Chapter Six
The Sergeant Carter and
Ming Story
((From Saigon to Phnom Penh 1978-1987) (in Six-parts))
Nguyen’s Repayment
((It’s all too late) (Saigon))
Part One
It is the summer of 1978, and the two children of Nguyen (both by birth Vang’s and one by Langdon Abernathy, Nguyen being the husband), are ten and eleven years old now. Vang has been dead for a few years, and Zuxin who worked with Vang in Cam Ranh Bay during the war years is Nguyen’s new wife. (That was how Vang got to know Langdon.)
(During the past couple of years Ming has visited them during the summers. Cam Ranh Bay is being used as a Market Place now, in particular the Air Base there. Things have changed. He worked for the underground in Saigon in those war years, a civilian sanitary engineer, an army-trained sniper no one knew he was, who was assigned to collect data for the underground fighting of the Americans, thus, he was also a spy, his wife never know much of what he was, Vang, although being a one time sniper she did know, thinking he was retired at the time she was with him.)
This summer Ming is staying at the house with Zuxin, it has been enlarged to six rooms, instead of three. They now have a sturdy roof and a dog on top of the roof to warn them of the midnight robbers, and there are quite a few. Zuxin’s husband, he now works in interrogation of the new order, that in which many of the citizens that worked for the Americans were sent there for relearning, to be reprogrammed for the New Life in Vietnam, the new city, his boss is Major Manh, he himself is a Sergeant, or its equivalent, he also works for him at his main civilian job, in the sanitary plant.
Ming had to attend reprogramming classes within the new order, as to have a new attitude, heart and mind for nationalism, being a friend of Nguyen, she was only limited to a few, she had met Major Manh once, but never talked to him, and thus, because of him and Zuxin’s husband, no harsh punishment was ever given her, and each summer she had told Nguyen she’d come to help Zuxin with the children and household cleaning, and so forth and so on, and of course, he had and has had, a continuous ongoing personal agenda with her, during the summers.
She is taller than Zuxin or Vang was, slender, and is younger than Vang, who would be thirty-nine this year had she lived, whereas, Nguyen is forty-nine-years old, and Zuxin, thirty-seven, and Ming twenty-eight, long silk like black hair, and deep dark eyes.
She is not really attracted to him, he is ugly, thin, and his face is sunken in like a squeezed sponge; he has bony hands, and is a very prideful man. But she cannot escape his grip on her, lest she run from him out of the country. She also has aunts and uncles in China.
Saigon, now from the ashes of the late war, has been renamed Ho Chi Minh City, is growing not only with new markets, and reprogramming clinics, but with many new cloths shops, Ming has taken a job in one, a part time job, as Zuxin has also—they work sometimes together, allowing the boys to run wild as boys often do anyhow, so they feel, and it brings money into the household.
Nguyen Khoa, is working with Yoon his friend, and the superintendent Mr. Manh, on a preliminary blueprint, which will enable Mr. Manh to finish his job on the septic tank system for a section of the city. Both Yoon and Manh have been over recently to Nguyen’s house, and have recognized Ming from the reprogramming, and recent years she has visited Nguyen and Zuxin; Ming being quite a pretty woman, who appears to be quite educated yet fanciful in an almost ill way—as if she is manic if not at times depressed, bored with life, and yet intelligent, and perhaps a little promiscuous, so she comes into view in the eyes of Manh, and so Nguyen had thought likewise, neither one sharing this opinion with one another.
Mr. Manh, sixty-two years old has told Nguyen he thinks she, Ming, if given a chance will take a liking for him, he feels she has given him the eye, flirting with him, and Yoon over some wine this morning, has said the same thing, but if you were to ask Ming, it would be a simple no, she was being kind the few times she was introduced to the two men, and so often, she has come to the realization, and conclusion making a man feel good, or smiling at him, or being kind to him, evidently gives him, or them the wrong message, a false impression, as if she would like to bestow her womanhood upon them, how wrong can a man be, but she is in a man’s world, and thus smiles and tries to get away like a cat chasing a mouse, or a bear scenting his honey—thinking it belongs to him, and she, trying to cover the scent up, before she gets eaten up because of her honey.
Manh, asks when Nguyen’s shift will end, as well as for Yoon also, his shift, and Nguyen says, at 4:00 p.m. He tells Nguyen to bring Ming to the outside truck, parked in the back where all the trucks are park when they arrive back from their trips throughout the city. There he will wait for her.
Nguyen, when he asks Ming to come to the plant, he doesn’t tell her exactly the truth, he says,
“It’s for showing you the place, Mr. Manh wants you to see it,” and she replies,
“I expected something like this, he’s always checking me out,” but she wasn’t thinking what Manh was really thinking, she had never been married, and was thinking along those lines, and perhaps that he’s interested.
She somewhat resists, even though Nguyen pleads, she knows there is something there she can’t escape and therefore, doesn’t want to go, call it intuition.
Zuxin is at work and the boys are running around in a gang.
Nguyen starts to think about Vang, shakes his head as if it wouldn’t happen again, couldn’t happen again, that was in wartime when she got her disease, this is different (he had gotten medication, but it was too late for her, and that child of her’s, Langdon’s child).
On the other hand, he doesn’t want to upset Mr. Manh. Hence, he calls Zuxin at work so she can let Vy Hoang know, Ming will not be to work, and that she is going with him to see the plant where he works.
Zuxin hesitates, says, “Oh, I see, tell her I love her.”
Funny response, thought Nguyen, I mean, ‘I love her,’ was that really necessary, simply going to the plant.
In his own way, he loved Vang, but it was all too late to save her from syphilis, and as soon as that thought came and left, thus, he allowed Ming to go on with him to the plant, no more pauses.
As Mr. Manh waits he continues to examine into the phases of the new drainage system construction, he and Yoon and Nguyen were looking on, or at. Then they arrive, Ming and Nguyen, he sees Nguyen bringing her into the plant, and several other men see him do it, and Mr. Manh sees that all the men are watching, attracted to her, he then whispers something to Yoon, and greets Ming.
“I will take you on a tour of the back area of the plant,” Manh tells Ming, “and Nguyen, he can come with,” now Yoon is talking to the workmen that saw Ming come in.
“Miss Ming, in a plant like this one, as you can see we are many serious men, seriousness is in anyone of them, sometimes here we work twelve to fourteen hours to make sure the city has a sanitary drainage system in place, we all call it part of participating in nationalism, the new national government, where North and South now have been united as one, as you are one of us, as you remember your reprogramming.”
(Although he is concealing his real motives for showing her the plant, and brings her to the back parking lot; she smiles, nods her head as if she understands the word patriotism.)
Ming, for the most part is a good observer, and knows something is up, but feels helpless, and is hoping for the best, but she also knows the evil in men, those with power, and feels she will have to cooperate, and unable to confront anyone directly. And they, both Manh and Nguyen, and now Yoon are keeping her company, and will not tell her why.
It dawns on Nguyen, that Manh would do such a thing, plan such a thing, didn’t think he had it in him, and is quite bold on the situation, meaning, he did not think much about asking him to do what he was planning on doing, he didn’t know exactly what he was thinking, but it was one of those things, that strain you, until you can figure it out, and hopefully when you do it is not too late. He says to himself, aloud,
“My wife, I should call my wife let her know I’ll be late.”
“Didn’t Ming call her?” said Manh, “she knows you’ll be late.”
Then they arrived at the truck (among many trucks), Yoon opened it, there was a mattress in the back of it,
“You must be careful dear, you don’t want to fall. And if you do not go onto that mattress for me, I will have you sent back to the reprogramming… and this time harsh punishment will prevail,” and he said no more. And he took her by her hand and led her to the mattress, and he took her sexually, and Yoon took her, and several men from the plant came down and waited for their turns.
“Fine, Nguyen now you can go call your wife, tell her we are done today with Ming, for her to bring her back tomorrow,” said Manh.
“Why her?” asked Nguyen.
“Why not her,” replied Manh.
“Because she is my wife!” said Nguyen, with a troubled voice, holding his anger back.
“Because she knows her way down here, and I need you to finish the work we are working on, she’s been here before, you can’t tell…!” said Manh.
Then Nguyen looked at the several men going into see Ming, and Yoon, and they all laughed at him, smirked, and tears came down his cheeks, shame filled his face. These men you see, along with twenty others are willing to sacrifice you for your wife, they are what you call, stockholders in her,” and he laughed, and the men ganged up on Nguyen, and beat, and beat and beat him to pulp, and there he lay in a pool of his own blood, as the last man, carried Ming out said, “We’ll send his wife his checks, he will not be needing them,” Manh added to that little monologue, telling Ming “And tell Zuxin, I will be seeing you both tomorrow, be here at 4:15 pm., sharp.”
No Tears for the Damned
((Story Ten: for the Screen) (The Revenge of Zuxin and Ming))
Ton Sun Nhut Air Base
Part Two
Zuxin and Ming are now alone in the house, and have a plan; it must be implemented in one day and evening. They’ve already sold Zuxin’s house; the property has been sold to Mr. Jong, a week ago for $5000-dollars, and will become a boutique, the money being distributed, between the two girls. It will take place tomorrow, the 2nd of January, 1979, the second day of the New Year; people will be traveling back and forth across the boarder between Vietnam and Cambodia, soldiers as well as citizens of each country will be tired, excess work means less double checking identifications, for all the celebrations are over.
Mr. Jong, is a rich man that goes to the cloths shop where Zuxin works, and likes Zuxin, and he has offered to help her, and she has offered herself to him, if he takes them to Phnom Penh in his car, on the 2nd of January, and arranges passports, if he does, he will have a weekend with her at any hotel he wishes while in Phnom Penh.
Zuxin’s husband is now dead, and buried, yet she remains ambitious, as does Ming, they want to better themselves, and staying in Saigon, raising kids that are saying constantly: “You aren’t my mother, you can’t tell us what to do (only feed us, bed us, and be our slaves)” and don’t appreciate their labors, she can do without that. Selfish they are, and so, they do not plan on trying to change them for the next ten-years. Ming, is always a charming and understanding companion, and does not drink like a lot of self pitied folks do, simple because of hardships, and she’d be a much better accompanying person to end up with.
They were both born to dream of a better life, not necessarily money, but a better background than this, what they were enduring, not really living: meaning, being a slave to disparity, to Mr. Manh, and his future whims and Yoon (assistant to Nguyen Khoa, at the sanitary plant in Saigon, who took advantage of Ming also, although never Zuxin, for some odd reason, perhaps afraid of reprisal, yet it was stunning to Zuxin that she would take advantage of a friend. Ming had already told Zuxin, how her husband forced her into an affair on the side, and was sorry to have to tell her. But under the circumstances that was forgiven instantly. She did not add Yoon into her new plans, figuring his day would come, he would take one chance to many, they all think alike, she told Ming, they all feel they got one more chance before it catches up with them, and then when it does, they can’t figure it out— what they did wrong on judgment day. And if they survive through it (so she continues to explain) they figure they will do it right next time, forgetting they were originally in the wrong, and they try it again, and get away with it, and then again, and that is that, they face death in the face, and plead, but death does not discriminate, they are left with only a reception afterwards and even then, the robber, the kidnapper, the thief, the killer, they all try to sneak through the back door into heaven. They no longer play the game, “I’d rather be in hell, than have to endure the rules of heaven (so they say); that is, until the day they have to face it.” This has all changed, to God have mercy on my soul, but God looks at his deeds, and the one’s he has wronged, and if you do not speak up on behalf of them, they fall, sink into the abyss, never to be seen, never to be heard of again, and to Zuxin and Ming, this was befitting.
This is what she had told Ming as they sat in the house, figuring out the plan of escape, dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the‘t’s.
Day of Emancipation
If you wait long enough, the day always comes. It is the day, and they talk in the morning, and separate themselves, getting the children ready to go visit their Aunt’s place, they have told her in advance that they were coming early in the morning to do some shopping, and they are standing at the door, Zuxin and Ming look at each other, at the two wild boys, the kids paying them no attention whatsoever, which is normal for them anyhow, just taking in a deep breath, as if to say, let’s get on with it. Alas, the show will change for their whole lives, hereafter.
Zuxin is now without the house, the kids, $5000, dollars in her purse, or half in her’s and half in Ming’s.
“So far so good,” Zuxin says to Ming, you can hear the aunt in the kitchen as they walk away, moaning and complaining, “I hope your mother, or whoever you kids call her, comes early to pick you rug rats up.”
Ly (short for lion), she has taken to drink, the old aunt, and loses patience easily, and you can see her through the window pouring a glass of sake (a glass of an alcoholic beverage made from rice; or simply rice wine). Her sister Qu i (turtle) is Vang’s husbands’ mother, and Ly and Qui are sisters, Qui has passed on; Ly being the older sister and in her 60s.
It is Zuxin and Ming standing at the corner now a block from Ly’s home, a bag in each hand, a big bag, as if it is a shopping day, they do not want to be suspicious, more incognita you might say, in case they bump into someone. She sees which way the taxis are set, they cross the street so they can catch one going in the direction they want, she must risk Mr. Manh and his wife Si are sleeping, expects them to be at home sleeping this morning, it is 6:30 a.m., and she has something nasty in store for them. The way she has it planned, they will not be able to escape, or even fight the forces off, or outrun them, a violent reaction from fear will be delivered, she wants to cleanse herself physically and mentally from this lonely part of her mind, the part her and Ming have been swimming in.
They meet, Thiea, Chiem, and Cham, called by Mr. Jong, Zuxin’s friend, as the ‘Brutes,’ or paid killers. They are large, ugly, broad and deadly looking, strong as bulls. She hands them fifty-dollars each, and says, “You’ll each get the other fifty when the job is done.”
Now they are standing outside of Mr. Manh and his wife, Si’s home, the day has come, and now the time, hour, they go through the locked doors, Ming and Zuxin watch, one of the three brutes stands out by the street, incase there is an onlooker, he can subdue him or her. Another stands by the door blocking Thiea, the one with a crowbar, prying the door open, ripping the hinges on the other side of the door loose so he can push the rest of the way with his body weight, and muscular force through the door, and its side hinges that hold aboard across the door, thus hindering some of the noise; it is all within three to four minutes time.
They all walk into the house, Ming looks at Zuxin, says “Graduation day has come…,” Zuxin has now taken her plan to the second level, she is efficient if anything, she can’t persuade Ming to wait outside the bedroom, Ming wants to be part of this ordeal, this oddity in the raw, this sin for the damned.
There is a chair in the bedroom; Ming sits at one end of it, and Zuxin on the other. The three men, stand to the side of the bed, she makes a face as she looks at Mr. Manh sleeping, and tells Ming “How can he sleep so sound, and be so dishonest, so without courage and character, no kindness in his bones, she, his wife must be of the same mold, like two peas in a pod, or if not, then she has been blindly in love for a long time, and going to suffer for it.”
Perhaps she was trying to convince herself what was going to take place, and hoped it was authorized by God himself, or perhaps she was asking God to overlook it, and had a little part of Satan in her soul for the moment, whatever, her manner towards the two sleeping became unthinkable. She even declined to listen to the second self, hidden in that room somewhere deep in her mind. And then Mr. Manh woke up, seeing the three men standing, hovering over him, and was about to scream, next Thiea, told him not to, with a nine inch knife at his throat.
Then old man Manh looked at the two girls,
“I don’t know what you are up to, but you’ll pay for this!”
“We already have, now it’s your turn, and your wife’s,” then she woke up: I think she was pretending to be sleeping, thought Zuxin, because she was not as startled as she should have been. “What is going on,” she said looking at her husband dumbfounded.
“Be quiet,” says Thiea, his friends looking at both of them, Si, in her forties, her husband in his fifties. She has a fairly decent shape, and face looks as if it has had the Paris treatment, smooth silk like skin for an older woman, not under fed or pale, but rich with color, and her bones strong, not weak like so many from lack of proper nourishment.
“Chiem, cover their mouths with their own socks,” commanded Thiea, and he did what he was told, as they sat erect in bed, against the mahogany wooden back to the bed: “No veneration for you today Mr. Manh, and because of your moral and mental cruelness your wife will have to suffer the consequences, as you will soon find out.”
And Cham tied both he and Si to the bed, to make them unmovable.
Ming gets up, and Zuxin follows, tells him, “You look afraid, Mr. Manh,” although she would have liked to tell him more, time was of the essence and the brutes needed to get on with the show.
“He looks afraid,” said Ming to Zuxin, “Just wait a minute, and we shall see just how afraid he really is.”
Mr. Manh got a few words out under the sock tied around his mouth, Ming and Zuxin could hardly make it out, but they did, he said,
“You girls got warped brains, this is a scandal,” and Zuxin, countered this with, “Not yet, just wait a minute, and those words will come true.”
And then all three brutes left to go to the other side of the bed, Si was striped naked by them, “They are not going to kill you Si, just do what your husband has done to us…!” and her husband looked now terrified, the wife, simply looked at him, dismayed, as if he was removed from the marriage already.
“Si,” said Ming, “the case against your husband has already been tried, please believe me, he will suffer more than you, just fall to sleep if you can, and dream of what you’d like to do with him after this ordeal.”
Then the three brutes unclothed themselves, and for three hours raped Si, quietly, she remained through this hell, as if she had retired from life itself, as if she was going to be a well to do widow. At the end of it, she was untied, told not to leave, if she did—she was told—they ’d run after her with a knife.
Now the three brutes, got dressed, took the knife over to Mr. Manh (it was close to 10:00 a.m., and they had to meet Mr. Jong at 11:00 a.m., to hightail it out of the city, but as she would have said: first things first.
The wife looked brazen and boldfaced at her husband.
“You do not have to watch Si,” said Ming, it is our party, and we do not intend to kill your husband.”
“I think it might be better you do, if you do not intend to leave town, he is a bad one,” said Si. Then cringes and whines, and says,
“Kill him for me!”
“No,” said Zuxin, “that was never in our plans. And we must follow the plan.”
Swifter than a hawk grabbing its pry, Thiea took his knife, and castrated Si’s husband, laying the remains on the bed next to him.
“You look helpless Mr. Manh, and you should know the police will not save you, didn’t and will not, you are damned today.”
If anything, it was anger keeping the castrated quiet and possible revenge. And then all five of the assailants walked out of the bedroom Thiea giving the knife to Si, leaving Mr. Manh tied to the bed. And Mr. Jong was waiting across the street to take them to Cambodia: the last thing heard from Si’s bedroom was her husband saying “Please don’t kill me,” then a sigh, and nothing else was heard. And the three brutes got their second fifty-dollars, and Jong, got more than what he bargained for in Cambodia.
Iron Skirts–for Phnom Penh
((May, 1980 to July 1, 1980) (Along the Mekong; story eleven: for the Screen))
Part Three
The Grand Stupa of Phnom Penh
Mr. Morgan Carter, otherwise known as Staff Sergeant Carter, and still with the nickname Serge, was of Irish descendant, and lived along the Levee, in St. Paul, Minnesota, until they tore it down in 1960, and then he and his family moved towards what the city called, the North End, and he joined the Army. Thus, he was now retired, it is May of 1980, and he’s been retired for only a few months now, and has taken a vacation in Phnom Penh, Cambodia of all places. He has seen most of the sights, in particular, the Grand Stupa in Phnom Penh, which he thought was impressive. And now he is walking along the banks of the Mekong River that runs along side the city.
Zuxin’s Aunt (Tuyen Hoang, sister to Naomi Hoang, Zuxin’s mother not married, lives in Phnom Penh, with her brother, Sun, where Ming still lives, as Zuxin has married none other than the rich man called, Mr. Jong, who once lived by the Tan Su Nut airbase in Saigon; and who had bought Zuxin’s home, and owns several boutiques himself, second husband to Zuxin).
In any case, Ming is out in the river with Tuyen and Sun, trying to catch fish, with a handsome looking wide and large net. Sun throws it out, and it sinks, and Tuyen lifts one side Sun the other, and Ming is nearby to assist when called upon.
Morgan Carter the II, is walking down along the bank of the river, the Mekong, daydreaming, his hotel is nearby, he was at the Russian Market, and did some more sightseeing, it is his second day, yesterday he went to the Stupa, and this new day, he sees three people fishing, one looks a tinge tall, taller that is than the other two, and he remembers Ming being tall, the girl that worked in the mess hall back ten-years ago—slim, pretty, long black hair, an eye catcher, he remembers her from the 611th Ordinance Company, in Cam Ranh Bay, the same unit and place Langdon Abernathy was assigned to; they were both friends.
Sun points to Morgan who is walking towards them with a cowboy hat on, you can’t miss him, the only Irish American in town, the Midwestern boy is as white as rice, with light bluish-green eyes. He looks to Ming as a man in his late 30s. The city is not all that safe, Pol Pot is in the jungle with his terrorists, and has control of most everything in Cambodia, so she wonders: is this fellow lost, or crazy; she expresses that anyhow on her face.
Most of the young men in the city are to her considered criminals with a form of desecration, if not self destruction, and going no place in life. (Sun starts to pull in his net, it has sank to the bottom of the river, and he is bringing it up and out, he feels some weight to it, so he knows he’s got a few fish in it, he rushes over to his sister to close the net, so the fish do not escape, she has now let a few wiggle their way to freedom, and for the curious, one can see them fighting over the loss, in the background, for Ming is walking forward to see who the person is.)
Now Ming and Morgan see each other clearer, and know who one another are without guessing, and they walk faster, smiles tell each other they are aware; she remembers him, he was at the Ordnance Company in Cam Ranh, for a year, and returned there several times when he was on his way elsewhere, he never was a compete stranger between 1966 through 1971.
“Is it really you Serge?” cries Ming.
“Call me Morgan; I’m a retired sergeant now Ming, no longer a Staff Sergeant, just a plain tourist here.”
The wind from the Mekong is setting in, you can hear it.
“Come, we’ll go see Zuxin, she’s married now, married a rich man who lived down by Vang, down by Ton Sun Nhut Air Base, owns a few dress shops in Saigon, and they have a home here, and she owns a dress shop here in Phnom Penh also.”
For some odd reason they both start laughing, as if the stress of seeing each other had melted, and now they were at ease with one another, cordial, tranquil within a few minutes.
Says Morgan with an up beat, and excited to be seeing Ming, he always had an eye for her anyhow, “She can wait, and I’d rather visit with you. What the heck you been doing all these years? Kind of a rhetorical question, only need to know you’re okay, really okay.”
“Morgan, let’s—you and I just sit on the bank here, the sun will be going down in a half hour.”
And Morgan does. And they talk, sitting on that weedy and slightly wet bank, on a shroud, then she takes off her cloths, and goes swimming, gets into the water up to just past her breasts, “Come in Morgan,” she calls.
He joins her, makes no attempt to touch her. Her reaction from previous experiences seems to have faded into oblivion, as if the wrong she was done, was paid for in full, and all her soul wiped clean, to the point of it not even being able to remember what she had to endure in Saigon, as if it never happened. Innocence resides in her bones, her thighs, it is how she became, the knightly figure for the strong woman , the one who would inherit the new age, the age of Aquarius on earth: she is ahead of her times; or perhaps one of a kind. The past invalidated, squashed, packed in and stepped on like a tomato, that turned into ketchup. Hence, give to the next man waiting, let him seduce me, if that is what he needs to appease his desires, his cravings, to pacify his inners, I am a woman, and then let us go on with life, and fight the everyday fires, I am thirty years old, too old to be fighting man and the beast inside of him, and trying to survive in-between for food, and cloths, and all the necessities of life. Give me peace, I will pay the price, even if my skirts get heavy as iron (this is what she told her second self, the one in the back room of her mind, the one she talked to—now and then, the one, only she knew about, and kept her, her secret, the only other friend she ever really had besides God himself).
—Morgan is unsure what to do, but his body functions aren’t, only his mind, and Ming can feel that. She has no friend to save her, like the last time (when she needed a friend and had none), but she knows, her friend in the back of her mind also knows, confirms, she is safe with Morgan, and he will protect her if need be, Morgan is a good ole soul; therefore, she will not refuse him, and she doesn’t. She faces him, while in the waters. He begins to smell her flesh, what he desires, what most men desire, asking nothing, but in his mind perhaps this freak chance is and can be, and was meant to be, a lasting romance, so he feels from his toes to his throat, and all those spaces in-between, this growing, and growing desire. She knows Morgan is a hard man, he has to be, and he endured five-tours of duty in war, while in Vietnam. She will be safe with him, she knows, he is really quite gentle, she knows this also.
“Will you come and live with me?” he asks.
She is moved by his consideration and offer, it wouldn’t matter, and she is not after pity, but she does tell him about her ambition before she says yes, “I want to own someday a little, just a small dress shop, I’ve saved up $2500-dollars, a deal I made in Saigon, selling Zuxin’s house (she tells him this, so he doesn’t think less of her ambition).”
For some odd reason, it is clear to him why she is telling him all this, all this unnecessary information, unless she had a deeper plan for him, perhaps them together, and he is close to forty, he is not all that young, but Ming knows he will be getting a military retirement, or is getting one, they, the soldiers, the so called lifer’s talked about it all the time at the 611th Ordnance Company in Cam Ranh Bay.
In all reality, she also tells herself: love is a decision, not just an emotion that needs to be fed like a cow. And it is obvious they have both accessed this. She also knows that at eighteen or twenty, such a decision if made by such a young mind would in most cases be immature, but at their ages, and their desires, it is not wise to wait if indeed it is made with an honest and mature mind, matter-of-fact, it is perhaps prudent, to not waste time.
“Well,” said Morgan, “I have $8,000-dollars saved, how about you and I getting that little dress shop together, and having a little apartment above it? We can endure this war, here in Cambodia, just like we did the last one, in Vietnam.”
No more words needed to be said on the subject, she shakes her head ‘yes,’ matter-of-fact; she shakes it until he has to grab her head and stop her shaking it.
She thinks (now staring into his bluish-green eyes): life is not always so great, but if you can outwait the bad times, it comes in spurts, the good times will somehow reach you with an ounce of pure happiness. That the roads of life go up and down, and seldom are we in the valley of ecstasy, but there is a valley if you can make the journeys up and down the mountains, in search of it, most give-up somewhere in-between, and gripe about it up to the day of their funeral.
Ming would have seemed—to an onlooker—as an adult child; Morgan, at that very moment perhaps likewise: “Yes, yes,” says Morgan, “I seem to have been waiting for you all these years.”
That would have been considered the stupidest and most unclear statement he had ever made, had he not made it at that moment, at that specific time and location, and to Ming. He never made statements like that, it wasn’t him, and in consequence, it had to be as it was, a truthful statement, as truthful as one can make it, as truthful as one saying there must be a God, who else could have created all this, it just didn’t happen by chance.
Ming didn’t laugh, although Morgan after he said it, thought she might.
“I just had to get my act together, and then here you are, so simple, God makes things simple, somehow he does it, and it is beyond me, in all this earthly mess.”
You, the reader, nor I the writer, could not tell them this was not a magical God sent moment, they would have told me not to write it, to leave it out of this story, and so they swore within their hearts it was destiny, their fate to have met twice in their lives, both from oceans and masses of land apart, both meeting ten-years later down the road, both meeting in a city ravished with war.
In a Dead Voice
((March, 1971, Vietnam) (Morgan, March, 1986—Phnom Penh)
Part Four
Even to Sergeant Morgan Carter, he knew there were two sides to every man, and he knew he was no exception. One he could lay his life down for a county that did not appreciate his duty assignments, in a War that was not popular, as in his, that being, Vietnam, where he served five tours of duty, or five years, even got two Bronze Stars for Valor, almost a Medal of Honor, for saving a man’s life, in the middle of rocket fire, whereas most men are dead, when they receive such a gifts from the Army, or are even considered for such an award.
His uncle Frank, got one in WWII, but he had to die for it, and was buried in Florence, Italy, along with the Purple Heart.
Yes, he would die, give up his life for folks that called him ‘Baby Killer,’ every time he went home on leave, and he never killed any babies, perhaps the bombings did, but he would have said, and he did say on a few occasions, “..tell me of a war that didn’t kill babies…?” he didn’t know of any, they all did, they just didn’t publish them, not like now, this was the first war ever put on the television screen for a Pulitzer Prize, but he didn’t bomb anyone, he shot them, or shot at them, and most of the time he didn’t know how many he killed, he didn’t keep count, nor did he go check on the ones he thought he shot, and they were not babies, they were also folks with guns, and knifes, and rifles, and so forth, like to like, he called it—and they were shooting back.
On the other hand, during the first tour of duty in Vietnam, in 1965, he fought a lot with his fellow comrades over simple things, and would have been called a drunk, and a good for nothing soldier at times, not all the time, but at times, and could have shot your foot off for the skimpiest of reasons. Why was this, he asked himself— (now 1986) the war now long gone, why does a man choose to do what he does when he does it, especially while in the act of war. A hero and a bum in the same body, just not at the same time, you can be, you can be all of that and hide it from the real world. We all looked the same, kind of. So he told himself. He had witnessed many soldiers hide, dig holes in the ground to cover themselves up from incoming rockets, gun fire, all wanting another hour of life, breath; privates, sergeants and officers, they were all alike during such a moment, and he saw many a man go crazy, shoot themselves in the foot to get out of Vietnam, the war, the day to day Army terror. It was he said, “The confused beast inside of each man.” And so it was.
Dead Black Smoke
(Parts based on an eye witness)
The helicopter appeared over the airbase in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, March, 1971, almost before Carter knew it, it was there, he could hear it before he saw it, and when he saw it, and it was just a mild shadowy configuration, he went into a process of deliberation. What he heard was a whizzing, a fast whiz of its propelled horizontal rotors, which could have been two or more; Sergeant Carter guessed it to be an AH-1G Cobra, a gunship for the most part, he didn’t think it was a UH-1 Huey (officially the ‘Iriquois’), it was mostly used for transport. It was searching…for the VC, or Vietcong, going somewhat is a circle, a loop around the outer rim of the airbase, in the thick of some jungle brush, thereabouts. It was not a good circle, but rather like a ripple that the helicopter traveled in, even perchance a bit clumsy in its maneuvering.
The chopper was looking for where the VC was launching their rockets from, almost at random; the pilot was Warrant Officer Herald Lund…
The Vietcong had ungracefully tried to shoot rockets out of underground bunkers, out into the ammo dumps, three ammo dumps on Cam Ranh Bay, trying to hit their targets, and in the process trying to deal with a helicopter overhead, one trying to find them and put them out of business, on the other hand, the Vietcong was trying to eliminate the helicopter, as it went in a loop, at an angle as if to make a strike and then an immediate turn, then came a sudden sound of an explosion, and the Cobra disappeared from the air, it whirled towards the bay, and rammed into the waters of the South China Sea.
Captain Rosenboum sent out his company of 167-men to secure the ammo dump, he was Captain of the 611th Ordnance Company; the night stood motionless for a moment, Staff Sergeant Morgan Carter II, came to a stop, a standstill, as he drove his jeep along the white sandy beach road along the seashore of the bay, dead black smoke rising from out in the bay. He disembarked his jeep, walked a few feet closer to the water to get a better view; it was an American helicopter he concluded. At that very moment, a five-ton truck, with some thirty soldiers were on the back of it heading out to secure Alpha Ammo Dump, several miles away, rockets were still hitting the area.
It was night, more night than day, and the Staff Sergeant wanted to do something, and he now had to deliberate quickly if he was to get on out to the Ammo Dump, or evaluate this circumstances, and then what—he was ordered to go to the dump and secure, and to wait for the troops they would be there shortly after his arrival. The helicopter was some three-hundred yards out into the water, pouring out Black Death. There was no one in sight, but then there was not much sight to be seen. He went back to his jeep, turned on its lights, drove down to the edge of the water; there now he could see the illusion of a Cobra in the distant water.
He knew Chief Warrant Officer Lund, he had met him, and he was in that helicopter, the Cobra, although Morgan didn’t know it at this point. Lund’s head was bobbing up and down in the water, smashed between his seat, and the front dash of the chopper, someone else was already in the water, thrown out of the chopper when it hit, which the force blew the door open.
Sergeant Carter could see the nose of the helicopter was sinking, and he also noticed movement in the pilot’s seat perhaps the person was struggling and couldn’t free himself, was his mental conclusion, everything observable came by glances, a flash, nothing clear.
CW Lund, was a heavy man, and there was a Specialist Five Atwood whom was on board of the helicopter at the time it crashed also, he had freed himself and was now swimming away from the site, evidently he did not go back to try and save the Warrant Officer, or perhaps he couldn’t, perhaps all the strength left in him was to swim to safety, nonetheless, when he saw the headlights of the jeep, and a figure standing on the white sands of Cam Ranh Bay, he yelled, “Lund, still in the chopper—help him!” If there were others Sergeant Carter didn’t notice them or remember them, nor would he put it in his report.
Sergeant Carter made his decision now, and jumped into the waters of the bay, and in a matter of minutes was swimming past Atwood, and down and into the helicopter itself, and sure enough there was an acquaintance, CW4 Lund, a half smile came on Lund’s face, “I’ve had it,” said Lund, “not sure if you can get me free, and if so, I’m not sure if I got the energy to swim out of this mess!”
The Sergeant pushed back the seat of the Cobra, and freed the Warrant Officer of his safety belt, and the six-foot, 280-pound man grabbed the five-foot eight inch, one-hundred and forty pound Sergeant, and down they both went, but it wasn’t to freedom it was the helicopter had moved, and sunk deeper, and the Chief Warrant Officer was panicking, and the Sergeant was being overwhelmed with his panic height and weight in that little space, and he pushed the CW off him, whom was becoming likened to a wild dog, freed himself, and with his feet pushed himself out of the helicopter, thinking Lund would do the same, but he didn’t he evidently couldn’t swim, or if he could, he couldn’t think to swim, or hold his breath long enough to free himself from the wreckage, to swim to freedom.
Atwood was now on the white sandy beach, headlights on him, he was exhausted, and lay there resting.
Next the Sergeant was on the beach, got to his knees, took several deep breaths, “Where’s Lund?” asked the Specialist.
“Where you left him, read the report…!” said Carter, and the sergeant simply walked away, got into his jeep, and went out to where the incoming rockets were hitting, which was: Ammo Dump Alpha.
†
“Wake up Morgan,” said his wife, Ming: “You’re having a nightmare again,” she told him, “…did you get to the end this nightmare this time…?” she asked.
“Yes, I think so,” he said “I left him behind in the helicopter, like Atwater did, I mean Atwood…I’ll explain it all another day, how about breakfast?”
“Yes, I’ll make it, I’m just finishing up on your coffee, the way you like it; are we going to the Russian Market today?” she asked, and Morgan nodded his head yes—he loved he Phnom Penh open Market, looked towards the window, the sun was shinning through it, birds were chirping, and then it completely dawned on him, he completely realized it was 1986, not 1971, and he was not in Vietnam, he was in his home, in Cambodia, and his wife was asking simple things, little daily things, things we overlook, in the mass of things that we’ve already stored for who knows when, like old pictures thrown in a box, to be explored another day, or thrown out.
Keys to the Jeep
((Story Sixteen) (October, 1970)
(Story told by Morgan, April, 1987))
Part Five
“Corporal Gills, give me your jeep keys, I need to get to the back area, where the Ammo dump is, Alpha dump is, and fast!” said Staff Sergeant Morgan Carter; then added, so there would be no resistance, “that is a direct order Corporal, from a Staff Sergeant!” (Knowing he out ranked him.)
“I work for a Major, and he wants the jeep cleaned for tonight, and he wants me to get it cleaned at the airstrip,” answered Corporal Gills, “plus I am not sure exactly what a direct order is.”
“First of all, I don’t see the Major, second I don’t need the jeep tonight, third, this is an emergency, if you need to contact him, and then do so, and to educate you, there is no such thing as a direct order, other than, the order is being given to you face to face, and that this order you do not seem to want to follow is coming from an authority, me, and you are a subordinate and let me add one more thing this dialogue, or two…you are really being given a lawful order, because there are no such things as unlawful ones, and you are in a war zone which means if you refuse me, you can be put to death.” said the Staff Sergeant.
“I haven’t a phone as you can see, now how can I do that?” said the corporal, a little stubborn and witty.
“Bad luck for you corporal, my emergency outweighs his car wash, unless you get a lawful order (perhaps a written one) by him not to follow my directions, or my orders, which he can supersede, if he were reachable, and which you will be accountable for not following a non commission officer’s request.”
The corporal now looked confused; he had never come under such a silly attack, especially when he worked as a Major’s driver.
“But how do I know you are a real staff sergeant, you are in civilian cloths?” said the Corporal, feeling unarmored and frustrated.
“You do not know this, but if you want to go check out my locker, at the 611th Ordnance Company, you will see my strips. Also in there is my id card, read at your leisure.”
“Sergeant, I really need to get to the air strip…!” said the corporal, as if the Sergeant was fooling with him.
The sergeant was taking down his jeep number, and his name, and the time of day, and the corporal was looking at him as he was doing this, and at the bottom of the paper it read, “Corporal Gills’ refused this Staff Sergeant a direct, lawful order… .”
“Where you from Corporal,” asked the sergeant.
“Well, I used to live in Vancouver…” replied the Corporal.
“Canada right?” confirmed the sergeant.
“Corporal Vancouver, give me the keys or take off those stripes.”
“I can’t, I just take orders from a Major,” said the Corporal.
“No, you are now taking orders from me, who out rank you, and the Major is not here to protect you. And to be honest, the jeep looks clean and there are no ballrooms here to be cleaning jeeps for folks who are just going to get them dirty in an hour after they are cleaned anyhow! Listen up, you give me a lift to the Ammo Dump, and go to the motor pool and tell them I sent you, and they will wash the jeep for you.”
Fine, the corporal said and drove the Sergeant to Alpha Dump, and he walked in to a shack, a few minutes later, the Sergeant came out with a rounded package, something heavy, somewhat heavy in a bag, got back into the jeep, and told him to drive back along the coast of the bay, and onto his unit, and he could drop him off and go get his jeep cleaned.
“What’s in the bag Sergeant, if you do not mind me asking?” asked the corporal.
“No, I don’t mind you asking, but what do you think is in it, I mean what would you think a sergeant who have you bring him to an ammo dump for, take you out of your way to drive him to an ammo dump put something into a bag that looks heavy and round?”
The corporal thought on this for a few minutes, looking at the road, the bag, the bay, the sergeant and back to the road. “You sure have a way with a conversation Sergeant, I mean a simple question needs a simple answer, and you make it out to be an act of congress, as if we got to debate everything out.”
(Ming was sitting in the living room, with Morgan Carter, her husband, he was telling her about his times at the 611, back in 1970. They had eaten lunch, and the afternoon was warm, and it was simply a nice day do to nothing, and perhaps out of boredom, he was telling her this story, Corporal Gills just popped into his mind you like that. “Well,” said his wife, “what was in the bag?” she asked. “What do you think was in the bag?” He asked his wife. “I suppose a shell casing of a bomb.” She replied. “Why that?” asked Morgan. “Because you wouldn’t be allowed to carry a live bomb in a jeep over a rough road on your lap, would you? She answered and asked at the same time.)
Well, we got down along the beach area, and he said, the corporal that is, said, “A bomb, or its shell or its parts, it must be a defect your company commander wants to look at.”
Fine, I thought and then said, “Boy, are you right on corporal,” and he smiled at me like he had just received the Army Commendation Medal, for miraculous service. Next he dropped me off at the 611, and I went into my hutch, and opened up the bag, sat on my bunk bed, and ate my watermelon.
A Scorned Mother
(Sergeant Carter and the Corporal)
Part Six
Ming asked Morgan, “Did you ever see the corporal again?”
“Funny you ask that,” said Morgan, “No, I never did, but I heard what happened to him, as I look back, I kind of liked him, he was kind of a simple laid back lad, trying to make everything seem right.”
“Well, it’s a long story, but I’ll tell you it in a nutshell. We don’t really know people we bump into and go on our way, especially in the Army, but they all have a history, and baggage, they often do not share, and we think because of this, we get to know them pretty well, but so often we kid ourselves, I shall tell you what I heard: his mother, she utterly condemned her husband, the three boys’ father, for whatever reasons, after he left, and the three kids were raised by a scorned mother. He remarried, and had three more kids, two boys and one daughter.
“When the old man died all the kids went to the funeral, all six of them, one side loved him the other hated him because of the scorn they heard from their mother all those years. The boys from the scorned mother’s side of the family, never got the side of the father, what took place, he let the hot sun beat on the kids head, just like the mother let the scorn burn out their hearts. The mother used hate to control the kids I’d say, and it was a way to get even with the father, teach him a lesson, have his kids hate him, you know what I mean, if I can’t have you, I’ll turn the kids away from you, thus, her revenge settled into a cold molded cloud.
“And what you plant in kids is what comes out of them usually, what you harvest, is what you’ve planted, I mean, and so a perfect love was for the father on one side, by his new family, and a perfect hate on the other, from the old family.
“Corporal Gills went home to Iowa, with an energetic spirit, and found the two families fighting over vaporous old wounds, the ones the father set by not saying anything all those years, and the one the mother knitted into their fabric, their flesh all those years, and he was no longer around to put out the little fires, that would or could grow into a forest fire.
“Corporal Gills tried to put out the fire between the kids of both families, but it ended up quarrelsome, and one of the boys from the new family of the Gills, Charles Riley Gills, killed one of the boys, Corporal Gills younger brother. Thereafter feelings crept in the little sleepy eyed town in Iowa, and Corporal Gills, killed Charles Riley Gills, by beating him over the head with a pipe, but no one saw it, so he was under suspicion, not yet convicted of the crime. The daughter took a shotgun and killed the other brother of Corporal Gills, and she ended up in jail.
“Well, fine, they seemed to have gotten even (two for one although), but at the local bar, inside the bar, the remaining brother of the new Gills family, met Corporal Gills in there playing pool, awaiting trial, and started a fight, and he killed the boy, they called it manslaughter.
“Well, Corporal Gills got twenty years, and so did Peggy Gills.
“Hate is a form of control I believe, anger that eats at the soul. I suppose Corporal Gills is still serving his twenty-years in prison, and will be getting out in another three. Sometimes hate is a recurring nightmare, it controls you, you got to put it to sleep, you got to forgive the other person, not for their sake, but for yours, so it has no more control over you, so you can be set free, and go forward. You know what I mean about nightmares, because I get them as you already know Ming, old war nightmares, they call nowadays, stress related.
“It is funny now that I think of it Ming, ugliness sometimes shines brighter, and echoes louder than love. And family can be the most burdensome.”
Ming took in a deep breath, she was not expecting that from an American family, she thought it was just poor old families in Saigon, or a third world country’s dilemma that struggled with such emotions, and feelings of vengeance, she said,
“I guess we are all connected somehow, to one another, us human beings and we all get hurt along life’s road, and we get that inclination to hurt back, and we just never take into consideration, the ripples that come out of all of it. I wonder if I will have to pay for my sins here or in heaven, or in the waiting place before one goes to heaven.”
