by John Hart
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coinci-dental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
The Story Plant
Studio Digital CT, LLC
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Stamford, CT 06907
Copyright © 2014 by John L. Hart and Olivia Rupprecht
Jacket design by Barbara Aronica Buck
Interior illustrations by John L. Hart
Print ISBN-13: 978-1-61188-166-0
E-book ISBN: 978-1-61188-167-7
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All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by U.S. Copyright Law. For information, address The Story Plant.
First Story Plant paperback printing: October 2014
For those who were there
Those who wrote
For those who welcomed me home
Those who know do not talk
Those who talk do not know.
—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
The Nightbird and Morning Glory
If you flew like a Nightbird up over the mountains and into the dark of the jungle and then sat on a limb above a small animal trail and waited. . . .
You would see the point man. His growing anxiety is becoming palpable. He thinks he can feel someone or something trailing him.
He whispers. “Shep, that you? Quit fucking around.”
There is no response.
Panicked, Point Man heads out again. The Nightbird’s eyes follow him. Point Man’s breathing is gasping and scared. He tries to move quietly but everything he steps on crackles and pops, and that just adds to his panic. He thinks he hears some-thing off to his left and, startled, starts moving to his right. He is disoriented and becoming exhausted from his own adrenaline. He slows down. His stuff weighs the world on his back and he wants to drop it all and just run. Instead, he turns.
Point Man can’t stop his smile or his near sob of relief as he steps forward, says, “Oh God, I’m glad it is you.”
The Ranger Lieutenant punches his shoulder. “Get a grip, Stanley.”
“Yeah, yes sir.”
Suddenly the M16s open up behind them. They hear shouts and yelling from their guys on patrol until the Ranger Lieutenant shouts back.
“Cease fire, knock it off!”
The shooting stops and then it is very quiet, very tense.
Back down the path a short distance, imagine the deep bass of Graveyard Train. Up in the tree is a predator. He looks down at the last three men of the patrol and isolates the last man by shooting the two men in front of him. The last man standing is frozen, doesn’t know where the deadly fire has come from. The predator drops out of the tree right behind him. The terrified young soldier whirls around to shoot, only to have both of his hands cut off by a blade in a glinting blur. He turns to run with stumps of his wrists spraying his life out but drops and screams as he bleeds out.
Ranger Lieutenant and Point Man carefully make their way back to the too silent patrol. They come upon the bodies of the men who were shot. All of their hands have been cut off at the wrists. The Ranger Lieutenant and Point Man come upon one bloodless hand after another, all pointing ahead to a body sitting up against a tree. His severed head in his lap, the startled eyes that saw the predator stare straight at them as the Nightbird watches, then flies away again.
1
NHA TRANG
THE REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM
MAY, 1969
It was shortly after dawn, a brilliant clear day, and yet Israel Moskowitz could only wonder what he had done to land in the hot stinking bowels of a dead animal. Sure, the charter TWA flight from the states to the Tan Son Nhut Air Base had been pleasant enough, but from there he had been shuttled onto a no-frills military transport and disgorged here. A tarmac within spitting distance of the South China Sea where he stood sucker-punched by what had to be one hundred and fifteen degrees of scorch and simmer heat spiked with ninety-nine percent humidity.
Something had gone terribly wrong.
For twenty-nine years, the cosmic planes of destiny had been in perfect alignment with the whole summa cum laude package of what had been Israel Moskowitz’s preordained right to a glorious, successful life. Sweaty, steaming stench and rot and rice paddies had not been part of the deal.
Yes, the war was escalating. But what country in its right mind would draft a child psychiatrist fresh out of his residency from Columbia University Med School and send him to Vietnam? He’d been told not to worry, the situation was a screw up and would get fixed. His father had contacts in high places and favors to cash in, namely with New York’s 2nd congressional district’s highest elected official. Israel could still hear Congressman Atkinson’s assurances: At worst, you will be serving your obligation to your country at an army hospital child guidance clinic in Washington, D.C. You’ll love being in the nation’s capital, in the heart of the action, so to speak.
Oh, he was in the heart of the action all right. Only it was in the war ravaged armpit of Southeast Asia, a mere 8,761 miles from D.C.
Now Israel Moskowitz, with his brilliant MD in child psychiatry, was in some very deep shit. Heat radiated up through the soles of his boots and beat down on his head, doing its best to turn him into a melted puddle of nothing but a fifty pound duffel bag and the fogged up horn-rimmed glasses that kept sliding down his distinctively Jewish nose.
Some fellow psych officer was supposed to meet him here but hadn’t shown up yet. So Israel shuffled forward, wondering if he could make it to the nearest building before he passed out—or, threw up. Ever since opening the mailbox to find a REPORT FOR DUTY notice instead of brochures for a honeymoon in Spain, he had battled the threat of nausea. Even worse was the slight but deeply troubling tremor he had recently developed in his once steady hands.
Israel sucked in a deep breath that felt like swallowing a soaked pillow, shoved up his horn rims, and was re-hoisting his duffel, when a jeep rounded the corner and came to a rubber-burning halt a few feet away.
The sandaled feet that swung out belonged to a male about his own age and pinch above average height, but their similarities stopped there. No way had this guy spent a Saturday studying the Torah or living in the shadow of skyscrapers. Dressed in surfer shorts and a faded USC Trojans Tennis Dept. tee, a booney hat topped off sun bleached hair. Athletic build; all-American good looks. He should have been selling ad copy for Coppertone.
“Captain Moskowitz? Israel Moskowitz?” A lazy good vibrations smile and a tip of the hat to Israel’s nod. “I’m Gregg. Captain Gregg Kelly, clinical psychologist at the 99KO.”
Israel was immediately struck by two things: He had never before heard such a beautiful voice emerge from a woman or a man. And: “You, uh. . .you don’t look like you belong here.”
Gregg threw back his head and let out a big belly laugh, so infectious that Israel smiled. It had been awhile.
“And you do?” Gregg’s eyes were a deep blue. They sparkled like the waves he probably caught on a surfboard. “Hell man, none of us belong here. We’re all just counting our days.”
“Days?”
“Until you go home.”
“How many do you have?”
“One-twenty-six and a wake up,” no pause. “Less than a month and I’m hitting the magic number.”
“What number is that?”
“Ninety-nine. Two-digit midget. If anyo
ne asks, you’re counting down as of today from three-sixty-four.”
“Three. Sixty. Four.” His voice a croak, Israel couldn’t fathom spending three hundred and sixty-four days and nights in this hell hole. Yet Gregg had somehow gotten this far and still seemed mentally sound. At least he had maintained the ability to laugh. And his hands weren’t shaking as they reached for the duffel bag that had dropped to Israel’s feet.
“Hop in and we’ll drop off your stuff at the officers’ quarters before I take you to meet Lieutenant Colonel Kohn and the rest of the crew.”
Gregg no sooner hit the gas than it seemed he was pointing out the 8th Field Hospital compound where their psychiatric unit—the 99KO— was located amidst a small grid of wood framed buildings surrounded by high green walls of sandbags. A few more turns outside the hospital compound and Gregg was pulling up to an old villa that could have come out of Les Misérables, with its cracked stucco walls covered in wild bougainvillea, the psychedelic color of Tang. In short, Israel had his new room, up on the second floor next to Gregg’s, and across from a shared bathroom, where Gregg was taking a quick shower.
Before Israel could switch into a fresh shirt or peel off the sweat soaked underwear that clung to his nuts that were itching like crazy, another voice called from below:
“Hello! Anybody here?”
Because the other medical officers who lived at the villa were already at the unit, Israel forced himself to emerge from the privacy of his room—a room equipped with the cooling breeze of an overhead fan.
“Up here,” he called back, pausing at the top of the stairs.
There was something he couldn’t explain, something instinctive that made him want to keep his distance from anyone who projected…Israel wasn’t sure what the guy was projecting but even with a flight of stairs between them he gave off a vibe like a switchblade stashed inside a tuxedo.
Or in this case, a crisp, laundered Tiger camo shirt emblazoned with whatever insignia gave him the latitude to wear nonissue silver bracelets on one dark arm. And, what looked like some skin damage on the other; aviator shades pushed over a widow’s peak, hair straight and black as a raven’s wing. He smiled to reveal even, white teeth as he bounded up the stairs with a duffel bag in each hand and a rucksack on his back.
Up close, too close, Israel could not see a single bead of sweat pop from a single pore of his smooth, olive skin from the exertion. Penetrating eyes locked on Israel like radar zooming in on a target. Those eyes, a 7up bottle green, were made even more striking by their slight almond shape, suggesting the new house guest had inherited some exotic DNA. But the uniform, nose, and cheekbones that could have been engineered by NASA all coincided with a pitch-perfect voice that could have come from Anywhere, USA.
“Let me guess, you’re the other new shrink.” His duffels landed with a clank and a thud. The right hand he extended sported an expensive looking watch, and those were definitely scars, not only on his right arm but also the left. There was also a fine line of white scar tissue that ran from below his left ear and disappeared into a black T-shirt beneath the jungle fatigues.
As for his rank, the insignia declared him a major and, therefore, a senior officer who was offering a handshake instead of a salute after making a mockery of professional protocol by referring to them both as “shrinks.”
Israel awkwardly cleared his throat. Swiped his sweaty palm on his sweaty jungle fatigues and hesitantly accepted the handshake.
“Israel Moskowitz, MD Columbia University. Three hundred and sixty four days.”
The other new shrink’s hand was cool, dry, and just the right firmness in grip as he responded, “J.D. Mikel. Call me J.D. I was going to be the new shrink in Da Nang, but got sent here on special duty instead. Great to meet you, Izzy.”
2
“There are many kinds of casualties in wars,” the Colonel began. “Psychiatric casualties, of course, have been around since the beginning of warfare. Human beings, although an aggressive, brutal, and vicious species, are not well designed for long-term combat stress.…”
Israel stared at his new Chief of Psychiatry and CO, Lt. Colonel Kohn, a kindly middle-aged career officer from the Midwest, and tried to focus on his little welcome speech. The other medical personnel, including Gregg, were busy with morning rounds, so just three of them were gathered at the table that doubled as a nurses station: Colonel Kohn, him, and the other new shrink, Dr. J.D. Mikel, who had called him by an old nickname, Izzy. He said it so slap-to-the-back familiar it felt déjà vu weird. Only his best friend Morrie could still get away with calling him that. And that was only because Morrie had been confined to a wheelchair since seventh grade after trying to save Israel’s dog from getting hit by a speeding cab on their way to play ball in a park.
The unit’s mascot, a mutt Gregg had called “K.O.,” parked her rump by Israel’s chair, which directly faced the air conditioner unit blasting cold air for the entire room, and its marching line of beds filled with psychiatric casualties. If the random tremor in his hands and constant urge to puke were any indicator, Israel feared it wouldn’t be long before he was a candidate for one of those beds himself.
Mikel caught his line of vision, gave a slight conspiratorial smile, and then covered his mouth for a little yawn as Colonel Kohn went on about earlier American wars, when soldiers would return with “the shakes,” or people would say that old Sam had lost his nerve, but how, by the beginning of the Vietnam War, Pentagon researchers had scientifically determined that nearly everyone in a combat situation was slowly breaking down the entire time that they were exposed to war.
“Basically, it is just a matter of time.” Colonel Kohn gestured toward a thrashing patient in full restraints. “Everyone’s psyche, they realized, was slowly eroding. Some faster, due to earlier childhood and life traumas, and others perhaps from too much, too soon in the war zone, with quick and repeated exposure to horrors moving up the erosion—”
“Help me! HELP ME!” screamed the patient, jerking against the restraints with such force his spine arched off the mattress, causing the metal headboard to slam against the wall. The head nurse, a luscious redhead in jungle fatigues Israel had briefly met, Capt. Margie Kennedy, broke from the morning rounds entourage and moved in that direction.
“True, some humans are slower to wear down,” Colonel Kohn sonorously intoned, “perhaps due to their fortunate genetics and upbringing. And in rare cases, a few individuals actually seem to thrive. . . .” He glanced at Mikel before looking again directly at Israel. “But by the time we got to this war, here in Vietnam, the Pentagon was anticipating these kinds of mental casualties. This is why we are all here.”
Here. As in the 99th KO. The 8th Field Hospital’s psychiatric unit conveniently placed in a combat zone. We. As in the psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, psychiatric nurses, and enlisted psychiatric techs who are doing the good work for our brave fellow men in uniform, serving on the front lines of Vietnam.…
Finally, Colonel Kohn wound it all up with, “The rate of psychiatric casualties is huge and basically unknown to the general population back home. But really, there is one thing, and one thing only, that matters and you can never forget. The patients here are very dangerous. Every minute, every hour and day that you are here, never forget that these patients were trained to kill people. There is no locked ward. Forget, even for a second, that you are treating trained killers who have been pushed over the edge, and you could be the one going back home in a body bag. Any questions?” was clearly directed at Israel who stared numbly back at Colonel Kohn while the loud drone of the air conditioner blended with another shriek of “HELP ME!”
“Okay then, we have an interesting catatonic patient with Dr. Thibeaux to discuss, along with our rather vocal Sergeant Waters in the restraints over there. Dr. Mikel, Dr. Moskowitz?” The colonel got up, his attention carefully trained on the new child psychiatrist. “After y
ou.”
As they moved toward the mind-blasted Sergeant Waters, Israel tried to wrap his brain around what he’d been repeatedly told in officer’s training: His first priority was to “preserve the fighting force,” which meant not getting damaged soldiers like these home. No, his job was to get them back to their units and the same combat zones that had landed them in this front line mental hospital that made Bellevue look like Club Med.
“As you can see, we have fourteen beds here,” Colonel Kohn was saying. “These patients have been brought in from the field or came through our Camp McDermott outpatient clinic. It’s just a short drive and for now the two of you will be accompanying Dr. Kelly out there every day directly after rounds.” Having caught up with the group, Kohn addressed the leader, mid-thirties at most, with thinning brown hair spared from a comb-over. “This is our chief psychiatrist, Dr. Robert David Thibeaux. Robert David, I believe you were on call last night. Would you care to fill us in on the situation here with Sergeant Waters?”
“Well, now thank you Dr. Kohn, it would surely be my pleasure.” Robert David Thibeaux’s refined southern accent and aristocratic bearing struck Israel as absurd in this setting as the military making attempted suicide a punishable, criminal offense because it damaged government property. “It was a quiet night except for Waters. The Sergeant has been agitated, and ranting and hallucinating constantly about this so-called Boogeyman story that got started a few weeks ago and seems to be spreading like a bad case of VD.”
“And what has the Sergeant said about this Boogeyman?” Mikel asked.
