Eight days before our arrival at Airborne, a vicious nighttime attack by the NVA there had resulted in the deaths of twelve Americans and thirty-one enemy soldiers. Our job was to repair and protect the base until it was a formidable outpost again. The work began with the construction of stronger bunkers and deeper fighting positions. However, we had to be careful where we dug because after the attack, some of the dead NVA were buried where they fell.
I shared a bunker with Howard Siner, Stanley Alcon, and Freddie Shaw. As luck would have it, our bunker was right on top of a dead NVA. As I dug into the earth, my shovel hit what I thought was a tree root. Instead, what I pulled from the dirt turned out to be a partially decomposed arm. No one was willing to dig deeper, so we ended up with the shallowest of all positions, not much more than a crawl space. The thought of sleeping on top of the NVA, or parts of him, gave us the creeps. So we slept on the roof and spent our free time elsewhere.
After the bunker rebuilding was completed, we worked on the jungle side of the concertina wire removing vegetation for maximum visibility of the terrain. The tree cutting was a revealing experience. Just 200 feet beyond the wire was an enemy observation post built high in a tall tree. The NVA must have used this tiny tree stand to gather information for their attack on the firebase. Before we tore it down, Captain Hartwell made sure everyone saw the observation post to demonstrate how brazen the NVA can be and how lazy our guards had been for not spotting it sooner.
It was during a land clearing detail that I had my final encounter with Sergeant Burke, the NCO who turned me in for hiding in the bushes back at Phong Dien. Our two squads were on a steep slope burning a brush pile. I worked with my men while Burke stood around barking orders at his. I had chopped some branches and was throwing them into the fire when Burke approached.
“Sergeant Wiknik,” he began sarcastically, “I see you are still setting a bad example of how an NCO is supposed to act. Your job is to give the orders and your men are expected to carry them out. Rank gives you the privilege of watching your men work.” I could not believe what Burke had just said.
“Are you for real?” I shot back, irritated by his attitude. “What makes you think that being an NCO makes you better then your men? No matter what kind of detail we get, I try to make it a team effort so everyone knows who they can depend on. But you can’t see that. You’ve turned into a tyrant on a power trip.”
“I told you once before,” he answered with a tilted smile. “There’s an unwritten law about NCOs arguing in front of their men. If you keep it up, I’ll be forced to report you again.”
“That’s the one thing you’re good at Burke; squealing on fellow NCOs.” I should have kept quiet and walked away but he was so irritating that I continued. “So tell me Burke, did you turn me in to divert attention away from yourself or was it because you think I’m a threat to you?”
Burke didn’t answer. He didn’t like me mouthing off in front of his squad, but he obviously enjoyed provoking me. He pushed further.
“If you must work with your subordinates,” Burke offered, putting his hand on my shoulder, “at least do the job right. Let me show you the proper method of burning a brush pile.”
“Keep your fuckin’ paws off me,” I shot out through clenched teeth, pushing his hand aside.
Burke’s stupid grin showed that he loved every minute of my anger. Then, speaking as if I was a moron, he picked up some branches and threw them into the fire.
“Here’s how you do it. You start with small twigs and toss them into the fire. Then you throw bigger sticks on top to pack it down. Little sticks, big sticks. Got it?”
I couldn’t stand his idiocy any longer so I turned away, pretending he was no longer there. However, now that everyone’s attention was on us, Burke felt he needed to do something dramatic to stay in control of our dispute.
“Oh,” Burke continued, speaking to my backside, “I forgot to show you one thing. When the end of a branch burns away like this one…” He picked up the burning piece and shook it over my head until hot coals rained down on my bare shoulders.
“Arrrrrhhh!” I screamed, brushing the burning embers away from my scorched flesh. “You fuckin’ asshole! What the hell is the matter with you?”
“Oooh, does Sergeant Wiknik have a boo-boo?” he asked, laughing hysterically.
That did it! Burke finally pushed the wrong button and I wanted to retaliate. As I picked up an axe and held it like a baseball bat, everyone backed away, except Burke.
“You’ve bugged me for the last time!” I shouted at him.
“Temper, temper,” he said, mocking me with a wagging finger. “Are you a little ‘hot’ under the collar?”
“I’ll show you how fuckin’ hot I am!”
I let out a howling “AAIIEEE!” war whoop and threw the axe at him, barely missing his head. Burke had ducked for the ground just in time. All was silent until the axe landed in the trees far below us. Burke was genuinely terrified as he looked up at me, afraid of what might happen next. I silently glared at him to make sure he got the message then I turned and went back to the firebase perimeter. When I reached the concertina wire, Captain Hartwell was standing there. He had witnessed the entire incident.
“You’re lucky you missed him,” Hartwell scolded.
I looked back down at Burke and gestured, “He’s the one who’s lucky.”
“Really? Perhaps I should include assault with your Article 15. Or maybe charge you with aiding the enemy.”
“Aiding the enemy?” I asked confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Right now, that axe is of more use to the NVA than to us. When you cool off, go back down and find it.”
“Yes, sir,” I mumbled in return.
Now there was an inspiring example of our priorities. If I had wanted to, I could have killed a man, but the Captain was more concerned about a lost axe. Considering how I felt about Burke, I almost had to agree with Hartwell’s wisdom.
Sergeant Burke never spoke to me again. We spent a year in the same company and I only saw him at a distance. I think he was now genuinely afraid that I was crazy enough to kill him.
Our stay at Firebase Airborne was a welcome change from the humping we did around Phong Dien. There was, however, no escape from the typical Army bullshit duties. We were required to perform police calls, latrine duty, and submit to bunker inspections. Our days were spent filling sandbags, pushing the edge of the jungle back, or going out on short patrols. There was little free time. Perhaps the activities were the Army’s way of keeping us from thinking about home.
Daytime on the firebase was physically exhausting, and the nights were mentally demanding. The most likely time for an enemy attack was from midnight to dawn, so we rarely got sufficient sleep because Captain Hartwell often put us on 100% alert for up to four hours at a time. When we were allowed to sleep, the artillery battery seemed to have a fire mission at the same time. Rounds might be launched for only one minute, or the mission could drag on for an hour. More often than not, the guns were aimed over our shallow bunker, so every cannon blast shook us from our sleep.
The biggest disadvantage of being on a firebase was that we were sitting ducks for the enemy. Although we weren’t directly attacked while I was there, we did get mortared one night. The NVA walked four rounds across the base scoring a direct hit on one of the bunkers, killing three GIs as they slept in a fighting position on the bunker roof. The trio never knew what hit them. The next morning their mangled bodies were found strewn over the sandbagged walls like rag dolls. It was a grim and depressing sight.
We didn’t have any body bags, so we loosely wrapped the dead in ponchos. After the bodies were placed on the chopper pad for extraction, I was drawn to the spot where they lay. Their feet were grotesquely tilted in the same direction and the uncovered legs each had an identification tag tied to the right boot. I didn’t recognize their names and I couldn’t see their faces, which was just as well.
Though the mortar attac
k deaths were shocking, their impact soon faded as the routine firebase activities resumed. However, Specialist Harrison, the GI who claimed he smelled the VC girl we killed at Phong Dien, went off the deep end. He was mentally unstable and we had not realized it. We watched in amusement as he loaded himself with ammunition and declared, “I’m gonna get me some NVA. Don’t you see them watching us from the tree line?”
“Sure Harrison,” Freddie Shaw laughed, “they’re making faces at us!”
“Take no prisoners!” shouted Stan Alcon. We all laughed. Five seconds later we had stopped laughing and were staring dumbfounded as Harrison leaped over the concertina wire and dashed into the jungle. Once out of sight, he hollered “Geronimo!” then sprayed the jungle with a full magazine burst of M-16 fire, finishing the barrage with several grenades. Two squads scrambled to retrieve Harrison in case the NVA really were out there. When we found him, Harrison complained that the Gooks ran away when they saw him coming. Harrison was clearly a risk to the firebase as well as to himself. The safest thing to do was send him to the rear for psychiatric evaluation or simply keep him busy at Camp Evans until his tour ran out.
“They’re sending me to the rear?” he shouted, questioning the move.
“Those dirty bastards know damn well I want to be where the action is!”
“Are you crazy?” we scolded him. “Most Grunts only get a couple of days in the rear before going home. You’ll have nearly a month.”
“They can’t fool me,” he continued, his eyes open wide as if to better make his point. “They’re sending me back to Camp Evans because the Gooks are digging tunnels under the airstrip and they need me to flush them into the open.”
The poor guy had gone crazy. The past eleven months of combat had burned him out. Later that day, a chopper brought out two new guys and prepared to take Harrison back. Most of the men were superstitious about being around a nut case, and so I was one of the few who bothered to say goodbye. Besides, as his squad leader, I felt it my duty to see him off.
Harrison sat in the helicopter looking out at me with a stupid grin. As we shook hands, he pulled me close saying, “Everybody thinks I’m crazy, but I don’t give a fuck. I was just crazy enough to get my ass out of the field. Ha, Ha!” His eyes burned into mine.
As the chopper lifted off, I laughed to myself. Harrison wasn’t nuts after all. His act fooled everyone, even me. He was just a short timer who had seen so much shit that he pulled something desperate to get out of the field. His scheme worked so well I decided to keep it a secret. Who knows, someday I might need a similar stunt to save myself.
One of the new guys who came out was a platoon leader to replace Lieutenant Bruckner. 2nd Lieutenant Anthony Pizzuto was a baby-faced Italian from a town in Idaho no one had ever heard of. A college graduate who planned on a long military career, Pizzuto wasn’t bashful about voicing his belief that serving in Vietnam would provide the necessary grooming for future success. However, I wasn’t sure how he planned to accomplish his goal because Pizzuto wasn’t interested in meeting the platoon members. Instead, he spent several days in private meetings with Hartwell and Krol.
The other new guy was PFC Dennis Silig. He was a good-looking muscular fellow who didn’t act nervous like the average Cherry coming to the field. He was relaxed, friendly, and already talking with some of the men.
“Hello Silig,” I said, introducing myself, “I’m Sergeant Wiknik, your squad leader. Where are you from in the World?”
“Lancaster, New York,” he answered, shaking my hand and squeezing it hard.
“That’s quite a grip. Do you work out?”
“No,” he laughed quietly. “In college I played a lot of sports to keep in shape.”
“A college man?” I asked puzzled. “What the hell are you doing in the Army? Did you waive your deferment?”
“I couldn’t afford my tuition anymore, so I quit. I was just surprised to get drafted so fast.”
“Maybe you and Howard Siner should get together,” I joked, “he’s a New York college dropout, too.”
To no one’s surprise, Silig and Siner became instant friends. Their kinship of growing up in New York, similar educational background, and enjoyment of professional sports created a natural bond.
The rebuilding work on Firebase Airborne was completed so our next assignment would take us on a month long patrol of the A Shau mountains at the northern tip of the valley. In our absence, each company in our battalion during two-week rotating shifts would defend Airborne.
Our exit from the firebase should have been routine. Instead, it was a fiasco. With no natural clearings big enough to land a helicopter, an LZ had to be cut. The site selected was on a pointed ridge that was visible from the firebase. A five-minute artillery barrage pounded the location to help simplify the tree removal and scare off any lurking NVA. As elements of Echo Company rappelled into the jungle to provide security for a LZ cutting team, Cobra gunships patrolled from the air. With ten GIs already on the ground, everything was going as planned until the third helicopter hovered over the site. Just as the men started down the ropes, hidden NVA soldiers opened fire on the aircraft in an effort to make it crash and block the LZ.
The pilot was shot through both legs. The door-gunners answered back, spraying the jungle with long bursts of machine gun fire. As the co-pilot struggled to take control, a member of Echo Company dropped into an intense firefight on the ground. A second was even less fortunate. He was halfway down the rope when the helicopter suddenly sped skyward, yanking him several hundred feet into the air. The GI dangling fifty feet below the chopper hindered the co-pilot’s evasive action, which allowed the NVA to score several hits on the aircraft. When the helicopter began smoking and losing altitude the co-pilot turned back toward the firebase. As the chopper whined its way toward us, we scattered for cover, figuring it could crash anywhere on the tiny outpost. The co-pilot maintained a heading that allowed the dangling GI to hit the ground running and slide free from the rope. It almost worked, but the GI was so terrified when he touched down he forgot to let go. His momentum dragged him headlong over the top of a bunker, depositing him in the concertina wire. He was hospitalized for lacerations, bruises, and shock. The co-pilot’s attempt to land on the chopper pad was no more successful. The helicopter landed in a heap on an embankment and rolled over on its side. Miraculously, there was no fire and the crew escaped without additional injuries.
Meanwhile, back at the LZ, the Cobra gunships fired into the jungle and broke up the NVA attack. Three GIs were wounded, but none seriously. There were no enemy dead or wounded left behind. The attacking force was estimated at less than ten men.
Several hours later, the LZ cutting was complete and the operation resumed. We were nervous about going in, but our company landed without incident. After the last of the helicopters flew away the area became eerily quiet.
“The A Shau is a very bad place,” observed Tu Huong, a Kit Carson scout we had brought along. “Beaucoup NVA. This is very, very bad.” His words made the hair on my neck stand up. Since he was a former VC soldier, Huong was worried about what would happen to him if he was captured by the NVA. His gloomy speculation didn’t inspire much confidence in us, either.
Since the NVA knew where we were, it was too dangerous to remain near the LZ because they could easily launch an attack or mortar us. Our only option was to head into the jungle. When our lead element moved out, they came upon a well-used narrow trail along the top of the ridge. Adjacent to the footpath was a set of NVA field telephone communication wires that were severed during the LZ artillery prep. We tapped into the lines, hoping to intercept a message our scout could interpret, but they weren’t being used. Rather than wait for a transmission that might never come, we decided to follow the wires.
We quietly advanced about a quarter mile until a full burst of AK-47 rounds sent us scrambling for cover. The bullets struck and badly wounded our point man, PFC Kristoff. He had walked into a well-camouflaged bunker complex where one
or two NVA soldiers had been waiting to ambush us. We returned fire, but no more enemy shots were heard and no soldiers were seen. The NVA gave us a taste of their deadly game of hit and run. Kristoff was in bad shape with wounds in both legs and in his lower abdomen. Luckily, the LZ was close enough for us to carry him back for quick evacuation.
A search of the complex revealed twenty bunkers and a command post, enough room to house fifty or more men. We figured the site was used as a rest area, as it offered no military advantages and there were no fighting positions. For many of us, this was the first enemy bunker complex we had seen, and we were impressed with the NVA’s ingenuity in developing the site. A small stream flowing through the complex supplied them with drinking water. There were three camp-style cooking locations, each with several small wooden bowls perched on the rocks next to them. The complex had been evacuated while the LZ was being cut. A handful of NVA must have stayed behind to harass the LZ cutters while the main force escaped. The bunkers were five feet deep, each large enough to house three soldiers. Hand woven thatch mats elevated a few inches above the dirt floor provided a moisture barrier for comfortable sleeping. Storage shelves dug in the walls were now empty. Rows of three-inch diameter logs covered with a foot of dirt made the ceiling. Jungle shrubs were planted on the roof to prevent the bunkers from being seen from the air.
The command bunker was much different. It was twice the size of the others, featuring two underground rooms. One room evidently housed the ranking officer and the other his aide. Atop the command bunker was a small thatched hooch that served as a central meeting place. Two hand-made benches and a wooden stool were inside.
The communication wires we had followed ran into the command bunker hooch and hung loosely from a corner post where a field telephone had been. Another set of wires led away from the hooch and down the original trail. We followed the new set for 500 feet to where they were cut. The retreating enemy must have taken the rest of the wire with them.
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