The transport ship arrived in the harbor city of Danang, and the next day we switched to a tank landing ship to reach Chu Lai. This was where the combined forces of the US military command were based; on its outskirts were the US Army’s Americal Division. One of that division’s platoons, under the command of Lieutenant William Calley, would later be responsible for the My˜ Lai massacre. The first thing that greeted us was the hot, humid air of the tropics and the deep, ominous green of the jungle.
The American base, built on sandy coastal fields, formed a huge city of its own. As we made landfall, I gazed in awe at the mountains of scrap metal. Bombshells, broken equipment, and empty ration cans lay in rusting piles everywhere, and dark wisps of smoke rose all around from burning food waste and feces from latrines.
On my first night in Vietnam, I saw from the ship the many lights of another Asia across the darkness: not the lights shining from house windows but searchlights, flares, exploding bombs, and helicopters endlessly taking off or landing. I sat on a hanging chain on the deck like it was a swing, calming the edge of expectation and excitement in my heart, sensing the cries and pain of that unknown land being carried to me on the waves. At dawn, when the unfamiliar sun rose from the sea, the first thing I smelled on the wind was not salt or the scent of the jungle but gasoline.
~
The route from the military harbor in Chu Lai, past the American base to the navy brigade command, was Vietnam’s Highway 1. This is a long road running north and south, connecting Saigon and Hanoi. On either side were thick jungles with sparse clusters of interconnected villages and towns.
Armed transport vehicles raised dust in front of and behind us, while we in the middle truck carried our rifles loaded and pointed at the jungle. After unpacking my things in our temporary billet at brigade headquarters, I lay awake all night, unable to sleep amid the ear-piercing din of bombings and endless machine-gun fire coming from somewhere nearby.
War and poor villages had been familiar to me since I was little. It was probably the same for any Korean soldier around my age. There wasn’t much difference between the farming villages in the country that we’d left behind and the hamlets dotting the jungles of Vietnam, but the ubiquitous rice paddies above all, the sight of planting and harvesting, would have reminded us of our families and neighbors back home. The new arrivals were sent off to their new regiments and assigned by their battalion into companies and platoons. According to rumor, a rookie private could become part of an advance detachment after six months if he managed to survive his first three months without incident. No unit left their men on the front for more than eight months. If a tour of duty lasted ten months, at least the last two of those months would be spent at a “cushion” (encampment) at the company or battalion base. But most newbies died in the first three months or were shipped out, giving rise to the superstition that “if you make it past a hundred days, you’ll make it out.”
In any case, you couldn’t forget that whenever a superior asked you anything, you had to answer with a smart “Yes, sir! I will see to it!”
We were getting our assignments when an officer looking through our personnel files called some of us out separately. He was picking soldiers who’d had a college education. When it was my turn, I went up and stood to attention in front of the desk where he and a sergeant sat side by side. They asked me about my studies before demanding, in an almost accusatory tone, whether I spoke any English.
“Yes, sir! I will see to it!”
He wrote something down in my file and motioned with his chin for me to go outside. I joined a group of soldiers who had already finished their interview, standing around and whispering together. The men here were said to be headed for either dispatch positions with the American troops, or liaison positions at headquarters. The work could include coordination with the Americans concerning firepower and radio helicopter support, detachment at an American unit that supported Korean troops, or reassignment altogether into the American military. These roles encompassed everyone from infantry to drivers and cooks; it was said that if you were lucky, you might not even see another Korean until you were back from your tour.
Everyone said I was medium-lucky when they learned I was headed for the Chu Lai base. The worst position was assisting the American troops’ signalman, and the best were in places far from the fighting, like the US Air Force or Navy divisions.
I will never forget how I lost my way while searching for my new unit after being put on patrol duty. I didn’t know where to go and was wandering around the docks where everyone was busy offloading the ships. I was wearing my still new-looking jungle-colored uniform that still had its clear stripes and carried an M-1 rifle hanging loosely from my shoulder, a weapon that was already a relic from World War II. I was also dragging an old-fashioned duffel bag filled with provisions. I poked around the boxes near the A-ration warehouses. Sweat poured from under my helmet down my forehead and temples, and I kept having to hitch up the straps that slid from my shoulders.
An American soldier who had been watching me came up and asked if he could help. I stuttered out the name of my division, and he smiled and said this was a warehouse and my unit was very far away. Lights were already beginning to come on around me, and soldiers carrying canteen cups and frying pans were heading for the mess hall. The American soldier kindly went out of his way to make some phone calls and got a car to come for me.
In the meantime, he let me wait inside the checkpoint. I remember thinking as I sat there that I might never see home again. When the American soldier heard that it was only my fourth day, he gave a low whistle. This young man with chestnut-brown hair said I reminded him of himself a year ago.
My job was to support the American road patrol. The Korean sergeant in charge of our team led six people, including myself, which was not even half of a full squad. In shifts, we patrolled the roads around the base, directed traffic, and inspected the safety of the guardhouses and bridges every hour. The region I was responsible for was Highway 1, the farthest away and most dangerous. Every day I shuttled back and forth from the base at Chu Lai past the navy brigade headquarters to Quảng Ngãi. Wearing plastic goggles that sagged over my nose, I directed the parade of heavy equipment and armored vehicles, tanks, and caravans to safe roads. Every day, during the early hours, we slowly inspected the roads with the help of a search squad and a mine detector, crossing with the other team who came from the opposite direction. In the afternoons, along with two American patrol soldiers, we sat in the back seat armed with 30 mm machine guns and made the round trip on Highway 1. We received POWs from teams that patrolled the hamlets, transported Vietnamese civilian informants, and closed roads and contacted the engineers when we found buried booby traps. In the evenings, my exposed arms and neck and the parts of my face not covered by goggles would be covered in red dust. I once scraped it together, out of curiosity, and ended up with a lump the size of a walnut. The threat of death was always close. I faced death more directly during later missions, but even around Highway 1, my continued survival was a daily miracle.
On my patrol route, near Bình Sơn, was a little store where I would stop by for a Coke, just to get away from the heat. That day, I asked for a wet towel to wipe my face, drank my ice-cold Coke, and had just left when I heard an explosion behind me. A plume of smoke was rising from the store. We carefully turned our car around, readied our rifles, and approached. Half the structure was gone, and there were bodies lying everywhere. The injured lay twisting and screaming. Someone had fired a single shot with a short-range rocket launcher before quickly retreating. They had clearly targeted, in broad daylight, a store frequented by the American military.
The fact that the Americans came to say that “any Vietnamese civilian walking around on two feet is an enemy” testified to how they’d conceded early on that this was an unwinnable war. Around that time, all of Vietnam was declared a free-fire zone by the US Army General William Westmoreland.
There were two kinds of US p
atrol drivers: those who drove at reckless speed over bumpy unpaved roads and those who crouched over their steering wheels, shoulders tense, slowly making their way. It didn’t matter whether you drove fast or slow over a booby trap; once it exploded, you were dead. Still, it was true you were more likely to survive if you drove at top speed through an ambush or over a mine with a command wire. This was why we’d get into arguments with slow drivers and get out of their truck to go ride in another.
Heavy-hearted days that turned into sleepless nights usually started with bad news from home, or sightings of women or boy soldiers in the POW camp, or stumbling across signs of mass killings in the narrow paths through the jungle, or transporting the corpses of our men in the back of our patrol vehicle. What bothered me the most, though, was the pressure coming from the staff sergeant of the dispatched Korean unit. He ordered me to use a forged card to buy refrigerators and televisions from the PX, and urged me to “plant seeds” within the supply corps, by which he meant sniff around for someone who might be a useful contact for him. He disciplined us by making us crawl across the sand every morning, destroying our morale. We felt deeply inferior compared to the American troops. Every day I regretted not being an officer and not having volunteered for combat duty.
The mobile company’s main role was to patrol the base and its environs and secure the roads, but it also connected the Korean and South Vietnamese troops, making it a de facto part of the American contingent. Vietnamese patrollers, therefore, were among us. They usually accompanied Americans on their patrols around the villages near the base. There was an airstrip on the beach, protected from easy invasion, our quarters were within the airstrip grounds, and guards were posted at the wire fence and watchtower outside. Further from the airstrip were independent defense zones divided into strategic units where daily ambush and search patrols took place. Nevertheless, the Northern Vietnamese and local guerrillas still managed to infiltrate the villages and strategic zones every day.
One day during the rainy season, enemy troops invaded a swath of territory from downtown Bình Sơn up to the southern edge of Tam Kỳ. This was the first time our transport had been attacked in the middle of Bình Sơn, which included the county seat and POW camp. It was internally guarded by Vietnamese and Korean security companies, with American troops drawing a line of defense on the outskirts.
A unit member who’d been returning from a patrol in Bình Sơn said that they were passing by the market downtown when he saw a crowd of locals gathered in a circle. He parked and they approached with rifles at the ready, to find a Vietnamese soldier being beaten up by a group of youths. Such soldiers were not in the Vietnamese military but were part of a militia of sorts, hastily trained to do police work or guardhouse duties. Neither the Americans nor the Koreans trusted them much. When tasked with guarding the ambush checkpoint, for instance, they often left when they felt like it or snuck off in the middle of the night. Still, such beatings couldn’t be allowed, so the patrolling soldiers broke it up and tried to arrest one of the youths. Unafraid of the Americans and their weapons, the boy shook off his restraints and raced away, and an angered American seemed to have shot a blank. During the subsequent chase to a corner of the market, the locals scattered and hid, and someone began firing an AK-47 from a rooftop. An American soldier, running ahead of the others, was hit. His companions fired back and managed to escape with their injured squad member, carrying him out of the market on their backs. Something about the incident felt ominous, and sure enough, around midnight, guerrillas who’d been hiding out in the houses in town used the distraction to invade and take over the POW camp and county seat. Some of the Koreans were not taken and stood their ground all night, while the company managed to retreat to behind the line of defense and avoid a total rout. But the navy company leader who gave the coordinates and ordered his soldiers to “shoot above my head” died in the battle.
On the same day, I went patrolling in Tam Kỳ. A Vietnamese sergeant named Nguyen went with us, someone whom we teased for having a concubine in every place he worked. Nguyen, unlike his best friend Cao, was a big man and cheerful, easily trading jokes with the Americans. I tended to trust him more than Cao.
Tam Kỳ was the kind of town that sprang up around American bases, a sight common enough in South Korea. Along both sides of the main street were crude houses thrown together from cement blocks and planks that had flowed into the town from the base, along with restaurants, stores selling drinks, souvenir shops, bars, and brothels. This was a small downtown area, not even a kilometer wide, but every shack was stocked with cigarettes, rations, beer cans, and Coca-Cola from the black market. Tam Kỳ was attached to the western side of the base, and across from it was the battalion defense region, making it hard to infiltrate. However, if Tam Kỳ were taken by the enemy, the airstrip would come within the range of rocket launchers, a threat that prompted the authorities to set up barricades on the southern and northern entrances to the road and lock the village in every evening at sundown.
Our daily patrols included slowly cruising up and down the wide road next to the town and watching for irregularities, as well as parking the car somewhere and checking around inside the village. Two patrol units were tasked with this: one manned by the Vietnamese Sergeant Nguyen and two American soldiers, and one by me and two Americans.
Nguyen took the lead and entered a bar, which was empty. Since we were on duty, we only ordered a can of soda water each. Nguyen checked the back and returned looking puzzled. He asked the proprietress where all the girls were. The lady said they were working in a neighboring town, where a big party was being held.
We walked out to the main road again, and Nguyen, after visiting another house, said it was strange how empty the neighborhood was today. Then an auntie from another house smiled and waved at Nguyen, who followed her into the building. When he didn’t reemerge for a long time, one of his American counterparts went in after him. The American came out, cursing and laughing. Nguyen had reunited with an old flame and decided to spend the night in Tam Kỳ. We laughed it off and left Nguyen behind.
That very evening, fighting broke out around Tam Kỳ and went on all night. A call came in the morning, and our patrol unit put on full gear and set out for Tam Kỳ. The village had already been taken by the Americans. Parts of the village had been destroyed and were still smoking, despite the misty rain, from the trench mortars. The streets were littered with bodies, including the corpses of thirty guerrillas who had attempted to invade the battalion defense zone, now displayed at the entrance to the village. They all wore black pajamas, like farmers, and rubber “Ho Chi Minh sandals.” Their weapons and ammunition had been removed, leaving the empty-handed corpses in all sorts of poses. Legless poses, armless or headless poses, relatively neat corpses with only bullet holes, corpses so mangled it was hard to say whether they weren’t just lumps of meat, corpses with half their bodies burned black, corpses with legs and torsos showing blue-black rot from the monsoon rain that had fallen all night. These were things I would keep seeing in my nightmares later in civilian life. What I realized too late was that I did not even feel pity for them. All they were to me were strangely shaped objects.
I did not think of how those youths were Asian, like me, and had their own families and friends and dreams of the future. The American soldiers were even more callous. The white ones especially, who sneered about “yellow bastards” living in huts made of leaves and mud that Americans wouldn’t house their livestock in back home, who ate weird food that smelled worse than garbage—what souls could they possibly possess?
I was later surprised to learn that the word gook, which Americans used to refer to the Vietnamese, originated from Korean—from hanguk, in fact, the Korean word for Korea, or migook, the Korean word for America. It had spread among the Americans during the Korean War. Even now, gook is still used among American troops as a derogatory term for Asians.
We were anxious to know if Nguyen was all right. The other sergeant, Cao,
shook his head as he accompanied us to where we’d last seen him. He told us that the women disappearing from the bars and brothels had been a clear and early sign of what was to come.
The Vietnamese soldiers were already investigating the house. It looked like grenades had been thrown inside: the windows were all shattered and three bodies riddled with bloodstains and shrapnel wounds were lying on the cement floor around a table. They were local Vietnamese security guards, who appeared to have been ambushed while drinking together late at night. Their guns and bulletproof vests were stacked up on a chair right next to them, but they wouldn’t have had a chance to use them. The guerrillas had pulled it off without harming a single one of their own civilians.
Finally, in the backyard, we came upon Nguyen’s body. He was in his underpants. They seemed to have taken turns to stab him, as there were clear bayonet wounds to his back and side. That was only a foretaste of what I would see in this war. Later I served in combat, in body recovery, and witnessed even worse scenes of slaughter.
The Prisoner Page 48
