in anger.”
“lib… yes, sir. That’s not what I meant, really.”
Then, smiling, he said, “But yeah, Chuck did throw us a couple rounds last night. Nothing serious. In fact, he seems to be pretty much leaving our folk alone. Concentrating on villages and cities, shit, in some cases district and maybe even provincial capitals.”
I nodded, making notes as he spoke.
“But our concern right now is Binh Dinh,” he continued. “NVA went through these supposedly secure villages last night. ARVN’s now in the process of digging out those still in the area. Want you and your folk to do the same. Highway’s your boundary, little people on the left… coastal side, you on the right. I brought along a Kit Carson who may be of some help to you.” He grinned, “Doesn’t speak much English, but he’s really fluent in Vietnamese. “Jim, everything’s up in the air right now. Don’t know if you’ll be staying ‘round here tonight, or moving on, or what. But I’ll promise you one thing; you’ll go wherever we find Charlie. So hang loose, or as we say in the military venacular, stay flexible!”
We wished each other well, and he departed aboard the battalion’s C&C ship.
Minutes later we began our sweep of the villages with One Six tying into Highway One on the left, Two Six on the right, and Three Six, followed by Four Six and headquarters, in the center. We found no enemy. We found only scared and crying children and their shocked elders wailing over their dead as only the Vietnamese can wail over their dead. Most of the demised were village officials, and most had been executed with a single shot to the base of their skull. We would later learn that such atrocities were the norm throughout Vietnam on the nights of 30 and 31 January and 1 February 1968; and for a longer period in the city of Hue.
Within two hours of his departure, Byson called with a change in our orders. “This is Arizona Three. Want you to move to the red line and prepare for attachment to Prairie Schooner in two zero. You’ll be conducting combined arms sweep of an area… oh, say, seven klicks to your north. Prairie Schooner’s in command; however, if you have any problem with that just give me a call. How copy? Over.”
“This is Comanche Six. Solid copy. Where on the red line do we marry up with Schooner?”
“This is Arizona Three. Just assemble your element on the big red. Schooner has your push. He can’t miss you.”
Turning quickly to Blair, I asked, “Who the fuck’s Prairie Schooner?”
He was already thumbing through his CEOI codes and within moments said,
“Prairie Schooner’s… hot damn! It’s the mech folk; looks like we ride for a while.”
Thirty minutes later, we were barreling north on Highway One atop Prairie Schooner’s M-113 APCs (armored personnel carriers).
Captain Rogers, commander of the mech company to which we were attached, and I had agreed that my men would ride on top of the carriers, while his soldiers occupied their normal positions inside the vehicles. A mechanized rifle company is organized very similarly to an airmobile rifle company (the main difference between the two being that they sometimes walked but usually rode, while we sometimes flew but usually walked), so crossattachment of our two commands proved relatively simple. One Six merely joined forces with Schooner’s One Six, Two Six with their Two Six, and so on.
Our objective was a large lowlying hill mass on the right, eastern, side of the highway about six klicks from our pickup point. According to some of the villagers in the area, remnants of an NVA force were now hiding in the hill’s vegetation.
The carriers slowed and then, each suddenly braking on its right track, turned sharply ninety degrees to the right—and stopped. We were now facing the hill, with a distance of ten to fifteen meters separating each of the fourteen carriers on line at its base. Riding with Rogers atop his track, I asked what our plan of attack was.
“Plan?” he replied. “We’re gonna recon by fire with the fifties. IE (referring to his .50 caliber machine guns, one of which was mounted on each of the APCS) and then roll forward.”
“Fine,” I replied. “You want my people to dismount and follow, or what?”
“Naw, that’d just slow us up. ‘Sides, we don’t really know if Charlie’s up there or not. Why don’t you keep your folk mounted, and then if we run into something, you can dismount at that time.”
“Sounds good to me,” I responded, being anything but an expert on mechanized warfare.
He talked briefly into the mike attached to his helmet, and then fourteen .50caliber machine guns instantaneously began firing into the hill mass before us, their third-round tracers plunging brilliantly into the lush, emerald green elephant grass covering the hillside and then ricocheting crazily upward.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
It was an incredible earsplitting display of firepower. We of Charlie Company, having never seen so many .50-calibers firing simultaneously, watched in fascination as the tracers swept the hillside, back and forth, from its base to its crest.
Finally Rogers gave the signal to cease fire. The tracks began moving forward, slowly at first as they negotiated the highway’s embankment, which jutted downward at a steep angle, and then gaining speed as they started up the hill, crushing the dense foliage before them.
We had moved perhaps fifty meters, less than a third of the way up the hill, when we ran into—no, over— Charlie. The enemy had dug himself into the hill’s side, underneath its tall, thick, grassy covering, but in so doing had postured himself to hide, not fight. The track to our immediate right ran over the first of these positions, and as it did so an NVA soldier popped from his place of hiding and quickly pointed a rocket propelled grenade at the rear of the vehicle.
“RPG!” yelled one of our riflemen as he fired his M-16, killing his opponent before he could loose the grenade.
Moments later we heard an exchange of gunfire fifty or sixty meters to our left, where another of the tracks had uncovered a similar position.
That’s it! I said to myself. Enemy’s here, he’s got RPGS, and there ain’t no reason for Charlie Company to be riding atop these tin coffins.
I tapped Captain Rogers on the shoulder, pulled his helmeted headset aside, and said, “I’m dismounting my people, now!”
He gave me a thumbs up and signaled his tracks to stop momentarily, while we quickly dismounted. Then, after forming up behind the APCS, we continued up the hill afoot.
It turned out to be a very successful engagement. On our initial sweep, we netted ten or twelve of the enemy; on our return trip down the hill we killed another two or three. Finally, a horizontal sweep across the hill’s face, with us once again mounted, turned up nothing.
Upon completion of this maneuver, Rogers assembled his tracks in a relatively flat area at the base of the hill, circling them into a “covered-wagon” defensive perimeter. We broke for lunch while awaiting new orders; and they were not long in coming.
“Comanche Six, this is Arizona Three inbound with four, plus two, plus two in one five. Gonna put you into your old stomping grounds.
Getting reports of movement there. Looks like Charlie’s using that general area as one of his routes of regress… break. Good show with Schooner, Over Trail Six passes ‘well done.” As do we. You are now detached from Schooner. I’ll see you on the ground in about one five. How copy? Over.”
“This is Comanche Six. Solid. Standing by.”
After quickly passing the gist of Byson’s conversation to the platoon leaders and designating Bob Halloway’s Three Six as our assault element, I turned over the business of moving the company to Bull Sullivan. Twenty minutes later, we were sitting in the Huey’s door frame, basking in the coolness of its ninety-knot backwash.
One of the fringe benefits of being in the assault element, I thought to myself. For a few brief moments aboard your doorless slick you can escape Vietnam’s torrid heat while the rest of the company, following in the hooks, continues to sweat. Of course, if the LZ turns out to be “red,” you may find yourself getting your clock cleaned while the rest of the company orbits above, sweating in safety. Is there a moral here?
No, I don’t think so. It merely means that in the Nam, the smallest of luxuries are often but a matter of chance and usually costless. But on occasion, suddenly and unknowingly, they are purchased at the price of life itself. Or, as the Bull would say, “Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you!”
I put my philosophical wanderings aside as we touched down on a green LZ a short distance from Daisy.
