cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
16 December 1968, Lai Khe, The early December rain ended just as quickly as it had started and the dry season returned. Despite the appearance of the sun, it seemed cooler now, almost like September in Ohio. The water in our shower system, an air force drop tank and three shower heads set over duck boards, never warmed up. Shaves became torture and tempers sparked.
Christmas cards began to pop up; in the office tents and our hooches. It wasn't unusual to see a drawing of the Holy Family gathered around the crib -- thumbtacked just beneath the bare boobs of Playboy's Miss August. Gifts began to appear; fat envelopes, puffy manila folders, cardboard boxes, descended on the base camp with each mail call. Some troops tore into each package as soon as it arrived. Others, myself included, stored them away and hoped that the rats and king sized cock roaches wouldn't get to the goodies before the blessed day arrived.
I was sitting at my desk, thinking about future shows we could put together, when something caught my eye. A jeep pulled up in front of one of the old rubber plantation houses across the field from us. There were four young American women and what looked like Santa Claus in the jeep. I grabbed my camera and called for Willy and Wayne as I headed for the door. The house had to have been a football field away, but we crossed the distance in no time. The women wore pale blue dresses with a white and red disk on the shoulder that identified them as Red Cross volunteers, Donut Dollies. Wayne and I began to shoot pictures. Willy began asking them questions,
"How'd did you end up here?"
"We're based here, we live in this hooch," said one, pointing to the old building, a small cottage that had once been a home for a French labratory worker..
It wasn't a tent like we lived in, but it wasn't the Ritz either. I suddenly realized that they lived here beside us and that meant that they were subjected to the same rocket and mortar attacks we faced.
Willy moved on, "How do you get to be a Dolly?"
"You volunteer. You have to be a college graduate, you have to be twenty one and you have to volunteer."
Wow, I thought to myself. They don't have to be here, but they are. I knew my own motivation. If I could have gotten a deferment I'd have taken it.
"You don't sit around here all day do you?" Willy asked.
"No. We're usually up early, go out to the flight line and chopper out to an NDP. We have games we play with the boys, something like Jeopardy. It breaks the ice and gets you a chance to get to know them. They help us out, they let us know who needs a boost. They'll pull you aside and tell you about the guy in the unit who hasn't gotten any mail, or the guy whose wife is expecting. They really take care of each other. We try and follow up on those, if not that day, then the next time we're at that NDP. We spend about two hours at one spot and then it's on to the next. We try and hit three or four NDPs each day."
We finished up our photographing and Willy made the pitch, "Hey, we put together a radio show for the division that plays on AFVN. We'd like to do one on you guys."
"We're scheduled to visit some guys who are coming in for a stand down on Wednesday, you could go with us then."
We set up a time and place to meet with them and get this information on tape and headed back to the office, slapping each other on the back at our coup.
Major Chick had noticed the Dollies too and was waiting for us, "Did you get pictures and a story?" he asked.
"Better than that, Sir," I answered. "We made a date to go back and interview them for the Duty First Show."
"Sounds good," he said and disappeared back into his tent.
We were back at their hooch two days later. Talking with the women gave us a chance to get to know them better. The women in this unit were all from the South or the Midwest. Kathy Levis (Pronounced lee vis), a tall, good looking blonde, asked me where I had gone to school.
"OhioState."
"Oh, I hate them." she said.
My face fell, "Really?" I answered, "Where did you go to school?"
She sensed my disappointment. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I graduated from a little school in Pennsylvania, Mercyhurst, but Jack Mollenkopf (then the Purdue football coach) is my uncle. So I don't like any of the other Big 10 schools."
She had grown up in Pittsburgh, graduated from college and had no idea what she wanted to do. She joined the Red Cross and volunteered for Vietnam out of a sense of duty, "I got fed up with the students back home. They wanted to blame everything on the government or these kids, the grunts. These guys didn't vote to be here. They'd rather be home, but they have a duty to perform and they're doing it."
I hadn't heard this kind of talk in some time. Even though I tended to be more sympathetic with the student dissidents, I also held a feeling of deep respect for the grunts, a feeling that grew with each story we did. I was glad that someone was standing up for them and with them.
We finished up our interviews and headed our jeep off to the base camp home of the 28th Infantry. The Dollies and the male Red Cross worker who wore the Santa suit followed along.
The troops saw Santa and reverted to little kids instantly. They waved, shouted, or ran after the jeep. I almost expected them to line up for a chance to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas.
We stopped and asked a group of men to pose with Santa.
"Santa, how about a Camaro for Christmas."
"Naw, man, if you're going to ask for something go all the way. Santa, make that a Corvette."
"How about bringing us some women, Santa?"
"Yeah a platoon of beautiful, round-eyed women!"
"Make it a company!"
"Make it a division!"
"Screw the rest of you guys, Santa, just bring me Jo Collins."
Once the fantasy was over, the soldiers came out with their real wishes, "Santa, all I want is a trip back home on the freedom bird."
You could feel it when they gave that request. Their voices were soft. The kid tone was gone, a manly quake rattled their words as they spoke. It was no longer a man in a Santa suit, but a spirit they spoke to, a spirit they hoped could bring them their greatest wish.
We went back to the tent to write the script, plan our edits on the tape and to turn the film over to Specialist Dominic Sondy.
Sergeant Jay Smith had reclaimed the swivel chair while I was gone. I recaptured it and placed it under my desk before leaving for lunch. As I ate I kept thinking about the Dollies. I had talked to other officers about them and was shocked by some of the things I heard, "They're over here looking for husbands."
"They're a waste. All they do is make the men miss home."
"Bunch of prick teasers."
Where was all this negative energy coming from, I wondered?
"Think about it, Woody," my friend, Lt. Steve Zurrow, said. "If there are women over here, taking the same risks you're taking, then just how much of a war hero are you? You think there aren't guys here thinking that way?"
"But why all the angry comments?"
"Aren't you horny? Are you telling me you didn't want to take one of them back to your tent and fuck her brains out?"
I wanted to deny it, but Zurrow had me dead to rights. We were all sick from the lack of female company. You woke up in the middle of the night, listened to be sure all of your tent mates were asleep and then you reached for the joy stick and imagined the girl back home, the Playmate tacked on the wall, the nurses at the battalion med station, the Donut Dolly you'd just met, the Saigon tea girls. "You're right. I bet they get hit on every day."
"And," Zurrow continued my thoughts, "if they play it professionally and politely turn you down, they're stuck up bitches. If they put out, they're whores. They're in a no-win situation."
There it was. The Dollies were innocent. The situation was damned near impossible because of our circumstances and our nature. And yet they showed up for work each day, big smiles, full of energy and willing to sit down and help that kid who hadn't gotten a letter in a month and half feel like someone in this world cared about what happened to him.
It was a good lesson to learn in this season.
Christmas cards began to pop up; in the office tents and our hooches. It wasn't unusual to see a drawing of the Holy Family gathered around the crib -- thumbtacked just beneath the bare boobs of Playboy's Miss August. Gifts began to appear; fat envelopes, puffy manila folders, cardboard boxes, descended on the base camp with each mail call. Some troops tore into each package as soon as it arrived. Others, myself included, stored them away and hoped that the rats and king sized cock roaches wouldn't get to the goodies before the blessed day arrived.
I was sitting at my desk, thinking about future shows we could put together, when something caught my eye. A jeep pulled up in front of one of the old rubber plantation houses across the field from us. There were four young American women and what looked like Santa Claus in the jeep. I grabbed my camera and called for Willy and Wayne as I headed for the door. The house had to have been a football field away, but we crossed the distance in no time. The women wore pale blue dresses with a white and red disk on the shoulder that identified them as Red Cross volunteers, Donut Dollies. Wayne and I began to shoot pictures. Willy began asking them questions,
"How'd did you end up here?"
"We're based here, we live in this hooch," said one, pointing to the old building, a small cottage that had once been a home for a French labratory worker..
It wasn't a tent like we lived in, but it wasn't the Ritz either. I suddenly realized that they lived here beside us and that meant that they were subjected to the same rocket and mortar attacks we faced.
Willy moved on, "How do you get to be a Dolly?"
"You volunteer. You have to be a college graduate, you have to be twenty one and you have to volunteer."
Wow, I thought to myself. They don't have to be here, but they are. I knew my own motivation. If I could have gotten a deferment I'd have taken it.
"You don't sit around here all day do you?" Willy asked.
"No. We're usually up early, go out to the flight line and chopper out to an NDP. We have games we play with the boys, something like Jeopardy. It breaks the ice and gets you a chance to get to know them. They help us out, they let us know who needs a boost. They'll pull you aside and tell you about the guy in the unit who hasn't gotten any mail, or the guy whose wife is expecting. They really take care of each other. We try and follow up on those, if not that day, then the next time we're at that NDP. We spend about two hours at one spot and then it's on to the next. We try and hit three or four NDPs each day."
We finished up our photographing and Willy made the pitch, "Hey, we put together a radio show for the division that plays on AFVN. We'd like to do one on you guys."
"We're scheduled to visit some guys who are coming in for a stand down on Wednesday, you could go with us then."
We set up a time and place to meet with them and get this information on tape and headed back to the office, slapping each other on the back at our coup.
Major Chick had noticed the Dollies too and was waiting for us, "Did you get pictures and a story?" he asked.
"Better than that, Sir," I answered. "We made a date to go back and interview them for the Duty First Show."
"Sounds good," he said and disappeared back into his tent.
We were back at their hooch two days later. Talking with the women gave us a chance to get to know them better. The women in this unit were all from the South or the Midwest. Kathy Levis (Pronounced lee vis), a tall, good looking blonde, asked me where I had gone to school.
"OhioState."
"Oh, I hate them." she said.
My face fell, "Really?" I answered, "Where did you go to school?"
She sensed my disappointment. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I graduated from a little school in Pennsylvania, Mercyhurst, but Jack Mollenkopf (then the Purdue football coach) is my uncle. So I don't like any of the other Big 10 schools."
She had grown up in Pittsburgh, graduated from college and had no idea what she wanted to do. She joined the Red Cross and volunteered for Vietnam out of a sense of duty, "I got fed up with the students back home. They wanted to blame everything on the government or these kids, the grunts. These guys didn't vote to be here. They'd rather be home, but they have a duty to perform and they're doing it."
I hadn't heard this kind of talk in some time. Even though I tended to be more sympathetic with the student dissidents, I also held a feeling of deep respect for the grunts, a feeling that grew with each story we did. I was glad that someone was standing up for them and with them.
We finished up our interviews and headed our jeep off to the base camp home of the 28th Infantry. The Dollies and the male Red Cross worker who wore the Santa suit followed along.
The troops saw Santa and reverted to little kids instantly. They waved, shouted, or ran after the jeep. I almost expected them to line up for a chance to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas.
We stopped and asked a group of men to pose with Santa.
"Santa, how about a Camaro for Christmas."
"Naw, man, if you're going to ask for something go all the way. Santa, make that a Corvette."
"How about bringing us some women, Santa?"
"Yeah a platoon of beautiful, round-eyed women!"
"Make it a company!"
"Make it a division!"
"Screw the rest of you guys, Santa, just bring me Jo Collins."
Once the fantasy was over, the soldiers came out with their real wishes, "Santa, all I want is a trip back home on the freedom bird."
You could feel it when they gave that request. Their voices were soft. The kid tone was gone, a manly quake rattled their words as they spoke. It was no longer a man in a Santa suit, but a spirit they spoke to, a spirit they hoped could bring them their greatest wish.
We went back to the tent to write the script, plan our edits on the tape and to turn the film over to Specialist Dominic Sondy.
Sergeant Jay Smith had reclaimed the swivel chair while I was gone. I recaptured it and placed it under my desk before leaving for lunch. As I ate I kept thinking about the Dollies. I had talked to other officers about them and was shocked by some of the things I heard, "They're over here looking for husbands."
"They're a waste. All they do is make the men miss home."
"Bunch of prick teasers."
Where was all this negative energy coming from, I wondered?
"Think about it, Woody," my friend, Lt. Steve Zurrow, said. "If there are women over here, taking the same risks you're taking, then just how much of a war hero are you? You think there aren't guys here thinking that way?"
"But why all the angry comments?"
"Aren't you horny? Are you telling me you didn't want to take one of them back to your tent and fuck her brains out?"
I wanted to deny it, but Zurrow had me dead to rights. We were all sick from the lack of female company. You woke up in the middle of the night, listened to be sure all of your tent mates were asleep and then you reached for the joy stick and imagined the girl back home, the Playmate tacked on the wall, the nurses at the battalion med station, the Donut Dolly you'd just met, the Saigon tea girls. "You're right. I bet they get hit on every day."
"And," Zurrow continued my thoughts, "if they play it professionally and politely turn you down, they're stuck up bitches. If they put out, they're whores. They're in a no-win situation."
There it was. The Dollies were innocent. The situation was damned near impossible because of our circumstances and our nature. And yet they showed up for work each day, big smiles, full of energy and willing to sit down and help that kid who hadn't gotten a letter in a month and half feel like someone in this world cared about what happened to him.
It was a good lesson to learn in this season.
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