September Song

by Andrew M. Greeley

  I hid behind the door. A dozen or so more Marines dashed through it, shouting orders to one another. They joined the half dozen and dashed out into the yard.

  I slipped in after them and photographed the battered corridor, including the bodies of the invaders. Then I edged out into the yard, which looked like a bomb had exploded. Come to think of it, a bomb had exploded.

  “What’s happening, Captain?” one of the kids asked.

  “The perimeter has been penetrated, son. I’m happy to assure you that the United States Marines have secured it. The enemy is being driven back by the ARVN and the police. We expect to have the city secure by nightfall.”

  I figured that now was the time for Staff Sergeant Charles C. O’Malley, late of the Army of the United States, to redeploy himself very quickly before someone decided that they wanted his camera and the film in it.

  The Embassy continued in chaos. I wandered around looking bemused, which I surely was.

  “Ambassador O’Malley, is that you?” said a young man who was patently Foreign Service. What was his name?

  “What would ever make you think that, Craig?” I responded.

  “I’d hardly recognize you with all that black on your face, sir.”

  “Camouflage,” I said … “What’s it like outside?”

  “Pretty secure in this area, sir. We’re still fighting on the outskirts of the city.”

  “Would it be safe to walk over to the press headquarters?”

  “Sure, Ambassador. No problem.”

  “Would you care to share with me a private evaluation of the situation?”

  “In country, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s the greatest fuck-up in the history of the United States of America.”

  I continued my redeployment and finally found my room. Indeed, my face was covered with soot from the charge. Cheap munitions. I placed the Leica on the bureau, pointed it at myself, and pushed the button. I’m not sure that I will show it to you.

  I also discovered to my horror that my rosary was not in the pocket of the slacks I had worn when I wandered downstairs.

  I washed my face and discovered that it had not been altered appreciably. I donned khaki trousers and shirt which made me look vaguely but unthreateningly military. I made sure that this time I was carrying my rosary. Irish Catholic superstition or an act of faith? Maybe both.

  If God were determined to protect me, as my family back in America was doubtlessly demanding that he do, it would matter little to him whether there was a rosary on my person. However, it would matter to me, which was probably the idea.

  I stuffed more film in my pocket and ambled out into the Embassy. It occurred to me that I might find a phone and call you. I wandered into one office that looked like it might belong to a third secretary. A very young woman, Foreign Service assistant perhaps, sat staring at her typewriter.

  “Good morning,” I said cheerfully, trying my best imitation of the high-level diplomat.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “You all right?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes, sir, I’m fine. Just a little shook.”

  “Aren’t we all … I am Ambassador Charles Cronin O’Malley … Do you think I could make a phone call.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Ambassador.”

  She was too young to remember the legendary O’Malley of Bonn.

  “How do I get an outside line?”

  “Dial nine, sir, and then the number you want. If you’re calling the States, just put eight-one before the number.”

  “Indeed.”

  So I called you and got you just before you went to bed.

  “Chuck,” you said quite calmly, “what the hell is going on over there?”

  “I believe,” I replied, “that our weakened and almost defeated enemy launched a surprise attack to celebrate the Chinese New Year. I’m happy to say it was repulsed.”

  “They were saying on the news that the American Embassy had been captured.”

  “Ridiculous, Rosemarie my darling. I’m calling you from an office in the Embassy. Some sappers penetrated the perimeter of the Chancery this morning, apparently intending to blow the place up. However, they were repelled by some very brave United States Marines. The perimeter is secure again. The whole city will be secure by tomorrow morning.”

  (Actually it took two more days.)

  “You sure you’re all right?”

  “Never in danger for a moment.”

  Even then, my love, I knew what I was going to do with my pictures and that you would see them on the front page of the Tribune. You would think I was in danger, but of course I never was. Not really. Nonetheless, I’m glad that everyone back home is going to Mass for me.

  I asked the Marines at the door, in camouflage uniform and with automatic weapons, where the press office was.

  “Well done, gyrenes,” I said, still playing my role as Ambassador. “Good thing we had you guys around.”

  “Thank YOU, sir.”

  I had learned in Bonn, that you can never praise the Marines enough.

  The street was littered with bodies, Vietcong bodies in civilian clothes just like the kids that were killed in the corridor where I had taken my photos. ARVN soldiers were methodically walking down the street and bayoneting the corpses under the blazing tropical sun. Then they scanned them with some sort of device to make sure that the bodies were not mined. I realized that I would not eat much that day.

  I had photographed the dead Vietcong earlier without thinking about it. Now I hesitated. Ought not they be granted the privacy of those who had died bravely? I remembered what Oliver Wendell Holmes had said of Mathew Brady’s pictures of the Civil War dead—“A repulsive brutal, sickening, hideous thing [war] is, this dashing together of two frantic mobs to which we give the name of armies.”

  Holmes was right. One had to tell the truth about war, about the young men who had died; even if had they lived, they would have slaughtered a lot of us.

  The ARVN kids, also younger than Kevin, didn’t seem to mind my camera. They giggled and pointed derisively at the bodies, serenely confident that no one would ever be poking them with cold steel to make sure they were dead.

  The media center was crowded with angry men and women, celebrating the American defeat and damning the military for not doing a better job of protecting them. I wondered whether I hated the military more than I hated the media. It seemed a tight race.

  In the last couple of days I realized that it wasn’t so tight after all. I hated the media people a lot more. There were some brave and able people in the press corps, some who even went out in the jungle to cover the war. Most of them did their work in the local bars with their teenage concubines hanging all over them—children Maria Antonelli’s age. They didn’t like the war and neither did I. They positively lusted for an American humiliation, which I didn’t. I just thought we ought to pack up and go home.

  Anyway, a handsome spit-and-polish Army light Colonel strode up to the podium, rapped for attention, and began to talk. The chattering journalists continued to chatter.

  “I am happy to report a great Allied victory,” he began.

  He was drowned out by obscenities and catcalls. He ignored them.

  “Approximately a hundred thousand VC and NVA troops attacked twenty cities and numerous installations yesterday and this morning. All attacks were repulsed with heavy losses to the enemy and only light casualties to Allied troops. We interpret this attack as the last, dying gasp of the enemy and believe that now is the time to strike the final blow against them.”

  Laugher swept the room, which, I noted, was air-conditioned. You could cover the war here if you wanted without even working up a sweat.

  I was fading in and out of consciousness, jet-lagged, exhausted, and sick.

  “Why were we taken by surprise,” a reporter interrupted, “when General Westmorland actually predicted the attack to NBC a few days ago?”

  “I reject that interpretation. We were p
repared for guerrilla attacks and repulsed them.”

  “How could they occupy part of the Chancery of the American Embassy.”

  “The Chancery was not occupied. A few suicide squads of sappers reached the outside of perimeter but were eliminated.”

  He was lying. I had proof in my camera, unless I had done some stupid thing and ruined the film. Did he know he was lying? Or did his job require that you not even think about truth?

  “Whatever happened to the light at the end of the tunnel?”

  More laughter.

  I asked a grim woman where the bureau chief of the AP was. She looked up at me like I was some kind of leper.

  “The tall guy with the gray hair over there against the wall,” she sneered.

  I strolled over to him.

  “Chuck O’Malley,” I said, extending my hand.

  He glanced at me like I was an odd sort of vermin. Not a friendly crew around here.

  Then a light went on in his brain. He smiled and shook hands.

  “Chet Adams … I didn’t know you were in country.”

  “I’m not … I got some dirty pictures here, you want to buy?”

  “Of what?” he asked with interest.

  “Of VC inside the Chancery of the Embassy.”

  “Exclusive for the AP?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Why us?”

  “I want them on the front page of every paper in the country tomorrow.”

  He nodded.

  “How much do you want?”

  “Free … I’ll need a place to develop them.”

  He took me downstairs to a rabbit warren of darkrooms. The familiar smell of chemicals, normally reassuring, made my stomach twist and turn.

  “You look kind of sick, Ambassador.”

  “Chuck … Come back in two hours.”

  I wasn’t sick, Rosemarie my love. You know what a stable stomach I have. I had to leave the darkroom only three times to rush to the rest room at the end of the rabbit warren and vomit. Another guy was in there the third time.

  “Not a nice place, is it?”

  “You should have seen Germany after the war!”

  Kind of thing Chuck O’Malley might of said, huh?

  Two hours later Chet Adams peered over my shoulders at the last shot coming up in the developer.

  “My God!”

  “I don’t think he likes war much either.”

  I won’t describe the pictures to you. You’ll have seen them all by the time you get this letter. And doubtless be furious at me. But then you did know what I was like when you married me. Besides you made me a photographer. All I wanted to be was a safe and dependable accountant.”

  “These will be on every front page in the country tomorrow … We have to pay you for them, Chuck. They’re Pulitzer material.”

  “Been there, done that. My wife’s my agent. Talk to her. I didn’t bring her along. Should have.”

  I thought of you again, Rosemarie my dearest. Indeed you had been in the back of my head all morning. Disapproving. But unspeakably proud.

  “You look like you’re going to pass out. Where are you staying?”

  “Embassy of the United States,” I murmured. “I don’t think I’d better go back there.”

  “We’ll get you a suite at the Grand Hotel. I’ll try to pry your luggage out of the Embassy before they find out about these photos.”

  “There’s a mid-level staff guy there who knew me in Bonn. Craig something. He’ll give you the stuff. Not much, film mostly.”

  So he led me over to the Grand Hotel-Saigon. The city was coming to life gain. You fought wars (as a journalist) from luxury hotels these days. I collapsed into bed and slept for several eternities. I’ve just come out of my trance and am dictating this to you before I find out what’s happening outside.

  I’m sorry if I’ve done dumb things. You and the kids keep going to Mass for me.

  I’ll love you always.

  12

  Scene: outside of the Grand Hotel. Sunny day, heavy traffic on streets. Bicycles weaving in and out. A pale, slightly confused Charles C. O’Malley blinks at the camera.

  Q. Ambassador O’Malley, do you have any comment on rumors that both the American Embassy and General Westmorland want to send you home?

  A. First-class ticket, nonstop or I won’t go. Private jet. Maybe Air Force One.

  Q. Are you aware of the controversy your photographs have stirred up in America?

  A. Must have been someone else’s work.

  Q. Do you think we won the Tet battle?

  A. Of course we won it. It doesn’t mean we can win the war. I told the President that when I came home from Bonn. The other guys are not the good guys, but we can’t beat them without a cost the American people won’t pay. Nor should they.

  Q. What did you think when you saw the VC point his AK-47 at you?

  A. I thought that he was younger than my son Kevin and that he was terrified.

  Q. What did you do?

  A. Do? I had considerable military experience in Germany after the war. I did what any well-trained professional soldier does in such circumstances. I ducked.

  Q. How close did the bullets come to you?

  A. Who had a measuring tape?

  Q. Have you heard that General Westmorland has asked for two hundred thousand more troops?

  A. That sounds like something a general might do.

  Q. Why did you come to Vietnam?

  A. Do you know what Oliver Wendell Holmes said about my colleague Matt Brady’s photos of the Civil War?—“A repulsive brutal, sickening, hideous thing war is, this dashing together of two frantic mobs to which we give the name of armies.”

  Ambassador O’Malley, on shaky legs, stumbles over to a table in the outdoor bar. He continues to sip from a tumbler of iced tea.

  13

  Saigon

  Rosemarie my darling,

  It is certainly all right with me if you want to have my tapes transcribed for history, as you suggested on the phone. Not that you are likely to wait for my approval

  It was wonderful to talk to all of you last night. I expected to catch hell. Indeed I probably deserved to catch hell. Instead you guys all seem to think I was a hero. Actually the shots were the result of dumb luck and instinct. I also didn’t think I was funny in that TV interview. I feel right now like I’ll never be funny again.

  I admit that I looked awful. I felt worse. However, I’m better now, almost feel like a human being. I suppose in February there’s snow on the ground and it’s bitter cold. Tell you the truth, I’d like the snow. I don’t think my Irish blood can ever adjust to the tropics.

  Your good friend Walter Cronkite was here yesterday pontificating, apparently on the basis of conversations in the bar of this hotel with media creeps. The war can’t be won, he’s saying. It’s time to get out. Welcome to the club, Walter, you phony. I guess it’s official now that this is the biggest fuck-up in American history.

  He came over to my table where I was restoring myself with a glass of iced tea and shook my hand. Brilliant photography, he said. We showed them all on the Evening News.

  I was civil and correct, but not quite my genial leprechaun self. I thanked him politely.

  I’m now doing the work that I had intended all along, studying the young Americans in this city to see what the war is doing to them. Most of them had not heard a shot fired in anger until Tet. They are young, innocent, frightened, spoiled, corrupt, lonely, pathetic. Many are hooked on heroin, which bodes ill for the future of our Republic. It’s what comes of trying to fight a war with a draft army.

  The joints in which they hang out are a Dali mural of hell. You’ll see my shots when the AP sends them around. I don’t imagine Lyndon will like them very much. He didn’t like my Tet shots either, I’m sure. However, typical of that complicated man, he wouldn’t let the MPs arrest me and put me on the first plane to anywhere.

  By snooping around and listening to conversations I find that our in
telligence people knew all about Tet. They warned that there would be a huge VC and NVA assault all over the country. Apparently these warnings didn’t get to the command level. You don’t want to worry a general about things he really doesn’t want to know, do you?

  There was a big NVA assault on Khe Sanh the day before they went after Saigon and the provincial capitals, several of which they still hold. The size of that attack should have been the tip-off that they are ready to throw everything at us. Their top commanders may well be almost as dumb as ours. Apparently they expected to capture Khe Sanh and that the whole country would rise to support them.

  The Marines had little trouble turning them back up there. The country, which doesn’t much like us and is not interested in fighting their own war, doesn’t find the VC or the VNA all that attractive either.

  A Marine officer told me that the sensible thing would be to pull out of Khe Sanh, “a focking dust bowl that isn’t worth shit,” he said. “Instead we’re going to reenforce it. Westmorland and Lyndon are afraid of the comparison with Dien Bien Phu.”

  “Can you hold it?”

  “The United States Marines lose a battle to the NVA, you gotta be kidding, General. We’ll beat the focking shit out of the fockers. We’re bombing the hills around the place twenty-four hours a day. The Frenchies didn’t have anything like our air at Dien Bien Phu. They’ll leave before we do. Then when they’re gone we’ll get on our transport planes and our choppers and get the fock out of there. Another big victory that’s no better than shit.”

  The Marine brass are a lot more realistic about this place than the Army brass.

  “The tip-off,” says my friend with the salty if uncreative vocabulary, is “they’re comparing Tet to the Battle of the Bulge … Were you there, General?”

  I don’t know where he got the idea that I was a general. Maybe he was putting me on. Maybe it was the heavy bodyguard that slinks along with me these days. Lyndon apparently doesn’t want me to get shot up over here.

  “No, my duty was resisting possible attacks by the Red Army after the war.”

  “Were they any good?”

  “The Ruskies? They were worse than we were. They couldn’t have made it halfway down the road from Leipzig to Bamberg.”