“Flowers in the Killing Fields I” by Rick Spangle Outline and First Draft of FLOWERS IN THE KILLING FIELDS I By Rick Spangle BACKGROUND This is the first volume in the “Flowers in the Killing Fields” series. The sequel to this book is “Flowers in the Killing Fields II” which details the covert exploits of many well known, and some lesser known figures in American history as far back as the Revolutionary War, along with detailing the abuses of the Soviet secret intelligence services attempting to retain their power from 1917 to 1939 in what was the emerging democracy of Russia. The book details many instances of the ineptitude of the CIA, and, in my mind, the greatest CIA success story ever told, along with the secret history of the NSA which will allow for a better understanding of the current abuses of the NSA and our ever unfolding, constantly degrading, socialistic totalitarian government. 1 “Flowers in the Killing Fields I” by Rick Spangle The third book in this series is “When Flowers Bloom in the Killing Fields” by Rick Spangle and Paul Reed. It details parts of our life stories, our tours in Vietnam, and our bouts with PTSD which led to other problems in our lives for many years. We also delve into how and why we are in partial control over our symptoms. The main message of book 3 is healing, reconciliation and forgiveness, along with a few of the details of our life stories along the way to our PARTIAL therapeutic control of our PTSD. This includes occasional bouts with depression, anxiety, paranoia and mania. Paul’s portion of the book is an expansion of his book “Kontum Diary” which was published in 1995 along with his Emmy award winning documentary by the same name. Many of Paul’s intense, severe hard combat experiences are detailed in “When Flowers Bloom in the Killing Fields”. “When Flowers Bloom” takes the bold step of telling part of the story from the point of view of several North Vietnamese soldiers fighting for the re-unification of North and South Vietnam into one country, Vietnam. One of these soldiers, Mr. Nguyen Van Nghia, was nearly mortally wounded by Paul in an intense battle for a famous hill near Kontum Vietnam. Mr. Nghia spent three weeks in an underground VC (enemy) hospital recovering from his wounds. He was nearly blind. He then spent almost 2 years walking back UP the Ho Chi Minh Trail to his home in Tien Hai, Vietnam, about 90 miles southeast of Hanoi. My Vietnam experiences are detailed again in this book, along with part of my life story including my bouts with PTSD which led to a whole host of mental health issues. Book 1, this book, “Flowers in the Killing Fields I”, is by me, Rick Spangle, and is divided into sixteen chapters, and is based upon my real life experiences in Vietnam, the real life experiences of several other people in Vietnam and some public information from the CIA and the US Air Force. I will begin the introduction to this book with part of the introduction from the third book in this series, “When Flowers Bloom in the Killing Fields”. 2 “Flowers in the Killing Fields I” by Rick Spangle EXCERPTS FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO BOOK 3 “WHEN FLOWERS BLOOM IN THE KILLING FIELDS” A quick note about the title of the book. The title can mean many things to many different people. When I asked some of my Vietnam friends about the title, they all saw flowers growing in or on the battlefields that they fought on. I must say, that is what I thought of first, when Paul suggested the title. As we discussed Paul’s interpretation of the title, Paul stated that he thought the title represented the healing of the heart that he and Mr. Nghia (the North Vietnamese soldier that Paul wounded and almost killed at the battle of Dragon’s Back, Hill 1062, (near Kontum, Vietnam) undertook and worked through as a result of Paul taking the time and making the effort to read the heartfelt poetry and prose in the small diary that Paul captured after both soldiers ran out of ammunition and engaged in ferocious, to the death, hand to hand combat. Paul’s road to healing and forgiveness of self, and reconciliation with Mr. Nghia, is an awe inspiring story that is told in this book. The Diary and the love poetry and prose written by North Vietnamese soldiers brought about a complete change of heart within Paul’s entire consciousness that is still present today in all of Paul’s thoughts, desires and actions. The more we discussed, the more we saw that the title could have underlying meanings for a wide variety of people, myself and many others included. I could actually see myself as a flower blooming in my own killing field, a softening of my heart, and I could also see myself as a flower in the killing fields of Vietnam. If I can see that softening of my heart, so can hundreds of thousands of people in this country and around the world. I ALSO THOUGHT OF MANY PEOPLE THAT I KNEW, AND KNEW OF, THAT I CONSIDERED TO BE FLOWERS IN THE KILLING FIELDS. I WILL SPEAK MORE ABOUT THIS LATER. So we continued our discussions and expanded the possibilities. 3 “Flowers in the Killing Fields I” by Rick Spangle The possibilities are far too numerous to discuss here, but many possibilities will be discussed in this book. “Blooming Flowers” can include almost anything from people, places, things, relationships and all kinds of esoteric, inner spiritual stuff also. First and foremost, this book is about healing, personal forgiveness, forgiveness in general and reconciliation in all areas of our lives. As part of the healing and reconciliation portion of the book, we will be telling the story of Mr. Nghia, the North Vietnamese soldier, his travels from the north to the south in the fight for the Cause of Unification, and his part in the battle for Dragon’s Back (Hill 1062), Kontum, Vietnam, where Paul captured the Angel’s Diary that, 26 years later, helped lead him to forgiveness, a closer relationship with God, and a partial recovery from his PTSD. Mr. Nghia was severely injured in the fight with Paul and lost most of his sight. We will be elaborating on more of Paul’s combat experiences which is more bad shit that was, and is, difficult for both of us to re-hash and write about. Paul came quite close to being killed several times, once in particular, from friendly artillery fire, and once, in particular, from hostile Rocket fire. In the first encounter, Paul was on patrol and was staked out along and below a river bank, for cover. A friendly artillery round came in close whizzing overhead and exploded before it hit the ground. A huge piece of shrapnel from the shell landed and stuck in the river bank approximately 24 inches from Paul’s head. Paul reached over and touched the gigantic piece of hot jagged metal. To this day, Paul realizes that he was only inches from instant and sudden death. He thinks about the incident almost every day. In the second incident, Paul was on patrol along side of his company commander and was carrying the radio for the commander. Suddenly a rocket shell, from an enemy 122 millimeter rocket launcher landed within 10 feet of him and his Captain. It was a “DUD”. If it had gone off, both men would have been killed instantly. The 122 millimeter rocket, manufactured in Russia, is and was, extremely efficient and reliable. Less than 3 % of all projectiles are DUDS. Paul wonders, to this day, why his was a dud… 4 “Flowers in the Killing Fields I” by Rick Spangle Paul was also granted an additional R&R because of “exceptionally hard combat”. When he got back “in country”, he found out that all of the remaining members of his platoon had been ambushed and everyone was either killed or seriously injured. He had to visit all of the members of his platoon in the 67th Medical Evacuation (MedEvac) Hospital. Most of them were missing limbs or “gut shot”. The experience still disturbs him to this day. That particular hospital was in Qui Nhon and was the same hospital that was right around the corner from where Rick was stationed during a lot of his tour. These, along with a few more of Paul’s gripping combat experiences will be detailed in the appropriate chapters of the book. This will give you, the readers; some background as to the seriousness of Paul’s trauma and the background behind the seriousness his PTSD, depression, anxiety, paranoia, mania and several other mental health issues. Paul was an over the road trucker for 18 years after he returned from Vietnam, and his PTSD mania resulted in quite a few “road rage incidents”. We will be describing several of those incidents in detail. We will then tell the story of Mr. Nghia’s partial recovery in an underground VC hospital in South Vietnam and his return trip walking all the way back to his home in the north, just southeast of Hanoi. The entire process took almost 2 years and he was nearly blind. Several times he was almost eaten by tigers. For the most part, in 1998, 15 years ago, Rick could not have gotten near being part of writing this book or anything like it.