| 4 | INTO BATTLE |
Doug Wilson; Friday May 5, 1967 [diary entry]
We have another new lieutenant… I don’t like the way our new platoon leader operates already. He sends out small squad recon patrols too far from the main element. And at night he only uses 1 squad for ambush while the rest set up 200 meters away.
Dear Mom, Dad, and Girls,
Tomorrow we are moving down to the Delta, to a place called Dong Tam. We’re going to fly down there. We have a battalion mission on the 14th or 15th. It’s supposed to be a pretty hot area. But the terrain is dry ground, and we’ll feel so good to be out of the mud that I don’t think we’ll have much trouble. I feel pretty good about it…
I guess that’s about all the news for now. Don’t worry about me, because I’m eating pretty well. I feel very good and the time is going fast. Hope everybody is ok.
Love, John [Young]
At the beginning of May, as the men of Charlie Company neared the one year mark of their military service, the units of the 4th of the 47th continued working in the Rung Sat, with only occasional forays into the drier areas of the Mekong Delta. The now familiar missions produced continued losses to mines and booby traps and several discoveries of Viet Cong base camps, but very little in the way of meaningful contact. On May 10, though, as Charlie Company wended its way through a somewhat more habitable part of the Rung Sat, Jimmie Salazar, who was walking point for 2nd Platoon, caught some movement out of the corner of his eye as he neared the remnants of an enemy camp. Like a scene from a combat movie, a Viet Cong jumped to his feet from behind a log in a nearby stream and leveled his rifle at the surprised GI. With water pouring from his clothes and weapon, the VC pulled the trigger. As Salazar winced in anticipation of the end, he heard only a loud CLICK, CLICK, CLICK; the Viet Cong’s weapon had misfired. As the young Vietnamese soldier looked down in horror at his useless rifle, Salazar, with his heart threatening to pound out of his chest, lowered his M16 and emptied his entire magazine. The VC’s body lurched and bobbed in rhythm with the impacting bullets before hitting the ground only a few feet away. Two more VC jumped up and sprinted away, and 2nd Platoon responded with a hail of fire. Realizing that his elusive quarry was escaping, Lieutenant Benedick called for his men to cease fire. Working quickly, Benedick called in an artillery strike hoping to confuse the fleeing VC and drive them back toward his men, who he had take cover behind a small dike. Soon the artillery whistled overhead and exploded among the mangrove, throwing bits and pieces of trees in all directions. Jimmy Salazar, Bill Reynolds, Mike Cramer, Bill Varskasfky and the rest of 2nd Platoon couldn’t believe their eyes. Benedick’s idea had worked. There came a lone VC walking down the trail with his rifle slung over his shoulder – like he didn’t have a care in the world. The entire platoon opened up, and the Viet Cong soldier didn’t stand a chance. His body seemed to dance as the bullets struck home. After searching the dead VC, 2nd Platoon troopers tossed his body in the river, and the war went on. After a few obligatory messages confirming the contact to battalion headquarters, 2nd Platoon resumed its march. It had already been a hectic day. Salazar, though, could only think of how close he had come to dying before his baby was born.
During operations in the Rung Sat, the 4th of the 47th moved from Bear Cat to its new accommodations aboard ship. After more than a year of planning and organization, the naval element of the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF) had come on line. Task Force 117 controlled what became known as the River Assault Force, consisting of two River Assault Squadrons, which carried out offensive operations, and one River Support Squadron, which served as the Mobile Riverine Base (MRB). The troops lived aboard the barracks ships of the MRB, the Colleton, the Benewah, and the APL-26 (universally known as the “green apple”), World War II-vintage landing craft that had undergone recent upgrades in the Philadelphia Naval Yard. Initially the ships of the MRB were anchored off Vung Tau, but later they served as mobile staging areas for the troops of the MRF. To provide docking facilities for the barracks ships, two 30-by-90-foot pontoons, called “ammi barges,” moored alongside each anchored ship. The barges served as storage facilities and allowed the men of the MRF to get from their barracks ships to their assault craft without having to use embarkation nets.
The Armored Troop Carrier (ATC) was the workhorse of the MRF. Known by the troops as “Tango Boats,” the ATCs carried the men of the MRF from the base ships into battle. Each platoon had its own Tango Boat, a converted World War II landing craft, which was 56 feet in length and had a top speed of 6 knots. Armed with one 20mm cannon, two 50-caliber machine guns, and two grenade launchers, the ATCs would pick up their men from the ammi barges alongside the barracks ships and then steam to the site of operations, a journey that often took the slow craft several hours. Accompanied by monitor gunboats and command vessels, the ATCs, usually in groups of four, would proceed to their designated target and then beach simultaneously. Their bow doors would drop open and the men would charge out to undertake the ground element of their mission. Often the ATCs would remain close at hand during the operation, to act as supply vessels and to ferry men across larger water obstacles as well as to provide needed organic firepower.*
The men of Charlie Company could hardly believe their good fortune when they first came out of the Rung Sat and boarded their new barracks ships. After trying to sleep in the mud or in trees they now had real, comfortable bunks with clean linen. There were showers with hot water, toilets, hot chow, and even air conditioning. It seemed like heaven, so much so that the men did not mind that they were held to a higher code of spit and polish than they had experienced at Bear Cat. They didn’t even mind getting blasted by fire hoses on board the ammi barges. Seems that the navy didn’t want all of that unseemly Rung Sat mud on their nice clean boats. After this first step in the cleaning process the men then went on board and took showers, with their weapons and all, before collecting freshly laundered uniforms. Their next stop was always the galley, where Mess Sergeant Smith could always be heard bellowing, “My boys are back, and they’re hungry!” When Charlie Company was returning from a mission, Smith always had some delicacy ready and waiting and would run navy personnel out of the galley by whacking them with a large wooden spoon if they did not give way to his men. Jim Dennison wrote home regarding his new accommodations in glee:
We moved to a … boat today … the food is really good. There’s piped in music all day long, which gives us a big lift. This may not sound like much to you, but over here you feel like you’re in heaven when you have an ice cream bar and a coke. It’s ecstasy. This place at least has taught me how to appreciate life to its fullest measure. You’ll never have to call me twice once I get home mom, because each new day will be pure joy.
The officers had it especially good, living in single accommodations with linens changed daily. Where the men had good food in a communal galley setting, the officers messed with their navy brethren in the ward room of the ship, with starched linen tablecloths and fine silver settings, while being served by Filipino waiters. Somehow all the air-conditioned comfort seemed a bit jarring, though, leaving Lynn Hunt to wonder how his men would be able to adapt. Here they could be civilized – clean water, real soap, fresh uniforms. But hanging over their heads every moment was the thought that they would soon have to leave this civilization and re-enter “the war world,” slogging through the mud and facing death. Would the transition be too difficult?
Usually Charlie Company remained aboard the barracks ships for one or two days, and the men were instructed to wear only shower shoes to allow their feet to dry in an attempt to avoid losses due to immersion foot. While the men spent much of the “downtime” cleaning weapons and resting from their exertions, the boys of Charlie Company, ever resourceful, found ways to enjoy themselves in their new home. On occasion the company brass would make the search for recreation easier by holding a beer bash and ice cream party on the ammi barge. Although the men would have preferred Pabst or Schlitz, they were at least happy that the beer of choice, San Miguel, was not the dreaded Ba Muoi Ba local brew that had been the bane of their existence at Bear Cat. By June someone in the company had located a tucked-away compartment where he and his compatriots stored several mattresses and a record player. On days off, after a hard mission, a few men would gather to smoke a little pot and listen to the Beatles. One enterprising sailor even ran a small business by showing porn movies to the soldiers for a nominal fee.
In general, though, the men of Charlie Company whiled away their off hours by writing letters home and engaging in conversation. Several of the men tried to console Willie McTear over the loss of Ron Schworer by talking and sharing letters. Forrest Ramos even took McTear into his elite group of pranksters, who were afforded ample opportunity for honing their craft by the cramped quarters and close proximity of shipboard life. A rash of short sheetings and “kick me” signs seemed to do McTear some good. Bill Geier wrote home in disbelief that his beloved Blackhawks had folded in the semi-finals of the NHL playoffs, beaten by the Toronto Maple Leafs. How did the Golden Jet and his boys lose? It’s not like they were the Cubs after all – the Hawks had won the Stanley Cup as recently as 1961. Oh well, Geier and his father still held out hope that this would be the year for the Cubbies, breaking a World Series drought that had reached 59 years. Many of the members of 3rd Platoon, which included Forrest Ramos’ elite group of pranksters, had bonded even further by vicariously sharing in the experiences of the two new fathers in their midst – Jose Sauceda and Fred Kenney. The two now spent a good deal of their time showing pictures around the group and wondering what they were missing. Both men spent much of their down time writing to their wives assuring them that all was well, even sending home pictures of the guys, which always seemed to include snaps of them hanging out with Forrest Ramos or Terry McBride. In turn Noemi and Barbara responded with new photos of Belinda and Freddie and updates on all the milestones of their lives. Little Freddie was holding his head up on his own. Could Belinda be that far behind?
Charlie Nelson spent much of his time pestering anybody who would listen. He wanted to get into the field with his buddies. He had trained for war, and this mailman job was a crock of shit. Crockett, Larson, Hunt – he pressed his case to whoever happened to be handy. By April they relented. No matter how small his stature or what he looked like, letting him go out had to be better than putting up with his constant hectoring. Some of the on-board conversations, though, were of an increasingly serious and disturbing nature. The men of 1st Platoon were convinced that Lieutenant Thompson was not up to the task of leading them in combat. Enlisted men always bitch and grouse about their officers and NCOs, but this was different. Thompson’s shortcomings were a risk to their lives. Two of the men even took the extraordinary step of taking their fears directly to Captain Larson. He assured them that the situation was temporary and that Lieutenant Hunt was about to return to duty. They just had to be patient a little while longer.
It also became obvious aboard ship that Charlie Company had begun a slow and relentless cycle of change. Faces were different. Although it began as just a trickle, replacements were arriving in the company to take the place of the dead and badly wounded; replacements who had not trained with the unit; people who were taking the place of lost brothers. These new men had to be treated well and welcomed, but their faces were bitter reminders of friends who were gone. Like it or not, the replacements were always the odd men out.
Carl Cortright was the youngest of three children of Aubrey and Dorothy Cortright, who, in 1956, moved their family from Michigan to Mission Hills, California. After high school graduation Carl had hoped to go to college to get into broadcasting, but his father did not support the idea, wanting Carl to be a machinist like him instead. Taking a part-time job, Carl spent what little money he had on a white 1958 Chevy Impala, complete with a V-8 engine and a leather interior. He tinkered on the car from time to time, enjoyed the local cruising scene, and hoped to get it ready to race. But his plans were interrupted in May 1966 when he received his draft notice. Like so many others from the San Fernando Valley, Carl Cortright made his way to the induction center, where he stood alone in line behind Fred Kenney, Richard Rubio, and their friends from Canoga Park who were destined for Charlie Company. While the others passed their physicals and made their way to Fort Riley, though, Carl ran into a problem. His blood pressure was too high. Relieved by his unexpected good fortune, Carl returned home to his job and car, eventually getting into a couple of races. Things were picking up, and Carl was even considering the idea of broaching the subject of a broadcasting career to his father once again, when in October 1966 he received another draft notice, and this time he passed his physical.
Cortright went through basic training at Fort Ord, California, surviving the standard regimen of pushups and yelling. Then, like most Vietnam-era soldiers, he went with another group of men to AIT at Fort Polk, Louisiana, where he was trained as a mortarman. Although Carl made friends in both basic and AIT, he knew that he was not destined to serve with those men. He was headed to Vietnam as a single replacement for a unit that had lost a mortarman who had been killed, wounded, or had reached the end of his tour. In April 1967, even though Carl boarded an aircraft packed with soldiers, he was going to Vietnam alone. Grabbing his duffel bag after the long flight, Cortright made his way to the replacement depot to receive his assignment. A harried lieutenant sat puffing a cigarette behind a small table checking the men off on a list and directing them to their new military homes. When Cortright got to the front of the line the lieutenant asked him his name and his military occupation specialty (MOS). Carl replied that he was a mortarman. The lieutenant glanced up, and after a long drag on his cigarette, informed Cortright, “We don’t need any more goddamn mortarmen; we need riflemen. Son, you are now officially a goddamn rifleman. You got a problem with that?” Cortright then boarded a truck bound for Bear Cat, where he was to report to Charlie Company, 4th of the 47th, where he was going to replace a man in 1st Platoon who had been lost to a mine. After arriving at the camp, Carl and five other replacements were hustled onto a waiting helicopter, which flew them out over the ocean and then made ready to land on a large ship riding at anchor. Carl thought to himself, “This has to be a mistake; I’m in the army, not the navy.”
Charlie Company was out on patrol, so Cortright and the others found their berths and got settled in to wait. Two days later, on April 28, he made his way to the ammi barge to watch his new unit return from its operation. The men looked old and weary as they climbed off the ATC covered in layers of thick mud, while they talked easily about a brief firefight they had fought on the operation. As the sailors hosed the soldiers down, Cortright thought, “Holy shit. These guys have really been to war.” Cortright discovered that several men from the company were from the San Fernando Valley, and, although they were in different platoons, quickly made friends with Fred Kenney, from nearby Chatsworth, who immediately pulled out and showed off several tattered pictures of his son Freddie. Carl also met Kenney’s friends from 3rd Platoon, including the larger-than-life Terry McBride, perhaps the most boisterous and self-assured man in the whole unit. The machine gunner was a great friend to have, in part because you sure as hell did not want to have him as an enemy. Kenney also got to know Steve Hopper, the middle child of a family of ten from a farm outside Greenfield, Illinois. Having grown up strong baling hay on the farm, Hopper had been a football star in high school, even dating one of the prettiest cheerleaders. Hopper had hoped to go to college, but had lacked the means, and had instead wound up working for Caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois, making crankshafts before being drafted. Hopper struck Cortright as a straight-shooter and a good soldier. Even though he was in a different platoon, Hopper warned Cortright to steer clear of his squad leader, Sergeant David West,* who was something of a hard ass who liked to pick on new guys. Cortright was also introduced to Don Trcka, of League City, Texas, near Galveston. Stoutly built, Trcka had been the only student at Clear Creek High School to letter in all four major sports each year of high school. A standout on a championship football team, Trcka had received a scholarship to play at Southwest Texas State University. It was a dream come true, but Trcka had become a bit sidetracked by a combination of practice and the university’s social scene, and his grades soon tumbled, which had left him eligible for the draft.
After introductions and a few formalities, Lieutenant Thompson assigned Cortright to 2nd Squad of 1st Platoon, under Sergeant Dave Jarczewski. Ski, as he was universally known to the men, was from Depew, New York, a hardscrabble suburb of Buffalo. His father, Valentine, was a life-long employee of Bethlehem Steel, where he worked on the production line. Valentine had served as a soldier in the Pacific during World War II and impressed upon his son that he had two basic choices once he had graduated from high school. He could come to work in the steel mill like almost everyone else in the area, or he could join the army. Although part of him wished that he could have gone to college, Ski joined the other 22,000 employees at the Lackawanna, New York, plant of Bethlehem Steel. He rode to work with his father each day, until his draft notice arrived in May of 1966. Ski welcomed Cortright warmly and introduced him around the squad, with Cortright being particularly impressed with Charlie Nelson. The diminutive Navajo Indian seemed especially eager, and told Cortright that he had better be ready, because they were gonna go mix it up with Charlie out there in the Rung Sat right quick. Ski then introduced Cortright to his team leader, the man who would show him the ropes and lead him in battle, Don Peterson.
Obviously tired, but easy going and friendly, Peterson welcomed Cortright to the unit and took him aside to give him a crash course on how not to die and how not to get others killed in Vietnam. As he sat there and listened to a guy he considered to be a grizzled veteran, little did Cortright know that if he had passed his first physical back in May of 1966, he would have been serving with Peterson, Kenney, and the rest of Charlie Company all along. The information came at him fast and furious. This was Vietnam, not some stateside training facility. He had to learn and learn quickly so that he would not be much of a danger to himself or others. It was a lot to take in – how to spot tripwires, how to tell a fresh trail from a cold one, how he had to keep 10 feet between himself and the next man in the unit to avoid more than one person being blown up by a mine. Two days later, Cortright went out on his first operation with the unit, and learned firsthand the difficulties of life in Vietnam. Just in attempting to move forward, slogging through the Rung Sat, he felt like a burden, constantly tripping and nearly drowning in the platoon’s first river crossing. Cortright looked in awe at his new friends who navigated the terrain with such ease. They were real, hard-bitten soldiers. He also noticed that they were a club, a family. They treated each other with the easy camaraderie typical of soldiers who have trained and suffered together – joking, arguing, sharing letters, and sharing hopes and dreams. Although the men of Charlie Company treated him well and were always helpful, it was plain that Carl was not yet a member of the family. He would have to prove himself over time.
Don Peterson hid it from everyone, especially his wife, but he was getting worried. He had always thought that he would not be hurt in Vietnam; he was lucky. He was going to get home to teach young James how to play football as he grew up. Although Peterson maintained his jovial exterior around his buddies and wrote letters home that were full of hope for the future, the events in the Rung Sat had changed him. Death could come from any direction at any time. Death didn’t seem to care if you were a good soldier or a bad one; death made its own choices. More and more Don Peterson got the feeling that he would not make it home to see James again. He was going to die in Vietnam. Back in their apartment at Fort Riley, Don had discussed with Jacque the possibility that Vietnam might become too difficult. They had decided that he would use code and write and ask her what she wanted for Christmas. That would be the signal that he had had enough. She would then write back demanding a divorce, which they hoped would cause him to receive a hardship leave. Once home, they could run off to Canada together. But on May 10, 1967, Jacque read a letter from Don that brought her up short. There was no code; in desperation he did not hold back. He simply wrote, “Please honey, get me the fuck out of here. I’m going to die.” Don had never written anything like that before. He had to be serious, and there was no time to waste with fake divorces. Frantic, Jacque called her air force NCO stepfather who promised to try to reach Don in Vietnam to see what he could do.
Back in Vietnam, the soldiers of Charlie Company received word to get ready. They were headed out for their first major operation in the Mekong Delta – the assignment for which they had been preparing ever since the first day at Fort Riley. There was a sense of excitement in the enlisted men’s quarters on the ship. They were going to chase Charlie through rice paddies, not slop around in the endless mud of the Rung Sat. Maybe there would be a real battle, and not just hit-or-miss contact with guerrillas and booby traps in the swamps. Even as Charlie Company made ready for a new type of operation, life for the unit went on. Ralph Wilson arrived in the unit as part of a fresh batch of replacements to make good losses suffered in the Rung Sat. Born into a poor family in Andover Township, New Jersey, Wilson had been forced to grow up early when, at only nine years of age, he lost his father in a mining accident. A wrestling standout in high school, Wilson dreamed on opening his own bait and tackle shop but had dropped out of high school, worked on construction sites, and gotten married instead. Only three days after his wedding, Ralph’s draft notice arrived, and he was off to Fort Dix and Fort Jackson for training before arriving with Charlie Company as it made ready to move out into the Mekong Delta. Amazed by all of the hubbub of preparing for war, Wilson made his way to his assignment in 1st Platoon and realized that he had a lot to learn and very little time to learn it.
As they prepared their weapons and gear for action, the men of Charlie Company talked in twos and threes about what was to come. Jim Dennison, the pub owner’s son from the north side of Chicago, decided to get in a quick shave. He stood next to Don Peterson who was shaving off his mustache. Most of the men of Charlie Company had grown mustaches on their trip to Vietnam aboard the John Pope – scraggly affairs that most had shaved off once they had reached Bear Cat. Peterson’s mustache, though, had grown in well – a thick, handlebar mustache of which he was very proud. But there he stood, shaving it off. Dennison asked, “Pete, what the hell are you doing shaving off your mustache?” The answer he received stopped him short. “Dennison, my wife never liked my mustache. I know that I’m gonna die tomorrow, and I don’t want her to have to see me this way in my coffin.”
In the predawn hours of May 15, 1967, elements of two battalions of the MRF made their way toward their first operation in the Cam Son Secret Zone, one of the main bases of operation for the Viet Cong in Dinh Tuong Province in the Mekong Delta south of Saigon. Intelligence indicated that the Viet Cong 514th Provincial Battalion had retreated to recover its strength after a recent sharp battle with the 3rd of the 47th to the area between where the Rach Ba Rai and the Rach Tra Tan streams branch off from the My Tho River. The brigade commander, Colonel Fulton, hoped that an advance from three directions would catch the 514th in a pincer, destroying the Viet Cong unit for good. The battalion established a forward command post near Cai Be and brought in supporting artillery on barges 3 miles southeast of the site of the coming operation. The strike force consisted of 22 ATCs, two heavily armed monitor gunboats, and two command boats that landed Bravo and Charlie companies of the 4th of the 47th on the north bank of the My Tho, between the Rach Ba Rai and the Rach Tra Tan, while Alpha Company choppered into the south to act as a blocking force. Further to the west, the 3rd of the 47th searched the area at the mouth of the Rach Ba Rai.*
At 8:30am the bow ramps of the ATCs dropped and Charlie Company hit the beach on the north bank of the My Tho River. An artillery barrage had preceded their arrival, and the men exited the landing craft into an interlocking and still smoking series of shell holes and fallen trees that initially made the going quite difficult.
Battle of May 15
Terry McBride felt something hit his neck, and slapped at it. When he pulled his hand back he found a dead red ant. He looked around to see ants falling from the sky like rain all around. The artillery barrage had destroyed the ants’ nests and blown their occupants high into the sky. After floating to the ground the enraged insects took their vengeance on anything in sight, especially the soldiers of Charlie Company.
Emerging from the blizzard of red ants, Charlie Company entered the dominant terrain of the Mekong Delta, a checkerboard of small rice paddies bounded by tree lines flanking the numerous large and small watercourses used to irrigate the fields. Within minutes, the company reached a large, open expanse of paddies almost two football fields in size. Across the open paddy was a densely grown tree line, dotted here and there with haystacks, which extended around to the right flank, forming a kind of horseshoe. There was a hesitation as the 1st Platoon edged up on the open area, with 3rd Platoon trailing just behind and to the left, while 2nd and 4th platoons brought up the rear. Charlie Nelson had seen enough cowboy and Indian movies to know that this was a perfect place for an ambush. No doubt the company would hold up here to wait and see what would happen. He wasn’t surprised at all when the first few sniper rounds buzzed past.
Lieutenant Thompson then gave the order to move out. While it was common military practice to move toward light and sporadic fire, there was over 300 yards of open ground to cover and nobody knew how large the enemy force was on the other side. Even a replacement like Carl Cortright wondered to himself, “Why is he sending us out into the open like this?” But, true to their training, 1st Platoon moved on – all but Lance Morgan* from New York who froze in his tracks with his eyes fixed forward and not saying a word. As the other men in Jarczewski’s 2nd Squad turned to watch, Lieutenant Thompson pulled out his pistol, placed it at Morgan’s temple, and ordered him forward. Shocked back to reality Morgan stumbled forward, and the men of Ski’s squad followed while muttering threats under their breaths.
With Ski’s 2nd Squad in the lead and on the right flank, headed toward the bend of the horseshoe, 1st Platoon inched out into the open as the sniper fire picked up in intensity. Don Peterson turned to Carl Cortright and wondered aloud if they were walking into a trap. Trailing behind and to the left, 1st and 3rd squads got the word from their RTOs that Thompson had decided that the fire was too heavy and had given the order to fall back to a rice paddy dike about 35 yards to their rear to take cover. As more and more enemy bullets cracked past, some kicking up puffs of dirt from the dry rice paddy, John Young of 1st Squad noticed something peculiar. Edward Hoffman,† Dave Jarczewski’s RTO, was with him. What the hell was he doing here? He was supposed to be with 2nd Squad. Without Hoffman, Ski would have no idea about the order to fall back. He would be cut off and helpless. Young realized what had happened. Hoffman had received the order to fall back, and in his fear had retreated without telling Ski. As he reached the safety of the rice paddy dike, Young turned and yelled at Ski and his men, who were nearly 100 yards away and still advancing through open terrain toward the enemy position. But Ski could not hear him over the sound of the fire. A knot of fear welled up in Young’s stomach. Ski and his men were on their own.
As the fire grew in intensity, Ski looked around and realized that Hoffman wasn’t there. After wondering for a second or two where he could have gone, Ski looked to his left and realized that his squad was alone, thinking, “Christ, where did everybody go?” He shouted to Peterson and Cortright, who were even further ahead of him, to stop while he tried to figure out what the hell was going on. Glancing around, Ski couldn’t locate Lance Morgan, who had last been seen off to his left with Enoch Scott, a big, athletic guy from Texas. Glancing around, it was Charlie Nelson who first spotted Morgan curled up in a fetal position in the tall rice. Sprinting off to the left Nelson quickly reached Morgan’s side to ask him where he had been hit. But Morgan had not been hit and could only whimper, “Mama, mama.” With bullets whipping all around, Nelson stooped to grab Morgan by the neck and shook him, all the while cussing his mama and all of his family members. “Fuck your mother you idiot, you had better get the hell up and run! You hear me you son-of-a-bitch?” At that moment Nelson was struck by a bullet in his chin, and tumbled to the ground screaming, “You motherfuckers! You shot me!” The bullet had passed through the fold of skin beneath the bone of his lower jaw. It wasn’t all that bad a wound, but Nelson was surprised that his fingers could touch each other through the entry and exit holes. The shock of the moment forced Morgan out of his trance, and he started yelling for the medic. Nelson replied, “Fuck the medic. He’s too far back,” and applied his own pressure bandage to the wound. He and Morgan then ran back to Ski and the others, the whole incident taking only a few seconds.
Kneeling to get what little cover they could from the tall rice, the little knot of men were in real trouble. Without orders and without any information regarding what was going on around him, Ski was at a loss. Staying put seemed to be nothing but a death trap – but moving without knowledge of the location of friendly forces could get them all caught in crossfire. As he tried to figure out the best course of action, Ski was surprised to see Morgan running back in the direction he had just come from. Morgan had noticed that Charlie Nelson had lost his helmet when he had gotten hit in the chin – the helmet that contained his medicine bag. Without prompting, Morgan ran back to where he had fallen, zigzagging to avoid incoming fire, and returned with the helmet. Nelson thanked him, pulled the medicine bag out of his helmet liner and began praying. With fire now blazing in from the entire tree line to their front, and from the haystacks, Ski made the decision. No matter what the risk, it was fall back or die. He shouted the order, and Don Peterson, who was at the point of the tiny formation said, “You guys run like hell, and I’ll cover you!”
Peterson popped up and shot from the hip with his M16 on full automatic as the other men began their dash, but he had fired for only a few seconds before yelling “My chest! My chest!” and tumbling backward into the rice. Enoch Scott fell almost simultaneously, shot through the arm. Carl Cortright took only a few steps before a thought ran through his head: “Maybe I ought to get down and crawl?” Just then he heard someone shout, “Pete’s dead!” and next he felt a sledgehammer strike him in the back and toss him violently to the ground. The pain was excruciating, especially in his legs, which he noticed with an almost detached amazement he could no longer move. Even though they blazed in agonizing pain, try as he might Cortright could not move his legs at all. He was paralyzed. He looked up to see a form next to him, maybe it was Ski, and shouted, “Shoot me man! Just shoot me! I can’t go on like this!” Whoever it was looked down quickly and said, “It’ll be all right man, you got yourself a million dollar wound!”
Charlie Nelson was hit again in the leg almost as soon as he had begun to run toward the rear. With the bullet entering from the back of his leg and blowing his kneecap off as it passed through, Nelson wasn’t going anywhere. Unwilling to leave without him, Ski jumped down by his side to see what he could do, and wound up with his head facing toward the enemy fire. Nelson yelled at Ski, “Get away from me man, they are going to be shooting at me again. Get the hell out of here!” At that moment Ski’s body lurched and his whole insides felt like they were on fire. The bullet had entered through his shoulder and had cut down through his midsection, breaking five ribs and puncturing a lung, before exiting through his back. The impact of the blow had spun Ski around just far enough that he was able to see that there was a Viet Cong machine gun in one of the haystacks shooting at them. Ski thought to himself, “That’s where those assholes are,” and he tried to motion toward the haystack with his good arm. But there was nobody remaining in his squad to see the motion. They were all down. As bullets from the machine gun traversed the concealing rice, Ski thought, “This is it. The party is over. It’s all done.” Then he felt a pain that he had not felt before, a pain that came from everywhere all at once. Moving his neck just a little to try to catch a glimpse of the source of his agony, Ski realized that he had fallen on a nest of red ants. He could only think, “Holy fuck!” before he passed out.
As 2nd Squad was cut to pieces in mere minutes, 1st and 3rd squads sprinted to the cover of the rice paddy dike. Larry Lilley, the California motorcycle champion, felt his body jerk twice in the hail of fire, but amazingly felt no pain. As he hurdled the paddy dike and hit the ground, he keyed his radio handset to send a message about the deteriorating situation, but nothing happened. Ripping the radio around to see what the problem was, Lilley noticed two large bullet holes. Wearing the radio had saved his life. Lilley looked back toward Ski’s squad and saw James Nall, who had once been asked to go and find his mind back at Fort Riley, running for all he was worth for the cover of the dike, with bullets kicking up puffs of dirt around his feet. As Nall finally belly flopped down by Lilley’s side, Viet Cong machine gun fire began to chew the dike to bits.
Frustration and an impotent rage set in among the men of 1st and 3rd squads. Their buddies were out there somewhere getting shot to pieces. It was torture for Gary Maibach. He knew that men were down out there in the rice. He had seen two fall and had heard their screams. But when he had grabbed up his medical kit to go and tend to the wounded, he had felt Lieutenant Thompson’s hand on his shoulder. He looked up at the lieutenant, who informed him that he couldn’t go out there; it was suicide. The best that the men behind the dike could do was to send out fire toward enemy positions in an effort to force the Viet Cong to keep their heads down. As Maibach looked on, hoping for his chance, they all fired everything they had – M16s, machine guns, and grenade launchers, burning through ammunition quite literally like there was no tomorrow. John Young was directing his squad to put out as much firepower downrange as possible when he saw that Bob Eisenbaugh, a replacement drafted out of Shamokin, Pennsylvania, was just sitting there looking toward the Viet Cong positions with a blank stare on his face. Young shouted, “Eisenbaugh! Fire your goddamn grenade launcher at that tree line!” Eisenbaugh looked at him quizzically and replied, “But Sergeant Young, I don’t see anything to shoot at.” Young responded, “I don’t care what you can see and what you can’t see. Just fire that grenade launcher at the tree line!” After Eisenbaugh had been shaken from his fog and begun firing, Gene Harvey, who had married his sweetheart Deana in November just before the unit departed for Vietnam, saw that the grenade launcher wasn’t making a dent in the enemy bunkers. He grabbed a nearby shoulder-fired Light Anti-Armor Weapon (LAW) and sent an armor-piercing rocket toward the enemy positions. A direct hit. But after the smoke cleared it became apparent that the Viet Cong positions were so well concealed and heavily fortified that they were impervious to everything but a strike by heavy ordnance. There was nothing that 1st and 3rd squads could do to help their friends.
On the left flank of Charlie Company’s advance, 3rd Platoon had also fallen under fire while caught in the open paddy. The platoon’s point man, John Howell, who grew up near Don Peterson, had seen movement ahead and had hit the ground just before the firing began. Howell fired back until his M16 jammed. Vulnerable and exposed, Howell crawled back to the platoon’s lines and relative safety. Jose Sauceda, the new father from Mercedes, Texas, and Jim Cusanelli were also marooned far out in advance of 3rd Platoon’s main positions when the firing erupted. Both men took cover 5 feet apart in a small, muddy stream and did their best to return fire. Amid the din and frantic activity, Sauceda couldn’t help but think that it was like for real cowboys and Indians – just like the movies. All thought fled, though, when a nearby Viet Cong popped his head up and fired off a rocket propelled grenade right at the duo. As both Sauceda and Cusanelli covered up, expecting the worst, the grenade slammed into the brown, gravy-like mud of the stream bank. It didn’t explode. Eyes wide with a mixture of sheer terror and relief at their unbelievable good fortune, Cusanelli shouted, “Goddamn it! Let’s get the hell out of here!”
As the fire exploded into their midst, most of 3rd Platoon hit the deck amid the high rice and began to maneuver toward the cover of a small canal to their front. The buoyant and ever aggressive poet-platoon leader, Lieutenant Hoskins, yelled above the fire for his men to “get the fucking lead out” and to hustle to his position in the canal. With good cover, and with most of the enemy fire directed toward Ski’s downed squad, Hoskins was sure that he could get his men forward to hit the enemy positions in the flank. As he began his move toward the canal, Steve Hopper noticed that his squad leader, Sergeant West – who had been such a spit-and-polish hard ass – was cowering on the ground unable to move. Shaking his head in disgust, Hopper dragged West forward with him to the protection of the canal and took command of the squad himself.
After gathering as many men as he could in the cover of the canal, Hoskins ordered the move toward the flank of the Viet Cong positions. One by one the men of 3rd Platoon crawled forward, with Terry McBride laying down covering fire with his machine gun. The enemy fire, though, was still far too heavy. Within seconds McBride’s assistant gunner, Jerald Scott, took a bullet through his helmet, laying his scalp open to the bone. Tony Caliari, an Italian from the suburbs of Pittsburgh, had moved only a few feet before a bullet blew through his ankle, shattering the bones and leaving his foot dangling at an odd angle. In his own move forward Don Trcka had somehow found himself alone. In a panic he stood up to try to catch sight of Hoskins and the rest, just as a Viet Cong rifle grenade detonated nearby. The force of the explosion threw Trcka back across the canal, where he landed with a thud. He opened his eyes and found himself looking at the picture of his girlfriend, which he had taped to his rifle stock. With his chest a blaze of pain, Trcka was somehow gladdened by the thought that her picture was going to be the last thing he ever saw. In the hail of fire, James “Smitty” Smith, an African American from outside Cleveland who loved to hang around with Fred Kenney and Richard Rubio, had hit the ground with his arms wrapped around his head. Within seconds a bullet struck him in the upper arm and exited through his elbow. The force of the blow had spun Smitty around to face the safety of the canal. Both Caliari and Smith began to make their way back toward cover, crawling in agonizing pain. As he made his first difficult movement, though, Smith came face to face with a snake. He didn’t know what kind it was – to Smitty all snakes were poisonous – and in terror he leapt to his feet and ran back through the fire to the canal, hurdling over Caliari on the way.
With so many voices yelling “medic,” Elijah Taylor didn’t know where to start. He had always wondered how he was going to react when the company finally got into a real battle and he heard his name called when the bullets were flying. All thoughts of how he might react just evaporated. Taylor grabbed his gear and set to work tending to the wounded. He applied field dressings to Scott, Caliari, and Smitty and got them stabilized, but Trcka was another matter. The fragment wounds to his chest were so severe that Taylor thought he might not make it. He bent down over Trcka, assured him that he had a “million dollar wound,” gave him a curette of morphine, and then informed the nearest RTO that they needed a medevac quickly or Trcka might not make it. Taylor then noticed another wounded man huddled at the bottom of the canal and went to see what he could do. Placing his hand on the man’s shoulder Taylor asked him where he was hit. Sergeant West replied weakly that he hadn’t been hit and added, “Doc, I just can’t take it.” Not quite knowing how to react, Taylor told West to make his way to the rear where the medevacs would be arriving soon.
The 2nd and 4th platoons had been trailing the advance and were not as heavily engaged but had to be constantly on watch for high rounds that flew over the company’s forward elements. Also harried by Viet Cong snipers perched in nearby trees, 2nd and 4th platoons helped to lay down covering fire, hauled supplies forward, and readied an LZ for incoming resupply choppers and medevacs. The relative inaction was difficult for Bill Geier to bear. The forward units were taking losses, and no doubt needed medics. He begged his 2nd Platoon leader, Lieutenant Benedick, to be allowed to go up to the front lines to help, but Benedick told him that he had to stay to help with the medevacs and in case 2nd Platoon suffered any casualties. Seeing the helpless look in Geier’s eyes, Benedick patted him on the shoulder and assured him that he would have his chance.
Located with 2nd Platoon, Captain Larson watched events unfold through his binoculars. He knew what he needed to do; he had to maneuver his units to flank the enemy positions and drive the Viet Cong out of their bunkers, but the enemy fire was too heavy. Larson realized that he first had to call in artillery and air support to lessen the volume of enemy fire, but he had a unit out there cut off near the Viet Cong lines. Unable to communicate with Ski’s squad, Larson had no way of knowing where they were or how many of them had survived. Without knowing the location of 2nd Squad, Larson could not take the risk of calling in the heavy ordnance that he needed. He could kill his own men.
As afternoon approached the men of 1st Platoon were getting desperate; Ski’s squad had been down in the paddy for two hours and the badly wounded were no doubt nearing death. Gene Harvey had already taken matters into his own hands and crawled over the paddy dike into the fire zone to see what he could do to help the fallen. Although the fire had not slackened much, Lieutenant Thompson, still unwilling to let Doc Maibach go forward, shortly thereafter asked for volunteers to go out and get those boys back. Jim Stephenson, a farm boy from rural Missouri, Ben Acevedo, a Hispanic farm laborer from Washington’s Yakima Valley, and Gene Harvey all shot their hands up. They had trained and worked with most of the guys from 2nd Squad for almost exactly a year now and could not imagine just leaving them to their fate. John Sclimenti, the popular high school vice president, and John Young, the enlistee from Minnesota, also volunteered for the desperate mission. The men only carried their M16s and one magazine of ammunition – they had to travel light and get into and out of the killing zone fast if they were to have a chance. With Acevedo letting out a war cry the group jumped over the protective dike and ran low and fast out into the rice, hoping to find someone alive. With bullets cracking by overhead, Acevedo and Sclimenti located Nelson and Ski lying almost side by side. Nelson yelled, “You guys had better get down or we had all better get the fuck out of here!” Ski, who had passed out, was already turning blue and appeared to be drowning in his own blood. Sclimenti wrestled Nelson onto his back and carried him back to the protective dike piggy-back style, while Acevedo laboriously dragged Ski back to safety through the rice. Amazingly none of the men were hit.
After running full out with his head down for a short time, John Young caught sight of a prone form from the corner of his eye. Crashing down behind the GI, Young noticed that there was a hole right in the middle of his back, surrounded by a large bloodstain and thought, “Jesus, this is going to be bad.” Carl Cortright had lain there for two hours wondering how he was going to die. Facing the Viet Cong positions and unable to move, partly concealed by the tall rice, he had watched the muzzle blasts of the weapons that were trying to search him out. Sooner or later they were bound to find their mark. But then when all hope had passed, an American came up behind him and said the impossible, “I’m here to take you back.” When he found out that Cortright couldn’t walk, Young was at a momentary loss. As one of the smaller men in the unit, there was no way that Young could carry Cortright back all that way without them both being shot. Thinking frantically, Young lay down flat on the ground and instructed Cortright to crawl up onto his back. With great difficulty, Cortright wrestled himself onto Young and latched his arms around the sergeant’s neck. Young then raised up on all fours and began to crawl back toward the paddy dike. After a few yards, though, Young began to breathe heavily and asked Cortright if it would be OK to rest. A few minutes later, Young resumed his crawl, noticing that Cortright, instead of complaining about his agonizing wound, was now using his own arms and doing his best to help Young crawl forward. Only a few seconds had passed before Young heard Cortright say, “Sergeant, you had better stop again.” Young replied that he was OK to go further, but Cortright said, “No, you had better stop; they are shooting at us again.” Sure enough the slow and steady movement in the rice had caught the Viet Cong’s attention, and Young noticed that bullets were hitting all around them and kicking up puffs of dirt. After the fire slackened, Young resumed his journey. When he had struggled his way to within a few yards of the American positions, Young yelled out that he was coming in. Seeing what was going on, Sclimenti vaulted the dike and rushed out to help Young the rest of the way. With Young and Sclimenti each taking one arm the duo dragged Cortright back, with his injured back bouncing through the rice, and manhandled him over the dike. As Doc Maibach quickly got to work, Young noticed something. After lying out there for hours and enduring a journey that must have resulted in continuous and excruciating pain, only once they were over the dike and in relative safety did Carl Cortright begin to cry.
Gene Harvey initially had run out the furthest and came skidding to a halt beside Don Peterson. A quick check confirmed what he feared; Peterson had no pulse. Realizing that there was nothing he could do, Harvey moved on to try to find the others in Peterson’s squad. Shortly thereafter Jim Stephenson crashed down beside Peterson, hoping to save his buddy. But he, too, was crushed to discover that Pete was dead. Stephenson marked the spot by popping a smoke grenade and hustled back to the cover of the paddy dike. Stephenson reported to Lieutenant Thompson that he was convinced by what he had seen in the paddy that Peterson’s body marked the furthest penetration of 2nd Squad, news that Thompson passed on immediately to Captain Larson. It was what the captain had been waiting for; he could now call in artillery and air strikes beyond the smoke marker without fear of friendly casualties.
Before the artillery and aircraft began to hit their targets, Lieutenant Thompson ordered the nine men of 1st Squad, under John Young, to gather their gear and assault the tree line on the platoon’s right flank. But the order didn’t seem to make good sense. There was no fire coming from that direction. What were they supposed to do over there? After firing so much that day, the men were all low on ammunition, some down to as few as ten rounds. Worst, standing up would only make the men vulnerable to the lethal Viet Cong fire coming from the bunker line to their front; the same bunkers that had shot up Ski’s squad. It all just seemed wrong, and after watching the events of the day unfold, several of the men of 1st Squad wondered if Thompson had just lost it. In receipt of a direct order, though, there was little recourse for Young and his men, so they did as they were told and made ready for the assault. After the men got to their feet, they walked forward, firing as they went. Within seconds one man was shot down by enemy fire, Acevedo had his radio literally blown off of his back, Eisenbaugh and two other men had their M16s jam, and another two ran out of ammunition. Now out of radio contact, and sure that he could not complete the mission, Young turned to Acevedo and gave his order for the men to keep firing as they fell back to their original position behind the dike. Out of the corner of his eye, Eisenbaugh caught sight of a man running toward their position with boxes of ammunition, but before he could reach them his arm jumped away from his body, struck by rifle fire. Having accomplished nothing, while losing two men, 1st Squad made its way back to the platoon perimeter, now more sure than ever of Lieutenant Thompson’s incompetence.
There was no time to dwell on anger, though, because artillery rounds had started to explode among the Viet Cong positions and soon bombers began their first runs. The tide of the battle had turned, and the men of Charlie Company watched as hell was unleashed upon the VC. Explosions showered the GIs with mud, followed by waves of heat after napalm strikes. Jim Dennison couldn’t take his eyes off the spectacle. As he watched he could not help but be amazed as he saw one lone Viet Cong, sitting in a tree, taking shot after shot at the American jets as they thundered past. This guy was not panicking, he was not running; he was calmly taking aim and shooting at his tormentors. The bravery of that lone Viet Cong struck Dennison deeply. “Who are these guys we are fighting? Damn it, is this fucking worth it?” Steve Huntsman, who had lived with Don Peterson during their training at Fort Riley, was also engrossed by the sight – until a direct hit vaporized the tree and its occupant. Huntsman flew backward about 3 feet, struck in the arm by a shell fragment. He thought, “My God, I’ve been hit,” and then noticed that blood spurted in a fountain from the jagged wound every time his heart beat. His artery had been severed, a wound that without immediate treatment meant certain death.
Huntsman tied off the wound as best he could before making his way to Doc Maibach, who applied a tourniquet. Maibach then took Huntsman to the rear where, since the artillery fire and air strikes had silenced some of the Viet Cong fire, the first medevacs were on their way in. Company First Sergeant Crockett had been working feverishly both to get an LZ cleared and to coordinate with the choppers, which were going to come in under enemy fire. Doc Taylor, Terry McBride, and Richard Rubio brought in the wounded from 3rd Platoon and loaded them on board. Barely able to catch his breath through the pain radiating through his chest, Don Trcka looked around to see Tony Caliari and Smitty close by his side, but he wondered what the hell Sergeant West was doing sitting there on the chopper. He seemed just fine. The whole group was stunned by the sight of Dave Jarczewski, lying there without a shirt on covered in blood with a large, ugly exit wound in his back that bubbled air every time he drew a shallow breath. Knowing that there was little that he could do, Doc Maibach helped load Ski aboard, and wondered if it was going to be the last time that he ever saw him alive. Worst, though, was Carl Cortright. Since the bullet had entered from the front, Doc Maibach had not been able to give him morphine – afraid that the bullet might have blown open his stomach on its way through his body. Running through the diminishing fire, four men of the 1st Platoon had grabbed Cortright by the loose ends of his shirt and trousers and carried him back to the LZ at a trot – each step jarring and grinding Cortright’s severed spine. The men loaded Cortright aboard the helicopter as easily as they could, but even that involved pushing and dragging, resulting in pain that nearly made Cortright pass out. As the chopper took off, somebody had the decency to jam a lit cigarette between Cortright’s lips and he took a few puffs as the aircraft rose into the sky. While Cortright looked at the other shattered bodies all around, he realized that he did not recognize most of the faces. It was only his second operation with Charlie Company, and he was still the new guy. He never had the opportunity to become part of the family. As the chopper finally rose above the level of the Viet Cong fire, Cortright breathed a sigh of relief and thought, “Oh well. Just get me the hell out of here.”
Back on the ground everything had begun to go wrong for the Viet Cong. Even as their hardened bunkers began to cave in under artillery fire and air strikes, Colonel Fulton, who was circling above the battlefield in a chopper of his own, had directed Alpha and Bravo companies of the 4th of the 47th to close in on the enemy positions from the north and west respectively. In danger of being surrounded and summarily destroyed, the Viet Cong began to abandon their positions and flee the field of battle, many trying to escape by floating down the Rach Tra Tan. While Alpha Company blazed away at the Viet Cong who fled to the north, and helicopter gunships mopped up the unfortunates in the river, Charlie Company got its revenge. Everywhere the Viet Cong were popping up out of their holes and running away for all they were worth, and up and down the line Charlie Company soldiers struck back with everything they had. Doug Wilson, who had once sold pictures aboard the John Pope, picked up a nearby LAW and fired at a VC bunker, the impact resulting in a shower of mud and body parts. Gene Harvey, who was still wrestling with the impact of the loss of Don Peterson, saw his chance to exact a measure of revenge. As 1st Platoon looked on, three Viet Cong dove into one of the haystacks near their bunkers. Harvey picked up a LAW, stood up and took careful aim, even pausing to ask if he was looking at the right haystack. Although the enemy fire had diminished, there were still bullets cracking and popping through the air, and the men admonished Harvey to hurry up and fire. They all watched as the rocket sped downrange and struck the base of the haystack, the explosion sending Viet Cong bodies flying through the air like a scene out of some cartoon. A wild cheer went up from the men as Harvey sat back down with a smirk on his face.
In ones and twos VC kept popping up, some from spider holes in advance of the enemy bunker line, and zigzagged away. Perhaps inspired by Wilson’s shot, Gary Gronseth, a quiet GI who had been with the unit since Fort Riley, stood up and unlimbered his M79 grenade launcher, known among the troops as a “blooper” because of the noise it made when it was shot. He carefully took aim at a single fleeing VC at 200 yards, a nearly impossible shot for the slow-moving shell. When he pulled the trigger, the men watched as the grenade arced into the sky and then fell toward its target. To everyone’s amazement the grenade struck the VC square on top of the head, killing him instantly. It was a miracle shot that brought a second storm of cheers from the weary troops.
On Charlie Company’s left flank, Lieutenant Hoskins, who had seen the previous advance of his 3rd Platoon halted in its tracks, shouted, “Charge, boys! We’ve got them on the run now!” and ran forward to the attack. Fred Kenney and Richard Rubio, fast friends and unit jokesters, were close on Hoskins’ heels. As the lieutenant and a small knot of men peeled off to the left, Kenney and Rubio, followed by Steve Hopper and John Howell, skirted the first of the many haystacks in the area. As the group rounded the haystack they came face-to-face with a Viet Cong machine gunner. Kenney, Howell, and Rubio skidded to a halt and quickly backpedalled, with someone yelling “Granny Goose! Get down!” Surprised by their sudden approach and with eyes wide in fear, the VC machine gunner froze, allowing Kenney and Rubio to slip out of sight behind the haystack. With their hearts hammering, Kenney and Rubio linked up with Hopper and Howell and tossed grenades over the haystack into the machine gun position and a nearby bunker of which they had caught a fleeting glimpse. After hearing multiple detonations, and a few muffled screams, the trio carefully made its way back around the haystack to see what had happened. Hopper simply muttered “Jesus” under his breath as he first saw a sight that would stick with him forever. The VC must have jumped out of their bunker to run just as the grenades exploded. Body parts and shorn muscles lay everywhere. One Viet Cong was missing the entire top of his head. Kenney, Rubio, and Hopper agreed that they had only done what they had to. “It was them or us,” Hopper said. “Somebody had to die. It was their bad day and our lucky day.” Nearby Jose Sauceda and Jim Cusanelli had finally made their way back from their exposed position and nearly fatal brush with a rocket propelled grenade. As Kenney, Rubio, and Hopper were rounding the haystack, Sauceda and Cusanelli stumbled across what appeared to be a Viet Cong aid station. The group of enemy soldiers, including doctors, vainly scattered in all directions. Sauceda and Cusanelli had them dead to rights and cut them down.
As men across the front picked off the last of the fleeing VC, Doug Wilson and John Bauler of 1st Platoon went out into the open rice paddy to Don Peterson’s body. Although he had two large bullet holes in his chest, somehow he looked more asleep than dead. The two spread out a poncho and rolled Pete into it, and then carried him back to the dike that 1st Platoon had sheltered behind for most of the day. From all around, the men of Charlie Company froze in place as the sad procession passed by. Pete had been larger than life, everyone’s favorite. He had the most of anyone to live for – a beautiful wife, a new child who everyone knew was going to be a football star one day. And he was gone. Since night was already falling after the day-long battle, it was too dangerous to bring in a helicopter for a dead man. Don Peterson would remain with his brothers of Charlie Company for one more night. Doc Maibach gave Pete a quick inspection, and then affixed a killed-in-action (KIA) tag to his young friend. It was his duty. He didn’t want some doctor in some faraway hospital or morgue to be the one who did it. Pete deserved a friend at his last moment with the unit.
The battle, Charlie Company’s baptism by fire, was over. By any accounts it had been a victory. Charlie Company had suffered 14 wounded seriously enough to need evacuation and one fatality, while it was estimated that the joint actions of the American forces that day had resulted in over 100 enemy KIA. The Viet Cong had been driven from the field in disarray, and it would be a long time before the 514th Provincial Battalion made good its losses. For the men of Charlie Company, the fight of May 15, a battle so small that it was never even graced with a real name, was many things. For the men of 1st Platoon, the men who knew Pete best, May 15 was a terrible shock. As they gazed at Pete’s body that night, some of the men of 1st Platoon wrestled with guilt: if they would have only gotten to him earlier maybe they could have saved him. Some fought with another guilt – of being relieved that it was he who had died and not them. Others dealt with rage: if Thompson had not ordered them out when even they knew it was a trap; if Hoffman had warned Ski instead of fleeing his post, Pete would still be alive. John Howell, Peterson’s hometown friend, vowed to make the VC pay for what they had done. Some wondered if this crappy, smelly country of Vietnam was worth such a price. Many wondered that if Pete could die, could they be next? Although loss was a central feature of that long night, May 15 carried several other meanings. Even the men who had been closest to all those who had been lost – Pete, Trcka, Ski, and the rest – had to admit that the day had been full of adrenaline: somehow they had never felt so alive as they had that day when death hovered nearby. Battle had come, full-blown battle, and they had not been found wanting. A few had crumbled, but most had stood tall – fighting, yelling, reacting – as the bullets had flown. After the battle Bob Eisenbaugh reached for his C Rations and froze. He, like many others in Charlie Company, carried his favorite C Rations tucked away in socks tied across his back. The C Rations and the socks were gone – shot away in battle. It suddenly dawned on Bob that he had been less than an inch from death. John Bradfield, who had blazed away with his machine gun that day during 3rd Platoon’s advance, felt good about himself. That evening he sat with Forrest Ramos, who had been his bunkmate since Fort Riley when Bradfield had first introduced Ramos to soul music, and the two spoke of how they really felt like warriors. Richard Rubio spent the night of May 15 with Fred Kenney talking about how lucky they had been when they had run smack into the Viet Cong machine gunner who had been too surprised to fire. “Can you believe that dude didn’t off us?” “Naw, man. Did you see the look in his eyes? They were as big as saucers!” Somehow that day everything had gone their way, and in the excitement that followed, the two felt invincible.
After spending the following day policing the battlefield, collecting weapons, and making a body count, Charlie Company returned to its barracks ship. Remaining in the field, though it brought on a never-ending feeling to operations, had at least kept the men busy and occupied – away from their thoughts. Back on ship, though, the men had more time to realize how many bunks were empty – a feeling heightened when replacements arrived to take the place of dear friends. Doug Wilson spoke for many when he wrote in his diary, “Today our platoon got 9 new replacements. I don’t really care for them too much. I guess it’s just because our platoon just isn’t the same anymore. We don’t even have half the original platoon left.” Charlie Company was changing, becoming something new. The ones who had been there since Fort Riley were now tested warriors and knew that they could trust one another. Their bonds of friendship were tied more tightly than ever, bonds that replacements would find harder and harder to penetrate.
After a day of being back on board ship, an army re-enlistment NCO turned up and went around the ranks of Charlie Company with an offer: if the men re-enlisted for another three-year hitch, he could get them out of the infantry. For some men who had just been through their first battle, the pull was irresistible – more time in the army in return for a safe, rear-echelon job. The re-enlistment NCO visited Steve Huntsman at a particularly vulnerable time, when he was in the hospital recuperating from the shell fragment wound that had severed an artery in his arm. Huntsman had already come to the conclusion that he was not too keen on being shot at, but he had also received a disturbing letter from his wife Karen’s brother back in the States. The letter had gone into great detail about the rising tide of anti-war protest on the homefront, and his brother-in-law wondered along with the protestors whether or not the war was worth all of the sacrifice. The letter closed with an admonition: Steve had a loving wife back home who missed him terribly. He needed to do whatever he could to get back to her safely; dying in this war was not worth it. Huntsman was one of more than 20 in Charlie Company who took the re-enlistment NCO up on his offer. Although the deal was tempting, most of the men of Charlie Company chose to remain with their own unit. At some level they were all scared – but still they chose to stay. Doug Wilson recorded his thoughts in his diary: “I even went and talked to the re-enlistment NCO today. I am not kidding the thought of staying down here in the infantry really scares me. But the thought of three more years in the army scares me worse. So I told the guy no thanks.”
For some, dealing with the aftermath of May 15 was intensely personal. Charlie Nelson woke up tied down in a hospital bed in Long Binh. With no memory of events since his wounding, Nelson asked the doctor why he had been restrained, and the doctor replied that, in a drug-induced haze, Nelson had first tried to get up out of bed to return to the battlefield, “to get those little bastards.” Things had only gotten worse when Nelson had received his first visitor, Lance Morgan, who was there to apologize for having frozen up on the battlefield. Still in a fog, Nelson had gone after Morgan, yelling, “You got me all shot up because you were scared! If you are gonna die, you are gonna die. There ain’t no reason to be scared!” Nelson was then sent to Japan, along with Don Trcka and Enoch Scott. In the hospital, Nelson and Scott became a team – wounded badly in the arms, Scott would do anything that required walking, while Nelson in his wheelchair served as Scott’s hands. After surgery in Japan to repair his battered leg, Nelson went on to Letterman Army Medical Center in San Francisco, where he learned that his leg would be crippled forever. After giving him the news, the staff offered Nelson whatever he wanted to eat as a welcome home. After a bit of thought, Nelson requested fried bread and mutton stew, some of his favorites from the reservation. After a few quizzical looks, the staff informed Charlie that they could not fulfil his culinary request, so he decided to settle for pizza instead.
Dave Jarczewski awoke in the 24th Evacuation Hospital to the sight of a priest hovering over him offering the last rites. After informing the priest that he had no intention of dying, Ski passed out. When he awoke again, three days later, he discovered that the doctors had placed aluminum sutures in his chest, shoulder, and back. He was in the hospital in Vietnam for another week, during which time he received a visit from Ann Landers, before being sent to the military hospital in Camp Zama, Japan, for recuperation. While in Japan, the doctors and nurses gave Ski therapy and gave him the bad news: while his injuries were serious, they weren’t serious enough, and he was probably headed back to Vietnam after a couple of months’ recuperation. Lying there in his bed, facing Vietnam again, Ski could not shake the idea that it was he who had ordered Pete into that rice paddy, and he could not forgive himself for not finding a way to get to Pete before it had been too late. Blame that would never fully dissipate. In June, Ski wrote a letter to Company First Sergeant Crockett. He didn’t want to go to some other unit in Vietnam; he wanted to return to the unit with which he had trained. He wanted to come back home to Charlie Company. Ski had only one request – Hoffman, the RTO who had failed him in battle, had better be gone by the time he got back, or there would be hell to pay.
Don Trcka awoke on his hospital bed in Saigon to find two purple hearts pinned to his pillow. He quickly took inventory of his body parts and discovered that the doctors had left a large wound in his arm open to drain, and that he had a huge gauze patch on his stomach, where he had taken the worst of the wounds from the grenade fragments. The doctor sat down next to him and explained that his wounds had necessitated a colostomy, which meant that he could not defecate on his own and instead had to collect the feces in a small pouch; a situation that might be, in time, reversible. Trcka also had eight aluminum sutures in his stomach. Although, as was the case with the other wounded soldiers, Trcka realized that the army had informed his next of kin that he had been injured, it took Trcka several days before he contacted his parents. He just didn’t know how to inform them about what had happened. How do you explain a colostomy to your father? Trcka finally called his parents from Camp Zama, and informed them only that he would be all right. After a 30-day stay in Japan, Trcka flew to California lying on a bunk strapped into a cargo aircraft with an IV for the pain dangling from his arm. After the plane touched down, Trcka refused the proffered wheelchair. He was going to walk back onto American soil, no matter the pain. From California, Trcka made his way to the San Antonio Military Medical Center, where he was met by his parents. After the tearful reunion, Trcka went with his father into the restroom and showed him what had happened. His father looked at the wound for a moment or two, and then helped his son change his dressing, after which he took Don into a close embrace and said simply, “Son, you did good. I’m proud of you.”
When he arrived at his first hospital stop in Vietnam, Carl Cortright finally received a shot of morphine, which was pure bliss, and news that he was going to be relocated to a hospital where there were specialists in spinal injuries. From then Cortright remembers little until he woke up face down in a bed wondering where he was. Suddenly it hit him, “Oh, shit. I really was injured.” The first thing that he wanted was a drink of water, which the nurses informed him he could not have for another two days, and news about whether he would walk again. He was crushed to hear the surgeon reply, “It does not look very good son.” Carl Cortright had only been in Vietnam for a month and had only seen one real battle, and now, at age 21, he had to face the terrible reality. He would never walk again.
Jacque Peterson was enjoying a late Mother’s Day celebration with her sister-in-law, drinking A&W root beer floats and playing with young Jimmy, when a friend burst in and told Jacque that she had better get home in a hurry. When Jacque reached her small apartment, she was surprised to find three military men taking up her entire couch. The men all stood in unison as she entered the room. Jacque was a little mad that these strangers did not have the decency to allow her to sit with her baby, so she just asked them what on earth they wanted. One stepped forward and said, “Mrs. Peterson, I am sorry to inform you that your husband has been killed in action in Vietnam.” She was incensed. “Why are you bothering me with this? Can’t you see that you have the wrong Don Peterson? There was another Don Peterson drafted from this area. This message was meant for his wife. My Don Peterson is fine.” The man in uniform then informed Jacque, “Lady, we don’t make those kind of mistakes. Your husband is dead. We have to go because we have other stops to make.” At that point she glanced down to see Jimmy on the floor. She didn’t remember putting him down, but she must have. The men left, informing her that they would come back tomorrow. She told them in a fury that someone could come tomorrow, but it had better not be them, and that tomorrow she would get a letter from Don telling her that it was all a crazy mix up.
Jacque had to talk to someone, anyone. Even though she refused to believe that her husband was dead, she had to pass on the news. With no phone in her apartment, Jacque went to her landlady’s and called her mother in Montgomery, Alabama. When there was no answer, they called the Montgomery Police Department, who had to break down the door because Jacque’s mother was passed out drunk. Jacque then called Don’s father, Pete, who, when he heard the quaver in Jacque’s voice, responded, “My son’s dead, isn’t he?” Pete said that he would be there as quickly as he could, and the two agreed not to let Don’s grandparents know anything until he had arrived. The news would crush them, and they would both need to be there to help them cope. Hanging up, Jacque returned to her apartment and clung to little Jimmy, feeling desperately alone. She knew it had to be a mistake. They had the wrong Peterson. Maybe her husband was MIA or wounded or something, but he would turn up soon.
A few days later, Jacque received a call from the mortuary; would she come down and identify Don Peterson’s body? She dropped Jimmy off with a friend and went in alone, shaking uncontrollably. The director of the funeral home asked her what she wanted to do, and she replied that she wasn’t sure. Seeing her obvious distress, the director told her that he would open the casket and leave the room to allow her time alone. After the funeral home director left, Jacque cautiously inched toward the casket, and there he was. It was her Don Peterson. He looked so calm, so beautiful. He didn’t seem to be hurt at all. Somehow she couldn’t cry; she just sat there with the casket and talked to Don, talked to him about everything – their son, the house they would have, everything – talked to Don for four hours straight. Worried that she had not returned, the friend with whom Jacque had left Jimmy finally came and opened the door and told her that she needed to come out Jimmy needed his mother. Jacque was only barely able to make herself leave Don’s side, turning to say, “I’ll be right back” as she left.
It then fell to Jacque to arrange the funeral, as relatives and friends began to gather. Several friends brought over outfits for Jacque to try on. None of her clothes fit anymore because she had hardly eaten since she had received the tragic news. Three days later, Don Peterson was laid to rest in Arroyo Grande with full military honors. Don was the first from the area to die in Vietnam, so the ceremony attracted great interest, complete with local television coverage, while school flags were flown at half-mast for 50 miles around. The military guard informed Jacque that she was to sit in the place of honor with Don’s family during the ceremony and that she was to remain seated to receive the folded flag and to await the 21-gun salute. Jacque nodded her head in understanding, but everything was such a blur. Everything was so wrong. On the way to the funeral, Jacque rode in the lead vehicle with Richard, Don’s younger brother, who was disconsolate. He could not believe that Don, his idol and best friend, was really gone. The two were hand in hand for most of the ceremony. After Don’s casket was lowered into the grave the crowd let out a gasp as Jacque stood at her tallest to receive the flag. She shook the guard’s hand and with tears streaming down her face simply said, “He is my husband.” Jacque then turned and gave the flag to Don’s mother before resuming her seat. At the ceremony’s conclusion Jacque was in a haze of despair. She knew that everyone meant well, but she had to be alone. Leaving Don’s parents to the job of receiving the condolences from Don’s many friends, Jacque took Richard, who was still sobbing deeply, by the hand and walked through the crowd to the limousine. Having had all she could take, she told the driver “just take us home.” After picking up Jimmy from the babysitter, Jacque took him to their tiny apartment where she held him close as she cried for hours. What were they going to do now?
* Thomas Cutler, Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam (Annapolis: United States Naval Institute Press, 1988), pp.240–250.
* Fictitious name.
* Major General William B. Fulton, Vietnam Studies: Riverine Operations, 1966–1969 (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1985), pp.80–81.
* Fictitious name.
† Fictitious name.