by Phil Ball
Because the patrol was ordered at such late notice, there was no time to summon the PFs so it was just us, nine or ten 3-Alpha grunts. We all mustered out on the road around the time the sun was setting and discussed the patrol. It was to be the same routine as all the others that took us through the main village of Mai Loc, only instead of turning north on Route 558 at checkpoint Bravo, we were to turn into the marketplace and head north on the narrow trail that ran parallel to Route 558. This path would put us between the hooches and inside the boundaries of the village, rather than on Route 558, which was actually the outer boundary line. We often used this route and it was familiar to all of us, but it could be risky in the event that NVA soldiers were present. The grass hooches were bunched close together, giving more hiding places for an elusive enemy; on the other hand, it gave us more cover, too.
Atwood and I were partners. We were a team and everyone knew it. When we were told that we would be walking point that night, our resistance was twice as strong. “No fuckin’ way!” I exclaimed. “It ain’t our turn.”
“I know it ain’t,” our newly assigned squad leader apologized. “But I need someone good up front, who knows what the hell they’re doing.”
“Bull-fucking shit!” swore Mike. “There ain’t a man in this squad that don’t know what the fuck he’s doin’. If you ain’t got no more faith in us than that, you got no business being squad leader. Why don’t you take the goddamn point.”
We argued back and forth a while. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to walk point; it was the squad leader’s arrogant, total disrespect for all of us. I was about to give in when Barney spoke up in a loud, aggravated voice. “Enough all ready goddamn it. Me and Huey will take the fuckin’ point position.” And with that he hurried to the front of the column and started moving out. Like Mike and me, Barney and Huey were also a team; partners and friends, they did everything together.
Barney was known to fly off the handle sometimes, but when it came to getting down to business he was as good or better than any grunt in the outfit. He certainly had walked point enough times to know what he was doing.
His fire team consisted of a relatively new PFC and a salt nicknamed “Baby Huey,” or just “Huey” for short. Huey had been with us since July 1968 and although he had not been on Foxtrot Ridge, he had been to the DMZ with us and had proven himself many times as not only a damn good grunt, but also a gentle giant. Huey was the kind of guy everybody liked. He had the innocent, baby-face features that disarmed you and prevented you from getting or staying made at him.
Around 1945 hours, Barney put Huey in front of him and our patrol left the refugee camp. With Huey walking point and Barney close behind, the third man in their fire team fell in behind. There were a couple of grunts between Barney’s third man and the squad CP group, which consisted of the squad leader, the radioman, and one other grunt. Bringing up the tail end was Atwood, and finally me at the very end of the 10-man staggered column. Spread out about five meters apart along both sides of the road, we all got right down to business and automatically went into high alert, as we cautiously and vigilantly headed into the darkness. There was very little if any moonlight at all on this February night, and though we were unable to see much of anything, I think I actually preferred it that way. I was beginning to get very familiar with Mai Loc by this time, and I felt comfortable in the dark, knowing that the Vietnamese really could not see any better than I could. It was a different feeling altogether than being deep in the jungle or mountains somewhere. Here I was not worried about getting separated from my outfit or lost in the bush. I always knew I could find my way back to the compound, day or night.
When Huey and Barney reached the marketplace, they turned left and made their way between the hooches headed north. The column fell in behind them and straightened out to single file, walking down the center of the narrow alley-like path. Mai Loc, like every other small village of its kind in Vietnam, was a cluster of small, grass hooches haphazardly thrown together and connected by an impossible maze of trails and alleys that seemed to have been constructed in conjunction with Mother Nature instead of in spite of her. Tall palm trees were not only left intact everywhere, but they were often used as corner posts, sometimes jutting right out of the roof. These trees, combined with the numerous patches of impenetrable scrub palms growing close to the ground, made these places unique.
In bringing up the tail end of the column, I had to either walk backward or turn around a lot, constantly checking to see if anyone was following us. In doing so, I fell behind and lost visual contact with the man in front of me. I guess Mike probably felt more secure with me than he did with the whole rest of the squad or he was concerned I would get lost; whatever the case, he stopped several times to let me catch up. Each time he would whisper a friendly reprimand at me, warning me to stay close.
Ever since I returned from Tokyo, and actually since I stopped carrying the squad radio on a regular basis, I had been experimenting with the different weapons available to a grunt in the bush. I carried the M-79 grenade launcher occasionally and was trying out the 12-gauge shotgun at that time. There was only the one 12-gauge in 3rd Platoon, and it was constantly passed from one grunt to the next; nobody seemed to want to claim it as a permanent, personal weapon. It was old and had been used and abused by the time I got it. Most of the shells were dirty and rusty, too. I managed to fire a lot of the old ammo for target practice and received a new supply of fresh ammo. I also had the armory send out for a new firing mechanism that we installed quite easily. I cleaned up the weapon the best I could, but it still had a major flaw. Although too subtle to see with the naked eye, the barrel must have been bent, because I could not hit the broad side of a barn with it. I had two kinds of ammo which I usually loaded the seven-shot pump with at all times—the buck shot and the deer slugs, alternating them in rotation. That was the way I had the weapon loaded this night on patrol, having decided this would most likely be the last time I carried it.
Atwood experimented with weapons, too. Tonight he was carrying the M-79 grenade launcher, sometimes called the blook gun for the hollow sound it made when the 40-mm round left the short, tube-like barrel. The blook also had various rounds that could be fired from the single-shot, open breach-type weapon. You had the standard grenade round; when fired it usually flew in an arching path and exploded on impact after traveling 15 meters. This 15-meter distance automatically armed the grenade to prevent accidents of exploding rounds too close to the shooter. Also available for close range fighting was the dart round, a deadly 40-mm shell casing loaded with a wad of one-inch, barbed, stainless steel darts. Much more destructive than plain old buckshot, these razor-sharp projectiles would rip flesh and bone like a hot knife through butter and made ugly wounds. Mike thought the 40-mm round he had loaded in the breach before leaving the refugee village was indeed a dart round, but he soon found out it was not and almost paid the supreme sacrifice for his mistake.
The hooches lining the path were very close in the area we were moving into. Everyone was at home at this time; it was after dark and there was a curfew in effect. We moved silently down the trail and could hear the occupants carrying on with their normal lives behind closed doors. Very little light, if any at all, was visible; only occasionally would I see the dim light of a burning candle and hear the soft whispers of a mama-san soothing her children. There was absolutely no reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary, yet I still had that terribly uneasy feeling of impending doom.
I moved up close behind Mike and gently pinched the back of his bare arm so he would turn around and look at me. We were able to communicate most of our thoughts without having to speak, so all I needed was for him to look at me so I could open my eyes real wide in a questioning manner for him to know that I did not feel good about our present situation. He looked back at me with a similar expression, confirming my concerns. Without speaking or removing our hands from our weapons, we communicated caution with our eyes for a moment, then went ba
ck to our vigilant alert.
Meanwhile, almost 50 meters ahead of us, Huey and Barney must have been paying very close attention to each side of the trail and the thick growth of scrub palms growing on both flanks. I’m not really sure whether either of them had any warning at all, but the three NVA hidden in the scrubs alongside them certainly had all the time they needed.
At approximately 1955 hours, as it had several times now in the past 10 months of my Vietnam experience, all hell broke loose. At what can only be described as point-blank range, three NVA with automatic weapons opened fire on Huey and Barney. Three AK-47s firing in unison is equivalent to one of Puff’s guns (better than 2,000 rounds per minute, total). The gooks also rolled three Chi-Com grenades out onto the trail, which exploded nearly at the Marines’ feet. Instinctively and defensively, we all dropped flat on our stomachs and started shooting back in whatever direction we determined the enemy fire was coming from.
Like so many of the well-beaten paths in these ancient villages, this one was slightly lower than the surrounding ground level. Over the years it had sunk perhaps a foot-and-a-half, offering some protection but leaving us in the dangerous position of having to shoot up at the enemy.
When I hit the deck, I aimed and fired toward the front left side of the column in the area I had seen the enemy’s green tracers originate and, incidentally, almost right over Atwood’s shoulder. Immediately upon feeling the powerful shotgun blast, my friend yelled at me to cover the rear. “Turn around goddamn it!”
The enemy fire ceased within seconds of the initial bursts. I believe each of the three NVA fired one magazine clip each and tossed a grenade apiece. The rest of the shooting was all ours. I was in the process of turning my body around to face the rear when out of the corner of my eye, in the darkness and confusion, I saw a shadowy figure of a man run quickly past. My first reaction was not to blow him away, but to positively identify the target. I thought this person was squad leader Snake, because I could clearly hear his voice shouting something to someone nearby. I would rather let a gook escape than shoot one of our own, and I always positively identified all my targets before firing.
I realized Snake was yelling, “Get him, get him, get him!” Then I saw the second shadowy figure running alongside me in the exact location as the first. This time I thought the second figure was definitely Snake and the first one must have been the grunt he was yelling at. They were both less than three or four meters from me, moving parallel to the trail, from front to back, and I could have easily blown them both away with two shots.
As I rolled over and started to get up on one knee I saw the first shadowy figure cross the trail behind me. Still thinking he was one of ours, I did not fire my weapon. I heard Mike right behind me yell, “Shoot him!” But I was not willing to take his or anyone else’s word as confirmation. I had to identify my target myself, no ifs, ands, or buts. It did not mean that much to me to kill a couple of NVA when the risk of killing a fellow Marine was so great. I let the first one go, but immediately afterward, when the second figure crossed the trail three meters away from the end of my barrel, I finally identified my target and pulled the trigger.
All I saw was the black silhouette of the figure moving very fast, but judging from the overstuffed backpack and the bundle he carried in his arms, there was no longer any doubt in my mind. The bright muzzle flash from the 12-gauge pump illuminated my victim’s face, and I clearly saw the buckshot blast rip into his left shoulder. The force immediately knocked him off his feet, but the backpack might have absorbed a large part of the blast. His momentum kept him rolling and stumbling off the trail and into the darkness between two hooches. It was all happening so fast that there was very little time to think. It was basically all instinct from here on out. When a third shadowy figure crossed the trail, we almost collided. I was on my feet in a low crouch, weapon ready and vigilant in all directions, but he caught me totally off-guard and off-balance. I spun around and fired from the hip so fast that I slipped and fell. I pumped and fired two or three times at the back of the fleeing man but he, too, disappeared into the pitch-black darkness between the two hooches next to the trail.
By this time I was back on my feet and Atwood was running past me in pursuit of the enemy. There was still a hell of a lot of small arms and grenade fire coming from the front of the column where it all began, and above it all I could hear Barney screaming at the top of his lungs, “Kill those lousy bastards, goddamn mudder fuggers killed Huey!” He kept screaming and cursing, repeating Huey’s name over and over.
Mike ran past me and dropped to one knee where the gooks had slipped between the two hooches. He pulled the trigger on the M-79 and fired a grenade, expecting to have a dart round come out. The grenade exploded when it struck a palm tree nearby and Mike quickly fumbled to reload, making sure this time that it was indeed a dart round.
A fourth NVA crossed the trail a little further down, spraying us with green tracers as he did. I again hit the deck, wondering how many more NVA were here. Mike, on the other hand, was in hot pursuit and yelled at me to follow him. I was perfectly content at this point to stay right where I was. It wouldn’t have bothered me in the least to let them all escape, but I could not let my friend go alone. So I jumped back up and followed him between those two hooches where the first three gooks had gone. It was a risk that I thought uncalled for, but he ignored me when I told him to get his ass back, so I saw no other choice but to follow.
When I caught up with Mike around the front of the nearest hooch, he was standing off to the side of the doorway, yelling inside for the occupants to come out. I heard crying and excited talking inside that sounded like at least two women and two men. I could not understand the language, but it sounded like they were arguing between themselves, as well as cursing at us. Whatever the case, they did not appear to be ready to come out on their own.
Mai Loc and vicinity, showing location of Huey’s death on February 14, 1969.
The excitement was building to a fever pitch. The hunt was on and it seemed that we had our prey cornered. I think man’s ugly, most basic instincts begin to take over during a situation like this, and hunting down another human being becomes almost intoxicating. Just a few minutes earlier I was completely indifferent to the situation and content to let it all slide, but once the chase began I was as wrapped up in it as much, if not more than, the next guy. I heard Snake on the radio calling for an emergency medevac for Huey, but he was already dead.
I think I wanted to toss a grenade into the hooch and be done with it, but instead I fired one round of 12-gauge buckshot through the wall. Other members of 3-Alpha began arriving and someone fired a burst of M-16 rounds into the hooch. Barney was still screaming Huey’s name and cursing all Vietnamese in the village. I fired into the hooch again when no one showed signs of coming out, and this time there was a loud scream as if I hit someone. Mike and I cursed and screamed for them to come out before we killed them all, and they yelled back at us just that much louder.
The adrenaline was pumping so fast it caused my eyes to twitch and my hands to tremble. I knew someone was going to be killed and it could quite possibly be me if I didn’t do something fast.
A crowd was gathering around us, including one of the PF honchos. He stepped forward, yelling angrily at the folks inside the hooch. He went inside and started dragging them out. He was brutal, smacking the old man in the back of the head and kicking the old mama-san in the ass. He knocked them both to the ground and went back inside. This time I followed him and together we dragged out a teenage boy and an adolescent girl.
It was the military-age boy who I was concerned with, but they were all VC suspects at this point. Mike and I then went back inside and started searching for weapons, basically tearing the place apart in a fit of rage. If we found a weapon, this kid would die. Outside we could hear more screaming and crying, as angry grunts threatened to kill someone to avenge Huey’s death. It almost didn’t matter who was killed at this point, as long as someone
paid for killing one of ours. I was looking for a tunnel inside the hooch that might have been an escape route for the others involved in the shooting. I did find a small bunker, but because it was too dark, I did not go down in it to check further. As far as I was concerned, the enemy entered this hooch after the shooting and escaped through this underground tunnel, taking this teenager’s weapon, uniform, and backpack with them. That was all the proof I needed, although I certainly was not thinking logically, and I went back outside to kill the young Vietnamese man on the spot.
The old mama-san was lying on the ground with a bloody leg wound, still crying and babbling incoherently. The old papa-san was by her side trying to calm and quiet her the best he could with half a dozen M-16s pointed at his head. The PF honcho was interrogating the teenage suspect when I decided to get more involved. I shouldered the 12-gauge and with the end of the barrel only a few inches from his face, I started ranting and raving about blowing off his head if he did not confess to being involved. My outburst cause the mama-san to scream that much louder, and when she tried to get up to come to the boy’s defense, she was knocked back down by another extremely angry Marine. It seemed the whole squad were losing our minds, blind rage encouraged more violence and the gathering crowd was beginning to pay for it. Several civilians were grabbed and beaten for being too close to our investigation, and the general attitude took on the characteristics of a lynch mob.