jumped out of a helicopter each month with a gunnysack of $62,000 in V.N. piastas, and I would trade it for a book of vague jottings on the camp’s expenditures for the previous month. In fact, I was an occupying mayor.
Departing on a deep reconnaissance into the Highlands with my team. Amid the normal missions and working of the “A” Camp, I felt it was necessary to help prepare the Viets for the day when we would skulk away from the scene, leaving them to their fate with the neighboring northerners. To this end, I played volleyball with my mercenaries in the evenings. This was often the high point of my day. During these games, I always switched sides, playing for the team with the least points. After the games, we would talk, and in that setting, in the way of soldiers the world over, we developed a trust. After a while, I told them that the North might win in a few years. They usually smiled warmly and shrugged; They had seen this situations for thousands of years, and I paid the best wages. I told them that I would like to meet any local cousin they knew who was angry at me. Sure enough, one evening, on the opposite of the net stood a tall Champa Viet who was extremely uncomfortable to be near me, and played with insulting savagery. After many vignettes within the ritual of volleyball over several days, he calmed down to the point where he could talk to me through intermediaries. When he could finally look me in the eye, I laid out my bluff/bargain: I would try to keep the devastating American B-52 strategic bombers away from “our” valley if he would attempt to keep the North Vietnamese regulars out. This was the initial agreement which allowed us to communicate. To sweeten the pot, I indicated that there were some medical supplies I might “lose” upon my departure. If these were stored for the day when Northern troops swept the valley looking for Viets who had fought with the Americans, the supplies ld be used as bargaining chips to help avoid the inevitable and brutal “re-education” camps which would soon follow. And so a local civilian administration was eventually set into place, and preparations were made to preserve Cung Song’s interests during the nasty times looming ahead. Fate smiled upon us; the North Vietnamese and we Americans lost interest in our verdant vale. It was a sad day when we lowered our flag and the Team A-226 streamer for the last time at Camp Cung Song. My father visited for the ceremony. He was working as a senior advisor in Binh Dinh province to the north. That evening we choppered back through the gloaming to Qui Nhon where we discussed the changes taking place state-side over dinner. Our enthusiasm was not overwhelming but our hopes flickered on.