by C. R. Ryder
I met Colonel Drummond, or Bulldog as he preferred to be called, at a McDonalds in Eagle Hill, a suburb of Albany, New York. He was a skinny elderly man who had leathery skin like he had spent too many years in the sun. The old Marine still looked like he could still break me in two if he wanted to. We sat down in the children’s area after introductions. He drank coffee. I had nothing.
“Air Force you say?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll try not to hold that against you.” He nodded at two little boys running around playing Ninja Turtles. “My grandsons always want to come here. The Hardees across the street is cheaper, but they want to play. That’s how big business gets to you. Through the kids who don’t know any better.”
I nodded in agreement.
“We’re attempting now to find any information we can on live POWs in Vietnam.” I began.
“You won’t find any.” He said without hesitation.
“We know you looked.” I said trying to get the conversation going again. “Any information you might have would be helpful. If we were to start, should we be looking in Laos or Cambodia?”
“Not there.” He jabbed his finger on the plastic table as if it were a map of North Vietnam. “And before you ask not in China or the USSR either. I spent ten years over there after the war with contractors that worked with the South Vietnamese and then later in Thailand with another company there. I spent a hundred grand of my own money running down leads. Nothing moves over there without dirty paper despite all their claims at being communist. I did not even get a whiff. Not one decent piece of evidence that anyone was still alive.”
“Is there any other leads you didn’t follow that we could follow now given the new interest.”
“No son. It’s a waste of time. I lost five men while I was there. You crash into a jungle or the Gulf of Tonkin and no one finds your body you become MIA even when you are KIA.”
Technical Sergeant Tony Luciano
Air Force Operations Intelligence Specialist
Fresno, California
I interviewed retired Colonel John Buchanan formerly of the Staff of the Defense Attaché to South Vietnam at a VFW in Fresno. Bingo was going on while we spoke. Even though it was ten o’clock in the morning he drank a beer.
Retirement is looking better all the time.
I drank a soda.
After introductions he told me about the fall of Saigon.
“We were some of the last ones in the country.” Buchanan was a big man sporting some extra pounds. He seemed to be enjoying retirement. “I was on the second to last helicopter in fact. Never liked to fly, especially a helicopter, but I was damn glad when that thing took to the air.”
“Did you know of anyone we might have left behind, sir?” I asked.
“For certain? No. I will tell you this though, in the days before Saigon fell we got the word out that we were evacuating. Through different Vietnamese and Embassy channels we contacted everyone who might be interested in leaving and living. Especially Americans. You will not believe who came out of the woodwork. Long haired hippies. Guys that looked like they had gone native.”
“Deserters?”
“I thought so at the time, but there were no deserters that were unaccounted for. Some of them were civvies that came there to work and decided to stay.”
“Do you think we left anyone behind?”
“Sure. Whether or not they were military I don’t know. Maybe some GIs came back after their tour was over. That’s what I always believed anyway. We were just interested in getting everyone out of there so we did not ask a lot of questions. Does any of this help?”
“Not really, but thank you.” Normally you acted like the information was valuable to keep the witness talking, but I was too tired to blow smoke up his ass.
“Something I’ve always wanted to run down was an area of Saigon that GIs supposedly ran. There were rumors of deserters there, but I was never able to confirm much. It had a funny name.”
“What was it called?” I asked hoping this might lead me somewhere.
“Soul City. Check out Soul City if you get a chance. You find someone who lived there and they might know more.”
Lieutenant Colonel William Carter
Air Force Intelligence Officer
National Reconnaissance Office
Both the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense laid claim to the National Reconnaissance Office. This led to being caught in the middle of interdepartmental conflicts much like children bounced between mom and dad in a slowly failing marriage. It would take the terrorist attacks on 911 to get the family back together again. Regardless they were pretty friendly to whoever showed up looking for information, as long as you had the right paperwork that is.
When dealing with something unusual, like asking about American POWs almost twenty years after the war, it sometimes took talking to a dozen of the wrong people to finally get to someone that could help. It was frustrating because you had to explain yourself and what you were after to every member of the staff that they passed you to only to hear them say they could not help you at all. After speaking to eight different NRO staff members I made it to the right guy. In this case the right guy was a civilian and retired army warrant officer named John Jones.
“I can tell you all about Vietnam. It was the first war in which we used spy satellites. Did you know that?” Jones said.
I shook my head.
He eyed me like a curiosity.
“Well let’s begin.” Jones said as if he was ready to read a script.
He held up a photo.
“Here is a photo of a rice paddy in Darlac Province Old South Vietnam.” He said as he pointed at the photo.
“What are those lines?” I asked.
“You see those? That is exactly what I wanted to show you. Look at the pattern here and then here. See?” He shook the photo with excitement.
“Yes.”
Jones pulled out an old book from the drawer. It was a twenty year old Air Force survival manual. The cover was gone and he had duct taped the spine together. He opened it to a tabbed page.
“This is the code. Can you decipher it?”
“IR55”
“Right. That could mean the Air Force wing or the Army brigade.”
“Oh my God. When was this taken?”
“1988.”
“What? That proves that POWs are still alive.”
“Think so?”
“Yes. Why is this not on the news?” I suddenly felt uncomfortable like I had walked into a conspiracy.
“Let me show you another.” He said. He picked up another photo from his desk and handed it over.
The photo was better quality than the first. The same pattern was there.
“Go ahead.” He nudged the old manual toward me. “Decipher the code.”
“It says WE12.”
“Right. Perhaps referencing the Infantry Regiment.” Jones said.
“When was this one taken?” I was really getting into this. I was getting excited not only about being the first to bring back hard intel, but also because there might be some guys still alive.
“Last month.” He told me.
I felt like an atom bomb had just gone off.
“Really?” I thought I had hit the jackpot. “Where?”
“A corn field in Illinois.”
The trap was sprung.
I shook my head to let him know I was not following him.
“They are natural phenomena. Natural shadows and patterns of vegetation that we give deeper meaning to.”
“I don’t see how that is possible.”
“It is possible for the same reason we see faces on Mars. It is natural for humans to put patterns where there are none. The human brain fills in the blanks. It’s called matrixing.” Jones said as if he had explained this a hundred times.
“So these are a waste of time.” I felt deflated.
“I believe so. We no longer investigate them
. We used to, but when we did we found no corroborating evidence.”
Another dead end.
Lieutenant Colonel Carol Madison
Air Force Intelligence Officer
Defense Intelligence Agency
“A conspiracy? Do tell.” Ellington said.
The Daves were arguing. I had learned to suffer through their spats without taking sides. After a week of being alone with them I was wishing that I had sent one of them out on the road. The thought occurred to me to pull Luciano back in. He was getting beat up by retired officers and did not sound happy last time I talked to him on the phone.
“What if the government covered up the POWs?” Smith suggested.
“Then we would probably not be looking for them now. Why would they cover up the POWs if they did exist?” Ellington argued.
“Maybe North Vietnam was using them as hostages. Maybe we went along with it.” Smith said.
“I have been in the military for twelve years and I have not met two people that could keep a secret. Shit we couldn’t even keep the stealth bomber under wraps.” Ellington said with certainty.
“What about the NSA intercepts, the number codes spelled out in the vegetation and how the numbers don’t match up?” There was a whine in Smith’s voice as if he were losing the battle.
“Look at the great records we keep. Remember that great invasion plan of Iraq and Iran we built three years ago? Well we need the first half and I cannot find it in the files or on the computer. What does that tell you about how bad it was during an actual war?”
“You wouldn’t believe in a conspiracy if there was real evidence would you?” Smith spat.
“I would take it all the way to the top or my congressman if you can give me irrefutable evidence. Colonel Madison can you help me out?” Ellington asked trying to pull me into it.
“We have the Vietnamese Boat People and the Cambodian refugees as well as other Vietnamese defectors from the seventies and eighties all saying they knew of POWs still alive and being held for ransom.” I said trying to soften the blow for Smith.
“Why would men wanting asylum in the United States lie? Especially when they knew that they could be sent back to a country where they would be imprisoned and killed for trying to defect? Can you think of any reason they would concoct intelligence?” Ellington asked.
Ellington was sucking me into their argument at last.
Great.
“None at all Dave?” I answered honestly. “Those guys are aces.”
“We are giving you a hard time, but all of this is hearsay and I want to believe stuff. The only evidence that we have that is firm about surviving POWs came out of Thailand in a box a week ago.” Dave Ellington said standing there with his hands on his hips looking vindicated.
The other Dave looked like he was ready to fold.
“Okay. I give up. Just one last question for your geniuses. How come when we went into the national archives looking for information about individual POWs we found files on all the men released on Operation Homecoming, but we did not find a single file on the ones that are MIA? Why would you keep the records of released prisoners, but you would destroy the records of men who might, albeit unlikely, alive?” Smith asked.
Dave Ellington and I were silent.
I did not have an answer for that one.
Technical Sergeant Tony Luciano
Air Force Operations Intelligence Specialist
Seattle, Washington
“Soul City? Shit. I haven’t been asked about Soul City in a long time.”
Former Corporal Ben Levine agreed to meet me at a diner in Seattle and discuss Soul City once I proved that I was not a “Fed” and gave him complete immunity.
“You were there?” I asked.
“I have. It was on the west bank of the Saigon River in Cholon. I spent some time there during the war.”
“Can you tell me about it? Is it still there?”
“It was a Chinese influenced, if not run, area of Saigon. Soldiers went there with issued items and stuff from the PX and sold them to the natives. Jeans, American food, records. Stuff like that. Black market stuff. The Army knew about it, but they didn’t have the juice to shut it down. They had bigger problems anyway.”
“How many Americans lived there?”
“It’s got a reputation as some kind of community, but really it was just a black market. You sold stuff. Maybe got drunk or laid. Definitely did some drugs. Then you went back to your unit.”
“Is it possible that some Americans could have stayed there after the war?”
“I ain’t no expert, but I don’t think so. No.”
“Thank you for your time.”
“Why are you running down information on Soul City?”
“We are preparing a historical report on the war.” It sounded like a good lie. “We are pursuing every lead.”
“Do you want to find Americans in Vietnam?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Based on your tension I’ll just get to the point. I don’t want you to get you in trouble with your boss. I was in the military once. Just listen. I asked if you want to find Americans. Or are you just looking for POWs?” He leaned close like we were telling each other secrets.
“Are you talking about deserters? Because that is why I am looking into Soul City.”
“I’m talking about traitors.”
“What?”
“Look into Salt and Pepper. They might lead you to something.”
“Like the band?”
Lieutenant Colonel William Carter
Air Force Intelligence Officer
Office of Records
I met Major Brian Carpenter who was the floor operations commander at the DOD Office of Records. He had a pencil in his ear and a list in each hand. As frazzled and busy as he seemed I was thankful he agreed to meet with me personally.
“They say in ten years there will be a computer as big as this desk that can store all of this shit.” He motioned to a stack of paper that was dissolving into a mound under its own weight. There were many like it throughout the four acre government building. “Do you believe that?”
“No,” I mistrusted computers.
“Me neither.”
“Is it possible that we could have destroyed information about the Vietnam War?” I asked getting down to business.
“Absolutely. We destroy stuff all the time. Let me show you.”
“Okay.”
He led me to a room full of angry looking machines that looked like bad robots from an Atari game. They had big gapping chutes like a mailbox. Inside metal angry metal teeth spun on a reel ready to devour. They were never hungry, but always eating and often full.
“These are our shredders. They look like they can handle a phone book don’t they.”
“They look bad ass.” They were much bigger than the little one that occupied a lonely corner of the office back at headquarters.
“In reality if you put more than three sheets of paper in them they jam up and you got to dig the paper out of their teeth. God forbid you leave a staple in something. That means calling maintenance.”
He pointed at a group of files that was overtaking the folding table they were stored on.
“This is our shred pile. This bag we put stuff in to burn. This bag is for stuff to pulp.” He took me into another room that looked like the last one. “There are ten acres of this. You looking for area 51? This is it. One day when they shred all of the files they’ll find a flying saucer in the middle.”
“Are you careful what you shred?”
“As careful as we can be. The information never stops and none of it is standardized. Look at this.” He picked up a random stack of papers. “Do you really care how many M-16 bullets Patrick AFB had in 1984? I don’t and I say we shred, but somebody might value this information somehow. We try to run it down. We have to file or shred to make room for the new stuff coming in.”
“Who makes the final decision?”
�
��Me. Most of the time.”
“Have you seen anything from Vietnam?”
“No. Not since I was a butter bar ten years ago. We shredded that stuff long ago. You should check the national archives?”
“We already have.”
“If you can’t find it in the national archives then it’s gone.”
I was silent. He could tell that I was not pleased with his answers.
“Look we are just trying to keep things going until the computers take over. They’ve already cut my staff twice. Once the machines are up and running things will get better. The entire system will be paper free in ten years.”
I nodded trying to imagine a world without interoffice memos and Holy Joes spreading information throughout the service.
“Really though it’s the military. We don’t keep records like people think we do. My dad served for twenty three years. You know what he got when he went to the Office of Records to get a copy of his file? Two pages. That’s it. A whole war? What is that? Maybe fifty pages. We are always worried about today and tomorrow you know. The past is done.”
I nodded. He wasn’t right, but he wasn’t wrong.
On the way out we passed a towering automated filing machine. It was a metal column as wide and deep as a small room and reaching up through the building like an elevator. Every shelf held a file cabinets worth of information.
“How far up does it go?” I asked.
“The accordion? Four stories. Want to ride it? I have.”
“Okay,”
Technical Sergeant Tony Luciano
Air Force Operations Intelligence Specialist
Sanford, Florida
I met Floyd Johnson at a Winn Dixie in Sanford, Florida. He worked there as a produce manager.
“We were pinned down between a ridge and the tree line. We were south of the Hue. It was maybe a week after Tet.” Floyd explained.
“Tet 1968?” I asked.
“No.” He grimaced. “Tet 1967. They did a big attack every Tet. The one in 1968 just got all the press. Anyway fire was coming the tree line. I was on the sixty that day. You ever fire a sixty.”
