Hamburger Hill (Part 2)
Almost forty-years ago, at the age of twenty-four, I went to the Philippines to act in the movie Hamburger Hill, one of a trilogy of Vietnam movies, that came out between 1986-1987 which included Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. During filming I wrote a novel/chronicle/prose-poem/military log. I never published it or even showed it to anyone, and just have recently dug it back out.
Subic Bay Naval Base, Day Three:
We were issued more of our “gear” today: canteens, ammo pouches, ponchos, rucksacks, your basic LBE (load bearing equipment), everything you always wanted but never felt comfortable wearing in public. The ponchos have a very prominent stench of vomit or as Al put it “they soured.” But not to worry, the Filipino barracks boys will clean them for a dollar. If you shit your skivvies, they’ll scrub those too and if your mother dies you can cry on their shoulder for fifty cents. The way these cats do your daily laundry will take your breath away. You step out to take a leak and when you get back it’s on your bed, folded not in a pile but artistically, an art installation of cotton origami. I tipped my guy an extra buck and immediately became extended family. Boy, has America done a number on these folks. We got ‘em wanting everything Lucy and Ricky have but all they have is Little Ricky.
*
I talked to Al a little bit more this afternoon, moseying around him with a few questions. Wasn’t quite sure how much information he was ready to give up, but he informed me that those North Vietnamese were tough little motherfuckers, that we hit them with everything but the nuclear kitchen sink and they still kept coming. He also said when your buddies are getting killed next to you, you don’t think twice about killing. Unfortunately, it makes sense, though I wouldn’t trust a guy who’s jumped out of three hundred airplanes as far as I can throw a grenade. (I don’t have to tell you that was sarcasm, do I?)
*
Oh, they were licking their chops. Ready to take out a Semper Fi can of whoop-ass on us soft little Hollywood actor boys. You pussies might be shining on the silver screen but this is the hardwood and your agents can’t help you now. There would be no choosing up sides for a fun little game. It was us against them.
“Them” wasn’t the Subic Bay Naval Base team per se, but a few of the guys who played on it and in their intrmural league. A mix of marines and sailors, mostly black but a couple of white and Latino guys too. They must have thought we had spent more time in ballet class than playing ball, ‘cause they were more than a bit surprised when we took a quick 2-0 lead.
I guess they didn’t know that Courtney B. Vance, thespian, fresh off his Broadway run as James Earl Jones’ son in August Wilson’s Fences, was a three-sport man (basketball included) at Detroit Country Day School and could really hoop, or that Don Cheadle was fast and lethal and could play the game, or that I played pick-up every day back in L.A. and four years in high-school (progressive, Jewish, let’s all sing We Shall Overcome high school, but still). But what they really didn’t know was that Harry O’Reilly of Flatbush Brooklyn had grown up playing with the St. John’s college first team All-American Chris Mullin, and was not just good, but great, and not just great, but competitive, and not just competitive but taking it fucking personally!
It was incredible. They went from we are going to crush you punks, to damn, these boys can play a little, to holy fuck, we are in for a battle and this big shouldered lefty white-boy is unstoppable!
But the Navy was not going down without a fight. Long, lean and pissed off, they had suffered enough ego-crushing indignities as enlisted men, and weren’t about to have one more added to the list. So, back they roared taking a 9-7 lead in a game to fifteen.
I don’t know if word got out or the rest of the cast was just done with their saunas and weightlifting, but soon they were gathered on the sidelines as were twenty or thirty sailors, taking in the action. The tide seemed to have turned. The Navy had taken our best shot and weathered the storm, but Harry O was not done. Whatever they did, he matched and exceeded, the boys of the 101st screaming from the sidelines.
Courtney B helped out mightily, more than holding his own and Don was great, flying up and down the court, but Harry was proving a point. He had felt their disdain and dismissiveness, and his outer-borough alpha-male wasn’t having it. He hit from everywhere: fadeaways with two guys draped on him, little floaters in the lane, faking the “j”, then taking it hard to the hole. He played with a level of fierceness and intensity they could almost match, but what they could not come close to matching was his skill, and with the sidelines going crazy, we beat them 17-15, Harry icing the game with a foul-line jumper and a shaved-head growl! The victory was our first shared act of collective heroism and brought us together in a way no table-reading ever could.
*
Subic Bay Naval Base, day four:
An interesting development has arisen on the artistic front. Steven Weber and Dylan McDermott, who play the sergeants in the film, have voiced an interest in carrying their onscreen positions of authority over to daily barracks life. An impromptu meeting was called about this issue and other issues, the most prominent being that we are here to become soldiers, but all we do is play cards, hangout, go to the gym, go the Sky Club for chow, and make mail and telephone runs. Though occasionally, Al takes us out in the rain to line up in formation, about face us, and all the rest of those military two-steps we all know from movies and TV.
So, Weber and McDermott, fueled by boredom and the ghost of Stanislavski were ready to take things into their own hands.
Now, the expressions on the faces of most of the guys were divided. Not the guys themselves but their expressions, which had a few different and contrary things going on. The first being: “I’m as method as the next guy and wouldn’t dare stand in the way of total live the part De Niro dedication. The second being: Hey I just got my first part in a movie and I’m seven thousand miles from home and there’s no hot water, I don’t know if I’m ready for a let’s take matters into our own hands revolution. The third piece of this expression puzzle was the purest and most human: How come it was the guys who are in a position of “movie authority” who got the idea that they should be able to boss us around in real life? (Weber and McDermott even went so far as to suggest that if we give them any “backtalk” they would be able to impose a penalty of push-ups to fit the crime.)
My thoughts on this matter were mixed, but a very wry smile hung on my face the entire meeting. I think what I was trying to communicate was: I know what you boys are up to. You’ve been cast as the bosses and you want to try it on and see how it feels to make one of your fellow actors drop and give you twenty, but be careful because someone might just build-up a serious resentment and we are going to have to be together a very long time. But maybe that’s good too, maybe it’s all good and will somehow get on screen, these real feelings behind the imagined ones.
And just as we were ready to grant Dylan and Weber sergeant powers, they came to tell us that tonight we are going to play “Manhunt” (a combination of capture the flag and hide and go seek). We will be broken into two squads and hunt each other around the big parking lot outside the barracks. Sounds like summer camp fun.
Subic Bay Naval Base, day five, pre-dawn:
It is three o’clock in the morning. I’ve woken up an hour early to report on last night’s “manhunt” extravaganza, which was a movie in itself. It started off with Michael Dolan, who plays “Murphy,” inquiring if we should ask Al if it’s okay to warm up with a game of tag, to which I replied “I don’t think it’s a good idea to ask a man who served three combat tours in Vietnam if you can play tag.”
Dressed in our fatigues and combat boots we were broken into two teams. One team would hunt. One would be hunted. The winner would be determined by the amount of time it took for all soldiers to be captured.
The rules were basic. If you were tagged you were captured and brought to prison where you could be freed if one of your compatriots slipped passed the guard and tagged you. The hunted were given three minutes to hide, boundaries were set-up and everything within the boundaries was legal: barracks, roofs, dumpsters, latrines, trees, you could go as guerilla as you liked. Our team was the first to hunt. We had sergeants Weber and McDermott on our side and followed their orders, giving them their much-anticipated chance to lead men, and I had a great time referring to them as “sarge” as we moved stealthily through the warm night air.
Then the enemy made their first error, about five of them making a mad dash for higher ground and exposing their position to this team of crack rangers. We flanked out, sneaking up to within twenty yards, then converged on the shed they were holed up in, screaming our heads off, though I’m not sure why.
They went scurrying out into night like rats from a burning ship. I grabbed Anthony by the shirt after a ten-step chase and escorted him to jail, not a word spoken between us. Anthony safely in the hoosegow, I went in search of more enemy.
I was sweating now and unable to smile, and the only thing on my mind was pursuit and capture. We caught the rest of them hanging near the perimeter, trying to blend in with the scenery. They came without a fight. The total time was twenty-two minutes.
Now it was our turn to hide. We had a quick strategy meeting, agreeing on two yelps as the signal for I’m captured and then each set off for that unfindable hiding place that would prove us supreme jungle warrior. My first choice was the dumpster, and I was neatly hidden beneath the foul-smelling dead leaves when the thought of snakes forced my departure. Not knowing where to go I headed for the tall grass of the perimeter, thinking I would adjust my position to their pursuit. I had just seen that not work for them but for some reason thought it would for me. It didn’t. About seven minutes into the game Anthony was ten yards from my position. I wasn’t sure whether he had seen me or not, but decided to make a break for open ground, figuring I would run past or dodge whoever pursued me. I jogged to the middle of the parking lot where I spotted Harry O’Reilly and someone I couldn’t make out as they both sprinted toward me from opposite sides. I turned on the afterburners and split their pursuit, leaving them grasping at air, and ran behind the barracks where sneaky Tegan West was waiting for me. I tried to slide under his tag but he grazed me with his fingertips. I was not happy to be captured and when he grabbed my arm to escort me to the holding tank, I yanked it away and I think he thought I was going to punch him in the mouth. “Alright, take it easy” he said and off I went to prison, sweating and snarling.
Once I got to prison (a picnic bench) I was so angry at being captured I started heaping huge portions of truly nasty verbal abuse on my captors, focusing on their physical attributes and creating near-riot conditions amongst my captured comrades. Everyone had been caught except our two commanding officers (maybe they did know what they were doing) but it looked like Dylan McDermott was being led in by his arm, out there in the darkness. The time was eighteen minutes. If Weber could hold out for five more minutes victory would be ours. I
tried to slow their roll by engaging them in verbal tet a tets, and Harry was yelling “don’t listen to him, don’t answer him, just keep looking!” I’m not sure where my enlisted man Lenny Bruce persona had emerged from, but emerge it had.
Now, in the film, Weber plays a wily platoon sergeant on his second tour, so it was “method” perfection that he would be the toughest to find. The clock reached twenty minutes and there was still no sign of him, as we screamed encouragement and I continued my verbal fusillade. “Hey Anthony, you run like you got a side of beef in your shirt,” which is not a nice thing to say to an unathletic, barrel-chested gay kid.
Twenty minutes chimed and still no Weber. They hunted frantically, checking trees and rooftops, but he was nowhere to be found. Then twenty-two minutes, then twenty-three, then twenty-seven. The clock reached thirty-two and he was still AWOL. We starting getting nervous, fearing snakebite or possible foul play (had some sailors murdered or kidnapped him as revenge for our basketball victory?!). Finally, they yelled “we give up!” and out from behind a bush emerged Weber, not fifteen yards from the prison itself. He had cracked the code: Don’t panic, don’t move, keep your head down and blend in. Force them to find you, not to catch you.
Weber stood there with the proudest grin you can possibly imagine. Everyone was impressed and bowed to the stealth warrior. We weren’t sure yet who had talent and who didn’t but we had just found out who had wits—It was the rubber-faced Jewboy from Queens.
The game now over, we were sweaty, sensitized and truly alert. I pointed out that we were now ready to act or not act, and that this was the kind of preparation we needed to get those battle juices flowing. We needed to let our bodies lead and follow them wherever they took us. Everyone agreed. No Vietnam books could do for us what the last hour had.
You had me at cotton origami.
Reading these, i keep forgetting it’s about actors