we’d trapped them in one of the swamps. There was no way they could slip out to our flanks. Their only way out was into the lake.
When we made our initial contact, the Cav sent us an observer helicopter and a gunship (called a “a Silver Team”). They came on scene as we reached the villages near the water. I directed them over to the swamp where we’d last seen the VC, and they spotted several of them lying in the shallow water breathing through hollow reeds. The gunship fired into the water and killed a number of VC; and the others there surrendered to us. But the majority of the VC had reached the lakeshore, grabbed boats, and moved to the center of the huge lake, mingling with the civilian fishing boats.
We then gathered on the shore to decide what to do. As we were talking, I could hear on our radio net the senior adviser from the battalion to our south calling in an artillery fire mission — a VT (variable time fuse) mission, meaning the rounds would explode overhead and rain deadly shrapnel on the boats. I immediately jumped on the radio and called a check fire. “Wait a minute,” I shouted into the mike, “you can’t call in artillery. These are innocent people out there. The VC have gone in among fishermen. If they try to get away, the VC will shoot them.” While I was doing this, the VNMC company commander with me was pleading with his own chain of command not to fire.
This brought on a heated argument with the other adviser, a captain, who kept insisting that the boats were all VC. Since I was a lieutenant, it was a touchy moment. Soon a task force adviser, a major, came on the net to sort it out.
Meanwhile, dozens of panicked civilians had crowded along the shore, all anxious about their relatives out on the boats. “These are our fathers, our brothers, out there fishing,” they kept pleading. “They’re not Vietcong.”
Even when I pointed that out to the major, he seemed to be leaning toward the captain’s version. At that point, since I was sort of a wiseass anyhow, I let it all hang out. “I’ve got to tell you, sir, if we shoot this mission, in my mind we’re killing a lot of innocents, and I’m on record for that.”
“So do you have any other ideas?”
When I threw this question at the VNMC company commander, he knew what had to be done: “My men will go out in boats and get the VC,” he answered.
This was dangerous, but he and his troops did not want to see innocents killed. When I passed on the proposal, the adviser from the other battalion broke in to say that he and his Vietnamese counterpart didn’t think much of it.
“Stay out of it,” I told him. “It’s not your ass on the line.”
I knew I would pay for that comment, but I didn’t care.
Though I knew that a lieutenant can never be sure he is doing the right thing when he’s challenged by seniors, I’d already run into a number of situations like this, when my only recourse was to stand up for what my gut told me was right and take the flak for it. After seeing the results of doubting myself and backing down, I’d sworn I would never cave in once I’d reached down inside and determined that what I needed to do felt right.
Though this position did not endear me to the others on the radio, no one was ready to challenge me.
As the Marines began to climb into the boats, my mind fixed on the likelihood that many of them would be killed or wounded in this risky attack. Even though the Marines assured me we were doing the right thing, and I certainly agreed with them, I knew that any deaths would be on my conscience.
What unfolded next was just amazing — a scene right out of a pirate movie.
The Marines sailed onto the lake. Soon they’d chased down the VC boats, started firing, and then boarded them. Moments later, they’d taken down every enemy boat and killed or captured every single VC… all without a single Marine or civilian casualty.
Afterward, a few prisoners suddenly fell “very ill” with a high mortality rate disease. Our Marines were not happy they had used civilians as human shields.
By then I’d experienced dozens of incidents that made me proud of these courageous fighters, but this one definitely made the top of the list.
Because of the demonstrated competence and fighting ability of VNMC units, American commanders gave them ever tougher jobs. In July, U.S. units in II CTZ began moving their operations out toward the Western Highlands, where there was especially heavy fighting, leaving the coastal plain more exposed. This move was feasible only because the VNMC were available to pick up much of the action.
II CTZ headquarters specifically proposed that the Marines begin more aggressive night operations (promising full support, to include helicopter lift and fire support — a big plus in the eyes of the Marines). The Vietnamese were game for that.
The proposed operations involved a series of night helo raids, to be triggered by hot intelligence… a challenging but exciting mission for the VNMC (we had no night vision goggles then). It also excited me. By then I was confident I had my act together where fighting was concerned. I had become good at it.
We ended up conducting four of these raids. I was the adviser on three of them, but only one resulted in enemy contact.
That raid began on the twenty-fifth of July with an urgent call from U.S. Army command: A hot intelligence tip claimed that a squad-sized VC unit was moving a U.S. Army POW through the villages, using him for propaganda and recruiting. Army command thought a well-conducted raid might successfully rescue him. Since we were the only unit able to react quickly enough, we were tapped to conduct it.
The Army immediately sent an intel team to brief us: The tip had come from a local villager who had additionally reported that the VC squad was heading for a deserted village along the coast to spend the night. The intel team were not certain about the accuracy of the tip, but it seemed worth a serious follow-up. They then provided a description of the prisoner and his suspected identity.
We quickly began planning.
Raid planning had to be very precise and exacting, taking deception into account (we knew the VC were watching), and intel had to be very good. We worked hard on all this.
We decided on a raid force of eighty Marines. In order to deceive watchers, this force would move as part of a larger unit headed out that day for a routine relief of one of our mountain village outposts. The raid force would peel off from the larger unit in a remote area of the bush on the approach to the mountain villages and wait at a prearranged landing zone for night pickup by U.S. choppers. We coordinated all this with the pilots to minimize their time on the ground in the remote landing zone.
In those days we didn’t yet have M-16s, so we took Thompson submachine guns, grease guns, carbines — all automatic weapons — with extra ammo magazines, to ensure plenty of firepower for this relatively small force operating in very hostile territory. We wanted to make the raid as violent as possible. Our idea was to really shock them, hit them fast when they were sleeping (or so we hoped), and just open up. Machine guns would cover our flanks.
We knew the deserted village that was our objective from previous sweeps in the area. It was on the coast of the South China Sea and had a several-hundred-foot-high rocky ridge projecting out into the water to its north. We decided to land the helos up on the rocks; small, cleared areas there could take one helo at a time; and landing on the side of the ridge away from the village would mask the noise. We could then climb down the rocks and attack the village from the sea side — an unexpected route. (We were assuming that the enemy would be orienting their defenses inland.) There was one potential problem: Though we could cut off the north-south routes out of the village (the routes along the coast), we could not do much to cover escape routes to the west, which went out into vast, open rice paddies that led to more villages and wooded areas. Since our assault was going in from east to west, we didn’t want to put teams out west of the town into our potential fire zones. Instead, we hoped to put teams quickly into the western side of the village. This was another reason for instant violence. Without that, the VC might be able to melt away into the paddies.
The move out and helo lift went perfectly. The pilots flew well out to sea (thus promoting surprise) and came into the ridge area from the north as planned. We did have problems when some of the LZs proved too small for a helo landing, requiring troops to jump out of the helos from four or five feet up. A few of the
