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Trang Sup Memories
June 17, 2011 |
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One minute I was sound asleep, the next I was
wide-awake, pop-eyed with alertness, straining to
pierce the inky darkness. Then I heard it again, the
sound that had awakened me, a chilling, sibilant
whisper, “You die, GI; you die.” It came to me with
a little electric thrill of shock: the bastard was
in my hooch room! I realized that I was holding my
.45 in my hand, on full cock. It always hung from
the mosquito-netting frame right over my head while
I slept, but I didn't remember taking it from the
holster. I didn't even remember moving, other than
to open my eyes.
I lay still, waiting for
some sound of movement, and then, the voice
whispered again, sounding almost gleeful, “You die,
GI.” I realized he was not in the room with me but
outside my window, talking through the locked
shutters, and he couldn't see me any more than I
could see him. Suddenly, I was completely furious
and I slipped out of the cot, forgetting for once
about the deadly kraits that lurked beneath my bed
every night, waiting for just such an opportunity.
I was intent on scaring this turkey as
thoroughly as he'd frightened me. I slept fully
dressed, so I only had to slip into my boots and
sneak the M-16 off the wall. So far, I hadn't made a
sound; the cot had not creaked as I slid out of it.
I inched the cubicle door open and tiptoed down the
hall, feeling my way in the darkness. It took a
moment to find the key to unlock the door, and then
I was outside; still, I thought, without making a
sound other then cocking the .45 when I first
awakened.
I could see the Sergeant of the
Guard sitting by his radio in the Team House, but he
wasn't looking in my direction. Sam, the mascot, was
awake and stared at me owlishly through the mesh of
his cage as I snuck to the edge of the barracks and
peeked around the corner. Nobody was near my window.
The building was white, so I would have seen anyone
close to it even in the darkness. There were the
usual CIDG guards on the wall; some were sitting on
the sandbags around the mortar emplacement a little
distance from my window.
Nobody knew what I
was talking about, even the ones who could speak
enough English to understand what I was saying. They
all swore that they had seen nobody near the window
nor heard anybody say anything. Nobody got close to
me and they all sort of managed to keep from getting
directly in front of me as though they were afraid I
would shift the rifle from semi-port to bear on them
if they did. I finally gave up and went back to the
barracks.
As I started to enter the building,
it suddenly occurred to me to wonder if maybe this
hadn't been somebody's warped idea of a joke. There
certainly were Viet Cong agents and sympathizers
inside the camp. Suppose some of them had been
trying to lure me into doing just what I had done;
come alone around the barracks in the pitch-black
night to where they waited. “You die, GI,” could
have turned out to be deadly reality and not a joke
at all. I got a little shivery again.
I
unlocked the barracks, went in and locked the door
behind me, then felt my way down the hall to my
cube, and hung the rifle back on the wall. This time
I turned the light on and examined my cot and the
space beneath it for cobras, kraits, and other
deadly reptiles before turning off the light and
crawling under the mosquito netting, making sure it
was securely tucked in all the way around.
I
put the .45's hammer on half cock and returned the
gun to its holster. I closed my eyes, half expecting
to hear that amused, whispered voice again, but
nothing broke the silence except the far off, almost
subliminal thud of the omnipresent bombardments.
Eventually, I drifted off to sleep and awoke later
on in time for duty, having survived bad judgment
once again. Whoever had paid me that nocturnal visit
never returned to my window again, although I heard
he whispered in others. Guess he just liked waking
people up. |
 By
Thurman P. Woodfork
Copyright 2003
About
Author...
Thurman P. Woodfork (Woody) spent his
Air Force career as a radar repairman in places as disparate as
Biloxi, Mississippi; Cut Bank, Montana; Tin City, Alaska; Rosas,
Spain and Tay Ninh, Vietnam. In Vietnam, he was assigned to
Detachment 7 of the 619th Tactical Control Squadron, a Forward Air
Command Post located on Trai Trang Sup. Trang Sup was an Army
Special Forces camp situated about fifty miles northwest of Saigon
in Tay Ninh province, close to the Cambodian border.
After Vietnam, Woody remained in the Air Force for nine more years.
Visit
Thurman P. Woodfork's site for more information |
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