NO TRUST

Four months into my Vietnam adventure, I saw the first of many signs that our US presence was not always welcomed. While riding alongside some local rice paddies, I saw a young Vietnamese girl tending to a water buffalo. I spotted what looked like a disfigured, swollen right ankle and could tell it was infected. I stopped my jeep to see if I could help her, but she was scared and would not let me approach her. She appeared to be around nine years old, and from her fair complexion I sensed that she might have some French blood in her.
I had my Vietnamese interpreter look for her parents in the rice paddies; when he found them, he tried to get their permission to get medical aid for their daughter. The interpreter’s pleas went nowhere and before I realized what was happening, he was in a shouting match with the parents. The commotion started to draw some of the other workers from the adjacent rice fields, and within a few minutes there were around twelve men with machetes gathered around the girl’s father.
To deescalate the situation, I offered the father another option. Instead of taking her with us, we could bring medical aid to her; but he adamantly refused any aid, blaming her injuries on the US. When her father started to wave his machete back and forth, I reached down and switched my M-16 to full auto, and we slowly made our way back to our jeep.
As I was driving away, I realized that my wanting to help the child could have blown up into a deadly encounter, as I could not let the villagers harm myself or my interpreter. The next day, I returned with a medic, but the little girl and her parents were gone. I returned and looked for her on at least two more trips through the area, but I never saw her again.