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.
Careful! This is a work of fiction containing graphic descriptions of sex between males and critiques of religion and governments. And last but not least, Nifty would like your donations.
Farewell, Uncle Ho
by Dennis Milholland
questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu
Chapter 99 (Monday, July 24, 1967)
That I shook hands with the two warrant-officer pilots, who were about Gerry's age and in charge of our lives during the flight, pissed off Captain Duvet. He saw it as greeting the servants. The fact that I strapped on body armor, to which he referred as a 'chicken plate', since the AC told me that we'd be flying near the infamous Ia Drang Valley, known 'bad-guy' territory, on our way to Pleiku Air Base, pissed him off. And apparently, the fact that I breathed the same air as he did, pissed him off. All in all, he didn't seem to be a very happy individual. That, however, wasn't my problem. And I refused to let him try to make it my problem.
I put on the black-leather motorcycle jacket with integrated kidney protection, which Jules had loaned me. Both Jules and myself imagined that it could get chilly flying in an open-door helicopter, high above the Central Highlands during the rainy season. I forgot to ask Jules, if he still had the motorbike.
The liftoff was just as spine-tingling as Sean had described it. It was different in the Nam than it had been in D.C. I saw Gerry and the others, standing, watching in the back garden by the huge banyan tree, waving. It broke my heart to wave back. Departing was difficult; parting even more so. The four MPs from the Dalat Military Police Station waved from near their jeep; the left-door gunner, who was also Crew Chief, waved back. I plugged the audio cord of my helmet into the jack, where I found Captain Duvet's telling the right door gunner that I was an FNG and battle virgin, FNG meaning Fucking New Guy.
I chose to take exception, just because Captain Crap was being a cunt. "With all due respect, Sir, which is, admittedly, negligible, I've seen more battle than you'll ever hope to."
"And where was that, Soldier."
I thought I'd up the bullshit ante. "Before I came to be drafted into your army, because I was born in your country, I was in the French Foreign Legion, stationed in North Africa."
“Okay, Guys, let’s keep the private conversations to a minimum.” The port-side door gunner and Crew Chief, was firm.
***
Once we'd arrived at scenic Pleiku Air Base, I changed into uniform, which stuck out like a sore thumb. No one, as far as the eye could see, neither Army, nor Air Force, nor Vietnamese military was wearing Class As. The two door gunners had taken me to get my TDY, or temporary-duty, orders processed.
"You were really in the French Foreign Legion?" The port-side door gunner and Crew Chief asked, when I offered a round of cigarettes on our way to the mess hall for an early lunch.
"Sure." I felt a tinge of guilt for lying to this kid. "But since I'm French, I was an officer. Officers are always French, where the soldiers are foreigners."
"Bullshit." called the right door gunner, Biddell.
I stopped in my tracks, clamped the cigarette between my lips, squinted against the smoke, and pulled my leather breast wallet from under my shirt. When I unsnapped the leather pouch, I saw that I still had Gerry's passport. My emotions tried to react; I didn't let them. Trying not to act saddened or in a patronizing manner, I handed him the navy-blue passport, opened to pages 2/3. He took a look at my picture and showed it to the left door gunner.
"Wow," The left door gunner chuckled. "this man's army's gotta really love ya."
"What do you mean?" I wondered.
"Yer passport says that ya gotta fuckin' PhD, and they made ya a SPC 4." His deep happy laugh turned to an amused growl, as he patted his E-5 stripes. "Even I outrank yer sorry ass. And the only reason that Biddell, here, don’t outrank ya, is cause he got court-martialed, for sellin' dope in the wrong hooch. Didja piss em off?"
"Must have."
"How?"
"By being openly Chinese in public, I guess." I chuckled slightly but wondered how much truth there actually was hidden in that assertion.
***
According to Dave, the port-side door gunner and Crew Chief, we were rapidly approaching the Ia Drang Valley on the second leg of our trip, when Captain Duvet asked me if I were saved. It didn't immediately dawn on me, what he was talking about.
"Have you accepted Jesus as your lord and savior?" Captain for Christ wanted to know.
"No idle chatter, Sir." I informed him adamantly.
"But have you ever looked into getting saved?" The Crusader continued, disregarding my wishes and the safety rules.
"Not interested, Sir." I told him again with audible agitation in my voice. Both pilots gave each other questioning glances.
"We are talkin' about your eternal soul, here, Soldier." He returned the agitated growl. "Wouldn't wanna see y'all goin' ta Hell."
The Aircraft Commander granted me permission to tie up the intercom for less than twenty seconds. "Have you read your Bible, Sir?" I started out to destroy his religion.
"Of course." Somehow, he just couldn't let go of his missionary mode.
"Of the four main characters In Genesis 3, the Serpent, Adam, Eve, and the god figure, the snake was the only one who wasn't lying out of his ass. God told Adam that if he eats from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, god would kill him. Which he didn't. Just like the Serpent had told Eve that god surely wouldn't. But since the Serpent had told the truth, god made his legs fall off and caused him to eat dust, forever. Brilliant role model for humans; your god punished someone for telling the truth."
"But that's the Old Testament." Captain Crusade correctly acknowledged. "Nobody takes that literally anymore." Okay, twenty seconds were up, so we had to go into overtime.
"So, if you don't literally believe in the original sin," I grinned sarcastically, seriously enjoying myself. "that sort of cancels out any reason for your omnipotent god to have sacrificed his son, i.e. himself to the father, also himself so that you should not burn in everlasting Hell, rather than just forgiving you for what Adam and Eve did. Sounds like you're offering me a Mafia protection contract, here, now doesn't it, Sir?."
***
We'd flown out of Pleiku just about noon. Up until this very minute, I had had the vague idea that Pleiku was made up of Camp Holloway, sort of on the front lines. Even though I knew that there was no such thing as 'front lines' in this war, I couldn't shake the image, which lingered in the back of my head, however. There was the picture of Fort Apache surrounded by dreary, rainy, forested mountains.
Flying out of Pleiku Air Base in the sunshine showed me that Pleiku was on a vast plateau not unlike Indiana without the trailer parks. Most of the immediate area hosted a complex of military installations, both South Vietnamese and American, and I could have sworn that, from the air, I'd caught several glimpses of wheat fields, which stood to reason, since South Vietnam was one of the only countries in the Far East, where bread was widely consumed.
Captain Duvet had been delegated to assure that the interrogation of a field-grade, Red Chinese or CHINCOM officer, who'd been captured, or who'd defected, which, wasn't clear, while moving along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, near Kontum, was legal under international law and conducted pursuant to The Geneva Conventions on the Laws of War, 1949. Apparently, Captain Classified had family ties to someone in the Green Berets, who wanted us there.
I was here as a Chinese-language qualified interpreter. My capacity as a legal clerk was of no consequence, other than to afford even more credibility to the Special-Forces' interrogation, since I was, as was Captain Freedom, from the SJA in Saigon. Or so it had been presented to me.
***
After about twenty five minutes, and no idle chatter over the intercom, we set down on fixed-wing parking space of an abandoned French air strip within 'spitting distance' to the Cambodian border, according to the Aircraft Commander. It was now a Special Forces' outpost on the Khai River, which actually was the Cambodian border, if my map reading was correct. And it was an area, which had, at some point, been heavily hit with defoliant, and closer to the river at the end of the runway, with napalm. The red soil had a darker, singed quality to it.
"Where did y'all get the French map?" Dave asked me, while he handed me the barrel of his M-60 machinegun to hold, so he could have both hands free to help secure the rotor blades of the Huey.
"My friend, Jules, who has the summer home in Dalat, were you picked me up, loaned them to me." I told him truthfully.
"Do you know him from the Foreign Legion?" Dave was being friendly but a bit too inquisitive.
"Yeah." Although it saddened me, it felt like I had to lie to him, in order to protect my privacy and that of my family, a breach of which could have meant courts-martial for Gerry and me, as long as the Army had us in their clutches.
***
We signed in at the Orderly Room, which was a proper brick-and-mortar, or in this case, concrete, building, left by the French, a fact which was evidenced by: Défense de fumer, stenciled onto the wall, and had started to fade on the whitewash.
"Let's see," The E-7's voice had gone gravelly probably from yelling too much, at some point in his career. Or maybe, he just had throat cancer. "The Captain will be bunking with the CO." He waited for Captain Bunk-Mate to nod that he'd understood. "The two WOs will be in the pilots' hooch." They nodded and took the key. "The Sergeant and the Specialist will be together, and the Private gets his own private quarters." He chuckled at his own private humor and gave us our respective keys and proceeded to lead the way to the billets at the back. "Chow will be between 1700 and 1800 hours."
***
Dave and I were checking out the billets, which were not of ancient French origin but of neglected American. The combination of wood-frame building and tent was seriously primitive. The floor planks on one side had obviously shrunk, no longer joining, leaving cracks, which invited creepy crawlies. There were obviously no hooch maids, here.
The canvas roof was heavily weatherworn. And we were about to find out where the puddles would form. The rain had caught up with us, and the first heavy drops were starting to fall. But we did have our private shower located in a mini-hooch tacked onto the back of the dormitory and which stank of mildew. Luckily, I'd brought my shower shoes.
Both Dave and I startled when the door to the hooch slammed open. I called us to attention as Duvet and his cousin, the CO, stomped in. There was no 'as you were' nor any 'carry on'. There was just one other angry Captain Duvet. Our Captain Duvet's cousin, who stomped up to me and yelled into my face. "Are you that goddamned Chink translator, who doesn't even have a fucking security clearance, and who isn't even an American but some leftover from the fuckin’ French?", as if it were my fault.
I didn't answer, because he hadn't relaxed the order: 'Attention!'. After all, I didn't make up the rules, I just followed them, like so many at the Nuremberg Trials had tried to claim.
"Are you ignoring me, you slimy-ass Chink cocksucker." At this, he whipped out his sidearm and placed the muzzle to my temple and growled between his teeth. "No one ignores me. Ever, you slant-eyed motherfucker."
I don't think he knew what had happened when the sharp edge of my left hand contacted his carotid artery with the force, only adrenalin can muster. But I think he did realize that he was in deep shit, when I relieved him of his sidearm and caused him to fly about three feet and land flat of his ass. He surely must have known that something was wrong, since he passed out as I emptied the clip of his M1911A1 into the floorboards around his head like a halo. "You didn't give me permission to speak, Sir."
The only response I got was that we heard something, scurrying beneath the floorboards.
***
Dinner was subdued, to say the least, since news did indeed travel fast. At dinner, there was no class segregation, since it wasn't a proper mess setup, but each of us took a box of cold C-rations and sat at folding card tables to enjoy the food on a cold, rainy night.
Our Green-Beret Duvet was absent, probably having a rest, after his extreme lesson in Drill and Ceremony. But Lawyer Duvet was meekly keeping the two Warrants and our Private company. I was sitting alone with my new best buddy, Dave, the port-side door gunner.
"Look," I had to set things straight before leaving to have a smoke. "if you'd be more comfortable bunking with Biddell, I understand."
He smiled and whispered: "No way."
I was now pretty sure about what could happen, and Urs had left lube in his Swiss-Army shaving kit. But I didn't think that this kid was anything other than lonely and scared.
***
In the meantime, the rain had become chronic, as anyone would expect in the Central Highlands during the rainy season. When Dave and I returned to our hooch, we found out where the puddle would form, as a result of the leaky canvass roof. It was turning one of the two bunks, along with the bedding, into a swamp.
When I said: “Looks like we’ll have to share.” Dave’s face lit up, I’m sure, unintentionally, because it then went beet red from embarrassment, and he fiddled with his wedding ring.
“Looks like it.” His voice had gone soft, and I pulled him into a hug to comfort him.
He was wearing a gold band on his left hand, and I could only imagine that the ‘little woman’ and kid, he'd never seen, except for an underexposed Polaroid snapshot, were waiting for him back in Arkansas. He was not going to fuck me, just yet, and I was not going to fuck him. But we would cuddle and hug under the blankets as we kept each other warm and safe from the clammy night air.
I was determined not to repeat the disappointment, which Sean had had with his Crew Chief, Greg, as had been the experience of so many lonely GIs, lost in throws of battle throughout the centuries. As Bat had aptly put it: ‘There are no straight guys in foxholes.’