Last Man Out

by James E. Parker, Jr.

  It was so hot my eyes watered, but it was, all in all, the best meal I had had in Vietnam.

  I had a cigarette and beer later when Bratcher and Castro had gone to their bunkers, unlaced my boots, and leaned back against a tree. Night was falling, the moon was out. With the bunkers built, the land cleared, and the barbed wire and mines laid, I felt safe. Everyone in the platoon was becoming more acclimated to the heat and more accustomed to living in the jungle. It’s not such a bad place, I thought as I put out my cigarette, crushed my beer can, and threw it toward the trash hole. I stood up, stretched, and walked over to my jungle hammock. After unzipping the side, I bent down and inward, turning so as to sit on the hammock inside. I took off my boots and put them on the ground, put my belt inside one boot and reached out for my pistol inside the holster of my web gear. My shotgun was on a peg nearby under my poncho. I zipped shut the mosquito netting, put my pistol under the clean set of fatigues I used as a pillow, took a deep breath, and fell asleep.

  A couple of hours later, a Viet Cong sniper crawled up behind an anthill on the edge of the wood line beyond our last strand of barbed wire. Kneeling, he rested his rifle on the top of the anthill and scanned the bunkers along the perimeter. Other Viet Cong were taking positions around him. They intended to wait until their companion in the middle drew fire from our different positions so they could pick out individual targets from our muzzle flashes. The Viet Cong gunman in the center continued to scan the line. He finally focused on the command bunker and then at the irresistible hammock to the rear. The moon glistened off the rain roof.

  He aimed for the center of the hammock and fired. The first bullet went through the rain roof over my head and the second through the mosquito netting beneath me.

  I woke from a dead sleep when the first bullet whistled by and was desperately trying to get out when the second round passed under me. Frantically, I clawed at the zipper, and the hammock rotated 180 degrees as another round zipped by. The Viet Cong in the middle ducked behind the anthill after firing his three shots, seconds before men in the bunkers opened up on the anthill. I heard automatic fire from a dozen M-14s and a long burst from the M-60 machine gun, punctured by explosions of M-79 grenade rounds.

  In a frenzy, I couldn’t find the zipper to get out of the hammock. Upside down, I literally didn’t know which way was up. Outside, it sounded like a full-scale attack by hundreds of Viet Cong, and here I was suspended in the air, captured in a hammock death trap. Where was the frigging zipper? Which side was up?

  “Aaaugggggg!” My yell was not heard over the din of battle.

  I’m sure one of the other Viet Cong, watching the reaction along the perimeter to his companion’s three shots, debated between firing at the machine gun bunker or at the strange bag jiggling wildly in the middle. He would have time for one shot, or at most two, before having to duck. The machine gun or the hammock? The hammock, he decided, since it was like a sitting duck.

  Captain Woolley was calling on the radio to find out what was happening. Newsome, my radio operator, crawled over to my hammock and yelled out that Woolley wanted to talk with me.

  I was still thrashing around inside, my hands wildly searching, legs pumping. The hammock flipped on one side, then the other. My pistol hit me in the head. Mother of Jesus! Where is the zipper?

  Then, incredibly, one end of the hammock dropped to the ground and I tumbled down to the bottom.

  Another round zipped overhead.

  Newsome reached over from the base of a tree, unzipped the hammock, and pushed the handset toward me as I squirmed out. Rather than chance standing up, he had cut one end of the hammock down.

  “Hate to wake you up like that, sir, but we got a shoot-out going here and the captain wants to know what’s going on,” he yelled.

  I told Woolley that we were under attack, did not know about casualties, and I’d get back.

  Bratcher yelled out, “No attack, just probing. We’re okay.”

  “Hold your fire, goddammit, hold your fire!” I yelled.

  Gradually the firing stopped. No more rounds came in. It was absolutely quiet, although my ears continued to ring. My heart seemed to be beating in my ears.

  I radioed Woolley that we had been probed, but the enemy had pulled back. I didn’t think we had any casualties (hoping this was true) and promised to report if we discovered any wounded.

  As I finished my radio transmission, Peterson’s platoon fired mortar flares and the whole area was illuminated. The wood line beyond the concertina looked eerie but unoccupied.

  Everyone had been looking toward the front when the firing started, and no one in the platoon saw me wrestling to get out of the hammock. I had no comments the next morning when the radio operator put his fingers through the bullet holes in the rain roof.

  “Close, man,” he said.

  Peterson, Dunn, and McCoy dropped by the next morning.

  “You know, Parker, it’s people like you who keep the average high on second-lieutenant casualties in combat,” Dunn said.

  McCoy looked at me a long moment and just shook his head. “Correct me if I’m wrong here, but weren’t you the one saying you were going to be the meanest bastard in the valley of death?”

  “All right, all right. Anyone want to buy a hammock?” I asked.

  Colonel Haldane found no humor in the incident and chastised us for opening up with all our weapons against an unseen enemy. Because he felt we had given away our positions, he had us relocate every foxhole and bunker. He issued an order that we could not initiate counterfire at the perimeter unless we clearly saw a target.

  The order specifically talked about rifles. It did not mention the large 106mm antitank weapons.

  A few nights later, Duckett’s men thought they saw Viet Cong out on the edge of the woods, and Duckett conferred with his platoon sergeant. Soon there was a “kaboooooom!” as the 106mm fired, then “whaaaammmmmm” as a large tree fell over.

  The next morning Haldane came to the perimeter. “Duckett, look at me,” he said. “When I say you don’t fire your individual weapons, I’m also talking about that 106 millimeter. You hear?”

  Pete came out later, fuming. He said, “Duckett, we used that tree to register and adjust our mortars. What we going to do, now you’ve blown it away?”

  At lunch Duckett told me, “You know, you can sure get in trouble shooting your gun in this war.”

  SIX

  Shadow War

  Two nights later, the group of Viet Cong returned and sniped at our position. Some of the men saw them clearly, and we returned a tremendous amount of fire. Peterson’s platoon fired flares more quickly this time. Interdiction rounds from our mortars flew over us and landed in the jungle well beyond the perimeter. The noise, the tracers, the fluorescent half-light from the flares were surreal, like Halloween.

  Woolley was yelling on the radio, “What’s going on? What’s going on? Red Cap Twigs Alpha November Six?”

  I hollered to the men to stop firing. In the rear we could hear fresh mortar rounds “whoof” as they left their tubes, whistled overhead, and exploded in the jungle in front of us. There was no other sound except low half-whispers from our men discussing the attack.

  “We were probed again. It’s quiet. Nothing more. No casualties,” I reported to Woolley.

  The next day we went out to the anthill on the other side of the concertina wire. There was no evidence that anyone had been there the night before. We could find no expended cartridges; the grass was not matted down. When I talked to Woolley later, I found myself defending my platoon’s actions. Why were we the only ones probed? Woolley asked. “Well, maybe,” I suggested, “because there’s that trail that comes near my part of the perimeter from the village. Maybe that’s it.”

  Bratcher and I later decided to put some men in the jungle in front of the perimeter for a few nights in hopes of catching the probers. There was a point of honor here. Had we been firing at ghosts? Spencer and Beck were drafted to man the listening post.
At mid-afternoon I took two squads for a small patrol out to the trail leading from the village. I carried my shotgun with the sawed-off barrel. Woolley knew about the gun. In fact, he had smuggled a shotgun himself to Vietnam—a Browning 12-gauge automatic.

  On the way back to the perimeter, near the anthill, Spencer and Beck dropped into a thicket where they would spend the night in hopes of catching our visitors if they came calling. Spencer gave me a resigned look as he disappeared into the bamboo.

  That night, I sat on top of my bunker and suddenly felt a breeze. I remembered Cottonpicker talking about spooking game when the wind was in his back. Creatures living in the woods can smell creatures that don’t. The wind was blowing away from the perimeter, taking Spencer and Beck’s scent into the jungle. How good are the Viet Cong? I wondered. Then it started to rain. Beck cursed the next time he called in. He was cold, wet, and sleepy. I told him to shut up and do his duty.

  When the rain stopped, I went back out on the bunker. Clouds covered the moon. I squinted to make out images in front and listened closely. Focusing on the jungle, I strained to hear any footfalls of Viet Cong moving behind Beck and Spencer. Rain dripped off leaves and branches, and a slight breeze caused some of the foliage to sway. I could almost make out images of people along the wood line and hear footsteps. Once, I was sure I saw a man holding a gun across his body as he stood by a tree between us and my two soldiers. I asked the RTO if he saw anything. He looked for a long time but could not see anyone. When I looked again the image had changed into a tall bush.

  Beck and Spencer were at the wire at first light. Patrick went out through the safe lane to escort them in.

  Later that day we went out by the anthill and cleared away some bushes that I had imagined to be Viet Cong the night before. Bratcher hid two directional claymore mines behind the anthill and ran wires along the safe lane to the machine gun bunker. If someone climbed up behind that anthill and fired, we could just mash a button to detonate the claymores and the entire area behind the anthill would be a killing zone.

  Bratcher was in the machine gun bunker that night. I instructed the men not to fire for any reason until the claymores went off. If the sniper came back and fired, Bratcher would take him out.

  Showers continued on and off all night with the moon breaking out of the clouds periodically. Several times I thought I saw movement by the anthill. The more I watched, however, the clearer it was to me how the eye can be fooled.

  There were no sniper attacks that night. The next day most of the men in the platoon worked to clear an area where we were going to build a tent city for the battalion. It would include an aid station, ammo dump, supply area, latrines, showers, and mess halls. After we staked out the streets the area began to resemble a Wild West frontier town.

  Bratcher manned the detonators for the claymores that night and the men had instructions again not to fire until the mines went off. Near midnight a single round zipped over the perimeter. I was instantly wide awake and expected to hear the mines. After a few minutes I called out to Bratcher. He said he was waiting. He hadn’t seen where the shot had come from, and wasn’t sure it was from the anthill. Somebody down the line thought he saw a muzzle blast off to the right. The moon was out, and the anthill was clearly visible on the edge of the jungle.

  Fire again, you son of a bitch, I thought. Fire.

  There were no more rounds during the night. Ayers, Castro, Bratcher, and I went out to the anthill the next morning. Ayers stood guard near the jungle as Castro, Bratcher, and I looked around. At first we saw no signs of anyone having been there the night before.

  “Lieutenant,” Castro suddenly said, “look at this.” He was standing by the area where we had hidden one of the claymores two days before. It had been moved, turned, and aimed back at our machine gun position at the end of the safe lane.

  The other claymore was missing. The wire had been cut.

  “Very cute,” Bratcher said, his neck tightening. “If I had detonated the mine we would have gotten splattered. As it is, the guy still got one of our mines.”

  “Clever little bugger,” I said, although there was some gratification in knowing that there were VC operating outside our lines and we weren’t shooting at shadows.

  That same day we received orders for a battalion-size patrol operation twenty kilometers to our north. My platoon led the battalion north, and at dusk four hundred infantrymen of the 1st of the 28th Infantry were in position along a VC supply trail.

  Around three o’clock in the morning Lyons crawled over to the tree where I was sleeping. He shook me awake and said he thought some men were carrying things down the trail. I couldn’t fathom what was going on. Lyons didn’t see things that weren’t there, and it hadn’t been raining. If Viet Cong were walking down the trail, units on either side should have fired at them. The whole battalion was near the trail. I told him to go back to his position and if he saw anybody else walking down that trail, shoot him. Lyons crawled away and disappeared in the dark jungle. I had just decided to follow him and see these men on the trail for myself when he started firing his M-14 on full automatic.

  The night was suddenly filled with tracers and the thunderous sound of automatic rifle fire. It finally died down and then stopped completely as the word circulated: “Hold your fire.”

  In the quiet that followed we heard a man groaning. He called out in Vietnamese. Around him, from my platoon and down the line, men fired toward the sound. I yelled to stop the firing. There was quiet. Then I heard the man groan again. A long painful wail. Some men fired again. I yelled again to stop the firing.

  Colonel Haldane and Captain Woolley crawled up with a Vietnamese interpreter. Out in front the man babbled Vietnamese. Haldane asked the interpreter what he was saying.

  “He says he is shot and he says he hurts. He asks us to help.”

  Woolley and Haldane exchanged looks without comment.

  “I think … I think, maybe trap. Maybe other Viet Cong around. He has gun for sure,” the interpreter offered.

  “Yeah, well what’s he saying?” asked Haldane.

  “He says he hurts a lot,” the interpreter said after a pause.

  “Continue talking to him. Try to find out if he is really alone,” Haldane ordered in a hushed voice.

  In the jungle to our front, the groans had no accent; the tremor in the low wails were an international human expression of pain. But could that be faked? Were we being baited to come out of our perimeter?

  The moaning continued for an hour or so, but became gradually weaker. It stopped before the sun came up.

  At first light my platoon moved out toward the area where the sound had come from. The young Vietnamese man was dead. He had taken off his watch and tried to hide it in some bushes near his outstretched hand. A bag of rice lay some distance away. The man was unarmed. The first Viet Cong killed by the battalion was an unarmed porter. We had come halfway around the world to kill a laborer.

  “Ain’t war fun,” Spencer said, standing near the dead man. Surprisingly, I did not feel much remorse, although I had listened to the man as he died. It had been frightening in the darkness, not knowing if other VC were around us, getting ready to attack. Plus I had been frustrated by our lack of catching the VC who had probed our part of the perimeter at the base camp. Last night, in the dark, we had reached out to get the enemy and had only gotten a porter, but it was a start. We had much to learn about jungle fighting.

  I walked away from the dead man without looking back, saying under my breath, “Don’t probe my perimeter anymore.”

  The battalion swept the area from the trail down to the river and uncovered a large store of rice. Some of the bags had the sign of clasped hands across the ocean on them, which indicated that the rice was part of U.S. aid to the region.

  While burning down a hootch near the rice cache, Patrick was standing by, lighting a cigarette, when suddenly he heard a shot. He dropped to the ground, brought his rifle to his shoulder, and looked around wildly for t
he enemy. The rest of the men in his squad did not react.

  “The bamboo,” De Leon said. “It’s the bamboo burning. Sections popping. Get up. Nobody’s shooting at you, sweetheart.”

  The bamboo continued to pop as Patrick got to his feet.

  Later when we broke down into platoon patrols for the move back to the base camp, a grenade on Manuel’s web belt came unscrewed and fell to the ground. The firing pin was still on his belt.

  “Grenade!” he yelled, as he dived away.

  He lay there, his mouth wide open and his eyes shut tight, waiting for the explosion that would take his life. After a minute the men around him got to their feet. Bratcher walked up and saw the fuse, pin, and handle still on Manuel’s belt, who continued to lie on the ground with a confused look on his face.

  “Good God almighty,” Bratcher said, “how can we be expected to fight in this war when we got dumbbells for soldiers? Get your fat ass up, Manuel. You ain’t going to die. Fix your frigging grenade and move out.”

  Over the course of the next few days the platoon was assigned to work details to fix up the company area, erect tents, dig latrines, and string wire. Ernst, Duckett, Pete, and I moved into a tent next to company headquarters, near the mess hall. My platoon was in two similar-size tents down the company street. We changed our routine from having the whole platoon on the line each night to posting a small twenty-four-hour guard detail.

  Periodically at night, the mortar platoons, including Pete’s in our company and the 4.2-inch mortars at battalion, shot harassment and interdiction (H&I) fire at randomly selected road junctions or trails. The purpose was to keep the Viet Cong, if there were any out there, on their toes and wary of mindless wandering near our position.

  One night one of the battalion’s mortar platoons misfired an H&I round into a group of huts northwest of the friendly village of Phuoc Vinh. The local ARVN unit advised our battalion about the accident early the next morning. Company A was sent out to investigate.