John Clay – Gun Crew – Part Two

I Don’t Remember Hardly Any Names

… because most of the time nobody wore a shirt with your name on it and we used nicknames so much. My nickname was Cassius, for Cassius Clay. A guy from Missouri everybody called Old Red because he was older and he had red hair. There was a really tall black guy we called Slim. I have more nicknames in my head than real names.

My gun sergeant was this big huge guy, must have been 300 pounds and 6’3 or 6’4 with blonde hair and a mustache. He was an old lifer E5 and champion beer drinker who had been busted more times than the average and then promoted back up again. (This character everyone called The Swede.)

Then Sgt. Rock came along as my gunnery sergeant, a shake and bake out of gunnery school. We called him Sgt. Rock from the comic books (character created by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert for DC comics first appeared in 1959).

There was a guy on Gun 1, a big farmer type everybody called Baby Huey (a giant duckling cartoon character created by Martin Taras for Paramount Pictures uttered its first quack in 1949.) I remember we were very good friends. He was the one who gave me the nickname Cassius.

I Do Remember …

… using powder from the extra powder bags to heat shower water. This was against procedure because we were supposed to take the bags out to the dump and burn them in a pile. An exception was using them to heat water for the officers, which was one of our duties. But we weren’t allowed to heat our own water.

… how we put warm beer in the LRRPs because the water wasn’t any good.

These were freeze dried food packets used on Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol missions, referred to as LRRPs and pronounced “lurps.”

… when Johnny Grant came to the firebase. He was an old master of ceremonies kind of guy they called The Honorary Mayor of Hollywood. He came out with a couple of Playboy bunnies and they did a show.

… helping build the bar that was our “club” in the middle of the battery. I was always handy with wood. I had a fancy hooch. I was one of the first people to take the blowtorch and burn the wood and make it look like walnut. It was amazing what you could do with a bunch of empty ammo boxes

… starting to smoke and drink in the Army. The Red Cross gave us the cigarettes in care packages. I gave up the smoking about ten years later. Also gave up the drinking because it bothered my stomach.

… when Davis got killed (Jeffrey Lynn Davis killed April 16 , 1970). He was a nice guy. I think he was on Gun 2, the gun as you came out of FDC on your right hand side. He was in the ammo bunker when a mortar round landed in the doorway. There was another guy who got a lot of shrapnel in his face, a little stocky guy. We all went over trying to do something for them, and then the Medevac arrived and off they went.

… when I first got to Sherry we just had the old WWII split tail howitzers. To swing them around you had to take a couple guys and physically pick up the trails. Then the M102s with the wheel on the back came in that you could just wheeled around in a full circle.

… Commo Daddy on mine sweeps down there with a knife probing when they found a mine. (Commo Daddy was a common nickname for the communications section chief.)

… one time I was on guard duty and saw a woman and her kids digging outside the wire where we had a bulldozer. I called it in and the First Sergeant went out there with a couple people and found a booby trap.

… vaguely early in my tour a guy got killed on a Duster when we got mortared one night, by the nickname of Chicken Man.

… stealing stuff when we’d go to the rear area: the metal runway material and heavy rubber tarps for building hooches, stuff you couldn’t get. I remember we stole some because they were just sitting there rotting in the sun.

… when Junk Daddy traded for that big generator is when I sent away for my four-track tape player and listened to Crosby, Stills & Nash at night. (Junk Daddy was the common term of affection for the supply sergeant.)

… one night during a mortar attack someone accidentally set off a green flare. That meant Viet Cong were inside the perimeter and everyone was shitting in their pants.

… that I avoided playing poker and stuff like that. I think I got that from my father. He said, “Beware of playing poker and guys you don’t know.” When we got paid I had a checkbook and when the paymaster came I could cash a check. That’s how I got money. All of my money went into an account. I never got my month’s pay in my hand.

… Paul Dunne. He was one of the first guys I really got to know. When I was stuck in FDC I’d go out at night when things were quiet and we would go get coffee and just walk around. Two months after I met him he’s dead, killed on a mine sweep going into town. My dad – he served in Patton’s Army in WWII in the Battle of the Bulge and had a piece of his skull blown out by a sniper – told me I might loose friends, and he was right. To this day I still think about Paul.