This will be my final mule story. Can't remember any other incidents.
Musta been back in August of '69. Little village North of the A Shau Valley, well out in "Injun country". The Huey was flying low, fast, and using the village for a reference point to get our butts into Khe Sanh without getting drilled. Looked out the door to take a quick gander at the village and low and behold, there was a white Jack down there! Made it into that Hell hole and had to wait on our pax to get out of some briefing. Since we had time to kill I went looking for the Special Forces "Doc" who took care of all the indigenous peoples that lived in that neck of the woods. Figured he would know about that mule. Doc Carter was wrapping up a sprained ankle and chatted while he worked. "Yes, that is one white mule. Older'n the hills around here, too. The Royal Laotians in the village brought'im with them when they left over near Co Roc Ridge. Lang Vei is just over there, you know." I told him I was well familiar with that piece of real estate and had almost bought the farm there a couple of weeks earlier. He looked and me and just quietly shook'is head. "Bad place. Been there myself and it's flat out numbah ten."
After he turned the young man loose with the bad ankle, he said "Look. I gotta drive down to the village and drop off some bandages and things. You wannna go along? We'll be near that white mule." I checked the watch and figured we still had about an hour's wait so I jumped at the chance. I grabbed my Swedish K sub-machine gun and a few magazines and hopped in the back of his jeep. He let me out at the mule's pen and I walked over to where he was. Kids came out of the wood work to see the round eyed soldier. I pulled a "No --it" bar out of my survival vest, opened it and held it up for the mule to see. The kids started laughing. They knew what I held up. You eat one of those when you're out in the field and you won't pass anything for a week. Binds you up pretty well. They're lemon flavored and don't taste bad. Made outta corn flakes. Figured that mule would want a treat. Sure enough, pretty soon he smelled it and sauntered over very slowly. Man. This mule wasn't white, he was so old he had turned beyond white! His eyes had glazed over and was blinder'n a bat, but his nose still worked and he navigated right up to that chunk of nastiness. He mighta been blind but he lipped that bar right outta my hand like he was watching what he was doing. I reached over and scratched'im on the hairless nose and he proceeded to smell my hand. When he stopped, he pushed my hand with that nose to get me to go back to scratching. Played around with that mule for 5 or 10 minutes. Doc pulled up in the jeep and I took out a "John Wayne" chocolate disc and fed it to the mule. He snorted like he was in heaven. I scratched'im one more time and crawled back into the jeep. Thats when I noticed the US branded on his flank. Said something to Doc about that as I was surprised. He said "Yeah. I asked the Colonel about him and he said that mule was old when he got assigned to his unit. Said that they had taken him from the Pathet Lao communist forces. He figured that it had belonged to the French Legion at one time. He said he's too old and blind to work, but he gets along with the kids."
The pax were waiting on me when we arrived back at Khe Sanh. I mooched all the round Hershey's discs from the crew they had stashed away and gave them to Doc. Asked'im to give'em to the mule. He smiled and waved good-bye. We loaded up and took off. Saw the mule briefly as we shot over the village and was listening to the 37 MM radar controlled anti-aircraft home in on us on the Fox Mike radio. Turned out to be the last time I saw it. Did go back to Khe Sanh a couple of weeks later. No time to look for my old friend, though. We got hit on the way in and the engine was enveloped in flames.
