Until They Are Home: Bringing Back the MIAs from Vietnam, a Personal Memoir

10. “That Is Sooooo Vietnam”

 AS TET ENDED IN MID-JANUARY 2004, we entered into a hectic schedule preparing for the seventy-sixth joint field activity, which would be conducted from mid-February to mid-March 2004. We held the provincial coordination meeting in Dalat, the famous French colonial mountain retreat developed in the 1920s. The charming town in the Central Highlands is perched above Xuan Huong Lake and the Dalat market, above which runs a string of little cafés serving local coffee. Our meeting was in the dowager Empress Hotel, which has a commanding view of the lake and mountains and rooms still holding on to their elegant touch. After Dalat we rushed back to Hanoi, conducted a repatriation ceremony at Noi Bai Airport, and returned to the detachment to pack and go south again the next morning. Miss Tam, the cook, came to find me, reporting we were down to our last egg. Because of a new outbreak of avian flu, the government had initiated very strict control on all birds that might pick up the H5 virus. It was no longer possible to buy or order chicken anywhere, which was no great loss to me, but then Buddy added that the government had just announced that pork might also be infected with H5, so in a week there would probably be no bacon or pork chops at the market. The avian flu was a very serious threat. The virus jumped from wild birds to domestic fowl, primarily chickens and ducks, the virtual staple of Vietnam, and at least eight Vietnamese people so far had died of the infection . By this time we knew the transmission was through direct skin contact Chapter 10 “THAT IS SOOOOO VIETNAM” “THAT IS SOOOOO VIETNAM”  with fowl feces, such as by walking barefoot in a farmyard. The danger was that the H5 virus would be picked up by someone already carrying a typical human flu and that the two would join, mutate, and become a contagious, airborne, lethal virus that would create a pandemic, making the Spanish in- fluenza of 1918 seem like an outbreak of the common cold. The Spanish influenza killed ten million people. Many of my scientific friends believed it was a matter of when, not if. The Vietnamese government ordered the immediate slaughter of tens of thousands of chickens and ducks and sent out the army and the police to ensure it was done. It also issued an edict declaring that all pet songbirds must be immediately destroyed by their owners. If anyone knew of a neighbor still keeping birds, the information had to be reported to the authorities. The Vietnamese love to keep songbirds in little bamboo cages, and it is not unusual to see a cluster of cages on a tiny balcony. The destruction edict was sternly announced by blaring loudspeakers on every other street corner. By sundown the sky over Hanoi was filled with brightly colored songbirds. Most of them didn’t know where to go, so they hung around in the trees near their owner’s house. With a half-dozen living in our trees, we could hear the bird music at breakfast. There were songbirds flying and singing all over town. Buddy finished his breakfast phuo, shaking his head, “That is sooooo Vietnam.” We flew straightaway down to Saigon to start the long series of site visits for joint advance work before the teams flew in from Hawaii. After a week we had worked our way back to Da Nang for a final reconnaissance trip to a remote site in Quang Nam province, southwest of Da Nang. Buddy, our operations officer, Sergeant Philip Revell, and I reached the tiny village of the Co Tu tribe by a long helicopter ride and a bumpy truck drive along a loopy dirt road. The entire village turned out to watch us meet our guide, a seventy-seven-year-old, chain-smoking Co Tu monk wearing flip-flops, an ankle-length wool topcoat, and a funny little wedding hat. I never did find out why he wore a wedding hat. The site was just a short walk, the monk explained, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of the mountain behind the village. Leaving the truck and village behind, I was the only one carrying water and food, strictly adhering to the old infantry adage—never get separated from your rucksack.  Chapter 10 Four kilometers...