"So, Lieutenant, now can you tell us where we're headed?" "Yeah, what's all the secrecy?" "Well, should I tell them?" "You better tell them, otherwise the suspense is going to kill them." "All right, gentlemen, there's a village just south of here called Ben Tre." "Ben what, sir?" "Ben Tre." "And there's a team of rural construction workers working there." "They're building an irrigation project." "Irrigation?" "That's right." "Now, our job is gonna be to guard those workers." "That's all, just guard the workers?" "That's right, you heard me." "See, the big secret is, gentlemen, we finally got ourselves a cush gig." "Yeah!" "Right on, right on!" "Yeah!" ""Louie, Louie"" ""Whoa, yeah"" ""We gotta go Uh-huh"" ""Ai-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi"" ""Louie, Louie"" ""Oh, ho"" ""We gotta go"" ""Ai-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi"" ""Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah"" ""Louie, Louie"" ""Oh, ho"" ""We gotta go"" ""A fine little girl She wait for me"" ""Me catch the ship"" ""Across the sea"" "That must be some of the new irrigation project." "It's all part of this new redevelopment program." "I'm sorry, the what?" "The redevelopment program." "It's called Killing Charlie With Kindness." "There's the only project" "I'm interested in." "Ow!" "Ow!" "When they get this new irrigation in, they'll switch the farmers over to this new miracle rice." "They'll be growing three crops a year instead of one." "Yeah, and Charlie gets three times as much to eat." "Yeah, but if the farmers keep their sons in the field, then they ain't gonna be fighting." "Yeah, fine..." "makes perfect sense to me." "All right, let's go, go, go, go, go, go!" "Move, move, move, move, move, move!" "Well, LT, this is a pretty good gig for you." "How's that?" "Well, I mean, it's not exactly a firebase, but it is your command." "I mean, you're giving the orders." "Congratulations, General Goldman." "General Goldman, huh?" "I'm Lieutenant Goldman, and I'm here to relieve the CO," "Lieutenant Phillips." "Yes, sir, he's right over there by the CP." "No, no." "Didi, didi." "Sergeant," "I'm looking for Lieutenant Phillips?" "You're looking at him, sir." "What the hell happened?" "He was leading a patrol... the first time we had gone out in a week or so." "What are you talking about?" "You haven't been patrolling regularly?" "Yeah, we've been sending out patrols, but they got hit..." "a lot." "It's not easy ordering men out to be killed." "I guess that's why the lieutenant decided to lead this one on his own." "I thought you said this was supposed to be a cush gig." "Yeah, well, look." "You see that guy over there?" "That's Tran, our Kit Carson scout." "He'll be a big help to you." "And... with your permission, sir?" "Yeah." "All right, you guys, let's move out." "Come on, let's go." "Load them up!" "All right, men, you heard him!" "Let's load it up and didi out of here." "Come on, let's go!" "Lieutenant Goldman," "Sergeant Anderson." "The only way to make this village safe is to keep enemy off balance." "Send out many patrols, just like on firebase." "Fool Charlie by always using different times, different places." "Makes perfect sense, in theory." "Okay..." "For now, we'll send out two random patrols a day." "I want you to take Tran and the third squad at 1500 hours, sweep the whole area north of the river." "LT, that's gonna be a little difficult now with all of these friendlies moving in and out of the wire here." "I'm sorry, sergeant, but for now, that's all we can do." "Friendly warning." "GI safe as long as stay inside wire." "Charlie aim very poor." "Now, I figure we must be right about in here, about two clicks south of Ben Tre River." "And I guess it'll take us about 20 minutes to get..." "GI got Tran now." "Don't need guesswork." "Nah, that can't be the river." "Ben Tre different place every year." "Big monsoon this time, river move south." "Horn, get up here with the radio." "Doc, you got anything in there for ragweed?" "The whole Bronx is paved over, man." "I get real snarfy when I'm around all this green." "Ru, shut up." "All right." "You call in our coordinates, right here." "You tell them where we are." "Okay." "Blackjack Six, this is Dinner with Charlie, over?" "Get down, get down!" "I got you." "Come on." "Ruiz, get up here!" "Get up here!" "Coming through?" "Get up here!" "Coming through!" "Lay down fire, Ruiz!" "Keep your head down!" "Right by the banana grove!" "Take him, Doc!" "Cannon!" "Ready?" "Pull!" "Do it to it, do it to it!" "Hold your fire!" "Cease fire!" "All right?" "All right." "Doc?" "Man, he's flatline." "There ain't nothing left." "How do you suppose we got jammed up like that, sarge?" "Something tells me those Charlies weren't out there just to get some sun." "It might have been a listening post, Taylor." "No, Marcus Taylor knows a setup when he sees one." "What I want to know is how they knew we were coming." "Somebody must have tipped them off." "It might have been a coincidence." "It could have been their lucky day." "Yeah, we're the lucky ones so far." "You know, sarge," "I got a funny feeling about this place." "It's like our number came up, and we all just waiting on line to die." "Taylor, come on now, get moving." "Here... take that." "Good morning, papa-san." "Get a load of this." "Yeah, Buddhist monks from the monastery." "What a racket, man." "They spend their entire lives gumming other people's food." "They don't eat the food." "It's a morning ritual called seeking alms, giving the villagers a shot at immortality." "Yeah, right, so it's a con job." "They dump some food in a bowl and they go to heaven." "It's symbolic, Ru." "The whole idea of Buddhism is that you finally achieve Nirvana when you stop craving physical pleasures and material possessions." "Forget about it, all right?" "What are you, an expert or something?" "I got interested in this stuff this year." "Okay, but whose side are they on?" "That's the challenge, that's all I care about." "They're neutral." "They've got their hands full trying to follow the 227 rules of the Abhidharma, including "do not sleep on a comfortable bed."" "I could dig that." "All right, morning patrol." "Let's saddle up!" "Come on, Johnson, don't you care anything at all about the company you keep?" "Come on." "Yo, Mason, throw me my canteen." "Morning, boys." "Morning, boy." "Oh..." "Punji stake." "That's poison on them." "All right, how far is it to the main road?" "200 or 300 meters." "They've probably got this whole trail staked all the way until the end." "Suppose we cut through there and connect with the main road south?" "Big swamp that way." "It take all morning to get across." "All right, all right." "We'll stay with the main road." "All right, we're staying with the trail." "Keep your eyes open." "Don't step in it." "Taylor?" "Take care of this." "All right, hold your fire!" "Cease fire!" "Cease all of your fire!" "Cool it down!" "They was waiting on us, man!" "That's twice in a row!" "Hold fire now." "What you got, Johnson?" "They're gone." "There's nothing left here but some chewed-up fish heads and some leftover rice." "I don't know how they knew we were gonna be there, LT" "Did anyone tail you?" "No." "We circled back twice to make sure of that." "Any other enemy contact, anything?" "See, that's another thing that's bothering me." "We know there are main force NVA in the area." "Why didn't we see any signs at all?" "I don't know." "What about the radio?" "We used platoon frequency, per SOP, sir." "Well, you've got a lot of inexperienced guys in the squad." "Maybe one of them screwed up." "Nobody screwed up, sir, nobody." "Well, then, somebody inside the wire ratted us out." "It could have been any one of these friendlies." "What do we know about our man Tran there?" "Not much." "He was VC, wasn't he?" "Yeah, then he Chieu Hoi'd over voluntarily to our side." "Did he go through the whole program?" "Yeah, our men sent him to one of those re-education camps straightened out his politics, taught him a little English." "Yeah, which means he's already turned his back on his buddies once." "No, this guy's loyal." "You would be too if the VC killed your wife and kids." "It happened last summer just before he came over." "At least that's what it says in the intelligence file." "Yeah, well, with all respect, sir," "I think I'm going to have me a look around his hooch." "I mean, if he is a rat, maybe I'll find some rat droppings." "Sniper!" "Enough of this crap." "All right, Tran, listen up." "You're part of my unit now, which means you're going to be treated just like anybody else." "Which means you're subject to shakedown anytime that I see it's necessary." "And I see it's necessary now." "Oh, come off it, Tran," "I know you speak better English than that now." "Were these your little girls?" "I heard about what happened." "I loved my wife and children very much." "All right, look, Tran, I'm sorry about all this." "But you've got to understand," "I lost some of my people today, and it's my responsibility to make sure that that doesn't happen again." "Do you understand?" "We're clearing the base." "I don't want anybody inside the wire except for Americans and the rural development team." "That goes for construction workers and kids." "I don't give a damn what the hell they're selling," "I don't care whose buddy they are." "I don't care what GI said it was okay." "But what about getting the irrigation equipment to the field?" "If the development people need help loading a truck, we'll use soldiers, Keller." "Come on, let's get going." "What do you think, Keller?" "Is this going to solve our security problem?" "It's a step in the right direction," "I guess." "Boy, I hope." "Come on, come on!" "Let's go, outside the wire." "Didi mao, didi mao!" "No more base." "Base off limits now." "Come on, come on, keep it moving, come on." "Let's go!" "Come on, let's go!" "Come on, go!" "Come back here, you little thief!" "Hey, hey, hey, kid." "Look out!" "Give me my watch!" "Ru, are you okay?" "You all right?" "Damn it, that kid stole my watch!" "A watch?" "Calm down, man." "Those things happen." "Man, that was my graduation watch." "I loved that watch." "Graduation from what?" "That was a John Cameron Swayze watch, man." "An elephant could step on it." "You could strap it on a motorboat and that sucker would keep ticking." "Man, I swear, I ever catch that little nosebleed," "I'm gonna rip his arm off and beat him with it." "Kid got him a hell of a timepiece." "And we got ourselves a hell of a lesson." "How's that, LT?" "Well, you see the way that kid wriggled through the wire?" "It's got to be just as easy coming back the other direction." "As soon as we get these people out of here, we're gonna re-string the entire perimeter." "Okay, fellas, let's not be all day about it." "Come on, let's go, let's go." "Move, move, move." "Hey, you two, you're gonna have to move to the other side of the wire." "Come on, Lieutenant's orders." "Is this your little boy?" "He's part black, huh?" "Father dead now." "Father GI named Sam." "What is he, about a year old?" "I got a little cousin back home about he same age, a little kid named Rodney." "He was only about yay big when I left the world." "So what's his name?" "Nguyen." "Everybody in this country named Nguyen." "Well, Nguyen, you're just gonna have to didi to the other side of the wire." "No." "It is not safe for Nguyen." "People in Ben Tre very nasty." "No like black baby." "Hey, lieutenant, can we make an exception in this case?" "No exceptions." "But she's got a situation with the kid where..." "Move her off the base, right now." "They'll be all right, LT." "Don't worry about it, they're not your problem." "Yeah." "Well, at least we've got the base secure." "Yeah, well I'd feel a lot more secure if we could get these guys out beyond the wire with the rest of them." "I know, they're such obvious targets." "All Charlie's got to do is grease them one night and he's knocked out the whole project." "Watch this." "I'm ready for them this time." "Purcell?" "Yes, sir?" "Eleven o'clock, cut it loose!" "Got it!" "Well, that takes care of that problem." "Damn it." "That sucker won't die." "Get out of here with that." "Hey, man, where is everybody?" "Just because we kicked them off of the base don't mean they can't help out in the village." "They're all at the stupid ceremony over there." "GI want buy boom-boom picture?" "Boom-boom picture number-one." "What's he talking about?" "Porno, brother, Vietnamese porno." "For real?" "Only cost you a hundred P to find out." "Hey, wait, you're a married man, Keller." "You got a little baby at home." "Yeah, Keller, what do you want to do with that filth?" "Yeah, you're right." "It's filth." "I'll take it, kid." "Here you go." "Yeah, thank you." "All right." "Didi mao." "Keller, the wife and kids, Keller." "Come on, man." "Keller." "There is no need to leave." "I'm really sorry." "I didn't mean to interrupt." "You are welcome to observe." "Perhaps I can shed some light on the ritual for you?" "Oh, sure." "I was just watching." "I thought it had something to do with asking the Buddha for forgiveness or something." "You are thinking of gangung." "That is a much more important ritual performed in front of the monastery altar every morning." "To tell you the truth," "I don't know what I was thinking." "I'm not religious at all." "I mean, nothing like this." "I'm not even a Buddhist." "I guess that's pretty obvious, huh?" "But you are interested in spiritual things, and that is good." "Oh yeah, I've been reading a lot, especially about the Eightfold Path and all, you know?" "It's hard, though." "That is a most difficult concept for the American mind." "I was wondering, would it be okay if I came to the ceremony tomorrow morning?" "Eleven o'clock, when the monks come back from seeking alms." "I ain't complaining." "I just don't feel like we should've did this by ourselves." "That's true." "Bottom line." "Calm down, take it easy, okay?" "They were trying to kill Nguyen!" "Look, don't worry." "I'll make sure he's protected." "They were trying to kill Nguyen." "The Lieutenant's just gonna have to change his mind, that's all." "This kid's practically a U.S. citizen, you know what I mean?" "Taylor?" "I ain't climbing up there, Jack." "I bet you that." "Treehouse empty a few months now." "Too much fighting." "Montagnard tribesmen go back to highland." "Keller, booby-trap!" "Get out of there!" "We're taking fire!" "Where are they?" "They're on both sides." "Doc?" "Doc?" "Give it up," "I can hear the air coming through his chest." "He's only been here six weeks." "Poor guy." "All he ever talked about was his little kid." "Every time we go out, we get shot up, and we done been out three times, and three times we got shot up." "Well, I ain't going out on no more patrols." "I'm through." "Me too." "I'm not dying for this stupid village." "Yeah, man, to hell with it." "It looks like we got us a mutiny on our hands here." "Whoa!" "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" "Let's slow down here, huh?" "Whoa!" "All right, now, let's take this one step at a time." "Now, when we cleared the base, we eliminated any possibility of a spy being inside the wire." "Oh, yeah?" "What about those four development guys?" "Sir?" "The only possible explanation for that is that our patrols are being followed when they leave the wire, by people on the other side..." "With your permission, sir, that's a lot of bull!" "You know there is no way they could have knocked us out three times in a row." "What about the scout, LT?" "I didn't see nobody shooting at him." "I already looked into that." "Now, there's no evidence whatsoever that Tran is disloyal." "He wants evidence." "I want to see that." "What do you need?" "Hey, what the hell?" "Do you guys think I like this?" "Do you think I like sending Keller home in a body bag?" "You think I like sending you guys out there when I know damn well that the odds are stacked against you?" "Then don't do it." "You think I don't feel something?" "Who cares what you feel, LT?" "The point is this, we ain't dying here, and we ain't going out no more!" "That's right." "All right, let's talk logically here." "Now, there are tactical principles involved..." "Forget about the tactics, LT!" "The bottom line is this..." "this is real life!" "This is life and death we're talking about!" "All right, fine, you want to talk about life and death?" "Good." "Now if we stop patrolling, we leave ourselves wide open." "We're inviting the enemy to gather its forces right outside the perimeter and then we will be overrun and we will all be killed, every one of us." "I'll take my chances on the base." "No, you won't." "Now we are going out on patrol again at 1600 hours." "Anyone that does not show will be in direct violation of Article 90." "The conviction carries five years." "Got it?" "Now you think about it." "Aw, man." "Great choice." "Well?" "Well what?" "Well, I was just thinking about my father." "He would have known how to handle something like this." "Oh, you mean the first General Goldman?" "Actually, he was a Colonel, and he was a tough son of a..." "But he always got his men to like him." "Hey, LT, now, look, it's real easy for you to get these men to like you." "In fact, they'll like you right up to the point we get overrun." "But then they're all gonna be dead and there's only gonna be one person to blame." "The ceremony pays tribute to the four noble truths, which Buddha discovered" "500 years before the birth of Christ." "He taught that each of us has complete moral responsibility for our own actions, and that we make good or bad karma in this life according to how we behave each day." "Your shoes, take off before we enter." "The Buddha's message gives us a plan to live by." "He shows how to overcome anger with love, how to defeat evil with good, and how to conquer falsehood by always speaking the truth." "Buddha's teaching forbids a monk to harm any of Earth's creatures." ""Shame on him who lashes out," he said." ""And greater shame on him who lashes back."" "It must be really tough to follow Buddha's ideas when your country's at war." "For us, both sides are our enemy." "Both sides seek to impose a foreign way of life on us." "You see, Mr. Horn, we Vietnamese are a very old-fashioned people." "We have trouble coping with wealth and with outside ideas." "That is one reason why we monks are so simple with our way of life and own few possessions." "A piece of cloth to sit on, and one to filter drinking water, and a bowl for seeking alms." "I'd still like to know your personal feelings about the war." "It's caused so much suffering." "As a Buddhist..." "I would support any government who would satisfy the traditional needs of the people." "And what government is that?" "Take this with you." "It is entitled the Abhidharma." "It contains the major discourses of the Buddha." "Perhaps it will give you an understanding of the people whose lives you are trying to change." "Sorry." "Please forgive him." "He's pretty fast on his knees." "I know she really appreciates this," "Lieutenant." "As long as she understands it's only temporary." "Of course." "There are some new-life villages down south where... can she understand what I'm saying?" "There's new-life villages down south with other mixed-race babies." "I know you and your baby will be safe there." "No, Nguyen born in Ben Tre." "Must live nearby, close to his ancestors." "No, one week." "I said you can stay one week." "Meanwhile I'm going to try to work something out with AID." "Freaking Army, man." "Charlie can have this village, for all I care." "Cool it, all right, Marcus?" "Look man, I'm supposed to die in this swamp so some gook can grow more rice?" "Look, man, if you don't go on patrol, you're gonna get court-martialed." "What are they gonna do, huh?" "Send me to Vietnam?" "Nigga, I'm in Vietnam!" "Hey, hey..." "Isn't that Tran?" "What's he doing in the ammo bunker?" "Hey, he's not supposed to be in there." "He's lurking around, man." "He probably ripped something off." "He's headed for the wire." "No, he ain't." "Look, guys, we better tell Lieutenant." "We oughta jump the guy." "Only if he starts for that wire." "Look at this." "What'd I tell you?" "I knew that guy was dirty." "It's a map." "It's Tran's pouch." "I've seen him carry it." "Now we know where Charlie's been getting his ammo." "Yeah." "How do we know that's Tran's stash?" "What do you mean, how do we know this is Tran's stash?" "Anyone could have stolen that and put it in the crate." "Sure, tell me about it." "Come on, Ru." "Am I nuts, or have they been banging on that thing all afternoon?" "I don't know." "It sure sounds pretty, though, huh?" "What more proof do you want?" "There it is." "Maps, ammo, the whole ball of wax!" "Is he in his tent now?" "That's right." "Try and take him alive." "Taylor, you stay cool, now." "You stay very cool." "All right, Johnson, you're on the behind." "Taylor, you're up there in that corner." "Ruiz, the other side." "Tran, I want you out here now." "Tran, I said now!" "Now!" "Hey, Lieutenant, take a look at this!" "Horn, I don't know what you're talking about." "At first I couldn't figure it out, and then I started hearing different rhythms, different beats in between the..." "Johnson, go check the listening posts and then check all of this perimeter wire." "I want to make sure none of those villagers slipped through, all right?" "Look, it's right here in the major discourses of the Buddha." "You see, the monks are only supposed to ring that prayer bell at sun-up and sundown." "These guys have been banging at this thing all day long." "Anderson, go get some of those construction workers and press them real hard." "The Vietnamese dialect is a whole lot simpler than English, but the point is, someone in that monastery has been signaling our patrol routes to the NVA." "I haven't cracked the code yet, but it's got to be some variation of their basic symbols, some combination of..." "Show me what you've got." "Sir, how many digits in a set of coordinates?" "Eight, right?" "Even if each digit has six or seven gong beats, they can still get their message out pretty quickly." "This is just what they sent out a few minutes ago." "Ong hong lai loi." "That's the Alpha Lima, and these are the numbers, sir." "Môt, that's one, hai voi môt, that's three..." "Yeah, yeah, so what?" "So that's the exact location of our listening post on the western perimeter." "They've got a radio and they're sitting on our frequency?" "No, that still wouldn't help them with the patrol routes." "I mean, that information has got to be coming from right inside the wire here." "Horn, suppose you show me where these Buddhists are at?" "Let me see that." "Okay, sarge, come on." "Sarge?" "Yo?" "What time do you got?" "2200." "We'll wait another 15 minutes." "Horn?" "Yeah?" "Eat quieter." "Sorry, I just get really hungry when we skip a meal like we did today." "Just swallow your food without chewing it." "Isn't that the woman with the kid?" "Yeah." "Hey, women aren't allowed in here at night." "It's got to be her." "We can use her." "Just once, a decent breakfast, man." "What have you got over here, man?" "All right, the upper trail switches back a couple of times, but we should get a pretty clear view of the gully from right in there." "All right, fine." "Well, what do you think?" "You think she was ripping off" "Tran's map case every time?" "Well, he was suspicious about something." "If he would have just told us about it instead of trying to deal with her himself, he might still be alive." "Is that too obvious?" "No, she's gonna go for that." "Glad to see you rejoined the boonie rats, brother." "Yeah, well," "I just want a shot at the guy that sandbagged Keller, that's all." "It's Charlie." "Right on schedule." "You know what they say about fish in a barrel, don't you?" "Ruiz." "Baker." "Wait a minute." "They must have heard him." "Give them a jolt, Ruiz!" "These guys are using our weapons!" "Well, the war ain't over yet." "Yeah, well, at least we slowed them down, thanks to you, Horn." "Now, if we could just find that girl, we might get some idea of VC activity inside the ville." "Well, Charlie's gonna figure she sold them out." "The only place she's safe now is the monastery." "Go." "Horn, Johnson, let's go." "These monks are pretty good about playing one end against the other, aren't they?" "I've never seen Buddhists get involved like this before." "There she is." "Listen to me, we're gonna have to take you back..." "Why'd she do it, man?" "Aren't you the one that told me that Buddhist teachings forbid a monk to harm any of Earth's creatures?" "Didn't you tell me that?" "You have an excellent memory, Mr. Horn." "You're a freaking hypocrite." "Good luck with your karma, pal." "It looks like she was translating some poetry into English." "Let me see." ""If you are to be A flower" ""Then be one that Always faces the sun" ""If you want to be A rock" ""Then try to be A precious stone" ""And if it is a bird That inspires you" ""Then by all means Be a white dove" ""But if you are to be A real human being" "Then you must become A revolutionary"" "You've got to respect her."