Sharpshooter by Chris Lynch Page A

heat under the sun combines to smack the face of every lucky soldier stepping off the plane.
    I only get more excited.
    We are led to a bus sitting baking on the asphalt by a noncommissioned officer who shouts and points and does not seem at all pleased to see us. The news keeps saying how badly the Army claims we are needed, but from the faces all around you would swear we were crashing a party we were not invited to.
    It is a long ride in a bus with no air-conditioning and cage-lined windows. I have never traveled out of my time zone except for training in Kansas. This is so different in every way that I am sorely tempted to borrow from The Wizard of Oz and tell the guy next to me we ain’t in Kansas anymore. But among the many fine tips my dad sent me off with was how easy a guy picks up a nickname in the service, and I do not want to spend the next four years as Dorothy.
    But my, this ain’t no Kansas. And for the first time I truly understand the meaning of jet lag.
    So I look at that guy next to me, white-blond hair and six foot two of lanky. I see the same brain-dead, where-am-I-never-mind-don’t-tell-me expression that I must be wearing. Without a word, I lean my head on the window and let it rest there.
    â€œYou know that wire is for Vietcong guerillas throwing grenades into buses like this one, don’tcha?” my lanky pal says. “They don’t look no different from the regular civilians walking by.”
    I calmly pull my head away from the window and fall asleep with my chin on my chest.
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    I wake up when the bus ker-thunks to a stop and the troops start trooping, thumping their gear down the stairs into the bright sunshine.
    â€œThis ain’t us,” Lanky says as I shake my head and start out of the seat.
    â€œWell, it ain’t you,” I say, a little put out by this, “but how do you know it ain’t me?”
    Lanky reaches out and fingers my dog tags in a strangely familiar gesture.
    I slap his hand away instinctively.
    â€œI read your name, man,” he says, laughing. “They called out by name, and I thought since you were sleepin’ so heavy I’d just leave you to it.”
    â€œOh,” I say. “Well, thanks.”
    â€œPleasure to meet you, Ivan,” he says, holding out a big bony hand.
    â€œPleasure to meet you …” I say, shaking with one hand and checking his tags with the other, which he apparently wants me to do. “… Laurence. I guess I’ll be calling you Larry, then.”
    â€œOnly if you want me smacking your butt all over Vietnam, Ivan,” he says happily.
    â€œLaurence,” I say through a gritted smile.
    Three-quarters of the population of the bus unloads at the base in front of us, a sprawling, flat, ugly, disposable-looking collection of buildings. The driver yanks the door shut, jams the old bus into gear, and tells us we have only a short way to go yet. As we pull away I watch the base fade behind us and think, That is exactly what I expected the base to look like in every respect.
    Then, shortly as advertised, we pull up to our own new home.
    And it is nothing at all what I expected it to look like.
    â€œIt’s a boat,” Laurence says flatly.
    â€œIt’s a boat,” I say flatly.
    â€œYo, driver, there must be some mistake,” Laurence yells out as the man yanks the door open once more. “We are Army. Infantry. We don’t live on no boats.”
    The driver laughs. “Well, you don’t live on no bus, so get out. All of ya, come on, out ya go.”
    We all pile out and into the light and stand there staring.
    â€œWelcome to the USS Benewah ,” says the sergeant, standing wide-legged in front of us with his hands clasped behind his back.
    Instinctively, the twenty of us fall into a line, side by side by side, with our belongings at our feet.
    â€œBut it’s a BOAT! SIR!” Laurence calls out, prompting muffled laughs up and down the