A Long Way Back

by J. Everett Prewitt

  “Okay. So, the information you’ve been seeking is coming together?”

  “Yeah. Finally. It’s a story about an unbelievable journey by primarily support personnel who only learned to soldier while in the field. It’s a story about a sergeant who showed them what it took to be men first and a team second. It’s a story of survival.”

  Walden put down a sheaf of papers. “Tell me more.”

  Anthony took Walden through the whole story.

  “Jesus. And all this is documented, sourced?”

  “Yes. Bertram and the men were very helpful, very open.”

  “When will I have it?”

  “You’ll get it by Friday of next week, Bill. I’ve already written it in my head.”

  “If it’s anything like you’ve described, you’ll probably want to write more than a story for the press.”

  “I plan on it.”

  A Long Way Back—A Story of The Seven

  By Anthony J. Andrews

  This is the story of seven survivors of an ill-conceived mission created to punish soldiers involved in a brawl at Cu Chi in June 1969.

  Vietnam was America’s first fully integrated campaign. This created chaos in some parts of this Asian country since the war coincided with the rise of the black power and the Civil Rights movements. Further complications arose when the draft, which some labeled discriminatory, accounted for an increasing number of African Americans called to service.

  Alleged discrimination and animosity between some of the black and white troops in Vietnam, combined with the established white power element rubbing against the growing black power movement, heightened racial tension. This hardened the solidarity among each of the groups while eroding the amity the army attempted to preach: “We’re not white or black, we’re green.”

  Cross burnings, the flying of the Confederate flag, and other highly inflammatory displays were countered with black power fists and peace signs painted on helmets, constant flouting of hair regulations, black-only barracks and dapping (the power handshake) among the black soldiers.

  The combination of clashing symbols, conflicting ideologies, and real and perceived biases caused fights, shootings, fraggings (injuring or killing a fellow soldier, often officers and NCOs, generally with grenades), and even riots.

  Although there doesn’t appear to be any definitive record of the frequency of riots in Vietnam, there were a number, including the Long Binh stockade riot in 1968; Qui Nhon in 1968; Cam Ranh Bay in 1968, where some Navy personnel donned Ku Klux Klan attire after the assassination of Dr. King; Cam Ranh Bay in 1969; and the USS Kitty Hawke in 1972.

  The grievances were dealt with by officers in a myriad of ways. Some conceded discrimination existed and launched reforms to improve the conditions of black servicemen who complained of being assigned to more combat, given menial jobs, unequal promotions, and disproportionate punishment. Others ignored the complaints and punished those who protested. A few found more unique ways of dealing with those they accused of causing the unrest. This is one of those stories…

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  ertram stood as the men entered the Virginia State Penitentiary visiting area. Anthony shook Bertram’s hand. “I told them I had someone I wanted them to meet.”

  Casper extended his hand. “Sir, so glad to meet you.”

  “I’m no longer a sir, son, just Prisoner 1458409.”

  Warfield extended his hand, too. “We know what you did, and we wanted to show our appreciation.”

  Bertram smiled broadly as he looked at the seven former soldiers. “Anthony told me I had a surprise visit, but…” He looked at Anthony. “How were you able to get all of them in here, Anthony?”

  “Believe it or not, Colonel, you have admirers here. The warden is a Korean War vet, so he understands,” Anthony responded.

  “It must have cost a bunch to get these men down here.”

  Anthony laughed. “Not really. I received a raise. It covered the car rentals. I figured you are worth that and more.”

  “Look, if you ever need anything, Anthony is not the only person you can call on, okay, sir?” Robinson handed Bertram a paper with their names and telephone numbers. “We don’t live around here, but we have friends who do.”

  Bertram stood as if to hug Robinson, but glanced at the guards and said, “Thanks, guys. You don’t know how much I appreciate the gesture.”

  “If it weren’t for you, sir,” Turner said, “our lives going forward would have been a monumental struggle.”

  Bertram smiled. “I’m glad I helped.”

  “Time’s up,” the guard said.

  The men stood and saluted as they led Bertram away. Bertram beamed and saluted back.

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  y Trung Trac’s primary goal was peace of mind. She knew she was the only one who could achieve it, nurturing and coddling it until it grew large enough to protect her, bathe her in its beatific light, and buffer her from the horrific sounds of men and their weapons, the ghastly smell of death and defecation, and the grisly sight of mangled and twisted bodies. Only she could grow this peace.

  But she was impatient because it hadn’t grown quickly enough. It was like a water buffalo calf, stumbling, gaining its footing, then wobbling a step or two instead of the graceful, powerful giant she hoped it would become, protecting her mind and spirit from the dark, butting away the horrid blackness that crept through her defenses at night.

  Her hair had grown long again, her beauty unmarred as she gazed in the Boeing 707 washroom mirror. It was a wonder the darkness inside hadn’t surfaced, disfiguring her skin like some disease. Trung sighed. She should have felt proud of her accomplishments. The Americans had named her “The Black Tigress” because of her prowess in battle and her clothing. Her tactics had been simple: When the enemy advanced, they retreat; when the enemy camps, they harass; when the enemy tires, they attack; when the enemy retreats, they pursue.

  Her superiors relayed messages to Trung on how she was revered by her countrymen and feared by the invaders. They shared that even rumors of a Black Tigress sighting caused enemy battalions to go on alert.

  Before the misfortune with the black soldiers, Trung had been victorious in almost every other encounter with the Americans, losing just five men in sixteen skirmishes. Her strength was hit-and-run, and she did it best with a small group, attacking troops on the move.

  When she had been given forty men—the most she’d ever led—Trung had not only lost twenty-nine in Cambodia, but she had been shot.

  “Excuse me,” she said in the softest of voices to her elderly male seatmate as she slid into her window seat. She looked at the vastness of space, the clouds and the shafts of light that pierced their denseness. She had been like that light in battle—except for the one time in Cambodia.

  When she first encountered the black soldiers, they were undisciplined, unruly, and unready. But within a week, like the cub that becomes the tiger, they had grown. The men had become so adept she had lost face because of her inability to crush them.

  What happened, though, that the bumblers had become a force? What changed?

  Although it was a question she had asked before, Trung had since guessed the answer—the one who stayed behind, the warrior. From his fierceness under fire, he had to be their leader. It was obvious he’d been wounded from the blood on the foliage and soil, but he’d held them off for more than ten minutes, killing five more of her men before disappearing. To where?

  It was like the magic show she had seen once as a child where the conjurer waved his hand, saying “poof,” making a whole pig disappear. Trung was incensed they hadn’t found the leader when the firefight ended. And in their search for him, they had lost track of the remaining men. And when her men did find them…

  A grimace flashed across her face. It didn’t matter now, though. Soon she would enter the belly of the beast, as Uncle Hong had described her destination. Her only concern would be traveling to a new place, h
oping her forged identity would not be uncovered. She was apprehensive yet optimistic as she looked forward to life in a new world.

  The trip was necessary because of the large reward the Americans and South Vietnamese government had placed on her. With so much money at stake, even the most loyal of comrades might have been tempted. Then there were the wounds she had sustained in her last battle. She was no longer of any worth to the war effort because of her shattered leg and arm.

  Her mother, father, and Uncle Hong, a businessman who had prospered selling weapons to the North Vietnamese, provided her with the names of relatives living in the States.

  “You served well,” her uncle had told her while she lay recovering in a cousin’s village hut after being treated in an underground hospital. “I convinced the North it is best you depart this country and leave your legacy intact. It would do the cause no good to see you in this condition—or, worse, caught. And the United States is the last place anyone would look. Like your famous namesake, your compatriots will sing of your triumphs for years to come,” Uncle Hong had said as he provided Trung her passport and funds.

  Once she was able, Trung traveled through Laos to China to be treated further. After healing and much deliberation, she agreed the United States should be her final destination since she had family there.

  As the plane descended, she watched a migrating flock of swallows fly in formation. Unlike the birds, she would probably never return to her home. Her mother had cried when Trung gave her goodbyes, hugging her so hard it had hurt. Mother knew.

  Trung leaned back into the seat. Although serenity was her goal, could she ever achieve it without avenging the deaths of her kin, of her beloved soldiers? Would she ever gain peace until the American soldiers had paid for the death and destruction they had wrought?

  She clenched her hands as she tried to contain the bitterness sweeping through her. Her homeland was destroyed by invaders, and the men she had fought represented all that was bad with America. What was there to gain for them?

  They would go home and live satisfying lives while her countrymen suffered—but not if she could help it. She had seen the faces of some of those men, and she would remember. And if they ever reappeared in her new life, they would remember her.

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  S

  top playin’, man.”

  “I’m not, Casper. I swear. Sarge just called me,” Holland said.

  “What you been smokin’?”

  “Nothing!”

  Casper paused. “Who’s there with you?”

  “Nobody, man. I swear. This ain’t no joke, Casper. Sarge is alive.”

  “Holland, we just attended his funeral.”

  “I know, man, but would I lie to you about something like that?”

  “Then somebody’s playing a joke on you. What’d they say?”

  “They said, ‘Holland, are you sitting down?’ Nobody’s got a voice like Sarge. I said, ‘Sarge?’ And he says, ‘It’s me.’ Man, I almost fainted.”

  Casper was silent on the other end.

  “Casper? Casper?”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s at the VA hospital.”

  The tears were contagious as Glover, Casper, and Robinson stood in the waiting area. “Holland and Turner are on their way.” Casper sniffed. “Warfield had to work.”

  “On Sunday?” Robinson asked.

  “Yeah. A new job.”

  “Well, I hope they handle this better than you guys,” Stinson muttered as Darlene wheeled him down the hallway toward the waiting room. “Warriors don’t cry. Damn!”

  “Sarge,” they cried out in unison before bawling outright as they tripped over one another running to hug him.

  Stinson shook his head. “All that talk I gave you about manhood, and this is how you turn out, some snuffy-nosed momma’s babies?”

  “Sorry, Sarge. You just don’t know, man,” Casper said, walking beside him. “I ain’t ashamed. You just don’t know, Sarge.”

  “All we talk about is what you were to us, what you did for us, what you taught us, how you saved our lives,” Glover said, wiping his eyes. “I ain’t ashamed either.”

  The men sat and looked at Stinson for a while, smiling and pulling tissue from the dispenser one after another.

  Holland, Turner, and Warfield rushed in together. “Sarge,” they yelled as they smothered him.

  “Hey, hey,” Stinson said playfully fending them off. “I almost got hugged to death by them three clowns, now you going to finish the job?”

  “How’d you find Warfield?” Casper asked.

  “He walked off the job. Told his boss he had some serious family business to attend to,” Holland answered.

  “I hope you have a job when you go back,” Sarge said.

  Warfield raised his hands. “Don’t matter, Sarge. This was way more important.”

  “Men, meet my wife, Darlene.”

  She hugged each of the men. “Willie has told me about each of you.”

  “How, Sarge?” Casper asked.

  “Yeah, Sarge. How’d you make it out?” Robinson asked. “Last we heard there were all kinds of weapons going off, then silence.”

  Stinson leaned back in his wheelchair. “I was hoping you wouldn’t blame Casper for leaving me behind as I demanded.”

  “Negative, Sarge. We figured it out. And we knew how pigheaded you could be,” Warfield said.

  “But what happened after?” Holland asked.

  Stinson rubbed his furrowed brow, shook his head slowly, and stared at the wall. “I don’t remember everything. I do remember being saved—by these Cambodians, I guess. I can’t remember how long I stayed in this hole in the ground. They gave me food and treated my wounds. Once I got better, I tried to make it back but got captured.

  “They took me to this POW camp, but I escaped, moving as best I could, and hiding in the jungle. I remember VC chasing me. I remember getting shot. I remember shooting, before falling into this gully and headfirst into a rock, tree, or something. When I woke up, I was in Cam Ranh Bay. I swore it was heaven.”

  Casper beamed. “If anybody was going to make it, it would be you.”

  Stinson looked at the men. “I always felt like I would. This one song kept playing in my head.”

  “What song, Sarge?” Holland asked.

  Stinson hummed the song.

  Glover laughed. “It’s ‘Keep On Pushing by the Impressions. It’s what Casper told us when we didn’t think we could go any farther.”

  Stinson laughed, too. “Yeah? It’s the subconscious working. Right, Turner?”

  “Right, Sarge.”

  It was like a slab of concrete was removed from Turner’s brain. No more wondering about Sarge. No more questioning himself. It felt so good to be so wrong.

  Stinson laughed. “Plus, I didn’t want Fletcher to make me out a liar.”

  “About what, Sarge?” Holland asked.

  “I remember,” Casper said. “You told him one of us will die out here, and it won’t be me.”

  Stinson grimaced. “Something like that.”

  “Well, you were right,” Warfield said.

  “I’m aware. And I hate that because I felt responsible for all of you, including Fletcher.”

  Stinson looked at each of them. “So there were seven of you?”

  The men nodded.

  “Bankston made it, too?”

  “Yeah, Sarge. He had to go back to Mississippi to pick up some items he’d forgotten, but when he called Casper and Casper told him about you, he turned around and started driving back. He should be here some time tomorrow,” Glover said.

  “So tell me your story. How’d you make it back?” Stinson asked.

  “Our story is as wild as yours. I don’t think they could write a novel about you or us and make it believable,” Turner said.

  Darlene handed Stinson the phone after the two had returned to his room. “It’s for you, honey.”

  “Sergeant Stinson?”

  “Ye
s.”

  “This is Anthony Andrews, a reporter at the Washington Post. I’ve been following the story of you and your soldiers since they returned to base camp. I just heard. This is incredible. We thought we had buried you. I’m so grateful to hear your voice.”

  “Thank you, Anthony. My men briefed me on how you helped them, and I want to tell you, I’m eternally thankful.”

  “My part was easy. You’re the one who kept them alive.”

  “That’s what they tell me, but in the end, they kept themselves alive.”

  “I’ll be in Cleveland next weekend. My first priority will be to meet you. I definitely want to meet the guy who saved soldiers’ lives without even being there.” Anthony paused. “There’s another person eager to see you, too. He’ll be visiting you today if he’s not already there.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “He should be there shortly. Be well,” Anthony said as he hung up the phone.

  Stinson looked up at the knock. A familiar face peeked in.

  “Permission to enter?”

  “Raymond!” Stinson tried to stand, but Darlene held him down.

  After chewing out his men for crying, Stinson had to hold back his own tears. “Raymond, you don’t know how glad I am to see you.”

  “I’m surprised, since you’d been dodging me since you left Thornewood Avenue,” Raymond said, laughing. “This must be Darlene.” He turned to embrace her.

  “Pardon my French, ma’am,” Raymond said to Darlene before addressing his boyhood friend, “but you look like shit.”

  Stinson chuckled. “Same old Raymond. But it’s not as bad as it looks. I can still beat your ass.”

  Raymond laughed and embraced Stinson. “Same old Willie. It’s been a long time.”

  Darlene held Raymond’s hand. “I’ve heard so much about you, Raymond. He talks about you nonstop. It’s as if you were a part of the family.”

  “I know I’ve got some explaining to do,” Stinson said.

  Raymond pulled a seat next to Stinson’s wheelchair. “So, explain.”