Last Man Out (9 page)

When not involved in training, the men waited in line for meals, for the PX, for the latrine, for space on deck. If a soldier wanted to see a movie, he had to get in the mess line for dinner at 1600—everyone was supposed to go through the chow line for every meal whether or not they ate it—in order to be finished in time to get in line for the limited movie seats on deck. The card game in the latrine never stopped, and I often stood and watched. Conversation was biting, with much bragging, much bluffing, and some shouting. Friendly smiles were few. Stakes were high. New players came and went, leaving their money behind with the regulars. Not a game for sissies.

I often used Bratcher’s bunk for my office/couch when I was in the hold. Once I was sitting with him, wondering out loud what kind of operations we were going to be involved in.

“It’s no big deal,” he said. “It’s a police action. Stopping cars, checking ID cards. The U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Marines against one little pipsqueak country. Come on, Lieutenant, get serious. We’ll blow ’em away.” He smiled and his jaw jerked to the right.

The officers mess had clean, starched white tablecloths at each meal, and Filipino stewards served us. We had plenty of seats for our movies, and coffee, soft drinks, and sweet cakes were on a table should we want refreshments. We had the run of most of the
ship. At night Dunn, Peterson, McCoy, and I often climbed to one of the uppermost decks to talk and joke. Dunn was the master of ceremonies.

Late in the morning of the eleventh day at sea I went down in the hold to see Bratcher, but he wasn’t around. I picked up the platoon roster from his bunk and went over to Spencer’s bunk to read it. Spencer was reading an old, dog-eared letter.

Directing his comments to no one in particular but speaking so that only I could hear, he said, “Da man is coming down to the slave quarters to look after da field niggers, huh?” He smiled faintly. Although not educated or well-read, Spencer was probably the brightest man in the platoon. Aware of what was going on in the States in the mid-1960s, he was angry that his country had tolerated segregation for so long and felt that the law of the land was still stacked against him—that he didn’t have the same opportunities that the white man did. “Discrimination is as American as apple pie” was his phrase before something like that became part of the national black/white dialogue. Spencer was angry and sassy and was, in our platoon, the king of jive.

“Spencer, you know I didn’t make the reservations for this cruise. You’ve got a right to complain, I reckon, but then so do a few thousand other good men on this boat.”

“It seems strange to me that it’s never anyone’s fault. It ain’t the man’s fault, he was born white, it’s his society, his laws. Problem sure ain’t the black man’s fault, he ain’t never had nothing. Don’t have no stuff, don’t have no voice. We got ourselves a society that is fucked up, dude, and there ain’t no one to blame, no one to fix it. White man likes it like it is. Negro ain’t got no power. Nothing ever’s going to change. You understand what I’m saying? In our society Negroes don’t get due consideration, though I note we’re more than well represented in this group being sent to some godforsaken place to get shot at ’cause it’s what some white man has decided to do. Ain’t nothing in it for me or my kind. Understand, Lieutenant?”

“Nope, Spencer, I don’t,” I told him. “It ain’t my job. You’d be surprised all the things I don’t understand. All I know for sure is that, for whatever reason, we’re on this boat together, going somewhere where we have to work together. Shit you’re talking
about don’t matter. I didn’t ask to be born white, you didn’t ask to be born black—you just supposed to make the best of what you given. That’s what I know.”

Bratcher walked up and sat down on Spencer’s bunk with us. He and I talked for a few minutes about a class coming up, and then I left. Later I told Bratcher in passing that Spencer had made some point about our changing social consciousness, and that I understood his frustrations.

“What da fuck is that, Lieutenant?” Bratcher exclaimed. “Spencer is a private, E-3. Rifleman. Period. That is all you should think of when you see that person. Rifleman. Do not let him talk to you about nothing that doesn’t have to do with him being a rifleman and you being the platoon leader. Not now on this boat and certainly not in Vietnam. Don’t be his friend. Don’t listen to his shit. Let another rifleman listen. Don’t make this any more complicated than it is. Sitting on that private’s bunk talking some intellectual-sounding bullshit don’t help you do your job, and it don’t help me, and it don’t help him. You understand the concept here, Lieutenant?”

Bratcher was glaring at me, his jaw twitching. His points were well taken, but he was testing the limits of our relationship. I couldn’t let him take over.

“Sergeant,” I said, mustering as much authority as I could, “let’s understand each other. If I go down and hold that man’s hand and talk about poetry, that’s okay. Because it’s my fucking platoon. Not yours. I set the standard. I talk about whatever I want to talk about. You don’t tell me what to talk about. Be careful giving me advice when I don’t ask for it. You understand this concept, Sergeant?”

Things were chilly for a couple of days with Bratcher, but they returned to normal by the end of the first week at sea when we heard about the 1st Cav’s first skirmishes in the A Shau valley.

Rumors began circulating over breakfast regarding an operation by one of the 1st Cav brigades in the central highlands of South Vietnam. It was the first big engagement of an American unit in the war. Some companies, we heard, had taken heavy casualties.

Later in a briefing to the officers and senior NCOs, we heard that the 1st Cav had “gotten their noses bloodied,” which was an understatement. That afternoon we read that whole units were
wiped out. All of the officers in one company were killed in the first few minutes of a firefight. The North Vietnamese had surrounded some units and attacked in waves. Weather was bad and air support limited. Under the jungle canopy, it was apparently difficult to fix exact positions of the ground forces and artillery fire support was imprecise. When it was on target, overhanging foliage often dissipated it. The battle evolved into hand-to-hand combat, and with the American units separated, the North Vietnamese moved against the smaller straggling units and decimated them.

“So much for your opinion that the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Marines, and the U.S. Army can whip up on this little pipsqueak country,” I told Bratcher. “This doesn’t sound like any police action I’ve ever heard about. This sounds like combat. And I want to look at those men of ours again and think about who’s going to handle the heat, who’s going to get the job done, and who’s going to break and run.”

“A lot’s going to depend on you, Lieutenant,” Bratcher said. “The men are getting the word about this 1st Cav thing through the grapevine and every soldier’s going to make it sound worse. Don’t let our men start off thinking they’re going to get their asses shot. You need to go down there and tell ’em the 1st Cav was suckered in them mountains. Tell ’em we ain’t going to walk into no traps. We’re going to keep our head on our shoulders and we’re going to kick some ass. Doesn’t matter exactly what you say, you just gotta say something with confidence. They’re down there now and don’t know what to think. You’ve got to step in and give them an attitude they can believe in, live by, fight by. First Cav fucked up, but we’re tough. Dinks attack us, we’re going to kick their asses. If you say it with enough conviction, they’ll believe you.”

Bratcher wasn’t looking at me as he talked. He was looking out over the ocean. I’m thinking this guy is right, but hell oh mighty, Pete, who’s going to lead this platoon, me or him? I had told him not to give me advice when I didn’t ask for it. But then I’m thinking again, he’s right, the men need to be reassured. And it’s my job. We’d work out the command-and-control thing later.

We walked down to the compartment where my platoon was
bunked, and Bratcher called the men together. He moved aside, and I recounted the dispatches we had received on the 1st Cav. Then I started winging it.

“We’re going to do just fine,” I told the men, “because we aren’t going to make the same mistakes. The 1st Cav screwed up, but we are going to cover our asses and we’re going to be tougher. And when you’re more determined, you’re luckier in battle. It’s a well-known fact, you can will victory. You can beat ’em with a tough attitude. And I ain’t just whistling through my teeth—the officers in the 1st Cav died faster than anyone else, and I personally am looking forward to my chances out there. You’all should be looking forward to what lies ahead. We are going to walk through the valley of death and, like the captain said when we left Fort Riley, we are going to kick some ass. You have nothing to worry about.”

As I finished I looked around; Beck, Spencer, Castro, Manuel, Patrick, Lyons, and Ayers were standing close by, and I could see they believed me. Behind me, Bratcher told the men that he wanted every man to bring his weapon by his bunk for inspection before going to chow. On my way out, I noticed the poker game was still going in the latrine, the players nonplussed about the 1st Cav reports.

After supper, Dunn, McCoy, Pete, and I went to the top deck and talked about the 1st Cav news. Without giving Bratcher any credit, I repeated parts of my speech about the probably clumsy execution of 1st Cav in the mountains, but that we were tougher and would survive.

“Well, that’s just hogwash,” Dunn said. “You have no idea what went on out there. Fact is, people get killed in combat. You just accept the fact that it’s not going to be nice and live with it. Some of our men are going to live and some are going to die. Maybe one of us ain’t coming back. You just accept that and you don’t misrepresent the situation with some kind of double-talk.”

McCoy agreed. He said, “War isn’t so difficult to deal with really when it comes down to the basics. You make the best of it day to day. Learn as you go. What can happen? One, the worst is you get killed. But hell, you get killed, you’re dead. It doesn’t hurt anymore. Somebody else has a problem with that, then it’s their problem. You’re dead. You’re at peace. And the next worst, what’s
that, you get wounded and you get sent back home. Not too bad there, getting sent back home. Hell, you can get on with your life. What does that leave? You don’t get wounded or killed. You finish your tour, you go home. It’s that simple. One, you die, but dead you’re in no pain. Two, you get wounded, you go home. Or three, you don’t get wounded. But no matter what happens, it’s okay.”

“The important thing isn’t living or dying,” Pete said. “None of us think we’re going to die anyway. The important thing is how we handle ourselves over there. We platoon leaders are the ones who have to get the men moving when bullets are flying and bombs are going off, when there is noise and confusion. That’s the time. Right then. Will we have the presence of mind, the good judgment, the courage, and the luck to do the job? Or will we freeze and hug the ground? Can we hold ourselves responsible for the death of our people and keep on going? What’s it like, really, to get shot at? To give orders that get people killed?”

We were lost in thought. I looked up at the stars and thought about freezing in the door of that airplane during jump training. Would combat be different? I had started this conversation by saying we were going to get through the next year’s walk through the valley of death by just being tough, but I worried about my personal courage.

“You know what?” McCoy finally said. “I think the worst here is not knowing exactly what to expect. I think we’re going to be okay. What we should hope for—and there ain’t nothing more to do right now but hope, ’cause we can’t change shit—we should hope that we got what it takes to be strong and that we are courageous in front of our men and that we have good judgment. That we just get it right, regardless of the consequences.” He turned to Dunn. “But as for who’s going die—since we don’t know—you want to flip a coin and see who might likely be first.”

We laughed, even Dunn, and lapsed back in silence.

As I sat there I could see clearly in my mind’s eye some of the skirmishes I had read about in the dispatches. I tried to imagine what I would do, what my platoon would do, if we were surrounded by drum-beating, whistle-blowing, Oriental fanatics crawling forward in the jungle. No air force, no artillery, no mortars—us and them in dense jungle at night. My stomach tightened and began to
hurt. Don’t get in the fix in the first place, I thought. Think tough. Cover your ass. I was right to start with. We can will victory here. Tough is a state of mind. Stay tough. Think tough. And hope, like George said, that we’re lucky.

Nine days out from Oakland we passed near Midway Island. Rumors began to circulate that we would stop at Guam to refuel, be allowed off the ship for a day on the beach, and that the Guam National Guard was going to host a beach party for the ship. Snorkeling, Polynesian girls, bonfires, free beer, clean air. Vietnam could wait. Guam was ahead.

The mood below deck was jubilant, but the poker players were unaffected. Guam came into sight off the starboard bow early on the morning of Sunday, 3 October. Men abandoned the chow line in a rush up to the deck for a glimpse of the approaching island, green and lush in the distance. Native fishermen in fishing boats passed close by the ship and the men on deck waved. Some yelled, “Where’re your sisters?”

The port was now in sight and tugs had come out to guide the
Mann
to the dock.

The commandant of troops, speaking over the PA system, said that, despite the rumors, we would be allowed no shore leave. Repeat, he said, no shore leave. The ship was docking only to take on fuel and supplies, and we would be on our way the following morning.

I was on deck watching the tugs work and did not turn when the commandant spoke. What he said was not surprising. It seemed improbable that the thousands of men on board could be allowed onto the small island, entertained, and returned to the ship in any reasonable amount of time. They would overwhelm the island.