WAR DEBRIS - Tales of the Old Army

9781545603475

INTRODUCTION

During my military service in the United States Army, which encompassed the Korean and Vietnam Wars, I was fortunate to have served at various home bases, but extensively in several foreign countries in a variety of positions under conditions hostile and otherwise. The stories offered in this collection are literary sketches that embellish upon some of my experiences, close encounters, and enduring memories, presented with a fictional flourish that I hope the reader will find illuminating as well as entertaining. Along the way, in some of the stories, I have roamed well beyond the limits of my own direct or near participation and delved into the imaginative constructs of pure fiction. But the various settings and events portrayed in the stories are all related to, or framed within, the military environment. This unique background provides a multitude of exotic venues and ample circumstance that is rich in drama, conflict, and tragedy, relying upon an array of engrossing female characters on whom some of the stories evolve. To some extent I have depicted the sordid side of military life, without overt salaciousness, that illustrates an aspect of service commonly experienced by many, but not all. In a wider context, these settings and situations have rarely been explored or seriously presented in contemporary literature. The existence of this breach within the modern fictional record is the primary motivational factor that moved me to become involved, and inadvertently I assumed the role of invested recorder rather than aspiring author. What transpired was the development of this uncommon collection of short stories that endeavor to invoke and amplify the essence of military service and touch upon the attending pitfalls, joys, and heartbreaks. Producing these literary creations out of the fragmented traces of the past has been a self-fulfilling experience, but my ultimate purpose is to provide to those who are not acquainted with that bygone era an unambiguous rendition of vivid events without pretense or sentimentality.

THE VOYAGE OF THE SHINANO MARU

The word was out. Today, the Eagle shits! The troops fell in by company order and formed into an extended line, alphabetically by rank. To a man, their khakis were starched, haircuts close-cut, low-quarter shoes spit shined, and brass glistening. In turn, they smartly reported to the pay officer and received in accordance with official scale the designated amount of scrip to reinfuse their shrunken financial resources. It was the last day of June and a Friday, which also served as the start of payday weekend for the now well-heeled troops, who were stationed on the edge of a large port city on the island of Kyushu, Japan. The installation there provided billeting and support for an American infantry regiment that had been in place since the end of the war. Purpose and race aside, the unit had become an integral part of the local social and economic scene. On this day, normal duty activities were suspended. A training holiday had been announced and the troops stormed the adjoining town in force. But wild indulgence in various forms was short-lived. At about 2000 hours, as the revelry was reaching fever pitch, a shrieking siren blared over the compound and out into the adjoining urban area. The order was to muster immediately.

Military police hustled into the area in jeeps and on foot patrols to flush out the troops from the myriad of bars and whorehouses already crowded to maximum capacity. Sullenly, the soldiers appeared in small groups, disheveled and drunk to varying degrees. Gathering onto the unpaved streets, they bitched and complained about the interruption to their unofficial holiday weekend as they were absorbing the euphoria of the moment. Commerce at various levels had been halted, drinking curtailed, lovemaking suspended, romances infringed upon, and the general mood of levity forestalled. Even the MPs appeared sympathetic to the plight of the soldiers, and with unusual tact they directed the most drunken and boisterous of the lot to the parked vehicles for transit back to the base.

On the sidewalks outside the bars, Japanese girls attired in both western and oriental dress dejectedly viewed the transpiring scene of mass exodus, which was infringing upon their most lucrative source of income on the eve of its peak availability. In fractured English, they mildly expressed their displeasure toward the MPs. The mamasans who operated the bars stood by, taking in the scene. They were equally perplexed by the situation, though their mood seemed contemplative, as if evaluating the big picture.

The troops filed back through the main gate, slowly moving in haphazard groups toward their barracks as the effect of the recall was being registered over the entire compound. At the officers’ club, the monthly hail and farewell gathering was hastily terminated just as the buffet line had started to move. The absence of the regimental commander and key members of his staff had already been noted when the adjutant arrived and announced: All officers are to report to their units and await further orders.

Elsewhere on the compound, various gambling activities, commonplace around payday, voluntarily ended. Choir practice in the chapel was curtailed. At the service club, the modest gathering of non-revelers quit the pool tournament and other assorted activities to scatter toward their units. The NCO club and enlisted men’s club were emptied. In the forefront of the minds of all concerned was one word—Korea.

For the past week, Stars and Stripes had been full of reports of the uncertain situation developing there. Armed Forces Radio had been offering meager comments about what was transpiring. The specter of the mysterious place, vaguely located somewhere off to the west, had risen prominently in their minds. Few knew anything about the land, called Chosun by the Japanese. Old soldiers who had previously served there spoke ill of the country and its people. The prevailing consensus among most personnel was The Land of the Morning Calm seemed a good place to avoid, considering that present duty in Japan with its appealing comforts was probably the best kept secret in the United States Army.

By noon the following day, the stragglers had reported and reassumed their places in the ranks. Replacements filtered in from the pipeline that had been activated a few days before by a higher headquarters, providing levied manpower from various less crucial units throughout Japan. The pace of readiness accelerated as deployment plans were executed. Korea became a certainty, but the role the regiment was to play remained unclear. The vague term policing action gained wide acceptance. Combat was hardly considered even a remote likelihood.

The day progressed and mundane but necessary details were carried out. Turn in of non-essential items, packing and loading, minor last-minute maintenance of equipment: all were accomplished with a general shrug of non-concern, and yet there persisted the unsettling feeling that there was a peculiar permanence to it all. Finally, retreat was sounded, the colors cased. The troops headed for the mess halls where the cooks had removed the perishables from cold storage, knowing these food items could not be brought along. Though hurriedly prepared, the men consumed copious varieties of meats and vegetables in quantities never previously experienced, before wolfing down heaping servings of desserts.

Later, when things had settled down and they returned to their barracks or quarters, the word was passed. The regiment’s first battalion would move out the following morning. The troops affected by the order received the news with mute contemplation, and the evening passed slowly until lights out was sounded. They lay uneasily on their bunks, unable to sleep as the embers of burning cigarettes sparked faintly in the dark, and the rasp of nervous coughs lanced the cloaked silence of the room. Together they waited for tomorrow and the looming intrusion that threatened their uncomplicated existence. Sharpening the edge of their anxiety, the public address system echoed Taps across the parade field, and the call filtered into the squad bays.

Collectively they heard the mournful notes, which revealed a significant measure of validity. The drinking, the whoring, the fun and games were over. The sexy oriental girl you were screwing was sharply pictured in your mind, but already relegated to only a memory and a tug in your groin. Assuredly, she would find some other bed. The notes reverberated for all to hear, clearly sounding the definitive message. The time had arrived to start soldiering.

Reveille formation rapidly passed, and morning chow proved to be a mere fragment of the sumptuous meal heaped on them the night before. At the appointed hour, they unknowingly fell into formation for the last time in Japan. Platoon leaders nervously paced about, eyeing the troops who, sensing the unease of their superiors, became fidgety themselves. An overall restlessness blanketed the scene. Nothing felt right. The troops shifted their weight from one leg to another. Crotches and testicles were fingered and rearranged, shoulder straps adjusted and tightened, helmets cursed, slung rifles transferred from one shoulder to the other.

When the order to move out finally came, it was met with a half cheer and a collective sigh of relief. The troops route-stepped in a column of twos and began the half-mile–long trek to trucks that would shuttle them to the ship waiting in the harbor. The transfer from camp to port went unnoticed, except by a group of Japanese girls who stood solemnly outside the main gate as the vehicles sped by.

On the docks, the troops dismounted from the trucks and lined up in company order to face the vessel before them. She was not what they had expected. In place of the Butner, Randall, or Walker, there loomed the faded, rusted hull of the Shinano Maru. The ship was met with a distrustful eye by the troops, who immediately categorized her as a tramp steamer—a reasonable observation. Launched in the early 1930s at the Port of Kure, she had served the empire during the war by ferrying supplies and troops around the immediate confines of the home islands. On two occasions in the latter stages of the war, the Shinano Maru had been struck by American torpedoes that failed to explode. After the war, she was used for a variety of mundane missions, the latest of which was the shuttling of refugees between Korea and Japan.

The rusty old vessel lay placidly belching waste from her bilges as half-naked Japanese laborers carried load after load into her holds. Not far away, the battalion’s motor vehicles were being loaded onto two LSTs for shipment to Korea. This was of little interest to the anxious men in the ranks, waiting to board the decaying-looking transport and proceed with the mission. The rumors had already started: The whole deal is a training exercise. We’ll all be back in Japan within seventy-two hours.

While the troops mulled over the scuttlebutt, the NCOs and officers prowled alongside the columns of men, apprehensive with the new environment into which they had been thrust. The battalion commander and his staff arrived and viewed the scene with displeasure: over six hundred men in uneven rows, some leaving their positions to urinate onto the side of a corrugated metal toolshed. He called the company commanders together and ordered the troops to be shaped into defined units with rifles stacked to their front.

Another hour passed before a contingent from the port transportation office arrived with their brassards and clipboards to take charge of the loading. By this time, the uncompromising sun had cut through the humidity to scorch the men as they stood in mute misery. Perspiration soaked their uniforms and fell in random droplets from their chins onto the oil-stained pier.

The first unit selected for boarding was Headquarters and Service Company. On command from an NCO, the troops started up the wooden gangway, making it about halfway before the rotted planks gave off a sharp cracking sound and collapsed. The assembled battalion watched in silence as all but two of the men jumped safely back to the dock. Together the pair splashed into the murky water between the ship and the pier. The guidon bearer clutched the staff as he hit the water. He was able to hold the dark blue and white pennant high until he went under and it floated away. The two men were quickly rescued, while a Japanese dockworker retrieved the company guidon with a long grappling hook. Overhead, an albatross shrieked, seemingly mocking the entire proceeding.

A rain squall came up from out of the sea as the formation watched while a replacement gangplank was rolled into place. They hurriedly shuffled forward in the downpour, responding to the call of their line numbers, and filed up the precarious walkway onto the deck of the ship, where they were directed to the passageways. They hustled down the ladders to compartments with no fixtures or accommodations of any type, only a maze of rusted pipes and shut-off valves above their heads.

The troops milled around in the compartments, surprised by the absence of tiered bunks. NCOs sized up the situation and started to assign areas by platoons. Someone deduced that a pile of straw mats rolled against the bulkhead was the only concession of comfort the ship would offer, but lice were discovered infesting the mats, and no one wanted any part of them. Also found were stained pillows in a corner, which turned out to be Japanese life jackets. These strange looking items also remained ignored.

Filled to capacity, each compartment held an entire company of approximately 170 men, less the officers and senior NCOs who had been berthed above deck in the relative luxury of separate six-man cabins. The most notable factor affecting the troops was the humid stench, a noxious mix of sweat, corrosive rust, seawater, fuel oil, and the residual stink of cooking oil used by a previous load of Asian refugees.

The men staked out areas and dropped their packs and rifles. Many of them made their way up the ladder to a place along the rails. The squall had abated, and a rainbow arched from the sea deep into the distant hills. The Shinano Maru edged away from her mooring. The sky had cleared and the sun was high—a marvelous day. By now almost everyone was on deck, perched in every available nook, intently watching, knowing the moment was special. Japan was slipping away. The laborers on the docks became mere specks in the distance, and the profile of hills beyond the port stood out in sharp contrast to the soft blue sky. The prejudices and complaints they’d had about the land and its people seemed insignificant now. They longed for reconciliation and hungered for another chance to savor the delights they had so casually wasted. Give us one more night on the town, and then we will fight your war or quell the uprising—whatever it is you’re sending us to Korea to accomplish. As Japan receded from their grasp, a unique blend of time and circumstance was forever lost to all of them—never to be recovered.

During the afternoon, the mess cooks set up a galley, and the troops filed by to fill their canteen cups with orangeade and accept the cheese sandwiches provided to them. They accepted their meager rations without complaint and moved about the deck, searching for a place to settle. The ship passed several small picturesque islands. A few were marked by large stone lanterns and huge Shinto Torii shrines. Fishing boats under full sail were making their way in the opposite direction toward the main island, nets hanging high to dry. Japan was now a fading smudge on the horizon. Suddenly the pure green water turned blue-gray, as the ship eased slightly around into the choppy waters of the Tsushima Strait.

As the Shinano Maru rocked in the moderate swells, the troops tried to relax in some fashion attended by their personal thoughts. Physical discomfort had largely suppressed emotional tension. Only a few sought relief in prayer. Oblivious to the spray thrown up across the bow, the only intrusion upon the ruling silence was the splash of the sea against the hull. They watched as the sun slowly receded, a fiery red orb into what was believed to be China.

At midvoyage, the storm struck. The uneven seas fell from beneath the ship and a great wave broke above the bow, drenching the men on deck. In harmony with the first plunge of the ship, sheets of rain swept across the vessel as the men headed for the companionways, but the second wave inundated them before they could make it below. They tumbled into the compartments, dripping, cursing, yelling, and trampling the seasick lying defenseless beneath their charge. Once they had all reached their compartments, the men milled and jostled until they located their equipment. Soaked to the skin, they hugged their knees, backs to the bulkhead, fighting the motion of the ship as it nosed up and then down with a shock that sent an ominous cracking sound through the hull. Water cascaded down the ladder as each wave broke over the deck, until some unseen hand closed the hatchway. The men huddled in their misery, dimly visible in the light of two lamps at opposite ends of the compartment. The severe roll of the ship soon took its toll, and the number of sick increased, compounding the repulsive odor with their own wastes. With each shudder of the hull, they cowered, waiting for the sea to come crashing in around them.

Sharpening the men’s angst, the two overhead lamps blinked out. The only trace of remaining light was a soft red illumination from somewhere near the ladder. From time to time, they raised their heads to observe the tiny red glow, somehow reassured by the faint signal that the ship still moved under her own power.

The wild pitch of the vessel continued as she plowed through the roiling sea, bow jutting into the air, groping ahead through each successive wave. The soldiers locked arms to gain some degree of purchase, but in time many of them were beaten into submission, and they meekly rolled forward, embracing their packs, no longer caring as they slid about on the slimy deck. This chaotic state continued until the storm mercifully vanished, leaving the sea dull and flat in the gray, yawning expanse of the day’s first light. Off the port bow, the dark reclining silhouette of Korea had moved into view on the horizon.

To the stern of the vessel, sunrise crawled onto the scene as the ship nosed into the harbor and took a straight heading toward a familiar berth. The Shinano Maru had previously docked there on several occasions. However, this trip was unique, for the human cargo being delivered was of a different vintage, some of whom had straggled up onto the deck from the reeking compartments below to inquisitively search the approaching shoreline of the mainland of Asia. What appeared was a bleak land mass, which seemed cloaked in a colorless tone. Uneasily, they perceived a foreboding undertone of cold remoteness from the harsh-appearing landscape.

The battalion disembarked from the old overworked vessel at the Korean port city. The vigor of the troops, which had been sapped during the voyage, was quickly restored. They joked, jostled, and grab-assed, eager to leave the ship and set foot upon solid ground again. If, as rumored, they were headed for airlift back to Japan, then the barracks and bars would resound with the stories they would relate and embellish about the terrible voyage of the Shinano Maru.

They shuffled off the ship, formed into companies, and quickly marched through the dusty streets of the strange city toward their bivouac area, which an advanced party had secured. Along the way Korean children ran alongside the columns and shouted, Hey GI, hey GI! The older people stood in small groups and watched in passive silence. They had seen Americans before.

In the distance beyond the town, the troops could see the rising panorama of endless hills. As the march proceeded, the contour of the land eased the column upward to a higher elevation. They looked back and caught sight of the old vessel that had transported them from Japan heading out of the bay toward the open sea, thus severing their last strand with the past. The parting caused a sense of isolation to creep into their psyches. Adding to their unease, an ominous rumor had gained a large measure of attribution. A war was lurking.

JUST ANOTHER FRAULEIN

Back in those days, an assignment to West Germany was not bad duty at all. The country was still in the doldrums recovering from the war, and our status there was rather ambiguous. The peace treaty had reinstated West Germany’s sovereignty, and we remained as quasi-occupiers, a condition the Germans recognized as necessary, and generally tolerated in a remote manner.