I Will Be Back....

Greetings.... I want to inform all of you that I am going in for cancer surgery tomorrow morning, so it may be a week or two before I am back writing. It has not been the most conducive time for writing, but shortly it will be again. All of us have such minor details as this that can interfere with our program. So, please bare with me and I will be back to writing on a regular basis.

I am going to provide a link here to an article that was featured in the Oregonian Newspaper this morning. I do hope you read it and enjoy it for whatever you may get from it. You may have to cut and paste to your browser. Thank you for taking the time to view this.

http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2008/09/turning_point_climber_makes_mo.html

Stay on your edge,

Thom

The Bunker & The Cracker Jack Kids

The Bunker and the Cracker Jack Kids

The day starts like any other day in South Vietnam, much too warm for this early in the morning; the humidity is relentless and seems to challenge your every breath. I walk in the door to operations and report to the First Sergeant, ready to start my day. He informs me that I have an objective to meet, build a bunker that will hold forty men and withstand mortar and rocket attacks; build it next to the barracks.

That is my order for the week and it almost gets me, if not killed, surely beat up by my own men. The sergeant instructs me to go to the barracks and wake the men up who have just finished swing shift and graveyard, tell them to get up and work on building the bunker. I have a very bad feeling about this. This is going to be like dancing the waltz through a minefield. I start walking through the barracks, moving slow and quietly, as if I don’t want to disturb anyone, and yet, what am I doing here? I am going to wake them up, interrupt their sleep. I am about to make a very serious decision, who do I wake up first? I do not want to pick the wrong personality, someone who is bigger than me and definitely not someone who has an attitude.

After making one stealthy pass through the barracks, I approach Robert. He always seems a rather calm and rational sort. I gently shake him while speaking, “Robert,” his head rolling side to side, “Robert,” one eye opens with a squint, followed by, “Dammit Rock, what do you want?” I respond with, “You have to get up and fill sand bags for our bunker.” No surprise to me, Robert’s next words are, “Get the hell out of here if you value your fucking life, Rock.” I am trying to apologize and in the process wake up three others, who immediately take sides with Robert. There is now a chorus of threats sounding off in harmony. My survival instincts are telling me things are about to get physically ugly and I am going to be the ugly part of it all.

I retreat from the barracks, electing flight over fight and go back to the sergeant, telling him, “This is not going to work.” I continue with my plea, “Sarge, I have a possible solution to the problem, if I may.” The sergeant, despite his facial expression of doubt gives me his attention as I start to explain. “Give me a truck and four armed guards and we will go over to the P.O.W. camp and get prisoners to build our bunker. I have done a little investigating and found out we can take the prisoners for work details as long as we have one armed guard per four prisoners.” This is what I call working smarter, not harder. The sergeant’s doubting stare fades from view to be replaced with a smile and a wink: he agrees.

I take my detail of armed guards and the truck and drive into the P.O.W. camp. I check in with the American officer who oversees the compound, which is really being run by the ARVN’s (Army Republic Vietnam). He orders the prisoners into formation for our review. He identifies sixteen and has them board my truck. I am looking at their faces, eyes that tell stories they would rather not know themselves, expressions that expose an underlying theme of sadness and frustration. In their every movement, I can sense the despair, the inner cry for help, for loved ones, for family. I am just glad they are my prisoners and I am not theirs. As we drive to our barracks, I can imagine what these prisoners must be thinking: “Where are we going and for what purpose?”

As we pull up to the bunker site next to our barracks, the answers to their questions present themselves. Standing before them is the wood beam frame of the bunker they are going to build.

We unload the prisoners and line them up for a show and tell. Since they do not understand English, I demonstrate what it is we want them to do, first by setting two empty fifty-five gallon drums two deep at ground level. I gesture that this pattern be followed all the way around the framework and then fill them with sand. Next I stack a second row of drums on top of the first ones, one drum deep, filling all drums with sand. Then I start filling sand bags and stacking them in place, thicker at the bottom with a taper towards the top. Now, this is not rocket science and these prisoners know what to do and they do it well. They are not fast and I don’t blame them. I am letting them work at their own speed; the war is over for them, they are just waiting for it to end.

As the morning progresses, we have a little time to interact. I find myself taking a liking to them. Yes, they are my enemy and you are not supposed to like your enemy. I can’t help but think of my father right now. I was a small boy, maybe ten; my father was talking about World War II, when he fought the Japanese in the Pacific. He spoke with anger in his voice, “They wanted me to hate them, and I did. Then when the war was over, they wanted me to love them.” I know from further conversations that he felt used and manipulated and told me he would never hate anyone again. I can remember that so vividly, it had a strong impact on me. Now I smile and thank Dad for the insight.

It is just before lunch break; I decide to go over to our supply tent and barter for C-rations. They have candy, cigarettes and the food is not bad either, if you are hungry. I have returned for lunch and I give each one of them a box of C-rations. As I am handing out the boxes, it is obvious they have no clue what it is; time for more show and tell. I teach them how to use the P38 can opener. I open one box and take out the cigarettes; that gets their attention. The rest of them are starting into their rations, digging for the prize. They look like little kids who just got their first box of Cracker Jacks. They are acting as if it were Christmas or should I say TET, their Vietnamese New Year. For the rest of the week, they look forward to their Cracker Jacks experience. All faces are smiling. After lunch, the work pace picks up a little. We finish the day and take them back to their compound.

The next morning, we drive into the compound to get sixteen more prisoners. As we are parking the truck, I notice

that our same sixteen are right there in front. There is a little jostling going on for position, as it appears others want their spot. I would bet the stories of their day were told and many of their comrades want in on it. It’s obvious they enjoyed their day with us, plus the C-rations helped, I’m sure. When the order is given to board the truck, the same sixteen jump on as if it is a ride to freedom.

We are now starting work on the bunker and all is going well, when this southern boy named Burt, a GI out of our barracks, walks by and starts giving me shit. “Rock, you don’t know how to get work out of them. I’ll show you how you bust their ass. Just give me ten minutes with them and … ” You might say I am taking direct offense to this kind of harassment. He continues with his ignorance as he passes by us going to the barracks. I know these prisoners have no understanding of our English, but they definitely know the universal language of threatening tones and inflections in one’s voice, body language that is spelled out in stance, hands that are clenched in fists presenting vulgar gestures. When they read the eyes, the violence is known. I have had enough of him and call him down off the porch. “Burt, I am going to bust you up right here in front of them.” Words of insults and threats are being directed at my prisoners, challenges are flying, body language is talking loud and bold, and Burt and I are dancing the dance. In my emotional state, I start to hand my rifle to one of the prisoners--not a good idea. His eyes widen and his hands show he wants no part of it. Burt is not coming down the stairs to meet me, but instead disappears into the barracks. I guess I out danced him. As that confrontation ends, I turn my attention back to the prisoners. They all are smiling at me, as I am sure they understand very well what has just taken place. I will be damned if someone thinks they are going to harm and harass my prisoners, these people, especially when there is no cause for it.

It is Cracker Jacks time and we are all sitting around together interacting with sign language and any other means by which we can make ourselves understood. One thing becomes obvious and that is who is the leader of the group. He is mid twenties, tall and maybe Cambodian, not sure, but I would say he is an officer, judging how the others respond to him. We are having a pretty good time of it all, when I challenge him to a sparring fight. As I present my challenge, his expression shows he isn’t too sure about this; but what can he do, but play along. Now, I am thinking I will teach this boy a thing or two, given that I had a rather successful history in wrestling. As he and I stand up, instinctively, my guards and the prisoners make a circle around us and the challenge is on.

I must say, this is rather humbling, not to speak of embarrassing. Every move I make on him, I catch an elbow, or a fist or a foot or a knee… I cannot make a move without this guy totally kicking my ass and he never lays a hand on me. He is stopping an inch from contact, but he makes it obvious that I just took the hit. His boys are cheering, laughing and proud. My guys are giving me shit and I tell them, you can take over any time. It all ends in good humor and fun. He is a good man. We are finishing our lunch with a group photo shot, he and I in the middle, arms over shoulders and swapping hats; I am realizing just how insane this war is. We are supposed to be trying to kill each other and given what we are now experiencing, that is the last thing that any of us wants to do. I am sure a beer would be more appropriate right now.

One of them is indicating he needs a bathroom break, so I take him to the latrine. Now, our latrine has stalls and doors and is the standard American toilet. I show him the toilet and then just step out of the latrine and wait by the door. It has been a couple of minutes and I go back in to check on him. I bend over to look under the door for feet and--shit! There are no feet. I freak-out; the thought of losing a VC prisoner on our base is not a good idea and out of panic, I kick the door open. There he is, feet up on the toilet seat, squatting over it. He has a very startled look on his face and so do I. We stare at each other for a moment and then I close the door so he can finish. It then dawns on me, they don’t really know what a toilet is or at least have never seen one like ours. Their toilets are two footpads in a shallow sink of sorts with a hole that you squat over and drop in. After he finishes and comes out, we give each other a funny smile, he’s probably thinking, “Americans are strange.” The day ends with no damage.

When I take them back to the compound, there is a prisoner handcuffed to the flagpole in his underwear. I ask the officer, what is with him? “He tried to escape last night.” My response is, “What are you going to do with him?” The officer points and says, “See that tin box over in the corner of the yard? He will spend three days and nights in that.” This box is not big enough for me to get into, just big enough for a small Vietnamese to curl up and be stuffed in. Cook in it by day and can’t straighten out for three days. Damn, that is ugly.

My guards and I worked for better than a week with these same prisoners. They did a good job on the bunker, despite the attempts of harassment by Burt. I do believe they feel much the same as we do at this point. Given the opportunity to meet each other without an environment that harbors conflict and pits us against each other, we all discover that we get along just fine and actually like and enjoy each other. It is kind of sad that it is ending.

It is our last day; they bring us sandals they made from old tires. They have cut the soles out of tire treads to fit each foot. The inner-tubes are cut into straps and laced through cuts in the tread to complete the sandal. Their creative ingenuity is rather impressive. We call them Ho Chi Minh One Thousand Milers, guaranteed for one thousand miles on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. To us, these sandals are the best, just the fact that the prisoners made them for us has us all feeling pretty good. One thing my guards and I have come to understand, they are not “gooks” or anything lower than human life. They are no different than you or me. They laugh; cry, hurt and bleed just like us. This is one of the many evils of war; you are conditioned to hate and kill someone you may actually like, given the chance. I still say, I would rather we drink a beer together than fight each other over someone else’s proclaimed war. I wonder what their choice of beer would be.

The End....

Silk Pajamas & Tombstoneeyes

Greetings!
I am in the process of writing a book and at this point in time, I am approximately 3/4 of the way to completion. This is an exciting time for me, as this is a new road for me to travel. Actually, all of this is new to me. Nothing like a new adventure. I am going to be presenting snippits of my book on this blog and do welcome your comments. My book is named "Silk Pajamas & Tombstone Eyes".