On 20 October, I received my first American decoration, nine months after arriving in country. Gen. Robertson presented the Bronze Star to me and several of my men at a ceremony on the dirt field we euphemistically called “the parade deck” at Camp Reasoner. While I was pleased that the actions of Killer Kane were finally getting some official recognition, I was painfully aware that these awards had been downgraded from Silver Stars by the division awards committee. My team and I felt that the men serving on the awards committee did not understand how difficult and dangerous our work was, or they did not believe the statements made by me and my men about what actually transpired on our patrols. In any event, Killer Kane began to wonder why our team was always called upon by the Division G-2 to conduct the most dangerous missions and to brief every visiting dignitary to the 1st Marine Division, yet we never seemed to get the official recognition that other units in the division received. Later on, I would have an opportunity to speak to the recorder of the committee’s meetings, and he would tell me that the philosophy of “They are just doing their job” permeated many of the comments of these staff officers, along with comments relating to the paucity of “independent confirmation,” meaning statements from witnesses outside of the membership of the patrol. The fact that only seven or eight men went on these patrols did not seem to figure in their evaluation of the value of the statements submitted with the award recommendations. My frustration with the division awards committee eroded my confidence in the Marine Corps’ award system, and I began to question the utility of even submitting award recommendations to them. In fairness to the officers serving on the awards committee, they had certain criteria to meet when approving an award. The higher the award, the more substantiated evidence was required. There were few witnesses on a recon patrol who could substantiate the facts since the recon teams were small, covert and far from friendly lines. All the awards committee had were the statements of a team leader and a few members of the patrol, many of whom lacked the writing skills needed to produce graphic and compelling statements.
Adding to our disenchantment with the awards policy of the 1st Marine Division, Killer Kane learned on 20 October that our code name had been changed. We would now be called Swift Scout instead of Killer Kane, and this did not go down well with us at all. Everyone recognized the need to change call signs for security reasons. Still, we had become very attached to our call sign. It prompted respect for the team whenever it was mentioned in reports and briefings. Although disappointed about the change, we did not complain, and vowed that we would make our new call sign as famous as the previous one.
In addition to receiving the news that our call sign had changed to Swift Scout, I was also informed of a new mission for our team. We were to provide reconnaissance and screening for two U.S. Marine infantry battalions, which were conducting Operation Knox south of Hue. Our mission was to observe any enemy activity in the Loc Tu Sector of Phu Loc District, Thua Thien Province, paying special emphasis on the main coastal road, Route 1, and the strategic Phu Gia Pass north of Da Nang. We were to keep 2/3 and 2/7 informed of any threat coming at them from the south and to call and adjust artillery on any enemy forces we observed.
As I received this mission from the S-3, I was informed that I would be taking a journalist along with me on the patrol. I had only one exposure to the press before, and that one had not turned out well, so I was reluctant to take a civilian journalist with me on a recon patrol where every man had a critical role to play. I saw no value in taking a civilian with us and a lot of problems. It was soon apparent that I had no real say in the matter since division had approved it. I reluctantly accepted the inevitable, but I voiced my views to Capt. Walker and to Capt. Kicklighter, the new S-2. They were sympathetic, but said there was no recourse since III MAF had granted the journalist’s request to go on a recon patrol. As far as I knew, few if any journalists had ever accompanied a recon patrol before, and I wondered why this journalist and my team had been singled out for this highly unusual endeavor. Since I had no say in the matter, I resigned myself to make the best of a bad situation.
Later that day, I met the journalist who would be going on patrol with Swift Scout. His name was Eric von Dorp, and my initial impression of the 28-year-old was positive. He told me he had traveled the world ever since he graduated from college and had recently taken a canoe down the Mekong River alone from Laos to the Mekong Delta. He had come to Southeast Asia only 11 months ago, but had been able to sell several of his articles to major publications. He said he was a freelance journalist, a point he stressed made him “totally objective.” I was to find out, however, that he harbored some sympathetic views of the VC. He gave away these views when he said he thought the aspirations of the Vietnamese communists were not a threat to the U.S., and their policies were more like those of “nationalist revolutionaries and agrarian reformers” than communists. The more I spoke with him, the more I began to question the wisdom of taking this man on patrol with me, but I decided to do nothing to prevent him from getting his story. Perhaps, I might even make him more sympathetic to our cause by showing him what we did and why.
When I told my team we would be taking a civilian journalist with us who I suspected of having some strong anti-war views, they were not pleased and let me know it. For a few minutes, I thought I might have an actual mutiny on my hands, but after I explained we had an opportunity to show this man that we were performing a necessary service, and to possibly change his views, they settled down. Of course, this was wishful thinking, but it helped to assuage the anger that this man’s presence had on the team. I told them to focus on the patrol, and that I would call an emergency extraction if the actions of Mr. von Dorp placed the patrol in jeopardy.
I allowed Mr. von Dorp to listen to my patrol order, leaving out the intelligence portion, which I gave the team afterwards when he was not present. I also allowed him to observe our other preparations for the patrol, including our rehearsals and weapons test-firing. The day before we departed on patrol, I made sure he had the necessary field equipment and rations needed for the patrol, and I reminded him that once we were in the field, he was to obey every order I gave. I warned him that if he failed to do as I told him, I would have him removed from the patrol immediately and ask III MAF to pull his press pass. He agreed and assured me he would not be a burden.
On 22 October our team, consisting of 11 Marines and one U.S. journalist, was inserted by two UH-34 helicopters on the western slope of Dong Nhut Mountain, only a few hundred meters east of Dam Cao Hai Bay, a large body of water that emptied into the South China Sea. During the 110 hours of the patrol we did not observe any enemy forces because the OP sites we thought would give us good observation of Highway 1 were too far away and too high. Our first OP was on Hill 592, and the thick, gray mist that shrouded the summit made it impossible to see the terrain below. We moved to another OP on a finger at a lower elevation, but observation here was also very poor due to the mist and fog that rolled in from the sea. All of the trails we found in the NFZ seemed quite old, with the only sign of human activity a significant amount of woodcutting all along the patrol route. We also found an old U.S. Marine defensive position on top of Hill 592, but no sign of any enemy activity in the area. After a rather uneventful and rain-soaked patrol, we returned to Camp Reasoner (Team Swift Scout Patrol Report, 26 Oct. 1967).
Having spent four days with Mr. von Dorp, I was interested in his views about our patrol and my men. In a letter home, I recounted what he said to me and my impressions of him:
He was quite impressed with two things, so he said. First, he thought my Marines were better than the average Marine, and, second, he thought I was a military fanatic but a rational one. He could not believe how we moved so slowly and quietly, never talking for hours on end and then only in whispers. When he left (Camp Reasoner) he said he would put me in two chapters of a book he was writing and classify me as “a stereotypical Annapolis man.” I laughed and told him that I would put him in a few sentences of a letter home and classify him as a stereotypical bum. He gave me his address and said that if I ever got back to the States, he would treat me to some of the wine from his father’s vineyards.
Two months later, I received a letter from Eric. He had returned to his parents’ home, a winery in California, and was looking for employment. He thanked me for allowing him to accompany Killer Kane on patrol, an event he considered the high point of his journalistic endeavors in South Vietnam. I often wondered if the impression we made on him changed his mind about the war and those who fought in it. Since he did not send me a copy of his article, I suspected we had not changed his views.
On 27 October, I made another parachute jump from an Air Force Caribou transport plane. About 50 Marines from our company made the jump at Red Beach, the large logistics facility near Da Nang. There were a lot of Vietnamese kids on the drop zone (DZ), and they seemed delighted with the show as we drifted down into the sand among the numerous graves that dotted the area. Miraculously, no one was hurt during our jump, although several of us narrowly escaped landing on top of the grave stones. As we always did after a parachute-training jump, the Marines speculated as to why we were being prepared for such an operation since it was so out of the ordinary for us and none of our commanders seemed to know what the objective of this training was. The members of my platoon were curious about how we might be employed as parachutists against the enemy, but I could never provide an answer for them that made much sense. There were continuous rumors about a jump into the A Shau Valley or, perhaps into some other place in Laos, but nothing definitive was ever revealed to us.
The evening after the parachute jump, I had a visit from Lt. Dave Gillespie, a Marine supply officer who had just returned from R and R in Bangkok. Dave graduated a year ahead of me at Merchantville High School, where he had been an All-State football star on our dismally unsuccessful football team. He had preceded me to the Naval Academy, and we had been good friends there. In addition to being a standout athlete, Dave was also very smart and had the kind of charismatic personality that endeared him to everyone who came in contact with him. We ate dinner together in our mess hall and later went to the division officers’ club for a few drinks and the nightly movie. He told me that I should take advantage of the many opportunities in Bangkok to buy Christmas presents for my family, and he gave me business cards for stores in Bangkok that sold Thai silk, jewelry, porcelain, cameras, and other products, as well as instructions on where to go to have the presents I purchased shipped to the U.S. I went back to my hootch that evening and matched what Dave told me with a list I had prepared of Christmas gifts for my family and “Jane.” It felt good to know that I would be able to use my R and R to get each person a nice gift for Christmas and have it shipped home in time for the holidays.
On 29 October, I was called into the S-3 shop and given another “prisoner snatch” mission. This time, team Swift Scout would try its luck capturing an enemy soldier in the Mortar Valley area. Mortar Valley lay directly north of Charlie Ridge, and the trail that ran through this deserted valley ran west until it connected with the main east-west trail in Happy Valley, the infamous “Yellow Brick Road.” It was also only eight kilometers from one of the three main roads between Da Nang and the An Hoa Basin, so it was a logical place for enemy units to hide while on their way to launch rocket attacks against the Da Nang Airbase. Recent intelligence had confirmed the presence of a new NVA artillery unit in or near Mortar Valley, and III MAF wanted to interrogate a prisoner from this unit to find out what their mission was. III MAF intelligence had confirmed the arrival of several large NVA units that had spent the last few months moving south from North Vietnam and southern Laos along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Most of these enemy units seemed to be concentrating near the U.S. Marine base at Khe Sanh in western Quang Tri Province, but some were thought to be heading toward Quang Nam Province. I could tell from the tone of the conversation that there was real concern about these developments, and division wanted an NVA prisoner badly so they could find out which units were moving into the division TAOR. I suspected that signals intelligence had picked up the enemy movement, but the locations and missions of these enemy units were still unknown.
Maj. Keating asked if he could observe my preparations for the patrol and go on the overflight with me. I was flattered by his interest and impressed with his desire to see how my team went about preparing for a mission such as a “prisoner snatch.” None of my previous COs had asked to observe our preparations. From the initial map study and analysis of previous patrol reports, to the overflight and issuing of the patrol order to my team, Maj. Keating accompanied me and quietly observed. He even watched the test-firing of our weapons, the inspection of each man’s rucksack and equipment, and the two hours of rehearsal in the scorching sun beside LZ Finch. The more I saw of Maj. Keating, the more I liked him. I asked him what he thought of the team’s preparations and he only said one thing. Hearing it filled me with pride. He said, “Andy, now I know why your team is so good. Nothing is left to chance.” I told my team what he had said, and they all beamed with pleasure and pride. His comment did wonders for our morale.
Early in the morning of 31 October team Swift Scout, consisting of one Marine officer, ten Marine enlisted men, one Navy corpsman, and one scout dog landed in a grassy LZ on a narrow ridgeline at the western edge of Mortar Valley about one mile south of Hill 502. The LZ was one of the few open areas in the vicinity where a helicopter could land, which concerned me since I knew it increased the likelihood that it was under observation by the enemy. However, I knew our objective was to reach the summit of Hill 502 and the trail running east-west through the summit, so this LZ would have to do if we hoped to get to the summit before dark.
As we moved off the LZ, we noticed there were several fighting holes overlooking it, and one of these fighting holes had blood in it. The fighting hole was old, but the blood was fresh. Evidently, the strafing runs by the escort helicopter gunships had produced at least one enemy casualty. We cautiously searched the area, but could not find who had left the blood. After waiting and listening for 20 minutes, I had Cpl. Slowick lead the patrol up the slope of Hill 502. The terrain was steep with tall canopy and very thick undergrowth. Some of the trees were 150 feet tall with trunks over six feet in diameter. We followed a small stream for a few hundred yards, stopping frequently to listen for the enemy and to allow our scout dog to drink from the cool water. As we progressed, we found there were swift-running streams in all of the ravines we passed. The streams not only provided us with a fresh and abundant supply of water, they also muffled any sounds we made as we moved uphill toward the summit of Hill 502.
It soon became apparent, however, that our scout dog, Major, was having a difficult time of it. I had been talked into using the scout dog because Marine units had had good success with these dogs in the lowlands of the province. It was believed they would alert on the presence of the enemy well before any humans could, but my previous experience with scout dogs on recon patrols had proven just the opposite. They were excellent for guarding static positions or searching lowland villages, but they tired easily in the mountain jungles and needed more water than a human did. Major was no exception, and his handler, Cpl. McWilliams, had to ask us to stop constantly so his dog could recover from the heat and the exertion of the climb. In some instances, McWilliams had to physically carry Major when the undergrowth was too thick. I hoped to reach the summit of Hill 502 before dark, but that goal soon became moot as we spent most of our time resting the dog and filling canteens for him so he would not suffer heat exhaustion. We harbored for the night in a less than adequate site, one that had a slope of nearly 30 degrees, forcing some of us to sleep with our legs between tree trunks so we did not slip down the hills as we slept during the night. A heavy and persistent rain throughout the night only added to our discomfort.
The next day, the 1st of November, we finally reached the summit of Hill 502 at around 0900. Hill 502 had been the scene of a bloody battle fought in February 1966, and the terrain around the summit bore witness to the ferocity of this battle. Trees were still splintered and felled from the artillery and air strikes on the hill nearly two years before. There were also old U.S. Marine–style fighting holes, now filled with water and mud along with some old sandbags and empty shell casings.
More ominous to us were the signs of recent travel on the trail that ran east and west from the summit and two recently constructed NVA bunkers on the eastern side of the hill. Cpl. John Slowick and PFC J. D. Glor took up security on the trail of the eastern slope of the hill while Cpl. W. F. Kelly and PFC Jon Ellis took up a security position on the trail facing downhill on the western slope. As I was giving LCpl. Robert Garner, my radioman, a SITREP to send to Camp Reasoner informing them that we had reached the summit of Hill 502, I heard shots coming from the direction of Kelly and Ellis. Sgt. Hauxhurst and I ran to where these two men were and found that they had been surprised by an enemy soldier who had probably followed the patrol as soon as it reached the summit. Kelly said he had just taken up his security position behind a tree where he could look down the trail when he saw a single enemy soldier dressed in a camouflage uniform standing in the middle of the trail looking up at him. Kelly froze for a moment, afraid any movement on his part would alert the enemy solider. For a few seconds the two men stared at each other, and then PFC Ellis fired several shots at the enemy soldier. Ellis felt he had hit the enemy soldier, but no body or blood trail was evident on the trail where he was last seen.
I was not pleased with this encounter. I felt a stationary Marine in a camouflage uniform with his face covered in green and black face paint should have been able to get the jump on any enemy soldier walking up a trail. I cautioned both men that they needed to be more alert, and then I had them move back to a new position near the summit. I knew if the enemy escaped and returned, he would have his friends fire on the site where he had last encountered my security team. To bolster the two-man security team covering the western approach to the summit, I had LCpl. Donald Dobson and LCpl. Charles Gillespie join Kelly and Ellis. I also called in an artillery fire mission on the western approaches to the summit, hoping we might get lucky and hit any NVA planning to attack us from that direction.
A few hours after Sgt. Hauxhurst and I had returned to the summit, we again heard gunshots, and this time the rounds were going both ways. The security team on the eastern slope of the hill saw ten NVA soldiers wearing green uniforms, carrying Chinese AK-47 assault rifles, and moving up the trail from the east. This time, the experience of Slowick and Glor paid off as they initiated contact with the enemy soldiers, killing one and wounding another in their initial burst of fire. Sgt. Hauxhurst, Cpl. Williams and I joined Slowick and Glor and began to pour a torrent of rifle fire down the trail until we gained fire superiority, and the enemy withdrew back down the trail to the east. Using gas grenades, Hauxhurst, Williams, and I went forward to search the dead NVA soldier lying 30 feet in front of us and retrieve the wounded NVA soldier who was attempting to crawl behind a large rock just off the trail. Sgt. Hauxhurst fired his M-79 at a tree above the rock. We did not know how badly wounded the enemy soldier was or whether he had a rifle or grenade he could use against us. We heard him moan after the M-79 showered him with shrapnel. Although it was highly risky, I decided we needed to take a chance retrieving this wounded enemy soldier if we hoped to obtain a prisoner. I crawled down the trail, keeping as low to the ground as possible with my rifle pointed toward the rock where the wounded enemy lay. For a moment, I considered throwing a hand grenade behind the rock, but rejected this since I knew that would probably kill the enemy soldier. I looked around the rock and found the enemy soldier lying unconscious, bleeding from a bullet wound in his stomach and shrapnel in his back. He was still breathing, but I could tell he was in shock. We needed to get him on a medevac helicopter soon, or he would die. While Sgt. Hauxhurst searched the other body and retrieved a pack and an AK-47 rifle from the dead NVA soldier, I had Williams help me carry the wounded NVA soldier back up to the summit where I hoped we could use a helicopter hoist to lift him through the high jungle canopy. As we lifted the wounded enemy soldier, we noticed he had a Russian pistol lying under him. I quickly picked up the pistol and put it in my shirt.
Team Killer Kane with scout dog “Major,” preparing for patrol. Back row: Pfc Boyd, me, Dave Pugh, John Slowick; front row: Mike Borecky, McWilliams, J. D. Glor, Doc Willis, Clarence Williams.
Sgt. W. P. Kelly examining an NVA bunker on Hill 502.
When we got the wounded man to the summit, Doc Connor began to work on him trying to save his life. He put a bandage on the stomach wound, inserted an IV into his arm, and began to fan his face with a wet field handkerchief he always carried. I radioed Camp Reasoner and told them I had a wounded prisoner and that we needed an emergency medevac immediately if we wanted to save the prisoner. I told them what had just transpired and gave them information about enemy activity to pass on to the medevac pilots. I was told a medevac helicopter would be over our position in 20 minutes.
The wounded NVA soldier slipped in and out of consciousness as Doc Connor worked over him. When he was conscious, he would stare at us with undisguised hatred in his eyes. He was quite young, perhaps only 17 or 18 years old, in excellent condition, with close-cropped hair and a wiry, well-muscled physique. Thirty minutes passed, but no medevac arrived. I radioed Camp Reasoner and asked about the status of the medevac helicopter, but all they would say was the choppers were on the way and should be over our position soon. As I gave the radio handset back to Bob Garner, Doc Connor looked over to me and whispered, “He’s gone.” I could see the wounded NVA soldier had stopped breathing and was turning blue around his lips. Doc Connor attempted CPR, but after a few minutes we could see it was futile. I radioed Camp Reasoner and told them the prisoner had died. They radioed back that they would cancel the medevac. I requested an extraction since we had obviously lost any chance of capturing a prisoner and would be lucky to get off the hill without making contact again. I was told to continue on my mission. Reluctantly, I did as I was told.
An NVA soldier killed in a Killer Kane ambush.
After wrapping the dead prisoner in one of our ponchos and attaching a short note to his shirt informing those who retrieved his body that we did everything we could to save him, I had the team prepare to move off the hill back down in the direction we came. It was always risky to use the same patrol route twice, but I knew the likelihood of the enemy coming after us was good. I hoped to find our insertion LZ and wait there until we could be extracted. I did not want the patrol searching for an alternate LZ if we made contact again. I was worried that the enemy knew exactly where we were now, and they would be laying a trap for us along the trail where contact had been made. I thought the best course of action was to move away from the trail and down the southeastern slope until we came to our insertion LZ. I told Sgt. Hauxhurst to take the team 100 meters down the hill and wait for me to follow in five minutes. I wanted to see if we were being followed.
Donald “Doc” Connor administering first aid to a wounded NVA lieutenant.
As I saw my team drop out of sight over the southeastern slope of the hill, I positioned myself behind a tree where I could observe the trail. After only a few minutes, I heard a Vietnamese voice directly in front of me, but I could not see the source of the voice. Another minute passed and then standing no more than 30 feet away was a single NVA soldier carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. He had come up to the summit of Hill 502 from the north, avoiding the east-west trail. He looked down the trail in both directions and began to move west in the direction of the topographical summit of the hill where we had laid the body of the NVA soldier wrapped in one of our ponchos. As he turned toward me, I fired at him and saw him drop back down off the hill. I had fired a single shot from my M-16 rifle, a well-aimed shot that I was sure hit him. After a pregnant pause, all hell broke loose as several enemy soldiers began firing in my direction from the trail. I could not see them, but I could hear the distinctive sound of the crack of an AK-47 rifle over my head, and I noticed that my bush hat was no longer on my head. I returned fire and then proceeded to run down the hill in the direction of my team where I found them waiting for me. We expected the enemy would follow us down the hill and attack us so I had the team move another 100 yards south and then take a ninety-degree turn to the east and move for another 50 feet. I did this because I knew if the enemy followed our trail, we would have a distinct advantage over them if they were 50 feet to one side of our path as they moved through thick brush and vines.
James Hauxhurst preparing a demolitions charge to clear a tree from an LZ.
Once in position, I had the team set up a 360-degree defense weighted toward our old trail and waited for the enemy’s pursuit. We did not move. We did not talk. We did not whisper. We hardly breathed. All we did was watch and wait for what we expected to be a very bad firefight. Hours passed, but we heard nothing and saw nothing. The stress of such a situation made all of us tired and anxious. We did not even dare to whisper into our radio to send a message to base. LCpl. Garner would only key his handset to indicate we were “all secure” but Camp Reasoner knew we were in trouble and told Garner that they were sending an AO, our old friend Black Coat 1–0, to assist us. The AO came on station around 1500 and began directing artillery missions on the east-west trail on both sides of Hill 502. After an hour, the AO departed but told us to contact him again if we needed help. I told him we needed an extraction, but first we had to find an LZ. He flew over our position and passed on the locations of two LZs 1,000 meters southeast of our position. I thanked him for the information and hoped he would relay our request for an emergency extraction back to Camp Reasoner.
The rest of that day, the 1st of November, we spent sitting in silence waiting for an attack that never came. Taking time only to sip some water from our canteens, we kept watching and listening for any indication that the enemy was searching for us. We could not help but notice that we were sharing our small space in the jungle with dozens of thick, black millipedes. These harmless creatures, unlike their orange-colored cousins the centipedes, did not bite and were not poisonous, but they were not welcome in the small space we shared with them. Some of the men squirted insect repellent on them and watched them twitch in agony, but most of us just brushed them aside.
Our scout dog, Major, required a lot of water to fend off heat exhaustion, and soon his desire for water became a source of irritation for all of us. Water was precious in the hot jungle, and each of us only had five canteens, most of which were empty. We dared not move to search for a stream in fear of alerting the enemy to our location. We did not know when we would be extracted, so we rationed our water carefully. This worked for us, but Major only knew he was thirsty and hot. He let his handler know this by whining. The sound of a dog whining in the jungle was bizarre, and we all knew that if the enemy heard it, they would know exactly where we were. I gave one of my canteens to Cpl. McWilliams, the dog handler, because he had indicated that Major had finished all of the water he had been carrying for him. The dog seemed insatiable and drank the contents of my canteen in less than an hour. Cpl. McWilliams knew that his dog was a burden and a danger to our team so he whispered to me that, if necessary, he would kill Major. I told him to forget it. We would all get out, but only if he was able to keep the dog as cool and quiet as possible.
As night approached, I set the radio watch and decided to take the first watch myself. As I held the handset of the PRC-25 radio to my ear and listened to the reassuring hum it made in my ear, I looked at the group of men surrounding me. In the gathering darkness, the jungle foliage changed colors from dark emerald and light green to shades of grey and purple, before finally disappearing into black shadows. The Marines turned into sepia lumps, hardly distinguishable from the trees and rocks around them. As I took the handset away from my ear, I heard the night sounds of the jungle, sounds that always seemed to soothe my spirits. The hum of insects, the gentle calls of birds, and the buzz of mosquitoes, these were the normal sounds of the jungle I had become accustomed to hearing on patrol. I could also see the fluorescent streaks of light that clung to the dead and decaying foliage on the ground or hung in the moss that covered many of the branches and vines surrounding our harbor site. I could smell the jungle with its pungent odor of decaying vegetation. For many people, the jungle is unpleasant to the senses, but I always found these sights and odors reassuring because they were not the sounds and smells I feared. The sounds and smells I feared indicated the presence of the enemy. As the night dropped its blanket of darkness around us, I felt comforted.
The next day, our team went on alert at first light and remained on alert until around noon when I decided it was time to move to one of the LZs our friend, the AO, had told us about. We slowly made our way down Hill 502 until we found the LZ exactly where the AO said it was. On our way to the LZ, we came across a 60-man NVA harbor site that appeared to be recently used since we found fresh human feces in a small pit on its edge. The bamboo used to reinforce the side of the shelters looked like it had been cut only a few days previously. We found a good harbor site nearby and radioed Camp Reasoner that we were prepared to be extracted. We were told it was too late in the day for an extraction, but we would be extracted the next day, the 3rd, as soon as an extract package could be launched. The next day, at 0900, we were extracted and returned to Camp Reasoner’s LZ Finch (Team Swift Scout Patrol Report, 3 Nov. 1967).
Although we were unsuccessful in our mission to obtain an enemy prisoner, we did manage to obtain some very useful information from the documents we found on the dead NVA soldiers. These documents identified the soldiers we had killed as belonging to the 368B Artillery (Rocket) Regiment of the NVA, a unit that possessed 140 mm rockets. One set of papers indicated we had killed a NVA lieutenant who had recently returned from a reconnaissance mission near Da Nang. The captured AK-47 assault rifle had been made in China less than a year earlier and had a new fiberglass stock instead of the normal wooden one. It appeared the NVA were now being equipped with the latest models of this highly effective rifle. As I listened to the enthusiastic comments our S-2 debriefer made about the new Chinese rifle, I was tempted to tell him I had also captured a new Russian pistol. However, I could not forget what had happened previously to the captured weapons we had turned over to the intelligence officers at division, so I remained silent. A week later, I traded the pistol to a U.S. Air Force NCO for a case of 100 New York–cut steaks.
I made several recommendations to the S-2 debriefer. Foremost among them, I said that we should never take another scout dog along on a recon patrol. I said the dogs and their handlers were great, but the dogs tired easily, and when they were tired, they did not alert us to the enemy’s presence. Not once during our patrol did our dog, Major, signal the enemy’s presence, but Slowick, Hauxhurst and Glor all sensed the enemy’s presence as soon as we reached the summit of Hill 502. I had far more faith in my human colleagues than I did in the dogs we took into the jungle.
Many of us wondered about this ability to sense the presence of other humans near us when we were on patrol. Some of the men had developed an unusually keen ability to do this, and I also experienced it at times. When we talked about it, we were never sure why some men possessed it and others did not. Those of us who had this ability to sense humans were glad we were able to do so. Perhaps it was actually a long dormant trait that our ancestors, who were hunters and gatherers, possessed. Our senses became more acute when we were under the stress produced by patrolling in areas where death lurked around every corner. None of us could tell whether this unique ability to sense the presence of the enemy without seeing or hearing him was due to any logical explanation. It was just something we knew in our minds. I do know this: I lost this sense when I stopped seeking out the enemy in the mountainous jungles of South Vietnam, and I never experienced it again.
From 8 to 11 November, Swift Scout patrolled in an area south of Highway 1, the coastal highway that ran from the DMZ all the way to Saigon. This part of Highway 1, which was in the southern portion of Thua Thien Province, was called the “Street without Joy” by the French during the First Indo-China War, and it was the scene of several large and savage battles between French forces and the Viet Minh. It continued to be the scene of battles during the Second Indo-China War and remained an area where the VC political cadres held sway over many of the villages nearby.
The monsoon season had begun in central South Vietnam, and with it came days of rain and colder temperatures. Due to the bad weather and the increased likelihood of poor flying conditions, our patrols planned for more than the normal four days in the bush. We took more food with us to tide us over if our patrol was extended, and we often increased the size of our patrols in case we had to walk out and move through the villages in the lowlands. Taking all of this into account, I decided to take most of my platoon on this patrol, a force of 13 Marines. Our mission was to establish an OP near Phu Loc and observe any enemy infiltration in that area. Marine intelligence sources continued to inform us that the enemy was planning to attack Da Nang and several other military and civilian sites sometime after the first of the year. They wanted the recon teams to find out where these enemy units were staging for the attacks. For some reason unknown to us, they suspected the hills south of Hue near Phu Loc as one of these enemy staging areas.
We did not spot any enemy during our patrol, primarily because the monsoon rains kept everyone with any common sense indoors and dry. Of course, we had no sense. We spent a soggy four days in our ponchos trying to keep the lenses of our binoculars dry while we scanned the empty terrain below us through a veil of continuous rain. There was some traffic on Highway 1, mostly U.S. and ARVN military vehicles and civilian trucks, but that was about all we saw. The incessant rain not only made us wet and uncomfortable, it tended to sap our morale as well. By the time the patrol ended on the 11th of November, we looked like prunes, and some of my men were suffering from the onset of trench foot (Team Swift Scout Patrol Order, 11 Nov. 1967).
One thing we did during this patrol did lift our spirits. We celebrated the Marine Corps Birthday on November 10th. No matter where Marines are in the world, we always find some way to celebrate the Corps’ birthday. I knew we would be in the field on November 10th, so in anticipation of this important event, I filled a canteen with rum prior to leaving Camp Reasoner. On the evening of the 10th, I gathered the patrol around me in the rain and read the Commandant’s Birthday message to them. Then I gave each man a sip of rum as we toasted the Corps. At the end of this little ceremony, I heard one of my men whisper, “Good night Chesty, wherever you are.” Of course, he was referring to the legendary Marine Chesty Puller, the Corps’ most famous hero of World War II and the Korean War. Everyone repeated the phrase, and then I set the night watch as the rain continued to pour down on us in sheets.
Since the fog and rain were so intense, we were unable to be extracted by helicopter on the 11th of November, as planned. Instead, we had to walk out to Highway 1 where we met trucks from Company G, 2/7 and traveled to their CP. When we got there, we were impressed with their formidable base perched on high ground overlooking the South China Sea. On the top of their position stood an old French concrete machine gun bunker, a crumbling vestige to siege warfare and static defense. The French built many of these concrete bunkers throughout Vietnam during the First Indo-China War, usually along strategic roads, but they were not effective in preventing the Viet Minh from infiltrating along these roads or conducting ambushes of French military convoys. Now, a small three-man recon radio relay team lived inside the old bunker. They had the mission of providing secure communications for recon teams operating north of the Phu Gia Pass. We talked with these men for an hour or two about the situation north of Company G’s position, and then around 1700 as the weather cleared, we were picked up by two UH-34 helicopters and returned to Camp Reasoner. After four days and nights spent shivering in the cold and rain, we were happy to get into some dry clothes and eat a hot meal at the mess hall.
The day after our return, the 12th of November, one of my men came to me after our morning run and told me he needed to talk to me. He was an NCO who had spent a couple of years in college before volunteering for the Marines. Like most of my men, he was intelligent and brave. He had been on at least a dozen recon patrols with our platoon and had always performed well. I thought of him as very competent, quiet, thoughtful, and disciplined, not the kind of Marine who would have a problem that needed my attention. We sat on the back porch of my hootch, and for the next hour he gave me an insight into how he and others perceived me. He began by saying that he thought he was a conscientious objector, based upon his religious beliefs and his aversion to killing. I asked him why, after nearly two years in the Marine Corps and at least a dozen recon patrols, he had suddenly had this religious conversion. He said he had always been deeply religious, but only recently had decided that there was a basic contradiction between his long-held religious beliefs, which were Baptist, and his attitude toward the taking of life. My intuition told me that his change of heart had something to do with his experiences on a recent patrol to Happy Valley. The way he answered a few more questions confirmed my suspicions.
I was not a chaplain or a theologian, so I knew I would not be able to convince this excellent Marine that he was not a conscientious objector using theological arguments. Instead, I appealed to his sense of loyalty to our team and the adverse impact on the team his absence might cause. During this exchange, he began to talk about me in a way that both surprised and saddened me. He said that I was different from the other men in the team and just about everyone else he had ever met. He said he and the other men in the team felt I was obsessed with killing the Vietnamese communists, and they were all concerned about the requests I made to take patrols on dangerous missions to Happy Valley and other locations where contact with the enemy was likely. He was polite and respectful, but I could tell he feared me and resented what he perceived to be an unreasonable willingness to risk the lives of the men in the team “chasing down and killing every VC in South Vietnam.”
What he said disturbed me since I did not think of myself as he did. When I began to argue with him that this was not true, he asked me some pointed questions. Why had I requested the missions in Happy Valley? Why had our team, and no other team, been given the mission of capturing prisoners? Why was I always looking for an opportunity to ambush the enemy when our mission was just to observe and report on the enemy’s movement? I began to realize that this Marine and perhaps others in our platoon had a very negative opinion of me and actually feared my aggressive approach to patrolling. What had begun as a conversation about his newly found religious convictions turned into a critique of me as a leader. The more I talked to this young and articulate NCO, the more I realized his observations about me might be widely shared. This hurt me deeply. I told him he really needed to talk to the battalion chaplain, and I would arrange such a meeting as soon as the chaplain was available. He thanked me and then said something to me that haunts me to this day. He said, “Sir, I have only been in the Marine Corps for two years, but you are the best Marine officer I have ever known. You are brave and really know your job, but you are like Capt. Ahab in Moby Dick. Do you understand what I am saying?” I did understand him. Painfully, I realized his words had the ring of truth. This was not the first time someone had cautioned me about my aggressive approach. Maj. Lowrey had brought up the same subject with me and now one of my own team members had spoken to me about it. I took both of their comments to heart, but I decided I would not change how I conducted patrols. Instead, I would try to explain in more detail to the team why it was important for us to use every opportunity to attack the enemy, if the circumstances allowed us to do it without incurring excessive risk. In retrospect, I think my decision was correct. After all, we inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy, and we did so without the loss of a single Marine. As far as I was concerned, the results dictated we continue to patrol aggressively.
Strangely, the day after he spoke to the battalion chaplain, he came to me and said he had changed his mind about being a conscientious objector. He wanted to stay in the platoon and continue to go on patrol. I did not want to pry into what had transpired between him and the chaplain, but I told him I was grateful for his honest comments about me and that I was giving them a lot of consideration. I should have let the matter rest, but I made a lame attempt at humor by saying, “I know you think I am a cold, psychopathic killer, don’t you?” He looked me straight in the eye, unsmiling, and said, “Yes sir, I do, but we need you.”
Upon my return to Camp Reasoner I was given my orders for R and R in Bangkok and told I would be spending five days there from 18 to 23 November. The uniform for my trip was to be wash khaki, a uniform I had not worn since coming to South Vietnam. Fortunately, I had two wash khaki uniforms in my foot locker that had escaped the ravages of mildew. I had lost a lot of weight since arriving in country, so I tried the uniforms on to see if they still fit me. They did, but rather loosely. I had both uniforms cleaned and starched by Mr. Smart in Da Nang since I did not want to risk having them washed in the fetid rice paddy water normally used at our regular Vietnamese laundry. Mr. Smart assured me that he would have them cleaned and starched by a woman he knew in Da Nang who could be trusted to launder uniforms properly. The next day he returned with the two uniforms folded and wrapped in brown wrapping paper and secured with a red ribbon. The clothes smelled fresh and clean. I was delighted and gladly paid the extra cash for this first-rate service. I also packed a few civilian shirts and trousers to wear while in Bangkok.
The flight from Da Nang Airbase to Bangkok was uneventful, aside from seeing some really attractive American flight attendants serving us our meal and joking with us. I had almost forgotten what an American woman looked like after ten months in South Vietnam—almost!
At the Bangkok airport we boarded busses and traveled to several hotels. A dozen or so men exited the bus at each one. My hotel was modern and clean, but not large, with less than 100 rooms. I immediately changed into civilian clothes as soon as I reached my room and ran into the toilet to flush the commode several times, enjoying the marvel of it since I had not used a flush toilet since departing from Okinawa. I had not seen a television for ten months so I turned on the television, staring with incomprehension at a few local Thai programs until my thoughts turned to food. I ordered a banana split from room service. When the waiter brought the banana split to my room, I thought I had never seen such a delicious sight before in my life. I had dreamed of such a treat many times during the previous ten months, but now in all its glory it was sitting right in front of me just begging to be consumed. I sat by the window looking out onto the hotel’s swimming pool and dug into this object of my culinary desire. I ate the entire dessert in a minute or two and immediately called room service to order a second one. I ate the second banana split just as quickly as the first one. Before the day was out, I would order three more banana splits from room service and consume each one ravenously.
The five days of my R and R were enjoyable for the most part, but I felt rather lonely during my stay. I did not know any of the other American men staying at my hotel, and I was not interested in getting drunk with them and making an ass of myself. They had all acquired Thai “girlfriends” shortly after arriving, probably via the hotel switchboard. I received a call shortly after I checked into my room from what I thought was the hotel’s front desk. As it turned out, the hotel had contacted a local brothel and informed them that a group of U.S. servicemen had just checked in and given them the room numbers. A woman who spoke excellent English introduced herself as the “hotel entertainment coordinator,” and she asked me if I needed some female company during my stay at the hotel. I told her I would think about it and call her back, if I needed such a service. I asked her for her telephone number and she refused to give it to me. When I asked her why she would not give me her telephone number, she just hung up on me. An hour later, she again called my room and asked me if I needed female companionship. This time, I hung up on her.
I was not engaged to “Jane,” but I was in love with her, and I did not want to do anything to jeopardize my relationship with her. I was also aware that there was a huge problem with venereal disease in Thailand, a fact that was graphically pointed out to us by the R and R liaison officer at the airport. I had no desire to contract one of the many forms of VD then prevalent there. For these reasons, I decided to avoid contact with any women while I was on R and R and concentrate on my main objectives to buy presents for my family and “Jane” for Christmas and to relax as best I could after ten months of patrolling in South Vietnam.
My first priority was shopping, so I spent my first full day in Bangkok going to the stores Dave Gillespie told me about. I arranged for a private car from the hotel to take me around the city. I gazed at the gorgeous and exotic city of Bangkok, so clean and modern, and so different from the war-ravaged city of Da Nang. It bustled with commercial activity including a wide variety of shops devoted to products from Western Europe and Japan. There were also many shops that sold locally produced items, such as Thai silk and jewelry. Dave’s list of good stores was very helpful, and before the day was done, I had made a huge dent in my Christmas gift list. I bought Thai silk, sapphire rings, top-grade leather and alligator wallets, jade pendants, and a complete dinner set nicely contained in a wooden carrying case. At each store, the proprietor offered me a cold beer to drink while he brought out his wares to display. I thought to myself that there could not possibly be any better way to shop.
On my second day, I decided to take a tour of the city. The hotel concierge arranged for me to join a small group of other U.S. military men for an all-day tour of the major sights in the city. A white van pulled up in front of the hotel early in the morning, and the driver and our guide, an attractive young woman, greeted me. Two young enlisted Army soldiers and their Thai girlfriends were also in the van. The men were from Montana and Nebraska, friendly and talkative, informing me proudly that they both came from farming families and telling me all about their brothers and sisters back home. For the most part, their Thai girlfriends just smiled sweetly and hung on their arms throughout the day. Our guide, whose name was Nid Theenthang, took us to see the solid gold Buddha, the floating gardens, Thai boxing, several temples, a Thai craft store, and finally an opulent Thai restaurant where we had a traditional Thai dinner. At the end of the evening, she dropped me off at my hotel and asked me if I wanted to go on another tour the next day to see the Bridge on the River Kwai. I told her I had things to do the next day, but she should contact me the following evening to see if I had time to take another tour. She said she would stop by the hotel the next evening to check on my plans.
I spent my third day visiting the U.S. Embassy and the American JUSMAG compound because both places had stores that sold imported products at reduced rates. I still had a few items I needed to buy for my family and for friends back at Camp Reasoner. In the afternoon, I met an American businessman, Mr. Ames, a family friend. My family had called him and told him I would be in Bangkok on R and R. We had lunch together at a local restaurant, where he impressed me with his ability to speak Thai and to read the Thai menu. Over lunch, he told me about what it was like to live and work in Thailand as an expatriate. It was obvious that he enjoyed a lifestyle in Bangkok that would have been impossible to duplicate on his salary in the United States. For instance, his home was a spacious and modern villa, and he had several servants who lived in the house with him, taking care of his every need.
After we finished our lunch, he took me to a Buddhist temple for a bath and massage. Most Thai bath houses are merely fronts for prostitution, but he told me this bath house at the temple was run by blind Buddhist monks, and I would actually get a good massage there. When we arrived at the temple, we paid for our bath and massage in advance and then removed our clothes and placed them in lockers. We were taken into a large room with a pool of very hot water and directed to wash for at least 20 minutes before our massage. Then we were taken into a room with several massage tables and introduced to two rather large, blind monks who proceeded to beat the hell out of us using their exceptionally strong fingers, forearms and elbows. This was definitely not the kind of massage one would normally expect in a Thai massage parlor in the red light district of Bangkok. While I was being “massaged,” I began to doubt the wisdom of meeting up with Mr. Ames. In fact, for a few minutes, I even harbored the thought that he was playing some kind of trick on me. However, when the massage was over, I was surprised by how well I felt. When we stepped out of the temple into the bright sunlight, I felt as if ten months of stress and strain had been lifted from my shoulders, and my body and soul had been thoroughly reinvigorated. An hour later, I fell asleep in my hotel room and slept soundly for several hours.
That evening, Nid returned to the hotel, as she had promised, to see if I wanted to take another tour. We sat in the lobby and chatted for a few minutes before she suggested I take the tour to a Thai nightclub. I said I might be interested, but I was hungry and wanted to eat some good Western food first. She told me that there was a restaurant called Nick’s Hungarian Restaurant that was very popular with Westerners, but she had never been there so she could not vouch for how good the food might be. I asked her if she would like to go to Nick’s for dinner, and she said she would, but she would have to make a phone call first to let her husband know she would not be home for dinner that evening. This was the first time she had mentioned she was married, and I wondered about the propriety of taking a married Thai woman out to dinner. However, she assured me that her husband was used to her having dinner with clients because her job as a tour guide required her to take clients out all the time. The two of us caught a cab to Nick’s Hungarian Restaurant where we enjoyed an excellent meal and pleasant conversation. During the meal she told me that her family was actually Chinese, and her ancestors had immigrated to Thailand from southern China many years ago. She went out of her way to explain that she and her husband were Thai citizens but they did not consider themselves Thai.
After dinner, we went to her tour office and got into the office tour van, so we could pick up several clients who had signed up for the nightclub tour. We drove through the crowded streets to a nightclub that featured cabaret style entertainment, such as traditional Thai dancers and singers, as well as a troupe of female impersonators who mimicked Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich, among other famous female celebrities. Nid informed me that one of the female impersonators on stage was actually a woman and asked me if I could guess who she was. I had to admit I could not tell which one was “real,” so she told me. “Look at the hips.” she said, “The female impersonators don’t have prominent hips, but the real woman does.” Taking her advice, I quickly spotted the real woman. It was a fun evening, and I thanked Nid for her company when we reached the hotel. She gave me her husband’s business card and told me to stop by his barber shop before my R and R ended.
My remaining time in Bangkok was devoted to eating well, hanging out at the hotel’s swimming pool, and going to see two movies, one of which was the latest James Bond release. I also got a good Marine Corps regulation “high and tight” haircut at the barber shop Nid’s husband owned. Despite all of this, I was becoming depressed with each day I spent in Bangkok. I felt very lonely, and I thought a lot about “Jane.” I had wanted to take R and R in Hawaii and meet “Jane” there, but the policy of our battalion made that impossible. All of our R and R quotas for Hawaii were reserved for married Marines, and I was single. It may seem strange, but at the end of my five days in Bangkok, I was eagerly looking forward to returning to Camp Reasoner and my recon platoon. I found that I missed the company of my men, and I felt I should be with them in the jungle rather than enjoying myself in a nice hotel in Bangkok. When I got off the plane at Da Nang Airbase on 23 November, I was actually happy to be “home” again.
Shortly after my return, I was informed that there were orders from Headquarters Marine Corps waiting for me. These orders were to report to the Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., as soon as my 13-month tour of duty in South Vietnam was completed. I had mixed feelings about these orders. I was flattered that I had been chosen for such a prestigious assignment, but I had several concerns about my suitability for such a job. I wondered why I had been chosen for this assignment and came to the conclusion that it was probably the result of a comment in my Basic School fitness report that said I should be considered for a “ceremonial assignment.” I suspected this cursory recommendation had caught the attention of one of the detailing officers working in the Personnel Department of Headquarters Marine Corps, and they decided I was a good fit for this type of assignment.
I talked to Maj. Keating about the orders, and he said he was surprised I had been given them considering I was not “six foot two with eyes of blue,” meaning I was too short for such a billet. He told me that every officer had to be at least six feet two inches tall at the Marine Barracks in Washington, D.C., because they had to be perfectly sized for the evening parades held at the barracks every Friday night during the summer. I asked him how I might escape such duty and he told me the only way to do it was to extend for six months more in South Vietnam. He strongly advised against such a rash action.
While we were talking about my orders, Maj. Keating told me that Lt. Col. Broman C. Stinemetz had recently told him I was being considered for assignment to a new company that was forming in the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. He told me the Marine Corps was adding an additional company to each of its recon battalions in South Vietnam due to the increasing need for recon patrolling. Company E would soon be formed and join the other four companies of the battalion. Lt. Col. Stinemetz had indicated he wanted me to be part of this new company since all of the enlisted Marines would be new to South Vietnam, and he wanted experienced officers to train and lead them. I did not want to leave my platoon or 1st Force Reconnaissance Company, but I also knew my preferences would not figure prominently in any consideration about where I should be assigned.
On 29 November, I went on my last recon patrol with my platoon, although I did not know this when our helicopter lifted off the helipad at LZ Finch. Swift Scout’s mission was “to detect possible VC troop movement or arms infiltration in the vicinity of the Nong Son Coal Mine area with particular emphasis on the trail networks that traverse the Khe Dienne River between Hills 406 and 89.” We were also assigned a secondary mission of capturing a prisoner and were given a piece of new, experimental equipment that could detect movement near it. Since it was considered a classified piece of equipment, the technicians who gave it to us did not tell us much about it, aside from how to use it. One of the technicians called it a “seismic intrusion device” and informed us that it could detect movement by any enemy who passed near it. We were told to place the device on a well-used trail and then monitor it from a distance using a small handheld radio transmitter. The technicians assured us that we would have plenty of advance warning of the enemy’s approach using this device, enough time to prepare an ambush or prisoner grab.
Because our mission called for a prisoner grab, we took more men than we would normally. Our patrol consisted of nine enlisted Marines, one Navy corpsman, me, and Capt. Fred Vogel, who had just joined the company and was going along as an observer. Fred had been in my company at the Naval Academy and graduated a year ahead of me. He was the son of a Navy admiral, and he was one of the first upperclassmen at the Naval Academy to offer his friendship to me during my plebe year. He was extremely intelligent with a unique gift for languages and the kind of engaging and friendly personality that appealed to both men and women. I felt honored that I would be taking him out on his first recon patrol.
At 0830, our team landed in a rather poor LZ on the north bank of the Khe Dienne River. Our CH-46 was exposed to the high ground surrounding the LZ, and the heavy monsoon rains had flooded the LZ to a depth of nearly a foot. LCpl. Dave Powell was on point, taking us toward the high ground southwest of the LZ. It began to rain heavily as we slowly made our way through thick undergrowth. The monsoon rain was a blessing since it masked any noise we might make moving through the thick brush. We walked along the north side of the Khe Dienne River until we came upon a trail that crossed the river just as it was shown on our map. The trail was well-used, but we decided to follow it for a few hundred meters to see if there was a good spot on it for an ambush. We found several trails intersecting with the main trail that followed the river, all of which showed signs of recent use, but we did not find a location that looked promising for an ambush or prisoner grab. We found many Ho Chi Minh sandal tracks and some odd cut marks on trees, which we guessed were trail markers telling the enemy which trail to take.
It was overcast and raining all day, and our movement was impeded by the mud and water in the low ground near the river. After several hours of fruitless search, we finally found a good location near two old enemy harbor sites. We took our seismic intrusion device 200 yards farther west along the trail and set it up. We tested it several times to make sure it was working properly, and then we returned to our ambush site, a sharp bend in the trail that had some large trees we could hide behind and allowed us to spot anyone walking down the trail from the west. We set out our security elements on the flanks of our ambush, making sure they were positioned in such a way as to protect the two approaches into the ambush site and to kill any enemy troops we did not capture. I chose PFC Castellano and Cpl. Williams for the actual prisoner grab team, since both were very strong and could easily handle any Vietnamese they might have to subdue physically. I covered them both from a few feet away and placed several lengths of pre-cut parachute cord in my web belt so I could tie up any prisoners we captured. Fred Vogel, who was the most familiar man with the intrusion device, was given the job of monitoring it and informing me if an enemy soldier activated it. According to Fred, any person moving within a few feet of the device’s sensors would trigger a silent alarm, giving us plenty of time to alert the grab team of the enemy’s approach.
At approximately 1300, Capt. Vogel gave me the hand signal that the intrusion device had indicated several VC were walking toward us from the west. We waited for several minutes but no one came down the trail. An hour later, the intrusion device again indicated the enemy was approaching us, and this time the size of the force appeared to be quite large. I was worried about taking on a large enemy force with only a five-man assault force, but I thought it unwise to try to move our team away from the ambush site with the enemy so close. We waited for nearly an hour, but no one appeared on the trail. I decided either the enemy had turned back or the intrusion device had malfunctioned. I had the team assemble and move east toward the river and Hill 89, where I hoped to find a safe place to harbor for the night. From our new position, we hoped to continue to monitor the intrusion device sensors we left near the trail.
Captain Fred Vogel on patrol.
As darkness approached, we climbed to the top of Hill 89 and set up security on the top. Hill 89 was a perfect defensive position for an infantry squad and also a perfect OP for a recon team. Its summit was an oblong ridgeline approximately 50 yards long running north to south with several large rocks at each end of the oblong, which afforded excellent observation of all the surrounding terrain, especially the main east-west trail. The slope of Hill 89 was quite steep, making it easily defensible for whoever occupied its summit. I split the patrol into two sections and set up two OPs on each end of the summit among some large rocks. We barely had time to prepare our positions when darkness enveloped us, and it began to rain heavily. I was worried that the enemy who triggered the intrusion device might be nearby and had observed our ascent of Hill 89. Consequently, I had the entire team on alert for several hours after dark, but all was quiet throughout the night. Sheets of cold rain swept across Hill 89 all night long making sleep difficult and adding to our apprehension that the enemy might use the sound of thunder and rain to mask their movement toward us.
On the following days, we would leave Hill 89 before dawn and patrol along the river to the west, charting the trails in the area and resetting our ambush. We would occupy the ambush site for a few hours monitoring the intrusion device, but unlike the first day the device did not indicate the presence of the enemy. All we did was sit and shiver in the rain with our eyes straining for the slightest movement on the trail, our muscles sore and stiff from the lack of movement. Each afternoon, we would take a different route back to Hill 89 and set up our defense on the summit of this steep little hill.
On the last night of our patrol, the 1st of December, the weather cleared, and we could look up at the night sky and observe the terrain around us in the moonlight for several hundred meters. The stars shone brightly, like diamonds on black velvet, and for the first time the starlight and the light of the moon made it possible for us to see anything that moved along the narrow valley floor. There was a strong, cold wind, and most of us wrapped ourselves in our poncho liners to ward off the cool night air. Around midnight, I was awakened by our new Navy corpsman, HM1 J. B. Christy, who whispered in my ear that PFC C. L. Adams and LCpl. J. D. Glor thought they saw enemy soldiers moving around the south slope of the hill. I crawled over to where Adams and Glor were and they both pointed down the hill toward the river where it doglegged under the hill. I could see clearly all the way to the river which was only 100 meters away but I could not see any movement. The other Marines on the south side of the hill were all awake now and crouching behind the large rocks that formed a natural defensive position on this side of the summit. We looked for an hour but all we could see were the small trees at the bottom of the hill swaying in the wind and the shadows of tree branches that danced on the river’s surface.
Since I had not seen any indication of the enemy, I told the men not to use their weapons to open fire on the enemy but to throw grenades if they saw anything out of the ordinary. I did not want to give our position away needlessly. I wanted the enemy to open fire first and give their position away before we hit them. We had not taken a machine gun with us on this patrol, and now I wished we had. Although we had a very good defensible position with large rocks to protect us from small-arms fire, we were not dug in, a big problem for us if the enemy used grenades or mortars to attack us. Glor and Adams swore they saw several enemy soldiers moving around the base of the hill near the river but whatever they saw was not there now. I had half the team remain on alert for the rest of the night but all remained quiet.
Due to heavy rain, we were not extracted until late in the day of the 2nd of December. We radioed Camp Reasoner around 1500 and told them the LZ had several hundred feet of visibility which should make it possible for a CH-46 helicopter to land, but we had our doubts that we would be picked up given the erratic weather. However, at 1600, like the sound of angels’ wings from heaven, we heard the welcome sound of helicopter rotor blades in the gray, misty skies approaching our LZ from the east. I popped a smoke grenade in the LZ, and within seconds we saw the glorious sight of a CH-46 descending into the small LZ we found a few hundred meters west of Hill 89. We clambered aboard and flew back to LZ Finch, passing by the Nong Son Coal Mine complex on our left as we followed the Song Thu Bon River north to Da Nang and Hill 327 (Team Swift Scout Patrol Report, 2 Dec. 1967).
After our debrief at Camp Reasoner, Maj. Keating told me that I would be transferred to the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion where I would be assigned to the newly formed Company E. Company E was in cadre status, meaning it was only manned at a fraction of its full strength. He told me the Marines needed to bring the company to full strength would be arriving from the U.S in a week or two. This news, along with my orders to Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., filled me with a deep sense of melancholy. The officers in my hootch could not understand my disappointment and unhappiness with my new situation. They said I should be happy that I was finally out of the field after nearly eleven months of recon patrolling. They also pointed out that I would soon be assigned to the most prestigious Marine Corps Barracks in our Corps where I would be able to enjoy all the perks that went along with such an assignment in our nation’s capital. I would be going back to “the world,” as we called the U.S., and I should be elated and grateful, instead of morose and dejected. I could not make them understand that I hated to leave my platoon and the excitement of making long-range reconnaissance patrols. It was difficult for me to explain my feelings to my fellow officers, feelings that only seemed to grow with the realization that I would no longer do the one thing I felt I was truly good at and which garnered the respect and admiration from my colleagues that I craved. Odd as it may sound, finding and killing the enemy was a task that seemed to define my purpose in life. My new assignment left me with a feeling that my future no longer involved meaningful or exciting work.
I tried to hide my disappointment with my situation, but I did not just accept my fate. I wrote to the officer at Headquarters Marine Corps responsible for assigning lieutenants, a person whose title was the “Lieutenants Monitor,” and requested that my orders to Washington, D.C., be changed to the Basic School at Quantico, Virginia, or the 2nd Marine Division, so I could escape the ceremonial duties associated with duty at “8th and I.” I also drove a jeep to the CP of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, and asked them if I could extend my tour of duty in South Vietnam so I could spend my last six months with them in an infantry company. Lt. Col. Duncan, their C.O., told me he would gladly have me in his battalion if I extended my tour, and he even promised me that he would give me a rifle company to command, unless a more senior officer reported before I was assigned.
In another attempt to remain with my platoon, I went to see the G-1 of the 1st Marine Division and told him I wanted to extend my current tour for three months so I could avoid my transfer. His response to my inquiry was both vehement and angry. He told me one did not turn down orders to “8th and I” since that was “the Commandant’s Home” and “Marine officers for that assignment were handpicked.” He then berated me for writing to my monitor at Marine Corps Headquarters without first consulting him about trying to get my orders changed. He said, “Where do you get off, lieutenant, thinking you know more than the Lieutenant’s Monitor about where you should be assigned? Why are you so special? Why don’t you do something really unique, like obeying orders and not thinking of yourself?” I stood in front of his desk taking one hell of an ass-chewing from a real expert in that business, but he failed to understand that I had received far worse rebukes at the Naval Academy and I was inured to such outbursts by now. I simply listened to his tirade until he was finished, and then I asked him what I had to do to extend. I thought he was about to come across his desk and hit me, but instead he simply told me to go back to my company office and fill out an AA (Administrative Action) form requesting the extension.
This picture of me reflects the strain of long-range patrolling. Compare this photograph with the photograph of me as a midshipman, taken only two years previously.
When I walked back down Hill 327 to Camp Reasoner, I stopped off at my company office and asked SSgt. John Cole for an AA form. I told him why I wanted it, and he seemed genuinely concerned about my motivation for such a drastic action. He gave me the form, but he told me I should hand deliver it directly to Maj. Keating after I had filled it out.
John Cole was unique. He spent many years in South Vietnam, never rotating back to the U.S. until there were no other options open to him for staying in country. He was an expert in administration and had spent several years prior to Vietnam with force reconnaissance units in the U.S. Later on, he was commissioned and retired as a colonel. I suspected that John spoke to Maj. Keating about my request for the AA form because the next day when I gave it to Maj. Keating, he did not even look at it. Instead, he had me sit down in his office for a “heart-to-heart” talk. He started off by complimenting me on all that my team had accomplished while I commanded the 5th platoon and even went so far as to tell me I was the best reconnaissance team leader in his company, and possibly the best in the battalion. He gave me a copy of my final fitness report and asked me to read the narrative section, where he had written a few sentences outlining my performance of duty while assigned to his command. Those sentences contained many glowing terms and superlatives. I told him I did not deserve such a good fitness report, especially in light of the trouble I had caused him concerning my unhappiness with the awards system and the rather caustic way I described my unhappiness in front of senior officers. He simply nodded, and then he spoke to me like a father:
Andy, I am truly concerned about you. I find it difficult to really understand you, and I am not the only one. I have no complaints about how you do your job. In fact, I think the results speak for themselves. What worries me about you is how you seem to take this war personally, as if it is some sort of personal crusade. Capt. Dixon told me you were overly aggressive and seemed to seek out every chance to make contact with the enemy, and he warned me to keep an eye on you because of this. I have come to see what he was talking about. During your patrol debriefings, you seemed to take a perverse delight when you described the way you and your team killed the enemy. You embarrassed the Commanding General a while back when you were doing a “dog and pony show” for those congressional staffers because you said the only way to win wars is to kill the enemy, and your team actively goes looking for trouble. I am not sure whether or not you really believe what you said, but comments like that don’t go down well with civilians. I have to be honest with you. Some of your men are also concerned about you. Two of them came to me last month and told me you are taking too many risks and that all you think about is killing the enemy at every opportunity. Don’t get me wrong. These men admire you and care about you more than you know, but they are fearful that your aggressive attitude is placing the team in danger. Are you aware of their concerns?
I suspected that Maj. Keating had had a conversation with the chaplain, although he did not indicate that this was the case. However, I could not ignore the message he was conveying since it was a message that I had heard before. I fought to find the right words to explain to him why I did what I did. I told him some of my men seemed afraid while on patrol, but no one, aside from two men who had talked to me about getting out of the bush, had told me about their concerns. I then felt tears well up in my eyes, because I felt I had always tried to protect my men as best I could while still trying to accomplish our mission. I loved the men in my platoon and considered them like brothers to me. It hurt to know that some of them no longer had confidence in me and considered me a risk to the team. I began to choke on my words, overcome with emotion. I blurted out, “So that is why I am being sent to Company E. I am being relieved of my duties, aren’t I?”
Maj. Keating said, “No, you crazy bastard, that is not why you are going to Company E. You are going to Company E because those new men from the States need you and your experience to help them survive when they go on patrol. Most patrol leaders only spend six months in the field, but you are working on eleven, an unheard-of amount of time in the bush for a lieutenant. It is time for you to turn over your platoon to someone else. Not because of anything bad you have done, but because everyone wants you to survive this war. You cannot win this war by yourself. If you keep going like this, you will certainly be killed. I don’t want the law of averages to catch up with you. Now take this AA form and put it away for now. Go to Company E and train those new men so they are as good as the men in Killer Kane. In a few months, if you still want to extend to go to the infantry, you can still take the AA form to your new C.O. at Company E, and I am sure he will forward it.”
Maj. Keating was probably no more than ten years older than I, but I considered him vastly more experienced and far more knowledgeable about how the Marine Corps worked and how to judge the character of men. I respected him as a leader and teacher. His talk to me that day had both hurt me and helped me. It hurt to hear him say that my men worried about my perceived fixation with killing the enemy at the risk of their lives. It helped, however, to know they thought highly of me as their patrol leader and that Maj. Keating thought I could use my experience to improve the chances of survival of the men of Company E. I took the AA form and tucked it into my jungle utility pocket and walked back to my hootch, chastened in the knowledge that I would soon be helping Marines to survive in combat.
My last day with my platoon was 4 December. In the morning, I went on a run with them in the rain along our usual route, the road that led from Camp Reasoner to the Freedom Hill PX. As we ran, we chanted the same cadence calls we always had on countless other runs along this road. Jeeps and trucks passed by us with their occupants staring at us and wondering who these crazy men were out running in a downpour. After taking the obligatory cold shower and putting on my jungle utility uniform, I packed my belongings into my two footlockers and went to the company office to get my orders to Company E. While I waited, Maj. Keating reminded me that there was a going-away party for me at the Camp Reasoner Officers and SNCO mess hall that evening, and it was “a command performance.” As I walked back to my hootch, Sgt. Hauxhurst came over to me and told me the platoon wanted to see me before I shoved off, and would I come over to their hootch before evening meal? I told him I would.
Around 1600, Sgt. Hauxhurst came to my hootch to remind me of the platoon gathering. I walked over to the SEA hut that was the home of my platoon, and there all of my men were assembled. As I stepped into the hut, Sgt. Hauxhurst yelled, “Attention on deck!” and then each man came up to me, shook my hand, and told me they would miss me. Sgt. Hauxhurst presented me with a framed picture of the entire platoon and a small, compact 35 mm Canon camera they had bought for me at the PX. I thanked them for the gifts, but when I started to tell them how much I appreciated them, I found it very difficult to speak without getting emotional. I had not expected my men to do anything special for me, so when I heard their kind words and expressions of affection for me, I nearly broke into tears. Sgt. Hauxhurst rescued me from further embarrassment by breaking out a prized bottle of whiskey he had been saving for an important occasion and offering me a drink. Everyone sat down on the cots and footlockers near me and each of us had a drink. It was rather awkward at first, but soon we began to talk about some of the patrols we had gone on and some of the men who had left the platoon and returned to the States. As evening meal approached, we broke up and each man again shook my hand and wished me luck. I wished them luck also and then, fighting back tears, I walked up to the Officers and SNCO mess hall for dinner. As I walked the 100 yards to the mess hall, I suddenly found myself saying a prayer. I thanked God for the privilege of serving with such remarkable men, and I asked Him to take care of them and protect them in my absence.
Later, after dinner, Maj. Keating gathered the officers and SNCOs of our company in the mess hall where he presented me with a unit plaque and wished me well in my new job. What struck me during this little ceremony was the way he addressed me. I was not Lt. Finlayson or Andy—I was Killer Kane. He, like many others in the unit, associated me with my team. I was part of Killer Kane and it was part of me forever. (Sadly, Maj. Keating was killed in action on 22 May 1968, in the A Shau Valley, Thua Thien Province. He was conducting recon in support of the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division at the time.)
When the ceremony was over, the lieutenants from my company and several other officers from the battalion asked me to go up to the division officers’ club to watch a movie and enjoy a few drinks. The entire time I was at the club that evening, my favorite Vietnamese friends, Mai Ly and Dien, would not let me pay for a single drink. Probably more than anything else that happened to me that last day, this simple gesture of friendship by two young Vietnamese women touched me. These young women did not have much money; they essentially lived off the meager tips they received from the officers at the club, yet they wanted to express their friendship to me by buying me drinks. The club manager told me he had never seen these two women buy a drink for another Marine. When I left the club that evening, Mai Ly and Dien gave me portrait photos of themselves and told me not to forget them. I promised I would remember them and I did. I did not know it at the time, but I would be seeing both of them again in less than a year.