Abandoned

Abandoned (Part One - Chapter 4)

CHAPTER 4 - The Letter ...... "Congratulations Ron. The book is magnificent. Thanks so much for including my photo and for the credit. I hope you get tons of readers." (Godoirum Bassanensis)

Whoever finds this letter, please forward it to my wife: Eleni Fotis, 742 East Conrad, Minneapolis, Minnesota. U.S.A. My name is Nickolas Fotis. Enclosed with this letter are four dog tags. Three of them are from members of my unit who were killed in action. The forth one is mine. These dog tags will direct you to our military records.

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To my dearest Eleni, wife and best friend ever. My greatest hope is that long before you even see this letter I will have held you in my arms and explained in person everything that has happened to me. This I pray with every ounce of my heart.

Of course our little Maria—she must be almost 3—has also warmed my soul these past-many months. When I thought I was a goner, for sure, it was the memory of both of you—and my love for you, that kept me going.

Actually, my darling, I am giving myself several days to write this letter. I will make a copy of it, that I will carry with me forever. The other copy I am going to hide near the remains of a B-52 that I stumbled upon yesterday.

But first, my love, let me start at the beginning. Let's see, that would be on February 10th when I arrived in Saigon. From there I made it to Kontum. Although my team was supposed to be inserted on February 3rd, poor weather and some other problems kept us grounded until February 28th. The team we were replacing had made it out OK but our untimely delay meant that I-Force would be without any eyes in G-sector for two weeks.

Altogether, ten of us were inserted near Laos. We had six Nung mercenaries with us and our mission was to establish surveillance positions to monitor traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. My team was inserted into our LZ by helicopter without incident. This time I was on loan to an Army outfit and not with my regular SOG unit. Although things were a lot looser in terms of what we took with us, such as our dog tags, all and all the change of pace was something that I was looking forward to.

Sweetheart, all I know is that seven weeks later—this was the last time I heard from anybody. It was as if the war had simply disappeared. Nothing on our radios made any sense. Everything went dead. All we could do was sit and wait—and listen. We had no idea what was happening.

As for right now I'm not sure how long it has been. I just know that it has been a long time. I think well over a year.

But back to the beginning. Our helicopter placed us on the ground about 15 miles from our first post—closer to Laos. Traveling only at night to avoid any contact with the VC, it took us nearly 30 hours to reach our first destination.

After getting Sgt. Pierce's position established, we traveled north. The rest of our team took their respective places, with my position finally making our line complete—probably covering a total of 40 miles. My post was the furthest north, not far from where we were to be picked up.

Since we were to stay deployed for over a month, I know that all of us not only kept an eye out for VC but also on our calendars. I know that the phone call we had planned on April 7th was always on my mind.

During our deployment, other than a few encrypted radio transmissions, radio silence was strictly enforced. At first there was very little to report. Only toward the end did I see any appreciable activity. On March 20th a large force of enemy troops passed by in full combat dress. Of course, this was a significant sighting. After this, until I left my observation post, VC traffic never let up.