The Cover of War (31 page)

Epilogue

O
n
the 31st of January 1968
, the Viet Cong launched a massive nationwide attack, known forever
after as the Tet-Offensive.

Militarily, Tet
was a Viet Cong failure.

On the 10th of
January, American Commander, Lieutenant General Fred. C. Weyand, pulled his
troops (including fifteen maneuver battalions) back from the Cambodian boarder
to
Saigon
. The unprecedented
move saved the city.

Tet however,
triggered a series of deadly political aftershocks.

After the
bloodshed President Johnson replaced Defense Secretary McNamara, suspended the
bombing of
North Vietnam
,
replaced General Westmoreland as Commander, opened peace talks with
Hanoi
, and did not seek re-election. It
was the beginning of the end for American Forces in
Vietnam
; and the end of the beginning for oil exploration.

John Golota died
of his injuries in
Dong Khoi Street
,
Saigon
, and was
buried with full Military honors.

General Nguyen
Ngoc Loan was crippled by gunfire. He lost a leg, and spent his remaining years
in Burke Virginia,
USA
, where
he endured a continued public backlash for his execution of the Viet Cong
officer - whose identity remains obscure even today.  

Only Amai knows
who that mysterious man really was.

Cam
survived and adopted four Vietnamese orphans, two boys and two
girls. She raised them proudly in
Ho Chi Minh City
.

For helping plan
Tet, the Spy Pham Xuan An received the communist Medal-of-Honor (after a brutal
period of interrogation by communist leaders). Years later, his green Renault
sedan was displayed in
Hanoi
's
War museum.

Triet,
also-know-as Nguyen Tan Dat, as well as several other names, received no
recognition in the annals of history.

During the
Embassy assault, a Viet Cong commando forced entry to Colonel Jacobsen's villa.
After being fired upon, Jacobsen, who was on the second floor with his local
girlfriend, shot and killed the intruder, saving his own life.

Colonel
Hitchcock of Military Intelligence retired with full pension in March 1968.
Despite missing every sign pointing to the Tet attacks, he refused to admit
fault.

Corporal Mancini
changed units and was promoted to Sergeant. 

Corporal
Albertez went home to Austin Texas, where he married his young fiancée.
Albertez never talked about the war.

After Tet, Danny
and Amai returned to
America
,
married, and settled in
Colorado Springs
.

Danny never won
a Pulitzer for his journalistic efforts, and despite suffering post traumatic
stress disorder, entered politics, and campaigned against America's 'preemptive
wars of aggression'. His career included a two year term in the House of
Representatives. Danny devoted much of his time to investigating oil company
corruption, and fearing for his life, moved with Amai and their three adopted
Vietnamese daughters to
Christchurch
,
New Zealand
.
Amai's parents also resettled there. Danny died in November 2008, aged seventy.

Amai lived in
their Port Hills home, where she and Danny had raised their three daughters,
until it was destroyed in the
Christchurch
earthquake on
February 22nd, 2011
. But Amai is used to adversity, and is now an adoring grandmother.

Incense always
burns in her new home; the kind
Cam
used to burn. Photographs of Danny and the children line the walls,
posing, playing, and hugging. On the mantle sits a threadbare one-eyed doll -
her only childhood toy - returned by her niece, Nhu An, a few years after the
war.

Once a year,
without fail, Amai is visited by a portly red-headed Australian. When they talk
about the war her eyes flash as she relives the frightening escapes and gun
battles. They reflect on 1968, pondering the fact that a gallon of gasoline
cost thirty-eight cents back then, and the war cost Americans'
five-hundred-billion dollars: spent on millions of tons of bombs, landmines,
napalm, and Agent Orange. The result: over three million Vietnamese, and almost
fifty nine thousand American deaths; hundreds-of-thousands of birth defects,
cancers, MIA's, veteran suicides, and refugees.

'For what?' Amai
tells me on a heavily overcast day, staring at the
Pacific
Ocean
from
New Brighton
pier. 'Back then, most Vietnamese couldn't even define Communism.
It was all a scam. The whole thing.'

In 1991, after
the
Soviet Union
fell,
Vietnam
divided its seabed into lots and
sold exploration rights to foreign oil companies.  

Only American
companies struck oil.

Amai believes
they had prior knowledge and knew precisely which lots to bid on, due to a
secretive survey, carried out under the cover of the war.

End Note

Senator
Robert F. Kennedy

State
of
New
York

United
States of America

10
February 1968

Danny
Thorn

6
Fir Lane

Colorado
Springs

RE:
VIETNAM
: PEACE SELLS BUT
WHO'S BUYING

Dear Senator.

From
the 1st of November,
1967
,
until present, I have served as a foreign correspondent in
Saigon
,
Vietnam
. I am the author
of the aforementioned article, (
VIETNAM
: PEACE SELLS BUT WHO'S BUYING).

During my time in
Saigon
I learned
several shocking pieces of information; information concerning corruption
between elements in the U.S Government; The U.S Military; and the civilian
companies which form our Military Industrial Alliance.

High level officials in the
United States Military have confided in me the following:

1. The
gulf
of
Tonkin
incident was a
contrived lie, designed to win Congressional support for a full scale Military
invasion of
Vietnam
.

2. U.S Military Generals
were hamstrung by elements within the U.S Government, in order to prolong the
conflict.

3. Safe areas in
Cambodia
,
Laos
, and
North Vietnam
were
purposefully created by elements within the U.S Government, to provide
sanctuary to enemy forces - in order to prolong the conflict.

4. All operational and
tactical plans required approval by the United Nations Security Council (headed
by Soviet General,
Alexel Nesternko) - in order to prolong the conflict.

5. The conflict's
protraction served to allow the completion of a marine geological study of
Indochinese undersea oil stocks. The war activities serving to mask these
surveys (which require continual underwater explosions by surface ships fitted
with sonar) from Chinese, Vietnamese, French, and American knowledge.

6. I refer you to President
Hoover's 1920 oil survey, estimating large potential for undersea oil off
French Indochina.

What is happening here
Senator? The people want answers.

Whose side are
you
on?

Yours Truly

Danny Thorn