Peasant Girl

This is the revised version of the original story. I mad some corrections to the dates and corrected a couple of errors in it.

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Peasant Girl

April, 1970

She crouched in the under brush beside the rice paddy. Her body shook with fear. The Viet Cong had come to the village last night. They had killed all the men for being American sympathizers. They raped all the women and killed them, too. They killed the children and burned the village to the ground. She had been out in the rice fields. She heard the gunfire and saw the smoke from the burning village. She hid in the dense jungle undergrowth all night.

From her vantage point she could see the American soldiers approaching the burning village. The hunted down and shot the VC guards, then started a search around the village for any stragglers

A soldier spotted her and raised his rifle. She closed her eyes and prepared to die.

"Don't shoot," a voice called out to the soldier.

"Ah, hell captain, she's just another murdering VC," the soldier replied.

"I don't think so. I've got to question her," Captain Wilson gruffly replied.

He walked over to where the girl was cowering in the underbrush. "Why are you here?" he asked in perfect Vietnamese.

"The bad people came last night. They killed my family. They burned my village. Now you are going to shoot me," she cried and burst into tears.

"Nobody's going to shoot you. Come on out of there," he ordered.

The little girl slowly crawled out of the brush. She had on a simple shift, no underwear and it was obvious that she had been so scared that she pissed on herself. "Are you going to rape me now?" she cried. She was only 14 years old.

"Nobody's gonna rape you. Come with me," he ordered once again. He held out his hand. She took it and he led her away from the jungle. "Get me some transport sergeant," he ordered again.

"Yes sir," complied the sergeant.

Twenty minutes later a helicopter appeared. The captain got on with the little girl and they whirled away. The helicopter took them to the big base at Danang. He escorted the girl to the hospital.

"Check her out and report to me. She may have been raped last night," he told the nurse. "I'll be waiting in the lounge."

Thirty minutes later the nurse walked into the lounge. "She is scared and undernourished but she hasn't been raped," she reported. "What shall we do with her?"

"Give her back to me. I'll take her to Saigon."

The C-123 cleared the airstrip and headed for Saigon. The little girl had a death grip on the captain. She wouldn't let go. He was her hero.

The captain checked them in to the hotel and went to base ops to check on the general run of things. It wasn't too bad so he reported to headquarters and applied for a month's worth of leave. As soon as it was approved he headed back to the hotel.

When he walked into the room, she jumped into his arms and kissed him over and over. She had been crying. "What is the matter honey?" he asked.

"I thought you had deserted me. I waited and waited but you didn't come back. I was so scared. What are we going to do?"

"I'm going to take you to Clark AB in the Philippines and register you as a political refugee. Then I'm taking you to Manila. I'm going to adopt you."

"Oh!" she cried. "I thought you would marry me."

"No, you are much too young for me. Besides, I already have a wife. We have never been able to have children so you will be staying with her until I return."

The little girl sadly shook her head. "But I want you! You saved me. If not for you, I would be dead now. Please marry me. I'll be a good wife. I won't give you any problems," she pleaded.

"You will have to be content with being my daughter. I have grown to love you, too but I have a wife that I love and she'll love you too."

He called his wife and told her of his scheme. She couldn't have been happier. "When will she be here?" she asked.

"As soon as I can get all this miserable paperwork done. We'll be at Clark in the P.I. I'll let you know more when I know more. I love you honey."

The next day Captain Wilson and the little girl got on a C-141 and headed for Clark. The girl was completely dazzled by the life style of the Americans. She had never seen such luxuries. The thing that amazed her most was the way they took it all for granted. I'll bet America won't be this grand, she thought.

It took the captain three weeks of his leave to get all of her paperwork squared away and even then there would be more in the States. They were checked in to the Filipinas Hotel in downtown Manila. He had one week to spend with her. Then he loaded her on an airliner bound for Seattle. His wife would pick her up at SEA/TAC. He went back to the war.

Two years later he was still fighting the communists in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Only now he was fighting the secret war in Cambodia. He was tired of the war, tired of getting shot at and tired of the military. He had briefly considered making the military a career. He was now Colonel Wilson. He knew that eventually his luck would run out if he stayed in the war zone. He longed to see his wife. He had not seen her in almost 4 years. He had not seen the little girl in 2 years. He wanted life without bullets, bombs and rockets.

He got on a jet and reported back to Washington D.C. where he resigned his commission. He was free! He hopped the first plane for Seattle.

His wife, Mary and little girl were waiting for him at SEA/TAC. He immediately recognized his wife as she ran forward and jumped into his arms. Another set of arms was hugging his waist. It was his little girl. Little? She looked like she had fallen off the cover of a fashions magazine. What a beauty!

"Oh honey, it's been so long. Linda and I have missed you so much."

"Daddy, daddy! Welcome home. Do you remember me? I'm you daughter, Linda Trang!"

"Of course I remember you. I have thought about you and Mary for many long years. I can hardly believe I'm holding you now. Let's go home."

The first order of business was to complete the adoption process for their daughter. As they left the court for the final time, the former Linda Trang, now Linda Wilson in tears, remarked, "Until this moment I wasn't sure I was really your daughter. Now I know I am."

They picked up his baggage; he had a lot, and tossed it into the back of the Suburban. As Mary drove along the freeway, he asked the girl, "Well, how do you like the land of the big BX?"

"Daddy it's more than I've ever dreamed of. I have my own bedroom and it's bigger than my whole house was back in the village. I'm 16 now so mom is teaching me to drive and she said if I made good grades in school, you would buy me a car for my graduation present."

"They'll have to be very good grades before you get a car. What is your GPA?"

"It's 4.0. Oh daddy does that mean I get the car?"

"When you graduate, if it's still 4.0, I'll buy you anything you want."

She squealed and hummed a happy little tune as they entered the driveway. She bounced out of the Suburban and started helping move his gear into the house.

"I need a job," he told Mary.

"I can help," replied Mary. I've got an advanced gizmo called a personal computer. It's connected to a lot of other computers mostly used by colleges and big business. I'll bet if I try, I can find you a job and save all that leg work"

"Okay, we'll give it a try, but I can't wait forever. I need a job soon."

In less than a week Mary had found him a really good position as a manager for one of the biggest lumber companies in the world. After work on the first day he got Mary and Linda together and took them to dinner at a big seafood restaurant on the waterfront. Then he kissed and held Mary all night.

While he was working his way up the management ranks, Mary started one of the first internet businesses. It was slow going at first and she thought she might have to give it up. But the Wilsons were a stubborn breed and she hung right in there.

Two years later Linda was graduating from high school. She still had a 4.0 GPA so when she came home from the graduation ceremony there was a baby blue Corvette sitting in the driveway with a big ribbon around it.

She saw the car and knew immediately that daddy had kept his promise. She screamed and grabbed his neck. She threw a big sloppy kiss right on his lips. "Oh daddy, it's more than I ever dreamed of. I love it and I love you and I love mom."

Thanks to her good grades and her dogged determination to succeed, she had obtained a full ride scholarship to the University of Washington. She briefly considered some California schools and even a couple back east but she wanted to stay near her parents. She was a bright, moral girl. She seldom dated and when she did, she placed strict limits on how far she would go with a boy.

"So, sweetheart, you've got this big time scholarship. What are you going to study?" asked her dad.

"I'm good at math so I thought I'd try my hand at computer science. Besides, you only have to be able to count up to one to do computers. I can handle that," she giggled.

She entered college and her GPA didn't drop one iota. She seemed to be a whiz in her chosen field of study. She was rapidly working toward her degree. She spent many hours working after class at a new place called Microsoft. Her dad and mom didn't want her to work and go to school at the same time, but she ate it up.

June 1982

Slowly but surely, Mary's internet business started to grow. At first it was just a few hundred dollars a month. Soon she was raking in more bucks than her husband, Dan.

Dan Wilson was promoted twice and was hauling in some pretty good bucks himself. He was now a regional manager for the company. The upper management level people were planning to promote him again, this time to vice president in charge of operations.

Linda Wilson was graduating from UW with a 4.0 GPA. This time she got a new Mercedes Benz 600. Overjoyed, she once again attempted to suffocate her daddy with big juicy kisses.

"That was definitely worth the money we spent on the car," he opined.

"Daddy, I want to go to grad school," she said.

"No problem baby girl. Do you need help or advice? I've got a masters too, you know."

"No daddy. I've already taken care of that."

June 1983

Dan. was now senior vice president for operations world wide. He traveled but wouldn't let business interfere with his family life He had settle in to a life he considered to be the best.

Mary turned out to be a great business woman. She had expanded her internet business to the point where she was getting offers from major businesses to buy her out. She wouldn't sell and soon she was as big as the big guys and could play hardball with the best of them.

They bought a big house on Lake Washington. They had a large boat and plenty of cars.

Linda got her masters in computer science. She thought briefly about going to work for Bill Gates but decided to open her own software business. Soon she was selling software to many programming entities nationwide. Her business really took off and she was surpassing her parents' income. She still lived at home.

"Daddy," she said one evening, "do you remember that time when you rescued me from the jungle?"

"Yes I do honey."

"You know daddy, every night I say a prayer of thanks for you and mom. I could have easily died in that thicket and probably would have if it weren't for you."

"That's true baby girl and I have never regretted one minute of our time together. You have turned out better than any daughter I could have hoped for. You aren't a peasant girl anymore."