BLACK PRESIDENT, Chapter 33 (part 2 0f 2). Rudy gets his PTSD in Vietnam.

https://bravotheproject.com/tag/ghost-patrol/. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wV5B5kdNow

July 14, 1968

On the flight to Vietnam from the holding base on Okinawa, Rudy enjoyed the air conditioning and the free meal, but when they came in sight of Da Nang he heard some of the men talking about other planes taking flak. He had already learned from others at Okinawa about the fifty-yard dash from the plane to the airport buildings. The Thirteen-month-ers who had returned alive painted a pretty grim picture. They said some of their men had been blown away before they’d barely stepped off the plane, so Rudy asked to be issued his rifle and flak jacket on the plane, but it didn’t happen. Luckily the incoming rounds were at a temporary halt as the plane finally touched down.

When the door was cracked opened for disembarkment, Rudy and his fellow recruits were overwhelmed by the intensity of the Vietnam heat that invaded the cabin. Soon they were marching out, hup-hup fashion, and headed over to a big quonset hut where salt tablets were dispensed.

“Take two of these fuckers every day,” instructed the young lieutenant, “

“And I mean TWO,” emphasized the coordinator, “Or you’ll probably get heatstroke and die on your own, before the VC can get you. And we don’t want no suicides around here, OK?”

After a quick role call each man was issued his M-16. Things were happening fast, thought Rudy. This is a no-shit op. It took only twenty minutes to hand out weapons and assign men to their base.

“You...Tempers. You’re Second Division. That’s Quang Tri. Tomorrow, 0800.”

“Yessir,” said Rudy, happy that there was still time to hit the Da Nang streets with his buddies. And things appeared pretty civilized, as jungle towns went. The military men Rudy passed on the sidewalks were still keeping up their appearance – creased pants, spit-shined boots, clean uniforms – carrying themselves along with a certain bravado. In comparison to U.S. soldiers, though, the local people looked ragged, shabby , and always in a hurry . The dirty babies playing in what looked like sewer water, didn’t help the image. Not a pretty sight. And Quang Tri was definitely a step down from there. Many more ramshackle houses, more ragged people, kids running around half-naked, more garbage and sewer water everywhere he looked. But there was no time to get fixated, because orders kept him moving.

Next it was on to Phu Bai. Rudy knew he would forget some of the names when he tried to write Lora Ann a postcard. He still kept in touch with his ex-wife. He had come to realize that if Lora Ann had just become pregnant back when they were together, he would never have gotten drafted in the first place. It had actually been his fucked-up married life that had gotten him into uniform.

“Tango-Two”was his new company. And they kept shifting Rudy to new locations. After breakfast at 0530 they loaded him and other new recruits onto a truck and headed for “LZ Stud” – a real squirrely place he’d heard – with the ground all torn up and only bunkers and hooches for defense. It didn’t take long to see some badly impaired people hanging around. Rat bites on faces and arms, infected wounds, bodies just waiting to be removed. Things were turning nightmarish fast. Yeah, he thought, I should have stayed married. Then I’d only have to put up with a wife and a mother-in-law. With all the Coca Cola he saw around the DMZ he couldn’t help also thinking, I should have just kept bottling, too.

“I probably corked some of these,” he bragged, to a new guy, Jerry. But Jerry, who talked with a Brooklyn accent, wasn’t impressed. “Got some smoke?” was all Rudy heard back.

Next, it was on to Khe Sanh, and all pretext of an orderly military operation dissolved. None of the soldiers Rudy spotted on the ridge or along the trench line even bothered to wear the stripes. It looked like the men had just woke up, rolled us of bed and forgotten to tuck in their shirts or shave. The sergeants yelled orders and hustled the men along, splitting them up, assigning them to different parts of the mountain. The oppressive heat wore Rudy down, so that his pack felt like double its sixty-pound weight. He stripped it off as soon as the platoon neared the barbed wire, just dumped it off his shoulder. Lots of other men followed his lead.

Next, the squad leader ordered Rudy and some others to don their jungle fatigues, but since none had been issued, the men just made do as best they could, tearing off sleeves, cutting pants into shorts. Some Marines already stationed there threw in extra t-shirts and rags that somehow became usable clothing. The scene looked like a crazy, out-of-control garage sale. Within the hour, two other young Marines walked up and handed Rudy clothes.

An oversized shirt was handed to him from a black guy named “Ruffy.” Nothing about Ruffy’s wardrobe was regulation. He wore a red bandana around his forehead to hold back his Afro, and his T- shirt had a big “R” painted across it with some kind of red ink or paint, the crusty lines lifting off the fabric. Cut-off bluejean shorts completed Ruffy’s “uniform.” The dogtags that said “Military” were there on a chain, but he could just have easily been heading for a spring break at Fort Lauderdale.

Rudy’s pants came from a thin White guy in his early twenties, who called himself “Shadow.” Rudy figured the name was because the guy dressed in blacks and had black face paint smeared under his eyes and across his forehead

“For the glare,” Shadow announced, when noticing Rudy’s odd expression. Newbies often looked wierd at him at first. “Gooksville warpaint,” he added, “To spook them fuckers.”

Before Shadow turned and walked away, he threw his hunting knife straight into the ground, less than a foot away from Rudy’s foot. “Cut the legs off if you want to.” Shadow took two steps, turned and, pointing at the knife spoke again with a laugh.

“Too bad I missed your foot – coulda been on a plane for Hawaii.”

Within the hour, Rudy was ordered to jump in a bunker. That’s where he’d be living...where the gunners were positioned. It was tough easing himself down into that dark hole in the ground, really just an underground mud hut. Where are the rats? he wondered. He’d been told that the rats were exceptionally big and aggressive around there, and that he should show no mercy if he spotted one. Luckily, none showed their ugly mugs that first day. Later on it wouldn’t matter, to him or anyone stationed there, because killing rats and other things (whatever moved) became necessary sport to staying alive.

Within the next hour, Rudy heard the squad leader shout, “High haunches, you mothers!”

There was no time to think. Rudy was soon running around with an M-16, somewhere in the jungle. When someone spotted a dead VC, sprawled in the bushes with his guts spilled out, the squad leader called for Rudy to come over. Rudy took a quick look, breathed in the rotten smell and immediately threw up, vomiting his lunch. The squad leader, nicknamed “Frisky,” gave the next order. He wanted the dead man’s intestines to be pulled out and stretched between two trees. They could run thirty feet, he said, and wanted them measured.

“You got to be kidding,” said Rudy, but Frisky just stared at him, humorlessly. He wasn’t kidding. Frisky said something about sticking fingers inside a body to warm stiff hands. Rudy tried to approach the body again, and puked some more. Finally he managed to grab the intestines and start pulling. He felt the warmth – it was true. He tugged some more and suddenly the whole mess gushed out. Rudy staggered back, bent over dry- heaving. Again he faced the task, grabbed the intestines and started walking, one step, two steps.

It only took two hours for Rudy’s indoctrination into death to be complete. All the new guys got a similar lesson. The enemy dead was nothing to cry over. They’re hardly human. Killing them was good, like removing an insignificant pest from off the kitchen floor. Just bring your foot down hard and stomp, shoot, stab, hack them without mercy. Then sweep the crap away.

Rudy learned quickly from the old-timers that the real warriors picked prizes off the dead. Out would come their knives, and they’d carve off the ears, noses, stringing the VC mementos on their hat band or belt loop. And if you didn’t do it, didn’t deface the corpses, your Phoenix buddies would seriously wonder if you had a problem.

Go on. Cut off a few ears for souvenirs, they’d prompt. You earned it. Maybe even a penis or breast...like Rudy saw Shag do. Shag was another of the long-timers. Shag didn’t give a fuck. It would be much later, after Rudy got half-blown apart, that he would wonder what all his buddies did with the beef-jerky ears after they got home. Did they hide them in envelopes in their trunks, back in New Y ork...Kansas...Georgia...Utah...Colorado...California?

Thousands of dried-up ears and other body parts were waiting to be found across the U.S. That future lawyer, accountant, doctor, businessman, gas station attendant had killed people without mercy. What if their wives, kids, girlfriends, mothers, buddies back home ever found out all the truth?

Frisky was a “Phoenix” operative. That’s the Op the top guys worked for. Rudy was told it was an intelligence program – CIA foreign – that was trying to knock off the VC leadership. There was hardly anyone in it past twenty-years-old, except for old-man Frisky. And he was “twenty-mother-fuckin-four.” Frisky said if Rudy did real good he could be recruited too. And like everyone else, Rudy hit the weed, the LSD tabs and brew, and waited for assignments So, death to gooks. No big deal. Just wipe ’em out. Collect your trophies. But if a Marine got killed...now that was something tragic. When they murdered one of your brothers, one of your own, it was time to get even...even times two. That’s all Frisky had to say. He’d yell, TIMES TWO! Everybody knew what he meant. Kill every fucking thing that moved. Entire villages got wiped out.

Rudy repeatedly stuck his hands inside dead Vietnamese bodies and felt his fingers loosen up. In fact, it became his trademark. Everyone had one. Rudy remembered that feeling of dipping his fingers into hot oil back at the service station, digging out an oil pan plug during oil changes. Not much different. Bloody Rudy, said Shag. Red Hands Rudy, someone else joked. RHR, Frisky chimed. Others joined with Ra...har...Ra...har. And the name stuck.

Watch out for Rahar! He’s one crazy, mother fuckin’ jar-head!

And did you ever hear Rahar roar? When Rudy took down a village, aced the population, Rahar really roared.

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