We were out on patrol one day. You know, makin' sure all was right with the world and safe for the folks back on Hennepin Avenue. In the world we were traipsing' though, the only men between the ages of eighteen and forty who could be found in the light of day were the ARVNs and us. Oh yeah, I forgot the VC. But we never saw them, just the shell casings they left behind and a few thousand booby traps.
Damn, it seemed Vietnam was populated by women, old men and kids playing soccer when they weren't stealing our trip flares (little bastards). Some of our men took the 'little bastard' seriously. We'd be headin' down the road, a squad of us in the back of a deuce and a half. Vietnamese kids would come runnin, lookin' for the good stuff we carried. Food, candy. Usually, if we had some to spare, we'd share. And, just as usually, what we carried was what we needed. No more, no less. That's the way of the grunt.
But some of us always had a few bars of Hershey's tropical chocolate. Sounds like good stuff, doesn't it? And it is if you like grainy chocolate that not only doesn't melt in the tropics but does about the same in your mouth. Not complainin'. After all it was free.
And it was fairly dense stuff that didn't float. Just ask the kids who fished the bars out of puddles. Or were whupped upside the head with a well aimed toss by some numba ten GI who just didn't like any of the Vietnamese. I had a hard time with GIs doin' stuff like that even though the kids got little off of me. Let's just say it was a bad situation all the way around. In the long run even the good guys could be the bad guys.
So, we're on this patrol. Just stumblin' along goin' from one nowhere to another, all the while in single file keepin' our proper military distance from each other. And I'm softly singin'. No shame in the field even when you're like me and can barely carry a tune. I recall it bein' a Beatles song. Believe it was written by Ringo and called Obla Di, Obla Da. Don't quote me on the spellin' of the title. Spell Check sure as hell don't like the way I wrote it.
I used to sing every now and then when we were marchin'. Did that from the days of Basic Training on. Why not? I like to sing. Most every one does. Passes the time in a real friendly way. Back in civilian life me and the car radio did our share of harmonizin'. That, two bucks of gas and a pack of cigarettes was cause enough for celebration.
Don't believe anyone but me was singin' and don't recall anyone else ever singin' while on patrol. Anyhow, I'm walkin' along, load on my back, lost in a daze and who should I see when I looked up but Bravo Six, he be the Company Commander, starin' me in the eye. And he doesn't say a word. Guess it just struck him as odd that a grunt in the Nam should be happy enough to be softly beltin' out an upbeat tune and he pulled out of line to see who it was. Yup Cap'n, it be me.
Lesson learned from the Nam: Life is short. Way too short. Enjoy it while you can even if it's singin' a Beatle's tune when you're in an unhappy place.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Friday, October 18, 2013
Mundane Crap - Bunker Guard
Me, Papa-san and Weasel occupied the second one to the left of the gate. That is if you were facing out. It was our home away from home away from home. Not much to look at. She was a wooden box with an eye level slot in the front. The engineers put the box down and built it into the berm. Us grunts covered it with sand bags. As I recall it had a short L-shaped entry, also lined with sand bags. 'Spose the idea of the entry was us not takin' shrapnel from the inside should we have a rocket attack. Sometimes when we were at Moore our daytime job was filling more sand bags. Could never have enough sand bags. Not a thrilling way to spend the day but putting stuffin' those bags beat the pants off of doin' the same with inert GIs.
Days were spent doin' shit - shit's a good word to some of the things we did and goes a long way to summin' up our attitudes - that armies do to kill time, mostly maintenance and the occasional haircut.
That brings up the man with the star in the middle of his chevrons. Our Sergeant Major was a pretend soldier as far as I could see. Maybe he'd paid his dues in an earlier time but in my short span with the 9th infantry, that wasn't the case.
Only saw the man twice that I recall. Once in a chow line at Moore when we'd just come in from the field. He walked down the column and let each of us know, individually, if we needed haircuts. Seemed something like mom asking you if you had clean underwear on in case you were in a car accident. Didn't want the ambulance crew findin' skid marks in your tight-whities when they scraped you off the skid-marked pavement. We had a word for him, though we didn't say it to his face. I recall it bein' something along the line of asshole.
The other time was when we landed at Moore from an Eagle Flight Operation. He'd come out to meet us wearing clean, starched jungle fatigues, a pistol and a couple of canteens on his utility belt. Then walked in with us like we were all the best of buddies. Passed a Lieutenant on the way who asked him, "Been out Eagle Flighting Sergeant Major?" A simple nod from our hero said, "You bet. Combat's what I'm all about."
And that was what command was all about in Vietnam as far as I was concerned. That and a bunch of men who honestly did not know what they were doing. They were just guessing. Try this, try that. See what works and what doesn't. Same as all wars I 'spose. Learning curve and all that. Guess right and Charlie dies. Guess wrong and Charlie still dies but so do we. As I saw it then and still do, in an unwinable war like Vietnam, it was all just a waste of guessin'.
After chow at Moore we'd head out to the bunkers. About as close to alone time as you could get in Vietnam. There the three of us would read or write some letters. Drink a beer. Read a book. Talk. Kill time till the sun went down and then begin our watch rotation.
Best meal I ever ate in my life happened at the bunker. Bet you'd never have guessed that. Maybe the joy of the food had to do with what we'd gotten used to over the weeks and months. After a couple of weeks in the bush my field rations had boiled down to peanut butter and crackers, piece of candy (hopefully a coconut and chocolate patty), water, coffee and canned fruit. All courtesy of c-rations. Not great but tolerable.
Earlier I'd mentioned both Weasel and Papa-san were activated Ohio National Guardsmen. Luck of the draw changed their lives in a heart beat. Seemed that back in Ohio Papa-san got to know one of the cooks. And lo and behold, almost like a fairy tale, the cook ended up at Fire Base Moore. And on the day in question, had prepared a meal for a visiting Vietnamese Brigadier General. Though what he'd concocted didn't sound all that good, it turned out to be heaven on earth. A meal fit for a general, but definitely not for grunts.
Consider it our lucky stars the General was a finicky eater - maybe he had a thing against feed lot beef long before that was considered an unhealthy choice at the supermarket - and there was a pile of food left over, most of which was round steak that had been marinated in beer for two days, then barbecued. Good or not, when we were offered all we could eat, who were the three of us to say no?
Round steak marinated in beer may not sound like it would be tasty but it was. And to me, Papa-san and Weasel it was almost reason enough to be in Vietnam. We ate all the kitchen had and could have eaten more. We were pigs. Carnivorous pigs.
Days were spent doin' shit - shit's a good word to some of the things we did and goes a long way to summin' up our attitudes - that armies do to kill time, mostly maintenance and the occasional haircut.
That brings up the man with the star in the middle of his chevrons. Our Sergeant Major was a pretend soldier as far as I could see. Maybe he'd paid his dues in an earlier time but in my short span with the 9th infantry, that wasn't the case.
Only saw the man twice that I recall. Once in a chow line at Moore when we'd just come in from the field. He walked down the column and let each of us know, individually, if we needed haircuts. Seemed something like mom asking you if you had clean underwear on in case you were in a car accident. Didn't want the ambulance crew findin' skid marks in your tight-whities when they scraped you off the skid-marked pavement. We had a word for him, though we didn't say it to his face. I recall it bein' something along the line of asshole.
The other time was when we landed at Moore from an Eagle Flight Operation. He'd come out to meet us wearing clean, starched jungle fatigues, a pistol and a couple of canteens on his utility belt. Then walked in with us like we were all the best of buddies. Passed a Lieutenant on the way who asked him, "Been out Eagle Flighting Sergeant Major?" A simple nod from our hero said, "You bet. Combat's what I'm all about."
And that was what command was all about in Vietnam as far as I was concerned. That and a bunch of men who honestly did not know what they were doing. They were just guessing. Try this, try that. See what works and what doesn't. Same as all wars I 'spose. Learning curve and all that. Guess right and Charlie dies. Guess wrong and Charlie still dies but so do we. As I saw it then and still do, in an unwinable war like Vietnam, it was all just a waste of guessin'.
After chow at Moore we'd head out to the bunkers. About as close to alone time as you could get in Vietnam. There the three of us would read or write some letters. Drink a beer. Read a book. Talk. Kill time till the sun went down and then begin our watch rotation.
Best meal I ever ate in my life happened at the bunker. Bet you'd never have guessed that. Maybe the joy of the food had to do with what we'd gotten used to over the weeks and months. After a couple of weeks in the bush my field rations had boiled down to peanut butter and crackers, piece of candy (hopefully a coconut and chocolate patty), water, coffee and canned fruit. All courtesy of c-rations. Not great but tolerable.
Earlier I'd mentioned both Weasel and Papa-san were activated Ohio National Guardsmen. Luck of the draw changed their lives in a heart beat. Seemed that back in Ohio Papa-san got to know one of the cooks. And lo and behold, almost like a fairy tale, the cook ended up at Fire Base Moore. And on the day in question, had prepared a meal for a visiting Vietnamese Brigadier General. Though what he'd concocted didn't sound all that good, it turned out to be heaven on earth. A meal fit for a general, but definitely not for grunts.
Consider it our lucky stars the General was a finicky eater - maybe he had a thing against feed lot beef long before that was considered an unhealthy choice at the supermarket - and there was a pile of food left over, most of which was round steak that had been marinated in beer for two days, then barbecued. Good or not, when we were offered all we could eat, who were the three of us to say no?
Round steak marinated in beer may not sound like it would be tasty but it was. And to me, Papa-san and Weasel it was almost reason enough to be in Vietnam. We ate all the kitchen had and could have eaten more. We were pigs. Carnivorous pigs.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Mundane Crap - Gravestones and Pigs
Night in the field wasn't all bad. At least down in the Delta when the paddies were dry. Weasel always carried a small transistor radio with him. Come Saturday night it was Golden Oldies out of the military station in Saigon. I'd pull first watch, he'd forego a little over an hours sleep and we'd listen in.
Back then, what constituted a song bein' an oldie was it comin' from the years between '55 and '65. When most of us layin' in the rice paddy were growin' up. Guess that was the golden part. Didn't seem possible that less than a year earlier, most of us in were toolin' around on a Saturday night with nothing better to do than listen to the tunes on the car radio. Smoke cigarettes, no particular place to go. Listenin' to the oldies with Weasel brought back memories of life before the Army and, most of all, before Vietnam.
But those days were behind us no matter how much we wished they weren't. But we were never gonna be the same and we knew it. Our cherries were popped and there was no turnin' back.
But that's not what this memory is about. Except for the night part. The night where movement out beyond our perimeter could be anything. Or nothing at all.
No matter what the man on watch had to call in a situation report every fifteen minutes we had to let command know what was goin' on. Negative was good, positive bad. Also this let them know you were awake. Or at least sleepin' with your ear on the receiver. Bein' it was my watch I came to eves drop on the following sit-rep positive. Went something like this:
There's something out there I tell you. No doubt about it. Get me the starlight scope.
Believe we had one of the scopes per field company back in the grunt age of 1969. I used one now and then. Can't say they made anything a lot more visible. What it did do was make the world look a lot greener. Lord knows what one cost. Triple the civilian price to get what the government paid.
Something's moving, that's for sure. Best get on the horn and get every one up and at 'em.
So there we were, noses over dikes, rifles with safeties off just in case this was the real deal. In the process of wakin' men up and all the bitchin' that goes with early mornin' hours, we no doubt made enough noise to rouse the neighbors. Our luck the clatter would have gotten someone to call the cops. For sure we'd have been ticketed for disturbing the peace. Or maybe arrested and all eighty of us would've ended up spending the night in the hoosegow.
The discussion on the radio droned on for maybe five minutes while we lost sleep and sweated it out. Finally the pig wandered close enough to be identified. One trigger happy rookie could've easily done the beast in and turned it into pork sausage. First round goes off and all the rest of the company would no doubt open up. Except me. I was of the 'wait and see' school. Pullin' the trigger meant more work cleanin' the gun. Not my kinda fun.
Figure this be a good time to bring up water buffaloes. They were the John Deeres of the Delta. Did most everything a tractor did back in the States. You'd see one off in the distance, a kid on their back and a man would think they were almost cuddly, in an ugly kind of way.
But you get 'em without the kid or any Vietnamese around them and they turned into half ton pit bulls. Come chargin' at us with certain death in their eyes. Visions of grunts impaled on their horns dancin' in their heads. Nasty-assed beasts.
And there was no way us imperiled GIs could shoot the bastards. An M-16 woulda just pissed 'em off and made them nastier. And we were under orders not to shoot them in the first place. Most of us could understand that seein' as how a water buffalo was an important part of a farmstead's livelihood.
Smoke grenades, on the other hand, were another story. No harm to man nor beast but pop one and the buffalo would turn tail with the horizon in its eyes. Not sure why that worked but it sure did, slicker than snail shit.
Then there was the time on bunker guard when Lundsford got spooked. Now this wasn't the same time that Tom Smith and Iron Mike got wasted on Carling Black Label and did the Cobra Dance of Too Much to Drink on top of their bunker while a rocket attack was goin' on. That sure was something to behold but not the point of this here memory.
That was the time one of our men got the heebie-jeebies while on bunker guard. Seems he was seein' something off near the tree line that was movin' around. Exactly what it was doin' he couldn't exactly say. But there was no doubt it was something evil and not evil in the sense of wiping out a Fire Support Base by stickin' pins in a voodoo doll or sacrificing a chicken or maybe chokin' one. Even if he was wrong it was a minor miracle that one of us was paying enough attention to see anything at all.
Eventually he got worked up enough for an officer or two to come calm the man down. And, just maybe, see if there actually was something out there. The look-see evolved into a heated discussion with the officers sayin' the bunker grunt was hallucinatin' and our hero stickin' to his guns.
The only way to settle the argument was to fire up an artillery flare. Under anything but the worst of circumstances doin' that was a major no-no. A flare lit up everything in an ugly way. Like the designers didn't give any thought at all to how it made our moles and pores stand out. Not becoming at all. And it exposed us as much as them. So you never fired a flare at night unless there was some form of infiltration goin' on.
As it turned out, maybe Lundsford was right. Maybe the gravestone out there had been movin' around. Weirder things have happened in a combat zone. Then again, maybe not.
Back then, what constituted a song bein' an oldie was it comin' from the years between '55 and '65. When most of us layin' in the rice paddy were growin' up. Guess that was the golden part. Didn't seem possible that less than a year earlier, most of us in were toolin' around on a Saturday night with nothing better to do than listen to the tunes on the car radio. Smoke cigarettes, no particular place to go. Listenin' to the oldies with Weasel brought back memories of life before the Army and, most of all, before Vietnam.
But those days were behind us no matter how much we wished they weren't. But we were never gonna be the same and we knew it. Our cherries were popped and there was no turnin' back.
But that's not what this memory is about. Except for the night part. The night where movement out beyond our perimeter could be anything. Or nothing at all.
No matter what the man on watch had to call in a situation report every fifteen minutes we had to let command know what was goin' on. Negative was good, positive bad. Also this let them know you were awake. Or at least sleepin' with your ear on the receiver. Bein' it was my watch I came to eves drop on the following sit-rep positive. Went something like this:
There's something out there I tell you. No doubt about it. Get me the starlight scope.
Believe we had one of the scopes per field company back in the grunt age of 1969. I used one now and then. Can't say they made anything a lot more visible. What it did do was make the world look a lot greener. Lord knows what one cost. Triple the civilian price to get what the government paid.
Something's moving, that's for sure. Best get on the horn and get every one up and at 'em.
So there we were, noses over dikes, rifles with safeties off just in case this was the real deal. In the process of wakin' men up and all the bitchin' that goes with early mornin' hours, we no doubt made enough noise to rouse the neighbors. Our luck the clatter would have gotten someone to call the cops. For sure we'd have been ticketed for disturbing the peace. Or maybe arrested and all eighty of us would've ended up spending the night in the hoosegow.
The discussion on the radio droned on for maybe five minutes while we lost sleep and sweated it out. Finally the pig wandered close enough to be identified. One trigger happy rookie could've easily done the beast in and turned it into pork sausage. First round goes off and all the rest of the company would no doubt open up. Except me. I was of the 'wait and see' school. Pullin' the trigger meant more work cleanin' the gun. Not my kinda fun.
Figure this be a good time to bring up water buffaloes. They were the John Deeres of the Delta. Did most everything a tractor did back in the States. You'd see one off in the distance, a kid on their back and a man would think they were almost cuddly, in an ugly kind of way.
But you get 'em without the kid or any Vietnamese around them and they turned into half ton pit bulls. Come chargin' at us with certain death in their eyes. Visions of grunts impaled on their horns dancin' in their heads. Nasty-assed beasts.
And there was no way us imperiled GIs could shoot the bastards. An M-16 woulda just pissed 'em off and made them nastier. And we were under orders not to shoot them in the first place. Most of us could understand that seein' as how a water buffalo was an important part of a farmstead's livelihood.
Smoke grenades, on the other hand, were another story. No harm to man nor beast but pop one and the buffalo would turn tail with the horizon in its eyes. Not sure why that worked but it sure did, slicker than snail shit.
Then there was the time on bunker guard when Lundsford got spooked. Now this wasn't the same time that Tom Smith and Iron Mike got wasted on Carling Black Label and did the Cobra Dance of Too Much to Drink on top of their bunker while a rocket attack was goin' on. That sure was something to behold but not the point of this here memory.
That was the time one of our men got the heebie-jeebies while on bunker guard. Seems he was seein' something off near the tree line that was movin' around. Exactly what it was doin' he couldn't exactly say. But there was no doubt it was something evil and not evil in the sense of wiping out a Fire Support Base by stickin' pins in a voodoo doll or sacrificing a chicken or maybe chokin' one. Even if he was wrong it was a minor miracle that one of us was paying enough attention to see anything at all.
Eventually he got worked up enough for an officer or two to come calm the man down. And, just maybe, see if there actually was something out there. The look-see evolved into a heated discussion with the officers sayin' the bunker grunt was hallucinatin' and our hero stickin' to his guns.
The only way to settle the argument was to fire up an artillery flare. Under anything but the worst of circumstances doin' that was a major no-no. A flare lit up everything in an ugly way. Like the designers didn't give any thought at all to how it made our moles and pores stand out. Not becoming at all. And it exposed us as much as them. So you never fired a flare at night unless there was some form of infiltration goin' on.
As it turned out, maybe Lundsford was right. Maybe the gravestone out there had been movin' around. Weirder things have happened in a combat zone. Then again, maybe not.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Mundane Crap III - Spectacles
I wear glasses. Bad, bad, near-sighted vision. You know, the kind of lenses that made a person's eyes look like B-Bs at the far end of a bowling alley. This was back in the days before hi-tech, polycarbonate lenses thinned the plastic down to normal.
During my induction physical the doctor said I was legally blind without my glasses on. Got me jumpin' up and down, rubbin' my hands together and shoutin', "No Army for this boy!"
"Think again Homer. Bein' blind ain't cause enough to keep you out of the military. You need glasses? We give you glasses. Ugly glasses that go with your uniform." That's what the doctor said. And he went on to add that bein' legally blind didn't keep you from doin' shit. Exceptin' maybe anything worth doin' that didn't involve the possibility of Asian people from shootin' you dead.
All in all, what I learned from that was, in time of war, a man is not much more than a warm body to fill a hole in the ranks or maybe in the ground. That was a good thing to learn but not so easy to accept.
Back when I was a kid my big brother spent his Army time fightin' the good war over in Germany during the '50s. Must have done a good job at it 'cause nary a Russian made a move outside the Iron Curtain during his days there. What he came to learn in the peacetime Army was, if your eyes were bad you didn't have to worry about bein' in the infantry. That's what he told me and that's what I grew up assumin'. Turned out we were wrong.
It was about mid tour when I lost them. Probably wouldn't have happened had I not been in a helpful mood, when I coulda kept my hands to myself 'cause I didn't know what I was doin. You see, our platoon had to cross this river that was too deep to wade. And swimmin' was out of the question with all the gear on our backs. Sink faster than lead. So we commandeered a mama-san with a sampan. An unhappy mama-san with a sampan. And about to get unhappier.
Don't know if it was my record with breakin' down foot bridges but, as usual, I was at the end of the line on the crossover. All went well till our turn. It wasn't that I'd never been a skinny boat before but American canoes are nowhere near as width challenged as a sampan. Those Asian boats were barely ass wide on Twiggy (if you were alive back then, you'll know who she was). Had a big, friendly smile on my face as I used my gun butt to push us off from shore. And immediately roll us into the brink. Boy was mama-san pissed.
Took a moment after I popped to the surface to realize me and my M-16 weren't together anymore. That was a no-no. A rifle was an infantryman's baby. Never do us part. So I started diving in the silt filled river. Kept my eyes closed 'cause whatever was in that water I sure didn't want in my eyes. Couldn't have seen anything through the muck anyhow. Took a couple of trips to the bottom before I found it. Shazam! I was one happy grunt.
Only problem was the world around me. Somehow it'd gone all fuzzy. And my head felt lighter. A quick feelin' of my face told me it was time to start divin' again. Three or four trips and it was time to bag the operation.
Once on shore I was asked if I wanted a dustoff. Bein' the man I am, and that bein' one who's a little slow to pick up on a golden opportunity, I said no. I figured, what the hell, how dangerous could it be walkin' around half blind in a war zone? Simply not smart at all.
As luck would have it - or was it the ghost of irony that seemed to shadow me from the time I spread my cheeks on? - no more than a half hour later we stumbled upon a half dozen VC totin' a mortar, plate tube and all. At least that's what I was told those blobs off in the distance were.
Immediately we sprang into action. First off, I was told to hold my ground and not fire my M-16 under any circumstances. Then two men were assigned to make sure I didn't pull the trigger and maybe protect my useless, blind ass should more of the bad boys show up. Fine with me. Made me feel special.
First Platoon got on line, assaulted and captured the mortar. The VCs took off down the smart road as fast as they could run. Wow! We actually captured weaponry. Got everybody excited like they were actually accomplishing something for a change. Who could blame them?
That night we joined up with the rest of Bravo and set up in the paddies as usual. I couldn't see squat but took my usual turn on watch. Why not? In the dark of the tropical night none of us could see anything anyhow.
During my induction physical the doctor said I was legally blind without my glasses on. Got me jumpin' up and down, rubbin' my hands together and shoutin', "No Army for this boy!"
"Think again Homer. Bein' blind ain't cause enough to keep you out of the military. You need glasses? We give you glasses. Ugly glasses that go with your uniform." That's what the doctor said. And he went on to add that bein' legally blind didn't keep you from doin' shit. Exceptin' maybe anything worth doin' that didn't involve the possibility of Asian people from shootin' you dead.
All in all, what I learned from that was, in time of war, a man is not much more than a warm body to fill a hole in the ranks or maybe in the ground. That was a good thing to learn but not so easy to accept.
Back when I was a kid my big brother spent his Army time fightin' the good war over in Germany during the '50s. Must have done a good job at it 'cause nary a Russian made a move outside the Iron Curtain during his days there. What he came to learn in the peacetime Army was, if your eyes were bad you didn't have to worry about bein' in the infantry. That's what he told me and that's what I grew up assumin'. Turned out we were wrong.
It was about mid tour when I lost them. Probably wouldn't have happened had I not been in a helpful mood, when I coulda kept my hands to myself 'cause I didn't know what I was doin. You see, our platoon had to cross this river that was too deep to wade. And swimmin' was out of the question with all the gear on our backs. Sink faster than lead. So we commandeered a mama-san with a sampan. An unhappy mama-san with a sampan. And about to get unhappier.
Don't know if it was my record with breakin' down foot bridges but, as usual, I was at the end of the line on the crossover. All went well till our turn. It wasn't that I'd never been a skinny boat before but American canoes are nowhere near as width challenged as a sampan. Those Asian boats were barely ass wide on Twiggy (if you were alive back then, you'll know who she was). Had a big, friendly smile on my face as I used my gun butt to push us off from shore. And immediately roll us into the brink. Boy was mama-san pissed.
Took a moment after I popped to the surface to realize me and my M-16 weren't together anymore. That was a no-no. A rifle was an infantryman's baby. Never do us part. So I started diving in the silt filled river. Kept my eyes closed 'cause whatever was in that water I sure didn't want in my eyes. Couldn't have seen anything through the muck anyhow. Took a couple of trips to the bottom before I found it. Shazam! I was one happy grunt.
Only problem was the world around me. Somehow it'd gone all fuzzy. And my head felt lighter. A quick feelin' of my face told me it was time to start divin' again. Three or four trips and it was time to bag the operation.
Once on shore I was asked if I wanted a dustoff. Bein' the man I am, and that bein' one who's a little slow to pick up on a golden opportunity, I said no. I figured, what the hell, how dangerous could it be walkin' around half blind in a war zone? Simply not smart at all.
As luck would have it - or was it the ghost of irony that seemed to shadow me from the time I spread my cheeks on? - no more than a half hour later we stumbled upon a half dozen VC totin' a mortar, plate tube and all. At least that's what I was told those blobs off in the distance were.
Immediately we sprang into action. First off, I was told to hold my ground and not fire my M-16 under any circumstances. Then two men were assigned to make sure I didn't pull the trigger and maybe protect my useless, blind ass should more of the bad boys show up. Fine with me. Made me feel special.
First Platoon got on line, assaulted and captured the mortar. The VCs took off down the smart road as fast as they could run. Wow! We actually captured weaponry. Got everybody excited like they were actually accomplishing something for a change. Who could blame them?
That night we joined up with the rest of Bravo and set up in the paddies as usual. I couldn't see squat but took my usual turn on watch. Why not? In the dark of the tropical night none of us could see anything anyhow.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Mundane Crap II - Tracers
The man who replaced Lt. Olson was a hoss. A big man. And a heckuva nice guy. Easy to get along with and, even though he was the Platoon Leader, he was also a rookie and knew it. Not that he let on but he paid attention to us almost like we knew what we were doin', had been around the block a couple of times and had something he could learn from. For some odd reason I ended up as his RTO and remained so until the rain barrel fiasco when I had to be replaced. Nothing is permanent, 'specially in war.
Memory gets garbled over time and the truth of a matter may never have been truth in the first place. Keep those things in mind. Us grunts humped the boonies under the idea that the Commies were smarter than us. I doubt that was true but that's what we believed. We felt their rifles were better than ours and never jammed. They designed the diameter of their mortars a millimeter larger than ours so they could fire our rounds, no doubt acquired on the black market, but we couldn't fire theirs. And maybe, just maybe, the AK47 could fire M-16 rounds, but not vice versa. That may or may not have been true but like I said, that's what we believed.
What I did know for sure was the tracers buzzing by our ears when we stumbled into an ambush were a mix of red and green. Just like Christmas. The reds were ours and the green ones were the Reds (that's a pun in case you missed it). I assumed both colors were coming out of the same rifle or rifles.
The ambushes we walked into were usually brief affairs. Lasted about as long as it took two or three VC to empty a magazine each while on full automatic. Half the time nobody was hit. I figure the reason for our luck had to do with the VCs not wantin' to get themselves into a fire fight where the odds were stacked in our favor. Squeeze 'em off and di di mau was the plan for them.
On the operation in question, one of the first our new Platoon Leader was on, that's what happened. We were doin' something stupid. Fancy that. Walkin' down the center of a main dike so as to keep our feet dry at the end of the day.
The walkin' ended in shower of bullets and tracers. By then I'd been in country long enough to react instinctively. And those instincts launched me headfirst over the side of the dike opposite the rifle fire. Through the brush, over the lip, seventy pounds on my body be damned. Gone so fast the bullets seemed to be floatin' through the air as I passed them by.
Up atop the dike lay our new Lieutenant. Later he told me that he was feelin' damn proud he'd hit the ground so fast. Just like he'd been in combat all his life. Then looked around and found himself alone. Guess his instinct for survival needed a little honin'. But in his favor, the Lieutenant was set to return fire toward the men who were long gone. Such was life in the Delta.
Memory gets garbled over time and the truth of a matter may never have been truth in the first place. Keep those things in mind. Us grunts humped the boonies under the idea that the Commies were smarter than us. I doubt that was true but that's what we believed. We felt their rifles were better than ours and never jammed. They designed the diameter of their mortars a millimeter larger than ours so they could fire our rounds, no doubt acquired on the black market, but we couldn't fire theirs. And maybe, just maybe, the AK47 could fire M-16 rounds, but not vice versa. That may or may not have been true but like I said, that's what we believed.
What I did know for sure was the tracers buzzing by our ears when we stumbled into an ambush were a mix of red and green. Just like Christmas. The reds were ours and the green ones were the Reds (that's a pun in case you missed it). I assumed both colors were coming out of the same rifle or rifles.
The ambushes we walked into were usually brief affairs. Lasted about as long as it took two or three VC to empty a magazine each while on full automatic. Half the time nobody was hit. I figure the reason for our luck had to do with the VCs not wantin' to get themselves into a fire fight where the odds were stacked in our favor. Squeeze 'em off and di di mau was the plan for them.
On the operation in question, one of the first our new Platoon Leader was on, that's what happened. We were doin' something stupid. Fancy that. Walkin' down the center of a main dike so as to keep our feet dry at the end of the day.
The walkin' ended in shower of bullets and tracers. By then I'd been in country long enough to react instinctively. And those instincts launched me headfirst over the side of the dike opposite the rifle fire. Through the brush, over the lip, seventy pounds on my body be damned. Gone so fast the bullets seemed to be floatin' through the air as I passed them by.
Up atop the dike lay our new Lieutenant. Later he told me that he was feelin' damn proud he'd hit the ground so fast. Just like he'd been in combat all his life. Then looked around and found himself alone. Guess his instinct for survival needed a little honin'. But in his favor, the Lieutenant was set to return fire toward the men who were long gone. Such was life in the Delta.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Mundane Ordinary Everyday Crap - I
Most of our time in Vietnam was not all that exciting. And that's the way we liked it. At the boot meets the ground level, most armies would gladly trade medals for a day of humping from here to there. Kinda fits with the old canoeman's saying of "No Indian ever died on a portage." Happily, in the Delta, fire fights didn't happen all that often. Unhappily, that didn't stop us from losing men one or two at a time. Give me a day of mindless fatigue with sixty pounds on my back and I was a happy soldier.
When the paddies were dry our night positions were almost pleasant. We were lucky enough to never be infiltrated. Rumor had it, and rumor was everything, that Charlie Company had their sleep interrupted one night. Neither the number of VC involved nor casualties were ever known by us. That was normal. But the idea of hand to hand combat in the dark was real enough to get us thinking about what it would be like. Gun butt, knuckles and knife time. You open up with a pistol or rifle in the dark and the odds of shooting your best friend were about the same as gunning down an infiltrator. The thought alone was enough to keep our eyes open when on watch.
Charlie also figured in on my favorite combat story. Gets me to thinking there wasn't actually a Charlie Company besides the one made up by the division's psychological warfare crew. When they figured us grunts were gettin' slack about keepin' awake at night, they started up the infiltration rumor. When we were down in the dumps they fired up the following one:
Not too far from FSB Moore sat an ARVN fire base. Don't know what the hell they did there. Supposedly they had an artillery unit inside to provide all the cover fire an ARVN unit could wish for. But as far as I could see, the ARVNs didn't venture out very often. Once they strolled along with Bravo Company on a bushmaster. Yup, that's about all they did, stroll. Didn't carry any water or rations with them. When they got hungry or thirsty they tried to borrow from us. Like that was gonna happen. That's why, in an earlier entry, I said South Vietnam would tumble like a house of cards when we pulled out. Seemed we were fighting their war. Or, more accurately, it was our war and they were dragged into it whether they wanted or not. Screwed up for sure.
On a bushmaster we'd walk back to Moore. Simple enough. Unless it was gettin' near the end of the day. Seemed like four o'clock was cocktail hour for the ARVNs in their FSB. And when they were a little lit they felt the need to fire a couple of rounds over the heads of a passing grunt unit. That much I know for sure, seein' as how it happened to us on occasion. Pissed us off but we always let it pass.
Not so Charlie Company. I remember it being soon after they were infiltrated. That's how I recall it but after forty-four years my recall might be a tad off. Anyhow, on the evening in question, one way or the other, Charlie Company was a little high strung and ready to snap. All it took was a couple of alcohol inspired rounds to set them off.
As the story reached us it had them assaulting the ARVNs. The result was a few ARVN wounded, maybe a KIA or two. Charlie Company was untouched. And no doubt feelin' a whole lot better.
Whether the assault actually happened is up for grabs. Like I said, we got it through the rumor mill. On the other hand, it sure made us feel good and that said a lot about how we felt about our allies.
When the paddies were dry our night positions were almost pleasant. We were lucky enough to never be infiltrated. Rumor had it, and rumor was everything, that Charlie Company had their sleep interrupted one night. Neither the number of VC involved nor casualties were ever known by us. That was normal. But the idea of hand to hand combat in the dark was real enough to get us thinking about what it would be like. Gun butt, knuckles and knife time. You open up with a pistol or rifle in the dark and the odds of shooting your best friend were about the same as gunning down an infiltrator. The thought alone was enough to keep our eyes open when on watch.
Charlie also figured in on my favorite combat story. Gets me to thinking there wasn't actually a Charlie Company besides the one made up by the division's psychological warfare crew. When they figured us grunts were gettin' slack about keepin' awake at night, they started up the infiltration rumor. When we were down in the dumps they fired up the following one:
Not too far from FSB Moore sat an ARVN fire base. Don't know what the hell they did there. Supposedly they had an artillery unit inside to provide all the cover fire an ARVN unit could wish for. But as far as I could see, the ARVNs didn't venture out very often. Once they strolled along with Bravo Company on a bushmaster. Yup, that's about all they did, stroll. Didn't carry any water or rations with them. When they got hungry or thirsty they tried to borrow from us. Like that was gonna happen. That's why, in an earlier entry, I said South Vietnam would tumble like a house of cards when we pulled out. Seemed we were fighting their war. Or, more accurately, it was our war and they were dragged into it whether they wanted or not. Screwed up for sure.
On a bushmaster we'd walk back to Moore. Simple enough. Unless it was gettin' near the end of the day. Seemed like four o'clock was cocktail hour for the ARVNs in their FSB. And when they were a little lit they felt the need to fire a couple of rounds over the heads of a passing grunt unit. That much I know for sure, seein' as how it happened to us on occasion. Pissed us off but we always let it pass.
Not so Charlie Company. I remember it being soon after they were infiltrated. That's how I recall it but after forty-four years my recall might be a tad off. Anyhow, on the evening in question, one way or the other, Charlie Company was a little high strung and ready to snap. All it took was a couple of alcohol inspired rounds to set them off.
As the story reached us it had them assaulting the ARVNs. The result was a few ARVN wounded, maybe a KIA or two. Charlie Company was untouched. And no doubt feelin' a whole lot better.
Whether the assault actually happened is up for grabs. Like I said, we got it through the rumor mill. On the other hand, it sure made us feel good and that said a lot about how we felt about our allies.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Still Revising
I'm about up to Lois arriving in Hawaii. Gotta admit I'm havin' a good time rereading the entries. It's almost like I was there. What can I say? It was an interesting time and found me in a couple of interesting places. And, for an American, those places were at the opposite ends of the stick.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Revising
Lacking anything constructive to do with my life I've gone back to Rumors I and started to clean the whole mess up. There I found sentences that were interesting but had no idea what they were about.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Or For the Worse
But that's not an easy call. Oh I tried, sometimes both directions at the same time.
During the years I completed my degree at the U of Minnesota I wore boots and fatigue shirt most every day. Still in uniform I guess. Couldn't leave it alone. Dreamt about being in the Army and not being able to get out nearly every night. What happened in Vietnam, the ambushes and the killing, never came to visit. Being drafted over and over and ending up in Vietnam was a common theme. As I recall, I did three incomplete tours, never a full one. Yup, that's my story. A victim of my times and myself.
Maybe that's the story of Vietnam. A conflicted conflict. It was an evil little war in which most of the participants went with good, or at least neutral intentions. Those of us at the bottom didn't know what was going on beyond that we weren't having much fun, didn't want to die and just wanted to get the hell out of there. Don't know if the boys at the top had a clue either.
Loop Back
This is where we came in back on 07/30/12 with the entry, Rumors. So if you're one of the few who are wondering what happened next, you've gotta loop back to that entry.
Monday, July 22, 2013
So What Else is New? - in progress
'Spose I could backtrack and fill in some of the deleted days and weeks from Basic Training and AIT but I don't think I will. I didn't know what the hell I was doing back then. A feather on the wind of the times, hoping I wouldn't be blown out to sea. Or something like that. Can't say my grasp on things has gotten any better over the years. Life's always in flux. What's around the corner is an educated guess at best. Usually it turns out to have been a new take on an old mistake.
I'm not even sure about what I've just written. But I'll sleep on it for a day or two, see how it feels then.
Next day: So where does that leave me? I'm as old as the WWI vets were when I was a kid. Actually older than most of those Doughboys were. That's scary. But Jesus, I'm a Vietnam vet, how can I be that old? Don't want to ever admit that the times have passed me by but there I am, that's me up near the back of the bleachers watching the parade of buffoonery on their smart phones. Or the 'look at me' crowd of vets on their Harleys as they rumble by following the color guard on the 4th of July.
And I carry a ruck sack of guilt wherever I go. Went to war for no better reason than I couldn't think of a way out of a dead end. Didn't go for the freedom of the South Vietnamese. Didn't go to keep someone else from going. Wasn't for the war, wasn't against it, till I was in it. Never finished my tour in Vietnam while others were still needlessly dying. And in the days since, even though I walked in a few marches and wore my hair long, I haven't changed the world for the better as far as I can see.
More tomorrow.
I'm not even sure about what I've just written. But I'll sleep on it for a day or two, see how it feels then.
Next day: So where does that leave me? I'm as old as the WWI vets were when I was a kid. Actually older than most of those Doughboys were. That's scary. But Jesus, I'm a Vietnam vet, how can I be that old? Don't want to ever admit that the times have passed me by but there I am, that's me up near the back of the bleachers watching the parade of buffoonery on their smart phones. Or the 'look at me' crowd of vets on their Harleys as they rumble by following the color guard on the 4th of July.
And I carry a ruck sack of guilt wherever I go. Went to war for no better reason than I couldn't think of a way out of a dead end. Didn't go for the freedom of the South Vietnamese. Didn't go to keep someone else from going. Wasn't for the war, wasn't against it, till I was in it. Never finished my tour in Vietnam while others were still needlessly dying. And in the days since, even though I walked in a few marches and wore my hair long, I haven't changed the world for the better as far as I can see.
More tomorrow.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Swollen Feet, Swollen Ego and My Ass in a Wringer
Monsoon. That's about it. If you've been through one, you know what I mean. If not, let's just say it rains a lot and then it rains a lot more.
From the air the Delta looked like a shallow sea with tree lines and the stripes of rice paddy dikes. Night positions became precarious. No place to dig in, no paddy floors to sleep on. Leeches everywhere except for the tide controlled rivers. Some mornings you'd wake up with a circular tell-tale leech sucking mark on your arm that said you'd been accosted in the night. No thank you note on your pillow, not a dime in payment. GIs left a lot of non-wound blood in Vietnam.
We'd set up on the raised mud platforms of farmyards. Never gave it any thought at the time but I guess we took those poor people hostage, as shields to protect us against mortars, rockets, and rifle fire. Not that we did them any harm. For all I know Bravo Six reimbursed them for their hospitality at regular Saigon hotel room rates.
Even sleeping above the water table did no good in keeping us dry 'cause it rained at night. Hard. Every night except odd numbered Thursdays. And it was cold. Not exactly Minnesota winter cold but when you're used to temperatures in the 90's, a wet 65 can feel like winter.
At night we'd roll up in our waterproof ponchos when not on watch and hope for motionless sleep to keep from bein' more in touch with the ooze. Didn't much matter. We were wet and mud covered when we rolled up and even more so when we awoke.
One night me and The Farmer decided to sleep dry. More or less did the Little Boy Blue thing, or the farmer thing if you want, and crawled under a hay stack for the night. No doubt about it, it was dry. And we weren't alone in our cleverness. Rats like to stay dry also. Screw them. We slept well.
Typical for the Army, or at least any company I was ever in, we were always short some items of equipment. For us it was ponchos. A big deal during the monsoon. Seemed like we were never short more than one, but we were always short. Come time to head to the field from Dong Tam or Moore there was a always a kind of musical chairs for ponchos goin' on. I'm missin' mine, I steal yours and so on down the line till the order comes to saddle up. On the first operation in question, turned out it was me who was in the stink hole.
Wasn't but an overnight out on the highway where my squad was to pull guard for a sniper. You see, we were in a free fire zone. That meant we could shoot to kill anyone who was moving away from us with the intention keepin' on in that direction. Or anyone out and about after dark. 'Specially if they were thinking of crossing a highway to maybe visit mom and borrow a cup of sugar.
On the upside, the highway was cozy warm on a chilly night. On the downside, it was raining buckets. The kind of rain that would drown a man if he slept on his back with his mouth open. Not a good night to sleep without a poncho.
But there was a Jeep, the sniper's Jeep. And it was kind of like a tent if you crawled under it. Probably would have been just as dry and a whole lot more comfortable to sleep in the Jeep. But, you see, it wasn't my Jeep and askin' to sleep in it would have been way too personal. Almost like asking for a date. So I scooched my ass underneath. Ahhh, dry.
I was blissfully happy. For about ten minutes. Don't know if you've ever noticed but asphalt doesn't really fluff up. Nope, nothing at all like a down pillow. And rolling over once I stiffened up wasn't an option seeing as how my nose was tight to the drive train. Couldn't even lay on my side. What was Jeep thinking when they designed the vehicle's ground clearance? Probably never gave a second's thought to anyone sleeping underneath. A simple case of selfish, short-sighted bastardism if I ever heard of one.
So I spent the night wet, sleeplessly leaning against the side of a Jeep's fender. Doubt anyone else got much sleep either. And no Vietnamese died on the highway that night. Not like I cared much one way or the other. My guess was a VC was smart enough to stay dry when the opportunity presented itself.
But that's not the gist of this entry. Not even close. But the story I'm working towards does involve water, as does most every combat story from the Delta.
I believe I once mentioned it was SOP in the Delta to get an infantry company out of the field after two days due to the conditions. The conditions being water and its effect on feet. Emersion foot, paddy foot, jungle rot, ring worm, and a variety of other kinds of weird shit that would sprout on a GI's body, live there for a while, then go away. Or maybe make itself at home deep in his body till the time came for it to reawaken on a warm summer's day in Minnesota. If you ever saw a Delta based grunt unit in the shower on a stand down it'd look sunburned faces, scorched hands, and a flower garden of lesions from the knees on down. Yeah baby, we itched a lot.
On this occasion, we'd been out in the field almost three monsoon drenched days. Spent the night in a farmyard and were now waiting for our chauffeurs in helicopters to come get us. We'd been waiting for a couple of hours when the word came down it was time to saddle up and hoof it into Moore. Seemed there was a bunch of fire fights going on elsewhere and they needed our choppers more than we did.
From our grumbling you'd have thought we were a bunch of spoiled brats. Just like Americans are supposed to be. One of our crazed killers was so upset he kicked a picket out of a fence. Then felt bad about it and put it back. Like I've said time and again, most of us didn't want to be there in the first place but weren't sharp enough to avoid it. So we pissed and moaned about a lot of stuff while we went about doing the stuff we didn't want to do. Like having to move ten clicks, that be a little over six miles, during the monsoon.
The land was flooded. Pure and simple. Any form of bridge was washed out. Every moat and river had to be forded. Slow slogging at its finest. And by slow that figured to about one mile an hour. Quarter mile along a dike, down into a stream, up out of the stream, then down to the next. Eighty men, for six hours. Actually no big deal. No one was shooting at us and, once we got going, no one bitched about it. We just did it, simple, mindless, grunt work. What the hell, we were grunts, what else would you expect of us?
Mid-afternoon we were back at Moore and peeling off our boots. Actually, I felt just fine. I figure most of us did. We were used to humping from one end of the day to the other with weight on our backs. Not a fat boy among us.
But when the boots came off, the show began. Underneath the leather was a layer of wool socks pressed tight to the flesh with a neat double row of boot eyelets squeezed onto them. Beneath the socks the same pattern was embossed on my feet and ankles. Once the socks came off the swelling began. The eyelet dents disappeared as both feet visibly puffed up. Fascinating. Next the ankles bulged. The process continued till my toes began to point skyward like sunflowers following the sun. En-masse a group of us hobbled to the aid station where we were all sprayed with disinfectant, given two aspirin, and put on twenty-four hour bed rest.
Life in a combat zone knows no bed rest. You'd think I'd have figured that out after a couple of months in country, but I hadn't. There were bunkers to man and each required three warm bodies regardless of feet. About an hour after us infirms were cozied indoors for a day of lounging, a sergeant walked in with a list with half of our names on it to head to the bunkers ASAP.
That's when I went into my barracks lawyer's routine about how we were all free from such nonsense 'cause we had doctor's orders which I, with all certainty, even though I had no clue as to what I was talking about, stated trumped a First Sergeant's orders. Ironically, I wasn't one of those on the list. Sometimes I don't know when to keep my mouth shut. Rather than listen to me blither on, the sergeant about-faced and disappeared.
No more than a minute later he returned with a request that I go visit First Sergeant Withers. The others immediately picked up their gear and headed to the bunkers. Guess they knew the score and whose shit was in the wind.
I'd like to say I was upbeat about being singled out by Top concerning my sense of right even when in a war zone but that wouldn't be exactly true. I'd also like to write that me and the First Sergeant were best of buddies from that moment on 'cause he found me to be a soul mate in the never ending war against injustice in the world but the tremors I felt on my way to the office would have said that also wasn't on the money. Mostly I hoped I wouldn't get reamed out too badly and was thinking furiously of my defense.
Right off Top explained why he'd made the list, then let me begin my defense. Nice of him to do so. I began with, "I thought..." That's as far as I got.
Top cut in with a booming, "We don't pay you to think!" Then continued on with a tirade backed by twenty-five years in the Army, that offered no room for rebuttal.
By the time he finished all I had left to say was a wizened, "Yes, First Sergeant."
Interestingly, I wasn't put on his list for bunker duty. But I did move a lot higher on his shit list.
From the air the Delta looked like a shallow sea with tree lines and the stripes of rice paddy dikes. Night positions became precarious. No place to dig in, no paddy floors to sleep on. Leeches everywhere except for the tide controlled rivers. Some mornings you'd wake up with a circular tell-tale leech sucking mark on your arm that said you'd been accosted in the night. No thank you note on your pillow, not a dime in payment. GIs left a lot of non-wound blood in Vietnam.
We'd set up on the raised mud platforms of farmyards. Never gave it any thought at the time but I guess we took those poor people hostage, as shields to protect us against mortars, rockets, and rifle fire. Not that we did them any harm. For all I know Bravo Six reimbursed them for their hospitality at regular Saigon hotel room rates.
Even sleeping above the water table did no good in keeping us dry 'cause it rained at night. Hard. Every night except odd numbered Thursdays. And it was cold. Not exactly Minnesota winter cold but when you're used to temperatures in the 90's, a wet 65 can feel like winter.
At night we'd roll up in our waterproof ponchos when not on watch and hope for motionless sleep to keep from bein' more in touch with the ooze. Didn't much matter. We were wet and mud covered when we rolled up and even more so when we awoke.
One night me and The Farmer decided to sleep dry. More or less did the Little Boy Blue thing, or the farmer thing if you want, and crawled under a hay stack for the night. No doubt about it, it was dry. And we weren't alone in our cleverness. Rats like to stay dry also. Screw them. We slept well.
Typical for the Army, or at least any company I was ever in, we were always short some items of equipment. For us it was ponchos. A big deal during the monsoon. Seemed like we were never short more than one, but we were always short. Come time to head to the field from Dong Tam or Moore there was a always a kind of musical chairs for ponchos goin' on. I'm missin' mine, I steal yours and so on down the line till the order comes to saddle up. On the first operation in question, turned out it was me who was in the stink hole.
Wasn't but an overnight out on the highway where my squad was to pull guard for a sniper. You see, we were in a free fire zone. That meant we could shoot to kill anyone who was moving away from us with the intention keepin' on in that direction. Or anyone out and about after dark. 'Specially if they were thinking of crossing a highway to maybe visit mom and borrow a cup of sugar.
On the upside, the highway was cozy warm on a chilly night. On the downside, it was raining buckets. The kind of rain that would drown a man if he slept on his back with his mouth open. Not a good night to sleep without a poncho.
But there was a Jeep, the sniper's Jeep. And it was kind of like a tent if you crawled under it. Probably would have been just as dry and a whole lot more comfortable to sleep in the Jeep. But, you see, it wasn't my Jeep and askin' to sleep in it would have been way too personal. Almost like asking for a date. So I scooched my ass underneath. Ahhh, dry.
I was blissfully happy. For about ten minutes. Don't know if you've ever noticed but asphalt doesn't really fluff up. Nope, nothing at all like a down pillow. And rolling over once I stiffened up wasn't an option seeing as how my nose was tight to the drive train. Couldn't even lay on my side. What was Jeep thinking when they designed the vehicle's ground clearance? Probably never gave a second's thought to anyone sleeping underneath. A simple case of selfish, short-sighted bastardism if I ever heard of one.
So I spent the night wet, sleeplessly leaning against the side of a Jeep's fender. Doubt anyone else got much sleep either. And no Vietnamese died on the highway that night. Not like I cared much one way or the other. My guess was a VC was smart enough to stay dry when the opportunity presented itself.
But that's not the gist of this entry. Not even close. But the story I'm working towards does involve water, as does most every combat story from the Delta.
I believe I once mentioned it was SOP in the Delta to get an infantry company out of the field after two days due to the conditions. The conditions being water and its effect on feet. Emersion foot, paddy foot, jungle rot, ring worm, and a variety of other kinds of weird shit that would sprout on a GI's body, live there for a while, then go away. Or maybe make itself at home deep in his body till the time came for it to reawaken on a warm summer's day in Minnesota. If you ever saw a Delta based grunt unit in the shower on a stand down it'd look sunburned faces, scorched hands, and a flower garden of lesions from the knees on down. Yeah baby, we itched a lot.
On this occasion, we'd been out in the field almost three monsoon drenched days. Spent the night in a farmyard and were now waiting for our chauffeurs in helicopters to come get us. We'd been waiting for a couple of hours when the word came down it was time to saddle up and hoof it into Moore. Seemed there was a bunch of fire fights going on elsewhere and they needed our choppers more than we did.
From our grumbling you'd have thought we were a bunch of spoiled brats. Just like Americans are supposed to be. One of our crazed killers was so upset he kicked a picket out of a fence. Then felt bad about it and put it back. Like I've said time and again, most of us didn't want to be there in the first place but weren't sharp enough to avoid it. So we pissed and moaned about a lot of stuff while we went about doing the stuff we didn't want to do. Like having to move ten clicks, that be a little over six miles, during the monsoon.
The land was flooded. Pure and simple. Any form of bridge was washed out. Every moat and river had to be forded. Slow slogging at its finest. And by slow that figured to about one mile an hour. Quarter mile along a dike, down into a stream, up out of the stream, then down to the next. Eighty men, for six hours. Actually no big deal. No one was shooting at us and, once we got going, no one bitched about it. We just did it, simple, mindless, grunt work. What the hell, we were grunts, what else would you expect of us?
Mid-afternoon we were back at Moore and peeling off our boots. Actually, I felt just fine. I figure most of us did. We were used to humping from one end of the day to the other with weight on our backs. Not a fat boy among us.
But when the boots came off, the show began. Underneath the leather was a layer of wool socks pressed tight to the flesh with a neat double row of boot eyelets squeezed onto them. Beneath the socks the same pattern was embossed on my feet and ankles. Once the socks came off the swelling began. The eyelet dents disappeared as both feet visibly puffed up. Fascinating. Next the ankles bulged. The process continued till my toes began to point skyward like sunflowers following the sun. En-masse a group of us hobbled to the aid station where we were all sprayed with disinfectant, given two aspirin, and put on twenty-four hour bed rest.
Life in a combat zone knows no bed rest. You'd think I'd have figured that out after a couple of months in country, but I hadn't. There were bunkers to man and each required three warm bodies regardless of feet. About an hour after us infirms were cozied indoors for a day of lounging, a sergeant walked in with a list with half of our names on it to head to the bunkers ASAP.
That's when I went into my barracks lawyer's routine about how we were all free from such nonsense 'cause we had doctor's orders which I, with all certainty, even though I had no clue as to what I was talking about, stated trumped a First Sergeant's orders. Ironically, I wasn't one of those on the list. Sometimes I don't know when to keep my mouth shut. Rather than listen to me blither on, the sergeant about-faced and disappeared.
No more than a minute later he returned with a request that I go visit First Sergeant Withers. The others immediately picked up their gear and headed to the bunkers. Guess they knew the score and whose shit was in the wind.
I'd like to say I was upbeat about being singled out by Top concerning my sense of right even when in a war zone but that wouldn't be exactly true. I'd also like to write that me and the First Sergeant were best of buddies from that moment on 'cause he found me to be a soul mate in the never ending war against injustice in the world but the tremors I felt on my way to the office would have said that also wasn't on the money. Mostly I hoped I wouldn't get reamed out too badly and was thinking furiously of my defense.
Right off Top explained why he'd made the list, then let me begin my defense. Nice of him to do so. I began with, "I thought..." That's as far as I got.
Top cut in with a booming, "We don't pay you to think!" Then continued on with a tirade backed by twenty-five years in the Army, that offered no room for rebuttal.
By the time he finished all I had left to say was a wizened, "Yes, First Sergeant."
Interestingly, I wasn't put on his list for bunker duty. But I did move a lot higher on his shit list.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Snoopy's Nose II
I think I have a photo somewhere of Tom Smith (that's Thomas C. Smith as opposed to Thomas A. Smith or Thomas E. Smith, we had all three in Bravo Company) and 'Iron' Mike Whitworth (we called him 'Iron' Mike cause he was about five-seven and a hundred-twenty pounds. Maybe it was short for ironic) standing on a tarmac, waiting for an Eagle Flight, and sharing a bottle of Tiger beer. If the photo actually exists, I must have been the one who shot it. I did have a Kodak Instamatic camera and did shoot a few pictures. My intention was to take many more but it never seemed all that important when the time came to buy more film. And then my time was up. Never made it to the end of the first roll. The last couple of snaps were of Schofield Barracks.
I must have shot it between naps on the tarmac. In truth I never actually napped. But I did lay back, head in helmet, eyes closed. No one messed with me when I did that. Sleeping dogs and all that. It was the only way I could be alone with my thoughts while in a crowd of antsy men. Yeah, it was my method of dealing with fear by drawing inward behind my eyelids so I could head off to my happy place. Some people call it self-hypnosis. Some, mediation. I didn't call it anything, it was just what I did when we were on the edge of total shit. Figured that the shit was gonna happen regardless of what I feared of ruminated on, so there was no point in dwelling on it. When we were in the middle of whatever was up ahead, escape was impossible. Then it was time for complete concentration on what was coming down. When death entered the game it was time for a grunt to stay on his toes. And no one had to remind him to pay attention. He couldn't help it. Totally real? You bet.
'Iron' Mike walked point for the first squad. Tom was his back up. It was a normal thing, almost a requirement, that the first two men in a squad become friends and those two were no different. Mike, a taciturn kid from Texas who liked alcohol in all its forms, and Tom, a grinning, easy going surfer from California, made an odd pair, but a pair nonetheless. Once they were even dusted off together after riling up a beehive of colossal, black bumble bees. If that ain't friendship I don't know what is.
This time we were on a tarmac waiting for a ride. At putzed, a few batteries of six and eight inch guns were hammering an area of Snoopy's nose with the intention of giving the beagle a nosebleed before us grunts were flown in to teach those evil VC bastards a lesson they'd, or more accurately, I'd never forget. This was to be a battalion sized operation with Bravo as one of the sweeping groups.
Sittin' there waiting for our Eagle Flight, I doubt if any of us gave a lot of thought as to the effect an artillery barrage would actually have. I know that it never crossed my mind. Being young, ignorant, and stupid goes a long way in building unfounded military confidence.
WWII seemed to tell us that if the enemy was hunkered down it mattered little how many tons of ordinance was shot at or dropped on them. From my meager experience in the Delta I'd say the same was true for us. You'd have thought someone up in the ranks was keeping notes about those kind of things, even back in the ancient times of the 1940's. Something like:
"Hammered Okinawa for three days. Bombs, artillery, and leaflets that insulted the Emperor's bad taste in footwear. Not a tree or hill left standing. Thousand's of us died when we hit the beaches. Get's you to thinking there must be a better way."
Random shelling seems to kill people only if it lands on top of them. A crap shoot with little chance of success.
In our case it did do a fine job of sending a calling card to the VC telling them that we were coming in force and pinpoint the location where we'd be knocking on their door. All they had to do was figure on us arriving a few minutes after the shelling stopped and set up an appropriate ambush. Fortunately for them, they were good at ambushes and we were even better at walking into them.
My happy place was back home, even if that meant weeding the garden. A nothing special happy place where doing ordinary things seemed wonderful. We constantly forget how good it is to have food on the table, a roof over our heads, and no one ordering, "Let's all of us saddle up and go get our shit blown away!".
But I wasn't thinking about the killing part. Death could take care of itself just fine. Didn't need my help at all. I was lost in thoughts of being alive with people I loved, most of all Lois. She wrote me every day and I carried her most recent letters with me to wear out until new ones arrived.
Everything was there, back home where I wanted to be. But, for the moment, I was laying on my back on a tarmac in Southeast Asia waiting for the choppers to come take us to a place that would no doubt send a few of us home in bags. Kinda sucks doesn't it? Wasn't like this was anything new for us or those who came before, so no one whined about it. For better or worse we were in it together. Each of us, alone with our thoughts and looking down the scattergun barrel of the democracy that is death in combat.
The operation must have used nearly every chopper in the Ninth Division, even the one that had NAM SUCKS emblazoned in large white letters on its underbelly. Gotta like that. We came down in the quiet of large, dried out rice paddies. Looked as abandoned as the last time we were at Snoopy's Nose. Should have brought some beer on ice, lawn chairs and the horseshoes. A regular picnic in paddyland.
This time we didn't set out on patrol in single file, fifteen meters apart. Instead we stretched out in a single horizontal line, every man-jack in a row. Left to right it was First, Second, and Third Platoon. All of us faced forward, then started walking. The order of the day was to squeeze off a round now and then to encourage anything and anyone in front of us to hightail it toward the blocking force. Which I expect was some other Company. A plan for sure. Maybe even given a lot of thought.
I take that back. Yes, it was a plan but it wasn't all that well thought out. Like our artillery barrage we were saying to the VC, "We're off the choppers now and making a lot of noise just so you can know exactly where we are and where we're heading." Made us look like a bunch of Red Coats in the American Revolution.
I guess our Colonel forgot all about what he'd learned about fighting guerrilla forces back in his grade school history class. As in, "Us Brits will put on bright red uniforms and march along out in the open. You yankees go hide in the trees and ambush us just like a bunch of wild Indians."
Down the row from me in the middle of the Second Platoon was a man from Texas who fired his M-60 from the hip. Yeah, he was a big guy. Later Bravo Six recalled watching him as we moved forward. Said that the only thing moving as the man spit out bursts from his machine gun was his shirt that rippled with each trigger squeeze, "Yeah, he was a real hoss."
A few weeks later, The Farmer tried the same trick. Now, The Farmer was a strong man, no doubt about it. Had hands the size of a farmer, mostly 'cause that's what he was and that's why we called him The Farmer. But Frank wasn't but a welterweight in size. After a couple of his hip high, machine gun bursts we received a call from Bravo Six, a half mile away. Seemed he was wondering who was firing at him and his command group. Not that Frank wasn't an excellent soldier but it took a man of serious size to counter-balance and hold down a hip fired M-60.
We were moving at a full walking pace. Why not? It was open, dry field from one side of the company to the other. Eventually we came upon a small, pocket swamp with a stand of trees in it. Not something you'd want to walk through. Mud, leeches, snakes and big-assed bugs that'd take you down and eat you when properly tenderized and cured. Mainly, we'd been dry to this point and intended to stay that way. No sir, we were all for gettin' through this day and this year as quickly and cleanly as possible.
I was butt up against the left flank of Second Platoon and walking straight at the swamp and had a decision to make. Passing on getting wet, two of us First Platooners hung a right with Second and the rest of the First passed the swamp on its left. Truthfully, I never gave a thought to having pulled a bonehead move. Neither did anyone else. But boneheaded is what it was.
A moment's consideration would have told a good soldier that some form of cover was necessary to set up an ambush. Seeing as how every patch of ground behind us was wide open there was no possibility of an ambush there. But a swamp with brush and trees? If I was gonna hide, that would be the place (an even better place to hide would have been Winnipeg).
Forty yards later, the swamp behind us, me and the other First Platooner angled back left and rejoined our group. Second Platoon continued straight ahead, leaving a gap between the two platoons of about fifty yards as I recall. Don't quote me on the yardage, but it's in the ballpark.
Believe me, I didn't think about it at the time. It took a couple of decades to realize what we'd done when we bypassed the swamp and never gave it a look-see. From my personal survival point of view, not looking might have been the best thing I could have done. Instead, I walked into and out of an ambush in complete, oblivious ignorance.
As it was, our open field was ending. A woods stood a short chip shot past the swamp. Midway between the two Second Platoon found themselves in a crossfire. If I described it as withering I wouldn't be far off. By then my platoon was far enough away to see nothing of what was going on. But we could hear. By both radio and rifle fire. They were in a world of hurt and calling for some kind of relief.
We were ordered to hold our ground until a plan of action was decided on. So that's what we did. Cracked open c-rations and took a break. All the while Second Platoon was being picked off one at a time. They went to the field with no more than twenty-seven men. As I recall, when all was said and done they took twenty-two casualties, three of which were KIAs. It was a slaughter. Fish in a barrel.
First Platoon sat there while it was happening. I had my boots off briefly to air my feet. Even soaked them in a little rectangular pool that had probably once been part of a farmstead. Soothing, cool water that refreshed my feet but did nothing to improve the circumstances.
And listened to the happenings on my radio. Like tuning into a Gopher's football game back home while raking leaves in the fall. Believe me, we felt for those poor souls over there but you see, they were over there getting shot and we were here, not getting shot. What could we do but sit there and wait for the word, while Bravo Six no doubt talked with the Battalion Commander whose plans were falling apart man by man? Must have been tough on the Colonel knowing his possible promotion was now going to be based on his ability to write and put a positive spin on this fiasco. Hell, from what I saw, most of the war reporting was fiction anyhow, what was one more puny battle in the scheme of things?
How long did we sit there? Seemed like hours but was probably more along the lines of fifteen minutes. Or an eternity if you were laying out in the open in a pool of a friend's blood.
I guess none of us were in a hurry to do anything 'cause we knew, sooner or later, a plan would be hatched and we'd be among the feature players. No doubt in my mind when that time came, our little world would turn into total shit.
All the while, in the background, then buzzing around from person to person like a fly that had been following too many dogs, was the leader of First Squad, a sergeant who claimed to be one of only two real soldiers in Bravo Company. Over and over he told everyone, and no one, that he was having a heat stroke and needed to be dusted off. Did it with so much energy there was no doubt what his real problem was. Everyone within earshot either turned a cold shoulder or told him to kiss their ass. On and on and on he ranted with no luck or sympathy. We knew what his problem was and it was the same one that we'd all be facing in a few minutes.
Also coming into play was our new point man, George Steele, who we all called Weasel 'cause that's what he told us to call him. Weasel was nervous, as was his backup, Bruce Rolland, who we eventually called Papa-san 'cause he was the oldest man in Bravo Company outside of the First Sergeant. Both were National Guardsmen who'd been activated for the war. They were both fresh in country and for some reason or other, thought I was an old-timer. Guess I'd aged a lot in seven weeks. The three of us hit it off from the get-go. Even teamed up on bunker guard back at Moore.
Weasel was nervous, probably border line terrified, since this was his first operation at point. To this moment it hadn't mattered. Now it did. Big time. If we moved out to rescue Second Platoon, guess who would probably lead the way? He asked, 'cause of my aura of sagacity, if he thought he would be made to lead us into a sure fire hell hole. Of course I said he wouldn't. It made no sense. Why send a rookie who knew nothing, up front where he'd jeopardize all of our lives? Let First Squad walk point. Better yet, put their Sergeant up front.
Of course I was wrong. The plan was for First Platoon to slip around behind the gunmen in the wood line and trap them as they'd trapped us. We set out with Weasel in the lead and moving at a pace similar to growing hair or continental drift. We followed a small dike, overgrown with trees and brush, all the while keeping the gunmen to our right.
Didn't take long for me to get a call from our Platoon Leader asking Weasel to step it up. I passed it on. Seemed Weasel was scoping out every blade of grass for the fishing line that meant booby trap or possibly a Mickey Mantle rookie card to add to his collection. The idea of speeding up held no appeal for the man. He called back in a voice easily heard at the rear of our line, "If you want to go any faster, get your ass up here and lead the way!" We resumed the pace of Weasel.
Our goal was to pass the VC on their right, form a line to their rear, and trap them between us and the remnants of Second Platoon reinforced by the Third. Might have worked. Never did find out. Along the way, our squad leader came upon a canteen perched on a dike. Not one to pass up a freebie or to keep Vietnam from being over-littered, he reached for it and was shot in the hand. Almost like it was a set up.
Here's where irony lent its twisted hand again. The night before, that sergeant and I had gotten into a a war of egos on the way into our night position. I have no recollection what it was about. Probably something along the line of angels dancing on the head of a pin. Whatever it was, there was no way in hell I was backing down even though his stripes and the entire US Army said I should. One thing was for sure, I was no soldier, just a civilian in green with an occasionally missing sense of reality, and a mouth. Lord how a mouth can get a man in trouble.
Finally, he laid one on me that was one retort away from ending the discussion. Along the lines of something like, "When we get in on stand down I'm gonna kill you. That's no bullshit. As sure as I'm standing here I'm gonna empty a clip in your useless carcass and laugh all the while I'm blastin' away."
Those probably weren't the exact words but the gist is there. As far as he was concerned at the time, I was a deadman. No doubt my response was something along the line of "Oooh, tough guy. That the best you've got? Why not eat my body when you're done killing me?"
Not only was he shot in the hand by reaching for the canteen, he was shot in the thumb. Nearly tore the sucker off. A million dollar wound and a one way ticket back to the world. He left on the dustoff with a smile on his face. I have to admit I felt no disappointment in not being killed on our next stand down. As for the First Squad's leader, the one feigning heat stroke, he was allow to climb aboard simply to get his demoralizing self away from us.
The odd thing, and a normal combat thing, was that, had we any sense, we'd have all climbed aboard. War be damned. But not a one of us would have even if Bravo Six had come up and asked for volunteers. I'd sure as hell like to tell you exactly why we wouldn't but it's a total mystery to me. Nothin' new. Most things in life are a mystery from why anything exists in the first place to all the idiots walkin' around with their eyes glued to a smart phone. Thank God at least the phone is smart.
We left the dustoff behind and continued on at Weasel's barely movin' pace.
Time to cut to the chase. And in this case. that's exactly what she was. We never did make it to the rear of the VC. No more than a minute into our move, a call came over the radio sayin' three VC had materialized out of a spider hole and high-tailed it for God know's where with Third Platoon in pursuit, no doubt hot.
Here my memory gets a little fuzzy but I do remember the basics. Somehow or other the VC made it to the protection of a mud bunker of sorts. I think they learned to make those things when they were kids 'cause they didn't have Legos to play with. Third Platoon had squeezed off a few rounds during their pursuit but it ain't all that easy to hit a moving target, 'specially when you're also moving, with a pack bouncin' away on your back. From personal experience, it also ain't easy to hit one that just sits there and lets you take aim.
And that bunker was between us and Third Platoon with us covering the back side. Kinda funny when you think of it. Nearly all my days in the Army were spent covering my own backside. As it turned out, my backside was a lot less dangerous.
Right off the bat there was a plan. Since bullets weren't strong enough to penetrate the dried mud of the bunker and there were no volunteers to low crawl up to it and drop a 'please surrender your sorry asses' note through the opening in the form of a GI grenade, it was decided to fire up the LAW. Most every platoon carried one, no doubt in the hopes we'd come across a Panzer Division that had made a wrong turn back in WWII, and in this case, the LAW turned out to be the weapon of choice.
The choice of a LAW was pretty cool. Only problem I could see with using one was our lack of training with it. Back in AIT we'd each fired it once. That's it. Hard to get real good with a weapon when about all you know is how to squeeze the trigger and hope you don't go deaf.
As I saw it, three things could happen, 1) the round would be fired low to no effect, 2) on the money and we win the war, go home to mom and apple pie or, 3) the round overshoots and, remember which platoon is on the backside, lands in someone's hip pocket and blows their balls off.
When we get the call, all of us in First Platoon hunker seriously down. Remind ourselves the paddy is our friend. Me, I recite the Infantryman's Mantra of "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," till boom time. Turned out choice number two was the winner. A perfect shot right through the window. Unfortunately, the VC were unscathed. Not good. On the other hand, they were scared and once again took off running only to be gunned down by the Third Platoon.
As it was on that day, Second Platoon took twenty-two casualties, three of them KIA. From my reading on body count calculations, here's my best guess of what was reported by Division Command. Battalion Command figured that with our total casualty count of twenty three, plus one heat stroke, we must have killed more than three of the buggers and bumped it up to six. Brigade couldn't believe the embarrassingly low ratio and pushed the number of VC dead to eleven. Finally, Division reported to the Stars and Stripes a successful mission by the 3/39th involving sixteen dead VC and a cache of recovered weapons, ammunition and Ho Chi Minh's mustache. Our Battalion Commander is given a Silver Star for his brilliance and the Division Commander puts himself in for a Congressional Medal of Honor from the pain of returning the salute of a PFC he passed while on the way to the Officer's Club. Or something like that.
Of course that's not the end of this tale. Once in a while we had an E-7 tag along with us, as he did on this day. Three things I recall about the man, he always carried a pint of Bacardi rum with him, which he was willing to share and his weapon of choice was a sawed off AR-15. He also proved beyond any doubt that it's not easy to kill or be killed even with a fully automatic weapon.
While we were filing back to the meadow for our ride home he tagged along at the end of the line. It was his sudden volley of rifle fire and its companion return from inside the wood line that drew our attention. I originally wrote that we'd snapped around but I don't recall that as being true. After the day we'd had, what was another three dozen rounds?
Turned out he'd spotted an armed man in the woods. Seeing has how the man didn't have a water buffalo with him there was little doubt as to his political affiliation. One clip fired one way on full bursts of rock and roll. Another returned. No one hurt. Sergeant York where are you? A comic and fitting ending to the day.
We road out on Chinook, lacking any true poets in the Army we called them Shithooks, helicopters. For some of us, we had another Chinook ride in our near futures. That one would be to Saigon and our flight to Hawaii. The second one was better but the first wasn't bad at all.
I must have shot it between naps on the tarmac. In truth I never actually napped. But I did lay back, head in helmet, eyes closed. No one messed with me when I did that. Sleeping dogs and all that. It was the only way I could be alone with my thoughts while in a crowd of antsy men. Yeah, it was my method of dealing with fear by drawing inward behind my eyelids so I could head off to my happy place. Some people call it self-hypnosis. Some, mediation. I didn't call it anything, it was just what I did when we were on the edge of total shit. Figured that the shit was gonna happen regardless of what I feared of ruminated on, so there was no point in dwelling on it. When we were in the middle of whatever was up ahead, escape was impossible. Then it was time for complete concentration on what was coming down. When death entered the game it was time for a grunt to stay on his toes. And no one had to remind him to pay attention. He couldn't help it. Totally real? You bet.
'Iron' Mike walked point for the first squad. Tom was his back up. It was a normal thing, almost a requirement, that the first two men in a squad become friends and those two were no different. Mike, a taciturn kid from Texas who liked alcohol in all its forms, and Tom, a grinning, easy going surfer from California, made an odd pair, but a pair nonetheless. Once they were even dusted off together after riling up a beehive of colossal, black bumble bees. If that ain't friendship I don't know what is.
This time we were on a tarmac waiting for a ride. At putzed, a few batteries of six and eight inch guns were hammering an area of Snoopy's nose with the intention of giving the beagle a nosebleed before us grunts were flown in to teach those evil VC bastards a lesson they'd, or more accurately, I'd never forget. This was to be a battalion sized operation with Bravo as one of the sweeping groups.
Sittin' there waiting for our Eagle Flight, I doubt if any of us gave a lot of thought as to the effect an artillery barrage would actually have. I know that it never crossed my mind. Being young, ignorant, and stupid goes a long way in building unfounded military confidence.
WWII seemed to tell us that if the enemy was hunkered down it mattered little how many tons of ordinance was shot at or dropped on them. From my meager experience in the Delta I'd say the same was true for us. You'd have thought someone up in the ranks was keeping notes about those kind of things, even back in the ancient times of the 1940's. Something like:
"Hammered Okinawa for three days. Bombs, artillery, and leaflets that insulted the Emperor's bad taste in footwear. Not a tree or hill left standing. Thousand's of us died when we hit the beaches. Get's you to thinking there must be a better way."
Random shelling seems to kill people only if it lands on top of them. A crap shoot with little chance of success.
In our case it did do a fine job of sending a calling card to the VC telling them that we were coming in force and pinpoint the location where we'd be knocking on their door. All they had to do was figure on us arriving a few minutes after the shelling stopped and set up an appropriate ambush. Fortunately for them, they were good at ambushes and we were even better at walking into them.
My happy place was back home, even if that meant weeding the garden. A nothing special happy place where doing ordinary things seemed wonderful. We constantly forget how good it is to have food on the table, a roof over our heads, and no one ordering, "Let's all of us saddle up and go get our shit blown away!".
But I wasn't thinking about the killing part. Death could take care of itself just fine. Didn't need my help at all. I was lost in thoughts of being alive with people I loved, most of all Lois. She wrote me every day and I carried her most recent letters with me to wear out until new ones arrived.
Everything was there, back home where I wanted to be. But, for the moment, I was laying on my back on a tarmac in Southeast Asia waiting for the choppers to come take us to a place that would no doubt send a few of us home in bags. Kinda sucks doesn't it? Wasn't like this was anything new for us or those who came before, so no one whined about it. For better or worse we were in it together. Each of us, alone with our thoughts and looking down the scattergun barrel of the democracy that is death in combat.
The operation must have used nearly every chopper in the Ninth Division, even the one that had NAM SUCKS emblazoned in large white letters on its underbelly. Gotta like that. We came down in the quiet of large, dried out rice paddies. Looked as abandoned as the last time we were at Snoopy's Nose. Should have brought some beer on ice, lawn chairs and the horseshoes. A regular picnic in paddyland.
This time we didn't set out on patrol in single file, fifteen meters apart. Instead we stretched out in a single horizontal line, every man-jack in a row. Left to right it was First, Second, and Third Platoon. All of us faced forward, then started walking. The order of the day was to squeeze off a round now and then to encourage anything and anyone in front of us to hightail it toward the blocking force. Which I expect was some other Company. A plan for sure. Maybe even given a lot of thought.
I take that back. Yes, it was a plan but it wasn't all that well thought out. Like our artillery barrage we were saying to the VC, "We're off the choppers now and making a lot of noise just so you can know exactly where we are and where we're heading." Made us look like a bunch of Red Coats in the American Revolution.
I guess our Colonel forgot all about what he'd learned about fighting guerrilla forces back in his grade school history class. As in, "Us Brits will put on bright red uniforms and march along out in the open. You yankees go hide in the trees and ambush us just like a bunch of wild Indians."
Down the row from me in the middle of the Second Platoon was a man from Texas who fired his M-60 from the hip. Yeah, he was a big guy. Later Bravo Six recalled watching him as we moved forward. Said that the only thing moving as the man spit out bursts from his machine gun was his shirt that rippled with each trigger squeeze, "Yeah, he was a real hoss."
A few weeks later, The Farmer tried the same trick. Now, The Farmer was a strong man, no doubt about it. Had hands the size of a farmer, mostly 'cause that's what he was and that's why we called him The Farmer. But Frank wasn't but a welterweight in size. After a couple of his hip high, machine gun bursts we received a call from Bravo Six, a half mile away. Seemed he was wondering who was firing at him and his command group. Not that Frank wasn't an excellent soldier but it took a man of serious size to counter-balance and hold down a hip fired M-60.
We were moving at a full walking pace. Why not? It was open, dry field from one side of the company to the other. Eventually we came upon a small, pocket swamp with a stand of trees in it. Not something you'd want to walk through. Mud, leeches, snakes and big-assed bugs that'd take you down and eat you when properly tenderized and cured. Mainly, we'd been dry to this point and intended to stay that way. No sir, we were all for gettin' through this day and this year as quickly and cleanly as possible.
I was butt up against the left flank of Second Platoon and walking straight at the swamp and had a decision to make. Passing on getting wet, two of us First Platooners hung a right with Second and the rest of the First passed the swamp on its left. Truthfully, I never gave a thought to having pulled a bonehead move. Neither did anyone else. But boneheaded is what it was.
A moment's consideration would have told a good soldier that some form of cover was necessary to set up an ambush. Seeing as how every patch of ground behind us was wide open there was no possibility of an ambush there. But a swamp with brush and trees? If I was gonna hide, that would be the place (an even better place to hide would have been Winnipeg).
Forty yards later, the swamp behind us, me and the other First Platooner angled back left and rejoined our group. Second Platoon continued straight ahead, leaving a gap between the two platoons of about fifty yards as I recall. Don't quote me on the yardage, but it's in the ballpark.
Believe me, I didn't think about it at the time. It took a couple of decades to realize what we'd done when we bypassed the swamp and never gave it a look-see. From my personal survival point of view, not looking might have been the best thing I could have done. Instead, I walked into and out of an ambush in complete, oblivious ignorance.
As it was, our open field was ending. A woods stood a short chip shot past the swamp. Midway between the two Second Platoon found themselves in a crossfire. If I described it as withering I wouldn't be far off. By then my platoon was far enough away to see nothing of what was going on. But we could hear. By both radio and rifle fire. They were in a world of hurt and calling for some kind of relief.
We were ordered to hold our ground until a plan of action was decided on. So that's what we did. Cracked open c-rations and took a break. All the while Second Platoon was being picked off one at a time. They went to the field with no more than twenty-seven men. As I recall, when all was said and done they took twenty-two casualties, three of which were KIAs. It was a slaughter. Fish in a barrel.
First Platoon sat there while it was happening. I had my boots off briefly to air my feet. Even soaked them in a little rectangular pool that had probably once been part of a farmstead. Soothing, cool water that refreshed my feet but did nothing to improve the circumstances.
And listened to the happenings on my radio. Like tuning into a Gopher's football game back home while raking leaves in the fall. Believe me, we felt for those poor souls over there but you see, they were over there getting shot and we were here, not getting shot. What could we do but sit there and wait for the word, while Bravo Six no doubt talked with the Battalion Commander whose plans were falling apart man by man? Must have been tough on the Colonel knowing his possible promotion was now going to be based on his ability to write and put a positive spin on this fiasco. Hell, from what I saw, most of the war reporting was fiction anyhow, what was one more puny battle in the scheme of things?
How long did we sit there? Seemed like hours but was probably more along the lines of fifteen minutes. Or an eternity if you were laying out in the open in a pool of a friend's blood.
I guess none of us were in a hurry to do anything 'cause we knew, sooner or later, a plan would be hatched and we'd be among the feature players. No doubt in my mind when that time came, our little world would turn into total shit.
All the while, in the background, then buzzing around from person to person like a fly that had been following too many dogs, was the leader of First Squad, a sergeant who claimed to be one of only two real soldiers in Bravo Company. Over and over he told everyone, and no one, that he was having a heat stroke and needed to be dusted off. Did it with so much energy there was no doubt what his real problem was. Everyone within earshot either turned a cold shoulder or told him to kiss their ass. On and on and on he ranted with no luck or sympathy. We knew what his problem was and it was the same one that we'd all be facing in a few minutes.
Also coming into play was our new point man, George Steele, who we all called Weasel 'cause that's what he told us to call him. Weasel was nervous, as was his backup, Bruce Rolland, who we eventually called Papa-san 'cause he was the oldest man in Bravo Company outside of the First Sergeant. Both were National Guardsmen who'd been activated for the war. They were both fresh in country and for some reason or other, thought I was an old-timer. Guess I'd aged a lot in seven weeks. The three of us hit it off from the get-go. Even teamed up on bunker guard back at Moore.
Weasel was nervous, probably border line terrified, since this was his first operation at point. To this moment it hadn't mattered. Now it did. Big time. If we moved out to rescue Second Platoon, guess who would probably lead the way? He asked, 'cause of my aura of sagacity, if he thought he would be made to lead us into a sure fire hell hole. Of course I said he wouldn't. It made no sense. Why send a rookie who knew nothing, up front where he'd jeopardize all of our lives? Let First Squad walk point. Better yet, put their Sergeant up front.
Of course I was wrong. The plan was for First Platoon to slip around behind the gunmen in the wood line and trap them as they'd trapped us. We set out with Weasel in the lead and moving at a pace similar to growing hair or continental drift. We followed a small dike, overgrown with trees and brush, all the while keeping the gunmen to our right.
Didn't take long for me to get a call from our Platoon Leader asking Weasel to step it up. I passed it on. Seemed Weasel was scoping out every blade of grass for the fishing line that meant booby trap or possibly a Mickey Mantle rookie card to add to his collection. The idea of speeding up held no appeal for the man. He called back in a voice easily heard at the rear of our line, "If you want to go any faster, get your ass up here and lead the way!" We resumed the pace of Weasel.
Our goal was to pass the VC on their right, form a line to their rear, and trap them between us and the remnants of Second Platoon reinforced by the Third. Might have worked. Never did find out. Along the way, our squad leader came upon a canteen perched on a dike. Not one to pass up a freebie or to keep Vietnam from being over-littered, he reached for it and was shot in the hand. Almost like it was a set up.
Here's where irony lent its twisted hand again. The night before, that sergeant and I had gotten into a a war of egos on the way into our night position. I have no recollection what it was about. Probably something along the line of angels dancing on the head of a pin. Whatever it was, there was no way in hell I was backing down even though his stripes and the entire US Army said I should. One thing was for sure, I was no soldier, just a civilian in green with an occasionally missing sense of reality, and a mouth. Lord how a mouth can get a man in trouble.
Finally, he laid one on me that was one retort away from ending the discussion. Along the lines of something like, "When we get in on stand down I'm gonna kill you. That's no bullshit. As sure as I'm standing here I'm gonna empty a clip in your useless carcass and laugh all the while I'm blastin' away."
Those probably weren't the exact words but the gist is there. As far as he was concerned at the time, I was a deadman. No doubt my response was something along the line of "Oooh, tough guy. That the best you've got? Why not eat my body when you're done killing me?"
Not only was he shot in the hand by reaching for the canteen, he was shot in the thumb. Nearly tore the sucker off. A million dollar wound and a one way ticket back to the world. He left on the dustoff with a smile on his face. I have to admit I felt no disappointment in not being killed on our next stand down. As for the First Squad's leader, the one feigning heat stroke, he was allow to climb aboard simply to get his demoralizing self away from us.
The odd thing, and a normal combat thing, was that, had we any sense, we'd have all climbed aboard. War be damned. But not a one of us would have even if Bravo Six had come up and asked for volunteers. I'd sure as hell like to tell you exactly why we wouldn't but it's a total mystery to me. Nothin' new. Most things in life are a mystery from why anything exists in the first place to all the idiots walkin' around with their eyes glued to a smart phone. Thank God at least the phone is smart.
We left the dustoff behind and continued on at Weasel's barely movin' pace.
Time to cut to the chase. And in this case. that's exactly what she was. We never did make it to the rear of the VC. No more than a minute into our move, a call came over the radio sayin' three VC had materialized out of a spider hole and high-tailed it for God know's where with Third Platoon in pursuit, no doubt hot.
Here my memory gets a little fuzzy but I do remember the basics. Somehow or other the VC made it to the protection of a mud bunker of sorts. I think they learned to make those things when they were kids 'cause they didn't have Legos to play with. Third Platoon had squeezed off a few rounds during their pursuit but it ain't all that easy to hit a moving target, 'specially when you're also moving, with a pack bouncin' away on your back. From personal experience, it also ain't easy to hit one that just sits there and lets you take aim.
And that bunker was between us and Third Platoon with us covering the back side. Kinda funny when you think of it. Nearly all my days in the Army were spent covering my own backside. As it turned out, my backside was a lot less dangerous.
Right off the bat there was a plan. Since bullets weren't strong enough to penetrate the dried mud of the bunker and there were no volunteers to low crawl up to it and drop a 'please surrender your sorry asses' note through the opening in the form of a GI grenade, it was decided to fire up the LAW. Most every platoon carried one, no doubt in the hopes we'd come across a Panzer Division that had made a wrong turn back in WWII, and in this case, the LAW turned out to be the weapon of choice.
The choice of a LAW was pretty cool. Only problem I could see with using one was our lack of training with it. Back in AIT we'd each fired it once. That's it. Hard to get real good with a weapon when about all you know is how to squeeze the trigger and hope you don't go deaf.
As I saw it, three things could happen, 1) the round would be fired low to no effect, 2) on the money and we win the war, go home to mom and apple pie or, 3) the round overshoots and, remember which platoon is on the backside, lands in someone's hip pocket and blows their balls off.
When we get the call, all of us in First Platoon hunker seriously down. Remind ourselves the paddy is our friend. Me, I recite the Infantryman's Mantra of "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," till boom time. Turned out choice number two was the winner. A perfect shot right through the window. Unfortunately, the VC were unscathed. Not good. On the other hand, they were scared and once again took off running only to be gunned down by the Third Platoon.
As it was on that day, Second Platoon took twenty-two casualties, three of them KIA. From my reading on body count calculations, here's my best guess of what was reported by Division Command. Battalion Command figured that with our total casualty count of twenty three, plus one heat stroke, we must have killed more than three of the buggers and bumped it up to six. Brigade couldn't believe the embarrassingly low ratio and pushed the number of VC dead to eleven. Finally, Division reported to the Stars and Stripes a successful mission by the 3/39th involving sixteen dead VC and a cache of recovered weapons, ammunition and Ho Chi Minh's mustache. Our Battalion Commander is given a Silver Star for his brilliance and the Division Commander puts himself in for a Congressional Medal of Honor from the pain of returning the salute of a PFC he passed while on the way to the Officer's Club. Or something like that.
Of course that's not the end of this tale. Once in a while we had an E-7 tag along with us, as he did on this day. Three things I recall about the man, he always carried a pint of Bacardi rum with him, which he was willing to share and his weapon of choice was a sawed off AR-15. He also proved beyond any doubt that it's not easy to kill or be killed even with a fully automatic weapon.
While we were filing back to the meadow for our ride home he tagged along at the end of the line. It was his sudden volley of rifle fire and its companion return from inside the wood line that drew our attention. I originally wrote that we'd snapped around but I don't recall that as being true. After the day we'd had, what was another three dozen rounds?
Turned out he'd spotted an armed man in the woods. Seeing has how the man didn't have a water buffalo with him there was little doubt as to his political affiliation. One clip fired one way on full bursts of rock and roll. Another returned. No one hurt. Sergeant York where are you? A comic and fitting ending to the day.
We road out on Chinook, lacking any true poets in the Army we called them Shithooks, helicopters. For some of us, we had another Chinook ride in our near futures. That one would be to Saigon and our flight to Hawaii. The second one was better but the first wasn't bad at all.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Woolwine III
As I recall, Bobby was gone for a tad over a month after being fragged in the swamp. We were on stand down in Dong Tam when he showed up. All of us in the first Platoon were happy to see him and check out all the scars and stitch marks on his legs. The best part was having another night in warm, dry bunks before we headed back out. Being a grunt in the field makes you appreciate being clean once in a while. And a glass of cold milk. I know it doesn't sound all that macho enjoying a glass of milk but it sure went down good. 'Specially when mixed half and half with chocolate milk.
But the bunks remained unused that night. Maybe cutting our fun short was just the Army's way of welcoming Bobby back. He was a top notch troop, why not put him to work as soon as possible? Help get us a little closer to that light at the end of the tunnel General Westmoreland kept sayin' was there. Woolwine wasn't back more than an hour when the word came down.
Seemed one of the other Companies in the 3/39th was in a fix and we were supposed to go out and rescue them. Put on our white hats and saddle up Old Paint. As it turned out that may or may not have been true. Didn't matter, whatever the reason, we were told to drop it and grab it. Be ready to fly out in a half hour.
No problem. About all that entailed was drawing my weapon and radio, putting on my boots and socks, scrounging up some c-rations, and exchanging my soft hat for a steel pot. Oh yeah, and piss and moan about going out the whole time I was getting ready. Can't say I was any different than the rest of First Platoon. There were times when we knew heading to the field probably wouldn't be bad. Then there were times like this. It was gonna suck the big one for sure. A Company was getting its ass shot off and we were gonna share in the fun.
Time for another Eagle Flight to glory. We landed in a meadow. Big meadow. Maybe five hundred yards wide and much longer. A wood line on all sides but the one to our rear. The grass was waist deep. Guess the gardeners hadn't been there for a while to spruce things up.
Here I run into memory problems again. I distinctly recall Third Platoon lined up to our right, their far right end nearly tight to the wood line. Second Platoon is out of my picture. Probably they were lined up to our left. Maybe this mission took place after the one I'm writin' up next. If so, there wasn't much left of them to do anything.
Decided here to bring in one of the methods of battle we used several times and it comes up big time in the next entry. We did the sweep and block as a standard procedure. Can't say I recall it ever working as planned. The method is commonly used as a hunting technique. A group of beaters work their way though a field or wooded area and drive animals toward certain death when they reach the heavily armed blocking force.
A few weeks later on another such blocking operation, First Platoon, that's us, was fired upon with no effect by our buddies in the Second. One of us was in the wrong position or just plain stupid. That's how bad we were at it. Couldn't even kill ourselves.
The rains had set in by then and the paddies were flooded. When Second Platoon opened up on us it was water be damned, swan dive time. If I had a snorkel I'd have anchored my ass to the bottom till my time in country was over. As it was, only my head was up and for my first time in country, I turned into a blood donor for a dozen or more leeches. Truth was, they weren't as bad as I'd imagined. Not much fun but a whole lot better than being killed by friendly fire. A squirt of bug juice and they puckered up and dropped off slick as could be.
On these operations there never seemed to be any VC caught between us and their deaths or they slipped out of our trap as easily as Vietnamese kids ran through our concertina wire back at Moore. Yeah, they literally ran through our defenses during daylight hours. And the little bastards stole our trip flares. Played with them like fireworks on the Fourth of July. We couldn't shoot them and they ignored any CS gas fired at them. All they did was move up wind of the drift, then point and laugh at us. There was a lesson to be learned in their shenanigans that went along the lines of their having a home field advantage that was worth way more than a touchdown. No doubt we'd been pulled off the Las Vegas betting boards as possible winners of this conflict about a week after Tet in 1968.
So there we were, back in the meadow on a rescue mission, First and Third Platoons in a line and moving forward. For about thirty seconds, when Third walked into a beehive of bullets coming from the wood line to their front right. Time for us all to lay down in the meadow and smell the roses. When life gets too hectic you've just gotta do that once in a while.
It was a typical Mekong Delta ambush. A clip of bullets each from a handful of VC and it was over. A hail of red and green tracers. Real festive in a Christmas sense. Almost immediately they seemed to be gone like ghosts. Just shell casings on the ground said they'd been there. That and one dead GI. And another missing. We pulled back and the brass reconnoitered. A nose count told them that they were definitely short a man. Probably out in the grass somewhere but, at the moment, no one in Third Platoon seemed interested in finding out where.
To me, a missing man was a scary thing. Visions of him being a POW came to mind. Men disappear in war. Simple as that. What might have happened to them may never be known. That's the worst part for family. Five years in a torture cell in Hanoi is a whole 'nuther deal for the missing man. Our MIA was dead in the grass, almost no doubt about it. Or dying alone out there with no one to help him.
On the other hand, we were alive and kicking. And hoping for a return to Dong Tam for cocktail hour. Nope, we didn't smoke dope. Just drank cheap canned beer for a dime a throw till the company fund was repaid, then it was free. Hard to believe but true. Maybe it was just that we never came into contact with pot. Except for the one time at Moc Hoa when we told a papa-san on a bike to beat it with his devil's weed. Maybe we were just too innocent. More likely the thought of being stoned while in a fire fight was scarier to us than six months in the stockade. Paranoia strikes deep, per The Buffalo Springfield.
A decision was made to spend the night. And to set up a defensive perimeter in the woods. Holy shit! In the woods for God's sake. What the hell were they thinking of? I was instantly tormented by the thought of eighteen year old boys more than willing to forgo a night of tropical sex so they could silently slither up on us like snakes in a pool of castor oil, with razor sharp, blackened blades in their camouflaged hands, aching to soundlessly open up our throats so we could never again go home to take out the garbage after a fine meal of steak and baked potatoes.
Out in the open, like we usually did, it was possible to see if anyone was sneaking up on us. But now, in the woods, it was another story. And that story was too much like a Grimm fairy tale for me. Who the hell knew what might be out there in the shadows that were gonna surround us come sunset? Oh well, I'd only been dreading this moment since I realized what the future held back when I was in AIT. In short, it didn't mean nothin'.
We moved in and started to set up as sunset drew near. We always carried a few machetes and now they were put to use clearing out some kind of fire lanes. No foxholes. We didn't carry entrenching tools. Not that we were atheists and innately feared hiding in holes. No, the guy who said that atheists and foxholes didn't go together might have been blowin' smoke. Or lookin' for a good sound bite back in the days before sound bites.
Don't know if we would've dug any even if we had the shovels. Who knew what kind of shit was living in the dirt? Millipedes and whatnot a half foot long that would have poisoned us one at a time, then let us fester and rot till we were delectably delicious. Too much like a horror movie for my tastes.
Ahh, sunset in the tropics. Once we were set up it was time to schmooze a bit. Talk over the events of the day. And what new high-jinx we might participate in come the morning. Maybe a helicopter ride and seein' the sights? Choose up sides and play war? Guess there was no need to do that as the sides had already been chosen decades before.
We paired up. One awake while the other tried to sleep. Staying awake was no problem. Even when you were trying to sleep. Long story short, nothing happened that night. Probably Charley was back in his hooch with wife, kids, and Grandma, sleeping the sleep of the righteous. Out there in the grass, our missing man was alone, as alone as any man could ever be. Maybe dead, maybe dyin'.
Like I said, nothing happened. Come morning Third Platoon went out and found their man, dead in the waist deep grass. Also found a howitzer round rigged as a booby trap. They left it for the demolition boys. Some guys have all the fun.
A dustoff was called in for the two inert bodies so they could be bagged up and sent home. Sure not the way those boys would have had it. No hero's welcome by loved ones as they got off the plane. No sir, not the way they'd have planned it at all. A flag draped casket and a hole in a national cemetery sure ain't much for having died for, or because of your country, in a land on the other side of the planet.
Before the dustoff could land the field had to be swept for booby traps. And the honors went to First Platoon's second squad, that was us. Thirteen of us formed a line with me on the far right hand side, close to the wood line. It was slow going 'cause the grass was thick and high. Hard to see my boots on the ground much less a length of plastic fishing line.
Some moments are frozen in time. And they're not always earth shaking moments unless you happen to be part of it. A half minute, maybe a little more, into the sweep there was a pop! We all knew and feared that sound. My head snapped left, as did the six others closest to me. At the left end five snapped right. In my mind's eye I'm standing there right now. The man in the middle was Bobby Woolwine and he's looking right back at me, sadness and terror in his eyes. That's how it looks in my memory. In reality, Woolwine was the only one lookin' at his feet.
The two to be loaded on the dustoff was now three. However, Bobby survived. And once again returned to Bravo Company. Together we were pulled out with the Ninth Division, were reunited in Hawaii in an infantry company and flew together on our post-Vietnam leave. I last saw him at the Minneapolis airport. There, Lois welcomed me home. Bobby and she briefly met.
The story came down that he never returned to the Army. After taking the shrapnel from two grenades his legs looked like a railroad map drawn by a speed freak on acid. I know. I saw them. His family doctor took one look and that was all she wrote for Bobby Woolwine's days in the Army.
But the bunks remained unused that night. Maybe cutting our fun short was just the Army's way of welcoming Bobby back. He was a top notch troop, why not put him to work as soon as possible? Help get us a little closer to that light at the end of the tunnel General Westmoreland kept sayin' was there. Woolwine wasn't back more than an hour when the word came down.
Seemed one of the other Companies in the 3/39th was in a fix and we were supposed to go out and rescue them. Put on our white hats and saddle up Old Paint. As it turned out that may or may not have been true. Didn't matter, whatever the reason, we were told to drop it and grab it. Be ready to fly out in a half hour.
No problem. About all that entailed was drawing my weapon and radio, putting on my boots and socks, scrounging up some c-rations, and exchanging my soft hat for a steel pot. Oh yeah, and piss and moan about going out the whole time I was getting ready. Can't say I was any different than the rest of First Platoon. There were times when we knew heading to the field probably wouldn't be bad. Then there were times like this. It was gonna suck the big one for sure. A Company was getting its ass shot off and we were gonna share in the fun.
Time for another Eagle Flight to glory. We landed in a meadow. Big meadow. Maybe five hundred yards wide and much longer. A wood line on all sides but the one to our rear. The grass was waist deep. Guess the gardeners hadn't been there for a while to spruce things up.
Here I run into memory problems again. I distinctly recall Third Platoon lined up to our right, their far right end nearly tight to the wood line. Second Platoon is out of my picture. Probably they were lined up to our left. Maybe this mission took place after the one I'm writin' up next. If so, there wasn't much left of them to do anything.
Decided here to bring in one of the methods of battle we used several times and it comes up big time in the next entry. We did the sweep and block as a standard procedure. Can't say I recall it ever working as planned. The method is commonly used as a hunting technique. A group of beaters work their way though a field or wooded area and drive animals toward certain death when they reach the heavily armed blocking force.
A few weeks later on another such blocking operation, First Platoon, that's us, was fired upon with no effect by our buddies in the Second. One of us was in the wrong position or just plain stupid. That's how bad we were at it. Couldn't even kill ourselves.
The rains had set in by then and the paddies were flooded. When Second Platoon opened up on us it was water be damned, swan dive time. If I had a snorkel I'd have anchored my ass to the bottom till my time in country was over. As it was, only my head was up and for my first time in country, I turned into a blood donor for a dozen or more leeches. Truth was, they weren't as bad as I'd imagined. Not much fun but a whole lot better than being killed by friendly fire. A squirt of bug juice and they puckered up and dropped off slick as could be.
On these operations there never seemed to be any VC caught between us and their deaths or they slipped out of our trap as easily as Vietnamese kids ran through our concertina wire back at Moore. Yeah, they literally ran through our defenses during daylight hours. And the little bastards stole our trip flares. Played with them like fireworks on the Fourth of July. We couldn't shoot them and they ignored any CS gas fired at them. All they did was move up wind of the drift, then point and laugh at us. There was a lesson to be learned in their shenanigans that went along the lines of their having a home field advantage that was worth way more than a touchdown. No doubt we'd been pulled off the Las Vegas betting boards as possible winners of this conflict about a week after Tet in 1968.
So there we were, back in the meadow on a rescue mission, First and Third Platoons in a line and moving forward. For about thirty seconds, when Third walked into a beehive of bullets coming from the wood line to their front right. Time for us all to lay down in the meadow and smell the roses. When life gets too hectic you've just gotta do that once in a while.
It was a typical Mekong Delta ambush. A clip of bullets each from a handful of VC and it was over. A hail of red and green tracers. Real festive in a Christmas sense. Almost immediately they seemed to be gone like ghosts. Just shell casings on the ground said they'd been there. That and one dead GI. And another missing. We pulled back and the brass reconnoitered. A nose count told them that they were definitely short a man. Probably out in the grass somewhere but, at the moment, no one in Third Platoon seemed interested in finding out where.
To me, a missing man was a scary thing. Visions of him being a POW came to mind. Men disappear in war. Simple as that. What might have happened to them may never be known. That's the worst part for family. Five years in a torture cell in Hanoi is a whole 'nuther deal for the missing man. Our MIA was dead in the grass, almost no doubt about it. Or dying alone out there with no one to help him.
On the other hand, we were alive and kicking. And hoping for a return to Dong Tam for cocktail hour. Nope, we didn't smoke dope. Just drank cheap canned beer for a dime a throw till the company fund was repaid, then it was free. Hard to believe but true. Maybe it was just that we never came into contact with pot. Except for the one time at Moc Hoa when we told a papa-san on a bike to beat it with his devil's weed. Maybe we were just too innocent. More likely the thought of being stoned while in a fire fight was scarier to us than six months in the stockade. Paranoia strikes deep, per The Buffalo Springfield.
A decision was made to spend the night. And to set up a defensive perimeter in the woods. Holy shit! In the woods for God's sake. What the hell were they thinking of? I was instantly tormented by the thought of eighteen year old boys more than willing to forgo a night of tropical sex so they could silently slither up on us like snakes in a pool of castor oil, with razor sharp, blackened blades in their camouflaged hands, aching to soundlessly open up our throats so we could never again go home to take out the garbage after a fine meal of steak and baked potatoes.
Out in the open, like we usually did, it was possible to see if anyone was sneaking up on us. But now, in the woods, it was another story. And that story was too much like a Grimm fairy tale for me. Who the hell knew what might be out there in the shadows that were gonna surround us come sunset? Oh well, I'd only been dreading this moment since I realized what the future held back when I was in AIT. In short, it didn't mean nothin'.
We moved in and started to set up as sunset drew near. We always carried a few machetes and now they were put to use clearing out some kind of fire lanes. No foxholes. We didn't carry entrenching tools. Not that we were atheists and innately feared hiding in holes. No, the guy who said that atheists and foxholes didn't go together might have been blowin' smoke. Or lookin' for a good sound bite back in the days before sound bites.
Don't know if we would've dug any even if we had the shovels. Who knew what kind of shit was living in the dirt? Millipedes and whatnot a half foot long that would have poisoned us one at a time, then let us fester and rot till we were delectably delicious. Too much like a horror movie for my tastes.
Ahh, sunset in the tropics. Once we were set up it was time to schmooze a bit. Talk over the events of the day. And what new high-jinx we might participate in come the morning. Maybe a helicopter ride and seein' the sights? Choose up sides and play war? Guess there was no need to do that as the sides had already been chosen decades before.
We paired up. One awake while the other tried to sleep. Staying awake was no problem. Even when you were trying to sleep. Long story short, nothing happened that night. Probably Charley was back in his hooch with wife, kids, and Grandma, sleeping the sleep of the righteous. Out there in the grass, our missing man was alone, as alone as any man could ever be. Maybe dead, maybe dyin'.
Like I said, nothing happened. Come morning Third Platoon went out and found their man, dead in the waist deep grass. Also found a howitzer round rigged as a booby trap. They left it for the demolition boys. Some guys have all the fun.
A dustoff was called in for the two inert bodies so they could be bagged up and sent home. Sure not the way those boys would have had it. No hero's welcome by loved ones as they got off the plane. No sir, not the way they'd have planned it at all. A flag draped casket and a hole in a national cemetery sure ain't much for having died for, or because of your country, in a land on the other side of the planet.
Before the dustoff could land the field had to be swept for booby traps. And the honors went to First Platoon's second squad, that was us. Thirteen of us formed a line with me on the far right hand side, close to the wood line. It was slow going 'cause the grass was thick and high. Hard to see my boots on the ground much less a length of plastic fishing line.
Some moments are frozen in time. And they're not always earth shaking moments unless you happen to be part of it. A half minute, maybe a little more, into the sweep there was a pop! We all knew and feared that sound. My head snapped left, as did the six others closest to me. At the left end five snapped right. In my mind's eye I'm standing there right now. The man in the middle was Bobby Woolwine and he's looking right back at me, sadness and terror in his eyes. That's how it looks in my memory. In reality, Woolwine was the only one lookin' at his feet.
The two to be loaded on the dustoff was now three. However, Bobby survived. And once again returned to Bravo Company. Together we were pulled out with the Ninth Division, were reunited in Hawaii in an infantry company and flew together on our post-Vietnam leave. I last saw him at the Minneapolis airport. There, Lois welcomed me home. Bobby and she briefly met.
The story came down that he never returned to the Army. After taking the shrapnel from two grenades his legs looked like a railroad map drawn by a speed freak on acid. I know. I saw them. His family doctor took one look and that was all she wrote for Bobby Woolwine's days in the Army.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Woolwine - Part I
Dates get lost in my mind but the order of events remains. Also, it's not like the order jumps out at me either. Usually I've got to sit a moment and think it over till logic comes stumbling around. This had to happen before that, that kind if thinking. From the distance of forty-four years my time in Vietnam tends to jumble together and fade. Of course it's all fading as time passes. From the outside of the picture toward the middle. Or from the top to the bottom like a shirt that's been in the display window too long. But there, in the crystal clear center, stand a few stories that once actually happened and the people who were there. Woolwine remains, as do Papa-san, Weasel, the Farmer, Tom Smith (all three of them), Constatino, Jim Smiley and the dead.
I was a fortunate man. Only two of the men I called friends were killed in combat. The remaining seven dead during my four months in the field were in the second and third platoons, as good as if they were in another country. Odd how that works. You see them most every day, maybe know a few by name but you don't share loads with them, bed down with them, or sit with them on a break like you do with the men in your own squad. They remain faces seen at a distance. And now they're faded faces off on the edge of the painting.
This is the story of how Woolwine lost his first point man.
Don't remember if the operation we were on was my first carrying the radio. Probably not. Before the PRC-25 found a home on my back, like every other rookie I was just another rifle bearing grunt. A few days before the radio became my baby, I'd been given a shot at carrying the M-79 grenade rifle but was unable to hit the bush Constatino was pointing at. Simple as that. Two rounds popped in the right general direction, no better, no worse. Said to the world I had no innate touch for the weapon. Probably a genetic defect on my Swedish side.
More likely, my true ability was being the mindless minion of Irony with a capital 'I'. Ironic circumstance was my fate in the Army and no matter my ability with the grenade rifle, Irony wouldn't let me hit the broad side of a barn even if I was inside. Instead, the M-79 passed into the hands of a man who could hip shoot a grenade into a rabbit hole at fifty yards. His bad luck as you'll see.
When the radio slot opened up all I had to do to make it mine was say yes. I had all the necessary attributes, could speak intelligible English, was big enough to carry the extra weight and wore glasses. The glasses said to the world, at least the world around me wearing jungle fatigues, that I was a nerd who'd ruined his vision reading instruction manuals for anything involving electricity when I could more productively have been leafing through Playboys and exercising my right hand. Little did they know.
Whatever the reason, the radio was mine. And I cherished the job. At night I had first choice of which watch to pull. Meaning a relatively uninterrupted, full night's sleep whether I took the first or the last. Also, in a fire fight, my primary obligation was to never jeopardize my sorry ass by doing something heroic but to keep those ever important lines of communication open. Dead men can't do that. In short, my job was to not bitch about the load, stay alive, keep near my squad or platoon leader and my mouth functional.
One last thing. There was a pecking order as to which of us would be shot in an ambush. The first three to go down would ideally, from the VC point of view, be the man next to the radio, the man carrying the radio, and the M-79 man. We went out of our way to choose someone with real ability to carry the grenade rifle. And our grenadiers were good. And they were dangerous. So, of course, they were shot first.
Snoopy's Nose. And I ain't talking about the beagle on the dog house fighting the Red Barron. Down in the Delta we all came to know and dread the words Snoopy's Nose. So when the word came down that's where we were going, there was a lot of muffled muttering involving mothers and the Diety in our stand-down barracks. Enough to let me know something was in the wind. I suspected it was our shit but asked around anyhow.
'Bout all I could get out of anyone was, "You don't want to know but you're gonna find out."
What the hell, I didn't know what their problem was, this was exciting. We were gonna get an Eagle Flight to a place I'd never been. A regular road trip in the air. Just like Apocalypse Now if it had already been filmed. Robert Duvall and all that happy napalm shit in the morning.
Made me mad I didn't have a camera to take photos of me and the boys mugging in front of all the neat stuff we'd see. Send those pictures home to the family with captions sayin' stuff like, "This here is me and Li'l Joe and the Dripper just before the Dripper got shot in the ass and sent home to the World. Lucky bastard."
Ridin' in a Huey was usually a good time. On a hot day the ride was air conditioner cool. There might be water aboard. We were riding, not humping. And the view was worth the price of admission. Rice paddies and river and then, river and rice paddies. Being up in the blue on an Eagle Flight made me feel like we were fast, graceful, powerful, and ready to pounce down on stray kittens and roadkill at a moment's notice.
Don't remember how it came about but my spot on the chopper was in the doorway, legs hangin' in the breeze. I sure didn't end up there 'cause I was a daredevil or I wanted to be number one out the door so I could have first shot at the VC. Most likely I was slower than the rest of my squad on my first ride. Once in the doorway - there were no doors on the Hueys in the Delta - I found I liked it and since I lacked the imagination to sit anywhere else, that's where I stayed.
However, there were disadvantages to the doorway. Should we be fired upon, the doorman was the most easily hit. Never gave that a thought. But if we were ever shot at, I was never aware of it. Kinda disappointing, ain't it? And for us Bravo Company boys, it was never anything like the movies where choppers smokin' into a hot LZ went down in blazes of glory but somehow the grunts survived and came sprintin' out of the fireball with M-16s spittin' out a slipstream of death.
In my case the disadvantage had more to do with daydreaming. Most times when I found myself up in the sky, my mind was lost in the ozone, with visions of the World dancing in my head, anywhere but where I actually was. Then this one time, on a descent, the sight of the treetops coming level with my eyes woke me up. And I stepped out. Into space. Not a smart move. Rule number one for exiting a helicopter was: Don't step out until you have to. Rule number two was: Free fall ain't free.
I have no recollection of my chopperless flight other than complete surprise. The landing I remember clearly. It was toes first, knees second and face third. The coup d'gras was when my pack and PRC-25 hammered my head home. As my platoon leader said to me while I was cleaning my glasses with spit and jungle shirt, "Peters, that was the dumbest, f***ing thing I've ever seen." What could I do but grin like a man who'd just done the dumbest f***ing thing ever seen by another man who'd seen a lot of dumb f***ing things?
Anyhow, after landing at Snoopy's Nose, we stood around for about fifteen minutes killing time while the brass made up their minds about where we were supposed to go if we were where we thought we were and which direction where we were going might be (that's supposed to sound something like Pooh Bear and Christopher Robin discussing their imminent expedition in the Hundred Acre Wood - a place I'd much rather have been than Snoopy's Nose. Don't know if that's the first use of A.A. Milne in a remembrance of Vietnam but I have my hopes).
So there we stood, me, Woolwine, Shorty, Constatino and Smiley, kickin' dirt and passin' time. Shorty, our point man, wandered off looking for treasure and returned a minute later with a smile on his face brought on by the six-foot long stick in his hand. Just the right size for a five-foot, four-inch man. His plan was to use it to sweep the area ahead of him as he stepped out at his usual breakneck speed. Bravo Six, our Company Commander, loved Shorty 'cause he covered ground like no other point man. Fearless. That's why First Platoon always walked point when Bravo Company was out and about. And why Bravo Company set the pace on a battalion operation. All the brass loved Shorty. Now, armed with his staff, we feared he might pick up the pace even more.
As for the rest of us paddy-pounders, we liked Shorty 'cause he was a good man, fun to be with. And never blamed him for always putting us in more than our share of jeopardy 'cause he was so good at what he did, after all, he was just being Shorty.
We blamed the higher ups. Why not? They called the shots. Wrong call? Some of us died. Didn't mean nothin'. But you see, the entire mess of Vietnam was a learning curve, for them and for us. They didn't really know what they were doing till they had a little experience under their belts. We were the lab rats, they were the guys in the white coats (but not necessarily white hats). But we did nothing more than grumble about it, saddle up and set off at a trot behind Shorty before he was out of sight.
The story in Bravo Company had Snoopy's Nose as a supply depot for the Viet Cong. I've pulled up maps of the Ho Chi Minh Trail coming down from North Vietnam and none showed it going farther south than Saigon. We figured it went all the way to the Delta with Snoopy's Nose being one of the end points. But that was pure guess on our part, even though it made sense. Whether or not it was a supply cache was also a guess. About the only supplies we ever found were the shell casings left from the bullets sent to us at high speed by unseen riflemen (they were always unseen).
Into the woods we went in order of Shorty, Woolwine, Smiley, Constatino (squad leader), me, the M-79 man, and six-dozen unseen others. This was unused land, maybe abandoned. We passed beside and through wooded areas and untended rice paddies that looked like they hadn't seen a water buffalo since Ho Chi Minh was a teenybopper. All was quiet save the thump of boots, rustle of uniforms, and plastic and metal clank of equipment. No more than fifteen minutes later, while walking atop a major dike, we took fire from the woods to our right.
We must have looked like the Radio City Rockettes when we hit the ground in precise, instant unison. Not at all what we were taught back in AIT. Proper military etiquette would have had us turn toward the rifle fire and assault. The reasoning behind that tactic said we'd take less casualties and win more medals. On the other hand, hitting the ground seemed to work just fine. No one was shot. Of course, after the initial burst of fire, the woods once again grew quiet, like no one had been there. Shot at by ghosts.
We laid there for a while as the command group, off to our rear somewhere, talked things over. Their assessment was we'd been fired upon and since the shooting had stopped and didn't look like it would start up again, we should move on. Made me want to sing the virtues of West Point or the Officer's Candidate School at Fort Benning. Secretly I was hoping it was the former 'cause they had a jackass - actually it's a mule but jackass seems so much more appropriate - as their school mascot.
Up again and following Shorty like a train with the cars each ten meters apart. Finally, the woods opened to our left and were replaced by scruffy, bare, concrete-hard, rice paddies. Shorty dropped off the booby trap dangerous dike and shot straight down the middle of the paddies.
I recall it being the third paddy, no more than the fourth, when we stumbled upon another burst of fire from several points, front and right. Shorty took an AK-47 round through his forehead. He was dead before he hit the ground. Guess it didn't matter how long his staff was. The man behind me carrying the M-79 was shot through the shoulder and chest. Not dead but unconscious. Don't remember his name but he's not listed as dying on the roster of Bravo Company's KIAs from that day, so, long may he live.
Woolwine, Smiley and Constatino, up ahead of me, were down in a few straws of either last year's rice or whatever Mother Nature had planted since the area had been abandoned. I was layed out on a bare patch of what might have well have been a lumpy parking lot and facing the tree line that had been to our right. There wasn't shit but atmosphere between me and the two VC who seemed to want to silence my radio. That it would be easier, since I was bigger and easier to hit, to put me out of commission than the radio, seemed to be fine with them.
All I knew for sure was there was no cover fire from anybody to my rear (or right seeing as how I was facing the wood line). It sure seemed to be okay with them if Woolwine, Smiley, Constatino or I were shot just so long as they weren't exposed. Can't say I'd have done any differently. Remember rule number one, get home in one piece. Doesn't matter how many medals are on your chest if you're dead.
For five minutes, maybe ten, maybe an hour, time came to a halt on the paddy floor. Ain't a drug in the world that can give you a surreal feeling like a couple of men drawing a bead on your head with a decent chance of putting an end to your life. The man slightly to my right, almost straight ahead, no more than twenty-five meters away and probably in a paddy-wall spider hole, was a decent shot. Each one of his bursts was a tad closer to my sweating carcass than the last.
The man farther to my right seemed to be up in a tree. Both positions were and are guesses. Never saw either. No motion, no rifle flashes, no faces, not shit. At least the tree man didn't seem to be able to zero in on me.
Between bursts I created cover. The idea of burrowing into the paddy floor was appealing but would have been time consuming and would also horribly dirty my nails. That left the PRC25. Actually, getting it off my back was a necessity. Each time I raised my head to return fire, the frame pack and radio jammed my helmet forward over my eyes. Even if I could've seen the men firing at me I couldn't have seen them. Honestly, I have no idea how I wormed the pack and radio off my back but I did. And slid it around front of me for a tiny bit of protection, communication be damned. Rule number one trumped them all.
The M-16 was not a dependable weapon. Or so we were told. And there were enough of them in Bravo Company that jammed when fired to make me a believer. Also, the story was that the barrel raised when fired on automatic. Put it on full rock n' roll and you'd be winging monkeys in the treetops. Since those days I've read the barrel rise was not true. But back there on the paddy floor I went with rumor, clicked my rifle on semi-automatic and returned fire. Memory tells me I was the only one to do so.
I chose the closest man, the one who seemed to be firing from a spider hole, made my best guess as to where he might be, snapped off three rounds, and turtled back behind the radio. Immediately, a classic hale of bullets came to visit. Seemed he could see me just fine. All cracked past my right ear. One slapped my boot heel. Another tore through my shirt sleeve and burned the meat of my upper arm as it passed through. Shit! I'd never been shot before and didn't know what it would feel like. That I felt nothing after a few seconds didn't tell me a thing. Maybe it was nothing, maybe my arm was in shock. I didn't know.
When the burst stopped, my head popped up and I cracked off three more toward the front. Turtled back behind my buddy the radio, and a second return burst came flying by. I didn't like this game one bit. My rifle fire was at random in a general direction. His return fire all seemed to be within inches of my body. Sooner or later he was gonna get lucky. So I tried his buddy up in the tree. Same result. Three exploratory rounds from me. The same or more returned and way too damned close to my precious bodily fluids.
There was a lot going on in my head at the moment. Floating at the top and beating on the inside of my skull was wanting to get the hell out of there but had no idea how that could come about. Oddly enough, the thought of death never entered my thoughts. Maybe that was a good thing. All I knew for sure was I had a serious problem that wasn't going away. Then logic kicked in. It seemed every time I fired at the VC, they fired back. If I didn't shoot, they didn't shoot. I stopped shooting. So did they. Maybe they figured I wasn't worth the effort anymore. Being worthless was alright with me.
After what seemed like hours but was minutes, the four of us out in the open still had no cover fire from the M-60 man hiding behind the dike to our rear. Since he refused to get his machine gun up and running I won't mention Ward by name and embarrass him unduly. Oops, guess I let Joe's name slip out. Oh well, doesn't much matter 'cause the last time we saw him he was heading over the hill as an AWOL and for all I know he's still in Vietnam.
Eventually a call came over the radio from Bravo Six wondering what was going on up front. Seemed he needed to know if we'd like coffee and scones sent forward in case we wanted to call time out for a ten minute break from the war. Immediately, Bravo One-Two answered. Now I was really confused. In my fevered little mind Bill Constatino was our acting squad leader, and as such, was Bravo One-Two. And he was nowhere near a radio 'cause the radio was right in front of me. That it might be our other Sergeant who alternated with Constatino, never entered my head.
Back in AIT radio training we were told that the North Vietnamese sometimes got on our frequencies to send out conflicting information to confuse us good guys. That the voice on the radio spoke perfect English with an East Coast accent should have tipped me off that the caller was legitimate. But no, I quickly cut the Sergeant off and ran the show up front. Sounds impressive but all I did was give the names of the KIA and the WIA. And request cover fire to get our asses out of there.
Meanwhile, back at the rice paddy dike, our brand new, first day in the field with Bravo Company, Platoon Leader, Lieutenant Olson, decided it was time to bring in some artillery. To do that he had to shoot an azimuth with his compass. To shoot an azimuth he had to get up on his knees so he could see the approximate location of the VCs. Lt. Olson was about six foot seven. When he raised himself to his knees he was about the height of an average Vietnamese standing tall. Like Shorty, he was dead before he hit the ground.
Finally, the Sergeant I'd cut off on the radio managed to pry the M-60 machine gun out of Ward's hands and lay down some cover fire. This time there was no return fire. Most likely the VC had skedaddled and those of us caught in the ambush could have gotten up, dusted ourselves off and strolled out of there. But we didn't know that and we didn't get up. Maybe if we'd have politely called out and asked, the boys in the black pants would have let us know they were done playing for the day. But we didn't.
Finally a command decision was made to bring the remainder of first Platoon forward to the protecting dike where they could lay down a withering wall of fire, allow the mobile four of us to flee to safety and a couple of volunteers to drag the M-79 man out of there. Sounds easy doesn't it? Unless of course all ten of them were firing directly in your direction. To dodge was to die. Our Tiger Scout Thim came as close to shooting me in the head as had the VC in the spider hole. I distinctly recall my frame pack tearing at my back as I ran to cover. How it was returned to my back is as lost in my memory as how I got it off.
By now the VCs who shot at us were in the next county. No doubt about that. But the 105s back at Moore needed target practice so our Forward Observer thought it might be fun to call in an artillery barrage. Somehow it seemed both fitting and a summation of our efforts in Vietnam, at least as far as I saw in the Delta. Let's blast the shit out of some people who ain't there any more. Never having seen or heard a barrage, I was both excited and feared for my life. I mean, just how good was our FO with a compass? And at judging distance. And how accurate was our artillery? A half degree here and a couple of yards there and we were gruntburgers.
First off was a marking round. That was a best guess with the hope that it would be a little long, as opposed to a little short. And it was a little long. Landed about a hundred yards away and right on line. Normally an FO would do a couple of bracketing rounds, long-short-long-short, till they were dead on target. Kind of like Goldilocks looking for the right chair. Not possible in our case. A short round would have landed on top of us. So he made his best guess on how far to back off from the marking round and still not kill us all. Then called in a fire for effect, all of our howitzers at once.
At the same time we were laying as low as we could go. Kissing the earth, hands over heads, with a couple of "Oh me, oh my's" thrown in for effect. All six rounds hit hard and right on target, twenty-five meters to our front. Had anyone been under them they'd have shit themselves to death out of fear. Instead, a lot of clay was moved, a few branches severed and a wall of shrapnel came whizzing by our buried heads.
To top it off, add a cherry and whipped cream to our demolition dessert, a navy jet was called in. Their specialty was napalm. The idea was to make anything or anyone in the wrong place into a 'crispy critter.' Crispy Critters was a breakfast cereal back in the States favored by children of all ages who were into massive doses of sugar and food dye. In the Nam it pretty accurately described people who were killed by massive doses of flaming, jellied gasoline. Not much of a true tactical weapon but it sure did kill people in a painful way.
Our napalm came in over the tree tops right behind the jet that dropped it. Didn't look much like a bomb. More like a randomly tumbling barrel as it passed by a hundred feet up. Strangely enough the jet dropped it nowhere near where the VC had been. Hit with a whump! followed by a rising black cloud.
It was one weird battle. As far as I could tell I was the only one who actually fired in the general direction of the enemy while they were there. And I sure as hell couldn't see them. And the truth be known, the only reason I was shooting at them was to get them to stop shooting at me. Personally speaking, I didn't care if we won the firefight, I just didn't want to die. And that's why when they stopped shooting, so did I. The rest of the bullets, bombs, and artillery was nothing more than ignorance.
We pulled back a couple of paddies and took a break. It was there that Bravo Six came up, sat beside me and asked how I was doing. To that point I hadn't as yet checked out my wound. I rolled up my sleeve and immediately decided I'd live. Beside the holes in my sleeve there was an inch long crease in the meat of my shoulder. Any blood that may have flowed was long gone, washed clean by my sweat. And lordy did I sweat out there in the paddy. Soaked through my fatigues.
Bravo Six asked if I wanted a Purple heart. The temptation to say yes was strong but then I thought of Shorty and Lieutenant Olson. A moment's pause and I said no.
The Captain said he was gonna put himself in for one. "While the fight was going on I puckered so hard my asshole bled."
Under the circumstances both comments were the right things to say. Many times I've thought I should have said yes to Bravo Six. Having a Purple Heart would have been cool. Took a bullet for my country. War dog-hero-son-of-a-bitch. Who'd ever know the wound didn't truly justify one? Except me. Glad I said no.
A couple of minutes later Woolwine got up and said he was gonna go get Shorty. Oh yeah Shorty, we almost forgot about him. His cold body was still lying where it had fallen. About twenty seconds after Woolwine left, guilt got the better of me and I trailed after. For sure the VCs were long gone but in my mind there gnawed a thought that one of them might be up a nearby tree with a bead drawn on the body waiting for the fool who came out to get it. Bobby was willing to take the chance. Guessed I'd better give him a hand.
As confident as I was no VC remained at the ambush site I still had my doubts. Even back then I knew I could be wrong about most anything. Let's say I didn't exactly run to catch up with Bobby. By the time we met he'd already hoisted Shorty and was on his way back. We walked together for a few yards then it was my turn.
Holy crap! How could a hundred and twenty pound man weigh so much? Guess that's what's meant by dead weight. Two hundred yards and I'd had it but by then, the Farmer had come out and took Shorty from me. Cold, soft, unresponsive, with a hint of fish smell, that's what death is like.
Bobby Woolwine received the Silver Star for going back for Shorty. When battles were written up in Vietnam, large or small, the story had to reflect our loss of life. Since the reported kill ratio in Vietnam was almost always nine to one in our favor, our battle story must have been written up as a humdinger. And it needed a hero. Why not Woolwine? He was the only one with the wherewithal to remember and head back for Shorty. No matter the circumstances it was a gutsy move.
We spent the night at Snoopy's Nose. Fifty percent alert. Nothing happened.
That's the way I recall it. May not be perfectly accurate but it's close. Who knows why I wasn't killed lying out on the bare rice paddy floor? Might have had a lot to do with us fighting farmers without any formal training. None of us wanted to be where we were, doing what we were doing. They just wanted us to go away. We just wanted to survive and go home. Seemed like we could have worked something out that woulda made both of us happy.
On that day I came to realize my mortality. Going to the field had a new edge to it. The possibility of dying grew from a vague possibility to a gut feeling. I changed that day from a kid growing up in near ideal circumstances back in the Free World to one who knew that life was a gift to be thankful for every day of my life. What lies around the next corner is always a mystery, nothing is certain and worrying about it changes nothing.
In Memorium: PFC Ismael 'Shorty' Solis and Lt. John Olson
I was a fortunate man. Only two of the men I called friends were killed in combat. The remaining seven dead during my four months in the field were in the second and third platoons, as good as if they were in another country. Odd how that works. You see them most every day, maybe know a few by name but you don't share loads with them, bed down with them, or sit with them on a break like you do with the men in your own squad. They remain faces seen at a distance. And now they're faded faces off on the edge of the painting.
This is the story of how Woolwine lost his first point man.
Don't remember if the operation we were on was my first carrying the radio. Probably not. Before the PRC-25 found a home on my back, like every other rookie I was just another rifle bearing grunt. A few days before the radio became my baby, I'd been given a shot at carrying the M-79 grenade rifle but was unable to hit the bush Constatino was pointing at. Simple as that. Two rounds popped in the right general direction, no better, no worse. Said to the world I had no innate touch for the weapon. Probably a genetic defect on my Swedish side.
More likely, my true ability was being the mindless minion of Irony with a capital 'I'. Ironic circumstance was my fate in the Army and no matter my ability with the grenade rifle, Irony wouldn't let me hit the broad side of a barn even if I was inside. Instead, the M-79 passed into the hands of a man who could hip shoot a grenade into a rabbit hole at fifty yards. His bad luck as you'll see.
When the radio slot opened up all I had to do to make it mine was say yes. I had all the necessary attributes, could speak intelligible English, was big enough to carry the extra weight and wore glasses. The glasses said to the world, at least the world around me wearing jungle fatigues, that I was a nerd who'd ruined his vision reading instruction manuals for anything involving electricity when I could more productively have been leafing through Playboys and exercising my right hand. Little did they know.
Whatever the reason, the radio was mine. And I cherished the job. At night I had first choice of which watch to pull. Meaning a relatively uninterrupted, full night's sleep whether I took the first or the last. Also, in a fire fight, my primary obligation was to never jeopardize my sorry ass by doing something heroic but to keep those ever important lines of communication open. Dead men can't do that. In short, my job was to not bitch about the load, stay alive, keep near my squad or platoon leader and my mouth functional.
One last thing. There was a pecking order as to which of us would be shot in an ambush. The first three to go down would ideally, from the VC point of view, be the man next to the radio, the man carrying the radio, and the M-79 man. We went out of our way to choose someone with real ability to carry the grenade rifle. And our grenadiers were good. And they were dangerous. So, of course, they were shot first.
Snoopy's Nose. And I ain't talking about the beagle on the dog house fighting the Red Barron. Down in the Delta we all came to know and dread the words Snoopy's Nose. So when the word came down that's where we were going, there was a lot of muffled muttering involving mothers and the Diety in our stand-down barracks. Enough to let me know something was in the wind. I suspected it was our shit but asked around anyhow.
'Bout all I could get out of anyone was, "You don't want to know but you're gonna find out."
What the hell, I didn't know what their problem was, this was exciting. We were gonna get an Eagle Flight to a place I'd never been. A regular road trip in the air. Just like Apocalypse Now if it had already been filmed. Robert Duvall and all that happy napalm shit in the morning.
Made me mad I didn't have a camera to take photos of me and the boys mugging in front of all the neat stuff we'd see. Send those pictures home to the family with captions sayin' stuff like, "This here is me and Li'l Joe and the Dripper just before the Dripper got shot in the ass and sent home to the World. Lucky bastard."
Ridin' in a Huey was usually a good time. On a hot day the ride was air conditioner cool. There might be water aboard. We were riding, not humping. And the view was worth the price of admission. Rice paddies and river and then, river and rice paddies. Being up in the blue on an Eagle Flight made me feel like we were fast, graceful, powerful, and ready to pounce down on stray kittens and roadkill at a moment's notice.
Don't remember how it came about but my spot on the chopper was in the doorway, legs hangin' in the breeze. I sure didn't end up there 'cause I was a daredevil or I wanted to be number one out the door so I could have first shot at the VC. Most likely I was slower than the rest of my squad on my first ride. Once in the doorway - there were no doors on the Hueys in the Delta - I found I liked it and since I lacked the imagination to sit anywhere else, that's where I stayed.
However, there were disadvantages to the doorway. Should we be fired upon, the doorman was the most easily hit. Never gave that a thought. But if we were ever shot at, I was never aware of it. Kinda disappointing, ain't it? And for us Bravo Company boys, it was never anything like the movies where choppers smokin' into a hot LZ went down in blazes of glory but somehow the grunts survived and came sprintin' out of the fireball with M-16s spittin' out a slipstream of death.
In my case the disadvantage had more to do with daydreaming. Most times when I found myself up in the sky, my mind was lost in the ozone, with visions of the World dancing in my head, anywhere but where I actually was. Then this one time, on a descent, the sight of the treetops coming level with my eyes woke me up. And I stepped out. Into space. Not a smart move. Rule number one for exiting a helicopter was: Don't step out until you have to. Rule number two was: Free fall ain't free.
I have no recollection of my chopperless flight other than complete surprise. The landing I remember clearly. It was toes first, knees second and face third. The coup d'gras was when my pack and PRC-25 hammered my head home. As my platoon leader said to me while I was cleaning my glasses with spit and jungle shirt, "Peters, that was the dumbest, f***ing thing I've ever seen." What could I do but grin like a man who'd just done the dumbest f***ing thing ever seen by another man who'd seen a lot of dumb f***ing things?
Anyhow, after landing at Snoopy's Nose, we stood around for about fifteen minutes killing time while the brass made up their minds about where we were supposed to go if we were where we thought we were and which direction where we were going might be (that's supposed to sound something like Pooh Bear and Christopher Robin discussing their imminent expedition in the Hundred Acre Wood - a place I'd much rather have been than Snoopy's Nose. Don't know if that's the first use of A.A. Milne in a remembrance of Vietnam but I have my hopes).
So there we stood, me, Woolwine, Shorty, Constatino and Smiley, kickin' dirt and passin' time. Shorty, our point man, wandered off looking for treasure and returned a minute later with a smile on his face brought on by the six-foot long stick in his hand. Just the right size for a five-foot, four-inch man. His plan was to use it to sweep the area ahead of him as he stepped out at his usual breakneck speed. Bravo Six, our Company Commander, loved Shorty 'cause he covered ground like no other point man. Fearless. That's why First Platoon always walked point when Bravo Company was out and about. And why Bravo Company set the pace on a battalion operation. All the brass loved Shorty. Now, armed with his staff, we feared he might pick up the pace even more.
As for the rest of us paddy-pounders, we liked Shorty 'cause he was a good man, fun to be with. And never blamed him for always putting us in more than our share of jeopardy 'cause he was so good at what he did, after all, he was just being Shorty.
We blamed the higher ups. Why not? They called the shots. Wrong call? Some of us died. Didn't mean nothin'. But you see, the entire mess of Vietnam was a learning curve, for them and for us. They didn't really know what they were doing till they had a little experience under their belts. We were the lab rats, they were the guys in the white coats (but not necessarily white hats). But we did nothing more than grumble about it, saddle up and set off at a trot behind Shorty before he was out of sight.
The story in Bravo Company had Snoopy's Nose as a supply depot for the Viet Cong. I've pulled up maps of the Ho Chi Minh Trail coming down from North Vietnam and none showed it going farther south than Saigon. We figured it went all the way to the Delta with Snoopy's Nose being one of the end points. But that was pure guess on our part, even though it made sense. Whether or not it was a supply cache was also a guess. About the only supplies we ever found were the shell casings left from the bullets sent to us at high speed by unseen riflemen (they were always unseen).
Into the woods we went in order of Shorty, Woolwine, Smiley, Constatino (squad leader), me, the M-79 man, and six-dozen unseen others. This was unused land, maybe abandoned. We passed beside and through wooded areas and untended rice paddies that looked like they hadn't seen a water buffalo since Ho Chi Minh was a teenybopper. All was quiet save the thump of boots, rustle of uniforms, and plastic and metal clank of equipment. No more than fifteen minutes later, while walking atop a major dike, we took fire from the woods to our right.
We must have looked like the Radio City Rockettes when we hit the ground in precise, instant unison. Not at all what we were taught back in AIT. Proper military etiquette would have had us turn toward the rifle fire and assault. The reasoning behind that tactic said we'd take less casualties and win more medals. On the other hand, hitting the ground seemed to work just fine. No one was shot. Of course, after the initial burst of fire, the woods once again grew quiet, like no one had been there. Shot at by ghosts.
We laid there for a while as the command group, off to our rear somewhere, talked things over. Their assessment was we'd been fired upon and since the shooting had stopped and didn't look like it would start up again, we should move on. Made me want to sing the virtues of West Point or the Officer's Candidate School at Fort Benning. Secretly I was hoping it was the former 'cause they had a jackass - actually it's a mule but jackass seems so much more appropriate - as their school mascot.
Up again and following Shorty like a train with the cars each ten meters apart. Finally, the woods opened to our left and were replaced by scruffy, bare, concrete-hard, rice paddies. Shorty dropped off the booby trap dangerous dike and shot straight down the middle of the paddies.
I recall it being the third paddy, no more than the fourth, when we stumbled upon another burst of fire from several points, front and right. Shorty took an AK-47 round through his forehead. He was dead before he hit the ground. Guess it didn't matter how long his staff was. The man behind me carrying the M-79 was shot through the shoulder and chest. Not dead but unconscious. Don't remember his name but he's not listed as dying on the roster of Bravo Company's KIAs from that day, so, long may he live.
Woolwine, Smiley and Constatino, up ahead of me, were down in a few straws of either last year's rice or whatever Mother Nature had planted since the area had been abandoned. I was layed out on a bare patch of what might have well have been a lumpy parking lot and facing the tree line that had been to our right. There wasn't shit but atmosphere between me and the two VC who seemed to want to silence my radio. That it would be easier, since I was bigger and easier to hit, to put me out of commission than the radio, seemed to be fine with them.
All I knew for sure was there was no cover fire from anybody to my rear (or right seeing as how I was facing the wood line). It sure seemed to be okay with them if Woolwine, Smiley, Constatino or I were shot just so long as they weren't exposed. Can't say I'd have done any differently. Remember rule number one, get home in one piece. Doesn't matter how many medals are on your chest if you're dead.
For five minutes, maybe ten, maybe an hour, time came to a halt on the paddy floor. Ain't a drug in the world that can give you a surreal feeling like a couple of men drawing a bead on your head with a decent chance of putting an end to your life. The man slightly to my right, almost straight ahead, no more than twenty-five meters away and probably in a paddy-wall spider hole, was a decent shot. Each one of his bursts was a tad closer to my sweating carcass than the last.
The man farther to my right seemed to be up in a tree. Both positions were and are guesses. Never saw either. No motion, no rifle flashes, no faces, not shit. At least the tree man didn't seem to be able to zero in on me.
Between bursts I created cover. The idea of burrowing into the paddy floor was appealing but would have been time consuming and would also horribly dirty my nails. That left the PRC25. Actually, getting it off my back was a necessity. Each time I raised my head to return fire, the frame pack and radio jammed my helmet forward over my eyes. Even if I could've seen the men firing at me I couldn't have seen them. Honestly, I have no idea how I wormed the pack and radio off my back but I did. And slid it around front of me for a tiny bit of protection, communication be damned. Rule number one trumped them all.
The M-16 was not a dependable weapon. Or so we were told. And there were enough of them in Bravo Company that jammed when fired to make me a believer. Also, the story was that the barrel raised when fired on automatic. Put it on full rock n' roll and you'd be winging monkeys in the treetops. Since those days I've read the barrel rise was not true. But back there on the paddy floor I went with rumor, clicked my rifle on semi-automatic and returned fire. Memory tells me I was the only one to do so.
I chose the closest man, the one who seemed to be firing from a spider hole, made my best guess as to where he might be, snapped off three rounds, and turtled back behind the radio. Immediately, a classic hale of bullets came to visit. Seemed he could see me just fine. All cracked past my right ear. One slapped my boot heel. Another tore through my shirt sleeve and burned the meat of my upper arm as it passed through. Shit! I'd never been shot before and didn't know what it would feel like. That I felt nothing after a few seconds didn't tell me a thing. Maybe it was nothing, maybe my arm was in shock. I didn't know.
When the burst stopped, my head popped up and I cracked off three more toward the front. Turtled back behind my buddy the radio, and a second return burst came flying by. I didn't like this game one bit. My rifle fire was at random in a general direction. His return fire all seemed to be within inches of my body. Sooner or later he was gonna get lucky. So I tried his buddy up in the tree. Same result. Three exploratory rounds from me. The same or more returned and way too damned close to my precious bodily fluids.
There was a lot going on in my head at the moment. Floating at the top and beating on the inside of my skull was wanting to get the hell out of there but had no idea how that could come about. Oddly enough, the thought of death never entered my thoughts. Maybe that was a good thing. All I knew for sure was I had a serious problem that wasn't going away. Then logic kicked in. It seemed every time I fired at the VC, they fired back. If I didn't shoot, they didn't shoot. I stopped shooting. So did they. Maybe they figured I wasn't worth the effort anymore. Being worthless was alright with me.
After what seemed like hours but was minutes, the four of us out in the open still had no cover fire from the M-60 man hiding behind the dike to our rear. Since he refused to get his machine gun up and running I won't mention Ward by name and embarrass him unduly. Oops, guess I let Joe's name slip out. Oh well, doesn't much matter 'cause the last time we saw him he was heading over the hill as an AWOL and for all I know he's still in Vietnam.
Eventually a call came over the radio from Bravo Six wondering what was going on up front. Seemed he needed to know if we'd like coffee and scones sent forward in case we wanted to call time out for a ten minute break from the war. Immediately, Bravo One-Two answered. Now I was really confused. In my fevered little mind Bill Constatino was our acting squad leader, and as such, was Bravo One-Two. And he was nowhere near a radio 'cause the radio was right in front of me. That it might be our other Sergeant who alternated with Constatino, never entered my head.
Back in AIT radio training we were told that the North Vietnamese sometimes got on our frequencies to send out conflicting information to confuse us good guys. That the voice on the radio spoke perfect English with an East Coast accent should have tipped me off that the caller was legitimate. But no, I quickly cut the Sergeant off and ran the show up front. Sounds impressive but all I did was give the names of the KIA and the WIA. And request cover fire to get our asses out of there.
Meanwhile, back at the rice paddy dike, our brand new, first day in the field with Bravo Company, Platoon Leader, Lieutenant Olson, decided it was time to bring in some artillery. To do that he had to shoot an azimuth with his compass. To shoot an azimuth he had to get up on his knees so he could see the approximate location of the VCs. Lt. Olson was about six foot seven. When he raised himself to his knees he was about the height of an average Vietnamese standing tall. Like Shorty, he was dead before he hit the ground.
Finally, the Sergeant I'd cut off on the radio managed to pry the M-60 machine gun out of Ward's hands and lay down some cover fire. This time there was no return fire. Most likely the VC had skedaddled and those of us caught in the ambush could have gotten up, dusted ourselves off and strolled out of there. But we didn't know that and we didn't get up. Maybe if we'd have politely called out and asked, the boys in the black pants would have let us know they were done playing for the day. But we didn't.
Finally a command decision was made to bring the remainder of first Platoon forward to the protecting dike where they could lay down a withering wall of fire, allow the mobile four of us to flee to safety and a couple of volunteers to drag the M-79 man out of there. Sounds easy doesn't it? Unless of course all ten of them were firing directly in your direction. To dodge was to die. Our Tiger Scout Thim came as close to shooting me in the head as had the VC in the spider hole. I distinctly recall my frame pack tearing at my back as I ran to cover. How it was returned to my back is as lost in my memory as how I got it off.
By now the VCs who shot at us were in the next county. No doubt about that. But the 105s back at Moore needed target practice so our Forward Observer thought it might be fun to call in an artillery barrage. Somehow it seemed both fitting and a summation of our efforts in Vietnam, at least as far as I saw in the Delta. Let's blast the shit out of some people who ain't there any more. Never having seen or heard a barrage, I was both excited and feared for my life. I mean, just how good was our FO with a compass? And at judging distance. And how accurate was our artillery? A half degree here and a couple of yards there and we were gruntburgers.
First off was a marking round. That was a best guess with the hope that it would be a little long, as opposed to a little short. And it was a little long. Landed about a hundred yards away and right on line. Normally an FO would do a couple of bracketing rounds, long-short-long-short, till they were dead on target. Kind of like Goldilocks looking for the right chair. Not possible in our case. A short round would have landed on top of us. So he made his best guess on how far to back off from the marking round and still not kill us all. Then called in a fire for effect, all of our howitzers at once.
At the same time we were laying as low as we could go. Kissing the earth, hands over heads, with a couple of "Oh me, oh my's" thrown in for effect. All six rounds hit hard and right on target, twenty-five meters to our front. Had anyone been under them they'd have shit themselves to death out of fear. Instead, a lot of clay was moved, a few branches severed and a wall of shrapnel came whizzing by our buried heads.
To top it off, add a cherry and whipped cream to our demolition dessert, a navy jet was called in. Their specialty was napalm. The idea was to make anything or anyone in the wrong place into a 'crispy critter.' Crispy Critters was a breakfast cereal back in the States favored by children of all ages who were into massive doses of sugar and food dye. In the Nam it pretty accurately described people who were killed by massive doses of flaming, jellied gasoline. Not much of a true tactical weapon but it sure did kill people in a painful way.
Our napalm came in over the tree tops right behind the jet that dropped it. Didn't look much like a bomb. More like a randomly tumbling barrel as it passed by a hundred feet up. Strangely enough the jet dropped it nowhere near where the VC had been. Hit with a whump! followed by a rising black cloud.
It was one weird battle. As far as I could tell I was the only one who actually fired in the general direction of the enemy while they were there. And I sure as hell couldn't see them. And the truth be known, the only reason I was shooting at them was to get them to stop shooting at me. Personally speaking, I didn't care if we won the firefight, I just didn't want to die. And that's why when they stopped shooting, so did I. The rest of the bullets, bombs, and artillery was nothing more than ignorance.
We pulled back a couple of paddies and took a break. It was there that Bravo Six came up, sat beside me and asked how I was doing. To that point I hadn't as yet checked out my wound. I rolled up my sleeve and immediately decided I'd live. Beside the holes in my sleeve there was an inch long crease in the meat of my shoulder. Any blood that may have flowed was long gone, washed clean by my sweat. And lordy did I sweat out there in the paddy. Soaked through my fatigues.
Bravo Six asked if I wanted a Purple heart. The temptation to say yes was strong but then I thought of Shorty and Lieutenant Olson. A moment's pause and I said no.
The Captain said he was gonna put himself in for one. "While the fight was going on I puckered so hard my asshole bled."
Under the circumstances both comments were the right things to say. Many times I've thought I should have said yes to Bravo Six. Having a Purple Heart would have been cool. Took a bullet for my country. War dog-hero-son-of-a-bitch. Who'd ever know the wound didn't truly justify one? Except me. Glad I said no.
A couple of minutes later Woolwine got up and said he was gonna go get Shorty. Oh yeah Shorty, we almost forgot about him. His cold body was still lying where it had fallen. About twenty seconds after Woolwine left, guilt got the better of me and I trailed after. For sure the VCs were long gone but in my mind there gnawed a thought that one of them might be up a nearby tree with a bead drawn on the body waiting for the fool who came out to get it. Bobby was willing to take the chance. Guessed I'd better give him a hand.
As confident as I was no VC remained at the ambush site I still had my doubts. Even back then I knew I could be wrong about most anything. Let's say I didn't exactly run to catch up with Bobby. By the time we met he'd already hoisted Shorty and was on his way back. We walked together for a few yards then it was my turn.
Holy crap! How could a hundred and twenty pound man weigh so much? Guess that's what's meant by dead weight. Two hundred yards and I'd had it but by then, the Farmer had come out and took Shorty from me. Cold, soft, unresponsive, with a hint of fish smell, that's what death is like.
Bobby Woolwine received the Silver Star for going back for Shorty. When battles were written up in Vietnam, large or small, the story had to reflect our loss of life. Since the reported kill ratio in Vietnam was almost always nine to one in our favor, our battle story must have been written up as a humdinger. And it needed a hero. Why not Woolwine? He was the only one with the wherewithal to remember and head back for Shorty. No matter the circumstances it was a gutsy move.
We spent the night at Snoopy's Nose. Fifty percent alert. Nothing happened.
That's the way I recall it. May not be perfectly accurate but it's close. Who knows why I wasn't killed lying out on the bare rice paddy floor? Might have had a lot to do with us fighting farmers without any formal training. None of us wanted to be where we were, doing what we were doing. They just wanted us to go away. We just wanted to survive and go home. Seemed like we could have worked something out that woulda made both of us happy.
On that day I came to realize my mortality. Going to the field had a new edge to it. The possibility of dying grew from a vague possibility to a gut feeling. I changed that day from a kid growing up in near ideal circumstances back in the Free World to one who knew that life was a gift to be thankful for every day of my life. What lies around the next corner is always a mystery, nothing is certain and worrying about it changes nothing.
In Memorium: PFC Ismael 'Shorty' Solis and Lt. John Olson
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