Written by Bernie Weisz Historian-Vietnam War Pembroke Pines, Florida July 4th, 2010 contact:BernWei1@aol.com title of review: "Fighting The Son Of Lucifer in Vietnam:Planet of The Apes Right Here On Earth!" Wayne Standiford has done it again! After writing a breath taking memoir in 2000 of his experiences as a soldier during the Vietnam War in "Crucible 0311" (later to be re released in 2003 as "Bury Me With Soldiers: One Grunt's Honest Story About Vietnam") he came out with "Trail of Bones" in 2008. Truly a complete reversal from his previous historical memoir, Standiford has created a high powered, science fiction account that is certainly a true "page turner". It is recommend to all teens and young adult readers. However, the true student of history, and in particular, the Vietnam War, will pick up nuances of that conflict rarely discussed in historical studies. The story line of "Trail of Bones" ranks right up there qualitatively with anything put out by Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke. I have read works from all the aforementioned, and certainly Mr. Standiford's book rates right up there in story line, content, intrigue and drama.
Essentially, "Trail of Bones" is about four teenagers who "come of age" by coming across a teacher with extraordinary powers. Attending "Elgin High School" in Elgin, Oregon, Jake Wallsworth, Jose Garcia, Tiffany Davis and Sarah Durfey are teamed together as a punishment for a prank Jake "The Rake" and Jose pulled in their high school cafeteria. Incidentally, Elgin High School is a real high school close to Wayne Standiford's home town in Condon, Oregon. As a punishment for "Operation Hop", where Jake and Jose during their school lunch hour released an army of frogs through the air conditioning ducts into the lunch room, their sentence was to go to "Intervention", an alias for an inner-school prison. Caught up in this was Sarah, whose father was the principal of the school, and Tiffany, who was innocently branded as an accomplish because of her piercing screaming which sent the rest of the lunchroom kids charging out of the lunchroom to be free of the reptilian invasion. The four have a very special 160 year old teacher, Miss Boeve, who is anything but human. In her first lesson, she "sheds" her skin off, similar to a sock being peeled from a foot. In shock, the four are sent to a "boot camp" of training against a very special evil alien, Doctor Avion, who under the earth in Vietnam is producing an army of cloned monkeys and rats with a special form of intelligence geared to invade and conquer the world.
The four drill instructors at this special camp are the four teenager's fathers. The quartet are kept in suspense while they are inculcated in survival skills, map reading, surveillance and combat. Little do they know their ultimate destination will eventually be to S.E. Asia. Sam, Jake's younger brother, enters the mix as a special entrepreneur able to make weapons of extraordinary power and effectiveness battling a very unusual cloned, evil army. As it turns out, Miss B is a "shedder" from another dying world who 30 years prior was sent with a male companion on a reconnaissance mission to study earth. The two altered their age and appearance and went as a front to high school posing as freshmen. With a horrible pestilence occurring in her world, Miss B used her student cover to study earth and try to find any information that would help her world overcome this affliction. Unfortunately, her friend became sick and died of premature death, a hallmark of her domain's problems. She explained to her four students that she tried to return to her world, but "the gate" to it had passed making it an impossibility.
Being promised by Miss B and their fathers of a high school diploma and the adventure of a lifetime if they completed the course, the four go through an entertaining and hilarious training regime that will keep the reader glued to this book. Eating worms, maggots, lemon skins, dandelions and egg shells are a small part of this quaint curriculum. However, it is more than just coincidence that this odd high school course and boot camp exist and they are forced to undergo. As Standiford later develops this amazing story, the four teenager's fathers in 1967 were in the Marines simultaneously serving in the war zone of the Ashau Valley in South Vietnam. The four fathers were told to enter the Ashau to recon for signs of the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong. Mr. Wallsworth, Mr. Garcia, Mr. Davis and Mr. Durfey were inserted by helicopter at the bottom of a mountain and while they started on their mission they heard a faint voice e.g. Miss Boeve calling for help. First attacked and being forced to kill a menacing cobra, they found Miss B. with a severe leg injury. Having her medically evacuated to a hospital at Dong Ha, she secretly told the four she had come to Vietnam to search for "the gate" back home but the Vietnam War had displaced it. She also explained the horrible facts about a mad scientist from her world, Doctor Avion, who also lived in "the gate". He was a criminal who was illegally cloning Miss B's "kind." Avion, banished from his world wound up on earth, right in the Ashau Valley. The clones Dr. Avion manufactured were specifically geared for making war, everything from bacteria carrying rats, to bellicose monkeys and "half human, half skeleton" missing links. The mission of the four teens and their fathers was to combat and kill Dr. Avion and his clone army, who Miss B. claimed that all modern day leaders since world War II were from. Hitler, Stalin and Bin Laden were are part of this freakish unholy alliance between earth and this "rogue clone-making jerk". Should the doctor not be stopped, the existence of goodness, peace and mankind as currently known was in extreme jeopardy. How this is accomplished will make "Trail of Bones" a nonstop, nerve rattling story forcing the reader to try to read this book in one sitting.
Nevertheless, there are historical tidbits Standiford includes within this novel concerning the Vietnam War that deserve recognition. The author includes the fact that there are still Americans that during the war were presumed captured or killed and their bodies were never recovered. The sad facts are that in October 1972, President Richard M. Nixon's National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, concluded a secret peace agreement with North Vietnam's chief negotiator, Le Duc Tho to end American involvement in the war. After reviewing the agreement, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu demanded major alterations to the document. In response, the North Vietnamese published the details of it and thus stalled the negotiations. Angered and embarrassed that Hanoi had humiliated him and forcing the Communists back to the table, Nixon ordered the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong in late December 1972, which was called "Operation Linebacker II." Finally, after severe bombing rivaling in tonnage what was dropped on Japan and Germany at the end of W. W. II, on January 15, 1973 Nixon announced the end of offensive operations against North Vietnam. South Vietnam had to be pressured to accept the peace deal. The actual signing of "The Paris Peace Accords" occurred on January 27, 1973, and was followed by the withdrawal of all remaining American troops. The terms of the agreement were a complete cease fire in South Vietnam, all North Vietnamese forces were allowed to retain the territory they had captured, all US prisoners of war were to be released, and both sides were to work on finding a political solution to the conflict. As an enticement to Thieu, Nixon offered US air power to enforce the peace terms. With American forces gone from S.E. Asia, South Vietnam stood alone.
The situation in Vietnam deteriorated, and in December 1974, Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974 which cut off all military aid to our former allies. With the threat of air strikes eliminated should North Vietnam break the terms of the accords, the Communists began a limited offensive in Phuoc Long Province to test Saigon's resolve. The province fell quickly and the North Vietnamese pressed the attack. Surprised by the ease of their advance against completely impotent and incompetent ARVN forces, the North Vietnamese stormed through the South, finally capturing Saigon. The end came fast. South Vietnam surrendered on April 30, 1975, following the fall of its capital. However, this senseless American involvement in a Vietnamese civil war cost dearly. During the Vietnam War, America suffered 58,119 killed, 153,303 wounded, and 1,948 missing in action. Worse, casualty figures for the South Vietnamese are estimated at 230,000 killed and 1,169,763 wounded. Combined the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong suffered approximately 1,100,000 killed in action and an unknown number of wounded. Supposedly, it is estimated that between 2 to 4 million Vietnamese civilians were killed during the conflict. Washington admitted at the end of the war that over 2,500 Americans were still "missing in action," with their bodies never recovered. Another 2,500 troops were lost on what was known as covert "black operations" in Thailand, Cambodia, China and Burma. Most of these missing "unfortunates" were just out of high school, similar to the four protagonists of this story. That's a total of at least 5,000 still missing. In Laos, over 550 pilots were downed, with over 300 known to be alive in 1973. Not one of the aforementioned has ever been repatriated. There are historians bold enough to state that the reason American leaders never officially counted most of these as missing in action was because they couldn't bring themselves to publicly admit that the U.S. had troops in areas they weren't supposed to be in. This book underscores the fact that despite the fact that the Defense Intelligence Agency has had over 10,000 reports of P.O. W. sighting in S.E. Asia since 1975, not one of these men has ever been returned by the Communists!
Another incident in the tragic annuls of this conflict was the atrocity that occurred in My Lai. In "Trail of Bones" Jake's father commends his son for using his own judgement and not following an order that was unethical or immoral. Using Lt. William Calley as an example, Chris Wallsworth tells Jake: "Not every order is good or lawful. There comes a time when you must make the conscious decision to follow your instincts and do what you think is right." The "My Lai" atrocity is one of the most embarrassing facets of the Vietnamese War. In the Southern part of Vietnam, the Viet Cong were Vietnamese soldiers who were trained in the North and moved back to the South to conduct guerilla warfare. They were especially feared and hard to detect. Unrecognizable to our troops, they were dressed to blend in with the peasants who populated South Vietnamese villages. Aside from harassing American soldiers and aiding the NVA, the Viet Cong carried on a stealthy campaign of sabotage and murder of the South Vietnamese indigenous. U.S. foot soldiers, called "grunts", did not speak Vietnamese and were unable to distinguish between V. C. combatants and the general population. Similar to what is happening to American forces today in Iraq and their battles with confronting improvised explosive devices (IED's), U.S. troops were anxious and wary whenever they traveled into the rural countryside. Adding to their woes was the fact that many villagers were sympathetic to the V. C. Part of "Song My Village", My Lai was located in South Vietnam's Quang Ngai Province. The area had been heavily mined by the V. C. and in the weeks preceding the massacre, a unit of the U.S. Army's American Division, called "Charlie Company," had been injured or killed by these mines. Under the direction of Captain Ernest Medina, a group of about 120 anxious and angry soldiers from this unit entered My Lai on a mission to "search out and destroy" Communist forces.
According to later eyewitness reports, "Charlie Company", under orders from their inglorious platoon leader, Lieutenant William L. Calley, horrifically used rifles, machine guns, bayonets, and grenades to kill the villagers. Incredulously, anyone in the village that crossed their path, i.e. old men, women who begged and prayed for mercy, children, and babies were murdered by Calley's soldiers. Young girls were rampantly raped and killed. Estimates of the number of villagers massacred at My Lai ranged from 300 to 500. The final official Army estimate was 347. Of the 100 soldiers who entered My Lai about 30 participated in the killing. Most of the other soldiers did not participate, but they indifferently didn't try to halt the killings. Supposedly, some testified later that they thought their lives would be in danger if they tried to stop their fellow soldiers. Captain Hugh C. Thompson, an army helicopter pilot and his crew came upon Calley's troops killing civilians at My Lai on March 16, 1968.He put his helicopter down between the soldiers and villagers, ordering his men to shoot their fellow Americans if they attacked the civilians. He later emphatically stated that in regard to the victims: "There was no way I could turn my back on them." Courageously, and being given credit in Standiford's book, Thompson, a warrant officer at the time, called in support from other US helicopters, and together they airlifted at least nine Vietnamese civilians, including a wounded boy to safety. Returning to headquarters, he angrily told his commanders what he had seen. They ordered soldiers in the area to stop shooting. Incredulously, Mr Thompson was shunned for years by his fellow soldiers, being branded "a snitch." He received death threats, and was once told by a congressman that he was the only American who should be punished over My Lai.
After a four-month Army investigation (where they did nothing) that included listening to 398 witnesses and thousands of pages of testimony were collected, charges were initially brought against 30 of the participants. That number was later reduced to 13. Nine enlisted men and four officers faced charges ranging from murder to dereliction of duty for covering up the incident. In November 1969, New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh broke his newspaper story about the events of My Lai. Consequently, follow-up reports shocked and horrified people around the world. This resulted in igniting waves of controversy over U.S. presence in Vietnam and turned up the already high public outcry to end the war. In 1971, 5 members of "Charlie Company" including Captain Medina and Lt. Calley were subjected to court martial's. Captain Medina was represented by prominent defense attorney F. Lee Bailey and was acquitted of all charges. Bailey has represented the "Boston Strangler," Patty Hearst, and O. J. Simpson. Lt. Calley was the only soldier convicted. He was found guilty of the premeditated murder of more than 20 Vietnamese civilians and sentenced to life imprisonment. His sentence was later reduced to 10 years and he was paroled in September 1975. Another rarely discussed subject was the avoidance of the draft and shrugging one's obligations and responsibilities to serve in this nation's armed forces during times of conflict. Mr. Standiford through this novel describes the sacrifices our nation's youth undertook to serve our country in a war that turned out to be extremely unpopular.
Notwithstanding Jane Fonda's pilgrimage to North Vietnam and those that chose to flee to Canada and Sweden instead of serving, Standiford mentions the occurrences of young people going to the streets to protest America's involvement in this conflict. Mentioned are the burning of both draft cards and the American flag. Does anyone remember the bumper sticker: "America-Love It Or Leave It?" Standiford bravely writes within the dialogue of "Trail of Bones" the following conversation Chris Wallsworth had with his son, Jake: "Always remember: there are worse things than death, and to live and die a free man is the greatest gift of all. As someone else said, better to die on your feet than live on your knees. We put our lives on the line for our beliefs. Some of us lived. Some of us died. Some of us suffered injuries that will be with us always. But no matter what it cost us, we didn't back down. We made our stand for freedom, just like the brave men and women who fought and died before us." Despite being intertwined within this novel, Sandiford boldly asserts his feelings in retrospect. There are many other golden nuggets about the Vietnam War the reader will find in this book. The difficulties U.S. forces found in the Vietnamese jungle on search and destroy missions are found throughout the story line, from insects, leeches, and impassable terrain to undrinkable water and booby traps. The mystique of the Ashau Valley is also included. Fear of U.S. forces needing to be extracted from hot landing zones and being left behind by cowardly helicopter crews (which was discussed at length in "Bury Me With Soldiers") is also covered within the story as well. Standiford misses nothing! I do not agree that this story is for adolescents and teenagers. This book is for anyone and everyone who has an interest in what happened in America in the late 1960's and will give the reader clues hard to find elsewhere. Mr. Standiford is now in the final stages of completing his third book, "Borrowed Bones". Based on his first two works, this upcoming book is a "can't miss!" I will not be a "plot spoiler" and tell you how "Trail of Bones" ultimately ended. For that, you need to read it your self. My advise: get this book!