Chickenhawk: Back in the World

We went downstairs for coffee and beer on Bowen’s back porch. Hunt told Sang I was a former helicopter pilot, and he came over to me with the interpreter, who introduced himself as Ha Huy Thong. Sang spoke. Thong said, “You flew the Huey?”

“Yes. First Cav Division.”

Sang smiled warmly. “Yes. The famous First Cavalry. I used to shoot you down.”

“Yes,” I said. “You were pretty good at it. But we still got the job done.”

Sang nodded. “Yes. Many brave young pilots died, I am afraid.”

The interpreter, Thong, said that Nguyen Sang had made a movie about the American helicopter pilots and wanted to do another. He said that Sang had gotten a lot of the details of his first film wrong. He wanted to know if I’d be willing to be interviewed by Sang the following day. I agreed.

Sang wanted to know if he could have his picture taken with me. We stood side by side on the porch, grinning at the camera. I was at least a foot taller than this wiry, wily Viet Cong. While one of the Vietnamese fiddled with his camera, Sang said something. Thong said, “Sang wants to show his friends back home the kind of people he was shooting down.”

I turned to Sang and shook my head. This sturdy little man, my former enemy, in the middle of his former enemy’s country, on the other side of the planet, was bragging about killing us. You had to respect this guy.

During the break, I met the other American writers. I told Philip Caputo that A Rumor of War was partly responsible for me writing my book. He said he liked Chickenhawk. I told Tim O’Brien how much his first book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, influenced me, made me realize I, too, had something to say. I also told him I really enjoyed Going After Cacciatio. He was used to that, having won the National Book Award for it.

After the break, we went back to the attic and talked about the writing business. The Vietnamese were fascinated by the fact that American writers seemed to make so much money. They wanted to know how much money we made on our books. Caputo and O’Brien weren’t at this meeting, so I volunteered that I had made nearly a half million dollars so far on my book. They had the interpreter repeat this several times to make sure they were hearing right. I understood what the problem was when Le Luu, the author of the number-one bestselling novel in Vietnam, said that he had made enough money on his book to buy a new German bicycle. I felt embarrassed.

As we were leaving, Sang reminded me about our interview the next day. He was starving for authentic details from the other side. I shrugged. “I’ll be here.”

When I got to Kevin Bowen’s house the next morning, the Vietnamese were having a kind of soup they called pho for breakfast. While they slurped bowls of noodles and fish, I sat and drank coffee with the interpreter, Thong, whom I found fascinating. He was not a former enemy; he was not a threat to me. He was twenty-three, educated entirely in Vietnam. His English was beautiful. I asked him how he liked America. He said he wasn’t allowed to leave New York City (this trip was a special exception), where the Vietnamese mission was located, but he liked the city, had American friends there.

Bowen said that he had to go to the university, and left. In a few minutes I realized that there was no one in the house except me and two Vietnamese: Ha Huy Thong, the interpreter from Hanoi, and Nguyen Quang Sang, the tunnel-rat Viet Cong who’d shot down a lot of helicopters.

We sat at Bowen’s kitchen table. The table was wood, old, pleasantly worn. Sang sat across from me and switched on his Sony tape recorder, flipped open a notebook. Thong sat between us.

Thong told me that Sang had gotten a lot of criticism of his movie when some Americans had seen it. For one thing, Thong said, Sang showed the American pilots returning home to their base and partying with whiskey drunk from champagne glasses. I laughed.

Sang looked at me seriously. I could see he was studying me, sizing me up. I suppose he was struck by our polarities as much as I. He spoke. Though what he said was incomprehensible to me, his voice was deep, authoritative. This was a warrior who, with others like him, had fought the mightiest country on earth and survived. Thong said, “How many helicopters were in your unit?”

I looked at Sang. He waited for the answer, pencil poised over a notepad. I looked up at the kitchen window and back at Sang. Morning light filtered across the old table. The ridges showing on the rustic, worn wood, the smell of Vietnamese food, the confident look on Sang’s face made me feel suddenly queer. It was like I’d been shot down, captured.

Name, rank, and serial number. That’s what came to mind. That’s crazy, I thought. It’s all public information now. I said, “Our battalion had four companies of about twenty ships each.”

Sang nodded, made a note.

“You called them ‘ships’?”

“Yes. It’s a general word for a craft, air or sea.”