What Should We Speak Of When We Are Old?
R. J. Hendrickson
Published by R.J. Hendrickson
Copyright 2011 R. J. Hendrickson
Smashwords Edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
License Notes
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A note on the title from the author –
William Shakespeare was a masterful observer and commentator on the human condition. In his play Cymbeline, the King of Britain unjustly banished a loyal lord named Belarius due to false court intrigues. In revenge, Belarius kidnapped the King’s infant sons and took them to live with him in the caves and mountains of Wales.
He grew to love the young boys as his own, and as they grew into young men, he feared their leaving home. Guiderius and Arviragus, the young men, loved the man they knew as their father and greatly admired his tales “….Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war..” They were robust young men, eager to experience the world as their father had.
Belarius entreats them to keep the simple life and remain with him in their free and safe mountain home. They respond gently -
GUIDERIUS
Out of your proof you speak: we, poor unfledged,
Have never wing'd from view o' the nest, nor know not
What air's from home. Haply this life is best,
If quiet life be best; sweeter to you
That have a sharper known; well corresponding
With your stiff age: but unto us it is
A cell of ignorance; travelling a-bed;
A prison for a debtor, that not dares
To stride a limit.
ARVIRAGUS
What should we speak of
When we are old as you? when we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December, how,
In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse
The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing;
- R. J. Hendrickson
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Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?
“Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have torn down your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.”
But what is the divine response to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
Romans 11:3-4, NASB
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Chapter One
Feeling like a fool, I looked down to the dirt floor of the hootch and wondered if my Army career had failure written all over it. How could I be so damn stupid? The first of many great adventures for Lieutenant Ben Spangler, would-be hero and combat veteran….man, you had better get it in gear before you really make a mistake, a bad one.
I realized the dull jangle of voices in the back of my consciousness had stopped. As the silence echoed in my mind, I sensed movement towards me, too late.
“Spangler!”
I jumped. I swung around to the top of Major Swanson’s bald head, inches away from my face.
“Yessir?”
His attempt to be quiet only made his voice hiss as he pointed to the other room in the small house. “Dammit, I was calling you to get in there and meet the village chief. Are you deaf?” His warm sour breath washed over me and I wanted to back away.
“No sir, sorry sir. I was just looking at that Montagnard[1] woman, that old lady over there.” I pointed to our jeeps parked a few meters outside the window opening. A small puddle was next to the closest vehicle.
He jerked past me and glanced outside. “Where...which old woman? I don’t see anybody.”
I turned to show him. “Sir, she was just right there. By our jeep. I was watching her.”
“Watching her do what?”
“Well, she was acting suspicious, and she walked over to our jeeps parked there, looking around, like she was trying not be seen, and…she just looked suspicious, that’s all.”
“Well, what did she do? …Answer me, dammit.”
“She squatted and took a piss.”
He looked up to the tin roof of the hootch, closed his eyes, and slowly rubbed his hand over the smooth center of his head. “Damn, Spangler.” He was trying to put words to his thoughts when Major Chu walked into the room accompanied by an old man.
“Is there a problem?” Major Chu said.
Major Swanson moved his hand down quickly and answered, “No sir, no problem. Sorry for the delay.”
“Very well.” He paused, looking at the Major and then me with unexpressive eyes. “Lt. Spangler, this is Ông Pham Van Tuan, the village chief of Duc Trong.”
The old man clasped his hands together and bowed from the waist. I waited until he completed his bow and did my best to do the same, bowing even lower, which was not easy with my six foot frame. He smiled when I managed to come up, and bowed his head again, very slightly.
Major Chu spoke in Vietnamese to Mr. Tuan, and then in English to us, “Now we must go to our compound. Col. Tran will be coming back soon and we want to introduce Lt. Spangler to him today.”
I made a quick bow to the village chief as a way of saying goodbye, and he followed suit. Not knowing how to stop a succession of bows, I quickly turned and followed both majors out and got into the jeep with Major Swanson, stepping over the puddle into the front passenger seat. I smelled the unmistakable evidence of my embarrassment as I waited for him to start the jeep and get away from there. My tightening throat seemed to be slowly pumping more blood into my ears. I felt their creeping warmth as I stared straight ahead and waited for his words, knowing they were coming and I deserved them all. Major Chu started his jeep and led us down the narrow streets and alleys of the Vietnamese village, my first.
Chu drove slowly, sometimes inching through crowds of children, waving gently at them to move away. The streets were rough, almost nonexistent. Our jeeps bounced and grunted in the ruts as we made our way through the village. Each time the jeeps slowed to negotiate another rut, the dust following us caught up and poured down our shirt necks.
Two little boys ran alongside our jeep, their hands out, asking for something, smiling like they knew me from somewhere. Major Swanson ignored them. I tried to do the same. They soon tired as we neared the edge of the village near Highway 20. We turned right onto the asphalt surface and increased our speed. I sat in the seat silently.
He spoke, finally. “All right, I’m not going to chew your ass. I guess I could have made the same mistake. But goddamn, how green are you, Lieutenant?”
“This is my fourth day in-country, sir.”
“And never any previous enlisted experience, …nothing?” He turned to look at me quizzically.
“No sir.”
“How in the hell did Col. Simmons decide to send you out here?”
“He didn’t, sir. Major Koularmanis did. He talked to me yesterday evening in Dalat after my flight up from Saigon.”
“Call him Major K, everyone else does.”
“Yes, sir. I told him I wanted to get out in the field, I didn’t want a staff job. He said as executive officer of the advisory group, he made all the personnel decisions.”
“Yeah, and if you ask me, he makes most of the other decisions too. Col. Simmons lets him run the whole group, and you’re a liar if you ever repeat that.”
“No sir, I wouldn’t do that. Major ...uh… K didn’t want to give me a field job at first, but we talked for quite a while after dinner and he finally relented. He seems like a nice guy. He said since I was Infantry and you were Intelligence, I might be able to help if we ever had to call in artillery or anything. I’m pretty well trained in that.”
“Did he say anything else about me?”
“No sir, not really.” I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I wasn’t going to ask. If he told Major K I was unsatisfactory and made it stick, my next job would be holding down a desk at headquarters. And desk jobs for lieutenants were shit jobs.
We drove slowly, following the jeep ahead. The growl of the rough tire treads on the road drowned out the engine and wind noise. He spoke suddenly and loudly, “Hell, I may as well admit it, I’m glad to have some company. It gets damn lonely at times, and I could use somebody to talk to. I’m a psych grad with a masters and I like to talk.”
Bantering even louder to an imaginary himself, he said “Well, why don’t you welcome him to the command?” Chuckling at his little joke, he held out his hand, “Welcome aboard, Spangler.”
“Thanks, sir.” I reached around to shake his hand and sat back in the seat relieved. He had been deadly silent since he picked me up at the advisory team villa in Dalat earlier that morning, and our trip back down to our district of Duc Trong had been at breakneck speed down the mountain roads. I had been too scared of his driving to break his concentration by initiating any conversation.
We stopped to let an ox cart cross the road. The villager walking alongside the animal pounded like hell with a bamboo rod onto its back as it slowly plodded across the road. The ox didn’t even look up, crossing the road in ox time, no sooner or later. The villager, a man wearing a coolie hat and black pajama pants, looked at us as if to say: Well, I tried, but you see what I have to work with.
“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, why did you drive so fast after we left Dalat?”
He looked at me, paused to weigh his words, then looked down the road and said “We make a much tougher target going fast, plus we can be past an ambush before they know we’re coming. The VC know we use this road all the time, it’s our only way to get to the province headquarters from the districts. We could get killed missing one of those damned curves, but our chances are better that way.”
I wasn’t so sure. I knew we went through one curve with one rear wheel off the ground, but he did seem to slow down a little after that.
The ox cart passed and we started moving again. He gestured at the road. “Did you notice there’s no traffic? That’s ‘cause it’s getting dark in an hour or two, and no one is allowed out at night. Well, I mean, they can go out, but they’re taking a chance. There’s a curfew after dark, and both sides shoot first and frisk the bodies later…but not to worry, we’re almost there.”
The road dissected a narrow valley surrounded by tall mountains, jungle falling off the slopes and sprawling to within one hundred meters of the road, in some places even closer. The vines hanging off the tall trees seemed to be growing closer as I watched. The dismal mass of tangled undergrowth and tree trunks was broken by occasional trail openings that hinted of open space but quickly faded into darkness. The stark contrast between the long black shadows and brightly lit greenery played tricks on my eyes, making the jungle move, even with no wind.
Our jeep slowed down and we made a quick left turn onto a dirt road. I looked up and saw a barbed wire compound that crouched on a bare hill, overlooking the village we had just left.
The compound was surrounded by several rings of stranded barbed wire and concertina wire. They wrapped around three levels of ground, terraces carved into the red dirt. The first level was completely devoted to wire and claymore mines, the second level was ringed with several fighting bunkers, and then finally higher on the top of the hill I could see four large sandbag bunkers, surrounding a couple of small frame buildings, a water tower and observation post. Each corner of the second level had a bunker made from wooden logs, covered by a larger and taller pile of sandbags, two machine gun barrels sticking through the firing port on each outward side. As we climbed, we passed through three open barbed wire gates that could quickly be closed to block the road. The fighting bunkers looked like they could house around forty to fifty men, but very few faces were visible now. Major Swanson didn’t stop until we pulled onto the top level. Major Chu stopped his jeep at the first bunker. My boss continued a little further to the middle. He parked, we got out, and at once a raggedly dressed Montagnard man walked over, got in the jeep, and moved it over to a parking area by the larger frame building.
Major Swanson made an expansive gesture with his hand and said, “Welcome to your new home, Lieutenant, such as it is. That’s our bunker over there, and that largest one is Col. Tran’s bunker, and he also uses the other one for storage and a command center. That building is our mess hall. We’re the only ones to use it. That wretch over there is Ka-Hooey, our Montagnard clean up and yard guy.”
I guess he read the look on my face. He said “Don’t worry, he doesn’t speak a word of English. We have another ‘yard who works for us, Ka-Mong, who’s our interpreter. He’s a smart guy, speaks English pretty good, and Vietnamese damn good. I think we can trust him. He’s been working for the Americans in this district for years, and he actually got a Bronze Star for saving an American’s life a few years ago.”
“What happened?”
“Aww, I don’t know. Who gives a shit. You can put your duffel bag in any room in our bunker but the room on the left, that’s mine.”
Now that we had stopped moving, the lack of shade made the late afternoon heat oppressive. The sun’s almost horizontal rays seemed to ricochet off the ground and bounce off the tins walls of the two buildings around us. I could feel the tickles of sweat beads teasing down my body under my fatigue shirt. I walked to the bunker with my duffle bag and rifle slung over my shoulder. Its flat roof was supported by several logs, and the top of the roof was covered by 55 gal drums, filled with dirt. The entrance path was short, with a labyrinth pile of sandbags to keep shrapnel from a direct entry into the bunker opening. Expecting the bunker to be hot, I was surprised to find it pleasantly cool. I guessed the protection the earth-filled drums offered from shells and mortars also insulated the bunker from the heat. Pausing to let my eyes grow accustomed to the dark, I saw I was standing in the radio room, eight feet by ten feet, sparse, with a couple of folding chairs pulled up to a bank of radios along a shelf next to the wall. A plank table sat on a couple of rusty filing cabinets that looked unused. There was a small bulletin board on the wall with nothing on it. Each wall was simply sandbags, piled eight feet high. The floor was dirt, hard packed, and there were mouse traps every five feet along the walls. I could see Major Swanson’s room to the left, so I turned right into the opening past the radio room, and there was a small hall, with three small rooms along it. I chose the first room, laid my duffel bag on the cot and leaned my rifle against the wall. There was a folding chair alongside the head of the cot, serving as a table. A kerosene lamp sat on the floor next to the cot. Nothing else was in the room but a folded up mosquito net.
I heard a couple of jeeps pulling into our compound, so I walked out into the blinding sun to see what was going on. Through my painfully squinting eyes I could see Major Swanson talking to a Vietnamese Lt. Col, and Major Chu. They looked and gestured toward one of the jeeps. They were laughing as I approached, so I walked up to Major Swanson, saluted the group, and waited to be introduced. The Major saw me, and said “Col. Tran, this is Lt. Spangler, my new assistant. Lt., this is Col. Tran, and you’ve already met his XO, Major Chu.”
Col. Tran was a pleasant looking man, in his early forties, short with dark hair under his helmet. He had a boyishly round and friendly face, with thin lips that already had a smile on them.
In comparison, Major Chu was thin and slight, even shorter than Col. Tran, with the look of a schoolteacher. He had an unusually angular nose for a Vietnamese. His helmet and combat fatigues seemed out of place and meant for someone else.
Col. Tran reached for my hand and shook it firmly and quickly several times. I bowed, this time only slightly from the hip. He laughed and said in a thin tenor voice “Welcome to Duc Trong district, Lieutenant. You already know our customs. That is good. You will be working with Major Chu on our operations and intelligence activities.” He said the word “activities” slowly, stressing all four syllables as if the word was hard for him. I detected a slight lisp in his speech, barely perceptible.
I nodded to Major Chu, and bowed again slightly. I knew the Vietnamese were formal people, and as most Americans didn’t make much of an effort to conform, they greatly appreciated those of us who showed respect for their customs. Bowing was a sign of respect, and was equally given from the high to the lowly as well as the opposite. It was not a sign of subservience. Major Chu smiled as he bowed to me, and then said quietly in his deep voice, so different from his boss, “I look forward to working with Lt. Spangler.”
Col. Tran and Major Chu asked me several questions in their heavily accented English about my military career, my education, my time in Vietnam, and so forth. I tried to answer as shortly as possible, as I was a lowly lieutenant and it seemed to me they were more interested in me than any Colonel and Major I had ever met before.
Major Swanson seemed to take some pride in my first impression, and said, “Here, Spangler, take a look at this. Col. Tran was out in the district this afternoon, and got shot at coming back.” I looked at the nearest of the jeeps and saw several bullet holes along the narrow right side panel of the jeep, just inches below the seat. Someone had sprayed an AK-47 at Col. Tran on full automatic. The holes were about four inches apart.
“Wow! That’s a little too close for comfort.” Looking at Col. Tran, I said “Sir, they just missed you.”
Col. Tran laughed in an embarrassed way, and gestured as if it were nothing. Then his demeanor became serious as he stared briefly at the holes, “It was over quickly. I will send a patrol to that area tomorrow. We have some security problems there.” He gestured to his driver who was waiting near the command bunker to move the vehicle out of the area.
Turning to us with a grin, he said “I want to get my jeep out of the way before my wife sees it, you know how women are.”
I didn’t know how women were except for my mother, but I smiled as all three men chuckled knowingly.
Col. Tran walked away and ducked into his bunker with a cheerful “See you tomorrow!” Major Swanson and Major Chu talked briefly about the plans for tomorrow, and I reflected on my first encounter with my Vietnamese counterparts.
Col. Tran had come within inches of being murdered just a few minutes ago, and yet he and his executive officer were sincerely interested in making me feel at home and welcome. What kind of men were these?
My musings were cut short when Major Chu walked away and Major Swanson said, “Let’s go, Spangler. It’s suppertime.”
We walked over to the mess hall. There was a middle aged Vietnamese woman cooking in the back room, and there were about four large tables in the main room, which was about twenty feet long by twenty five feet wide. Only one table had any condiments and utensils on it. We sat down and the cook brought over our dinner meal, a combination of heated up C-ration food and fresh boiled vegetables.
Swanson said “This is Mrs. Minh, or Ba Minh. Ba means Mrs. in Vietnamese. She’s our cook and doesn’t speak English. Ka-Mong tells her anything I want her to know. She’s not a bad cook, but the food gets pretty monotonous. It won’t be long before you start to crave spices, just like everybody else. I recommend you mail your folks and tell them to send you a few bottles of Tabasco sauce. You’ll see why after a few weeks of the food.”
For some strange reason his comment took me back to my history lessons, not too many years ago. Many European wars and fortunes of empires were made battling for the spice trade, those spices coming from this part of the world. He grabbed a Tabasco sauce bottle and began shaking it indiscriminately on his plate. He didn’t offer it to me when he finished and I didn’t ask.
The thin and plain Mrs. Minh smiled very quickly to me as a way of greeting as she brought another dish to our table, but she made the briefest of eye contact. I smiled back but she was already moving away.
“Your share to pay for the help will be five bucks a month in scrip[2]. I give her seven bucks and three bucks to the yard man. It’s not a huge amount, but it fits the local economy and they’re pleased as punch to get it.”
I said “What about Ka-Mong, the interpreter?”
He said “The provincial team has a fund for him. He gets paid by the American army, just like you and me.”
We talked during dinner, just small talk at first. He made it clear he wasn’t happy about being there, it being his second tour, but he was glad to be away from his wife. In my short year and half in the Army, I had met a lot of men who felt that way. I never knew why men with unhappy marriages had to let you know right away. It’s as if they thought it showed and they had to explain that wart on their nose.
After dinner, Ba Minh cleared the table. Major Swanson rose and walked over to a shelf with several bottles of liquor on it. “Care for a drink?”
“No sir, thanks, not tonight, anyway.”
He poured a small drinking glass half full of bourbon, and sat down again, leaning against the wall, looking at me. “How about you? Married, any family?”
“No sir, I was engaged, but she broke it off not too long after I got my orders.”
“Too bad.”
I paused, wondering how much I could say to this man. But we were going to be a team, living and working together for months, so I said “No, it was a good thing. She was going to school, wanting to be a nurse, and I think the women’s lib thing really started working on her. She came from a family with a domineering father and her new freedom really looked good to her. It wouldn’t have worked anyway.”
I tried to act nonchalant about it, but it still hurt. I was going to send Susan a note with my APO[3] address now that I was here, but I didn’t expect her to write. She had said clean breaks were better, and she was right. But I still hoped in the back of my mind she would change her mind. I really didn’t know what I thought about the breakup, I just didn’t want to think about it for a while.
The major had been talking for a while when I realized I hadn’t been paying attention. “…the other district in our province has Major Reilly and a Captain something, I can’t remember his name. Their district is pretty quiet and not much goes on there. Our district is about the same, but we have a little more VC activity due to our being on the main road, Highway 20,” gesturing down the hill outside to the road we had just left. “I’ll warn you, most of our work is pretty boring. Most of our time we just keep the Province advised of what is going on, the intelligence reports are in Vietnamese and most of the time not worth translating. The mail run by the Province’s helicopters is the highlight of most weeks, when we get them. Lately the Province Leader has been asking our PSA to use our choppers, and he doesn’t have the balls to say no.”
I asked, “What’s a PSA?”
“Province Senior Advisor, he’s a civilian State Department type, our boss; he’s supposed to advise the Vietnamese Provincial Leader on stuff, but I don’t think he has much to do, now that we’re winning the war. Named Casey, …Howard the III, I think. Typical State Department blueblood. Not a bad guy, but a real pussy. You’ll probably never see him.”
I was confused, “Then what does Col. Simmons do?”
“He heads up the military part of the Province advisory team. He reports to Casey. The other half of the team is all sorts of civilian bastards, from every governmental agency known to man. You’ll never see them, they stay stuck in their villas and write reports. It sucks having a civilian boss, but Col. Simmons makes the most of it. That’s MACV, so get used to it.”
He paused and stared at me. I noticed his eyes were beginning to look a little rheumy. “So you’re Infantry.”
I thought it was a strange statement, as my Infantry insignia of crossed rifles was on the left collar of my jungle fatigue shirt, just like his Military Intelligence insignia.
“Yes sir.” I felt uncomfortable. I grinned feebly, waiting, not knowing where he was going.
“…and you wanna get your Combat Infantryman Badge,” smiling and nodding at me as if to encourage my answer.
“Well, yessir, I do. I guess you know how important it is to a career Infantry officer. Without it I don’t stand much of a chance for promotion later.” That was an understatement, and I thought he knew that. It was why I had volunteered for Vietnam, and why I had fought so hard to get a field job.
“Sir, I tried to get a platoon leader job in an American unit, but all the units are just about to leave country. This is the only chance I have to see some action, but believe me, I’m a good officer and I don’t take risks.”
“Well get this straight, Lieutenant. I don’t intend to get killed out here by some crazy lieutenant trying to be a hero, someone who wants to make general before he’s thirty. Got me? Our job is to be advisors, not commandos, and I intend to do just that. You do what I tell you, and we’ll get along fine. No fucking heroics. Are we clear on this?”
“Yessir.” The dressing down hurt. He didn’t know me, he had no right to say that. We weren’t off to a great start, and I had nowhere else to go. I felt lonely. After an uncomfortable silence, he drained the last of his drink and got up, motioning for me to follow him. We walked over to the bunker, the day over.
He showed me how to light the kerosene lanterns and told me where the showers and latrine were. He pointed to the mosquito netting strung above and around his cot, and said “Use yours like that, it also keeps the rats from crawling on you.” He said he was tired and taking the hint, I retreated to my room. After rigging up the netting and tucking it under the pillow and blanket on my cot, I turned off my lantern and stretched out on my cot. The darkness above me was fertile ground for my thoughts.
I remembered feeling the same way as a little boy, when my father left us in the care of my grandparents and hitchhiked off to find work in the oilfields. It was a recession, and jobs were hard to find in West Texas. My dad had lost his, and our only choice was to stay with my mother’s folks on their ranch. I can still see him walking down that dirt road, watching him get smaller through the window of the ranch house. I watched him until he was out of sight. My grandfather hated my father for some reason I never found out about, and I was the offspring of the hated one. Whenever I tagged along with him to the nearby town, the local boys made fun of me. I guess it was because I was a city boy, gangly, and shy. I didn’t know, but it hurt when my grandfather would walk over and talk to them while I waited in his pickup, with him smiling as they pointed to me and said things I couldn’t hear. We were there long enough to finish my first year of school, a year I can’t remember. But my dad got a job, and we moved back to Abilene, never to be separated again until I left home for the Army.
I was a man now, not a little boy anymore with the fears of a little boy. But the feelings came back to me sometimes, like now.
In spite of my shaky start, I still felt relieved. I was finally where I wanted to be. I didn’t know what was going to happen or what my job was going to be, but I felt ready. As I fell asleep, I could faintly hear the whoosh and pop! of distant flares being shot up, probably standard nighttime procedure for some outpost.
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Chapter Two
I woke at first light, pulled on my pants, got my shaving gear, and walked over to the latrine and shower building. There was a large tank on a platform about 15 feet high which supplied the water for our showers. I shaved and showered quickly, shivering from the icy water and the cool mountain air.
I met Major Swanson in the bunker after I dressed and we were both walking outside. He asked “You shower every day?”
I said “Yessir, a habit I have.”
“Well, it takes a lot of water, which has to be hauled up here in a water truck and then pumped into the tank.”
“Sir, if you don’t mind, I need to shower every day. I promise I won’t use much, just get wet, turn it off, soap down, and then rinse the soap off quickly. Anyway, it’s too damn cold to linger in it.”
He didn’t say anything else as we walked toward the mess hall. Breakfast was powdered eggs and fried spam. He told me during breakfast to never drink water that wasn’t disinfected first. That was about all the hygiene concern I needed to be aware of, except for the daily quinine pill to ward off malaria. “It can give you the shits sometimes, but don’t forget it. Malaria is no joke.” He hated Vietnamese food, but as we were expected to eat with the Vietnamese quite often, he said I had better learn to eat it. I told him I didn’t expect a problem, as I had a cast iron stomach. He said the most important thing was never to refuse anything, as this was very rude to the Vietnamese. Even if you didn’t want to eat it, just take a bite. That’s enough.
“Col. Tran knows I don’t like some of it, and he never insists I eat everything. We get invited to a lot of dinners, as we’re the only Americans in this district, and we’re honored guests wherever we go. Some of the village chiefs will put on a meal for us that probably costs them a month’s pay, and we always act as if it was the best meal we ever ate.”
I said. “No problem, sir. It’s nice of them to do it.”
He said “Yeah, well, get used to it. I hope you drink, as we have to do a lot of it during these dinners.”
“No problem on that account, either, sir.” At that he smiled a little.
After breakfast, he was lingering over his coffee, so I walked outside to look around. Letting my eyes adjust to the bright morning sun, I noticed a young man talking to Ka-Hooey. Seeing me, he smiled broadly and walked over to me.
He was about 5-10, dressed in jungle fatigues without any insignia. He didn’t look at all like the Vietnamese; he looked Hawaiian, or of some Polynesian extraction. He was lean, with brown skin and black hair. His eyes were also dark, but there seemed to be a light behind them. His smile was natural and genuine. A happy man.
I said “You must be Ka-Mong.”
“Yes, Trung-uy[4], I am Ka-Mong. I am pleased to meet you.” He was reserved, and a little shy. We shook hands. He smiled as we shook hands, with his head tilted downward so his eyes looked up, like a little boy being introduced to an adult. I liked Ka-Mong already.
Ka-Mong said “Welcome to Duc Trong. Your first time to Vietnam?” I knew he could tell by my age and rank that it had to be my first time, but this was his way of finding out more about me. I told him it was my first time, and I looked forward to learning more about the country from its people, the Vietnamese and Montagnards. My mention of his race drew a quick smile. I asked if he was from the district, and he told me he was of the Rhadé tribe. He had a wife and a little girl, who lived in a village near here.
As we were talking, Major Chu came out of Col. Tran’s bunker and walked over to us.
“Good morning, Lieutenant. Are you ready to start work today?”
“Yes sir, I am. What do you have planned for us?”
He replied “Col. Tran would like to send a platoon to the area where we were ambushed yesterday. He and I also would like to visit the village chief of that area. Would you like to go?”
“I’ll go tell Major Swanson your plans. He’s in the mess hall. Would you like to ask him?”
“No, you please do it. I have some radio calls to make.”
Ka-Mong and I walked back into the mess hall and told Major Swanson of the day’s plan.
He said “Hell yes, we need to go with them. Let’s take one jeep, and leave the spare one here. The spare jeep is yours whenever I’ve taken mine. Get your weapons and helmet.”
Major Swanson wanted to drive since I was new to the district, and we all piled into the jeep, Ka-Mong in back. We all carried M-16 rifles, and the Major and I had our .45 pistols and holsters. I would grow to hate the weight of that weapon on my hip, but it was a necessary evil. As we sat in the jeep, Major Swanson said “By the way, I suggest you keep your .45 with you at all times, especially near your bed at night. The VC know which bunkers are ours, and if we get a sapper[5] attack at night, you don’t want to be caught in your bunk with nothing but your dick in your hand.”
“Yessir, ha!” I laughed, as he intended, but I knew he was serious, too. Col. Tran walked out of his bunker, waved, and got into the jeep with Major Chu. As we followed them out of the compound, I thought better get your game face on, the boys outside the wire play for keeps.
Leaving the compound, we drove south for a few hundred meters until we reached Duc Trong, then turned right onto Road 1B. The asphalt ended immediately, and we were on a well traveled dirt road heading west. Col. Tran’s driver ahead of us didn’t drive as fast as we had been driving yesterday, so I was able to look around.
Major Swanson kept talking the whole time. “Just remember, except for our counterparts in the jeep ahead, you and I are Targets Numero Uno in this district. The VC hate Col. Tran because he’s effective, but they’d take special pleasure in killing an American.”
I listened intently, and every time we passed a village Ka-Mong would lean into my ear and tell me its name, “Koglam, good village…. Klong-Toum, good village…Gia-Than, bad village, sometimes VC here….Ro Lom, good village sometimes, sometimes VC……”
After about 45 minutes of driving, we reached the little village of Bǎng Tiên, where Col. Tran was ambushed nearby the day before. It seemed surreal to think the enemy had been close by yesterday, and now things seemed very quiet and normal. He had arranged for us to meet the village chief, as well as the platoon commander who had been dispatched to patrol the area. But there was bad news. The village chief and the platoon leader told Col. Tran there had been an attack last night on one of the outposts guarding the second village of Bǎng Tiên, a kind of Bǎng Tiên number two. Major Swanson said two villages with the same name were not unusual, sometimes a village moved to a new location and the old one would re-habitate with new people, but they would keep the same name. Very confusing.
The second Bǎng Tiên was just a couple of klicks[6] from our present position, and the platoon commander would take us to the site. We left the main road, and drove slowly up a mountain trail, narrow, with shallow grooves worn by the villagers’ ox and donkey carts. Soon we were descending into a small valley that held a village alongside a stream. All around the village were cultivated fields where the Vietnamese farmers grew their vegetables. No rice was grown in this area, it was too high in elevation. The major had told me earlier all sorts of vegetables were grown in the province, it was a big cash crop for them. Looking around, I was surprised to see tall rows of corn in several plots.
As we approached the rows of huts, we could hear the wails of mourners coming from within them, as the outpost that had been attacked and overrun was manned by the sons and fathers of the village. They were part of the Popular Defense, farmers who farmed by day and kept watch at night.
Col. Tran and Major Chu stopped to talk to the village elders and express his condolences. The platoon leader had already gotten the facts about the previous night’s incident. He came over to us and told us three young farmers and one older man had been on guard duty in the small outpost on the hill overlooking the village. The outpost was only about 10 meters square, but was well dug in with timbers and sandbags. It was situated on a ridge line that afforded a good view of the village below and the next line of hills to the east.
Col. Tran walked over to us and said “We go up.” We drove our jeeps up the hill along a small trail. We were soon there, and as we approached, it was obvious to see the the outpost had been destroyed. The VC had used RPG’s[7] to hit the bunkers first and then overran the outpost. The bodies had already been taken to the village for burial, but the red dirt didn’t hide a few blood puddles. Major Chu said some of the men were killed immediately, but the villagers heard return rifle fire of M-16’s, the villagers’ weapons. Apparently after a short firefight, the survivors were overcome. He said he was told by the elders one of the bodies had several minor wounds but the death wound was a rifle round to the forehead with powder burns. A coup de grace, if it was that. Somehow a killing shot to a man who could’ve lived doesn’t have any semblance of grace or mercy.
It was my first battle scene, and the upheaved red dirt and strewn sandbags and timbers evidencing the explosions seemed oddly antiseptic at first. There were no bodies or signs of human presence, but the quiet moans of the mourners we could hear on the wind coming up the hill affirmed those men had been here, and died here.
There wasn’t much to learn from the evidence. Apparently the lookout had gone to sleep and allowed the enemy to approach unknown. A blast awoke the defenders and it was over quickly, a few panic-stricken seconds to fight or flee, if they could. But it appeared no one had tried to run.
Major Swanson said to me in a low voice “I guess the sons-a-bitches went to sleep and got powdered.” I grunted in acknowledgement, not agreeing with the coarseness of his statement, but in a way that’s all you could say. He was right. The villagers were not soldiers, but in order to stay in their village and make a living farming they had to take their turns at guard duty several nights a month. After a hard day of backbreaking labor, they took turns staying up 3 or 4 hours per watch. One of them didn’t do his job. All my military training up ‘til now had taught me: good intentions don’t count, good actions do. A soldier knows better than anyone the adage: one mistake and you’re dead. But all soldiers make mistakes. After a few mistakes, they all realize they’re living on borrowed time. The religious among them resign their fate to God, and the others to the luck of the draw, the unknown Fate.
Ka-Mong stood alone at the edge of the outpost. I walked over to him and asked “You’ve seen this before?” He smiled in a sad but agreeing way and said “Yes, Trung-uy, many times.”
I suddenly wanted to leave. I guessed everyone had the same thought as we all walked back to our jeeps without a word. We returned to the village. Col. Tran and Major Chu began talking to the platoon leader, doubtless discussing where to deploy his platoon for the next few days. I turned to Major Swanson, and said “Sir, I have an idea.”
He grimaced slightly as if he wished I hadn’t said anything, but he said “What’s your idea?”
“Well, it seems to me that the VC hit that outpost because they were in the way.”
“Whaddya mean, ‘in the way’, they would have to take out the outpost before they could attack the village wouldn’t they? That’s pretty damn obvious. They want to attack this village or at least make them move out.”
“I’m not so sure. This little village doesn’t have much strategic value, it seems to me. Down in this little valley, with just a stream running by it, far away from the road, it doesn’t make any sense. But did you see, when we were up standing on the outpost, that it had a clear view to the ridge to the east?”
He said “Well, yeah, I guess so. So what?”
“Maybe they didn’t want anyone to see anything going on that ridge to the east, like a supply movement or troop movement, I don’t know…but something.”
I hadn’t noticed, but Major Chu had sidled over to us, and heard the last part of the conversation. He said “What are you thinking, Lieutenant?”
Major Swanson gave a start, and immediately broke in before I could reply, saying “Oh, nothing, Major Chu. We certainly don’t want to presume we know any more about tactics that you do, you’re the experts in this area.” As he finished he glared at me, his eyes saying ‘not another word, Lieutenant.’
The little Vietnamese Major looked up at Major Swanson, smiled and said “No, I would like to hear any idea Lt. Spangler has.” Saying that, he turned to me as if to say –‘Go on.’
I lost of little of my initiative, and said “Sir, Major Swanson is right, we certainly don’t want to presume we know how to fight this war better than you.”
Major Chu smiled impatiently, and nodded his head, and said “Please… continue.”
I knew an order in my army or the next, so I continued. I took a deep breath and said, “Sir, I think you might have some success if you positioned part of your platoon in an ambush or listening post on the far ridge, just beyond the ridge the outpost was on. I think the enemy didn’t want anyone to see what might be going on there in the next few days.”
“I assume you would keep the rest of the platoon here to guard the village.”
“Uh, yessir, I would. My idea might not be right.”
“Good. And how would you position the smaller force to the ridge on the east? Would you put them on the ridge or just below the ridge line?”
Warming to the subject, I asked Major Chu if the local VC were well trained or not. He said they were not well trained, in his opinion. “Well, sir, in that case, I would expect them to walk along the top of the ridge, as it’s easier going. A well trained unit would march just below the ridge line, where they wouldn’t present silhouettes to the moonlight, even though the going would be tougher there. So I recommend putting your ambush below the top of the ridge. If they pick a place with a good field of fire, they would have the advantage even though they would be below the enemy. It’s a couple of days past full moon, so they would have an hour or two after dark to get set up without anyone seeing them, and then there would be plenty of moonlight around 2200.”
Well, there it was. The U.S. Army was going to get its money’s worth with me. I waited to see how Major Chu would take to this idea, as his face was noncommittal. Major Swanson’s mouth was agape.
Major Chu smiled and said “Thank you, Lieutenant. I will take this up with Col. Tran.”
He walked back to the group with Col. Tran and the platoon leader. After a few seconds of their discussion, Col. Tran glanced quickly at me, but turned back to Major Chu intently. A little later the platoon leader shrugged to both of them, as if to say, ‘why not?’ A few minutes more, and then the group broke up. Col. Tran walked past both of us with a boyish grin on his face, and said “Come, we go home.”
The ride back was quiet. It took us longer to return, as Col. Tran and Major Chu stopped occasionally to talk to the villagers we met along the road, and a few soldiers on the road. Major Swanson grumbled quietly about the delay each time we stopped.
“Dammit, here we go again. Why don’t they just drive? Every time we stop we make a hell of a target.”
I replied, “Sir, maybe they’re getting good intelligence, you know, what’s happening in the district.”
He growled “..aahhh.” After a few minutes “ ….Good, we’re moving again.”
As our jeeps slowly accelerated, Ka-Mong leaned over to my ear and said quietly over the engine noise “Everyone except VC like Col. Tran. He listens to them and he’s a fair man.”
As we drove, stopped, waited and drove again, I reflected on the apparent fact they were going to use my plan. It was sobering to think that good men might be placed in jeopardy because of my idea, but I had been an officer long enough to know that came with the territory. I wished them Godspeed and good hunting.
We got back to our compound in the late afternoon, and Major Swanson retreated to his room in the bunker, telling me briefly he had invited Col. Tran and Ba Tran to after-dinner drinks tonight. He told me “Wear civilian clothes if you have them.” I didn’t and I told him so. He replied “Well, get some. They come in handy for entertaining here. No one wants to be in Army green all the fucking time.”
Left alone on the field, I told Ka-Mong our day was over and I would see him tomorrow. He and Ka-Hooey left, walking down the compound road as the sun was setting.
I took a shower for our after-dinner guests, and put on clean fatigues. As I passed through the bunker, I purposefully didn’t look toward his room, but out of the corner of my eye there was no sign of Major Swanson. I could hear a muted jazz trumpet playing on his cassette tape player.
I waited in the mess hall for an hour or two, browsing through some of the many well used paperback books on a wall shelf. Our food was ready, but I waited until it was cold, waiting for Major Swanson. As it got dark, I went outside and started the generator so we could have lights for our guests. Finally, I ate my dinner, and the cook cleaned up. I asked her to keep his dinner covered, but he didn’t show until about 2100 hours, in civilian clothes and in a very good mood. He walked in with Col. Tran and his Missus, who were holding hands. I stood to be introduced, and bowed and shook hands with the plump offered hand of Ba Tran. She was fat, dressed in a colorful Vietnamese silk blouse, black silk pants, and high heels. Her black hair was relatively short, pulled back in a bun. She had a shy, but smiling face, unfortunately pocked with old acne scars. She wore a little makeup and lipstick, this apparently was considered a night out for her.
Major Swanson poured all of us a drink from the well-stocked bar behind the counter. No matter where you went in the Army, there was always plenty of liquor. He insisted on playing bartender, spilling a little as he poured, I noticed. He tried to talk about the day’s activities with Col. Tran, but Ba Tran was having none of it, and said “Must we talk about war all the time? We have a new handsome Lieutenant here, and I want to learn all about him.”
She made me blush, but I knew she was just flirting in a social and matronly way. I knew I wasn’t handsome either. It wasn’t long before she found out about my failed romance, and she expressed her sorrow at my misfortune. She said “Perhaps you will meet one of our Vietnamese girls and fall in love?” I wasn’t comfortable with this talk and said “Yes, ma’am, perhaps, but I really don’t wish to get involved with anyone. I just want to do my job.” But thinking this might be misunderstood, I quickly added, “But I do find the Vietnamese girls to be beautiful.”
She leaned back a little, smiled and said with her finger pointing at me, “Yes, but they are very modest, and they have strict upbringing!” I laughed and said many American girls were so, but not all. She said “All Vietnamese girls very modest.”
We talked on for at least three or four hours. In spite of Ba Tran’s best efforts, some of it was about the attack on the outpost, and the poor village who had lost some sons that day. Col. Tran was sincerely sorry, I could tell. As he discussed it, he used the short phrases of someone not completely comfortable with the language, saying “...yes, very bad. Our people suffer much in this war. But we are winning, yes?”
As he said that, Ba Tran had a faraway look in her eyes, but she nodded her head yes, then looked at us, smiling and inviting a similar response. It did appear as if we were winning the war. We were all in hopes the Paris Peace Talks the U.S. Government was conducting with the North Vietnamese were going to stop the war. In my own mind, I hoped they weren’t successful until I got to see some combat, but I knew it was out of my hands.
I asked Col. Tran “Sir, how does the level of enemy activity in this area compare to the past?” I spoke slowly to help him understand, and I wanted my question to sound serious, like an experienced officer.
He didn’t answer immediately. After a short silence, he said “It appears to be much less than three years ago, when I arrived here. I do not know if this is because we are winning, or if they are just waiting.” I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t, and after a few seconds the pause became too long, and needed to be filled.
Swanson said quickly “Let’s hope we and our allies are winning. Ba Tran, let me freshen your drink.” The conversation moved on.
I had to admit my boss was personable and charming, but it was becoming obvious to me he was drunk. He hid it relatively well, only a slight hand-to-bottle clumsiness. His red face, however, became redder and his eyes developed a certain wateriness. I could tell Col. Tran wanted to leave, but Major Swanson was on a long story about his college days, and Col. Tran was too polite to break in. But when the major took a breath, Col. Tran rose and said it had been a wonderful evening, but they must go to bed.
Ba Tran was at his side, and as we walked them to the door and into the cool evening air, she said “We must introduce Lieutenant Spangler to Monsieur and Madame Castel sometime. Would you like to meet our French neighbors, Lieutenant?”
“Yes ma’am, certainly.”
They turned to say good night, hand in hand, and Col. Tran said “Yes, we must go by to see them soon. I will arrange a lunch if that is okay with Major Swanson.”
The major said “Yes, sir, by all means. We must stay in touch with Monsieur Castel.”
Col. Tran said “Yes, we will do that. Good night.” They walked across the yard slowly, she holding onto his arm to keep herself steady on the stones. Her high heels seemed very much out of place.
After they were out of earshot, I commented “The Col. and his wife are unusual, aren’t they? I mean, most Vietnamese couples never hold hands in public.”
My boss said as we walked back into the mess hall, “Yeah, if you ask me, she’s damn unusual. I don’t like her, acting as if she is somebody. Fat bitch.”
I knew by now my boss didn’t like women, so his comment wasn’t surprising. I didn’t know if I liked Ba Tran myself, yet. Something about her was too bold, too much unlike her quiet, calm husband. But they both appeared cheerful, in spite of their circumstances, and it seemed they loved each other. But then what did I know, my past attempt at love had been disastrous, and any woman’s heart was unfathomable to me.
My thoughts slowly backtracked to Ba Tran’s last statement, and I asked “Major, who is this Castel guy and his wife?” By now we were back in the mess hall, and we sat down for a nightcap.
He looked at me with a sly grin and said “He’s a rich Frenchman, a froggie, who lives a couple of klicks up Highway 20 towards Dalat. He’s an engineer who retired from the French company that built the electrical power system all over Vietnam. Apparently he spent years here, got rich by Vietnamese standards, and married a French-Vietnamese halfbreed woman, totally went native. He lives in this huge Oriental house, surrounded by tall brick walls, several hundred meters from the road.“ He paused to take a sip of bourbon, and then continued, looking intently at me, “The Col. thinks Castel is paying off the VC, and may be in cahoots with them. He has a few private guards around his place, but they’re only to keep out common thieves. If he wasn’t paying off the VC, his place would be leveled by now. So Col. Tran pretends as if they were great friends, but he doesn’t trust him tha’ mush.” As he spoke he put up two fingers closely squeezed together.
He continued, and said “We’ll go whenever he wants. We never get any real info from Castel, but I think the Col. plants a few seeds with him, waiting to see if anything develops. But we’ll get a damn good meal, if nothing else. The only bad thing is listening to Madame Castel and Ba Tran cackling. The old gals really get along, and I wonder if Ba Tran lets stuff slip she shouldn’t.”
“Do the Castels have any children?”
“Hell, no. Kids get in the way with people like that. The Tran’s never take their kid to the Castels.”
“So Col. Tran has a kid?”