Bloods (34 page)

Then he told me that at school he was taught that we won the war. I told him that’s not what happened.

Then he said, “Did you win any medals in the war?”

I was not into that, but I did not want to squash his pride. I’m glad I did eventually go and serve my country, even if the war was not in my best interest. But I was not proud of those medals. They had no meaning. I couldn’t remember the actions they were for. I was gonna burn ’em up. But I was glad when Christian asked about them that I had given them to my mother to keep. Now I could give them to him.

As time went on, we got warmer and closer to each other. We now got a pretty good relationship. We tell each other we love each other.

The next year Bobby Muller, president of the Vietnam
Veterans of America, asked me to join the second group of veterans going back to Vietnam. They wanted a black person in this delegation, and they knew I agreed with their efforts to open channels of communication with the Hanoi government to get its help in returning the remains of missing Americans and to assist in reuniting American fathers with children they left behind.

I felt excited about going. Other Americans had been there since the war, but we were the first veterans.

We flew into Hanoi from Thailand in an old Russian propeller-driven plane. It was so small you’d bump your head going in the doorway. Some of us were a bit nervous when we landed, because the guards on the airfields carried AK-47s.

The officials in Hanoi read statements that we were all—Vietnamese and Americans—victims of the war. And that the war wasn’t the fault of soldiers like us.

One of the interpreters, named Quang, asked me how many people I had killed over there. He had worked with the VC. I told him that was a terrible question to ask. “I don’t really know. I never shot anybody face to face. And I didn’t go around making body counts after a fight.” He thought I was offended, and he apologized.

Later, I met another interpreter, Duc Lu. I asked him, “What were you doing during the war?”

He said, “I had been in grade school, but I couldn’t finish because of all of your bombing. It blew up the school, and I had to go to school in underground bunker in countryside.”

Now, I felt embarrassed.

You could see in Hanoi a few black Russian limousines, a few Russian planes, and the military hardware. But there was no evidence the Vietnamese were getting the technology from the Russians for factories, schools, and hospitals. They are not industrialized yet. They are still pretty much out there in the field.

Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City, was bustling. The bars on Tu Do Street are closed, but the Majestic is open. They were selling Jordache jeans on the streets. You had to be careful of your watch riding around on a cyclo. But you didn’t see computer games and television sets. The economy is down 80 percent. And people are
still making it with old pieces of cars and other materials from the war days.

One day I was sitting at an outside café, when two people acting like lovers came by and shoved a big wallet down my shirt. They gave a real fast rap and walked away real fast. They were brother and sister. Their father was an American. And they wanted me to get some letters and their picture to him. The mail had been cut off by Hanoi since ’75.

In Saigon, we got some smiles, some expressions of surprise, and some hostile looks. Hardly anyone in Hanoi though gave us a look of contempt. Mostly stares. I think it’s because the North Vietnamese never really saw us that much, experienced us that much.

On May 30, our Memorial Day, our delegation shared a moment of silent prayer for our fallen comrades. I prayed that the effort had not been wasted and that it wouldn’t be if we could have some economic and cultural exchanges with the Vietnamese despite the Communist takeover. I thought those in the North are starved for contact with the rest of the world and those in the South have still got that big taste for the West.

When I left, Duc Lu asked me for some film. He was gettin’ married, and he wants to take some pictures. All he is guaranteed is his kilos of rice and his job in the government. With the economy being what it is, he can’t get any film.

He noticed that I had been drawing along the trip, and he said how much he liked them.

He said, “You know, Bob. If you come back to Vietnam and stay a while, I can make you a rich man with your art.”

I said, “Duc Lu, you’re really not suppose to think like that.”

“What you mean?”

“That’s free enterprise.”

He was real embarrassed.

He said, “I’m sorry. Please not to tell anyone.”

I smiled.

And he kissed me good-bye.

Just before I left, I bought a miniature fishing boat for Christian in the airport terminal. It was made from a water
buffalo horn. It represented a better time, a better tradition in Vietnam. Before there were helicopters, B-52 craters, Agent Orange, and AK-47s.

When I got home, I gave him the boat and asked him would he like to go with me the next time I visit Vietnam.

Christian said, “Yes. But, Dad, what would I do there?”

Shortly after I got to Vietnam, we got into a real big fight. We were outnumbered at least ten to one. But I didn’t know it.

I had taken over 1st Platoon of B Company of the 1st of the 12th Cav. We were up against a Viet Cong battalion. There may have been 300 to 400 of them.

And they had just wiped out one of our platoons. At that time in the war, summer of 1966, it was a terrible loss. A bloody massacre.

This platoon had been dropped in a landing zone called LZ Pink in the Central Highlands to do a search and destroy operation. It was probably eight o’clock in the morning. They didn’t realize that they were surrounded. After the helicopters left, the VC opened up and just wiped ’em out. They knocked out the radios, too, so nobody knew what happened to them.

My platoon happened to be out on patrol some miles away. We were the closest to the area of their intended
operation. So when there was no word from them, I was given instructions to move in the direction of where they had been dropped and try to find where they had gone.

This is my first operation. I’m new in country. People don’t know me. I don’t know them. They have to be thinking, Can this platoon leader handle it? I was only a second lieutenant.

We went into a forced march all day. When it got dark, we pulled into a clear area like a landing zone and put our perimeter out and set up for the night. Headquarters wanted me to keep moving and keep searching through the night. I knew it wasn’t a smart thing to do, because you could get ambushed. You can’t see what you’re doing in the dark.

Around ten or eleven o’clock, they opened up on us. They were still there. We fought all night long, until six in the morning.

I learned very quickly how to call in artillery, how to put aircraft over me to drop flares and keep the area lighted up so they couldn’t sneak up on me.

I was calling the artillery in within 35, 40 yards of my own people, as tight as I could without hitting us.

I can’t remember wondering if I was ever gonna get out of this. I just did not have time to think about it. I was just too busy directing fire to be scared.

After we drove them off, we began to fan out and search the area. We found the ambushed platoon just 50 yards away. About 25 of them were dead. There were four still alive, but badly wounded. They must have played dead, because all the bodies had been searched and stripped of weapons and equipment. Then four more members of that platoon who had gotten away came out of the jungle to join us. Only one of my men had been hurt. He was shot in the hip.

For rescuing the survivors and driving off the VC battalion I received a Silver Star. But most importantly, the action served as a bond between my platoon and me. It was my first chance to react under fire, and it had gone well. My men knew I could handle the responsibility.

I was an absolute rarity in Vietnam. A black West Pointer commanding troops. One year after graduation.
I was very aggressive about my role and responsibilities as an Army officer serving in Vietnam. I was there to defend the freedom of the South Vietnamese government, stabilize the countryside, and help contain Communism. The Domino Theory was dominant then, predominant as a matter of fact. I was gung ho. And I thought the war would last three years at the most.

There weren’t many opportunities for blacks in private industry then. And as a graduate of West Point, I was an officer and a gentleman by act of Congress. Where else could a black go and get that label just like that?

Throughout the Cav, the black representation in the enlisted ranks was heavier than the population as a whole in the United States. One third of my platoon and two of my four squad leaders were black. For many black men, the service, even during a war, was the best of a number of alternatives to staying home and working in the fields or bumming around the streets of Chicago or New York.

Earlier that year, French National Television hired Pierre Schoendoerffer to produce a film about America’s participation in the war. He had been with the French forces at the fall of Dien Bien Phu to the Communist forces in North Vietnam. After visiting different operations around the country, both Army and Marine, he settled on the 1st Cav because of the new approach of our air mobility, our helicopter orientation. And he wound up with my platoon because of its racial mix—we had American Indians and Mexican-Americans, too—our success in finding the lost platoon, my West Point background and ability to speak French. He and the film crew stayed with us day and night for six weeks, filming everything we did. They spoke very good English, and I didn’t speak good enough French. And Schoendoerffer had as much knowledge and experience about the war as any of us.

The film would be called
The Anderson Platoon
. And it would make us famous.

During the filming in late September, we encountered another Viet Cong battalion in a village right on the edge of the coast. A couple of scout helicopters had been patrolling, looking for enemy signs. The Viet Cong fired on them and shot them down. We were already lifted off that
morning, going to another location, when we were diverted to the scene. In air mobility. The basic concept of the 1st Cavalry Division. And it worked.

My platoon was the first one on the ground. We blocked a northern route of egress, and then we started to sweep south through the village. It’s amazing. We walked through the village, through their entire battalion, to link up with our company on the other side. And they never fired a shot. To this day I don’t know why.

Meanwhile, the division piled on. We put about a brigade in, three battalions, and surrounded the village about a mile across. We did it so quick, they were fixed. They couldn’t escape. And with artillery, aircraft, and naval gunfire off the coast, we really waged a high-powered conflict. But not without casualties.

Around noon, my platoon sergeant, a white guy named Watson from Missouri, and some of his people were searching holes in the ground, and they threw a grenade in to see if any enemy were in it. The enemy was in there and threw the grenade back out, wounding Watson and three others. We had to pull back to get them out on a medevac.

I made Owens the platoon sergeant. He was a black guy from California who was as professional as they come.

Around four o’clock, another platoon got in trouble, and we started moving to help them. Owens’s squad moved on the attack first, then he got hit in the head, a bullet crease. And we had to consolidate our position and medevac him out.

I remember very distinctly chastising my organization for firing during that night. I felt they were spooked and just shooting at shadows. The next morning, there were all kinds of bodies out there, where the Viet Cong were trying to slip out to escape the encirclement.

That was one lopsided operation. We lost only four or five men, maybe thirty wounded. But the Viet Cong lost more than 200 killed.

After a couple of weeks, we got Watson and Owens back.

There were only a very few incidents of sustained fighting during my tours. Mostly you walked and walked, searched and searched. If you made contact, it would be
over in 30 or 40 minutes. One burst and then they’re gone, because they didn’t want to fight or could not stand up against the firepower we could bring with artillery and helicopter gunships.

In the jungle you couldn’t count on tanks and APCs for support. You couldn’t count on gunships supporting you in contact unless they were already overhead. You had difficulty getting supplied at all. You just didn’t get it unless you carried it or it could be kicked out the door of the chopper.

Sometimes we could move easily. There were other times you moved maybe 25 yards in an hour, cuttin’ and choppin’ your way through bamboo every step.

Snakes weren’t the big problem. Mosquitoes and malaria were.