15 Months in SOG (27 page)

I spotted the muzzle blast of an enemy soldier, down about fifty feet below the top from us. A green tracer round snapped up past us into the sky. I grabbed a couple of the little grenades I carried and threw them one after the other at the spot where the gunman was hiding. The double
krump! krump!
of their explosions settled the enemy’s wagon. He was either dead or gone from that spot. At least, he quit shooting our way.

The fire from the bad guys was dying down, so I called for everyone to cease fire. We had only so much ammo with us, and it had to last. I went with Crowley, checking out the troops while Margier worked on those wounded men he could find. Crowley had four dead and six hurt, but only
one serious enough to consider beyond saving. Lieutenant McMurray was at my hole when I arrived.

“Eight KIA and twelve gone,
Dai Uy
. They must have panicked and run down the back side of the hill in the first attack. I wonder where the hell that Spooky is?”

“He’ll be here. Keep alert on your flank. The enemy may try and come that way again. Also look out for those MIAs. They may try and get back up here, now that it’s quiet.”

“Roger, that. See you later,
Dai Uy.
”

Pete took off in a crouching shuffle for his hole. I was down a third of my men, and it still was not ten o’clock. If Spooky didn’t hurry up, it was gonna be a bit of hell on earth that night.

The sound of an airplane broke through my fear-numbed brain. A voice came over the radio. “Sneaky Six, this is Lima Two-six. We have your strobe in sight. What’d you boys want?”

“Lima Two-six, this is Sneaky Six. Two hundred plus NVA are to my front, due north, from nine to three on the clock. Hose ’em down at fifty meters out from my light. Can you do that?”

“Can do, Sneaky Six. Stay on the horn and make your corrections. Here comes the devil’s piss, fire from the sky. Charlie’s in for a big hurt tonight.”

The night heaven suddenly turned to orange-red fire, and a long arcing stream of hammering hell descended on the unlucky enemy below the lumbering gunship. It was just like the pilot said. It seemed as if a very big, very bad giant was pissing fire down on the unfortunate men. Sparks, ricochets, and debris flew in every direction. It was like listening to a lead hailstorm. The plane made a pass, turned, and made a second. Another offering of fire and hell from the black sky. The pilot called back, a hint of satisfaction in his voice.

“This is Lima Two-six. That ought to give them something to think about. We’ll orbit this area for a couple of hours. If you want another hosing, just say the word.”

The jungle to our front was silent, save for a few muffled moans like someone had been kicked real hard in his crown jewels. The surviving NVA were headed for safer ground as fast as they could claw through the thick brush. It grew very quiet around our little hilltop.

Before our airborne saviors left us, they came back for two encores, once when we thought we heard some noise to the front like someone was trying to sneak up on us and once just before the gunship had to return to its home base to refuel and resupply its depleted ammo. It poured the remaining rounds all over the area to our front.

“You fellows ever get to Da Nang,” I called on the radio, “the drinks are on me. Thanks a whole bunch, Lima Two-six.”

I could hear the pilot chuckle. He’d probably heard that pledge before. “No sweat, Sneaky Six. All in a night’s work. Good luck to you guys.”

The plane’s propellers droned away, and the night grew quieter. I checked everything out then moved back to my little hole. Now we just had to wait out the rest of the night, and the extraction choppers would be on their way at first light. Sergeant Margier reported that the badly wounded soldier had died, so I now was at thirteen KIA and twelve missing. I crossed my fingers that would be all. The night dragged on, making up for the fast day before. That way it came out even after twenty-four hours.

The dawn eventually came, and I got the welcome call that the choppers were fifteen minutes out. I had the dead soldiers wrapped in their ponchos and placed at the edge of the LZ. I went to the edge of the hilltop and peered over the side. The ground to the front looked like a scene from the moon. Trees were blown away or completely denuded of branches and leaves. The tremendous amount of fire from Spooky had stripped the area bare for a good three hundred feet in all directions.

I could see several bodies lying crumpled and silent out there. I sent a couple of men to go through their pockets to see
if they were carrying anything our military intelligence types could use.

Then I remembered the dead man who had laid so quietly beside me all night. I decided to check him out as well. He was still there, the top of his head blown away, with brains and blood all over his back. I grabbed his arm and rolled him over.

“Good morning,” he spoke quite clearly to me.

“Jesus Christ! This sumbitch is still alive,” I cried as I opened fire at him with my rifle.

Lieutenant McMurray came running over and grabbed my arm. I guess I was as white as a ghost. “The damned gook was still alive,” I stammered out, as I gained control of my senses.

Pete smiled and shook his head. “Naw,
Dai Uy
. He just belched when you moved him. Musta had a gas buildup in his gut during the night.” Pete poked at the dead soldier, who looked like he was about Pham’s age. “You sure got him now, though. You musta shot him twenty or more times.”

I was still shaking as the first chopper flared over the little LZ we had cleared on top of the hill. We pushed in the dead bodies and loaded the living, ten to a bird, until only me, Pete, my radio operator, and a badly wounded Yard, whom Pete had thought was dead until he made one last check, were left on the ground.

The last of the big, black H-34 Choctaw choppers made its approach. The two little Vietnamese pilots seemed tiny in the cockpit of the helicopter, but they maneuvered it right over the clearing and settled down, the huge tires just touching the ground. I jumped on board and pulled the wounded man inside. Pete sat in the door, his feet dangling outside, watching for signs of enemy fire. I moved to find a support for the wounded man as the chopper rose, dipped its nose, and flew forward to pick up air speed.

The hidden NVA machine gunner had waited patiently for a helicopter to get close to his position. He was rewarded when the last one, carrying me and the others, flew right at
him. He opened up at the twin white flight helmets of the pilots.

Sensing more than hearing the bullets that chewed up the two men in the cockpit, I glanced up to where the two pilots sat in a raised cockpit that was very hard to reach from the passenger compartment. I saw the blood and gore splashing down the front wall. Instinctively, I started to stand as the chopper dipped and plunged to the left, back toward the hill we had just left. I was thrown against the opposite side of the interior with an impact that drove the wind from my lungs.

Fortunately, we weren’t very high and we struck the ground tail first before the heavy chopper slammed counterclockwise into the side of the hill. Again I was smashed against the side of the interior and, for an instant, was too stunned to move. The massive motor screamed insanely as it ran wild, and the chopper blades snapped and tore themselves to pieces against the side of the hill.

I spent a horrifying moment waiting for the ship to explode, but it didn’t happen and I forced myself to move. The NVA would be coming on the run to get what was left of us. My radio operator was okay, so I pushed him out the twisted door and gave him the Vietnamese crew chief, who had been knocked unconscious in the crash. There was no sign of Lieutenant McMurray.

I jumped out and started up the hill. I found the wounded striker, thrown up against the shattered trunk of a small tree. He was clearly dead. I motioned for the radio operator to drag him to the top of the hill, while I took the crew chief with me. I was supporting the semiawake crew chief as we scrambled around the nose of the chopper. Both pilots had been chewed to pieces and didn’t need any help. Helping the crew chief, I headed for the top myself.

Partway there, I found my young lieutenant’s body. He’d been thrown out of the spinning chopper and one of the blades had hit him right in the chest. Damn near every bone in his
body was broken. My little Pete, the best friend I had left at CCN, was dead. Grasping his pack strap, I dragged him over the top of the hill to the LZ then took the radio handset and called for one of the departing helicopters to come back for us.

To my relief, the last of the string of black choppers circled and returned, picking the five of us up, just ahead of the advancing NVA soldiers. Three alive, by the grace of God, and two dead. We scrambled in, and the heavily loaded chopper thundered into the air. All the way home, I held Pete’s head in my lap. I didn’t have any tears for my friend, not yet. But it was all I could to just sit there and not scream like a wounded animal, again and again and again …

When Pete had returned from Taipei, the pace of the company training cycle made it impossible for me to listen in on all his adventures while there. But I wish I had, and I hope he’s reading this somewhere in the next world, where good soldiers do nothing but laze on a warm, sandy beach, with lovely companions lounging nearby.

Pete, little buddy, my friend. I hope you had a dozen beautiful ladies lying before you, and you left them all dazed and breathless with your studliness. You were a good soldier and a good friend. You deserved the best.

An odd sort of postscript to this story: The day was July 22, 1969. That afternoon, after the debriefings and a hot shower, I sat in the O-club and watched TV newscasts of Neil Armstrong taking the first steps on the moon. The feelings I experienced watching the TV were surreal. I had just spent a hellacious night on an insignificant hilltop, killing my fellow human beings, and the following day watching men moon-walk in the heavens. The incongruity of it all continues to perplex me when I allow myself to think about it.

The days following Pete’s and Pham’s deaths were long and bitter for me. I had lost friends before, but not two so special, who died so close together. Our mission to destroy the pipeline was recorded as a glorious victory. We destroyed the line and wiped out a whole slew of NVA soldiers, but the scoreboard totals didn’t begin to placate my sense of loss. We turned in a total of one hundred of the enemy KIA to our twenty-eight KIA and missing, so we met the guidelines laid down by the big brass, i.e., more of them than of us. That way, some PR puke could release carefully crafted news briefings claiming we were winning the war. Pete was sent home to be laid to rest before his grieving family. Pham was left in the bush to mix with the earth and return to the dust of his creation.

My only salvation from the devastating guilt was ironically found in the Montagnards themselves. Their strong faith that the dead are reborn in another body comforted me. Their calm acceptance of the loss of so many of their friends was an inspiration. I prayed that their belief held true for my friends Pete and Pham, and that they would have a joyful and long life the next time around. That prayer, mixed with my own Judeo-Christian upbringing, sustained me through the worst days.

I made Lieutenant Lawrence, the 3d Platoon leader, the new XO for the company. He had missed the pipeline raid and was eager to make a good impression on me and the unit. He was tall and lanky, redheaded and freckle-faced. He looked about half his age but was a fine young officer. I sensed that he
wanted to get closer to me because he had become my XO, but I stayed as aloof and distant as possible. I had learned a bitter lesson. Make friends and suffer the agony of their loss, or maintain your distance and sleep better at night.

Being an officer in wartime was damn tough. Officers care deeply about their men, yet they have to be willing to send them into the fires of hell when necessary. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. At least for me, the less personal attachment I had to my men, the easier it was to overcome their loss. I know Lieutenant Lawrence was disappointed in the way I treated him, especially after seeing the way Pete and I had worked together, but I hope he understood before his time in Nam was over.

To this day, I shy away from close friendships, and I know it has hurt me socially and professionally. And, I doubt if anyone who has not “been there” would truly understand.

I tried to stay busy and, except on rare occasions, I quit going to the club after duty hours. I wrote home more often and rebuilt my stock of in-the-field letters, letters home to my wife or my folks that I wrote in advance, saying little, but making it seem as if I were safe in camp rather than out in the bush with Charlie on my tail. A staff officer would mail one every other day while I was gone. I don’t think my wife ever knew when I was out, the plan worked so well. But she must have thought I wrote the most boring letters in the world.

Time was passing by, and I knew I didn’t have many more trips across the line left in my tour. My nerves were going, and I was having trouble sleeping at night. The slightest sound would wake me up, shaking and sweaty.

I sucked it up and waited for the next mission, determined that I could make it through a few more. In the meantime, I spent a lot of time retraining the 1st Platoon. It had suffered 50 percent casualties on the pipeline raid and was being refilled with new recruits from Bon Hai. I didn’t have the nerve to go up and recruit them myself, so I sent Lieutenant Lawrence.

I nominated Lieutenant Cable to go up to FOB 1 as a launch officer. Through bad luck and illness, he had missed the last two
operations involving his platoon and I was afraid that his troops might have lost confidence in him. The unit needed new blood anyway, to start off fresh. The new platoon sergeant would be Sergeant First Class Garrett, and a new junior lieutenant from 5th Group headquarters named Jefferson was made platoon leader. He was a slender, black kid from Chicago, and easy to get along with. His warm brown eyes and chocolate coloring were about the same shade as his Bru troops. I hoped they would get along well with him, and as it turned out, they did. With the experienced Garrett as his platoon sergeant, I didn’t worry about the platoon’s command.