Dustoff is a parallel episode in the story of Fourteen by Eliot Moore.

(eliot.moore.writer at gmail dot com) this appears in his story as Chapter 27

And my thanks to Eliot for letting me play in his sandbox, with his characters, create a few of my own, and deepen and leverage off a beautiful, moving and challenging story.

Caution: The themes in these stories are adult themes; while graphic sex is not a part of the parallel chapters, some heavy topics including abduction, rape, murder, suicide, other violence and adult-teen sex -- both consenting and not -- are touched upon... Fourteen is a coming of age story in truly trying circumstances. The parallel stories hopefully give it depth and context. Such challenging material, we hope leads to a more interesting and significant story in the end.

Suggested Reading Order

The stories can be read in any order you choose of course; On The Knife's Edge (previously published as The Chillicothe Interlude, Chapter 24 of Fourteen, and cowritten by Eliot and me) is intended to be mostly a stand alone chapter; I recommend you read On The Knife's Edge before Dustoff to give better context; but it will work in any order. If you haven't read the main series from the beginning it may be a bit easier to get into if you read these chapters first; but there are a few spoilers in Knife's Edge and in Dustoff. We've tried to insert these parallel stories as seamlessly as possible but it's impossible not to do it without a little bit of spoilers.

As I revise my stories constantly and even after publication the most recent version with better formatting and limited illustration is on this page... This page is shortlinked as http://wp.me/s3nYC8-dustoff

Please enjoy and drop either of us a line if you have questions or ideas!

Will you join your fellow authors and readers to support Nifty? To contribute discreetly  to the continuing operations of the Nifty Erotic Stories Archive website using a credit card or other methods of donation, go to http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html 

Fourteen Chapter 27 (Levi Reprise)

Dustoff

In the mind of Levi Fisher,

Tết denotes the boundaries of his life

and his death.

A long life and not always a good one...

A short death... not necessarily a bad one.

Washington DC

National Press Club

21 November 1967

(71 Days Before Tết)

"I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing. We are making progress. ...It lies within our grasp--the enemy’s hopes are bankrupt …  We have reached an important point where the end begins to come into view.” General William Westmoreland

If the Viet Minh could respond, this is what they would say:

“Your leaders have lied to you. You are not close to victory. We will not give up; we will not go away -- we cannot. We have fought invaders in our land for two thousand years. This is our Nation.”

Danang, Socialist Republic of Việt Nam

11 December 2017 0530 hours

He had paid quite a bit for the long taxi ride to Danang from Saigon – no, Ho Chi Minh City, he corrected himself. Based on his last visit in '72, Ho City seemed pretty apt if also a gruesome pun. Five hundred klicks and he had to pay double in a round trip fare to get the driver back home. Well worth it, he thought. It had been tediously long, but he was able to nap quite a bit and of course cut his trail at Saig– Ho City. It would take the FBI a while to catch up and he'd have taken care of business by then. He knew if they hadn't got him on the way in-country he'd be good as long as he was careful.

The cheaper alternative, a mere $44US, would have been a short flight, less than two hours.

The problem there is he would have to present his real passport and leave a trail plus take the chance of being stopped on the spot; or present the forged passport and again chance being stopped. Either was a risk he couldn't accept at this point. The FBI shouldn’t have the fake name but who knows what connections they would make, what unintended tracks his jackrabbit run had left? Not worth taking chances. And the long drive served his ends anyway.

He'd arrived at Tan Sohn Nhut Airport after nearly twenty-four hours in transit from Phoenix and, exhausted, got a hotel room using the fake passport for a day's rest before hiring the taxi. He paid for a week and engaged the taxi for a week too; no harm no foul. He didn't check out of his Ho City hotel in case they did track him to it. Let them think he planned to return. If it bought a day it might be all he needed.

Still it was twenty two hours by the coast route with the stops he needed; it was a little faster than the inland route and more beautiful too; when he was awake and felt well enough to watch. He couldn't eat much, couldn't hold a lot down and had little appetite; but he had the driver stop for local food, he had wanted that again very badly...there was so much memory wrapped up in it... the trip let him see the ocean all the way, several times at beaches he walked barefoot in the surf, let the humidity and heat and breeze and beauty of this once familiar land again wash over him, swallow him up and it was good.

It was why he came to this place

Part of why.

As response to the wilting heat the ocean breezes were welcome and mediated the wear on his body. He was no longer twenty-one he was seventy-one after all and, well, not in the best health.

At Cam Ranh Bay he stopped to walk the beach again, let himself enjoy the beauty of the land, the massive rock formations jutting imperiously from the water, the cliffs at land's end. It wasn't his favorite thing, but the bustling seaport and the harbor busy, crowded with hundreds of ships, big and small, industrial buildings despite the incredible physical beauty surrounding these man-made works. He looked within himself and found the confirmation of his planning -- with some relief.

On this beach he sent the email that would end the issue of Jeremy, a prearranged signal the man in Arizona would understand. Would do what must be done.

This was the worst part really, parting with Jeremy, harshly done. Why could he not have told the boy he loved him, before the ending? He shrugged. If it is in his nature to betray, why be surprised by his final betrayal?

He had forgotten too (not forgotten!) how deep in emerald beauty the land was.

In Danang he had the taxi to drop him at the Intercontinental Hotel and sent the driver on his way home with an extra (not as green) benjamin, then took a second taxi to again break his trail, and checked into a beach-side three star hotel, $100 would cover a week's stay... enough Western tourists so he won’t stand out much, stay away from the five star places, they’d look there first… used the fake passport again and talked to the concierge to arrange the services he needed. Then went to his room, turned up the A/C, closed the drapes, put out the Do Not Disturb card and lay down, jet-lagged road-weary; febrile, fragile, and old. It proved easy to sleep his day away.

His energy is perilously low now, he has to be sure to string it out.

He must not run out before this trip is finished.

Saigon, Republic of Vietnam

25 Feb 1968

"Although the enemy has achieved some temporary psychological

advantage, he suffered a military defeat.'' – General William Westmoreland

The General could not be more right. Militarily the North had suffered a massive defeat.

And he could not be more wrong. The psychological advantage was anything but temporary.

Better had he said, "Although the enemy has suffered a severe military defeat, he achieved an insuperable psychological victory. And thereby will win this war of attrition.”

Attrition means the slow grinding down of both opponents, each side betting the wearisome endless war will painfully, expensively drudge on until the other gives up. Attrition is the calculated death of boys, young men of all races and places, often to no immediate purpose or gain. That is a war of attrition. If the Viet Minh are willing to keep losing one day longer than the Americans are willing to keep winning, that is victory in a war of attrition.

Some think Westmoreland showed by his comments how the Americans misunderstood the nature of this war. He thought if he killed enough Communists they'd stop fighting. But they didn't. They thought if they killed enough Americans they'd go away.

And they did.

Really, nothing was going to erase the image of the enemy invading the grounds of the U.S. Embassy just ten weeks after the Commanding General said victory was in sight. At the Embassy the small team was routed out in a day; but to a growing segment of the American public, Tết demonstrated the resolve of the Viet Minh, and the tenuous control South Vietnam had over its own territory... and nothing of Tet looked like the enemy was ready to give up. To the contrary he showed a willingness to fight to the death and to take as many of our boys as possible with him.

In the ensuing counteroffensive the VC were almost eliminated and the NVA in the South as well, there was almost nothing left, the barrel of the North's gun was empty and it took well over a year to reload. Still, in the end Tết was the hammer that broke the camel’s back…and if the hammer also shattered, what did that matter? Except to the hammer...

Pittsburgh PA

12 December 2017 0700 EST

Good Morning, here is the early national news for Thursday December 12 coming to you from the National News Center Studios at Steel Tower Center in Pittsburgh. I'm Cameron Westphal.

There are new developments in the search for missing Ohio teen Jeremy Gates. The fourteen year old disappeared from his home in Chillicothe early in August with what police call “significant indications” that he had been abducted. Last week the FBI finally developed new leads to his whereabouts and the boy was sighted in Arizona.

Yesterday afternoon the recreational vehicle in which Jeremy was believed to be traveling was located in a parking lot near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. But there is still no word as to the whereabouts of the boy. FBI sources privately say they don't have any indications that the boy is in danger but are increasingly frustrated that they cannot locate him.

Meanwhile the FBI has broadened its international search for Levi David Fisher, the Boston surgeon Jeremy was with for at least some of the past several months, who disappeared and is known to have left the country. Sources close to the investigation who asked not to be named say the FBI believes Fisher has fled to Vietnam, but officially the FBI says Fisher is only sought for questioning and is not a suspect in the boy's disappearance.

Danang, Socialist Republic of Việt Nam

11 December 2017 1830 hours

The Mercedes was waiting in front of the hotel as he'd requested, the woman came into the lobby to meet him, the driver stayed with the car. Hiring them for two days had cost him nothing by Western standards. He knew the car would be immaculate and crisply cool.

“Mr. Harmon? How do you do, I am Le Ti Vu and will be your guide and translator.”

He wasn’t surprised that her English was excellent. She bowed her head slightly in the traditional manner and he responded likewise.

“Thank you Vu, you are very timely and I am pleased to meet you.”

Being male, he did not offer to shake her hand.

“Is this your first visit to Việt Nam, Mr. Harmon? I understand you have some special sites you want to visit, I will do my best to show you everything you desire. ”

“I was here with the US Marines, Vu.”

“Welcome back, we see many American veteran of the war come to see our country again, and I can show you many sites related to the war if you wish. There are several local museums, the best is the Fifth Military Division Museum."

"And perhaps you would like to meet some of our veterans as many American veterans often want to make those connections. If you wish I can try to make some arrangements and we could plan those visits together. I have a pamphlet also for many other attractions.”

"Vu thank you, I think we can discuss these options tomorrow; I would be fascinated to see the war from your country's viewpoint; to meet Veterans would be an honor and very moving for me. Over the next few weeks I am sure I will be using your services often," he lied.

“As it is late in the day Mr. Harmon, perhaps we can take you to a nice restaurant and show some of our nightlife, there would be traditional dance, music and song if you like, real Việt Nam culture."

She paused for the correct wording to assemble in her mind. "...or of course, Western entertainments are available.”

The Western option could be as tame as a quiet jazz bar. He was old enough and seemed tired enough that he wasn't seeking the party girl circuit; but if he was, she had now delicately informed him that she'd be able to get him to that too.

“As it happens, Vu, I would like very much to be taken to the Temple at Mỹ Sơn this evening. I would like to stop for some food on the way, but nothing elaborate, just street food, noodles, pho. These will bring some memories that will be pleasing.”

She hesitated, how to say this so he would not lose face...?

“Of course this is famous, most beautiful place, many people wish to visit," she said agreeably, with a broad smile. Then diffidently, offhanded, "We shall take you there at six o'clock in morning when it opens if you wish.”

“Yes thank you, I quite understand this is irregular but I wish to go now, it's not important that it be open to the public when I arrive. In fact I would like to arrange some private time for my visit, if it is possible; Mỹ Sơn is a place of important memories for me. I am sure you will be helpful in finding someone who can accommodate this difficult request. I realize an after hours visit may be an inconvenience to you, to the driver and perhaps temple guards or others; I am happy to provide some reasonable additional funds to help overcome any issues."

Of course it was a tip to her, and would be a bigger one than the restaurant and show club would have kicked back to her. But doubtless it was a bribe for the guards and others. Bribes are quite expected, but must be done in a way that saves face and doesn't get the authorities upset... or aware…

Levi had ten crisp $100 bills in his pocket. Likely one or two would be enough, but to him, as long as he got the value he was seeking, price was of little consequence.

1st Marine Division, 3rd Battalion,

9th Marines -- HQ Company

Danang, Republic of Vietnam

21 June 1967 2150 hours

The lucky couple were just getting to it, and the horny young Marines watching were hooting it up to beat the band, with me pretending right along with them. Then at the exact instant virginal Benjamin Braddock got his first ever snatch; got it from the very un-virginal Mrs Anne Robinson Bancroft; the bullets started to rain down on us.

So much for fucking movie night.

Rounds popping up dirt around my chair. Another moment to remember... I ran for the fucking bunker like my ass was on fire. We had no weapons they hadn't issued any yet. It was just my second day in-country and I didn't even bring my sidearm with me from the arms locker, who needs it on base? We were supposed to be “safe” here on the encampment next to Tourane. We all figured the VC to be charging in any second and all we could scrounge up were a couple pocket knives. Shit! What a way to die!

It turned out one very drunk sentry across the road at the Army Field Hospital let off a couple of clips into the air, gave us a lead shower.

Boredom; man it must have killed more guys than Charlie did.

Welcome to The Suck. Day Two.

Boston Medical Oncology Center

Boston, MA

24 March 2017 1114 hours

I'm at BOC for a week of testing and chemotherapy. Probably some rad therapy too. I am in a wheelchair – I don't feel I need it but there you go, it's required, and sitting in the central atrium, the spring sun warm on my back. It isn't a bad place, well, not bad, if you dont mind death stalking you.

“Doc?”

I don't heed the fellow, I am absorbed in other matters, in a certain temple in Vietnam much of the time; obsessively so sometimes. And I get called Doc a lot.

“Doc...?” The voice is closer this time, less tentative, but a little quieter too, still I recognized in the back of my head that it was being directed at me. I was afraid it was being aimed at me. Like a weapon... actually. The guilt never really goes away. I've been targeted before. A few mortars have landed.

“I am sorry Doc, I didn't mean to disturb you but I saw you and I just had to – I just had to come over and talk to you.”

“I don't recognize you young fella, you weren't in my platoon.” He is maybe a few years younger than me, and I'm not a spring chicken now.

“Oh, no I wasn't but you saved my life anyway. I will never ever forget your eyes.”

“Sorry, when was this?”

“Tết. Danang. Dogpatch. I was Army, Doc, we were sent in to help when things got hairy. You were there but you were detached from your unit I guess.”

That one hits WHOOSH! BAM! like an RPG...

Detached from my unit? Yeah. Hell yeah, I was as detached as you can be considering I had just killed them all.

“Charlie would hit, pull back, hit someplace else. You remember...”

“Memory's not always good these days; the chemo. Everything around Tết is mostly a blur...,” I lied.

“Doc. my Company was detailed to work with the grunts to protect the base; our brass sent my squad to scout Dogpatch and see if there were any gooks close by and maybe knock out rocket launchers. No rockets but we took fire, got pinned down, snipers on the roofs and trees. Our medic was KIA and a few of us were wounded. I lost a lot of blood... I was thinking I was maybe not gonna make it, Doc."

“And there you were. Running down that street hugging close to the shacks, you just ignored those fuckers. I still see it sometimes in my sleep I see you hauling ass toward us, a M16, bareheaded, no cover, no kevlar; and you just ran like hell, across the street and behind a truck and the shacks we were hunkered in. It was like Charlie couldn't even get a line on you, bullets kicking up dust. Craziest, bravest, fucking thing I ever saw.”

Brave. Fuck. Not brave. Crazy, yeah OK. Not brave.

Insane out of my head with grief and guilt -- that's not brave.

“In no time you had me patched up, stopped the bleeding gave me morphine, and took care of my buddies too. When we finally got another squad to kick Charlie off our asses, you came as far as the dustoff. I asked for your name. I asked if I was gonna live. You yelled at me.”

“Fuck soldier you're patched, you ain't gonna die, and I ain't good enough to make you pretty; so shut up, go back to the world, and have a good fucking life!”

“I remember your eyes when you pushed me up into the Huey. Those gray eyes... never got your name. Then I was off.”

“So I'd like to have that name now if I may.”

It is physically painful to answer him.

“You don’t need my name, soldier, I was just doing what I was supposed to do. What I needed to do.”

“Please, Doc?” The voice is soft. I sigh.

“Levi Fisher." I paused. Might as well, "Em Dee."

He laughed. “So now you really are Doc!” He laughed again.

“Doc, my son, he's a nurse in infusions. You took care of me, and now I'm going to see to it he takes care of you...”

FBI Offices

Cincinnati OH

December 10 2017 1000 hours

SAIC Don Wickenheiser is as hard bitten as any movie cop, he's been around the block many times. But every cop has feelings when there's a kid victim.

Special Agent Wilson Jameson is a normally imperturbable guy; however this case is thoroughly under his skin…it's gotten very personal to him; Jameson's voice from the speaker was very frustrated indeed.

“I don't like Fisher for a cold blooded kid killer. But I'm starting to wonder what alternatives are left. So much in this case makes no sense.”

“We've got to find him. I cannot, I just cannot go back to that boy's parents and tell them I've come up empty. We can't find the boy and Fisher is the only one who can tell us what's happened to him,” Jameson complained.

“I assume you’ve seen the DNA results on the sheets from the Winnebago, Don?"

"Yes. Both the boy and Fisher left semen. Mixed. He was having sex with the boy."

"Don, two independent sources are telling us the boy claims he is gay, so maybe he was willing, maybe he ran away to meet Fisher. I don’t want to tell this to the parents at least not without giving them back their son.”

“Wilson, the team looking into his background in Boston has verified Fisher had not left the area the night Jeremy was snatched; He couldn't have done it. The team has talked to Fisher's colleagues and friends; he's had at least two long term relationships, with adults. Found no kiddie porn in his effects so far but his laptop and phone went to Vietnam with him. No reputation as a chicken hawk," offered Wickenheiser. "Of course that doesn't mean much, they hide it, or kids are just an added taste. But something about it doesn't smell right."

"I've been on the horn with Bill Nelson the attaché in Hanoi, I told him I thought our best bet to find Fisher is going to be Danang. He did three tours in 'Nam but his first and the roughest one, Tết, the loss of his platoon, got his Cross. That was all Danang. My gut says that's where he wants to be.”

Jameson, sitting on a hard chair in the Chillicothe Police Detectives Squad room, pauses for a second of reflection.

And those are the guys he went to see on his grand tour. The Danang survivors. That's where he took the boy, to see them. So wherever he is going to end up, it must at least touch Danang.

Wickenheiser continued, "The big problem is it's Vietnam. They'll look for him since we asked, but we don't have a warrant for him. We can't get a kidnap warrant without a witness or the boy or some evidence of a plan-- something. Unless, of course, we get one on the DNA; which will become a big story. Rough story. I'd want a sealed indictment if we go that route... and you know, mixed semen sounds persuasive but without the boy to testify it's two guys sharing a bed having wet dreams. And since the boy isn't in Vietnam, I doubt the Vietnamese will give it a lot of priority or resources."

"Don, what about a flight to avoid a prosecution warrant?"

"I don't see it helps. Yes, we can get one on these facts but everyone will say 'prosecution for what?' Which leads us back to the DNA."

"And no conviction, he has to believe we are going to prosecute and then flee; and Fisher is not fleeing in my view, he's got his goals there, he had his plans before the boy was kidnapped. Fisher isn't fleeing. Hell he won't live long enough to prosecute anyway..."

"Holy shit this case is the damnedest who-dunnit. What is he after? It's been fifty years, what is still there for him?”

“That's one of the least puzzling questions, Wilson.” Wickenheiser shrugged phlegmatically. “He's going there for the one thing that's made there. Memories. He's on that grand tour of his, looking for memories. Or ghosts. May be the same thing...”

“And I think there's no doubt at all that he's gone there to die.”

So. What does that mean for Jeremy Gates, fourteen year old missing person?

Republic of Vietnam

Tết, the Lunar New Year

31 Jan 1968

Some would say the offensive began January 20 with the attack on the Marines at Khe Sahn in the Central Highlands, a battle that lasted nine months. Others think Khe Sahn was intended as a distraction for Tet. However most would say it started when Viet Minh forces attacked more than a dozen cities in the central South just as observances of the lunar new year began.

Within twenty-four hours, enemy forces struck targets throughout the South, over 120 attacks on cities, towns, government buildings and U.S. and ARVN military bases.

1st Mar Div, 3 Bn, 9th Marines, Kilo Co.

Danang Airbase

Republic of Vietnam

1 Feb 1968 1330 hours

"You had the incredible rose-colored reports coming from Gen. William Westmoreland, who was the American commander in Vietnam... [He was] assuring the American people that the end was near, that the enemy was really only capable of small kinds of ambushes in the far reaches of the country." -- Hue 1968 author Mark Bowden

"To turn the war decisively in their favor they had to achieve a masterstroke that would have the will-breaking effect on the Americans that Dien Bien Phu had had on the French. The masterstroke was Tet, 1968."

–Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie.

Mỹ Sơn Temple

Quang Nam Province,

Socialist Republic of Việt Nam

11 December 2017 2200 hours

Levi was never sure exactly what he should bring to this party. He hoped he didn't leave something critical behind, since he couldn't go back.

Some good Kentucky whiskey,

Maker's Mark; Kentucky lube of a special sort, he needed for sure.

A small brass brazier,

He'd bought roadside up the coast. Picked up some charcoal, matches, kindling.

Three syringes,

Red -- Green -- Blue each marked with a bit of colored tape.

Ghosts.

Sure he had brought them to lay down in the temple, one last time.

Nguyen Huu Tuan

Of the two boys he had loved, Tuan at least belonged here in Mỹ Sơn where they had made love once. Of course he couldn't bring him here; nothing left of the boy. He was vaporized blood and bone and now just dust.

Soon, dust off my shoulders, dust off my back... As if. No way that will happen.

Ever since 1968, the Year of the Monkey, that monkey was on his back, dead or alive. Well no, dead, actually.

Now, the Year of the Cock seems appropriate to get this done. I've cocked up my life pretty well.

Jeremy Gates.

Jeremy for sure he did not bring. And yet here he was, his sweet little confused Jeremy.

"Tuan must have loved you, Levi. He got you to stay behind while he blew up the others. Why would he do that if he didn't love you?" Jeremy was almost persuasive.

Levi though, he kept his doubts.

Jeremy he'd had to leave behind, in the RV, four months of memories... he was glad he'd not followed through with that horrible plan, brought Jeremy here to watch him die. That was wrong.

Fucking tumor must have made me think that one up. Jeremy couldn't die at Mỹ Sơn. Jeremy belongs off in his tangerine tree...

Detritus

Mark 5 Bag, Medical, General Issue. ... Fifty years old. The bag had proven handy for carting his supplies to Mỹ Sơn... what else would a Corpsman use to cart supplies around in The Suck?

Can't burn the bag, too big. And hey, what did the bag ever do to you? It earned the right to keep living.

Surgical clips.

The ones he'd used on Jeremy when he betrayed him and mutilated him... more guilt; that was stupid; the boy had not deserved that, the pain and the distrust ...Levi thought again, It must be the tumor, he was used to guilt so he didn't bother with denial, but this wasn't that... anyway clips can't burn I'll have to leave them on the temple floor...

Also inside the bag, a little box; original, the label was faded but readable,

Bandage, Gauze, Roller Camouflage 2 inches by 6 yards.

An old, now discolored linen sheet with a caduceus on it.

He unrolled the gauze and fed it a yard at at time, cutting each segment with his K-Bar, watching it flare up and crumple to dust in a second each time a yard hit the coals. The box followed. The smoke rose slowly…

Sheet's too big to burn, he decided

Levi was hot, the fire was making him sweat, or it was the meds; he'd taken the first injection, the Red syringe, and it was kicking in; or maybe it was that fucking spike in his brain trying to kill him.

I'll put the stuff that won't burn on the sheet. Leave it here tonight, they'll trash it tomorrow. That's good enough.

Memories.

Thank god today he could lay them all at the foot of the towers and not have to ever pick them up again.

Medals.

He couldn't leave the fucking medals behind, have them end up in his nephew's hands, let him think war is glamorous or about courage or god fucking forbid, about nobility. If ever a man knew what a lie that was, it was Doc Fisher. He was a Board Certified Specialist in Hypocrisy after all.

So he brought the medals. In fifty years he had only taken them out of their boxes that one time, when they gave him that ridiculous fucking gong and he had to wear the actual medals for the ceremonies instead of just ribbons.

Don't know why I didn't do this 50 years ago.

They'd wanted him to go to the damn White House or the Pentagon, or at least Boston but he said he'd decline the award, he wanted to decline it anyway. The only reason he didn't was because he'd been talking to his boys, the unit he got shuffled to after he got out of the hospital and rehab and R&R in Hawaii.

Once they were in the paddies no one gave a fuck that he gave his fucks for guys. Oh plenty would give him shit for it but in fact, they didn't want to lose their Doc. Especially after Tết. He got some cred he knew he didn't deserve after Tết.

From Tết on he'd outright tell them, wait until they'd been in action with him once or twice so they'd see what he would do, then.

"I'm a faggot, I got my last platoon killed. You probably shouldn't trust me. I really don't give a fuck if I get killed, but I don't want to die for nothing. I'll die to patch you. I'll walk through Uncle Ho's front yard to get to you if I have to. Until I'm dead you are gonna get everything I have."

He meant it and they knew it.

For the rest of that first tour he'd refused to even carry his sidearm. They protected him, surrounded him, he worked, had to focus, couldn't afford to be looking over his shoulder. Not for Charlie, not for them. His faggotry might not be popular but his skills were and they believed he wouldn't ever let them down.

On his next tour he decided the sidearm might be useful to protect his patients. And he carried an M16 sometimes because Charlie targeted guys without them. Charlie targeted medics too. And he thought he might use it to protect his boys, though it never happened.

He volunteered for every shithole mission, took every dangerous patrol, refused to rotate mission time with other corpsmen; and his boys, they surrounded him, protected him. And he did the same to them. Fuck some of them said they loved me. Usually after a lot of beer. Sloppy-drunk-no-sex-love but love all the same... His mind strayed to a few times, furtive kisses in the dark jungle, a warm body clinging to him for just a moment, one queer sailor, another scared shitless lonely nineteen year old Marine...

Too bad, too late. If they'd cared enough about my being gay I'd have been gone before I murdered the platoon. One word up the chain of command and I'd be on the next plane back to the world. Tuan would have had to go who knows where.

But it never happened. Later, Staff Sergeant Rory O'Connell was 29, but somehow managed to be a wise old NCO; had set him straight.

“Look Doc, nobody in their right mind really wants to earn one of those things, "O'Connell had said. "They think they do, they maybe wet dream about it or jerkoff when they are alone, how all their high school buddies will fawn all over them, wide eyed, mom and dad so proud – but you've seen reality, they get into combat and learn what bullshit that is. Fuck, one mission where you come running home with wet shit rolling down the inside of your pants leg, then winning medals is the last thing; you'll never think about that again. Anybody who goes out looking for medals, shit get the motherfucker out of my platoon, he's gotta to be a nutcase, get us all killed while he looks for glory."

“But the thing is, they don't give those to you."

"I know you think they do. But they give them to the corps, to flash the parents and the dumb fuck seventeen year olds at the recruiting office; they do it to honor the grunts, the limp dicks in your platoon that got blown to hell by that boy and can't do one damn thing to earn a medal on their own. And me. You get them for me, Marine."

"I'm not a Marine, Sarge, I'm a squid."

"The fuck you say, Navy! You're a Marine and a Devil Doc. Every way that counts, you are a Marine. You know it and so do all these boys. Especially all these boys who aren't dead and need you to get your medals,” his hand swept around the momentarily empty squad bay. "Preferably while you're still breathing, you know?"

“It's not about what you did or about you at all, it's about honoring everyone and every fucking stupid half-assed thing they do for each other. You cannot turn that shit down. You have to accept it and pretend you deserve it and make it worth having for all those kids who died and all the ones who are going to die. And especially the ones who might live because some fucking idiot Corpsman heard about Levi Fisher and his fucking Navy Cross, and thinks somehow it makes sense for him to run across an open field under fire to treat a half dead jarhead."

"It's not for you it's for them.”

"Christ I think you are a fucking eejit Levi for what you did, you fool. I love you for it too, really I do. But it was stupid. Look after your own faggot ass fergodsake. We need you."

So he stood there in his dress whites, Donald Duck cover on his head, chest clinking with this stupid hardware and let them pin the big navy blue one next to the rest and fortunately he didn't have to smile.

Big silent type except not so big the Globe and Navy Times reporters thought. Couldn't get ten words out of him for their stories.

After that medals just kept coming and he kept accepting them, O'Connell had sold him.

Thank fucking Satan none again as big as that BFD Cross; but he kept coming back, volunteered for a new tour each time as soon as he was eligible, kept trying to make amends for murdering all those boys on that first day of Tết; assuaging his guilt, expiating, trying to somehow save enough lives to outweigh the ones he knew he owed on the other side of his ledger. Impossible. In his whole life he'd probably saved a thousand or even two and healed five times as many, and in his heart knew that did not outweigh Tuan who blew them and himself all to hell.

And every time he did, well they piled some more of those fucking medals on him. They were almost as back-breaking as the platoon.

And now he could lay them down. Lay them all down.

Tuan, the platoon, the ghosts, the memories, the medals, everything.

First he burned his real passport and all the paperwork he had with him.

In his back pocket is a sealed envelope addressed to the US Consul. He is Mark Harmon, Stillwater, PA. Yeah, Levi still has a sense of humor. Harmon has no living family, no heirs. There is an International Draft on a Paris bank for 1000 Swiss Francs for cremation and spreading of his ashes, anywhere in Vietnam will do. It is ten times the likely cost. The letter directs any unspent funds be donated to the Da Nang Association for Victims of Agent Orange.

He put his fake passport in the bowl next to burn it up. If they identified him right away they'd stop everything too soon. He figured they'd identify him before all was said and done, but he'd at least try.

He thought about burning the Benjamins but decided that was a waste, he'd leave them next to the bowl and let whoever found them have them.

He figured he'd burn the ribbons, next. No way to melt the medals down but the suspending ribbons were fabric, they'd flame fast. So Levi fed them to the fire slowly, in the Navy's order of prescribed precedence, lowest to highest.

Wait did I get the order right?

So typically Levi, worrying about order of precedence... what could it matter in this time and place even to him?

Yet it should be done right, for those stupid naive...What a clusterfuck of irony this is. All this shite for a guy who joined the Navy just to stay out of Vietnam and combat altogether. A fucking 21 year old selfish little pansy who should have come out and taken his 4-F like a man but no, not Levi Fisher... too idealistic, too self centered too ambitious, too unwilling to let his parents down, too afraid to let his real self out of the closet...fucking coward.

The first best lesson he got in the war was to do his homework.

If I'd enlisted to be a Navy Nuke this never would have happened, I'd have spent five years in air conditioned spaces on ships and Stateside ashore and be nowhere near anything that was going to shoot at me...but no, I didn't bother to find out that Hospital Corpsmen don't just work in hospitals and ships. No. T

You watch the movie, they yell "MEDIC!!"

OK maybe sometimes they yell "Corpsman!" I don't know, but if I saw that, what would I know? It's the Marine Corps, isn't everybody a Corpsman?"

No, you also had to fucking live and die with Marines because who the fuck knew Marines didn't actually have medics?? For sure I never saw a movie where they yelled “Hey Sailor!

He giggled. That RED syringe was pretty good stuff.

I didn't do my homework so there I was.

In the paddies.

In The Suck.

In the Marines.

In the Navy.

Village people need not apply. He giggled.

Hmmm that wouldn't have made sense in '68...he realized a fatigue was closing in on him, making his mind ramble. Time to get on with this.

Good Conduct Medal

He paused at the irony in that one... the only one he hadn't actually “earned” or “deserved” according to the rules, his conduct was anything but good. The only one didn't make him puke, made him laugh instead. He was a man comfortable with his own hypocrisy and this one he'd have laughed about over a beer with Jeremy and Tuan and even Neil (fucking) Jardine that asshole. Then it was a bright flash of light and smoke.

The one medal I want I can't get, it's the one I get for saving Tuan. Or for killing him sooner… give me that one... I'd trade everything for that one.

But then, what of Jeremy? Would he have ended up in one of those unmarked graves, in a forest in Pennsylvania?

He wasn't feeling bad, just hard to focus. Well this was pretty much foolproof going forward...Each medal he fed into the fire, atop the charcoal chunks he'd blown on to be hot and red. The combustible ribbons flared up immediately, a quick flash of flame, a puff of smoke, the medallions, the clasps, the stars and oak leaves to signify multiple awards of the same medal, all slipped down to the bottom of the bowl.

While he was thinking about it he dropped the RED syringe in. It took a bit, burned with a black, stinking, plastic smoke.

Somehow that too felt right.

What I got out of Vietnam was what I suppose we all got.

Love. Betrayal. Love is always betrayal, isn't it? Death. We all got death one way or another... Levi's mind keeps wandering now.

Love-death-betrayal. Can't separate them any more. Yeah. Tuan was the whole fucking package. He loved me, maybe, he betrayed me, for sure, and he died, indisputably.

And I loved him. I LOVE him, he corrected. He is still with me.

Love is always betrayal,

Jeremy has learned that; he was awfully young for that lesson and Levi regretted what he'd done, but face it, Levi taught him, taught him well. Levi is a natural teacher of this for it's in his nature to betray.

He'd folded the damn citation up and stuck it in his wallet at one point so it was pretty crumpled and wrinkled and limp from the humidity. The others he'd just tossed in a waste bin at Tan Sohn Nhut when he landed. The boxes he'd tossed in a Walmart lot a week or three ago... This one he'd wanted with him. This one deserved burning...he'd saved it for last.

Flames lick crumpled paper's edge, burning slowly. The remnants of joss sticks in the temple add to the rising smoke, sweet and redolent; it rises to the heavens in this space, high to the overarching stars.

Perhaps it will summon Tuan. Or blaze a trail for Levi to follow.

My fault.

I keep hurting, killing, lives, or killing souls;

no matter how long I've been at it.

Can't seem to stop.

Oh. Well, yes.

I can actually.

Levi took the second injection, the bit of GREEN tape marking it as he had planned. His pharmacist friend and fellow vet had provided all Levi needed, had understood what a man, a fellow Marine with a brain tumor would need for this very special dustoff. But Levi was careful that only he himself could be tracked back to the actual ingredients.

He dropped it into the brazier. The effects of both actions were swift, he felt the weight of life leave him, felt light as a feather, drifted with the smoke to the stars. "Smoke" he thought and saw the word on heated air rise, from before to after, he followed to Tuan, to be joined once again.

The third and last, BLUE, will come in about two hours when GREEN begins to wear off. That one will be swift. But he wanted this time in the euphoria, time without pain, time to speak to Tuan and all the other ghosts before he became one.

It was about time Tuan showed his skinny, sweet little ass, fifty years of one way talking is at an end. Levi has some questions. He's gonna get some damned answers.

And there is even a little time to think about Jeremy's equally sweet little ass. Levi has some time, Jeremy too, in his sweet tangerine way, will share in the spirit of Levi's last Dustoff.

For distinguished devotion to duty, extraordinary courage

and disregard for his own personal safety

the President of the United States of America takes pleasure in awarding

The Navy Cross

to

Petty Officer 2nd Class Levi David Fisher, USN

for extraordinary heroism and dedication while serving as a Combat Medical Corpsman (HM) attached to Company K, 3rd Battalion,

9th Marines, First Marine Division (Reinforced), Fleet Marine Force, in combat operations against the enemy

in the Republic of Vietnam on 2 February 1968.

Petty Officer Fisher, separated from his own unit, undertook on his own initiative to find and render aid to wounded anywhere he could. He encountered elements from A Company 199th Light infantry Brigade, United States Army trapped by heavy small arms fire from enemy forces. With disregard for his own safety, he courageously and repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to reach the trapped men, render aid to their wounded, and transport them to a medevac location. He received multiple wounds from shattering glass, bullets, and painful fragmentation wounds from a grenade. Petty Officer Fisher ignored his own wounds while again and again exposing himself to enemy fire. He treated over twenty seriously wounded soldiers and marines; while refusing treatment himself until he could no longer maintain consciousness. Petty Officer Fisher's daring initiative, exceptional courage in the face of extreme danger, and selfless devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

AFTERWORD

While Levi Fisher is a fictional character, this chapter should be and is properly dedicated to the heroic work of the Combat Hospital Corpsmen of the US Navy and their counterparts in the other services. The hospital corpsman rating is the most decorated in the United States Navy and one of the most decorated corps in the US military, with 22 Medals of Honor, 179 Navy Crosses since World War I, 31 Navy Distinguished Service Medals, 959 Silver Stars, and more than 1,600 Bronze Star Medals with Combat V for heroism, since World War II.

DUSTOFF was the radio call sign given to the first helicopter medevac unit in Vietnam. The countryside was then dry and dusty, helicopter pickups in the fields often blew dust, dirt, blankets, and shelter halves all over the men on the ground. In addition to being a callsign, the term was soon used to describe the event or process of a field medical evacuation. Throughout the Vietnam conflict all evacuation helicopters took the call sign "DUSTOFF" followed by a numerical designation; both ground and aviation units refused to refer to these evacuation helicopters by any other callsign. 496,573 Dustoff missions were flown in the Vietnam War, over 900,000 casualties were airlifted. Without the Dustoff aircrew and the combat medics of the Army, Air Force, and Corpsmen of the US Navy, the death toll would have been far greater.

-30-

Dustoff, by Philip Marks (gayadult49@gmail dot com)

The story Fourteen is written by Eliot Moore (eliot.moore.writer at gmail dot com) I give my deepest thanks to Eliot for letting me play in his sandbox, with his amazing characters, create a few of my own, and deepen and leverage off a beautiful, moving and challenging story.

For more

1968 in Vietnam

Tet Offensive

What is a Navy Squid?

Military Victory But Political Defeat: The Tet Offensive 50 Years Later

Defending Danang, Tet Offensive

Americans Remember the Battle for Hue

The Battle for Hue, 1968

An earlier version with illustrations of this story and other versions of my Fourteen submissions can be found at my Wordpress site and linked below.

Chapter 52 Fourteen: Patrick & John, Part 2: “We Got Shoes”

https://gayadult49.wordpress.com/2020/12/25/patrick-john-part-ii-we-got-shoes/

Chapter 36 Patrick & John, Part 1: Summer Camp Day

https://gayadult49.wordpress.com/2019/12/16/summer-camp-day/

Chapter 27 Levi: Dustoff

https://gayadult49.wordpress.com/2019/11/06/dustoff/

Chapter 24: The Chillicothe Interlude

https://gayadult49.wordpress.com/2019/10/28/the-chillicothe-interlude/

Other stories I've written at Nifty:

https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/adult-youth/a-fathers-love.pdf

https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/adult-youth/i-can-see-clearly-now.pdf

https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/adult-youth/stories-in-the-human-calculus/ 

Brief, Anonymous Survey:

Readers are often too busy or reluctant to reach out to authors. Eliot would appreciate hearing from you all. Please take Eliot's Fourteen Survey (Again). It is a quick Google Form where you can comment on any section

I have written a variety of short stories and novellas. You can follow this safe link to my Body of Work.