“I don?t know, send him to the crazy colonel place,” Doe says, and we all laugh about that.
The 306th day: Gunner was over in Saigon for a week off. and F. and he meets this ordnance guy
and they hang out and get drunk and raise some hell. Anyway, the ordnance guy shows Gunner how
to take the timer out of a hand grenade and when Gunner comes back, he sits around every night,
taking the timers out of M-4?s and then loading them into ammo packs. He puts five or six to each
bag.
A couple of nights later we?re sitting on this LZ and the VC jump us. Gunner says follow him. He
leaves the bags behind, we give them about thirty meters, hole in, and when they take the position we
start a counter. Next thing I know there?s hand grenades going off all over the place, gooks
screaming, all this chaos. Then we went back and jumped them and took the position back. We wasted
about twenty. Half of them only had one arm.
We did this a couple of times, moving off LZ?s and what have you. Gunner keeps a couple of bags of
these grenades around all the time now. Every time we move out we leave a couple behind. It?s like
our trademark. Fuckin? monkeys never learn. It works like a charm every time.
The 332nd day: We had this ARVN assigned to us. I don?t trust Vietnamese, not even the southerners.
They have a tendency to run when things get hot. I know that?s a generalization, but over here,
sometimes generalizing keeps you alive. Anyway, this ARVN scout was on point and he runs into a
sniper. One lousy sniper but this crud leaves the point arid comes running back to report. What it
was, he didn?t have the guts to cream the fucking gook.
So he comes running back and the sniper pops off three men, one, two, three, just like that. We get up
there and I get around behind the sniper and I empty halfa clip into him.
When we get back to base I radio it upriver and tell them I?m sending this creep ARVN back to them, I
can?t use him.
“Keep him,” they say. “It?s politics.”
Poli-fuckin? -tics. Jesus! Politics my ass.
Tonight we?re camped out in the bush, he heads back into town to see his lady friend. I take off my
shoes and follow him. He?s going to the river to hop a ride and I jump him before he gets to the dock
