It was difficult not knowing about current affairs. Or hearing only the headlines. When we heard about the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and the race riots that followed King’s assassination, we were greatly dismayed. The enemy capitalized on those events and left more of their leaflets than normal for us to find. I was a supporter of Bobby Kennedy and was really depressed when I heard he had been killed. It was like the world we so desperately wanted to get back to was falling apart. We in fact every day referred to the States, or home, as The World.
I had followed the Detroit Tigers closely throughout my pre-USMC youth. But it wasn’t until 1968 — when I couldn’t listen to a single game — that they won the World Series.
Letters from home were vitally important links to reality. Mail call was the most eagerly awaited event of all. It was irregular, of course, with mail being totally dependent on supply choppers for the most part. I made it a point to write as often as feasible and to say as little as possible about actual events to prevent people from worrying back home. (My letters to a brother sometimes being the exception to this rule.) There was nothing anyone could do, and it would be of no value to me if family members were made to worry. I often tore the top off of individual C-ration meals, using it as a post card to write on. Because no postage was required they were sent through and received back home. I still have a couple of these ‘post cards’ that were saved.
I learned later that sometimes packages (we called them Care Packages, after the CARE Relief agency) destined for troops in the field from our homes were intercepted by troops in the rear and the various goodies eaten or taken.
10 Souvenirs of War
Back at home a young wife waits Her Green Beret has met his fate He has died for those oppressed Leaving her his last request
Put silver wings on my son’s chest Make him one of America’s best
He’ll be a man they’ll test one day
Have him win The Green Beret.6
6Ballad of the Green Berets. Written by Ssgt. Barry Sadler, 1964. ©RCA Victor Corp.
Moving On Up To The DMZ
In early September 1968 we found out which units we were going to be transferred to, and the remainder of the 27th Regiment was sent back to the States. I and many others were going up to the far northern part of I Corps, along the DMZ,
to replenish the ranks of Marine units in that area. I was going to the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division. The 9th Marine Regiment was the Marine’s Mountain Regiment. I would be part of the second platoon
10 Souvenirs of War Moving On Up To The DMZ 105 of Golf Company in 2/9. In prior years they had been based in Quang Tri, about ten miles south of the DMZ, and about 10 miles in from the ocean.
The Corps made a fundamental decision in August 1968 that henceforth all major forward bases would be abandoned. From that point forward riflemen would operate strictly on foot, roaming the wilds in the same manner as the NVA. Re-supply would be from the air. Quang Tri was considered the rear, and the large base there was similar to the large military base in Da Nang. Forward bases such as Camp Carroll and others were abandoned.
On September 7 we flew from Da Nang up to a military airstrip near Quang Tri. It was raining heavily when we got there late in the afternoon. For whatever reason, there was no transportation for us and we literally sat and lay on the tarmac, in the rain, the entire night. The next day some trucks arrived and took us to the nearby USMC rear base at Quang Tri. From there helicopters took us to our different units in the bush. The units to which we were variously assigned were in the far northwest part of the country, near Khe Sanh. The area is very pretty with forested mountains much like our Great Smoky range, but with more limestone cliffs and outcroppings. It was also very wild and dangerous, with far more NVA there than Americans. They operated freely in that area, and we were there to slow them down and to make the point that we weren’t just giving them those provinces. I was taken by a Huey gunship to a heavily jungled mountaintop where my new unit was at that point in time.
I quickly noted that there was a positive tradeoff to being in that area. There were virtually no local guerillas, only NVA regulars to face, and though there were many mined areas, the presence of random booby-traps was significantly reduced. That was a wonderful development. I also did not have to be the backup radioman in 2/9.
From September 8th until I left the field around March 20th, 1969 we were on foot almost the entire time. Except for several days in late October when I got R&R and a couple very brief stays at a small forward combat base I never saw a bed other than the ground, nor a shower other than a local stream. Food was virtually 100% C-Rations. All of our supplies had to be dropped to us by parachutes or the occasional helicopter supply and each of us carried many days worth of provisions. We not only toted many pounds of various munitions plus a backpack filled with the necessities of living and fighting in the wilderness, we often also carried a nylon sandbag filled with more supplies and ammo, tied to our belts.
This six month period also included the rainy season. It was quite cool in the mountains and always wet. At night it was often very uncomfortably cold. We had no cold weather clothing, though at one point we were issued a green sweatshirt to wear and a pair of light nylon gloves.
We ran a small number of special missions during late 1968. I recall a one-day trip down a river in a boat heading to an isolated location. We also ran security on a couple of convoys on route 9 and roads that went to Con Thien and other isolated villages or small forward outposts near the eastern end of the DMZ. These convoy security assignments were on three or four occasions. When we were asked for this help we rode on the top of trucks, sometimes manning the .50 caliber machine gun mounted over the cab of the truck, but always it was serious business because ambushes were frequent.
One special mission that I clearly recall involved going into the DMZ to rescue a team of Green Beret recon troops who had gotten surrounded and were about to be wiped out. For this emergency operation we were choppered in and out again after the fight. We were successful in the rescue, though it was very far from easy. We nearly became trapped ourselves after fighting our way to the Green Beret and had great difficulty making our way back to the rendezvous site where helicopters were to pick us up before darkness set in. Four of the enemy killed that day were unmistakably Chinese.
Over these seven months we swept south from the DMZ to the A Shau Valley. The war in this area was very different than further south. It was more typical of larger scale battles and fewer problems with local guerillas. In fact, the area was largely unpopulated. In the mountain there were tribal groups called Montagnards. These people were loosely allied with the U.S. and were strongly anti-communist. The NVA brutally persecuted them and essentially tried to eliminate them. We found many of their villages completely destroyed. The Montagnards were a throwback a thousand years. Their lives hadn’t changed much and were more like it was 968 rather than 1968.
In one abandoned burned out village I found a handmade wooden bow carved out of a beautiful multi-colored wood with a reddish hue. It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship that I wanted to save. I carried it with me for several weeks. I badly wanted to eventually take it home as a souvenir but unfortunately I lost it in actions in the A Shau. I have a picture taken when we were at the Rockpile (a geologic feature near the only forward combat base in the area) that shows the bow — though in that poor quality picture it looks like a plain stick. This picture better depicts the Rockpile in the background, and the bunkers we lived in for a few days when we were carrying out some action on and near the Rockpile.
We basically took one hill after another, constantly moving. We re-took hills that had been abandoned earlier after the Khe Sahn siege and abandonment of all major bases in favor of mobile foot forces. Hills 881 N and S were two of these. It was very poignant being on these hills that had been so bloodied by other Marines just months earlier.
The DMZ itself was a scene f
rom a science fiction movie. Almost every square foot had been bombed and
stand any chance against that much of the area was a forest of dead and indescribably mangled trees. When you see what an artillery round or bomb does to a tree, there is no mystery why the human body doesn’t
murderous shrapnel. There were a lot of areas in I Corps that looked like a bizarre science fiction landscape. As a result of heavy bombing and defoliation with aerial spraying of herbicides, there were large areas of mangled trees with almost nothing green or alive in them. The NVA had routinely utilized the DMZ as a crossing and staging area despite its designation as a demilitarized zone.
We were tightly tucked in the northwest corner of the country, with the DMZ and North Vietnam just to our north and Laos a couple miles west. There was a mountain just across the border in Laos called Co Roc on which the NVA had long-range artillery that they harassed us with.
I recall nights when on mountain tops watching NVA rockets and anti-aircraft artillery being shot up at our planes. It was an amazing fire works show. The planes must have been high flying B-52s or Phantoms heading into North Vietnam from an air base in Thailand, or operating from aircraft carriers. The rockets and AAA fire originated from just a mile or so away. For a brief period in early 1969 a battleship, I believe it was the Missouri, steamed offshore and lobbed massive shells on enemy positions and supply routes. We could occasionally hear these compact car-sized shells as they flew overhead.
When operating near the Laos border we could clearly see convoys of NVA military trucks on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This well maintained road started in North Vietnam, skirted the DMZ inside Laos and continued south to Cambodia. It had had many branches coming into South Vietnam all along the border with Laos and Cambodia. One of the main branches entered South Vietnam at the north end of the A Shau Valley. Supply convoys on this road were frequent. On a couple of nights, after being tired of being hit by these people, but unable to cross this magic line on a map, our regimental commander decided we were going into Laos to ambush the convoys. We did on two nights; successfully, with LAAWs and rifle fire. About two years after I was home I was stunned to open the Detroit Free Press one day and see the entire front page with a story and pictures from what was called the Winter Soldiers Hearings, being held by Viet vets in Detroit. This group of anti-war vets was making accusations of war crimes allegedly committed by U.S. troops. One of the events they used to prove their war crimes allegations were these forays by 2/9 across the border to attack the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I still have this newspaper. (The
110 Souvenirs of War Moving On Up To The DMZ 111 term Winter Soldier had its origins in the Revolutionary War. It was used as a compliment — meaning that these were soldiers who were willing to stick with the fight through the worst of the battles and misery of the winters. This opposed to the summer soldier who deserted George Washington’s army when the going got cold or tough.)
The main point of memory during this period was the taking of the A Shau Valley. That region had long been one of the two primary NVA sanctuaries in South
Vietnam. The second was the U Minh Forest further south, closer to Saigon. The A Shau Valley forms a very long supply artery and is located just east of the Laos border west of Hue and northwest of Da Nang. It was a major strategic center where the NVA stored materiel and massed troops prior to offensives. The landscape had a dense jungle cover with large trees and a very thick canopy that was impossible to see through from above. It provided safe sanctuary to the NVA.
The operations to take A Shau lasted many weeks. The road the NVA had built into the valley from Laos was a well maintained two-lane gravel road. It had machine gun bunkers and other fortifications all along it. In addition, there were over 5,000 well equipped and fresh NVA troops in the immediate area, outnumbering us significantly. Due to the heavy jungle and tall trees it was almost impossible to see the road from the air, but on the ground it was obvious that it was a main heavily used road (in a relative sense).
The battle for A Shau occurred under the cover of several military operations. Operation Dewey Canyon I and II, Lancaster I and II, and others I no longer recall. In reality, the names that military bureaucrats gave had absolutely no meaning or impact on us. We were just in the jungle fighting week after week while moving on foot from just south of the DMZ all the way to, and fighting our way through, the A Shau Valley to secure that region. During the period of November — March the northwest mountainous area of Vietnam is constantly cloudy with near daily rain, and quite cool — especially at night, when it was no doubt in the 40s at best. We were always wet and tired — wet, tired and hot during the day, and wet, tired and cold at night. Hiking up and down these very slippery steep slopes heavily laden with packs and weaponry took its toll on us.
Once during this time period we were sweeping through a wooded area taking fire from unseen NVA. An armed observation plane, called an OV-10 Bronco as I recollect, was flying low to find the NVA. The pilot mistook our squad for the enemy and commenced firing 20mm cannons at us. It was very scary for several minutes having dozens or hundreds of these rounds explode just a few feet away while we hid behind trees or rocks. I don’t recall any casualties resulting. It was just another example of the great difficulties encountered when functioning in “the fog of war”. Try as you might there will always be very serious problems with communications and coordination of various units — especially when there are different radio frequencies for all the diverse units, and when planes flying hundreds of miles per hour are involved. This incident also demonstrated that the vast majority of bombs and bullets directed at the NVA were wasted.
I have great disdain for military bureaucrats and politicians who talk about conducting war as if battlefields were orderly well maintained factory floors where everything works exactly as the machinery and computers are designed to. In real war, everything and anything that can possibly go wrong will. There is nothing orderly about it. Rather there is mud, dust, water, darkness, fear, disorder, missed communications, malfunctioning equipment, an enemy much stronger than ‘intelligence’ said he should be, jealousies, stupidity, lack of information about what’s going on around you, the manifestation of every human weakness, and much more. Ultimately, success in wars depends on the decisions and actions that each soldier makes as an individual, while still working as a unit and within a unit structure. Wars will never be won by computers. They’ll always be fought and won by the foot soldier.
In the A Shau Valley we found major NVA supply depots, ammunition dumps, and large artillery pieces. At two locations we found NVA hospitals that were dug into mountain sides. They had been very recently abandoned. At one captured North Vietnamese supply depot we found a large supply of rice and other food items that we dined on. It was a very nice alternative to cold and greasy C-rats.
One of the more grisly duties I remember from this period was that twice we were ordered to dig up mass graves to estimate the number of NVA KIAs from recent actions. That was very disgusting work.
In one of the dozens of anonymous battles, on Hill 1175, a friend, fellow squad member and very good man by the name of Thomas Noonan was killed. Hill 1175 was part of a very steep series of ridges along the border with Laos. In heavy rain, battling mud and slippery stone slopes with the aid of ropes, we ascended the mountain taking heavy fire. Our goal was to take out an NVA communications line that ran along the ridgeline, and to hold the area. The top of the mountain had a rock face slope of 75 percent, requiring ropes for ascent. What was to be a fairly routine operation to secure the ridge line and take out the communications line turned into a nightmare. Due to very heavy enemy resistance, running out of food, running very low on ammunition, and having taken several casualties — resulting in dead
11 Souvenirs of War Moving On Up To The DMZ 115 and wounded that had to be carried down the steep mountain in the rain and through heavy fire — the situation had become desperate.
On the way back down the NVA ambushed us
bigtime, including an artillery barrage. The NVA had many big artillery pieces in Laos which they frequently used against us throughout this area. The NVA were well protected behind boulders and we were in the open. Noonan ran through the bullets saving four Marines who had been hit. He died in his final life saving attempt.
Tom was a real friendly guy — very funny and fun to be around. We called him Uncle Tom because he was so old (25). I can clearly recall a number of times when three or four of us, usually including Noonan, would occupy a shelter half on a muddy mountain top in the rain, sitting in the mud under the rain cover smoking, playing cards and telling stories — mostly of home and our prior lives. We seldom spoke of the present, (except
about the usual rumors of things that happened and of what we were supposed to be doing in the coming days and weeks) and actually talked very little of the future.
These shelter halves formed pup tent kinds of shelters, without the walls. Some of the others under the small rain shelter were Ken Barton, Steve Bishop, Mike Meyers, and others whose names I forget. In a way that is impossible to fully explain we bonded closer than brothers. There was an unspoken level of fellowship and mutual caring that exceeded any relationship I’ve had before or since. One of the more memorable activities was the small group singing we did in the rain on those foggy and cool hill tops. Of course while some of us had a few hours off others of the unit were on guard duty or patrolling the local area. It would be our turn to do both a few hours later.
Under the shelter of the tarps with the sound of the rain often in the background we sang songs like Simon & Garfunkel’s Homeward Bound, the Animals’ We Gotta Get Out of This Place, car racing songs by the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean, and many more. To this day there are certain songs — Homeward Bound, Sixteen Candles, California Dreaming — to name just a few, that will bring a tear to my eye and a chill in my spine every time I hear them.
Souvenirs of War Page 8
