Talked to the Mods, said it was alright. Enjoy


I turned eighteen on a Wednesday. The following Monday I was riding on a large Trailways bus with about forty other unsmiling young men. The bus ride was like a funeral. No talking - just heads down, staring at the floor, some staring out the dirty windows. We were in route to the Military Entrance Processing Station in Montgomery Alabama. The boring humiliating examinations were completed and I was sworn in as a Private in the United States Army. “I (state your full name) do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic -”. From there we were sent to a reception station. After the first of many bad nights of sleep and worse food to come, I once again was herded on another bus that deposited us at Harmony Church located in Ft. Benning Georgia. The only harmonious activity there was complete suffering and misery. The year was 1969. My drill sergeant was a twenty three year old Mississippian named Sgt. Ed White. In one year in Vietnam he was awarded four purple Hearts, the Combat Infantry Badge, two Bronze Stars, and the Silver Star. His constant phrase “You are gonna be one more damn dead soldier” still resonates in my head. He meant it. If you make a mistake you will die. The NVA will kill you. He always talked about going jungle blind. You go in the jungle and the NVA will shoot your eyes out.

Four months later I knew what he meant. Vietnam has 58 provinces. Ninety per cent of the US casualties were in ten of them. They were the northern ones on the DMZ and the three to the east bordering Laos and Cambodia. I was a PFC with the 25th Infantry Div. based in Tay Ninh. The operations area was along the Cambodian border which was very close. The Parrot’s Beak was a salient into Cambodia used by the NVA as a staging area for incursions into Vietnam. They would cross the border in Battalion and larger strength looking for a fight. These NVA units had endured months of hardship and indoctrination while traveling down the Ho Chi Minh trail. They were bombed almost daily. By the time the survivors reached South Vietnam they were hardened professional soldiers with a very bad attitude toward Americans. The units they joined had officers and NCOs who had been fighting since the nineteen fifties in the first Indochina war. They carefully chose the time and place to fight. They made sure every factor was in their favor before they began a battle. Our job was to stop them.

As a machine gunner on a Combat Engineer Vehicle, the majority of my time was spent in minesweeping and road security. We provided the firepower to protect daily engineer operations. The tank had three fifty caliber and three M-60 machine guns. It was a daily routine of sweeping roads for mines, getting shot at by snipers, occasional mortar attacks, incessant brain numbing heat, bad water, unbearable humidity, no sleep, no showers, mosquitoes, fire ants, monsoon rain, hornets, rats, poisonous snakes, scorpions, ringworm, stinking rice paddies, hungry children and the hate filled eyes of the people we were there to help. The sequence sometimes changed but it was still the same.
Depending on the mission, we would return to our base camp after a day on the road but more often than not we would remain at the nearest firebase. These were isolated, circular, bunker studded, concertina wire encircled remote outposts located right in the middle of enemy territory. The engineer platoon usually consisted of the tank, four or five trucks, a jeep, a front-end loader, and a bulldozer. This would change according to the specifics of the mission. We would pull in, try to get some chow, and settle in for the night. Rarely would a night go by without some type of enemy activity.

Nights consisted of guard duty shifts on the bunker line. Usually the shift was two hours on, two hours off. So the most uninterrupted sleep you could ever get was two hours. The hard part was staying awake and alert during your two hours. The time was spent sitting on top of a bunker with at least one other guy and carefully listening to the jungle. The area to the front of the bunker was protected by twenty or so yards of barbed wire, illumination trip flares, and claymore mines. The nights were pitch black because of the surrounding jungle. Since you couldn’t see you learned to listen. Southeastern Asian jungles are not quiet at night. The insects, lizards, frogs, monkeys and rats always make an incessant noise. You learn to listen to these sounds and detect any changes from the normal jungle sounds. If their intensity or pitch change, or worse yet completely stop, then something else is out there. The ability to recognize these sounds becomes a sixth sense after a while. You could be sitting quietly thinking about whatever when suddenly your nerves scream to be alert. Then you go into the danger zone, the place where your entire world is focused on the immediate area in front of your rifle sights. You have sighted your M16 or whatever weapons you have at a point of aim and silently ease the safety off along with the mental part of in your brain that says: “Thou shalt not kill.” Because you damn sure will. Usually its nothing, sometimes it is.

An accepted activity of pulling guard duty at a firebase is that you keep awake by talking quietly to your duty partner. You are located on a bunker surrounded by mines and wire, the enemy knows exactly where you are. You have to stay awake, alert, and always listen. While sitting on top of one of these bunkers at a firebase located on the edge of the Cambodian border I was with a sergeant named Staryak. He was about two weeks from completing his tour and was leaving the field in the morning. We met, introduced ourselves, and prepared for a long night. I had only been in Vietnam a few weeks. New soldiers were paired with experienced ones for guard duty whenever possible. We checked out the machine gun, positioned grenades and M16 magazines, flares, and attached claymore mine igniters. Darkness dropped and the jungle sounds slowly reached their levels of normalcy. Then Sergeant Staryak began to carefully and slowly speak. He hesitated every few words, shifted his position, turned his head, and always listened intently to the sounds of the jungle. His voice was low and measured. He chose every word carefully. This is his story:

“I got here right at a year ago. Just like you, this place was a different world to me. About a month into my tour we were on the third day of a four-day operation about ten kilometers from here. We flew in on slicks and made a combat assault on a supposed NVA base camp. The camp was there but completely empty. There were bunkers, trenches, fire pits, rice bags, overhead bamboo thatching, latrines, trash piles; every thing that proved the presence of a large NVA unit except the men. They left when we came in. The next day was spent carefully looking for the enemy. Ambushes were set out each night. For two days we stayed close to them. Sometimes we were so close that we could smell where they had slept only a few hours before. One patrol had even heard the elephant grass snapping back after being bent by the NVA while they passed through it. The NVA left an occasional booby trap to slow us down. For three days and two nights we kept moving, always searching, always right behind the NVA.

Late on the afternoon of the third day the lead squad carefully approached a clearing in the jungle. The surrounding trees were very tall and their foliage blocked out direct sunlight. The undergrowth thinned toward the clearing and became knee high grass with interspersed four-foot high termite mounds. The squad leader, a twenty-year old draftee from Texas, halted his men and positioned them on line facing the open area. He signaled for his radio operator to move up. Retreating back into the undergrowth, he radioed his platoon leader and informed him of the situation. The Lieutenant, a young West Point graduate, told the Sergeant to move across the clearing. He would bring the rest of the platoon on either side of the clearing to cover them. They were to move out in ten minutes. This would give the machineguns time to move up and get on line. The sergeant acknowledged his instructions, swore quietly to himself, and carefully crouching, moved to each of the men in his squad. At his signal they would move out on line and cross the clearing.

The sergeant insured his men were ready and signaled for them to move out. The first man to step out was a nineteen-year old PFC from inner city Chicago. He took four or five slow steps, dropped to one knee and looked over his shoulder for the next soldier. The NVA machine gun hammered a short burst. Several bullets struck the PFC solidly in the chest and spun him around. His helmet flew through the air. The second burst hit him as he fell, one round hitting him in the forehead. He was dead when he hit the ground. A piece of his skull struck the soldier behind him in the face. It broke his nose and knocked him unconscious. As he went down another bullet blew off his knee cap. Within seconds several AKs opened up. Then four 60mm mortar rounds blasted through the jungle. AK fire and RPGs ripped through the underbrush. We hit the ground and returned fire. Within ten minutes the firing stopped. We had two dead, two wounded. The next hour or so was used securing the area and calling in Medevacs. The NVA had dug the machine gun into a termite mound. We realized they were ready to fight

It took an hour or so to get the dead and wounded out. We continued our patrolling. There was no further contact that afternoon. The onset of darkness found us at another open clearing. The clearing was irregularly shaped, one hundred yards or so in length, about sixty yards wide at the low end and inclining toward a narrow rise. The headquarters element dug in at the inclined end and placed the platoons around the natural perimeter. Each platoon was given a designated sector. Careful attention was given to interlocking fields of fire and likely avenues of approach. Claymores and trip wire illumination flares were set. My platoon was given the low center base of the perimeter. Since this was the widest area we were spread out more than the platoons on the other end and on the sides of the perimeter. We dug in. My position was with Ken. He was wounded again and sent home a few months ago. We dug in to the right of a machine gun position with about fifteen yards between us. We ran claymore wire and put in a few trip flares. The squad leaders and platoon sergeants made a careful check of the positions. A few adjustments were made. Artillery fire was sighted and adjusted. Then we waited for darkness.

The LPs (listening posts) were sent out as soon as it was completely dark. Four teams of three men, each with a radio, crawled through the lines and into the jungle. I had been on several LPs, this was one night I was glad it wasn’t my turn. There was no moon. It might have been an hour or so when the first LP alerted that they had definite enemy movement. The other three posts also alerted with a few minutes. We were surrounded. A grenade blast and burst of M16 fire, then several AKs opening up from within the jungle meant the discovery of one of the LPs. NVA were heard talking on the LP’s radio. All three men were found dead the next morning. The CO called the other LPs in. Two made it, the third, commanded by a nineteen year old from New York, realized that NVA had got between him and the company. Instead of trying to move back to the company he took the two men with him and crawled fifty yards or so away from the perimeter. He found a depression in the jungle and holed up. NVA passed with ten feet of him several times that evening. Our artillery wounded one of them, but they all returned the next morning.

Within twenty or so minutes trip flares began to light up on the perimeter. The NVA were probing our lines. Illumination was requested and basketball sized flares lit up the jungle. Ken and I stayed low, threw out a grenade when we heard something, and made sure we were ready. I had my rifle, twenty or so magazines and a dozen grenades. Ken had about the same. As a flare slowly descended, the light it emanated fell like a curtain as it came closer to the ground. It landed about one hundred yards from us in the jungle. Everything became pitch black. Suddenly there was a thump thump thump. Someone behind screamed “INCOMING”. Then another thump thump thump. Six mortar rounds were inbound. The first three hit to the left of the perimeter. The next three hit in the center as did the next three. Then nine more were fired from the three different locations. Screams and cursing came from the impact zone. As the mortar rounds slammed into the perimeter, flares were fired into the air. This is when the enemy attacked.

They opened up on us from three sides with rifles, RPGs, and grenades. Their NCOs screamed “Tien Lien” – forward – and blew shrill whistles. NVA machine guns ripped through the perimeter. Their green tracers laced the night and interlocked with the red tracers from our M60s. The RPGs streaked with a blue flash through the air and exploded. The muzzle flashes of their AKs flickered through the jungle. Ken and I kept low and fired as the NVA came closer. The machine gun to our left was firing steadily. Its barrel glowed dully, keeping a red stream of bullets slamming into the enemy as they approached. Screams and curses echoed in the dark. I bent down to reload. Ken fell to the bottom of the foxhole. I tried to stand up but he was on top of me. I saw the flash of a RPG round exploding to my immediate left. A flare lit up the night. Ken had been hit in the side of the head. The right side of his helmet had a huge dent and blood was running from his ear. He was mumbling something I couldn’t make out. The attack slackened. We could hear the NVA regrouping in the jungle. Our artillery began impacting in a protective circle about one hundred yards outside our perimeter. The night was illuminated with flares and the sound of men cursing and shouting commands echoed through the darkness. Screams of “Medic” came from several directions. In a few minutes Ken began to recover consciousness. I tied a bandage around his bleeding head and he slowly shook it from side to side. When he started cussing I knew he wasn’t in too bad shape. He located his rifle, did a function check, located his magazines, repositioned himself, and passed out completely. He slumped into the bottom of the foxhole.

The NVA attacked again. The machine gun next to me stopped the charge but this time they had come much closer. A parachute flare lit up the night. I saw the machine gun position clearly. One man was dead and lying to the rear outside the position. The assistant gunner had a bandage over both eyes and was feeding the ammunition by feel. The gunner, a kid named Harris from South Georgia, had been wounded in the right arm. It hung useless by his side. I couldn’t help Ken and if the machine gun were taken out then the NVA would over run the entire perimeter. It was the only position left at the bottom of the hill. As I stood to crawl out of my foxhole a RPG flashed and hit the machine position. The assistant gunner was blown out of the hole. I crawled over and slid in. The gunner was hit in several places but said he could still feed the gun. I set up the M60 and linked up a few hundred rounds of ammo. The NVA attacked again. Mortar rounds slammed into the perimeter, RPGs flashed, and AK and machine gun tracers laced the night. I opened up with the gun and was putting a steady stream of fire into the charging NVA. A grenade or something exploded, the gunner was hit again. I had dirt blown into my eyes and the gun jammed. The gunner was slumped in the bottom of the hole. I tried to find my rifle and was grasping around the bottom of the hole when from the dark two men leaped into the machine gun position.

One pulled the now dead gunner to the back and flipped him out of the position beside the assistant gunner. The other one shoved me to the back and tossed the machine gun out of the way. Each had a rifle and opened a steady accurate stream of fire into the charging enemy. When one had emptied a magazine and dropped to reload the other soldier took his place and continued killing the enemy. Sitting at the back of the position and looking up I could see their silhouettes through the dirt in my eyes by the light of the flares. They worked together like a machine. One up, one down reloading, other back up, grenade, reload, steady accurate deadly fire. Both wore helmets but I couldn’t make out their faces. During a lull one of them began quietly playing a harmonica. This infuriated the NVA. The soldier just laughed.
The NVA attacked again. They came closer and closer, screaming, firing, and dying from the deadly rifles of the two soldiers. As it seemed if the NVA were right on top of us, one of them looked at the other, nodded his head, each tossed several grenades, waited for them to explode, then jumped out of the position and ran straight at the NVA. My eyes had cleared and I looked over the edge. This was completely unexpected, the NVA were being cut down left and right by the attacking soldiers. They carried the fight into the jungle. The firing was steady then slowly stopped. Our artillery and flares continued to fall.

Within a few minutes my squad leader and two men crawled up to the machine gun position. They had been trying to get down to us for more than hour but the enemy fire was too intense. He said that this position had held off the NVA almost by itself. A medic crawled up and began checking the casualties. Ken stood up and was wondering where he was. I told the squad leader that without the help of the two men we would have been overrun. He said no one could get to us because of the intensity of the fire. He dismissed my comments and began reorganizing the perimeter. Another machine gun and crew was brought down, casualties removed, and I went back to my hole with Ken. Except for a few mortar rounds and sporadic rifle fire the night passed, the NVA had left.
The morning was hot and depressing. We began an immediate sweep of the area as soon as we could see. Several blood trails and bloody bandages were found but the NVA had removed all their dead. Trees were splintered from artillery and machine gun fire. Patrols were begun and again we started tracking the NVA. We followed them to the Cambodian border. They had crossed back into sanctuary. Our mission was ended, slicks picked us up, and we returned to Dau Tieng. I said no more about the two men who had come to the fight and disappeared into the jungle. My platoon sergeant had accounted for everyone.

About a month later we returned to the same area. Again, we were chasing a NVA unit. The company stayed over night at the same open area where we had fought before. New positions were dug. The next morning we were waiting for resupply and I was told to go with three men and patrol around the edge of the jungle. I passed my previous foxhole and the machine gun position. Rain had caused both to collapse. We went about twenty five yards into the jungle and began slowly circling our perimeter. At approximately where the two men had disappeared the rain had partially uncovered an old fighting position. We examined it closer and saw the top of a helmet. We stared digging and found the skeletons of two soldiers. They had died together in some long forgotten battle. We searched their remains for ID tags. There were none. At the bottom of the hole we found two French rifles. We then knew. They were Legionnaires. They had died here many years ago. The sound of battle had awakened them and they returned to join the fight. As we left the position, I examined the helmet closely and turned it over. In the top of the helmet, placed in the liner and carefully wrapped in several layers of oilskin, was a small harmonica. I rewrapped it and put it in my pocket. I’ve carried it for my entire tour as a good luck piece. I’m flying out in the morning. Take it. You will need luck too.”
I gratefully accepted the harmonica. I kept it. I still have it, and play it occasionally.

Wow! Man you have a serious gift. Thank you!

Great read.

Another good one.

Great!