Cracker!: The Best Dog in Vietnam

  Cody turned around. “Yeah?”

  “I’ll be watching your back in Nam.”

  Cody grinned. “Likewise.”

  Rick went out in the rain, fell to his knees, and did something he rarely did: He prayed. He prayed that all twenty-four soldiers of the 67th IPSD would be DEROSed in one piece. He prayed for the guys who, through bad luck, had been teamed up with so-so dogs. Of course, not long ago he’d thought he was one of those guys. He heard whooping and turned around to see Cody and Twenty-Twenty descending on him.

  “You think praying is gonna save you from Vietnam?” shouted Cody.

  Cody and Twenty-Twenty picked up Rick and threw him into the mud. Rick picked Cody up and threw him into the mud. “I don’t need no trophy to tell me Cracker and I are gonna be the best dog team in Vietnam!” Rick cried out.

  “In your dreams!” Cody cried back. “Dream on!”

  Nine

  THE NEXT DAY RICK HUGGED CRACKER SO HARD, it scared her. It was sudden, the hugging. At first he’d just petted her, given her a wiener. She remembered Willie’s last hug. She whined.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s just a leave before we get sent to Vietnam. They’ll take good care of you, I promise. If they don’t, I’ll kill ’em.”

  Then the next day he didn’t show up at all. She tried not to get too upset—it was just one day—and someone came to feed her and water her. But she got the sense that Rick was far away. She stuck her nose against the fence, and Tristie pushed her nose against hers. Tristie was worried too. None of the guys had come by today.

  She couldn’t imagine that Rick had left her. But yesterday there had been a lot of anxiety with the guys, and with the dogs. Something was up, but what? Why all the hugging? One guy even cried. Rick had said, “Last wiener for a while.” She knew “wiener,” of course, but what did the rest mean?

  Then all week, whining up and down the row. She and Tristie slept next to each other, pushed together against die chain link on their wooden platforms. Week after week. Another guy would walk her, but he walked some of the other dogs, too. He wasn’t her guy. One night she emitted a high hum that she’d never heard from herself before. Not a whine exactly, and not a cry. Just a high, sad hum. Tristie joined her, and pretty soon the whole row of dogs followed. A couple of humans even stopped by to listen. One said, “Did you ever hear anything like that before?”

  The other replied, “That’s the life of a dog, man. You need your human.”

  Rick’s house was old but real nice. Big yard. Big rooms. He spent most of his time in the shop in the garage, making a doghouse, actually, for a family down the street. He’d never made a doghouse before. He’d always figured dogs could sleep anywhere. But now he not only built the house but attached a plywood porch, with a roof for the dog to lie under during the summer.

  His bedroom hadn’t changed a bit, but he didn’t feel at home there. It was like something was missing. He found himself lying in bed thinking about Cracker. Man, he was getting weird. He wondered how much weirder he might get in Vietnam. He’d heard that some of the guys who went there—not just the handlers—got old fast.

  Even his mother made some remark at breakfast: “You’ve changed.”

  “What do you mean, I’ve changed?”

  “You’ve lost weight,” his father said, forking at a pancake.

  “I’m in the army, man.”

  “And you’re ruder,” snapped his grandmother.

  Rick didn’t answer. He never talked back to his grandparents.

  Manning, Wisconsin. Solid, middle-class town. Hardworking people. Good manners. Lot of Scandinavian blood in his area. But he already felt like he didn’t fit in with the guys his age around him. They seemed like kids, hanging out at fast-food restaurants, talking about school and girls. A year ago he had been a kid. His grandparents acted like he still was a kid.

  Before he left, he cleaned his room real well. He wanted everything in order for … whatever. There was another party for him, some of the old-timers playing saws like violins again. As he watched his parents dance to a slow song and the old men playing their saws and his school friends talking, he already felt separated from everyone. Then someone put on a fast record, and he had to laugh at the sight of his parents trying to dance like his friends. Pretty embarrassing. After the party, his father watched the late news. Vietnam this and Vietnam that. He helped around the house and the store—took out garbage, stocked T squares and metal cutters, the usual—but it was just playacting. The real stuff—that was coming. That was coming.

  HE WAS BACK! BUT CRACKER WAS MOONING SO badly that she didn’t know it until she saw Tristie hopping around her kennel. And then she felt it. He was back! When he opened the cage, she jumped on him so hard, she knocked him over. “Ow!” he said. “Bad dog!” But then he held her to him.

  The twenty-four handlers and their dogs, plus a few extra dogs, separated into three C-130 cargo planes for the trip to Southeast Asia. One soldier drove a deuce-and-a-half-the nickname for a two-and-one-half-ton truck—right onto the plane’s ramp. Someone else drove a jeep onto another plane. The men loaded tents, a 105-mm howitzer, M-16 rifles, ammunition, C rations, and everything else they would need to be battle ready the moment they landed in Vietnam. All they lacked, Rick realized, was real-life experience.

  Cracker kept turning around in her crate for a glimpse at Rick. She saw men scurrying back and forth carrying boxes and packages. Crates of other dogs surrounded her. Every time Cracker glimpsed Rick, she wagged her tail, but he didn’t seem to notice her. Even when he disappeared from sight sometimes, she could often hear and smell him. But she liked to keep him in her sight and strained in her crate for glimpses. She didn’t see why she had to wait in here. Finally, Rick and another man carried her in her crate up the ramp and into a big, dark room. Rick knelt next to her and murmured, “Good girl” over and over. “We’re going for a ride. Good girl.” She knew “ride.” And she didn’t think he’d leave her like Willie had. She trusted Rick now. She knew he would always come back. She felt sure of it. And she could just see him, sitting on the floor leaning against a wall of the plane.

  The rumbling grew so intense, she could hardly hear anything else. Some of the other dogs barked and whined, and one howled hysterically. Then she felt the air pressure change. She felt like she was rising and rising, and yet she didn’t seem to be going anywhere. It was different from the ride away from Willie, and she knew Rick was nearby. But she didn’t know what was going on. She could see Bruno in his crate, and she could smell Tristie in hers. Bruno was pressing his nose against his gate. They eyed each other. He wagged his tail; she wagged hers.

  Then for a long time there was nothing to do except sleep and pee.

  Every so often Cracker would wake up, and nothing would have changed. The room was starting to smell like urine and other things. She sniffed but couldn’t smell Rick in the still air. After a long while the plane shook and the air pressure began to change again. Rick came back and put his nose against the gate of her crate. She pushed her nose against his. She sniffed. He smelled good.

  “Good girl,” he said. “Wet nose!” Then he went away again.

  A few times the plane stopped, once someplace really cold and twice someplace really warm. Each time, Rick cleaned out her crate, and then she got back in and the plane took off again, and it was back to the rumbling, to the dim light, to the funny air pressure.

  Much later she could feel something different happening in the room, some excitement among the men. Rick came to kneel by her crate and said urgently, “Tonsonoo. Tonsonoo.” She wagged her tail. Tonsonoo!

  Eleven

  TAN SON NHUT WAS THE SPRAWLING AIRPORT IN Saigon. Rick crowded at one of the two small windows up front, trying to see over some other men. Down below he just caught sight of jungles, rice paddies, hills, and, in some places, neatly planted rows of trees. Sarge, right at the next window, stabbed at the windowpane. “French-owned rubber-tree plantation,” he was saying.
“The French colonized Vietnam before World War II, but the Vietnamese kicked their butts in 1954.”

  As Rick understood it, Vietnam had been one long, narrow country. In 1954 the Geneva Accords divided it into two countries: North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese were Communist; the South Vietnamese were not. The goal of the United States in this war was to prevent South Vietnam from going Communist. One of the soldiers’ goals was to make contact with as many enemy soldiers as possible and kill them. In the army “contact” meant “contact with the enemy,” as in firing at or being fired at by the enemy.

  The 67th IPSD would be convoying to their final base camp in Bien Hoa, located in what was called “Three Corps.” The United States was conducting an air war in North Vietnam, but the ground fighting was only in South Vietnam. The United States had divided South Vietnam into four military regions. Three Corps was second from the bottom.

  Rick looked around to see what the other men were doing. Most were pushing at the few windows, but Cody sat in the deuce-and-a-half, sleeping. Unbelievable. Rick couldn’t hear him but knew he was snoring. Cody sometimes snored so loudly that the sergeant had decided he might be dangerous during nights spent in hot zones in Vietnam. “Hot zones” were areas where the enemy was active. The noise of Cody snoring might alert the Vietcong to the American presence. Bruno was so protective of Cody that he wouldn’t let anybody near him during the nights. So out in the field Cody was always supposed to sleep with a rope tied around each leg: one rope attached at the other end to Bruno and one stretched out so that someone could pull it if the snoring grew too loud. That way, you could pull on Cody’s leg and wake him without getting so close to him that Bruno would get protective.

  Rick yawned. Because of the time change, it seemed like it had been daylight forever. There was some commotion at the window, but the guys in front of him had pressed so close, he couldn’t see a thing. “Is that the Vietcong?” someone was saying.

  The Vietcong were guerillas. Rick’s father had explained all this to him, with the same kind of seriousness as when he’d first told Rick about girls and all that. He’d even drawn diagrams—both times! By definition, a guerilla was a kind of soldier, one who fought a stronger opponent—in this case the United States—by stealth and sabotage. The guerilla fighters hid in the jungles, blended in with the civilians, and even lived by the thousands underneath the ground in elaborate tunnels. Sarge was saying now, “You rarely see Charlie unless he’s lying on his back dead. Sometimes you imagine you see him, though.” Sarge turned suddenly and pointed to one of the big tires of the deuce-and-a-half. Rick turned quickly to where Sarge pointed. “Is Charlie behind that tire? Nah, that’s just a shadow. Bam, bam, bam!” Sarge feigned getting shot. “No, that was Charlie after all.”

  In addition to fighting the Vietcong, the Americans were also fighting the NVA-North Vietnamese Army—but the NVA wore uniforms. The South Vietnamese Army was called the ARVN, for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. Most of the enemy contact in Rick’s area would be against the Vietcong, who used booby traps as one of their main weapons. The traps were psychological as well as physical weapons. Sarge said that if you let the traps get to you, then fear of stepping into one haunted every step you took. There could be booby traps everywhere. And that’s what the dogs were for: to find the traps before any of the soldiers stepped in them.

  Tan Son Nhut was both the American military air base and the civilian airport for Saigon. As the plane landed, Rick managed to get a glimpse of something on the tarmac. It looked like a red, white, and blue platform of some type. He wondered whether there was going to be some kind of welcoming ceremony. He couldn’t wait to get Cracker out of the plane and into the fresh air. But when the doors opened, instead of fresh air, he felt a great wave of wet heat. All the guys leaned back at once, as if the heat had pushed them.

  Still, Rick eagerly unloaded Cracker’s crate and set it on the tarmac. He leaned his nose against the gate and felt his dog’s wet nose push against his. “Cracker, good girl,” he said. He heard laughing behind him and turned around. Some soldiers he didn’t recognize were shaking their heads at Rick and his pals. “New guys!” one called out, laughing. “Give your doggie a kissie!”

  Rick played it cool. Ignored ’em. That was a Scandinavian specialty. As he looked around, he saw what he’d thought was a welcoming stand: It was actually a pile of caskets lined up four high with flags draped over them. A couple of guys were already picking one up to take onto the plane that Rick had just gotten off of. U-Haul said, “Get ready to whip the world, soldier.”

  Rick didn’t answer at first. But, hey, if he mouthed off, what were they going to do, send him to Vietnam? So he said to U-Haul, “Can’t they wait until we’re gone to do that stuff?” He deliberately left off the “Sergeant.” He already felt a little less like a new guy, a little more like the rude guy his grandmother had seen.

  U-Haul put his face in Rick’s and said, “This. Is. A. War.” Then he shouted to the men, “Empty that plane! Double-time!” They moved fast, climbing back on board to empty out the plane and make room for the caskets.

  Twelve

  SO THE 67TH INFANTRY PLATOON (SCOUT Dog) loaded up the trucks for the convoy to Bien Hoa. This was it. Rick and Cracker were about to become the best scout dog team in Vietnam.

  Rick gawped as the convoy rode through Saigon. He’d never seen such chaos. Men dressed in what looked like black pajamas-exactly like the kind the enemy supposedly wore—rode bicycles so rickety, Rick would have thought they’d disintegrate under the weight of riders. The bicycles darted among the army trucks and the women balancing fruit—one basket hanging on each end of some kind of stick the women carried on their backs. Market owners and customers waved their arms and shouted; Rick assumed they were bartering. He could smell fish but couldn’t see any. Kids ran barefoot alongside the truck screaming, “G.I. Joe!” He was surprised at how many Americans walked or rode through the streets. Rick and the rest of the squad sat in the back of a truck covered with their ponchos, their dogs huddled by their sides. The old-timers laughed and talked, but Rick just said over and over to himself, I’m here.

  The air smelled different, like … like, well, he guessed the only thing in the world it smelled like was Saigon. He just hadn’t expected it to smell so different in a different country. Sure, everyplace on the planet had trees, fruit, people, roads, and so on. He hadn’t expected that a collection of trees, fruit, people, and roads could seem like a completely different planet.

  The temperature was in the nineties that day, but because of the rain, Rick wasn’t even sure whether he was sweating. He wiped water from his eyes and kept gawping.

  As the convoy left Saigon, the guys quieted down. Rick peered at every shadow for Vietcong hiding along the road. Jungle loomed around them, palms and elephant grass and trees so thick, you couldn’t see past the first layer. Mud splattered on their faces and filled every crevice in the road and every bomb crater in the fields. Rick’s heart skipped a beat as a few old-timers suddenly pointed their rifles toward something, and then Rick saw a couple of young, crying kids run out of the jungle and away down the long, long road they’d just left behind.

  The convoy rumbled through a village. Nobody spoke—it was as if they’d all realized at once that they were an open target. Anyone could be hiding anywhere and fire on them. The civilian hootches were roofed with straw, and most were small—probably only one room. There was no concrete anywhere, just some tin and yellow thatch amid the green jungle that was everywhere. Cracker was pressed between Rick and Tristie.

  “Feels like Disneyland, don’t it?” a talkative black guy nicknamed “Uppy” finally said. He was an old-timer—just twenty-three years old but on his second tour of duty. His real name was Upton. He was one of the few old-timers who didn’t make fun of the new guys. He was a shortish guy but looked like he could deadlift about five hundred pounds.

  “Yeah,” said Rick. “Except you don’t get killed in Disneyla
nd.” Not that he’d ever been to Disneyland. Now he was a lot farther from home than California.

  Rick didn’t see any other trucks, but he did see more men in those black pajamas riding bicycles. A couple of beautiful Vietnamese girls stood by watching Rick’s truck work its way through the mud. Uppy leaned over and waved at the girls. “Xin chào, girls!” he called out.

  Then one of girls looked straight at Rick and said, “I like! I like you! You number one!” He stared after her. Dang, she was choice!

  Then he heard laughter from Uppy and a couple of the other seasoned soldiers who were hitching a ride in their truck. Uppy leaned out of the truck and shouted at the girl, “Hey, how about liking me?”

  Cracker’s head shot up. She smelled something—something important. Chickens! She saw chickens under a house and barked wildly, setting off a round of barking among all the dogs. The handlers pulled their leashes tight, and twenty-four voices called out at once: “No!”

  Cracker gazed back longingly as the truck drove past. Those were perfectly good chickens. She looked at Rick and tried to explain: “Woof!”

  Rick just shook his head. He waited for Sarge to yell at them to control their dogs, but for some reason, he didn’t.

  As they left the village area, nothing but jungle surrounded them again. Sarge’s face took on falcon-like features as he peered into the jungle. “Any Vietcong around here?” Rick called out.

  Sarge shook his head. “None reported. But that doesn’t mean they’re not there. We always say, ‘They’re everywhere and nowhere.’”

  The convoy passed what looked like a destroyed village—a few half-standing huts in the rain—before turning down a winding road. After a few more hours of driving, Rick saw some sorry-looking buildings in the distance.