Limited vocabulary

My wife said, “I like your stories, but do you have to use that language?”

I said, “It’s the language we used.”

She said, “Nobody I know uses that language. It exhibits a limited vocabulary.”

“There were times,” I said, “when our vocabulary was very limited.”

It wasn’t worth explaining.

See, everything was time-oriented. Today counted, and nothing else. Yesterday didn’t matter, because it was gone. Tomorrow wasn’t yet here. Today counted -- right now counted, not the next minute, because you never knew what the next minute would bring. You didn’t think about the next minute; you thought about where your foot was now, where your eyes looked now. You thought about where you were, not in some abstract geo-political sense, but where you physically were. You certainly didn’t think about home. Home didn’t matter. Home was a place you remembered only when time came to stop walking. Home was a place not in reality. Home was a dream, a thing conjured in the night, but never during the day. Reality was where you were. Reality was here.

Limited vocabulary was part of the time-orientation. There was not time to explain things, so we shortened everything. Anything could be, and was, a motherfucker or a variation of the word. Motherfucking gooks. Motherfucking choppers’re late again. Motherfucking coffee was cold. Motherfucking Claymore took Charlie out, Man. Wizard’n his gun, Man, he sat down on that motherfucking trigger, wasted some gooks. I told the motherfucker, Man. I told him, watch where you put your feet. Motherfucker didn’t listen.

I can sum up the whole thing in two words -- Fuckin shit. The war and everything that went with it -- Fuckin shit.

The days that were hot and wet, or hot and dry; the people you associated with, lived with, slept with, drank beer with; the gooks you killed because they were trying to kill you; the bush, the hills, mud and rain; dust that curled up, over your boots and into your face when you walked; the food they gave you to eat; the rifle or machine gun or grenade launcher you carried and the ammunition for the weapon, and, god knows, if you had more strength, you would carry more ammunition. All of that -- Fuckin shit.

See how easy it is?

But even in that one phrase, there are different degrees, differing aspects of emphasis. Say you been humpin the bush two weeks, wearing the same clothes, the only thing you’ve changed is your socks, put on a dry pair, let the wet ones dry out, and the LT says resupply choppers are coming in, bringing new uniforms, but when the choppers get there, all they drop off is hot chow in mermite cans and more ammunition. You haul the mermite cans from the choppers, go back and pick up heavy wooden boxes of ammunition and hand grenades, there are no cardboard boxes with clean uniforms, clean socks. Fuck-in shit.

Somebody gets a letter from his girl back home, she says it isn’t the same anymore, he’s so far away, and what’s a girl supposed to do, stay home every Friday night and Saturday night? She’s still young, she has a life to live, and she knows he’ll understand. The guy who gets that letter, does one of two things: He goes off by himself, and maybe you hear him say, very quietly -- Fuckin shit; or he picks up his helmet and throws it as hard as he can, as far as he can -- Fuckin shit!

Limited vocabulary. Right.

Like how ham and lima beans got its other name. (Ham and lima beans is a C-ration “Main Course Meal” and comes in a green can, a can smaller than a No. 303 can, and nobody eats the stuff. Nobody. Tastes like shit, and there’s way too much salt.) How ham and lima beans got its other name, and you have to think Black on this one: A Brother comes in off some shit detail -- even in the bush somebody gets a shit detail. Choppers came in an hour before and dropped off three days’ worth of C-rations, but by the time the Brother gets to the cases, everything is shit-scattered, boxes not picked up and burned, the steel wire that wrapped the cases thrown everywhich way. It’s near dark, just enough light to see, if you bend over and look at the boxes remaining. The Brother does that, bends over and rummages through the boxes, reading the labels, going from broken case to broken case, picking up box after box, and he finds the same thing in every case, and he stands up and says, “Ham and motherfuckers. Nothin but ham and motherfuckers.” And then: “Fuckin shit.”

Not A War Story

This happened in Vietnam, and was told as true, but it does not fit the strict parameters of A War Story.

A War Story: (a) has no moral, no axiom, no lesson learned; and, (b) at the end of A War Story, no one can ask, “What happened then?” In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien gives as an example of A War Story: Three grunts are walking through the jungle. One trips a trip wire, and the trip wire is attached to the biggest explosive ever, tons of C4, two 500-pound bombs, four 155mm rounds. The blast blows up everything within a 100-meter radius – trees, bushes, monkeys, birds. The three grunts go flying into the air, and just before Finality, two look at the one who tripped the trip wire. “The fuck, man?” both say. The third shrugs, says, “Story of my life, man. Story of my life.”

See? No moral, no questions asked. Like if somebody says, “Why are you in Vietnam?” and the reply is “Story of my life, man. Story of my life.” That’s all there is.

This was in late December 1966, early January 1967. A platoon from one of the 11th Armored Cavalry’s tank companies was busting jungle with a cav troop, when a gook machine gun opens up from a bunker. ACAVs return fire -- M60 machine guns, .50-cals, M79s -- and the tanks join in with .50-cals and 90mm main guns. But this is a strong bunker, really strong, with big logs and sand bags – really thick. Everybody shoots at everybody else for a while, but neither side is getting the upper hand.

After a while, the TC on one of the tanks goes into “I’m tired of this shit” mode. He tells his driver to drive to the bunker. The driver goes as fast as terrain allows and then presses the brake pedal when the TC says, “Driver stop.” Machine gun bullets are bouncing off the tank, and you know the two or three gooks inside the bunker must be passing rice like there’s no tomorrow. And for them, there isn't.

With his TC override control, the TC lowers the main gun tube and says, “Driver forward. Slow.” The TC places the gun tube as close to the firing aperture as possible, says “Driver stop” and squeezes the trigger.

The man who relayed this story said, “Man, there was logs and dirt and gooks and shit flying everywhere!”

This has a moral, so it isn’t A War Story.

The moral is: Don’t fuck with a tank when all you’ve got is a machine gun.

More critters

"I did not have my camera this day… darn. We were the 2nd Squadron Construction detail 1966-67 for Blackhorse, based at our lumber yard near the vehicle maintenance yard. Our 'carpenters' were demolishing a pallet floor of the HQ Troop, 2nd Squadron CO' s personal tent, when a hammer was snatched from a trooper’s hand as it swung beneath the floor. The trooper yelled and ran to the lumber yard for assistance. We [the yard crew] responded with some 2 by's and pried up the entire tent floor... Out came a KING cobra... It raised up and looked us eye to eye. Its head was 5' off the ground, so there was 10' on the ground! We started throwing 2by's at it, our only 'weapons'. Eventually we pinned it down with lumber and arriving troopers shot it. The arriving troopers then cut off its head. About then, the Regimental historian arrived and took official photos. We [the yard crew] just went back to work and the CO got a new, solid tent floor. Some wags suggested that we should have left the snake under the old floor!" – Dale Newcomb, G Troop.


"While point track one day, we knocked over a small tree. I could hear my gunners screaming at me and when I looked, they were pointing at the deck. I looked down and through one of the periscope holes in the side armor I saw a Mister No Shoulders coming through. He was not a happy camper. It was about 10-12 inches long, gray and his has all puffed up.

"I figured if you want it, Sucker, you can have it, and backed out of the TC hatch. The snake dropped inside the track about the time I was telling my driver to come on up to the top of the track.

"We did finally get rid of him, not sure if they killed him or just evicted him from the track." – Jack Morrison, A Troop and Air Cav Troop

Stories from 11th Armored Cavalry's Veterans of Vietnam and Cambodia web site.

Critters

Encounters with indigenous wildlife while trying to fight a war.

“Was lifted into the Bong Son area, linking up with E/17 Cav (recon), was on point 200 meters W of E Troop, just began our walk and was trying to traverse around some wait-a-minute vines, turned as I was still in forward motion, smack, face-first into a bird-eating spider, scrambling around with 12-guage in hand, tripping on the tangle foot, only to jump up as our Team Leader was hurrying my way. He saw this creature growing out of my mug and slapped at it with his boony hat, cutting my eye lid, then impaling the creature with his K-Bar. It was pretty darn funny to everyone ‘cept me!” – Bill Cody

“They had this little terror over there called the Banded Krait. It had rings on it like a coral snake, but black and white. During my second tour I went down to take a shower and ran into another crew chief. I’m shaving and he killed a snake in the hooch that morning. “Ya, this little ‘grass’ snake was down by my flip flops so I just stepped on the little bugger and killed it.” I asked him what he did with it and went up to have a look. It was one of those kraits.” – Mark Crist

“I heard a story about a millipede that got to 8” and stung or bit. This guy had just finished a shower and was grabbing his fatigues to dress when this puppy fell out of the pile and ran up his arm toward his head and tried to duck inside his head. He swears that he heard that Mr. Mili favored the human ear canal. – Frank Wright

“A friend of one of my co-workers was an engineer up north, and he told the story about how one day he looked down at one of those centipedes climb up his boot, wondering what the heck it was. He found out right away when it bit right through the canvas. The result was excruciating pain and then the skin on his foot turned black. After a while it peeled off.” – Gary Rieth

Here is the thing about animal life in Vietnam – every creature is aggressive. Every one. There are no cuddly animals. All are in defensive mode if you get too close, or offensive mode if they are hungry. Every animal there will bite or sting.

Carlos vs. the MPs

The bullet hit Chuck just below his left ear, a carbine bullet, probably; anything bigger would have caused massive damage. Any size bullet that close to someone’s head is hardly good news. If you have to pick a bullet, though, the relatively low-velocity, short .30-caliber carbine bullet should be on your list.

Chuck went down really fast. He didn’t remember anything between walking across the rice paddy and waking up in the Pleiku hospital -- no memory of the slam against his jaw bone or of falling into the wet rice paddy, no memory of Stevens holding his head out of the water, no memory of the Army medivac Huey that picked him up and took him to Pleiku.

After stabilization surgery and bullet removal surgery, Chuck went to Japan for additional medical attention. Then he was sent to Hawaii for more work and the start of his road to recovery.

It was at the hospital in Hawaii where Chuck and other ambulatory patients in the head-wound ward began placing bets on whether Carlos would make it back before the MPs caught him.

Carlos had been a squad leader with the 25th Division. On a day in 1966, Carlos’s squad was ambushed. Everybody else was killed. Carlos carried each of his dead soldiers to a clearing and then called for pickup.

Officers in Carlos’s immediate chain of command recommended him for a Bronze Star with V. But officers farther up the chain asked questions. How was it that he, the squad leader, was the only survivor of the ambush? If only one American was alive, why didn’t the VC just kill him? Those officers reached a conclusion: Carlos had run. His soldiers were dead, and he ran. He was a coward. He abandoned his soldiers.

But the officers decided the Army could not just up and court-martial Carlos. Officers who knew Carlos recommended a medal for valor. There must be something mentally wrong with Carlos.

The Army sent Carlos to Hawaii for evaluation. Hospital docs put Carlos in a special part of the hospital.

His first Friday evening, Carlos left the hospital and went downtown and got drunk. He drank Saturday and Sunday as well, and returned to the hospital Monday morning.

This will not do, said the hospital people. You must not leave the hospital.

Friday evening, Carlos left. He returned Monday morning. Doctors put Carlos in a room. He left on Friday and returned Monday morning. Doctors assigned a guard for the room. Carlos got out. Doctors reported Carlos to the MPs. The MPs decided they would catch Carlos before he got back to the hospital.

That was when the betting started.

Every Monday morning, Chuck and the other head-wound patients gathered at the ward windows and waited. Soon, someone said, “There he is!” and pointed at the woodline. Sure enough, Carlos stood just inside the trees. After a time of observation, Carlos made his way toward the hospital.

He always got past the MPs, Chuck said.

What finally happened to Carlos, Chuck does not know. The Army sent Chuck to the hospital at Fort Hood, Texas, so he would be nearer his family.

DEROS

What it means -- Date Estimated for Return from Overseas Service.

The day you go home.

The day you walk from the terminal at Tan San Nhut, onto the concrete pavement, toward the ramp that touches the Boeing 707.

Freedom Bird, the airplane is called. Freedom Bird will take you Stateside, back to The World, to the Land of the Big PX.

On DEROS day, you will walk from the ratty terminal and onto the concrete. DEROS day will be a hot day, maybe a wet day.

DEROS day will be just as hot as the day you walked down the ramp from another Boeing 707.

But on DEROS day, you won’t care about the heat. You will walk into the heat, and you will see Freedom Bird fifty meters away.

Just fifty meters away, Man.

Those hundreds of miles you walked, those miles you rode in Hueys -- all those are a long way behind you the day you see Freedom Bird and the ramp.

Freedom Bird has air conditioning, Man. Cold air.

Freedom Bird has a half dozen round-eyes. Stewardesses in white blouses and blue jackets and blue skirts or red jackets and red skirts.

The round-eyes speak American.

Fifty meters. You could walk that fifty meters on your hands. You know you could.

On DEROS day, you will wear the Class B uniform -- short-sleeve khaki shirt, khaki trousers, AG-344 overseas cap, white T-shirt, white drawers, black socks and black shoes, black garrison belt, brass buckle highly polished.

For twelve months, minus the five days you were on R&R, the khaki uniform was stored in the supply room tent or at the bottom of your foot locker, or maybe the uniform hung on a hanger on a nail driven into a support stud in the squad hooch.

The black shoes might have a bluish-green grunge on the leather when you take the shoes from wherever you stored them a year ago. Jungle fungus. If the shoes do have that grunge, you will wash the shoes and buy or borrow black shoe polish and apply the polish to your clean shoes and buff the polish to a sheen.

You will Brasso the belt buckle, polish that buckle to a Stateside shine, and maybe wash fungus from the garrison belt so it is black again.

You will take apart the two three-piece sets of collar brass, one piece with the big “US” letters and the other piece with crossed rifles or crossed sabers or a tank or whatever represents your branch of service.

You will Brasso each piece of brass and rub off the residue of polish, and, with the end of a handkerchief, careful not to touch the brass, affix each set to its proper collar.

If you are an infantry soldier, you will lay each set of brass into the blue plastic discs before attaching the brass to the collars.

You won’t pin your ribbons one-eighth inch above the left shirt pocket just yet. You will save that job until the morning of the day you are to board the Freedom Bird.

The Freedom Bird will take you to Oakland Army Terminal. The weather in Oakland might be cold and rainy or just cold. It doesn’t matter what the weather is at Oakland. When you walk across the concrete and to the ramp, you will wear the short-sleeved shirt and khaki trousers. You will not feel the cold or the wet. You will feel the Home.

Short

Before reaching DEROS, you will have become short.

Becoming short takes a while. You have to remember how many days you have left. You don’t think about the day you’ll walk to the Freedom Bird, but you always know how many days you have left.

After you have been in-country two months and five days, you will announce, “Busted three hundred today.”

Everybody will laugh. Then you will bust two-fifty and two hundred, one-fifty and one hundred.

Busting one hundred is a magic day. Two digits, Man. You’re into two digits. Busting one hundred, you’re almost three-fourths done. You don't think about busting one hundred as being more than three months remaining. Three months is a long time. Busting one hundred puts you on the edge of being a short-timer.

There is no official designation of what short is. Busting thirty-one days, maybe. At some point, you can say “I’m so short, Man, I got to stand on a rock to take a leak.” Or, “I’m so short, Man, if I fell down, I’d be below the ground.” Or, “I’m so short, Man, I don’t even cast a shadow.”

Designating yourself short is a realization that it’s almost over. But you can’t let that realization get in the way of reality. You can’t think about being short. You can announce your status, but you can’t think about it.

If you are lucky, you won’t do much of anything the last week. You have to clear post, just like Stateside. Doesn’t matter that “post” is base camp, you have to clear post.

You have to go to places on base camp you’ve never been before, only heard about. You have to take a form to finance, the base camp library tent, the EM or NCO club tent, Provost Marshal’s Office, and so forth.
People at those places will check lists of names and see if your name is on the list and if you owe the army any money, such as a bar tab at the club you’ve never been in or if you have any overdue books at the library tent.

You have to clear company supply, too. If your company has a good supply sergeant, he’ll ask you if you turned in all your jungle uniforms, TA-50 and anything else issued, and you’ll say, “Yes, Sergeant, I have.” A good supply sergeant will take your word. A good supply sergeant will sign the form.

Dear TK

CONTAINS SOLDIER LANGUAGE


“You know how they say absence makes the heart grow fonder?” TK said one night when Fourth Squad sat on the bunker near the hooch. “Sometimes that’s a crock of shit.”

The squad had come in from ambush that morning, slept until the heat of the day made sleep impossible. Between noon and about six o’clock, nobody did much of anything. It was the time of year of dry heat, when the entire country seemed to bake beneath a relentless sun. That time of year, the Vietnamese had enough sense to put off work after noon. Only mad dogs and Americans went out in the afternoon sun.

When the heat lessened, Frenchy and Reese walked to the PX and bought two cases of beer and carried the beer back to the platoon area. Two cases would be six each, enough to enjoy, but nobody would be hungover next morning, when Fourth Squad relieved First Squad on perimeter duty.

When TK made his remark about absence, O’Mera said, “I don't know about that. There’s girls in Philly I’m a lot fonder of now than I was a year ago.”

“Yeah,” Reese agreed. “I remember girls I wouldna looked at too much in high school, I’d sure look em over now.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” TK said.

O’Mera said, “I miss all those girls at Dodge Park. Some of them weren’t all that much to look at, but like Reese said, I’d sure like to see them now.”

“Ahh,” TK grunted. “That’s ‘cause you’re all horny.”

“You got that right,” Bo said. He glanced my way. “Hey, Tom. When’re you gonna get us another trip to Long Binh?”

I laughed and said, “When they start giving three-day passes.”

“Man,” Bo said, “why don’t the army realize we need a little relaxation now and then.”

“They got a in-country R&R center in Vung Tau,” Reese said. “Course, I don’t think they’d let us all go at the same time.”

Bo laughed. “I can see that. A whole squad goin on R&R.”

“Yeah,” Allen said. “All of us descending on civilization at the same time.”

Bo said, “It’d be your first time, right, Professor?”

Allen grinned as he looked at Bo. “That’s none of your business, is it.”

“Well,” Bo said, “all’s I know is you ain’t never talked about any women you had.”

“I think,” Allen said, “the important word you used was ‘had.’ To me, that denotes using a woman for your own gratification.”

“Well sheeit,” Bo said. “Let me write that down.”

Allen said, “Do you want me to spell the words for you?” Bo just laughed.

“You’re missing the point,” TK said. “I wasn’t talking about the absence of pussy.”

Frenchy laughed. “That’s the only absence that counts around here.”

“No,” TK said. He shook his head. He took a long swallow of beer -- Black Label or Hamm’s or Reisling, almost never Budweiser or Schlitz. The REMFs always got to the PX first and bought up all the best beer, if the good stuff ever made it to base camp to begin with. All of us figured the real REMFs, the ones in Saigon or any other city, got to the air base or distribution point where beer first arrived in-country, checked shipping manifests and bought most of the Budweiser and Schlitz straight from the warehouses.

“No,” TK again said. “I’m not talking about an absence of pussy. What I mean ... Say somebody gets a letter from a girl.”

“Aw, shit,” O’Mera said. “You got a Dear John letter?”

“Man,” Bo said. “What’s wrong with a girl, she writes a Dear John letter. I mean, don’t you put up with enough shit already?”

TK said, “You’re missing the point.” He lit a cigarette. “Paula broke up with me when I was in Basic. She said things just weren’t the same anymore.”

“I guess not,” Frenchy said. “You were puttin up with all that bullshit from drill sergeants, she’s back home, got nothin to do on Friday night.”

“Yeah,” TK said. “Anyway, I got a letter from Paula yesterday. Paula’s at college now, and she said ...” TK laughed. “She said she just can’t believe I do the things she reads about in the papers, sees on the TV.” TK pitched his voice high. “‘I just don’t see how you can burn those villages and do unspeakable things to women and children.’”

“No shit?” Bo said. “She write you that?”

TK nodded. “She did. This morning, I wrote back. I said, ‘Well, darlin’, I’ll tell you. Hooches go up real fast when you apply the proper flame. Dumb fucking gooks don’t have enough sense to build proper houses. And as for the unspeakable acts, well, you’d be surprised how easy it is to put a dick in a gook pussy. Wide as a fucking barn door. And kids? They don’t run so fast you can’t cut ‘em down, even on rock ‘n roll. That’s full auto for you dumbass civilians.’ I signed it ‘All my love, Tom.’”

All of us about fell off the bunker laughing. Frenchy said, “You really tell her that?”

“Damn straight,” TK said.

Bo said, “Well, Home, I figure the army owes you some kind of award. Above and beyond the call of duty, as they say.”

TK said, “What really pisses me off is ... Paula’s known me all my life. We went together two years, and I get a letter like that. I mean, she gonna believe me, I say nobody I know ever burned a village, raped a woman, shot a kid? Fuck, no. She sees it on TV, doesn’t she? She reads it in the paper, doesn’t she? Who’s she going to believe, me or some fuckin idiot journalist?” He drank about half his beer. “I guess that letter shows who she believes.”

The man who burned (Caution: Soldier language)

Willie Joe yelled at Tom for shooting the man who was on fire.

“What the fuck you want to go and do that for, huh?” Willie Joe waved his arms. The M-16 in his right hand went up and down when he waved his arms. “The fucker was gonna die, Man. What you want to go and shoot him for?”

“He was on fire,” Tom said.

The answer didn’t do anything for Willie Joe’s anger.

“Exactly what I’m talkin about, Man.” Willie Joe got close to Tom’s face. “Why you think we called in air support, huh? Why?”

“Because we couldn’t get them out with what we had. Our own fire, I mean.”

“Riight,” Willie Joe said, and his head went up and down in fast nods. “We couldn’t get the motherfuckers out. So we call in air support, they drop napalm, and the gooks fry.”

“He was on fire,” Tom said.

“He was well on his way to being a crispy critter, Man.”

Tom looked across the open space between the rice paddies and to the clump of trees, where there were bunkers and trenches and the black thing lying not fifty meters away. The thing that was the man Tom shot looked like a line drawn in the grass, small and insignificant.

Tom said, “He’s a crispy critter now. What difference does it make, whether I shot him or not?”

Willie Joe got closer to Tom’s face. “The difference is, he was supposed to suffer. The difference is, he’s supposed to be a fucking example. Anybody fucks with us, he gets fried. He doesn’t get shot, he doesn’t get put out of his misery. He fries.”

Tom looked at the black line. Small wisps of smoke rose from the body. “In New Guinea,” he said, watching smoke rise and diffuse in the hot air, “they call it long pig.”

Willie Joe was no longer in Tom’s face. “Do what?” he asked. “What you talkin about?”

“People,” Tom said. “People cooked for eating. In New Guinea, they call it long pig.”

Willie Joe’s face squinched up. “That’s fucking disgusting, Man. That’s -- ” He waved his arms. “That’s the most disgusting thing I ever heard.” He turned then, and walked away.