Gustav Hasford - The Short-Timers

There is a popular sea story which says that old Victor Charlie mamasans sell Cokes with ground-up glass in them. Drinking, we wonder if that's true.

Two Dusters, light tanks with twin 40mm guns, grind by. The men in the Dusters ignore our thumbs.

An hour later a Mighty Mite zooms by at eighty miles an hour, the maximum speed of the little jeep. No luck.

Then a convoy of six-bys appears, led by two M-48 Patton tanks. Thirty big trucks roar by at full speed. Two more Patton tanks are riding security at tail-end Charlie.

The first tank speeds up as it passes us.

The second tank slows down, bucks, jerks to a halt. In the turret is a blond tank commander who is not wearing a helmet or a shirt. He waves us on. We put on our flak jackets. We pick up our gear and swing it up onto the tank. Then Rafter Man and I climb up onto a block of hot, vibrating metal.

Down in a hatch by our feet is the driver. His head protrudes just enough for him to see; his hands are on the controls. The driver jerks the wobble stick and the tank lurches forward, bouncing, grinding, faster and faster and faster. The roar of an eight-hundred-horsepower diesel engine accelerates to a rhythmic rumble of mechanical power.

Rafter Man and I fall back against the hot turret. We are hanging onto the long ninety-millimeter gun like monkeys. The cool air of speed is delicious after hours in Viet Nam's one-hundred-and-twenty- degree yellow furnace. Our sweat-soaked shirts are cold. Flashing by: Vietnamese hootches, ponds with white ducks in them, circular graves with chipped and faded paint, and endless shimmering pieces of emerald water newly planted with rice.

It's a wonderful day. I'm so happy that I am alive, in one piece, and short. I'm in a world of shit, yes, but I am alive. And I am not afraid. Riding the tank gives me a thrilling sense of power and well-being. Who dares to shoot at the man who rides the tiger?

It's a beautiful tank. Painted on the long barrel: BLACK FLAG-- We Exterminate Household Pests . Flying on a radio antenna, a ragged Confederate flag. Military vehicles are beautiful because they are built from functional designs which make them real, solid, without artifice. The tank possesses the beauty of its hard lines; it is fifty tons of rolling armor on tracks like steel watchbands. The tank is our protection, rolling on and on forever, clanking out the dark mechanical poetry of iron and guns.

Suddenly the tank shifts to the left. Rafter Man and I are thrown hard into the turret. Metal grinds metal. The tank hits a bump, shifting sharply to the right and jerking to a halt, throwing us forward. Rafter Man and I hang onto the gun and say, "Son-of-a-bitch..."

The blond tank commander climbs out of the turret hatch and jumps off the back of the tank.

The tank driver has run the tank off the road.

Fifty yards back a water buffalo is down on its back, legs out straight. The water bo bellows, tosses its curved horns. On the deck, in the center of the road, I see a tiny body, facedown.

Chattering Vietnamese civilians pour out of the roadside hootches, staring and pointing. The Vietnamese civilians crowd around to see how their American saviors have crushed the guts out of a child.

The blond tank commander speaks to the Vietnamese civilians in French. Then, walking back to the tanks, the blond tank commander is pursued by an ancient papasan . There are tears in the papasan's eyes. The withered old man shakes his bony little fists and throws Asian curses at the tank commander's back. The Vietnamese civilians grow silent. Another child is dead, and, although it is very sad and painful, they accept it.

The blond tank commander climbs up onto his tank and reinserts his legs into the turret hatch. "Iron Man, you fucking shitbird. You will drive this machine like it's a tank and not a goddamn sports car. You hit that little girl, you blind idiot. Hell, I could see her through the fucking vision blocks. She was standing on that water bo's back..."

The driver turns, his face hard. "I didn't see them, skipper. What do they think they're doing, crossing in front of me like that? Don't these zipperheads know that tanks got the right-of-way?" The driver's face is coated with a thin film of oil and sweat; iron has entered into his soul and he has become a component of the tank, sweating oil to lubricate its meshing gears.

The blond tank commander says, "You fuck up one more time, Iron Man, and you will be a grunt."

The driver turns back to the front. "Aye-aye, sir. I'll watch the road, Lieutenant."

Rafter Man asks, "Sir, did we kill that girl? Why was that old man yelling at you?" Rafter Man looks sick.

The blond tank commander takes a green ballpoint pen and little green notebook out of his hip pocket. He writes something in the notebook. "The little girl's grandfather? He was yelling about how he needs his water bo. He wants a condolence award. He wants us to pay him for the water bo."

Rafter Man doesn't say anything.

The blond tank commander yells at Iron Man: "Drive, you blind son-of-a-bitch."

And the tank rolls on.

On the outskirts of Hue, the ancient Imperial Capital, we see the first sign of the battle--a cathedral, centuries old, now a bullet-peppered box of ruined stone, roof caved in, walls punctured by shells.

Entering Hue, the third largest city in Viet Nam, is a strange new experience. Our was has been in the paddies, in hamlets where the largest structure was a bamboo hut. Seeing the effects of war upon a Vietnamese city makes me feel like a New Guy.

The weather is dreary but the city is beautiful. Hue has been beautiful for so long that not even war and bad weather can make it ugly.

Empty streets. Every building in Hue has been hit with some kind of ordnance. The ground is still wet from last night's rain. The air is cool. The whole city is enveloped in a white mist. The sun is going down.

We roll past a tank which has been gutted by B-40 rocket-propelled grenades. On the barrel of the shattered ninety-millimeter gun: BLACK FLAG.

Fifty yards down the road we pass two wasted six-bys. One of the big trucks has been knocked onto its side. The cab of the truck is a broken mass of jagged, twisted steel. The second six-by has burned and is only a skeleton of black iron. The windshields of both trucks have been strung with bright necklaces of bullet holes.

As we roll past Quoc Hoc High School I punch Rafter Man on the arm. "Ho Chi Minh went there," I say. "I wonder if Uncle Ho played varsity basketball. I wonder who Uncle Ho took to the senior prom."

Rafter Man grins.

Shots pop, far away. Single rounds. Short bursts of automatic weapons. The fighting has stopped, for the moment. The shots we hear are just some grunt trying to get lucky.

Near the University of Hue the tank grinds to a halt and Rafter Man and I hop off. The University of Hue is now a collection point for refugees on their way to Phu Bai. Whole families with all of their possessions have occupied the classrooms and corridors since the battle began. The refugees are too tired to run anymore. The refugees look cold and drained the way you look after death sits on your face and smothers you for so long that you get tired of screaming. Outside, the women cook pots of rice. All over the deck there are piles of human shit.

We wave good-bye to the blond tank commander and his tank grumbles and rolls away. The tank's steel cleats crush some bricks which have been thrown into the street by explosions.

Rafter Man and I stare across the River of Perfumes. We stare at the Citadel. The river is ugly. The river is muddy. The steel suspension bridge--The Bridge of the Golden Waters--is down, blown by enemy frogmen. Torn girders jut out of the dark water like the broken bones of a sea serpent.