Silent Warrior

by Charles Henderson

  The Marine standing in the doorway behind a .50-caliber machine gun turned its fury in return to the fire below as the chopper raced above the treetops.

  “Bad neighborhood,” Burke thought as he recalled the sergeant’s comments back at Hill 55’s landing zone.

  THAT BAD NEIGHBORHOOD known as Khe Sanh was a series of hills located in the northwestern corner of I Corps along the Laotian border. Hundreds of paths and tunnels branched from the Ho Chi Minh Trail and wound past Hill 881 and Lang Vei, and through the steep mountains of the Khe Sanh area.

  These routes carried a constant flow of arms and ammunition to the National Liberation Army, who attacked American strongholds like The Rock Pile, Quang Tri, Cam Lo, Camp Carroll, Vandegrift and Con Tien.

  The mountain passes of the Khe Sanh area, though, proved to be the crucial gate into this end of I Corps that faced the DMZ to the north and Laos to the west—the 3rd Marine Division’s Tactical Area of Responsibility. They called that crucial gate “The Slot.”

  One lone mountain among that cluster of peaks called Khe Sanh was Hill 950. On that mountain that overlooked The Slot, a small encampment of Marines defended a combat outpost—one of the toughest corners of the Khe Sanh neighborhood. It was the new home of Corporal John Burke and his snipers.

  From Hill 950, Burke and his men ranged out, stalking along the high slopes that overlooked the avenues that the Ho Chi Minh Trail took through The Slot. There, along those slopes, they selectively killed Viet Cong who appeared to be in charge of arms caravans. They also killed the lone Viet Cong who smuggled weapons in carts filled with sacks of rice or stacks of thatching. They killed Viet Cong who pushed bicycles with gigantic baskets loaded with rifles or boxes of ammunition.

  Zapping these people along the most obscure, and seemingly most sheltered, lanes made negotiating The Slot an ordeal that the Viet Cong mules did not relish. And when Burke would drop the person who appeared to lead a caravan, often the mules, seeing their leader killed by a silent bullet that came from nowhere, would scatter, leaving their cargo dropped on the trail.

  It was the kind of pressure the Viet Cong could not long endure.

  Sleep came hard on Hill 950. There were no comforts of home. If a Marine was lucky, his “rubber bitch” did not leak and he could spend a quiet night in relative comfort. But the nature of life in combat does not afford much protection to rubber air mattresses and thus Burke’s leaked.

  As he prepared for sleep, he blew it as full as it would hold and placed a fresh Band-Aid, taken from his first-aid kit, over the pencil-point-sized hole. But by four A.M. the hard ground and rocks awoke him, and he would remain awake for the rest of the day.

  It had come to be a way of life. A thing that he tolerated and on which he did not dwell. Negative thoughts were useless.

  Carlos had taught him to accept things as a way of life when one is powerless to change it. But to persevere at what seemed to be any opportunity for improvement. In every case, a negative thought or outlook meant that one had accepted defeat. That should never happen.

  “No matter how impossible the odds, if there is a chance for success then you can win,” Carlos had told him.

  On June 6, 1967, the Vietnam summer scorched the mountains of Khe Sanh with temperatures that approached 100 degrees. The constant soak of sporadic showers kept the humidity continually above ninety percent. The only relief one felt came from the cool night breeze that lightly brushed the hilltops while the deep gorges and canyons stifled in steamy doldrums.

  The snipers’ bunker was dug below the crest of Hill 950 and overlooked the likely avenues of attack. Beyond the sandbags and trenches there, several yards of tanglefoot stretched beneath coiled concertina wire and German tape. Burke took his empty C ration cans and tied them low on the wire and dropped a small stone inside each one so that when someone snagged a barb on the concertina wire or the razorlike jagged edge of the German tape, the clank of the stone rattling in the can would alert the Marine standing watch.

  Burke told his men that any time they heard that clank, even though it might be a cat or rat scavenging for food, they must roust him.

  The sun set at about eight P.M. on June 6 and left the jungle greenhouse hot. Most of the Marines who prepared for sleep pulled their beds—a poncho liner and air mattress—outside, on and around the bunker.

  Below, in the jungle, the men could hear the screech of birds and the chatter of other creatures, possibly monkeys. The Marines standing watch listened to the echoes of an animal roaring in the far distant hills beyond The Slot or perhaps in it. And they felt sure it was the sound of a tiger. A creature that none of them had ever seen in this land, but knew that it stalked those jungles there. They had seen the mangled body of a large monkey, half-devoured and left rotting in the steam heat of a long canyon.

  And as the Marines who stood watch that night listened to the distant roar, faint and echoing between the rock walls of the tall mountains, another, more frightening sound disrupted the stillness of the night.

  Inside the bunker, the field telephone croaked as the Marine in the listening post, next to the wire, hurriedly cranked the handle on his unit.

  Burke snatched the receiver, pressed the black rubber button on its side, and spoke.

  “Corporal Burke,” he answered.

  “Got noise on the wire. Several cans rattled.”

  “Can you see anything in your starlight scope?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Load up and be ready to fall back to your alternate positions. I’ll roust everybody here.”

  Burke felt that familiar tightness build in his stomach, anticipating another encounter with Charlie. He did not like being on the defensive, either. It always seemed the worst end of the fight—no place to maneuver and only two choices of tactics: to hold or to retreat.

  Quietly, Burke began waking his men, who quickly pulled on their boots and picked up their rifles. And as he roused his men, the field phone rang again.

  “Corporal Burke,” he answered.

  “Sappers! Looks like they’re trying to blow the wire. I see a lot of people out there. They have RPGs and AKs mostly.”

  “Let them commit themselves to the attack and then turn on the lights with your popups.

  “We’ll all open on them when you put up those flares.”

  Burke hurried outside to prepare for the attack when he heard the familiar pop of a rocket-propelled grenade being launched.

  “Take cover!” he shouted.

  And as he spoke, the grenade exploded in the midst of his camp, wounding several of his men.

  He ran to his injured men and began dragging them to the bunker. As he pulled them across the ground, he could hear the heavy bursts of his listening post’s M-60 machine gun chewing into the sappers as they hurled their charges at the wire. He hoped the machine gun would hold the attacking enemy until he could get help.

  But the wire and machine gun could not stop the sudden onslaught of rocket-propelled grenades as they came whistling into the small outpost.

  “Corporal Burke,” a Marine called to him in the orange light of the pyrotechnics that now drifted down, burning as they dangled beneath their small parachutes. “Sappers are in the wire!”

  Burke knelt next to the bunker with his rifle, and began picking off the Viet Cong who sacrificed themselves to break a hole in the wire with their satchel charges. And as he killed those soldiers, a grenade exploded in front of the Marine who called him.

  The explosion sent a large fragment flying, which struck Burke in his hip as he knelt shooting, but the brunt of the grenade struck the Marine who knelt thirty feet away and seriously wounded him.

  It was this Marine whom Burke had taken to teach as Carlos Hathcock had taught him. He was an outstanding sniper, too, and John Burke vowed that this man would not die this night.

  “Hold on,” Burke shouted and ran to the young Marine sprawled in the dirt, crying out from the pain that racked his broken body.

  With the care
of a shepherd lifting an injured lamb, John Burke picked up his partner and carried him to the bunker’s doorway. But before he could get the Marine inside, Burke heard the whistle of another rocket-propelled grenade and set his partner down against the sandbags that surrounded the bunker door.

  With a quick prayer, Burke closed his eyes and spread himself over the wounded Marine, shielding him from the shrapnel and explosion.

  Burke felt the prickle of more shrapnel embedded beneath his skin as he pulled his badly bleeding comrade inside the shelter.

  Many other grenades had exploded within the encampment, and other Marines were left wounded, crying out for help. Burke listened for the sound of the machine gun and as it spoke, belching a deadly stream of fire into the wire, he knew that his priority was to get his injured men to shelter.

  As he and another Marine struggled to pull a severely wounded man to the safe haven of the bunker, a grenade exploded at his heels and sent him and the other Marines rolling into the sandbags. He pushed the men inside the underground shelter’s crawlway and listened again for the sound of the machine gun.

  Burke’s heart pounded heavily. He could see his body torn open, exposing those parts that he hoped never to see. He bled from every limb, and knew that with the machine gun now silent, those Marines could fight no longer.

  Everyone lay wounded. The end seemed very near.

  But with the strength of conviction that he had developed as one of the Marine Corps’ best snipers, with the self-discipline and sense of purpose developed from a lifetime of tradition and moral right, he picked up an automatic rifle and hung a dozen grenades on his belt.

  “What’s going on?” a badly bleeding comrade asked, seeing Burke load down his cartridge belt with explosives.

  “Those gooners ain’t comin’ in here! You boys are goin’ home, not to some POW camp. And you’re sure not going to get butchered by some bloodthirsty gook! Don’t you worry about that! You just keep those rifles pointed out, and don’t hesitate to shoot! Help’s a comin’. Don’t give up!” the badly bleeding Marine said, heaving, half out of breath. Then he charged from the bunker’s doorway, screaming.

  As he charged toward the dozens of soldiers who now tried to step through the tangle of wire, he hurled grenade after grenade at them.

  In his left hand he held an M-16 with its magazines taped end on end. Burke emptied the ammunition from them, one shot at a time, into the soldiers who now fell and scurried and twisted, caught in the wire.

  Behind these soldiers, rifle fire erupted, and the familiar sound of the launching of rocket-propelled grenades echoed in the night. But Burke kept charging, killing the enemy, forcing them to retreat off Hill 950.

  He never questioned his own motives, but acted according to his beliefs. He reacted from an undefinable virtue common to so many of America’s sons who travel to lands with strange names and die there. A sense that makes duty, honor, and courage second nature to them. A goodness that would prompt any of them to soothe the hurt of an injured child or take in a stray dog. To want to feed the hungry and stop oppression. An existence of delicate beauty within their souls that makes them place the lives of others ahead of their own.

  For Corporal John Burke, there was no other logical choice. He held hope and sought success, and though he did not live to see it, he won.

  Because of his fury, the Viet Cong fled. They did not see Burke fall. They did not look back.

  His valor and his love for his brother Marines turned away an enemy who would have slaughtered all of Corporal John Roland Burke’s men who huddled, wounded in that bunker.

  Because of his ultimate sacrifice, his Marines—the men whose lives rested in his hands—survived.

  On April 30, 1968—nearly a year after his death—the Secretary of the Navy, Paul R. Ignatius, acting for President Lyndon Johnson, signed a citation awarding Corporal John R. Burke the second highest medal for valor in the United States, the Navy Cross.

  Its commendation read:

  2200152 12 March 1968

  The President of the United States takes pride in presenting the NAVY CROSS posthumously to

  CORPORAL JOHN R. BURKE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

  for service as set forth in the following

  CITATION:

  For extraordinary heroism while serving as a Sniper Team Leader with Headquarters and Service Company, First Battalion, Twenty-sixth Marines, Third Marine Division (Reinforced), in the Republic of Vietnam on 6 June 1967. Assigned the mission of defending an outpost on Hill 950 at Khe Sanh, Quang Tri Province, Corporal Burke’s team was taken under attack by a numerically superior enemy force. During the initial assault, Corporal Burke was wounded by an enemy grenade. Ignoring his wound, he administered first-aid to a severely wounded comrade and placed him in a relatively safe position, covering the wounded man with his own body to protect him from further injury. Heeding a call for help from outside the bunker, he unhesitatingly went to the aid of another Marine. While he and a companion were moving the man to the security of the bunker an enemy grenade exploded, knocking him and his comrade into the bunker. Although seriously wounded, he moved the wounded man to a tunnel to protect him from the devastating enemy fire. With all his team members casualties, Corporal Burke unhesitatingly and with complete disregard for his own safety armed himself with grenades, and shouting words of encouragement to his men, stormed from the bunker in a valiant one-man assault against the enemy positions. While firing his weapon and throwing grenades at the enemy positions, Corporal Burke was mortally wounded. By his dauntless courage, bold initiative and devotion to duty, he was instrumental in stopping the enemy attack and saving his men from possible further injury or death, thereby reflecting great credit upon himself and the Marine Corps and upholding the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

  13

  Déjá Vu, All Over Again

  UNBREATHABLE HEAT. IT is, perhaps, the most common arrival memory among Americans who landed in Vietnam during the summer of ’69. That and the smell.

  Carlos Hathcock got a taste of it early in May as he stepped from the plane to begin his second tour there. What he could see of Da Nang looked much like what he remembered on his few visits to town in 1966 and ’67. But beyond the houses, stores, office buildings, hotels, and radio antennae, the hillsides and mountains looked different. Looked dead. Gray. Only broken, naked skeletons of what once stood as thick canopy jungle and forests remained. Smoke plumes rose on several horizons, and the sounds of jets and artillery never stopped. One look, and he knew that the hot months ahead could only get worse.

  It was the summer that epitomized the essence of the sixties. Peace, love, protest, free-for-all sex, hard rock, psychedelic dope, and the Vietnam War.

  Richie Havens, Janis Joplin, The Who, Ten Years After, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and The Family Stone, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Tim Hardin, Incredible String Band, Ravi Shankar, Bert Sommers, Sweetwater, Quill, Canned Heat, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Grateful Dead, Keef Hartley, Blood Sweat and Tears, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Santana, Jeff Beck Group, The Band, Johnny Winter, Mountain, Melanie, Sha-na-na, John Sebastian, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Joe Cocker, Country Joe McDonald and the Fish, and Jimi Hendrix, one after another, throughout three August days and nights, on a stage surrounded by scaffolding and loudspeakers set on a farm field in upstate New York, entertained 500,000 fans, onlookers, hippies, Black Panthers, Vietnam veterans, war protesters, legalize-marijuana advocates, streakers, nudists, kids, and adults. Two people died and two babies entered the world in the midst of that muddy, trampled, garbage-strewn, love-in, three-day rock and roll jam of humanity. Lots of acid, grass, pills, smack, wine, beer, booze, indecent exposure, and public urination, but not a single report of violence. At least no arrests for violence. Mostly dope. Lots of dope arrests.

  And in that same summer of peace, love, dope, protest, and Woodstock, President Richard Milhous Nixon, continuing a plan established by
President Lyndon Baines Johnson and his secretary of defense, Robert Strange McNamara, put 543,400 United States servicemen’s and women’s lives on the line against the Communists in Vietnam. It approximated the same number of people who attended Woodstock, and represented the greatest number of Americans committed to combat in Vietnam at any single time during the more than ten years of U.S. involvement in that war.

  But Staff Sergeant Carlos Hathcock did not care about politics or Woodstock. Despite not wanting to come back to this land of black-dressed guerrillas and death, he accepted this page of his destiny without complaint. He had his duty to perform. Part of his Marine Corps turf, as he saw it.

  Two Marines joked in the line ahead of Carlos as they walked from the plane that had taken this load of newbees from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, to the long, black-skid-marked concrete runway that overlooked Da Nang Bay, once called Baie de Tourane until the French left.

  Although the world beyond the city looked different now, beaten and worn, a strange feeling of déjà vu gnawed at Hathcock’s soul. Familiar. Returning to where he belonged. Like he never really left. He knew the drill. Knew where to find the telephone. Knew who to call.

  “Yes, sir, major, this is Staff Sergeant Hathcock. I just landed,” Carlos said, speaking on a black telephone at a high counter where a Marine lance corporal stood ready to answer questions of the newly arriving officers and staff noncommissioned officers.

  “I appreciate that, sir,” Hathcock continued. “I figured on piling in the back of one of these six-by’s headed up 327. A jeep would be outstanding. Lot more comfortable on my butt.”

  Carlos listened intently to the instructions the major at 1st Marine Division Operations told him. The lieutenant colonel in charge of the division sniper school wanted to see him as soon as he arrived at the headquarters compound. They would arrange billeting after discussing what Hathcock would do, and where he would stay during his next twelve months in Vietnam.