Abandoned: MIA in Vietnam (15 page)

“You don’t think you were a hero, sir? You are to me,” Wolfe said.

“I find it interesting that the Vietnam War POWs are considered heroes. The men who survived severe torture and those who attempted to escape were heroes, for sure. The rest of us weren’t. We were guys who except for bad luck would not have been shot down. And except for good luck would not have survived. In some ways, we are the luckiest s.o.b.s to walk the face of the planet. But not necessarily heroes.”

“You endured physical and mental torture and malnutrition. I’ve read about some of the abuse you guys lived through. I would not have survived, seemingly abandoned by my country in an unpopular war.”

“That toughness was an act. We fought to maintain our dignity. It’s all we had left. And it’s what the North Vietnamese wanted most to deprive us of. None of us would break totally. We didn’t want to fail our comrades. We made rules about how much a man had to take before giving in, and we supported those who eventually failed, which was all of us.”

“I think you have answered all my questions, Colonel,” Wolfe said standing. “May I take these into the kitchen for you?” He pointed to the beer and Coke cans.

“Naw, let’em sit,” Rhodes said. “The wife will be home shortly. Where are you staying tonight? You could stay here if you want. But we’d have to talk about Tech football. I only allow myself an hour per day of reminiscing. Otherwise I have nightmares.”

“No doubt, sir,” Wolfe said. “Thanks for the offer. I already have a room at the Christiansburg Hampton Inn. I thank you for your time. You were very gracious to see me on short notice.”

Rhodes stood, leaning on the cane. He held his right hand out to Wolfe and shook his hand. “Every friend of Jim Byrnes is a friend of mine, Doc. Come back any day. Have a safe drive back to D.C. Please give my regards to Mrs. Byrnes and her daughters.”

Wolfe showed himself out of the house and drove the rental car to Christiansburg.

CHAPTER 20

Byrnes struggled. He descended a small rise within the forest. His right knee, swollen to twice its normal size, wasn’t so much painful as inflexible and immobile. He had to swing it stiffly with each step. Left leg tiring from doing most of the work, he concentrated on not slipping on the slick muddy trail. The first explosion seemed miles away, and it may have been. He ignored it and walked on, although his escorts stopped and listened.

“Tam dung lai! Khoang lang!” one guard yelled.
Halt! Silence!

Byrnes froze. The rhythmic pounding explosions of an air bombardment became obvious. The drumbeat moved in their direction from the east, their right. Byrnes looked up and saw Rhodes and four of the Vietnamese soldiers running for their lives. He started to move after them, but his two guards restrained him. They grabbed his wrists, spun him around, and pulled him after them, retracing their steps on the slippery trail.

After about thirty seconds, with the explosions marching closer and the ground shaking more fiercely, the two Vietnamese let go of Byrnes’s arms and sprinted away, dropping rifles and backpacks. Byrnes struggled to run, hobbled by his bad leg. To his left he could see bombs explode, trees splinter, dirt thrown high in the air, flashes of red and white. The trail of bombs led directly toward him. Each explosion was louder than the previous. “Why?” he shouted. “Why bomb here? There’s nothing here you assholes. It’s a forest, for God’s sake. An empty – ”

A detonation to his left leveled trees. The concussion squeezed his chest, sucked air from his lungs. He stumbled, regained his balance. His foot caught a large tree root and he fell, sliding headfirst downhill on the muddy path. A bomb exploded directly behind him. Face down in a slight depression, the shrapnel from the blast blew by, inches over his head. Dirt rained on him like a muddy monsoon. Deafened by the sound, he curled in a ball and waited to die. More bombs exploded in front of him and to his right. He heard a scream. The bombs marched away to the west, and then stopped. The silence at the end of the attack went unheard. Byrnes was temporarily deaf, his ears ringing so loudly he couldn’t hear himself cursing.

When he stopped shaking, Byrnes rolled over and lifted himself to his good knee, foot, and hands. The forest had ceased to exist around him. After hauling away the detritus, the Vietnamese could have planted crops some day in the devastated clearing that remained. He had no doubt that Rhodes and the four NVA with him had died in the attack. And he was certain his guards had been killed also, until he heard the moans. Following the sounds, he found both guards pinned under the remains of a tree trunk. Both were injured. One man, Thien Vu, had obviously lost his left leg from slightly above the knee. A sharp, thin piece of hot metal shrapnel had sliced it off, cleaner than a surgeon’s scalpel. The red hot sliver of bomb casing also cauterized most of the wound. Vong Binh, the second man, had managed to grasp a splintered piece of wood and use it as a shovel to claw his way out from under the huge tree. Blood covered Vong’s face. Lacerations covered his arms. One of his fingers dangled uselessly, obviously dislocated.

Byrnes pulled off his rope belt and wrapped it around the amputee’s left thigh. He found a tree branch and used that to wind the tourniquet tightly, staunching the minimal flow of blood. Thien screamed in pain and passed out. With the help of the second guard, Byrnes dug the man out from under the tree. Using his pouch of drinking water, he rinsed the stump of the leg and applied part of the man’s torn shirt as a dressing.

After waiting an hour to see if Rhodes or one of the other men would return, Byrnes and Vong began the long, slow walk back the way they had come. Byrnes carried the only AK-47 they could find and the remains of a backpack. He used his cane to negotiate the trail. Vong carried Thien, wearing him like a rucksack, arms tied together over his shoulders and right leg tied around his waist. Byrnes marveled at Vong’s stamina. He had been told the Vietnamese routinely carried their wounded and dead from the field after a battle, so the Americans would not know the true extent of their losses. Now he believed it.

The men had walked about three miles when they came to an intersection of trails they had seen earlier in the day. Vong indicated they would go to the left, rather than follow the trail south. He thought there might be an NVA camp to the east, possibly the target of the bombing.

An hour later they entered a camp, after a sentry challenged them. The NVA soldiers in the outpost relieved Vong of the wounded man, carried him into a wooden shed, and laid him on a mat. This unit also had no medic, but the commander sent a runner to headquarters asking for a medic, or transportation for the wounded man.

“Where are you going?” the commander asked Byrnes, not realizing he addressed an American.

“Hanoi,” Byrnes responded.

The commander smiled. “Why were you going to Hanoi?” he said.

“Binh should explain,” Byrnes said. He handed the AK-47 to Vong and stood silently leaning on his cane while Vong enlightened the camp commander.

The longer Vong talked, the wider the commander’s eyes became. When Vong finished the officer swung his foot at Byrnes, sweeping the cane out from under him. “Nguoi My!”
American!
he said as Byrnes fell to the ground. “Hinh su!”
Criminal!
He kicked Byrnes in the chest.

Vong stepped between Byrnes and the NVA officer. The officer spoke so rapidly, Byrnes could not follow what he said. The orders were clear to his soldiers, however. They pointed weapons at him and Vong. They relieved Vong of his AK-47. Then three men dragged Byrnes to the middle of the camp. They tied his hands behind him and put a rope around his neck. The other end of the rope went around a tree trunk. Standing Byrnes up, the men began to punch him in the face and body. Whenever he fell over they stood him up and continued to beat him. Eventually he fell unconscious and they left him in the dirt.

When Byrnes woke, he found himself in a bamboo cage, about four feet wide, long, and high. Even diagonally, he could not stretch out. The cage sat next to the tree where the NVA soldiers had beaten him. He lay semi-curled and listened. The camp slept. In time the sun rose.

Vong appeared in front of Byrnes’s cage in the early morning. Apparently the NVA had beaten him as well. No longer dislocated his finger appeared straight, probably relocated accidentally during the beating. Welts and bruises covered his face.

“I am returning to my unit, Con co,” Vong said. “I will tell Major An about the animal who runs this camp. I don’t know if he can help you.” The NVA soldier turned and walked away from the camp.

Byrnes did not look up. He spoke quietly to himself. “I should have shot you and Thien. I must have been out of my mind to try to help save Thien’s life. And for what?”

CHAPTER 21

The Boxtops belted out
The Letter
as Wolfe stuffed uniform dungarees into his seabag. His fingers ran across the J-shaped flap in the green canvas bag that the parachute rigging shop had repaired for him. Someone had cut open the seabag while it lay in storage. As far as Wolfe could tell, nothing of value was missing. The civilian trousers and polo shirt he had bought in Subic to wear around the Martins’s house were gone. Wolfe knew if he told anyone he had had civilian clothing in the bag, he would be on report. He let it go. Still, he felt violated. He wished he knew who had cut open the canvas bag. One of his compartment mates had to be the culprit because only the V-3 Division chief had the key to the storage space.

A hand reached out and rubbed the bristly short hair on Wolfe’s head. “How’s the head?” Byrnes asked, rubbing his hand back and forth, making the short hair stand on end. “Sutures are out.”

Wolfe had ducked under the nose of an A-4 two weeks before to check clearance for the tractor and tow bar after backing the A-4 into a tight spot. Before he had given the plane captain the hand signal to release his brakes, the man had done just that. The expanded nose wheel oleo strut collapsed and the nose of the aircraft dropped suddenly. As sharp as a knife, the nose wheel door dropped six inches and sliced Wolfe’s scalp to his skull.

Dazed, Wolfe backed away from the aircraft and put his hands to his head. While he stood there blood gushed from the wound and poured down his face. The scene in front of him took on a red-tinged hue. Two blueshirts wrestled him to the deck and threw a rag on his head. “Jesus Christ,” Wolfe said when he came to his senses a few minutes later. “Lying down makes this bleed faster.” He pressed the rag into the wound and climbed to his feet. “Maxwell, tell Byrnes I’ve gone to sick bay,” he said. Thirty sutures later, Wolfe returned with a bottle of Tylenol and no hair. He worked the rest of the shift, but only as safetyman.

Wolfe pushed Byrnes’s hand away, then rubbed his own scalp. His hair felt like the coarse stubble on his chin after not shaving for a week, even though he knew it had to be at least a quarter inch long. “Head’s fine,” he told Byrnes. “Guys on
Ranger
are going to suspect I recently got out of the brig, though.”

The cheap record player in the three-chair lounge at the end of the compartment dropped another 45-rpm record.
Apple, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie
by Jay and the Techniques blasted through the space between the bunks. “You’re going to miss that,” Byrnes said, smiling. “I hear they’ve got a radio station and a television station onboard
Ranger
.”

“Yeah,” Wolfe said. “The next song is
Penny Lane
, followed by
Snoopy vs. The Red Baron
. I’ve got all twenty of them memorized. I bet you guys throw Smitty and his record player overboard before you get to Alameda.”

“With luck he’ll buy more records before we go to sea again,” Byrnes said. “Can I carry something for you?”

“I’ve got it,” Wolfe said. “My whole life fits in one seabag. Hard to believe, isn’t it.” He slung the wide strap to the bag over his left shoulder.

“Chief sent these up. I’ll hang on to them until we get to the flight deck,” Byrnes said. He waved ten copies of Wolfe’s orders in front of him. They authorized his transfer to the USS
Ranger
, CVA-61,

Wolfe smiled. “She’s newer than
Forrestal
, Jimmy. If I go to the hangar deck, they’ll have two crews. No more 18-20 hour days or sweltering in this un-air-conditioned compartment.”

“Keep on your toes, though. Remember what happened to
Forrestal
. And
Oriskany
.”

Wolfe nodded. “Right.”

He traipsed out of the compartment, shaking hands with his crew and the rest of the men in the division as he went. Everyone rubbed his scalp and wished him good luck, except Maxwell. “Bye, klutzy Boot,” Maxwell said. He waved from the far end of the compartment. “Try not to participate in any more accidents. People
die
out here.”

“Asshole,” Byrnes said under his breath. “Bet you won’t miss him.”

Wolfe nodded. The two men wended their way through corridors and up ladders to the ship’s island at the flight deck level. Opening the hatch to the starboard side of the island, away from flight operations, they stepped onto the flight deck, between twenty yellow hand trucks loaded with five hundred and one thousand pound bombs.

Toward the front of the island stood two other men, seabags next to them. A flight deck yellowshirt waved at Wolfe. “Got to go,” he said to Byrnes. “See you in Alameda in seven to eight months.”

Byrnes shoved the orders into Wolfe’s left hand. Grabbing Wolfe’s right hand with his, he shook it. He put his left hand on Wolfe’s right shoulder and squeezed hard. Jet engines began to whine as aircraft warmed up in preparation for air operations. Byrnes shouted so Wolfe could hear him over the flight deck’s wind and engine noise. “I won’t be there, Addy. Navy has other plans for me.”

Surprised, Wolfe shrugged. “Well, you know where I’ll be. Keep in touch.” He turned and walked toward the yellowshirt. Byrnes watched him climb into the SH-3 Sea King helicopter.

Wolfe sat on the port side of the chopper on a bench seat between the other two transferees. “Buckle up,” the helicopter aircrewman told them. Wolfe never found the second seatbelt strap. Thinking how useless it would be if they went into the water, he hung on to the bench with one hand and half the seatbelt with the other, seabag lying between his legs. As the chopper lifted, it tilted forward. Wolfe had a brief glimpse of
Oriskany’s
island, then nothing but white-capped sea and clear blue sky. Ten minutes later the chopper settled easily onto
Ranger’s
forward flight deck. Wolfe never saw or heard from Byrnes again.