"Gustav Hasvord. The Short-Timers " - читать интересную книгу автора

charred vast patches of earth, but the land is healing itself with beauty.
My ears pop. I pinch my nose and puff out my cheeks. Rafter Man
imitates me. We sit on bales of green rubber-impregnated canvas body bags.
As we near Hue, the door gunner smokes marijuana and fires his M-60
machine gun at a farmer in the rice paddies below. The door gunner has long
hair, a bushy moustache, and is naked except for an unbuttoned Hawaiian
sport shirt. On the Hawaiian sport shirt are a hundred yellow hula dancers.
The hamlet beneath us is in free fire zone-anybody can shoot at it at
any time and for any reason. We watch the farmer run in the shallow water.
The farmer knows only that his family needs some rice to eat. The farmer
knows only that the bullets are tearing him apart.
He falls, and the door gunner giggles.


The med-evac chopper sets down on a landing zone near Highway One, a
mile south of Hue. The LZ is cluttered with walking wounded, stretcher
cases, and body bags. Before Rafter Man and I are off the LZ our chopper has
been loaded with wounded and is airborne again, flying back to Phu Bai.
We wait for a rough rider convoy in front of a bombed-out gas station.
Hours pass. Noon. I take off my flak jacket. I pull my old, ragged Boy Scout
shirt out of my NVA rucksack. I put on my Boy Scout shirt so that the sun
won't roast the flesh from my bones. On the frayed collar, corporal's
chevrons that are so salty that the black enamel has worn off and the brass
shows through. Over the right breast pocket, a cloth rectangle which reads
First Marine Division, CORRESPONDENT. And in Vietnamese: BAO CHI.
Sitting on a bullet-riddled yellow oyster that says SHELL OIL, we drink
Cokes that cost five dollars a bottle. The mamasan who sells us the Cokes is
wearing a conical white hat. She bows every time we speak. She squawks and
chatters like an old black bird. She flashes her black teeth at us. She is
very proud of her teeth. Only a lifetime of chewing betel nuts can make
teeth as black as hers. We don't understand a word of her magpie chatter,
but the hatred in the smile frozen on her face says clearly, "Oh well,
Americans may be assholes but they are very rich."
There is a popular sea story which says that old Victor Charlie
mamasans sell Cokes with ground-up glass in them. Drinking, we wonder if
that's true.
Two Dusters, light tanks with twin 40mm guns, grind by. The men in the
Dusters ignore our thumbs.
An hour later a Mighty Mite zooms by at eighty miles an hour, the
maximum speed of the little jeep. No luck.
Then a convoy of six-bys appears, led by two M-48 Patton tanks. Thirty
big trucks roar by at full speed. Two more Patton tanks are riding security
at tail-end Charlie.
The first tank speeds up as it passes us.
The second tank slows down, bucks, jerks to a halt. In the turret is a
blond tank commander who is not wearing a helmet or a shirt. He waves us on.
We put on our flak jackets. We pick up our gear and swing it up onto the
tank. Then Rafter Man and I climb up onto a block of hot, vibrating metal.
Down in a hatch by our feet is the driver. His head protrudes just
enough for him to see; his hands are on the controls. The driver jerks the