Gil’s anger with the Vietnamese embassy in Ottawa died down after a few days. After all, they were just doing what they’d been told, he reasoned. But Gil thought about the episode, and once he could think critically again, he realized he had made a number of mistakes about the whole process and he had been on his way to making more.

He kicked it around a few days, then asked the core of in-the-field Vietnam veterans over to his house for a combination critique and brainstorming session.

The seven of them – Gil, Bud Ellsberg, Harold Hekkinan, Ryan Clark, Joe Krebsbach, Mark Gravengood and Steve Augsberg – gathered in lawn chairs in back of the house. The beer that had been frequently present at the gatherings of the group was conspicuously absent, and not just because Joe and Mark were on the wagon. This was to be a time for clear thinking, not unwinding.

They all knew what had gone on, but Gil went over it briefly.

“I screwed up,” Gil summarized. “The biggest thing is I wasn’t ready to go when the flag dropped. If I could have grabbed my shit and got out of here the same day, I could probably have gotten the visa and have been there and back by now. But no, I had to dink around getting gear, getting people to cover the store for me, getting funds, and a month went by. In that month, they changed their minds.”

“Actually, I don’t know what you could have accomplished anyway,” Mark said. “That’s a hell of a lot of ground to cover, especially in the monsoon, and especially when there’s probably not going to be much to find by searching on the ground.”

“I know,” Gil nodded. “I mean, I was going to go look in that patch of woods on general principles, even though that patrol from Henry’s battalion and Dennis and Bob were through it a long time ago. But that’s not what I had in mind. There’s a bunch of little villages around there. None of them real big, and one of them is pretty close to the direct line between where Henry disappeared and the old fire base. What I was really hoping to do was to get in-country, find a halfway decent interpreter, and go ask people in those villages if they knew anything. If they ever found a body laying out in those woods somewhere, they might remember where it was. Or maybe somebody would remember something from those days that Dennis and Bob never heard about.”

“I thought your friends interrogated those villagers,” Hekkinan said.

“Well, yeah, they did,” Gil told him. “Maybe they didn’t talk to the right people. Or, maybe they did talk to the right people and asked the wrong questions. Or, maybe the right people knew, but weren’t saying. Remember, Henry’s patrol was looking for a small NVA outfit, they thought maybe a rump battalion or an oversized company, that they knew was in the area. Dennis and Bob and those guys were looking for it too. You can bet those villagers knew about it, but Dennis and Bob never got a whiff of it. You guys know what it was like – you could walk a patrol right through the middle of one of those things, and if they didn’t want to be seen, then they usually weren’t seen.”

“So, you’re saying people that might not have been willing to talk back then might be willing to talk now?” Ryan asked.

“A lot more than they would have been willing to talk ten years ago,” Gil said. “Let’s face it. As time goes on, any trace of Henry is going to get dimmer and dimmer, but that’s one thing that’s going to get easier – some of those villagers may be more and more willing to talk.”

“A lot depends on whether you’d have an interpreter who was worth a shit and took an interest in what you’re doing,” Augsberg said thoughtfully. “I mean, they could just feed you a line of shit so they could get out of the bush and get back to town.”

“There is that,” Gil said. “God knows, we ran into it often enough, even when the interpreter was an ARVN we trusted. I figured on telling the interpreter he’d get a heckuva bonus if we turned up anything.”

“It’d be nice to have a backstop,” Steve said. “I mean, if someone went with you who knew enough Vietnamese to tell if the interpreter was bullshitting you, even if they didn’t have enough to really do an interrogation.”

“Yeah,” Gil agreed, “It sure wouldn’t be me. I tried to learn some of it. You were supposed to do that as a beret, but I never got much and I’ve forgotten it all, now.”

“You know,” Ryan said thoughtfully, “I wonder how much that affected your visa.”

“You mean, my having been Special Forces?” Gil asked.

“Yeah,” Ryan told him. “One, they knew who you guys were. Two, they didn’t like you. Could it maybe be that the embassy in Ottawa issued the visa authorization, sent the word back to Hanoi, and someone checked their shit list and sent word back, ‘not him, no way, no how?’”

Gil cocked his head. “Could be,” he said finally. “I never thought of that. I can see how it could sound like a cover story for someone that’s got something else in mind.”

“It might be that you’ll never be able to get a visa,” Harold said. “Maybe one of the rest of us should give it a try. The rest of us were in leg outfits, and we might not be on their shit list.”

“Hey, watch your mouth,” ex-paratrooper Gravengood smiled. “Don’t be calling me a leg.”

“Well, you know what I mean,” Harold smiled back. “All of us are legs, to Gil, at least. Anyway, what I was going to say is none of us know what Gil knows about how Henry disappeared, but there’s no reason we can’t learn. I’m willing to give it a shot.”

“I’m in,” Mark agreed. “I knew Henry pretty well, better than you did.”

“Count me in, too,” Ryan said. “I was pretty far ahead of Henry in school, and I didn’t know him all that well.”

“Yeah, me too,” Joe said. “I didn’t know him all that good either, but I remember him.”

“I’m up for it,” Bud told the group. “He used to work for me.”

“I knew Henry better than all of you,” Steve added. “There ain’t no way you’re gonna leave me behind.”

“We really only need one or two to go,” Gil said. “Too many people might intimidate the villagers we need to talk to.”

Harold shook his head. “No, the more, the better, I think,” he said. “We can split up into groups and cover more ground, talk to more people. Besides, with two or more interpreters, it might be a little harder for them to bullshit us.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Plus, if we have enough people, maybe we can split up and go through some of the woods there much better than we could do if there was only one of us.”

“I don’t know about going through the woods,” Gil said. “Dennis and Bob told me they were lousy with booby traps and mines. That’s why they didn’t go through them as thoroughly as they would have liked.”

“Yeah, but it’s been almost ten years since there’s been any friendlies in there,” Ryan pointed out. “Ten years is a long damn time for that stuff to stay active in a climate like that. There’s another advantage to not being in a hurry.”

“I see it like this,” Mark told the group. “First, we all file for visas and keep filing. If one of us gets a visa, they go. If two get visas, they go. If we all get visas, we all go. It’s a crapshoot, and it’s up to the zips to throw the dice.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed, “And, we have to be ready to go. If any of us gets a visa, we have to be on a plane within hours, before the slopes can change their minds again. I’m talking passports current, shots current, bags packed and ready to go.”

“It’s going to be expensive,” Bud commented, “Especially if all of us go. We’re going to have to have money in the bank and all be ready to go, too.”

“That’s a point,” Ryan said. “You said the plane tickets were like two grand each, that’s fourteen grand for all of us right there. Probably other expenses might not be so bad, like we might not have to bribe an interpreter seven times, maybe only two or three times. But I can see it costing thirty grand, real easy. I could shell out a chunk of it, I suppose. After all, Heikki is a Clark employee. Maybe the union’s b-fund would be willing to kick in if he and I talk to them real nice.”

“I could kick in, too,” Steve added. “I couldn’t cover the whole shot, but I’d be willing to refinance my house to cover a part of it. The problem is it’d take time, and that’s the one thing we might not have.”

“I could cover part of it,” Bud said. “Not much, right now. Things are pretty tight, but in a year or two they should be a little better, if it takes that long. It’d be a bitch for me to leave right now, anyway. I mean, I’d go if I was the only one who got a visa, but if several guys get them, I really ought to stay back, at least till I get the Jerusalem paper traffic going steadily again.”

Joe shook his head. “You all know what I’ve been through. It’d even be a reach for me to take off work. I’ll hold off on taking a vacation till I can get some time built up, but if I had to go next week I wouldn’t even have vacation pay.”

“If you were the only one who got a visa, I think I can say the rest of us would cover you,” Ryan said.

Gil shrugged. “I haven’t gotten around to giving Garth Matson his check back yet,” he said. “I’ll have a talk with him and see if he’ll let us keep it, just so we’ve got something there if the flag drops. I think he’ll go for it. But, Joe has a point. There are some of us who have to be able to make arrangements in order to take off. Like me, I have to have someone watch the store and be able to do repairs. My Garth and Brandy did OK the couple days I was gone, and Mark, I have to thank you for handling the repairs. But, Garth is gone come fall, and Brandy will be back in school. We’re going to have to work out something with our backups or our bosses, or whatever so we can basically say, ‘Gotta run!’ It’s going to take some time for me to get that worked out.”

Harold nodded. “It’d be a real reach for me to take off during the football season. I’m like Bud – if it falls then and I’m the only one who gets a visa, I’ll go, but if everyone gets a visa and football is on, then I probably ought to stay behind.”

“That sort of thing is going to happen for everybody at one time or another,” Ryan said. “There’s probably circumstances for each of us that might cause us to stay behind if the whole group goes. That’s why it’s important that we all file and keep filing, which makes me think we all ought to file about the same time, say, every ninety days, so they all land on the desk about the same time.”

“Good point,” Harold agreed. “Getting back to the money, I think we ought to work this as a special fund through the AVVW, and not just us. That’s a 501(c)3 outfit, so if we get contributions, they’d be tax deductible. And, I think we ought to talk to Mike McMahon about it, too.”

“You mean, because of Kirsten?” Gil asked.

“Well, yeah, that too,” Harold replied. “I’m thinking more for the Record-Herald side of it. If people know this has been planned for a long time and could come down at any time, well, speaking for myself, I might not get as much flak if I had to take off during football season. And, we might get some contributions from the community, too.”

“Maybe we ought to hold some sort of fundraiser every so often,” Steve suggested.

“Why bother?” Ryan asked. “Between what Clark and the union could kick in, Garth Matson’s money and our own donations, we ought to have enough money.”

“I’m not thinking about the money,” Steve protested. “Granted, it would be nice. But, it’d keep the idea in front of the community of what we’re trying to do. Let’s face it, it might take years. And, if it does, it might help to remind us of what we’re trying to do, too.”

“Yeah,” Bud conceded. “We’re all hot to do this right now because of what happened with Gil, and sitting around here talking about it. But what happens if we go, say, five years before the visas come down? And, if we haven’t done anything to stay current on what we know about Henry, or if any other new data comes up? We’ve got to be ready to go at the drop of a hat, sure, but we’ve also got to be prepared to be in this for the long haul. We ought to meet, oh, at least monthly, just to review various areas and stay current. I can think of other things, like maybe we ought to get real good at first aid. If we run across a mine that’s still active, well, it might not be real useful if it was just us, but if there’s more than one it could save a life. Maybe we can find someone to work with us on the language. We might not get good enough to tell if an interpreter is bullshitting us, but we at least ought to be able to ask where the can is. Maybe we can work on field techniques, since this is a different thing than why we were there last time, and there’re different skills involved.”

“That’s a thought,” Gil said. “In fact, that gives me an idea. We need to get my brother-in-law in on this. Maybe even take him, if we can, if he’ll go.”

“Why’s that, Gil?” Harold frowned.

“Because if we’re going to go searching through the woods for some faint little trace of something, he’s going to be better at finding it than anyone else. And, let’s face it, there’s a real good chance we may have to do some careful and scientific excavating, like maybe a grave site.”

“Oh, you’re talking about Rod, right?” Mark asked. “Excellent idea, Gil.”

“Who’s this?” Harold asked.

“Like I said, my brother-in-law,” Gil smiled. “He’s an associate professor of archeology at Colorado State. He specializes in early American archeology, frontier settlements and like that. I know he’s excavated graves, and he can walk through the woods or across a field and pick out stuff like nobody’s business, stuff I’d never see. Hell of an eye. At a minimum, we need him to give us some sessions on field techniques. He gets back here once in a while.”

“Don’t remember him,” Harold said. “He must have gone through while I was out of town, like Ryan and Mark.”

“He was a class ahead of me,” Mark said. “Did he ever manage to make it into service? I know he tried.”

“No, he was a 4-F,” Gil said. “Not for the lack of trying. Everybody turned him down at least once, even the Coast Guard. He was born shy a finger on his left hand, so nobody would take him.”

“Can’t hold that against him,” Joe said.

“Never slowed him down much,” Ryan said. “I was in his class, and he could handle a basketball as well as anyone with what he called his ‘Mickey Mouse’ hand. I went rabbit hunting with him once or twice, and he sure wasn’t very fair to the rabbits. Like Gil said, he could see stuff the rest of us just couldn’t see. You think he’d go?”

“Don’t know,” Gil said. “I can ask, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he would, if he can work it into his schedule. I suspect he knew Henry a little, too.”

“Another thought,” Mark suggested. “Gil, can you still get in touch with this Dennis guy, or this Bob guy? I know you talked with them, but they were on the ground there, and you weren’t. One of us might be able to think of something to ask them that you didn’t.”

“I don’t know,” Gil replied. “Bob might still be in. He’d still be a little shy of coming up on twenty, but I haven’t heard from him since Bragg in ’77. If he’s in, it wouldn’t be any great trick to track him down. Dennis, well, I think we got a Christmas card from him last year. He got out a year or two ago, and he’s working for some outfit in the DC area.”

“It wouldn’t be right to ask them to come up here out of their own pocket if they could get free,” Steve said. “We’d have to pick up the ticket, at least.”

“If you can get one of them, I’ll cover it,” Ryan said. “It won’t be that much. But, we do need to work out some priorities. We’ve come up with a lot of things here in ten minutes that we could spend years learning. And, another thing: if we’re going to have to learn something, let’s not try to teach each other something that any one of us only knows half-assed. Like the first aid. We all know a little, but we’d learn more and better if we all just signed up for the fire department’s advanced first aid class they run each winter. If someone wants to go on and get an EMT card, well, that would help. Or, we were talking about learning the language. We shouldn’t sit around here with old Army phrase books trying to teach each other if we can find someone who actually speaks the language. There’s got to be someone around.”

“Let me work on that,” Mark said. “I might know someone.”

“You just volunteered,” Gil said. “But, Ryan’s right. If we can get someone who knows more than any one of us does, we should get them in here. And, I’m sure we’ll think of other things as time goes on. But, the first priority, I think, is for everybody to get pretty familiar with what I know about Henry’s disappearance, since if someone gets a visa in the short run, that’s what they’ll need to know the most about.”

“Obvious,” Bud agreed.

“Ryan, you’ve got a pretty good copying machine over at the mill, don’t you?” Gil asked. “Any chance you could run some stuff off?”

“Sure, no problem. What do you have in mind?”

“I’ve got a huge wad of documentation, including my notes that I took back in ’77. Some of it’s not real pertinent, but it still adds up to a bunch of stuff. I’d like to pick out the least important stuff and run off a copy of everything else for everybody. That way, you guys can take your time going through it. Maybe you can come up with something I missed.”

“Sure, I can do that,” Ryan said. “Maybe we’d better do it on the weekend, so it doesn’t get in the way of anything. We could go over and do it tomorrow.”

“Fine with me,” Gil said.

“I’ll come and help,” Steve added. “That way we can run two copiers. But, Gil, why don’t you give us the once-over today, so we’re all pretty much on the same track?”

“Good idea,” Gil said, getting up from his chair. “I brought a map with me just in case. It’s inside; let me run in and get it. Why don’t you guys go get around that picnic table?”

Gil went into the house and came back out a minute later with a rolled map. He spread it out on the table – a pretty standard topographic map with a lot of Vietnamese names on it. “Don’t know how it happened,” he smiled. “Everything I ever did in the Army always seemed to be at the junction of two or more map sections, but the important stuff is all pretty much on this section. OK, the fire base was up here in the corner,” he said, pointing to the upper right hand corner of the map. He moved well down the map toward the far corner, and pointed at a sort of flatiron shaped patch of woods. “Near as anyone can tell, this is where Henry was last seen. That dopehead Taylor wouldn’t tell me shit, but that’s what he told Dennis, and the platoon sergeant pretty well agreed with him. OK, this is Pham Dong village, and over here is Duc Vinh,” he went on, pointing at two small clusters of black dots on the map. “If Henry didn’t get any farther than this patch of woods, I’d expect someone there knows about it. Still, if we can get Rod to go with us, as far as I’m concerned, this is Target One. Now, if you draw a ruler line between this little patch of woods where Henry disappeared . . .”

“There’s a lot of little patches of woods on the map,” Mark commented. “Let’s call that one Target One, just so we all know what we’re talking about.”

“OK, fine with me,” Gil continued, shrugging off the interruption. “Like I was saying, if you draw a ruler line between Target One, and here, where the fire base was, you see it almost goes through this little village, Puk Me.”

“Wouldn’t think he’d have gone right through the village, even at night,” Joe commented. “If he knew it was near, he probably would have avoided it by quite a bit. A dog might notice him and start barking.”

“That’s my guess,” Gil said. “I don’t know for sure, but he probably didn’t have a map or a compass, but had at least a general knowledge of the direction of the fire base. Maybe a fair knowledge, since they did some shooting late that afternoon and early that night. So, my guess is he stayed pretty close to the direct line if he went that way at all.”

“Do you know, was it clear? What was the moon phase?”

“Don’t know about the moon,” Gil told him. “You could look it up, I suppose. But it was a clear night, the after action report says.”

“If it was clear, he could have kept a pretty good course,” Mark said. “He knew how to use the stars at night to keep direction.”

“You know that for sure?” Gil asked.

“I taught him,” Mark replied. “We used to go play around with the telescope I made in Junior High, the one I took on the trip. We talked about it several times, and he and Jody and Steve and I even took a night hike one time to be sure we could do it.”

“He could do it,” Steve said. “I saw him.”

Gil shook his head. “Well, I learned something right there I never knew before. The Battalion CO figured Henry would have tried to go back along the route that they’d come on the patrol, that was over here,” he said, pointing at a penciled line on the map. “So, they didn’t look at the direct route much. Dennis did look at the direct route some. I mostly figured the direct route because the battalion looked over the backtrack route pretty good and didn’t find anything.”

“Besides, you can’t always backtrack a route you’ve followed in the day, especially at night,” Harold observed. “Boy, do I know that. Tried it with a platoon one night, and I did have a map and compass.”

“Too true,” Gil said. “I’ve had it happen to me, too. Anyway, what Mark just told us increases the odds on the direct route a fair amount. I think that means it’s more important to talk to the people in Puk Me, maybe a couple other of these villages down here . . .”

They talked for several hours, with Gil going over in detail everything he could remember learning about the incident, that afternoon when they first organized what came to be known as the Henry Toivo Expedition, and when they heard for the first time names that they would hear over and over again, think about, even dream about. Pham Dong. Duc Vinh. Puk Me. Target One.