For the Sake of All Living Things

by John M. Del Vecchio

  By July, the 91st’s mission and tactics had been perfected. “It is better to maim than to kill,” Nang told his fighters. “When useless elements are killed they are soon forgotten, but if they are maimed they are always in the sight of those who oppose us. The maimed drain the enemy’s resources. Their suffering demoralizes the lackey troops who must watch them whimper and die like pathetic dogs. Maiming is good. Better even than having bombers.”

  Each battle varied, each was the same. Increasingly FANK withdrew in the face of the KK assault, withdrew and condensed into refugee-clogged enclaves. The yotheas grew confident, overzealous, exposing themselves to aerial reconnaissance and thus bombing. The yotheas wavered and FANK pulled back without cause. Nang directed his mortars, now mounted in ox carts, to target fleeing villagers, thus blockading FANK’s withdrawal. “If they escape,” he screamed at his battalion commanders, “the officer responsible will be executed. Now attack! Attack! Attack!”

  What was that! Slowly Nang rolled to his knees, then rocked back on his heels into a squat. The earth was soft, mulched, pulverized. The rains had become heavy, had combined with the earth, not so much making mud as making warm red-brown slush, “duch,” Nang call-whispered. The 91st was dispersed and concealed amid cratered forest, mashed fields and the rubble of a previous battle, “duch.”

  “met nang.” Duch had two radiomen, each with two small radios, and a man with a field phone set. Messages were relayed point to point to point.

  Nang stared into the grayblackness. Clouds were machine-gunning billions of slow projectiles of rain onto the earth, dousing the fires behind them, “duch.” Nang could not hear his commo chief because he’d re-ruptured his ears during the campaign. “duch.”

  “Met Nang, here.” Duch squatted beside him, slapped his arm.

  “What was that?” Nang said.

  “What?”

  “I heard something. A minute ago. Very odd. Loud.”

  “I didn’t hear anything. How could you, eh?”

  “I did.”

  “Aah! You didn’t hear. You can’t hear.”

  “I can’t hear bombs,” Nang said. “That’s good, eh? If you couldn’t they wouldn’t frighten you so. But I hear death walking.”

  “You get more mystical—”

  “No. Listen. Does the enemy move out? Tell the battalions to move in, now. Now. Tell them to move up to the berm and dig in. Dig in with FANK. Don’t let them escape. Now.”

  “Yes, Met Nang.” Duch thought to ignore the order.

  “Duch,” Nang said.

  “Yes.”

  “Have them jam the fighter-bomber frequency with Radio Peking.”

  Suddenly, amid the rain Duch heard the drone of a spotter plane’s engine.

  Quickly orders passed. Quickly the yotheas sneaked forward—not fierce human-wave assaults but owl-quiet approaches—a wave in midocean closing on an atoll. They were now south of Ponheapon, ten miles north of Phnom Penh’s heart. The earth burst.

  In Phnom Penh, the evening of 15 July 1973, Rita Donaldson was at the typewriter in her small office. “Western sources,” she wrote, “have estimated one hundred civilians are killed every day by American bombs. This figure is believed, by many observers, to be conservative.” Rita Donaldson looked at the sentence and shook her head. Reducing the atrocity to words lessened its impact upon her and that somehow made her feel guilty, as if even though her writing might expose the atrocity to world view, it could never catch the horror, the crime, the pain she’d witnessed. She reached up, adjusted the goose-necked lamp to reduce the glare on the page and continued. “Embassy sources, who have asked not to be identified, have confirmed the existence of a secret communications center in the embassy which gathers bombing requests from the Cambodian General Staff then forwards them to U.S. 7th Air Force headquarters in Thailand. These same sources state that civilian property damage and death are being kept within ‘acceptable limits.’ ”

  “Goddamn,” Rita growled. She checked her notes to ensure she’d quoted the phrase properly. “Acceptable?” What’s acceptable? she’d wanted to ask on the page, to put into the story, to ask her source, but her source had insisted on no questions. She didn’t need to ask. She knew the answer already. Acceptable limits were defined as the number killed. If it were one hundred per day then one hundred per day was acceptable. If five hundred per day...She lit a cigarette, inhaled, put the cigarette on the ashtray lip, blew the smoke aside, wetted her lips with her tongue. Why? she thought. Why didn’t he say something? The light flickered, paled, then came back.

  “Last year,” she typed the words quickly, “American B-52s dropped nearly 37,000 tons of bombs on this devastated land. In March alone the Stratofortresses released 24,000 tons. The pay-load reportedly increased to 35,000 tons in April and 36,000 tons in May. The source, deemed reliable, said the June figures had yet not been tabulated. Those numbers do not include fighter-bomber releases, which last year totaled 16,500 tons and which have allegedly reached that amount each of the three months of this spring bombing campaign.”

  Again Rita stopped. The cigarette had fallen from the ashtray and burned a fat line in the desktop. He could have told me, she thought. Again she went back to the story. “The Nixon administration has repeatedly stated America has no formal responsibility to uphold the Lon Nol government. According to Secretary of State William Rogers, ‘U.S. air strikes...do not represent a commitment to the defense of Cambodia itself but instead represent a meaningful interim action to bring about compliance with this critical provision of the Vietnam agreement.’ ”

  She stopped, lifted a ballpoint from the desk, tapped her forehead, stuck the pen between her teeth, then, without consulting her notes, typed, “The volume of bombs dropped has become the embassy’s yardstick to measure the ‘effective response’ of the bombings on the Khmer Rouge. The volume measures nothing of the sort. This bombing has gotten totally out of hand. It is as if a surgeon attacked a multitude of metastasized pockets of cancer with an ice cream scoop.” (She smiled at that line, knowing it would never be printed.) “Perhaps the degree of accuracy is what embassy officials claim but its effect on the reported 25,000 to 30,000 Communist troops attacking this city seems minimal. Every day Communist units push government soldiers back. The true effect seems to be that the bombing has driven the people off the land and into the government enclaves. Village agricultural systems, the very basis of Khmer life, have been destroyed. And the Khmer Rouge, a force nearly nonexistent two years ago, has exploded in size and might.

  “Though, allegedly, the accuracy and effectiveness of the bombings have kept the massed Communist battalions from sweeping into Phnom Penh, in adjacent and distant areas it seems to have become a game played by American military planners. Which group can fly the most sorties? Who can drop the most ordnance? Who can destroy the most ‘targets’? Whose aircraft utilization ratio is highest?”

  Rita chomped on the pen in her mouth. The words were coming fast. “The bombing cost, in U.S. dollars to U.S. taxpayers, in civilian casualties and ecological ruin, as well as in the stiffening resolve of the enemy, is not part of their equation. Tactical close-in air support remains effective. Where the Khmer Rouge have massed troops, perhaps high-level sorties are effective in the defense of Phnom Penh. But rear-area bombing is out of control.”

  Rita spit out the pen, lit another cigarette. She looked at the papers and reports scattered on her desk and on the floor. “WATERGATE” was in every headline. She hit the return bar several times to add disconnected notes.

  “Communist regular force development, despite the bombings, continues to evolve. Where only a year ago the Khmer Rouge could operate at best at company level they have reportedly grown in organization to battalion, regimental and even division-size operations. Air power, without effective infantry, cannot hold this enemy at bay. The all-out Khmer Rouge assault on Phnom Penh...”

  She stopped. It was a bit like writing one’s own obituary. She made a note to go back to the fro
nt, now only a few miles north. Then she stood. Then sat back down. “Air power is the last American military involvement in Southeast Asia...” Watergate, she thought. Again she stood. She packed the small bag she carried when on assignment. Those sneaky bastards, she thought. What more can we uncover? Again the light flickered. She sat, typed quickly, picking up where she’d stopped, “...and in forty days it will come to a legislated halt.” Sneaky, she thought. He could have told me she was so damned pretty. Damn that Sullivan. Damn him. The light dimmed. Then it went out. Phnom Penh’s electricity was gone.

  The earth burst. The earth gushed fire. Shrapnel slashed the forest, the cratered and mulched paddies. High explosives churned the debris and ruin of yesterday’s fight. Clods of dirt rained into the vacated positions of Nang’s Krahom 91st Regiment. A mist of seared sand coated them as they huddled in against FANK’s berm, hid directly under FANK’s protruding gun barrels, froze in the flashes of bombs and the flat light of parachute flares. In minutes the bombers, drained of their potency, departed. The night closed down. FANK’s defenders relaxed. Nang nudged Duch. They’re so predictable, eh? he conveyed without words. So predictable.

  “should we attack now?”

  “wait until the wives come with the food.” Nang was jubilant.

  Jubilant too were Met Sar and Met Sen. Jubilant in their roles as victims, as martyrs, as targets one pace ahead of their assassins. Twenty kilometers north of the 91st, thirty-five kilometers from the capital, Met Sar and Met Sen fed each other’s self-righteous hate. “He has confessed,” Sen sneered. “Confessed.”

  “And...?”

  “And he has been dealt with.”

  “To kill me!” Sar said.

  “To wipe out the Center,” Sen corrected.

  “And he was yuon.”

  “He was Viet Namese, all right,” Sen said. “He doesn’t know, but we have other security reports. Hanoi is on the move.”

  “How dare they! How dare they!” Sar banged his fat fist on the table. In his most pious voice he repeated, “How dare they!” Then he opened Met Nim’s report. He skimmed one page, another. “More men,” he growled. “More tanks. More trucks. More guns. More of everything than ever before. Why the fuck do the Americans bomb us? The yuons are the real threat. Look at this.”

  Sen leaned over. He already knew the contents. A month earlier North Viet Nam’s 7th Division with the 297th Tank Battalion and the 40th Artillery Regiment (130mm) had destroyed Polie Krong just west of Kontum in South Viet Nam. It was the first major assault since the peace accords, and America had not responded. “And some”—Met Sen snorted—“...want us to stop. Some say stop until the legislated bombing halt.”

  “The Americans won’t stop bombing.” Sar chortled. “Push them. We must be victorious. Now! That traitorous snake in Phnom Penh, that imperialist lackey...I want his head. Ceasefire!? Negotiate!? It’s the most despicable conjurer’s trick; it’s designed to manipulate international opinion. Make—the offensive—go forward!” Sar elatedly banged his fist. “Forward. Rid the land of this evil. Let the armies be purified in the rain of flame! Forward!”

  Twenty kilometers south Nang whispered to Duch, “have them move forward.”

  On the other side of the berm, inside the FANK position, Rita Donaldson watched a government sergeant erase the enemy 91st Armed Infantry Regiment from the map area surrounding them. “How can he do that?” she asked her interpreter.

  “Do what?”

  “Say they’ve been destroyed without going to see.”

  “Go where?!”

  “Where that unit was.”

  “But what if they’re still there?”

  “Then how can you erase them?”

  “They’ve been bombed.”

  Rita left the command bunker. It hit her that she—how could she think this?—that she would make a good sergeant. First light grayed the sky of 16 July. Many of the troops who were, or were supposed to have been, on guard had left their posts and were milling about a small squad about to go fishing. The ground about their post was still cloaked in darkness. Light rain fell. From the southwest came the distant thawap-thawap of helicopter rotors on the cool morning air. This is stupid, Rita thought. She moved toward the chopper pad. In a semicircle at bermside were a few hastily erected mud and poncho fighting positions. No one had cleared fields of fire. Beyond the berm a black shroud cloaked the rice fields. Within the perimeter FANK had allowed a dozen pieces of heavy equipment—three howitzers, trucks, a small bulldozer, several jeeps—to anchor the unit to passable roads.

  “More resupply ammunition, eh,” the interpreter said. It was a statement and a question.

  Rita could now see the headlight of the lead American Huey; then six lights—an entire flight. Government troops slowly congregated within a fifty-meter radius of the landing zone—close enough to watch, far enough to avoid being pressed into the unloading detail. No pay, Rita thought, no work. She’d heard it from numerous soldiers. No pay, no food, no work. The helicopter bodies took form in the sky. The noise grew louder. Women and children began to emerge from the dependants’ camp (Rita thought it would be appropriate to reverse terms) carrying baskets of food, jugs of water, even boxes of ammunition, on their heads—bringing the true resupply to the FANK soldiers. Very low the first helicopter shot in over the people’s heads.

  “Now,” Nang said. Duch signaled his radiomen. To four points the message passed. Almost simultaneously, from four points, rocket flames streaked, then came the bang-wooosshh of the SAM-7s, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, then the jack-hammer pounding of two 12.7mm antiaircraft guns. The helicopter flight split—first bird still racing low across the compound, second bird up left dropping its hung load of 105 rounds, third bird up right, doorgunners popping flares to distract the heat-seeking missiles. Behind, the fourth bird, despite its exhaust deflection cowling blowing the hot jet gases into the rotorwash for dissipation, despite flares, exploded, a bright ball of flame and fragments blackening, descending, crashing into tarp lean-tos.

  “Attack!” Nang screamed.

  “Attack!” Von, Ung, Sol, No.

  “Attack. Kill everything!” The Krahom platoon leaders, squad leaders.

  “Burn everything!” The cell leaders. A thousand rifles, two KK 12.7s, seven, ten mortars, firing. Firing.

  “If the attack fails,” Nang shouted, “the company commanders will be executed.”

  For a second Rita stood dumbfounded. The odor of burning hair engulfed her. A cloud of blood-mist blinded her. Her interpreter—she’d never learned his name—lay dismembered at her feet. The first helicopter had kicked out crates, tilted, zipped campward and was gone. Then it was back, miniguns illegally hosing the berm. Another bird was grenading tangentially to the camp. Others were over the fields strafing. Screams hit her ears.

  Not pain. Commands. FANK troops sprinted to positions. Survival. More smell of hair fire. Hers.

  Nang did not direct the assault but was part of it. Here he sat, exposed, an AK-47 to his shoulder, one foot under his ass, one knee up, aiming, aiming up, waiting for the strafing run to descend upon him. How he hated them, hated the helicopters, hated the Americans, hated them with his whole heart and his whole soul. The chopper approached closer, closer, firing front minigun and side-mounted 40mm cannons, a stream of tracer fire spewing from the nose punctuated with grenade-launched thudding, the ground explosions lost in the cacophony of the battle. Nang aiming, waiting, locking in on the forward stream, firing up the stream as the bird scorched over, firing into the nose, the belly. The bird did not crash but he knew he’d hit, knew he’d forced it away. About him there were dead. About him there were wounded, moaning. His ears ached yet he could hear the moaning. “Go forward,” Nang shouted. “Forward at all cost. Leave the wounded.”

  The perimeter had been breached. FANK soldiers fell back, firing, firing like deer hunters in a blind, into the crazed charge, killing exposed Krahom yotheas yet the yotheas kept coming, coming as if once killed th
ey self-healed, resurrected, recharged; as if invincible. Two F-4 Phantom jets roared in from the east, roared in with the rising sun to their backs. They passed over. Without regard for his losses, their losses, Nang, the 91st, the entire Army of the North, surged against the crumbling yet firing FANK line. The fighter-bombers passed again and again without delivering their ordnance. FANK fell back through the dependant camp. Krahom mortars shelled the road, the fleeing. KK infantry moved in from roadside flanks. Rita, three thousand dependants, trapped. Then the F-4s bombed the road, “...forced,” Rita would write, but never be able to telex, “to destroy the civilian entourage in order to save the army and in turn those civilian survivors of our own bombs, including myself.”

  Still the fighting raged. New Krahom units, replacement personnel, were massed at the front’s fringe. All day the 91st attacked, the Northern Army attacked. To the east, the south and the northwest more Krahom armies were committed. Behind them the earth was charred, pulverized. Now came the B-52s. The circle about Phnom Penh became the epicenter of the most intense bombing in the history of warfare. “Stay close,” Nang ordered. “Hug them.” He forced Duch to pass the word—messengers, not radios. “Pick up the dud bombs. We’ll mine their escape route.” To his damaged ears the bomb-box explosions were dull thuds but to his body the quaking was violent and his hate surged higher. Again, maniacally, he pushed the fighters, himself, to the limits of human endurance. In the afternoon the Krahom pushed Phnom Penh’s defenders through a small hamlet, then the yotheas fell back into the village and regrouped amid the rubble—a temporary safe zone—a target area not yet cleared.