In eleven months in Vietnam, I went from a shitbird to a genuine hero with a Corporal’s chevron on my collar. No longer was it simply, “Gebhart, do this, Gebhart do that.” I was now a non-commissioned officer, and my proper title was Corporal Gebhart. I loved to hear my name called out, and played my part with great pride.
MY DEAR JOHN LETTER
Not to long after I became a Corporal, I, too, received a Dear John letter. Before I joined the Marines, I had been dating a beautiful blonde Viking goddess who, if I forgot to mention, looked like Bridgett Bardot. A million guys were after her and “Run Around Sue” was her theme song. When I was home she was mine, but 10,000 miles away she fell for an older man she worked with who had kids. I always figured she would fall for the Joe construction worker, Italian stallion type with the gold chain around his neck, but I was wrong. When I finally got out of the Marines I looked her up and met the guy. We arm-wrestled and had some beers. I saw their newborn baby and saw how my old girlfriend had become a mature, loving mother. She was happy, and I hate to admit that deep down inside, I was happy she had found someone decent.
My Dear John letter, though, pissed me off like you wouldn’t believe. It was monsoon season, so the weather was often too foggy and clouded to launch gunbirds. There I was, bored to death with no VCs to shoot, and heartbroken by this letter. There was nothing left to do but get drunk. I drank two of my buddies under the table as they tried to console me with their tales of lost loves. I think I missed two or three days in a drunken binge of beer and rotgut Red Fox whiskey. Finally I fell into a muddy bunker and passed out.
I awoke covered in caked-on mud with a couple of blankets wrapped around me, and my poncho thrown over my dead body. Not one officer or enlisted person said anything to me. I went to chow, cleaned up, took a shower and returned to work with a real doozy of a hangover. Later I was told I had been loud and obnoxious, guzzled all the booze in the hootch, and refused to roll over and pass out like a good drunk. A few of my fellow Marines wanted to shoot me to shut me up.
Through the grace of God I got over this emotional letdown. My new goal in life was to be the best gunner and the most squared-away, shit-together Marine on base. My new motto: “Kill zips and earn honor, glory and medals.”
It always seemed funny to me to watch old World War II movies where every guy’s girl waited for him to return. In the Vietnam era it was out of sight, out of mind. It was party time in the USA with coward dogs and long-haired hippies—flea-infested, draft dodging scumbags. When I returned from ’Nam, I couldn’t believe the skinny, wasted druggies I encountered. They spent all their time getting high on drugs, buying drugs, and ripping one another off for drugs. They had no honor. They were wasted, war-protesting vermin, and I helped myself to any of their women I wanted. If a piece of shit war protester said anything about it, I would give him my 1,000-yard Vietnam stare and tell him he could reclaim her under Viking law—battle by combat! Worthless Schweinhunds! Whenever I went to an outside rock festival I carried my trusty K-bar Marine Corps knife. More than once I told some low-life how I would gut him and eat his liver raw. No one gave any lip to a Marine vet. Period!
MAJOR MISERY
I was ordered to take a jeep down to the landing strip at Chu Lai and pick up a new Major for our outfit. I arrived about five minutes after Major Misery arrived in a C-130 transport from Da Nang. I went into the arrival building to get him and he was pissed I was five minutes late. Great start! He told me to get his luggage and bags. I dumped them into the jeep and off we traveled up the road to Ky Ha, our end of the Chu Lai Air Base.
Major Misery was a southern aristocrat and gentleman who hated enlisted people and believed he was superior to just about everyone but God. He asked me how many snuffies had been KIA in our outfit. I asked him what a snuffie was, for I had never heard the term before. The Major’s answer was, “You are a snufffie, Corporal Gebhart. Enlisted people in general are snuffies.” I told him we had only lost a couple dozen men and that we had a lot of WIA, or wounded in action, but that most of them were very lucky and returned to duty. I didn’t like the term snuffie and asked him if an enlisted man’s life wasn’t worth as much as an officer’s life. This pissed him off and I had to hear all about his famous Confederate relatives, all of them officers, and how they almost won the Civil War.
I then asked, “Aren’t we all equal?” He said one officer’s life was worth a hundred enlisted men’s lives. This theory, believe it or not, was enacted in practice. When we flew Med-Evac escorts, the Army Hospital always took the wounded officers first, even when there were more seriously wounded enlisted men who needed immediate attention. The officers got better stitches also, and more care was used in sewing them up. The death nurse would never leave an officer to die outside the operating room without shooting him up with more morphine. While people were dying, the Army ghouls from Graves Registration were wheeling the dead bodies into cold storage containers. The last ride to hell. No one would ever talk, drink or associate with a ghoul from Graves Registration.
To make a long story short, Major Misery was to be our new Executive Officer, and he had no regard for enlisted men. He didn’t like me for being a Yankee, either. In fact, I don’t think he liked anyone but himself. I believe he was a jet jockey who had been retrained as a helicopter pilot, and he seemed to think he was stuck with a bad career move in a boring helicopter outfit. He was in for the shock of his life. Maybe a UH-IE didn’t go as fast as an F-4 Phantom, but you certainly got up close and personal with the enemy instead of blasting by at supersonic speed.
We slowly grew to hate each other a little more as the days went on. I don’t believe he ever made one friend in his whole 12 months with the unit. The other officers stayed out of his way and the enlisted people avoided him like the plague. He was Caesar in his own mind. Hail Caesar! We who are about to die salute you!
GOING HOME
VMO-6 Klondike had come to ’Nam from California almost as a full squadron. The officers and enlisted men all knew each other. Captain Adventure belonged to the original group, as did Colonel Monte and about 75 percent of the squadron, but Major Moose came later. I found out he had just graduated from flight school and this was his first tour as a helicopter pilot.
Since it usually took at least six months in ’Nam to get to know the strengths and weaknesses of Victor Charlie, by the time you had spent a year there, if you were still alive you knew your shit. Thus the Marine Corps came out with a great offer in order to retain experienced gunners, crew chiefs and pilots. If you extended your tour of duty for another year in ’Nam, you could pick anywhere in the world to take a 30-day paid vacation with five to 15 days of extra travel time, depending on your destination.
About 25 percent of the enlisted men went for the deal. I was the second guy to extend for another year. The way I figured, why go back to the States as an E-4 Corporal? I would have to deal with all the Mickey Mouse rules for two more years anyway until my enlistment was up. I had already lost my girlfriend. I was doing an outstanding job both as a door gunner and a night shift supervisor in S-3 Operations. I was getting flight pay, combat pay and regular pay, and was saving most of it since I usually drew only $25.00 a week for beer and PX money.
I remember the day I volunteered for another year. I walked into the S-1 Office and told them I wanted to extend my tour, and that I had picked Australia as my vacation spot. No sooner did I pronounce the word “Australia” than Major Misery said, “You can’t go there. Pick the USA like everyone else.” I said, “Major, Sir, I believe Australia isn’t a Communist country and, in fact, has combat troops fighting with our Army units near Saigon.” He then told me I wouldn’t like Australia. I asked him, “Major, Sir, how do you know what I will like or dislike?”
Major Misery was pissed that I came up with an original place to go that wasn’t an approved R&R country. Colonel Monte interviewed me and said, “Corporal Gebhart can go wherever he sees fit. It is his choice, Major, not yours.” Now Major Miser
y hated me even more. He had 12 months to go and I had 30 days to screw off with the Marine Corps’ approval. Colonel Monte signed my request and shook my hand. As soon as everyone heard I had signed for another year, they started getting four to ten guys a day coming in and extending.
Vietnam wouldn’t have been bad at all if it hadn’t been for the sloop heads trying to kill you. It was a wonderful place to vacation in, with beautiful beaches, tropical forests, clean blue water and a nice climate except for the monsoon season. There was all the free ammo, excitement and adventure you ever wanted. Good food, good buddies and plenty of cold beer. There was also an endless supply of bum-bum girls in the local village. It was paradise with only a few problems. As we say in the Marine Corps, “Every day is a holiday, and every meal is a feast!”
Once again my mother got out her rosary beads and started praying for me. My father was overjoyed at his son’s devotion to duty. My staying in ’Nam meant some married Marine could stay in the States with his family. So I also was saving a new guy’s life by re-upping my tour. “Semper Fi, Do or Die!”
THE NEW PEOPLE
Each day, a few original members of VMO-6 Klondike rotated back to the land of the big PX. Gradually, the original group disappeared, except for 35 guys who decided to extend their tour of duty. The new people were a mixed blessing. They came from the USA directly to Da Nang. Just like in the movie “Platoon,” they saw Graves Registration loading the caskets of dead Marines into cargo planes to return to the USA via Dover Air Force Base. When the FNGs passed by, the Marines who were leaving loudly yelled out, “You’ll be sorry!”
It was a wake-up call for all of them. Some were counting the days ’till they would go home. Some were scared shitless of being killed. Most of them caught the shits like we had done. Only a few new guys were happy with their new exotic home at Chu Lai. I don’t know what the bitch was about. The base at Chu Lai was built; all the backbreaking sandbag bunkers were constructed. The barracks were clean and well constructed. It was a Club Med by the time the complainers arrived.
Captain Adventure, too, finally had to leave this paradise and go home. He had an endless amount of air medals, and his going-away present was a DFC, a Distinguished Flying Cross. He was sad to leave us, and Major Moose had to find another crazy to complete our crew.
Our first choice was Captain Buzz. He was a short, skinny, fun-loving and good-looking guy who could fly a UH-IE like a Leer jet. We went out one day and Major Moose let him drive to see what he could do. He took Lucky # 7 up to 6,000 feet, where it was cold as a witch’s tit, and then did an autorotation. We came down, headed for the South China Sea like an elevator in the Empire State Building falling from the eightieth floor to the first. The Major was impressed, but Corporal Cross and I had our hearts up in our throats. Autorotation was necessary if you got shot down, but it usually scared the shit out of you to drop so fast.
Next we flew low over the Song Tra Bong and immediately came under fire from zips in a tree line. Captain Buzz hit the tree line with rockets and machine gun fire, then directed the second gunbird in and coordinated the attack. Two VCs broke from the tree line and ran for their wasted lives. Captain Buzz chased them at about 50 feet off the ground, going about 80 miles per hour. Both Corporal Cross and I looked up and saw two huge palm trees, looking like goal posts on a football field and coming up fast. We calculated in our minds that the helicopter blades would hit the palm trees and kill us all.
Captain Buzz never let up on the outboard machine guns, and drove between the two tall palm trees. We were so close I could have picked a coconut off the trees. The branches rubbed against the helicopter skids, and it was a miracle we got through. Captain Buzz killed the two zips, and Major Moose was so impressed that he recommended he get his own UH-IE and become a flight leader. We were happy we were still alive and very impressed with his flying skills. But he was too good for us—we needed another guy.
The Major was willing to try any new pilot, and we went through six different candidates until we found the right one. One of the five we did not like was Lieutenant Crash, who could not drive the UH-IE straight. When he landed, it was like crashing—he took forever to land and taxi and park. Next was Captain Coward, who was afraid of ground fire and flew at 1,500 feet—too high to even see the zips with field glasses. When he attacked, he shot his rockets from four or five miles out and usually missed his targets. He would have made a good U-2 pilot taking secret pictures over Russia from 40,000 feet up. Our third tryout, Lieutenant Sorry, was an okay pilot but always felt sorry about wasting zipper heads. The way we looked at it, if the good, innocent people of a village knew the VC were there, and they fed them, hid them and lied about harboring them, then they were guilty by association. They could have reported the VC presence to the local ARVN or killed them with the M-1 rifles we supplied to the local village CIDF, or Civilian Irregular Defense Force. Instead, they sat on their hands and did nothing.
Our fourth tryout, Captain Tower, was a big, tall, John Wayne type who was so aggressive a warrior even Major Moose had a worried look on his face. We crossed the free kill area at the Song Tra Bong River and, without hesitation he opened up with both machine guns and rockets before the local VCs even got a shot off. He stirred up a hornets’ nest and loved all the noise, shooting, and the tracers coming up at us. He was hell-bent for glory and knew his shit. He also was too good to be a copilot. He was a leader, not a follower.
Our fifth candidate, Lieutenant Order, was very well organized and by the book. He actually did a pre-flight check of Corporal Cross’s baby, Lucky #7, and even climbed up to check the main bearing and double-check all the hydraulic lines. He flew by the rules and questioned some of Major Moose’s crazy maneuvers and attack tactics. He belonged in the War College, teaching about tactics, not in our gunbird in a real war. No one dared to question the antics of Major Moose. He knew the VCs in and out and had thrown the rulebook out months ago. His only rule was, “Kill zips, relax, and enjoy the war.” Major Moose was looking out for Major Moose, but Lieutenant Order was a company man who might run his mouth off to Colonel Monte.
Our sixth and final choice, Lieutenant Chase, was about 25 years old, tall and skinny with a big smile. He appreciated the crew chief’s fine mechanical abilities and trusted me to shoot without asking permission whenever I saw a bad guy. The Major took him out on a Recon insertion that quickly escalated into an emergency Recon extraction. He was cool under fire and took the controls when the Major needed a break. He had to be shown only one time how the Major liked to make rocket and machine gun runs. He was great at turning very quickly, getting ready for the next gun run. We had a shoot-out on top of a large hill and gave the local VCs a good pounding. The Recon team got out without any causalities. We did our final fly-over past the top of the hill to see if we could get a body count, and we must have done a good job, because at 50 feet over, no enemy VCs dared shoot at our bird. Either we had killed them all or they had gone underground like the rats that they were.
In any case, we came back to base happy with our early morning handiwork and marked 12 KIA zips. That sounded pretty good. Major Moose said, “We could have lied a little better and upped it to 20.” We really didn’t know if we killed any or not because of the six-foot elephant grass. Even at 50 feet from the ground with field glasses, it was extremely hard to see dead bodies in the tall grass.
FIRST SERGEANT ROCKY
First Sergeant Doright finally got his orders to return to the land of the big PX. He turned out to be an okay guy despite the incident where he caught us getting ready to kill the Phantom Faggot. His private war with First Sergeant Prick made him a living legend. We were used to his shit and we actually missed him. He didn’t sneak around, trying to catch you sleeping on guard duty. He was a stand-up guy with a sense of humor. He even apologized to me once about the body bag incident when I first arrived. He blamed it on First Sergeant Prick, who’d told him I was worse than Billy the Kid. We had actually got to tolerate and like h
im. He was a Lifer, but always fair with everyone.
It took us a while to get used to his replacement, First Sergeant Rocky. He was straight from Cherry Point, North Carolina Marine AirBase. He believed in polished boots, haircuts, shined brass, clean utilities, the whole nine yards. He started 7:00 AM formations, which every Marine had to attend, to listen to the plan of the day. Reveille was at 6:00 AM, when he came into our hootches, turned on the lights, shook our beds and yelled reveille. During the monsoon season it was cold and very damp, and we didn’t want to get out of our warm sleeping bags and get dressed just to get all wet standing out on the flight deck listening to a lot of garbage at morning formation.
First Sergeant Rocky read Marine Corps orders about MPC money, VD and buying savings bonds, and then he read who got court-martialed. What terrible crimes they had committed—shooting Second Lieutenants, fragging First Sergeants they didn’t like, smoking dope, and raping local zips. It was boring bullshit, but we were forced to listen to it. First Sergeant Rocky did this for about two months, until everyone complained so much that he had his famous formation only on Fridays. Thank you, God! He also knocked off the 6:00 AM reveille routine so we could sleep in until 7:30 or 7:45 AM, get dressed and report to work at 8:00 AM.
Gunners didn’t have to put up with this nonsense because we had our own schedules. Usually, we got up at 6:00 AM, went to chow, and reported at the flight line at 7:00 AM, ready to do combat with the local VCs. We stayed there until our gunbird was given a mission. It took time to get our M-60 out of the ordnance shed and loaded on its mount, and then to check the ammo belts for short rounds. These bullets weren’t even with the rest, which were in 100-round belts. A short round will jam a machine gun. We also had to check the outside fixed-barrel machine gun feed belts for the same problem.
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