Lost at Khe Sanh

by Steve Watkins

  Greg nodded, his hands still holding on to that ukulele like it was protecting him from something. “He said, ‘All those names.’ ”

  “That was all?” Julie asked.

  “Pretty much,” Greg said. “At first, anyway. Then, after we stood there for a really long time, he asked me to show him where he could see Z’s name, so I did. I even held his hand and led him there, which I guess was the weirdest part. I mean, I haven’t held hands with my dad in I don’t know how long. And I’m pretty sure he hasn’t hugged me in forever, either. He’s just not a huggy guy, you know? But when we got there and I pointed to Z’s name, Dad looked at it for what seemed like ten minutes, and I looked at Dad’s reflection, which I guess he was sort of looking at, too, even though it was nighttime. But since you can go there twenty-four hours a day, it’s lit up so you can still see. And the whole time he had his eyes on Z’s name. And then he sat down right there on the walkway in front of Z’s panel and he pulled out three things from the bag he was carrying.”

  “Which were what?” I asked.

  “One was a picture of the two of them just standing there with their arms over each other’s shoulders and giving the peace sign, which is pretty funny since they both have guns and bandoliers and helmets and war stuff on. The second thing was a letter that had Z’s name on it, which Dad must have written to Z when he was in the bedroom earlier getting the stuff that was in the bag he brought. He didn’t show it to me or tell me what it said, and I didn’t ask him, either, since I could just tell it was meant to be private. And then the third thing was my dad’s medals. And that’s when Dad said the only thing he said the whole time we were sitting there.”

  Greg paused for a second and then continued. “He said, ‘Z deserved these a lot more than me.’ And then he laid the medals on top of the letter and the photo there at the base of The Wall under Z’s panel. And then Dad put his arm around me and hugged me and we sat there like that for about another hour. I think my dad might have been praying or something, and I said a prayer, too.”

  Greg turned his attention back to the ukulele and started strumming it again, this time humming to himself, a tune that sounded vaguely familiar, like I’d heard it before but I couldn’t place it and it didn’t sound like anything we’d been playing in our band.

  Julie and I looked at each other, and shrugged, and turned back to him.

  “Did you ask him about, you know, what happened to Z?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Julie echoed. “What happened to him? How he went missing in action? Did your dad know anything about that?”

  Greg looked up. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I mean, he eventually told me. That part was strange, too. I didn’t want to push him to talk about anything else after The Wall. Dad just seemed so quiet and kind of emotional and all. He wasn’t crying or anything, but, well, it’s hard to explain. Anyway, I just thought it was a good idea to just stay quiet myself, you know? And wait to see if he wanted to talk or anything. So it was really, really late when we got home and he hadn’t said much the whole way back, even when we stopped to get something to eat. And I hadn’t brought my phone with me so I didn’t even see that you guys had left all those messages and stuff until this afternoon, because I was so tired and went straight to bed once we got back.

  “And then, like, an hour later, Dad came in and sat on my bed and he just started talking — about Z, and about what happened to him in Vietnam.”

  “Oh wow,” I said. “I sure wish Z would show up right now to hear all this.”

  “Yeah, but that’s the crazy thing about it,” Greg said.

  “What?” asked Julie. “What was the crazy thing?”

  “That when my dad came into the bedroom to talk to me, Z was there, too. I mean, I couldn’t see him, and of course my dad totally couldn’t see him, but I just somehow kind of knew he was there the whole time.”

  “But how?” I asked.

  Julie had the answer. “Don’t you remember, Anderson? You told Z where Greg lived. Sort of. You said it was just a couple of blocks from here. And he tried to follow Greg, but got lost in the fog. He must have found his way there.”

  Greg just said, “I guess so, or whatever. I just know he was there, and what my dad told me — told us — it was pretty much the end of the mystery.”

  “So Dad told me all about what happened at Lang Vei,” Greg began. “He got really worked up talking about it, too, even though it’s been more than forty years. I kind of had this feeling that Z was getting worked up hearing Dad talk about it, too, even though I couldn’t see him or anything. I guess you never get over something like that, whether you survived it like my dad, or whether you’re a ghost like Z. Dad said so many of the Montagnards got killed at Lang Vei, hundreds of them. He said we owed the rest of them so much, because they’d fought alongside the Green Berets, and they’d fought for our side for years, and their families were at risk from the NVA in their villages.”

  I interrupted. “But the marines thought letting the Montagnards into the base could be a trick,” I said. “That’s what Z told us and what Julie read. There could have been spies or traitors or whatever in with the Montagnards who showed up at Khe Sanh.”

  Greg kept nodding. “Yeah, Dad told me that, too. And he said on the one hand he understood all that, but on the other hand, in just a couple of days there were, like, thousands of Montagnards begging to be let into the base for protection, because they knew if they stayed in their villages they might be slaughtered or put in prison camps or whatever. But the marines turned them away anyway.”

  Greg stopped talking for a minute and fiddled with the ukulele. Not really playing it, more just running his hands over the wood and strings.

  Then he took up where he’d left off. “There was this one Montagnard guy, they just called him by his first name, Nay, who had worked with their Special Forces team as a scout and guide. My dad and Z spent a lot of time with Nay and even lived with Nay’s family in their village off and on over, like, a year.

  “So when Nay came to the marine base with his family a week after the attack on Lang Vei, Dad and Z argued with the marines that they had to at least let them in — that the NVA would kill all of Nay’s family if they didn’t. But the marine guards said orders were orders, even though Dad could tell they were sympathetic. Nobody liked turning the Montagnards away, but at the same time they knew what could happen if even just one of them turned out to be a spy, or even somebody who could sabotage the ammunition dump again on the base, or the air field or whatever. So they ordered Nay to give up his M16 that he’d gotten from the Special Forces, and all his other weapons. And then they sent him and his family away, along with everybody else.”

  Julie was outraged all over again. “I can’t believe they did that! It wasn’t right!”

  Greg shrugged. “It was complicated,” he said. “I guess as hard as it was, my dad sort of understood it, but Z just couldn’t get over it. Dad said Z stayed up all that night just furious at what he saw as this enormous betrayal of the Montagnards, and especially of Nay and his family. I mean, Nay had risked his life for Dad and Z on a bunch of occasions. My dad said Nay had probably saved their lives a bunch of times, too.

  “So finally, at about, like, three o’clock in the morning — Dad remembered it was Valentine’s Day of all things — Z told my dad he was going outside the wire to find Nay and help his family somehow, help them escape from the Central Highlands to somewhere that they’d be safe from the NVA.”

  “Outside the wire?” Julie asked.

  I knew that one. “It means he was going to leave the base, go through the wires and stuff that they had all around the base for protection.”

  Greg just said “Yeah.” Then he continued, “Dad argued with Z, told him that would be desertion and he could get court-martialed and even go to military prison. He would get a dishonorable discharge. And he would probably get killed himself. But Z wouldn’t listen to Dad. He just said he didn’t have a choice, that he had to go. That he o
wed it to Nay and to the Montagnards. He said that already the Montagnards were suffering from being in the middle of the fight between North and South Vietnam, and he just couldn’t sit by and let something terrible happen to Nay.

  “And then he left.”

  “But how?” I asked. “There were marine guards everywhere, all that wire, and land mines and booby traps, not to mention the NVA who had them all trapped on the base.”

  Greg nodded. “I asked Dad that and he actually smiled, and he just said, ‘He was a Green Beret, son. That’s what we were trained to do.’ ”

  Greg hesitated. “And then he said something else, which just about knocked me out.”

  “What?” Julie asked, standing up now and pacing around the room in her nervousness about the story.

  Greg swallowed hard. “He said Z turned himself into a ghost and vanished into the night.”

  It took us a few minutes to pick up the conversation again. A strange sort of breeze blew through the practice room — something that had happened a couple of times with our first ghost — and I wondered, and hoped, that it was Z back with us

  And then Greg started talking again.

  “Dad was really upset after Z left, but he knew he couldn’t tell anybody anything about what Z was doing, or else all the things he’d said to Z — about him being court-martialed and stuff for desertion — would definitely happen. He just kept praying and praying that Z would come back, that he’d show up again, that he’d somehow survive. And Dad felt terribly guilty about the whole thing, too — that he hadn’t gone with Z to try to save Nay and his family, that he’d let Z go in the first place. At one point he even told me he should have shot Z — like in the arm or leg or something — to keep him from going.

  “But anyway, Dad and the other Special Forces guys, the ones that could still fight, were busy from then on helping defend Khe Sanh for the next two months until all the Air Force bombing of the NVA positions finally broke the siege.”

  Julie was still pacing. “Surely they searched for Z then?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Greg said. “Since Dad hadn’t said anything, it was this great mystery how a guy could just disappear from the base, but nobody had an answer. And then afterward, they were busy trying to chase down the NVA units still in the Central Highlands in this big sort of counter-attack operation that went on for more months. But Dad made sure he went everywhere he could think of to find Z, and when that never happened he went in search of Nay. To Nay’s old village, other villages, even some places over the border in Laos. He said so many of the Montagnards had fled the area by then. And so many others had been killed. But Dad never stopped searching.”

  “But he found Nay, right?” I asked, or more like demanded. I could hardly stand the suspense of Greg’s story, and I was worried sick about how it was going to turn out.

  “Yeah,” Greg said. “Just one day in Saigon, months later, when Dad was sent down there in the south for something. Like R&R maybe — you know, rest and relaxation — time off from being in combat. However it happened, Nay was so happy to see my dad. He said it was a miracle for his family to have escaped the Central Highlands and for Dad and him to meet again. Nay said that after they were turned away at Khe Sanh by the marines, he and his family hid in a secret cave that Z and my dad and Nay had discovered months earlier, and where they kept supplies and ammunition. Z thought to look for them there, and sure enough, that’s where he found them. They had a secret signal, so when Z finally got to the cave he let out this whistle. My dad even did the whistle for me.”

  Greg demonstrated for us. Three short tweets, two long, and then this sort of trilling sound.

  Then he continued with the story. “Nay said he couldn’t believe Z had managed to get through the NVA lines to find them, that they had almost given up hope, and were sure they would be captured and all killed, or worse. Z had maps and he laid them out to show Nay the way he needed to go to escape and make his way south with his family. They kept thanking Z over and over, but he said there wasn’t any time; that he’d seen NVA patrols, and Nay and his family needed to leave that night. Z gave them all the money he had, and the maps, and led them away from the cave, a couple of miles through the jungle and out of the hills.”

  Greg wiped his forehead. He was sweating now, I guess from telling the story and getting all worked up about it. I was getting worked up, too.

  “Then Z stopped and pointed Nay and his family in the direction they needed to go. Nay asked Z what he would do now, and Z said he had to get back to Khe Sanh. He shook Nay’s hand and saluted Nay’s two children. He told Nay that he was going to be a father soon, too, and Nay said he already knew that because Z must have told him twenty times already. Z just laughed, and then he left, back up the trail.”

  Greg was tearing up now, and I suddenly wasn’t so sure I wanted to hear what came next. Julie asked him, though, so Greg finished the story.

  “There was a land mine,” he said, his voice now very quiet. “It was a miracle nobody had stepped on it before, on the way down the trail. But Z wasn’t lucky this time. Nay was watching Z as he left. Nay saw what happened when the land mine detonated.”

  Greg couldn’t finish, not right away, but he didn’t have to, because now we knew. I looked around the room again, hoping there would be some sign of Z still with us.

  Julie asked one more question. “Did he suffer?”

  Greg shook his head no.

  Nay and his wife dug a shallow grave for Z. The explosion had been terrible. There was very little they could bury. They had to leave quickly before the enemy returned, but they still stayed long enough to pile stones over the freshly turned earth.

  “But why didn’t your dad ever tell anybody?” I asked Greg. “Did he even tell Z’s wife?”

  “He was afraid that Z would be charged with desertion,” Greg said, “even though he had been killed, and even though everything Z did was to help save Nay and his family. And if there was the desertion charge, Philomena and Nugent would lose their benefits. They’d lose their house. They’d lose everything. Dad didn’t even want to risk Philomena knowing, and putting the burden on her. So all these years, he kept it to himself.”

  We waited and waited all the rest of that week for Z to come back to us. Or just for some sign from Z that he was okay, and that he could go on now to his rest and his peace in the afterlife, or whatever came next.

  But he didn’t show up — not at Uncle Dex’s store in our basement practice room, not at school, not at my house or in my bedroom or anywhere. There was just nothing.

  Greg and Julie and I were bummed, even when we convinced ourselves to keep practicing for the next All-Ages Open Mic Night. Not that any of us were too excited about it. The only bright spot all that week — bright for Greg, anyway — was when his dad, who never took him anywhere, said he’d drive us to the Open Mic Night on Saturday. He even told Greg he thought he’d like to hear us play.

  And Greg’s dad also told him that he thought they should take a trip soon out to California — to Barstow. That maybe it was time, long past time, that he told Mrs. Miller and Nugent the rest of the story about what happened to Z.

  “Can you believe it?” Greg said, incredulous. It was Friday afternoon. Just one more practice day before the open mic competition. “This is my dad we’re talking about. My dad!”

  “Yeah,” I said, happy for Greg that it seemed at least one good thing had come out of us trying to help Z. “That’s awesome.”

  I prayed just before crawling into my bed that night — for things to somehow still work out right for Z, and for things to keep working out right for Greg and his dad, too.

  Mom and Dad both asked me a couple of times what was going on, and they said I seemed distracted and was there anything they could do? But of course there wasn’t anything I could say, because you can’t explain about ghosts to people who don’t see them, even your parents. Maybe especially your parents.

  Belman bugged us a couple of times that week a
t school, but we all reacted pretty much the same way: We just ignored him. Nobody had the energy to even get mad or offended.

  We found out one more thing about the Siege of Khe Sanh, in the meantime. That after all the bombings and assaults and explosions and death, the Americans finally broke the siege — and then, within just a few months, closed down the base at Khe Sanh, after all. Something we could have done months earlier and saved so many lives, on our side and on theirs.

  The war continued for five more years, with support back home getting weaker and weaker until finally we brought all the troops home and left the South Vietnamese to defend their own country. Two years after that, the North conquered the South and reunited all of Vietnam. The war was officially over. Whatever we’d been doing over there, whatever we’d been fighting for and trying to accomplish, I was pretty sure we’d failed.

  I got really down when we read all that, until I thought about what Mom had said about the soldiers who fought in the war — how no matter what we thought of the reasons they were sent, we should always remember that they went over because they had a job to do, and that most of them did it as well as they could, serving and sacrificing for the rest of us, and how they deserved our appreciation, and our love, and our respect.

  Saturday night came way too soon for me. I was already nervous about having to be the new lead singer for the Ghosts of War, but I hadn’t counted on just how nervous.

  Unfortunately, I found that out once it was our turn onstage. We got set up okay — Julie with her keyboard, Greg and me with our guitars, plus our amplifiers and microphones and monitors.

  Our first tune was that hamster song of Julie’s. “You guys ready?” she asked.

  “Definitely,” Greg said.

  I looked out over the fifty kids in the audience. Belman and his friends were standing on one side, already laughing at us. I saw an elementary school kid picking his nose and another one yawning like it was past her bedtime.