A Requiem for Crows: A Novel of Vietnam

by Dennis Foley

  Minh seemed to be aware of the problem and chose to interpret. “Captain Nguyen’s reconnaissance company searched the area and confirmed the VC had fired the rockets from here.” He tapped a spot on the map marked up with red grease pencil and ashes from the cigarette he held in the same hand fell onto the map.

  Immediately, his operations sergeant reached up and swept the ashes into his own hand to clean the map for the colonel.

  “Did Captain Nguyen find any trails?” Pascoe asked, as if Nguyen wasn’t even in the room.

  Minh threw his head back in a hearty laugh and replied half in English and half in Vietnamese. “There was hardly any ground around the launch site not trampled with footprints—footprints marched to the west, to Cambodia, in many different paths.”

  The staff officers around the table took their cue and laughed with Minh.

  “This is the game we play, Major. VC rocket or mortar us and then run away. When our soldiers get there VC trail is almost gone from rain and water in the area.” Minh pointed all of the fingers of one hand up toward the ceiling. “Grasses standing up again.”

  Pascoe had an idea about how to interdict the Viet Cong escape routes back to the security of the Cambodian border and almost slipped and offered it to Minh in front of his staff officers. But he was getting better at thinking before speaking his mind and avoiding the risk of embarrassing Colonel Minh. He would think it over a bit more and then make his suggestion to Minh in private.

  Chapter 15

  SCOTTY’S MOUTH TASTED NASTY, his shorts were bunched up from sitting so long in one place and his neck hurt from sleeping on the plane, but he was sure he was better off than those behind him in coach.

  The stewardess had announced their approach into Tan Son Nhut airport in Saigon long before the aircraft had crossed the coast of Vietnam near the coastal resort town of Vung Tau. She also added the local time: 0430. Scotty craned his neck to look through the window at the view still half black in the distance with little success.

  “Would you like to change seats?” Sister Bernadine asked.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

  “No. I’ve been awake for a couple hours. My eyes are so dry from this flight they felt better closed than open. As soon as we descend you’ll see how quickly we regain all the humidity we need and then some.” She pointed at the seat beneath her. “So, what is it? Would you like to swap places to get a view of Saigon?”

  Scotty thought about how much trouble it would be for her to move, but before he could answer she leaned forward and stood up. She was small enough to stand upright under the overhead bins without having to duck.

  They made the swap and Bernadine leaned over and pointed out the important landmarks to Scotty. Through the morning haze, the spidery veins of Asia’s largest river filled the small airplane window giving Scotty his first glimpse of the Mekong Delta. Coffee colored browns and rich greens dominated the views. Far to the north, where the flat river delta gave way to the spiny Central Highlands, the intense lights of parachute flares temporarily turned the black valleys of the Anamese Corridor into daylight for some units locked in combat.

  As they descended Scotty could see the beginnings of life. He felt his stomach tightening at the thought that within minute he would be on the ground in a war zone.

  Small boats finished their early morning fishing and villagers walked, bicycled and jammed small Japanese trucks headed to the markets to buy and sell everything from produce to cooking fuel. In the rice paddies farmers bent over their crops tending to them in hopes of plentiful harvests to come.

  “Beautiful. Isn’t it?”

  Scotty tapped the window. “What are those?”

  Sister Bernadine looked over his shoulder. “Those dark things?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Water buffalo.”

  “Are those children on their backs?” Scotty asked.

  “Children start to work here as soon as they can walk. Tending the water buffaloes is one of their easier jobs.”

  Scotty thought about how easy his childhood had been in Florida. He could see how little he had in common with the Vietnamese. It didn’t much help his confidence in the tasks ahead.

  As quickly as Scotty had met Sister Bernadine she was gone. Someone from her religious order picked her up on the tarmac and Scotty was ushered off into the Military Terminal by an NCO wearing an armband reading: In-Processing.

  The building was made of a single thickness aluminum siding topped with a rippled translucent fiberglass roof which did little to keep the jet and helicopter noises out while amplifying the oppressive heat and humidity.

  A floor fan at one end of the basketball court-sized room did little to move the air around inside the crowded terminal filled with American and Vietnamese servicemen all headed to and from different parts of Vietnam—some Americans heading home.

  In the less than four minutes Scotty had been on the ground in Vietnam the sweat was running down the hollow of his back staining his shirt. He stood in a short line with five other Americans waiting their turn to check in with a huge Air Force Tech Sergeant mopping sweat from his neck with an olive drab handkerchief.

  The sergeant took Scotty’s travel paperwork from him and without ever making eye contact began pulling forms and handouts from a bin behind him and dropping them on the ticket counter separating him from Scotty. “This a copy of the Status of Forces Agreement. It governs how you will be treated if you commit a crime punishable by US or South Viet law. And here are three cards you must keep in your wallet while you are in-country.” He dealt them out as if playing poker and named them as he did. “The MACV Nine Rules Card lists your duties while serving here; your Ration Card for booze and cigarettes and a the Code of Conduct Card listing your obligations if you become a prisoner of war.”

  Prisoner of war! How could he use the term so matter-of-factly? Scotty took the cards and stuffed them into his shirt pocket thinking he’d look at them later.

  “You know where you’re assigned, ah…” He looked at Scotty’s records again, searching for a name. “Hayes?”

  “I don’t. I was just told somewhere in country.”

  The Tech Sergeant mopped his entire faces with his fat forearm and leaned on the counter finally looking at Scotty. He tapped a clipboard in front of him. “Say’s here you are going to Military Assistance Command. It could mean anywhere. So don’t be surprised if you end up inventorying tongue depressors in Da Nang, boy.”

  Scotty scooped up the rest of the paperwork laid out on the counter for him to take. “So what do I do now?”

  The Tech Sergeant pointed a sausage of an index finger over Scotty’s shoulder. “Try to find a seat on one of those benches. Sit and try not to work up a sweat or you won’t be able to make it through the day.” He looked at his watch. “It’s only zero five forty five Veet-nam time and it’s already ninety two degrees. By noon it’ll be hot enough frogs’ll be fainting from the heat and humidity. You got a whole year here, young Ranger, so pace yourself.”

  Scotty sat on a bench across from the check-in counter but avoided leaning up against the metal wall already hot to the touch from the sun backing its backside. He watched the faces of those coming and going. There seemed to be some sense of organization and some flow to the traffic flowing through the building parked on the apron of the city’s only real airport. Through the window he could see American and Vietnamese helicopters hovering past on their way to get into the departure pattern shared with commercial jets, Vietnamese Air Force fighters and cargo planes.

  “HAYES—SERGEANT—SCOTT J. Sound off if you’re in the terminal!” another Air Force Tech Sergeant behind the counter yelled using the customary last-name-first.

  “Yo!” Scotty replied, raising his hand and half standing at his bench.

  The Tech Sergeant pointed toward an American sergeant standing at the counter.

  Scotty stood up, checked his gig line and tried to size up the Sergeant First Class approaching him.
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br />   “You Hayes?”

  “Yes. Scotty,” said, not sure if he should stick out his hand or not.

  “I’m Bobby Caruthers.” He stuck out his to shake Scotty’s hand. He shook it with exaggerated vigor. “I’m really, really glad to see you boy, ’cause you’re my turtle.”

  “Turtle?” Scotty asked.

  “My replacement. We call ’em turtles ’cause they are so long in getting here.”

  Scotty picked up Jake’s duffel bag and followed Caruthers already heading through the door to the jeep parked outside.

  “I already had two replacements come and go.” He moved the large chaw of tobacco from one cheek to the other. “I hope you’re a keeper.”

  Scotty threw his bag in the back of the jeep Caruther’s pointed out as theirs. “‘Come and go?’”

  “Yeah. One got here and turned out he had a pretty bad case of diabetes. So they evac’d him back to the world. The other guy, an SFC from Fort Benning I went through Basic with. He wasn’t here two weeks and came down with Dengue Fever. So he got shipped to Japan and then back home too.”

  Scotty looked at the five large yellow stripes on Caruthers’ sleeve. “Looks like I’m a little junior to be your replacement, Sarge.”

  “Well, it is an E-7 slot, but we take what we can get around here. And if I don’t find a replacement who can stay put long enough for me to out-process I’m never going to get home.” He pointed at a TWA jets parked on the apron. “So, Hayes, I’m going to take good care of you until my ass is on one of these freedom birds headed back to the world of round doorknobs.”

  Scotty jumped into the passenger seat as Caruthers started up the jeep. “What am I going to be doing?”

  Caruthers pulled out of the parking lot and into the crowded Saigon streets. “Well, to put it Biblically, Hayes, you’re going to help these little zipperhead motherfuckers smite the wily Cong.

  “You want a chew?”

  Scotty looked down to see the pouch of Redman tobacco Caruthers had pulled from the cargo pocket in his fatigue trousers. He’d first tried chewing tobacco in Ranger School to keep his mouth moist and suppress his constant hunger and to help him quit smoking. He took the pouch from the older sergeant, “Sure.” He pulled a plug from the packet and tucked it into the pocket in his cheek and handed it back to Caruthers.

  Caruthers looked over at Scotty and smiled. “You know, you gonna’ be a’right, boy.”

  The crowded city streets kept Caruthers from being able to pick up any speed. As they threaded their way through the traffic Caruthers filled Scotty in on all the routine questions Scotty would have eventually asked anyhow—about pay and mail and R & R policies.

  Scotty listened and soaked up everything. His eyes searched the roadside stands and the uninterrupted lines of pedestrians balancing loads of varying sizes and wide in variety. He was assaulted by the smells, the heat and the din. He had never in his life seen so many people crammed into such little space. Florida and Georgia were never like Saigon in December of 1964. He was hardly aware that he spoke out loud. “Goddamn. Where’d all these people come from?”

  Caruthers threw his head back and let out a laugh. “Hell, boy, all these people do is fuck and steal from Americans. They sure as hell don’t waste much time fightin’ the goddamn Cong.”

  Within the hour they had broken free of the grip the city had on the jeep and cityscape gave way to a rural two-lane highway headed northwest. For Scotty his Vietnam was there. Saigon was much the same as any crowded city anywhere in the world, except there were Asian faces everywhere. Out in the countryside Scotty took in the long vistas over a pool-table flat landscape colored in rich greens of the rice fields, punctuated by Nipa Palms and separated by worn brown paths atop the dikes.

  Everywhere he looked women were dressed in black or white cotton tops over black pajama bottoms. Each wore a conical hat held in place by a strip of cloth pressed into service as a chin strap. Those who weren’t bent tending crops were weighed down with heavy loads of rice or vegetables. Some carrying their loads with a bamboo carry poles on their shoulders carefully balancing their cargo hanging from each end of the pole.

  Heat and humidity smothering to most American newcomers felt familiar to Scotty but far more intense. It was the brightness of the day that most surprised him. As they traveled west the sky was a rich blue for as far as he could see on the distant horizon uninterrupted by the simple farming hamlets stretching all the way to the border with Cambodia nearly thirty miles ahead.

  Scotty spit a string of tobacco juice out of the corner of his mouth and looked back at Caruthers. “So how long you been here, Sarge?”

  Caruthers smiled without taking his eyes off the ox cart and two farmers walking more in the roadway than on the shoulder narrowed by its rapid transition to rice paddy. “Not thinking anymore about how long I been here. I’m too short for memory lane.” Caruthers slammed on the brakes and hit the horn trying to avoid hitting a rooster that had escaped from a basket the Vietnamese farmers had place in the ox cart. One of the men darted out in front of the jeep in a heroic grab for the bird.

  “Hey, get the fuck out the road, you dumb motherfucker! I’ll run your ass and your chicken’s over in heartbeat and not lose sleep. Now dee dee mau, Goddamit!”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Caruthers let out the clutch and got back into the flow of traffic. “Means get the hell out of my way you dumb ass.” He shifted his tone. “How short? Well, let me put it this way, you’ll still be pissin’ stateside water while I’m unpacking my duffel bag back in The World.”

  The response wasn’t much help for Scotty who was beginning to realize he had a thousand questions for Caruthers he was probably not going to get to ask. “In days?”

  “Latest word I got was a little over a month. So you better catch on fast, young sergeant.” Caruthers spent the next hour and a half filling Scotty in on his duties heavily laced with cautions about the Vietnamese, Vietnam, the tricky political situation for Americans in and the alien and crippling Asian concept of saving face.

  Scotty listened hard but never took his eyes off the constantly changing view of his new home and the people he would be defending. Finally, he focused on two young Vietnamese men standing on the roadside staring back at him and asked, “Sarge, how do you tell who’s Viet cong and who’s on our side?”

  Caruthers laughed. “Boy, there ain’t nobody on our side in country.”

  Scotty felt words coming to his lips but stopped himself before he got into an argument over why they were even there. He tried to think of how to ask the question a different way, but Caruthers spit a rope of tobacco juice down along side the moving jeep and continued.

  “I don’t know much about politics or international shit. But I did grow up on a farm near Jefferson, Missouri. Farmer’s don’t have much time to worry about nothin’ bigger or heavier than weather, crops and money.” Caruthers waved his hand off in the direction of the Vietnamese scattered across the paddies on either side of the roadway. “These little fuckers got t’worry about floods, drought, how much fish they can pull out of their streams, rats in their rice fields, feedin’ their kids and goddamn bombs droppin’ in the middle of their lives.

  “The don’t know nothin’ about who’s runnin’ Vietnam or if they want to be communists or not. They could really give a shit what the fuck Ho Chi Minh’s doin’ in Hanoi. It ain’t what they talk about after a long day bent double in the paddies pluckin’ leeches off their nuts.

  “Truth is, when a VC’s in their hootch with a gun they’re all for his cause. When a South Viet soldier’s holdin’ the gun they couldn’t be more beholdin’ to him. They’ve seen the French, Japanese and the French again come and they seen them go. They prob’bly goin’ to see us go too.

  “Very practical people these Viets, but they’re weren’t born to be soldiers.”

  “That one’s yours. Used to belong to a kid who had to go home on emergency leave. His mama was dyin’ with cancer or someth
ing.”

  Scotty looked around to see what bunk Caruthers was pointing to. Seven of the twelve bunks were empty in the NCO hootch and half of them were uppers.

  Caruthers continued. “The rest of them got broken springs, won’t sit flat on the floor or just plain stink. So it’s about the best of what we got available here at the Shithole Sheraton. Get settled in and I’ll be back.”

  Scotty waved without taking his eyes off the room. “Sure, Sarge. Later.”

  Caruthers kicked the screen door open, stepped out in the sunlight and raised his voice as he walked away. “If you think that place is a nightmare, wait ’til lunch.”

  Scotty looked around the team room stuck inside the perimeter of the sugar mill next to the front gate. Through the glassless window he could see hear and taste the dust kicked up by every vehicle entering and leaving the compound. He kicked the thin s-rolled mattress down onto the single mesh of springs connecting the four sides of the frame and watched the dust expelled by the motion.

  Chapter 16

  THE FIRST MEETING WITH PASCOE started with a handshake and then got progressively more worrisome. Pascoe was talking to Scotty but seemed to be talking about himself regardless of the topic.

  Scotty sat on the wobbly stool placing him below Pascoe’s eye line, making him feel like he was in a child’s chair in a kindergarten. Pascoe droned on about what their challenge was and how important he thought it was for the Americans in the advisory team to set the example for the Vietnamese soldiers to emulate. Scotty wasn’t quite sure if he knew what emulate meant, but he got the drift.

  Officers were a little of a mystery for Scotty. The more rank they had the more they seemed to be a strange combination of soldier and school teacher. Pascoe certainly bore that out, even though Scotty was unaware of Pascoe’s West Point background. He kept making references to Vietnam’s history and culture. Two things Scotty had never considered while undergoing training at Fort Benning and in the swamps of northern Florida where history and culture. Tactics and survival occupied his thoughts while trying to stay awake on long patrols where he and his classmates crossed paths with hundreds of Coral snakes.