closed them for quicker adjustment, and immediately my hearing took over,
listening to every sound. In the distance, I could hear random noises that
sounded like bare feet in wet mud. My instincts told me to back out of the
hole. My only problem, I was not sure which direction the feet walking in
mud had come from.
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“Standing with my back to the wall, I could feel the beads of sweat popping
out all over my face, and several were already running down my cheeks. My
face felt so hot that my running sweat felt cold. Opening my eyes, I realized
they had adjusted to the darkness, so I stayed put, looking for any movement
or motion that would validate a change in sight. Pulling my knife from my
leg strap, I began to play back in my mind what I had originally seen about
the room and corridor before the light had gone out. It was then I realized
the best place for me to be was on the other side of the room. If anyone came
down the tunnel, instead of being seen, I would have the advantage. From
the other side, I would also be able to watch the hole I had crawled through
to enter.
“I had no sooner worked my way to the other side of the dark room when,
like a ghost in the night, ‘Oh, my god,’ he stepped from the corridor and
stood two feet in front of me. Instinctively, without thinking, as fear raced
through my veins, I grabbed the top of his hair, pulling his head backwards,
and exactly at the same time, I slit his throat. It was so well timed; he could
not have had a clue because there was absolutely no struggle from him. My
adrenalin fear and strength was so strong at that moment, I had nearly
decapitated the head from his body. Although I was in the dark, my mind
processed everything, vividly, to my psyche. My initial response to his warm
blood gushing all over my arms, face, and chest was one of horror, making
it nearly impossible for me to breathe. I wanted to run out of the opening,
crying and screaming, ‘No, no, no, I want to go home.’ Afraid of making
any noise, I picked him up, his head dangling from the rest of his body, and
carried him to a spot down the wall, away from me. As soon as I laid him
down, I heard someone coming, and it sounded as if they were calling for
the man. My mind was full of live energy, and my body was pumping on
pure adrenalin as I backed up against the wall. When he appeared in front of
me, I noticed he was shorter in stature, and grabbed his hair. It was much
longer than usual, making it easier for me to pull his neck back. Creating
only a small sound, I laid him with the other body.
“Again, I wanted to run out the door when the light came on a second time,
allowing me to see the concave room I was in, and the short connecting
tunnel. Looking down the tunnel, I saw the light was originating from the
next connecting tunnel. If I could make it to the next corner, I might be able
to see how many there were. I never looked at the two bodies on the ground,
staying focused on the danger I felt and the fear within me. As I arrived at
the end of the tunnel, another room appeared, stacked with canned food and
bags of rations.
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“No one was in the room, so I moved toward a pile of bagged rice against
the center wall that would provide me with sight of both connecting tunnels.
I laid my rifle against the large pile of bagged rice, kept my knife in my right
hand, and took out my revolver. Terror struck! As I heard voices coming, I
thought maybe this was the wrong spot because I felt like a rat, trapped in a
corner. One person entered the room. Breathlessly, I watched and listened
as he spoke with at least two others through the connecting tunnel. Walking
around the room, he took various items from the piles. I thought to myself,
‘Keep quiet; let him go back into the other room.’ My next trained thought
was, ‘No, you need to get him while you have him.’ Watching his shadow
on the floor, I could see he was working his way toward my location. When
he reached for something on the stack in front of me, I stood up and grabbed
his shirt, stabbing him in the heart, throat, and temple.
“For the first time, as I held his shirt, I saw terror and death in the eyes of
a man. He made enough gurgling noises and little cries that the men in the
connecting tunnel immediately blew out the light. After the light was out,
they began to call for him. As soon as I laid him down, I immediately worked
my way to the front of the tunnel, into position. For what seemed like an
eternity, I waited, not moving from my spot. It was dead silence … the
silence before death. None of us were about to walk down the six-foot tunnel
that connected us.
“It was dark. So dark, that I could not see my hand in front of my face.
After a long time, I began to wonder if they had gone out the other entrance.
I slit two holes in my scarf and tied the headscarf to cover my face. I put my
knife back in my leg strap and my revolver in the holster. At this point, I
figured it was going to be open hunting season for them and me. No sooner
had the thought come into my mind, when they fired a few rounds down the
tunnel in an attempt to draw fire from me. I stretched out in a prone position
on the floor, knowing that my next decision was a sure death move if they
could see me.
“I slowly moved my head out, at floor level, until I could see down the
tunnel. After approximately five minutes, they fired another round down the
tunnel. It came from the back left. I could not see the other side of the room
because the tunnel wall was blocking my right side view. Throwing a can of
food into their room, I drew fire from both sides of the room. The muzzle
flash was greater on the left, revealing to me that was the short side of the
room. At the exact instant they stopped firing; I crawled down the hall
several feet on my stomach and went full throttle firing to the left. Two feet
from the entry, I started spraying the room to the right as I pushed my body
forward with my feet.
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“We both made small noises as we were hit. I kept my rifle pointed in his
direction and was about to pull the trigger again, when suddenly, he was on
top of me. With a swing of a knife, he nearly cut my eyes out. During the
fight, I struggled to gain control of the hand with the knife, and felt several
punctures enter my body during the struggle. Finally, I took control of his
wrist. I remember thinking how little his wrist was as I rolled him over onto
his back and grabbed his throat with my right hand. Applying all of my
weight and strength against his body, I squeezed the small throat with all my
might. Losing his breath, he dropped the knife as he attempted to use both
hands on my wrist to free himself from my grip. In the terror of my own fear
and the desire to live, I released my grip on his neck. Instantly I drove my
thumb and fingers through his skin. Reaching inside, I grabbed his small
esophagus, pulling it forward from his neck and feeling his last breath in the
palm of my hand as he collapsed.
“Sitting up in a bloody daze, I began to assess my physical condition. The
first question that entered my mind was why my unit had not come to help
me. They had to have heard the shooting. Not knowing where my rifle was,
I reached for my Colt, in case there were more. Suddenly, immense pain
struck my nose and mouth as the butt of a rifle smashed into my face. The
force knocked me to the floor, and I instinctively began firing in a pattern
two feet wide, nearly emptying my pistol. Lying there, I waited for another
attack. After a bit, I staggered to my feet. My face was in excruciating pain,
and my mouth felt like there were pieces of gravel in it as I started spitting
out teeth. I had to lift and pull my bottom lip free as several teeth were stuck
in and through both lips. My entire psyche started screaming, ‘I want out,
get me the fuck out of here.’ I was bleeding everywhere. My eyes had so
much blood in them that I could not open them. That wasn’t the problem.
Using my headscarf to clean the blood from my eyes, I felt my eyelids
pulling away from my face. Entering a state of near shock, I carefully felt
my face with my hands and found one eyelid nearly torn from my face. It
was barely attached to the inside area near my nose, and hanging down on
my nose and face. Immediately, I became nauseated and began to vomit
profusely. Followed by overwhelming fearful thoughts of what my actual
physical condition might be. ‘GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF!’ Knife in one
hand and pistol in the other, I went to the next tunnel, unsure of what I would
find. As I entered, I stumbled over another body; taking no chances, I shot
the outline of the silhouette in the head.
“Turning down the tunnel, I was overwhelmed with physical pain as the
adrenalin began to wear off. A strange grief, laden with massive sorrow,
swept through my heart, making me an emotional wreck.
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The reality of the events was already beginning to haunt me. I wanted to
shout or cry but did not have the strength. I fell to my knees, and then to my
hands, as I fought to keep myself from passing out. On all fours, with my
head hanging down, in the quiet of that moment, I heard a sound and realized
it was my own blood dripping to the ground. Raising my head, I looked
toward the end of the tunnel where a small amount of light appeared. The
line between reality and insanity is incredibly thin. At that very moment, in
front of that light, there you stood. General George Washington, in full-dress
uniform. Your white hair was neatly combed, blue jacket with gold tassels
on each shoulder, sword at your side, clean, white pants, and shiny, black
boots. I saw you standing there, waving, wanting me to come toward you. I
wanted to rub my eyes to see if this were real, but knew with my eyelids slit
it wasn’t possible. All the while, you continued beckoning me to come.
“With all my strength, I stood to my feet, saluting you, General. Do you
remember when I asked, ‘General, why are you here?’ You never responded
or saluted me back. You just kept waving for me to come toward you. As I
approached, I could see the exit, and you stepped aside for me to pass.
Stumbling in and out of reality, thinking that my mind was playing tricks on
me, I began to deny the existence of you, and I headed toward the tunnel
exit.
“At the exact moment I was directly in front of you, the silence in the tunnel
cracked with a bone-chilling tone, when you said to me, ‘SOLDIER!’ I
turned with my back against the dirt as a numbing fear hit me; that possibly,
this was real. For the first time, I remember thinking that somehow I had
crossed from life into death. As I looked you in the eyes, I will never forget
how intently you looked at me. Your eyes told me that you understood my
fear and pain. As you spoke to me in the dead silence of that small tunnel, I
heard your words ever so clearly, and they have stayed with me all of my
life.
‘“My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the
earth.’
“I stumbled in my mind, grasping for reality. In just a few more feet, I was
outside, staggering toward my unit as several men disobeyed the lieutenant
and came to my rescue. As I sat on the ground with several men giving me
first aid, the lieutenant, standing next to me, motioned for two men to go
through the tunnel system looking for documents. My emotions quickly
changed to violent rage. Infuriated by his hand movement, I took my knife
from the leg strap and stood to my feet, quickly sticking the knife under his
chin with one hand behind his neck, inserting the tip in his bottom jaw. No
one stepped forward to stop me, and Brian was not about to move.
210
With my lips and mouth a mess, my words slurred as I said, ‘If you ever
send anyone into another hole while I am alive, I will kill you.’
“I do not remember much about the journey back to our mark-point pick
up, but the men indicated the lieutenant carried me the majority of the
four-mile journey. Because of the breach in security, our unit had to evacuate.
The chopper I rode in was ready upon arrival, with medics taking me straight
to Pleiku 71st Medical Evac. Lieutenant Brain stayed with me for several
days, and then one man from our unit was with me the nine days I spent in
the hospital. One phrase kept repeating itself in my mind as I lay in bed,
healing: ‘War is a necessary evil.’ Every time my mind repeated the phrase,
the only answer that returned to me was; ‘war is evil … there was nothing
necessary about what I did.’ There were seven dead, General, and one was
a woman.
“They put my eyelids back together, one bullet went through my leg with
no bone damage, eight teeth were missing, and six others were broken so
badly they would need to be removed. I had a broken nose, multiple cuts
and stab wounds, my mouth required upper and lower lip surgery, and a total
of 83 stitches. All in all … not bad. While in recovery, I saw you several
times, General, and I thought you were stopping by to check on me. The
psychologist visited me every day, trying to evaluate my mental trauma, and
I never told her about you, General.
“After that my unit went into Laos while I had another few weeks of healing
and some follow-up work on my mouth. Sitting in the club one afternoon,
doing in a bottle of Jim Beam, a man touched my shoulder, and as I turned
around, there stood Squirrel. My god, it was good to see a familiar face. As
we finished the bottle together, he commented on the condition of my face.
Laughing, I told him, I ran into ‘Sergeant Gore,’ but he found no humor in
my joke. He was doing long-range reconnaissance patrol, LRRP, with the
fourth infantry, looking for the same thing I looked for, only he was on the
other, ‘legal side’ of the border. He had a few additional treatments of liquid
antibiotics, for a nasty infection on his leg before returning to his unit. We
drank until we could drink no more and agreed to meet in the morning. I
never realized the next day, would a day, that I would want to go back and
do some small part over.
“Squirrel and I met at the hospital for checkups. After he had undergone a
round of antibiotics, we left to eat and spent the morning talking mainly
about his family. He told me, occasionally, he was able to speak with them,
having missed his son’s first birthday.
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His daughter was three, but talking as if she were sixteen. ‘Roger, I pray
every day, asking God to help me make it out of this insanity.’ Expressing
his love for his family often brought tears to his eyes.
“It was a clear morning, so we decided to take a walk through the city and
look around. As we walked past the fun house, the girls smiled and waved
for us to come in. We waved and continued down the street and past the
market. After only half a mile, we lost interest in the locals and headed back
to the base.
“Walking past a small school, we noticed children outside doing what kids
do all over the world; they were running, playing, and laughing even in the
midst of war. As we approached the end of the school building, a little girl
came running out of a house adjoining it, smiling and speaking in
Vietnamese, her arms out, beckoning for Squirrel to pick her up.
“Instinctively, he stooped down, picking her up as she put her arms around
his neck. He hugged her as if she were his daughter. As he looked at me with
tears running down his face, I could not help thinking, ‘I hope God answers
his prayers. This man needs to go home to his family.’ Turning, I saw a small
boy coming from the house, and as I turned back around, looking at Squirrel,
he blew up. Stunned by the blast, ears aching, and with new shrapnel
wounds, I found myself covered with chunks of human flesh. Dazed, I saw
a woman pushing the little boy to go toward me, as children on the
playground, in order to see the blast, ran toward the fence and not away.
“I repeatedly shouted, ‘Dung noi!’ STOP! The boy kept walking toward
me. When he lifted his hands and smiled, I pulled my revolver and shot him
twice in the head, then ran toward the house. Inside, I found the woman. I
killed her instantly in the same manner as the little boy, as a man ran out the
back door.
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I ran him down in front of a crowd of screaming people who were getting
too close, so I spun in a circle, pointed my gun at them, and fired several
rounds just inches above their heads. I was so enraged, General, I could have
killed every one of them.
“After they stopped approaching me, I walked up to the man on his knees,
pulled his head up, and made him look at me. I held eye contact with him
for what seemed like an eternity. Death and shooting him did not seem like
enough. For the first time in my life, I wanted to do more than just shoot
him. Hearing the military police coming, I shoved my gun into his mouth
full force and executed him. Then I made a mistake, one that I will never
forget; I went back to see my friend Squirrel. Have you ever had one of those
days where you wished you had done something different?
“Sitting in a hospital bed with new stitches from shrapnel wounds,
Lieutenant Brian walked in ordered me to get dressed and took me
immediately to our chopper. The base commander had started an
investigation, and there was no way that was going to happen. On the ride
over, Lieutenant Brian explained we were a unit of 12 men, with two fronts
of interest in Laos. We were doing surveillance from Ta Ha, up to Ban Cha
La, in Laos, along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Headquarters of the Phoenix
operation ‘Cherry’ was supplying us with the locations of people along the
route they designated as ‘sympathetic’ with the VC, and we were conducting
eliminations as well as troop surveillance. ‘I want you to take the Ta Ha area,
and I will take the Ban Cha area. Are you are physically able. Or do you
need more down time?’ he asked. ‘Except for the fresh stitches and new
shrapnel, I am okay.’ Still dazed and sickened from the images of Squirrel,
I thought to myself, ‘You cold-hearted bastard, you never asked me about
my friend Squirrel. You fuck me over, Brian, and I am going to blow your
fucking head off.’
“For three months, we ran surveillance, and my group performed nine
eliminations that were mostly small farmers suspected of helping the VC at
night. We did eliminate one government figure that took two of my best men
four days of travel to his home and back. For some reason, Brian seemed to
be more active in the eliminations, doing five times as many as we were.
Early one morning Brian broke radio silence and we received one-word
‘vacate,’ which means to pull up and run to the mark-point pick up. I broke
protocol and asked to speak with for Brian. A forward spotter a mile out
reported the VC was doing a wide sweep in Brian’s direction. I suspected,
because of the number of contract eliminations along the trail, that he had
drawn unnecessary attention.
213
There were troops a half mile to his right, traveling south on the trail, so he
was covered on two fronts. Brian repeated the order to vacate, telling me
they were going to make a run in our direction and would meet us at the
mark-point. I objected to his order, and every man with me agreed to wait.
We were not going to vacate in case Brian needed help. I put a point man on
the hill to notify us and placed everyone strategically, laying out phosphorus
grenades and ammunition across a 300-yard front on our right side, leaving
the north for Brian and his men, if we needed it.
“My point man came down from the hill, reporting that Brian was about
half a mile out. It looked like the VC were at least four deep, coming at him
from the north, and troops on the Ho Chi Minh trail were coming from our
right, as well. Evidently, they had spotted Brian on the run and were closing
in on his right without him being aware of it. We were directly in line where
Brian was expected to show up. I had a raw nagging feeling in my gut this
was not going to go well.
“When he arrived, he positioned three of his men facing the VC from the
north and three to our left. ‘Are you fucking crazy? There aren’t any forces
coming from that direction.’ I asked him to put all of his men in a top flank
position. In the middle of my complaint, the shooting began from my men
to the right, making Brian’s three men useless and subject to fire flack from
rounds missing my men on the right. The idiot had placed his men with their
backs exposed to cross fire.
“To get them out of the fire flack, I shouted for them to move up in a line
together and then spread out. I don’t know if it was pride or being afraid to
admit that he was wrong, but Brian ordered them to remain in position and
as he did – his face exploded. It looked like eleven against eleven hundred,
so I picked up the radio and ordered a direct hit on our location using
‘Willie/Peter’ white phosphorus and napalm. I knew that my decision could
kill every one of us. All I could do was hope that upon impact, we borrowed
enough time to do some serious running. If there was ever a hell on earth
that is what happened next. Suddenly the devil showed up raining fire from
heaven all around us. We fought for our lives together second by second.
Looking through the fire and smoke, I saw men consumed by liquid fire.
Running one second and consumed by fire the next second, they fell like
human torches.
“I ordered the men to a full circle for protection; there were three dead,
including Brian. Each man next to a dead man placed a phosphorus grenade
near the head to remove or disfigure the face. There could be no possibility
of identification. Everyone pulled on my mark, and we ran at the same
instant the devil showed up again with another round of bombing.
214
As fire fell from the sky, it landed so close we could feel the heat. Turning
to run with smoke and fire all around, I was not sure which way, but there
you were, General, waving me to come as we ran to our mark-point pick up.
“They gave me a battlefield commission to second lieutenant, four purple
hearts, and a silver star during my first tour. As they pinned the medals on
me, they talked about honor, sacrifice, bravery, heroism, and duty to my
country and fellow soldiers. Not one time did they mention the dead, the
MIA, or the fact they knew how they died and where they were located. Not
one time did they mention Squirrel or his family, or two dead children, or
the seven dead in the tunnel who all had families, as well. ‘War a necessary
evil’? Standing there that day, the United States government declared that I
was a war hero. They made it sound like I belonged to a special club of brave,
honorable men, when I was only a nineteen-year-old-boy, scared to death,
and nothing I had done was honorable. When they pinned those medals on
me, I felt dirty. I didn’t understand why I felt dirty then, but as my sleepless
nights came, I began to comprehend. Too much blood and death were in
those medals; they came at too high of a price for me to receive any kind of
honor from them. It is a filthy act of war to honor situational murder and
call it bravery. At least it was in that war.
“I spent two more tours, receiving more purple hearts than I had fingers on
both hands. By the time I was twenty-one years old, my war atrocities had
exceeded every serial killer in the United States to date. Tonight, I know the
internal conscience of my soul will handcuff and shackle me once again, as
I wait for another guilty as charged verdict by sunrise. Sergeant Gore was
right. War makes a man soulless. It took me a decade after that war was over
before I began to wise up about how needless that war had been. I am still
ashamed of the way we abandoned and disgraced the blood of men and
civilians.”
Looking across the kitchen table with one bottle of Black Jack down, Roger
asked the general if he would like to sit in the living room for a while, and
the general replied, “That sounds good, soldier.” The house was a throwb