The Vietnam War Trilogy: The 13th Valley, For the Sake of All Living Things, and Carry Me Home

By John M. Del Vecchio

Three classic novels by John M. Del Vecchio about Vietnam, Cambodia, and the aftermath of war.
A classic combat novel and National Book Award finalist, The 13th Valley follows the terrifying Vietnam combat experiences of James Chelini, a telephone-systems installer who finds himself an infantryman in the North Vietnamese Army–infested mountains of the I Corps Tactical Zone. Spiraling deeper and deeper into a world of conflict and darkness, this harrowing account plunges Chelini into jungle warfare and traces his evolution from semi-pacifist to all-out, combat-crazed soldier. The seminal novel on the Vietnam experience, The 13th Valley is a classic that illuminates the war in Southeast Asia like no other book.
Some reviewers have called For the Sake of All Living Things the most terrifying book they have ever read. This saga follows a rural Cambodian family—father Chhoun; his beautiful daughter, Vathana; and his young son, Samnang, who becomes the Khmer Rouge yothea Met Nang—from the mid-sixties through the escalation of the civil war, into the horrors of the holocaust, and finally to the country’s quest for rebirth. Documenting their story is American Special Forces Captain John Sullivan who served with the Military Equipment Delivery Team, and who has fallen in love with Vathana.
Carry Me Home brings the troops back to America—a nation confused and divided by the wars in Southeast Asia. In this poignant epic, Del Vecchio transports a group of soldiers to their final battlefield: the home front. High Meadow Farm, in the fertile hill country of central Pennsylvania, becomes their salvation. In Vietnam they had been brothers in arms. Now, in the face of personal tragedy and bureaucratic deception, they create an even deeper allegiance—one of the spirit and of the land. This is the remarkable story of the veterans’ struggle to find one another and themselves. In its scope, breadth, and brilliance, Carry Me Home is much more than a novel about Vietnam vets; it is a testament to history and hope, to hometowns and homecomings, to love and loss, and to faith and family. It is an inspiring and unforgettable novel about America itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Warriors Publishing Group
• Release date: Feb 27, 2017

John M. Del Vecchio

John M. Del Vecchio is the author of five books, including The 13th Valley, a finalist for the National Book Award; For the Sake of All Living Things, a bestseller which deals with the Cambodian holocaust; and most recently The Bremer Detail (with Frank Gallagher) about protecting the US ambassador in Iraq from 2003 to 2004. Del Vecchio’s books have sold approximately 1.4 million copies. He has also written hundreds of articles and the thesis The Importance of Story. Del Vecchio was drafted and sent to Vietnam in 1970, where he served as a combat correspondent in the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile). In 1971, he was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for heroism in ground combat.

Book preview

The 13th Valley

John M. Del Vecchio

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1: CHELINI

CHAPTER 2: EGAN

CHAPTER 3: L - T BROOKS

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7: THE PHOC ROC TOC

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9: PIO

CHAPTER 10: 13 AUGUST 1970 STAGING

CHAPTER 11: THE CA

CHAPTER 12: HILL 848

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16: 14 AUGUST 1970

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19: 15 AUGUST 1970

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22: 16 AUGUST 1970

CHAPTER 23: 17 AUGUST 1970

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25: 18 AUGUST 1970

CHAPTER 26: 19 AUGUST 1970

CHAPTER 27: 20 AUGUST 1970

CHAPTER 28: 21-23 AUGUST 1970 CAMPOBASSO

CHAPTER 29: 24 AUGUST 1970

CHAPTER 30: 25 AUGUST 1970

CHAPTER 31

EPILOGUE: 31 AUGUST 1970

GLOSSARY

HISTORICAL DATES

Copyright Page

FOR KATE

and

Heather Ann, Bruce II, Nya, Chandra, Joey, Erin, Nathan,

Adam and Cara

and for the children of Vietnam.

Acknowledgments

Grateful acknowledgment is made to: A soldier on Firebase Rendezvous at the edge of the A Shau Valley during Lam Son 719, Spring 1971.

He said to me, You can do it, Man. You write about this place. You been here a long time. People gotta know what it was really like. And thus this book began.

To Dr. John Henry Hatcher, Archivist, The Center for Military History, to First Lieutenant Kevin R. Hart, Division Historian, 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile), and to Miss Gilbert, Librarian, The Army Library, for documents, assistance and information; To Dr. Byron J. Good and Dr. Mary Jo Good, University of California, Davis, for help with the theoretical constructs of war causation; To Lee Bartels, a soldier with the 101st Airborne at Khe Ta Laou, for assistance with the story; To Jane Vandenburgh, Susan Harper, F.X. Flinn, Alan Rinzler and Kathleen Moloney, for editorial assistance; To my parents, relatives and friends for moral support; And to the Ratcliffes, without them I would have quit after Chapter 23.

For the Warriors Publishing Group Edition:

When one’s career spans multiple decades one hopefully has gained deeper perspectives; one certainly has developed a vast multitude of additional individuals deserving thanks—far too many to name.

As I gaze back upon my long-ago time as a soldier, I am overcome with great awe at the incredible good fortune I had to serve with such valiant men lead by such strong and professional commanders. From brigade to battalion to company and platoon, their leadership and dedication to the cause of freedom in Viet Nam—often misunderstood at the time by a skeptical Spec 4—was second to none. I wish I could thank you each in person.

This anniversary edition owes much, as always, to the support of family and friends—Frank A. Del Vecchio, Elena and Joe Rusnak, Mary-Jo and Byron Good, Bruce Ratcliffe, Doug Esposito, Gerry Kissell and Tom Waltz.

A very special thanks goes to Julia Dye of Warriors Publishing Group for her inspiration and tireless resolve.

Without all the above, not just this book but the entire career would have withered after its first flash and gasp of life.

Note on the Maps:

Although a novel, The 13th Valley is a real place where American soldiers fought and died in August 1970. During the writing of the book, copies of the U.S. Army 1::50,000 topographic maps of the area were consulted. For this 30th Anniversary edition, all new maps—topographic in style and more accurate than the relief maps in earlier editions—were created by Nate Del Vecchio.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The operation at Khe Ta Laou, which began 13 August 1970, was part of an overall campaign code-named Texas Star. The first troops of the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) were inserted into the mountain jungles surrounding Firebase Barnett at 0840 hours.

13 August 2011: Those lines were the opening salvo to the original 1982 Author’s Note for this book. It is now 41 years since I made that combat assault onto the peak of Hill 848 with Alpha Company, 2d of the 502d, and it has taken 41 years for me to fully understand the meaning and the strategic significance of the battle. This note recaps some of my original thoughts, adds some insights, and it invites you to ride along on a journey back to that time.

Our nation has changed significantly since the day in 1970 when a battalion of young soldiers stood looking down into that 13th Valley below Hill 848. Ideals and optimism, hope and expectations, have been altered; some have been met, others lost, some improved, others distorted. At times I’ve wonder if we’ve lost our way. I don’t have a definitive answer but I do recognize that the seeds of today’s good and evil were sown in the ’60s and ’70s, just as the seeds from the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s came to fruition during America’s Viet Nam era.

In 1970 we were still dreaming the impossible dream, still fighting the invisible foe. We still believed we could bear any burden in the pursuit of freedom at home and overseas. We saw ourselves as an exceptional society with attendant obligations to right wrongs around the globe, but the number of skeptics was growing and various elements in our society were bent on undermining our character.

That was then. This anniversary edition of The 13th Valley requires new thoughts, new explanations for contemporary readers. Abridged versions of earlier notes are below, followed by added material on race, on leadership and command, and on the strategic significance of the battle. Hopefully, these reiterations and additions will provide context for those who didn’t live through those turbulent decades; or for those who may be laboring under misunderstandings of what our soldiers and Marines faced in the ranks, on the battlefield and from home.

From the 1982 edition (abridged): The combat assault by Company A to the peak of 848 occurred as described, as did many of the events included, although the story here told is a composite of events from several operations. NVA unit designations, strengths and movements are, as nearly as my research could establish, accurate. The 7th NVA Front headquarters was located in the valley; numerous NVA battalions did use the Khe Ta Laou as a supply depot and rest sanctuary.

During the summer of 1970, the 101st Airborne had on its roster 10 infantry battalions. The 7th Battalion, 402d Infantry (Airmobile) is entirely fictitious. This is a novel. The characters and their backgrounds are imaginary. In no way are they meant to depict, nor are they based upon, any soldiers, past or present, of the 101st.

The approximate results of the operation, which ended 30 August 1970, along with the coordinated 1st Division (ARVN) operation in the Firebase O’Reilly/Jerome area directly south of Khe Ta Laou, were: 5 U.S. KIA, 60 U.S. WIA, 2 KCS WIA, 32 ARVN KIA, 108 ARVN WIA, 737 NVA KIA and 3 NVA POWs.

From the 1998 edition (abridged): I first began The 13th Valley in the fall of 1972, five months after I was discharged from the United States Army. For 100 days I lived in a vacant farmhouse in rural Maine. Each morning I hunted game for the table and each afternoon and evening I wrote—often to the wee hours. There was no phone, no TV, no radio, no newspaper, no neighbors. My sole companion was Sam, my dog. Conditions for recall were ideal.

I began in early September and wrote until 22 December, when, with seven dollars and change left in my pocket, I packed up my 300 handwritten pages, left Maine, and returned to my parents’ home in Connecticut where I promptly stashed the manuscript in a drawer. I did not look at it again for nearly four years.

When the final offensive began I had been living in California for nearly two years, selling real estate, managing an office and training agents. There was little time or motivation to worry about events in Southeast Asia. Then I got a call from Gunny Doug Lavere who asked me to tune back into a seemingly long-ago war. Communist forces were bursting from the jungles of I Corps and the red clays of the Central Highlands, and were descending upon Saigon.

After the fall, refugees from Viet Nam were streaming through Hamilton AFB a mere three miles from my home. The media were aflame with stories about American veterans and their experiences in Viet Nam. Most stories were clichés, opinions and partial truths focusing on drug use, atrocities, fraggings and rampant racism. I became deeply anguished … and highly motivated to counter this nonsense.

In mid-1976 I reopened those old Maine notebooks and made contact with Dr. John Henry Hatcher of The Center For Military History. This was the beginning of my research into what really happened at Khe Ta Laou, the beginning of what is now a four-decade inquiry into the war, its effects on the region and on America.

For the next draft of The 13th Valley I collected personal remembrances, operational reports, maps, and individual and unit citations from various sources including men who had served with 2/502 in the Khe Ta Laou. Ex-boonierats Lee Bartels and Gary Miller provided their notebooks from the time, plus letters and recollections.

Readers should understand that I was not originally writing about American forces in general. I was focused on the 1st and 3d Brigades of the 101st Airborne Division. I believed the 101st was the most elite division-sized unit in the war. During my time in the field I observed some of the sensational incidents of drug abuse and indiscipline that the press was reporting at war’s end, but they were rare and in no way the essence of the experience. There was racial tension and some incidents of interracial violence, yet there was a general pattern of interracial harmony. This is a story the media missed.

From the end of the war until 1982, I believed many of the media stereotypes, but I was certain those stories were about Marines or other U.S. Army units. My mission was to set the record straight about my own outfit, the famed 101st that had a Rendezvous With Destiny. I was intent on telling a realistic story that would counter the falsehoods that were rapidly becoming accepted ‘truths.’ We weren’t like ‘them other guys.’ Our war was cleaner, better. We were the One Oh One—airmobile if no longer airborne.

My education about Viet Nam and about Americans in the ’60s and ’70s took a significant leap forward after The 13th Valley was first published. Over the next three years I received more than 3,000 letters—about half from veterans—that contained lines like this: That’s the way we operated. Were you with my unit? I think you were there later than I was. I thought all you guys did was sit around and smoke dope. Good to know someone learned the lessons we passed on. And there were encouraging comments about my writing: Your descriptions are the most accurate I’ve read. I have never been able to tell my wife what it was like. I gave her your book and told her this is who we were. This is what it was like for me.

Some of those letters were from soldiers of the 101st. That I expected. Most were from guys who fought with other units—even Marine … many, many Marines. That I did not expect. Their story had been distorted beyond recognition. The more I read, the more I researched, and the more veterans I interviewed, the more I realized how nearly universal were the values and positive behaviors Americans exhibited in Southeast Asia. It was becoming crystal clear in hindsight how closely those of us who fought in Viet Nam exemplified the altruistic ideals—bear any burden … defend freedom—that we carried into that war. Those ideals are still valid. Errors, corruption and national stupidity have not tarnished them. The blemishes lie with those who condone or perpetrate immoral or incompetent acts.

At this point, I have also come to realize how horribly Viet Nam veterans—American, allied and South Viet Namese—have been tarred with the broad brush of clichés and stereotypes. These media-generated canards are only a tiny part of the Viet Nam experience but they have come to define the fighting man in the world view. Politicians talk about lessons of Viet Nam, without a clue as to what actually transpired during the 10 years America was fighting in that country. With every ensuing conflict we look back to the clichés, and pledge not to repeat the same mistakes. How ridiculous and insulting! If you don’t know what happened how can you look back to identify mistakes? More importantly, how can you recognize the service and sacrifice of America’s admirable military legacy?

I hope to change America’s image of Viet Nam veterans, and of the nature and meaning of the war itself. In depth study and analysis became the impetus for my other works on the war and its aftermath: For The Sake of All Living Things, a story of the Cambodian holocaust; and Carry Me Home, a story of American veterans from homecoming to 15 years after return.

It has become fashionable in America to say that war is terrible, that it is the most horrid of all human endeavors; that it must be avoided at all cost. We teach this to our children. It is a core tenet in school curricula. It permeates nearly all war literature of the past 30 years, and most films and television programs. War is horrible. Those of us who have fought in one understand that intimately. We also understand that war is a check on tyranny, and that tyranny unchecked has given the world its Hitlers, Stalins, Idi Amins and Pol Pots. In war there remains an element of hope. Under tyranny all hope is destroyed.

On Strategy: The battle at Khe Ta Laou was the last major offensive action conducted by U.S. ground forces in the Viet Nam War. That makes The 13th Valley sort of a bookend story to Hal Moore’s and Joe Galloway’s We Were Soldiers Once … And Young, about the first battle of the Ia Drang. The strategic importance of the battle at Khe Ta Laou along with all the other battles fought in that expansive area of operation beginning in 1962—Ta Bat, A Shau, Lang Vei, Khe Sanh, Dong Ap Bai (Hamburger Hill), Ripcord, and so many others—lies in blocking and/or cutting the enemy’s logistical lifeline to communist units fighting in South Vietnam. Americans who fought there understand, but politicians of the time had different views. In 1969 Senator Ted Kennedy (D, Mass) criticized battles in this region in a speech before Congress: "I feel it is both senseless and irresponsible to continue to send our young men to their deaths to capture hills and positions that have no relation to ending this conflict (my emphasis)."

Contrary to Kennedy’s assessment, these battles had everything to do with potentially ending the conflict. Disrupting the flow of men and materiel through the Truong Son Corridor from North Viet Nam meant the enemy was harder pressed to threaten security and tranquility within South Viet Nam. With the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the corridor, and the ensuing withdrawal of U.S. economic support for the South Viet Namese Army, the NVA moved unchallenged and unobstructed into the South—extending gasoline and oil pipelines down from Lang Vei, through the A Shau Valley (past Khe Ta Laou and beneath Hamburger Hill), south through Kham Duc and Dak To, all the way to Loc Ninh. This gave them a super highway with no cops and no speed limits along the way.

Mobility along this western corridor [go to Google Earth and you’ll find it labeled The Ho Chi Minh Highway] gave the PAVN the ability to mass forces against comparatively sparsely defended points. In late ’74 and early ’75 the northern army stormed southward down this road, using hundreds of Soviet-supplied tanks and artillery pieces, and 18,000 military trucks transporting arms, ammo and supplies for 400,000 troops. This represented a logistical operation larger than most Axis movements of World War II, and it paved the way for North Viet Nam’s Final Offensive in 1975. Without that corridor a PAVN victory was impossible; with it, conquest was inevitable.

The battle for the Khe Ta Laou river valley in 1970 delayed the PAVN’s control of the corridor for a period, but keeping it closed to NVA traffic was expensive in both materiel and manpower. Soldiers knew the eventual cost of a lack of vigilance in this crucial area. They knew what ceding this area to the enemy would cost. Politicians at home refused to recognize this reality.

Much of the story you are about to read actually occurred. For clarification: the operation at Khe Ta Laou lasted 18, not 13 days; the tree and spider and associated incidents were located in the vicinity of Firebase Maureen, 22 kilometers southeast of Firebase Barnett; and the night conversations on the causes of war took place over a period of many months and various operations. In retrospect, brigade, battalion, company and platoon leaders from the 101st were the best leaders I have ever known. Good leadership is visionary. Many of our military leaders foresaw what could be, and what would be if we withdrew too quickly. Many of our political leaders foresaw only what would keep them in office. Various young officers from the 2/502 went on to lead major units in later conflicts, most particularly Desert Storm.

On Race: In Chapter 14, the character Jax (William Andrew Jackson), a black infantryman from the Old South, while on silent patrol in deep jungle, fantasizes:

… if his child would be a boy or a girl. Girls is so pretty, he told himself, but boys is so much mo fun. William Andrew Jackson, Junior, an announcer said within Jackson’s thoughts, the son of the Viet Nam War hero, the great-great-great grandson of a slave, today was inaugurated as the first black the New United States of America.

In 1970 Jax’ thoughts were admittedly fantasy. To deny that or obfuscate it would be to lie about the racial situation in American society during that time. There were racial tensions in military units in Viet Nam and some modern readers may find the racial tension in this novel overwhelming. Race has been the single biggest social issue in America for the post-WWII generation. It progressed from 1950s sit-ins and forced integration, through the ’60s Civil Rights movement, to the riots and near urban warfare of the late ’60s and early ’70s. And it showed up in military units fighting in Viet Nam.

It was in this historical context that The 13th Valley was written. On rereading the novel in preparation for the release of this anniversary edition, I was taken aback by some of the scenes, some of the dialogue and jargon—accurate for the time, but so removed from the way we think and talk today. We’ve come a long way, Baby, and that’s a good thing. Neither color nor creed was the defining measure of relations between boonierat brothers at the time. Today there’s more to guard against lest we believe the race issue is as remote from our society as is the war in Viet Nam.

My mentor on race issues, General Harry Brooks, noted in 1971 that it was not a problem if black or white soldiers chose to congregate socially with those of similar skin tone, but it was a problem if a black wanted to associate with a white, or a white with a black, and was ostracized by his peers and prevented from doing so. Over the last four decades, in much of our nation, that problem has substantially dissipated. Today interracial marriages compose between five and ten percent of all domestic unions.

We should recognize and celebrate this transformation, and we should condemn anyone, including national political, entertainment or business figure, who accentuates race or promotes racial division for their own political or economic gain. I think this attitude is common today, and I believe its roots are in the American military experience in Viet Nam.

The world today is a very different place than it was 40 years ago, and yet is very much the same. Against a backdrop of amazing social, scientific and technological advances, the problems ripping us apart today are mostly mutations of the problems which were ripping us apart 40 years ago. To this aging curmudgeon, these problems are exasperated by a national media so self-centeredly desperate for survival that it has become not only a shaper of false realities but also a source of disinformation and an instigator of greater societal problems.

The story we tell ourselves of ourselves, individually or culturally, creates our self-image. Behavior, individually and culturally, is consistent with self-image. Story determines behavior. When story is badly recorded and misreported the effects on our national self-image and on our behavior is an aberration of reality. The 13th Valley was, and remains, an attempt to set the record straight.

PROLOGUE

Long before the soldiers arrived the life forms of the valley had established a stable symbiotic balance.

At the most central point of the valley, in a dark and dank cavern created by the gnarled roots of an immense teak tree, a spider reconstructs its damaged labyrinth of silken corridors and chambers. Upon the outermost threads dew glistens from a single ray of sunlight seeping through the valley mist, creeping through the shadowing jungle.

The spider—its body blood-red translucent large—stills, then jerks. The web twitches violently. The creature seems to leap forward on an arc of jointed webbed legs. A pointed claw grabs a mosquito caught in the web. Around the spider vestiges of tunnels and prey traps encapsulate dried crusted exoskeletons. The spider perceives its home through simple clear red eyes and through a sensory bristle of exceedingly fine red hairs. At one time the home was good, food was plentiful. The spider had never needed to extend its world beyond the limits of the cavern.

The teak tree shades the spider and all the life below. From the hillock upon which it is perched, the tree reaches up for over two hundred feet, straight, massive and durable. The teak is wide at its base and gradually becomes slender as its huge branchless torso protrudes skyward, finally bursting in an imposing umbrella of boughs and leaves. For countless monsoon seasons, when the sky has broken angrily and lashed the earth, the tree has shielded plants and animals, and, for a time, the spider from the beating rain. The teak’s root system has preserved the knoll into which it sinks, of which it has become a part, from the ravenous river crashing endlessly against the knoll’s east side. The tree is the oldest life in the valley—older, even, than the flood-plain valley floor which has washed down the river from the mountains and which is alive with mosquitos and leeches.

The knoll, tenacious, solid, reinforced with the unseen strength of the teak, forces the river to swirl and bend back upon itself. It is long and high, with steep embankments circling the crown, and it is strong: strong enough to hold the tree and the spider aloof from the affairs of the valley floor, strong enough to alter the course of the mountain river.

The river carries soil and rock from upland watersheds to the base of the knoll. Where the knoll forces the waters to bow, the river has deposited much of its cargo to form a beach. Sticks, branches, bamboo, whole trees have been brought down the waterway, and, catching, have formed a massive snag at the beach’s north end. Riverwaters roil in the snag, back up then boil over, rushing first then sliding into the deep channel around the knoll, then lazily flowing into the broad plain beyond. Each monsoon season the river has overflowed and flooded the plain; each dry season the waters have dropped below the mud bluffs of the deepest channel.

From the muck plain of the valley floor and from the rolling hummocks of mountain erosion, elephant grass grows to twelve feet and dense bamboo thickets choke the earth to the river’s edge.

The headwaters of the river are in the very rugged terrain to the east where the valley is narrow. There the mountains rise to summits of nine hundred, one thousand, and eleven hundred meters. As the river flows west down the mountains, the valley widens. Four kilometers from its origin is the knoll which causes the river to bend. At that point the valley floor is almost six hundred meters wide. The north ridge is steep, dropping quickly to the valley floor. The south ridge is lower and gentler of slope. From the numerous peaks along the ridges, small ribs extend toward the valley center and form canyons which guide sporadic rivulets to the river.

The Khe Ta Laou river valley is difficult to enter, hard to traverse. For a very long time it had remained isolated. Life in the valley is highly organized and each plant and animal form aids and is dependent upon the entire system. The equilibrium is sharply structured—a state, perhaps, which invited disruption.

CHAPTER 1

CHELINI

From that day on they called him Cherry and from the night of that day and on he thought of himself as Cherry. It confused him yet it felt right. He was in a new world, a strange world. Cherry, he thought. It fits. It made little difference to him that they called every new man Cherry and that with the continual rotation of personnel there would soon be a soldier newer than he and he would call the new man Cherry. Cherry. He would repeat it to himself a hundred times before the day ended.

For James Vincent Chelini the transition began early on the morning of 12 August 1970. He was at the 101st Airborne Replacement Station at Phu Bai for the second time; there now to receive his final unit assignment for his year in Vietnam. The air in the building was already stifling. Chelini sweated as he waited anxiously for the clerk to dig through a stack of personnel files.

No way, Man, Chelini shook his head as he read the order.

I don’t cut em, Breeze, the clerk said. I just pass em out.

Listen, Man, Chelini protested. "I’m not an infantry type. I’m a wireman. That’s my MOS*. Somebody screwed up."

Breeze, the clerk shrugged, when you get this far up-country aint nobody here ee-ven kin figure what them numbers mean. We’s all Eleven Bravos. You know, you get that from Basic.

Chelini cringed. It was one more snafu in a series of snafus that were propelling him faster and deeper into the war than he had ever anticipated. Man, he said, restrained, I can’t be sent to an infantry company.

Next, the clerk said lethargically.

Hey. Dude. A harsh voice erupted behind Chelini. Just say fuck it, Dude. Don’t mean nothin. A red-haired man in civilian clothes had entered the office without being noticed. He addressed the clerk. Hey REMF, he said in a voice of complete authority, you seen Murphy?

Murphy’s gettin ice cream, the clerk answered.

You REMF fuckin candyasses sure got it dicked, the red-haired man laughed harshly. The man gestured at Chelini, who flinched, then ordered the clerk, Square that cherry away, Man. Ya don’t gotta fuck with everybody all the fuckin time. The man glided out the door and was gone.

Who’s that? Chelini asked the clerk.

Him? He’s a crazy fuckin grunt from the Oh-deuce. Fuckin asshole. He en Murphy use ta be in the same company till Murphy extended ta get out a the field en they put him here.

Oh-deuce?

Yeah, Man. Oh-deuce. Four-oh-deuce. That’s where you goin, cherry. That’s where you goin.

Chelini had allowed himself to be drafted and he had allowed himself to be sent to Vietnam. He had had the means to resist but not the conviction or the will. Indeed, inside, he heard opposing voices. His father was a veteran of World War II. All the Chelini men—and the Chelinis were a large Italian-American family—had served in the armed forces. James observed that having served somehow set them apart from those who had not gone. On the other side were the people of his own generation, the protestors and students, who included his older brother Victor.

In 1968, in order to avoid the draft, Victor had skipped to Canada via the New Haven underground. James told himself that that had sealed his destiny. Victor was a disgrace to the family. Outwardly, Mr. Chelini defended his older son’s right to make his own decision, but inwardly, James felt sure, it tore at his father’s heart. James saw his draft order as an opportunity to reestablish the family’s honor.

Before basic training began Chelini signed up for a third year and a guarantee of communications school, in order, he justified it later, to avoid combat. In Basic Chelini was an enthusiastic trainee and he tried hard to learn good soldiering. In advanced training he became a telephone systems installer. This, he was certain, would guarantee his safety. No matter where he was stationed, he thought, he would work at a rear-base. He would support the war effort if needed, yet he would not really be a part. After AIT, when Chelini’s orders came through for Vietnam, he told himself he would experience the war zone, exactly as he had always planned, without exposing himself to combat. He told himself that he was totally naive, that he had everything to experience and to learn.

Chelini arrived at the giant army replacement station at Cam Ranh Bay near midnight 31 July. It was dark and raining as the plane descended steeply toward the airstrip. GIs on board were fidgeting. They had been en route from McCord Air Force Base via Anchorage and Yokota, Japan, for seventeen hours. Because of the jet-lag, the confusion of crossing the international dateline, his excitement and exhaustion, Chelini didn’t know if it was the thirtieth or thirty-first of July or the first of August. He had been up for twenty-five hours.

An MP welcomed the planeload of arrivals to the Republic, then said, Go directly to the buses. In case of rocket attack on the base or ambush during convoy, remain in the buses and get on the floor. Chelini could not tell if the MP was serious. Here? he thought. He tried to look at the MP’s face but was propelled with the mob toward the waiting vehicle.

What he thought was the third and last leg of his journey turned out to be a middle step. Move your body, Troop, he was ordered, prodded, pushed. They boarded the buses by rank and service, army lower enlisted last.

Okay, everybody, the shout of a cadre cracked as they disembarked. Form up on the hardstand. Chelini trudged on with the others. He did not remember the bus ride. Strange, he thought. Strange to fall asleep after spending all that time getting here. Chelini stared at the installation about him, but nothing stood out. It appeared to be just another base.

Crackling static from an olive-drab loudspeaker stationed at the peak of a white clapboard building interrupted his thoughts. ATTENTION! Attention in the company area. Those manifest for An Khe report to the orderly building. You are shipping.

Cadre continued shouting. Okay. Listen up. We’ve had a sapper attack an we didn’t get em all. We don’t know where they are. Sooo, stay away from the perimeter. Got that? I know you’ve heard Cam Ranh Bay is secure. In the past two months we’ve had more activity than in the past two years. Two nights ago we had a rocket attack.

Chelini was too tired to talk. He looked at his feet. Sand, he mumbled to himself. That’s what this place is. The sand lifted with the slightest kick. It was so fine that little clouds formed around feet and rose to his ankles and then to his knees. It stuck to the sweat on his arms and face and neck. Soon itching tormented his entire body.

Processing began immediately. Chelini filled in form after form without paying attention to what they were. His money was changed for Military Payment Certificates (MPC), and he was assigned a bunk in the transient barracks. By 0300 Chelini, without having slept, was back on the hardstand with his duffel bag and a manila envelope of his records. Wearily he, and about five hundred others, waited for orders.

Helicopters had been in the air all night. Now they opened fire with miniguns, showering the bay in a red waterfall of tracers. The firing seemed to be concentrated about six hundred meters from the processing center. Some cadre spoke of AK-47 fire, but Chelini couldn’t distinguish the sounds. Most of the cadre paid no attention to the helicopters. Somehow it seemed far off. Chelini watched the firing and listened to the buzz of the mini-guns but he was very fatigued and apathetic. They didn’t even have coffee for us, he griped to a man near him. Fuck the army, Man, the soldier grumbled back.

0400. 0500. 0600. Finally, … Ivor Carton to Bien Hoa. Timmy S. Cervantes to Quang Tri. James V. Chelini to Phu Bai … Chelini smiled as the sound of his name came over the address system.

0615—the first light of his Vietnam tour. The area surrounding the post was exquisite, a bay of deep blue-green waters surrounded by mountains. The temperature was already rising and it was muggy. Chelini did not notice the beauty. He looked about him and was aware of only one thing—sand. It got into Chelini’s mouth and ground between his teeth.

New people continued to arrive. Some looked concerned about the sapper attack and the helicopters firing. Chelini assured them it was nothing.

Phu Bai, Chelini thought. He looked up the location on a large, crude map drawn on the side of a processing building. He traced the route with his finger. That’s about three hundred and fifty miles north of Saigon. Near Hue. The XXIV Corps is the division in that area. That’s good, he told himself. It’s just what I want. It’s farthest north, so it’s got to be cooler than here.

He was shuffled about like baggage. Line-ups, formations, order checks. The temperature kept climbing. He yawned. There was so much activity and noise, and he was so tired.

Chelini was the last passenger to board the C-130 transport going to Phu Bai via Da Nang. The noise of the uninsulated aircraft made it impossible to talk or to sleep. He felt like a zombie. The ride was rough, and he was becoming nauseous. The men sat on four rows of webbed benches that were suspended from the plane’s raw metal skeleton. If Ah was a side of hangin beef, someone shouted into his ear, they’d a treat me bettah. Chelini did not respond.

The C-130 approached Da Nang from the sea, descended and landed. Twenty soldiers deplaned. Though he was not scheduled to disembark, Chelini, who was at the very back of the ship, got off and pulled his gear down to the pavement to make it easier for the others to exit from the narrow bowels of the plane. The rear door closed with Chelini watching from outside. The plane taxied to the runway, paused, sped forth, lifted off and flew toward the sea.

Chelini was paralyzed with exhaustion. He shuffled off with the others who had left the aircraft and then found himself left behind by the side of a taxi way. He sat on his duffel bag. The envelope with his orders and records remained on the webbed seat in the plane. He sat by the runway for a long time. The Da Nang airfield was flat and clean and everywhere white concrete glistened in the noon sun. Snafued, he mumbled to himself.

Chelini had felt that something was not right the moment he left the aircraft, yet he was too self-conscious to yell, to make himself seen. He simply sat and thought of ways to justify what had happened. He was sure someone would take care of him.

After a while someone did come up to him. Where you going, Soldier? the man asked. Chelini told him Phu Bai. The man directed him to a helicopter pad that had stacks of bundles of Stars and Stripes newspapers at one side. A large helicopter landed. Chelini helped someone load the papers, then climbed aboard and sat amidst the bundles. His body seemed to be on auto-pilot.

The thought of having to explain where he had been without having a good explanation made Chelini tremble. Oh, God, I’m AWOL. They’ll court-martial me. What if something happens to me? Nobody’ll know. His body twitched. His eyes opened wide. He kicked some of the bundles as the helicopter banked to one side. He fixed his eyes on a man standing, peering out the left rear porthole. The man wore a dark olive-drab flight suit and an olive-drab fiberglass helmet with wires and a mouthpiece. The upper front of his helmet was covered with a dark, opaque sun visor and the sun glinted off the shield as the man looked out the porthole. In front of him was a machine gun.

Chelini did not know where the helicopter was going. He climbed out from the bundles and stood up. His thighs twitched as he attempted to stand in the moving aircraft. I’ll go ask the captain, he resolved. I’ll say it was a mistake. Anxiously he began the walk up the corridor of the ship’s belly. The helmeted man stopped him. Chelini screamed a question at the crew chief. The man pulled the side of his helmet away from his ear, but he couldn’t understand the words amidst the noise.

Phu Bai, Chelini yelled. He cupped his hands about his mouth. Phu Bai.

The crew chief nodded. He motioned for Chelini to sit down and look out the back of the Chinook.

Chelini had been in-country for fifteen hours. He had traveled over half the land, and yet he had seen nothing except distant mountains, sand and U.S. military installations. Below him was the city of Da Nang.

The Chinook stopped at various landing pads on the city’s outskirts. Newspapers were dropped at each location. Soldiers boarded and disembarked.

Chelini saw large portions of Da Nang from an altitude of three hundred to four hundred feet and a ground speed of thirty to forty knots. He saw the large parabolic bay sided by mountainous ridges and he saw the wide river which ran inland between the ridgelines. Straddling the river, the city seemed to be thriving.

At the edge of the bay, and running as far as Chelini could see way from Da Nang’s congestion, glistening white sand beaches were partitioned by concertina wire. From the air he could see a riverfront street and a market packed with food and wares and men and women bustling about. Rising above the market were three and four storey French Colonial buildings, which looked like Jackson Park in New Orleans. Small secondstorey wrought iron balconies extended over peasants carrying provisions—dried fish, live chickens, bread, cans of oil—in baskets suspended from the ends of bamboo sticks which they balanced across one shoulder. Chelini laughed, enthralled by the sight.

The aircraft banked back over the east side of the river, above a sampan village, then landed near a shipyard. Several wooden trawlers were in various stages of assemblage. To the north of the shipyard Chelini saw shanties built almost on top of each other from scavenged ammo-box wood and government-issued tin roofing.

The CH-47 flew away from the coast, to the sea and north. To Chelini, in his mixed state of fatigue and excitement, the trip became a fantasy, an exotic travelogue.

The helicopter banked left over the beaches and sand dunes. The dunes swelled and withered and were separated by waterways. Nestled here and there, small hamlets seemed isolated and random in a sea of sand, as if someone had thrown seeds from an earlier helicopter traveling over this area long ago and the seeds had fluttered down in a gentle breeze, scattering, some germinating and growing into hamlets, some germinating and withering in the sandy soil, some never germinating at all. As the land leveled, clumps of green and brown brush overwhelmed the mounds. Hundreds of tiny temples and tombs and small pagodas cluttered the piedmont. Between the monuments and sometimes coinciding with them, bomb and artillery craters pockmarked the land. Water filled the craters and they appeared blue or mudbrown. Chelini saw it all but he did not understand. He did not associate the sights with war.

At Phu Bai the crew chief directed Chelini to the 101st Airborne Replacement Station. Engulfed by the activity of the receiving area he walked hesitantly as men hustled briskly or jogged toward destinations. Everyone wore a division patch on his left shoulder, a black shield with the white head of an eagle with gold beak and red tongue. Over the shield in a black arch were the gold letters AIRBORNE.

On the morning of 2 August Chelini was transported in the back of an open topped trailer truck from Phu Bai 50 kilometers north on Highway One to Camp Evans for proficiency or P-Training at SERTS. He had slept yet a tiredness lingered in his muscles and mind. The highway passed through the suburbs south of Hue. The truck rolled north through Hong Thauy, Phu Long and Phu Loc. It crossed a temporary wood-beamed bridge spanning the Song Loi Nong. Downriver a new bridge of steel I-beams and reinforced concrete was under construction. Up-stream a steel-truss bridge lay bent, twisted, ripped from its concrete footings. Chelini shuddered in awe. It thrilled him to see this: it was the first evidence of war he understood.

The trailer truck jolted at the end of the bridge and descended into a major marketplace. In the market Chelini could see hundreds of small women squatting beside piles of raw fish or rolls of bread. His eyes were shining with excitement. The world was new and fascinating. The truck rolled on skirting the scarred and shattered walls of the Citadel of the old Imperial City at Hue. There really was a war here, he said to himself. Inside the Citadel’s gates he could see ancient cannons.

North of the city the truck passed fields with peasant farmers working knee deep in water or plowing behind water buffalo. They passed villages with thousands of children and hundreds of peasant hootches—some colorful, some dingy—and peasant shops which were busy selling everything from soda and soup to motorscooters.

In one village the elders came to the roadside and smiled and waved and Chelini waved back. He imagined himself as a part of the liberating armies coming into France or Belgium in an old World War II movie. At the next village the truck paused. Beside the road was a mud brick shack. To one side was a hedge, to the other, a barbed wire fence. The front of the shack was a tattered piece of canvas which opened as an awning to expose the interior. Inside, several middle-aged women stood chattering while they washed old brown bottles. Four children—a girl about six holding an infant, and two smaller boys—came shyly from behind the fence and approached the truck. The littlest boy removed a frayed baseball cap and held it out toward the truck. The boy was gazing directly at Chelini and smiling. His older brother waved and held up his right hand in a peace sign. Chelini smiled back and returned the hand gesture. The little girl with the infant approached the truck. She lifted the infant’s arm and waved his hand to the soldiers. Chelini stared at her. He did not know if other GIs on the truck were watching him and the children. He imagined the children calling him Papa because he had brought them peace, prosperity and the knowledge of ways to ease their existence. A soldier threw two cigarettes toward the children. The boys dove for them. The soldiers on the truck laughed and began throwing gum and more cigarettes. Chelini had a sudden urge to cry.

Camp Evans was named for a Marine killed in an ambush along the Street Without Joy in 1966. At that time the base was a sparse crude outpost of tents and foxholes. In 1969 the Marines withdrew and turned the base over to the 3d Brigade of the 101st, who since their arrival had not ceased building.

SERTS training at Camp Evans intensified Chelini’s fantasies of war though it was still only an exercise to him.

Chelini was assigned to a hootch and bunk and was issued an M-16. The bunk next to him had been issued to a rotund in-country transferee named Will Ralston who would become Chelini’s closest friend for the next seven days. Ralston had been stationed just outside Saigon with a supply unit. Dude, I had one gettin-over job, Ralston said by way of introduction. We were attached to this other unit that controlled this small complex, see? But they didn’t have direct authority over us, so we didn’t pull guard or have any details. Then they decided to close the place up cause of the withdrawals and they sent us up here to this godforsaken hole. Fuck withdrawals, Man.

Will Ralston had arrived at Evans the day before Chelini was trucked in. He had spent the night on guard duty along the camp’s east perimeter. Dude, you aint gonna believe this place, Ralston cracked. Down around Saigon they’d give us a 16 and three rounds just before guard. This place looks like they expectin to fight a war. You aint gonna believe the shit they got on the berm. They must be expectin deep shit, Man.

You know how to operate that thang? asked the Black Hat, a staff sergeant member of SERTS’ cadre.

Chelini grabbed the M-60 pulled the bolt to the rear lifted the cover and put the belt into the feed tray. Yeah, he said. One of the sergeants came over and showed me.

All right, the man said. You know the rules of engagement?

Yeah, Ralston said.

I think so, Chelini agreed.

You put out your claymores?

Seven of em.

Okay. You ought to have fifteen frags, twenty-one magazines each for your 16’s. You got 1500 rounds for the 60 and 50 rounds for the 79. If you have to use that 60 one of you feed while the other fires. Only if yer name’s Wayne or Murphy can you fire it by yourself. Do you have any questions?

Can we get some bug repellent? Ralston asked.

There’ll be a track around pretty soon with repellent and coffee, the Black Hat said. He walked off heading to the next foxhole. Every forty meters around the perimeter at Camp Evans there was a guard-duty station, a foxhole. The foxholes were designated into sectors of the perimeter and each sector had a tower for the captain of the guard and every foxhole was connected with its command tower by ground-line communication. Guards were instructed to use the phone system only in emergency or in response to the guard captain calling for a situation report. Of the next ten nights Chelini and Ralston pulled guard on six.

Oh, Man, Ralston said, look at this dump. It was Chelini’s first night on guard and the foxhole had six inches of muddy red water in the bottom and one end was caving in. Ralston was jumpy. He attached the firing devices to the claymore mine wires and arranged them in order across the front of the hole and grumbled, If I see anything out there—if any crazy gook thinks he’s goina sneak up close—I’m goina blow his shit away.

Calm down, Man. There aint going to be anybody out there, Chelini said. What time do you got?

It’s about ten after nine.

You want to sleep first or stand watch?

You sleep. I’ll stay up. Ralston laid a bandoleer of magazines for his M-16 in front of his position just behind the clacker firing devices for the claymore mines. He picked up his weapon, put a magazine in the well, pulled the bolt back and chambered a round. Goddamn rain. Goddamn sand. This whole country aint nothin but Goddamn sand.

Hey, Chelini said. You wake me if you think you see something. Chelini lay down on his poncho on the sand behind the foxhole. And if you get sleepy, he added, get me up early.

Yeah. Yeah. Don’t worry about it. I’m not goina sleep with Charlie out there.

Chelini lay back using his helmet as a pillow. The sky was black with gray patches where the clouds reflected a dim half moon. It was raining lightly. A warm breeze came up from the moist fields below, outside the base. It smelled of dung. Chelini closed his eyes. He felt silly lying on the hard ground with his lead in his helmet, his chest crossed by bandoleers, his thighs crossed by his rifle. He smiled. A single warm drop of water rolled off his lip and into his mouth. It tasted salty. He sat up. This must look really stupid, he thought. Like playing soldier. It was getting darker and he could feel the mist condensing on his face. The breeze was just beginning to turn cool. I’d like to have picture of me, he thought. A picture of me like this.

The quiet rolling sound of a small truck broke in upon his thoughts. He opened his eyes. Approaching through the darkness from a fighting position farther up the perimeter was a three-quarter-ton truck. The truck’s silhouette was barely visible against the night sky. The only light from the vehicle was a tiny subdued red glow at one fender. The truck stopped. You guys want some coffee? the driver asked quietly.

Na, Ralston said. You got any bug repellent?

The driver threw them an olive drab aerosol can.

These damn mosquitoes, Ralston whispered as he sprayed his ears. They like to get right inside yer fuckin head and drive you fuckin nuts.

Pass it this way, Man, Chelini said. Hey, where you from?

You mean in the World? Here, he threw Chelini the can. California, what about yerself?

Connecticut, Chelini said. He sprayed the back of his shirt then down the front. What time’s it getting to be?

Nine-thirty. You better pick up some Zs. You got it eleven to one.

Um, Chelini groaned. He lay back down and shut his eyes.

Hey, Man. Get up. It’s ten-past. Chelini woke to Ralston shaking his boot. Come on, Man. It’s yer turn.

Okay. Okay. He shook the sleep from his face and sat up. Everything quiet?

Shit. It’s so dark out there Mister Charlie could come slip right up here, tap you on the shoulder, give you an engraved invitation to your own funeral and you still wouldn’t ee-ven know where he was.

Chelini slid to the foxhole and checked the box of fragmentation grenades, the M-60 machine gun, the claymore wires and the firing clackers. He checked it all by feel. He put his face very close to the 60, trying to make sure the belt was in right, but he could see nothing. Okay, Man, he said. Go to sleep.

It was very dark now. There was no way to distinguish the ground from the sky. In the field before him several spots seemed darker than the surrounding blackness. Chelini picked up his M-16 and aimed it on one of the spots. It did not move. Will Ralston had lain down and was already snoring lightly when Chelini turned around and looked at him. He was a spot only a little darker than the ground. Chelini turned and looked back at the dark spot which now seemed to be in the perimeter concertina wire. The spot changed shape. Very slowly Chelini moved forward. Noiselessly he picked up his rifle and clicked the safety lever from safe to semi-automatic to automatic. He shouldered the weapon again, sighted in on one dense spot and froze on it for what seemed like an hour. Then he switched his aim to another spot. The darkness crept slowly in an amoebic flow. There was no way to distinguish a target. Chelini could feel his pulse beating heavily in his neck and wrists. What the hell am I supposed to do? he asked, frustrated, frightened, furious that the army had not lighted the perimeter. Somebody could come up here and drop a frag right here in this stinkin hole with me and I’d never know it. Maybe I ought to check with the tower. Goddamn. I hope there’s nobody out there. Blow a claymore first. No. Throw a frag first or pump out a round from the M-79. No, throw a frag. That won’t give away my position. He stood waist-deep in the hole, the protective earth surrounding him. His hands searched the ground before him for a fragmentation grenade. He found one and lifted it, hefted it to get the feel of its weight. He fondled it to find the pin. Then he just held it and stared into the darkness slowly sweeping his gaze back and forth in a 180° arc like he’d been taught in basic training, sweeping from right to left and then farther out from left to right and still farther out and back again. Then he started the sweep again, not aiming his weapon but his eyes and ears and always fondling the grenade and feeling the butt of the M-60 against his shirt front though he did not touch it with his hands and feeling the butt of his M-16 against his side as it lay pointing forward and ready.

A few minutes past one he woke Ralston for the one-to-three shift. He climbed out of the hole and sat on the poncho behind it and then lay back with his M-16 across his legs. He thought it would be impossible to sleep. His body was taut with tension and his mind was very alert and awake and his eyes were open, staring up now into the misty blackness seeing no more than if they were shut.

The night passed without incident.

On 5 August a marathon of classes began with emphasis on airmobile tactics, basic weaponry, the official view of the war effort, the tactical situation and Vietnamese culture. Despite grunts and groans and whispered bullshits by many students Chelini would come away convinced of the sincerity and competency of the instructors.

The first training period was the round robin. Chelini had never fired any of the round-robin weapons and the power of each enthralled him, changed him, made him desire to fire them again. He volunteered for every demonstration; he constantly asked questions. First he fired an M-67 ninety-millimeter recoilless rifle. He lay beside the weapon and sighted in on a fifty-five gallon drum across a ravine in the firing range. His assistant gunner loaded an HE, high-explosive, rocket into the tube. Gentle-men, the instructor said in metered syllables. This pro-jec-tile is ca-pa-ble of pier-cing seven-teen inches of the tough-est steel known to man-kind or three feet of re-in-forced con-crete or six thick-ness-es of sand-bags. Gen-tle-men, you do not want to be on the ra-ceiv-ing end of this in-stru-ment. Chelini wriggled in closer to the weapons. He laid his head on the sighting pad and re-aimed. He squeezed the trigger device. The rocket exploded. Flames shot back ten feet. The noise stung his ears. He clamped his eyes shut. The projectile sailed wide of target and blew a crater into the soft dirt of the opposing hill. Chelini’s heart pounded.

The second round-robin weapon was a LAW, a light anti-tank weapon. Somehow, Chelini thought, the army managed to issue every one of its instructors the same voice. Gen-tle-men, they all start out, da-dot da-dot da-dot da-da." They all keep cadence with their speech. Chelini volunteered again.

This wea-pon, Gen-tle-men, the second in-structor was saying, is ca-pa-ble of pier-cing e-lev-en inches of the toughest steel known to man. Gen-tlemen, you do not … The M-79 grenade launcher or thumper was next. It looked like a sawed-off shotgun with an inch-and-a-half bore. It fired forty-millimeter shells either directly at a target or lobbed in an arc like an artillery piece. Chelini stepped forward. What’s your MOS? the instructor asked.

I’m a wireman, Chelini answered.

Let some of the infantry guys fire this, the instructor said and motioned him back. You can fire the next one.

The last round-robin weapon was the M-60 machine gun. Gen-tle-men … this fires seven-point-six-two mil-li-me-ter bul-lets at a rate of five-five-oh … Chelini slid to the front of the line at the last moment and behind one of the practice weapons. To him this was the most ferocious weapon of all. He came away beaming, imagining himself holding a hill alone, a hero.

Next, Chelini’s group was marched to a rifle range for M-16 battle-site zeroing, then to the Cobra show.

The Cobra is a narrow assault helicopter which carries its pilot and gunner in tandem. The class began with the instructor radioing in a fictitious request for close-in tactical support.

Holy Christ, Chelini screeched when the helicopter dove from above the group and unleashed rockets, grenades and mini-gunfire against simulated targets. Holy Christ, he repeated. The class exploded in applause as the helicopter raked the target range.

Gen-tle-men, the instructor shouted. Gen-tle-men. He yelled again as the bird pulled from its dive and circled above them. In the 101st, Cobras come in two basic configurations: ARA and Gunship. The Aerial Rocket Artillery Cobra carries seventy-six 2.75-inch rockets … The instructor catalogued the aircrafts weaponry, each syllable of his speech in cadence. Gen-tle-men, you use ARA against bunkers. You use gunships against enemy soldiers and mixed targets. This bird, the instructor pointed up without taking his eyes from the class, is a gunship. You treat it with respect. You activate it as follows. The instructor brought a radio handset up before his face. He depressed the transmit bar. Tomahawk Six Six, this is Trainer Five, fire mission. Over.

An artillery act followed the air show. The students watched the receiving end of a barrage against the same scarred hillside. They called-in adjustments to the fire direction control center (FDC), raising and lowering the impactions, moving them left and right simply by speaking into a radio handset.

Still more weaponry classes followed. M-16 practice on a quick-fire reaction course was followed by a class on the M-33 fragmentation grenade and finally a class on claymore mines. At night they had a night-fire exercise under the illumination of artillery flares. Exhausted, Chelini and Ralston and the others marched back to their hootches. Temperatures during the day reached 109 degrees and the humidity hovered at 85 percent. On the morning march to the first range Chelini’s hands swelled, his arms turned white and his joints became stiff. He had been sure the heat would make him collapse. We got a saying up here, Duke, one cadre sneered when he protested moving. Take two salt tablets and drive on.

The second and third days classes dealt with the history and culture of Vietnam. The culture lecture was given by a chicano sergeant. "Gen’lemen. The priorities of Mister Nguyen are: one, family and food—that mama-san an