At some point we noticed an old man going down river
alone in a small boat. It was hard to tell his age;
I would guess somewhere in his 60's-ancient by Vietnamese
living standards. We yelled at him "lai dai", "lai dai",
"come here", "come here". The PF's with us did the same
thing. He seemed to be ignoring us. What? Ignore
Americans? How dare he do such a thing! That instantly
made us hate him no matter what happened after that.
We contacted CACO and had the PF's do the same with their
superiors at Hoi An.
After what seemed like several minutes CACO came back
on the radio and to our surprise told us in the clear
to "blow him away". I still remember my cold and precise
answer- "Roger that". That's all I said. It meant no
more to me that I was about to kill a human being than
opening a can of C-rations. As I raised my weapon our
PF's began to argue with us. They were very upset because
of what was about to happen. Looking back they were the
only ones showing any kind of rational thinking. Of course
I didn't want to hear anything they had to say. After
all, who was in charge here? We Americans that's who!!
By the time I was through arguing and pushed the PF's
aside the old man had gone around a bend in the river.
We no longer had a clear shot at him. That made us even
more upset. I emptied several magazines in his general
direction and Sandy lobbed a few blooper rounds his way.
We may have gotten lucky(?) and killed him by sheer accident.
I'll never know. I do know that I would have killed
that old man and watched his body float down stream if
I had gotten a clear shot. And knowing what I would have
done has haunted me all these years.
That old man may have been a VC sympathizer. He may
even have been VC. But looking back I still think it
would have been murder and not war if we had killed him
under those circumstances. He may have ignored us; it's
just as likely he was deaf and couldn't hear us at all.
I hope we missed him and that he lived many years after
that. I also hope that writing this will ease some of
the guilt I have felt for what I would have done to him.
I think I did cross that fine line and have to live with
it from now on.