The Slaughter at Ninh Chu

"Django carries Ninh Chu in his heart as a terrible reminder that fucking hellhole disasters like Vietnam should never happen again. Ambrus carries Ninh Chu in his heart like it’s his own personal failure."

Ninh Chu was a village in Đồng Nai Province decimated by the Việt Cộng in 1975.

Background Infomation
After 1973, despite there not meant to be any American troops left in Vietnam except for senior officials helping the South Vietnamese Army coordinate a failing war, there were several platoons still on the ground, including Django Whetū's.

Most of the 1st Battalion of Special Forces went home to Okinawa, but a group of volunteers lead by Whetū were willing to stay behind and search for the POWs and MIAs from the American side. Euan Ambrus joined them under orders to help Whetū search.

Ambrus had gotten a mental nudge that a village in the north was under direct threat of retaliation from the Việt Cộng. They were carrying out extreme vengeance against people who still supported the South Vietnamese government. Senior officers promised that the village of Ninh Chu would get a protective detail, then ordered Ambrus out to join Whetū on POW hunts.

They found a prison camp with no Americans, but the South Vietnamese POWs appreciated the rescue. They cleared the area of Việt Cộng tunnels and encampments then took a vote. Ambrus wanted to head out to Ninh Chu, the radio had broke and they hadn't received new search pattern orders before it happened.

The Slaughter
They didn’t make it in time. The senior officers had lied and never sent anyone to the village for protection.

The Việt Cộng knew there was a South Vietnamese ammunitions depot in the village, and they’d gotten themselves a working airplane and a small supply of American napalm. There was nothing left of the village afterwards. 300 dead, no survivors.

Việt Cộng were still there, waiting to see who’d come check out their work. They had someone with them who could alter perception just enough to keep their squads from being noticed. They took Whetū and his platoon completely by surprise, killing 8 soldiers in the initial ambush. Whetū took three bullets and Ambrus took two when he knocked Whetū to the ground and behind cover.

Ambrus went back out and pulled injured men into cover and out of the line of fire, before collapsing having been shot 9 times. The firefight lasted all night and just before dawn, Whetū called the lightning with such force that it burnt out a second crater in the ground next to Ninh Chu.

Aftermath
"The place where Ninh Chu used to be is considered haunted by pretty much everyone and their goats. Nobody wants to go near it, even though it’s good farm land. I went through there once with Mom during a trip to go bargain for supplies in the next town. I couldn’t— all I could hear was fucking screaming. I made Mom go around the fucking place on the trip back."Of the 45 American soldiers who investigated Ninh Chu, 2 survived: Django Whetū and Euan Ambrus.

Ambrus blamed himself for what happened at Ninh Chu. He later hunted down and executed the Senior Officer who lied about sending the protective detail.

Ninh Chu remained a trigger point for both Whetū and Ambrus many years later.