The following is a chapter from a book I'm writing about my experiences as a medical officer in Vietnam during the war. That's why it's a little longer than my usual post. It's painful to think about Vietnam and it's hard to understand if you weren't there, so I haven't written or talked much about it during the almost 55 years since I was there. But as I see wars continue, and listen to the same war psychology of thinking of strategy rather than suffering and loss of life, I think maybe those of us who've experienced war have an obligation to at least try to warn the next generation about its costs. The victims of war can't speak for themselves.
We have met the enemy and they
are us. Pogo. 1970.
When I was 8 or 9 years old my
parents took me on a vacation into the “Cookson Hills,” a mountainous area in
northeastern Oklahoma where my mother had worked as a social worker during the
Depression. It’s a heavily wooded area with lots of hills and streams, and no
highways, at least back then. As my dad was driving down a winding road, I
asked, “When are we going to get to the mountains?”
He replied, “We’re already in
the mountains.” It became a family joke.
While I was in Vietnam, I
could have asked a similar question, “When are we going to get to the war?”
I knew there was fighting all
around me. I heard the body counts in the general’s briefings. I visited the
hospitals where the casualties were brought in. Although 11780 American troops
lost their lives in Vietnam in 1969, second only to 1968, the year of the Tet
offensive, I had very little personal experience with the war. I lived in a
comfortable hooch. I made trips to Saigon every month, and I made frequent
visits to the nearby towns on MEDCAP missions, and to units in the field for my
urine tests, but I didn’t get shot at. Even my visits to the hospital were
mainly academic, investigating outbreaks of food poisoning, malaria or
hepatitis.
I travelled mainly by jeep
along Highway 1. There were a few attacks along the road, usually by mines set
off by a hidden Vietcong or by a buried trigger. Once a mine exploded on the
road to Tam Ky, which I had visited the day before, but I didn’t see the
damage. Then there was the time when the fuselage of a fighter plane crashed
through the bath house where I had just taken a shower, but at the time I just
laughed it off.
In Chu Lai I was relatively
isolated. It was a huge base several miles in diameter. There were only
occasional breaches of the perimeter while I was there, usually by a single
sapper, able to crawl through the barbed concertina wire barricades because the
guys on guard duty were high on pot. I only found out because the sirens would
go off, and I would have to don my helmet and flack jacket, strap on my pistol,
and walk over to the clinic to wait for the “all clear.”
I think my friend Jim
experienced the war more than I. He was shot at several times. He told me that
he had nightmares for years afterward. Frankly I don’t know how he got through
his residency. I couldn’t have functioned if I had to deal with PTSD.
The serious attacks were on
troops on patrol, and on Battalion fire bases, sitting ducks for mortar fire.
This is how my classmate, Norman Singer, was killed. A mortar round struck his
aide station in May of ’69, just a couple of months before I went to San
Antonio for basic training.
Of course the most dangerous
assignment was to be on patrol in the “boonies.” Every company in a battalion
had at least one platoon on patrol at any one time. The strategy was to go into
an area known to contain VC or NVA troops, to “establish contact.” In other
words, they were to wander through the area until they were fired on. This gave
the enemy a tremendous advantage. They knew the area, and they had civilians
working as sentinels to warn them of the presence of American troops. They
could bide their time, waiting for an opportunity, strike a platoon, killing 2
or 3 guys, and then disappear back into the bush. Of course, they also booby
trapped the trails with mines and pungi stakes.
Since I attended the general’s
briefings, I heard the mortality statistics every week. It was usually 2 or 3
of our guys to 10 to 20 VC and NVA. “VC” referred to any Vietnamese who wasn’t
wearing a uniform. According to our statistics there were no civilian
casualties. I can’t find it in my notes, but I remember calculating the risk of
an infantryman being killed during a year in the field. It was something like
30 or 40%. I probably tossed those notes because they were classified.
This is why the guys were so
desperate to get out. They would put peanut butter on their toes to get rat
bites, or skip their malaria pills to get malaria, just so they could get sent
back to the rear. Actually there was no “rear” since battalion fire bases were
scattered throughout the country, providing maximum exposure to enemy attack.
The danger of being in the
field put the men in a state of constant fear, which led to hostility toward
the enemy, and toward all Vietnamese, who were blamed for the war. This is why Vietnamese civilians were
sometimes killed indiscriminately as they were in the hamlet of My Lai.
The
men also blamed the danger they faced on their leaders, and that’s why the
practice of “fragging” became common. Fragging was the slang term used to
describe the murder of an officer who the men felt put them in
unnecessary danger. This was usually done by a grenade tossed in the officer’s
direction, or by misdirected fire during a fire fight. I heard of one officer
killed by a grenade thrown into a latrine. Fragging became more common as the
war dragged on. There were 600 such incidents between 1969 and 1971. [i]
Not every officer was
unpopular though. One of my hooch mates, Tyson, had been a company commander. Here’s
what I wrote about him in my notes:
Tyson was a company commander,
tough as a cob. John, another of my hooch mates who worked in G-1, personnel
and public affairs, condemned him for refusing to write a letter to the family
of a soldier who died. John said that’s why he hates the army. It’s so cold and
hard.
Actually Tyson is one of the
nicest guys I’ve met here. He’s clever, the life of the party among his
colleagues. When he was a company commander he says he rode his men all the
time; allowed only seven men to stay in the rear while most companies leave
20%. He held back leaves for the good of his unit. He even refused to allow
med-evacs unless he was satisfied the man couldn’t function in his job.
In return he gave the men his
support, always accompanying them into the field. He was injured once while
standing up so he could see better to direct the battle. As a result, his unit
had fewer killed than any other company. His men respected him. When he left,
they all chipped in and bought him a fancy camera.
When Tyson refused to write
the letter, he said, “What the Hell. He’s dead. What more can you say.” In
retrospect, I think he felt guilty that the man was killed on his watch.
Barney Neal was my other med
school classmate killed in Vietnam. I’ll bet he was a popular officer as well,
but not for being a hard ass. But who knows? Maybe he was different as a
commander. The Barney Neal that I knew was a really nice guy. He was a little
older than most of us, but he fit right in. To us he was just one of the guys.
(There were only three women in my class.)
Barney was called up in 1965,
after we started sending troops over to Vietnam. We were just finishing our
second year in med school. He sailed to Vietnam on the USNS General Walker as
executive officer for a Battalion in the 4th Infantry Division,
landing at Qui Nhon on August 6, 1966.
By 1970, Barney was on his 2nd
or 3rd tour in Vietnam, and had been promoted from major to
Lieutenant Colonel, commanding a battalion of about 1000 men at An Khe, near
Pleiku in the Central Highlands. On Sept. 11, 1970, he was on his way to
inspect an NVA bunker complex discovered by one of his companies on a search
and destroy mission, but he never made it. His helicopter crashed, apparently
due to mechanical failure. The pilot tried to autorotate, a maneuver designed
to slow the descent by taking the motor out of gear and changing the pitch of
the rotor blades. The gears were locked though, and the helicopter crashed,
bursting into flames, killing Barney and his artillery liaison officer, Lt
James Nobles.
The rest of our class had
graduated by that time. I was already back from my year’s service in Vietnam.
It wasn’t long before we found out about Barney though, and also about Norman.
It was before the days of the internet, but our class kept in touch through
newsletters. Word of their deaths cast a cloud over my Army service. Norman was
killed just before I went to San Antonio for training, and Barney was killed
just after I got back from Vietnam. I had been incensed by the needless loss of
life in Vietnam from the start of the war, but learning about the death of
Norman and Barney somehow made it more real. As a doctor, I had felt removed
from the war. Doctors don’t take lives, we save them, and we’re not supposed to
get killed.
Actually the career military
officers, “lifers” as we draftees liked to call them, looked at Vietnam as an
opportunity. There, commanding troops in a real war, they had more opportunity
for advancement than in peacetime, but like with Barney, there were risks.
About half way through my tour
we heard that our commanding general, Lloyd Ramsey, had crashed in a helicopter
and was lost in the jungle. The only details I heard were that he had a broken
leg and one of the orthopedic docs had flown out in the rescue helicopter to
splint it so he could be flown out. He’s the only doctor I know of who got a
silver star, the third highest medal awarded by the Army.
I never knew exactly what
happened. There was a brief article in the Americal Magazine about it:
On March 19, Major General
Lloyd Ramsey, commanding general of the Americal Division, was hoisted from the
thick jungle where he had been stranded overnight following the crash of his
command and control UH1 (Huey) helicopter in which two men were killed and six
injured.
Army and Air Force rescue
units flew to the area and an infantry element of the 1st Battalion,
6th Infantry was airborne to within two miles of the crash site.
Radio contact was lost at 4 PM
Wednesday, March 19, and was not regained until 8 AM when Major Tommy P. James
(Bixby, Okla.) arrived in the area in a helicopter. Major James was awarded the
Distinguished Flying Cross (the Army’s second highest medal, just below the
Medal of Honor) for his outstanding actions in the successful rescuing of
downed personnel.
On March 22, following the
injury of General Ramsey, Major General A.E. Milloy assumed command of the
Americal Division.
The article doesn’t mention
the poor doc who flew out with the rescue team, but the incident sticks in my
mind since the awarding of Silver Stars is so rare.
Vietnam was the only war I
have been in, but in reading more about war, especially the war in Vietnam, I
think it deserves special recognition for cruelty and senseless slaughter. I’m
no expert, but it seems to me that this arose out of our strategy of attrition,
the targeting of civilians, their homes, villages, and crops, to deprive the
Vietcong and NVA of their means of support. This strategy led the men to
rationalize their contempt and hatred of the Vietnamese, and to justify in
their minds their inhumane treatment of them. I wrote in my notes:
Combat orientation: Men told
that although it was understood they would torture and kill prisoners, they
should make sure no one found out. August 4, 1969.
It was common knowledge that
torture was practiced by American troops. One method was to dangle the prisoner
out of a helicopter at 10,000 ft., holding him by an ankle, just to make him
scream. Then they would often just let go, watching him drop to his death. The Vietnamese prisoners not killed were
turned over to the ARVNs who might also torture them, or enlist them in the
South Vietnamese army.
Torture was practiced by both
sides. Jim told me of a couple of examples he witnessed. Once, while visiting a
village on a medcap mission, he saw the heads of the village chief and his wife
impaled on stakes. On another occasion he saw the body of a man who had been
tortured by driving nails into both sides of his head and then shocking him
into convulsions by attaching wires and a generator to the nails.
In looking for accounts of the
war from the Vietnamese’ perspective, I ran across a memoir by a woman, Le Ly
Hayslip, who was born a peasant under French rule, and survived the Vietnam war
to eventually marry an American Soldier and escape to the US. Her book, “When Heaven and Earth Changed
Places,” was later made into a major motion picture by Oliver Stone. The book
describes how Le Ly, as a young girl, was recruited to work as a sentry for the
Vietcong. She describes being captured by government troops and being tortured
by tying her to a post on an ant hill and then rubbing honey on her legs.
The ambivalent relationship
between Vietnamese civilians and the Vietcong was illustrated by Le Ly’s
experience. When she was released by the government troops, the Vietcong,
assuming she had betrayed them, raped her, and during the assault, one of her attackers
actually apologized, saying he was only doing what he was told.[ii]
Vietnamese civilians were in a
bind. Many sided with the Vietcong because they also opposed the corrupt South
Vietnamese government, and they knew them. Most were local boys usually led by
Vietnamese who had infiltrated from the North. A few civilians participated in
the government pacification program intended to separate and arm loyal citizens
to defend themselves against the Vietcong. The Americans participated in these
projects, and befriended many Vietnamese, but as soon as the US troops left, it
was up to the Vietnamese government troops to equip and support them, which
didn’t happen. These groups soon became infiltrated by Vietcong, and the
leaders were assassinated. The common saying was that “the villages belong to
the Vietcong after dark.” Not even the village chiefs would spend the night in
a village.[iii]
There was a Korean military
unit just south of us, and they were notorious for their brutality. According
to Colonel Wilson their solution to the problem of prostitution was to wrap a
prostitute in barbed wire and hang her over the entrance to the base. I expect
that was more effective than Jim’s program of weekly exams and ID cards. The
Colonel told us the Koreans didn’t see much action in Vietnam because the
Vietcong and NVA troops were afraid of them.
I don’t want to dwell too much
on the subject of torture, or on the cruelty practiced during the war, only to
say that neither side was innocent. It was just an example of war’s evil
psychology of dehumanizing the enemy. It’s okay to kill or torture them because
they’re trying to kill us, and their lives are worthless because we’re trying
to kill them.
Several especially cruel but
effective weapons were developed for use in Vietnam.
I already mentioned our
“Dragon Ships,” large cargo planes outfitted with machine guns able to
pulverize an area with thousands of rounds of high caliber bullets, and the
bomb craters from our B-52 strikes, 50 feet wide and just as deep, which dotted
the countryside.
While the Vietcong had their
pungi stakes, we had our Claymore mines. The Claymores were antipersonnel mines
aimed in the direction of expected enemy approach. They were detonated remotely
by a trigger device set off by a soldier, or by a trip wire, exploding the C-4
inside and firing 700 pellets out about 100 yards in a 60⁰ radius. They were
meant to be used against advancing troops and were nicknamed “toe poppers”
because they frequenty injured the victim’s legs, disabling him and requiring
the help of several others to rescue him. Of course Claymores also killed
children going to school or random civilians walking down a trail. It is now
illegal to set one up with a trip wire.
Our most famous weapon from
the Vietnam era was probably Agent Orange, which wasn’t technically a weapon.
It was a defoliant, meant to clear vegetation from around a fire base or
landing zone to prevent surprise attack, and it was also used to just destroy
crops, the food supply for the enemy, but also for the civilians. Its
effectiveness is illustrated by the fact that during the war Vietnam changed
from being a major exporter of rice, to being an importer.
Agent orange was toxic,
causing birth defects, certain kinds of cancer, and a skin condition called
Chloracne. I know a little bit about it because when I worked at the VA all the
Agent Orange claims were sent to me because I was a Vietnam vet myself. There
were so many outrageous claims, from impotence to marital problems, that it got
to be kind of a joke, but the government did take the claims seriously. There
were maps charting different levels of exposure, and each claimant was rated by
where he had served. Large studies were done to determine the long term
effects. As I remember, the highest level of exposure was up near the DMZ.
Of course, the Vietnamese,
civilian and military, were the most highly exposed to Agent Orange, and I
don’t have any idea how many of them were affected. They were aware of the
potential danger though, so the South Vietnamese government launched a publicity
campaign to quiet their fears. What I remember about it was a TV ad picturing a
Vietnamese family putting Agent Orange on their breakfast cereal, to show how
harmless it was.
The most famous picture from
the war might be that of a little Vietnamese girl, nine years old, completely
naked, running away from her village with a group of children, screaming from
the pain of napalm burning her back. She had taken off her clothes to try to
stop the burning. Running behind her was her grandmother, carrying her infant
cousin, who later died of his injuries.
Napalm was developed as an
incendiary agent during WWII. It is a mixture of gasoline, kerosine and diesel
fuel, mixed with a gelling agent. It burns at a high temperature and much more
slowly than gasoline alone, sticking tenaciously to its targets, making it
extremely effective against structures and personnel. It causes severe burns
even on slight contact, and kills anyone near the blast by burning up all the
available oxygen.
It is dispersed by flame
throwers or in cannisters dropped by aircraft which explode on contact,
igniting the mixture.
Reportedly about 388,000 tons
of U.S. napalm bombs were dropped in Vietnam between 1963 and 1973, compared to
32,357 tons used over three years in the Korean War, and 16,500 tons dropped on
Japan in 1945. The UN banned the use of napalm against civilian populations in
1980, but it was not eliminated from the US arsenal until 1995, and the UN resolution
was not signed by a US president until Obama signed it in 2009. [iv]
Kim Phuc, or “Napalm girl,” as
she is also known, survived the severe burns to her back and arms, and after
ten years and 17 surgeries, was finally able to move properly. She is now
married with two children and is a Canadian citizen. In 1997 she established
the first Kim Phúc Foundation in the U.S., with the aim of providing medical
and psychological assistance to child victims of war.
The following is a quote from
an NPR interview with Phuc in 2008:
Forgiveness made me free from
hatred. I still have many scars on my body and severe pain most days but my
heart is cleansed. Napalm is very powerful, but faith, forgiveness, and love
are much more powerful. We would not have war at all if everyone could learn
how to live with true love, hope, and forgiveness. If that little girl in the
picture can do it, ask yourself: Can you?[v]
Underground bunkers were
everywhere in Vietnam, like storm cellars in Oklahoma. The most notorious ones
were built by the Vietcong, tunnels several hundred yards long and several
levels deep, fortified with large beams; but actually every family built their
own, because everyone was in danger from aerial bombing.
Every search and destroy
mission was accompanied by a search for underground bunkers. Volunteers were
specially trained as “tunnel rats” to descend into these structures to look for
hidden Vietcong, valuable intelligence and supplies. During Operation Cedar
Falls, US troops discovered almost 500 tunnels stretching over 12 miles.
Hundreds of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition were captured along
with enough rice to feed 13000 troops for a year. 500,000 documents were found
including diagrams of US billets in Saigon and plans for terrorist attacks.[vi]
Tunnel rats took a huge risk
going into these bunkers. The tunnels had booby traps, and there were many
branches to facilitate escape or ambush. Sometimes Vietnamese translators
volunteered for these missions, especially in small tunnels dug by civilians.
They could call out warnings to those hiding within, and perhaps save some
people just hiding for safety.
Pepper spray was used to flush
out people not responding to warnings, and also “white phosphorus,” an
incendiary device used in grenades, tracer bullets, and bombs. White phosphorus
ignites on contact with air and leaves a trail of white smoke. A white phosphorus
grenade thrown into a tunnel would immediately burn up all the available
oxygen, suffocating those inside.
White phosphorus was also used
by tactical units to create a smoke screen to hide them from enemy fire, and by
Forward Air Control (FAC) planes to mark targets for fighter-bomber fire during
“pacification” operations. [vii]
After clearing tunnels of
enemy troops and supplies, and exploring them for intelligence, the tunnels
were destroyed, either by explosives or by bulldozing. In my notes I illustrate
the risk involved in these operations.
Fourteen guys killed
protecting bulldozers clearing area after removing 1200 civilians. Nov 2, 1969
During the last month of my
tour, a large collection of Vietcong medical supplies was found in an
underground hospital in the mountains west of Chu Lai, and was brought into our
office. Included were surgical instruments, bandages, pills and bottles labeled
in Vietnamese, and small packets of morphine, anesthetic or antibiotics, each
attached to a short IV tubing and a needle. There were also papers, apparently
certificates or documents of identification, and pictures of family members or
girlfriends, and letters. I was fascinated by this. I knew the Vietcong and NVA
had underground hospitals, but this was the first example I had seen.
In developing information for
this book I ran across a memoir written by a Vietnamese doctor, Dang Thuy Tram, who volunteered to halt her
post graduate training in ophthalmology, and make the three month trek down the
Ho Chi Minh Trail to treat Vietcong and NVA troops in South Vietnam. She worked
at a hospital near Duc Pho, which was just south of Chu Lai where I was
stationed, and at various locations to the west of us in the mountains. After
working there for over three years, Thuy was shot and killed.
Two volumes of Thuy’s diary
were saved by a US military officer, Fred Whitehurst, who kept them for thirty
years before he decided to have them translated. They were then published under
the title “Last Night I Dreamed of Peace,” a quotation from the diary. Since
then, Whitehurst, an attorney, has become acquainted with Thuy’s family; the
memoir has become a best seller in Vietnam, and a hospital has been built in
Duc Pho in her memory.[viii]
Thuy’s diary is eloquently
written, at times poetic. She quotes from memory sayings and poems from
literature. She is a devoted but somewhat naïve communist, but she doesn’t talk
in the diaries about communist dogma, but rather her love and concern for her
patients, and the suffering of her people.
In her diary, Thuy describes
the fear of discovery, as enemy (American) troops pass near the opening of her
bunker, left open because of the heat; her fear that a young man with an
injured leg will start bleeding after his leg is crushed by a fallen beam,
dislodged by a bomb blast. She describes shivering with cold as she works to
bail water out of her bunker during the rainy season, and struggling to move
patients from one location to another when enemy troops move into her area.
Thuy treated both civilian and
military patients. She grew to know and care about her patients and their
families, who often lived nearby. She trained medics to go out and serve with
the troops. She keeps up a correspondence not only with her family in Hanoi,
but with former patients and medics she has trained. The Vietcong communication
network was apparently more efficient than the US mail, because Thuy describes
receiving letters several times a week, much more often than I did.
What the Vietcong feared most,
even more than being killed, was capture, because they knew they would be
tortured. But sometimes instead, they were inducted into the ARVN army. Thuy
describes a letter she received from a former patient then an ARVN soldier, in
which he states his intention to escape and return to the Vietcong.
The Ho Chi Minh trail wasn’t
the only source of supply for the Vietcong and NVA troops in the south.
Equipment and men were also shipped across the South China Sea, and Duc Pho was
apparently one of the delivery points. Thuy’s diary mentions a group of NVA
soldiers injured while disembarking from a boat from Hanoi. In my notes I
mention the sighting of a similar craft.
Boat off coast with about 20
people. Helicopter strike called in. Didn’t show. Someone set off a flare in
their direction and they left. October 2, 1969.
In addition to keeping her
personal diary, Thuy kept detailed records of her surgical procedures. These
were also discovered after her death, but she also refers to numerous cases in
her diary: an appendectomy she performed without anesthesia, amputations,
repair of ruptured kidney. Here’s her description of a man burned by a
phosphorus bomb:
This morning they bring me a
wounded soldier. A phosphorus bomb has burned his entire body. An hour after
being hit, he is still burning, smoke rising from his body. This is Khanh, a
twenty year old man, the son of a sister cadre in the hamlet where I’m staying….Nobody
recognizes him as the cheerful handsome man he once was. Today his smiling
joyful black eyes have been reduced to two little holes- the yellowish eyelids
are cooked. The reeking burn of phosphorus smoke still rises from his body.
I stand frozen before this
heartbreaking tableau.
His mother weeps. Her
trembling hands touch her son’s body; pieces of his skin fall off, curled up
like crumbling sheets of rice cracker. His younger and older sisters are
attending him, their eyes full of tears.[ix]
I can’t do justice to Thuy’s
journal with a few quotations, but listening to her experiences in her own
words gives me a feeling of empathy, of kinship with her and the many like her,
more than any statistics, or description of the hardship and carnage.
I’ll just include one more set
of quotations, from the last days before Thuy was killed. Her hospital in the
mountains near Pho Cuong was bombed twice in a week’s time - apparently a
traitor had revealed its location - the consensus was that a new location for
the hospital must be found. The following are excerpts from her diary during
the days that followed:
June 14, 1970: Sunday, it is
clear and cool after the rain. The trees are brilliantly green. In the house, a
vase of fresh flowers just cut from the garden this morning … The turntable is
playing a familiar song. “The Blue Danube” … Voices and laughter of visiting
friends…
Oh, that was but a dream- a
daydream!
This morning is also a Sunday,
fresh after the rain. The air is calm. If not for the sky tearing roar of
aircraft, this morning would be no different from my daydream. My place has
just suffered another bombardment. The afternoon before yesterday, two observation
planes circled for a long time and then launched rockets… after four waves of
bombardments, we were surprised to find that the bombs had struck not 20 meters
from us. The entire area was denuded of trees. Plastic sheets covering the
houses were shredded and scattered … Shrapnel had cut beams and columns. Dirt
filled the shelter! Fortunately no one was injured … Yesterday it was pouring
rain. We covered the floor with plastic sheets, but the water still came in and
flooded the building. Everyone was thoroughly soaked…
Yesterday, in the ravaged
scene after the bombardment, people departed, loaded with their belongings…
Thuy and two nurses were then
left alone to care for five patients, too sick to be moved. She reflects on her
decision to stay:
June 16, 1970.
The clinic is being attacked,
and the enemy is continuing to put tremendous pressure on us with all types of
aircraft. The roar of the aircraft is enough to make me as tense as a taut
guitar string.
There is no other solution
than to stay with the wounded soldiers. It is laughable that the commissioner
for the clinic dare not stay with us. He refuses to stay with me. … I have resigned
myself to bear this situation. What else is there to say?
June 17, 1970.
Today there are no scout
planes circling over us. The air is calm. Once in a while, waves of HU-1A’s
rise to hover above the hills. The enemy is certainly nearby. There are only
three women here, with five non-ambulatory wounded soldiers. If the enemy
comes, there is nothing we can do but run! Is that acceptable? Everyone agrees
that under such circumstances, there is no other way. But will I have the heart
to do it? … Nien, an injured young soldier, tells us sincerely; “Be calm,
sisters. Run if the enemy comes. We will stay and fight them to the death!”
Nien is only nineteen years
old. He is a commando, a very handsome boy with a full face, a high nose, and
big eyes with thick lashes. When he is in pain, he turns to me with tears in
his eyes.
Nien was injured in action.
The wound caused secondary bleeding in the tibia. I had just operated on his
leg three or four days ago, then the bombs fell on the clinic. A broken beam in
the shelter crushed Nien’s leg right at the old wound. For the past twelve
days, I worried that his leg would bleed again. … Today that danger is past,
but if the enemy comes….
June 20, 1970.
Still no one
comes. It has been almost ten days since the second bombardment. People left
with a promise to come back quickly and get us out of this dangerous area.
…Questions whirl around in our minds. Why? Why haven’t they come back? Is something
wrong? Is it impossible that they have the heartlessness to leave us in this
situation…?
Today there is only enough
rice left for an evening meal. We cannot sit and watch the wounded soldiers go
hungry. But if one of us goes out, there is no guarantee that she will be safe
or that she can come back…. And if two of us go, leaving one behind, what can
she do alone if something happens? …This rain in front of us is difficult
enough. If it starts pouring in earnest, how can one person manage? She can’t
cover the shelter in advance because of the danger of being spotted by
airplanes. Still in the end, two of us must go.
Sister Lanh and Xang leave,
and I stand there looking at them, pants rolled up to their thighs, wading
through the stream, my eyes blurry with tears. …at this moment, I yearn deeply
for Mom’s caring hand. Even the hand of a dear one or that of an acquaintance
would be enough.
Come to me, squeeze my hand,
know my loneliness, and give me the love, the strength to prevail on the
perilous road before me.
That is the end of the diary.
Two days later Thuy was shot and killed while walking across a field by
soldiers from the Americal Division. It must have been her turn to go for food
and supplies. US intelligence records from June 14 reveal knowledge of a medical
clinic with 30 medics and one doctor, so
we knew Thuy’s shelter was a hospital and bombed it anyway. The Vietcong didn’t
abandon Thuy’s clinic. By the time she was killed, the clinic had been
resupplied and the patients evacuated. [x]
Thuy was born in 1942, the
same year as I. We were doctors in the same location and at the same time, only
on different sides of the conflict. I received the medical supplies captured
from the underground Vietcong hospital the month after Thuy was killed. I’m
sure they were hers.
[i]
Eyewitness History of the Vietnam War, 1961 - 1975: George Esper and
Associated Press, 1983, Ballantine Press. P 138.
[ii]
When Heaven and Earth Changed Places; a Vietnamese Woman’s Journey from War
to Peace, Le Ly Hayslip with Jay Wurts, New York, NY, 2003. Penguin East
meets West foundation.
[iii]
The Military Half, An Account of Destruction in Quang Ngai and Quang Tin, Jonathan
Schell, Alfred A Knopf, New York, 1968. P 202.
[v]
Wikipedia: Phan Thi Kim Phuc
[vii]
The Military Half, An Account of
Destruction in Quang Ngai and Quang Tin, Jonathan Schell, Alfred A Knopf,
New York, 1968. P 22.
[viii]
Last Night I Dreamed of Peace. Dang Thuy Tram. 9/11/2007, Crown
Publishing.
[ix]
Last Night I Dreamed of Peace. Dang Thuy Tram. 9/11/2007, Crown Publishing.
July 29, 1969.
[x]
Last Night I Dreamed of Peace. Dang Thuy Tram. 9/11/2007, Crown
Publishing. P xv.
