Loon - Jack McLean [47]
Over the next several months, every free waking hour would be spent filling sandbags and fortifying the flimsy bunkers. Soon, our noncombat gear was trucked up from Dong Ha and life became progressively more bearable. Hard rock dirt beds were replaced by air mattresses; ponchos were supplemented by light, quilted blankets; and the food and goodies from home finally arrived.
The sun came out.
We wanted for little.
Early in our first week at the Washout, I came across a copy of Stars and Stripes, the daily military newspaper. Starved for news, I read every word off the page, digested the sports scores, and scanned the comics. A small news item buried in the corner of the third page caught my eye. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., the Yale University chaplain, had been indicted by a grand jury in Boston on the charge of conspiracy to encourage violations of the draft laws. The charges were the result of actions taken at a protest rally the previous October at the Lincoln Memorial. He was subsequently convicted of the charges.
William Sloane Coffin.
Holy shit.
An iconic New England Yankee, Coffin had been my uncle Sid Lamb’s Andover roommate. Coffin had gained increased notoriety both in the Episcopal Church and in the antiwar movement back home. Sid, not particularly religious, had enjoyed wondering with great humor what had happened during those Andover years to send Coffin off on such a celestial calling.
Any humor related to the Reverend William Sloane Coffin ceased the day I saw news of his indictment in the Stars and Stripes. Had it been someone else, it might not have caught my eye, but Coffin was so mainstream, so like my parents.
The antiwar drumbeats back home were increasing.
For the first time, we were beginning to feel them in the field.
17
WINTER AT THE WASHOUT PASSED IN RELATIVE TRANQUILITY.
On occasion we’d hear incoming and outgoing artillery from the nearby outposts of C-2 to our south and Con Thien to our north, but the NVA paid little attention to us. The bridge that we were protecting had become increasingly inconsequential when compared to the target-rich environments of our neighbors.
The lull in action brought subtle changes to our daily routines. Although patrols, listening posts, and ambushes went out daily, and watch schedules were maintained, we could feel ourselves growing slacker by the day as the combat action of the previous December 6 drifted into memory.
Our days were spent filling what seemed to be an endless number of sandbags. The bags were used to fortify our bunkers, reinforce the security of the ammo dump, and line the parapets of the trenches and mortar enclosures that were also being created.
Heads were dug and redug. With all of us in one place most of the time, we were running out of places to pee and shit. The heads were outhouses, often two-seaters, with sawed-off fifty-five-gallon drums under each hole. Once every day or two, a private or PFC would be assigned the unfortunate task of “burning the shitters.” This was accomplished by pulling the slopping drum from beneath the head, dousing it with kerosene, setting it on fire, and stirring it with a long stick for an hour or so.
Food came to us in two ways. Given the relative security of the Washout, one hot meal a day was trucked up from Dong Ha. Otherwise, all food came in the form of C rations. C rations were the constant in our lives—no surprises; we knew exactly what to expect days in advance. In an environment of uncertainty, where life itself could end in an instant, there was much to be said for this.
The uncontested worst meal ever thrown into a box was ham and lima beans—known affectionately as ham and motherfuckers, ham and mothers, or simply ham and moms. The only people on earth who seemed to like ham and moms were the Vietnamese. Perhaps they had developed a taste for it, as it was the one food that