Young Man In Vietnam Part 10

You smile at the circular and laugh and go into the bar, thinking how much better limes make a gin-and-tonic taste.

17 THE PROMISE.

Some promises can be broken. You know when they're made they will never be kept and as long as you know it, it doesn't matter so much when you don't keep them. The hard ones are those you don't make out loud - the ones you make to yourself. You can delay these promises; you can tell yourself that they don't count because no one else knows; you can even pretend you never made them. But in the end you have to keep them. You do it because you know if you don't they will keep coming back in various ways and reminding you they are unfulfilled. And you fulfill them because you have to and you want to and that's why you made them in the first place. Most of them are unpleasant. And the most unpleasant of all is the promise you made yourself to visit Gunny Mac's widow when you returned to California.

You are scheduled to catch a flight to New York later in the day. It will be your first time to see your family and friends on the East Coast since you went to Vietnam over a year before. You like to travel by airplane. Even though you have flown dozens of times, you still get a thrill when you realize the plane's wheels have left the runway and you are airborne. There is an excitement too about an airport. You like the bustle and activity - travelers departing and waiting and arriving, farewells and greetings - even if you have a long wait for a plane. But today in your car on the way to Gunny Mac's widow you don't think about the airport, or your flight, or your family and friends. Today you think about the Gunny and Vietnam. And you think about what you have to do.

It's easy to find the house. It's a small, brick ranch house standing on a corner. The gra.s.s needs mowing and the front gate swings loosely on its hinges - moving slightly as the breeze directs. You know it is the place the first time you drive by because you can read the name on the mailbox. But you tell yourself that you have to check - you have to make sure. So you drive by again.

You pull the car up to the curb about a hundred meters from the driveway and sit there, trying to think about what you will say. You want to rehea.r.s.e it so you won't say anything to upset his family.

You take a pad and pencil from the seat next to you and begin to write down what you think you ought to say. Nothing seems right and in a few minutes the paper is filled with scratched-out phrases and half-finished sentences. You put the pad down and light a cigarette and stare at the house.

You begin to think about the day the Gunny was killed and you try to force it out of your mind. You remember how hot it was and how thirsty you were and what a bad time you were having from the enemy. The Gunny knew it too and he knew that the Viet Cong machine guns had to be knocked out. You remember how loud the firing sounded and how everything became so very still for you when you saw the bullet hit the Gunny's face. The firing hadn't stopped, of course, as you thought for a moment then. At least the firing hadn't stopped for you.

You are suddenly very thirsty and you decide to get something to drink before you pay your respects. You see a coffee shop down the street and you start the car and drive to it.

You order a cup of coffee and sit at the counter, still trying to find the right words. You are the only customer and the waiter keeps talking to you, but you don't really listen to him. You hear just enough to nod at the right time and mumble an occasional yes or no. Your thoughts are elsewhere - until the man asks if you heard what happened to the Marine's widow down the street.

You tell him that you haven't and he shakes his head and leans forward on the counter as if he were going to whisper a confidence to you. You smell the coffee in your cup and the weaker smell of stale grease and day-old pastries in the display case along the counter. You look very hard at a smudged fingerprint on the gla.s.s in front of you, but your ears are carefully tuned to the man and what he is saying.

"Poor woman," he says very slowly. "Guess she was so upset by her husband getting killed and all that she didn't know what she was doing." He shakes his head again.

"What did she do?"

" 'Course, I probably would have wanted to know too. Can't say as I blame her for it. Still, it must have been bad for the kids."

"I still didn't catch what it was she did."

"Gettin' a closed casket and all. I guess she wanted to make sure. They say her husband had been in a lot of wars - he was a Marine, you know - and they're always making mistakes. Must have been rough, though."

You feel a chill of excitement and you s.h.i.+ver. You know what the bullet did to the Gunny's head. You know you couldn't have identified him if you hadn't seen him hit.

"She opened the casket?" you ask - not wanting to hear the answer.

"She sure did. Right there at the wake with the kids and all looking on. I guess it got so bad for her that she just had to know. Must have been bad, though."

You knock on the door and when the Gunny's widow answers you introduce yourself. She asks you in. You tell her that you can only stay for a few minutes - that you have to catch a plane. You stare at the drapes as you talk with her. They are very dusty. Everything you say seems to have no meaning. The words are cliches. But you say them because you have to and she doesn't seem to mind that they have all been said before and probably better said at that. She apologizes that her children aren't there to meet you, and you say that you would have liked to meet them too. She offers you a cup of coffee, but you tell her that you really have to go. She nods and says that she understands.

At the door she thanks you for coming. You ask her if there is anything you can do. She replies that everything has been well taken care of. You tell her again how very sorry you are and suddenly you become disgusted with the words. They seem empty and hollow and only likely to stir up old feelings of the dread and agony of irremediable loss. She seems to know what you are thinking and as you turn to go she tells you that the words don't matter, that your coming would have pleased the Gunny very much, and that he often spoke of you in his letters. She says the Gunny always felt he could turn you into a pretty good Marine if he had more time to train you. You laugh and thank her and walk through the gate to your car parked down the street. You hurry because you feel your eyes growing wet and you don't want anyone to see.

You're glad that it's done. But you're glad that you came. It was one of those promises you had to keep. In the car on the way to the airport you begin to think about your flight home.

18 THE PARADE.

The small white sentry post that guards the main gate at Camp Pendleton squats in the middle of the road. Cars approaching it from either direction must stop there unless they have a base sticker. You have never been to the base as a civilian and from force of habit you almost drive through without stopping. But you are a civilian now and you stop your car and ask the sentry for a guest pa.s.s. You half expect a salute and when it doesn't come you feel a twinge of disappointment. The sentry gives you a pa.s.s and waves you through.

It is spring in California and it has been drizzling for several days. The rain has turned the foliage a bright green and you think how pretty it is now and how brown and burnt and ugly it will become when the summer sun has baked the base for a few weeks.

Ahead of you on the road you can see two columns of men - one on each side of the road - and you slow your car as you approach them. They are an infantry battalion and they're strung out along the road for half a mile. The men look quite tired and the officers and staff are running up and down the columns shouting encouragement and prodding the slow and the lazy.

"Close it up, Spencer. I want you people a.s.shole to belly b.u.t.ton when we go home."

"Close it up, d.a.m.n it! You look like doggies."

"Coin' home, men. Get them packs squared away. Look like Marines!"

You smile in spite of yourself and you're glad you are riding. You had your days of walking. You look hard at the men as you pa.s.s through their ranks to see if you recognize any of them. Their equipment looks brand-new, and you guess they have just received a fresh issue and are getting ready to go overseas. You don't recognize any of them and you begin to speed up as you clear their ranks. You watch the men fade in your rearview mirror and become smaller. Soon their uniforms and packs and cartridge belts match the green foliage by the side of the road, and you can only tell there are men there by the movements. You look up at a sign indicating the start of Basilone Road and when you check the mirror again you can't see the men anymore.

You turn onto Basilone Road. It was named for Machine Gun John Basilone - a Marine hero in World War II. You wonder what it was like fighting in the islands in the South Pacific and you wonder if it was much different from Vietnam. You slow the car down as you pa.s.s Camp Santa Margarita.

You got a ticket here once for speeding and you instinctively check your speedometer. You decide that you're well within the speed limit and you begin to pick up speed again. It isn't raining now and although the sun hasn't forced its way through the overcast there is a sharp glare on the road. You take a pair of sungla.s.ses from the glove compartment. They are dirty and you hold the wheel with one hand and wipe them on your sleeve before you put them on.

As you enter the area where the Marine Corps trains the graduates of its boot camps in the ways of modern combat, you think back to a regimental problem you had here. And you think about how pleased you were when some of your men - led by Gunny Mac - captured the aggressors' commanding officer.

It is still lunchtime at the ITR (Infantry Training Regiment). You have a few minutes before your appointment at Camp San Mateo and you stop the car near the mess hall and watch the drill sergeants marching their men to and from chow. The singsong cadences and rhythmic commands are old to your ears and you recognize them all. But you know how strange they must seem to these young Marines. You watch and laugh to yourself as one Marine after another gets out of step or makes a wrong turn. They too will learn, you think.

You get out of the car and walk across the parade deck to where a sergeant is holding a cla.s.s on the hand grenade. He is a tall, well-built young Negro and at first you think you recognize him, but you don't and you lean against a tree and listen.

"This grenade," he points to it, "has a burst radius of twenty meters. When you people throw it, you had better throw it far enough so you don't kill yourself or anybody else. The Marine Corps doesn't have money enough to keep building monuments to unknown soldiers and if you don't wing this thing far enough, that's just what you're going to be." He strips the protective tape from the body of the grenade. "To throw it all you got to do is pull the pin, let the handle fly off, count to three, and let it go." He pulls out the safety pin and lets the spoon fly free. It sails over the front row of troops with a metallic whine. The sergeant counts to three and then tosses the grenade into the stunned Marines. There is a brief scramble as the front row tries to get out of the way. The grenade explodes with a sharp crack and belches a thick cloud of black smoke. Those men in the back, who hadn't moved, begin to laugh. The others do too when they realize that it was only a practice grenade.

The instructor retrieves the still-smoking sh.e.l.l and looks at the troops.

"This was only a joke - for practice. The ones you're going to throw this afternoon are real. And you better not forget it."

He continues his lecture, explaining how the grenade works and why you have to let the spoon fly free. You hear his voice grow weaker as you walk back to your car. It is about five miles to Camp San Mateo and you don't want to be late.

They don't give everyone a parade when he retires. If you have served for thirty years you can have one, but there aren't many thirty-year men around anymore. Thirty years is a long time and thirty years cover a lot of wars. War is the Marine Corps' business and to succeed in the business for that long you need many things - courage, skill, training, a sense of humor. And luck. Your old company's first sergeant has succeeded and this afternoon on the parade deck at Camp San Mateo - with the division CO there and the division band playing - he will retire. He will have a parade.

He will wear his dress blue uniform and he will stand alone in the reviewing stand and take the salute of the rifle companies as they pa.s.s in review. He will look good in his uniform because it is a proud uniform and "the Top" is a proud man. The medals on his chest represent three wars and some of those smaller actions that attract no press notices and only seem to be measured in the grief of people back home. He will look good because he represents all the men he has known and fought with over those years. And he will look good to you because he is your friend.

You arrive early. You don't want to see "the Top" before the parade. It's his day and you can see him afterward.

You find a parking s.p.a.ce and walk over to your old company office. Your outfit has long since departed, and there is a new unit designation nailed to the door. You open the door and look inside. A clerk looks up from his typing and asks if there is anything he can do for you. You shake your head and tell him that this was your old office and that you are back to watch a parade honoring your first sergeant at his retirement. The clerk laughs and says that the first sergeant stopped by just a few minutes before.

You were to meet another officer who knew "the Top" and who had been overseas with you, but there is no sign of him yet. You walk out to the parade deck and watch the band getting their instruments ready and warming up. You have never cared very much for parades. You used to have a formal guard mount with a drum and bugle team every Friday at the NCO Leaders.h.i.+p School. You guess you have seen too many and that they no longer have any meaning.

You hear a shout from across the parade deck and when you look up you see the officer you were to meet and another friend from overseas walking toward you.

"Jesus Christ! It's a regular old home week."

"Yeah, we even got Jack to come down from Laguna Beach."

"What's the matter, no surf today?"

"Couldn't miss this one."