Lost at Khe Sanh

by Steve Watkins

  Z’s voice was breaking up, but he tried the best he could, even with the growing static. “Wasn’t just us, Special Forces,” he said. “Was Montagnards. Had nine hundred in the camp. Families, too. They were on our side. NVA wanted them as dead as they wanted us dead. Couldn’t abandon them. Had to stay and fight until couldn’t anymore. Not right to leave them behind. Hundreds of them went down. Rest fled when we did. Took to the countryside. NVA had tanks. Tanks! Nobody’d ever seen that before. Not from the North. Couldn’t stop them. Tried the best we could. Way outnumbered. Fighting too close to call in air support. No reinforcements. Marines five miles away but wouldn’t come. Not that I blamed them. Was all a big trap. Everybody knew it.”

  If he said anything else we couldn’t hear it any more than we could see him now. Once again he was gone, voice and all.

  Julie and I sat there quietly for a minute, and then both of us slumped — me onto the bed and her in the chair at my desk.

  “I’m tired,” I said.

  “Me too,” Julie said, which surprised me. I didn’t think Julie ever got tired. I wasn’t totally sure that she even slept at night, judging from all the reading and research and stuff she was always doing.

  “Should we take a break from all this?” I asked.

  Julie sat up. “I don’t think we can,” she said. “You saw how he faded out just now. He seems frail to me. He’s having a harder and harder time holding together and being with us. I think we don’t have much time left.”

  “But it hasn’t been that long,” I said. “Our first ghost took weeks before he started fading out. Remember William Foxwell?”

  “Yeah,” Julie said. “I think it is different with every ghost, the same way that every person is different. Some ghosts, perhaps they have more control about how long they can be around, and about where they can go. Others, maybe they can only be close to us — to the Kitchen Sink or to your room or to all three of us — or two of us — when we’re together. I think Z doesn’t have very much control over when he can be around. And it must also be different — how much time each ghost has once they show up.”

  “You mean, how much time for us to help them solve their mysteries before it’s too late to help them?” I asked.

  Julie nodded sadly.

  We both just sat there for a while, letting everything sink in. It all made sense, what Julie had just said. Not that I liked hearing it, or thinking about it. I just wanted to solve the mystery and help Z and have everybody live happily ever after. Or maybe not live, but, you know, whatever.

  After a while, I asked Julie if there was anything else about Lang Vei that she’d found out that might help us — and him.

  “Mostly just what Z said,” Julie replied. “It was a small camp for the Green Berets. They did secret missions and surveillance missions. They recruited the Montagnard people to help fight the North Vietnamese, and to travel across the border into Laos for surveillance and to ambush the NVA supply lines on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Things like that. What Mrs. Miller had already told us, too. Some of the Montagnard people were part of the Green Beret teams, like their scouts and their translators. They hated the North Vietnamese Army.”

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “Only that it was a terrible battle at the Special Forces camp, and as Sergeant Miller said, they were outnumbered ten to one, or more, and the NVA had tanks. Many, many Special Forces and Montagnard people were killed. Sergeant Miller and Greg’s father — they were among the few who escaped.

  “And meanwhile at Khe Sanh — the NVA kept bombing the base, and trying to penetrate it with their ground soldiers. And they endured so much bombing by the U.S., day after day after day. There were hidden sensors all through the jungle to detect the NVA movements, and that’s one way we knew where to drop bombs on them from our planes.”

  I shook my head, just thinking about how awful all of it must have been — not just for our guys, but for the NVA troops, too. Probably even worse for them.

  “One more thing,” Julie said. “Sergeant Miller didn’t mention this, and maybe he didn’t remember it yet.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “The Montagnard people he talked about — who were in the Special Forces camp at Lang Vei and fought with the Green Berets — many of them who escaped, and many more in villages in that area, they also went to the marine base at Khe Sanh for protection.” Julie was more animated than usual as she was telling me this, poised on the edge of her chair as if she might jump up at any second.

  “They were afraid of the North Vietnamese, that they would be killed, and their families would be killed now that the NVA were all over the area and controlling the countryside,” Julie continued. “But when they went to the marine base, first the marines took all their weapons, and then the marines turned them away.”

  I was the one who jumped up. “Why? They were like our allies! They were fighting on our side!”

  “I know,” Julie said. “But the marines thought it might be another trick. That some of the Montagnard people might be on the side of the NVA, and might help the NVA attack the base once they were inside. So they refused to let the Montagnard people in.”

  “What happened to them?” I asked, still worked up. Z had just been telling us how loyal the Montagnards were to the Special Forces.

  Julie shook her head. “I think many of them had to leave their homes forever. And I think many of them were killed by the North Vietnamese.”

  Julie and I were sitting together at lunch the next day, both of us still tired, neither of us saying much, picking over our lunches, when a shadow darkened the table. I knew without even looking up that it was Belman.

  “Where’s the third little musketeer?” he asked, laughing. His friends laughed dutifully along, right on cue.

  I still didn’t look up. Julie didn’t, either. She just said, “He’s peeing in your locker.”

  I nearly died.

  Belman freaked out. “He’s what? I’ll kill that twerp!”

  “Just kidding,” Julie said, showing a sudden interest in her lunch.

  “Not funny, Julie,” Belman snarled. This surprised me, too. He knew Julie’s name?

  Julie must have had the same reaction. “You know my name?” she asked.

  “Lucky guess,” Belman said. “Quick question: Is the Bomb Squad playing at the All-Ages Open Mic Night on Saturday? Inquiring minds want to know.”

  “We’re not the Bomb Squad,” I corrected him, though it occurred to me that when you said it and thought about it in the right way, that might not be a bad name for a band. “And anyway, what do you care?”

  “Ignore him,” Julie said to me, obviously too late.

  “Just wondering,” Belman said, already laughing at the next joke he was planning to tell at our expense. “Wondering if we should wear hazmat suits, that is!”

  His friends made sure he knew that they thought he was the funniest guy on the planet. I thought Julie was going to stab him with a fork, but she somehow managed to stay calm until they left.

  “One of these days …,” she said, though she didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t have to.

  I saw Greg in class that afternoon and tried to talk to him afterward, but he sort of waved me off. “Sorry, Anderson,” he said. “I just kind of need some time to think about stuff.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I mean, I was worried that you didn’t answer my phone calls or my texts or anything.”

  Greg just shrugged. “I didn’t really want to talk to anybody,” he said. “Maybe later.”

  And just like that he walked off down the hall.

  I didn’t see him again the rest of the day, or that night, or the next day at school, either. I sent him more texts and left some more voice mails, but nothing. I was starting to feel like a total stalker or something, but I was worried about him. Nobody even answered when I called his house phone on Tuesday. Not even his dad.

  Z hadn’t shown up again, either — not Sunday night after Julie w
ent home and not Monday night, even though I stayed up until way past midnight hoping I’d hear something from Greg, and not Tuesday morning when Mom dragged me out of bed to eat breakfast and send me stumbling off to school. I felt like a zombie from lack of sleep and from being stressed-out about helping Z, and now worrying about Greg on top of everything else. Worrying about him a lot.

  Julie must have been reading my mind when we met up at lunch because she nudged my shoulder with her elbow. “He’ll be okay,” she said. “I know he’ll be okay.”

  “Yeah?” I asked. “Then why hasn’t he been in touch? Greg is always calling me and texting me and coming over to stay at my house, even when we aren’t trying to save ghosts.”

  “This is different,” Julie said, sounding kind of wise for a sixth grader. “It’s about what is between him and his dad. They just need some time, I think.”

  Julie and I went by Greg’s house that afternoon after school, but nobody answered the door and his dad’s truck wasn’t there.

  “His dad could just be at work,” Julie said.

  “But what about Greg?” I asked.

  “Knock louder,” Julie said.

  I looked at my red knuckles. “I already did,” I said.

  “Text him again,” she suggested.

  “I think ten times is enough,” I said, not used to being the reasonable one in a conversation with Julie.

  “You’re right,” Julie said. “Why don’t we just go to Uncle Dex’s and practice for the all-ages thing.”

  I just stood there for a minute and blinked at her. “How can you think about that when Greg is missing?”

  “He’s not missing,” she said. “He’s just somewhere else. You said it yourself.”

  I knew this bickering about Greg between Julie and me was just because we were both so worried. Maybe a little band practice would do us some good, or at least take our minds off of everything for a little while.

  Fifteen minutes later we were in the basement with our instruments, strumming and plunking our way through Julie’s hamster song and then her other song about bullies. I guess my voice sounded okay — she didn’t scowl or wince or cringe or anything — but it didn’t feel right without Greg there on his guitar.

  Uncle Dex came downstairs after a while to check in on us. “Everything all right with you guys?” he asked, taking off his baseball cap and rubbing his head. His hair already looked kind of crazy and was now even crazier until he pulled the cap back on and tamped it down.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess.”

  “Where’s Greg?” he asked, as if that wasn’t totally on our minds, anyway.

  Julie explained that we didn’t know and we hadn’t heard from him.

  “Hmmm,” Uncle Dex said, looking at me. “You two are supposed to be, like, conjoined twins or something, aren’t you?”

  I shrugged.

  “Well, mind if I sit in for a couple of tunes?” Uncle Dex asked. I knew he’d been dying to pull out his ukulele and join us for some time. I was busy trying to think of a good excuse to send him back upstairs when Julie spoke up again.

  “Sure,” she said, startling me. “We’d love to have you.”

  “Great!” Uncle Dex said. “I’ll just shoot upstairs and get my instrument. Be right back.”

  As soon as he left I turned to Julie. “Really?” I asked. “Really? You want my uncle to play his ukulele with us?”

  Julie smiled. “We need something, or somebody, to take our minds off Greg, so why not him?”

  Uncle Dex was back with his ukulele before I could even think of an answer.

  “So what are we playing?” he asked, and the next thing I knew we were running through our playlist again, this time with the ukulele sort of lightening things up.

  “Too bad you’re not our age, Uncle Dex,” Julie said when we finished, even though Uncle Dex wasn’t her uncle, of course.

  He laughed. “Well, you’re welcome to borrow my ukulele any time you want for your band,” he said.

  We heard footsteps coming down the stairs just then, and I knew right away it must be Greg. People you’ve known forever, you can recognize them just from the sounds they make.

  “Hi, guys,” Greg said, stepping into the practice room. “Did I miss anything?”

  Julie flew at Greg and gave him a giant hug. I’m not sure who was surprised more, me or Greg. He just stood there with his mouth gaping open while Julie squeezed him. I’m sure the look on my face was the same.

  Julie released Greg and stepped back. “Where have you been?” she asked.

  Greg caught my eye and I just shrugged. “We missed you,” I said.

  You’d have thought Greg had been gone for a year or something, the way we were carrying on. Even Uncle Dex got into the act, offering Greg his ukulele to practice on when he saw Greg hadn’t brought his guitar.

  Greg held the ukulele up in front of him and studied it for a minute, and then shrugged and said thanks. “I’ll give it a try,” he said in a soft voice.

  I realized he hadn’t exactly answered Julie’s question and wondered when he’d tell us — and what he’d tell us.

  Uncle Dex, meanwhile, said he had to get back to work. “Busiest part of the day at a junk shop,” he said. “Better head upstairs.”

  He left, and Julie and I turned to Greg expectantly, now that we had him all to ourselves.

  “Well?” Julie asked.

  “I guess you want to know where I’ve been and all.” Greg said, hugging the ukulele to his chest and running his fingers over the strings. He plunked out a couple of chords and then stopped.

  “Only if you want to tell us,” I said, not wanting to sound like he had to tell us.

  “Of course,” Julie said, though I knew she wanted to interrogate him.

  Greg played a few more chords, already figuring out the fingering, even though I’d never seen him play a ukulele before. I guess all that guitar practice he’d been doing was paying off in all sorts of ways.

  “I thought about it and thought about it and thought about it, and finally I talked to my dad,” he said, speaking softly. “I asked him about Z — Sergeant Miller. I kind of had to make up a story about us having a unit on Vietnam in school, and that’s why we went to The Wall. And I said maybe my mom must have mentioned Zorn Miller to me, that Dad had had a friend in Vietnam with that name, and we’d seen his name on The Wall.”

  I thought that sounded like a pretty good cover story, even though I hated that he had to tell a lie to his dad, or that any of us were having to do that to our parents or anybody.

  “And then what?” Julie prompted him.

  Greg strummed what actually sounded like a song.

  “He got really quiet,” Greg answered. “And he didn’t say anything at first. Not for a long time. I almost thought maybe he didn’t hear me, or he was going deaf or something. I mean, we were right there in the living room. It was yesterday afternoon after I got home from school and he got home from work. And then, after a while, he just got up and walked outside. He was raking leaves.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  Greg shrugged. “Went outside and raked leaves with him. We did the whole backyard. And it’s a big backyard, too. With a lot of trees.”

  “Then what?” Julie asked.

  Greg kind of smiled, though his face still looked strained. “Then we raked the front yard. And bagged up all the leaves. And dragged them around to the curb so they could get picked up.”

  “So your dad never said anything back?” It was my turn to ask.

  “It was weird,” Greg said. “I thought he was going to get mad or something, but he didn’t. Just quiet, like I said. And we didn’t talk the whole time we were working in the yard, either, but it was nice. My dad and me, we don’t do too much stuff together, but that was something we did together, even though it was a lot of work.”

  “I hope he paid you,” I said.

  Greg rolled his eyes. “It’s not about money, Anderson,” he said. I apologiz
ed.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “when we finally finished, we went back inside and he had a beer and I had a soda. I was worried that he was going to start, you know, really drinking again, the way he does sometimes. He finished his beer and went back to the refrigerator and stood there for a long time, staring at the other beers, so I was really nervous about it then. But he didn’t get one out. He just finally shut the door and told me to come on.”

  “Come on where?” Julie asked. We were sort of a tag team with the questions.

  “I didn’t know,” Greg said. “Not at first. He asked me something about The Wall and I told him where we went with Uncle Dex, and how they had the directory, and the statues of the soldiers and the nurses. But mostly about The Wall and the things people left there for the people whose names were there, like Zorn Miller. So Dad went into his bedroom and was in there for a bit, and then he came out with something in a bag and he said, ‘Come on, Greg,’ again, and so I followed him out to the car and we drove back up to Washington.”

  “Twice in one week?” I said.

  “Yep.” Greg nodded. “And the other funny thing is Dad seemed kind of, like, cheerful the whole way up, even when we got stuck in traffic for a while. He was just talking about stuff — about work and about things he did when he was a kid. Stuff about his cousins and some kind of farm his aunt and uncle had, and how they used to climb up on hay bales and swing on ropes in the barn and milk sheep or something.”

  “You don’t milk sheep,” Julie said.

  “I know,” said Greg. “Anyway, before you know it we were there, back at The Wall. Me and my dad.”

  “That must have been so strange,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Greg said. “But he didn’t even hesitate, just marched right over there from where we parked the truck. I almost had to run to keep up with him. Once we got there, though, right at the tip of The Wall, he stopped and just stared at it for a while.”

  “Did he say anything?” Julie asked.