13th Valley (14 page)

The second lieutenant introduced Major John Serpico, Third Brigade Operations Officer. “Thanks, Billy,” the major said to the young lieutenant. “Gentlemen,” he hissed. He had the voice of a large snake. “Gentlemen,” the major hissed again to settle the rumble of voices that had arisen. “You are all familiar with the Khe Ta Laou Valley as so ably described by Sergeant Marquadt.” He spit the word “ably” with contempt. “Gentlemen, I would like to tell you what we are going to do to that valley. First, though, allow me to explain to you where you will all be.

“Barnett will be occupied for the duration of this operation by Battery A, 2d of the 319th Artillery, one-oh-five millimeter howitzers and by Battery C, 2d of the llth, one-five-five millimeter howitzers. Barnett will be secured by Company C, 7th Battalion, 402d Infantry. The Recon platoon of Company E, 7th of the 402d will be on-site reinforcement for the infantry units that will be in the valley. The above artillery units will stage from here at Evans. Company D, 14th ARVN Artillery, one-oh-fives, will remain on Barnett. Working north of the hill and the ridge will be the 2d Battalion, 3d ARVN Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division, ARVN. The 2d Battalion of the 1st ARVN Regiment will redeploy to areas surrounding Firebases O'Reilly and Ripcord.

“Now, Gentlemen, very quickly we come to the essence of the assault on the Khe Ta Laou. Intelligence suspects there is a regimental or larger size NVA headquarters someplace in the valley and that someplace is suspected to be in or around the center of the valley or on the cliffs. It will be the mission of the 7th of the 402d to assault various locations within the Khe Ta Laou and to break up the little tea party the NVA is having there. The 7th of the 402d will stage at LZ Sally tomorrow morning. If the weather in the valley is clear Company A will CA to Hill 848 at YD 198304. Company B will be inserted on a mesa LZ just west of Firebase Barnett at YD 174329. Company C will be airlifted to Barnett. Company D will CA to Hill 618 at YD 145335. The Recon and mortar elements of Company E will be airlifted to Barnett where the reconnaissance platoon will become the first reinforcement element if any of her sister units need a hand.

“Gentlemen, each unit commander will receive a more detailed plan as to the exact pick-up times and his individual objectives. I would like to say at this time the following: this operation has become necessary, in part, due to the recent siege of Fire Support/Operations Base O'Reilly. It appears that the logistical and command support for the NVA operation against O'Reilly comes directly out of the Khe Ta Laou. During this time of troop withdrawals, Gentlemen, we must insure the safety of our units, our rear areas and the coastal lowlands. Thank you.”

The briefing continued through its various stages with Signal and each of the supply and aviation units going into details of their preparation and available faculties. Each artillery unit reported on the number of rounds it had on hand. Tracker and Scout Dog unit leaders reported on the health and strength of their units. The Air Force liaison officer made a brief statement. The longer the briefing lasted, the more the listeners shuffled and fidgeted. Virtually every speaker addressed the brigade commander only and with information certainly cleared by him in previous private sessions.

Lieutenant Brooks looked at Daniel Egan and he could see that Egan's mind was someplace else. Brooks glanced at Pop Randalph who was leaning against the wall staring at the drawn shade. Whiteboy seemed to be sleeping. The lieutenant sighed. In the seats before him were the backs of men's heads. Ordinary heads. There was nothing special about the back of a man's head, nothing to differentiate it from the back of the man's head to his left or right or to his front. Some of the heads were larger than others, some had more hair, one or two looked a bit square or triangular or cone-shaped. A few had dark black or brown plastic ear pieces from glasses aiming behind them. The Third Brigade commander had dark hair cut so short it looked like a five o'clock shadow. Colonel Henderson's blond hair was slightly longer than the Old Fox's stubble. The tips of his ears shone pink against his golden fuzz. There was one thing Brooks noticed about all the seated men which did stand out from the backs of their collective heads—all the seated men had white skin. For a time he thought about that but it did not really interest him anymore and soon he found himself simply staring at this ear or that bald spot and wondering what it was like to hear through that ear or what was going on under that bald spot.

The more Brooks stared at the backs of the heads the less he saw and the more his thoughts drifted. When a man spends long periods of time alone, and for all the camaraderie of the infantry, infantrymen while in the jungle spend most of their time alone, a man conditions his mind to be the place where most of his time is spent. Themes develop. An infantryman easily falls to thinking about his themes. Sometimes they are dreams, sometimes desires, sometimes compulsions, sometimes obsessions.

I met her in an unusual way, Brooks said to himself as if he were telling the story to a stranger. I had this friend, Tony, from playing basketball. We were close and I got to know him and his family very well. Tony came from one of the old Italian families that lived off Columbus Avenue in North Beach. We used to go to his house on weekends. Brooks paused. Maybe he'd tell the story to Egan. Tony came to my folks' flat in Oakland once but I think he felt uncomfortable and we never went back there. I think whites are usually more uncomfortable in black neighborhoods than blacks are in white neighborhoods. I'd been to Tony's house so many times I wasn't uncomfortable at all. This time we'd gone up to his house for the weekend and his mother made us go to church with her. She took us to Peter and Paul's, an old Italian cathedral with candles in little red glass cups and statues all over.

Anyway, I met her indirectly through Tony, at a mass in the cathedral. There were all these little old Italian ladies in black in the first few rows on one side. On the other side are a dozen little old Chinese ladies. Behind the old ladies the church was full of lots of families but Tony's mother decides we're going to sit right up front. I think she might have wanted to let some of those devout old dagos know she was saving this heathen's soul. I'm not feeling bitter, hey, she was Tony's mom and she was always nice to me. Up we go to the front. I'm the only person in the church who's wearing white or has black skin. I was very self-conscious. I think even Tony was too. Not about me. Just about being in front of all those people and having them staring at the back of our heads. I glanced around some, standing, kneeling, sitting, trying to see if there were any other brothers in the church or if there was anybody who was taller than these little ladies who were all about five feet tall. Over among the Chinese ladies there is a Chinese family all sitting around one little lady and they have a sister with them—not a nun—a really beautiful black lady, and she is looking at me. Right in the middle of a Dominus Nabisco, those are the people who make the wafers, I begin to giggle and so does this sister so when all these people get up to go to the altar we both get up. I thought Tony would fall off the pew, so I said to him I'd be at the back of the church or I'd meet him outside, and this lovely lady and I head to the back of the cathedral. I swear to God, that's how we met. Two blacks in a dago church in the middle of Chinatown.

Brooks chuckled to himself. A slight smile crossed his lips. He glanced at Egan and continued telling the story. We slipped out of the church, giggling through the vestibule and down the steps. The sun was warm and it took the chill out of the rawness of the San Francisco morning. Across the street was a park. It was filled with people worshipping the sun or throwing Frisbees or jogging. We sat on the grass facing the cathedral and talked and watched for the people to begin coming out.

Brooks paused again. He stopped the narrative and tried to recall exactly what he and Lila had said that first morning five years ago. He could not remember. He tried to reconstruct a feasible facsimile of the conversation but it did not sound right. He could not remember. Why is it, he thought, you can remember the words of an argument word for word but you can't recall what was said when the times were good?

Several nights before his wedding, he recalled, he told his father the same story about meeting Lila. He was sure he had remembered then what he and Lila had said. He and his father and his mother's brother had been sitting in the kitchen of the Oakland flat. It had been a hot muggy night in September of 1967. They had been toasting him and teasing him and drinking more and more until all three were very drunk. Brooks paused and tried to recall the teasing and joking. Nothing. He remembered his father becoming bitter. “How you going to sup-sup-port that wench?” he slurred. “They aren't going to pay you to play bask-basket-ball no mo.” The old man began to beat his fist on the table. “Know what you gotta expect? From life? A kick-in-the-ass. That ishn't the half of it. They'll turn you around en kick you in the balls and when you fall they're going to kick you in the head. If you don't hit em furst.” Then old George Brooks said something about technology making men obsolete and interchangeable and interchangeable meant dispensable and dispensable meant cheap and a black man was the cheapest throwaway that industry had. Brooks thought about that for several moments. He thought about remembering the bad parts of good times and it saddened him. Then he said to his father, “We're even cheaper in the infantry, Pop.”

A rumble of voices rose in the briefing hall and everyone shifted and stretched and the seated men rolled their heads. The Old Fox had stopped a baby-faced second lieutenant in the middle of a sentence. “That's enough, Lieutenant.” The young officer looked shocked and shattered and he was not sure if he should remain at the podium or if he should be seated. The Old Fox remained seated and facing the map with his back to the group. “Gentlemen,” he said in a low voice. “Thank you all for coming this afternoon. I have a few comments to make.” An absolute hush fell. Men let their cigarettes die. The roar of helicopters in the distance became the only perceptible sound.

“Gentlemen, I would like to stress the strategic importance of this mission.” The commander's diction was perfectly measured. “Two months ago, one of my bases, Firebase Ripcord, came under siege by the enemy. For nearly twenty-five days you men heroically defended that hilltop while inflicting heavy casualties upon the North Vietnamese and while intradicting their movement and supply lines to the lowlands. During this time the news media continually reported our light casualties as significant and editorialized the reports—asking why we were defending a mountaintop in the jungle during this advanced state of Vietnamization.

“Gentlemen, we closed Ripcord not due to enemy pressure which was very heavy, but due to American media pressure which was stronger and against which we had no adequate defense. When we closed Ripcord we moved the men and the guns to Firebase O'Reilly. It took us less than ten hours to evacuate Ripcord and have O'Reilly fully operational. It took the enemy over three weeks to react and adjust to a point where the pressure on O'Reilly has drawn the attention of our friends in the press. O'Reilly, however, was turned over to the ARVN and our press friends could not care less about their success or failure. That is not the story they are looking for.

“Now, Gentlemen, we are moving back into the area to assist the ARVN. Gentlemen, this time, I am not going to stop. With the Ripcord and O'Reilly operations we sought only to neutralize the enemy, to disrupt him and to keep him in the mountains. With Barnett, Gentlemen, we are going to deliver a decisive blow.

“For years the Khe Ta Laou Valley has been overlooked by allied commanders. I do not know why. Sergeant Marquadt did an excellent job placing this valley for us. This is a communications headquarters and a major supply distribution point. I believe, Men, that not only has the North engineered its operations against Ripcord and O'Reilly from this narrow gutter in the hills, but I am positive, and we have the intelligence material to back it up, I am positive, Gentlemen, that all major operations as far back as TET of '68, and possibly earlier, have been directed from this untouched valley.

“We have intercepted some very revealing documents placing the headquarters for the 7th NVA Front within the Khe Ta Laou. The headquarters of the 812th Regiment is in the same complex. That's affirmative. Many other NVA units have used this valley as a base area, a sanctuary. They return to Khe Ta Laou to rest and regroup and we overlook them. A major command and communications center and an R&R retreat and we overlook it. Have overlooked it. This valley is a tiny COSVN in the north and, Gentlemen, I want to destroy it.

“We have pursued this for three years and have never been able to find it. Think why, Gentlemen. This tiny valley, this narrow insignificant gutter, is surrounded by some of the highest mountains in all of Vietnam. This valley will be difficult to enter, hard to traverse. That is why it has remained isolated and untouched. We have been lazy.” The voice of the Old Fox echoing off the front wall of the briefing hall rose and fell. At one moment it seemed very excited, the next very flat. Always the words came perfectly measured.

“To the west the Khe Ta Laou virtually opens into Laos. To the north the plains are patrolled by a mechanized brigade with no ability to penetrate the ridges surrounding our objective. To the south we have the giant A Shau, a valley we have fought in every year since we—since Screaming Eagles arrived in Vietnam—a valley good for a battle but poor for headquarters. And between, Gentlemen, between.” The colonel clapped his hands together. He gripped each hand with the other and kneaded them together. “Between, the enemy has sat calmly for years, retreated for years to this narrow sanctuary too insignificant for allied forces to be concerned with.

“Gentlemen, I'm concerned. This will be one of my last operations before I rotate to a duty desk in Washington. I want to leave this country safe. I want to leave our area clean so when the ARVN assumes total responsibility for its own land, we will have left them with a chance for success and not with the seeds of failure.