Assigned to Service Craft Division

Stick steps on my cheek to make sure I am awake.  Her tiny nails have grown in the month since her last pedicure to the length of Helena Rubenstein’s.  I am definitely awake now.  I peer at the bedside clock, 0220 hrs, as I hear her drop to the carpet.

Shit.

I grumble out of bed to let my three-legged Chihuahua out the patio door for her necessary.  With the logic of the rudely aroused, I grouse at the bloody inconvenience, neatly overlooking Daddy’s four necessaries to the john throughout the night.

Goofy expels one of his infamous SBD’s, as the rest of the pack come bounding through the open door: “Oh for joy!  Daddy is up and about!  Let the Morning Frolic begin!”

Shit…That’s it.

A return to sleep now thoroughly banished, I close the door through which Sticky has disappeared, holding my breath till I am free of the SBD kill zone; I grope my way to the hall light switch, blinding myself with bright light on my way to the kitchen.  I override the timer to start the pot brewing.

Shit.

In two hours, that pot will auto-off itself.  That means I’ll be microwaving future cups even before I take the pack out for their walkies.

Shit.

0221 hrs and the new day is here.  While I listen to the gurgle of coffee on the make, the pack finishes their Frolic in my office, to quickly settle down on the new pet beds and return to sleep.  Thanks, people…for nothing.

Booting up, I swivel around to lovingly gaze down upon my dogs at rest.  I cannot bear to stare at Windows 7, oozing its snail’s pace through the daily pre-flight checklist.

(YO! Billy Gates!  How many patches we running, Billy Boy?  Oh?  Only seven again today?  Thanks a bunch!  Be sure to give the old Bronx Cheer to all those sweating programmers for me, willya? Grrrrrr!!  ‘Updates’ indeed.)

As my silly pique subsides, in the quiet of predawn, I become aware of my growing sense of elation.  Stick’s early morning gaffe has brought me here to the keyboard.  I feel my eagerness rising, to begin painting the final touches onto today’s monograph; then joyfully, to commence work on the next.

When I began this gig such a short while back, the thrill of writing—of writing well—was overshadowed by the unsettling thought that soon, I would arrive at the things I didn’t want to reveal.  Not to God; not to the reader; not to myself.

All that is changing now, as each memory rises up from the cemetery of my dreams. 

The gentle words of my teachers remind me, that when one brings the fearful thing up into the Light of Truth, its power to hold one in bondage vanishes in smoke like a conjuror’s illusion.  Here stands the beacon of God’s healing grace; all I have to do is flip the switch to the hall light of my soul; and the flood of radiant brilliance brings me to consciousness.

I no longer fear the past.  Once again, the Promises are being fulfilled.

And now, on to the Rilly Rilly Rilly Big Shew.   Ed Sullivan has graciously agreed to stand by as my pinch-hitting muse for today.

Halfway through my sixty day sentence to First Lieutenant’s division, I was transferred to another barrack.  There I completed my assignment under the supervision of a lifer third class who was so devoid of personality and intelligence that I can no longer remember his face, his name or any of the daily interactions with him.

There is little left to tell, of those waning days at Camp Tien Sha; each day was a lineup of disheartened shuffling prisoners, marching in time to the tune of The Incarceration Blues.  Retreat from the lifer caste became fleeting moments with Larry and Ray when the three of us were not on night watch; standing huddled in the dark around a glowing ember of weed, talking up all sorts of nonsense.

Having so far portrayed myself as a stoner-slacker-wastrel, Let me now introduce the Corky of daytime in-country.

All my life, despite the constant denying of it, I have been a competitor.  Perhaps that denial was ever my way to counter that small tinny voice within, a lifelong nag always whispering to me, that no matter how hard I tried, no matter how flawless my triumph, it was always…not good enough.

By application of the spiritual principle of self-affirmation, that voice is now mute, most days.  The utterance of some well-meaning adult from my infancy is a broken tape, no longer needed to spur me to excellence.  I am excellent, and my behavior most exemplary.  But of those days in-country long ago, I remained driven to better the better man, to bring the competition to their knees.  It was excellence as a means, never excellence as an end.

Those five years of R.O.T.C in high school and college paid a dividend.  I was the consummate sailor in dress and military manner.  Everything about me broadcast initiative and dedication to duty.  Fatigues and cover starched and clean; boots polished to a mirror finish (Yes! Jungle boots!).  When my re-assignment to Service Craft Division began, I was ready.

Herded into the Boathouse the first morning, about ten of us came one by one before Chief Boatswain’s Mate Rodriguez.  I watched the other nine guys stand before him to be scrutinized for their work assignments.  Several of them leaned forward and brought their hands to rest on his desk, as if they were about to order a take-out for tacos.  Bad move. Stupid move.  They were taken away, to the endless Navy toil of chipping rust and old paint from metal; going back with successive layers of red lead and battleship gray.  Work befitting a prison sentence to hard labor without reprieve. Eeeeyyeeeuuuww, my mind went.

Finally, being the last in line, I stood before the Chief.  Resplendent in uniform and rigid at attention, Rodriguez leaned back in his swivel chair and studied me for a good minute in silence.  Finally he spoke. “How much college you got?”  “Three and a half years, Chief!”, I snappily snapped. After another pause, he asked, “Where are you from, son?”   “San Antonio, Texas, Chief”; (the ‘Texas’ was redundant.  Every Texan knew what state held San Antonio to its heart). His eyes looked up brown and slightly glistened into my blue Anglo eyes.  He said, smiling broadly, “I’m from El Paso myself”. Then he quietly asked, “Do you speak any Spanish, sailor?” “Poquito” came my response.  He smiled up at me; I smiled down at him.

“You’re the new Boathouse Yeoman, Cotrell”.  The Fates had twisted my strand into what proved to be…skatin’ duty in a land surrounded by blood, sweat and tears.

Years later, I still inwardly cringe to think of what might have befallen me.  Re-assignments were random for non-billeted E-3’s; I could have ended up elsewhere.

Litterage Division hauled the freight of war on LCM-8’s, larger than the LCM-6 pusher boats.  They plied the waters up and down the Viet Nam coast, from Dong Ha on the DMZ south to supply stations bordering the massive base at Cam Rahn Bay. Assisted by forklifts loading and unloading, the crews also acted as stevedores coming and going.  That was hot hard work.

Once clear of the harbor mouth, Litterage boats hugged the coastline…which was Indian Country; no less so when they reached their land based destinations.  Dong Ha was one of the hottest spots in Viet Nam, subject to rocket and ground assault day and night.  (Thank you, God!  Dong Ha was one of the re-assignment posts!)

Litterage causeway was next to ours.  At dusk, reclined on the decks of pusher boats, we would observe those silent silhouettes against the setting sun, coursing their way to open sea.  In the failing light of day, we could barely make out the crews, already in shadow; donning helmets and flak jackets while locking and loading their M-16’s.

There but for the Grace of God…

Security Division patrolled the harbor in skimmers manned by two guys.  Larry and Ray ended up there.  It was skatin’ duty, but boring as hell.  They trolled around whatever section they were assigned to, periodically dropping concussion grenades over the side.  This was supposed to deter sappers, enemy swimmers attempting to sabotage the bullet boats at Deep Water Piers.  To my knowledge, there was never a floater, dead from the explosion of the grenade.  It was either a 100 percent successful mission, or another bullshit waste of taxpayer dollars.

Back up at the hooch after dark, the guys would laugh about how they lit up as soon as they pulled away from the dock.  No lifer came out checking up on them.  What would be the point?  Frequently, they said, being so stoned out there, they would neglect to drop any of the two cases of grenades aboard. The entire quota was supposed to be dropped throughout their six hour shift.  No problem.  Before heading for the barn, they would just drop both cases unopened into the harbor.

The inherent danger of handling live grenades DUI was not lost on any of us.  There were accidents on the water, which sometimes proved fatal to the zonked-out crews aboard.  Some of the patrol sections came close to Class 3 villages.  Relatively benign by day, the enemy would frequent forth.  A skimmer on the shoals, with glowing ends of endless joints or cigarettes made a tempting target.  Skimmers would return to base…with bullet holes in their hulls.

During daylight patrols, Security crews were under the unrelenting sun; at night, constantly idling along, the mosquitos attacked them in swarms. During monsoon, the ceaseless rain added to the misery.  Maybe it wasn’t such skatin’ duty after all.

Well, for the foreseeable future, the blond headed yeoman from San Antonio Texas did not concern himself with the vicissitudes of other lesser mortals.  I sat at the radio net. I made coffee the way the boatswain’s mates liked it: bitterly strong, with an eggshell thrown in with the grounds to cut the bite.  I swept and cleaned the Boathouse.  I stepped and fetched. I drove to China Beach on errands, or wherever I was directed.  Life was good.  It would get better; then it would get worse…much worse.