F N G

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first impression of Da Nang.

Hot. Humid. Hot.

 

My second.

Fear.

 

There is nothing worse than being in a place. Where it's completely possible.

That all your fears. Can actually happen.

 

My confusion, as I sucked in the dangerous air, was that everyone else I saw seemed just fine with it all. I just knew that rockets and mortars would start raining down at any minute.

This is a war zone.

 

But.

 

No rockets. No mortars.

 

Just chow.

 

And. Not bad.

 

 

After a while, I didn't notice that I wasn't thinking about what might happen. What was happening was that I was going through all sorts of shifts and shuffles and go-to-that-line-over-there's. The details of my orders seemed to say I was going to a unit that didn't exist.

 

Because of that, I got sent to an artillery base on a hill outside of Da Nang.

It was just getting dark when my chopper set down. The place seemed pretty secure.

It had actual wooden hootches to sleep in.

 

I reported to the Major who ran things. He knew I didn't belong there.

A salvo of 105mm canons went off on another part of the hill.

 

I must've jumped ten feet.

 

He shook his head.

 

"What's your MOS?"

 

I told him I was a combat support radar operator.

 

He shook his head again.

 

"I'm going to have you out of here by morning. I think I know what happened."

 

I was assigned a rack.

 

In the middle of the night I jumped straight out of it.

 

And under it.

 

"Fuckin' New Guy!"

 

"That's outgoing!"

                                   

 

 

In the morning a troop-carrier CH43 helicopter blew dust and shit everywhere.

 

As promised. I got on it. I was heading 90 kilometers south.

 

To an R&R area on the coast.

 

Chu Lai.

 

 

 

A jeep beeped.

 

An oversized pair of reflective sunglasses glared at me from the driver's seat. It was Corporal Alpha Charley Droke. A beanpole with a .45 on his hip and a gnarly twang. He was our driver.

 

Amiable and chatty, he told me about his time in-country so far. He said Chu Lai was a vacation paradise. My stomach clenched when he told me his prior unit was nearly overrun one night.

 

He was getting ready to go home and get out of the Corps. Then. He was going to join the Israeli Army. The adrenaline rush of war seemed to agree with his nature.

 

We rode up the winding road to the top of a hill on the coastal range. It was beautiful.

 

In time, he looked at me.

 

"We're here."

 

Where. Was my first question.

 

I grabbed my gear off the jeep and looked around.

 

I saw nothing but a grove of low slung evergreen trees.

 

 

Droke said something about the trees.

 

I looked twice.

 

Upside down. Hanging by one foot. Were three fat lizards.

 

Razorback from Arkansas. Alpha Charley Droke. Loved trapping animals.

 

"Guess I'll go'in cut 'em down now."

 

 

 

From this vantage point, a couple hundred feet up, I walked around to get some perspective.

 

To my left, foothill bulges and slopes ran down to meet the water and the far reach of the South China Sea. Off to my hard right I could see the landing strip where he had picked me up. Situated on the lowland plain between these hills and more serious mountains about ten miles west, Army planes, hangers and assorted helicopters ran for a mile in either direction.

 

Soon, I would come to learn about those mountains. Mobile 'rocket pockets'.

 

The VC could shoot from any given spot. Then disappear.

 

 

We met back at the jeep.

 

All teeth and adam's apple, a hat looking for a body, A.C. Droke closed his knife.

 

"I like to keep in practice."

 

 

 

Our bunker, to my surprise, was right in front of us. Surrounded by trees.

 

Low. Unseen. Dug into the sandy dirt.

 

Two-high. Three-deep on either side. Sand-filled fifty-five gallon drums provided the rough entrance to the interior.

 

Inside was a complete, if not compact, operations center. Booths with radar screens,  sophisticated computer and communications gear took up most of the space. A small common area had a table, a few chairs and a refrigerator.

 

Outside, the sound of the generator hummed continuously. It was the beating heart of our mission. It could never go down.

 

The captain who ran the unit was engaged in a mission when I arrived. Quiet was strictly enforced. Seeing me enter, he tossed me a smile and swept his hand. As if to tell me to make myself at home. Three other guys came over to offer silent greetings.

 

One of the guys, whose nickname was Seahorse, from Medicine Hat, Canada, invited me outside for a smoke. He told me that this was the best unit he and his buddy, Taylor, also from Canada, had ever been in. Too bad it was being disbanded in a couple of months.

 

Whoa. Too much to chew on. From Canada. Disbanded. Huh?

 

He explained that he and Taylor had wanted to join the US Marines since they were kids. Somehow they talked a recruiter into making it so they could train and work together for their four year enlistment. To just about everybody's surprise, the Marines actually did it.

 

 

I had so many questions. He told me scuttlebutt had it that operations for Marines in this area were coming to an end. We didn't know it then, but the war itself was winding down.

Army units from Americal Division would be taking over this space.

 

None of that mattered to him, or most of the guys here. Almost to the man, they were all scheduled to rotate back to the states in a month or so.

 

Hard to get my bearings. Based on what he said, the unit would either be sent home, or possibly shift operations to the DMZ.

 

Fuck me.

 

 

Then the surprise.

 

Our housing.

 

In paradise.

 

Walkways made of wooden slats went down from the bunker. Then down again to our compound of three low-slung wooden buildings.

 

Lush pockets of fronds, trees, and green-everything almost hid them from view.

 

Like a wrinkle in a smile, the hills held moisture rich crevices that looked more tropical than mountain. Wet warm wind from the warmer-still waters had created a refuge of embracing calm.

 

Officers' quarters on the left. Common Room in the middle. Non-coms to the right.

 

There was plenty of room. With lockers as walls, I made a nice corner space for myself.

 

 

 

We were on call day and night. Our ability to direct sorties in any kind of weather was critical for troops needing robust and immediate close air support.

 

This was a very disciplined and task driven crew. They made me welcome from the start.

 

However.

 

I was the FNG. The fuckin' new guy.

 

The guy who gets the shit duty. Generator man.

Until a new FNG comes along. And those prospects seemed dim.

 

 

The faces that originally greeted me in July were gone by September.

 

Except one. Sgt. Pepper.

 

I knew nothing about generators. I do now.

 

Thanks to Sgt. Pepper.

 

He taught me everything he knew about generators.

 

Almost.

 

 

 

 

 

Hollywood sun-dog surfer handsome. He was the hands-down leader of the troupe.

 

We threw bullets in the fire the night before we saw him off. An old salute.

 

Casings, not bullets, flew everywhere.

 

 

We ran a short crew after he left.

 

One night. Two weeks before we crated our gear to go up to Quang Tri. Two things happened.

A typhoon was a day away. Rain was already heavy.

 

And.

 

The generator and the back-up generator both failed. One after the other.

 

By some unwritten law, generators always break down at the worst possible moment. That's why a back-up unit always sits next to the one in use. The rule also states that the classic, choking run of surges the engine makes - just before it goes down - must occur in the middle of the night.

When it is dark and most likely raining.

 

In the back of my head, even dead asleep, I had a constant awareness of every gentle thrum of the green beast's heartbeat. With the first irregularity, I would jump out of bed, into my clothes and out - into the dark rain, of course - to dash to the ailing engine's side. I would start up the back-up and connect it to the cables running to the bunker. Then attend to the problem at hand.

 

Sometimes I could make a few adjustments and all would be well. Sometimes, I could switch out a sending unit or unclog a fuel filter. Sometimes. Nothing worked.

 

As 'the generator man', I was really the magician's assistant. I knew I always had Sgt. Pepper there to un-fuck the un-fuckable.

 

Now, on my own, I had more hats than rabbits. I had nobody to talk to.

 

I imagined Sgt. Pepper getting a steam and cream in Bangkok by now.

 

I looked like a wet dog in a jump suit when I came into the bunker and told the Captain we had no options. Both diesels were done-for. I had done my best.

 

He had me call up HQ and took the mike.

 

A new generator. Despite the weather. Would be here soon.

Forty-mile sideways rain on a hilltop, in the dark, is no place to land a fat diesel generator.

But that was what was happening. Slung under a heavy-lift helicopter, the pilot skillfully set the machine down and released the hook holding its sling.

 

He then maneuvered over to pick up one of the bad ones we had prepared with a sling.

 

I climbed up the rubber wheels and stood on top of the slick metal machine. Maybe five or six feet off the ground. I held up the sling's harness. It was made of heavy rope around a metal loop.

 

The huge plane came into position and hovered precariously above me. It shifted and tilted and rose and fell. Nearly blinded by the rain, I struggled to get the harness on the hook. Only inches at times between us, the expert pilot kept me from being crushed. I reached up and pulled back as we struggled to hook up the dead beast.

 

Then.

 

The tremendous static electricity generated by the plane's blades arc'd to the metal loop I was holding. In a blinding jolt, I learned what Sgt. Pepper surely would have told me.

 

But didn't.

 

Thousands of volts lit me up and slammed me to the ground unconscious.

 

The rubber wheels of the machine kept me from joining the angels.

 

 

I woke up two hours later with a large headache.

 

No worse for the wear.

 

No longer the generator man.

 

 

Epilogue.

 

The next guy learned that there is such a thing as a 'grounding pole'. And that nobody goes up to a hovering chopper in a mission, especially in the rain, without first discharging the electrical current of the rotating blades into the ground.

 

Somebody else's deal. Not me.

 

FNG. No more.

 

Two weeks later, we and all of our equipment, re-located to Combat Base, Quang Tri.

Eleven miles from the DMZ. Definitely not paradise.