We were in the open country again, and Highway One was now crowded with motor vehicles, ox carts, bicycles, scooters, and pedestrians. We were barely making fifty KPH, and I could see how the drive from Nha Trang to Hue could take eleven or twelve hours during the day.
I looked at the map and saw an asterisk north of Quang Ngai, which meant a point of interest. The point of interest, which was only a few kilometers from here, was described in Vietnamese and in English. It said: My Lai Massacre. It went on to say: War crime occurred here, March 16, 1968, when three U.S. infantry companies killed several hundred unarmed villagers. A memorial commemorates the dead and reminds one of the insanity and tragedy of war.
I said to myself, “Amen.”
We approached a small road that had a hand-painted sign with an arrow that read in English My Lai Massacre.
As I said, I hadn’t seen any helpful road signs so far, so I had to wonder who put up that one and why. I wondered, too, if any of the surviving three hundred American soldiers who had been there had ever come back.
I looked at the terrain. There were long stretches of rice paddies and small villages clustered on pieces of high ground, shaded with palm trees, and surrounded by growths of towering bamboo. This was typical of what I recalled when I thought of Vietnam, though I’d also operated in much more rugged terrain, away from the coastal populations, which I preferred.
When the war was in the jungles and the highlands, it had a better feel to it, a sort of boys’ adventure, the ultimate rite of passage. In the hills and the jungles, you didn’t kill civilians by mistake or on purpose, as at My Lai, and there were no villages to burn, or water buffalo to shoot. The boys seemed more focused and intent in the quiet presence of the primeval jungle and the highland forests; it was just us and them in the greatest game of survival ever conceived or carried out. The war had clarity, and the kills were clean, and there were no women or children dying around you, and no My Lais.
We passed into the province of Quang Nam, and approached the once huge American air force base at Chu Lai. This, I recalled, was where some of my air force friends from Apocalypse Now had been stationed.
I saw strands of rusted barbed wire from the old base, then abandoned concrete buildings. I saw a few hangars and dozens of concrete aircraft revetments built in the white sands that stretched to the east down to the sea. I could also make out a runway, covered with white objects that I couldn’t identify.
Susan saw me looking and said, “The farmers use the old runways to dry manioc root.”
“Really? You mean that millions of U.S. tax dollars were spent to build jet fighter runways that are now used to dry manioc roots?”
“Looks that way. Swords into ploughshares. Runways into—”
“What the hell is manioc?”
“You know. Like cassava. You make tapioca pudding out of it.”
“I hate tapioca. My mother force-fed it to me. Call an air strike on that runway.”
Susan laughed, and Mr. Cam smiled. He liked happy passengers.
I said, “I’d love to be here when those jet jockeys from Apocalypse Now get up to Chu Lai. They’ll have a fit.”
The Chu Lai base was big and sprawling, and we kept passing pieces of it. I saw kids pulling wagons through the area, and I asked Susan, “What are they doing?”
“They’re scrap metal scavengers. It used to be a huge business in Vietnam, but most of the easy stuff has been found.” She added, “A lot of the stuff blew up in their faces. There were hundreds of scavengers killed and maimed every year, according to what I’ve heard. Now, the pickings are slimmer, but safer.”
I watched the kids digging in the sand. After thirty years of war, and nearly thirty years of peace and recovery, this nation still had scars and unhealed wounds that continued to bleed. Maybe that’s what we had in common with them.
Susan said, “When or if you go into the interior, be advised that a lot of the unexploded stuff is still lying around.”
“Thank you.” In truth, even during the war, there was so much unexploded stuff around that you had just as much chance of being blown up by your own duds as by their booby traps.
I looked at Mr. Cam, who had obviously not had a good night’s sleep. He was starting to nod a bit, and I shook his shoulder. I asked him, “Do you know that twenty-five percent of U.S. auto fatalities are caused by fatigued drivers?”
“Eh?”
Susan translated something, but not quite what I said. She said to me, “He wants some coffee.”
“Next Burger King, we’ll stop.”
She said something to Mr. Cam, and I didn’t hear the words Burger King.
The coast curved inland now, and the highway passed over several small bridges that spanned creeks and streams, which ran down from the hills into the sea. It really was a beautiful country, and I appreciated it more now than I did when I had to walk it seven days a week.
Susan said, “This area was the center of the Champa civilization. Did you see Cham Towers when you were here?”
“Actually, I did, though I didn’t know what they were. We used them as watchtowers or artillery spotting towers. I saw everything through the eyes of a soldier. I’m glad I came back. I’m glad you’re with me.”
“That’s very sweet. Don’t forget you said that.”
We drove awhile, and I looked at the map. I said, “According to the map, Highway One runs far to the west of Da Nang, so we don’t have to go through the city.”
“Didn’t you say you left Vietnam from Da Nang?”
“Yes. November 3, 1968. Caught a helicopter from Quang Tri to my base camp at An Khe and collected the stuff in my trunk, which I hadn’t seen since my R&R, got all my paperwork in order, saw the pecker checker about VD, said good-bye to a few people, and di di mau’ed the hell out of there. Caught a big Chinook chopper to Da Nang. We drew fire someplace over the highlands. I mean, I had less than seventy-two hours left in-country, and these bastards are trying to kill me on the way to Da Nang. But aside from a few holes in the chopper, we made it. Then, while I’m in the transit barracks waiting for my flight home, the next day, at about three in the morning, Charles lobs in a few mortar rounds on the going-home barracks.” I added, “He did it on purpose.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“The empty mess hall next door got blown up, and some shrapnel flew through the barracks. I got knocked out of my upper bunk bed and sustained yet another head injury. But no one noticed, and I caught my flight to San Francisco.”
“I’ll bet you were happy to be going home.”
I didn’t reply for a while, then said, “I was… but… I thought about staying with my company… everyone who left had mixed feelings about leaving their friends… it was weird, and it stayed with me for months… it wasn’t a death wish, it was a mixture of emotions, including the thought that I wasn’t going to fit in among normal people. It’s hard to explain, but nearly everyone who’s been to war will tell you the same thing.”
She didn’t reply.
We continued in silence awhile, then we crossed a bridge that spanned the Cam Le River, and I said to Susan, “Ask Mr. Cam if the Cam Le River is named after him.”
She said to me, “There aren’t that many words in Vietnamese, Paul, and fewer proper names, so you’ll see a lot of names and words appearing with great frequency. Try not to be confused, and no, the river was not named after Mr. Cam.”
Mr. Cam knew we were talking about him, and kept looking over his shoulder at Susan. Susan put her hand on his shoulder and said something. He laughed.