patChristian |
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By
Pat Christian It
was as drunk as an Elizabethan lord, its fury head between its legs in
a hazy stupor. An
Khe, Vietnam. Sky
Trooper base, Headquarters Company, Headquarters 1st Cavalry Division. The
base resembled a monstrous red dirt parking lot, Sergeant Cain Lamb thought
— dotted with temporary buildings tents and unwashed vehicles. It
seemed to Sergeant Lamb to exist as a flat, remote island world under a
blue-gray sky. “This
probably was one emerald Isle before we showed up, General Buddy. Sergeant
Lamb couldn't remember when he began talking to the monkey. Started
as silent conversations in his head he guessed But
sometimes he wondered if the monkey had initiated them. It
just happened. One day he noticed he was talking out loud to it. Said to
himself, “No big deal, I just won’t let anyone catch me at it.” Sergeant
Lamb sat in the shade of the tree cleaning his black-market 38-caliber
revolver. “We
probably bulldozed some farmer's rice paddy — scrapped the last blade of
grass from it.” “D'ya
ever wonder who was here, exactly right here. “Where
d'ya think they are now? “Dead.” General
Buddy didn't look up. Flies
drank at its infected eye. More flickered around the dried turds littered
about the tree. No
one cleaned them up, only the merciful Asian storms did that. Sergeant
Lamb didn't know how General Buddy came to the public affairs office. It
had no name. Actually it had many names. Whoever
brought it must have rotated back home, Sergeant Lamb figured. He
didn't know who cared for it now. He
knew he didn't. It was just there, mascot to some, father confessor to
others. Seemed
General Buddy had always been there, chain binding its neck, the other
end tied to the trunk of one of the few trees on base. It was some kind
of tree monkey about a foot high, graying around its crew cut head. Its
fur seemed to blend into its world defined by 19 feet of chain and the
denuded circle made by General Buddy’s random pacing. Jubilation
had turned to terror when General Buddy's had escaped weeks earlier. Sergeant
Lamb was convinced it had been the most joy he had experienced since coming
Vietnam. How
could General Buddy have been so fast? Never before, never since, had the
beast of the tree seemed so alive. Members
of the PAO chased it all over the compound, then through the MATS weather
station next door. It
was probably the drinking. Boredom had its role. But someone started shooting,
wildly, barely missing General Buddy and its pursuers. Sergeant Lamb feared
General Buddy might be killed more than he feared he would be hit. “I
wasn’t trying to kill it; I was only trying to herd the damn critter back
to his tree,” said drunken cowboy from South Dakota after he had being
punched in the face and had the gun wrestled from him during a few tense
minutes when Sergeant Lamb feared someone or something might get killed. After
the scuffle, the chase went on with Sergeant Lamb and the others finally
too winded to continue, laughing hard at their failure. He hadn't laughed
like that before or since. A
full can of beer finally captured General Buddy. Someone overturned an
empty wooden ammo box, propped it up with a small pointed stick, tied the
can to the stick. And General Buddy’s addiction imprisoned him. “The
brass probably. They did the denuding so the enemy couldn't sneak up on
us, eh? Buddy.” Sergeant
Lamb reassembled his hand and stood up. “Got
to go.” “My
turn to burn. At least you don't have that crappy task to do. Bad business,
but isn’t everything here,” he said saluting before walking away. General
Buddy made eye contact only for a second. The
monkey had a pair of places it stayed, the first fork of the tree six feet
up, and there on the ground near the trunk. Most
often it sat with its head between its legs habitually sucking its testicular
sack as a child might a thumb. It
only rose to life when someone walked by it with a bottle, then it went
psychotic, screaming, tugging at the end of its chain. If
it was lucky it got a sip of beer. Really lucky, it might get a quarter-full
can or a fifth of Jack Daniels with a few drops left. General
Buddy would then scampered back booty in paw, jump into the fork drink
it down. Some days a dozen cans or bottles were strewn around the tree. Sergeant
Lamb had once given General Buddy a half-filled Coke can. It drank, dropped
the can, stared back at him with red hate glowing from its eyes. It
chased him until it was jerked off its feet at the end of its tether, barred
its teeth screeching its murderous intentions. That
had terrified Sergeant Lamb more than he liked to think about. For the
first time an understanding began to emerge like a half-faded myth — there’s
something to this beast to be respected and feared. From
underneath the 12-seater wooden outhouse, Sergeant Lamb pulled out cut-in-half
50-gallon steel drums brimming with human waste, also containing not a
few liquor bottles. Off
in the distance, General Buddy watched, pacing back and forth, more quickly
each trip, finally climbing into the fork of his tree. Chattering nervously,
he watched Sergeant Lamb pour a layer of diesel fuel on top of the brown
liquid followed by a thinner layer of gasoline. Whump! The
barrels exploded into billowing flames, then backed off into a more controlled
conflagration. Black billows of smoke climbed into a mushrooming column. The
sound of a mini firestorm roared from the gamboling red flames. There’s
some kind of powerful apocalyptic beauty here Sergeant Lamb thought as
the heat seared his face. General
Buddy’s vocalizations had stopped. Its head between its legs sucking, its
body jerked hiccup like, stomach convulsing as if trying unsuccessfully
to purge something. Occasionally
it looked over its shoulder at the glowing fire. As
Sergeant Lamb waited for the waste to burn to a dry crisp fertilizer that
could be dumped on a pile, he thought how useful the 50-gallon drums were. Cooks
immersed heaters in them and wash kitchen equipment. Atop
a wooden platform, Sergeant Lamb showered under a 50-gallon drum. It
made him feel cleaner, but not clean. Vietnam was in the water. It came
from the Bong Song River and was the color of the country’s earth. Vietnam
was the reason its soldiers might never be clean. Sky
Troopers filled 50-gallon drums of teargas then dropped them from helicopters.
An explosive ripped them open just before they hit the ground, spreading
the irksome powder over the jungle. Sergeant
Lamb had also heard of Sky Troopers using helicopters to drop napalm drums
on villages. The
red glow of burning waste transported Sergeant Lamb back to a cardinal
night
months ago. It had come after a scarlet sundown, a lot of drinking and
sunset watching that had made him homesick. Wasn’t
a good Idea to burn at night. It lit you up as targets. Someone new must
have lit the drums. But
it had been so beautiful, the glowing dancing fire roaring, and night seemed
to intensify the noise. Drunkenness
led to dancing in the flickering shadows cast round the tree. Sergeant
Lamb watched, enjoying the younger soldiers’ escalating wildness. Circling
the tree, they laughed and began chanting. Taunting
the monkey, they started bowing to it offering sacrifices of booze and
peanuts, continuing to circle in the moving red glow. The terrorized monkey
screeched baring its teeth, but it only seemed to incite them all the more. Sergeant
Lamb’s interest in the festival faded into a realization that the wildness
had descended into psychoses, and he began sharing the fears of General
Buddy. Sergeant
Lamb sat near a puddle of thickening blood. Before
the medivac helicopter lifted off, he started sickening from the fresh
smell of the scarlet coagulating pool. But
the wind now blowing from the opened doors of the flying chopper was beginning
to calm his stomach. Minutes
ago he had been sitting in the PAO tent shooting the bull with colleagues. While
he had still been tending the fires, A Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry
had come under attack. Two dead so far, a pretty hot firefight still going
on supposedly. Somebody
from headquarters, next tent over, ran over to tell those in PAO of the
story opportunity, and Sergeant Lamb grabbed his camera and notebook and
drove down to the medivac pad to hitch a ride to the action. The
dust-off chopper had already made one trip to the landing zone, bringing
back victims and Sergeant Lamb was aboard for the second rotation. He
didn’t know where the chopper was headed. Sometimes it was difficult to
know which way north was, flying over a gray-green jungle all looking the
same. “Twenty
minutes out; one hot LZ,” the crew chief as said as the dust-off had lifted
off. Dust
off? I guess it's because when a guy bites the dust, a dust-off fly’s him
out, Sergeant Lamb thought, snickering at his own black humor. Actually
pretty good at it, he always tried to figure things out on his own. Hardly
ever would he ask anyone about things he didn’t know but thought he should
be acquainted with, that is unless of course, he was interviewing for a
story. But even then he wouldn’t asked anything he thought the interviewee
might expect him to know. He was good of filling in the gaps however by
asking someone else. Sergeant
Lamb didn't want to be, but he was treated differently. Members of his
family were influential publishers back in the world. Like so many others,
he had been drafted. But
as heir apparent of a publishing empire, higher ups fawned over him as
if he were of higher rank, while his peers felt awkward around him and
assumed he was too stuffy for them. To himself, he was just Sergeant Cain
Lamb, an Army reporter. Family
connections probably could have saved him from the draft. But his family
wasn’t that way, and he didn’t want special privileges anyway. Sergeant
Lamb's love for the game of bridge, which he played nearly every night
with First Sergeant Brad Wilcox and Lt. Albert Graz, was confused by some
as snobbery. He
preferred the field, on assignment. Those he ran into out there didn't
know who he was; so they treated him like anyone else. A
hand touched his shoulder and he turned. The crew chief pointed at 2 O'clock.
In the distance a column of blackish-gray smoke climbed a thousand feet
into the countryside sky. “Get
scared time!” Sergeant Lamb said under his breath. His heart started pounding
harder. It was unlikely, but he thought he could smell the blood again. “We're
circling. The LZ's too hot,” the crew chief said. The
circle grew smaller. In
the middle of it, there was a clearing with sparse trees. Out further were
green rice paddies. A road ended in the clearing and extended past the
rice paddies. Soldiers
were all at one edge of the clearing that faced the road. Explosions
erupted just past the Soldiers. Sergeant Lamb figured it was American artillery
fire supporting the pinned down Sky Troopers. At
the edge of the clearing, Sergeant Lamb saw soldiers moving from position
to position as if they were still under fire, but he couldn't make out
any enemy soldiers. He
saw a burning tank. Could see maybe two bodies lying around it dead or
wounded on the ground. They're
abandoned; they must be KIA, dead, dusted. Oh great! Sergeant Lamb thought. “Still
taking fire, but not as much; so we’re going in,” the crew chief said. Sergeant
Lamb was already sitting on the floor of the chopper with his feet out
the door. He
stood up on the runners as the chopper sped into the landing zone. Sergeant
Lamb sized things up. Smoke everywhere, lots of noise from automatic weapon
fire. He figured, considering the situation, his adrenal glands were working
just about right — enough for clear thought and quick reactions, but still
short of the terror zone. Before
jumping, he chose his cover. The chopper was still flying low into the
LZ and everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, Sergeant Lamb
thought. He
jumped as the chopper still hovered six or five feet off the ground, with
one hand holding his camera straps close to his chest and the other hand
out for balance. It
wasn't that way, but he felt like a cartoon character with its feet running
in the air. After his feet actually did hit the ground, it only took him
about three seconds to run for cover where two soldiers, one black, the
other white and baby faced, were hiding behind a stone grave marker. That's
why the clearing. It's a Vietnamese cemetery, Sergeant Lamb thought. “How's
it going?” “Better
than a minute ago,” one of them said. “It's
kind of backed off a bit,” the baby faced soldier added. Sergeant
Lamb already had his notebook out, scribbling notes. He asked a few question,
and took a couple of close-ups with one of his cameras, a photo of the
black soldiers sighting down his rifle. He wasn't firing, and Sergeant
Lamb figured the pair was in a defensive mode and maybe Charlie was in
retreat. “I
think we may lost a few. We . . .” “You
did,” Sergeant Lamb interrupted. “
I just came in on the dust off. Crew, said there were two dead, at least
three wounded. They were supposed to pick more wounded this trip.” Sergeant
Lamb looked around for the chopper, but it was already gone. Probably loaded
the remaining wounded while still hovering. It would be back for the dead
later. During
his short interview, Sergeant Lamb learned the unit had been patrolling
nearby villages with a lead tank and had stopped at the cemetery for lunch. That’s
when they came under intense fire from two separate positions – automatic
rifle fire from the road in front of them and a grassy knoll at their flank. The
Knoll was linked to the road behind them by a narrow footpath going through
a rice paddy. And from somewhere, they had also been targeted by mortar
rounds. The
tank had been knocked out by a Viet Cong Soldier with an over the shoulder
Chinese rocket launcher. The
soldier to Sergeant Lamb's left was probably 19. A
gaunt face and dark eyebrows that touched in fine hairs in the middle,
he had that look in his eyes they called the 1,000-yard stare. (end of excerpted
sample)
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