13th Valley

by John M. Del Vecchio

  Egan and Murphy got up and thanked Mama-san and the eldest daughter. They ran to the truck. “Cam on ba, Mama-san,” Murphy shouted. “Yes. Thanks again,” Egan added.

  The little boy with the mourning dove ran with them to the truck. As Egan climbed up the bumper and began getting into the bed the boy grabbed his leg and cried, “Merry Christmas.”

  They lay quietly on the sandbags on the floor of the three-quarter as the truck made its way back to the highway and past the MP patrol. Egan felt nauseous. Not nauseous but … It was that feeling again. Something had happened to him on R&R and he had not known it. He was getting short. His tour was almost over. He was down to twenty-six and a wake-up and he had gotten a new taste of civilized life. Maybe, he thought. Maybe it was the lady. She had reminded him of Stephanie. A chill ran through him. Not yet, Mick, he said to himself. Don’t think of her yet.

  “We’re clear,” Murf shouted, laughed, after they passed through the first village. They sat up.

  “You comin up Wednesday?” Egan shouted back.

  “Not anymore, Bro. I’m too SHORT. This used ta be a good place though. Mama-san’s been like a mother to me. I’m serious. I got to know her and the kids. No fuckin around. Really nice people. Baby-san plays a mean flamenco guitar. She’s been teachin me. All the men are off fightin a fuckin war, I think. You’d know more about that shit, though.” He paused to chuckle. “Hey, can you stay for a coupla days? Aint nobody goina miss ya. I’ll send word ta yer XO that yer plane crashed en you gotta row back from Australia. You can crash at my hootch.”

  “Like to, Murf, but …”

  “Aw, come on, Eg.”

  “I’d really like to, Man, but …”

  “But! But my fuckin ass. You still got that crazy fuckin sense of responsibility? Yer fuckin crazy. You know that? Yer gung-ho. What the fuck they goina do if yer a day late—send ya ta Nam?”

  “Murf. The L-T might not even ask me to go back to the boonies. I’m pretty short and he knows I’m short. If they already went out …”

  “Oh-deuce goin out in the mornin. I talked to El Paso yesterday. He said yer goin up north. They’re goin after a headquarters complex or somethin.”

  “Look,” Egan said firmly, “if the L-T says I don’t have ta go, I’ll be back for a set tonight.”

  “Egan,” Murphy shook his head in disgust, “you’re a ridiculous person.”

  At Phu Bai, when the three-quarter returned, Daniel Egan found a jeep from his battalion waiting for him. In the back of the jeep with duffel bag and gear was the young soldier who had been whining to the clerk. He looked miserable.

  CHAPTER 3

  L-T BROOKS

  Under the cap the lanky black man sat motionless, sat as if his entire self were his eyes and brain and thoughts and his body did not exist. Ovals of sun seared the long tops of his thighs and across his shoulders an ellipse of sun burned. The sun struck his chin and the heat radiated to his teeth. The skin of his neck and jaw glimmered with the sweat of a man acclimated to tropical heat, a film of perspiration, not dripping beads. His mouth and nose and eyes were indistinguishable in the dark shadow cast by the oversized bill of his baseball-style cap.

  Lieutenant Rufus Brooks sat on the two-foot-high wooden retaining wall which deterred monsoon rains from eroding the footings of Company A’s headquarters. He had been sitting on the wall, his arms relaxed and hanging, his large hands limp on the retained earth, motionless, for nearly two hours.

  Would you like a shot at an enemy headquarters? The GreenMan’s question resounded in his head. Would you like …? He concentrated on those words. He had been in his room at the rear of the company hootch thinking about war and about conflict, about his wife and Hawaii and about DEROSing or extending, when the GreenMan had come to him all smiles and beaming like a salesman. “Would you like a shot at an enemy headquarters, Rufus?” the GreenMan had asked, and without a thought, like a pre-programmed automaton, he had answered enthusiastically, “Yes Sir.” The GreenMan left as quickly as he’d come, left the lanky black lieutenant with no details, with only his own thoughts about war.

  “Minh say First Brigade, she moving,” First Sergeant Laguana babbled, bursting into his room, bursting into his thoughts.

  “Yup. I know,” he had replied. “That rumor’s been around …”

  “Yes, Sir. Es verdad” the first sergeant had nodded at him. “But thees one, Sir, Minh, he get …”

  “Yeah. Yeah.” He had mimicked the first sergeant’s nod. “Minh’s always got a reliable source. Remember last time? He had us moving …”

  “Ooooh, yeas, Sir. It almost come true. You know even our rumor control report it.”

  “Stop.” He snarled at the smiling chicano. “Don’t say another word about any rumors. If I hear …”

  “Yes, Sir. That true. I don’t say nothing. I tell Minh too. This time Minh, he say he hear it from Military Intelligence. He say they interrogate two NVA. He say they say First Brigade gwon to Da Nang. Hard Intelligence. Es verdad. We gwon be withdrawn.”

  “Sergeant, that rumor started when the first boonierat assaulted in this country. Now you maintain silence. Is everything and everybody ready? Did we get enough rations for all the platoons? Did Supply send over a new barrel for Whiteboy’s 60? Get that done, Sergeant. I don’t want my men on that CA tomorrow with only half the equipment they need.” The lieutenant had jerked open the flimsy door of his tiny room, entered the orderly room, then marched out of the hootch and slammed the second door shut. He’d glanced left and right, walked to the retaining wall and sat.

  There was activity everywhere in the battalion and company area. Fifty meters to his left there was a basketball game being played; slightly farther away and to his front a crowd of men sat on the shaded stage of the theater. Behind the theater one of his platoon sergeants had his entire platoon formed up for an equipment inspection. Sergeants and lieutenants, company executive officers and clerks and supply personnel distributed C-rations and ammunition and batteries. Operations officers studied maps and intelligence reports and conferred with company commanders about moves and counter-moves. Supply officers studied lists of articles and projected needs and resupply dates and thought up excuses for the unfilled requests for boots and clothes and firing pins and replacement barrels for the worn M-60s. He sat on the wall and watched the activity with disgust yet without concentrating.

  “Hey, L-T. We got any more frags?” someone asked. The lieutenant canted his head toward his headquarters hootch and said nothing. The man left. “L-T, Supply won’t issue me a pair of boots.” He did not move. This man also departed. “L-T, my ruck’s busted. Can I DX it?” The man looked at the lieutenant and waited to be acknowledged and waited and finally walked away.

  “What’s the matter with the L-T?” someone said from behind him. “I don’t know,” someone else whispered.

  Word spread: leave the L-T alone.

  Before him there was a newly excavated eighteen inch-wide by forty-inch-deep trench. It had been dug mechanically by a trencher a week earlier. If the battalion received in-coming rockets during their refitting stand-down the men could wait out the barrage in the depths of the trench. The L-T’s eyes fixed on the trench. They never do it right, he thought. They never go all the way. This trench is so straight … he saw an image … it should zig-zag … an image of a rocket exploding, erupting at one end of the trench, dominoing the soldiers within, falling in order to the other end. “No one ever thinks,” he mumbled quietly. His eyes followed the trench to the end, the thought sped on seemingly unconnected to his utterance. Hawaii sped into his thoughts. He chased it away. I always look objectively at others, he thought. They come to me for advice. They always have. Why can’t I get a handle on my own situation? He chased that thought away too and for a time nothing replaced it. The lieutenant sat motionless in the sun.

  Brooks’ army training began with ROTC elementary classes in Military Science. He spent six weeks in basic training after his sophomore year, Advance
Course after his junior and upon graduation, along with a degree in English, he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the US Army. The next year Brooks entered a Masters program in Philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. He did well but academia antagonized him. So many things seemed to be pulling at him. Active military duty was postponed by graduate work but the weight of it in the future, the financial strain, a new wife and the political tension on campus made him decide to leave school. In January of 1968 he took a leave of absence.

  By June he had entered the army and in February of 1969 Brooks arrived in Vietnam. He was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) as an aide to the Division Chief of Staff. At the time of his arrival there were no black officers on the primary staff at division headquarters. The highest ranking black man in the tight group known as the Decision-Makers was an old master sergeant whom Rufus called “Uncle Tom,” and who chided Rufus back: “Uncle Tom, Sir.” The senior NCOs and some of the general officers privately referred to Brooks as Tango November, their token nigger. In response to that atmosphere Rufus tended to verbalize his criticisms. He felt threatened. He believed he was more intelligent than the commanders. He was certain that he was better educated.

  “Excuse me, Sir,” he would say to a deputy commander, “but Sir, would you explain to me, Sir, so I may explain to the young black troops, Sir, why we use most of our blacks in line units and very few as clerks … Oh, I see, Sir. I see. I’ll tell them that, Sir, and I’m sure they’ll understand. It’s just a matter that there are not enough blacks qualified to do the job of a clerk, according to Army Qualification Examinations … thank you, Sir … No, Sir … I assure you, I’m one fine ambassador from division headquarters to the troops, Sir.”

  For five months, long enough for it to be proper to transfer him and for that headquarters to receive a black major and another black lieutenant, the chief of staff withstood Brooks’ insinuations and critical panache. In late July of ’69 Brooks received orders for the 7th of the 402d. First he served as an undistinguished platoon leader with Bravo Company where he was under the field command of a watchful, non-delegating captain. The commander allowed no independent platoon decisions. Still, field duty and the jungle thrust Brooks into a position of constant responsibility and decision making and he made his share of mistakes. He softened and amongst the combat camaraderie and jungle existence he reverted to his previous quiet manner.

  Just prior to Thanksgiving Rufus was assigned a rear job with battalion operations where the stricter military bearing was tedious and again he fell to chastising his senior associates. Within six weeks and after the death of the reconnaissance platoon leader from Echo Company, Rufus was back in the field commanding that same independent combat unit. “You gettin kinda short for that stuff, Ruf,” one of the other young officers cautioned him. “You don’t have to do that, you know. You spent enough time out there. Hell, you owe it to yourself to stay out of the boonies.”

  With Recon Brooks produced a fine combat record and gradually he went from being called L-T B to L-T Bro. Privately his men called him L-T Beautiful or Buddha. They said he had karma, they meant he was charmed. Brooks had an instructive, informative and quiet manner with his men. When time and circumstance allowed he would explain the situation to as many men as possible and he would ask and often act upon their opinions. He did his share of the shit jobs too and his men knew it. He chose the game, defined the rules and made sure every man below him understood. What they didn’t know, he taught them. And he provided the spirit, the spirit to win. Brooks maneuvered his unit into and out of difficult enemy areas without sustaining casualties. His men CAed into the middle of firefights and no one was wounded. They were inserted onto hot LZs, red smoke, their birds would take fire and their LZs would be booby-trapped and they would come through unscathed. Other units would come in behind them and a sniper would blow one of them away or a pop-up mine would level a squad. He brought out the best in his men. He considered himself to be an intellectual but he made every man his equal. He believed there was no such thing as a stupid person: “Every man has the capacity for very complex thought,” he would say. “Sometimes you just have to make him use it.”

  After four months with Recon Brooks was awarded the command of Company A. He was held in jealous esteem by other company commanders. During the spring offensive drive to the west of Hue, around Firebase Veghel, Brooks’ Recon Platoon accounted for forty-four of the battalions’ NVA body count of 147. During the late spring and early summer sweep-up operations along the Song Bo, from Three-Forks south to Highway 547 and west to Firebase Zon, Company A, under Brooks, accounted for twelve of the battalion’s twenty-one NVA KIA. Again his unit sustained few casualties. Brooks was the only lieutenant in the battalion to command a company. Normally companies are commanded by captains and the other companies of the Oh-deuce were. The captains were superior competitive leaders. Their combat records were very important to them. Rufus Brooks said he didn’t care. His instructive nature and his quiet self-confidence led to his men’s belief that he had attained enlightenment. He was long overdue for promotion but his earlier ratings for insubordination had caused postponement.

  By August of ’70 Brooks had become a cool calculating commander yet he did not really like the army and he certainly didn’t like being in Vietnam. He longed to return to his life in San Francisco, to the quiet of school and mostly to his wife. He hoped never again to wear anything green. Yet, for a reason he kept to himself, after he had been in-country eleven months, in January ’70 Brooks had extended his Vietnam tour and requested continued combat duty. His overseas tour was due to end in late August. He was now contemplating extending again. His three-year active duty obligation would keep him in the army to June ’71. With the American troop withdrawals and the reduction of overall military manpower, there was the possibility that if he extended until January, he might be discharged upon returning to the States. The prospect of spending a year in the army in the States, living in one world during the day and another at night, appalled him. Could he subject his high-strung wife to the demands of an officer’s wife? Could he afford an additional six months’ separation? Was there really a difference?

  First Lieutenant Rufus Brooks glanced at the trench before him. He turned his head toward the basketball courts and then swept his vision across the theater seats and the stage and over to a group of men packing their rucksacks and cleaning their weapons. In the office behind him the first sergeant was cackling to the clerks.

  The voice irritated him. He shook his head imperceptibly. It’s been a long road, he said to himself. It’s been a battle all the way and still there is a conflict in every aspect of my life. Would you like a shot at an enemy headquarters? Would you like to DEROS? Would you like to keep your wife?

  CHAPTER 4

  The battered jeep from Alpha, 7th of the 402d, lurched over the ruts at the Phu Bai gate, jolted past the Vietnamese concession stands and the Korean souvenir shops and shuddered up the soft shoulder onto Highway One. Chelini grabbed the bottom of his seat with his right hand, hooked his feet beneath the seat before him and, with his left arm, managed to keep the baggage from careening out of the vehicle. He glared at the oblivious driver.

  The driver was a blond boy, eighteen or nineteen, whose face could have been used on recruitment posters. He appeared cheerful and very absorbed in his driving. He may have been myopic. He did not speak.

  In the front passenger seat was a captain who said he was from First Brigade S-5, Civil Affairs. He was returning from his third R&R, this one to Bangkok. “Hope I didn’t keep you boys waiting,” the captain said. “One of the clerks there said there’d be a vehicle from the four-oh-second and that you’d have room for me. I appreciate that. I don’t like to wait. They’re sending over a vehicle from brigade but it won’t be here for another twenty minutes. Hope I didn’t keep you too long.”

  In the rear seat beside Chelini was the man in civilian clothing who had come into the perso
nnel office while Chelini argued with the clerk about his assignment. Below his red hair and beneath his sunburned skin the man snarled. He had not looked at Chelini when he’d thrown his suitcase on top of Chelini’s duffel bag. He hadn’t spoken while they waited for the captain. Chelini was cramped in the small back seat with luggage piled about him. The red-haired man lay sprawled across most of the seat, his left foot out the side of the vehicle and his right reaching to the shift lever between the front seats. The sun glimmered off his scowl. His eyes appeared closed.

  The vehicle’s suspension clattered and the drive train whined as they drove north past the first cluster of bustling street-side shops and shanties.

  The roadway was crowded with men in military uniforms or western dress or loose black trousers with loose fitting long shirts and with women in the traditional sheath dresses and silk trousers, all riding on Hondas or Vespas or Lambrettas. Old black Citroen sedans, long, low-slung, with high fenders and wide running boards, seemed filled with dozens of Vietnamese. There were colorful three-wheeled lorries and at one point a small, very ornate panel truck passed, going the opposite way. The truck was red. Its painted headlights were huge pupils in white and green eyes, the fenders yellow and black dragon legs. A dragon body rippled yellow and blue and green down the side. The roof of the truck was a pagoda roof with swirling corners and peaks surrounded by blue sky with white fluff clouds.

  “Wow!” Chelini said. “You see that?”

  “Hearse,” the red-haired man snapped.

  “Where you boys from?” the captain turned and asked.

  “Connecticut, Sir,” Chelini answered.

  “And you?”

  “Oh-deuce,” came the curt reply. The captain returned forward and looked at the driver who seemed oblivious to the question and said nothing.

  Amongst the civilian traffic US and ARVN military machines rumbled, carrying supplies and personnel. The trucks were heavy, squarish, made of thick steel plates. Here and there were the amphibious podshaped vehicles with huge black rubber balloon tires of the military police.