by Dennis Foley
After several trips in and out of the TOC with messages and documents, Cathcart stepped out into the hallway to get out of the crowded room.
“You earnin’ your money?”
Cathcart turned to respond to the question, a freshly lit cigarette hanging from his mouth. “Oh, sir?” He pulled the cigarette from his lips. “You hear the shit’s hit the fan?”
“I figured something was up when they started using the second floor of the BOQ for target practice. Some units getting hit, huh?”
“Everywhere! Hell, there have already been thirty-six attacks reported and all kinds of reports of VC units moving from G-2. They been runnin’ me crazy getting stuff to the three shop.”
“Any word on Juliet Company?”
“I ain’t sure I got all of it, but I heard that there is a team in contact and the base at Cu Chi is taking incoming mortar.” He snatched a quick look at his wristwatch. “That was about an hour ago. You want me to go in and snoop around?”
“No. I don’t think so. I can find out what I need. Little good that it’ll do. I’m stuck here. By the time I could get out to Cu Chi, it’d be all over. Wouldn’t hurt you to keep an ear out so you can find out what you’re getting yourself into,” Hollister said with a grin.
“I’m going to slip in and get some coffee. You want some, sir?”
“Yeah, I could use some. Seems they had a bad batch of Scotch at the Officers Club tonight.”
While Cathcart went for the coffee, Hollister thought about lying to him. He wanted very much to know everything about what was going on with Juliet Company, but knew he would be in the way in a TOC that was trying to coordinate the support and combat operations of four infantry divisions, five combat brigades, and dozens of outposts, bases, and stations that were under their control. The events of Juliet Company would no doubt be a minor concern. He was as afraid to find that out as he was to hear any bad news about Juliet Company.
Looking around the hallway, Hollister discovered a closed doorway. He peeked in and found that no one was using the office or the desk. He looked around the room. It appeared to be in some sort of transition. Boxes of files were stacked in the corner and marked with some crude code, and half of the office furniture was missing—all except the stuff that was broken or not worth stealing. Then Hollister spotted what he was looking for—a field phone. It was on the floor behind the desk, but seemed to be connected to WD-1 wire that snaked out through a hole in the plywood-paneled wall.
“Here’s your coffee, sir. Hope you like it black,” Cathcart said, putting the mess-hall cup on the dirty desktop. “Thought you’d left.”
“Thanks. No, I figure I can find out what I want without being in the way in the TOC,” Hollister said, lifting the phone and base to the desk.
He pulled open a drawer and started rummaging through the papers abandoned by the office’s former owner. “Look over in those other drawers, Cathcart,” he said.
The PFC walked around to the other end of the desk, put his coffee down, and started with the top drawer. “What am I looking for?”
“Phone book. I want the Admin and Log phone numbers.”
“What good will that do, sir?”
“If I want to talk to anyone in Three Corps tonight, I’d better not try to get through on the Operations lines.”
Cathcart smiled. “Nifty idea.” He slammed the top drawer shut and reached up under the secretary slide that was tucked into the pocket, just under the top lip of the desk. Pulling it open, he found a telephone wiring diagram taped to the surface with yellowed, cracking transparent tape. “Bingo!”
Hollister moved over to the other side of the desk and screwed his neck around in order to read the phone numbers that were taped down so they could be read by someone in the missing chair.
“It isn’t the phone book, but it lets me get a handle on the switchboard system here,” he explained. Hollister ran his finger down the list and found the Admin switchboard operator’s number, picked up the field phone, and cranked the ringer.
Cathcart stuck his head out the door of the abandoned office to see if anyone was looking for him and then turned back in and watched Hollister weave his way through the unpredictable phone system.
He went through a series of switchboard operators and good and bad connections before he got to his destination. Finally reaching the Juliet Company Orderly Room, he had to yell to speak to Dewey.
Meanwhile, the shooting in and around the IIFFV compound heated up again. Small arms were popping sporadically on the back side of the base—near the large ordnance depot
After some frustration and often repeated questions, Hollister finally hung up the phone and let the conversation sink in for a moment.
“Bad news, sir?” Cathcart asked.
“Yeah, Cu Chi has been taking a real beating at the airfield. And some of the mortars that were targeted for the Chinooks on the ground went long and landed in Juliet Company. Sergeant Dewey thinks they have six KIAs and about ten WIAs so far. On top of that, there are two teams in contact out west of Cu Chi, and they’re playing hell getting any kind of priorities for Artillery. A third team made contact and is trying to E and E to a PZ.”
Cathcart remained silent for a moment. “But I thought everyone was in for the holiday stand-down.”
“Juliet Company was tasked to leave a few teams out in recon only mission to keep an eye on some sensitive areas. Now they’re out there holding on for all they are worth.”
Cathcart was silent again.
Hollister looked up at him. “You sure you want to be a LRP?”
Cathcart nodded yes, but said nothing.
“So what other tricks you got up your sleeve? Any chance you have a chopper in your pocket? I’ve got to get forward.”
The question stirred Cathcart out of his deep thought and propelled him to the phone. “If there’s one to be had, I’ll find it, sir.”
“Good. You do what you can. I’m going back to my room and pick up my gear. I’ll be back here in zero five.”
Outside the air hung heavy with the smell of burning flares and cordite from the small-arms firing that had taken place. In the distance, Hollister could hear the nonstop firing of dozens of artillery pieces. He knew each round was on its way out to help someone who was in the grip of fear and uncertainty. He got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach about the months that stood before him, and he wondered again if he would live to make it to his DEROS. He could only guess that he was using up his ration of luck.
Hollister was snapped out of his thoughts by the ripping sounds of a C-130 gunship loaded down with high-speed Gatling guns, spewing out thousands of rounds of tracer ammo. He stopped long enough to look off in the sky at the blacked-out gunship. The mission was being fired south of Long Binh, and the tracer rounds snaked out of the rotating barrels of the machine guns like long red whips. The sounds of the firing were not unlike a heavy version of a deck of cards being shuffled.
He shook his head at the technology that had been brought to the business of war. A twenty-year-old airplane was flying at thirty-five hundred feet and raining accurate death and destruction on a darkened enemy below.
More small-arms fire on the perimeter snapped Hollister out of it He entered the BOQ and ran to his room. On the way he found two other officer residents standing in the hall talking. They were inspecting the row of bullet holes that dotted the wall just above arm’s reach.
“Medevac,” Cathcart said, beaming with pride.
“Medevac? Good idea. Where?”
“The pad on the south end of the compound is for the medevac chopper that supports the medical detachment there. They are going over to Bien Hoa Army with some medical supplies they needed and say you can hook a ride that far.”
Hollister patted Cathcart on the shoulder. “That’s good enough. I’ll see what I can do from there. There sure are lots more planes and choppers leaving there than here.”
Hollister pulled out his notepad and jotted down a messag
e, then handed it to Cathcart. “Will you see that Major Fowler gets this? I want him to know I went forward. And tell Sergeant Allen.”
“Yesssir. Can do, easy.”
The ride took only a few minutes since the two compounds were so close. Still, flying supplies to Bien Hoa was more reliable than trying to drive them over. As they flew over the road leading directly into Bien Hoa Army, Hollister and the chopper crew could see the firefights going on near the main gate. From the limited amount of flare lights and the exchanges of tracer fire, it seemed as if the ditches on either side of the roadway were littered with dead VC, with an equal number still alive and still attacking.
Bien Hoa proved to be a good start. Hollister found a driver from the Evacuation Hospital who gave him a ride to an aviation company that was shuttling an L-19 Bird Dog to Cu Chi to replace one of the radio-relay aircraft that had just been pulled out of service because of an aging airframe. While he waited at the hangar for the dawn departure, Hollister watched what would come to be known as the Tet Offensive unfold around him. On the far side of the sprawling Bien Hoa Air Force and Army complex, American and South Vietnamese exchanged sporadic fire with real and imagined VC outside the wire.
The operations shack for the aviation company had only air-to-ground radio capability and could only monitor a slice of the war. Nonetheless, it was becoming clear that the North Vietnamese had entered the war in larger numbers and more locations than ever before. From listening to the cross talk, it was hard for Hollister to tell how the Americans were doing, but he couldn’t imagine their losses could ever be greater than the North Vietnamese casualties.
After several more cups of coffee cooked in an open coffee can over a squad stove, Hollister started to feel the fog clearing in his brain and the sourness rising in his stomach. He made a little promise to himself to forgo any future opportunities to drink that much Scotch again.
The backseat of the Bird Dog reminded Hollister of a terrible crash site he had once been tagged to evacuate. He strapped himself into the theadbare body harness. That done, he tried to check out the distances he would need to reach if he had to use the emergency tool and the first aid packet attached to the bulkhead above his head. He wanted to make sure that if he needed either item he could reach them. He had seen what it meant to have them out of reach.
The L-19 bumped along the runway, gathering speed as if the fuselage itself was flexing with every deviation in the concrete strip. The engine was the only thing that gave Hollister any confidence. It sounded healthy and well broken in—like a ’49 Ford flathead V-8. The plane’s cosmetic appeal left a lot to be desired. It had so many air miles on it that there was hardly any paint on the metal surfaces inside. The seats were broken-down, and the Plexiglas in all the windows and in the windscreen was pitted and scratched to the point where every spot of light that tried to pass through them was distorted.
The pilot was a warrant officer who had been in Vietnam for almost three years. He had come over just before the troop buildup began and decided to stay.
As they flew west toward Cu Chi, the sun was just breaking the horizon behind them. The view out the open window was very revealing. From two thousand feet, at ninety knots, they could see the early activities of the farmers and merchants who were not in the path of the offensive. Cook fires dotted the villages and hamlets. Hondas turned onto two-lane blacktops from dirt side roads. Children fed livestock before eating their own breakfasts, and everywhere—even though they couldn’t be heard—cocks crowed.
Off their flight path, Hollister could see ARVN, RF/PF, and government outposts under attack by small forces. Where they could, Hollister and the pilot directed artillery and gunships to their targets as an extra set of eyes. Over the headsets, they were listening to the war most important to the pilot—the air war. He had turned the radio to guard—a frequency used only by aviators for emergencies. Radio cross talk filled their ears with calls for help, choppers shot up, air force fast movers reporting damage to their aircraft and one pilot reporting his position on the ground.
Hollister tried to put it all in perspective and extrapolate the good news he might be able to hear if he were able to listen to the tactical frequencies of the maneuver units and combat-support units. They were surely making progress. Even so, he was feeling the return of that knot that always gripped his lower gut when things got dicey. He thought about Juliet Company. He hoped they had been spared.
Things seemed to be well under control at Cu Chi when they landed. The 25th Division’s Chinooks had taken some real hits, and one was still smoldering, although there was little left of the airframe to recognize. Scattered buildings showed evidence of small-arms fire, and there was something beyond Hollister’s view that was still burning, sending up plumes of white smoke on the other side of the base camp.
A pleasant boy from Tennessee driving a five-ton diesel truck gave Hollister a lift to the Old Warrior Pad. He thanked the driver and took one last shot at recruiting him to the LRP company, but was pleased to find out that the LRPs’ reputation was exaggerated enough to scare him off.
The reputation of a LRP company made lots of difference in whom it could recruit. Hollister had discovered that the more the reputation grew, the larger the number of volunteers. That gave the officers and NCOs a wider choice of new LRPs.
No one said anything when Hollister entered Operations. They were in the middle of handling a medevac of a team member who had suffered a concussion and broken eardrum from a booby trap that had detonated near him.
Sergeant Kurzikowski must have assumed that Hollister was looking for Major Sangean and poked his thumb toward the Orderly Room.
Major Sangean sat in the corner of the room signing forms. Dewey and the new first sergeant were both pounding away on typewriters.
“Sir? I got back quick as I could.”
Sangean looked up and nodded coolly. “Glad to have you back. Make any money at Two Field?”
“I’m pretty sure Colonel Downing is behind us, but my bet is that Major Fowler doesn’t share his attitude,” Hollister said.
Sangean put his pen down and looked out the window at a 25th Division chopper passing nearby.
“What you mean is that Fowler’s a shit-eating frog and is angry that you even attempted to divert his attention from his personal priorities.”
Hollister decided not to bad-mouth a superior in front of Morrison and Dewey. He had always thought it bad form.
“I’ve known Fowler since he was a plebe at West Point,” said Sangean. “He was a prick then, and he has perfected the affectation.”
“Ah, is there some time you can get me up to speed on what happened last night?”
Sangean signed one more document and passed the pile to the first sergeant. He stuffed the pen into his top shirt pocket and automatically checked to see that the pocket flap covered the pen top. He stood, looked at Morrison as if to ask if there was anything else, and then started for the door, catching Hollister’s eye. “Let’s go talk.”
Sangean led Hollister across the company street to an abandoned building that had been used by the supply sergeant for storage. The end of the building that had been empty had now been pressed into service as a temporary morgue.
“Mortars got three of them, and being on their own out there in the reeds got three more,” Sangean said, surveying the bodies of the eight dead LRPs.
“And the other two?”
“One took a stray round from somewhere, and the other broke his neck trying to get away from the incoming.”
The sight was nothing new for Hollister, but neither was it something he was ever going to get used to. He felt a twinge of guilt because he had never even gotten to know them. It would not happen again. He would brief every patrol and debrief them on return. He would meet some of the new ones when they were being recruited and all of them in training. Of all the things he had learned in the army, training was the thing that kept soldiers alive. He planned on laying it on heavy and making sure no o
ne died from a lack of training.
Timely support was Hollister’s job, and he promised himself that he would not see any more body bags filled for lack of support.
“I’ve been doing this a bit longer than you have, Hollister,” said Sangean, “but I don’t need to tell you that we are traveling light around here, and if we can’t get this operation working right we might as well shut it down. You are the only officer I have that has enough experience to back me up. I don’t have time to waste. I don’t have time to double back. I have to guess that you know what needs to be done as well as I do.
“Your 201 file reads the way I wanted it to when I went looking for an operations officer. I’ve got a crack Admin guy coming in to be XO, and I want you guys to work like a Swiss watch. But his business is Admin and Logistics, and yours”—he raised his hand and pointed toward Cambodia—“is out there.”
Hollister kept looking at the bodies. “Count on me, sir. You just give me my marching orders, and that’ll be all I need.”
“I want you to act right and do good stuff… That’s all I expect.”
He finally turned to Sangean and saw the pain in his eyes. He had thought that Sangean was just cold and aloof. That wasn’t it at all. It was pain. Hollister knew then that Sangean had seen his share of filled body bags. “Yes, sir” was all Hollister could get out without choking up himself.
Chapter 11
HOLLISTER SPENT THE REST of the day trying to get up to date on the tactical situation and the developments of the Tet invasion. His best guess was that the stand-down cease-fire was called off, even though there had been no official statement. And he knew that it could be a matter of hours before the company could receive orders from IIFFV to resume full combat patrols in the AO. He didn’t want to avoid being committed if they were needed. But training was what they needed. And he was worried that the company was very short of manpower from the combat losses and that the company hadn’t completely filled out its MTO&E.