Run Between the Raindrops Read Online Free
Author: Dale A. Dye
wish I could just get out of here and hook up with some of the Seabee outfits operating in the field, you know?”
“You don’t want any part of that shit, dude.” I grab the bottle and re-fill the shots but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. “Seabees are dying like flies up north building base camps and carving out that big fucking chunk of the DMZ for asshole McNamara. You need to stay where you are so we can do some business.”
“What’re you lookin’ for?”
“Gin or vodka…” I reach into my pack and plop an NVA entrenching tool on the bar. He handles it for a while looking underwhelmed. “I got one or two of these that you brought last time. What else you got?”
Beer and tequila were stretching my bladder out of shape, so I slam the AK bayonets on the bar and trundle away toward the head. They have installed a flush toilet since my last visit so I take the opportunity to deposit a week-old C-ration shit in the Seabees shiny new commode. When I get back to the bar, my trading buddy has two fifths each of cheap gin and vodka waiting for me. The bayonets are nowhere in sight. It appears we have made a deal.
To make travel a little easier, I stop in a remote corner of the Seabee compound and pour the liquor into a clutch of extra plastic canteens and then stuff it all in my pack. There are a bunch of vehicles rushing out of the compound by the time I reach the main gate and the first one to stop takes me all the way back to the division compound on Hill 327.
Having spent most of the ride in the back of a truck nipping from the canteens, I arrive at my hooch just at dusk and fucked up like Hogan’s Goat which is entirely appropriate to the situation in the division rear area. Alarm sirens are wailing and panicky clerks are falling all over themselves trying to reach a row of defensive bunkers. The inky sky over Hill 327 is lit by parachute flares and roving patrols of combat shoe-clerks are rousting REMFs, shoving them into a leaky perimeter being formed around the division CP. Crawling into a dark corner of Hooch 13, I wrap myself in a poncho-liner and drift off to sleep. Anywhere in Nam is safer than out on a line with nervous pogues shooting at shadows.
15th Aerial Port Squadron
“Look, I've got to go north today and standing around here bullshitting with you isn't getting me there.” What a delight to be hung-over and arguing with a fat, sweaty, gum-popping staff sergeant behind the booking desk at the 15 th Aerial Port. We’ve been at it for half an hour while he works through a full pack of Spearmint and I deal with a head full of worms and wet sand. The sergeant is apparently too short to give a shit. While we’re bitching back and forth, he’s coloring little squares on a short-timer's calendar.
“You bush-beasts don't impress me for shit.” He sticks his pen behind an ear and pops his gum. “I'm the one who says where you go and when you go around here. No Marine birds going north today, and that's the way it is. Sorry 'bout that.”
Sorely tempted to reach over the desk, grab this prick by the stacking swivel, and commence field stripping his sorry ass, I realize it’s futile. And it’s too hot in here for a man with a world-record hangover. It’s another of Nam’s little conundrums. You can generally zip right up to the forward areas with minimum difficulty, but just try getting space on something headed for the rear. There’s a much better chance of finding a PFC in the Pentagon.
So, how to get myself and four canteens full of booze plus my field gear up north past this uncooperative sonofabitch at passenger control? Heat and frustration drive me away from the desk to ponder the gaggle of aircraft on the 15 th APS flight line. A transient breeze carries the familiar odor of the orient mixed with JP-4 jet fuel. An Air Force cargo plane taxies toward a forklift idling next to a stack of boxes. The gear is marked for an outfit based at Dong Ha, and it’s likely the incoming
“You don’t want any part of that shit, dude.” I grab the bottle and re-fill the shots but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. “Seabees are dying like flies up north building base camps and carving out that big fucking chunk of the DMZ for asshole McNamara. You need to stay where you are so we can do some business.”
“What’re you lookin’ for?”
“Gin or vodka…” I reach into my pack and plop an NVA entrenching tool on the bar. He handles it for a while looking underwhelmed. “I got one or two of these that you brought last time. What else you got?”
Beer and tequila were stretching my bladder out of shape, so I slam the AK bayonets on the bar and trundle away toward the head. They have installed a flush toilet since my last visit so I take the opportunity to deposit a week-old C-ration shit in the Seabees shiny new commode. When I get back to the bar, my trading buddy has two fifths each of cheap gin and vodka waiting for me. The bayonets are nowhere in sight. It appears we have made a deal.
To make travel a little easier, I stop in a remote corner of the Seabee compound and pour the liquor into a clutch of extra plastic canteens and then stuff it all in my pack. There are a bunch of vehicles rushing out of the compound by the time I reach the main gate and the first one to stop takes me all the way back to the division compound on Hill 327.
Having spent most of the ride in the back of a truck nipping from the canteens, I arrive at my hooch just at dusk and fucked up like Hogan’s Goat which is entirely appropriate to the situation in the division rear area. Alarm sirens are wailing and panicky clerks are falling all over themselves trying to reach a row of defensive bunkers. The inky sky over Hill 327 is lit by parachute flares and roving patrols of combat shoe-clerks are rousting REMFs, shoving them into a leaky perimeter being formed around the division CP. Crawling into a dark corner of Hooch 13, I wrap myself in a poncho-liner and drift off to sleep. Anywhere in Nam is safer than out on a line with nervous pogues shooting at shadows.
15th Aerial Port Squadron
“Look, I've got to go north today and standing around here bullshitting with you isn't getting me there.” What a delight to be hung-over and arguing with a fat, sweaty, gum-popping staff sergeant behind the booking desk at the 15 th Aerial Port. We’ve been at it for half an hour while he works through a full pack of Spearmint and I deal with a head full of worms and wet sand. The sergeant is apparently too short to give a shit. While we’re bitching back and forth, he’s coloring little squares on a short-timer's calendar.
“You bush-beasts don't impress me for shit.” He sticks his pen behind an ear and pops his gum. “I'm the one who says where you go and when you go around here. No Marine birds going north today, and that's the way it is. Sorry 'bout that.”
Sorely tempted to reach over the desk, grab this prick by the stacking swivel, and commence field stripping his sorry ass, I realize it’s futile. And it’s too hot in here for a man with a world-record hangover. It’s another of Nam’s little conundrums. You can generally zip right up to the forward areas with minimum difficulty, but just try getting space on something headed for the rear. There’s a much better chance of finding a PFC in the Pentagon.
So, how to get myself and four canteens full of booze plus my field gear up north past this uncooperative sonofabitch at passenger control? Heat and frustration drive me away from the desk to ponder the gaggle of aircraft on the 15 th APS flight line. A transient breeze carries the familiar odor of the orient mixed with JP-4 jet fuel. An Air Force cargo plane taxies toward a forklift idling next to a stack of boxes. The gear is marked for an outfit based at Dong Ha, and it’s likely the incoming
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