Finding Pete: Rediscovering the Brother I Lost in Vietnam

by Jill Hunting

  With the rest of the waiting world, we counted down the days as the January 15 deadline approached. In the meantime, we asked questions: Was this a conflict over oil? Did the president have constitutional authority to send U.S. combat forces to Iraq without Congress’s having declared war? Before our very eyes we could see the effects of isolating a country economically from most of the world; would it not be wiser to try economic sanctions before going to war? We wondered whether, if war broke out, we could be stranded in Vietnam for a while.

  On January 12, Congress passed a resolution giving President Bush the authority to use force. Under General Norman Schwarzkopf, who had served in Vietnam, American forces were readied for Operation Desert Storm.

  We boarded an old train for the eighteen-hour trip south to Hue. The window of the compartment I shared with two other women had a bullet hole and a large crack like a spider web.

  The old train clattered noisily on the tracks. To pass the hours, we sang pop tunes and stood in the corridor dangling our arms out the windows to catch the breeze. In the middle of the night, the train screeched to a stop. We were deep in the countryside and there was no train depot. From out of the darkness, men, women, and children ran toward our car, hawking handicrafts and warm sodas.

  In the morning, we pulled into Hue after a mostly sleepless night. In the hotel, I went straight upstairs to the room Linda and I would share. I lay down, trying to resist sleep because Linda would be coming up soon and I didn’t know if she had a key. A knock on the door awoke me. I opened it to find a prostitute, looking as surprised as I was. Someone — a man in our group, if what one of the women with us later said was true — had mistakenly told her to come to the wrong floor. He was evidently unaware that the stories were numbered differently here than in the United States.

  I lay down again, but I couldn’t relax because of a disturbing noise outside. Someone was crying, and in the cry I heard fear. The drapes had been closed when I let myself in, and I had kept them closed in anticipation of a nap. The heavy fabric, backlit by the midday sunshine, was the color of blood. As I listened to the god-awful sound beneath the window, I began to cry.

  There was a second knock on the door. I opened it to find my cheerful roommate standing in the hall. Linda swept into the room and flung her suitcase onto the other bed. Moving toward the crying sound, she asked, “What’s that?” Then, with a single sweeping motion, she parted the drapes to reveal the source of the crying. Just beneath our window was a goat confined to a small pen. In her trap outside the hotel kitchen, she would soon be slaughtered for someone’s meal. Mine?

  Pity and sadness welled up in me as I realized that the goat’s death was inevitable. In that moment, I felt as trapped as she. I had come to the place where I must confront my brother’s death just as surely as she must face the knife. I couldn’t save her and I couldn’t save Pete.

  After lunch, we took a cruise down the Perfume River. Stepping out of the boat at the Thien Mu Pagoda, we were greeted by the fragrance of frangipane flowers. An old Austin sedan — the car that the Buddhist monk drove to Saigon in June 1963 before immolating himself — was parked in a bay. A monk strolled on the grounds with us. Tom asked him if he communicated with Buddhists in other countries — meaning, did the government permit it. “Yes,” he said, “but only with the sounds in our minds.”

  We left Hue in a private van and headed south on Highway 1. Not far from Quang Ngai City we turned onto increasingly narrow unpaved roads. It was hot when we arrived at My Lai. The place where hundreds of men, women, and children were massacred was lush and still. In contrast to the near hush of the clearing where once a mass grave had been dug, photographs in a museum shouted the horror of that day in March 1968 when American soldiers opened fire on Vietnamese civilians. It was also an American, a helicopter pilot named Hugh Thompson, who heroically set his chopper down in the midst of the melee, forcing his fellow soldiers to stop their killing spree.

  An angular, Soviet-looking monument dominated the site. A guide urged us to place sticks of incense on a memorial. Right or wrong, her instruction did not go over well with some in our group. The remorse and shame among us were palpable, but feeling manipulated, not everyone wanted to participate in the ritual. Others lit their incense, hoping that the watchful eyes following us would see that Americans were penitent.

  The long-awaited day arrived. Mr. Phuong cleared five of us — Don, Chuck Cable, Darlene, Mike, and me — to visit Phan Rang and Ba Ngoi. We would miss sightseeing in Nha Trang and sunbathing on its white-sand crescent beach, but we were eager to go to Ninh Thuan Province.

  We set out on Highway 1 in the morning sunshine. We were about to encounter trouble, but in our elevated mood we did not guess what lay in store for five freewheeling Americans breaking away from their official itinerary.

  In northern Vietnam, the weather had been cold and damp. Here the air was warm and dry, softened by a gentle wind from the South China Sea. My cold was gone and I felt healthy and happy. Now the same breeze that used to brush Pete’s cheek was brushing mine.

  I knew he would have traveled this road. Separated from him by so many years, I now felt close to him and his life here. I could almost imagine him pulling up alongside our van in his jeep.

  We stopped in the town of Ba Ngoi, near Cam Ranh Bay, where during the war there had been airfields and a large U.S. navy base. Mike and Darlene had been married at a villa here. They had brought their wedding photo and wanted to have a new picture taken at the house. We climbed out of the van and immediately were surrounded by children.

  Slowly we made our way up the sandy street. Darlene and Mike spotted the villa. We were admiring the architecture when a man came out of the building and walked over to us. He and Don exchanged a few words. Then Don said we should follow him. “We are invited to a meeting,” he said.

  In Vietnam, I would soon learn, you don’t decline such an “invitation.” It means that you are being asked to explain yourself.

  How could we have known that the Communist Party was having a regional meeting that day in that villa? The officials around the table where we all drank tea wondered. We wondered at the absurdity of our timing.

  In Vietnamese, Don explained what we were doing there. His tone and facial expression clearly communicated, “You see, it’s all very innocent.” Behind the courteous facade of our hosts was suspicion, equally clearly communicated.

  Thirty minutes later, Darlene and Mike were showing the officials photographs of themselves on the terrace in wedding attire. After polite good-byes and much smiling, we returned to our vehicle and were on the road again. We congratulated ourselves for having wriggled free of a ticklish situation. Don explained to me that the smiling faces of the party officials had masked nervousness and that Vietnamese people often smile when they are uncomfortable.

  Back on Highway 1, we could see a hamlet out our left window. Chuck, who had brought along a lot of photographs from his IVS years and was shuffling through them, thought the hamlet was where his former cook had lived. He wanted to stop and look her up.

  I was impatient to get to Phan Rang and mindful that our last stop had not gone as expected. On the other hand, Chuck had lived in Vietnam and I had not. This was his first trip back since he had left in 1968. When would he have this chance again?

  We all agreed to stop. We pulled into Ho Diem. An enormous pig waddled alongside a wall.

  As we climbed out of the van, we again magnetized curious children. American tourists were rare in Vietnam in 1991, especially in the countryside. Americans who spoke Vietnamese were even more rare.

  Chuck asked some adults about his cook while Don looked for someone who remembered an American who built a windmill. This was the man’s sister, he said, indicating me. A young mother came over and patted my arm, smiling and looking into my eyes. She told Don that two Americans had worked in the hamlet when she was a little girl — a black-skinned man and a tall man with a long face. We knew she was describing Chuck Fields and
Pete. A lump rose in my throat.

  We had been in Ho Diem only a few minutes when a middle-aged man invited us to tea. It would have been rude to refuse his hospitality. I knew this meant we would not be leaving any time soon. We entered a small house with a dirt floor. Someone brought us tea and Don explained who we were. Children and adults at the door and window jockeyed for position to see us.

  Time passed slowly, but finally Don said we would leave. We thanked our host and made our way back to the van. Chuck, the driver, and I took our seats. Darlene and Mike were getting in when a man ran toward us waving his arms. The gesture was not friendly.

  Someone was suspicious of the five Americans who had stopped unannounced, asking questions about the days before the Communist victory. Security had been alerted. We were invited to a meeting.

  We were led into a small room with a desk and one chair. After some scrambling, chairs were brought in for all of us. For the second time that day, Don explained that it was all very innocent. This time, he was less convincing.

  I was afraid when I saw the color drain from his face. They got Pete and they’re going to get me, I thought irrationally. Le Ly Hayslip’s account of her girlhood in South Vietnam came to mind. Her captors had painted her legs with honey to attract stinging ants.

  At least two hours passed while Don answered questions and the man in charge hand-copied the information from our passports and visas. Finally we were told that we could return to our group. We could not take our travel documents, however. For those, we would have to come back in the morning. Authorities at a higher level would decide what to do next. We would return to Nha Trang under escort. We would not go to Phan Rang.

  As we headed north, I was worried but also relieved. Mostly, I was disappointed. This was the day for which I had come to Vietnam. But now would I not see the city where Pete had lived? Had I come on this trip for nothing?

  I seized the opportunity to learn something about my brother. Turning to Don, I said I had a hard question for him: What happened the day Pete was killed?

  Don had been walking home to the IVS house in Saigon when someone came running toward him. He knew immediately by the look on the man’s face that something terrible had happened. After the initial shock, he went into his room and closed the door. To this day he could not remember anything about the next hours. He had completely blocked it out. All he knew was that he wanted to be alone. He didn’t want to have anything to do with anyone.

  I asked if he had identified Pete’s body.

  No, he said, but Pete was carrying a lot of identification. I took this to mean that Pete could not be recognized from the multiple gunshot wounds to his head.

  His body was flown to Saigon, Don continued. At that time, there were already frequent flights bringing in casualties. Bodies were put into refrigeration until they were flown home.

  He said that because Pete had been so dedicated, after his death the team leaders, including himself, were hard on volunteers if they treated their service “as some kind of lark in an exotic place.”

  When we arrived back at our hotel, a happy, suntanned bunch were there to greet us and hear about our great day. When they learned how things had turned out, they shared our disappointment. Chuck and I took a long walk on the beach and grumbled. By dinnertime, I was angry. Sitting beside me, Tom said how sorry he was that I didn’t get to see the library. I spouted off, “Why did he come here, anyway? To these people?”

  In the morning, a military escort came to the hotel for us. Our entire group followed them to a meeting with uniformed officers. While we offenders sat through Mr. Phuong’s explanation and Don’s apology, the rest of the group waited in the van. An hour later we were informed that we would have to go to Phan Thiet, where others would decide what to do about us. Soon we were on the road again, still under escort and with no passports or visas.

  The officials had reiterated that we could not stop in Phan Rang. As we came to the edge of the town, someone in the back of the van called out, “I have to go to the bathroom!” Someone else chimed in, “So do I!” Our driver had no choice but to stop. He pulled over at a café.

  A woman came forward from the back of the bus. As she passed me, she leaned down and said quietly, “Jill, go.” The bathroom request had been a ploy to force our driver to stop so I could set foot in the town Pete had called home. I stepped into the street. Seeing the faces, I wondered if any of these people had known my brother. Chuck Cable pointed in the direction of the library, but we couldn’t see it. Five minutes later, we were on the road again.

  When we reached Phan Thiet, the capital city of Binh Thuan Province, Mr. Phuong left Don, Mike, Darlene, Chuck, and me in one room while he spoke with authorities in another room. Eventually he came out with the verdict. “They are going to let you go,” he said, “but it will be expensive.” They wanted one hundred dollars U.S. from each of us. My four companions, who were not only Vietnam hands but had lived there on subsistence wages, were indignant at the outrageous fine. I didn’t see that we had a choice. For a hundred dollars, I was only too happy to get my travel documents and freedom back. Each of us also had to sign a confession. Don felt so bad that I had missed seeing both Pete’s windmills and the library that he insisted on reimbursing me.

  Back on the bus, I asked him what I had just signed. He told me that the top line said “From the Office of Spies.” He must have been joking, because I have since had the document translated by someone who interpreted the same words as “From the Office of the Police Chief.” It stated that we had broken the law by venturing where we did not have permission to go.

  We were in Ho Chi Minh City (which many Vietnamese still call Saigon when Americans are not nearby) on the night of January 16. A group of Australians we met in our hotel, the Majestic, told us that President Bush’s threats had worked and Saddam Hussein had backed down. There would be no war. We went to bed relieved.

  Unfortunately, the Australians were wrong. In the early-morning hours of January 17, Operation Desert Storm began, with massive air strikes and missile attacks on Iraq and Kuwait. It was ironic to hear the news over breakfast in this country where so many had once fought and died. Hearing that our nation was again at war, we just shook our heads.

  My trip had been emotionally demanding and disappointing in some ways, but it also had been cathartic. Vietnam was no longer a legend. It was real to me. It would never again be just a place of death. As time passed, I grew more curious about Pete’s life there, not just how he had died.

  Two years after my fortieth birthday and the twenty-fifth anniversary of Pete’s death, both of which had inspired my trip to Vietnam, I wrote about the journey in a newspaper column.

  I had been able to leave my brother in Vietnam, I said. I had a new perspective, a newfound authority over my own life. When I celebrated my birthday, I didn’t feel the twinge of sadness I used to. I thought of Pete, but on reflection I felt that, if he had to die, at least it had happened in the birthday season.2

  TEN

  “A Promise Is a Promise”

  I

  n early November 1964, a deadly typhoon struck three northern provinces in South Vietnam. Pete was transferred temporarily to one of them, Quang Ngai, to assist with flood relief. His assignment was to coordinate the volunteer efforts of Vietnamese youth.

  He rode his motorcycle as far as Nha Trang to catch a flight to the disaster area. As he boarded the Air Force C-123, he learned that Vietcong had surrounded the city. He hadn’t noticed as he drove through town.

  Hoping his letters didn’t sound too melodramatic, he admitted to Margo that at times he got carried away with the life he was leading, “being such a young man and so impressionable, as we all are in our early years. Last Saturday, for instance, I was actually shot at.”

  Pete was a passenger in a cargo plane flying at an altitude of seven hundred feet when it was fired upon from the ground. “There we were, buzzing along the coast of Quang Ngai when there were two ‘thwack’ noises wh
ich roused me out of a peaceful slumber,” he wrote. “Sounded like a hammer dropping on a piece of glass, but without the tinkle of flying glass, that was quickly followed by ricocheting noises right out of a cowboy thriller.” Pete reported that, except for a Vietnamese colonel, who turned gray, he and all the other passengers grinned at each other and looked out the window. The insurgents in Quang Ngai were much more audacious and desperate than those in Phan Rang. “Don’t tell Mom, maybe,” he told Cis. “Tell her I’m very careful.”

  A group of students from Hue University had shown up at Quang Ngai to help, wearing neckties, silk shirts, and pointed Italian shoes. They had brought no other clothing. Despite the disastrous conditions, they expected someone to offer them meals and lodging. After four days, when province administrators had not instituted a program they could carry out immediately, they complained bitterly. Instead of taking the initiative and organizing themselves to a task, they waited for the government to direct them.

  Pete, along with one of his teammates and a student from Saigon, investigated the situation, discussed it among themselves, and in two days wrote up their recommendations for a student-run relief operation. The students would rebuild houses, teach preventive health practices, clean out wells, and perform other manual labor. It was not the work the students had in mind — they had hoped to hand out rice but were too late to assist with emergency food rationing; still, it was what the flood victims needed.

  The other IVSer and the student flew to Saigon to muster support. Pete stayed in Quang Ngai to get things ready for the volunteers who would come up from Saigon University.

  Meanwhile, the place was a mess. Mud covered everything. When you stepped into the muck, you could sink up to your knees. “Like as not, there’s a dead cow at the bottom of the hole,” Pete wrote. “People living in schools, eating dead animals, rats, dogs.”