Short Stories
Per-Olof R. Odman Bio
From "the Khe Sanh
Veteran Fall 1995"
Marc
Levy Bio
Full Metal Jacket
Someone
Trophies
Hecklers
From “The Khe
Sanh Veteran, Fall 1995”
By Per-Olof R. Odman
....I
took a train from Hanoi
to Lao Cai, on the Chinese border.
We ascended the vast Hoang Lien
Mountains. Viet Nam’s
highest summit, Fan Si Pan, at 10,321 feet, towers above the rest.
For me, this was to be my ultimate
act of reconciliation. I would climb this mountain with
my former enemy. Nguyen
Thien Hung was a tank commander with the 12th regiment, 312th Division. He had fought the ARVNs and us and
was now my guide and partner for my ascent of Fan Si Pan.
After a hard climb,
at 7,000 feet we cleared the clouds. We were hit by strong winds and
rain. The climb grew
more arduous and treacherous.
We crested the summit and were hit by hurricane strength winds
and rain that seemed to whip at me, lashing at me.
Dense, dark clouds forced our quick retreat, back down. The demanding climb drew Hung and
I together. We became
close. We laughed and
cursed together. Slept
side by side. We came
to depend on one another during those four days.
My four-day climb with Hung will forever remain one of my fondest,
most treasured, incredible life experiences.
I have journeyed
now to Viet Nam
three times. I have met a good number of our
former enemy. They had
a cause, they sacrificed, and they won.
We Khe Sanh vets
believe we are special, we saw a lot of shit, and “We did Khe Sanh!” All well and true. But I believe that the ones who
really did Khe Sahn were the NVA.
My wish is that in the near future, we, the Khe Sanh veterans
will cooperate with our former enemy so that we will at last know
and understand the complete history of Khe Sanh.
NVA: North Vietnamese
Army or North Vietnamese soldier.
ARVN: Army of the Republic
of Vietnam (South Vietnam);
South Vietnam soldier.
The Khe
Sanh Veteran is the
newsletter for veterans at the 77 day siege at the Marine base near
the village of Khe Sanh.
Full Medal Jacket
by Marc Levy
The National Archive in Maryland is a
large impressive place, composed of glass and white cement,
sleek with modern airy curves, and quiet. ‘Researchers’ are issued special
photo ID, good for three years.
Unauthorized items must be stashed in coin-operated
lockers. Spaced fifteen
meters apart, black half domed surveillance cameras hang like ripe
melons from the false ceilings.
The archive staff is friendly types; nothing
fazes them. “Place your order here, sir.
No, over here, where I’m pointing my finger. That’s fine.
We’ll be right with you.” You wait for old combat reports,
for Mt. Vesuvius to re-erupt, while up in
the stacks someone stalks your destiny. An hour later, a
suddenly-arrived metal cart groans under the weight
of archival boxes, their corners tipped with black
protective metal. “Will
that be all, Sir? Can I get you anything else?” You nod,
“No.” “Then sign here, Sir. Here. Date, initial, name. Thank you. Next.”
The second floor research area is
wide and long with thick beige carpet and large comfortable broad
paneled desks and soft overhead lights. You open one stiff cardboard box
at a time and read and read, inhaling the musky scent
trapped in time worn pages. I pour over reams of jargon
laced intelligence reports; the shock of certain
names and dates somewhat diminished.
Not
so for a friend. Sitting in a corner, he wilts under
the terrible heat of a six-page battle account. In
one day he lost half his company. When the ARVN deserted, he
swung round a .50 cal and shot them, one by one, first in the legs,
then in the back. A week later he
killed three villagers with his bare hands. “Are you all
right?” I ask. Without looking up he whispers, “Yes.”
Richard Boylan is the Senior Military
Archivist at NARA, as the agency is called.
He worked with Burkett on Stolen Valor. You could say he knows
his shit. I ask Richard if we can find my decorations.
“Let’s go,” he says. “I’ll give you the tour.”
There are 40,000 archival boxes on
Vietnam in twelve separate stacks,
each room a small football field packed with row upon row
of slender upright cabinets. Richard expertly ducks into a ten-foot
high metal hedge, finds First Cavalry Division, narrows the search,
then plucks out two boxes. “Third Brigade. Awards. Letter L.”
I ask if the contents are broken down by rank or unit.
“No,” he says. “That’s everything for 1970.”
Odd, how the first folder starts with my
last name. In ten seconds, Richard snares the original orders for
a Bronze Star, Kingdom of Cambodia. “Let’s see what’s
in the other box,” he grins, a mischievous smile creasing his face.
Fanning the thin pages like a bank teller Richard says, “I think this
belongs to you.” I see my lieutenant’s deep pressed neat
signature, below it the Captains close-knit imprimatur.
I feel chills course my spine. I’m told some men walk away,
sobbing.
Back
in the research area I sit and read all he L's for 1970.
How strange and sad to discover Bronze Stars were boiler plated, that
recommending officers choose from a list of combat encounters.
“Began placing a heavy volume of
suppressive fire on enemy positions.”
“Administered first aid to the wounded
and assisted in evacuation to save them.”
“Accurately
called in artillery and air strikes on enemy positions.”
There are
exceptions. I hunt and find Mike Lawson, squad leader in fourth
platoon on LZ Ranch when it was over run.
“Sgt Lawson, with complete disregard for
his personal safety exposed himself to intense hostile fire, and charging
forward, grabbed the machine gun from his dead gunner, and proceeded
to kill enemy troops which had penetrated the base.”
In the morning
we threw their corpses into craters; salted them with lime.
Sometimes
there are batches of medals for one brave man. And sometimes
the aging sheets are stamped in thick, syrupy ink,
“Posthumous.” I read accounts of DFCs and Silver Stars
and Purple Hearts. How daring pilots and steadfast grunts trafficked
in terror, were ‘mortally wounded,’ or hit, went back for more, ducked
rockets, chucked grenades, went hand to hand, a real war twister spinning
round and round my gray flecked head.
A slim box of Friendly Fire reports contained urgent
block letter telex cables, hasty scribbled notes written
by shocked out sergeants and nervous lieutenants. Some
poor son-of-a-bitch accidentally shot sideways by his best friend; a
suicide found in a bunker, empty bottle of liquor, forty five
to the head; casualties from short rounds and short fused grenades.
You keep reading, surrounded by war, relive what you don’t
want to end, then put it down, you put the whole damn
thing down, and hear yourself say, “It’s over. It’s over.”
Though it never really is.
“Full Medal Jacket” was published
on BigCitiLit.com in 2000
Someone
(based on a letter from Larry
Heinemann)
by Marc Levy
Someone
who witnessed war, bamboo and body counts, monks self-immolating, Nui Ba Den
a.k.a. 'The Black Virgin Mountain,' the napalmed girl running naked, someone
who'd burnt villes, crunched bodies under treads, loaded and reloaded, worked
the gun, worked it, laid down suppressing fire, someone who knows a thing or
two about the dead, them that's naked, artful nude or just plain ragged,
knows himself inside out and right side up; writes me a letter. Typed, not ink jet, not laser printed, mind
you, but Hermes, Underwood, Smith Corona or some such thing. Got old-fashioned black ink ribbon, type
set choppy like a dead man's smile.
These are his exact words:
Thanks for what you sent, could have knocked me down with a feather, made me
laugh so hard shot beer up my nose.
Very nice, indeed.
'Very' is underlined, thick, like three-day stubble.
You read Anis Nin? he asks. She
was a hoot before there were hooters, you'll pardon my French, he says.
Next page: You been watching the
impeachment? Someone's gonna write a book on that, no, make a movie.
He continues, every word a bullet gem.
All I see is an event rich and ripe for parody
beginning and ending with a judge who walked into the room wearing Gilbert
and Sullivan chevrons on his robe ('I am the Very Model of a Modern Major
General'); the over-the-top stern prosecutors who any moment were going to
break into a Yosemite Sam screaming mad conniption, the weasely defense
lawyers, complete with character witness doing his aw-shucks riff of Walter
Brennan doing his riff of Gabby Hayes doing his 'Arkansas Traveler' riff; the
bimbo dressed in black; the 'feets do-yo-stuff ' Mr. Bo-jangles fixer; and
the general carnival air of the hired gun talking heads in the Peanut
Gallery.
Jesus H Christ, bud,
now that is some fancy writing, I mean fancy, don't you think? I certainly
do. But he ain't done yet, he's working those keys, working, he slams that
chrome-plated carriage handle--thwack!--that boy is locked and loaded,
got me in his crosshairs, every word a bull's eye on this white sheet paper
target.
I've hung around long enough to understand that everything, and I do mean
everything, James, contains its own ironic opposite. You hang in there,
he says. You got talent. Just keep your top knot tight and your utensils
clean.
His signature is a
long, squiggly curlicue line, stamped with a circle of red Chinese letters.
He knows things; been there, done that. But what he don't know (or maybe he
does), it's four days since the massacre in February (only thirty years
later), and today's my birthday. And this here's the best card, the
point-blank-shit-happens-ain't-no-co-incidence best card I ever got.
“Someone”
was published on BigCitiLit.com in 2001
Trophies
by Marc Levy
The
taxi from Phnom Penh
to Kam Pong Cham took four hours and cost two dollars; the road back
was mined. I found a
guide, Japro, and early next morning a ferry constructed of thick
sheet metal welded to empty barrels carried us two miles to an unnamed
island. Legs clenching
metal thighs, my baseball cap turned backwards, red bandana covering
nose and mouth, I hugged Japro's hips as the motor cycle whizzed down
high-treed dirt roads, the villagers a blur of smiles and thin hands
waving.
"I want to go
to the rubber plantation," I shouted above the trembling din.
He leaned back
. The words, "Khmer Rouge," shot past me.
"No. That's
not true. And besides,
I pay extra."
The thought
of violence was magnetic. The
rubber trees, planted by the French, were laid out in countless rows
forming one great, silent forest; the morning sun light filtered down
through a delicate tangle of leafy patches. With Japro walking the motor machine
like a child's carriage, only the faintly rustling wind and tread
of our feet broke the silence.
The heat was relentless.
We approached
two small Cambodian boys in ragged clothes who clung to a mud-mired
bicycle. They smiled,
shyly pointing at my pale white skin, touched and retouched the foreign
body hair.
"What wrong?"
asked Japro.Vietnamese children had once done the same, though under
different circumstances.
"Nothing," I
said. "We go."
Further on,
a sleepy guard in a torn blue uniform dozed against a spiraling tree,
the wood-stocked AK-47 curled in his lap, kitten-like, its long-tailed,
triple-edged bayonet tucked neat beneath the cold steel barrel.
All
around us, thousands of latex pearl beads dripped slowly down winding
paths inscribed in tree bark. The fragile porcelain collecting cups,
carefully avoided during combat patrols, were now made from molded
plastic. Wakened by our
footsteps, the guard peered up from sleep. There were no Khmer Rouge,
he said, only thieves who cut trees down. His orders were to shoot them, Japro
repeated. Hot and tired, we sat in silence for several pleasant minutes.
Suddenly, a
faint jingling sound could be heard. A dainty Cambodian horse, large
eyes nervous, its black leather harness stippled with shiny bells,
trotted briskly past. The
two small boys were seated precariously in a small wooden cart, the
elder held the reins in one hand.
The guard said they were headed toward
the
processing plant. Smiling, he aimed the assault rifle in their direction.
Following the tiny hoof prints, the wide tracks of the wagon wheels,
we began walking forward. The sound of the bells, like ocean buoys,
beckoned and receded.
A half-hour
later, our clothes soaked with sweat, I spotted the dim outlines of
several low-lying buildings.
Closer up, I tasted the swirling fumes, saw whirling chopping
gears, deadly conveyor belts, snarling and snapping engines. Several
workers, black haired and thin, dressed in light blue shirts and pants,
ignored us. I tried carving a chunk of finished rubber from a large
block stacked in a corner.
Processed latex
has the look of kapok, the feel of spongy granite:
Levy 1970
It
is hard and thick and unforgiving.
I prodded and gouged with all my strength; my gallant Swiss
Army knife repeatedly struck and buckled.
Finally, I cut and tore and ripped off a piece the size of
a man's ear.
Japro said,
"You keep?"
I nodded triumphantly.
Once, in a distant war, men had called such severed things 'trophies.'
“Trophies” was published on BigCitiLit.com
in 2001
Hecklers
by Marc Levy
"You need to know that 'FNG' means 'fucking new guy'," I said to
the audience. An unexpected titter
followed. Why are they laughing?
"An FNG was someone new. Didn't
know the ropes. Could get you
killed." Someone chuckles.
"Hey," I said, looking into a pocket of shadow. " You ever kill anyone? Ever held someone shot, blood gushing, as
you count the heartbeats, see the bones splintered like fresh-cut wood,
tendons and raw muscle brilliant in fresh air? You ever see that?"
Silence.
"Well, I did. On my first time
out...."
It was friendly
fire. Morton and Johnny B up on a hill
spotted dinks in a gully, opened up with the machine gun. Down below,
Lieutenant Gill calls for aerial support.
Loach comes in, Light Observation chopper, rips into Johnny B with
seven point-6-2 slugs. The bullets
tore into his shoulder, burst out the armpit.
They got both legs too.
"Not us,"
the Lieutenant yells into the radio telephone, 'them." He's pointing to the ravine. Pete throws a red smoke to mark the trail.
"Hit the fucking
smoke!" the Lieutenant shouts.
"Doc, get up there," he says, pointing to the hill. I run up
and straddle Johnny B's belly.
"Johnny B, you believe
in Jesus?" I say. "You
believe in Jesus?" His brachial
artery is busted, his legs are mangled, and Johnny B is screaming.
"Pete, give John a
cigarette!" I yell, packing the wounds with gauze that turns bright
red. Corson the radio man shrieks,
"Cobra gunship coming. Get your
fucking heads down!"
Pete lights one up,
goddamn Cobra gunship power dives, rolls in, that's Loach's partner, spitting
steel from mini-guns, forty-mike grenades, pumping rockets right over us. The smoke corkscrews from the engines like
white thread gone crazy.
"You
believe--. For Christ sake, John, stop
screaming." "Here," I
say. "Here's a fucking
cigarette." His hands shake so
hard we shove it in his mouth.
"Pray with me,
John!" I hear a strange voice
shouting "C'mon! We're gonna pray to fucking Jesus!"
"For Christ sake,
Doc, give me a fucking morphine!"
he hollers. I take one out and
stab him.
"Pete, tell John
he's going home. Tell him only one morphine; the medivac's coming in. C'mon, Johnny B!" I yell.
"Stop shaking and pray!"
"How is he,
Doc?" Pete says. We're dragging him down to a crater.
I say, "He's gonna be all right." The bandages are red and heavy. "You're gonna be all right, Johnny
B," I whisper.
The Lieutenant yells to
Corson, "Get a medivac in
here. Tell battalion we killed
five." Ten minutes later we hear
the chop-chop whirlytune, see the red cross steel belly. Dust and dirt swirls over us. They kick out
a litter.
"Hold still,
Johnny B!" I shout. "Pete, help me lift him."
We wrap John up good
and tight, snap the wench D-ring to the canvas stretcher, wipe the crud from
our eyes. The helicopter hovers twenty
meters overhead. Its prop wash throws
down engine noise and fumes. Dirt and pebbles spin up from the crater.
My hand cupping his
ear, I shout, "Johnny B, you're gonna be all right. Everyone loves you, John. You hear
me? " Nice and easy, they haul
him up. Nice and easy. "You hear me, Johnny B?"
"Two months later," I said to the silent room, "he wrote us a
letter: Well, I walk with a cane now, it said. Got a permanent
limp, but I'm back in the world, gonna get married."
Looking deep into the silent pool of shadow, I said, "We never heard
from him again."
There was only silence.
“Hecklers”
was published on BigCitiLit.com in 2001
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