Fort Dix, October 29, 1966

"Move it!  Move it!  What's the matter trainee - didn't your mama give you a kiss before you left the house this morning?"  The lights went on.  Was it a dream or a nightmare?

It was only a few short weeks ago that Bob Brenner's mother gave her son a hug before he went off to basic training.  Drafted after completing three years of college, he wished he had returned for his final year.  Back at the dorms in Indiana, a typical Saturday morning would find him rolling in around five in the morning; now he was being unceremoniously dragged from bed by a drill sergeant, screaming and blowing a whistle.

"Come on trainees, hit the floor!  You've got 10 minutes to get in uniform and be in formation in front of the barracks.  I've already been up for hours" ...the insults and harassment from Sergeant Hurst seemed never ending.  "Just to make sure you low lifes are awake, we're gonna take a four mile run before chow.  Then, we're gonna go out to the grenade range and I'm going to teach you how to throw one of them mothers.  Goin' to show you how to kill Charlie - if you don't kill yourself first.  Move it!  Move it!"

Cold, hot, and sweaty, Bob thought only the Army could figure out a way to make you feel bad three ways at the same time.  The chow, not even the Army called it food, was enough to sustain the body but was about as appealing as the olive drab uniforms.  In the Army, everything was green.  The only thing that wasn't green was last night's peas.  The shirts were green, the pants were green, even the underwear was green.  Two days earlier the first sergeant had dispatched him to the supply room to get some flashlight batteries.  No silver batteries with a cat on them here, simply round batteries, three inches long - and you guessed it, green.

Maybe today would be a break from the bleak existence of basic training.  Heck, every twenty  year old guy has some macho in him and today they were going to be tossing some live grenades.  All the other crap aside, it might be fun.

After running another three miles out to the grenade range, his body didn't feel like it had anything left with which to experience fun.  Then came Sergeant Hurst to enlighten them with his intelligence and humanitarianism, but this time his tone was different.  No intimidation or harassment.  Tossing a grenade was serious business.  The idea was to learn how to kill the enemy, not yourself, and definitely not Sergeant Hurst.

"Listen up, trainees," he began, "you have some important things to learn before you get out there and play John Wayne today.  Grenades are dangerous.  They do one hell of a job at maiming and killing people, and you got to learn how to use them so you and your buddies aren't the ones gettin' killed."  Sounded like a good idea to Bob.  "First thing - you've all seen John Wayne put the pin between his teeth and give a yank.  Well, I'm here to tell you that if you try that, the only thing that will come out are your dentures."  Amazing - the man had a sense of humor.  He was demonstrating with a blue grenade, the color indicating it was a blank.  "You hold the grenade in  your right hand (the Army assumed everyone was right handed) and pull the pin with your left.  Keep your right hand on the lever - the firing mechanism isn't activated  until you release the lever - in fact, as long as you don't release the lever, you can put the pin back in."  He made sure to demonstrate this point.  "Now listen up, when you throw the grenade, you don't throw it over your shoulder like a hook shot in basketball, you throw it like Joe Namath throws a football."

The good sergeant was taking this thing seriously.  Everyone sensed the urgency in his voice and manner.  The whole platoon was listening because somehow they knew that someday their lives might depend on what Hurst was telling them today.

"Now trainees, that's how you throw a grenade, but what are you going to do when you're out on patrol, sitin' in a circle, takin' a smoke break, when Charlie throws his grenade in the middle of your squad?  Or, what are you going to do when one of  your clumsy buddies, just showin' off, pulls the pin, drops his live grenade, and you've got three seconds - just three seconds - to figure out how you're goin' to spend the rest of your life?"  No one had an answer - at least none they were willing to share.  "Well, I'm goin' to tell you what you're goin' to do, 'cause it's the only chance you got to stay alive.  Simple as this trainees, when a grenade comes in, the first guy to see it yells, 'Grenade!'  As fast as he can, he goes for the grenade, picks it up and tosses it; everybody else dives away from the grenade.  It's the only chance you got.  If nobody goes for it, you're all dead.  If everybody goes for it, you're all dead.  The only way it'll work is for the first guy to yell 'Grenade!' and toss it.  The technique was practiced with the blue blanks, over and over, until everybody had the idea.

Now it was time to see what this day was all about.  There were two walls of railroad ties separated by three feet of packed dirt.  In front of the first wall was a five foot ditch, just in case the toss didn't make it over the wall.  Hurst held the round, green instrument of death in his hand, pulled the pin, tossed it thirty yards like a football, and hit the ground behind the three foot thick dirt retaining wall - he wanted to live to see tomorrow.  Suddenly, the reality of what the hours of practice were about became clear to Bob.

Long Binh, Vietnam, July 5, 1968, 10:38 PM

It seemed for so long that his luck would hold, that Bob Brenner, draftee, now Specialist Fourth Class, would beat the odds and spend his time stateside, but that luck ran out four months earlier.  When he arrived he had been serenaded with, "Bob's going home in a body bag, Do Dah, Do Dah" and he knew all he wanted to do was get back home.  That was the one universal rule, do whatever you have to do to get home.  At least now he was on the downhill side of his time in 'Nam, in ninety days he would return to "the world" - if only his luck would hold.

All factors considered, SP/4 Bob Brenner had been lucky; seventeen months in the States before being shipped to Vietnam and then drawing an assignment in a base camp supply company.  He could have just as easily been stationed one hundred feet south in the 199th Light Infantry brigade.  He would probably make it.  His biggest concern was the night, not fear of the dark, but fear of not seeing the next day every time he heard the incoming rockets, mortars, and artillery.

There was only relative safety in base camp.  Whenever Charlie had a few extra rounds, he would lob them into the base camp.  Sometimes he would get lucky - or unlucky - depending on whose side  you were on.

There was no discrimination for "incoming."  You just had to run from your "hooch" and hide in the bunker.  The hooches - ten to twenty warm bodies clustered in an aluminum shell of a building, built to withstand little more than the rain.  If your hooch took a direct  hit or even a near miss,  you were history.  Some general must have designed the base camp layout, twenty-four hooches all lined up in a nice neat row.  For each three hooches, there was a bunker, designed as a shelter from incoming.  It would survive anything except a perfect strike from the outside. Ingenious design, similar to the grenade retaining wall back in basic.  Three foot thick dirt walls supported on each side by thick lumber, a roof of thick lumber covered with another foot of dirt and a rubber sheet as protection from the monsoon rains, and the entrance, twenty-four inches wide and "Z" shaped.  The Z was protection against the near miss; the shrapnel might make it in the first leg of the Z, maybe even bounce around the second, but would be harmless in the third an beyond.  Only problem was getting fifty or so guys in the bunker once the shells started flying.  Once inside, someone would usually set a single flashlight in the middle of the floor, pointing at the ceiling, providing just enough light to discern the shadows, yet not enough light to provide a target.

Bob remembered the nervous anticipation the night before - would Charlie decide to set off his own fireworks, but the night was quiet.  Tonight, the guys were sitting around playing cards, writing letters, listening to music on headphones, watching Bobby, the weather girl, on Armed Forces Television when all hell broke loose.

Mill Valley, California, November 26, 1990

Some things changed, some stayed the same.  By the time Mike Mahoney reached his eighteenth birthday, there was no draft, well at least nothing serious.  He still had to register but there wasn't even a thought to activating the call up process since the all volunteer military was established several years before.  His older brother had some friends that went to Vietnam; some came back, some didn't.  the closest Mike ever came to military service was watching the ROTC guys marching on campus.  After graduation he tried teaching for a couple of years; that's where he met Kathy.  making it in the Bay Area was just too tough on a teacher's salary; there were a couple of other jobs along the way; as he pulled into the driveway, the daydreaming came to an end.

"Daddy, Daddy, I rode my bike all around the block without my training wheels."  For Mike and Kathy Mahoney, everything was going their way.  Two great kids, Cindy, the six year old would steal any father's heart, and Danny, four years old was all boy.  Mike and Kathy took a chance a few years earlier and bought an old run down restaurant in Sausalito, but it had promise.  It sat on San Francisco Bay and rather than renovate it, they decided to keep its charm, kind of clean it up but not fix it up; besides, they didn't have any money left to fix it up.  hard work and a couple of good reviews in the Chronicle launched their dreams into reality.  Kathy is still the hostess on weekends; best looking thing in a cocktail dress in Marin County, according to Mike.  Things were great, and nobody Knew it more than Mike Mahoney.  Dynamite wife, great marriage, couldn't ask for better kids.  Yeah, life was good.

Monday's were usually a little slow at "Mahoney's"; what better name for a restaurant?  Anyway, that gave Mike the chance to have dinner with the family.  Nothing special, except for one Mike Mahoney who really knew what was special in this world.  The kids always liked having Dad home for supper.  Just the usual things kids talk about at dinner: school, friends, the playground.

Dinner finished and the kids off in their rooms, the paper sat on a corner of the table.  The suburban crime wave was still going on.  Late night burglaries, car thefts, but so far it hadn't reached the affluent north shore.  "Why don't you read the kids a story and tuck them in tonight.  The love it when Daddy tucks them in."  There was an additional meaning to Kathy's words as the wry smile on her face confirmed.  "Take your time with them, nobody likes to get shortchanged."

"Good night, Daddy," came the calls from the bedroom.  "Good night, Cindy.  Good night, Danny.  Sleep tight."  Mike walked down the hallway and across the family room towards the master bedroom.  Kathy was already there, lights low, soft music.  The night was theirs and Mike didn't have to be at the restaurant until three tomorrow and nobody likes to be shortchanged.  Having lost themselves in each other, the hours passing like minutes, they lay together in perfect bliss... "Mike, what was that noise?"

"I don't know."  He grabbed his robe and walked across the darkened house towards the kid's rooms.  Kathy, tying the waist band on her robe, was following.  As he got to the hallway, all hell broke loose.  First he saw the barrel of a gun, just as the man, his face covered with a ski mask, surged from behind the hutch and shoved Mike.

"Up against the wall, scum!  You, lady - get over there," pointing towards the hallway.  Terrified shrieks came from the rooms of Cindy and Danny.  As they ran screaming from their rooms, Kathy held them while the gunman yelled, "Shut up!"

"Look," Mike said, "we don't know who you are - just take whatever you want and leave.  We won't call the police for ten minutes."

"It's you I want man!  It's you," as he pointed the gun towards Mike.

"Daddy!"

"SHUT THEM UP!" he screamed.

"For God's sake, whoever you are, what did I ever do to you to deserve this?"  But there was no answer.  "Look, I'll do whatever you want, just don't hurt them.  I'll go with you, whatever."

"You just don't get it, do you man?"  He lifted the gun higher pointing it at Mike's forehead.

Kathy and the kids were terrorized.  Kathy more fully conscious of what might happen, the children frozen in a childhood state of fear.

In a moment of time, Mike pondered his options.  He was in no position to bargain.  If he struggled with the gunman, he might hurt Kathy and the kids.  If he just tried to stick it out, maybe he could talk this guy out of whatever he had in mind, or maybe at least, he wouldn't hurt anyone else.  After all, he said he only wanted Mike.  But the gun was pointing closer to his head with each passing instant.  God, was this any way to let the kids see their father, with his brains blown all over the wall?  Would it hurt?  Would he hear the gunshot - he had been told, "you never hear the one that gets you."  He wondered.

The gun was now pointing directly at h is head.  He could see the chamber slowly revolving, the finger pulling back on the trigger.  No sound.  No pain.  Just a faint feeling of the warm liquid streaming from h is forehead, meandering down his face.

Long Binh, Vietnam, July 5, 1968, 10:57 PM

Bobby, the weather girl.  Long blonde hair, good looking; nobody cared about the weather, just watch Bobby.  Now that was something worth fighting for.

INCOMING!  Acting as though on instinct, everyone grabbed the necessities of life, boots, helmets - and the dash for the bunker was on.  Not everybody arrived at the same time, and with limited confusion, everyone was inside within thirty seconds.  Now the wait began - how long 'till either Charlie stopped or ran out of ammunition.  Someone set up their flashlight, there was quiet talk, black humor, everyone silently asking the question, "was this the night their luck would run out?"  A voice called out from the other side, "Hey Bob, how much longer you got left?"  "Eighty-nine days," came the reply.

Time passed, a foreboding silence filled the darkened chamber.  A figure appeared at the entrance, the suddenness of his movement was an omen.  His eyes seemed suddenly fixed, his purpose intent.  In a single moment he thrust his arm out and the wooden floor echoed the sounds of the rolling dark object.  Then the yell came from the Z shaped door - "Grenade!"

What did Hurst say?  The first guy yells and goes for the grenade to throw it away - everybody else dives away from the grenade, and you've got less than three seconds to get it done - if you don't, you're all dead.  But Hurst didn't tell us about this.  The grenade hasn't even stopped rolling yet.  Two seconds.  Damn, we're inside a bunker, fifty of us, and only one way out.  The guys at the door, fighting and scrambling to get out, already have the exit blocked.  One and a half seconds.  Still rolling, even if I could see it, there's not place to throw it.  The bunker to protect us from the outside had doomed us inside.  Chaos!  Guys screaming, trying to find something, or somebody, to hide behind; but there is no place to hide.  One second.  Pushing, yelling, screaming.  The brave, the cowards, all indistinguishable in the dark as the round green monster had now been lost in the stampede of feet going nowhere.  One half second.  Mom, Dad, Prom night, the first time.  Is there a heaven?

Mill Valley - Three Seconds Later

The warm liquid, colorless in the dark, was now splattering on the kitchen floor.  The room and everyone in it was frozen in time.

The gunman leapt towards the light switch and in the same movement flipped it on.  He switched the gun to his left hand and with his right reached up over his head and ripped off his ski mask.

"Hey, Mr. Mahoney - it's me, Don Brothwell from down the street.  What 'cha think?  Great practical joke, huh?  I mean, I bet you didn't even know it was a squirt gun.  Looks real, doesn't it?"

A silence of rage now pervaded the house.

"Hey, lighten up, it was only a joke.  You see, my fraternity is having this contest.  Whoever plays the best practical joke, wins two tickets to the Super Bowl - heck the 'Niners might even be playing."

"Come on, what's the problem?  I said it was only a joke."

Long Binh, Vietnam, July 5, 1968, 10:58 PM

"GET OUT!  GET OUT!  It could blow any second!"  Some nameless face in the dark yelling, silently pleading against time, to get everyone out.  It seemed like an eternity, and for fifty young men it very nearly was, but somehow everyone got out.  There was no celebration, just relief.

The shelling had stopped a few minutes earlier.  The muggy night air held only silence and one piercing laugh.  At first it was just though to be somebody's expression of relief - but it was different.  Attention focused on the laughter, coming from Billy Adams.

"I tell you guys," he said, "I never saw you look so scared and never saw you move so fast.  Damn, I think this is the best joke I ever played.  What's the matter with you boys, y'all afraid of a little old flashlight battery?"

Long Binh, Vietnam, August 9, 1968

"Hey rookie, welcome to the LBJ Ranch - Far East."

"LBJ Ranch?" Adams replied.

"Yeah - Long Binh Jail - as in U.S. Army Stockade.  So tell me, what are you in here for?  What did ya' do, beat up your sergeant, punch out your C.O.?"

"Naw," said Billy Adams, "ya' see, we were taking some incoming from Charlie, and all I did was roll a flashlight battery across the floor of a bunker, with fifty guys inside, and yell, 'Grenade!'"