As I said, morale and discipline had gone to hell, and I barely recognized the army that I had entered only about four years earlier. In fact, I barely recognized my own country anymore. So ’Nam was not that bad a place to be.
The war was winding down, at least for the Americans who were pulling out, but it would go on for another three terrible years for the poor bastards who had the misfortune of being born Vietnamese.
In fact, my second Vietnam tour lasted only six months before my MP company got orders to go home.
I hadn’t heard much from Patty in those six months, and what I did hear through her brief, but neatly written letters didn’t sound too positive. In fact, one letter said, “I’m sitting here listening to ‘I’m So Miserable Without You, It’s Like Havin’ You Here,’ which is how I’m feeling now.”
Some men returning unexpectedly from overseas call ahead, so that the loving wife can make preparations, or the unfaithful wife can get rid of the cigars in the ashtray. I called from San Francisco in June ’72, saying I’d be home in three days. This news was met with some ambivalence.
When I finally got out of the taxi that had taken me from Midland Airfield to Whispering Pines Trailer Park, I was somewhat ambivalent myself about what I wanted to find.
I threw my duffel bag on the ground and went to the door of the trailer. Coming home after a long absence in a war zone is a strange experience, like you just re-entered the earth’s atmosphere from outer space, and you know that things on earth have changed.
I tried the doorknob, and it was unlocked. I stepped inside my trailer and stood in the small living room. I knew she wasn’t there, so I didn’t even call out.
I went to the refrigerator for a beer and saw the note: Paul—I’m sorry, but it’s over. I filed for divorce. There’s no one else, but I just don’t want to be married no more. I guess I should say Welcome Home. Have a good life. Patty. P.S. I took Pal. Pal was the dog.
The grammatical error of the double negative annoyed me, and I could hear her drawl in the written words. The title of another country western song ran through my head—“Thank God and Greyhound She’s Gone.”
I threw the note in the trash and found one beer left in the refrigerator, which wasn’t my brand, but it was cold.
I walked around the place that had been my home for a few years and saw that she’d taken all of her things, but she hadn’t taken the furniture because it belonged to the trailer and was mostly bolted down. She did, however, take all the linens, meaning a trip to the PX that evening. Actually, I didn’t even have a car because she didn’t take Greyhound; she took our ’68 Mustang, which I still miss. I also miss Pal. I had anticipated him knocking me to the floor and licking my face, which I think he learned from Patty in the early days of our marriage.
This was not what homecomings were supposed to look like.
I spent a few days at Whispering Pines and Fort Hadley, getting my paperwork in order and all that, then I went back to Boston for my leave, where I was welcomed more warmly. My brother Benny was still in the service, so he wasn’t home—in fact, he was in Germany, holding the line against the Red Hordes on the Eastern Front. I’d like to think my second ’Nam tour kept him out of Southeast Asia.
My brother Davey was just eighteen, and had drawn a low number in the new lottery draft system and was looking forward to being called. He liked my uniform. The war really was coming to an end, so I didn’t try to talk him out of the army or into college, and he, too, served his country, mostly at Fort Hadley. When he got to Hadley, I tipped him off about the lint heads and told him to look up a strawberry blonde named Jenny, but he never ran into her.
Regarding my homecoming to South Boston, the neighborhood seemed different somehow, more so than the last time I’d returned. I realized my boyhood was over, and yes, you can’t go home again.
After my leave, I returned to Fort Hadley and Whispering Pines, and I discovered from a neighbor that Patty had lied about there not being anyone else—surprise! It turned out to be another soldier, and she’s probably on her fourth or fifth by now. There’s something about a man in uniform.
But things work out, and within a few months, I was back into a work routine on post and bought a nice yellow VW bug from a guy who was heading to ’Nam. The army doesn’t give you a lot of time to sulk or contemplate the meaning of life, and they don’t encourage you to talk about your personal problems. The army expression is “Got a personal problem? Go see the chaplain, and he’ll punch your tough-shit ticket.”
That was the old army, of course. The new army has trained counselors who’ll talk to you before punching your tough-shit ticket.
But it makes a man out of you, and you learn to keep shit to yourself. And that’s the way it should be if you’ve picked this life.
I was drawn back to the present by the sight of an open truck approaching the aircraft. This was our escort vehicle, a variation on the little truck with the revolving light that you see at most airports.
We followed the truck to the terminal, but we didn’t actually get right to a gate. We stopped on the apron, and the engines shut down. We had arrived.
It was still raining, and below I saw a line of young ladies holding umbrellas, which I guess is cheaper than a mobile jetway. I also saw a few soldiers standing under a corrugated steel canopy, carrying AK-47s. Two men rolled a stairway toward the aircraft.
As I stared out the window, my mind flashed back to Tan Son Nhat Airport, November 1967, my first tour.
We had landed just before dawn, and as I stepped out of the air-conditioned Braniff 707, a blast of hot, humid air hit me, which was surprising at that predawn hour in November, and I recalled thinking it was going to be a long year for a guy who liked autumn and winter in Boston.
A few hundred American soldiers had been standing on the tarmac behind a rope, wearing short-sleeve khakis, carrying overnight bags, and staring up at the aircraft. The Braniff 707 that had brought me to Vietnam would be quickly refueled, and without even changing the crew, the aircraft would take these guys home.
When I came down the stairway into the predawn light, I had to pass the guys behind the rope. I could clearly recall the looks on their faces; most appeared anxious, like this wasn’t going to come off like it should, but there were a few optimists who looked happy or excited.
A few of these homeward-bound men shouted out words of encouragement to the fresh meat, others shouted things like “You’re gonna be sorreee!” or “It’s a long year, suckers!”
As I looked closer at these guys, I noticed that some of them—who I realized later were the combat vets who’d seen too much—had this strange, faraway stare that I’d never seen before, but which I got familiar with later; this was my first clue that this place was worse than I’d imagined it from stories I’d heard, or from what I’d seen on the TV news.
My French companion brought me back to the present by saying, “What is so interesting out there?”
I turned away from the window and replied, “Nothing.” Then I said, “I was just recalling my first landing here.”
“Yes? This time should be more pleasant. No one is trying to kill you.”
I wasn’t completely sure of that, but I smiled.
A bell chimed, and everyone stood to deplane. I got my overnight bag from the overhead compartment, and within a few minutes I was on the aluminum staircase where the smiling young ladies held umbrellas over everyone’s heads. At the bottom of the staircase, I was handed an open umbrella, and I followed the line of passengers in front of me to the terminal, under the watchful eyes of the soldiers under the corrugated canopy.
My first sense of the place was the long forgotten smell of the rain, which did not smell like the rain in Virginia. A soft breeze carried the odor of burning charcoal, along with the rich and pungent smell of the surrounding rice paddies, a mixture of dung, mud, and rotting vegetation, a thousand layered years of cultivation.
I had returned to Southeast Asia, not in a dream or a
nightmare, but in reality.
Inside the terminal, a lady took my umbrella, and motioned me to follow the others, as if I might have other plans.
I passed through a doorway into the International Arrival Terminal, a cavernous space that had the air of neglect and a sense of abandonment. The place was completely empty, except for my fellow passengers. Half the lights were out, and there was not one single electronic information screen, or any signs at all, for that matter. I was also struck by how quiet it was—no one speaking, and no PA system. Compared to the aircraft, the terminal was very humid, and I realized there was no air-conditioning, which wasn’t a problem in January, but must be interesting in August.
As it turned out, however, this primitive facility was going to be the least of my problems.
Directly in front of me was a line of Passport Control booths, and beyond the booths I could see a single luggage carousel, motionless and empty. There were no porters visible, no luggage carts, and strangely, no Customs stations. More strangely, no one was waiting for any of the arriving passengers, most of whom were Vietnamese and should have had people eagerly expecting their arrival. Then I noticed that there were soldiers at the glass exit doors, and beyond the doors were crowds of people peering through the glass. Apparently, no visitors were allowed in the Arrival Terminal, which was weird. In fact, this whole place was weird.
I walked up to one of the passport booths and handed the uniformed guy my passport and visa. I looked at him, but he never made eye contact with me. He seemed interested in my passport and visa.
I looked again into the cavernous terminal beyond the booths and saw, hanging from the ceiling at the far end of the terminal, a huge red flag with a yellow star in the center—the flag of the victorious North Vietnamese Communists. The full reality of the Communist victory struck me, a quarter century late, but with unmistakable clarity.
When I landed at Tan Son Nhat in ’67 and ’72, soldiers didn’t go through the civilian terminal, but I recalled that outside the terminal was the Stars and Stripes flying alongside the old red, green, and yellow South Vietnamese flag. No one had seen either of those flags around here in over two decades.
I had a creepy feeling, which was reinforced by the Passport Control guy, who kept staring at my passport and visa. I realized he was taking too long, and people in the other booths were passing through more quickly. At first, I just put this down to my usual bad luck of getting in a supermarket checkout line where the cashier was the village idiot.
But then the passport guy picked up a phone and began talking to someone. I could only remember a few words of Vietnamese, but I clearly heard him say the word My—American. This is not in and of itself a negative word, but you had to consider the context. I affected a look of bored impatience, which was lost on the passport guy.
Finally, another uniformed Vietnamese appeared, a short, stocky guy who took my passport and visa from the guy in the booth, and motioned me through. I picked up my overnight bag and followed him.
Standing on the other side of the line of passport booths was my French friend, who had passed through at least five minutes before with no problem. He seemed to be waiting for me, then noticed that I had an escort. He raised his eyebrows and said something in Vietnamese to my escort. The uniformed guy answered back sharply. The Frenchman, too, raised his voice, and they had a little argument, but the Frenchman didn’t seem cowed by the Commie in uniform.
The Frenchman said to me, in English, “I think this is only a random questioning. Be polite, but firm. If you have nothing to hide, it will go well.”
Actually, I had something to hide. I said to my new friend, “See you at Mademoiselle Dieu-Kiem’s.”
The short, tubby Viet guy gave me a push, which pissed me off so much I almost clocked him. But I got myself under control. The mission comes first. Clocking Commies was not part of the mission this time.
As I turned to follow the Viet, I heard the Frenchman say, “It is quite different now that neither your country nor mine is the power here. They have the power.”
So off I went with this little guy in uniform, whose hat had a big red Commie star on the peak. Last time I was here, I had an M-16, and I had the power, and if I’d seen this guy then, I’d have painted him as red as that star.
I realized I was getting myself wound up, so as I walked with this guy through the nearly deserted terminal, I calmed myself down with a mental image of me with my hands around Karl’s throat.
It occurred to me that there were three possibilities at the end of this walk. One, whoever it was I was going to talk to would kick me out of the country. Two, I’d be free to visit the Socialist Republic and do my sightseeing. Three, I’d wind up in the slammer.
I realized I might have some control over these possibilities, depending on what I said. I’m pretty good at bullshit.
We got to the far end of the terminal and came to a closed door, which my Commie companion opened, and which led to a long hallway lined with doors. The hallway was narrow, so my friend got behind me and prodded me again with a push. I could have broken his fat neck in a heartbeat, but then I wouldn’t know what door I was supposed to go through.
He grabbed my arm halfway down the hall, then knocked on a door. The voice behind the door barked, “Di Vao.”
My pushy friend opened the door, thumped his hand on my shoulder, and I entered the room. The door closed behind me.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I found myself in a hot, dimly lit room whose stucco walls were the color of nicotine. In fact, the air smelled of cigarette smoke. The room was small and windowless, and a paddle fan hung motionless from the ceiling.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw on the far wall a portrait of Ho Chi Minh and a small red flag with a yellow star in the center. I could also see a photo of a guy in uniform, who I thought might be General Giap, and a few photos of unsmiling civilians, who were undoubtedly government or Party officials. I concluded that this was not the Travelers’ Aid Office.
There was a desk to my right and behind the desk was a middle-aged man in uniform. He said to me, “Sit.”
I sat in an olive drab chair that I recognized as an American army camp chair. The desk, too, was American; the standard gray steel that hasn’t changed since about World War II. On the wall above the desk was a big ventilation louver, and I could hear the rain falling outside.
The guy who had shown me into the office, who I’d nicknamed Pushy, deposited my passport and visa on the desk, then, without a word, he took my overnight bag and left.
The middle-aged guy in uniform studied my passport and visa by the light of a gooseneck lamp. I studied the guy.
He had on an olive-colored short-sleeve shirt with shoulder boards, and on the boards, he wore the rank of a major or colonel—I never could get the foreign insignia straight. Also, he had three rows of colored ribbons on his left breast pocket, and I assumed some of those dated back to the American War, as they called the Vietnam War here.
He had one of those faces that you instinctively don’t like—pinched and perpetually frowning, with high, prominent cheekbones. His eyes were narrow, and his eyeballs seemed fixed in their sockets.
He looked older than me, but I knew he wasn’t. In any case, he was the right age to be a veteran of the American War, and if he was, he had no positive feelings about Americans. I assumed, too, he was a North Vietnamese because he looked a little bigger and heavier than the southerners, who were slight of build. Also, it was mostly the North Viets who staffed the positions of power in the defeated south. My instincts told me this was not going to be a pleasant interview.
The guy looked up from my passport and said to me, “I am Colonel Mang.”
I didn’t reply. But the fact that he was indeed a full colonel led me to believe this wasn’t a simple passport and visa check.
Colonel Mang, in good English, asked me, “What is the purpose of your visit to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam?” He had a kind of high, staccato voi
ce that was irritating.
I replied, “Tourism,” which was the lie from which all future lies would spring. And if this guy knew it was a lie, then he’d let me keep lying until he had enough lies to make a noose.
“Tourism,” said Colonel Mang. He stared at me. “Why?”
I replied, “I was a soldier here.”
Suddenly Colonel Mang’s demeanor changed from unpleasant to overly interested. Maybe I should have ignored my instructions and lied about that, but it’s really important to stick close to the truth.
Colonel Mang asked me, “When were you here?”
“In 1968, then again in 1972.”
“Two times. So you were a career military man.”
“I became a career military man.”
He tapped my visa and said, “Now you are retired.”
“That’s right.”
Colonel Mang thought a moment and asked me, “And what were your duties in Vietnam?”
I hesitated a half-second too long, then replied, “I was a cook. An army cook.”
Colonel Mang seemed to mull this over. He asked, “And where were you stationed?”
“In 1968 I was stationed at An Khe. In 1972 at Bien Hoa.”
“Yes? An Khe. The First Cavalry Division.”
“That’s right.”
“And Bien Hoa. What division?”