THE SAVAGE FACE OF WAR UNMASKED "THE BEST WORK OF FICTION ABOUT THE VIETNAM WARY-NEWSWEEK

The acclaimed novel upon which the movieis based.

THE SHORT-TIMERS"BRILLIANT."t

"ARRESTING."

"EXTRAORDINARY."Philadelphi Inquirer

Praisefor

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THE SBORT-TIMESSThe S]wft.rImers,leatherneck version of C t h a ac22,1 is a first noveland it is extraordinary2 Hasfordknows Iris subfect.8 The driving and often

brilliant first-person narrative* carries you out of your chair and deposits yon into the clatter ofa tangle patrol.& The writing is crisp and tough.

T e e is an eaonnons feeling o horror.6 Arresthr fIng disturbing,8 often very funny? honest and accurate,* chock full o undeniable truths, The f Short-Thnera is a savage, unforgiving look at a savage, unforgivable time.ll-

Read it if you dam.$+T . ..;+ L k

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elbow, Sergeant Gerheim said. Then he allowed Perkinstodouble-timetosidebay. ,-s^' - -.f. leavesLeonardalonemd&, 2 %4

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to Mom and Dad back

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Marine Corps does wants IdDers.'Hie Marine Corps wants to build indestructible m & men e without fear. Civilians may choose to submit or to ~ h & % W ~ ~ l m w d19

tick. Othon look xared.And

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Nobody m v s Nobody says mything. oe. tbiiilcLeonardcanhadeitanymore.Ithink is a Section Eight" Now guys all along the table axe

mare.

Private Bamard nods. Tve been having this My rifle talks to m . H hesitates. e" e

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vosQ. down his throat and out of

crushed.He groans. The platoon freezes.

=&Not one word."

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Gerheim snaps out Ids last to mount Readddy ,

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weapons held at port aims. W say our prayerst e

lama Untfed States Marine Corps recruit. I serve to the forces @hich guard my country and my way of Ufe. Iamprepwedtogbmy Weinthetrdefense, so help meGod.. HOl GUNG HOl

.GUNGHOI GUNG

Then the Rifleman's Creed, by Marine Corps Major General W H Rupertus: . .

Leonard is speaking for the first time i weeks. His n voice booms louder and louder. Heads turn. Bodies shift. The platoon voice fades. Leonard is about to explode. His words ale being coughed up from deep, ugly place. Sergeant ~ e r h & his the right duty. He struts to Leonard's rack and stands by, fists on hips. Leonard doesn't see Sergeant Gerhefan. The veins i Leonard's neck are bulging as he bellows: n

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T H SPIRIT ~

OF THE BAYONET

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nue. That's another monopoly. Sergeantw H e podb n s tiny greenhouses on board. "Joker, yuv o'e scarfedupbeaucoup slackinDaNangandIam+ that now you are squared away toget bade into the field.Hump up to H e The NVA havedou. the - - --- city. One-One is in theshit" - - > .

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killed my story on that howitzer crew who - I whole squad of NVA with one beehive round? In Da N n some poges told me that a colonel ag shit-canned-my story. Some colonel said that beehive rounds were a figment of my imagination because the Geneva Convemtion chsded them as 'inhumane' and American fighting men ire incapable o f bring to.W' M a & -grmti~.wz e TWS i p& t m? u word for i Ten thousand feathered stainless steel t darts.Thosefl^chette do convert go&lumpsofshittyfags.

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killed your beehive story, Jdfeer. What I don't know is who has been tipping off hostile reporters every time we get' an adverse incident~likethat* Victor Charlie recon wasted hst week, the one the snuffies General Motors is

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TOALLWHOUSEETHESEPRESENTS,

KNOW YE THAT BEPOSING SPECIAL TRUSTCTDENCEOfTHESTDEiinOS JAMEST.DAVIS,

STATES MABTOE! COBPS..

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I stare at the piece of paper. Then I pat o n Captain January's field desk. "Number mean, tto way, sir? Captain January stops Ills Hide silver shoe i n stride."What did you say, Sergeant?"

motion.

This is the only war wefw got,

make the world safe for

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~MSRS &y and he t e n . W& is & busfa&!~~nvest i d ; ysiaa son. W NEUXLa : e e having tosay you're ve savr ^s s b y . Arb& Macht Frei""S&geant

"Negative, Captain. Number ten. I'm a &ral. You can send me tothe bag, +I know that. Lock me up in Portsmouth Naval Prison until I rot, but let .---.- merotasacorporal,sir.YonfcaowIdomyfob.I . . - write that the Namis an Asian Eldorado populated by - = acute, primitive but determined people. W r is a a -.-=-noisy breakfast food. War i fun.to eat. War can five s ' . - _ :p, checkups. Wr cores canceI?permanent better a Tfc I don't hfll.I write. G a t Ml; I only watch. Tm rns Z- only young Dr. Goebbels. I'm not a sergeant" I sddt = ^ i: Sr Captain January'ssilver shoe lands on Oriental Avenue. There is a tiny red plastic hotel on Oriental Avehue. CaptainJanuary grimaces d f l l e a connts trot thirty-five dollars in MFC. H e hands Mx. Payback the $'small colorful bills andthen hands 1dm the dice. "Ser: 2 geant, you will be wearing chevrons indicating yaw: proper rank the next time I see you- or I wil definitely . jump on your program. Do you want to be a grant? . ' Hnot, you will remove that unauthorized peace but.- . tonfromyourdutyuniform.". . =

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'Idon'tsayanything. Captain & m ~ a i y looks at Rafter Man. "Who's this? Sound off. Marine." - '" --'fis.=;-'j. k ra^ *-& -- : . -->% % :?.A^ , Rafter Man stutters, --ss :>: --v-,* - - .---. . I say, '"This is Lance Corporal Compton, sir. The Gay to Photo." "Outstanding. Weleome aboard. Marine. Joker, make sleeping sounds here tonight and head up to fine in the morning. Wle Cronldte is due here toatr25 'Y

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~ O s s s w well be busy* ni need C2riK Vendor saS so Daytona here. But your job is important, t o General o. Motors called me about this personally. We need some And some hard-hitting e p a of indigenous civilian personnelwhohavebeenexecutedwiththeirhoodstied behind their b a a people buried alive, priests with their throats cut, dead babiesyo know what I want - Get me some good body counts. And don't forget to calculate your kill ratios.And Joker. ^ M , say naked bodies Ideas"Doa't ewem the/reurntflated,* ; "Aye-aye, six" ' ~ J o ~ , , " - -. ;

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"Ye&&F"Getahaircut." 1 - y ,"Aye-aye,sir."

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As M .Payback releases h s lit& silver car Captain r i Jan@ gays"TIu houses! Three faousesiPark ingPIad W s ,* " e g t d las a hy oi rr Mr. Payback counts out all o his money. "That f breaks me, Captain, I sswe you seven backs." Captain January rakes up the pile of MFC, a shiteating grin on his face. "You do not understand ness, M .Payback. If we had Marine generds w o e h understood business this war would be over. The . secret to winning this war Is in.public relations. Harry STrumanoncesaidthattheMarineCorpshasa propaganda machine almost equal to Stalin's. He was - right. Jbi war, trnA te the first casualty. Correspoas-. dents are more effective (ban gnmta. Groats medy IdU the enemy. AH that matters is what we write, what we photograph. History may be written withb u s i 2

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blood ami iroq but ~ f printed wift ~nkmii its ,pm s good show business but we make them what they are. The lesser services like to joke about how every Marine platoon goes into battle accompanied by a pla-toon of M r n Craps photographers. That's affirmaaie tive. Marines fight -harderbecause JM@w have big-. ger legends to live up t. o" h-:~ Captain January slaps a large package on the floor by Ids desk. "And this is die final product of all our industry. My wife likes to show interest i my n work. She asked me for a souvenir. I'm s s so funny out loud. ""Yes, Sergeant?" "Where's the Top?" "The First shirt went to Da Nang for some incountry R & R You can see him after you come back . f o Hue." Captain January looks at his wristwatch. rm 'Seventeen hundred. Chow time." .

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to chow Rafter Man and I meet Chill Oa Vendor and Daytona Dave and M . Payback at the r ISO enlisted men's hootch. I give Rafter Man a utility jacket with 101st Airborne patches all over it. My own Army jacket has First Air Cavalry insignia. Iselect two salty sets of Army collar chevrons and we pin them on. Now we're Spec-5's~Army sergeants. Chili Vendor and Daytona Dave and Mr. Payback axe all buck sergeants from t e Ninth Infantry Divih sioa. We go to chow down in the Army mess hall. The Army eats real' food. Cake, roast beef, ice cream, chocolate milk-all the bennies. Our own mess hah

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Keel-Aid and sbit-on-a-shinglechippe Deer toast-with peanut butter and jelly sandwidies for

"When's die Top due backf Chfll Vendor says, "Oh, maybe tomorrow. January. - onyourprogram Inod."Hat g Her, He's crazy. He's just plain fuckhg crazy. He gets crazier every time I see him. Now he's mailing a go& stiff home to his wife.^' Daytona says, 'There it is. But then the Top is a - Itfer,too." " ~ nthe ~ o is d&t t p I main, maybe the crotch is his home,and he makes us do a good job, but he. don't harass us with M c e Mouse shit. He cuts the iky snuffies some slack when he can. The Top's not a lifer; he's a career M r n .Lifers are a breed. A lifer aie is anybody who abuses authority he d e n t deserve os' - t o have. There are plenty of civilian lifers." Hie Army m s sergeant with the big cigar spotes she& &D.'s. The Army mess sergeant with the big cigar takes tile shiny m s trays out of our hands and throws us , es outofVismesshalL . W retreat to the Mrn mess hall where we eat e aie shit-on-a-shingle and drink lukewarm Kool-Aid and wetalkabouttowtheAnnycouMbveatleastson" ~enirea some leftovers since that's all the MarineT! us

we take a moment to pull down flie green plastic ponchos nailed on tike outside

bad: to our hootch. Laugh-

o thehootch. ~uringthenighttheponchoswillkeep light in and raia ouL

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-WE. SHOpTWeRS We Be on our& and scuMebxitt. On the 2. - . &ling, the combat correspondent's motto in six-inch ---. block letters: TXBSTTO GO, LAST TO KNOW, WE WBLL 2-

> .. . before we're out of sight and shoot us in the ass. I --know a gay i One-One that shot a gook and then - #& n tied asatchel charge to him and blew him into little' invisible pieces because shooting gooks is a waste ::;1 of' tfanethe 6 back t life.But thesegooh piss yo& ;ii o off so bad that you got to shoot sonietfainfe oiM/tfaingr7 -Bros, half the confirmed kffls I got are civilians and :. the other faatf is water buffaloes." Earl passes, burps,-, drawing the burp out as long as he can. 'You shouldp2d7 & have smzn A n b d M~~ wasting m.Ai - --.:>

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lain Charlie entertained M r n s 61 side bays a d i s - aie tributed spiritual tourniquets to men who were stillalive, but weaponless. To brutal, godless children Chaplain Charlie spoke about how God is merciful, despite appearances, about how the Ten Comma&. ments lade detail because when you're writing on stone tablets with lightening bolts you've got to be brief, about how the Free World wili conquerCSommunism with the aid of God and a few Marines,-andabout free fish. One day a Vietnamese child boobytrapped Chaplain Charlie's black bag of t i k . Chaprcs lain Charlie readied in and pulled out a brightball of death., "Hey, (he deck, leatherneck,we're m v n . hit oig" "What-P" I recognize the rooms Fm in. I remember the room from an earlier visit to H e I'm in the u. Palace of Perfect Peace in the Forbidden City. Cowboy punches my arm."Okay, Joker, stop acting. We h o w you're not dead." I sit up. I'm on a canvas med-evac stretcher. Th& it is. I did it1 Number one! I got my first heart" Rafter Man says, "A Purple Heart?" Cowboy laughs. Tuh titty, you poge. No lieart og I pat myself with my hands. "The hell you say. Where am I hit?" Rafter Man says, "You been out for hours. D c Jay o said you got blown up by a B-40. A rocket-propeBted grenade. But you only got the concussion. Someother guy got the shrapnel." Well," I say, "that sounds like a lifer-type thing to do" h a 1 Mother grunts and spits. Animal Mother

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Bight now we got a job to do. We got to

after I took the squad. He's myAlice double-times up theTO

He's naked, lying facedown on a skin is yellow. His eyes are dry in Mr. Shortrod is just another m in i t C w o looks down at M . Shortround. oby r off his muddy Stetson.

uptotherowofbodybasand

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The squad files by. I IgneeL I fold the poncho over Mr. small body. I feel a great need to say something to the &em plastic lump wt the human feet I say, "well, ih y u r short, sir." o'e I think about w a I have just said and I h o w thai: ht 'making a bad pun w s a stupid thing to do. But then a anything you could say to a dead officer who w s a killed by one o his own men w u d have to be pretty f ol rdclu. iiuos-

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Rafter Man and I double-time to catch up wt the ih squad. W e hump past scented lotus ponds, through land: scaped gardens, over bridges linking delicately struotured pagodas. All around the beautiful gardens invisible gunships rip into the peace and quiet like dogs fighting in a

church.- Cowboy holds up his right hand. The squad stops. Alice aims an index finger at a street of big mansions. Cowboy looks at me, then at the squad. Cowboy pulls me aside. We walk ahead for a few steps. 'That sniper opened up on us in a gook graveyard. Some - guys in One-One told us they found gold bars in the : t&apero/s palace. They had all they could hump, so -

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the restRCowboy wipes Rock was walking point The &per shot the Rock's foot off. Shot it off. The Eb&ss Squd went mt t get h m me at a time. o i, .That solper shot all their feet off. We were hiding behind graves, those old round graves like baseball mounds, and w had h e grunts down in ihe street e . Cowboy pulls a red bandaooa from Ills bade "

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pocket and Wipes Ids sweaty face. "Mr. Shortrgukd, - wouldn't let us go get them. ft made him side, but he held us back. Then the sniper started shooting off-. i 3 -fingers,toes, ears~everything.The guys in the rod :3were crying and begging and we were all growling --+*> like animals, but Ms. Shortround held us back. Then ,$ Animal Mother w to go for them and the Skipper Lf e d grabbed Animal Mother's collar and hit him in the -,I- ., face. Animal Mother was somad I thought he was go- i2 ; - ing to loll va all. But before he could do anything- ' the sniper started putting rounds into the guys in the ; r g , . street He didn't miss more than a couple of times. E e y z ( popped. T H E Rock's head off and then he put a -5% ... round through each gufs head. They were all moan-,.z3--' ing and praying and then it was quiet and they wpe -? - ," " -dead and it was like we were dead too.. . - Idontknowwhattosay. " ,. .. : Cowboy spite, his face a sweaty stone. "After (hex*--NVApulled out,the liferssent in the Amin Black - a t e sto take the Forbidden C t . Shit. N t i g . B. Pnhr iy ohnU t but rear good squads. We stomped the NVA and they- stomped us and then the lifers send In the, ; ; - Arvins, like the goddamn Arvins did i M . Short- ::.-t r - .= m d said it eastheir count~~, we was only :-w

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Cowboy waves his hand around the comer and opens up with : outbytheeventsofdienext.Andnoamountofinsight could ever alter the cold,black fact of what I had -2 done. I -was caught up in a constricting web of dark: . ; mess, and, like the ancient fanner, I was suddenly 2 very calm, just as I had been calm when die mine detonated, because there was nothing I could do. I-5 was defining myself with bullets; blood had blemished .'- my Yankee D o l dream that everything would have .. ., ode a happy ending, and that I when die war was over, , would retain to hometown America in a white silk- .-' uniform, a rainbow of campaign ribbons across my chest, brave beyond belief, the military Jesus.A:

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I think about my first IdU for a long time. At twilight- . corpsman appears. I explain to him that Marines* . never abandon their dead or wounded., .a-I

The corpsman looks at each of Eafter Man's pup& several times. "What?", I shrug.I say. "Payback Is a motherfucker." "What?" The corpsman is confused. The coipsmari isobviously a-New G y u. Tanks for the m m r e e o i s ." I say, because I do not know how to tell him how I feel You're a machine gunner who has come to the end of his last belt You're waiting, staring out through the barbed wire at the l t l men who sse assaulting your position. You ite see their tiny toy-soldier bayonets and their deter-

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& ~ q d a * b ~ ' = a d ~ w bhas come to the end of Us last be& and {here'snothing you can da The little men are going to grow and grow and grow~illuminated the fluid, ghostly fire by of a star flarean then the/re going to run up over you and cut you up wt Imives. Ton see this. You ih W t& But ym*m a-maddm gunner who has i. &me to the end of hia last belt and there's nothing you can do; In their distant fury {he Bide men are your brothers and you love them mgce than you love your friends. So you wait for the little men to come and you know you'll be waitingforthemwhenthey comebecause you no longer have anywhere else to go. The corpsman i s confused. He does not understand why I'm smiling. "Are you okay, Marinel'!''' Yes,he is a New Guy for sure. I ditty-bopdown the road. The copmmii calls after me. I ignore him. A mile away from the place of fear I stick out my tIn hn h

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BODY COURT

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~tarn,thinking~vegotsomeslack,thinkingI've- got a ride. A poge colonel pounces out of the jeep, &ches up to face me. "MARINEI* I think: Is that you, John Wayne? Is this me? "Ayes, aye, sir." "Corporal, don't you know how to execute ft hand -

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colonel snaps his hand to his starched barracks cover .' 7 7 and I hold the salute for an extra couple of seconds before cutting it away sharply. Now the poge colonel- - ... has boon identified as an officer to any enemy snipe+wl - , in the area. -., -. -.-, -?"Corporal, don't you know how to stand to oftenr; ,.(ton?"+

salute?" *1u. . Yes, ar. I salute. I hold the salute until the pge' .? '\

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Bight away I start wishing I was back in the shit. In . battles there are no police, only people who waflt @ ' -shoot you. In battles there are no poges. Poges try to- Skill you on the inside. Poges leave your body'intact , because your muscles are all they want trona you way. I stand to attention, wobbling slightly beneath dr sixty pounds of gear I humping. ' m The poge colonel has a classic granite jaw. I m sai ' that the Marine C r s must have a strict examinatio op at the officers' candidate school at Quandco designe to eliminate all officer candidates who lack the granite jaw. ffis Jungle utilities are razor-creased, starched the consistency of green armor. He executes a flaw&. , Short Pause, a favorite technique of leaders of men,. designed to inflict its victim with fatal Having no desire to damage the colonel's+