We had to land at a base about halfway up South Vietnam in high country and wait for another aircraft. We waited several hours before the next leg of our journey, during which I noticed that my translators were walking off in all directions.
Sergeant Xuan came and told me how things were. The six ARVN translators were not going any farther north. They had taken their own counsel and deserted. Well, not exactly deserted since we really didn’t know what our orders were. Nothing was written, and I could only generally explain our mission, if mission it was. In fact, Sergeant Xuan lowered his eyes and confessed that he wasn’t going any farther, either. And to further add to my mood of compound foreboding, he advised me as my friend that he would warn me also to go no farther.
We had, by that time, come to know each other pretty well. He knew I was probably the worst soldier in the American army, and certainly the worst officer since Captain Yossarian, and that in his opinion whatever luck had kept me alive so far might be about to run out. The Vietnamese, like many Asians, have definite ideas about the role of luck in life. They believe that good luck is balanced by bad luck, and thus good luck is one of the worst things that can happen to you. I hadn’t told him that I had less than a month left before I could go home honorably, but I was filled with dread, unequaled before or since. Most of my plans in the army had either failed or come to naught, so why should this be any different?
17
You will conclude, and I will agree with you, that I was not a good soldier. My nonacceptance of any shame for my stalwart avoidance of responsibility was solidified by this time. General MacArthur gave a farewell speech to a West Point class in which he stressed three themes. He was a self-aggrandizing bloviator, but he used three words to serve as touchstones for the American soldier, and certainly the American officer. He counseled “Duty, Honor, Country.” If you fulfill these you have nothing to be ashamed of. Ah, but saying these things is easy. The argument then progresses to finer points of definition. The words were abstractions. They belonged in songs and prayers, not solid directions for what to do next. Had I fulfilled these abstractions, or even two out of three? Had I, for instance done my duty? And if I had, then how much more was required as I flew north, toward a battle ill defined and patently ill advised, and, while we’re at it, frankly unnecessary. MacArthur, in many examples, showed that he had only marginal respect for the lives of his men. Their duty was to follow orders, to do and die, to advance and stop bullets coming at them. I could ask, when considering my own obligations of duty, what exactly were MacArthur’s obligations, or any general officer’s, to make sure that plans had some guarantee of success. Was it anyone’s duty at the top to balance costs against gain? On the other hand, how was a general expected to get anything done, how to effect a victory, if he couldn’t depend on people to do what they were goddamn told?
If, as is now the case, the armed services had been filled with people, men and women, who volunteered for the dangers of military operations, then these people presumably would have known what the risks were inherent in their decision. If they didn’t know, they should have been clearly told. But in an armed effort prompted by confused and abstract political aims, most of the soldiers in Vietnam were draftees, drafted under compulsion of imprisonment and other punishments. So what did duty actually mean? MacArthur would have countered that soldiers should shut up and obey. If they died or were grievously wounded, blinded or maimed, or driven crazy in their subsequent existence, had their family life ruined, came apart in their careers, became suicidal or murderous, and any combination of the foregoing, well, then that’s the chance you take, not only in war but also in life. At least you and your family weren’t speaking Japanese.
To further confuse the minds of the officer class, MacArthur added the word honor. I did not know then, and I do not know now, and I have never met anyone before or since the war, or any war, who can clearly tell me what the word means. It is situational. Performing a task that has serious costs, in pain or other deprivation, a task that you would rather not do, involves at least the idea of honor. Fulfilling an obligation, keeping a promise, being present at an expectation, all these are somehow and to some degree exercising honor. Checks are honored at the bank. Green stamps are honored for gifts. Insurance policies are honored when claims are made. Obligations to pay for elderly parents, sick children, business contract stipulations, and so on are all honored. But what about the honoring of an expectation to tell the truth if you know it? What about the honor to look out for the men, who are largely powerless, who were assigned to your command? I could go on, but you get the idea.
I also was bothered and ashamed at another characteristic of the American commanders, which was a disinclination to think. This may well be an American trait, a type of fat, dumb, and happy stumbling forward, counting on the wealth and size of the country to make everything come out okay. Officers I met and talked with, most of whom outranked me, met any doubt about the war with a practiced ignorance and a helpful stupidity, forging forward even if they were inwardly convinced of the wrongheadedness of what they were doing. And this wrongheadedness was present from the clumsy daily task and mission all the way to the enormity of the undefined mess of the Vietnam War, a war that after years of stasis and costs and blood had produced a worse situation than existed before it started.
Which left MacArthur’s third abstraction — country. Most people think they know what this means, easily excluding all the variables that define the word. In the case of the American politicians who sent us to Vietnam, little consideration was given to the idea that Vietnam should have been defined by the Vietnamese themselves. In later years it turned out that the Vietnamese didn’t give a damn about the ravings and disastrous thinking of Marx or Mao or anyone. They wanted to be Vietnamese. Years of domination by the rapacious French and the disemboweling Japanese had made them love their land far more than the American glory hunters and jackass advisers loved theirs.
So I had lost my team of interpreters, and I was alone. I would not be able to decipher radio messages coming from ARVN units trapped on the top of Laotian mountains, screaming for medical evacuation, or more likely total evacuation as the North Vietnamese mortared them from the sides of the mountains. Journalists got hold of photos of the ARVN troops refusing to get off the helicopters, or hanging on to the struts, hanging on for what turned out to be comparatively dear life. Reports followed of US helicopter pilots refusing direct orders to fly the ARVN troops into Laos. Whatever value may have been present in obeying orders, whatever rewards there might have been for discipline or heroism, had disappeared. No one spoke of it. No one I ever met spoke of medals or promotions. No one. Well, maybe that general who had put himself in for a Silver Star for an act of heroism and bravery that turned out to be fictional, but he never spoke about it, either.
So by myself, with my minimal identification and my dictionary of Vietnamese military terms, my rifle, and my totally useless automatic .45, I got in the next helicopter and flew north.
18
There were effectively no front lines or rear areas in the Vietnam War. There were firebases with five or six guns, bunkers to house the troops, an open space for helicopters to land, a dug-out area to store the ammunition, and some sort of mess facility. Some firebases had been in place for years. An inevitable slovenliness set in. Huge rubber bladders of fuel leaked diesel and gasoline that mixed with the kitchen residue and other fluids. Uncontrollable fires were not uncommon, very frightening especially when they spread to the ammunition storage areas. Then frantic efforts had to be made to move artillery rounds to someplace, anyplace, safe. The firebases were of no particular design since the assumption was that they would not be needed for a long time and would be transferred to the ARVN troops as soon as they adequately trained in artillery aiming and ranging. A chain-link fence was erected around the firebase. Observation and radio towers were here and there. Each firebase had a commander who took the assi
gnment for about six months. Some were strict about hygiene and security. Some weren’t. Some firebases had grown with the amount of fighting around them, and some had shrunk to only two or three guns in the middle of a larger fenced area. But nearly all of them had something that was labeled an officers’ club, or at least a hut with a sign in front.
The firebase where I finally landed during Operation Lam Son was called Firebase Matthew, or at least I think that was the name. I may have imagined it since Matthew was my baby son’s name. I came with the unwelcome news that my interpreters had deserted and that all by myself I really could not understand numbers and directions screamed in terror by the ARVNs stuck on mountaintops in Laos. It was a larger-than-average firebase, and the officers’ club was a little bit less disgusting than others I had seen. I went there first to try to get a sense of what was going on. I didn’t know where I was supposed to report or to whom. I was told of the situation, of the desperately frightened and demoralized ARVN troops, of their equally frightened commanders, of our pilots who were increasingly disobedient. I was told that the situation in Laos was deteriorating daily, and other disasters were unfolding. The border area had never been properly mapped so we only had a rough idea of where the mountains and streams were. The land itself is very thick forest, and it is fair to say, although I never flew over it myself, that one mountain looked pretty much like another. In the army terminology troops were to be “inserted,” and then they “conducted operations,” and then they were “extracted.” These anodyne descriptors sound good at a distance, but they are horrible close up. News of the second Khe Sanh ongoing disaster was well known and regarded as a predictor of defeat in Operation Lam Son. So then what would become of Firebase Matthew?
Armed with this frightening initial evaluation firmly in mind, I wandered around Firebase Matthew, from the officers’ club to the headquarters, searching for someone of high rank or authority to report to. I may have made a less-than-ardent effort to report to the command, but confusion helped me along. After two days of odd dislocation, during which I found digs in a bunker with some ARVN soldiers and ate only canned scrambled eggs and ham, I had reached such a level of personal filth and fear that I needed direction. I went to the headquarters bunker and announced myself. The colonel in charge had decided to cover his confusion and helplessness with bombast and threats. Who was I, he wanted to know. What the hell was he supposed to do with me? Where were my translators? How had I allowed them to run off? What kind of shithead officer was I? He continued in this critical vein, very cross and confused. I knew enough about how to deal with the army by then to simply wait out the abuse and say as little as possible. He actually made me a little more confident, in a very strange way, when I realized that it wasn’t just me who was unsure and disoriented. It was everyone.
Operation Lam Son at that time was only one of several Lam Sons and sons of Lam Son. The painful fact slowly became apparent that you couldn’t stop a supply channel like the Ho Chi Minh Trail, wandering hundreds of miles through mountains and jungles, bringing food and medicine and ammunition to an army determined to stay and fight, especially if their main weapon was time. We bombed endlessly, we dropped poison and napalm on the forests, we bombed the places we had already bombed, and it did no good. I wondered why I could figure this out, but the generals and the political leaders could not. I came to feel a bit sorry for General Abrams, now handed an impossible assignment and who would end his otherwise long, proud career shepherding a bloody mess toward the escape hatch, but actually not much. Also, by this time the journalists who covered the war were convinced that there was no chance of victory. Many of them realized that however it ended it would be, at least for American soldiers and the American people, nothing short of a shame to be forgotten. It would be hard to forget. Few journalists predicted that it would take another five years to the American withdrawal. The closest to wisdom I heard from a journalist was that a Korea-like standoff was the best the US could hope for. I believed that for a while, along with a group of things I also believed that turned out wrong.
So I had an amusing, if you are amused by fear and loathing, situation. I was on this noisy, godforsaken place, in the middle of a war, in the midst of disgusted American soldiers and their hopeless allies, under commanders trying to effectuate a battle plan with tactics designed and compromised by the disputatious and ignorant American politicians back in Washington. The fighting went on, and the casualties mounted. Some American helicopters were shot down, a very hard way to end your military career. Helicopter pilots were warrant officers, a rank that is reserved for persons who have special skills. They are not as respected as regular officers, and in a way, they know it. They do what they do because they love to fly, not necessarily to fight and kill. They are workmen doing a valuable job, and they expect to be intelligently used — certainly not thrown into a battle as a desperate measure. During Operation Lam Son many American pilots, probably more than will ever be admitted, refused orders to fly across the Laotian border. The orders were pretty much suicidal. I repeat that a helicopter in the sky can be seen and heard. A North Vietnamese on the ground, in the thick forest, carrying a weapon or a Russian surface-to-air missile, is invisible. The missions were definitely suicidal. And suicide has to have a better reason than simply that someone orders you to do it.
19
So, what did I do?
I was probably more aware than most troops of the larger combat situation at the time, with all the faults and fraudulent explanations Washington had made. I could see the military situation then more clearly than what many on the ground at Khe Sanh and the various firebases could see. I could see more than the American infantry troops, who were given only the briefest account of historical relevance to what they were asked to do and the risks they were made to take. I could see what the real relationship was between the American army and the South Vietnamese army. I could see all this clearly, even if on the surface I looked like a clever shirker and as if I were willing to let others take the risks. I could see that the troops, both the South Vietnamese and the Americans, were being killed for the basest of political reasons.
So, what did I do?
I had to do something, in the midst of all this confusion, using my questionable ability to interpret radio messages between the South Vietnamese on the ground and the American pilots in the air. There were some ARVN troops who had some English and could relay panic calls for artillery and bombing runs and medevac help. But someone had to determine the truth in their reports. Did they know what they were talking about, what they were asking for? How and to what extent could the Americans do anything? I tried to explain to the colonel who had gone from screaming insults at me to now threatening me with a court-martial. I said that a court-martial would be fine with me. I gave my opinion that the planning for this operation and all the attendant operations was wrongly composed, unrealistic, and ignorant of the endless dangers inherent. I used shorter Anglo-Saxon words, but the point was the same. I said that we were being used for purposes that were largely theatrical. I said that we were being thrown away, along with our allies, as the regrettably expendable assets because the American politicians feared being blamed for a military loss and would do anything to cover their reputations. A court-martial, while not welcome, was no threat. In the midst of all the noise and confusion a court-martial had no weight at all.
So, what did I do?
No court-martial was ever convened or even mentioned again. The colonel screamed some more and then turned to screaming at someone else. I left him not knowing if he would actually do anything. I didn’t care. I worked for a few days with an ARVN air support unit, trying to orient their maps, since this area of Laos was irregularly mapped many years ago by French troops. All this time I watched the days elapse, about three weeks until I had less than a week still required in country. An American soldier was only made to stay in Vietnam one year. At the end of the year you got orders for DEROS, the dat
e en route overseas, the date to escape the year that seemed like ten. Some troops actually signed up for a second year, and even a third if they considered their duty more interesting than a return to some unpleasant American life. I didn’t consider that an option, because not only was my obligation in Vietnam coming to an end, but my obligation to the army was over as well. Returning to the States meant returning to civilian life, a job if there was one, and a completely new set of circumstances.
In the three weeks the ARVN air operations group, in which I was never sure who had the job of commander, suffered more men lost and helicopters shot down. Their helicopters had suspicious mechanical complaints. The Vietnamese pilots and the repair troops were sloppy, and they didn’t trust machinery like Americans did. The repair facilities were farther back inside Vietnam. In the whole operation more than a hundred helicopters were lost, shot down, or rendered unflyable. I noticed that a lot of the ARVN helicopters were tagged as not reparable and had to be flown or airlifted back to a safer place to be fixed. This was preferable to flying into Laos. Anything was preferable to flying into Laos.
I waited, putting all my now considerable dilatory skills into the appearance of activity, and counting the days. I joined some missions at night, some in the early morning, when the dark or the low light made the helicopters less visible. Helicopters ran into each other, or tried to land near unseen trees or wires. I went to a few situation briefings, with the mad idea that I would be able to help the Vietnamese understand what the Americans were talking about. It was an endless stream of disaster, loss, retreat, missed communications, unsolvable disputes, raw emotions, and old hatreds. Picking up ARVN troops from the tops of mountains while being shot at was terrifying. A Huey could only get off the ground with nine or ten soldiers, and when more than that wanted to get on, and were ready to fight for the right, not only did the helicopter itself fail to go up, but the pilot’s control disappeared as well. At the morning briefings one general objected to allowing Vietnamese officers to attend, because he suspected they might be passing plans and other information to the North. This meant intentionally keeping our supposed allies in the dark. I thought this was wrong, and I said so, although I only partially understood myself. This was a period of time when I didn’t care what I said. I sensed that my attempts to translate either had no effect or actually made things worse. The briefings were held in a dark bunker, half underground, and each morning’s report was begun with a chaplain offering an unspecific Catholic prayer, which, for the Buddhist Vietnamese, was untranslatable.
Lieutenant Dangerous Page 14