Later, Embesi went back to the site to look for clues. He uncovered a small fragment of green metal from a U.S. machine gun ammunition can. Embesi found the lot number printed on the side of ammo cans that identified the manufacturer and date.
Because he was a well-connected staff sergeant, it didn't take him long to track down the lot number and trace it back through the supply system. In a matter of days, he had his answer; the lot number had been on a large quantity of machine gun ammo sent to the Korean Marines. With his suspicions confirmed, Embesi immediately terminated all fraternization with the Koreans and put the fishing village off limits.
THERE ARE CERTAIN MOMENTS in everyone's life when we can look back and say, "This is where I changed" or "After that, my life was affected forever." We don't usually recognize these turning points when they occur.
One of my most important moments was about to begin, strangely enough, at my lowest point. It happened halfway through my Southeast Asia Senior Class Trip, as we sometimes referred to our tours of duty in Vietnam. It was a fit expression for this war, where the conscripts' mean age was nineteen, the youngest average of any American war.
A Marine unit was sweeping through the Dodge City area, and with it were several tanks from our platoon. That morning, we received word over the radio to be ready to join the sweep as it passed by the Mud Flats. We would be leaving our inept, worthless little Korean "allies" behind.
This operation found us working with a newly relocated unit-the 26th Marine Regiment, which had just stepped out of Marine folklore after enduring the siege at Khe Sanh. Now they were reassigned to the 1st Marine Division outside Da Nang, some 170 miles south of the DMZ, and found themselves in an unfamiliar and different kind of war, with our tank platoon for support.
The 26th Marines came into our TAOR with all the cockiness of a unit that knew it had triumphed over a terrible ordeal. They arrived totally unaware of our kind of war, never having heard of Dodge City or the Arizona Territory-two areas known for their wild shoot-'em- ups. They thought that coming down here was a well-deserved, in-country R&R.
Our first sweep with the Khe Sanh veterans went into Dodge City, where the Korean Marines refused to tread. It was the mother of all booby-trapped, punji-pitted, and mined areas in all of I Corps, if not all Vietnam, and the scene of countless vicious firefights.
It was late July when we began the sweep south of Hill 55. We had our aerials tied down, sacrificing the range of our radios but reassuring the tank commander that his head might stay connected a little longer. We were only two klicks away from Hill 55 when the first explosion went off. Immediately we heard the call, "Corpsman! Corpsman up!"
Our sweep came to a stop almost as soon as it had started. Those of us who had worked in this area before knew what to expect. Sure enough, with the approach of the helicopter, all hell broke loose. Mortars started dropping among the grunts, while Soviet .51-caliber machine guns opened up on the bird. More men were wounded.
The chopper got away with its cargo of casualties, and we resumed our advance. Five minutes later, another explosion went off, and the cycle repeated itself. This unit's mental effectiveness became seriously affected. The 26th Marines had little experience in identifying and disarming booby traps. They were almost frozen in place, psychologically paralyzed by this new and different type of warfare.
While waiting for the medevacs, we got to talk with the grunts around the tank. "This is bullshit!" said one.
"Is it always like this?" another asked.
"Welcome to Dodge City," Hearn told them. "Ain't the same as sittin' in a bunker, is it?"
Neither were the 26th Marines accustomed to the roving enemy mortar teams that nipped at a unit's heels wherever it went, waiting for the opportunity to catch a helicopter on a resupply or medevac mission.
We hadn't moved two klicks in two days, yet we took several KIAs and WIAs from mines and booby traps without so much as sighting Charlie. For the grunts, who didn't know if they would still be connected to their legs with the next step they took, movement became disconcerting and painfully slow. It was a mind game, and Charlie was winning.
The sweep turned into a two-day stop-and-go exercise until it was decided to back out of the area. The heroes of Khe Sanh had experienced the uncertainty of casualties from deadly booby traps, and they needed training in dealing with this different type of threat. At least that's why we thought they were taken out of the field.
Around this time, rumors started circulating that elements of the 5th Marine Division would be returning to the States. Any rumor that good ... wasn't possible, but in a few days we found our entire tank company back at 1st Tank Battalion's CP. Axiom Number Six had come into play: The stranger a rumor is, the more likely it is true.
WE LEARNED THAT THE 26TH AND 27TH MARINES would be the first units to return to the States as part of a gradual U.S. withdrawal. Along with them would go supporting units that had mounted out of California in response to the Tet Offensive back in February. Hey! That was us! It was too good to be true. I might be going back six months early.
But I was naive about the workings of the military. We were on a high from which some of us would come crashing down.
Our tanks no longer looked like the showroom models we had started out with. Now ours had the missing fenders, headlights smashed and missing, RPG holes, and mud caked all over the suspension system.
We soon learned that the only men returning to the States would be the veterans caught up in the February mount-out. Short-timers from all over northern I Corps were gathered up and reassigned to units that were slated to go home. The rest of us first-timers would be reassigned to other Marine units of the 1st and 3rd Marine divisions. Half our company celebrated, while us first-timers were absolutely devastated at the prospects facing us.
When you were assigned to another unit, there was no guarantee you would keep the job you had trained for. If the Marines needed more grunts-well, you know. I had seen enough to know that humpin' the boonies wasn't something I was cut out for, so the certainty of getting reassigned to a new outfit filled me with apprehension. Having grown accustomed to being surrounded by several inches of steel, I was terrified at the prospect of becoming a grunt. We first-timers didn't know where we would be going, what we would be doing, or all the new people we would be thrust in with. It was most dismal point of my entire Marine Corps experience, and our morale was as low as you can imagine.
As a final insult-it felt like a punishment-we first-timers were kept around to clean and disinfect the tanks that would be returning back to The World! It felt as if we were having it rubbed in our faces. We all wanted to tell the veterans, "They're your Goddamn tanks! You clean them!"
The next morning, after we completed the dirty work, they called a company formation, the last time for Bravo Company, 5th Tanks, as we knew it. After the formation, each platoon sergeant notified his firsttimers where they were being assigned. It was done by roll call, and we were notified publicly, one by one.
Embesi read off the assignments alphabetically from a clipboard. As he called out each man's name, he waited for an acknowledgment, then announced the unit to which he had been assigned. As he went down the list, my colleagues' destinations became increasingly worrisome. One after another, they were assigned to infantry units; only a few were assigned to tank units.
By the time Embesi got down to the middle of the alphabet, I was certain of my fate. I imagined myself in a hot thick jungle, leeches clinging to my legs, loaded down with 782 gear, barely able to walk, being pushed along by my fellow grunts.
"Peavey! ..." The sound of my name startled me. "... 3rd Tank Battalion."
I couldn't believe my good luck at being reassigned to a tank unit!
We said our good-byes and good lucks to one another. Never again were we going to see men we had lived with intimately for the past six months. It was over-or, depending on how you looked at it, just beginning. I remained a tanker, but I had no idea what my new job was to be
or where it would take me. I knew only that I was about to go northfarther north than I could have ever imagined. I packed up my stuff, slung my M14 over my shoulder, and took a truck to the Da Nang airbase.
Chapter 11
received orders instructing me to catch a ride to the Da Nang airfield for the next plane to Quang Tri, home of the 3rd Marine Division. Where would I end up? What kind of crew would I spend the next six months with? I was only a corporal, but my fourteen months in grade and six months in-country ought to count for something. Both of these factors would become far more important than I realized right then. Well, at least I wasn't an FNG reporting in for the first time.
No sooner had I reached QuangTri and 3rd Tank Battalion's headquarters than they issued me a pistol and told me to catch the next plane north to Dong Ha. I learned that my timing was perfect; the next plane for the short hop to Dong Ha was leaving in an hour. Ten other men would be on my flight. Some were coming back from R&R, a few were FNGs, replacements, and others were holdovers from the departing 26th and 27th Marines.
Two hours later, a Marine C-130 cargo plane pulled up on the tarmac and we were guided to a ramp to the rear of the plane. We, its sole cargo, sat on two long benches that ran along the airplane's bulkheads. The plane's cargo master pressed a large button that closed the cargo ramp. "When we land in Dong Ha," he yelled for us all to hear, "we usually come under artillery fire. I want you men running down that ramp when I tell you. This plane won't stop, and I suggest you don't either. Someone on the ground will guide you over to the nearest bunker."
Holy shit! This was getting pretty serious!
Within only fifteen minutes the plane dove steeply for the ground and quickly flattened out onto a bumpy dirt strip. Billowing clouds of dust rolled past the windows. The plane came to a hard stop, turned around, and quickly taxied back down the strip while lowering its cargo ramp.
The cargo master had put a headset on. "We'll be stopping after all," he said, turning to us. "When we stop, run down the ramp away from the plane. Someone on the ground will direct you."
We gathered up our stuff, glad that we didn't have to exit a rolling aircraft. As soon as the plane came to an abrupt stop, we ran down the ramp clutching our personal gear. A dozen men ran past us, getting on. They were paired off, each holding one corner of a large plastic bag. I didn't give it any thought as I passed them. I was more concerned about where I was supposed to go.
We were directed to a slit trench alongside the landing strip. We piled in, certain that enemy artillery was about to find us.
The plane revved its engines and started to move away. Its deafening noise finally abated. One of my travel companions, an FNG, asked no one in particular, "Was that what I thought they were?"
"Is what, what you thought it was?" I asked him.
"Those green bags," he said, referring to what the men getting on the plane were carrying. I hadn't wondered about it until that moment, but I realized he was right. I had never seen one before.
"Hey, man," I said, getting up and not looking at the FNG, "you're smarter than them. Just be glad it ain't you."
When it came to travel arrangements in The Nam, you were on your own, especially as you tried to track down an outfit. I hitched a ride with a couple of other guys going to Charlie Company, 3rd Tanks. Once I got there, I found I had been assigned to 1st Platoon. I asked where they were. "North of here," came the answer, "at a place called C-4."
No name, just C-4. I expected to be going someplace I would recognize, like the Rockpile, Camp Carroll, Razorback, Vandergrift, Cam Lo, maybe even Khe Sanh or Con Thien-two bases that had earned themselves a solid place in Marine folklore.
The next day, a supply truck left for a place at the mouth of the Cua Viet River, on the coast of Vietnam, where I was to meet a Mike boat to take me across the river. From there, C-4 was straight up the shoreline. It didn't take me long to find a truck driver headed for C-4. He said it was only three or four miles north, straight up the beach, but he wanted to wait for a few more trucks.
"Ya don't make that run alone," he said. "Not around here, ya don't." He pulled out a military map to show me where I was and where we were going. It wasn't hard to miss the quarter-inch gray line a couple of miles north of C-4.
"Is that the DMZ?" I asked.
"Yup!" he smiled. "Can't go much farther north than that!"
He was wrong on that point, as I would later learn. Right then, however, I was busy wondering what I had gotten myself in for and began to feel sorry for myself. I didn't know anybody. Hardly anyone knew where I was going, and it sure was close to North Vietnam.
Another truck came across on the Mike boat and it was obvious the two drivers knew each other. They agreed to "make a run for it!" I was never so happy to have my M14 with me as I climbed in the back of the truck and pointed it over the edge, toward the sand dunes. The trucks drove like hell up the beach until we reached a fortified area about one hundred meters inland. We then made a left turn into the fire base known as C-4.
It was right on the South Vietnamese coast, only four thousand meters south of the DMZ. C-4 was made up of dozens of large, very solid bunkers. Obviously built by engineers or Seabees, only their top halves stood above the ground. Their roofs were composed of 12 x 12-inch wooden beams able to support the dozens of layers of sandbags stacked on top. The bunkers' sides were equally well protected. I never saw a fire base that looked so professionally built; C-4 looked as if it was meant to be here for a while.
The driver stopped his truck inside the compound, and I asked him where the tanks were located. I just followed his pointing finger, knowing that eventually, someplace, I'd find a tank. Then, behind a row of bunkers, I spotted what looked like tank aerials. Sure enough, three tanks were parked on the other side. I was relieved to have finally found my destination. I didn't figure that going any farther north could be an option. Weren't we almost on the Z?
I approached the bunker opposite the tanks, mentally preparing to meet my new platoon leader and greet the dozens of strangers I would be living with for the next seven months. I hoped I'd get a good tank commander.
Outside the bunker's entrance, six men were sitting around, working on a .50-caliber machine gun. Two were trying to get the bolt out of the machine gun's receiver assembly. One of them-I couldn't believe my eyes!-was my friend John Wear.
I spoke to him before he saw me. "Well, if it isn't my pet boy Sherman!"
He looked up with a big smile across his face, jumped up and came over. "Hey, Mr. Peabody!"
John and I had met back in tank school. He'd always looked young for his age, and his Marine Corps-issue glasses gave him a resemblance to Mr. Peabody's pet boy, Sherman, on TV's Rocky andBullwinkle cartoon show. With a last name like Peavey, I naturally became Mr. Peabody.
We shook hands, glad to see each other.
"What the hell you doing up here?"John asked. "I thought you were down south leaving the war to us Third Tankers!" He couldn't have imagined how good it felt to finally see someone I knew, let alone a good friend. Also, his recognition helped me establish instant credibility with the other five.
Looking over at the table and the .50 they were working on, right away I saw that someone had put the bolt in backward, a situation almost impossible to correct. They were all puzzled as to what to do next.
I walked over and said, "I can fix that if you get me two screwdrivers."
"No, man. We been workin' on this all mornin'. Its gotta go back to battalion to be fixed," said one of the strangers.
"Get me the screwdrivers, and I'll save you the embarrassment of having to turn in the weapon."They didn't know I was a graduate of the Embesi.50-Caliber School.
Someone came back with the screwdrivers, and thirty seconds later I had the bolt out-to the amazement of all hands.
Anyone freshly checking into a unit, no matter what his credentials, was immediately assumed to be an FNG. Even if you were a lifer in the Corps, it didn't matter. If you had no combat exper
ience you were just somebody apt to get some veteran killed. Between my fixing the gun and John's confirming who I was and where I had just come from, like a wiseguy in the mob, I was spoken for.
Then came one of the greatest coincidences of the entire Vietnam War. "You're not going to believe this," said John, "but I just got a package from your mother today. Four baby bottles full of Scotch!"
After my mother's first attempt to send John a bottle ended with a visit from a postal inspector I had asked her to use plastic baby bottles next time-along with a fictitious return address. That night I voluntarily stood watch with John on C-4's perimeter. We enjoyed ourselves immensely, swapped war stories, caught up on the war and our mutual friends, and polished off the baby bottles of Glenlevit.
It was lots of, "Did you hear about so-and-so ..." and who the latest KIAs were. I brought him up to date on what it was like down south, in the Arizona Territory and Dodge City area outside Da Nang, all about Allen Brook, and our mutual friend, Johnny Cash. Wear couldn't believe how we got stuck with all the amtrackers when we left the States. He was disgusted at the stupidity of Johnny's death and the inexperienced tank commander and crew.
Wear had been with 3rd Tanks since he first arrived in-country. He filled me in on the battle for Hue and the short life expectancy ofTCs in the house-to-house fighting. The death of his good friend, Bob Minetto, really affected him. Back in The World, he and Bob had been very close.
THE NEXT MORNING, I met my new platoon leader-another "never going into the field lieutenant"-and discovered what my extensive time in grade and six months in The Nam was really worth: I was made a tank commander! Not only that, but a section leader as well, with another tank under me. One day I had been trying to figure out which C rat meal to eat, the next I had the responsibility of organizing the resupply of food for two tank crews.
In the eyes of a gunner, ammunition was there to be shot up. Now I had to ration it out between two tanks and account for it. Seven men's lives rested in the hands of a twenty-one-year-old corporal whose decisions, if wrong or slow, could result in serious, even tragic, consequences. Suddenly I was forced to think about others and deal with their problems. It was a situation that quickly forced me to become a man.
Praying for Slack: A Marine Corps Tank Commander in Viet Nam Page 20