TWO BOTTLES OF BEER

   By

      Sgt. Nguynh van Cu'

       as told to Tony Spletstoser

 

 

     Just two bottles of beer, that's what this story is about,

how they cost the lives of one of my very good friends, the MSgt.

Canteen Keeper, our Commander and several of his staff officers.

     We were stationed at a VN Special Forces camp located on the

side of Monkey Mountain, just above the Navy base on the river

inlet at Da Nang. 

     My friend and his five team-mates have just returned from a

really `ruff' mission that afternoon. The men had been debriefed

the first thing after coming in.  The very fact that they had

survived, proves again that the best training is the difference

between success or failure.  But they were tired and used up. 

Later that evening the team decided to come to the canteen for a

bowl of noodles and maybe something cold to drink. 

     A Special Forces communications MSgt. (NCOIC) had as another

of his duties, that of being in charge of our canteen. 

My friend, asked the Canteen Keeper to fix something to eat.

Meanwhile, he took a look in the ice box (cooler) located behind

the counter, for some cold drinks.  When he opened the little

door, he saw two bottles of beer.

     My friend say, "Hey you got two cold beers in here". The

Master Sergeant Canteen Keeper said, "No can do, they belong to

the Commander. He keeps them there for when special guests and

friends come to visit."

     My friend say, "Sergeant, it's 10 o'clock at night and he's

asleep. No one will come to visit before late tomorrow morning

and I'll give you money so that you can buy more beer the first

thing in the morning, when you go into town to buy groceries for

the days meals."  

     The Canteen Keeper says, "No, you can't have them, it makes

no difference, those beers aren't for sale.  (Well, in a sense he

was right, but it wasn't necessary for him to have been that

right. It would have easy enough to have accommodated the team

leader and have had the replacement two bottles before noon the

next day.)

     My friend tried his best to reason with the man, he told the

Canteen Keeper, "Look, we just get back from a very hard time.

We are glad to have gotten out all alive and we want to celebrate

by having something to drink. I give you money now and you buy

some more tomorrow morning, OK?"   The Como Sgt. say, "Not OK!

The two beers belong to the Commander."

    My friend, he say, "I'm tired of arguing with you about the

two bottles of beer.  You don't have to be that way, I've tried

to talk to you reasonably, but you are too hard-headed, so I am

going to take these two bottles of beer and my friends and I will

drink them.  Now you do what you think that you have to do."    

My friend take the two bottles, open them up and pass them around

for his friends to pour into their cups.

    The Canteen keeper, he get mad, say all kinds of things and

then he leave.  He is so hard-headed about someone daring to go

against what he say, that he went to the room where the Commander

sleeps and woke him up. 

    The Commander get mad when he hear the Como sergeant's story

about the two beers.  The Commander get dressed, then he pick up

his .45 from beside the bed and stick it into his waist band. 

     He and the sergeant walk back to the Canteen. The Commander

said, "You need to leave now!"  My friend looks at the Commander

and says, "Yes Sir! As soon as we finish the beer and noodles."

The Commander repeats, you have to leave.  If you don't, I am

going to lock you up." The Commander is getting very angry.   

     Now you know that this is not a smart thing to do.  Normally

we are always very respectful of any of our officers.  But also

normally they are understanding and respectful of us as well. It

works both ways.  Here are six men having very short fuses on

their emotions at this time of night.  They aren't about to be

afraid of one little .45 Colt.         

    The men just looked at the Commander and almost put the beer

down. Only put it down their throats instead.  The Commander

turned on his heel and stomped out, followed by the Como Sergeant

Canteen Keeper.

     The evening was about to turn nasty due to a lack of under-

standing or maybe the Commander over reacted because of the "Yak-

yak" that the Como Sergeant had given him. Everything was going

wrong. The officer knew that these men had a ruff mission,

because he had debriefed them just a few hours before.           

     After finishing the beer and noodles, my friend and his team

returned to our barracks area. They knew that they were in

trouble but it was too late to worry about now.

     While the other men went to bed, my friend stay by himself.

He get his AK-47 and pick up four 30 round mags taped together,

staggered in reverse so that any magazine could still be fit into

the rifle. 

     My friend, his temper limit had been pushed too far that

night, over a mere two bottles of beer.  The Commander and the

Canteen Keeper had not reckoned that there was a maximum for

their being officious, when dealing with men who had just faced

eight days of hell.  The sense of power that the Commander and

the Como Sergeant felt that they had, didn't impress these

troopers very much and the Commander's uncompermizing orders  had

been pushed the man beyond his limit.                 

     My friend took his rifle and left the barracks area and

headed back to the Canteen in the dark.  The Commander, the Como

Sergeant, several other staff officers of the group and another

officer that acted as the Provost Marshall (military police) for

the group, were standing outside in front of the canteen.

     The Commander looked up, saw my friend, then told him to

leave, that his group were discussing the charges to be filed

against him and his friends.  My friend said, "That won't be

necessary, I take care of it now."  He then raised his AK-47 and

started firing, the Commander and the Canteen Keeper went first,

then the rest.  Somehow, one man made it out.  He had dropped

down behind something and made it out the back door.       

     My friend left the Canteen and returned to our barracks

area.  None of us knew what had gone on, we were so used to gun-

fire around the camp, you know men testing their weapons at

anytime day or night.  My friend came to were his team was about

to go to sleep and told them, "You don't have worry now, I

already take care of all of them."  Then he walk back to the

Canteen where all of the others lay down.  He put the muzzle of

the AK under his chin and pulled the trigger.  The bullet came

out the top left side of his head.

     Another friend had been awake and saw what happened. Tan ran

to him. He is still alive.  Tan wrap his bandanna around his

wounds to try to stop the bleeding.  He is conscious, he looks at

Tan and says, "No, don't try to save me.",  and pulls the bandage

off.  Then Tan go to find a Jeep.  My friends and Tan put him in

the back and hold him while Tan drives.  When Tan get to the

hospital, Tan took him into the emergency room, but then he gone.

     When they bury our friend the next day, they put layers of

barbed-wire over him in his grave. This is symbol that he had

done a bad thing and that even in death he was to be kept in

prison.

     Even though what my friend did was a wrong thing, there was

good for all of us that came because of his sacrifice.

     The Commanders and other officers were replaced. These new

officers had been sent to special meetings and were told to be

very careful not to be overbearing and tried to be fair in every

way.  Good Special Forces men were hard to replace and something

like two bottles of beer was too high of a price.  Nothing like

this ever happened again and the mess hall was run better too.

                  Canteens and Mess Halls.

     There is a lot of difference between the way Vietnamese

soldiers and the Americans GIs' are fed.  The Americans have Army

cooks, kitchens, food supplies, and mess halls.  In the Vietnam-

ese Army, the Commanders draw money from the soldiers each month,

and  we have two sergeants assigned as cooks and to buy our food

at the village markets.     

    Since these camps rarely have refrigeration or even elec-

tricity, food supplies must be purchased daily at a village

market.   Then food service and cooking helper dutys are shared

in rotation by members of the teams inorder to run the mess hall.

This is not too much of a problem because our Special Forces

camps are small anyway.  In the Special Forces, no civilians are

allowed in camp.   

      The regular ARVN army they have a civilians under contract

to cook and run the mess hall.

    Sometimes the money is diverted several times. It finds it's

way into the pockets of the officers in charge and on down to the

man in charge of buying food for the mess hall.  So the soup can

get a little thin at times.

    Our Msgt. Canteen Keeper or manager, was one who felt that he

held power in his hands from his little kingdom of his canteen,  

  Other things like cold drinks, cigarettes, toilet articles, the

Canteen also serves as a mini-PX.  Vietnamese soldiers never have

much money to spend anyway.  

to give or withhold something from the men anytime that he

decided.  In my mind, it was reckless move on the Master Serg-

eant's part.  These men lived too close to death to know any fear

of his small power and on this night they had been pushed to the

limit.

     My friend always act like a very `cool' person and like all

Special Forces men, we are trained not to let anger rule us. So

far tonight he has never shown anger or even raised his voice.

But all men have the point that they should not be pushed beyond.

     One thing that I always hate to tell anyone, is that all of

us have many times have had orders that we knew were wrong, like

some kind of a useless mission that some officer on staff think

up, back at headquarters.  I don't like to talk about this

because I've always felt that we were all a band of brothers and

if I admit that there were cooked people in with us, it is a

shame on the rest of us. 

     All of our officers come up through the ranks just like me,

but somehow when some of them reach the command staff level, they

change and forget how it was in the jungle.  Even when we have

proof that a HQ officer has done wrong, we dare not say anything,

because we could be ordered out to some bad place and never

picked up. 

     Toward the end of the war, we found out that there were even

communist agents in our command.  For us in Special Forces, it is

a loss to our honor that one of our `brothers' has betrayed us.  

     No matter whatever happened, we are still there and we have

to do the job. We have to always remember that we are fighting

for our country and that's the main thing. 

      I never forget this thing. My friend was a good man and a

brave soldier. He had been forced to the wall by stupidity too

many times. Our Commander and the Msgt. had the training and

experience to have known better.  These men had just returned

from a `ruff' mission during which they had handled themselves

magnificently. Adrenalin had them pumped up to a high that was

almost like being on drugs. Common sense should have told them to

never put any foolishness on men in that condition.  This inci-

dent had pushed my friend beyond the wall of his control. I have

heard of similar tragedies within American special operation

units.  Never mess with a man who has had a BAD day.


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