The Navy and I: August 16, 2017

Nobody believes me. Even today, nobody believes me. This guy could hitchhike—would hitchhike when the mood struck him. I’ve seen him.

Just because he was a big black dog is why people won’t believe me. His name was Charlie and he made up part of a small communications compound about three-quarters of the way up Monkey Mountain east of Da Nang in 1968. He sorta looked like a big fuzzy Lab and we were very fond of him. He could do an impersonation of Maurice Chevalier that would just crack your ass up.

 It would have offended him greatly had anyone suggested he belonged to us. He berthed with us, that’s all.

I was part of security for the compound, which meant I was paid to sit for six hours at a stretch in one of two towers just outside the perimeter, or at the entry-gate shack. On the midwatch, (midnight to daylight,) there was an impressive view across the bay of the jets dropping napalm on and strafing the mountains to the south. In the opposite direction was the South China Sea, some 3,000 feet or so below. I once watched the battleship, USS New Jersey sail by below during a day watch.

But back to Charlie, the hitchhiking dog. People who believe, without apparent struggle of any sort, that a man and his family kept two Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaurs and other species on a homemade boat and fed them for 40 days and nights scoff at my contention that our pal Charlie was a hitchhiker without parallel.

But he was. There were two more compounds above us, one Marine and, if I remember correctly, one Air Force. Since we had to motor in all supplies and meals, there was a good deal of traffic during the day. Here is where it gets interesting, and this is not “old-age hyperbole” speaking. The regular drivers all knew Charlie and knew that he had friends at the large Air Force compound at the base of the mountain.

There were dark rumors of a tragic love affair with a French Poodle, an unverified one, but believable, as the French had occupied the area before the Americans. Charlie wouldn’t talk about it. But his first name, “Victor” sounds a little French, n'est-ce pas?

Anyway, when he decided to spend a day at sea-level, he would simply go across the narrow road going by our base, and wait. Soon, a driver would see him, apply his brakes and open the passenger-side door for the mutt. Off he would go. Some sailors claimed they could hear him whistling at times, but I never did.

When he got ready to come back, he just reversed the process. Many is the time I’ve seen a truck, barreling up the mountain, stop and let Charlie out. Oh, sometimes he would stagger a bit and hum "Anchors Aweigh" or "Barnacle Bill the Sailor," but mostly he seems to have behaved himself while down below.

Once, a driver was in a major state of confusion. “What the hell’s wrong with this dog?” he yelled from the window just as Charlie jumped through it. He had first passed our gate, but immediately backed down the road to where a couple of us were standing.

“I picked him up at the bottom of the mountain,” he continued. “Thought we could use another dog up yonder.” He pointed in the direction of the Marine compound. “We got here and he went crazy. Kept barking ‘numbah ten’ or something like that.”

“He belongs here,” I said. “Thanks for bringing him home. You’re the new guy, aren’t you?”

“Three sixty-two and a wakeup,” he said. “Still shittin’ stateside chow. How did you know?”

“Just guessed,” I said as I swatted Charlie to make him stop giggling .

This is all true. I offered it to The Veteran’s Project but they just laughed.

 You believe me, don’t you?

Me, Seaman Ed Swope, and EN1 Bill Webb

at Charlie's favorite debarkation site in 1968.