the napalm was brought in 'danger close' — fifty to one hundred meters in front of the advancing troops. This resulted in some casualties to our own troops — but by choice; the alternative was worse.
When we finally reached the summit, we discovered that a few of the NVA troops who remained there had actually been chained to trees to make sure they staved and fought. We also discovered that, sure enough, the 2nd NVA Division headquarters had been located there. By then, what was left of the division had withdrawn down the backside of the mountain into the valley, but the area was by no means secured.
One of the more memorable experiences during my tour occurred later that evening at the Dak To airfield. For several days, a steady stream of C- 130s had been landing day and night, bringing in unit reinforcements and ammo (one of them had already been destroyed by mortar fire), and I had gone down to meet and orient ten just- arriving replacements, about to go to C Company on Hill 1338—a pair of lieutenants straight out of Officer Candidate School, two new sergeants, and six privates. As they were off-loading from a C-130, a helicopter was also arriving, carrying a cargo net loaded with soldiers' bodies to a Graves Registration Collection Point near the C-130. There the casualties would be placed in body bags and then transloaded to the C-130. As the helo was maneuvering to set the load down, something went wrong and the load was accidentally dropped about eight feet onto the tarmac. The crunching of bodies and breaking of bones had to leave an indelible impression on the new replacements.
As soon as the helicopter moved off, I gathered the new replacements, welcomed them to the battalion, and gave them an orientation about on-and off-loading from a helicopter. 1 then wished them good luck and told them that when they arrived (after a ten-minute flight) they would be met and welcomed either by the company commander or, most likely, by the first sergeant.
Except for the two new lieutenants, and possibly the NCOs, none of them had met until three days earlier, when they'd been in-processed at brigade rear at Pleiku. There they'd received their orientations, drawn their gear, and zeroed their weapons. And now they were only ten minutes away from combat.
This was the way the replacement system worked in Vietnam. Replacements came in as individuals and not as units. In units, soldiers get to know each other well before they have to fight, and they develop relationships based on mutual respect, trust, and confidence — relationships that often endure a lifetime. Forming and completing training as a unit before commitment to combat is far more effective in every sense than an individual replacement system.
They reached their company on Hill 1338 and were integrated into its ranks as the company was preparing its night defensive positions.
Next morning, after dropping off much-needed ammunition, the first helicopter carried back the bodies of one of the two new lieutenants, a sergeant, and three of the privates to where they had arrived some twelve hours before. During their first night in combat they'd made the supreme sacrifice, even before they'd met all the members of their units.
The next day, as we swept over the ridge and down into the valleys that led to the backside, we found some amazing things: There was a swinging bridge, at least a quarter of a mile long, built underneath the triple-canopy jungle, so it could not be observed from the air. The NVA would use it to rush reinforcements back and forth between various battle positions. A dug-in hospital complex had been constructed along a stream in a valley on the backside of the mountain. It was so well-concealed that it was discovered only when a man from the point squad fell into a covered fighting position. A search of the area revealed complete underground operating rooms and enough body parts in a pile to fill a small truck.
We also learned that the NVA had taken far more casualties in the battle than the eighty or so that we'd taken in capturing Hill 1338.
About this time came the climax of another action that was part of the fight for Hill 1338: On an adjoining ridgeline about two kilometers to the west was a dug-in NVA gun position that for a few days had been shooting at the ammunition dump down at Dak To, so far without hitting it. From its 'crack,' we thought it was a 57mm recoilless rifle, well-concealed and protected in a cave. The gunner would fire only six rounds or so a day, obviously hoping he wouldn't be detected.
A reconnaissance patrol had been sent to the area where he was believed to be located, but hadn't found his position. For some reason he did not fire while the patrol was in the area. After that, brigade headquarters assumed the mission of neutralizing him; they leveled an eight-inch howitzer and fired directly at the shooter's position — but had no more luck than the recon patrol.
He continued to shoot, but not daily, and he varied the time on those days he did fire, then pulled the weapon back into the cave before counterfire could be placed on his position.
After a few days of this cat-and-mouse, he finally hit an ammo bunker filled with 155mm rounds — causing an explosion of something like 1,100 tons of various calibers of ammunition, including 8-inch and 175mm.
From my location on the 1,000-foot-high ridgeline, it looked and felt like an atomic explosion, with the mushroom cloud blossoming 1,000 feet above us.
A couple of moments after it went off, I called my Leavenworth friend, Maury Edmonds, who was still the brigade S-3, and said, 'Maury, did you just get nuked? It looks like it from my location.'
'I don't know what happened,' he answered, 'but there's eight-inch and 175mm unexploded shells lying all over this area.'
The explosion was so intense that it caved in many of the bunkers, and it took days to clean up the mess, and several ammunition convoys to restock the ammo.
After the battle for Hill 1338, a lot of fighting was still going on throughout the brigade area of operation, and my battalion was given the mission to secure Hill 660, near the intersection of the Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnamese border. It also turned out to be a very hot area, and we continued to be involved daily in significant contacts until the twenty-seventh of December, our first day in a long time without enemy contact.
At this time some of the reinforcing units that had arrived at the beginning of the battle began redeploying elsewhere within the division area of operations. The First Brigade, with its three organic battalions, would now assume responsibility for the mopping-up operation, as well as security for the entire Dak To area of operation.
All our units had fought magnificently, and we were very proud of our accomplishments — essentially, thwarting the 2nd NVA Division's plans for taking control of the Central Highlands and the major infiltration route that would have permitted them either to cut Vietnam in two all the way to the coast or turn south toward Kontum and Pleiku.
I have never known a more dedicated and selfless group of men: men who were motivated for the right reasons and who were willing to lay their lives on the line for our freedom. We were fighting for what we believed in, what we thought was right, and 1 can never recall a time when a single soldier refused to fight or showed cowardice in the face of the enemy.
Near the end of the war, newspapers in the States carried stories of pot-smoking, rapes, and fraggings of officers and NCOs. None of that happened in my unit.
After the battle, the 3/12 Infantry received a Presidential Unit Citation for its accomplishments, and many individual soldiers received medals for heroism. When General Westmoreland visited our battalion around Christmas, he told us that our battalion had seen more combat than any other battalion in Vietnam.
IN retrospect I would like to emphasize our respect for the NVA soldiers. They were outstanding fighters, who had little material support beyond what they carried on their backs. They knew how to survive, and they were tough.
On the other hand, it's hard for me to understand the ways they chose to motivate their troops to fight. Or at least their ways were alien to our culture.
If they had one weakness, it was in their noncommissioned officers' corps. They neither trained nor trusted their NCOs with enough authority to exercise flexibility in reacting to changing battlefield situations. I'm baffled by a culture whose leaders will chain their troops to trees to make sure they remain in position and fight. It is equally hard to understand a culture where political indoctrination forms the basis for motivation.
Every NVA soldier carried in his combat pack a small bag of marijuana wrapped in plastic. Before each battle, the troops would assemble to hear a lecture by the political officer (one for each company). As part of this preparation process, everyone would smoke the marijuana. You could often smell the aroma a good distance away from their attack position, and you knew they were ready and coming when you started smelling it and started
