China Beach (TV Series)

How to Stay Alive in Vietnam: Part 1 (1989)

Troy Evans: Sarge Pepper

Photos 

Quotes 

• Sarge Pepper : Rule Number Four: Friendly fire... isn't.

• Sarge Pepper : Rule Number Eight: Teamwork is essential. It gives 'em other people to shoot at.

• Sarge Pepper : Rule Number One: This shouldn't be difficult. Try to look unimportant, they might be low on ammo.

• Sarge Pepper : Rule Number Two: All five-second grenade fuses are three seconds.

• Sarge Pepper : Rule Number Three: Never share a foxhole with anyone who is braver than you are.

• Sarge Pepper : Rule Number Five: One of my personal favorites. Remember that all your equipment was made by the lowest bidder.

• Sarge Pepper : Rule Number Six: When you've secured an area, don't forget to tell the enemy. They may have other plans.

• Sarge Pepper : Rule Number Seven: Anything you do can get you shot, including doing nothing. Hence the importance of Rule Number Eight.

• Sarge Pepper : Rule Number Nine: Expect the unexpected but remember you can't depend on it.

• Sarge Pepper : Rule Number Ten: You are not Superman. But sometimes imaging you are is the only thing that saves you. On the other hand, it can also kill you.

• [last lines] 

  Sarge Pepper : Rule Number Eleven: Do what you have to do.

  [begins to cry] 

  Sarge Pepper : Those are the jokes, folks.

• Sarge Pepper : But what you know is only half of it. Its who you know that's the real kicker. Who can you depend on when Charlie is out there chewing on what's left of your precious petunias. I'm saying pick your partners real careful. On my first combat tour, '65, I met Jimmy Beardsly. He was Dog Man. Every infantry sweep he and his shepherd were out there on point sniffing out Charlie. They were inseparable. They even looked alike! Big brown eyes, funny little ears, and, you know how some people treat their animals better than they treat other people? Not Jimmy. He treated us all like dogs. But wherever we went those two were thirty meters out on point, pushing every time.

  Sarge Pepper : Beautiful morning in May 1965. Dog Man was short. Five days short of going home. One happy kid. I snapped a picture of him. Him standing tall out there, the dog two feet in front of him, like always. Boy and his dog, out for a morning walk. Its great thing about a photographing, stops time for just that second. Its like everything will always be the same. 'Course it isn't.

  Sarge Pepper : We were halfway across a big open field before he alerted. Dog Man and the dog were right in front of a VC bunker. When the dog pointed they cut down hit the dog through the lungs, Dog Man across both legs. Now he was quick and smart and brave and strong. He did the only thing he could do in that situation and survive. He threw himself forward on top of that bunker and he pulled his dog with him. And he set up yellin' right away telling us "I'm hit! I'm hit but I'm alright! I'm going home, I know you're coming for me and I'm going home."

  Sarge Pepper : Well, that machine gunner in that bunker thought he had died and gone to VC heaven. We had three infantry platoons on this flat piece of real estate. He had pure strafing fire and we couldn't return the fire because our man was on top of the bunker. Two guys in the third platoon tried to Audie Murphy around the right flank. -snaps his fingers- He took them out like that! My first platoon medic said "I gotta go to him Sarge." I said "I know you do." He crawled within ten yards and he shot him right through the right eye. Company commander called me over. He was a football All American out of West Point! He gave me command of the company. I was a buck sergeant. Told me he was gonna try a little broken field running. Took a bag of hand grenades and took up off the middle of that field see if he could out run that machine gun. He made it about halfway and surge in the bunker took his leg off clean just below the hip and kind of swung up over his head in slow motion, hung there for a second, then dropped. Kind of beautiful in a way.

  Sarge Pepper : The dog is still howling. The Dog Man is still calling to us. Saying "I'm alright! I'm alright! I'm going home!"

  Sarge Pepper : Well we weren't alright. Fifteen men dead I had another thirty hit. And I was carrying a little piece of equipment nobody else had. The M72 LAW. Light Anti-tank Weapon. Your basic portable throwaway bazooka and I just carried it because I thought sooner or later I might run into a VC tank! Instead I ran into this. So I looked around at the mess around me and I thought about it for a second! Maybe two. I popped that M72 open. I blew up that machine gunner. I blew up the bunker. And I blew up the dog. And I blew up the Dog Man.

  Sarge Pepper : What he got out of it is, he got to go home five days early in a plastic bag. What I got out of it... . I got a Bronze Star.

  Sarge Pepper : Rule number eleven. Do what you have to do.

  Sarge Pepper : Those are the jokes folks.