“Not like that, asshole!” Dubray said, grabbing the spoon and removing its wrapping.
“Gawd, look at him go at them limas!” Anderson said. “Anyone can eat cold ham and limas gotta be starved.”
“To him, it’s probably a gourmet delight,” Blair responded and then, turning back to our prisoner, said, “Just another of America’s delicacies, my newfound friend, prepared for those of truly distinguished tastes in some of our country’s finest dog-food-producing facilities.”
By now, in between bites, boy soldier was smiling, talking freely, and sometimes even laughing at something his ex-NVA compatriot, our Kit Carson, said.
A short time later the evening log bird landed on our needlepoint LZ, dropping off ammo, water, more C rations—and the company’s mail. The battalion S-2, accompanying the log bird, picked up boy soldier and flew him away.
A half hour or so after they had departed, Major Byson called, passed along another well done, and, tongue in cheek, said he had decided to leave us where we were for the night. I thanked him profusely.
The first day of the 1968 Tet offensive had ended for Charlie Company.
18. Second Day of the Tet Offensive: 31 January
At first light, Charlie Company descended the mountain, searching for remnants of its evasive foe on the way down. We found nothing other than a few enemy corpses that would later be tabulated into a “we-they” body count ratio at echelons far above ours.
Upon reaching the valley floor, we set up a hasty perimeter and awaited the morning log bird, hoping it would have aboard it a substantial C&D—a mermite of coffee would be especially welcome. In the meantime, the less optimistic broke out their heat tabs and charlie rats. They were premature in doing so. Minutes later the log bird landed, bringing with it an assortment of fresh fruit, scrambled eggs, bread, SOS, milk, and, of course, hot coffee. We were enjoying this breakfast feast when Blair passed me his handset, reciting his familiar, “Three’s on the horn, sir.”
“Comanche, this is Arizona Three inbound your location to parley. See you on the ground in ‘bout one zero.”
The Bull and I met the battalion C&C when it landed in a paddy a short distance from our perimeter ten minutes later.
“How’s it going, Jim, First Sergeant?” Major Byson said, more as a greeting than a question. “Got us a hell of a war going now, don’t we?”
“Yes, sir,” Sullivan and I said in unison.
“Well, listen, I want to pass on what we know of the situation, so you all can get the word down to your troops before they read ‘bout it in Stars and Stripes. And I gotta be frank with you. We still don’t know a hell of an awful lot. Still real sketchy. Anyway, seems to be a general offensive going on throughout the country. As you know, Charlie hit Binh Dinh night before last. Think the situation here’s pretty well stabilized; however, last night enemy struck big time both north and south of us, again mostly in the populated areas. They hit Hue! They hit Saigon! They attacked Tan Son Nhut. Last we heard Charlie was in the U.S. embassy! Believe that? Our goddamn embassy in downtown Saigon!”
He paused momentarily to allow us an opportunity to appreciate the gravity of his words. He needn’t have. We both knew that if the enemy had captured our embassy (they had not, by the way), the situation was serious indeed.
“From what we gather—and again, info’s still real sketchy—there’s a hell of a fight going on in and around Saigon. President Thieu will probably declare martial law ‘fore the day is out, if he hasn’t already. One of the problems, of course, is that we had no combat troops in the city. Hell, they’re using cooks, clerks, and jerks trying to defend the air base.”
“Super!” the Bull interrupted, grinning broadly. “That should keep them off the golf course for a day or two!”
“Uh… private joke, sir. Please continue,” I said soberly, as Major Byson looked at the Bull, baffled by his remark.
“Right. Well, that’s really about all we know right now. Intelligence thinks Charlie may have screwed up here in Binh Dinh. Got his dates mixed up and hit us a day early, either that or hit last night’s targets a day late. But from what we hear coming out of Saigon, it didn’t make a lot of difference. Our folk were still caught with their pants down.
Anyway, the point you all should stress to your men is that the enemy, so far, hasn’t done a goddamn thing except piss the population off and lose an awful lot of his soldiers. I mean, yesterday’s numbers are phenomenal! Here we been waiting years for Charlie to surface and fight, and now he’s doing just that—and getting his clock cleaned! Good chance he’ll never recover from it. Stacking up to be a great tactical error on his part.”
Again he paused as Sullivan and I continued to jot notes.
“Appreciate the info, sir,” I said, “and we’ll pass it along. Been getting some questions, but to tell you the truth, it’s pretty much been business as usual for us out here. ‘Course, like Sergeant Sullivan said, it was a hell of a noisy truce that first night. What about us now, sir? What you got in store for Charlie Company?”
“Nothing for the next couple of hours or so. Got other inserts going in, so air assets are a bit scarce right now. Besides, you all could probably use a little rest, right? If nothing else comes up, I’ll probably be moving you back to your old stomping grounds later this afternoon—say, 1500 hours. And that’ll be a four, plus two, plus two, by the way. Any questions?”
“None here,” I responded.
“No questions,” Sullivan said, “but, sir, how about seeing what you can do ‘bout getting us in for a shower? Troops ain’t had access to a fucking shower head… uh… bath unit since we left the bridge.”
“Good point, Top,” I commented. “They need it, and I should’ve thought of it myself.”
“You all need it,” Byson said in jest. “That’s why I’m standing upwind from you. Seriously, everybody’s in the same boat right now, but soon as things return to the norm, I’ll get you in for a hot one, promise.”
We gave him a snappy Fifth Cav “Ready” salute, and he departed.
After the helicopter had lifted off, the Bull turned to me and said,
“Gee, sir, I hope they didn’t hurt the golf course.”
We spent most of the second day of the Year of the Monkey in a “combat recoup.” The log bird had dropped off clean sets of jungle fatigues and socks and our (usually) weekly issue of sundries. These so-called comfort packs contained cigarettes, toiletries, pens and station ery, porgy bait (candy and gum)—in short, the little necessities and luxuries our soldiers would have spent their money on in a PX if they had had access to one. So we cleaned our weapons, did what we could to clean ourselves, napped, and talked of those things that soldiers talk about when they are far from home. And we wrote letters.
“Hey, Short Round,” one of our less than highly literate soldiers, sitting under a palm, his back against its trunk, yelled. “How you spell caress?”
“Crest?” Short Round replied. “What are you doing, asking your old lady for a tube of toothpaste?”
“No, man, goddamn it! Caress, caress! You know, I’m trying to tell her, in a nice way, what I’m gonna do to her as soon as I get back to the world.”
“Oh! Well, in that case, you spell caress f-u-c-k.”
“Fuck you, Short Round!”
“And your mother, Knife.”
Short Round, Knife, Lean Man, Boom Boom. Where do they get these names for each other? Hell, they all have given names like Tom, Dick, Bill, and Joe. Why don’t they use them?
Sweet Willie Dubray, meanwhile, was telling us of his recent R&R exploits in Bangkok. “Yeah, you can pick one out right at the airport when you land. Or, if you’re wanting to, you can wait till you get to the hotel, then do it. And for fifty U.S. dollars she’s yours to boomboom the whole fucking week—do anything you want, I mean around the world and back again, turn you every which way but loose. But that ain’t all. She’ll help you shopping too, show you where’s the best buys. You know, gold, jewelry, clothes—shit, you can save fifty bucks right there. And if you’re wanting to, she’ll even take you ‘round and show you the sights, you know, temples and stuff like that. ‘Course, I never bothered with none of that shit.”