Hung on the packs' shoulder straps were other items such as flashlights, hand grenades, and usually a knife unique to Marines called a Ka-Bar. Officers and senior NCOs also had a compass and map case hanging from their belts.
No matter what his job, every man wore around his waist a web belt, attached to the shoulder straps on his backpack, which helped defer some of the weight. Like the pack, the belt was loaded down with several items-always at least two canteens of water, sometimes three or four. There was also a medical kit and possibly, but not usually, a gas mask. Under the pack, everyone wore the ten-pound flak jacket that was mandatory in the field. Each grunt wore a heavy steel helmet on his head, plus an inner helmet liner. To top it all off, each rifleman had to carry at least two bandoleers full of loaded M16 magazines slung over his head and shoulders. Along with this enormous load, a few men needed to carry a couple of Light Antitank Assault Weapons (LAAWs) that were effective against enemy bunkers. A total load of eighty pounds was commonplace, but many were often far heavier.
Some men, such as the M60 machine gunner and radioman, carried even greater loads. The radio was a heavy, back-mounted box with a large appetite for batteries; extras always had to be humped into the field. The machine gunner had to be part pack mule to carry all of his gear, ammo, and the bulky weapon. To make their plight even worse, radiomen and machine gunners sustained the highest casualty rates. Due to their effectiveness, they were the NVA's first targets. After the opening shot in a firefight, their life expectancy was purported to be eight seconds. That high casualty rate was no surprise because they were so easy to locate. The radioman had an antenna sticking up from his back like a neon sign screaming, "Here I am! And the guy next to me is the commanding officer!"The machine gunner was slightly more fortunate. He didn't draw attention to himself until his gun opened fire-at which moment, the M60's distinctive sound and rate of fire instantly revealed its location. Unlike the little 5.56mm (.223-caliber) rifle bullet that the M16 used, the M60 was the only weapon on the battlefield that fired the heavier 7.62mm (.308-caliber), which had tremendous penetrating capability and wasn't deflected by grass or light obstacles. When an M-60 opened fire, the enemy would immediately direct all their fire at the indispensably deadly weapon.
Grunts were the centerpiece of any Marine operation. They certainly had every tanker's respect, and we thanked God for not being assigned as one. Odd as it seemed, every grunt I ever talked to was glad not to be in tanks!
The heart of the Marine Corps philosophy was that we were all infantrymen, first and foremost. Anything else we did was a secondary job, and all other jobs existed only to support the infantry. That meant that all pieces of heavy equipment, from tanks to jet fighters, were referred to as "supporting arms."
The marriage between tanks and grunts was essential, yet often difficult-a real yin-yang relationship. We needed them to provide us with close-in protection, and they needed us bulletproof tankers for our ability to take on a dug-in enemy. Grunts either hated us or loved us, depending upon the moment. Often they begrudgingly tolerated our presence. Seeing us as a magnet for enemy fire, they naturally wanted to distance themselves from us or get directly behind us. The tank commander had to know where the grunts were at all times. If he let them get too far away, his tank would be exposed to enemy RPG teams. We also depended on the grunts to keep Charlie from overrunning us and getting on top of a tank. If they did, the crew's life expectancy could be quickly curtailed, because the enemy needed only to lob a grenade down an open hatch.
True, we drew a lot of fire, but the grunts seldom realized it was fire no longer aimed at them. They objected to our tanks' noise and the occasional breakdowns that would hold them up, forcing them to stay with an injured vehicle until it could be repaired. Also, they felt natural resentment toward anyone who rode while they walked, who had food and water when they didn't, and who didn't have to carry supplies on his back. But once the shit hit the fan-when the cry of "Tanks up!" went out and a unit of pinned-down grunts saw the mix of accurate and devastating firepower we could provide-suddenly they loved us.
There were drawbacks to being a supporting arm. We were totally subservient to the infantry, which meant our tanks were often misused in unimaginative ways. The infantry's concept of armor was born of ignorance and lack of experience, compounded by the constant turnover of grunt officers. For some strange reason, officers were rotated out of the field after only six months in-country, which added to the already high turnover of new, hastily trained junior officers who became casualties to their own inexperience.
This policy also created resentment toward officers. If they didn't have to spend their entire thirteen-month tour in combat, why should we? It seemed grossly unfair. More importantly, just as an officer who survived long enough became proficient in the field, he was relieved, often saddling the unit with another FNG officer-and it was FNGs who got men killed.
The grunts' lack of tank experience doomed us to being viewed as mobile pillboxes or bunkers on tracks. The uninitiated grunt officer often made several false assumptions about tanks. The most common was our perceived invulnerability, followed closely by ignorance of our capabilities and the type of terrain we could (and couldn't) negotiate. Consequently, we often found ourselves delegated to the static, mundane jobs of protecting bridges and fire base perimeters, which nullified our two strongest assets: mobility and shock effect. Grunt units rotated in and out of bridge security jobs while we were condemned to sit there, day after day after day, in our perpetual role as bridge protectors. Boredom became an enemy and familiarity a cause for sloppiness-and it was sloppiness that Charlie looked for when he planned an attack.
Shifts of night watch became less critical with the passing of each uneventful night. For the first month we seemed doomed to play the role of immobile artillery. We settled into the boredom of filling sandbags and complaining about the awful heat and the constant upkeep that tanks required. And when we were done complaining, we could bitch about the heat some more.
While sitting at a bridge site, sometimes we would play games on the grunts. During the long days, when we had a lot of spare time, we would sometimes get visits from curious grunts who wanted to see a tank up close. We developed a little routine to play with them and to make it appear they really missed out not being a tanker.
Sometimes it was downright scary some of the borderline idiots we ran across. I never again wondered why we Marines are known as Jarheads.
Some of their questions were ludicrous, like, "Y'all got air condishonen?" "Hey," I'd call down to the loader in the turret, "turn on the air conditioning!" That was the opening line for a well-rehearsed play, with our tank's entire crew as part of the cast.
First, the loader would turn on our air-extraction motor. To some people, I guess, the air that it blew out of the turret convinced them that we had air conditioning; they never asked why the blower motor was so loud. But that was only half the routine. Seconds later, the loader would pop out of the turret with a can of beer in his hand and ask if the grunt wanted a sip. Of course, we were sorry it wasn't chilled, "but our refrigerator is out."
A beer materializing out of nowhere was unusual enough, but an apology for its being warm usually freaked the grunt out. He would go away convinced we had it way too easy.
The most memorable prank we ever pulled on a grunt-another of Dixie's finest-only convinced me that the draft was still on and was accepting anybody who showed up.
We had already pulled the beer skit when the grunt wanted to know more stuff about the tank. He pointed to the searchlight over the main gun.
"What's the box for?" he wanted to know. "It looks just like a TeeVee!"
Well, that was all I needed! "It is a TV," I told him. "It's to entertain the troops in the field."
"Y'all gotta TeeVee?" he asked, incredulous. We could tell he thought he had stumbled on a real secret and had made quite the find. "Well, what'cha y'all git, with that there Tee Vee?"
"We get AFVN TV,"
I replied, using the call letters of the radio station we all listened to. "What time you got?"
"It be six-forty-five."
"Hey, Bonanza is on in fifteen minutes. Let me know when it's close, and we'll all watch it."
However unlikely you might think this is, let me assure you that it really did happen. At almost 7 p.m., he called up to me, "It's almost 7 o'clock, Mr. Tank Man."
I turned the turret completely around to the back of the tank, so that the main gun was over the engine. Then I lowered the gun so that it was sitting on the armor plate. I signaled for him to go sit on the gun tube: "It's the best seat in the house."
Once the country bumpkin climbed up the back of the tank, I had him move farther back so that he was precariously straddling the gun tube near the edge of the tank. I had the loader take off the stiff canvas cover protecting the glass front of the searchlight. The grunt was all ready for his personal viewing pleasure. He was staring into the searchlight's silvery mirrorlike reflector, which he still believed was a television's picture tube.
I couldn't believe anyone could be so dumb. Surely any minute he would realize he had been duped.
"Hey," I called down from the cupola, "you want a beer while you're waiting?"
I thought he was going to die of delight when I handed him a warm can of beer, "Sorry it's warm, but the refrigerator ..."
His mouth dropped as he took the warm beer. I worried that our loader was going to give away the ruse because he was about ready to bust a gut. I couldn't blame him, for we had never taken the joke this far before; we were making it up as we went. I told him to go below and turn on the air conditioner. He was thankful for that, because the sound of the blower motor covered his stifled laughter coming out of the turret.
"Damn!" our guest exclaimed. "Y'all got everythin'. I wish I was a tank man." He glanced at his watch.
I had all I could do to keep a straight face. "We don't want to waste our batteries. Tell me when it's exactly 7 p.m."
A minute later he said, "It's time!"
"Okay!" I reached for the switch that turned on the searchlight from the TC's position. Suddenly, Bonanza and every other TV show he had ever seen hit him right between the eyes with 75-million candlepower. He flung up his hands, lost his balance, and fell off the back of the tank.
All four of us were in hysterics at the victim's unusual exit. We walked over to the back of the tank. "You okay?" we asked. He was holding his hands over his eyes, moaning that he couldn't see.
That night, the country boy's lieutenant and corpsman came over to give Hearn and me one hell of an ass-chewing: "If that man's sight isn't back by tomorrow, you're up for a court martial!" the LT told me.
Our victim had gone blind? The corpsman hoped it would be only temporary.
Happily, the next day proved him right. But meanwhile, I spent a long night worried that I had permanently damaged someone's eyes. But still, how dumb can you be?
WE DECIDED TO GIVE our tank a name. The crew got together and spent several weeks mulling over possibilities. I was hoping for something humorous and different, having seen too many tanks named after some tank commander's girlfriend back in The World. We threw out name after name until we finally settled on one I'd proposed.
At the time, Dow Chemical Company used an advertising slogan, "Better Living Through Chemistry." I suggested changing the last word to "Canister," the type of antipersonnel ammunition we used most often.
Canister was the tank's equivalent of a giant shotgun shell, a nasty and very effective projectile against "soft targets," the military's term for people. Immediately upon leaving the gun tube, a wall of 1,200 halfinch-long, quarter-inch chopped-steel rods would spread out and remained extremely effective for up to 300 meters. Our tank would be forever known as Better Living Thru Canister, and I was given the task of painting the name on the gun tube.
None of us could have ever imagined just how prophetic a name it would become. In just a few short weeks, a canister-like round fired at us by another tank would save our lives.
During late afternoons we tried to sleep, but usually wound up sitting around listening to AFVN radio. The only English-speaking station in the whole country, it started each day with "G-o-o-o-o-d Morning, Vietnam!" later made famous by the Robin Williams movie of the same name. Other than mail from home, it was our only link back to The World and the sanity we had left behind.
Upon arrival, I was totally surprised to find out that we had our own radio station in-country. I still remember a few radio personalities like Chris Noel, whose voice I fell in love with. I wrote to her, and to my delighted amazement she responded, enclosing a couple of photos to prove she really was the fox she sounded like. I also wrote to Vicki Lawrence, an unknown at the time who did some radio work; she too wrote me back and sent her picture too.
Certain songs, when played today, immediately take me back to the Cao Do or Ha Dong bridges, where we sat around, bored out of our minds. The Animals had the greatest song of the war, the perfect sing-along for anyone near a radio. Everybody joined in, as loud as they could, on the refrain: "We got to get out of this place, if it's the last thing we e-ver do!" God, how we loved that song! Half a mile outside any American fire base, you knew whenever it came on the radio because you could hear everyone belting it out.
Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey" always reminded me of my fiancee, Michele, a lab technician back in The World on Long Island. Among my favorites were the Mommas and the Papas' "This Is Dedicated to the One I Love," along with Otis Redding's "Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay," and the Turtles' "So Happy Together." During late 1968 and early 1969, we turned up anything by the Doors.
Two or three times a week, we slipped down the muddy banks to bathe in whatever river flowed under whichever bridge we were guarding. Refreshing as the water was, I always felt uncomfortable doing this. Even with my clothes on, I felt naked; I didn't like being away from my flak jacket and steel helmet. Moreover, I didn't like being away from the tank. I washed quickly and got out while others fooled around, grab-assing and having water fights as if they were back in The World. Heck, I had seen how the Vietnamese fertilized their crops! Who knew what was floating in that water? And why would I want to swim in it?
WE OFTEN PROVIDED SECURITY for the morning's road-sweep team. That meant travel-from the bridge we were protecting to the next bridge or fire base down the road, or until we were met by another sweep team coming in the opposite direction. Our tank moved at a deathly slow pace, behind a grunt on foot who was fanning a mine detector from side to side. When it came to planting mines with prodigious ability, Charlie was a regular Johnny Appleseed. During one such routine, in April, our boredom was punctuated with raw adrenaline.
Our tank was following fifty feet behind two minesweepers and a squad of grunts spread out behind them. Another fifty feet behind us trailed a second tank, and behind that were several trucks loaded with armed men crouched down behind the trucks' low metal sides.
To avoid running over an undiscovered mine, you always kept your vehicle in the tracks left by the vehicle directly ahead. Because mine detectors were nothing but glorified metal detectors, it was easy for them to miss the homemade mines encased in wood that Charlie planted. So even if a road had been swept, drivers adhered to the tracks of the vehicle in front. But any truck following a tank was faced with a dilemma. Because tanks were so much wider than trucks, a truck driver could keep only one pair of his wheels in the tank's tracks. That meant the left side of a truck would stay in the tank's tracks because no truck driver was going to risk running over a mine on his side of the vehicle.
One April morning, our tank was nearing the halfway point of our road-sweep when a truck behind us was lifted off the ground by a large explosion.
I was sitting in the gunner's seat; I could feel the concussion through the tank's hull. "What the fuck was that?" I asked over the intercom. My answer came, not from my tank commander, but from dozens of ChiCom AK-47 rifles.
I had the main gun tr
ained on a tree line on the right side of the road when I saw Christmas lights twinkling throughout the undergrowth. Seconds later, enemy mortars began dropping rounds all around us. I could hear their crack! crack! and feel each impact through the hull.
I already had our main gun pointed in the direction of the tree line-as with defensive driving, you always anticipated the most logical place an ambush could start. I immediately returned fire, unleashing the .30-caliber machine gun against the tree line. Tracers from the other tank's machine gun joined mine, impacting along the same area.
Over the intercom, Sergeant Hearn issued a fire command: "Gunner. Canister. Tree line." I heard the loader, a few feet from me, wrestling a round into the breech. Then came the resounding ka-chung! as the breech slammed home.
I had already picked out my target and was waiting only for the loader's signal.
"Up!" he yelled, to tell the crew that the main gun was ready.
Several RPGs whooshed out of the tree line, so I laid the gun on the source. "On the way!" I shouted to give the loader a split second to get out of the way of the gun's breech. Then I squeezed the electric triggers in the control handles that I had in both hands. The main gun kicked back two feet. The tank rocked with the gun's recoil, and the canister round immediately defoliated a portion of the tree line. Within it, I noticed, there were suddenly fewer flashes of AK-47 fire. But not few enough.
A three-foot-high embankment along the road's edge meant we couldn't assault the enemy position. Our tank could have climbed it easily, but that would have exposed our thin underside to the enemy RPGs issuing relentlessly from out of the tree line. Charlie had picked the only spot on the road at which a tank wouldn't dare turn to assault his position. The NVA were slightly above and shooting down on usa good vantage point.
Praying for Slack: A Marine Corps Tank Commander in Viet Nam Page 8
