Vietnam

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Heathen Killer

I

A rear headquarters non-combatant

Christens the search and destroy

Missions in curious olive drab lingo.

An officer no doubt.

"Captain Ashley speaking, sir.

I didn't ask for this job."

At Khe Sanh, we lounge

on sandbags, drink Kool-Aid,

And watch the screaming fighters

Come like clockwork

From Da Nang, Pleiku, Chu Lai

And giant carriers criss-crossing

The South China sea.

Sky Hawks and Phantoms

Climb almost straight up,

Dive and circle,

Drop tumbling silver

Cannisters of jellied fire

That flash in the sun.

We cheer the more spectacular

Rolling orange mushrooms;

The Greatest Show on Earth.

"This," says Chief,

"Is one crazy white man's war."

Clever enough name,

I suppose,

For a military operation.

"Heathen Killer"

There is certainly a significant amount of killing

Though most of it

On the wrong side.

II

On mail call days

The photographs I share

Of new cars and picnics,

Smiling blue eyed people

Eating wedding cake,

Are always returned

Without comment.

Chief never gets any mail.

Never.

He eats sliced peaches,

C-ration apricots and pears,

While I sort stacks

Of perfumed letters.

"Got any pineapple bits?"

He knows the answer.

I always steal

More from supply

Than I can eat.

On a mud hill jungle firebase,

Drunk on desert memories,

Rage and contraband whiskey,

Chief packs his trash,

Lurches toward concertina wire,

A sea of elephant grass

And the Reservation far beyond.

Gang tackled from behind,

The fight is on.

He beats Dino's eye shut

And busts the Wetback's lip

Before nylon parachute cord

Binds him to a stake/tree.

Next morning, he surveys

The swollen purple faces,

And sullen stares.

"Nothing personal, boys".

His round face split

In a yellow toothed grin.

We smile back,

Crazy goddamn Indian,

In spite of ourselves.

III

The squad draws straws to wake him,

Fists flailing at unseen

Dancing demons,

Until we learned to jab

A stick in his barrel chest

And run for our lives.

We stack our weapons

At Dong Ha,

Innocent as children,

Pile the deadly war toys

As offerings.

Frags and bandoliers

For warm Black Label,

Showers, clean clothes,

And dehydrated steaks.

Chief buys a portable tape player

And one tape

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

We hear the drum solo,

In our sleep,

Over and over

Like a bad dream

Struggling for life.

"Where's Chief," Gunny asks?

At morning muster, we stand

In the nauseous

Aftermath of green beer

For the Skipper's pep talk.

The words rise like bile

From his monotone speech.

"NVA Regiment

Air Assault

Operation Heathen Killer."

"Chief ain't up, Gunny"

"Well go get him," he says.

But nobody moves.

"Why don't you go, Gunny?"

(a voice from the ranks)

To wake Chief from a big drunk,

No stick was long enough.

Gunny stares at his clipboard.

A wise man weighing options.

"Naw," he says

"Let the wild son-of-a-bitch sleep."

IV

In the afternoon we shuffle

Aboard the waiting choppers

To the dull thump of whistling engines

Pounding hearts and psychedelic drumbeats.

Chief stands by the door gunner,

Head bobbing to the strains

Of The Iron Butterfly,

And watches the seething pockmarked jungle

Flow green beneath us

As giant rotors throb

Banking the great bird North

To the red clay of Con Thien

The Place of Angels

Street Without Joy

Operation

"Heathen Killer."

At Dawn, Barret is still alive.

Hang on, we urge.

It is our turn to beg.

But he grows weary

And slips away.

In the distance, medevac choppers

Hum above the fog shrouded valleys.

We wrap him and the others,

In plastic ponchos

Gently, as if it mattered,

And load them in the bellies

Of thrashing helicopters.

We stand in postures

Of absurd bravado

And weep in the prop wash.

"Go get the Skipper," Chief says.

And we peer over the edge

At the source of the moans.

A Gook officer, wounded,

Has saved himself

On an out-cropping of rock

And looks up in a half-smile

Of recognition and hope

Even as the pistol barks.

The Skipper, hollow-eyed,

Passionless, walks away.

He never says a word.

V

In the night,

Barret is hit,

Lays dying,

Calling our names in the darkness,

Knowing we will come.

The Gooks know it too

And use the plaintive sobs as irresistible bait;

A favorite slope trick.

They kill Doc first,

Then Wilson,

And the new replacement kid

Whose name we never learn.

Barret is begging now.

Let him die, I pray,

Before my turn.

As Chief crawls out

Stone-faced to save us all,

I change my prayer.

Grenades arch soundless.

he catches the bouncing baseballs

And tosses them back.

Lt. Mac, a good catholic boy,

Fingers black rosary beads.

"Mother of God," he breathes.

The new chevrons and Silver Star,

Pinned on by the battalion commander,

Are sweetened with a week of R&R.

A big mistake, we smirk,

And are rewarded with stories

Of an AWOL Chief busted, in a Hong Kong

Back-street whorehouse,

By an unsuspecting cop.

Poor bastard . . .

Trying to roust a sleeping Indian

From the Binge of the Century.

We celebrate Chief's return.

Walk to the LZ

Bearing gifts of canned fruit.

Beaming, he embraces us all.

A little thinner from a red line

Bread and water brig.

"Still a slick sleeved private,"

He brags.

The officers shake their heads,

Go back to map reading,

And peer through binoculars.

VI

One image remains.

near Laos, the night wind

Alive with sing song

Oriental voices,

Mortars fall from a back sky,

We press out faces in damp

Fresh earth and pray aloud.

On this, our last day

The mortars stop.

And in the silence,

Sick with sorrow,

We knew they are coming.

The word passes

in hushed tones;

A whispered holy sacrament.

"Fix bayonets".

A hoarse cry from a distant hole,

"Gooks in the wire.

Fix bayonets."

In the brief ghost light

of a pop flare,

I see Chief's face,

Flush with the blood

Of ancient Arizona warriors,

Smiling

Triumphant.

Bill Jones