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THE WRITERS POST
(ISSN: 1527-5467)
the magazine of
Literature & Literature-in-translation.
VOLUME 7 NUMBER 1
JAN 2005
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NGO THE
VINH
___________________________
Buddhas Tears
As observed by the
intelligence staff of the headquarters operations center, there were signs of
unusual infiltration activity by the enemy, the North Vietnamese
communists. In the past, it had
usually been the case that about ten days or so after units of Red Beret
paratroopers engaged in battle, the enemy's fighting vigor decreased, as
expected. However, this time, even
though fifteen days had passed, and even though the communists had suffered
heavy losses, South Vietnamese battalions still found themselves confronting
a seemingly undiminished strength of opposing forces. I believed that this situation served as a
most legitimate reason for our Airborne Ranger Group to leave Saigon and proceed toward the western border area to take part in the
military operation aimed at liberating Krek, a town
in Cambodia, from enemy siege. I had
to admit that we all were just simply happy to be on our way there, which was
not to mention the fact that everyday in Saigon we
had longed like wild animals for a chance to return to the deep jungle, as we
were the Green Berets, those most at home with the familiar border
environment.
Having trained to adapt
ourselves well to any circumstance, we had no qualms in knowing that this
time our battlefield would be jungle areas across the border, deep inside the
territory of Cambodia. This was
terrain where the communists had set up numerous liaison stations, where
their storehouses of military provisions were hidden, and where units from
the two renowned North Vietnamese divisions, 5 and 9, were constantly on the
move, dispersed to conceal themselves, complete with
combat vehicles.
The normal duty performed
by the reconnaissance teams of our unit was to be inserted into the enemy's
terrain to gather information on their operational strategies, to discover
their storehouses, and to capture prisoners in order to extract intelligence
from them. Now, instead, after a week
of such operations, the nature of this new battlefield propelled us toward a
different task, more difficult and more arduous. It involved erecting blockades with small
Airborne Rangers battalions, causing confusion in the rear of the enemy
units' AO's, areas of operation. In
spite of our instinct for self-preservation, we became a kind of modern Jing
Ke who, once committed to the mission, had little hope of
surviving. Jing
Ke was the strong courageous warrior in ancient China who volunteered
to take up the suicidal task of assassinating the evil cruel Emperor Qin Shi
Huang; he failed, but left an everlasting example of heroism. In another light, it was also a good thing
that each of us believed luck would be on his side; that thought was enough
to kindle all hopes.
For a few days now, the
endless stream of artillery shells landing on our departure base had made us
rather tense. On top of that, there came
the less-than-encouraging news about fast and constant encounters of the
reconnaissance teams with the enemy.
Though the teams were said to have emerged victorious, the high price
paid was heavy losses sustained by two of our best teams. Having just left Saigon, and having been
thrown into an abrupt change of environment, the soldiers were not
psychologically prepared to face such a battle situation, riddled as it was
with difficulties. Generally speaking,
their morale was rather low, if not to say shattered. Perhaps that was what made me feel, after
two years commanding an Airborne Ranger company, that
it was about time I volunteered to rejoin a reconnaissance team, with the
hope of projecting the air of invigoration sorely needed by the unit. The lieutenant colonel, commander of our
Airborne Ranger Group, agreed to my request for transfer with much
hesitation. What he was afraid of,
rather superstitiously, was reassignment of former team leaders, those reckless
war hawks that easily can have their wings broken.
Of Catholic background,
not as superstitious as he was, I nonetheless had lived through and witnessed
the chancy unpredictable outcomes of battles, and hence could not but believe
in a number of omens and even in the alertness of instinct that forewarned of
an impending mishap. Due to that,
during my last stint with a reconnaissance team, I had declined to infiltrate
the enemy's territory one last time before I left the team, after two other
team leaders had been captured or lost in similar circumstances. But this time, after having spent a period
in an Airborne Ranger company, I had almost forgotten the taboo and decided
to lead a reconnaissance team once again an ill-omened move forward likely
yielding no return, as had happened to another very well-known team
leader. However, perhaps there lurked
a secret reason that I myself had only come to realize just now, which was
that the time spent in Saigon had bored me to tears. I wanted to restore, through ferment of
death, the pride and vitality that had sunk low in me.
The orders for our
operation were changed at the last minute.
The team would infiltrate Cambodia an hour earlier because heavy rain
was predicted in late afternoon. The
81st Recon Team was led to the briefing room where a very brief
explanation of the operational plan was given. Quite unlike reconnaissance
missions conducted inside Vietnam, this operation was without an American
advisor and his interpreter. The whole
helicopter squadron was composed of Vietnamese pilots who, aside from youth
and courage, had had no experience with this type of operation, an operation
where they were to drop eagle-like reconnaissance teams down into the
jungle. In truth, in this last stage
of Vietnamization of the war, the Americans wanted
to wash their hands of the whole conflict.
And in one way or another they were trying to pull out of the
Indochina quagmire. Aside from all the
ultramodern weapons which they provided, at this present juncture we really
fought alone. Shrewdly, the Americans
halted on this side of the dividing line, so that the fire and destruction on
the other side were none of their responsibilities. Therefore, in the eyes of our unit, the
U.S. participation in the war was defined simply by their leisurely presence
in the rear. Amidst the tense and
seething atmosphere of the war, the Americans stayed on the margins coolly
sitting down for a card game, thumbing through Playboy magazine, or engaging in body-building exercises
being virtually an indifferent audience to news of our happy victories or
devastating losses.
Indeed, without a doubt,
the Americans had actually withdrawn from this theatre of war. You had only to witness U.S. bases and
barracks left behind in utter disorder to realize that their departure was
"hurried". And everyday, on the main road from the western border
battlefront, convoys of American vehicles painted with white stars were seen
moving, one following another, heading east toward Saigon, heavily loaded
with weaponry. In the accompanying
jeeps were weary, ragged GIs with long hair and thick beards puffing up
clouds of marijuana smoke, the expressions on their faces suggesting presence
of a feeling of gratification for an honorable withdrawal. Their "Kill for Peace" slogan was now a string of empty
sounds. "Blood, Sweat and Tears", the rock group's name
attached to the barrel of each Howitzer cannon, was buried and lost beneath
layers of red dust. Disappearing like
the lost meaning of a holy war without the Cross, these slogans had been stained
by the recent exposure of secret documents designated the Pentagon Papers.
The team stood ready for
insertion at the airport. The
lieutenant colonel walked us toward our helicopters. He himself would fly in the command and
control aircraft. In dangerous
situations, his presence in the sky over the area of operation gave many of
us peace of mind, largely because of his store of experience, his calm and
cool demeanor, his adeptness at orderly solving of dilemmas by resolute
decisions. The leader of the squadron
informed us that another Slick helicopter had broken down at the last
minute. It would appear that the
maintenance skills of the Vietnamese Air Force would take many more years
before reaching the expected standards.
Though the lieutenant colonel tried to contain his feelings, I could
detect a fleeting anger on his face.
As things stood, we would not have a rescue helicopter, but had to
content ourselves with a command and control aircraft, a single aircraft to
insert the reconnaissance team, and two gunships.
More than an hour before
the appointed time of departure, rotating airfoils whipped up red dust. The fleet of four birds followed one
another upon lifting off the runway, moved into formation at an altitude of
three-thousand-feet, and headed directly in the northwest direction. The sky was the purest of blue, without a
dark cloud to indicate imminent bad weather.
Water of the rice fields shimmered highlights. We left behind us, in the distance, Black
Lady Ba Den mountain its existence no
less than a mistake made by the Creator of the universe, a deformity embedded
in the Delta's otherwise unbroken topography which protruded denuded from
the green flat surface of the plain.
The mountain embodied many mysteries and legends: a habitat of
bloodsucking and venomous mosquitoes; a place of malignant malaria caused by
plasmodium falciparum; a site of horrendous
battles; a ground where were buried our fellow fighters during an operation
four years ago. Engraved in my mind
was the image of moonlit nights, nights when Ba Den's lunar orb wore the pale face of one afflicted with
malaria. On the jungle hat sitting
upon my knees, worn out and faded from long exposure to seasons of rain, my
memory tried to find the imprint of this place: Ba
Den mountain among Daksut, Poleikleng,
Mai Loc, Ashau, Khe Sanh, Bunard, Pleime, and dozens of other familiar place names. I had been in each of them a few times, and
from each had carried away memories of sacrifices made. Through the full length of history,
Vietnamese youths have been nourished from roots of misery and fed with
death. Their youth was reckoned not in
terms of months and years, but by changes in the environments touched by
their combat shoes, the shoes that had been and were trampling on the
remaining green grass of their beloved land of birth.
Mixed with the sounds of
the rotor and the wind blowing through the aircraft, the voice of the
sergeant who was the team's deputy asked me, "Grey Tiger, when will it
be our turn, me and my fellow team members, to be dropped into Phnom
Penh?"
At such an instant of
anticipation of serious developments like that, I could only keep silent and
smile at him by way of answering, instead of confirming it was possible a
general offensive along the lines of Tet '68 in
Vietnam would occur in Cambodia and that Phnom Penh would need us to come to
the rescue. However, it would seem
that with respect to the people's hearts and minds, we were at a disadvantage
when setting foot in this land of wats and temples.
The atmosphere of distrust and
hostility was rooted in an obsessed memory of severe historical antagonism
between the two countries. During my
first border crossing together with a large division deep into Cambodian
territory, I witnessed the devastation of a village hit by bombs and shells,
and met a monk in a damaged wat. The Cambodian abbot, an old senior monk
well-versed in the French language, had talked with me through his tears.
"It is truly
unfortunate for us Khmer people," he said. "We can't possibly make any choice
between the two Vietnamese sides."
His words echoed the
heartfelt headline "How sad to be a Cambodian" written by an
American correspondent describing the widening war in Cambodia.
Upon reaching Thien Ngon Special Forces camp
in Tay Ninh province near
the Vietnamese-Cambodian border, the squadron of helicopters had to change
direction because from the ground heavy smoke rose high accompanied by sounds
of explosions. The camp's underground
gas tanks and ammunition storage had been hit by artillery rounds, and the
fierce fire had continued since morning.
The war was made horrible
not only by encounters between combatants, but more than that, by artillery
fire and rockets. In this theater of
battle, man could predict or determine nothing; he could only accept luck,
good or ill, as being a matter of fate.
It was the turn of another
team member, Luong, to voice his aspiration:
"If we find an underground shelter of 122 mm
rockets, please try to get me another chicken
wing, would you, Grey Tiger?"
He
was using a slang term, common among ARVN soldiers, to refer to a stripe in
an insignia which, having the shape of an inverted V, suggested the image of
a chicken wing. Luong had served as a corporal for
more years than anyone else, ever since I had previously been assigned to the
team.
Gently
giving him a playful knock on his completely bald head, I shouted in his
ears, "Not only a chicken wing.
You'll receive another medal for valor."
I
was referring to the most honored medal for valor under fire,
that given for feats of arms performed outside the national borders or
within enemy-controlled territory. Luong had received this kind of medal twice. As much as he performed excellently and was
intrepid in the jungle, he was riotous whenever he returned to the city. He was a champion in both winning medals
and being disciplined for many days, and hence even after six years he had
not been promoted to sergeant.
"This
time when we go back to Saigon, if I still haven't got myself a chicken wing,
would you allow me to desert the army, Grey Tiger?"
He trusted me enough to
say such a thing. But why was it that
even though it was meant as a joke, there was this very unusual change in his
countenance that was not at all cheerful?
Could it have been a harbinger, a predictor that this time he would be
gone, I thought to myself, and immediately tried to dismiss that crazy
thought from my mind.
In order to avoid
antiaircraft fire, the squadron swerved and flew along the national highway,
which was no more than a red dirt road extending like an arrow of flame
straight into Cambodian territory. On
this highway numerous convoys of GMC trucks, packed with provisions and ammunition,
were heading toward the ongoing heavy battle at Krek
in order to deliver these supplies to our troops.
About 15 minutes into the
flight, I realized that perhaps we had left our homeland, as down below among
green fields curved roofs could be detected, a special architectural feature
of Cambodian wats, their
Buddhist temples. Cambodian villages
did not look much different from Vietnamese villages, only more
spacious. Many red-tile roofs stood
close to one another, interspersed with dung-colored
thatched roofs. Wispy columns of grey
smoke rose gently from late afternoon cooking fires, children played, and
buffaloes and cows returned to their paddocks. How much longer could that romantic scene
last in an area of Asia still rather peaceful? Or had its better time already passed,
after fifteen years of skillful swinging above a sea of fire by Prince
Sihanouk? In the distance toward the
south, the afternoon sun was scattering its golden rays over the Mekong
river, so abundant with fish and silt.
Rolling rubber tree forests blended into the wild jungle. Soon there appeared below us deserted
villages marked with rows of craters left by B-52 bombers. In fact, no trace was detected of human or
other living beings. Was I not seeing
a repetition of Dakto, Khe
Sanh, or Son My in Vietnam? I asked myself. To where had the armed struggle between
Vietnamese opponents driven away the Khmer people born of those
villages? Being carried forward by the
intoxicating sweep of history, who would stop to
consider the fact that war among the Vietnamese could widen its effects to
diminish the glory of an ancient Angkor civilization? In the desolate quietness of an early
evening, in one of those ruined villages, I imagined, there remained a
certain unknown woman who resignedly sat holding and breast-feeding her
baby. Was not that, after all, a most
comfortingly beautiful and everlasting image which
symbolized the significance of survival of the human species?
Indeed, to me, the image
represented life full of its challenges, and also suggested a generous forgiveness
for this protracted and futile war marked with senseless destruction by men
and weapons. But such feelings of
concern were of no help to us at this moment, a moment when everything had
been arranged for us and all we ought to do was submissively throw ourselves
in. Present day Cambodia had become an
arena wherein Vietnamese were brutal gladiators armed with ideological
contradictions and ignorance. For
thirty years now, what we had not been able to learn for ourselves was that
the thoughts and feelings of each Vietnamese had been unilaterally
conditioned to the extent that we no longer saw one another eye to eye. When talking with a North Vietnamese
communist prisoner, I could not believe that while the both of us were
Vietnamese conversing in our mother tongue, we no longer spoke the same
language. Not only because of the
deadly effects of bullets and guns, but this was precisely a mental impasse
which had made us incapable of thinking and reasoning on any issue. Our brains had been reduced to broken
masses of grey matter, so that we were only capable of passive acceptance as
one would nominally embrace fate, going straight into mindless killing. Perhaps the only thing left to us was the
pulsation of the Vietnamese heart, a heart that had not changed, a heart that knew no joy and shared in a painful
collective hatred. I was clearly aware
that in a short moment, we would jump from our helicopter onto Cambodian land
while the news was still fresh that President Nixon was about to go to
Peking, that Moscow was preparing for dιtente with the U.S. In the end, what we would face was
shameless opposition and animosity between two Vietnamese sides another
instance in the history of division, an inevitable tragedy.
Detaching from the fleet
and gradually decreasing in altitude, the helicopter which was tasked to
insert the team wavered over treetops.
Not finding a landing zone, we prepared ourselves to go down by a rope
ladder. All our senses became alert
again, disposed to action. We were
poised on a hair-trigger, tense with the demeanor of those set for
offense. There would be precious
little discrimination on the battlefield, where reflex differentiated friend
from foe from non-combatant. Guns and
bullets would engage in no dialogue.
There would only be Vietnamese of fortitude from both sides who
volunteered to offer their bodies as torches to heat up the Indochina war.
How many pages of a book
would be needed to recount outstanding feats of arms performed by the
nameless heroes engaged in this operation on Cambodian land? The 81st Recon Team's activities
for the duration of 96 hours, from the moment their feet were on the ground,
could be viewed as the unfolding of a
splendid epic even though for those who lived to tell, it was no
less than an experience of hell. The
story was retold many times.
The aircraft inserting the
team took heavy fire soon after lowering itself to near the ground, and had
to lift abruptly, pulling with it on the rope ladder the sixth team member
being inserted, who had been killed.
The whole team should immediately have been extracted and returned to
their base. But upon request of the
team leader, the TOC, the Tactical Operations Center, agreed to allow the
five members on the ground, including himself, to
continue with the assigned task.
Through six heavy encounters with the enemy, they counted as victories
the effective ambush of a convoy of four Molotova
vehicles, and the complete demolition of an 88 mm cannon emplacement. They performed extraordinarily well and
fulfilled their task beyond expectations.
By hour 96, however, the
team was almost done for. Only two of
the five remained, and they had been unable to locate the corpses of their
fallen team members. These survivors were
the team leader, who had received a bullet through his left hand, and a
sergeant critically wounded in the chest.
The two gave their best effort to fight to the death with their
assault rifles and grenades. During
the many hours of the mission, while surrounded by opposing forces who seemed inclined to capture them alive, they broke
three waves of assault and caused heavy loss of life to the enemy. But in the end they were overwhelmed. The last sentence heard from them through
the field radio was short: "A huge number of enemy troops are moving
against us.
The TOC then completely
lost touch with them. A rescue attempt
could not be carried out because bad weather had paralyzed all activities of
the Air Force. Only two days later did
the weather return to normal. At the
earliest possible opportunity, all resources were mobilized for the rescue
mission. After 72 hours of intense but
hopeless search throughout the operational area, after having checked and
digested information from various sources, the officers in the TOC resigned
themselves to the conclusion that the 81st Recon Team was to be
considered missing in action, if not having met death with fortitude. To salvage the situation, and also to be in
compliance with standard operating procedures, G-3, the headquarters
operations staff, asked for and received clearance from the TOC to conduct an
air strike. Several hours later, four
B-52s were in flight carrying thousands of tons of bombs to transform the
involved area of jungle into a sea of fire, a fire fierce enough to cremate
the corpses of our fallen fellow fighters, and, perhaps more notably,
sufficient to neutralize the enemy's desire for victory.
Afterwards, while looking
at aerial photos when reviewing the event, a pilot from a U.S. "Pink
Team" the OH-6A Cayuse light observation helicopter was quite
effective as a military scout when teamed with the AH-1G Cobra attack
helicopter commented, "Here we have created a small Arizona desert in
Cambodian marshland."
As for the significant
effects of the 81st Recon Team's combat activities, this was once
more confirmed by concrete evidence in the form of a copy of a top secret
flash-priority message captured by a paratrooper unit when it inspected the
targets of the air strike. The
flash-priority message had been sent by unit K30 to NVA Division 9 noting the
presence of a South Vietnamese unit, whose designation could not be
determined, which was operating in their rear, describing its operational
signature and requesting any information available. Moreover, destructive activities conducted
by South Vietnamese reconnaissance teams in general had propelled COSVN, the
Central Office for South Vietnam, the communist headquarters in the South
located near the Vietnamese-Cambodian border to issue and circulate a communications
bulletin exposing activities of ARVN Airborne Ranger teams whom they called
"Spy Groups
that infiltrated their pacified areas to cause unrest. The last part of the document contained
guidelines to help all units become more alert to such ARVN operations.
Not very far from
that same headquarters, in the northeast direction, after seven days lost in
the jungle wilderness, two ghost-like figures made
it with difficulty to a ruined village, the man slung over the shoulder of
the other being near death. And
throughout that night, in a deserted Cambodian wat,
a Catholic ARVN soldier, exhausted and full of sorrow, knelt down by the
corpse of his fallen companion.
Directing his tear-filled eyes toward the serene face of the Buddha
statue, he prayed with all his heart for the soul of his unfortunate comrade
soon to be liberated.
Outside, pounding rain
raged relentlessly. Wind shook the
long dark night enveloping the entirety of mainland Southeast Asia.
NGO THE VINH
Krek,
Cambodia 1971
[From The Battle of Saigon to
be published soon]
·
THE WRITERS POST (ISSN:
1527-5467),
the magazine of Literature & Literature-in-translation.
VOLUME
7 ISSUE 1 JAN
2005
Editorial
note:
Works published in this issue may be simultaneously published in the printed Wordbridge Magazine Issue 6 January 2005 (ISSN:
1540-1723).
Copyright © Ngo The Vinh & The Writers Post 1999-2005. Nothing in this
issue may be downloaded, distributed, or reproduced without the permission of
the author/ translator/ artist/ The Writers Post/ and Wordbridge magazine. Creating links to place The Writers
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