A Marine Called Jason
(Revised)
by: Peter

(© 2007-2015 by the Author)
 

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Chapter 36
Return to Jason’s Base Camp 

I went back to Toby’s with three things on my mind.  One, to maybe arrange to get together with him one more time before I left, and maybe he would still want to include Ryan. The second, to ask Toby if he could arrange to get some playground equipment for the orphanage.  The other thing was even more personal. He was all smiles when I walked in.  I didn’t see Ryan.  I thanked him again for last night.

“Damn, stud, stop thanking me,” he said. “How’d it go at the embassy?”

“Jason’s visa won’t be ready till tomorrow.  If the embassy can arrange a flight, we may be leaving tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.”

“Great.  You’ve got your room for another night,” he said.

“Speaking of that……”  I let my words linger. 

He smiled. “Bring the boy if you want,” he said.

“No, nothing like that,” I said.  “I was thinking more of you and me.”

His eyes danced.  “That could definitely be arranged,” he said but he sounded hesitant.

“It’d be you and me….Brad and Toby, this time,” I said. 

“Yeah, I know. That’ll be great, one more time for old time’s sake." 

I still felt his hesitancy. "But….?"

"Bad as I want to, I have to throw this out," he said.

"What?  What's up?"

He laughed, shaking his head.  "It's Ryan....."

"Oh, the jealous type, huh?"

"No, no, nothing like that.  For some odd reason he thinks you're hot and he wants a crack at you."

I blinked, taken aback.  "Well, hell yeah!" I said.  "Not to throw you over, Toby, but that kid is hot as fuck.  Tell him yes.  But it would have to be tonight."

"He's got a date but he'll get out of it, I'm sure."

"Whew!  That's quite a turn of events," I said.

"Well, like I said, I would love for you and me to take another roll in the sack, but I thought it would end things on a lighter note with Ryan.  He won't bring along any baggage like I would."

"I happened to like your baggage," I said.  “Look, I.…well, I’ll probably never be back here again, and I want to try to find Jason’s base camp; I was there a couple of times. I want to leave something there….one of his dog tags.”

Toby frowned. 

“Not a good idea?” I asked.

“I don’t know. If you do, your best bet is to rent a motorcycle and hire a guide.  There are places you don’t want to go alone now, outside the city.  And take money, small bills. You never know when you’re going to be stopped and have to bribe somebody. They never have change for big bills, on purpose.  And you need to bury the dog tag. They haven’t quite come around to memorializing American GIs.”

“Where do I find a guide?” I asked.

“Go back to the market, ask around for Truang. If he’s not there, hang around and wait for him, he’ll show up. He’s taken a lot of guys back in the bush.”

“Okay, thanks, I’ll check it out,” I said.

On the way back to the market, I wondered if maybe I should go back and get Jase and take him with me, but decided against it.  He was not a part of this; my going back.  This was between Jason and me.  I had taken the brave warrior back and buried him in his hometown but I knew his soul remained in Vietnam. Now I had to mark a resting place for his soul, and his dog tag seemed to be the most appropriate thing.  It had his name on it.

At the market I stopped at a booth and asked about Truang. The man pointed down the street. I wasn’t sure what he was pointing at so I walked down the street and asked another shopkeeper.  He said to wait.  I hung around for over a half hour, till the shopkeeper brought a guy up to me, about my own age.

“You are Truang?” I asked.                                 

“Yes.”

“I need a guide,” I told him.

He smiled and put out his hand then produced a small notebook filled with hand scribbled testimonials from other veterans he had guided in post-war Vietnam. I read several and hired him.  He was a former ARVN soldier who had been allowed to have his own business as a tourist guide. I told him where I wanted to go. He smiled and nodded and led the way down the street where I rented two motorbikes. He asked me Jason’s old outfit and nodded when I told him; he knew it. He knew its history. Or, he had lived it.

He took me a way I didn’t remember, but then it had been a long time since I had visited Jason’s hooch. Now I was making the trip back after his death to try to find him or reconnect with him.

There were no trees growing on many of the hillsides but there were people planting banana trees. I could see concrete bunkers still standing, somberly, off in the hills, half hidden with vines and foliage. After crossing the river on a rickety ferry we stopped in the first village we came to and got a bite to eat. Truang asked if I wanted to eat. I told him yes because I figured he was hungry and wanted me to buy lunch, which I was glad to do. The peculiar smell of a Vietnamese village, long forgotten, quickly bridged the years that I had been gone. We stopped at a wall-less, dirt-floored café, where the only company, besides Truang and me, was a rooster on top of a table which mama-san shooed away.  Back home the place would’ve been condemned but mama-san served up the best jumbo shrimp I have ever had.

I left a generous tip and we continued on our journey. A few klicks down the road we stopped at a small roadside stand to buy gas from an old Vietnamese man who was selling it in bottles. I wondered where he got the gas, and how he knew to set up shop at that spot along the road. A good distance farther we approached a compound, guarded by Vietnamese troops.  I didn’t recognize it but I knew instinctively that it was Jason’s old base camp because there was a strangely-familiar feel about the place. Closer, I could see that they were even using the same old hooches. The trees and bush had grown back where I remembered the terrain surrounding the camp had been stripped of all foliage. The wire that surrounded the compound was gone, but there were still the remains of the bunkers and trenches outside the perimeter, although except for some harsh concrete protrusions, they were barely more than dents and troughs in the ground now.

Truang stopped well back from the compound. “You can’t go in. It is a Vietnamese military camp now,” he said.

I could see that. And not too friendly, at that, the way the guards kept a steady, steely-eyed gaze on us. I looked around for a place where I could bury the dog tag. It would have to be out of sight of the guards, for certain. They would surely come running if they saw me digging around in the dirt. I walked back into the bush, well past the chunks of concrete sticking up out of the ground, as if I were going to take a piss.  Out of sight of the guards I found a spot near a big tree with gnarled roots.  The tree would be there forever, had been already, and would be a proper place for Jason’s dog tag. I took out my buck knife and dug in close to the base, between two large roots, pulling the dirt from under one with my hands.  I took out the chain from around my neck and removed one of the dog tags and put the chain back on.  I swallowed hard as I traced my fingers over the engraved letters and numbers that told all that Jason would want to be told about himself. Then I put the dog tag in a heavy plastic case I’d bought that I thought might help preserve it and shoved it in under the big root and packed dirt in around it.  I covered the spot with leaves and brush then knelt there for a moment with my head down. I didn’t really know why; he was buried back in Ohio, not here in this damned jungle. I didn’t cry or even well up. I just remembered, and told him I was going to leave him here, where he truly belonged. I told him when I got back to the world, I was going to start a new life with his son. I swore it.  And I thanked him for last night for I truly believed he was there in spirit. It wasn’t as emotional as I expected; it was more that I was doing it out of a sense of duty. As an afterthought I scooped up a big handful of dirt and tied it in a handkerchief to take back with me.  I went back to where Truang was waiting.

“I think the soldiers are getting edgy,” he said.

“Fuck the soldiers,” I said. I sat down on a jagged chunk of the remains of a bunker and tried to absorb the scene around me to take back with me. I picked out a hooch inside the compound that I made a conscious decision to remember as Jason’s and made the journey in my mind back to it. It was surprisingly and painfully easy to do, to walk up and open the door and step inside to find him sitting on his bunk, in nothing but his briefs, cleaning his rifle. I hurt at the memory but clung to it anyway. I needed the hurt.  Fuck, it almost felt good.

I glanced around at the sound of Truang taking a piss, a bit perturbed that he had interrupted my thoughts. I kicked at the ground with the heel of my boot and dug up some residue from the war. I reached down and picked up some brass, empty casings, that had come up out of the loose dirt from my boot and I put them in my pocket with vague, conjured up thoughts that they might have been ejected from Jason’s rifle. He would think I was being foolish, and clinging to anything.  As I sat there I felt a tugging from opposite directions; from the compound and from the tree where I had buried Jason’s dog tag.  Sitting there was surreal. It was kind of like sitting next to a young soldier who I didn’t know, and that soldier was me. My journey back had taken me much farther, and much deeper, than I had ever imagined it would.

To be continued...  

Posted: 02/27/15 rp