GOING OVER

III. War

Oakland

     We were at Oakland Army Terminal, a detachment of about a dozen Marine radio and radar operators under Lieutenant John O’Neill. It was September, 1965. We were getting ready to ship out for Vietnam aboard the commercial freighter S.S. AMERICAN CHARGER, which the Defense Department had chartered to help make up the deficit in military shipping during the buildup.

     We’d had our last Stateside liberty in Oakland the night before, and a friend of mine, Martin Luther Ealy, took a couple of us white boys bar-hopping in a black section of Oakland that was, shall we say, nitty-gritty enough that we’d never have ventured there unescorted. I’d gone upstairs at one of the bars to a prostitute, who’d matter-of-factly and bemusedly received my unschooled motions as her man sat with his back to us a few feet away. When I complained that I hadn’t gotten very much time for that amount of money, she shrugged: "You came, baby. That’s what you paid for; that’s what you got." She began filing her nails. I went back downstairs to approval mingled with jokes about how quickly I’d returned.

     But this story isn’t about that. It’s about tossing Harris his rifle. He was a black

PFC a good three years younger than I, an ancient 22-year-old corporal with three

years in "The Crotch," headed for my second overseas tour. The only thing Harris took

seriously was his reputation for refusing to take seriously anything to do with the

Marine Corps, military discipline, or his job. It was all pretty funny to him, an

alternately boring and amusing hiatus between parts of his civilian life.

     It was a glaring afternoon. We were hanging out in a paved open area in front of a warehouse, watching military and civilian vehicles pull up to and away from the warehouse’s loading dock, that nexus of commerce and war. Lieutenant O’Neill was off somewhere finding out what we were supposed to do.

     We were engaged in the usual taunts and grab-ass when someone first glanced, then stared, at what a departing military six-by had left behind. We followed his stare and were struck quiet. We’d heard of body bags; even had an idea what they looked like, courtesy of the hyperactive rumor mill that was the source of most of our information and misinformation about what was going on in Vietnam.

     What we hadn’t heard anything about was aluminum caskets. But there they were, three jewels from the Grim Reaper’s trove, radiating sunlight from the loading dock. Our guys. We stood, mesmerized, staring at them wordlessly for I don’t know how long. It was long enough for the odor to reach us from the caskets. Our nostrils flared with it; each of us turned away quickly but as quickly turned back, baby warriors electrified and repelled by our first whiff of death. That was my first awareness that a dead human smells different from a dead animal. I still haven’t sorted out what the difference is, because I’ve never been able to decide how much is physical and how much is emotional.

     Lieutenant O’Neill came up huffing, in a hurry: "Let’s go!" He didn’t notice the caskets until our unwonted slowness in responding to his order jolted him into a barked repetition of it. If what was happening could be said to have a rhythm, O’Neill’s noticing of the caskets interrupted it. He skipped a beat, slowed, lowered his voice: "Get your rifles. Get on the bus." It was his turn to stare at the caskets as we snapped out of our shared reverie and moved to pick up our M14 rifles from where they leaned in a row against the building behind us. I took my rifle in my left hand and stood aside as the others grabbed theirs. That happened quickly, until one rifle leaned alone against the building. Harris was still standing where we’d all been, frozen, staring at the caskets.

     "Harris!" I shouted. He came to, spun around, jogged toward me with an adrenaline-induced bounce to his steps and a wild-eyed look on his face, part grin and part pre-game stage fright. I’d never seen him so alert, so alive. I picked up his rifle in my right hand, gripping it at the balance point just forward of the receiver. I tucked the rifle up under my armpit, threw it out hard, horizontally, in Harris’ direction, with no warning except what passed between our eyes.

     He didn’t break stride. Running straight at the flying rifle, his eyes followed it as a good infielder’s eyes will follow a line drive, reading its flight. Just before the rifle would have smacked him across the chest, he raised his left hand – languidly, it seemed – and snapped it around the rifle, at the same balance point by which I’d thrown it. Our eyes clicked together: here we go. He jogged past me, spun the rifle to vertical, and bounced up the steps into the bus.

                                             Going Over

     Lieutenant O’Neill herded his little gaggle of Marines, most of whom were eighteen- and nineteen-year-old radio and radar operators who had never been far from the small towns or urban neighborhoods where they grew up, let alone to the other side of the world, aboard the AMERICAN CHARGER. Our equipment van was craned over the side and lowered into a hold along with other supplies bound for Vietnam.

     All the ship’s cargo was materiel for the war. Those NCO’s among us who, like me, had had extended excursions aboard troop ships of the “gator navy,” the fleet of vessels designed and built specifically to deliver American troops and equipment to enemy-held beaches, were flabbergasted by the difference. The ship was crowded with cargo, but not with men. Lieutenant O’Neill was the only military officer aboard, and he wasn’t one of the frenetic martinet types who could make such a hell of a two-week crossing. So passage was, to me, startlingly different from the two Pacific crossings I’d made before.

     The evening of our first day at sea we were led into a small but rather nicely appointed dining room. Not mess hall: dining room. A waiter with a white jacket and quiet manner approached our tables and asked what we’d like for dinner.

     Hunh? Those of us who’d been at sea at all were used to lining up with dozens, or hundreds, of other young sailors and Marines, grabbing a steel tray off a stack as we moved quickly through the line, and eating what was slopped onto it.

     “Tonight we have a choice of two entrées, roast duck or filet mignon.” The guy said that, and still had a straight face.

      Hunh?

     We had stumbled into a situation which none of us had encountered before, and which I personally had never heard of happening among enlisted men of the US military at sea, in all my three years in the Marine Corps. Our detachment consisted of a handful of men put aboard to accompany our gear, some of which – the TPQ-10 radar, specifically - was Top Secret. The equipment had to be watched over by someone with the proper clearance, which some few of us had, Lieutenant O’Neill and I among them.

     They had to feed us on the way over, and the only facility for doing that was the crew’s mess. The crew’s mess was run according to the rules of their union, which included a choice of two entrées for each dinner. Apparently union rules also stipulated that such meals be prepared not just by whichever crew member might be on duty as cook that day, but by a trained chef. We shut our mouths, ate, and grinned. We knew things would be different where we were going.

     After a Cinderella liberty in Honolulu, with no destination before us but Vietnam, the mood changed. There would be no more port calls. Though O’Neill wasn’t anything like a brand-new second lieutenant trying simultaneously to establish his authority and his manhood, he still had the responsibility of preparing us to do our jobs as Marines when we went ashore. We had the occasional rifle inspection, to make sure we weren’t letting the salt air rust our weapons, and even did calisthenics in the limited space available among the room-sized crates that were packed with the stuff that war requires and chained or strapped to the decks.

     A couple of days out of Hawaii, the lieutenant called us together for a lecture which didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but which I would have cause to remember the rest of my life. He gathered us in one of the cargo holds where the crates weren’t stacked all the way to the deck above, and picked a space where he could sit on one crate and the rest of us could spread out on others, being sure that we were all close enough to hear him clearly. This was important.    

     His lecture was about SEATO, the South East Asia Treaty Organization. It was the reason we were going, he said. About all we’d heard to that point was that Communists controlled North Vietnam, and our allies controlled South Vietnam. SEATO, the lieutenant told us, was a multinational organization of countries in the area organized for mutual security. Australia belonged, he said, and Thailand and the Philippines.The United States was also a signatory, along with Britain and France. When one of us raised the obvious question of how the United States fit into a group of nations so distant from our own (by now even the least educated among us knew that Vietnam was half a world away; after all, they’d already told us it would take two weeks to get there), O’Neill replied that the situation we were entering was especially important because South Vietnam was a small democratic country with a small and weak army, and they were threatened with being overrun by their Communist neighbor to the North, who was being supported with weapons and money by the Soviets. The South Vietnamese were fragile at present, but they were our friends, and had asked for our help. Our country had signed that treaty, and a deal’s a deal. He also said that the agreement specifically stated that an attack on any signatory would be considered an attack on all. (Actually, that wasn’t true, though we weren’t told so at the time. What SEATO meant in practice was that the United States had a legal justification to intervene as our leadership saw fit. This was bolstered by the 533-2 vote in the U.S. Congress in support of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, passed on August 7 the previous year, about three days after my Naval Gunfire section sailed for the same Gulf.)     

     We were going to Vietnam to honor a solemn commitment.         

     Most of us thought the lieutenant wasn’t such a bad guy, for an officer. He did his

job and made us do ours, but for the most part didn’t hassle us just to flaunt his rank,

like some officers did. So we were a little surprised at his seriousness as he gave us

that history lesson in the hold of the AMERICAN CHARGER. But we listened. At least I

did. It was good enough for me: let’s go; let’s get the job done. It would be many years

before I learned that SEATO, and even the specific leadership of the South Vietnamese

government itself, were creations of the U.S. Government, under President Eisenhower

and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. The reason for the very existence of SEATO,

and for the leadership put in place in the South Vietnamese government, was to ratchet

up U.S. presence in Southeast Asia.

     I’m pretty sure O’Neill knew little or nothing besides what they’d told him, and he

passed it on to us. That’s how it all works.

     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 its 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

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 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.    

    

     A few days later we pulled into the harbor at Danang. It was a maelstrom: Navy

warships, Navy and civilian cargo ships, and Vietnamese sampans all trying to fulfill

their appointed obligations without getting run over. We came to a floating stop in the

middle of the harbor, as if the ship herself was bewildered. Apparently the skipper was

on the radio trying to find out where to park. A U.S. Navy warship – a destroyer escort,

as I remember - hove to abreast of us, and began blinking its signal lamp directly at us.

Lieutenant O’Neill found me and told me to come with him to the bridge. It turned out

that none of the Charger’s communicators knew Morse code. O’Neill asked if I could

read the naval signaler’s transmission. I knew Morse; my weeks of Radio Telegraph

Operator’s Course in 1963 had included intensive training in that, and I’d used it in

training with Naval Gunfire on Okinawa, and in the Philippines and Japan. In those

situations we’d tapped out Morse on a “knee key,” which was a Morse key attached to a

large spring steel clip that slipped over the operator’s leg just above the knee.

     I said I’d give it a try, and pretty soon I was able to tell the lieutenant that I was

missing some that was apparently Navy jargon, but that the guy wanted us to identify

ourselves.

     Oops. Up to then my experience with these signal lamps had been watching short

scenes in war movies, but that at least had taught me basically how they worked: you

grabbed this handle and flicked your wrist – quickly for a dot, a little longer for a dash.

With that for starters, I was able to tell the Navy signalman “I am USMC,” thereby

letting him understand my relative clumsiness with his native instrument, and “We are

SS American Charger.” We were plenty close enough for them to see that we were an

unarmed freighter, not a warship.

     Between my blinking and whatever was transpiring on the ship’s radio, we were

allowed to proceed, and to tie up at a dock. We walked down the gangplank with our

personal gear, and stood around anxiously watching the unloading process until we saw

a dockside crane lift our van, still locked and with our contraband beer safely inside,

over the side and into a waiting six-by. We all grinned like the fools we were. Shit. We

were geniuses: we’d planned it so well we didn’t even have to offload our own beer.

     We clambered aboard and drove away, beer and all. We were in Vietnam.