War Year Read Free

do this all the time?”
    â€œNah—for one thing, there’s no liquor out in the boonies. Even if there was, Smitty wouldn’t get drunk. Not too many people would. Everybody depends on everybody else.”
    â€œBut Smitty’s on vacation—he’s headed for Bangkok for R & R.”
    â€œR and R?”
    â€œYeah, rest and recreation—didn’t they tell you about that? After you’ve been in Vietnam long enough, you get a week’s vacation. Bangkok, Hawaii, Australia—there’s a couple of dozen places you can go. Can’t go back to the world, though. Guess they’re afraid you’ll stay.”
    We sat for a minute without saying anything. “Shakey, if you don’t mind me asking—why do they call you that?”
    â€œGood reason. The first fuckin’ day I was out with the company, they ran into an ambush, lost thirty men. I didn’t see how anybody could live through a week of that, let alone a year. Things are pretty cool most of the time, everybody told me, but I couldn’t make myself believe it. I was pretty shook for a month or two.”
    He took out a pipe and started loading it with tobacco. “I learned, though. Doesn’t pay to sweat it. You’ll either make it or you won’t. Most people do make it.”
    He lit the pipe. The warm sweet smoke reminded me of my father. “I’ve been kind of hoping they’d make me a clerk,” I said. “I took typing in high school; passed the army typing test.”
    â€œWouldn’t bet on it. What’s your MOS?”
    Yeah, that was the bad part. My MOS, Military Occupational Specialty. “Combat Engineer.”
    â€œHmmm…you might wind up in our outfit, at that. But I don’t think they’ll make you a clerk. Hell, we’ve got a college graduate out there humpin’ the boonies with us.”
    â€œHumpin’ the boonies?”
    â€œMan, don’t you know anything? Humpin’ the boonies—that’s what you’ll probably be doing the next twelve months. You put a monster pack on your back, a gun in one hand and a shovel in the other, and you go out in the woods—the boondocks, man, the boonies—lookin’ for trouble. Find it, too, sooner or later.”
    â€œReally bad, then?” and he was talking about Smitty scaring me.
    â€œOh, I dunno.” He smiled. “I got through a whole year of it without a single scratch.”
    â€œWhat, you’re headed home?”
    â€œThat’s right, man, I’m a real short-timer. Really short. Two more days and I get on that bird and kiss this hole goodbye. You might even be my replacement.”
    â€œThat’d be funny.”
    â€œNo, happens all the time. You figure everybody goin’ to Pleiku spends a week here at Cam Ranh Bay first, and everybody leavin’ has to hang around here for a week… a guy’s replacement almost has to be here when he’s checkin’ out. Just a question of running into him.”
    â€œYou ever meet the guy you replaced?”
    â€œNah.” Shakey drank the rest of his beer in one gulp and set the empty can down carefully. “He went home in a box.”
    â€œSorry; I…”
    â€œDon’t be—get sorry over strangers dying and you’ll spend the rest of your life being sorry.” He relit his pipe and stood up. “Well, better go check on Smitty. Take it easy, Tex. Hope you have half the luck I did.”
    â€œHave a good trip home.” Kind of a dumb thing to say.
    â€œNo such thing as a bad trip home.” He gave me a peace sign and walked out the door.
    Going home in a box, I had to think, would be a bad trip home.
    I stuck a beer under my shirt—you aren’t supposed to take them out of the club—and walked out into the cool night. I swear the temperature here must drop fifty degrees when the sun goes down. You can wake up cold and be frying by