This is a work of fiction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously; any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Dennis Milholland – All rights reserved. Other than for private, not-for-profit use, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means, other than that intended by the author, without written permission from the copyright holder.

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Farewell, Uncle Ho

by Dennis Milholland

questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu

Chapter 73 (Sun., Apr. 30)

Saturday had been a lazy day for Gerry and me. We'd slept until early afternoon, since both of us were groggy from our all-night tornado party in the bunker. We'd even missed our morning run. Sucking cock wasn't our top priority; finding the aspirin bottle was, though. And the storm the night before must have chased the fog and cloud away. The sun had been so bright, that it literally had hurt my eyes, not to mention my head. Beer was definitely not my drink of choice.

But by Sunday morning at 0400 hours, the world was the way I liked it. Gerry seemed to be much more cheery, as well. He proved it by sticking the tip of his cock into my mouth, as I was trying to tie my running shoes.

As was to be expected, the filling station was all alight, and Earl was unlocking the pumps. As we approached, I noticed that he seemed troubled. "Morning." He just nodded. "Is everything okay?"

"You know," He looked at me and tried to smile. "when you said in the barber shop that the war can't be won?" I smiled to tell him that I remembered. "Well, at the time, I just put it down to you Guys being Greenwich-Village Hippies." Gerry and I laughed. "But since I know that you are both educated, and you may have reasons for saying that, so…"

"Let us go for our run, and we'll talk as soon as we get back." We took up our pace and got onto N 300 W, heading south with our new flashlights ablaze.

After we got to our turning point, about a mile and a half down the road, Gerry spoke up for the first time, since we'd left the cottage. "You think that Earl is becoming apprehensive about something? Like about renting to two Hippies?"

"I don't think so. He sounds the way my dad does, when he's not sure about an investment, he's made." The mention of my father, made me almost stumble emotionally. Hadn't thought about him and his decision to shut me out in a long while, and it upset me more than I really wanted to admit.

Of course, catching our breaths in front of Earl's office, inhaling gasoline fumes, probably wasn't the best health choice, but the coffee smelled irresistible. We waited for Earl to finish with his customer, before going into the office. "Go ahead and sit at the table." He motioned to the small round marble-topped table and four bistro chairs. "Do you take cream and sugar."

"Black, please." Gerry informed him, then he saw Earl waiting. "For both of us."

Earl gave us an odd look, but let it go without comment. He set the cups down, and tried to smile. "Okay, tell me why we can't win the war in Vietnam."

"It's actually very simple." I started out and took a sip of coffee. It was American coffee but strong enough to cover up the fact that it was percolated. "You're making the exact same mistakes the French made--"

"--And how do you know what mistakes the French made?" Earl was not being aggressive, he was trying to get me to the point.

"I could say that I have a PhD from the University of Paris in modern languages with a minor in political science, but that's not the reason that I know this." I took another sip of coffee, getting my pulse rate back to normal, after the post-jogging dip. "My father's brother was a major on the staff of Colonel Christian de La Croix de Castries, commander of the camp at Dien Bien Phu." Wow, I didn't know, that I could get their undivided attention so easily.

"There are four major aspects of why France didn't win that particular battle and consequently lost Indochina." I cleared my throat. "They were: their inability to communicate; racism and therefore underestimating the enemy; faulty planning, and letting the enemy call the shots." I reached for my cigarettes, then remembered that we were sitting in a filling station.

Earl got up to close the door, as he fished out his own. "Now, I want you to go through every aspect, that you've mentioned and make me understand."

I smiled at him, realizing that he hadn't been simply a supply sergeant in Vietnam. "Let's take the communications aspect. Being the colonial power, France made sure that virtually every Vietnamese at least understood French." I lit Gerry's and Earl's cigarettes, giving me a chance to think before lighting my own. "Ah, but literally nobody amongst the French spoke but a smattering of Vietnamese and not even that much of Cantonese."

"Why Cantonese?" Earl seemed a little stumped.

"You lived in Saigon." I flipped my ash, realizing that this American, as opposed to Gordon, not only knew nothing about Vietnam, he was not able to connect the dots. "Your main PX is located where?"

"In Cholon." And without as much as taking a breath, his eyes flashed open. "Oh, fucking Jesus, that's Chinatown. And you think that the Chinese are supporting the VC?"

"What? You think that Chairman Mao's running a pizza parlor?" I even had to chuckle at that bit of irony reflecting my utter frustration with political ineptitude.

"Cantonese is a widely spoken language in the urban areas of Vietnam." You could literally see Earl make the connections by his range of facial expressions. "So, while the Viet-Minh, who normally defined themselves as freedom fighters and not necessarily as communists, were getting strategically sound tips, heavy equipment, and potato-salad recipes from their Red-Chinese advisors, they certainly were not speaking Yiddish." Gerry laughed out loud, and Earl smiled. "And every time the French were discussing their plans, the Viet Minh were listening in over the radio and knew exactly what their oh-so-clever colonial masters were up to, because every Tom's Hairy Dick understood French, and virtually none of the French understood Vietnamese, Cantonese, Khmer, Sedang, which are not even related to each other and are just four of the some sixty languages spoken in Vietnam."

"So, what are you saying?" Earl appeared frustrated as he spoke.

"I'm saying that the Viet Minh are using the equivalent to what the Navajos did for the Americans in World War II." I saw confusion. "By speaking Navajo on the radios, it became impossible for the Germans and Japanese to break the ultimate of codes, a rare natural language."

"That's a real eye-opener. I should get in touch with some of my old buddies at the Pentagon. Now, what about underestimating the enemy and faulty planning?" He got up and retrieved a notepad and a ballpoint from the counter. And I noticed that he'd conveniently left out the concept of racism.

"Of course, all four aspects go hand in hand." I put out my cigarette and finished my coffee. "But the huge planning mistake was a result of underestimating the Viet-Minh. All the French bases at Dien Bien Phu were all in the valley clustered up around the main bases and the two Japanese-built airstrips. Their whole setup was encircled by rugged, high mountains, which they had not secured. Nor had they even taken a look.

"The French assumed that there was no need to secure the mountains, because there was no way that the Viet-Minh could get anything substantial up there." Every time I had to explain this major fuck-up, I got excited in a bad way, since the whole thing was so goddamned stupid. "And not only did they get something substantial up there. They gave the French the biggest ass polishing since Waterloo."

"And, as we now know," Earl took a final drag off his cigarette. "that assumption had been a prelude to disaster."

"It was the result of their having been too arrogant and racist. What they were saying was: 'these fucking Gooks are nothing without us, and they should finally realize it.'." I took a sip of Gerry's coffee, harvesting a disapproving glance from my Guy. Earl got up to put on some more coffee and adjusted his plump cock as he went. "And I'll give you a full guarantee, that the American forces will stumble into exactly the same pile of shit, before the show's over."

"And the last aspect tells us why." It wasn't a question; it was recognition.

"Exactly, you, as the French did, are letting the enemy call the shots." I glanced at the gurgling coffee pot, wishing it to hurry up. "The enemy doesn't engage, unless they want to. The Viet Minh, whom you now conveniently call the Viet Cong will let an entire battalion pass by and leave them be, if it's strategically advantageous to them.

"But if they can make it pay off, they'll pop out of the bushes and fire off a couple of rounds and disappear back into their jungle, which, I might add, is home turf for them, and they've been doing this for many decades. And because of a few rounds, the inexperienced US Army draftees, who are only there for a year, call in artillery and air strikes, having them drop napalm, blowing the Fuck out of where?" My pulse rate was gaining speed; I clenched my thumb and forefinger together to relax.

Earl got up to get the coffee, again adjusting his cock. "You tell me."

"South Vietnam, your fucking allies. As opposed to the Americans, the Viet-Cong don't piss off villagers, because that causes retaliation and opposition. But the Americans are antagonizing everyone in rural regions by using napalm, herbicides and defoliants indiscriminately, assassinating and raping villagers, blasting the Fuck out of the economic infrastructure of the place you're supposed to be protecting." I took a deep breath. "You're doing the work for the North Vietnamese. You're blowing up rubber plantations, pineapple plantations, rice patties, livestock, and at some point, when the economy of the RVN collapses, all the North-Vietnamese Regulars and Charlie will have to do is walk in and take over, and it won't have cost them a cent."

Earl was still nodding and taking some notes, when I went for the jugulars. "And the sad part is that the Americans have lost their collective memory." Earl looked up with a disapproving glare, but I continued before he could interrupt me. "The colonialists won not only one war against the British but two. You won the Revolution and the War of 1812." I thought about it for a second. "Actually, the War of 1812 was a draw, because the Treaty of Ghent stated: status quo ante bellum."

"So, what's your point?" Earl was trying to get me back on track.

"My point is, that you won the War of Independence because you were fighting for your own asses and couldn't have given a shit about 'good form' on the battlefield. Similarly, some very prophetic graffiti was found on the latrine walls at Dien Bien Phu, probably written by one of the foreign legionnaires, maybe by one of the Algerians as a warning to the French officers. It said: 'Never forget, not only the Viet-Minh don't give a shit about French rules of engagement.'."

Earl thought about it and focused his attention on what I'd just said. "So, you think that there's no way that we can win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people?"

"It's not only me." I passed around the cigarettes. "President, de Gaulle, warned Kennedy when he was visiting him in Paris back in '61, that Southeast Asia was going to become a 'bottomless military and political quagmire' for you." I lit the cigarettes, pausing for that to sink in.

"Your own government advised the South-Vietnamese President, Diem, to cancel the all-country election in 1956, because they knew that Ho Chi Minh would win hands down and that Diem didn't have the chance of a snowball in Hell, because he was busy sucking American ass and out of touch with his own people. The Vietnamese people want their freedom from foreign domination, not necessarily their freedom from communism.

"They regard communism as just another passing fad, which they will discard, if it doesn't work. But they regard foreign domination as a destructive force. It's destroying their very essence.

"They want to get rid of the profit-hungry foreigners. Just like your own Founding Fathers did. That's why Ho Chi Minh has such high regard for Thomas Jefferson. But as opposed to your Founding Fathers, the Vietnamese have been organized in human settlements for a half million years, and have possessed a cultural history for 20,000 years, not to mention civil society and governmental authority since 2879 before the current era. They were calling their own shots almost five thousand years ago. And now they're calling the shots in a war, in which you're naive enough to believe that you can win against them, where the French couldn't with over a fucking hundred years of practice. You do realize, Earl, that that is the definition of insanity: making the same mistakes over and over and expecting different results." Gerry and I laughed.

"So, what should the United States do?" Earl was interviewing me, not just asking my opinion.

"Call an immediate ceasefire. Hold the long-overdue general elections, as agreed upon at the Geneva Conference of 1954, let Uncle Ho have his day, and get the Fuck out before the whole thing blows up in your face, here at home."

"But what about the domino effect. What if a communist Vietnam causes all of Southeast Asia to fall to the communists?"

"If that's what the people want, then let them decide. They want their ancestral land back without having it deep-fried with napalm and riddled with bomb craters." Again, I had to calm myself. Again I took a deep breath.

"Look, either you're peddling democracy, or you're peddling fascism." Earl looked aghast and Gerry snickered. "There is no wiggle room, here. If the United States' government really wants self-determination for the Vietnamese people, then let them decide their fate, now. Anything else is just another status-quo, fascist dictatorship. Or it's all bullshit propaganda." Again Gerry laughed.

"What's so funny about that?" Earl looked agitated at Gerry.

"Don't forget, I'm German." Gerry lit another cigarette. "And in 1953, on the 17th of June, we had an uprising against communism, not only in East-Berlin but all over the Soviet Occupied Zone." Gerry chuckled again, this time with audible bitterness. "And what did the American troops do, who were located literally across the goddamned street in West-Berlin?" He flipped his ash with enough anger that it fell off into the ashtray. "Not a fucking thing, that's what. It was the same shit, they didn't give in Hungary in 1956, when Radio Free Europe egged the people into an uprising. And they're still waiting on the arrival of American troops. But you're worried what'll happen if South-Vietnam falls.

"Don't you fucking see the pattern, here?" Gerry growled. "Everywhere you people show up since World War II, you divide things up with the communists. We have East and West-Germany, the Republic of China and the Peoples' Republic of China, North and South-Korea, North and South-Vietnam, and then you're always worried about what if the communists invade." Gerry's demeanor became aggressively cynical. "Here's a news flash, Earl. They already have."