Chapter 35: Brass Perks

Colonel Robinson has sort of adopted me. Calls me son all the time.

“Are we ready to hop, son?” Shit like that.

Colonel thinks I have the fighting spirit. What Colonel wants, Colonel gets and Colonel wants a hero near him. He has many real heroes to pick from, if he’d only see them! I’m not one of them but Colonel insists I am. So, not only am I now a freak fake hero, I’m the Colonel’s personal pilot and unofficial aide.

He has a second Louie as an designated aide, to carry the Colonel’s brief case and map case for him. I usually carry those now, while his jr. officer totes a heavy cardboard carton full of indispensable files. Those go with us everywhere we go. Must be top, top secret, if the Colonel won’t trust anyone to guard them but himself. Probably something terrifying being conceived and festering in that repurposed whiskey carton. I don’t want to know or imagine what.

The three best parts of my new assignment are I’m not frightened so continuously, I’m being shot at less often so my chances of survival are improved, and best of all, frequent R&R flights to Saigon.

Everybody gets five days R&R once during their one year tour in Vietnam. Brass have tricks to enjoy more frequent R&R. The Colonel has frequent official and important Big Brass meetings with an ARVN Colonel, his Vietnamese counterpart, held at the palatial home of the ARVN Colonel. The party is sometimes two days running. Booze and high priced girls twenty-four hours a day while the shindig lasts.

Te 2Lt attends but I’m not invited of course. I need to remain close by, on call in servants quarters. They provide a private room for me.

The servant girls who visit me in my room are not whores. At the same time, I doubt they offer themselves to me from a personal desire to be with me. Someone sends them, I suspect. Curious to find out who is so solicitous of my comforts, I ask the mama san.

That’s not Vietnamese or even a Japanese word, but English “mama” with Japanese “san” added. It’s pidgin created and used by American servicemen after WWII while occupying Japan. The Vietnamese adopted it from American GIs who began erroneously using it for any older Vietnamese woman.

This particular mama san I’m referring to, probably has a title meaning something like head housekeeper at the mansion. She’s the boss over all the servants, so she will know if anyone knows.

She was instructed only to see I was comfortable and needs attended to. She heard rumors Americans are over sexed randy brutes, so she sent the servant girls. Some she beat to force to come. Why did she never come herself? I assure her she isn’t too old when she offers that as an excuse. Tham, that’s her name, became coquettish when I expressed an interest in mature women such as she. Tham is thirty five, and now my lover and regular bedmate when at the mansion.

I was never tempted to visit prostitutes. Don’t care for sloppy seconds and certainly not 101st leavings, even if they are regular passengers. Mere mention of Saigon is now enough to give me a hardon. Pavlovian response?

My Colonel, said in the same tone you would say “My Dad”, is a real soldier’s soldier. Hardest working man I ever met, next to my own Dad. He deserves and probably needs those ‘meetings’ in Saigon. All day he’s in staff meetings, performing inspections, and balling people out over the phone. Busy busy! After dark nearly every night, he wants to fly night recons personally. Frequently we make unexpected surprise drop-in visits to fire bases and forward positions for personal tete-a-tetes with commanders ... We almost never get to bed before one am in the morning. We see muzzle flashes constantly as we fly over enemy positions, and while the Colonel’s chopper is a heavily armed gunship, we never shoot back. The VC are shooting at the sound of our passing without actually seeing us. We don’t want our own muzzle flashes to provide them a target. I like night flying because the Colonel’s not only smart, he’s combat wise. Guess that’s why he’s the Colonel.