I’m sorry I haven’t written for a while. I lost a good friend recently, and I’ve been in a bit of a funk. But I’m getting better now. Not much time here for grief, even though there’s plenty of cause. Life isn’t always easy, as you can imagine. People come and go. But I love nursing. It’s important you know that, and that you know I’m happy I came here. Even on bad days, even on the worst days, I believe this is what I’m meant to do and where I’m meant to be. Finley told me once that he’d found himself over here, that his men were important to him, and I know how he felt.
Love to you both,
F
* * *
Frankie’s first sight of Pleiku was from the air, in a supply helicopter, looking down at the dense green jungle below. Barb sat on the other side of the chopper, peering down, too.
A flat pad had been cut into the lush green mountainside—a huge square of red dirt held a ramshackle collection of tents and Quonset huts and temporary buildings. Looking at it, Frankie remembered—or finally understood—that the Seventy-First was a mobile Army surgical hospital. It struck her suddenly what that meant. Mobile. Temporary. In the jungle, near the Cambodian border, where the Viet Cong knew every footpath and clearing, where they planted bombs to blow up their American enemies. Coils of concertina wire protected the compound from the jungle that encroached on all sides.
The chopper dropped down to the helipad. Barb and Frankie jumped down as several soldiers moved in to unload supplies, including the nurses’ footlockers and duffel bags. Everything in, around, or about helicopters had to be done quickly; Charlie had no greater target than a landed bird.
“Lieutenants McGrath and Johnson?” said a short, bulkily built man in faded fatigues. “I’m Sergeant Alvarez. Follow me.”
Frankie clamped her boonie hat onto her head and angled low beneath the whirring rotors. Red dust flew up, swirled, made its way into her eyes, her nose, her mouth.
He pointed to the Quonset hut nearest the helipad, yelled, “ER. That one’s Pre-Op.” He kept walking and talking and came to another Quonset hut, its entrance stacked in sandbags: “OR.”
“There’s a large air base nearby,” he went on, “as well as the village of Pleiku. Don’t go to either without an escort.” He led them deeper into the camp, where personnel moved in a rush. There wasn’t much here—some Quonset huts, a row of dilapidated wooden huts, tents. Everything was stained red and surrounded by barbed wire and protected by armed soldiers in guard towers.
“The morgue,” he said, pointing left.
Frankie saw a tired-looking medic pushing a wheeled litter with a body-bagged soldier through a pair of double doors. Inside, she saw body bags stacked on tables and cots and a few even on the ground.
“I know it looks shitty compared to the Thirty-Sixth,” Sarge said, not stopping. “And the rainy season lasts for nine months up here, but we have our benefits.” He showed off an area he called “the Park,” which was a stand of rotting brown banana trees, their giant fronds bent over and decayed, and an honest-to-God aboveground swimming pool full of brown water and leaves. Off to the side was a tiki-style bar, complete with torches and a sign that read HULA SPOKEN HERE. Beside it, a sandbagged bunker and a dozen portable chairs waited forlornly for partiers. “The officers have some kick-ass parties here at the Park, ma’am. You can find someone here most times if you’re feeling angry or blue. Ain’t much space between those emotions here in Rocket City.”
He pointed out the commanding officers’ trailers and walked past a row of unimpressive wooden huts. Up ahead were the latrines and showers. “By fifteen hundred hours, the water feels almost warm,” he said. At the final wooden hut, built up on blocks and layered in sandbags, he stopped and turned to them. “Home sweet home.”
“Get settled in, Lieutenants,” he said. “This quiet? It won’t last. The fighting in Dak To has been brutal this week. Your duffels will be delivered ASAP. Shifts are oh-seven-hundred to nineteen hundred hours, six days a week, but if we’re short on staff … and hell, we are always short … we work till we’re done.” He opened the door.
The smell made Frankie almost gag. Mildew. Mold.
Insects and dust motes thickened the air. Inside the small, stinky space were two empty cots, upon each of which sat folded woolen blankets and a pillow that she already knew neither of them would use, and two rickety chests of drawers. Red dust coated everything, even the ceiling. For the first time, she thought kindly—and nostalgically—about her hooch at the Thirty-Sixth.