by Phil Ball
I was getting to a point where I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to make it. We were near the base of the mountain that was to be our overnight position, but I had tripped and stumbled a few times and was finding it more and more difficult to get back on my feet each time I went down. To drop out now would be a disgrace. It would destroy everything I had worked so hard for, like the respect and acceptance of my peers. If I were to quit, I would certainly lose my radio, and that meant more of those dreaded LPs. Most important, I would lose my standing in the squad. The one thing I had going for me was that I could hump with the best of them. Hillbilly had recognized my guts in the past and would commend me for it from time to time.
I was completely out of water and my brain felt like it was boiling under the steel helmet. I tried thinking about something else to get my mind off the pain and thirst. Lately I had struggled with myself not to think about home. I had too much time left in the Nam and I felt that thinking too much about home would make the time drag by slower. My mind wandered easily from one incomplete thought to another, never really focusing on any one thing too long. I could hear the never-ending chatter of grunts in front of and behind me, and even an occasional outburst of laughter. I realized most of the chatter was coming from me, but I didn’t know what I was saying, mindless stuff that seemed to pass as conversation. Then my radio cracked, “3-Alpha 3. We’re hearing way too much noise out of you back there. Keep it quiet, and keep ’em spread out, over.”
“Roger, Three. We got us a real heat casualty back here,” I informed our platoon commander about a grunt that Doc checked out. “This man has a temperature of 104 degrees and he is unconscious.”
The big grunt looked like he was already dead. He had stopped sweating and I couldn’t see him breathing at all.
“Roger 3-Alpha, ‘Six’ says to leave a couple of men with him to cool him off and just keep moving. Water resupply is on the way.”
Against my better judgment, I sat down with Doc to rest for a minute. Holt kept moving, never saying a word. As soon as I leaned back against my pack I knew I never wanted to get up again. Then Hillbilly and Mouse burst through the brush, moving at a renewed pace it seemed. “Come on, Butterball, don’t quit on me now, partner,” said Hillbilly. He had the M-60 over one shoulder, with two or three packs tied to the barrel. Over his other shoulder he carried a man, a heat casualty who also looked dead. Mouse carried as much gear as Hillbilly did, except he had no casualty on his shoulder. The two of them barged through and passed me up, making one last comment as they did. I wasn’t even sure what Hillbilly said, but I clearly understood the message. If I planned on receiving their continued support and respect, I better get off my ass and catch up to Holt. That is exactly what I did.
Hotel and Echo Companies had already reached the top of our objective and moved a few hundred meters southwest to dig in for the night. Golf Company and the battalion CP group were on top of our hill digging in, while we still had a long way to go. About the only thing that kept me going was that I could clearly see the top now, and I heard there was going to be more than enough water for everyone when the choppers arrived. Sometimes we received an emergency water resupply that was barely enough to go around and we couldn’t fill every canteen. With Battalion already up there, and all the engineers and mortar people, God knows how much would be left for us if we didn’t hurry up.
I saw two, tiny black dots in the distant sky that quickly took on the shapes and sounds of CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters. “Here come da water,” someone said. As they got closer I saw huge cargo nets slung underneath, one with ammo crates, the other with two black rubber bladders, big ones. Plenty of water for everyone—hell, we might even be able to take showers! Euphoria filled our weary souls and we all seemed to get more motivated.
As the two choppers moved into position to drop the nets, all hell broke loose on the opposite side of the mountain. Golf Company, on their hilltop position not far from ours, spotted a dozen or more NVA on the hill a couple hundred meters to our northwest.
Earlier I had seen a small stream of white smoke on our side of the hill, and thought maybe someone dropped a cigarette or something. At this time of year, the brush and grass were extremely dried out. No one had bothered to put the small fire out, and nearly every man in the battalion had walked right past it. Now the fire was getting out of control. The turbulence caused by the powerful rotor blades fanned the flames, and within minutes we had a real problem. We had to alter our course to avoid the flames and heavy smoke, but as we circled the hill we came in range of the enemy machine-gun fire and RPGs.
The choppers were unable to drop the cargo nets where we wanted them because of the fire. They were released too close to the steep slope and tumbled over the side. One water bladder was saved, but the other one was punctured and its precious contents lost to Mother Nature. The large wooden crate of ammo tumbled and bounced a long way until it finally crashed into a tree and broke open. I had just come running around to that side to avoid the enemy fire and I saw the crate stop in the middle of what was probably the hottest part of the raging brush fire. Rounds started cooking off almost immediately in every direction. There were some very big explosions, probably four-deuce or 81-mortars, that blasted flames and hurled debris through the trees. Small arms rounds cooked like popcorn, spinning and whirling out in all directions. The smoke became too thick to see if anyone else was still with me. I lost visual contact with everyone at one point and began to panic. More midair explosions turned out to be the disposable, shoulder-fired rocket launchers called LAWs. The bazooka-like rockets shot from the flames and crashed into nearby trees or sailed off and exploded in the air.
I could hear grunts screaming for help and yelling each other’s names. I hit the deck and covered my head when something exploded in midair over me. I was too close to the burning ammo, but the flames had spread across the trail now, exactly where I wanted to go. I refused to take even one step backward, having worked too hard to get as far as I was. I started wondering not if I was going to die, but how. I decided I would rather take a bullet to the head than be burned alive.
There was so much ammo cooking off I was afraid to move, but the heat and the flames were closing in fast. Whatever I did, I couldn’t stay where I was much longer. I decided to get up and move, any direction except down; I refused to give up one inch of progress.
I remember scrambling around on my hands and knees, for what seemed like a long time, while bullets cracked and whizzed overhead and shrapnel sailed through the air. Finally I made it to a clearing, huffing and puffing for air, and collapsed. After a minute or two I heard voices. It was members of 3-Alpha, together again in a crater; everyone was around me, covered head to toe with black soot. I think it was Toothbrush—his toothbrush still in his mouth—who asked me, “Where the hell you been, Butterball?”
I didn’t see what was so funny, but everyone else seemed to be happy as hell for some reason. “You guys see any water yet?” I asked. That’s when I got the bad news.
“Hell no, we ain’t seen no water yet.” They lost half of it down the side of the hill when they dropped it, and it looks like everybody else has already scarfed up the rest,” someone said.
“No fuckin’ way!” I was angry at the thought of not getting what I had coming to me. I felt like a cowboy in one of those old movies, stranded in the desert when someone comes along and steals his water. I was ready to kill. That was only half of our problems, I was told. It seems that the reason 3-Alpha was waiting in this particular crater was because the CO from another company had told them to. Apparently, some of the gear we were supposed to have picked up along the trail and deliver at the top was unaccounted for. Before any of us received our water ration, somebody was going to have to take responsibility. That might mean going back down the hill and retrieving what was not burned in the fire. Nobody wanted to go back down that hill again. It had been about the hardest climb any of us had ever made and we simply did not have the strength to
do it again.
We were being treated grossly unfairly, and for the first time I was ready to take a bad discharge paper to get out of it all. First, they dropped us into a hot LZ that turned out to be the wrong location. Then they kill three of our guys with friendly fire. They humped us for two or three days without water, expecting us to carry everyone else’s gear, and caught the mountain on fire with a cigarette butt. They missed the LZ and dropped ammo into a fire and lost half our water supply. Now I saw a couple officers coming my way, who looked like they just got out of the shower, obviously having used my drinking water to wash up with. Needless to say, morale was not good at this point.
We raised so much stink about the ineptitude of everyone involved in the whole operation that we were labeled shit birds and fuck-ups. We did not go back down for any gear and no charges were filed against anyone. We got very little water, though; I guess that was our punishment. It only made us that much more angry at the Corps in general and caused us to resist authority more than we had before.
The operation continued. Very little contact was made with the enemy after those first couple of days. They did not try to defend these enormous caches of ammo and supplies, and we were able to march through the base camps destroying everything they had built. Along the way, we cleared eight new LZs to be used in the upcoming operation which brought us right back to the DMZ and Mutter’s Ridge, September 1968.
We wound up at Camp Carroll at the beginning of August for a three-day stand down, where Mike Atwood joined us. The pay officer came out to get everyone’s signature on payroll, and I got a nice surprise. I had been promoted to Lance Corporal, effective July 1, 1968. At this rate I could easily be a corporal by Christmas, having first just been promoted to PFC in April.
I only had three months in-country, but had already seen enough shit to outgrow whatever FNG syndrome remained. At the three-month point, I was just about in the middle of the ranks, having almost equal numbers of old timers as FNGs around me. Not a bad place to be, actually.
Chapter 11
Malaria, Cam Lo River Basin
The first two weeks of August we remained in the vicinity of Camp Carroll, patrolling and protecting that section of Route #9 between the Rockpile and Cam Lo. This was a relatively good duty, because we were never too far away from a major firebase or LZ, therefore never far from resupply and water, beer, and sodas. The weather was beginning to change, too: the dry, hot summer was coming to an end and we were beginning to get some rain. It started raining around the middle of August and did not quit for nearly four months.
I woke up one morning feeling kind of sick, after having foolishly spent most of the night inside one of the old bunkers to get out of the rain. Within a matter of minutes, I had a terrible headache and my whole body hurt. I went up to see the doc. He took my temperature and asked if I’d been taking my malaria pills. I told him I thought I had, but might have missed a day or two here and there.
My temp climbed to 105 degrees in 30 minutes, and an emergency medevac was ordered for me. I could not have been happier to catch this life-threatening disease because I knew that it meant 30 days rest and recuperation, half of which would be spent in the air-conditioned Naval Support Activity (NSA) in Da Nang. After over 100 straight days in the bush, sleeping on the ground, exposed to the harsh elements of the jungle, I was finally going to the rear. This was every grunt’s dream and goal in life (besides going home). Going to the rear was the next best thing.
After I said a few goodbyes and gave away most of my gear and cigarettes, Mike walked to the top of the hill to the LZ with me. “Sure wish I was goin’ with ya, bro,” he said with a smile.
I rubbed it in a little. “What are you talkin’ ’bout, man, you get medevaced more than anybody in the unit. You’ve only been in the bush this time two weeks for Christ sake.”
Before I got on board the chopper he told me that he would meet me in Phu Bai when I got back from convalescing down south. “I’ll be waitin’ for ya with a beer in one hand and a jay in the other,” he yelled over the noisy helicopter. Somehow I knew he’d be there.
NSA, Da Nang
The malaria ward was maintained at a chilling 20 degrees below zero, or so it felt some 48 hours later when I finally woke up. I guess it was a combination of the high fever and the last three-and-a-half months in the bush that made me so sleepy. I wouldn’t have woken up at all if it weren’t for the beautiful nurse wanting some information. The bed, with its real mattress and clean sheets, was so comfortable I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I was freezing to death, but I was not allowed to have a blanket. I was told my fever was still dangerously high and if this “cold ward” wasn’t enough to lower it in one more day, I would have to go “on ice.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all. I’d been burning up in the jungle the past few months and my body was not acclimated to the cold. The nurse told me about the “freezer room,” where they put the high fever cases. Apparently it was nothing but a big block of ice, and you were stripped naked and tied to it. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with that frightening scenario and stopped asking for a blanket.
I was a bit naïve about malaria itself, but once I was assured that I would not die from it and I should make a full recovery, I was satisfied. I didn’t care what happened. I went back to sleep for two more days, woken only occasionally to have my temperature checked and be given a few pills. It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth day that I woke up and was hungry. My fever had finally broke, and my stomach settled down to the point where I was ready to eat something. The food they brought was delicious, but it was only a sample of what awaited in the mess hall for those strong enough to get up and walk to it. The Marine in the bed next to me came back from chow and told me he had steak and eggs for breakfast every day, steak and shrimp for lunch, and steak and lobster for supper. Eventually his teasing got me out of bed to see for myself. I couldn’t believe anybody in the service ate that well, but it was true. The mess hall at NSA had to be the best in all southeast Asia, and once I got my strength back, I fattened up very quickly.
I began to recover quickly and was shipped further south to the convalescent barracks at Cam Ranh Bay: big wooden barracks built right on the beach, one of the most beautiful spots in Vietnam. The water was blue-green and the sand pure white; you’d never know a war was going on just a few miles away. Every day I watched U.S. servicemen surfing and scuba diving in this paradise resort, and wondered how could anyone be so lucky as to get duty like this. This was at the opposite end of the spectrum from where I came from and was due to return to.
Phil Ball, September 29, 1968.
Near the end of my stay I found the Marine Corps Liaison Office and managed a phone call home to Mom and Dad. Speaking to them on the opposite side of the earth really put things into perspective for me. I realized that the world did not stop while I was away. I told them about the malaria, but not the fighting. They worried about me too much as it was, and I did not want to overburden them with my problems. I told them what I had been writing all along in my letters, that I spent most of my time in the rear with the gear. That’s what they believed I did for the most part, I think. We could only talk for three minutes; the call was free, but limited. Their voices gave me the strength I needed to refocus on the things I needed to remember, like where I came from and where I would go when I left Vietnam.
During August 1968 while I was convalescing, there were a few changes in my unit. Our rear area was moved north, from Phu Bai to Quang Tri, and our regiment was changed from the 1st Marine Division to the 3rd Marine Division. These changes really had little effect on me personally, or on the war for that matter. When I arrived at Quang Tri I couldn’t tell the difference between it and Phu Bai; it all looked the same to me.
As promised, Mike Atwood was waiting in the rear when I got there. It was a joyous reunion; we had missed each other and were glad to see each other alive. Mike told me he had been medevaced after Fox Company ran into a company
-size NVA unit on August 15. It happened west of Cam Lo when NVA snipers started shooting. Fox Company advanced behind artillery fire, and were soon caught in the open. The hundred or so NVA were dug in. A maze of tunnels and bunkers provided them with an excellent position which they elected to defend to the death. Hotel and Echo companies eventually came in to help, and after approximately eight hours of heavy fighting, there were 43 dead NVA. Marine casualties were relatively light. My newfound friend, PFC Bob Moore was hit by enemy sniper fire and was sent home.
Mike and I partied in the rear like there was no tomorrow. I guess that was pretty much how we looked at life, “Have a good time today, because there might not be a tomorrow.” We looked and acted a lot saltier than we really were, but we were no longer FNGs, and we had good combat experience under our belts. We pretty much did whatever we wanted to do. Having a little pull in the office, we didn’t have to go on work details or pull guard duty on the perimeter at night like most grunts waiting to go to the bush. We told our little war stories to scare the FNGs and basically walked around like we were hot stuff, knowing all along we would have to go back to the bush in a few days.
We collected a stash of beer and sodas for the guys in the field, and either begged, borrowed, or stole everything we could get our hands on that every grunt dreams about in the jungle. The Army had a supply depot next to our camp that looked like Fort Knox compared to our place. We found a way to slip in and out of there at night and came away with lots of goodies. Mostly it was beer and soda that everyone really wanted, and we had a whole lot.
The winter rainy season started slowly in late August, but by September it was well under way, raining very hard every day, usually in the afternoon. Powerful thunderstorms would blow in off the South China Sea very quickly, sometimes dumping as much as 10 inches of rain in one day. The heavy rain made travel very difficult and sometimes impossible; it washed away sections of Route #9 west of Dong Ha, and our convoy was stranded. We holed up in a leaky, 10-man tent for a few days. When the sky temporarily cleared one morning, we jumped on a chopper and made it out to Camp Carroll.