by C. L. Hoang
I watched until he disappeared out the front door. Try as I did, I couldn’t stop my thoughts from drifting to Nancy Olsen and baby Ricky, all alone in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes with no war hero coming home to them.
On April 4, 1968, the news struck like a rocket from the sky, stunning a nation already in turmoil and deeply divided over the war efforts: Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee. The shock was even more staggering as the public hadn’t recovered from President John F. Kennedy’s assassination five years earlier.
The country reacted with a convulsion of violent riots in the cities as mourners took to the streets to vent their grief and anger. Racial tension, already heightened, erupted like wildfire all across America. A new season of discontent was in full swing.
Watching in awe those scenes of civil unrest replayed day after day on the TV screen at the club, I realized an age of Mulberry Sea was indeed dawning—even in our sweet homeland clear across the ocean.
A week before we were expected back at Mme Yvonne’s, Dean showed up at my office door accompanied by someone in a tiger-stripe floppy field hat. Ever since he’d moved back on base with his buddies in the 145th CAB for better security, we’d been getting together regularly, at least once a week when he wasn’t called away.
“Look who I brought over to see you,” Dean announced as he strode in.
“Hey, Roge. How goes it, old man?” said a familiar voice behind him.
I jumped and dashed out to greet Dick Hayashi, who had stepped forward. He appeared thinner, a bit pale from having been laid up in bed the past month, but otherwise his same old easy-going self except for the striped boonie hat that had thrown me off initially.
“You a new member of Special Forces now?” I asked Dick, pointing at the hat. “Give me a minute to finish this last report, then we’ll go get some chow next door. Best cheeseburger in III Corps. Ask Dean here.”
Fifteen minutes later, we all sat at a table in a corner of the officers’ club, bottles of beer and plates of cheeseburgers and french fries in front of us, while the Monkees crooned “Daydream Believer” from the jukebox. Dick leaned back and started to chain-smoke from a half-empty pack of Red Pall Mall at his fingertips, ignoring his food and drink.
“Can’t make it to the city this weekend with you, kiddo, much as I want to,” Dean began, in between mouthfuls. “I’m filling in for a colleague on R&R and running deliveries to Mount Sam in Châu-Đốc, on the Cambodian border.” Then with a chuckle, “First time I get to play postman, paymaster, and medicine man, all at once.”
Seeming to feel my gaze on him, Dick turned to me. “I’ll be tagging along with Dean. I want to do an in-depth piece on the villagers in that neck of the woods. Find out how precarious their lives were under Charlie’s oppression, and how much has changed after the SF guys arrived and trained them to fend for themselves.” He forestalled my questions by raising his bottle. “Don’t worry. The doc gave me a clean bill of health—about time, for damn sure. I’ve been itching to get back on the road since my first day at 3rd Field.”
“What’s the big hurry?” I suggested. “Hang around town awhile longer, until you get your full strength back. Why don’t you come with me this weekend to Mme Yvonne’s?”
I must have touched a raw nerve, for he glared at me.
“What’s the big hurry? Innocent victims are being tortured to death by fucking Việt-Cộng every day—good, decent people like Vivienne and Elise’s father. Yet nobody back home ever hears of them, let alone gives a shit. When was the last time you came across a news report that shed light on these barbaric crimes? Or have they been largely overlooked in favor of sexier stories? Stories that put in doubt our ability to win this war outright, or bring into question our moral standing vis-à-vis the conduct of war. It boggles my mind that my fellow journalists have focused their scrutiny almost exclusively on the US and its Allies, hardly ever on the other side and what nasty stuff they’ve been up to. The coverage is so freaking lopsided you’d think we’re rooting against the home team. That just ain’t right, man.”
He paused and downed his first swig of beer, slopping some over his shirtfront as his hand still shook from the outburst.
Dean and I exchanged glances in startled silence.
After a while, Dick removed his fogged-up glasses then covered his face with his hands in utter weariness. “I wish to lend my voice to all those hapless victims so the world can hear their stories, you know?” he said, barely stirring from his slumped posture. “All the injustice and cruelty they suffered at the hands of the Việt-Cộng must be exposed, so people don’t lose sight of the main reason we’re here in the first place.”
He looked up at Dean and me with bloodshot eyes and a twisted, forlorn smile.
“It’s easy to get caught up in the politics and passions of the moment, but simple-minded me continues to believe it’s our American values and duty to assist the downtrodden whenever we can. If we don’t, who the hell will? So damn few in this crazed world have the backbone to stand up against evil anymore.”
I felt hot in my face and neck, shamed but deeply moved by Dick’s sincere passion. Such philanthropic idealism, from a kid who’d spent the first years of his life under the scorching sun of Manzanar. Perhaps, as pointed out by none other than Vivienne, those very circumstances had endowed him with a keen sense of empathy for the underdog, and the tragic events of recent months had only sharpened it. As the music died down at the old jukebox, it crossed my mind that the daydream believers among us were those with the heaviest crosses to bear.
“What’s in the plan for you, after Châu-Đốc?” I asked quietly.
Dick lit up another cigarette before answering. “I’m still working on my boss to let me head north to Huế next. The city is one giant tomb in the Tết aftermath, from what I hear. So many horrendous stories screaming to be told, yet nobody in the press pays attention. I suppose they’re too commonplace to be considered worth writing about.” He shook his head and sighed. “Mme Yvonne gave me Elise’s contact info, so I’ll be sure and look her up once I get there.”
“You’ve been to see Mme Yvonne?”
“We spoke on the phone.” He looked away, blinking back a new tide of emotions. “Don’t know if I can set foot there again . . .”
Reaching for his beer, he turned back to Dean. “Any message for Elise?”
There was no immediate reaction from Dean, who was contemplating his empty bottle.
“What’s the point?” he finally said, with a shrug. “She’s back with her family in Huế, and I’ll be shipping out by year-end anyway. It was probably best things worked out the way they did. No messy good-bye. No surprise breakup to brace for.”
Then scoffing, he added, “At least we’ll always have Sài-Gòn, as Bogie might say.”
I could feel Dick hesitating, and then he spoke, his voice measured, yet earnest and full of anguish. “I can’t tell you how often I’ve wished for one last good-bye with Vivienne, even if only in a dream. But second chances are just that, mere wishful thinking. So take this for what it’s worth: you’ve got to seize the moment before it passes you by forever, or like me, you’ll live to regret it every single day.” He gave a long exhale and slammed his bottle down. “Enough said already. I’m the last authority on such matters. Is it time we get going, Captain?”
Dean had stood. Dick and I rose in turn, and we proceeded to the door. Outside, the air felt warm and muggy from an earlier thundershower that had coalesced the swirling red dirt into steamy mud puddles. Dick fished something from his pocket, handed it to me.
“Here, Roge, your own key to my apartment,” he said. “So you don’t have to bother my Corsican buddy each time. Do me a favor. Look in on it when you’re in the city. I’ve no idea how long I’ll be gone this time. But I’ll be in touch.”
We shook hands. I waved at Dean, who winked back wi
th a tip of his invisible hat. As they trudged off, I had the feeling a gate had just come down behind us, sealing off a happier phase in our lives, relegating it to the graveyard of memories. Just as randomly as war had thrown us together, an unlikely group of friends from such disparate backgrounds, so had it begun to wreak its wrath and pull us apart, crushing hopes and dreams, breaking hearts in the process. First Bob, then Vivienne, and then Elise; now Dick, and even Dean in all likelihood, would be missing from future gatherings at Mme Yvonne’s, should those pleasant affairs ever make a comeback. Like monsoon clouds on a sultry afternoon, they had come, my good friends, bringing sweet rain into my life—and then gone, much too soon, before I realized what special blessings their friendships had been.
As I made my way back to the dispensary, the slanting sunlight glinted off the water in a ditch nearby, blinding me for a second. My mind flashed back to that instant a year ago, last July, when I’d first stepped off the plane onto the red soil of Biên-Hoà—dazed from the seventeen-hour flight over from the West Coast and blinded by the tropical sun. Somehow this evening, much to my consternation, I felt like a newbie all over, lost and confused, my heart again full of apprehension and loneliness.
The snowmelt waters ran swift, sprayed and splashed their way between steep boulders on the banks, and propelled our small canoe in a perilous lurch forward. Through the glacial mist, I glimpsed evergreens fly by on both sides and heard rumblings downriver swell to a roar. With a joyous start, I recognized the familiar scenery: Yosemite Creek awakening in the spring and barreling across Eagle Creek Meadow to its rendezvous with the Merced River on the valley floor below—a timeless rite of spring in the High Sierra. The noise and furor grew deafening as the raging waters lifted our canoe like a dead tree trunk and hurled it over the granite cliffs down the abyss of Yosemite Falls. Voices shrieked in terror as we tumbled pell-mell in the dense white fog, their shrill edge trailing into a blaring siren that jarred me awake.
My eyes opened instantly.
“Roger. Wake up,” Paul was shouting in my ear. “Incomings. We got to get out of here.”
I was up like a shot. We threw on some clothes, grabbed our flak jackets and helmets, and bolted out the door. My hazy brain managed to register the time on my alarm clock—1:15 early Sunday morning, hours before I was supposed to meet Mme Yvonne and Lee Anne in Sài-Gòn. So conditioned were our bodies to this nightly routine that we could go through the motions even roused from the heaviest sleep. In the dark, survival instincts were our sole guiding angels.
A big surprise awaited us outside: our usual bunker was burning bright, the sandbags on top of its steel planks having caught fire from the hooches next to it. Those had taken a direct hit and gone up in flames, which explained the loud explosions and fearful screams I’d heard earlier in my nightmare. Sand poured out from the burned bags like blood from open wounds, rendering the bunker useless. In the flickering light, men darted in panic to the next bunker some fifty yards away. We hastened to follow.
Meanwhile, the siren blared on.
Out of breath, we reached the bunker only to find it crammed full.
“Squeeze in, we’ll make room,” yelled a good soul among the huddling crowd. In a split second, I decided the place was much too packed to be safe.
I tapped Paul’s shoulder, shouted in his ear, “Let’s check out one more.”
We backed out, then sprinted at top speed toward the next shelter. We had covered no more than thirty yards, about half the way, when a bright orange flash from behind us lit up the entire scene. I turned for a quick glance.
A tremendous blast knocked me off my feet, slammed me forward to the ground, punching all the air from my lungs. A hailstorm of debris rained down on me.
Stunned and choking with dirt, my ears ringing like a thousand church bells, I strained to suck in a breath. Then a projectile struck me on the side of my head.
It felt like my brain had exploded. I keeled over.
A last glimmer of thought shot through my mind—“Oh, shit”—before total blackness swallowed me whole.
Chapter Eighteen
Gradually the surroundings came into focus: the whitewashed walls, a small louvered window cranked open to let in air and sunlight, the tin-roof ceiling. Then, from my outer field of vision, a familiar face looming closer, watching me anxiously.
“You’re back,” declared Paul from a chair by my bed, his blue eyes bright with relief. “You’re in the dispensary. How are you feeling?”
“A little buzzed.” I reached up and felt around my head—no bandages—then proceeded down my arms and legs. Everything was where it should be and appeared in working order, wiggling awake upon command, albeit slothfully. “What happened?”
Paul smiled, patted my arm. “It’s 0700 hours. You’ve been conked out for most of the night.” He gave my shoulder a firm squeeze. “It’s wonderful to share this sunrise with you, roomie. We darned near missed it.”
According to my hooch mate, we’d both escaped death by a hair. Only moments after we’d dashed from the overcrowded bunker, a 122-mm rocket hit and blew it to smithereens, killing all inside but a handful of survivors.
Life and death—separated by one split-second decision.
Right this minute, our mangled bodies could have been lying in the morgue—cold and stiff, zipped up in tagged body bags, ready to be shipped home. The notion was staggering and made my head spin. My thoughts flashed to the kind-hearted stranger who’d offered to make room for us in that doomed shelter. Did he make it out alive?
“We’d both gotten thrown to the ground by the concussion,” Paul explained. “But you lucky son-of-a-gun cheated death a second time.”
He reached down and picked up a steel pot from the floor next to the bed. It was mine.
Holding it up, he pointed to a marked indentation on the side. “Looky here: you got hit by a nasty chunk of shrap after we went down. It knocked you for a loop. If not for this here helmet, I wouldn’t be talking with you now, my friend. Not even a scratch. Just a beaut of a goose egg on the side of your head. I packed ice on it as soon as we brought you in. It should go away in a day or two.”
I took the helmet from him and slowly traced my fingers over the dent. It felt deep, like a gouging scar. I closed my eyes.
“Seize every moment. You never know when it might be your last,” Dick had warned us, only hours earlier.
“How many?” I wondered out loud.
“What?”
“How many survived in that bunker?”
“Three,” Paul replied, his eyes cast toward the window. “Out of fifteen, mostly kids on TDY from up country. The shelter was pulverized. Nothing left but a giant hole.” He exhaled heavily, with a hint of a shiver. “Twenty-five rockets in all, a couple of direct hits. But almost all the casualties came from the bunker.”
“I’m getting up right now to give you guys a hand.” We simply had to push forward and take care of business. Anything to keep from dwelling on the tragedy. It was our only hope.
Paul held up a hand to stop me. “The weekend staff has got it all under control. You get to play patient today. My patient. I’ll check back in a while, after I catch some shut-eye.”
“I still have to get ready,” I said. “I’ve got a ride to Tân-Sơn-Nhất this morning at ten.”
I attempted to sit up, but my head felt like a nightmare of a hangover and sent me sinking back on the pillow with a grimace.
“It’s out of the question,” Paul said firmly. “You’ve got to nurse that little head bump. That means plenty of bed rest and fluids. You know the drill. Anything else can wait. Doctor’s order.”
“Nonsense, with all due respect, Doctor.” I tried to smile. “A couple of APC tablets and some dirty-socks coffee, I’m good to go.” I sat up, more gingerly this time. “Come on. We almost died. What can be worse?”
Paul stared at me in silence
. I’d said the D-word.
“This appointment better be important,” he finally grumbled, shaking his head. “At least allow me to look you over, for my own peace of mind.”
He lent me a hand to get out of bed, then proceeded to run me through a battery of tests to evaluate my balance and coordination and check off a list of possible symptoms. Aside from a nagging headache and some residual tiredness, everything looked in the clear.
“Well, Doctor, just humor me,” Paul said when he was through. “Do what you got to do, but remember. No strenuous activity, and drink plenty of fluids, especially in this heat.”
As we were leaving, I thanked him for taking good care of me. He stopped at the front door and from its sunny threshold took in the bright new day.
“Seeing as how you saved my hide once again, it was the least I could do,” he said. “If it weren’t for you, I would’ve stayed put in that first bunker.”
There was something besides gratitude in his voice. Something I felt in my own heart. A sense of awe and wonder at this unfathomable mystery we call Fate.
The wrought-iron gate creaked open and Mme Yvonne’s face peered out. Her eyes opened wide when they recognized me. “Merci, mon Dieu. I was hoping it was you. Come in, please.” She sounded relieved, but weary all the same.
I stepped into the calm surroundings that had been my occasional refuge from the world for the past year. The helicopter ride to Tân-Sơn-Nhất had proved rougher than expected, with every little jostle aggravating the dull pain in my head and making my stomach queasier. Through the whole trip, my jumbled thoughts kept wandering back to that first visit at Mme Yvonne’s with Bob, Dean, and Dick—all absent today for various reasons.
As the gate clanked shut behind us, I caught sounds of music and voices wafting from the inner garden. Mme Yvonne turned to me with an apologetic expression. “A business associate, a friend of my husband, is going back to the States,” she said. “So Bill and I are having a get-together in his honor. It’s a last-minute surprise. I did not even know until a few days ago.”