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WA<w K<*t4t •' ,*«• * * »-» #
AN OCCURRENCE AT TRUNO LAP
A man speaks to his companion in a
restaurant.
I overhear him recite
the
familiar
litany
of
names:
Pleiku, Oanang, Qui Nohn, Song Tra,
An Loc, la Drang, Ben Phuc, Bien Hoa,
Quang Tri, Hue, My Lai.
For veterans
of the war in the Republic of Vietnam
(RVN), the words resonate through
their years, a past that's still the
present.
All wars have their rolls
of place names, sanctified by human
sacrifice, courage, and honor.
For
both the man in the restaurant and
myself, this was, and is, our war.
The Grateful Dead have referred to
the Vietnam War as "shadow boxing the
Apocalypse."
The war reminded me of
Indonesian shadow puppetry played out
on the landscape of Vietnam, dark
shapes
guided
by
unseen
forces
somewhere
beyond
the
stage,
most
appearances not being quite what they
seem.
My turf included Tay Hinh and
Hau
Nghia
Provinces
in
an
area
generally northwest of Saigon in the
delta,
designated
by
the
U.S.
Military "III Corps."
The Cambodian
border and the "neutral" sanctuary
beyond abutted Tay Ninh province to
the north and west.
Nui Ba Den, the
"Black Virgin Mountain", sacred to
the Vietnamese people, loomed eminent
at three thousand feet above the flat
delta,
an
area
intersticed
with
rivers, dikes, and paddies.
Trung Lap was viewed by intelligence
sources as only tenuously sympathetic
to U.S.
forces
and
anything
but
pacified.
Ambushes and terrorism in
the village were common place.
Our
unit had made a mistake in Trung Lap.
A water buffalo had been killed by
our errant round, a hut burned, and a
peasant
farmer's
youngest
son
immolated by white phosphorus.
One
feature
of
the WHAM
Program,
an
acronym for "winning the hearts and
minds" of the people of Vietn.in,
provided for solatium payments to the
maimed, disfigured and disgruntled --
an exchange of U.S. military largesse
for lost family members, appendages,
or property.
My
duties
included
personally
presenting this solace money.
As the
representative of the U.S. military
and
the
2nd
Battalion,
77th
Artillery, my interpreter Sgt. Hieu
and I presented a grieving peasant
farmer in Trung Lap the following
solatium
payment:
(1)
30,000
piasters for damage to one thatch
building, (2) 60,000 piasters for one
dead
water
buffalo,
(3)
40,000
piasters for one dead boy.
The
hatred in the eyes of that small
boned peasant farmer will live with
me forever.
In Washington DC
there is a wound
in the Earth
A wound in the arm
of America
A slick oily black
granite wound
Etchings
in the polished stone
forgotten name«
They speak of lives
denied dreams
lovers lost
Raindrops
tears down the face
of a nation
Tears over a wound
that w ill never heal
One is not remembered there
John F Kennedy
Tom Carlson
...but few er
calories.
Cultured Dairy V
Sey ProOwcti
.. .and when some raised a cry for the
bombing of the Krupp armament
plant, it was pointed out that this,
after all. was private property
Aleiander Kendrick
In April of 1970 our guns received a
call
for
artillery
fire
from
a
frantic
forward
observer,
working
with
the
infantry
south
of
the
Michel in:
"Red Ryder, Red Ryder. We've
got a fire mission, over. Grid
X-ray Yankee one niner four
seven, five niner six two.
Direction 1450 mills. Distance
1500 meters.
U.S. bunker in the
tree line. Three rounds Willie
Pete. Nine rounds for effect,
over."
After computing range data at the
guns, the battery responded with the
requested
white
phosphorus
rounds
("Willie Pete" or "Wilson Pickett")
399-9062
8BB Liberty St. NE
Salem, O ft 97302
RUSS & KATHY EBY
C
oyote
D is tr ic a ti» «
W hen you
w a n t th e
u>ord
out
Wa Hra Only a t
Healthy as
Our Surroundings
We can improve our surmundingi by;
• reu*i»g cloth «b. vping bags, bulk food
A r I x m ,«n
• rccyvbag recyclable and reusable p a kaging
• reducing our dependence m non-renewable resources with irg a in ognculiure.
I
M . lt J
Our yogurts & kefirs are as tasty
^ a s "Sugar Magnolia"...
Our guns, half as long as a telephone
pole, worked the Ho-Bo Woods, the Boi
Loi Woods, the Mekong River, and a
particularly
eerie
and
dangerous
area, the Michelin Rubber Plantation.
The rubber trees, planted by French
colonials, massed dark and dense on
the road north to Tay Ninh Province
and Cambodia.
Their umbrella canopy
totally masked the sun.
A person
standing beneath the cathedral rows
of trees dwarfed to insect size.
Viet Cong
frequented the Michelin
Plantation,
rigging
122mm
Soviet
rockets on bamboo stakes and sending
them into Tay Ninh City.
U.S. troops
nicknamed it "Rocket City" after the
countless fusillades slammed into the
base camps there.
24<b i Hilyard, Eugene Open Daily Xam - llp m
*1
by Peter Lindsey
Attending Officer Candidate School
courses at Fort Sill, home of the
field artillery, I was taught that
artillery was the "King of Battle"
and infantry "the Queen".
By 1970,
my
battalion
had
expended
its
260,000th round at $250.00 a pop -- a
kingly sum in money and lives.
<
■w
in array parlance.
One round exploded
early, a premature air burst, hurling
a fire ball into the tiny hamlet of
Trung Lap.
My unit,
the 2nd Battalion,
77th
Artillery fired 105mm howitzers in
support
of
the
1st of
the
27th
Infantry
("Wolfhounds")
whose
activities
near
Cambodia
were
depicted in the movie P l a t o o n ,
the
1st Calvary (Airmobile), the 5th ARVN
Division, RFPF (Rural Force, Popular
Force)
troops
guided
by
MACV
advisers, and others.
From fire support bases (FSB's) often
named
after
recently
deceased
artillery forward observers, like FSB
Kitchen and FSB Green, our batterios
lobbed
projectiles
the
size
of
watermelons
into
the
countryside.
Some spread a rain of metal shards
over an area, some spread a fire
storm of white phosphorus,
others
disgorged tiny shingle-nail darts, or
flechettes,
into
approaching
personnel at close quarters.
j
343-9142
3 3 0 -9 4 *4
j
P .O . B a a a i t a
P a r tla a d OB P 7 » » » -» *» «
\
MEANWHILE. IN NEWPORT
It was the newly elected Justice of the
Peace s gravest case since being sworn in
The principles of the case were
1 Dog (defendant) allegedly caught
red fanged in possession of a dead chicken
belonging to p la in tiff Dog also suspected
on five other recent poultry
disappearances
2 Dog s owner and guardian
3 Chicken owner (p la in tiff)
4 Bored looking Deputy S heriff who
would rather be out catching robbers,
dope fiends and those who don t signal
when changing lanes
Charge P la in tiff alleges that
defendant (dog) has been seen on several
occasions loitering in a suspicious manner
near chickens and that after these
incidents of loitering chicken population
declined Stales fu rth e r that the chickens
are valued for more than the ir company,
that the p la in tiff gardens and that
chickens eat bugs and slugs (including the
big yellow ones with brown spots that taste
like Yaquina Bay cockles) menacing his
garden That the chickens convert said
bugs and into eggs which p la in tiff eats
Defendants guardian (owner) states
that defendant is a young dog the sole
companion of his owner and should he
given another chance
Defendant declines to testify other than
to wag tail when owner mentions his
name
Htzzoner wonders what the legal value
of a chicken is
Deputy says statutorily, chickens are
valued at two dollars per
(Pause for judicial reflection )
The findings of the court The
defendant is obviously guilty in the matter
of the chicken found in his possession
Further a preponderance of evidence
indicates the defendant guilty in
disappearance of other five chickens
Therefore the defendant or if
defendant is is found indigent delendant s
guardian must pay p la in tiff twice the
value of chickens to wit J24OO
More, the defendant is enjoined from
molesting p la in u rrs chickens and paroled
to his guardian
P la in tiff wants to know what w ill
happen if defendant becomes a recidivist
Hizzoner rules that in such a case a
show cause hearing w ill be held to
determine i f the defendant should he held
in contempt of court Court adjourned
Thus may it ever be in the hails of
justice
Alex LaFellela