15 February 1968
The rest of that third day, 15 February 1968, went by with little forward progress for the Marines of 1/5 inside the Citadel. Alpha Company had their hands full trying to consolidate their positions across phase line green, and 1/5’s battalion command group made the sensible decision not to require Charlie Company to attack frontally across phase line green. The battalion decision-makers understood that when Alpha Company finally controlled their block, they would be in an excellent position to support a Charlie Company frontal assault with flanking fire, or we could support them while Alpha attacked the entrenched NVA in front of us from their flank. Either maneuver would be much more effective than the bloody frontal assaults ordered on the first and second days.
Delta Company had started their deadly attack/counterattack chess game with the crazy NVA who had persevered in spite of the F-4 Phantom air strikes and who were still firmly in control of the tower that so effectively dominated phase line green and hampered our progress. The Marines of Charlie Two and Charlie Three took potshots at targets of opportunity directly across the street and tried to keep their heads down to avoid the constant answering enemy small-arms fire. I continued to help The Gunny with odd jobs and opened more sixty-mike-mike crates. The Charlie Company sixty-millimeter mortar crews continued to fire harassment and interdiction missions on the NVA across phase line green, and we continuously monitored the house-to-house fighting of Alpha Company and the tower assaults by Delta Company using one of the company’s Prick-25s.
Eventually night crept over the Citadel again, and the third day of fighting was behind us. As before, when daylight faded into night, the fighting diminished and then stopped. I checked in again with 1st Lt. Scott Nelson, and since he had nothing for me to do, I found another house in the rear area, commandeered a real bed in a small corner bedroom, and at about 2300 hours crawled in and quickly found unconscious peace in a deep, dark sleep.
Shortly after midnight, my sleep was shattered, and I was rudely forced into consciousness by several explosions. These explosions were very loud, which meant that they were probably very close.
The house I was holed up in was just one block behind phase line green, and my initial reaction was a numbing terror caused by the abject certainty that these explosions signaled the start of an all-out counterattack by the NVA. But I quickly shook those unwelcome thoughts off, because the explosions were just too big to have been caused by the NVA. I had never been near an enemy 120-mm or 140-mm rocket attack, so the largest “artillery” weapon that any Viet Cong or NVA unit had directed toward me was the 82-mm mortar. These explosions were much larger than 82-mm mortars. Perhaps they were sappers with satchel charges? Maybe, but they sounded more familiar than that.
Shaking off sleep, I pulled my helmet and flak jacket back on and decided to venture into the house’s back yard to see if I could find out what was going on. It didn’t take long, and when I found out what had shattered my sleep, I received the news as a mixed blessing.
Finally, 1/5 was getting heavy support. After three days inside the Citadel, and with the notable exception of the fearful but futile F-4 Phantom air strikes on the tower, it appeared that the First Marine Division had finally decided that we needed heavy artillery. The five explosions had been caused by naval gunfire, probably five-inch guns. I should have been happy because we were finally getting the heavy artillery support we had been screaming for, but like many things in Vietnam, this was another two-edged sword. All five of these naval gunfire high-explosive rounds had detonated inside a block occupied by Charlie Company Marines. One of the damned things had hit just a few feet from the back wall of the house I was sleeping in! Shit, we finally get heavy support, and we damned near get blown away by friendly fire!
Scott Nelson joined me and several now fully awake Charlie Three Marines and sort of shook his head in disgust. He gave me one of his patented grins, pulled at his nearly nonexistent mustache, and said, “Well, Charlie One, you asked for it, and you got it! Here’s your artillery support!”
Nelson and I talked for a while longer. It seemed that there were rumors floating around battalion that some NVA had infiltrated through our lines and that there might be a few snipers holed up behind us, but Nelson shrugged this “intelligence” off as simple nervousness from Marines of the battalion CP group, and he didn’t appear to believe any of it. I didn’t want to believe it either, and I tried to simply ignore the possibility. About that time we heard over the battalion net that they had suspended the naval gunfire until the next day, so Nelson took off, and I returned to my commandeered bed. I was asleep again within seconds of hitting the feathers.
I awoke at first light, pulled on my helmet and flak jacket, and emerged into another dull, overcast day. It looked like it was going to be just another dreary day in paradise, but the sounds of the nearby detonations of large-caliber artillery a few hundred meters south of us meant that this was at least a new kind of day, a day wherein we could finally expect to get the heavy firepower support that we had become accustomed to before we entered the Citadel. The whining incoming sounds and high-explosive detonations of American artillery support being directed at our entrenched NVA enemy made me feel a whole lot better.
Obviously, Travis Curd and his forward observer radio operator had been working overtime, and they had effectively adjusted the errant firing of the five-inch guns. They had directed the five-inch guns and their 105-mm and 155-mm artillery cousins onto enemy positions well on the other side of phase line green, so I probably didn’t have to worry about being blown apart by friendly fire any longer.
I checked in with Scott Nelson, who directed me to work with The Gunny and the sixty-millimeter mortar crews again. I was starting to feel self-conscious and just a little silly doing this menial labor, but Scott Nelson had better things to do than worry about me. So I joined The Gunny without comment and started opening sixty-mike-mike crates once again.
About midmorning, PFC Robert Lattimer, one of those who had survived the death of Charlie One and who had been reassigned to Charlie Three on the morning of the second day, came running into the Charlie Company CP area with a couple of other Marines and breathlessly reported that yet another mule driver had driven into the jaws of death. First Lieutenant Nelson was fetched, and when he arrived, Lattimer made his report.
Lattimer said, “Skipper, this dumb-ass mule driver must have zigged when he should have zagged, because he just drove right smack into the NVA positions. Before we knew it, he just came screaming up this street at full speed, driving right toward the enemy positions, and the NVA waited until he was at point-blank range and then opened up on him and blew him away.” Although Lattimer was usually pretty unflappable, now he was pretty agitated. He was obviously disturbed by something more than the death of another mule driver.
Nelson knew that Lattimer was a good point man and that he had been coolheaded under fire in several previous situations, so he quietly probed him to continue. “Look, Lattimer, are you sure he’s dead? If so, there’s not much we can do about it until after dark, when we can retrieve the body and get him back to a chopper.”
Lattimer looked at Scott Nelson and let us know what was under his skin. “You don’t understand, Skipper, the mule driver is dead, we’re damned sure about that, but the fucking mule is still alive. I mean, sir, that the stinking thing is still running. The mule driver got it a couple of times in the head and a few more times in the chest, and he’s just sitting there in his seat, deader than dog shit. But his mule refuses to die! It’s getting to all of us up there; we know there’s nothing we can do for the mule driver, but hearing the fucking mule putt-putting away is making it impossible to put him out of our minds. The guys have debated trying to blow away the engine, but the angle is bad, and we’d probably really fuck up the mule driver’s body in the process. The NVA shot that damned mule up pretty good, but it just refuses to die.”
Lattimer, his young black face serious and pale in the midmorning gloom, looked his company commander in the eye and quietly but emphatically explained that the men wanted to try to get the mule driver out of the mule and off the street, so that they could then blow away the damned mule without feeling shitty about shooting their fellow Marine, even if he was dead. The nearby thuds of the supporting artillery, the ebb and flow of the small-arms fire of Alpha Company’s struggle for their block, and Delta Company’s assaults on the tower faded away. The morning became very quiet as each of us in that small group finally understood the horror being experienced by the Marines on that corner of phase line green. As horrible as it had been to have to ignore the bodies of our fallen comrades in the street during that long first day, as much as we knew that any attempts to rescue dead Marines was seriously risking even further death, we could live with it, because we didn’t have to think about them. We were sure they were dead, we didn’t have to look at them, and we knew we would fetch them and send them home under the cover of darkness. But in this situation, these men could not ignore their Marine brother, because the stinking mule kept running, and the popping engine noise was a constant reminder that the mule driver was out there. The way things were, the situation would drive the men to the brink of insanity unless something was done. The mule would, undoubtedly, eventually run out of gas, but no one had a clue just how long that would take. It seemed as though this was a mule from hell, and it just might keep on running until all these men went out of their minds.
There was only one choice. The men wanted to make an effort to get the dead mule driver off the mule and out of the street, and then they could try to blow away the mule. Lattimer and his men were willing to take the chance, and they were volunteering to try. In a world of poor choices, these men had made a choice between the surety of slowly encroaching insanity and the risk of death for a few seconds. They would rather face almost certain death for a few seconds than have to listen to the maddening noise of the mule until nightfall, still several hours away, or until the mule ran out of gas.
Scott Nelson considered the equation and then looked over at me and said, “Go up there and check it out, Charlie One. See if you can figure out a way to get the mule driver out of the street without getting anyone else hurt.” With that, Nelson took off for the rear, probably headed for another consultation with the battalion CP group. I hoped he would make the point to whomever was in charge of the mule drivers that they should know where the hell they were going before they made their supply runs.
As we cautiously worked our way back toward phase line green, Lattimer quietly explained that they had already considered all the angles and that they wanted to try smoke. He looked at me and said, “We figure that we’ll throw several smoke grenades at the mule, and at the same time, some of the other squads can throw more smoke grenades into the street as a diversion, and then, at some signal, we’ll have the other squads and Charlie Two open up with a base of fire. Me and Gomer will have worked our way into the closest covered position to the mule, and we’ll just go get the dude. We figure it will take ten seconds, max.” Lattimer explained this all to me as though he were discussing an evening on the town: they would hit the coffee shop for a burger or two, take in a good movie, and go have a couple of beers. He and I both knew that despite the diversion of the smoke and the supporting base of fire, he and Gomer (a private who got his nickname from constantly wearing his helmet backward and who was another Charlie One survivor) would be running into a swarm of enemy gunfire from a range of no more than fifty feet. Their chances of pulling this off unscathed were remote, but there was simply no other choice. As we approached the corner of the street from the back yard of the house that faced it, I could hear the mule engine popping away. It was already starting to get to me as well, and I’d only been there a couple of minutes.
As we approached phase line green, I stopped Lattimer for a minute and said, “All right, Lattimer, you’ve obviously thought this through completely. Thanks for volunteering. I’ll shoot a red star cluster, which will be the signal for the smoke rounds and the supporting fire, and you and Gomer better hit the bricks the second you think the smoke has you covered. I’ll go let the platoon commanders from Charlie Three and Charlie Two know what’s going down and what the plan is. We should be ready to rock and roll in about fifteen minutes. See you back here in a few minutes.”
I couldn’t look at him any more, couldn’t think about the odds anymore, so I took off toward the right flank and got the plan ready. Moving back away from phase line green to the street behind it, I headed west toward the next intersecting street and eventually found 2nd Lt. John Aamodt, Charlie Three’s platoon commander, and then 2nd Lt. Rich Lowder, Charlie Two’s platoon commander, who were covering phase line green and Charlie Company’s right flank. I let them know what was going down and what was expected of them.
Fifteen minutes later, I was back on the left flank, a few feet behind Lattimer and Gomer, who had shed their weapons and all other unnecessary gear. They had tightened their flak jackets and helmets and were ready to rock and roll for better or for worse.
I pulled a red star cluster hand rocket out of my pack and, aiming it in the general direction of the enemy, detonated it. The swoosh of the rocket was always expected but somehow always startling. The almost immediate red sparkling burst of the rocket at an altitude of about a hundred feet over the NVA positions across the street was seen by all the Marines on phase line green. This effectively signaled the simultaneous throwing of several smoke grenades into the street in several locations. Red, yellow, green, white, and purple clouds of smoke quickly obscured the street and covered the mule with their insufficient protection, while the other squads opened up on the enemy across the street.
The NVA across the street immediately responded with a fierce volume of gunfire, and the steady, rapid firing of many AK-47s answered the M-60 and M-16s covering their buddies. Lattimer and Gomer didn’t look back for even a moment; they just ran into the smoke and disappeared.
Time perversely ground down once again into a damnably torturous slow motion. The ten seconds that they were out in the street, amid the hot hell of small-arms fire, seemed like ten hours. No way could Lattimer and Gomer survive the volume of fire being directed at the mule. The gooks would probably shoot an RPG-7 at the mule, and then it would be all over but the shouting. They were probably all three dead. Now we would have three Marines down in the street, and the stupid mule would probably still keep on chugging away. My heart seemed to stop beating, and I involuntarily held my breath.
And then the smoke finally parted, and Lattimer and Gomer, both their faces stretched into grimaces of pain, ecstasy, fear, triumph, and pure adrenaline exhilaration, ran out of the swirling clouds of smoke and death and dropped their burden in a position of relative safety. The mule driver was on his way home.
Neither Lattimer nor Gomer had gotten a scratch. Neither of them said anything. They didn’t want to celebrate the retrieval of the mule driver; they just wanted to go blow the mule away. They grabbed their M-16s, put their M-26 grenades back on their flak jackets, reslung their extra 5.56 ammo belts, threw their packs back on, and took off. They were just tired of hearing the damned mule, and they were going to put an end to it!
Just as he was leaving, Lattimer looked over his shoulder and briefly caught my eye. He gave me a casual sidelong grin as though what he had just done was as ordinary and about as dangerous as taking out the trash. Then he turned away, grabbed Gomer by the arm, and said, “C’mon Gomer. Let’s go put that fucking mule out of its misery.”
A few moments later, the Marines occupying the corner house opened up with a hellacious volume of fire with their M-16s and an M-60 machine gun, with a few M-79 40-mm grenades thrown in for good measure, and shortly thereafter the popping noise of the mule’s engine coughed, seized, and died. The silence that followed, although constantly disturbed by the fierce fighting of Alpha and Delta Companies just a few hundred meters away, was a blessing. The mule driver’s body was loaded onto a makeshift poncho stretcher and carried back to the First ARVN Division compound, there to await a chopper to start his final journey home.
If my senses and thought processes had even approached normality during those few minutes, I’m certain that I would have been amazed and dumbfounded by what I had witnessed. The undaunted heroism of Lattimer and Gomer as they charged into the withering enemy fire to retrieve the body of a fallen comrade with only the vaporous protection of the smoke was extraordinary. However, I was still in a sort of stupor; the automaton was still in control of my outward movements. My inward thoughts were not allowed to be perceived by others or spoken by my external self. I remained silent as I stood for a few more moments in that back yard, and then I shrugged, turned away, and returned to the Charlie Company mortar crews. Most likely, they were running out of ready-to-launch mortar rounds, and they needed my help.
About 1600 hours that afternoon, after continued heavy fighting between Alpha and Delta Companies and the NVA defenders, and the continued sporadic small-arms duels between the NVA and Charlie Company Marines across phase line green, a group of Marines from Charlie Three stumbled into the Charlie Company CP area, carrying their platoon commander, 2nd Lt. John R. Aamodt, on a door. Aamodt had been shot through the upper leg by an AK-47 round, and the bullet had shattered the bone. Charlie Three Actual was out of the action and headed to a medevac.
From the look on his face, it was difficult to tell just exactly how Second Lieutenant Aamodt felt about his circumstances. Although he was obviously in great pain, he couldn’t keep a smile from his lips. He had his ticket home. If he could just survive being carried to the First ARVN Division compound, the medevac chopper ride, the U.S. military medical care, and the long ride to the World on a big bird, he was going home. His wound was severe, but it would eventually heal up, and he would most likely not be required to visit South Vietnam ever again. The hell of the past few days was nearly over for him. He was going home.
As I watched Doc Loudermilk work on him, I started to slowly realize that Lieutenant Aamodt’s ticket home was my ticket back to phase line green. Charlie Three was a fighting unit, in contact with the enemy, and they now needed a leader. I was the only other commissioned officer available. I was now going to be the new Charlie Three Actual.
None of this mattered. I was numb, and the automaton was in full control. I would go wherever Scott Nelson told me to go, do whatever he told me to do. The automaton would obey any lawful command from my superior officer. I continued to break open mortar crates, waiting for the inevitable orders that would move me back to the hell of phase line green.
“Sergeant Erskine, you’re the new Charlie Three Actual. Get back up there with your men, keep the NVA’s heads down, and await further orders.” Scott Nelson had not even looked in my direction. He had given the job to Sergeant Erskine, a tall, young E-5 sergeant who had been the Charlie One platoon guide when we entered the Citadel and who had taken over as the Charlie One platoon sergeant when Staff Sergeant Mullen had been wounded and medevacced. Sergeant Erskine was now Charlie Three Actual. Sergeant Erskine acknowledged his orders, and after making sure that his former platoon commander was in good hands, he headed back toward phase line green. I continued to open ammo crates.
Sergeant Erskine wasn’t gone very long. A few minutes after he left, a large volume of small-arms fire, punctuated by several explosions, erupted on phase line green from the direction he had headed. Soon thereafter another small group of Charlie Three Marines, with Sergeant Erskine walking slowly and uncertainly in their midst, stumbled into the Charlie Company CP.
Sergeant Erskine and another Marine were covered from head to toe with white plaster dust. They looked as though they had jumped into a swimming pool filled with white flour flecked with red dye. Leaking blood from small wounds inflicted on several places on his body, his eyes glazed over from shock, Sergeant Erskine was obviously in no condition to continue in the role of Charlie Three Actual.
Scott Nelson heard the commotion and joined the group of Charlie Three Marines. Taking one look at the ghost-white Marines, he asked what the hell had happened.
A Marine who had been helping evacuate Sergeant Erskine explained that the sergeant had taken two other Marines into the front room of a house fronting phase line green, against the advice of several Marines who had been there since the first day. These Marines recognized that although the front room had large windows that would provide a good view of the enemy positions across the street, it was also very exposed to the very same enemy positions.
“Shit, Skipper, we told him to stay out of there, but he didn’t listen. He said he wanted to get into a good vantage point. He took Smitty and Jones in there with him. Shit, they weren’t in there more than thirty seconds before the gooks opened up with RPGs. Them fucking rockets flew right in the front window and detonated against the back wall. Smitty’s blown away; some of the others will bring him back in a little while. Sergeant Erskine is hit, and both him and Jones probably need to be medevacced, ’cuz I think they’re in shock.” This young Marine, a lance corporal, tried very hard to keep the disgust out of his voice, but wasn’t very successful in doing so.
Sergeant Erskine was a good NCO, had always obeyed orders, and had run a good platoon. Until he had been assigned as their platoon commander, however, he had remained with the platoon CP group, and he hadn’t really taken an active hand in the fighting. When he got his orders to take over as platoon commander of Charlie Three, he wanted so badly to be effective that he had exposed himself and his men to the enemy’s gunfire and rockets to get a better perspective. The result was one of the shortest combat assignments in Marine Corps history.
Scott Nelson considered Sergeant Erskine and just glanced in my direction. The automaton took over; I got to my feet, swung my pack on, and threw Estes’s M-16 over my right shoulder. Nelson didn’t have to say anything. I knew where I was headed, and the automaton was ready to take me there.
As I passed Nelson to join the other Marines from Charlie Three and started toward phase line green, Scott Nelson touched my arm and said, “Keep in touch, Charlie Three. And keep your head down!”