Death in the Jungle Page 25

  “That’s the quickest I’ve ever seen you get ready,” Funky joked. He zipped his pants, grinned, and said, “Let’s keep our appointment with the doctor.”

  We walked into the aisle of the barracks and headed for Brown’s cubicle. Along the way, Funkhouser recruited Dicey and Moses to join in the fun.

  “Come on, you two,” appealed Funkhouser, tugging on both of the men’s T-shirts. “You’ll earn a couple more medals on this mission, I guarantee it!”

  “Oh, yeah?” Dicey snapped playfully, trailing along with us. “What kind of medal?”

  Funkhouser thought a moment, then chuckled. “The Vietnamese Cross of Toiletry.”

  “I’m in!” said Moses with a snicker.

  Funkhouser cautioned us to keep quiet as we approached Brown’s cubicle. I was still unaware of the gag we were going to pull, but I was good at follow-the-leader. Funky was our leader in this prank, and it was obvious he knew exactly what he was doing.

  Funkhouser peeked inside Doc’s cubicle, then looked back at me with a devious grin on his face.

  “Each of us will lift up a corner of his bed,” Funkhouser informed us in a soft voice. “We’re gonna carry him to the head.” With that much said, he motioned us to follow him into the cubicle. The four of us tiptoed inside and positioned ourselves around the bunk. Brown was sprawled out in it and snoring, something he also did well on ambush site. When Funkhouser nodded his head, we raised the bed off the floor and maneuvered it into the passageway and toward the john.

  As we carried the bed and its hungover occupant down the aisle, a half dozen other SEALs saw us and decided to follow along. Markel and McCollum each grabbed hold of a side of the bed and helped lug it. Doc quit snoring but didn’t change his position.

  “The frame’s too big for the john door,” I whispered as we halted before the entrance to the head.

  “Let’s put it down,” Funkhouser directed, and the six of us lowered the bunk to the deck. He continued, “We’ll have to lift out the mattress.”

  Two more SEALs hurried to assist us, and eight of us successfully hoisted the mattress into the air without disturbing Doc’s sleep. We worked our way inside the john by curling up the sides of the mattress and sliding it through the door.

  We toted our cargo to the middle of the concrete bathroom floor, where we set it down between the toilet area and the sinks, over the top of the central floor drain. As we backed away, I was surprised, although pleasantly, that Doc hadn’t awakened. I was positive there was no way this shenanigan would work on me, drunk or not, as I was such a light sleeper. But there was Doc, snoozing like a baby.

  “Now let’s plug the sinks and turn on the water,” Funkhouser said, revealing the finale to his caper. He wanted to flood the floor and wet the mattress.

  It took but a minute for us to stuff paper towels down the drainpipes of each of the half dozen sinks and turn on the faucets full blast. Quickly, the sinks filled to the tops with water, then began overflowing onto the floor. I chuckled as the six puddles of water rapidly expanded, united with one another, and rushed Doc’s mattress as a menacing pool.

  “Let’s get outta here!” I suggested as the water splashed my coral booties.

  “Just one more thing,” declared Funkhouser. He slipped a folded piece of paper out of his pants pocket, unfolded it, and set it on the mattress beside Doc’s head. It read, “DO NOT CALL FOR EXTRACTION. NO ONE WILL RESPOND TO YOUR WET DREAM.”

  Funkhouser looked at me, his face beaming with delight.

  “We got ’im!” he rejoiced.

  As all of the pranksters filed out the door, Funkhouser couldn’t resist turning around for one more look at Doc. I turned back, too, to fix the scene in my memory: Doc Brown, sleeping on his wet mattress on the floor of the latrine with gallons of water cascading out of the sinks and lapping at his “skiff.”

  Repressing a burst of laughter, Funkhouser wheeled around to hurry outside with me on his tail. We ran into the barracks with our teammates, where everyone was rolling in the aisle. Lewd comments were fired fast and furious.

  “That’ll teach the son of a bitch!” Moses chortled.

  “Hoo-yah!” several men agreed.

  “This oughta make him be more careful when he sticks the next needle in my ass.” Markel smiled broadly.

  “If it doesn’t, next time we’ll dump him and his mattress into the Long Tau River!” cried Funkhouser. Again, everyone cheered.

  Continuing the banter, the men headed for the chow hall and breakfast. On the way, I got a distant look at the latrine and saw a torrent of water flowing out the door and onto the ground. There was no sign of Brown, and a tinge of worry washed over me.

  “You think Doc’s all right?” I asked Funkhouser as we walked together.

  Funkhouser grinned at me. “I hope not,” he said.

  I chuckled, but my concern remained the same until Funkhouser pointed a finger at the latrine. I glanced back and saw Doc upright, slipping and splashing as he tried to exit the john. He fell and ended up on his butt in the stream of water running out the door.

  Funkhouser laughed. “He who laughs last, laughs best!”

  The other men looked back at Doc in the water and joined in the laughter. I cracked up, too, but I wondered what Doc would do in retaliation.

  “The last laugh could still be Doc Brown’s,” I warned my roommate as we entered the chow hall.

  “Well,” said Funkhouser, “he’ll have to come up with something pretty quick ’cause my tour is over in three weeks, you know.”

  The truth of Funky’s statement smacked me hard: this tour of Vietnam would be finished in twenty-one days for all the guys of Foxtrot Platoon except Martin and me. When everyone else left, the two of us would be assigned to Bravo Platoon for four weeks of an extended tour. I knew this would be a tough transition for me. I’d trained so long with one platoon, and we’d gone through hell together, and we knew each other so well. Accepting a bunch of inexperienced and shell-shocked guys with a different type of leadership might be hard, especially when I was so close to getting out of here. The fact that I may never see some of my current teammates again saddened me. Many of them had been like brothers to me, and soon I would have to give them up to go their separate ways in life. I just hoped I wouldn’t have to give any more of them up to death during the final three weeks.

  Funkhouser and I had the cooks stack plenty of pancakes and sausages on our plates, then we sat down with Dicey and Moses to eat. A minute later, Mr. Meston entered the chow hall and approached our table.

  “Good morning,” he greeted us. We greeted him back. He looked at Moses and Dicey and said, “Just wanted to tell you two that I’m recommending you both for a Bronze Star for yesterday’s action.”

  I looked at Moses and Dicey, who glanced at each other, then they looked at Mr. Meston.

  “Thank you, sir,” piped up Dicey.

  “You did what had to be done, and you did it well,” the lieutenant said before excusing himself and walking away.

  Dicey gave Moses a poke in the ribs. “Hear that, Mo? A Bronze Star!”

  Moses calmly took a bite out of a sausage. “It beats the hell out of a bronze tombstone, doesn’t it?” he said while chewing, showing no emotion.

  The mention of a tombstone subdued everyone, as we were all well aware that Frank Antone’s reward for serving his country would be a posthumous Purple Heart and a nice grave marker. For the next couple of minutes, we ate in silence.

  Finally, Funkhouser changed the mood at our table by bringing up Doc Brown. “You know, we should get McCollum to write a song about Doc floating on his bed in the wild waters of the latrine.”

  I chuckled. “That’s a good idea. We could sing it with some Christmas songs tomorrow.”

  “McCollum’s over there at that far table,” Dicey informed me, pointing with his thumb in the general direction.

  “I’ll go ask him,” I said, sliding my chair away from the table and standing up. I walked to McCollum’s
side and asked him for a minute of his time. Taking him several feet away from the others at his table, I told him about our proposal. He agreed to write a song just as Doc Brown entered the chow hall.

  “Speak of the devil,” whispered Muck, nodding at Doc. We walked back to our respective tables while Doc loaded up a tray full of food.

  “Where do you think he’ll sit?” Dicey wondered aloud. His question was answered a half minute later when Doc selected an empty table in a corner of the hall.

  “I should ask him how he liked his morning swim,” giggled Funkhouser, winking at me.

  I shook my head. “No way. Let him cool off until McCollum sings about his escapade tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” said Dicey, “he might even laugh with us by then.”

  Funkhouser smirked. “Or fight with us.”

  “Whatever,” I said, smiling. “Time will tell.”

  Time dragged the rest of the day. I spent the hours reading the Stars and Stripes, working on my gear, and wishing I were home for Christmas with my parents. Being stuck on a base without family on special days gave me a real empty feeling. Every tick of the clock seemed to get slower and slower, making me almost believe that some powerful demon was working me over to make the passage of time as painful as possible. I was unable to think about the meaning of Christmas at all as I dwelled on my loneliness.

  I decided to escape the blues through the bottle. At 1630 hours I went to the club to drink a couple beers before supper. Martin and some of the MST guys were there, and several rounds were bought for me. I drank and drank and never made it to the chow hall; instead, I got drunk along with everyone else.

  Around 2230 hours, my drinking buddies and I were kicked out of the club, so we took the band with us back to the SEAL barracks. The band played and we sang Christmas songs that I hadn’t sung since I was a boy. Some of the guys jumped around and clapped their hands like kindergarten kids. There were no parents, no wives, no relatives to hug, but plenty of brothers.

  At 2400 hours, the party ended. I made my way to the chow hall, where a priest was conducting Mass. I sat in a chair in the back, behind a couple dozen other men in attendance. The priest was speaking, but I was in no shape to absorb much of what he was saying. My head hurt too much. And yet, I was there, and that was enough for me on this special occasion. To be in a place where God was spoken of—that was important to me that night. Why? Because I knew there had to be a God. I ran away from Him most of the time, but tonight I needed to be near Him. Or at least hear about Him. For me, that had always been a part of my family’s Christmas. So, I sat and tried to listen, failing for the most part but trying, nevertheless.

  When the service concluded, I outran sleep to my bed, but just barely. My head hit the pillow and that was that.

  When I awoke at 0730 hours on Christmas morning, the hurt in my head was so sharp that I considered downing a bottle of whiskey to kill the pain. My better judgment stopped me, however, and I downed three aspirins instead.

  I made my way to the chow hall and ate breakfast, all the while wishing I could pour the bowl of thick oatmeal into my brain to act as a buffer against the banging going on inside. Every time I closed my eyes for a few seconds, I could see a miniature man running around in my skull wielding a sledgehammer. And there was no way for me to ambush the little devil and cut him down. My training, extensive though it had been, had offered no course of action on handling hangover situations, so I had to rely solely on my years of frontline experience.

  I returned to my cubicle with a towel wrapped around a dozen ice cubes. After swallowing another aspirin, I flopped into bed and lay on my back, then draped the cold portion of the towel across my forehead. As the cubes gradually melted and the towel got wetter, the pounding lessened, and I fell asleep.

  At 1115 hours, I woke up to the faint sound of singing and laughing. My towel had slid off my face, but my pillow was soaked with water. Feeling well, I sat up. I closed my eyes for several seconds, and there was no man or hammering. Only the singing.

  I crawled out of bed and started walking toward the noise, which led me out of the barracks to a large mound of sand. A half dozen of my teammates were sitting on the mound, drinking beer and singing Christmas carols to the PBR sailors as they walked by. McCollum saw me approaching and called out to me.

  “Smitty! I’ve been wonderin’ when you’d get here!”

  I walked up to him and took a seat in the sand beside him.

  “What are you guys doin’?” I asked.

  McCollum grinned at me. “We’re bringin’ Christmas cheer to the whole damn base! ‘Jingle Bells,’ ‘Deck the Halls,’ ‘Joy to the World.’ You name it, we do it!”

  I chuckled. “How ’bout ‘Doc Brown’s Christmas Swim’? Can you do that one?”

  “Absolutely!” McCollum reached back to his rear pants pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He smiled at me as he opened it up. He got everyone’s attention, then announced that he was going to sing a solo, but he wanted all of us to sing the song’s chorus as we caught on to it.

  He began to the tune of “Jingle Bells”:

  “Doc Brown went to bed,

  too much liquor in his head,

  and when he went to sleep,

  his sleep was very deep.

  And when the morning came,

  nothing was the same,

  ’cause when he opened up his eyes

  he got a big surprise.

  Oh, on his bed

  in the head,

  floating on the floor.

  Oh, what fun it is to ride

  a mattress in the war!

  On his bed

  in the head

  in water from the sink.

  Next time he’ll float a sampan,

  pretending he’s a dink!”

  As McCollum finished the chorus, the rest of us cracked up. McCollum grinned at me and kept singing. After two more verses, we were all joining in on the chorus, singing as loudly as we could. When the song was over, we had Muck take us through the whole thing again. I was amazed at how good we sounded as we put down Doc Brown one last time. But it was all in fun. Doc had had his with his needle; now we had fun with ours.

  I sang some Christmas carols with the men for another hour, drinking only one beer because I was tired of the effect alcohol had had on me lately. Then I ate lunch before going back to my cubicle to read and to write my parents. The letter was quite melancholic, as I wished I could be at home for Christmas.

  At 1500 hours, I gathered with all of the SEALs on the base for religious rites for Frank Antone and the VN who had been killed. As the priest said what he gets paid to say at a funeral, I thought about Antone’s parents back in the States. I knew how proud they must have been when their son had become a SEAL, just the way my parents had been proud. I knew how they’d prayed every day for their son’s safety, just as my parents had prayed. I knew they were in for a terrible shock when they were told about their son’s death. And I wondered how their Christmas Day was going.

  By way of contrast, I realized that my Christmas was going pretty well. Even though Santa Claus hadn’t made a personal appearance to deliver a gift to me, God had. He had dropped a helicopter down from the heavens in the Saint Nick of time and had given me life.

  “Merry Christmas, you lucky bum,” I said to myself. And the priest up front said, “Amen.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Mission Twenty-eight

  “Human blood is heavy; the man that has shed it cannot run away.”

  African Proverb

  DATE: 28, 29 December 1967

  TIME: 281900H to 290500H

  UNITS INVOLVED: PBR, Foxtrot 1

  TASK: Overnight river ambush

  METHOD OF INSERTION: PBR

  METHOD OF EXTRACTION: PBR

  TERRAIN: Nipa palm, partly defoliated

  TIDE: 1900-8.5 feet, 0045-12.8 feet, 0800-2.6 feet

  WEATHER: Clear

  SEAL TEAM PERSONNEL:

  Lt. Mes
ton, Patrol Leader/Rifleman, M-16

  RM2 Smith, Point/Rifleman, M-16/XM-148

  MM2 Funkhouser, Automatic Weapons/Stoner

  BT2 McCollum, Ordnance/Grenadier, M-79

  HM2 Brown, Corpsman/Radioman/Rifleman, M-16

  LDNN Ty, Rifleman, M-16

  AZIMUTHS: 270 degrees-20m

  ESCAPE: 090 degrees

  CODE WORDS: Insert-Canada, Ambush Site-America, Extract-Mexico, Challenge and Reply—Two numbers total 10

  Three days later, my squad inserted at dusk on a barren, exposed point on the Tac Ong Nghia. I didn’t like that at all, as spotting us under those conditions would be easy for the enemy if he was anywhere nearby. The VC could lob in an 82mm mortar HE round while we were setting up our ambush site and wipe us off the face of the earth. Surely, Mr. Meston and my teammates must have recognized the possibility, too. It made me angry that we were being so casual about insertion so close to the end of our tour. If anything, we should have been more clandestine than ever. I’d have thought Antone’s death would’ve strongly reinforced this.

  There were only six of us on the mission: Mr. Meston, Funkhouser, McCollum, Brown, Ty, and me. I took the point and guided us a mere sixty meters to our predetermined position on the Tac Ong Nghia where the mouth of a stream entered the river. It was at this intersection of waterways that we would spend the night on ambush.

  Mr. Meston had three men and himself spread out along the main riverbank, while Ty and I took places on the bank of the smaller stream. Altogether, we were stretched out over fifty meters with Ty and me on the right flank about fifty feet from Funkhouser. After giving Ty the end of my parachute suspension line for communication purposes, I moved fifteen feet to his right, stringing out the line as I went. Then I selected a little hump of dry ground for my seat and sat down.

  Right away, I noticed how quiet it was. Not even the usual drone of mosquitos was evident, making for a beautiful end to the day. The sky added to my pleasure, projecting red and pink above the horizon where the sun had hidden its face.