Duc Pho Delivery

by B.K. Oldre

My name is Private James Larson. Everyone calls me Jim. I’d been left behind at the Duc Pho Basecamp's Ammo Section office that afternoon while everyone else was out on runs. I should have been out too, but I’d been busted in rank due to a speeding ticket, and the brass decided I shouldn’t drive for a while. So, I was hanging out and bullshiting with Johnny Bear. Or, I should say, I worked and listened to him bullshit. He was one of those guys who always seems to be missing when there was work to do. Smart, a little pudgy, with red, curly hair. He always had plenty to say.

Just then, the Lieutenant came in with orders to take six pallets of H.E., high explosives, up to a Firebase. Johnny and I were the only guys there, so we got stuck with the job. It was the middle of the afternoon by the time we went over to the ammo dump, gave the paperwork to those guys, and hung around while they loaded the pallets in the back of the deuce-and-a-half with a forklift. Naturally, Johnny got into a lengthy discussion of the pros and cons of Beatles versus The Rolling Stones or something equally meaningful, so it was getting late when I said, “Let’s go. Now!” And he finally stopped talking and hopped into the passenger seat.

We headed out and turned north on Highway 1. Johnny, who was supposed to be the navigator, was running his mouth instead of paying attention to what was going on around us. Suddenly, he gestured left towards a dirt road.

“Turn here. I think this is where we turn,” he said.

So I turned, and we started winding our way up the steep, deeply-rutted road towards the apex of the hill. We hit a bump; I heard a sliding sound and a crash. I checked the side-view mirror and my stomach lurched. One of the pallets had fallen out of the back of the truck and was lying behind us, on the road.

I parked and we jumped out of the truck, hanging onto our M16s, to assess the situation. One thing for sure, now that we could see the top of the hill, there definitely wasn’t a Firebase up there. So I knew we were on the wrong hill.

“What are we going to do?” Johnny asked.

“We’ve got to get it back on the truck,” I said.

“Can’t we leave it here, for now? Deliver the rest of the load and come back for it, later?”

“Are you nuts? Even if we could drive around it, which we can’t, it would be a court-martial offense to leave this ammunition lying around for the enemy.”

“But, how can we get it back on the truck?”

“That’s a good question.” I considered it.

They’d used a forklift to load the H.E. on. A pallet of thirty wooden crates, weighing close to seventy-five pounds each, was much too heavy for a bunch of guys. Much less one guy and a puff pastry in uniform. We had to take it apart. The problem was, these boxes were very solidly attached to the pallet with metal strapping. Even falling off the truck hadn’t shifted any of them.

“Is there a band cutter in the truck?” I asked.

“Not that I know of,” Johnny said, with a shrug.

“Well, go look!”

He mumbled something about outranking me, so why didn’t I go, but huffed off in the direction of the truck and started poking around while I examined the pallet from all sides. I pulled out a pocket knife and tried sawing away at one of the bands, it didn’t make a dent. What if we pulled apart the boxes? That might work. If we got a couple of them apart, we might be able to slip out the other boxes.

But it would take some time to dismantle even one of those wooden packing crates that were fastened with wire with nothing but a pocket knife. I checked the position of the sun. Soon it would dip behind the hill. The idea of being out here for hours, until after dark, was unsettling. We had to get to the Firebase before dark, and how would we find our way there in the dark? I certainly didn’t know where it was and clearly Johnny didn’t either.

He came back. “Nope, no band cutter in the truck.”

“Okay,” I said and raised my M16. I was a good shot, so I was sure I could shoot off a couple of the bands. I’d aim high, towards the edge of the boxes on the outside of the pallet. With two round cylinders in each box, there was dead space in the corners. I could shoot off the bands without damaging the cargo.

Although I didn’t want to attract attention by firing a weapon, we’d run out of options. And, our presence was already known. As we sat there on the side of that hill, we were in plain sight of the small village below. We’d gathered an audience. Some of the villagers stood in small groups and gestured in our direction as they talked. Any of them might be V.C.

Just then a Vietnamese man walked up the road towards us and shouted. I swung my weapon in his direction. He repeated what he was saying and raised his hands. “Friend, friend,” I think he said.

As he came closer, I saw that he was wearing an A.R.V.N. uniform, Army of the Republic of Vietnam. He was on our side. I turned back toward the pallet and raised my weapon again. The A.R.V.N. started yelling and waving his arms around. Then he held up his hands seeming to gesture, no, don’t do it. I lowered my weapon.

“What’s he saying?” I asked Johnny. “Do you have any idea what he’s saying?”

“Seems like he doesn’t want you to shoot.”

“Yeah, I figured that out,” I said.

The ARVN approached and started making cutting motions with his fingers and pointing down to the village and then to himself. “I go. You wait. Okay?” he said and repeated it several more times.

Johnny and I looked at each other, shrugged, and I said to the A.R.V.N., “You’re going to get a band cutter. Right? We’ll stay here until you come back? Okay?”

“Okay, okay,” he said, nodding furiously, and turned and ran back down the hill.

While we waited, I tried not to think about how long he’d be gone and when, or if, he’d be back. What if he couldn’t find a band cutter? What if the V.C. saw us sitting there and ambushed us? What if he was really V.C.? I was on high alert for any stray sound or movement around us, and scanned the ridge of the hill, waiting and watching for the enemy, and observing the sun sink. I kept a tight grip on my weapon.

After the longest ten minutes of my life, the A.R.V.N. returned with the band cutters. I cut the bands and gave them back to him with thanks and a handshake, which he followed with a small bow, and left.

We loaded up the truck, which took some time. The crates had rope handles on the ends, and it took both of us to lift each one and load it on the truck bed. Then we had to move them around and stack them. Johnny complained the whole time about his bad back.

I kept saying, “Hurry, hurry, we need to get underway.” Dusk came early. Vietnam is near the equator, so the days are about twelve hours long all year round, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Even before sunset, once the sun sank behind the hills, the shadows lengthened.

I made sure we stacked the boxes neatly, crisscrossing them like I did with bales of hay when I was a kid. That makes for a fairly secure load. Finally, we got it done and threw the wooden pallet to the side of the road.

I took it slow on that narrow, rutted road. There wasn’t room for a U-turn, so I had to drive to the top of the hill, turn around, and drive down, again. We waved to the villagers as we drove past them, not sure if the A.R.V.N. who helped us was in that group or not. Back out onto Highway 1, we drove a few more miles farther north.

“Turn left, here,” Johnny said.

I slowed down, “Are you sure, this time?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. You’re going to miss it! Turn!”

I turned left, onto another dirt road.

“Yeah, this is it,” he said. “I’m pretty sure this is it.”

“You’re pretty sure?” I could feel the blood rushing to my head. If I hadn’t been driving, I might have slugged him.

It was already starting to get dark. I just had to hope that we were on the right road. It looked like it had recently been used, so that was a good sign. I desperately wanted to speed up to the top of the hill, but I forced myself to take it slow and crept along at a snail’s pace. With loose crates in the truck bed, I didn’t want to risk another mishap.

We got to the top and, with a sigh of relief, I saw that we were in the right place. This was my first time on a Firebase, an area of packed dirt, stripped of vegetation, and surrounded by coiled razor wire. Inside the wire enclosure, depressions had been dug out of the ground which were surrounded by rows of sandbags. In each of these depressions was a small hooch, where the men slept. Sandbags also encircled 105 Howitzers. There were a few big tents on the ground level.

Soldiers directed us where to park and started unloading the ammo. It was now dark, so the commanding officer told us we’d have to stay until morning. They would radio our Basecamp and let them know we were spending the night.

One of their men took us to the mess tent and the cook got us something to eat. After dinner, Johnny and I hung around playing cards until they kicked us out. I won five cigarettes that we were using as chips. Then we headed back to the truck.

Since no one had offered us a place to sleep, we bunked out in the back of the truck under the canvas cover. We didn’t have any blankets or anything, but it was still hot, though it was past 10 p.m. So we made ourselves as comfortable as possible using our flak jackets for pillows. I learned that flak jackets make lousy pillows. I had a stiff neck for days afterward. We smoked a few more cigarettes and Johnny talked about one of his favorite topics, the bar and grill he was going to open after the war.

“I’m going to call it The Bear’s Den. Pretty cool, huh?” he said.

It sounded kind of corny, to me, but since he was so excited about it, I went along with it. “Yup, sounds great.”

“I’m going to have a big stuffed bear inside the door. You know? A really big one, like a grizzly. The walls are going to look like rocks, so it’ll be like you’re inside a cave. Behind the bar, I’m going to have one of those Hamm’s Beer commercial signs. You know, the kind that’s lit up and moves, with a bear, lakes, woods, and stuff. You know?”

“Yup.” I yawned. “I’ve seen those signs. They’re cool.” I really did like them.

I was starting to drift off when he said, “Hey, Jim, are you awake.”

“Yup.”

“Will you come to my place after the war?”

“I turned toward him as he lit another cigarette. I saw the dreamy look in his eyes. “Sure, absolutely. It sounds really cool. But, right now, I’m beat. So, I’m going to get some sleep.” I said and I rolled over and went to sleep.

It was a restless night. Every time they sent up a flare to see if the VC were sneaking through the wire, it woke me up. Flares come down slowly, on small parachutes, so it was like someone turned on the light for several minutes. The glare shining through the canvas above us was like a bright overhead light. I slept through the flares at Basecamp just fine, but here, sitting out in the open while everyone else was dug in, it kind of freaked me out.

When the ear-piercing boom, boom, boom of rounds being fired shook us awake the next morning, we didn’t waste any time starting back to Base. We got back without any trouble. For days, I waited for the next shoe to drop. Maybe I’d be sent to see the Major, again, like after I got the speeding ticket. But we didn’t get in any trouble for taking so long to make that delivery. After that, without an explanation, they started letting me drive again. Within a couple of months, I was promoted back to Private First Class.

Johnny left the motor pool and went to work in the enlisted men’s club. He seemed to enjoy it. I don’t know how he swung it, but soon he was running the place. After that, I only saw him when I went over there for a beer. We’d talk for a few minutes, but he was busy and we didn’t have much in common, so we kind of lost touch.

A few months later a bunch of us guys were sent up to the D.M.Z. Johnny stayed behind to run the enlisted men’s club. But that’s another story.

* * *

Fifty years later, I stood in front of the Vietnam War Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., and scanned the black granite for names I recognized. It’s mostly chronological, by date of death. I found the names of some of the guys I’d known who hadn’t made it, and touched them, thinking of all those lives cut short. Then one name caught my eye, and stopped me, cold: “John Bear.” Frozen in place, I felt a little dizzy, and a buzzing sound filled my ears. I was hardly aware of my wife standing beside me, or when she wandered on, taking pictures with her phone.

It was like the intervening years had never happened. Like they were the dream and I was back in reality as if I’d always been there, in that truck bed trying to sleep while Johnny talked. I felt the heat, the tension, and the bewilderment of everything being out of joint and unknowable. I smelled the diesel and the gunpowder.

I don’t know how long I stood there until I gradually became aware that I was crying. Angrily, I dashed the tears from my face, but they kept coming. What a fool! What an old fool I was. Standing there, crying over something that had happened a lifetime ago. Over someone who’d I’d known for such a short time, a guy who talked too much. Crying because it had all been so random and senseless and because Johnny never got to have his Bear’s Den.

About the author

B.K. Oldre is a writer who lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A former librarian, she studied literature and creative writing at The University of Minnesota and The Loft Literary Center. She is currently working on a novel. For more of her works, see http://bkoldre.wordpress.com.

About the artwork

The illustration is A Truck-Mounted Quad .50, Khe Sanh Combat Base, South Vietnam, 1968. Photograph taken by the United States Army in Vietnam in 1968. In the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.