Human nature being what it is, he would try to make friends upon joining his unit but would often find others reluctant to befriend him, the reality of infantry combat being what it is. He would eventually find a close friend only to lose him through rotation, evacuation, or death. He would then be reluctant to befriend others.
He would live this day-in, day-out existence of denial and repetition, of heat, sweat, cold, mud, dust, boredom, and at times stark terror, until he was wounded, was killed, or completed his tour. Before that happened, he would very likely kill a fellow human being on at least one occasion. He would undergo all of this while his country was at peace and his more fortunate civilian counterpart was reaping the benefits of a prosperous nation ten thousand miles and another world away.
His only anchor to his past, to the reality that that world still existed, was through those letters from home.
And too many of those letters were eventually stamped “Search.”
“Sir, the reason they’re on your desk is ‘cause existing regulations dictate that an officer, normally the unit’s S-1, review all Search mail before returning it to the division AG,” my ever technically astute PSNCO explained.
“But why do we stamp them Search?” I replied. “Why not KIA, like you see in the movies? What the hell we searching for anyway?”
“Sir, we’re not searching for anything. I mean Search doesn’t mean search. It merely means the service member is dead, killed in action.
You know, sort of a code word. Uh… guess it’s kind of a morale thing; the Army just doesn’t want a bunch of letters out there with KIA stamped all over them. Shit, somebody might think we’re at war!”
“Okay. Understand. Now what happens to it after we verify the man is indeed dead… I mean ‘searched’?”
“Beats me, sir. I don’t know if they return it to the sender, forward it to the next of kin, shit-can it, or what. We just send it back to division AG stamped Search.”
So, along with my other duties, I reviewed our Search mail, comparing the names of addressees with those listed on our rosters of battle losses. It was a depressing chore, especially with Christmas of ‘67 rapidly approaching, bringing in its wake holiday greeting cards marked Search.
Understandably, mail addressed to the most recent of our fallen was usually from the victim’s immediate family—a father’s or mother’s letter to their son, a wife’s letter to her husband. Of course, mail of this nature was nearly always postmarked before the soldier was killed, and by the time it crossed my desk, the father or mother knew they no longer had a son, or wife a husband. However, I was surprised at the number of letters addressed to soldiers who had died weeks or even months before. These were from friends (or I suppose other acquaintances) who were evidently disassociated from the victim’s family and therefore not encompassed in the Army’s casualty notification process—perhaps a fellow trainee during basic, an old school churn, a girl he might have met at Fort Benning, Jackson, Polk, or Dix. Search!
Fortunately, this disheartening task was soon someone else’s responsibility. My short-lived tenure as a battalion S-1 ended abruptly late one night in early December when Colonel Lich sent word for me to report, “bag and baggage,” to him at Battalion Forward, the following morning. Upon doing so, I learned he had relieved one of his company commanders the day before.
And I was that company’s new “Comanche Six.”
3. Bong Son Bridge, Binh Dinh Province. December 1967
At the time, Charlie Company was guarding Highway One’s Bong Son bridge on the An Lao River in Binh Dinh Province. The evening log bird (logistics helicopter, normally a UH-ID [Huey]) deposited me, along with our evening meal, on the bridge at dust. Within minutes of it having arrived, I made two observations: many of those who greeted me had been drinking, a couple excessively, and virtually all who greeted me held their previous company commander in high esteem, believing his relief to have been at best premature. With these truths in mind and recognizing discretion as being the better part of valor, I decided to retire to my bunker for the evening and start afresh with my new command the following morning.
Later that night, First Lieutenant Brightly, the company’s attached artillery FO (forward observer), visited my sandbagged encampment and provided me his unsolicited evaluation of the company from A to Z, what was right with it (in his mind not an awful lot) and what was wrong with it (as he perceived it quite a bit). He was opinionated, somewhat intoxicated, and slightly disrespectful. He was also, I soon discovered, correct in much of what he said.
“Company’s fucking shell shocked, sir. I mean they’re goofy… uh… know what I mean?”
“No, I don’t know what you mean by ‘goofy.” Are you talking drugs?” I replied.
“Hell, no. And by the way, call me Slim, sir. Hell, I’m your Foxtrot Oscar, we’re gonna be close. FO and CO gotta be close, ‘cause you can save my fucking ass, and I for goddamn sure can save yours. ‘Member, I’m the link between you and all the artillery in the fucking free world! FO and CO gotta be close, figuratively and literally. Me and the outgoing Six were close—yeah, close—and that’s why I know what’s wrong with this fucking outfit.”
“Shit, it ain’t drugs, and it ain’t booze.” He paused momentarily, smiling, “…I mean regardless of what you’ve seen here tonight, hooch ain’t a problem in the company; we see very damn little of that! And it’s not snuffy either. Shit, company’s got the best soldiers in the division, whole goddamn Army, matter of fact. It’s Charlie. And the war. And luck, or the lack of it.”
“Slim, you’re gonna have to spell it out clearer than that,” I said, unable to comprehend the drift of his rambling. “I mean I don’t believe in luck or omens.”
“Well, shit, neither do I!” he responded, almost indignantly. “But see, the company’s had a bunch of folk killed in the last two, three months, more wounded. Snipers, booby traps, little piss-ant ambushes, you name it. And sir, we ain’t even seen a fucking gook! Snuffie’s saying he’s in a hard-luck company. Fuck, every time we get into something, it’s our guys who buy the farm or go out on dust off.”
After a moment’s silence, I asked, “Well, Slim, if that’s the problem, what’s the solution?”
“Solution! Shit, sir, the solution is to kill some fucking gooks!
Solution is to get the body count going the other way. Company needs to see some dead dinks out there. That’s the fucking solution!”
He was right. The company had suffered several costly “hits” with little to show in return. Largely because of this, many of our soldiers now perceived self-survival to be the predominate unit objective. Such a precept is dangerous since it weakens unit cohesiveness and, hence, The Cav combat effectiveness. And in infantry combat, as in all other facets of conflict, the strong destroy the weak.
Charlie Company was an airmobile rifle company that, at any given time, had a foxhole strength (the number of combat-deployable soldiers) of approximately 130 men. It was organized into three rifle platoons—the company’s “cutting edge”—Each carrying thirty to thirty-five men on its rolls; a weapons platoon of fifteen to twenty soldiers; and the command section composed of myself, the first sergeant, my two RTOs (radio telephone operators), a medic, and an attached artillery FO and his recon sergeant. Each of the platoons was commanded by a lieutenant and was normally referred to by that lieutenant’s call sign on the company command (radio) net. Thus, 1st Platoon was called “One Six”; 2nd, “Two Six”; and so on.
With the exception of vehicles, we were equipped basically the same as any other light-infantry rifle company. We had no need of vehicles, since we winged our way to war aboard helicopters.
Remaining on the bridge for another week, we trained, reequipped, suffered the constant red dust of endless military convoys traveling Highway One during the day, and slept on the damp floors of our sandbagged bunkers at night. In the meantime, I talked with our soldiers as opportunity availed itself, in doing so learning something of their frustrations. Not surprisingly, these centered on being away from home, in the Nam, in the infantry, in a hard-luck company that they felt too often came out on the losing end of the stick when confronting Charlie.
Unlike the rest of the battalion—and certainly the division as a whole—which felt Charlie to be a second-rate opponent, in the minds of some of my soldiers the enemy had assumed an almost supernatural status.
He was everywhere, behind every tree, beneath every rock, just waiting for an unsuspecting C Company to
