9

Bachelor retained his core group of tribesmen, and I have no doubt that not a few of the spinning, whirling savages daubed in mud and covered with feathers who looted my orderly shelves at Camp White Star were among them. Those fellows, barbaric to the core, would be hard to kill and impossible to discourage. To this core group of fanatical savages he had added stray VC and other lawless bandits. They had armed and outfitted themselves so stealthily, and with such deadly force, that the Army that supported it never suspected its existence. What they had been looking for was another secret encampment, far enough north in the rugged, fog-shrouded terrain of I Corps to be safe from accidental discovery by conventional American troops and to be strategically well-positioned for intelligence purposes. Bachelor was now about to begin playing his most dangerous game.

His legend increased when he began again transmitting infallibly accurate reports of North Vietnamese troop movements from his newfound redoubt. To all intents and purposes, "the Last Irregular" had indeed returned from the dead. His reports concerned the North Vietnamese divisions moving toward Khe Sanh and vicinity.

The following is a mere outline of the story of Khe Sanh for those unfamiliar with this unhappy episode. Special Forces set up a camp around a French Fort at Khe Sanh in 1964— CIDG, some say at its best. When its airfield became crucially important in 1965, the marines were sent in to Khe Sanh, and for a time shared it with Special Forces and their ragtag battalion of tribesmen. The marines gradually squeezed out the Green Berets, who were unused to dealing with the efficiency, discipline, and superior organization of the Gyrenes. The "Bru" and their masters relocated in Lang Vei, where they built another camp, despite the existence a mere twenty kilometers away in Lang Vo of another CIDG camp of "Bru," this under the command of Captain Jack Ransom.

Had Ransom succeeded in bringing Bachelor back to mainland America eight months before, he would have been rewarded with a promotion and a more significant post. Having failed, the Shadow Masters had relegated Ransom to a secondary post in I Corps, where his role would have been to ensure that his "Bru" were instructed in matters of personal hygiene and rudimentary agriculture. Now enter Franklin Bachelor.

Some time after the Green Berets and their savages had fortified Lang Vei, the camp was bombed and strafed by a U.S. aircraft. The camp was destroyed, and many women and children killed. The explanation given was that the aircraft had become lost in the foggy mountains. This tale is patently false, though believed to this day. The true story is much worse than this invention of a confused pilot. This time, Bachelor had made a crucial error. The rogue major had long harbored an insane hatred for the Captain who had forced him to leave his own best camp, and provided false information that would lead to the destruction of the Special Forces camp. But the wrong false camp was selected—Bachelor had sent deadly destruction down upon Lang Vei, not Lang Vo, twenty kilometers distant. Ransom still lived, and when he discovered his error, Bachelor's wrath led him into deeper treachery.

By 1968, both Khe Sanh and the lesser-known Lang Vei were under perpetual siege. Then came the assault the world knows well—the North Vietnamese descended on tiny Lang Vei with tanks, troops, and mortars.

What is not known, because this information has been suppressed, is that Lang Vo, an otherwise insignificant Montagnard village under command of a single Green Beret, was likewise attacked, by North Vietnamese tanks and troops, at the same time. Why did this occur? There can be but one answer. Franklin Bachelor had duped his North Vietnamese contacts into believing that Lang Vo would be the next thorn in their side, after the destruction of Khe Sanh. And he sold out his country for one purpose only: the killing of Jack Ransom.

Lang Vo was flattened, and Ransom and most of the hapless "Bru" were trapped in an underground command post. There they were discovered, machine-gunned, and their bodies sealed up.