(Patrick Nelson)
Trautman,
I’ve carried on with our plan... I’ve almost overcome corruption amongst the privates, and I have to say that without the bribes - amongst the soldiers, at least – it seems that something is changing for real.
The ARVN is now less worried about money, and thus much more about pure surviving fighting, and for real.
And this is exactly what I want to bring out: their survival instincts. Because if we lose this war, we Americans will just go back where we came from.
But them...
They won't have any place to hide, and the Vietcong won't have any mercy for them, nor for their sons either.
While three years ago I had to live constantly looking over my shoulder, I’ve finally started being really proud of the South Vietnamese I am working for.
We are re-building whole villages 'moved' (deported) by Diem in '65. We are cleaning whole zones up, freeing them from the Vietcong 'taxes'.
With no soldier corruption in our path, finding the Vietcong cadres has suddenly become much easier. We are now capturing or killing some of them almost daily.
With the bribes halved and so distributing much more food and aid, we are building whole new battalions up, and much more loyal than before because of what we are doing.
Many people don't think that the Vietcong are better than us anymore.
But the Vietcong are moving too.
Something is bound to happen, and it's nothing good. There's been big movements in the South of the DMZ, and something has changed here in the Tri-border zone too.
M weapons are flowing, more money and more North Vietnamese regulars.
This is getting to be a damn hornet's nest.
There's no corner of the jungle between Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos that is not hiding a Vietcong team, or just a fuel, rice or ammo depot.
Trautman, my friend, you have to speed the times up.
I need your men over the fence (across the border) and I need them in a hurry, before the irreparable happens. The only thing that will never change is the Khe Sanh siege, and I agree with you when you say that it's just a decoy.
A final attack on Khe Sanh would cause devastating losses to the Vietcong, and we would take the base back in just a few hours. Giap is not so foolish.
After all of the victories he has already had to our cost, the idea that our generals are underestimating him again is unbelievable.
Anyway there have been a lot of very bad signals recently in here, and they are before everyone's eyes.
Something very big and very bad is bound to happen, but without your men here saying what is really happening in Laos and Cambodia, I’m groping in the dark.
I have no idea what the Vietcong is going to do, and I am scared like hell about it.
Try to speed your times up, if you can, Trautman.
A storm of shit might be coming, and I need you here.