Saigon, Viet Nam, November 1969
Territorial Enterprise reprint 1988
The alarm was set for four a.m. I slept with the light on to make sure I would not sleep too soundly. Hardly sleeping at all, I dozed off and on in my bunk on that hot humid Saigon night, mindful that I had to be up and at the flight line on Tan Sohn Nhut AFB before five to catch my early flight to Nha Trang.
The assignment was routine. My camera bags contained my shaving kit, sixty rolls of Ektachrome and thirty rolls of Black and White, two Nikons and my personal Canon on the floor beside me. I had even shaved the night before so I could leap out of bed and in the time it takes to throw on a set of fatigues and boots, I could be out the door. I was always early, preferring to sit and read my book to panicking about being late.
I had weird dreams that night. I kept dreaming that the alarm was going off and I was trying to get up but could not move. Then I dreamed that I heard it ringing and reached over and hit the off button. But that was just a dream.
The next thing I knew, I awoke with a start! 7:30! What? The sun was out and the mama-sans were clanging and banging wash-pots outside the hooch. Oh, God, no! I wailed to myself. Now what? Failure to Report, Dereliction of Duty, AWOL … who knows what?! Oh, God, courts marshal for sure, or at least an article 15 or some such judicial punishment for those who don’t show up for duty. My heart sank as I slowly and silently dressed, hearing funeral dirges in my brain.
Dragging myself out of the hooch and past the company headquarters, I felt an eerie absence of all military life. Just the ubiquitous mama-sans squatting over big tin and plastic tubs of sudsy water, ceaselessly chattering in Vietnamese while washing the jungle fatigues of the G.Is at Davis Station, my home.
Even the motor pool was quiet. “Where is everybody?” I pondered. They are probably all hiding because they know there is a criminal, a law-breaker in their midst and they are afraid to be seen with me… going to my execution at the headquarters, known simply by it’s then code-name, White Birch.
I sat on the “hitch-a-ride” bench just outside the motor pool to see who was going my way. Finally, the skinny motor pool sergeant from Tennessee, who I knew, pulled the jeep up to the stop with a screech. “Headin’ to White Birch, Tom?” he asked cheerfully. I climbed in, mustering my bravest smile of thanks for the lift. Apparently the news of my malfeasance had not really reached the motor pool yet after all. Good.
I rode in the open jeep in silence as the sergeant talked about the new camera he had just bought at the B.X. Everybody enjoyed talking to me about photography, as I was the official headquarters photographer. I mumbled mindlessly about f-stops and shutter speeds or something long forgotten in the haze of fear and trepidation.
We arrived at the small parking lot at White Birch. The Military Police check point was the next hurdle. But, the two guys on duty, who knew me well, had already put my regular badge #273 on the counter with my photo-pass. I was only one of three people in the headquarters allowed to carry a camera in or out of a top-secret classified area. The sergeant didn’t go in, but disappeared somewhere into the parking lot to deal with a recalcitrant jeep no doubt.
Past the zig-zag of bunkers to prevent Viet Cong terrorists from storming the headquarters, I pulled open the first of two big steel doors that were touted to be able to withstand a direct grenade, mortar or even rocket hit. Un-likely the latter, but it was definitely like entering a vault. Passing through the second steel door was always a shock, as the bright, hot, humid Saigon morning gave way to the dark cold blast of frigid air conditioned processed oxygen of the windowless bunker in which we worked.
The long corridor with its shining green linoleum length of floor was as empty as a tomb. My footfall echoed as I tried to make it down the long hallway un-noticed. Years later when I first heard the term “The Green Mile”, I flashed on that moment. No one was there! I heard the tic tic tic of typewriters and the whirring click click of the tele-type machines sputtering in the background but saw no signs of human life. I walked the green mile. At the end, I turned right, then left then right again as always.
The Dutch door entrance to the graphic arts department was open at the top as usual. Thus far I had seen no one anywhere. I poked my head in. Everybody was there, each at his station or drawing table working in uncharacteristic silence. With a deep sigh and then a big breath I opened the bottom half of the door and walked in and shut the door with a thud.
As if this day was not weird enough to start with, what happened next was surreal. Everyone looked up. Then everyone froze in place, like in one of those movies where the narrator steps out and talks directly to the audience. All eyes, like saucers, simply stared at me. My heart was pounding. Finally Jim from Philadelphia sort of whispered:
“Tom?”
“I missed my flight”, I blurted out awkwardly. “I mean, I did set the alarm and all… but,…”
Before I could even choke out my excuse they all poured out from behind desks and drawing tables and engulfed me in bear hugs and slaps on the back and shoulders with all manner of totally out-of-character behavior. This is one weird day, I thought.
“You missed the flight?” They were delirious. What had they put in the water cooler that morning? “You actually missed that flight?” They were all laughing in a most peculiar way… like a nervous, spooky laughter. Like they had seen a ghost.
Stan from Seattle ran across the hall to get our sergeant to announce my return. He walked in, ashen. “You missed the flight?” he repeated.
“I missed it.” I said, “but it was totally inadvertent…” I trailed off. Something was wrong here. Everybody went silent.
“You haven’t heard?” My sergeant from Alabama asked in his southern drawl… “You really haven’t heard?”… he asked again incredulously.
“Heard what?”
“That flight was shot down this morning.”
-- Tom Muzzio
