Vietnam II: A War Novel Episode 2 (V2) Read Free Page A

Berets?”
    They ignored the question, but stopped to look at each other and smile.
    “We cannot guarantee your safety, but you will be with the three of us and some of the best operators in the world.”
    “You will be doing your country a great service.”
    “I guess I’m in.”
    “You guess?  Are you in or not?”  Jeff asked.
    “I’m in.”
    And that is how I joined Black Ops.
     

Lieutenant Colonel Paul Adams
    State Department
    Washington D.C.
     
    The thing may have died then and there.  At least it would not have come to violence.  Seeing how things turned out it would have been better if it had. 
    Oil prices were rising with Iraq’s refusal to retreat from Kuwait.  Americans were feeling it in their wallets.  The protesters in September thinned out to about half the number of the month before.  The cable news, which was new to all of us, was the only thing keeping the Thailand Box story alive.
    We started to get the feeling that the whole thing was going to go away.  It’s not like we had not rattled a hollow sabre before.
    We still would have looked for the POWs.  If they were found the military would have slipped some operators across the border and like many of the hotspots in the world it would have been a Spec Ops show.  Using Big Green and Big Blue and Big Navy to solve this was going to leave a lot of people dead and broken hearted. 
    I could feel it.
    It was our old enemies that hammered the final nail in the coffin for Vietnam.  Poor Vietnam.  With a friend like Russia who needs enemies like America.  Out of some kind of ill executed Glasnost the Russian ambassador showed up at the White House on September 11th.
    He brought with him what would be known as the 1205 Document.  From the bowels of some shitty archive in Moscow a Soviet researcher found a report by a senior Vietnamese military officer.  Addressed to the Vietnamese Communist Party, the 1205 document claimed that in September of 1972 the Vietnamese were holding 1205 US POWs.  This was five months before Operation Homecoming where 591 POWs were released.
    Simple math revealed that the 1405 Document claimed that 614 other living US POWs were still alive as of 1972.
    This document gave Congress, the President and the public the war they ended up with.
    The next day the WAR NOW group was made public.  All of the protestors had been united and now marched under one flag.  They were led by a lot of the activists that protested the first Vietnam War.  Former antiwar advocates, retired military and former POWs were seen in their ranks. 
    It was Goddamn bizarre.
    CIA and military said POW existence “questionable” based on the evidence up until the 1205 document.  With Russian ambassador revelations, the status was changed to “probable.”
    Two days later it was C-day.
     

Lieutenant Colonel Carol Madison
    Air Force Intelligence Officer
    Defense Intelligence Agency
     
    C-Day was the day that the President committed forces to the recovery of American POWs in Vietnam.  I was in San Antonio on leave when the announcement was made.  Every television in every bar and restaurant on the Riverwalk was tuned to the President’s address.
    “Is Cuba or North Korea next?”  The cable news channels asked.
    Listening to the President lean the country forward for another armed conflict in Indochina made me think of a conversation I had sat through the week before.  We were briefing some NATO officers who were interested in the POW issue.
    “Are airstrikes next?” the NATO representative asked.
    “Beyond the embargo we have no plans for any military action at this time.”  My commander explained.
    We might not have any plans, but it was on everyone’s minds.
    It felt like the Cuban Missile Crisis all over again.  We were back to the John F. Kennedy rules of projecting national power.  His best move was embargo.  Worked beautifully against the Cubans.  Against North Vietnam, not so much.
    And here we were doing it