Uncle Sam
Ain’t Released Me Yet
Memoirs of a REMF
Copyright©
2016 by Robert B. Martin, IV
All
Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express
written permission from the copyright owner, except for the use of brief
quotations in a book review or scholarly journal. I have attempted to recreate
events, locales, and conversations from my memories of them.
------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 32
Mountain Driving
“Most of American life consists of driving somewhere and when
returning home, wondering why the hell you went.” ....................John
Updike
1SG Driver sometimes had me
sign-out a jeep from the motor pool and drive him to various places on the Sunday
afternoons he wasn’t spending with his Vietnamese mistress and her kids. This
became more common as I gained more time-in-country and rose in rank. One or
two Sundays each month I drove the 1SG and a couple of his senior NCO buddies to
Danang. Danang was on the coast of the South China Sea, about fifty-five
miles southeast of Camp Eagle on QL-1. Danang
was the home of a large Air Force base, a deep-water port for the Navy, and
home to a large contingent of Marines.
Our destination in Danang was always the Senior NCO club on
the airbase. The Air Force club was housed in an air-conditioned brick building
and nicely decorated with a large bar. It was difficult to believe that you had
not been magically teleported to a club back in the World. The only clue that
we were not in the states was probably the presence of Vietnamese waitresses
wearing the traditional ao dai.
It was a beautiful drive to
Danang. The highway, with its switchbacks
and S-curves, wound through the mountains from sea level to the Hai Van pass at an elevation of 3,848
feet. The highway was lined with cliff walls on one side and steep drop offs
without guardrails on the other. From the top of the pass you could see Danang and the sparkling waters of the South
China Sea and the Gulf of Tonkin. There were miles of beautiful sandy beaches. Like
Cam Ranh Bay, Danang would have been a tropical paradise if located anywhere
except Vietnam.
Although the view was
exceptional, the fourteen-mile stretch of highway through the mountains was
known as “Snipers’ Alley.” It wasn’t wise to drive too slow or to stop and
enjoy the scenery. The curvy route was driven as fast as safely possible so as
not to make an easy target. No stopping was allowed and the highway was patrolled
by MPs who cited anyone found stopping their vehicle on the highway without a
good reason.
One of the Sundays that I
drove 1SG Driver and his buddies to Danang
we got a surprise. We had reached the mountains and were sliding the jeep
around the switch-backs on the way up to the Hai Van pass when suddenly I had to stand on the brakes. An armed South
Vietnamese soldier was standing in the highway with his palm extended outward
in the universal signal to stop. A group of armed soldiers stood in the highway
behind him. They were laying out dead bodies on the side of the highway. These
were VC that had just been killed in a firefight with the ARVN troops. I was
really happy that we had not left Camp Eagle any earlier or we might have been in
time for the fight. We didn’t stop and gawk. The First Sergeant told me to keep
moving so we just slowed down, waved, and drove around them. They stared back
but didn’t wave. We were always a bit wary of the ARVN troops.
When we arrived at the
Senior NCO Club, we checked our weapons, just like in the “Wild West” saloons,
before being seated. This was the only place I was allowed to drink liquor.
Back at Camp Eagle it was beer only for my rank. Being a “guest” of the First
Sergeant in the Senior NCO Club had its privileges. However, I couldn’t afford
to abuse this privilege, as I had to drive back to Camp Eagle along those same
mountain roads. We could only stay a few hours because we had to be back inside
the wire at Camp Eagle by evening chow. We didn’t run across any more ARVN
patrols on the return trip.
On the way back to Camp
Eagle was a small house beside the highway; actually it was more of a hut. A “Hut
of Ill Repute,” a place that 1SG Driver and the other senior NCO’s liked to
visit. Since it was against regulations to stop and park along QL-1, not to
mention visiting this place of business, I would stop the jeep quickly in front
of the hut and my passengers would jump out and run inside as I drove off down
the highway. After about ten miles or so I would turn around and drive back to
the hut. If they weren’t standing in the doorway I continued on past for
another few miles before turning around again and going back to the hut. I
would continue making these laps up and down the highway until one of the
sergeants flagged me down. I would slow the jeep to a crawl as they ran from
the hut and jumped back into the jeep. Then we would continue on to Camp Eagle.
I did not have the opportunity, or the desire, to visit the hut. I didn’t care
much for black teeth (chewing “beetle nut” was common among the locals and
stained the tooth enamel such a dark red that the teeth appeared to be black)
and I certainly didn’t want to spend the rest of my life on that South Pacific
island with some incurable venereal disease!
One of the sergeants told
me the hut had only two rooms. The “girl” was in the back room and her parents
were in the front room. The “customers” paid the parents before going to the
back room one at a time. I suppose when you weren’t in the back room you were sitting
with the parents in the front room. I thought that was disgusting.
Continued in Chapter 33, Military INJustice…
No comments :
Post a Comment