by Phil Ball
Sixteen rounds of enemy 130-mm artillery hit Camp Carroll one day, destroying a large portion of the compound. Cam Lo, the Rockpile, and other Marine installations in the area also began receiving enemy artillery fire from points inside the DMZ. It was the 320th NVA Division, preparing for a major offensive to begin very soon.
Mike and I, with several very large bags of beer, soda, goodies, and mail, were dropped on 3rd Platoon’s overnight position, west of Cam Lo. The area was a basin with a series of grassy, rolling hills, and not many trees. The waist-high elephant grass was green and wet; when the chopper landed it kicked up so much water it looked like it was raining again. While I was gone, we got a new platoon commander, 2nd Lieutenant Thomas Knight* and a new platoon sergeant, Staff Sergeant Ray Hamilton*. Our old platoon sergeant was more or less demoted to an assistant, I guess, but his role as communicator did not change.
We hadn’t had an officer in charge for so long, and had never had anyone with Hamilton’s rank. It started to feel like we were finally becoming a real platoon. I liked Knight and Hamilton right from the start. They both showed great leadership ability, something 3rd Platoon had lacked in the past. They worked well together; their styles complemented one another instead of conflicting, like many Marine Corps officer–enlisted men working relationships did. They both realized and admitted that they were FNGs and did not pretend to know it all already. They asked advice from those who had experience, and they genuinely respected and cared about every one of us.
Second Lieutenant Knight and Staff Sergeant Hamilton, standing side by side, looked very different from each other. In fact, it was almost as if Hamilton should have been the officer and Knight the enlisted man. Knight was short and stocky, with muscular legs and broad shoulders. His face was shadowed with a fast-growing beard, and scarred from teenage acne problems, not at all the image the Corps like to project as officer material. Hamilton, on the other hand, was tall and lean; he had a good complexion and a square jaw. He was always very sharp and squared away, just exactly what the Marine Corps liked in an officer’s appearance. But Hamilton was black; whether or not that had anything to do with his position, I don’t know, but the USMC certainly had racial prejudice problems.
Knight and Hamilton called a meeting of all the squad leaders and various fire team leaders and salts. They explained that we were embarking on a multiregimental operation that would take us deep inside the DMZ, to areas where no U.S. troops had been before. They also said those eight LZs we helped construct would be used, and we would fan out to the north from there. They wanted Atwood and me to be fire team leaders in Chico’s squad, and went about making similar personnel changes with other squads. They explained that their main goal here was not to see how many gooks we could kill, but rather do everything in their power to make sure that none of us were killed.
I had a good feeling about our new leaders, especially Hamilton. He made me feel that nothing could happen to me as long as he was close by. He had that rare quality that made soldiers want to go into battle with him. I was eager to get to know him and Knight. Like a kid who admires his football coach, I was eager to please.
Chico was really getting “short,” as were many of the old salts who came up from Da Nang. The CO was letting a lot of them go to the rear early, to let them finish out their time. The rule was 12 months and 20 days for grunts in the bush, but the rules were being stretched a little. Chico was getting too nervous to be effective anyway. He had a case of the short-timer’s jitters so bad he wouldn’t do anything risky at all anymore. It wasn’t only him; most every grunt who ever lived long enough to get short got the jitters. He got so superstitious that he wouldn’t light a match, day or night, for fear that an enemy sniper might zero in on it. He wouldn’t say certain words or allow them said in his presence without making you take it back. Everything was a ritual to him that had to be completed a certain way. It was as if he had suddenly become obsessive-compulsive.
The first night back in the bush felt good to me. I was glad to be with my buddies and proud of the unit. Everyone seemed so much more squared away now than before; one month made quite a bit of difference, it seemed. Everyone got some beer and sodas and those who wanted a smoke got that, too. This was perhaps risky on our part, smoking in the bush, but we thought we were pretty secure in our location. Chico wanted to talk about the night Sal and Tex were killed, but I didn’t. He seemed very upset about it, more serious than I’d ever seen him, almost. We wound up talking briefly about it, but the one question he kept repeating over and over was something I couldn’t answer to his satisfaction. He wanted to know was it true, “None of you dug holes that night?” I told him I did, and I think Holt did, but I wasn’t sure about anyone else.
Chico was obviously looking for someone else to blame besides himself. He felt guilty for not being there with us, he told me. “How many times have I told you guys, you got to dig a fuckin’ hole every single night, or at least have cover close by.” Chico became more emotional when he drank beer or smoked pot, and that’s when he sometimes poured his heart out to me. He said if he had been there that night, he would have made damn sure we all dug a hole. He tried to get me to agree with him, but I kept telling him how fucked up the whole operation was from the very beginning. I did not want to encourage his guilty feelings; I felt bad enough as it was, not just for him, but for me. I had been having nightmares of my own since the friendly fire incident. I could see Sal’s face, the life draining right out of it, changing before my eyes from life to death. In the nightmare, I would see Don’s face do the same thing, and recently I had seen my own face go through that morbid metamorphosis. It was a frightening dream that always left me terribly upset for a whole day.
As fire team leaders, Atwood and I were being groomed to take over 3-Alpha when Chico and Holt rotated. They were both scheduled to go home in the second week of October, so they were both doing everything they could to get out of going back to the DMZ on this new operation. Needless to say, neither of them was going to stick his neck out at this point, and they weren’t expected to. It was up to the rest of us to step forward to do the job.
This big offensive the NVA had in store for us might have very well gone successfully and changed the outcome of the war, had it not been for one NVA soldier who showed up outside the wire at Con Thien one day and gave himself up. He also gave up the entire plan of this three-pronged attack, down to the day it was scheduled to begin. He said there were three regiments of the 320th NVA Division on the DMZ right then, poised to attack certain locations. The 64th Regiment was in the Mutter’s Ridge area, and was to attack Con Thien and Cam Lo. The 48th NVA Regiment was west of the 64th and poised to attack the Rockpile and Dong Ha Mountain (named because although it was 20 miles from Dong Ha, you could see it on a clear day). Completing the attack was the 52nd Regiment, further west. They were to attack and hold the dismantled remains of Khe Sanh Combat Base, not for a military victory, but for logistical purposes. They were aware that we had abandoned Khe Sanh, and they now wanted it for the same reasons we once did. Its close proximity to the Laotian border would give them an ideal location for a jumping-off point and a western headquarters. After conquering all our military positions, the NVA then planned to march eastward to the heavily populated areas of Dong Ha, Quang Tri, Hue, Phu Bai, and eventually Da Nang, but first they would have to get through us, the 3rd Marine Division.
Of course, we didn’t know any of this at the time. We were told what we needed to know to get us to the next overnight position and that was all. Sometimes we didn’t even know that much; finding out when we got there was more normal.
We moved out early and humped all day long, covering a lot of ground to the north. Alpha and Bravo companies of our 1st Regiment (1/3) were engaging a large NVA force near Mutter’s Ridge and we listened to the battle every step of the way, knowing we were walking right into it ourselves. The word was that they landed in a hot LZ that morning and choppers had been shot down. The NVA had Alpha Company
pinned down, but Bravo was kicking ass. Hill 461 was sort of considered as the center of Mutter’s Ridge, insofar as there was not just a single hill or ridge line that constituted Mutter’s Ridge proper. It was actually a series of ridges, generally running east–west in the mountainous region less than 1,000 meters from the DMZ, named for Marine Staff Sergeant Allen Mutter, who was killed in action in 1967. The NVA were dug in on Hill 461 and the Marines were trying to take it away from them.
The fighting went on all day and into the night, but the NVA still held the hill. We had to stop for the night approximately 600 meters south of the battle because it was getting too dark to move any further.
Third Platoon had been traveling separately from the rest of Fox Company, about 300 meters off their left flank. We wound up setting up for the night in a gorge that was a semidry creek bed. In spite of all the rain we’d been having, this particular creek was not running yet, but it certainly would be in a matter of days. The position could not have been a worse place to dig in for the night. To begin with, it was all rocks; and digging a hole was very difficult. We had to pile and rearrange some boulders to construct whatever protection we could. But because it was getting so late, and we were making entirely too much noise, we were ordered to knock off and begin silence for the night watch.
What we wound up with was four four-man LPs sent out in all directions, with everyone else spread out along the creek bed in the middle. A four-man LP went up each of the steep slopes to our flanks, while the others went downstream and upstream. My new fire team was elected to go upstream, in the direction we were traveling, which was also the direction in which the enemy would most likely be coming if any of them escaped the fighting to our north. The skies cleared that night and allowed for a very large moon to cast it’s eerie glow over the weed-filled gorge. Visibility was good. We could see 100 feet or more as we slowly made our way over the rocks to our selected vantage point.
I was not entirely satisfied with my new fire team that day, but I tried to justify the fact that they were all FNGs and I could show them the right way to do things. “Shorty” was the best. He paid close attention to what I said and everything around him. He showed a willingness to learn the things he would have to know in order to survive in the bush, and he also demonstrated real courage and loyalty as far as I was concerned. “Frick” and “Frack,” on the other hand, were a different story altogether. They were two 18-year-old black men from Chicago. They were buddies and stuck together like glue, but they did not seem to want anything to do with anyone else. They made me a little nervous, and although they told me that I wasn’t one of the bad guys, I still did not trust them. When you can’t trust a fellow grunt with your very life, something is wrong. I made the foolish mistake that day of calling them “Amos and Andy,” and that joke was not well received by them. All they talked about all day was racial prejudice and they continuously complained about white America. I repeatedly told them to knock off the chatter and pay attention to the trail, but they refused to give me my due as team leader.
I didn’t trust Frick and Frack to stay awake on watch, so I assigned one of them to Shorty and the other one to me, and we went on a 50 percent alert. Shorty and Frick were first, and me and Frack were second. Shorty’s watch went off without a hitch; when he woke me at 0200 he said, “All’s secure.” The moon was still bright, but a heavy fog was beginning to roll in, partially obstructing my view up the narrow gorge. Occasionally I heard noises behind us, like someone slipping on a loose rock, but I knew it was our own men. I wouldn’t have to worry about anything unless it came from in front of us. My hearing never did fully recover from the damage done at Foxtrot Ridge or under the barrel of the eight-incher. Although I could usually compensate for the loss by cupping my hands behind my ears, I could not get rid of that annoying, persistent ringing. I made sure Frack stayed awake with me in case I missed something.
Around 0430 I was staring blankly into the glowing mist out in front of me, and as usual I had my hands cupped behind my ears. Sitting motionless hour after hour can be so boring you go into a trance. I was in that state when I suddenly realized I was looking at two human figures walking toward me, about 50 feet out. I looked over at Frack and he was sound asleep next to me. I immediately kicked into overdrive and shook off the trance, alerting myself instantly to go into action. There were at least two NVA out there, moving slowly and suspiciously, acting like they were searching for something on the ground. I could see them from the waist up, with helmets and backpacks, but I didn’t think they knew I was right in front of them yet.
I did not want to wake up Frick and Frack, for fear they might make too much noise and give away our position, but I did wake Shorty and signaled him to be quiet. I called in to 3rd Platoon CP and said, “We’ve got movement, 35 meters out, at least two, maybe more, gooks comin’ our way. Be advised I’m gonna turn down the volume a few minutes until I see what’s up. Over.”
It sounded like Hamilton. “Roger, Butterball, get back to me in three, be careful and toss a frag only as last resort. Over.”
Shorty was up on his knees, his hands cupped behind his ears, his M-16 ready, hanging by a jungle sling. I turned the volume knob down and readied two hand grenades, fully prepared to toss and run. I could no longer see those first two men who must have moved out of the clearing, but then I saw two more move up and stop. I was just getting ready to wake up my two sleeping teammates and toss my frags when the first two men reappeared carrying something. It looked like a dead body detail, complete with stretcher. They took only a minute to tie the corpse to the stretcher and then disappear back in the direction from which they came.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. I got back on the horn and told Hamilton what was happening. Perhaps a little overexcited I asked, “Sarge, they’re gettin’ away, should we get them?”
Staff Sergeant Hamilton was so cool. “Nah, let ’em go this time. Nobody knows we’re here, let’s keep it that way.” A very wise decision, I thought, but what if they come back? What if they saw us and went to tell the rest of their unit?
I didn’t have any problem staying awake the rest of the night. I kept thinking about the tremendous amount of courage and loyalty these gooks had to have to carry out such a mission. I wondered how far they had come, and how long it took to find their missing comrade. Was it the brother of one of the detail? A good friend? Or someone in the outfit? I just couldn’t imagine any of us carrying out such an assignment in an area known to be full of the enemy.
* Pseudonym.
* Pseudonym.
Chapter 12
Mutter’s Ridge
We humped toward Mutter’s Ridge that first week of September, and the surviving members of the NVA 320th Division withdrew to the north after 1/3 kicked their asses. This first week in September happened to be when one of the worst typhoons in history hit Vietnam. The wind-driven rain cut visibility to only a couple of meters and left us with little option but to hunker down and survive. There was no resupply for five days to anyone, and though we had all the water we could drink, there was no food or spare radio batteries. We relieved Alpha and Bravo 1/3 on Hill 461 around September 12. I’ll never forget those guys’ faces as we stepped to the side of the steep, slippery trail to let them pass. They had been on Mutter’s Ridge for 10 days and had taken the best punches the NVA and Mother Nature could throw at them. Covered head to toe with mud, their blank stares told the story of horror and sacrifice.
Hill 461 looked like hell, too. The knee-deep mud and numerous craters were littered with the gear and rubble left behind by the NVA as well as Marines. It looked like a trash dump with C-ration containers, spent cartridges, soiled battle dressings and wrappers, rocket tubes, ammo, water cans, and dead gooks. This had been the NVA’s Regimental CP, but now it was literally blown off the face of the earth and melted by the rain. We went up and took positions our sister companies had previously held, and saw for the first time how high and steep this hill really was. Two of the four slopes w
ere nearly straight down—the actual crest was extremely narrow and there wasn’t really a flat spot on the entire ridge line. It was difficult to stand up, much less try to walk or maneuver with any kind of speed or stealth.
A light drizzle began to fall as Lieutenant Knight instructed Chico to take 3-Alpha out on a recon patrol before we settled in for the night. Once again, my short-timer squad leader begged for slack and asked if it would be okay if I led the squad this time.
“How short are you, Rodriguez?” asked Knight, perhaps beginning to feel somewhat taken advantage of.
“Six days and a wake up, Sir.” Chico said with a huge grin. “My 12-and-20 [12 months 20 days] is on the 18th, so I hope you won’t forget to get me a chopper bright and early that day, sir.”
Knight shifted his attention to me and my boot that had become stuck in the mud and pulled off my foot. “That all right with you Ball, the patrol?”
“That’s all right with me, Sir, as long as we don’t get stuck with the LP tonight, too,” I negotiated.
We lined up and headed down the western slope. It was a long, gradual finger that eventually led down to the base of the mountain. Atwood’s team took the point and I fell in right behind Mike. He and I took equal responsibility for the squad and the patrol.
