13th Valley

by John M. Del Vecchio

  The Old Fox saluted Lieutenant Brooks, awaited a return salute, executed an about-face and marched toward the commander of Charlie Company. Colonel Henderson waited until the brigade commander was a dozen paces off then said smiling, “Rufus, that man’s on our side and I’m sure he likes you. You might get a personal letter of recommendation from him for your file. Now I’ve got several operational changes for you and clarification and delineation of objectives. May I see your map?”

  In the corner of his vision Brooks watched the Old Fox and his entourage as they approached then encircled the commander of Charlie Company. He lifted his map for the GreenMan with detachment, momentarily concentrating on the Old Fox.

  “Rufus, you’ll CA to 848 as planned,” the GreenMan spoke excitedly. “You’ll work west across the ridgeline and north down this finger and then onto the valley floor here and then work toward this knoll as best you see fit.” The GreenMan pointed to the center of the valley on the map where brown concentric circles indicated an elevation rise. He studied the map as if he were planning the operation for the first time, directing attention to topographic details with his stubby clean fingers. “This knoll is your ultimate objective. I see it taking ten to twelve days to clear this AO.

  “There’s a strong enemy force in this valley. We’ve added a reinforced company from 3d of the 187th to secure Firebase Barnett and this is going to give us two additional maneuver elements. As you know Bravo Company is going to assault here, northwest of you. They’ll set up a blocking force on the northeastern end of the valley. Charlie Company will not secure the firebase. Instead they’ll be inserted here to the west and secure that flank against any additional enemy units coming up the valley and block any units trying to escape. Delta Company will go in here and set up a blocking force on the north escarpment and check out the caves. Recon will be inserted directly behind you, here. They’ll follow you by a day or two until they reach this point on the south ridge where they’ll close off any NVA travel between this valley and the O’Reilly area. Each of the blocking forces will search their areas for bunker complexes and enemy concentrations. But you, Rufus. You’re going to be the rover.

  “I want you and your men to check out the valley floor and to work toward this knoll. Have you got that?”

  “Yes Sir.”

  “Rufus, I’m looking for a fight,” the GreenMan said exuding enthusiasm. He boasted, “We are hos-tile, a-gile, and air-mobile. I don’t know how much of a cancer these NVA are. I don’t pretend to know what the political picture is. But what I do know, Rufus, is how to fight. I know how to find and defeat the enemy and how to do it with the least casualties. I promise you the utmost support. I know what you’ve accomplished in these mountains and I know the sacrifices you and your men have made. You are a natural born soldier, Rufus. A real jungle man. Your sacrifice has bought time for the people of our area, from, Quang Tri to Hue and all the way south, and it has brought peace to this population. We can’t fail them now. We don’t allow failure.”

  Brooks kept his face down to the map while Henderson spoke. He’s like a chubby little kid, Brooks thought. Like a little kid playing with tin soldiers on a dirt mound in his backyard in the middle of Missouri or some place. He’s having a good time now. That’s cool. It’s partly because he plays so well that we’re good. Because we’re good our opponents cut us some slack. It makes it easier.

  “Rufus,” the GreenMan continued, “you are a thinking human being. Your men are intelligent and experienced. I’m not going to send in a lot of plays from the sidelines. You be your own quarterback. And Lieutenant, we are playing for keeps. I know you know that. This is the big game, Rufus.” The GreenMan checked his watch. “The Air Force has prepped ten landing zones. We’ll use five; five are diversionary. You’ve got a good company, Rufus, a goddamned fine company. Best in the battalion, in my opinion. Maybe best in the whole goddamned division.”

  “That’s a real honor for a first lieutenant. If things work out well we’ll see that you get that promotion to captain. Who knows, maybe we’ll get you a Silver Star. That always looks good on a young officer’s record.”

  “We’re ready. Sir,” the colonel’s aide interrupted. “The birds are due here in zero-three.”

  “Thank you.” The GreenMan paused and looked Brooks coldly in the eye. “Best get your men lined up,” he said, his chin tight and hard. Then he saluted Rufus Brooks and said, “For the Glory of the Infantry, Lieutenant.”

  CHAPTER 11

  THE CA

  The sound of helicopters had pulsated in Cherry’s ears all morning. Now the air became saturated with the roar of jet engines and the slap-thumping of rotors. Cherry saw eighteen slicks racing toward the landing strip from the south, Huey UH-lDs, small birds compared to the massive Chinooks, approaching low-level in a line looking like a flying race down the dragway, helicopters speeding bearing down on top of him. Behind the first heat. a second squadron of eighteen birds appeared. Behind those a third. High in the air to the west, waiting to rendezvous with the troop ships, were a dozen Cobras.

  “… for the Glory of the Infantry, Lieutenant,” the GreenMan saluted Brooks and walked away.

  “Hey! Okay,” Brooks yelled into the ravines. “Get em on. Get up here.”

  Egan emerged from a cloud of thick grape-juice smoke, marker grenade, billowing up in an opaque column, thick hot purple smoke that jetted from the canister, billowed up into a mini-mushroom cloud cooling on the top and sides, tumbling down the exterior of the rising column, waterfalling, slow-motion splashing onto the landing strip and cascading into the ravines. Egan raced into position as the first bird braked.

  Brooks locked his gaze on the first bird. In the back of his mind unvoiced objections spawned, trickled toward the center of his brain, ‘the big game—quarterback—fight or die—sidelines,’ words swept in, thoughts seeped, surged to be expressed then floundered in the war machine noise and action and washed to tiny enclaves.

  A PsyOps bird swooped down and hovered a hundred meters to the east of the staging. It had a cluster of sixteen loudspeakers mounted on its right skid. Acid rock music blared at maximum volume and mixed with the helicopter noises.

  Men in the trenches scurried. “It’s light,” Jackson yelled to Cherry as he heaved his rucksack skyward, twisted beneath it and slipped his arms through the straps. The ruck became part of his body.

  “Yeah,” Cherry yelled. He laid his back against his ruck, forced his arms through the shoulder straps, sat up, rolled to his knees and stood. The ruck with the radio gouged his lower back and, the weight already hurt his shoulders. Again a dust storm. Again sand in his ears and eyes and in the sweat under his shirt. The straps from the ruck ground the sand into his skin.

  The first six helicopters lit upon the landing strip diffusing, scattering the purple smoke. Daniel Egan, Lieutenant Brooks and Lee Marko hustled, boarded the left side of the first bird. El Paso, Doc Johnson and Bryan Brunak clattered in from the right. The bird was immediately airborne. Cherry ran toward the first bird too. His eyes were seeing more quickly than his mind was processing. The helicopters were from Company C of the 101st Assault Helicopter Battalion, The Blackwidows. They had distinctive blue diamonds on their tail booms. Cherry read the name Charon in the diamond and the words To Hell and Back written on the small olive drab door of the pilot’s compartment.

  “Come on, Cherry,” Jax yelled. “This one ours. Yo doan wan a leave Eg an Doc out there alone, do ya?” Cherry raced back toward Jackson and the second bird. This helicopter was named Sybil and was inscribed, Follow Me. Cherry stepped onto the skid, jumped, spun through the bird’s open side and plopped his ass and ruck down onto the metal floor. He sat next to Jax with his legs dangling out the door of the helicopter. Lt. Thomaston, Numbnuts, Bill Brown and Happy Lairds scrambled in with them and the ship lifted. Its tail rose, the rotors whacked the air, the bird dropped its nose, accelerated forward gaining altitude. To Cherry’s left a doorgunner sat behind a machine gun mounted on
a black iron swivel. The gunner wore a flight suit and aviation helmet with the dark visor down. He looked like an armed green astronaut.

  Jackson leaned back. “He aint nevah been on a CA b’fo,” Jax yelled.

  “Well, check it out,” Thomaston shouted back. The doorgunner said nothing. “You just follow Jax,” Thomaston leaned forward and screamed to Cherry over the noise of the helicopter. “We’ll be there in about twenty.”

  The bird banked sharply west, dipped, banked. This is like the first hill on a giant roller coaster, Cherry thought. Suddenly he could feel his ass and the back of his legs sliding on the metal floor. He was falling. The bird was getting higher. He leaned back. His legs dangled below him in the unsupporting air. The bird banked steeper and Cherry could feel the weight of his pack forcing him out and down. He grabbed the support post between him and the gunner with his left hand. With his right he squeezed his M-16. Next to him Jackson, with his rifle cradled in both arms, seemed relaxed. Next to Jax the lieutenant shifted casually to a more comfortable position. All three had their legs hanging out the helicopter’s open side. As the bird continued to climb and bank the three soldiers cramped into the other side seemed higher than Cherry. Cherry’s ears popped. His eyes popped. The soldiers on the other side might tumble onto him, might push him out. His left hand squeezed tighter, his arm strained. Then the helicopter leveled into position behind the lead bird and again all the soldiers were level on the metal floor. Cherry wiggled and eased his grip on the support post and breathed deeply. Four helicopters fell in line behind them, six Huey slicks carrying the command post, the first platoon and the military journalists Lamonte and George in bird three. The air in the birds was cool and clean.

  Above and in front of the lead slick a Cobra gunship with its miniguns, cannons and rocket pods hung. Twelve more slicks carrying the remainder of Alpha Company joined the convoy. Four more escort Cobras surrounded the first wing.

  The convoy progressed rapidly above the coastal plain and piedmont and into the foothills and finally into the jagged mountains. The birds followed the twisting Sông Bo River southwest to the Rao Trang, then flew westward toward Coc Muen, a landmark peak at 1298 meters and north along a high ridge and into the valley of the Rach Mӯ Chānh and then due west. Below, the valleys were mist-filled, the ridges sun-baked. The helicopters climbed, flew west climbing, always climbing. The air became cold.

  “Where’s Martini?” Cherry heard Thomaston shout. “I didn’t see him. Isn’t he coming out?”

  “No,” Jackson yelled back. “His little brother was in a car accident last week. They shipped ol Martini’s ass back fo the funeral.”

  “Oh. That’s too bad.”

  “Yeah. Doc says the kid was only thirteen.”

  As the helicopter raced up the Rach Mӯ Chānh Canyon a refrain from basic training entered Cherry’s mind. During his first weeks in the army, at the beginning of each class, he and his classmates had had to chant their company slogan before the instructors would allow them to be seated. Cherry had been with Company A, 5th Battalion, 3d Basic Training Brigade. The refrain throbbed in his ears in beat to the rotor thwack.

  Action Alpha A 5 3

  Best damn company in the infantry

  We’ll meet the test

  We’ll beat the best

  Goooooo, Alpha

  Goooooo, Alpha. It became louder and quicker. Then the thought, second bird. Cherry tightened. “They try to blow up the second bird,” he remembered Doc saying. Oh Christ! he thought. Then a hundred voices strong, GOOOOOOO, ALPHA.

  The top of 848 had been pulverized. At 0735 hours Air Force fighter/bombers dove upon 848 and released six 250-pound bombs. They and other bombers passed the hill and bombed nine other landing zones and diversionary sites. At 0745 more bombers came and dropped napalm canisters on the LZs, setting the smashed brush on fire. Ten minutes later airmobile howitzers from the surrounding firebases and self-propelled eight-inch guns from Camp Evans released barrage after barrage. Fifty-six rounds of high explosive cratered 848 blowing the burning vegetation from the hilltop and smashing and tearing trees on the hillside. The troop ships lifted from LZ Sally at 0817 hours. One minute later ARA Cobras swept across Hill 848 firing flachette and HE rockets into the broken earth and the rising circumjacent jungle. The earth heaved again and again and settled back upon itself in hot drying clumps. ARA went off station and from 0831 to 0837 more artillery blasted the landing zone.

  The scenario was repeated on each LZ around the valley and on high peaks that could serve as future firebases. At 0839 the lead escort Cobra had Hill 848 in sight.

  Simultaneous with Company A’s convoy the command and control (C & C) birds of the brigade and battalion commanders entered the valley and slicks began inserting Recon and Bravo. At Firebase Barnett the ARVN security force and a battery of 105 howitzers prepared to be extracted, exchanged for American units from the 187th Infantry and the 319th Artillery. A pathfinder team landed at Barnett to organize the air traffic and to load-unload the slung cargo from the Chinooks, the guns and ammo for the artillery, 500-gallon blivets of water and fuel oil, and steel CONEXs set up as portable TOCs and FDCs. Within twenty minutes of the first ground troop insertion the new battery was to be laid, registered and ready for a fire mission.

  Cherry nervously scratched sand from the side of his head. The breeze coming into the helicopter was invigorating. His heart was thumping. From high above the jungle the deep green had looked inviting and virgin. Now the land started to rise while the helicopters maintained their altitude and suddenly they were darting single file up the canyon below the ridgelines. The jungle looked threatening. Jax shook Cherry’s arm. “Lockn-load. We’re gowin in. Pilot reports Recon got a hot LZ.”

  Goooo, Alpha. Gooo, Alpha. Cherry’s heartbeat quickened. Second bird. Goo, Alpha.

  The line of slicks approached the LZ from below, coming up the canyon, climbing to the peak. The lead escort Cobra, now directly above the first slick, opened with a fusillade that showered the landing zone with mini-gun fire, nailed down the hilltop with flachette rockets, thousands of tiny nail-like arrows burrowing into the soil, and blasted the already shattered vegetation with 40mm grenades. The peak became a smoking volcanic eruption of bright flashes and small black mushroom clouds. The four escort Cobras shot across the summit, peeled off to the sides and savaged the surrounding jungle ridges and canyons with more rockets. The missiles consumed trees and thick vegetation in bursts of white-red fire and large gray smoke thunderheads.

  Cherry’s eyes darted to the doorgunner behind the machine gun. The man was intent on the jungle. Suddenly the bird was above the canyon, at the summit, in double intensity sunlight. To the west a long narrow virgin valley burst into sight. The bird crested. Cherry clicked his rifle selector from safe to automatic.

  Goo Alpha. Go Alpha. Go Alpha.

  The tail of the helicopter dropped as the bird skidded in the air. The doorgunner opened up with the machine gun spraying suppressive fire down the side of 848. The explosive barking was ferocious in Cherry’s ears, crack jolting shivers throughout his body. Adrenaline raced. All thoughts stopped. The ground enlarged, filled his vision. The slick stopped, hovered six feet above the peak. Jackson leaped. Cherry leaped. His rucksack smashed him down into the earth, into the soft exploded peaks, soil covered with shattered debris. The tinder was smoldering from the napalm and craters pocked 848. Cherry rolled and scrambled madly from the barren hilltop toward a small bush in the encircling concealing jungle. He slid down the incline into denser foliage and searched the jungle directly before his eyes for the enemy. For all the explosive force and shrapnel it had received the jungle looked unscathed.

  Slicks came into the LZ every thirty seconds. Doorgunners pelted the surrounding hills. Heavily laden boonierats jumped from the birds and scrambled off the LZ and into the jungle and disappeared. The choppers lifted tail first then rolled left accelerating down the mountainside, gunners continuing to pump rounds into the dense growth. The
perimeter expanded with each arrival. The hilltop remained empty.

  “Fucken jungle,” Egan sang out. He was standing at the edge of the LZ just below the peak. He had shed his rucksack. He held his M-16 casually at his side. Egan sauntered around inspecting perimeter security. “Fuckin jungle can really take it.”

  Jackson removed his helmet, turned it open-side up and sat in it. He took a chocolate disc from his fatigues and began eating it. “Hey, Cherry,” Jax called throwing him half of the candy. “Heah. Yo owe it to yoself.”

  “Where’s my RTO?” Egan shouted.

  The birds of the second wing reached the LZ. Without firing they set down, the troops disembarked and the birds left.

  “Cherry!” Egan shouted. “Where is that mothafucker? Cherry. Get a commo check with El Paso. We’re goina secure this side. Second platoon over there. Jax, tell Whiteboy to move his squad forward about fifteen meters and set up a point covering that trail. Watch for booby traps. L-T found signs of dinks on the other side and there’s old bunkers on top blown ta shit.” Egan circled toward Lee Marko.

  The third platoon came in and disembarked quietly, only the slapping of the rotors on the cool mountain morning air breaking the silence. Then all the helicopters departed and the jungle was very quiet. It was 0851 hours. The day was clear with a slight breeze. To Cherry the jungle was very beautiful.

  CHAPTER 12

  HILL 848

  Beneath the flying marvels of modern warfare a transformation subtly seeped from soldier to soldier about the hilltop. Finding the bodies hastened the change. Alpha reverted, returned to the most traditional soldier life form, the walking marching humping hunting legions, the infantry. Airmobility brought them to 848 but from there they would go on foot.