Free Last Man Out by Jr. James E. Parker Page B

black man’s fault, he ain’t never had nothing. Don’t have no stuff, don’t have no voice. We got ourselves a society that is fucked up, dude, and there ain’t no one to blame, no one to fix it. White man likes it like it is. Negro ain’t got no power. Nothing ever’s going to change. You understand what I’m saying? In our society Negroes don’t get due consideration, though I note we’re more than well represented in this group being sent to some godforsaken place to get shot at ’cause it’s what some white man has decided to do. Ain’t nothing in it for me or my kind. Understand, Lieutenant?”
    “Nope, Spencer, I don’t,” I told him. “It ain’t my job. You’d be surprised all the things I don’t understand. All I know for sure is that, for whatever reason, we’re on this boat together, going somewhere where we have to work together. Shit you’re talkingabout don’t matter. I didn’t ask to be born white, you didn’t ask to be born black—you just supposed to make the best of what you given. That’s what I know.”
    Bratcher walked up and sat down on Spencer’s bunk with us. He and I talked for a few minutes about a class coming up, and then I left. Later I told Bratcher in passing that Spencer had made some point about our changing social consciousness, and that I understood his frustrations.
    “What da fuck is that, Lieutenant?” Bratcher exclaimed. “Spencer is a private, E-3. Rifleman. Period. That is all you should think of when you see that person. Rifleman. Do not let him talk to you about nothing that doesn’t have to do with him being a rifleman and you being the platoon leader. Not now on this boat and certainly not in Vietnam. Don’t be his friend. Don’t listen to his shit. Let another rifleman listen. Don’t make this any more complicated than it is. Sitting on that private’s bunk talking some intellectual-sounding bullshit don’t help you do your job, and it don’t help me, and it don’t help him. You understand the concept here, Lieutenant?”
    Bratcher was glaring at me, his jaw twitching. His points were well taken, but he was testing the limits of our relationship. I couldn’t let him take over.
    “Sergeant,” I said, mustering as much authority as I could, “let’s understand each other. If I go down and hold that man’s hand and talk about poetry, that’s okay. Because it’s my fucking platoon. Not yours. I set the standard. I talk about whatever I want to talk about. You don’t tell me what to talk about. Be careful giving me advice when I don’t ask for it. You understand this concept, Sergeant?”
    Things were chilly for a couple of days with Bratcher, but they returned to normal by the end of the first week at sea when we heard about the 1st Cav’s first skirmishes in the A Shau valley.
    Rumors began circulating over breakfast regarding an operation by one of the 1st Cav brigades in the central highlands of South Vietnam. It was the first big engagement of an American unit in the war. Some companies, we heard, had taken heavy casualties.
    Later in a briefing to the officers and senior NCOs, we heard that the 1st Cav had “gotten their noses bloodied,” which was an understatement. That afternoon we read that whole units werewiped out. All of the officers in one company were killed in the first few minutes of a firefight. The North Vietnamese had surrounded some units and attacked in waves. Weather was bad and air support limited. Under the jungle canopy, it was apparently difficult to fix exact positions of the ground forces and artillery fire support was imprecise. When it was on target, overhanging foliage often dissipated it. The battle evolved into hand-to-hand combat, and with the American units separated, the North Vietnamese moved against the smaller straggling units and decimated them.
    “So much for your opinion that the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Marines, and the U.S. Army can whip up on this little pipsqueak