I, Soldier - part 5

Truman has more of a reason to write a book than me. He was fighting against a much more powerful enemy in much harder circumstances. And he was on the winning side of that war. But I digress, like I said before. Binh and I entered Truman’s office and gave crisp salutes. Binh followed his with a polite local bow and a “hello sir”. “Teaching some English, I see”, said Truman.

“As you well know, in a war like this, words are more important than bullets”, I replied. Green Berets are as much diplomats as they are soldiers, or rather, they are diplomats first and soldiers second.

“Well said. Well, what have you got for me?”

“I found and searched a VC tunnel complex near my outpost. Binh here has the report and helped me write it.”

Binh stepped forward and handed the report with both hands, as is the custom in most of Asia. When something is important, or you are giving it to someone important, you use both hands to offer it. It’s a custom few Americans over there learned or even noticed. If you ever get a business card from a Japanese person, for example, they will use both hands and do a slight bow when handing it to you.

Truman took the report and slowly flipped through the pages. His face told me I had done good work. The report wasn’t long, and Truman reads fast. Plus, I hadn’t been dismissed yet. Even so, the minutes he took to read it felt like hours.

“Outstanding work, keep it up. Anything you need from me? Your wish is my command.”

This was the part I was waiting for, but also the part I was the most nervous about. I wanted to get my spy camera for myself and weapons and ammo for Binh. I was afraid of asking for too much and getting nothing or something worse.

“I’d like a spy camera for the next time I explore a tunnel complex. We’ll get more intel that way. My memory’s good but a picture lasts longer. I’d also like some M60 machine guns, ammo, and radios for Binh and his men. Say enough for an Army infantry battalion.”

“Binh has that many men?”

“Yes sir. I’ve seen them form up. They’re experienced and disciplined too.”

Binh made the thumbs up gesture and smiled. I had coached him beforehand to do that when he heard the word “disciplined”. I felt a bit guilty about that piece Potemkin Village dishonesty, but it got me what I wanted. Potemkin was a Russian governor during the reign of Catherine the Great. He built fake villages filled with good-looking actors to impress her when she visited his domain.

“Damn! How much English does Binh know?”

“He can’t speak it so well yet, but he can understand a lot and I’ll keep teaching him. He’s been helping me with Vietnamese.”

“OK, you sold me. I’ll give you what you two can carry now and send the rest on another chopper. Dismissed!”

Binh and I loaded the chopper and headed back for the outpost. I’d never seen him more excited and his respect for me grew by leaps and bounds that day. I had just won my first battle of sorts. It was important now not to get cocky. Fatal mistakes are borne of overconfidence far more often than fear.

After we got back to the village, Binh formed up the battalion and called out some names. They were the elite of the battalion: either strong, brave, smart, good marksmen, or just popular in general. Binh explained in Vietnamese to them (for my benefit) that they were the best and so could choose between either a radio or a machine gun and I would train them on how to use them. They made their picks and fell back in formation. Binh explained to guard the US equipment carefully because it took a lot of work to get it. He turned to me as a signal to make some closing remarks.

I stepped forward and shouted in Vietnamese: I look forward to teaching you! I followed that up with a raised fist and a battle cry of SAT CONG! (kill communists!). The men went wild, and I knew Binh appreciated the shout-out to his tattoo. In human relations, there are rarely any unimportant details, and what is apparently trifling often turns out to be crucial. It’s a hard lesson to learn and I was slow to learn it as a child.

I decided to do the gunnery course first since all the men had shooting experience and that skill was easier and more relevant. The tricky part was finding a suitable piece of land nearby. I ended up deciding to use reduced size targets on a shorter range. In jungle warfare, firefights happen at 50 meters or less almost all the time anyway. I decided to use a waterfall as a backstop and also because the roar of the water would mask the sound of the shooting. I decided to let the men do everything themselves. People learn faster that way. Three of Binh’s men came to the waterfall with me, and I told them with words and gestures how to set-up the machine gun we had brought.

It took a bit longer than usual, but the important is they learned it all themselves and would remember it. After they all learned how to load and shoot, I told them they were the instructors now and that every man in the battalion should know how to load and shoot an M60. So for the next few weeks, they took soldiers out there in small groups to do just that. I could tell they took pride in learning how to shoot an advanced American weapon. From what I knew about Soviet weapons, they seemed better and easier to get, but I knew using enemy weapons was frowned upon and best avoided. Besides, the ticky-ticky-pow! of an M60 is music to my ears. Guns are the ultimate percussion instruments.