Under Fire

by Eric Meyer

  At dawn, I was walking toward the cafeteria for breakfast when the first mortar shell hit. It slammed into the end of the runway, followed by a half-dozen more loud explosions, and alarms began to wail. Men scuttled out of buildings, racing for their alert stations, and pilots ran for their planes, pulling on helmets, Mae Wests, and oxygen masks. Within three minutes of the first mortar shell landing, engines were spooling up, and two minutes later the first aircraft began taxiing out to the runway, two Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs. They went to afterburners, a combat takeoff, and roared into the sky, climbing almost vertically before they banked over and went looking for the enemy.

  A Lockheed C-130 spooled up the four Allison T56 turboprop engines and taxied out toward the strip, but before it got there, a pair of mortar shells straddled the fuselage. Two more scored direct hits, and it collapsed in a smoking ruin. Two fire engines raced out toward it, men in silver asbestos suits clinging to the sides, and they began firing jets of foam at the wreckage to damp down the fires. Helicopters were spooling up, and a dozen Hueys leapt into the air like a flock of startled birds, followed by two more Hueys both configured as gunships that peeled away to seek out the enemy. And destroy.

  Men boarded trucks and raced across the field, serving to avoid newly created shell holes. One truck came to grief when it went nose down into a deep, smoking pit in the ground. The rest made it to the perimeter wire, men poured out, and they came face-to-face with the enemy. Up till now, it’d been a long-range attack using heavy mortars fired from a distance of at least two kilometers and hidden in the darkness.

  Out of the night came a charging bunch of VC, all black pajamas and hatred, AKs spitting bullets, screaming and shouting their war cries. “Death to the Imperialists!” I wasn’t sure I was an Imperialist, but what the hell. It wasn’t the shouts that worried me. The bullets were something else.

  Behind them came more men, this time uniformed soldiers, my first encounter with the People’s Army of Vietnam. The PAVN, and although the Vietcong were ill-disciplined, rabid fanatics, the regulars were different. Disciplined and well led, although I assumed most were equally fanatical. Their officers shouted orders and blew whistles. Two men raced forward with heavy cutters and sliced through the razor wire intended to protect the air base. The cutters went through it like a hot knife through butter, and strands of razor wire pinged away into the darkness, granting access to an enemy bent on a rampage of slaughter and death.

  Like many others, I was hotfooting it across the tarmac, trying to load a magazine into my rifle, my hands slippery with sweat in the intense humidity that clamped down over the area like a sodden blanket. Before the first two hundred meters I was sweating like crazy, as if I was running through a rainstorm. Soldiers ran either side of me, some running like hares, anxious to throw some lead at the ugly bastards. Some hung back, hesitant to join the growing battle with the enemy that was streaming toward us like Genghis Khan’s Mongol hordes. I didn’t blame them. Genghis was a bloodthirsty shit. Although like the notorious Mongol chieftain, these hostiles had to be stopped.

  A jeep roared past and skidded to a halt. The mounted M-60 looked mighty useful, and Corporal Byrd holding it like a favorite son wore a grim expression. Like he wanted to explain a few home truths to the bastards who were invading the base. Lead could be a mighty powerful explanation. Dammit, they were invading our home. I was still gawping at the jeep when Morgan shouted, "Yeager, get in. We’re in a hurry.”

  I vaulted into the back, already crowded with men, and before I found space to sit, the jeep was bumping across the field, heading toward the enemy who were racing toward us like stampeding cattle. Already they were tangling with those soldiers who'd been nearest, sentries and patrols guarding the west side of the air base. They didn't stand a chance. A tidal wave of screaming Vietnamese swamped them, shooting, stabbing and kicking, spitting curses, calling down the vengeance of their ancestors. They hardly paused as they continued charging across what should have been the most secure military base in Asia.

  "We're gonna drive straight into their center," Morgan shouted to make himself heard, "You'll have plenty of targets, so you won’t need to aim or even think. Point your rifle anywhere and pull the trigger, you have to hit something.”

  It was like he was enjoying it. I wasn't enjoying it, and I gripped my M-14 with my hands slippery with sweat. Whether it was humidity or fear I didn't know. Only that if I dropped my rifle I was likely a dead man, prey to the first VC who realized the stupid round eye didn’t have a gun.

  Byrd was still standing behind the M-60, looking at the enemy, then to Morgan, waiting for the order. He got it.

  "Hit the bastards!" Morgan shouted, “Give them everything you have.”

  For some crazy reason, I recalled learning in school a poem about an epic feat of British valor, the Crimean War, and a troop of Light Infantry, horse soldiers. An order to charge the enemy cannon, and like dutiful solders, men of bravery and honor, they obeyed. The ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ resulted in the deaths of most of those who took part in the futile but glorious attack. I felt like I was one of those cavalrymen, decked out in a gaudy uniform, saber flashing in the sunlight. Charging toward the enemy, with death the only outcome. Praying it wouldn’t be mine.

  We had some advantages. Not many, but some. Morgan was a decisive NCO, quick to take decisions, to perceive weaknesses in the enemy line. Corporal Byrd was an ace with the M-60, and he had ammunition to burn. In addition, we had the jeep. A Ford M151, successor to the workhorse of World War II, the Willys, and this baby flew. Especially with Danny Goff behind the wheel.

  We drove into the charging mass of enemy soldiers, and I fired and fired again, until my rifle was red hot, and I kept firing. Yet still there were too many of them, and we were too few. Each time I pulled the trigger, I waited for the end. For the enemy to cut us down in a withering hail of bullets, and maybe some guy would write a poem about us.

  Chapter Three

  MACV After Action Report – Lessons Learned

  Tunnel complexes discovered in the War Zones have generally proved to be more extensive and better constructed than those found in other areas. In some cases these complexes were multi-leveled, with storage and hiding rooms generally found on the lower levels. Entrances through concealed trapdoors and secondary tunnels. In the deeper complexes, foxholes are dug at intervals to provide water drainage. These are sometimes booby trapped and have been known to contain punji stakes for the unwary attacker.

  He squeezed the trigger and we joined in, firing like crazy. A storm of bullets hammered into the screaming mass of attackers. They went down in lines as our bullets chewed through them, opening up a wide gap as the survivors veered away from the storm of bullets. They moved to the left or right, leaving a lane of dead bodies in front of our charging jeep. Goff didn't hesitate. He drove straight into the gap, the tires bumping over the bodies of fallen VC and North Vietnamese regulars. They were either side of us now, and they hadn’t counted on the Imperialists reacting so fast. We fired repeatedly, pouring out bullets from the fast-moving jeep, and it was like a ship in a naval action from the old days. I felt like John Paul Jones, firing broadsides as we sailed through the enemy fleet.

  Byrd’s M-60 fired nonstop, except for a brief pause while he slammed in a fresh drum magazine. Yet still the enemy didn't seem to understand the danger in their midst, like they were high on drugs. They’d have been better off to stay home and smoke dope, knock back a few beers, and chew the fat with their pals. Instead, they ran to their deaths, and when they fell, more ran into our storm of bullets.

  I never understood why they didn’t turn on us and let loose with volley after volley of discipline fire which would have torn us into little pieces. Maybe it was the chaos, the noise, or they were so psyched up, so intent on killing American soldiers, they didn't stop to think the men they were trying to kill could be in their midst. Killing them. A few tried, fired a few shots toward us, and they died. Fortunately, someone
had had the foresight to put a case of M-14 magazines on the floor of the jeep. As we burned through one magazine, we ejected the empty and snatched up a new one. More killing.

  Finally, the jeep broke out into the open, and we were behind the mass of charging enemy.

  Goff slowed and looked at Morgan. "Whadda you want me to do? Turn around and hit them again?"

  He opened his mouth to reply just as the whistle of a new salvo of mortar shells sounded overhead, and Morgan stared into the distance. Without realizing it, we'd come further than we thought, through the break in the perimeter wire, and we were getting close to the Communist mortar position.

  "Pedal to the metal, Danny. We're going after those mortars."

  He kept driving but he didn't look certain. "Sarge, you sure about that? I mean, our guys will have gunships in the air, and we could run into a shitstorm of gunfire from our own people. Friendly fire, you know what I mean. Except it ain’t friendly. Not when it’s chewing a new hole in your ass.”

  He didn’t smile. "Those gunships are flying every which way, and they’ll be so spooked, I doubt they’ve worked out where the mortar fire is coming from. Charlie will have the tubes in camouflaged pits, probably invisible from the air. We need to locate and hit them from the ground."

  He gave Morgan a grim nod and floored the gas pedal. "You got it."

  We drove on, occasionally going past stragglers, wounded VC or NVA who were making their way back, some who’d chickened out, and it was a turkey shoot. Putting them down and making sure their days of killing American soldiers were gone for good.

  All this time, Jesse Coles sat silent. He didn't carry an M-14. Instead, he had a pistol in his lap, the same as the automatic I’d acquired soon after I arrived in country. An M1911 Colt, and in his hands he held a huge knife that looked serious enough to frighten a man to death even before the steel went in. He was slowly running a sharpening stone over the blade, and I was no expert with knives, but it looked to me like a man could give himself a close shave with that thing. It struck me then. He was holding himself apart from the chaos, the firefights that punctuate the life of the infantry soldier. He was divorced from the reality of war on the surface, trapped in his own dark world, a world of murderous shadows and poisonous insects. Of roof falls, punji traps, and death that reached out suddenly and unexpectedly from the darkness.

  There was no sign of the mortar emplacements until they fired again, and I knew why we couldn’t see them. I shouted to Morgan, "Over there, a low mound with a clump of trees and bushes on top. It looks innocent, but they have to be hiding behind it."

  He glanced across to where I was pointing and made up his mind in an instant.

  "Danny, get behind them. We’ll drive in fast and throw out lead like it’s gone out of fashion. We’ll stop these arrogant bastards tearing up our base. Dammit, I was looking forward to a hot breakfast, and now I'll be lucky to get a cold sandwich or an MRE."

  The jeep hurtled on and drove past the mound. Danny dragged on the parking brake, spun the steering wheel over, and stomped on the brake pedal. The maneuver was perfect, and I suspected Danny Goff had been a hotrodder before he signed up for the Army. One moment we were charging past the mound, and the next we were pointed toward the skillfully hidden mortars. Charging in at top speed, the noise of battle was enough to drown out our approach. Aircraft taking off, machine guns chattering, assault rifles firing burst after burst, the screams of wounded men and bellows of shouted orders. A cacophony of noise that deafened them to our approach, and suddenly, they were right in front of us. Camouflaged from the air, but not from behind. Danny drove straight into the midst of three heavy mortars, only stopping when the front fender collided with a mortar tube and toppled it over.

  We were below the nets they’d draped in the trees to hide them from the air, with just enough gaps in the mesh for shells to hurtle into the sky on their journey toward the base. Byrd’s M-60 chattered, we emptied our assault rifles, and terrified NVAs and VCs were running and dying. We leapt out of the jeep, racing after the fleeing soldiers and gunning them down without mercy. We gave them what they’d come for. Death. Just a different script.

  When I looked back, Jesse Coles was still seated in the jeep, still honing the blade of his knife. Still fighting his own war in his own way, leaving us to fight our war. I left him to it and joined the others searching the clump of bushes on top of the mound where several of the enemy had taken cover. They saw us coming and tried to fight it out, but they were scared, and we weren’t scared. We were just pissed. We went in firing from the hip on full auto, pockets loaded with spare magazines, and when we’d finished, we'd killed them all. We’d also cut down most of the trees. Heavy automatic fire is inclined to do that. Our personal battle ended soon after when more men arrived, and back at the base hundreds of men were racing to prop up the defenses and drive the still large number of enemy soldiers back. Jeeps with mounted machine guns and two Bradleys led the charge into the center of the now retreating, panicked throng. More machine gun fire ripped into them, and the fifty calibers sounded like steam hammers, beating at the Vietnamese like the tormented fury of the gods. Slowly, gradually, the firing died away, with just occasional shots as soldiers finished off the last of the attackers.

  I walked back to the jeep, and Master Sergeant Morgan was leaning on the hood, looking around at the grisly field of victory, and holding his side. At first I thought he'd been hit, but he saw the direction of my gaze and grinned. "One of those bastards tried to stick me with a bayonet. When I twisted away I ran into the mount of a heavy mortar. Damn, it hurts like hell."

  “Did you get him?”

  “Yeah, his days of bayonet practice on yours truly are over. What about the rest?”

  "They're all dead."

  He nodded. "That's good to know. I think we're done here. I…"

  His head jerked up, his eyes flared wide, and he pointed into the gloom. A man had appeared from nowhere, leaping out from where he’d been lying in a shallow dip in the ground covered by branches and loose stones. Perfect cover until he moved, and he was holding an AK-47 pointed in our direction. VC, no question, black pajamas and rubber sandals made from old tires. There were so many rubber sandals in Vietnam it was a wonder there wasn’t a national shortage of motor tires. His eyes were filled with hate, but his belly was probably filled with something else. Intestinal parasites from long periods spent in the tunnels. A fitter man may have moved faster, but he was still fast, running toward us, gun gripped in both hands, and if he fired on full auto, he couldn’t miss. We were so shocked, so taken by surprise we failed to react.

  He didn’t fire, and we didn’t die. Jesse Coles was neither shocked nor stunned. His head came up in a slow, calculated, and almost graceful movement. He put down the sharpening stone as he brought his right arm all the way back and jerked it forward. The knife left his grip and sailed through the air, spinning once before it embedded into the chest of the charging VC. His eyes opened in astonishment, but he kept running a few more meters. Then he slowed, dropped his rifle, shouted something that didn’t need translating, and staggered a few paces more before he fell. Coles climbed out of the jeep, yawned and strolled over to the body, leaned down, and pulled the knife out of the man's chest. He wiped the blade on the black pajamas and strolled back to the jeep. Seated himself in the back, picked up the sharpening stone, and continued working on the blade.

  Morgan looked me, I looked at him, and at first we didn't say anything. Until the Master Sergeant nodded. "Like I said, he’s fighting his own war. Don’t worry about it, he’s doing fine.”

  We drove back through the carnage, and most of the bodies were enemy bodies. We’d given them a bloody beating, but they’d also done some damage, and I reckoned someone hadn’t been doing his job when they allowed those heavy mortar teams to get so close.

  Bao was covered in dust and soot, or maybe gunpowder residue. It made him look like a warrior, more masculine, so maybe I’d been wrong about him. His
camos were ripped, and I noticed a trickle of blood smearing his face from inside the hairline. He looked beat, worn out.

  He looked at me and nodded a greeting. “How did it go, Private Yeager?”

  “We’re still alive, so, yeah, I guess it went fine. You?”

  “I linked up with a platoon of ARVN soldiers who were fighting off some attackers who got close to a parked aircraft.”

  “No problems?”

  “Two of our soldiers dead, two wounded.”

  I squinted to look closer at his face, and the blood had mixed with something else.

  Tears? I devoutly hope not. Shit, this guy’s a perfect candidate for a severe hazing.

  “I’m sorry, but you got through it okay. Is that a cut on your head?”

  “I’ll look at it after I’ve showered and changed.”

  I looked to my barrack hut and thought of the communal showers. They’d be crowded, and I’d have to wait my turn, stinking of sweat, blood, and burned powder. He seemed to read my mind.

  “If you want to use my shower, you’re welcome to take a turn when I’m done. It’s in the BOQ, but right now I doubt anyone would give a damn.”

  I followed him toward the prefabricated, single story building. A couple of officers emerged and walked past us, both immaculate in freshly pressed khakis. They ignored us, chatting about the breakfast menu in the cafeteria, as if the attack had been a nuisance that woke them prematurely. Life in the military can be hard. Another door was half open, and the radio was playing ‘Reflections’ by Diana Ross and The Supremes. Bao entered a small room with utility furniture like you’d see on any American base across the globe. The room was surprisingly neat and clean, with none of the usual pants, shirts, and boots tossed over the floor. Everything pristine, so I assumed the ARVN Lieutenant was a hygiene freak.