Chapter 18 – The Vietnam War (Part I: 1965–1968)
The storm shifted again. This time, it was not Europe's fields or Korea's frozen hills — it was jungle.
Dense, wet, alive with insects and shadows. A land where the enemy could vanish into trees, where every step might trigger fire or steel hidden beneath the soil. The war in Vietnam was not fought for ground. It was fought for survival itself.
And survival was Ivar's language.
---
The First Flames – 1965
When America fully entered the war, the first troops landed in Da Nang. The press called it "support," "advisory," "limited engagement." Ivar heard those words before. Politicians always softened wars until the body counts grew too high to ignore.
He arrived with the first waves, indistinguishable from the young soldiers around him, though his sea-colored eyes carried centuries they could never imagine. He wore their uniform, carried their rifle, but his twin swords never left his back.
In the jungle, rifles jammed in the rain. Radios failed. Maps lied. But steel never betrayed him.
At Ia Drang Valley in late 1965, he fought in the first major clash between American troops and the North Vietnamese Army. Helicopters thundered overhead, rotor blades chopping the air, dropping men into fields that turned red within minutes.
Machine guns cracked. Mortars roared. Soldiers screamed in grass taller than their heads.
Ivar moved through it like a phantom. His blades cut through ambushes that broke the line. He dragged wounded men to safety, shielding them from fire with his own body. He fought face to face with enemies who leapt from tunnels and trees, his swords flashing silver arcs in the chaos.
When the battle ended, hundreds lay dead on both sides. Survivors whispered about him in hushed tones. Some called him "Storm." Others "the Immortal." He never corrected them. He only bowed his head in thanks, as he always did.
---
The Jungle War – 1966
Vietnam was not Europe. It was not Korea. It was not even war as the soldiers had been taught.
It was ambushes in the dark, tripwires across trails, tunnels beneath their feet. It was enemies who struck and vanished, who knew every root and stream better than outsiders ever could.
Ivar adapted. He always adapted.
He moved silently through the jungle, reading signs others missed: a broken twig, the silence of birds, the faint smell of smoke carried by damp air. He struck ambushes before they sprang, his swords flashing through foliage, his rifle used sparingly.
At night, when soldiers lay awake, ears straining for footsteps, Ivar walked the perimeter, calm, steady, a presence that made men believe the night might not kill them.
Once, after dragging a wounded soldier from a booby-trapped clearing, the boy stared up at him through tears.
"Why do you never stop?" the boy asked.
Ivar only smiled faintly. "Because storms don't stop until they've passed."
The boy lived. Years later, he would tell his children about the storm-eyed man who walked untouched through fire.
---
Villages and Shadows
Not all battles were fought in jungles. Some were fought in villages where lines blurred between soldier and civilian, enemy and ally.
Ivar hated those fights.
He saw the toll — homes burned by mistake, families torn apart by suspicion. He protected who he could, blades flashing against soldiers who tried to take vengeance where none was deserved. He carried rice sacks back into huts after patrols confiscated them, knowing survival was already scarce.
He fought the Viet Cong in tunnels so narrow he could barely raise his swords, crawling in darkness where every corner promised a blade or bullet. He dragged comrades out of those tunnels alive when others thought them lost.
The jungle was merciless, but the shadows of mistrust were worse.
---
1967 – Escalation
By 1967, half a million Americans were in Vietnam. Helicopters filled skies, convoys choked roads, bases sprouted like cities in the green.
But the enemy did not fade. They grew.
Ivar fought in Operation Cedar Falls, in Iron Triangle sweeps, in ambushes that tore platoons apart. He stormed villages held by Viet Cong, his blades flashing faster than rifles in close quarters. He watched napalm turn forests into infernos, fire rolling over trees, over men, over children who screamed until silence claimed them.
He hated it. He had seen fire used before, in Rome, in Dresden, in Hiroshima. It was never precise. It was never clean.
At night, he sat apart from the others, sharpening his swords, his sea-green eyes reflecting firelight. Soldiers sometimes joined him, silent, comforted by his calm.
"Do you think we're winning?" one asked him once.
Ivar shook his head. "No. You don't win storms. You survive them."
---
Tet – 1968
The war's turning point came with the new year.
On the Tet holiday, when truces were expected, the North struck everywhere at once. Cities, villages, bases — all erupted in fire and gunfire.
Ivar was in Hue when it began. The ancient city became a battlefield overnight. Streets turned into rivers of blood, temples shattered under shellfire, civilians caught between armies.
He fought house to house, room to room, his swords flashing in hallways choked with smoke. He dragged families through fire, carried wounded soldiers over walls, cut through enemy squads that seemed endless.
Hue bled for weeks. When it ended, the city was rubble, and the war had changed.
Tet showed the world that the enemy was not beaten. That the war was not close to over.
Ivar knew it already. He had seen enough storms to recognize when thunder was only beginning.
---
The Weight of It
By the end of 1968, America was fractured. Soldiers fought in jungles while protests filled the streets back home. Politicians promised victory, but body bags told another story.
Ivar kept walking. Kept fighting. Kept carrying men out of fire when all else failed. He bowed his head after each battle, whispering thanks for survival, never asking for peace, never cursing the silence of the gods.
Because he knew.
The war was not done.
The storm was still rising.
---
Would you like me to roll right into Chapter 19 – The Vietnam War, Part II (1969–1975: Nixon, Cambodia, My Lai aftermath, Fall of Saigon) at full 2,100+ words, or would you prefer a short interlude (late '60s into early '70s: counterculture, protests, personal moments for Ivar) before the second half of Vietnam?