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RECOLLECTIONS

By Barry Romo

The war in Vietnam had a strange effect on the Vietnamese economy, It turned mothers into prostitutes, Saigon officials into drug-pushers, and children into explosive's "scavengers."

In our unit we used to pay 100 piaster (about $1) for unexploded rounds brought in by the local population. It was well worth the money because the VC could turn our junk into deadly mines and claymores which we would have to face later on. And the kids from the local village could also use the extra funds to buy rice. As a consequence, almost every morning young children would show up at the barbed wire with 105 rounds, claymores and other "duds" to trade for cash. The only problem was that many of these "duds" were ready to explode.

As a Battalion S-2 I had a helicopter at my disposal to reconoiter the area of operations for what we called "targets of opportunity." On this January morning, however, I would not be involved in a sight-seeing mission.

A Vietnamese girl of about ten was bringing a white phosphorus round to the base camp. Just outside the wire, it exploded. Whether other children around and disappeared in the smoke or not is debatable but this girl lived, her entire body burned and burning. I directed the command and control helicopter to the area and picked her up.

She was a beautiful child her face was untouched but her body was crisp. She was not screaming but whispering in terrible pain. I wrapped her in a poncho, put her on the helicopter floor and we took off for the hospital at Chu Lai.

I had to hold her as she was rolling in pain and I was afraid she would roll out of the chopper. I probably increased her pain but there was nothing else to do.

We landed in the hospital compound and doctors and medics ran to the chopper, but when they saw it was a Vietnamese child, they waved us on. I could not believe it, but was informed that Vietnamese nationals could not be treated here and that we should take her to a missionary hospital at Tam Ky.

I was still holding her as we took off north; it seemed like hours but it was probably only 15 or 20 minutes until we sighted the hospital. We landed, I gave the child to someone and we left. I never learned what happened to her.

A year later I went to see John Wayne in the "Green Berets." At the end, Big John tells a Vietnamese child, as he looks into the sunset, "This war is all for you, for your future" (or something like that). The war was also for the child I held for an hour in I Corps.

—Barry Romo
VVAW National Office