Between May 19 and May 23, the heaviest large unit battles in the A Shau occurred under the auspices of Vietnamization, when a South Vietnamese Marine battalion took on an NVA battalion in a series of sharp firefights along the east wall. Using artillery and air strikes, the South Vietnamese destroyed numerous bunker complexes and captured large stashes of enemy supplies. U.S. involvement in the battle was limited to helicopter and close air support, but at a cost. Ground fire downed three 101st helicopters and one Air Force O-2 FAC aircraft.
Just north of the A Shau, the depleted American combat presence endured another surprising shocker inflicted by aggressive, confident NVA forces. By the summer of 1971, a CCN (recently renamed Task Force 1 Advisory Element) radio relay site on Hill 950 just north of the old Khe Sanh combat base represented the only U.S. contingent left in northwestern Military Region I. Code named “Hickory,” the top-secret site offered the perfect location for a highly classified operation, the National Security Agency’s Polaris II radio intercept station. The defense of Hickory, a tiny enclave in an enemy controlled region, fell to a SOG contingent consisting of 27 U.S. personnel and 67 Vietnamese/Montagnard members from the Special Commando Unit, SCU. On June 4, a large NVA force scaled Hill 950 undetected and launched a fierce surprise attack on Hickory. During the hand-to-hand fighting, Sgt Jon R. Cavaiani orchestrated the helicopter evacuation of the NSA team and all wounded except for 23 SCU, Sgt John R. Jones, and himself. When enemy forces finally overran Hickory at 4 a.m. on June 5, Jones, already wounded but still fighting, was shot in the chest at close range and presumably died. Badly wounded and burned, Cavaiani ordered the remaining SCU troopers to attempt escape while he provided them with covering fire. He then retrieved a machine gun, stood up, completely exposing himself to the heavy enemy fire directed at him, and began firing the weapon at two ranks of advancing enemy soldiers. Through Sgt Cavaiani’s valiant efforts, the majority of the remaining platoon members were able to escape down the hill. While inflicting severe losses on the advancing enemy force, Sgt Cavaiani was wounded numerous times before finally sliding down the face of a cliff. He crawled and dragged himself eastward for ten days before the NVA captured him. When released in 1973, Jon Cavaiani was awarded the Medal of Honor. Sgt Jones was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.40
At the south end of the A Shau, RT North Carolina ran into yet another large NVA unit on the Laotian border near the village of Ta Ko, a few miles southeast of Base Area 607. In the early morning on August 13, the team ambushed a large enemy force that had been sweeping the area searching for them. As the firefight erupted, Sgt Mark H. Eaton immediately began placing a heavy volume of CAR-15 fire on the advancing force, inflicting heavy casualties on them. The enemy then regrouped and aggressively assaulted the RT again, utilizing small arms, hand grenades, automatic weapons, and RPGs. Valiantly, Sgt Eaton rallied his team while repeatedly exposing himself to a hail of hostile fire in order to direct the defense of the team’s position. Again he inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, thwarting the vicious assault until he was mortally wounded in a barrage of NVA small arms fire. For his gallantry, Sgt Mark H. Eaton was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.41 Although the records are sketchy, Mark Eaton may well have been the last SOG combat death in the A Shau.42
Ground action might have diminished in the A Shau, but communist antiaircraft gunners kept up the pressure and made the area as deadly as ever. On September 30, a Stormy “fast FAC” F-4 from the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing at Da Nang flew a low-level mission along the southwest corner of the A Shau. The aircraft had refueled twice from KC-135 tankers before going down in the rugged terrain of Base Area 607. Capt Michael L. Donovan and Lt Ronald L. Bond have never been found.43
Throughout 1971, SOG inserted approximately 30 teams in and around the A Shau Valley, all of them fighting for survival as they attempted to document a continuing NVA buildup. Whether that intelligence information was worth the lives it cost is still debated, but during the fall of 1971, SOG dutifully dispatched the data to MACV where it was rushed to a waiting courier plane and flown to American negotiators in Paris, who used it in their deliberations with their North Vietnamese counterparts. While the stalemated peace talks droned on, the deadly cat and mouse games continued in the A Shau. By November, the tactical situation had become so grim that recon teams who inserted on five-day missions ended up spending fewer than two hours on the ground before NVA counter recon companies forced them out. In December, one last recon team penetrated the valley, called in airstrikes on NVA trucks and tanks along Route 548, and made it out safe and sound.44 With that mission—after nine years—the U.S. combat role in the A Shau Valley came to a quiet, contentious end.
*In 1997 a joint US/Lao team located a crash site believed to be that of Larry Hull. Various pieces of aircraft wreckage and life support equipment found definitely correlated this site to Larry’s O-2 aircraft. Unfortunately, the team was unable to recover any remains. The site was finally excavated in 2006, and Larry’s remains recovered. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors on 13 November, 2006.
*In early June 2015, Cliff Newman joined a team from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency on another mission into the A Shau to search for the remains of the missing men from RT Intruder and the helicopter crew lost during the extraction. Unfortunately, the DPAA team could not locate the site. Case 1706 remains active.
*Butler’s suspicions had been correct. The mole was later identified as a very high level ARVN colonel attached to the Joint General Staff who participated in the monthly SOG targeting meetings. Evidently the individual communicated real time information about SOG targets directly to Hanoi.
chapter
10
A BARD FOR THE GRUNTS
The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
—RUDYARD KIPLING
Many of the grunts, marines, and airmen who battled the weather and NVA in and around the A Shau Valley have, over the years, found it almost impossible to share their wartime experiences either verbally or in writing. The Valley of Death numbed their minds and choked off their words. The trauma of combat ate into their souls and plagued them with war-related readjustment problems: flashbacks to combat, the inability to relate to friends and family, feelings of alienation, even unbearable doses of survivor’s guilt. But one grunt managed to capture and bring to light the savagery, the friendship, the valor, and the internalized voices of a generation—and he did it through poetry.
Gary Jacobson served as a grunt infantryman in the 1st Cavalry Division in 1967. He was badly wounded when a booby-trapped artillery shell exploded, sending shrapnel through his skull and deep into his brain. While recovering and as a cathartic release, Jacobson began writing poetry, at first not realizing that his poignant feelings penned in verse encapsulated the suppressed thoughts of many other grunts.
Perhaps inspired by a Vietnamese legend that says, “All poets are full of silver threads that rise inside them as the moon grows large,” Gary Jacobson confessed that he wrote because “It is that these silver threads are words poking at me—I must let them out. I must! I write for my brothers who cannot bear to talk of what they’ve seen and to educate those who haven’t the foggiest idea about the effect that the horrors of war have on boys-next-door.”
Author of several books on the Vietnam War, including a mesmerizing volume of poetry called My Thousand Yard Stare, Gary Jacobson has become for many the poet laureate of Vietnam. With his permission, his captivating, gut-wrenching poem A Shau Ripcord is included in its entirety:
A SHAU RIPCORD
by Gary Jacobson
A Shau Valley
Death walks this shadowed alley
Where the rain never stops
Fierce
&n
bsp; In rustic tangled wood
Inaccessible
Nigh impenetrable
Wall-to-wall
Dense obstructive green
Concealing well the malignant
Virulent rebel
Malevolent NVA
Warriors in the jungled screen
Sprayed with toxins obscene
Leech infested streams
101st Airborne
Enveloped by the valley
Searching
For hostiles …
Hostile
Men look to kill men
Enmeshed in hate
Murderously filled with it
Boys from both sides secreting furies
To poisonously harm
Boys on the other side
Conducting half-blind
Clashes contending for the right
To life
Snarled by evil
Fierce nose to nose
So quickly lost
In the darkening wild lair
Setting the knotty jungle snare
Initiating each other into hell.
Battling for the A Shau throne
Ripcord
Twisted forest whipcord
Is the rain never going to stop?
Obsessed generals,
In pitched battle for control
Vying for one last victory
One last gasp
Last chance for glory in this war
To hone their skills
In the Nam’s last dance
Before the war is through
To themselves console
Before withdrawal
Before Vietnamization.
Obsessed generals,
Playing God, by God!
Pumping technology
Into gnarled greenwood
Seeking an edge they thought
They’d win
A grunt’s life catapult
Flung into the fray
In the midst of infantry foes
With Charley
Slugging it out toe to toe …
Filling the road
On the pathway to hell …
“Whatcha gonna do,
Send me to Nam?”
If we only knew
Life there in Hell
Known as the A Shau
Was dependent on the gun
Under a blistering sun …
Blistering our innocence …
Look to skies supernal
For rescue by the eternal …
But find no relief infernal
As in multifaceted battalions
Sneakin’ and peekin’,
The latest in a series
Of Long
Hot
miserable
Days …
In verdant jungle dark
Many men lay slaughtered
Thrown at each other
Torn from sacred life
Unto sanctified death
Down in the valley
Mid matted corkscrew
With a considerable body of troops …
Not ours
Where life could vanish
In a twinkling …
Is the rain ever going to stop?
Patrolling the dark A Shau
Slip and slide up one hill
Skim down the other side
In fevered breath
Awaiting
Fated death
Ah shit …
Fresh prints in the muddy track
Everyone on edge
Sniff the air for waiting ambush
Could this be the day we die?
Is the rain ever going to stop?
Is the rain ever going to stop?
Running in rivulets red
Flowing
Everywhere endless
Pop, pop, pop,
Pesky VietCong
Fire a couple rounds and di di
Harassment maddening
Frustrated
Taut jawed
Barbed wire lips …
Clash and dash
Get adrenalin roaring
Then bring it back down
No one around
Charley
Blends with the shadows
Until the next turn in the trail
Frustrated …
Waiting for “show time …”
Secure another LZ
On the highground
Nestled in rocks on the ridgeline
Before fast closing dark
Just another wet miserable day
As a grunt
A groundpounder
My God … a shortimer …
Listening to cricket rhythms
Hearing something small
Moving in underbrush
Harsh alarm of a monkey
Nightbirds singing low
Trembling rage still eats at me
Protected
Under the surface below …
I hate the quiet time
Too much time
For thinking
For fearing
Rivulets of sweat merging
With tears from my eyes
Trying to discern
The deadly sounds …
Again adrenalin pumping …
Be absolutely quiet
In this life or death moment …
Can anyone hear
My primal scream?
Is the rain never going to stop?
Good morning Vietnam!
Another routine morning
Check for leeches
Dislodge other crawlies
Tend your jungle rot
No such thing as dry
Clear booby traps
And trips
Check claymores
See if they’ve been turned
By those practical jokers
Tricky VietCong
Try to calm
Stark fear stifling
Set jangled nerves
To survive another day
Saddle up that heavy pack
Loaded with lots of things
That go boom …
Clean the mud off your rifle
Y’wanta make it home?
It’s going to be a long
Long day
Expecting the enemy to open up
On every rise
At every bend in the trail
To bring on the hurt
Make boiling blood pump …
Another adrenalin dump …
Still we make the turn
Take each forsaken step
Past trembling bush
Over muddied ground
Past silent sound
God only knows why …
Or how …
Each minute dragging by
Seems like a year …
Playing hide and seek with the Cong
The stakes in this game
So high….
Heroic grunts
Negotiating hell and shadow.
Good men
Brave men
Beloved men
Brothers …
Lost in obsidian thoughts
Slowly dying as former companions
Omnipresent jungle closing in
Chilling hot
Sweet and sour
Surrounded within …
In this bamboo wood
You can’t find the Vietcong
Unless he wants to find us.
Napalm will ferret him out …
I’d rather be in Hell
Can’t be any hotter than this
But perhaps we’re already there
Knocking at the southern gates …
Look at the FNG
How long is this one gonna last?
Oh how fragile
These men of war …
As NVA assaulted
Sloping mountaintop
Left no choice but to bail
Out of the fiasco
Now as we left
>
That blood soaked ground
Picked up by the Huey’s
Wearied unto death …
Turn out the lights
The parties over …
Look out your six
Charley hates to see you go …
Wave goodbye
It’s closing time …
As gunships blast surrounding hills
Watch Uncle Sam’s parting gift
Given by high-flying B52’s
Leaving nothing for the enemy
Bombing Ripcord into extinction
Napalming it
Like it never was …
EPILOGUE
Generations that know us not and that we know
not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom
great things were suffered and done for them, shall
come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream;
and lo! The shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap
them in its bosom, and the power of the vision
pass into their souls.
—JOSHUA LAWRENCE CHAMBERLAIN
Forty-plus years after the echoes of war last resonated along its steep walls, the A Shau has returned to it primordial roots, once again a remote, pristine valley, a place from the beginning of time. For the most part, the valley floor today conjures up visions of a pastoral setting with only a few overgrown bomb craters scarring the bucolic landscape. Hill 937—the infamous Hamburger Hill—rendered bare by the savage battle on its steep slopes, is totally reclaimed and covered by double canopy jungle. Route 548, once a dilapidated dirt road for NVA trucks hauling weapons of war, is now a two lane paved highway with telephone wires strung beside it. Truck and automobile traffic is at present somewhat sparse, but steady streams of motorbikes travel along the route, now called the Ho Chi Minh Highway. A Luoi, smashed and deserted during the war, has been transformed into a bustling town with one hotel, nine guesthouses, seven restaurants, and a beautiful three-story town hall. From all indications the valley residents—at least those old enough to remember—have managed to move on with their lives and block out the carnage that raged around them for nine years. In moving on they have presumably never given a second thought to the many Americans who died there. Yet those same inhabitants, especially the younger ones, greet American visitors—mostly returning Vietnam veterans—cordially and talk of going to the United States to visit or study. According to one American visitor, “The preschool-age kids are already learning English: they can count from one to ten and proudly recite their ABCs.”1 The veterans themselves take in the panorama and still marvel at the mystical qualities that the now tranquil A Shau holds for them. But in spite of the awe-inspiring new vistas before them, they cannot and will not forget their brothers who died in the Valley of Death.
A Shau Valor Page 32