Memory of the battlefield

     In 1995 I returned to Vietnam. Only this time as a tourist, but also as a time traveler at least in the sense of going back into my memories.

     After a few days kicking around Saigon, which will never be Ho Chi Minh City - not for me or anyone else of my generation - I asked my guide to take me the twenty or so kilometers north to Long Binh where I had been stationed for most of my tour of duty. He engaged a car and driver and up Highway One we went. Everything was very much the same as we traveled north, a mix of traffic - trucks, buses, lambrettas and cars of all sizes, just no tanks, jeeps or other US Military vehicles.

      My first surprise was that Long Binh Base was gone. There were no building, no trees, no roads. There was nothing but rough terrain where even the concrete pads that served as the foundation for buildings had been removed. Stateside, when I heard that the country had fallen to the North Vietnamese, I had assumed that the Vietnamese would have moved into take over the base. I expected to see the hospital, the stores, the hootches and especially the Generals officer’s houses occupied. What I failed to grasp in my limited world perspective as an American was the deep feelings regarding things American held by the North Vietnamese. They wanted nothing second hand from the US. This was later confirmed when I saw the base at Phu Loi, an other base at which I had been stationed, in what had been the 1st Infantry Division TAO. At Phu Loi there was a Vietnamese army base, but they had torn down everything we had left and rebuilt it from the ground up.

      We turned off Highway One to drive along the road that had been in the shadows of the bunker line that ran along the southern perimeter of Long Binh. Back in the day, the area to the south of the road was a free fire zone with large earthen berms on the far side of the empty field to protect the villages from a stray bullets. Now the villages had leaped over the berms and covered the entire free fire zone.  There were no recognizable landmarks, just all these newly constructed houses and stores.   

      I despaired of ever finding the old village where the most significant event of my combat tour occurred - the night we were ambushed and Sgt. Lara was killed. Rather than interrupt this naritive, I suggest that you read my post at http://hallmant.wordpress.com/a-recollection-from-vietnam-spring-of-1968/. 

      My next surprise was that I was able to recognize the road that lead to the village where the old French Observation Post had been. I have no idea how I did it, but I simple knew. I sat up suddenly and said “turn here.” That I was correct wasn’t clear for at least twenty minutes. We found the old village gate, but this meant nothing as I couldn’t remember the name of the place. There was no French OP. We stood around with my guide translating for me as I asked about the changed landscape and handed out Polaroid pictures of anyone who would stand still for me. Then I noticed a large area, maybe twenty meters square where there was no grass or weeds growing. An old man was squatting in the dust repairing bicycle tires. I walked around this open area and realized that this would have been where the French OP was located. I scratched with my shoe in the dust and down a few inches found a very old concrete pad - obviously the foundation of the old OP. I was in the right place! This was amazing. I begin asking about the family that lived beside the old facility and the two young girls that had stayed up late selling us Military Policemen cigarettes and cokes. No one could answer me. Finally a young man approached who knew what I was asking about. He told me that the two girls, who had been preteens during my tour, had grown and become girlfriends of several American Military Policemen, my subsequent replacement several times removed. When the US fled and the country fell to the North, the girls were executed as traitors and their house was destroyed. Later he took us to met the mother who now lived kn the next village.

       After I was satisfied that there was nothing more for me at this site, we drove down the road towards the river, retracing the route we took that night that Sgt. Lara was killed. In my memory the distance between the French OP and the Buddhist temple where the ambush took place was at most a few hundred meters and within site of the OP. But reality had a big surprise for me. The Buddhist temple was about a kilometer from the OP with several turns and bends in the road. I just stood there in the middle of the road looking at the temple unable to comprehend the difference. If I closed my eyes I could see the scene - the darkness of the night, the wrecked jeep and the fleeting movements that we fired at. I could remember it all in great detail, the smells, the silence and the noise of the gunfire that shattered it. I could see it all. I could feel it again, the cool breeze and the chill of the fear-sweet against my skin. I remembered my actions, my failures and the hopeless feeling as we looked at Sgt Lara lying unconscious on the ground. Yet here, back in the future, I couldn’t find the empty lot where I found Sgt. Lara that night. I couldn’t even guess which building now occupied the site. There was little correlation between memory and reality. The lesson was clear, time and Vietnam had moved on, putting the war behind it and so should I.

Story 2 - Martha Raye USO Show

As Military Police we provided security at USO shows on base. Martha Raye brought her Hello Dolly show which was staged in one of the large hangers.  Sergeant Thompson was very excited as he was a huge fan of Martha Raye. The show was great, very entertaining with lots of beautiful young women dancers.  At one point early in the show the guys in the audience went a little crazy when the girls who were wearing long dresses showed off their legs.  Ms. Raye "broke character" and rushed to the apron and said "Of course they have nice legs, their all of twenty years old.  But how's this for a fifty year old woman?"  And then she hiked up her skirt to display a very nice pair of legs, fifty or not.

After the show we were invited to the case party.  Sarge was beside himself; he just might meet his idol.  The party was held in the hosting helicopter unit's Officer's Club.  Sarge, who if not an alcoholic was right next to it, quickly had a couple of Scotch on the rocks and was doing great. His feet were nowhere near the floor.  A few minutes later one of the show's crew announced that Ms. Raye was not feeling well and would not be coming to the party.  Sarge was devastated and compensated with a few more Scotch on the rocks. 

But, then, there she was.  Martha Raye did make her appearance. The show must go on!  Nearly everyone in the room knew by now that Sergeant Thompson had an infatuation with Ms. Raye and the Colonel brought her over and introduced them.  Ms Raye, with a drink in her hand, entertained us with jokes and stories for at least ten minutes.  At some point it became just a conversation between her and sarge.  She told him that this was her third trip to Vietnam and that she would always see these signs for massage parlors and wanted to know if the massages here was as good as one might get in large European or American cities.  Our intrepid Sergeant replied, "Well, Ms. Raye, I've never had a massage in no fancy city parlor, but after a long, hot day eating dust on convoy duty, there's nothing like a steam job and a blow bath!" Of course he was totally unaware of what he had just said.  Ms. Raye the trooper that she was barely blinked and continued chatting with good old sarge as those of us standing around nearly died of laughter.  The next morning we added to Sergeant Thompson's hungover misery with blow by blow renditions of the conversation. 

Story 1: Ambush

Lawrence C. 25th Infantry Div. '66-'67

     "We had a great kill zone and good concealment. All we had to do was lay and wait in this old graveyard beside the ruins of this Buddhist temple. It was all covered with vines and shit and the roof was missing. It was so very quite, well, except for the huge-assed firefight raging across the river. Victor Charlie and Alpha Company were really throwing down.
     Then we heard them coming. Little sounds people make when they move through the jungle, especially if they’re tired; twigs snapping, leaves brushing against arms, packs, weapons and things and the underlying sound of labored breathing. The NVA point man appeared at the end of the trail and moved doggedly into the area near the temple where there was less forestation. He was tired. You could tell because he didn’t look around. Hell, he didn’t even look up; he just kept humping. Five seconds behind him was the rest of the squad, twelve of them all together. We watched them move into the kill zone. Shit, most were just kids, just like us.
     Then Sarge popped the claymores and the party started. Like usual it immediately became a slow motion dance macabre as the adrenaline kicked in. Twitching and convulsing; erupting blood; grasping, reaching for anything; slipping to their knees or thrown to their backs. Maybe some cried out, but we didn’t hear it, what with steady firepower we poured into their flesh, through their bones. Then it was over - the quiet rang in our ears.
     And there was that smell. When I get real freaked, even today, more than forty years later, I can smell it. The smell of blood and gunpowder. There is nothing like it, not even the smell of freebase. I knew then that I was in deep shit and if I was unfortunate enough to make it back to the world that I was going to be one hurtin’ son-of-a-bitch. So, I stood there in the middle of this killing field and laughed. I took out my knife and gave the coup de grace to this badly wounded kid who kept staring at me while trying to hold in his guts. I think, I hope, he would have done the same for me."

     Lawrence stood, sort of smiled, glanced around my office at the pictures and degrees on the wall, then stretched and said, "Okay, doc, I've got to get to the community meeting. See you tomorrow, same time?" He stepped into the doorway, looked both ways and sidled away.