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lifers quickly formed a united front, criticizing our looks, job performance, IQ, parentage, patriotism, and the rest.
    That was when the graffiti started appearing. It didn’t take long to spin out of control, like everything else in this friggin’ country. Every day some comment about Fraser appeared magically in the office latrine. One day it was: “Fraser’s Emancipation Proclamation—All turds over six inches must be hand lowered by the Lt. Col.” Another asked: “How is this toilet paper like Walter Fraser? Tough as nails and can’t take shit off nobody.”
    The best one was: “Lt. Col. Fraser is a thespian.” I laughed when I read it and then forgot about it, like everybody else. Little did we know that Sgt. Baker was copying these daily messages and showing them to Fraser. A few days later, Baker hauled us all into his highness’s office.
    The Lt. Col. was standing with his back to us, rehearsing his speech when we walked in. He spun around, pissed as all get out. Most days he looked like a ruffed grouse, all puffed up and preening, but today he was a raging bull.
    â€œGIs, atten-hut!” he shouted at us. “Let me get right to the point. Some of you assholes have taken to scribbling slogans about me on the latrine walls. I thought it was funny at first.” He paused for effect, and his face moved from scarlet to crimson. “But it’s crossed a line and will not be tolerated. Sgt. Baker, will you read the ‘messages’ from the past few days?”
    Baker took a deep breath. “Lt. Col. Fraser is in love with a nig-crow-filly-ache.” Everybody in the room started to giggle as we translated the word necrophiliac from South Carolinian into English. Baker continued: “Lt. Col. Fraser thinks Vietnamization is a shot you take for gonorrhea.”
    We burst out laughing. Everybody except Murphy. He just stood there twirling his dog tags and smiling.
    Fraser and Baker were righteously pissed off. Fraser was a deep crimson as he told us all, slowly and deliberately: “These slogans represent the ultimate in disrespect to the United States Army. No one is going to leave this office until somebody is man enough to own up to writing this bullshit. NO ONE! It’s 1700 hours. We’ll stay the whole fucking night if we have to.”
    I felt like I did in third grade when Freddie Lambert had thrown a spitball at Sister Francesca Regina and we all had to stay after class. We’d still be standing at silent attention in Fraser’s office if General McCaffery hadn’t come by. Not wanting his commanding officer to think he’d lost control of his troops, Fraser immediately dismissed us.
    The battle lines were drawn. On one side of the hall sat Sgt. Baker, Baker’s pretty little Vietnamese typist Miss Tran, and Lt. Col. Fraser. On the other side a dozen 71Q20s behind our typewriters, armed with bad attitudes and a fierce determination to thwart the enemy. We pretended not to hear orders. We “misunderstood” everything from A to Z. We developed terminal writer’s block. We put typos in Fraser’s name and messed up news items he especially wanted to include. If the asshole wanted incompetence, we’d provide it in spades.
    The final crisis began on August 19, one month to the day after Fraser’s first ass-salt as we came to call his daily posting of Army regulations. We’d thrown a wild DEROS party the night before for Ward who was scheduled to fly out of Tan Son Nhut at 0800 hours the next morning. As we crawled into bed after gallons of beer and bales of reefer, Ward promised, or maybe threatened, to rouse us at the crack of dawn for a farewell drink. I was sure he was kidding.
    When Ward actually appeared beside my pillow at five the next morning, I was too wasted to resist, so I obediently crawled out of bed and followed him down to the bar area of our hooch. I didn’t expect anyone else would