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RECOLLECTIONS: "It Means Something Doesn't It?"

By Bill Davis

West Virginia, Spring, 1966

Roy Jenkins wasn't a real good friend of mine but in a small West Virginia county like Doddrige, you knew everybody by name and you either got along with them or you didn't. I got along with Roy. He was likeable enough and a damn good guy to have with you in a Saturday-night beer joint brawl.

Doddridge County was poor, really poor; no industry, few jobs except for farm work and the State Road Commission, and a lot of welfare. For young people coming up, there was only one solution—get out. Go to the mills up north or the mines down south or into the military service for a while.

Roy, myself and many of the other guys were going into the service. What with the war in Vietnam and all, the recruiters were thick as flies, buying coffee and beer and hamburgers, making promises and telling jokes—and we were like sheep on the way to the slaughterhouse.

I signed up for the Air Force and passed the tests—I suppose mostly cause they promised job training you could use when you got out. Roy chose the Army—he couldn't pass the test for the Navy or the Air Force and he wanted out of Doddridge as much as the rest of us.

Roy and I had the same date for the Armed Forces test and physical in Fairmont, about 80 miles away. We arranged a ride to Clarksburg with a truck-load of men who made the 100-mile round trip to Union Carbide in Clarksburg every day. From there we were going to hitch-hike up to Fairmont.

It was a beautiful spring morning in May. The sun hadn't come up yet and the fog still lay in most of the low places and in patches up on the hillsides when I climbed in the back of the pickup truck. Most of the men were trying to catch a few winks so I didn't say much other than hello. We picked up Roy in front of the Red Parrot Inn just outside of Sedalia.

By then it was a little lighter out, and Roy and I could hardly contain our enthusiasm, talking about everything that crossed our minds. Most of the men just eyed us sourly and tried to sleep, except for Monk Underwood who sat there staring at us like he didn't know us or something.

After awhile I felt a little uncomfortable, so I turned to Monk and say, "How ya been, Monk?"

"Fair to middlin', Bill" he said; "You boys going in the service, huh?"

"Yeah, today's when we take the final test," I said. Roy didn't open his mouth, but he didin't talk much, particularly to people he didn't know.

"You young bucks hot to get in the war, I reckon."

Nobody ever put it to me that way before, and I hesitated before I said, "Yeah, I s'pose."

Monk straightened up on the bench, spit some tobacco juice in a can in front of him, leaned forward and rasped, "What the hell you know about war, boy?"

"Not much," I bristled back.

"What the hell you know about it, Monk?"

"Damn sure more than you do, boy. I was in Korea."

"Yeah, Monk, but this here's different."

"Bullshit; they all the same. You don't know what you're in for."

"Listen, Monk, I'm going into the Air Force, they don't have to carry guns and the recruiter said I wouldn't have to go overseas."

Monk sat there for a minute, spat into the can gain. "Bullshit," he grunted, pulled his hat down a little lower and didn't say another word the rest of the ride.

Roy and I jumped out in Clarksburg, grabbed some coffee and rolls, stuck out our thumbs and we were off to Fairmont.

It was a holiday for us: for me, a day out of high school on a spring day, and for Roy a day off from bust-ass work on some farm. A real holiday, I put what Monk had said out of my mind. Vietnam was many thousands of miles away. Roy didn't have the slightest idea of where it was.

CAM RANH BAY, VIETNAM
AUGUST, 1966

Cam Ranh Bay looked the same from the air as it did on the ground, a stinking sand pit. I cam in country there and was glad to be sent down to Vung Tau, a paradise in comparison.

This trip I was on a scrounge mission to get all the spare parts I could for our junk equipment to fix our junk aircraft. If they turned me loose in the parts room like they usually did, I'd rip off everything that wasn't nailed down to sell or trade to other outfits later on.

My pilfering done, I wandered over to the Air Force EM Club to drink myself into oblivion and see what kind of shit I could get myself into.

The club was a real treat—sand, spilt beer, broken glass, and plenty of fights. The big attraction that night was an overweight, middle-aged woman signing songs about whatever city or state you requested. Whenever she hit on any place there was always a cheer and stomping. Everybody wanted to get home and get out of this goddamn hole.

I got pitcher of beer and sat down. I drank about half of it without looking up. I leaned back to take in the show—fucking officers get all the good shows—we get this shit.

Looking around for any of the guys I knew in Cam Ranh, I damn near jumped out of my seat. "That guy looks like Roy Jenkins," I thought. A couple of tables away some Army dudes were drinking. "Shit, it is him," I thought again. Jumping up, I practically ran over. "roy! Roy, you old son of a bitch!" He jumped up grinning, both of us pumping our hands like crazy.

A million questions went through our minds at once—"How the hell are ya, what outfit you with, where you at in country"—and on and on.

He introduced me to the other guys at the table as his hometown buddy; they nodded and turned their attention back to the show.

We went back to where I was sitting and started talking; Roy looked bad—real bad. Not just the sunburned, red-dust weary look most of the combat troops had, but a nervous, haggard, beat-up look.

"So, how ya been, roy?

"No good, Bill; not good."

"How'd ya get here, Roy," I asked

"Ah, we came in a truck convoy from Na Trang. Got the hell kicked out of us. Took a lot of casualties."

"you going back the same way?"

"yeah, I reckon we are."

"What the hell for?"

"Ah, some bullshit about keeping the highway open."

"Ain't that some shit."

"Yeah, but what the hell. When we ain't there, the VC own it, and we run down it. They kick the hell out of us."

"Yeah, this is some war we got here, huh, Roy?"

"The only one we have, buddy," he said, and we both laughed.

We talked about home for hours, then he said he had to go. The truck was leaving soon back to the Army compound. I walked with him out to the truck.

When we got there he stopped and kinda kicked some sand around with his toe. Looking at me he said, "I wish to God I'd never come here, Bill."

"Yeah, me too, Roy. This war sucks."

He nodded.

"Listen, Roy, I got to go too. Keep you ass covered, OK?"

"Yeah, see you back in the world.

I watched the truck roll out. Roy waved once.

VUNG TAU ARMY AIRFIELD
VIETNAM, OCTOBER, 1968

I stopped by the mailroom and picked up whatever was there. One item was the regular letter from grandpa. He clipped the local papers for me -- who got married, who died, who won the local football games.

I sorted through the clippings. Becky Harvey got married--too bad. One had a picture of some GI; I unfolded it. "Oh, goddamn no!" Private Roy Jenkins was killed in the service of his country (bullshit) in August, 1968. "On that fucking truck convoy out of Cam Ranh--the next day. Oh, goddamn, no!"

I went back to my locker, cracked a fifth of scotch and proceeded to drink and think.

Roy wasn't the first I knew to die, but there were so many. I was the last person from Doddridge County to see Roy alive. Goddamn it! That means something, doesn't it?

Roy and the other buys bought it and I didn't really know why. I knew there was no good reason for it. Monk Underwood knew all along, but we wouldn't have listened. He didn't have a way with words, like the rich bastards who promoted and profited from the war.

- Bill Davis