Rice Paddy Recon by Andrew R. Finlayson

Author:Andrew R. Finlayson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2014-11-04T16:00:00+00:00

He went on to explain that two events in 1967 finally pushed him to the point where he could no longer deal with his life as a VC guerrilla. The first event was the death of his older brother. His brother was an established party member by then and had become the chairman of the village finance-economy committee, a very important position and one with a lot of stress. His brother had been very happy when he was accepted as a full member of the party; it was something he had strived for ever since the VC took over control of his village. Qua’s mother was proud of the elder brother also. But things began to go bad for him in early 1967 when he was told to collect a large amount of rice and dried fish to put in a cache for an upcoming operation by the 2nd NVA Division in the Que Son Valley. The rice harvest that year was not good, and many of the villagers did not want to contribute their share to the cache. Qua’s brother was criticized by the district party committee for failing to fulfill his responsibilities on time, and he had to endure a self-criticism meeting before the assembled people of his village. This hurt him deeply since he felt the criticism was unfair.

While this was going on, Qua was away with his VC battalion in Quang Tin Province and completely unaware that his brother was in trouble with the party. Although his brother was not physically punished, he was made to go to extra lengths to obtain his village’s quota of rice and fish, and then to transport it to an NVA base camp near Antenna Valley. He left with a transport party of twenty young men and teenagers from the village and headed off toward the NVA base camp. On the way back from the base camp, the transport party was ambushed, and his brother was killed, along with half of the men with him. Their bodies were left on the trail where they died.

When news of his brother’s death reached his village, Qua’s heartbroken mother managed to get a message to Qua in the mountains informing him of the sad news. When Qua received the news, he was overcome with grief and severely depressed. All he could think about was how much he had loved his brother and how sad everyone in his family felt over his loss. Now his beloved brother was gone forever. He began to blame the party for his brother’s death since the party insisted that his brother take the risk of transporting the rice in broad daylight into an area where the enemy was known to be strong. Qua asked permission to take leave to see his mother, but the political officer in his battalion denied his request and scolded him for requesting leave from the battalion on the eve of an operation in the Que Son Valley.1

A second event finally convinced Qua that he should abandon his life as a VC guerrilla and rally to the GVN.

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