they?ll bury you under the brig.” Then he starts laughing. Laughing. Then he says, “Nothin? over here
makes any sense. Sometimes I wonder, hey, we the good guys or not? But you ask an officer that,
he?ll send you u to the psycho ward. I don?t pray anymore. I?m too embarrassed to talk to Cod. I got
too much to tell him.” He goes on like that for maybe an hour, shaking his head the whole time.
Always whispering.
By the time I get my walking papers I?m almost glad to be going into it. This place is nuts. It all
seems to come to a head here at Cam Ranh because you get them comin? and goin?. Everybody?s a
little crazy. There?s a lot of questions you want to ask but after awhile you figure out nobody has any
answers, anyhow, why bother.
So anyway, here 1 am in this creepy little town near the river, if you can even call it a town, I?m not
here five minutes, the lieutenant, who looks about sixteen, red hair and freckles, his name is Carmody,
sits down and pops two beers, and he says, “Now listen good to me. I been out here, it?s going on
eight months. I got my own way of doing things after all that time, so you do what I say, don?t even
argue, don?t tell me you didn?t learn It that way back in the world, you just do it and I?ll get you home
alive. You don?t, 1 give you two weeks, you?ll be dead or missing something you don?t want to lose.”
I don?t say anything, I just listen. I try not to shake but I am real nervous.
“I got a few rules,” he says. “In the beginning, no matter what happens, follow me. If Charlie starts
busting caps, you just follow me. Don?t talk, don?t start yelling at anybody else. If I go down, you go
down. Find a pebble or a mound of dirt or a paddy and get below it. Get under his horizon. If you get
hit, don?t say anything and don?t move. You do, and you?re dead. Just lay there, somebody?ll get you.
That?s my last rule—we don?t leave anybody behind. Dead or alive, everybody goes out together.”
I was so scared my stomach hurt.
“These VC are good, goddamn good,” he says. “Don?t let anybody tell you different because that?s
bullshit. All that shit they gave you back in Al, forget it. They got tunnels out there, they go on for
miles. They got whole operating rooms under the ground, not just some little pooch hole you throw a
grenade in and forget it, they pop up fifty feet away and your ass is in a bucket. These fuckers can run
into a village and vanish. We don?t get heroic, okay, we call in some air, let the Black Ponies burn it
out. We move on. „That?s our mission, search and destroy. What it is not is search and be destroyed.”
I remember thinking, this is for real. Jesus, in five minutes we could be doing it for real.
“Any questions?” he says.
I shake my head no.
“Welcome to the war,” he says.
13
