by Jack McLean
In my presence, my parents remained stoic.
My sister Barby was now fourteen—old enough to know what was going on and young enough to be really scared. She told me years later that she, Mom, and Dad just hunkered down for the year. A National Geographic map of Vietnam was hung in the front hall bathroom after I left. Week by week, a growing number of pins marked the movements of Charlie Company across the wide southern expanse of the demilitarized zone that separated the two Vietnams. Late evenings and early mornings would often find my mother or father walking sleeplessly through the drafty corridors of the grand old house.
I had bidden farewell to my parents many times over the years during my back and forths to Andover. I had, however, never said good-bye over the telephone. It was awkward, lonely, painful, and excruciatingly sad.
I made the long dusty walk back to the tent that served as our barracks. The sun was just setting. Before me lay a hundred glowing lightbulbs, each shining over the entrance to the ever increasing number of tents that stretched up the hillside. The marines inside my tent were reading, playing poker, and writing letters. Every several minutes, one would head off to or return from the pay phones for his last call home. There was little of our customary bravado or horseplay. In brief hours, we would begin our trek into the deadly serious business of war.
Early the following morning the buses arrived. The idling engines cut the predawn silence and brought me back to my arrival at Parris Island as Staff Sergeant Hilton rudely herded us into the musty South Carolina night. This scene, by contrast, was calm and orderly. One by one, we stowed our gear and filed aboard. We all looked exactly the same, dressed in green utilities with boots shined, heads shorn, and a faraway look in our eyes as our feet left American soil.
The moment was upon us. With a slow grinding sound, the buses shifted into first gear and began to roll forward into the predawn mist.
We were on our way to Vietnam.
14
DURING THE 1950s, MY FATHER WORKED FOR JOHN D. Rockefeller III as an executor of Rockefeller’s philanthropic vision for Asia. This included creating nonprofit organizations that would respond to the anticipated challenges in population growth and food production. During my youth, my father was often gone several times a year for weeks at a time. One such trip was in February 1957 when he was accompanied by my mother, John Rockefeller, and Rockefeller’s wife, Blanchette. Mom kept a journal of the trip in the form of detailed letters home to us. A week of this particular trip was spent in South Vietnam—ten years before my arrival there.
Her letter gives a prescient look at a country that, although seemingly composed to her pampered eyes, was wired to blow.
Vietnam
February 4, 1957
Letter from Martha McLean to her children
I am sitting at the desk in our hotel room—my hands are already sticky hot and the sun is burning down on the Saigon River outside our window. We leave at noon for Cambodia.
Along the river, people are hurrying back and forth, mostly wearing straw hats and carrying bamboo poles across their shoulders with baskets full of market things on either end. The women are the real sight in Saigon. They are tiny and beautiful. All of them wear very thin white silk trousers with a long tunic in every sort of color over it—high neck, long sleeves, and split up each side to the waist. They have sandals on their feet, and really stride along, their heads back, long black hair tied low in back and the tunics floating out around them.
Saigon is an elegant city. Wide streets, tall beautiful trees, and lovely buildings, mostly with high walls and gardens around them, and all painted a sort of biscuit color with red tile roofs, and flowering vines climbing around. When the French built here, they first laid out the streets, and then they planted the trees and last of all they built their houses. Now the French have gone—or most of them have—and the Vietnamese are running their own country. The President lives in a great palace that used to be the King’s, and his picture is high on the front of most of the government buildings. Right now it’s Tet, the Chinese New Year, and all the public buildings are strung around with lights. They call Saigon the “Paris of the Orient” and not only does it look French, but everyone speaks French too.
Because it’s a new Republic (just two years since the revolution) and because it’s the Rockefellers’ first visit, everyone wanted us to see everything, and we have been escorted through hospitals, the University, the Museum, etc. with the people in charge anxious for us to get a good impression.
Last night was the final great event—a dinner party at the Palace. I found myself at the long dinner table seated on the left of the President with the Secretary of State on my left. Through the long procession of dishes the Secretary of State helped me with my chopsticks, cut my papaya for me, and we became friends.
The President talked a lot, and Mrs. Rockefeller managed him, so I wasn’t too pressed to make conversation, but he gave me a great speech on how much he had admired Daddy (who had an interview with him with interpreter when we first arrived) so I was very proud. His name, by the way, was Diem, and he is regarded as a great hero here for the wonderful things he has done in South Vietnam since the Geneva Conference, when North Vietnam was given to the Communists.
There was lots of fighting before that, but now all is very peaceful, and while out in the country we saw tall stone guard posts along the road, most of the villages looked peaceful, with flowers, vegetable gardens, water buffalo hard at work and people hurrying busily all around. We visited a refugee center about fifty miles north, and saw many others along the way. They are all built around a big Catholic church. When the Communists took over North Vietnam it was the local priest in every town who led his villagers to safety across the border. They brought only what they could carry, and burnt all their houses behind them so the Communists wouldn’t get them! Then walked, most of them, hundreds of miles. This country is only 10% Christian, but of course the priest let anyone who wanted come with him, and now each village has set up its own schools in the south.
All of them, men and women from the North wear black silk trousers and dark red tunics, so you can always tell which ones they are. Everyone starts the day very early, when it’s a bit cooler, and then siesta for three hours at noon, and no afternoon school for any children! Dinner isn’t until about nine in the evening when it’s almost cool enough to be a little hungry. We can’t eat any salad or fresh things here, except fruit that has the skin on, and we have little pills we have to put into the water, but mostly we drink wine and beer.
The Tet celebrations involved wonderful doings, with a great colored paper dragon the main attraction, and boys beating drums, and dancing round going through furious whirlings up on high poles, his long flowing silk tail twitching around behind him. Everyone gathers around shouting, and it seems the point is for the demon to catch the evil spirit, so all will have good luck for the New Year.
Now we are in a plane again, flying to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, just one hour away. The country under us looks hot, and wet, and flat with lots of rice paddies and only a hazy sign of the mountains far to the north in the Communist part of the country. We are flying north, so maybe it will be an hour cooler at least.
While we were there a Hollywood group was at our hotel making a movie called “The Quiet American.” There were a lot of them with Audie Murphy being the star. We watched them “shooting” two evenings—once in the market place where they had a great parade with dragon, lanterns and things, and another time right in front of the hotel, with Audie himself driving up in a jeep and coming into the lobby. The time of the movie is during the war against the French, so they had to hang French flags up everywhere.
We also had the “Fairless Committee” (Mr. Fairless is the ex-president of General Motors) investigating the American Aid program. They had eight Cadillacs—all numbered—to take them around the city.
Then just as we were leaving this morning an American military mission arrived to look into tha
t side of the affaire but they looked rather dull by comparison.
Love,
Mom
Ngo Dinh Diem, my mother’s dinner partner at the palace banquet that February evening in 1957, was assassinated on November 2, 1963, in a military coup that had the tacit approval of the United States. Three short weeks later, U.S. president John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. On that day there were sixteen thousand American military advisers in Vietnam.
When my parents visited Asia, the flight from Hawaii to Manila took twenty hours, with stops at Wake Island and Guam. The Boeing Stratocruiser in which they flew was an enormous converted bomber with two floors, magnificently decorated in what my mother referred to as “elegant pale blue, with coral-colored curtains” and pull-down sleeping berths. She called it “a flying palace.” “I can’t even touch the seat in front of me with my feet stretched out,” she wrote. It flew at ten thousand feet with vivid views of the white-capped ocean.
Now we’re coming down, my ears tell me, and in a minute we’ll see Saigon! Just three hours and we’ve had cocktails and lunch and a lovely smooth morning. I could go on! But I must powder my nose and be ready for the photographers at the airport.
My first flight to Vietnam from Okinawa, by contrast, was a comparatively short four-hour hop in a packed Pan Am 707 with several hundred fatigue-clad marines wedged shoulder to shoulder flying at thirty thousand feet—well above the ocean, well above the clouds, and completely removed from any hint of the reality into which we were about to enter.
My first sight of Vietnam occurred during our final approach as we made the slow bank toward Da Nang. I first saw the beaches—beautifully endless white sand beaches—followed by the emerald green of the jungle, bordered by a thousand rice paddies that stretched out to the horizon.
Vietnam seemed serene.
Timeless.
A thousand years of civilization lay simply before me.
Then we landed.
Instantly, the predominant color became red—red clay, red mud, red dust everywhere and all over everything. But at first there was a familiar feeling to what I saw. It was, after all, a United States Marine Corps base. All marine bases have a particular order and organization, whether in Barstow, Camp Lejeune, or Da Nang. The signs were all in red and gold; everything in sight—moving or stationary—had usmc stenciled on the side; people went about their business in a certain distinct marine-like manner. As such, Da Nang did not have the feel of a foreign country or a war zone. Looking out the small window, I could see that the marines weren’t even wearing helmets or flak jackets. I felt relieved that we would not be hit by enemy fire upon disembarkation.
The evidence of the rapid buildup, however, was palpable. The airport at which we landed was now the busiest in the world. I was one of four hundred thousand American boys to set foot in Vietnam in 1967. The number would be considerably higher the following year.
A quick scan of the grounds revealed concertina wire, guard towers, tank emplacements, flimsy wooden barracks, and hundreds of tents. Parallel to our runway, we could see F-4 Phantom jets taking off without break, one after the other. The late afternoon sun reflected blindingly off the bright silver napalm canisters that hung heavily from their wings. Several of the jets carried equally devastating payloads of two-hundred-fifty-pound bombs as they headed off to provide close air support for a marine unit under attack.
For the first time in my life I felt trapped. I could neither go home nor hide. For a United States Marine arriving in South Vietnam in November of 1967, there were only two ways out—in a Pan Am jet from Da Nang, or in a body bag from the field.
I couldn’t deny a twinge of excitement, however, as my foot touched the tarmac.
Our first stop was a large wooden shed on the edge of the runway. The inside was dimly lit by several fluorescent lights and was impossible to navigate because the tropical midday sun had temporarily blinded me. After several seconds, I discerned a long counter from which three lines of marines snaked around the room. At the head of each line was a sign hanging from the ceiling. Each appeared to designate a destination of some sort, although none was familiar to me—Phu Bai? Quang Tri? Khe Sanh? In my hand I carried a manila envelope with my official orders. I was to report to 1/4, the 1st Battalion of the 4th Marine Regiment of the 3rd Marine Division.
The 3rd Marine Division—Bougainville, Guam, Iwo Jima.
Iwo fucking Jima!
After several minutes of uncertain milling with my incoming plane mates, I was told that 1/4’s base of operations or “battalion rear” or simply “rear” was currently in Phu Bai and that I should get in that line and arrange passage on a C-130 transport that afternoon. Phu Bai, I learned, was about an hour’s plane ride north of Da Nang near the old capital of Hue. The pampering was over. A marine corps C-130 was not a Pan Am 707.
Back on the tarmac, we were herded up the C-130 rear loading ramp and directed to belt ourselves onto the benches that lined the bulkhead. The plane taxied, turned, and took off with a deafening roar that continued for the entire trip. The late afternoon sun shone brightly through the portholes onto the squinting faces of those who lined the starboard side of the fuselage. My back to the west, I stared across at them. They were all there—each stage of the Vietnam Marine Corps experience. About half looked as I did—brand-new fatigues, shiny jungle boots, pink skin, and, had I been able to see, they were ridiculously wet behind the ears. While we may have looked tough, trained, and ready, the fact was we were all scared shitless.
Anyone who tells you different is lying.
The other half was older guys—in tenure as opposed to age. Some were on their way back from R & R; others were returning to the field after having injuries tended to. All were frozen with the faraway trance that acknowledged that they were headed back into the shit. Their fatigues, boots, skin, and helmets were covered with the same dusty reddish-gray patina that covered their eyes and expressions. Between their knees were M16 rifles—scratched, scuffed, and nicked on the outside, but spotless on the inside. These rifles had shot at human targets and would soon again.
This was no longer an exercise.
I was to be one of them.
A basic Marine Corps hill humping, paddy sloshing, shit stirring, motherfucking grunt. Not supply. Not the air wing. Not guard duty. A grunt—the epicenter—the best of the best of the United States Marine Corps, the backbone of 192 years of American military excellence.
I was now Jack McLean, 0311, WESTPAC.
I quietly sang the familiar Parris Island cadence to myself:
One, two, three, four.
United—States—Marine—Corps.
This is—what we—asked—for.
Three—thousand—seventy—six.
We’re the—best.
Of all the—rest.
Left-right-left.
Left-right-left.
I silently hoped—prayed—that I would remember half of what Staff Sergeant Hilton had taught me.
15
WE ARRIVED IN PHU BAI AN HOUR LATER, EARS RINGING. Several of us were directed to a truck that transported us several miles over a dusty rutted road to Camp Evans. We were then deposited in front of a vacated wooden barracks. Our unit, Charlie Company, was on an operation along the DMZ and would not be returning for several days. There were other new guys like me who, while awaiting the company’s return, were passing the time with menial tasks designed to keep them busy. It was a letdown, but I was glad to make some new friends among the group. Three in particular, Terry Tillery, Doug McPhail, and Wayne Wood, remain friends to this day.
The first night was eerie. Lying exposed in an aboveground barracks, we could hear the steady sounds of artillery and air strikes all night long. We weren’t yet accustomed to the sound difference between incoming and outgoing, or bombs, or artillery, or mortars. Hence, each explosion was a startling, potentially life-threatening event. Several boys who had already been there a day or two tried to calm the rest of us.
&
nbsp; “That’s an outgoing 105 mm howitzer,” said one.
“That’s a B-52 bombing five or so miles away,” said another.
And on it went.
Outgoing 81 mm mortar—night defensive fire.
155 mm artillery outgoing.
60 caliber machine gun.
For the next year, noise would become our constant companion—outgoing mortars and artillery, incoming mortars and artillery, outgoing rifle fire, incoming rifle fire, Phantom jets, B-52S, 16 inch naval artillery, all stirred into a stew of sound. The same way one would learn how to sleep through the constant barking of a neighbor’s dog, we quickly learned to sleep through all that was outgoing. We needed our sleep, after all.
Less than a week later, we joined Charlie Company in the field. This was it. All that we had learned since our first night of boot camp had led to this. We each had a thousand questions that were patiently addressed by our new leaders. Our lives depended on these leaders. They, of course, knew that their lives depended on us as well, and they were eager to respond to any small question or unspoken fear.
“Larry, I gotta pee. Where do I go?”
“Larry, where’s my hole? Do I get a hole?”
“Larry, will I stand watch tonight? When? Who wakes me up? Who do I wake up? Which one is he?”
Terry Tillery was assigned to a fire team led by Buck Willing-ham of Maysville, Oklahoma. During the early days, Tillery occasionally felt that he had forgotten everything he had ever known.
“Buck, the wide part of the claymore faces out, right?”
“Buck, are we allowed to have rounds chambered in our rifles?”
“Buck, where do we get water, food? When do we eat? Where do we eat?”
That night we received our first incoming mortar attack. It was terrifying, even though I was dug safely into my hole. It sounded just like in the movies—a slow increasing whistling scream ending in an explosion. Other guys were scrambling all around, some even were laughing. For them, as it would soon be for me, it was routine.