Free-Fire Zone

Title Page

Part One

   
Chapter One

   
Chapter Two

   
Chapter Three

   
Chapter Four

Part Two

   
Chapter Five

   
Chapter Six

   
Chapter Seven

   
Chapter Eight

   
Chapter Nine

   
Chapter Ten

   
Chapter Eleven

   
Chapter Twelve

Book #4 Teaser

About the Author

Copyright

E
verything counts.

That's the difference, here. That's the difference between life now and here and life before and everywhere else. Nothing really counted before.

There were two kinds of results back there back then, meaning my previous, pre-Marines life. There were two kinds of results, and those were
failure
and
that didn't count.
Usually, failure. But if I actually passed a quiz, the quiz was too easy so that didn't count. If I got a base hit, the sun was in somebody's eyes so that didn't count. If I pitched a penny closer to the wall than anybody else, then I must have stepped over the line or the wall moved or whatever so that didn't count and so just do it over again,
Rudy-Judy
. Course, nobody called me Rudy-Judy if my buddy Ivan was around, except sometimes Ivan, but the rest was always the same:

We weren't ready, Rudi, so it don't count. Do it over. You gotta do it over.

Now? I never need to do it over. And you have to be ready. 'Cause it counts, brother. It all counts now.

 

“Can you
count
, private?!”

“Yes,
forty-three
, sir, I,
forty-four
, can.”

I can't believe how happy I am in this situation. There's a big beast of a baldy-man drill instructor spitting in my face while I do push-ups in the strongest sun I've ever dealt with. There could even be two suns working on me from two angles, because that's how the summer sun feels here in the South. The DI, who is a sergeant, is doing the push-ups with me, which is kind of decent of him in the suns and everything, and the spitting is not at all intentional. At least I don't think so.

See, I was doing my push-ups like he told me to and something got him riled, like lots of things do, and he hit the dirt with me, stretching out in the opposite direction. His feet are down that way and mine are back behind me like they usually are, and our faces are together, going up and down at the same time while he screams and spits at me, which he calls
chatting
. We've had a lot of chats, me and him. Guys are standing lined up beside me in both directions and laughing, which usually isn't allowed, but Sarge made a special Rudi Rule after the first two weeks of camp that it was okay
to laugh at me. Because recruits could not afford to be expending the considerable energy it would take to
not
laugh at me while that energy was going to be needed elsewhere.

I'm kind of a legend here in the South.

And by “here in the South,” I don't mean someplace like Marshfield or Woods Hole, either. I mean Parris Island, South Carolina, where guys say the Devil himself goes for his summer vacation.

“I don't believe that you
can
count, private!”

Sarge is in great shape, to be doing the push-ups in the suns and still screaming like he is.

“I can,
fifty-two
, sir. Just not,
fifty-four
, real great.”

The guys are busting out laughing now and who even knows why. But it's fun. Sarge even goes way out of line and lets himself fall chest-flat on the ground while I keep pumping and the guys keep laughing.

“Are you for real, private?”

He's got me with that one. I keep on pushing up, trying to keep count in my head, trying to come up with an answer to his question, trying to keep the guys laughing at the same time because I like that and the sergeant surely likes that and when he's happy everybody's happy.

I've never felt so powerful in all my life, I swear. My head is swimming with it.

Until my arms buckle under me and my face bounces off the baked dirt of the ground.

 

Some time passes. That's not a big deal of course, since time does that kind of thing all the time. But the difference now is, this time passes without me. Because when I open my eyes, without remembering ever closing them to begin with, I am indoors, sitting in a chair. Everything's all changed from the last moment I remember — except for Sarge being right in my face.

“I do have to ask you again,” he says, a lot less screamy and tough than usual, “are you for real, recruit?”

“No, sir,” I say, “I'm only drafted.”

Behind Sarge, somebody chuckles. That somebody turns out to be the medic, who brushes past Sarge and leans close to me. He's checking out my eyes, feeling my skull and my nose.

“Where you from, kid?” he asks. He has a strong accent, like he's a local around here, even though nobody seems to actually be from Parris Island, South Carolina. The only guys who say they're from Parris Island are the Marine recruits, and they're all actually from someplace else. Like me, for instance.

“I'm from Boston, sir.”

Sarge cuts in. “And we thought it was all clever college boys up in Boston.”

“It is,” I say. “The smart ones are all still there.”

They both laugh now, and Sarge reaches in to slap my leg. “Well, that's good. I'm glad they off-loaded you on us, then. You gonna be all right?”

I look to the medic, since it seems to me he's the one making that decision. But his answer is way too long. At some point he says something like “heat frustration,” which sounds too much like something I would say, so I won't be saying it.

I definitely hear the last part, because he's looking at me when he says it. “If he learns to keep hydrated — and learns to count — he should be just fine,” he says.

Turns out Sarge only asked me for thirty push-ups. I really must pay closer attention.

“Anyway,” I say, “it's not like I'm ever gonna run into any hotter sun than South Carolina sun, that's for sure.”

They both go quiet, staring at me, though I don't know what I've done wrong this time. Then they turn to each other.

“Is he for real?” the medic asks Sarge.

Sarge has a big smile on his face, though he's also shaking his head as he asks me:

“Recruit, have you ever heard of a place called
Vietnam
?”

F
ire.

The place is on
fire
.

I apologize to both countries, but they shouldn't be called
North Vietnam
and
South Vietnam
. They should be called
North Fire
and
South Fire
.

Here's a joke. It was told to me by a guy on the troop ship that brought us here from Oakland, California. He was coming back this way after serving one tour of duty, getting discharged, going home, then signing up again when he got bored with life outside the war because it had very little shooting and stuff like that.

The joke is: What's the difference between an oven on full blast and summer in Vietnam?

And anyway, I forgot the answer, so the answer is: nothing. There is no difference, okay?

Fire. The feel of fire is everywhere, heat rising up off the ground and pouring down from the sky, and it seems like half of everything is
actually
on fire half the time, from the bombs and the napalm, and I swear the tem
perature goes
down
when you get close to real, flamey-type fire instead of standing in the regular open air of Vietnam.

Fire!

You hear the word all the time, too. They really encourage a lot of shooting. I find myself constantly comparing what I do here with what I might've been doing back in Boston, and I can never see anybody letting me shoot at anything over there. I have to say, right off the bat that makes it Marines 1, regular life 0.

'Cause it's hot in combat terms, too. Has been from the day I arrived in I Corps Tactical Zone — that's the north part of South Vietnam, just to be extra confusing. Getting to camp was like a tour of every kind of destruction you could imagine. And then I didn't even make it to lunchtime on day one before I was sent out with a patrol and orders to shoot at everything that moved.

Nothing moved. We shot anyway. At trees and hills and clouds and abandoned burned-out vehicles.

I have to say, I like the shooting.

I like the
war
.

I shouldn't say that. Even I know I shouldn't say that. Nobody should like a war, even if they are great at it, like General Patton or Snoopy or somebody. But this is so different from life the way it was. And those are the only two ways of life I have to compare.

I was all wrong back home, and that's the truth.

I'm all right here.

I haven't killed anybody yet — not for sure, but I've tried. And almost as good as a confirmed kill is when you fire your M-16 in the direction of the enemy and you actually see them run away, run like rabbits, this way and that because they are
afraid
. Just a week ago, some fighters from the other side ran away screaming in another language when my company took over this village full of Vietcong and their sympathizers and, man, there's nothing, like nothing, that compares with that anywhere in my experience. I was heavy breathing for about an hour after that excursion, and I wasn't even tired. Getting kind of breathy right now just remembering. If they'd shot back instead of retreating, I think my lungs might have broken my ribs.

I'm scared, too, so it's not like I'm saying I'm not. But that's a whole other thing. I'm scared, but a little bit less than yesterday and a little bit less than the day before and a good lot less than at the start of my eight weeks of basic training. So the direction I'm going seems to be the right one.

And I was scared a whole bunch of the time in Boston, too. Difference is that when something scares me here, I shoot at it. You know what those fleeing, screaming, scaredy VC looked like to me? A bunch of
ol' Rudi-Judies, is what they looked like. Made me want to shoot 'em all the more.

I haven't killed any just yet — not confirmed. But it's only a matter of time.

Shooting solves a lot of stuff, it really does.