Authors: Thom Nicholson
The Montagnard radio operator and I started in a hunched-over trot toward the fighting, trying to keep some cover between us and the shooting enemy. The red tracers zipping through the branches and leaves overhead didn’t do much for my sense of well-being. The crack of passing bullets was mixed with the snap of the branches they hit. I figured that was exactly what my bones would sound like if one hit me. Afraid to go back, afraid to go ahead, I pushed on.
Just as we came up to the men of 1st Platoon, lying on the ground or kneeling behind trees, the firing stopped, and a disquieting silence greeted me. “Lieutenant Cable,” I whispered
to the platoon leader, who was peering around a large tree trunk, “what’s happening?”
“Don’t know for sure, Captain. They started firing at the point squad, and we just started to work our way around ’em when they took off. Must have been a security team. I don’t think we got any of ’em.”
“Okay,” I answered. “Pham, get Fischer on the horn.” I took the handset and spoke softly. “Fischer, it must have been a VC security team with a machine gun. All quiet now. Get ’em up and started forward. I’m on my way back to your location.”
“Wilco,” the raspy voice on the radio answered. I could see the men in front cautiously move forward as I headed back to the center of the formation. In a few minutes, I was again behind the center platoon. We continued moving toward the hill and the beleaguered Marines. The gunfire over there was clearly diminishing in intensity, so I pushed the men as hard as I dared.
“Pham, give me the radio.” I grabbed the offered handset and called for Lieutenant Cable. “Sneaky One-Six, this is Sneaky Six. What’s your situation? Any casualties?”
“One dead and two MIA, from the point squad. I didn’t stop to look for them,” Cable answered.
“Roger,” I said. “We’ll police them up after daylight. Keep moving. Sneaky Six out.” I had adopted Sneaky Six as my radio call sign and I was supposed to use it every time I identified myself on the air, but I often forgot when things got hot.
We hadn’t gone more than another hundred yards when the left flank erupted in fire. Again, the entire line stopped, and again, by the time I got there the enemy had boogied, having accomplished their mission: to delay and harass us as we closed on the old fort.
That time there were no losses, and the enemy fire faded away quickly. Pushing on, we finally made it to the edge of the cleared ground in front of the old fort. It was as quiet as it had been noisy only moments earlier. Either we had scared
the attacking VC off or, by design, the bad guys had gone before we could hurt them. I moved to the front door of the fort and met a sweat-streaked Marine NCO with a bloody bandage around his left arm.
“Gunnery Sergeant Fowler, Captain. Mighty glad to see you. It was getting a little sticky around here for a while.” The old Marine NCO was sucking on an unlit cigar, stopping every once in a while to spit. He stuck out a grimy paw and gave me a hearty handshake. Things must have been tight before we arrived.
“We’ll get out security and make a sweep, as soon as it’s daylight,” I replied. “Where’s your CO?”
“The ell-tee’s wounded. The corpsman’s working on him now. You want to speak to him?”
“Naw.” I turned to give orders to my platoon leaders, who had gathered around, waiting for their instructions. “I’ll catch up with him later, after I get things organized.” I moved my men out and set up a security ring around the old compound. The air force was still dropping flares, and the choppers were buzzing about like angry hornets, but all was quiet on the ground.
It didn’t seem long until the pink sky in the east announced morning. As the light increased, I looked around the area. There were lots of signs on the muddy earth, and here and there a body lay crumpled, but not many. The VC had the annoying habit of dragging off their dead so we couldn’t get a good count of their casualties. A few blood trails led back into the brush, and the junk scattered about showed that a battle had been fought. The first good rain would wash it all away, and the land would once again look as it had for millennia.
Now that we could see, choppers began to land with frantic regularity in the courtyard of the fort. Fresh Marines jumped off, their rifles ready, and formed up to go into the brush after the attackers. Wounded men were loaded on the empty ships and carted off to the navy evac hospital, only ten minutes away by air.
I reported in to the no-nonsense Marine battalion commander, who was in charge of the reinforcements. He thanked me for our help and said we were relieved of any responsibility once the final choppers carrying his battalion had landed. By eight o’clock in the morning, our job was done. I had my soldiers stand down beside the dirt road, and I ordered the 3d Platoon out to gather up their casualties from the first ambush at the river. As the Marines started off into the bush after the survivors of the attacking force, I wandered back inside the compound to get the story of the fight.
The dozen or so Marines still alive and unwounded from the original force were eating C rations and drinking warm beer that had been brought in on one of the relief choppers.
I asked for the story of the fight, and the same NCO whom I’d talked with earlier filled me in between bites. The understrength Marine platoon had taken on a good-size force of VC or NVA attackers. Only by shifting from wall to wall as the attack intensified did the Marines beat off the determined attack.
The gunny took me outside and showed me his defensive points and the flow of the battle. The walls had been blasted open from RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) rounds in several places. Hasty barricades of sandbags, debris, and lumber showed how the Marines had repaired each breach. As I walked around the compound, I saw a round, bloody spot about every five feet, going here or there.
I watched my XO, Lieutenant McMurray, coming up the path from the road back to town. The company was all formed up along the road, as I’d been instructed to road march in from the fort back to CCN. My curiosity got the better of me.
“Sergeant, what the hell is that spot I keep seeing all over the place? That round one there.” I pointed at the bloody mark on the ground.
“Oh, that,” the Marine spoke with an obvious pride in his voice. “The ell-tee got hit early on in the fight, nearly blew off his foot. He ran around on the bloody stump until it was over,
and then he fainted from loss of blood. They took him out on the first chopper.” The crusty NCO shook his head and gave a wry laugh. “One of them hotshot college boys. Didn’t have the sense to stay inside, where he’d be safe.”
The look he gave me of pride, comradeship, courage, Semper Fi, all wrapped in one proud glance, said it all. “Damn,” I muttered, “I sure wish I had gotten to meet him.” We stood there, silent, savoring the calm and a soft, morning breeze, our appreciation all the more intense because of what had preceded it. Lieutenant McMurray reached us and reported the company ready to march. I made my farewells with the brave old Marine and headed off with my soldiers. I thought about the heroic defense of the fort all the way back to CCN.
I never did find out the Marine lieutenant’s name, and always wished I had. He was some Marine hero. Just one of the many unfinished stories in Vietnam, 1969.
My officers and I grabbed seats in the TOC briefing room. The air in the concrete-enclosed operations center crackled with excitement. Recon team Asp had found a new road being cut through the jungle of Base Area 910, west and north of the A Shau Valley. The route led straight across the border from Laos to the site of the old Special Forces A-team camp in the valley that had been overrun by the VC in 1966. One of my buddies received the Distinguished Service Cross from that fight. Finally, B Company was getting a cross-border mission. We were gonna put my company down on the new road and kick some butt. I was as excited as a kid contemplating summer vacation.
Since 1966, the enemy pretty much had the A Shau Valley to himself. The 101st Airborne had gone in for a while in early ’68 and kicked ass, but as soon as they withdrew, ol’ Charlie was back in business as usual. The intelligence types figured he was building up his supplies in the base area as a prelude to an attack on Da Nang, just fifty miles due east.
What never made sense to any of us grunts fighting the war was why we would go in and take an area, paying in sweat and blood and tears, and then pull out, giving back to the enemy what we had won so hard and dearly. It was another example of the muddled thinking of the brilliant minds in charge, both in country and across the big pond in Washington, D.C.
Enemy activity in the vicinity of Base Area 910 had increased steadily since the monsoons abated. After hearing the
recon report about the new road, the camp commander decided to insert my company. Our mission was to land by helicopter across the border near the new road and then patrol to the west, looking for supply dumps, truck parks, or enemy camps.
The idea of finding and destroying a big supply dump or a truck park was exciting because it meant a tangible result for all the patrolling as opposed to our just shooting at unseen soldiers in the brush. To blow up a truck, now, that would be something. We had standing rewards, like R & R leaves, cash, chrome-plated pistols, and presentation knives for outstanding accomplishments in the field. I was anxious to get my unit into a situation where we could earn some of these goodies.
We hadn’t received much recognition for the fight at the old fort. Although my company did not arrive until the attackers had already broken off their assault, I believed our approach had hastened their departure. Despite my opinion, the fact that I had taken three casualties without any significant body count had generated a mild reproach from the bean counters at higher HQ. I resolved in the future to be more creative on counting dead enemy bodies even if I was not sure there were any to count. Absurd as it seems, almost no matter how screwed up an operation, if you claimed a large body count, the big brass ended up happy.
I discussed the pending operation with Major Skelton. We decided to send in two platoons, with the rest of the company on standby at the launch site as reinforcement in case the men on the ground ran into anything big. I would go in with the first group, and let Lieutenant McMurray command the rest of the company at the launch site. That would allow me a chance to wet my feet as commander, and be on top of any situation that arose. It was my first chance to become involved in a cross-border mission, and I wasn’t about to spend it at the backup site.
We launched just before dark from Camp Eagle, where the
101st had their helicopter brigade. We had to use the Vietnamese Air Force special operations choppers for transport, flying the whole company up from Da Nang a platoon at a time. The plan was to insert the 1st and 2d Platoons, and then go back to Da Nang, remain overnight and the next morning fly the rest of the company to Camp Eagle. Those of us in the first launch would be on our own until the rest of the company arrived at Eagle and could come to our support.
The mission was planned for five days, so I packed accordingly. My load was similar to that carried by all the Americans in the unit. What the Yards carried wasn’t too different, although we Americans usually carried a bit more of everything because we were bigger.
I wore the standard tiger suit of green and black stripes that was designed to make the wearer less visible in the jungle. My face was covered in black greasepaint to hide the pale skin. I hated the stuff. It seemed to hatch a crop of zits whenever I wore it for any length of time. I envied the darker skinned members of my unit, with their natural camouflage. Even the black Americans had to wear some of the oil-based camouflage, usually a loam or green color, to break the outline of their face. Everybody hated the stuff.
My combat pack was filled with dehydrated LURP rations, a poncho for rain protection, a liner for the cool mornings, batteries for my flashlight, a half-gallon of water in a plastic canteen, an extra pair of socks, a 1:50,000 map of the area, a small hammock made from parachute silk, and a medic kit that I filled with the supplies I thought might come in handy if I or someone else got shot.
On my web gear, I had attached a quart canteen, a compass, my flashlight, a yellow smoke grenade, a Willy Peter (white phosphorus) grenade, and a small pouch holding twelve of those special golf ball–size M-26A1 minigrenades. I also had my big pistol, a Browning Hi-Power 9mm, and my bowie knife. I carried my prized M-16A2 assault rifle, with
collapsing stock and twelve-inch barrel, and 240 rounds of ammo, loaded in twelve magazines. In each of my leg pockets, I stuffed six 40mm M-79 grenade-launcher rounds for the sawed-off “thumper,” my pet name for the standard M-79, 40mm grenade launcher, which I had modified by cutting off the barrel and stock until it looked like an oversize pistol. The M-79 had an effective range of three hundred yards, and the exploding grenade had a lethal radius of ten meters. The little weapon was a great persuader when confronting bad guys in bunkers or to discourage them from getting too close while chasing you in the bush. The
krump!
of an M-79 round going off was a common occurrence in a firefight since every squad had at least one M-79 assigned to it.
I had VC sandals to wear if we got on the road. That way anyone who spotted our tracks might mistake our sign for VC and not American troops. Taped to one ankle was a five-shot .32 automatic, a last-resort weapon, and on the other was a six-inch throwing knife. In one pocket was a leather-covered lead sap that might come in handy if we had to subdue an NVA prisoner. In another pocket, I stuffed candy, gum, and toilet paper. Finally, I had those navy binoculars hung around my neck.
In one shirt pocket, I carried the SOI (signal operating instructions) so I could send messages in the correct code and answer any radio challenges with the correct response. Otherwise, they might think we were VC trying to send a false message. I also carried several small packets of powdered coffee that came in the standard-issue C rations. Used like smokeless tobacco, stuffed between lip and gum, the impact of the coffee’s caffeine being absorbed into the bloodstream jarred you awake, no matter how tired you happened to be. There were times you just could not sleep, not if you wanted to see the sun rise.