On LZ Compton, third squad, third platoon, waiting to go out on minicav. An Loc, 1970. (Photo: Marc Levy.)
Thanksgiving: I’m wandering the city streets outside the sprawling Air Force base. A passing couple invite me to their home for the holiday meal. It will be the last decent food I will have for quite some time.
The next morning, we new men march to an Army warehouse crammed with military gear. The stagnant air smells of leather and nylon and new cotton fabric. Here, we’re issued jungle boots, tropical fatigues, pistol belts, plastic canteens, socks, underwear, towels. We pack our dress uniforms into cardboard boxes, to be shipped home. We fill out forms in triplicate. Eat hot chow slopped onto metal trays. Try to forget tomorrow.
At 2AM, we are rousted and marched to an enormous empty hanger. The dim air shakes with the sound of two hundred boots upon the gray cement floor. We are told to break formation, to settle in, to wait.
Immediately, men scramble to the double deck bunks, which are lined up like covered wagons on one side of the vast empty hall, or lie on the floor, their fat duffel bags, filled with their fate, doubling as pillows. Through the twilight hours, men place final calls on a cluster of payphones. We are drowsy, excited, unable to sleep.
Hours pass. In the distance, the throttling roar of engines reversed, the diminished sound edging forward; at last, the large thing halts outside. Like movie theater curtains, the immense hanger doors glide…