Scars of War

AUTHOR: sss979
TITLE: Scars of War

RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: Murdock unwillingly relives memories of Vietnam while the Team is commissioned to help someone from his past

WARNINGS: Wartime violence.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the A-Team. Also, many of these stories from Vietnam are based on real events, people, and places that I uncovered while talking to vets and researching the war. So some of these stories are real testimonies from real people, changed as necessary to fit the A-Team.

PROLOGUE

1966

"How up-to-date are you on current events, Smith?"

Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith was still sizing up the man who had summoned him all the way the C-base at Pleiku. He'd never met this general – they apparently ran in different circles – and he hadn't had time to ask around for the other soldiers' opinions of him. Until he knew what kind of man he was dealing with, he played it safe.

"Depends on the event, Sir," Smith answered calmly, completely self-assured. His posture, his demeanor, even the glint in his eyes radiated confidence. He made sure of it. "At ease" in the bright, sterile office, legs slightly apart and hands behind his back, he watched every move, every flicker of every expression on the general's face, reading him like a book. He didn't possess the same confidence that Smith did. It wasn't surprising, though; few men did.

It didn't matter that they were fighting a devastating war – a war that armies before them had lost. Colonel Smith was the kind of man who would be the last man standing on the battlefield, convinced that he could take down every last enemy with his bare hands, if need be. At least, this was the impression that he intended to give General Carl Davids. He knew it wouldn't come as a shock; Davids had gone through General Ross Westman in Da Nang to request him and his team. He'd asked for the best. Westman had sent Smith, a man six months into his second tour. It was a tour that would last until Smith died or the war was over; he'd put in his request for a voluntary indefinite status just a few weeks ago. Most of his team had done the same.

"What do you know about A Shau?" General Davids asked, pausing near the window with his pipe in his hand.

Smith eyed the general cautiously as he contemplated the question. "I know that the camp was lost three days ago," he answered, safely. In fact, the incident at A Shau was a current event that he happened to be particularly informed about. The camp's XO had been a close personal friend in Korea. In addition, Smith was acquainted with several others stationed there.

General Davids turned, and watched him carefully for a moment, then gestured for him to continue. "Please."

Smith took a deep breath, tipping his head up a little. "A Shau is an A-Team camp about thirty miles southwest of Hue," he recalled, "adjacent to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. We had ten Green Berets out there along with about two hundred CIDG and a couple Air Commando units. Last week, the camp's XO sent word that there might be an attack, so Nha Trang sent a Mike Force. When the attack came, there was no stopping it. After two days of fighting, the camp was evacuated."

Davids studied him carefully for a moment, then nodded. "You know quite a bit."

"I used to command two of those Green Berets before they left Special Ops," Smith said flatly. "And Captain Blake and I did a rotation together in Korea."

"Yes, I know."

A long silence followed that unassuming statement. It helped Smith to form his opinion of this guy. He didn't entirely trust Davids. Of course, it probably had a lot to do with the fact that Davids didn't seem to trust him much, either. If that was the case, Smith wouldn't have minded as much if it had simply been stated from the beginning. But all of this prerequisite beating around the bush irritated the shit out of him. It was a game – "How much do you know so that I can determine how much I have to explain?" Perhaps more importantly, how much Smith knew determined how much information would be withheld.

Bureaucratic bullshit, special clearance, classified information… it all meant precisely dick to Smith. Too much time in the jungle - too many kills and too many men lost - had made him care less for red tape than for the REMFs who put it there. Smith's concern was - and always had been - getting the job done quickly and efficiently, sometimes against overwhelming odds. All he needed was a target and a time frame. He didn't much know or care about anything else. Perhaps General Westman had failed to mention that.

"The NVA had four battalions," Davids explained, pacing back to his desk. "They also had a bunch of sympathizers in the CIDG. The weather was on their side, too. Lot of cloud cover we couldn't fly through on the first night. Twenty antiaircraft guns for anyone who'd try to fly under it." Davids turned, his look serious as he studied the colonel. "We started the battle with seventeen Green Berets, six LLDB, 143 Nung soldiers from the Mike Force, 210 CIDG, seven interpreters, and 51 civilians in the camp."

Smith offered a polite smile. "Your recall is impressive. That's an awful lot of numbers to remember."

Davids ignored him, sensing the hint of sarcasm, and turned away again. He was pacing. Uneasy. Smith kept a watchful eye on him. "Shortly before 0400 on the morning of March 9, the NVA began a mortar attack that lasted for two and a half hours. Halfway through it, they attacked the south wall, but were held off. We had a very difficult time getting any kind of air support or supplies – or even evacuating the wounded - because of the weather and their goddamn rocket fire. Two Marine CH-34s made it in, but one of them crashed. We also lost an AC-47. The next morning, the bastards did it all over again. This time when they breached the wall, the 141st CIDG Company turned on us and deserted to the enemy."

Smith's eyes narrowed. There were few things he hated more than reports like that. The Yards he had worked with were invaluable assets to any team he took out. True, he was only assigned those who had already been seasoned in the field and at times, even they were skittish when they saw the odds stacked against them. But they would never desert to the enemy. The thought was appalling, even offensive. Unfortunately, it was no longer shocking. He'd heard this same story over and over again, and it no longer surprised him even if it would never cease to disgust him.

"Anybody still alive went to the communications bunker in the north corner of the camp." Davids sighed deeply as he paced back and forth slowly, recalling the events with such a melodramatic tone, Smith would've thought he was actually there himself. "It got worse. We ended up having to run air strikes on the south and east wall of our own camp. Captain Blake made the decision to abandon the camp at 1500 hours on March 10. But when the Marines landed the rescue choppers, the remaining CIDG panicked and overran them. It got so bad, our men had to shoot into the crowd just to get things under control. They left with only 60 of the remaining soldiers from the camp. We don't know exactly how many of those left behind were still alive at the time, but those who still could ran into the jungle and we've been picking them up ever since."

"How many did we lose?" Smith asked. He had a sneaking suspicion that the general would be able to quote the numbers off the top of his head.

"Of the 210 CIDG soldiers, more than half were evacuated and most left behind had deserted to the enemy. 75 Mike Force died, 33 wounded, fifteen MIA. The American Special Forces had five dead, ten wounded."

Well, what do you know? He'd been right about the number recall. But as he quickly did the math, he frowned. "That doesn't add up."

"And that's why you're here."

Smith watched the man carefully, wary of his tight smile. "There are two Green Berets out there, MIA," Davids continued. "One of them, First Sergeant Alan Parker with the Mike Force, has a fairly high security clearance. We need him back."

"What makes you think he's still alive?"

The general sighed. "We can't know that he is. But I want you to find out. There's seventeen men unaccounted for and any of them might still be alive. Your object is to bring Parker out, but I'd like to see some of those other men recovered, too."

Smith stared back at the general for a long moment as he contemplated what, exactly, he was being asked to do. "What are we calling this operation, sir?"

"Call it whatever you want, Colonel," Davids deadpanned.

Smith raised a brow, questioningly. He hadn't expected that response. "Sir?"

Davids sighed deeply and looked up. He suddenly looked very old, and very tired. "I'll be perfectly honest with you," he started after a long pause. "I'm giving you complete jurisdiction over this operation because it is going to be completely off the books. You go in with your team and you do whatever it is you do. You bring that man back. And you let me handle the paperwork."

Smith studied him very carefully, cautiously. Why keep a search and rescue off the books? His team did this sort of thing on a weekly basis. "In other words," he realized slowly, "you've been ordered to leave this alone. And you want me to do it because you know my team can do it cleanly." Suddenly, it was beginning to make sense that Davids had gone out of his way to request his team. What didn't make sense was why this had to be kept quiet. Smith didn't think he'd get an answer to that question. But if he was really honest, he didn't care – so he didn't bother to ask.

"The paperwork on this assignment is going to reflect that you took A-5296 to a recon mission twenty miles south of A Shau," Davids informed him.

An amused smile crossed Smith's face as he considered that. That was similar to what the paperwork always reflected. According to their records, they'd done all sorts of surveillance and recon in the southern half of the country.

"Depending on who you're trying to sell that explanation to," Smith said, "you may have some trouble making it convincing when Parker shows up here, safe and sound."

"That's my problem, not yours."

Smith watched him for a long moment, then looked away, considering it carefully. This was not a matter of dodging red tape. He was actually intending to falsify the records in order to get that man out. It was no big deal to Smith; he'd done it dozens of times. But this general wasn't even Special Forces. Most of the higher ups in other divisions were not so anxious to lie on paper. Smith's opinion of this officer was changing.

Whether for the information or for the man, that soldier had taken priority over the bureaucratic bullshit. It took balls for a regular general to make a call like that, and Hannibal respected any man who would. Particularly since Davids was putting his rank, if not his entire career, on the line. And he was doing it without a flicker of hesitation.

Paperwork aside, it was a risky assignment. Aside from the obvious danger of an extraction of a POW – if Parker was even still alive - they would have to do it with no air support, no communication with the base, and no rescue if they failed. If they were caught or killed, they did it while disobeying their "official orders." But if it succeeded, the men who had been – for all intents and purposes – left for dead, would get to go home to their families. And Smith's team would not fail. It was just that simple.

"You said complete jurisdiction, sir," he pointed out. He looked back at the general. "How complete did you mean?"

"Once you're out the door, Smith, I don't want to know what you did or how you did it. I just want our men back."

Colonel Smith felt a smile come across his face as he considered those words. That sounded like complete jurisdiction to him. Apparently this guy knew how this game was played. It didn't take Smith long to come to the conclusion that he knew Davids had expected all along. "Sounds like my kind of operation, Sir."