“You know, I’ve never even had a beer,” Stanley added, though at this point, it seemed to Jack that the boy was actually talking to himself.
“Did you hear that?” one of the other men interrupted, slapping his hand down on the seat. “Fucking Stanley never even had a beer!”
Everyone on the truck began to laugh. Everyone except Jack, who didn’t find it funny at all.
The steel helmet. The flak jacket. The heavy boots. The four canteens of water, the five grenades. The bandolier that held his ammunition and essential M16 rifle. All of it is heavy. But none of it is as burdensome as the twenty-five-pound PRC-25 radio he carries on his back. Every platoon has a single radio transmitting operator, and that responsibility is given to Jack. Lance Corporal Jack Grady from Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Six foot two. Tawny-brown hair and a face like a movie star. Crystal-blue eyes that twinkle when he laughs.Hollywood—that’s the nickname his buddies call him at first, and then it sticks.
He doesn’t ask for help when lugging the radio, even though his pack is heavy and the heat diabolical. Nor does he tell his buddies that he carries his sweetheart’s most recent letter tucked into the mesh of his helmet. The photograph from Atlantic City is also slipped inside, now creased and faded from his perspiration.
Some days it reaches over a hundred degrees, and the platoon collapses on the ground, peeling off their sweat-soaked gear. Their feet swelter in their boots, drenched from walking in rice paddies. Jungle rot eats away at their skin and the lieutenant orders them when they take a rest to pull their boots off, wring out their socks, and air out their feet.
There are fourteen men in his squad, three fire teams, and as they set out in patrol, they walk in single file. He is protected by a few men walking in front of him. Those men are the ones who must cut the jungle down as they walk. Sometimes with a machete. Other times with just their standard-issue knife. It is not a coveted position to be the first two men in line. The first man has the highest risk stepping on a booby trap or land mine. The second will most likely be killed in the blast as well. But Jack is somewhere in the middle, protected by the five or six men in front of him. He walks behind the second lieutenant, his platoon commander, Franklin L. Bates. Jack must be within arm’s length from Bates at all times in case he needs to reach the company headquarters and call in for an artillery strike or medical evacuation.
When the radio is needed, Jack will slip it off his back and give Lieutenant Bates the hand receiver. He carries the radio just for him.
Sometimes he hears music in his head when the platoon is route marching. Sometimes he pretends that the radio on his back is going to play Jimi Hendrix or the Doors. The Rolling Stones. The Kinks. The Who. It’s going to be a jukebox, calling the men to song, not to war.
He finally pulls it off his back. Picks up the receiver, calls in, and Bates reports their coordinates. They pause for instructions, praying they’re not blown to pieces while they wait.
Around them, the jungle teems with creatures that are all against them. The mosquitoes, the leeches. The enemy hidden under the brush.
He sleeps fitfully, never deeply. He hears the enemy everywhere.
He carries the radio like a lifeline. He learns to shimmy across the dirt, extending the telephone-like receiver to his commanding officer. He keeps the radio on even in a foxhole, for it’s his responsibility. Theradio is the only thing they have to summon help. To ask for backup or covering gunfire, to ask to help retrieve the wounded and the dead.
He realizes early on his life is not what is the most valuable. It is the thing strapped to his back. Without it, they are all lost.
CHAPTER 15Vietnam, 1978
IN THE DAYS LEADING UP TO THEIR ESCAPE,LINH TRIES TO MAKEnothing seem out of the ordinary for B?o. The firewood is stacked outside the house, the laundry is washed and placed on a clothesline, and the water jugs are full. She sends him off to school each morning.
This type of planning has been her and Chung’s mindset for nearly a year and half. It was well known that the Communists watched everything from afar. If people suddenly placed too much money in the bank, or if a neighbor reported that they heard a family was quickly selling off all their belongings, an arrest could be ordered solely on the suspicion they were preparing to flee.
So for just over a year, they have worked slowly and carefully. Chung took on more responsibilities at the collective farm to prove his loyalty. Linh found a job picking fruit at the orchard that had been her family’s until the takeover. At night, she and Anh wove baskets, using strips of bamboo from the garden, then sold them at a weekend market several miles away. Every bit of money they saved was buried underneath the earthen jars behind their house.
They have already paid all they have to the latest smuggler who has agreed to get them out of Vietnam. Two other fishermen had previously promised Linh they would get the four of them out. Each of them took the first payment from her but never reappeared for the second. But now things are different, for it is the first time Linh has paid the second of the three payments. The last one is to be made on the day of their journey.
Five days before they are set to leave, Linh and Chung realize they don’t have enough money to make the final payment. They continue to calculate the missing sum in their mind, struggling to figure out a way to get the needed funds. It is late at night when the couple find themselves staring at their hands.
Their gold wedding bands glimmer on their fingers. Sacred to them in the most holy way, for they believe the rings are a symbol of their marriage and love. The thought of selling them causes them both tremendous anguish.
“We’ll replace them as soon as we can,” Chung promises. He slides his off and hands it to his wife.
Linh holds the ring in her palm then closes her fingers around the gold circle. The last time she held the ring in her grip was on her wedding day, when she and Chung took vows that bound themselves to each other for eternity.
“It will bring us bad luck if we sell them,” she whispers.
“We cannot stay,” Chung reminds her.
“But will it even be enough?”
Chung does a rough calculation in his head. “I think we might need to ask Anh to sell hers, too.”
Linh shakes her head. “No, we can’t. She’s already lost so much.”
He doesn’t answer at first. Then Chung’s face becomes resolved. “I will ask her, then.”
