"Well, trauma to the muscle tissue's healed nice and tight." "There's not much we can do about the bone damage." "You're lucky." "You're young and your bones are dense." "An older man could have lost that leg." "Yeah." "Well, I feel really great, colonel." "I'm ready to go back." "There are other options." "You could take an early out." "Oh, I don't want to go out." "I wanna go back in the air." "If you go back on duty, it'll be a ground job, lieutenant." "A ground job?" "I'm not a grease monkey, colonel." "I'm a pilot." "Not with this profile." "You know the requirements, lieutenant." "One, one, one all the way across, the picket fence." "Colonel, I'm a pilot." "I'm a damn good pilot." "The army needs me." "The guys need me." "I can still fly." "You can't fly combat with this profile." "Take the early out, lieutenant." "And do what?" "Huh?" "After this, do what?" "Your aesthetic responses are unimpaired." "Your reflexes are good." "You keep up with therapy, you'll be able to walk without the cane." "Maybe just a little limp." "You should still be able to fly as a civilian." "There are good jobs for men with your experience." "Yeah, yeah, I can ferry three-piece suits into a hot LZ, right?" "Or no, I know what I can do." "I can give traffic reports over the radio." "Yeah, sure." "If Charlie turns a truckload full of grunts into coleslaw on the expressway," "I can give a play-by-play description." "Boy, that sounds great." "Yeah, my sign-off can be "Have a nice day."" "I can't wait, colonel." "It sounds great." "Thanks." "Morning, Ma." "You didn't sleep again, didn't you?" "Are you kidding me?" "I was too hot for sleep." "That's five or six, maybe." "Sit down." "I'll fix you a nice breakfast." "No, no, Ma." "Cereal is fine." "I'm not very hungry." "Can't eat and can't sleep." "It's because you don't get out." "You stay in this apartment all day long." "You've been home over two months now, and you spend the days alone all the time." "You got to get out." "You got to meet people." "Find a job, mi hijo." "Ladies on the block telling you you got a worthless son, Ma?" "Mi hijo..." "I pinch their hair if anybody says a thing like that." "You know, I came home with some money, Ma." "I still got some." "A man's got to have a job to go to, Alberto." "It's the way it's supposed to be." "I'll try to get a job." "All the jobs I can get, though," "I'm competing with kids." "I'm not a kid anymore, Ma." "I got something to offer." "I know, Alberto." "I know it." "You gave so much to the Army." "You'd think that they would help you boys with a thing like this." "Ma, look." "I'm gonna see a man about a job today, a warehouse job, a good job." "It's gonna be okay." "Mi hijo." "Looks off-center to me." "Give me a break." "I got your off-center." "Get out of here and let me work." "Okay." "I guess you don't want to hear about that sweet little Billie Jean." "Well, now you watch your mouth when you talk about her, boy." "That's the woman I love." "Woman you'd like to love, you mean." "All right, I'll go with that." "Well, you've been pestering Lucille about fixing you up with that little cherry tomato." "What are you doing tomorrow night?" "All right, what about tomorrow night?" "What about me and Lucille, you and Billie Jean?" "Dancing, drinking, wining, romancing." "Whoo-hoo!" "I'm all over it." "I'm there." "All right." "7:30, Cattle Club?" "Yeah, you got it." "Percell." "Yeah?" "This here's Tran." "Take him over there, get him started roughening that staircase." "Look, um..." "Gosh, I'm only about half done here." "You think Spud can go ahead and do that?" "Yeah, yeah, anybody." "It ain't brain surgery." "Sure, I extended my tour, but you went all the way back to the world." "Now, why would anybody in their right mind come back to this place?" "I missed it." "You missed it?" "First outfit I was with," "I mean, my first tour, we was in it to win it." "You know what I'm saying?" "Gonna stay till it was over." "From the root to the fruit." "Then, uh... we kept getting chewed up." "Guys come out of it with pieces missing or a head full of jelly from being scared to death." "My DEROS came, I was gone from here." "You know what I'm saying?" "And you forgot that?" "You're dumber than you look, Fraction." "Man, this ain't bad." "Bad is back in the world." "You know what I'm saying?" "My feet hit the street, people crowding me, pushing me." "Cops was in my face." "What do I remember from being over here?" "I remember carrying a?" "9 and a bagful of canister rounds and doing whatever the hell I please." "Nobody messes with the Fraction." "I remember it being tight and right and bad news for who I didn't like." "Ha." "Man..." "I walk through a ville, see one of them little pretty slanty-eyed bitches." "I wanted her, I took her." "Nobody said nothing." "Fraction, what the hell you gonna do when this thing's over?" "When you have to go home to stay?" "I got a warm place in Rayford Prison waiting for me back there." "Nah, I'm staying here." "Fraction, there's a ville a little ways off." "You booby-trap that thing, what if a little kid comes and picks it up?" "Be a gook kid, wouldn't it?" "That's what we're here for." "I don't think so." "How you gonna do it, man?" "How you gonna live with these people you got no use for?" "I ain't gonna be no paddy daddy, if that's what you mean." "I plan to keep this." "Come on." "Come on now." "Come on!" "Let's go." "Hi, Papa." "Hey, there." "What you got there?" "Howdy, William." "Daddy." "William, welcome home, son." "Well, come on." "Let's have a look at you." "Well, looks like you put on a little weight." "It was the hospital food, Mama." "They fed me good." "Hospital?" "Was you hurt, William?" "Yes'm." "I figured I ought to tell you myself instead of sending a letter, Mama." "I'm blind, Mama." "Lord sakes." "Had supper yet?" "No, sir." "Your ma's made something special." "Come on." "Come on, son." "Ooh, man." "You're not giving up, are you?" "Doctor." "This guy's coming around." "His pulse is getting stronger." "Give him morphine." "Did you hear what I said?" "This guy could make it." "Make it?" "It's just a guess which kills him first." "Septicemia or renal failure." "He can't be saved." "You could try." "We can't do it here, and he'd never live through the flight to Japan." "Now shut up and give the man morphine before he does regain consciousness." "I don't know how you can ask me to do that." "You're forcing me to kill him." "Hockenbury, you're a screwup, a mouthy screwup." "This ward is probably the only place in Vietnam you're not a hazard." "You can't hurt these guys." "They're already as good as dead." "But you can cause them to suffer a lot of pain if you don't follow orders." "Says who?" "You know, you take a look, make a guess." "You send these guys in here." "You pump them full of morphine, and you just wait for them to die, and you don't really care how long it takes." "It is your responsibility to see that the men in this ward die without pain." "I would think you'd see that as humanitarian, but I really don't give a damn what you think." "Now, administer the morphine to this man and strip that empty bed and get it ready for another patient." "All right, come on, y'all." "Keep your interval up there." "Don't bunch up." "Turn it off!" "Medic!" "Get a medic!" "Medic!" "We need a medic!" "Who is it?" "It's Powman." "He was short, you son of a bitch." "Two weeks and a wake-up." "You're going with him, you worthless gob of spit!" "Now, I have already lost one man to stupidity out here." "I do not intend to lose another." "You understand me?" "Now, you put away the knife, and you get our friend here, and let's get him out of here." "Sarge ain't always gonna be around, cherry." "See you in the weeds." "We get back, you get your gear together." "You don't have much of a future around here." "Let me help you out, son." "I got it, Daddy." "Been in and out of this car a thousand times." "I just can't see." "I ain't crippled." "Okay, here's the gate." "Glory, it smells good." "Jack, come here, boy." "Come here, boy." "Come here." "Hey, buddy." "Hey, man." "Hey." "Hey, guy." "Come here, boy." "Jack." "Come here, Jack." "Hey, come here, Jack." "Jack." "Hey, buddy, it's me." "It's me, buddy." "What did you fly, Hueys?" "Yeah, mostly." "Dropping guys off, picking them up, fire support, that sort of thing." "I did get a hold of a Cobra once, though." "Maybe it had a hold of me." "I'm not so sure." "Mostly I was just doing what you're doing." "You know, shuttle service." "Though I don't suppose you have to hose the blood out of your birds at the end of the day." "Not so far." "Yeah." "You know, I did have a guy fly for me once, a Nam pilot." "He had a load of executive types one day." "This guy had a... flashback or something, you know." "He started taking evasive maneuvers, went down to the treetops, started wiggling all around the place, and, uh..." "well, I'll tell you, we did have to hose out some breakfasts that day." "I'll bet you did." "Yeah, well, knock on wood, that type of thing hasn't happened to me yet." "I'll tell you, I can do the job for you, Joe." "You know, flying a chopper, a helicopter, it's just natural for me." "Maybe... just a little exciting?" "Yes, man." "It's great." "There's nothing like it." "It's on the edge." "I mean, you know, I like it." "Look, you know, it's obvious I love to fly." "It's not a job to me." "It's what I do, you know?" "It's what I am." "McKay, I, um..." "Look, Joe..." "I'm not dangerous." "I'm not a head case." "I'll be good for your business." "Believe me." "I want to believe you, McKay." "I can't take the chance." "You mark it on your calendar." "One year from today, you're still flying straight and steady," "I'll make a place for you, okay?" "Yeah, okay." "Good luck, kid." "She looks at him and she goes," ""Ten dollars?" "What do you think I am?"" "And he goes, "Sweetie," ""we've already established what you are." "Now, we're just dickering over the price."" "Yo, yo, yo." "You guys on duty in the motor pool?" "You bet we are, lieutenant." "A team of highly trained mechanical geniuses." "Well, are you familiar with the practice of saluting officers, specialist?" "Ah... excuse the hell out of me... sir." "What do you got there, a little marijuana?" "Just taking a little smoking break, LT." "It's in our contract." "What kind of brain tells you to smoke anything around gasoline?" "Come on, lieutenant." "We're just hitting a little jay for, uh, medicinal purposes." "It's a lot of stress working the motor pool." "It's a lot more stress in the stockade, and there's no jays there to relieve the stress." "Now, who's your sergeant?" "Now, now, don't get the drizzlies over this, sir." "It ain't worth it." "Who?" "Adams." "Sergeant Adams." "You sign in that jeep over there." "The rest of you clowns get back to work." "I'll have a little discussion with Sergeant Adams." "Oh, man." "Now we're gonna have Sergeant Adams on our case." "Nah." "Adams sold me the dope." "Yeah!" "Doc." "Doc." "How are you doing?" "Doc, I miss you." "Where you been?" "I've been laboring in the vineyards, darling." "You ready for your shot?" "You funny, Doc." "I don't want any more shot." "You know what?" "It's your sweet young tush, and if you don't want it stuck with a needle, so be it." "Hello, Mama-san." "How are you?" "Mwah!" "This way?" "Right over here?" "Right over here?" "Don't bite." "When a..." "When a dog gets rabies, you know, it gets all foamy..." "Oh, never mind." "Just a joke." "All the girls say you funny, doc." "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." ""That doc, he's a barrel of laughs."" "All right, sweetheart, hike it up." "Ow." "Tell me something." "Why is it that you are the only girl in this palace of pleasure still willing to be inoculated?" "Others say no matter." "Just catch clap again after shot wear off." "Yeah, well, the Army sure doesn't care anymore." "We got us some epidemic gonorrhea to prove it." "You number one, doc." "Kind of late, Spud." "Maybe she changed her mind." "Lucille's always late." "Relax." "Ha." "Yeah." "Here she is." "Hi, Danny." "Hi." "That's him." "Hi." "Danny Percell." "Billie Jean." "Can we get some more beers over here?" "Thanks." "So..." "Lucille tells me you work for a lawyer." "Mm-hmm." "I'm a secretary." "Oh, so you're not a lawyer?" "No, I'm not a lawyer." "So, what do you do?" "I mean, I know you work with Spud, so I guess you're in construction?" "Yeah." "Yeah, I'm a carpenter." "Oh." "How long have you known Spud?" "I just..." "Just met him when I got back." "Got back?" "Oh." "Vietnam." "Yeah, I was over there for a while." "I just got back a couple months ago." "You were in Vietnam?" "Uh-huh." "The infantry." "Doesn't it, uh...?" "Doesn't it bother you?" "Uh, I'm sorry?" "I beg your pardon." "Lucille, I think we need to talk." "I don't know what I said." "Guess we'll find out." "Lucy, how could you do this to me?" "What are you talking about?" "What's wrong?" "You heard him." "Two months ago he was in Vietnam, killing innocent people, burning their homes!" "Danny's a nice guy." "Most of those men were crazy with drugs too." "Why would I want to go out with somebody like that?" "Why don't you just come back to the table and talk to him a little?" "He's really a nice guy." "I couldn't be such a hypocrite." "And you should be careful." "He's probably dangerous." "Billie Jean..." "No!" "I don't want anything to do with him." "I'm sorry, Danny." "It was... the war." "Yeah, well." "Thanks anyway, huh?" "Whoo!" "Oops." "We get you food, doc." "We get you sobered up." "You know what?" "Excuse me." "I don't want to be sober." "Nothing makes any sense to me when I am sober." "Now, of course, nothing makes any sense to me when I am drunk." "It's just that when I am drunk, then I have an excuse." "And maybe if I get drunk enough," "I'm gonna figure out what the hell happened to me." "You get boom-boom." "That what happened to you." "You know..." "I just don't know why we can't go home." "Why can't we just go home?" "What is the point of all these guys getting blown up for nothing?" "Because we're gonna walk away from it anyway." "I ought to walk away from it right now, just walk away, go on home, because I never wanted to be in the Army, and I never wanted to be in this godforsaken place, and I don't know what the hell I'm doing here." "Perhaps you gentlemen can help me, and tell me what the hell I am doing here." "Come on, doc." "Is big trouble." "It's all right." "It's all right." "It's all right." "Is that what you people do?" "You spit?" "Can't win a war by spitting." "Is big trouble, doc." "Come on." "It's all right!" "What's he gonna do?" "Spit me to death?" "Aah!" "It's a rocket!" "Come on, doc!" "Come on!" "Please!" "Please!" "You know, Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!" "He's got nary a mark on him, preacher." "Mama." "Can you see anything at all, boy?" "No, sir, I can't." "We've studied about it since he's been home, and the answer I got was asking you." "I'm not a healer, Mrs. Griner." "I know that." "You know that." "I thought if you could pray with us." "Well, I will certainly do that." "Mama, doctor said it's gonna be this way for good." "A young man like William here goes out into the world and sees all the devil's work, suffers the horrors of war, sees the struggle of God's right against the heathen enemy." "It could be the boy's mind and heart just decided not to see it anymore, decided not to see anything." "The doctor called it cortical blindness." "He said it was caused from my brain swelling when the explosion went off and I caught concussion." "William." "Lord God Almighty, we call out to you for this boy William." "He said it tore blood vessels in the back of my head and made me go blind." "We pray, Lord, in your great and infinite wisdom and power, if it be your will, have mercy on this child and his affliction." "Amen." "Amen." "Does the phrase "direct exchange"" "have any significant meaning for you?" "Catch your ear?" "Ring a bell?" "Are you in there, Fraction?" "Dig this." "My feet are white, I'm black." "My feet are rotting off." "Occurs to me that you people ought to know how to deal with jungle rot." "I got to have some new socks, man." "And so you shall." "Just bring me your old ones." "Direct exchange." "Like I said, they wore out." "Rotten." "The new ones will probably rot too." "What I got to do, man?" "Well..." "I just happen to need a volunteer to burn the crapper." "I don't burn no crapper." "Mm, mm, mm." "I got half a dozen pairs of nice, thick, really soft cotton socks." "Like I said," "I don't burn no crapper." "You're missing a big opportunity, boy." "You're the new fella, right?" "Ruiz?" "That's right, Pop." "Name ain't Pop." "It's Clayton." "Okay, Clayton." "Good to meet you." "I like to know all the men so I know who's a stranger and who's not." "That makes sense." "Hear you was in Vietnam." "Is that right?" "Well?" "That's right." "I was there." "Waste of time." "Excuse me?" "Waste of time." "Waste of your time and the taxpayers' money." "Over there 10, 12 years, didn't get one damn thing." "Lost." "Wasted our money." "Now, just wait a minute." "What about all the guys that died over there?" "Guess they wasted more time than anybody." "And what the hell would you know about it?" "I was in a real war." "We kicked Hitler's ass." "We won." "That's where I got this." "Got what?" "The voice." "Got shot in the throat." "It wasn't any good after that." "But we won." "Yeah, Pop, you won." "But I bet that's the only thing you ever did that meant anything." "Me, I got a job now." "I'm gonna make something out of myself." "If we lost it, we lost it." "But I'll tell you one thing." "I sure as hell ain't still gonna be living it when I'm as old as you." "I think I'll just stay in this game." "Uh-oh, look out." "That's the first bet he's called all night!" "Got some guts." "It's to you, sarge." "Come on." "Is that your stomach, sarge?" "It sounds like a bowling alley." "Is it alive, sarge?" "What did you eat?" "I do believe, my friend, the sergeant of the mess is gonna earn his rank." "Deal me out for a few hands, boys." "I think this may take a while." "All right." "All right, I'm in." "What is this?" "10?" " I'll see you." "Let's do it." " Here we go." "Oh!" "I got to get somebody on this detail first thing in the morning." "Even the flies are staying away." "Ahh!" "God!" " Incoming!" " Where?" ""Mammy's little baby Loves short'nin', short'nin'"" ""Mammy's little baby Loves short'nin' bread"" "All right, now, I want you all to remember most of what you been told, and you'll be all right out there, nothing to worry about." "Remember, never let the man in front get out of sight." "Check that gear." "Phillips, I want you one arm's length away from me all the time, no exceptions." "When I stick my hand out..." "What's that?" "Charlie sees that, we're all out of here." "You got to tape this, buddy, because if a branch catch it, it'll pull it and we're all gone." "Let's go." "Thanks, sarge." "Button that up." "I guess you heard what happened to Hannegan." "Yeah." "Payback's a bitch, ain't it?" "Come on, guys." "Don't bunch up." "One grenade could take all three of you out." "All right, guys, come on now." "Intervals." "Medic!" "Medic!" "Go on!" "Check them first!" "Check them first!" "Fraction, get down!" "Fraction, get down!" "Radio!" "Phillips, get up here with that damn radio!" "LT, I think I can flank them." "Go!" "Fruchetta, Christie, follow me!" "Where's Phillips?" "He got shot in the stomach." "Hot Dog, this is Biscuit Man." "Do you copy?" "Over." " Hot Dog here." " We copy you, Biscuit Man." "Hot Dog, request immediate dust-off." "Coordinates," "Conquest-Bravo 3-5-0-7-niner." "Over." "2-7-niner, come in..." "You got to drink some water." "Here." "How you doing, Taylor?" "I'm all right, sarge." "Did you get them?" "No." "It was so hot all the time." "105, 110." "Sweat so much, guys were dropping from heat exhaustion." "Bugs, mosquitoes, leeches." "Wouldn't even have to get in the water to get leeches." "They'd just drop off from the trees on you." "The people... they sometimes acted like they liked us." "Other times like they hated us." "We could never tell which was real." "Booby traps everywhere." "I could open the door to this pen, and the whole place would blow up." "Walk through the woods... the ground would open up." "Some guy in a hole would shoot you and, poof, disappear." "Walk through a place... firefights with Charlie." "We'd ambush them, they'd ambush us." "We'd clear them out... and by the time we were on the chopper out of there, they were back." "They always came right back." "It was like this game." "Something that wasn't real." "The officers..." "The officers would say, "Go over there and do that." "Come over here and do this."" "And we would do it." "But it never made no difference." "That old guy, Clayton... he was right." "We just wasted our time." "I mean, guys..." "Guys that you see back home bagging groceries or something... they'd be over there, and their guts would be hanging out all open." "Or their arms and legs would be blown off." "God knows what." "For what?" "For nothing." "We used to say it too." ""Don't mean nothing." "Don't mean nothing."" "Maybe that's why we said it." "Because it really meant so much." "It meant so much." "Been walking down this path to the creek most of my life and all of yours, Jack." "I reckon I can remember." "I don't remember that, though." "Hey, boy." "Hey, boy." "Hey, buddy." "Hello?" "Ru?" "Percell?" "Hey, buddy, uh... how you doing?" "Great, man." "Great." "You?" "Can't..." "Can't complain." "I...found myself a job." "I'm holding on to it." "Me too." "I enrolled in night school." "Hey, Ru, that's great, man." "Good for you!" "Hey, who knows?" "One of these days, you may be president of IBM or something." "You got it." "I'm glad you called." "It's real good to hear your voice." "Yeah, it's..." "It's real good to hear your voice too." "You hear from any of the guys?" "Nah." "You know, I..." "I tried writing them a couple of times." "Couldn't finish." "I miss them." "Sometimes I even miss being over there." "Yeah." "But... hell, it's too late to go back now, huh?" "It's just that... sometimes I feel like..." "Like it was the only family I ever had." "Danny?" "You okay?" "Yeah." "Yeah, man, I'm okay." "You know." "Yeah." "I do know." "That's Jim Morrison and The Doors and "Light My Fire"." "Always popular." "About time we checked in on the afternoon traffic." "Let's go to our eye in the sky in chopper one." "Take it away, Johnny!" "Okay, Chuckie, baby." "This is Gentleman Johnny McKay." "We got a jackknifed semi blocking the 1 and 2 lanes on the I-65 at the downtown cloverleaf." "Thanks, Johnny." "Now a blast from the past from Sam the Sham thePharaohs." ""Wooly Bully!"" ""About the thing she saw"" ""Had two big horns"" ""And a wooly jaw"" ""Wooly bully"" ""Wooly bully, yeah!"" ""Wooly bully"" ""Wooly bully"" ""Wooly bully"" ""Hatty told Matty"" ""Let's don't take no chance"" ""Let's not be L-seven"" ""Come and learn to dance"" "Listen, Chuckie," "I'm gonna bring this bird back into the hangar." "Something wrong?" "No, nothing's wrong." "This ain't making it, man." "I've been through too much to spend the rest of my life doing something I hate." "Something you hate?" "What do you want, man?" "I know people that would kill to have your job." "Yeah, maybe, but asking a combat pilot to do a job like this is like asking A.J. Foyt to drive a beer truck." "You know what I mean?" "I guess it's time for me to do something a little more... responsible and adult-like, I guess." "I might buzz the tower." "Yeah-heh-heh!" "Look out, baby, here I come!" ""Wooly bully, wooly bully"" ""Wooly bully Wooly bully, wooly bully"" ""Matty told Hatty"" ""About a thing she saw"" ""Had two big horns And a wooly jaw"" ""Wooly bully"" ""Wooly bully""