Then he turned and left the garage, but not before he brought the heels of his hands to his eyes.
I looked at the tool belt William had given to me that morning and realized I had just thrown away what respect I had earned in one dull moment of stupidity.
I imagined William had experienced too many of those senseless moments and the resulting consequences, moments that could never be taken back, never changed, never forgotten. Guys were there one moment and gone the next.
If William mentioned the incident to Todd when he arrived later in the day, Todd never said anything about it. He never called me an idiot or a moron or asked how I had such a wanton lack of common sense. He never fired me.
Still, William hardly talked the remainder of the day, and after work he didn’t squat in the garage to smoke a cigarette and drink a beer. He gathered his red cooler, put it in the bed of his El Camino, and drove off. I knew William had experienced far too much death for a man who had just turned thirty, and I knew I had brought him back to a place he had tried hard, though unsuccessfully, to forget. I’d brought him back to the bush.
Perhaps I was just too naive to understand that death did not discriminate because of age, and that I could die, in an instant and without any warning.
William and Todd were not that naive.
They were never given the chance.
Over the weeks of work, I’d come to learn certain other things about them. Similarities. Neither seemed to have much of a plan for their future. They both lived from one paycheck to the next. And when each day ended, they routinely grabbed a beer from the cooler. And they didn’t stop at one. I knew what a hangover looked and felt like. I’d gotten that down to a science. Their tired eyes and lethargic movements as they sipped cups of black coffee like it was a tonic every morning came from too little sleep and too much alcohol. I doubted they drank to socialize, as I did. I doubted they drank to celebrate the future.
I suspected they drank to ward off demons, unforeseen enemies who haunted their sleep. It left them feeling like shit come morning, and yet they seemed to do it habitually. Their demons, I surmised, were far worse than the hangover. I could only imagine from the stories William had already told me what persistent nightmares haunted him and led him to desensitize himself, just so he could sleep.
His belt was a gesture of friendship, as much as anything, and I had almost repaid his gesture by electrocuting myself and leaving William to care for my dead body.
“You don’t make friends,” William’s corporal, Victor Cruz, had told him. Because someday you might be putting that friend in a body bag.
So selfish. So stupid.
May 6, 1968
I’m in my bunker, getting my pack ready to go outside the wire. We expect to be out several weeks.
Cruz gave me a list of what to take, and it’s a lot of shit. A poncho, poncho liner, two pairs of socks, two towels, and toiletries. I’ll be wearing a war belt, which is like a belt with suspenders. You can hang your canteen off the back and your fourteen-inch Ka-Bar off the left strap. I have an entrenching tool for digging my foxhole at night, and gun oil, bore cleaner, and a cleaning kit for my rifle; I have bug juice without any scent, iodine packets, a smoke grenade to mark positions for air support or firepower. The mortar unit can’t carry everything, so mortars are spread out among the platoon. Cruz handed me a 60 mm that weighed about two and a half pounds. The 81s are almost four pounds. I will also be carrying a claymore mine filled with BBs and a communication wire to put a charge in it. Cruz gave me a bag of Willie Peter （white phosphorus used in mortar shells）。 The bag is waterproof, which will come in handy. He also handed me packs of black condoms. I looked at him like he’d lost his mind.
“Waterproof,” he said. “You put one over the barrel of your rifle and use another to keep the extra socks dry.”
I also have four star cluster flares, two quarter-pound blocks of C-4 explosive, rope, a mosquito net, an abbreviated first aid kit, a canteen cup and utensils, one trip flare, extra M-16 ammo, nine C ration meals, eight quarts of water, four grenades, and a steel helmet. I had packed underwear, but Cruz took it out. Said it was a surefire way to get crotch rot, that the foot rot would be bad enough.
He handed me parachute cord and a bag of marbles. “You can unwind the cord and use the fine strands to tie up cans along your perimeter.”
“What are the marbles for? In case I lose mine?” I laughed. Cruz did not.
“You put the marbles in the can. Guys use rocks, but the Vietnamese have small hands and can get the rocks out without making noise. Not possible with the marbles. They rattle and roll.”