Chapter 17 ---  A  Million  Miles  from  Home

Author's Note:   Since this chapter is well into the book and the prior text has not yet been written and formatted, I'll briefly set the context for this next  portion of Papa Bear's story.   

Another American aircraft has been shot down over North Vietnam.   By way of radio communication, I have once again, been instructed to find the downed plane, search for the pilot, and if he's alive and not yet captured, to bring him out alive.   If he's been located by the enemy before I find him, my job is to kill him.   

By now, the sun has set.   There's still just enough light for me to see where I'm going.   My movements are directed by something inside of me that,  at the time, I have no real grasp of.    I slowly float through the jungle,  step by step,  making almost no sound and leaving all but no trail.   I give a thought of thanks to my Native American  mentors who taught me the ways of the wilderness.   

I force myself not to think about where I am and what,  if I find my target, I am about to do to him.   I continue to move.   Having located the crashed plane and analyzed the trajectory of its landing,  I feel that I am near where the pilot may have landed, that is, if he bailed out.   I continue to move as if I am guided.  With every step, I am watchful for booby traps, and I'm listening,  listening.    I am always listening.   My acute listening has saved my Arabic ass on more than one occasion.  

Without warning, my listening is broken into by my self talk,  and I find myself debating with myself again.   I stop moving.   I’m wise to the ways of this jungle.   One can’t move and think about anything else.   To do so is like waving a flag at the Viet Cong.   I sit and lean my back against a large tree and breath deeply.   I stifle the inner dialog and listen.   I just sit there and listen.  

I can’t say that my physical ears actually heard anything, but I am inspired to get up.   I slowly move about 60 meters up hill.   Again I sit and listen.   By now the sky is dark.   I can see a few stars and a quarter moon to the east.   I listen.   This time I’m certain my ears heard something that is not native to the jungle.   I focus on my listening like a hawk would focus on its prey.   Again,  I hear a faint, foreign sound.   I wait motionless, listening.  

I hear the same noise again, and I can tell that the sound is not the Viet Cong,  so I careful unpack my sniper rifle.   With its night-vision scope, I scan the jungle in the direction of the sound’s source.   I hear it again.   I move another dozen meters up the hill, sit down, and again scan the surroundings.   Without knowing why,  I get up and move three meters to my left and again sit down.   I raise the scope to scan and immediately I see him.   He is less that 30 meters away.   Silently, I watch.   I am like a leopard watching its prey.   I watch some more, and listen, always listening.  

By his movements, I can see that he is injured.   I can also see that he has tied himself in the branches of the tree so that he would not fall asleep and then fall to the ground.   

My orders are to see to it that he is not captured.   Essentially this means,  if I can’t get him back to a helicopter pick up point, I am to kill him.   We are 100 kilometers into North Vietnam.   Add another 15% for the route I would have to travel.   That’s about 70 American miles from the nearest rescue point.  

With my sniper rifle and my skill,  I could easily kill him at a thousand yards.   At 100 feet he is an easy target.   I adjust the scope for this close distance and point the rifle at him again.   With the cross hairs I divide his darkened head into four squares.   When I pull the trigger I know his head will fly into four times a thousand pieces.  

I force my self not to think of that.   He is just a darkened form in a tree.   My orders are,  as they say in the official jargon, "to eliminate him."   I have been thoroughly  trained not to call what I do murder.   I am trained to think of those I have been sent out to murder as only faceless threats to our worthy cause,  and not as fellow human beings.  

Regarding this faceless form I now see self-tied in a tree,  the exact words from Donald Duck **msc1  were,  “He is very expendable.”   Very expendable means he is a high ranking offices and not a young pilot.   If he is captured, the information he carries in his brain could cost the lives of a great many others.   My job is to look to the safety of the many and to sacrifice the few.   He is one of the few.   My orders are to murder him.  

I watch him.    He moves slightly and again I hear a subdued moan of his pain.   I can tell that he is obviously more than slightly injured.  

If I can hear him, then if there are any others nearby,  they can hear him also.   Viet Cong soldiers are also searching for him.   The safest thing I can do is pull the trigger and move out of the area as quickly as possible.  

I listen for other sounds that are not natural to this jungle.   When I pull the trigger my position will be broadcast to any one even remotely close to me.   If anyone is close by, my rifle could sound my swan song.   As I listen, the war inside me escalates.   The trained killer says,   “Pull the fucking trigger and get your ass out of here”.   The real me says,   “Wait.   He is another human being.   He is in pain.  Save him.   Get him to safety.”   

I know, the longer I wait, the greater the chance is that he will be found by the Viet Cong.    Moving an injured pilot 100 kilometers through an enemy-infested jungle is a near impossible task   I also know that he is far better off dead than captured.   Still I resist pulling the trigger.   He becomes quiet.   Occasionally he lurches as he drifts between sleep and his waking pain.    I watch.   I wait.   I listen.   Outside of the occasional soft sound from the pilot, I hear nothing unusual.  

The night sky has become overcast.   Other than my Sniper rifle scope, I have no night vision equipment.   Thus, except when looking through my telescope, I can see only vague shadows.   I feel something crawling across my left leg.   It’s too dark to see what it is.   I remain still.   To move could invite a poisonous bite.   I remain motionless and let it crawl.   In all probability, I am just another log to whatever it is.   It crawls away and I return my focus to the shadow in the tree.  

While I continue to wait and listen,  the inner war continues to go on.   “He has a strong will to live.   He is injured and yet he has crawled away from wherever he landed and has tied himself in a tree.   He at least deserves a chance.”   

“The dump bastard is injured.   You are 100 kilometers north of the DMZ.   Waste the fucker and get out of here.”  

Being the cocky son of a bitch that I am, I love challenges.    I decide to investigate further.   At least for the moment the inner war stops.   With total commitment, and total focus on my intention,   I pack up my rifle and begin a very slow approach.   I move to about ten meters and listen.   I wait there for an hour, listening.  

Exactly what I am waiting for I can’t say.  When it feels right I move in.   My first challenge is to get to him.   If he becomes aware of my approach, he’ll probably shoot me, thinking that I am  Viet Cong.   With the stealth that would make a panther proud, I approach the tree.   Whenever he stirs, I stop,  and wait,  and listen.    I reach the tree trunk.   I can make out his silhouette against the now clear sky above.   I take off most of my gear and leave it at the base of the tree.   My heart is pounding with excitement.    There is fear too , but the fear is far overshadowed by the excitement, by the thrill another challenge.  

I climb,  half by feel,  half  by sight,  half by just doing it.   I know that three halves are one and a half.   My math doesn’t make any sense to me either.   I just fucking do it.   Branch by branch I slither my way up the tree.   Moving, stopping, sliding, listening, ever listening.    I am so close now that I can hear the ebb and flow of his breath.   That breath is filled with pain, with fear, and yet there is a strength in that I can readily recognize.  

He is about  four meters from the ground.   He has his back to the trunk and is straddling a large branch.   In his sleep, his body has tilted to the left.   Being careful not to touch the rope that hold him to the tree,  I approach him form behind.   He is so close now that I can easily touch him, but my position is not yet right.   I move.  He stirs slightly.  I become the tree.   Moments pass.  I watch a cloud cover the moon and then pass.   I move into position.   Again I wait.   It’s been thirty minutes since I left the ground.  

When I decide to strike,   in a quick coordinated action,  I clasp my left hand over his mouth,  place my _____ knife at his throat,  and whisper in his ear.    “I‘m American Special Forces.   Be absolutely still.”      

I can feel him trembling in my hands.   I say, “I am going to take my hand off your mouth and I want you to be absolutely silent. “  

Slowly I remove my hand  and whisper into his ear,  How badly are you hurt?”   

He starts to whisper back.   To me he is shouting.   I place my hand over his mouth again.   “Whisper more softly.   How badly are you hurt?”  

This time he is quieter.   He says, “My left leg is broken in two places.   Other than that,  my body is in good shape.  

I like the way he answers me.   He has a twice broken leg and yet he says,   “Other than that,  my body is in good shape.”   

While it's still dark, I manage to get him out of the  tree and moved about 700 meters further away from his abandoned parachute.   We're both exhausted, but I dare not sleep until I've been awake while the he sleeps.   If I slept while he did and he turned out to be one who snores, I'd both be dead before I woke up and he'd be an enemy prisoner.   

I get him as comfortable as possible,  instruct him to sleep, and tell him that unless the enemy was near by, I'll let  him rest for about an hour.   When I awaken him, the sky is light in the east.   He moans softly.   I caution him to silence.   I tell him that we are about 100 kilometers north of my closest helicopter pick up point.   I also tell him that until we reach safety, I am in complete command, and that he he is to follow my instructions exactly I give them. 

I look at his leg.   At both points where the bones are broken, it is severely swollen,   but,  fortunately,  the skin is not punctured.   I know that my first job is to place a splint on his leg.   I have nothing for him to take to ease his pain, so  I hand him my backpack and tell him to bite on the shoulder straps and be absolutely silent.   I proceed to splint and tie up his leg.   He is amazingly stoic in his pain.  

With the leg splinted, I ask him if he is able to eat anything at this time.   He looks at me in a way that I could never translate into words, and says  “I’d like some coffee.”  

The absurdity and the naiveté of his request cracks me up beyond belief.   I’ve been living on beetles, cockroaches, grubs, and C-rations for the past several months, and he asks me for coffee.   I haven’t eaten anything warmer that mud for months and he asks me for coffee.   For some reason I think that his request is absolutely hilarious.   It’s so funny to me, that I’m rolling on the ground laughing.   It’s all I can do to be silent in my laughter.   I hadn’t laughed like that since high school.   By the time I stop laughing, the decision is made.   If he and God are willing, I’m hauling this guy's ass back to South Vietnam.  

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