Prologue.

Chacun voit midi à sa porte

-French proverb

I wanna tell you a story. The sisters Trinité were from Tours, visiting Paris around the start of the French Revolution. It was 1793 and the girls were eating at this little café they’d grown up regularly attending. Before too long a man came into the cafe with a severed head, that of Marie Antoinette. He drank his coffee with the head sitting next to him, Marie staring at the three girls with unseeing eyes. 

“Excuse me,” one girl, the middle-child, eventually piped up. “Would you mind removing that head from the table? It’s awfully upsetting.”

Bewildered, the man nearly choked on his café. “Off the- Do you have any idea who this is?”

“It looks like Marie Antoinette.”

“It is, it is!”

“My sisters and I would still prefer not to look at it.”

“We’re in wartime, I don’t reckon I care what three women prefer!”

“And must we constantly be reminded we are in wartime?” The middle-child crossed her arms in defeat, muttering “It is repulsing.” 

And still Marie stared at the girls.

“I don’t see what you’re fussing about,” the eldest sister shook her head, sipping her drink. “I hope my death is significant, that my head might become a trophy for my killer. Worse to die anonymous, a drop in the rivers of blood running through this country. Or, perhaps still more unpleasant, to die having lived for nothing.”

“You admire her?” the man demanded, rising.

“I could ask you the same, carrying her head around. I merely respect that history will favor her, and none of us.”

“Why must we be remembered to enjoy our lives,” spoke the youngest sister. “Why have we come to Paris, where there is so much death. I want to return to Tours.”

The eldest sister scoffed, “And ignore the conflict that plagues so many?”

“You don’t care about the others, you only care about a statue in your fashion,” retorted the middle-child.

“Enough!” To the astonishment of everyone present, the severed head of Marie Antoinette had, in fact, shouted.

“You’re dead!” explained the man to Marie.

“Indeed,” she replied simply, “and I will return in due time, but only after taking one of these bickering children with me.”

“One of us?” squeaked the youngest in a frightened whisper. “But why?”

“Because it is a time of conflict, dear one, and the three of you cannot co-exist in a time of struggle.”

Marie’s eyes moved to the eldest.

“You assert your claim that it is a citizen’s duty to fight. I admire this, but a light in your eyes betrays what your sister has accused you of: a desperation for glory. You would act, when the time comes, but with your own sake at heart.”

Marie looked to the middle-child.

“You admonish bloodshed, and it is true that there is innocent death to be admonished. But you speak nothing of action; your good intentions come out as hollow cries for peace.”

The youngest child, still looking frightened, was last.

“You are nostalgic for the innocence awarded to children. True to what is familiar, your sincerity of heart is admirable. But naivety should know its own boundaries, and we grow up for a reason.

“A hero, a peacemonger, and a child in your respective eyes but vain, cowardly, and  ignorant in each other’s. You are a triptych of values that do not coincide. Any two of you complement each other: the proud hero who longs for home, the preacher of peace who wishes to see her likeness in granite, but ineffective with a third.”

The story of The Sisters Trinité ends with one of their deaths, and each country tells it different, values shifting from place to place. I first heard the story from my father, and it was the middle-child who Marie Antoinette takes with her. When he spoke of the eldest child, his eyes shone like I wished they would for me. He thought it best to be a hero who remembers their roots, and I’ve tended to agree.

It wasn’t until the end of everything that I wondered whether we’d killed the right sister. I don’t mean that I recalled the story, but that I wasn’t sure which part of myself was right, if any. I think I did what was just. I hope I did.

I.

Duty is the essence of manhood.

-George S. Patton

My father was reading a book about the war he fought in when I flew into the room and told him I was joining the military. I remember it distinctly: he closed his book, looked up at me with those eyes like cold steel, and with the lightest shade of something resembling a smile said “About time.” It is one of the proudest moments of my life, and it lasted less than a day.

“What did you say?” he asked over breakfast the next morning.

“I said I’ll be in a UH-1.” He stared at me, spoon full of oatmeal in his good hand. “I remembered you said you liked ‘em.”

“You’re just gonna be a pilot?”

“Just?” For some reason I said this directly looking at his dead arm, hanging limp by his right side.

“Why even go to war if you’re just gonna be flying over it?” His voice was rising.

“I don’t want to do this,” I returned to my eggs. “Grandfather will be here soon.”

“And maybe his words will get through.” I jumped at the abrasive sound of his chair flying back as he stood abruptly and exited the room, arm swinging lazily. Beyond our walls, I heard faintly the sound of an engine, steadily getting louder. Dad was back in a few moments with a worn box that I recognized instantly. Everytime he pulled this box out, he spoke as if reading from one of his war books.

“Every man in this family, generations back, has demonstrated their love of country and family by receiving military decorations for valor and heroism.”

“I know, and—”

He rummaged in the beat-up wooden thing, full of medals and their cases, and fished out the largest one. The ribbon was red, with a blue stripe running down the center, and off the end dangled a shining (he polished it regularly), five-pointed star.

The engine I’d heard was now pulling into our driveway as my father motioned to his dead arm. “I could’ve gotten this amputated. You think I want to have a useless limb hanging by my side? That if I could see the eyes pop outta the Tojo sniper that did this I wouldn’t?” Now he was looking at the Bronze Star. “I wouldn’t’ve gotten this in a helicopter — even your goddamn UH-1 — flying a hundred feet over my men. When I brought this home to your grandfather, he told me I’d done right, and that he was proud of me.” He stared at the medal. I heard a car door close in the driveway. “You can’t give another soldier the basic respect of looking him in the eyes before you take his life in a Huey, son.”

With that, Grandfather entered the room.

“Anybody home?”

“In here,” my father muttered directly at me, so quietly that I barely heard him. 

“Anybody—oh, there ya are.” Grandfather stepped into the room heavily, for that’s how his feet always fell. If I were to have gotten on my father’s shoulders, I would roughly have been Grandfather’s height. Everything about him was broad, from his nose to his shoulders to his size fifteens, and all tension in the room fell under his control upon entrance. 

“What’s all this about?” he asked, referring to my labored breathing and the Bronze Star in my dad’s hands. 

Though his voice became docile in his own daddy’s presence, my father’s eyes never left me. “Tony’s about to serve.”

“Well that’s fantastic!” In a single stride he shook my hand and clapped me on the back. “Ever since these gooks have started actin’ up I been wonderin’ when you’d step up to the plate. Men of honor, yes? I’m honored to share the Bergeron name with you.”

“Tell him,” my father said through his teeth.

I brought my head up to face Grandfather and swallowed my words several times before finally drawing a shaky breath and saying: “I’ll be a pilot...flyin’ helicopters.”

My grandfather’s hands squeezed my shoulder and for a manic second I felt like a child again, preparing for a lashing.

“A man of firsts as well!” he roared, smiling. “You know if I could do it again I’d be in the air. Planes over helicopters, mind you, I’m a sucker for a good dogfight story.”

Finally, my father looked away from me to Grandfather.

“He won’t see any real action.”

“Course he will, he’ll be in Viet fuckin’ Nam, won’t he? Besides, boy looks a Renaissance man to me. He’ll fly a couple years, then continue on with his career, isn’t that right Tony?”

“Yeah...yes sir.”

“See? Quit givin’ that look, your boy’s doin’ his duty. If you raised him right and he minded you well, he’ll come home with a medal just like that one in your hand there.”

“Yes he will.” Something resigned in my father, and he loosed his strained grip on the Bronze Star. He put his hand on my shoulder, and looked into my eyes. “You’re grandfather’s right. Just...promise me before they bring you back, you’ll give ‘em hell.”

An eternal, all-encompassing moment made me linger before responding. Contrary to Grandfather’s assurance, I had no plan on flying until it was ‘out of my system.’ I was going to be where I wanted to be, and as for my father, I couldn’t see his eyes very well. The medal in his hands was reflected too strongly in them.

“I won’t let you down.”

II.

What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

-Charles Bukowski

Damn this heat. The limp rag that was once a shirt stuck both to my skin and flak vest, more sweat than cotton. I know there are basic, incontrovertible facts about the universe, but I have come to suspect that there are two suns in our solar system. One, hot yet reasonable, shines over most of the world, while another blasts a heat ten times worth that of its counterpart, and shines solely on the people of Viet Nam. 

Ten hours of this malevolent heat had my eyes simmering in brine, my throat incapable of escaping thirst, and my head pounding, constricted by the leather strap of my flight helmet.

“How did he get it?” my co-pilot Ben was asking me.

“Where’s Jim?”

“Tony, how did he get it?”

“What? Who got what?”

“Your dad, how did he get the bronze medal?”

“The Bronze Star, he got it — Howie, strap that down — he, uh, got it in World War II. Over in Japan, stormed a machine gunner’s nest.”

Ben slumped into his seat, awe-struck. “Badass.”

“Yeah, but a sniper took him out pretty quick, got him in the arm. He didn’t amputate and now it’s like another medal to him.”

“He didn’t amputate?”

Jim Daniels finally emerged from the treeline, rushing towards our Huey.

“Finally,” I said. “Start the engines.” The long, heavy rotor blades began to groan, then give a high-pitched whine as they spun faster and faster, kicking up dust and shaking the dense jungle all around us. Jim mumbled an apology and something about diarrhea as he clambered onboard.

“I don’t need to hear it,” I said over the intercom as we lifted off the ground.

“Actually Tony I do need to hear it,” Ben cut in. “This could be crucial information, give me a debrief on this diarrhea situation.” 

A voice not on board came through our headsets, “Tomahawk Thirty-Four, this is Alligator Six, hold five for medevac, over.”

“Thank god,” I said, switching to the radio. “This is Three-Four, go.”

“On your first flight back here tomorrow, bring us some more body sacks. We’ve been two days without ‘em.”

“Roger Six, we’ve got you. Out.”

“Keep your eyes peeled, boys,” Ben said over the radio. “The day is ending and the foxes are moving back toward the henhouse to pick off more unwary chickens. Stay alert and Talley-Ho.”

Rising over the jungle, the treetops became all that was visible. They rose and fell with the mountains beneath them, creating waves of impenetrable foliage that seemed to reach out towards us, beckoning with menace.

I switched back to the intercom. “We could’ve used some body sacks this morning.”

Ben shook his head, giving the treetops the same look I was.

“That’s the truth.” 

The silence that followed was plagued with images of what our morning had consisted of: pulling two men off a riverbank who were already…. I would say dead but they were more like obliterated. What was left of the men, named Jeff and Tobias, we transported back to Delta camp. The sheets we covered them with were red by the time we got there.

I’d killed three VC since arriving in Viet Nam. They are not humans, the Viet Cong. They are a base, animalistic Frankenstein’s monster of cruel instinct that take human shape. I feel no remorse in killing them; you do not regret killing a rat. In a world before law and order, the VC would be right at home, thriving in a world of anarchy. Sometimes I wonder if they’re glad we’re here, because we’re trained to kill, but they seemed to be born and bred with a knack for expunging men. Who would they be without us to destroy?

Jeff and Tobias were identified by their dog tags, because nothing else about them was indicative of men. Fingers, ears, testicles, hacked off seemingly at random. We didn’t find them at a VC encampment or even behind enemy lines; they weren’t being interrogated or held for leverage. They were mutilated for my sake, for Ben’s. For every man who had to bear witness and testify to the cruelty of Victor Charlie, they were butchered.

“Lootenant Bergeron that reminds me, how about taking another ship tomorrow?” Jim’s voice perfectly suited his whiny nature; he spoke with a nasally, high-pitched tone that was more like a perpetual sniffle. I winced as he said “Me and Howie need to clean up the blood and...stuff...off the floor back here.” 

Nobody replied in my stead, all aware of my detestation for the Specialist-First-Class. He was our right-door gunner, but also crew chief, so by authority no one else really could chime in.

“Some even leaked under your seat,” Jim went on. “It’ll take the better part of a day to get the ship to stop smelling like—”

“Goddamnit Jim, shut the hell up. Last time it was too long onboard, now you don’t wanna wake up earlier than you have to?”

“I wasn’t—”  

“You weren’t? ‘Cleaning the ship’ has nothing to do with getting out of an early start tomorrow?” I’d finally shut him up. “We can’t afford to hold back anything that can get off the ground. You’re so concerned with the cleanliness of this aircraft, clean it tonight.”

For a brief moment I considered what a day off would look like. Doing nothing more than cleaning and maintaining a helicopter, far removed from lead and explosions. Though, not so far removed; Delta camp experienced a brutal mortar attack just two nights prior. It hasn’t been this bad the whole time. Hell, it hadn’t been this bad just a week prior. A lot had changed in the eight days since Operation Meat Grinder had been launched. Our unit, the 128th Aviation Battalion, had been flying continuous resupply and medevac missions in support of the 2nd Battalion of the Big Red One: 1st Infantry Division.

A week ago we had twenty-five choppers in our unit, but the battle of Chu Chi saw twelve of them shot down. I was there, the bright orange flames contorted around tons of steel stood starkly against the night sky as our birds of war rained over the battlefield. As of today, three of those twelve shot down are back up and running off the cannibalized parts of other ships. We treat our machinery like we do each other; dead is dead, salvage what you can and return to the objective at hand. 

I only realized how long Ben had been silently contemplative when he spoke up.

“Y’know, I always thought that when someone died, their wound stopped bleeding as their heart stopped pumping.”

PFC Howie Sterns, our left-door gunner, replied logically: “My guess is that if the hole is big enough, gravity does the work. Sergeant told me those two guys we hauled out this morning had been knifed real good last night.”

We all had different obsessions with viscera; Howie’s was one of fascination while Ben and I shared a fearful respect of how frail the human body is. I could understand the way in which each man grappled with our potentially ephemeral mortality, but Howie’s brashness made me sick.

“VC got ‘em in their foxholes,” I said, wanting to steer things away from how much a man can bleed. “Made it past the mine fields and barbed wire, silently.”

“They move around at night like cats,” a voice I didn’t recognize said. “You can’t see them but they can see you.”

“They can’t see at night any better than you can,” Ben countered. “We eat carrots, after all. They just eat rice.”

It felt good to laugh at all, considering our situation, but it felt great to laugh at the Viet Cong. Whatever atrocities they committed, however terrified we truly were of them, everything would vanish when we laughed, and they were just gooks once more.

Ben continued with the levity, “Hey Howie, this morning you looked like Burt Lancaster in that movie with the shootout, the way you and that VC were firing at each other and not hittin’ anything.”

“What was the name of that movie?” I asked.

“I hit everything around him and the sumbitch got away,” Howie said. “All week my gun’s been jammin’, and the first time it doesn’t I miss every shot. I must’ve fired a whole box at him.”

“Gunfight at OK Corral,” Jim said. “That’s the movie.”

“That’s it,” Ben said with a smile.

“Wait, Burt Lancaster wasn’t in that movie,” I raked my memory, “you’re thinking of Kirk Douglas.”

“It was Kirk Douglas for sure,” Jim said.

“Shut up Jim, don’t agree with me.”

“But really Howie, you saved our necks out there this morning,” said Ben. “If you wouldn’t’ve laid down that suppressing fire we could’ve been screwed.”

“Sounds like a rec, don’t it Lootenant?”

“It sure does,” I said.

I’d gained a small amount of popularity among the soldiers who wanted medals, because I gave more recommendations for acts of valor than anyone else in Delta Company. Every single one of my recommendations was thrown out by our Major Benton, and each time it was like a personal blow. What would be good enough, brave enough, for any man to get a medal? Our C.O. claimed that it was to avoid nepotism; medals had to come from recommendations by other units. It quickly appeared to me, though, that the only way to be validated for one’s service was to either die or get blown half to hell. Saving the man standing next to you wasn’t good enough apparently, just part of the job. I imagined the service as a gang of mobsters, demanding money. You give and you give but it's never enough, and until you’ve laid down your last will your donation be acknowledged. And even then, you better go out blazing.

Perhaps if it was Howie’s first time saving our ass, I wouldn’t have been upset that he wasn’t accoladed. Shit, it wasn’t even his first time getting us out of trouble that week. On Monday, we were dropping into Charlie Company when a hailstorm of machine-gun fire ripped through the treeline, straight at us — at me. The VC had begun to aim specifically at pilots, nevermind with the door gunners. Charlie had set up in a tree directly in our line of descent, waiting to open up until I was clearly visible. Howie reacted the second they started shooting, and the last bullet he fired before his gun jammed hit the gunner square in the chest. The last bullet.

I was fooled by my father into thinking I’d escape Viet Nam without a scratch. His lack of confidence that I would step up to the plate when the time came hurt, but after my first few missions I realized his adamant certainty that I might never even hear gunshots had done little to prepare my nerves for this sheer proximity to death. 

Storming a machine-gunner’s nest hardly seems worthy of a medal after my seven months here. I’ve flown everyday, been shot down three times, and had hundreds of bullets mar my ships. Flying away from combat? I’ve medevaced probably a hundred wounded G.I.s, re-supplied in heavy fire, and picked up two Air Force pilots shot down at the border in Cambodia. One sniper to end a career? I relieved a Green Beret outpost under siege and made three combat assault lifts during the Battle of Chu Chi, and I’m still here. And still, no medal. 

Maybe if public opinion changed. Maybe if Charlie got some of those Russian helicopters and I shot one down in air-to-air combat, the newspapers would read “Tony Bergeron Kills Viet Cong in Flying Fortress of Justice!” Flying helicopters would become glamorous, as respected as infantry. 

Finally, the first hints of Delta Company’s encampment came into view. The various tents and antennae had served as home the last few months, and it was with relief that I steered us towards the camp’s airfield. We flew over the outer perimeter of the camp, laden with barbed wire, foxholes, lookout towers, and hundreds of mines hidden underneath the earth.

“Clean touchdown, good flyin’ Tony,” Ben said.

“Good runs boys, see you early in the morning.” With that, I turned off the engines and waved to Ben as he hopped off-board.

It was Ben and I’s last successful mission.

III.

Hoc est corpus meum!

-Catholic liturgy of the Eucharist

Two nights later, I woke to the sound of a gunshot.

The shot was so clear and loud that it had to have come from within the camp. Everyone in the bunk was on their feet in seconds, rushing outside to investigate.

No sirens sounded and no orders were made, though we quickly found a throng of soldiers collecting near one of the watchtowers. He was small, deeply tanned, and naked everywhere but his waist, where there was underwear dirtier than the ground on which he had fallen facefirst. His dark hair was matted with the blood still issuing from where the bullet had penetrated. A Sergeant rolled him over and we saw the bullet’s exit wound, a dark, irregularly shaped hole where the man’s face had once been. 

The thing looked like a mongrel dog put down rather than a human being. He looked weak, with no muscle to show and sunken cheeks. Despite his sickly appearance, malintent still shone through. The hole that was his face seemed contorted in rage, his hands itching to throttle any one of us; I had a fleeting impulse to kick it, just to be sure.

The shot had come from a mere fifteen yards away, and the gunner was descending from his watchtower as I saw Major Benton murmur to Captain Salman “How the hell do they keep getting past our defenses?”

Wondering how many other infiltrations were being kept from us, it was with great difficulty that I removed myself from the scene and returned to my bunk. Tired as I was, sleep did not immediately find me as I studied my mental image of the dead VC. His avoidance of our defenses, his nakedness, his proximity to where I currently lay; why was Major Benton keeping this major security flaw from us? I slipped into unconsciousness as my mind ran laps, only coming up with more questions.

The next morning, there was about a dozen men assigned to patrolling the outer perimeter, checking our protective measures. Stacked rolls of sharp concertina barbed wire booby trapped with grenades, trip flares, and bells followed fields of mines, all extending to the treeline. Already there were reports of these groups being attacked, and many were forced to return to camp.

The first flight of my day was to be another medevac. Captain Salman, trying to orchestrate the perimeter checks, sent us to a nearby clearing to await one of these returning teams, ambushed within the last hour.

“Do you reckon the whole team needs evac?” Ben asked as we started up our helicopter.

“Gonna need multiple trips if so. Probably it’ll only be one or two.” I looked around the interior of the ship. “Looks good boys, nice and clean.” 

Howie and Jim, checking their door-guns, dark bags under their eyes, grunted in response.

“Took us half the night,” Jim muttered just barely over the steadily increasing whine of the rotors.

We lifted off the ground and had only a few minutes of flight before descending into a clearing less than a mile away from the edge of camp. Several figures were standing in the clearing, near the perimeter.

“No shit.” Ben murmured as the figures became more discernible. 

I looked over as we touched down and saw what Ben was referring to.

“Lootenant,” he said, “looks like our medevac is a wounded VC.”

The small group was ducking under the turning blades, coming toward my door. They were leading the small trussed VC soldier in a black, pajama-like uniform. His shirt was half torn off and he had a field dressing on his left side that had a dark red stain near the bottom which probably meant that the wound was still bleeding. His face resembled a grotesque Halloween mask, shaped by hatred and marred with injury. What set my blood boiling, though, was the lack of any fear in his face. 

I tore off my flight helmet and almost fell out of the cockpit, bounding towards the encroaching party. 

“What the hell is this?” I yelled at Lt. Vince Erskine, who led the team.

“Tony, he’s an officer. He might know something about the perimeter-breach last night. Some of the teams Captain Salman sent out are disappearing, we need information more than another one of them dead.” Erskine pulled several pieces of paper out of his pocket. “We got these off him before he could destroy ‘em. G-2 wants these, take him to Battalion Aid right away, then go to division to drop off the papers and map. Someone will be waiting.”

I couldn’t argue any further. The VC officer was staring at me, probably hoping I’d snap and take a swing at him. Avoiding the impulse, I got back onboard my Huey and signaled everyone to prepare for take-off. Jim got the officer onto the idling helicopter and secured him in a seat. I turned to see him buckling in the prisoner, who still was trying to catch my eye.

“Don’t bother with that, Jim.” He looked up at me, seat-buckle in hand. “We might get lucky and he’ll try to escape while we’re in the air.

Ben chuckled, “He’d best be careful of that first step, it’s a loooong one.”

With that, Ben and I took control of our metallic beast and rose from the ground. When it came to flying, Ben was like an extension of my mind and limbs. We entered an almost trancelike state of automatic and subconscious action and reaction. A movement from either one of us would trigger a series of maneuvers by the other. We communicated without speaking, helped before being asked, anticipated next steps.

Hovering off the ground, we moved to take off position.

“Alligator Six, this is Tomahawk Thirty-Four, over,” Ben said into the FM radio.

“Tomahawk, this is Six.”

“Got a wounded prisoner for medevac, headed to Aid.”

“Sounds good Thirty-Four, see you soon.”

“Roger, Alligator. Out.” Ben switched off the radio.

I was familiar with the landing zone we were taking off in. We’d landed here several times to evac men who were close to camp but needed a quick lift. I knew that the area of the clearing furthest from camp had the most room to clear the towering trees. I headed towards this point, slowly lifting further off the ground.

“Keep your eyes, peeled, boys,” Ben said over the intercom. “The day is ending and the foxes are moving back toward the henhouse to—”

“VC in the tree-top at two o’clock!” Jim yelled just before his machine gun roared to life, mowing down branches on the ship’s right-hand side.

Before Jim had even finished his warning, I initiated a violent evasive maneuver. With a hard left turn I felt the aircraft shudder with the sudden change; my controls vibrated as if I was holding the barrel of Jim’s torrential machine-gun. The treeline loomed ahead of me, I could not see any sign of the gunner, though I could hear him between Jim’s intermittent shots. I kicked hard on the right pedal and pulled back as hard as I could on the cyclic stick, trying to slow the turn.

“I see them!” Howie shouted, and now he was screaming and tearing apart the jungle with his gun.

The trees only seemed to approach faster as metallic thuds indicated several bullets peppering the side of the Huey. A sharp whistling noise crossed in front of my face, and it took me a moment to realize it had been a bullet. My harness slackened, and without anytime to look I assumed the bullet had torn through the belt. 

“Can’t pull up!” I heard Ben shout just before a horrendous groaning and churning sound. One of the rotor blades had struck the top of a tree, causing my out-of-control left turn to become a roll. Smoke began to pour forth from the engine, and the sky became the trees, which was then the ground, rushing up to meet us as bullets shook the air and two tons of steel hurtled toward the ground.

All I saw was the VC officer, but not on-board our ship. He had jumped out just as the helicopter had started to roll, and he passed in front of my windshield, so close to freedom. If the rotor blade wouldn’t have bent from striking the tree, he might’ve cleared the wreckage. As it was, the nearing ground was obscured by more blood than I knew the human body contained, just before the tail of the Huey hit the ground. 

I was bucked from my seat, and my suspicion that the bullet had pierced my harness was confirmed as I flew out of it. My door was torn off its hinges just before I was spit out of it, immediately slammed onto the ground.

The first thing I saw was the waist and legs of the VC officer. Where the rest of him had gotten off to, I didn’t care. The wreckage of Tomahawk Thirty-Four seemed to roll around on the ground forever, writhing in a temperamental fit. I couldn’t look, though I knew I’d have to. 

It was hours before they found me, lying face down in the same position I’d landed in. Even as they hauled me onto a stretcher I tried my best not to look at the smoldering remains. Morbid curiosity got the better of my despair, and when I finally did drag my eyes towards the bulk of the crash they immediately fell on Chief Warrant Officer Ben Johnson.

Maybe it was the look on the half of Ben’s face that was still intact, or maybe it was seeing the upper half of the VC officer suspended in the trees, entrails dangling down like some sort of macabre party streamers. Maybe it was the way Howie’s head was bent back, spine protruding from his neck, or the smell of Jim’s charred flesh. Whatever it was, it marked the last time that I flew.

IV.

We live in the flicker — may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.

-Joseph Conrad

Once the medical team had arrived at the crash site, I tried to organize the men into an attack squad so we could flush out the gunners who had downed us. Even I knew it was out of the question, but the ferocity with which I battled their refusal got me grounded by the demand of Captain Salman. I was stationed to a listening post: a single-man foxhole that waited for intruders in the dead of night.

Peering over the lip of the midget-cave in which I was squeezed, I scanned the few feet ahead of me that I could vaguely make out. Three days had passed since the crash, but only tonight did I feel as if both my hearing and nerves were truly beginning to return. I was no longer white-knuckling my Randall knife at a breeze, and I could listen beyond my own heartbeat when all was quiet. The veil of enveloping darkness descended quickly after sunset, and the inky blackness that followed cast over me a sense of utter isolation. 

In time, clouds rolled over the moon, darkening the darkness. I didn’t see the barbed wire ten feet ahead of me, or the mines at ten and two o’ clock, but I knew they were there. I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing Ben’s face, intact — but I knew he was dead. I didn’t hear the VC slowly creeping towards me, but I knew they were out there.

As the seconds skipped by, the minutes crawled and it felt impossible to discern what an hour felt like. I wore a watch, but it was frozen at the instant of the crash, stuck to the time of death of three men, and one VC. I didn’t take off into the direct line of fire of an enemy gunner. I didn’t, because a man right out of flight school wouldn’t have. I didn’t let my familiarity of that landing zone cause me to become predictable, because that would mean a lack of predictability would’ve let me avoid that gunner. So I couldn’t have taken off into the direct line of fire of an enemy gunner, because I didn’t kill my men. They killed Ben, Howie, and Jim, and I merely survived. As I sat in the darkness, I wondered if it was easier to take a life or to be the last one living.

“Easier?” A voice out of the darkness said. No, it was just a gust of wind. I’d worked myself into a fit, sweat dancing off my face as I shook violently on a night that was warm. There were times I felt brave, being here. Before I told my father of my choice to fly and after I first saw death, I thought I was merely fighting a good fight against bad men. It was in my dad’s disdain and the constant feeling that I’m a glorified bus driver, passing over a jungle of guerilla warfare plagued by bloodlust that I felt scared and foolish. I was untrained in hand-to-hand combat, holding a knife in a foxhole, waiting to kill a man.

Where was the frenzied state my old man always talked about; when I get so fed up that all I see is red and when I come out of it, fifty dead Charlie lay at my feet. I wasn’t paying attention in training (that of the military and my father’s), surely, to have witnessed all of this and still quiver on a humid night. I’d missed something, or something was amiss in me. I’d taken three lives since my arrival, and though I took grim pleasure in eradicating the VC, it still didn’t seem that I was doing the right thing.

My father had a certainty that he’d been just in World War Two. How did he know he was right when mowing down those Japs? As I felt something with more than four legs crawl across my thigh, I racked my brain. He’d recounted battles and given explicit detail on every aspect of his service, but never once did he say why he’d felt honorable.

Suddenly, it came to me: the words my father had spoken when showing me his Bronze Star, just before I’d left country, “When I brought this home to your grandfather, he told me I’d done right.” 

Another rustling sounded directly ahead of me, now discernable as a shuffling through leaves. Whether human or otherwise, there was no wind and no voice. I looked to the left, towards the source of —  no, the right. Was it behind me?

After a moment, a figure loomed out of the darkness, slowly creeping towards me, and I saw it was unmistakably human. How they had gotten past the barbed wire or the watchtower I didn’t know, but nevertheless it was with prolonged hesitancy and dead silence that I raised my knife.

I kept my eyes on the figure, sure they couldn’t see me. Another half-remembered voice came to me: “We eat carrots, after all. They just eat rice.” I hoped Ben was right as I watched his steps, subconsciously keeping tabs of our proximity to the nearby perimeter of landmines several yards away.

The man walked a few feet, stopped, and then continued. He knew there were foxholes somewhere around, but not if they were manned. I was breathing slow, sounding like a panting boar. Could he see the dark outline of my foxhole? Would he creep in to check for enemies? He was nearly on top of me now, and I held my breath as he took another step closer, two feet away.

Just then the muffled sound of distant gunfire broke the silence. For a second I thought the man had begun to shoot at me, but as he looked towards the sound I realized my opportunity had arrived.

I lunged forward, tackling the man and covering his mouth. We fell to the ground and just as he processed what had happened I plunged my knife as hard as I could into his back. There was no aim, no precision; just sheer force as I drove what I hoped was the sharp end into flesh. The man’s scream poured into my hand as we wrestled on the ground. I pulled out the knife and drove it in again, feeling him start to convulse. Blood began to pour from the man’s first wound, drenching me quickly. Hands slippery-red, I stabbed the man once more and he soon stopped shaking. 

More gunfire ripped through the air as I leaned back against a tree, the man lying next to me. Knife in my lap, bloodied and slightly dulled, I heard the whump-whump of the mortars and the pop-popping of a hundred bullets at once. The sound came from the direction of Bravo Company, roughly two miles away from my Delta camp. Was this an all-out assault? If so, where were the other VC for Delta Company? 

The clouds parted, the moon shone, and I looked down at the man. How do I describe this to you? I looked down at the man, and it took every ounce of what little strength I had left, of body and spirit, not to scream until there was nothing left. I wanted to cry until I forgot what I was crying about, I wanted to turn my Randall knife towards myself, stabbing until I lay next to the dead man, face down in the mud, wearing what was clear in the moonlight a government-issued Army uniform.

As if they only wanted to allow enough time to break my heart, more clouds rolled over the moon once more. But I grabbed the man and pulled him towards me, cradling his body, crying into his chest. I wanted to go home, to die, to kill every member of the Viet Cong with only my hands. I tried holding his lifeless hands, but found that something had been squashed into his fist. A crumpled and largely torn Lotus flower tumbled into my hand. Where had he come from? I had seen no Lotus flowers in weeks, for there were no bodies of water immediately surrounding Delta Company. I concluded he had been a member of Bravo Company, fleeing from or searching for the gunfire; a coward or a hero. Whichever he was, I raised the Lotus to his chest.

“You’ve done right,” I said, my voice only a shaky breath. “You’ve made us proud.” I slid the Lotus into a spot on the man’s flak vest. I’d finally been able to give a soldier his medal.

Footsteps all around me brought me back to the jungle, and I heard voices whispering to one another.

“Xem ra, bom ở đây.” My body tensed as the Vietnamese hit my ears, and already I heard the voices fading, moving towards Delta Company. They must’ve been directly where the land mines were, somehow avoiding them.

Something suddenly caught my eyes, and straining to see through the trees I saw that a flare had been sent up on the other side of Delta Company: an attack. Then another flare far off to my left streaked across the sky, and a third to my right. All across the perimeter of the camp, Charlie seemed to be closing in; a tightening circle with Delta at the center. 

I waited, but no alarm sounded in camp. Where was the defensive? I could only barely make out the Viet Cong’s voices as I strained my ears for some sort of alarm or shouting. It was protocol to retreat from camp after setting off or seeing a flare in case friendly fire reached past the VC, but I was rooted to the spot. The VC was nearly past the mines, not one having yet exploded, and then nothing would be between them and the camp. I made to stand, preparing to run for camp and mentally planning my route through where I knew the mines to be. 

As I moved the dead soldier off of me, I felt something cold brush my arm. A handgun lay by the man’s side. I knew what I was going to do before considering whether or not it was a good idea. I fished a grenade out of the man’s chest pocket.

I stood, holding the dead man’s gun in my hand. One shot would signal my whereabouts to the VC —  I wouldn’t have time for two. I walked forward, knowing the nearest mine to be seven yards towards Delta Company. I was near enough to see the spot, and imagined I could see the hunk of mercurial metal and gunpowder underneath. 

I raised my gun, fixing it on the spot, and held my hand steady. Tossing the grenade a few feet to my right, I felt a grim satisfaction as it landed right where I was aiming. I’d have to be far away enough without risking a missed shot. I took one step back, eyes still trained on where the mine was, and immediately a voice cried out a few yards away.

I hoped the men at other foxholes, the men who’d set off flares, had followed protocol and retreated from camp.

“Một ở đây!” The sound of an SKS being loaded.

I looked once more at the man I had stabbed.

“Right,” I said, almost over the VC, still shouting and now raising his gun at me. I looked back to where I knew the mine to be, and squeezed the trigger.

What came next didn’t hurt, but it did stay with me for hours. Not hours, sorry, I meant eons.

*

Captain Salman and Major Benton were talking in hushed tones. Not because they didn’t wish to be overheard, but because it was respectful to tread lightly around matters of the dead.

“I’m writing it up now,” Major Benton grunted, looking down at the paper on which he had been writing as the men spoke. Captain Salman walked around to Major Benton, as the latter began to read off the page: “At oh-three-hundred on the thirty-first of January, 1966, this Delta Company was attacked by members of the Viet Cong in what appears to be a simultaneous, systematic attack of several other companies. No casualties to report for Delta.”

“How do you even describe the—?”

Before Captain Salman could continue, Major Benton turned over the page, showing more writing.

“An improvised explosion led to the chain-reaction of every perimeter defense landmine surrounding Delta Company. Army-issue fragment-grenade casing found near what is believed to be the site of the initial explosion suggests that said grenade was used to link the area-of-impact of one landmine to another, causing increasingly massive detonations that engulfed the perimeter. Victor Charlie death toll is presumed, at the time of writing, to be upwards of fifty.”

Major Benton set down the page with a sigh. He looked at the dead Vietnamese laying before him, dressed in standard issue GI dress; a Lotus flower was tucked over his chest.

“At least now we know how they keep breaking our defenses.”

“We can’t keep them from stealing uniforms off of our dead, sir.”

“No, but we can keep ourselves from allowing the costume to blind us from the face.”

Captain Salman rubbed his face as if trying to wipe something away. He picked up from the man’s bedside table a set of dog tags. 

Major Benton pulled a pen from his breast-pocket and added to the piece of paper in front of him: “Near what is believed to be the area of the inciting incident, the dog tags of Lt. Anthony Bergeron were found. With no other soldiers stationed in the area, it is with all but resolute certainty that I claim Lt. Bergeron saved Delta Company from a devastating attack. With this, I recommend the Lt. be awarded the Bronze Star posthumously, for services to his country.”

Major Benton capped his pen, folded the note, and placed it in his pocket. In time, he said to no one in particular, “Bring mothers to their daughters, and let them meet in the Kingdom of the Moon, because that is where they will find peace. Bring fathers to their sons, and let it be in the Kingdom of the Sun, for that is where they will find forgiveness.”

Outside, the sun burst through the dense Viet Nam jungle, throwing rays of gold on Delta Camp and surrounding it in the orange fire that it was now familiar with.

“Who said that?” asked the Captain.

“Some fuckin’ guy,” replied the Major. “Some guy who’s either dead or dying. Might as well have been me. Yeah...let’s say it was me.”

Somewhere, rotor blades groaned to life, giving a high-pitched whine as they spun faster and faster. They kicked up dust and made trees consider their fortitude. The blades shook the dense jungle as far as the jungle stretched, and like thunder over a plain or the force of the sea, the awful ferocity was a comfort.