The Ether Zone: U.S. Army Special Forces Detachment B-52, Project Delta

by Morris Ray

  Fixated on that notion, he managed to finagle a slick-sleeve Marine private’s uniform and headed downtown to get laid—for medical reasons, of course. Since all the establishments were off-limits after 2200 hours to those below the rank of SGT E-5, of course, his first encounter had to be with the shore patrol. They tried to give him a hard time, but he indignantly convinced them that he was really a Special Forces staff sergeant, despite the Marine private’s uniform. After he gave them a good chewing out, he continued on his mission— that of seeking female companionship—for his medical experiment.

  He admitted the first night was a total bust; on the second night, his expectations brightened. He met a beautiful young lady, and after a few drinks, they retired to her room. He flicked off the light, preparing to undress for what was to come. She flipped it back on—he turned it off—she turned it back on. Thinking “Oh, what the hell?” he undressed with the light on. When the poor girl noticed the expanse of stitches that reached from one side of his discolored purple and yellow groin to the other, she nearly fainted. Screaming and gesturing wildly, nearly incoherent, she threw his money at him, demanding he leave immediately.

  “I couldn’t believe it,” he said reflectively. “I couldn’t even make out in a whorehouse.” He went on to report that eventually he learned everything would work as well as ever.

  In June, Siugzda returned to Nha Trang, just as Operation Samurai II was ready to kick off. The Bruiser greeted him, personally welcoming him back.

  “Don’t get too comfortable. You’re going back out in the morning.”

  This time, Siugzda roomed with SSG Fred Walz, and they soon became close friends. In 1967, Walz had recently graduated from the Special Forces Operations and Intelligence (O&I) School when his orders for Vietnam came. He ran into an old acquaintance on the flight over, SGM “Wild Bill” Fuller; he convinced Walz to join him in Project Delta.

  Walz, initially assigned as a Ranger advisor, soon found himself on a three-day operation with his roommate, Herb Siugzda, SP5 Albert J. Merriman and an extraordinary young master sergeant, Edward Coffey. The force consisted of the four U.S. Special Forces and forty 81st Airborne Rangers. Reaching the LZ this time, the chopper hovered long enough for them to jump out, but Siugzda told them to land—he wasn’t jumping this time! The pilot denied his request. Steadfastly refusing to jump the four to six feet to the ground, the stalemate began.

  Coffey radioed MAJ Allen, who told Coffey to order him to jump.

  Siugzda was unimpressed. “I don’t care about your orders. I just got out of the hospital for doing that crazy shit, and I’m not jumping!”

  Exasperated, they circled until Coffey spotted a large bomb crater where the pilot could safely set the chopper down. They disembarked without incident. Once on the ground, the small force headed south, running into numerous fortified positions and a few huts, which the Rangers burned. Looping farther south without resistance, they drifted west, and then north toward the bomb crater for extraction. Coffey had serious misgivings about using the same site, but without any others nearby, he had little choice. A recent B-52 strike had punched a gigantic bomb crater into the soft soil at the summit of a bald hill. A steep, but heavily vegetated slope stretched to the north, and ultimately dropped off into a deep jungle valley. Another more gradual slope led south, the direction they’d traveled earlier at the start of the operation. A fairly level ridgeline stretched to the west of the crater, devoid of substantial vegetation. Coffey figured if they could set up a perimeter, they could secure the area just long enough to get the choppers back in for their extraction.

  On the third day, they approached the crater and established a tight defensive perimeter. As they broke for lunch while waiting for the extraction chopper to arrive, the Rangers were suddenly sprayed with intense automatic fire from the south, instantly resulting in five casualties. Heavy firing could be heard from the opposite side of their perimeter, signifying this was a large force, confident in their ability to take on a company of seasoned Airborne Rangers. Merriman climbed to the lip of the crater and began firing down the slope, while Siugzda, inside its relative cover, attempted to establish radio communications with the FOB. He observed Coffey heading toward the heaviest conflict; he presumed the Rangers had reported casualties and Coffey was going to help.

  Fred Walz cautiously made his way down the reverse face of the slope, conscious of the blanket of fire inches above his head. Crawling along a narrow path, he met one of his Ranger NCOs.

  “Bac Se (doctor), Bac Se, many wounded. You come?”

  Walz wasn’t really a Bac Se, he was an Intelligence NCO, although he’d been cross-trained to handle most combat injuries, at least well enough to impress the indigenous troops. Walz followed him, and halfway down the hill, he discovered one of their Rangers badly wounded in the groin. Lying unconscious in a shallow indentation, he’d lost so much blood that it was filled with a muddy mess of red soup. Walz suspected he was too late to be of any help, but gave him some morphine and began to bandage his wounds. As he prepared to hoist him over his shoulder and carry him to the relative safety of the bomb crater, someone came toward them; he held up. Master Sergeant Ed Coffey, a tall, handsome NCO with a solid reputation within the Special Forces community, strolled along as if it were a Sunday morning and he was off to church, oblivious to the machinegun fire kicking up the dirt around him.

  “Come on,” he told Walz calmly. “Get ready to move out—we’ve got choppers in-bound.”

  Walz nodded. “Okay, but I need some cover fire. There’s a little sonofabitch about a hundred yards inside the tree line that’s been on my ass ever since I got here. He’s probably the one that hit our Ranger.”

  Coffey knelt and began to fire down the slope while Walz bent over, readying himself to lift the wounded soldier. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Coffey, on one knee, slumped over his rifle, no longer firing. His heart in his throat, he immediately moved toward him; touching his shoulder, he turned him slightly to determine what was wrong. Horrified, he watched as Coffey’s jaw simply fell away. A round had ripped off his lower jaw; it hung by a strand of flesh, his back teeth exposed. Fearing for his friend’s life, his adrenalin kicked in, and with an amazing displey of strength, Walz hoisted Coffey over his shoulder and ran full-bore, two hundred yards up the hill to the bomb crater, ignoring the rounds kicking up dirt along his route.

  Covered in Coffey’s blood, he literally fell into the crater, startling Siugzda who was on the radio communicating with the incoming choppers.

  Believing it was his friend Walz who’d been injured, Siugzda shouted, “Where are you hit? Where are you hit, damn it?”

  Struggling to catch his breath, Walz finally gasped, “Not...me, Herb. It’s...Coffey. He’s hit bad.”

  Siugzda frantically radioed MAJ Allen who was circling over the valley. “We need an evacuation chopper, ASAP! Coffey’s dying!” he shouted.

  Allen’s calm voice came back on, “Take a deep breath, settle down and tell me what’s going on.”

  Siugzda took a deep breath, careful to exhale loudly while he held the key down so Allen would hear him. “We need an evacuation chopper, ASAP! Coffey’s dying!” he shouted, exactly as before. Siugzda has admitted, at times, to being a wise ass.

  Allen informed him another team was in trouble, too, so for the moment there were no available choppers. He said he would find one and get back to them soon. It wasn’t long before a Marine CH-46 troop carrier approached, coming to land near the west side of the crater. Coffey, still conscious, pointed at his throat—he couldn’t breath. Using his K-Bar knife, Siugzda slit a small hole in Coffey’s trachea and inserted a plastic tube; it temporarily relieved his breathing problem. Overcome with fear for his wounded comrade, but unable to carry both his rifle and Coffey, Siugzda let go of his rifle, hoisted Coffey to his shoulder and ran toward the helicopter, which, filled with wounded Vietnamese Rangers, was preparing to lift off. The chopper was taking fire; he could tell by the sound of th
e engine whining that the pilots were about to leave. Arriving, puffing heavily from the exertion of his sprint, he’d been held up at the door by a Marine crew chief.

  “We’re not taking any more wounded out.”

  “This is an American, you ass hole!”

  “I don’t care. The pilot said no more, and he’s the boss.”

  Siugzda laid Coffey near two wounded Rangers, ran to the pilot’s window and shouted up, “I have a badly wounded American. We have to get him out!”

  The pilot just shook his head, revving up the engine. “We’re taking too much fire; I need to get my crew out of here.”

  For a fleeting instant Siugzda fellt sorry about leaving his rifle—he could’ve used it. “Really?” he screamed. “You’re taking fire? Well, no shit! What do you think we’ve been doing for the past two hours? We’ve had our hands full too, you know. God damn it, put this American on board, and do it now!”

  The pilot looked as if he still might refuse, but then acquiesced; he indicated to get Coffey inside quickly so he could lift off. As Siugzda hurried to do his bidding, Walz came up from behind.

  “I’ll go with Coffey. Maybe I can help him.”

  Adding another man clearly didn’t make the Marine pilot real happy, but he’d soon have a change of heart. Upon landing at the FOB, the pilot reported to MAJ Allen and told him why. As the pilot was preparing to lift off, a VC soldier about twenty yards away, leveled an AK-47 straight at his head. But, before he could fire, someone inside the chopper pumped half a magazine into him. It was Ed Coffey. With his head bloody with dressings and field bandages, and his M-16 across his lap, he simply sat upright and shot the VC soldier dead.34

  Siugzda couldn’t wait around to watch the chopper glide toward the west. Under heavy fire, he already returned to the crater, grateful for its relative cover against the enemy’s steady barrage. The radio squawked just as he reached it—a FAC had made it into their operational area and had two fast-movers standing by with 500-pound bombs. The FAC wanted precise coordinates to make a low bombing run.

  “Just dump them fifty meters north of this crater,” Siugzda told him.

  “Say again...fifty meters? Are you crazy? Do you know what a five-hundred-pounder can do that close?” the FAC asked.

  “Right now, that’s the least of my worries,” Siugzda replied. “There’s about a million of those little bastards out there, and I want that baby unloaded right where I said to drop it.”

  He pulled the Rangers back from their firing positions at the lip of the crater, and they all hunkered down, waiting. A thunderous explosion ensued, but the bomb had harmlessly fallen three hundred meters to their north, deep in the valley. The enemy’s firing never slacked off. Siugzda was incensed!

  “FAC, get it right this time! Fifty-god-damned-do-as-I-tell-you meters! Get it right!”

  “Okay, okay. It’s your funeral,” he replied tartly.

  The next bomb landed exactly fifty meters from the lip of the crater, its concussion nearly lifted them out of the hole. As soon as the concussion echo faded, the birds began to chirp; it was quiet again, not another round was fired. Having a taste of a 500-pound bomb appeared to be sufficient; they’d withdrawn. Within minutes, another Marine chopper arrived to pick up Siugzda and his battered Rangers. Grateful to survive their ordeal, the small, depleted force was whisked back to the FOB; of the fifty fighting men inserted three days earlier, only ten would take that last chopper ride out.

  Siugzda lived to fight another day; subsequently, he would receive two additional Purple Hearts for his combat wounds.

  While in route, Walz, attempting to treat Coffey’s wounds, removed his shirt and discovered a second, small purplish wound under his shoulder blade, and a third, crater-sized, in his chest. Despite Walz’s best efforts, MSG Edward A. Coffey died before reaching the field hospital. The attending physician told MAJ Allen that a round hit Coffey in the back, exiting through his heart and creating the large chest wound. He said Coffey’s mortal wound had been so severe that he never would have survived, even at the hospital. In his opinion, it was instant death. He was at a loss to explain how Coffey lived as long as he did, and the notion of him sitting up and firing a rifle in his condition completely defied explanation.

  At Phu Bai, LTG Cushman, USMC (center) shakes SGM Harry “Crash” Whalen’s (left) hand while MAJ Charles Allen (right) looks on. On the receiving line (left to right): Unidentified Vietnamese interpreter, MSG James Kreilick, LT Tan (VN), MSG Norman Doney. (Photo courtesy of Norman Doney)

  In an interview before his death, Chuck Allen remembered, “Just the thought of it raises the hair on the back of my neck. The doctor was right. How was Ed Coffey able to sit up and kill that VC gunning for the Marine pilot? He should’ve been dead.”

  For years, Allen would reflect on Ed Coffey’s miraculous heroics, seeing them solely as instinct, from his spirit. Lieutenant General Robert Cushman once remarked to Allen after an earlier operation in support of Marines, “These men operate in the Ether Zone of military excellence.” Allen later added, “He might just as well have said, ‘The Twilight Zone.’”35

  Herb Siugzda remembers Ed Coffey as one of the most pleasant and professional guys he ever met. Like most NCOs assigned to Delta, the slender black man was intelligent, level-headed and fearless.

  “When he was along, you didn’t have to watch your back,” said Walz, his voice cracking as he related how he’d lost Coffey on the trip back. Despite the passing years, he’s been unable to diminish his anguish for not saving Coffey’s life.

  * * * * * *

  Major Chuck Allen nominated Coffey for the Congressional Medal of Honor and many believed he should have received it. Mortally wounded, he thought only of his fellow soldiers and fought to stay alive long enough to save another. Master Sergeant Edward A. Coffey was ultimately awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his brave actions, and, as Allen affirmed, “His memory will live on as long as one of us remains.”

  * * * * * *

  Siugzda’s next operation, Operation Sultan II, was again with Rangers SSG George Cole and LT Bill Wentz in the Plei Djereng Valley. The operation FOB was established near Pleiku. Their first two days out were unusually quiet—no contact was made nor any enemy spotted. On the third day, while exiting the dense jungle into a clearing surrounded by tall bamboo, the dry-witted Siugzda sided up to Cole, and, from the corner of his mouth, said, “They’re going to hit us any minute now.”

  Siugzda laughed as he related it. “I was just being a wise-ass, you know...trying to be like John Wayne.” He mimicked Wayne’s drawl, “It’s way too quiet around here, Pilgrim.”

  “Hell,” he laughed, “I never suspected a damned thing would actually happen.”

  As soon as he spoke, all hell broke loose. It was a perfectly executed ambush and in a short time, the small Ranger force and four American advisors were surrounded, inundated with fire.

  “They had more forces, and they could’ve taken us anytime, if only they had hit us in force, from one side,” Siugzda said. “But they didn’t. Instead, they kept banging at us all around our perimeter. I believe they hoped we’d call for extraction so they could get the choppers when they landed.”

  Through the years, the VC and NVA had gleaned tactics from U.S. operations, particularly regarding rescue and reinforcement practices. Often, they would hit an outpost or outlying security force, then set-up an ambush on the LZ, or on the route they knew reinforcements would use. Near the war’s end, they would use the same bright orange panels the recon teams used to mark an LZ for pickup, and popped smoke to lure choppers into deadly ambushes.

  Within minutes, the enemy’s mortar rounds and grenades began to rain down. Siugzda was kneeling near the perimeter, firing, when blinded by a bright flash—something struck him violently in the chest. Reeling backward, his initial thoughts were that a mortar round had kicked up a rock or debris and struck him. As he felt a warm seepage through his tiger suit, he peeled back his shirt—blood spurt
ed from a small hole in his chest. Over the deafening noise of combat, he tried to rouse the attention of others. Lieutenant Wentz saw him first, then shouted for Cole, the medic.

  “Siugz is dying! He’s been hit, bad!”

  Instantly, Cole was beside him, concerned, frantically searching for other wounds.

  “I am not dying,” Siugzda told him calmly. “It’s just a scratch.”

  “Shut up and take a deep breath,” Cole directed. “I’ll decide if it’s a scratch or not.”

  Siugzda did as instructed and nearly screamed. It hurt like hell— worse than the red-hot shrapnel. “Goddamn, Doc! That hurt!”

  “Yep, it should. You’ve got a sucking chest wound, partner. It’ll hurt every time you take a breath.”

  “Well, no shit! I can’t very well stop breathing.”

  “I wouldn’t if I were you.”