No Survivors

By Mikel Sutton

War indelibly brands the minds of its participants and victims.  Nothing exorcises war’s psychological residue. In that very real sense, there are no survivors.

That’s the devastating premise set forth by Mike Sutton who spent three tours of duty as part of the relatively unknown Military Assistant Command/Vietnam.

No Survivors follows three infantry advisors: Hunter Morgan, a 3-tour vet fighting a war his country is fighting against; Army Medic Henry Small Deer, a full-blooded Sioux, who’d rather fight than stitch; Jesse Edwards, a naïve recruit with a hidden dark side and Samantha Crawford, an Army nurse working in primitive operating rooms and rural hospital wards.

A spy has been planted in the advisors’ team house and, as a result, the enemy is waiting at every turn.  Only luck, skill and combat experience allow the advisors to survive the most inhuman ground assaults and bloody ambushes. Following an unthinkable climax, and in a brilliant piece of writing, the primary characters come to the bitter, painful realization that sometimes the life you give for your country . . . is not your own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 6, 2004
• ISBN: 9781418443597

Mikel Sutton

Mike Sutton served three tours in Vietnam (’64-’65, ’66-’67, ’69-’70), and was awarded the Combat Infantryman’s Badge and the Bronze Star. He is a life member of the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) and Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). Mike is donating 33 percent of his royalties from No Survivors to the VVA and VFW to be used to shelter and train homeless veterans.

Book preview

NO SURVIVORS

by

MIKE SUTTON

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

©

2004 MIKE SUTTON. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  11/22/2021

ISBN: 978-1-4184-4356-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4184-4357-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4184-4359-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2004093388

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

"Brothers in Arms"

Mark Knopfler

© 1985 Chariscourt Limited (PRS)

All rights administered by Rondor Music (London) Ltd.

for the world/Almo Music Corp. (ASCAP) administers

in the U.S. and Canada.

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PREFACE

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PART I

1 29 November 1969

2 04 DECEMBER 1969

3 04 DECEMBER 1969

4 04 DECEMBER 1969

5 04 DECEMBER 1969

6 05 DECEMBER 1969

7 05 DECEMBER 1969

8 05 DECEMBER 1969

9 05 DECEMBER 1969

10 06 DECEMBER 1969

11 06 DECEMBER 1969

12 07 DECEMBER 1969

13 07 DECEMBER 1969

14 13 DECEMBER 1969

PART II

15 22 MARCH 1970

16 24 MARCH 1970

17 25 MARCH 1970

18 25 MARCH 1970

19 25 MARCH 1970

20 28 MARCH 1970

21 29 MARCH 1970

22 30 MARCH 1970

23 30 MARCH 1970

24 30 MARCH 1970

25 30 MARCH 1970

26 30 MARCH 1970

27 07 APRIL 1970

28 15 APRIL 1970

29 15 APRIL 1970

PART III

30 06 MAY 1970

31 13 MAY 1970

32 13 MAY 1970

33 13 MAY 1970

34 29 MAY 1970

35 01 JUNE 1970

36 02 JUNE 1970

37 02 JUNE 1970

38 02 JUNE 1970

39 03 JUNE 1970

40 03 JUNE 1970

41 03 JUNE 1970

EPILOGUE 22 AUGUST 1986

GLOSSARY

PHOENETIC ALPHABET

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The list of those who have been instrumental in this project is too voluminous to complete here. But I would be completely remiss if several people who went out of their way, and in some cases their minds, in an attempt to be of assistance were not singled out for thanks. They are:

Doctor Bill Rowe – who gave time when he had none to spare – for his assistance with the medical aspect of the work.

Gregg Peterson for his contribution during two tours in Vietnam (Company C, 229th Assault Helo, Bn. And 228th Helo. Assault Support Bn. – 1st Cav. Air Mobile) and whose ability to fly rotary and fixed-wing aircraft contributed greatly to No Survivors’ technical accuracy.

Thien X. Nguyen for his friendship, translations and counsel on Vietnamese customs and traditions.

Jeff and Patti Bassett for converting an ocean of hard-copy words into a soft-copy manuscript.

Al and Denise St. Pierre for their endless support, faith and generosity.

Gunz and Ramelle – two people who love their country – for their incredible generosity in allowing the use of a portion of their lithograph print A Veteran’s Vision, as No Survivors’ dust jacket.

Thomas and Kathleen Heed whose abilities to edit and teach were major forces in the growth of No Survivors.

Barbara Carlson for her invaluable proof reading skill and grammatical knowledge.

And finally Carol, my beautiful wife, for her love, patience and unending support across the years.

PREFACE

To many Americans, the Vietnam War was simply a misdirected conflict between the United States and the communist forces in Southeast Asia. Technology allowed Vietnam to become America’s first TV war and the images beamed across the nation further warped our understanding of the hostilities half a world away.

But, before there was any major build-up of American forces; before the war became a proving ground for various weapons systems; before the prime-time coverage and the public outcry, there were infantry advisors. Although their role was quickly eclipsed by the larger, all U.S. operations, their efforts continued throughout the war.

First sent by President Eisenhower in the late fifties, the advisors were America’s initial Vietnam ante. Their mission: train the South Vietnamese in self-defense, weapons systems and tactics. Accompany them on combat operations against the communists to provide tactical guidance; and, once contact with the enemy was established, provide the primary communications link to coordinate air strikes, artillery fire missions and medical evacuations.

In an attempt to make No Survivors as reader-friendly as possible, a glossary of common terms has been included in the back of the book.

Every aspect of the Vietnam War deserves special attention. No Survivors may help those who weren’t in Vietnam – and those who were – better understand a relatively little known corner of the conflict, the role of the advisor.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

No Survivors is a fact-based novel containing graphic descriptions of violent acts and language that may be considered offensive. Neither the brutality nor the obscenity is a gratuitous additions.

Virtually all of the events depicted here, happened. The descriptions are my best recollections of the days and nights they took place. The American and South Vietnamese characters that follow have been described as I remember them, not created. Their names have been changed to protect their privacy and the privacy of their families. Hopefully they will impress you as they did me. Like them or not . . . they were real people.

No Survivors started as a cathartic act to help purge those memories I found impossible to share any other way. It has since become my attempt at a literary monument to my brothers-in-arms, whose names appear on a piece of black stone in Washington.

More importantly, many men and women who came home alive, will always have pieces of their hearts and minds held hostage by recollections of the faces, the faceless, the cruelty and the chaos created by combat. This is dedicated to them.

Mike Sutton

March 24, 2004

[e-mail]

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PART I

Some day you’ll return to

Your valleys and your farms

And you’ll no longer burn

To be brothers in arms

Brothers in Arms

Dire Straits

1

29 November 1969

A light shaft crawled across the Boeing’s cabin floor, crept up the seat, and stopped on the soldier’s sleeping face. His eyelids fluttered for an instant, then he turned away from the light, hovering just beneath sleep’s surreal blanket.

The aircraft’s flight leveled and the afternoon sunlight retreated toward the floor. Jesse Edwards swallowed. His ears popped. He opened his eyes slowly, blinking at the brightness, then kneaded them with balled fists and peered out the window.

To the north he could see lush green hills, blending into the mountains beyond. Along the coast, the dark blue sea faded to turquoise as it approached land. From twenty thousand feet the beach resembled a brown thread sandwiched between the jungle and water.

Large white clouds below the jet looked like huge cotton balls hung in the afternoon sky. Their shadows made dark bruises on the earth. The country beneath the clouds was bruised. The assault and battery of Vietnam occurred daily, though Edwards couldn’t begin to imagine its ferocity.

The jet banked left. Now the window’s view offered only blue sky.

Edwards’ ears popped again.

The majority of the 707’s other passengers, including Edwards, were new meat. They peered out windows on both sides of the aircraft. The minority – returning old meat – seemed much more interested in snatching a few more moments of shuteye in the air-conditioned cabin than in Vietnam’s postcard scenery. The only emotion common to both groups, whether they admitted it or not, was fear. The unknown cultivated anxiety in new meat. Old meat dreaded something worse . . . the known.

No matter how the Vietnam virgins went home, none would take their naiveté with them. War indelibly brands the minds of its participants and victims. No mental flak jacket or steel helmet exists to create immunity to combat’s horror. Nothing exorcises war’s psychological residue. In that sense, in any war, there are: no survivors.

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Far south of the descending 707, a single engine L-19 Bird-dog droned incessantly, circling at a thousand feet, over the Mekong Delta.

A ragged line of soldiers moved north across the giant cobweb of cracks covering the paddies – a byproduct of the dry season’s relentless heat. On this third day of another fruitless sweep operation, dust and heat were the only enemies they had engaged.

Hunter Morgan and his American partner, Staff Sergeant Small Deer, stayed a few paces behind the loose formation of tired, hot, sweaty South Vietnamese soldiers. For the moment, boredom, the foot soldier’s natural enemy, represented their greatest danger.

Morgan’s radio handset crackled, and Warrant Officer Wilbur Jackson’s familiar voice came through from the Bird-dog above. Dragon-Fire-Four-One, this is Shotgun-Two-One. Over.

He unhooked the radio handset from his field suspenders. Four-One. Go, Morgan answered.

Well, sports fans, looks like a slow day in the war from up here, Jackson said. A highly sophisticated aircraft jockey like me could lose his edge after a few days of this. How long do you two plan to milk this R and R tour? Over.

You’re surprised we haven’t seen anything? Morgan returned grimly. We planned this three weeks ago. We’ll either see nothing or get our asses kicked royal because the VC have had so much time to set up for us. Morgan feared the latter; he had no direct proof yet, but the Vietcong seemed to be waiting for them around every tactical turn.

A few paces to Morgan’s left, Small Deer lifted his own handset. He had a few choice words for Jackson, too. Three-Eight here. I don’t know what you’re bitching about. At least you’re sitting on your ass with a cool breeze in your face. Over. Small Deer looked in Morgan’s direction; the handset only partially concealed his wide grin.

"Hey! Foxtrot-Uniform-Charlie-Kilo you, Sitting Bull, and that Pinto mare you wish you were riding. Now get off the air so I can talk to Four-One. At least he’s a real grunt. Over."

Morgan smiled and pressed his talk switch. Go easy on the pill pusher. You might need him one of these days. Over.

You mean the Medicine Man is actually carrying medical supplies today? Over. Jackson’s mock disbelief somewhat softened the sarcasm. Small Deer had been asking to become a real grunt for some time.

Morgan shrugged, and gave Small Deer an I tried look of surrender. We’re coming up on the last checkpoint. We’ll swing back around and head southwest after that. He looked at his watch. We ought to make the extraction point by 1700 if things stay this quiet. How much time do you have left on station? Over.

I’ve got enough fuel for another half hour. After that, I’ll have to head back to Bravo-Lima, Jackson said, referring to Bac Lieu, the provincial capital. As soon as I clear the area, you folks will stumble across the bad guys, and I’ll just have to fly back out here and save your gravel-agitating asses – like I always do. Over.

Morgan keyed his microphone. "We can rest easy, Medicine Man. The air farce has us covered."

I heard that! You know I’m as army as you guys! Over.

The only thing army about you is the ‘Shotgun’ in your call sign, and I doubt if you know one end of a real one from the other. Go on. Fly home to the rest of the REMFs, said Small Deer, pronouncing the term rimf. REMF stood for Rear Echelon Mother Fucker – a contemptuous term reserved for anyone involved in a non-combat mission. Joking aside, Small Deer and Morgan had seen Wil Jackson prove his courage too often to ever consider him a REMF.

Thank God the army has something simple for people like you. I’m going to check out the rest of your route. Be back to you in a few minutes. Shotgun-Two-One. Out.

Small Deer shook his head. A thin smile creased his face. Jackson’s bored? That’s a hoot! He should come down here and beat feet in this heat for three days. These daylight operations are bullshit! The VC work nights, we should too. Puts all the players on the same field. Sioux warriors don’t like sunshine.

Yeah, Morgan agreed. Like Small Deer, Morgan felt more comfortable on night operations, when his superior night vision game him an edge.

They continued across the field. With each step, the ground cracked and crunched like over-baked pie crust under their jungle boots. Morgan found the sound strangely reassuring, hypnotic, the audio equivalent of white stripes on a flat, deserted highway. Morgan’s deliberate, regulated pace allowed him to scan the ground before him in wide arcs. The dry, sunbaked rice paddy resembled a piece of safety glass hit with a brick. The sea of fissures made finding signs of the Vietcong’s passage difficult, but Morgan cared more about spotting and avoiding any deadly seeds the enemy might have planted on their way.

A hundred meters to their left, birds chirped in a line of trees separating what seemed like the infinite rice fields of the Mekong Delta. Their songs, like the earth crunching beneath dusty jungle boots, created a false sense of security, like lullabies for an abandoned baby.

The trees reminded Morgan of his father’s farm in Indiana. The Indiana-front seemed a long way off at the moment. He was much more comfortable with this war than that one.

The death of Morgan’s mother during his own birth had robbed him of knowing her. Though it had never been said, he knew his father blamed him for her death.

During the following years an apathetic relationship developed between the father and son. They were bonded by blood, but no more . . . certainly not emotion. That fact became painfully obvious after Morgan voluntarily returned to Vietnam for a second tour, also spent in Bac Lieu Province.

While on an operation with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam’s 21st Division, Morgan’s timely departure from a convoy of Armored Personnel Carriers had saved his life. A massive Vietcong ambush completely destroyed the APC’s, killing all aboard. Most of the bodies had been burned beyond recognition.

The helicopter Morgan rode back to headquarters in Bac Lieu had been diverted to another location where he spent the night. By the time he returned to the ARVN 21st Division compound, the army had listed him as: Killed In Action.

As soon as he discovered the error, Morgan raced to the Military Affiliate Radio Station to tell his father of the error. The MARS call to a ham radio operator in Indiana only took minutes to complete, but Morgan had already lost the race against the army by several hours.

When he heard his father through the veil of static, half a world away, he couldn’t detect any sign of joy, only tired resignation. The two minute radiotelephone conversation galvanized Morgan’s sense of rejection.

Morgan’s relationship with his sister Paula had been the warmest element in his family life until Vietnam. She had fulfilled the role of mother, and sibling rivalry never materialized in the Morgan home. As they grew older the bond between Morgan and Paula strengthened, as much due to their father’s reaction as their mother’s death. The closer Paula got to her brother, the more John Morgan seemed to withdraw from both of them, as if she favored Morgan to spite her father.

Paula Morgan guarded the tenuous household truce, until her brother was drafted and sent to Vietnam. Blind to all concerns but his safety, she opposed the war long before it became fashionable. Each read the other’s rejection of their cause as a rejection of themselves and a rift developed.

To Morgan, Paula’s attitude was further proof of America’s rejection of Vietnam veterans. The rift stretched into a canyon.

Morgan had quit writing to his father after their MARS conversation. He hadn’t written to Paula during this tour, but regularly received letters from her. She had long since abandoned the soft approach to persuasion. Now her letters – those he opened – were full of Vietnam statistics: Americans killed, wounded, missing; Vietnamese killed, wounded, missing; communists killed. Newspaper pictures of soldiers in firefights, boiling flames of napalm strikes and the frozen, anguished faces of crying women and children spilled out of the letters, as if Morgan had somehow missed the opportunity to experience those aspects of combat firsthand. As pure as Paula’s intentions were, they did nothing to darn the frayed hole in the relationship.

Morgan missed their old connection more than he ever admitted . . . even to himself. His emotions and theories about what had gone so wrong at home tumbled and thrashed in his clouded mind, leaving the familiar void that always accompanied that thought process.

He found his eyes still locked on the tree line and was grateful for the diversion. Vietnam was a much less confusing place, and he retreated to it eagerly. There was only one rule here: survive.

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At five-nine, Henry Small Deer bore a closer resemblance to a human fire hydrant than a soldier. Though it was not listed in any military publication, Small Deer possessed one of the most valuable skills in the military: Scrounger, General Purpose; and it fed the only passion that rivaled his love of weapons, trading for weapons, of every size and type.

Small Deer had developed a special link to the Vietnamese people during his first tour with a U.S. infantry unit in the Central Highlands. The peasants in the countryside reminded him of his own ancestors trying to scratch out a living on the plains of the American West.

His affection for the Vietnamese and his skill as a wheeler-dealer had gotten him into the army’s Presidio of Monterey Language School. He finished at the top of his class. Now, as a result of the training and hard work on his own in Vietnam, Small Deer spoke, read and wrote Vietnamese fluently. His mastery of their language had earned him the respect of the Vietnamese soldiers he worked with, and meant that he never had to rely on anyone for translations in the field.

Unlike many American soldiers, Small Deer had a healthy respect for his enemy. Small Deer respected the way the VC lived off the land; their ability to blend into the landscape; to move silently across any kind of terrain, fashioning weapons from tree limbs, vines, the soil, even American discards became traitorous; trash turned into deadly traps. Of all the advisors, only Morgan shared Small Deer’s respect for the VC. But then, Morgan could have been born Sioux.

Small Deer stole a glance at his partner of nearly five months now. He considered Morgan the best grunt, round for round, he’d ever worked with.

Morgan’s psychological age could be measured in multiple lifetimes. He carried the eerie self-assurance that often comes from surviving a capricious trauma. A tornado destroys everything in its path, yet leaves a single house without so much as a broken window. Or, a plane crash kills hundreds, but allows a few survivors to walk away unscratched. Wisdom gained from nearly two-and-a-half years experience in Vietnam – knowledge from pain.

The bond between Morgan and Small Deer was tempered by fear, pain and constant uncertainty – a combat kinship. In the old Indian days, such a friendship would have outlived them both and been kept alive by tribal storytellers. But war managed to exploit even ordinary relationships. The dangerous distraction of one person’s concern for another offered opportunity to the enemy.

What are you looking for, Paleface? Small Deer asked.

Morgan’s glance shot to Small Deer and back to the rice paddy before him like a ricochet. You better take a hit off that canteen of yours. This heat’s getting to you. I’m looking for tracks, mines, spider holes. What are you looking for?

No, dickhead! I mean, Small Deer hesitated, suddenly less assertive, what do you want out of life? The Indian’s eyes searched the ground for buried VC surprises like an overzealous prospector.

Tomorrow’s sunrise, Morgan answered promptly, not taking his eyes from the next patch of ground.

"I’m looking for the Badge, man," Small Deer volunteered. Small Deer was a medic, but in name only. He desperately wanted the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, in addition to the Combat Medic’s Badge he already wore. Small Deer kept trying, unsuccessfully, to have his Military Occupational Specialty changed to Light Weapons Infantry, 11B.

"Jesus! We’ve been through this a thousand times, Medicine Man. You’ve already got the badge."

I want a warrior’s badge, not a medicine man’s.

Only discipline kept Morgan from rolling his eyes. "Why? You got nothing to prove to anybody. That button necklace you’re wearing shows how many coups you’ve taken off the bad guys."

"The Combat Infantryman’s Badge proves you’ve been tested, Morgan, Small Deer tried to explain. It’s recognized by both our people. Common ground. There’s not much of that around."

Small Deer lifted his arm, sore from days under an overstuffed rucksack strap, and fingered the metal button sewn inside his faded jungle hat. This small token of his ancestor’s last great victory, taken at the battle of the Little Big Horn, had driven Small Deer to start his own collection.

"Safe ground’s in even shorter supply. I hope you got more than bullets in your bag, Medicine Man," Morgan added.

"The usual. Couple of Band-Aids. What’s wrong? Your sick sense bothering you again?"

Just a feeling, Morgan replied, ignoring Small Deer’s jab.

Shit. Small Deer took Morgan’s premonitions seriously. Morgan’s ability to sense the enemy’s presence had provided several lifesaving warnings. He stole a glance at Morgan’s face for a brief moment but found no hint of additional detail.

Keep your eyes peeled, Injun. We’ve been through enough to know what it means to lose your edge out here.

I’m up. Thanks. Small Deer touched the button necklace hanging under his sweat-stained jungle shirt and glanced at the sky.

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The light breeze did little to cool the small village’s inhabitants. Thatched huts, soaked by monsoon rains and dried in the hot sun countless times, gave off a musty smell the locals no longer noticed. Nor did they notice the aroma of fresh water buffalo droppings.

Comrade Lieutenant?

Nguyen Sy Minh stood in the shade of a palm next to the footpath leading east. The communist officer ignored his man momentarily, rubbing a hand across his smooth, almost unmarked face. He cringed, more inwardly than physically, when his fingers reached the scar beneath his right eye. The inverted V pointed like an arrowhead to the middle of his lower eyelid. Shrapnel from an American bomb had sliced open his face five years earlier in Tay Ninh Province, northwest of Saigon.

Comrade Lieutenant? the supplicant repeated.

Minh turned to face the man, flaring the nostrils of his broad, flat nose like an impatient horse. The visually magnetic gesture pulled the guerilla’s eyes to the end of Minh’s snout-like nose.

Minh’s men called him "Chu Bat Gioi," after the popular Vietnamese character, who had a pig’s face. They were careful, however, not to use the nickname within earshot of Minh.

Minh knew very well what they called him, though. Very little that went on behind his back escaped him. What is it? he asked peremptorily.

Should I gather the men to move out, Comrade Lieutenant?

Yes. The enemy will be here soon, in less than two hours, if they maintained their schedule.

A seasoned veteran of the Vietcong’s 5th Division, Minh knew his sub-unit’s mission well: harass and demoralize the South Vietnamese and Americans wherever and whenever possible; recruit support for the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army; collect intelligence; and make examples of those who did not support these causes.

Today Minh had arranged a small reception for the Americans and their puppets. Just enough to get their undivided attention.

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Twenty miles west of Morgan and Small Deer, Specialist Fourth Class Andree V. Shapp bounced down a washboard road in his battered jeep. Returning from the mail run to Bac Lieu’s dirt and steel airstrip, Shapp hadn’t a care in the world when the vehicle detonated a VC land mine.

He caught only a glimpse of the flash to his right before a dragon’s steel claws, and then its fiery breath, raked across his face. Too much happening in so little time. No shortage of nerve-ending abuse, but thank God, no chance for sensory overload. Darkness consumed Shapp before the blast threw him from the vehicle.

The jeep plunged off the road, landed on its side and slid to a stop fifty meters from his crumpled form. Flames licked it for a moment before the gas tank exploded into an orange and black ball.

Later, Shapp had no idea how long, he awoke, suspended in a nightmare, afloat in a seat of intense pain. In his mind’s eye, he bobbed atop black swells on the darkest of nights. Not a hint of light anywhere. Each roll of an unseen wave magnified his torture. He saw himself scream, but somehow knew that no one else could hear his piercing, anguished cry for help.

For the briefest spit of time, he lingered near the surface of consciousness. He heard excited voices somewhere in the darkness. Hollow, detached and senseless. Then, like wisps of smoke in a gust of wind, they swirled and darted away.

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Jesus! Set him down over here!

Don’t waste your time, Hap. We’ve got people we can save. Leave him.

Set him over here! Cover him up! Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

He’s a mess! There’s nothing you can do for him, Hap. We gotta take care of these Vietnamese!

You, Sam and Moulton can handle the Vietnamese. This is an American for Christ’s sake!

Come on, Hap, you know triage as well as I do. Don’t let your emotions cloud your judgment!

Fuck you, Fowler! Now, either help me or get out of the way, Doctor! Take him inside and get him prepped! Let’s go!

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Hunter Morgan set the pace toward the sinking afternoon sun. Every now and then he assumed the point, a task normally performed by the Vietnamese. He did it as much out of boredom as a desire to lead by example. He slowed and allowed two Vietnamese troopers to move past him, into the lead. Morgan knew better than to leave anyone on point too long, including himself.

The tiny village ahead, a simple collection of thatched huts seemingly thrown together at random, lay boxed between a narrow canal on the north and rice fields to the east, west and south. It sat at the western end of Vinh Chau district, an area still outside the control of the South Vietnamese government.

A breeze, although hot, stirred the broad green leaves of the banana palms lining both sides of the trail. The elusive shadows of a few clouds drifted by too fast to offer the soldiers any shelter from the sun.

Twenty meters ahead, a driver maneuvered his two-ox-powered cart to the side of the trail, allowing the infantrymen single-file passage. Dried mud, left over from a midday wallow in the canal, covered both animals. One ox swatted lazily at flies with an occasional slap of its tail against flaking flanks. The other animal used the break to defecate.

Morgan, downwind, made no attempt to avert his sunburned nose. He stared at the village and tried to remember its name. Barely a wide spot in the trail, it could pass for a thousand other villages he had seen. Three things remained constant: they all smelled alike, musty; all draft-age men were missing some part of their anatomy; and, most haunting to Morgan, the eyes of the inhabitants held the same benign, hollow stare. They gazed at passersby with no apparent interest, tracking a potential threat, hopefully never aggravating it.

As he passed the ox cart, Morgan glanced at the old man standing in it, his hands empty except for a long stick he used to drive the team. Nonetheless, Morgan wasn’t going by without a hard look from beneath his sweat-soaked jungle hat. The old man met his gaze for a few seconds, then looked nervously away. Morgan made sure he walked close enough to the cart to get a good look inside it. When he saw only the old man’s bare feet, he continued without breaking his slow stride.

Morgan’s inspection of the cart gave him a quick, peripheral view of Ngo Chang Thi, ten meters back. A machine gunner, the twenty-eight-year-old Can Tho native had single-handedly overrun three VC ambush sites in the five months Morgan had known him. He wore a blue and white bandanna tied around his forehead with 7.62 MM ammo belts slung across his chest bandolier-style. His steel pot hung from his pack like a canteen on a saddlebag. A caricature of a Mexican bandit, with one exception, the large and lethal M-60 machine gun he held in his diminutive hands, straining the muscles of his brown forearms.

Thi flashed Morgan a reassuring smile, a real eighteen karat job. That smile had earned him the nickname Goldie. Like many Vietnamese, Morgan’s friend carried his personal wealth with him at all times. Caps and bridges of gold had turned his mouth into a bank vault.

Morgan considered Goldie the best Vietnamese he had ever fought with. He trusted Goldie as much as any American.

The operation was nearly complete. Small Deer had circled beyond the village with a portion of the South Vietnamese troops to form a blocking position, a stopper if the sweep flushed any Vietcong out of the village. Those VC who made a run for cover would rush headlong into Small Deer’s ambush.

Down the trail, an old woman stood outside a hut. Her blouse, once bright red, was now bleached to a dull pink by countless hours of sunshine. The third button from the top strained under the weight of sagging breasts, forcing open a gap in the garment that showed a patch of lighter skin. The lines and creases of many hard years etched her face, from her hairline, down, past almond eyes and a wide nose, down to her pointed chin. Her teeth were blackened by betel nut leaves chewed since girlhood, several wars ago. The tattered hem of a broad, full-length skirt rested in the dust. She peered out from beneath the brim of her cone hat, feet planted wide apart. Morgan thought she looked unusually defiant, hands on hips, standing in front of the doorway, lost in the shadows.

Two huts flanked the path between Morgan and the old woman. The point man moved toward the woman, his eyes searching both sides of the trail. The second soldier cut to his right to inspect the first hut.

The old woman stared. Her expression never changed; her eyes never moved.

Morgan’s sixth sense nagged him. He saw no outward threat, but the skin on the back of his neck tingled, and a shiver ran down his spine driven by a What’s wrong with this picture? feeling. He began to look for a missing puzzle piece.

The Vietnamese soldier ahead of Morgan casually glanced into the structure on the right side of the path and moved back onto the trail, toward the old woman.

When Morgan reached the hut, he searched its interior more closely. A large brown earthenware jar sat near the center pole. A wooden cover sealed it. Morgan stole another glance at the old woman. She hadn’t moved. He stepped inside to investigate the jar. When he flipped off the top and watched it tumble to the dirt floor, he saw what looked like a chess piece half-crushed into the ground beside the lid. Morgan picked it up. Someone had lopped off the tip of a water buffalo’s horn, and using short, precise strokes, had carved it into a crude white queen, the most maneuverable and deadliest piece on the board. He pocketed the queen and turned back to the rice jar.

Morgan bent and gingerly pushed his arm into the hard grains up to his elbow. His exploring hand found nothing unusual. Still wary, Morgan thumbed the M-16 onto full automatic and stepped back into the sunshine. Goldie now stood on the path opposite the doorway. The Vietnamese took his eyes off the old woman long enough to exchange a glance with the American. Morgan’s eyebrows arched minutely, a motion only perceptible to the machine gunner.

Morgan moved diagonally across the trail toward the second hut. Goldie stayed even with him, taking up Morgan’s tension as his own, watching the old woman intently. Her head never moved, but her eyes tracked Morgan with the intensity of an eagle about to dive on a salmon.

Morgan’s radio handset crackled like twigs on a campfire.

"Qué pasa?" Small Deer sounded tired.

Looks like Charlie plays chess, Morgan answered. What he did to a piece of water buffalo horn says he’s good with a knife, too.

What did you find, Paleface?

A dangerous lady.

Son-of-a-Bitch. Small Deer got the chess reference. He often called his queen a bitch, usually after losing. Anything else?

Just moving through the ville. Everything’s quiet, but keep your eyes open. Something don’t feel right. Out.

Morgan’s eyes moved back to the old woman, concentrating on her person now. The skirt looked out of place. Women in the Delta rarely wore them, and certainly not in the bush.

Morgan reached the second hut, approaching the opening cautiously. To his right, the soldier walking point stopped a few feet from the old woman and lay his M-16 across his chest. He said something to her, but Morgan was too far away to hear him. She replied and then bent at the waist. Using both hands, she grabbed her skirt below the knees, and stood upright, raising her hands as she did.

A long series of pops and fire erupted from the shadow between the woman’s legs. Morgan had expected trouble, but now that it was here, it didn’t make any sense.

The point man’s reaction clearly proved the danger, however. He whipped around like a weather vane in a hurricane, stumbled backward and fell into a heap.

Morgan started to move his weapon toward the old woman, but a hand pounded into the middle of his back, pushing him down and into the hut. Falling, he caught a glimpse of a squatting child under the woman’s skirt, blinking in the bright light, firing blindly. The muzzle flashes swung in his direction. The sound of Goldie’s M-60 followed him into the hut. Rounds tore through the palm frond walls around him. One splintered the center pole a few inches above his head just as he crashed into the floor.

Black spots stitched a diagonal pattern across the old woman’s pink blouse as slugs ripped into her chest. The right side of her head exploded, catapulting her backwards into the hut. Her limp body smashed against the bamboo edge of the hut’s door and came to rest on its back, halfway inside.

Morgan scrambled back to the doorway on his belly. To his left a little girl, no more than six years old, hunkered where the woman had stood, her eyes still trying to adjust to the bright light. The M-1 folding stock carbine in her small hands spit the last of its ammunition on automatic. The child listened to the clanging, metallic echo of the empty magazine, and stared at the useless weapon. It looked gigantic in her tiny hands.

Goldie held his fire.

A burst of M-16 fire jerked Morgan’s attention beyond Goldie to the second Vietnamese soldier in the column. The scene seemed to unfold in slow motion as the man’s gunfire hit the squatting child. Dust rose from several points on her black pajama top. Blood shot from her back and spattered onto the dried leaves of the hut behind her. The force of more rounds pounded her tiny body toward the hard-packed earth. She bounced two inches off the ground, then fell back and didn’t move again.

Morgan shook his head. The ten-second episode had played out in what seemed like hours. He remained flat on his stomach at the hut’s door and let the muzzle of his weapon sweep the potential field of fire before him. Gun smoke, clinging to the ground like a morning mist, swirled about him.

Outside, Goldie looked back at Morgan and nodded. All clear.

Morgan pushed himself to his feet and crept into the sunshine. He crouched beside the soldier who’d taken the first hits and now lay on the trail. Bending to one knee, Morgan checked for a pulse. His fingers found none. He straightened and moved forward to the woman and child. The little girl’s tiny left hand had a death grip on her bloodstained pajama top. Sightless eyes stared at a cloud passing overhead.

Morgan’s hands shook. He averted his gaze from the child’s corpse to the old woman, and fumbled with his shirt pocket in search of a Pall Mall, hoping the diversion would clear his mind. It didn’t. He saw the child without looking. His trembling hands dropped the nearly empty pack of cigarettes onto the child’s body. The last of his coffin nails spilled into the pool of blood beside her. Tears reached flood stage in Morgan’s brown eyes.

Goldie’s brown hand appeared, holding out a packet of Vietnamese cigarettes. Morgan took one of the two that were pushed out. Goldie placed the other in his own mouth.

Morgan couldn’t light his; the hand holding a Zippo lighter shook like a desperate drunk’s.

Goldie took the lighter and lit both of the acrid cigarettes. He handed the lighter back to Morgan and led him to the side of the hut and away from the carnage.

Morgan took a deep drag, and held in the smoke, letting it, wanting it, to burn his lungs. He looked into this friend’s eyes. Thanks, man.

Goldie nodded.

They knew we were coming, Goldie. There’s a rat in the compound.

Goldie seemed puzzled. Compound full of rats.

No, I mean a human rat. An informer.

Goldie nodded once, emphatically. Compound full of rats.

2

04 DECEMBER 1969

The UH-1D Huey hovered just a few feet above My Tho’s short, dirt airstrip. Mekong Delta dust swirled beneath and around the chopper like a miniature tornado. Inside the open cargo bay, rotor wash bathed Morgan. His baggy, olive-drab jungle fatigues waved like a flag in the constant, artificial breeze. The ship’s noise made Morgan’s headache throb in waves of pain.

At six-three and two-hundred-twenty pounds, Staff Sergeant Hunter Morgan would fit almost anyone’s definition of a big man. His face – the straight nose, the chin, the cheeks – had a hard, chiseled look, as if sculpted from a block of stone. This morning Morgan’s eyes were more bloodshot than brown. In four months, he would turn twenty-six.

Morgan felt the nose of the aircraft dip, and the machine moved forward at an altitude of five feet as it taxied toward the end of the runway. The pilot followed his route as though the aircraft had wheels. Safely away from the shack-like terminal building, he nudged the ship to the right. He let the chopper hover for a few seconds, then urged the aircraft forward. The departing Huey’s turbine whined in protest – a sweet song to the Vietnam grunt.

The helicopter gained altitude as their air speed increased. They coasted over the barbed wire security fences on the airstrip’s outer perimeter at an altitude of fifty feet.

The sliding doors on either side of the craft remained open. Wind from the main rotor wrapped around the passengers and crew like invisible tentacles offering a much-needed massage.

When the ship climbed above a hundred feet, Morgan saw the Mekong River, its brown fingers stretched across the Delta, a skeleton’s hand grasping for the South China Sea. The river’s northern-most digit limned a large island with lush green foliage almost directly below the banking helicopter. It took several minutes to complete the lazy, spiraling arc which put them on a southwesterly course toward Can Tho – the military hub of the Mekong Delta.

The Huey leveled and maintained course and speed at fifteen hundred feet. Their current altitude provided safety from the communists’ lighter ground fire. Heavy weapons, like the .50 caliber machine gun wrapped in burlap at Morgan’s feet, could still reach and hammer the helicopter with little effort.

The South China Sea’s sparkling surface caught Morgan’s eye. A few miles offshore, a large ship chugged through its choppy waters.

Several miles inland, Morgan saw a small village nestled into a thin break in the dense growth, its buildings scattered among trees at the edge of a rice paddy. A mile northeast of the settlement, a canal bent west. Around the bend, a boat traveled downstream toward the village. Morgan didn’t need to see a wake to recognize the type of craft. Its shape shouted power boat. A canopy, anchored to the windshield, stretched back toward the stern. Morgan noticed a machine gun mount near the bow and another one aft. Eliminate the hardware and camouflage paint, and you had a pleasure boat back home, on Indiana’s Geist reservoir.

Morgan followed the boat’s slow progress toward the village. Suddenly, a thin orange stream erupted from the left side of the boat and exploded into the vegetation on the canal’s south bank. It’s a Zippo! he thought, as a cloud of black smoke rose from the foliage – a monitor boat equipped with flame throwing capability.

Several times, the boat’s orange tongue reached out and licked at the foliage. The helicopter continued south, and Morgan watched the river fade away until only the black plume of smoke remained in sight.

His gaze settled on another network of canals to the northwest, feeding the Mekong. The Delta’s major highways, some a hundred meters wide, others narrow, jagged, rusty knife blades, formed thin brown scars on the battered landscape, all littered with sampans.

Below, a brown patchwork quilt of dried rice paddies, sewn together with mud dike borders, stretched in all directions. Green foliage, along the canal banks, broke up the paddy’s monotonous brown monopoly. The Delta’s chess board, he thought. The sight reminded Morgan of his last series of matches lost to Small Deer. I have to teach the Injun a lesson! Can’t let him get too cocky. A few more wins and the Medicine Man will think he’s Boris Spassky.

The jungle dominated the Delta far to the west. There, the canals and rivers looked like open sores. One area, at least a mile long, bore the unmistakable signature of a B-52 Stratofortress strike, code named Arc Light. Hundreds of bombs, probably 750-pounders, had ripped huge holes in the Delta’s fertile carpet. If the VC were in there when that shit hit the fan, they never knew what happened.

Morgan leaned his head against the gray quilted bulkhead behind him. As they flew through the misty lower edges of the large, puffy white clouds dotting the blue sky above, cool, dry air washed over Morgan’s face. A welcome relief from the blistering heat below. He gazed out the windshield past the pilots. The ship’s vibration shook his head, batting his eyes around like pinballs, so he closed them.

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The shirtless Vietnamese boy sat cross-legged and alone on the dirt floor of his thatched hut, a battered shelter a hundred meters from the banks of the Ba Sac River on the outskirts of Can Tho. The boy, barely fourteen, steeled himself for the work he had to do.

He reached into a small green cotton bag lying beside him, and removed a black cardboard cylinder with metal ends. Someone had wrapped a girdle of black tape around the container’s waist. His hands trembled as he peeled the adhesive from the cardboard. Once free of the tape, the top half of the canister slid easily off the tube. He paused for a moment, looking at the white letters stenciled on the cylinder:

GRENADE, FRAGMENTATION, 1 EACH.

The words meant nothing to the boy. He neither spoke nor read English. A drop of sweat fell from the tip of his nose and onto his black shorts. His perspiration was not caused by the heat – he was used to that – but because he held a hand grenade. The excitement tempered his fear.

Delicately, with the precise and measured touch of a surgeon, he removed the green baseball-sized grenade from the cardboard cylinder. A smile worked its way across his dark face. His brown eyes gleamed. His fear disappeared. Only excitement remained.

The young Vietnamese sat and stared at the grenade for several minutes. A warmth spread over him. He knew the power of life and death lay in his hands. Soon, he would use it.

Again, he reached into the green bag. This time, he removed a roll of black electrical tape. Carefully, the boy wrapped tape around the middle of the grenade to cover its spoon.

Slowly, he pinched the splayed ends of the grenade pin toward each other, making it easier to remove. He placed his right index finger through the ring hanging from the pin, and, with a gentle twisting motion of his wrist, pulled it free. His left hand clutched the bomb so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

His fear returned. The boy looked at his trembling hands, then slowly released the pressure of his left hand. Slowly . . . slowly.

Finally, the grenade lay in his open palm. The tape held. The spoon remained in place. A broad smile spread across his face.

He carefully reinserted the grenade pin and slid the grenade back into the cardboard container. He would remove it again just before shoving the device into its final resting place.

Now he moved quickly, the snail’s pace of a moment