Patriot Son

by T A Walters

  There is an American saying, Min Li recalled. It had been one that dug deep into the heart of the Chinese when America poked their noses into the affairs of the Chinese invasion of North Viet Nam. The saying was: What goes around Comes Around. There is truth to that philosophy, and it is in this invasion that has come about that proves it so. Min fell back into those memories as a young boy following in behind the NVA along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

  As a boy, Min’s first trusted detail was a scavenger of sorts. Foraging for tossed C-Rations from the Americans, including Intel, troop movements and rigging deadfall traps and punji pits. Min remembered the first American he killed. The GI was a prisoner in a tiger pen outside Hanoi. At the time Min was in charge of guarding several prisoners. During the Cambodian Civil War, interrogations and torture became an art-form and Min raised the eyebrows of Pol Pot, the supreme leader or better known as Brother Number 1 of the Khmer Rouge, who appeared unexpectedly to conduct a camp inspection. Min had initially thought he would be taken aside and executed, as it was rumored to him that Pol Pot wished the North Vietnamese eliminated from the Cambodian Civil War. Impressed with Min, Pol Pot assigned him as a top interrogator at a prison facility in Phnom Penh, located at the Tuol Svay Prey High School on 103rd Street. Better known as the former prison S-21 of the Khmer Rouge.

  Min smiled as he entered his office headquarters for the first time. He was uniquely qualified for the job at hand, he knew. However now, he needed a few days to straighten up and set up his office. Interruptions, he needed not, and when Tao Chen came to his office to tell Min American civilians were gathering outside on the tarmac before the SO Office, he was determined to send them away.

  “Sir,” said Tao. “I have Jing Wang to translate, and I have told them all to leave ….”

  Min frowned, “What is that noise?”

  “Some of them are musicians and actors who have come here to protest your achievements, sir.”

  Min quickly replied, “Lead them to the place where your men may dispose of them. It will save you unneeded labor.”

  Tao shook his head, and in a confused manner of expression he went on to ask Min, “But if I may make them ….”

  Min had turned his back on Tao and with the sweep of his hand; he brushed off Tao’s plea of insanity. “Mr. Chen, you have your orders.”

  Usually, Min never missed a chance to inspect the executions of his enemy, but today he was too busy for such nonsense. He had his orders, and he expected to keep to them without fail. There was no room for tardiness, sloppiness or sloth. He would have his office organized before the sunset. He stood back and smiled at the faded wall paint that had dark squares left behind by framed awards, photographs of someone’s loved ones and other sentimental nonsense that had hung there moments ago.

  Min had no real family. He preferred it that way. Family weakens the spirit. The family was for someone to take away from you and thus destroy your inner being. He was proud to be one of a kind because being such makes one stronger and harder to defeat. Min could focus for hours, never being distracted by the needs and wants of a family, and so, therefore, he was impervious to those who wished to bring him down to their pathetic level.

  Min yawned. It was getting late when suddenly the crack of a few AK-47 rifles sounded off in the distance. Several more bursts of gunfire–he shook his head and then smiled. Mr. Chen had fulfilled his orders.

  The sun was setting brilliant colors over the Pacific when Min left his office. Outside the doors were two military guards. He nodded to them, and they quickly moved to have his car brought up. Without a word, he stepped forward and ducked inside his chauffeured car. The officer barracks were just a few hundred yards away, but Min had no intention of aggravating the joint in his knee any more than poking a stick at a sleeping tiger. Besides, tomorrow was a big day for entertaining a few guests and Min wanted to show strength, not the busted-down old man he was becoming.

  ~~~~

  Daybreak came with the thunderous roar a Boeing 747–8 landing at the Chinese airbase formerly known as Los Alamitos Air Base. The better part of a thousand plus Chinese Army infantrymen stood at attention as they peered through curious eyes that all shifted to see for the first time in their lives, Air Force One. Slowly now, the 747–8 taxied along the runway, coming to a stop near SO Headquarters. Jing and Tao were on hand to assist Min with the protocol. Their guests aboard Air Force One were members of the Middle Eastern Alliance in the US war theater. Jing was handy in as much as he spoke several languages fluently. Min had put on a cheerful expression, but concurrently told Jing his strategic thoughts concerning relations, he anticipated with the Middle Eastern cult. It appeared to both Jing and Tao, there was no lost love in Min’s attitude toward his guests aboard Air Force One. Min turned slightly toward Jing, “You will translate my words accurately.”

  “Yes sir,” Jing promised.

  The jet’s engines of Air Force One whistled down to a whisper, and then finally shut down completely before the Middle Eastern entourage appeared through the open doorway to the gantry stairs. One by one they exited with Walid Ghazarra Prime leader to the new Arab Consulate first, followed by the self-proclaimed Ayatollah and president residing in the White House as commander in chief, Abdul Medina.

  Wearing their native garb of fine silk and linens, they and twenty or so aides followed in behind Walid and Abdul as they walked with certain arrogance toward Min. Jing stepped forward between Walid and Min to introduce each other, and then Abdul, putting on a smile bowed to Min. Min bit his lip and returned Abdul’s bow.

  The arrogance and audacity to assume supreme power before the lance hit the ground would have been laughable had it not been on parade as it were here today. Min felt offended, even livid, though he kept it concealed. Knowing that the primary purpose of this visit was to exchange information on one another’s progress and to sit and discuss further strategic plans to secure the nation as agreed upon previously in secret negotiations.

  Facing Abdul, Min asked, “What power has appointed you as president of this nation of the United States of America?”

  Jing looked at Tao. His expression of apparent shock held his tongue in silence. Min placed his hand on Jing’s shoulder, “Ask him. I need his reply for my report.”

  Jing switched glances to Min, “I will do my best sir.”

  “Do we have anyone who will speak in your place?” asked Min in an impatient tone loud enough to be heard several meters away.

  Jing stuttered, “I’m I’m not certain sir.”

  A voice was heard behind Min, and he turned an ear in that direction. Min ordered the timid man to step forward.

  “Private Ping Chou sir. I speak Mandarin and eight other languages, sir.”

  Min looked down to his boots and softly said, “Today you become a Lieutenant.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Your first order of duty today is to ask this,” Min raised his head back up along with a 9 mm pistol and smoothly and most accurately blew Jing’s brains out onto the tarmac.

  He holstered his pistol and waited for the shock and awe to subside from his Middle Eastern guest’s faces and asked Ping to translate for him a question to Abdul Medina. “Ask him, what power has appointed you as president to this nation of the United States of America?”

  Min smiled at Abdul, careful to watch this egotistical man’s expression change when put to the question.

  Abdul’s eyes became as round as ping pong balls. “I am not sure you will accept my answer.”

  Now here it was, just a handful of Middle Eastern individual, pulling out guns against a thousand armed Chinese soldiers. A thousand AK-47’s being locked and loaded made Min Li laugh and as he tilted his head in a rousing fit of enthusiasm. He held up a hand to signal his army to hold their fire.

  Chapter 14

  Viet Nam Veteran Archive

  ~Chihuahuan Desert War Memorial~

  Out of the eastern horizon, bright orange and yellow skies welcomed the beginning of a
new day. Scuba Bill stood atop a flatbed cargo trailer sipping his morning’s coffee and taking it all in. A flush of renewed hope for the future of America filled his heart as he wondered what the future held for him and all those he loved.

  Already the sound of construction equipment filled the air around him now. The base grounds were alive with various tugger equipment pulling jet aircraft and helicopters from underground storage. The neighborhood blacksmith and metal fabricator, Danny Porter, was busy throwing sparks from a hand-held grinder and shouting orders to his men to move another metal sawhorse into a position to support the fabrication of another axle for the AP unit that was damaged earlier on a roadside attack. Meanwhile, the AP Generator still roaring away providing power to the massive electrical lifting elevators.

  John Truck Dog Kehoe waved and howled a good morning salute to Scuba Bill as he passed along the aircraft runway driving a construction grader. He sipped his coffee as he watched him scrape the shoulders of the runway, leaving behind plumes of desert dust clouds in his path. Scuba Bill looked down at the particles of dust that settled on him and the surface of his coffee. Taking one last sip of his coffee, he turned and dashed the remainder of it on the ground as he thought, no wonder the general calls him idiot boy.

  Climbing down from his perch atop the flatbed trailer, he thought he caught a glimpse of Mitchel testing out his new crutch as Jess, steadied him along a small stone path leading to the picnic pavilion where they had all eaten the day before. They were too far away for Scuba Bill to hear them, but judging from their gestures, they had to be arguing about something. Joe Wyatt and a few others from the reservation looked as if they were busy burning a few wheelbarrows of trash they’d collect from the trailer homes nearby. General JP was driving a stevedore with a large wooden spool of thick black cable to a place where several hundred solar panels had been erected years ago on racks that lined up in a dozen or so rows. Many of the faces Scuba Bill recognized from his own convoy battalion, and several times more the men and women he didn’t recall, milling about; all busy with their chores and duties. He spotted Kat hanging up laundry along with several other women from the convoy and of the reservation. There were children everywhere playing, and older were the ones working in the fields and gardens. Young men and women were assembled together with what appeared to Bill as drill instructors conducting basic training.

  Scuba Bill smiled. He had an overwhelming urge to pitch in and do something; anything. It seemed as if he was the only one not pulling his weight. However, moments later as if drawn to the task by some unseen force, Scuba Bill found himself chasing down General John Pennock, who insisted Scuba Bill address him as General JP or just JP.

  “And knock off the sir when we’re working together,” JP told him. “We got the cable to run. The mains from this solar farm is shorted out. Overloaded by the EMP. Hopefully, the cable’s strength hadn’t been compromised. Gonna need to pull in the new cable right in behind the old cable.”

  Rubbing his hands together Scuba Bill nodded and replied: “Got it.”

  The sound of helicopter rotor blades slicing through the air grabbed the attention of Scuba Bill and JP. Two Iroquois UH-1D choppers flew low overhead, side doors open and Joe Wyatt waving from behind the gunner’s seat of the first helicopter. JP smiled and told Scuba Bill that those orange placards were coming off the nose of his choppers as soon as he gives the flight-line crew the go-ahead to do so. “Goes for all my battle gear,” said JP with an air of authority in his voice.

  Scuba Bill’s head tilted to the sky as he watched the gunships pass overhead, “I take it that those orange placards indicate something?”

  “Means parade or training,” he told Scuba Bill, and with a gleam in his eye, he continued saying, “Also means they may not be armed … but don’t bet the farm on that!”

  JP turned his attention back to the job before them, “If the conduit is busted up or welded to the cable,” JP paused a moment raising his eyebrows with a sigh. “We’re screwed. We’ll need to trench-out a path for laying new conduit.”

  Scuba Bill pursed his lips. JP watched as Scuba Bill turned a look down to the underground storage hanger. “How far does the conduit run?”

  “Just to that bunker over there,” JP pointed toward the trailer homes. “From there, power is fed to the homes through a transfer switch that routes full power to the underground storage facilities, as needed. The rest of the time power is routed to run the park’s basic necessities through a pair of emergency lighting relays and air a raid siren. Luckily, I had all the solar panels upgraded to the new high efficient cells last year. Just in time before the shit hit the fan. These new cells output several times over what the old fashion cells did.”

  Scuba Bill raised his eyebrows and tilted his head to one side, “Oh really?’

  “Yep, we’re literally swimming in household power now, and that’s a lot to say when you consider this park has nearly 80 trailer homes.” JP rubbed the back of his neck, turning his attention to a faraway gaze of the underground storage facilities. “Now, with the help of your AP, we have access to battle gear, tools food storage and all the supplies we need to get this solar farm back online.”

  Scuba Bill smiled as he watched JP proudly pat the massive spool of cable with his hand. “So,” JP continued, “You were a Sergeant Major of the Marine Corp?”

  Scuba Bill’s jovial expression fell to a somber one. “Non Commissioned E9 Sir … correct.”

  “SMMC?”

  He drew his posture at attention and answered, “Correct again. May I ask how you knew?”

  “I know a lot of things, Sergeant Major Moore, now help me with this power winch.”

  Circling overhead, a chopper flew a wobbly course before climbing higher and then lower again. Dropping altitude, it spun a few turns before straightening up and setting down a few hundred yards along a tarmac near the underground facilities.

  “Crimony! JP sir, there must be something wrong with that chopper.”

  “Yep,” said JP with a calm expression on his face. “That’s what you call a Joe Wyatt flight training session.”

  “You mean you could see that from here?”

  “Naw, just knew his training would probably come about, especially with him hanging around Truck Dog’s son, Derelict.”

  “Derelict?”

  “I call him that, but his name is Derrick.”

  “My god, you mean Truck Dog has a son who flies helicopters?”

  “Yep. Crazy seems to run in the family. As for me, I hate flying around in those damn egg-beaters.”

  Scuba Bill looked down with an expression of deep thought as he pondered over a connection that was coming more apparent in his mind. “These warships are being piloted by teenagers?”

  JP laughed. “Should be; seems teenagers know everything these days.”

  Scuba Bill jumped forward to give JP a hand lifting the power winch high enough to hang from a tripod mount. “You mean these youngsters are fighter pilots?”

  “Yep, all grew up in a way no other soldier has, I guess you could say; surrounded by parents who remain frozen in a state of active duty. All the knowledge they hold has been taught to their kin and the next generation.”

  Scuba Bill scratched his head, “You mean as soldiers?”

  “Not really. Or I might say initially no. Trained in the performance of battle parade and reenactments.” Pausing, JP pointed for Scuba Bill to pass him a catch pin and pliers. “Looks as if things have changed.”

  Getting the gist of what JP meant came over loud and clear, Scuba Bill began to say, “But -- ”

  “But nothing,” JP interrupted. “Basic Training Begins tomorrow at 0500 hours.”

  Looking past JP’s shoulder, it made sense to Scuba Bill now. All around this base if you could call it that, were people busy doing what JP apparently ordered. There were riggers and carpenters building training courses complete with rope climbing walls, barbed wire crawl pits and target ranges for rifle and chopper tra
ining. No doubt bomber targets out in the desert too. The transformation that was going on was fantastic, and it put a smile on Scuba Bill’s face.

  “Does Basic Training include my group?”

  “Yep, and you too.”

  “Great,” Scuba Bill laughed. “I’m a little rusty at rope climbing, but I’ll give it my best.”

  “No, William. I had a Drill Instructor in mind for you. Danny Porter as well as I and Idiot Boy and his wife will also be on staff as DI’s. So what do you say we start melting the butter off of some hind-ends?”

  “What about Major Edson?”

  “Turn him over to me, and I’ll drive him like a buggy-whipped carnival pony, but then he’s under your command.”

  Scuba Bill laughed. “I take it you don’t care much for Major Edson?”

  JP made a face complete with an eye-roll, “At the get-together picnic dinner yesterday, I had to peel his face off my ass a number of times. Worse than gum stuck to your boot.” He took a moment to study the face of Scuba Bill who had a big smirking grin on his face. “Ok, he’s standing behind me, isn’t he?”

  Scuba Bill nodded. “Yep.”

  “Fine just friggin fine,” JP turned to face Major Edson, “I need someone to go down and give Danny Porter and his crew a hand.”

  Major Edson dropped his salute and dashed down toward the underground facilities where Danny and the boys were working at fabricating a new trailer for the AP unit. They both watched silently as Major Edson ran the quarter-mile distance, stopping to walk a bit and then picking back up to a run. “Sure hate to do that to Danny,” JP said with a sigh, “But I’ll bet Danny will flatten Edson’s head in a metal folding brake before the sun gets overhead.”