2 Jul—Sit Rep

The First Platoon was all over the map today.

I was with the First Squad.  We were doing a river rafting operation, transporting armored personnel carriers across a river and landing them on the opposite side to pursue Viet Cong who had infiltrated into the area. A few days later we would retrieve them. 

On the last sortie, an APC hit a mine, turning it over and trapping nine men.  We would rescue six of them, three died.

The Second Squad was north of our battalion base camp supporting a company of infantry in an area we called, “The Bowling Alley” because of the way it looked with palm trees lining each side of a 300 yard strip of low growth reeds. 

Later that month, VC would sneak through the reeds and overrun the company base camp, killing no one and jumping into a river on the opposite end of the camp to get away in boats.

The third squad was putting the final touches on a 20-foot searchlight tower. Headquarters Squad, which had a bulldozer and frontend loader, was building a berm around the battalion base camp.

It’s the third squad this story is about.

A new Infantry Battalion Commander had taken over about three weeks before.  He had spent some time getting his feet wet—literally.  Wrecked a helicopter in his second as he went up to see one of his companies involved in a firefight with Victor

Charlie and decided, against the pilot’s advice, to land on a rice paddy dike to

“get a look see on the ground.” 

The chopper landed ok and then sat on its tail rotor.

You get the picture.

For two weeks he had been onto me to build him a searchlight on top of his command post, which was also the battalion commo center.  Housed is two what we called conex containers…metal storage units, joined together they were heavily fortified with airfield matting and two feet thick walls of sandbags on the side and three feet on top.  His searchlight would be on top.

For gosh sakes, you could get up on a six-foot ladder and see forever in the Mekong

Delta, south of Saigon.

And for two weeks, I told him he really did not want to do that.  I made up every excuse in the book.  “We weren’t garrison engineers and were not equipped to do something like that”; “All my squads were out in support of his infantry.”  “The guys had just come back from the field and needs some stand down time.”

He finally threatened me with a loss in rank.  Heck, I was just a butter bar at the time.  A direct order was what it took, and while I protested in a way befitting an officer and a gentleman, we went about getting the materials.

There wasn’t a soul among the 400 or so men in the base camp who was looking forward to that light.  Some wondered if the “old man” had lost his marbles.

On 2 Jul, we were almost done.

3 Jul  Sit Rep

All of my squads, save one are back in the battalion base camp today.  Two of them are working on the tower, and for the Headquarters squad I have a special assignment.

My headquarters squad were bulldozer and frontend loader drivers, a truck driver and a couple demolition men, and when we converted to our infantry roll---mortar crew, 50-caliber machine gun, a couple of thumpers.  BUT, they were also adept to, shall we politely say, “Midnight Requisitions?” 

But, this would be a broad daylight kind of job.

Saigon had been under siege (probably a platoon of drunken VC scaring the bejezzus out of the rear echelon *^#@  @#^*).  The docks were closed and we had been eating C-rations for a week.  It was the Fourth tomorrow and time for some CHICKEN!

The job required my jeep and its trailer and two three-quarter ton (army pickups) trucks.

We mounted the machine gun on my jeep and another on one of the three-quarter ton trucks.

The plan was simple:

Step one: Go back to the 9th Division Base camp (about 40-50 miles from ours) go slowly past the open supply area drop guys off armed with bolt cutters, and I would go into the office and engage the personnel in conversation.  The guys would steal anything and everything necessary for a barbecue that we couldn’t get in the field.

Step two:  From Bear Cat go into Saigon, down to the docks, stop at the military supply office and trade a captured Viet Cong flag for a couple crates of chicken.

Step three:  No stealing here---take up a collection among the men and return with 30 cases of beer, enough for a platoon of combat engineers for a week, or a company of Marines for a month…right, Tom?

We left with the minesweeping crew just before sun up.  We swept the roads every morning as Charlie mined it at night.  We could tell when it was safe or mined.

Civilians would pass us on safe days and stay behind us on not-so-safe days.  Today it was safe, but we had to take the time to do it.

The trip back to the Ninth was uneventful.  I pulled our three vehicle convoy along the barbed wire fence, a few snips and the boys were through the wire.  My jeep driver and I went onto the office to give the NCOIC for the day a requisition we had forged for some innocuous supplies---toilet paper, nails, stuff like that. 

I stayed there long enough to watch my two trucks drive by and then ended my business.

We met up at the gate and headed to Saigon about an hour away.  The docks were a little tougher.  We went into an air-conditioned building.

“My gawd. Look how these people live.”  There were three of us.  Dave Nutting  my jeep driver and RTO, and Sgt. Boughton,  one of my assistant squad leaders, a 19-year-old  who went from private nothing to Sergeant E-5 in six months.

 I was having a tough time convincing the Sergeant First Class at the Supply HQ that we were desperate line soldiers who had been living off C-rats for the last week because of the action in Saigon.  He was unsympathetic. 

About that time, Sgt. Boughton pulled out the VC flag and began a tale of horror, bravery, hand-to-hand combat in a struggle for life and death.

“I’m saving this for my little brother when I get home,” Boughton ended.

I don’t know whether it was wanting to get over the BS or this supply Sergeant was just plain gullible, but the flag was traded for two crates of whole chicken and we drove down the ship with a document in hand.

Now, you have to know something…I do have a CAPTURED VC flag framed…but the one we traded and others like it, were made by mama sans in the village for us.  A little dirt on them, a bullet shot through them, and several washings in the river, well…you get the drift.

We returned to the battalion base camp. Another successful mission accomplished. The tower was completed by the evening of 3 Jul and we began the task of hauling the search light up the tower.

It took about an hour to pull it up to the tower, run an electrical cord to the generator and turn it on briefly…I did not want any of my men on that tower for more than a minute.  The sun was going down…the light worked.

The chicken was placed in a homemade ice chest (ammo boxes and rice hull insulation).  There was too much beer to ice down.  So, we put it in the only cool place we had…the above ground mortar bunkers.  Each squad tent had one.  We couldn’t dig holes because 18 inches deep was water.  So we built bunkers out of timber, aluminum airstrip mats, and sandbags…lots of sandbags.

The beer was placed in my headquarters squad bunker…for obvious reasons.

10 p.m. 3 Jul sit rep

One squad is up in the Bowling Alley area.  We had a report they had been probed earlier

Three squads are in base camp. On drew duty to man a bunker on the perimeter, so they are alternating men on shifts for that task.  There are four tents, one for each 10-man squad.  Two, side by side, face the road in front and one each behind them.  One tent is empty, the squad supporting the infantry company.

12:37 a.m. 4 Jul—I remember like it was yesterday

The colonel had the *^#@ light on since total darkness when all hell broke loose. For the first time in MONTHS, we were being heavily mortared…you will never forget the sounds of incoming rounds as long as you live. 

Imagine you are in a sound sleep, dreaming of home, when all of a sudden someone rams into the wall of your bedroom.

I grabbed my weapon and ammo, and bolted along with everyone else and headed to the bunkers.  Mine was right behind my tent.  Explosions were going off everywhere.

There’s not much you can do during a mortar attack, but wait.

But, we had a problem.  There were too many people for our bunker and too many cases of beer.  I had to make a command decision.  I looked at my platoon sergeant.  “What can we do?” I must have asked, I don’t know.  “It’s your decision,” sir he answered.

I looked around, sweat coming off of my brow. “You two cherries, come here. Look, this isn’t going to last long.  I want the two of you to crawl out and stay on your stomachs next to the sandbags.  You’ll be okay.  As soon as there is a break, get up with the rest of us and run to our positions on the perimeter.  Got it?”

They kind of looked at one another as if to say, “He’s got to be kidding.”  “What?”

I said.  “Crawl, crawl, crawl.”

Look, it was either a couple of newbies who could be patched up or all that beer which could not be recovered if it were shot full of holes.  Some time, a guy’s got to do, what a guy’s got to do.

But, as luck would have it, just as they started out, the barrage lifted and we all headed for our posts on the perimeter to wait for the attack…which never came.

Back to bed, to wake up a couple hours later.

4 Jul 5:30 a.m. sit rep

The sun was coming up and we started coming out of our tents.  Some people spent the night in the bunkers.  The place was a mess.

Every vehicle in the battalion area had flat tires and punctured radiators.  A few took

a lucky direct hit. We cannibalized parts to put one of our jeeps together.

The ammo storage area, just across the road from the search light tower took a couple of hits, but no serious damage.

The battalion aid station was hit. Still, a number of guys lined up to take care of minor wounds.  They were taken care of in the open air.  Dust offs were called in to take out the more serious wounded. The mess hall tent next to my platoon area took several direct hits.

Mortar pocked marked holes were everywhere.  It rained mortars for the better part

of a half hour.

In my area, one tent took three direct hits; two exploded, making the tent into a sieve.  One mortar was unexploded.  It had come though the top of the tent, through the squad leader’s bunk, the wooden floor below it, and buried itself in the ground.

Staff Sergeant Dunning is alive today because he was with his squad supporting a company of Infantry in an area we called, “The Bowling Alley.”

4 Jul Noon—Sit Rep

Well, shortly after sun up we began the clean up, iced down the beer, and are now starting up some of the homemade grills we have made over the last six months while in the Mekong Delta.  We are using real charcoal we got from some of the locals.

Everyone is pretty well chilling out.

The two cherries…are no longer cherries.  They got baptized and are now veterans of the Vietnam War with just 355 days left in country.

About 2 p.m. or so, I got my dozer operator, had a fella we called “Ski” climb the tower with rope, tie it off, and gave the dozer operator a thumbs up, and take off.  To the cheers of some 400 men, the tower came down, the light never to be used a marker for mortar fire again.

The battalion commander?  Less than two months later, he was relieved of his command.  He had ordered my platoon to build him a steel reinforced hooch in a rice paddy with sandbags hidden in the walls and roof, complete with a “guest” bedroom and bar area. 

He wrecked another helicopter while landing on another rice paddy dike to take personal command of a platoon sized infantry unit involved in a firefight.   I believe his Ex O (Executive Officer) complained to a higher up on the first one (I know I had pointed it out when my engineer battalion commander paid a visit to my unit). 

The second one was his third lost helicopter…a no-brainer.

The new battalion commander came in.  A straight up guy, a man we all wanted to follow.  A commander who allowed me to expand the number of stories I have to tell.

Somewhere, today, there is an American soldier writing his own story in a country too far away and too hard to pronounce.  But, I promise you, in 43 years, he will have a story to tell his grandchildren and anyone else who would listen, about a time when he was younger and giving his life to this country.

I have to go.  The music is good and loud, the dogs want attention, the grill is about ready and the brew has been removed from the bunker and is now in the chill chest.

Have a good Fourth…and remember you’re here because a soldier has a story to tell.