“President Johnson dropped in on United States troops in South Vietnam today to bring them a Christmas greeting and promise that the people at home “shall not fail you.”

—New York Times, December 23, 1967

13

Sudden Death

December 1967

Christmas was approaching quickly, but the Grinch was active in Vietnam. In early December we embarked on another riverine operation into Kien Hoa Province. The 2d and 3d battalions of our regiment and the 32d Ranger Battalion combined into a mobile task force to find and destroy the VC 263d Main Force Battalion. This time we began with enough troops at our disposal to finish the job. The rich agricultural area offered a bounty of bananas, sugar cane, coconuts, cucumbers, and Viet Cong. We quickly made contact with the 263d, but the elusive enemy slipped away again, avoiding battle.

I detected a disagreeable attitude developing in our battalion, but could not discern the reason. As an example, Corporal Thanh got into an argument with the battalion commander’s radio operator over communications procedures. Determined to have things his way, Thanh approached the soldier in a threatening way, and then a third soldier bayoneted Thanh in his thigh. The wound was serious enough, deep in the large muscle, but Captain Tao refused to allow a medic to tend to Thanh’s wound. Instead, Tao directed the battalion to establish camp in a damp, heavily vegetated area infested with mosquitoes and had Thanh left in the open rice paddy, unattended. I walked into the paddy alone to bring my friend back into the perimeter, but he refused and remained alone all night. He was finally evacuated next day, his punishment concluded.

Another example of a sinking attitude occurred when a small patrol of soldiers was dispatched across a swamp to reconnoiter a river line on our flank. The company commander tried to give additional instructions, a frag order, to the patrol by radio but he could not contact the unit. In frustration, he grabbed an M79 grenade launcher and lobbed a grenade toward the patrol. It exploded in the mud twenty meters from them. His method worked. They were on the radio instantly! Although the grenade got their attention, it did little to reinforce their loyalty.

Witnessing increasing hostility, and desperation, the caustic atmosphere disturbed me, but I couldn’t understand why it was. The old feeling that I was missing some important information returned to plague me. I wondered whether somehow Captain Tao’s patrician nature was contributing to the tension. On the other hand the approaching holidays could have been causing the soldiers’ preoccupation with family, home, and peace.

I suspected that something was amiss with the Viet Cong as well. Other indications, such as their avoiding contact supported that feeling. I was troubled that I could not assemble all the pieces of the puzzle in my mind. I felt storm clouds billowing in for a big blow. The old warning siren howled in my mind again, and it had been right before.

In mid-December, we launched a search-and-destroy operation to the Double Y. The last time there, we had walked through Ap Bac and run headlong into the 514th Local Force Battalion in a bloody battle. This time we were trucked to LZ Springfield and an air assault was launched near the confluence of the canals. The VC force was not there, but caretakers and security forces were present to protect the site.

In several small skirmishes we killed six VC security guards, captured two, and destroyed several bunkers. The big surprise, however, was in what we found: large stocks of arms and ammunition. Along the canal banks underground warehouses were jampacked with supplies of AK-47 ammunition, as well as 60mm, 82mm, and 120mm mortar rounds; antitank mines; Chinese “potato masher” hand grenades; and recoilless-rifle rounds.

It appeared that the VC forces were preparing for a massive assault. Large quantities of ammunition had recently been transported down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Cambodia and across the Plain of Reeds. We found documents, a Viet Cong flag with fringe around it, a large Communist Party flag, and Viet Cong and NVA medals. This was a significant discovery, and ARVN 11th Regiment headquarters rewarded the battalion with a quota of Vietnamese awards.

We watched in amazement as the piles of ammunition from underground grew. Captain Xuan called, “Lieutenant Taylor, I have some medals to present. I would like to present one to you. Which medal would you like?" he laughed, building our growing rapport.

“Thank you for your courtesy, Dai Uy. But, the medals would mean more to your soldiers. I’d rather have the flags,” I replied honestly, hoping Slick would not be offended.

“Then it’s done! I’ll present the Communist Party flag and the Viet Cong flag to you. Sergeant Rich, would you take a picture, please?” An impromptu ceremony was hastily organized. Afterward I stuffed the flags into my rucksack for souvenirs.

We spent several days uncovering and counting the loot. Then we rigged it for demolition. ARVN soldiers stacked large piles of munitions and placed C4 plastic explosives with blasting caps inside. WD-1 communications wire was unrolled as far as it would reach. The wires were attached to a hand-cranked generator to set off the charges.

The explosions were tremendous—far greater than those of 500-pound bombs. Large chunks of debris ripped through the farmhouse nearby, which had survived the first battle with the 514th Battalion. Large shards of metal and clumps of mud flew well over our heads and landed with thuds in the soft field behind us.

“Smaller piles!” admonished Xuan, laughing.

The following day we were still gathering VC ammunition from across the canal. Unknown to me, an old man, a woman, and a young girl were helping ferry the ammunition in their sampan. It is likely that their loyalties were closer to the Viet Cong than us, but they helped us nevertheless. That was the prudent thing to do because we were here and the Viet Cong was not. Our aerial observer, Swamp Fox, was circling slowly about two miles away in an L-19 single-engine airplane.

“Red Oak, This is Swamp Fox. Over.” He checked in.

“Swamp Fox, this is Red Oak Five. Over.”

“Red Oak, I see several VC in a sampan, trying to escape your operation with a large quantity of supplies. Over.”

“Swamp Fox, do you have our position or do you need smoke? Over.”

“I have you in sight. Request permission to engage. Over.”

I hesitated. What could be wrong? I saw the L-19 slowly circling about two miles away. He had identified VC escaping with some of the supplies. He had a positive spot on our position and he had asked permission to engage the enemy. I had a gut feeling that something was not right, but I didn’t know what. I usually made quick decisions but now I hesitated. It just didn’t feel right.

“Red Oak, can I engage? They’ll be gone if we don’t do something now,” he persisted.

I hesitated again; I couldn’t figure out what information was missing. He knew our position, he was two miles away, and he saw VC escaping. What I knew made perfect sense, but I didn’t know that the civilians were in the sampan a few meters away.

“Go ahead, Swamp Fox.” I definitely did not want to allow any VC to escape.

A minute later I heard the engines of the L-19 screaming low and fast—directly at us! I had been in this position before with the helicopter in Kien Hoa. I grabbed the handset of the radio, gripping it so hard that it might have broken.

“Cease fire, Swamp Fox! Cease fire! You’re directly over us! Cease fire!”

As I yelled, I heard the roar of four 2.75-inch rockets rip from the wings of the L-19 and saw them flame directly into the canal twenty meters away. I could not imagine why the L-19 had fired into our position, but I wanted it stopped.

A thunderous explosion erupted from the canal, sending water and debris spraying us on the canal bank when the rockets ignited the explosives in the sampan. Miraculously no ARVN soldiers on the banks were killed, but when I saw the old man and woman after they had been fished from the canal, both were dead. The girl, probably twenty years old, was missing a hand and her arm at her elbow. I was afraid she would die of shock and loss of blood before she could reach medical care.

Now my own hands were bloody with friendly fire. This was inexcusable to me. The aerial observer had had one picture of the situation, and I had another. Had I known the civilians were in the boat or that his target was so near us, I would have refused the fire mission. But I didn’t know. Somehow that knowledge didn’t make me feel any better.

This was not a war; it was fratricide, one big accident after another. If the Viet Cong went to sleep, we would eventually kill ourselves off. I already hated the war and the Viet Cong. Now I hated Swamp Fox and myself as well.

We remained in that dreadful place for two weeks, disposing of all the ammunition caches we could find. I came to accept the accident as one of many in war. Yet I reviewed events leading to the tragedy over and over, playing it back and stopping the script in my mind to study it, desperately trying to discover what went wrong. I chastised myself for not trusting my instincts while relying on someone else’s view of reality. I wondered what Swamp Fox was thinking. But he hadn’t seen it up close and personal, as I had.

Publicly, Army and Marine generals say they’ve found few faults with the M-16 rifle, but privately they admitted that Defense Secretary McNamara forced the weapon upon them.¹

Eventually choppers picked us up and ferried us back to Binh Duc. When we arrived, the battalion began two weeks of refresher training in basic soldiering skills, which was certainly overdue. The U.S. 9th Infantry Division military assistance training team and the ARVN 7th Division training center cadre were on hand to assist.

We conducted a full range of qualification firing on rifles, including the M1 carbine and M14 rifle. The training was sorely needed, and when we finished we were ready for combat with fresh zeros on our carbines. On the day after Christmas Uncle Santa surprised us with new M16 rifles. Joy to the world! The entire battalion had just completed qualification firing on M1 carbines, including rezeroing, and on the next day new rifles were delivered.

More joy was coming. The Viet Cong disrupted our training to avenge their losses of ammunition at the Double Y. They pounded our base camp with 82mm mortars and sniped at us inside our compound in broad daylight.

We reacted with hot pursuit. As soldiers were handed new M16 rifles, which they had never fired, they were marched directly into the field in pursuit of the enemy, loading magazines as they marched. I was incredulous at the stupidity of the decisions—all of them. An infantry battalion qualified with M1 carbines now had them replaced with new M-16s that had never been test-fired—much less zeroed—and was being marched directly in pursuit of an enemy. Advisors spent the night crawling around the perimeter, instructing ARVN soldiers who spoke very little English on the operation of the rifle. It was absurd.

Malicious jokes weren’t over. I was notified that the Johnny Grant show was coming to My Tho, and the division senior advisor selected me as an escort. I knew the beautiful actresses Diane McBain and Sherry Johnson and Playboy Bunny Sabrina Scharf were in the troupe. I dreamed of escorting them. Never mind! The next day I was informed that the 3d Battalion had been alerted for an operation and was short an officer, therefore….

Instead of escorting the girls of my dreams, I escorted a bunch of ragged ARVN soldiers on river assault boats steaming back toward Kien Hoa. The region was laced with booby traps, and we lost soldiers as soon as we stepped ashore. Nasty little “toe poppers” were small boxes buried in the ground. Inside the boxes, the primer of a .30-caliber bullet rested on the tip of a nail. When stepped on, the nail activated the primer and the round went off, usually taking toes or part of a foot with it.

Merry Christmas to all!

The war in the delta is between the South Vietnamese and the Viet Cong, and it is likely to remain so. Whoever controls the “Dragon’s Mouth,” where the three main branches of the Mekong reach the sea—will ultimately control the country. The government’s influence extends precisely to those points where a soldier puts his foot on the ground.²