A Spot in the Shade
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
My mind wandered to an administrative problem that had been a thorn in my side for several weeks. My three aircraft were parked in revetments to protect them from ground and rocket attacks. The revetments had been built with 50 gallon fuel drums, stacked two high, and filled with mud to form a three-sided barrier around each aircraft. The job had been completed by my predecessors, and now the drums were rusty, pierced with shrapnel from numerous rocket and mortar attacks, and in imminent danger of collapsing.
It was a simple logistics and maintenance problem to refurbish the parking area. Aviation fuel arrived in the drums which, when emptied, could be saved to rebuild the revetments. I’d spoken to my senior crew chief, asked that he start the accumulation process, and then schedule a work detail to tear down the old and rebuild the new.
Soon after, he told me that the drums had started disappearing as fast or faster than they were being accumulated. Somebody was taking them at night, probably the Cambodians in the small village adjacent to the airstrip. We had perimeter guards in place 24-hours-a-day, and they pleaded ignorance when asked about the disappearance of the drums. Either they were party to the disappearance or didn’t want to get involved. Possibly I could view it as a civil matter, a case of pure and simple thievery, which could be handled by the local authorities.
As the morning grew hotter and bumpier and the visual reconnaissance turned out to be truly non-productive, I became more aggravated about the drums. As I turned final approach and lined up for landing I firmly decided that I was going to call the Chief of Police as soon as I got on the ground.
“What do you want me to do?” The Chief asked, I thought, somewhat naively. “I want you to find my drums, I want them returned, I want you to catch the thief and put him in jail.” He very quietly and politely told me that he would get to work on it right away. “Sure you will,” I thought darkly as I hung up the field telephone.
Several weeks went by without any contact from the Police Chief. One morning, the phone rang. When I answered it, it was the Chief of Police, apparently in a very buoyant mood by the tone of his voice. “Thiu Tha, how are you today, sir – we have caught the thief,” he said proudly. “Please meet me at the small village next to the air strip. Can you be there right away?” I told him, “Yes.” I’d miss supper but could recover with a can of sardines when I got back.
“Village” was an overstatement when applied to the small settlement next to the runway. The population was two or three hundred people, some Vietnamese but mostly Cambodians. It was idyllic, classic rural Vietnam, consisting of bamboo and wooden houses with straw thatched roofs, no roads, chickens on the trails, and small green vegetable patches scattered throughout. When and if one took the time to really look and could detach himself from the problems of war, it was a pretty little place that would do justice to a travel brochure.
As I checked my watch I realized that I had about one hour of daylight remaining, and being out at night in a Vietnamese village, no matter how friendly it might appear during the day, was never a good idea. I strapped on my .38 revolver and K-bar knife and grabbed my CAR-15 automatic rifle. I hurried so that I could be back before nightfall.
A Vietnamese policeman, on the runway next to the main trail motioned that I should go into the village. I was correct in my suspicions, and as I went further I became angrier. I could see my drums everywhere! Some were whole with the tops cut out for collecting rainwater or storing vegetables. Others, cut down in size, were sitting on a fire with food cooking. Two mamasans were washing clothes with a washboard in another. Several hoop shaped segments were fencing in scrawny chickens or serving as makeshift playpens for babies. With a sickening feeling I realized what I knew quite well but had forgotten in the hot pursuit of my own objectives. These people had so little that our debris and cast-offs were luxuries in their day-to-day struggle for survival.
“Here is the thief,” proclaimed the Chief proudly as he gently but firmly prodded the culprit through the ring of apprehensive villagers that had gathered where I stood. There before me was a very small Cambodian girl who I judged to be about seven years old. She was probably three feet tall and weighed all of 50 pounds. Her large dark brown eyes peered directly but somewhat fearfully from below jet-black bangs. Small gold earrings hung from her pierced ears. She was barefoot and dressed in the typical Vietnamese black silk pajama bottoms with plain white cotton blouse worn on the outside of her pants. She was a very pretty little girl.
This was not at all what I had expected. I said nothing. She stood quietly with her head bowed slightly. She also said nothing. It was apparent that if not solely responsible for taking the drums, she was at least very deeply involved because she was covered from head to toe with smudges of the black tar that coated the steel drums to prevent rust.
“Well Mr. Hitler,” I thought to myself, “you and your Vietnamese Storm Troopers have done it this time!” Sure, I was the one who told the Chief to put the thief in jail, but he should have paid attention to what I meant, not what I said!
As I turned, an old woman approached, crying and wringing her weathered hands. I was told that she was the child’s grandmother. One of the most haunting sounds I’ve experienced is the crying of oriental women, especially the older women. Their sadness seems to come from the very depths of their being, and seems to encompass all of the sadness stored in their souls from years of suffering. Unwittingly, I had become another source of pain to this soul who already had a lifetime of suffering, fear, and disappointment. Before I could gather my wits, the Police Chief took the girl to his Jeep and drove away.
I got into the Jeep and drove back to the compound to think things through. I finally located a Cambodian compound guard who could direct me to the jail. Darkness was starting to fall, but, against my better judgment, I decided to drive out alone. The narrow winding streets were not well marked, but I counted intersections, turned on the numbers, and fortunately soon found myself at the Tay Ninh Jail.
The policeman behind the desk looked at me inquisitively since this location was far off the beaten path for Americans. I asked him if there was a little girl just brought in for “fooling with my drums?” I consciously avoided words like “thief” and “stolen.” I felt rotten and just wanted to get the little girl back to the village and her grandmother.
He nodded affirmatively and stared at me with a broad grin. I wasn’t sure how to interpret his attitude, but indicated that I wanted to release the girl from jail. He spoke in Vietnamese to another policeman, apparently his superior. The rapid exchange, with nodding of heads and hand gestures, continued for several minutes.
By this time the sun had completely set, and I was feeling more than a bit uneasy about being alone. The man behind the desk, again grinning broadly, said that she could be released if I agreed to take responsibility. I probably should have asked more questions. Was I becoming a sort of parole officer or guardian responsible for her for the rest of her life? I hesitated for an instant, but realized that unnecessary confusion, possibly leading to a change of heart on their part, was completely out of the question. We’d gone this far, so I agreed to take full responsibility. He thrust a clipboard towards me with some official looking papers, written in Vietnamese, which I couldn’t read. I signed my name anyway.
There wasn’t much time to worry about it now because the guard appeared shortly with the girl. She again peered directly at me in silence with her head lowered as the guard spoke to her rapidly. In her hand was a knob of French Bread, the hard pointed end, which she had been nibbling on. I remembered, as a child, receiving this treat smeared with butter and jelly from my grandmother who reserved it especially for the children. I suspected, however, that this was not an extra treat but probably constituted her entire supper for the night.
She quietly and without hesitation put her small hand in mine. We walked to the Jeep and she scrambled into the front passenger seat. As I drove watchfully down the now dark and deserted streets, I felt some of the tension accumulated over the past several weeks drain from me and started to enjoy the role as a guardian to my small friend. I had not seen my two sons for about nine months at this point and, despite the fact that I thought of them daily, the warmth of personal contact was not possible. I also noticed how pleasant the night air felt in the Jeep with a canvas top and no doors. I was startled as I felt something brush my right cheek. Thinking it was a bug, I made a brushing gesture to wipe it away and I bumped the girl’s hand. She was holding the knob of French Bread to my mouth for me to take a bite. I did, tar and all, and was very moved by her consideration and generosity. She seemed pleased and we shared the bread all the way back to the airstrip.
Since the village had no roads, I stopped on the edge of the runway. Before any attempt could be made to find where she lived, bring her to the grandmother, and insure that she had supper, she was out and running toward the cluster of small huts. She stopped abruptly, turned and waved, and disappeared quickly into the darkness. I went back to my compound and slept very soundly that night.
I had drawn the pre-dawn takeoff next day. I completed the engine run and released the brakes. Accelerating down the runway I spotted in my landing lights a lone figure standing on the left edge. It was the little girl. As I drew abeam she raised her hand in a childish wave, the kind with the stiff elbow and wrist with just the fingers moving. I smiled to myself and returned the wave exaggeratedly so that hopefully she would see it in the half darkness as I sped by. The same experience occurred many more times during my early morning takeoffs but she was not to be seen at any other hour of the day.
I nonchalantly asked my other pilots if they had been seeing a small girl near the edge of the runway when they were out flying and received a negative response. As they looked at me inquisitively for an explanation, I indicated that they should by very careful because sometimes there may be children standing too close to the edge of the runway and we wanted to make sure that no one accidentally got hurt.
My stack of drums in the meantime had grown to a sizable amount and the revetments were rebuilt. The war continued with increased tempo and days melted into weeks before I realized that I was no longer seeing my friend wishing me well at the start of my early morning missions. I resolved to check around to see if she was okay or needed anything that I could help with – but I never did.
One particularly horrible night, during a rocket attack, our ammunition dump was destroyed and 300 Vietnamese soldiers were instantly killed. We were running strike and reconnaissance missions from sunup to sundown with a FAC air- borne every minute. Time came and went, and soon I found myself at the end of my tour and on the way back to the US and my family.
I’ve thought of this brief encounter many, many times over the past years.
She had never smiled nor spoken. Her large eyes had only mirrored the sadness that circumstance had thrust upon her. It seems to me that just when the days had become very oppressive, almost unbearable, she took my hand and brought me into the shade for a small rest. I would like to think that she remembers it the same way.