Derrie simply just rolled his eyes. Here they go again. It was like a roller-coaster ride with Francine Steele! How does he get off this ride? Does he want to get off this ride? He thought he’d jump from it last time, leap from it and into a marriage without thinking and only thinking about Francine and then purposely avoiding her by getting out of California and moving to Indiana because of her. Oh hell, why was she here again? She looked absolutely amazing. Her hair was tied back with a silk scarf exposing her beautiful face and she wore mascara now, something she never used to wear which caused her lovely brown eyes to glow. Oh hell, why was she here again? “Listen to me Francine and listen well,” he remarked, rolling his eyes one last time. “We can’t keep doing this to each other.”
“But—”
“No Fran! I won’t let you into my head anymore!”
“But Derrie, please, I—”
“No Fran! Every time I see you, every time I’m near you…I want to…”
“You want to…what?”
“Kiss you.”
Southeast Asia, Vietnam
In the summer of 1963, South Vietnam was in turmoil as the Buddhist minority and the Catholic majority clashed over religious freedoms and political control. The American media smuggled stories and film out of the country to cover such news.
On November 1, 1963, General Duong Van Minh staged a coup and a brief confrontation around the presidential palace. The generals took control through Diem and his brother fled to the Chinese quarter of Saigon. Both men were executed and exactly three weeks after the coup in Saigon, which was supported and authorized, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
As a new government formed in South Vietnam, headed by General Van Minh, a new administration took over in Washington. The change in Saigon was supposed to solve the problems and the change in Washington command became increasingly difficult situation in Southeast Asia. Rumors began to spread through South Vietnam that Minh and his colleagues were actually formulating plans for a coalition with the Communists and were almost ready for the transition. This was totally unacceptable in Washington. The reputation of the United States as an anti-Communist world power was at stake. The United States was to merely fly reconnaissance missions over the North to report enemy points and areas of enemy troop buildup. However, the destroyer USS Maddox was attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats while on patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin. Two days later, six patrol boats assaulted the Maddox and the USS Turner Joy and American aircraft retaliated by striking against the North Vietnamese naval installations destroying twenty-five vessels. With the loss of these crews, the story was released to the press. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was reported as an unprovoked attack on American vessels for which the navy retaliated. President Johnson immediately made the most of the situation, producing the Southeast Asian Resolution, better known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
This document was to become the key to the American involvement in Southeast Asia. The Resolution, carefully worded, was not an actual declaration of war, but made the United States an aid to an ally which was defending itself from external forces.
From July through September 1965, the influx of American combat troops continued with the 1st Infantry Division, the 101st Airborne Division and the 1st Cavalry Division all arriving. America was no longer limited to simply support and advise South Vietnam, but assumed a prominent combat role and although never declared, America was at war.
The first Marines landed on the beaches near Da Nang in March 1965 and the soldiers were in action against the Viet Cong (the “VC”). This first large-scale American military involvement marked the end of the advisory period in Vietnam. By July 1965, more than 65,000 United States troops were in South Vietnam. Key American advisories were determined to defend the South and believed in bombing the North and targeted bridges, railroads, highways, airfields, power plants and factories. Despite the damage, the Hanoi government continued its war effort and kept the supply chain to the VC flowing.
The U.S. military had advanced weaponry and powerful aircraft, but fighting in Vietnam required foot soldiers on patrol. Small groups of soldiers walked through dangerous areas known to have Communist activity. They patrolled rural villages where their occupants wanted protection from the VC, but in these situations, patrols were often watched by hidden VC waiting for a chance to strike. Most patrols were sent out on reconnaissance and were usually in platoons with company strength of 20-100 men and went on short distances. Patrols were often exposed to surprise attacks, especially as they entered forests, approached villages or crossed open fields.
More American casualties were sustained from terror tactics like sniper attacks and booby traps than in set battles. When search and destroy missions did locate the enemy it was usually in ambush, with the Americans in an extremely poor position and outside the immediate support of other units.
The VC was skilled at laying ambushes for approaching patrols. They hid in trees, in fields, in haystacks and even underground. They often struck from all sides with gunfire and grenades. The leading man of the patrol was in particular danger from a surprise attack. If outnumbered, ambushers would soon melt into the countryside. If superior in force, they would try to wipe out the patrol before their air support arrived.
The Vietnamese began digging tunnels during the first Indochina war. These were used as bomb shelters and places for anti-French guerrillas to hide weapons. Tunneling continued during the Vietnam War in Communist-controlled areas of South Vietnam. Guerrilla fighters and their supporters lived for long periods underground in complex tunnel systems. The largest networks included sleeping rooms, kitchens, ammunition depots, hospitals and meeting halls. Allied forces sent courageous volunteers armed only with pistols and knives into the tunnels to find out if they were being used.
Vietnamese peasants in the countryside lived much like their ancestors. The VC fighters depended on support from the villagers and threatened those who did not cooperate with them. The U.S. and ARVN (Army of the Republic of South Vietnam) troops, ordered villagers not to aid the VC. Peasants tried to carry on with their farming, but soldiers on both sides often punished them for helping the opposition. In 1968, the U.S. troops massacred hundreds of civilians in the village of My Lai. When the news reached the United States, Americans began to turn against the war.
By 1968, many Americans were against their government’s involvement in Vietnam. That year, more than 20,000 antiwar demonstrators marched in Washington, and as the war worsened, opposition increased and demonstrations grew in size and anger. Hundreds of performers and political leaders spoke out against the war. President Johnson was so troubled by the widespread antiwar movement that he chose not to run for re-election in 1968. Hostility caused clashes between Americans for and against the war and in 1970, several college students were killed when soldiers in Ohio and police in Mississippi shot protestors. President Nixon pressed the military for “Vietnamization” (meaning: U.S. policy to turn over the fighting to the South Vietnamese Army; this policy was established by President Nixon late in the war, during the withdrawal of American troops) this meant improved training and arming the South’s military which was to take a larger role in defending their country. Nixon hoped to limit U.S. casualties, but bloody battles continued. Many U.S. soldiers became angry with the Nixon administration for sending them into action while the military was gradually leaving Vietnam. The withdrawal of U.S. forces (which numbered 543,000) by that spring began to withdraw.
As U.S. troop strength in Vietnam increased, younger men were drafted for service there, and many of those still at home sought means of avoiding the draft. 9.2 million men served in the military between 1964 and 1975. Nearly 3.5 million men served in the Vietnam through operations. From a pool of approximately 27 million, the draft raised 2,215,000 men for military service during the Vietnam era. It has also been credited with "encouraging" many of the 8.7 million "volunteers" to join rather than risk being drafted. Of the nearly 16 million men not enga
ged in active military service, 96% were exempted (typically because of jobs including other military service), deferred (usually for educational reasons), or disqualified (usually for physical and mental deficiencies but also for criminal records to include draft violations). Draft offenders in the last category numbered nearly 500,000 but less than 10,000 were convicted or imprisoned for draft violations. Finally, as many as 100,000 draft eligible males fled the country.
During 1965 and 1975, more than 660 U.S. servicemen were taken prisoners of war (“POW’s”) and a few were held as long as nine years with some even escaping. 470 were held in North Vietnam—many were abused, and others tortured. Another 260 were in jungle detention camps in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. In early 1973, Operation Homecoming airlifted former U.S. POW’s back to the U.S. soil and 591 POW’s had returned. Nixon soon assured the nation that everyone was freed, but some 2,400 men were still missing in action or (“MIA”) and still remain unaccounted for.
California, 1971
Suzy was on the phone when Ray snuck in through the bathroom window to see her. Suzy didn’t see him when Ray comes up behind her and playfully tickles her side.
“Um…I have to go…yeah, uh-huh, talk to you later,” she said quickly to the other party on the phone and then hung up the receiver. “Ray?”
“Hey baby,” he cajoled, coming in for a cuddle.
“I thought we agreed to take it slow,” Suzy said, walking away from his open arms. “What are you doing here? How’d you get in?”
“Came in through the bathroom window, you know, like the Beatle’s song?”
Suzy didn’t think it was funny. “Ray, my dad; things are finally going good between us now that mom’s moved out. I don’t want to mess that up.”
“Yeah, I know baby, but I missed ya!” He wheedled, stepping into her space and reaching out to rub his hand through her hair and then touching her face with his thumb.
“Oh Ray, this scares me,” Suzy said, stiffening up. She still wasn’t quite sure about them rekindling their romance. Thanksgiving Day still held some pretty devastating aftermath.
“Why?”
“Because we really need to take things slow,” she reacted, turning away from him.
“I’ll go slow…I promise.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Suzy decided, thinking that maybe tonight wasn’t such a good night for anything.
“But baby, I missed you so much,” he coaxed, opening up his arms to her.
Suzy closed her mouth and thought about their little girl sleeping in the other room. She would miss her daddy…she already missed her daddy and maybe they should get back together for their daughter’s sake. It had to be different, it just had to, and maybe he had learned his lesson now that she had stopped talking to him for almost a year. And she hadn’t had sex just as long, and it was such a stupid choice to think of sex at this uncertain moment, but she did miss him in that aspect. They always had great chemistry in bed. Giving in, she smiled and walked into his open embrace. “Me too.”
Suzy’s bare bosoms underneath her T-shirt pressed against his chest and Ray lifted her head up to gently place a kiss on her lips. When Suzy gave in completely, she grabbed his body fierce and he in turn captured her body to his and opened her mouth up to his passion.
The next morning, Stephen was passing Suzy’s room on his way to his when he heard his granddaughter crying behind the closed door. He knocked a couple of times; no answer. Knocked again, only this time, harder; no answer. “Suzy?”
Cassie’s cries got louder and louder. He looked down at his watch: Ten-thirty. “Suzy…the baby’s crying…Suzy?” He knocked one last time and then the door creaked open by itself; slowly opening up to expose his daughter, half-naked sprawled out on the bed face down. “Oh my God!” Stephen ran over to his daughter and patted her face with his hand. “Suzy? Wake up honey, wake up,” he asked anxiously, noticing the small blood stain on the bed sheets beside her. Rolling her body over now, there was a considerable amount of blood dripping down the front of her face as well. “Oh my God!” He quickly gazed around the room—it was empty. There was only a T-shirt stained with blood next to her head and a broken trophy on the floor. A fear spread through to his skin, “Suzy, wake up…wake up Suzy, wake up…Oh God, Suzy…”
Nancy sat beside her daughter at the hospital. Tubes stuck out from everywhere as Suzy’s heart beat timely on a nearby heart monitor.
Nancy couldn’t understand why her beautiful daughter would want a husband that treated her like that. Then she thought of her own situation and the years that she tolerated Stephen’s abuse albeit verbal, mentally or physically. But how could she have thought that Ray had changed? Stephen never did…Nor did Ray and recalled the night of Thanksgiving when he had harmed Suzy. Nancy eyed Suzy’s lifeless body again and remembered when she was little and growing up. She was so beautiful and Nancy oftentimes took exception to her because she was so beautiful. It was her own face that looked back at her. It was sometimes scary to see herself young and in another body walking around their home and Nancy occasionally hated the fact that Suzy’s life was just beginning and it reminded her of all the times she wasn’t able to freely choose her own path. But no matter what, no mother wanted this particular outcome even if she was a little resentful. No mother wanted to lose a child! Was it something that she did? Was she being finally punished for loving another man who wasn’t her husband?
That night, Suzy lapsed into an irreversible coma, and just ten hours after Suzy was brought into the hospital…she died.
*****
Two weeks later at the arraignment, Ray was on the stand being cross-examined by an attorney.
“I don’t know what happened,” he cried, wiping some tears that genuinely fell out of his eyes.
“And you still claim that your wife’s death was an accident?” The attorney claimed without a hint of emotion.
“It was an accident!” Ray shouted out suddenly.
“Then in your own words Mr. Ashford, please tell the judge what happened that night of Suzette Ashford’s death.”
Ray turned to look at the judge and cleared his throat before saying, “We started talking about living together again. She said she wanted to go slow and I agreed…to go slow. She asked me first if I had been with anyone else since we separated and I told her the truth. And when I asked her if she’d been with anyone else, she said no and I knew that she had been lying. At first, I just yelled at her because I knew through a friend of mine that she’d been cheating on me, then I got real upset,” he whimpered now, cupping his hands to his face. “I grabbed the first thing I could get a hold of…I grabbed her trophy, her Daffodil Queen trophy and I threw it. I wasn’t aiming, I swear! I was just upset,…and the next thing I knew, I was watching her fall to the floor.”
Ray stopped to take a quick look at the Steele family all looking his way. They all sat in silence and were unaffected by his predicament. He continued through sobs, “She was on the ground and ran to her immediately, she was bleeding and I pulled my T-shirt over my head to see if I could stop the blood, but too much was coming out. I knew everyone would accuse me of the worst and I got scared, that’s all. I got scared. I climbed back out the window.” He then tried to solicit compassion from Francine and continued to speak directly to her. “I never meant to hurt her, you must believe that. I love Suzy…I’ve always loved Suzy.” Ray then cupped his hands fully around his face, clearly in anguish.
The Steele family all stare back at him. Not one of them shows any emotion…not one, but Francine. She was holding back tears, but grief so strong beat them out of her eyes. She did believe him. She understood that love now. That love that tested your resistance and she couldn’t really blame him for loving her sister as much as he probably still did.
Suzy’s death was determined accidental and Ray was released immediately. A couple of weeks later, he packed his belongings and took Cassie to New Haven to live with his grandmother again.
In Lovin
g Memory
At Suzy’s funeral ceremony at the cemetery, Nancy pulled a rose away from the coffin as she watched it being lowered into the ground and then blessed by the priest.
Magnet & Steele Page 15
