Aboard ship on the way to Vietnam...
We had good weather most of the way across: tropical sun on blue water punctuated by the occasional whitecap. As we approached the Orient, flying fish with four pectoral fin/wings could be seen staging their takeoffs in the clear water, accelerating into a wave as it crested, surfing on its energy, then at just the right moment, bursting from its side to set their wings and glide on the trough of air also being lifted by the wave. They could coast on the air currents between crests of waves, like an albatross, for a hundred yards or more. I never tired of watching them.
We were bored. Not long after Hawaii but days before the end of our voyage, our incessant prowling of the ship produced a revelation. The same hold which contained our precious communications van also carried beer: pallets upon pallets of canned beer. Schlitz and Pabst Blue Ribbon are the ones I remember. “Wonder where all this beer’s goin’?” “Same place we are, I guess.”
“So it’s beer for the troops, right?”
“Hey! That’s us!”
“Right... this is our beer!”
“Y’know, I’m not sure it’s safe, out here in the open, all by itself. What if that deck leaks, seawater gets in here, gets everything soakin’ wet? Seawater’s bad for metal, like beer cans, gets it all rusted ‘n’ corroded ‘n’ shit.”
“We can’t allow that to happen. That’d be dereliction of duty.”
Our communications van was always locked. One NCO among us always had the key, in order to unlock it, go inside, make sure nobody had picked the lock and entered to pilfer or vandalize, then lock it again.
Sometimes that NCO was me. I’ve always had a knack for organizing people to move quantities of things; it had come in handy aboard the CAVALIER and the PICKAWAY the year before in the Tonkin Gulf and the South China Sea.
We formed a chain gang, standing four or five feet apart with every other man facing the opposite direction, from our chosen pallet to the door of the van. Two men attacked the designated pallet, alternating as first one then the other slid a case of beer off the top course on the pallet and handed/tossed it to the first man in the chain. Our technique of facing opposite directions meant that no one had to turn completely to the side to pass a case of beer to the next man in line.
I unlocked the door. Two men went inside, one to catch the most recent case arriving from the last man in the chain, and one to stack, with specific instructions on how to do that so the stack would fit in the narrow aisle between rows of electronic equipment, with the cases interlocked in a modified version of how they’d been stacked on the pallet. We were done in a few minutes, the van door had been re-locked, and we’d all disappeared above decks and were diligently cleaning our rifles, or feigning sleep in the sun, so as to appear the same as we would on any other day.
A couple of days later, with Hawaii now a distant memory and Asia still invisible, we plowed the seas in a world which contained nothing but ocean, horizon, and sky. A few of us were lounging around in the hold near our van, conjecturing about a future filled with combat and beer.
“I wouldn’t mind a wound or two, nothin’ serious, just enough to make me look salty.”
“Maybe one right on the face, so the chicks could all see it...”
“But not enough to make you ugly.”
“Or right here, on the arm, a real nasty-lookin’ one, but it just peeks out from under the sleeve o’ your t-shirt, but looks real impressive when you take your shirt off.”
“Right, I hear women go crazy for a wounded guy...”
“Y’know, this beer’ll go down mighty good when we come in off a patrol.”
“I don’t give a fuck if I get a leg blown off, long as my cock and balls are still intact.”
“Right, that’s the main thing...”
“Whaddaya mean, patrol? We’re wing-wipers. We ain’t goin’ on any goddamned patrols.” “Wingwipers” was a derogatory term used by division Marines, like I had been for most of my hitch, for those in the Marine Air Wing. There was no talk of death, but its shadow had hung a little lower over us as each day brought us closer to the end of our voyage.
The ship’s Merchant Marine officers had mostly left us alone. But now one approached. “How are you men doing today?” he asked, a little nervously.
“Oh, fine, sir... just keepin’ an eagle eye on our equipment, here.”
“Well, that’s good... say, there seems to be some cargo missing, or... moved. Actually, some beer is missing. Anybody know anything about that?” he searched our faces.
“No, sir, I haven’t noticed anything... any o’ you guys?” Exchange of innocent looks, shrugs. “No sir.” “Me either.” “Not a thing. Sorry, sir.”
“Well... I need to see inside that van.” He nodded at ours, the one we were loosely clustered around.
“You got a Top Secret Clearance, sir?”
“Of course not. I’m an officer in the Merchant Marine; we’re not involved in that sort...”
“Sorry, sir...” (nodding toward the van) “... the equipment in there...” (nodding again) “...is not only secret. “It’s TOP secret. “Our orders are not to allow anyone without the proper clearance to even SEE inside it.”
By this time the half dozen or so of us who had quietly been hanging around the van had moved from slouches to more vertical positions. A weapon or two appeared, casually. I turned my left side, with unambiguous Randall fighting knife, toward him.
“I really must...”
Softly, but a little sharply: “Sir. We are United States Marines on sentry duty.”(pause) “Nobody..but..us..touches..that..lock.”
Nobody did, either.
