Even so, evenings aboard ship were filled with monotony. Writing letters didn't make much sense because they wouldn't be mailed until we reached Vietnam-and no one had yet sighted the mail buoy! We were getting restless. We wanted this cruise to end.
Did I say "cruise"? What a ludicrous, misleading naval term for a floating jail, with us as its prisoners! With boredom coming out of our asses, we couldn't understand how the squids could stand living on a ship. All they seemed to do was chip paint. Twenty or more squids would stand shoulder-to-shoulder, hammers in hand, banging on the side of a bulkhead knocking off the paint. Then someone would come along and paint the bulkhead again. When the squids weren't chipping paint, they were tying pretty rope designs around the hand railings to afford a better grip. We Marines saw that for what it really was-busy work.
Some evenings, they showed a movie in the mess hall, which held only about eighty people-a fraction of those on board. Two weeks of boredom made for pushing and shoving as men tried to get in. By the third week, though, we were bored enough to just listen to the movie without seeing a single frame. What's more, we came away satisfied!
Those Marines not listening to the movie gathered on the Thomaston's stern to have a cigarette, because smoking below decks was forbidden. Still others got lost staring at the turquoise trail of phosphorescent foam stretching for miles behind the ship. It was the most peaceful time of day, and it gave us a chance to check on Heckle and Jeckle, who we'd picked up on our third day out of California.
It was the first time most of us saw an albatross. What was so remarkable was their effortless ability to fly without flapping their long, thin wings. The graceful U-2's of the bird world, Heckle and Jeckle cruised about a hundred feet behind us-catching the air currents as the ship plowed through the sea-for the entire voyage. I don't think either bird flapped its wings more than six times across the entire Pacific Ocean.
I wished I had actually read "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," one of my many missed assignments in high school English. All I could remember was that a seaman killed an albatross and had to wear it around his neck forever. For what purpose, I couldn't remember, nor could I recall what made the bird in the poem so special-but according to the squids, albatrosses were a good omen.
We were only a couple of days from our destination just as well, because this "cruise" had gone on way too long. Another tanker-I'll call him Joe-and I planned a last act of defiance, to leave our mark forever etched on the Thomaston. We went down to the well deck, dipped into my tank's tool kit, and found an open-end wrench of just the right size. For several days now, I had been eyeing the ship's bell. I thought it would make a great souvenir of our three-week imprisonment at sea. Tonight, I decided, was the best time to liberate it.
It was 0200 on our last morning on the prison ship. Joe and I crept forward to the area outside the ship's bridge where the bell hung. The bridge was manned continually, but its windows were waist-high, which allowed us to sneak around the outside without being spotted. Below the window was the ship's bell, a sixteen-inch brass forging, held out from the bulkhead by a bracket with a single bolt-for which we carried just the right size wrench.
While Joe held the bell's clapper to keep it silent, I unscrewed the bolt. It all took less than three minutes. We then stuffed the bell into an AWOL bag and took it down to the well deck. I wrapped it up in our tarp and placed the whole package in my tank's bustle rack on the rear of the turret.
At daybreak, the shit hit the fan. Not only was the ship's captain pissed off, the Marine CO was equally irate. Both of them demanded that if the perpetrators didn't come forward and return the bell, the whole ship would be turned inside out until it was found.
Afraid that the captain would follow through with his threat, I ran down to the well deck. In a heartbeat, I was on my tank. I grabbed the bundle and threw it down on the deck between the rows of tanks. I quickly unwrapped the bundle and pulled out the bell. Where could I hide it where it wouldn't tie me to the crime? Then I was struck with a brilliant idea!
Twenty-one days after leaving California, our "cruise" was finally coming to an end. We couldn't wait to get back on the land that we saw beginning to grow from the horizon-even if it was Vietnam. Around mid-morning the ship dropped anchor. We started to unchain the tanks, getting them ready to disembark. I kept one eye on the bell, which I had wedged beneath the track of the tank ahead of mine. Yes, the Navy would get its bell back, but it would have a slightly different ring to ita flatter sound, if you will.
All the crews sat atop their tanks, eagerly waiting to unload. Joe was acting as a ground guide, the guy who walks ahead of the tank and gives hand signals to guide the driver over to the waiting Mike boat. He and I were the only ones who knew about the bell. I wasn't about to tell Embesi, because I wasn't sure how he might take it.
Slowly the stern of the ship was lowered, letting seawater slosh into the well deck, up to where the tanks were located. A few minutes later, a Mike boat motored into the cavernous hold and dropped its ramp on the dry deck. The last tank to be loaded in California was now the first to slowly board the Mike boat for its run to the shore.
Finally it was the turn of the tank right in front of ours. Joe gave its driver the signal to move ahead. The engine revved, straining as its treads tried to overcome the unseen wheel chock of solid brass. Joe, pretending to be frustrated, motioned the driver to hurry. He, in turn, added more throttle.
No Navy bell could hold back 750 horsepower and fifty-two tons! Even so, the tank leaned slightly to the left as its right track passed over the obstacle before proceeding effortlessly toward the Mike boat. As the tank vacated the space in front of us, I tapped Embesi on the shoulder and pointed to what looked like a brass manhole cover lying on the well deck. He looked at me without realizing what I was pointing at. It was our turn to move, and he was preoccupied with talking our driver over to the Mike boat.
Goodbye to the Navy and the three longest weeks of my life!
Chapter 3
The Debut
fter twenty-one days at sea, we made the kind of entrance rarely .seen this late in the war. Here was an entire company of twenty Marine tanks, together with their crews, landing at the docks of Da Nang. Nothing like this had happened since the Marines first arrived three years earlier, in 1965.
As if we had been beamed down from some unseen starship, we left one world and suddenly materialized on another. I didn't realize how often we'd use the term "world" when referring to back home in the United States, as in, "I can't wait to get back to The World." All who served in Vietnam understood that universal term, for it was as much a truism as any description you could ever provide. Nam wasn't so much a world away, as it was a journey back in time. It was as if we had emerged in the Stone Age, different from anything with which we were familiar.
As we came ashore, it wasn't the heat that made the first impression upon me, but rather the aromas. We had been isolated for three weeks from anything but the ocean's salty air, occasionally mixed with a whiff of the Thomastons smoke. Now, suddenly, our noses were overloaded with all sorts of smells, some of which I would never get used to and would permeate everything in the coming year. Along with the usual dockside odors, there was another dank aroma that smelled of dirt and decay that had a sweet, almost nauseating flavor. Part of that smell, I would later discover, was that of burning diesel fuel and human excrement-the ubiquitous fragrances issued by every American outpost in Vietnam. You smelled an American base long before you ever laid eyes on it. Midmornings, you could identify the location of an American base from miles away by the telltale columns of black smoke from the burning shitters. No exit off the northern New Jersey Turnpike was more offensive to the nose.
Second most noticeable were the heat and humidity. Having abruptly lost the artificial wind created by the ship, we found ourselves in the very uncomfortable mid-eighties with a humidity index that only a sauna could challenge. Added to all of this was the infrequent and random punctuation
of very distant booms, like far-off thunder. But this thunder had a much sharper report, like very distant fireworks. We had heard this sound before, back on the artillery ranges of Camp Pendleton.
Reality began to set in. All at once, thirteen months seemed like a life sentence, totally unattainable. I'll never get out of here, I thought. Some of us wouldn't.
From the Mike boats that ferried us from the Thomaston, we drove the tanks up a dirt road and waited for the rest of the company to disembark. We just sat there, taking it all in. I noticed that we were parked next to a fenced-in holding pen containing military vehicles of every description. All were in a horrible state-heavy battle damage, mostly due to mines. The eerie sight of these vehicles was my first visible proof of the unhealthy environment that lay ahead. They were waiting to go back to The World, and after having arrived only a few minutes ago, I wished I could go with them.
Out of this lot of wounded and victimized vehicles, it was easy to spot the lone Marine tank simply because of its size. Our tank crew of four, sitting on top of our turret, naturally became curious as to how one of our own had won a return passage back to The World. More importantly, maybe we could get it to reveal the fate of its crew.
We climbed the fence and approached the tank on our wobbly sea legs, each of us commenting on how it felt like the earth was moving beneath us. As we got closer, our eyes scanned the vehicle, looking for any outward sign of why it had earned a ticket to go home. Unlike most of the other vehicles, it was definitely not a victim of a mine. We examined it like the crime scene that it was, looking for clues.
But the tank appeared to be fine; its suspension and track were intact. "Maybe it's just a mechanical problem that couldn't be fixed here," I suggested.
As we got closer, Embesi said, "Keep an eye open for anything we can salvage." His motives were totally different than ours: We wanted to know the past, and he was thinking of the future.
Embesi's experienced eye spotted it first. On the far side of the turret was a small hole, about half an inch in diameter, surrounded by burn marks, as if someone had tried to use a blowtorch to cut a hole through the metal. We all recognized the hole as that made by a shaped charge. Tanks fired a similar-albeit larger-projectile that left the same type of marks. What astonished us most was the angle at which it struck the tank's turret wall. We guessed it to be about 75 degrees off perpendicular. At such an oblique angle, it should have ricocheted.
"That's an RPG hole," Embesi said. An RPG-7, or rocket-propelled grenade, was the enemy's equivalent of our bazooka-except that it penetrated ten times better. When striking a target with a contoured surface it seldom ricocheted-something a bazooka would do, all too frequently.
This little hole didn't look all that menacing and was far smaller than the hole that one of our HEAT (high explosive anti-tank) rounds would make. Apparently its glancing blow had managed to penetrate through four inches of solid steel.
So this is what an RPG does? I wondered. While stationed in California we had all heard about RPGs from returning veterans, who talked about them only with the utmost respect. We had all heard stories of just how effective their shaped-charge warheads were against even the thickest areas on a tank. Now I was witnessing their capability first hand.
"Find me a piece of wire so I can check this out," said Embesi.
The driver and I scoured the ground, looking for a piece of wirefor what, we had no idea. Finally the driver discovered a one-foot-long piece. Embesi straightened it out, inserted it into the little hole, and then pushed it all the way in. It met no resistance, confirming that the RPG had penetrated the turret wall.
It wasn't hard to imagine the rest of the scenario. Without looking, we could visualize what lay on the other side of Embesi's wire. Inside the turret, where the hole came in, was the ready rack-where the first and most accessible rounds of main gun ammunition were stored.
An RPG-7 is a Russian- or Chinese-made shoulder-launched, unguided missile that was fired from a handheld tube. The missile had fins on the end; it looked too similar to our own bazooka rocket. But unlike the bazooka, the RPG missile was not launched from inside a tube that might have increased its accuracy. Instead, it was stuck on the end of a launcher that had a trigger handle halfway down its length.
Later, I would learn just how fast a well-hidden enemy could jump up and fire one. In two short months, we would see for ourselves that thirteen inches of solid steel was equally vulnerable. An RPG could enter at almost any point and spray the inside of the vehicle with a jet of molten steel.
Like any weapon it also had its limitations; fortunately for us, it was highly inaccurate. To ensure a hit, the shooter had to position himself very close to his target. Fortunately, too, most RPG hits were not lethal, provided a crewman wasn't directly in its path when it punched its way inside the vehicle. But it was catastrophic if the molten jet came in contact with any of our four-foot-long 90mm main gun rounds-of which there were sixty-two stowed inside the tank. Therefore, a hit from an RPG was a crewman's worst nightmare.
Now I was more curious than ever about the fate of the crew. A million questions ran through my mind. What had happened on the inside? Did the crew get out in time? Was the gunner spared? The three of us hoped to satisfy our morbid curiosity by looking inside. We climbed up on the tank and opened the loader's hatch.
"Holy shit!" we said in unison as we looked into each other's awestruck faces. We had opened the door to a crematory whose smell overpowered us. We jerked our heads back, trying not to gag.
None of us was prepared for the unbelievable sight. The inside, once white, was now jet black. The radios had been melted into an unrecognizable pile of scrap, and the plastic control handles at the gunner's station had melted away. Each of us dwelled a little longer on the spot where his own crew position would have been.
We sat back up to catch our breath with another gulp of fresh air. From the ground, Embesi reminded us to see where his wire entered the turret.
The three of us held our breath again and looked back inside. As we had suspected, it came in right next to where one of the 90mm rounds would have been stowed. Obviously the RPG had detonated the projectile sitting there.
Probably curious as to our reaction, Sergeant Embesi climbed up on the tank and looked inside the loader's hatch. Unfazed, he said, "Now there's an oversight on somebody's part, leaving the .30 in there. Somebody go down and pull that gun out. We can always use another machine gun."
Leave it to Embesi to make lemonade out of lemons, but I couldn't believe what he was asking us to do. Had it been anyone else, I'd have said, "If you want it so bad, you go down there and get it." It was one of those orders directed at no one in particular but meant for either the driver or me. We wanted no part of climbing into someone else's coffin.
He and I just looked at each other, hoping the other would make the first move.
Sergeant Hearn sensed our hesitation and lowered himself through the loader's hatch. He tried to remove the machine gun, but it wouldn't budge. Welded in place by the intense heat of the explosion, it was as worthless as the rest of the tank. That was fine with me, because I felt taking it would be like stealing from the dead.
Embesi's initial observation had been right. The RPG had detonated the first round it came in contact with, and then the rest of them. No crewman could have survived such an unlucky hit. Embesi was quick to explain to us that this was a perfect example of infantry not working with the tanks. Little did I realize that this would be a constant struggle throughout my entire coming year. It was natural for the grunts to want to stay behind such a large, solid object as a tank; they thought of us as being invulnerable. They didn't realize just how much we needed them to flush out the enemy RPG teams ahead of us.
Well, I thought to myself, that was a hell of a welcome to Vietnam. I had just been splashed in the face with a cold bucket of reality. Suddenly, for the first time since becoming a tanker, I felt vulnerable. The fingernails of my subconscious dragged across th
e blackboard of my consciousness, sending shivers down my spine. My suspicions were suddenly confirmed: I was not going to like this place. And the already unfathomable next twelve months seemed more like twenty years.
Thoughts of that blackened tank and its crew stayed with me for several months. In hindsight, that burned-out shell of a tank could have been the worst example to show an FNG (fuckin' new guy). For me, it was the best example. That charred interior galvanized in my mind the vitally necessary cooperation between tanks and infantry.
IT TOOK THE REST OF OUR COMPANY another two hours to get ashore, then we got underway. We must have made an impressive sight-twenty tanks moving out in one long column. Next to flattening the Thomaston's bell, it was the best part of my day.
We traveled through the outskirts of Da Nang into the countryside, still traveling on a dirt road. The road was on an earthen berm, elevated about five feet above the ground. I looked around, expecting shell craters and burned-out vehicles along the way. I never saw even the faintest suggestion of a war, except for the constant amount of military traffic. But it was the amount of civilian traffic that surprised me most of all.
We passed several troop-laden vehicles heading in the opposite direction. The passengers turned their heads to gawk and point at us, then laughed. The more trucks we passed, the more obvious it became, until I was sure we were on the outside of an inside joke. At first I thought it was the large mass of armor that was drawing everyone's attention our way. I supposed it wasn't every day that one saw twenty tanks traveling in a column in The Nam, as if out on a Sunday drive. It never crossed my mind that we might be the joke. All those passing veterans saw were twenty brand-new tanks with crews in clean stateside uniforms traveling as if on parade, as if the circus had just come to town. In their eyes, we were instantly branded FNGs. It must have been embarrassing for the returning veterans in our company, some of whom were back for a third visit.
Praying for Slack: A Marine Corps Tank Commander in Viet Nam Page 5
