the rear sometimes we get a grenade, dump the gunpowder out, break the firing pin. Then you’ll go inside one of them little bourgeois clubs. Or go in the barracks where the supply guys are, sitting around playing bid whist and doing nothing. We act real crazy. Yell out, “Kill all y’all motherfuckers.” Pull the pin and throw the grenade. And everybody would haul ass and get out. It would make a little pop sound. And we would laugh. You didn’t see anybody jumpin’ on them grenades.
One time in the field, though, I saw a white boy jump on a grenade. But I believe he was pushed. It ain’t kill him. He lost both his legs.
The racial incidents didn’t happen in the field. Just when we went to the back. It wasn’t so much that they were against us. It was just that we felt that we were being taken advantage of, ’cause it seemed like more blacks in the field than in the rear.
In the rear we saw a bunch of rebel flags. They didn’t mean nothing by the rebel flag. It was just saying we for the South. It didn’t mean that they hated blacks. But after you in the field, you took the flags very personally.
One time we saw these flags in Nha Trang on the MP barracks. They was playing hillbilly music. Had their shoes off dancing. Had nice, pretty bunks. Mosquito nets over top the bunks. And had the nerve to have this camouflaged covers. Air conditioning. Cement floors. We just came out the jungles. We dirty, we smelly, hadn’t shaved. We just went off. Said, “Y’all the real enemy. We stayin’ here.” We turned the bunks over, started tearing up the stereo. They just ran out. Next morning, they shipped us back up.
In the field, we had the utmost respect for each other, because when a fire fight is going on and everybody is facing north, you don’t want to see nobody looking aroundsouth. If you was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, you didn’t tell nobody.
Take them guys from West Virginia, Kentucky. First time they ever seen blacks was when they went in the service. One of them told me that the only thing he hate about the service was he had to leave his sheep. He said he used to never wear boots or shoes. He tell us how he cut a stump, put the sheep across the stump, and he would rape the sheep. Those guys were dumb, strong, but with no problems about us blacks. Matter of fact, the whites catered to the blacks in the infantry in the field.
Captain one time asked Davis what kind of car he gonna have when he get back in the States. Davis told him, “I’m not gonna get a car, sir. I’m gonna get me a Exxon station and give gas away to the brothers. Let them finish burnin’ down what they leave.” It wasn’t funny if he said it in the stateside. But all of ’em bust out laughing.
We used to bathe in the stream. Shave and everything. Captain was telling Davis he had some Ivory soap. Davis said, “I don’t take baths. Water rusts iron and put knots on the alligator’s back.” Creole talk. Everybody laugh. They know he don’t bathe, but he was a terrific soldier. Small fella. He had one of the Napoleon complexes. Always had to prove something. He wasn’t scared. He had more heart than anybody. They respected him, and they knew if you need fire cover or need help, he right there.
Right after Tet, the mail chopper got shot down. We moved to Tam Ky. We didn’t have any mail in about three weeks. Then this lady by the name of Hanoi Helen come on the radio. She had a letter belong to Sir Drawers. From the chopper that was shot down. She read the letter from his wife about how she miss him. But that didn’t unsettle the brothers as much as when she got on the air after Martin Luther King died, and they was rioting back home. She was saying, “Soul brothers, go home. Whitey raping your mothers and your daughters, burning down your homes. What you over here for? This is not your war. The war is a trick of the Capitalist empire to get rid of the blacks.” I really thought—I really started believing it,
One time in the field, though, I saw a white boy jump on a grenade. But I believe he was pushed. It ain’t kill him. He lost both his legs.
The racial incidents didn’t happen in the field. Just when we went to the back. It wasn’t so much that they were against us. It was just that we felt that we were being taken advantage of, ’cause it seemed like more blacks in the field than in the rear.
In the rear we saw a bunch of rebel flags. They didn’t mean nothing by the rebel flag. It was just saying we for the South. It didn’t mean that they hated blacks. But after you in the field, you took the flags very personally.
One time we saw these flags in Nha Trang on the MP barracks. They was playing hillbilly music. Had their shoes off dancing. Had nice, pretty bunks. Mosquito nets over top the bunks. And had the nerve to have this camouflaged covers. Air conditioning. Cement floors. We just came out the jungles. We dirty, we smelly, hadn’t shaved. We just went off. Said, “Y’all the real enemy. We stayin’ here.” We turned the bunks over, started tearing up the stereo. They just ran out. Next morning, they shipped us back up.
In the field, we had the utmost respect for each other, because when a fire fight is going on and everybody is facing north, you don’t want to see nobody looking aroundsouth. If you was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, you didn’t tell nobody.
Take them guys from West Virginia, Kentucky. First time they ever seen blacks was when they went in the service. One of them told me that the only thing he hate about the service was he had to leave his sheep. He said he used to never wear boots or shoes. He tell us how he cut a stump, put the sheep across the stump, and he would rape the sheep. Those guys were dumb, strong, but with no problems about us blacks. Matter of fact, the whites catered to the blacks in the infantry in the field.
Captain one time asked Davis what kind of car he gonna have when he get back in the States. Davis told him, “I’m not gonna get a car, sir. I’m gonna get me a Exxon station and give gas away to the brothers. Let them finish burnin’ down what they leave.” It wasn’t funny if he said it in the stateside. But all of ’em bust out laughing.
We used to bathe in the stream. Shave and everything. Captain was telling Davis he had some Ivory soap. Davis said, “I don’t take baths. Water rusts iron and put knots on the alligator’s back.” Creole talk. Everybody laugh. They know he don’t bathe, but he was a terrific soldier. Small fella. He had one of the Napoleon complexes. Always had to prove something. He wasn’t scared. He had more heart than anybody. They respected him, and they knew if you need fire cover or need help, he right there.
Right after Tet, the mail chopper got shot down. We moved to Tam Ky. We didn’t have any mail in about three weeks. Then this lady by the name of Hanoi Helen come on the radio. She had a letter belong to Sir Drawers. From the chopper that was shot down. She read the letter from his wife about how she miss him. But that didn’t unsettle the brothers as much as when she got on the air after Martin Luther King died, and they was rioting back home. She was saying, “Soul brothers, go home. Whitey raping your mothers and your daughters, burning down your homes. What you over here for? This is not your war. The war is a trick of the Capitalist empire to get rid of the blacks.” I really thought—I really started believing it,
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