“One of our problems is that we didn’t have the wholehearted support of the American people. We were doing our job… but the enemy thought he was winning politically and psychologically in the United States.”

—General William Westmoreland

31

Reorienting

Early October 1970

While the company settled in for refresher training, I went with the other company officers to 1st Brigade headquarters for the evening briefing, followed by dinner and cocktails with the brigade commander and his staff. The briefing itself was boring and the gathering at the officers’ club was rather stilted for field soldiers. I felt somewhat like Alice in Wonderland, pretending to be at a tea party instead of in a war zone. Perhaps I had been too involved to the struggle in the jungle to appreciate the fine points of society. Colonel Stevenson, our brigade commander, was a fine officer and an absolute gentleman, whom I admired very much, and I appreciated his full support in the field, especially ice cream for the frontline troops.

I suspected this occasion was more directed toward bolstering the morale of his staff in their work than with impressing us. On the other hand, it may have been intended to remind all of us that we would have to return to another world someday; this was a glimpse of it. Nevertheless, the event reinforced my comprehension that the war was nearly over and those of us in the jungle were only acting out a part on a crude stage until the final curtain closed.

I was already uneasy about the prospects of peacetime rules, regulations, and staff formalities inherent in an army in search of a purpose. I loved my army and knew I could adapt to those, when it became necessary. But soldiering in a war zone, on the front line of the conflict, was a bittersweet profession, best experienced by feeling, smelling, touching, and tasting, to truly understand it. Our soldiers had shared in the discomforts, pleasures, fears, pains, and exhilarations of a band of brothers. We had only one another—our lives depended on what the person next to us did. Young men from New York, California, Mississippi, and Minnesota were literally thrown together into a crucible to make the best of it, and we did. Whatever we did together could not be shared with the uninitiated.

There was another positive side to the rear area, though as addictive as a drug. Despite grumbling about rear-echelon soldiers, a warm shower, shave, haircut, clean clothes, and cold beer touched someone I once knew, a different person with a civilized mind hidden deep inside. Maybe someday I would find that stranger again, but for now that had to wait.

Company training was well received by the men. For three days Bravo lived in squad-sized huts, devoured hot chow, and practiced basic marksmanship, tactics, and techniques. At night the men drank beer and enjoyed relief from security duties, so they drank even more. Philippine and Vietnamese bands played very bad music very loudly until 11:00 P.M., when beer sales ended. By then, most men had one or more spares stashed in ice chests in the huts. The pleasant routine continued for three days, and Bravo thoroughly enjoyed the change of pace.

President Nixon proposed a standstill cease-fire in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, immediate release of all prisoners and a broadened peace conference to reach a settlement of conflict throughout Indochina.

On October 9 Chinooks shuttled us back to Fire Base Green. We were there only an hour, long enough to reorganize for a combat assault into War Zone D. By October 10 the company was back in its natural element, the jungle. The three pleasurable days had vaporized like a dream.

Quickly a platoon reported a small factory in a clandestine cluster of huts. The place was actually more a repair site than a factory, equipped with a wood lathe, two fans, an electric generator, paint, and two vises. Fields planted with ripening crops, gardening tools, and food preserved for later consumption surrounded the agricultural-industrial complex.

While we were searching the factory, twelve Montagnards from a tribe that usually inhabited the mountainous regions farther north turned themselves in. They included one man, four women, and seven small children who had been in forced labor for the Viet Cong. They were badly undernourished. One little girl reminded me of Edna’s little orphan, Kim, who had visited our camp in My Tho three years earlier. When I picked the child up, I was surprised at how at light she was, clinging to my neck as I walked about. I remembered breaking the news to a trooper the week before that he was a father of a little girl, and I hoped he would be a good one. I wondered how it felt to be a father, and if I were up to that responsibility.

Bravo was ordered to a pickup zone for extraction and movement to another area, the company being split between two sites for the extraction. I sat with two platoons in a large open area on one side of a ridge line. The pickup zone was an open field in a valley surrounded by three tall hills. The morning was beautiful with the sun slowly burning off the morning haze. The sun warmed us as it broke over the hilltops.

We had already waited two hours for the helicopters when I received a radio message that the wait was extended another hour. That news chilled me in the warming sun; we had been exposed too long already. My vision strayed to the open hills around us and I sensed the piercing eyes of an unwanted observer. I couldn’t tell where he was, but I knew he was out there and I speculated about his location. I requested artillery on the tallest hill across the misty valley, just as a precaution. It was denied because a Mohawk, an army intelligence aircraft, was taking photos. Fate is sometimes tricky that way.

I pulled a novel out of my rucksack and resumed reading. I realized I was acting fatalistic. Whatever will be, will be. I should have roused the company and concealed it in the jungle. I should have learned by then to act on my instincts.

My initial concerns settled into complacency, but when a 75mm recoilless rifle cracked and its round banged into the hillside, we were yanked instantly alert. Fortunately the shot was short of its target, but it had come from the same suspicious hilltop I had earlier identified. We were within range, but the gunner was a poor marksman. Artillery bursting on the hill would have deterred the gunner from risking a shot, and we would have never known he was there—except, I did know. Bravo Company instantly returned fire with grenade launchers, light anti-tank assault weapons (LAAW), and a 90mm recoilless rifle, but we were out of range of most of our organic weapons, and they were ineffective. I finally got artillery cranked up, but too late. A futile firepower display signified that a hunch is more than just a guess.

After that incident, we were quickly extracted and landed in a new area. We moved for the short period of remaining light, enduring a drenching monsoon rain in the process. By the time we were oriented in the new area, there was nothing left to do except wait out the wet night. I awoke from a very wet evening stiff, sore, and cold. A strong hunch gripped me again, and I ordered everyone to perform weapons maintenance, including ammunition, and delayed our departure for an hour to complete it.

Within a half-hour of moving, Lieutenant Judge reported that his platoon was in contact with the enemy. Judge led by example, and this time was no exception. He quickly reported two VC killed, a rifle captured, and personal equipment captured as well. He then said that he was going forward to check out the enemy. He quickly reported they had captured a wounded Viet Cong, who was only a boy, about sixteen years old, and the medic was trying to save his life. Unfortunately the wounds were too severe, and the young man died before the helicopter arrived.

Judge had been well forward, and I hoped the close call would make him more cautious. All my platoon leaders were aggressive, and I didn’t want to lose one. Judge’s actions in contact reminded me of my own, and had he been hit I would have felt somehow responsible. Nevertheless, aggressiveness was needed in our officers or we should concede the battlefield and go home.

Bravo encountered fresh trails running in different directions, unlike the long single trail we had followed into Operation Mercer. I believed the trail into Mercer was a communications route leading to the cache area, whereas these seemed to connect different points—a base of some kind. The feeling that we were close to something or someone was very strong, and I felt watched again. I didn’t like the feeling of paranoia, but I was beginning to appreciate these warning of things to come.

Bravo was in among this complex of trails running in all directions, and I wanted to know what they were. I believed I was most aware of our situation and confident of my jungle and marksmanship skills, so I took the point position for a while to try to read the signs better. I left the radios farther back, and had, instead, a skilled rifleman directly behind me. On point, I could read the indicators sufficiently to tell we were within an hour or two of enemy soldiers.

I actually enjoyed the exhilaration of being first man on the trail, expecting to come face to face with an enemy soldier, relying on my skills to detect ambushes or booby traps. I also realized that I enjoyed it too much. If there was trouble there, I would be unable to control the company response; so I relinquished my position of honor, but only after I had a better feel of the area we were in.

Lieutenant Judge and platoon made contact again quickly and pursued. The trail they were on was three feet wide and laced with tire-sandal tracks. Battalion inserted a tracker dog team to lead, and it ran forward with the dog in front. Trackers were extremely aggressive and impervious to the danger ahead, running behind the dog along the trail and relying on the instincts of the dog. However, we didn’t catch the fleeing enemy. We seemed to vacillate between successful peaks and empty valleys in our quest to find the illusive enemy.

We had begun the month retraining and reorienting. It was a welcome respite from the rigors of jungle and fire base activity. Retraining was needed because refresher training is always needed in basic skills, but also to help mold a company that, like every other company in Vietnam, was constantly changing with replacements, new areas of operations, and different enemy dispositions. However, it was difficult to orient on a war that was being waged in different directions in Washington, Saigon, and Paris.

The U.S. pullout from South Vietnam is raising concern among many Americans whether Saigon really can carry on alone against the Communists. The enemy shows no intentions of laying down arms. In South Vietnam, they continue to fight, while waiting for more U.S. troops to leave.