We began passing some of the ubiquitous rice paddies that make up the lowlands throughout all of Vietnam. It was the first time I saw people working their sunken plots or was treated to the common Vietnamese practice of squatting in a paddy to relieve one's self, right in plain sight, followed with a whip of the hand to dispose of what had been gathered from the barehanded wipe. They were their own source of fertilizer and didn't mind sharing the view with us.
"Jesus!" I moaned out loud without taking my eyes off the woman in the calf-deep muddy water who had just wiped and flung. Embesi and Hearn laughed at my typical FNG reaction, but I made a mental note to never eat Vietnamese rice for the duration of my tour.
We turned onto a side road, which led up a steep grade and into a combat base. Our grand and noisy entrance brought all activity inside the base to a standstill. We were subjected to incredulous stares. As we pulled into the tank park of 1st Tank Battalion, I got my first glimpse of what real tanks looked like-after serving in the field a little too long. After thirteen months of stateside tank duty, I could only stare in disbelief at their beat-up, disheveled condition.
Four or five of them were being worked on. Most were undergoing a PM (preventative maintenance) procedure-a glorified oil change that all tanks receive every three months. These were fighting tanks that had been in-country for years and thus showed their wear, tear, and mistreatment. All of them were missing their headlights. Most were missing one or more fenders and had homemade replacements of corrugated roofing material. Their infantry phones on the rear fender had been ripped off long ago, and only one or two tanks still had searchlights. These veteran tanks had been in combat longer than any World War II tank had ever served.
Common to all were the sections of track bolted along the outside of their turrets to afford extra protection against RPGs. In front of the driver's position, welded homemade brackets holding a dozen sandbags gave him a little more protection. Several tanks had their .50-caliber machine guns mounted outside and on top of the TC's cupola, in a configuration called a sky mount-their solution to the jamming problems associated with the .50. It looked cool, but I knew it was foolish. Embesi agreed with me that a sky mount required the tank commander to stand far too high out of the turret to operate the gun.
Finally, I realized why we were the object of so many flabbergasted stares, why the sight of our twenty brand-new stateside tanks drew nothing but laughs and guffaws. We were the new guys pulling into the veterans' tank park with our glistening chariots. In the Marine Corps, you never wanted to look like an FNG, because that immediately singled you out for any shit detail when someone needed a warm body.
Back when I was first assigned to Tank School in California, I had just finished Advanced Infantry Training at Camp Lejuene, North Carolina, and had been in the Corps fewer than five months. Our brandnew green utility uniforms, or work clothes, had yet to fade like those of veteran Marines. Some of us would go into town to an Army/Navy store to buy used, faded uniforms so as not to look like the rookies we really were. Now, sitting in this "real" tank park, I wished I could buy a used, faded tank!
One of the veteran vehicles had a noticeable list to one side, and I went over to investigate why. It was obviously the victim of a large mine; most of its roadwheels were missing on the far side. The name painted on its gun tube-Mother's Worry-reflected the concern of somebody back in The World. From the looks of this tank, Mom had every right to be worried. Was her boy okay? 1 hoped so.
Looking around in the park, I saw that all the veteran gun tanks had names on their gun tubes. There were also two flame tanks, sometimes called Zippos after the cigarette lighter manufacturer, capable of shooting a stream of napalm several hundred feet. Flame tanks all had one thing in common-they always had great names. Thirty years later, I can still recall some of them: Looks Like Jelly, Burns Like Hell, Crispy Critters, Dante's Inferno, Devil's Disciple, and Baby Burners.
I decided we had to come up with a name of our own. After securing the tank, we got our stuff together and were led to temporary living quarters-tents stretched over wooden frames. But they did have wooden floors and were up off the ground, plus the compound had electricity, hot showers, and hot food.
Our driver came into the hooch and said, "You ain't gonna believe this, but they got movies too!"
"A movie?" I asked in total surprise. "In The Nam?" Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all!
Once we got situated and unpacked, we walked around to get the lay of the land and stumbled across an enlisted man's club where beer was served after working hours. Things were really looking up for us. I found the mess hall and planned on eating dinner that night. Overall, I was feeling pretty good about my first day in-country.
Next day we worked on the tanks, had a warm lunch, and worked some more. That evening, after chow, I grabbed an early seat for the movie. I still couldn't believe we were going to watch an outdoor movie in The Nam! Hell, I thought, I just might be able to do this year thing standing on my head, no problem at all!
The movie theater was an open area with rows of benches; the screen was a building with one side painted white. That evening turned out to be as surrealistic as any I would ever experience in Vietnam. It felt like we were at a drive-in movie, but without the cars. Odder still was the random and distant rumble of very distant artillery; the war would continue as we watched the movie. I found it quite disconcerting, as I sat in the open with a large group of people, that I couldn't help thinking that one lucky incoming mortar or rocket could take out the entire crowd of people. How could this kind of entertainment go on at night in the middle of a war zone? At that moment, we were all certain that the war was nearby. After all, we could hear it and see its flashes on the horizon. Little did any of us FNGs realize just how far we were "in the rear with the gear."
The most ludicrous thing about the entire evening was the movie itself. A more absurd film could not have been shown to a group of Marines. John Wayne's The Green Berets brought ninety minutes of nonstop catcalls and laughter at Hollywood's interpretation of the very war in which we were now immersed. The fact that it was an Army story made it even funnier. But we FNGs totally missed the highlight of the evening. One of the last scenes of the film brought a cacophony of outbursts, finally drowned out by a hysterical laughter that grew in intensity. But I didn't understand the joke.
There was John Wayne, standing on a beach somewhere in Vietnam, watching the sun slowly set on the ocean's horizon-an impossibility unless the Earth changed the way it turned! In front of me, once I was clued in, was a gross error made by Hollywood. That scene later confirmed to me just how little anyone back home understood this war.
We remained in the tank park to load ammunition off numerous supply trucks. It was hot work and took two entire days. The 90mm ammunition came in wooden boxes, two rounds per box. Each crew had to carry thirty-two boxes to its tank, cut the metal bands, and take out each projectile, which was enclosed in its own cardboard tube. Then we had to break the seal around the tube and pull off the very tight top, much like a large mailing tube, and carefully slide the round out.
Each 90mm round was actually a giant rifle bullet four feet long and weighing around thirty-five pounds. On the bottom of the round's base was the primer, just as you would find on a bullet, only much larger. It was the primer that, when struck by the firing pin, would detonate the powder in the shell casing. It required only twelve pounds of pressure to set it off. Needless to say, you didn't stand the projectile on its base. You always held rounds with one hand over the base to protect the primer as you carefully loaded them into the tank. It was slow work that took all four crewmen. Two of us on the ground broke open the boxes and passed each round up to a man standing on the fender next to the turret. He then passed each round down through the loader's hatch to the loader himself, whose job was to store the ammo.
There were several different types of main gun ammunition and each was suited for a specific job. Canister was our favorite for its
shotgunlike properties that threw out a wall of 1,100 quarter-inch diameter chopped steel rod, each of which was about a half-inch long. It was extremely effective out to 300 meters and would lay a swath through the thickest of grasses-or masses of people. The next most common round we carried was high explosive or HE, which was an artillery-like projectile that would throw shrapnel in all directions at the point of impact. It was good against people when they were beyond the reach of canister. HE's best feature, however, was the delay setting that could easily be made by the loader that permitted the round to penetrate a structure before detonating. It was excellent against bunkers.
A new round had just been introduced into the tank arsenal called flechette, more commonly referred to as beehive. What made this round unique was that it had a plastic dial on the nose of the projectile. It was the loader's job to turn the dial to the range of the target, which the tank commander would give him. Beehive was an antipersonnel round that was full of 4,400 one-and-a-half-inch long nails that had fins on the back of them; they looked like miniature darts. When the round left the gun tube, it would explode at the preset range and set up a wall of darts 100 meters in front of the target. It was a good round against massed enemy troops in the open, which wasn't a common occurrence. Its one drawback was that it didn't have any "knock-down" effect. An enemy soldier could be hit by several darts that served only to really piss him off. Close in, canister was, by far, the better round.
We also carried white phosphorus, or "Willy Peter," which was just like an HE round except that it was loaded with phosphorus that burned on contact with the air. It was very effective against bunkers, but was used more often for marking purposes to show aircraft where a target was located. Most tanks hated to carry the stuff for fear that it could ignite inside the tank if hit by an RPG. There was another main gun round that was being phased out that we sometimes came across called high explosive plastic (HEP). The projectile was made up of soft C4 plastic explosive that flattened out against the target before it detonated; it was actually an antitank round that was marginally okay against bunkers but did not have the penetration capability of HE nor its deadly shrapnel. The last type of round we carried was high explosive antitank (HEAT), which was excellent against armor or steel-reinforced bunkers. It was not the round of choice in 1st Tank Battalion's TAOR, but was the number one round in 3rd Tank Battalion tanks. This was due to the enemy armor threat that was purported to be up north along the DMZ. It was up to the tank commander to decide the mix of ammunition he wanted and where and how it would be stored.
We also unloaded case after case of machine gun ammunition. Typically we carried 10,000 rounds of .30-caliber ammo and 2,000 rounds of .50-caliber machine gun ammo. It all had to be broken open, spliced together, and laid in the huge ammo boxes inside the turret. The remainder was packed on the back of the bustle rack. You could never carry enough.30!
Twenty tanks would require almost seven hundred cases of main gun ammo, eight hundred cases of .30, two hundred cases of .50, and several cases of .45-caliber pistol and submachine gun ammunition. It was an enormous, backbreaking effort, and the hot March sun didn't make it any easier. Anytime an FNG complained about the heat, the veterans chuckled among themselves and told him, "This ain't shit.... Wait until July."
We also scrounged up as many pieces of spare track as we could find lying around the tank park and bolted it to the sides of the turret, but spare track was in very short supply. Slowly we began to look like a vehicle ready for combat.
A few days later a Captain Johnstone, who had been in-country a few months, replaced our company CO. We then moved out as a full tank company, taking all twenty vehicles to a firing "range"-actually an area that bordered on a free-fire zone. These were zones designated as being "open season, all season" for anything caught moving within them. It meant that you could shoot with no questions asked, for anything found inside these areas was the enemy. There was no reason for anyone to be in those areas, and all the locals knew it.
The area we were going into was actually the entrance to a wide preserve called Happy Valley. According to the veterans in our unit, some of whom had previous first-hand experience in the valley, it was anything but happy.
The reason given for our little excursion was to "sight-in the guns," the most ridiculous excuse ever given to a bunch of men. After all, these tanks had just come from Pendleton, the perfect environment for setting up guns and sighting systems. No, the real reason for our jaunt was to give a little training to the amtrackers. They had never so much as seen a tank fire, let alone driven one. They were totally unaware of the complex ballet that goes on within the turret during live fire.
We traveled a dirt road through an area covered by scrub and low bushes. It was hot, dry, and dusty. A column of dust trailed behind us as twenty tanks churned up the dry earth. Our tank, B-24, was in the middle of the long column.
We had been on the road for only twenty minutes when the column came to a halt. Over the radio we heard that somehow the lead tank had become mired in a mud bog. Just where the mud came from was anybody's guess.
The rest of the tanks formed a large defensive perimeter around what looked like a prehistoric beast stuck in a tar pit. Embesi and Hearn jumped down and took our Navy line with them. Embesi told me to get up and man the TC's position and keep watch on our side of the perimeter. I traversed the main gun to cover an area dense with scrub and brush. The driver remained in his position, keeping an eye out as well. He and I talked over the intercom as I kept him abreast of the rescue mission to our rear.
Between talking with the driver, watching the perimeter, monitoring the radios, and occasionally glancing over my shoulder at the progress being made on the stuck tank, I failed to notice that our tank was ... moving. It was imperceptible to both the driver and me, but it was, nonetheless, moving. At some point, something just didn't look right. We both noticed it and even commented upon it, but neither one of us could put a finger on it.
Looking over at one of the other tanks manning the perimeter security, I noticed immediately that it had settled about a foot into the ground, halfway up to its roadwheels-and then it hit me! Our tank was also slowly sinking into what looked like dry, dusty ground!
I jumped out of the turret and onto the fender to take a closer look at our situation. We had sunk further than the tanks on either side of us, but my first thought was that Embesi was going to kill me!
"Pull up!" I yelled to the driver, "Pull ahead! We're sinking!"
The driver overreacted, added too much power, and caused us to sit down even further in the quagmire until the tank's hull was sitting on the ground!
The noise we made by revving the engine had drawn everyone's attention, causing Embesi to run back to the tank. I was afraid he would be really pissed and blame me for the situation I had gotten us intoand he wouldn't have been wrong. At the same time, all the other TCs ran back to their own tanks as soon as they discovered that they had the same problem too; most had sunk at least a foot or more. It had quickly become a scene where the rescuers might be the ones in need of rescuing-a giant cluster fuck; it later became known as Johnstone's Folly.
Our tank was hopelessly mired. Embesi ran to the other tanks of his platoon, warning them of the danger of applying too much power and allowing the tracks to spin and dig themselves into a deeper hole, as we had done. By applying a slow and steady amount of power, all the tanks were able to extricate themselves from the mud. Embesi then backed one of the freed tanks up to ours, hooked up the tow cables, and with a lot of difficulty, finally pulled us out.
Once free of the mud, the tanks had to keep moving in order to avoid sinking again. That day, the driver and I both learned something vital that would come in handy time and again, during the coming months: Never take anything for granted, not even dry dusty ground!
Embesi never said a word to me. He knew that I had just learned a lot from that little incident. Nevertheless, as we started to move out of the area, he did say, "That w
as the damnedest ground I've ever seen" and warned me later to be more observant.
Jesus Christ! I thought. I had to watch the bushes, check all the potential avenues of approach for an enemy I was certain was out there, and monitor the radios. I also had to keep an eye on how they were doing with the mired tank, make certain we didn't run down our batteriesand I was supposed to watch our height above the ground too?
This was going to be one very long year!
Chapter 4
Welcome to Eye Corps
he military had divided South Vietnam into four geographical areas called military regions-I, II, III, and IV. U.S. Marine units operated in the northernmost area, Military Region I, which was overseen by the ARVN and thus called "I Corps." South of that was II Corps, then III Corps, and the southernmost IV Corps. All of these corps areas were referred to by their numeral designations, except for I Corps-One Corps was universally called "Eye Corps."
At the northern border of I Corps was the Ben Hai River, which separated North from South Vietnam. On each side of the river was a 3,000-meter buffer zone, set up by a United Nations mandate in the mid-1950s. This neutral area was called the Demilitarized Zone-the DMZ-or simply, "the Z." It should have been called the Militarized Zone, because it was anything but demilitarized. Our side bent over backward to honor the neutrality, but somehow the North Vietnamese never got the word. The DMZ became a Communist sanctuary, even on the southern side of the river. It fell within the TAOR (tactical area of responsibility) of the 3rd Marine Division, headquartered in QuangTri.
THE FO t rR MIL IT", F r CO R PS
AREASOFSOUTII VIETNAM
One hundred and seventy miles south of the DMZ lay the large coastal city of Da Nang, home of the other Marine division operating in Vietnam, our own 1st Marine Division. When it came to the type of war each division was fighting, the 170 miles separating the two might as well have been 1,700 miles. The North Vietnamese Army troops along the DMZ were extremely well equipped, being in such close proximity of their supply bases. Third Marine Division troops didn't have to worry themselves about flinging away an empty C ration can, but in the Da Nang TAOR, you didn't dare throw anything away. Once Charlie got hold of it, yesterday's empty tin can could become tomorrow's homemade mine.
Praying for Slack: A Marine Corps Tank Commander in Viet Nam Page 6
