Well, I ran into this officer. Second Lieutenant. Just got out of OCS. He asked me if I was authorized to wear a combat infantryman’s badge and jump wings. I told him, “You damn right. I earned them.“ He didn’t like that answer. So I said, “You can harass me now, sir, but you can’t go over in Vietnam and do that shit.“ […]

So when I heard he had orders for ‘Nam, I went and found him and laughed at him and told him that he wasn’t gon’ make it back. “Somebody’s gon’ kill you,“ I said. “One of your own men is gon’ kill you.“

In the rear sometimes we got a grenade, dump the gunpowder out, break the firing pin. Then you’ll go inside one of them little bourgeois clubs. […] 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 we saw these [Confederate] 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 the top of 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.

Before I went home, the company commanders in Bravo and Echo got killed. And rumor said their own men did it. Those companies were pressed because the captains do everything by the book. And the book didn’t work for Vietnam. They had this West Point thing about how you dug a foxhole at night. Put sandbags around it. You couldn’t expect a man to cut through that jungle all day, then dig a hole, fill up the sandbags, then in the morning time dump the sandbags out, fill your foxhole back up, and then cut down another mountain.

Guys said the hell with some foxhole. And every time you get in a fire fight, you looking around for somebody to cover your back, and he looking around to see where the captain is ‘cause he gon’ fire a couple rounds at him. See, the thing about Vietnam, your own men could shoot you and no one could tell, because we always left weapons around and the Viet Congs could get them.

You would see the racialism in the base-camp area. Like red-necks flying rebel flags from their jeeps. I would feel insulated, intimidated. The brothers they was calling quote unquote troublemakers, they would send to the fields. A lot of brothers who had supply clerk or cook MOS when they came over ended up in the field. And when the brothers who was shot came out of the field, most of them got the jobs burning shit in these 50-gallon drums. Most of the white dudes got jobs as supply clerks or in the mess hall.

So we began to talk to each other, close our ranks, and be more organized amongst ourselves to deal with some of this stuff. The ones like me from the field would tell the brothers in base camp, “Look, man, you know how to use grenades. If you run into any problems, just throw a grenade in their hootch.“

One night, we had come in for a stand-down. I was laying in bed, just about to go to sleep. We hear this burst, and the bullets went through the tent. Everybody jumped off on the floor. We didn’t have any weapons, ‘cause they’d always disarm us when we came in. What happened was this black soldier had taken some drugs, and he just sort of went crazy. A lot of his anxieties and hostilities came out. He got an M-16, and he sprayed a Sergeant, killed him and two others.

After another stand-down, we lost a second-lieutenant. A white guy. He had been in country about six months. And he had made a lot of enemies because he was really tough on some of his people in the field even though the pullout had started. Someone wired a claymore mine to the door of his hootch.

So on [this Sergeant’s] birthday, which was three days [after he demoted me], he was havin’ all the officers in his barracks. They was partyin’. Music was playin’. Me and some friends of mine got a M-79 grenade launcher, got behind some sandbags, and we M-79′ed his birthday party. A couple of people got hurt.

Well, I ran into this officer. Second Lieutenant. Just got out of OCS. He asked me if I was authorized to wear a combat infantryman’s badge and jump wings. I told him, “You damn right. I earned them.“ He didn’t like that answer. So I said, “You can harass me now, sir, but you can’t go over in Vietnam and do that shit.“ […]

So when I heard he had orders for ‘Nam, I went and found him and laughed at him and told him that he wasn’t gon’ make it back. “Somebody’s gon’ kill you,“ I said. “One of your own men is gon’ kill you.“

In the rear sometimes we got a grenade, dump the gunpowder out, break the firing pin. Then you’ll go inside one of them little bourgeois clubs. […] 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 we saw these [Confederate] 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 the top of 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.

Before I went home, the company commanders in Bravo and Echo got killed. And rumor said their own men did it. Those companies were pressed because the captains do everything by the book. And the book didn’t work for Vietnam. They had this West Point thing about how you dug a foxhole at night. Put sandbags around it. You couldn’t expect a man to cut through that jungle all day, then dig a hole, fill up the sandbags, then in the morning time dump the sandbags out, fill your foxhole back up, and then cut down another mountain.

Guys said the hell with some foxhole. And every time you get in a fire fight, you looking around for somebody to cover your back, and he looking around to see where the captain is ‘cause he gon’ fire a couple rounds at him. See, the thing about Vietnam, your own men could shoot you and no one could tell, because we always left weapons around and the Viet Congs could get them.

You would see the racialism in the base-camp area. Like red-necks flying rebel flags from their jeeps. I would feel insulated, intimidated. The brothers they was calling quote unquote troublemakers, they would send to the fields. A lot of brothers who had supply clerk or cook MOS when they came over ended up in the field. And when the brothers who was shot came out of the field, most of them got the jobs burning shit in these 50-gallon drums. Most of the white dudes got jobs as supply clerks or in the mess hall.

So we began to talk to each other, close our ranks, and be more organized amongst ourselves to deal with some of this stuff. The ones like me from the field would tell the brothers in base camp, “Look, man, you know how to use grenades. If you run into any problems, just throw a grenade in their hootch.“

One night, we had come in for a stand-down. I was laying in bed, just about to go to sleep. We hear this burst, and the bullets went through the tent. Everybody jumped off on the floor. We didn’t have any weapons, ‘cause they’d always disarm us when we came in. What happened was this black soldier had taken some drugs, and he just sort of went crazy. A lot of his anxieties and hostilities came out. He got an M-16, and he sprayed a Sergeant, killed him and two others.

After another stand-down, we lost a second-lieutenant. A white guy. He had been in country about six months. And he had made a lot of enemies because he was really tough on some of his people in the field even though the pullout had started. Someone wired a claymore mine to the door of his hootch.

So on [this Sergeant’s] birthday, which was three days [after he demoted me], he was havin’ all the officers in his barracks. They was partyin’. Music was playin’. Me and some friends of mine got a M-79 grenade launcher, got behind some sandbags, and we M-79′ed his birthday party. A couple of people got hurt.