Our Year of War

by Daniel P. Bolger

  A week later, Tom sailed right through his interview. Naturally skeptical, and increasingly disgruntled with both the war and the army fighting it, Tom found himself considerably less overawed by the highly experienced panel. Both men became sergeants, Chuck a week ahead of Tom.17 Age mattered, even in the army.

  While the Hagels went to relax in Hawaii and then went on to learn the fundamental ways of the army at the NCO academy, the war went on. At MACV, General Abrams took command. A superb tank commander from World War II, praised by General George S. Patton himself, Abrams came across as the anti-Westmoreland: rumpled, candid, and unimpressed by himself or others.18 He knew on June 11, 1968, the day he took over, that there’d be no more major influxes of U.S. troops, and no real attempt to change the downward trajectory of the American war effort. The Chicago fiasco only underlined that trend. The next significant troop movements would be outbound, regardless of whether Humphrey or Nixon won the U.S. presidency. Wallace’s ravings were ignored.

  Perceptive and wise behind his cigar and blunt speech, Abrams shouldered the unwelcome task of losing the Vietnam War as slowly as possible, perhaps salvaging something resembling a draw. He ratcheted back large-scale operations and emphasized day-to-day patrolling. After the excesses of Mini-Tet, Abrams also personally approved use of airstrikes and artillery in cities; he didn’t okay these measures too often. MACV’s maneuver battalions still hunted Charlie—it’s what they did, and a new four-star in Saigon didn’t alter the army’s innate tendencies tracing all the way back to slaying redcoats and tracking Plains Indians. But breaking down into lesser elements did something to meter the pain on South Vietnam’s civil communities. And the small-unit approach might just reduce U.S. casualties, a humane act in a faltering war.19

  The NVA and their VC affiliates backed off, too. They’d been beaten up badly in Tet, Mini-Tet, Khe Sanh, Hue, A Shau, and all the rest, not anywhere near the astronomical totals pronounced in Westmoreland’s final days, but crippling losses nonetheless. Time to bring in recruits, reorganize, reequip, and retrain surely made sense.20 And like Chuck and Tom Hagel, the elderly men in Hanoi also read the newspapers. Divided, impatient America in the 1960s paralleled the path of fractured, distracted colonial France in the 1950s. The MACV battalions would be leaving, maybe not in months, but certainly in years, and not many of those either. The U.S. military knew it, and Charlie knew it. So the communists checked the guerrilla handbook. Enemy halts, we harass.

  Westmoreland to Abrams marked an adjustment at the MACV level. In the 9th Infantry Division, Major General Julian J. Ewell changed nothing. Rather, he doubled down. Abrams wanted more small-unit operations? Good enough. Jitterbugging filled the bill. A variant, called “checkerboard,” put out individual rifle squads to make contact. Another idea, “night hunter,” used armed helicopters to troll across suspected VC strongholds in darkness. The choppers tried to draw fire. In all of these methods, when the opposition showed himself, the Americans unloaded a world of hurt. Ewell demanded day patrols and night ambushes, “constant pressure,” “tremendous pressure,” “excruciating pressure.”21

  Ewell weighed 2-47th Infantry and found the battalion wanting. Sure, 2-47th did great things in Tet and Mini-Tet, roaring into action in and around the built-up districts of Saigon. But how much more of that looked likely? The 9th Infantry Division’s campaign now focused on the wet, overgrown Mekong Delta, an area distinctly lacking in roads. Tower, Van Deusen, and now Scovel—it didn’t matter who commanded. The mech guys lacked some indefinable “it.” It’s one reason the general happily traded out 5-60th Mech for a leg battalion, suitably renumbered to keep the 9th Infantry Division’s books straight. Paratrooper Ewell saw the M113s as the problem. Reliance on tracks curbed the battalion’s mentality. They didn’t like to leave their “horses” behind, and weren’t as able when they did. Not that it mattered. When Ewell ran the numbers—and he did so daily—it made little difference. On M113s, on helicopters, and on foot, 2-47th just could not close the deal with Charlie Cong.22 So Ewell quit asking them to do so.

  With the 9th Infantry Division concentrating its forces in the upper Mekong Delta, and moving its main base camp from Bear Cat to Dong Tam southwest of Saigon, it fell to 2-47th to escort the many heavily laden supply truck convoys carrying key equipment and supplies through Saigon down to the new site. The Black Panther battalion also inherited the mundane duty of handing over Camp Martin Cox to the Royal Thai Army. Come September 9, 2-47th relocated permanently and completely into Long An Province.23

  There, Ewell assigned the battalion not to a combat brigade, but to the Division Support Command (DISCOM), the service support guys. The supply and maintenance people used 2-47th to secure Dong Tam Base Camp (Bear Cat revisited) and to run the roads, notably Route 4. Emblematic of DISCOM’s rather humdrum sense of itself, 2-47th inherited not some inspirationally named ongoing operation but a routine effort called Kudzu, after the fast-growing nuisance weed found splayed all over roadsides in the American south.24 From the division’s fast, hard-hitting reaction force to gate guards, berm squatters, and truck protectors—how low the mighty had fallen.

  For their new role, 2-47th occupied the former 5-60th Infantry camp at Binh Phuoc. That put them just east of the vital Route 4 and within a few miles of the division’s main base at Dong Tam. The troops immediately rechristened their new digs “Been Fucked,” which about summarized the prevailing view of the battalion’s unglamorous realignment under supervision of the herbivores of DISCOM.25 The DISCOM commander worked with Lieutenant Colonel Scovel to figure out the right mix of roadrunning, fence bunker guards, day patrols, and night ambushes to protect Dong Tam and Route 4. As much as they could, 2-47th adopted the approved Ewell tactics: jitterbug, checkerboard, and night hunter. Rueful troops characterized all of these schemes more bluntly: “bait.”26

  AS A TRUSTED, experienced NCO, finally wearing the stripes he’d earned many times over, Chuck Hagel drew one of the first night ambushes in the new area. When out at night near the Binh Son rubber groves, 2-47th preferred to go in squad or even platoon strength. This one, though, followed Ewell’s new dictates. Chuck took only three other riflemen. And a radio—to call down the heavens if Charlie showed up.

  Night operations in Vietnam juxtaposed each side’s essential ways of war. The guerrillas learned to love darkness. Rightly fearing ubiquitous U.S. jets and helicopters, necessity compelled Charlie to move, resupply, and try to attack in the black hours, which hobbled the pitiless Yankee airpower. To do anything at all, the NVA and VC had to go by night. Habit built experience, and repetition honed skills. Nutritionists argued that the American diet, strong on vitamin A, gave U.S. troops an advantage in seeing things in low light.27 That may well have been. But in terms of learning by doing, all the edge went to Mr. Charles. If he wanted to live, let alone win, he had no other option. That’s why night belonged to Charlie.

  For their part, the Americans turned to their preferred solutions. Technologies, some experimental, others tried and true, proliferated: night vision scopes, infrared detectors, ground radars, and people sniffers all played parts. With the high-speed gear humming along, the U.S. then used numbers, dozens and dozens of small foot patrols, to flood the zone. Men with radios linked together orbiting aircraft, ground patrols, and artillery ready to fire.28 When working as advertised, each night saw the upper Mekong Delta arrayed like a pinball machine, with scores of well-positioned ambushes as bumpers, armed helicopters as flappers, and artillery and airstrikes ready to tilt the table in MACV’s direction. Every time Charlie rolled through, he hit something. Then the whole thing lit up, ding-ding-ding, and the scoreboard rang up, body after body. Goodbye, Charlie Cong. Game over.

  Well, so went the idea. But it depended on quality ambush work. Picking soldiers for a night patrol drew on those army-preferred alpha male talents Chuck had shown since day one at Fort Bliss. At this phase of the war, with duties onerous and repetitive, contacts infrequent, and way too much alcohol and marijuana
available, privates found ways out of missions. Going out in the dark required stealth. So irresponsible soldiers drank too much, or smoked too much, and then bellowed or giggled or screamed like banshees. Those guys could not be used.29

  Sometimes Chuck and Tom resorted to their fists to tame such miscreants. One time, Chuck pulled a big soldier away who had belted a smaller man. In the ensuing fisticuffs, they crashed through a screen door. But Chuck prevailed. When it came to that, Tom did too. Bigger and smarter still counted for a lot in the world of aggressive young males.30 By the book, the two sergeants should have written up the misbehaving privates. In Vietnam, though, threatening someone with minor punishments such as the loss of his meager pay or his nonexistent liberty went nowhere. Court-martial took forever to arrange and in the end, more than a few riflemen preferred the secure austerity of Long Binh Jail (three hots and a cot) to the filth and fear of war on foot. So a hard belt to the head sufficed. The officers and senior NCOs made sure not to be around.

  Whacking a belligerent, a smart-ass, or a loafer only took it so far. Most guys straightened up and played the game. The outright slackers… well, you didn’t want them outside the wire with you. The war’s hard truth applied. In the end, men volunteered to fight. Chuck knew the reliable ones. He chose three for the night ambush.

  The men tied down their gear to dampen any metal-on-metal rattles or squeaks. Each soldier carried his M16 rifle and the usual twenty magazines, each of twenty 5.56mm M16 rounds. They didn’t bring all the extra ammunition and additional water typical for daylight missions. And they certainly left behind their ungainly flak vests. Hagel intended to move handily this night.

  Along with his rifle, each man carried two M18A1 Claymore mines, wicked little curved rectangular plates made up of 3.5 pounds of C4 explosive and seven hundred packed steel ball bearings. The mine could be rigged with a trip line, but more often was detonated using an electrical hand-switch, which troops called the clacker, attached by a hundred-foot wire. Squeeze the clacker—“command detonation” in army-speak—and the Claymore, like its Scottish blade namesake, cut quite a swath from about one to six feet above ground level. In open ground, the deadly BBs might zip out fifty yards.31 In thick jungle, ten would be a miracle. But that would work. The Claymores gave Hagel’s team a lot of options.

  One capability not available, the five-pound AN/PVS-2 starlight scope, gathered ambient light from the moon, stars, distant man-made illumination, or even bioluminescence. The battery-powered starlight scope could be mounted on a rifle or carried like a telescope. When you looked through it, akin to peering through a toilet paper tube, you saw a narrow circle of the world lit in shades of green. The imagery resembled what you saw when you opened your eyes underwater in a pond rich with algae. Stateside technical engineers estimated a soldier could detect an enemy figure out to four hundred yards.32 Of course, in Vietnamese underbrush at night, seeing anything four hundred yards away seemed pretty unlikely. The AN/PVS-2 wasn’t much. But compared to inky nothing, it made a difference. Decades later, the U.S. military made wide use of many such devices to see, drive, fly, and shoot at night. Hagel’s men could have used a starlight scope. But they didn’t get one. These gizmos were hard to come by in 2-47th. The few on hand went to the battalion scouts and snipers.

  As the leader, Chuck shouldered the PRC-25 backpack radio, the 23.5-pound lifeline to higher headquarters, supporting firepower, medevac, and help.33 In essence, the entire ambush revolved around placing a pair of eyeballs and a working radio near Charlie. Everything else—the other three riflemen, the Claymores, the careful preparations—existed to make that single event happen. If it did, the 9th Infantry Division’s constant pressure notched another night success. If not, okay. Coming back in one piece might be nice, too.

  The battalion’s intelligence section pinpointed a supposed VC trail for Hagel’s team to watch. It didn’t seem promising. The intel guys predicted a hundred out of every ten enemy routes. Hagel figured this one would go like most—slip out at 10 p.m., work into position, routine radio check-ins, no action, pick up, return around six after sunup, and lose a night’s sleep. Thanks to Ewell’s constant pressure mantra, the next day would see work as usual. Plus, night belonged to Charlie. What the hell. But Chuck Hagel cut no corners. That’s why the officers and senior NCOs trusted him.

  The foursome filed out of the wire in complete blackness. No moon shone. Just as well. It concealed the team, and staying hidden equaled staying alive. Lieutenant colonels and majors up at division headquarters joked about live bait.34 The bait weren’t laughing.

  Hagel led, navigating and walking point. Before he left, Hagel planned his route on a map, working around the edges of cultivated fields. He kept the team off trails, but he also avoided going with the machete to hew out a path cross-country. At night, that kind of raucous movement sounded like an elephant walk. The officers back at Binh Phuoc discouraged it; they worried about scaring off Charlie. Hagel thought a lot more about the risks of attracting the VC. No sense doing so. He skirted woodlines, staying just inside the trees. Experience paid off. Within an hour and a half, after a final thirty yards or so of slowly working through vines and branches, the team found the designated trail.

  It looked like it had once been a lane in a rubber plantation. Looking right and left, Hagel saw straight rows of trees. Thank the French, he figured. With practiced hands, the men set up their Claymore mines, snuggling each against the base of a tree. The army helpfully printed “front toward enemy” in raised letters on the convex side. Well, okay. To keep it idiot proof, and accommodate some of that ever-brewing battlefield entropy, Hagel learned long ago to put Claymores on the likely bad guy side of a wooden tree trunk. That way, if Charlie turned the weapons around (and the sneaky VC did that), you shredded some timber, not your head and shoulders.35

  The quartet then backed off, paying out the thin electrical wires. Soldiers allowed the requisite fifteen yards and added a few more. Better safe than sorry. From that far back, prone in the thick vegetation, the team could hear anything on the trail but only barely see it. Hagel gathered the clackers right in front of his arms. He faced the trail, a dark smudge almost seen twenty yards away. The sergeant arranged his men boot to boot. From above, had anyone been looking down from the jungle canopy, the riflemen formed a cross, feet in, heads out. With the radio receiver tight to his ear, Hagel okayed the other guys to sleep—no snoring.36 He’d nudge them if something happened.

  The black-plastic radio handset looked like a six-inch-long doll’s telephone. It received as long as the battery remained viable and the sender tuned to the proper frequency. The handset transmitted when you pressed a rubber-covered bar on the side. To avoid yabbering—sound really carried at night—sergeants learned to push the transmit bar to send a message. When depressed, even if no words were said, a rush of white noise followed. The military called it breaking squelch.

  Once every thirty minutes, on the half hour and top of the hour, Hagel pressed once. That told the base camp all remained quiet and well, no VC, no trouble. At any time, two quick pushes meant “danger nearby.” Three announced “coming in, don’t shoot.” Four equaled “pinned down, unable to move, hostiles all around.”37 Chuck Hagel hoped very much for a one-push night.

  Every thirty minutes, Hagel broke squelch. His head drooped some, but he did not sleep. The trio with him seemed to doze. But not the sergeant. He’d seen what happened when everyone bagged out. Get too comfortable and Mr. Charles might very well help you sleep forever.

  The minutes crawled. Midnight. Thirty minutes after. One a.m. One-thirty. Nothing. Various critters, mostly insects, whirred and chirrupped and snapped. Fat warm drops fell now and then, leftovers from the day’s monsoon shower.

  Two a.m.

  And then, a faint clang.

  Clang.

  It sounded like a cowbell in a Nebraska pasture. Hagel instantly alerted.

  The team leader didn’t wake his mates. He feared a startled reaction, a panick
ed gunshot, and then…

  Well, if Charlie really approached, and came in strength, Claymores or not, four Americans would constitute short work. And for God’s sake, don’t break squelch twice. That would get the duty people at Binh Phuoc all spun up. They’d start asking questions and blabbing away, and worse, insisting Hagel do likewise. Better to listen and let this play out. So Hagel waited. Experienced military professionals called it “tactical patience.” It sounded like a fine idea in a Fort Ord classroom. In a Mekong Delta jungle, in a night so dark you could barely see your hand in front of you, it took everything a man had to stay in place, ears attentive.

  The clang became regular, and close, maybe a wobbling wheel on some kind of larger crew-served weapon. Charlie owned big machine guns, mortars, and rocket launchers with wheels.38 Hagel thought he heard footfalls, too. He certainly smelled something, or someone. A lot of someones—way more than four.

  In the movies, Hagel might have hollered “Geronimo!,” blown the Claymores, and come up with his M16 blazing: very exciting, highly exuberant, and most certainly terminal. But the young sergeant knew enough to realize that such a gesture probably defined futility. The enemy might not be in front of the Claymores. And how many VC were there? Had any enemy flankers spread out?