BUT, GENERAL....I'M AWOL!!!
I'm here, but...I got a little problem, General!
After completing my first tour in Nam and returning home, I realized that it was time
for me to “get educated” in something more productive than blasting away
with artillery shells. There
wasn’t too much demand or pay for that in civilian life, unless you count
pointing a cannon at City Hall or other places where bureaucrats congregate and
becoming a professional mercenary.
Okay...but
I want some negotiated terms here, buddy! I wanted the Army to send me to
Jungle School down in Panama (the Jungle Operations Course or JOC), I wanted to
go to Jump School (where you learn how to jump out of perfectly good airplanes)
AND I want to be assigned to the 173d Airborne Division once I get to Nam.
"Okay," they said, "Done, Done and Done!" Sure enough,
I completed Jump School, got my wings, and completed the Jungle School and got
my coveted JOC patch. However…there was a small problem with the third
request, i.e., going to the 173d Airborne Division in Nam.
When
I arrived in Nam, they took my orders, tossed them in the trashcan, and said:
“We’re sending you down to Cu Chi”. Hey…wait
a minute…that ain’t part of the deal I got.
“Tough cookies, pal…you’re going to Cu Chi”.
Well,
I’ve never been known to be afraid to get things done on my own and in my own
way, so I left this clown alone to go shuffle his paperwork.
Then I promptly found out where the 173rd Airborne Hq was located. Having
already spent a year in Nam and having been through this drill before, it was
just a matter of asking people until you found out.
Okay…so I find out that the 173rd Airborne is located up in the
northern area somewhere. Next task: go
talk to the chopper pilots…they know everything! Sure enough, I found a
chopper pilot who was heading for the 173rd Airborne Division Headquarters.
“Mind if I hop a ride?” I asked.
There weren’t any taxi fares in Nam .
Ta-da!
Here I am at the 173rd Airborne Division HQ, General Hubert S.
Cunningham, Commanding. I get
permission to go in and report to him. Gen
Cunningham says: “Boy, are we glad to see you!
We haven’t been getting any officers up here in months!”
“Well,
General…”, I replied, “that’s because the boys at the reception station
keep diverting them to Cu Chi!”
A
frown crossed the General’s face and he said, “That would explain it”.
“However,
General…there IS one small problem that I have here”, I said.
“What’s
that?” he asked.
“Well,
sir…I am AWOL!”
"AWOL?!?"
"What in the devil are you talking about?" asked Gen
Cunningham.
Then
I told him the whole story of the broken promise given to me back in the States,
etc, etc.
“Well,
I’ll fix that”, he said. He
promptly picked up the phone and made some calls.
I don’t think anyone in the entire US Army relishes getting a phone
call from a pissed-off general officer. I
got used to the smell of shit burning from my first tour in Nam…now it was
time to learn the smell of somebody’s ass burning…much more pleasant smell
to me, I assure you.
“Don’t
worry, son”, the General said. “You’re
HERE now…and possession is nine-tenths of the law”.
Sometimes
you just gotta do things your OWN way!
Lt Don Keith