A Culpable Innocence
Chapter 12: TET—Year of the Monkey (pg. 174)
During his lunch break, Regis
climbed the water tower. He had taken off his fatigues and stripped down to his
boots and shorts. When he got to the top, he did not recline as planned, for the
asphalt top would have been too hot on his bare back. Instead, he sat on the
edge and hugged his knees to his chest, absorbing the heat of the sun bearing
down on his uncovered head and shoulders. The horizon stretched out in all
directions from his perch, the highest point on the highest hill in the local
landscape. The more distant hills came to life with a fresh vividness. Their
sun baked treetops aligned in a rolling pattern that mirrored the rise and fall
of the earth beneath them as they reached towards the sun. They did not shrink
from the heat, as Regis must, after too much exposure. They embraced it. For a
time, Regis tried to embrace that heat as well. He could feel the pores of his
skin releasing life-giving water into the air. In the valleys at the base of
the surrounding hills, Regis perceived a slight mist that added translucence to
the unending green that marched up the foothills in ever deepening hues. They
too were giving up their moisture in an ongoing weather cycle that connected
with endless other life cycles, of which Regis was a very small part. His head
began to throb with the rhythmic pounding of blood through his temples. His
body was succumbing to a countdown in its own cycle of life and death. His
death, he knew, was inevitable. If not Charlie, then nature would claim its
purpose with him. There was nothing for him to do except to accept it. With his
brain blasted by the heat, eyes bloated with the kaleidoscope of endless shades
of green against a piercing blue sky, and the sound of nature’s silent voice
humming like a seashell in his ear, Regis was overcome with the sheer beauty
that rampaged at the gates of his senses. An alternate reality, ever-present
but previously ignored, had broken down the barriers of his consciousness. He
slid to the side of the tower, clasped the ladder rungs and slowly—with a
savoring deliberation—descended. He felt unfamiliarly at peace, both with
himself and with everything.
Tuesday morning’s sun arrived
like any other in the Central Highlands, bright and hot, with nary a breeze to
disturb the general stillness. But if calm prevailed around Tropo
Hill, it did not exist within its small population of Signal Corpsmen. Most of
them were out of their bunks before the CQ’s wakeup call. Breakfast was
undertaken in the usual cacophony of many conversations, but without the
periodic guffaws and explosions of laughter that characterized a deeper human
need than food and polite conversation. Much of the talk that morning, both
over breakfast and later at Headquarters and in the COM building, involved an
ongoing debate about a possible Tet offensive. Some
felt it would not happen and quoted a Stars and Stripes’ article about the
truce and general ceasefire agreement. Others said it could happen at any time
after the start of the Tet holiday and not
necessarily at
Of course, those who were
privy to the daily briefings had more specific opinions. MACV had intelligence
that indicated three full NVA Division Headquarters had set up just north of Khe Sanh. They commanded seven
regiments with as many as 15,000 troops. MACV was convinced that the NVA would
attempt to make Khe Sanh a
second Dien Bien Phu and
that VC and NVA would simultaneously attack the Mekong Delta, Vietnam’s main
source of rice. If they could defeat the U.S. Marines at Khe
Sanh and drive the U.S. Army out of the Delta, they
would hold
Within Regis’ Operations
neither the sergeant nor his captain believed that Tropo
Hill would see any action. Albeit a worthy target, neither the NVA nor the VC
had ever shown much interest in the Signal Corps installations. The common
belief at STRATCOM was that the VC wanted to preserve the integrity of the
communications network built by the Americans for eventual use in a post war
reconstruction. This belief was fortified by another that claimed enemy
ignorance of the strategic value of the STRATCOM network. There were not many
at MACV or the Regional Communications Group who knew that the Pentagon in
Washington directly controlled most of the B52 bombing raids by means of this
network. Tropo Hill was the most critical link in
that network because it was the largest troposcatter
site, providing long range communications that could circumnavigate the world.
Regis, however, had made his
own assessment of their situation: he concluded that the Vietnamese were very
likely underestimated by his chain of command. Unlike the officers and NCOs
that commanded him, he had sat across the dinner table with Nguyen Ba Linh. If General Thanh and Giap were cut of the same mold as his friend Linh, then they might very well have anticipated the
American expectations regarding the nature of their offensive. Tropo Hill, Regis concluded, was no safer than any other
place in
Other
Links: