Mark Gimenez - The Abduction

“You’re fighting this war for your Army. The West Point Army. Because your Army does give a damn about fighting this war and stopping Communism at the Seventeenth Parallel. Your Army understands the threat of Communism. Your Army knows that American civilians won’t get behind the fight against Communism in the world until Russian atomic bombs detonate over New York. Then they’ll come crying to us to save them and preserve their peace and prosperity and fight for their freedom. And we will-we are now, they just don’t know it. But your Army does. Your Army will stand in the door for you, your Army won’t abandon you when the going gets tough, your Army will never betray you.”

The major’s crystal blue eyes are boring into Ben’s.

“And you, Lieutenant Ben Brice, must never betray your Army.”

“Yes, sir.”

1 Dec 68. The American Bar on Tu Do Street in Saigon, South Vietnam, is noisy with the sounds of rock-and-roll music and giggling Asian dolls and drunken American officers. Lieutenant Ben Brice is in awe of the man sitting across the table. Charles Woodrow Walker graduated from the Academy fifteen years before Ben, but Ben knows all about him, as does every cadet who attended West Point after the major. Charles Woodrow Walker, they say, is the next MacArthur.

“I wanted you on my team,” the major says, “because your commanding officer at Fort Bragg says you’re the best damn sniper he’s ever seen. You got your Viper tattoo, now you get this.” The major pushes a long flat package across the table to Ben. “Welcome to SOG team Viper.”

Ben opens the package. Inside is a shiny Bowie knife with VIPER etched into the wide eleven-inch-long blade.

“Every man on Viper team carries a Bowie. Stick that in a gook’s gut, guaranteed to ruin his whole fucking day.”

“Yes, sir.”

The major hands Ben a small ID card with Ben’s photo, name, rank, blood type, and serial number-and words in bold type:

MILITARY ASSISTANCE COMMAND VIETNAM

STUDIES AND OBSERVATION GROUP

THE PERSON WHO IS IDENTIFIED BY THIS DOCUMENT

IS ACTING UNDER THE DIRECT ORDERS OF THE

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!

DO NOT DETAIN OR QUESTION HIM!

“Your ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card,” the major says. “We report directly to the president. No one fucks with SOG.”

“Yes, sir.”

The major drinks his beer then says, “The Academy, Brice, is a great school. But forget every damn thing you learned there. The wars they taught you about, World War One, Two, Korea, they’re not this war. Everything you learned over there don’t mean dick over here. In this war, napalm is your best friend.”

A middle-aged American officer with a Viet bargirl under each arm stops at their table. Ben sees three silver stars and jumps up and salutes the lieutenant general. The major barely lifts his eyes then returns to his beer.

“The great Major Charles Woodrow Walker,” the general says with slurred speech. “A legend in his own mind.”

The major drinks his beer then says to Ben, “Last time a Saigon commando interrupted my dinner, I slapped his butt into the next lunar new year.”

The girls giggle and the general’s face turns red: “You stand and salute me, goddamn it! I outrank you!”

The major turns his full attention on the general, who recoils slightly.

“First of all, General, I don’t salute rear-echelon officers who ain’t gonna get any closer to a Communist in this war than fucking these Viet Minh girls. And second, as long as I’m in-country, only the president outranks me. You got a problem, call him.”

The general appears as if he’s about to explode, but he says nothing as he storms off.

“American soldiers are dying this very minute fighting the Communists. The general, he sits here in Saigon, lying about body counts to the press, more worried about Walter Cronkite than Ho Chi Minh.”

He shakes his head with disdain.

“We move out at dawn, hop a slick to Dak To, meet the team. Then up to Lang Vei, get our gear together, hike into Laos the next day. Tchepone, thirty klicks into Indian territory. Intelligence says there’s a major convoy moving down the trail. We’re gonna stop it.”

Ben is too excited to eat. The major has over one hundred missions into enemy territory under his belt. One hundred! And Ben Brice will be on the next one. The great adventure begins.

“That’s the war you’ve come ten thousand miles to fight.” He smiles, as if he’s made a joke. “What do you say, Lieutenant-last chance to change your mind, stay here in Saigon and enjoy the amenities?”

The major reaches out and grabs a beautiful young Viet girl as she walks by their table and pulls her onto his lap.

“Like Ling here. Most beautiful women in the world, Viets. You want one? I’m buying.”

The bar’s proprietress, Madame Le, elegantly dressed and beautiful and preceded by perfume more intoxicating than the bourbon, arrives at their table for the second time that evening, rests her dainty hand with its manicured red fingernails on Ben’s shoulder, and says in the English she learned at the finest finishing schools in France:

“Ain’t never seen you cowboys in here before.”

Ben blinked hard several times to clear his head of the major and the American Bar and Asian dolls and Saigon; when his eyes focused again, he was looking at a woman’s hand on his shoulder, anything but dainty with fingernails that had been chewed down to the nub. He turned his eyes up to the woman’s face; she had an alcoholic’s complexion with a wrinkle for every year of her life. She reeked of tobacco and cheap whiskey. She was no Madame Le.

“You boys want some company?” She jutted a hefty hip their way-“I got a Saturday night two-fer special”-and smiled as demurely as one could without a front tooth.

“No thanks,” Ben said. The woman seemed offended. So he forced a smile and added, “Nothing personal.”

Her eyes narrowed and moved from Ben to John and back.

“We’re gay,” John blurted out. “Yeah, we’re, uh, we’re in the movie business.”

“Oh,” the woman said. She seemed satisfied and left.

Ben turned to John. “We’re gay? ”

John shrugged. “Hey, it got rid of her.”

They had been sitting on bar stools in Rusty’s for more than an hour. The place was a dive. Country music played on the juke box. The floors were wood and sprinkled with sawdust. Neon lights glowed above the bar and a small TV played silently behind the bar. Pool tables crowded one corner. A few hard looking men and harder looking women populated the place.

Ben saw in the mirror behind the bar that the woman had tried her luck with a table of four brutes. She gestured back at Ben and John and said something to the men. They laughed. His eyes moved to the front door. A burly man, white, maybe a few years younger than Ben, wearing fatigues, boots, and an old green military jacket, entered, stumbled over to the bar, and sat down hard two stools away from Ben. His face was battered.

“The hell happened to you, Bubba?” the bartender asked him.

“Junior hit me with a goddamn shovel.”

Bubba spoke in a Southern accent. He removed his jacket. He was wearing a short-sleeve tee shirt, exposing part of a tattoo you could only get in Saigon. The bartender placed a beer and three shots of tequila in front of Bubba without being asked.

Bubba downed the first shot, shuddered as the tequila hit his system, and said, “Al, Junior done kicked me outta camp.”

Al the bartender laughed. “What’d you do this time?”

Bubba swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “The Viet dolls wasn’t no older, don’t see why he’s so pissed off. She’s on the rag, she’s old enough to fuck.”