Sing a Song to Jenny Next, 2

Sing a Song to Jenny Next   -Lawrence Gardella       E. P. Dutton, NY, 1981 

2   The adventure started on a day in April 1952.  I'd been sent to the Marine Barracks at Annapolis, Maryland, full of piss & vinegar as any marine who's only seventeen years old & just out of boot camp.  While I waited for a permanent assignment, I was doing routine guard duty & training exercises.   That day, I remember, I'd just come in from a two-day field exercise.  After I'd put away my gear, the next step would have been a shower.  Before I got that far, a captain & two MPs came into the barracks & ordered me to go with them.   I asked if I should take my gear.   No, they said, no gear.   They led me to the orderly room & from there to a van that was parked outside.   I asked myself what could be going on.  I'd been in the Corps only since February & hadn't done anything to screw up that I could think of.  Anyhow, I had no choice but to get into the van for what turned out to be an eight-hour ride--where, to this day I still don't know.   When the van finally stopped, I was led into a room in a one-story building.  There stood a marine colonel, a major & two men in civilian clothes.  Why I rated the attention of so much brass I had no idea, but in a minute I would find out.   It seemed, according to one of the officers, that I'd falsified my enlistment papers.  When I asked what he meant, he said I had fraudulently concealed an item in my medical history, that as a kid I'd had asthma.  Now that they had found out, I was going to be discharged.   I just sat there in angry silence, wondering how in hell they could have found out, & at the same time realizing that it didn't matter.  All that mattered was that I wasn't going to be a marine anymore.   Then one of the civilians said, "Ricky, there's a way we might be able to keep you in."   I was startled to hear him use my nickname.  Somebody had obviously done some checking up with people who knew me.   "You haven't shown any signs of asthma lately.  We might be able to get around it--if you'll agree to something we have in mind."   "Sir," I told him, "I'll agree to anything."   It might be hard now for some people to believe I honestly said that.  But at the time we were fighting in Korea.  I was young & I believed in my country--I still do--& as far back as I could remember, I'd wanted to be a fighting man.  So I din't ask any questions.  I just listened while the civilian talked about needing a small group of men for a mission they couldn't even discuss.  "This mission is important to your country," the civilian said.  "& if you go through with it, the chances are very good that you'll be allowed to make the corps your lifetime career."   Thinking about it later, I realized that what the civilian actually meant was not "If you go through with it" but "If you get through it at all."   Well, I never saw things happen so fast.  Within minutes after I'd agreed, I was taking off with the two civilians in a small plane.  I had no idea then where we were headed & still haven't, other than that we landed in about an hour in a terrain that was barren & mountainous.  All I could see was a low building, a kind of adobe hut.  Inside it was another marine colonel, along with the same major we'd left an hour before--how he got there I don't know, but he wasn't on our plane--& seven other marines.  I spotted one set of lieutenant's bars; the rest were all enlisted men.  It soon became clear that they were "volunteers" like me.   One of the civilians told us to sit on the floor.  This was where we would sleep that night.  There was to be no liberty, no passes--in fact, we wouldn't even be able to walk out of the building until told to--& what went on here was all top secret.  No one else spoke.  We were given mats & blankets, & told to sack out.   Sleeping was one thing they couldn't order you to do, & I didn't do much of it that night.  At one point I thought I'd get up for a breath of fresh air.  When I tried the door, it didn't budge until suddenly somebody opened it from the outside.  There stood three armed marine guards.   One of them spoke:  "Nobody goes outside."   I said okay--what else was there to say?--went back to my mat, sat down & lit a cigarette.   One of the guards stuck his head in:  "Put that butt out.  No smoking."   "Suppose I have to go to the head?"  I asked.   "You'll have to hold it till morning," was his answer.   Before long the door opened again, & in walked the major & the two civilians.  It was still dark outside.  One civilian switched on a bare light bulb.  The civilian who'd given us the instructions the night before now told us to strip, to take everything off, including rings, watches, bracelets, even dog tags.  We each got a bag to put our stuff in, & then we stood there naked, wondering what kind of mission this could possibly be.  Then we each got a pile of clothes & were told to put them on.  They looked just like the pajamas you saw Chinese & Korean peasants wearing in news stories about the Korean War.   The civilian who seemed to do all the talking asked if any of us had ever used a parachute.  Two men said yes:  the one I'd get to know as Lieutenant Damon, & a gunnery sergeant who would become one of the closest friends I ever had.  His name was Robert Masters but he was known to us as "Gunny."  For the rest of us, the answer was No.   The civilian said, smiling, "Well, you're all going to use one today."  It began to look as though there would be no instructions, no chow & nothing to drink.  My mouth was already parched--maybe because of the dryness, the heat, or maybe just the thought of my first parachute jump.  We were soon fitted out with chutes & loaded into a transport plane.  As it climbed, we were given three pieces of advice:  first, as you were about to hit, keep your feet together, the knees slightly bent; second, don't let yourself start swinging (you might land on your back or stomach that way, & get hurt); & third, when you hit, roll to the side.   Half an hour after being told about jumping, we were ready to do it.  At a thousand feet we were hooked up & literally kicked out the door.  I felt the chute open with a jerk, then I seemed to be floating--until I hit the ground.  Even though I tried to do everything the way they told me, I came down hard.   We were picked up & the civilian asked if everyone was all right.  I didn't say a word & neither did anyone else.  Then we were put back on the plane for another jump, this one at just six hundred feet.  My chute barely opened before I was on the ground.   This time we were marched back to the hut & given some cold rations.  Almost before we had time to finish those, we were told we were going up again, with a special harness because we were going to jump from between three hundred & three hundred fifty feet.  After a little rest we were airborne again, & had hardly fallen free of the plane when the chutes opened.  It was a much harder landing than the first two, but everybody made it.   Back we went to the hut for a little longer rest, &, at last, some hot chow.  while we were eating we were informed that we were going to participate in a night maneuver.  We would be divided into two groups of four & dropped, in the dark, from about five hundred feet.  Each group was to try to capture the other but there was to be no physical contact.  Just how far apart we were to be dropped we had no way of knowing.  After one group had captured the other, we were to make our way back to the hut.  We weren't to know how far from it we were, or in which dirction.  a lot was never explained.  But after all, we were marines.   I was in Group Two, headed by Gunnery Sergeant Masters.  Lieutenant Damon was in charge of Group One.  It was getting dark as we boarded & took off.  After twenty minutes the order came:  "Group One out!"--& down they went, one right after the other.  The plane circled & my group was ordered out.  gunny ordered us to hide our chutes behind some bushes & then split us into two pairs.  Corporal J. F. White was with him, & I was with PFC Jake Craig.  the two of us headed up the mountain.  After we'd gone about a hundred yards I said, "Let's hold it, sit down & see what's going on."  Craig agreed there was no sense in just rushing around.  So we stayed quiet, getting our eyes used to the dark--it wasn't really pitch-dark-- for about half an hour.  Then we heard some movement & I could see two figures silhouetted against the skyline to the west.  Those were Gunny & White but we didn't know it yet.  To the east we spotted two more figures coming over a ridge.  "Shh," I said to Craig.  "Don't move."  We'd lost sight of the first pair, but I could see the second making their way toward us.  I told Craig to stay where he was & keep a lookout while I move forward cautiously, making my way down into a dry river bed.  When I'd gone about thirty yards, there was a tremendous explosion on the mountain.  I just lay there frozen, not moving.  After an instant I saw two figures racing at me down the mountain.  When they were almost on top of me I could see that they were Lieutenant Damon & his partner, a sergeant whose name was Mike Holden.   I shouted, "You're mine!"--& for them the game was over.  Lieutenant Damon lit a flare, the signal for the entire party to regroup.  Craig came up first, then Gunny & Corporal White.  The six of us waited for the other two, but they didn't appear.  I never saw them again.   Lieutenant Damon ordered Gunny to go with him & the rest of us to stay put.  They were gone for an hour; then they came back, just the two of them, & Damon led us back to the hut.  There was no way I could ever have found it, but he seemed to know which way to go.  Altogether it must have taken us two hours to get there.  When we did, the civilian who did the talking was waiting for us.   He asked coldly if we had any questions.   Of course we did.  We wanted to know about the explosion first of all, & then what had become of the other two men.   He ignored the first question, & to the second all he said was, "We're fighting a war.  There's no cheap way out."  I never learned anything more about the two men, not even their names.  The names I've given for the others are their real ones.   Gunnery Sergeant Masters, whom I would always call Gunny, was the one I would get to know best.  he had had nineteen years in the Corps after joining up at seventeen, which would have made him thirty-six at the time.  he was everyone's idea of what a marine should look like--rugged, about six feet tall, weighing over two hundred pounds, with a jutting jaw & a dark look on his face.  He'd grown up in the streets of NYC, where I'd lived the first eight years of my life.  That was one thing that brought us close--a lowly "snuff" & a senior NCO.   Lieutenant Kenneth Francis Damon was slender, about five feet ten, the shortest man in the group, brown-haired, brown-eyed, & in his mid twenties.  he never pulled any chickenshit about rank, but he always seemed to have something on his mind.  I had the feeling, when I thought about it later, that he must have been an insider on this mission, not a last-minute "volunteer" like the rest of us.   Sergeant Mike Holden was also in his mid twenties, with brown hair & brown eyes, but he was more heavily built & a more outgoing sort than the lieutenant.   Finally there were the three of us who were still in our teens.  We looked so much alike that we could have been brothers.  J. F. White was a corporal, Jake "Slade" Craig & I were PFCs.  We were all over six feet tall, weighing about two hundred pounds, & we were all blond & blue-eyed.  The other two were less excitable than I was, & didn't ask as many questions.   One thing all six of us had in common was that we were in great physical shape.  Otherwise we couldn't have taken the twelve grueling days that lay ahead.   I had another night without much sleep--& then the ordeal began.  There was nothing orthodox about it, none of the usual calisthenics.  & no rest.  We were pushed continually, we never knew what was coming next, & we never walked.   Each morning Lieutenant Damon had a new set of maps showing the area we'd be jumping into, & the routes we'd have to cover in our allotted time.  It might look easy on the map, but on the ground it was something else.  We made three jumps every day:  in the morning, again in the afternoon & once again at night.  & then there was the running.  You don't know what exhaustion is until you've run & run & run up & downhill, over rough broken terrain.  The amount of time it takes to cover a mile of that comes as a shock.   Our first day of this workout kept us at it for nearly twenty hours, with short breaks for rations.  I had never in my life been as tired as I was then.  I hardly had time to wonder where I was, but I did wonder a lot.   The next morning, we'd no sooner hit the ground than live rounds of ammunition were being fired over our heads.  I knew they were live because I could hear them whistling & hitting.  The firing did not stop--& neither did we.  By this time we'd learned not to ask questions.  We just took off, sprinting, while the firing over our heads continued--not too high over our heads either--until we were out of range.   From then on, after every jump the firing of live rounds was standard operating procedure.  What was good about it was that it made us move even faster & keep our heads down.  What was bad about it was that we were terrified.  But none of us asked the civilians a single question.  We knew they were trying to psych us, but it made no difference:  they kept on shooting & we kept on running.  Sometimes even at night, after we'd staggered back to the hut & collapsed onto our mats, one of the civilians would wake us & run us again for an hour.   After a few days, I'm not sure just how many, we were told we would now begin working with weapons.  The three daily jumps & the running went on as before.  We looked forward to the break in our routine, but it was a shock to be handed Soviet M43-PPS-43 machine guns.  Of course we'd learned not to ask what they could mean.   The weapon had a folding metal stock & a circular magazine holding thirty-five rounds, & it didn't take us long to learn to handle it.  From then on we carried it on all our jumps, & used it on the targets that we found along our routes--human shapes that popped up at us as we moved.  We'd fire away at them & cut them to pieces.  At least it was a great way of taking out our frustrations.   Besides targets--which didn't fight back--there was hand-to-hand combat training.  This was with knives, & our instructors were Orientals--Koreans, I assumed, but never knew for sure.  Though we were all a lot bigger & stronger than any of them, at the beginning we were pretty awkward, & they never made it easy for us.  I got whacked on the head with the dull side of a knife a few times, the lieutenant had a dagger put to his throat, & even Gunny, who was saltier than the rest of us, had a hard time.  But with our greater size & strength we learned almost to hold our own against them.     Days went by & we hadn't bathed once.  We were filthy.  The two civilians, who wore denims, were just as filthy as we were.  One day they told us that from now on we would bathe every day in a lake that was near by.  The route after our next jump took us right to it.  When we got there, the two civilians were waiting in a rowboat.  We all piled in, & when we'd been rowed to the middle of the lake, we were told to jump in & enjoy ourselves for a while.  Then we were to swim to shore.   While we were splashing around, we saw that one of the men in the boat was aiming a machine gun at us.  By this time nothing really surprised us.  We swam around frantically, submerging & then coming up again.  Sure enough, in a minute or so the son of a bitch began firing!  I suppose he wasn't shooting to kill, but it's something of a miracle that no one was even hurt.   Now our "bath," complete with machine-gun fire, became a part of the daily routine, along with jumping, running & hand-to-hand combat training.  The two civilians seemed to enjoy putting us through it all, especially firing the machine gun at us.  As a group we began to feel a bond, & there was no doubt that the training was sharpening our reactions & fine-tuning all our senses.   As to why we were there, the mystery remained.  The pilots stayed out of sight.  The marine guards & the colonel & major had disappeared after the second day.  We saw only the two civilians & the Orientals--no one else but each other.  We were completely out of touch with the world--except for a curious thing that happened just before our training ended, when one of the civilians gave me some sheets of lined yellow paper & told me to write three routine undated letters to my parents, saying that I was well & everything was going all right.  I suppose the others did the same thing, but we never talked about it.  There was very little talking of any kind among the six of us.   On what I guessed was about the thirteenth day, the civilian who generally did the talking told us that the next day our training would end & that the day after, our mission would take place.  Now we learned for the first time what it was.  We were to jump, using the quick-jump chute, from about three hundred feet, armed only with knives.  When we landed we'd be supplied with Russian or Chinese weapons.  We would be leaving the next day.   We were in fact to be a special force like the Marine Raiders in WW II.  But then came the stunner.  "If you are caught," the civilian told us, "there will be no acknowledgment by the United States government of your existence, where you were or what you were doing."   The Oriental clothing had told us something about where we were going.  Scared as we all were, I figured that whatever was ahead of us couldn't be any tougher than our training.  But then I still had a lot to learn.   After the civilians left, we sharpened our knives, checked & rechecked our chutes & got ourselves ready.   The next morning we were up before dawn, ate & climbed aboard the plane for a flight that never seemed to end.  One reason it seemed endless was that the windows were blackened so that we couldn't see anything at all.  When we finally set down the six of us were still kept aboard until finally the hatch was opened & we stepped into a huge crate on a truck that had been backed up to the plane.  In this way we were transported to another plane, again with blackened windows, for a flight of six or seven hours--something like that.  None of us had watches.  When that flight ended, we were once again loaded into a crate.  This time, after riding for an hour or maybe a little longer, we were led out of our box into a building that looked like a Quonset hut.  Before us stood a marine colonel with rows of ribbons on his chest.  He launched into a pep talk about the job we had ahead of us & about what it means to be a marine.  I must admit that talk got to me.   Then we had our first really good meal in days.  The colonel said we'd be getting four hours sleep.  I showered & walked out into the warm sunlight.  It felt good.  As soon as I sat down, I began to feel groggy.  The next thing I knew, I was being awakened.  Possibly I'd been drugged to make sure I slept; anyway, those four hours left me feeling a hell of a lot better.   Then it was back into the crate for a ride to a landing strip & still another flight, this one maybe three or four hours long.  Waiting for us at our destination were the two civilians from the adobe hut & a marine colonel we'd never seen before.  We all boarded a truck, which we were told would be taking us to our mission plane.   The civilian who'd done the talking said, "Boys, may the good Lord take a liking to you, & may we see you back.  Good luck."   The other civilian had never said much.  He said only one thing now but that one thing came as a shock:  "Your pilots are Chinese."   The plane we boarded was stripped bare inside & we sat on the floor.  Holden broke the silence by asking, "Would you say we're going to China, fellas?"   "Nah," I said.  "They fired MacArthur for wanting to go to China!"   Lieutenant Damon broke in, "Let's cut the chatter.  We're only getting ourselves excited.  We'll find out soon enough."   In less than half an hour, the order came to stand up.  We stood, hooked up for the jump, & moved toward the hatch, which had been unbolted & slid back.  Through the opening I could see mountains--so close it was as though I could reach out & touch them.  I don't know how the pilot kept from crashing.  But then the word sounded:  "Go!"  & out we went, headed God knows where.