“Sleeping off a Christmas Eve drunk, Lieutenant?” he asked sharply.
Eddie sat up and rubbed his eyes.
“We’ve both been up for over twenty-four hours, sir,” Ray said. “He’s been asleep less than an hour.”
“The room is at attention,” the aide called out.
“Ah, gimme a break,” Eddie muttered and stepped around the general to his desk where he gulped down a warm, stale can of Mountain Dew. “What can we help you with, General?”
The aide’s jaw dropped open at Eddie’s unmilitary conduct in the presence of the general.
General Speaker glared at him and then asked, “Where were you when all this happened? Hiding under your desk or out shacked up somewhere?”
“I was flying.”
“His contact with the 0-2 brought the fast response from the Cobras,” Ray added.
The general grunted and sat on the couch.
“That truck came in from Laos, not from Vietnamese Village,” Ray said, as he dropped into his chair.
“What were they after?”
“Us,” Eddie said. “This office and our birds.”
“That’s a lot of manpower for something so unimportant.”
Ray looked up at the aide and said, “Would you excuse us, Sarge?”
The general looked over and said, “Leave us for a little while, Charlie.”
The aide did not like being told to leave, but replied, “Yes, sir,” and left.
“We’re the hottest target in Southeast Asia, right now,” Ray said. “We’ve determined that the NVA will capture the South before June, and we can’t stop them. Cambodia, too, will go about the same time.”
“Laos, too?”
“Yes, sir. They’re all lost. Thailand will be different, but we’ve no indication they’ll push that far.”
“So, why do they want you so bad? They’re going to win, and we can’t stop them. What’s the point?”
“Shoe goes on the other foot,” Eddie answered. “We’re running guerilla forces from here. New Zealand and the Aussies are the most effective, and they coordinate with us. The Jolly Green that showed up last night was bringing in three of our teams working out of NKP when they diverted here.”
“You are running your own private war out of here.”
Neither Ray nor Eddie replied.
“Who authorized this action?”
“The President,” Ray answered. “Through the DCI (CIA Director) and the DIA Director.”
“Why wasn’t I informed?”
“You’re retiring. It’s none of your business.”
“Bullshit! And just how much warning did you have this attack was coming?”
“I was told at the hospital by the NVA nurse a few weeks back, and the narcs told us what was coming. No time table. It was a surprise, because they launched out of Laos, not here.”
“If they can hit us here, then they can hit NKP just as easily. Or maybe Udorn or Korat.”
“Maybe,” Ray answered. “But don’t forget, they got their ass kicked here at Ubon where there aren’t but three hundred GI’s. What could they do at an operational base with alert security?”
“Christmas surprise is over,” Eddie added.
“But look at our losses,” the general said.
“Two dead and two wounded after going head to head with a whole truck load of sappers.”
“Yea, plus three Thai SP’s dead and two wounded. And we shot three of them. One Thai guard and one Thai civilian at the power plant killed,” the general added.
Ray shrugged. “Price of war. This attack won’t endear the Vietnamese to the Thai people. Colonel Suwit is going to kill a bunch of suspected NVA from the Village this morning.”
“And you, Sergeant. What are you going to do in response to this?”
Ray nodded to Eddie.
“Big Jake is selecting targets for us. We’ll review them late this afternoon and try to have them fragged for midnight.”
“Shit! You two can’t just leave well enough alone, can you?”
“Just go on and retire, General,” Ray said. “This war is in good hands.”
“A staff sergeant running his own private war. Yea, it’s time for me to get the hell out,” the general said with anger and bitterness in his voice.
UBON PROJECTS OFFICE
9 JANUARY 1975
At 4:00 p.m. Eddie was in the Projects Office updating an intelligence summary when he received a phone call from the base lawyer.
“Projects Office, Donevant.”
“Eddie, Carl Lavinder. You busy?”
“Of course I’m busy, Carl. Everyone here on campus works long hours, except you.”
“You have time to come by the office before 5:00? I have something to discuss with you.”
“No, I don’t. I’m up to my you-know-what in alligators and will be until 10:00 tonight.”
“Well, this is important. Tell you what. How about joining me for supper at the Club. It’s steak night. Say 5:00.”
Eddie looked at the pile of papers on his desk and then thought about it for a few seconds. “Okay. Five o’clock at the Club.”
Eddie usually ate at the Thai Restaurant, but today he caught a ride with Mack Klevenger to the Consolidated Open mess (there was only one club for all ranks due to the small base population). Mack was having supper with Henry Waldrop at the Club.
Eddie and the lawyer did not care for each other. Carl viewed Eddie as a religious fanatic who was outspokenly opposed to alcohol. Eddie viewed Carl as a lazy, self-centered officer who shaved the night before just so he could sleep until 7:20, jump into uniform, and make it to the office by 7:30. Carl’s main topic of discussion was about getting out of the Air Force, then filing a lawsuit for the housing allowance that he was denied, an allowance officers of his rank at operational bases were receiving.
The conversation between the two men stayed light and friendly through the meal. Eddie did not comment on Carl drinking Scotch and water and Carl did not mention religion.
After the meal Eddie asked, “So, what is this important matter you have to discuss with me?”
“Did you know that your wife was charged with possession with intent to distribute marijuana in Washington D.C. a couple of weeks back?”
“Yes, I was told.”
“Well, this came for you.” Carl handed a paper to Eddie.
Eddie read it. “A subpoena for court?”
“Your wife is calling you as a defense witness. It covers the 20th through the end of the trial.”
Eddie set the subpoena on the table next to Carl. “I’m too busy. I can’t make it. She’s on her own.”
“This isn’t an invitation, Lieutenant. It’s an order from the court. ‘You are hereby commanded to appear.’ You have to answer this.”
“So, put down that I refused. I’m not going.”
“You thwart a federal subpoena they’ll put out an arrest warrant for you.”
“They aren’t going to send the feds here to grab me just because I refuse to testify in her trial.”
“No. The arrest warrant will come to Mack Klevenger through me and he’ll have to lock you up and escort you to the trial.”
Eddie shrugged.
“It’s served. It’s your problem, Lieutenant,” Carl said as he held the subpoena out to Eddie.
Eddie slid his chair back from the table and said, “I’m not taking that.”
“The hell you’re not. I served it on you. Take it,” Carl said with a raised voice.
Eddie poked his finger at Carl and answered in a raised voice, “Get that out of my face.”
The exchange drew the attention of several people sitting around them. In a second Mack Klevenger and Henry Waldrop stepped up to the table. “Mind if we join you, gentlemen?”
Carl quickly pulled back the subpoena and said, “Please do.”
Eddie dropped his hand to the table, but said nothing.
Mack and Henry sat in the chairs at the sides of the small table. Henry ordered a round of drinks for the table, which was ice tea for Eddie.
“What’s the problem, Carl?” Henry asked.
“Lieutenant Donevant is refusing service on a federal subpoena. Possibly you can convince him otherwise, sir.”
“Possibly. What’s the problem, Eddie?”
“I’m not getting involved in her mess and won’t allow her to make the Air Force part of her protest against a war that’s over. We’ve had this discussion before.”
“The subpoena has been issued. It’s out of our hands. He’s commanded to be available for court on the 20th in Washington,” Carl explained.
Mack picked up the subpoena and looked it over.
“Look, I don’t know much about these things,” Henry said. “That’s why the JAG (Judge Advocate General) office handles these things.”
“Yes, sir. And quite simply, he’s got to go,” Carl added as the final word.
“There’s a return on this,” Mack said. “He hasn’t been served, so he isn’t required to attend.”
“How can he not be served? He’s assigned here,” Carl said.
“No, he isn’t. He’s here on an eighty-nine day TDY (Temporary Duty). We put him on a special classified assignment. That means we don’t know where he is or else we can’t say.”
“That’s pushing it, Mack,” Henry said, expressing some serious doubt.
“Write that down, Captain,” Eddie told Carl, pointing his finger. “On classified assignment. Will serve subpoena on his return.”
“When will that be?” Carl asked.
“When I’m next scheduled to fly. That shouldn’t be until around February first, well after the trial.”
Carl shook his head. “This is of questionable legality.”
“Everything we do is of questionable legality, Captain. It’s your job to keep us from going to jail over it,” Henry added, endorsing the idea.
Carl understood a subtle order when he heard one. He pulled out his pen and made the appropriate notation on the subpoena.
Inwardly, Eddie was grinning from ear to ear. He managed to win one against the gutless, lazy lawyer.
CHAPTER FOUR
UBON RTAFB
February 1975
Eddie Donevant sat in the Projects Office reading through a stack of field intelligence reports. He had had only four hours sleep and the dull message traffic did little to keep him awake. He tossed them aside and rubbed his eyes. Suddenly something in his brain switched on and he turned to the stack of messages that he had just read. Digging through them, he found the one he wanted and reread it. “THAI INTEL REPORTS HMONG TRIBAL BANDS REPORTING ARMS SHIPMENTS FROM SAIGON BLOCKED AT TWO RIVER POINTS. 1.) BETWEEN CHLONG AND HOMPONG CHAM BY KHMER ROUGE RIVER SUPPLY BASE. BASE IS ATTACKING HMONG SUPPLY BOATS ON RIVER. 2.) AT MEKONG AND SE KHONG RIVER JUNCTION. SUPPLY BASE AND COMM CENTER W/ AIR DEFENSES. R-2.”
“Okay,” Eddie said out loud to himself. “Our targets. But what else did I see here?”
After shuffling through all the messages, he started digging through messages in the file cabinet. Ten minutes later he pulled out a message from John Slaughter.
“CAMBODIAN NARCOTICS POLICE AT KAM SEIP REPORT HMONG MOVING BRICK OPIUM DOWN SE KHONG RIVER AND MEKONG RIVER TO SAIGON. R-3.”
“So, the Khmer Rouge are blocking the dope flow and the arms flow,” Eddie said. “Wonder if the arms are payment for the dope.”
He looked at the name on the message, KAM SEIP, and then looked it up on the map. No, it can’t be the same, he thought. He checked his briefing notes on the covert missions Big Jake was leading into Cambodia and found the target named KAM SEIP.
He quickly sent out a message to John Slaughter at NKP. “ARMS SHIPMENTS TO HMONG BLOCKED ON MEKONG AND SE KHONG. SUCCESSFUL AIR STRIKES LAST NIGHT. ARMS SHOULD AGAIN FLOW. KAM SEIP BOMBED. WHAT WAS AT KAM SEIP? NO REASON GIVEN. REQUEST INFO ON BRICK SHIPMENTS SOUTH AND OTHER PERTINENT INFO. EDDIE DONEVANT EYES ONLY.”
Ray told Eddie he had an EYES ONLY message at the Comm Center. Eddie picked up the message from John Slaughter.
“HMONG MOVING BRICK OPIUM DOWN RIVER TO SAIGON IN EXCHANGE FOR MONEY AND ARMS. KAM SEIP WAS A CAMBODIAN NARCOTICS POLICE HQ. HMONG PROVIDING INTEL TO CIA IN SAIGON AND TO THAI INTEL. AIR STRIKES PROBABLY AUTHORITY OF CIA, SAIGON. HMONG HAVE REQUESTED AIR SUPPORT IN THE PAST THRU CIA ON COMMUNISTS AND NARCOTICS POLICE. SE KHONG AIR BASE ATTACK ON NEW YEAR’S DAY WAS AT THE REQUEST OF HMONG THRU CIA SAIGON BECAUSE OF MIG ATTACKS ON THEIR SUPPLY BASES AND RIVER BOATS.
“CIA IS STILL WORKING AMONG HMONG RESISTANCE IN SOUTHERN LAOS AND EASTERN CAMBODIAN HILL COUNTRY. THIS IS R-1 STUFF. JOHN.”
Later that morning Eddie and Ray picked up Jake and the three of them went to a meeting in Colonel Suwit’s office. They all read the messages.
“Looks like CIA is back running dope again,” Eddie said. “And this time they’re calling in air strikes on friendlies.”
“I thought they were out of business,” Jake said.
“Not exactly,” Ray explained. “CIA replaced their people in Bangkok and Saigon. The narcs never were able to identify the spooks in the field. Their clandestine covers are as diplomats, foreign citizens, missionaries, press, and who knows what all. All CIA gave up was their small field offices where DIA was on hand to assume their duties, and their Air America operation.”
“So, they just shifted from air smuggling to land and river smuggling,” Jake concluded.
“Not exactly,” Colonel Suwit said. “And it may not be entirely their doing. Hmong provide us with much of our good intelligence in the mountains. But those most adept at smuggling information are also most adept at smuggling other illegal items.”
“If their hands are so clean, then why not just trade intel for arms?” Eddie asked.
“Dope money buys arms and ammo above what they are given by your government, plus other essential items and small luxuries they would not otherwise receive. The route that moves Communist equipment down the trail also moves drugs. And the Hmong use the same road and river network to move arms and purchased items back north.”
“But they had us bomb the Cambodian Narcotics Police Headquarters. We never even questioned the target or the authority to frag these missions,” Eddie said.
“The President authorized the missions,” Ray said.
“The President doesn’t frag targets,” Eddie countered. “This is purely CIA involvement.”
“That’s pure speculation on your part. We can’t prove any of this,” Ray countered.
“Ray, how would you call it, then?”
Colonel Suwit answered. “Hmong supplies the intelligence to the CIA. The CIA up-channels the reports and targets are selected by the Air Force based on our best ability to verify those targets. And the Hmong view anyone who is opposed to them as their enemy. Even those we view as our friends.”
“Sounds like politics to me,” Jake said and scratched his head.
“We’ve got to verify these targets. Our mission is to keep the Communists out,” Eddie said.
“No. Our job is to extract the greatest price we can from them before they finally take over. But we can’t stop them,” Ray said pointedly.
“So, what are we really doing? Helping them deliver opium bricks?”
Colonel Suwit shrugged. “Who knows. We just need to do the best we can with the limited resources and information we have.”
The next night Eddie attended a meeting where battle damage in Cambodia was discussed. A Thai lieutenant colonel was conducting the briefing for Colonel Suwit, with Big Jake looking on.
“What about the Pebble River Station?” Eddie asked. “I received intel that it was
hit last night.”
“They were interfering with Hmong river traffic,” the lieutenant colonel answered.
“Only the southbound opium flow. Not the northbound weapons flow.”
“We were only told of attacks from that station.”
“So, the Cambodian Narcotics Police, which the U.S. government trains and pays, by the way, gets bombed by the Thai Air Force.”
“If you have some quarrel with the targets that are selected, we can discuss it after this briefing.”
“I think we should discuss it now. This message from John Slaughter reports one of his American narcotics teams was just two clicks out from Pebble River Station when it was hit. Nine of the twelve station police were killed.”
“It is not your concern, Lieutenant,” the lieutenant colonel said sharply, with no smile on his face.
“I think we Americans would like to know that we aren’t dropping bombs on our fellow Americans, just as I’m sure your Thai pilots would like to know there are none of their fellow Thai citizens on the targets they’re bombing.”
The lieutenant colonel glared at Eddie.
Colonel Suwit said, “None of these targets are occupied by Americans or other friendlies.”
“He’s got a good point, Colonel,” Jake spoke up. “This is the second night we’ve bombed friendly forces. I won’t have our people in an op that kills friendlies. We need to start challenging these targets before we bomb them.”
“Accidents happen in war, Major.”
“This was no accident, Colonel. And if CIA is fragging the narcotics police, we can give them a taste of their own medicine if they don’t listen to reason.”
Colonel Suwit smiled. “Very radical, Major. But that puts you back to where you refuse to go. Americans bombing Americans.”
“Like you said, Colonel. ‘Accidents happen in war.’”
N.K.P. RTAFB
FEBRUARY 1975
Two days later the heavy storms ended. Reccy flights confirmed reports of heavy river traffic by all sides. Cambodian river gunboats were working up to fifty miles above and below Phnom Penh. To the north Khmer Rouge forces were using river barges to move men and equipment down river. Several clashes were reported between the river barges and the gunboats. Cambodian Air Force T-28 Trojans were called in for bomb and rocket attacks. South of Phnom Penh river supply boats bringing weapons and relief supplies into the city were being attacked by Viet Cong, Khmer Rouge, and river pirates. Most of the Cambodian Air Force helicopter force was used for air support to protect these government supply boats.
The Wrong Side of Honor Page 8
