THE GOOD SOLDIER

by Paul C. Steffy

  Jim agreed. “My thoughts are still spinning after all that we’ve seen. I looked at maps and saw the names of villages and towns, too. Nothing looks the way I remember it.”

  On the other side of the room, the piano player returned from a short break with four singers and began to play a new set of songs. They included popular ones from World War II. After the opening few bars of the first tune, an attractive female singer with waist-length black hair and large questioning eyes sang a song called “Kiss Me Once and Kiss Me Twice, It’s Been a Long, Long Time.” Three men who looked related and had begun to sing as her backup enriched the musical sound. We stopped talking and listened to them.

  “Damn, she’s good!” I said.

  “She reminds me of Peggy Lee,” Ray told us while he looked her way and smiled.

  “No, I think she’s more like Kitty Kallen,” Wes added. “She sang with Harry James.” He sounded as if his sad mood had passed. I hoped it had, for his sake.

  “I’m going over to the guy wearing the light sports jacket six tables over. I want to see if I know him,” Jim informed us. He got up and walked over to a man none of the rest of us knew. Within a few seconds, they were shaking hands, smiling, and laughing. Jim sat down at the other man’s table and didn’t rejoin us. The rest of us listened in rapt splendor to the singers. Among the four of us at our table, we had a wealth of knowledge about big bands and songs of the war years. We didn’t want to talk too much, but we exchanged a few informational tidbits between songs. After a dozen songs, the singers and the piano player took another break.

  In their place, another piano player came out, sat down at the keyboard, and played two songs from the 1960s: “Blue Velvet” and “Venus in Blue Jeans.” That set an uplifting, happy new mood.

  “Does anyone want to hear the words?” the piano player asked after he finished the second song. “OK, I’ll play and you sing!”

  The audience gave him a round of applause and plenty of laughs.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said as he played an introduction to another song. “You remember the singer who was just out here along with her great backup group? Well, she’s coming back, right now!”

  A huge round of applause erupted from the large audience. The curtain opened, and the four singers walked quickly into the area around the piano that was illuminated with a spotlight. The female singer gazed at the audience with a wide smile.

  “We want to sing a few songs that I’m sure many of you sang years ago when they were on the radio station known as AFVN. You heard them before you came here, or you heard them when you went back home. See if you remember this one,” she said as she and her backup group began to snap their fingers.

  After the piano intro, they started singing “My Boyfriend’s Back,” and the audience went wild. When the chorus began, dozens of guys in the audience began to sing along with the singers on stage. The audience, made up mostly of Americans, had enough molecules of alcohol in their blood to fuel a whole night of fun. When the song ended, a thunderous ovation filled the room. Without waiting, the singers broke into “Come See about Me.” They followed that with “Eight Days a Week,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Pretty Woman,” “Tonight’s the Night,” and a dozen more songs, nonstop.

  “Thank you so much for your warm applause,” the stunning female said to the audience. “We’ll take a short break and come back for one more set of songs from the later years.”

  “They sounded fantastic,” I said. The others agreed. By then it was 11:00 p.m., and Wes and I had finished our drinks, so we decided to say our good-byes. Ray and I exchanged e-mail addresses.

  “It was nice to see you halfway around the world. Have a safe flight back,” Wes said to them. They wished us as much, and we left.

  We walked back to our hotel and talked the entire way about the great music and singing.

  When the hotel was within sight, Wes said, “I’m sorry I got a little weird tonight. I started to flirt with the server. Then all of a sudden, I felt guilty for being attracted to her. She was stunning, though!”

  “Think nothing of it. She’s a real beauty, and you’re still human.”

  XII

  The next day, I had breakfast with John and our group in the big hotel restaurant on the ground floor. Then we boarded our bus at 9:00 a.m.

  “I’ve got a full day for you today,” John informed us. “We have four villages and a small rubber plantation to see. At each place, there were shots fired between a few different American units and fewer than a dozen VC. The shootings happened after dark each time. The incidents were random and weeks apart. We never did round up the usual suspects in any of these places. Once, four of our men were injured, and their enemy slipped away silently. I’ll explain that incident a little later. Some of you may recall being at one or more of the places we’ll see, but don’t feel bad if you don’t have any memories of any of them. Our lunch stop today will be at the plantation. It has tables and chairs and drinks under patio umbrellas, but they don’t sell food—at least not yet. The area is remote, and they didn’t have electricity until recently, so we’re taking our sandwiches and dessert with us. Because of veterans’ tours and other tourists who stop by with regularity, they do have cold beer, soda, and bottles of water. The bathrooms are clean and modern, too. To me, it’s odd to see them there, yet there’s no place to buy food. I suppose that’ll change with time.”

  An hour into the bus ride, John looked out through the passenger’s side of the windshield. I could see he was trying to find a particular location. He saw what he was looking for and asked the driver to pull over and stop the bus. John informed us that he always stopped here with each group, and he explained why.

  “Look straight ahead beyond that paddy, and you’ll see a large tree standing majestically and alone. It was there on December twenty-fourth, 1968, that my brother’s Cobra helicopter went down. His ordnance officer was injured seriously but survived. My brother didn’t; he was already wounded when they crashed. Minutes before, they’d been hit by VC machine-gun fire. He was lucky to have flown this far before the engine failed. They were within fifteen minutes of their base at Long Bien. He was twenty-four years old, and he had only twenty-four days to go on his year. I figured out the exact location by searching for weeks through army aviation records. When I stepped off of the bus the first time I came here, I couldn’t walk fast enough to get to the site. I was on my own veteran’s tour. I was doing what you’re doing now. It’s not an official tour stop, but I received special permission for the group to spend time there. I stayed for fifteen minutes so as not to delay the tour too long. Then the other guys said it was OK with them if I stayed longer. After a full half hour, we loaded back onto the bus and departed. Since then, I’ve returned twice for a brief time with tours I have led. Now, just seeing the place from a distance accomplishes a lot for me. So many thoughts ran through my mind on my first visit. I’d brought my compass and camera, and I photographed the spot from all four compass directions. I’ve framed the four photos, and they hang in my study. Having seen the place where he died and having the four images in my home helps me live with the knowledge of where and how he departed this life. Many parents don’t have that advantage. I pity the family of every military person who is listed as missing and is never found after many years.”

  John’s upper lip pressed inward, and his jaw muscles tightened. Like most of us, he probably wanted to suppress any outward sign of emotion. He knew that on this bus, he wasn’t the only one harboring remembrances and emotional suffering.

  Ten minutes later, we drove onto a side road and slowly past another small hamlet with only fifteen huts. The driver drove a short distance, turned around, returned, and parked on the opposite side of the dirt road. We didn’t see any inhabitants moving about, and the living conditions appeared meager. The village was near a small stream and not far from a large rice paddy. No other vehicles were in
sight.

  “Does anyone recognize anything around here?” No one on board said a word. “Since I’ve been leading tours, only three men have said that they remember anything about this place. They were in one way or another part of the rescue team involved in the incident. We wouldn’t be coming past here except that it’s only a short drive off the main road to the plantation where we’ll have lunch. The significance of this village is that in June 1967, four LRRPs—that’s Long Range Recon Patrol if you’ve forgotten—were ambushed after dark about a mile from here. All of them were wounded. Luckily, and with great effort, they made it here. The people in this village let them stay the night and helped them as best they could. The LRRP radio was damaged and useless. The next morning, a young boy from this village contacted US soldiers driving a jeep about a mile away on the main road. He told them in broken English what had happened. A platoon of soldiers from the Ninth Infantry Division responded. The four LRRPs were removed from the area by medevac, and they survived. To thank the people in the village, the US Army gave them a pallet full of food and some basic medical supplies. The story appeared in the Stars and Stripes newspaper. Two weeks later, at two in the morning, six VC entered the village. They rounded up and shot the inhabitants—men, women, and children—and burned everything to the ground. After that tragedy, the army kept such news quiet, but they still gave villagers food and helped them when necessary if they’d helped to save American lives.”

  “Such a sad story,” I said aloud. “John, did things like that happen often?”

  “Similar incidents happened half a dozen times that I know of, so there must have been many more,” John answered. “The VC killed villagers in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia when they thought it would terrorize others into doing what they were told.”

  John told Tran, the driver, to move on.

  We rode along silently in the almost new, sixteen-passenger, air-conditioned bus. I watched as the landscape silently moved past us. Then, without realizing it, I went into a dream and left my comfortable surroundings behind me. Oh, no, I’m with those LRRP soldiers, and we’ve been ambushed, I thought. How are we going to get out of this? Shoot over there at the muzzle flash. Wait, there’s another one. We’re all shooting at close range, tracers flashing, using up ammo like crazy. What’s happening? Wait, the shooting has stopped. Are they dead? Are we? Can we actually get out of here alive? I’m hit in my upper leg, but the pain isn’t too bad. I think I’m just grazed. I don’t think I’m bleeding much. It must be from shrapnel and not a bullet. It’s so dark that I can’t see if there’s any blood. The others with me are hurt much worse than I am. Can we make it back to that village we passed half an hour ago? OK, right, I’ll help Johnny Boy; you help Jack. Can you walk? All right, do the best you can. We’re going to head back to that village. How’s the radio? What? It’s junk? It was hit by three or four bullets, and we can’t call for help? Shit! That’s all we need on top of the bleeding men and possibly enemy to the front. Maybe they’re reloading to finish us off. No radio to call for artillery or backup support, and it’s pitch black with no moon. We’re at least a mile from that last village. What? You don’t think you can make it? But John, you’ve got to. I can’t carry you by myself. I’m bleeding a little, too. It’s OK, buddy. We’re going to make it; you just wait and see. It’ll take some time, but we’ll get back to that last village. They’ll help us. I just know they will!

  Suddenly, I came back to reality. I hate it when that happens, and I go into an actual living dream but think I’m there in the thick of it. At least now, I’m in a safe, protected place. It’s never happened while I’ve been driving, and I hope it never does. I lose my ability to think in the present. Each time, I can’t believe I’m not actually there in the middle of things and being shot at, being hit, and feeling the pain of being injured. I want this shit to stop! Most of all, I hope this trip can help me accomplish that.

  “Hey, you OK?” Wes asked me. “You seemed like you were uneasy about something, and you were looking around as if someone was after you.”

  “Yeah, I’m OK now. I was doing way too much thinking—imagining, reliving something in my mind that never happened to me. I get like that sometimes when I contemplate situations that should be left alone, things that happened years ago. It’s one of the reasons I’m over here. I want to lose all of that unnecessary mental activity forever!”

  John must have heard me. He turned his head and looked my way for a few seconds.

  “All right, guys, we’re going to the plantation now. It takes half an hour to get there, and then we’ll eat.” He glanced my way again.

  I felt that my secret was out. But then again, at least my secret life was within good company.

  It was a nice, sunny day, hot and humid with brilliant blue skies and large, bulbous clouds that floated slowly past. They reminded me of a fleet of wooden sailing ships from centuries ago. Where are the men who tend the rigging and guide the rudders? I thought. Is this an ancient fleet of ghost ships, forever sailing the ocean blue? Sometimes my imagination takes over my mind, sometimes for good but sometimes for terrible thoughts.

  The miles passed beneath our wheels. We entered a stretch of wide two-lane roadway, and traffic was heavy once again. Seeing the busy vehicular activity kept me from drifting into any more unpleasant thoughts, and I stayed in the present. I started to think that the longer I stayed in Vietnam, the more my mind wanted to do its own thing and reintroduce daytime nightmares. If this keeps up, I thought, I may just go crazy. They’ll take me home in a straightjacket. My God, I hope not! Wes and the others had no idea what was happening in my head, and I hoped they didn’t find out!

  “I’m glad we’ll be there soon,” Wes said. “I’m as hungry as if I’d skipped breakfast.”

  John heard him and replied, “The hotel supplied two sandwiches for each man and a piece of cake. Sorry, guys; it’s either chocolate with chocolate icing or nothing. They threw in bags of potato chips, too. Nothing like eating healthy—that’s my motto!”

  “Wes, it sounds like your prayers have been answered,” I said with a smile.

  “Amen, brother,” was his response. Then he took a candy bar from his cargo pants pocket, tore open the wrapper, and ate half of the contents in one bite.

  We ate lunch at the plantation. The amount of food supplied by the hotel was impressive, and everything tasted great. Most of us bought an ice-cold beer from the drinks-only concession area that had tables, chairs, and patio umbrellas. This time, no pretty girls were taking orders; it was merely fast, efficient self-service. The place sold sodas, water, and three dozen international varieties of beer in cans or bottles. Most of us didn’t need any convincing to buy another refreshing can or bottle from the assortment of tasty brews. We stayed at the plantation for forty-five minutes, and then we moved on to the final two locations of the day.

  The next stop was of special interest to two of the guys in the group. They had been with the Twenty-Fifth Infantry Division. Years ago, they’d been on a special assignment to fly with a lieutenant who had taken mission plans to Long Bien from their own division headquarters. As part of their trip, they had to make three other stops to deliver information to other units that would participate in an upcoming operation. The entire plan, originally used by units of the Twenty-Fifth Division with great success, consisted of a counteroffensive strategy to the Tet attacks in this part of South Vietnam. On their final stop before returning to their unit, their Huey was hit by a few lucky shots from a squad of roaming VC. The pilot managed to land within one hundred feet of this village. Because of the nature of the plans on board, one hell of a rescue operation ensued. Those plans could not fall into the hands of the VC under any circumstance. No one aboard the helicopter was killed or injured seriously because the pilot autorotated safely to the ground. That he was able to land without engine power required perfect timing, much skill, and great luck.

  Now on our
tour, we were at the location of their accident in February 1968. Our driver parked the bus, and the two men walked to the edge of the small town. It had been a large village in 1968. The two men didn’t want to walk through the town, but they did take photos of the nearest streets, some of the closest living quarters, and the surrounding countryside. Whether they had landed on the east or the west side of the village was lost to time. While they satisfied their desires to see the place, the rest of us got out, walked around, and took our own photos. The nearby surrounding jungle to the south was lush and thick. The blue sky and brightness of the white clouds, which constantly folded in upon themselves, caught my attention, just the way I remember it happening when I was there years ago. Twenty minutes later, everyone boarded the bus, and we drove to our final stop of the day.

  The driver drove us down a dirt side road adjacent to a small town about twenty miles away. We parked on a slight rise that allowed at least a two-mile inclusive view of the community and the surrounding countryside. Today the main roads into and out of the town were asphalt. The town appeared more modern than many of the other ones we’d seen. The jungle, cleared away for at least one hundred yards on both sides of the road, was dense and verdant. Concrete utility poles with phone and electrical wires supplied communitywide power. Traffic lights were obvious, and homes and businesses appeared modernized.

  “Who knows anything about this place?” John asked us. No one said anything. “I had my doubts if anyone would recognize this town. Actually, nothing happened inside the town. However, one morning a mile back on the road we just used, along what would have been a narrow dirt jungle road in the late sixties, a dozen APCs of the Ninth Infantry Division were ambushed. Eight were undamaged, but four of them were totally destroyed by road mines, or RPGs. Several men received serious injuries, and seven died during that action. When we go back, we can stop, and you can get off the bus for a few minutes if you like. For the two of you who were in the Ninth Division, does any of this bring back memories?”