While we were lying in the grass in enemy-controlled territory waiting to launch the op, Chito couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Maybe he was nervous. Maybe he had a lot on his mind.
For whatever reason, it was the beginning of a strange night.
He started to tell me that before joining the Army he’d been the lead singer in a punk rock band called Luke, Puke, and the Vomits. No kidding.
And he told me about some songs he wrote dealing with the many intense things that had happened in his life. Like the time the remains of his best friend were returned from Vietnam. Or when his girlfriend was badly injured in a motorcycle accident.
He explained the elaborate stage act he’d worked out. Before his band performed, Chito would buy sheep intestines from a butcher shop and hide them in a plastic bag that he taped under his shirt. At the end of a particularly dramatic song, he’d take out a knife and slash the bag so that it looked like he was cutting his stomach and his guts were spilling out.
I liked Chito, but he was wound tight. The more he spoke, the more agitated he got. He’d been in El Salvador for years and was frustrated. He said, “We keep pushing human rights on the Salvadoran army troops, but every morning they find the headless body of another of their fellow soldiers in the river.”
As he started to tell me about visiting his girlfriend in the hospital after her motorcycle accident, I heard something moving toward us in the pitch-black night.
“Chito, be quiet!”
We slithered through the chest-high grass and hid behind a large tree. I was on the right; he was on the left. The sound was moving closer and growing louder. We had our fingers on the triggers, safeties off. I could feel Chito about to explode.
He said, “On three, we’ll rush them!”
“No, Chito,” I said. “Let them come to us. We have cover. We’re undetected.”
He said, “No, let’s go get them.”
“No. Listen to me, Chito.”
The noise grew louder, and the object crept closer. Our hearts were pounding. Our weapons were pointed at the noise. We were ready to fire when a big black bull emerged from the grass and stared at us.
We laughed our asses off.
A few minutes later we started moving through the high grass toward the Pacific coast again, Chito pushing the wheelbarrow.
We stopped after a bit because Chito was out of breath. I felt something at my foot and scratched it. Then I said, “Chito, let me push the wheelbarrow.”
Now I was pushing the weapons-and-ammo-loaded wheelbarrow. Even though it was past midnight, the air was hot and sticky. Both of us were sweating.
I felt something on my leg under the faded old Levi’s I was wearing.
Chito was talking, telling me about how he loved this one girl even though she had been with a lot of men. He said when he last saw her in the hospital her jaw was all wired up and she’d said, “Chito, I can’t suck your dick, but you can rub it on my lips if you’d like.”
Then I felt something near my knee and stopped to scratch it. A few minutes later, whatever it was moved to my groin.
I stopped and said, “Chito, shine the flashlight on the front of my pants.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, okay?”
I opened my pants and saw a small black snake. I stared at it; it looked back at me. Then I grabbed the damn thing and flung it as far away as I could.
Chito loved that.
An hour later, we arrived at the coast, where we met another SEAL, named Johnny. We were supposed to rendezvous with an SF medic also, but he hadn’t arrived.
So the three of us—me, Chito, and Johnny—sat on a bluff overlooking the shore waiting for the asset we were scheduled to meet. Suddenly, round things started rolling down on us from the land above. We couldn’t tell what they were or where exactly they were coming from.
Johnny and I climbed up the bluff to look.
He whispered, “Come here! Come here!” And pointed to a camouflaged hatch door in the ground.
We both drew our weapons as Johnny lifted it up.
Hiding in the little hole in the ground was the SF medic, surrounded by coconuts.
Johnny asked, “What the hell are you doing down there?”
“I thought you guys were the enemy,” he answered. “I was trying to scare you off.”
We once again laughed our asses off. It was that kind of night.
We finally met our asset and delivered the wheelbarrow filled with weapons and ammo. Later, we set our demo at a choke point in the river and waited for the rebel boat to arrive. It was a twenty-foot wooden boat with a small cabin.
We waited as the boat puttered down river. Then we saw a huge flash, followed a split second later by the sound of a big explosion.
Mission success!
When I returned to Panama, I learned that I’d been selected for promotion to chief warrant officer (CWO)—an officer grade above senior enlisted rank but below the grade of commissioned officer. If I’d chosen to stay enlisted, I could have gone directly back to ST-6 after my tour in Panama was complete.