Liar’s Club

 

  I like telling long-winded stories that grow more and more ridiculous until someone says, "Really?" That's my signal to stop and return to the discussion of Aunt Margaret's gall bladder surgery. I feel a little bad stringing people along. I understand it's a trait of Irish people. I used to blame the devil. Now I blame my DNA. 

  I thought the Liars Club might offer me a guilt-free venue for my stories, but when I looked into the club, the stories were one liners. Like the 12 year old girl who won the contest by saying her sister was so thin she used a cheerio for a hula hoop.  Or another winner who said his grandfather clock was so old the shadow of the pendulum wore a hole in the back of the clock.  Those are great stories, but they lack legs.

  If the Club ever comes up with a long-form category, I'll submit this story: I was commissioned an ensign in 1966 and after officers training school I made my way to San Francisco to board my ship bound for Vietnam. Before boarding the ship, I slipped into a bar for a last sip of civilization. The guy on the next stool said, "If you ever get to Chu Lai, look up Roger. He plays catch with Charlie." "You mean Charlie as in Viet Cong?" I asked. Before he could answer, a woman stuck her head in the door and said, "Let's go." As the guy slid off his stool he said, "Roger and Charlie. Look 'em up." 

 As luck would have it, my ship's first port in Vietnam was Chu Lai. A Navy lieutenant on the pier directed his squad of marines in unloading the supplies on our ship. Once everything was going smoothly, the lieutenant started throwing a football to one of the marines. He had quite an arm and the marine had to run the ball up fifty feet or so before he could throw it back to the lieutenant. 

  “That’s Roger Staubach,” one of my fellow officers said reverently. "He won the Heisman Trophy as quarterback at the Naval Academy. The Academy was number two in the nation that year." I'm a big Vikings fan of course, but I don't follow college ball.

  Suddenly we heard the CRACK! of a mortar, then a second and a third. The marines ignored the mortars and kept on unloading. Roger pitched the football far over his receiver’s head and into the jungle.  There was a short pause, then a thoomp sound and the ball flew high in the air and into Roger's arms. He threw it back into the jungle, and the thoomp was repeated followed by the ball. This went on another twenty minutes until the ship was unloaded.

  On further inquiries we learned Lt. Staubach would likely be in the officer's club. We tracked him down there and asked for an explanation. It seems when he first arrived in Chu Lai, this mortaring was a serious problem every time a ship unloaded.  Roger set up an ambush outside the base and the marines caught the black pajamaed mortar man.

 "When I took a close look at the guy, I was shocked," Roger said. "It was Nguyen Van Lu, my old water boy at the Academy! He recognized me too and we had a little reunion. The marines were disgusted. Nguyen had come to the States with his family back in the fifties. Unfortunately his parents turned out to be spies and were sent back to Vietnam. Nguyen wasn't a spy, but the Academy kicked him out anyway, so he too went back to Saigon where he joined the Viet Cong and was given a mortar.  

  "He promised not fire on the base if I let him go. Our machine shop rigged up an air-powered football gun and now, whenever a ship arrives, Nguyen fires three real mortars over the base as a signal, then we play catch like back at the Academy." As Roger finished his story, a mortar landed a few yards from the club. Roger chuckled. "Every so often Nguyen has to drop one inside the base to keep his lieutenant happy."

  "I don't suppose you know his lieutenant too," I said.

"No. But I do know his name: Tàc Hien Tôn.* He was quarterback at Georgia, back when I was a pup."

Catch, anyone?

* When the Franciscan missionaries sent young Tàc Hien Tôn to the U.S. for school, they anglicized his name to Tarkenton. He is now remembered as the great Vikings quarterback.