Friendly Fire (52 page)

P_______ M_______

“That poor guy,” Peg said when she saw I had finished reading. “He doesn't say how his son was killed, does he?”

I put the letter aside. “Peg,” I said, “I don't think there is an appropriate time to ask this question, but I want to get it over with. Yesterday you mentioned being asked to speak by a women's club and someone else asked you to help organize the peace vigil here in La Porte—”

“They almost had to drag people off the street to get enough people in this town to maintain a twenty-four-hour vigil,” Peg said. “I found that very difficult to understand.”

“I want to continue with this question for a moment,” I said. “You're known now by the newspapers, the local television stations. You're often asked to comment on the news. Presidential candidates call from Washington asking your endorsement. Has achieving this ‘celebrity' status in any way disturbed you?”

Peg paused for a moment. “Well, yes. It does disturb me, I think. I mean it disturbs me because of why it happened. It came about because Michael died.”

“Do people think you're cashing in on Michael's death?”

“Well,” Peg said, rubbing her brow, “you wonder about it. I suppose many people do think this way, and I guess you can't help it. I have this fear of being used by groups—except groups like the American Friends. They're the one group I have faith in in the whole country. Oh, look who's up!”

Gene lumbered sleepily into the kitchen. “Some weather, isn't it? I heard on my radio this morning that it's eight degrees.”

A few minutes later, when Peg started talking about the shootings at Kent and Jackson State universities, Gene said, “There've been a lot of bloody incidents in this country lately in the name of democracy, haven't there?”

“But, Gene,” I said, “can you think of any other country in which you'd rather live?”

Gene thought for a moment. “No-o-o, but I'm losing my country.”

“Our country is losing
us!
” Peg corrected. “But what can you do about it?”

“Nothing.” Gene shrugged. “There's nothing you can do about it.”

“If you really believe that,” I said, “why have you done all the things you've done so far?”

“Well …” Peg said and shrugged, too. The telephone rang, and she pushed away from the kitchen table to answer.

Gene sipped his coffee, then asked me, “Are you going with me to visit Michael's grave this morning?”

“I'd like to very much.”

We could hear Peg trying to comfort whoever it was on the telephone.

“Listen to her,” Gene said. “That's the kind of phone call we get all the time.”

Peg was reading off a list of telephone numbers the caller should try: Senator Harold Hughes' office, the Senator's military liaison adviser, a lawyer who specialized in military cases. Peg was saying don't worry, don't cry, everything was going to be all right. A few minutes later she lowered the telephone onto its receiver and slumped down at the kitchen table.

“Who was it?” Gene asked.

“A widow with six children,” Peg sighed. “Her oldest son was a helicopter gunner in Vietnam. God knows how, but he survived. He's back at Fort Hood now, and this is the third time this year he's gone AWOL to come home. He was worried because his mother hasn't been real well. She telephoned to ask what she could do to help him, so he wouldn't have to go back into the stockade. Then when she got to crying, I thought,
Oh, God, that poor woman
. She told me, ‘They got my one boy, but they'll never get the other.'” Peg rubbed her eyes wearily. “Here's the thing, here's what really gets me: How can I do anything for these people? How can I help them?”

“You already have,” I answered. “You gave her the names and phone numbers of people to call. That's all she wanted. There was nothing but quicksand beneath her feet when she telephoned, and all of a sudden, Peg, there you were: solid as a rock.”

Peg looked over at her husband. He had buried his face in his hands. “No, Gene!” she scolded. “Don't you start!”

Gene could not help himself. He was crying, and the tears coursed down his cheeks. He turned to me, his eyes glistening, “Are we crazy?” he asked.
“Are we?”

I shook my head, not sure of my voice.

“How
long
can we do this?” he asked.

“A lady came out here who had lost her son fifteen years ago!” Peg said. “She sat there and talked about him for four, for four … hours.…” Her voice faltered, and she, too, began to cry, “And I thought to myself,
My God, am I going to be doing this for the rest of my life?
”

“I
love
my country,” Gene said. “It hurts me to see what's happening. I don't understand it.”

“The thing that gets me is that I'm still angry!” Peg said. “How in the hell can you live a lifetime of being angry? How can you?” She was struggling for self-control. “I just think I have to be mad about Michael's death because … because it was
obscene!
I have to be angry, but how … how do—oh, God!” Peg cried, burying her face in her arms. Gene walked around the kitchen table to comfort her, placed a gentle hand on Peg's shoulder. He stood there crying also, uncertain what to say or do. Peg rubbed her eyes against her sleeve, then, looking up, patted Gene's hand and forced herself to smile.

“Why don't both of you get out of here?” she asked. “I'll clean up the breakfast dishes while you two visit Michael's grave.”

MAP OF THE MISSION

Map showing flight path of Charlie Company from pickup zone at base of Hill 76 (BT451038) to landing zone below objective (LZ at BT-370012) the hill with unconfirmed benchmark x156. Also shown is Hill 410, the mountain upon which the artillery was placed. (BT389034)

Map Data: AMS Vietnam 1:50,000 scale

“Tra Bong”

Sheet 6739 IV

Series L7014

map updated to 1967

*
Jerry W. Friedheim, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Department of Defense.

The Mission

On February 16, 1970, Captain Tom Owen Cameron, Charlie Company's twenty-five-year-old Arkansas-born company commander, briefed his platoon leaders and platoon sergeants on their mission and what to expect. He explained again how Intelligence had come to suspect a North Vietnamese Army rocket battalion command group had moved into the valley and that Charlie Company, along with other units of the 1st Battalion, would take part in a five-day operation to locate and destroy the enemy. Cameron stressed that because battalion command groups did not travel without sizable security forces to protect them, Charlie Company should anticipate being attacked.

On February 17, the night before the operation, Cameron briefed his platoon leaders and platoon sergeants once more. He unfolded his map, spread it on the ground before them and reviewed the plan in detail. Charlie Company, along with Echo Company's reconnaissance platoon, would take part in a coordinated helicopter-borne combat assault into the east end of the valley in which the North Vietnamese rocket battalion command group was suspected to be located. Delta Company was to be combat-assaulted into the valley's west end to serve as a blocking force. Four 105mm howitzers from the division artillery's base camp at “Fat City” were to be airlifted to the top of Hill 410, which overlooked the valley in which the 1st Battalion would be operating. From that hilltop position any fire support mission the battalion's rifle companies might call for would fall easily within the airlifted howitzers' 12,500-meter maximum range. Captain Cameron specified who would be in the first helicopter lift and who would be in the second. He explained what his position would be in relation to the platoons during the combat assault. He pointed out their objective: a small, steep, wooded hilltop in the middle of the valley surrounded by tall mountains a few hundred meters south of the abandoned village of Tu Chanh. In his soft Southern accent he again warned them that Charlie Company should expect to make contact with the enemy and that this would be the most dangerous mission the unit had been sent on. One man asked if the landing zone would be “hot.” Would they be fired on? Cameron responded, “Expect the worst.”

There were no other questions. The men were too tired and wet and muddy to talk. The operation had already got off to a bad start.

Charlie Company was to have set up that night on Hill 76, the mortar platoon fire base overlooking the pickup zone. Late that afternoon, however, when Charlie Company reached the hill, they discovered Delta Company was already on top. There wasn't room enough on Hill 76 for both rifle companies, so Cameron ordered his men to a smaller hilltop across the rice paddies 1,000 meters to the north. By dusk, when the rifle company moved out, the temperature had dropped to the sixties, cold for Vietnam. The monsoon season had just ended, so the rice paddies were still flooded. The dikes to be traversed which were not underwater were wet and slick with mud. In the fading light the men kept slipping off the dikes into the chest-high water. Over and over again the column would halt as the men stopped to pull each other out. They knew, too, it would be worse the next morning when they would have to recross the paddies in total darkness in order to reach the pickup zone at first light.

Because the men in the mortar platoon would be carrying their 81mm mortar tubes, bipods and heavy baseplates, men from other platoons were needed to carry the additional mortar ammunition the extended operation would require. The 1st Platoon had the least experienced platoon leader; Second Lieutenant Fletcher B. Joslin had been with the company but a few days. Cameron therefore decided the 1st Platoon should fly in last during the combat assault. The mortar platoon's extra ammunition was assigned to the 1st Platoon's men. Michael Mullen, Gary (“The Prince”) Samuels and Willard Polk were among those receiving 81mm mortar rounds.

Willard Polk was not a big man, but he was no weakling either. He was twenty-one years old, had light-brown skin and finely chiseled features. Polk had joined Charlie Company two days before and swiftly earned a reputation for being sullen and uncooperative. Many of Charlie Company believed Polk was simply scared; Samuels thought Polk a “dud.”

Samuels was twenty-three years old, a college graduate, and had been in Vietnam for three and a half months. When Charlie Company arrived at Hill 76 and found Delta Company there, Samuels took advantage of the confusion to look for a Delta Company friend with whom he had gone through basic and advanced infantry training. The friend was not there, and no one knew where he had gone until someone said, “Oh, yeah, he must have been the guy that got his this morning. Booby trap. Hit him in both legs.” Samuels was badly shaken. That night, after Charlie Company had re-crossed the paddies and were making their final preparations for the next day's combat assault, Samuels checked over his equipment. He threw out whatever he felt he might not need to keep his pack light, and when the mortar rounds were passed out, he made certain he received an HE round instead of an illuminating. The high explosive mortar shells weighed less.

The next morning, February 17, at 0500 the men were ordered to move out. It was cool, dark; the rice paddies were shrouded in mist. The men again began slipping and falling off the slick dikes into the water. The thick mud clinging to their boots became an additional crushing weight. Cold and wet, the men would be hauled cursing out of the paddies. Willard Polk, carrying a full thirty-five-pound rucksack, an eighteen-pound mortar round, his M-79 grenade launcher and ammunition, twice fell in over his head. Michael Mullen helped him out. None of the other men offered any assistance. The first time Polk slipped Mullen told him to unblouse his trousers, that there was no point in carrying the extra weight around. Polk let his fatigues hang free and the water poured out. When he straightened up, Michael readjusted his pack.

Captain Cameron, who was moving up and down the dike to check on the progress of his men, passed Polk and Mullen and told them to catch up. Polk struggled forward but, unused to the weight, could not keep his balance. Over and over he slipped and fell into the water or down to his knees. When he at last reached hard ground, he was so frustrated and angry he hit the emergency release on his rucksack and let his ruck, his grenade launcher and the mortar round crash to the ground. “Goddamn this fuckin' stuff! I ain't carrying
none
of it!”