I, Soldier - part 13

 Truman was waiting for me at the outpost. He motioned for me to step into a hut.

"Hell of a stunt there, Thomas. You got brass balls. Here, this is my Distinguished Service Cross from WW2. I'd like to get you your own, but the citation would need to be heavily redacted, and the paperwork would take forever to process. I know how you feel about paperwork."

"Keep it, sir. I got all the gold stars I needed in kindergarten. If you really want to do me a favor, make sure everyone in this village is taken somewhere safe if the shit hits the fan. If I have to come back here and rescue Binh and Sao Mai myself, I will."

"We'll take care of them. I promise."

"I'd like to spend some time to decompress in Hue. It's a very relaxing place for me."

"That's all I need to hear. Off you go and let me know when you're back here at the outpost. Dismissed!"

Hue was my happy place in Vietnam, my oasis of tranquility. Although it was still badly damaged from the Tet Offensive, it still had its charm. US Marines retook with city with no air support, as the higher ups did not want to damage this historic and beautiful city. They were also forbidden from using tanks, artillery, and mortars. Considering how badly they were outnumbered; it was a magnificent victory. 

As I pondered the Perfume River once more from a cafe, I decided it was time for another beer. As I drank it, I began to feel weirdly woozy. As my eyes closed and I slumped down, my last thought was: Oh, fuck! Someone spiked my drink. As I came to, I was being dragged through a hallway. All I had on was my underwear. They chained me to a wall, upside down. A white guy with a Russian accent came in and spoke to me. Aw, shit. KGB. They were in Vietnam and helping the communists. It also gave them the opportunity to interrogate Americans or get info from communist Vietnamese who had done so. The KGB were fearsome. I read about their language and espionage training. They even had a full-size mock American town in a place called Vinnytsia in Ukraine. That's where their main spy school was, so I had read. 

The KGB guy was average height and lean. He had a fearsome, penetrating gaze. Whatever he was about to do to me, he had done it to many others, and he knew it would be painful. He spoke in an eerily calm, soft voice. He bent down to my level and spoke almost directly into my ear. 

"Hello, American war hero. See this syringe? Full of scopolamine. Sweet dreams."

He jammed the needle in my arm and pushed down the plunger. I had heard rumors about scopolamine torture. Scopolamine is an extremely powerful hallucinogenic and psychotic. It's often called the most dangerous drug in the world. It's a good thing I was kind of insane already at the time else I would have lost my whole mind. 

If you ask me, all good soldiers are a little crazy. It's how you stay alive. There was a famous Lakota warrior named Tasunke Witko, which means Crazy Horse. He fought against the Army at Custer's Last Stand. 

It was worse than anything I had heard or could have imagined. It's hard to put into words. Imagine your memories become your worst enemy and take you a guided tour of your own personal hell. It was an unbelievable, terrifying agony that lasted for what to me seemed like 1,000 years. At long last, my eyes opened and thank god for that. I was still hanging upside down and handcuffed. Fortunately, they had not examined my hair when they strip-searched me. I looked and listened for guards, and when I was sure there weren't any around, I took out the two hairpins from my hair and fashioned them into lock pick tools with my hands and teeth. I worked off the handcuffs first and they fell to the floor with a clink. The manacles on my feet were much harder to work off because I had to do a kind of sit up exercise and hold it for a while as I tried to pick the locks. It took several attempts, but I picked one then the other. I then fell a few inches onto the ground and rolled over heels overhead. It was a great feeling to put my hands on the floor, push up, bring my knees in, and get on my feet.

As I stood up, I thought: OK, great. How the hell do I get out of here and which way should I run? I checked the room for anything I could use as a weapon and found a ballpoint pen. Not as good as a Ka-Bar, but better than nothing. I put the bent hairpins in my underwear to save for later in case I needed to pick more locks. Very slowly, I opened the unlocked door to the cell and peeked both ways. To my left, I saw an NVA guard facing away from me. I got my pen ready for attack. A pen isn't sharp, so I put my left hand over his mouth, pulled him down, and started stabbing him in the eyes. I put him a triangle choke and held it until he stopped moving. Then I took off his uniform and sandals and dressed myself with them. He also had a Makarov pistol, so I took that too. I needed to find the exit and hopefully get a knife on my way out.

I turned around, walked to the end of the corridor and opened the door slowly. I saw no one around. I scanned the room quickly for anything useful. Damn, nothing. I saw a door that looked like an exit and opened it. When I did, I felt cool air and heard crickets chirping. Jackpot. As I moved outside, I saw another NVA guard. He had a rifle with a bayonet. A bayonet is almost like a knife, so I thought. I crept up behind him and shot him in the back of the head, point blank. There must have been an air raid going on because I hear flak guns firing, and they were nearby. The sound of those shots made me feel safe about shooting the pistol. The bayonet on his SKS rifle was fixed and I had to work it for a while to wrench it off. The SKS was manufactured with a fixed, folding bayonet. The Soviets exported it to many countries before the AK-47 came around.