Then Colonel Hackett arrived.
I pulled back and stayed out of his way. He inspected the excavation site and talked briefly with Lieutenant Redding. Then he returned to the office. Lieutenant Redding and Sergeant Watkins walked to a nearby equipment yard scouting likely spots where the VC might have intended to surface.
It was then that the tunnel team from 25th Infantry Division pulled up like movie stars wearing sunglasses in a shiny new Tropic Lightning jeep. Staff Sergeant Albers, the driver, had a florid, patrician face topped with an Australian bushman’s hat that made him look like an Englishman on safari. Corporal Petty, in the passenger’s seat, was a short and skinny, sunburned nineteen-year-old with buzz-cut newbie hair. But the guy sitting in the back seat with a case of C-4 plastic explosive was the man who caught our attention.
He looked like a Latino street thug. Short, muscular, and slender. Not an ounce of fat. He wore blue-tinted sunglasses and a faded black bandana tied on his head for a doo-rag. When he turned a certain way in the sun, prominent bones below his eyes cast shadows in his hollow, olive-colored cheeks. As soon as the jeep stopped, he jumped over the side to the ground. His faded fatigues were tailored tight to his waist and legs. His nickname, Reeko, was sewn on his fatigue shirt. His jungle boots were scruffy brown without a trace of polish.
Reeko walked straight to the excavation. His right hand rested on the handle of a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver in a holster tied at the bottom with rawhide to his thigh. He studied the tunnel hole, walked around to a spot between the excavation and the hooch, and studied it some more.
Staff Sergeant Albers walked to the side of the excavation opposite Reeko and the hooch and stood near the backhoe operator. To their right, between them and the backhoe and the huge mound of dirt, Dawson and Markowski stood with M16s slung on their shoulders.
Corporal Petty remained at the jeep fastening a KA-Bar combat knife and its leather sheath to his belt. Then he walked to the excavation with his hand on his holstered revolver and stood next to Reeko and stared down at the hole.
As each of these men joined the group, we looked at them and they looked at us, and then we all looked back at the hole again. Our visiting tunnel experts saw nobody of rank to whom they should report, so they waited for the officer or NCO in charge to appear.
After a few minutes, Lieutenant Redding and Sergeant Watkins returned from up the road where they’d been surveying the equipment yard. Sergeant Albers walked over to meet them and the three of them walked back up the road, presumably to scout the terrain and discuss what should be done.
Reeko was clearly agitated. He walked up the road past the hooch to where Redding, Watkins, and Albers were talking. I followed from a distance, pen and paper at the ready.
Lieutenant Redding was talking to Sergeant Albers and pointing to the equipment yard. Reeko caught Sergeant Watkins’ eye and brought him over with an uplift of his chin. They talked. Reeko returned to the excavation. I did, too.
“First Sergeant Watkins said nobody has been in this tunnel,” Reeko said quietly to the men around the excavation. “Is this true?”
We all nodded. Reeko spoke with a musical upswing in his voice. Sounded Puerto Rican. Not a surprise.
“Anybody look in this tunnel?”
We all shook our heads no.
Reeko slid down the side of the four-foot deep excavation and stood on a cleared space next to the tunnel hole. The backhoe operator, under the direction of Lieutenant Redding, had dug three feet of standing-room on the east side of the tunnel—assuming the tunnel ran south, directly from the hooch to the perimeter. Reeko removed his sunglasses, tucked them in his shirt pocket, and buttoned the flap. He squinted up at Petty. “Get me a frag.”
Petty jogged back to the jeep and returned with a fragmentation grenade. He tossed it down to Reeko.
Reeko straightened the pin and set the grenade upright in the loose dirt next to the hole. Then he got down on his belly with his head and shoulders over the hole, and his boots angled up the side of the excavation. Pulling a small round mirror and flashlight from his side pocket, Reeko extended the mirror’s telescoping arm. Hanging his head and shoulders partway down the hole, he held the mirror and flashlight in the tunnel. He turned them back and forth, looking in both directions. Collapsing the mirror and putting it and the flashlight back in his pocket, Reeko rolled on his side and looked up at Petty. “Pull me up when I toss the frag.”
Petty nodded and yelled, “Fire in the hole.”
Rolling back on his stomach with his head and shoulders over the hole, Reeko pulled the pin and threw the grenade in the tunnel in the direction of the perimeter. In one smooth motion he jackknifed to his knees and then to his feet, and scrambled toward Petty, who pulled him up to ground level.
Lieutenant Redding, Sergeant Albers, and Sergeant Watkins heard Petty yell and came jogging around the hooch just as the rest of us were crouched down with our backs to the excavation. In that split second, the grenade went off. All three men flinched and dropped to the ground in front of us. The explosion in the tunnel wasn’t dangerous to them, so they looked foolish flinch-ducking and hitting the dirt. None of us dared laugh.
The explosion was muffled but impressive. Especially when I considered the shock wave it must have sent down the tunnel. I intended to ask Reeko if he’d ever been in a tunnel when a grenade went off further down the line, but I never got a chance. I was too busy watching and taking notes.
Reeko walked back and sat with his legs over the edge of the excavation. He waved for Petty to join him. Smoke and dust coiled up from the tunnel hole. Sergeant Albers glared at Reeko’s back. Lieutenant Redding and Sergeant Watkins looked puzzled, unsure of who was in charge.
“You tell your muchacha like I say?” Reeko asked Petty. “You tell her you ask for this shit?” Reeko was speaking quietly, as though he and Petty were alone.
Petty hung his head. “She got whacked outta shape.”
Sergeant Albers walked up behind Reeko and Petty. “So you men are anxious to go down the tunnel?” His voice was twisted with anger and sarcasm.
“Waitin’ for the air to clear,” Reeko said without looking at Albers. “Frags use a lot of air.”
“I know that.” Sergeant Albers voice was a loud hissing whisper. “Proceed when ready.” He walked from the excavation site, past Redding, Watkins, and me toward the jeep. His neck veins bulging.
Reeko pulled his .38-caliber Smith & Wesson from his holster. Petty did the same with his .22-long-caliber Colt. Both men swung open the cylinders, spun them, snapped them shut, and returned the revolvers to their holsters. Reeko felt for the sheath-covered bayonet hanging from his belt and tied to his leg. Petty looked down at his new Ka-Bar knife. They pulled flashlights from their side pants pockets and checked to see they worked.
“You do this all the time?” Markowski asked, looking at Reeko. Markowski and Dawson had returned, after the grenade explosion, to their earlier positions next to the backhoe.
Reeko didn’t look up. “My company discovers a tunnel? They call me.” He pulled out a compass, looked around, checked the perimeter against the compass, and returned it to his pants pocket. Petty did the same.
Markowski pulled at the hairs of his walrus mustache and asked, “So you’re ordinarily out in the boonies with an infantry unit?”
Reeko looked contemptuously at Markowski. Petty grinned and kicked dirt with his boot.
“Okay, how’d you end up here then?” Dawson asked, scratching his bulbous belly. “I thought Watkins, or whoever, phoned a tunnel school on the base camp.”
“Our company pulled in for downtime. I was delivering my main man to the tunnel school”—Reeko tipped his head back and smiled at Petty like a man showing off his son—“when your call came in. So we come over for some live-action training.”
Reeko slid down the excavation to the tunnel hole. He waved for Petty who slid down next to him. Reeko then eased himself into the tunnel, his face in the direction of the
hooch. With only his head and shoulders above ground, he motioned with his hand to Petty, Stop there. Reeko ducked into the tunnel and was gone for five minutes, maybe a few minutes longer. When he reappeared—head and shoulders dusty, face dripping sweat—he spoke loudly to nobody in particular. “This tunnel ends twenty feet under the hooch. When we come back, we yell before we come out. Don’t shoot us.”
He looked sharply at Petty. “Know your job?” Petty nodded.
Reeko disappeared down the tunnel heading toward the perimeter. Moments later, Petty dropped in the tunnel but remained standing in place several minutes. Then Petty disappeared down the tunnel, too.
Almost an hour passed. We started to get anxious.
Finally we heard Petty yell from inside the tunnel. Our rats were back.
When they crawled out of the tunnel their faces were thick with grime. Sweat dripped from their hair and faces. Their fatigues were black with perspiration and dirt.
Reeko brushed himself off, smeared sweat from his face, and leaned against one of the big tires on the backhoe. He started, without preliminary announcement, to brief us about their exploration. We gathered in a half circle around him.
I was scribbling notes like crazy. I was worried I’d run out of paper. I’d scrawled notes on every page of my five pads and was already on the unused back-side pages of my first pad. I had to write smaller.
Reeko said the tunnel walls near the hole had broken up—but not a lot—from the grenade explosion. He dug through the clods of dirt and continued down the tunnel. Petty followed six meters behind so any exploding booby trap Reeko triggered would have less chance of seriously injuring Petty too. The tunnel, Reeko said, was dug in a zigzag pattern.
We all expressed surprise.
“This is done,” Reeko explained, “so rounds can’t travel all the way—”
“More importantly,” Albers interrupted, “it reduces effects of explosions further down the line and provides hiding places for VC attacks.”
“If you would like to do so,” Reeko melodramatically waved at us while looking at Albers, “you can explain what else I found.”
Albers’ face flamed red, but he remained silent. Petty, leaning against the front backhoe tire near Reeko, looked off to the side with a grin on his face.
Reeko continued. “The tunnel goes a long way toward the perimeter, but it ends in a deep shaft. Straight down and wide as the tunnel, and filled with water. When I found the water, I called Petty and told him to turn around and crawl back to the entry hole.”
Dawson blurted, “How wide’s the tunnel?”
“About two feet,” Reeko answered, “and three feet high.”
“So how’d Petty turn around?” Dawson asked, and pulled up his pants from where they’d slid down the underside of his protruding belly.
“Rolled over on his back, walked his feet on the ceiling, and flopped over. But I crawled backward on the return trip so I could face the water-end of the tunnel. We found no trap doors, no booby traps, and no VC.”
Reeko barely finished his sentence when Albers called out, “Okay, let’s blow the tunnel.” Reeko glared at him.
Albers waved for Petty to follow him. They walked to the jeep and brought back the case of C-4, a coil of det-cord, a small box of blasting caps, two-stranded electrical wire, and a detonator.
Reeko and Petty crawled back down the tunnel and positioned packets of C-4 at three locations and strung them together with det-cord so they’d explode simultaneously. Down in the tunnel, near the entrance hole, Reeko molded a blasting cap to the end of the det-cord with a gob of C-4 plastic explosive. He connected electrical wires to the blasting cap and ran the wire about twenty yards from the excavation and connected the wire to a hand-held detonator called a clacker. He handed the clacker to Petty and nodded.
Petty yelled, “Fire in the hole.” Everybody crouched down as the air pulsed and the ground thudded with a powerful WHUMP. Dirt popped up from the surface of the ground at three sites about fifty feet apart, each one progressively closer to the perimeter.
Lieutenant Redding ordered the tunnel hole filled with dirt and the excavation leveled. The backhoe operator dropped a few buckets of dirt directly over the hole in the tunnel. Then he called to Redding and said he was returning the backhoe to Charlie Company and he’d return with a small dozer as soon as he got the okay from Charlie Company’s first sergeant.
Lieutenant Redding shook hands with Staff Sergeant Albers and declared the operation a success. First Sergeant Watkins stood back and smiled as Reeko and Petty carried the remaining C-4, det-cord, blasting caps, and clacker back to the jeep while talking together about their work as tunnel rats. Redding and Watkins walked over and commended them for an “outstanding job.”
By then it was early in the evening, and the men who had gathered around the excavation drifted away and several dozen new men arrived to see where the tunnel was and hear the story first hand. Lieutenant Redding relieved Dawson and Markowski from guard duty. Redding then returned to Delta’s HQ to phone in his report to Colonel Hackett who was probably no longer at the office.
****
The next day, while working on the story, I phoned Staff Sergeant Albers at the tunnel school. I asked him how I could get in contact with Reeko. Albers said Reeko had returned to the field that morning.
“What about Corporal Petty?”
“He’s still here, but he’s out on a training exercise. What do you want?”
“I’m writing an article for our battalion newspaper and I didn’t get a chance to ask Reeko about the empty tunnel. Where’d the VC go? And what’d they do with the dirt from digging the tunnel?”
Albers laughed. “They carry the dirt back through the tunnel in canvas bags. And where’d they go? The water at the end of the tunnel wasn’t ground water. It was a water trap, like the U-shaped drain trap under a kitchen sink.”
“The tunnel walls don’t collapse from the water?”
“Older tunnels in this area have walls hard as rock from laterite in the soil. Moisture in the air apparently hardens it. I’d guess the VC started this tunnel a few years ago—maybe longer—and recently resumed digging for a sapper attack on the base camp.”
“Okay, but what happened to the VC? Who dug the tunnel?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. The VC ducked back through the water trap when you guys found the tunnel. They were waiting on the other side of the trap, ready to kill anybody who came up from the water. Either that or they were long gone.”
“So why didn’t Reeko swim the trap?”
“Our men don’t swim water traps. It’s a suicide mission if they do. Swim one of those traps and you come up the other side blinded by water and without a clue which direction to point your flashlight, let alone your weapon. You’re defenseless against VC just waiting to pop you. Some tunnel rats swim water traps, but they’re crazy if they do. Odds are they’ll end up dead. Our job is to render the tunnels inoperable. We blow ’em and plug ’em. That’s what the 25th did when they built this camp in ’66. The engineers found lots of tunnels, apparently from the war against the French colonists or even earlier. So the engineers blew the tunnels and bulldozed the openings full of dirt. Some of those tunnels we kept open for our tunnel school.”
“But couldn’t the VC dig out the collapsed tunnels?”
“Sure, and they did. First twelve to fourteen months after the camp was built we took quite a few attacks from the tunnels. But we kept blowing and plugging until the VC got tired of it.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re telling me the top brass knew all along they were building Cu Chi Base Camp on a nest of VC tunnels, and they did it anyway?”
“The risk was worth it. This is a perfect place for a base camp. The land is high and dry even during monsoons. The ground is firm, solid from laterite, good for heavy equipment and runways.”
“Huh. And my engineering unit has no institutional memory of this because it was deployed here a little less than
two years ago?”
“Sounds about right, but your top officers know about it.”
“So why didn’t the 25th fully destroy the tunnels right from the start?”
“How? The only way to do that is bomb them. Pulverize them with craters ten feet deep or more. But you can’t easily build a base camp on land cratered like that. Besides, in 1966 they didn’t know how extensive the tunnels were. We’ve since found tunnels in this area that have second and third levels. I’m talking about munitions rooms, sleeping quarters, assembly halls, hospitals, storage facilities, and ventilation shafts up to camouflaged openings at ground level.”
“That’s another thing. How’d they have enough air? I mean in the tunnel under Delta Company. They didn’t have surface vents—”
“Actually, there’s a lot of air in that tunnel. And the water in the trap might have been added after you started digging. It’d sure make the VC’s job of hauling back dirt a lot easier it they didn’t have to lug it through the water. The other side of that trap there might be any number of intersecting tunnels and air shafts.”
“You’re making me feel very uneasy.”
“Don’t be. Did you feel safe before you found out about this?”
“Except for occasional mortar rounds and harassing attacks on the perimeter. I’ve been telling everybody back home that Cu Chi is the safest place in Vietnam.”
“It is. And nothing’s different now that you know about the tunnels. We might get a little harassment from the tunnels once and awhile, but we have overwhelming force here. Nobody’s gonna overrun us by crawling up a few tunnels.”
“So why are you telling me all this? What if I put this in a news release? What if the media back home hear about it? Or the troops find out? No matter how you justify it, building a base camp on a bunch of enemy tunnels sounds wacko. More than that. Irresponsible.”
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