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have at least known that. “Let’s see what you’ve got in your pack.” Chalice emptied it onto the cot. Tony 5 shook his head in disbelief. “You shitting me, man?” Pointing to an air mattress, he asked, “Who told you to bring this rubber bitch out to the bush?”
    “They issued them to all of us.”
    “I know they issue them to everybody, but that don’t mean you have to carry them around. Only the office poags are lucky enough to get to sleep on these things. Too much extra weight; get rid of it.”
    “It only weighs about four pounds.”
    Tony looked him in the eye. “Don’t you think I know how much it weighs? Look, Professor, when it comes to things like this, I give advice not orders, and I don’t waste my time saying things just to hear myself talk. Now you’re talking about carrying an extra four pounds. A week from now you won’t wanna carry an extra pencil. There ain’t one guy in this platoon that sleeps on a rubber bitch. Not because they don’t want to, but because they don’t wanna hump them. My advice is to shit-can it.” Chalice flipped the air mattress off to one side. Tony pointed to a couple of pairs of underpants. “Didn’t they tell you that it’s too hot out here to wear skivvies? You wear ’em for five days and I’ll guarantee you a terminal case of heat rash.”
    “Yeah, they told me, but I had room in my pack so I put them in.”
    “Don’t worry about your pack. We won’t have any trouble filling it up. Shit-can ’em.”
    “Okay.”
    Tony pointed to five paperbacks. “You don’t plan on humping all those books, do you?”
    “I had some more, but I left them in An Hoa.”
    “You shoulda left these too. You don’t need to hump books. The guys get all kinds sent from home; comic books, fuck books, science fiction, mysteries, everything.”
    “I wanted to read these four books in particular.”
    “There’s five here.”
    “One’s a dictionary.”
    “Man, I thought I’d seen just about everything, but you’re the first grunt I’ve ever met that carried a dictionary. I ain’t never been to college, but if you’re not sure about any of the words you come across out here, just ask me. I’ll be glad to tell you what they mean.” Chalice stood silently while Tony sifted through the rest of his gear. “Now we come to the fun part. How many grenades you got?”
    “Four.”
    “Better pick up another one somewhere. When you’re in a hole at night and you hear movement, you’ll want all you can get. How many magazines you have?”
    “Eight, that’s all they issued me.”
    “You’ll need at least twenty. Most of the guys carry twenty-five. You can get some more when somebody gets medivacked or goes to the rear. They take twenty rounds; but if you don’t want your rifle to jam, just put in eighteen. We’re one of the first battalions to get M-16’s and they jam a lot easier than 14’s. Don’t ever let me catch you with a dirty rifle. Clean it every chance you get. The last time Golf Company hit the shit, we had to recover the bodies. I saw three guys with bullets in their heads and their M-16’s lying next to them, half taken apart. When them rice-propelled motherfuckers come at you and your rifle jams, you ain’t gonna have time to take it apart and clean it.    .   .   . How many canteens you got?”
    “Four.”
    “That’s good. If you get thirsty easy, you might wanna pick up another one. There’s three things you never wanna run out of in the bush: rounds, water, and shit paper. Shit paper’s really a luxury, but it’s a nice one. You can start putting your pack back together. One more thing, you’ll be wantin’ another type pack. These Marine Corps ones ain’t worth a shit. When we run into some Arvins, buy a Gook pack off of ’em. They hold more and they’re a lot more comfortable. Wait here. I’ll be back with some presents for you in a minute.”
    Tony returned with an ammo can, a “law” (lightweight bazooka), and some other