by Phil Ball
For the most part, the chest-high elephant grass was left standing on top of the ridge and inside the perimeter, but it, as well as trees and brush, had to be cleared or otherwise trampled on the outside of our perimeter to create a good field of fire zone. As usual, Alabama dug our hole while Chico and I cleared the brush. We set up three claymore mines and wired a half-dozen trip flares to serve as our first line of defense. If we got hit tonight, the flares would be ignited; if fired properly, the claymores would take out a good number of the first wave of attackers.
Setting up properly was a science and an art learned by experience. Variations could be imaginative and very helpful. Instead of simply sticking the two metal legs into the ground and letting the mines blow the legs off our enemy, we liked to tie them up in a tree, about head level, for a much more deadly effect. NVA soldiers were known to sneak up in the dark and turn claymores around on you if you weren’t careful, and when detonated with remote control, the 700 stainless steel ball bearings would blast back at you while the enemy laughed. A one-pound charge of C-4 plastic explosive would blow the holy living shit out of anything in its path, scattering quarter-inch buckshot as far as 100 meters. Our claymores were well worth the extra weight in our packs and the M-26 frag was possibly the single most effective weapon in a grunt’s arsenal. Knowing you had a few well-placed claymores in front of your hole with the remote, hand-held detonator close by, sometimes gave that extra little peace of mind that allowed a grunt to get some sleep.
Alabama had recently been put in with Chico and me because he apparently couldn’t get along with anyone else. He simply refused to let anybody tell him what to do, playing heavily on the fact that he had six months in-country, making him a salt.
One of Alabama’s big pet peeves was his fighting holes. He insisted on doing most of the digging himself, which certainly didn’t bother Chico and me, and he always dug deep, each position almost a piece of art. He carved various little shelves and compartments to store our ammo and gear, and often dug steps and platforms to stand on. He carried his own sandbags, filling them at night at each new hole, only to empty them in the morning and carry them to our next objective.
The hole he dug on May 25, 1968, on the south side of the ridge was actually too big for only three men. We jumped down in the rectangular pit and could barely see over the top when standing on our toes. We realized we might need something to stand on. The bottom on Alabama’s right side was nice and flat, squared off at the corners, plenty of room to accommodate his size 14 jungle boots and allow him to squat down very low. Our left side, on the other hand, was not quite as neatly done. It was not flat or squared off in the corners; rather, it narrowed at the bottom to a V and did not allow our feet to stand flat, nor could we squat as low as ’Bama could. It was still declared a good hole, and it was finished as far as any of us were concerned.
Every evening, if there was still daylight, Chico liked to make rounds. He had friends all over the company and he liked keeping in touch. After our work was done and we had a bite to eat, he asked me if I wanted to go with him. Without sounding too eager, I said I would. Being a radioman often meant being tied down a lot of the time, because someone has to monitor the thing 24 hours a day, but ’Bama agreed to take over and off we went.
Being with Chico was not only a status thing, but usually quite eventful. He was always either getting into something or trying to get out of it. He knew a lot of people and had connections all over I-Corps. I followed close behind on the narrow path cut in the elephant grass, greeting or stopping to talk to nearly every grunt in Fox Company.
Making rounds every night was not purely a social call. It also served as a means to get the big picture of our overall position. He pointed out the location of “Rocketman”—the rocket launcher—position in 2nd Platoon’s lines just south of the saddle area and facing partially toward the Crow’s Nest. I was impressed with the big, 3.5 (3½-inch) bazooka-like weapon lying across the freshly dug fighting hole. Originally designed to blow up tanks, it was used in Vietnam against enemy bunkers and troops.
Besides the 3.5, “Rocketman” and his team also carried several LAWS. This disposable, smaller version of a bazooka, was also used against enemy troops and always made a big impact. It opened like a telescope to about 30 inches long, and was fired just once. The lightweight plastic tube was then crushed and discarded. We crushed it because the enemy could pick up nearly anything we threw away and figure out a way to reuse it against us.
We could see Hillbilly and Mouse, already over on the Crow’s Nest with their machine gun in place. A few other grunts were attempting to dig fighting holes in the hard, rocky soil, but weren’t having much success. The last of the 13-man squad passed us on the trail and momentarily disappeared behind the tree line at the base of the saddle. They reappeared on the other side and joined Hillbilly and the others.
Chico nodded his head and asked, “What’s happenin’, my man?” to the artillery forward observer, as he and his radioman departed the perimeter for their position on the Crow’s Nest. I could tell he didn’t know them so I asked Chico, “Who’s that?”
He told me they were with Artillery, and then began to explain some of what they do. “They’ll radio over to Bravo 1/12 at LZ Hawk, and get all the preregistered coordinates off the map. He’ll break down the surrounding area into targets and give each one a code name. If the shit hits the fan and we need artillery and mortar fire, all he has to do is call the various codes in, and that particular target gets destroyed. From that point he can visually observe where the rounds are hitting, and adjust them wherever he wants. He might call in artillery fire around the base of the hill and pound the hell out of the valley down there first. Then, say if the gooks start coming up the slopes toward us, he can virtually walk the rounds right up to us. Even right on top of us if you’re getting overrun.”
We walked around the eastern tip of 2nd Platoon’s lines and headed back toward the west along the steep, northern slope facing Route #9. These holes were precariously dug in the side of the cliff that dropped nearly straight down some 60 to 70 meters, to one of those deep gorges with very heavy underbrush.
“They’d need ropes and ladders to get up this side, wouldn’t they?” I asked, thinking the NVA could never attack up this side.
“Don’t bet on it,” he replied. “How many times I got to tell you, man, never underestimate the gooks. Just when you start thinkin’ they can’t touch you, they’ll sneak up and bite you on the balls.” This overall position, with vertical slopes on all sides, appeared to be a very defendable hilltop. It was exactly the kind of place we searched for and utilized whenever we could. If the gooks were stupid enough to try it, they would definitely lose a lot of their men trying. We could gun them down as fast as they could charge, we thought. As long as we killed more of them than they of us, we had a victory. But how many more would we have to kill and how many would we have to lose?
The perimeter line jutted out slightly at the northwestern corner, and one three-man hole looked awfully lonely out there by itself. Like a lookout on the end of a gangplank, the steep slope dropped away sharply on three sides. A small trail on a narrow strip of ground was all that connected the fireteam of PFC Sherrill’s* position to the rest of the ridge line.
The broad, west end of the perimeter allowed room for almost the entire 1st Platoon to face that direction. The finger area was also the most likely avenue of approach, being the least steep of all other sides. I saw the trail we had come up early in the afternoon and the machine gun position that had been placed near the top. “A damn good place for that gun,” Chico observed, always thinking out loud and teaching me the ropes as he did. Pointing his arm left and right, down the slope at the tree line, he continued. “We’ve got a good, wide open field of fire all across this finger. It would take a hell of a lot of gooks rushing up all at the same time to get past this gun.” Of course, there were also some two dozen grunts with M-16s on either side that would all be helping out
too. All in all it looked like a good overnight position.
A couple of holes past the M-60 was the 60-mm mortar pit, right up on the perimeter. This was unusual because normally they go behind the lines. Due in part to the small size of the ridge, there was already one 60-mm inside, behind Sherrill’s hole, I think, and there was nowhere else to put the second mortar team, led by the PFC we called “Chief.” We were so shorthanded that we needed every grunt we had up on the lines.
A couple of big, B-52 bomb craters on the finger presented a potential problem that Chico pointed out to me. “If the gooks ever got in those craters, we’d play hell getting them out.” They looked to be approximately 10 to 15 meters in diameter and at least five to eight meters deep, significant holes in the ground indeed.
The sunset behind the magnificent sheer cliffs of the Co Roc Mountains was a sight to see in this otherwise uninspiring place. Third Platoon’s positions faced the Co Roc Mountains to the south, so how could the sun set behind them? We were in an area where the border between Laos and South Vietnam snaked around in varying directions, creating a bulge-like section with Laos on three sides of us.
When we got back to our hole, I went to my radio. Everyone was expected to be at their respective positions when it got dark each night, and night watches were initiated. The PFC we called “Toothbrush” passed through my area and paused. “What’s happenin’, Toothbrush? How you been, Bro?” I asked.
“Nothin’ to it, man, don’t mean nothing’. How you doin’?” was his reply.
“I heard dat, man. Ain’t nothin’ but a thing. I’m cool, how ’bout you?”
“I’m all right, man,” declared the cool soul brother from Los Angeles, “but these muthafucka’s got to be out their goddamn minds puttin’ us out here with no fuckin’ back up. Did you know the closest friendlies we got are on the other side of the road? And everybody knows there’s still a shitload of gooks all over out here.”
Toothbrush knew his stuff and he always seemed to have the inside line on information the average grunt was not necessarily privy to. I think he had a friend in the company CP group and picked up things that way.
The night of May 25 was nice and quiet, not only on our ridge line, but all throughout our AO. No shelling, no enemy movement or activity of any kind, just the way I liked it. I, for one, definitely got a good night’s sleep for a change.
It was a cold day in hell when we got to stay in one place very long. Hardly ever did we have the pleasure of reusing the same holes or the same overnight perimeter on any operation. A rifle company was kept on the move continuously in our search-and-destroy efforts, hopefully to keep the enemy off balance and prevent him from getting organized enough to mount a large-scale attack.
Our battalion commander, a lieutenant colonel, was ultimately responsible for the decisions made at headquarters. He decided, after looking at intelligence reports, that Fox Company should remain on the ridge line and wait and see if the known NVA battalions in the area would attack us. The order came early on the 26th; we were staying at least one more night, possibly two.
I don’t know if Chico and the others knew about the “bait” tactic; I certainly did not. Although we all felt like bait, most of us weren’t aware that our seniors would put us in such a situation. As far as I was concerned, staying another night meant little more than a day off from the sometimes nonsensical humping we always had to do. Many times it seemed we were walking in circles, not going anywhere in particular, just moving for the sake of not giving the NVA a stationary target.
We took full advantage of our free time whenever we were fortunate enough to get it. Of course we couldn’t go anywhere, but we could hang out and play cards. That’s basically what I did all day, having to stay close to monitor the radio, so the party was at my hole. We played whisk and back alley, games that only soldiers and convicts seem to have any interest in. Played with a partner, four guys could easily kill a whole day in a tournament or play several different teams in shorter games. Playing cards was more than just killing time, though. If you had a buddy for your partner, you got to know him better, as well as the guys you played against. Often a card game was the extent of a grunt’s social life and was the only way he ever got to know anyone else outside his own squad or fire team.
Don Schuck was my partner. He spent nearly every daylight hour at my position. It was actually the first time we spent a whole day together since we left Phu Bai. He told me again about some problems with his squad leader and some of the guys in his squad. He felt like he was being treated unfairly, not just because he was an FNG, but because he was not one to kiss ass or keep his mouth shut and go along with the program. I think it was beginning to really get to him.
Don told me he was still going out on many more LPs than was his fair share lately, nearly every other night. He told me there were several grunts, buddy-buddy with the squad leader, who never went out at all. Everybody except the squad leader and the radioman was supposed to share the rotation on an equal basis, but not in his squad.
Chico liked Don a lot. He said he would see what he could do about getting him transferred to 3-Alpha. That really seemed to raise Don’s spirits and brought him out of the depression a little. I knew that if Chico said he would see what he could do, Don was as good as being in with us and that lifted my spirits, too.
The weather was nice and the skies were clear, no sign of rain whatsoever. We received a good resupply of ammo and C rations and we got a lot of mail. We had packages from home full of goodies and plenty of junk food to gorge ourselves on. We occasionally took breaks from our game and wrote letters home. I cleaned my M-16 and realized I’d never even fired the thing yet. I told Chico about it, and asked if maybe the CO would let us shoot. He reminded me that I had fired it in the fire fight on May 20 when Gunny Franks was killed. I couldn’t remember, even though it was only a week ago. It was already ancient history.
May 27 was exactly like the day before; we remained on the ridge and had the day off again. Small groups of NVA had been spotted moving in various areas around us, but I understood they were far enough away not to be of any real concern to us. The closest sighting was approximately 800 meters south, where a handful of enemy soldiers on top of an adjacent ridge line seemed to watch our every move. Were they scoping us out for a later attack? Or maybe just curious that we were so open ourselves. Artillery was called in on them with excellent coverage; the enemy was dispersed.
Don drew LP assignment again the night of the 27th. He was fit to be tied when he came over to my hole around 1830 and started raising hell. I don’t think I’d ever seen him so mad, except maybe the time back at Camp Pendleton when he got in the fight. His face was beet red and the veins were popping out of his neck. “That cocksucker is goin’ to get me killed, man. I swear to fuckin’ Christ. He told me someone told him I fell asleep on watch, now I’ve got the next three LPs in a fuckin’ row. I never fell asleep on any watch!” Don said.
“Man that’s bullshit, we ought to go down and check that mutha right now,” I said. It pissed me off to see my friend getting shafted like that, but I knew there wasn’t much I could do. I was barely outgrowing my own FNG status, plus I hadn’t been on an LP since I became radioman. If I started making waves, they might make me start going out again.
I helped Don get ready for the LP that night. We walked down to the trail on the finger and waited for it to get dark enough to go. We talked about disobeying orders and when it might be justified to do so.
“If I was told to do something that would get me killed, I wouldn’t hesitate to disobey it, as long as it didn’t put anyone else in danger,” I said.
Don added, “Yeah, me too. I’d rather be alive in jail someplace, than lying dead so someone else could get credit.”
Because Don had already been on so many LPs, he was put in charge of this one, in spite of the fact Don was only a private and one of the other grunts had a lot more time in-country than he did. The other two guys were as green as they come
; it appeared that this might have been their very first time out.
I pulled Don off to the side so the others couldn’t hear me and asked, “How far out you supposed to go?”
Just as quietly, he replied, “The Sarge said go down to the tree line, just this side of it, I guess.”
“That ain’t too bad, huh?” I tried to relieve the tension. “Why don’t you sandbag and set up right in front of the mortar pit?” I was only half joking.
“That might not be a bad idea,” he smiled. “But with my luck, I’d sure as hell get busted and wind up with permanent LP duty.”
I recognized the team leader for 60-mm mortars and called to him. “Hey Chief, come here a minute. You guys mind if the LP sets up out in front of you a little closer than they’re supposed to?”
“Hell no, man,” said the full-blooded Native American. “Stay right here and do our watch if you want; we ain’t s’posed to be down here on the lines anyway.”
I looked at Don and smiled. “See? There ya go lil’ brother. Whaddaya think?”
I really didn’t want Don going out too far on a night like this. I think we all had a bad feeling that something might happen. I tried not to show it but my friend knew how I felt. He felt the same way. Chances were good there might be trouble, having been on the same hill now for three nights in a row.
About 2100 it was nearly pitch dark already and time to move out. Don told each man which watch and what time they would each have to serve. With a tone of indifference he said, “No talking, no smoking, no noise at all, boys, and nobody best fall asleep on watch. Now lets move it the fuck out.” With that, Don led them down the trail, and disappeared into the darkness.