Free Bloods by Wallace Terry Page B

had to get free about a mile down the road. I got rid of that stuff in that stream. Them chains of slavery.”
    This other time we were going through the wood, and this branch hit Taylor across the nose. He passed out, and would not move. Lieutenant told Taylor if he don’t get up, I’ll shoot you. He said, “You might as well shoot me, ’cause I feel like I’m already dead. I am not moving till I see the Red Cross helicopter come.” So they carried Taylor in. The next thing I know, they told me Taylor got caught off limits in the city.
    Ferguson was with him. See, they used to do things like getting a tooth pulled. You never tell them you had a toothache and fill it. Say pull it. That’s two days in the rear. The doctor told Ferguson there wasn’t no cavity. Ferguson said, “I don’t care. It hurts. I want it out.”
    So Ferguson and Taylor suppose to be sick. But Taylor said he fell in love with one of them little dinks, and him and Ferguson was in the hootch with mama san. They fell asleep at night. And that’s when the NVA come out, take over the cities. Taylor said a platoon of them was coming down the street. Taylor said, “I was laying there beside my baby. Then I think I couldn’t pass for a gook.So I am ready to run at all times. My eyes was like flashlights. I didn’t even blink. We stayed at the window all night.”
    When the sun came up, they took off. They couldn’t get back in time. Top sergeant met them at the gate and said, “If y’all well enough to fuck, y’all well enough to fight.” They got some suspended rank for being AWOL and was sent back to the field.
    Then one night, Taylor was sitting on a hill trying to convince us that he saw the Statue of Liberty. He had been smoking, and there was a tree way out. He kept saying, “Sir Ford. Sir Ford. Ain’t that the bitch?” I said, “What?” He said, “The world moves, right?” I said, “Right.” He said, “Well, we getting closer to New York, ’cause I can see the bitch. Goddamn, that’s the bitch, man.”
    They had to come give him tranquilizers.
    Before I went home, the company commanders in Bravo and Echo got killed. And rumor said their own men did it. Those companies were pressed because the captains do everything by the book. And the book didn’t work for Vietnam. They had this West Point thing about you dug a foxhole at night. Put sandbags around it. You couldn’t expect a man to cut through that jungle all day, then dig a hole, fill up the sandbags, then in the morning time dump the sandbags out, fill your foxhole back up, and then cut down another mountain. Guys said the hell with some foxhole. And every time you get in a fire fight, you looking for somebody to cover your back, and he looking around to see where the captain is ’cause he gon’ fire a couple rounds at him. See, the thing about Vietnam, your own men could shoot you and no one could tell, because we always left weapons around and the Viet Congs could get them.
    The war never got worse than this time in April. The whole battalion was out in the jungles. We got attacked. We got hit bad. This was a NVA unit. This wasn’t no Viet Cong. They were soldiers.
    They would come on waves. The back unit didn’t even have weapons. They would pick up the weapons from the units that sacrified themselves and keep on coming. It made it look like we had shot this person and he fell andthen kept on runnin’ instead of somebody comin’ behind him. It played a mental thing on you.
    That’s when we start hollering, “We gon’ burn this jungle down. Get Puff out here, and get the mortars and flame throwers.” Puff helped. It’s a bad warship. It comes in with them rockets and them guns. Puff the Magic Dragon lets you know it’s there.
    But I was scared of Puff. He wounded about six of our guys. I ain’t wanna see Puff. I was scared of Puff.
    Then we called in for mortar. And the mortar squad hit about six or seven of us. Rounds dropped too short. Miscalculated or