Last Man Out (17 page)

The following morning we were up before sunrise. The mess units flew in hot breakfast. After eating, we were standing in groups of ten along the runway when we heard the first rounds of artillery fire in the distance. Not long after the sun came up we watched a large formation of helicopters, seven groups of ten helicopters each, heading our way carrying the first wave of the 1st/16th. Ahead and below them were the gunships.

As the helicopters came closer, I followed them through my binoculars. Crammed on board were soldiers in olive drab. Some were sitting with their legs hanging out, and most were clutching their M-16s in both hands. Artillery fire increased as the helicopters passed. We heard the jets before we saw them, streaking by toward the west. The artillery stopped, and the jets began working the area. More explosions came from the west, then the ground shook as B-52s bombed the fringes of the operational zone.

We figured it would take twenty minutes for the helicopters to fly from our area to the LZ. In forty minutes they should be back to pick us up. I was anxious to get started. The waiting reminded me of the ride on the landing craft when we arrived in-country. This time we would not be greeted by a brass band. The lead gunships came back first. Two moved off to the bladders of fuel. Others landed at the end of the airstrip and picked up more ammunition. Shortly, the first lift of ten transport helicopters came in low over the tree line.

I got the men up and in line. My platoon would be boarding the second group of helicopters.

Only seven came in. Where were the other three? I had not
imagined that some of the helicopters would not return. Maintaining their original positions, the helicopters landed. The third, ninth, and tenth helicopters were missing. I had been standing at the head of the line to board the third helicopter, but it wasn’t there. Unsure of what to do but anxious to get going, I told Spencer to follow me and went to the fourth helicopter, telling two riflemen there to get off.

As we crawled into the helicopter, I noticed bullet holes in its side. The pilots sat in front of the controls and looked forward, shaking with the vibration of the blades, their faces impassive behind their helmet visors.

When the helicopter lifted off the ground I got Woolley on the radio and reported what he already knew about the missing helicopters. A third of my platoon was still at the airstrip.

The helicopters stayed low. Some distance to the front we could see jets strafing the ground. Clouds of smoke drifted up from an area on the horizon and gnatlike gunships moved in and out of it. As we got closer we saw bombs falling from diving planes. The napalm tanks tumbled and exploded into fireballs when they hit the jungle.

As the large, open LZ finally came into view, the gunners on both sides of the slicks began firing into the jungle. I had the impulse to sit on my M-16 to give me an extra measure of protection from bullets that might come up through the floor.

In the field ahead I saw soldiers moving around. Several downed helicopters were lying on their side. Fires were burning in the nearby jungle. I felt myself breathing faster. I tightened my grip on my M-16, and retightened it.

Get on the ground. Get on the ground! Why are we moving so goddamned slow? I thought angrily.

The helicopter finally flared out to brake its forward speed and settled down in the field. Everyone in the platoon knew we would be landing south to north and that we had to move to secure an area along the wood line to the east. As the helicopter settled to the ground I was looking for a point of trees extending out in the field that was to be the platoon rallying point. I did not see the litter detail standing on the ground until the helicopter touched down. Adrenaline pumping, we barely avoided the soldiers carrying
the stretchers as we jumped to the ground. Some of the men on the stretchers were dead.

With the wounded loaded quickly the helicopters took off behind us, and as the
bat-bat-bat
of their rotary blades began to fade we heard the popping of automatic fire to the north and to our front. Rounds zinged over our heads. Rockets landed among us.

High-stepping through the tall grass, we finally made it to the wood line and then to our rally point. Once established, I sat down behind a tree and contacted Woolley. Bratcher took a head count. Twenty-one men had made it. We had not seen anyone hit in the field. The missing men must have been left behind in the staging area. Woolley told me to hold my position until the remaining men arrived.

Taking a deep breath, I stood up to light a cigarette. Rome yelled at me as I had the match halfway to my cigarette. I dropped it and fell to the ground.

“Napalm! You’re standing in some napalm that didn’t ignite,” he said. I looked down. Napalm jelly was on my fatigues and all around on the bushes. My match was still smoking on top of a glob and I quickly stepped on it.

By late afternoon all of my platoon had come in. Most of the fighting to secure the 1st/28th’s part of the LZ had been done by Dunn’s platoon north of the field. My platoon had no contact with Viet Cong ground forces that afternoon or that night.

At first light the next morning we moved into the jungle. Duckett’s platoon, commanded by the platoon sergeant, was on my left. Woolley was with Arthur’s platoon in the rear. We were heading toward our TAOR, a two-day movement through the jungle, and hoped to reach a midway point near a small village by nightfall.

Duckett’s platoon began to receive sniper fire from its left front during the late morning. I yelled out to its platoon sergeant that I was maneuvering my men around to his front. We soon saw enemy small-arms fire coming from a clump of trees. Manuel fired a long burst into the trees and the enemy stopped firing. We slowly walked into the stand of trees as we reconned by fire.

No one was there. Strange. I had seen the firing. We would have noticed anyone leaving the thicket.

Beck found two spider holes close to the forward edge of the
thicket, partially covered by debris. Each opening was smaller than a basketball rim, barely large enough for a man to squeeze out. A cool, earthy smell emanated from them.

“Are the VC at the bottom of these holes, or do these go back to some room or tunnel?” I asked Bratcher as Woolley came up.

I sent men out to the front as security and looked back at the spider holes. Spencer stuck a long bamboo pole down one. It hit bottom after about five feet and then, when Spencer pushed, it went down another four feet. We shined a flashlight down the holes. Both holes curved out of sight to our front.

Yelling “Fire in the hole,” we threw in grenades and ducked behind trees. The explosions were muffled and only a small amount of dust came out and blew away. We walked carefully back to the holes and looked down. I said, “Damn. We either send someone down or we leave and keep on toward our TAOR.”

Woolley told me to send someone down. I called one of the Puerto Ricans, PFC Fernandez-Lopez, the smallest man in the platoon, and told him to take off his web gear because he was going on a little trip. He looked around at us, shrugged, dropped his gear, and started walking toward the hole barehanded.

“Hold it,” I said. I gave him my .45 and Woolley’s radio operator gave him a flashlight. We told him to just go to the bottom of the first hole, see what was there, and come back. He said something in half-Spanish and half-English that I couldn’t understand, but it was a question. He looked at me for an answer. I asked him to repeat it, but I still didn’t understand. Finally he put his hands over his head like he was diving. “Yes,” I said, “head first. We’ll hold your feet.”

Fernandez crawled on his stomach to the nearest hole and stuck the flashlight over the side. He looked down for what seemed like a long time. Then he turned around, said something to Castro in Spanish, crossed himself, and crawled over the edge. The .45 and the flashlight were in front of him. Bratcher grabbed his feet and began pushing him. Yelling “Slow, amigo,” Bratcher gradually pushed him down until his feet were the only part of him out of the hole.

“What do you see?” Bratcher yelled. Fernandez’s comments were muffled.

Woolley told Bratcher to pull him out.

When he came out and got to his feet, dirt was caked on his fatigue jacket and on his face where the sweat had run down. Someone gave him a cigarette and he talked quickly to Castro.

Turning to us, Castro said Fernandez didn’t like going down the hole.

“Well, fuck him! What did he see?” Bratcher asked.

“A lot of hole. Just hole. Some spent casings, but just the hole going on out that way,” Castro said, pointing to our front.

“They are ahead of us,” I said. “Waiting.”

“There’re tunnels here. Maybe that’s why they’ve been so successful in this area,” Woolley said.

We ate lunch before moving out. A short time later we received sniper fire. At mid-afternoon one of Arthur’s men, behind us, stepped on a mine and blew his foot off. He was evacuated, and we were on our way again within the hour.

For two days we patrolled west. We encountered more mines and snipers; sullen, menless villages; and more spider holes leading down into tunnel complexes. There was a different sense to the jungle here than we had experienced in other places. It was quieter, and seemed more deadly. When we stopped occasionally to get our bearings or to rest, we heard no sounds—no birds flying or chirping, no insects humming. We felt someone was watching us all the time.

As we moved into a company defensive perimeter around a small field the third night of the operation, Major Allee arrived on the supply helicopter with small revolvers, field telephones, and spools of wire. He told us what we had already realized—we were walking over an extensive network of tunnels. They were unexpected and had not been part of the intelligence package for this operation. The spider holes were openings to the tunnels, and Allee told us to investigate them wherever we found them. They were enemy sanctuaries. We were to send down a small man, a tunnel rat, with a pistol, flashlight, and telephone. Someone was to feed the wire down as the tunnel rat explored. The man in the hole should send back situation reports every five minutes or so. He could find his way back by following the wire.

Pete led his recon platoon by our area the next morning on their way to a village off to our south. He stopped for a cup of coffee and said that a group of men from the colonel’s battalion
headquarters group had gone down a hole the previous night. They had run into VC in the tunnels and had a running battle. They got back by following the telephone wire; however, one man had not returned. Pete had no idea what had happened to him.

“Tunnel ratting, is that infantry duty?” I asked.

Pete stood up after finishing his coffee and told his men to saddle up. I told him to be careful. He turned toward me and smiled.

“Your mother said that, be careful, I heard her,” I said. “Me, I’d rather have it the other way. You die, I’m a rich man.”

“There’s something on that insurance I need to talk with you about, when we have a chance,” Pete mumbled.

“What?” I asked, suddenly uncomfortable. I was the one who needed to talk about the insurance; I had yet to find the change of beneficiary form.

“I’ll tell you later,” he said, and then he was gone.

Company A continued sweep operations that morning. Snipers pinged at us, and we encountered mines and more tunnels. Cu Chi was not friendly.

The battalion came together at mid-afternoon with plans to dig in and spend a couple of days licking its wounds. We had been on the move almost constantly for three days and had slept very little. The men were grouchy with fatigue. We welcomed the opportunity to rest, receive mail, and eat hot food.

When my platoon tied up with Arthur’s on the left, Spencer, Bratcher, and I sought a central position in the rear to drop our gear and dig a small hole. Woolley came up as we were removing our packs and asked me to take a few of my men and do a “cloverleaf” patrol—make a short circle out about five or six hundred meters from the perimeter—to ensure that we hadn’t inadvertently camped next to a VC position.

The men grumbled as they dropped webbing not needed for the patrol. I left a few men behind to begin digging in and the rest fell in behind Lyons, who was followed by Beck and King. We moved out to a small clearing a hundred meters to our front. The setting sun cast long shadows and made it hard to see the opposite side clearly, so we skirted it.

The jungle woods were not thick and Lyons walked along
briskly but cautiously. We were all anxious to get back. Suddenly Lyons stopped and raised his hand. Because the area was so open, most of the men dropped to one knee. Beck, his M-79 at the ready, continued to walk forward beside Lyons. I remained standing with several men back in the patrol, but I could see the two point men squinting ahead in the jungle.

Finally, Beck turned around and said in a loud whisper. “Looks like a plane.”

I scowled as I walked to the head of the column. However, I could see something metallic reflecting the setting sun in a bamboo thicket ahead. It was long and cylindrical and covered with vines. Incredibly, but clearly, it was a small plane, minus the wings.

Lyons, Beck, and I approached the thicket one slow step at a time. The plane could be the bait to a trap. When I could read the number on the tail, I called it out to Spencer and told him to report that we had found spotter aircraft apparently shot down some time ago, but we were moving on and would come back and check it in the morning.

We saw no sign of the wings, wheels, or propeller. Beck guessed that the plane had crashed somewhere else and been hidden in the thicket. I pointed out that the fuselage looked intact and there didn’t appear to be any evidence of a crash landing.

Beck said he was going to look inside, but I told him no—too much of a chance that it was booby-trapped. Plus, we had only a few more minutes of daylight. If we didn’t move on it would be dark before we got back to the perimeter. I motioned the patrol around to the right of the thicket. As King came by, Beck and Lyons fell back in at point.