13th Valley (27 page)

Hue was established in 1687 by Nguyen dynasty warlords, who built two great walls stretching from the sea to the mountains designed to help them defend the South from the Trinh warlords of the North. The walls were built just north of the present DMZ, a line that had traditionally divided the countries. In the late 1700s Quang Trung, who united all of Vietnam and drove the Chinese out of Hanoi and the North, proclaimed himself emperor and ruled from Hue. The city became the national capital. In 1802 Gia Long captured Hue with French assistance and he re-established the Nguyen dynasty which lasted for 81 years. Under Gia Long the impressive, nearly impregnable Imperial City, the multi-walled Citadel, was constructed. In 1883 the French bombarded the Citadel and captured the royal court. From then until 1939 Vietnam was ostensibly ruled from Hue by emperors condoned by the French colonialists and then until 1945 by emperors condoned by the French, who were in turn controlled by the Japanese. In August 1945 the last Vietnamese emperor, Bao Dai, renounced his throne to the Viet Minh revolutionaries. The French returned only to be ejected in 1954. Over the next six years lines were re-drawn for the North-South conflict.

No longer a national capital, Hue became the scene and center of dissent, the heart of the 1963 Buddhist uprising against the Catholic regime in Saigon and the center of the Vietnamese intelligentsia. The spirit of
Giai Phong
, liberation and independence, increased and fostered numerous political factions. It was to one of these factions Le Huu Minh attached himself and developed his own strong political beliefs and it was with this splinter group that in the fall of 1967 Minh joined the alliance of the Right Bank Resistance. As he plotted for the general offensive and uprising that would liberate Hue from the oligarchy of Americans and Catholics and the Saigon puppets, Minh never thought that a replacement machine of northerners might be both more repressive and more exploitative. It never occurred to him that the northern political machine might fully replace the current regime and exclude his faction. As a member of a splinter group Minh knew little of the plans for the offensive, but as an activist he was able to state the needs and reasonings behind it. The TET Offensive against the city of Hue, against his city, by the NVA 800th, 802d and 804th Battalions began his cruel awakening to the realities of power.

Chaos, that most wonderful word to an anarchist, became terror. The NVA and Viet Cong, in control of the Right Bank from early morning 31 January 1968, systematically hunted down and executed an unexpectedly long list of targeted people, a list that included apolitical doctors and missionaries, Buddhists, Catholics, university professors and students. By the end of the first week of the Year Of The Monkey Le Huu Minh found himself sheltering enemies of the people. The city was in shambles. Virtually every building south of the river had been smashed jagged by mortars or rockets from the opposing armies. Triangulated steel truss bridges over the River of Perfumes lay twisted as if they had been constructed of rice paper and bamboo. Behind the heavy walls of the Citadel the fighting raged. Minh was exhausted, nauseous, for weeks. The land and city he loved had been devastated.

In July of '68 Minh
hoi chanh-ed
to an American MP. He was interrogated and released. Peace had returned to the lowlands and American memories are very short. But peace was not in Minh. He convicted himself of war crimes. Again Minh gave himself to an American MP and again he was interrogated. He pleaded to become a scout and was finally accepted into the Loc Luong 66 program, a program for ex-VC and ex-NVA who had ‘rallied' to the GVN.

Minh was shipped to Saigon for indoctrination and then to Tam Ky for training. From Tam Ky Minh was assigned to the 10lst where he underwent additional indoctrination at Camp Eagle. Minh was shipped to Camp Evans, buddied-up with an American line unit soldier and “oriented” for eight more days. Finally Minh and his buddy went through the standard SERTS training. Upon completion of the program Minh was assigned to the unit of his buddy, to the Reconnaissance Platoon of Company E, 7/402, as a Kit Carson Scout. As his ability to speak English improved he moved up to better jobs, first to S-5, Civil Affairs, where he worked as interpreter for MEDCAPs and then to Senior Scout for Headquarters Company. With the arrival of higher ranking Vietnamese soldiers Minh was demoted and became the scout for Company A.

The perpetual smile on Minh's face angered Whiteboy. “Damn gook a'ways laughing at us,” he would say when Minh was not around. Minh was a foreigner; he could never be part of Whiteboy's Alpha Company. “Minh, you lit'le fucka,” Whiteboy said, “the Jew asked you a civil question. Why doan you give him a straight answer?”

“Whatcha gettin on his case fo?” Doc said. “He tellin ya it's goan be a bad mothafucka. Goan be another 714. Huh, Minh?”

“I do not know,” Minh said still smiling. “I hope it will not be so.”

“Fuckin ay, dammit, best not be,” Whiteboy snapped. “Ah've ordered me a Super Sport ta hop up when Ah get back home an Ah sures hell expect ta be theah when it arrives.”

Minh continued to smile. The muscles of his face ached from smiling but it was his only response to the Americanisms which he did not understand. Later, if he was alone with Doc or possibly El Paso, or if he were in the rear with Lamonte, he would ask questions and he was often surprised to find that many of the American soldiers had as little understanding as he of 427s or 352s or Holly four-barrels which were not weapons. Minh had often been surprised and pleased to find that Americans smiled outsider smiles just as he.

But with Minh it was that way more often than not. The creases from the constant smile on his face became deep and permanent. The Americans looked at the dumb smile and they saw the misunderstanding in him and they saw their own lack of knowledge of Americana and they hated him because of it. Minh knew he was an outsider and this scared him when he was in the boonies. He feared that if Alpha got in trouble, became pinned down in contact, the Americans would not jeopardize their lives to save his. Minh was thus overly cautious and the American soldiers thought him a coward. In turn Minh hated most of the Americans he served. There were individuals, El Paso and the L-T and Doc, whom he developed genuine friendships with, symbiotic intellectual relationships, exchanging and defining against each other their cultural heritage and in that, themselves.

In his village and among his city friends Minh was also an outcast. To them he had become Americanized. The riches of the wealthiest land on earth were at his disposal. He was a farmer milking the great cow, prostituting himself and his country for material benefits. Minh was a man alone with broken ties to his culture and with shallow ties to the American military presence.

“Hey,” Silvers said, “you know what I was just remembering?”

“Yeah,” Doc laughed. “I'm inside your head.”

“I was remembering when I first came in-country,” Silvers said laughing along with Doc. “I remember we had just gone through in-country training and, ah, everybody was still scared. There was so much that was unknown.”

“Damn”—Whiteboy drew the word out for extended emphasis—” that so far back, Ah can't recollect none a it.”

“I remember it very clearly.” Silvers gazed into the ground then looked up. “Or at least this part. I remember we didn't know where we were going or what it was goina be like. During training we kept hearing about this one battalion that had been mauled really badly and we still hadn't gotten our assignments as to where we were goin. I remember goin into the EM club there and getting a beer. I had just gotten assigned to Alpha Company, 7th of the Four-oh-deuce. And the guy says to me, ‘Where you going?' I said, ‘Alpha Company, 7th a the Four-oh-deuce.' And he says, ‘Here.' He says, ‘Here. The beer's on the house.' This cold chill ran up and down my spine. I thought, ‘Oh God, it's all over. The minute this guy hears where I'm goin he gives me a free beer.'”

Doc and Minh laughed and Whiteboy said, “You really remember au a that? Ah doan know. Ah got two mo months then Ah'm gettin out.”

“What you goan do?” Doc fed Whiteboy the question.

“Ah'm gonna do, Ah guess, just lahk ma daddy did. Think Ah'll get on with the railroad. Ah'm sure my daddy can get me on as a brakeman or sompthin. Ah got a letter from a friend the othah day and he says mah ol sweetheart's had a kid an looks lahk a Sherman tank. Ah guess Ah'll just drift a bit then get on with the railroad but Ah doan really know.”

“What about you, Doc?” Silvers asked. “What are you goina do?”

“Too early ta say yet,” Doc dodged the question. He would like to have said he was going to continue his education in medicine, become a nurse or a technician or even a doctor, but he believed those things were beyond the hopes of a poor Harlem black. “I think I'll jus get out first,” he said. “What bout you, Minh? We know the Jew goan buy a respectable whorehouse but what yo gonna do? You in fo the duration.”

“To me,” Minh said, “it is most important for peace to return to my country and for all of you to go home. We do not have futures as long as the war continues and as long as your army is in my country.”

“God A'mighty,” Whiteboy snapped. “We're heah bustin our guts out for you lit'le fuckers and au you can think of is throwin us out.”

“Why you gettin on his case again?” Doc said. “If I said to you it's time yo left yo'd say ‘Right On!' and thank me. Shee-it. Minh, I say thanks fo wishin me the fuck out.”

“Ah, fuck this shit,” Whiteboy said and strode up the ravine.

Whiteboy moved his great bulk smoothly, stepping lightly over Jackson and around other soldiers, over Cherry and up the loose gravel incline onto the landing strip. Cherry had been following their conversation on and off and as Whiteboy stepped over him he smiled trying to indicate to Whiteboy his own approval of the big soldier's position. Whiteboy did not acknowledge him and as he passed Cherry thought, that guy, he shouldn't treat Minh like that. Whiteboy proceeded past the lieutenants and the sergeants to the devastated sundry pak where he grabbed a new deck of playing cards. Whiteboy nodded to Pop who was standing with Don White guarding the remaining supplies. The big soldier flexed his muscles, squinted up and down the strip and returned to the ravine.

All the men in the ravines were sweating. The sun had turned the small canyons into ovens. The men chatted blindly. Some men opened canned C-ration fruit. Others munched candy bars. They shared the fruit and candy, sometimes passing food between groups.

Whiteboy sat again with Silvers, Doc and Minh. He broke the seal on the deck of cards, removed the jokers and began to shuffle.

The last wave of Chinooks approached. Whiteboy held the cards tight. Troops turned their backs to the storm of the descending helicopters, a shower of loose landing strip pelted their worn fatigues even though the CH-47s set down at the far end of the strip. Echo Company and the scout dog teams disembarked. The big birds lifted, climbed, swung toward the sea and were gone.

Jax got up from near the card game, walked up the ravine to the sundry paks, removed a can of shaving cream, shook it up then artfully designed a large elliptical peace symbol on the hot hard ground. El Paso came up behind Jax, looked at the peace symbol, tapped Jax on the shoulder and said, “Never happen.”

“Na, Dude,” Jax responded, “doan be a fool. Yo gowin be outa here and I gowin be outa here before it happen but I bet ten ta one Cherry doan pull no full tour.”

In the trench sitting back against his ruck, sitting beside Jax' ruck, Cherry scratched sand from his scalp. Dust and grit stuck to his sweating arms and neck. He was miserable. He was still alone.

The staging area was now a cluster of hundreds of individual activities. Cherry was surprised, as he looked up and down the strip, to see so many men. In a ravine behind him a platoon sergeant snapped at the troops from Charlie company. “Come on,” the voice demanded. “Turn in all your pot. Let's go. Pot, pills, hash. All that shit. Come on now, I know you got that shit. I'm going to go for a walk. Go up and throw it in the sundry box. No questions asked. If you don't turn that shit in, I'm going to find it on you. If I find it in the boonies, yer goina be in a world a hurt.”

“Shee-it, Egan,” a voice boomed out. “I don't know how you kin smoke them gook cigarettes. They smell like they come outa the asshole of a dyin gook whore.”

Egan was coming down the ravine. Cherry did not look up though he followed Egan's approach with his peripheral vision. Egan was looking directly at him. For the first time Cherry really noted Egan's physical appearance, noted the ill-fitting faded and torn fatigues draped over the wiry thin body, the dilapidated jungle boots worn bare of color, the jungle sores and sun blisters and scars on Egan's face and arms.

Egan squatted beside Cherry and in a voice coming from low in his throat he said, “Aint this a fucker?”

“This? What?”

“This,” Egan said looking Cherry up and down and then straight in the eyes. “You doin okay?” he demanded.

“Yes.”

“Aint this a bitch though?”

“What?”

“This havin ta go look for em,” Egan said teasing Cherry with the half statement. He spoke at Cherry, aimed his voice at Cherry's face. “My bag is killin gooks,” Egan said. “I really love it. Didn't I tell you that last night?”

“Ah … no …” Cherry stammered.

“I remember the good ol days,” Egan said. His eyes shone. “Tet a '69. It was tremendous. We had gooks runnin around the battalion AO. Right in Eagle. Man, they'd gotten through the perimeter. This is a fucker but back then you didn't even have ta go lookin for em. Shee-it. Now you don't find enough ta fill an ant's asshole. But before—you could just walk out in back a the orderly room and shoot a few.”

Cherry stared at Egan. Egan was glaring him in the face. Cherry looked away, frightened. My God, he thought, this character's sick. Cherry looked down at his knees. He still wore one of the uniforms he had been issued at Fort Lewis. It struck him how new his fatigues were. He looked up at Egan then past Egan and he realized that he, of all the men in the ravine, had on the only new uniform. His skin was the only clean skin, the only skin without sores and scabs and bandages.