Last Man Out (11 page)

We were trucked to a staging area near Bien Hoa and offloaded near medium-size tents inside a concertina-wire enclosure. Wet and sandy from the beach landing, we had dried out in the truck ride. When we moved our equipment into tents, we burst out in sweat and our uniforms were soon drenched again—our first taste of the “now-you’re-wet, now-you’re-not” cycle of life in the Vietnam countryside.

The staging area was on a hill near some local government buildings. To the south, sectioned rice fields stretched almost out of sight. Grazing water buffalo dotted the green landscape. This peaceful, bucolic scene, with a cooling, earth-scented breeze coming up the hill from the rice fields, made it hard to believe that the country was the site of so much turmoil and fighting.

A paved, heavily traveled road was to the east. In front of huts scattered along the roadside, produce was displayed for passing motorists. To the west were office buildings and to the north was jungle.

The heat was suffocating. As we acclimated, we drew special jungle equipment that included claymore mines and, for night firing, starlight scopes. Not only were the scopes cumbersome and heavy, they didn’t work because the oddly shaped batteries were missing. Not believing the Army would issue us incomplete equipment, we tried without success to make them work and became frustrated. Moubry thought it was irresponsible of the men and officers to make such a fuss over something so small. When he said that the Army would provide in time, McCoy told him it was entirely possible that the Army could be fucked up. Woolley sent a sergeant from company headquarters into the large supply depot at Bien Hoa to barter for the batteries we needed, and
Bratcher came up with a half dozen for our two scopes on his own. Moubry reported to Haldane that men were going outside channels to get material.

During our fourth afternoon in the staging area, Woolley ordered me to take my platoon on an ambush patrol behind a village across the paved road that night. Before leaving we test-fired our weapons and drew grenades. In planning the route to the ambush area, I decided to take the men down a stream that led away from the staging area to the north, then over the road to the east, and back along a hedgerow to the high ground behind the village, where we would set up the ambush at a trail junction.

My platoon was up to its full strength of forty-five men. In addition to Bratcher and the radio/telephone operator (RTO), Newsome, I had three eleven-man rifle squads and an eight-man heavy weapons squad. Each rifle squad had two five-man fire teams and a squad leader. The heavy weapons squad had the squad leader, two-man machine gun teams, and three men carrying disposable antitank rockets called LAW, in lieu of the heavier and more impractical antitank weapons that had come over in crates. Our platoon organization was suited for a conventional war, but, as I prepared the platoon for the ambush patrol, it was apparent that the four-squad structure wasn’t appropriate for the jungle work that lay ahead. Castro was one of the best fire-team leaders, so I had his team lead the patrol. Ayers, a rifleman in Castro’s fire team, would be at point. He would be followed by another rifleman, then Castro. I would be midway in the single file, just ahead of my RTO. Bratcher would be at the rear.

That evening, Bratcher stood by the concertina fence and checked that each man had his weapon locked and loaded before he stepped through the wire. There was a steady clamoring of bolts as rounds were loaded into the chambers. We were armed, ready for combat—our first patrol.

We walked cautiously along the zigzag path through the minefield of the staging area and out into the jungle. Avoiding trails, we cut through the jungle until we reached the stream I wanted to follow. It began to rain softly as we waded into the water. We passed several houses and could hear the Vietnamese talking inside. Occasionally a baby cried or we heard someone laugh or
cough. We got to the road and crossed it without detection. We were in position on one side of the trail behind the village by 2100. From where I was, halfway down the platoon, I could see the lights from the village. It was supposedly friendly, but, in fact, we didn’t know who the friendlies were. What we knew for sure was that the Vietnamese had a 2100 curfew. Anyone moving around after that could be taken for a Communist, either a Viet Cong or a Viet Cong sympathizer. We were to shoot to kill, which didn’t leave much room for error.

Lying on my stomach, I looked down at the village and wondered if any innocent schoolboy ever came along there at night after seeing his girlfriend or delivering something for his mother. What if a woman, or child, came down that trail? What if a family appeared? Could we tell the difference? It was such a peaceful-looking village below. There was no sense of danger. Just quiet, friendly night sounds. Please Lord, I prayed, don’t test us tonight.

A Vietnamese walked into the rear of the ambush sometime after midnight. He saw us, turned, and was gone before anyone fired a shot.

In the morning, on the way back to camp, we passed the village near the highway. The villagers, up and going about their early morning farm chores, stopped what they were doing and silently watched us pass.

I thought that everyone had been lucky the previous night—the men in the platoon and that guy who had stumbled into us. No blood, no foul.

The men expressed regret as we walked along, however, that we did not get the “gook.” I didn’t tell them how relieved I was for fear they would think I wasn’t tough enough for the job ahead.

McCoy and Peterson were waiting for me near my cot. I gave them a detailed report of the patrol. Peterson suggested that he cut off the tail of my shirt, as is done in hunting parties to men who miss a shot.

A few days later the entire battalion moved out of the enclosure in single file down the highway, past a few villages, along a side road, and across a rice field. We were going to “sweep” a wooded area between two villages. As we walked alongside the
highway, cars slowed down and people looked at us. If there were any Viet Cong out there we weren’t going to sneak up on them, I told Bratcher.

We crossed the open field and the men lined up along the wood line, shoulder to shoulder. On order from Haldane, we chambered rounds in our weapons and moved into the jungle. We were to stay spread out all the way to the next village, three and one-half kilometers away.

This was not my idea of releasing the dogs of war.

A dozen steps into the jungle, my RTO fell in behind me.

“This ain’t the way it’s supposed to be,” I said. “I ain’t breaking trail.”

Then, some men fell in behind the radio operator.

“Okay,” I said, “none of this. You men get out there on the flank like you were, and let’s get back on line.”

“What if we just looked over at the flank, Lieutenant. Ain’t that enough? I mean, we don’t have to actually walk every step of this goddamn jungle, do we?” This came from Beck, who, unfortunately, had a good point.

I told him to get in front of me. Off to the left, Ayers, strong as a horse, was breaking through the jungle. Several men had fallen in behind him. Bratcher was leading some men on the right. “Who’s fucking idea is this, anyway?” he asked.

Peterson called on the radio and asked where I was.

“How in the hell do I know where I am? I’m in the Vietnam jungle somewhere. That’s all I know,” I said. “And my platoon’s all over the place. You see any of my people, send them my way.

Over.”

“I don’t know where you are, so I wouldn’t know where to send your people if I came across them. I want to know where you are because I hear some people moving up ahead of me. Is it you or the bad guys? Over.”

“Assume it’s me. Don’t shoot. Over.”

Shortly afterward Woolley asked for my location. I gave him my best guess. If I was right and if Peterson’s guess was accurate, he was on the opposite side of me from where he had been when we started. Then shortly I saw one of Duckett’s men beside the group behind Ayers. They should have been on the other side of
Ernst, who was to my left. Bratcher’s group moved closer to mine. The jungle was so thick we couldn’t see ten feet in any direction.

“I think this is going to be a long year,” Beck said.

Suddenly, off to the left came the sound of movement through the undergrowth, crashing, charging toward Ayers’s group. Ayers fired a burst from his M-14 fully automatic. As he fired he yelled that we were being attacked.

Whatever, or whoever it was, turned and began making its way to the right. Spencer joined Ayers in firing at the retreating sound.

I got on the company radio and warned the other platoons that we had contact with something when a group opened up on the right. Stray bullets zipped over our heads. We hit the ground. People opened up to our left, to our right, in front of us, behind us. Rounds were going everywhere. My radio operator kept repeating, “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.” Grenades went off. M-79s went off. More automatic fire.

Then someone started yelling, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”

And everyone stopped.

Woolley came on the radio and said it was a deer.

I told Bratcher I thought it was World War III.

It was absolutely miraculous that no one was hurt.

Over the course of the afternoon, the battalion staggered out of the jungle in twos and threes and sevens and eights. Haldane was the first to admit that we needed to staff out that tactic before we tried it again; it was a reasonable idea, but its implementation needed work.

A week after arriving in the staging area, the battalion moved by truck convoy to Phuoc Vinh, the area selected for the battalion base camp. The town and airfield were considered pacified, and the men lounged in the shade there without much concern about security. I joined the command group moving up the hill north of the airstrip to reconnoiter the area where we would build the battalion base camp. Bratcher was with me, and we tied handkerchiefs to jungle vines to mark our area of the perimeter and then returned for the men. As the sun set, the platoon cut down the underbrush to our front and cleared fields of fire for the platoon’s two machine guns.

It was quiet that night. I washed down a C-ration supper with warm iodized water from my canteen, checked each position after dark, and slept hard, even though it poured rain toward morning.

For the next four days we cut the trees and scrub to improve the fighting positions and connect them with a trench. Three bulldozers arrived the following day and graded circles around the entire battalion perimeter. We received the crates of antitank weapons that contained my shotgun and jungle hammock. I hung the hammock in a small cleared area behind the command bunker. The men ran telephone landlines from the platoon area to company headquarters. Truckloads of concertina wire were stretched and connected in three strands in front of the area. The men worked hard, mostly with their shirts off, sweating in the Southeast Asia sun. Morale was high and there was much friendly banter.

We posted a lone sentry out by the wood line as we worked, causing Spencer to say, “Man, I feels like I’m on a Louisiana chain gang, whacking weeds and a guard sitting over there with a gun.”

“Spencer,” Beck said as he stretched out a strand of wire, “I’ve been on chain gangs. This is good work here. Plus, look’it. We’re making nine dollars a day, got all the grub we want to eat … dry hootch, air mattress, smokes, mail. Shit man, this is fine.”

Spencer began singing in a good baritone voice, “Beck’s been working on the chain gang, all the livelong day. Beck’s been working on the chain gang, just to pass the time of day.…”

Beck, off-key, joined in, “Don’t you hear the whistle blowing, rise up so early in the morn.…”

Lyons, from across the field, “Oh my bleeding ass, shut the fuck up, you two.”

“Fuck you, Lyons,” from both Beck and Spencer.

The next day the mines arrived.

Medieval, ugly, they smelled like death. Appropriately, the wooden boxes they came in were marked with a skull and crossbones. We were issued three types: “Bouncing Bettys” that jumped up and exploded about waist high to maximize casualties, foot jammers that blew feet apart, and swarthy, lethal antitank mines.

We dug row upon row of potholes between the concertina-wire loops in front of our positions. The following morning we placed the mines by the holes and marked them on a map. At midday, King, Rome, and I, lying on our stomachs, lifted the mines, one by one, put them in the holes; covered them with dirt; tied out trip lines; and, finally, removed the safety pins.

I had Castro replace me when we finished the first row. I sat on top of Spencer’s bunker the rest of the day watching the men as they slowly and carefully laid the minefield. The following afternoon they placed the last mine. We were the last platoon in the battalion to finish. A safe lane was marked through the field with reflectors that could be seen from the inside looking out. If a friendly patrol arrived back at the outer concertina strand, someone from inside would have to go out to escort it into the area. Our safe lane came down right in front of the M-60 machine gun.

There was nothing funny or cute about laying a minefield. It lay like death at our front door.

For meals we had C rations, which included a canned meat such as boned chicken, turkey loaf, ham and eggs, beans and franks, roast pork, chipped beef, or ham and beans; a dessert such as fruit cocktail, fruitcake, or chocolate; peanut butter and crackers or jelly and bread; plus chewing gum, cigarettes, matches, salt and pepper, coffee and cocoa, powdered cream and sugar, and toilet paper. Altogether a C ration was not a bad box lunch. We all had our favorite meals. I always got first pick, so I took what I wanted. Lyons once told me that wasn’t necessarily fair. I told him he was right. Life’s a bitch.

Castro, who had been in the Army longer than anyone in the platoon, knew how to turn regular C rations into gourmet meals. Two days after we finished the minefield, I invited him to my command bunker to fix a communal stew. He propped a steel pot half filled with water between three rocks and put several boxes of heat tablets beneath it. He lit the heat tablets; while the water was coming to a boil he put in several portions of different meats. From his pack he brought out some Tabasco sauce, garlic, onions, and red peppers and put them in the pot along with some greens
he had cut as we cleared the area. After adding salt and pepper, stirring the stew with a wooden spoon from his pack and spitting in it to add real Latin flavor, Castro ladled out rich, aromatic portions.