by Tim White
Ulee couldn’t talk—I could hear him crying softly. He finally said, “No, Ulee is dead.” And he hung up. He was so full of shame. He stopped praying. But he kept reading his Bible and other compendiums of philosophy, history, and theology. None of it helped. Running helped, doing pull-ups and parallel dips helped, as did pushups and sit-ups.
Before he returned to Vietnam, he stopped by the Tri-Cities. It was a beautiful desert day in Pasco as he walked up the campus at Columbia Basin College. As he walked, wearing his captain uniform, one of his friends yelled out. It was a friend nicknamed Tank.
“Is that you Sundown?” He turned, and one of the CBC football players came walking to him, with the coach following close behind. His friend gave him a hug and introduced him to the coach.
The coach told Ulee how he was always hearing stories about him when he was in high school. He said, “If you want to join our team, we would love to have you. It looks like you have put on a lot of muscle.”
I walked up to them, not believing my eyes. When he lifted his eyes and we looked into each other’s faces for the first time since Hawaii, we both just started to cry and ran into an embrace. His friend and coach left respectfully. As we kissed in front of the student body, I believed that Ulee was my other half—my soulmate that I could not live without. We didn’t talk; we just cried.
After a few moments some college students came up and started chanting, “Baby killer, baby killer. Ulee was wearing his Marine service C uniform with a piss cutter hat. Get out of Vietnam.”
“I thought all that was winding down now that we are supposed to be out of Vietnam,” Ulee said.
My sister pulled up in a car with Telemachus in a car seat. Belén got him out, and as she brought him over, Ulee smiled. “His skin is brown—his hair is brown. He is everything I wanted to be. He is manly for a little baby.” The baby seemed to hold his daddy rather than the other way around. The way Telemachus gripped his dad, I was pouring tears seeing them together. It was as if baby Telemachus somehow knew this was his daddy.
Ulee only had a short time: one night. His family and the Santos family all had a barbecue in Columbia Park, close to where they found the Kennewick man. It was a salmon barbecue. His mom made fried bread and huckleberry pie. Mama Elicia made fajitas on the grill. As it grew dark and the stars came out, everyone left us there. We sat and kissed and held each other. He told me that he would not sleep with me because he was so stupid to have divorced me. I begged him to stay. He held my face with his big hand gently when he spoke to me. I could not believe how strong and handsome he had become as a man. His face had the knife scar from Raul. I loved him with all my soul.
He said, “Penny, I know you can’t understand this because I don’t understand it. But I am going back to Vietnam.”
“But we are out of the war.”
“This is top secret, but some of us have never been out of the war. There is a massacre coming when South Vietnam collapses. Nice people like the people from your village in Honduras and my tribe will be massacred and live as slaves. I have been watching after an orphanage, and I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t return and fight to the death trying to protect them and get the kids of that orphanage out.” He told me the names of each child in his orphanage and what the kids were like.
I cried, “What about us? Telemachus, your son, and me. We have loved each other since we were children. Do you love the children of Vietnam more than your own son?”
“No,” he said. “I love you both more than anything else in the world. It is just that I can’t stand a bully. It’s like the communists are the bear and I am Joey. I could not look Telemachus in the face when he grows up to be a warrior if I didn’t do everything to try and save those kids.”
I told him, “I am going too.” He laughed. “This is no place for a woman.”
I punched him in the face as hard as I could. I could tell he did not feel the pain. Then I kicked him. “I have been taking kickboxing—I am no longer dependent on any man to defend me.”
He laughed as he groaned. “That is not the reception my groin had in mind from you.”
“So your groin has a mind of its own. Such a typical man.”
“If this world is going to be a better place for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, it will be women who make it so,” I lectured him.
“I forget how feisty you are Penelope.”
“My life has been a war too. Do you know what it is like to be a slave, an illegal, or to compete to get into medical school? You men and your machismo forget who is the stronger sex.”
We kissed, he got his family Nez Perce blanket from the car, and we sat talking on the park bench looking at the stars until we fell asleep sometime around dawn. Ulee left me there with his parent’s car covered in his family blanket. He ran the ten miles to the Pasco airport, and I woke up crying. I guess he couldn’t say goodbye. Vietnam was an addiction, just as the Trojan War was for his namesake, Ulysses, around 1180 BC.
When I think of the word hero, I think of a confused person. As I took psychology, I became more developed in my theory. Then I remembered how confused I am about childhood and life itself. Judge not lest you be judged. The veracity of the words of Jesus were becoming as much of a reason for me, being a Christ follower, as any religious experience I had ever experienced.
Black ops were closed down when a new US president took over. Ulee was stationed as a Marine guard at the US embassy in Saigon. He still forayed out to visit Ahn and Dawa and, in 1975, the two-year-old Nhung—the girl named after him who called him daddy. Every time he hugged her, his heart was torn for the warrior son he may never see again. The orphanage was doing a great job of teaching all its children English. He had left his grandfather Ephraim’s bone-handled knife and bow for Telemachus. His gift to me was the years of faithfulness. The Buddhist thought of him almost as a monk. His brother let him know that I graduated with honors from CBC and had moved to Seattle University to get my undergraduate degree and work on getting into the University’s medical school. I lived on campus, his son was in child care, and, yes, I started to date.
When Ulee heard, he screamed in anger, and his brother Crazy Horse told him over the phone, “Quiet down warrior; you left her pregnant and divorced her. Why don’t you come home if you love her as much as I think you do?”
Ulee had no reply. He had the orphanage to take care of, a foster daughter, and he feared the slaughter that would take place when South Vietnam fell. But he was just as afraid to look his stupidity in the face by coming back to me and to beg my forgiveness. “Pray for me,” was all he could say.
Ulee sent the $50,000 he had earned in Israel to his brother to give to me. The note said, “I will always love you. And I will somehow make it home to help with our son. I don’t expect you to wait for me. But I am your friend for eternity. Ulysses Looking Glass Sundown.
When Ulee returned to Vietnam, he was recognized for his battlefield promotion to captain. As a black ops sniper, they needed the South Vietnamese to respect him.
His colonel told him that if he wanted, at any time he could return to the Naval Academy and earn the promotion to make a career out of the Marines. “With your record, son, you could be a general someday.”
Ulee enjoyed the respect. He also enjoyed the first time he walked into the officers’ club in Saigon. They all knew him and had heard of him, and none of them could believe the jump in pay grade that he had taken. But he was a Marine’s Marine. And the other officers got used to the idea in no time. He sent most of his pay to me—no notes, no promises, just the support a man should have for his son.
Ulee had mastered the Vietnamese language and culture. But he missed the winters in the Wallowa Mountains. And he came to love living in the Vietnamese highlands with his faithful dog Cerberus. He continued to battle the Viet Cong, ambushing them, but now following his own code. No women, no children, and no elder combatants were targets. In fact, the Viet Cong learned that if they laid their
guns down and ran, he would spare their lives.
He knew he was in enemy territory even when he was back at the orphanage. The people seemed to leave him alone whether it was fear or respect. But he never went anywhere unarmed. He slept with his 44 magnum under his pillow. He and Ahn were growing closer; he had to find some way to get her out to the United States if his adopted daughter Nhung was going to have a chance to make it. It was only a matter of time before everything collapsed. He was told that if he married Ahn that she could have a chance to go home with him.
The Vietnamese wedding ceremony is one of the most important in their culture, with influences from Buddhism, Taoism, and Catholicism. It involves the whole village and is very expensive. It starts with fireworks. There is an extravagant meal, prayers in front of the altar of ancestors in the Buddhist temple, a tea ceremony, gifts for family members, and the bride wears three different dresses for different parts of the ceremony.
Ahn was beautiful; Ulee had seen a lot of beautiful women in Vietnam, but Ahn was by far the most striking. In the vows, he told her in English that he loved me whom he was betrothed to but that he would take care of her and her daughter to get them to the US. Ahn cried when she heard those words because she loved Ulee. The ceremony was completed with the final seven-course traditional dinner.
Ulee never consummated the marriage, keeping his vow to me. Ahn was grateful for Ulee’s attempt to bring her and her daughter to the United States. She determined that she would not leave Vietnam when Ulee refused to consummate their marriage. But she would get her daughter named after Ulee to the United States. Even though Ulee was trying to do the right thing, the story would still be spread that he had married. Ulee was trying his hardest to be honorable, but he never felt so far from God. He was a murderer and had married a beautiful woman that he did not love. He was twenty years old and never dreamed that his life could be so screwed up.
The speed at which the South Vietnamese position collapsed in 1975 was surprising to most American and South Vietnamese observers and probably to the North Vietnamese and their allies as well. Ulee, too, was surprised. The South Vietnamese forces began a disorderly and costly retreat, hoping to redeploy its forces and hold the southern part of South Vietnam, perhaps an enclave south of the 13th parallel.
Ulee moved Ahn and her child to Saigon and secured a passport for each. When he picked up Ahn, he could not find Dawa. Another old man and woman were caring for the orphans. It was then that Ahn told Ulee that Dawa was VC. Ulee could not believe it.
“I knew he was a sympathizer, but I never dreamed that clergy would be VC.” Ahn said, “It was the only way he could protect the children from the orphanage.” The horrible war was so full of lies and confused goals and immorality. He hated war, and he felt betrayed, misled, and beguiled. Now he just wanted to go home to the Wallowa Mountains to hear the voice of the creator in the high mountain meadows.
When Ulee returned to the airport, he found Ahn had sold her passport for a fortune. She also had abandoned her daughter, leaving her with refugees escaping on a boat. Ahn knew her daughter would be better off if she could somehow connect with her father and go with him to America. It was a risk leaving the girl, but it was a bigger risk and hardship leaving her in Vietnam.
During the turmoil Ulee was summoned to the US Embassy to help defend it. It was being overrun by Viet Cong and civilians as helicopters airlifted out troops and refugees. Ulee would be one of the last to flee the compound as Viet Cong sacked the embassy. He wanted to look for his daughter and wife—it was complete chaos. You cannot imagine the day that Vietnam fell. It was the end of an era, the collapse of a broken civilization and the surprise humbling of the United States.
In command of the fleet and in charge of the evacuation was Rear Admiral John McCleary. He kept looking for his friend, Captain Ulee, hoping he was among the Marines and civilians to have escaped the embassy. Ulee had refused to leave Vietnam without getting the kids out of the orphanage. He thought with his heart again jumping from the last helicopter to try the impossible rescue. When Admiral McCleary learned Ulee was not among those airlifted to his ship, he ordered sailors to call out Ulee’s name to the hordes of refugee boats in the harbor.”
“Has anyone seen a Marine named Ulysses Looking Glass Sundown?” sailors called out. Finally, a three-year-old girl answered. “My Daddy’s name is Ulysses Looking Glass Sundown,” she spoke with her tiny voice.
The girl was brought to Admiral McCleary.
“I know Ulysses Looking Glass Sundown.” The admiral cried, “Do you know the Marine Ulee?”
“Yes, he is my daddy.”
“Then you are coming with me young lady.”
A Navy car stopped in front of the Sundown home. Two men got out with a little girl. Ulee’s dad saluted Admiral McCleary who said, “Your son saved my life. I regret to inform you that your son stayed behind to try and rescue some children with the collapse of Vietnam. He is listed as MIA.” Ulee’s mom said.
“Well, he has been listed as KIA, POW, and now MIA. I still think my son will find a way home.” She picked up the girl. “And who is this?”
The cute little girl said, “My name is Nhung, my Daddy’s name is Ulysses Looking Glass Sundown and you are my grandma.”
Grandma Elizabeth did not care if this was the biological child of her son. The fact that her son had named her after himself was enough. She broke out in tears, giving little Ulee the tightest hug. She was family—she was Nez Perce—she was home.
Chapter Nine
Return to Attica
ANOTHER NIGHT AND another chapter in our story. This was the heart of our vacation in the Wallowa Mountains. I hardly felt sixty when telling this dream of mine. It made me young. It was my vision my dream. My way of coping while preserving history. I wanted to have an epic life. I wanted to tell my life with big adjectives. I wanted to forget all the grays in between, legend and harsh realities become mixed with could have been and hopes that I cannot live without. I am not looking for sympathy, just shared understanding. I want these lessons to benefit my family.
Ulee was found by Special Forces wandering from Cambodia into Thailand a month later. He was injured and carrying Ahn (Nhung’s mother) who was dead from a bullet wound. Walking with him were two orphan boys. They were half US and half Vietnamese. He introduced the kids as Plato Ho Chi Min Sundown and Aristotle Luau Sundown. Plato was twelve and Aristotle was eleven. Ulee was fond of these football-loving boys in the orphanage. They had escaped the Montagnard village together and now as the only survivors of the orphanage, they became family.
As the two boys flew back to Eastern Washington with their newly adopted dad, people in the Sea-Tac Airport came up to them and made comments about the war and how Ulee, who was in Marine uniform, was a baby killer and a kidnapper by bringing these kids back. One long-haired young man came up and spat on Ulee. He was tall and lanky; Ulee never once thought about retaliating—not in front of his boys.
“I’m trusting God to turn me into a pacifist,” Ulee would say under his breath.
As they boarded the prop jet for Horizon Airlines to commute from Seattle to the Tri-Cities, the boys seemed excited to see their new homes. They flew over Mount Rainier, which is majestic and the most glaciated peak in the lower States, then over the rich farmland in the high desert of Eastern Washington. They landed in Yakima and unloaded passages. A few service men stopped here—Ulee wished them good luck. There was a bond between all Vietnam vets. On came men and women cut out of a different mold, wearing cowboy hats and looking one another in the eye. Around these parts, Eastern Washington almost seemed like it belonged to Texas or Montana rather than to the liberal city of Seattle.
Ulee trembled a little on the inside as he spotted the Pasco airport. How in the world could his life become so messed up? He had a son out of wedlock and had adopted three Vietnamese kids. He had divorced his one true love (me) and had married a beautiful Vietnamese woman who was now dead, or at least missing. He had no ide
a how to face a future.
He missed the simplicity of a being a warrior. As they landed, he looked out the window to see the winding Columbia River flowing from Canada, meeting the Snake River coming from the Wallowa Mountains and Hells Canyon. Standing on the landing strip was his grandfather Ephraim and his grandmother Quanah, looking a century old. By them stood his aging father Joseph Caleb and his beautiful mother Elizabeth. There was his next younger brother, Petrocolas Crazy Horse Sundown; he was not tall but strong. His cousin, Jackson John Sundown, was there—you could see his smile as the prop jet passed over. Next to Jacky was “Stick” Donny Pielstick Sundown, who was tall and skinny as a rail. Next to them was Whitey, now a tall Hector Whitebird Sundown; he was taller than Ulee. At his side, as always, was Dunk “Heath Duncan Sundown”—he was much shorter but was very muscular in his build. And then there I stood, feeling as uncomfortable as I had ever in all my life.
Telemachus Cruz Morales Sundown was standing next to me, wearing Nez Perce regalia. He was four years old. And as he held my hand, he was sweating with nerves at meeting his dad.
Nhung was dressed in Nez Perce regalia also. She was holding onto her grandma’s hand. As Ulee and his two adopted boys walked down the stairs of the prop jet, we were all a bit surprised. How many kids did Ulee have? They all walked across the tarmac, and it was a wonderful, terrible moment for all of us. The top of his left ear was missing, and his light brown eyes were filled with sorrows too deep to explore. His hair looked like a white man—one of the first times I had seen him like this. He wasn’t wearing his dress blues, but he wore the captain insignia on his green Marine service uniform with a hard framed service cap called a barracks cover.