by James Estep
A bit reluctantly, but dutifully, the captain did as he was told, and Nam-bound and world-bound passengers then filed past each other in relative silence.
As we did so, I could not help but notice the very perceptible difference between the two groups of soldiers. Those with me were in most cases pale, soft, and obviously different. Many were overweight; virtually all were sweating profusely in their rumpled, ill-fitted uniforms. Those moving in the other direction were lean, mean, tanned, and toughened by a year of humping a rucksack through the jungles of Vietnam. They looked like soldiers in their faded, starched, and tailored khakis, and they exhibited a palpable air of confidence. And why not? They had succeeded at man’s ultimate competitive folly, that of armed conflict. Who says the Nam is hazardous to one’s health? It certainly isn’t for those who survive it—of course, surviving is the catch.
Cam Ranh’s replacement center was big, hot, sandy, and safe. So safe that our commander and chief, President Johnson, had visited the installation, barely a year before, and lunched with those he was sending into battle. So big that I hardly recognized it as the same deserted stretch of coastal sand onto which we had routinely parachuted back in ‘63, when it was little more than a sleepy fishing village.
In-processing was quick, efficient, and confined largely to record checks and administrative assignment procedures. If one arrived early in the day, he would normally have his in-country assignment that evening and depart Cam Ranh the following morning. I was no exception, and within twenty-four hours of arriving in Vietnam, I was seated aboard a C-130 Hercules, en route to An Khe, home of the First Air Cavalry Division.
2. An Khe, Vietnam
If you were to deplane at An Khe in the early fall of 1967, the first thing you’d undoubtedly note would be the Goliath replica of the First Cavalry’s black-and-gold patch painted on the side of Hon Cong Mountain, the predominant terrain feature overlooking the division’s sprawling headquarters at Camp Radcliff. You might next be impressed by the division’s “golf course,” which was not a golf course at all but acres of cleared, rolling terrain upon which the First Cavalry parked its fleet of nearly 450 helicopters, five times as many helicopters as were found in most infantry divisions. The third thing noted, as would probably be the case if you descended on virtually any other U.S. encampment in the country’s central highlands, would be the searing heat and suffocating, reddish clay dust that lay atop everything it couldn’t penetrate.
However, the First Air Cav—the division’s cutting edge—was not located at Camp Radcliff in the early fall of 1967. The division’s fighting brigades were battling Charlie on the Bong Son plain in Binh Dinh Province, an area heavily infested by the Communists for over two decades, and reinforcing the U.S. Marines in I Corps, the northernmost of South Vietnam’s corps tactical areas. With the exception of a single base security battalion, the division’s forces at An Khe were composed of support troops responsible for sustaining the fighting force in Bong Son and I Corps.
An important part of this sustainment responsibility was shouldered by Lieutenant Colonel Know. He assigned incoming officers to the outlying brigades … sometimes.
“Please try to understand, Captain,” Major Bork, Colonel Know’s assistant, said, “we don’t need rifle company commanders out there. We need good staff officers back here … and that’s why you’re being assigned to the G-5 section.”
“Sir, I didn’t come over here to pass out soap and toothpaste,” I replied. “I mean … uh. ‘course all jobs are important, but I’d really prefer a rifle company. So why don’t you just go ahead and send me to one of the brigades and let the next captain who walks through that door do his bit to win ‘hearts and minds’ for you, okay? Mean he’ll probably make a better staff officer, anyway.”
“No can do, Captain. My charter is to fill officer vacancies where they exist, and right now they exist here in division headquarters.
Besides, six months in the field and six months on staff is the norm for our captains. Makes little difference if you pull staff on the front end or rear end of your tour.”
“Makes a difference to me, sir. See, this is my third.”
“Soriy, but the issue is nonnegotiable. Now you just finish up remount and report to the G-5. Do a good job there for six months, and we’ll see to it that you get your fill of the boonies on the down end of your tour. End of conversation.”
Remount school was a shon finishing course for the Cav’s newly assigned officers and NCO’s (noncommissioned officers). Emphasizing aerial insertion techniques that in 1967 were still somewhat unique to an airmobile division (the First Air Cavalry then being the only such division in existence), its curriculum included helicopter rappeling and ladder drills, air-assault techniques, aerial fire support, air movement and logistical support planning, and so on. Upon its conclusion, I reluctantly reported to my new assignment in civil affairs. I couldn’t take it. Three days later I returned to Major Bork’s office, this time to plead my case with Lieutenant Colonel Know himself.
He was most understanding of my plight and talked to me like a father.
“Son, I know how you feel. Hell, wish I were out there commanding one of those battalions. But we’ve both been in the Army long enough to know we go where we’re told to go … go where we’re most needed. And the simple truth is, right now we need good staff officers here at division.”
“Yes, sir. It’s just that … uh … I don’t think I’m good G-5 material. I mean, I’ve had no training or experience in civil affairs.
What I’d really like.”
“Well, hell, I can understand that, son,” he chimed in, interrupting me.
“I don’t blame you for being reluctant to spend six months in G-5, what with all that entails.”
He gazed at me in thought for a moment and then said, “Tell you what I’m gonna do. We really need good staff writers in the division historical section. You go down there and give them three months of hard work; then I’ll reconsider your request for line duty. Fair?”
“Sir, I want to be part of the division’s history, not write about it.
What I really want, as I told Major Bork here, is a shot at.”
Smiling warmly, he interrupted me again, put a fatherly hand on my shoulder, and said, “Give it a try, son. Just give it a try.”
I did. I tried it for the next two hours as an elderly officer, who really should have retired or resigned in lieu of coming to Vietnam, showed me around his little empire in the division’s historical section.
“We really got it made here, Estep. Division pretty much leaves us alone. Hell, they’re too busy fighting the fucking gooks to bother with us. Here you got hot showers, clean sheets, patio barbecues ‘bout every night, plenty of cheap booze, always free to make a run on the ville or try your luck with one of the doughnut dollies when you feel a ‘whiteout’ coming on … and all we got to do is document the division’s activities at our own pace. What do you think? Ready to go to work?”
“Sir, no offense, but I’m gonna do everything in my power to get out of this assignment.”
For a brief moment, he stared at me as if unable to comprehend my response. Then, smiling, he said, “No offense taken, Captain. Want to be a hero? Well, you just go on out there and get your ass shot off.
I’ll write about it.”
Colonel Know was about to leave his office for the evening when I returned and informed him that although my interviewer in the division’s historical section found me acceptable, I found him and his job unacceptable. The colonel did not look upon my announcement in what I felt to be a fatherly fashion.
Colonel Know, I discovered, was a man with a short temper.
“Unacceptable, my ass!” he exploded. “I’m sick and tired of your goddamn bellyaching, Captain! Just who in the hell do you think you are to pick where you’re gonna work in this organization? Who? Goddamn it!”
“Sir, I.”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me, you insubordinate little sonofa … w
hatever!” he screamed as his face turned a deeper shade of red.
This man is obviously pissed! I said to myself. There’s simply too much stress on this staff for me to be a part of it. I must serve in a calmer work environment … someplace like the boonies. I remained silent, however, recalling another of Sergeant Fallow’s ageless axioms:
“Always remember, Jimbo, a good ass chewing is really a beautiful thing to behold. Enjoy it; it’s a disappearing art form.”
“Now listen, Captain, and I’ll tell you what you’re going to do,”
Colonel Know continued in a calmer, more constrained voice. “You will report to the division historical section at 0700 hours tomorrow. There you will write the history of this division until such time as I feel it appropriate to reassign you … which may be three months from now, or six, or twelve. And, Captain, if I see you in this office again before I feel it appropriate to reassign you, or if you dare go over my head on this, whether it’s to the chief of staff, IG [inspector general], chaplain, your congressman, or whoever, I’ll see to it that you’re still here writing the history of this magnificent division when the war’s over and the rest of us have redeployed to the continental United States, be that two, five, or ten years from now!” His voice had risen steadily throughout this brief discourse and was once again approaching the screaming stage.
“Do you read me loud and clear, Captain?”
I replied, “Yes, sir!” It seemed the appropriate thing to say.
That evening, in celebration of my new duties with the division’s
“hysterical” section, I decided to go to the Cav’s headquarters officers’ club … and get smashed. Working on my fourth or fifth Jim Beam and branch, I was well on my way to never-never land when Major Bork came over and sat down beside me. He too was visibly into his cups.
“Bastard’s gonna make you write history, huh?” he commented more than asked.
“Yes, sir, gonna write the history of this magnificent division.”
“You know what you ought to do, Estep? You know Colonel Lich?
Pronounces his name like.” Bork smiled faintly… … like ‘like.” Uh … commands the base security battalion.”
“No, sir, I don’t know Colonel Lich … and I don’t like Colonel Know.
(Heh, heh.)” Ignoring what I felt to be a really funny remark, he continued, “Well, if I were you, and I’m not, and I wanted to go to the boonies, and I don’t, I’d go see Colonel Lich.”
“Who’s Colonel Lich? Shit, I know he’s not my congressman. Is he the chief, IG, chaplain, or what?”
“No, goddamn it! I just told you. He’s got the base security battalion, Fifth Cavalry. They’ll be rotating back to Bong Son—LZ
English or thereabout—in a couple of weeks. Why don’t you go ask him to take you along? I mean, shit, if he’ll accept you in his battalion, my boss will roll over. Bastard’s not gonna fuck with a field commander’s request for a line officer.”
I left the club immediately. Later that night, after a hot shower, coffee, and a change of uniforms, I met with the commander of the base security battalion in his quarters. Lieutenant Colonel Lich was a decorated veteran of the Korean war, had previously served with Special Forces, currently commanded in the Fifth Cavalry with distinction, and would eventually command a Special Forces group in like fashion. In short, he was a soldier’s soldier, through and through.
After hearing my tale of woe, which he thought somewhat humorous, he welcomed me to the Fifth Cavalry, telling me to pack my gear and report to his headquarters the following morning.
“The good Colonel Know can just find someone else to write his damn history, Estep.”
I was ecstatic. “Yes, sir! Thank you, sir! Uh … and good night, sir.”
“Not good night, Jim,” he corrected me, “not in Robert E. Lee’s former command. Here, we part with the salute ‘Ready’!”
“Ready, sir!”
And I was.
Unfortunately, when Colonel Lich so graciously accepted me into his command, he didn’t need another rifle company commander. What he really needed was a “good staff officer.” Hence, I was assigned duties as the battalion’s adjutant (the S-1). But what the hell, at least I was serving in a line battalion instead of writing the history of what line battalions do.
As Major Bork mentioned during our hazy conversation in the O’club, the battalion was at the time pulling duty as the division’s base security force. Although often referred to as a “stand down,” it was not. True, soldiers performing this mission had an opportunity to shower and change uniforms far more frequently than they would’ve had they been in the boonies. And, unlike with duty in the boonies, they had hot meals, clubs, and movies and could occasionally make a run on An Khe’s ville.
However, these soldiers were responsible for all facets of Camp Radcliff’s defense, including manning its vast perimeter and patroling its “doughnut ring.” (The doughnut ring was essentially a no-fire zone surrounding the entire camp several kilometers beyond its outer defensive perimeter. Within this ring base security forces could patrol and ambush freely, day and night, confident they would not become accidental casualties of friendly artillery fire. It was a good idea and, inasmuch as Camp Radcliff was never attacked in force, obviously worked.
In addition to these defensive responsibilities, the base security battalion underwent an intense refit-retrain program during its short stay at Radcliff. In sum, the battalion’s soldiers stayed busy.
Before they sallied forth to again battle the North Vietnamese in Binh Dinh Province, I had an opportunity to meet most of the battalion’s officers and key NCO’s and many of their soldiers, or “snuffies,” as they were then called. Collectively, they possessed a phenomenally upbeat, can’t-lose attitude toward the war and the enemy they fought and well they should. In the two years since so soundly defeating North Vietnam’s finest in the Ia Drang Valley, barely two months after the division’s arrival in country, the First Air Cav had kicked Charlie’s ass whenever and wherever it found him. The problem now lay in finding him. North Vietnam’s military chief, General Vo Nguyen Giap, had made this task difficult since concluding, after assessing his losses in the la Drang campaign, that his forces couldn’t shove the American Army around with quite the same impunity they had enjoyed while fighting the French. Hence, he had placed his army on the tactical defensive, directing his commanders to avoid combat with U.S. ground forces in general and, we snuffies supposed, the First Air Cav in particular.
This can-do winning outlook was so ingrained in the minds of the division’s soldiers that it influenced virtually every facet of their daily existence. They quite simply believed they were better than their foe.
And of course they were. The account of a young Cav trooper’s first night in I Corps, after deploying there with his unit from Binh Dinh, is illustrative of this attitude. Supposedly, he sat down under a palm tree, in the black of night, on a defensive perimeter shared with the Marine Corps … and lit a long cigar. Seeing this abhorrent breach of light discipline, a Marine Corps officer ordered him to extinguish his cigar, quite naturally fearing it would draw enemy fire. In response, the young soldier, still sitting with the glowing cigar between his teeth, calmly replied, “Relax, Lieutenant, Charlie don’t fuck with the Cav!”
Granted, his quote will never go down in the annals of history alongside
“damn the torpedoes,” but, apocryphal or otherwise, it certainly embraced the division’s purview toward the enemy.
Sergeant Major Cooper, our command sergeant major, was one of the most colorful of the battalion’s soldiers. I had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with him during the brief interval before the unit returned to Binh Dinh. A hard-charging, hard-drinking, totally professional NCO from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, he knew full well the importance of relaxing in a combat environment when one had the opportunity to do so. I liked him.
Booze, the hard stuff, was not permitted in the boonies, and r
ightfully not. Therefore, it flowed quite freely during a unit’s so-called stand down at An Khe, the division’s soldiers viewing Camp Radcliff, after months in the boonies, in much the same fashion as sailors look upon their home port after a long tour at sea. One of the hutches in which booze flowed most freely was that of the command sergeant major.
In the waning days of the battalion’s stay at An Khe, Cooper invited a couple of the company commanders, several of their lieutenants, and some of us on the staff to his hutch for evening cocktails.
Arriving late, I found that the sergeant major and my fellow officers had been “cocktailing” for quite some while.
“Yeah, and that’s the last I ever heard of young Romeo,” Cooper was saying, laughingly, as I walked in.
“Who’s Romeo?” I asked offhandedly, pulling up a chair.
“Who’s Romeo, indeed!” the sergeant major responded. “Well that was before your time, Captain. Matter of fact, it was before the old man’s time.” (A unit’s commander, in this case Colonel Lich, is traditionally, and respectfully, referred to as the “old man.”) “Well, Romeo—which is what we called him, for reasons that will soon be obvious—was a young seventeen-year-old from the farmlands of Indiana … or was it Illinois?”
He paused momentarily, as if this aspect of Romeo’s earlier existence might have some bearing on the story, then, evidently deciding it did not, continued. “Oh, well, no matter where the fuck he was from, he was a young stud who ain’t never been off the farm till he was drafted and found himself in the Nam … where he fell in love.”
He started laughing, as did the others, who obviously enjoyed hearing the saga of Romeo again as much as the sergeant major relished telling it.