I figured I could teach a Vietnamese class to whoever was interested. Otherwise, I'd write an English-Vietnamese phrasebook for the troops. The one the Army was issuing at the time was not so good in my opinion. It probably wouldn't get printed or widely distributed; I just needed something to stay busy so I didn't start chewing up the furniture like a bored rottweiler. Given the difficulty of learning Vietnamese, the US military would have been better off printing pointy-talky sheets. It's sort of like a mini picture dictionary that allows people to talk when they don't have a a common language. For the situations soldiers in the field were most likely to face, 100 or so pictures would cover basically every message they'd need to get across.
Out of curiosity, I went to the mail room and was pleasantly surprised to see a few letters and post cards from my dad and Alexandra. I wrote back immediately and apologized profusely, citing the unusual nature of my mission. I assured them I was in a safe rear area and would be back home in a few months.
I took to wearing civilian clothes because I didn't want to get bothered about my hair and beard. And because I respect the uniform and those who wear it. I spent a lot of time just wandering around the base. The weapon depot was interesting. I saw all these big steel drums with and orange stripe painted on them. That must be that Agent Orange stuff I heard so much about. Turns out the chemical isn't orange, it just got called that because of the color label on the barrels in came in. Anyway, the main ingredient was a synthetic plant growth hormone called auxin. It caused plants to overgrow, fall over, and die. That was kind of cool, I thought. An efficient way to clear the jungle so the enemy couldn't hide in it. Although as a nature lover I had become a kind of tree hugger during my time in the jungle.
There wasn't much interest in my Vietnamese dictionary or class unfortunately. There was a lot more interest in how many Charlies and gooks I had wasted. Tons of guys just saw the war as some sort of weird football game. Body count reports were the way many officers got promoted. At this point, I was a first lieutenant, just one rank higher than when I started. I didn't care about that though because of how soon I would be getting out of the Army. I had seen too many things in Vietnam to convince me why "military intelligence" is everyone's favorite oxymoron. It's tragic because when wars are fought intelligently, they end faster with less bloodshed. And when people are very intelligent, they find ways to solve disputes without fighting at all. Blessed are the peacemakers, as the good book says.
My replacement at the outpost in the Central Highlands came to meet me before he flew out. I told him everything I knew and was pleased to see him taking notes. I gave a Vietnamese speaking test and he didn't do very well. I told him not to worry as long as he was immersed, he'd learn enough quickly. In war, it's not the last talk before battle that matters the most, but the steady stream of advice and encouragement. And he was bound to get plenty from Binh if he put in the work. I remembered Trautman's promise to help Binh and his people if they were in danger, and I was sure my replacement would help with that. I gave him a notecard with my name, my dad's name, his address, and his phone number and told him to give it to Binh as soon as he arrived.
It was early 1972 and the war was not going well. The Easter Offensive was driven back at an enormous cost and there was little confidence that the South Vietnamese military would last long without US help. The North Vietnamese Army or NVA had been building up strength for a long time. They had tanks, artillery, and many thousands of well-equipped, well-trained, and highly motivated troops. The bombing campaign Nixon unleashed on them brought them to the negotiating table for a ceasefire, but it was clear to me who was going to win. The North Vietnamese had a much greater unity of purpose, in part because the US had dropped more bombs on South Vietnam, our supposed ally, than North Vietnam, our communist foe. In fact, we dropped more bombs on South Vietnam than we did on Germany and Japan combined during WW2. I forget if that calculation also includes the explosive equivalent of the two atomic bombs, but that would only add another 40,000 tons or about 7% to the grand total.
Throughout the war, I had heard about various half-hearted measures like the Chieu Hoi (open arms) program to encourage the enemy to surrender and defect. All that was sabotaged by stupid, bloodthirsty songs like Napalm Sticks to Kids which was very popular with US troops at the time. Meanwhile, the communists had a Vietnamese woman who spoke excellent, fluent English broadcast propaganda. The troops called her Hanoi Hannah. In her broadcasts, she would always mention specific US units and their locations to let them know the communists had many spies and knew exactly what we were up to. I was so thoroughly disgusted with the stupidity and incompetence of the US military, which simply refused to make any effort to understand the language, culture, history, or religion of not just our enemy, but also our ally. If I had not become very knowledgeable about both my own personal allies and enemies, I surely would have been killed.
My thoughts turned to coming home and seeing Alexandra again, as I was now convinced I would survive the war after all. By this time, we had begun to correspond regularly, at least by my standards. She offered to pick me up at Dulles airport, but I decided to stick to our original plan, even if meant hitchhiking for a few hours. At long last, it was time to leave. It was great feeling getting my DD214, my discharge form. Honorable discharge; thank god. Free at last. And I was leaving with all the body parts I came in with and most of my sanity. Many others were not so lucky. I didn't take much to Vietnam and came back with less, just what would fit in my duffel bag and my favorite Army jacket. It had an American flag where the name tag would normally go. I liked that; it was a way of saying "I have no name; I'm just an American soldier". Modesty and anonymity are useful defenses. They make it easier to get friends and to lull your enemies into a false sense of security. In The Odyssey, Odysseus disguises himself as a beggar in order to gain entrance to his home, which had been overtaken by many riotous suitors who had been squatting there for years. But I digress. Often.
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