hearts and minds”). Pershing took up the better part of 1967.
It took Zinni three days to travel from the Rung Sat to Binh Dinh. The last leg was by helicopter. He arrived at the battalion position at sunset.
The helo landed in a dry rice paddy next to a tree line, where he was met by Jim Laney, the 5th Battalion junior adviser, now filling in for his boss on emergency leave. Laney was a mustang, a onetime enlisted man who had received a meritorious commission as an officer.
He led Zinni through the tree line and into the battalion command post, a half-destroyed hut (it was roofless, and the wall facing the line of troops and paddy area had been completely blown away). As they walked past the Marine positions, Zinni noticed that they were digging in at the edge of the paddies just a few meters from the hut, obviously getting ready for serious action. The battalion had been conducting a parallel sweep on both sides of a vast east-west open rice paddy complex.
“We’ve been in continuous contact since we began the sweep,” Laney explained, “and they’ve attacked us every night. They consider this area to be theirs. They’ve owned it for a long time. We’re intruders.
“You’ll move across the paddy area tomorrow morning,” he continued, “to join the battalion executive officer who has two companies on the other side.”
“Why can’t I just cross the paddy now?” Zinni asked.
Laney laughed. “You won’t get ten yards before they pick you off. In the morning, the Marines will clear the area just to our west. Then you can cross.”
Zinni stepped into the roofless, three-sided hut and met the battalion commander, a tough but friendly and wise old Marine major named Nha, and a combat legend. He gave Zinni a warm welcome, insisting that he join him for chow.
Later, as they ate, a full moon left an eerie glow across the paddies. After dinner, as Zinni was settling into a corner of the hut for the night, Laney reminded him that they surely would be hit; he should be ready.
That got young Zinni’s attention. Excited to be getting into a close-quarters firefight for the first time, he carefully laid out his M-16 and harness, figuring out how he would roll out of his poncho liner, grab his rifle and gear, and come up ready to shoot.
Sure enough, around midnight, the whole area erupted with fire.
Zinni bolted out of a deep sleep and spun into action, surprising himself with how quickly he rolled, grabbed the gear, and was down in a shooting position ready for action. There was one problem. It was dark as a coalpit in hell. What happened to the full moon? He heard the others on the radio and the return fire, but he couldn’t see a thing, not even tracers.
He shouted to Laney: “Can you see anything? I can’t.”
“You’re facing the wrong way,” Laney yelled back over the firing.
Zinni then realized that his planned “roll” into action had been in the wrong direction and he was facing the back wall of the hut. Red-faced, he crawled around. Major Nha was laughing sympathetically; he felt for the new guy.
Anyhow, Zinni’s embarrassment passed quickly when it hit him that rounds were whizzing overhead and slamming into the back walls. He could clearly see the enemy muzzle flashes and the outgoing tracer fire of the Marines.
In time, he would develop into an experienced veteran who could remain focused in the madness of a firefight. The sounds and flashes from the weapons would tell him what types were firing, at what distances, and how many there were. But at this point, all he heard was a cacophony of noises, flashes, and blasts.
After about twenty minutes, the firing trailed off and eventually ceased. The others crawled back under their poncho liners, but Zinni was still too excited to sleep. This was his first experience with a close exchange of fire. He was standing at the front of the hut, gazing out across the moonlit paddies and thinking about the attack, when a single round cracked, zinged right between his legs, and slammed into the hardened mud base on the hut floor. “Oh, shit!” he realized. “I shouldn’t be standing up!”
He dove back into the hut and slipped under his poncho liner. The next morning at first light his Vietnamese cowboy,[7] who had witnessed this adventure, handed him a cup of steaming coffee and the spent round he’d dug out of the floor. “Keep it as a reminder not to be stupid,” he said.
“Thanks,” Zinni replied, meaning it.
Meanwhile, the scouts and lead units had already started forward, and Major Nha determined it was clear enough for Zinni, his cowboy, and his radio operator to cross over to join the other half of the battalion on the south side of the paddies.
After the linkup, the battalion executive officer provided Zinni with a running description in fluent English of the area and the operation.
“The Vietnamese Marines have operated in Binh Dinh Province on and off for the last three years,” the executive officer (XO) explained as they moved out. “Our area of operations is on the Bong Son Plain, which starts at the coast of the South China Sea and spreads west into the foothills and mountains of the Central Highlands. It’s a critical area, with major seacoast cities, airfields, and ports; it’s a major rice-producing area, with many lakes and waterways; the principal north-south highway of Vietnam, Highway 1, runs through it; and it’s also the major food- producing area of the central region.
“In 1965, the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) moved into the area and remains the primary American unit operating here.
“This is a hard-core VC region; stay-behind cadres were left by Ho Chi Minh after the French Indochina War,” in violation of the peace treaty that divided Vietnam; “there are heavy concentrations of VC [Vietcong] sympathizers; and many homes and classrooms still have pictures of Ho Chi Minh. The dense forests and mountains in the western part of the province give sanctuary to the enemy and easy access from the Central Highlands near the Cambodian border to the populated areas on the coastal plain. You can expect almost continuous enemy sniping or hit-and-run attacks.”
Not long after Zinni moved out with the battalion XO and the two companies, they made contact with the VC again. They were at a crossing point between rice paddies and a line of trees when their point squads came under fire. The lead company quickly moved up on line and got into a heavy exchange of fire with dug-in VC. With only three to four hundred meters of paddies separating the VC from the Marines, the rounds were zinging all over.
In order to get a better sense of the fight, Zinni and the XO moved forward. The XO stood at the edge of the tree line and examined the enemy positions, then looked around for Zinni, signaling for him to join him. Zinni was soon standing beside him, anxious not to screw up.
“I’d like to put some artillery on the enemy positions,” the XO told Zinni, pointing at the area he had in mind, about five hundred meters away. At that moment, rounds hit a tree nearby and Zinni hit the deck. “Don’t worry,” the XO said, with a smile, “the VC fire is high. It’s okay to stand up.”
Zinni stood, then started his radio call for fire procedure. Though he had never before called in a fire mission, even in training, he knew basically how it was done, and he’d been tested on it. He carefully went through the remembered procedure. A few minutes later, artillery rounds smacked into the VC positions a few hundred meters away. While trees exploded all around from flying shrapnel, he stood, observing and adjusting the fire… without noticing that the VC were also adjusting their fire, bringing it down. VC rounds were starting to hit all around him; but this did not faze Zinni, focused as he was on the artillery.
After a time, the VC fire slacked off and he could tell they were breaking contact.
But when he turned toward the XO to get his take on that, he noticed that everybody was on the ground covering their heads. “Get down!” the XO was yelling. “Now they’re shooting low!”
Moments later, the Marines began moving across the paddies and pursuing the enemy. As they went by, they smiled and gave him a thumbs-up.
Later, the XO told him how impressed they’d been that he’d stood up under the enemy fire and called in the artillery rounds “danger close” on his first mission. Zinni didn’t know what he was talking about (the term was new to him), but since he seemed pleased, Zinni didn’t ask questions.
He realized later what had happened: In his unfamiliarity with the whole process of targeting artillery, he had called the fire mission directly onto the enemy positions rather than creeping it in from behind, the usual procedure when the target was within six hundred meters—“danger close.”
Meanwhile, the Marines treated him like a fearless hero. God protects the innocent and the ignorant.
