15 Months in SOG

by Thom Nicholson

  “Hell, Pete,” I snarled, “Better that than letting the G-d’ed Marines blow us to hell in a handbasket. They’re on our side, for Christ’s sake. I don’t need any friendly-fire casualties to explain to the CO.”

  Fortunately, my message was quickly relayed to the offending artillery units, and the second salvo was directed somewhere else. With what dignity I had left, I cleaned myself up and took stock of the chaos resulting from the close call.

  Men were shouting and moving around, and several flashlights blinked on, destroying any hope that our location would remain a secret to nearby VC. “Okay,” I muttered to myself, “if this is the best you can do, we’ll train some more on night security procedures.”

  “Mac, send the platoon leaders to me right now,” I called over the company radio to the XO. My lieutenants hurried to my hole, all as shocked by the artillery barrage as I was. Explaining what had happened, I chewed their butts good for losing control of their people. “We’ll start out in ten minutes, night movement down the trail there. Maybe that’ll help the strikers to see the wisdom of staying quiet in an ambush site.”

  Since old Charlie put ambushes on trails and roads, just as we did, the silence exhibited by the young soldiers as they cautiously went deeper into the “badlands” was gratifying. By morning’s first light, I think they understood that I put a lot of emphasis on the need for light and noise discipline at an ambush site.

  Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any bad guys, so the lesson was learned without cost. The little soldiers quickly understood that I meant business in the brush. It was okay to be a little slack in camp, but out where the game was for real, I didn’t want any screwing around. I had two sons to raise, and I meant to get home to them.

  The next few days passed routinely, with a lot accomplished in training, and on the last evening we moved into our nightly RON without having seen a single VC or having suffered any training casualties. Since we were two hundred men armed with automatic rifles and with M-26 hand grenades hanging from every place possible on our web gear (called LBE, for load-bearing equipment), that was saying a lot.

  On the last night of the exercise, after making sure the outposts were in place and every man had constructed some kind of hasty fighting position, I settled into the scooped-out depression I called a hasty foxhole. I could hear Pham settling down close by me in the pitch blackness of the night. I quickly fell asleep, dog-tired from the strain of commanding men in the field for a week.

  First Sergeant Fischer woke me about two A.M. “Sir, there’s a hell of a firefight going on up yonder. Must be the old French fort under attack.” The top sergeant pointed me in the right direction as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and put on my glasses.

  Sure enough, in the foothills about three miles away, star shells were slowly drifting down out of the low-hanging, gray clouds, illuminating the wet land and black sky. The faint sounds of gunfire cracked and popped, and trees came alive in the flickering chemical light. Not two minutes later, a chopper roared overhead, headed toward the outpost. I whispered to Sergeant Fischer, “Get on the horn (radio), Top, and let air force combat control know where we are. I don’t want any gunships to take us for the bad guys.”

  I knew some of the night choppers had infrared scopes on their gunsights, and my two hundred unwashed men would surely send out a bright signal to any trigger-happy gunship driver. In fact, the army was said to have little boxes with body lice in them that could smell a man at five hundred feet, and stamp their feet or something to alert a tracker. So, I didn’t want to take any chances so close to heavy fighting.

  As we sat there and watched the show, Pham eased beside me. “Radio, Dai Uy,” he whispered. I took the handset and leaned back against the side of my shallow hole.

  The call was relayed by the AFCC from the HQ, 3d Marines: Proceed with your unit toward coordinates AX blah, blah, blah, with all possible haste. Relieve besieged outpost defenders and hold until reinforcements arrive at first light. Do you copy?

  “Affirm, Tango Zulu out,” I replied. “All right, Top,” I whispered to First Sergeant Fischer. “They want us to get up there and give ’em a hand. Get the company ready to move out.”

  “Shit, Captain,” Fischer answered. “The VC’ll have the road covered tight as a tick on a coon dawg’s butt, as long as it’s dark. If we go bustin’ up there like the 7th Cavalry to the rescue, they’ll shoot our nuts off.”

  Since I had no desire to sing tenor the rest of my life and still had ideas about a basketball team–size family, I nodded at the wisdom of his counsel. “Good point, Top. We’ll head out cross-country. Get the XO up to me quick. And send for Sergeant Garrett and the VN sergeant—Trung, isn’t it? Their squad will be on point.”

  I called the AFCC and told them of my plan while the company was loading up. The men were quiet, and I didn’t see a single night security violation. AFCC wasn’t happy and told me the Marines at the fort were in desperate straits, but I flat out refused to go up the road in the dark. “You’ll have to get the CO of CCN to order me before I’ll do it,” I insisted. “Meanwhile, we’re wasting time arguing. I’m departing RON now and estimate arrival at the outpost at 0430.”

  The two NCOs I had sent for arrived. Sergeant Garrett was a first-rate soldier, a slow-talking cracker from Georgia with the scarred face of a man whose teenage years had been plagued by superzits. He had joined the army to get away from poverty and was a gung ho career man. Like many southern boys in the service, he was lean and rawboned, able to withstand the rigors of army life in the field without a thought of complaint.

  Giving Sergeant Garrett orders to stay off the road but to go as fast as he could cross-country, I moved the company out. Movement was slow, and Americans were fighting a desperate battle ahead of me, but we couldn’t do any good getting the shit shot out of us before we even got to the old fort. The wet brush quickly soaked our clothing, increasing our discomfort. The drip of raindrops muffled the tread of our boots on the wet ground. Besides, I consoled myself as I panted through the darkness, “They’re only Marines.”

  My estimate of the net worth of a handful of Marines was about to take a giant leap forward. Live and learn. Those Marines were about to show me some real heroism.

  We didn’t see or hear anything that seemed suspicious until we came to a wide stream, maybe a thousand yards from the little hill where the old fort was located. As the point squad started across, a single automatic weapon clattered a red stream of death at us. If the enemy gunner had been only a little more patient, he could have greased the whole bunch of us in the middle of the water. As it was, he killed one of the strikers and wounded another very slightly in the hand.

  In an instant, nearly everyone on our side dropped to the ground and opened up. The VC over there must have been scared half to death, or shot to hell, or both; when we cautiously crossed the stream, the night remained quiet. By that time, the light from the star shells helped illuminate the ground in front of us, but the flickering light made every bush come alive, every tree seem a threatening, half-visible menace. Detailing a couple of men to carry the KIA, we moved as quickly as possible, using the trees and brush for cover, toward the hill. But it sounded as if the shooting had lost some of its previous intensity.

  Of course, choppers and planes were overhead, blasting the hell out of anything that even looked like a target. VC and NVA soldiers were tough, but nobody could take the massed fire of helicopter gunships very long without backing off. The enemy soldier was well able to face fire from an opponent on the ground, but when the airplanes zipped past, dealing death with startling, overwhelming, high-volume efficiency, his resolve quickly faded.

  Sergeant Garrett sent word back that he saw activity to his front. I really didn’t want to go into an attack formation so far from the objective, but we couldn’t walk up single file, right to the door. One of the most hazardous undertakings is an assault directly into the face of the enemy, so reluctantly, I spread the word for the unit to go on line
, and off we went, three platoons abreast, and my little HQ section behind the middle of the formation.

  The line of men stretched about a quarter of a mile, and I couldn’t see either end from my position. It was definitely pucker time for everyone; not a man of the two hundred, slowly advancing with me toward the sound of the guns, could have squeezed out a fart louder than a gnat’s whisper.

  My mouth was dry and my palms were sweating profusely. Oddly, I couldn’t seem to get a full measure of air in my lungs; every breath was more like a gasp. Out of the darkness, far off on the right flank, heavy gunfire shattered the calm. Lieutenant Cable’s platoon had run into an ambush. The serpentine line of men went to ground like a poleaxed mule. After a second of swallowing the heart lodged in my throat, I whispered to First Sergeant Fischer. “Stay here while I see what’s happening. If I call, start the 3d Platoon on a sweep toward the gunfire. Come on, Pham.”

  The Montagnard radio operator and I started in a hunched-over trot toward the fighting, trying to keep some cover between us and the shooting enemy. The red tracers zipping through the branches and leaves overhead didn’t do much for my sense of well-being. The crack of passing bullets was mixed with the snap of the branches they hit. I figured that was exactly what my bones would sound like if one hit me. Afraid to go back, afraid to go ahead, I pushed on.

  Just as we came up to the men of 1st Platoon, lying on the ground or kneeling behind trees, the firing stopped, and a disquieting silence greeted me. “Lieutenant Cable,” I whispered to the platoon leader, who was peering around a large tree trunk, “what’s happening?”

  “Don’t know for sure, Captain. They started firing at the point squad, and we just started to work our way around ’em when they took off. Must have been a security team. I don’t think we got any of ’em.”

  “Okay,” I answered. “Pham, get Fischer on the horn.” I took the handset and spoke softly. “Fischer, it must have been a VC security team with a machine gun. All quiet now. Get ’em up and started forward. I’m on my way back to your location.”

  “Wilco,” the raspy voice on the radio answered. I could see the men in front cautiously move forward as I headed back to the center of the formation. In a few minutes, I was again behind the center platoon. We continued moving toward the hill and the beleaguered Marines. The gunfire over there was clearly diminishing in intensity, so I pushed the men as hard as I dared.

  “Pham, give me the radio.” I grabbed the offered handset and called for Lieutenant Cable. “Sneaky One-Six, this is Sneaky Six. What’s your situation? Any casualties?”

  “One dead and two MIA, from the point squad. I didn’t stop to look for them,” Cable answered.

  “Roger,” I said. “We’ll police them up after daylight. Keep moving. Sneaky Six out.” I had adopted Sneaky Six as my radio call sign and I was supposed to use it every time I identified myself on the air, but I often forgot when things got hot.

  We hadn’t gone more than another hundred yards when the left flank erupted in fire. Again, the entire line stopped, and again, by the time I got there the enemy had boogied, having accomplished their mission: to delay and harass us as we closed on the old fort.

  That time there were no losses, and the enemy fire faded away quickly. Pushing on, we finally made it to the edge of the cleared ground in front of the old fort. It was as quiet as it had been noisy only moments earlier. Either we had scared the attacking VC off or, by design, the bad guys had gone before we could hurt them. I moved to the front door of the fort and met a sweat-streaked Marine NCO with a bloody bandage around his left arm.

  “Gunnery Sergeant Fowler, Captain. Mighty glad to see you. It was getting a little sticky around here for a while.” The old Marine NCO was sucking on an unlit cigar, stopping every once in a while to spit. He stuck out a grimy paw and gave me a hearty handshake. Things must have been tight before we arrived.

  “We’ll get out security and make a sweep, as soon as it’s daylight,” I replied. “Where’s your CO?”

  “The ell-tee’s wounded. The corpsman’s working on him now. You want to speak to him?”

  “Naw.” I turned to give orders to my platoon leaders, who had gathered around, waiting for their instructions. “I’ll catch up with him later, after I get things organized.” I moved my men out and set up a security ring around the old compound. The air force was still dropping flares, and the choppers were buzzing about like angry hornets, but all was quiet on the ground.

  It didn’t seem long until the pink sky in the east announced morning. As the light increased, I looked around the area. There were lots of signs on the muddy earth, and here and there a body lay crumpled, but not many. The VC had the annoying habit of dragging off their dead so we couldn’t get a good count of their casualties. A few blood trails led back into the brush, and the junk scattered about showed that a battle had been fought. The first good rain would wash it all away, and the land would once again look as it had for millennia.

  Now that we could see, choppers began to land with frantic regularity in the courtyard of the fort. Fresh Marines jumped off, their rifles ready, and formed up to go into the brush after the attackers. Wounded men were loaded on the empty ships and carted off to the navy evac hospital, only ten minutes away by air.

  I reported in to the no-nonsense Marine battalion commander, who was in charge of the reinforcements. He thanked me for our help and said we were relieved of any responsibility once the final choppers carrying his battalion had landed. By eight o’clock in the morning, our job was done. I had my soldiers stand down beside the dirt road, and I ordered the 3d Platoon out to gather up their casualties from the first ambush at the river. As the Marines started off into the bush after the survivors of the attacking force, I wandered back inside the compound to get the story of the fight.

  The dozen or so Marines still alive and unwounded from the original force were eating C rations and drinking warm beer that had been brought in on one of the relief choppers.

  I asked for the story of the fight, and the same NCO whom I’d talked with earlier filled me in between bites. The understrength Marine platoon had taken on a good-size force of VC or NVA attackers. Only by shifting from wall to wall as the attack intensified did the Marines beat off the determined attack.

  The gunny took me outside and showed me his defensive points and the flow of the battle. The walls had been blasted open from RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) rounds in several places. Hasty barricades of sandbags, debris, and lumber showed how the Marines had repaired each breach. As I walked around the compound, I saw a round, bloody spot about every five feet, going here or there.

  I watched my XO, Lieutenant McMurray, coming up the path from the road back to town. The company was all formed up along the road, as I’d been instructed to road march in from the fort back to CCN. My curiosity got the better of me.

  “Sergeant, what the hell is that spot I keep seeing all over the place? That round one there.” I pointed at the bloody mark on the ground.

  “Oh, that,” the Marine spoke with an obvious pride in his voice. “The ell-tee got hit early on in the fight, nearly blew off his foot. He ran around on the bloody stump until it was over, and then he fainted from loss of blood. They took him out on the first chopper.” The crusty NCO shook his head and gave a wry laugh. “One of them hotshot college boys. Didn’t have the sense to stay inside, where he’d be safe.”

  The look he gave me of pride, comradeship, courage, Semper Fi, all wrapped in one proud glance, said it all. “Damn,” I muttered, “I sure wish I had gotten to meet him.” We stood there, silent, savoring the calm and a soft, morning breeze, our appreciation all the more intense because of what had preceded it. Lieutenant McMurray reached us and reported the company ready to march. I made my farewells with the brave old Marine and headed off with my soldiers. I thought about the heroic defense of the fort all the way back to CCN.

  I never did find out the Marine lieutenant’s name, and always wished I had. He was some Marin
e hero. Just one of the many unfinished stories in Vietnam, 1969.

  7

  Now That’s Scared

  or

  Hazards in the Bush

  My officers and I grabbed seats in the TOC briefing room. The air in the concrete-enclosed operations center crackled with excitement. Recon team Asp had found a new road being cut through the jungle of Base Area 910, west and north of the A Shau Valley. The route led straight across the border from Laos to the site of the old Special Forces A-team camp in the valley that had been overrun by the VC in 1966. One of my buddies received the Distinguished Service Cross from that fight. Finally, B Company was getting a cross-border mission. We were gonna put my company down on the new road and kick some butt. I was as excited as a kid contemplating summer vacation.

  Since 1966, the enemy pretty much had the A Shau Valley to himself. The 101st Airborne had gone in for a while in early ’68 and kicked ass, but as soon as they withdrew, ol’ Charlie was back in business as usual. The intelligence types figured he was building up his supplies in the base area as a prelude to an attack on Da Nang, just fifty miles due east.

  What never made sense to any of us grunts fighting the war was why we would go in and take an area, paying in sweat and blood and tears, and then pull out, giving back to the enemy what we had won so hard and dearly. It was another example of the muddled thinking of the brilliant minds in charge, both in country and across the big pond in Washington, D.C.

  Enemy activity in the vicinity of Base Area 910 had increased steadily since the monsoons abated. After hearing the recon report about the new road, the camp commander decided to insert my company. Our mission was to land by helicopter across the border near the new road and then patrol to the west, looking for supply dumps, truck parks, or enemy camps.