Legacy of War

by Ed Marohn

  Before we left the village of Dai Loc, Hieu had us strap on our shoulder holsters. Now she stretched between our front bucket seats to open the rifle case with the two AK-47s and the ammunition magazines. She pulled the AK-47s to the front and then returned to the rear seats and retrieved our backpacks. “Now we are ready!” she said, forcing a worried smile.

  Too intent on the dark trail and my guide in front, I avoided looking at her. “Hieu, back there, I sort of went back in time. I’m sorry, I . . . ”

  “I know what you are experiencing in the night.” She returned to her AK-47, chambering a round with the sliding bolt, placing it on safety. She did the same for my rifle.

  I glanced at her quickly and saw this city girl, this attractive woman, now looking like a killer, as the eerie green light from the SUV’s instrument panel highlighted her face. I shuddered. I had returned to war.

  My Son area, January 26, 2003

  By midnight we arrived at the concealed outpost manned by Tho’s airborne troopers, camouflaged with fresh leaves and grasses of the jungle they occupied. The troops resembled ghosts, their faces streaked in dark greens and browns from grease pencils. In the small command post, I used a headset to listen to the voices being monitored while Tho’s radiotelephone operator adjusted knobs to improve reception and volume. The wireless devices hidden in the trees around the site confirmed everything that Tho had told us earlier: four Cambodians and one Caucasian who spoke adequate Cambodian. I knew immediately that the white guy had to be an American, specifically a Texan; the Southern twang overpowered his speech. Ramsey wouldn’t have such a twang.

  Until now, they had been digging while the American gave orders. Something changed as the American switched to English: “We just found the bones. We should be ready by early morning.” Hieu and Tho looked at me, their headsets on as well. Did he just communicate to Ramsey and Loan on the other end of the short wave?

  “I’m guessing that the others must be hidden on the border with more vehicles. Maybe in Laos along the old Ho Chi Minh Trail,” I said.

  Hieu and Tho pondered all this as our headsets transmitted more dialogue from the American. “Yeah, leave now. Since it’s midnight, that will give you six hours of darkness to get here.” There was a pause. “OK, see you around six.” The work team returned to their chatter as the digging continued.

  I turned to Tho. “Did you plant bones?”

  “They were farm animal bones we secured from the villages. Also, monkey bones and skulls were placed.”

  “Nicely done,” I said, impressed by Tho’s foresight.

  “What do you recommend we do?” Hieu asked me.

  “I suggest that we move in around 0200 hours. Capture this group to ensure we have the edge in numbers. We don’t know how many men are with Ramsey or Loan, and this will help reduce their force. Also we must get to the American first before he can use the radio to alert Ramsey.”

  Captain Tho’s eyes stirred. He seemed ready for action, bored with just monitoring. He said something to Hieu, who turned to me with a frown. “He agrees with you and will plan the attack. I think we should wait until Loan and Ramsey arrive.”

  “You’re the boss, Hieu, but I think we have the element of surprise. We capture these five and then sit and wait for the rest of them to walk into our trap.”

  She thought a minute, looking at the radio set. Tho and I waited for her decision. She finally turned to us and said, “Yes.” Captain Tho nodded and headed out of the command post.

  As he exited, he said in English, “We will depart at 0130 hours. You rest, as we will do a fast march over one kilometer.” His look told me he had already prepared, and he seemed agreeable to include me in the military operation.

  I sprayed Hieu with insect repellant, and she reciprocated. Now a firm user of my malaria pills, she reminded me to take my daily dosage as she swallowed her pill, not knowing when we would have the next opportunity. We both sat quietly on the ground, drinking bottled water for hydration, checking our weapons and backpack gear. We said little at that point. I knew that Ramsey and Loan and his men would be armed, and there would probably be casualties in the next twenty-four hours. Before I closed my eyes and tried to rest, I looked over to Hieu. She sat in a familiar yoga pose, legs crossed, hands in her laps, eyes closed, quietly meditating, escaping from the physical world around us.

  We still sat on the ground when one of Tho’s soldiers approached us in the tent. He first draped me with a camouflage net that covered me from my baseball cap to below my waist. Then he quickly marked my face with the camouflage pencils, deftly doing the job in less than a minute. He finally covered my face with the netting. Once satisfied that my white face didn’t reflect, he turned to Hieu and did the same.

  Adrenalin increasing in anticipation of the military operation, I ironically thought of my changed role: I now worked with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Army, the successor of the NVA, the enemy that I had fought against for a year with my eighteen- and nineteen-year-old draftees. But now I prepared for combat allied with the offspring of my former enemies. I wondered about what mental price I would pay for returning to the killing fields of Nam.

  Tho burst into the tent, startling me from my reverie. “We are ready.” He grinned. “Agent Hieu and you, Captain Moore, will be in the center of our column. Stay together and move fast. My men are swift. Do not stop unless the unit does. Carry the rifles at port arms. Keep your weapons on safety. Let us move out.”

  Hieu and I followed him out of the tent. He took the head of the column, with a point man twenty feet ahead of him. As we formed, he explained the simple plan to Hieu, who relayed it to me. “We will do a forced march to the hill, surround it, secure it, ensure no other personnel are around, and then, upon Tho’s orders, we will sweep in and disarm the five men, preventing them from alerting Ramsey with the field radio.”

  “OK, we’re as ready as we ever will be,” I said. “And please be careful. I would miss you if anything should happen.”

  Her dark eyes studied me, trying to understand. Then the column began moving and I followed Hieu, protecting her back. The pace was alarmingly fast for the pitch-black night, but the troops moved stealthily. I sensed that I made the only noise as we glided through the dense growth, following stakes with reflectors facing us, placed by Tho’s pioneers, who had preceded us several minutes earlier, reminiscent of the NVA tactics used to attack American units at night. The efficiency of the preplanned route, physically marked, ensured speed of movement. We marched silently, as phantoms in the night, a blur with the darkened jungle. The column had twenty of us: eighteen military, plus Hieu and me. No one talked. Grim and dedicated, I now knew how the NVA felt as they moved into attack positions on American or ARVN units. The covertness, the rapidity, and the focus of this column impressed me. They had little time for fear, just the mission. The unit pushed on, encouraging the troops to succeed. The cumulative adrenalin surged us forward, our legs in sync: swish, swish, swish, and swish. . . . I became one of them.

  By 0200 hours, we had surrounded the site and were observing the four Cambodians taking a rest from digging in the tunnel, illuminated by the headlights of the lone Hummer with an attached trailer. We didn’t see the American, and Hieu guessed he was in the cave, checking the progress of the work. Hieu and I lay next to Tho, watching him take a confirming report from his point men, who had swept the entire perimeter surrounding the hill. They found no others. He sent some men out to secure our flanks. Then Tho used a toy cricket clicker, clicking it four times to signal the ready for the attack, waiting for confirmation clicks from his three fire teams, numbered one through three: one, two, and three clicks respectively. Satisfied, he waited the full two minutes as planned per synchronized watches, then stood up and charged into the site with Hieu and me at his side. The four Cambodians, who had just started sharing a bottle of water, were shocked as the Vietnamese soldiers thrust AK-47s into their
faces. Fear on the four faces summed up Tho’s success so far. His men gagged, blindfolded, and tied the four men, connecting all four with a single rope. The enemy had been neutralized in minutes, with stark efficiency and no shots fired.

  I rushed to the cave entrance, but the headlights from the Hummer showed it empty. The American had disappeared! I turned and stared past Tho and Hieu, who also scanned the area, and looked down the trail, the one that Hieu and I had used driving from the My Son ruins to find this hill in the first place. Coming toward us with a roll of toilet paper in his hand, the American strode calmly, looking at the ground to avoid entangling vines. Suddenly, fifty feet away, he stopped, staring at us in confusion. In seconds, he turned and ran back up the trail. I handed my AK-47 to one of Tho’s grunts, slipped off my backpack, dropped it to the ground, and sprinted after him. The American had to be stopped from warning Ramsey or Loan by radio.

  His huge weight-lifter’s body, two-hundred-and-fifty pounds of muscle on a six-foot frame, thumped down the trail like a huge elephant. He had fifty feet of distance on me, but he was no runner; that was my strength. I gained ten feet, but seeing the gap close between us, he reached behind him to pull out his field phone. He planned to warn the others! I felt Hieu behind me, breathing steadily, loping, closing the distance between us. The American struggled to pull out the radio on his hip. Suddenly, he turned and dropped to his knees; he had a Glock in his hand, not his radio! Two quick shots whizzed over my head as I dropped to the ground, pulling out my .45. I heard Hieu slide to the ground somewhere behind me.

  I estimated the distance to him equaled less than thirty feet, well within my accuracy. Holding my pistol in both hands, I fired one shot, aiming at his right shoulder. He screamed and dropped his Glock as my slug tore into him, spinning him to his right and onto the ground with a thud. The .45 caliber is devastating to the body, even with a grazing shot. He would be hurting. I pushed up and rushed him, pistol pointed at him, looking for his radio, which I now saw was still on his belt near the empty Glock holster. Hieu ran up beside me, her nine millimeter at the ready, held in both hands, pointed toward the downed American. I kicked his Glock away and watched as he struggled in shock from the wound. The guy had to be about thirty years old.

  As Hieu kept her gun aimed at him, I bent down and yanked his shortwave from the holder. It was still turned off. Sticking the phone inside my shirt, I leaned over him and checked his wound. My shot had done more damage than I thought; he bled heavily, the bloody froth on his lips indicated a hit artery and collapsed lung. I felt no remorse, which shocked me. He was the enemy and I was once again at war.

  He opened his eyes, confused, recognizing a fellow American. Tho and one of his medics rushed to us. The medic dropped to his knees and started to administer first aid, all the while shaking his head; the American would die. With dying eyes, he muttered in his Texan drawl, “Who are you?”

  “No one you know,” I answered. “Where’s Ramsey? And Loan?”

  He stopped muttering. I knew he would fade fast; I had to pull the information from him now.

  “Tell me—where are they located?” I yelled at him.

  “Don’t let me die,” he mumbled.

  “Look, before the morphine kicks in while the medic saves your life, tell me. Who are you? Where’s Ramsey?” I said. The lie ate at me. The medic had given up. He said something to Captain Tho, who shook his head toward me: the American had little time left.

  “. . . Ramsey hired me with the Cambodians. All by phone . . . no idea . . . him or this other guy . . . located.” He closed his eyes thinking he would live. A few minutes later he died.

  Captain Tho came up to me as I stood, twitching slightly and depressed. My hanging right arm held my .45 pointed to the ground. Tho put his hand on my back. “You did the only action possible. We focus on Ramsey and Loan then.”

  I stared at him and nodded. I had killed in self-defense, but it didn’t make it easier. Tho knew what I felt and tried, as any other soldier would for a fellow comrade in arms, to help ease the pain, the hurt. I looked down at the body once more, hit with flashbacks of the war, images in short bursts, repeating the long line of downed soldiers I had seen. Both Americans and North Vietnamese bleeding, begging for life, and then begging for death as the pain became a living hell, and finally dying, sometimes with help from a pistol shot from his comrade or the enemy.

  I holstered my pistol, acknowledged Tho, and kneeled to look through the pockets of the dead man. His Texas driver’s license in his wallet and the US passport identified the body as Bill Carolton from Dallas. I handed the wallet and the rest of the items to Tho for safe keeping. Turning I started to return to the hill when Hieu grabbed me from behind, put her left arm through my right, and walked with me, saying nothing. I needed her human touch, that understanding. She felt my body shudder and patted my arm with her free hand. I looked into her eyes; those dark pools reflecting back to me, knowing what I did. We continued to walk as Tho’s troops finished securing the area and removed the corpse.

  “Don’t worry, we will find Ramsey and Loan,” Hieu said.

  My Son, January 27, 2003

  Captain Tho gently shook my shoulder, waking me from a deep sleep. He smiled and said quietly, “Come. I have hot tea for you.” Then he added with a grin, “Agent Hieu must have been cold.” He glanced past me to my left. My head, in a fugue, turned to follow his eyes to Hieu. I felt her warm body, her back shoved against my left side, her head on her outstretched arm, the mosquito netting wrapped around us. Not wanting to wake her, I slowly slipped away from her body. Pulling myself through the netting, I followed Tho to his concealed camp spot where his gear was stowed. My clothes, musty, moldy, splattered with mud, stained with sweat, wrinkled from sleep, served to remind me of the war days; I yearned for a hot shower. Earlier this morning, Hieu and I had spread out the blankets that Tho provided under the only extra mosquito netting available. We started sleeping about a foot apart. She at least trusted me to behave. More importantly, her presence had helped soothe my mental anguish over killing the American.

  Captain Tho pulled out a huge thermos from his backpack and poured hot tea into two metal military canteen cups. Sipping the strong brew quickly erased my grogginess. I glanced at my watch: 5:00 a.m. Scanning the site, I saw that very few of Tho’s grunts were visible; most were hidden, prepared for their next confrontation. The Hummer stayed in its original place, pointed to the partially dug tunnel, bait for Ramsey.

  “I have placed my men in concealed spots around the hill. We will ambush Ramsey and Loan when they arrive. The four Cambodians are in Da Nang jail.”

  “What about the dead American?” I asked, still conflicted over the killing.

  “We buried him in the jungle. I assumed you did not wish to take him back to America.” Tho grinned as he handed me the American’s billfold and passport.

  Taking the personal effects, I searched through them to see if I could get any information on Loan or Ramsey. None existed, so I tossed both items into my backpack. I assumed that Ramsey had hired Carolton as a gun for hire. Ramsey or Loan probably briefed him only as needed. The Vietnamese government would not want to be involved in killing him, but they certainly had an out, since an American citizen did the shooting. My mood darkened as I realized that if the Socialist Republic of Vietnam needed a patsy for political gain, then I would be used.

  In the meantime, just like the bodies from the war still buried in the jungles of Nam, the dead American had been added to the earth, to rot, to disappear forever.

  Tho said, “I will give Agent Hieu tea when she wakes up. By the way your SUV is hidden thirty meters in the jungle from us. I took the liberty of transporting it here from the command post.” He pointed southwest from our spot.

  Instead I looked toward the west, as if I could see Laos and the border, and said, “Now we wait for Ramsey.”

  Captain Tho looked westward as well. N
odding, he said, “We wait.”

  Dawn broke and my watch showed 6:10 a.m. We were hidden in our camouflage nets, observing the hill site; all the avenues of approach were covered by Tho’s men. The morning breeze blew through the trees, rustling the leaves, covering any minor noises that we made from bodies shifting on the ground. Tho, barely visible to me, lay about twenty feet to my left, while Hieu stayed five feet to my right, covering me. My AK-47 was on the ground beside me on my right; Hieu had hers in front, safety off.

  The breeze helped thwart the flying insects, so lying in wait for Ramsey wasn’t totally unpleasant. Hieu looked tired, her eyes puffy; she had to be anxious to end this mission and return to Hanoi. When she woke up, about thirty minutes after me, she searched for me, carrying my baseball cap. Over her cup of hot tea, she explained the importance of my wearing the cap so that we could recognize each other during the confusion in battle. I grinned again over our physical differences from the rest of our companions, but I accepted the cap, placing it back on my head, respecting her authority. Standing next to us, Captain Tho grinned over the cap issue.

  At seven, I worried that Ramsey wouldn’t show. From my prone position with the hill to my right, I could observe the minor dirt road running west and east, which Ramsey would probably use, as well as the rutted trail from My Son running from the west, where I had already chased two men, one being the dead American and the other being Quan.

  We waited. No Hummers. No Ramsey.

  Suddenly, the strain of a vehicle approaching in low gear reverberated on the trail from My Son. They were coming over the old trail again. Already in a firing position, Hieu sighted her AK-47. I pulled my rifle into position, releasing the safety. Strangely, I felt some relief, sensing that this could all end today, ensuring anyone associated with me would be safe from Ramsey and Loan. Did Ramsey’s life have to end? I hoped that he would surrender; I had no stomach for more killing.