Ulysses Dream

by Tim White

  “I don’t care which woman I marry; I just don’t want to die without ever getting married.”

  Ulee’s friends roused up a widow looking for a husband from the camp and then, Ulee performed a marriage. After the wedding, the guys were sitting around asking Ulee questions—deep questions like, what it is like to be an Indian and still be white. They asked if Ulee died and they survived, if they could marry his girlfriend (me). Then the guys started to ask questions that every human being asks in situations like this.

  “If I’m not a Christian, will I go to hell when I die? How could a loving God allow all the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, and agnostics to burn in hell for eternity because they hadn’t prayed the sinner’s prayer?”

  Ulee explained that he believed that God was the judge—not religious people.

  “I don’t like religious people. I don’t know everything and I have a lot of questions. That is the Native part of my faith; we have room for mystery in our understanding of a God who is smarter than we are. I don’t think you have to believe in hell to go to heaven. But I have seen a lot of hell in my lifetime. I don’t think you are saved because of a doctrinal statement or a mode of baptism. Look at the thief on the cross; he never had a chance to get baptized or learn doctrine, and Jesus said, ‘Today you will be with me in paradise.’ I think a lot of Christians are going to be surprised when they get to heaven because they are going to find an atheist, Buddhist, or communist who was following Jesus better than the religious people. Those people just didn’t know they were following Jesus. They were following their conscious and rejecting a false image of Jesus. I am all right with leaving it up to God to judge. I believe that we find God when we accept the love of Jesus and his lordship. And the important thing is we can know for certain that we have an eternal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.”

  “What does lordship mean?” asked one of the guys.

  “I guess it means his absolute leadership. He is God and we are not. And we love him so much that we want to live his way the best we can. Always getting better at following him.”

  Jack Groan, the big center, pulled out his canteen. “Why don’t you baptize us right now, Ulee? Is this enough water?”

  The fullback nicknamed, Mack Truck said, “Make us Christians but don’t make us Indians.” They all laughed.

  Ulee asked each one, “Do you ask God to forgive you of your sins because of what he has done for you on the cross and do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and trust him with all of your heart?”

  Ulee used his canteen to pour a little water on each head and said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

  “You know what is really funny?” Antonio said as he held hands with his new wife who did not speak a word of English. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

  Ulee walked outside under the stars and looked at the moon. He wondered if I was looking at the same stars. It was not even nighttime in Kennewick. But on Christmas Eve day I heard the song, I’ll Be Home for Christmas and ran out under the moon and stars and cried my eyes out. Ulee hummed the same song to himself on Christmas Eve on the other side of the planet. This planet is not as big as we think, and love is real.

  On Christmas morning, the NVA shelled the hell out of the village. Their accuracy was uncanny; they hit the Marine central bunker, taking out the lieutenant, and the villagers suffered terrible losses. That night they began to send teasers up and down the lines, looking for a weakness. They came from the south, east, and west and made it look like the north was the only way to escape. Then there was silence. Flares were set off, claymores were used, booby traps worked, and cries sounded out in the jungle. Then horns and whistles started to blow as a huge bombardment began on the village. The Marine firebase set away at a distance answered, but they were under severe attack also.

  When Ulee peeked his head up, he could see the enemy advancing by the thousands on the north side. Ulee was scared because this was the stuff of nightmares. Ulee’s hands were trembling until he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, killing one invader after another with his Remington. Ulee’s friend dove and pushed him out of the bunker just before a huge explosion. Ulee was a brave man, but he literally wet his pants when a mortar hit right next to him, killing his friend Mack Truck.

  The Ranger squad added so much to the defense. These guys were real heroes. The 50 calibers and their two mortars took out more advancing enemy than all the rest of the defenders together, and these Kennewick boys put themselves in harm’s way—saving life after life. Ulee was knocked on his butt and wounded by an explosion. One of the big Kennewick boys picked up Ulee by the collar and stood him up so he could get back in the fight. Ulee took a position and used his Remington 700. He didn’t remember missing—it was a target-rich environment. He was just too slow with that Remington. He had at least twenty kills—but it was nothing to the swarming enemy.

  Ulee watched Luau stand up so his Marines could retreat from the wire to the center compound. The enemy must have shot Luau seven times with AK-47 rounds, as he just blew up. Ulee cried out, “Brother!” Their eyes met as Luau dropped to the ground dead. Ulee looked around at all the men who fought bravely; it was medieval: the cries, the yelling, the screams, the war sounds. He watched each of his men die heroic deaths. The fighting went on all day, and it was growing dark. The attacks still came, lasting through the night. It was down to just him and a few boys from Kennewick and a couple of Montagnard. The explosions were deafening.

  The battle turned to brutal hand-to-hand combat when Ulee’s Remington was out of ammo and too slow to load. The pump-action shotgun became his weapon of choice. Finally, in the darkest part of the night, Ulee drew his 44 magnum, and six men were blown away. There was a moment of safety for Ulee after his 44 had shot the immediate threats. As he reloaded, he watched as Paco was killed trying to get to Donel. Ulee sent Cerberus to protect Donel. Just as Donel was shot and Cerberus wounded with a grenade frag—in jumped the formidable Sammy from Portland, Oregon. For a kid with middle-class upbringing, he was a warrior. He died a warrior’s death. Ulee picked up an AK-47 and began to pick off men in the midst of his scuffle. Cerberus hit the ground for protection, digging a foxhole as the breed does when they are in trouble. Benjamin came out of nowhere to display surprising courage. There seemed to be nothing tough about Benjamin, but his last efforts were fierce, fighting for the protection of Ulee’s dog—as courageous as any hero that died that day. Now Ulee could not see any of his Kennewick Rangers still alive.

  Rage consumed Ulee as he shot six more men with his 44. Then Ulee was out of ammo. He was shot in the left side and swarmed by enemy troops who wanted to take him alive. Out came his family bowie knife. That and martial arts were used in a bloody fight for survival. He thrust the huge knife into the chest of a large enemy combatant and twisted the blade only to have a bayonet stuck in his side while he was clubbed over the head with an AK-47. That was the last he remembered in that nightmare.

  The next morning, Ulee awoke to the sound of the NVA shooting the wounded. He was physically pulled along with them as they retreated to the jungle. He surveyed the dead friends over the battlefield as he felt himself dying. He watched as Red, Bull, and Leighton were executed, along with some women Montagnard that had been fighting by their side.

  He screamed, “No!”

  His last prayer to Jesus was, “I don’t mind dying. All my friends are dead—I am a disgraced warrior. God please give me a warrior’s death.”

  He was overwhelmed with grief that every human experiences sometime. The grief and shame felt like a horrible vacuum in his soul, as he desperately missed me, his family, friends, his dog, and life. A brutal NVA soldier came over to fulfill his prayer. Ulee’s last sensation was horrible pain.

  Chapter Seven

  Odyssey of Ulysses

  AS I COMPLETED the story all the kids had gone to sleep. Much of the story had been told to me by some of Ulee’s friends who witne
ssed those final moments and survived the war. Some of the story, now folklore, were pieces I conjured from what I know in my heart must have occurred. Ulee’s and my spirits were linked. After a coffee break, everyone in the lodge insisted on hearing more.

  In Kennewick, a Navy car drove up to the Sundown home. A chaplain and another officer got out. Not all families are notified by a chaplain, but this was respect for a third generation Marine whose father was a pastor. Ulee’s father saw them coming and told his wife, Elizabeth, to take this with honor.

  Elizabeth teared up. “There is no honor in losing one of my babies.”

  Pastor Caleb invited the Navy chaplain and the Marine into the living room. The chaplain introduced himself to Reverend Caleb Sundown.

  Pastor Caleb said, “It was only a matter of time with Ulee. My brother John was KIA in Korea. We all know what happens to heroes.”

  They handed a letter and told them that they regretted to inform them that their son was killed in action. Caleb’s large hands took the letter.

  Elizabeth spoke. “Will I get my son’s body back?”

  “We have his dog tags but it is impossible to identify . . . I’m sorry ma’am, but the bodies were desecrated. The body is in transport here now.”

  They handed the precious dog tags to Reverend Sundown.

  “I understand you were a Marine and fought in Korea, and your father fought in WWI with the Marines,” the chaplain said. “Your family has brought much honor to our nation. On behalf of our grateful nation, we thank you. Your son was an exceptional Marine.”

  Reverend Sundown said nothing; tears rolled down his cheeks. Ulee’s mom began to moan as Grandfather Ephraim came in from the back door and hugged her. The whole neighborhood could hear her cries of grief.

  Ulee would only have been a senior in high school. I was in a special chemistry lab during the Christmas break when I looked outside my class window at Kennewick high school and saw three of Ulee’s brothers walking past the alley where Argos had been shot defending us. They spoke to the teacher at the door, and the teacher called me out of the class.

  Patty spoke. “Ulee is dead. He died defending an allied village.”

  I cried out, “No it’s not true! I don’t believe it is true.”

  All of his brothers surrounded me and hugged me. I just kept crying. “No, it doesn’t feel right—I don’t believe it. There is some mistake.”

  My life has been about ups and downs, great joys and great losses. Somehow this most horrible tragedy seemed inevitable after all that I had been through. My grief for Ulee joined in the cold pit in my heart where all the other trauma that I had been through hid far from human understanding. I was numb.

  We had a beautiful funeral for him. We had a drum circle, smoke ceremony, taps, a twenty-one-gun salute, and a flag presented to Mrs. Sundown. The local Buddhist community showed up also as Ulee’s friend Dawa, a Buddhist priest, had notified them from Vietnam. One of the local Buddhist priests spoke at the funeral, saying they appreciated how Ulee had saved children and helped an orphanage.

  The football coach talked at the funeral and told us how great an athlete Ulee was and how good he could have been. The church was not big enough for the service, so it was held at the Kennewick High School gym. In attendance were all the teammates and competitors of Ulee from the Big Nine Conference, which extended from Wenatchee to Walla Walla, from Yakima to Moses Lake. Gang members from Pasco came to the funeral, as did police officers and every retired Marine in the Tri-Cities. A plaque was placed in the trophy case along with three others high school athletes who had died in Vietnam. It was the first of twelve soul-wrenching funerals for the Kennewick boys who had died defending the Montagnard village. Eleven plaques were set up at Kamiakin High School. Our community was in grief. When the plaques went up, much of the student body joined a sit-in protesting the Vietnam War. It was all a nightmare. Both the antiwar group and the patriotic youth fighting a bully they perceived as monolithic communism seemed like they had a righteous cause.

  With the US participation in the war slowing down, the United States command began to reduce the Marine participation in combined action forces. On September 21, 1970, the Marines officially deactivated CAP as a separate command.

  We tried to go on with our lives, and so after an appropriate time of shock and grief we had a family get together at the Sundown residence. Mama Elicia made her famous arroz con pollo. Everyone was trying to celebrate when the conversation turned to our grief over the death of Ulee. His brothers told stories about how brave he was as he watched after them.

  “I have lost two boys,” Grandmother Elizabeth said. “No mother should ever have to lose one of their babies.” She couldn’t speak Ulee’s name.

  Pastor Caleb told us, “That is just our grief. Grief is the most profound emotion human beings experience. C.S. Lewis, who lost his mom, his friends in World War I, and his wife whom he married on her deathbed, thought that grief is one of the most powerful arguments for eternal life.”

  As we were eating dessert around the fireplace, the phone rang. A lady told Patty, I have a call from the President of the United States.”

  Patty said, “Who is this? This is one of my girlfriends playing a joke.”

  Then the President came on. “Son, can I speak to your parents?”

  Pastor Caleb took the phone. “Your son Ulee is a hero.” He went on saying that there was some kind of mix up and that even though Ulee’s dog tags had been found and the entire combined action group had died at the battle that they now had word that Ulee was a prisoner of war of North Vietnam.

  “We don’t know where he is being held, but we received a television broadcast of him and a few other missing in action men.” Caleb was speechless.

  The President said, “This must be heart-wrenching for you. But I want you to know we are doing everything we can to get our boys home.” He went on to tell Ulee’s dad, “I will be praying for Ulysses Looking Glass Sundown.” Pastor Caleb said in a monotone. “Ulee is still alive.”

  Our family let out a cheer with tears that we would never forget. Then it set in that Ulee was a prisoner of war. This nightmare would never end. The worst part was when the mothers of the Ranger boys from Kamiakin High School in Kennewick came by to congratulate us on our good news. Our hearts just broke knowing that they had lost their sons saving Ulee’s life.

  The journey on the trail as a POW took place mostly at night. He could see from the North Star that they were heading north. He was treated with a mixture of brutality and disrespect. He was stripped naked. The NVA would urinate on him and kick him. And then a young lady would come and attend to his wounds. He was blessed to be in a semi-state of unconsciousness. He wondered why he was kept alive. One day, as they hid in the shade of the jungle, the young woman who was operating as a corpsman spoke to him in English.

  She said, “You are a Native American?”

  “Yes,” he said, “and you speak English?” He asked, “Why did they let me live when they massacred everyone else?”

  She whispered, “We know you and hate you. You have killed many of us as a sniper. You use a bow and move through the jungle like a tiger. We call you the savage, but we also know that you do not kill women, kids, and the elderly, even when they are soldiers.”

  Later, when Ulee woke up in a Viet Cong prison camp, he saw a world that he had never imagined. The prison camp—or camps, for it was a moveable horror—was not easily imagined by a generation that had grown up watching World War II movies. There were no guard towers, no searchlights, and no barbed wire. Instead, the camp consisted of a muddy clearing hacked out of the jungle where sunlight barely penetrated the interlocking layers of branches and vines. A thatched hut served as the prisoners’ shelter. It was encased in a bamboo cage called a tiger cage. A bamboo platform was their communal bed.

  The young Americans, barefoot, in tatters, and on the verge of starvation, were given a little rice and forced by the Viet Cong to gather manioc, their potato-like
food, which was sometimes poisoned with Agent Orange by US spray planes. They lived under constant danger of being bombed by their own forces. An American turncoat armed with a rifle—Marine Thomas Slater—helped the Viet Cong keep them in line.

  Sixteen of the fifty-two prisoners of war who entered the camp died. Five were freed for propaganda purposes. One defected. The remaining twelve American survivors, plus two French nurses, were saved only by the North Vietnamese decision to send them on a forced march up the Ho Chi Minh Trail to Hanoi in 1971, where they remained until they were freed in 1973.

  The men were all captured in 1970. The prisoner in command was Navy Captain John McCleary. His father was a famous admiral. Captain McCleary was a graduate of the Naval Academy. He was offered the opportunity to be released and refused preferential treatment. He was a real hero. He was a pilot and twenty-seven years old. He had been there for three years. He was shot down in 1967 and had been shuffled from VC camps hidden in the jungle.

  McCleary told Ulee not to tell him anything—because the VC would beat it out of him. If he had any escape plans, he shouldn’t let anyone know. “Don’t trust anyone.” McCleary said. “We all break—tell them everything you know and stay alive. Just keep your sanity and don’t defect to their side.

  As soon as Ulee arrived, a Russian team was allowed to shoot film of them exercising in formation for physical training. They were given one good meal of rice and a chicken—the only chicken the men had seen in three years. Slater was the only one interviewed and spoke as though all of the prisoners had become Marxist. This was the film that made its way back to the US and confirmed that Ulee was alive.

  The first month, Ulee thought he was going to die. The depression and isolation were more than he could take. He was starving to death, and the torture was something for which he was trained. Escape seemed impossible until he heard one night a familiar howl in the jungle. It was Cerberus. God had not forgotten him even in a Viet Cong prison.