Run Between the Raindrops Read online

  “Hey, 106s! Nail them motherfuckers! Get some, dudes!” It’s the all-purpose mantra that works on all types of fire support. Get Some!

  As the 106 crew maneuvers to get their weapon into firing position, grunts all along the street begin banging away to provide distraction while the crew loads and aims the big tube. A platoon sergeant shouts something about marking targets and reloads his rifle with a magazine of tracer rounds. The 106 gunner shows him thumbs-up. Steve is shooting pictures, but I’ve got other things on what’s left of my mind. Somewhere back in that alley behind us, is the pack I dropped when all this started and there’s some stuff in there I’m not prepared to lose to the vicious back-blast from a recoilless rifle.

  Back in that alley, there’s no sign of the NVA pack that’s so much more roomy and comfortable than the one they issue to Marines, but there’s little time to search. The 106 is about to fire and the back blast can be deadly.

  “Clear the back-blast area!” Up near the entrance to the alley an assistant gunner is waving at me to get the hell out of the way. They are about to fire and I am about to suffer the consequences of losing my pack somewhere to the rear of their weapon. There’s radio squawk and shouting from an outhouse shack on my left, so I duck in to catch my breath and save my dignity.

  Three or four radio operators are grouped near a window where the Acting Six is busily trading handsets and trying to comprehend the action out on the street. One of the radiomen notices me squatting near the door and moves in my direction with his long whip-antenna scraping loudly on the corrugated tin roof of the shanty that has become a temporary CP. He grins and points at my NVA pack sitting in a corner. My poncho—wadded up and hastily jammed beneath the straps when we moved out this morning—is now neatly folded and tied on for easy access.

  “Never hurts to curry the favor of the press.” The radioman grins and actually blushes when I ask him for a name and hometown. He watches dutifully over my shoulder and corrects my spelling as I jot the info in my notebook. Somehow, when there’s time to actually write the little stories about this fight, I’ll work this guy into it and make him look heroic—or at least stoic. He saved my gear and it’s the least I can do to return the favor. That pack contains all I own.

  Radioman is monitoring the battalion net. He’s got an informed idea of what’s happening to our right and left. He’s filling me in as I ponder how many times and in how much accurate detail we get the meat of our little action stories from these low-level communicators who always seem to have the big picture when everyone else is semi-to-three-quarters clueless. Apparently the NVA moved a detail of serious B-40 rocket gunners in to the east of the 2nd Platoon, and that’s what halted their advance. First platoon was ordered in to reinforce and the 106s were called up to deal with any strong-points encountered. Meanwhile, the Golf Company bridge-crossing deal is cancelled for lack of interest on the part of a very pissed-off battalion commander, and two more 5th Marines rifle companies are now entering the city.

  Back out on the street, I find Steve interviewing a wounded grunt who’s being tended and mended by a Navy Hospital Corpsman. They are screaming at each other over the bang and clang of the nearby 106. The gunner is searching for targets, using the .50 caliber spotting-rifle mounted on top of the 106 tube. There are two or three sharp cracks and then the solid boom of the big gun. These things were made for anti-tank fighting and the armor-piercing rounds being pumped over the heads of cringing grunts are tearing huge holes into the buildings where the NVA rocket crews are no longer returning fire.

  It’s like watching a well-oiled NASCAR pit crew at work. Complicated things just seem to happen with focused efficiency and there’s rarely a wasted word or motion. Ammo humpers drag projectiles from their protective containers, and pass the heavy rounds to an assistant gunner who slaps them into the rear of the weapon and closes the breech-block with an oily snick. The gunner seated on the left of the tube hears that the weapon is up and focuses on his sight, elevating and traversing before pulling on the firing switch to trigger the spotting-rifle. When a .50 caliber tracer tells him he’s on target, he depresses that switch and the 106 fires, belching smoke and exhaust gases to the rear. It’s mesmerizing until a sudden flurry of action on our front sends the gunner twirling furiously on his directional controls.

  “Got ’em in the open! Gimme a beehive!”

  No doubt we’d wind up writing a little vignette about this 106 crew doing such valuable damage to the NVA formerly lying impervious behind concrete walls in this little section of Hue City, but there would be no mention of using the beehive rounds that contained hundreds of small steel darts called flechettes. Those bad-ass anti-personnel rounds cut huge bloody gouges out of enemy troops in the open, but they are officially not part of the humane American arsenal which—according to our MACV Office of Information guidance—kills people in an open, honest, and forthright manner but does not maim them.

  Despite that abiding, official guidance from on-high, the scurrying NVA at the other end of this street are being ground into bloody chuck by the 106 crew. With each beehive round fired there is a strange, whirring, buzzing noise like hundreds of pissed off hornets headed for a source of agitation. Assistant Gunner grabs Gunner by the shoulder, screams something at him and points up the street toward their impact area. All eyes locked on a North Vietnamese soldier squirming against a tree at the head of the street with a B-40 rocket launcher dangling from his hands.

  Through a zoom lens, I focus on a strange tableau. The gook's feet are about six inches off the pavement as he kicks and jerks in a death spasm. His squirming body is riddled with holes which show through his dark green uniform as bloody splotches. Gunner caught him running from a building and fired. The resulting swarm of flechettes from the beehive round pinned him to a nearby tree like a paper target in a shooting gallery. As I watch, trying to decide whether or not it was a picture worth shooting, the dangling NVA’s face suddenly explodes as if he’d bitten down on a blasting cap. To my right, a grinning grunt lowers his rifle and turns to gesture at his buddies who are just beginning to move back into the street. Get some? Got some—and let’s go get some more.

  Alpha Company is moving now, and to the rear of us there’s another outfit bailing out of idling six-by trucks. Hard to tell in the scramble, but there might be a few familiar faces. Radio Operator trots by me with a nod and a smile. He’ll know. “Who’s that back there?”

  “Hotel 2/5. Just got here. Gooks shot the shit out of ’em on the way into the city.” Radio Operator pauses briefly to pluck a toothbrush out of his helmet band and scrub concrete dust off his handset. “You leavin’ us?”

  “Might have to, man. Fifth Marines is my regular outfit.”

  “Them fuckin’ boots ain’t seen shit yet. Hey, I can fix it for you to interview the Lieutenant.”

  “Cool. I’ll catch up with you.” The arrival of more 5th Marines means I’ll likely have to split from Steve before long. In our Combat Correspondent scheme of things, each of us runs with an assigned outfit unless there’s an emergency like this all hands on deck, balls to the wall rush into Hue City. When the tempo is what passes for normal in northern I Corps, Steve runs with 1st Marines and I’ve got a home with 5th Marines. Hotel has always been one of my favorite second battalion units. The Company Gunny loves publicity and takes good care of a guy who can provide it.

  Hotel is trying to get organized and get their wounded evacuated. Apparently, they ran a vicious gauntlet of plunging fire as they convoyed into the city. Company Commander tells me he’s headed for a position near the MACV Compound where he’ll get further orders from his battalion commander who is already there. Hotel Gunny grins around his soggy cigar, jacks a fresh round into the 12-gauge shotgun he always carries, and says he’ll draw chow for me at the compound. I’ve got a home with Hotel.

  In the manicured yard of a well-appointed house just off a major intersection at the other end of the disputed street, the Lieutenant now co
mmanding Alpha Company is taking a break with his radio operators. They are all clustered around a marble fountain that is still burbling water into a little pool of lily pads. Radio Operator signals it’s a good time for a few questions.

  It’s Steve’s deal, but he’s nowhere in sight so I’ll fill in for him but the Acting Six doesn’t look like he’s in any shape to provide much quotable. He’s taken a big swan dive into that deep valley on the other side of Adrenaline Peak. While I’m fumbling for a notebook, he nods into a doze and his helmet falls into his lap. Red-rimmed eyes jerk open and he glances around at his radioman to see if he’s missed anything. He notices me and nods. Time for the embarrassing, dumb-ass questions that always make me feel like an amateur ghoul.

  It’s perfunctory. He’s knows it and so do I as I jot down his responses. Mainly, I’m searching for something deeper inside a man who took over when his boss was blasted into a medevac on the first day of a fight nobody expected on a concrete battlefield that’s more vicious than anything they could imagine. If he survives, this guy will be a hard act for any officer to follow. Leading a lashed-up outfit of part grunts and part shoe-clerks through a day of hard fighting, he remained calm and collected, tracking scattered elements in almost constant contact with the NVA. His part in most of it was jumping from one radio operator to the next in an effort to give sensible orders and provide some direction for Marines out of his sight and personal influence. And sometime tonight when everyone else is trying to sleep or stay awake, he’ll find time to think about the ones who didn’t make it through the first day in Hue City.

  We’re finished. He can’t add anything and I can’t ask him to try. There’s a nod of understanding between two survivors and then I stand to go find Hotel Company. He grabs at my knee and jabs a grimy finger at my notebook. “Get the story straight. I did a lot of talking on the radio, but those grunts out there bought this real estate.”

  Noble sentiments and just what you’d expect to hear—back at Quantico. But this is Hue City and if there’s anything noble about the fight here I have yet to see it. For some reason it pisses me off. Come on, Lieutenant; give us all a break. Off the record and all, but few enough people in this goddamn war can do what you did with any competence and the grunts know that. They’ve got a fully functional bullshit filter and it’s always dialed up to plus four. It’s a nasty place to be up on the pointy end of the bayonet. There it is. And if you wanted it another way, you could have applied for graduate school.

  Getting dark now and long, looming shadows are creeping across the streets of Hue. It’s no time to be wandering around looking for Hotel Company. Steve is parked in the portico of a house that’s been recently holed by the 106 crew that saved the day. He offers the last cigarette in the C-ration four-pack and I suck smoke into lungs already clogged with concrete dust. The cigarette is stale as usual, probably from rations packed for grunts in Korea. There’s just enough light for him to look over my interview notes. He asks a few probing questions of his own as if I’d missed something in talking to the Lieutenant and that doesn’t improve my mood. Take the fucking notes, write the story when we get back to the rear, and make the guy a hometown hero. It is what it is.

  “You’re beginning to see it, aren’t you?”

  “See what?”

  “You'll know. When you see it, you’ll know.” And then he rolls up in his poncho. I’ve got the first watch tonight and in the morning we might split. Whatever he wants me to see better show up soon. One or both of us might be dead before this time tomorrow.

  Mostly to keep from nodding off, I wander out into a garden area where Alpha Company grunts are setting up the night watch in the last glimmers of grey light. There is just time for a final smoke before the glowing ash will make me a sniper target. It starts to drizzle again and the grunts meet the weather change with a barrage of bitching. Seeking shelter under a large banyan tree, I squat next to a grunt on watch with his M-79 blooper in hand and a string of extra rounds close by. We’ve never seen each other before, but that doesn’t stop us from falling into a whispered conversation.

  Grenadier wants to talk. He hasn’t been in the Marine Corps long, just a little over a year with four months of that in Vietnam. There is nothing much in common between us, but it doesn’t keep him from chatting like he expects me to be interested. He’s anxious to tell me about his family and girlfriend somewhere in Iowa. It’s too dark to see his face and oddly out of character for me, but I find myself actually wanting to know this guy as we whisper into the night. I’ve never even been to Iowa and can’t imagine anything that would take me there, but Grenadier has me convinced I should pay him a visit when we get back to The World.

  MACV Compound

  God knows snipers have enough targets around this area. Can I afford to fire up a smoke? Is the high worth the hurt? Looks like about 15 more minutes before the sky will be light enough to make it safe. A smoke is likely the last thing I need with the croupy, phlegm-filled lungs everyone is developing due to the wet air and rock dust. I’ll wait. A pre-dawn smoke might be comforting but a sniper round full in the face would roach the buzz completely.

  It was relatively quiet last night and everyone is hoping that situation might maintain with the new day. A freshening breeze comes up as the sky grays around the edges with first light. The morning is gloomy with low clouds and the breeze carries mist into Hue from a weather front out at sea. The air is cold and most of us are miserable with chills when the word comes to saddle up and move.

  We stumble toward the MACV Compound, moving like zombies in the dawn haze. Steve heads directly for the Compound gate, anxious to find the battalion commander who might provide some sort of contextual sitrep. The CO is inside somewhere. We know he moved forward to set up his command post almost immediately after Alpha Company cleared the area around the compound. We’ll shift to Hotel Company 2/5 today but it’s no big drama. We can move between units easily. The way things are going, outfits in Hue are unlikely be more than shouting distance from each other as they operate. There’s little room in a city fight for broad-ranging maneuvers. We are both anxious to reunite with the Horrible Hogs of Hotel Company, a stout, reliable outfit—a gang of hard-ass survivors who will welcome a couple of familiar strap-hangers.

  According to a quick and dirty, almost rambling briefing we get from the battalion operations officer, Hotel spent most of the day yesterday trying to take the Vietnamese Treasury building. They didn’t make it, but their attack did a great deal to protect Alpha Company’s exposed flank as they moved on the MACV Compound. Hotel has been ordered to try again today and that gives us a short-term plan of action. Steve is adjusting his gear as we prepare to move, squinting through rain-speckled glasses at a sunless sky.

  “Battalion Six says Hotel takes the Treasury Building today. No excuses. He also says transportation should be rolling for Phu Bai before dark tonight. We could get some of this early shit out with them. Got any interest in making a trip to the rear?”

  The question is both rhetorical and ridiculous. We both have a great deal of interest in that but neither of us will go. There’s a mutual feeling that we are onto something big here, something unusual that needs witnessing. The stories can wait until we’ve got some idea how to end them. “I’m thinking we should stick with Hotel for a while. That Treasury Building deal sounds like good copy.” It’s superficial but sufficient to send us off in search of Hotel Company.

  “You know,” he says as we amble off toward the area where a guide tells us we can find the 2/5 CP, “we could probably get bylines in every paper in the English-speaking world with our stuff out of here.” He leaves it hanging for the fantasy it is. The civilian scribblers and TV types will be flooding into Hue before long, and anything we might write won’t stand a chance against their sources, outlets, and big-gun reputations. Both of us have been down that road before.

  A platoon of Horrible Hogs is hunched in a drainage ditch full of slimy water that echoes with color
ful bitching from the yawning men waiting for word to move. All eyes are locked on the Treasury Building located about three blocks from us up a broad, tree-lined street running parallel to the Perfume River. The day’s objective is up there squatting like an ornate mausoleum beyond a large courtyard surrounded by a stout stone fence.

  The shitty weather is disorienting. How can it be this cold in Southeast Asia? What happened to the land of tropical jungles and sweltering heat? Smelly water ripples around my shivering haunches as a grunt invades my space. He’s wearing a wide grin on his bristly face as he opens a conversation with a bog-standard Marine Corps introduction. “Where you from in The World, man?”

  He doesn’t really give a shit about some little burg in Southeast Missouri, but talking beats staring and brooding. By force of habit rather than any real interest, I pull my weather-beaten notebook and a pen out as I return the query. He grins and nods while I scribble. “I’m from Amarillo, Texas. Name’s Autry—like the cowboy—first name Leon but they call me Gene. Figures, right?”

  Scribbles record his responses to a few more obligatory questions about his job and his time in The Nam to date. Gene Autry digs out a plastic box that contains his smokes and offers me one. I’ve got a similar PX purchased box in my pocket and we talk for a while about how valuable things like that are in wet weather like the stuff that we are experiencing in Hue. Then it’s time to compare our Zippos. His is engraved with an image of Snoopy sitting on his dog house and giving the world the big middle digit. “Fuck ’em all,” Gene Autry says. “There it is,” I reply.

  He’s a fairly handsome guy for a grunt rifleman with clear blue eyes and the scrubby vestiges of a mustache that his light beard won’t really support beneath his runny nose. Autry points to a scar beside his right eye and tells me that’s his first Purple Heart, grenade shrapnel that just missed sending him back to Amarillo as a one-eyed wonder. No biggie, he shrugs and launches into the life and times of PFC Gene Autry, beginning with how useless it is to keep reminding everyone that his real given name is Leon. We are becoming buddies in this reeking trench as we wait for the order to start up the street toward the Treasury Building. Autry probably has a bunch of friends nearby, but here I am with the potential for recording it all and what the hell. He’s never really talked to a reporter of any sort before this chance encounter. It’s a familiar tale about high school football, fast girls, illegal beer runs, and the big life-changer when he joined the Marine Corps to “get me a set of them fuckin’ dress blues, man.”