Chapter 3

I had to make “swings” into the boonies to visit our scattered units living like targets of opportunity for the nighttime Cong resistance. I say Cong but in reality, the original Viet-Cong were pretty much destroyed by the Tet Offensive deal and these guys were fresh recruits drafted by the visiting North Vietnamese political officers to fill the ranks and harass the stupid Americans.

It was not conceivable to me at the time, but the entire area that I moved around in with such a lack of concern was honeycombed with tunnels and hidden underground bunkers. Most of them were actually not discovered until after our withdrawal from “in-country”. I made nice-nice with the village elders, most of whom looked as old as Methuselah but in actuality were only middle-aged and worn to a frazzle. At that time I was just pushing thirty, but the Marines I visited were mostly only in their late teens and early twenties. For the most part, they were all receptive to language training even in a rudimentary format. The scouts stayed pretty close to me the entire time because they were just as wary around the young Marines as the supposed allied South Vietnamese forces assigned to the protection of the small villages. I could understand that because sometimes the potent smoking content would cause some distortion of reality and a good Marine might go off the deep end without warning. I did my best to avoid that kind of temptation but “second-hand” smoke would waft into my nostrils from time to time and I saw things a little bit clearer and with a whole lot more suspicion.

In all honesty, I have to state that most of the nubile females in the village were not exactly what young Marines were panting for in the midst of a combat zone where the enemy was all around you and one never knew when his survival depended on how fast he could run with a high degree of stamina. A couple of the armed females working for the Central Government were not bad looking in a sort of librarian or school-teacher way, if they were young enough and had teeth that had been taken care of by a qualified dentist. They were smart enough to stay away from the armed intruders into their county even if we were supposed to be allies and all that.

It seemed to me that the Chinese-whatever mixed girl that lived with the head scout back at headquarters was superior in the looks department but she was so anti-foreigner in her demeanor that fraternization was not an option on the table.

My last ninety days was filled with “swings” across the northernmost provinces going from village to village to touch base with the Marines that were assigned to the program. I think they were relieved to see someone from the “rear area” because it meant the rear area did exist even though the tracer fire into the air at night was in every direction.

The Captain at headquarters informed me that I had been unfortunately “extended” for another six months in-country. That ruined my short-timers attitude and I had to start a new count that was one-hundred and eighty days from that rainy day. At least, they had sent me an envelope from the G-2 with orders that said I was promoted to Staff Sergeant and a wad of script that amounted to a full months pay at the new pay scale. It made me realize that I hadn’t been paid for almost a year and I wondered if they just let that accumulate in some account until I was able to make it back to some actual administrative office. The Gunnery Sergeant that ran the armory invited me to join him on an expedition to the “White Elephant” for some booze and music provided by an Elvis impersonator and some Korean girls that looked Vietnamese to me but I really was not expert enough to make that distinction. The Elvis impersonator was pretty good but his accent ruined some of the best lines in the songs and the Korean girls were giggling so much I don’t think I ever heard a single song.

I saw a couple of obvious Marines wearing civilian clothes in the restaurant eating some dubious “steak” that probably was shipped in from Australia. I recognized them right away as a pair of interrogators from my old unit out in Camp Pendleton. They waved me over and I shot the shit with them a bit because the Gunnery Sergeant was already hooked up with one of the Korean girls like they were out on a Prom date and she was looking “hot to trot” to get him up in her hotel room for some private time away from the other girls.

It might be alright to give their correct names but I hesitate to do so even if they might still be alive and kicking because most of my old buddies had been hung out to dry for unauthorized interrogation methods and I was quite lucky to have been separated from their roster before those accusations were filed with the Staff Judge Advocate. Anyway, I was fairly certain the older one with only three fingers on his left hand was waxed almost two decades later playing “peacemaker” in the Beirut airfield. The other one went back to Puerto Rico and left his wife and three kids still sitting in base housing until they got evicted for no longer having a viable sponsor.

I was confident that they both hated my guts because I had allowed myself to be transferred to an Infantry support unit instead of staying with the close-knit gang of Human Intelligence assets. I pretended that I was completely oblivious to their mean-spirited outlook on my supposed disloyal actions and hoped that it would seem like water under the bridge considering we were all in the same place at the same time and doing a job for Uncle Sam under our “Semper Fi” flag of united camaraderie.

They had no less than four sweet young things at their table.

Well, actually, three sweet young things and a still attractive late thirties classy woman with French facial features and long black hair that reached almost down to the top of her nicely curved buttocks. Her name was “Mrs. Nancy” and she spoke English with a British accent that sounded so posh that I thought for a moment she was making a joke. However, it was her crisp way of speaking English and when I heard her speak Vietnamese; it was the most school-taught use of that language I had heard since Arlington Towers, Virginia.

Nancy was wearing a white brocade dress with little pearls instead of buttons. She had on white pantyhose that gave her a “nurse” look I found downright fabulous. Apparently, she was there in strictly an observer status because the other three pretty young things were rented out to my two old buddies and they were all shacked up in the same room with only two beds for all of them. It was a good thing the girls were all on the petite side, because my two old friends were both hefty and so tall that their feet probably hung off the end of the Asian sized beds.