Another Place Episode 23

Another Place Another Time

Book One

Jake and Whispers

Episode Twenty-Three

Nine days later, I hitched a ride back to Bearcat on a Greyhound slick. Betty Ann would leave Vietnam in four weeks, and my tour ended in seven weeks.

A week and one patrol later the Commanding General of the 9th Infantry Division awarded Whispers and me a Silver Star. I don’t remember his name, but I do know how many days we had left in country when he pinned the medal on my chest. I also knew the medals I’d earned were going to complicate my great getaway a bit.

It’s fairly simply for a “regular” soldier to disappear discreetly, while processing out of the Army. However, as Captain Petty had pointed out to me, the Army no longer considered me a regular soldier. I had received many commendations from the LURPS, two Bronze Stars, a Purple Heart, and now a Silver Star. He said, “You’re not the only man with a Silver Star, but you need to understand this. Because you have one, the Army will want to know where you are. That means you are going to have to show up in Oakland as more than a checkmark on a travel manifest.”

“How can I do that, Captain? I’ll be on a ship with Whispers.”

He smiled reassuringly.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve had to do this, Jake. However, since we have a real advantage here, it will be the easiest. Here’s why. When does Betty Ann leave for home?”

I’m sure my confusion at where his question was leading was obvious.

“She leaves in less than three weeks,” I answered.

“That’s perfect,” he said, as the First Sergeant and Riley nodded silently. “Here’s what we have to do. Riley will get your records ready just as we had planned. However, they will not have your final out-processing paperwork from Oakland. You give the records and a set of your fatigues, a pair of your boots, and a cap to Betty Ann and she will take them home with her.”

He paused, then continued, “Now, here comes the sticky part, if there is going to be one. You need to give her the name of a friend who lives in the States, preferably one who is in the Army and one who will keep a secret. Your friend will take your records and your uniform and meet your plane from Vietnam. He will impersonate you for twenty-four hours, which means that he will muster out of the Army as you. He’ll even use the plane ticket the Army will issue you to fly to your home of record. Once he gets off that plane, you will be clear of the Army.”

He waited for me to digest what he had said and then he asked, “Do you have a friend who will do that?”

“Yes, Sir,” I told him. “In fact, he’s the man who is responsible for my being here right now, Captain Richard Kennedy. He can do it easily, and he will be glad to.”

That afternoon I caught a ride to Vung Tau with Colonel Cavanaugh. Betty Ann’s eyes lit up when I laid out the plan. “Jake, that’s great; it’ll work and, best of all, I’ll be part of it.”

I’d been writing Richard at least once a week, since I’d been in Vietnam. That’s why I felt the odds were the censors wouldn’t open a letter to him. However, rather than run an unnecessary risk, I just wrote and told him that Betty Ann was coming home in a couple of weeks and she would be in touch with him. By return mail, he sent his address and phone number.

I prepared a small gym bag for Betty Ann to carry with her. It contained my uniform and $4,000 in cash.

“You’ll have trouble explaining either one of these, so be careful.”

As I handed her the bag, I closed my hands around her hands as she held the handles.

She turned her face up and looked reassuringly into my eyes.

“Jake, I’m Red Cross not military. They don’t give us shake down searches like they do you guys.”

The toughest part of the plan was saying good-bye to Betty Ann, so I didn’t say good-bye. I flew on the chopper with her and another Doughnut Dolly who was also going home. It’s a twenty minute flight from Vung Tau to Ton Son Nut Airbase in Saigon. We sat on the passenger bench staring straight ahead and holding hands so tightly I wasn’t sure we’d be able to turn loose, but I didn’t care.

At Ton Son Nut, I carried Betty Ann’s duffel bag to the civilian departure area. She was right, as usual. She flashed her passport in front of a bored Vietnamese immigration officer and that was the extent of the check. At the civilian boarding gate, we hung on to each other until a ticket agent supervising the boarding shouted in Betty Ann’s ear.

“Lady, that noise you hear is the sound of your plane, and in thirty seconds it’s going to leave here without you.”

We loosened our embrace, so we could look into each other’s eyes.

“I’ll be there before you know it,” I said.

She wiped her eyes.

“I’m counting on that, Jake.”

A week later, I got a letter from Richard that read in part, “I talked to Betty Ann and then she flew down and had dinner with my fiancée Jane and me at The Oaks. We’re all looking forward to seeing you…”

I showed the letter to Captain Petty, The First Sergeant, and Riley. They were almost as tickled as I was.

**********

Probably, because I’d been through the get-away drill at least twenty times with other handlers and their dogs, there wasn’t a single hitch when it came time for me and Whispers to go. At least, there wasn’t a hitch after I managed to say good-bye to Captain Petty and The First Sergeant. That one was tough.

I realized the night before I left that in my whole life there had only been six people, outside my parents and Whispers, who supported me totally, all the time, no matter what was happening. They were Richard Kennedy, Henry Cox, Steve Petty, First Sergeant Conley, Corporal Riley, and Betty Ann Luther. It wasn’t easy to say good-bye to two of them that morning, but somehow I managed. Then I went to the kennel and told Whispers that I’d see him in a few hours. I threw my duffel bag in the back of the ¾-ton, and I didn’t look back as we pulled out of the company area; I couldn’t.

Riley dropped me off at the 90th Replacement Battalion in Long Binh. I signed in and picked up my flight assignment voucher, meal tickets, and a few other pieces of paper that were essential to my getting home, in the way that my orders said that I was traveling. Then I went to the NCO Mess hall and chased some unappetizing food round my plate for half an hour. Finally I picked up my duffel bag and walked out of the compound. At the main gate the guard called out, “Hey, Sarge, are you Jake?”

I waved and he called to the MP directing traffic in the middle of Highway One, “Hey, Lewis, he’s the one. Get him across the road.”

Lewis blew his whistle a few times, which stopped the traffic in all four lanes, and I walked across like somebody special. As I stepped onto the shoulder on the opposite side of the highway, I heard Lewis call out, “Good luck, Sarge.” Then he blew one loud blast on his whistle and in seconds, traffic was moving as though it had never stopped.

In five minutes, I ducked into the cool dimness of the Buddhist temple I’d only previously seen from the outside. A monk in an orange robe appeared in front of me. He smiled, bowed, and motioned for me to follow him to a small room off the main room. I spent the afternoon in that place of peace. The traffic outside was barely audible, the air lightly touched with incense, and the world was a million miles away.

I didn’t know how much time passed before the monk rose effortlessly from the lotus position that he had assumed as soon as we entered the small room. He didn’t look at a watch or clock; he just smiled knowingly and motioned for me to follow him. We stepped into the main room at the exact moment Riley pulled off the road in front of the temple. I bowed to my host, threw my duffel bag on my shoulder, and in seconds I was in the back of the ¾-ton with Whispers heading toward Saigon. We couldn’t get in the front because Captain Petty, The First Sergeant, and Corporal Riley filled the cab of the truck. So much for my tough good byes of the morning, I thought.

I passed all the paperwork I had picked up at the 90th Replacement Battalion through the open rear window, to the First Sergeant. He told me that they would take care of everything. There was another round of goodbyes in front of the house across the street from the pier, despite Riley’s protests that we didn’t have time for all that ‘girl stuff.’ Finally he dumped the clutch and the ¾ ton shot into the traffic of the busy street. I waved until they were out of sight, and then Whispers and I went into the house to await darkness, which would hide our boarding.

The freighter was clean and shipshape, and the Captain and crew were most hospitable. At 0400, we cast off and began moving slowly down the Saigon River. At daybreak, we passed Vung Tau and moved into the South China Sea. After a few hours steaming through a serious chop, I knew that seasickness wouldn’t be a problem for either Whispers or me. That handled the last unknown of the journey.

In Hong Kong, after much bowing and exchanges of gratitude, I left the Thai Freighter and boarded a Scandinavian-registered containership bound for Vancouver, British Columbia. Before I got onboard, I found a hotel with overseas telephone service and placed a call to Minneapolis. The connection wasn’t great, but I didn’t mind. Betty Ann’s father answered the phone, and I asked for her.

“Is this you, Jake?” He asked hesitantly.

“Yes, Mr. Luther, it’s me.”

I could hear the relief in his voice.

“Where are you, son?”

“I’m in Hong Kong, Mr. Luther.”

In the background, I could hear Betty Ann say, “Daddy, Daddy, let me talk to him. You’ll have plenty of time to talk to him when he gets here.

Then she was on the line.

I don’t remember much of that conversation. I told her when the ship would dock in Vancouver, and that I would call her as soon as we were there. Then I said, “Betty Ann, I love you.”

And she said, “Jake, you are my whole world. Tell Whispers hello and, sweetheart, you two travel safe.”

The Norwegians believe in schedules. We slid into our berth within minutes of our published docking time. I passed through Canadian customs as easily as I had gone through every other checkpoint on the trip. As soon as Whispers and I were outside the customs building, I stopped and took a deep breath of the clear Canadian air, and looked to the left for a telephone booth. Whispers whined, and I turned to the right to see what had caught his attention. Thirty feet away and closing on me rapidly was Betty Ann Luther of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

********

Betty Ann’s mother and father, Carolyn and Carl, had driven the fourteen hundred miles from Minneapolis with her. It didn’t take me long to realize that they would have driven to Vietnam for her, if they felt it was necessary.

On the four-day trip back to Minneapolis we talked about everything, while Whispers made himself at home in the back of the Luther’s station wagon. He looked like he had occupied that same spot every day of his life.

Betty Ann told me that, subject to my approval, she had made some plans for us.

“First,” she said, “Captain Cox and Captain Kennedy are handling all the arrangements for a small, double, military wedding at the base chapel at Fort Benning, Georgia.”

“Wait,” I said, “Double means two…”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, Jane and Richard decided to join us. Richard said they would save money that way, but I don’t think that’s the reason.”

We both laughed and I said, “That’s great! Now that part’s cleared up, go ahead.”

She looked at me and smiled, and I didn’t care what was on the schedule as long as we were together. She told me that two days after we got to Minnesota, we were going to fly to Columbus. She added that she had arranged with Delta Airlines for Whispers to join us in the passenger cabin. At that point, Whispers, who I thought was asleep, barked. We laughed.

Breathless, she stared at me and managed to ask, “Well, what do you think, Jake?”

I looked into her eyes and said, “Betty Ann, I think I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”

Now, sitting in our living room, more than thirty years later, I know that I was right.

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.

Another Place - Episode 22

Another Place Another Time

Book One

Jake and Whispers

Episode Twenty-Two

In the next mile, we found three more traps and cleared them. Then Whispers stopped a fourth time. This time was different from any other time in more than fifty patrols. I didn’t have a clue what he had sensed. I waited and then I knew, absolutely knew, that whatever was going to happen was going to happen right then.

Owens said, “How about it, Sarge, which way do you want me to go?”

Before I could answer, Owens disappeared, knocked backwards by an unseen force. I shouted to Whispers, “Down!” And I felt him drop onto his belly. Everything moved into slow motion as I turned toward Owens. That saved my life. Just as I heard the sound of the shot that had hit him, a second round hit me in the left shoulder an inch outside the edge of my flak jacket. The impact knocked me out, and I must have been out for at least a minute. When I came to, Whispers was sitting beside my right shoulder. He was alternately whining softly and licking my face. The LURP medic was holding a pressure bandage on my left shoulder.

I looked at Whispers.

“I thought I told you to get down.”

He barked and licked my face again. Then I realized the medic was talking to me, saying something that I couldn’t understand. I concentrated and heard, “You’re all right, Sarge. It’s a through-and-through. The bandage will stop the bleeding until we get you out of here.”

“What about Owens?” I asked.

The medic laughed, “He’s sitting on the ground behind you trying to trade his c-rations for some cigarettes. His flak jacket stopped the bullet. He’s bruised, but that’s about it.”

I heard a Huey landing nearby and turned my head to see it. It was a Greyhound Gunship and it settled in thirty yards away from us. I saw the word “Boss” on the nose and I knew everything was going to be all right.

The Crew Chief jumped from the helicopter, ran to us, and screamed above the sound of the turbine.

“The Boss said we’ve got to go now. There are VC everywhere.”

Lieutenant Williams knelt beside me and shouted, “Jake, can we keep Whispers with us?”

I heard the headset in the Crew Chief’s helmet come to life just as I told Williams that, if Whispers stayed, I stayed. Then I heard the Crew Chief reporting to the Greyhound Commander, “Sir, the Lieutenant wants to keep Whispers, but Jake said he won’t leave without him.”

Lieutenant Williams and I stared at the Crew Chief who was listening intently to the response.

In seconds, the Crew Chief responded to the Greyhound Commander, “Yes, Sir, I’ll tell the Lieutenant.” He turned to Lieutenant Williams and said, “The Boss said get the Sergeant and the dog on the chopper and get them on right now.”

Williams and the Crew Chief helped me up and half carried me to the chopper. As we moved past the nose of the Huey, running at a flight idle, I glanced toward Colonel Cavanaugh and smiled as best I could. He gave me a thumbs up and then saluted. Williams lifted Whispers onboard, and I crawled in after him.

*******

Four days later, Colonel Cavanaugh and Captain Sprague came to the ISPD with Captain Petty. They found me at the kennel. Colonel Cavanaugh was tall, maybe six foot three or four. He was solid in a way that reminded me of John Wayne. He had close-cropped, prematurely gray hair and pale blue eyes that could look right through you or light up your day. There was an air of confidence about him that told you he was the real deal. He looked at my arm, which was still in a sling.

“Jake,” he said, “I’ll bet you could have traded that for some recovery time in Japan.”

I grinned.

“Yes, Sir, that’s what they told me at the hospital.”

The Colonel laughed and said, “And I’ll bet you didn’t go because they wouldn’t let you take Whispers.”

I just smiled and he looked right in my eyes.

“I understand, Son. I understand.”

We talked on for a while with Whispers right in the middle of us, managing to get more than his share of attention. Then Captain Sprague told me the Greyhounds flew to Vung Tau for parts and supplies almost every day, and he said that if Whispers and I ever needed a ride down all I had to do was let them know. I glanced at Captain Petty who had a knowing grin on his face, and I knew how Colonel Cavanaugh and Captain Sprague had found out about Vung Tau and Betty Ann.

I said, “I’m sure I’ll be taking you up on that, Sir.”

*********

Four days later, with my arm out of the sling and a ten day medical pass in my pocket, Whispers and I took Colonel Cavanaugh up on his offer. We caught a ride with him to Vung Tau. When we landed at the helicopter repair and parts depot, the Colonel told me that when I was ready to go back to Bearcat, all I had to do was get one of the supply officers to radio the Greyhounds, and they’d send a chopper for me. I thanked him and headed for the Red Cross Office.

A clerk told me that Betty Ann and the rest of the Doughnut Dollies were working at Tay Ninh and should be back within the hour. I waited and for once a Vietnam schedule was right. Betty Ann walked through the door fifty minutes later, saw Whispers and me and jumped into my arms. I winced and she quickly stepped back a half step but kept her hands lightly on my shoulders.

“What’s the matter, Jake?” Betty Ann asked.

“We need to talk,” I replied.

We went to the Red Cross mess hall where we sat in the corner and talked quietly for the rest of the afternoon. I proposed and she said yes. I asked if she had signed up for another tour and she had not. She told me she wouldn’t do that without talking to me first. I told her exactly what had happened on the last patrol. I explained how I knew that Whispers could take care of us on regular patrols; he’d proven that for over a year and a half. However, on tracking jobs, there was no way anyone could protect us from snipers, and the odds were that one would take us out one day. I took both her hands in mine and looked in her eyes.

“Betty Ann, it’s time for the three of us to leave this place.”

She smiled and said, “I know, Jake. Let’s do it.”

Whispers barked.

I told her how I planned to leave and take Whispers with me and I told her that it might take us a couple of months or longer to get home. She told me she would be home in a less than a month and she gave me her parents’ address and phone number.

“Jake,” she said as she slipped her hands into mine, “I’ll be there waiting for you two no matter how long it takes you to get there.”

Then we kissed, which got a round of applause from a group of Doughnut Dollies who had come into the mess hall, unnoticed by Betty Ann and me.

********

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.

Another Place Episode 21

Another Place Another Time

Book One

Jake and Whispers

Episode Twenty-One

I was over half way through my second tour and considering signing up for a third since Riley, The First Sergeant, and Captain Petty had just done so. Betty Ann was also considering a third tour.

For over a year, I had been saving up for the time when Whispers and I would get out of Vietnam together. Money wasn’t the issue, cash was. It was against regulations for U.S. military personnel to have U.S. dollars, but I was going to need cash when it came time for us to leave. Every month I would give Riley $500 of my pay and the First Sergeant, somehow, had it converted from military script to U.S. currency. Riley kept exact records and insisted on giving me a receipt even though I trusted him implicitly. A couple of days after I gave him the military script, the First Sergeant would call me to the orderly room where he handed me five hundred dollars, in cash. Riley would then take a sealed envelope, containing my stockpiled cash, from the safe, and hand it to me. I opened the envelope, counted the money, added the five hundred, and placed all the cash in a new envelope. After I sealed it, I recorded the new total on the back, signed it, and gave it to Riley who returned it to the safe. Currently, the figure scrawled on the back of the envelope was $8,500. It was an easy way to convert script to dollars, and it didn’t cost me anything. I didn’t think much about it beyond knowing that I had more than enough cash to get Whispers and me home when we were ready to leave.

********

In our twenty months in Vietnam, Whispers and I had been on more than fifty missions with the LURPs, and we hadn’t had a single serious incident since the first one. The monsoon season, which slowed the war down for about four months every year, had been over for a month and the war had shifted back to its normal high-level of activity. We had just come in from a three-day patrol the previous afternoon, and I expected at least a five-day stand down. I was outside the kennel cleaning my gear with water and a stiff scrub brush. Whispers was being a general nuisance, pulling the newly cleaned, wet gear off the worktable and dragging it through the mud. As I was recovering some of the items from him, Riley came running up.

“Sarge,” he said, “Get your gear together. I’ll get your ammo and rations from Ferguson. Division needs a tracker and handler right now.”

In our year and a half in country, we had not done any tracker work, which suited me fine, because trackers ran the risk of snipers — a danger scout dogs and handlers seldom faced.

Ten minutes later, we were in the ¾-ton with Riley, headed for the staging area. As Riley intently watched the road and drove three times faster than the posted speed limit, he explained what was going on.

“The two infantry companies inserted after your last patrol engaged a large group of Viet Cong. The VC out-manned and in open country, broke contact and went into full retreat. Now the infantry can’t find them and neither can the choppers. They want you and Whispers to track them down.”

I had a bad feeling about the mission, but there was nothing we could do except to go and do the best we could. I felt Whispers looking at me and I looked down at him. Our gazes locked, and I knew he had the same feeling.

The LURPS, led by Lieutenant Williams, was the same team we’d been with earlier in the week. When Whispers and I approached, the Lieutenant said, “There’s just no rest for the weary, Jake.”

“That’s for sure,” I agreed.

“Did anyone tell you what was going on?”

“Yes, Sir. Riley briefed us.”

At that moment three Greyhound Slicks and two Mad Dog gunships settled into the staging area making further conversation impossible.

We loaded up on the lead Mad Dog gunship and in less than twenty minutes we flew over the Landing Zone used for the troop insertion. Minutes later we flew over a large group of 9th Division Infantry moving slowly southward through the thick grass on the edge of a sparse jungle. The Lieutenant pointed at the men on the ground and shouted above the noise of the rotor blades, “That’s the company that routed the VC. We’re going to land a quarter of a mile in front of them. You and Whispers pick up the trail of the VC and track them. We’ll guide the infantry as we go.”

I nodded that I understood.

We landed, unloaded, and the Greyhounds took off, leaving us alone in the stillness that always follows the departure of a flight of helicopters.

Immediately Lieutenant Williams was on the radio to the commander of the ground troops. When he finished talking, he turned to me.

“Jake, they think the VC stayed in the cover of the grass and continued moving south. It’s up to you and Whispers to find them. Keep moving as fast as possible, but I’d just as soon not walk into a trap.”

I laughed and said, “You can be sure that’s not high on our list of things to do either, Lieutenant.”

Williams told Corporal Owens, the point man, that we would be leading the way, something that only happens in a tracking situation. He positioned the Corporal five feet to my left and I looked at Whispers and said, “OK, let’s go, Boy.” Whispers whined softly, then set off at a pace much faster than normal. My feeling of unease grew by the minute, and I knew that Whispers felt the same.

It’s hard to describe, but the feeling I had wasn’t fear. It was more like a feeling that something was going to happen and nothing could change it. The only respite in our pace came when Whispers found three hastily set up traps in the first mile. We easily avoided them, but I knew from their sloppy construction, the VC were in full-out retreat, and that we were close and gaining. I also knew, at the first opportunity, they would leave one or more snipers to protect their withdrawal. Fear would have been a normal response, I suppose, but frankly there was no time for it. I felt the tension in the air, and I sensed that every one of the LURPs felt it. Whispers probably felt it more than any of us.

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.

Another Place - Episode 20

Another Place Another Time

Book One

Jake and Whispers

Episode Twenty

Whispers and I had come in the previous afternoon from a four-day patrol with the LURPS. I got up early, even though I didn’t have to. I bathed Whispers and cleaned my gear at the same time. I’d discovered that was the only way to avoid multiple cleanings of both the gear and the dog. I finished at 0900 and checked with the First Sergeant to see if he had a patrol scheduled for us. He said we were clear for at least twenty-four hours, and he gave me an overnight pass to go to Vung Tau.

Vung Tau, on the shore of the South China Sea, is a resort town and has been for as long as anyone can remember. During the war, It was an in-country R&R center for both Allied forces and Viet Cong. There was never any violence there during my time in Vietnam, though that changed in the final years of the war.

I found Betty Ann at the Red Cross office and couldn’t get the grin off my face when she told me that she was free until 0800 the following day. We walked to town, had giant prawns at a delightful restaurant overlooking the ocean and then walked on the beach until almost midnight. It was hard to believe that a war was raging within miles of us.

I got the duty sergeant at the transit barracks to wake me at 0600 so I could have breakfast with Betty Ann at the Red Cross mess hall. After breakfast, I helped the group load their deuce and a half and watched them drive away, waving until they were out of sight. Then, Whispers and I walked to the Helicopter Supply Depot to hitch a ride back to Bearcat.

We hadn’t been waiting long when ten Greyhound Slicks landed on the depot helipad. Instead of shutting down like they normally did, the door gunner and crew chief from each chopper jumped out while the pilot and copilot kept the ships running at a flight idle. I stopped one of the crew chiefs that I knew and asked if I could hitch a ride with them. A funny look crossed his face and he pointed toward the first chopper and said, “Jake, you’ll have to ask Captain Sprague.”

I thought that was unusual because the crew chief knows all the details of their daily missions and normally decides who rides and who doesn’t. However, I ran to the front of the ship. Sprague saw me and motioned for me to open his door. There is a bulletproof shield on the sides of both the pilot and copilot’s seats located in a position that is almost impossible for them to reach. I opened the door and slid the Captain’s shield back. He motioned for me to lean in close, since the engine was running at a flight idle, making normal conversation impossible. I stood on the skid, leaned close to his ear, and shouted, “Whispers and I need a ride back to Bearcat. Can we go with you?

He hesitated, surprising me. I’d known Sprague and all the Greyhounds since I first arrived in country. He looked at me and held up one finger signaling he needed a minute. He keyed his radio transmitter and said something I couldn’t hear. He waited a couple of minutes for a response. When it came, he listened intently, then looked at me and said, “Jake, the Boss says you can ride with us, but you have to forget the stop we’re going to make on the way.”

I smiled and said, “No problem, Sir.”

I thought they were going to a massage parlor in Saigon, and I figured that would give Whispers and me a chance to catch up on some of the sleep we’d lost the night before. In a few minutes the crewmen returned, each of them carrying two five-gallon cans of potable water. Sprague’s crew chief asked if I were going with them.

When I told him I was, he said, “That’s good. Make yourself useful by tying down these jerry cans. We’ll be back in a minute with twelve more.”

A few minutes later, we were airborne. Strapped inside each chopper was eighty gallons of potable water in five-gallon cans. I looked at the jerry cans of water and realized that we probably weren’t going to a massage parlor or any other place that I could imagine, so I didn’t try. I figured I’d know soon enough.

We flew just off the surface of the river heading toward Saigon, some forty-five miles upstream. I guess we’d traveled about ten miles when we turned toward the southern shore and flew through a break in the trees and over a line of rice paddies. I looked through the windscreen between Sprague and the copilot and did a double take. I’d seen many strange sights in Vietnam, but none of them were close to what I saw that day. There was an airplane of some kind sitting right in the middle of a rice paddy directly in front of us. It was bright silver, like a new dime. It had short stubby delta wings and a tall tail. There was an open hatch on the roof and, as we landed, Colonel Cavanaugh came out of the hatch.

I turned and grabbed the crew chief’s arm. He grinned, leaned close, and shouted, “Yeah, I know. That’s why I couldn’t okay you riding with us.”

Colonel Cavanaugh directed the unloading of the water. The crewmen quickly carried the jerry cans to the aircraft where the crews of the gunships were waiting to pass them, from man-to-man, up to the man standing on the top of the airplane, next to the hatch. He looked like any other guy in Vietnam except for his uniform, which was a strange one-piece, shiny overall of some sort. There was an insignia on his left breast pocket, but it was unfamiliar to me. He took each can of water and carefully poured it into what I assumed to be a filler tube of some kind, in a recessed port next to the hatch.

He worked tirelessly and, in half an hour or so, he had emptied all the water cans into the airplane. He shouted down to Colonel Cavanaugh, “I’m going to see if it will start, Colonel,” then he added, “It might be a good idea to have everyone move back.”

The Colonel didn’t have to repeat the suggestion to us. We immediately backed away from the aircraft.

Within seconds, lights appeared all around the perimeter of the ship and without a sound, it lifted six or seven feet into the air. Immediately a ramp lowered from the underside of the craft and extended to the ground, coming to rest on the dike at the edge of the rice paddy. The man in silver overalls walked down the ramp, leaving his airplane silently hovering over the rice paddy.

He walked up to Colonel Cavanaugh. I was close enough to hear him say, “Colonel, I can’t thank you enough for getting me back in the air. I know I’m taking a risk staying here, but I’d like to take a few minutes to explain to all of your men what I’ve told you so they’ll understand why it is critical that they never mention what they’ve seen here.”

Colonel Cavanaugh agreed that was a good idea. He turned to Captain Sprague and said, “Billy, would you get everyone up here for a minute?”

Charlie sat down on the dike and we gathered in a semi-circle around him. When we’d settled down, Charlie said, “Gentlemen, my name is Charlie Evans. It’s important that you never mention what you’ve done and seen here today. For that to make sense to you, I think that you need to know why I’m here, so I’m going to tell you.”

Someone shouted, “That proves you’re not in the Army.” Everyone laughed which lightened things up some.

Charlie continued, “That’s a good place to start. You’re right, I’m not Army. I’m NASA or at least what NASA will become in eighty years.”

He paused and pointed to the patch on his left breast pocket, the only insignia on the uniform.

“The initials on my uniform, the letters ‘ASA’, mean Aeronautical and Space Administration. The word ‘national’ is missing because I’m from another place in time. To be exact, my home is eighty years in the future where there are no countries and there is only one government overseeing everything. That was the only way that humans could survive. There are no wars in my time, and I have an idea that you can see the advantage of that.”

Everyone laughed.

“Science and technology have advanced far beyond your time. It had to, because we were facing some major challenges. The most pressing ones were pollution and exhausting all fossil fuel supplies. Those issues united the world when everything else failed. With everyone on the planet working together for the good of all, we’ve found ways to neutralize the pollution and return the atmosphere and the land to the state it was ten thousand years ago. You’d find what we’ve done to clean up the earth, most impressive. We’ve also found sources of power that are clean, cheap, renewable, and readily available. You’ve just seen one of them.”

He pointed to his aircraft and then to the empty jerry cans stacked beside the dike.

“All of our aircraft, in fact all of our engines, run on water.”

One of the copilots seated near Charlie said, “There’s no profit in that.”

Charlie smiled and said, “You’re right, there is no profit in that. In fact, in my time, there is no profit in anything, but that’s a story we don’t have time for today. However, there is something for which we must take time.”

He paused and looked the group over. When he was sure that he had everyone’s attention, he continued.

“We’ve had the ability to travel throughout the galaxy and even beyond for many years. We theorized that we could use that technology to travel through time, but we avoided it because of the risks we felt it might entail. Then something happened that made it necessary for us to try.”

He paused and there wasn’t a sound from anyone.

“All the animals on earth stopped reproducing. No matter what we tried nothing worked. Within fifteen years there were only a handful of mammals left on the planet and now there are none.”

He paused, looked at Whispers and said, “That’s the first real dog I’ve ever seen.” Then he looked at me and asked if he could pet him.

I looked at Whispers and asked, “What about it?”

He barked sharply and I turned loose of his lead. He went straight to Charlie and licked him in the face. Everyone laughed, with Charlie laughing the loudest. Then Whispers sat down beside him and Charlie put both arms around him and buried his face in the big dog’s neck. No one said a word. We could feel Charlie’s pain. Whispers sat perfectly still until Charlie regained his composure.

A minute or so later, he straightened, keeping one arm around Whispers, as he spoke. “You can’t imagine what life is like without the animals, and you don’t even want to think about it. That’s why we decided to travel back in time and see if we could find out what went wrong, to see if we could discover why the animals decided to stop reproducing. We believe that if we can discover the reason, we might be able to prevent its ever happening. We know that’s tinkering with time, but the stakes are too high not to try,” He paused, looked at each of us and then added, “That, gentlemen, is why I’m here. Well, it’s not why I crashed in the rice paddy. I’m only here today to check the equipment and its ability to travel in time, but it seems that it takes more water to move through time than it does to move through space, and I ran out of water.”

Someone laughed but not many joined in. I think we were all thinking about life without animals, and no one found it a comforting thought.

“Anyway,” Charlie said, “I hope you see how important it is that you forget what you’ve seen today. I know it won’t be easy, but it is critical that you keep this secret.”

Colonel Cavanaugh stood as if on cue. Hands on hips, he faced us and said, “Gentlemen, I can order you not to say anything about this, but that won’t do any good unless you see why you have to keep this secret. Do you understand?”

To a man, everyone responded affirmatively. Cavanaugh said to Charlie, “You’re dealing with the Greyhounds. You can count on us.”

Then he pointed toward Whispers and me and said, “They’re with us. You can count on them, too.”

Whispers barked.

Cavanaugh nodded to Sprague and the Captain called out, “Okay, secure the jerry cans and let’s get ready to ride.”

In seconds, there was no one near Charlie, Whispers, and me. Charlie put his arm around Whispers’s neck one more time, and Whispers licked him in the mouth again. Charlie laughed, and I joined in. Then he stood, he said, softly, “We’ve got to figure this out. Somehow we’ve just got to do it.”

He patted Whispers’s head and shook my hand.

“You’ll figure it out, Charlie. Just hang in there.”

As the Greyhound choppers were nearing flight idle, Charlie took one more look at Whispers then turned and walked up the ramp. Within seconds, his aircraft lifted straight up faster than any plane or helicopter I’d ever seen. Then, it disappeared into the light cloud cover.

Twenty minutes later, we landed at Bearcat. For the rest of my time in Vietnam, I never heard a single mention of the events of that day. As for me, I didn’t even tell Betty Ann.

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.

Another Place - Episode 19

Another Place Another Time

Book One

Ben Cavanaugh

Episode Nineteen

I’m a graduate of West Point. I finished fifth in my class and should have been a General, or at the least a full Colonel at this point in my career, rather than a Lieutenant Colonel. I’m not complaining, mind you. In fact, I’d not change anything that I’ve done, if it were possible to do so. I enjoy being the commander of the Greyhounds, even though transferring me to the National Guard from my regular Army command at Fort Rucker was the Army’s way of letting me know that the Army way took precedent over the right way. I understand that, and still I opt for the right way. So, when I told Charlie that his secret was safe, I meant it, because in my gut I knew that it was the right thing to do.

Charlie told me that his aircraft ran on pure water. He saw the disbelief on my face and assured me, “I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true. When you and your men first saw me, I was getting water from the river, and that’s why I crashed.”

“Wait a minute, Charlie; you said it ran on water.”

“That’s right, it does. The problem is, the engine needs a level of water purity that, obviously, is quite a bit higher than the water in the river.”

“The dozens of freighters that move up and down the river every day are enough to pollute it, without taking anything else into consideration,” I said.

“Well, be that as it may,” he said, “My problem is, I need purer water to get it airborne. Can you help me?”

“How much do you need?”

“Five or six hundred gallons, at least,” he said hopefully.

I did some quick calculations and told him that was doable. I asked my crew chief to get Captain Sprague, the flight commander. I told Charlie that we could get potable water in five-gallon jerry cans, and I figured we could get eight hundred gallons as easily as we could get five hundred. He said that would work.

Just then, Sprague walked up beside me. I told him to take the flight of ten Slicks to the helicopter supply depot in Vung Tau and pick up the water. I cautioned him not say a word to anyone about the aircraft, and to make sure that everyone in the flight understood that.

“And, Sprague,” I added, “Get back as quickly as you can.”

He didn’t ask a single question. He just said, “Yes, Sir,” and he was gone.

Charlie said that he would drain the water that he had just picked up and I told him that would help speed the “refueling.” I added that, to be on the safe side, I was going to put two of the gunships in the air to patrol the area. I got the two in the air and told the other two to shut down but to continue monitoring the radio for calls from Sprague and the gunships. Then I went back to Charlie’s aircraft.

Charlie had disappeared inside. In moments, I heard water being discharged on the opposite side of the aircraft.

“Charlie,” I called out, “is it all right if I come up?”

I heard his voice, muffled, but understandable, “Sure, Colonel, come on aboard.”

I found him in the pilot’s seat looking at the dead console. I pointed toward the solid wall above the console and asked, “Charlie, how do you see out?”

He laughed and said, “When the engine is running, which isn’t the case at the moment, I touch this button.”

As he spoke, he pointed to a button on top of the control stick mounted on the armrest of his chair.

“Current goes through the fuselage and changes its molecular structure and the entire skin of the aircraft becomes transparent. However, looking at it from the outside there is no change.”

All I could say was, “Wow!”

Then I said something a bit more intelligent. “When is this technology going to be in the field?”

Charlie slowly turned toward me, looked into my eyes, and said, “Colonel, you’re never going to see it in the field. You see, I’m from a different time than yours. My home is eighty years in the future.”

That explained the appearance of his plane and the insignia on his uniform that I’d never seen, and, as crazy as it might sound to you, I knew without a doubt that it was true.

“Mind if I sit down?” I asked.

He pointed to the copilot’s chair and said, “Help yourself.”

I sat down as he said, “Let me give you a brief explanation of how I got here and why I’m here.”

He explained the condition of earth in his time and briefly told me of the corrective actions they had set up. The bottom line is, he told me an unbelievable story, and I believed every word of it.

Charlie had just finished talking when my crew chief shouted “Sir! Sir, Captain Sprague is on the radio for you.”

I climbed up the ladder and out on to the fuselage. I called down to him, “What does he want?”

“Sir, Captain Sprague said that Jake, the Scout Dog Handler, and his dog, Whispers, want to hitch a ride back to Bearcat with him.”

I thought about that for a few seconds and told him to tell Captain Sprague that they could ride if they agreed to forget about the stop they were going to make and everything he saw.

I went back into the cockpit of the aircraft, and Charlie gave me more details about technological advances as well as the political and environmental conditions eighty years in the future. I marveled at how quickly I accepted the idea of time travel. We talked for thirty minutes or so, but it seemed more like two or three. Then we heard Sprague and the rest of the flight settling into the open area beside Charlie’s aircraft.

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.

Another Place - Episode 18

Another Place Another Time

Book One

Ben Cavanaugh

Episode Eighteen

My name is Ben Cavanaugh. I’m the commanding officer of the 240th Assault Helicopter Company, better known as the Greyhounds. The Greyhounds are unique in a number ways. For starters, the Greyhounds are only one of two National Guard units serving in Vietnam, and of the two, we are the only one that volunteered. There are many men and women in Vietnam, who volunteered to serve, but we are the only unit that volunteered, and we volunteered to a man. Our home base is Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama. We’ve been in Vietnam for over a year now, assigned to the 214th Combat Aviation Battalion, based at Camp Bearcat, the headquarters of the 9th Infantry Division. The Battalion’s primary responsibility is flying support for the 9th.

The second unique point about the Greyhounds is the name itself. In Vietnam, aviation units pick a name for their company, design a logo, and paint it on each of their choppers. When we arrived in country, the battalion had named itself “The Cougars” and the commanding officer’s Huey had a cougar’s head painted on the nose.

There were only two companies in the battalion when we arrived. One of them, a Chinook company, called themselves “The Pachyderms.” The Pachyderms had a crew chief who was a great artist and he painted the head of a charging elephant on the nose of each of the company’s Chinooks. The other company named themselves “The Boomerangs.” They claimed to have picked that name because boomerangs always come back. However, rumor had it they chose it because they didn’t have an artist, and anyone could paint a boomerang on a helicopter.

Since our unit had been together a long time, I decided to make it a group decision. I’m not sure that it was a group decision, since the name chosen was the one suggested by the First Sergeant who, in most ways, had more power in the company than I did. Immediately after we selected Greyhound as our name, we determined that no one in the company could draw a Greyhound, much less paint one on the side and nose of a helicopter.

That’s when the First Sergeant came up with a fantastic idea. He wrote the CEO of The Greyhound Corporation and told him our predicament. To make a long story short, The Greyhound Corporation adopted us and supplied us with enough of their Greyhound Bus decals for each of our choppers. With a small Greyhound decal on the nose of each helicopter and a larger one on each side, the unit was identifiable, which, I think, went a long way toward making us legends, or at least notorious. The Greyhound Corporation even designed a special sign for our orderly room. It read, “Go Greyhound and leave the flying to us.”

The Greyhound Corporation featured us in an issue of their monthly magazine. AP and UPI picked up the article, and it appeared in hundreds of newspapers across the country. The publicity further increased our notoriety and produced packages of food and letters from all over the country.

Our primary job is ferrying 9th Division troops to and from the field, missions simply called insertions and extractions. We’d spent the morning I’m writing about inserting two companies of infantry into a Landing Zone thirty miles south of Bearcat. Just before noon, we finished and were clear of assignments for the rest of the day.

We had fourteen choppers committed to the operation: four heavily armed Hueys, called gunships, and ten slicks, lightly armed, stripped-down Hueys for transporting troops. Anxious to get back to Bearcat, I violated a couple of basic navigational rules. The first rule was, unless actively involved in a ground operation, aircraft must maintain at least 1,500 feet of altitude when flying in Vietnam. The second rule was, when flying cross-country use charts and navigational aids, never follow the course of a river.

We were flying just off the surface of the Saigon River at something over 100 knots. I suppose it was dangerous, but not as dangerous as it might seem, and besides, it was fun. At one hundred knots, the sound of our engines was behind us, so it was next to impossible for the Viet Cong to ambush us, since we’d be on top of them before they could fire a single shot. On the other hand, there was a real danger of flying into a River Patrol Boat or some other watercraft. I was flying the lead ship. The rest of the flight was behind me in V formation when we rounded one of the tightest bends in the river.

My focus on the surface of the river saved us from a collision, not with a ship, but with the strangest airplane, I’d ever seen. The pear-shaped aircraft was about forty feet long from nose to tail. It had short, stubby delta wings and a tall slender rudder. The entire fuselage was metal with no visible windscreen or windows. It was facing toward us, hovering about ten feet above the surface of the river with a pipe or hose extended into the water.

I only had a second to look, because it was blocking our path, and avoiding a collision with it was my immediate priority. I screamed into my microphone, “UP!” And the entire flight jumped off the surface of the river. Since I was closest to the aircraft, I gained the least amount of altitude before clearing it. Later my door gunner told me he could have stepped out onto it, as we passed over.

As soon as I realized that we had avoided hitting the aircraft, I put my gunship in a tight left hand turn. I had to know what I had almost collided with. As I came out of the turn, I saw the pipe withdraw into the belly of the aircraft, and it began to rise straight up. I opened the throttle and dropped nearer to the surface of the river hoping to gain enough speed to get a closer look before it was gone. The aircraft rose less than a hundred feet and began to wobble and lose altitude. It fell about twenty feet, before it regained some forward motion and began moving toward the shore. It was still losing altitude at an alarming rate.

There was a break in the tree line directly ahead of the aircraft, but I wasn’t sure it could reach it. Somehow, it managed to clear the rise at the edge of the river with me and the rest of the Greyhounds in hot pursuit. We followed it through the break in the trees. It came to a skidding halt in the middle of a large rice paddy, surrounded by a half dozen other rice paddies. There was no house in the area and no one was working in any of the rice paddies. I guessed they belonged to a nearby hamlet.

We landed in an open area next to the rice paddy where the aircraft had come to rest. I ordered everyone to hold at a flight idle until I could check it out. My crew chief and I walked toward the aircraft. There was no sign of smoke or flames, and it didn’t appear damaged in any way. As we neared it, a hatch opened in the roof and a man climbed out. He was average height with blond hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a single-piece flight suit made of a shiny silver material. He looked like everyone’s idea of the all-American boy. He confirmed that assessment by flashing a wide grin, waving, and calling out, “Hi, thanks for stopping.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just waved back.

He climbed down from what I assumed to be an escape hatch by using steps so neatly built into the fuselage that they weren’t visible from a few feet away. He came directly to me, extended his hand, and said, “I’m Charlie Evans. I hope I didn’t scare you back there.”

“I’m Ben Cavanaugh,” I laughed, “and, frankly, I didn’t have enough time to be scared.”

We both laughed, and he turned toward his aircraft.

“Ben, I’m in a big mess here, and I could use your help.”

“If we can help, we will,” I said. “What’s the matter with it?”

“Before I tell you that, I’ve got to tell you that this is an experimental aircraft, top secret, and all of that.”

“I can see that.”

“What I’m getting at is, neither you nor any of your men can talk about anything you see or anything we do.”

At no time did I think Charlie was an enemy. It never crossed my mind to report the incident - not in the moment that he told me the aircraft was top secret, and certainly not after he explained who he was and where he was from.

“I understand,” I said, “and you can be sure that we’ll never mention the incident. Besides, we were violating a couple of rules by flying low and over the river. So we couldn’t say anything, if we wanted to.”

I didn’t have the authority to tell Charlie that we would keep his secret. I’m bound, as an Army officer, to report unusual incidents, but a minor infraction of regulations was of no concern to me. I just told Charlie that so he would feel safer about taking me into his confidence.

There is something far more important to me than following Army regulations to the letter. That something is the reason that I am a National Guard officer, rather than a regular Army officer. That something is an ingrained belief in doing what my father called the right thing. I don’t mean that in the normal sense of right versus wrong. I mean simply doing what you know is the right thing at any given moment. My commitment to the right thing is unwavering, even though in the world of politics and bureaucracies, it hasn’t served me very well.

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.

Another Place - Episode 17

Another Place Another Time

Book One

Jake and Whispers

Episode Seventeen

The following day, I got a letter from James Beck. James was a family friend and he had been my parents’ attorney for as long as I could remember. He expressed his condolences for my loss and then told me that my parents had left everything to me: the store, the house, and some commercial rental property in Valdosta. He told me that he could continue to run the store with existing employees and manage the business for me, or he could liquidate everything. He asked me to write as soon as possible and let him know my wishes in the matter.

I wrote that evening and directed him to liquidate everything. A month later I received a statement from him saying that he had sold everything and deposited almost $600,000.00 in my saving account, after deducting his fees. He included the deposit slip and my savings account record book.

I asked Whispers what he thought about extending for another tour, and he had said it was fine with him. I understood. Scouting was all we knew, and there was no demand for it outside Vietnam. The following day, I asked Riley to put together the paperwork to extend both my enlistment and my Vietnam tour by twelve months

Betty Ann had been in-country for almost a year. Like GIs, that was a full tour for Doughnut Dollies. She was a recent college graduate who wanted to do something that mattered and found Red Cross service as a Doughnut Dolly the perfect way to fulfill that wish. Unlike her friends, Betty Ann had decided to stay in Vietnam for twelve more months. A month earlier, she had begun her second tour.

We only had a few minutes to talk that day, because in two hours her group was flying to a remote firebase where they would serve coffee, doughnuts, and smiles. I stayed until she left and, even though I had no experience with girls, I felt like she was as interested in me as I was in her.

For the next eleven months, Whispers and I took every available opportunity to get to Vung Tau for a day, sometimes two. Since Betty Ann never knew where she would be in time to let me know, Whispers and I made some trips when we only saw her for a few minutes. We didn’t care; seeing her for just a second sure beat not seeing her at all.

A thirty day, non-chargeable leave, came with the extension. The leave could be taken anywhere in the world, with transportation provided by the military. I chose not to go anywhere, since I didn’t want to leave Whispers.

Instead, Whispers and I went to Vung Tau, for an extended in-country R&R (rest and recuperation). We spent five days and six nights there, mostly walking on the beach beside the South China Sea. We spent the nights at the transit personnel barracks which was always empty since the GIs who came to Vung Tau for a three-day, in-country R&R stayed in the massage parlors or brothels in downtown Vung Tau.

On our last day in Vung Tau, I decided to go for one more walk on the beach. Whispers decided to do something else, something that changed our lives, again.

We left the barracks, walking toward the main gate. I turned down a couple of rides as we walked, since walking wasn’t an issue for either of us. It was what we did for a living. Besides, it was refreshing to walk in a place where we didn’t have to watch for trip wires and booby traps.

We were close to the main gate when I noticed several men moving quickly across the road ahead of us. They were heading into the company area of what appeared to be a medical company. When we got to the place where they had crossed the road, Whispers, who normally stayed by my side, made a sharp right turn and began following the men toward something I couldn’t see. Attached to his lead, I naturally followed.

Since he’d never done that before, I was curious and didn’t put up any resistance. He made another sharp right in front of a row of ambulances, and I saw something that I’d only heard of from Riley and a few other fortunate souls.

In the middle of a small, otherwise empty parking area, was a deuce-and-a-half. Not an ordinary, olive drab, U.S. Army deuce-and-a-half, but a solid white version with a large red cross painted on the door and a gleaming white canvas roof over the rear. There were long tables beside the truck and on each table there was a 30-gallon coffee canister and boxes and boxes of fresh doughnuts. Two Doughnut Dollies were behind each table serving coffee and doughnuts to a large gathering of troops who had appeared from nowhere.

I stood in shock for a moment, until Whispers started moving again. This time he headed directly for the table on the end. There were two young women behind the table…at least I think there were two. I saw only one—Betty Ann Luther from Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Whispers didn’t take a place in line. He never was much for lines. He went around the table, sat down beside Betty Ann, and whined. She looked down at him and laughed. I can still close my eyes and run that scene in my mind.

She turned directly toward Whispers, put her hands on her hips, and said, “Didn’t I see you break in line, Soldier?”

Whispers barked.

“Yes, that’s just what I thought. Do you want a doughnut that badly?”

He barked again. She took a doughnut from the tray in front of her and held it near Whispers’s mouth.

“It’s all right. You can have it,” she said.

Then wonder of wonders, he took it as daintily as an English gentleman taking a cake at high tea. We both laughed. Whispers swallowed the donut whole and barked, as I fell in love for the second time.

I sat beside the deuce-and-a-half, behind the table where Betty Ann was serving coffee and doughnuts and the most dazzling smile that had ever seen. When the coffee and doughnuts ran out, and the men wandered away, Betty Ann and her colleagues started packing up. I helped, and while we were breaking the tables down and packing the truck, Betty Ann and I talked as best we could. With everything loaded, she told her supervisor that she would walk back to their barracks.

The Red Cross office and barracks were at least a mile away, but we walked it in what seemed like ten seconds. It must have been longer than that because when we got there I knew her name, where she was from, how long she had been in Vietnam, when she was going home, and, best of all, I had her address.

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.