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| I first saw her when we broke for lunch. We had come down out of the jungle and into the village. 80 Montagnard troops and two Americans. The Vietnamese SF lieutenant said the village was hostile and made us two Americans eat our rations inside one of the hootches. As we settled in a great commotion arose outside with lots of shouting and running around. She was brought in amid all this ruckus. She stood framed in the bamboo doorway as the sun spilled around her with the deep green of the jungle floating in the background.The lieutenant said she had just been caught carrying rice from another village--for the VC. Her shirt had been ripped open and some of the ‘yards were eyeing her hard. She had the look of a scared, trapped animal. She was no more than fourteen years old. She protested her innocence to the smirk of the lieutenant. They manhandled her away to another hut for “interrogation”. When I saw her later she was no longer recognizable. She had been beaten about the face with a split bamboo. The lieutenant gloated a smile and said she had confessed. She wasn't from this village but had been sent by another woman in a nearby village to haul rice. She was to meet two guerrillas that night for delivery of the rice. We moved out, headed back to camp with the girl in tow, still lugging the rice. I last saw her when they shoved her onto a helicopter for a trip to Quang Ngai and further interrogation. West of Camp Ba To, Quang Ngai Province. |
