Donny hadn't made it. Bob did have Julie. He was married to her, though it took some doing. So in a terrible sense he had gotten exactly what he desired. He had benefited.
Hadn't seemed so at the time, but the one Johnny who came out of the fracas with more than he went into it was he, himself, Gy.Sgt. Bob Lee Swagger, USMC (Ret.).
Don't think, he warned himself. Don't interpret, list.
List it all. Dredge it up. He had to concentrate only on the exactness of the event, the hard questions, the knowable, the palpable, the feel able
What time was it?
O-dark-30, 0530, 06 May 72. Duty NCO nudges me awake, but I am already conscious and I have heard him come.
'Sarge?'
'Yeah, fine.'
I rise before the sun. I decide not to wake Donny yet, let him sleep. He's DEROS tomorrow, on his way back to the world. I check my equipment. The M40 is clean, having been examined carefully the night before both by myself and the armorer. Eighty rounds of M118 7.62mm NATO Match ammunition have been wiped and packed into pouches on an 872 harness. I slip into my shoulder holster for my .380, over that I pull on my cammies, I lace and tighten my boots. I darken my face with the colors of the jungle. I find my boonie cap. I slip into the 782 gear, with the ammunition, the canteens, the .45, all checked last night. I take the rifle, which hangs by its sling, off the nail in the bunker wall, slide five M118s into it, closing the bolt to drive the top one into the chamber. I pull back to put on safe, just behind the bolt handle. I'm ready to go to the office.
It's going to be a hot one. The rainy season is finally over, and the heat has come out of the east, settling like a mean old lady on us poor grunts. But it's not hot yet. I stop by the mess tent, where somebody's already got coffee going, and though I don't like the caffeine to jimmy my nerves, it's been so quiet of late I don't see any harm in having a cup.
A PFC pours it for me into a big khaki USMC mug, and I feel the great smell, then take a long, hard hot pull on it. Damn, that tastes good. That's what a man needs in the morning.
Sitting in his living room, the fire burning away, Bob took another sip on the whiskey. It, too, burned on the way down, then seemed to whack him between the eyes, knock him to blur and gone. He felt the tears come.
06 May 1972. 0550.
I head to the S-2 bunker and duck in. Lieutenant Brophy is already up. He's a good man, and knows just when to be present and when not to be. He's here this morning, freshly shaved, in starched utilities. There seems to be some sort of ceremonial thing going on.
'Morning, Sergeant.'
'Morning, sir.'
'Overnight your orders came through on the promotion.
I'm here to tell you you're officially a gunnery sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. Congratulations, Swagger.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'You've done a hell of a job. And I know you'll be bang-up beaucoup number one at Aberdeen.'
'Looking forward to it, sir.'
Maybe the lieutenant feels the weight of history.
Maybe he knows this is Bob the Nailer's last go-round.
Three tours in the 'Nam with an extension for the last one, to give him nineteen straight months in country. He wants to observe it properly and that satisfies me. In some way, Brophy gets it, and that's good.
We go over the job. We work the maps. It's an easy one. I'll go straight out the north side, over the berm and out to the treeline. Then we work our way north toward Hoi An, through heavy bush and across a paddy dike. We go maybe four klicks to a hill that stands 840 meters high and is therefore called Hill 840. We'll go up it, set up observation and keep a good Marine Corps eyeball on Ban Son Road and the Thu Bon River. I'm done killing: it's straight scout work. I'm here for firebase security, nothing else. Along those lines, we plan to look for sign of large-body troop movements, to indicate enemy presence, on the way out and the way back.
The lieutenant himself types up the operational order and enters it in the logbook. I sign the order. It's official now.
I tell the clerk to go get Fenn. It's 0620. We're running a little late, because I've let Fenn sleep. Why did I do this?
Well, it seemed kind. I didn't want to break his balls on the last day. He really isn't needed until we leave the perimeter, as the mission has been well discussed and briefed the night before, he knows the specs better than I do.
He shows up ten minutes later, the sleep still in his eyes, but his face made-up green, like mine. Someone gets him some coffee. The lieutenant asks him how he's doing.
He says he's fine, he just wants to get it over with and head back to the world.
'You don't have to go, Fenn,' I say.
'I'm going,' he says.
Why? Why does he have to go? What is driving him? I never understood it then, I don't understand it now.
There was no reason, not one that ever made no sense to me. It was the last, the tiniest, the least significant of all the things we did in the 'Nam. It was the one we could have skipped and oh, what a different world we'd live
