War Year by Joe Haldeman

head out to the helicopter pad. Tell the pad man to put you on a slick to 2124.”
    Breakfast wasn’t too awful, but we had to go back and get a note from the captain before the mess sergeant would give us any beer.
    The pad was quite a ways away from the trains area. That case of beer was getting mighty heavy by the time we got there.
    No helicopters, just a bunch of supplies lying around, and the dirtiest guy I’d ever seen, sitting on a crate, drinking beer.
    â€œYou the pad man?”
    â€œNah, he went to get some chow.” He gave us the once-over. “New guys?”
    â€œYeah,” I said, “Bravo Company engineers.”
    â€œYou won’t be clean again for a long time. Better enjoy it while you can—pull up a box and crack a beer.”
    It sounded like a good idea. He let us use his church key. It was on a chain around his neck, all wrapped up in green tape. His dog tags were wrapped the same way; I asked him about it.
    â€œThat’s so they won’t jingle, man. You gotta be quiet. Don’ want to jingle in the jungle.” He laughed, a dry cackle. “Where you two goin’?”
    â€œPlace called 2124.”
    â€œ2124? Oh yeah—2124!” He cackled again. “That’s where I’m headed, too—but that’s not what we call it.”
    â€œPlace has a name?”
    â€œYeah.” Cackle, cackle.
    â€œAlamo. Alamo Hill.”

FIVE
    The first “slick”—that’s a helicopter big enough to hold about six people—was headed for the Alamo. He didn’t even shut off the engine; we three just piled in and he lifted off again.
    The bird was equipped with sliding doors for both walls, and both of them were open (imagine riding in a convertible going 100 miles an hour, a half-mile up in the air). Door gunners were strapped on either side, leaning on .30 caliber machine guns. They looked bored. The pilot and copilot looked bored. I was scared shitless.
    After about fifteen minutes we dropped down to treetop level and roared up the side of a hill. It was green bamboo jungle all the way up to the top, and all of a sudden, dirt—Alamo, a brown scab covering the mountaintop. Barbed wire and bunkers. Heavy artillery all over. On a low-level patch not much bigger than the helicopter, a guy was waving his arms. The helicopter set down gently and kept roaring away, kicking up dust while we helped unload two flame throwers, a mailbag, and lots of C-rations.
    So I got my first good look at a fire base through a cloud of whirling dust, dry sticks, and bits of paper kicked up by the helicopter blades. Most people do, I guess.
    First, it was really filthy. Everything and everybody was covered with that reddish dust. It had a temporary look; no buildings except for a couple of steel tocks that were probably dropped in by helicopter. I guessed people lived in the bunkers, holes in the ground with crude log roofs piled high with sandbags.
    The artillery pieces were clean, black metal shiny with oil, and I could see why; half the crews seemed busy wiping rags over the metal. Looked to be about twenty real artillery-type guns, plus another dozen mortars, each one a black stovepipe about waist-high.
    There wasn’t any order to the place; the bunkers seemed to be just scattered around all over the hill. The guns were all together in one place, though, and so were the mortars.
    Finally the slick lifted and fell away, down the side of the hills. Everything was eerie quiet, like cotton stuffed in your ears.
    Speaking, I realized I was more than half-deaf from the noise. “Hey, buddy,” I asked the pad man, “where do the engineers hang out around here?”
    He pointed up the hill to what looked like a wooden shack on wheels, with a tattered American flag fluttering above it.
    â€œIf you swallow hard a couple of times, you’ll be able to hear OK,” Willy said. I did and it worked.
    Right by the shack (which turned out