For the Sake of All Living Things

by John M. Del Vecchio

  4. All corrupt village leaders will immediately be shot.

  5. All potential leaders will be led away for future liquidation.

  6. All family heads will be removed for future liquidation.

  7. One pliable elder shall be identified and used as a symbol of local leadership. He will be the conduit for rules from the Movement to the people. He will command the People.

  8. No harm will come to the people.

  “Nang, Eng, Ur, Pah...” Met Dy, the cadreman in charge of their unit, addressed each. They surrounded a precise sand-table model of Phum Siembauk and Hamlet 4. “These figures are you, these are your sampans...” Met Dy moved the small bamboo boats from the bank of a large midriver island to the west bank of the river. He moved the figures which represented each team across the floodplain and paddies to the berm which protected the hamlet. “Once you’re in position, here, you’ll wait until you hear the attack begin. Then you must move quickly.

  “Ur, Kun, you will take your team and surround this house where an evil landlord, Kim Kamel, will be asleep with his whores. He must remain inside while you burn the building. Pah, Ka, your team will ignite the next house where the evil merchant Chen Qing lives. Eng, Nang, you will enter this house, of Doctor Leu Lahn Phal. He is an especially terrible man and must avow his guilt before the representatives of the People.”

  For a week the students practiced the attack, meditated through the attack, played it out on the sand table. “It is night,” Met Dy said quietly to Nang’s team. The students were gathered beneath a large tree by the creek at the base of Pong Pay two hours before sunset. “It is very dark,” Met Dy said. The students sat, eyes closed, silent, listening. “You can hear the river. Your blood is coursing quickly, bringing you great courage. Your clubs are hammers. They are extensions of your arms. The signal arrives. See yourself rise...” Step-by-step Met Dy explained how each student would behave, how each would feel; described each obstacle and how it would be conquered, each sight and how they would react. Then they moved.

  For two days and nights the Krahom battalion crept through the jungle. They stopped often, rested, reviewed the battle plan. At first the going was quick. The trails and secret roads running south from Pong Pay were well established and unhindered. Twelve miles north, in Laos, the same road network was being heavily bombarded. On 31 October Lyndon Johnson had announced the cessation of all bombing of North Viet Nam. Within two days, American B-52 crews had been redirected—tripling their tonnage on the Ho Chi Minh supply trails in Laos. No bombs interdicted the Krahom move. From Pong Pay they moved en masse to Phum Chuntong, then Phum Kha Panang and Phum Bang Hio, to the outskirts of Phum Sath Din. The unit disintegrated into three- to seven-man student teams led by a single hardened yothea.

  Nang knew the forest here. A twinge formed in his gut, tensed about his heart. Instead of skirting, he wished to go through this village. He knew why, yet he could not recognize the reason. There was once a boy named Cahuom Samnang who lived in the village, lived there not particularly happily, as Nang recalled, for the boy was always very weak. So why wish to see this village? There were two friends there who needed a lesson, two lackeys of the Royal imperialists who had once ripped his pants from him. Nang did not focus on thoughts of Phum Sath Din, but instead meditated on his role in the coming battle. Still the twinge festered in him as he waited for it to be his team’s turn to move.

  Nang felt irritated, looked irritable. Met Dy told him to relax. “This raid will be as easy as swiping rice cakes from babies.” As Nang waited the festering ate at him from the inside, gnawed horribly. If he could have identified the feeling he might have seen it as old values and beliefs, awakened by home, kicking and clawing to resurface, to reassert themselves, to topple new beliefs, new dogmas, new gods, but each kick was countered with the new mind’s bludgeoning of less-than-subtle fear. He might have seen it as guilt for what he’d become, what he was about to do, but each clawing was countered with the new revolutionary mind’s stabbing recall of pain endured. He might have thought of his father, but his father had been murdered by Bok Roh and the yuons and that, even repressed, was painful. The team circled Phum Sath Din, dropped to the bank of the Srepok River, rose, crossed the bridge. The gnawing waned, flickered out.

  Mynah birds chattered in the trees. A light mist hung in the air. Slowly, quietly, Nang, Eng, the others followed the yothea to the edge of the treeline on the west of the large mid-Mekong island. The yothea vanished. Across the main channel they could just make out their target. Above and below them ferry docks protruded into the water. Other teams were slated to destroy them once the battle was joined; still others would destroy the docks and ferries on the far bank; and additional teams would deploy both north and south to ambush any relief forces which might come from Stung Treng or Kratie.

  An hour before the attack the teams slipped their commandeered sampans from beneath thick overhanging vegetation. The battle at Siembauk 4 was designed from the outset to be an act of terrorism in a guerrilla war. The Krahom leadership did not intend to hold the hamlet but simply to destroy it. If the maneuver also closed the Mekong to river traffic from Kratie to Stung Treng, all the better. The last of the monsoon season supplies scheduled to be shipped north would be delayed, Stung Treng would wither slightly, sag slightly, until the dry season came and heavy road traffic on Highway 13 could again begin. More important, Stung Treng and the Northeast would again be reminded of their precarious situation. The feeling, the belief of insecurity would soften future resistance.

  Oh the night of 6 November, as Americans were waking to the day they would elect Richard Milhous Nixon president of the United States, two river observation teams moved into positions approximately ten kilometers north and thirteen kilometers south of Phum Siembauk. Other squads had converged undetected east of Siambok, others west of town along the floodplain of both the Siambok and O Run rivers. That night supplies, ammunition and soldiers were infiltrated to additional staging sites. The next day the soldiers, hidden, rested, observed. By the night of the seventh, all units were in position.

  They were armed with stout clubs and bayonets. Nang waited. Observing the river and the hamlet relaxed him. The mud-yellow waters were high, fast, but not raging as they could during the height of the monsoons and at the arrival of the Himalaya melt. Nang rose, checked the narrow sampan he and Eng had taken from an isolated farm north of Sre Kraseng. They would launch above their objective, let themselves be carried down as they propelled across. He watched the far bank. The hamlet at this distance looked exactly like the sand-table model. Every house, every shed, every tree was in place. He could walk through the village blind. As night fell Nang was amazed at how light the night was, and he thought vaguely that the nights in Phum Sath Din had never been this light. But then he thought, Perhaps it is that I am now accustomed to the night. I am now blessed by the Movement. Student Orn reached them, signaled the team. Thought ceased. Rote human automation replaced reasoning. The play began. They converged on the sampan, pushed off, glided into the current. Adrenaline rushed. Below them, Ur’s team was already halfway across. Farther down current, Pah’s team was struggling with the largest of the stolen boats. As Pah’s team hit shore, the mortar team set up on the island dropped the first rounds into the tube. The thump of the round firing signaled all near units into action. The explosion a minute later signaled distant units. Three regular squads launched a diversionary rifle and grenade assault on the main town. Immediately four squads of regulars slipped into Hamlet 4 from the west. From the east Nang and three student teams charged across the floodplain into the hamlet. Smaller teams attacked the ferries and docks.

  Doctor Leu was awakened by the explosions. He had not yet lit a lantern. His family slumbered. The hamlet attackers swept in like fog. The battle sounds came from town.

  Eng dove through a side window. Nang, though the door was not locked, did not have a lock, crashed through and ripped the door from the jamb. Orn, then Nika, Chan and Buor followed
him in. Doctor Leu leaped back from the kerosene lamp he’d just lit, froze. The older man stared at the boys in sleepy amazement and fascination. They were tiny, menacing with their clubs and bayonets, but small. The incongruity of the scene puzzled him. Behind him, his wife and daughters huddled.

  Doctor Leu Lahn Phal said, “Welcome to my home.” He bowed. “May I serve you?”

  “Nang,” Eng whispered. Nang was silent, unable to remember the condemnation speech. “Nang,” Eng whispered again. Nika and Chan dropped back a step. Their fervor flickered in Nang’s hesitation and Doctor Leu’s calm command presence.

  “Meayeat,” the doctor said calmly to his wife, “tea.” Then to the boys, “You will sip tea with me. You”—he looked kindly at Nang—“are thirsty, eh? Hungry? Let me get rice bowls and tea—”

  “Halt!” Nang demanded. “You are accused of collusion”—Met Dy’s words came from his mouth an octave too high—“with imperialists. You have...”

  “My dear son,” Doctor Leu forcefully interrupted, “I am a—”

  “Silence!” Nang screamed, his voice hard, strong. The command broke the students’ growing doubt. Three lunged to the children. Eng swung, smashed his club into the side of the doctor’s knee, toppling him.

  “What...,” he groaned, “what do you wa—”

  “Silence! You cannot speak.” Nang’s words were loud, fast, full of his own fright. “Every thought, without exception, is stamped with the brand of your class. You will confess before the People. You will be severely punished. Your head must bow.” Nang bellowed at Nika, “Bring her.” Nang’s eyes bulged. His nares dilated. With his left hand he squeezed his bayonet. In his right he gripped his club. The doctor began to rise. Nang swung, backhand, an ingrained, automatic response. His club smashed Doctor Leu’s face. Nika lifted the tiniest daughter by her feet. In one motion he flung her at Nang, at his raised bayonet. Nang braced, stiff armed. At the instant the infant hit the point, Meayeat shrieking in terror, Nang withdrew and let the baby crash to the floor. From outside, cries, wails, screams mixed with barked orders. Light flashes hit walls before explosive booms reached the Leu home. To each side homes burst into flames.

  “My God!” Doctor Leu’s voice rumbled deep behind his smashed bleeding face. “What’s happening? We’ve done nothing. Who are you?”

  “Tie him,” Nang ordered. Adrenaline fired Nang’s fears. He was out of control, knew he was out of control. This scared him and the fear fired more adrenaline.

  For half an hour, trussed and shackled, Doctor Leu endured pokes, prods and blows. They smashed his teeth, then concentrated on his feet and shins while his wife and daughters were forced to watch. Then Nang ordered Meayeat to wash her husband’s face. She obeyed as Met Dy said she would. Everything moved as planned. As she squatted beside his still-bound frame, crying, gently washing away blood and picking tooth fragments from his mouth, Eng raised his club and bludgeoned her with such force her head splattered into her husband’s eyes. In his pain his pinned arms lurched for her. Then, reduced to cowering, he whimpered before the boys. Nang laughed nervously. Encouraged by Doctor Leu’s pacification Eng grabbed the man’s hair, lifted his face, smiled hysterically, fanatically, the face of a shark in feeding frenzy. Nika and Orn dragged the daughters forward. The baby had fallen into sleep, driven to escape in sleep after wailing for an hour. The three-year-old was silent, withdrawn, in shock. The eldest, perhaps six, seemed to understand and accept, accept in horror, yet accept. Nang grabbed her from Orn. He took her thin shoulders in his palms and forced them back, back, together, while Orn methodically slit her shirt from neck to navel, then her chest with his razor-sharp knife. He stroked the incision with the blade. She screamed, struggled, shook. Nang, his mind shrieking at itself, afraid of its own uncontrolled fury, increased his pressure. Doctor Leu mumbled a prayer, closed his eyes. Chan grabbed his right eyelid, stretched the skin the length of his hand, then sliced. He repeated on the left. Orn continued stroking, the blade tip now working through the cartilage between sternum and ribs, slicing her until her chest burst.

  The Khmer Krahom battalion held Siembauk Hamlet 4 from 7 to 10 November. The town of Siembauk, as if petrified, did not attempt to relieve the hamlet only three quarters of a kilometer north. Local government resistance can best be described as light. Perhaps they were not expecting the attack, perhaps those who knew it was coming had quietly evacuated. Perhaps it could be seen as a sign that by the end of 1968 local officials had given up all territory in the Northeast, but Siembauk 4 was on the west bank of the Mekong and was twenty-three kilometers south of Stung Treng. At the least, there should have been a real battle, but no battle materialized. In the first hour all resistance had been neutralized.

  Royal Cambodian forces from Stung Treng and Kratie were ambushed on the river on 8 November. They engaged enemy forces equipped with rocket-propelled grenades on the eighth and ninth, until the enemy withdrew. On 10 November the flotilla reached Siembauk, rendezvoused with an armored column from Kompong Thom and surrounded a lifeless, abandoned community. One hundred and fourteen people were found beaten to death within their homes. Seven people, the entire Kim Kamel family, escaped. No corpses of children between nine and fifteen years old were found. Presumably those children were conscripted. Also notably missing from amongst the dead were two hamlet elders of minor administrative importance. Nine enfeebled elders were wounded but not killed. They were evacuated and resettled with relatives in the town. Presumably this was a Khmer Krahom tactic designed to increase the burden on Siembauk and hasten its economic decline.

  “Perhaps he was too old,” Met Dy whispered to Met Sar. The breakdown of order disturbed both men.

  “Perhaps,” Met Sar whispered back. “Or perhaps of the wrong ethnic group, but other Jarai have worked well.” He paused, looked at the gathering of students before him and at the accused. The kosang had been in session for four hours. Met Sar and others, using the occasion as a class, had delivered long harangues: that which is rotten must be excised...soldiers must set an example of order and discipline...reactionaries must be disciplined...vigilance must be razor sharp or purity will be contaminated...

  “I think,” Met Sar’s calm whisper began again, “it is neither age nor tribal origin per se. I think our mistake was to allow the Jarai to train with a Khmer class. He should have been separated and trained at Mount Aural with other eastern Mountaineers. Removed further from his old culture he would have been less apt to regress.”

  Met Sar stood. “You have contemplated the judgment long enough,” he said. “Now it is time for sentencing. Team leaders stand and report. Student Pah.”

  “Let him attempt to escape.” Pah snickered.

  “Student Nang.”

  Nang stood ramrod straight, tall and proud. His team had been honored by the battalion of regulars. No other team had been singled out, except Ur’s for disgrace, for violating the Krahom code, for subverting the operation. Student Ur had advanced to the home of Kim Kamel moments before the attack, had woken the seven people inside and had guided them to a hiding place at the village berm. From there they had escaped while Ur’s team went through the motions of burning the house. Ur was despicable, vulgar. Nang had long since mentally abandoned him. “My team would like to be first hunters,” Nang said.

  “Student Kun,” Met Sar called.

  “We are the team he betrayed,” Kun said. He spoke softly, yet his voice was full of hate. “Let us beat him until dead.”

  “So be it.” Met Sar scowled. “Each sentence shall be carried out. Prisoner! Escape!”

  Ur glanced at Met Sar. He was not bound though he was surrounded. He glared at his classmates. His breath came hard, his body tensed like that of a bull about to charge. There was no way out except through them. For a few seconds he froze, thinking perhaps it would be best to let them beat him to death where he stood, then he exploded forward crashing into little Pah, bowling him over, fist smashing Ka, breaking through the weakest team, sprinting toward the pe
rimeter until Nang, chasing, flinging his club into Ur’s legs, upended him. Immediately Eng and Nika clubbed him, subdued him, broke his ankles with splintering blows. Ur spun his legs away, his feet flopping. He growled like an animal. Nika backed away, laughed. Ur’s eyes flashed daggers. The others surrounded him, though at a distance over which he could not strike. Nang scampered to the fore, retrieved his club. He tried to suppress his laugh, his delight. Ur locked eyes with him. Nang stared back. He felt the pressure of eyes, the look of Met Sar, of his own teammates. Eng swung from behind, breaking Ur’s left elbow. Slowly, methodically, each student approached, swung, first at Ur’s right hand, his last pathetic defense, until Ur could no longer hold the hand and arm up. Then from his feet they worked. They formed a line, each student with his ax-handle club, shouting, bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting to be next, first in line, then shouting, “Traitor!” springing forward, ax handle raised then slammed down smashing a knee or hip until the bone was pulverized and Met Sar or Met Dy indicated a new bodily zone, each boy spinning after his hit, running to the end of the line, bouncing, shouting—Ur’s body slowly transforming into a seeping sack of mush—running, THUNK, the head so mashed as to be unrecognizable.

  Then the students returned to the body. Each grabbed a handful of brain or intestine or sliced a piece of liver or heart, then smeared the bloody tissue on his face and arms. They smiled at one another, brothers in blood, bonded in deed. Nang came last. Ur’s head was scraped clean, his viscera empty. Nang removed his bayonet. At Ur’s left knee he made a deep incision, he looked to Sar and Dy for approval, then he proceeded to carve upward until he had removed the entire mashed quadriceps, the muscle wounded an age ago when Samnang and Y Bhur lost their boyhoods in the Cloud Forest above Plei Srepok.

  “From this day forward,” Met Sar announced to the gathered class, cadres, guards and yotheas, “these men shall be comrades of the Movement, brothers in the Brotherhood of the Pure.” The final rite at the Liberation School was solemn. The students, eleven to thirteen years old, were mature and grave. In three months of cleansing, instruction and indoctrination, the shy, terrified conscripts had been reborn as mets, comrades, as yotheas, soldiers, of the Khmer Krahom. If any mind still harbored the possibility of reversal, that emotion would soon be extinguished by one last ritual, a confirmation of their status as soldiers of the Movement—a barrier designed to seal the possibility forever.