We said it each day of our miserable lives. We said it when it rained, and when it didn’t rain, when it was hot, when it was hotter. “It don’t mean nothin,” we said.
We said it because it sounded tough. We said it to keep from crying. We said it because it might be true. We said it at rest, and the bloodsucking insects swarmed, and our faces swelled, and our hands swelled, and our lips swelled, and our ears swelled, and we thought about getting malaria, and we thought about how good that would be; you get malaria you leave the boonies—unless you died from it.
But the dream of being inside the wire, asleep on a hospital cot, hot chow, no one shooting, made chancing a slow death easy. How bad could that be? It don’t mean nothin.
So we ditched the big orange pills; took the white ones. Skipping them won’t improve your odds, but made sense when you’re dog-tired. You’re thinking, what the hell anything’s better than humping the boonies. But you don’t do it. You shut up and saddle up, because don’t mean nothin.
We said it when dry sweat left white salt streaks on our stinking fatigues, worn sometimes five, six days, longer, until clean one’s arrived. No tiger-stripes for us. Just the worn-out junk, grubby with mud, sweat, bug juice, gun lube, red-brown blotches from crushed leeches puffed up the size of ripe grapes with blood—our blood, some guy’s name tag stitched on the back pocket. The new ones ragged in a day, rotting in four. At night, wrapped in poncho liners on the jungle floor, we’d twist and turn in our half-sleep between shifts on guard. At dawn, waking, a quart low, it don’t mean nothin, we said.
We said it when a jeep, filled with ammo, exploded, killing eleven men. Said it when the mess tent took a direct hit. Don’t mean nothin we said after a sapper blew a bunker, the men inside pulped, burnt, crushed by sandbags and perforated steel plating.
On a hilltop, taking AKs, mortars and RPGs, 175s too close for comfort, when they said you can’t retreat, just us twenty now, burned out, used up, wanting off that place that reeked of death—we thought for sure they’d pull us back. Instead, we stayed ten days, C Company boosting our ragged line. Bluffing our way past 12 dead, 26 wounded, we never spoke of it again. But who can forget the battle of Hill 54, just one more story too sad to tell, in a war that don’t mean nothin.
_______________
Jack Parente served with Echo Recon 1-7 First Cavalry Division in 69-70. He was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge, the Bronze Star, the Air Medal, and twice received the Purple Heart. He retired from the video/film production field as a producer/director in 2014.
photo / Galen Eversole
Song of the PFC, by Jack Parente
We said it each day of our miserable lives. We said it when it rained, and when it didn’t rain, when it was hot, when it was hotter. “It don’t mean nothin,” we said.
We said it because it sounded tough. We said it to keep from crying. We said it because it might be true. We said it at rest, and the bloodsucking insects swarmed, and our faces swelled, and our hands swelled, and our lips swelled, and our ears swelled, and we thought about getting malaria, and we thought about how good that would be; you get malaria you leave the boonies—unless you died from it.
But the dream of being inside the wire, asleep on a hospital cot, hot chow, no one shooting, made chancing a slow death easy. How bad could that be? It don’t mean nothin.
So we ditched the big orange pills; took the white ones. Skipping them won’t improve your odds, but made sense when you’re dog-tired. You’re thinking, what the hell anything’s better than humping the boonies. But you don’t do it. You shut up and saddle up, because don’t mean nothin.
We said it when dry sweat left white salt streaks on our stinking fatigues, worn sometimes five, six days, longer, until clean one’s arrived. No tiger-stripes for us. Just the worn-out junk, grubby with mud, sweat, bug juice, gun lube, red-brown blotches from crushed leeches puffed up the size of ripe grapes with blood—our blood, some guy’s name tag stitched on the back pocket. The new ones ragged in a day, rotting in four. At night, wrapped in poncho liners on the jungle floor, we’d twist and turn in our half-sleep between shifts on guard. At dawn, waking, a quart low, it don’t mean nothin, we said.
We said it when a jeep, filled with ammo, exploded, killing eleven men. Said it when the mess tent took a direct hit. Don’t mean nothin we said after a sapper blew a bunker, the men inside pulped, burnt, crushed by sandbags and perforated steel plating.
On a hilltop, taking AKs, mortars and RPGs, 175s too close for comfort, when they said you can’t retreat, just us twenty now, burned out, used up, wanting off that place that reeked of death—we thought for sure they’d pull us back. Instead, we stayed ten days, C Company boosting our ragged line. Bluffing our way past 12 dead, 26 wounded, we never spoke of it again. But who can forget the battle of Hill 54, just one more story too sad to tell, in a war that don’t mean nothin.
_______________
Jack Parente served with Echo Recon 1-7 First Cavalry Division in 69-70. He was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge, the Bronze Star, the Air Medal, and twice received the Purple Heart. He retired from the video/film production field as a producer/director in 2014.
photo / Galen Eversole