Working Up to Killing
Fallaci, Oriana
Working Up to Killing by Oriana Fallaci Hue Nothing is left. Only ruins, divided by a river. The bridge that led to the fortress has sunk at right angles, like a ship cut in two. In order...
...I’m not worried about death...
...Then she takes something off her pigtail, ties the sack, picks up the shovel, and carries the sack o‘ff, the stench enfolding her...
...She digs for 10 minutes...
...About 30 minutes...
...The only thing that’s certain is that they were caught in their sleep, and that no doctor, no nurse, no electronic brain took the smallest notice of them...
...Didn’t it go well, captain...
...If they hit us while we’re nosediving, I’ll try to get the plane in a horizontal position, then I’ll raise a finger and you jump first...
...Farewell, my brother...
...Yes, of course...
...And I thought that some of them were volunteers, but the others were forced to be there, without knowing why, which must be horrible...
...We could see him perfectly as he waved...
...A Vietcong with a rifle rolled over...
...He said, ‘They’ll make you study, you’ll see.’ My uncle was the paymaster of a Vietminh unit...
...Then he told me he’d joined the Air Force in 1962 and volunteered for Vietnam at the start of 1967...
...I’ve also heard of that god with a fair beard called Jesus Christ...
...Sam, have you ever been religious...
...There were a great many Marines and only one Vietcong...
...I advise you not to go too far, madame . ” “Why...
...And at the time I feel I hate them and then the hatred passes, it goes as quickly as it came and I feel a great pity...
...Pity is a virtue that belongs to men...
...The third time I was resigned and only afraid I might miss the moment when Andy dropped the bomb which again was on my side of the plane...
...If we lose each other, don’t worry...
...you know...
...Another 30 minutes and they’d be dead...
...Would f8 and a 125th be best “in this light...
...My eyes seek those of the priest...
...O.K., sir...
...Yes, sir...
...His bomb had also fallen where it should have, and the black smoke was rising...
...The bomb on my right dropped, he had let it go and it traveled down with us, parallel to us, very long and black: napalm...
...If I said I felt guilt or pity, I’d be lying...
...I lean against a sheet of metal and vomit, on and on, until a voice comes to help me...
...We used to march-about turn, left, right-and practice fighting with wooden guns, and it was like playing at war when we were children...
...Beautiful, isn’t it...
...and Michael Joseph, Ltd., to be published in February by Dou b leday...
...Yesterday’s pilot was recovered in less than 10 minutes...
...Then I thought of my comrades who’d been killed and my friends who’d been tortured, and of the way the South Vietnamese cut off the heads of the Vietcong and put their . . . things...
...You were great...
...But why was it your turn...
...But he recovered himself at once...
...I remember thinking what courage it takes to stand quite still, waiting for a plane to swoop down on you...
...Maybe...
...Innocent people dying is part of the pain of war, it’s inevitable...
...It hit right on target...
...Yes, captain...
...You yere terrific, great...
...And if people are good, he said, he sends them to heaven, where people dance and sing...
...With Tri X film I can use 125th, I think...
...I’d like you to tell me how you felt after killing all those people at the My Canh...
...And I returned his smile, and my throat was dry, and it stayed dry even after I noticed that he smiled at me, because he was smiling at everyone, at everything, at the special policemen, at the fly that landed on his foot, at the death that awaited him, at the hope of talking with someone before dying...
...There were 30 boys and 10 girls...
...But what makes a man choose the job of being a soldier, a killer...
...It’s the same thing...
...One’s as foul as the other...
...I was too busy hoping Andy would do what he knew how to do, kill and avoid being killed...
...Or we’d be dead...
...Oh no...
...I got used to all kinds of things...
...Working Up to Killing by Oriana Fallaci Hue Nothing is left...
...I want to photograph the scene...
...So it was natural to think that if the plane shook at all they’d be bumped and explode...
...Sam, how did you stop being a peasant and join the Vietcong...
...And I liked him at once, although he’d killed 58 people in 29 attempts, although I’ve never understood sabotages, not even when we used them on the Nazis...
...As the years went by, I got used to seeing death...
...A Day’s Work A crowd was waiting on the runway...
...Saboteur Van Sam Miss Fallaci interviewed a Vietcong saboteur awaiting death in a Saigon prison...
...It’s all in a day’s work...
...And as we were going down I saw them clearly...
...I didn’t miss it, I followed it all...
...We suffered a lot, you know, though we had some good times as well...
...what she is searching for is almost on the surface...
...And after each dull thud they let go of their noses and cheer delightedly...
...And then I stopped admiring them and hated them...
...But one of the pilots was saved...
...And in this hatred I prayed silently to the God I had swapped for Andy and said: ‘God, make Andy kill them.’ And at the very moment I was saying this shameful prayer I realized that Andy was already firing...
...Then she picks up the sack and tries to put the body inside it...
...This isn’t a dead city, it’s a morgue...
...Only at 3,000 meters, when I knew I was safe, and watched Martell swooping down, did I feel a kind of pricking, but faintly, a pin-prick...
...The Vietcong snipers don’t like hair is plaited into a pigtail...
...The priest said so...
...And press that button, the one on the right...
...And then my eyes met his, and he smiled at me...
...They began roaring, the napalm bombs began swaying, the runway whizzed past and we found ourselves up in a cornflower blue sky...
...Who thinks about it here...
...We buckled our belts and straps, fastening those that belonged to the parachutes...
...Can I do anything for you, madame...
...His bare feet poke out from his black trousers...
...We climbed into the cockpit and settled down in the seats...
...Men, women, and children...
...They were side by side...
...Martell had nose-dived as well, a blue spot in the sky, and had dropped his bomb...
...hair is plaited into a pigtail...
...In silence I stayed there waiting for le terrible Nguyen Van Sam...
...I felt vaguely ridiculous and thought, ‘I’m glad there’s no one to see me.’ Then I thought, ‘What a lovely day, the lovelies4 I’ve seen in Vietnam...
...Because they’d have sent me, in any case...
...Oh no, they didn’t teach us to hate the French...
...Intellectuals and religious people at Hue have never hidden their sympathy for the NLF...
...Then she picks up the sack and tries to put the body inside it...
...Each mission you fly you get a bonus...
...The objective is south of My Tho...
...Of the Americans...
...How long is 30 minutes...
...I’d like you to tell me about the attack on the My Canh restaurant in Saigon...
...And somewhere, south of My Tho, a group of weary Vietcong were staring into the blue...
...With calm hands she takes him under the arms and, panting, sweating, she pulls him out...
...Of course...
...One of your North Vietnamese comrades asked in a diary that I read what mysterious rules govern life and a man’s survival: “If my head had been four centimeters further in that direction, I should be dead: is it possible for everything to happen by chance...
...And Martell had flown back up there, a blue spot in the blueness, a carefree butterfly...
...All I’ve known, always, is war...
...Don’t you ever think of death...
...But by forcing herself on, sweating profusely, she manages it...
...Are you all right, madame...
...Should I? Killing is his job, he’s only been doing his job...
...You’ll be my God for the next 20 seconds,” I replied...
...Victims of the Vietcong...
...Andy had become shy again, with his mild voice and his nice eyes...
...they hurl it into the grave...
...With calm fingers she wipes the earth off his face...
...He pressed the button and the bomb seemed to shudder, and then lightly it unhitched itself and stayed there, suspended, then it leaned forward and came down with us until we flew up again...
...they were waiting for us...
...Suddenly a girl comes along carrying a shovel and a sack...
...what she is searching for is almost on the surface...
...In war, death is impersonal...
...Thirty minutes, that was all, and the sky was bright blue, and Martell, in the second plane was’ flying beside us, waving his hand...
...But then I have to thank him for having killed you...
...And then the Vietcong at the machine gun...
...When she finds him, she puts down her shovel and kneels to look at him...
...The second time I was frightened and I wanted to escape, but where...
...And as each one died I felt relief, in fact joy, and I didn’t care in the least that it was a man...
...For instance, sometimes after a battle the commandant would tell us to dance and sing to forget the dead, and the peasants would give us fat ducks to congratulate us...
...When a man does something ugly, like cutting off the Vietcong’s heads or putting their . . . things in their mouths, I get angry at once...
...I’ve also heard people talk about Confucianism, and I’ve been to a Christmas service...
...I gave him the whole pack, and, as he couldn’t take it back to the cell, he smoked it all during the interview, which lasted two hours...
...Of talking, talking, talking...
...Yes, captain...
...Without an escort, in that uniform...
...When I was a child and my parents taught me about Buddhism because they were Buddhists...
...With calm hands she takes him under the arms and, panting, sweating, she pulls him out...
...Have you heard of the Y AT3 7? ” He had become almost gossipy, his voice had changed, and there was nothing mild about it now...
...He died in a cruel way I think: like a Vietcong...
...Don’t you ever think about death...
...Or the South Vietnamese...
...If he hadn’t been there I’d be dead instead of you...
...During the battle I hated them, but after the battle I no longer hated them, and I thought: they’re innocent too because they’re men...
...DO you read me...
...We stayed there together from 11 at night until two in the morning...
...I flung myself down...
...At last it comes, and clinging to the ropes 1 reach the north bank...
...I saw it, then lost it...
...One, two, whoosh...
...Mine on the right, his on the left...
...I wonder, too, as I wonder about many other things...
...They were being sucked up, they were coming to us in a whistle, or perhaps it was the bombs that were whistling...
...Or both of us together...
...Breathe pure oxygen...
...A man whose side I’d have been on an hour before or an hour later...
...I felt, well, I think I felt the way an American pilot must feel after he’s dropped his bombs on a defenseless village...
...In this one a pilot feels the way a race driver does in a Ferrari...
...The Dead Are Thek Toys We have reached a round flowerbed, around which 20 corpses in pajamas are laid, pointing outwards, like the sun’s rays...
...One yesterday and another the day before...
...I knew perfectly well what it meant to nose-dive into machine-gun fire: it meant turning ourselves into a sitting duck, the easiest of targets, it meant daring the utmost, betting th‘e limit...
...It’s only children who believe in the afterlife or are frightened of it...
...Well, above all, I think I felt incredibly depressed...
...Can I do anything for you, madame...
...Yes...
...And I admired them so much...
...together they lift one package after another, swing it slightly to the right, then to the left, and then, whoosh...
...Another gravedigger is digging a grave in the middle of the flowerbed and everything goes ahead at an extraordinary speed: the grave is soon ready and the parcels are packed...
...No time at all...
...It was because I didn’t like going to school, I enjoyed rolling about in the mud with the buffalos too much, and when I was 16 my uncle said, ‘You have to go to school.’ And he sent me to a school of the Vietminh, who were the Vietcong in those days, and were fighting the French...
...Yesterday’s...
...The one with wings, who flies about the clouds...
...And this was good because for the first time they told me about my country...
...After the “Liberation,” at least 200 who were suspected of being Vietcong or of having collaborated with the Vietcong were killed by the South Vietnamese...
...Madame, it’s their only fun...
...He was pressing his finger on the red button and from the mouth of his 762 little lights flashed out, like those coming up to us...
...After a few minutes, Nguyen Van Sam came in...
...Maybe I felt that pinprick...
...It’s a man...
...Then the first gravedigger calls the second gravedigger...
...Not moving...
...Fear of falling makes it useless to grumble, “Hurry up,” and waiting your turn is agony...
...I could watch the spectacle with a certain coldness...
...They are literally covered with dried blood...
...Before I didn’t know that I had a country, I didn’t know what country meant...
...It is an almost impossible task for such a small woman, and it looks as if the body doesn’t want to go in, that it’s refusing as if it were still alive...
...She goes straight up to a kind of mound, puts down the sack, and calmly starts digging...
...With the Americans it’s the same...
...It is a French priest...
...their genitals in their mouths...
...I’ll follow you at once...
...And the other...
...The other wasn’t.’’ He glanced at my shoes and started up the engines...
...Some machine gun bursts and that was that...
...Then the shooting broke out...
...Tell me, Nguyen Van Sam, what did you feel when you saw all those dead people?’ ‘I felt, well, I felt as an American pilot must feel after he’s dropped a bomb...
...She recognizes him, but her expression doesn’t change...
...Sam, is pity something that belongs to children, too...
...The difference is that he flies away and doesn’t see what he’s done.’ A Subtle Pin-Prick “Watch it now, we’re going down again,” said Andy...
...They were lying about, torn to pieces...
...I didn’t even care about the pain of going back into the sky, the pain of being crushed by darkness because the force of gravity had increased and was crushing me, blinding me...
...Next time, contract your stomach muscles and your arms really hard...
...Then he put out a hand, greedily, to ask for a cigarette...
...The remains of a Vietcong post must be eliminated and a landing strip built...
...Then she takes something off her pigtail, ties the sack, picks up the shovel, and carries the sack o‘ff, the stench enfolding her...
...I took it all down...
...I realized that the Vietcong were firing and I wanted to escape, but where...
...The difference is that he flies away and doesn’t see what he’s done...
...Go on...
...The Vietcong snipers don’t like government that gives us these massacres...
...And this gave me strength because that’s what you’ve got to think about when you start having doubts...
...My duty is to fight the Americans and those who collaborate with them, and to do this you sometimes have to kill innocent people...
...With calm fingers she wipes the earth off his face...
...now I could see the branches, then the leaves...
...We went to have coffee, and I asked him how often he went on these missions and he said, “Three a day, on average...
...we put on our helmets and adjusted the respirators to our mouths...
...I knew that I’d be flying the A37, and the pay was good...
...I’m trying to understand what I felt when Andy said we were going down a seventh time...
...For instance, being hungry and not having shoes and sleeping in the rain and suffering...
...Absolutely fantastic...
...Martell is from Canada originally, he was in Korea and has been in Vietnam a year and a half, as a volunteer...
...The ribbon sways because there is nothing to attach it to, the survivors inch forward with exasperating caution, each carrying something on his back: a mattress, a bicycle, a child...
...On Saturday afternoons there was military training, to prepare the boys to fight against the French...
...I had no time to weep for them and no wish to do so...
...I know there’s nothing when you die, that all our tears are exhausted on this earth...
...It’s part of the day’s work, part of my life...
...On the ground you can run away and hide, but in a plane you’re in a trap as you are nowhere else...
...The plane flew down, sweeping straight and evenly through space, in fact in the direction of the trees which grew larger and larger, closer and closer...
...The napalm bombs were about three yards long and about half a yard in diameter and were almost touching the runway...
...In order to cross to the other side, the survivors have strung a foot-bridge, a ribbon of ropes and bamboo which they cross in Indian file...
...And the pin wasn’t my own conscience, but an intellectualized desire to have a conscience...
...You must realize there’s not a great difference between firing a cannon, dropping a bomb from an airplane, and putting a mine under a restaurant where people are eating...
...You see, if there wasn’t a war, if my country wasn’t oppressed, I’d love everyone...
...There weren’t many of them, five or six...
...Several children of about five or six are watching, standing on the mound of earth, their littlc hands at their noses to keep out the stink, laughing with glee...
...Not a word about the napalm we dropped...
...It was like a battlefield after the battle, and I covered my eyes...
...So the Vietcong waited until I was within range and fired twice...
...And we went down...
...it’s not right to kill people on a day like this.’ Inside the helmet something crackled...
...All those little lights coming up at us so fast, first together, then separately...
...Then I felt a kind of excitement, a morbid longing to meet death...
...He blushed...
...They seemed to be made of bombs and nothing else...
...Captain, how long will it take us to get to our objective...
...Should I be grateful to him...
...And then the rest, together...
...The fourth, fifth, and sixth times I was already used to it...
...I did see it...
...Even though I couldn’t imagine what peace was really like, because I’d never known it...
...I don’t believe it...
...Waiting...
...Their toys and the goods I sell...
...The scho’ol was in the Plain of Rushes...
...Tracing the Napalm Suddenly we were over our objective and Andy said, “Here we are,” and everything happened at once...
...You see, that attack on the My Canh was my first one...
...It won’t be much fun this time...
...This time I was to be there at midnight...
...And it was good when I would go foraging and would stop on the riverbank to fish and to dream of peace...
...Pray to God,” laughed Andy...
...He has a pale, kind face and wears a ragged cassock...
...His pale face looks sad and indulgent...
...The bombs were under the wings, on each side were two napalm bombs weighing 750 kilos and an ordinary bomb weighing 500 kilos...
...It’s pure oxygen...
...Altogether, there have been I ,I 00 killed...
...The green sweater didn’t work, from a distance it looked the same color as the uniform...
...She goes straight up to a kind of mound, puts down the sack, and calmly starts digging...
...They taught us patriotism, they taught us to follow the example of the great King Quang Trung and King Le Loi, who defeated the Chinese invaders centuries ago...
...The massacre began as soon as the Marines had taken the Imperial Palace, and it’s only the corpses of those 200 that have been recovered...
...When we got out they made a great fuss of us and waved my empty plastic bags, emphasizing the fact that I hadn’t vomited...
...As each package swings they shriek in chorus: “One, two, whoosh...
...When they took off his blindfold and he saw me, he seemed very pleased...
...Your own death or other people’s...
...They took off his blindfold, and under it was this scared, emaciated face and sad, shining eyes...
...I love this plane...
...She recognizes him, but her expression doesn’t change...
...Now, it’s Martell’s turn...
...See that black smoke down there...
...Captain, why did you come to Vietnam...
...It seemed impossible that I’d been the one who’d done it all, just by setting up the explosives...
...When she finds him, she puts down her shovel and kneels to look at him...
...Major, why...
...In 9 seconds we went down from 3,000 meters to 200 meters, we did six gs and you took it beau tifully .” “Thanks, captain.’’ “Sight O.K...
...They weren’t shooting yet...
...It’s a man...
...nothing in him recalled the executioner who had so coldly killed the Vietcong...
...What I see there makes me forget the beautiful temples that have been destroyed, the fine museums that have crumbled to dust...
...One shot went past my head, quite close, and another nearly touched my sleeve...
...275 a week, not counting bonuses...
...I lean against a sheet of metal and vomit, on and on, until a voice comes to help me...
...And then Nguyen Van Sam came in, and he was this little barefoot man, dressed in black, with a bandage over his eyes, and frail shoulders, thin hands...
...I didn’t even care when we went down an eighth time to make sure they were really dead, and when at last I had to bear congratulations from a glorious, triumphant Andy...
...A gravedigger with a mask over his face wraps them in plastic sheets one by one, then ties them at the ankles, the stomach and the neck, turning them into parcels...
...The dead are their toys...
...Gravediggers are going by carrying plastic sheets full of human limbs, soldiers are dragging corpses tied in bunches, small wagons are loaded up in the most absurd positions: one corpse is sitting, one seems to be turning somersaults...
...But by forcing herself on, sweating profusely, she manages it...
...Nearly 8gs this time...
...It vanished just as the trees were about to grab us, and I felt a wrench, a pleasant lightness, the swooping was over, the trees were over too, but in their place an invisible, impalpable stone had fallen, the bright blue sky had fallen on us and grown heavy, heavier and heavier, and it seemed to be crushing us, immobilizing us, tying our arms, our minds that could think of nothing but, ‘Oh God, I’d never have thought the sky could be so heavy, oh God, make it light again.’ It became light again and Andy shouted excitedly: “Fantastic...
...It is an almost impossible task for such a small woman, and it looks as if the body doesn’t want to go in, that it’s refusing as if it were still alive...
...A light wind moves his silky hair...
...But I used to imagine peace as a time when there weren’t any dead, when my country was prosperous and happy and I was married to a beautiful girl.’’ Blowing Up My Canh I saw him again last night...
...I wish I could adopt one of these children...
...She digs for 10 minutes...
...Yes, we’ve lost two planes on this mission...
...He is now lying face downwards and a long trickle of blood is coming from his nose...
...And he went on smiling at me even after he was sitting next to the interpreter, not knowing who I was...
...Did you lose your “No, captain...
...One of the two of us had to lie dead this evening, either you or I. It has been your turn, and it’s as unfair as if it had been my turn, brother...
...It is a French priest...
...I mean, fighting and dying without knowing why...
...Did you hate the French very much...
...This poor country of mine has always been under someone’s foot-before., there were the Chinese, then there were the French, and now there are the Americans, and we’ve got to kill and kill and kill...
...They were in a single group, two at the machine gun, the others with rifles...
...Then they fired...
...Mostly students, university teachers, priests...
...The spectacle consisted of small figures fleeing from dugouts and sandbag fortifications, waving their arms to beat off the flames, and one figure overwhelmed by the flames...
...I advise you not to go too far, madame . ” “Why...
...Are you all right, madame...
...Or had I better use an f5.6 and a 60th...
...sight...
...Without even a summary trial, without any exact accusation...
...Then, well, I don’t know...
...About 20, small, and pretty...
...Under her cone-shaped hat her long Adapted from Oriana Fallaci’s Nothing and So Be It, 01972 Doubleday & Co., Inc...
...I’m dropping on my side...
...He has a pale, kind face and wears a ragged cassock...
...Without an escort, in that uniform...
...I wish I could do something to stop me from feeling so ashamed...
...As a volunteer, I care more...
...At the bottom, there must have been about 10 centimeters between them and the ground...
...Oh, there’s no danger,” said Andy, the pilot...
...Martell came up to us and we had a second cup of coffee...
...This was our conversation...
...But when people are wicked he kills them and sends them to hell where they boil in pots of oil...
...An American Pilot The two A37s were ready with their bombs attached...
...This Marine, for instance, who saved my life by taking yours: who is he, where does he come from, why is he here this evening, why is he here of all places, where our destinies crossed...
Vol. 3 • February 1972 • No. 12
