Trouble with Capt. America or how I almost didn't make it out of Vietnam in October 1968
by Allen Hallmark on Wednesday, February 23, 2011 at 1:43pm
[Note: Allen and I served at the 330th RRC together and have been friends for many years. He's a fine writer and photographer and I'm delighted that he's writing this blog entry. My hope is that Allen will some day write a formal memoir covering Vietnam and his life as an activist afterward.]
The end of my mandatory 365 days of service in Vietnam was fast approaching, the clock having started when we disembarked from Oakland on that troop ship in October 1967. It was now only about two weeks before Palmer Hall, Don Mohr and I were due to be flown back to the U.S.
As far as Vietnam assignments go, we were lucky to have spent most of our tour with the 330th Radio Research Company (Army Security Agency outfits weren’t supposed to be in Vietnam according to some Geneva convention, so the Army changed the name from ASA to RRC, but the mission was the same.)
With less than a month remaining before we were due to ship out, our company commander made a decision that riled up many of us, especially me. He decided to take away half of the big metal lockers from those of us who lived in “hooches” and give them to the new guys, who were living in tents.
Our company was one of the largest in the Army and beginning about six weeks before I left for home, it began growing at a fast rate. Those of us who were growing “short” lived in more or less permanent barracks called “hooches” built on concrete pads with solid walls topped by wire screen covered by tin roofs. The hooches were divided into rooms by plywood walls about six feet tall and each soldier had his own metal two-door locker in which to keep his uniforms, other clothing and personal belongings.
The company commander’s order to take out one of every two of the lockers from each room might have made sense had there been room in the tents occupied by the newly arrived soldiers. But there wasn’t any room in the tents. So, dozens of these nice, expensive metal lockers, purchased with tax money, were placed out in the weather where they proceeded to rust and were of no use to anyone and would soon become rubble.
Several of us stoners got to talking about how stupid this was. We decided we should do something about it and got together with others and urged everyone to write their congressman and complain about this stupid waste of the taxpayers’ money.
But as I was preparing to write my letter, I got the brilliant idea to write to the President of the United States rather than my congressman. I figured that since I was going to be flown home soon, I may as well send my complaint to the guy who could do some good. However, I failed to reckon with how the Army works.
A few days after I mailed my letter to the president, with a little over a week left before I was due to fly home, I got word that the company commander, an Army major wanted to see me ASAP. I also got word that it had something to do with a message about me that the major had received from the Army Inspector General’s office.
The enlisted man who told me this was all excited and indicated that I was likely in “a world of hurt.” So, I knew some kind of shit was about to hit the fan. I went back to my hooch and found the list of grievances that we had drawn up about how our company was being mismanaged by the company commander and his staff. I wish I had the list now, but I don’t, but there were a bunch of bullets on that list.
Then, with some trepidation I walked over to the Company Headquarters and went in. The company clerk had me wait for a while and then ushered me into the commander’s office, where I’d never been invited before.
I stood at attention or “parade rest” for the whole time I was in there. I was facing the major, who was seated behind his desk. Behind me, sometimes seated and sometimes standing right behind me was the deputy company commander, whose name I’ve forgotten, but who was known to us enlisted guys as “Captain America.” He was about 6’ 3” tall and 225 lbs of muscle and like the vice principal of my junior high school, Captain America was the disciplinarian for the company. He had a testosterone-driven temper that made him infamous among the troops.
After some preliminary questions from the major, who had a copy of my letter in his hand as well as a letter from the Inspector General’s office, to confirm what he already knew, Captain America took over the questioning from behind me. Protocol and fear forbid that I turn around and face him. He screamed at me for what seemed like an hour, but I’m sure was probably five or ten minutes.
Captain America screamed his accusing questions at me: “Just who do you think you are, Specialist Hallmark? The company lawyer?” and “Were you trying to bring disgrace on the major and this company?” and “I guess you think you could do a better job of running this outfit.”
From his ranting, I soon discerned that I’d made a big mistake in writing the president instead of my congressman because the president is in the “chain of command” and one of the basic rules of the military bureaucracy is that you go through the chain of command, step-by-step, going only as far as necessary without jumping ahead to a link in the chain higher than necessary. If a soldier has a grievance, he’s supposed to talk it over with his platoon leader and, if he can’t get satisfaction, then with his company commander, and so on up through the ranks. Instead, I had jumped straight to the top of the chain, the President of the United States. Big faux pas.
Still, I’d really like to know what the letter from the IG’s office had to say.
At some point Captain America ran out of venom for a few moments and the more reasonable major asked me a few more questions. He wanted to know what specific changes I would make if I were in charge.
I don’t know where I got the chutzpah, but I asked permission to refer to my list and he let me fish the piece of paper out of my pocket and start reading it. As I recall, Captain America grabbed the list before I finished and started making sarcastic remarks.
A few minutes later I was dismissed by the major, but as I was leaving the office, Captain America approached me and ordered me to go into the TOC bunker with him. This was the tactical operations command bunker that was surrounded by layers of sand bags where the commanders would go when our company was under attack. Once inside with the door closed, no one could see or hear what went on in there. It was an above-ground bunker but with a very low ceiling, so that both of us had to duck to get inside and sat down on a bench.
Capt. America eyed me in the dim, dank interior of the bunker, and I could see his jaw tensing up and twitching and his eyes were fierce and piercing.
He said, “Hallmark, you look like you want to hit me!” I could see his hand had balled up in a fist and it was trembling too in time with his square jaw. I was very close to peeing in my pants, if not worse.
I said, “No, sir, I do not want to hit you, Captain.” I can’t recall exactly what I said. I tried to speak respectfully and calmly while my heart was pounding and part of my brain was telling me to get up and run for your life. Somehow, I stayed put and for some reason, Capt. America calmed down.
After a while he got to talking about points on my list where I suggested that sandbag walls should be built around the tents that housed the new guys to protect them from the occasional mortar attacks from the Viet Cong sapper units that hit our area. And I suggested that the indigenous tribal people, then called Montagnards (French for “mountain people”, really the Degar people of the Central Highlands of Vietnam) should be hired to work in our compound because from my contact with them I knew they needed the money and that they were hard workers while many of the Vietnamese we hired were lazy and might even have been spies for the Viet Cong.
Capt. America mulled this over. Then, he ordered me to go get a haircut from the Vietnamese barber who worked in our company and to return to him when I was done. I was ever so happy to get out of that TOC bunker with my jaws and other bodily parts in tact and uninjured.
I went and got a haircut, which I really didn’t want to do. I wanted my hair to be as long as possible when I got back to the states and would be on leave on the West Coast for a couple of weeks before heading to my next duty assignment at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas.
I came back to the Company Office and reported to Capt. America. He took one look at my hair and ordered me to go back and get another haircut. I stopped in my room in my hooch on the way to the barber and looking for something in my pockets, I discovered that I had nearly an ounce of marijuana in one pocket of my jungle fatigues that I’d forgotten about. If Capt. America had thought to search me, he could have court-martialed me and sent me to Long Binh Jail for who knows how long. I was trembling, but so relieved that I didn’t mind the second hair cut at all and told him to cut it close.
When I went back to see Capt. America, he had devised a punishment for me. He said he wanted me to build revetments around the tents where the new guys lived. I had a week left before I was supposed to go home. Now, it looked like Capt. America was going to keep me there working on this project indefinitely. I saluted and returned to my hooch almost in tears. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. For a whole year I had yearned for the day when I could leave the Vietnam War behind me forever and fly home to the loving arms of my beautiful wife Molly (that’s another story).
Anyway, I talked the situation over with my buddies and soon I formed a plan. I figured that Capt. America wanted me to fail, so he could heap more punishment on me and maybe even have me court-martialed for insubordination. I decided that I just had to build those revetments.
When I got some time off from work, I talked to my buddy who had a Montagnard girlfriend and who had taken me to their village nearby on several occasions. I told him that I wanted to hire some of the men to help me build the revetments and fill sandbags to fill the revetments. I can’t remember if I got to go to the Montagnard village myself or if he got them to come to me.
The next day a bunch of Montagnards showed up and my buddy served as my interpreter. I told them that I didn’t have much money but I could pay them with cartons of cigarettes, boxes of candy and other goodies from the Post Exchange. Despite the meager pay, they were more than eager to go to work, probably figuring that once they got a foot on post, they could get real jobs there.
I drew up a plan for the revetments and went to Capt. America and told him what materials I needed. He was amazed that I was actually trying to build the revetments, and I was amazed that he soon supplied me with the lumber and sand bags that I needed. Over the next few days, my Montagnard crew built a couple of nice revetments. There were lots more tents that needed them, but by then Capt. America was quite happy with me and my work and we were on pretty good terms. He finally let me join my buddies and fly off to Nha Trang and then to Saigon for our flight home.
I wish I knew what happened to my tribal friends who worked so hard for so little pay and made it possible for me to leave Vietnam on time.
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