ate Thanksgiving dinner, except the Chief, whose khaki uniform looked like he had slept in it for a month--which was, of course, why he wore it and why he went to dinner in the first place. It certainly wasn't for the food. The only good thing that happened Thanksgiving week was the arrival in one man's mail of an artificial Christmas tree 18 inches tall. We set it up at the entrance to our floor of the barracks, with the understanding that everyone would chip in to buy some decorations at the PX. Having the Christmas tree put me in a decidedly improved frame of mind. Maybe the Christmas holidays would turn out better than Thanksgiving had. |