For the Sake of All Living Things

by John M. Del Vecchio

  The rally was formal. Opening remarks by the Dong Nai commander were followed by briefings on the political, military and diplomatic status of the liberation effort, then by reports of specific activities by local units and urban front organizations.

  Nang’s attention wandered. Between reports he rose, excused himself, indicating he needed to urinate. The morning had dawned without rain, without mist. By nine the sun had dried exposed surfaces, the temperature had risen. Nang meandered; yet, aware of the numerous guards, he merely peered into the surrounding camp. He was surprised at the crude shelters. Compared to Bu Ntoll the camp was a slum; compared to Mount Aural it was a pigmire. He noted the soldiers, officers and dignitaries. All seemed in a state of semistarvation. One in ten seemed sickly, jaundiced, infected with malaria. He snooped further.

  Unit morale was low. In 1967, 27,178 Viet Cong soldiers deserted the Communist ranks and rallied to the government of South Viet Nam under the Open Arms, or Chieu Hoi, program. In 1968 the figure dropped to 18,171. In 1969, by November, more than forty thousand had rallied. Communist field strength in South Viet Nam and the border sanctuaries was at least seventy percent North Viet Namese. Numerous traditionally indigenous southern rebel units were manned by upwards of ninety-five percent Northern soldiers. Nearly every Viet Cong unit shared command with or was commanded by NVA officers. Few North Viet Namese soldiers had defected: 284 in 1968, 302 to November 1969.

  Nang returned to the hall. He noted the NVA officers with whom he’d arrived. The VC, he thought, must receive only half the Northern ration. Like Khmers, he thought. Opening their arms to Northern crocodiles who lure them with words and plans, who wish to devour them.

  In the hall NVA officers wore dress khaki uniforms, dignitaries wore loose tan or light gray trousers and open short-sleeve shirts. Then Bok appeared. Nang’s body turned to stone. A low chatter rippled across the audience. Bok was dressed in a white tropical suit, white shirt and narrow red tie.

  In such dress it was impossible to tell Bok’s ethnic or racial origin—he could have been Mountaineer or American Indian; Khmer, North Viet Namese, or Mongolian; Pakistani, Azerbaijani or Turkmenian. With his stature, his knowledge and his linguistic abilities he, in one man, could represent a quarter of the world’s people.

  Nang’s eyes squinted, his face hardened, dagger beams slashed through jungle air piercing his mentor’s heart. How dare he, how dare he...I am the chameleon.

  Bok’s head snapped to the beam as if directed by electronic sensors, his own beam clashing with Nang’s, attempting to blast it back into the boy’s head, two pairs of hate-seeking lasers in collision above the heads of the Dong Nai soldiers.

  “...please welcome Ba Bac.” The regimental executive officer introduced him as Number Three Uncle, a Viet Namese identity to which the weary troops could cling—could value the man in white only slightly below Bac Ho, Uncle Ho. To establish his prestige further the XO had given Bok the title of Political Affairs Officer, Extraordinary, and had explained that he was the NLF’s ambassador to the Khmer Viet Minh, an organization the soldiers knew only as a supporter of their cause.

  Humbly Bok bowed his immense frame. He spoke a formal, rhythmic Viet Namese. “In two days,” Bok Roh began, “we will fight again. In a week the general offensive will be under way. Everything, everything, must be aimed at making the Americans withdraw. That is the first priority for all Asians. In the South, in the North, in Cambodia, all who seek to strengthen our great, united solidarity must struggle ceaselessly to renew their moral commitment during our country’s most difficult period.

  “We fight on four fronts. The military, the political, the diplomatic and the domestic front in the United States...”

  Nang turned to the soldier beside him. The man, like Nang, was less wrapped in Number Three Uncle’s words than were the mass of soldiers surrounding them.

  “...every military clash has consequences far beyond its immediate and apparent outcome...”

  The soldier glanced at Nang. “You’re new?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” Nang answered.

  “...In the integrated whole, every act, every propaganda appeal, assists our cause. Each battle is a psychological event. Each negotiation strengthens our battlefield position...”

  “You’re very young.”

  “Not so young.”

  “...danh va dam, dam va danh...” (Fighting is talking, talking is fighting.)

  “We’ll talk later.”

  “A little.”

  “...Your persistent military actions are impacting on America’s perseverance. I want to tell you what else is happening to positively affect your strong efforts. This past month, Premier Pham Van Dong signed new agreements with China and the Soviet Union guaranteeing an unceasing flow of food, arms and ammunition. This past month American protestors demonstrated their great wish for peace in a moratorium march on Washington. Within a week, Richard Nixon is expected to propose a unilateral, a leopard-spot [units-in-place] ceasefire. The United States has withdrawn twenty of every one hundred combat soldiers. The nguy [puppet] army pales like a man who has lost one fifth of his blood...”

  “I’ve not seen Number Three Uncle before, have you?”

  “I know him, a little.”

  “I’m Truong Cao Kiet,” the soldier whispered. “I too am new here.”

  Nang did not turn to look at the soldier but viewed him intensely from the corner of his eye. He did not trust this man, did not believe this was his name. Yet, with his attention split, he made an error, one he recognized as the words slipped from his lips. “They call me Hai Hoa Binh,” he said, giving an obvious code name which would indicate to the soldier that he, Nang, was not simply a soldier but someone whose identity must be masked.

  “...when the American president announces the withdrawal of a unit he tells his people it is a signal to us, a show of their willingness to negotiate. In reality, Mr. Nixon is placating U.S. public opinion...”

  “We’ll talk later,” Truong Cao Kiet said.

  “Perhaps,” Nang said. Suddenly he felt like the boy he actually was. He could not think of a way to extricate himself from suspicion without raising even more. He closed his mouth, concentrated on Bok Roh.

  “...We’ll hit and run. We’ll talk ceasefire but never stop until we’ve unified the nation. As we continue the armed struggle in the countryside, our counterparts redouble their political struggle in the urban centers. In Cambodia our partners solidify their role in aiding our just cause. Our successes increase their power. Their power feeds our successes...”

  To Nang, as Bok Roh spoke he lost his magic. He became another politician, a lecturer babbling without might. Soon, Nang thought, soon, I will leave this miserable country. When his attention returned to the words spoken he was surprised to find Bok lecturing in terms of Marxist philosophy. The VC, unlike the NVA, were seldom exposed to straight political ideology. To them their objective was to deliver the country from foreign domination and the oppression of the Thieu regime.

  “...through these disguised organizations we can induce the masses to respond to our struggle slogans. Through them we will rally the masses, step-by-step, in accord with the directions of the revolution. We will renew our effort to bring about the general uprising...”

  You yuon-loving fool, Nang thought. You know this talk is the work of a dull Northern functionary. Look at these fools. Why are soldiers dumb? He knows his words are just so much low wind.

  “...In two days we shall roll back the Saigon lackey pacification program by striking the Chieu Hoi centers and the villages erected to house traitors. In a week, we’ll attack American weak points. Everything must be done to make the Americans withdraw...”

  On the harried trip back to Bu Ntoll Nang whispered to Bok, “Why do you serve the Northerners?”

  Bok eyed his young charge. The question was idolatrous. “The Northerners fight for all third-world people,” Bok Roh said coolly in Viet Namese. “Their victory is inevitable because the
ir cause is just.”

  “I spoke with Truong Cao Kiet. He was very worried and very unsure.”

  “He is a nguy agent. We know him. He’ll be eliminated during the offensive.”

  “Kiet!?”

  “Le. Tran Van Le. That’s his name. You shouldn’t listen to men like that.”

  “Uncle, he...he...he seemed to have so much hate for Americans.”

  “I don’t hate them.” The conversation irritated Bok Roh and he didn’t hide his anger. “Le hates for show,” Bok said. He put his hand on Nang’s knee as a father might a small son. “I feel sorry at American deaths. They die young because of the Washington governing clique.”

  “You feel...! They kill without thought,” Nang retorted.

  “Their people mourn for the Viet Namese people. Americans carry a great burden. But their government...I’m indignant at the losses, the destruction caused by America’s war machine. They have their army on our land. There’s not a single Viet Namese soldier on American soil. Ah, Khat Doh, you must learn to read as well as to speak.”

  “You’ve taught me to read.”

  “No. I taught you to recognize printed words. Now you must learn to read...to expand your thoughts...to know what happens each day.”

  “The Northerners forbid soldiers to read anything but what they provide. It’s even forbidden to listen to any radio but Hanoi Radio.”

  “We’re not Northerners,” Bok said in Jarai. “We can get around that. I can tell you what President Nixon says in his speech. I can tell you if he promises strong measures, if the antiwar movement presses him with strong measures.”

  “All our fighting does, eh?”

  “That’s all you know because that’s all you’ve been told. I can get you newspapers.”

  “Then why do you serve them?” Nang persisted.

  Bok eyed him sharply. Should the question lead to a kiem thao, a criticism/self-criticism session? “I am devoted to peace. Real peace. Real freedom.” Bok paused. Nang’s eyes glazed with disbelief. “I fight to the end,” Bok continued more powerfully. “Viet Nam is indivisible. Seventeen million Northern compatriots live with tightened belts to help us defeat the invaders. It’s our duty to the Fatherland. Armed dau tranh, armed struggle, for the revolution is our supreme duty.”

  Nang beamed as if a religious truth had been revealed to him, but inside he thought, Bok Roh, you believe your own stupid propaganda. “Do you welcome,” Nang asked sheepishly, knowing he was baiting his mentor, “the North’s annexation of the South?”

  Bok slammed his fist into his open palm. His nares flared, his mouth curled. “Premier Pham Van Dong calls that a ‘stupid and criminal idea.’ He has stated, ‘The South will have its own policy.’ And there will be a policy for Mountaineers.”

  “Do you welcome violence against villages which do not support either North or South?”

  “There are times when violence is necessary. Violence which advances our political cause is imperative.”

  “Then, when we attack a village, it is imperative, yes? For political reasons?”

  “There’s a ruup areak in Phuiri Sath Nan,” Sam said.

  Chhuon nodded. The two men were in the treeline at the village edge overlooking the paddies. The rice harvest had just begun, and their stores were already a quarter full. In the moonlight the dry paddy stubble gleamed like gold. “I had a dream the night before...”

  “You’ve told me,” Sam said sadly.

  “Is he competent?” Chhuon asked.

  “The medium?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I wish to know if my son’s spirit is at peace. If this medium can contact him, I’ll be ready to sit in the corner with the ancestors.”

  “Ssshh!” Sam put his hand on Chhuon’s arm. He motioned into the paddies.

  Chhuon stared. An entire armed platoon was moving noiselessly toward them, “quick.”

  The men, staying in their squats, spun, slithered into the shadows, then ran through alleys and streets rapping out the alert on doors and walls.

  For months, ever since Norodom Sihanouk had seriously ordered his army to engage the NVA and halt the border erosion, military units had circled or passed through Phum Sath Din. At First they had been Royal forces on their way east—ragtag outfits dragging cannons and their families, camping on the road, twice passing through the middle of Phum Sath Din, twice shelling areas northeast of the village with antiquated howitzers set up in Chhuon’s paddies. Then units and direction changed, NVA heading west—crack infantry units carried by truck and escorted by armor giving the village wide berth on their way to reinforce a buildup farther south—or Khmer Viet Minh units of Hanoi-trained hardcore Khmer cadres and a growing mix of volunteers and conscripts, Khmers, Mountaineers and Chams.

  “wake!” Chhuon ordered his family. His breath came hard and fast, “wake,” he hissed, shook his wife, Sok, then his mother and finally Peou, his last born, “quickly, to the shelter.”

  “I’ll sleep on my mat,” Chhuon’s mother said calmly, with the dignity of age when death is not feared.

  Chhuon looked briefly at the old woman, “they’re coming. this time...they won’t go by...they’re entering now.”

  “And what would they want with this old woman?” As she spoke Sok and Peou rolled up their sleeping mats. “Better I stay and greet them,” the old woman said. “Better they find a house with someone than with no one.”

  Chhuon kissed his mother. He turned to the altar. Already many of the ancestral mementos had been removed, hidden, buried in the orchard. He grabbed the bowl of rice he still filled daily for Samnang. He raced to the door, knees, pains unheeded, jumped down the steps and joined Sok and Peou as they skittered like mice through a hole behind the oven, then down into the tight, newly dug family bunker.

  Peou slept on Sok’s lap. Sok dozed sporadically, leaning against the cool hard earth, afraid to change positions, to set a mat behind her, afraid to wake Peou. Chhuon sat on his hams for hours, facing the covered hole, listening intently, staring like a raccoon trapped in a tree hollow by barking dogs. Yet there was no barking. Only silent darkness. Silence for hours.

  In the morning Sam’s wife, Ry, sat in the central room crying. “They took them,” she wailed. “Took them both. They’ve taken six.”

  Chhuon’s hands squeezed tight but hung by his side—meaty, ineffective mallets.

  “All young.” Ry rocked back and forth. “Except Sam. But he’s strong. And Mama! Why would they take an old woman?”

  Chhuon paced in sorrow, in grief, in anger. “Why?!” he growled through gritted teeth. “Why Sam? Why Moeun? And who? Who are they?” He brushed a hand through his hair. His body tensed, quaked in anger, in grief, in guilt for again not having fought but for having hidden, in guilt for not being taken, for not even knowing who did the taking, for being left to survive, again, survive now without his last consolation.

  For months Phum Sath Din had been filling with known and unknown families and workers, each claiming to be, most being, peasants from outlying isolated farms seeking the security of the village, pushed and prodded from behind by military forces, for tactical military and political reasons they neither knew nor understood. Within days of Sam’s disappearance the influx blossomed, swelling the village to over a thousand inhabitants. Some families found vacant homes left by residents who had fled south or west months earlier. When all the houses were filled, the new families built makeshift abodes of bamboo, branches, thatch, built them without order about the old symmetrical quadrants of Phum Sath Din, built them touching one to the next, indeed the poorest built being lean-tos against the walls of the willing neighbor.

  In the market Chhuon heard the voices of the new-people but he did not talk with them. Their words confused him, sapped him further of resolve. “When we’re finally liberated,” the voices repeated again and again, “everything will be better.”

  Or, “The Royal troops attacked us, shelled our farm because we sel
l to the Viets. I hope they don’t attack here.” “Why should they attack here, Brother? We’re all Khmers.” “Why should they have attacked my farm?” “Don’t they attack only when the NVA is there? Attack to keep the yuons from destroying villages?” “It’s Royal troops that destroyed my village.” “The monk here, he says we should assist the Royals to save the country. I don’t trust him.” “Maha Nyanananda is a very holy man, but...he’s old. He’s not a military man.” “I’ll tell you this, I’m against the NVA and the Royals.”

  Three weeks after Sam disappeared, Chhuon found an ally amongst the newcomers.

  “Honored Professor Mister Cahuom,” a young man addressed Chhuon in the most formal fashion. “Maybe you remember me, Uncle. You assisted my father many times with seed and advice. Our farm’s been ruined and my mother killed.”

  Chhuon looked into the young man’s face. He did not recognize him.

  “Hang Tung.” The young man bowed. “We lived beyond Phum Sath Nan.”

  “Your father then is Hang Hak?”

  “Yes. He’s a year with the ancestors.”

  “Why didn’t you seek shelter in Sath Nan? You’ve relatives there.”

  “They’ve all gone. It’s a hard village now. Here the people are more compassionate.”

  For a week Hang Tung cultivated Chhuon’s friendship. For a week he lamented to Chhuon about the rumors of pending Royal troop attack on Phum Sath Din. And for a week Chhuon assisted, advised and consoled his new friend who spoke about awakening the people to all threats. One evening Hang Tung said to Chhuon, “Tonight I’m going to set a trip wire and flare on the west approach to town. We’ll know by the light if Royal troops are going to storm through. Will you come with me?”

  “I’ll come,” Chhuon answered. “But I place no value in this forecast.”

  “Uncle.” Tung changed his tone.

  “Um.”