by Dale A. Dye
If the NVA are dug into bunkers and holes all along the dirt fill between the outer walls and the inner walls, how is one attack easier than the other? Walls are walls, man, thick and festooned with die-hard gooks. Walking away from the briefing, my head is suddenly filled with evil metaphors: Bugs creaming into the windshield of a speeding car, moths smashing into a porch light, and various night-nasty insects fried in a high-voltage bug-zapper.
Grunts are loading into Navy assault boats now. There aren’t enough of them, so the Vietnamese Navy has offered a trio of armed junks which will ferry some units across. We are assigned to an LCM-8, a Mike Eight, with other cats and dogs from H&S Company. A pair of speedy little Skyhawks is striking the Citadel walls as we board. They flash and zoom over the target so fast it’s hard to tell if they are Marine birds up from Danang or Navy planes from one of the carriers operating out on Dixie Station. It doesn’t matter. The key is that someone in the rear has finally loosened the lock on supporting arms. Maybe the gooks will split and try to get out from under the air strikes and big guns. Late word is that the Army has a bunch of troops on the outskirts of the city to cut off reinforcement and catch any NVA that try to escape. That makes me think the gooks over there inside the Citadel aren’t going anywhere soon. Maybe we’ll just surround the place and starve ’em out. How long could that take? We’ve surely got more time to waste than Marines.
There’s a silly tune running through my head as the little floating shoebox the Navy calls a Mike Boat rumbles into the river: Joshua fit de battle of Cit-a-del. Hope de walls come a-tumblin’ down. It’s a surprise to see some of the landing craft crewmen are U.S. Coast Guard. Who knew? Apparently, the situation in Hue demands intervention by shallow-water sailors fresh from manning lighthouses and LORAN stations. They look competent and committed, but it’s hard to keep from wondering how many of them joined the Coast Guard to keep from getting drafted and sent to Vietnam.
Code of the Grunt: You can run but you can’t hide. Dodge for a while but in the end they’ll get you and very likely send you someplace where you’ll get your end shot off.
There’s some incoming fire from a little mid-river island as we churn across the river with the Citadel looming off to port and a flock of high-ranking observers off to starboard. As everyone in our boat shrinks below the scuppers, the PBRs surge ahead on the flanks of the landing craft convoy pouring streams of machinegun fire at the NVA shooters. We feel the coxswain turn our boat to the left and pour on the power. A lieutenant near me jabs a finger at a hand-drawn sketch. We’ve made a northward turn toward a landing at Gia Hao which looks to be about two city blocks from that gate that is supposed to get us inside the Citadel.
The boat beaches with a crunch and the landing ramp drops. We can see other landing craft on the left and right disgorging grunts that spread out and surge forward. They are moving cautiously into a hard right turn and keeping a wary eye on houses and doorways for shooters. There’s just a sprinkling of incoming making me think the NVA in this area are just luring us deeper into the streets that lead to the only open gate of the Citadel. If we make it that far, the real killing will begin.
Steve follows me inside a little temple structure while 1/5 grunts out on the streets get organized for the tactical move to the Truong Dinh gate. Outside there’s an ARVN trooper waving his arms, pointing up the street and screaming about beaucoup VC. Inside there’s another Buddha blessing all who enter but I’m not interested at this point. Steve moves toward the low altar and checks behind the statues to see if recent history might repeat but it’s clear. “No gooks and no tape recorder.” He plucks a yellow, plastic flower from a vase at Buddha’s feet and jams it into the camouflage cover of my helmet. “You’ll have to make do with this. It looks good on you.”
The move toward the gate has halted. We find Delta’s XO crouched in a stone portico, talking into a radio handset. Marines on either side of him are glaring at a high window across the street. There’s a deadly accurate sniper in there, and he’s gut-shot one the first platoon guys who is lying in the street moaning. A Corpsman vaults from cover behind a wall and runs to retrieve the casualty. He’s six feet from the wounded man when the sniper cuts him down with a round to the chest. The Delta grunts fire a fusillade at the window but the sniper has faded into the shadows.
The Lieutenant sends a squad maneuvering around through houses on the left side of the street, trying to flank the sniper. We can see a gate about a block away from where we squat. There’s what looks like a medieval drawbridge, but that can’t be the gate we want. It’s blocked with junk and debris. Once someone kills the sniper, we’ll be moving in the other direction flanking the base of the eastern walls and moving right out in the open. Hey-diddle-diddle and right up the middle; it’s the Marine Corps way.
A radio squawks to report the flanking squad got the sniper. I see a grunt in the second story window waving a scoped, bolt-action rifle, the weapon that did the damage. A steady drizzle begins to fall as Delta Company assembles to move. Up ahead we can hear the drum-roll of rifle and machinegun fire. That’s another outfit already inside the walls and pushing on some intermediate objective. We’re a little late to the dance, but no one is complaining. We can hear the occasional crack of 90mm cannons and the creak of tracks grinding over rubble. The tanks have arrived and that puts a little pep into Delta’s step.
The point squad calls a halt as a couple of grunts from another company suddenly appear carrying a casualty. A Delta Company corpsman takes a quick look and takes over while the grunts rush back to wherever the fight that caused the casualty is happening. The Doc tells a platoon commander that the wounded man needs to be carried to where he can be sent south on one of the boats crossing the Perfume River. The Doc volunteers to hump the guy back, but the lieutenant doesn’t want to lose his corpsman. We are standing around close enough to get drafted.
“We could use a hand here. Can you two get this man back to the rear? You can join back up with us shortly. We’re supposed to have a bunch of replacements coming this way.”
It’s a polite request that might as well be an order. There’s no way we can say no and still maintain any kind of credibility with Delta Company. The corpsman does what he can for the gut-shot Marine, cautions us not to give him any water, and indicates we need to hustle the guy back to the landing area and put him on a boat. We help slide the wounded man onto a poncho, lift him as carefully as we can and backtrack through the advancing ranks of Delta Company.
At a rest stop along the way to Gia Hao landing site, I check the wounded guy’s dogtags and find out his name is Wilson, he’s got a boot camp service number, he’s a protestant, and his blood type is O positive. He’s dipping in and out of consciousness, in no shape to fill in the blanks. It takes nearly an hour to stagger back to the landing area and find the casualty-collection point. Some corpsmen go to work on our guy immediately and we sit down to chug canteen water and fire up a smoke. There’s no way to tell if Wilson will make it out of Hue alive, but it’s enough that we helped improve his odds.
The landing area is beginning to look like a classic amphibious beachhead. Supplies and troops pour ashore each time a boat lands from the Southside. Wounded go out on the same boats. Southbound coxswains hit reverse and execute a quick, high-speed run back across the river. Support troops or inbound reinforcements are milling around everywhere helping themselves to chow, ammo, water, or anything useful they can find stacked along the riverfront. We pick up some extra rations and head back toward the walls. Delta Company shouldn’t be too hard to find. Passing the casualty collection point we look for Wilson. We’ve got a personal stake now in a guy we never met before we rolled him onto a poncho in Hue City. He’s nowhere in sight, so maybe he’s still alive. Continuing up the street with the walls on our left, we are passed by a Mule ferrying the first dead from the fight that’s already underway on the other side of the walls. The bloody, muddy ponchos wrapped around the bodies are covered with an ugly
blanket of blow flies.
At the intersection where Delta’s first platoon killed the sniper, we spot two second lieutenants in stateside utility uniforms milling around and looking bewildered. They’ve got fresh high-and-tight haircuts, new flak jackets, rifles, and a single bandolier of ammo between them. One has a Military Airlift Command boarding pass peeking out of his pocket. Clearly less than a day or two off a flight from the States, they eye our ragged condition with a mixture of suspicion and gratitude.
“We’re headed up forward…” One of the lieutenants waves vaguely in the direction we’re headed. We just stare and nod. “Got any idea where we can find Delta Company? You look like you’ve been here a while and uh…” It just hangs there. He seems to want reassurance more than directions.
“Lieutenants, are you lost?”
Jaws jack momentarily. These new officers have heard all the jokes about little lost lieutenants. Neither of them is long enough out of OCS and The Basic School to challenge combat vets. “We’re assigned to Delta Company. Are they up this way?”
A burst of fire causes the lieutenants to flinch. It’s an M-60 and at least a block away, but there’s no way these guys can know that. “That’s probably them.” I point in the general direction of the Citadel. “We’re headed for Delta. You can come along with us, but best you pick up some deuce-gear first. You’re gonna need some more gear before you get too much deeper into this thing.”
We walk with the lieutenants back to the landing ramp and help them select belts, suspender straps, and canteens from a pile of medevac gear. “They rushed us up here so fast we didn't have time to get any.” One of the lieutenant shrugs into his new gear, reaches for a pack of cigarettes, and offers us one. “Back at the battalion CP they said we’d get whatever we needed from Delta.”
“Maybe so, Lieutenant, but you’d be better off reporting in with more than a rifle and one bandolier of magazines. Delta won’t have much gear to spare—until they start taking casualties.” The other lieutenant cuts a quick, questioning glance at his buddy. Are we kidding? We are not and they say no more as we start back up the street listening to the rattle of a firefight on the other side of the walls.
There’s a guide stationed at the Truong Dinh gate looking for replacements and ready to escort them forward. We let him know the lieutenants need to find Delta Company and he takes the officers off our hands. The lieutenants offer to shake. It comes as such a surprise that it takes me a while to reach out for their hands. We give each of them a grip hoping there’s some sort of comfort or reassurance in the contact. They clearly need it.
We’ll follow in a little while after we get a feel for the situation. There’s a Shore Party Staff Sergeant set up at the gate and he’s happy to share from a pot of coffee he’s got brewing over a little kindling wood fire. Several ARVN troopers are milling around the fire eyeing the coffee, but Staff Sergeant makes no move to share with anyone other than us. We sip coffee and watch the lieutenants disappear in the direction of the ARVN compound. Delta is apparently holed up there waiting for orders.
Shore Party Staff Sergeant nods in the direction of the departing replacements. “What’s chances those guys are alive tomorrow?”
“About zip-point-shit if this thing plays out according to predictions.” Steve shrugs, finishes his coffee and folds the handle on his canteen cup. “But there are always the exceptions.”
We find Delta occupying some sort of musty ARVN warehouse and waiting for orders. They had a fairly easy time walking from the gate to the compound. Just a few bursts of plunging fire from gooks on the walls along the route. Nothing to write home about, a platoon commander reports as we join his outfit. Apparently the battalion commander is making sure he’s got all his troops and supporting arms in place before he commences the sweep from here to the walls on the southside of the Citadel compound where that NVA flag is still flying.
The rest of 1/5’s rifle companies are strung out along a ragged line that meanders through a couple of city blocks around the ARVN Compound and angled to face the southern and eastern walls of the Citadel. The big push is scheduled for the morning, our second day on the northside of Hue. The first platoon leader admits he doesn’t have much of a tactical plan in mind. Just sweep through and take what comes, he guesses with a shrug. Clear the houses, climb the walls, and kill any gooks we run into. If there is some sort of broad, bold, and sexy master scheme of maneuver, the lieutenant says he missed the memo. Sometime around dusk he finds us crapped out and says there are several civilian correspondents heading his way. He’d really appreciate it if we could keep them out of his hair.
There are two of them. One AP scribbler and another guy who says he’s writing a piece for Esquire Magazine. We introduce ourselves and lead them to an out of the way area where we can determine whether or not we can help them without getting ourselves killed. The AP guy looks and acts like a veteran who can go the distance. The Esquire guy looks like a hippy and promptly rolls himself a fat joint once we’re settled into an abandoned house that faces the southern walls of the Citadel.
Around 1900, a first platoon rifle squad arrives to share our abode for the night. With dark descending rapidly and a cold rain starting to blow over the city, we settle in and speculate about sporadic firing around the ARVN compound. There’s a lot of nervous fiddling with gear and the rattle of grunts refilling rifle magazines or crunching P-38 openers into rations cans. AP and Esquire conduct interviews with the grunts but there’s not much to report. These guys have yet to get into the fight very deeply, so it’s just jive; mostly stuff they’ve heard rather than anything they’ve actually experienced in Hue.
It’s time to explore the digs and my little map light is dim enough to keep from making me a sniper target. The place looks like it was once a comfortable home for someone with bucks or influence; maybe both. The furniture is heavy, ornate, and expensive. There is even a functional flush toilet currently topped by a grinning grunt leaning on his rifle and noisily depositing what sounds and smells like about a week’s worth of congealed C-ration meals. There is a fireteam lined up outside the shitter, politely waiting for their turn on the throne.
Mortars are beginning to clang and bang into a night fire mission on something to the south of us. The mortarmen are firing mixed HE and illumination over the area we will assault tomorrow. Wind carries most of the illum rounds back toward our positions near the ARVN compound and grunts on watch are bitching loudly about it. There is an occasional crack from some NVA sniper’s rifle as the light silhouettes a Marine target. The relative calm is making everyone nervous and prompting the replacements to speculate about an easy day tomorrow. The veterans loudly and profanely disabuse them of that theory. The trash talk is a pressure relief valve. The only thing sure about tomorrow is that there won’t be much time for snappy patter.
Steve is crapped out in a corner cleaning his carbine and wrapping his camera in plastic for storage in his pack. He wordlessly hands me the wrapper from a spare radio battery so I can wrap my own camera. Both of us understand we won’t be doing much photography when the word comes to move. There’s a mutual agreement here. What we shoot tomorrow won’t be pictures. We’ll let the civilians handle that. With AP and Esquire along on the hump, Delta Company’s efforts will get all the coverage required. And the grunts will appreciate a couple of extra rifles. Listening to the owl hoot of falling flare canisters jangles my nerves and after a few minutes of rearranging gear, I’m off looking for a tonic to keep the spooks at bay until morning.
It’s hard to keep from tripping over grunts sprawled everywhere in this mini-mansion, wrapped in whatever they can find to keep out the chilly night air. A few have stripped thick velour curtains off the windows and spooned together for warmth and reassurance. My map light illuminates a framed photo in one of the bedrooms and I pause to contemplate the image of an Asian family in another place and another time. There’s a man and woman hugging two cute kids wearing Mickey Mouse ears and pos
ing with Disneyland’s Matterhorn in the background. No telling where this family is now, but it’s likely not the happiest place on earth.
Relentlessly searching for booze, I continue to explore while picking up random objects that catch my eye and stuffing them into one pocket or another. It’s kitschy stuff, little carved figurines and an ornate letter opener. The kind of Asian baubles you can buy in any rear echelon gook shop; nothing that would yield much in trade or even rate space on a respectable coffee table back in The World. It’s just plain stealing little things that have no real value but I’m ready with rationalizations. It’s not like the money at the Treasury Building or the ill-fated tape recorder on the southside. That was big-time looting, premeditated felonies committed for purposes of personal gain. This is different somehow. The little things that disappear into my pockets just seem like perks or rewards for surviving this long in the fight for Hue City.
AP Reporter finds me wandering toward the kitchen of our commandeered house and wants to know if I’ve heard anything about the mission tomorrow. He says he needs a detailed plan of action for his story. AP wants to find the battalion commander and get a full briefing but I advise him to wait for morning. A map-drill won’t be much help. He just needs to understand there are only two missions that count from this point: Climb the walls and kill the gooks. AP thinks that might be a hot-shit lead for his story on the Citadel fighting and wants my name and hometown so he can attribute the quote.