Dear Tom:

A new kid, a blond, blue-eyed, nice-looking lad from the Northwest joined our CAG in Viet Nam. He was assigned to be my driver. I was the S-3 at the time and spent a lot of time on the road checking the CAPs. I was indoctrinating the kid on his duties, and one of the many words of caution l gave him was to avoid having the zips gather up around his jeep, especially zip kids. "They have a nasty habit of distracting the driver while they place an M-26 grenade, without pin and with rubberband around the spoon, into your gas tank. After a while, the rubber band breaks, and whooosh, another casualty call."

Well, this lad was what I call a sexual intellectual - a fucking know-it-all. He wasn't amenable to old Daddy Dunk's scare tactics.

"Really, sir," he said in acondescending manner. "How many little kids would do such a thing?"

A couple of days later I was making my rounds. The CAPs were in the toolies, so I would call ahead and they would send a Marine out to the "red line" (highway) to meet me and lead me back to their day haven. We stopped alongside the road where the Marine was waiting. I got out, slug my trusty Thompson sub-machinegun which had been liberated from a VC some months prior, and turned to my new driver. "Keep your eyes open. And don't let those kids get close to this jeep."

About forty minutes later, I came walking out to the hiway, and what did my dim, aged eyes behold? There was my jeep, my red-blooded American-lad driver, and about twenty little Vietnamese rug-rats in, on, and around the jeep. The driver was having a hell of a good time playing the part of the humanitarian. I unslung my weapon and fired about fifteen rounds over the jeep. The kids scattered in ninety-seven directions. The driver looked shocked, scared, and a then a bit indignant.

As I walked up to the jeep the driver asked, "Sir! Why did you shoot at those little children?"

If I'd shot at them, asshole, they'd be dead. Now, since you have decided I don't know what the hell I'm talking about in my caution to you, we're going to see if maybe you are right. Do you know how long it takes gasoline to eat through a rubber band under tension?"

"No, sir."

"About thirty minutes. I'm going over here and sit under this tree, and you sit in the jeep. We'll see if the kids put a grenade in the tank."

He looked unbelievingly at me and said, "Sir, I'm not sitting in this jeep for thirty minutes."

"Yeah you are, kid. You gotta learn some way."

I walked over to the tree and sat down with the weapon across my knees. The kid sat in the jeep and stared open-mouthed at me.

He then started to laugh, and moved to get out of the jeep. I fired a round over his head and he sat back down in the driver's seat.

"Sir, what if this fucking jeep blows up?"

"I'll put you in a C-ration box and send you home to mommie with a letter telling her what a brave and brilliant lad you were."

"Aw, you can't be serious, major! I'm getting out of this fucking jeep."

"You do, and I'll put a bullet right twixt ya eyes, me boy."

"But, sir," he sobbed, "I don't want to die like this."

"Neither do I, you dumb shit. That's why I warned you about that little trick."

He composed himself, and was quiet. I'm sure he was trying to reestablish contact with his Maker, whom he had undoubtedly tossed aside in the past as being unworthy of his attention.

Well, the jeep didn't blow (I was sure that it wouldn't) and we went home to the CAG headquarters.

The next day, I purposely selected a CAP where I knew the driver would be beseiged by kids while I was in the toolies. I walked into the bush, got out of sight, and told my CAP escort, "Wait a second." I backtracked a little bit and observed my driver standing beside the jeep, at port arms with his M16, yelling, "Get away from here, you little shits! DEE DEE!"