Dancing With the Devil

I served in Vietnam from July 1970 until September 1971. I did not choose the fate of a draftee, but I met many wonderful people during my tour. It is also impossible to spend fourteen months of total hell. There were moments of total hell but most of the time was almost normal, some moments even fun.

I was remembering an event I still cannot believe, even after all these years. To say that I had fun is a lie because my rear end stayed puckered the entire time. The event took place almost four decades ago, at the non-com club in Bien Hoa.

I spent the first six months of my tour in the boonies as an infantry foot soldier. I've told the story of getting poked in the eye with a bamboo limb. Recuperating in Song Be - relative civilization compared to where I had been - I played chess and became close friends with the company clerk of Headquarters Company. When a position as a clerk-typist came open and I offered the job, I did not have to be asked twice if I was interested.
A time came when the Top Sergeant asked to fill in as Battalion Courier for a soldier on R & R. Long before the days of personal computers, the courier physically transported a satchel of papers and documents from our outpost in Song Be to the main headquarters in Bien Hoa. I was a spec 4, the equivalent of a corporal but not considered a NCO. A friend that I will call Sergeant Brown was going to Bien Hoa at the same time and wanted me to accompany him to the NCO club later that night.

"A hell of a place," he told me, "With the best steaks, beer and whiskey in Nam."

"But I'm not an NCO. I'll get in trouble."

"No one knows you in Bien Hoa. I got sergeant's stripes for you. Tonight you're going to be an E-5 sergeant."

We made it to the club that night. It was dark, smoky and loud, a Vietnamese rock band playing on stage. We ate our steaks and were well into our second whiskey when my worst nightmare suddenly appeared. It was E-8 Sergeant Roper (I will call him). Sergeant Roper was big, easily three-hundred pounds, and he was black - a little scary for a southern boy that had never known many blacks, much less ones in authority. I had never seen him smile.

Frightened of the man, I once witnessed him take away a live grenade from a drugged sky trooper that was threatening to blow up an officer's hooch. To say that my heart was in my throat was an understatement and I fully expected to spend the rest of my tour locked in the infamous Long Binh Jail.

I waited for the other shoe to fall. Instead, he asked, "How are you tonight Sergeant Wilder?"

When I noticed the man standing behind him, I realized why I was not already in handcuffs. It was our company commander, Captain Ahab (I will call him). Officers, like enlisted men, are also unwelcome in an NCO club. Captain Ahab, white like me, was wearing sergeant stripes - he was an E5. That night I was his equal, Sergeant Brown his superior.

Sergeants Roper and Ahab joined us and we all proceeded to drink, listen to the band and even exchange a few pleasantries along the way. I fully expected court-martial the following day, as I am sure did Sergeant Brown. Instead, nothing was ever said of the incident and we never again acknowledged even a passing hint that we may have consorted illicitly.

Years have passed and I still wonder about the incident. Why had I taken the chance of court-martial to visit a place where I should not be? Moreover, why had a Captain, the company commander, taken the same chance? The answer surely has to be that there is a deeply buried need in all of us to visit that one place, at least just once, from which society forbids us to enter. It is a location where everyone is equal. Most of us never visit but there is surely no better place on earth.

Eric'sWeb