Skip Harrison

One of those stories that get passed along from GI to GI in Thailand is the famous Fuck You Lizard.  It is actually a gecko  called the Tokay.  Herpetologists say their call is “Tokay” thus the name, but to a GI with too much time of their hands in a foreign land it is easy to get the translations “Fuck You”.  I can attest that a many of nights while in the barracks writing a letter while sitting on my bunk the sounds from outside the louvered slats on the window the insulting lizard would be calling out.  “Fuck Que, Fuck Que, Fuck Que”, well into the night the sounds would reverberate throughout the compound.

The gecko was smart also, knowing we were Americans, they spoke in English to us.  How nice!

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The soldiers that had spent some time at a particular location made it their duty to pass on the stories, legends, and folklore of the facility, the post, or base where they happened to be stationed.  Most of the stories did have at least a little bit of truth to them but all of them were embellished to make the incoming troops feel uneasy for the entertainment pleasure of the short-timers (a term for the guys nearing the end of their tour assignment or their discharge from the service).

In Thailand one of those stories was about a snake named the Banded Krait, a short but highly poisonous viper.  To illustrate its so-called high toxicity it was called the “Two Stepper”, meaning after you were bitten you might take two steps and then keel over dead.  Actually, they are less venomous and shier then some snakes, such as the cobra, their reputation was bolstered on purpose to satisfy the stories passed on from troop to troop.

There were sandbag bunkers at various areas all around the perimeter of the compound that were to be used if and when attacked by the so called Thai Cong.  They remained mostly unused and just needed a little cleaning out from time to time due to the torrential rains during the monsoon season.  Each squad had their own set of bunkers assigned to them.  During one cleaning out session I spotted the “Two Stepper” and that bunker didn’t get a cleaning that day.

Well as you might guess the very next night we got roused out of our bunks about 2:00 in the morning due to a suspected raid by the Thai Cong.  Everybody had to report to the quartermaster to get a rifle and helmet and report to the bunkers.  All unnecessary lights were off as a defensive measure.

Well, Specialist Harrison was born at night but not that night so he also grabbed a flashlight out of his footlocker.  With my helmet on and rifle in hand, I got to the bunker shining my flashlight at anything and everything until the squad leader snatched the flashlight out of my hands.  The career sergeant was screaming at me and whispering at the same time that the ‘enemy’ might pick me off with one shot by just aiming at the light.   I told him that the ‘enemy’ might,  maybe, or could be out there but I saw a “Two Stepper” in there just the day before and I’d take my chances on the outside of the bunker.  After saying something about my mother and something about stupid comm guys he left me to my devices. 

It did turn out to be a false alarm that night but my commanding officer told me the next day that if I pulled a stunt like that again Specialist 4th Class (E4) Harrison would be Private First Class (E3) Harrison.  I never had to call his bluff since that was the last time I had to visit the bunker at night time.  Oh, by the time I left Thailand I was Specialist 5th Class (E5) Harrison, so take that Officer Napier!

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In mid-1966 through mid-1967 I was in the army stationed in Udorn, Thailand.  The US Army had a small contingent of about 50 GI’s that was actually on a Thai army base about 3 or 4 miles down the road  from the large joint US and Thai air force base in Udorn.  We were apart of Stratcom that commanded a communications facility in support of the war effort in Viet Nam.  When we went to work we would travel that small distance to the airbase where I was a electronic technician in a tropo-scatter radio van called a TRC-90A.

We were constantly told about the cultural peculiarities of the Thai people and how we should show respect for their way of life. We were held responsible for the deeds done by the Thai’s if they were under our hire or direction.

On this occasion, I was in a cab alone with a Thai driver headed toward town for a little R&R.  The cab was a little Datsun (now Nissan) 1000, travelling much too fast for the conditions of the road between the two destinations.  A motorcycle rider was zipping in and out of traffic and somehow got in front of us and slammed on his brakes when the traffic ahead suddenly slowed.  We hit the bike rider and ran over the motorcycle and I believe the impact  injured him badly or even worse.  The bike ran off into the clong (a nasty ass water canal with unmentionable stuff in it) and the cabbie stopped the Datsun, looked at the fallen bike rider and begun to run like heck the other way.  Yeah, he ran, leaving the cab there idling with the drivers side door open.   I thought, oh fudge, took the clue and I too ran the five miles back to the base.

To this day I don’t know what happened to that motorcycle rider but I was not going to stay around to find out. From the preaching’s the army gave us I figured that if I hadn’t hired the cabbie he wouldn’t have been there and ultimately it would fall back on me.  That was the logic used by the (in)glorious UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice).

I don’t know what the record was for the 5 mile run but I believe I set it that day.

One night I was working in my van (TRC-90A on stilts) when the power shut down unexpectedly. All the lights, AC, carrier & radio gear went dark. As a main radio relay station between Ubon (RK-7) and Chaing Mai (RK-9) we were expected to keep the comm lines open all the time from our station in Udorn. There was an emergency generator that didn’t come on so I blasted out the door to see if I could get it started.

Before I flung the door open I hadn’t realized that there was a Thai guard that had put a chair on the top step and was apparently taking a snooze with his carbine loaded with the safety off. The door knocked him and the chair asshole over tea kettle and about 5 rounds from the carbine whizzed by my head before I had a clue as to what was going on.

After I composed myself, the guard and I had a little coming to Jesus meeting that involved more than just yelling. Never again did I just blast the door open from the inside without stopping half-way to see if someone was camped-out on the steps. If I said it didn’t scare the crap out of me I’d be lying!

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