So Many Disappear: A Soldier's Year in Vietnam

PART I — INITIATION

Chapter 1.

Miles above the South China Sea, a jet-trail inched through endless blue sky. Nathan Cobb yawned and looked out the window. Far below, blue sea spread to the horizon where it merged with the deeper blue of the sky.

The Boeing jetliner had flown out of Clark Field in the Philippines sev­eral hours earlier. Nathan looked at his watch: six-thirty-five. Less than an hour’s flying time before their arrival.

Nathan glanced at his friend, Tim Collins, snoring, sprawled in the next seat. He and Nathan, both from North Carolina, had grown up within a hun­dred miles of each other. Basic Training brought them together. During the past year, they had been stationed at military posts all over the Southeast: Fort Bragg, Fort Lee, Fort Gordon. Now, together, they were en route to Vietnam.

The other men around Nathan began to wake up, yawning, stretching. They stared around with bloodshot eyes, muttering curses. Several steward­esses moved down the aisle, serving coffee. A scowling staff sergeant staggered toward the latrine in the aft-section.

Nathan looked out the window again. A void below, a void above – no points of reference anywhere. He thought of all the years he had spent trying to avoid this experience. The whole tangled affair of dodging the draft. The appeals, the waiting, the refusals. The summer in Canada – Montreal, Toronto. No jobs, no money, no luck. Then giving up, going back home. And, finally, induction.

“Shit,” he told himself in a whisper.

But he had always taken the path of least resistance – the easy-going, familiar path. Now he was reaping the consequences.

A stewardess, a well-groomed brunette, stood over his row of seats, pouring coffee. He took a cup, sipped, and grimaced. Lukewarm and bitter.

- 1 -

Tim jerked in his seat, groaned. Slowly he raised his head, opened blood‑shot eyes, and wiped a hand across his mouth.

“What’s happening?”

“Coffee,” Nathan replied. “Take some of mine. It’s awful.”

Tim took the cup, sipped, and grimaced.

“Guess they’re trying to sober us up,” Nathan said.

Tim sat up straight, looking past Nathan. “Wow!”

Nathan smiled, following Tim’s gaze. Glowing vastness, absolute blue, ocean and sky indistinguishable but for the thin line of the horizon.

“Beautiful,” Tim remarked, gazing dumbstruck out the window.

●

“Gentlemen, we’re making our final approach and we’ll be touching down in about five minutes,” the pilot’s Midwestern voice related over the intercom. “On behalf of the entire crew of this flight I’d like to wish each of you the best of luck. Take care of yourselves, and we’ll pick you up twelve months from now.”

“Wonder how many of us’ll be blown to shit next year this time?” a voice snarled somewhere near Nathan and Tim.

A flurry of nervous laughter was the only response.

●

The vast airfield shimmered with heat as the jetliner taxied past rows of camouflaged Phantom Fighter Bombers parked neatly between high, metal blast walls.

When the front and rear doors opened, a wave of heat wafted through the interior, along with a strange, pungent smell – the acrid aroma of Southeast Asia. It was December, nearing Christmas, but it was hot.

A tall noncom, an E-7, appeared among the front rows of seats. “Gentlemen! There’re buses waiting outside the aircraft to take you to the Replacement Center! Officers will ride in the front bus! Enlisted personnel will ride in the remaining buses! Any questions? Move out!”

●

Nathan and Tim were the first to arrive at the last bus in line. The bus driver was a sun-browned PFC with a thick red mustache, faded fatigues, and a battered cap pulled low over sunglasses.

“Howdy gents! Welcome to the Nam! Climb in!”

- 2-

They took the first seats. It was a Japanese-made bus with seats designed for smaller people than Nathan. His knees pushed against the back of the driv­er’s seat. Tim, shorter than Nathan, was more comfortable. Others climbed on the bus behind them, stumbling down the aisle.

Heavy wire mesh screens covered all the windows except the windshield. Nathan leaned forward and tapped the driver’s shoulder.

“What’re the screens for? Feels like jail.”

“That’s to keep ‘gooks’ from throwing in explosives.”

●

Across the road from the Replacement Center, white sand dunes reflected the sunlight. Warm breezes occasionally whisked over the sand, rippling the smoothness of its texture. The winds carried ocean fragrances.

Two separate groups stood in ranks before the platform in front of the replacement center. Everyone was sweating. Nathan and Tim’s group was composed of those who had just climbed off the buses. In the other group, men were being assigned to work details.

A staff sergeant, strolling among the ranks, growled loudly to another staff sergeant who stood on the platform. “I want these virgins ready for work by noon!”

The staff sergeant on the platform laughed. “We’ll have ’em ready for you, sarge!”

In front of Nathan and Tim, an Airborne corporal muttered, “You’d think we’d just come off a slave ship.”

●

One by one, the detail squads marched away. Soon the formation of new arrivals was the only group in the assembly area. The staff sergeant on the platform picked up a megaphone.

“Okay, you new guys,” he rasped. “Here’s the lowdown! Most of you’ll be outta here within twenty-four hours! Those of you with an eleven-bravo MOS will be kept on hold here for a few days longer!”

Eleven-Bravo (11B) was the MOS – Military Occupational Specialty – for infantrymen. They had the worst of all possible jobs in the military and were treated more carelessly than anyone else.

The infantrymen would spend a week or more in the Replacement Center sweeping, cleaning, and scrubbing before being sent out to the jungles.

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“Suckass way of doin’ things!” Tim muttered beside Nathan.

Nathan nodded, not without a sigh of relief. He and Tim were in Quartermaster.

“As for the rest of you,” the sergeant went on, “you’ll be on your way to permanent units by tomorrow morning. Now, gentlemen, you’ll move into the input building on your left for further briefing! Starting with the first rank! Move out in single file!”

Across the road, a group of Vietnamese women were filling sandbags at the base of one of the dunes. Amber-skinned people in black silk trousers, various colored blouses, sandal-footed. Nathan heard them chattering among themselves – a clicking, flowing language. None of them appeared to be work­ing very hard or very rapidly.

●

A large MERRY CHRISTMAS sign was posted above the doorway of the input building.

A staff sergeant stood at a podium in front of the room: a fortyish, gray-haired E-6, a career soldier. When everyone had found a place at one of the tables, the staff sergeant barked out instructions.

“Okay! There’re two-hundred-and-six of you in this room! I’m gonna issue two-hundred-and-six pencils! When we’re finished, I want two-hundred­-and-six pencils returned to me! Anybody that don’t return his pencil’s gonna be put on work detail immediately!”

“As if we ain’t gonna be on work detail anyway.”

They spent the next hour-and-a-half filling out forms and receiving fur­ther briefings. They were lectured about everything from the use of malaria pills to the use of contraceptive devices. And they were told that if they had any pressing personal problems they could go talk with the “goddamn Chaplain.”

●

At the finance office, they had their United States currency exchanged for MPCs – Military Payment Certificates.

“Greenbacks,” the pale finance clerk informed them, “are hot-selling items on the black market. “The Vietnamese’ll do anything to get their hands on them. You’ll not be allowed to retain any. The army’s very careful about keeping them out of the hands of the locals.”

●

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Nathan passed through the customs inspection without any problems. The few books he had – a novel and a volume of poetry – were not sleazy enough to arouse the inspector’s curiosity.

Next, they were sent to their assigned input barracks, where they located their bunks, and changed from their dress khakis into work fatigues. They were to report to formation at noon.

The barracks were crowded; the air close, the heat fierce. The sudden change of climates, from North America to Southeast Asia, was telling on everyone. “Fuck this heat!”

“Turn on the air-conditioner!”

“Welcome to hell!”

“Hell ain’t this fuckin’ hot!”

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Chapter 2.

A large formation stood on the metal sheeting of the assembly area. All eyes squinted painfully against blinding high-noon sun light – sweat dripping off everyone; their clothing was damp. A few men here and there talked, but most remained silent, waiting.

The sergeant first class had a long list of work assignments. Each squad was led away by the noncom who would supervise it.

“I need six men to work baggage claims!”

“I need ten men to repair the bunker wall!”

“I need twelve men to work at the officer’s mess!”

The ranks were dwindling. Sunlight danced furiously off the metal sheeting. The air reverberated with the heat.

To the rear of Nathan and Tim, someone fainted, crashing down on the metal sheeting, a dull clunk. A smirking noncom strolled over. “Vietnam heat a little too much for this virgin, huh? Fuckin’ softies.”

He instructed the two GIs to pick the man up and take him to the first aid station.

●

Tim went off with a squad to build bleachers for a movie theatre. Nathan went off with six men pulled to form a garbage-pickup squad. A truck waited for them, a sleepy-looking GI behind the steering wheel.

“Gentlemen,” the young E-5 in charge, a buck-sergeant, said, “the man sitting up there behind the steering wheel is Specialist-Fourth-Class Eric Wade, the U.S. Army’s most renowned fuck-off.”

Wade waved indifferently.

- 6 -

“Wade’ll take you guys out on garbage pickup. I’d tell you guys not to work too hard, but I know Wade’s not gonna work too hard anyway. So I’ll just say look busy, and don’t get caught loafin’.”

As the squad members climbed up into the truck bed, Nathan swung up onto the running board.

“Mind if I sit up front with you?”

“Whatever turns you on.”

The truck started off with a jerk, lunging and coughing.

“Fuckin’ rat shit vehicle,” Wade muttered.

Several minutes later they were driving near sand hills. Glaring light

reflected off everything, blurring the landscape until it was floating, vibrating.

The truck hummed along smoothly, Wade’s brown hair blown back by the wind. A heavy mustache drooped at the corners of his mouth. He was wearing no shirt, his skin tanned a deep brown. A peace symbol hung from a strip of rawhide encircling his neck. No dog tags.

“How long you been in Nam, Wade?”

“Seven months, man. Seven months, five to go.”

“Wish I was as far along as you.”

“Wish I was further along than I am.”

Beyond the white sand hills, Nathan caught a glimpse of the sunlight sparkling on the bay.

“What’s Cam Ranh like?”

“Oh, not so great. But there’re worse places. Cam Ranh ain’t really Vietnam. It’s an army base. There’s only one Vietnamese ville on the whole peninsula, and it’s off-limits. All you ever see here’s fuckin’ army.”

“But like you said – there’re worse places.”

“Oh, hell yes! I ain’t complaining. It’s just that the lifers here’re always raising hell about haircuts and polished boots and clean fatigues. Stateside bullshit. I get tired of all the spit-and-polish hassles.”

“You don’t look so spit-and-polished.”

Wade laughed. “That’s why I stay in trouble all the time. Our first sergeant says I look like something he pumps outta his asshole everyday.”

●

After visiting a dozen encampments and emptying hundreds of garbage cans, the squad rode down a dirt road into acres of smoldering trash. Grimy black smoke hung in the air. Bulldozers – the drivers wearing surgical-gauze over their faces – plowed through debris.

– 7 –

“An army beautification project!” Wade exclaimed, covering his mouth and nose with a kerchief.

Nathan’s eyes began to sting and water. The others in the rear of the truck sitting on top of the garbage coughed and gagged.

Wade swerved the truck among piles of rubbish and backed up close to the edge of a yawning garbage pit. He threw open his door and jumped down from the cab.

“Okay, you guys!” he yelled. “Shovel that shit out and hurry!”

The air was swarming with flies. They worked rapidly, coughing the whole time, wiping their eyes. The sweat covering Nathan’s body became grimy. They spent five minutes raking, shoveling, and digging as hard as they could. Each of them cursed furiously the whole time. Finally, the truck bed was bare.

“Okay!” Wade yelled. “Let’s get outta here!”

He roared off, gunning the engine. The truck bumped and banged over the rough dirt road, jostling those in the rear, slamming them against each other. The cursing rose to a higher pitch. The truck sounded like it was flying apart.

When they finally reached the hard-surface road, Nathan wiped black sweat from his face with a handkerchief. “Whew! Good place to escape from. You go out there often?”

“At least once a day. I’m a big-time garbage man. Full time, all the time.” “You should apply for another job!”

“Naw,” Wade shook his head. “Wouldn’t wanna give my first sarge the pleasure of saying no.”

●

Wade had a certain way of holding his cigarette, a familiar style of smoking. The sleepy eyes, the peace symbol dangling from his neck, the drooping mustache. Back in the States, Wade would have been called freak. Ever since getting off the plane, Nathan had been hoping to meet someone like Wade.

“Ah, Wade? Tell me something. Where would a person get himself some . . .”

“Don’t even ask, man,” Wade said. “I know exactly what you’re lookin’ for.”

“Gonna turn me on?” Nathan grinned.

“Be a pleasure.” Wade had kept a perfectly straight face; now he smiled, slyly. “Tell you what.” He glanced into the rearview mirror at the others. “I’ll drop these guys at the snack bar. It’s a good hole to hide in for a while. Then

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I’ll take you out to my favorite place. Get us smoked up. Been needin’ to refresh myself anyway.”

“I’m ready!”

Wade laughed. “I know. I remember my first day In-Country.”

●

The snack bar was in a low-roofed, louvered-walled building, doubled-screened all the way around against insects. A single door, also dou­ble-screened, opened and closed beneath a Coca-Cola sign. Clusters of off-duty GIs stood around outside: young men in olive-green. Empty Styrofoam cups, covered with flies, were scattered on the ground.

Next to the snack bar, propped against the doorpost, was a souvenir-gift shop with a CRISTMAS BAERGINS sign. It was the first of many strange phonetic spellings Nathan would see in shops frequented by soldiers. Beach towels hung from coat hangers. Swim trunks, diver’s goggles and flower-pat­terned shirts were on display. An elderly Vietnamese gentleman, fanning himself, sat in a chair by the shaded doorway.

“Let’s go in and get ripped-off,” one of those climbing off the truck said. “Don’t you guys forget evening formation!” Wade yelled.

“What evening formation?” someone shouted back.

“We’ve lost interest!”

Wade drove away laughing. “Me too. Me too.”

●

Wade and Nathan drove toward the tip of the peninsula. Sand hills and brush, blurred by sunlight and heat, surrounded them. Wade finally turned off the hard surface onto a partially overgrown dirt road. The truck bumped along slowly, scraping against brush, dipping into shallow ravines and climbing out of them.

When they arrived at a large outcropping, Nathan followed as Wade climbed up over the warm, piled-up boulders. Footing was easy and hand­holds plentiful. Both, however, were sweating profusely when they reached the summit, fifteen or twenty feet above a narrow beach.

The bay was a wide body of greenish, sun-flickering water. Far away, jun­gle-covered mountains loomed up into shining blue sky. Not the muted scene of some cool northern hemisphere; but hot, glowing, blue-green tropical expanses.

– 9 –

Nathan found it difficult to pull his eyes away. “I’ve never seen a place like this. It’s beautiful.”

Wade pulled a plastic bag from one of the side pockets of his fatigue shirt.

“A five-dollar bag,” he said, dangling the bag from his fingertips. “It’s really cheap over here. This was about a half-pound bag when I bought it.”

From one of the side pockets of his fatigue trousers Wade pulled a pipe, a briar with a deep bowl and a long curving stem. He dipped the pipe into the bag, scooping up a bowlful of the reddish-gold marijuana. Several grains spilled over the rim of the pipe bowl and trickled back into the bag.

Nathan shook his head. “Excess!”

Wade passed the pipe to him. “Ain’t it nice?”

It was excellent marijuana, instantly effective. The tingling sensation scurried over Nathan’s skull: quick, searing flashes behind closed eyelids. “Whew! Good dew!” He began coughing.

Nathan, after three or four more bowlfuls, felt as if he might levitate. For the first time in days, he felt utterly relaxed.

“You happy, brother?” Wade asked.

“Yes, sir,” Nathan replied, a beaming smile on his face.

●

“What’d you do back in The World, Cobb?” Wade asked as they drove back.

Several times that day, Nathan heard GIs refer to the States in this manner. “I’m going back to The World soon.” “What’s happening back in The World?”

This is the War, the phrase seemed to suggest. They were In-Country. The World was somewhere else, remote, almost imaginary, a blissful paradise to which some of them would never return.

“Oh, went to school,” Nathan replied. “Worked a part-time job. Dodged the draft. The usual.”

“Looks like you were about as successful at dodging the draft as I was.”

They stopped at an intersection while a convoy of grumbling dust-coated trucks passed before them. The drivers and guards were heavily armed and as dirty as their trucks. MPs directed traffic.

“They’ve been inland,” Wade explained. “You can’t get that dirty on Cam Ranh.”

When the intersection was clear, the MPs, with their robot-like gestures, motioned for the other traffic to proceed.

“School, huh? College?” Wade picked up the thread of conversation.

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