A sailor's life, it is a merry life
He robs young girls of their heart's delight
Leaving them behind to weep and to mourn
They never know when he will return
"A Sailor's Life"
(variation on a traditional English folk song)
as performed by Fairport Convention
HAIRCUT
First they took his documents, and his clothes, and then his given name, which they clipped like an overgrown fingernail from his last. And then they cut his hair. Black understood the haircut's symbolic value to be of greater import than whatever hygienic rationale the handbook might offer. In himself he had never recognized any biblical strength until that moment the sergeant produced the scissors and electric razor and strapped a sheet underneath his chin. Entice him and see wherein his great strength lieth. His face in the handheld mirror became a stranger's tight grimace under the skull so pale, so unused to light.
"Turn to the left," said the sarge.
He obliged. The sergeant slid the razor down his sideburns and the black scraped white, like a road paver in reverse. Sucking up the dark.
"Turn to the right."
"Can I just—"
"No."
They also took his personal possessions, and they replaced his preferred cigarettes with their government contract cigarettes, which ended up being exactly the same brand. Specifically, the staff sergeant took his Winstons away and made him wait an hour or so for their Winstons, and when he asked why that was necessary, he was made to perform fifteen push-ups and when he asked why the push-ups, he was made to perform fifty more, and at that point, he was wheezing too hard to smoke and no longer curious. At night, he dropped dead asleep on his rack and in the wee hours he woke to a neighbouring kid's loud sobbing. In between the sobs were gasps and shudders and hiccups all the orchestrations, no effect spared. He reached for something to throw at the kid but of course his personal effects were gone and there was no nightstand, no sunglasses, no crumpled Kleenex. The noise went on for an ungodly long time without diminishing in volume.
Finally, a hero emerged from the anonymous dark. " Shut your damn hole , mother of god. Holy Christ. It's not like they're sending us to—"
He let it hang in the air. Brutal suspense; a truck tipping over a cliff. One beat. Two beats. Three beats. And then a low-pitched husky chuckle from the bunk underneath Black, and then someone else giggled nervously, and then Black started laughing, and another guy somewhere near the floor joined in, and at last, only the heaviest of sleepers were silent. The kid had ceased sobbing and was perhaps laughing along, though it was too dark to tell. The joke was on them like a felt blanket or an eyelash.
REASONABLE DEPTH
"Black! Get your ass over here, I need you!" yelled the second lieutenant, his voice strangely muted by the curtain of mist.
"I'm coming!" he hollered.
The mud bubbled and spread and sloshed, seeking its way between boots and pant legs. Black reached down to double check his blousing straps, compulsively readjusting his jungle utilities until he felt satisfied. Ten weeks into his tour, Black had nearly merged with the mud itself; still, he awaited the day the mud would outweigh the flesh and swallow his troubles into brown, blissful nothing.
"Look at this thing," nodded the second lieutenant towards a very deep hole in the mud. Shacklebolt was also known as The Tree, a thing he resembled in terms of both height and immovability. He was at least six and a half feet tall, black, and as muscled as a person could be after wasting in the bush for a month.
"Hm," went Black. "That's some hole."
"Sorry!" grinned the very young and fresh-faced soldier looking up at Black and Shacklebolt from the bottom. "I guess I went overboard!" His glasses were splattered with dirt.
"He's not our cherry*, is he?" asked Black. "Hey, Moony, is—"
But Moony, who was sitting atop his radio and reading a paperback, held up a hand to silence Black.
"I'm afraid he is," said Shacklebolt, smiling at Black's obvious dismay. "I'll leave you to handle this." Before Black could bitch, the Tree uprooted itself and strode off as quickly as the squelching field of mud would allow.
"D'you mind helping me out?" asked the cherry. His grin was fading.
"You wanna tell me what the fuck happened here?" asked Black, lazily kicking a clump of mud into the hole. It splattered down the collar of the new kid's starched uniform.
"I just tried to make it deep," he explained. "I wanted protection. So I kept digging."
"And are you protected now that your ass can't see over the edge for shit?"
Moony sniggered into his pages.
"Obviously not," muttered the cherry. "I'll fix it, but I need a hand getting out."
"Right," said Black. "Damn it, it's cold out here." He lay stomach-down in the mud before the hole, fully embedded in filth the consistency of a potter's clay slurry. He could practically name and identify the specific leeches currently trying to fight their way through the torn knees of his fatigues. Black extended his arms forward into the hole so the kid could grasp hold of his hands.
"Try walking your feet up the sides too," grunted Black.
"I'm….trying…there's no fucking traction."
"Push your boot all the way in. Yeah, all the way. That's it," said Black, as the kid inserted his brand new boots, still black, into the deep mucky wall of the hole, while Black yanked him upward by the arms. "Don't forget your e-tool*."
"I've got it," huffed the kid. Black had pulled him right up to the edge of the hole; he clawed into the mud to heave himself onto the ground. Black caught him just under the armpits and pulled him the rest of the way. The pair of them went rolling several feet down the gentle slope, helmets clanking against each other.
"Gee. Thanks," said the kid, pushing himself up onto his knees. His fresh jungle utilities were now indistinguishable from the other soldiers; filthy, brown and wet.
Black sighed. "Go fill your hole until it's a reasonable depth."
"Yes, sir."
"Don't sir me, I'm not a fucking officer."
"You're not?" asked the kid. "Sorry. I thought—"
"Do I look like some uptight buzzcut with a 18-inch green dildo up my fat ass?"
The kid laughed, good-natured. "I don't know man, my eyes aren't that good." He gestured to his army-issue black plastic glasses.
Black permitted him a wry smile. "Fix your hole, and I'll show you the squad."
"Thanks. I'm Potter."
"Black," he replied, "and if you hear anyone call me 'Pretty Boy,' I give you permission to sock them in the teeth."
"You just said you're not an officer."
"Change 'give permission' to 'highly recommend.'"
As Potter got to work on his hole, Black returned to the hooch Moony had constructed to protect himself and his radio. Moony's poncho was draped over him, held up by four unevenly cut bamboo stalks firmly rooted in the mud. The mist had condensed into raindrops on the slanted poncho, occasionally running down the nylon and dripping onto Moony's boots, stretched out before him. Beside Moony, Fenwick lay back on his own poncho liner, spread out against the mud. He was smoking a cigarette and staring into space, his slender, crooked nose pointing towards the draped poncho. Blue eyes dull as bolts on a bracket.
Black kicked Fenwick's boot lightly. He jerked upright with electrifying speed, smacking his head against Moony's poncho.
"We got a replacement for Zielinski," said Black. "A cherry fresh off the boat."
" Fan- tastic," said Fenwick, exhaling a ring of smoke. "An FNG*. Just what we fucking needed."
Moony chuckled and folded the paperback in his lap. "Did you get his name?"
"Potter," said Black. "I think they're recruiting out of preschool now. Kid's never shaved in his life, I'll tell you that."
The radio hissed a breath of static, and Moony patted it like one might pat a good dog. "Well, we're undermanned"
"This is true," said Fenwick.
"Mmh." Black squatted down, elbowing Fenwick closer to Moony so he, too, could take shelter in the tiny hooch. Moony quietly extracted a folded up sheet of newsprint from his pack and handed it to Black, who unfolded it and squinted at the crooked, over-inked mimeograph.
Your Brass Is Ass (by an anonymous infantryman)
Underneath the title was a crude ink drawing of a military general, identifiable by his five star insignia, drinking a can of Coke and squatting on top of a desk. He was pissing directly into a funnel attached to two tubes, which led into the wide-open mouths of major generals, each of whom was shitting onto the heads of two colonels each, and each colonel jacked off into an open canteen held by a lowly serviceman. Each soldier was accompanied by a different set of equipment, to represent artillerymen, infantry, cavalry, and so on. The cross-hatching was not well-rendered by the mimeograph, and a number of witty puns inscribed in tiny text onto the officers' uniforms were simply not legible, or hardly printed at all.
"Well, it didn't come out perfectly," said Black. "But they printed it."
"Oh, fuck off," said Fenwick. "You're pleased, I can see it."
"How'd you get this?" asked Black.
Moony smiled inscrutably. "Resupply chopper. Pilot's a friend of a friend."
"Can I see it?" asked Fenwick. Black smacked him over the face with the newspaper, which was a stupid idea, because the lit cigarette was still in his mouth. It began to singe a hole in the drawing, which Fenwick quickly pinched out.
"Fuck."
"Rookie mistake," said Fenwick.
They saw Shacklebolt walking towards them, followed by Potter, slip-sliding in the mud. Moony subtly adjusted a knob on his radio.
"Gentlemen," said Shacklebolt. He yanked Potter forward by one suspender. "Don't leave your children unattended. I believe this one is yours."
"I fixed the hole," said Potter brightly. "It's a good depth for me now."
Moony laughed. "You're really giving them this one?"
"I've seen boxers with more teeth than you guys have men" said Shacklebolt. "Do the math. I can't give him to Third Squad, they've already got eight guys.
"How many do you have?" asked Potter, apparently not knowing when to shut the fuck up.
"Well, I'm not in it, obviously" said Moony. "I'm just the radio operator." He clicked his fingernails against the machine in an ascending scale, pinkie to index.
"Three," said Black. "Me. Fenwick, over here. And Stubby's taking a shit or something, he's the squad leader."
The new kid was obviously trying to play it cool, but Black could see in his eyes the crude mental arithmetic which subtracted four from the ten, the quantity of men a rifle squad was technically supposed to have. I hate you , he thought briefly, and then, I hate what your ignorance will do to me . But the thought and its attendant feeling dissipated like cigarette smoke into the mist.
Fenwick squinted at him."What's your name, kid?"
"Potter."
"Where ya from?"
"Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But I was born in upstate New York. "
Moony and Black exchanged a look like a sachet of powder, containing within it a universe of meanings, mutual understandings and final judgements. You could read this kid's life story in the white bottle of insect repellant he'd tucked into his helmet band, where it was sure to catch the jungle's dappled light and broadcast their position to any enemy within five hundred meters. Moony choked off his laughter, and Black smiled grimly.
"This is us," he said. "At least, for now."
"Are we getting anyone else?" Potter directed the question at Shacklebolt, who shrugged.
"If we'd gotten them off your chopper, we'd have them by now, wouldn't we," he said drily.
"Right. Yeah."
Potter squatted in the muck and whipped off his heavy pack. Eighty-five pounds sunk into the mire. He was very flexible, Black noticed, able to sit his heels flat on the ground with his knees fully bent like the Orientals did. Shacklebolt walked off to check on the other squads of Echo One, just as Stubby approached, still buttoning up his trousers. He'd lost so much weight out in the bush that they could no longer meaningfully call him Tubby, with his cheeks hollow and the seat of his trousers sagging like a waterlogged flag.
"Who the fuck are you," said Stubby calmly.
"I'm yours now, I guess," said Potter. "Just got in from Cam Ranh."
Stubby spat. "Damn it. You never been out in the bush, have you?"
"Nah." Potter smirked. "But I asked for it. I want to see some real action."
At that, Moony lost it and laughed aloud. A flash of silver fillings in his open mouth made Black some kind of unfit for combat. Unsecured, a gap in his perimeter. He laughed at Potter extra hard to cover it up.
"What?!" said Potter, defensive. "I want to do my job.
Fenwick rolled onto his stomach and cradled his head in his hands as though he were about to fall asleep. "Just do yourself a favour, kid?" he said through the muffled cap of his hands.
"Yeah?"
"Do not put your insect repellant, or anything else bright white, on your goddamn helmet, you wannabe cowboy faggot."
"But—" Potter's brow furrowed. "I saw a lot of pictures of soldiers wearing it just like this in Life —"
"This is Death ." Stubby raised his eyebrows in earnest. "I am editor-in-chief of this magazine. Due to international demand for our services, I am pleased to announce that circulation of Death is limited but growing. Hours are long, compensation is minimal, and benefits are unlimited when understood strictly in the proper perspective. See Fenwick, our foreign correspondent, and Black, our copy boy, for further details. I suggest you get squared away real fast unless you want to lose a fantastic opportunity for career advancement."
" Copy boy?" said Black.
"I like the sound of correspondent ," murmured Fenwick. "Far out. Up, up and away. "
Potter removed the insect repellant from his helmet band.
ALL WET
They were all wet, and dreamt awake of dry wind and a towel's fine loops. In the night. In the day. In the foxholes. In the soup. In the monsoon. In their groins. In their eyelashes. In sync with the battered cassettes. In the dusk. In the breakage of sticks beneath boots. In the barracks. In the tents. In the humid dome of the afternoon. In their mouths. In the valleys. In the handprint of a B-52, just deep enough for a woman to stand upright, if such gentle creatures still existed. In the warmth of their urine. In rough patches. In III-Corps. In mud up to their thighs. In sunshowers. In the mist of carcinogens. In trouble. In the campfires and the cookouts. In the card games. In the belly of the beast which chewed and digested and regurgitated them back into its bloody trough on the regular. In the shade of the canopy. In the white ring of sun. In the evening dews and damps. In the hairy times and the good times, there were a few of those too. In the private space of themselves, and in the defoliated open. In filth. In tandem.
THE MORNING
Potter made it through his first night in the bush without a blink of sleep, though he never complained. Sometime in the middle of the night, Shacklebolt came by to check on all of the guys in their holes, and chew out the ones attempting to smoke with one hand cupping the light of their embers from the wide hungry dark. There were policies, practices, SOP*, even fucking superstition, and if you followed it, the shit might come down on some other sorry motherfucker besides yourself. Black rested his helmet against the muck of his hole, and skimmed the dark glossy surface of sleep like a waterbug, becoming not rested so much as dipped in another layer of quick-dry fatigue. No REM in the bush.
When the dark smudged into soft blue light and a rosy cloud drifted into view from behind the hangnail of rugged mountains, he tensed up again, hands on his weapon, ears cocked for sound. His own breathing was like an interruption and he found himself holding his breath for twenty, thirty seconds, before gasping for air and then startling at the noise of it. Dawn and dusk; cool smoky half-light bringing advantage to the attacker. Bleary eyes and heavy bladders all along the lines. Black waited and watched the horizon, expectant, fists nearly clenched, until the sun finally cut through his anxiety and rose up behind the mist. He could finally see far enough to spot Fenwick, crawling out of his adjacent hole to peek across the valley, and Potter, still frozen like a figurine. His gun was cocked on the rim of the foxhole, aimed at the mountainous abyss. And beyond him, Stubby was lighting up a cigarette, with his helmet crooked and the strap unbuckled.
Shacklebolt came round within a few minutes, his chin and cheeks darkened with stubble. Behind him came Moony with the radio on his back.
'We're sweeping the gorge today,' said the Tree. 'Get your shit together.'
His proclamation was greeted with a few lazy groans.
'Alright, alright. Pills, everyone.' He handed out the white anti-malarial tablets. Potter rushed to get his like it was a peppermint. Despite the general coating of mud over his entire body, he still looked fresh and rested in comparison with the rest of Echo One-Two. Moony heaved off his pack and knelt down in the mud next to Black. He retrieved a pinch of C-4 putty and set it aflame with his Zippo. Black contributed an old tin can stripped of its lid and base. He had punctured twelve or thirteen triangular holes in the side of it with his can opener, and used it as a grate to elevate Moony's can of wet food above the cooking fire. They leaned to either side of the fire to avoid the acrid smoke.
"You got hot sauce?" said Moony, through his teeth.
"Are we gonna need it?"
Moony cracked open the can with his P-38* and sent a whiff of sulfurous stench towards Black, who practically retched.
"Ham and eggs," said Moony.
"Fuck you too. Why don't we trade with Potter?"
Stubby ambled over, tomato sauce dripping down his chin. "It's too late," he laughed. "I warned him about the eggs."
"What'd you do that for?" said Black.
"Just to fuck with you, Pretty Boy."
"Thanks, I'll remember it next time you need a favour." Black rummaged through a sock attached to his pack, in which he kept cans of food and a few packets of Tabasco sauce. He ripped open two packets and squeezed them into the ham and eggs. Moony stirred the concoction with a plastic spoon. Flames licked the punctured can below, already blue-black from constant use.
Potter walked over and squatted down next to Moony. He was licking red sauce off the edge of his chin. "Shackebolt said we're going into the gorge today," he mentioned, trying to sound casual. "So, is that going to get hairy?"
"Depends," said Stubby.
"On…?"
"Whether we meet any fucking gooks*, obviously."
Moony smiled seriously. "Don't get worked up unless you have to. Most of the time, they run away."
"Or we don't even see any," added Black, who had to admit that he enjoyed not being the FNG anymore.
"Depends on how gung-ho the Problem is about getting his status up with the Colonel," explained Stubby. He burped and patted his belly with a hand wrapped in a dirty bandage. "Right now, he's down with malaria and pretty tame. We're basically getting orders over the radio from the XO.*"
"The Problem?" said Potter, not understanding.
Moony and Black looked around the encampment carefully, before leaning in closer to Potter. Stubby's eyes narrowed. He knelt down in the muck next to Black, his foul breath soiling the air. Moony spoke cautiously, his voice low.
"Didn't anyone tell you about him?"
"What? No."
Black stirred the ham and eggs, noticing Moony was too distracted to do so when he spoke. "The Problem. You know...the First Lieutenant. The CO*."
" Oh , you mean Ri—"
"Shhh." Stubby clapped a hand over Potter's mouth. "Don't fuckin' say it. Every last dumbass cherry around here says his name got wasted, bar none."
"It ain't a joke," said Moony. "I've been here a long time. Just say the Problem, but if you have to talk to him, you say sir, or Lieutenant. Don't say the goddamn name."
"But don't call him sir too loud in the bush," added Black. "Or lieutenant, for that matter. They feel targeted. They think Charlie's everywhere."
"He knows the grunts call him the Problem, and he don't like it," said Stubby. "So don't say that around him, you make sure." He raised a filthy blonde eyebrow at Potter, who nodded to confirm understanding.
He glanced from Stubby to Moony to Black. "What's his deal?"
Moony took a long, laboured breath. He had this way of breathing like maybe all fifty-five pounds of the radio had finally compressed his lungs into number 10 envelopes. "He's um, he's not entirely… standard. He has some, uh… different things about him."
"Not someone to mess with," added Stubby. "A real lifer. You can tell he actually loves this shit."
Potter's eyes were glimmering with curiosity behind the speckled glasses. His eyes—the colour of instant coffee, the grainy swirling aureole of a bomb crater in dirt. You could tell some girl had looked into those eyes and gotten her heart stamped out like a cigarette. "Is he real harsh?" he asked.
"Um," said Black. "Well, not—not like—"
Moony placed a hand atop Black's, to stop him from stirring because their eggs were ready. The calluses just above his palmar crease had spread into a hardened ridge. A path Black wished he knew. He rummaged for a plastic fork in his pack, careful to be nonchalant about the whole thing.
"The Problem ain't strict about drugs, if that's what you mean," Stubby was saying. "I mean, you could probably tell that just by looking 'round this place."
"Yeah, I kinda noticed that," said Potter.
"I've told them to be more discreet," said Stubby. "I mean—this is a fuckin'combat zone, firstly—"
"The you-know-what gets a cut," said Moony, "hence his uh, recalcitrance toward enforcing the damn policy. And letting so much slide around here. I know for a fact he's in on the heroin, and maybe even the grass too. Wouldn't surprise me."
"But it's not the drugs," clarified Black. "He's um…"
"Well," said Stubby.
Moony gazed at the C4, spitting sparks up at the can. "Don't go into his quarters at Merryman and don't ask him about the shoes," he said carefully. "Don't talk to him unless you have to, and for the love of god, don't get on his bad side."
"What sho—"
"You get high at all?" interrupted Black, nodding towards Potter.
He chuckled nervously. "I um, I've tried marijuana, but I probably wouldn't do it in, you know, in the bush. And I never did heroin."
"Well, I'll be damned. I never woulda guessed it," said Stubby, which made Black laugh. Moony pinched the hot can between two fingers to remove it from the makeshift grate quickly, and he dropped it into the muddy space between himself and Black, waving his index finger and thumb against the burning.
"Ffffuck," he whispered.
"Why are you guys sharing food?" asked Potter.
Black rolled his eyes. "Are you here on recon to point out the fuckin' obvious?"
"Relax," said Moony quietly. "It's just an arrangement we have so we can have two hot meals a day instead of one."
"I don't get it."
Moony used the plastic fork from the C-rat carton. In between careful bites, he explained, "We only get one can of meat a day out here, basically. It's too fucking heavy to carry anymore. Rest of the day, you usually just eat crackers or something light. Black and me eat the same amount as you, but we eat a half-can in the morning and a half-can at night and a bit of dry food to round it out. None of us is getting more than you, if that's your concern."
"It wasn't," said Potter. "I just thought we got more food than that."
"Not in the bush, buddy." Stubby flashed him a malicious grin. "You think they resupply us every other day?"
"Obviously, it depends on the weather," said Potter, through slightly gritted teeth.
"Alright then. You aren't that dumb, then."
"No. I'm not." Potter scowled. His face really was a child's face, pasted onto the body of a high school athlete.
Black shovelled a forkful of eggs into his mouth and nearly screamed for the heat, both thermally and in terms of Tabasco sauce. It still tasted better than the original product. The warmth spread through his body; it was the closest thing to feeling dry, feeling safe. There were sensations you could reproduce in packets, in cans; there were portals that unlocked by aural key. Raindrops against taut canvas that nearly reduced Black to incoherent weeping what with the recollection of his family's shingled beach house in Martha's Vineyard, and the attic playroom during a summer storm. And the rocking horse, and the splinters.
Moony ate more slowly than Black. He had that well-earned discipline that awed the cherries and shattered their resolve, at once. When he finished his half of the can, he licked his lips and cleaned his face with a Wet-n-Dri wipe.
"Not so bad," he said.
"I didn't get ham this time," Stubby grinned. "Nothing but spaghetti, and beanie weenies."
Black elbowed his helmet in response.
"I'm trying to save the best for sure," said Potter. "I don't want to be hungry later."
"You'll be hungry sooner, then," said Black.
Shacklebolt's faded boots appeared directly in his line of sight. Fenwick followed him, re-distributing his water from one canteen to another to ensure that none would slosh and give them away in the gorge.
"We're just about ready," said the Tree. "Gentlemen, get your shit together. Moony, get me the commander."
"Yes, sir," said Moony drily.
The Tree laughed. "Don't give me that sir shit, you know I'm not—"
"I know, I know."
Black gathered up the empty cans and buried them in a shallow hole. Fenwick hadn't bothered; he was six months into his tour, and too fatigued to maintain any kind of standards. He pissed next to his own foxhole, and the rusty stream trickled down to the place in which he would sleep.
Potter double- and tripled-checked his gun, his ammo, his pack and his boots. He held that amphetamine shakiness, like a slash of neon past a speeding car window on a rainy night. Black walked over to him and placed his hand on Potter's back. Said nothing. They just stood there for a minute or so, until Potter's body went loose, relaxed. Black considered how he must appear to Potter. The GI* cartoon of himself the kid was going to believe in, at least until he wised up. Red convertible, beach bunny girlfriend, a palm tree, the rectangle of shine across a machine gun that never overheated or jammed in a pinch. No fear. Nothing but grease and music and the kinda love that substituted a rocket for a Valentine. A few feet away, they could hear Shacklebolt listening to the phone hook, with its curly cord draped from Moony's back.
"We're moving out," said an unexpectedly joval voice from the radio. The XO, 2nd Lieutenant Fudge, was in his late twenties, despised the bush, and kept his ass out of fire whenever possible. Black had never known Fudge to actually walk with the point men, which the Problem did regularly. "Character Lima's got his platoon on point*, Character Delta's second, I want your guys in the middle and Character Zulu's in the rear. Keep it tight and quiet. We're expecting ten, fifteen, VC* if that, maybe less. Great opportunity for a ratio, so let's get it done. Over."
"Roger that," said the Tree.
"By eleven hundred you should be at Checkpoint Alpha. Sixteen hundred, you need to be at Checkpoint Bravo. Over."
"I got you, Lunch and Cocktails*."
"Alright, move it out. Over."
Shacklebolt hung up the receiver. With his pack and radio, Moony walked like a spritely old man, slightly hunched but fast. His boots pressed deep prints into the muck. The squad followed him down the steep, mangled slope of the hill. They'd long since shaved any vegetation left undestroyed by defoliants and the pinpricking of snipers, and what was left were a few pale tree stumps like pikes impaling the defeated earth. And the tin cans, and so many holes. Potter walked carefully in front of Black, picking his way around the wettest and muddiest spots, avoiding the waterlogged cardboard ration flaps, his pack strapped tight and high on his back. The sound of boots unsealing themselves from mud reminded Black of that song "Lollipop." He recalled a man in a bowtie on his parents' black and white bedroom television set, popp ing his finger out of his cheek just before each verse.
Right before they met the treeline, Moony twisted around to ask Potter how he was doing.
"Number one!*" Potter gave him a thumb's up.
"Hmm." Moony made brief, critical eye contact with Black, before Shacklebolt told them all to get a move on lest they hold up Second Lieutenant Zachary's platoon. The boys shuffled forward, into the trees, walking in single file. It took a long time for their platoon to enter the jungle because the boys in front had to cut and slice the vegetation apart with their K-bars, dulled from overuse. When Black and Potter finally stepped under the canopy, the morning had settled into its deep, oppressive humidity. Fat beads of sweat formed upon Black's brow like condensation on the bottle of Bud he'd once seen in a billboard on 42nd Street. In the other world.
Potter looked up at the overlapping translucencies of green, from sage to emerald. He spat out a mosquito, and said, "Huh." Black, Moony and Stubby turned around to hiss at him for making noise in the green cathedral, where quiet must reign for purposes practical and often mystic. They walked on into the hush. Another morning.
THIMBLES
In this place where he was forced to be did Black find the inexpressible leavings of war, and every scrap held weight and shape like a thimble. He humped them as he did his canteens and other items, swinging from his suspension belt with each effortful step. Half-buried in mud, Black discovered the rind of a rubber boot affixed to its owner's severed ankle. He learned that the mosquitoes sometimes fiddled in harmony, usually in the reddening dusk. He picked up a few words in the native language. He was taught how to angle a Claymore mine slightly upward on a mound of debris to ensure maximum damage should the defensive perimeter be breached. He tasted strange beers. He tasted new flavours of shame. He found erotic paperbacks with more than thirty or so relevant pages ripped from the spine and he learned to read them anyway. He found an extra chocolate bar. He souvenired a silver buckle from the belt of a dead body and he lost it along the desire path whose dust he collected with his boots. He picked a flower. He found a cigarette printed with lipstick in a location impossibly far from any woman. He drew quiet from inside the barrage of heavy artillery and he drew a portrait of Stubby on the flap of a ration box. In the cascading fungal stench of monsoon season, he threw up his dinner into the mire and then threw fingers for listening post. Total darkness, magnet black. Whirring with the overabundance of ghosts that he also found, crouching in the mushrooms with their severed limbs arranged like a Picasso and they glowed with a dim, ruinous light.
FIRST PICK
Black and Moony had almost nothing in common, other than proximity and the demands of the bush that bound them all. Moony was from Iowa, and kept a blank postcard of waving corn wrapped up in the map which he used to pencil in all the positions they'd ever held. He'd briefly explained his old job as a shopkeeper in a family-run grocery store now struggling to compete with the likes of Hy-Vee and other supermarkets. His father and mother were, by his account, happily married and content to live without an excess of fussiness and/or material reward. It was like he and his family were cut from the cloth left over when the Blacks were all stitched up, such was the total absence of any overlap between their home lives, with the exception of maybe race. (Most of the white grunts had never seen so many black people at once before. They exclaimed about it on the regular, with the exception of Black, who was accustomed to them, being the fallen scion of a family well-stocked with black maids and chauffeurs.) Moony had no brothers or sisters, but his mother's parakeet kept him company at home. He once mentioned a blue bicycle, and a pickup truck he'd made improvements to during his high school years. What Sirius imagined of his home was an 1890s clapboard farmhouse with wide white panels, but actually, Moony had never described it and it was unlikely he lived in a farmhouse since his family didn't farm. There were probably saucier details than thoseMoony generally served out when asked, but even so, it was all confetti now that they were as far from the world and its fine shades of nuance as one could be.
In Echo Company, Moony was an efficient and thoroughly professional radio operator, well-respected and never fucked with on account of having served and survived over two years and countless feet deep in the shit. He'd renewed his contract twice, and turned down promotions and multiple chances to shed the weight on his back. Other than becoming a corporal and earning slightly more money, he'd refused any further advancement. No one really knew why, though some had asked. Of all positions, it was least comprehensible why anyone would want to hump* that behemoth of a device and wave their antennae through the bush like a red flag in front of Charlie's* furious bull, not to mention the chatter of the radio giving away their position when clueless colonels demanded a sit rep* mid-ambush. If pressed, Moony might crack a gentle joke about how the thing was fused to his back now and would have to be removed surgically, or he might point out that he'd made it this far alright, but really, he offered no genuine insight into his attachment to this position. The lowliest, the muckiest, the weightiest, the shittiest, the most lethal, the RTO*. At least he knew the dials with eyes closed and could call for dustoff or resupply without hardly waking from that twitchy half-sleep he curled into in his foxhole.
One time, in line for chow at Firebase Merryman, Macmillan from Echo Three whispered to Black, "I like Moony and all, but you think you've seen all the way to the bottom of it and come out alright until you look at his eyes, and you realize he's way down deeper than you, and he's seen it, he's seen that there is no bottom." Black wasn't sure he agreed on that analysis. He'd always found Moony's eyes to be kind of gentle in their sun-squinting crinkled way, if tired and generally bloodshot. Also, it was hard to see that well under the brim of his boonie hat* anyways.
They met when Black joined the platoon ten weeks back, at the beginning of May. Things in the province had been quiet since February and then suddenly went nuts again with NVA* sappers pretty much suiciding themselves against firebases and outposts. Grunts were getting tense and itchy. A lot of grenades were wasted on monkeys in the wrong place at the wrong time. Troops were moving around and some bases were practically abandoned in favour of others, with word coming down every few hours as to the new grand plan that necessitated abrupt changes in direction. Black had travelled to the Kontum Airfield to get further orders, because his original destination of Dak Pek was getting too hot. He rode with a convoy of trucks, some carrying supplies and some carrying men.
They were mostly new guys in clean fatigues with their hair still buzzed and velvety to the fingertips, but a few quiet soldiers were returning from R&R or the naval hospital, their bandages collecting the road's red dust. When they got into the airfield, Black sat on a sandbag with a few of the new recruits, waiting six or seven hours for a staff sergeant to let him know that the roads were being swept for mines and the jeep intended for him and a few other replacements would not arrive for at least a day. But it was three nights he barely slept on some absent gunner's borrowed rack before the jeep finally arrived. The rain began on that fourth morning. They drove an objectively short distance which felt very long on account of the frequent stops they made to inch their way around blasted holes, or to put the gear in neutral and physically push the truck out of its entombment in mud.
When they got to FSB* Merryman, Black was hungry and sweaty and prickling all over with the anxiety that manifested as a kind of insectoid invasion beneath the skin. Like a self-aware psychosis, or just emotional impetigo. And then, outside the mess tent, he saw a soldier sitting on a metal barrel with an orange stripe. Markered onto the crown of his boonie hat were a circle, a half-circle, and a crescent. He was deep-breathing in the steam from a cup of coffee, and he had a sprinkling of tiny white scars across one side of his face, from cheekbone to jaw, like the dusting of flour blown from a magician's hand. His bleached-out boots were slung to either side of the ugly black metal tank of his radio, and the shoe prints on top of it indicated where his boots usually rested. And that was Moony.
The filthy waterlogged match of him struck Black's intense curiosity at once, burning wet, bright like phosphorus. He didn't hear Moony's voice for the first time until later that evening, when some sergeant in Black's new platoon—who turned out to be Stuart Leavenworth Boardman, AKA Stubby—played a slow, groovy acoustic guitar-picking number on his cassette deck with the volume down low. Downplayed, drumless, really sexy, with an ominous plane of strings wedging open the first verse. And Moony, who'd suffered hearing loss since Dak To, said, "Can you turn that up, man?," cocking his better ear towards the deck. Black had brought a better quality tape deck, some psychedelic shit out of Britain, and a few joints he was too wired and nervous to smoke this far from a major base, even though they were not really in the bush and had access to canvas bag showers, et cetera. He opened his pack and offered Moony first pick of the tapes, and Moony just shook his head and said, "I'd appreciate hearing just about anything but the sound of this godforsaken rain" and so they became friends. Then Moony got stoned and he didn't. That was his sixth night in the country and his fourth night in Kontum and still not quite his first night in the war.
GRUNTS ARE LAZY
The rain had picked up again, and it made a pitter-pattering noise against the dense canopy like the munching of mice. Moony was chewing an unlit cigarette to manage his cravings. Lighting up gave off the scent of your unique, American stupidity; it was like mailing an invitation to the sad sorry fuckers on the other side. Come and get us, we are genuinely too dumb to breathe. As an aside, the taste of tobacco was almost enough to distract Moony from his feet. The pain was like a phone ringing, constantly, and sometimes he struggled to hear other sounds over its horrid jangling discomfort. How do you limp when the pain is in both feet, that was the question. Which advanced military scientist was going to solve that one?
He stepped with care between the shrubs, grasses and the mangled bamboo that Longbottom's men had hacked apart with their K-bars. The plants leaked their juices into pools of green water cupped by boot prints in the jungle floor. Occasionally, he glanced behind him to make sure that Black and Potter were doing alright. Black had wised up over the last two months, but the new boy scared him. Potter. His face white and pure, sheened with clear sweat like a wheel of cheese, his glasses unscratched, his rifle never fired. His heart untested. He looked at that kid and could see him in his high school basketball uniform, and and he could hear him swinging his legs against the metal bleachers, and he could smell the salty seduction of this kid's hamburger with ketchup and mustard, eaten under the stars in some place where the Midwestern lakes were clean and frequented by pleasure boaters. The parents, the ladder against a gutter thick with lost tennis balls. A stash of dirty magazines under the bed. But what could you do other than grime up that shiny face and drag him along with all the other shit on your back? No camels, no donkeys, no magic carpet, nothing but humping* with whoever they sent you.
They walked on and on and on and on and the land never changed except in its infinite capacity to torment them with fungus and dampness and the mosquitoes who were always hungry. If time passed at all, it passed much more slowly out here than in the real world, hence the frequent stopping of their watches and the necessity of replacing batteries so goddamn often. After an eternity, the rain stopped but the pitter-patter continued for another twenty minutes as excess water needled down from the waxen leaf cover.
There were hills that went up on both sides, somehow. Shacklebolt unpacked a nylon rope they used to ascend the steepest ones. Potter had not developed the right kind of calluses yet and Moony could hear his heavy breathing as he tugged himself up the abrasive line. Little pebbles were dislodged by the boys' attempts to find purchase on the slope and the noise of them scattering startled Zachary's platoon behind them; though Moony could not see Echo Four through the dense jungle cover, he heard the boys hit the ground at once, with a clanking and clambering of canteens and rifles against shards of bamboo. The opening chord of that familiar terror, the one you could name in your sleep. Shacklebolt sighed, and motioned to Moony, who stopped climbing and rested one knee in the mud to keep his balance. Black and Potter stopped behind him, sliding down somewhat and grasping at roots and stalks to halt their fall. Potter's helmet clanged loudly against a tree, which made Moony flinch.
He turned his back to Shacklebolt, so the Tree could lift the receiver from the radio telephone.
"Echo Four this is Echo One actual. Over." He spoke quietly in that deep, authoritative baritone that reminded Moony of his elementary school principal. A hands in suit pockets, patient kind of man who towered over the female teachers and silenced the classroom with a single Good morning, students .
"This is Echo Four. Over."
"Tell your fucking men to get off the ground and walk. Over."
A long quiet pause fuzzed with radio static, like the filling of white space with patterned strokes. "We heard shots. Possible enemy in vicinity, maybe three, four hundred meters sierra whiskey. Over."
"You heard pebbles falling. My guys are climbing a hill and knocked over a few. Get moving. Over."
The pause was shorter this time, but dense with tension. Black, Potter and Stubby had bunched up behind Moony, coming to see what the problem was.
Finally, the nervous soldier on the other end of the line responded. His accent was soft southern, maybe Arkansas or North Texas. "No, I—we're pretty sure we heard some fire. Over."
Shacklebolt rolled his eyes, mouthing I swear to— at Moony. "Can you confirm a location and distance, and how many? Over."
"Does he think—" Potter whispered, but Black quietly shook his head, and flicked a mosquito off his cheek with one dirt-encrusted fingernail.
A new voice cut through the static, this one deeper, more confident. "Echo One, this is Echo Four Actual. We've got a—" Three shots rattled out, a knock on the front door. They heard it through the radio, but they also heard it distantly through the dense tree cover.
Moony hit the ground, chin to chest to toes. The radio and scrambler slammed its weight against his back and the pain streaked through him like spilled wine.
"Easy," whispered the Tree. Moony saw the lieutenant's boot inching past him; he was crawling back down the ledge. He flashed a hand signal at Moony—wait here—and continued back down the line. Moony couldn't see him anymore, just the tangled mess of vegetation bleeding sap and the insects feasting upon it. Shacklebolt had neglected to hang up the receiver, and soft static unrolled through the air. He heard a clicking sound, and the static cut off; Black must have crawled up to him to hang up.
On your stomach in the jungle, the world was a radio play alone, and that which occurred made itself knowable only through its music and percussion. Moony strained his mind, trying to make out what was going on, but the rain was still tapping across the canopy and his own breath seemed awfully loud. And the sweaty shifting sound of the radio sliding across his back when he moved to reposition his rifle out from underneath him. He got his rifle into position, though he knew not where to aim, except vaguely southwest. And he waited.
Three buttonholes, three punctures in the integrity of air.
"Shit," whispered Black, just behind him.
Their own fire opened, somewhere far down the slope to the west, where the boys of Echo Four were striping the quiet with the whine of M16s on semi-automatic. The AK-47s answered with their deeper metallic chinks, which reminded Moony of pressing keys upon the old-fashioned cash register back home, and when they reloaded, he thought of pushing shut the drawer of money. The smell of the earth in his nostrils was rank and fungal; he realized the cigarette was still in his mouth, growing damp and mushy from saliva. He spat it out.
Someone tugged on his ankle, and he craned his head around just enough to catch a glimpse of the Tree's pale fingers waving for his attention. He was also on his stomach, crawling towards Moony.
"Follow me," whispered Shacklebolt. "Gonna see what's up and call in if we need to—"
Moony nodded, and pulled himself along by the elbows. They were belly-flopping downhill, and the radio slipped forward along his back to put pressure against the butt of his helmet. Down they inched, past Black, who shot Moony a concerned glance. His eyes were icy chips, standing out against the dark grime of his face. They seemed so out of place in the tropics. Moony was careful to go slowly, fighting the noise and the steep slope that tempted him with the efficiency of rolling all the way down. The weight of the radio would probably slam his brains out and what a way to die, huh? Just past Black was Potter, his glasses low on his nose and fogged over with his own breath.
"Easy," whispered Shacklebolt, and he patted the kid on the shoulder. "Don't move."
He and Moony made their way painfully down to the base of the hill, with burrs and prickles and slimy leeches drawing blood like manna from their hands. The jungle floor was camouflaged with soft shadows. The crawling got easier when they reached relatively flat ground, but Shacklebolt motioned for Moony to slow down; he was cocking his ear, searching for the source of the AK fire.
The M16s let loose again, joined by a round of thunder from the M60 machine gun, now fully engaged. Moony struggled to recall the names of the two kids who operated it. He was pretty sure one was white and the other black, but that was all he could remember. While Moony technically did not belong to a squad, he had sort of adopted Echo One-Two on account of his closeness with Black, and also because it was easy to remember the names of everyone in it, since there were so few. But when he thought of Echo Four, he thought only of Second Lieutenant Zachary's very red face, and the obscene gestures Zachary made upon discovering female enemy corpses. A crude man, unsophisticated and unoriginal in his vulgarity. Not a man Moony respected, though he was hardly the worst of them.
He heard a scream, and a groan. Shacklebolt flung out an arm to stop him from crawling any further; he picked the receiver up off Moony's back, twisted the knobs into the battalion headquarters' frequency, and spoke into it, quiet but firm.
"Echo Six, this is Echo Red Six. We're about sixty metres east of Echo Four and they're in the shit, sir. It sounds like at least four VC, possibly more. Should I move my guys in? Over."
The responding voice was cool, high-pitched. An educated east-coaster. "I don't see why not. We'll stop and wait. Keep me updated. Over."
Shackebolt shifted positions, tugging the curly wire taut between him and Moony. Moony felt the wet earth seeping through his shirt, his trousers, every part of him damp, from his sweaty helmet to the horror of his eight remaining toes.
"Sir, I've got a cherry on his first day and I wouldn't want to mess up our ratio," said Shacklebolt, making brief eye contact with Moony. "And Echo Four's got the machine gun going. Over." Gunshots shattered the sentence into pieces, and Shacklebolt had to raise his voice to be heard.
The response was immediate. "You tell your cherry 'Welcome to the army and enjoy your stay.' Move your asses. Over."
"Roger that," said Shacklebolt. He hung up. Moony and the Tree struggled to their feet, shaking off the wet leaves and twigs that stuck to them. They had to run back up the slope, slipping and sliding in the muck, to alert Stubby, who was at the very rear of the platoon, to pass the message on to the next soldier in front of him before joining Echo Four in their firefight at the base of the hill.
Moony saw Stubby trudging up to Potter, crouching to whisper in his ear; it took a few seconds to coax Potter up off the ground. So at least the kid had a survival instinct. He had to rejoin the Tree, running towards the action.
Bodies low, knees bent, ears straining for sound. Where it came, how far away, and where it was going. The trees had a way of eating up the noise and casting it elsewhere. It was like teleportation, or the magic of radio. You would hear running water and think you were maybe twenty metres from a stream and already your canteens felt light and your mouth dry. But it was over a kilometre away; you were fooled by an ancient aural sorcery.
Shacklebolt skidded into the site, boots clogged and slippery with mud. He hit the ground at once, rifle in position, Moony nearly tripped and fell on his face; his antennae had caught in an overhanging branch, wrenching him backwards. When he recovered, he realized the guns had gone silent. He crawled behind a tree already sheltering another soldier—hopefully behind, given that he could not see or hear the source of the original gunfire—and whispered to him.
"Fuck's going on?"
"They stopped shootin'," said the boy. A tendril of reddish-blonde hair curled just below the brim of his helmet, dark with sweat. His whole face was covered in it, as though he'd just emerged from a swimming pool, with droplets running down his cheeks. "Think they dee-deed*."
"Any casualties?"
"Yeah, me. "
The boy leaned away from the tree somewhat so Moony could see the blood spread blackly from a hole just above his left armpit. His jungle utilities were soaked in it, and Moony realized why he looked so pale.
"Aw, shit," said Moony.
"You don't think this is a goin' home wound, do you? 'Cause it hurts like a motherfucker."
He paused, wondering whether truth was really what the kid needed right now. But somehow, he couldn't bring himself to lie.
"No," said Moony. "But I'm sure you'll get a week off, at least."
The boy leaned forward and pressed the brim of his helmet into the tree. He released a deep, shuddering sigh that rippled through his body like a shock wave.
"It's alright," said Moony. "I'll get you a medic." The other soldiers were getting off the ground, stretching their arms and legs. The mud was scattered with shell casings glinting like gold earrings against dark hair. Moony recognized Zachary, patting the machine gunner on the back.
"You gave 'em hell," he said, reassuring.
The machine gunner shrugged. His hands were raw and red from the heat of the gun. "I don't know about that, man. I just don't know."
"We'll do a count, you'll see."
Echo Four's medic was a Minnesotan guy with a handlebar mustache the colour of cream of wheat. He knelt by the injured kid, putting pressure against the wound with a gauze pad in one hand, while he rummaged in his pack with the other. Out came a roll of bandages, and a pair of scissors.
"Ugh," moaned the boy. "Oh fuck. Oh, god damn it, Diggle, that hurts."
"Look at you, man," said the medic. "You're one Purple Heart closer to going home."
"Fuuuck."
"Shhh, it's okay. It's alright now."
Moony was faintly wishing that Echo One's medic had that kind of bedside manner. Diggle's hands were steady on the scissors as he cut a fresh bandage. The blood was much redder on his hands than the dark stuff spreading through the boy's jungle utilities. Bright like grenadine, or the stains of Kool-Aid.
"Hey…" said a familiar voice.
"What's up, Potter."
"It seems like nothing going on now."
"We just missed it," said Moony. He looked up at Potter, who was pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. There were dark sweat stains down the chest and armpit of his fatigues.
"It's too bad," muttered Potter. He kicked at a small twig. "Damn it."
"Just relax. You'll get plenty of chances," said Black, coming to join them. Moony noticed that his rifle was still in safety mode. He wondered if he should say something, but thought better of it.
Diggle had coaxed the injured kid into getting back up and walking, since the wound wasn't that serious. It was just below his left shoulder and he could still move the arm, plus he was right-handed. The kid was asking about dustoff, and when they would call for a medevac, and didn't this count as an emergency, he was bleeding a lot, wasn't he? Diggle gave him a few noncommittal answers, and fed him pills from his backpack. Moony wandered away from them. He leaned against a tree trunk thick enough to support the weight of him and the radio.
The blank in him was a space where compassion was stored for safekeeping. For a moment, he had reached into it, when he saw the kid's flash of realization that they were not going to call for an emergency medevac. But there was nothing to reach. Blank paper where once he nursed something soft. It was alright, and the contact was barely anything of substance and Moony was hungry for lunch. He thought of the pound cake in a sock attached to his pack. Yellow sunshine and sweetness. The way it paired smoothly with hot chocolate.
Of course, the Problem's voice came crackling from the radio to break his lunchtime reverie.
"Echo One this is Echo Actual. I need a sit rep ASAP. Over."
The Tree heard the radio and came over to pick up the handset. He explained over the phone that contact was minimal; no more than five VC and a small trail of blood that Echo Four was currently investigating.
"Body count," said the Problem. "I need numbers. Over."
Moony walked as far as he could without stretching the cord too tightly. He flicked Potter's helmet to get his attention.
"What?"
"Listen," he said quietly. "This is how it really works."
Echo Four had searched the vicinity, and found the screen of bamboo behind which the VC had hidden. They found a single body, no blood trails to be seen.
"And," said Potter.
"Well, that's no good," explained Moony.
"They want something closer to fifteen," said Black. He chugged from a water canteen, his cheeks sucking in and out with the force of his thirst.
"They're going to say it was ten guys, given the sound of the fire," said Moony. "And one killed, but they found two guns on him. That means two people are killed."
"But where would the second body go?" said Potter.
"They dragged it off or carried it away or something," said Stubby, who had overheard their conversation. "That's what Shacklebolt and Longbottom are reporting."
"Without any blood or nothing?" The kid's dark eyebrows raised up beyond the brim of his helmet.
"Now, who's to say there wasn't a blood trail, really…" drawled Stubby, flashing a row of tobacco-stained teeth.
"It's dark under the tree cover," added Moony.
"Grunts are lazy, they don't really look," said Black, trying to purge the bitterness from his voice. "And with all that fire and the machine gun, how could you really argue it was only one killed."
"The guys on the radio—they misheard. They miscounted the number in the first place" said Moony. "They were under fire, they felt pressured, they underestimated. And so on. Anyways—" he gestured towards Shacklebolt, holding up the receiver. The radio was loud enough to be heard several feet away from the hook.
"We got three confirmed," said Lieutenant Longbottom's voice. "And another six probable. Over."
"What say you, Character Sierra? That sound right? Over."
"I'd say so," said Shacklebolt. "There were a lot of shell casings. I'd guess maybe even twelve or thirteen shooting, and perhaps seven or eight probable. Over."
"Eight sounds closer to me," said the Problem coolly. "Excellent work. Now get your asses to Checkpoint Alpha, you hear me? Over."
"Loco Coco for Echo Four," said Longbottom.
"Roger that for Echo One," said Shacklebolt. And so it became true that they had three confirmed and eight probable kills, and that's what would be reported to the lieutenant colonel. In the reporting of these numbers did they become inscrutable fact, and it is known that facts administer the offices of truth which are swept and tidied and maintained in a presentable state.
"Are you sure that's how it works?" mumbled Potter.
Stubby, Black and Moony looked at one another, brows raised, smiles light.
"Yes."
"Yup."
"There it is."
Potter slowly unscrewed the lid from his canteen and drank his grape Kool-Aid with sloppy abandon, so that streams of purple slid down his chin and stained the open collar of his jungle utilities. When he recapped the canteen, his lips were hypothermic blue. Behind him, the men were getting ready to move on, and COs were reorganizing the platoons back into the correct formation. The injured kid was still griping, though in a more quiet stream of profanities, because no one wanted to hear it.
"Seems like there's a lot that goes on here," said Potter mildly.
"Oh, yeah." Black elbowed him in the ribs. "Apparently, there's a war."
GLOSSARY
Boonie hat: A wide-brimmed hat with a ring of loops stitched around the brim in order to hold foliage (to provide additional camouflage.) Also known as a jungle cover or bush hat.
Charlie: Either the Viet Cong or C-rations or any other word beginning with C, depending on context.
Cherry: A new soldier, freshly arrived from training camp. See FNG.
CO: Commanding officer
Dee-dee: to run away
E-tool: a collapsible steel shovel (excavation tool).
FNG: Fucking new guy
FSB: Fire support base—basically a combat base with artillery that supports troops within a certain proximity
GI: Literally stands for "general issue;" slang used to refer to any American serviceman
Gooks: A derogatory and racist term used to refer to the Vietnamese (originally used to refer to Japanese people during WW II)
Hump (or humping): to walk long distances while carrying 80+ pounds of gear on your back—basically, the job of an infantryman.
Lunch and Cocktails: any combination of words beginning with L and C stands for "loud and clear"
Number one: great/fantastic (on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst)
NVA: the North Vietnamese army (fighting in a more traditional sense than the VC guerillas)
On point, or walking point: To walk at the front of a column of men through the jungle, essentially being the first to die if you don't detect an ambush soon enough. The riskiest position, and also one of the most exhausting (because of the need to hack down shrubbery and bushes with a knife in order to make room for the column.)
P-38: a small military-issue can opener
RTO: Radio telephone operator
Sit rep: Situation report
SOP: standard operating procedure
VC: Viet Cong—South Vietnamese guerrillas fighting on behalf of the North Vietnamese cause. Generally less well-trained and well-armed than the actual North Vietnamese Army (NVA).
XO: Executive officer (of a company)—second in command to the company commander.