“You ever need me,” he said, handing me a card, “my home number?s on the back. There?s a machine
on it. If it rings four times before it answers, I?m there, just takin? a shit or a shower or something.
Leave a number, I?ll usually get back to you in a coupla minutes. If it answers after one ring, I?m out.”
“Meet us at the Feed Mill,” Dutch said to Stick. “Jake can drive down with me.”
I was grateful for that.
As we walked back to the cars I said, “We can throw in with you on this. I think we can assume the
weapon was a grenade launcher and that?s an illegal weapon and that makes it federal.”
“Gee whiz,” Dutch growled. “Ain?t due process grand.”
12
FLASHBACK: NAM DIARY, ARRIVAL
The first ten days: First off, I was a replacement. I sat around the Cam Ranh Bay repo-depot for
about ten days before they sent me down to Third Corps HQ and from there over to Phouc Binh which
is where I pick up my squad. I?m only five weeks out of Advanced Infantry School, I don?t know shit
and I am plenty scared.
I can tell you this, flying in to Cam Ranh I, look down and it?s really gorgeous, I mean this is some
beautiful place except you have all this beautiful green jungle and then you have mortar holes
everywhere. It was like, you know, paradise going to hell and gone.
Anyway, while I?m in Cam Ranh waiting to get a squad, I hang out with this potato farmer from
Nebraska they call Spud, because of the potatoes and all. He doesn?t like it much but he doesn?t
complain either. That wasn?t too bad because we were both, you know, newcomers, so mostly we
talked about what it?s like back in the world—the States. Except this Spud, he was really scared. His
hands shook and everything. Then he gets shipped into Indian country, and after that I meet q with
this kid from Wisconsin—a short termer with only two months left to go who is off the line a couple
days to come see his brother who got wounded and is in the hospital. We hook up in this sorry ass
lean-to they call a bar. First off I tried striking u some talk with a sergeant but he just looks at me with
these dead eyes, I mean eyes like hunks of coal, no feeling, no nothin?. He was scary. I says “hi” and
he looks at me and gets up and leaves, and that?s when this kid from Wisconsin, who is sitting down
the way from me, pipes up and says, “He?s a CRIP, they don?t socialize much.” And I says, “What?s a
CRIP?” And he says, “Jeeze, how long you been over here?” And I says, “Less than a week,” and he
says, “Shit, you got it all ahead of you,” and just shakes his head but he doesn?t say anymore about
CRIP; I learned about that later.
Anyway he got off the line to see his brother, only it turns out he?s been there three days and hasn?t
been to the hospital yet and when I ask him why he says, “No guts.” Finally after a couple of beers I
