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Salmagundi Vietnam. Don Pratt
Читать онлайн.Название Salmagundi Vietnam
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781462912216
Автор произведения Don Pratt
Издательство Ingram
Heretofore I had always thought of "Moonglow" as being the exclusive property of Eunie and me.
* * *
AFRIEND of Gunnery Sergeant Herb Lang was going on emergency leave and, since his tour was almost up, wouldn't be returning. He bequeathed his "bar" to the gunny.
Herb was telling Army Sergeant Bob Nell about it, and noted that the stock included a tremendous amount of wine.
"Be sure to save the labels," Bob told him.
"Save the labels, what for?"
"I don't know how many it takes," explained Bob, "but when you get enough of them, mail them to the winery and they'll send you a park bench and a stack of old newspapers."
* * *
THERE is beauty in Vietnam. But one must seek it only when he can afford the luxury because time to dwell on such things is very heavily rationed.
The other evening we sat on the roof of our quarters and watched the sun go down. Sipping on a can of tepid Budweiser, we found a simple yet total pleasure in this complete act of God. An exquisite panorama splashed across the Oriental sky for the benefit of no one but us.
Each of us reflected individually. We watched as day turned to dusk and dusk turned to night. As the crimsons, scarlets, golds, and vermilions turned to indigo, I found a stretch of New England seacoast known only to me. There was a little cove there, tranquil and secluded, with an island in the middle. There was a tiny fishing boat there, too.
Wait! Who dares to invade my cove? What right has he ... But then I realized that the fishing boat belonged to me and everything was all right again. There was a fish jumping in my cove. He hung there, suspended in midair, for the longest time before he disappeared. I think he was a swordfish, but everyone knows that swordfish don't range this far north. Perhaps he just came up to see me. Yes, that must be it. He just came up to see me.
Atop a distant crag was perched a lighthouse; winking at me and warning others away. I felt quite secure.
When the indigos turned to blacks, and my cove, island, and fishing boat began to fade, as all such things are wont to do, my lighthouse remained ... winking at me. As I began the long journey back to Vietnam, I soon realized that my lighthouse was nothing more than lightning flashes on the horizon, trumpeting the approach of the monsoons.
Hold it a minute! There is a pattern to the flashes ... a rhythm, if you will. Then I knew. My lighthouse was really the muzzle-flash from a One-Five-Five ... vomiting death in Charlie's face.
* * *
OVER a couple of beers in the enlisted club at the MACV compound in Pleiku, we struck up a conversation with a crusty old sergeant major.
Although he said he had only been in-country a few weeks, his knowledge of highlands geography led us to ask if perhaps this wasn't his second tour in Vietnam.
"Actually," he said, "I have 29 years in the Army now, so I'm pulling two Vietnam tours at once ... my first and my last."
* * *
PETTY OFFICER Jim ("Red") Lowery is a likable chap who likes to think of himself as being frugal. One of his pet peeves is what he considers to be the exorbitant prices one has to pay for meals in the government-operated messes in Vietnam. Normally, this is fifty cents for breakfast and a dollar each for dinner and supper.
To offset this high cost of living, Red subsists a good deal of the time on snack items from the PX, which he purchases in quantity at regular intervals. We grew curious to find out just how much money Red was saving, so we tallied up the cost of a typical noon repast.
| I can selected fancy crab meat | .65 |
| I can Vienna sausages | .25 |
| I can Beenie-Weenies | .25 |
| I can Fritos | .30 |
| I package peanut butter crackers | .05 |
| I can soda pop | .10 |
The total came to $1.60 and, two hours later, Red was hungry again!
* * *
PETER HELLER, one of the briefers at the Joint U.S. Mission Press Center in Saigon, had an assignment on September 30, 1967, that we didn't envy.
To the assembled press corps he announced: "We have a report that power in Saigon will be off for 48 hours beginning sometime this evening."
As he finished, the lights went off.
Only five days earlier, from the same rostrum, Peter had announced that five new diesel generators, provided and installed by USAID, had a capacity to light 400,000 homes and were expected to solve Saigon's electrical power problems.
* * *
PROTEST marchers and draft-card burners may think we don't belong in Vietnam, but we know a lot of people here who take a highly personal view that we do.
One is Pat Cuthbertson, an old soldier by anyone's standards.
Pat entered the Army in 1942 as a teen-ager. As a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division, he jumped into Normandy before the dawn of D-Day in 1944. He fought through the hedgerows of France and later jumped into Holland. That winter he was in Bastogne.
During the Korean thing he was in four campaigns, and by the time that one was over, he had earned enough ribbons to embellish the chest of any general.
In 1965 he was among the first ground combat troops to enter Vietnam, arriving in May with the 173rd Airborne. After a few months in the States in 1966, Pat volunteered again and now is with a 1st Infantry Division unit at Phuoc Vinh, a U.S. enclave in the heart of War Zone D.
On July 27, 1967, Charlie hit the Phuoc Vinh base camp for the third straight night. Headquarters reported 14 killed and 70-some wounded from the barrage of 122mm rockets and 82mm mortars.
The first round landed near enough to Pat's tent to blow him off his cot. He started to get up and sprint for a bunker some 20 yards away, then thought better of it and decided to hug the ground where he was. Within seconds, another round landed midway between him and the bunker. He would have run right into it. As it was, shrapnel tore through his tent, his clothing, cot, and mosquito net. He wasn't hit!
We were at Phuoc Vinh just ten days later, when Pat cheerfully announced that he had just extended to serve another six months in Vietnam.
* * *
The preceding piece was written in August 1967; this in October:
PAT went home in a year after all. The next VC rocket attack didn't miss him and he spent four weeks in the hospital at Long Binh.
On his way home he dropped in to say good-by and to tell us about his wound, mentioning casually that it was his fourth Purple Heart. He had taken a chunk of rocket shrapnel high and inside his right thigh, quite close to the groin.
"Did you lose ... er ... is, ah ... I mean..."
"No, I'm okay" Pat said with a grin, "but I'll tell you one thing. It's a damn good thing I was dressed left."
* * *
WE'RE still puzzled by the six Danang stores which display identically worded signs: "Sell Charcoal Store." Since the city is off limits to GIs, what are they trying to sell to whom, the charcoal or the store?
* * *
IHAD worked and