# Long Xuyen Massacre, Vietnam; interview PFC Jenkins.



## Jon Prosser (Feb 21, 2011)

(Language Warning, Moderately Graphic, Potentially could offend)

This is a piece I wrote for my creative writing portfolio. It is based on the My Lai massacre that happened during the Vietnam conflict. I've included the commentary I wrote as part of the portfolio because I don't want anyone to feel like I'm disrespecting veterans or victims of the conflict, using profanity for the sake of it, or generally being dis-tasteful with this piece - it is meant to represent the views and language of the time. If you feel it is crossing any lines, please let me know so I can amend it. 

This style of writing is new to me and so any input would be much appreciated, I'm not sure whether or not I pulled it off. 

*in the original piece on word document there are explanatory footnotes... unfortunately footnotes aren't possible in this thread so if there is any confusion, just ask and ill put them in at the bottom. 


_WR20120 – Portfolio 1_
*[Leroy Jenkins, Kansas, was called up to serve his country like many other young men during the Vietnam War. A Private 1st Class in the Infantries 9th Division (“The Old Reliables”), Leroy served two and a half years in the Mekong Delta, South-Western Vietnam. One year after his discharge from service, he tells his story of a Search and Destroy mission in a hamlet that was said to be hiding NLF  guerrillas.]*

Intel told us that Charlie  was hiding out in a village at the river intersection near Long Xuyen. It was only a small place, Po Sanh, no more than half a square kilometre. The VC had been slaughtering us in the Delta with hit and run tactics, we could never pin them down long enough to bring in artillery and we’d taken fifty percent casualties in our platoon in just a week. Our job was to hunt the elusive bastards down. When intel got wind that they were resupplying near this village we were briefed to drop in quick and close, surround them, paint the area and call in the gunships . Then go in and mop up. 
     That’s just what we did. We were commended by the higher-ups on an exceedingly good job under difficult circumstances. We counted our losses, re-armed and waited for the next orders. *[Falls silent and looks thoughtful for a moment.]* That village isn’t there anymore. The reports said we successfully wiped out fifty-seven VC  that day, with losses on our side of just four dead and seven wounded. *[Laughs humourlessly.]* We took fire yeah, but it wasn’t from fifty-seven insurgents.   

_What happened?_

A lot of people died. 

_Can you elaborate?_

Sure, I guess. First Platoon was sent in on its own. Second and Third were up river somewhere doing the same as us. The brass reckoned that if there was a significant body of the enemy, they’d be spread out. Three Hueys  dropped us in; we flew low-level, about two-hundred feet the whole way. We landed on the south side of the village; ours was the second chopper in. We saw a lot of activity as we flew over. Our door gunner was emptying his 50.cal  to cover us and we hit the dirt. Hard and fast – we jumped from a hover; I don’t know if you’ve seen the fields around there on the news. Low level wetland, flat, waist high grass and paddy fields, two feet of stinking water underneath, nowhere to land. Not a great place to start, we had about a four-hundred metre sprint to cover; open and vulnerable, just waiting to be cut down. Movement was extremely difficult. It’s strange to say, considering the terrain, but I’ve never felt more claustrophobic in my life than in I did in those fucking fields. Tramping through that water, the roots would literally try and wrestle you down, wrap around your feet like a boa constrictor, and the grass itself would paper-cut any exposed inch of your flesh. We had to fight this shit until we got into the paddy field which was thankfully barely ankle high vegetation-wise. At least then we could run better. Anyway, we were struggling through this grass, trying to get to the paddy, tripping at every step. McCoy was the first through. He belted out into the open, instantly triggered a land mine. I just remember... I just remember in those few seconds between the mine going off and the VC making contact... his foot. I was right by McCoy. It flew right past my face. I’ll tell you, seeing that kind of shit stoned is not good for you man. *[He chews his nails as he says this.]*

_Stoned?_

I won’t lie, it was so easy to get hold of. So were the opiates, couple of the guys in our platoon were on heroin. Again, supply was easy and pure. Couple that with the amphetamines the army gave us to keep us alert.  One hell of a party. We’d all been ordered to take the ‘phets, and had passed a joint on the ride in just to calm our nerves y’know? Anyway. Charlie made contact and that sobered us, fast. Gregg got his jaw taken off by a bullet. I didn’t see it happen, I just heard it. Jones got hit too, not badly. Rest of us dropped into the grass, and kept our heads down. We couldn’t see shit. *[Reaches for a cigarette.]*

_What were your reactions?_

Our reaction to the situation or our emotional reaction? Our reaction to the situation was to call in the gunships for an FFE  on the sonofabitch shooting at us. As far as I can tell they nailed it ‘cause the contact stopped. Emotional? *[He pauses, trying to grasp the right word.]* Turned us manic. Not from fear, you understand, but... well, you’ll never get a buzz like you do from being shot at and seeing the gunships bring in the rain... It turned you nuts. 
_
You liked it?_

*[Pulling on his cigarette.]* No one likes getting shot at. But for the buzz, it was insane. Most of the guys were laughing their tits off, cheering on the gunships. Nothing pumps you full of frenzy and aggression like it. *[He grins.] *

_What about your wounded?_

You get de-sensitized to it pretty quickly. If they’re dead, they’re dead. If they’re wounded, patch ‘em up as best you can and call in a MedEvac . It’s not like we didn’t give a shit about them. It’s just... a very difficult psychology to explain. 

_So what happened then?_

We stormed the village on our side, cleared the huts one by one, pairing off so we each had our own field of fire, left, right and centre. We linked up with third and second squads, secured our sectors, retrieved our dead and wounded.  
          Our sector of the village was next to the river. It was typical of any peasant village. Dirt, straw and mud huts, chickens. Dry and arid, I remember the heat. A lot of dust. Part of the village was smouldering slowly, about three huts had been taken out by the gunship. Charred supports were sticking out and a few body parts had been thrown clear of the flames. When we found the machine gun that had taken off Gregg’s jaw and saw the hand that pulled the trigger lying a few feet from it, well, at the time it was pretty satisfying. One of the boys put on a show with it, you know using it to give the finger to his pals, putting it in his sleeve and pretending to sever it. The Sergeant told him to boot it and keep focused. So he kicked it away like a football. We moved on and cleared out the huts, gathering everyone we found. We gathered them by the river. Then we searched the huts for evidence of VC.

_You weren’t attacked again?_

No, when we cleared the huts on the first sweep we found nobody armed. I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have been mucking about as much as we did otherwise. We did find a few AK’s, few Mossies . Found a hidden cellar too. Asides from that there wasn’t a lot. Our interpreters were interrogating the villagers for information, they weren’t talking. Bashing them around a bit helped squat. It was disappointing because after making contact we were riling for a fight. Losing three of our squad had made us overly aggressive. *[He grimaces slightly as he says this.]*

_You physically abused your prisoners?_

Back then it was different. It was considered common practice if they were VC, sympathisers or helping them in any way. If you’ve done any research at all, you’ll know what they did to our own fucking prisoners.* [Angrily stubs out his cigarette. Reaches for another but doesn’t light it.]* We treated them well in comparison. 

_But they were civilians._

How do you know? We were soldiers fighting a brutal enemy. Boot camp  didn’t teach us people skills, it taught us to be ruthless killers. They wanted to dehumanise us to survive an inhuman enemy. 

_Is that how you saw the Vietnamese?_

That’s how most of America saw them.

_What did you do next?_

We were ordered to destroy anyone or anything suspicious. I was sent with my pal, Halloway, to check the underground entrance we’d found. We’d left one of our squad to guard it. He was still stood, aiming down his sights at the cover. Our approaching apparently made him jump and he emptied half his magazine into the cover, bits of straw floating off it like feathers. Like we’d been told, Halloway pulled back the cover on a count of three, and I rolled a couple of frags  down the hole. Few seconds and we heard the blast. We kicked off the cover and squeezed off a few bursts into the hole then sent the new boy in, the one we’d left to guard it. He came back out again in a hell of hurry so naturally we flicked our safety off. Turns out he was just running off to blow chunks. When we went down we found the bodies of a woman and two children, filled with lead and frag. *[Coughs uncomfortably.]* Mutilated... *[Falls silent for a moment.]* We found a number of supply creates. It was only a small dug out, damp and muddy, the frags... well it wasn’t pretty.

_How did this affect you?_

Minimally. They weren’t the first or the last women and children I’d seen dead or mutilated in Vietnam, any raw footage will show you this. It wasn’t until I left ‘Nam that I began to think about it, what I’d actually done. 

_What next?_

We reported to the sergeant what we’d found. He nodded. He was getting real coiled up, like a spring. Our sergeant was fucked up. I’ll tell you that, no patience for the Gooks , they still weren’t talking. Calling us to listen in, we were given his order to destroy the village and everything in it. No one really responded. Corporal Sanders asked him to repeat the order... The Serge obliged...* [breathes deep.] *Pointed at our prisoners and said “kill”. 

_You were ordered to kill unarmed civilians?
_
There were military supplies found in the village. We’d made contact with the enemy. We’d rounded up mainly women and children, but as well we knew from experience, the NLF had female combatants. We’d been shot at by enough of them to know. The hamlet was home to VC soldiers, sympathisers and helpers. And our orders were to search for and destroy these elements. 

_And you obeyed these orders?_

*[Long pause.] *Yes. We killed them all. 

_Did anyone refuse to shoot or try to stop it?_

Some refused, but most seemed to enjoy it. A lot of the prisoners tried to run. I watched one get her legs shot out from under her and then bayoneted by our sergeant as she held out her baby. He picked the baby up by its legs, looked at it, then dropped it and shot it. 

_How many did you kill?_

*[His eyes are bloodshot and he trembles.]* Too many. Not a child though. I refused to shoot any more people when I turned my gun on a child that just stared at me... I’ve never seen such an expression of bewilderment and terror. Like he was just asking... “what did we do?”... *[Voice cracks]* I’d just shot his mother. 

_Why?_

Because we were ordered to. *[He pulls a bottle of spirits towards him and refuses any further questions.]*


_Commentary:_

This piece is inspired by the My Lai Massacre that took place on March the 16th, 1968. US troops marched into the village on a search and destroy mission, following intelligence that the enemy were located there. Despite finding no trace of the enemy, the troops rounded up the villagers, slaughtering, raping, and torturing them. Estimates put the death count at 347-506. Because of the military cover up of the event, no numbers are certain. From a related research link, I learnt of a similar massacre by US Marines of around 22 civilians in Iraq this decade. I had already had ideas of doing a piece with the themes of the Vietnam War and drugs, in the style of Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. During the course of my research on these themes, the massacre at My Lai came up in relation to drug abuse. This subsequently persuaded me to go with a piece of this sort, because the horror of the story is set in reality. 
        The style of the piece is unexplored territory for me, having never used a journalistic style in my fiction before now. The inspiration for this came from Max Brooks’ World War Z, a fictional journal made up of different survivors accounts of a zombie apocalypse. This use of style is very interesting as it allows for more freedom to the author, and an excuse to avoid minor details or dull explanations that may otherwise be necessary; for example how the narrator gets from one location to another with no interesting events in between – in the present tense – where the narrators every move, action and thought will inevitably have to be written. This way, placing the story as an interview, the subject character is only human and is allowed to forget the minor details of minor events and so on, and focus entirely on the points of significance. The author is granted focus. However, I found that in order to keep speech natural, unless of course the subject is highly witty and intelligent (in this instance he is not) creative description must be limited to natural speech. Natural speech reinforces realism, but is still easily obtainable in any style along with descriptive freedom. Despite this, I found from reading Brooks that the realism is still of a very convincing quality because it is framed within a formal layout. It reads like a report or formal interview, and leaving it unspecified as fiction enhances the effect.  
     Another inspiration was Alex Garland’s The Beach. The references to the Vietnam conflict in the book summarise the conflict’s place in modern pop culture. Our awareness of the war as it stands in pop culture has granted it accessibility that our generation’s wars in the Middle East don’t possess. On the one hand this is good in that it is more familiar territory, but on the other, it is prone to cliché and un-originality. 
       Another challenge was research. There is a lot of information available about the war, but much of it is contradictory. Finding accurate and relevant information proved difficult, particularly for small details. Ann Hoffman’s Research for Writers helped me to refine the search, but in order to take on a larger piece of the same subject, a massive body of research would have to be conducted, particularly with the amount of Hollywood myths surrounding the conflict. 
        One reason for choosing US soldiers as opposed to British troops in Iraq or Afghanistan is that while attempting to find any type of British-inflicted massacre, little or no information was readily available. The Vietnam conflict caused racial hatred towards anyone Asian, even if they were US citizens – they were considered subhuman, the meaning of the racist slur used in the piece. 
        Given more word count and time, I would like to extend my interest in this subject, however most probably will not. The material is well worn, and the style difficult. Further experimentation will decide.

_Bibliography _

Brush, Peter, ‘Drug Use Among U.S. Forces in Vietnam’, (date unknown) <http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/central/Brush/American-drug-use-vietnam.htm>[accessed 6 November 2010]
_Useful information on the use of drugs, statistics, supply and effect within the armed forces in Vietnam._

Sixties Project, ‘Glossary of Military Terms and Slang from the Vietnam War, A-Z’, (1996)
<http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Glossary/Sixties_Term_Gloss_A_C.html> [accessed 6 November 2010]
_Historical military terminology and slang from the era. Especially useful in a dialogue based piece._

Anonymous, ‘The Mekong Delta’, (date unknown) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekong_Delta> [accessed 7 November 2010]
Maps, geographical information, economy, and history. Despite criticism, this site is accurate enough for general information on minor details. 
Public Domain Footage, ‘Vietnam War: Mekong Delta Newsreel – Public Domain Archival Stock Footage’ (2008) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6kN0L9GssA> [accessed 7 November 2010]
_Original footage from any historical event is good source for research. _

Anonymous, ‘My Lai Massacre’, (date unknown) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre> [accessed 6 November 2010]

Brooks, Max, ‘World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War’ (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 2007)
_Inspiration for the style of writing I employed. Interesting use of realist writing in such an unconvincing fiction as zombies. _

Garland, Alex, ‘The Beach’ (London: Penguin, 1997)
_Good portrayal of Vietnam as a pop culture icon. Spurred my original interest._

Conrad, Joseph, ‘Heart of Darkness’ (London: Hesperus Press, 2002)
_I was drawn to the interesting exploration of human cruelty and unfair treatment of the Europeans to the natives. Draws many parallels with the Vietnam War and my piece._

Hoffmann, Ann, ‘Research for Writers: 6th edition’ (London: A & C Black Ltd, 2003)
_Useful information on how to refine a search methodical searching._

Coppola, Francis Ford, ‘Apocalypse Now’ (Hollywood: Paramount, 1979)
_Demonstrates the decent into insanity accentuated with drugs and the maddening effects of prolonged combat.
_
Kubrick, Stanley, ‘Full Metal Jacket’ (Hollywood: Harrier Films Natant, 1987)
_Arguably the best Vietnam film, full of brutal ironies, and subtle, dark humour. Extremely good portrayal of how the soldiers really thought during the war._


----------

