6	THE STEADY DRUMBEAT OF WAR

Company C
4th Battalion 47th Infantry
APO San Francisco 96372

 

14 July 1967

Subject: Small Unit Action Report

To: Commanding Officer, 2nd BDE, 9th INF DIV

The Enemy will attempt to choose the battleground whenever possible. He has an abundance of positions, usually, to choose from. He utilizes his defensive positions as an ambush.

The enemy can be and is, in most cases, a well-trained and dedicated soldier. He has good fire discipline and chooses his positions with an understanding of fields of fire.

The enemy will police the battlefield and does a very thorough job of it. He will keep track of your movements and positions. Positioning for a night stand should not be accomplished until after dark.

Charlie will in most cases break contact and slip away during the hours of darkness.

Never cross an open area with the main body until recon elements have thoroughly searched areas of cover ahead. Keep point elements at three men or less. In some areas they will have to precede the main body by 1,000 meters. Never pull them in more than 500 meters in rice paddy areas.

Herbert E. Lind

CPT Commanding^*

Ernie Hartman was born in the tiny community of Sugar Grove in northwestern Pennsylvania to Margaret and Albert Hartman. Soon after Ernie’s birth, Albert and Margaret divorced, and Ernie and his older brother and sister lived with their mother at the home of her parents while Albert relocated to Florida. The family had little money to spare, and at the age of ten Ernie began working odd jobs for local farmers to help pay the bills. Picked on by many of the boys in town because of his family’s status, Ernie grew up having to know how to fend for himself. By the time Ernie reached high school he was tough enough that he was winning his fights, and the bullying soon stopped. Not particularly interested in scholarly pursuits, Ernie turned much of his attention to sports, excelling in both football and track. Now popular, and even a bit brash, Hartman met and started to date a beautiful girl in his class named Jeannie, and was even offered a scholarship to run track at Allan Hancock College in California. Everything seemed to be looking up for young Ernie.

In his senior year Ernie, who served as president of the varsity club, was busy trying to get the attention of one of his friends during study hall when a teacher approached and told him to be quiet. The teacher then informed Ernie that someone was “going to kick his ass one day,” and Ernie responded, “that might be so, but it’s sure as hell not going to be you.” A fight ensued that resulted in Ernie’s expulsion from school. It was the moment that changed his life. There would be no scholarship to Allan Hancock College, and Ernie had to work hard with an individual tutor at nights just to keep up and graduate with his class in May 1966. With his college dreams dashed, Ernie took what jobs he could find, eventually settling in as a precision grinder in a nearby factory. Ernie began to make good money, and, in the late summer, proposed to Jeannie. The couple wed on September 17, 1966, and then went on a short honeymoon to Florida to visit Ernie’s father, Albert. Very much in love, the young couple enjoyed wandering the beaches and planning their future far from the blustery weather of the gathering autumn in New England. While on the honeymoon Ernie was surprised to receive a call from his mother Margaret. In a bit of a shaky voice, she said, “Guess what? Your draft notice came in today.” Ernie had to sit down for a second to process the news, and Jeannie was devastated. They had only been married for a few days and now Ernie was going to have to go to Vietnam? Maybe he shouldn’t go. Maybe there was some other solution or way out. But Ernie was adamant. Serving when their country called was what men were supposed to do, and he was a man. He didn’t have to like it, and she didn’t have to like it, but he was going to serve his country.

Hartman first went to basic at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and then to advanced infantry training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Athletic and smart, Hartman did well in his training, scoring the top marks in his entire company with the M16. Before shipping out to Vietnam, Hartman went home for a short leave and reassured his mother and bride that everything would be fine. He was a good soldier and was bound to wind up in a good unit. After a long and boring plane ride, Hartman arrived in Vietnam on June 10, 1967, and made his way to the replacement depot at Long Binh to receive his assignment. He could have gone anywhere, but when he reached the front of the line Hartman learned that he was going to the 9th Infantry Division as a machine gunner. Apart from wondering why he, an expert with the M16, was going to carry a machine gun, Hartman was happy. He had heard good things about the 9th, and quickly found himself surrounded by other replacements headed to the same unit. The group of newbies remained at Long Binh for several days as more and more replacements arrived. They talked about how the units of the 9th lived on boats and used landing craft instead of helicopters to move around. They talked about what battle might be like. They talked about hometowns and sweethearts. They began the bonding process.

On the evening of June 17 the news came in to be ready to ship out in the morning, but as the helicopters roared in readiness to take Hartman and his new buddies to Charlie Company of the 4th of the 47th, Hartman was pulled out of line. There had been a paperwork problem, and he was going to have to wait a little while longer. The other replacements got there just in time for the battle of June 19, but Ernie Hartman did not arrive with Charlie Company until the following day. Having heard that his new unit had been involved in a major battle, Hartman got off of the helicopter and noticed a huge pile of bloody webgear covered in flies on the ammi barge. The whole place smelled of death. Staring at the webgear, the charred and battered remnants of soldiers’ lives, Hartman thought to himself, “My God. What have these guys been through, and what have I gotten myself into?” The next day the survivors of the 4th of the 47th came on board from their ATCs, battle-weary, quiet, and some obviously in shock. Even though many were in mourning for lost friends, these guys looked tough. And mean. How the hell was he going to fit in? Hartman reported to his squad leader, John Young. Even though he was muddy and distracted, the little NCO from Minnesota was every inch a soldier. Young began to teach Hartman and the other replacements about life during war – how to be on the lookout for booby traps, how to work in the jungle, how to recon a tree line, how not to die and get others killed out of stupidity. It was so much to take in at once. The information, and the danger, seemed almost endless. During the learning process, Hartman and the other new guys hung out together while the old hands from the days at Fort Riley mingled in tight-knit groups of twos or threes going over the events of the past few days. Several things hit Hartman all at once. He wondered if he would ever fit in with these guys, or be accepted. They seemed so comfortable with each other, but seemed to have so little trust for anyone new. They also seemed to have an intimate relationship with death. They talked about their own possible deaths, the deaths of their friends and the deaths that they had meted out, and it all seemed so matter-of-fact. It all seemed so banal. Then Hartman wondered if he ever wanted to fit in.

After only a few days on board ship, Charlie Company was back out in the field, running operations in the Rung Sat Special Zone and in the Mekong Delta proper. For Hartman there remained so much to learn. It was one thing to talk about booby traps and how to hunt for Viet Cong; it was another thing to remember everything while slogging through the mud on operations. Mercifully, Hartman’s first two missions were “walks in the sun” with no meaningful enemy contact. Even so, Hartman could not help feeling a day late and a step behind. Everyone else just naturally seemed to know what to do, while he had to struggle with every step. Pulling his trailing leg from the endless sea of mud, Hartman realized that his learning process was really going to take some time. On July 4, while sweeping an area in Go Cong Province south of Saigon, it fell to Hartman’s squad to set an ambush. To him the whole idea of an ambush seemed brave and even frightening. Charlie Company had just moved through an unoccupied village and was making ready to dig in for the night. As seemed to be usual procedure, the company sent out four squads in different directions, each about 1,900 yards distant from the main force, to set ambushes. John Young led the 1st Squad back the way the company had come. He looked at Hartman and explained that the VC usually shadowed US movements in the Delta, sometimes just to keep track of the American units and other times to launch night attacks. The 1st Squad was headed the right direction if it wanted some action on its ambush.

With Hartman placed in the middle of the column of men, where a newbie could do the least harm, 1st Squad made its way down a wide trail through the abandoned village it had passed through earlier in the day. It was really more a scattering of a few raggedy hooches than it was a village. Everybody else seemed almost casual about things, walking among the hooches apparently without care, but Hartman felt the hair on his neck standing up. Ten guys wandering through a village in enemy territory seemed almost laughably dangerous, and the sun was sinking as twilight gathered. What if they didn’t reach their ambush position before nightfall? But the others had been through all of this before, and if they didn’t worry why should he? A sudden commotion at the front of the file snapped Hartman back into the moment. John Sclimenti, who was just behind the point man, was nearing a T-junction in the trail just as two armed VC walked out of a nearby hooch. After the tiny group stared at each other in amazement for a few seconds, the VC took off running, one to the left and the other to the right. The point man lit out after one, while Sclimenti first shouted then lowered his M16 and squeezed off a couple of rounds before chasing the VC who had run to the right. When he reached the hooch, Sclimenti hurdled over a tiny fence – and smacked his head on the top of a small archway over the gate. There was a sickening THUD, Sclimenti’s helmet flew off, and his body rose parallel to the ground before he came crashing down on his back. John Young, who, along with the rest of the squad, came running up as Sclimenti fell, couldn’t stop laughing. There was Sclimenti lying on the ground with his arms folded over his chest mumbling, “I’ve been shot. I’ve been shot.” Still laughing at the absurdity of the sight, Young replied, “Sclimenti: you haven’t been shot! Now get up and go get that guy!” As Sclimenti felt around his head, realized what had happened, and scrambled to his feet with a sheepish grin on his face, Hartman couldn’t help wondering at the coolness of his new comrades. Here they were in battle, with bullets flying around, and they were laughing and joking. These guys were the real deal.

After getting his helmet back into place, Sclimenti led the group through a dense tree line into which the VC had disappeared. He told them that he wasn’t sure, but he thought that he had hit the VC and that he couldn’t have gotten far. Hartman’s heart nearly beat out of his chest. They were chasing after a real, honest-to-God VC who could open fire on them at any moment! When Sclimenti got clear of the undergrowth he saw the VC hobbling through a wide open rice paddy toward a small stream. A quick burst of warning fire brought the wounded Viet Cong to a halt, but he made sure to throw his weapon away into the stream before stopping. Sclimenti and a few others went over and were searching the prisoner when the point man returned, gasping for breath, to report that the VC he had been chasing had gotten away. Young muttered, “Shit. Now they will all know we’re here.” At nearly the same moment Sclimenti looked up and told Young that the prisoner only had a through and through wound to his calf and asked what he should do with him. Hartman felt his blood run cold at Young’s two word reply: “Kill him.”

Hartman stood and watched as Sclimenti shook his head and refused to kill the prisoner. For just a moment everyone stood still, all was quiet, and not even a breeze rustled the Nipa palm. The spell was broken by the machine gunner, Gerald Tanner,^* who shrugged, said “Goddamn it,” slowly leveled his M60, and poured 30 to 40 rounds into the VC at point-blank range. Hartman watched as the bullets ripped the tiny Vietnamese to pieces; the impacting rounds made the VC appear to dance before hunks of his flesh began to fly away. Hartman’s mind raced. Should he have done something? What could he have done? This kind of shit was not supposed to happen. This was wrong. It went against everything he believed. What the hell was he doing here? Who were these guys – soldiers seemingly filled with such hate? Soldiers who were so immune to death. Would he become like them after a few months of war?

While Hartman grappled with his thoughts, Young got on the radio, reported a VC KIA and told the men to get ready to move out. They still had to get to their ambush position before nightfall. As the men made their way toward their destination Young had to come to terms with his own decision. Had it been right? It had to be right. His ten men were in the middle of enemy territory, and had no way to get a VC prisoner back to the company perimeter before nightfall. The other VC had escaped and Young had to assume that he was at that very moment telling his buddies about 1st Squad’s location. That information made Young’s men incredibly vulnerable. An entire enemy platoon or even a whole company might attack them that night. Facing such odds, caring for a VC prisoner was an unacceptable risk. Even if they tied him up – two of the men would have to watch the prisoner all night. And what if he yelled out? What if he broke free? If the VC attacked, and Young had to assume that they would, 1st Squad was going to have a tough enough time surviving that night without a VC prisoner giving away their location and taking up the attention of two of the men. Young knew that killing a prisoner was against the rules, but he had decided that the safety of his own men took precedence. People had been dying in Charlie Company for months all around him, but none had been in his squad. Amid the death and suffering, Young was more determined than ever to bring all his boys home safely. It was his job, his responsibility – a responsibility that wore on him just a bit more every day. John Young was himself just a 21-year-old from Minnesota. He had never expected to have to make such difficult moral decisions, to weigh the lives of his friends against that of a Vietnamese prisoner, but he had done what he felt was best. It was cold comfort but Young thought to himself, “Sometimes in war there are no right decisions. You can only choose between bad and worse.”

The men of 1st Squad were on 100 percent alert that night, but no attack ever came. The next morning the squad returned to the company perimeter and operations continued as normal. The next night, in the safety of the company defensive position, Hartman began to wonder again. Eventually he fell asleep, only to watch the machine gun rip into the VC again in his dreams – a memory that would haunt him for years to come. A memory that would even intrude unbidden into his daytime routine. Little did Hartman know that a few foxholes away John Young wrestled with his own demons. He still wondered whether he had made the right decision. This was not the kind of stuff that he had signed up for. Young, too, dreamed of the killing that night – a nightmare that he, too, would live with forever. But Young could never share his doubts with his squad. He was their leader and could not show any hint of weakness. He had to be hard. He had to be right so his men would have confidence in him and follow him, so he could get them home safely. They could have doubts and fears, but his own had to be locked away.

For the next three days Charlie Company continued to operate in Go Cong Province as part of a multi-battalion operation aimed at disrupting local guerrilla forces in the area, who, intelligence reported, were busy raising recruits for the 514th Main Force Viet Cong Battalion. The operation had plainly caught the local guerrillas by surprise and resulted in several contacts with small VC units, often only one or two enemy soldiers, who were trying to flee the area. During the four-day operation, the MRF accounted for 105 enemy KIA, most from air attacks. For Charlie Company the operation was a four-day deadly game of cat and mouse with an enemy who did not want to be found. On the day after the completion of the operation, Clarence Shires, the son of a Virginia shipyard worker who had given Lieutenant Duffy Black mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on that long ago day in the Rung Sat, wrote home regarding the on-again, off-again nature of the fighting:

 

Dear Mom and Dad

Well everything’s o.k. I am doing just fine. We just got in off of a three day operation. It was not a quiet operation. We killed a lot of V.C. and captured a lot. They did not fight us most of them we caught by surprise…

One of my team leaders shot a guy coming out of a house the other night. The next morning his little boy and wife came up and started crying. We felt sorry for the family so we changed his bandages and gave him a cigarette and lit it. His wife helped me make him a stretcher. So we carried him 800 meters through mud and water to our C.P. We sent him off in a chopper.

We slept in a house the other night. One guy woke up with a pig chewing at his shirt sleeve. There were a dozen or so rats (big ones) in the house. They were trying to catch the baby chickens. There were three hens with baby chickens in the house. There were pigeons in the house. And every few minutes they would get into a fight. If they wasn’t fighting somebody was throwing or shooting grenades at noises or people running outside. Then about the time you would get to sleep again a Willy Peter round would burst over your head. We were standing guard every hour and half. One time a squad leader called me on the radio and told me to get my men down, that he was going to fire in my direction. He like to have shot the house down that I was in. Then I got off guard again and went to sleep. About that time one of the men in my position shot the man at the house. And believe it or not this is a typical night on operation in Vietnam. If you get four hours sleep a night you are lucky.

We blew up over 200 bunkers these past three days. We used up all of our hand grenades and demo. We found their C.P. and tore their flag pole down and took their flag. A lot of us started whistling a tune as we tore it down.

We took a whole boat load of bananas from a V.C. and we found a house full of bananas. We ate them for two days. I killed a chicken and roasted it. One guy fried some eggs he found. There is always some fun mixed with work and believe me we take full advantage of it.

Well tomorrow we go on a one day operation. We come back tomorrow evening.

Yours, Junior

Small, fleeting contacts, like those of 1st Squad on July 4, were the rule of the day. VC would pop up, fire off a few rounds, and run away, with the units of Charlie Company giving chase. An event typical of the operation took place in 3rd Platoon when Terry McBride and Larry Lukes were investigating a hooch. Finding nothing but a wet pair of sandals, the duo was about to depart when Lukes caught sight of a perfectly round circle on the floor. McBride flipped the trapdoor open and, seeing a VC clutching a grenade, opened fire. After reporting the VC KIA and searching the body, McBride went outside where two other members of the platoon opened fire on a small group of VC who were crossing the road. Getting there just in time, McBride squeezed off a few rounds, and thought that he had hit the last VC in the file in the hand.

Later that night Charlie Company set up its defensive positions and sent out its normal squad-sized ambushes. Jim Stephens took his squad out from 1st Platoon and spread his men out in an “L” shape along a stream for the night. Stephens and his RTO, Fred McMillan, sat in the middle of the group to wait. Jim Dennison later wrote home about the experience:

I had a little excitement this last mission, which you might find interesting. My company set up for the night, and I went on an ambush about 500 meters from their perimeter with 8 other guys. We set up along a woodline in 3 – 3 man positions about 10 feet apart. One man at each position was to be awake at all times. I sacked out since it wasn’t my watch, and about 9:30 this new kid wakes me up and says, “7 guys with weapons just walked by about 10 feet from us, but I didn’t shoot because I thought they were South Viet soldiers.” I felt like wringing the guy’s neck since the only thing that moves around here at night is VC. We all stayed awake after that since God only knew where those 7 guys went. About midnight a guy walks out of the bushes 20 feet in front of me and starts coming my way. I held my fire because I wanted to see if he was alone or what. By the time I had made sure, he was only 3 feet away not having seen me lying there, so I tackled him. It turned out that his hand had about 5 holes in it already and he’d already ditched his weapon. But I didn’t know that. It sounds sort of funny now, but it wasn’t then.

The VC fell on top of Dennison, who was expecting a real fight. Already wounded, though, the VC just asked for a doctor. The next morning the VC was choppered to the rear for questioning, and Dennison felt every inch the hero. As more and more of his old buddies questioned why he had captured the VC and not killed him, Dennison’s feelings began to change. He felt scared. Scared for who he and his buddies were becoming. He wondered when they had all abandoned the trappings of civilization and had become warriors instead.

As the drumbeat of war went slowly on, the men of Charlie Company spent their off days on the Colleton drying out, cleaning weapons, and resting. These short stays were important, allowing the men to deal with the loss and the killing in their own ways. Even though liquor was banned aboard ship, there was always some available, and several of the men turned to alcohol to help them through the dark times. Others wrote home as often as they could, pouring out their thoughts and pains to their loved ones. After June 19, Barbara Kenney noticed a distinct change in the tenor of her husband Fred’s letters. He continued to ask questions about little Freddie. Was he sitting up yet? When would that happen? Would Freddie be walking before his father got home in January? Fred also still mused about what their lives would be like as a family once he came home. Would changing diapers and other fatherly duties mean that he wouldn’t have time anymore to ride motorcycles? But his letters had seemed to take on a tone of despair. The fighting of June 19 had shaken Kenney to the core, especially the horror of watching his friend Forrest Ramos fall to his death out of the dustoff helicopter. He just couldn’t shake the vision from his mind. He had to get home. He just had to make it home safely for little Freddie, but he wasn’t sure anymore if he would make it out of Vietnam alive. Barbara was worried for her husband, but covered it up in her own letters. He would be fine. The loss was fresh now, but he would get over it. As long as he kept his head down and wasn’t a hero he would get home safely, their little family would have a happy life, and Vietnam would fade into a distant memory.

Charlie Company’s hard fighting over the past two months, which showed no signs of letting up, underscored the dangers of war. As young draftees most of the Charlie Company originals had been quite sure of their immortality. People might die in Vietnam, but it would not be them. By July 1967, though, everyone in the unit knew that death could strike anyone at any time. The common realization of their own mortality drew the Charlie Company originals closer than ever before. They were determined not only to see each other through the war safely but also to get everything they could out of life and to enjoy each other’s company along the way. In 2nd Platoon the camaraderie of war and shared mortality drew together an unlikely group of friends. Two within the small 2nd Platoon circle were drawn together in part due to a common background but also because of a love of cars. Mike Cramer was one of the California draftees, a middle-class kid from Pacoima, part of Los Angeles and only a few minutes down the road from Canoga Park and Lancaster – home to so many others in Charlie Company. Too skinny for sports, during high school Cramer mainly hung around with other members of his church youth group. In his spare time Cramer tinkered on cars, especially Fords, and decided that he wanted to be a car mechanic. After high school, Cramer had been taking classes part-time toward his mechanic’s license when he received his draft notice.

It was natural that Cramer would buddy up with Phil Ferro, a tall, good-natured draftee from just down the road in Northridge, California. Born in Bristol, Connecticut, Phil was the eldest child of Tony and Helen Ferro, children of Italian and Russian immigrants respectively. Tony made a good living as a mechanic, but Helen had her heart set on moving to California, so when Phil and his sister Diane were still in grade school, the family pulled up stakes and moved west. In their new world of the San Fernando Valley, Phil and Diane became ever closer, turning to each other for support. The Ferro children, seemingly always together, did well in school. Strong and fast, Phil became a popular athlete, winning the Los Angeles city championship in high hurdles during his senior year while Diane was selected as “Miss Northridge” of 1963, both receiving college scholarships.

Phil and Diane enjoyed hanging out with their friends on the beach during the summers, but more than anything the brother and sister team shared a love of cars born of long afternoons helping their father in his garage. While Phil was a student at Grover Cleveland High School, Tony bought the family a project, paying $10 for the burned-out shell of a ’57 Chevy. Father and son spent months rebuilding the car from the ground up, elbow-deep in grease and oil nearly every weekend, restoring it to mint condition. Now with a stylish ride to go with his athletic fame, Phil joined the southern California cruising culture and loved to spend evenings slowly driving up and down Van Nuys Boulevard. To celebrate the completion of work on the car, Phil asked his girlfriend, Linda, to the event of a lifetime to see the Beach Boys in concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Linda, though, fell ill and suggested that Phil take her friend Sandy as his date instead. The concert was magical, and the two fell in love. Within months Phil proposed, and the couple were married shortly after Phil’s graduation from high school in 1965. Wanting to be a mechanic and to open his own garage, Phil went to Pierce Junior College, where he majored in business, and planned to go on to California State, Northridge, to complete his studies. Phil, though, had to work to afford an apartment for himself and his wife, and could only go to school part-time. Only a few weeks after shifting over to part-time status, Phil received his draft notice.

Wanting to spend as much time with her new husband as possible, Sandy went with Phil to Fort Riley, where they lived in a small apartment. The couple, sometimes inviting Phil’s new friends over to a welcome home-cooked meal, quickly became popular among the boys of Charlie Company. Even though Ferro liked Chevys and Mike Cramer swore by Fords, the two had quickly bonded over their love of cars and talked about everything automotive from rebuilding engines to body work. Sometimes their conversations deteriorated into an indignant debate over the relative merits of Ford and Chevy, a topic of never-ending fun, which the two decided needed to be settled with a race right after they got back to southern California for good.

While it was cars that had brought Cramer and Ferro together as friends, it was a shared rural upbringing that formed a bond between two other members of the 2nd Platoon. Butch Eakins was a country boy from Cape Girardeau, Missouri. He had grown up in a rural environment far removed from the city life so familiar to Cramer and Ferro in Los Angeles. From a poor family, Eakins had to go to work doing odd jobs at an early age and never had thought much about school. Maybe he would go to a big city or maybe he would work on farms, but he knew that his future held hard work, not college. As a teen Eakins had been a bit rough around the edges, frequenting taverns and riding a motorcycle that he had rebuilt himself. After graduation Eakins took a job at the Caterpillar plant in Peoria, Illinois, where he worked until he was drafted. At Fort Riley, Eakins, hard working and sometimes too honest for his own good, met Henry Burleson, a country boy from Texas who had grown up hunting and singing gospel music. Even though their accents were different, and Eakins preferred Country and Western to gospel, the two quickly became close friends. The two seemed to share everything together, including their escape from the mock POW camp. During AIT Eakins and Burleson had to work closely with Cramer and Ferro, receiving training together to learn to use recoilless rifles. Although the city slickers and the country boys seemed to have little in common, they bonded almost instantly, with Eakins even winning Cramer over from rock-n-roll to country music. It was playing his favorite song, Buck Owens’ “Above and Beyond,” that did the trick.

The others in the small group of friends all knew that Henry Burleson was religious. Henry didn’t flaunt it, or preach it. His deep faith was just evident in how he held himself and spoke. Cramer, Ferro, and Eakins respected Burleson’s faith and appreciated the fact that he was not aggressive about it. One early morning on the trip to Vietnam aboard the John Pope, Burleson had found Eakins sitting off in a corner alone. It was obvious that Eakins was scared. Burleson sat down beside Eakins and asked if he could do anything to help. Eakins looked up at him and said, “Henry, I just don’t know if I am gonna make it back from Vietnam, and I don’t know if I’m ready to die or not.” Burleson took the copy of the New Testament that his mother had given him on his leave after training and asked Eakins if he had heard about Jesus. Eakins responded that he knew the story but had never given it much thought. Burleson then put his hand on Eakins’ shoulder and said, “Do you have the Lord in your heart? He died for you, and if you have him in your heart you will spend eternity in heaven.” With tears in his eyes, Eakins asked the Lord for forgiveness and to enter his heart. Burleson sat with his friend for a few moments longer and assured him that everything would be all right.

In Vietnam, the friendships between the members of the small group became even closer. They seemed to share everything, from pictures of their loved ones to care packages from home. Everyone especially enjoyed the cookies sent by Phil Ferro’s mother, which they always gobbled up within minutes of their arrival. Because of their popularity, Phil wrote and told his mother that his buddies all hoped that she could send more. Helen responded by gathering together women from all over her community, including Bill Reynolds’ mum, to bake and buy goods for packages to send not only to Phil and his friends but also to soldiers throughout 2nd Platoon. Soon Helen Ferro’s group had expanded so much that it was sending care packages to many of the servicemen from the San Fernando Valley, often writing to those same soldiers so that they would always get something at mail call. Helen Ferro kept up her care package and letter-writing work for years, becoming the adopted mother of many young men who served in Vietnam.

Due in part to a hearing loss, Burleson was put on construction duty at Bear Cat and Dong Tam while in Vietnam, and became somewhat separated from the group. They all remained close, though, with Eakins, Ferro, and Cramer informing Burleson of their doings after every mission. The experiences had been difficult, from trudging through the Rung Sat to several near misses from booby traps and mines. On June 19 the trio had worked hard to lay down fire on enemy lines and to aid the wounded, with Ferro even receiving a Bronze Star for his actions. But even with all of the death that surrounded them, the little group seemed blessed. They had all avoided injury, and their circle had even expanded. Harold Wayne King was from the small town of Copper Hill, outside Roanoke, Virginia. Graduating from Floyd County High in 1966, King was drafted in August of the same year. Arriving in Vietnam in February 1967, King was one of the early replacements in Charlie Company and found himself in 2nd Platoon, where he joined Eakins, Ferro, and Cramer. The group got along together well, with Butch Eakins especially taking King under his wing. Both country boys, Eakins and King just seemed to hit it off and became nearly inseparable.

At the beginning of July, Phil Ferro had received great news. He was going to get his R and R to Hawaii to see his wife and family, and none too soon. He was ready for a break. He wrote home proclaiming his good luck and told everyone to make plans to meet him there on July 21, where they would have the time of their lives. On July 10, just after word came down that Charlie Company was headed out on another operation, Butch Eakins told Henry Burleson that he didn’t think that he was going to come back from this one. Burleson put his arm around Eakins’ shoulder and told him that everything was going to be OK. The two men then prayed together for a few minutes before Eakins had to go and join Ferro, Cramer, King, and the rest aboard the ATC.

On the morning of July 11, the 4th of the 47th began a battalion-sized operation near the old battlefield of June 19. Intelligence indicated that VC company-sized elements were in the area trying to raise recruits to reconstitute the 5th Nha Be Battalion. Enemy activity appeared to be centered in the villages along the Rach Song Cau and the Song Duong La rivers. In the early afternoon Alpha and Charlie companies moved by ATC to the east bank of the Rach Song Cau, where Alpha landed to the north at a bend in the river while Charlie beached in the south. At the same time Bravo beached on the west bank of the river. As Bravo swept its bank of the stream, Charlie moved north to act as a blocking force, while Alpha swept to the south, hoping to catch any Viet Cong in the area in a vise.

It seemed like every time Charlie Company went out there was good intelligence that indicated a large enemy force in the area, but most of the time nothing happened. Either the intelligence was faulty or the enemy slipped away without a major battle, so July 11 was just another day. Captain Lind had heard the reports, knew the enemy was supposed to be in the area, and acted with appropriate caution. But he had little faith that the reports were accurate. When Charlie Company beached, just after 1pm, Lind got his troops into order. On such operations the task of serving as lead platoon rotated, and it was 2nd Platoon’s turn. Shouldering their gear and readying their weapons, Lieutenant Benedick’s men took the lead in the unit’s sweep to the north to its blocking position, flanked by 3rd Platoon on the right, with 1st Platoon on the left and bringing up the rear. After only a few steps a single round buzzed in, striking Idoluis Casares above the left kneecap. There hadn’t really been that much of a noise, and several men wondered if Casares had just tripped until they saw the wound on his leg. A spent round had struck Casares, and when he struggled to his feet the bullet simply popped out of the wound. But still the injury was bad enough to require a dustoff. A few moments later, after 2nd Platoon had renewed its march, Mario Lopez was nearing a small ravine when a Viet Cong soldier erupted from the water almost beneath his feet. Standing only inches away with his rifle at the ready the VC, water streaming in rivulets from his body, locked fearful gazes with Lopez. After a split second that seemed like an eternity, Lopez opened fire, dropping the VC back into the water with another tremendous splash. Locked in a singular moment of fear and surprise Lopez kept firing until it finally registered that someone, perhaps Platoon Sergeant Kerr, was yelling at him to cease fire. Shocked back into reality, Lopez’ finger slacked on the trigger, and he stood in semi shock as other troopers from 2nd Platoon searched the dead VC. Lopez was shaking uncontrollably, and he almost abstractly noticed that he was covered in water. The VC had been so close that the splash he created when he leapt to his feet had soaked Lopez. How the hell could he have been that close? How could death have been that close? As Lopez gathered his thoughts the troopers of 2nd Platoon began to wonder if they were being watched, if the VC were out there all around. The afternoon was off to a bad start.

Once the dustoff departed, 2nd Platoon resumed its move northward across the rice paddies. After what had happened to Alpha Company on June 19, Charlie Company had altered its tactical regimen. It was too dangerous for the entire company, or even a platoon, to move across a rice paddy in the open; if the enemy were dug in at the tree line on the far side, the results would be disastrous. Instead the lead platoon would send out a single squad to recon the tree line while the remainder of the company lingered to the rear, enjoying a quick break, to await events. It was a standard routine that the company employed countless times each day. Every squad of every platoon took its turn. Normally there was nobody dug in at the far tree line, nothing happened, and men of Charlie Company put out their smokes, shouldered their weapons, and moved out. A few minutes later the company would come to another open rice paddy, and it was another squad’s turn to recon while the others rested for a bit. But everyone knew that one day, as had been the case on May 15 and June 19, the Viet Cong would be in the next tree line, and it would be the recon squad that would pay the price.

At 1:30pm Lieutenant Benedick brought 2nd Platoon to a halt and called over Sergeant George Smith. It was his squad’s turn to recon a tree line about 200 yards away across an open rice paddy to Charlie Company’s north. Smith went and got his men, Butch Eakins, Bill Varskafsky, Harold Wayne King, Henry Hubbard, and Frank Schwan. Varskafsky, a Charlie Company original from Washington who had worked in a shipyard but had secretly hoped to become a doctor, had been humping the radio all day. Having struggled from one mud hole to the next, Varskafsky was exhausted. It was OK; Phil Ferro volunteered to take his place. It would give him more time to hang with his buddy Butch Eakins. Hubbard was a relatively new replacement, and Frank Schwan was one of 2nd Platoon’s machine gunners, a Hungarian draftee from Cleveland who had made one of the company’s first kills when he had shot up a sampan in the Rung Sat. With Eakins and Ferro chatting amiably, the six men started forward across the expanse toward a scattering of hooches and the far tree line. They walked in a staggered formation, with Schwan intentionally lagging a bit behind knowing that machine gunners were the VC’s favorite target. It was just like so many recons before, a boring and hot walk in the sun. As the group neared the hooches, about 200 yards in advance of the remainder of Charlie Company, Smith swung toward the left avoiding the hooches themselves and making straight for the tree line. The shift in direction placed Schwan uncomfortably close to the front of the line as the soldiers closed to within 100 feet of their goal. Suddenly there was a sharp CRACK of an AK47 firing, and the bullet struck Schwan in the midsection.

The entire tree line then blazed with enemy small arms and automatic weapon fire. As he was falling, another bullet struck Schwan in the shoulder, which spun him around and wrenched the M60 machine gun from his grasp. Without cover, Sergeant Smith, Eakins, and Ferro, who were at the very front of the line, dropped to their bellies and returned fire toward the unseen foe. Feeling no pain, only a strange sense of numbness, Schwan began to crawl but noticed that his movement among the rice attracted new enemy fire. He thought to himself, “I had better be still, or they’re going to shoot me again.” As he lay there, Schwan wondered what he could do, wounded, without a weapon, and stranded in the open, as the VC fire came in so heavily that it sounded like a continuous and deafening roar. Wriggling just a little bit, Schwan was able to look behind him and noticed that King and Hubbard had taken refuge behind a small dike in the paddy. He yelled at them to give him some covering fire, and that he was going to come in. Hubbard and King opened up with their M16s, and Schwan, in agonizing pain, scrambled to his feet and ran the short distance to the dike and dove to the ground, briefly passing out after the impact.

Waking up a few seconds later Schwan looked up at the agonized face of Harold Wayne King. His friends were out there in the open, screaming for help. The Viet Cong had them dead to rights, and they were going to die unless he did something. His eyes widening at the sight, Schwan watched as King jumped over the dike and ran toward the enemy fire to retrieve Schwan’s machine gun. Then, engulfed by a new wave of pain, Schwan passed out again. After he came to, Schwan noticed that King was back, lying wounded on the ground next to him, while Hubbard administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Try as he might, though, Hubbard could not raise a pulse. Schwan then rolled over to see what he could do, and after opening King’s shirt he saw a clean hole through King’s neck just below the Adam’s apple – a fatal wound. Schwan then took note of the scene around him – all of the machine gun’s ammo had been spent. King had retrieved the fallen weapon and had given his friends Ferro, Eakins, and Smith what cover he could until his ammunition was gone and he himself was killed. Snapping back to reality, Schwan’s skin suddenly went cold. The battlefield had fallen eerily silent. There was no firing from the Viet Cong bunkers; no firing from Smith, Eakins, and Ferro. It could only mean one thing: they were dead. It was just him and Hubbard out there in the open, 200 yards of open ground from their own lines and safety. They were stranded only 100 feet from an enemy unit he guessed to be of company size. What the hell were they going to do? Making matters worse, Schwan finally got a good look at his own wounds. Both bullets had passed clean through his body, but there was not much blood. Instead the wounds only oozed pinkish bodily fluids. Hit by a wave of nausea, Schwan vomited – vomited blood. He was bleeding internally. Unless he could get help, he was going to die.

Lieutenant Benedick had been sitting on a rice paddy dike next to his RTO, Mike Cramer, watching the advance of Smith’s squad while the rest of the men took a short break. When the firing began, Benedick and Cramer jumped to cover behind the dike and took stock of the situation. The enemy fire was intense, but there were so many small dikes between them and Smith’s squad that Benedick could not see what was happening. Given the volume of enemy fire Benedick feared the worst. The point squad was so far out that Benedick was helpless. Every time he tried to maneuver part of his own platoon out into the paddy, it fell under heavy fire and could not get forward. His men could not even lay down much covering fire; there were too many small rice paddy dikes in the way, and they were afraid of hitting their own fallen friends. Benedick called in artillery, but, since his own men were stranded only a few feet from the enemy positions, he couldn’t call the fire in close enough to do much good. Air strikes came in as well, one almost hitting 3rd Platoon, but again the distances were too close to allow for a direct strike on the VC bunkers. With the men around him increasingly desperate as the afternoon wore on, and with several, including Mike Cramer and Bill Reynolds, volunteering to try to reach Smith’s men, Benedick called in a salvo of smoke rounds to give cover to a rescue attempt. There was brief hope when the smoke rounds went off on target, but that hope was dashed by a brisk breeze that quickly blew the smoke away. Intensely frustrated, but not willing to let it show to his men, Benedick gave them the bad news. There would be no rescue. He was not going to sacrifice the living in a suicidal attempt to reach the dead. Instead he gave the most difficult order of his career: 2nd Platoon was to fall back into a nearby tree line and set up a night defensive position. Mike Cramer could hardly believe it. Eakins, Ferro, and the rest were out there, maybe wounded and needing help, just a few feet from the enemy. And now they were going to be marooned out there alone all night.

Battle of July 11

Within moments of the opening burst of fire, Captain Lind realized that Benedick, with 2nd Platoon pinned down and a squad perhaps lost, needed help. Lind radioed the situation to battalion. Both Alpha and Bravo companies, though, had also met dug-in enemy forces of company strength. Neither would be able to reach Charlie Company that day. With no help, and with artillery and air strikes largely ineffective, Lind ordered both 3rd and 1st platoons to move to try to flank the Viet Cong position and take pressure off 2nd Platoon. On the company left flank, 1st Platoon, under Lieutenant Hunt, moved to make up the distance and linked up with 2nd Platoon. But when Hunt’s men moved past the final tree line and out into the open, they, too, fell under heavy fire and were pinned down. The enemy bunker line was so extensive, running for about 300 yards in a gentle U shape, that 1st Platoon was unable to maneuver and could only offer covering fire. While the others in 1st Platoon went about the business of war, newbie Ernie Hartman couldn’t help just lying there a moment and wondering what the hell was going on. Those were real bullets cracking overhead and slamming into the rice paddy dike. Those were real Viet Cong, and they were trying to kill him. Getting his bearings, Hartman joined his platoon mates in returning fire, and realized that he was trying to kill someone. The noise, the confusion, the yelling, and the fear. It – war – was real in all its awful beauty. Hartman began to realize what the veterans in his platoon felt and why they felt it. Hartman began to fit in. Further down the line, two of the 1st Platoon originals, John Young and John Sclimenti, were also hard at work pouring fire onto the enemy positions. As “old” veterans, they reacted to the battle differently. Realizing that 2nd Platoon had taken casualties, Sclimenti looked over at Young and yelled above the din “Young! Man, I hope that they didn’t get any of the old timers.”

While on the ATCs that morning making their way to the battlefield, Fred Kenney sat with Tom Conroy in 3rd Platoon sharing the newest pictures of his son. While Conroy looked at the pictures, and Kenney regaled him with stories about what Freddie was going to be when he grew up, a replacement walked by to take a look as well. The newbie looked at Kenney and then at Conroy and then back again before asking if the two were brothers. Both Kenney and Conroy got a good laugh at that. Before the pair left the ATC, Conroy, who was newly married himself, couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to get home to his wife Vivian and start his own family. It seemed like this new operation was off to a good start. There had been no contact early in the morning, maybe there wouldn’t be any in the afternoon either. As Smith’s squad of 2nd Platoon worked its way forward into the open rice paddy, Hoskins’ platoon was a bit more bunched together as it moved forward through a dense but small tree line on Charlie Company’s right flank. Richard Rubio, who had been so close to Forrest Ramos and had grown up with Fred Kenney, had been walking point that day, followed closely by Fred Kenney and Larry Lukes. Just after 1:30pm, Kenney relieved Rubio of his duty on point and made his way ahead of the rest of the unit and into the narrow tree line. As soon as he stepped between the trees, a burst of fire caught Kenney full in the chest. Kenney crumpled to the ground with his arms folded tightly to his chest, yelling, “Someone help me! I’m hit! I’m hit!” Caught out in the open, Rubio and Lukes dropped where they were amid the heavy fire. Rubio screamed, “Kenney! NO! NO! NO!” He had lost two of his closest friends in only a matter of weeks.

Before the firing began, Hoskins’ 3rd Platoon had closed to within 30 yards of the Viet Cong positions on the right side of the U-shaped Viet Cong bunker complex. The fire was intense and so heavy that it forced everyone to drop in place. Those lucky enough to have fallen behind some sort of cover did their best to return fire. Terry McBride did what he could with his M60 machine gun, but was not in the best of positions and could not even see the enemy bunkers. Rubio and Lukes, having been near the point, were exposed and vulnerable. McBride, though, was near a small sampan in the semi-flooded paddy and dragged it forward just far enough for Rubio and Lukes to use it as cover to fall back behind a small dike. Rubio then opened up with his M16, firing at VC who were visible for fleeting moments moving between their bunkers, but it jammed. Rubio then got another rifle from Tom Conroy, who was busy on the radio, and fired until it blew up in his hands, leaving him temporarily deafened.

Having dropped in the open off to the left of his point element alongside Tim Fischer, Hoskins looked around and noticed how close he was both to where Kenney had fallen and to the enemy positions. Always aggressive, the poet-soldier yelled to Fischer above the din, “We are close enough to assault that bunker line!” Watching as incoming fire kicked up dirt all around them, Fischer responded, “Are you sure about that?” Hoskins just yelled “Yeah!” Too far from Conroy and the radio, Fischer yelled as loud as he could to his right and left, “We are gonna go!” Seconds later Hoskins and Fischer jumped up and started running, but, having taken only three steps, Hoskins went down with a bullet in the thigh. Fischer flopped down beside him and asked, “What do you think now? Do we still need to do this?”

John Bradfield, the Cleveland draftee who loved to play soul music for the guys on his record player, had hit the dirt when the fire had started and switched his M16 to full automatic. He was crawling through the rice looking for the enemy bunkers when he caught a glimpse of movement: the enemy. He moved forward just a bit further and came face-to-face with Lieutenant Hoskins, who was carrying a revolver and a hand grenade. The two held their fire and Bradfield stifled a laugh. He had nearly killed the lieutenant! As Tim Fischer crawled into view, Hoskins told Bradfield to lay down covering fire. Seeing that Hoskins was wounded, Bradfield replied that he was going to get him some help. Hoskins shot back, “Son, I’ve got that under control. You start firing toward those enemy positions!”

Having taken cover wherever they could when the firing started, the other men of 3rd Platoon were scattered all over. Some were able to reach the meaningful cover of paddy dikes, while others, like Ron Vidovic, the divorced soldier with two children who had been drafted from Tacoma, and Jim “Porky” Johnson, were firing from vulnerable positions that were little more than small depressions in the ground. While Vidovic, McBride, Larry Lukes, and the other soldiers of 3rd Platoon swapped fire with the unseen enemy, the platoon medic Elijah Taylor yelled over to Hoskins, pleading to be allowed a chance to go and get Kenney. Taylor screamed that he might still be alive, but Hoskins refused. The lieutenant knew all too well that getting up and trying to move under that fire meant certain death. From behind what cover they could find, all over the battlefield members of the 3rd Platoon fired everything they had at the enemy positions, but nothing seemed to do any good. The Viet Cong were too well entrenched and too numerous. What few artillery rounds and air strikes came in had no effect. The VC fire simply would not slacken. In desperation Hoskins yelled to Conroy to get on the horn and call in smoke rounds; maybe a smokescreen would allow someone to reach Kenney and give any others still stranded in the open a chance to reach cover. The rounds detonated on target, but the smoke blew away too quickly to be of any use.

With night closing in and the paddy flooding as the tide rose, Hoskins knew that he had to get his men back to some kind of cover and form a coherent defensive position. Orders were screamed from man to man. “Hoskins is calling in smoke and we’re all gonna pull back!” Terry McBride, Tom Conroy, and many others shouted back that they wanted one chance to crawl out to Kenney. How could they pull back and just leave him there? But each time they moved, the enemy fire was too intense. Kenney was too far away, too exposed. They would have to fall back without him. Since Hoskins was wounded and could no longer crawl, Tim Fischer came up with the idea of blowing up his air mattress. When the smoke came in, Vidovic and Johnson provided covering fire as Fischer dragged Hoskins away. Before all of the smoke cleared, Vidovic and Johnson scrambled to their feet and ran to cover in the rear, diving over a final paddy dike as bullets slapped into the mud all around.

The unit gathered in the safety of a small tree line and dug in for the hardest night that many of the men would ever know. Richard Rubio was disconsolate. He had been so close to Kenney when he was hit, had seen it so clearly. He knew that his friend was dead; nobody could have survived that wound, but he had to try to get to him. He couldn’t just leave Kenney out there all alone. In the intermittent flashes of artillery fire and the ghostly glow of illumination rounds, the men of 3rd Platoon caught glimpses of the VC moving around on the battlefield. What would happen if they found Kenney? Rubio, Lukes, Fischer, John Howell, Terry McBride, and Elijah Taylor just couldn’t take it anymore. The little group part crawled and part swam through the paddy water toward where they knew Kenney to be. As the group crawled along, John Howell, who had spent much of the day so close to enemy lines that a US air strike had coated him in mud, heard someone whisper Kenney’s name. But the Viet Cong must have heard it too, because a blaze of fire erupted from the enemy positions. It was just too dark, the fire was too heavy, and the risk too great, so they pulled back to wait for morning.

Frank Schwan had kept fading in and out of consciousness during the afternoon, often vomiting up blood. But as darkness began to fall a growing fear snapped him fully awake. There was going to be no rescue attempt by 2nd Platoon or anyone else. He and Hubbard were alone. Schwan knew what would happen when it got fully dark – the Viet Cong would come looking for them. Rolling over on his side, Schwan looked at Hubbard and said, “We had better get ready for them. I ain’t planning on dying without taking a few of them with me.” Schwan then took out two grenades, looped his finger through the pin of one and gave the other to Hubbard. Having fought bravely alongside Schwan all day, Hubbard gritted his teeth and nodded. He knew what they had to do. The two men slid down low behind the rice paddy dike, with little but their heads sticking out of the water, and listened. Here and there were the sounds of tiny splashes and hushed voices. The Viet Cong were combing the flooded fields looking for them. As the voices came nearer and nearer, Schwan and Hubbard tried not even to breathe. The Viet Cong paused only a few feet away and stood silently for a few seconds. The tension was unbearable. Then the Vietnamese began chatting again and their voices and splashing receded into the distance. Letting out a long, quiet sigh, Schwan realized that they had gotten lucky. If they stayed put they were dead men; they had to risk sneaking away before the VC came back. Schwan whispered to Hubbard, “Come on. I’m not going to die in this shit hole.”

The two crawled with agonizing slowness through the paddy water, moving as noiselessly as possible toward what they hoped were friendly positions. After crawling for 30 yards, and what seemed an eternity, Schwan and Hubbard reached a sizeable paddy dike, which allowed them to walk stooped over without being seen. Hubbard helped Schwan along, who had to stop on occasion to throw up blood. Several times the pair had to drop in place and hold their breath to avoid notice of the wandering Viet Cong patrols. Schwan and Hubbard had only just gotten to their feet again after a brush with the Viet Cong when an illumination flare lit up the entire battlefield. The two threw themselves down in near panic, hoping that they had not been seen. The sudden movement set Schwan’s body afire with pain, and he writhed silently in the water as the flare slowly went out. To the pair’s surprise, the VC didn’t come, and their journey could continue. After what seemed like hours of crawling and stumbling in the darkness, Schwan and Hubbard came to a raised burial mound dotted with graves and small bushes. Estimating that they had covered hundreds of yards, Schwan reasoned that they were nearing friendly lines and told Hubbard that they should stop and take cover. Moving any farther meant running the risk of being shot by their own friends. Huddled behind one of the larger grave mounds, Schwan and Hubbard waited for first light. Far too frightened to sleep, Schwan kept vomiting blood and wondered if he would survive the night.

It was a long night for the members of Lieutenant Benedick’s 2nd Platoon. Everyone had known the members of Sergeant Smith’s squad well, knew their hopes and dreams, wives and girlfriends – and they had left them behind. Benedick put a stop to all thoughts of any rescue mission. It was too far and too dangerous. Those guys were dead, and there was no use in losing more men to retrieve their bodies. Mike Cramer didn’t quite know how to handle it. Three of his best friends were out there, maybe wounded, and here he sat doing nothing? It was almost more than he could bear. Then he saw the lights. Red lights – the red map lights on the end of every GI flashlight. The lights were pointing in the direction of the 2nd Platoon and waving slightly. Somebody was alive out there and signaling for help! They just had to go now, had to launch a rescue mission. Benedick calmed Cramer down and told him that the lights were not being waved by anybody in Smith’s squad. It was the VC, who were looting the bodies, trying to lure them out.

At the first hint of light Schwan and Hubbard crawled as far toward the lines of 2nd Platoon as they dared, and then Schwan took a chance and yelled “Hey Lopez, this is Schwan, Frank Schwan. Don’t shoot!” Mario Lopez, a Charlie Company original from Calexico, California, couldn’t believe his ears. Schwan and Hubbard both stood up after they saw Lopez lift his head just above the rice paddy dike. Lopez yelled, “It’s them! They’re alive!” Seconds later several members of 2nd Platoon jumped over the paddy dike and helped Schwan and Hubbard to safety, buzzing with questions about how they had survived. Cramer was happy to see anyone from Smith’s squad; it was a true miracle. But he didn’t see his buddies Eakins, Ferro, and King. His hopes had been raised, only to be dashed again.

A few minutes later 2nd Platoon moved out across the rice paddy toward enemy lines. The men walked slowly, not knowing what to expect. Were there booby traps? Were the Viet Cong still there in force? Was there going to be another firefight? As Benedick neared the site of the previous day’s fighting, it became apparent that the Viet Cong had fled during the night. He first found the body of Harold Wayne King, surrounded by bullet casings where the young draftee had fought to the death. Benedick then came upon the bodies of Smith, Ferro, and Eakins. All of their weapons were gone, their shirts were open indicating that their bodies had been looted, and two had been shot in the head by the Viet Cong during the night. Mike Cramer walked up and knelt between the bodies of Eakins and Ferro, such good friends who had died only feet apart in Vietnam so far away from home. With tears in his eyes, Cramer couldn’t help humming a bit of Eakins’ favorite song, “Above and Beyond,” as he covered his best friend with his poncho. Just the day before, Cramer had walked with Eakins and Ferro in the heat talking about seemingly everything under the sun, and now they were gone. It was all so quick, and all so painful. He wondered how Phil’s wife and family would feel, learning of his death even as they were getting ready to visit him in Hawaii. He wondered if he would ever have friends as good as these again. He wondered if he could ever have friends at all again – it hurt so bad to lose them. Cramer remained with Eakins and Ferro until the dustoffs came to collect the bodies. Then, in a whirl of rotors and a downward blast of air, they were gone, and the war went on.

Benedick and his men then went on to sweep through the Viet Cong bunker complex. It was massive, and from it the men could see that Smith’s squad had been caught in a deadly crossfire. They never had a chance, making the survival of Schwan and Hubbard all the more miraculous. That the VC were gone filled the men with rage – 2nd Platoon had lost an entire squad. Everyone had lost friends, but there were no dead VC, none. There were not even blood trails – just a few pitiful bullet holes around the bunkers. Their friends were dead and the VC had gotten away scot-free. The sons of bitches didn’t even stand and fight like men. It was an impotent and frustrated rage with no outlet. The men of 2nd Platoon explored the bunkers by fire – shooting into them or tossing in grenades before they looked in. They hoped that there was someone inside, hoped that someone would die. Lieutenant Benedick was right there with his men, carrying his sawed-off shotgun. When he reached one small bunker, he thrust the barrel of his weapon inside and fired. After the deafening report, there was a bit of moaning and then silence. Benedick looked inside to find the body of a Viet Cong soldier he had just shot. Someone, at least, had paid the price.

With Sergeant Joe Marr now in command since Lieutenant Hoskins had been wounded, 3rd Platoon also made its way slowly back across its own battlefield that morning against little resistance. One sniper round managed to strike home, though, wounding John Howell badly in the thigh. After the fire and commotion ceased, everyone searched the still-flooded paddy for Fred Kenney. After nearly an hour, Tim Fischer yelled “Over here!” He had nearly stumbled over Kenney, who was half-submerged in the water. Fischer took Kenney’s legs, and Tom Conroy took his arms to hoist Kenney out of the mud. The paddy water drained in a torrent from a gaping wound in Kenney’s chest, a wound directly into his heart. He had died almost instantly. When Fischer and Conroy shifted the body to carry it to higher ground, a spurt of blood jetted out and hit Conroy. It is his last coherent memory of his time in Vietnam. He remained in country until January, and fought in more battles, but because of the shock of that single moment, the rest of his tour is just a haze. Fischer and Conroy carried Kenney to a nearby paddy dike and put him back down to wait for the dustoff. His weapon was gone, as were his watch and his wedding ring. Richard Rubio, Larry Lukes, and several others just stopped where they were and sat down in the mud to cry. Soldiers, tough soldiers like them who had been through so much, were not supposed to act that way. But Fred Kenney, “Cool Wig,” was special. He had been everybody’s friend. So happy, so ready to lend a hand to anyone who was down. So full of unbridled joy in his fatherhood. Fred Kenney more than anyone else was supposed to make it home, supposed to meet his child, supposed to teach Freddie how to ride a motorcycle, supposed to live. For just a few fleeting moments the Vietnam War stopped as Fred Kenney’s friends in 3rd Platoon paused to mourn his passing.

Enraged by what they had found, the men of 3rd Platoon went on to search the Viet Cong bunker complex hoping that someone would be there, spoiling for a fight. But, as with 2nd Platoon, there was nobody there, no focus for 3rd Platoon’s anger. In the battle area near where Kenney had fallen, there was a scattering of hooches, not really a village or even a hamlet – just a few, solitary dwellings. Nobody really knows who did it first, but soon one of the hooches went up in flames. Then they all went up in flames. It wasn’t the revenge that 3rd Platoon wanted, but it was just going to have to do.

Frank Schwan drifted in and out of consciousness on the helicopter ride to the hospital outside Saigon while battlefield scenes of Eakins, Ferro, Smith, and King kept replaying in his mind. He was safe and reasonably sure that he was going to live. But had he done enough for them? Could he have done anything more? Hustled off of the helicopter, Schwan first met a nurse who asked him where and when he had been wounded. He replied that he had been hit in the stomach and shoulder but that it had happened the day before. Her expression changing, the nurse shoved him through the other patients, saying, “He is next for surgery!” The doctors took a quick look at Schwan’s wounds, but there was little that they could do but stabilize him; injuries like his needed to be treated by military specialists in Japan. With drains in both his stomach and back, and an IV hooked up to his shoulder, Schwan was placed on a jet bound for the military hospital in Camp Zama, Japan, where a doctor looked him over and immediately broke into a string of cursing. Schwan’s chest drainage tube had been placed incorrectly, and, if it had fallen off during transit, his lung would have collapsed, which might have resulted in his death. After a string of surgeries, which he was sure would leave him one heck of a scar, Schwan was finally able to contact his parents, who were so concerned that they threatened to get on the next plane to Japan. After talking his father out of the idea, Schwan went on to a lengthy recuperation, weak both from his wounds and from a significant loss of weight after his surgeries. Young and healthy, Schwan recovered relatively quickly, which raised the prospect of him returning to Vietnam in November to serve out the remainder of his tour. Still concerned with his weight loss, though, the doctors decided to keep him in Japan for a while longer, after which he returned to Cleveland before serving out his time at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Phil Ferro’s sister Diane had just given birth to her second son, so she knew that something was wrong when she had gotten word to rush over to her parents’ house. When she pulled up she saw too many cars, many of which looked official, outside her family’s Northridge home. The scene when she opened the door told her all she needed to know. Two immaculately dressed military officers were sitting on the couch, while her mother Helen sobbed uncontrollably nearby. Tony, normally stoic, was sitting in his favorite chair in front of the fireplace, slumped over with his head held in his hands and weeping openly. Phil, her brother, best friend, and protector, was dead. It was the worst day of their lives. The officers did their jobs well, consoling everyone and promising that a military escort would be with Phil during his entire journey home. Amid her own grief, Helen Ferro was determined to look out for the needs of others. Helen realized that Marie Reynolds, who had helped her with her community care packages, would read about Charlie Company’s recent battle in the newspaper. Not wanting Marie to worry about her own son, Bill Reynolds, Helen got on the phone and told Marie that there had been a battle, and, that while her own son Phil had been killed, that Bill was fine. A few days later, Tony had to go identify Phil at Lorenzo’s Funeral Home. He went in alone and came out shaken. It was Phil, but that was all he said. The funeral service was beautiful, with a big crowd of Phil’s many friends and admirers coming out to pay their respects. Phil Ferro was laid to rest in Chatsworth, California, and the Ferro family would never be the same. Two weeks later Diane received Phil’s last letter home from Vietnam congratulating her on the birth of her second child. Diane knew that life would go on, but much of the joy of life was gone.

Barbara Kenney had recently moved to Cottonwood, California, to be with her mother. She didn’t really like the small town; all of her friends – the Kenney circle of friends – were still in the San Fernando Valley. She wanted to be with them and to be part of their lives, but she needed her mother’s help with little Freddie. To have some fun, Barbara’s mother suggested that they all drive to San Francisco to see her grandparents. The day started well enough, and it was a pretty drive. But they arrived to find Barbara’s grandparents in tears. They had just received a telegram that Fred was missing in action. Holding on to little Freddie tighter than ever, Barbara felt her blood run cold. Missing in action? That meant that there was a good chance that he was still alive. Together the family drove back to Cottonwood to await news. It was the longest drive of Barbara’s life; the hours passed in silence, uncertainty, and fear. The next morning there was a knock at the door, and Barbara opened it to find two officers in their dress uniforms. They regretted to inform her that her husband, Elmer Kenney, had been killed in action. The whole family began to weep as Barbara slumped into the nearest chair. Fred, her Fred, was gone. He had been everything to her. Now he was gone, and he had never even had the chance to meet his son. She then looked at little Freddie, mercifully asleep, and despaired that the poor little guy was going to have to grow up without his dad. It all settled on her like some great weight. She was 21, had a five-month-old son, and was now alone. In a fog of grief Barbara Kenney did what she had to do: return to Canoga Park, go to the funeral home, help plan the funeral, and go to the ceremony. People came from all around to pay their last respects to Fred Kenney. It was a beautiful service. The military honor guard presented Barbara the folded flag with great dignity and respect before the 21-gun salute signaled an end to the ceremony. Barbara could not stand to leave Canoga Park again. She had to be near Fred and those who shared his memory. It dulled the pain to have someone with whom to share it, someone to talk to about Fred and the good times. At first Barbara and little Freddie moved in with Fred’s sister Mary Lou, but after only a few months she moved again, this time to live with her own sister just down the road in Woodland Hills. Barbara was among friends and family, people who had known and loved Fred, but still she felt so terribly alone. All of her friends were planning their lives, had relationships, were thinking of marriage, and were looking to the future. But for Barbara, at the age of 21, life seemed to be over. She wanted normalcy and happiness, not only for herself but especially for her son Freddie. But she was not sure how she would ever be able to find normalcy and happiness again.

While families in the United States mourned the loss of the young men who had been killed on July 11, life for Charlie Company, and the war, continued. There was little time for Cramer, Burleson, Conroy, Fischer, and all the other men to process events. The unit kept up its daily routine of running search-and-destroy missions both near Can Giouc and in Long An Province – missions that could prove deadly to anyone who lost focus. Mourning and grief would have to be left until later. Living took precedence.

After a series of cat-and-mouse operations in which the MRF and the 4th of the 47th tried to corner the Viet Cong again, only to run into booby traps and ubiquitous sniper fire, wonderful news filtered down to the tired soldiers. It was their turn to rotate out of the field; they would spend August on perimeter duty at Dong Tam. While it was still a war zone, the men all now saw Dong Tam duty as gravy. There would be patrols and bunker duty, but there would be no battles. Charlie Company would finally be able to rest and recover from its wounds. The news came in, though, while the unit was engaged in a search and destroy operation in the Cam Son Secret Zone, an area known as a hive of Viet Cong activity. Whenever it operated there, Charlie Company always seemed to take losses, especially to snipers and booby traps. Despite the good news, nobody could let his guard down.

As night fell on July 28, 1st Platoon set up its defensive positions around a clutch of hooches near one of the Mekong Delta’s many small streams. The day had been tense but had passed without serious incident. As usual the company had found signs that the Viet Cong might be near, locating and destroying 52 bunkers and detaining for interrogation 26 civilians suspected of being Viet Cong. For the veteran soldiers such finds were nothing new. The Mekong was honeycombed with bunkers, and Viet Cong sympathizers were everywhere. Viet Cong main force units could be anywhere, in bunkers in the next tree line or nowhere at all. It was all part of the deadly game of war in the delta. With no special reason to fear, only the constant possibility of death, 1st Platoon spent the night on 50 percent alert. The next morning welcome news arrived. Helicopters were on the way to pick up Charlie Company; maybe to take it to its anticipated downtime at Dong Tam. The men of 1st Squad began to get ready for the move. Inside one hooch, which was really just four poles with a thatched roof, Ernie Hartman chatted with one of the other replacements while getting in a quick shave. In the far corner James Nall, who had been the first to learn of the birth of Don Peterson’s son on the train ride back to Fort Riley, sat cleaning his weapon and getting ready to move out.

A few yards distant, John Young, the squad leader, was sitting on a log that stuck out over the river sipping coffee, his feet nearly dangling in the water. With his sleeves rolled up to cover his sergeant’s stripes, a common practice in the delta where snipers always aimed first for those in positions of command, Young gazed absently at the dense tree line on the far bank of the stream, only 20 yards away. Young enjoyed the rare moment of calm. There was nothing to fear, and the choppers were on their way to take them to the safety of the division base. Hell, it was not even quite as hot as usual. Back near the hooch where Young had spent the night, John Sclimenti was finishing his watch. As Sclimenti walked back toward the hooch, Benny Bridges came out, carrying a stool, and sat down in an open area next to a small trail to take his turn as sentry and hollered back over his shoulder for Sclimenti to bring him some chow when he had the time.

Cecil Benny Bridges was a lanky 20-year-old from Carthage, Texas. Raised on a farm, Bridges was a country boy and an original Charlie Company draftee who was reputed to have the best southern drawl in the entire unit. While on leave after training, Bridges had returned to east Texas to marry his high school girlfriend. In Vietnam, Bridges stood out as a competent and hard-working soldier, always performing well and without complaint as Charlie Company moved from one battle to another. Bridges became especially close to Danny Bailey, the country boy from Arkansas who had been wounded by a booby trap in the Rung Sat during April in the same incident that had killed Lieutenant Black. The two loved to talk about hunting, fishing, and farming, chatting in a slow cadence and with a twang that made the others in the platoon smile nearly every time they passed by. In June 1967, John Young decided to replace John Bauler as his 1st Squad RTO. The Viet Cong saw RTOs as prime targets, and Young believed the position to be too dangerous to leave in one man’s hands for too long. Knowing that his new RTO had to be a thoroughly dependable veteran, Young immediately thought of Benny Bridges. When asked to serve as an RTO, Bridges jokingly put on his best southern drawl and replied, “But sarge, I ain’t no RTO, ’ahm a rafleman!” After Young got through laughing, Bridges had taken the radio, and the two had become a nearly inseparable team, with Bridges sometimes even answering Young’s questions before he asked them.

While Sclimenti was in the hooch trying to scare up some grub, Bridges got a call on the radio. The helicopters were inbound, and it was time to form up. Instead of walking the few feet to Young, who was finishing his coffee, Bridges just stood up and said, “Get ready to move out.” Bridges had given an order. Young dumped the dregs of his coffee in the river, Hartman finished his shave, Sclimenti finally located some breakfast, and the rest of 1st Squad began to shoulder its gear. Young walked back to Bridges to pat him on the shoulder before getting his own equipment. One step before Young reached Bridges, a single shot rang out, followed by a BRRRRRRRRP of automatic fire. A Viet Cong sniper had been lurking in the tree line across the river, just a few feet away from where John Young had been sitting. He had 1st Squad dead to rights. Trained to take out the leaders first, the sniper had waited to see who would give an order. It was Benny Bridges.

The side of Bridges’ head exploded with the impact of the first round, covering John Young’s arm, which had been extended toward him, with blood and grey matter. The quick burst of automatic fire blasted through the hooch, sending thatch and dust flying everywhere. The rounds wounded Joel Segaster, a replacement sent from another battalion, in the stomach and struck Ernie Hartman in the leg and the back. For just a moment, John Young was in shock as he watched Benny Bridges collapse next to him. Inside the hooch James Nall didn’t even flinch. Firing that close had to be outgoing friendly fire. Then he saw Segaster and Hartman. Hell, it was enemy fire! Nall ran to Segaster and Hartman, while Sclimenti grabbed his rifle and ducked outside with Danny Bailey, who had been talking to Bridges just before he had gone on guard duty. They emerged to find Ben Acevedo pointing at the tree line across the river and shouting, “He’s right there! He’s right there!” With the seconds slowing to a crawl in the adrenaline rush of battle, Sclimenti and Bailey looked on as Bridges slumped to the ground and Sclimenti thought, “Oh my God. I was there only a couple of seconds ago,” before lowering his rifle to fire into the tree line. With his M16 on full automatic, shell casings flew everywhere, one striking a replacement named Nelson in the eye while he stood firing his own weapon.

Recovering from the initial brutality of the moment, John Young grabbed up Ernie Hartman’s fallen machine gun and shot the entire belt into the far tree line in one continuous burst. There was no target for anyone to aim at, no bunker or enemy silhouette. In a blind rage they all just shot – at anything. Death had been so near, so immediate, and it had come in such a rare moment of calm that it had nearly unhinged everyone. Bits of trees and mud flew everywhere, and then the firing stopped. In the silence that followed there was no sign of the sniper, only the moans of Hartman and Segaster, and a weak gurgling from the fallen Bridges. Young ran the few steps back to Bridges, and, using the radio that was still on his back, informed Captain Lind that 1st Squad had four men down and needed a medevac. Young then looked down at his RTO and could only mumble, “Jesus, Benny.” Young elevated Bridges’ head to ease his shallow breathing and sat there with him until the medics arrived. A small group gathered to look at the scene in silence. Nall, Sclimenti, and Bailey could only stand and stare at their dying friend. They were helpless. Sitting there holding Bridges, the thoughts blazed through Young’s mind like a white-hot light. “Goddamn it, Young! It’s your fault. That sniper shot Benny because he thought he was you. You should have given that order. You should have had your men farther from the river. You should have… It’s all your fault.”

Medics and several volunteers carried Ernie Hartman, hit several times by the brief burst of fire, back to a landing zone where they would meet the medevacs. As the medics went about their business, Hartman took stock of his situation. He was bad, but not too bad. His dull pain, though, quickly turned to near panic when he finally noticed that his crotch was bloody and hurt like holy hell. Had his dick been shot off? Too afraid to look, Hartman called for the medic, who pulled down his trousers to find a small, but horribly painful, wound to Hartman’s testicles. The medic assured Hartman that the wound was nothing to be worried about and that he would be OK. Relieved, Hartman looked up from his pain to take in the scene around him. Waiting for the helicopter were the other 1st Squad wounded all around him. Nelson couldn’t believe his own bad luck. Hit in the eye by a shell casing? It wasn’t bleeding badly, but he couldn’t see. His eye was pretty much gone. Joel Segaster had a large bandage across his stomach and was plainly in agony. But Jo Jo, as he was known to the guys, seemed oddly calm and even happy. He looked at Hartman and told him that this was his third Purple Heart. He was gonna get the hell out of Vietnam. Hartman then thought back to everything he had been through since he had joined Charlie Company on June 20 – the incident with the VC prisoner, the battle of July 11, and now this? It had only been five weeks. How was he going to survive another 11 months in Vietnam?

Captain Lind had always liked Benny Bridges. The country boy from Texas had been a good soldier from the start, hard working and dedicated. To Lind, Bridges just seemed to represent the best of American youth. After hearing that he was badly wounded, Lind made his way to the landing zone and sat with Bridges while waiting for the helicopter to land. Lind knelt next to Bridges and took his hand, shocked by the severity of his wounds. Bridges opened his eyes for just a brief moment and asked, “Sir, I’m not going to make it, am I?” Amazed that Bridges was able to talk at all, Lind replied, “No, son, I don’t think so.” It was the hardest thing that Captain Herbert Lind ever had to say. Just a few seconds later, as a violent downblast of air blew leaves and bits of thatch in every direction heralding the arrival of the medevac, Lind felt Benny Bridges’ hand go slack.

The next morning, safely back on the barracks ships, John Young went into the galley to get a cup of coffee. He had not been able to get any sleep that night and had a feeling that sleep might be hard to come by for a long time. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Benny Bridges. His job had been to bring his boys home safely. He had worked so hard, worked his men so hard. And now in a flash, in a matter of a couple of seconds, he had lost half of his squad. He had failed. He was responsible. That responsibility, a tangible weight on his shoulders, was crushing. Strangling. Taking the first few sips of coffee, Young noticed that he was not alone in the galley. There, sitting at a table all alone, was Danny Bailey. Young walked over and sat next to Bailey, who was busy writing a letter. Young glanced down at the script, big, clumsy letters – almost childlike handwriting. Young then noticed what Bailey had written: “Dear Mom, Yesterday my best friend got killed.” The phrase hit Young like a physical blow. “My best friend got killed.” Big tears rolled from Danny Bailey’s eyes as he struggled with the words. Young put his hand on Bailey’s shoulder and said, “Danny, I’m so sorry I lost him, so sorry I lost him.” Danny Bailey looked up from his letter, brushed away the tears and responded, “Sergeant Young, don’t worry about it. It wasn’t your fault.” But the responsibility, all that weight, remained.

*     After Action Report 1967 4th Battalion, 47th Infantry, 2nd Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, National Archives, College Park.

*     Fictitious name.