Khe Sanh Veterans Association Inc.

Red Clay
Newsletter of the Veterans who served at Khe Sanh Combat Base,
Hill 950, Hill 881, Hill 861, Hill 861-A, Hill 558
Lang-Vei and Surrounding Area

Issue 48     Winter  2001

Memoirs

Home
In This Issue
Notes from Editor and Board   Incoming   Short Rounds   In Memoriam   
Email  A Sprinkling of your Poetry   Reunion 2001 Chicago

Articles in this Section
Searching for Jerry   Home Is Where You Dig It   Gunfight at Khe Sanh Village
David Douglas Duncan   Jim Carmichael Echo 2/26   Like Father, Like Son

******************

By Donna Elliot
December 1967

    Since late December '67, the 325th and 304th North Vietnamese Army (NVA) had been deployed from east to west across the DMZ and had been transporting supplies from depots north of the DMZ to caches north and northeast of Khe Sanh. At least 114 short tons of rice had been moved, and 200-300 tons of rice were transported, enough rice to feed an entire division for one month. In addition, at least 41 tons of ammunition, the equivalent in weight of a basic load for one division, had also been moved. To one 304th squad leader, Tran Dinh Ky, this continued supply buildup indicated to him that plans of a coordinated offense designed to seize and hold key objectives were being implemented.

    Prior to the 7th Battalion's attack on Huong Hoa Subsector, the 9th Regiment, 304th Division sent one platoon to occupy the Ku Boc road junctions. One other platoon was to occupy high point 471. Orders were to hold these two features at all costs. One battalion being placed close to Highway 9, prepared to attack any relief forces that might approach Huong Hoa Subsector overland along Highway 9, from Tan Lam and Ca Lu. And to counter any attempt to insert relief forces by air assault in the area south and southeast of the Ku Boc road junction.

The Ku Boc road junction is located approximately 1,000 meters north-northeast of the recorded crash site of Blackcat tail number 61027. It appears that PAVN account authors used the name Ku Boc to refer also to the Old French Fort (a.k.a. Delta 5). It was here that the 1lth Company laid in wait in deep trenches, undetectable from the air. There was no need for the NVA soldiers to question why they had come. The bad news of fighting to live was there for them to see, almost close enough to touch.

It was here that Tran Dinh Ky and his squad laid in wait. Ky had been given his orders. He was to get his squad into position to support the occupation of the Ku Boc road junctions by the l1th company, of the 9th battalion of the 66th Regiment. Ky himself would carry a most powerful weapon on his own back; a B-40 rocket propelled anti-tank grenade. It did not make him feel immune to the "bronze candy," NVA slang for enemy bullets.

Meantime, CIA man, Robert Brewer, the Quang Tri province senior adviser, had organized a council of war. According to John Prados and Ray W. Stubbe, authors of "Valley of Decision," "The group that met included ARVN province chief Colonel Nguyen Am, ARVN tactical operations center director Major Tuyen, his U.S. advisor Major Sanders, economic development adviser James R. Bullington, psychological warfare adviser Marine Lieutenant Colonel Jean T. Fox, intelligence adviser Air Force Captain Warren Milburg, and Regional Forces/Popular Forces (RF/PF) adviser Army Major John B. Oliver. Brewer himself and his deputy, Army Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Seymoe, plus his special assistant, John M. Uhler from USAID, rounded out the group.

Brewer's conviction carried the day, and the group agreed on the need to reinforce Khe Sanh village. With the approval of ARVN 1st Division commander Maj or General Ngo Quang, Colonel Am provided one of his best RF companies for the mission. A helicopter unit from Danang provided nine UH-1E ships to carry them. The slicks lifted off from Quang Tri City at 5:10 P.M. on January 21 with the 256th RF Company.

Brewer's deputy volunteered to lead the relief mission. Given the shortness of time and impossibility of extensively briefing the pilots, the CIA man thought it might be good to have someone along who knew his plan, so Brewer approved the inclusion of Seymoe. The deputy, originally from the Air Force, was a brave man who held a Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions in the Korean War. He had been grounded because of injuries, however, including some loss of hearing, and then transferred to the Army. Seymoe's poor hearing had fateful effects on the relief expedition.

In addition to Seymoe, Brewer sent along a forward air controller (FAC) on his staff, Captain Cooper. Flying an L-19 observation plane, Cooper was to mark the orchard of coffee trees so that fixedwing aircraft could blast down the trees to create the LZ for the relief force. Instead there was a classic foul-up. Brewer tells the story best in a video interview he gave in 1989:

When Cooper got up, there was another L-19 in the vicinity. It was a Marine Corps FAC, but Cooper couldn't get him on the radio. So he's chasing around the sky, trying to tell that guy to get down, get out of the way. And meantime he radioed the oncoming choppers lumbering in: "hold up, we couldn't get the fighter strike in yet."

Now Cooper had four flights of fighter-bombers ready to level the coffee grove, but Seymoe with his bad ear understood that Cooper was reporting that the strike had been canceled. Seymoe then ordered the slicks to land his relief force at the Old French Fort. That place, since the departure of FOB-3, had become an NVA stronghold. The result was a massacre. "The landing force of helicopters had been unable to detect the 1lth company, which held its fire until after the choppers of the 282nd Assault Helicopter Company had touched down. The entire platoon opened fire on the unsuspecting US Army and ARVN soldiers.

Except Ky, who waited patiently under cover for a clear shot with his anti-tank weapon. His target, an American UH-1 helicopter, tail number 027. He stood, took careful aim, and fired. The B-40 round made a direct hit on the gunner's seat, caught on fire, and crashed to the ground, rolling over a slight edge and stopping upside down in flames. No, Tran Dinh Ky was not to be killed in this battle. Instead he was to become a National North Vietnamese war hero because of it.

Tommy Stiner's day had started with a surprise birthday party hosted by members of the 282nd Assault Helicopter Company. And Tom Pullen, pilot of #7 or Tail-End-Charlie, was fighting to keep his own ship in the air when he "went off the end of the LZ and over a cliff about 20 or 30 feet high. I could see an aircraft on the ground directly below me, which was burning, and could see another aircraft hovering just below and to my right. Another aircraft was taking off from the vicinity of the burning chopper, staying low and departing at about a 30degree angle to my right front. There was an American standing in the open near the burning helicopter and appeared to be firing his weapon at targets to my rear (WO Jerry McKinsey). There were two other Americans running towards the long figure, one did not appear to have a weapon (Williams and Elliott).

"I heard an Alley Cat (Gun Ship) warn everyone on the radio to clear the area of the downed ship because they were going to suppress the area, and as I looked up I saw the Alley Cat cut sharp right to keep from flying directly across my path. By this time, I had cleared the side of the mountain and dove into the valley below. Some of the ships went back to look for Stiner, Mac (McKinsey, Sgt. Hill (gunner), Hollingsworth (CB), Howington (CE who jumped from #2 to try to get them out of #1, and then #2 got it's hydraulics shot out and had to leave), Col. Seymoe (passenger in #1, Elliott (gunner from #3 who jumped out to help #1 and then #3 lost hydraulics and electrical system and had to leave). Number Two got Hollingsworth out and then all hell broke loose."

"As anticipated," official NVA war records state, "when we attacked Huong Hoa, they mobilized Unit #258 by air at Ku Boc where they were ambushed by our Unit #11 (of Division #9). Most of Unit #258 were killed on the spot; a few survived, ran toward Lang Khoai (Sweet-Potato Village) and were taken in by our soldiers of Unit #9. Among the prisoners-of-war was the head of Unit #258, Lieutenant Nguyen Dinh Hiep (ARVN officer). At this battle, comrade Tran Dinh Ky, one of our platoon's head, fired one shot of B40 at one helicopter, destroying it along with 12 of them (not specific if American or South Vietnamese); he then lead his soldiers and destroyed another helicopter."

If it looked bad from the air, it was even worse on the ground. Danny Williams had hopped out of his aircraft and ran directly to Stiner to see if he could help. They tried together to free Seymoe, but by this time the Colonel was dead. Stiner managed to crawl to McKinsey's firing position only to see him die, still holding his firing position. Stiner took his carbine and crawled back out of the line of fire to Howington and one ARVN soldier.

They found a hole at the rear of the chopper, an indentation in the earth, and they got down into this hole. Williams would cover Stiner as he crawled out in different directions as far as he could and when he drew fire, he would retreat back into the hole. The NVA had moved in close enough to start lobbing grenades at them. It was time to move or die!

Stiner and Williams decided to run for it. They moved out to the rear, Stiner picking up two grenades and clips for his carbine. Running downhill they encountered a small group of NVA who were so surprised they were able to run right through them. The chase was on when the enemy recovered enough to begin running after them, firing and yelling.

The situation was not good. They had no map, compass, food, water, nor much ammo. The only possible survival meant crawling through leech infested brush and blade sharp elephant grass, running under cover of darkness with thousands of enemy troops attacking civilians and military in the village and the Marines stationed there and in the hills around the Khe Sanh Combat Base (KSCB). The two Blackcats, Williams and Stiner, weren't likely to get an assist from the Base. The NVA had scored high that morning with a hit on the ammo dump, killing and wounding, igniting an inferno that not only blazed for hours, but belched gas and pitched lava-red live rounds into the trenches where Marines were fighting off the initial invasion of Tet.

After 13 hours of pure terror, Stiner and Williams made Ta Cong hamlet at first light on January 22nd. They had wandered into a mine field and set one off. Both were now wounded by shrapnel, and Howington was shot by a Marine guard when troops on the line opened up on them, thinking it was the NVA. But their troubles weren't over, the paranoid Marines of Oscar-3 thought the two were Russian advisors and took them POW, tying them up overnight. When positive identification was made the Marines apologized, "Sorry 'bout that."

    Bob Brewer returned to the Old French Fort in April 1968 and recovered the remains of Seymoe. It had been determined that Seymoe died pinned under the chopper; McKinsey died of a bullet wound to the head; Hill died when the B-40 rocket hit his position as gunner; and Elliott continues to be listed as Missing-In-Action, although the Army made a presumptive finding of death (PFOD) after the required seven years had passed.

In early 1999, Mike Teutschman (an old buddy of Elliott's from HHC 212th Aviation Battalion Airborne Pathfinders, prior to his joining the Blackcats) and I, his younger sister, learned that the 55th Joint Task Force Full Accounting (JTF-FA) Team was going back to the crashsite in May '99. There was also to be an MIA ceremony where remains and information was scheduled to be handed over to U.S. officials. Mike and I journeyed to Vietnam and attended the ceremony in Hanoi and later met up with the JTF-FA Team in Dong Ha.


Jerry Elliot
Photo by Donna Elliot
Journal of this trip can be found at:
http://www.vietvet.org/donna.htm

In the fall of '99 I was searching through casualty records on reel 139, requested for viewing from the National Archives, and came across two memorandums referring to Jerry:

Case Review
Memorandum for Record 20 May 1976
By Gary Koblitz

"Although there were documents in some of the DIA/ACSI files not in the Casualty files..." and another report dated 21 May 1976, "ACSI correlated one report to Elliott but that is was a tenuous correlation at best." - Gary Koblitz

Another report soon surfaced with a subject line reading "Army of the Republic of Vietnam and American Prisoners of War Captured in Quang Tri Province by Elements of North Vietnamese Army Division 304B." A memo typed at the bottom of the title page reads:

"Two PW referred to in par 6 may be Hill, Billy D., and Elliott, Jerry W., lost...censored... Rallir(?) states that two PW captured in Huong Hoa District, southern Khe Sanh area, and at Ut Thoung (ufi) Hill. Hill and Elliot were lost at Huong Hoa, which is in southern Khe Sanh. No further correlation at this time. MAJ C.W. Watson, GS"

What did all these memos mean? How could it be that "some "of the Defense Intelligence Agency/ Assistant Chief of Staff Intelligence files were not in Jerry's Casualty files. The questions have been asked, but not yet answered.

I had learned from reliable sources that the Bru Montagnard village chief of Khe Sanh, who was in power locally on 21Jan68, was still alive and living somewhere in the bush around Khe Sanh. He was in a position to have knowledge of the incident and perhaps if any P.O.W.'s had been taken by the NVA during the battle at the Old French Fort, he would know.

The Bru hate the Vietnamese, and the Vietnamese despise the Bru. Since the war, all Montagnards are required to live in restricted areas. JTF-FA Teams are required to have official Vietnamese counterparts with them on every mission, so even if they found the old man, nothing would be learned. Especially since he had spent several years in the politically revised Vietnamese government's "re-education camps."

I had been toying with the idea of returning to Khe Sanh and asking the once powerful but "politically re-educated" Bru chief if he knew anything but was still undecided. The last trip I had made to Vietnam with Mike had been hard on my health, taking months to recover, and giving me reason to hesitate. It was just an idea, until one day, out-of-the-blue, a package comes to my mailbox from Washington, D.C.

Analysts had determined that two Vietnamese War History Books have sections that relate directly to the incident of Jerry's loss. A copy of the original in Vietnamese and a brief interpretation in English are included. Unfortunately, only portions of the document were translated into English. Several attempts at finding someone to do a literal translation of all the pages fail. Most give no reason why, some just didn't respond, but one man raged in his refusal. He would not translate the lies and propaganda of the NVA, in his opinion it would be spreading the evil he and his family and many other Vietnamese "boat people" risked their lives to escape after the end of the war.

In the end he translated only one paragraph, but it was enough..." a few survived ran toward Lang Khoai were taken in..." Taken in, not killed, but taken prisoner. Oddly enough, this was one of the paragraphs the powers that be in D.C. did not translate.

It was time to bite the bullet! Empty the piggy bank, travel for days and nights, deal with an unfamiliar language and lifestyle, fight the heartbreaking but never-ending beggars, survive crossing the streets and cyclo rides, chance the food, live in hotels where geckos hang off the walls and a real toilet is a luxury. It was time to go back to Vietnam.

I had been networking with Khe Sanh Combat Marines for quite a while. I learned a lot of details from their third-person accounts. Volumes more than DoD ever shared. I communicated frequently with Glenn Prentice, Jim (Jimbo) Wodecki, and Jim (Doc Jim) Armburst. When Glenn invited me to join him and three other returning Khe Sanh vets, I leapt at the opportunity. It was perfect, no plans to hire a guide, giving me the freedom I needed. A lone American woman really sticks out in a foreign country; they would be the ideal cover for what I had in mind. I was determined to find the old Bru chief and ask him some questions without Vietnamese or American officials present. I also wanted to protect the former RVN soldier, as he had spent many years in political prison and was still suspect. The only problem I could foresee would be finding him, if he was still alive.

    My traveling companions as described by Glenn Prentice, prior to meeting them in Los Angeles: "Paul Knight from H & S Company 3rd Bn 26th Marines Stress--Hill 861 Forward Air Controller/Medevacs (He is bringing his son, Jeff Northcut); Dennis Mannion, Charlie Battery 1st Bn 13th Marines--105 Battery Forward Arty Observer attached to Kilo Company 3/26; Bob Arrotta, H & S Company 3/26 Hill 881 South Forward Air Controller (Bob and Glenn were only 19 out of 300 Marines on Hill 881S that were not KIA or WIA, the few that made it.) David Kniess, a camera guy and Mannion's former student.

Prentice on himself, "Survivor's guilt--last day of siege, let my friend (Sherrition) take my place as radio operator FO team Arty up 881N--KIA sniper through the heart. They know about your purpose-that's why I'm splitting off with you so they will not get in trouble. Especially Mannion--he is a school teacher. Some may come along; if not, they will come back if we get into trouble. I know them, all good Marines, excellent fighters, best jungle/map readers you will find. That was all that we needed to call in the shit--via maps. Never got lost!"

As I checked for references (I'm not totally nuts), I found that these men were highly regarded by their fellow veterans. Jimbo said I "couldn't be going with better jungle rats than Glenn and Dennis." Even the noted Rev. Ray Stubbe, who served as the Lutheran chaplain of the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines at Khe Sanh Combat Base, gave them high praise, "You'll be safe with them, they are good men."

As word got out about our trip back to Vietnam, advice began to come from every direction. Mostly I was advised about what to take, bug juice being the main item, but I got plenty of warnings about tigers, rock apes, lizards, rabid rats and snakes. Jimbo even sent me a recipe for cleaning and baking large snakes to serve twelve. Doc Jim and I had several conversations about the leeches. I was more apprehensive about the leeches than the snakes.

The main ingredient that Glenn told me to bring was, "Guts. It will be hot. Do not wimp out on me! Good spirits--help others--good words--understanding of others even if they are jerks." Sound advice!

Travel plans were simple enough: "Leave LAX 6 July 12:30pm, Flight #18 Class Q---Arrive Seoul 7 July 5:05pm. Leave Seoul 7 July 7:50 to Ho Chi Minh City 11:20pm 7 July. Then to Vien Dong Hotel." I rode by car for three hours to the Little Rock, Arkansas, airport to board a plane to Dallas and then onto Los Angeles, arriving late afternoon. I stayed overnight in LA to rest before the two-day flight to Saigon. We would spend one night in Saigon, fly to Hue, purchase tourists permits and arrange travel for Khe Sanh. Spend one night in Khe Sanh Village and jump off into the bush for a few days and nights.

Our tentative route to our first stop, Hill 861, would be walking from the ville up the road towards the Khe Sanh Combat Base (KSCB), bypass KSCB and follow downhill about two clicks. We would be passing through a small village to the left and hitting the trail to 861/861A, carrying our own water and food, and sleeping on the ground that night. The following morning we would go back down the hill through the ville, up the hill halfway to KSCB, then head North/lefthand movement. This would take us to an old logging road, which we would follow to the 689 ridgeline. There, we were to wind round to Hill 881S, then two clicks to 881N, follow the same way back to 881S, then follow ridge back down to Khe Sanh.

I knew my vets as soon as I saw them in the Los Angeles airport, although we had failed to set an exact meeting spot. Actually, they looked like any group of men traveling casually, but there was an air of excitement and determination about them that invited me to walk up and say, "Are you the group of Marines returning to Khe Sanh, Vietnam?" Someone asked, "Are you Donna?" Handshakes and greetings all around, and then Paul gave me a really neat KSCB vet T-shirt and a Marine water bottle. I didn't feel like the FNG, but part of the group.

It was the same long, boring, cramped trip over on Korean Air that I remembered from the year before. I was disappointed that all the guys were seated together and I was many rows away, but I slept most: of the way and didn't feel neglected. I was still burnt from the Ride For The Wall Rolling Thunder XIII Memorial Day Parade in Washington, D.C., two weeks earlier. But the experience was awesome and had inspired me to do what I had to do...go back to Vietnam when I really didn't want to.

I both dreaded and beckoned what I might encounter in the bush. Hardships I expected; hot, sweaty, dirty, thirsty, hungry, bug bitten, leech sucked, and pain. Being dead lined was a very real possibility I feared because of health problems. I knew that I wouldn't be the leader of the pack in the beginning, but I didn't want to have to fallback. I was praying hard not to interfere with the impact the return to Khe Sanh Combat Base would have for Bob, Dennis, Glenn, and Paul. They had waited long enough for what might be healed by confrontation.

The days in Saigon and Hue before we went to Khe Sanh are already fading. We went many places and met many faces. Only a few things stand out for me now: Jeff's face as his cyclo driver suddenly stopped playing chicken and turned about-face before the local buses ran them over; seeing The Requiem Exhibit of Vietnam War era photographs through the eyes of American vets; the Pick-YourOwn-Snake restaurant; and Bob being dumped on the steps of the Vien Dong Hotel by his cyclo driver. I recall the almost boyish excitement of four men who were retracing the steps of their youth, trying to close the gap between innocent youth and combat veteran. I recall all too clearly the night we met a former NVA officer in a restaurant. He told me where two of the men on my list of Vietnamese (who might have knowledge of Jerry) lived, one in Hue and the other in Hanoi. I was excited with the two new leads, until Glenn repeated a portion of the vet-to-vet talk he had with the former enemy.

Glenn sat down beside me and bluntly stated, "He just told me that your brother is dead, Donna." "Oh my Lord, he did know something!" crossed my mind as my breathing stopped and the blood ran cold to my toes. Glenn went on to say, "It was NVA policy to kill all members of chopper crews."

Suddenly I could breathe again and I asked Glenn, "Is that all? Because he said it was policy you don't believe there's any chance of finding Jerry?"

Glenn sadly shook his head no, his mind made up and unchangeable. I felt so sorry for the messenger but did not believe the message. How could I base the truth on a lone NVA soldier's comment about military policy, signaling the death of my brother, when I had official American and Vietnamese documents that indicated he was taken alive, not shot on sight. It was a crossroad and the others and I began to focus on the same path of travel for different reasons. Tension was mounting as we got closer and closer to Khe Sanh.

It was early morning and we were seven piled into a van with stacks of luggage, when we made a stop to pick up Lan Anh, a very likeable young Vietnamese woman who would be translating for us. She was like a breath of flesh air, her little white hat with the decorative pin that had only a few stones missing and that big contagious smile. Her family owned the restaurant we had eaten at the night before and now her father was allowing her to travel with us. She was going only to translate and see a part of her country that was unknown to her, the family honor declared there would be no charge. And I admit I was damn glad to have another female along! Lan Anh and I would become very close over the next few days, woman to woman, while the guys treated her like a little sister.

At last, we were on Highway 9 headed towards Khe Sanh. A very different road now, paved almost to Laos, with Mom and Pop shops selling half-cold Coke and Pepsi out of the front room of their homes. Motor scooters carrying everything from families of four to pigs and ducks, bicycle riders and pedestrians, loaded with kids or farm produce, all fighting for a piece of the road. Many old bunkers still stand, pockmarked with old bullet holes, used for shelter now. The jungle canopy begins to thicken as the mountains become steeper, and all eyes are glued to the windows of the van, trying to take everything in at once. Comprehending all the shades of green is impossible, better to let it all flow into one panoramic scene.

Suddenly the shotgun rider gives a hoot; there stands the mighty Rockpile. It is a rugged mountain with steep and rocky trails to the top, but if you know the history, the sight makes you want to stand tall and salute the men that fought there. Behind the

Rockpile is Razorback Ridge, another story. They both remind me of Arlington National Cemetery, although no guard drills here, there is both honor and dignity.

The road curves alongside the river for many miles before Khe Sanh, clear and beckoning. Each time I pass this way I want to stop and fish, maybe take a canoe ride. I consider a swim and then remember the leeches. Here and there are Bru Montagnards villages that are not restricted to visitors, only a few included in tours of the area. The women wear brightly embroidered long skirts and the old women smoke pipes of betel nut, turning their teeth dark brown. Not many of the men are seen casually walking on the road, but are in the fields tending to the chicory coffee plants from first light to dark. The Bru walk tall, under suppression.

The van is quiet as we ride into Khe Sanh, some see old remembrances, some see new sights; we all see the end of a long trip. On the edge of the village we take a right off Hwy 9 down a chunky rock road solid with baked red clay. A few miles later we turn right where a red and white marker says, "Di Tich Lich Su Ta Con Khe Sanh," or "Historical Vestige of Tacon Combat Base Khe Sanh 500m." Turn right and walk the muddy red clay road to hell.

A small building houses what is loosely termed the Khe Sanh War Museum. For a small fee a visitor can see and touch weapons and other articles of war. Black and white pictures of very unhappy American soldiers line the walls. A single wood chair and a simple wooden table indicate the most precious item in the room: the guest book. Visitors from all over the world have left their stories and signatures in the bound book over the last three decades.

The only marks left on the landscape by the years of unrelenting battle is a depression in the red clay where the ammo dump once stood. Cast about like old pieces of junk are live rounds of ammo, ready to blow at will. The ammo dump was hard to find in the elephant grass and small trees; the children acted as guides for us through their playground. A quiet place surrounded by beautiful tree-covered mountains, wondrous small plants that fold up when lightly brushed, and possible death hidden under every footstep.

The returning KSCB vets scrambled to find old locations, calling out events and names across the way, sweat dripping and tongues hanging from the heat. After all the exploring was done, we had to walk the couple of miles back to the government guesthouse in Khe Sanh. More than a few red faces and both my shoulders proved the sun powerful and strong. Which did nothing for my disposition when I saw the room Lan Anh and I would be sharing. Two shabby beds with mosquito netting filled the entire room, but they put in a couple of chairs anyway. Gritty tile floors led to a bathroom that boasted unscreened slats for windows, a sink, and a real sitdown toilet.

Felt like paradise for a moment compared to other places I've stayed in Vietnam. I had a sudden desire to throw cool water over my face to rinse the dust off, so I leaned over the sink and splashed running water up...but it came down onto my feet! The sink had pipes, but they only ran into a metal pan under the sink. Real shock effect! We quickly learned not to leave the lights on in the bathroom, considering insects and small animals had no problem scaling the wall and sliding in through the slats. I kept waiting to turn the light on and see a damn snake draped across the toilet or curled up in a boot! We were very lucky to have one of the few Class A rooms and were most thankful we even had a bathroom since none of the guys did. I'm no sissy about surviving in the woods, but I would have fought about walking down a flight of steps to go to the bathroom behind the building with all the other guests in the dark, in the rain.

It rained all night and was still coming down steady the next morning when we loaded in the van for a ride to the base, our starting point. Standing in a group, everyone checking gear, the road shiny like red ice, we cheered, "All the way!" in the drizzling rain.

I quickly remembered my sunburned and raw shoulders when the weight of my pack and all of my gear rested on them. Shift and slide was my game. I fell behind while the road was still level. Kids were coming out of homes on both sides of the road to say hello and watch our ragtag group move out. The road was less traveled when we turned to the left and walked past farmhouses with coffee beans drying in colorful piles and dogs barking. Then we hit the real trail.

Up, everything was straight up, except me, who was humped over in an effort to balance my pack on raw shoulders and a throbbing lower back sending spasm signals into my thighs. Thank God for the rain! It was muddy and slick as red lard but it wasn't so hot my brains were baking, although I was emptying my water bladder way too fast for the terrain. Paul fell back with me and we stopped often to watch Dennis lead the way over yet another hill, the rest of the troops following closely on his heels. Paul knew the trail to Hill 861 so we didn't have to kill ourselves trying to keep pace. As we got higher and higher I could look back and see the small villages and reservoirs nestled in the foothills. It was such a soulful scene that it seemed impossible that war had ever touched this land.

Unknown to any of us, a typhoon was hitting the Philippine Islands, and the hills of Khe Sanh were about to be whipped by the tailwinds. Visibility of the hilltops was nil and dark clouds were rolling in when Paul and I waded through the elephant grass to pull down the red trail marker left for us. When we topped 861 the wind was blowing cold and wet, and a depressing darkness was settling on the horizon although it was still early in the day. All three tents were standing and here and there packs of the new MRE's were perking and smelling mighty good. Glenn had the only new tent, but it was small and only three people fit in it. Jeff, Paul's son, had carried an older tent as had Dennis, whose tent was long but slender. I crowded into Jeff and Paul's tent, trying to fit into a corner, feeling like a third wheel. The tents were laid out on stomped down elephant grass that had stubs so sharp and stiff that they poked holes through the tent bottoms and the foam mats. Our tent had a couple of leaks and we put my poncho on top of the tent to try to shield some of the flow. We also had a giant leech (ED NOTE: it was about a half an inch long!) in one corner, my major dread, which I quickly took a picture of and covered in salt. A little dash around the front of tent wouldn't hurt either. Surely, the worst had to be over. ..wrong!

The rain is coming down hard now and everyone is trying to take cover when Dennis starts screaming like he's snake bit! Lying in his tent, curled up on one end to avoid the massive puddle that is growing, he has developed a charley horse in both legs. We are all miserable, soggy and disappointed we are stuck inside the tents. David and Jeff, healthy young men, could stand it no longer. They decide to go back down the hill and return the next day; the rest of us plan to stay the night.

Pop! The wind has snapped a tent pole and water is streaming in. A few adjustments to the poncho and Paul and I edge closer to the middle to stay dry. The wind is gusting and the tent has an odd tilted angle to it. Pop! There goes the second tent pole and half the tent sags with the weight of rainwater. Paul and I scramble out into the wind and he shouts, "The hell with this, I'm getting back down before dark." "I'm on your heels," I holler back. Dennis no longer has a tent either, more like a slightly covered indoor swimming pool. He decides to crowd into Glenn's tent, and Paul and I start back to the village.

"Hurry, hurry!" Paul shouts at me over his shoulder, "we've got to get down before it gets dark!" Easier said than done. The trail has turned from hard red clay formations with ruts into slick piles of mud with deep streams cutting honeycombs into the path. The wind and the rain are fast and heavy, dark is coming on, and my foot is turning right when my boot goes left...and even I know we have lost the trail. We pick up Jeff and David's ' footprints and skids marks for a while and then lose them in the brush. Paul finds a landmark and we fight time as we slip and slide where animals fear to tread in bad weather, finally making it to the main road. Hey, scooters! Let's hitch a ride!

I hang back in the shadows, poncho covering my hair and face, while Paul wheels and deals with the drivers. They want to know, "Do we have money? Do we have money to pay up front." Paul has a few dong, I have more packed in my gear but I am nervous and can't remember exactly where. A quick surface search turns up nothing, must be in the pack somewhere. The Vietnamese men begin to act a little antsy; Paul pulls me out of the rain up on a porch to help me look for dong. "Find it quick, Donna," he says in a husky whisper, "I think they may be planning more than a ride for us." No pressure here!

Just as I dig a wad of crumpled dong bills from a pocket of rolled up pants, two more scooters roar up next to the other drivers. Words we did not understand were passed in a manner that we did understand. The two new drivers motioned for us to get on the back of their scooters and we didn't hesitate, barely getting settled on the seats before they pulled out. The road was a mess, red mud and big rocks churning under the tires so roughly my teeth were chattering like I was freezing to death. My poncho was of little use in the wet wind and I was drenched as I fought to hold the material closer to my body so I didn't fly off the back of the scooter like a camrobed flying nun. I was one mighty relieved skinny white girl when we bumped into the parking lot of the guesthouse.

Top Side

Observations on Life at the
Khe Sanh Combat Base

Peter Brush

    Men who received orders to Vietnam had certain expectations of the place, based on their general life experiences and their training. We expected to work hard, to be bored, to experience excitement and danger. It was reasonable to anticipate the tropical climate, periods of thirst and dreary food, being dirty and tired and other aspects of a year-long camping trip. Everyone who participated in the siege of Khe Sanh likely had these expectations. I don't think these Marines expected that their problems would include dealing with rats, yet virtually everyone who wrote about Khe Sanh included descriptions of them.

In 1962, the Special Forces were the first at Khe Sanh, arriving by truck. Weapons specialist Frank Fowler made an observation about the place that would be repeated by others when he-mentioned the rats. Noting the numbers present, he said,

One time we went into the village and bought some metal rat traps because it was so bad. We were using mosquito nets on our bunks to keep the rats off. I remember one night there was a big metal rat trap with teeth on it. And I remember the first rat we got. When the trap snapped it woke me up. And then the rat started dragging the thing off.

Fowler was not to be envied his task of separating his live rat from the trap. A cornered rat will fight like a "cornered rat," and will attack its attacker.

The Marines joined up with the Special Forces and their rats in 1966. Colonel Tom Home presided over the transformation of the Army position into the Marine Corps Khe Sanh Combat Base. He recalled, "My memory of that place is waking up with fifteen or twenty rats on the bed with me. In 1967, when the buildup of forces on both sides began in earnest, the Roman Catholic chaplain of 3/26 ran into the furry Khe Sanh Welcome Wagon on his first night when a rat lost its footing on the dirt ledge of his bunker, fell on his chest, and bounced to the floor with a squeal

Initially the US strategy for winning the war in Vietnam was merely one of attrition. In 1967, critics pointed out that attrition was an indication that the US was losing the initiative in Vietnam, and not a strategy in itself. Consequently, when the NVA began moving large numbers of troops into I Corps in the summer of 1967, General Westmoreland made plans to engage them in large numbers, to apply massive firepower in a decisive engagement, to allow the U.S. to finally bask in the warm light at the end of the tunnel.

Khe Sanh seemed like the place. Between twenty and forty thousand NVA surrounded five thousand Marines? Khe Sanh was in the mountainous area where North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and Laos came together. It was far from the heavily populated coastal plain and the South Vietnamese government was not particularly active. This would minimize coordination problems with the ARVN and allow the application of air and artillery assets with the least possible number of civilian casualties. Most important of all was the fact that the NVA seemed willing to fight at Khe Sanh.

In a sense both sides besieged each other. The Marines could only be supplied by air and could not have evacuated the base without sustaining unacceptable casualties. The NVA were trapped by their military and political goals (whatever they might have been) and by the greatest application of air power in history.

Even as late as December 1967, Khe Sanh was considered relatively good duty, as those things went in Vietnam. I requested transfer there from a nearby fire base because Khe Sanh had a reputation for great physical beauty, few rocket and mortar attacks and relatively comfortable living conditions. Aesthetically, Khe Sanh had it all--mountains, valleys, streams, triple canopy jungle in several shades of green, elephants and tigers. The local population was mostly tribal Bru Montagnards rather than ethnic Vietnamese.

This good duty was more apparent than real and at about 5:00 a.m. on the morning of 21 January, 1968, a reconnaissance team radioed that a flight of rockets had been launched from a nearby hill and would land on the combat base. This initial attack was small by later standards, consisting of about one hundred 82mm mortar shells and sixty 122mm rockets. But fifteen minutes after the attack began, one rocket landed in the midst of the main ammunition storage area with devastating results.

This dump contained eleven thousand units of ordnance that immediately began burning Red-hot artillery and recoilless rifle rounds were hurled into nearby trenches. CS tear gas was ignited and filled the entire area with gas as thick as fog. About 10:00am, the fire set off a large quantity of C-4 plastic explosive and other explosives. At the airstrip all the navigational aids were destroyed, several helicopters were damaged or destroyed, living quarters for the Marine air group were destroyed, the control tower was rendered inoperative, and the runway was cratered. All this on the first day of incoming rocket, artillery, and mortar attacks that would continue for the next 76 days.

The mess halls were immediately secured. In the atmosphere of flying metal it would not do for two hundred Marines to congregate in one place. C-rations were issued and the men took their meals in their bunkers. The rat population began to take off and Khe Sanh took on the look of "a shanty slum on the outskirts of Manila." Continuous aerial bombardments, shelling and digging and bulldozing of positions filled the air with red dust. Smoke filled the air, smoke from incoming, from diesel generators, from burning latrines, from burning ordnance, from trash fires. Water was restricted and few were able to bathe regularly. The monsoon rain served to drive the rats inside the bunkers, where they "ran across the dirt floors, gnawing at shelves and boots and fingers, chattering in fear when the big guns fired and sometimes scratching faces as they raced across sleeping Marines in the dark bunkers." Time magazine reported that the rats became frantic under fire" When incoming starts the rats race for the bunkers and wildly run up to the ceilings made of runway matting and logs. One sergeant killed thirty four rats, establishing a base record.

Ernest Spencer described the rats at Khe Sanh in "Welcome to Vietnam, Macho. Man":

"There were always rats at Khe Sanh. Not your stereotypical Asian variety of chopsticks-using rat. Khe Sanh rats are snarling suckers with big heads. Having evolved in a jungle environment, those rats are capable of fighting anything. The rats began exerting themselves several breeding cycles into the siege. A rat jumps on my chest one night. On my back on my cot, I slap at him with my left hand while I try to shield my face with my right. He is grinning at me, I swear.

Rats love the sandbag walls. Since the walls are several layers thick, the rats have a lot of room for their quarters. You can hear them in there screaming, eating, fucking, and kicking each other's asses. Rats are nasty--they are always fighting.

Rats behave more logically during the siege then we do. They let their feelings out. You can hear them squeaking and going berserk during a barrage. Us macho men just sit there quietly and take it."

The floors of our bunkers were constructed of wooden pallets over dirt, and invariably food fell between the pallet slats, providing feed for the rats. trashcans were emptied into drums placed in each unit area, to be collected and hauled to the base dump. As the supply of food at the dump increased so, too, did the rat population which then moved back into the base area.

Initially there were only mousetraps at Khe Sanh, but they served more to irritate than kill the rats. Rat traps were requisitioned from supply and given a priority after ammunition, C-rations, mail, and personnel.

As the incoming continued the men were restricted to their underground quarters unless they had reason to be above ground. At night the rats would climb into trashcans to eat scraps from the C-rations. With smooth metal sides these containers served, as rat traps of sorts and in the morning the Marines would bludgeon them to death with tent poles, then throw them back in the trash.

Ray Stubbe notes in "Valley of Decision":

"Officially, base policy was to drown rats after killing them to kill the fleas, which were infected with plague virus. The animals couldn't be poisoned; local Bru children who helped fill sandbags and cleaned out the garbage dumps collected the rats, broke their legs, and put them in their pockets to take home. Later they would be eaten."

Eventually rat traps became available and were issued to each unit. My battery was allocated seven traps, which were baited with C-ration cheese or peanut butter. Morning after morning each trap yielded its victim, always seven full traps. After a few weeks we quit bothering with the traps, feeling that no progress was being made.

The NVA constructed trenches ever closer to the perimeter of Khe Sanh, eventually putting them in a position to snipe at the garbage detail carrying trash to the dump. This resulted in cessation of the garbage detail. Trash began to pile up throughout the base, spreading food for the rats everywhere. The rat problem in the bunkers got worse. At first, the rats seemed content to remain beneath the pallets. With time, they became bolder and ventured around the bunker whenever the lights were put out. Finally, we were forced to leave the lights on continually in an attempt to keep the rats off our cots and stretchers.

Life at Khe Sanh settled into a routine. One night in March my roommate and I were lying in our small bunker, reading by candlelight. About 10:00pm, Corporal Hawker put the candle out and settled into a casualty bag on top of his cot. Immediately, he heard noises in front of him at ground level. Slowly, stealthily, Hawker grabbed a flashlight in one hand and an assault knife in the other. While he was getting into position to attack, the rat had silently climbed onto the cot, inches from Hawker's face. When the light snapped on, Hawker slashed empty air and the startled rat ran across his face. Terrified, Hawker zipped the casualty bag up completely, and then began thrashing to get back out, afraid he had trapped the rat inside the bag. The rat escaped and I chuckled myself to sleep.

As the NVA battered the base, supply problems became evident. Three C-ration meals per day were reduced to two. With only twelve different meals to choose from, mealtime turned from a pleasant break in the daily routine into just another ordeal. Many of us quit bothering to heat our rations, concluding that the grease from roast beef and potatoes didn't taste worse than the gravy it would become if heated, only different. As stomachs shrank with the reduced rations, it took more willpower than many could muster to consume even two meals per day. Uneaten rations went into the trash, further increasing the rat population.

NVA incoming was not steady at Khe Sanh; some days saw less than two hundred rounds fired at the base while the daily record was 1,307.

The humid environment was corrosive to ammunition, and regularly directives were received to turn in old small arms ammo for replacement with fresh stock. As the old bullets would be dumped at sea, some Marines loaded their M-16 magazines exclusively with tracers, venturing down to the trash dump to shoot rats. In the gloom of the monsoon it looked like laser beams emitting from the rifle barrels as the Marines honed their marksmanship skills.

One Recon Marine, David Doehrman, liberated several steaks from a locked freezer in the mess hall. He and his friends cooked them on camp stoves, gorging themselves, then settled down to sleep in their bunks. Doehrman's hand "dangled over the metal tray containing the remaining steaks, and he was bitten by a rat during the night." This incident caused Doehrman to be placed on medical hold to receive a series of rabies shots.

Doehrman's incident; perhaps explains the origin of a story that circulated at Khe Sanh, which claimed that some Marines were putting peanut butter' on their toes and sticking their feet between the pallets, hoping to get bit. The rationale being a rat bite would cause one to be evacuated from the base to receive shots for rabies.

Knives, traps, and tent poles weren't the only weapons the Marines used against rats. Stubbe relates an incident when one gunnery sergeant became so incensed at a rat that kept paying him a visit that "one night he pulled out his .45-caliber pistol and shot the thing as it scurried above a poncho the gunny had hung across the ceiling. He killed the rat, but the hole in the poncho became a drain for rainwater,"

One night, just as I was about to put out my lantern, I noticed a cat-sized rat nonchalantly wandering into my bunker, sniffing the ground. Amazed at the boldness of this rodent I grabbed the only weapon I could find close by. Cocking my arm, I launched a jungle boot at the rat, hoping to knock him out of the bunker. Instead, the panicked rat ran right toward me, only turning when he realized that safety lay in exactly the opposite direction.

Always the rats were big. Gustav Hasford describes them in The Phantom Blooper:

Every twenty meters I stoop down and tug at the barbed wire with det cord crimps to see if the wire has been cut. The tugging scares up bunker rats big enough to stand flat-footed and butt-fuck a six-by

If true, Hasford would be describing a serious rat problem. But rats cannot take on a two-and-one-half ton truck, are not as large as cats, and do not have large heads. The average cat weighs eleven pounds, while even a large Norway rat weighs less than two pounds.

How many rats were there at Khe Sanh? Even though the Marines never attempted a census, estimates using certain assumptions can be made.

The lesser bandicoot (Bandicota bengalensis) is one species of rat common to southern Asia. Each female can produce a litter per month, with seven pups per litter, for a daily rate of increase of over eleven percent."

The rats at Khe Sanh may or may not have been reproducing at their biological maximum (i.e., rats were being killed by Marines, but it is also likely they were also being driven into the base from without by aerial bombardment). There are approximately as many rats in the world as people, unevenly distributed. If the rat population equaled the human population at Khe Sanh, and assuming the above optimum rate of increase, theoretically there could have been one hundred thousand rats by day 27 of the siege, one-half million rats on day 43, and over one million by day 50. Whatever their number, the rats at Khe Sanh were like the rain and the shrapnel--always irritating, always present, always threatening.

But Westmoreland's plan for a Dien Bien Phu in reverse never happened. Various NVA regimental sized attempts to mass for an attack on the base were broken up by artillery and aerial bombardment. Battalion and company-sized probes against the Marines' perimeter were beaten off. By March 9, Saigon reported that NVA strength around Khe Sanh had been reduced to 6,000 to 8,000 men. 21On April 9, for the first time in weeks, not one enemy shell crashed into the combat base.22

The NVA departed from Khe Sanh. By April 15, the U.S. Command announced that the operation for the relief of the base had been concluded and all objectives had been secured. The siege was over. Westmoreland claimed the NVA lost between 10,000 and 15,000 men and hailed the confrontation as a great US victory.23

Army units entered the base, the first to arrive by land in months. They stared at us in disbelief; some of the Marines wore beards, all needed haircuts, all were exhausted. Our clothes were filthy and we were unwashed. The 1st Cavalry had the attitude that they had "relieved" us, that they had "broken" the NVA siege. We largely ignored them.

The largest convoy I have ever seen in Vietnam formed up and we drove to Camp Carroll, the nearby firebase from which I had been sent to Khe Sanh five months previously. Khe Sanh was no longer a Garden of Eden. The aerial bombardment had turned the countryside into a moonscape, everything had been destroyed. Not a tree was left standing. There were no shades of green. NVA General Vo Nguyen Giap claimed that Khe Sanh was never very important to the NVA, only serving as a feint to draw US forces away from the populated areas during Tet. Giap considered Khe Sanh an NVA victory.24

In June 1968, it was announced that Khe Sanh was being abandoned. The Marines proceeded to dismantle the base, slashing sandbags, blowing up their fortidied positions, filling in trench lines with bulldozers, hauling away everything of possible use to the enemy. The last Marines left on July 6.25

In their leaving, both sides turned the base over to the rats, whose population likely expanded still further now that the monsoon had ended, air and artillery strikes had ceased, and there was no human population to harass them. The rats were free to police the remaining ration scraps within the base and the huge quantity of body parts that must have lain without. And when this food supply was consumed they, too, would depart Khe Sanh.

Notes

1 A homemade sign with these words on it was
attached to a bunker at Khe Sanh during the siege.
2 John Prados and Ray W. Stubbe, "Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh"
 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.), 1991: 15.
3 Thomas Y. Canby, "The Rat: Lapdog of the
Devil," National Geographic (July, 1977): 87.
4 Prados and Stubbe, loc. cit.: 54-55.s Ibid.: 148.
6 Robert Pisor, "The End of the Line: The Siege of Khe Sanh" (New York: Ballantine Books), 1982: 10, gives a figure of 20,000 NVA. Michael Herr, "Dispatches" (New York: Avon Books): 113, mentions 40,000 NVA. The figure of 5,000 Marines isfrom Pisor, ibid.: 9.
7 Prados, loc. cit.: 251.
8 Ibid.:. 255.
9 Pisor, loc. cit.:. 181.
10 Ibid.: 181.
11 Time, February 16, 1968: 38.
12 Ernest Spencer, "Welcome to Vietnam, MachoMan" (Corps Press) 1987: 110.
13 Prados, loc. cit.: 7.
14 Captain Moyers S. Shore II, USMC, "The Battle for Khe Sanh" (Washington, D.C., Headquarters, U. S. Marine Corps) 1969: 121-122.
15 Prados, loc. cit.: 235.
16 Ibid.: 6.
17 Gustav Hasford, "The Phantom Blooper" (New York: Bantam Books), 1990: 12.
18 Canby, loc. cit.: 87.
19 Ibid.: 68. 20 "The Rat Explosion," Atlas, September, 1978:58
21 Pisor, loc. cit.: 211.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.: 237.
24 Oriana Fallaci, "Nothing and So Be It" (Garden City, N.Y.' Doubleday & Co.) 1972: 85-86,
quoted in Pisor, loc. cit.: 241.
25 Prados, loc. cit.: 448.

ED NOTE: I don't care what you say Pete, the one I saw had a big head. But then, I've been in VA PIU. So what do I know?

Top Side

By Lacey Lahren

    In early January 1968, I stepped through the looking glass for what were to become, for a long time, the best five days of my life. I was on R & R in Bangkok Thailand. I had blown my eight months savings of five hundred dollars by the third day and was living off the beneficence of local friends that I had made through a commercial transaction to cover five days of pre-paid tour guidance and miscellaneous services. The services included tutoring in the art of chopstick manipulation and an appreciation of fried rice mixed with chopped green onions and scorching peppers over chicken parts whose origins would confuse a veterinarian. The raucous noises and chaos, the smells and flavors, the sensuous danger of this most mysterious of ancient oriental cities have since given way to glass skyscrapers and traffic lights and smog. The lusty and honest joie de vivre of young fighting men and the good company that they found there has been replaced by a subterranean prurience, and pandering to twittering, self-conscious tourists. But the fried rice and mystery meat are still good.

I flew back to Danang with a planeload of sorry looking, broke, hung-over fools. Their mothers would have been shocked. A buddy in the 3rd Marine Air. Wing gave me some aspirin and a few bucks to get me back to my unit. I was trying to catch a hop when I ran into a small, huddled group of Marines with dirty gauze bandages poking out' from under their helmets and through tears in their jungle uniforms. By their posture they had disassociated themselves from the milling non-combatants and had marked their territory in a dingy corner of a transit facility Quonset hut. They were having a smoke while waiting for a medevac to the Navy hospital. An assortment of weapons bristled out of the green huddle like needles on a misshapen barrel cactus. I recognized a sergeant from my company (a Silver Star winner) who said not to hurry back because all that was left of my camp was a smoking hole in the ground. Happy Tet.

This was the third time I had flown into Khe Sanh in the last six months, and I took advantage of the opportunity to get an aerial orientation of the tactical area that my company was responsible for. We looped over Khe-Sanh Ville and swung north to make the approach to the combat base airstrip nestled under hill 1015, a.k.a. the Witch's Tit. Covered with the matted hair of jungle growth and pimpled with shell holes, the Witch's Tit dominated the whole area. It was witness to the vicious hill battles of 1967 that left the Marines in control of hills 950, 861,881 North and 881 South, and saw the loss of half of my platoon on hill 552 and the subsequent decimation of a Marine Company on adjoining hill 689. These hills with numbers for names formed a horseshoe barrier around all but the southern approach to the plateau that held Khe Sanh Combat Base (KSCB). At the jaws of the horseshoe lay the Ville.

A lush tropical jungle poured off the mountains into the Khe Sanh valley and spilled over onto the plateau where small clearings were surrounded by bamboo and palm groves that provided building materials for the local aborigines living in fairy tale, thatched roof, bamboo huts on stilts. In the ravines cobras slithered in the mossy and slime 'covered rock gorges that channeled clean cool mountain streams where chattering monkeys fed on wild grapefruit and on miniature bananas that were as sweet as oranges. Beyond the clearings, impenetrable double canopy was interspersed with lacerating elephant grass reaching six or eight feet high. Ropey horizontal vines and wait-a-minute bushes with fishhook spines wrapped around equipment and legs and got snagged in the flash suppressors of rifles, bogging down patrols, cajoling. the jungle-weary mutant men in green to complete their metamorphosis. Insects paddled through sweat into mouths and eyes and stuck to faces and backs of necks. Panicky revulsion succumbed to a numb acceptance of the blood-engorged leeches that grew undetected like goiterous sacks under clothing. All of God's creatures that had teeth made a home there. For the grunt companies taking . the hills, it was insult before injury. For those of us in small fast moving units, it was a haven.

In the middle of the plateau, the perimeter of Khe Sanh Combat Base was pushing back the jungle to preserve an ugly splotch of red clay with a metal airstrip lying across it like a bandage. The siege was in progress and the base was submerging into tunnels and bunkers and subterranean shitters before my eyes. White sandbags sprouted in rectangles and orderly lines, defining trenches and bunkers. Like mushrooms with military discipline. As a Lance Corporal I could identify with that.

The C-123 transport plane didn't land and I didn't step off. I lifted my foot, and it left out from under me, skidding a half dozen bundles of supplies down the runway as the air jock got a choke hold on the throttle and grabbed some serious wind. A few mortar rounds exploded in the red dust behind him and a twin 40-grenade launcher peppered the side of 1015 in response.

The mushrooms were talking to me, I grinned like the Cheshire cat. The mushrooms had a lot of questions. Hey dipshit, where's your helmet? Where's your flack jacket? Where's your weapon? What the hell are you doing up there, new guy, don't you know what incoming means? Obviously they didn't realize that I had just returned from Bangkok and what that meant! I tried limping a little to get some sympathy. I asked where I could find CAC Oscar. More questions. What the hell is a cat otter? Oh, you mean the Marines with the gook troops. You guys can't bring your gooks on the base; they're outside with the Special Forces assholes.

I found my buddy Jim White way the hell and gone in a place that wasn't a place when I had left. He was tamping in a base plate for a 60 mm mortar in the middle of a six foot by six foot bunker and said I could be the A gunner, but I'd have to dig my own damn hole. Fifty feet away, black smoke roiled out of a sawed off 55-gallon drum of burning diesel fuel mixed with Marine droppings. I was home again!

Home was the Special Operations Group's (SOG) Forward Operational Base 3 (FOB 3). A home with a panoramic view, if you wanted to stick your head up. It was at the mouth of the horseshoe formed by 1015 and her baldheaded sisters. Looking south, broken tree lines and jungle denied visibility; ownership of the area was disputed. A dirt access road of many adventures leading to Route 9 disappeared into the trees on its way to the Khe Sanh Ville. A bit to the right was a grassy knoll called Hill 471--it was also disputed. Behind us, at the top end of the horseshoe was the Combat Base. Between the base and us was a strip of tangle-foot, concertina wire, and land mines, segregating the men of FOB 3 with their indigenous troops from the Marines at Khe Sanh Combat Base. This valuable piece of unreal estate was further protected by machine guns and recoilless rifles manned by Marines and aimed at FOB 3. The endearment, "Your ass is mine," was never more meaningful.

The Marines of Combined Action Company Oscar (CAC O) were located at the southwest corner of FOB 3. The trenches extending out from this corner along the southern and western perimeters were manned by platoons of Montagnards (Yards) belonging to Special Forces A teams or Combined Action Platoons, working side by side.

The tactical advantages of the CAC Marines' location were described by Special Forces Sergeant James (Fuzzy) Fuzco to Marine Corporal Livingston. Fuzzy opined that we should consider it a privilege to be the FOB's spearhead, facing about fifty yards of good cover for a gook battalion doing the low crawl. Every morning, the Marines could have a cup of coffee and a smoke and overlook excellent terrain for an armored assault, exchange glances with the NVA that owned the view from hill 471, be assured and have confirmed that they were well bracketed by 122mm rockets and long range cannons from the enemy stronghold at Co Roc, and be comforted by the fact that should they be overrun, nothing would survive the air bursts programmed from the KSCB. For their safety and convenience, each Marine position had a satchel charge filled with bricks of C-4 plastique explosive. The charges were to be hand placed on Soviet T-76 tanks if they could be coaxed into reach. The Marines used pinched off bits of the C4 as fuel to heat their coffee.

The Corporal was one of the remaining members of Combined Action Company Oscar's 1st and 2nd platoons that had been garrisoned in the MACV District Headquarters interdicting Highway 9, the main street of Khe Sanh Village (and an artery of the Ho Chi Mirth Trail) about three kilometers southwest of the KSCB. A week earlier, an estimated regiment of NVA, moving up Route 9 towards the KSCB, passed over, around, and through the little compound. In an hellacious overnight battle, the Marines left 267 NVA dead in the wire. I had met the walking wounded in Danang. The compound had been evacuated, and the hapless Marines were now relocated in an ideal position to intercept the rest of the regiment.

Westmoreland, in one of his more myopic moves, pinned down 5,000 Marines, the finest assault force in the world, on a few acres encompassing the airstrip and let them get surrounded by 20 to 30 thousand NVA. Westmoreland's orders were that the Marines could patrol no more than 500 meters from their perimeter. It was like teasing a starving wolf with raw meat. It was very undignified.

One of the indignities occurred when General Giap moved about a division of NVA onto the property opposite the CAC Marines in a coffee tree plantation that faded into jungle. So as not to disturb the pristine vista enjoyed by the Marines having morning coffee and in keeping with the recommended local building codes, i.e., subterranean, he put them in trenches and fighting holes. Luke the Gook, who became a local celebrity, occupied one of these holes. Luke owned an AA gun on tracks that he had trained on the incoming flight path to the KSCB airstrip. No matter how adverse the conditions, Luke was always there to welcome arriving aircraft. High explosives, white phosphorus, and air burst eviction notices were served by 60ram mortars, 80ram mortars, 105ram artillery, and 155mm artillery. Napalm, cannon, and rocket fire were air mailed by Phantoms, Sky Raiders, and Crusaders.

About a month after Luke moved in, a Navy Crusader made three passes directly over FOB 3, firing over the Marines' lines. He came in so low that I could see his face in the cockpit. On the third pass, he unleashed a low rocket that vaporized a Marine's head as he was running outside of a trench line. The Marine took two more steps, did a half turn and sat down against a bunker with his hands in his lap. It was finally a Marine from the 9th Regiment (the Walking Dead) who made a house call on Luke in April and sold him a dirt nap. May they rest in peace.

Early mornings in Khe Sanh were shrouded in shoulder high fog that spilled into the declivities of trenches and shell holes making little clouds on the ground. Stepping into little clouds was disorienting. I saw a face looming over a voice coming out of a camouflaged helmet that was hovering next to a bunker. A Marine blinked into view under the helmet and explained that Sergeant Fuzco, the face, was going back to the Ville tomorrow and was gathering intelligence on the terrain and layout. Fuzzy was a burly individual, over 30 years old, and to my juvenile eye, he looked like he had ridden with Genghis Kahn and had taught the old gook some bad habits. Fuzzy looked like the Next Great Adventure. I asked him if I could go along.

The Special Operations Group at FOB 3, though under the tactical command of the 26th Marines, were a law unto themselves and were immune to the restrictions placed on the Marines. They took over responsibility for long-range patrols around Khe Sanh.

I postulated that I had been my platoon's point man for six months in the Khe Sanh area and that I knew all the trails and existing fighting positions from here, up to and including Khe Sanh Village. I stated that I was an experienced radio operator, had been an A gunner on mortars and machine guns, had qualified as an expert rifleman, had led combat patrols, and was proficient with every weapon that I stole from you Army sons-a-bitches. And besides I'd been to Bangkok.

Fuzzy growled that they were planning a recon in force to assess the NVA strength and to confirm the presence of tanks, and he would put it to his team. When Fuzzy says he was going to put it to somebody, you have to reflect for a moment on what your next action should be. Sergeant Fuzco turned and trundled off into the mist, his tattoos lagging about a half step behind him. I took that as a good sign. The next time he said he was going to put it to somebody, it had a whole different meaning.

I went back to my bunker to try to find out which Marines had stolen the aforementioned weapons from me while I had been on R&R.

At 0600 the next morning I was sitting in a little surreal cloud in the bottom of my bunker on the outer edge of KSCB. I was inside, getting ready to go outside. As I pulled cartridges out of a bandoleer and snapped them into magazines (19 per magazine, 10 magazines), the guy on Armed Forces radio in Saigon (the same one that was portrayed goofily by Robin Willjams 25 years later) wailed goooood morning Vietnam and played "The Letter" by the Box Tops. "Gimme a ticket for an airplane, da-da-da-da, my baby done sent me a letter." Went well with government issue coffee and Made In USA cigarettes. Caffeine, nicotine and testosterone. Breakfast and a booster for a 19-year-old. I taped a K-Bar and a field dressing to my shoulder strap, balanced my magazine pouches on my hips, grabbed a couple grenades, and went to find Fuzzy.

The 26th of January 1968 was a crisp, clean smelling morning. Vietnam was in the drying cycle after the 3-month monsoon washed down. Later that day, Fuzzy would push the spin cycle button that would send both of us flying out of Khe Sanh in morphine dream. I would return alone three weeks later to the familiar cloying aroma of rotting jungle vegetation corrupted with the new fetid odor of decaying NVA bodies and a Few Good Men that we were still looking for.

In February, over 20 Marines would be killed in an ambush behind the tree-line a few hundred yards from our position. Their bodies would be recovered in April by the 9th Marines. In a long overdue payback, Operation Pegasus unleashed Marines on the area west and south of KSCB to clean out all the NVA down to Route 9 and west to hill 471. The reason for their participation in Operation Pegasus was to make the access road safe for the Army's 1st Air Cav parade in late April that ended in the symbolic blowing of their bugle by the garbage dump outside of KSCB. It was a popcorn fart in the hurricane that had been Khe Sanh.

About 30 Bru Montagnards were in loose formation outside the FOB command bunker, their Special Forces team leaders checking their gear. SOG's Hatchet Force Denver wore no helmets, no flak jackets, nothing to impede mobility. The Americans were wearing threadbare fatigues and web gear that had faded to light green from long service. It made the fashion statement that "I've got time in country, son, and this is just another work day". I was introduced to the patrol commander, Captain "Rip" Van Winkle. Van Winkle was dressed in battle gear, a tiger-striped uniform and a floppy camouflaged hat topping about six-foot-four of a man anxious to get started. He had exotic Special Forces gizmos snapped to his webbing and a futuristic CAR 15 machine gun slung under his right arm. I had to get my hands on some of that stuff. Van Winkle looked right through me. I looked at my boots. A size 8 1/2 on my left foot and a size 9 on my right. Goddamn Marine Corps.

I was issued a PRC 25 radio, did a radio check, and formed up with Fuzzy in the point group with five Montagnards. We zigzagged single file on the six-inch wide maze through the land mines and tangle-foot and concertina wire that formed the barrier between us and the jungle outside. Leave ground zero where anonymous cannoneer lobs in high explosives, hoping serendipity will blow somebody into body parts. Step into the jungle where a man with a gun and malice aforethought is etching your name on a bullet. It's personal, you've done some etching too. Fear and loathing, it's a good thing.

Fuzzy leaned into his job, head swiveling side to side, shoulders bunched, walking down the middle of the dirt road to Route 9. Three Montagnards in a staggered column on his left, me with two Montagnards on the right. Behind us the main force split into two columns that slipped into the trees to our right and left. Except for an occasional flicker of camouflage there was no evidence of the flanking columns pacing us. On large unit operations, the point is sacrificial--that is its purpose. It makes or avoids first contact and exposes the enemy's presence so that the commander can make a tactical decision on how to deploy his force. As this was a small well trained unit, I had every confidence that if the point made contact, the columns would envelope and cover. If the flanks made contact, the point could wheel and fire. I felt good as the hatchet force floated through the jungle.

We converged on a farmhouse about a kilometer south of FOB 3. The two columns formed a perimeter around the grounds, and the command group and point element maneuvered toward the main building. Stone buildings with sunlight dappling tile roofs, wooden farm implements sitting in the yard, curtains fluttering in the windows, a French farm had been plucked from the Ardennes and dropped in the jungle. No cats or dogs, no chickens, no pigs, just an eerie silence. Whatever had put the farm here had plucked away all living things. The kitchen table was still set for a meal for four.

The patrol sniffed, looked around, and wordlessly flowed back into battle formation, moving another two kilometers south through a coffee tree plantation.

At the edge of the plantation, we topped a ridge that overlooked Khe Sanh Ville. The Ville was nestled in the curve of a river and to our left, a narrow two-lane wood plank bridge on concrete abutments crossed a wide shallow section of the stream. The village was strung out along Route 9. Its other road was a gravel path starting at the bridge, paralleling the river and looping up to intersect Route 9 at the MACV compound in the middle of town.

A month earlier, the little town had bustled and chattered with the typical commerce of a rural market place--pigs, chickens, dogs, rice farmers, fishermen, street vendors, Vietnamese military in their skin tight uniforms and Elvis Presley bouffants, two platoons of CAC Marines, a MACV compound full of spooks, truck traffic dodging conical straw hats on bicycles, wizened old crones squatting by their livestock and dried fish, beautiful young girls in their ao dais, and Green Berets going about their mysterious business. Today, the place was as silent and foreboding as the French farmhouse had been.

Covered by the main force, the point element skirted the east end of the bridge and waded across the river to the west side abutment where we took up a defensive position to cover the rest of the platoon's movement. The command group followed. We surveyed the area and planned the next maneuver. Fuzzy must have already heard the story, or maybe he just didn't like crowds because in the middle of the discussion, he signaled the point element to move out. Hey diddle diddle, right down the middle. What the hell was this?

Fuzzy on left point three Montagnards trailing, me with the radio on right point with two Montagnards trailing. I snapped a glance over my shoulder, the main force was still deploying around the bridge. I didn't like crowds any more than Fuzzy but I kinda missed those guys. Another hundred yards and we had rounded a bend in the road, out of line of sight from the command group. Single floor cement block buildings with chipped pastel paint and wood shuttered windows lined the right side of the street shoulder-to-shoulder, the tin roofs at eye level. Several rows of them, separated by dirt paths, spread out towards the river. On Fuzzy's side, the buildings were more sparse and rose from a shallow roadside ditch up a gentle tree-covered slope. Another hundred and fifty yards ahead on the left lay the old MACV District Headquarters Compound where my guys had killed 267 NVA a week earlier. It had proven itself a good defensive position and in a few minutes I would be in front of it on the wrong goddamned side of the wire. At least, they didn't know we were coming. Stealth and surprise, move swift and silent, and get off first.

And then Fuzzy said "RECON BY FIRE!" I damned near jumped through my web gear, "DO WHAT? .... Fire into the buildings, make the bastards fire back!" He fired a three-round burst into a tin roofed shack and grinned. Jesus Christ! The Yards went white, I whipped my M-16 around in my right hand and used it like a pistol, firing single shots into door jams and window sills, I didn't want my back to the Compound when we reached it. I had just murdered my first innocent building when the command group came on the radio. "Have you made contact?" "Negative, recon by fire." "DO WHAT?"

"You know, fire into the buildings and--" "Oh, yea. Right. Roger."

I strained to see movement in the village, flicking glances up the road, firing to my right, when I saw a gap between the buildings where one of the gravel paths led up to the MACV compound. On my left. Oh shit!

I saw blood bubble from a knuckle on my right hand, I felt a punch in my right shoulder, I saw a Yard jerked upright by the impact of a bullet and then make a second lunge for the ditch on our left, I saw Fuzzy hunkered down in the ditch, I saw muzzle flashes dancing in front of the dark holes of bunker firing slits, and I was doing a Calaveras County Championship leap.

I landed in the ditch on my side, Fuzzy was five feet to my right and the Yards were lined up on my left. I shrugged out of the radio, rolled onto my back pulling the rifle across my chest and raised up to squeeze off a couple rounds. It was useless. Fuzzy was squatting on his heels, belly on his knees and elbows in the dirt, like he was shooting marbles. He had his rifle raised to about ear level and was firing on full automatic. It was useless. He shouted, "You hit?" "Yeah." "Where?" "Right shoulder." "Your hand's bleeding too, you hit bad?" "No, everything moves, not much bleeding." "OK."

The ditch was twelve, maybe fourteen inches deep, minus the thickness of the barbed wire under us, our web belts, and anything in our pockets that kept us from getting lower. Everything counted. The firepower coming from inside the compound was plowing away the edge of the ditch in front of us. Two machine squads in bunkers and individual riflemen in the MACV building were concentrating everything they had on us. Dirt and shit was flying everywhere and rounds were zinging off of one of the steel fence posts in front of me. The combined buzzing of the bullets was a drone that concussed the air and made my eardrums flutter like wind socks.

I snaked the radio handset up to my face and called in "Contact, Contact, Over."

"Roger, gimme a sit rep [situation report], over." "We're pinned down in front of the MACV compound, about three hundred yards west of the bridge, and we need cover NOW, over."

"Calm down, don't give away your position over the radio, over."

(Well shit, I think they already know we're here!) "Is anybody hit, over?"

"Roger, at least two of the Bru, maybe all of them, and the radioman, over."

(The radioman, that would me, how's that for calm, you prick!)

"Is Fuzco hit, over?"

"Negative, he's OK, over."

I was worried about our flanks, we were on line and both ends of the road were open. If the NVA circled around the compound to our left they would have to shoot through 5 Bru to get me. Maybe the main force would be up by then. But the west end was a problem; I would have to shoot over Fuzzy if they came that way. If they made it across the road they would be behind us and could also flank the main force when they came up the road from the bridge. We needed someone across the road and laying down some covering fire or we were all going to die here. I unbuckled my cartridge belt and started stuffing magazines into my jacket pockets, getting ready to roll out of the ditch to scoot across to the buildings on the other side. I took a couple of deep breaths, and then my left knee slammed into my right knee and blood blossomed around a little hole in my trouser leg. I had taken another hit in the left thigh. The malevolent lead ceiling was spitting into the ditch and skid marks materialized on the road showing the lowering trajectories of incoming rounds. Leaving the ditch was no longer an option.

My second wound seemed to annoy Fuzzy. He burned off another five rounds and then explained to me what he was looking forward to when we got inside the compound and gave me the intimate details of the conjugal visit he had planned for the survivors. I hoped the poor bastards had a back door, and I'd been to Bangkok!"You OK?"

"I think so, not much bleeding and it doesn't feel like anything's broken."

"OK." He rattled off another five and said, "I'm running low, and you got any magazines?"

Fuzzy was beginning to irritate me. He wasn't hitting shit and every time he splattered the compound the return fire intensified and I wanted to lay low and quiet and draw the bastards out so I could get some payback, fuck this, and now he wants my ammunition, and where the hell are the guys who are supposed to get us out of this shit?

Just goes to show, you shouldn't think bad thoughts about your buddies.

Fuzzy shuddered and his head recoiled forward into the ditch. He looked at me, puzzled. "I was shot in the neck? Hope they didn't get that big artery."

"You're not spurting Fuzzy, if they got the carotid artery you'd be spurting.""OK."

I fired off a burst and lay back to watch Fuzzy wrap a field dressing around his neck. I was interested to see how tight he would make it. He was in pain; he finished the wrap and slumped. Now Sgt. Fuzco was my responsibility. The firestorm continued, and I called home, "We got more WIA's, Fuzzy took a round in the neck and the radioman has been hit twice, over." "Roger, we've got air coming in, you gotta mark your position."

I shouted the instruction to Fuzzy but he ignored me, he was firing again but he seemed oblivious to everything but the compound. For the first but not last time that day, I underestimated the man. He was probably going into shock but he concentrated all the attention he could muster on the job in front of him.

And then Captain Van Winkle was standing in the middle of that bullet streaked road, standing way too tall and firing his rifle, offhand, into the compound. It was intolerable that seven of his people were pinned down, and he was duking it out with two machine gun bunkers. From my left, someone shouted at Fuzco to flip his hat over. Lansing had joined us at the east end of the ditch. Fuzzy ignored him, staring into the compound, and then after a few seconds reached up and turned his hat inside out, like an afterthought saying, "Hey, I was gonna do that anyway." Then, he resumed staring into the compound.

These guys had orange day glow panels sewn into their hats so that air cover could distinguish them from the target. I had to get one of those hats!

Van Winkle shouted for me to get him the M 79 grenade launcher. I crawled over to the nearest Bru and had the M 79 passed down the line to me. I skidded it across the road with a bandoleer of rounds. I hoped he didn't think I was rude for not carrying it over to him, but I could apologize later. Nothing could stand up on that road and live.

Except Van Winkle. He shouldered the grenade launcher and let one fly, it was low. Fuzzy got splattered with debris and started cussing the captain. Rip jacked another round into the M 79, aimed, and dropped one into a machine gun position.

An M 60 machine gun started firing from my rear, Sergeant John Frescura had claimed ownership of Route 9 and was tearing up the compound. The volume of gunfire hadn't diminished but now some of it was ours. Under Frescura's covering fire, SOG medic Crone skidded into the ditch next to me. He cut away my shirt and put a field dressing on my shoulder. Then he crawled over to Fuzco and dressed his neck wound. Frescura kept laying on the machine gun fire. Lansing was calling out the Bru, and Crone was moving them out ahead of him to a safer position where he could look at their wounds. I saw one of the Bru take a round across his cheek as he maneuvered away from the ditch. He just squinted his eyes and looked embarrassed.

A gun ship hovered over Fuzco and was spraying rounds twenty feet in front of us. He fired two White Phosphorous rockets to mark the position for fast movers and Lansing was shouting at us to get out, the jets were on the way in. Under the cover of white smoke, I low-crawled over to Lansing who was firing over my head. He grabbed me by the shirt and threw me behind him. When the rockets went off Fuzzy went apeshit and started firing again. He wouldn't respond to Lansing's calls and a running gunfight had started, as the team was moving back towards the bridge. I ran back in the ditch and grabbed Fuzco by the web gear, his eyes were wild and I thought this will never work. He took off on the run, dragging me with him and reached down and grabbed the PRC 25 radio on the way. Amazing.

The last American on the road was backing up and firing from the hip. I had collected eight or ten Bru, and I told him I was going through the village. He looked doubtful, and I said I'd see you at the bridge. With three Bru in front of me, we formed a running column and shot our way down the gravel path to a river crossing north of the Ville. We took fire from the west that stopped as we hit the high grass, probably an NVA reactionary force coming to help the compound. At the crossing, we wheeled on line and slid our asses down the riverbank, rolling to face the village, and I sent the three lead Bru across. Without a word spoken, they fanned out on the ridge above us to cover our crossing. They were damned good. I signaled the rest of the squad to cross and stepped into the river.

I sank straight down about eight feet. I kicked to reach the surface and couldn't make it, the magazines in my pockets were dragging me back down and my right arm was weakening. I dropped my rifle and shrugged out of my shirt and clawed my way through the underwater vegetation until my face was out of the water. My Bru were reaching for me. I slid back in the water and found my M 16 with my feet, I jackknifed down and grabbed it, but I couldn't kick back to the surface so I stuck the barrel out of the water, hanging on to the stock. A Montagnard grabbed the barrel and pulled me up the greasy bank.

Across the river, up the bank, overlooking the Ville again, gunships and fast movers streaking over us, pounding hell out of the village, me with no radio and still no reversible hat, another bad spot to be in. We double-timed along the ridge until we joined up with the rest of the patrol at the bridge.

Fireballs rolled through the village fifty yards in front of us and we sighted down our rifles looking for targets, payback, and payback. I asked if we were going back in to take the compound and I got a pretty emphatic "No." "As soon as the medevac chopper gets you and Fuzco out we're hauling ass back to the base."

I said, "I feel fine, I'll walk." "We're going back after the chopper gets you and Fuzco out." "I feel fine."

"You're getting on the chopper."

"Fine."

A CH-34 helicopter whop-whopped us back up to FOB 3 and in minutes we were in the command bunker. SF medics fished a slug out of my thigh and probed my shoulder wound. They couldn't get at the round in my shoulder and said I would have to be medevaced to Danang.

I said, "It's just a little hole, give me shot and a bandage. I feel fine, I'll come back if it bothers me."

"No, the round has to come out and the wound needs to be debrided, we can't do that here.""But I feel fine." "You're going to Danang."

"Fine."

Things weren't going my way...maybe they hadn't all day, but I just hadn't noticed it. As I stepped out of the bunker, I came face to face with an SF Major who had some rhetorical questions about the gunfight.

"Where's your gear?"
All I had left was my rifle and some magazines. "How many times you get hit?" "Twice sir."
"Twice! You know how many times I've been shot?"
He stuck a beefy hand with fingers splayed in my face.
"Five times, I've been shot five times, and I've never left my gear behind."
Just what I needed, a role model who gets shot all the time.

Four Marines from my platoon had walked up behind me. They looked pretty grim, things were about to go high order. I walked off a few feet with them and showed them the slug from my leg, all I had to show for the day. They passed my trophy around, expertly assessed that it was probably a 30 caliber round, acted duly impressed, and then Cpl. Larry Brooks flicked it off his thumb like a booger. Damn. The day was a write-off. Back at the bottom of the river, in the left pocket of my shirt, was a pair of panties given to me by a girl named Lucky in Bangkok. Irony upon irony.

Fuzzy and I were taken to a sandbagged hooch near the airstrip where a Navy Corpsman was tending the wounded who were waiting for a medevac to the Naval Support Activity Hospital in Danang.

Fuzzy was on a stretcher, semi-conscious and muttering and I was trying to keep him company. I was feeling a little shot up and a lot shit upon when I looked up and three armed figures stepped through the door, haloed by the glare of the nearly horizontal rays of the afternoon sun. I didn't need the imagery; I was already in awe of these guys. Van Winkle, Crone, and another Green Beret had just returned from the patrol and had come to check on Fuzco and me.

Van Winkle thanked me for my help and said he was putting me in for the Bronze Star. I couldn't answer--I choked up. What a roller coaster. Fuzco tried to rise up off the stretcher and said, "Captain, where are my boys, did I get my boys killed, where are my boys, Captain."

Three days later, Crone was killed on Hill 471, and Captain Van Winkle took shrapnel in the legs. I never saw the team again.

The last time I saw Fuzzy, he was slabbed out in Danang and three Corpsman were trying to talk me back onto a gurney. He asked me about his boys. I lied to him. Two Bru died of wounds on that patrol. They told me Fuzzy would be OK and that he was being flown to Japan.

After a couple surgeries, I was sent to the Hospital Ship USS Sanctuary. In three days, I was ambulatory and assigned to run the elevator that took the incoming wounded from the flight deck down to x-ray, the first stop. Therapy, I guess. Make you feel useful, a part of things. I saw Marines die on my elevator; I talked to them as the light went out in their eyes. It was a very busy time, Tet. I asked to get off the ship. They said in three weeks. I made a nuisance of myself and in twelve days, I was back in Phu Bai.

The 3rd Combined Action Group had reassigned me to Alpha Company in the Phu Bai area. They said nothing was going back to Khe Sanh except food and ammunition. Nothing was coming out except wounded, not even the dead. That seemed like a worthy challenge. They would probably report me as an "unauthorized absence" but what could they do, cut off my hair and send me to 'Nam? It took me five days and three aborted landings to get back into Khe Sanh.

I made new friends on the SOG teams, I had a new pair of jungle boots, both size nine, I had time in country, and this was just another work day.

Post Script,

When our fathers die--those giant men of honor and uncommon valor--we, their fortunate sons, will be left among very few heroes. My father, a Marine who fought at Bougainville, Tarawa, and Iwo Jima, has been told that I was a hero that day. It is flattery of the highest order. I wasn't a hero. I was given the opportunity to earn the title United States Marine in the only war available to my generation. And I took it.

"If I think too much about those days, they inevitably turn out the way I wish it could have been. But it didn't. Out of respect for those real heroes, I have to consciously reject the urge for narcissistic revisionism and vanity that is too often the essence of war stories. This is not one.

Top Side

Re: David Douglas Duncan
(War Photo Journalist)

Mr. Duncan,

    My. name is Cliff. I remember David from Khe Sanh. I met him when I was at the ammo dump picking up a load of ammunition for B Btry 1/13. He told me that if I made it back to my area, I would probably wind up on the news. Well, I made it back ' without a scratch, just wanted to let him know.

Unfortunately, shortly afterwards, I was standing on my bunker taking pictures of an artillery battle. I heard a noise and saw a hot piece of shrapnel hit the sand bag next to me. I was hit by a dozen other smaller pieces of shrapnel, all down my right side. I was treated at Charlie Med and a few hours later returned to my unit. While unloading a truck of 105mm ammunition and still recovering from those minor wounds, my truck received a direct hit from a 122mm rocket. I was thrown 50 feet from the truck', and the ammunition on my truck blew. I tried' to: get up but saw that my right arm was blown off at the elbow. I grabbed what was left of my arm and attempted to get up only to lay back down, with extreme pain to my right side. I let go of my severed arm to feel my side only to discover a hole big enough to put my fist into and my stomach was hanging out. As I was being placed on a stretcher I noticed what was left of my right arm, laying about six feet away. I had one of the Marines place it in on my stomach and was evacuated to Charlie Med. I lost most of my stomach, about 9 feet of my intestines, my gall bladder, my right kidney and much more they didn't discuss with me. They mistakenly reported me killed in action because the doctors said there was no way I would live through the night. My parents were also informed I had been KIA.

Doctors were able to reattach what was left of my arm, but could not save the elbow. After being flown back to Danang, a Red Cross worker told me that she had arranged a phone call to my parents. I over-. heard her tell my parents that I was on the phone and my Mother informed the Red Cross worker that it was a bad joke, her son had been KIA three days ago. I began yelling, "Mom, Mom, it's me, I'm alive."After a good cry, she and the rest of my family were relieved that I was still alive. While still at the hospital in Danang, Brig. Gen. Kern presented me with my Purple Hearts for both wounds received on the same day.

I was sent to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines and after many surgeries, flown to the Philadelphia Naval Hospital, where I spent the next 9 months. I was then sent to Wilkes-Barre VA Hospital where I spent an additional 14 months undergoing many more surgeries. I was discharged from the USMC and sent to the Philadelphia VA Hospital, where I spent another year. After more than three years of painful operations, I decided not to have any more surgery. Doctors informed me that I would never be able to do much of anything of a physical nature.

I fooled all of them. I did everything from driving trucks and heavy equipment, to racing motorcycles, cars and was even certified as an EMT. I was an active scuba diver, and trained as a rescue diver, which included rappelling and other rescue techniques. I also served as a correctional officer at a maximum-security prison for 9 years.

In October of 1999, I was contacted by the daughter of a girl whom I had dated in 1967 prior to my being wounded in Vietnam. She arranged for us to meet in Alabama where her mother worked as a nurse. I flew down to meet her and brought her back home with me. In July of this year we were married and now reside in Allentown, Pa.

'I purchased David Duncan's book, "War Without Heroes" back in '71 or '72. I can look at the pictures in that book and remember so much from back in 68. I am proud to have been in the Marine Corps and, when asked where I served, to say, "in Khe Sanh, during the Siege." When somebody sees my book, I am proud to say that I have met the author. Unfortunately, the original paper cover of my hard back had been torn and I recovered it with a Marine Corps book cover. I tried to get another cover from the publisher but to no avail.

A friend from Khe Sanh,
Cliff Treese
B Btry 1/13 105's
2343 S. 9th St.
Allentown, Pa. 18103
Reaching for the Surface

Top Side

Jim Carmichael
Echo 2/26

    Leaving Vietnam was relief in its purest form, and anticlimactic at the same time. Our battalion, among others, had been neck deep in Operation Meade River late in 1968. The area around Danang had been cordoned off to try and strangle the NVA in some way or another. I was just one little cog in the greater machine. I suppose going home in or out of a bag wouldn't have made much difference to the larger picture. My last week in country shaped and contoured itself into nightmarish proportions. And then it was over. I simply walked up into the aft end of a Ch-46, sat down and went home.

No one having not made the same transition from immediate, up close and personal combat to stateside "peace" within a few whispers of breath can possibly understand it. That short section of days from being immersed in jungle or rice paddies or mountains to the company rear, then to Okinawa and onto wherever in the states is surreal time. On the outside, going home was what it was supposed to be. On the inside, everything was jumbled--all wrong. It stayed that way.

And so, my journey began afresh. But I think this latest traverse in my life was more like humping new hills; wading into different kinds of rice paddies. This stateside jungle had a decidedly different "feel" to it. I was home now, to a certain degree. I spent the next year and a half at Camp Pendleton "playing stateside Marine Corps." Those months were the closest to any taste of my tour I have had since I left the Nam. I was cloistered with hundreds of victims just like me. We were redundant, the same wounded, silent warriors. We came out of the same wrapper. All of us, to a man, resented being bound to the land of Southern California, "playing."

Thus, we pretended until our time was used up. I, as a matter of course, faded into a new environment, free from the imposed constraints of the government. And the jungle here was once again new. It was different, but it was still a survival game. Now I had to find some semblance of a task that would remunerate my meager efforts. I had no education, save for high school. I was trained to drop rounds down a mortar tube, to kill people and break things. Still, somewhere down in the roiling mass of my innermost being was my war in the rawest sense possible. It was seething. But I could pay no attention to it, so I thought. I was squarely ensconced into what I had fought savagely to preserve. But I didn't know how to manage it well.

I went from one undertaking to another, for various reasons. Specifics are unimportant here. I did not fit in--not that I didn't try. I wearied myself trying. But my high school friends now were all different from me in many respects. And they were the same. They complained about such insignificant matters. I successfully made my wife wonder who I was; whom she had married. I was certainly different. I wrote poetry. I went to work only because I had to. I was sullen, for no apparent reason, on too many successive days. I withdrew for the smallest reasons or for no appreciable reason at all. I became angry over the most trivial issues. Something inside of me was broken. My inner spring had been sprung.

So, I dug my heels more solidly into this society I had pledged my life to defend. And of necessity, I resisted the temptation to remember I had been to a war. Besides, few people seemed to care about that part of my life. No one could possibly understand it. So how could I, or should I, attempt to explain it? Life on this side of the pond was elevated to the status of "the present"--now, here. Surely the past would heal itself. I would be all right with a little time, a little more time. And then the babies started coming. And the last vestiges of room "in the inn" for the war evaporated. There were the nighttime feedings and diaper changes and comparing notes with other ignorant parents on how to handle these new bundles of joy.

But yet, I wasn't all right. My wife, these babies and this new situation brought untried pressures to bear upon me. The jungle had been transformed once again. It was a time of anger, of complete misunderstanding of this female companion to whom I was married. If love were a feeling, my system would have none of it. I could only search for some new distraction to get through this miserable moment in time. And it and I were miserable. I was dying inside, pure and simple. My marriage, as with so many couples before and around me, was coming apart at the seams. Some force was sucking me under. I was drowning.

So, I did the only intelligent thing a former combat Marine could do. I started taking karate. Here was an investment in athletic inertia in which I could revel. That time is blurred to a degree because I was moving so quickly from one aspect of the martial arts to another. I became good enough to instruct. Enthusiastically I sold karate for a living. I was in hog heaven. I had surfaced. I could see. The air was good here.

But time and circumstances invariably drops a smoke grenade down your pants at some point in the flay of life. This was my time, my circumstances. The smoke poured over me in the form of a visit to the hospital, realized as a result of a bruised kidney won in the heat of sparring battle. My wife promptly informed me that she wanted a legal separation. This was a more complete break in our marriage, as she had several weeks prior to my hospital stay asked me to leave and find someplace new to domicile. Further, my current roommate informed me that I would have to find different living accommodations. I was smothering--disoriented and desperate. No one wanted this broken me. What do you do with spent cartridges ? You police them and then discard them. And I was surely being policed and discarded. I deserved it, and I knew it. I had earned my new jungle. I was a miserable person to be around. I could not stand or understand myself.

I divide my life in two distinct sections: BVN and AVN--Before Vietnam and After Vietnam. Those 13 months were certainly a watershed for me, Khe Sanh being the most perspicuous pinhole on the map of my existence. Yet, I did not know that everything was about to change. Being in the hospital was a low point. Of that I am certain. I might even call it the bottom of the barrel. Life since RVN seems now as if it were one long, steady slide downhill, leading to one smelly pothole. But, from the ash heap do the Phoenix rise.

How do you possibly describe someone you have not actually met, but who turns out to be the main factor in your life? I ask this question because when you are at the end of your tether, as I was, you might have this tendency to reach out "there" beyond yourself for help--any help. And when it comes, you accept it, no questions asked. Thus, I became aware, imperceptibly at first, that there was another dimension to life and someone ruled that dimension. This was an unseen factor, pure spirituality at its core. It was unsettling at first blush. The unknown always is. But there is no doubt that my world was being "invaded" by the Person of that other dimension. I can't explain why. Who was I that I should be so privileged? I had heard rumors that there was "God," but we had not been properly introduced.

The ensuing days were spent with me trying to "fix" what I had broken so badly, all to no avail. My next move was uncertain, but I felt this someone was keeping close vigil. He was seeking me. I had no clue as to how to proceed in returning the compliment. So, I did the only thing a broken combat Marine should do. I found a church. What brand didn't matter. If I were being "sought" by Someone, I mused, that was the place to be intercepted.

I am a Presbyterian minister now. I have PTSD. I am "retired" or on sabbatical. I was sought. I did not do the seeking because I could not. I was dead spiritually. He, this someone, made me alive inwardly and aware of not only the fact of His existence, but of His work on my behalf and His death for the same purpose. He made me alive. I have good days and not so good days. I take numerous pills to enable me to function "normally." I teach 2 young teens Biblical Greek. I am currently writing a book about working through this life and have written an article for Red Clay to that end. That is who I am and what I do. I am still married to the same woman who asked me to find other living accommodations almost 30 years ago. Such are some of His gifts to me. I have reached the surface. Finally.

Semper fi.
ED NOTE: Brother, I can't wait to read your book.

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Talis Kaminskis

The following is a story that a good friend asked I set down on paper after I had told it to him on a visit. It is lengthy, but then it is his story.

Alone he sat. A chair facing a coffin. In his hand, a cold beer. In his mind, a lifetime past of memories. Less than a year ago, he had served in the Marines. A combat veteran whose time in war was cut short by a single round fired from a single weapon in the hands of a single man. Now, ten months since his discharge from the Corps, he sat here, all because once more the specter of Death had entered his life. Ten months, very little of it spent with the one before him. From him had come welcome packages, treasured letters, and infrequent, but real voice links to a world then, so far removed from his reality. His love had done so much to sustain the young Marine while he was so far from home. He toyed with the bottle in his hands, studying it intently. Took a small drink, and let it be his focus again. Slowly, a condescending smile creased his lips. He leaned back in the chair, tilting his head to raise his face skyward and smirked. You got me, old man! You got me good. You have given me something that so few are able to give. And the young man's thoughts drifted back. To his boyhood when he first noticed the scar across the old man's stomach. Side to side it stretched. A curiosity for a young boy. He had tried asking the old man about the scar, but the answers he received were not the ones he was seeking. Strong silence, deliberate turning away, a distant look in the eyes-all that needed not translation. Actions, by their meaning, telling him strongly, "Hush boy, it's none of your business." From his mother, he had learned the essentials of it. A soldier on the Eastern Front. A Russian bullet that came and went. And a soldier who staggered back to an aid station, holding his stomach together with both hands. That was what he thought the story of the scar was. But then, a few months ago, he learned the real story on a weekend when he had come home, to ahhh? Let's say rustle the ladies a little. But the old man had other plans for him for one of the nights. Since his first remembrances, he had watched the old man enjoy a beer or two almost on a daily basis. After work, after dinner, in the privacy of his own home. But on that weekend, as the family sat at an all too rare meal together, the old man had asked what were his plans for the following night. He had noticed that his mother had kept her head lowered, but thought nothing of it at the time. He had taken it as just polite dinner talk, but before he cold formulate a passable answer, the old man had continued. A simple statement, far from a request. "The two of us are going out for a beer." Just the two of them. AND TO A BAR!, no less. In 24 years he had known the old man to visit a bar only once. Now he had been informed that he and the old man had a date.

So it was on the following evening, they ventured forth to the neighborhood Polish bar that the young man grew up knowing so well. Sitting, sipping, the young man waiting. But it was the old man's night, and he called the shots. In silence they sat. The old man had not uttered a word since being picked up. The young man had done the ordering of the beers, in silence the beers saluted, and each sat back. Impatiently, he had waited for the old man to speak. To say something. To give meaning, to give some indication as to why this momentous event had occurred. But from the old man, nothing. Not a word. Not a damn sound. Not even the traditional noises of a beer being consumed. Deliberately he sat, and slowly worked on his beer. After a long while, both beers were empty, and the old man indicated that he was ready for another. Two fresh beers were brought over and to the young man's chagrin, the same routine continued. Slow drinking, no conversation. Frustration had welled within him but long ago, he had learned not to try to rush the old man. Then, almost missing it, he noticed the position of the man's chair had changed. The distance between them had narrowed. The old man's face lifted, and it was his eyes that were the first to speak. Caringly, the old man lifted his beer just a mite. Then came the total conversation of the whole evening. Three words, nothing more. But three words that would bond the two of them forever together. Three words that hit the young man with a force that he would never forget. Three words that he knew had to have been so hard for the old man to say. "Now you know."

"NOW YOU KNOW!" And the young man knew. He knew all about the scar. He knew all about the silence. He knew all about the old man. The memories, the fears. The turmoil he must have lived with while the young man participated in another war so far, far away. What words did one possess that could pass on such a message.

The old man finished his beer, motioned that they were leaving. The young man rose looking at a clock. But the hours of silence he had endured suddenly seemed priceless. In silence, he had driven the old man home. At the house, the old man had adverted gazing at him. Slowly walking up the driveway alone. Somehow the young man had been relieved. He needed to get away. But the rest of the evening had become a blur. The young man's thoughts returned to the reality of the present. He stared at the coffin, taking a small sip. Yes, old man, you gave me a lot that night. More than I deserved, he felt. But now I have to say good-bye to you. Something I didn't really get a chance to do.

And his thoughts drifted once more...to a morning many years ago, when he was in high school. To a morning when the man had given him a ride to school, as he always did once a week. Being dropped off by the door everyone used, the area was filled with other students. Getting out of the car, the young man had leaned over to the old man and kissed him. From close by, he had heard someone whisper. "Did you see that, he kissed that man." At first he had been slightly embarrassed, but it passed. And it had stayed that way until a lonely night in a far off place, when thoughts and memories are all a young Marine has. Yes, he had kissed a man. But what a man. Thanks to the bewilderment someone had who was not raised with that special touch, and a whisper that he was able to hear, he had been left with a treasure no riches could buy. One that sustained him many a time.

Leaning forward in his chair, he stared at the coffin again. Rising, he took a careful drink, making sure that the bottle was not emptied. Slowly he walked to the coffin, resting one hand on it. He stood in silence, letting his feelings tell him when it was time. He looked at the two workers who had waited so patiently, and nodded grateful thanks. One more task he needed to do. Into the grave beneath the coffin, he let slip the bottle and its remaining contents. Yes Pop, now I know.

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