Once Upon a Mulberry Field

by C. L. Hoang

  Bob smiled sympathetically but at last had to place his hands on Rusty’s shoulders to settle him down. “Can’t swab this cut unless you hold still a minute, dear boy,” he told Rusty.

  The young crew chief had cheated death and literally gotten away with a bloody scratch. He’d been hunkered down in the portside gun well of the chopper when a bullet from the ground pierced the thin aluminum fuselage, tore through the back firewall into the cargo compartment, ricocheted off the ceiling, and hit him smack in the head. It struck his helmet on the right side, smashed the earpiece, then exited to the front, leaving a trail of blood across his right temple.

  “It was like my head exploded.” Rusty shuddered. “I grabbed my brain-bucket. There was blood all over my hand. ‘I’m a fucking goner,’ was what I thought.”

  But as he recovered from the initial shock and scrambled back into position, Rusty said he realized with utter amazement that he had somehow escaped death.

  “Hot damn. Talk about a close shave.” He blew out a long breath, his shaky hand grazing the red stubble below his right temple.

  After applying a bandage over the superficial wound, Bob dismissed him with a gentle slap on the back. “You lucky son of a gun. Your tetanus shots are up to date, so you don’t even need a booster.” He laughed. “Go easy on the celebration tonight. You don’t want to wake up with a monster headache in the morning. And check in with your surgeon tomorrow, okay?”

  The only other patient needing attention was the copilot, also called the “peter pilot,” a nickname for rookies still in training. A peter pilot was customarily teamed up with a more seasoned veteran who retained command of the aircraft. Sour-faced 1st Lieutenant Barron Ashford Jr. appeared not to share the jovial mood of his captain commander, who stood next to him at the exam table, an arm draped around his shoulders, wracked with laughter.

  “Two months in country, Ashford, and you already got your ass shot into the record book,” hollered the captain. “Attaboy, Junior.”

  Beside me, the snickering gunner explained in a hushed tone. The frustrated lieutenant had been plagued with a dubious reputation. Though generally considered a decent pilot with good “air sense,” he’d always seemed to attract special wrath from the enemy. If any ship took a hit during company sorties, it would undoubtedly be Ashford’s, no matter which commander he happened to fly with at the time.

  Earlier that day, Barron Ashford and his assigned crew had run ash-and-trash to a Special Forces A-team camp in War Zone C, west of Biên-Hoà. Riding with them was Army Captain Dean Hunter, who was charged to bring back some ailing CIDG troops from the camp. Despite having no escort gunship to protect their lift chopper, the outgoing trip had been uneventful, and they’d landed without incident. The copilot had expressed hope that the return flight would turn out just as smooth, a rare experience for him―an entire mission without a single hit on his ship. But that was not to be.

  As the Huey with its full load of human cargo lifted off from the camp and crossed into the “dead man’s zone,” that dangerous airspace above treetops but still within range of Charlie’s artillery, it was greeted with a barrage of small-arms fire. Its twin rotor blades were struck and damaged on the spot, and soon the helicopter trailed smoke, or actually fuel in this case. It was no small miracle it remained airborne and managed to limp back to the Bird Cage. The crew was obviously elated to have squeaked through unmolested, but Barron Ashford Jr. looked none too pleased to be anointed the new “Magnet Ass” of his company.

  Bob did well in keeping his composure. “Say, what have we here, Lieutenant?”

  He lifted the young man’s left arm, which hung bare at his side. Ashford had removed his flak jacket and the “chicken plate,” a piece of protective armor for the pilot’s upper body, and had freed his arm from his flight suit. Shattered metal and Plexiglas had sliced through the suit’s fire-retardant fabric, and the arm was bruised with shrapnel wounds and spattered with dried blood.

  “You’re another lucky guy.” Bob nodded thoughtfully. “No deep punctures here, just lots of frags to extract. But first we have to take an x-ray to find them all. Good thing the cuts are small. They won’t require stitches.” With a conspiratorial wink, as if he’d read Barron’s mind, he added, “Don’t worry. We’ll get you back in the air in no time.”

  That almost brought a smile to the sulky young face.

  Turning to me, Bob motioned with his chin toward the back room. “This will take a while. No reason for everyone to wait around. Why don’t you check in with Dr. Hunter, see if he can use a hand with his men?”

  I stuck my head inside the door to the back room just as Dean Hunter was finishing examining his last CIDG man. The rest of them waited outside in the hallway, languishing on the floor next to their rifles. They were a weary-looking bunch, short and slight of build, almost like teenage boys, but wiry, with skin so dark they wouldn’t need face paint for camouflage. Their tiger-stripe outfits could have stood a wash many battles ago, and floppy boonie hats with the same stripe pattern shielded their bloodshot eyes. These men were the first native armed forces I’d come across since my arrival.

  “Captain Hunter? I’m Lieutenant Connors. Roger Connors, GMO with 3rd Tac.”

  No reply. I went on. “I was wondering if you need help, but I see you’re almost done.”

  Dean glanced up, motioned me to an empty chair, then returned to his patient, who was getting dressed. He gave the man short instructions in his native tongue then walked him to the door, pulling it shut after he was gone.

  “You a newbie with Bob Olsen?” Dean asked, offering me his hand.

  “Three days and counting.” I stood and accepted his iron grip. “You speak Vietnamese?”

  “The best way to communicate with them,” Dean said. “But that wasn’t Vietnamese. It’s Khmer, or Cambodian.” Catching the expression on my face, he clarified, “CIDG, Civilian Irregular Defense Group, is bankrolled by the States. Special Forces recruit them from various minority groups, Cambodians among those. We train and organize them to help in remote areas outside government control.”

  Since they weren’t part of the conventional army, Dean explained, they couldn’t be admitted to regular military hospitals. He and another US Army doctor were specifically assigned to care for the CIDG in III Corps out of the Provincial Hospital in Biên-Hoà.

  He fixed me with a steady gaze. “Not to change the subject, but you mind taking a look at my upper back? I think I got hit in my left shoulder.”

  “Holy crap.” I rushed to his side. “Why didn’t you mention it right away?”

  He raised his hand. “Slow down. It’s no biggie.”

  In his hurry to examine the men in his charge for critical wounds, Dean hadn’t bothered to remove his own flak vest or steel pot. I admonished him to sit still while I peeled off this extra gear. As his vest came off, a small shiny lump fell to the ground with a metallic clink. He reached down to retrieve it, then held it up to me between two fingers.

  “Here it is, Lieutenant. Your very first war memento.”

  The bullet had punched through the ballistic nylon layer of his jacket, drilling a perfect hole in it before lodging itself against the inner plate. He remembered being jolted by a sharp pain on his left shoulder right after Rusty had taken that ricocheted shot in his helmet. The same missile must have continued on its exit path from the helmet and struck Dean, who was crouched nearby with his back to Rusty. Even after bouncing off multiple obstacles, the slug still carried enough momentum to dent the metal plate and break his skin at the point of impact.

  “Never go anywhere without protective gear,” advised Dean while I dressed his wound. “It’s saved my ass on several occasions.”

  Then he scoffed at the irony. “My boys had no gear, yet nobody got scraped. They’re all sick as dogs, but they must be immune to VC fire.”

  The instant I finished, Dean leapt to his feet
and in one swiping motion gathered all his stuff.

  “I must get them to the hospital before dark, or we’ll risk another ambush. Did they tell you? Around here, the night belongs to Charlie.”

  The Provincial Hospital, I learned, was a small clinic constructed by the French at the turn of the century. Located off base within the city of Biên-Hoà, it had recently been expanded through USAID funds to include a basic surgical suite. A humanitarian group of Australian physicians and nurses operated the civilian wing, which was always overcrowded, while Dean and his Army colleague, both with the 5th Special Forces Group, ran the paramilitary ward to provide medical service to CIDG troops in III Corps. More often than not, these two independent but undermanned teams would cooperate and work side by side as one cohesive unit.

  As Dean and I headed back to the front room of the dispensary, followed by the straggling men in tiger-stripe uniforms, I noticed a lingering limp in his step.

  “Did you hurt your foot, Captain?”

  He shrugged. “It’s nothing. I sprained my ankle in a bad jump a couple of months ago and didn’t stay off my feet long enough for it to heal properly. But it feels fine now.”

  Bob Olsen was finishing up with Ashford when we walked in. Without taking his eyes from his task or slowing down, Bob caught Dean up on the progress of a civic project they were both involved in. Even as a wide-eyed rookie observing and learning, I recognized that the two of them made a special team. Maybe one day I, too, could become part of that team.

  There were but a few precious minutes of daylight to spare, since nightfall in the tropics arrives abruptly, as if an invisible hand suddenly reaches for a switch in the sky and turns out all the light at once. At 1900 hours it would be coal-dark on the dirt roads off base, making them dangerous to navigate no matter how short a distance.

  Dean promptly waved us good-bye, then hurried his men to a Red Cross ambulance parked outside Operations. At the far end of the helipad, the maintenance crew had cleaned up the mess and towed the damaged chopper to the repair hangar. There was no trace left of the disaster that had almost happened. Things had returned to “normal,” whatever that meant.

  Back to SOP—Standard Operating Procedure—as Bob Olsen would say.

  “Congrats, Woody.” Bob gave 2nd Lieutenant Anthony Woodward a hearty slap on the back. “Can’t get rid of you, can we? But don’t make a habit of it now, you hear?”

  “Enjoy the steaks and booze, Doc.” The “Hun” pilot, as indicated by the colorful insignias on his flight suit, appeared more than a little inebriated as he grappled for Bob’s hand, seized the wrong one, and pumped it with exuberance. “It’s a fucking dogfight, but we shall outlast it,” he yelled in Bob’s ear over the general hubbub before staggering on to a nearby table.

  After our shift, Bob and I had decided to stop at the officers’ club and unwind from the frantic afternoon, only to find the place packed with pilots and crews from one of the Tactical Fighter Squadrons. It seemed as if we’d stepped into a regular bar stateside on New Year’s Eve. The crowded room was thumping with loud music from the corner jukebox, and dense cigarette smoke had transformed the normally drab setting into the familiar watering hole in everyone’s neighborhood back home. In the middle of the room, a large tub filled with ice was regularly re-stocked with cans of beer and soda pop. By the counter, which was loaded with a rich assortment of wine and liquor bottles, famished revelers waited in line for their sizzling steaks. The crowd consumed food and alcohol with lusty relish, whooping and hollering their wild approval.

  “I’m parched as a camel,” Bob shouted. “What d’you drink?”

  “A Falstaff, please. What was that all about, with Woody?”

  Bob grabbed my beer and a Pabst Blue Ribbon for himself, and I followed him to a small table in a corner. “This,” he said, opening the can with his “church key” before passing it to me, “is Woody’s Glad-To-Be-Alive party. It’s an Air Force tradition, among pilots. It completely slipped my mind that it was tonight.”

  According to Bob, a jet fighter pilot, in the unfortunate event his machine was hit and brought down by anti-aircraft artillery, had no choice but to “punch out,” ejecting himself from the aircraft and parachuting into enemy territory. This, of course, would expose him to extreme danger. He could be shot out of the air or captured within minutes of landing unless immediately rescued by friendlies on the scene. Should he beat the odds and return safely to home base, as Woody had, the entire squadron would turn out to fete the lucky survivor.

  “See those Army guys over there?” Bob nodded to a group of four helicopter men seated at the table with Woody, who again raised his glass—a fresh one, no doubt—for another drunken toast. “They’re tonight’s guests of honor, the gunship crew that went back and plucked him out of harm’s way. Saved his life.”

  “They’re a breed apart, aren’t they, these jet jocks?” I’d heard wild rumors of their warrior’s machismo and propensity for a good time.

  “They’ve got the worst of it,” Bob replied before taking a long draft from his PBR can. Glancing again at Woody’s table, which erupted from time to time in uproarious laughter, he went on. “Most of them fly solo, often seven days a week. When they crash and burn, God forbid, it’s almost certain death or captivity. I’m not sure which is worse.” He turned to me. “Know what their standing joke is?”

  I shook my head.

  “Live fast, die young, and make a good-looking corpse.” Bob looked away. “And it ain’t pure bravado, either.”

  We fell quiet amid all the commotion. “Yellow Submarine” was playing, a favorite of the buzzed crowd, who spontaneously broke into a rollicking chorus with the Fab Four.

  Bob winked at me. “What a day for you, eh? Better get used to it. Par for the course around here.” He took another swig. “What d’you make of Dean Hunter?”

  “He’s one dedicated doctor, from what I saw,” I tried to sound neutral despite my curiosity.

  “He’s a man of action who loves what he’s doing,” said Bob. “Maybe a little too much.”

  He went on to explain that they’d met earlier through their involvement with the Medical Civic Action Program, MEDCAP for short, which provided medical aid to the civilian population. Biên-Hoà had been a sleepy hamlet under the French, but with the war, refugees uprooted from the countryside had flooded into town and created a health-care crisis for the tiny Provincial Hospital. When they heard about it, Bob and his colleagues had organized groups of weekend volunteers to come to the assistance of the Australian medical team and the two US Army doctors at the hospital. A fast friendship had formed between him and Dean through this shared endeavor.

  Bob drew one last draft and emptied his can. “Most people don’t know this,” he said. “Dean won’t talk about it, but he’s a full-fledged Green Beret. A graduate from the JFK School of Special Warfare in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. As a doctor, he wasn’t obligated to undergo this hardcore training. But he went whole hog for it before he volunteered for Việt-Nam. Without coercion, mind you. Unlike other guys.”

  Touché. I shifted discreetly in my seat.

  Himself a man to follow his own heart, Bob told me he appreciated the free spirit he encountered in his new friend. As an Army brat who’d grown up hero-worshipping his father, a much-decorated WWII veteran, Dean had devoted himself from an early age to the pursuit of two seemingly incompatible ideals: that of a true combat soldier in his father’s mold, and the role of a healer tending to the wounded and the suffering. The latter, Bob surmised, was Dean’s way of paying tribute to the selfless medics in WWII, who had more than once saved the life of his wounded father at the risk of their own. From these boyhood aspirations of heroism and compassion would emerge the future Army doctor with the green beret.

  “But this choice of lifestyle exacts its own price, as you might guess,” Bob said pensively. “It might very well have cost him a chance at h
appiness.”

  I drank up the last of my beer, waiting.

  “Ever heard of the ‘John Deere’ letter?” Bob asked.

  “‘Dear John,’ you mean?”

  “Here in country, the guys call it the John Deere letter. As in John Deere tractors, since the poor recipient must feel like he’s been crushed by one. A little military humor for you.” Bob’s voice softened. “It’s more commonplace than people would suspect. Some wives and girlfriends back home simply can’t cope with their men going off to war. The separation, the uncertainty, loneliness, and anguish . . . it’s all too much for them, so one day they just up and walk away.”

  I hesitated. “Is Dean married?”

  “Girlfriend only. She wrote him less than a month after he arrived in Việt-Nam.”

  Bob caught my reaction and nodded. “Yup. His very own John Deere.”

  My thoughts flashed to Debbie, my girlfriend. We’d agreed to wait until I finished my professional training to get married. Then unexpectedly came the “doctor draft” due to a severe shortage of medical personnel to care for nearly a half-million US servicemen on active duty in South Việt-Nam. So once more we’d postponed our wedding plans until I returned. We’d still be under thirty, both of us, with bright futures ahead. But sitting here at this late hour with an empty can of beer in my hand, one year suddenly seemed a long way off.

  “The Aussie nurses at the hospital are real sweet on him,” Bob said with a half smile. “In fact, our guy has caught the eyes of more women than you can shake a stick at. But after the girlfriend’s unceremonious brush-off, he remains a resolute loner. Burying himself in work. So they invented a nickname to tease him.”

  “Nickname?”

  Bob got up and stretched. “Fits him to a tee, sadly enough.”