Seemed like our primary function was to walk around with loads of stuff on our backs in hopes of being shot at. When not doing that we walked around with loads on our backs and went door to door asking people for their IDs, "can cuk?" From personal experience I can say with absolute certainty that nothing builds self esteem like asking a woman who is suckling her baby, "Papers please?" Didn't exactly make me feel like I was in the Gestapo but it sure was embarrassing.
During the time I was an RTO, a typical load for me was helmet liner and helmet, jungle fatigues, socks, boots, M-16, eleven clips of ammo, frame and frame pack, two or three quarts of water d-clipped to the frame, two grenades handle wrapped to the straps up front, twenty-five pound radio with battery, half dozen smoke grenades, fifty rounds of machine gun ammo, pound and a half of C-4 plastic explosive, poncho, paperback book, pen and paper for letters, couple of c-ration meals, bug juice, smokes and matches. Near as I can figure that was pushing seventy pounds.
During the dry season when I first arrived, the only time we got wet was crossing rivers too wide for foot bridges. Since we were in a major river delta, we did those crossings on a regular basis. During the monsoon we got wet when we hit the field and stayed that way till we sloshed our way home. Along the way we quickly sprouted a micro-garden of plants and animals on and in us. Also when the rains came down, the paddies filled up and turned into leech heaven. Bring up some of the 9th Infantry web sites and check out what a bunch of muddy boys we were.
Didn't take long once I started carrying the PRC-25 before gravity decided I was to always be the last to cross a foot bridge. You see, a bridge was nothing more than a skinny log dropped across a channel of water, framed in place, with a bamboo railing slapped on for cuteness. Don't think there were any building codes in rice paddy country. The first one that collapsed under me was written off by my squad as poor engineering. The second made it obvious that a structure built for hundred pound people wouldn't stand up under my two hundred, fifty pound load of GI and gear. So, when we came on a crossing, I quietly stepped aside to let the others pass. And have a minute to reflect on my upcoming bath.
One bridge stood out above all others. And, miracle of miracles, I didn't break it. A more complex affair than usual, it consisted of a couple of post supports sunk in the muck and ascending vertically to the heavens five feet above, a one by eight plank rose to the first post, a similar bowed plank spanned the posts, and a third descended to the far shore. Add a thin bamboo railing and I had myself a sure fire disaster. It was the span above the water I feared most. And sweated it out as each of my platoon mates safely crossed. Once on the other side they readied a rope to haul me out of the mire I'd certainly be spread-eagled in. But somehow, someway, maybe a supporting angel hovered beneath, or the added buoyancy of my held breath, I floated across in the blink of an eye.
An internet search under FSB Moore and first entry under Blackhawk to ... shows a couple of bridge pictures by clicking on the 3/39th Delta Company's photos at the top. I believe the plank bridge in one of the photos is the one I mentioned above. The log bridge in another photo is typical of the one's I broke. Most every snapshot brings back memories of what it was like in the Delta.
Down in the swamps and rice paddies along the Mekong we fought a different kind of war than the troops nearer the DMZ. No big scale battles with artillery and battalion sized forces for us. Hell, we only saw who we were fighting on two occasions. Usually we saw nothing more than the booby traps they set for us to find a pop! and boom!! at a time and their 'Hello GIs' hale of red and green tracers when we walked into an ambush. The lack of true battles didn't stop us from losing men. During my first six weeks with Bravo Company we had seven KIA. A few weeks later we took three more. Remember, that's out of a field force of about eighty. Figure in three dozen who were wounded during that period and you can see why we were always short-handed.
Wading rivers had an appeal we found more seductive than a Vietnamese table top shimmy dancer, sporting a complementary dose of the clap, in downtown Saigon. The Delta was tide controlled. Tide in, the streams were full and could usually be forded chest deep. No more problem than having to dry out over the next few hours. Tide out was another ball game. Ten to twenty yards of mud replaced the coffee colored, flowing water. And I'm not talking about just getting a little goo on your boots either. Those streams of muck were crotch deep on an average sized man. Lucky for us we all carried enough weight on our backs to plug us in solidly down to bedrock so that we might enjoy the full effect.
For me, being a tad over six feet, it was nothing more than striding in till I couldn't lift my legs anymore. Then, with my arms, hoist one leg up, lay it forward on the mud, and lean forward to replant it. Repeat that maneuver a dozen times and I was across.
The short guys faced a different problem. For them it was grabbing a rope slung over to them across the mire and then, a couple of us more or less dragging them from one side to the other.
A tide out crossing would coat us from the waist down and bespatter most places above. Top that off with the mud being even parts organic matter - lotta buffalo and human shit - and clay. That stuff set like stone. I think there's some still embedded under my toenails.
Factor in rice paddy, river, and the thickets we sometimes had to machete hack our way through, and it becomes obvious why an infantry company in the Delta rarely covered more than one or two miles in an hour. Forced road marches at four miles per hour only happened stateside where traveling in the open didn't expose grunts to the constant threat of ambush.
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