Inside, we ordered a couple of beers and sat down with a few of Arthur's friends. He introduced me as a back-in-The-World buddy, now with 3rd Marine Division. Like any bunch of enlisted Marines, they wanted to know what unit I was with.
"Third Tanks," I said.
"You're a ways south, aren't you?" one asked.
Arthur was eyeing me, thoroughly enjoying the game. Naturally the conversation drifted around to what I did, and when did I get in-country? But I had trouble with the next question: "Who was in your class at Quantico?"
Of course I had never gone to the boot camp for Marine officers. I stammered for a second, until Arthur stepped in and explained who I really was and my real rank. They all had a good laugh. Then Arthur told them about the saluting incident and how I had confused the second lieutenant coming out the door. They got a big kick out of that. It was comforting to know that even first lieutenants hated second lieutenants.
I enjoyed that civilized evening with Arthur, one very cool guy, and some of his Force Recon buddies. But the longer we talked, the less I understood what drove people to join a bizarre outfit like Force Recon. Their job was to gather information and call in artillery on any NVA units they spotted. They worked in very small, often isolated teams, always miles from any friendly units. If discovered, they were helpless.
I told them about the guys who operated out of Oceanview, with ear collections hung on their belts, who went into North Vietnam for days at a time. The guys around the table didn't say anything, they just looked at each other. It was instantly clear I had mentioned something that wasn't supposed to be talked about, so I changed the subject.
Before leaving the next morning, I shook Art's hand and returned the collar emblems. "If I thought it was that easy," I said, "I'd have put them on a long time ago. Thanks for the best evening I've had in The Nam!"
I went back to being a corporal once again-more than ever convinced that when I got back to The World, I was going to college. The officer's lifestyle was more to my taste, and I liked the perks that rank brought with it.
I hitched a ride back to Division FSR. What progress had the maintenance people made? By the time I arrived that afternoon, the main gun had already been pulled out of the turret-a procedure seldom done, if ever, and certainly something few tank crews ever witnessed. Inside were exposed areas that hadn't seen daylight since the assembly line. With a large hole gaping in front of the turret where the gun once protruded, the tank had a strange, far less intimidating appearance.
Now that they had the main gun out, they could take apart the recoil system and discover why the seal was leaking. I was relieved when they told me the cause-a scratch caused when the gun was assembled back at the factory. There was no way it could have been caused in the field.
But the mechanics were far too efficient for my taste. After the third day, right on schedule, they declared us ready to return. We boarded another LCM at the Da Nang docks. The Mike boat backed out, and we headed to open waters for the cruise back to Cua Viet.
The driver and I took off our shirts and sunned ourselves on the back of the tank. As we took in the cooling breeze, I told him about my twelve-hour stint as an officer.
Several hours later, the chief informed me that we were approaching the harbor.
"Would you mind dropping us offon the north side of the river?" I asked.
He looked at me like I was crazy. "Ain't you gone north far enough?"
We rolled off the LCM, waved our thanks, and raced north up the beach with the same precious few rounds of machine gun ammo we started out with. Reporting to my platoon leader at C-4, I learned that we would be returning to Oceanview the next morning. We had no problem with that. After all, we had just spent five days off the Z.
The crew and I spent the next few hours reloading all sixty-two rounds of ammunition and all our small-arms ammo from a nearby bunker. Next morning, we sped on up the beach, back to our old position atop the sand dune. It was good to be home, even if it was the DMZ.
Two days later, my platoon leader came up to brief me on an operation about to get underway. We'd be going with a Marine battalion on a sweep into the northern area of Leatherneck Square. Immediately I got a sinking feeling. Leatherneck Square was the area between Con Thien and Gio Lihn at its northern corners, and Dong Ha and Cua Viet at the southern corners. The Square was infamous for its large-unit battles, more reminiscent of World War II than Vietnam.
Worse still was being told we were going out with a grunt unit from the 9th Marines. Of course my first question was, "Please tell me it's not One-Nine?"
The look on his face telegraphed the answer I deeded. "One-Nine it is. Hope you had a nice vacation in Da Nang."
"Sir," I muttered, "I'm too short for this shit!"
Late the next morning, we joined up with the Walking Dead and went on line with them to sweep through the northern portion of the Square. As we advanced through a lot of low scrub mixed with tree lines we encountered the usual sniper fire that always followed a grunt unit around. We moved north at a slow walk with the grunts a hundred feet in front of us, everyone tense ... waiting for the first sign of Charlie. Reportedly, an NVA battalion was in the area, and we were trying to flush it out.
Around ten in the morning, the grunts-previously close by-had distanced themselves from us. It was a common mistake for them, and you couldn't blame them. A bad feeling washed over me; I didn't like the looks of this at all.
Ten feet away, up jumped an NVA with an RPG launcher. He was at the one o'clock position, almost in front of our tank!
I reached for my M14, which lay across the top of the TC cupola. The driver reacted at the same time, adding full throttle and jerking our tank to the right. The NVA soldier was bringing up his RPG when we lurched toward him. The tank's abrupt swerve and acceleration was something I never expected, but it definitely grabbed the NVA's attention; it's hard not to be distracted with fifty-two tons bearing down on you. I'm sure the noise of our engine's revving and our tracks coming straight at him, block by block, had its effect on his aim.
His RPG fired wildly over us. He had started to turn when the track grabbed him and flung him to the ground like a rag doll. Without the slightest hesitation in the tank's movement, the tracks pushed him down. I couldn't see over our fenders, but I assumed we ran over the lower half of him.
"Got the motherfucker!" yelled the driver at the top of his lungs. He jerked the tank back to the left.
The adrenaline was really pumping in all of us now! "Nice job, driver! You probably saved us with that move," I said over the intercom. Positive he had squished the shooter like a bug, I shot a quick glance back over my right shoulder. I thought it odd that I didn't see a body, but I didn't waste time looking for our freshly minted waffle. There could be more idiots like him out there, armed with RPGs.
I yelled to get the grunt sergeant's attention and signaled him to bring his men in closer to us. But as the day wore on, the grunts kept edging farther and farther away from the tank. I had to snag the sergeant's eye again and again; I didn't want another eye-to-eye faceoff with an RPG. Later that afternoon, they distanced themselves from us yet again, and once more I had to signal him to bring his men back in.
The sergeant walked over and looked up at me. "I can't keep my guys around you!" he said with a smile, "The smell is killing them."
"What are you talking about?" I asked, incredulous.
"Can't you smell it?"
I had been so anticipating another RPG shooter that my brain had switched off my sense of smell. Suddenly the odor overwhelmed me, almost making me nauseous.
"You got about eighty pounds of hamburger in your sprocket."
Then I realized what had become of the RPG gunner. Somehow, the edge of our track had pulled him into the tank's sprocket-which, we discovered later, was far more effective than any meat grinder.
The loader was standing next to me. "You think that gook has become attached to our tank?"
"Yeah," I said, "He fe
ll head over heels for us!" If there was one thing we all loved, it was sick humor. "Do you think we made a good impression?" Asked my driver over the intercom.
The afternoon heat had gotten to the raw meat, and our tank was really rank. Noisy as we were, you wouldn't hear us coming before you smelled us.
"Hey!" I called to the sergeant. "We wouldn't smell like this if your guys had been doing their job!" He grinned, held his nose, and directed his reluctant men to stick closer to us.
We continued the sweep, using our machine gun to recon-by-fire on suspected areas of scrub bushes. We fired at a tree line and suddenly tripped an ambush. They returned fire, and the grunts went down to protect themselves. Then a large artillery round landed two hundred meters off to our right. A minute later, several more shells followed, now coming toward us. An NVA artillery spotter-probably in the tree line-was making adjustments, walking the rounds toward us. We had no choice but to close with the enemy; it was our only hope of avoiding his artillery.
I didn't have to give the order to button up. Our loader and driver had already closed their hatches. We fired while the grunts assaulted the tree line in rushes. We stopped about fifty meters in front of the trees and provided supporting fire. The incoming artillery got lighter. That meant we had gotten their forward observer, or he had simply taken off.
At almost the same time, two RPG shooters jumped up out of their grass-covered holes about twenty feet away. I grabbed my M14 and took out one of the NVA. The other one came under fire by the grunts assigned to our tank. This was getting too hairy; I was way too short for this shit.
That night, we learned we would spend two more days in the field. In the darkness, Mr. Charles probed us, looking for a weak spot and trying to get us to react to his poking around. But 1/9 was too good a Marine outfit to fall for such mind games. Their automatic weapons remained quiet, as did the tanks. It would take a full ground assault before these guys would open up.
The only reaction Charlie got from within the perimeter was one single rifle shot, by a sniper specially equipped with a Starlite scope. The following morning, it was discovered that Mister Charles had turned around most of the Claymore mines that 1/9 had placed out in front of them. The NVA were hoping we would fire them off and have all the ball bearings come back our way.
The remainder of the sweep was uneventful. We were none the worse for wear, except for being tired from lack of sleep. We were reassigned back to Oceanview. The run north along the ocean, half in, half out, helped clean up the mess we had in our sprocket. Taking up our familiar position atop the sand dune, we quickly downed a meal of C rats as the sun set behind the mountains to the west.
We all felt drowsy as we started our watch routine; I had the second watch, from midnight to 2 a.m. Around 12:30 the ARVN fire base at Gio Lihn, about five miles west of us, came to life. Green and red tracers flew in both directions. The hill was under attack, and sporadic flashes of artillery silhouetted it against the dark horizon. I immediately woke up the crew to be ready in case this wasn't an isolated incident.
I was standing in the TC's position, with Steele next to me in his loader's position. Suddenly we heard a buzzing noise that grew louder and louder, until finally we all ducked without knowing why. The buzz ended with a Thud!, impacting the ground right next to the tank.
"What the fuck was that?" I asked the crew over the intercom, trying to get back in my own skin. "Did anybody see where it came from?"
A few minutes later, another buzz was followed by a similarThud. This one landed a little farther away, but behind the tank, inside the compound.
I immediately contacted the CP on the radio and told them we were taking some kind of incoming fire, except their rounds appeared to be duds. Just then, another buzz grew in intensity and ended with the same Thud!-this time, only five feet from my side of the tank.
Some kind of projectile had hit the sand dune with a very sharp impact, again without exploding. Even so, this one really scared the shit out of me. "Jesus Christ!" I yelled, still on the radio. "That son of a bitch just missed me!"
Whatever they were, they sounded large, and they were getting too goddamned close and scaring the hell out of all of us. We were being shot and bracketed, the target of some weapon that gave no indication where it was located. At least its ammunition was defective-so far!
I had the driver start the tank and was prepared to move, but then I realized something didn't add up. I had seen no muzzle flashes. We could hear the rounds coming, so they were traveling too slowly to be fired at us. That, plus the unlikelihood that all of them were duds, kept me from moving the tank from this key position.
These things kept impacting all around and inside the perimeter. Their rhythm was almost predictable. A terrifying buzzing grew in volume until it impacted the ground, solidly. It was that approaching sound that really freaked us out.
Yet another buzz was getting louder and louder. We all ducked inside the turret and immediately heard-as well as felt!-a loud clang.
"Motherfucker!" screamed the driver. "Did you hear that? We just took a hit!"
"Of fuckin' course I fuckin' heard it!" I yelled back. "I might be short, but I ain't fuckin' deafl"
Whatever these things were, one had just made a direct hit on my tank. If this was some NVA kind of psychological warfare, it was working marvelously. Man, I thought, I'm too short for this shit!
Again, I got on the radio and explained the hit we had just taken. I had both the driver and the loader button up, but somebody had to keep a lookout. First I peeked over the very lip of the cupola, keeping the TC's hatch down on my head with one hand. Then I decided to get out of the turret and at least investigate where the thing had hit.
From the direction of the sound, I was sure it was the tank's right fender. The rest of the crew agreed with me, so I climbed outside. I crawled on hands and knees, feeling my way around the top of the tank, groping for the impact site to get some idea of what in hell it was-scared shitless that I would be this thing's first victim.
We weren't the only ones with the shit scared out of us. Down from where we sat, the grunts along the perimeter had only a hole to hide in; they were totally vulnerable to whatever these things might be.
I found a dent pushed in about a half-inch in diameter on the fender, near the driver's position. What could have made such a pronounced dimple? I felt around in the dark to see if I could learn what it was. Jumping down off the fender, I got on my hands and knees, and groped around in the dark, but didn't find anything odd, much less solid just sand.
I felt like a damned idiot. If it was a dud projectile, did I really want to find it? Buzz-z-z-z ...
I dropped to the ground and covered my head, feeling absolutely helpless and totally vulnerable, like a deer caught in the headlights of an eigh-teen-wheeler.
Finally thunk! Another one impacted, just behind the tank. This was doing nothing for my short-timer's paranoia. I had had enough of this crap. I scampered up on the tank and into the safety of the turret.
A minute went by, then buzz-z-z-z ... thud! This one landed out in the wire, directly in front of us. The grunts were getting vocal about the mysterious buzz bombs.
Meanwhile, the firefight going on at Gio Lihn had died down. The sky above the base was still illuminated with the flares that hung over it.
Another minute brought another buz-z-z-z and thud! One more of those whatever-they-were landed even closer to the front of our tank. Now that I thought about it, the sounds had been evenly spaced-almost clocklike in their regularity. I looked back at Gio Lihn, where the firefight had simmered down to a few sporadic flashes. Then it suddenly dawned on me what these things were.
I told the crew. They didn't believe the idea, so I had them all look toward Gio Lihn. "Wait for the next illumination flare to go up."
Just as the last flare was about to burn out underneath its parachute, we saw a new one burst in the sky above it.
"Get ready," I told the crew. "One of the buzz-bombs is a
bout to pay us a visit." As if on cue, the buzzing sound began its approach, terminated by a now-familiar thud! behind our tank.
My crew didn't say a word. They wanted to confirm my hypothesis with a second example, so they waited for that far-off flare to extinguish itself. Sure enough, just before it started to fade and go out, another flare broke above it. After a few seconds went by, buzz-z-z-z ... thud!
I dropped into the turret, switched on the red light, and got out my maps. Mentally, I drew a line between Oceanview and Gio Lihn, then extended it on past Gio Lihn. When I unfolded and joined the next map, my straight line continued on to Con Thien.
Over the radio, I gave the Oceanview CP my hypothesis: The ARVNs were getting their illumination from either The Washout or Con Thien. I figured that an illumination round fired from Con Thien was crossing over Gio Lihn when it released its flare, illuminating the battlefield. But the projectile itself continued on course and fell to earth at Oceanview.
It took a few minutes before the CP could confirm it: A gun battery at Con Thien was indeed providing the illumination. The CO was able to get the illumination lifted, and the mysterious buzz bombs finally ceased.
The next morning revealed the mystery thud makers-as I'd suspected, howitzer illumination projectiles. This place was getting crazier and crazier. Now I had to worry about being conked on the head by a five-pound projectile from one of our own guns!
Just as I had suspected all along, everybody was out to get me-even the friendlies. I could just see my mother opening the letter: Dear Mrs. Peavey, We regret to inform you that your son, who almost made it out of Vietnam, was killed during enemy action while serving in northern I Corps on the Demilitarized Zone. He was hit in the head by a buzz bomb.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, via the radio, the message I'd awaited for thirteen months finally found its way to me: "Papa 2283 was to report to the Battalion CP in Quang Tri the next day."
Papa stood for the first letter of my last name; 2283 was the first four digits of my serial number-a way of identifying an individual over the air without revealing his name, lest the enemy possibly use that information on the home front. It was my orders to return to Dong Ha on the next day's resupply run, without my tank, for the start of my long trip home.
Praying for Slack: A Marine Corps Tank Commander in Viet Nam Page 29