We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam
Page 9
Bill Beck, a gifted artist who had sketched from memory the places where he had fought not long after the battle, spun around a time or two getting his bearings and then walked straight to his old position, where, on his machine gun, he had wiped out an entire battalion of North Vietnamese. Beck had inherited the machine gun that first day of battle when his gunner and best friend from back home in Pennsylvania, Russell Adams, was shot in the head. Beck had vivid and disturbing memories of running to Adams after he was hit, turning over his helmet and finding part of his friend’s brain still in it.
Standing there alone, Beck looked down and saw something unusual barely poking through the red dirt at his feet. He scuffed at it with the toe of his boot and unearthed the rusted remains of an American steel helmet. Just the top two or three inches were intact. It was, Beck was certain, Russell Adams’s helmet. Beck scraped it out of the red earth with the toe of his boot, scooped it up, and slipped it into his pack. All this was done furtively and in a matter of seconds. Beck wanted no argument from the Vietnamese about him taking this relic that meant so much to him home.
Beck thought back to those days when he was Russell’s assistant gunner. The two of them were from eastern Pennsylvania—Russell a small intense man of few words who came off his father’s dairy farm outside Shoemakersville, and Bill a big, strong, six-foot-tall athlete who hailed from the gritty mill town of Steelton, just upriver from Harrisburg. They were so unlikely a pair that the guys called them Mutt and Jeff. When Russell took that enemy round in the head Bill was horrified. He ran over and scooped Russell into his arms, like a baby, and trotted across the dangerous open ground through a hailstorm of bullets to deliver his buddy to the medics, praying as he went—for Russell, for himself, for all of us.
It was nothing short of a miracle that he made it to the aid station and back, taking over the abandoned M60 machine gun just in time to halt an attacking enemy battalion in its tracks and hold them off for hours, out there alone on that crucial piece of ground. Bill and his machine gun saved my battalion from being overrun that day. In another, greater miracle Russell Adams survived his terrible head wound, emerging from an Army hospital many months later, disabled both mentally and physically—the wound left him partially paralyzed on his left side—and went home to the family dairy farm and back to the familiar hard work he had known all his life. Long after the war was over Joe and I went to the Army War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and presided over an awards ceremony where Beck and Adams were each presented the Bronze Star with V for their heroism and sacrifice on this battleground. When Russell limped onto the stage—watched proudly by his wife and young daughter—he received a standing ovation and a hero’s welcome from a military audience that wept openly. Our own tears were of joy at seeing our brothers honored by those who command a new and different U.S. Army and see men like Beck and Adams as an important part of their heritage and history.
Beck finding Adams’s helmet was just the first of a series of magical moments that would transpire as we walked this ground.
Beck carefully snapped photos of the landmarks he had sketched a quarter century before—a termite hill where he saw an American GI on one side and a North Vietnamese soldier on the other, each hiding from the other. There was the gnarled tree where he had jumped to seek cover beside a sergeant during a burst of enemy fire and looked over to discover that the sergeant had a bullet hole in his forehead and was dead. All these landmarks where old, horrifying memories were lodged were still there. There was the creek bed where he saw a young lieutenant shot and killed while his radio operator, tethered to him by the long black cord of the radio handset, struggled to free himself but was shot in the back, his radio absorbing most of the damage. When he got home to Pennsylvania from this trip he cut the photos in half diagonally and did the same with copies of his old sketches, then married them up. They matched perfectly. Bill Beck had no false memories. The real ones, the totally scary ones, were engraved on his heart and lived in his nightmares and time had neither dimmed nor blurred them. They were razor sharp and still cut deep.
The only signs we saw of any human activity in this remote and wild area near the Cambodian border was a rough dirt logging road running east-west along the northern base of the Chu Pong Mountain with a rock-paved ford that took it across the creek bed. Two or three huge teak logs lay in the tall grass at one end of the X-Ray clearing. They looked like they had been there since the last dry season, waiting for the loggers to return and truck them out to the coast, where they would be shipped to Japan.
Fifteen minutes after we landed Plumley walked over to a large termite hill on the southeastern edge of the clearing. He had found our old command post, or so he thought. I walked over and immediately knew this was not where my command post had been located during the battle. For one thing, my CP was not on the southern side of the clearing near the mountain. It was actually on the northern side about 100 yards northwest of the sergeant major’s termite hill. But by that time the false CP had become headquarters for this visit, a place of activity: people dropped their packs there, the TV crew was filming interviews there, and everyone scattered. So I said nothing and decided that I would walk over to the real location later when I could break away.
I was greatly moved to be standing once again on this ground where so much had happened that would shape and change the rest of my life and the lives of every man who fought here and survived against the odds. But all around me there was movement and shouts of discovery and the bustle and interruption of the ABC film crews, who were hustling to get their interviews with both the Americans and the Vietnamese. There was, at this moment, no time to linger over my own thoughts. Close by, General An—who was not a well man but had wanted to make this trip as much as I did—was standing through a long filmed interview by Sawyer and his crew. The burning sun was hard on him, hard on all of us, but Colonel Hao held an umbrella, lovingly shading his old boss.
As the day wore on I walked with Beck into the heavy growth where A and B companies had fought, where Beck had held the line alone with his machine gun, and down into the creek bed that before had been dry and sandy and where water now ran. I spotted a place where the grass was beaten down, marking where a large animal, likely one of the tigers who roamed this wild land, had bedded down. I also walked with Sergeant Savage and the film crew to the spot where his isolated platoon had held off dozens of enemy attacks in an epic struggle. Joe, Larry Gwin, and I walked the eastern side of the clearing hunting for traces of the line where C Company had held against a battalion of the enemy the second morning of battle, losing every officer and more than half the men killed or wounded. We found old eroded shell and bomb craters filled with water, and foxholes nearly erased by the passage of time. The foxholes were now no more than dimples in the earth, often with clumps of wildflowers blooming in them. I paused and thought how appropriate and peaceful a use nature had made of these violent intrusions of man and war. Twice we were forced to halt in the shade and rest to avoid heatstroke.
Then alone I walked down to the creek bed area along the old B Company position. There I came to a heavy stand of bamboo and nearby, stuck in the ground, was a five-foot-long, one-inch-thick bamboo stick sharpened on one end—just like it was waiting for me. I pulled it out of the ground and used it as a walking stick for the rest of the trip and brought it home with me.
The Vietnamese were taking no chances with our safety in this wild border area. A platoon of uniformed soldiers, complete with pith helmets and AK-47 rifles, came into X-Ray from their border post eight miles away and kept watch over our expedition throughout the day. Major Hao told us the Khmer Rouge guerrillas in Cambodia had raided as deep inside Vietnam as the town of Plei Me in recent years and were believed to shelter in the Chu Pong Massif that loomed over us at X-Ray, a craggy 2,000-feet-high mountain finger that ran the five miles west into Cambodia. The last large force of Khmer Rouge guerrillas still in the jungles did not surrender to the government of Cambodia until De
cember 1998. Their cross-border raids into Vietnam clearly had our hosts quite worried about our journey into that region and our safety while there.
When Herren and Savage walked west out that logging road searching for the Lost Platoon position, the minders diverted them after a short distance. None of us was allowed to go more than a hundred yards or so in that direction. I was puzzled but believe I discovered why two years after our visit. An American veteran with business interests in Vietnam told me he had asked to visit X-Ray in 1995 and was driven there in a truck with an escort of two Vietnamese officers, one of them a brigadier general. He told me that, after visiting X-Ray, they drove a half mile or so to the northwest on that logging road and stopped near a crude timber archway. The two Vietnamese officers ordered him to remain in the truck and walked off down a path under the arch and were gone about twenty minutes. It was his theory, and one I accept, that the path led to perhaps the most remote, least-visited Vietnam Military Cemetery in the country and there rest the remains of thousands of Vietnamese soldiers who died in 1965 in the Ia Drang Valley battles.
Late in the day, as our time in this place was nearing an end, I called everyone together, Americans and Vietnamese, and we stood in a circle, arms around each other’s shoulders, heads bowed. With one of the interpreters translating my remarks into Vietnamese, I said:
“Let us stand in silence, in prayer, in memory of the men on both sides, Vietnamese and American, who died on this ground, in this place, in November of 1965. May they rest in peace.”
General An stood directly across from me in the circle, and when we broke he walked straight to me, his right hand extended. As we shook hands my old enemy pulled me to him and kissed me on both cheeks. Old enemies can become friends. I can’t begin to explain the complexities of first impressions, but from our first handshake An and I hit it off. We had much in common as military men who had fought our country’s wars, even though duty and orders pitted us against each other during one of those wars. We explored our common experiences as combat soldiers and commanders during the long hours on the van. Each of us had a reservoir of respect for the man who commanded on the other side in the X-Ray battle, long before we had a name and face for that unseen opponent. Although each of us had an inkling that he had outfoxed the other, outmaneuvered the other, we had come to understand with the passing of years that there were no victors in the battle—only the fortunate who had somehow survived so monumental a clash between two of the finest light infantry forces in the world.
Now it was time to leave. Our security troops had already marched off into the jungle, hoping to make it back to their post before nightfall. General An and his officers and our minder, Major Hao, and most of the American veterans got aboard the helicopter that would take them to Pleiku and then return to pick up the few of us who remained behind: myself, Joe, Larry Gwin, George Forrest, Forrest Sawyer, Terry Wrong, interpreter Vu Binh, and the two ABC film crews: Tom Levy and Bill MacMillan, and Minh Van Dang and Bruce Renwick.
As that Hind helicopter lifted off into a clear sky I turned to Joe and told him: “Tell the boys to go down to the creek and fill up our water bottles; then I want them to drag up a big pile of firewood.” Joe looked at me like I was crazy, and asked, “Sir?” I responded: “Don’t ask. Just tell them.” He walked off toward the others, shaking his head.
SEVEN
A Night Alone on the Battlefield
As that Russian helicopter lifted off with seventeen Vietnamese and American members of our party, leaving only eleven of us behind, I thought back to a day in 1982 when Joe Galloway and I sat down at my house in the Colorado mountains and began planning the research for a book on the Ia Drang battles.
We talked over our battle plan and, near the end, we talked of what we wanted in this book that would be different. Joe said he wanted a chapter that would focus on the unseen and unheard victims of all wars—the families of soldiers who had died in battle who were the recipients of those terrible telegrams that begin: “The Secretary of the Army regrets…” I told him my dream was to return to Vietnam and to our old battleground; that I had to spend a night there and commune with the souls of my beloved men who had died there. Joe said it would be difficult for us to get back to Vietnam; unthinkable that the Vietnamese authorities would allow us into so sensitive a border area, and they would “never” let us spend the night there. I’ve seldom taken “no” or “never” for an answer.
That helicopter was coming back for us in forty-five minutes…or maybe not. My heart and my gut told me we wouldn’t see it again till the next day. So I gave Joe my orders to relay to the stay-behind party. He gave me an astonished look, started to say something but thought better of it, and just nodded.
He walked over to the other nine, who were relaxing, enjoying a breather after a long, hard, hot day exploring the battlefield. “The old man says for you all to go down to the creek and fill our water bottles and canteens, and then drag up a big pile of firewood,” Joe told them. They looked at him in amazement, and Gwin asked: “Joe, has the heat got to the Old Man?” Joe looked at him and responded precisely as he believed Plumley would: “Don’t ask. Just do it.”
Meanwhile, I concentrated on that helicopter not coming back. The sun was swiftly heading for the horizon. Darkness comes fast and early, around six p.m., this close to the equator. A few clouds were gathering out on that horizon as well, and I saw that as the harbinger, a message from God, if you will. There were many times when in my prayers I had asked the Almighty for just one night on my battlefield to commune with fallen comrades so that they and I could finally be at peace. Just one night, and now I was certain I was being granted that wish, that prayer.
As our party came back with the water bottles filled with creek water and popped in the iodine pills to make it safe to drink, and our woodpile grew to a respectable heap, I suggested that we pool what food we had, and that was collected in an empty cardboard box. I asked if anyone had a poncho to cover our woodpile. Joe grinned and slowly pulled out the only raingear anyone had thought to bring. Funny that it was the lifelong civilian among us who came equipped with the compass that guided our pilots here and now had the only poncho to keep our firewood dry, but Joe had done four tours in Vietnam and was a witness to half a dozen other wars and had learned his field skills the hard way.
The clouds were gathering into an ominous thunderhead now as we covered the woodpile and tucked our wallets and cameras and tape recorders into plastic bags. George Forrest sat down and, with Joe’s Swiss Army knife, began shaving small slivers of wood into a pile of kindling that would also go under the poncho. All that could be done had been done and we sat back against the tree trunks and watched that lovely monsoon rain roar across the jungle and envelop us. There would be no helicopter flying back to get us tonight, I was certain. I would get my night alone on this sacred ground.
For an hour or so the torrential rains pounded us like so many jackasses caught in a hailstorm. Then the rain ended as quickly as it had begun. The sun was now gone and the darkness total. We were soaked and dripping but it was a good feeling, blessed relief from the broiling heat of the day. Before we could light our fire the sky above us cleared from horizon to horizon. We stood in silent awe as a brilliant panorama of blazing stars opened above us. There was no ambient light for miles in any direction; no streetlights; no well-lit homes; no distant glow of a big city; nothing to obscure the lights of heaven. Few of us in this modern time are ever blessed with such a sight.
Then an even more spectacular event began, as if on cue: a meteor shower. The bright blazing trails crossed the sky with a frequency and intensity that none of us had ever seen before. Hundreds and thousands of these shooting stars rained down on us here, where twenty-eight years before that same sky was lighted by tracer bullets, parachute flares, the bright white streaks of white phosphorus artillery rounds and the hot streaks of rocket-propelled grenades.
When this heavenly fireworks show finally slowed we lit our fire and
gathered round it to dry our clothes. There was not only beauty in this place, on this night, but danger as well, and we talked of that. We had been warned there might be Khmer Rouge guerrillas sheltering in caves on the mountain looming over us, and during the day’s explorations we had discovered in the ravine where the creek ran a place in the beaten-down grass where a large animal, likely an Asian tiger, had rested. I had also seen a colorful “two-step” viper moving through the brush—a snake so deadly it was said if one struck you it was maybe two more steps before you died.
Again we took an inventory. Our only weapon was Joe’s pocketknife and our fire, which was both blessing and curse: its light might repel wild animals and snakes but it would also mark our position for anyone watching from the slopes above us. Beck sat down and began sharpening a point on a six-foot-long tree branch and then hardened it in the fire. With a good bit of laughter, we christened the crude weapon Beck’s woolly mammoth spear. We had no radio communications link to Pleiku and no one suggested or even considered the possibility of a night march overland to what passed for civilization in this rugged, sparsely populated frontier. Here we were and here we would remain.