The Cascading, Book II: Fellow Girl

by CW Ullman

  The mountain tribes were caught in the middle of it all. If the Viet Cong was not terrorizing the Montagnards and the 320A was not burning their villages down, then the South Vietnamese National Police hauled them off to military bases where “interrogations” were nothing less than torture. The tribes also endured U.S. forces burning their villages down if weapon caches were found. Colonel Cin interceded with the tribes encouraging them to co-operate with the Americans, not to keep the Americans from burning their villages, but because Colonel Cin and many in the mountain tribes knew something that was suspected throughout Southeast Asia. The United States was not the imperialist power to be feared, as much as the threat of the Ho Chi Minh government and the People’s Army of North Vietnam.

  While Ho Chi Minh was portrayed as grandfatherly and patrician, his true nature was closure to Joseph Stalin. His true motive was to subjugate the entire Southeast Asian sub-continent. This was confirmed once the Americans left and there was no military presence to resist the rampage of his war machine. Ho Chi Minh captured South Vietnam, then gave aid to the communists in Cambodia and Laos to topple their governments. His armies also made forays into Thailand and engaged in cross-border skirmishes with their neighbor to the north, Communist China.

  While America thought it was fighting the spread of communism in Vietnam, it was actually holding Ho Chi Minh’s power in check.

  In his attempt to gain hegemony over Southeast Asia, Ho Chi Minh slaughtered millions of people in Vietnam, Laos, but mostly in Cambodia. Whether by design or effect, the largest percentage of killings was amongst Native Southeast Asians: the Montagnards in Vietnam, the Cham in Cambodia, and the Lua in Laos, to name a few. This ethnic cleansing would largely go unnoticed by the rest of the world. While the world heard about the killings of the upper classes in these countries, the majority of deaths happened amongst the poorest citizens.

  The reason Colonel Cin wanted the South to win the war against the North was that the treatment of the Montagnards by Americans was more humane. They incorporated the Montagnards in their fighting units and supported them militarily if they were in trouble. There had been mistrust amongst the native Vietnamese and the Asian Vietnamese. However, with the Americans in Vietnam, the Montagnards were treated differently by the Vietnamese. Cin thought the good treatment would persist if the South had beaten the North and the Americans were permanently there.

  But the Americans left, the South lost to the North, and the North Vietnamese People’s Army-320A wanted to settle scores with the American friendly Montagnards. Colonel Cin led many of his people to Thailand who wanted to escape. The ones who wanted to wage battle against the communists stayed in their ancestral country and fought the 320A in quick hit-and-run strikes. Colonel Cin was a natural to lead these strikes

  At sixteen, Cin lied to get around the age requirement for military service so he could join the army and fight the communists. He quickly rose through the enlisted ranks, distinguishing himself in battle and command. After his commander was killed during combat, Cin was awarded a battlefield commission and led a company of men into a fierce conflict, where they routed a larger NVA expeditionary force with minimal casualties inflicted upon his unit. He became the youngest officer to receive the rank of colonel in July 1974 and took command of a district that included the Central Highlands. He was battling the 320A in March of 1975 when the government in Saigon pulled support out of the region, leaving him and his men to fend for themselves. With supplies running low and his men fighting on just their wits, he was able to beat back the 320A. When Hanoi heard about Cin’s victories, they sent more soldiers and supplies to battle him, but his guerilla strategies continued to inflict considerable damage to the enemy while sparing the lives of his men.

  Compared to the North Vietnam Army, the Khmer Rouge was rag-tag. The Khmer Rouge excelled at rounding up defenseless civilians and killing them, but were unsuccessful when confronted by battle hardened, disciplined soldiers like Cin’s warriors. Most of the time, Cin and his men were able to sneak up on them, hold them at gunpoint, take their weapons, and tell them “to go home to your mamas.” But every now and then, Cin’s troops encountered too many and had to fight it out. In these battles, Cin’s men actually did little fighting; they took cover behind trees, ditches, and rock walls while the Khmer Rouge fired their guns on automatic. The colonel’s men would wait thirty seconds after the last shot was fired, then charge at the ammo less gang who would drop their weapons and run.

  Once Thanh joked to Cin, “Do those guys know there’s a semi-automatic switch?”

  But, the incident in the forest added to the colonel’s concerns. That was the biggest Khmer Rouge force he had seen so far, and if other skiffs like Pok’s were delivering weapons and ammo in the same numbers, he figured the Hanoi government was now arming them.

  He was leading his men back into Vietnam where there were a series of tunnels and caves dug during the French-Indochina war in the 1950s. When he and Thanh were boys in the mountains, they played in these caves that had remained undiscovered throughout the entire conflict of the Vietnam War of the 1960s and 70s. He wanted to make the caves his base of operations. He hoped they were still unknown.

  As Colonel Cin watched the girl’s fascination with the horse, he was reminded of the first time he rode. His father worked on the estate of a shipping magnate who thought owning horses was a symbol of success; however he did not really enjoy them. He liked to brag about how many horses he stabled and that his daughter was an equestrian, but he never spent time with the animals. Cin and Thanh helped his father groom, walk the horses, and muck out the stalls. When no one was around, Cin would jump on one of the horses and ride bareback, gripping the horse’s mane like reigns. For a boy of seven it was pure joy to gallop atop an eleven-hundred-pound animal, lean into the horse’s bobbing neck, hear the hooves beat the ground, listen to the horse’s hard breathing, and feel the expanding ribcage.

  That love of horses eventually propelled Cin to request that the army sanction a small cavalry platoon. He said horses were better in the hills then tanks, jeeps, or troops on foot. The army let him have horses for a year and was about to shut it down when his platoon captured an NVA squad. The army extended the cavalry’s mission and put it with a Central Highland’s brigade, where Cin was the commanding officer. That put him in a jeep or helicopter more often than on a horse’s back.

  He went back to the horse unit when the government stopped supporting the mission to resist the communists. With the government’s retreat to Saigon, the Central Highlands were left unprotected. Some Montagnards left for Cambodia, Laos and others went to Thailand. Those who tried to make it to Thailand were usually caught and killed by the Khmer Rouge. Others stayed hidden in the mountains or went into caves.

  After four days of marching and encountering no enemy, they found the caves they had been seeking to be empty. There were four entrances, one of them large enough to bring a horse through. Once inside, the tunnels led to three large areas that could hold up to two hundred people. A nearby stream provided water and nearby villages provided food and other essentials.

  His men were glad to be back in this area, because most of them had grown up in these mountains. Within these mountains, the South Anamite Mountain Range, were contiguous plateaus that covered hundreds of square miles. It was verdant eminences with many water falls, lakes, rivers, and streams. When the colonel was a young boy his father described a place called the Garden of Eden and to Cin it sounded like the plateaus in the South Anamite Mountains. The air was different than anywhere he had ever been and the flowers and foliage seemed more brilliant. When he trained in America with the U.S. Army Rangers he saw the hills of Georgia, the Smokey Mountains, and the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, but he thought none could compare to the South Anamites. He had said to himself, “This is where I want to die, because I can’t imagine heaven being better.”

  Thanh and Cin thought it best to send lookouts into the woods to take up positions as Long Ra
nge Reconnaissance Patrols, a strategy learned from the Americans. One or two man teams would climb to the top of trees and report on military activity in the area. Thanh was the best LRRP they had. During one of his missions he could not leave his perch for five days because an entire company of NVA set up camp at the base of his tree. He went undetected because he did nothing but breathe, drink water, and silently relieve himself.

  After Cin situated everyone and found a suitable area for Elvis, Long, and the horse, My Ling approached Cin to talk about the girls.

  “I know you want to talk about the girls,” Cin chimed in first. “But before you do, let me explain. There is a woman who rescues girls from prostitution, because when she was young, she was forced into that life. Her name is Tuyen (Angel) Mam. You, the girls, and I are going to go there so you can meet her. If they don’t like it, we’ll try something else.”

  “Promise?” My Ling inquired.

  “Yes, I promise,” Colonel Cin said and My Ling held his face so he would look into her eyes.

  My Ling stated, “I promised the girls I would not abandon them and would take them to their relatives. They have been beaten, scared, and had men forced on them. If you leave us there against our will, we’ll escape and try to find their relatives on our own. We’ll probably get killed doing that.”

  “Really, Tiger Girl? You’re going to make me feel guilty?” Cin laughed. When My Ling did not find humor in his reply, he continued more seriously. “These girls are only staying there if they want to.”

  In the days that followed, Colonel Cin heard from his lookouts that there was little or no NVA activity in their mountain lair. Most of the armies from North Vietnam were preoccupied exerting control over the populations in Saigon and other large cities. The colonel figured that the NVA would eventually turn their attention back to the mountains, but thought this lull would afford him the chance to take the girls to Tuyen Mam.

  Cin, My Ling, Dao, Di.u, and Huyen talked about the journey and its risks. My Ling was not surprised that Huyen did not want to leave Bi’ch, but she was stunned when the girls wavered from leaving the protection of Colonel Cin’s army.

  “Girls, we have been very lucky up until now,” Colonel Cin spoke with the look that always chilled My Ling. “When we ran into the Khmer Rouge outside of Pok’s compound, we were outnumbered three, maybe even four to one.”

  Di.u did not understand, “What’s four to one?”

  “It means there were four hundred of them and only one hundred of us. If the baboons had not attacked the Khmer Rouge in the forest, they could have overrun – they could have killed us. In the coming months, we are going to be involved in more operations –, “ again he saw the confused look on their faces and corrected himself “– battles. When we fight, my company of men may not be able to protect you. Or, they may get killed trying to protect you . Do you want that to happen?”

  In unison, the girls shook their heads.

  “I didn’t think so,” he sighed.

  “You could give us guns and we could protect ourselves. We got Elvis, too,” Di.u naively offered as Cin suppressed a smile.

  “Normally, a four-hundred-pound tiger would give you the edge in a fight, but not in open firefights.” Drawn by the deep timbre in the colonel’s voice, Elvis strolled over to the group and lay down next to the colonel, resting his head in Cin’s lap. Cin stroked the tiger’s neck and head.

  My Ling interrupted to speak to the girls, “If we don’t like it there, we don’t have to stay.”

  The girls all looked at the colonel who nodded.

  “Promise?” Di.u asked.

  Cin nodded, sighed, and tried not to smile.

  “We’re going to leave tomorrow morning, so I want you to get a good night’s sleep; we’ll head out at first light,” Cin finished.

  When the morning arrived the girls, minus Huyen, went to all the soldiers and hugged them goodbye. The girls were crying and most of the men had tears in their eyes. The men tried to soothe the girls by assuring them they would meet again.

  The colonel, the sisters with Huyen on the horse, and five men took off into the forest humming “Adoration,” while My Ling, slinging an M16, walked along side Elvis who carried Long on his back.

  Cin had decided not to venture too close to the Cambodian border after his lookouts reported the Khmer Rouge were staging cross-border raids into Vietnam. Hiking over mountain passes and forging streams, My Ling looked back periodically. Her father had taught her to pause every few hundred yards when she hiked to memorize landmarks and topical features, so she would be able to find her way back. She wanted to remember how to return to Cin’s caves.

  During the journey, Cin asked how My Ling ended up at Pok’s. She told him the entire story again and vowed that some day she would find the sailor and kill him. She showed Cin the metal identification tags with his name on them.

  “Did you know there were over four thousand Vietnamese refuges on the Enterprise?” Cin asked. He had learned this when his small cadre had stayed briefly in Thailand.

  “So?” My Ling was miffed at his defense of the sailor and Americans.

  “Didn’t you tell me they rescued you?” Cin inquired.

  “Yes, but they threw me back in the ocean,” exasperated that he did not understand.

  “Describe exactly what happened,” he asked.

  She told of the ship’s ordeal in detail, but ended in a monotone, saying that once onboard a sailor put a blanket on her, took it off, strapped her into a life preserver and threw her back in the water.

  “Tiger Girl, if he wanted you to drown, why would he strap you into a life jacket?” He let the question hang in the air.

  She was angry that he did not take her side. How could he empathize with the sailor and excuse what he did? She was a little girl who needed protection. She thought because Cin was a military man, he was heartless and did not understand. However, Cin left a small doubt in her mind and this made her angrier. They did not talk much for the rest of the trip. The orphanage was about forty miles away and Cin figured it should take about three days if they did not encounter any problems.

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  When they arrived, a day later than planned, Tuyen Mam received them with warm hugs. Her genial, maternal nature immediately won over the sisters and My Ling.

  The orphanage was nestled in a group of mountains that straddled the Cambodian and Vietnam borders, about a half mile from Highway 14C. Tuyen Mam had chosen to build her second orphanage in this location because it was far enough up in the mountains and off the beaten path that very few people would hazard the journey. It was an orphanage in name only, because Tuyen Mam never adopted out any of the children. She named it The Lotus Blossom and it served as a safe haven for twenty-five girls who had been sold off by families desperate for money. Tuyen Mam bought or stole the girls out of prostitution. Some had been as young as four when they had been rescued. At the home where the girls were originally housed, their pimps had returned and stolen them back. Now, in the safety of the mountains, she lost none of her girls. Many grew into their teens at the Lotus Blossom and stayed to help care for the new arrivals. Tuyen Mam knew the abuses the girls had endured, because at the age of three her destitute family had given her to a man who promised to pay for her schooling. Instead, he made her work for him and when she was six, he put her out for sex. She escaped at fourteen and eventually established her first sanctuary.

  On occasion, Colonel Cin helped her rescue girls and provided protection for the home, but the sanctuary was now falling on hard times. Basic necessities had been in short supply since the Americans had started to slowly withdraw from South Vietnam in January 1974.

  Some of the U.S. military units that had been in Tuyen Mam’s province since the beginning of the conflict, as far back as 1966, had been providing informal aid to the home. When one of the U.S. generals found out about the Lotus Blossom, he periodically helicoptered in food. Some of the American ground units had written letters home and asked r
elatives and friends to send clothing and books for schooling. When some of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers heard about the home they “requisitioned” generators to provide electricity for the huts. Word spread throughout American units in the area and stoves, pots and pans, latrines, bed cots, and even fatigues would appear. For one year, all the girls were clothed in men’s baggy military clothing. Medical units made trips to the home to provide immunization and mosquito netting. This support disappeared when the Americans left.

  Tuyen Man had developed relationships with some American churches which sent money and clothing, but once the North Vietnamese forces invaded the South, those shipments never made it through.

  With the help of some local farmers, the Lotus Blossom began growing its own crops, but it no longer had fuel for its generators or clothing for the girls. Its last champion was Colonel Cin who brought supplies and clothes whenever possible. But even in reduced circumstances the Lotus Blossom provided freedom from fear, allowing the girls to flourish. Care and love negated its material shortcomings. While lacking many essentials, the girls never felt poor.

  Though the Lotus Blossom was loving and safe, My Ling did not want to stay there long. She did not feel the need to be cared for and wanted to find her parents. She planned to stay for a while and help the girls acclimate, until she had a conversation with Dao.

  “You like the colonel, don’t you?” Dao kidded.

  “Don’t be silly,” My Ling chided.

  “You do, My Ling, I can tell,” she teased.

  My Ling played along, “Okay, how can you tell?”

  “Your face changes whenever you’re around him. Your eyes get wider and you act…more…girlie,” Dao smiled.

  “The colonel is a man to be respected. He has been very good to us. That’s all you’re seeing,” My Ling snipped.