Song Lyrics: "18 Years Old"

by Blake Goldstein:

18 years old

He’s young even though he feels so old

All alone nowhere to call a home

Where should he go?

So I took him in

Told him to stay a while if he wasn’t violent

I tried with him

But he said, “Vietnam is where I want my life to end.”

Its 1965, and it isn’t time for him to die

But all I can do, is continue to try, to keep from going to, Vietnam

And if he does, the Vietcong are rough

So pray and stay in a place that’s safe and not overrun, my son

The Vietnamese they never give up.

I said, “What are you up too?”

He said I’m going to Vietnam man, I gotta get up soon

That’s when I knew; that all this was true, tragedy ensues,

Before I got the chance to say goodbye

My nephew was gone I began to cry

Would I see him again or would I not?

Oh Vietnam

It was 1965, it wasn’t time for him to die

Why couldn’t I keep him here?

Didn’t I make my argument clear?

Now I am up, sleepless nights I never wake up

Times are tough, oh son

The Vietnamese they never give up.

A knock on my door, its 4 in the morn,

What could it involve?

Two officers in their garb, all somber and stung,

They mention he’s gone

What was I supposed to do?

I fell to the ground and cried for about a week or two

What good does this do?

So many soldiers dying for a cause not true, oh why

Its 1965, wasn’t time for him to die

Ill cry, ill cry, tears for all the lives,

Lost in Vietnam oh why

What side are we on?

Are we good or bad?

Is the fight lost or won?

Oh son

The Vietnamese will never give up.

---

Photo Source:

U.S. Army medic James E. Callahan of Pittsfield, Mass., tends to a seriously wounded soldier north of Saigon in June 1967. Image Source:

https://www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/35-years-after-fall-vietnam-war-pictures-36859810

---

Amanat Bal

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

History 97M

“Hoang”

It was raining again. When he’d first arrived in Vietnam in August, the combination of heat and moisture and humidity had been so discomforting that some days he’d looked down at himself and expected to see himself steaming alongside the forest. Two and a half months later, he’d learned to accept that a certain amount of misery was to be accepted and embraced by any American who wanted to do his time in Vietnam and make it home. There were brief moments when he’d laugh at a joke someone in his squad had told, or one of the local kids would do something that reminded him of his sister at home, and in those moments, there would come a split second of blissful forgetfulness. But an instant later, the weight of it all would thud back onto his shoulders; how he was a 21-year-old supposed to be in college, but was instead stuck in a jungle in a country that didn’t want him, how the very topography of the country seemed determined to hold him back with clinging vines and mud, how life at home was cheerfully chugging along as usual, ignorant to the suffering of Americans and Vietnamese soldiers alike.

Home. Home was more than 7,000 miles away, in another rainy, forested corner of the world. The superficial similarities between Darrington, Washington, and the jungles of South Vietnam were another cruel trick chance had played on him. Beyond the rain and the unending stretches of foliage, Vietnam was about as different from Darrington as night was from day. Tucked up against the Wenatchee National Forest, Darrington was just a small town northeast of Seattle, but all 21 years of his life had been defined by the people he’d left behind there.

“Jack.” He felt a tug on his sleeve, and turned around to meet Hoang’s lined eyes. “Yes, yes, I know, let’s keep moving.” As far as he knew, the old man didn’t know a word of English other than the names of their party’s members, but it was comforting to talk back to him as though he understood, as though some things were still normal. He followed the old man to the rim of the valley where their small band planned to make camp for the night. The valley spread before them, shaped like a shallow bowl, curving up gently to the northern lip where Jones stood, dripping. His name was misleading-Adrian Jones was, despite having a name that made him sound like as thoroughbred American boy, the only American Jack had met who had Vietnamese blood. Jones had inherited his fathers’ Caucasian looks and learned Vietnamese during a childhood spend in Saigon as the child of a diplomat. Beyond that, he refused to talk about his family, or where his parents had ended up with the escalation of the war. Jones’ involvement in the American intelligence community in Vietnam only served to make him more of an enigma.

“We should try to hurry. Light’s giving out soon.” While not particularly loquacious, Jones always managed to make Jack feel like he’d done something wrong. Now, his eyes were reproaching Jack for lingering in the back for too long. Jack strode on ahead, focusing his resolutely on dinner and the fact that Jones was no more than three or four years older than him and thus shouldn’t have the power to make him feel ashamed all the time. Jack picked his way through the undergrowth, bending his knees a little as the descent into the valley began-the slope was steeper than had been apparent. Behind him, he could hear Hoang and Jones conversing in soft Vietnamese. Groaning internally, Jack slowed down until the two men were level with him. He might not be even halfway fluent in Vietnamese yet, but he was determined to not let that stop him from being included in whatever meager conversation was to be offered. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, he thought to himself dryly.

“Hoang says we’re on course. Should reach the Agency station by the end of the week, if we’re lucky and we don’t run into any more of the fighting.” Jones paused to hold a branch aside for Hoang, and the Vietnamese man nodded his thanks to him. Jack watched wretchedly.

A year ago, back home, Jack would have been the kind, polite boy who helped the elderly out without a second thought. But now, it was as though ever since the moment the troop carrier had deposited him on a Vietnamese beach, the very air of the place had shifted something inside of him. He’d wanted to like the Vietnamese-at least, the ones from the South, the ones that America was supposedly helping save from the communist North. And, at first, he had. The pretty girls in their ao-dai’s had entranced him, and the beauty of Vietnam as a country was undeniable. It was like a postcard, the kind of place Jack had been itching to visit all his life. However, once his squad had been deployed, and they had met some of the indigenous people, the true Vietnam quickly revealed itself. While many of the Vietnamese Jack had met so far had been helpful and civil, there were just as many who seemed indifferent or hostile to the arrival of soldiers from halfway around the world. At first, he hadn’t understood why. He and his fellow draftees had arrived with President Johnson’s words of upholding promises of freedom and liberty for the Vietnamese people ringing in their ears. Then only a few weeks after being deployed into the South Vietnamese countryside, his squad had been ambushed by a group of North Vietnamese soldiers. During the ensuing chaos, Hoffman and Garcia, two of the others in his squad, had been crashing through the understory, high off their first taste of war and recklessly pursuing two enemy soldiers. They’d burst into a clearing, and automatically gunned down the Vietnamese men they found there. It took a fraction of a second for them to die, and only a few seconds longer for Hoffman to realize the men they’d killed hadn’t been armed with anything worse than plows. They’d been simple farmers, fleeing the sound of gunfire, mowed down as if they were worth no more than the tree trunks they’d been uprooting. That day, Jack had understood why the Vietnamese hated them. Remembering the horrors of that afternoon made his stomach clench even now. Since then, he’d learned that the opposite of what Hoffman and Garcia had gone through was an all-too real possibility as well. As Garcia had fatally learned just three days later, the enemy was indistinguishable from Southern Vietnamese farmers at times, and was perfectly capable of taking advantage of that fact to catch American troops unawares. Jack had slowly become used to stiffening at the sight of a new Vietnamese face-how could he not, when friend and foe all looked, talked, and dressed similarly? Now, it seemed, that wariness extended to lending a helping hand to an old man. Especially when that old man in question was a Red.

“It’s been two days since the last time we heard shots. And even that wasn’t the 47’s, just some of the lighter stuff.” Jack finally replied. “At this point unfriendly villagers are probably gonna be a bigger problem than anyone else.” Jones made a neutral “hmph” in the back of his throat, which Jack took to mean that he politely disagreed. “So, where’re they shipping you off to after we drop him off at Saigon?” Jack asked, motioning at Hoang. Every once in a while he grilled Jones for information, figuring that their breakneck pace and the inevitable fatigue would eventually result in the intelligence officer giving away some relevant news. But this evening, like every other day of the last week and a half, the other American remained tight-lipped. “Wherever they send me next I suppose. Look, start looking for a clearing or something, I don’t think we’re going to make it to the floor of the valley today. Too dark already.” Jones turned away and started talking to Hoang in Vietnamese, presumably relaying the same message.

The jungle was dim on the best of days. In many places, the triple layered canopy blocked sunlight from ever reaching the ground. Once evening rolled around, navigating the terrain become twice as difficult, not to mention inherently more hazardous. Ever since Jack had been assigned to be Jones and Hoangs’ bodyguard on their way to Saigon, the three of them had fallen into a routine of Jones divvying out C-rations or otherwise scavenging for food with Hoang’s help, while Jack scouted out the area near their chosen camp to make sure there weren’t any signs of humans close by. Jack’s squad commander and a brittle-looking man who Jack was told was part of the Agency had taken him aside before he’d been separated from his squad. They’d emphatically told him how important it was that Hoang and Jones get to Saigon. Details were classified of course, but Jack had surmised that Hoang was a defector from the North, who had a contact that held a prestigious position in the DRV chain of command. He had proven his worth in the past, passing on information to the Americans using an undercover South Vietnamese intelligence officer as an intermediary. However, when the South Vietnamese officer was discovered and killed by the DRV, suspicions had begun to rise against Hoang. Using the pretext of fleeing Hanoi due to American bombing runs under Operation Rolling Thunder, Hoang had managed to be passed from intelligence officer to intelligence officer until he’d ended up deep in central Vietnam. A South Vietnamese liaison of the CIA had encountered Hoang hiding in an abandoned rice storage shed, his latest protector killed in a skirmish some days earlier. Following confirmation of his identity, someone with clout had decided Hoang was worth bringing to Saigon for questioning by the higher-ups in person. Jones had been sent to be the last in the string of spy operatives tasked with accompanying Hoang on his exodus, and Jack, for reasons he didn’t clearly understand even now, had been plucked out of his squad to serve as a human shield for the defector and the strange spy.

At first, Jack had been envious of Jones and his secretive and yet rather glamourous job of hustling Communist informants through the countryside of Vietnam. It had all seemed just like the movie that’d come out the previous year, James Bond. After a few days of trudging through mud kept fresh by bouts of rain, and without the camaraderie of the squad, Jack had come to the conclusion that he was perfectly willing to be an ordinary soldier and face battle rather than skulking around on secret missions.

               Later that night, after they’d consumed a can of C-rations supplemented with some berries from a nearby bush, Hoang tapped Jack’s shoulder again. “Jack.” He dipped his chin down towards Jack’s feet. Jack had taken his boots off to give his feet a much-needed break, but, as he saw now, the thick, black leeches of Vietnam’s jungles were scrambling for a meal. One was wriggling just an inch or so from his foot, squirming unpleasantly in the light of the small greenwood fire they’d risked lighting. “Ah. Cảm ơn bạn.” He might not ever become fluent, but “thank you” was a basic he’d picked up early on. He studied Hoang’s wrinkled face in the firelight. Next to him, Jones sat with his back to the fire, watching the shadows around their little camp. Hoang’s eyes were fixed at a spot near Jack’s feet, unmoving. Jack decided he was probably reminiscing about his life in the North. Hoang was roughly the same age as Jack’s own grandfather, and Jack couldn’t help but wonder if the old man had left behind children and grandchildren. Perhaps his grandson was fighting with the DRV, a draftee like Jack, pulled in by forces beyond his power to use his youth on war instead of study. More likely he signed up, Jack suddenly thought bitterly. Hoang looked up at that moment and caught Jack’s eyes. He seemed to read the other man’s frustration and loneliness in a way that didn’t require Jones’ translation services. Hoang didn’t break eye contact with Jack, but said something quietly in Vietnamese.

“He wants to know why you’re so angry with him.” Jones said, shifting around to face the fire and his two companions. He adjusted his pack-they used their packs as everything from pillows to seats-and then joined Hoang in staring at Jack.

All of a sudden, Jack felt as though the reality of his situation had hit him with a sledgehammer. He felt like bursting out in tears, or alternatively, reaching across their pitiful fire and strangling the old man for daring to ask him what was wrong, at a time when Jack had never felt that more things were wrong in his life. There was the constant dampness, the isolation in the jungle with the only friendly face being that of an intelligence agent who was more interested in talking in Vietnamese than in English, the never-ending plodding through the vegetation, and most of all, his deep, secret fear that he was involved in a fight where Americans had no right being involved in in the first place. For a few seconds he actually thought he would throw his head back and bawl in misery. But he just clenched his teeth until his jaw hurt, and replied, “Because it’s his fault I’m here. And his fault that you’re out here.” He cast an accusing glare at Jones. “If they’d just left the South Vietnamese alone, we’d be at home right now. I could have been in school; do you know how long my parents saved up, how much I worked so that I could go to college? I graduated high school in 62’, but I’ve been working my ass off so we could afford real college for me. I was gonna be the first in my family. U-Dub in Seattle. It was all lined up, until people like him, and his contact, whoever the hell that is, decided that they couldn’t be happy with their half of the country. And now the other half of the country isn’t capable enough to fight them without our help, and on top of it all, they hate us here, Southerners or Northerners, because our commanders don’t know a thing about Vietnam, or how we’re supposed to tell the good guys from the bad guys.” He finished breathless, realizing that his voice had risen progressively as he’d spoken.

Jones, in typical Jones fashion, remained silent for a few seconds, still staring at Jack. If he just ignored everything Jack had just spewed out and started translating again, Jack thought he might walk off into the jungle on his own. Anything but more Vietnamese.

“This is my home. You forget I grew up here.” Jones stated. His mouth was tighter than usual. He turned away and translated quickly for Hoang. Hoang replied even faster, motioning at the surrounding clearing with more vigor that he usually displayed. “’You think anyone in Vietnam, any normal person, wanted all this? Without the Americans interfering, the country would be united already. The people want one Vietnam. You Americans went through the same thing, with your Civil War. How would you have felt if Germany had butted in and insisted on fighting your wars for you? We just wanted to be left alone, to carry out our own business. No one asked for American help, no one but posturing politicians who thought they could use Americans to their own ends. Now, we’re all in the same boat. You, me, him. I don’t blame you, because you didn’t make the choice to start this war. I blame your country for not letting us do things our own way.’” Hoang frowned at Jack across the fire.

“Did he really say the stuff about the Civil War? How’s he even know about that?” Jack questioned, shoving down his sudden guilt at Hoang’s words, which had taken an uncomfortable parallel with Jack’s own thoughts about the war’s purpose. “He’s well educated. Not all Vietnamese are farmers.” Jones shrugged blithely. “Think about it though,” Jones continued, playing his boot laces as he spoke. “The Vietnamese, North or South, have something to fight for. This is their country. They’ll be here long after the war ends, after all the troops are sent back to the US. Why would the North ever stop fighting? Why wouldn’t the South resent us?”

Jack’s stomach felt like it was being slowly constricted by a vise. It was one thing to complain and wonder at the reasoning behind the war with the other guys in the squad, or privately in the moments right before falling asleep, but hearing it from Jones, someone who supposedly knew more about the situation than Jack did, made it feel infinitely worse. “If that’s what you think, if this is all hopeless and America is here fighting a losing war, what’re you doing running around with the CIA then? What’s the point of this?” Jack asked.

For the first time since they’d met almost two weeks ago, Jones cracked out a smile. “Do you love America Jack?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I do.”

“Well, there you have it. So do I. I may have been raised here, but I believe in America. Sometimes, you gotta do things you don’t agree with, for your country, for the ideals that you belive in. I think America genuinely stands for freedom, liberty, all that stuff Johnson yammers on about. So, I’m here.” Jones smiled again, and then said something short to Hoang, causing the old man to unexpectedly guffaw.

“And now, it’s late, so let’s get some rest.” Jones and Hoang started putting out the fire, leaving Jack sitting in the pitch black of the jungle night.

Was that what this was all for? Patriotism? That’s what Jones had made it seem like. Were the dead farmers, the displacement of millions of people, whether they be Vietnamese civilians and soldier or American troops, all for that? Jack didn’t know. But, in just one week, Hoang would be hopefully safely transferred to the Agency command station in Saigon, where the CIA would presumably hustle Hoang away to collect information from him. And Jack would return to his squad. Maybe they’d have another perspective on the questions that, even after what Jones had said, continued to eat away at Jack-why was he here? Was this all worth it?

Sources

· Bradley, Chapter 4: I used this for referencing some dates I mentioned in the story, as well as for general contextual information regarding the state of Vietnam during the war.

· Burns, “Vietnam at War: Episode 4”: I used some of the experiences cited by soldiers in this episode to add details to my story and make it more reflective of the actual experience of soldiers in Vietnamese jungles.

· New York Times, “William E. Colby, 76, Head of CIA in a Time of Upheaval”: I found this article when I was researching the history of the CIA in Vietnam. This is where I got my information regarding the existence of a CIA station in Saigon throughout much of the war. Link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/07/us/william-e-colby-76-head-of-cia-in-a-time-of-upheaval.html

·http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Glossary/Sixties_Term_Gloss_A_C.html: I wanted the story to sound authentic, so I looked up slang that soldiers would have used during this war, and found this extensive list, out of which I used a couple terms.