by Ron Lealos
“One thing we imported to this lovely land is a refined form of capitalism,” Nick said. “Make a piaster any way you can. If that means sellin’ babies, there’s gotta be a market. I only wish I could blow up the shit of the dude who’s supplyin’ it.”
Fingernails jammed with red. A layer of red on the crumbling pagoda. Green uniforms turned red brown. People transformed from yellow to sickly orange. Red gook sores and rashes next to blood scars from the leeches. Bamboo leaves drooping with an inch of red powder only washed clean by the monsoons that caused the mud to flow lava red. Like some god had thrown a blanket of blood over the world.
The point of the shiny Gerber fighting knife easily picked the red clay from my nails.
“What are you supposed to be doing here?” I asked. “Is this the army’s try at the Peace Corps? Show the peasants how to plant rice in between the mines and booby traps?”
“I’m teachin’ community action and awareness in order to enrich the lives of the South Vietnamese civilians,” Nick said. “By my example and instruction, the villagers will soon see the superiority of democracy and the American way. There it is.”
Nick lit another joint with a Zippo lighter, took a drag, and handed it to me. When the smoke was gone from his lungs and drifting into the haze of red dust that clouded the air, he chugged the last swallow of his beer.
Clay now gone from my red-stained fingernails, I started to whittle a piece of bamboo into a toothpick.
“No comment on that bullshit, Nick,” I said. “Aren’t you afraid?” I stopped whittling and watched the scar across Nick’s ribs move when he swallowed. “You’re out here in the boonies alone. No razor wire, claymores, or sand bunkers to protect you in the night. No radio to call in the arty.”
On the back of Nick’s right hand was a crude boonie-made tattoo of a peace symbol. He wiped it across his mouth, the beer in his left hand.
“Fear?” Nick asked. “Don’t have the courage to show fear. To cry in the arms of a buddy at night covered by our ponchos. I let it eat at my stomach like the worms in the tunnels and try to smoke enough dope to keep the ghosts in their graves.”
A full Tiger beer sat beside the empty bottle Nick put on the table. He flipped the lid with his C-ration opener and watched a stooped papa-san walk slowly from a leaning hootch across the clay yard.
“My DEROS is in thirty-eight days,” Nick said. “It’ll be a miracle if I make it back to The World. But I’m not going into another tunnel or greasing another Vietnamese even if they promise to evac me tomorrow.”
Outside the doorless hootch, the vil looked like hundreds of others I had seen all over the Delta. Ghost towns peopled by orange skels with horrid skin ulcers and bloated bellies. Scabrous animals pecking or rooting in the clay for any meal, rotten or not. Craters from the B-52 Stratofortress Arc Light missions and M105 rounds that filled with muddy water and mosquitoes, but gave the skels a place to shit when the dysentery allowed them to make it that far. Hootches rebuilt a hundred times and blackened from the last Zippo assault. Brown clay jugs of water and rice next to cook fires that stank of burnt, decayed flesh and grease. Rats the size of toy poodles that feasted on a steady diet of dead flesh. In the distance, rice paddies and water buffalo working in fields of brown water that reflected the tropical sun and were home to millions of leeches, snakes, booby traps, and untold diseases.
Poverty. War. Peasants. Shrunken leathery breasts on black-toothed, pajamaed mama-sans trying to get one more meal from their empty teats. Bulging-eyed, malnourished baby-sans with outtie bellybuttons that look like the knots on orange balloons about to burst. Toothless papa-sans too old and weak to hump AK-47s through the bush. But still strong enough to stuff the C-4 from unexploded bombs in booby traps disguised as canteens, rice jugs, discarded rifles, dead GIs, and dolls. Vacant stares of hate on pocked faces resigned to generations of war. Everything covered in a film of red dust or mud.
MIA were the young men and women. They were fighting a war of liberation against the American imperialist aggressor. If not, they were shot.
The bamboo toothpick was sharp and strong. I put the toothpick in my mouth.
“Gotta di di mau to Cần Thơ, Nick,” I said. I stood and slung the strap of the M16 over my shoulder. “Good luck. Hope you make that ride on the Freedom Bird.”
I squeezed Nick’s hand and the bent finger pressed against my palm.
The vacant thousand-yard stare came into his green eye. Nick’s red eye was almost closed from the infection. Little tremors made his tanned skin jump like he was firing a pig machine gun. He put his other hand over mine and squeezed hard. One bare foot scraped slowly in the dirt. He looked over my shoulder at Tran and then back to me.
“Keep your head up and eyes in the trees,” Nick said. “Don’t mean nuthin’.”
My throat was numb. Like the night I swallowed ten tranqs from a medic’s pack. I nodded.
Nick stepped to Luong and hugged him, M16 at Luong’s side, closing his eyes and locking his hands behind Luong’s bandoleer. White puss formed a teardrop in one corner.
“Tot suc khoe,” Luong said. Good health. They stepped apart and joined hands in a peace shake.
Tran woke to the chatter of Lyndon and ran to Nick’s side, wrapping himself around Nick’s bare knee. Nick rubbed his hand through the black stubble on Tran’s head.
“Peace, brothers,” Nick said. “Stop by on your way back. The resort’s always open.” Nick untied Lyndon and the monkey jumped on his shoulder.
Tran’s little hand in his palm, Nick led us out of the hootch. Sleep nuggets were in the corner of Tran’s eyes the same color as the puss in Nick’s. A fly buzzed Tran’s face, and Nick flicked his hand to shoo it away.
Lyndon wrapped his tail around Nick’s neck, his black eyes scanning the palms.
The packs and ammo belts that covered Luong and me squeaked softly from behind Nick and Tran.
The papa-san squatted in the clay, a bamboo pipe in his mouth and a conical grass hat on his gray head. Ribs pressed tightly against his orange skin. A white film covered the black of his eyes, and he swayed to a tune no one else could hear. Calves thin as corncobs ran to thighs covered by baggy, torn gym shorts that said OLYMPIC TEAM. Luong and I walked past the papa-san on the way to the trail leading through a tangled hedgerow and into the jungle.
At the trailhead, next to a dozen burial mounds dotted with white rocks, we turned and waved to Nick, Tran, and Lyndon. Nick flashed the peace sign. Tran stared with wide-open black eyes. Lyndon scampered from one of Nick’s shoulders to the other.
The first to die was the monkey. The snap of a round from an AK-47 bounced off the palm trees, and Lyndon fell to the clay, nothing above his neck where a monkey head used to be.
In a second that seemed like a year-long tour of duty, Nick dropped to the ground and rolled into a ball covering Tran. The nylon cord on Nick’s wrist jumped from the death convulsions of Lyndon, who lay headless thrashing in the clay. Blood pooled next to Nick’s shoulder. His ankles were crossed and his arm pulled Tran tight to his chest.
More shots came from the trees on the far side of the vil.
Luong and I dove behind the burial mounds and returned fire with our M16s. The hedgerow danced with AK-47 rounds. Clouds of dry clay rose when the bullets hit the graves like horses’ hoofs on the plains.
A Soviet RKG-3 stubby grenade flew end over end into the middle of the vil. The grenade’s flight was slow motion in a background of smoke and jungle. I thought I could count the rotations before it exploded in a cloud of dust and bamboo splinters. Two VC in green pajamas ran around the papa-san’s hootch in a zigzag line through the smoke. They sprinted across the open ground, firing their AKs on full automatic. The VC on the left dropped the barrel of his Kalashnikov toward Nick and Tran and kept firing. Nick’s body jumped with every bullet that hit his bare back and legs.
I took dead aim and shot the VC in the heart. Luong lit up the one on the right with a short burst. Both VC tumbled to th
e ground, AKs thrown to the clay, sandals flopping.
Smoke and cordite smell filled the air, but no more rat-a-tat of AKs. Dead silence.
The papa-san was chunks of bone, gym shorts, and flesh.
Nick was motionless in the long R&R.
The cry of a baby-san.
Luong and I waited. After a minute, I motioned Luong forward with my hand. We walked to Nick, eyes scanning the far tree line, M16s on rock and roll.
Holes leaking red dotted the flesh from Nick’s thighs to his neck. The wounds were the size of the end of Nick’s bent finger and mapped a trail to the next meaningless tunnel that Nick would never have to recon.
Trickles of blood ran to the clay. The flies were already feasting.
Lyndon’s body was still, pieces of his skull in Nick’s hair.
A black-haired head turned crimson from blood popped up from below Nick’s chest. Tran wiped the blood from his eyes and howled. While Luong watched the tree line, I scooped up Tran and we backpedaled toward the path.
The firefight was over in less than two minutes.
We were on the road to Cần Thơ with a war orphan and memories of another wasted GI who missed the flight on the Freedom Bird. But this time I knew his name.
The bunker was a B-52 crater a boonie rat had shoveled army straight before Luong. Tran and I used it as an NDP, night defensive position. The walls were flat laterite clay baked grenade hard by the tropical sun. During the monsoons, the tight bunker would fill with water, leeches, and mosquitoes, drying out only after days of evaporation. Now, after a week of rainless days, the bunker held fleas, ants, centipedes, and spiders.
Artillery fire from 105s shook the ground, but no loose dirt fell into the hole. The barrage was a few klicks to the east and outlined the scarred trees on the horizon. M60 machine guns were easily heard over the pop of M16s, Simonov carbines, AK-47s, and the occasional mortar. Fire made orange devil’s tails and black smoke in the palm trees across the paddies below what would be the Southern Cross.
Tran was asleep wrapped in my poncho sucking his thumb. Luong had fed the baby-san pound cake and tuna fish from a C-ration meal while I kept lookout. My M16 rested on the clay pointed down the path to the east. On the other sides, miles of stinking booby-trapped paddies made a quiet assault less likely.
A rat ran in front of my face. I swatted it with the barrel of the rifle, grazing the rat’s pink tail and sending it toward a paddy with an angry squeak.
“How did you get to be a VC, Luong?”
Luong crawled across the bunker the size of a Volkswagen bug and squatted next to me facing Tran. He pulled the knees of his jungle fatigues to his chest and rested his chin on top.
“NVA come to village outside Pleiku,” Luong said. “Take family in the night. Shoot papa-san and mama-san. Take me and nguoi vo to camp. Make wife cook and me scout to find other Degar hiding in forest.”
Degar was the name the Montagnards gave themselves. The Vietnamese called the ethnic Degar “mo.” Savages. The GIs called the Degar “Yards.” Montagnard was the Degar name for the forests they were fighting to keep after centuries of occupation.
The Starlight II Scope was in a hard-plastic case in my pack. The snaps and color made it look like the black case held a flute. German Starlight scopes were used by grunts in ’Nam to capture the light of the moon and stars and amplify that sky’s light to watch in the dark. Everything seen through the lens was a black shape outlined in a field of green. The CIA researchers at Fort Monmouth had made a lighter, more effective scope only available to Phoenix operatives, perfect for assassins who lived in the dark.
I unsnapped the case and put the Starlight next to the M16.
“You have any baby-sans?” I asked.
Luong’s webbed belt held a dozen grenades. Most were the common M26 tin can variety. Luong also carried two Willie Pete white phosphorous and two CS gas grenades. He handed me one of each to add to the pile of weapons that grew on the lip of the bunker.
“Khong,” Luong said. No.
A brief flash of artillery lit the gold cross that hung from Luong’s neck. The cross was strung on braided copper wire liberated from a radio cable. Luong fingered it in his right hand.
“You a Catholic?” I asked.
Luong kissed the crucifix and shoved it under the top button of his fatigue.
“Vang,” Luong said. Yes. “Missionaries come to Central Highlands two hundred years ago. Many Degar Catholic, but still worship forest animals too. Even believe in circle of life. French like Degar better than dirty Buddhists.”
The Smith & Wesson was in its holster, the silencer in my pocket. I laid the pistol next to a magazine of regular ammo for the M16.
“What happened to your nguoi vo?” I asked. Wife.
“NVA hiep,” Luong said. Rape. “Many, many times. Make me watch until I show NVA Degar brothers in forest. She tu van with bamboo knife to heart.” Suicide.
Luong took the cross out from his shirt and squeezed it. His head sank to his chest and his lips moved, eyes closed. The scar on his head jumped with every word of prayer.
The back of Luong’s shoulder trembled when I touched him. Flesh thin as my poncho covered his bones.
A CS gas grenade rolled in front of my eye from the cache on the foxhole lip. I pushed the grenade back and watched the flames make serpent outlines above the tree line.
“I’m sorry, Luong,” I said. Breathing was hard in the humid, heavy night. Luong’s story added to the wet cotton in my lungs, and I gasped for air.
Fucking war. Vietnamese who thought Montagnards were savages to be treated like enemies invading land the Degars had occupied for a thousand years. Forcibly relocating gentle forest people to foul, crowded cities so they could live in cardboard shacks next to the dump. Americans like me who took advantage of the hatred and despair so the Yards would kill other Vietnamese for us. And walk point on patrol as human mine sweepers.
Tran sighed and slurped on his thumb. The sound of a baby-san sucking on a Tootsie Roll Pop at the base PX back in The World.
Luong tucked his poncho tighter around the baby-san’s feet and swatted at something I couldn’t see.
Maybe ants. I hoped they weren’t fire ants—that meant we would have to move. Better a black-nosed spider. They were harmless. Tran would tell us soon enough.
“My life is kill VC,” Luong said. “Many, many VC. Only way for me to get to heaven and be with nguoi vo. Must free her soul.”
The sniper rifle’s scope had a detachable Redfield-Leatherwood 3-9 power auto ranging telescope, giving the rifle a nine-hundred-yard effective range. The scope was wrapped in oilcloth and sat in my pack next to a box of .308 Winchester ammo used when the modified M16 became a long-range killing tool. I took the scope and the bullets out and began to unwrap the oilcloth.
“What was your village like?” I asked. “I haven’t been to the Central Highlands.”
The bandoleers of M16 magazines on Luong’s chest weighed almost as much as his hundred-pound body. He loosened the straps but didn’t take the ammo belts off.
“Village called Darlac Haut,” Luong said. “In mountains. Many big trees in mountains around Darlac Haut. Live in long houses on stilts made of hardwood. Thatched roofs. Carve many saints and animals in walls.”
Combat-ready grenades had their pins bent for quick release. I used my left hand to twist the metal pin on an M26.
“How do the Degars live?” I asked. “Who does what? Back in The World, the men work, and the women stay home and have babies. Or go out and burn their bras.”
Luong’s M16 butt was chipped and dented. He picked off a jagged piece of plastic on the handle.
“Everyone share food, clothes, drink. Women watch baby-sans. Men hunt wild pigs and mountain deer. Women cook. Weave beautiful clothes. String necklaces and bracelets in many colors. Make other jewelry from silver and brass. Many villages grow dry rice, maize, bananas, and coffee. French teach some to grow rubber trees. Not Darlac Haut. Only hunt and gr
ow rice. My le country.” Beautiful.
To the northwest, across the paddies, the foothills of the Central Highlands began. The foothills were a hundred klicks away, but Luong smiled when he looked in that direction.
The XM21 scope was unwrapped and lay on the oilcloth next to the rest of the growing arsenal. I picked up the Starlight scope and scanned the paddies. Pointing it at the flames would blind me for minutes.
“How long have you been a Kit Carson scout?” I asked.
Through the scope, the world was green with forms of distant palm trees in black. Paths on top of the clay dikes made dark, straight lines dividing the paddies.
The metal fasteners on the canvas cover of Luong’s canteen snapped softly. He took a swallow and touched my shoulder.
“Drink, Morgan,” Luong said. “You answer question now. Why you fight?”
Water the temperature of spit still felt good going down my parched throat. After the drink, I sectored the horizon with the Starlight.
“My old man was a colonel,” I said. “It was the thing to do in my family. A long history of warriors. Went to college and thought about running away. But the ghosts captured me.”
A night breeze brought the shit smell of the paddies to the bunker. The villagers rotated the paddies, using one for a shit field per year and planting it the next. We must have been close to the shit field. I wiped my nose on the arm of my olive fatigue.
The leeches didn’t just stay in the water. Somehow, they made their slimy way cross-country in search of blood. I hated them worse than the rats, snakes, and the hordes of mosquitoes that infested the Delta. At night, when leeches sucked onto your skin and you couldn’t use a cigarette to burn the bastards off, you had to drown them in bug juice. Worst case was a knife. I took a plastic bottle of insect repellent out of my pocket.
Fucking leeches. Most of my gook sores were the result of leech wounds. The sucker’s saliva carried an anticoagulant that kept flesh bleeding for up to six hours after the leech had filled his belly with blood. If you didn’t treat the wound right away, it would become an oozing gook sore in a day next to the boils that festered on your thighs. I covered my face with bug juice, keeping the bottle handy against a leech attack, and wished there was a grenade big enough to blow the black belly off every leech clear to Hanoi.