The Last Road Home (21 page)

P
ART
3

C
HAPTER
44

I
nside the building was a large open lobby. I could see a crowd of men down the way standing in one line or another, fat guys, skinny guys, black guys, white guys, a bit of everything. I gave my name and paperwork to an army lieutenant, and he directed me to the medical check line. The army, air force, and marine recruits all processed in the same place. We went behind a screen to undress, waited in line to drop our drawers, get our nuts checked, and make sure our feet weren't flat. At the end of the line, the doc asked if I was a homosexual. When I said no, he gave me a stamp of approval.

On Monday, July 20, 1965, I took the oath for the United States Marine Corps. A marine sergeant kept us in the room after the swearing-in. “You're about to get a chance to become part of the finest fighting force in the world, a brotherhood you'll treasure for the rest of your life. But you're going to have to earn it. When you get to Parris Island, listen, learn, and work your ass off. You won't know yourself in just a few weeks.” We walked out of that room with a swelled chest and fire in our eyes. Late that afternoon, thirty of us loaded onto an old Greyhound bus bound for Parris Island, excited, looking forward to being marines. I felt tougher already.

We spent a long day inhaling diesel fumes, shooting the shit about where we were from and the latest rumors about the war. I'd read about Vietnam, not paying it much attention, but some of the guys seemed to be experts. The consensus was that marines would be invading the place any day now. I'd only ever seen one John Wayne movie and I looked forward to becoming the marine he was.

It was the middle of the night when the bus pulled up to a checkpoint in front of a sign that read: W
ELCOME TO
P
ARRIS
I
SLAND,
W
E
M
AKE
M
ARINES.
The bus was waved through and wound around the street, stopping in front of a set of buildings. A marine, wearing a single stripe over crossed rifles on his sleeves and a round, wide-brimmed hat, boarded. His face was thin, and the edges of his jawline looked like they could cut paper. His voice sounded like a bugle, deep, loud, and bouncing on the low notes.

“Listen up, you maggots. I am Drill Instructor Lance Corporal Cook. From now on, understand your momma and daddy don't live here, and I'll personally kick the shit out of you anytime I feel like it. You will speak only when spoken to, move when I say so, and sleep when I say so. If you so much as act like you're stupid, I'll put a boot so far up your ass you'll shit leather for a week. When I ask a question, you answer with ‘sir, yes sir.' Do you understand?”

Evidently the response wasn't loud enough for him. He grabbed the first guy in the front seat, dragged him up, and mashed their noses together. “Did you hear me, faggot?” He slammed his forehead into the recruit's. I was glad I'd decided to sit in the back.

The kid made a mistake. “Yes, sir.”

The drill instructor screamed, “You fucking dipshit, what did I just tell you!” He yanked the recruit off the bus by his shirt collar. We heard more yelling outside, then the sound of a body being slammed against the side of the bus. The rest of us sat deathly silent. We all wanted to look but were afraid to. My asshole was drawn up so tight a crowbar couldn't pry it loose. I tried to figure my chances of getting out the back door of the bus and finding my way home.

The drill instructor guy got back on. “Anybody else not remember how I said to answer?”

A thirty-person cry went up. “Sir, no sir.”

“Good, now get your asses off this bus, single file, and I better not hear a word. You understand me, maggots?”

“Sir, yes sir.”

Such was my introduction into the corps. From there it got worse. I got to know the flavor of Lance Corporal Cook's toothpaste he was in my face so much, spit flying. Screw up and he didn't hesitate to kick you in the ass or punch you in the nuts. The physical training was hard, push-ups, pull-ups, over walls, under fences, all the while that bugle voice screaming in your ear.

But it worked. In three weeks, what started out as a bunch of dumb-ass, raggedy boys became a unit, a slick-marching group of men who began to accomplish things they had no idea they could, all with a common motivation—undying hatred for Lance Corporal Cook. If a man was fat, he slimmed down; if he was skinny, he bulked up; if he was weak, he got stronger. We learned to vent our frustrations in the training. Hand-to-hand combat classes got ugly.

I seemed to catch on pretty good, finding the most satisfaction on the shooting range. We learned to fire M-1 rifles, M-14's on full automatic, and to strip and reassemble them blindfolded. We learned to use mortars. The first time I fired a .50-caliber machine gun, I understood what true power over life and death felt like.

In our fifth week, a recruit killed himself by slicing his wrist with a razor one morning in the bathroom. The medics carried him out, and the rest of us weren't allowed time to be sorry about him. If anything, the instructors worked us harder.

The biggest emphasis in marine boot camp was on how to kill another man with whatever weapon you might have: a bayonet, a rifle, or your bare hands. My mind got conditioned to stay calm in the middle of chaos, and understand that a marine's job in combat was to protect his fellow marines first, and kill every son of a bitch trying to kill you. It was like I'd been born again; they tore me down and rebuilt me with discipline and structure, all the while instilling a sense of pride and a willingness to die for the marine corps.

* * *

I wrote Fancy around the middle of September.

At the end of sixteen weeks, all but twelve who started together marched in the graduation parade. Every chest stuck out, filled with the pride of being a part of something much bigger than ourselves. The day I pinned on the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor was the proudest day of my life. I watched as the other guys hugged, laughed, and took pictures with their families.

After graduation in December, most of our unit deployed to Camp Pendleton in California for jungle training to get in “Vietnam shape.” It was no secret we were going. Soon. The surprise was there wasn't a jungle within a thousand miles of Camp Pendleton. The jungle training consisted of humping rolling, scrub-brush hills day after day for almost six months. Instructors taught us how to set up and detonate anti-personnel mines called “toe-poppers,” and how to look for booby traps in the jungles. The rest, they told us, we'd learn on the job. At the end of May 1966, almost a thousand of us were transported to San Diego Naval Base and loaded on ships.

C
HAPTER
45

T
he boat was nose to neck with marines, a few I knew, but the most I didn't. During the thirty-day trip, we were forced to sleep so close to each other you didn't dare move for fear the guy next to you would misinterpret it. It was nasty, hot, and miserable. There was nothing to do but sit around and tell lies or play cards. Plenty of fistfights broke out; nothing like a crowd of bad-tempered marines in a foul mood. It seemed every time the ship rolled, my stomach followed. I dirtied the ocean with vomit almost daily. Hell of a way to spend my nineteenth birthday.

When we waded ashore on the beaches of DaNang, Vietnam, the humidity was so thick it felt like walking through a jar of honey. The mob of us new boots were organized and moved onto the grounds of the air base. I recognized the froggy, deep-throated voices and figured this must be the place old drill instructors had gone to die. From the smell of the place, a lot of them must have been lying dead somewhere close by. I didn't see anybody who looked like John Wayne; not surprising, because back at Camp Pendleton, I'd read in a magazine he'd never served a single day in the military, much less the marine corps.

After being assigned to squads and platoons, we were shown to temporary barracks, instructed to get some rest and fall out with packs when the bugle blew at six the next morning. Nothing like a good night's sleep on wooden cots trying to breathe stifling air, waiting for your brain to catch up and realize it's not rolling on the waves anymore. We cussed the cruel bastards who built wooden hootches and topped them with tin roofs so we could be slow-roasted like hogs at a barbecue. The consensus was it had to be the Navy Seabees, and we vowed to kick the shit out of any navy puke we saw. Off in the distance, we could hear the sounds of artillery exploding and bombs dropping. I figured we'd be hearing them up close real soon.

The next morning we mustered, standing at attention in the unbelievable heat, smelling the overpowering stink of rotting fish and sewage. A lieutenant assured us he had the list of where each of us was headed, and we'd be departing that day or the next. When the lieutenant finished, a short, stocky gunny followed.

“My name is Gunnery Sergeant Phillips. Raise your hand if you qualified expert on the rifle range.”

Nobody moved.

That upset the gunny just a bit. “Now, I know some of you dipshits qualified. Don't make me go to the trouble of looking up your records.” He walked up and down the rows. “Do that and I'll find a nice hellhole deep in the jungle where you won't see daylight for the next year.”

Even though I'd learned never to raise my hand for anything in the marine corps, I stuck it in the air. Fifteen others did as well. “Thank you for volunteering for the marine scout sniper unit. Fall out and follow me.” I was the only one I knew.

He led us to a deserted corner of the base. “Take a load off,” Gunny instructed. We sprawled under a shade tree. He paced up and down in front of the group. Gunny was built like an oil lamp, wore a pencil mustache that curled at the ends, and had a voice loud enough to peel paint. “I've been in the corps longer than you're old, cut my teeth in the Chosin Reservoir in Korea, and I couldn't wait to get here and kill little gook bastards. My beloved corps said they needed snipers and it's my job to provide them. If I think you got what it takes, you'll become one. If I take you, write your momma good-bye, because it ain't likely you'll see her again. It's an honor for all marines to die in battle, and you'll get a free military funeral. Any questions?”

There was dead silence.

“I know a few of you are asking yourself, ‘Gunny, what's it like killing a live person?' Am I right?”

Several nodded.

“I'll tell you what it's like. Killing an enemy soldier is like getting laid and shooting your wad that first time. Anybody remember how good that felt?”

More enthusiastic nodding this time; Gunny had a laugh that sounded like a guinea fowl hollering.

“Tomorrow I'm going to sit down with each one of you and evaluate whether or not I think you got what it takes to do this job. If you can look another man in the eye and blow it out, watch his head turn to mush and enjoy it, you might have what it takes. If not, you can go flop-and-slop in the boonies with the regular grunts. Sniping is an up-close-and-personal job. It ain't for everybody.” He told us how to find his hootch and to be in front of it right after chow the next morning.

The group split up and we went our different ways. I fell in with four other guys, and we walked the grounds outside the base. Street booths packed the area just beyond the guard gate. I thought I'd seen nasty before, but this place was unbelievable. Ragged, dirty-faced kids swarmed us like gnats. “You got cigarette, GI? Gimme money. I take you to my sister, she boom-boom you good.” A couple of kids tried to distract us while another one would stick his hand in our pockets. We had to slap a couple of them on the head to run them off. They cussed us like we would a sailor. Old women or scrawny men sat under umbrellas selling everything from switchblades to canned fruit. The men didn't look like much, and I had a hard time getting a picture of them with a machine gun.

We stopped at one stand that displayed about every kind of bladed weapon you could imagine. I hefted an ugly-looking machete. “How much?” I motioned to the old woman sitting in the sun. When she opened her mouth to smile, what few teeth she had were black as old walnuts. She held up five fingers. “500 P.” I had no idea how much that was. I reached in my pocket, came out with a five-dollar greenback, and looked at her. She snatched it from my hand before I could close it. “Okay.” She grinned.

One of the guys, a kid with jet-black hair, skin as brown as an oatmeal cookie, and a body square as a stable stall door, bought a tomahawk. “You know how to use that thing?” I asked.

He waved the tomahawk around and balanced it for weight. “I've been playing with one of these since I could walk. I'm half-Sioux.” His name strip said Jones, but he told me his Indian name was Hotah, which meant “strong.” He looked it.

“Your folks same as Crazy Horse?” I'd read his name in a book in school.

“Yep, him and Sitting Bull. And that's no bullshit.” He cackled.

Another Vietnamese kid ran up to me. “Give me smoke, marine.” He was taller than the others, badly pock-faced, and skinny as a rail. I felt sorry for him and reached in my pocket to give him one. He tried to snatch the whole pack.

Hotah caught him by the arm before he could run, bent down, and set the edge of the tomahawk under the kid's chin. “I'm gonna do my best to kill your daddy while I'm here.” The boy spit on his shoes. Hotah kicked him in the ass, sending him sprawling in the dust. The kid walked backward, flipping us the finger with both hands.

The next morning we met at Gunny's tent. While one of us went in, the rest sat around telling lies until the guy coming out pointed to the next one to go in. I was close to last.

Gunny sat at a small desk with an electric fan blowing wet air. “Hurley, tell me about yourself, how'd you grow up, what's life been like for you, shit like that.”

I explained what I thought was necessary, and left out what wasn't his business. I'd been imagining all night long what it would be like to be a sniper, picturing myself roaming the jungle in the dark, hanging out in the treetops, invisible to the rest of the world. I wanted to be one.

“Hurley, you think you can look a man in the eye and kill him?”

“I expect I could.”

He studied me for a minute or two. He had black-flecked nut brown eyes. Like Lawyer Stern, he seemed to look inside your head. “You ever killed anybody, Hurley?”

That pushed me back in my chair. I took time to retie a bootlace. “Can't say as I have.”

He scribbled some notes, then sat looking at me while he rubbed his chin. “I think you'll do. Send in the next man.”

The following morning I counted a dozen men at Gunny's tent. Evidently three hadn't measured up, Hotah being one of them. “Men, you can be proud of yourselves for being a part of this unit. You're going to be important to the war effort; the last time marines had sniper outfits was in Korea. Make no mistake; what you're going to be doing will get you killed. Look at the guy beside you.” He waited. “One of you will probably be going home in a box. Consider yourself dead right now, and the rest won't seem so bad. Before you die, I want you to make sure a lot more of them go home in boxes. You're United States Marines, the toughest sons of bitches on the planet. Don't let me down.” He reached into his tent and pulled out a rifle. “Gentlemen, meet the Remington 30.06 sniper rifle. Learn it, kiss it every night, and rub it like a pretty woman's ass. When you get to your destination, you'll be trained to use it by a senior sniper. Grab your sea bag and be back here at eleven hundred hours. It's time to do what you came for.”