by Dennis Foley
He was equally sure his decision not to try a second time was right. Even so, his decision was borne out when he later couldn’t see them or hear them on the radio. All he could have done by going in again was lose a chopper and get himself killed for two soldiers most likely already dead or captured and on their way to the Viet Cong sanctuaries inside Cambodia.
Tossing back the scotch and pouring himself a third, he reminded himself he had to quit worrying about what was done. It was behind him. He had to move on.
He was tiring of the endless editing of his report of the night’s actions. He needed something to distract his attention. On the corner of his desk were the last three letters he had received from Karen. That’s what he would do. He would write to her. She knew nothing about what he had been through and he now had some combat action to tell her. Some combat action painting him in a favorable light.
The story he told General Devlen was carefully crafted to place any responsibility for the decisions made the night of Minh’s death on Minh while still leaving some room for interpretation leading to an assumption Pascoe had been somewhat heroic and dedicated to the rescue of those still on the ground.
His paper version was clear, fact filled but it told little. It was in many more words but was far less forthcoming than the version he had told Devlen. Pascoe knew the paper version would be around for a long, long time.
He stood and stepped to the locker. From it he pulled a cigar off the shelf holding the last of the stock of cigars he had inherited from Colonel Wills before he left for home. He sat back down at the desk and thought over what he might include in his letter from the two versions of the night’s events he had already given. True to his habit, he jotted down the topics in a laundry list manner on a separate piece of paper. He lit the cigar and found a place to begin the letter—telling her about the events surrounding Minh’s death.
As he began his letter to Karen he chose to tell her only part of the incident. He focused on how heated the combat had been, how dangerous the situation he and Minh found themselves in. And he wrote with less specificity about the patrol on the ground. And he didn’t mention the loss of Nguyen and Hayes at all.
He shifted from the topic of the combat action to changes at the division as they affected him. He shared with her his concern about a new division commander and a new counterpart for him. Finally, he asked about financial matters, if the car was running well, if the quarterly insurance payments were taken care of, if she had been able to find a source for his favorite cigars and how soon he could expect some more since he was running low.
He finished the letter without asking her about how she was doing, how she was handling the separation or about her health or well being.
True to his training as an academic and before folding and stuffing the letter into an envelope he proofread it. As he read his account of the aerial combat over the stranded patrol and the intense rescue effort he was impressed with how well he came off. Feeling the scotch, he took a puff off of his cigar and blew it skyward as he unconsciously nodded his head in approval and then folded the letter.
There was no way they could use a light to explore the extent of Captain Nguyen’s wound. Careful not to give away their position making noise, Scotty tried to encourage Nguyen in as low a whisper as he could muster. “Hold on. Just hold on,” Scotty said. He pulled a combat dressing out of the aid kit. “You hit anywhere else, Dai Uy?”
Nguyen didn’t speak. His face contorted in pain, he shook his head.
Scotty continued applying the best first aid he could under the circumstances. He was sure they were a long way from being in the clear as far as alerting the out-of-sight but still nearby enemy soldiers searching the battle area. Training took over. Words filled his head: Stop the bleeding, clear the airway, protect the wound, treat or prevent shock.
The wound was actually at the very top of Nguyen’s thigh almost where it connected to the hip below the socket. Scotty wiped as much of the mud and water as he could from his hand on his shirt and felt for blood. In the dark it was hard to tell what was blood and what was muddy marsh water. He realized he’d have to wait until daylight to make a better assessment of Nguyen’s wound.
Still, he couldn’t wait for any longer to find out if the bullet which pierced the front of his upper thigh had come out somewhere else making an even larger exit hole. He started behind Nguyen’s knee and felt his way up the backside across his buttock and around his kidney.
He methodically returned to the outside of the knee and worked his way up past Nguyen’s hip bone to his rib cage. Again, no exit wound. Finally, he searched the area of Nguyen’s inner thigh and was fairly confident there was no exit wound anywhere. Scotty knew this was a mixed blessing. On one hand, there was no other wound bleeding externally. On the other, the bullet could have gone anywhere in Nguyen’s body tearing more tissue and blood vessels in its path causing more internal bleeding.
Worried about bleeding he couldn’t see, Scotty placed the combat dressing over the wound and the clothing covering it and pressed down just to stop the bleeding. As he did Nguyen winched sharply at the added pain.
“Roll over,” Scotty whispered. He wanted Nguyen to put the weight of his pelvis onto the combat dressing and provide his own pressure to stem the flow of blood.
Nguyen groaned and emitted a wheezing sound between his teeth as he tried to follow Scotty’s instructions.
Scotty grabbed the back of Nguyen’s belt and helped him roll over. He searched for what to do next.
Breathing. Scotty could hear Nguyen’s breathing labored by pain but otherwise unobstructed. He realized that step needed no attention.
Shock. Shock was as much a killer as a shot in the head could be. He had to get Nguyen’s head down below his heart and he needed to cover him to conserve his body heat. He felt for Nguyen’s wrist to check his pulse. It was too dark to get an accurate count without his watch. Nguyen’s pulse felt fairly strong to Scotty if not a little elevated. There was no way he could tell if Nguyen’s skin was damp and clammy in their muddy hiding place. They’d been that way since they got out of the boats on the first night of the patrol. Scotty knew if he could keep Nguyen alive until daylight he’d have a better chance of seeing just how badly he was wounded and figure out what he could do to keep him alive until they got back to the Sugar Mill.
He had to believe a rescue was planned, something was in motion and someone was going to come looking for them before much longer. Scotty took off his harness holding his gear and ammo pouches. He then removed is shirt and placed it over Nguyen’s back to help him hold in his body heat in the dampness of the bog. All the while he heard himself repeating, “You’re going to be okay. We’re going to get you home. Just hold on, Dai Uy,” under his breath.
Pascoe felt awkward sitting in the back of General Duong’s helicopter. He would have preferred to be in one of the pilot’s seats. He looked around inside and saw the chopper was in far better condition than General Minh’s chopper had been. Pascoe assumed the maintenance was the responsibility of the two Vietnamese pilots flying the chopper.
Duong sat on the canvas bench seat reading some documents which had preoccupied him since they lifted off of the helipad at the Sugar Mill. It was the first time he and General Duong had actually met and the man was pleasant enough but had to talk to Pascoe through his interpreter, a young sergeant who sat in the single jump seat behind the pilots. This made everything more complicated.
Pascoe hadn’t yet been able to get a good fix on Duong. He was an unlikely looking general officer, portly and balding with unusually thick glasses. His arrival at the Sugar Mill was a surprise. Pascoe had been instructed to wait for a chopper to take him to Saigon for the ceremony to install Duong as the new division commander replacing the dead Minh. Pascoe never expected to find the general on the same flight. He wanted to know where he was coming from, but questions seemed awkward for Pascoe through the interpreter who said nothing unless spoken to first.
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sp; Could it be the general was making a gesture of welcoming his new senior advisor by meeting Pascoe at the Division Headquarters? He was becoming aware of the often deliberate gestures of the Vietnamese to honor customs and protocols not common in the American Army. Some were borrowed from the French and others were of their own invention.
Pascoe took the opportunity to look at the countryside between the Sugar Mill and Saigon as they flew. It was quite different than the drier terrain he had first seen the day he first flew to the division headquarters with Minh. On this trip the streams were out of their banks and all of the rice paddies were flooded with brown water, some of it from the local rains, the rest of it from deep inside Asian mountain chains at the origins of the Mekong River.
He was happy to see the clouds had thinned for the morning allowing them to fly without weather problems and keeping him from getting his starched khaki uniform drenched. It was the first time he had worn anything but fatigues since his arrival in Vietnam. The occasion was formal for the Vietnamese and it was only appropriate he wear the equivalent uniform for the ceremony planned that morning.
The chopper slowed and then circled a manicured parade ground with a helipad at one end and a formal wooden reviewing stand and set of bleachers at the other. The bleachers were filled with a mixture of military and civilian Vietnamese faces shading their eyes and craning their necks to see the approaching chopper.
All were there for the ceremony. Out in front of the reviewing stand stood twelve hundred Vietnamese soldiers in strictly regimented ranks awaiting the arrival of the chopper and their new commanding general.
The two battalions flanked a six-man color guard holding the flags of the division, the corps, Vietnam and the United States. On one end of the troop formation was a six cannon salute battery and the other a forty-man marching band.
The pilot maneuvered the chopper to a point immediately in front of the reviewing stand and put the aircraft down gently, an expert at his job.
Pascoe took the general’s lead and followed him and the interpreter from the chopper to the two-foot high reviewing stand.
On the stand were several dignitaries, all of them general officers. He recognized Pham and Devlen and just assumed the others were from the headquarters of the Vietnamese Corps located in Saigon.
Salutes were rendered and answered all the way around and an efficient looking Vietnamese major pointed at the two chairs on the reviewing stand where he wanted General Duong and Pascoe to sit. Pascoe was surprised to find himself in the front row with Pham, Devlen and Duong. With no one to ask, he simply took his seat and said nothing, smiling at the others as they did the same.
As they took their places the Vietnamese band played more western music he from John Philips Sousa. They were awful. Their execution was awkward and amateurish sounding more like a junior high school band. Pascoe had been spoiled by the accomplished bands he had become accustomed to while at West Point.
From either side of the bleachers, behind the reviewing stand, two large trumpet-like green loud speakers crackled with the words of a well rehearsed voice who spoke first in Vietnamese and then in English. “Ladies and gentlemen, will you please rise for our national anthem.”
Everyone got to their feet and the Commander of Troops located in front of the ranks of soldiers called them to attention. With the first note of the Vietnamese anthem everyone in uniform saluted and held the salute until it was over. But instead of dropping the salutes at the end the band went right into a very bad rendition of the United States national anthem and it too received the honors rendered the earlier anthem.
The music stopped, the voice over the speaker asked all to sit. General Pham stood and stepped to the microphone centered at the front of the reviewing stand. Though the visitor-spectators were all to his rear, he directed his remarks to the troops assembled in front of the stand.
As he began, speaking in Vietnamese, the interpreter quietly knelt down next to Pascoe and handed him a piece of paper. It was a typed translation of General Pham’s speech. It became obvious to Pascoe there were too few Americans at the ceremony for the entire speech to be interrupted by a translator repeating the general’s words in English.
Pascoe read the speech as the general spoke. It was filled with hopeful remarks about the ultimate victory of the Republicans, the term the South Vietnamese used to refer to themselves, over the communist insurgents who surely would fail in their attempts to enslave the free people of the South. He went on to praise the support and advice they were getting from Washington and made a point of how sure he was the friendship between Saigon and America would last for a thousand years.
Toward the end of his remarks he reminded everyone assembled they were there to honor General Duong who had been selected by the Premier over many other well qualified general officers to become the new commanding general of the well respected and often feared 6th Infantry Division. He made sure to include mention of their nickname, the Tigers of the Delta.
The general finished his speech. And on some unseen cue the band struck up again and played more martial music. While they played, Generals Pham and Duong descended the steps on the front of the reviewing stand and marched to a point in front of the color guard.
There they halted and waited for the bandmaster to stop the music. Once done, General Pham took the flag of the Division from the hands of the color bearer, turned and handed the flag’s six foot staff to General Duong.
Pascoe has seen many such ceremonies in his army put on to pass command of a unit, activate new units or install new commanders. They were pretty universal in armies the world over. While everyone was focused on the generals he took the opportunity to look around the ceremony. There were so many dignitaries he couldn’t recognize and the bleachers held a dozen unfamiliar American officers and NCOs all wearing Military Assistance Command patches hanging from the pockets of their khaki shirts. The large number of unknowns reminded him he was out on the country’s border pretty much alone while the faces at the ceremony were enjoying Saigon, relative safety and spending their days making decisions which had great impact on what Pascoe did in his job.
He fought the urge to be irritated seeing so many senior NCOs fat-catting it in Saigon when he couldn’t get an NCO to replace Caruthers and now needed a replacement for Hayes. He wasn’t sure if he should take Devlen’s new found familiarity and pleasure with his performance as an opportunity to complain about staffing.
Pascoe was snapped out of his thoughts by the band striking up again after General Duong handed the flag back to the color bearer who had been holding it in the first place. As they played, the two generals returned to the reviewing stand. Pascoe was pleased to see them return thinking they were surely near the end of the ceremony and it might break up before the very humid heat got worse as the sun climbed much higher in the sky.
But the generals did not mount the reviewing stand. They stopped short of it by two paces and stood shoulder to shoulder facing the stand and the bleachers behind it. Then, General Devlen stood and walked to a position to General Duong’s left.
Pascoe wasn’t sure what was next. He had never liked the uncertainty situations like this brought to him. He watched the three stand there for an awkward moment before the sound of a new voice blared out of the tinny speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, General Pham, General Devlen and General Duong would like to take this opportunity to share with you an occasion of importance.”
He recognized the voice as that of General Devlen’s aide, also unseen at the site of the hidden microphone somewhere under or behind the bleachers. But what occasion could it be? Pascoe looked around to see if anything else was happening near the parade field which might give him some clue. He found nothing.
The lieutenant’s voice continued. “At this time we’d like to ask Lieutenant Colonel Eldon Pascoe, Senior Advisor to the 6th Infantry Division to step down from the reviewing stand and take his place in front of the general officers.”
Pascoe wasn’t su
re what was happening but stood, descended the steps and walked to a spot in front of the three generals. He stopped at a point centered on and five feet in front of the trio. He stood there, searching the eyes of all three generals and found all three were smiling.
The voice was replaced with that of General Duong’s interpreter. “Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests—General Duong and General Pham are pleased to take the occasion to award Lieutenant Colonel Pascoe the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Palm for his courage and bravery in the face of the enemy in the vicinity of the hamlet of Doi Bao Voi in Hau Nghĩa Province…”
Pascoe couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He watched a Vietnamese sergeant and an American soldier with a camera come into view and walk around the four standing at attention. The sergeant carried a velvet covered board used to carry medals for presentation. The soldiers stopped at General Pham’s side and the General reached over and pulled the large orange medal and its ribbon from the board.
As the General approached Pascoe the voice continued to read the details of the citation in Vietnamese. Pascoe could only pick out enough words to know it was the citation but not much more.
Pham stopped in front of Pascoe and waited until the citation reading was complete. He then pinned the medal to the pocket flap of Pascoe’s shirt just beneath his silver aviator’s badge.
Pascoe’s felt himself standing taller and straighter as he realized the had turned the corner. He had drawn favorable attention to himself and had been awarded his very first combat medal for bravery. He wanted to yell out something as childish as a loud yahoo! But decorum was everything and he struck a proud but humble pose while the general finished pinning on the medal. That done, the general reached for Pascoe’s hand to shake it.
Pascoe quickly wiped the moisture he felt in his palm on the side of his trousers then took the general’s hand. As they shook hands Pascoe spotted the Vietnamese soldier with the velvet covered board move to General Devlen’s side.