Throwing Grenades at Gilligan’S Island

By Steve Mitchell

As the Vietnam War winds down, the USS Tutanga repairs river boats on the Saigon River. Connor Simmons arrives on board to find House, a battle-scarred sailor who works the black market and has a soft spot for the Vietnamese kids in the nearby village of Nha Be. When Connor goes to work on an antiquated light ship, he learns that it may be central to Houses plan to save those he cares about most. Throwing Grenades at Gilligans Island is a one-hundred-thousand-word historical novel that explores love, loyalty, and the absurdity of war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543444261

Steve Mitchell

Born and raised in the Midwest, Steve Mitchell joined the navy after graduating from high school in 1969. He served nine months in Vietnam, then on a destroyer home ported in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. After his six-year navy hitch, Mitchell attended Iowa State University and earned a journalism degree. He wrote for SolarUtilization News before getting a job at the Estes Park Public Library, where he now works as a reference librarian. Mitchell, his wife Lori and his son Jeff live five minutes from the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park.

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Chapter 1

The Annapolis

CBS Evening News: On March 6, 1971, Bob Schieffer reported that President Nixon will reduce United States forces to 50,000 by end of next year (1972). Officials give withdrawal timetable: 284,000 by May 1st; 200,000 end of year; 50,000 end of next year.

May 7, 1971

Ton Son Nhut Air Base, Saigon

Connor Simmons stepped from the Boeing 707’s refrigerated air into a thick, moist, rotting, suffocating heat, 600 pounds of clammy heat bearing down on his shoulders. He breathed in a lungful and gasped. Sweat rolled out of his hair and streaked his glasses.

How could he stand this?

It was early Tuesday morning. Connor had flown through ten time zones and skipped a day to arrive at Saigon’s Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base. Brown sandbags protected gun emplacements and soldiers with automatic rifles guarded rows of green helicopters. Vietnamese squatted in small groups and peered at the plane from under conical hats. Connor felt like a fluorescent shoot me target in his tropical navy white uniform.

He followed a line of men down the plane ramp and mustered with the other sailors around a navy petty officer waiting on the tarmac. He was dressed in freshly-pressed utility greens and stared at Connor through aviator sunglasses, the dull morning light reflecting off lenses the color of bottle flies.

Insect eyes.

The petty officer jerked a thumb toward a gray navy bus and Connor and the others lined up in two uneven ranks.

This bus will transport you to the Annapolis BOQ/BEQ, Insect Eyes announced in a southern drawl, and then droned into a rehearsed monologue about administrative briefings and in-country security orientations. Connor’s stomach bubbled and he lost the thread. Man, he felt woozy and was running a fever from all the overseas shots he had received before he departed the states: cholera, plague, influenza, typhoid and smallpox. His left butt cheek throbbed like a second heartbeat from the gamma globulin shot.

Connor remembered that shot vividly at the San Diego dispensary.

Pull down your dungarees and bend over! the corpsman ordered.

The corpsman slapped his left buttock and jabbed the horse needle into his reddened flesh. The putty-thick gamma serum crept into his left butt muscle. It was cold as meat locker blood and tightened into the size of a walnut. A metallic taste crawled up the back of his throat as his left leg tingled and went numb. He couldn’t feel his toes. It still hurt three days later and he saw spots when he closed his eyes.

Any questions? asked Insect Eyes in a bored voice.

A man in the front row raised his hand. What’s the deal with the steel mesh grill that covers the bus windows?

There was nervous laughter but Insect Eyes didn’t respond. He stepped next to the bus’s folding door.

Everyone on the bus. Do not extend your arms outside the bus windows while we are in transit to the Annapolis.

Before Connor boarded he noticed a sign on the terminal wall, red letters against a yellow background.

In case of mortar attack DON’T PANIC DON’T RUN lay down on the floor and cover your head with your hands.

Connor found a seat and stared out the window at a gray haze of diesel exhaust and cooking smoke. The chief he was supposed to travel with to his ship was a no-show when Connor boarded the flight at Travis Air Force Base, so he was on his own. Rank had its privileges.

He closed his eyes and imagined the Annapolis as some place safe, a walled-in compound with guardhouses and barbed wire to protect him from all these Vietnamese who were everywhere.

Connor rubbed at the sweat blobs on his eyeglass lenses and pushed at his window to get some air, but it was rusted shut. On the road, their bus inched through a logjam of cyclos, taxis and military vehicles. An army deuce and a half truck bullied its way down the center of the road directly at their bus. The truck’s horn blared so their bus driver leaned on his horn but it was drowned out. Connor braced for a head-on collision, but their driver blinked first.

Goddammit! he screamed as he yanked his steering wheel to the right. Two bus wheels bumped up onto the dirt sidewalk to let the truck squeeze pass, scattering several women with their charcoal stoves.

Conner peered through the steel mesh at time-worn French buildings with high windows and rust stains that streaked white stucco walls. Pressed between the buildings were lean-tos slapped together from lumber scraps and corrugated tin. Barefoot and bare-bottomed children played in the dust with sticks. Men wearing green fatigues walked along the road in twos and threes. A blond soldier in a doorway argued with a girl holding a baby on her hip.

After a half-hour drive the bus pulled up to a two-story building hidden behind sandbags, concertina wire and oil drums. Ragged awnings and white sheets sheltered the second floor windows from the morning heat. Traffic on Plantation Road rushed past just feet away.

This couldn’t be the Annapolis—it was in the middle of everything. Where were the guard towers? Connor filed off the bus and waited in line under the relentless sun. A guard at the door searched a mama-san’s basket before he motioned the line of men forward.

Connor entered a dark, airless tomb and approached a desk hidden in the shadows. A clerk aimed a flashlight’s yellow beam on his orders and went about stamping the papers. The generator whined to life and the lights flickered on. There were a couple mock cheers at the reappearance of power.

After finding an empty rack in the berthing area, Connor changed into dungarees and followed the men into Bay 8 where he sat on a metal folding chair and listened to an instructor with dark semi-circles of sweat under his armpits explain the nine rules for dealing with the Vietnamese culture: we are guests here, understand their life, use their language, honor their customs and laws, make friends with the common people, etc. The lecture ended and the men shifted in their chairs. Time for chow. The instructor announced that officers were to mess at the Idaho BOQ and enlisted at the Montana BEQ, located several blocks down Plantation Road.

Muster back here at 1300, he said, and closed his notebook.

Chairs scraped and the room emptied. Connor looked for someone to go with but everyone was gone. He approached the instructor at the podium.

Where’s the BEQ?

Like I said. Montana BEQ. Out the door. Hang a left. Three blocks. Turn left. There it is.

Connor peered out the door of the Annapolis onto Plantation Road, from the dark interior to the brilliant, white light. When his eyes adjusted he saw a slender Vietnamese man wearing shorts, sandals and a pith helmet sitting in his pedicab. The driver nodded and motioned him over.

Was hiring a pedicab a good idea? How much should he pay? What if the pedicab driver took him down a back alley, slit his throat, and took all his money? Connor wasn’t taking a chance. He’d walk the three blocks.

Connor stepped out of the relative coolness of the Annapolis onto the sun-blasted pavement and turned down the street. He wore boot camp issue navy dungarees while everyone else wore green utilities. Fear and newness radiated from Connor, and the street kids sensed it and came running. Within seconds a half dozen pint-sized predators encircled Connor and bombarded him with questions.

Boom-boom virgin sister, sailor-man?

Buy Chiclets. Chiclets?

Something touched Connor’s back and he whirled. A boy grinned, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. They were all around him, the little bastards, poking, snatching, grasping. Something tugged at his wrist and his watch was gone.

What the…?

Connor turned. Ten paces behind him a soldier grabbed the thief as he tried to run and wrenched the watch away. The boy scampered away as the soldier held the watch up by its leather band.

Lose something?

Hey thanks. Connor replied as he accepted his watch.

The soldier snickered. Yeah, no sweat.

Connor rushed back to the Annapolis, found his rack and collapsed. Make friends with the common people, my ass. The instructor didn’t say how to deal with pickpockets.

Hey! The roaming master-at-arms slapped the bottom of Connor’s boot with a nightstick. No lying on your rack while in uniform. Strip to your skivvies when you take a nooner.

Connor went into the head to take a leak. He held his breath against a stink so exceptional that it had a color all its own. When he flushed the pipes groaned. No water. Brown-soaked toilet paper jammed the commodes. The overhead lights flickered and the head went black. Men cursed but their hearts weren’t in it. What a hellhole. Muster was in less than an hour and Connor didn’t know if he could stand it. He was woozy and dizzy and had to lie down.

Following the afternoon lectures, Connor rested on his rack and watched spots dance on the inside of his eyelids. His skin was flushed and dry to the touch. His mother told him to feed a fever, but how would he manage that without exposing his watch, his wallet, and his 19-year-old cherry-boy balls to those pint-sized bandits on Plantation Road?

Connor never felt so alone. The other new men hung together in small groups, many assigned to the same unit. Those departing Vietnam after their year tour kept to themselves and ignored the new guys. Ignored him. They called themselves short timers and they never missed an opportunity to point it out. 24 and a wakeup. I’m so short I’m not even here.

That was 24 hours – not 24 days -- before they boarded the freedom bird for home. Instead of taking him into their circle and showing him the ropes, the short timers stayed away as if he had a communicable disease, the disease of newness. You’re on your own. Good luck. Only they never said good luck.

Connor tried to imagine enduring 365 days like today, but he couldn’t make it real in his head. He opened his eyes and a sailor in faded greens stood at the foot of his rack, his shoulder-length blond hair tied back with a blue bandanna. He wore three strands of discolored beads around his neck.

Got a light?

When Connor shook his head, the sailor pulled a Zippo from his front pocket and fired up a Kool. He took a long drag and exhaled a stream of blue smoke out his nostrils, and then he tossed the lighter to Connor.

You do now.

Bandana Man looked ready to say something more when one of his buddies walked by and mumbled something about an FNG.

Fucking New Guy.

Without another word, Bandanna Man followed his friend out back.

Connor had seen Bandana Man under an awning smoking god knows what and listening to Smokey Robinson’s Tears of a Clown on a ghetto blaster. He and the other short timers lounged in the movie room or lay in their racks with their boots on, and the master-at-arms said not a peep. They walked on Plantation Road and the pickpockets stayed away. It was something in their eyes. One look at their eyes.

The battered Zippo had a map of Vietnam on one side and a quote on the other that read: Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity. Bandana Man wanted him to have it. But why? If it had survived this long it must be a good luck charm. A talisman. Maybe someone gave a damn after all.

Night descended as if someone had flipped a switch. He listened to the horns, revving engines and backfires that intruded from beyond the Annapolis walls. Did these people ever sleep?

The master-at-arms told him he was on the night watch bill so Connor lay perfectly still and prayed to God that no one woke him in the middle of the night and stuck a M16 in his hands. He didn’t want to stare down a dark alleyway for four hours holding a gun he didn’t know how to fire.

Connor’s eyes opened and it was light. Men showered and moved around the compartment. He dressed and considered breakfast, but he wasn’t walking on Plantation Road. No sir. His stomach didn’t dare growl.

After that morning’s personnel response lecture, Connor boarded a bus for an indoctrination tour of Saigon. The bus driver had two sandbags stacked under his seat.

From his seat in back, Connor looked out his window at a pop-popping green scooter slithering through an opening between the bus and a three-wheeled Lambretta carrying chicken cages. A Vietnamese girl riding sidesaddle behind the driver tucked her chin and held her conical hat against the gusting wind. She wore a white silk ao dai that fluttered behind her as the scooter disappeared in the traffic ahead.

When the bus pulled onto the road Connor heard a screech of torn metal as the bus jolted to a stop and slammed Connor forward into the seat. He rubbed his forehead and glanced out the window. A Vietnamese man crawled off his crushed motorbike and screamed at the bus driver. Within seconds the Saigon police, or White Mice, arrived, followed by a jeep of MPs.

This morning, their instructor had warned that traffic accidents were perfect targets for terrorists. He imagined a man riding by on a Honda and flipping a satchel charge under the stalled bus. He looked under his seat—no sandbags.

A helmeted head appeared at the bus’s door. Everybody off the bus, now! Saigon tour canceled.

That afternoon Connor hung out at the master-at-arms desk until he hitched a ride on a supply truck that delivered beer, toilet paper and mail to Nha Be, a small navy base 10 miles south of Saigon.

Que pasa, dude? said Sanchez, the driver, as Connor climbed into the front seat. Glad to have you along.

Connor sneaked a peak. Yep, Sanchez had sandbags under his seat.

Don’t worry none, hombre. I make this milk run twice a week.

Yeah? Connor said, breathing out.

But you may want to keep an eye out all the same.

Eye out for what?

Sanchez shrugged, his eyes flitting back and forth across the landscape. Just keep an eye out.

Once the truck left the outskirts of Saigon, the green flatness of the countryside opened up. Farmers walked water buffalo along the road and old women in low boats collected green fronds from irrigation ditches. The country’s beauty surprised him.

Sanchez dropped Connor at the Nha Be pier and drove off to meet up with a couple of buddies. He promised that he’d return within the half hour to off-load supplies. So Connor sat on his seabag and waited. Beached on a nearby mudflat was an abandoned merchant ship, her rust-streaked hull canted at an angle.

What had happened to her?

KA-BLOOM! Connor started. In the distance, a water flume erupted next to a hulking gray ship anchored in the coffee-colored Saigon River. With pontoons roped port and starboard and small green boats lashed outboard, she looked like an ugly mama ship surrounded by her suckling brood.

It was his ship, the USS Tutanga.

Beyond the ship the land lay flat as a dining table. The low, green jungle ringed the wide river and lay close to the horizon.

The pier’s wooden boards squeaked. A Vietnamese boy wearing shorts walked toward him, crouched 30 feet away and peered at him from under the bill of his green Marine hat. Connor’s hand went instinctively to his hip pocket to check his wallet.

When the boy didn’t make another move, Connor gave him a tentative wave. The kid smiled and waved back.

They both waited.

Chapter 2

Tutanga

As the Mike boat neared the dock the coxswain reversed the engine in a gutter roar, nudging the boat against the pier pilings. The sailor on the bow tossed a line to Connor and he tied it off to the dock cleat as best he could. The gray boat was rectangular with a square bow. It looked as though it had landed marines on the beaches of Iwo Jima.

Once secured, the coxswain jumped on the pier. He was a massive man, black as onyx, his uniform a green t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off and a pair of camouflage shorts.

The black man questioned. Qu’est-ce qui se passe?

What?

He pointed to the hulking gray ship on the river. "You headed for the Tutanga?"

When Connor nodded, the kid wearing the marine cap grabbed his seabag and dragged it toward the boat.

Hey! Put that down! Connor yelled and reached for his bag.

The boy pointed to the black coxswain. Buddha say OK.

Buddha nodded. Dozer’s cool. He helps out when he can.

Dozer flashed the peace sign at Connor and pushed his seabag into the boat well. Moments later Sanchez arrived with the supply truck and they all pitched in to offload the beer and mail. Connor tossed a bulky yellow mail bag and three red mail bags into the Mike boat.

It looks like a good haul for the Toot, Buddha observed. Yellow is for letters and red is for packages.

Once they loaded the mail and supplies, Buddha handed Dozer a few coins for his help and they both boarded the boat. Dozer untangled Connor’s granny knot and the boat was free. Buddha fired up the deep-throated diesel and they were on the river.

KA-BLOOM! Connor ducked behind the boat’s steel hull and covered his head with his hands. He looked up at Buddha in the wheelhouse. What the hell?

Concussion grenade, Buddha yelled over the engine roar. Discourages sappers and the like. You’ll get used to it.

KA-BLOOM! Connor ducked again. It sounded like the ship was under mortar attack. The Mike boat neared the ship and Connor witnessed shirtless men working on the pontoons. They appeared unconcerned, as though the explosions were harmless truck backfires.

Once Buddha snugged the Mike boat alongside the port pontoon, Connor hoisted his seabag and jumped to a steel deck that rolled lazily with the river currents. Boats crowded the pontoon. Men sanded boat hulls with grinders and listened to rock ’n roll thumping from a silver tape deck. Steam winches hissed and engines whined.

Connor climbed the accommodation ladder to the Tutanga’s quarterdeck and, after saluting the ensign and the officer of the deck, handed over his manila folder with his orders.

The ship smelled of oil and diesel and the sweet, decaying river. It reminded Connor of the Mississippi, a river he had lived next to his entire life. But this was wider and rushed past with urgency.

He pulled his sweat-soaked dungaree shirt away from his skin and watched a dark green patrol boat speed past, its wake sending small waves that bumped and nudged the pontoons, bouncing the boats tied alongside. Sailors raced to secure the loosened lines. Along the far shore the sun shimmered off the steel roofs of the Nha Be Naval Base. The delta was flat like Iowa, but there were no roads that he could see. It was all green with jungle and if the nightly news reports with Walter Cronkite were true, there were people in that jungle who wanted to kill him. A few folks back in Iowa didn’t care for him much, but they sure didn’t want to kill him.

A lanky sailor loped down the port side toward Connor. He wore starched green utilities and polished jungle boots. A knife was strapped to the inside of his calf.

Welcome aboard the Toot, he said. My name’s Rich Gunter. Follow me.

Connor followed Gunter down a ladder and through a warren of passageways clustered with fire hoses, ductwork and overhead piping decorated with black stenciled words. Gunter disappeared around a corner and Connor struggled to keep up, dragging his seabag behind. He ducked to avoid a battle lantern and smacked his left shin on the lip of a hatch.

Dammit!

Gunter turned and warned, Watch those knee knockers!

The cavernous berthing compartment was lined with canvas racks stacked five high and chained to the overhead. Connor claimed an empty rack and stashed the contents of his seabag in a silver locker along the bulkhead.

When Gunter opened the door to the R-4 electronics shop Connor shivered; it felt as though he’d just walked into a meat locker. Fluorescents lighted the square space crowded with workbenches and electronic test equipment. Two men occupied the space: one working and one sleeping. Neither noticed Gunter and Connor enter.

The man working at the bench wore headphones and examined a piece of electronic equipment through pink-tinted eyeglasses, his head bobbing to a beat only he could hear. With his black beard and long hair, he looked like should be staring from the cover of Rolling Stone.

Gunter tapped him on the shoulder and shouted, What you got going, TonyT?

TonyT took off his headphones and the sound of Cat Stevens’ Wild World emerged from the earpieces. My voltage regulator’s not regulating.

Once Gunter introduced Connor, TonyT clamped the phones over his ears and went back to work.

Gunter said, TonyT doesn’t wear socks. Says it discourages foot rot, says he has scientific proof, but I think he only does it to tick off Leggett, our leading petty officer.

The second man was stretched out on the other end of the workbench and snored with enthusiasm, his hands folded across his substantial belly.

That’s Rautenhaus, but we call him House, Gunter said. Never wake him from his beer hangover. If you must roust him, stand back and poke him with a stick.

Gunter continued. Lansbury is on R&R in Hawaii and Leggett is on the beach scrounging parts for an Alpha boat’s pathfinder radar. No one knows where Wink is—probably hiding out in the captain’s gig smoking dope.

The names ran together in Connor’s head as weariness pressed down on his eyelids. The anxious energy that had kept him going the last several days at the Annapolis had burned away, sandpapering his eyeballs with fatigue.

Connor yawned. I need some sleep.

Beer call’s at 1800 on the starboard pontoon. I’ll buy you a cold one.

All Connor wanted to do was lie down. His stomach growled, but sleep was more essential than food.

The moment the ship’s loudspeaker, the 1MC, announced knock off ship’s work, Gunter turned on the radio. "The American Forces Vietnam Radio broadcasting from our tower of power in Saigon with studios and transmitters in Nha Trang, Qui Nhon, Pleiku, Tu Hoay, and Quang Tri presents Chicken Man: He’s everywhere! He’s everywhere!"

Gunter settled in with a paperback of Aynd Rand’s The Fountainhead while TonyT nodded to his rock ‘n’ roll. House continued to snore on the workbench.

Don’t forget beer call on the pontoon at 1800.

Connor stumbled through the passageways in the general direction of the berthing spaces. He bashed his shin on another knee knocker and his eyes teared with pain. Once he found the berthing compartment, he climbed up to his rack and collapsed.

KA-BLOOM! Connor’s eyes popped open as though spring-loaded. The blast echoed as though someone smashed the steel hull with a baseball bat.

KA-BLOOM! That one was close! It exploded feet from his head. He leaned over and touched the rough metal hull. It felt sturdy enough, but what if a grenade collapsed the hull and river water rushed in and drowned them all? He was too damned tired to worry about it. Connor closed his eyes and fell asleep.

*     *     *

Someone jostled him. Wake up!

It was Gunter. Beer call, man. Hustle up. I’m buying the first round.

Once on the pontoon, Gunter stripped off his shirt to reveal a nut brown chest with not an ounce of fat. Connor wondered how long it would take him to get a tan like that.

Navy regulations prohibited serving alcohol onboard ship, so every evening the navy provided beer on the pontoon. Gunter and Connor each collected two rusty cans of Carling Black Label from a chief who stood next to a tub of water. The beer was free—Gunter wasn’t buying anything. Gunter punched a couple holes in a can with a church key and handed it to Connor. It was lukewarm and bitter and Conner tasted rust on his lips, but it was beer. Back home in Iowa he had snuck a couple sips from his father’s Old Milwaukee but this was a beer all his own. He took another swig and felt all grown up. No one carded him in Vietnam.

Around them shirtless men sat in small groups and drank beer, shot the shit and listened to Tommy James and the Shandells on the boom box. On the far shore the sun lay low over the shacks of Nha Be.

Hide your beer, Gunter warned. Here he comes.

House approached carrying a can of beer nestled against his belly, his left arm held close to his body like he was protecting something. Standing upright he didn’t look any more awake than he had earlier, his lids drooping over bleary, red eyes. He had a slag-heap of a face, gravity pulling its ruddy skin south into furrowed cheeks. House tipped his head back, drained his beer, and flipped the can into the river with his right hand.

House looked at Connor. He warned, Don’t drink that beer. It contains formaldehyde and will mummify your innards.

Connor eyed his can with suspicion.

I got built-in immunity, House continued. Better turn your beers over to me before anyone gets hurt.

Gunter groaned. Give the kid a break, House. Connor’s our new man in R-4. This is his first beer on the Toot.

That seals the deal. You drink those beers and your tongue goes numb and you wake up in the morning feeling like a mortician did a half-assed job on you. Guaran-goddamn-teed. House looked over at Gunter. You know the effects of formaldehyde-laced beer on the uninitiated.

Connor shrugged and handed House his extra beer. Gunter rolled his eyes.

Most obliged there, uh… House squinted at the name stenciled on Connor’s dungaree shirt. Simmons, is it?

Yeah, Connor Simmons.

When you got a minute, I’d like to talk to you about a TV.

Don’t let him talk you into it, Gunter warned.

House glared at Gunter. What you got against a little free enterprise? I don’t tell you how to run your slush fund.

That reminds me, Gunter said. He pulled out a little black book, licked his thumb and flipped through a couple pages. You owe…

I know what I owe, House growled. He turned on his heel and walked away with Connor’s beer.

See you on payday, Gunter shouted after him.

They don’t really put formaldehyde in the beer, do they? Connor asked as he eyed his rusted can.

Can’t you taste it? It’s a preservative that extends a beer’s shelf life. Hell, I bet some of this stuff has been stored in a warehouse since the Roosevelt Administration. This beer is probably as old as this converted liberty ship we’re standing on.

Connor wouldn’t doubt it.

Gunter shook his head, But it doesn’t bother House none. He scrounges 8-10 beers every evening from suckers like you. What he doesn’t guzzle he squirrels away for later. Look at that Alpha boat.

Connor followed Gunter’s finger. House stood next to a low, green boat that looked like a floating tank. When he thought no one was looking, House dropped two beers down an open hatch.

Man, that can’t be authorized.

Gunter shrugged. Lots of guys do it. The old man won’t let opened cases of beer back onboard ship—the messcooks would be into in a heartbeat—so guys hide extra cans in the boats for later.

Later? Guys get beer every night. Why did they need extra?

So what’s the story with House? Connor asked. Why does he get drunk every night? And why does he hold his arm like that? It looks injured.

Gunter looked out on the darkened river and pulled a Marlboro out of a crushed pack. He patted his pockets for his lighter.

Connor tossed him his Zippo. His new friend’s eyes widened when he read the inscription. Maybe that impressed him. After he lit up Gunter handed the lighter back without a word.

If you believe the scuttlebutt House was on the river with Wink. But he won’t talk about it.

You mean on a river patrol boat?

Like I said, he won’t talk about it.

The subject darkened Gunter’s mood so Connor changed the subject.

What’s the deal about the TV?

Gunter scoffed. With your ration card you can buy one TV while you’re in-country. House wants your allotment. He’s heavy into the black market and word is he has a warehouse full of TVs in Saigon. After his tour he plans to ship ’em home and open a TV repair shop in Hammond, Indiana.

No kiddin’?

Don’t get sucked into it. Before you know it he’ll be owing you money big time.

The first liberty boat of the night neared the ship, the coxswain gearing the engine down as it maneuvered next to the pontoon. Several drunken sailors disembarked and stumbled up the accommodation ladder to the quarterdeck.

What’s liberty like? Connor asked.

Gunter shook his head. "Once every four days we get four hours, 16 to 20 hundred. Guys who want to get drunk go to the Animal Locker on base. Guys who want the local girls go into town. I usually grab a beer at the Locker and pick up my clean uniforms at the Green Door Laundry in town. His face brightened. Your first liberty I’ll get you squared away with some green utilities and jungle boots."

"Why is liberty shut