NO TRUST

Four months into my Vietnam adventure, I saw the first of many signs that our U.S. 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 de-escalate 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 U.S.

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 me 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.