Abandoned: MIA in Vietnam (14 page)

CHAPTER 19

Retired USAF Colonel Richard Rhodes welcomed Wolfe to his home, a three story, wood-framed house on a narrow street a short block from the Virginia Tech campus. Wolfe shook hands with a well-built, gray-haired, seventy-three year-old. The colonel had a strong grip and a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once. From the second floor screened porch on the back of his house, Rhodes pointed out large gray stone buildings, the huge Lane Stadium, and Cassell Coliseum. “Except for a few months in winter, this is the nicest campus in Virginia,” he said, offering Wolfe a seat in a round bamboo chair filled by a single, colorful, circular cushion.

“It’s certainly beautiful today,” Wolfe said. He had treated himself to a drive around the drill field of his alma mater and had seen unfamiliar Hokie Stone structures, new academic buildings and dorms. “My favorite season is the fall when the leaves change color.”

Rhodes sat opposite Wolfe in an identical chair. “Football season is only a two months away. It’s our preferred time of year,” Rhodes said. His smile changed to a frown briefly. “We’re going to miss Coach Beamer, though. He was quite a guy. You said you went to school here?”

“After I got out of the navy,” Wolfe said. “Used the GI Bill. I changed my major from engineering to pre-med. When I graduated, I went to medical school in Richmond. Practiced in Florida, mostly. Retired now.”

“And from where did you know Jim Byrnes?”

“He and I were shipmates, enlisted sailors on the same ship for about six months. The aircraft carrier USS
Oriskany
,” Wolfe said.

“So you knew about him being thrown overboard?” Rhodes said.

Wolfe’s face drained color. His mouth and dry tongue stuck together. For a brief instant he thought he might vomit. The room tilted, and then returned to normal. Weak, he tried to answer Rhodes’s question. “Sorry,” he said. “Did you say he was thrown off the ship?”

“That’s what he told me. Weren’t you there?”

Wolfe told Rhodes what he had reminded Chief Noble. “I left
Oriskany
by helicopter when she returned to Yankee Station from Hong Kong. I had requested a transfer to another ship because
Oriskany
was going into a long dry-dock period. I wanted to stay in Southeast Asia. I was accumulating regular pay and combat pay, tax free, and I knew I needed the money for college when I was discharged.” Wolfe caught his breath, and continued, “Last week I learned that the navy decided Jimmy had committed suicide. I didn’t even know he was dead until I talked with a guy who was stationed on
Oriskany
with us. He’s the one who told me the navy called it suicide.”

Rhodes’s face clouded. “Damn bureaucrats,” he said. “I told them he was alive and a POW in South Vietnam, but they acted as if I had hallucinated. Of course they could have changed their reports and your friend never heard about it. At least his family is aware. I told them in person. Jim told me he got into a fight and someone pushed him overboard. I didn’t tell his family that, though. It would have killed his mother, I think. Just told her he fell off the ship.”

“How did you meet him?” Wolfe asked.

“I was flying a Hun, F-100 to you, out of Tuy Hoa, in support of South Vietnamese troops. ARVN, Army of the Republic of Vietnam,” Rhodes said. “I can still feel and hear the throbbing of the engine, and the shudder and bang as it exploded. Flaming pieces of the engine went everywhere after being hit by machinegun fire from the ground. I had barely enough altitude to eject, but not enough to get out over the beach. Still can smell the burning fuel and the pine trees I fell through in the parachute, too. I got stuck hanging from a tree, feet only four feet off the ground. My wrist was broken and the parachute’s quick release jammed. I couldn’t free myself from the ‘chute. The locals used me as a piñata until the NVA arrived and saved my ass.”

Rhodes clasped his hands together around a cane, and looked at the floor between his knees. “Broke my ankle when they cut me down. Passed out, from pain I guess. Woke up in a cave with Jim. I thought he was a VC plant at first. That really ticked him off.”

Rhodes explained to Wolfe how Byrnes’s ministrations to him and the herbs from the VC medic had helped him heal, as well as could be expected in the primitive conditions.

“You ended up in Hanoi with other pilots?” Wolfe asked. “Why didn’t Jimmy go with you?”

“He did. Well, part way. He knew we would be moving north. He had been there at least two years before I was shot down in 1969 and had picked up some of the Vietnamese language.” Rhodes stared out of the screened porch in the direction of the campus. “President Johnson stopped the bombing north of the 20th parallel in 1968 and the peace talks started. In my opinion the war had entered a political stage. What happened on the battlefield had little to do with the outcome. Americans had become war-weary. Our will failed. At times, we had them on the ropes, but never capitalized on it. You could tell when they were afraid they’d lose and have to repatriate us. For instance in the eleven days the B-52s bombed Hanoi in December, 1972, they basically gave up. They knew they were whipped. All our guards knew it. Conditions improved. Our rations went up. Speaking of rations, will you join me in a beer and some pretzels?”

“Don’t drink, but I’ll take the pretzels and a soft drink if you have one,” Wolfe said.

Rhodes excused himself and hobbled without his cane into the main house, returning with a Coke for Wolfe, a beer for himself, and a huge bowl of pretzels. “Thanks,” Wolfe said.

“Anytime,” Rhodes said. “The NVA, North Vietnamese Army, camp commander, a guy named An, talked with Jim the night before we left. Jim had figured out Vietnamese names by then. Their surnames came first, ours come last. Almost no one uses his surname in Vietnam. The soldiers went by their first names with their rank, like Sgt. Bob, or Major Tom if they were English names. If there were two Sgt. Bobs, then they’d use their last name, too.

“Anyway, Major An told Jim that he had assigned six men to take us north to Hanoi. I guess the North Vietnamese were gathering all the POWs together to use as bargaining chips in the negotiations in Paris. Jim said the commander had ordered the men to make certain we arrived alive and healthy, but he couldn’t vouch for the other North Vietnamese after we arrived. An had heard bad things about the treatment of POWs in South and North Vietnam.

“In the south, B-52s continued to fly missions against the NVA. The VC had practically ceased to exist after the Tet offensive. The ARVN and US troops had almost wiped them out. Mostly, they had been replaced by NVA soldiers. The Buffs, the B-52s, that’s Big Ugly Fat Fucker, flew from Thailand, Guam, and Okinawa. I used to see their routes on the operations board in Tuy Hoa. Anyway, they were still flying and bombing suspected enemy strongholds south of the 20th parallel where we were. We were happy to be leaving the area they frequently hit, but anxious about what awaited us in Hanoi.

“Jim had a trick knee. It didn’t bother him often, but when it did, he felt it. I had, and still have, a painful healed fracture above my left ankle. We had been starved in captivity, not maliciously though. The North Vietnamese had almost no rations. They sent troops out hunting for food; shot mountain goats, wild boar, even apes and tigers for protein to supplement their minimal rice diet. They assigned Jim and me to collect bamboo shoots, mushrooms, and tubers for the troops and ourselves. We had all lost a lot of weight.

“In any case, we started north both using canes. We moved slowly through difficult terrain and forest, two men ahead, two between Jim and me, and two behind. On our third day, we heard the unmistakable sound of a B-52 airstrike. The thunderous explosions marched directly toward us. As soon as the Vietnamese figured out we were in the crosshairs, they started running north pulling me with them. The two Vietnamese with Jim must have thought they had a better chance if they ran south. I saw them tugging at him. Then he was alone. They had abandoned him and had run.

“The train of 500 pound bombs went right between our two groups. Well, not exactly between us. We ran a short ways, the NVA yelling, ‘Di, di,’
Go, go
. The four Vietnamese with me and I fell into a shallow ditch. We screamed our lungs out as the bombs marched past us, shrapnel flying inches from our bodies and directly overhead. The whole scenario took less than two minutes. It’s the most scared I have ever been. Literally, nothing stood for a half mile south of us, where Jim and the two other Vietnamese had been. The bombs carved a half-mile wide, three-mile long path out of the forest. The men with me found a bent AK-47 barrel and some shredded clothing from the other group. They stopped looking after that.”

“When was this?” Wolfe asked. He noted that Rhodes had perspired through his light sweatshirt, even though he sat in the shade on a cool screened porch.

“I got to the Hanoi Hilton on October 13, 1970, after a six week trek. So the bombing took place about the beginning of September, 1970. I used to joke that Friday the 13th came on Tuesday that month. Jim never showed up. More proof they didn’t make it.”

“How prophetic was the company commander about your treatment?” Wolfe asked.

“Really, it wasn’t so bad by then. Most of the really horrific stuff was over, like the torture and isolation John McCain and others had suffered, like dislocated shoulders, hanging from ropes, and worse. By Christmas that year we were living in large group rooms, seven large rooms we called Camp Unity. There were about 350 POWs by then. The Vietnamese worried about an attempt to rescue us, so they concentrated us all in one place in the middle of the most heavily defended city in the world.” Rhodes said.

“Jimmy knew McCain, too. Their families were friends.” Wolfe said. “He was really depressed when McCain didn’t return from his mission over Hanoi.”

“Jim told me about the conversation they had before the flight. Were you there?” Rhodes said.

“Yeah,” Wolfe said. “I had recently become a yellowshirt, one of the guys who direct aircraft around on the hangar and flight decks. Byrnes was mentoring me. The whole thing was strange. It was the only time I remember a pilot getting into an A-4 on the hangar deck. Usually we sent the aircraft to the flight deck with a plane captain in it. This time the pilot climbed up the ladder and the plane captain followed him. After he handed the pilot – I didn’t know who he was then – his helmet, he came back down and started to disengage the ladder. Byrnes stopped him. He climbed the ladder and spoke with McCain for at least five minutes. When the elevator came down, Byrnes took away the ladder and acted as safety director. I had the crew back the plane onto the elevator and signaled the pilot to hold his brakes while the crew tied it down.

“After the elevator went topside, I asked Byrnes who the old guy was. He laughed. ‘Just prematurely gray,’ he said. ‘That’s Admiral McCain’s son, John.’ I asked him who Admiral McCain was, not recognizing the name. Jim laughed again. Admiral McCain was commander of US Naval forces in Europe at the time. I guess I should have known.”

Rhodes smiled. He tilted his beer at Wolfe in a knowing toast. “I never knew anyone not in my direct chain of command either,” he said.

Wolfe continued, “The really strange thing was the guy who held the tiller, the steel bar we used to steer an aircraft when the crew pushed them around the deck, came up to us an said, ‘He ain’t coming back.’ Jimmy hit Maxwell in the chest with an open hand. ‘Shut up,’ he said. Maxwell laughed and walked away. Jim called him an asshole. I reminded Jimmy that it was the anniversary of
Oriskany
’s hangar deck fire from the year before and that Maxwell was probably having a bad day. ‘Nope, he’s a psychotic asshole,’ Jimmy said. ‘I hope he’s wrong.’ He wasn’t, and it’s the reason I remember the conversation.”

“John McCain told me that his discussion with Jim was the last big laugh he had before being shot down,” Rhodes said. “Jim told him ‘Welcome to the dumpiest carrier in the fleet.’ McCain had transferred to
Oriskany
after healing from burns suffered on
Forrestal.
He asked McCain if he wanted him to load the candy dispenser so McCain could strafe the school kids. Then Jim told him not to blow up
Oriskany
, like he had
Forrestal
, or land in the water. Which he did in Pensacola. Pretty prophetic, himself, I’d say. McCain crashed in a lake in Hanoi.”

“You’re certain Jim died in that bombing?” Wolfe asked.

“Absolutely,” Rhodes said. “There weren’t even tiny pieces of those men left.”

The two veterans sat in silence for a while, staring at their drinks. “So, how long have you been here?” Wolfe asked.

“I’m a Tech grad, too,” Rhodes said. “Charlie Company, class of ‘63. Back before the voluntary corps, the women on campus, and the women in the corps. I’m an antique, seventy-four years-old next month.”

“Didn’t you teach here, too?” Wolfe asked.

“Some aerospace engineering. Gave the senior cadets a talk on
Rules of Engagement
every year before graduation. After the air force said I could no longer fly and gave me a medical discharge,” Rhodes tapped on his deformed left leg with his cane, “I used the GI Bill to get a master’s degree in aerospace engineering, and then a PhD. Took six years. Came back here in 1980. Taught for a few years. Then the Corps of Cadets needed an assistant commandant. Got to wear the uniform again, which I liked. Was paraded around like a hero, which I didn’t like. They said they wanted me to inspire the cadets. I retired in 2010.”