We practiced assaults into the woods bordering the cultivated area, marched in a column along the rice paddy berms, and showed anybody watching the typical training activities of a unit. The six big trucks that came for us at the end of the exercise must have seemed an awfully tempting target to any VC skulking around as we rode back to camp. Over a hundred men were packed into the vehicles as they lumbered slowly down the narrow dirt road to CCN.
As we reached the gate to CCN, I ordered my driver to pull over to the side of the road. I watched as the bait rolled into camp, breathing a sigh of relief. We’d made it without hitting any mines, and since I’d been in the lead vehicle, every bump had jarred my clenched buttocks like a hammer blow.
I walked over to the old grandma-san who sold cold drinks from her pushcart and bought a Coke for myself, my driver, and Lieutenant Lawrence. We sat there and enjoyed the cool refreshments while we quietly talked about the makeup of the ambush teams. I knew the next trip would make this one seem like a walk in the park.
I sipped the cool soda as I explained my plan. “I think Garrett and Sergeant Crowley will be one team, and you and I the other. We’re the best trained of any of the snipers in the company. Let ell-tees Turin, Jefferson, and First Sergeant Fischer take the rest of the company down to the RON. There are so many of them, I doubt the VC will bother them during the night, so it won’t matter that we’re not along.”
I nodded in agreement with my superior logic. “I think that will work.” I squinted into the bright sunlight. I could just make out the heavily wooded, green outline of the first finger thrusting down from the steep slopes of the mountains that surrounded Da Nang. “It won’t be fun lying quiet all day and then staying alert all night. There’s liable to be bad guys out, and there for damn sure will be more bugs than you’ll ever want to meet again. It’s a long shot at best. We’re more likely to spend a long, uncomfortable night and then go home without a hit, run, or error.”
“Yeah, but I want to do it anyway. Please, Dai Uy.” The plea in Lawrence’s voice reminded me of his disappointment and guilt at missing the pipeline raid, even though it wasn’t his fault.
“Okay, we’ll do it that way. Get Garrett and Crowley over to the firing range tonight at 2200 hours. We may as well get good zeros on the starlight scopes.”
Ray grinned like a kid with a new bike for his birthday. “You betcha, Dai Uy. I’ll have ’em there.” He flipped his Coke bottle into the ditch, alongside mine and the driver’s, and we headed for the gate and a hot shower and some shut-eye. The old grandma-san’s young granddaughter scrambled to retrieve the cast-off bottles. They were worth money in return deposits. The old gal looked to be as poor as a church mouse and needed every penny she could get. She was a fixture along the highway, selling her drinks and smiling at all the Yankees hurrying along the road.
The army’s newest toy, the starlight scope, magnified whatever ambient light was available. In the darkest night, you could see two or three hundred yards, and even farther if there was any moon at all.
By midnight, we all were satisfied that we had a good zero on the scopes, which were mounted on Winchester hunting rifles that had been converted to army sniper rifle specifications. That meant a heavy barrel and a very senstitive trigger. We were right on target at four hundred yards and felt comfortable that if we could see anyone, we could hit him.
I reported to the CO that we were ready. “Okay,” he nodded. “You go day after tomorrow. I’ll have the pickup trucks come into camp before dark on Wednesday. If anybody’s watching, the word might get back to our little sapper friends (sapper was what we called the VC mine planters, bombers, sabotage engineers, etc.—among other more descriptive and derogatory nouns). If you see the son of a bitch, you pop his ass good, hear?”
“You got it, Colonel.” I headed back to my hootch, satisfied that all was in readiness. It was just like fishing. Cast a little bread on the water and see what comes up to get it. Sleep was a long time coming for me that night. I was definitely about to run out my string. Every night I had to fight harder just to keep from coming down with the shakes.
We moved out early the next morning. I took out one hundred twenty men so I felt confident that nobody would spot the six men in the stay-behind teams. Each team had a Yard radio operator along as well as four modified rifles with bulky, blackened starlight scopes in padded bags.
The men were in good spirits. They hadn’t a clue as to what the real reason was for the exercise and thought it was just another field exercise, away from the endless details that are the plague of every soldier in garrison.
We marched here and there, and then we lined up and assaulted the first finger about a mile south of camp. We came back out of the woods and continued on toward the second spot I had picked for an ambush site. These two spots were just far enough apart that a person could split the difference and be safe from either of the two teams, but he would have to be awfully lucky in his choice of location.
In about an hour, we were at the second spot and moved into the trees. When the unit came out on the other side and continued on, Lieutenant Lawrence, myself, and our radio operator stayed in the dense brush, about a hundred yards above the location I had in mind.
“Get comfortable,” I whispered. “We’ll stay here in the deep cover until dark. Then, we’ll move down to the very edge of the tree line.” Crawling under a thick bush, I hid the entrance hole I had made. The other two wormed in close by, and we settled down to wait out the day. Soon, the forest animals grew accustomed to us and started up their night melodies. I even dozed a little.
Around dusk, First Sergeant Fischer checked in. He had the rest of the company bivouacked on the outskirts of Coi Hung, about a mile south of where my team was hiding, and everything appeared secure for the night. I whispered my final instructions and clicked off. It was almost time. We wanted to be in position after sundown, but before it got so black that we couldn’t locate a good spot to watch the road.
I signaled my comrades, and we slipped out of our cover and sneaked toward the edge of the tree line. There was what I wanted: a downed tree, lying so we could use its trunk for a gun rest and its branches for cover. “Over here. Ray, you set up here. I’ll be right beside you. No moving once you get settled. None. Piss where you are. Savvy?”
“Gotcha, Dai Uy.” The young officer grinned at me, confident excitement all over his face. I nodded my head and moved to the spot I’d chosen, about ten feet to his left. Youth! There I was, an old man of twenty-eight, shaking my head at the antics of a twenty-three-year-old kid. One aged quickly in Vietnam.
The night grew quiet as we watched and waited. “Ray,” I whispered. “Look through your scope, straight ahead. Do you see that mound just off the road?”
I sensed him looking where I had directed. “Got it, Dai Uy,” he whispered. “Looks like an old honey pot.” The farmers used human waste from their toilets to fertilize their fields. They kept the stuff in big earthen jars we called honey pots. The rumor was that on a night attack, an American soldier dashed across a field and fell headfirst into a filled honey pot and drowned. No matter how many times I heard the story, which was probably as much bullshit as most war stories are, I still shuddered at the thought of such a malodorous death.
“You watch to the right of the pot, and I’ll watch to the left. No talking unless you see something.”
Ray was smart enough not to even answer, but I could make out his movement as he swung the starlight scope up and down his assigned sector of responsibility. I slowly moved my scope from the field back to the left, toward the lights of Da Nang. The magnified intensity of the scope gave me a tremendous view. The objects were cast in a greenish glow but with an incredible sharpness. If the VC sapper came down to plant his mines in our area, we had him.
All night we watched the road, fighting the desire to sleep and the ever-present bugs that thirsted for our blood. But no VC sapper showed up. I was disappointed, but it was a long shot at best.
&n
bsp; As dawn turned our world gray, I whispered over to Ray to get back up the hill to where we had hidden the day before. After dividing up the daylight hours into sentry watches, we settled in and tried to sleep through the hot, humid daylight. The coming night would be our last chance. The trucks would arrive the following morning.
After sundown, we again crept down to our tree location. Lieutenant Turin reported that he’d worked the company all day in assault training and patrol techniques and would stay at a crossroads about four miles from where I was. He had seen nothing of the enemy, which was good; I didn’t want my company in a fight and me stuck a couple of miles away from it. The other sniper team had also seen nothing the previous night, and would resume its vigil after dark.
We settled in at the downed tree and started the monotonous scanning of the empty road. About midnight, Ray whispered toward me, “Dai Uy. Movement on the road to your right. About three hundred meters from the honey pot. See ’em?”
I swung my rifle to the right. Sure enough, two people coming down the dark road, way out at the edge of the seeing distance on the scope. “Got ’em. Watch ’em close. This late, it has to be someone up to no good.”
I swung back to my side of the honey pot. It was all clear. The two coming from the right were the only people we’d seen on the road during dark in two nights.
The two continued on toward us, moving slowly but confidently. “Come on, you sons of bitches,” I urged silently. I wanted them close, where we had a very good chance of dropping them. They came on, two men in black pajamas, carrying something in their hands.
“Dai Uy,” Lawrence whispered. “That’s a shovel one is carrying.”
“We got ’em, Ray. Let ’em start to dig before we do anything, then we go together. We’ll take ’em both out at the same time. Keep breathin’ easy. Don’t get yourself excited. This is just another job. We don’t want to get shaky from hyperventilation.” You’d have thought I was as calm as a stone, but in fact, it was all I could do to keep from shaking like a leaf. Damn, it was exciting. The two VC were walking right into our zone of fire. Lawrence and I were about to kill the SOBs who had hurt Big Momma and many other Americans. They didn’t have the faintest idea we were watching their every move. It was like two condemned men dancing before their executioners.
The road made a slight bend about a hundred meters right of the honey pot. Trucks had chewed up the edge there, and the two sappers had chosen that spot to lay their deadly surprise for the trucks they expected in the morning. They stopped, and one started to dig in the compacted soil of the roadway.
“Ray,” I whispered. “it’s about three hundred fifty meters from here. Set your sight and aim at the center of mass on the guy to the right. I’ll take the one to the left. You got it?”
“Gotcha, Dai Uy. I’m ready when you are.”
“Okay. I’m gonna count to three. We fire on three. Got it?”
“Roger.”
“Ready. One … Two … Three. Bam! Bam! The two hunting rifles went off within a gnat’s whisker of simultaneity.
My target, which had been kneeling on the road, threw out his hands and fell face forward in the dirt. Ray’s target was standing, and I saw him spin and fall like a dancer who’d lost his balance. The dark greenish figure started to get up, pushing away from the road like a man doing push-ups. His head was arched back, as if he was in great pain.
“Christ! You didn’t get him clean. He’s getting up. Hit him again, and do it right.” I was nearly screaming in my excitement.
Quickly Lawrence jacked another round into the chamber of his rifle and took aim. The second shot hit the VC high in the back, because he jerked up, still supported by his arms, and pitched forward, face down and feet pointed our way.
“That got the bastard,” Ray muttered.
I looked at the two silent and still forms. Neither moved. Finally, I scanned the area, and not seeing anyone, called Sergeant Garrett and told him of our success. “Stay in position until morning,” I told him, “just in case some more show up. At daylight, come up to the road and catch a ride on the trucks. We’ll meet you at the bodies.”
“Roger. And way to go, Dai Uy.”
“Roger, out.”
I felt damned good. We’d made a solid hit on two VC mine layers caught in the act. That would be a good deterrent.
The rest of the night passed uneventfully, and as it grew light enough to see, we moved out of our hiding spot and toward the two dead VC.
As we drew closer, something about the bodies disturbed me. Suddenly, Ray gasped in choked voice. “My God, Dai Uy. They’re women! Oh, God, what have I done?”
I moved to the one I had shot. The bullet had hit her right under her arm and passed through the frail body, killing her instantly. It was the old grandma-san who sold Cokes by the roadside. She must have been a plant of the Viet Cong, reporting on our movements. Ray was standing by his target. The long black hair was matted with dried blood. I rolled her over. It was the young granddaughter, the front of her chest blown away, flesh, blood, and muck all over the dirt where she had lain. Beside her lay a Soviet antitank mine, ready for planting. It would have blown a truck to smithereens, along with most anyone riding in it.
By that time Ray was over by the side of the road, puking his insides out. I fought the same urge myself. Nung, my Yard radio operator, was the calmest of the three of us. “VC dead. No more mines. Good.” He nodded, and stood by the bodies, his dark brown face impassive, as if embarrassed by the reaction of the supposedly tough American warriors.
I went to where Ray was sitting, his head between his knees, fighting back tears and nausea. “Nung’s right, Larry. They were VC. They knew the score when they started this. It was their choice. We just did what had to be done.”
“Oh, shit, Captain. I’ve bought Cokes from her a dozen times. I just can’t shrug it off. She was an old woman, and the girl isn’t sixteen yet.”
“I know, but it’s done. You can’t beat yourself up over it. Remember what they did to Big Momma. Think of the men on our trucks she was trying to kill.”
Lawrence looked at me with red-rimmed eyes. “I’ll try, but it doesn’t help much.”
“I know, but accept it and shake it off. I see the trucks coming. Come on, we need to get these two wrapped up in poncho liners.”
I reported in to the CO and Major Skelton as soon as we got back. Both were surprised to learn our minelayers’ identities.
Donahue shook his head. “Shit, but all sort of crap’s gonna hit the fan when the two of them are discovered. We’ll have a dozen villagers in here demanding an investigation into the murder of two innocent women by American snipers.”
“They won’t be found, sir,” I answered quietly. Both men looked at me.
“I brought the bodies back with me. I figured we could take them out in the bay and dump ’em. The sharks would take care of the rest, and we could deny ever having anything to do with their disappearance. It would leave a good message without subjecting us to local aggravation.”
Lieutenant Colonel Donahue’s eyes reflected his distaste with what I was proposing. “Jesus, Captain. Get out of here. I don’t want to know anything about anything. Take care of the garbage detail, and keep your fuckin’ mouth shut, you hear?”
“Yes, sir.”
And I did and we did and they did and nobody ever did. Only the horrible memory of how they looked, lying there on the road, remains with me.
18
Truck Thumpers
or
Take a Life, Give a Life
The tragic night of the roadside kill transformed the once feisty Ray Lawrence. He became a much more solemn person, and began to get smashed at the O-club on a fairly regular basis. The killing of the two women weighed heavily on his mind. On duty he worked hard, doing his job to my satisfaction, but he was no more a virgin as far as the war went. None of the lighthearted fun and games now, just doing his job or drowning his memory in booze.
I tried to he
lp him find comfort for his tormented conscience, telling him over and over that he had done the right thing, but he was slow to recover his composure. Worrying about him made it easier for me to live with what had happened. In convincing him it had been the right thing to do, I convinced myself. The picture of the two of them lying so still and crumpled on the dirt road stuck with me, but the sickening guilt went away, and I suppose that was all I could hope for.
We never heard much of anything about their disappearance from the local villagers. I’m sure questions were asked by someone, but with no physical evidence, and the sure knowledge that someone knew what the old gal was up to, the inquiries were minimal. For everyone else, the two simply were not by the side of the road anymore, and that was that. In the flux of the war, unexplained disappearances were not that uncommon.
After a couple of weeks, the memory became more tolerable, and the war went on. Men came and went, some died, and some lived to return home. B Company took all my work time training the new recruits. I amused myself at night counting the days until my rotation date. A late season typhoon hit the coast, preventing cross-border operations, and the VC stayed quiet, too busy keeping dry. Nothing happened except the camp almost washed away, and everyone’s floor was flooded. The bright side was the high surf generated by the weather. The crashing waves were wonderful to play in, and just about everybody got in some intense bodysurfing.
As the rains slackened, B company went on alert as the reaction force for a month. I started watching the field reports coming in from the recon teams in the bush and decided if anything popped this time, I’d go. It would be my last, and after I returned, no matter what the reason, no more trips to the woods. I was getting damn close to my DEROS (date expected return from overseas). Having made the decision was a relief, and I slept a little better for it.
In the hope that a little action would help him deal with his guilt and remorse, I planned to take Lt. Ray Lawrence with me if we did insert. We received an insertion alert within a week.
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