“You are a cretin, Dubray, you know that?” Blair remarked. “You had an opportunity to learn something about one of the world’s oldest and richest cultures, and you forfeited it merely to satisfy your repulsive, insatiable, putrid appetite.”
Dubray looked at Blair inquisitively a moment and then said, “You talking ‘bout food? Let me tell you ‘bout that! See, three or four of us, we went to this here special restaurant we heard about for lunch.
Lunch! You fucking believe it! They sit you down at this big round table what has on it a long tablecloth, and after they bring you your chow, they stick a girl under the table. And the first one what smiles—well, he gotta pay for lunch!”
“A dullard. You’re an absolute, completely immoral dullard, Willie,”
Blair said, smiling in resignation.
The afternoon of the last day in January 1968 wore on, and around two-thirty Byson informed us our pickup had been slipped to 1600 hours. Fine, an extra hour of downtime won’t hurt any of us. Besides, they can put us down anywhere near Daisy and we’ll find a good NDP in a matter of minutes.
At 1545 hours the company was in stick order, awaiting its liftoff birds. But they didn’t arrive at 1600, or 1610, or 1620. Becoming concerned at not hearing anything from Major Byson, I gave the S-3 a call, only to be told, “Stand by. Out.” Minutes later, Byson was on the air.
“Comanche Six, this is Arizona Three. Change of mission. Say again, change of mission. Inbound with twelve, that’s one two, plus zero, plus two in one five. Arclight has opened up enemy bunker complex on hilltop to your southwest. It’s another needlepoint one-bird LZ. How copy? Over.”
“Roger, good copy. Standing by for pickup.”
“One-ship LZ!” the Bull said. “Now, where the fuck are they putting us down, atop the Washington monument?”
“Naw,” Dubray chimed. “Ain’t you heared, Top? Old Ho Chi Minh, ‘cause he’s getting his ass kicked so bad like on this here ‘tack of his, up and died last night with a hard-on, and we gonna set down atop his…”
“Okay, that’s enough,” I said. “Let’s saddle up and get ready to move.”
How does Dubray come up with these stories? If he lives through this, he ought to publish a book. Wouldn’t be “socially redeeming,” but it sure would be spicy reading!
Waiting for our liftoff, I found myself reflecting back on Dubray’s somewhat precarious initial tenure with the company. I recalled that first time I had heard his name mentioned, back on the bridge the morning after I’d arrived in the company.
“Sir, got papers here on one of my men,” Lieutenant MacCarty said.
“Chapter case… uh… unsuitability. Name’s Dubray, Private E-2 ‘Sweet’ Willie Dubray. Outgoing Six was gonna sign them, but now that you’re in command, guess it’s up to you.”
“What’s his problem?” I asked. “Pee in bed or something?”
“No, sir, nothing like that. He’s just a screw-up, and I don’t think intentionally so. I mean he’s just not too smart, you know, comes from somewhere in the backwash of Arkansas’s swamps and can’t seem to do anything right.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant,” I said, “I’m not tracking. What specifically is the young soldier’s problem?”
“Okay. Well, he was assigned initially to Three Six, but that didn’t work out, so the old man put him in Four Six. But he couldn’t even figure out how to cut charges, and no one in the company wants someone on our tubes who cuts the wrong charge. So I took him, blit shit, he was tripping over his own trip flares and spooking the hell out of my people. So…”
“Right. I get the picture, Lieutenant MacCarty. What about Dubray? Does he want to be chaptered?”
“Well, honestly, sir—no. But I really feel… we really feel that it’s best for the company, and in the end, for the soldier concerned, to proceed with an administrative discharge.”
“Okay. I’ll read this over tonight and talk to the young man first thing in the morning.”
And I did.
“Private Dubray, do you know what this is?” I asked the following morning, gesturing at the administrative packet atop the army field desk.
“Yes, sir,” Sweet Willie Dubray responded, rather bleakly. “It’s a chapter discharge. Means you all gonna throw me out of the Army.”
“Not throwing you out, Dubray, processing you out on the grounds of unsuitability. Which is not something to be ashamed of. It merely means you don’t adapt suitably to those tasks commonly required of an infantry soldier. It’s a discharge that’s normally granted without prejudice, in other words, under honorable conditions.”
“Yes, sir, I understand that,” he replied, meekly, his head lowered.
“Fine. Now if I sign this, it’s only a recommendation that you be processed for such a discharge. However, I want to be level with you. Although anyone in the chain of command above me can reject my recommendation, they usually go along with the individual’s—that’s you, Dubray—commander’s recommendation. So, what’ll it be? If I sign it, we can have it out to battalion on the evening log bird, and you could be on your way back to the States in a week or so. Want me to sign it?”
For a brief moment he looked at me uncomprehendingly, and then, suddenly aware that our meeting was more than a mere formality, and that his fate was not necessarily foreordained, he said, “Don’t you sign it, sir! Sir, I ain’t wanting to get out of the Army! Hell, my pappy, he’ll beat me like a hound that won’t point if I get kicked out of the Army.”
“But, Dubray, it appears from what’s written here and from what your leaders tell me, that you simply can’t adjust. Hell, you’ve been from rifleman to weapons platoon ammo bearer and back to rifleman again and haven’t performed adequately in any of these positions.”
“Yes, sir, I know. That’s surely the truth. But I try. I really do, sir. And I’ll try harder. It’s just—well, I don’t catch on quick like, you know, like the other fellows. I ain’t meaning to mess up all the time. It’s just that, shit, seems sometimes like I’m the only fellow what can take a silk purse and turn it to a sow’s ear.”
I had to smile at this colorful self-appraisal. Then, regaining my composure, I looked at him sternly and said what I’d pretty much decided the night before. “Okay, Private Dubray, I’m not gonna sign this. I’m gonna hold onto it for a month—thirty days—and see how you perform in a new, final job. If you do well, I’ll tear this thing up a month from now. If you continue to screw up, I’ll just redate it, and you’ll be on your merry way home. Fair?”
“Yes, sir!” he replied enthusiastically. “I’ll soldier my fucking ass… uh… my shorts off! Just wait and see!”
He paused and then innocently said, “Uh… ‘course, we don’t wear no shorts here in the boonies, ‘cause they rot so quick like. Cause jungle rot on your private parts, too. Mean, you just getting here and all, sir, you probably ain’t knowing that, huh?”
“Well, no, I didn’t, Dubray,” I replied, aware that I was losing control of our counseling session but unsure how it had happened.
Buoyantly, smiling broadly, he said, “Well, I’ll tell you, sir, I didn’t neither, and ‘bout a week what with being in the boonies, my nuts got ‘bout big as ripe crab apples—‘bout as red too. And burn and itch, whew! I tell you, sir, I was a feeling like one ’em hounds that wouldn’t point right, and Pappy, he not wanting him ‘round the house no more, took a corncob and rubbed his ass raw, then he took a good dab of turpentine and…”