Doc held on to the safety strapping, thinking for a long minute. He grimaced. “Single Shot Charlie is tired of foreign troops shooting up his land,” Doc replied, choosing his words carefully, as if he were not sure where his thoughts originated.

“He don’t think we’re tryin’ to help?” Gunner asked.

“Why should he? First the French, then the Japs, then the French again. If that ain’t enough, here come the Americans, and the Koreans, and the Aussies and Kiwis. Nothing changes; the young men either run off to join the Cong or they are drafted by the government. Either way, they don’t come back home--there is so much death here, Gunner. Unless you’re in the sky, you can smell it everywhere”

“He a commie?”

“Could be he doesn’t know what a communist is--maybe he feels that he can get on with farming when the foreign soldiers leave. Then maybe his grandchildren will return, if any are still alive”

Gunner put the binoculars to his eyes again, panning the green below. “What the hell are we doing here?”

“Good question. We’re working class, round-eyed draftees sent over here. The rich kids go to college, getting more ass than a toilet seat off the girls we left behind.”

“We gonna make a difference?” Gunner asked, using an oily bandanna to wipe splashes of sweat from the receiver of ‘Sweet Louise.’ Doc smelled Hoppe’s gun oil amidst the exhaust fumes from the turbo engine. He looked down at the deck of the Huey, noticing rust-bordered welds where bullets had torn through on previous missions.

“Time will tell, Gunner,” he said, ending the conversation by moving to his seat, and strapping himself in.

The mission turned out to be a milk run. They took no hostile fire, and the landing zone was colder than ice. They got the two injured Air Cavs into the Huey, leaving the remaining soldiers in their defensive perimeter amidst the prop wash that swirled the chartreuse elephant grass. On the return flight the pilots flew the Huey low, at two hundred meters, flying past potential enemy gunners before they could sight in. The pilots knew they needed to fly maximum altitude or minimum; there was no in-between. Otherwise, the chopper became a plump pustule hanging in the sky, easy prey for the fifty calibers.

“A couple of those cherries would have sold their mothers to climb aboard our bird,” Doc said, referring to the green troops of the ground patrol, endangered because the enemy noticed all evacuations and resupply. After detection, patrols needed to move immediately, staying off the trails.

“Yep, sold everyone they loved, includin’ all next o’ kin,” Gunner replied, scanning the patchwork below. “But we goin’ to Plieku, Doc--though I get the feelin’ I may not make it back to Chicago, but there ain’t nothin’ there neither.”

The next week turned out hot and quiet. Rumors hinted that the North Vietnamese regulars had fallen back to regroup in Cambodia, leaving the A Shau and Ia Drang valleys peaceful, except for local Viet Cong activity. Doc and the medical staff treated two cases of malaria, one of dysentery, and an incident of gonorrhea. There were more cases of seeping rashes, and lacerations that wouldn’t heal. One of the cooks had been bitten by a rat that didn’t like being cornered in the garbage bin. Another soldier had singed his buttocks when smoking on the latrine; lighting a cigarette, he shifted his ass to deposit a kitchen match down the hopper, igniting a flashing blaze in a heap of toilet paper. ‘His ass looked like a plucked chicken,’ one soldier joked. ‘No story, no tail,’another laughed, as the story made its way around base, infused with hyperbole.

Four nights after the flight Doc sat in the NCO’s bar sipping a beer that was actually twenty degrees cooler that the ninety eight degree evening. It was his fourth beer and he intended it to be his last. The bar stood pretty much vacant--most of the troopers sat in the dark side of the Quonset hut watching They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Though a slow moving electric fan swirled the air, Doc had a stripe of sweat running up his backbone. The whirling fan cast shadows on the Formica bar, reminding him of chopper blades, and many medivac missions with hot lead ripping through the chopper, letting daylight dapple in. Then Gunner trudged in, disconsolate, looking as if he had lost his best friend.

“Happening’ Gunner,” Doc said, motioning toward a bamboo stool. Gunner sat and ordered a beer. Doc pushed two quarters from a pile of silver in front of him, and nodded at the soldier tending bar. Distant artillery boomed from Firebase Absolution, as the Americans threw howitzer rounds toward the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Gunner plugged in a Salem and snapped open a dented Zippo, rolling the wheel with a thumb. He drew in deeply. “They shot the old man,” he rasped. “Just upped and riddled his wrinkled ass.”

“Easy, Gunner, who shot whom?”

“Who do you think?” he added, shaking his head. “Oh, Christ, we’re no different than the slope-headed Cong.”

“I don’t have any idea who the hell got shot--whether it was my freakin’ Grandfather or the President of the United States,” Doc replied impatiently. “Who the hell is the old man?” As he looked at Gunner pensively, he felt his heart began to palpitate. With heightened senses he smelled old popcorn, dead flies from the hanging tape, and pickled eggs. The artillery at the Firebase sounded miles closer.

“Tell me, Man,” he said, voice raising an octave.

“Single Shot Charlie, Doc, he got wasted.”

“What are you talking about,” Doc demanded.

Gunner stared through Doc with those tired, hollow eyes that were so common in second tour troopers--the thousand yard stare.

“Some asshole captain shot him from a chopper. Took his head off with an M-60--that hows I heard it, man,” he added, rancor filling his voice.

“--Why?” Doc asked. “He was our symbol of hope! If we could win his heart and mind, we could win the war--home for Christmas, for Christ’s sake.”

“We ain’t gonna win it no more,” Gunner grimaced.

“Just think, Gunner, left alone, Single Shot might have gotten tired, and realized that our aims are pure--that we wanted them to have a caring government. Now, with Single Shot killed, we’ve lost all the villagers, because now they know that we stooped to a rotten level, killing a harmless old man.” Doc sighed, then took a long pull on his beer. He motioned to the bar keep for two more brews, waving a circle with his finger. “Christ sakes,” Single Shot’s neighbors probably laughed at him, just like we did. Now, nobody trusts us.”

“Yeah, this ‘ninety day wonder’ came Incountry three weeks ago. He overhears blades pilots jokin’ ‘bout Single Shot. As I heard it, he tells ‘em in the ‘O’ Club they can’t allow no slope to shoot at an American aircraft, no matter how bad a shot Charlie is. The next mornin’ this captain takes a Huey out, then shoots Single Shot with a god damned M-60!” Gunner pounded his fist on the bar, causing the bar keep to glance over. “He wastes Single Shot before he can point his musket.” Gunner dragged on the Salem until the end glowed red. Then he slammed the bar again, causing it to shake from the blow. “Wasn’t even a fair fight.”

“Easy soldier,” the barkeep said, nervously wiping down the refrigerator.

“What’s his name, this captain?” Doc asked.

“Fitton, John Fitton from Bravo Company. I was replacin’ a firing pin at the armory when I heard his father’s some lard-assed general, stationed in D.C.”

The two sat and talked for an hour, hunched over at the bar, smoking cigarettes, half listening to Charlie ‘Birdman’ Parker’s Ornithology. At the end of the hour the two had consumed a rack of warm beers. They ate pickled eggs, chewing with months open, brains fuzzy with alcohol. Gunner put the hot end of a cigarette in his mouth by mistake, cursing. The bar closed at twenty hundred. Under protest, they struggled from their stools. Doc left a pyramid of change on the bar.

“Keep it--I won’t be needing it no more,” Doc said, nodding at the barkeep.

“What the hell you talkin’ about?” Gunner queried, patting his burned lips with big fingers.

“I’m going to see this Captain Fitton,” Doc said, flashing a toothy smile.

Gunner grabbed Doc’s sweaty shirt as the two trundled toward the door. “Hey, Bro, we don’t go near no officers--we’ll be standin’ long n’ lean ‘fore a court martial.”

Doc shook off Gunner’s hand and staggered on. Gunner followed two steps behind, tentatively.

The two were greeted by smells of the highlands night. Fresh hibiscus flowers emanated haunting perfume, mixing with the stench of rapidly decaying vegetation--radiating both sweet and sour. ‘Shit at a funeral,’ men called the smell. Trudging unsteadily, the two soldiers swatted pesky mosquitoes and bluebottle flies, then Doc picked up the pace.

“Taps in a half hour, Doc,” Gunner said, checking the end of a cigarette before he put it back in his mouth. “Ain’t no time for nuthin’ but havin’ a few more warm brewskies at the hooch, man.”

“Which way to Bravo company?”

Gunner pointed south, toward the old French Legionnaire’s cemetery.

Doc started walking south, with Gunner following.

“Let’s wait ‘til first light then we’ll complain to the LT., by Jesus.”

“All they’ll do is cover it up.”

“Hey, Doc, the L.T.’s a fair man, now.”

“Not that fair,” Doc replied, picking up the pace. “Take it from one who knows--officers are just like doctors--they stick together no matter what. One lies, the other swears to it.”

They trudged between rows of tents, mounted on wooden platforms, surrounded by sandbags. “Looks like a freakin’ Boy Scout Jamboree,” Doc slurred. Soldiers sat on their cots, some writing letters, some playing cards, some cleaning weapons; it smelled as it they were all soaked in army issue fly dope. Others stood talking in small groups--black soldiers and white soldiers separate. Jeeps with armed M.P.’s drove the roads slowly, vigilant on both sides of the razor wire perimeter. Gunner tugged on Doc’s shirt several times, urging him to give it up.

“This is the path to hell--come on now, Doc, we’ll report the shithead in the mornin,’ see.”

“No, we won’t,” Doc replied, knowing that the issue would be pushed aside by a deadening early morning hangover.

After ten minutes of kicking up dust, they reached Bravo Company. An M.P. stopped them outside of the officers’ billets, sweating hard through his fatigues.

“Message for Captain Fitton,” Doc said, straightening his torso so he appeared officious. From one of the enlisted tents came the song, Midnight Hour.

“Go hit the bunk, soldier, “ the M.P. replied brusquely.

“Captain Fitton!” Doc yelled, using his hands as a megaphone. “Come out here, you son of a bitch!”

Gunner pulled Doc’s web belt. “Come on, let’s get the hell outta here.”

The burly M.P. spun Doc around and laid him over the hood of his jeep. “Hands behind your back, soldier!”

“Police Brutality!” Doc shouted. “Get the hell off me?”

Gunner shoved the M.P. off Doc, riding him to the ground. “Get off Doc!” he shouted.

Soldiers emerged from their tents, while across the way, officers began to stir.

“Captin Fitton wasted Single Shot Charlie, in cold blood!” Doc hollered, knowing everyone at the encampment knew of Single Shot Charlie.

The group of soldiers began to grumble, milling about. Fetid dust rose from the dry roadway, smelling like manure dust in a parched farmers’ field.

“I don’t believe this crap,” a gangly black soldier said. “Who would want to waste Single Shot Charlie?” In the background music drifted from a tinny transistor. Marvin Gaye sang, “Oh--Oh--Oh, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.” Late comers arrived from the transport battalion, asking about this ‘Fitton’ man. The M.P. sat in his jeep, red faced, blowing his whistle for assistance.

Carrying hooked flashlights, a cadre of officers moved from their tents toward the throng. The reflected light from the lanterns betrayed their anxiety. They wore expressions sober and pale. A tall, blond captain shouted at the throng to be quiet. He leaped on to the M.P.’s jeep and shouted, “SILENCE!” Within seconds, the noise level fell; even flies were heard buzzing.

“--What the hell is going on, soldiers?” His voice both authoritative and patronizing. The mob thickened with fresh bodies, not a high percentage of them knowing what was going on. It was like a school yard fight--men were attracted to the excitement, like sharks to chum.

“--Once more soldiers! --What the hell is going on?” he repeated, voice becoming more desperate the second time around.

Nobody moved until Doc stepped forward, buoyed with alcohol courage. He muttered softly, so that only the Gunner could hear him. “If they send me to the stockade, at least I’ll survive this Christless war, eat three hots a day, sleep in clean sheets, live back in the World.”

“Don’t do it,” Gunner whispered, holding on to Doc’s web belt.

“The hell with it--Caesar crossed the Rubicon, by Jesus,” Doc said softly.

“I don’t know about seezer, but you stay put,” Gunner demanded.

“Captain Fitton killed Single Shot Charlie,” Doc said, voice quavering.

“If you have a complaint, soldier, file it after wakeup in the morning,” the Captin said, standing on the jeep, hands on his hips. “And you had best address me as Sir!”

“I guess I’m filing it now--I don’t know what the morning’s going to bring,” Doc said, getting bolder, knowing the Rubicon had been crossed. “When that innocent old bastard got wasted, we lost the fuckin’ war.”

“That talk is treason, soldier, cut the shit, now!”

“Bring Fitton’s ass out here,” came an anonymous southern voice from the throng.

A standoff ensued, as the mumbling mob grew larger. More officers came out of their quarters. “We ain’t shittin’, bring out Fitton,” a black soldier yelled. Most of the group joined in: “We ain’t shittin,’ bring out Fitton.” The captain attempted to outshout the mob. “Go hit your bunks--that’s an order, soldiers!”

Out of the shadows chugged a cattle car filled with a dozen M.P.’s, armed with nightsticks and forty five’s, housed in spit-shined holsters. The M.P.’s looked to be sleepy eyed, some out of uniform. They had been called out spontaneously for riot duty.

The M.P.’s moved, nightsticks drawn, between the officers and the enlisted men. Their arrival stopped the chant; it trailed off in the dog-day hot Vietnamese night.

“Disperse, soldiers, or you will face a court martial!” The captain on the jeep stood taller, emboldened by the new detachment of police. “I’ll court martial every stinking one of you who doesn’t disperse!”

The threat changed Gunner’s attitude. He had been shot down twice, winning a bronze star for shielding screaming wounded from enemy snipers south of Kontum. Gunner had been through too much to trifle with, beginning with his upbringing in Southside Chicago.

“Who gives a shit, Capt’n--we might as well go home now since we ain’t gonna win nuthin’ around here,” he said, stepping up to join Doc. “The enemy knows what dicks we are now--we ain’t gonna win no hearts n’ minds.”

“We lost the war we been fightin’ for,” a soldier said, from the center of our mob. Then another chant began: “We lost the war we been fightin’ for.”

“Let us see that horses’ ass captain!” shouted someone above the roar. At that point the thunder of artillery was heard from Firebase Absolution. Pinpricks of light appeared on the highland massif, like blinking carnival bulbs.

Then a Sergeant Major appeared, big boned, and formidable. “You heard the captain, break it up--go to your bunks!” He pushed Doc back into the mob. “Move, move, move!” he shouted.

A fist came out of the blackness, landing on his jaw, pole axing the Sergeant Major. He fell like a slaughterhouse steer taking a sledgehammer in the forehead. Several M.P.’s surged forward to support his sagging bulk.

“What happened to the gook is unfortunate,” the captain said, eyes lowered, knowing the chance for order had passed.

“Bring out that bastard Fitton!” Doc yelled.

Joining the captain was a small officer in starched fatigues, with a long nose, looking like Mr. Rogers, enjoying a beautiful day in the neighborhood. His demeanor conveyed an aura of self confidence born from a privileged upbringing. Fitton’s shoulders sloped, his large feet slanted outward when he walked.

“I’m Captain Fitton,” he said.

Silence followed.

“Why did you kill Single Shot Charlie, you watery-eyed little pecker?” someone asked.

“Don’t talk to an officer that way, soldier,” the first captain demanded.

“Kiss my black ass, Captain, we want answers,” Gunner added.

Captain Fitton held up his hands, tentatively. All eyes were upon him, including the beleaguered M.P.’s, amidst the flashlights, the headlights of the jeep, and the burning cigarettes. The big guns on Firebase Absolution joined in with another cacophony of thunder, creating a gibbous, surrealistic glow on the Western mountains.

“This enemy soldier fired a rifle at our aircraft with the intent to take a life and to destroy government property--those are the facts, men,” he said, as if the situation were resolved.

“Your ass, Single Shot was a harmless old man,” someone said. There followed voices of agreement, such as, “bet your ass,” and “you ain’t wrong, man.”

“Soldiers, this is a war, we don’t need a communist mascot with a gun,” Fitton pontificated.

“The gun was no deadlier than a damned peashooter, asshole,” someone interrupted.

“You tell ‘em, Bro,” another echoed.

“That’s the way we niggers been treated since we been in the World,” a black man stated from the core of the gathering. “Shoot us or lynch us, ‘cause we different, too!”

Then Doc put his arms in the air. “Single Shot Charlie wouldn’t hurt a fruit fly--you just had a hard on for killin’ a gook, and it was legal.”

“Send us home,” another yelled from the rear of the group.

“We want Fitton charged with murder,” another crowed. A chorus of approval followed, just as a second cattle car arrived, brimming with paratroopers from another section of the base. They unloaded quickly, armed with new M-16 assault rifles. They were led by a Major, with a full bird Colonel standing by. The Major used an electronic microphone. “Get to bed, boys--stand down, now!” he ordered, as if there were no doubt that the mob would do just that. But the soldiers didn’t move, not a whisker. The colonel nodded to the Major, who blew a whistle. WEEEEeeee!

In a well rehearsed move, the paratroopers advanced quickly, clubbing those that refused to move. Those that resisted were man handled, a few handcuffed and thrown into the second cattle car. Gunner snatched Doc by his web belt and rushed him toward the nearest blackness. They staggered back to their bunks to finish of a bottle of Bombay Gin, toasting Single Shot Charlie, who wanted peace, not caring about who brought it, as long as it was Vietnamese.. “It doesn’t matter who leads this god damned country, just as long as they settle their own problems,” Doc slurred. “At least they didn’t use them tear gas canisters,” Gunner said, referring to the paratroopers. “That shit stings, man.” They kept out of sight when the M.P.’s motored by during the remainder of the dark hours searching for miscreants.

At 07:30 Doc sat on the wooden latrine, head hurting, waiting for a shower stall to open, reading a sweat streaked copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Three military policemen appeared, walking quietly with a tall, skin-headed Major in fatigues--the same officer who led the paratroopers last evening. Red faced and tight lipped, the major walked up to the latrine until his face hovered inches from Doc’s.

“You make a scene, son, we will gag you and put you in a straight jacket so tight your ribs will break--pull up your pants, you are under arrest.” His gray specked eyes bored into Doc’s with the glare of a killer who would not flinch if he killed again. Doc looked around quickly for any type of assistance. Two overweight cooks stood behind the field mess cauldrons, watching the arrest with blank faces. “Forget the toilet paper, soldier,” the Major ordered softly. “A little more shit won’t make a difference to a shitbird like you.” Two policemen picked him up by an arm; the third yanked up his pants and pulled the web belt tighter than a tourniquet. The Major snatched the paperback from Doc’s hands, then dropped it down the latrine hole. “Moral turpitude,” he said. They trundled Doc into a covered six-by truck, then sealed the back with a tarp--the arrest took less than two minutes. Doc was shackled in solitary at the base stockade.

There was no formal court martial, just a hearing with the regimental commander and his staff. Nobody took notes. Doc was given an opportunity to speak about the offense and detailed the murder of Single Shot Charlie. None of the officers understood the significance of the event. Instead, they talked about seditious conduct that risked the welfare of the troops. Doc was not told of any charges against him. Manacled, he was taken the aboard a helicopter for Ben Hoa airport. Within twenty nine hours, he found himself locked up at Leavenworth Prison in solitary. He never saw Gunner again.

After a general discharge four months later, Doc searched the Stars and Stripes back pages for news of the insurrection; there was none. In cheap civilian clothes issued on his release, Doc took a bus to South Chicago looking for Gunner. He was told that Gunner had hanged himself in a stockade cell near Cam Ranh Bay. “Get your white ass out of this hood, boy!” Gunner’s father screamed at him. “My boy fought a white man’s war and got his nigger ass killed--he never had no brains! As usual, black boys died, and the white trash like you survived!” Doc hitch hiked home to Maine, where he found an orderly’s job at Bangor State Mental Hospital. Twenty one years after the war he read in the papers that Captain Fitton had risen steadily in rank until he became a candidate for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He became obsessed with writing letters to newspapers, telling mothers to keep their sons and daughters out of the military, writing repetitiously: ‘It’s not only what you are fighting for, its who you are fighting with.’ Doc became a recluse, having difficulty with friendships and intimacy. Over the years he contributed to the United Negro College Fund, sustaining a scholarship in Gunner’s name. Doc couldn’t mourn for Gunner without seeing the despairing visage of Single Shot Charlie--the hallucination immobilized him for days on end.