Just another day

Airman First Class Thomas Smit crouched behind the engine blast shield at the rear of the open cylinder of the concrete revetment to shelter

from the soaking rain. When he finally spotted the shop van, he pulled his soggy poncho tighter around his neck and stretched his long legs into a splashing run toward the truck. Monsoon winds bent the rain into a horizontal waterfall that battered his thin frame and turned his dash into a tacking stagger.

“It’s about time, Benny! Shift change was two hours ago.”

Tom yelled as he slumped onto the bench bolted to the van’s wall and dropped his canvas tool bag at his feet. He stared numbly at the equipment rack opposite.

“Guess Waylon got busy and forgot you, kid.” The driver shrugged and grinned.

“Sure, sure, Benny. Whatever. Breaks my heart what a rough night he had sitting on his butt in the shop. Only story I want to hear starts with a smoke, a hot shower, and a cold beer.”

Tom unsnapped the side of his poncho, reached into the pocket of his faded jungle fatigues, and came out with a sorry mass of cellophane and soggy tobacco. The high humidity of central Vietnam had made sure whatever the rubberized cover protected was nearly as wet as what it didn’t.

“Hey, toss me a cig.”

Sargent Bennet plucked a pack of Camels from the dashboard and tossed it over his shoulder without taking his eyes away from the lake that had once been a flight line. “Keep ‘em. I think I owe you anyway.”

The rows of F-4 Phantom fighter bombers slid by like drowned ghosts in the downpour. Benny was too busy fighting the winds clawing at the top-heavy van to talk, and Tom was too tired to care. The radar shop had been pulling 12-hour shifts with one day off in ten for two months. Occasionally the shift would stretch longer like today just to keep them from getting bored.

#

 “Up and at ‘em, Goldilocks. Sleep on your own time.”

Benny’s cheerful bellow snapped Tom’s head up and banged it against the side of the van.

He groaned, staggered to the rear door, and jumped down into a puddle that, even in the tropics, was chilly enough to snap him awake. Instead of the radar shop he stood facing his own sweet, sandbag-skirted barracks.

“I’ll do the paperwork, kid. Go get some zees.”

“Thanks, Benny” Tom said gratefully as he sloshed through a small lake and up the slight rise that led to the back door. He stomped through the dripping shower, passed the armory, and bumped through the plywood half-door of his room. His new roommate, Jerry, was stripped to ratty green shorts in front of a totally inadequate fan. He had headphones over his ears connected to a very impressive stereo system he had bought from a sergeant that gambled far too much. He was lost in a staring contest with a tokay gecko that was trying its best to reduce the local mosquito population.

Tom threw his poncho into the corner, collapsed on the lower bunk with a grunt, and managed to kick off his boots before the world went away.

#

Tom flew out of his bunk and struggled into his flak jacket and helmet before he was fully awake. Jerry was a darker blob in the corner, little more than fear-sparkling eyes that mirrored his own. The screech of the siren still echoed around the base, as usual several seconds after the first dull thud of a distant explosion.

Tom’s voice barely quivered as he tried to calm his roomie. “No sweat, G.I! Those VC can’t hit anything, and the Koreans will eat them alive before they get any better.”

The Viet Cong rarely had time to launch more than four or five poorly aimed rockets from jury-rigged bamboo frames before U.S. Army or Republic of Korea Marines chased them away, the lucky few who weren’t captured or killed. Rumor said the Cong much preferred being chased, and maybe caught, by the Americans.

Tom counted four blasts, probably at the other side of the base, near the flight line. The two sounded so close together that one was probably a secondary explosion, a lucky hit on a fuel dump or munitions. He had just started to relax when the barracks rocked, and a roar louder than he had ever heard pounded his eardrums. Jerry shrieked and curled into a fetal ball, debris slashed through the screened window slits and rattled off the inner wall. Tom heard someone crying for his mother through the ringing in his ears and wasn’t at all sure it wasn’t his own voice. He held his breath and waited for screams from overhead, but the rooms were mostly occupied by day shift crew already gone to work.

The all-clear siren sounded at last, an eternity after the first explosion, but probably only a couple of minutes. Tom rose shakily to stare out the shredded window at the smoking crater in the road outside the barracks. Thirty feet closer ….

“Knew they couldn't hit nothing,” he muttered. He ignored the fact that Jerry was still curled on the floor, sobbing, and took off his helmet. He carefully brushed asphalt chunks and wood splinters off his cot and sneezed from the dust filtering down from the ceiling.

“I need a shower real bad.” Tom said. He suspiciously sniffed a towel from his footlocker and stuffed it into his laundry bag. By the time he returned, clean and comfortable for at least a little while, Jerry was up and dressed. His smile looked a bit ragged, but it held.

“Let’s go see what the cooks have burned for us this morning, Tom. I’m starved.”

Tom grunted in return and pulled on a fresh pair of fatigues. “We’re up early. After we eat, we might have time for a beer or four at the club before the shift starts.”

Tom pulled the muggy, mildewed air of the Republic of Vietnam deeply into his lungs and knew it was the sweetest thing he had ever smelled.