STUMPY

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stumpy was really good at what he did.

 

And what he did was drink.

 

As a guy who had just gotten ten-grand for 'shipping over' for a four year extension on his enlistment, he had a lot more money to spend doing it.

 

But not yet.

 

He was on his way to Viet Nam.

 

All of us were.

 

As part of his new contract, he agreed to immediately be transferred to a unit that needed his particular specialty. He was really good at that too. He even got another stripe when he shipped.

Sgt. Stumpy!!!

 

Sgt. Stumpy was something of a Supply genius; his ability to make deals and horse-trade with other outfits was uncanny. Coming from the hills of West Virginia, where barter is a way of life, he just knew how people worked. Especially when they wanted something.

 

 

Okinawa. Wet Okinawa.

 

Flooded Marine Base.

 

Okinawa.

 

Camp Smedley D. Butler was a sodden mess. Worn out from the long flight from Anchorage, we jumped off the bus and got pelted by rain drops the size of frozen peas. At least that's what it felt like. We raced into the Quonset hut barracks, a ramshackle remnant of WWII, and claimed our racks, ready to kick back. Pressed into service as a way station for troops going to Viet Nam, it had the barest of amenities. The head was outside. So were the showers. Not that it mattered. All of the plumbing in this area of the base was backed up since the day before. Not a pretty sight.

 

 

The morning crashed in on us with withering heat. As wet as it was when we got here, right in front of our eyes, radiant straws of sunlight were sucking the place dry again. It was oppressive.

After some of the most miserable chow one could imagine, we spent the rest of the morning getting lectured about Marine Corps tradition in war and the ongoing combat situation across Viet Nam.

 

We were also pleasantly surprised to find that we would have 'liberty' to go off base one of the two nights while here. We were not particularly surprised to learn of the prevalence of VD on B.C. Street, in Koza, just outside the base. We were warned about traveling in pairs and being back on base by 23-hundred hours.

 

 

Day passed into night. The humidity and heat came right along.

 

With a promise that the plumbing would be fixed soon, we were disappointed to learn that it wasn't 'soon' yet.

 

Undeterred, the place mellowed out quickly. The musty smell of the Quonset hut no match for the heady aroma of forty sweaty Jarheads, two days in. Small groups gathered. Music played here and there. Some guys hit the rack.

 

Stumpy and two others made a bee-line for the 'slopshoot'. The bar on the far side of the base.

 

A card game, predictable as piss down your pantleg, was already assembling.

 

I knew three of the guys who set it up. All of them were wondering where Stumpy was.

 

Stumpy. Sgt. Stumpy. Loved cards. Gambling actually. Cards too.

 

He was terrible at it.

 

Word of his gambling ups and downs were legend. He always won big. So he could lose. Bigger.

 

His nickname was 'Pay Day'.

 

 

The card game proceeded without him. No big wins or losses. Around 10:30, Stumpy's erstwhile bar buddies returned from their boozy travels. Amiable enough, they giddily settled back in among the rest of us.

 

Their arrival didn't go unnoticed.

 

 

 

 

 

The obvious question was quickly asked. The asker was the most senior person among us, a hard corps Recon Gunnery Sergeant.

 

"Where's your buddy?"

 

"He went into town. About an hour ago."

 

"Is that so."

 

 

Lights out was at 11:30. Twenty-three-thirty. A half-hour after the end of liberty.

 

It came. It went.

 

No Stumpy.

 

 

At some dark, still hot and humid moment, a couple of hours later, all hell broke out.

 

Three Shore Police. And Stumpy. Bloody Stumpy.

 

He had gotten jumped. There was an attempted robbery.

 

He won.

 

But it cost him a gash on his cheek and a bruised knuckle.

 

A tough little nugget with a perennial five o'clock shadow, Stumpy was a barrel chested bantam. Few ever chose to mess with him twice.

 

A little worse for the wear, he laughed it all off. A bit of a challenge, he scaled the frame of the bed to the top rack.

 

Lights out.

 

Like frogs by a lake, snorers began a contrasting chorus of snorts and grunts. Sleep for the rest of us came at a premium.

 

One thing you quickly learn about being in a Quonset hut is that the metal it's made of only intensifies whatever the weather outside is. Hot outside. Very hot inside.

 

Sunrise accentuated that point.

 

 

The showers and other facilities were working again. Luxurious!

 

We marched to chow at 8.

 

Today was the day we would receive our weapons and other gear, from backpacks to jungle boots.

 

Shortly after chow, with almost no warning, it rained buckets. Word was that a typhoon was headed our way. We held off going for our gear until after lunch. 

 

We took the bus to an area not far from the base's rifle range. We got our weapons from the armory there. Ammunition, we would get in-country. Our ears rang with the fam-firing of some exotic sounding weapons. Recons were putting on a demonstration for some of their troops before deployment.

 

Nearby, there were three flimsy hootches, side by side. Stepping around, and through, cinnamon-orange mud puddles, we broke into three groups and went from one hootch to the other. Because of the rain, the floors had been raised using wooden pallets, so you had to step up to get in.

 

In each hootch, with room to walk around them, there were four or five gigantic cardboard boxes. When it came to jungle utilities and such, all of the clothing was clean. But used!

Even the boots. You couldn't not think about how 'used' boots got here. Made you swallow hard.

 

Looking like extras in a John Wayne movie, all clad in flack jackets, helmets and full combat gear, we gathered all of our boodle into seabags and headed back to the bus. A somber quiet came over us all. The fun was over. The Games were at hand. We'd leave tomorrow.

 

 

Everybody but Stumpy had saved liberty for tonight. He was happy to hold down the fort.

No one knew of course, as we set out as a group, that Stumpy had plans. For two bottles of whiskey. Somehow he'd gotten them on board after our layover in Anchorage.

 

 

Because there were enough of us, we took the bus and parked it inside the gate for our return.

 

Koza was lit up like a cartoon version of Las Vegas. Garish signs blinked and flashed naked neon figures above bars and juke joints. Suggesting fleshy contents within. Music blared from every portal. Each containing its own Filipina-girl band. Most were awful. A few were great.

 

The air was thick with the smell of cooking wood and unusual, but enticing, food.

 

Most of us chose to go to a restaurant. The food couldn't be any worse than on base. Or so I thought. Of course, the menu was completely incomprehensible to me. Luckily some dishes had pictures. A charming young girl took my order.

 

 

I settled for what looked like a soup of some kind. It wasn't terrible. I ate it all. As we left,

I heard one of our guys speak Japanese to the girl. I had him ask her about what was in my soup. I shouldn't have. Dog and frog and rat came back her cheery reply. With noodles.

 

Two plus hours remained. The town laid out before us like a candy land of bad choices. We agreed to meet back at the bus at 22:50.

 

I went off with a staff sergeant and a couple of his buddies from dinner. On either side of the street, enticing women gestured, finger trilling us to come forward and into their musical drinking lair. We sternly made it past the first two, until "Rainy Night in Georgia", sung in three part, darling harmony, pulled us inside what looked like a cave door, and into a dim lit bar with the few lights aimed at the stage.

 

We ordered beer. Orion rice beer is what they had. I liked it. For the rest of the night.

 

I don't dance. But I do drink and dance. Tonight it was assorted wiggles, twists and feet that barely moved. All the while chugging Orion. I swigged and jigged in the dark. And nobody cared. Least of all me.

 

When it was time, like hypnotized drunken ducks, we waddled back to the bus inside the gate.

 

The happy ride back to our metallic, half honeycomb quarters was slowed by massive patches of sunken dirt road and poor driving. We eventually arrived. The place was lit up like a lunar space pod. Something wasn't right.

 

The Gunny was the first out of the bus. Alert. Looking for Stumpy.

 

Stiff-legged, he strutted down the squalid barracks. The bunks on either side of him.

 

We followed him like a swirl of bait fish.

 

If it could be said that he came to a screeching Halt. He did.

 

There. Face down. Pants down. Butt up in the air. Was Stumpy. In Swanson's rack.

 

As plain as day. Stumpy had fallen, deeply drunk, asleep. And taken a dump. On Swanson's rack.

 

On the table in the clearing, cradled in Stumpy's newly acquired bush hat with little pockets for shotgun shells, was a bottle of whiskey, empty.

 

As if he had dived into the bed with high impact, his other bottle of whiskey, half empty, lay just beyond his reach. Judging by the looks of things, he was probably going somewhere else and the bed got in the way. The rest of things happened as they did.

 

 

 

It was impossible to awaken him. By common agreement, we agreed to let it stay that way.

 

Drunk as he wanted to be, Swanson just climbed into Stumpy's rack and cheerfully went to sleep.

 

At dawn, we awoke. We didn't mean to. We did so because the Gunny physically yanked Stumpy out of his rack. With Stumpy's arm stuck way up behind his back, we watched the Gunny frog-walk him outside.

 

He threw him into a deep brown puddle. Stumpy had met his match. The Gunny, taller, leaner and one mean muther-fucker, had had it with Stumpy. Dumb enough, Stumpy tried to get out of the puddle. The Gunny connected his right foot with Stumpy's chin and he sunk momentarily back into the muck.

 

It took fifty half-sunk push-ups before he let him out again. Then they had words.

 

Never tamed, but wiser, Stumpy apologized to all of us. With a sly grin, Swanson laughed and said he really didn't give a shit.

 

After chow, we spent the rest of the morning readying our gear. We broke down our rifles and cleaned them. For the rest of the day, we were on ten-minute warning to be ready to leave. The weather got more insistent by the hour. Around 9 p.m. we finally got word to saddle up. We would try to beat the storm.

 

We got on the bus, one last time. Our full packs and gear made it as cumbersome as it sounds.

To our relief, carts were ready at the flight line to put them into the belly of our airplane. But which one. There were three World Airways stretch-8's, lights blinking, lowly idling, awaiting us to board.

 

It turns out that there were other staging areas on the base just like ours, with other groups of Marines heading to RVN.

 

We looked at one another, realizing that this was all a mirage. This little splash of people caught up in a whirlwind, were blowing on now to other directions, to whatever fates might await them.

 

We looked at our tickets and walked to our planes.

 

Not on board, I never saw Stumpy again.