I immediately recognized them as fording kits. Used only for amphibious landings, they allowed a tank to cross deep water safely, so long as the water didn't reach over the top of the tank's turret. This was a sure sign something major was in the works. I thanked my lucky stars that I was in Charlie Company, where there wasn't much activity going on.
I walked down to the Bravo Company tanks, where I bumped into Sergeant Molocko. He seemed overly glad to see me, and I assumed he was visiting friends who were part of the mount-out. "Where've you been the last two weeks?" he asked.
"NCO school. But enough chitchat. Does anybody know what's going on?"
"Well, about twenty tankers were shipped off to the Twenty-seventh Marines early this morning, to become grunts. They're boarding planes. Is that enough for you?"
Holy shit! I thought. Maybe I'd been lucky to be away at NCO school.
Molocko explained that all the tank crews had been reassigned within the battalion. Most of our Charlie Company platoon had been transferred to Bravo Company. "Bet you didn't know you were in Bravo Company now, did ya?"
"I'm part of this after all!" I gasped.
"Yes, we are," he said sarcastically. "I've already done one goddamned tour in Nam, and only six months to go before I get out. I don't like this shit!"
"So, where are we going?"
"Nobody's saying, but I'd bet Vietnam."
On the ramp I noticed a lot of men I didn't recognize. Most were just standing around with their hands in their pockets.
"Who are all these strange faces?"
"Fuckin' amtrackers!" was Molocko's disgusted reply. I soon discovered that they had been sent over from the 5th Amtrac Battalion to fill vacancies left by the tankers now boarding planes as grunts! Well, that explained why so many were just standing around like lepers in a nudist colony. What military genius had decided to break up a well-trained tank unit-and then thought they could be replaced with amtrac crewmen?
It defied explanation. An amtrac, or amphibious tractor, was officially known as a Landing Vehicle, Tracked-LVT for short. They were designed to carry about twenty Marine grunts ship-to-shore in an amphibious assault. They were huge, lumbering aluminum boxes about the size of a bus that could waddle through the ocean and drive up onto a beach.
About the only thing amtracs and tanks had in common was that both shared the same .30-caliber machine gun. The idea that LVT crewmen could easily transfer over to a tank must have been dreamed up in division headquarters by some idiot with no knowledge of either vehicle's capabilities and limitations. His absurdly unfortunate decision would come back to haunt us two months later. Why hadn't they simply taken the amtrac crewmen for the grunts?
People were scurrying all over the ramp. New equipment was arriving all the time, and what didn't arrive fast enough was robbed off my former Charlie Company tanks. About the only good news Molocko had heard was that our platoon sergeant, Robert Embesi, wasn't going to change.
I never met anyone in the Corps who knew more about tanks than twenty-seven-year-old Staff Sergeant Embesi. He was the only platoon sergeant I'd ever had in my short Marine career with 5th Tanks, and I had more respect for him than any officer I ever encountered. Robert Embesi could have been a recruiter's poster Marine. Always sharply turned out, he expected the same of his people. I had never seen him in a fight, but everybody knew you didn't want to mess with him.
I think he took a liking to me because I had never been assigned to any of the countless shit details that were always available. Also, he gave me the opportunity to attend NCO School and NBC-Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical-School. I respected him as a leader and never wanted to do anything to disappoint him.
I was in awe of him. He pulled off countless little tricks, shortcuts, and miracles that never appeared in any tank manual, freely sharing his knowledge with anyone who showed an interest. All the other platoon sergeants looked up to him, deferring to him whenever a question came up that they couldn't answer. Embesi was a superb leader and the acknowledged tank expert within the battalion. His remarkable knowledge of the tank's weapons systems was responsible for my coming to love the TC's.50-caliber machine gun-a most misunderstood weapon, and the scourge of most tank commanders. Later on, another of his .50caliber lessons would make me an instant hero.
Whenever someone asked a puzzling question, the usual reply was, "Ask Embesi."
I had been assigned as gunner to a tank in the 2nd Platoon. When I heard that its number was B-24-the platoon sergeant's tank-I knew immediately that Embesi had a hand in my assignment.
My new tank commander was Sergeant Hearn, a tough Irishman who was proud to show how he could remove the front teeth from his mouth. I had no reason to doubt what he told everyone, that his original ones had been knocked out in a bar fight. When I learned the real story-which was much scarier-it convinced me I had been assigned the right tank commander.
Hearn had been on Operation Starlite, America's first large-scale operation of the war, and one of its most successful. It had been a true Marine-type operation, with amphibious landings and simultaneous helicopter assaults that enveloped the enemy's rear and resulted in more than a thousand enemy dead. Sometime during Starlite, a detachment of tanks and amtracs was sent out on a resupply run and was ambushed. The flamethrower tank that Hearn was commanding was hit by 57mm recoilless rifle fire and RPGs-rocket-propelled grenades. One of the recoilless rounds penetrated the TC's side of the turret, taking off Hearn's belt buckle and nearly cutting him in half.
Fearing that the huge napalm bottle inside the tank might blow, he and his crew abandoned their burning vehicle. Hearn had the foresight to take the tank's .30-caliber machine gun with him and continued to fight off the enemy.
He was wounded in five different places. One bullet had entered his cheek and exited his mouth, explaining his removable front teeth. His crew fought alongside him, armed only with pistols, and they were all wounded. With his entire column wiped out, Hearn hid in the brush and managed to evade and avoid enemy patrols until a Marine patrol rescued him the next day. For his heroism, he was awarded a Silver Star and a Purple Heart.
Two months later, I would discover just how the terrifying experience had affected him. Hearn would be my tank commander unless the 2nd Platoon was deployed in force. If so, Embesi would take over the TC's position, leaving Hearn free to select the crew position he wanted.
Going by the book, the next job down was the gunner, followed by the driver, and then the loader. Few men wanted to be the gunner, because he was the only crewman without a hatch to stick his head out of. On field operations, a gunner never saw the sky or breathed fresh air. Most men preferred the risk of getting their heads shot off by a sniper than being confined inside a hot, cramped tank all day. But the gunner's job suited me just fine.
After I introduced myself, Sergeant Hearn told me that a couple of the amtrac people had been made TCs because they outranked some of the tankers. Rank alone was enough justification for you to be assigned a leadership job, whether you were qualified or not.
It was downright dangerous to place men's lives in the hands of an ill-trained, incompetent TC. I had yet to serve in Nam, but I knew that any tanker with thirteen months' training was a lot more valuable then a rookie sergeant from amtracs. I was lucky that Embesi wasn't about to put any rookies on his crew.
After I saw the new Bravo Company roster, one thing seemed certain: The newly reorganized unit had too many Vietnam veterans. Some had done their tour of duty, been in the States a year, and were waiting for their discharge in six months. Most weren't career Marines. There was no way we could possibly be going to Vietnam with so many short-timers.
There was also a hefty number of career Marines, "lifers." Most had been to Vietnam at least once, if not twice-which fueled the rumors even more. What was our final destination going to be? Everyone had his own guess. North Korea was at the top of the list, and that idea just felt good. Being part of rescuing a Navy crew had an appealing dash of glory to
it. But everyone was discussing Vietnam.
Two days later we mounted the fording kits and new hardware; we packed up our gear and stowed it on the tanks as well. Our sea bags were full of our nonessential and noncombat gear, so we turned them in, to be held for us until we got back from wherever we were going. All we knew for sure was we would be making a beach landing somewhere in the world. We just didn't know which Berlitz language course to buy.
The twenty tanks of Bravo Company were driven to the embarkation point on the beaches of Camp Pendleton. Anchored a mile offshore was the USS Thomaston-a Landing Ship, Dock, or LSD. From her stern came two Mike boats-Landing Craft, Mediums, or LCMs, ferrying three tanks and their crews out to the mother ship at a time, which took most of the afternoon. This kind of loading was always a slow job, no thanks to a landing craft's ramp, which was exactly twelve feet wide. A tank's width measured eleven feet, eleven inches. Squeezing fifty-two tons through, with only half an inch on either side, was tricky and tedious.
We loaded onto one of the LCMs and it motored out to the Thomaston's stern. Slowly we entered the LSD's cavernous well deck, and the Mike boat beached herself inside. After our boat dropped its ramp on the well deck, each tank carefully inched its way off and was guided by Navy personnel to a pre-assigned location. We were surprised to see that ours weren't the only vehicles on the ship. Packed well forward in the LSD's hold were several cranes, bulldozers, and other large noncombat military vehicles.
Each tank crew was responsible for chaining-or in Navyspeak, "dogging down"-its vehicle to the well deck, which required four large, heavy chains.
What made it even harder was the lack of room between vehicles. The Navy sure knew how to use every square inch of available space, but that severely limited our working area. The tanks were packed asshole-to-elbow, with only eighteen inches between them. What could have been a ten-minute job took two hours.
Once Bravo Company was aboard and dogged down, the LSD raised its stern, pumped out the water, and we got underway. Only then was our destination finally, officially announced over the ship's PA system. Our destination was the port facility of Da Nang, Republic of South Vietnam.
The impossible had happened! Some Nam veterans who hadn't been back in the States for even a year yet had been caught up in the mountout and were going back again. You could hear jaws dropping all over the ship.
Sergeant Hearn, who had only a few months left to serve in the Corps, was one of the most pissed-off. The perceived wrong only magnified the seriousness of our rapid deployment. The enemy's Tet Offensive, then in full stride, had touched every city and hamlet throughout Vietnam. Someone had desperate need of us, and we were on our way.
Suddenly the veterans started treating us first-timers like secondclass citizens. Even though we were all figuratively (and literally) in the same boat, they despised us because "we" hadn't yet done our part, yet here they were, going back over for a second time-some for a third. I could sympathize, but I hated their strange and unfair rationalization and the way they took their anger out on us.
The USS Thomaston was to be our home for the next three weeks. She was fourteen years old-considered new by Navy standards and a tub by us Marines. Everyone gathered on the fantail and watched as the California coast sank beneath the horizon.
Few spoke as we watched the land disappear. We wouldn't see the States again for thirteen months. The reality of what was happening began to set in, along with the uncertainty of what lay ahead.
I thought about my father and his similar departure to a war in the Pacific in 1944. Now his son, a Marine just like him, was shipping out, twenty-four years later.
It was announced that we would be stopping in Guam for refueling in about twelve days. Guam was in the Marianas, the same island chain containing Saipan and Tinian, the two islands where my dad fought. He had survived three landings and served in his war for three years, until its conclusion. Marines of the Old Corps had served for their war's duration, waiting to be either victors or casualties. Right then, I couldn't understand how any of them had managed to survive.
Thinking about it, I realized I had it a lot easier, having to survive for only a year before I returned home. But at that moment, it seemed like an impossible goal. Eternity was staring me in the face.
Chapter 2
Crossing the Pond
s the shock of learning our destination wore off, we looked to find our assigned berthing areas. They assigned a swabbie to lead our 2nd Platoon's five tank crews to the berthing area, where we would sleep during the next three weeks.
All passageways look alike aboard a Navy ship, so he tried to explain how to find our way around using a numbering system painted on every bulkhead throughout the vessel. The system was more confusing than the ship itself, impossible for any Marine to interpret, but the swabbie assured us that we would know our way around in just a short time.
As we soon found out, that-along with anything and everything the Navy told us-was a bold-faced lie. Actually, it took something close to two weeks before we got the hang of it, which meant many hours of wandering a frustrating myriad of corridors-"passageways."
Our first days at sea found Marines bumping into each other throughout the bowels of the ship. A conversation would start out, "Do you know how to get to the ship's mess?"
"No. Do you know how to get to the showers?"
But for some of us, those three weeks were a blessing. Many inexperienced amtrackers had to assimilate what was normally an eight-week Tank Crewman School without the benefit of land for practice. They had no experience driving a tank, much less firing any of its systems. But, hey, aren't tanks and amtracs just about the same thing? In some idiot's mind, they were.
Twice a day news was posted on a bulletin board outside the ship's radio room-once we could find our way there. Each subsequent posting fed us a little more information as to why we had been pulled out of California so abruptly. We were part of a response to the Tet Offensive, which had caught Army Gen. William Westmoreland's Military Advisory Command, Vietnam (MACV), totally off guard.
Only days before our own departure, the 27th Marines had left California by plane and were already in the field in Vietnam. Some ex-tankers were humpin' the boonies as grunts. We didn't ignore our luck. We were a lot safer aboard ship than in the field with the mud and the bugs. Luckier still, our three-week voyage would count against our thirteen-month tour of duty. God must have meant for me to be a tanker!
But, just like our own tanks, we were crammed into a berthing area efficiently designed to pack as many people into as little space as the Navy was willing to provide. Our compartment, straight out of every World War II movie I'd ever seen, consisted of a free-standing row of bunks, stacked four-high down the middle of the compartment. Down each side of this center island ran aisles only two feet wide. Against each bulkhead were more bunks, also stacked four-high. The ship was one giant sardine tin, with us as the sardines.
Shipboard life brought us into direct contact with our Navy brothers. I say "brothers" because the Marine Corps is actually part of the Department of the Navy. We had no problem with this arrangement because we considered the Navy to be like a giant department storeand we Marines were its men's department. We often bragged how the Corps built the Navy so that we could get around.
In short, the two services weren't particularly fond of one another; and the squids-as we called Navy personnel-loved to pull practical jokes on us unsuspecting landlubbers. Squids always liked to make us Marines look stupid, which wasn't always hard to do. After all, we were strangers in an alien environment. A little showmanship and convincing lines made many a Marine into an easy mark.
We had been at sea for only a couple of days when one squid visited a hapless Marine around 3 a.m. and told him, "Wake up. It's your turn for mail buoy watch."
Being awakened for a two-hour watch was hardly unusual; every outfit always had some kind of watch going on. At three in the morning, a groggy Marine didn't ask too many questio
ns. Conditioned to obey orders automatically, he would do whatever was asked of him-provided it was delivered with enough authority.
"What's mail buoy watch?" he might think to ask.
"For the next two hours," the squid would explain, "it's your turn to stand watch on the ship's bow and watch for the mail buoy."
"What's a mail buoy?"
"All the forwarded mail for you Marines gets flown out ahead of the ship and dropped in a bright-colored buoy. Your job is to look out for it."
To the half-awake brain, this sounded more than halfway plausible. Much as the tanker craved sleep, he sure didn't want to be the guy everybody resented for missing their letters and packages from home! For the remainder of our cruise to Da Nang, it wasn't unusual to see one lone Marine standing on the bow, cigarette in hand, scanning the horizon for letters from home.
Wouldn't victims of this prank band together and warn their comrades? Quite the contrary, because the sucker, embarrassed by his own gullibility, wouldn't breathe a word. Sometimes, he would even aid and abet the Navy pranksters' next attempt, helping lead his fellow Marines to the slaughter. Each new sacrificial lamb helped restore the previous victims' self-respect, reassuring them that they weren't that dumb after all.
Our days weren't free by any means. During the voyage, we maintained normal working hours. Amtrackers attended class while we worked on the tanks. Something on those complex mechanical beasts always required attention. One day, which will stay with me forever, I saw my brief life flash before my eyes.
Sergeant Hearn ordered me to disassemble and clean the main gun's breechblock assembly. This was the solid steel block that slammed home after a round was loaded into the chamber. It closed with enough force and authority to intimidate any new tanker. Disassembling and cleaning the breechblock had to be done from inside the tank. It involved hooking a chain hoist to the top of the turret to lift the very heavy block out of the gun.
Praying for Slack: A Marine Corps Tank Commander in Viet Nam Page 3
