The Long Way Home: War and Love in Vietnam

By M.M. Rumberg

The Long Way Home


A dramatic story of love, hope, and betrayal amid a devastating war.

Jeff Robbins, a U.S. Army Lieutenant newly assigned to Vietnam, meets Ahn-Li, a beautiful Vietnamese girl. As they fall in love, the war tears them apart. Jeff is pulled into battle and fights against a determined enemy.

Transferred back to the U.S., Jeff loses contact with Ahn-Li. His grief from the separation becomes overwhelming and he travels to Thailand to search for her.

As the war closes in on Ahn-Li’s family, and threatened by tyrannical VC, they decide to seek freedom in a daring escape to Thailand. They endure betrayal, violence, and captivity. Ahn-Li barely manages to survive, and is near death when Jeff finds her.

The savagery of war and the intensity of love come alive in this realistic story of survival and endurance under impossible conditions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796055955

M.M. Rumberg

Mort is a retired U.S. Air Force Officer who served as a Rescue and Survival technician teaching escape and evasion and survival techniques to aircrew members. He survived a tour of duty in Vietnam and barely survived two tours in the Pentagon as a computer systems action officer. He was also an information technology consultant and a manager with a large international health care insurance company. He earned a Doctorate in Education and has been an adjunct professor of computer sciences for several universities and community colleges in the Washington, DC, area. Mort was a volunteer with the Alexandria, Virginia, Police Department and the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria. His novel, CodeName: Snake, The Evil We Kill, won a national award and several of his short stories have won national recognition. Now residing in California, he is busy working on several new novels and many short stories. Visit the author’s website: mmrumberg.com

Book preview

PART ONE

1

Jeff’s Story

1968, South Vietnam

White cottony puffs of cumulus clouds dotted the bright blue sky as Second Lieutenant Jeffrey Robbins, U.S. Army, walked along the narrow street, jotting notes in a steno pad. It was spring, the rainy season was over and incredibly mild weather bathed the sunny South Vietnamese countryside of Dalat.

Not paying attention, he bumped into a Vietnamese girl. At first, all he saw was the ever-present Vietnamese conical hat that protects from the bright sun. Surprised, he dropped his notepad and experienced a fraction of a second’s flash of annoyance for the disturbance, and noticed it was a child about thirteen or fourteen years old. Perhaps a little tall for one so young, but maybe she was on a basketball team, he thought, his eyes smiling at his little joke. Vietnamese women tended to be around five feet tall. This one seemed to be about five foot four.

The groceries had tumbled out of her arms when they collided, and he watched as they lay in a mess on the street. A dozen eggs were broken, and his initial reaction was they looked funny splashed on the pavement, their bright yellow yolks staring at him. Two jars were broken and a smashed melon lay on the sidewalk. Actually, he didn’t laugh, but he certainly was tempted, but realized he was at least partly at fault. Shit, now I have to make this right for this gook.

She stood frozen, terrified, on the verge of tears. He had a, Hey, it’s no big deal thought, but immediately realized it probably was a big deal to her and her family. Best not to make light of it, even if they are sub-human.

She began speaking her beautiful language, the almost musical tones of which he understood nothing. Her words were melodious, soft, and gentle. She didn’t look directly at him, but down toward the ground as she spoke. It probably was her way of taking blame for the accident. Maybe she was saying she was sorry for being in his way, but Jeff also apologized, and helped her pick everything up that wasn’t smashed or broken. He decided to do the right thing and insisted on replacing the eggs and other stuff she lost.

Please, I’m sorry, he said. I will replace what you lost.

She shook her head, No, it be my fault. She was visibly upset and kept mumbling that she was at fault.

Jeff gently placed his hands on her thin shoulders and said "Vui long, several times, the South Vietnamese word for please, before she calmed down and nodded. He only knew a few Vietnamese words and quickly lapsed back into English, saying, Please, and It was my fault," several more times, jabbering on without thinking. It took several seconds before he realized it, she not only understood him as he spoke English, but had replied in English.

While they were both bent over, scrambling to pick up the groceries, replacing the unbroken ones into her mesh bag, he looked at her face and noticed she was strikingly beautiful. Her long, jet-black hair emitted a gorgeous sheen, almost a glow. Her brown eyes were soft and smiling even through her worried look. Her teeth were white and even, framed by the nicest smile and two absurdly cute dimples in her cheeks. Several seconds passed before he noticed she was wearing a beautiful white ao dai, the lovely, graceful, flowing national dress over black satin pajama bottoms. Jeff didn’t know the proper name for the pajama bottoms, perhaps pantaloons, so that’s what he called them. All the GIs called them pajamas, but if they were pajamas, they certainly were beautiful ones.

She refused his offer of assistance, he insisted, she refused, he insisted, and finally, if reluctantly, she agreed to let him replace the several broken grocery items. His insistence also extended to a sweet cake and soft drink.

They walked the two blocks to the grocery store, and he watched as she replaced every broken item on her list. His eyes followed her every step, fascinated by her. Such a beautiful child. She’s definitely not sub-human as the all the GIs said they were. All he heard from the GIs was calling the Vietnamese gooks, monkeys, and other assorted derogatory names. Jeff grabbed several cans of fruit, motioning to the clerk to include it in her purchase. When she saw what he did, she shook her head and rattled off several phrases of Vietnamese, none of which he understood.

Jeff said, "Vui long," repeatedly, signaling to the store clerk to include it. It seemed silly, getting canned fruit in a tropical paradise, but a war was going on, and many things were in short supply. Who knows, he thought, completely captivated by this child, I’d have purchased canned bananas had she lived on a banana farm. Boy, talk about dumb. But he silently admitted he was happy meeting her, gook or no gook.

2

Second Lieutenant Jeffrey Robbins was a courier for the U.S. Army, assigned to carrying classified and official documents from one base or camp to another—things like mail and paychecks for the troops in the field. Paycheck stubs, actually. Not much sense bringing a government check to some grunt in the field who couldn’t cash it or spend it in the jungle.

According to U.S. Army tradition, Second Lieutenants were the lowest of the low. A shavetail. Butterbar. As they say, there’s nothing more dangerous than a Second Looey with a clipboard and a pencil. That’s the type of soldier Jeff was. To be accurate, he used a steno pad, not a clipboard for notes and observations, using it also for sketches if he didn’t have a camera with him. Later, at his bunk he’d dictate the notes into a tape recorder, greatly embellished to capture the full impact of what he saw.

He fancied himself a writer, and his goal was to transcribe everything when he returned to the U.S. because someday he planned to write the definitive Vietnamese war story. Over the years he had several articles published, but he’d been advised several times about his writing, Don’t quit your day job.

In-country for two months, Jeff did the same round-robin delivery and pick-up every week, rain or shine. Except for mail and check stubs, he had no idea what else he carried, but fantasized he was carrying all sorts of top-secret messages and was the guy who gets the critical message through the lines and his effort wins the war. Message to Garcia, that’s me.

The .45 on his hip felt like it weighed ten pounds and all it did was rub his hip raw, but it gave him a sense of self-importance, as if he could hit anything with the sidearm. Qualifying during Officer Training School was almost a futile effort. He hit more of his colleagues’ targets than his own, and he didn’t hit them often.

Lieutenant, you’d be better off throwing the damn thing at them, said his training instructor, shaking his head when he looked at Jeff’s target. You’d have a better chance that way.

Still, a .45 does lend a certain sinister elegance to one’s demeanor. Imagine, a Second Lieutenant with a clipboard, pencil, and a .45. Now that’s a dangerous mixture.

Recently turned twenty-one, and fresh out of Officer Training School, Jeff considered himself an original—an original what? though was the question. He skipped a grade in elementary school so technically he was one year ahead of his peers. He’d graduated college at twenty, and immediately went to Officer Training School. Talk about lucky, right out of OTS he received orders for Vietnam. His first assignment was to go to war.

He landed in Saigon, the Republic of Vietnam, if not the smoggiest city in creation, it certainly was vying for the title. From the air he could see a blue-gray cloud hanging over the city and couldn’t understand how the World Airways jet managed to land safely through all the smog.

The countryside, from 35,000 feet, looked wonderfully green with a jagged thin line of tan beach separating the huge expanse of jungle greenery from the deep blue waters of the South China Sea. As the plane dipped toward its final approach, the early morning sun glistened and reflected off water in hundreds of rice paddies, making the country appear to be largely underwater.

Vietnam is a tropical country, he was told before he left the States, so be prepared for hot and humid.

Stepping out of the air-conditioned plane, the hot, steamy air blasted into him, causing him to gasp and his shirt to immediately stick to his body. The sun was blindingly bright as well as hot.

The Tan Son Nhut airport runway was awash with movement. Helicopters were taking off and landing every several seconds, swirls of dust kicked up by their rotating blades instinctively forced people to bend over and hold onto their hats. Groups of people wearing uniforms from a dozen different countries walked purposefully to unseen destinations on the base. He didn’t know just what to expect, but the constant noise and motion was astonishing, overwhelming him with sensory input. He noticed the same reaction on the faces of others leaving the plane. In spite of the chaos, the one hundred and forty newly arrived people managed to assemble into a fairly reasonable formation, and carrying their bags, marched off to orientation. In another hour or so, each newly arrived soldier would report to his respective unit for assignment.

The reality of where he was struck Jeff slowly. I am in Vietnam. In a war zone. I will spend the next year of my life here. He was barely mentally prepared to be part of a squad crawling through the jungle zapping VC and coming away with a chest full of medals, just like John Wayne. But asked to tell the truth, he’d admit I’m scared…no…terrified, about what to expect. His anxiety level was way too high. Some of the others felt cocky like they knew all about war and couldn’t wait to be in it. Jeff knew it was a combination of false bravado, fear, and ignorance.

Eyes wide and mouths open, his mom and dad were shocked when he told them where he was headed. Mom cried, and Dad, looking grim, told him, "Be sure you keep your head and ass down, son."

Good advice, he thought.

Jeff smiled with his ignorant but cocky nothing-can-happen-to-me attitude, but he was truly worried. The war was all over the news, and most of it wasn’t good. Nothing but body counts. And here he was, in it. At first he didn’t even know where Vietnam was.

After deplaning, they marched to a hangar, the inside set up with a hundred or so folding chairs. The new group was called to attention as a Lieutenant Colonel strode to the podium.

At ease. Be seated. Welcome to Saigon, Vietnam, the garden spot of the war.

He droned on for several minutes about the North Vietnamese people being monkeys and gooks and slopes, deriding them as humans, actually calling them sub-human. Kill every one of them when you get a chance, he said, they’re worthless bastards. He looked around the hangar at his audience’s faces. Your responsibility is to the brave men and women of South Vietnam. They’re gooks too, but they’re our gooks. The problem is, you can’t tell one from the other, so be careful. Don’t trust any of them. None of them are worth one American.

The Lieutenant Colonel did attempt to clarify why they were there: To help the South Vietnamese; to pay the North Vietnamese back for attacking the United States in the Gulf of Tonkin where the U.S. had every right to be; to fight the godless Communist bastards; and because we were invited here by the South Vietnamese government to help them fight the north.

None of which Jeff believed. It was the only war we had, he thought, and the president needed something to define his presidency so we have this damn war. It was all so much bullshit designed by politicians to give them several pages in the history books. Still, here I am and I have to make the best of it. A year of killing. Shit.

Jeff, and most everyone else in the hangar with him, was assigned to the United States Army—Vietnam (USARV). A few others were assigned to MACV, the Military Assistance Command—Vietnam. Everyone worked closely with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Looking around, Jeff noticed there were Aussies, Filipinos, and South Koreans in this group, all here to fight the Communists.

That’s the mission boiled down to the core, continued the Lieutenant Colonel. They’re shooting at us, so we’re shooting back.

Another thing clarified was how the country was organized, explaining how Vietnam was divided into the north and south.

The south is divided into four corps areas, the Colonel said, I, II, III, and IV. Each corps is divided into eleven provinces and each province further divided into districts. After that, there are cities, villages, and hamlets.

Jeff thought it was good information since it was logical and gave him some idea where he might be at any given time, considering his initial assignment was a courier.

After the Lieutenant Colonel finished, the MACV troops organized into a formation and went in a different direction from the larger USARV group. Several Air Force men went in a different direction. Everyone began the in-processing procedure. An hour later, Jeff found himself walking past the base mortuary toward 7th Air Force Headquarters. Aluminum caskets were stacked three and four high and drainage from the uncovered mortuary ditch, which passed in front of the mortuary tent, flowed red as corpses were washed and cleansed before taking their final trip back to the States.

Subdued, all he thought was, Oh, God.

Finally, he found his way to his assigned unit, a Jamesway, an elongated, rounded, insulated tent with functioning air-conditioning units in a window at each end of the long tent.

He welcomed the cool, dry air with an audible Ahhh. Well, he thought, maybe my tour here won’t be too bad after all.

His commanding officer, Captain William Heath, shook his hand and gave him an envelope. Hi, Lieutenant. Welcome aboard. You’re our new courier. Your job is to deliver this stuff to the field. So stow your gear in your hooch and get a look at downtown Saigon before you leave for the field tomorrow.

Heath was all business, and a small red flag went up in the back of Jeff’s mind. Where’s the previous courier? he asked.

He’s on his way home.

Oh, his year is up?

Yeah. He hesitated. Yeah, his time is up."

I’ll bet he’s relieved, Jeff said with a smile.

Heath shook his head. Stan was shot.

Jeff didn’t say anything for several seconds. How long was he here in-country?

Three months.

3

He swallowed. Well. Sobering to say the least. That’ll do wonders for my anxiety. He found his way to his hooch, stowed his gear, changed into civilian clothes, dropped his personnel records off at administration, cashed his American green for dong, the Vietnamese currency also mistakenly called piasters, walked to the main gate, and grabbed a waiting taxi into town. At first, he didn’t think all six feet of him would fit into the little blue and beige Renault, but he did, with a smidgen of room left over. The driver spoke fair, if broken, English, so Jeff simply said, Let’s go downtown.

Downtown? Where we go? Hotel Rex?

It sounded good, so he nodded. Sure. Hotel Rex it is.

He watched Saigon drift by the taxi’s window as the driver dodged people, plowed through potholes and continually beeped the high pitched horn, ignoring the other suicidal drivers in tiny Renault taxis like his. Jeff was positive he’d be flattened in an accident, but somehow they made it through the city unscathed. The taxi didn’t go fast—it couldn’t. There was so much traffic he wondered if walking would be faster. At least it gives me time to see the city. Tremendous activity unfolded before him. Construction progressed everywhere. Flat boards laid on bamboo poles formed scaffolding structures on which workers walked. Bamboo was used instead of stronger, more secure pipe as is done in the U.S. The skeletonized structure seemed so fragile, as if a slight breeze would blow it down, but it apparently did the job.

The streets bustled with every type of vehicle imaginable. If it had wheels, it was hauling something. Cyclos, the strange mechanized two-seater rickshaws, spouted huge clouds of blue-gray exhaust as they weaved through the congested city. Sinewy men pedaled one or two people in chairs in front of them on a bicycled rickshaw, and of course, there always was the skinny man running in front, pulling one or two people in his manually operated rickshaw.

Motorbikes and motor scooters skimmed along the road. Thousands of bicyclists pedaled in every direction. Jeff was amazed at how many bicycles were simply parked by leaning them against a building or in a bicycle parking lot, none of them padlocked. The bicycle parking lots looked like giant jumbled erector sets of metal pipe and tires waiting for garbage pickup.

He told the driver to let him out several blocks from the Rex. I want to walk through town.

The driver looked at Jeff like he was another crazy round-eye, but he nodded and pulled over to the curb. Jeff paid him thirty piasters, about two dollars, thinking he probably overpaid by twenty-nine piasters.

A street sign said he was on To Do Street, a beautiful wide boulevard. Jeff pronounced it too due, but the driver shook his head, pronouncing it more like, too dough, and pointed him in the direction of the Hotel Rex.

Every so often an ox lumbered by pulling a cart or wagon piled high with huge quantities of hay, boxes, or bamboo. A thin man with a long switch sat on top directing the ox. A slight touch and the ox would move to the left or right. Jeff was fascinated by the whirl of sights, smells, and movement. The city seemed to have a tremendous vitality, but he wasn’t sure how productive or effective it was, since most work appeared to be extraordinarily labor intensive. He’d heard that if a worker got hurt, everyone stopped work and hours could pass before work resumed. Everyone would stand around and point and nod, trying to look official.

The streets were crowded with humanity…men, women, and children busily walking, talking, shopping, and browsing. Besides hundreds of bicycles, motorcycles and scooters were in constant motion up and down the boulevard, mostly driven by men, sometimes with a woman sitting sidesaddle on the rear fender. Frequently a motorbike or scooter would putt-putt by, driven by a woman wearing the graceful ao dai, the lovely, filmy, colorful material which fluttered like a flag in the breeze. The city was a colorful blaze of motion.

He felt the temperature drop several degrees when he walked in the shade. About ten feet above him large sheets of colorful tarps had been placed to ward off the strong sun, gently billowing in the warm breeze. Reds and whites predominated, with occasional tarps of yellow and blue all adding a wonderful gaiety to his stroll along sidewalks stacked with goods. No shortage of things here. Surprisingly, although the temperature was warm, he realized the tarps reduced the heat and he felt the difference.

Heath had told him, Vendors sold everything imaginable, probably most of it stolen from U.S. Army warehouses. Soon as it’s stolen it turns up on the open market and is offered for sale. Nothing’s in short supply and every price is negotiable.

Jeff watched, fascinated, as people lay on flattened cardboard boxes and napped under tables covered with products from the U.S. I guess home is where you find it.

A wrinkled, toothless, gray-haired lady, dressed in black pajamas, her top open, held a suckling infant to a flattened breast. One hand held the baby, the other hand was held out, begging for some dong, her forlorn look pleading for coins. People with teeth missing, or mostly toothless, smiled and nodded hello, offering to sell something, their few remaining teeth blackened from years of chewing betel nut, the mild narcotic plant root growing freely in the nearby jungle.

In two short blocks, Jeff was offered a baby, a monkey, several kinds of precious jewels, gold, clothing, cameras, candy, exotic and erotic toys, books, American canned goods, and weapons. There was no end to the offerings. Fish, meat, tropical fruit, and flowers were available every five feet. People were friendly and talkative, anxious to improve their English and of course, sell something. A boy, who couldn’t be over ten years old, yanked on his sleeve.

Hey mister, you want girl? I have sister.

No. Go away.

You want mother?

Shoo. Go away.

My mother virgin, he persisted, just like U.S. girl. You want. I get cheap.

He passed stores looking like those in any-town USA, many with words printed on the glass in a language he couldn’t understand, but most were also in English. He passed one office with a sign reading, Realtor—Buy or Rent.

Somehow, purchasing a house here might not be a good idea. I think I’ll wait until the war is over, he chuckled.

As he walked, feasting his eyes on the constantly changing sights, he noticed unusual things: two men walked and held hands, several little children, barely able to walk, wore tops but no bottoms. One stopped to pee on the sidewalk and continued playing. Children sold candy and refused to take No, for an answer. Vendors pushed wagons loaded with magazines, newspapers, and pornographic books written in poor English. Pungent smells drifted out of small makeshift restaurants nestled in narrow alleys between stores, as pushcarts loaded with food made their rounds. He watched men and women carrying a long, flat pole across a shoulder with weighty baskets at each end offering different types of Vietnamese food. An amazing array of sights and sounds and smells.

The Hotel Rex was unofficially an officer’s hotel. Jeff walked past the two White Mice standing behind their sandbags and into the entrance of the hotel. White Mice was the nickname U.S. servicemen gave the Vietnamese Military Police because they wore white helmets and armbands and were smaller in stature than the average U.S. Military Policeman. He wondered what the Vietnamese called westerners besides big noses and round-eyes.

On the rooftop of the Rex was an outdoor garden cafe and small stage. Potted palms placed strategically around the rooftop gave it a tropical setting. Funny, he thought, having potted plants in a tropical country, but it suddenly occurred to him that’s exactly where he was and there was not much greenery in this city. Most of what he’d seen so far was cement and glass. A five-piece combo played American songs accompanied by a young, beautiful Vietnamese woman singing tunes in flawless English.

During the band’s break, he walked to the bandstand and complimented the singer on her English, only to realize she understood almost nothing of what she sang. She had simply memorized the words. Jeff ordered a sandwich and a Ba-Mi-Ba, the popular Vietnamese beer. He sipped the beer waiting for his meal and enjoyed the music. Looking over the rooftop ledge, he watched the mass of humanity flowing in waves five stories down, unable to fully comprehend how they survived in this war-torn country—how anyone survived in this country.

After lunch, he wandered around Saigon for several hours, warding off multiple offers for women, girls, boys, drugs, and anything else one can possibly sell, before deciding to grab some dinner. He’d heard about the floating barges used as restaurants and flagged a taxi, at least a twenty year old blue and beige Renault and headed to the waterfront. A wide boulevard ran along the seawall along with a large flow of traffic. Jeff expected the waterfront would have a more relaxed atmosphere instead of being such a busy place. He shook his head in awe at the constant movement and multiple businesses in which everyone was engaged. There were several restaurant barges, so he chose the cleanest looking one and ordered a salad, steak, and a beer. The barge was anchored firmly to the seawall, which limited movement, and the faint rocking added a pleasant dimension to his new and exotic locale.

Boat traffic floated by as commerce continued unabated. The restaurant wasn’t busy, the meal was tasty if a little greasy, filling, and inexpensive, and the service was excellent. After his leisurely dinner, he decided to head back to his hooch at Tan Son Nhut air base. He tried to avoid the bar scene, although bars were everywhere and the bar girls certainly looked enticing, often resembling typical American teenagers. Some wore too much makeup and looked a little garish, but many were quite attractive. He passed the Butterfly Club, Playboy, the Queen Bee, and a dozen others, declining their beckoning invitations; figuring if he was going to catch something, he’d like it to be