Nam Sense by Jr. Arthur Wiknik Read Free Book Online

women. Maybe you do, as long as the kill can be used for the body count. We’re just here to put our time in and then go home. Man, we don’t even get much support from the people back in the World. They’re either protesting or running off to Canada. Do you want to die for something like that?”
    “You have a bad attitude, Wiknik. You won’t be an NCO much longer with all that negativism.”
    “Look, if we come across the Gooks, we’ll fight, but I’m not going to look for trouble unless we have the advantage.”
    “A Grunt’s job is to search out and destroy the enemy, not hide in the bushes from them. You are not doing your job.”
    I was raised to be tolerant of narrow-minded people, but Burke was so aggravating that I finally lost my cool.
    “Burke,” I began in a snotty tone, “you are nothing but a gung-ho asshole who’s going to get someone killed. I don’t know what these poor bastards ever did to deserve someone like you. The Army must have been pretty desperate to make you a NCO. You better lighten up on the Lifer bullshit before you find that the VC isn’t your only enemy.”
    Everyone silently watched as Burke began leading his squad away.
    “This doesn’t end here Wiknik!” he barked over his shoulder. “There’s an unwritten law that forbids NCOs to argue with each other in front of their men. You just violated that law.”
    “Tell someone who cares!” I yelled back.
    I didn’t know if Burke would make trouble for me, but I didn’t care. The silly smirks on my men’s faces told me of their support. I was finally accepted.
    Our next RIF found us at the Camp Evans dump located in a large natural depression just outside the bunker line. We were responding to a call that the villagers had been raiding the dump and a few of them were bitten by rats while picking through the garbage. To the destitute peasants, the dump was a goldmine, but that didn’t matter to the Army. Our job was to kick them out and keep them out.
    This was my first official dealing with the locals, and it was a fiasco. There were about fifteen of them, mostly old women, a couple of young mothers, and the rest kids. After we arrived, it was easy to round them up, probably because we had the guns. But when we told them they had to leave, the only English they seemed to know was “Fuck you, GI.”
    Talking wasn’t going to do it, so we herded the villagers together and chased them away. After a few minutes, they appeared at the far side of the dump. We went after them again but they disappeared over a small hill. By the time we walked across the dump, they were back at the entrance, pointing and laughing at us. The villagers were obviously hard core scroungers with no plans to leave until their picking was done. When we rousted them for the third time, they taunted us more by yelling, “Fuck you!” and making obscene gestures. That’s when we decided enough was enough and that our only remaining option was to shoot tear gas at them. We fired three M-79 gas canisters, which were surprisingly effective. They screamed like banshees and scattered. Our action sure wouldn’t win us any friends, but it was still funny to watch.
    We hung around for a while, hoping that the villagers had had enough and gone home. But they regrouped and appeared several hundred feet behind us yelling again, so we shot more tear gas at them. Only this time, they didn’t run. The gas cloud was suspended in front of them for a moment, and then it drifted back in our direction. We were downwind and had gassed ourselves! The villagers set us up and we fell for it. Luckily, by the time the gas traveled to our position it had weakened enough to be only a minor irritant, but it was pretty embarrassing. We finally consented to let them take what they wanted, but we spot-checked each one as they came out to be sure that they didn’t find any live ammunition or something their VC friends could use against us.
    As we searched their pickings, I noticed