Resurrection Day

by Brendan DuBois

  Well, Kyle was one of my least-favorite among the advisers (he was one who used the term ‘rice niggers’ a lot) but on this day, he was prophetic. By the time dinner came around, Marines were storming ashore in the biggest amphibious invasion since Inchon in Korea in 1951, and units of the 82nd and 101st Airborne were dropping in and around Havana, trying to secure airfields. Bombs were being dropped on the Cuban missile sites, and our blockade fleet started sinking the Soviet subs that had been shadowing the blockade line. It was strange to see groups of military men sitting around on wicker furniture, fans moving slowly on the high ceiling, as the scratchy and static-filled sounds of the Voice of America described, with the Saigon traffic roaring in the background, a war that was going on thousands of miles away.

  We didn’t talk much, as other advisers and even some South Vietnamese drifted in to see what was going on. There was a lot of cigarette smoking and drawn faces, and though there were some attempts at bravado, I could tell that everybody had the same thoughts: worries about friends in the Army units going in, worries about what was going on at home, worries about what the Soviets would do. And I know that we all shared an anxiety about the fact that we were missing out on a major war, a war that promised promotions and decorations and real combat experience, instead of this penny-ante adviser crap of teaching soldiers how not to shoot one another, and how to go through the bush without sounding like a herd of elephants.

  It just goes to show you the tenor of the times: we were so confident in ourselves and so ignorant of what was about to happen that we didn’t realize just how lucky we were.

  Sometime on Monday night, as a late dinner was being eaten around the shortwave, the strained, panicked voice of the announcer came through: Soviet units on the ground in Cuba were putting up a ferocious fight, and small-scale, tactical nuclear weapons had been used against our landing forces and Navy support vessels.

  Even now, with the benefit of some years between that moment and the present, I can’t adequately express the shock and dismay and horror that we all felt. It was something like a ‘quiet panic.’ The nuclear genie had been let out of the bottle, for the first time in a war since 1945, and events over the next couple of days cascaded, as one bulletin after another came at us like a full punch to the stomach. Not many of our little group left that room. We smoked and drank and ate a little, some of us caught catnaps on the floor, and every couple of hours, someone would cry quietly into his hands, or one of us would raise our voice, looking to fight with somebody, anybody. Our Vietnamese counterparts were there with us as well, and they had their own selfish sense of horror, I suppose, that their enormous friend and ally was now in a fight for its life, and the problems of this little country were off the table.

  The bulletins got worse as each hour went by. When the first nuclear weapons were used in Cuba, our SAC began a response against military targets in the Soviet Union. Our naval forces in the Mediterranean clashed with Soviet ships. Soviet troops were marching into West Berlin. Cuba was in chaos, with no real news coming out of that burning island. Late one night Kennedy came on the air, speaking to the nation and the world, and we could hardly make out the words through the static and interference. He was offering an immediate armistice and stand-down, a summit meeting, trade concessions, anything and everything to stop the war, to stop the war from hitting America. Even through the static, over the thousands of miles, we could hear the panic in his voice.

  ‘Goddam Ivy League Harvard boy,’ one of my fellow advisers said. ‘If he hadn’t fucked up at the Bay of Pigs last year, none of this would be happening.’ There were nods and shouts of agreement at that.

  We listened closer to the radio, trying to find out what Kennedy would say, but it was too late. At least two or three of the Soviet medium-range missiles in Cuba had become operational, and we heard that Omaha—home of the Strategic Air Command—had been struck. With that, I bent my head into my hands and quietly wept, thinking about my sister Sarah.

  Then our naval base in San Diego was bombed—probably by a missile-bearing Soviet submarine—and with our cities under attack, SAC engaged in a full, retaliatory response, and the news of those attacks on the cities of the Soviet Union made us nauseous. At some point—I don’t remember exactly when—the Voice of America went off the air. After several long minutes of dial twisting, we got a signal from the BBC, and that’s when we learned that for the second time in its history Washington, DC, had been attacked by an enemy force. But there was no romantic story of Dolly Madison racing through the White House to secure valuable paintings and documents in front of the advancing British. Just the numb horror when we realized that Kennedy and Jackie and Caroline and John-John and Bobby Kennedy and most of the Cabinet and Congress and the Pentagon and the Smithsonian and the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Monument and the Lincoln Memorial had been melted away by a weapon as hot as the interior of the sun, and that as we sat in this little lounge in a city at the outpost of the American empire, millions of our countrymen were dying.

  Numb. We were drunk and tired and numb, and we didn’t even stir much when word came of the New York City attack and the near miss on Manhattan, and the tens of thousands who were killed trying to escape from that island. But it was the destruction of another island that made the horror hit home. The British announcer, in listing the known cities destroyed in the Soviet Union and the United States, also mentioned offhandedly that the US. military bases at Key West had been hit by Soviet warheads, and that the entire island had been blasted down to bedrock and was covered by the ocean.

  Kyle Secord leapt from his chair, screaming, his hair disheveled, his face unshaven, and just a bit drunk. ‘Momma! Murleen! Oh, my girls!’

  A couple of us made toward him and he turned away, eyes wide. ‘You stay away! All of you. You stay away!’ In one hand he held his Colt .45 Army-issue automatic, and his hand was shaking as he waved it around. ‘You stay away, all of you!’

  So we did, following him in a half circle as he went to the door that led outside and then ran down the middle of Hang Quo Street, dodging past motor scooters, bicycles, and cabs, screaming and waving his hand in the air. We followed, too, wanting to help him but also feeling a sense of relief that we were finally doing something, anything. Kyle stopped, bare-foot and partially in uniform, staggering and retching and crying all at the same time.

  ‘Momma, oh my momma,’ he screamed, his voice high-pitched and howling. ‘Oh, my Murleen...All dead…’

  ‘Come on, Kyle,’ one of his buddies said, a guy named Pope, and edged closer to him. ‘Give it up, buddy. Just give it up.’

  Kyle stood in the middle of the intersection, a mass of Vietnamese people gathering around, looking to see what this crazy white man was doing. Horns were honking and there were sirens, and Kyle wavered, saying, ‘Give it up? Give it up? Jesus, Pope, you’re so fuckin’ right.’

  And with that, Kyle put the barrel of the .45 in his mouth and blew off the top of his head.

  After Kyle’s body was finally taken away, I couldn’t stand the thought of going back to that lounge. I was suddenly exhausted and sick to my stomach. Like every other American in Saigon, I got to a phone and tried to get an overseas line, but everything was hopelessly jammed. I tried to put Sarah out of my mind. I just hoped and prayed that she had found shelter, or had been out of Omaha when it had been struck. My parents were in Newburyport, far away from Boston if that city ever became a target, but I worried about the Portsmouth Navy Shipyard and Pease Air Force Base, further up the coast in New Hampshire. I was hoping my parents had the sense to either be in the basement or in a car, heading west into rural Massachusetts. I couldn’t get a phone line overseas, so I went back to my quarters and, still dressed and fairly drunk, collapsed on my bed.

  I had some bad dreams that night. I wish I could forget them.

  Sometime on Thursday morning, I heard pounding on my door and I got up, bleary and nauseous, my legs weak and shaky, and one of my compatriots was there. Al Ric
hter, from Idaho. ‘Better get ready, we’re leaving.’

  ‘What do you mean, we’re leaving?’ I asked.

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘The war,’ he said. ‘It’s over. We’re all going home, first flight out.’

  I had trouble getting dressed, but I made it back to the lounge, where some of the other advisers looked like they had never left. The air was sick with the smell of sweat and fear, and on the radio was a man’s voice, the very first time I had ever heard him through a speaker, Air Force General Ramsey Curtis, Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His voice was strong and calm and confident, and he sounded like a very concerned surgeon who told you that you were desperately ill, and that he would do everything possible to make you better. He talked plain and to the point. The Cuban War was over, the shortest and bloodiest war in American history. Surviving American military units had been pulled out of Cuba, and he offered to assist the United Nations in providing relief to the civilians still alive in Cuba. He had managed to reach an armistice agreement with a Marshal Sergei Lavenkov of the Strategic Rocket Forces, the highest surviving authority—either military or civilian—left alive in what was left of the Soviet Union.

  ‘My heart is heavy, my fellow citizens, as I inform you that President Kennedy and his family, Vice President Johnson, and many of the Cabinet and members of Congress perished in the attack on our capital,’ General Curtis said. ‘Until the question of succession is cleared and a new president is sworn in, I have assumed emergency—and temporary—command of our military and federal agencies.’

  Later, we would learn that it would take weeks to locate the highest surviving Cabinet officer—Secretary of the Treasury Dillon—and swear him into his new office.

  The country had suffered grievously. Curtis made mention of Omaha, San Diego, Miami, Washington, New York City, and a few—unnamed for national security reasons—military bases. Civilians were urged to stay tuned to their local radio stations, to learn of fallout conditions in their areas. Civilian casualties were horrific, with the numbers—though he never actually mentioned one—certain to climb. He made only passing mention of the destruction that we had rained down on the Soviet Union, saying only that the ‘aggressors had paid a steep price.’ Martial law had been declared, all National Guard and military reserve units activated. More news to follow on relief and recovery efforts. And there was one more stunning announcement.

  ‘I am also ordering today that all overseas U.S. military forces, no matter where they are stationed and what their mission, return forthwith to this country, to aid in our relief and recovery efforts,’ he said, his voice now tinged with resentment. ‘During this terrible war, where we took on the free world’s mantle of leadership, we have quickly learned that—to our dreadful surprise—we stood alone. Not a single one of our allies responded militarily at this time of need. Not a single one. My fellow citizens, we have spent dearly in treasure and blood to defend this world from an aggressor nation. We have paid the price. We paid it alone. It is now time for us to come home and rebuild.’

  I looked over at Al Richter, who was smoking a cigar and he caught my eye and said, ‘NATO collapsed, the moment the Russians used nukes on our landing forces. Can’t really blame ‘em. Do you think the Prime Minister of England is going to see London destroyed because of some pissant sugar cane of a country?’

  ‘Why not,’ came a sour voice from the other side of the room. ‘Kennedy and his boys sure as hell did.’

  General Curtis signed off and then we heard more news, news directed to a domestic audience. Where to go to seek shelter. Which counties in California, Nebraska, Iowa, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut were exposed to fallout danger. How to build a fallout shelter in your basement. I left the lounge, went back to my quarters and packed, and found myself surprised at how little I had to bring back with me. My clothes, some photographs, a few books and personal belongings, and that was it. Not much to show for my time there. Later that night a bus came by for us and we fought our way through traffic to Ton Son Nhut airport, where just over a week ago I had stood in the broiling sun as the bodies of three soldiers went home to die last few days of a peaceful country.

  We were processed in a hangar while helicopters came in from some of the fire support bases out in the bush, bringing with them some of the advisers that had been stationed out with ARVN camps. There was a low roar of talking and rumors spread, about China invading India, American embassies overseas being burned to the ground, and American tourists in Europe being arrested. I tried to ignore what they said. The real news was bad enough. Some of the Vietnamese, taking advantage of what was going on, started looting some of the warehouses and the MPs gave up trying to keep a semblance of order. Like all of us, they just wanted to go home. As I went to get some water while waiting for my assigned flight, there was a tug at my elbow. I turned and it was Nguyen Van Minh. His eyes were red-rimmed and watering, but his uniform was as sharp and clean as ever.

  ‘I wish to say good-bye to you, Sergeant Landry,’ he said, formally shaking my hand. ‘You are a good man. You taught us well.’

  I thanked him and said I appreciated him coming to the airport.

  ‘Ah, but that is the honorable thing to do.’ He looked around at the mass of people in the hangar, the crates of supplies and gear piled up and abandoned, the swearing soldiers, the loudspeakers blaring announcements. ‘I am very sorry for the losses you have suffered. Your nation has been a good friend to us. I hope truly that you and your brethren will return.’

  Maybe I was tired or cranky, but I confess I wasn’t that hopeful. I said it was doubtful, that we had more than enough work to do back home.

  He nodded, eyes still watering. ‘Home. Of course.’ He looked around again. ‘With you leaving, I am fearful for my own home. I wonder what will happen to our government, to the Viet Cong and the North. I wonder what they will do and it fears me so.’

  I didn’t know what to say, and he stood and saluted. ‘Good luck to you, Sergeant. And please do not forget us, no matter what you do.’

  I saluted him back and he turned and I lost him in the crowd. I never heard from him again. A month or so after we evacuated, the Saigon government collapsed and the North invaded. A new government of reconciliation was established a year or so later, headed by Ho Chi Minh. I think they may still call themselves communist or socialist, but the Japanese and French are back there now, investing and making markets for their respective goods, and I hope Nguyen Van Minh is doing well.

  A couple of hours after Minh departed, it was my turn to leave, and I walked across the tarmac with a single carry-on bag, which was the only luggage that was allowed. There had been some cursing and complaining about that, but the cargo holds of the aircraft were being filled with food and medical supplies. Piles of luggage had been dumped on the runway and young Vietnamese children were busily looting them. I was quite lucky, having been assigned to a Chilian Boeing 707 that was under contract to the military. Some of the other units flew home in unheated military transports, sitting in seats made of canvas webbing.

  I looked back at Saigon one last time. It was early evening and the lights were coming on, and the heat and the smoke and the humidity seemed to sink right into my pores. I almost laughed as I entered the plane. My parents’ prayers had been answered. They had asked that I would leave South Vietnam alive and well, and that was coming true. I’m not sure, though, that they ever realized the price that would be paid to fulfill those prayers.

  The flight back was long and dull. The stewardesses did their best but you could tell they were fighting back tears and tremors. Some of us tried to get information from them, about things back home, but they had come from Hawaii and didn’t know much. There hadn’t been much time to stock the galley, so for the sixteen-hour flight back across the Pacific, all we had to drink was water, and we had one meal, consisting of an apple and a peanut butter sandwich. More grumb
les about that but I think no one would have grumbled had they known that this was going to be one of the best meals they would eat in the next few months.

  We refueled in Hawaii and weren’t allowed to get off the plane. Just land and fuel up and that was it. We took turns stretching our legs, walking up and down the aisles, looking out the small windows. ‘Look at all the traffic,’ someone said with awe, and it was true. Military transport aircraft of all types were landing and taxiing and refueling and taking off, all heading east, to the continental United States.

  ‘Take a good look, boys,’ an Army captain with a day-old growth of beard and tired eyes said. ‘All those planes are bringing troops and supplies home from Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea, Australia . . . We’re abandoning the Pacific to God knows who, and you can tell your grandchildren that you saw the collapse of the American empire.’

  After takeoff we headed east and some of us tried to sleep but the closer we got to the West Coast, the more everyone started to talk. We wondered what was waiting for us, what would be going on, and what we would do. A few of the younger soldiers were cocky, saying stuff like, ‘Well, we took our licks but we survived. At least we nuked the Reds and those bastards are taken care of, forever. Just you see. A year or two from now we’ll be back, stronger and better than ever. We’re a strong country. It takes more than just a couple of Russian bombs to change that. You’ll see.’