Comanche Six: Company Commander in Vietnam

by James Estep

  I wanted to give our new platoon leader every benefit of the doubt, but the doubts were surely there. They’d been nagging at me since his arrival and Mac’s departure two days previously. Of course, snap judgments based on first impressions are dangerous and often faulty, but I made them routinely. And although I hardly expected a platoon leader to report in with a bayonet between his teeth screaming, “Can do, Sir!”

  O’Brien thus far impressed me as someone who would really rather be anywhere else, involved in anything else, and doing it with anyone else. I missed Mac.

  I didn’t know what had happened on the mountain minutes before (and never would); however there were several unsettling adjuncts to the incident: Why had O’Brien broken contact? Where were the casualties? His or Charlie’s? Why no request for fire support? Or assistance from us down here below? In a matter of far less than twenty minutes, Two Six entered our perimeter. Taking Lieutenant O’Brien aside, I asked, not unkindly, “You got any wounded? We need a dust off down here?”

  “No, real lucky there, sir. All of us are okay, but it was close, real close!”

  “Okay,” I replied. “Well, tell me about it, Dick. I mean in your own words, what happened?”

  “Well, see, sir … uh … don’t know exactly what happened. Mean, I was pretty far back in the formation … not really far, but, you know, … ‘bout midway, where I could best influence the outcome of any encounter … uh … like they taught us at Benning. But, anyway, shortly after we hit that main trail paralleling the mountain, all hell broke loose up front, and since we were in a draw, obviously at a tactical disadvantage, I thought it prudent to withdraw before we got someone hurt.”

  “Okay,” I said—my initial response to his account of the encounter on the mountain, our mountain! And then, perhaps because it had been a long day—and the day wasn’t over yet—I lost my temper.

  “Now listen and listen closely, Lieutenant,” I said as calmly as I could. “I don’t know what you may think they taught you at Benning, but let me assure you, you can best influence the outcome of any encounter by being as close as possible to that encounter when it happens! And if you’re in Europe conducting a reconnaissance in force, perhaps midway in your formation is an appropriate place to be. But we ain’t in Europe. And if you’re conducting a retrograde movement, the rear of your platoon is where you should be. But we don’t do retrogrades in Charlie Company! In this environment, in this war, things happen from the front! And that’s where you should always be, always! And, goddamn it, if you can’t see your point man, always see your point man in front of you, you’re shirking your duties, and I won’t tolerate it!”

  I paused a moment to let our new lieutenant digest what I had said, words I perhaps should never have uttered. Then I continued.

  “Finally, getting someone hurt is what we do around here, and we’ve been doing it rather well lately. Now, I want you to understand something, Lieutenant. You have, without question, one of the finest fighting platoons—undoubtedly the best platoon sergeant and point man—in all of Vietnam. I will not allow you to change that in any way. Understand?”

  He nodded obediently.

  “Dick, that mountain behind you there,” I said in a somewhat kinder voice, “belongs to Charlie Company. It’s our playpen, and nobody runs us out of our playpen. So I want you to take your platoon and get back up that mountain, find that large enemy force, and kick the shit out of ‘em. Understand?”

  He did.

  As he was turning a very disgruntled platoon around and starting back up the mountain, I walked over to Lieutenant Norwalk. “Hey, Bill, saddle up One Six. We’re going up the hill. Bring your claymores.”

  O’Brien and Two Six accessed the mountain by way of the main east-west trail, their route of regress just minutes before. In the meantime, we began working our way upward along a secondary trail (one we had used several times in the past) fifty or sixty meters to the north of Two Six. It was about three-thirty in the afternoon, still plenty of daylight left. Still time to make a hit!

  Shortly after reaching the main northsouth trail running parallel to the mountain’s face, we were suddenly overwhelmed by the stench of rotting flesh. These were the decaying corpses of enemy soldiers who had fallen victim to our claymore ambushes over the course of nearly two months. The odor was nauseating, and several of us found it difficult to refrain from gagging.

  “Whew! Talk about ripe!” Andy commented.

  “Yeah, and to think we did this to ourselves,” Blair responded.

  Norwalk, meanwhile, began searching for an ambush site, preferably at some point on the trail without enemy dead astride it. Within ten minutes or so he found a place tactically sound and where, if the breeze remained calm, the stench was bearable.

  While Norwalk set up his two-point northsouth ambush, I contacted O’Brien, passed our location to him, and asked for a sitrep.

  “This is Two Six. Enemy seems to have withdrawn from the area. No sign of Charlie now. Over.”

  “This is Six. Roger, go into a trick or treat somewhere in that general area. Maybe one of us will get lucky. Good hunting. Out.”

  So our two platoons went into ambush and waited for the enemy that had wreaked havoc on the people of Binh Dinh the night before.

  “What do you think happened last night, sir?” Bill Norwalk whispered as we sat straddling the trail about midway between the two ambush sites.

  “I mean, with Charlie hitting all over the province like that.”

  “Beats the shit out of me, Bill. I’m more concerned ‘bout our new platoon leader right now. What do you think he ran into?”

  “Beats the shit out of me, Six,” he responded, smiling. “Could’ve been a sniper, chance engagement, or maybe just overwhelmed by his own imagination, you know, being new on board and all … or maybe he just couldn’t stand the stink.”

  “Well, I can relate to that! Damn, we gotta find us a new mountain to play on, Bill. It’s all I can do to keep from puking anymore. Mean, this is a facet of combat they never taught us about at Benning.”

  “Yes, sir! Ought to have subjects in the curriculum like ‘Coping with the Messy Battlefield’ or ‘Secondary Uses of the Gas Mask.’”

  I nodded, grinning, then said, “But shit, Bill, I don’t know how we could’ve done it any different. I mean, we couldn’t have carried ‘em out of here, and there’s no way we could’ve buried ‘em.”

  “Yeah, I know. But it sure brings it close to home, doesn’t it? I mean, the sight of them, still in their uniforms, rotting away like that. And you notice the uniforms are okay, but their flesh has turned that ghastly greenish gray, and you think to yourself, I’ll bet when he put that uniform on he didn’t know it’d outlast him—and then you find yourself starting to look at your own uniform.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “there but for the grace of God, and so forth. Bill, you still philosophizing?”

  “No, sir. No one ever accused me of that except Mac, and he’s the one who majored in it!”

  He paused a moment and then said, “But speaking of Mac, I wouldn’t worry too much about his replacement. He’ll come along. Just takes time. These first few days are hard on a new platoon leader. Big adjustment, from a Stateside BOQ. Mean, here’s O’Brien, Army puts him through the basic course and then lets him spend five, six months in a training command—which does absolutely nothing to prepare him for what he’s about to be thrown into. Then one bright and sunny day he steps off a slick and it’s welcome to the real world, or maybe that’s the surreal world, Lieutenant! It’s tough. At first you’re kind of numb, but then after three, four days, maybe a week, you’re suddenly struck with the awesome realization that you’re gonna live this existence, if you live, for the next twelve months! And that can be a very traumatic awakening. Fortunately, it doesn’t last long. Pretty soon you reenter the numb phase, just living from day to day, looking neither forward nor backward.”

  “Until you pack it up and go home, huh?” I commented.

&nb
sp; “No, sir. Not according to Mac and others. They say you’ve got one more phase to go through, maybe the toughest one. That’s the short-timer’s phase, when you start to look forward again, and in doing so get nervous, cautious, hell, even paranoid in some cases. But your new lieutenant doesn’t have to worry ‘bout the trials of the short-timer for a while yet. And again, I think he’ll do just fine.”

  Norwalk was right, of course, and Dick O’Brien would turn out to be a fine combat leader. As were all the lieutenants in Charlie Company.

  “But you did the right thing by sending him back up the hill,” Norwalk commented. “He’ll sleep better tonight because of it. Just like getting back on a horse.”

  “Why, thank you for your confidence in my decision, Lieutenant,” I jested.

  “Also did right by putting us up here in a posture to give him an assist if need be,” he added.

  “Well, thank you again.”

  Whoom! The claymore exploded! Our hit man to the north had a target.

  Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat! The M-60 machine gun sprang to life; and so did we.

  Being within thirty meters of the ambush site, we reached it in a matter of moments. The machine gunner was still working the area in and around the fallen bodies when we arrived.

  “Got four of ‘em, LT!” the hit man said excitedly, still clutching the claymore’s electrical detonator tightly in his hand.

  Norwalk and I stared momentarily at the shattered, lifeless bodies lying in disarray at our feet. And their uniforms have outlasted them.

  Indeed, such is the way of war, Bill.

  “Good show, One Six. Super!” I said. “Now retrieve their weapons, do a quick body search, and let’s go back to the ranch.”

  I called O’Brien and told him to “regress” to the NDP.

  By dusk we had our night defensive positions dug and awaited the evening log bird, thankful that one of our longest days in the Nam was about to end.

  But it wasn’t.

  “Three’s on the horn, sir,” Blair said.

  Uh oh! He can’t move us again, not now! Shit, it’ll be dark in another forty-five minutes.

  “Comanche, this is Arizona Three. I’m inbound with twelve, plus zero, plus two in zero seven. Got enemy on a hill up the coast and gonna put you on top of them. It’s a ‘needlepoint,’ so be prepared for insert on a two-ship LZ. Once you go green, I’ll have charlie rats, water, and any class V you need en route. Get your class V wants to your trains soonest if you’ve not already done so. How copy?”

  “This is Comanche Six. Good copy … uh … poor timing, but good copy. We’ll be ready for pickup. Over.”

  “Roger, Comanche. They told us there’d be days like this, but they never said they’d come like bananas, huh? And I’m light on the skids, inbound in seven. Out.”

  First Sgt. Bull Sullivan was pissed … really pissed!

  “Goddamn it, sir. What do they want from us? How many times we moved today? Shit, up last night with the probe, hit the villages first thing this morning, linked up with tracks, back up here to the mountain! How many fucking chinks we killed today?”

  Yes, he’s really pissed, I thought to myself. When he slips into his Korean-vintage referral to the enemy as chinks, you know he’s pissed!

  “Fourteen, sixteen? I tell you, Six, the troops are tired! The troops are beat! Didn’t have C&D this morning, ain’t gonna have a hot tonight—and they’ll forget to send the fucking mail out with the charlie rats, just wait and see! I mean, what the fuck they want out of us?”

  “Take it easy, Top,” I said rather sternly, but I hoped also compassionately. “I know how you feel, but nothing we can say or do is gonna change it. And, Top, you and me been ‘round long enough to know that, right? And we’ve also been ‘round long enough to know something big is happening right now. So how about whipping us up a quick air-movement order, cause we’ve already wasted two of our seven minutes in getting out of here.”

  He stared at me fixedly, almost rebelliously, for a brief moment. Then, suddenly smiling, he said, “Shit, you’re right, Six. Hell, let’s go see some of the country!”

  Turning from me, he yelled, “Okay, drop your cocks and grab your socks. We’re moving! Want to see my platoon sergeants up here, now!”

  Concurrently, I called the platoon leaders forward and passed on Byson’s warning order, emphasizing that we were all going in aboard slicks on a two-ship LZ. Five minutes later, with the last rays of sunlight disappearing over the western horizon, we were on our way to another of Binh Dinh’s mountains.

  Our flight of twelve Hueys orbited the mountain’s pinnacle in a wide circle and then, flying in trail, prepared to land on our needlepoint LZ. Because there were other friendly forces in the area, many of them on the mountain or at its base, Major Byson had decided against an artillery prep. However, this did not prohibit our accompanying Cobra gunships, suddenly roaring by us as we sped toward the LZ, from plastering the hilltop with aerial rockets and 40-mm grenades.

  Whoom! Whoom! Whoom!

  With the wind of the Huey’s backwash in our faces, we watched the oncoming LZ explode in brilliant orange-and-red flashes, each immediately followed by an erupting pillow of black-and-white smoke intermingled with dust, dirt, and bits of foliage and rock, all of which was thrown asunder into Vietnam’s darkening sky.

  The lead Huey slowed, assuming a nose-up attitude, as we quickly maneuvered ourselves onto its skids. We leaped just before they touched the LZ’ s rocky surface. Two at a time the other Hueys followed us in, discharging their soldiers in a matter of seconds; then, nose down and gaining airspeed, they were away. The LZ, as usual—and thank God for it—was green.

  But Charlie was here, hidden among the hill’s crevices and rocks with his defenses oriented downhill. Within a matter of minutes we would find him.

  As the whump, whump of the Hueys faded in the distance, we moved off the mountain’s peak down a long, loosely vegetated ridge with One Six on the left, Three Six on the right, and Two Six straddling the ridge a bit in front of the other two platoons. The headquarters section followed Two Six. Moments later there was the abrupt crack of an AK-47 round on Two Six’s right flank, followed by an immediate fusillade of M-16 and M-60 machine-gun fire.

  “We got one, sir!” O’Brien yelled excitedly, looking over his left shoulder toward us. “No, I think two! And a weapon—got us an AK!”

  “Great!” I yelled back. “Let’s see what …”

  Suddenly, two blurry figures flashed across our front, between us in the headquarters section and O’Brien’s platoon. They had obviously been well concealed but, like frightened quail in a cornfield, had been unnerved by the sudden exchange of gunfire. Their decision to flee was not a wise one. It was an especially unfortunate choice for the one who carried an explosive satchel charge strapped to his chest.

  Still, they nearly made good their escape. Neither we nor the soldiers of Two Six could bring weapons to bear on the fleeing figures for fear of hitting each other. Then our attached Kit Carson screamed, “Chu Hoi!” One of the two evading enemy fell to the ground, placing his hands behind his neck.

  The other enemy soldier, running down the ridge to our left toward One Six, quickly scrambled into a thicket of bamboo. It offered little protection. While the Kit Carson picked our new captive up from the ground, Two Six and the headquarters section began tearing the bamboo thicket apart with automatic-weapons fire.

  Suddenly, our elusive quarry exploded! Pieces of bamboo intermingled with bits of cloth and flesh fell about us.

  “Jesus H. Christ!” someone said after a moment’s silence. “Must’ve had a charge on him.”

  “He did. I saw it! Had a yeller or khaki like satchel charge on his chest!” Sweet Willie said, his M-16 still pointed toward the bamboo thicket. “It was one of our rounds that hit it and sent old Charlie there to Ho Chi Minh heaven.”

  “I doubt it, Willie,” the Bull said. “Ain’t no M-16 round gonna detonate a satchel charge. More likely he self-de
structed.” He paused and then said to no one in particular, “You know, I’m getting short, and this is only the second time in this fucking war I’ve had a chance to shoot at somebody—and I rather like it, especially today. I feel like shooting somebody today! Shit, thought I saw our S-3 running into that clump of bamboo.”

  “Well, Top, glad we could make your day.”

  That was to be all of Charlie we’d find on the hilltop. Once it was secured, the company wasted no time in establishing its defensive perimeter. It was getting dark.

  The Bull and I listened in as our Kit Carson conducted an informal interrogation of our NVA captive, who might have been sixteen years old but looked younger. Perhaps four feet nine or ten inches tall and weighing under a hundred pounds, he did not appear to be a formidable foe; he looked more like a frightened child.

  The Kit Carson offered the NVA a drink of water from his canteen. He refused it. The Kit Carson then drank from his canteen and again offered it to the NVA “boy” soldier, who gingerly accepted it and drank as if he’d had been without water for days.

  Blair offered the captive a cigarette, which he accepted, after staring at it hesitantly a moment, flashing Blair a brief smile. And I found myself unexpectedly thinking, I hope this young man, this boy in uniform, makes it through this mess. I hope he lives to return to his family.

  “Someone give him a can of charlie rats,” I said.

  Blair pulled a can of ham and lima beans from the leg pocket of his jungle fatigues, opening it with the can opener he kept attached to his dog-tag chain.

  “Who’s got a clean spoon?” he asked, passing the can of beans to our startled prisoner.

  Dubray pulled a plastic, cellophane-wrapped Cration spoon from one of his pockets and handed it to the boy. Our captive looked at it a moment, apparently fascinated by the cellophane wrapping, and then stuck it into his can of limas.

  “Not like that, asshole!” Dubray said, grabbing the spoon and removing its wrapping.

  “Gawd, look at him go at them limas!” Anderson said. “Anyone can eat cold ham and limas gotta be starved.”