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Chapter 11 Haig
On this same afternoon, while we were being ambushed, Lt. Colonel Alexander Haig's Blue Spaders were
landing at LZ George. My patrol was still engaged in the fire fight
and too busy with our own troubles to
notice the line of Hueys flying over our NDP position toward their landing
site some 31/2 miles away. However, the men inside our perimeter at "Thrust" would have
been able to see them. There was no enemy
resistance as they landed. The forty-two-year-old Haig was not the kind of commander who left anything to chance, yet he was not a "fretter" either. Haig oversaw the initial landing at LZ George and the exact placement of his own battalion's defensive positions. Soon after landing, he met with his officers and key NCOs including the FO (forward observer) assigned to his unit. His faithful S3 (operations officer) and longtime friend, Capt. George Joulwan, was by his side. As he stood there in the tall grass, getting feedback from his security patrols, he started forming a picture in his mind of how he wanted his defenses laid out. I doubt that any of his subordinates, save Joulwan, realized how fortunate they were to have a man like Haig leading them during the next couple days. He was probably somewhat of a "shot in the dark" to the few who did not know him, because he had not worked his way through the usual field commands, from platoon, to company and then battalion. Truth is, however, the men under him had now been with him long enough, to sense his natural leadership ability. He was wired differently than our commander, Dick Cavazos. He was not as "earthy", and not as apt to identify with the individual needs of a grunt like me. Never mind that, though, because no American commander possessed the overall leadership qualities, which had been instilled in 38 year old Lt. Col. Dick Cavazos, largely due to his King Ranch upbringing, under the strict, but loving hands, of a remarkable father. Yet, Haig was not as aloft as our last commander, Denton, or even the 1/16th's Lt. Col. Lazzell. He was just "matter of fact", and smart. No matter where he was assigned in the command structure, his superior leadership abilities seemed to be the one thing, which was immediately recognized by every boss he had ever had. Although he displayed a similar veneer, on the outside, to that of Westmoreland, his interior was composed of high grade steel, while Westy's was composed of a somewhat more fluid material which could flow in any direction which allowed him to maintain his imperial existence. So far, in the two months he had been with the Blue Spaders", Haig had managed to pass every tactical "pop quiz" thrown at him. The big question, which remained, was whether or not he was going to be able to pass the final exam when it came? Cavazos had passed his a long time ago in Korea and he had scored an A+. Haig had been in Korea also, but his lessons in leadership had prepared him to handle leadership problems of a more strategic nature. He had been a staff officer the entire time he served there. He had also been nabbed as a staff officer, when he first arrived in Vietnam, but his desire for entering this war zone was to command a field unit in combat. General Depuy is the reason that didn't happen. DePuy grabbed him to be his G3 almost as soon as he stepped off the plane. Why? Because the word was out about Haig, amongst senior command and DePuy wasn't about to let a talented man like him, slip through his fingers. Haig was a "maestro" at covering a boss's rear end. He was one of those rare individuals who could take the reigns of leadership and run, making his boss look good. DePuy would have been a fool not to grab Haig for his G3 and DePuy was no fool. So, Haig was "type cast" as a supporting character in the story and that should have been the end of it. For most, it would have been. Odds were that Haig would always play a supporting roll. He would never to be the "leading Man". So, what caused that to change? Why was Haig now standing in tall grass near the Cambodian border, commanding a battalion of 300 strong (If one can call that strong), soon to be personally engaged with an enemy, which outnumbered him almost ten to one? No good poker player would have bet that things would have turned out this way. Shortly after becoming DePuy's staff officer, DePuy had actually witnessed for himself how brave Haig was. Yet that made no difference in helping Haig receive his wish to become a field commander. Haig had chased down an enemy soldier, right in front of DePuy, and was wounded by a hand grenade, which this guy pulled on him, as he physically tried to corral him. DePuy decorated Haig with a purple heart, but still said no, to a combat command position. So there you have it. Except for a little thing, which some call fate, there was just no way Haig was going to get to "go fight". Finally, one fine day in January of 1967, while sitting across a planning room table from Haig, DePuy was ordered in a phone conversation, by his corps commander, to release Haig for staff duty at II Field Force Headquarters. DePuy, gulped twice, then without missing a beat in the conversion, quickly announced to his superior, that he had already assigned Haig to take over command of the "Blue Spaders". It was a lie, but a lie, which DePuy now had to make come true. He immediately looked across the table at Haig and abruptly announced, "Haig, I need you to report to the "Blue Spaders" as their new commanding officer". DePuy then moved their present commander into Haig's old position. That person was Lt. Col. Paul Gorman who went on to become a four-star general. So, that is how Alexander Haig finally got his chance to command a combat unit in Vietnam. The "Blue Spaders" were Haig's first "front line" combat assignment, where he carried a "long rifle" and personally led men into actual combat. If Dick Cavazos was the Army's best field commander, at that time, then there is no doubt that Haig could have easily been in the running for second place, if he had only spent just a little more time in the field.
However, at this point, I must say
that neither of these men would have risen to have held the positions of
leadership, which they later held, if not for the
foundational relationships provided them, by their remarkable wives,
Carolyn Cavazos and Patricia Haig. In Haig's case, he had married
Patricia shortly after graduating from West Point. She was a General's
daughter. This alone gave him great exposure. It also helped reinforce
in him the notion that general officers were not "gods" to be feared, or
worshipped, but men like him, some with much smaller brains than his
own. Many years later, Carolyn Cavazos revealed to me, much the same
mindset in Dick and herself. She said it this way, although not in these
exact words. "We always thought that we were just as capable of doing a
thing as good as the next guy. No matter what their background or no
matter how many pedigrees they possessed, we never thought them to be
any more capable than us." Neither Haig or Cavazos would have become the leaders,
which they developed into, if they had not been the beneficiaries of
longstanding support from sage
wives. Carolyn and Pat obviously understood the importance of the roll
they played in building a stronger America, by providing wise support
and council to
their husbands. I am convinced that there were many officers in 1967 who possessed the potential to be great leaders but never got there. Like Haig, they had the critical interpersonal skills, required of a commander. However, unlike Haig, they did not possess the confidence to deal with the stupid "ass chewing chiding" and the humiliating petty commands, delivered by generals flying somewhere above the fray. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, with Lt. Col. Haig. Circumstances had allowed him to cut his teeth around those kind of people. Truth is, these "hen pecker" type generals were a little afraid of Haig, because they knew he had political connections in high places. Deputy Secretary of Defense, Vance, had pulled strings for him to obtain orders to Vietnam in the first place. To top things off, Haig had learned a lot about the plight of the average field commander in his relationship with the general staff. He had gained much of this experience in Korea, while serving under a "crusty ole" Lieutenant General named Ned Almond, who treated most of his field commanders like "s__t". This experience had more than prepared Haig to not only feel at home while dealing with badgering "higher ups" in the First Infantry Division, but also with the ground pounding grunts who served under him as well. One vital thing which Haig had learned over the years was how not to put his neck in the "hangman's noose" on the radio. He knew the right "take charge" lingo to use when communicating with those who outranked him without stepping on their pride, but he also realized the importance of not talking down to subordinates. Mix what I have said here with Haig's abundant common sense and it's no chore to see that Haig was a well rounded individual capable of performing at very high levels wherever he landed. Ironically, this also held him back. His bosses didn't want to turn loose of him.
Here is one last observation, for the taking, about Haig.
He was a man who wore a chip on his shoulder. Now, a chip
on anyone's shoulder can become a hindrance, if not worn
wisely. It can also be an asset. Many times, it can get a person off "dead center",
but that means nothing if not
worn wisely. With the help of a couple God given mentors in his early
years, Haig had learned to wear his chip wisely. The chip, itself, was
created in the aftermath of his father's sudden death, when he was only
nine. It was during the height of the "Great Depression" and his entire
family struggled sorely, after his well-established attorney father
passed away. He suffered both emotionally as well as financially.
However, a "God sent" uncle stepped in just in time, to
provide him and his family with that emotional, as well as financial
support. It's another version of another great relationship; the one
between Henrietta and Lauro Cavazos and it gives more evidence to the
fact, that God's blessings can flow through a wide range of human
personalities and relationships. This same uncle
opened a door of opportunity for Haig to attend Notre Dame and later
West Point. Interestingly enough, charity can work through believers and
unbelievers alike, but most of the time many of the giving acts of unbelievers
are diverted, by Satan, into harmful enablement, which then becomes a
curse, instead of a blessing. Charity, which enables evil is not
charity. In Haig's case, the fruit produced later in his life, proves
that this was not the case with he and his uncle. These acts of charity by
his uncle were
indeed well invested.
Unlike combat veteran, Cavazos, who was in the process of transforming us, into
a superior fighting unit, almost from scratch, Haig had stepped into a situation, where the
previous commander, Lt. Col. Paul Gorman, had already started that
good work. At the highest level, this "stepping stone" was not about
Haig improving the plight of others or furthering his own career,
although those things did happen. No sir! On the highest level for Haig,
the upcoming battle of Ap Gu was the catalyst, which lent itself to the
transformation of his person. During this very brief window in time,
Haig was about to earn a membership into the most elite group
of human beings this natural world has ever known, outside "The
Sons of God" of course. I am speaking of a sprinkling of elites, whose
elite status is not measured by stars on shoulders or strips on arms,
but by the fact that they have offered their life's blood in defense of
a most precious and righteous cause.
Plainly put, they are those who offer up all
that they are, and all that they will ever be, on earth, for the right of
other humans, to freely choose, for themselves, the course of their
individual
lives. Never mind whether their motives are pure or not. Never mind,
that they are not fully competent. No one is. Never mind, whether they
win or lose. It is their offering of shed blood against the forces of
evil, which qualifies them. Now, Alexander Haig was about to join this
elite club.
After making a final round of the perimeter defenses and inspecting each
"DePuy" bunker to make sure it was constructed and positioned correctly
with proper firing lanes, Haig called for one more jungle board room
meeting. He had noticed that one spot on the north side of the perimeter
was particularly worrisome, because the thick jungle came awfully close
to a couple positions there. This was a weak point in his defenses, but
Haig also understood, that there were always going to be weak points. He
wasn't going to have "tired men" shift an entire section of the
perimeter defenses, which would require digging new bunkers, but he
would make sure that the FO (forward observer) had this area adequately dialed in, by
supporting artillery bases like ours.
As for me and the men at "Thrust", we had long since resupplied
ourselves with ammo and rations. We also had cleaned our weapons and
checked our "claymores" to the front of our positions. Finally, it was
time to sort through our own thoughts and try to put the traumatic
events of the day into perspective. The big guns behind me kept firing
away. Much of this firing later in the afternoon was registration rounds
dialing in targets for future fire missions at " LZ George". The
artillery officer with us was having his crew register coordinates, for
quick firing reference, and writing those coordinates down in his little
notebook. For sure, he would have noted the coordinates of the weak spot
pointed out by Haig. Coordinates written on this small note pad, would
ensure, that his guns could respond quickly when he woke up, all sleepy
eyed, in the middle of the night. Firing these registration rounds as
well as H & I rounds also meant that we had to listen to a lot of noisy
guns blasting away for most of the evening. H & I meant Harassment and
Interdiction. It was the act of firing random shells on targets in the
middle of nowhere, just to be firing. The stupidity of this tactic still
amazes me to this very day. "Fire Base C" to our east
(2nd Brigade Headquarters) also provided artillery support for both
"George" and our position at "Thrust". We also had the 173rd Airborne,
to our south, which was in range, providing artillery fires for us and I
believe Fire Base Charlie also, although I don't believe their guns
were in range of "LZ George".
The next day, March 31st, the 1/2nd Infantry Battalion was
"helicoptered” from fire support base Charlie into the grassy clearing
at "George" and immediately marched south, crossing to the south side of
Rt. 246 about two "klicks" (Kilometer) due south of their "drop zone" at
"George". They then established an NDP which was six "klicks" west by
northwest of our position at "Thrust". The 1/2nd was led by " Lt. Col.
William Simpson. This same morning draftee Jack Toomey was flown in from
Phuoc Vinh with the mail and resupplies on a Chinook helicopter, to join
his 1/2nd battalion for his first day in the field. Toomey didn't have a
clue what to expect. There was triple canopy jungle surrounding his unit on
all sides, and not a single Vietnamese civilian to be seen anywhere. For
Toomey, it felt as though he had just arrived at the edge of the world. Only
the occasional landing of a Chinook, bringing more supplies, said otherwise.
This same morning Haig's recon platoon started out from base camp,
making a probe in a northwestern direction. Their patrol moved through
thick triple canopy jungle mixed with grassy clearings. The day before,
shortly after landing, security patrols had discovered lots of freshly
dug enemy positions in and around the grassy LZ along with some older
ones. There was also freshly traveled trails within the wood line of the
triple canopy jungle. The soldiers on this morning's patrol, who had
been accepted into this battalion recon platoon, were not your average
grunts. They had proven themselves to be highly proficient at their jobs
while in a "line company" like mine. They were volunteers.
Twenty-one-year-old Pete Petersen from Garden Gove, California was
walking point, for the patrol. Like me, he was a draftee who had started
his tour of duty a month before I had started mine. There is good
indication in my research that Pete was probably walking point for his
entire battalion, as I was for mine, during those dark nights, which I have
described in an earlier chapter. The recon platoon leader was the no
non-sense and very competent Lt. Richard Hill. Richard and Pete
were the best of the best, and today they were not just near the tip of the
spear, but at the very point, itself.
While Petersen was leading his patrol and Jack Toomey was getting settled into his new life
in hell, it was
road clearing business as usual for me. We started operations that
morning and it was my squad's turn to take a patrol down one side of
Highway 246 just inside the wood line five meters or so off the road.
There was another squad on the other side of the road doing the same
thing. Mine sweepers walked down the middle of the road, staying abreast of us,
sweeping with metal detectors for mines. My squad was noisier than usual
this morning and it was getting on my nerves. I became more and more aggravated at everyone and especially at
Sergeant Bartee. I felt he should have said something to quiet the squad down,
when, in fact, I was the one who should have said something to him
first. However, I wasn't a team player. I
was used to solving problems, myself, or "better yet" just avoiding them
altogether. Today was no different. My squad members were making too much noise, and they were going
to get me killed. So, I simply sped up,
and disappeared from Bartee's sight, putting about twenty five yards
between me and the noise makers. Problem was, I
didn't bother to let Bartee know what I was doing. Very soon
Bartee and the rest caught up with me, making more noise than ever. He then whispered
quietly for me to slow down. I turned and quickly answered back; a
little
abruptly "I might add". I explained to him why I was staying a little further in front of
the rest of the squad, although I felt that I should not have had to
explain. I suppose I had lived in "Wayne's World" so long that I just
assumed Bartee should be able to read my mind.
Soon, however, Bartee did "snap" to the situation, and silently waved two
fingers toward me, indicating that he was giving me his blessing to stay
further ahead than normal. I turned my skinny body around and
quickly, but silently, snaked my way through the thick undergrowth,
while hardly disturbing a single vine. Now I could focus on what another point
man, Tom Mercer, later called, "being in the zone". Unlike,
Tom, however, the problem I had was not knowing when to come out of "the
zone". Perhaps that was a major reason why I was still a PFC. The road
to our left was our guide but was also much more dangerous to follow
than navigating through thick unmarked jungle. The enemy knew that our
patrols would be travelling parallel to that road every morning. That made it easy
for a sapper to pick a good "hit and run" ambush site. To counter this, since we
didn't have to worry about getting off course, both Bartee and I finally
synchronized our thinking, as I just explained. With me sneaking along
way out in front, an ambusher would hopefully focus on my noisy squad,
coming along behind and not notice me quietly slipping up on him.
Hopefully this technique would allow me to ambush the ambusher. We would
soon find out whether that was true or not. At one point during this patrol, we had to halt, while a wounded mine sweeper was evacuated, by a "dust-off". He was shot by a sapper from around a hundred yards down the road. The sapper probably used a Russian carbine, because I heard only one shot. As we started moving forward again, I plainly understood that I could be the next target. I already had those reports of my fellow grunts seeing sappers camouflaged to resemble bushes. I was also well aware of sappers' abilities to shoot one of us and run away, never to be found. With these thoughts weighing heavy on my mind, I predetermined that I was going to shoot first and question the bushes later. I kept repeating to myself, "Pull the trigger as soon you see the slightest movement of a leaf in front of you. Still, I had no idea that all those childhood years, hunting squirrels, were about to pay off "big time". As a boy, my dad had taught me how to train my eyes, to spot the slightest movement of a squirrel's head peeping around a limb, while other dads were teaching their son's how to be team players in the more civilized sport of baseball.
Now, suddenly, there was a
flicker of motion, to my front, and a little to the right, away from the
road. The motion was coming from something small, running across a patch
of clear ground, making a scurrying sound. It was a mongoose hunting for
snakes and a false alarm. My tension eased. While still listening to the mongoose rustling in
the leaves, I began to sense something else. It was something beyond my
five senses. It was that same familiar small voice
coming from inside my own head and it kept repeating, "Beware. Be ready. Don't let your guard
down". In response, I tensed and became acutely aware of my left
index finger on the trigger of my M-14, (I'm left handed"). At the
same time, I lowered
the barrel to scoot under a vine and come up on the other side. It was a
quiet maneuver, but the leaves on the vine, which I lifted upward with
the barrel of my rifle, shook slightly. At the same time, other leaves,
on vines to my front, shook slightly also. That movement was out of
place and had nothing
to do with the motions I was making. In response, my trigger finger moved
forward, unlocking my weapon's safety, and then backward on the trigger.
Firing from the hip, my M-14 "barked out" a perfect three round burst,
intentionally shot low, and under the spot where I had detected the
movement. It wasn't long before Bartee appeared from behind, asking in a
rattled tone of voice, what I was shooting at. I could only say that I
had shot at movement to my front. I could tell by the look on his face,
that he was thinking I had over reacted. There was no indication
whatsoever that I had shot at anything other than a few leaves. However,
it wasn't his life hanging in the balance, if there had been a real
threat. I didn't feel bad, at all, about what I had just done. We started
moving forward again and I could see droplets of blood on the leaves
around me. I said nothing to Bartee about the blood. However, it wasn't
long, until he spotted the blood for himself. "Wade, I see some blood. Be
careful", he whispered softly. His whispered words had a totally
different tone. This time it was an affirming "tone of voice",
instead of a condemning one.
I made no reply and kept walking. My irritation was starting to
return. It was time to start thinking about another line of work. "When
was that truck driving job going to come through?", I thought to myself.
It had been promised to me, by my
friend, the motor pool sergeant, for what seemed like several life times
ago.
After clearing the rest of our assigned section of Rt. 246 just east of
"George", Milliron and I sat on a little spot of jungle, just
off the road and inside the
wood line. We sat there the rest of the day, while convoys rolled up and down the
highway. There was absolutely no civilian presence whatsoever. I
remember Milliron lying on his back lazily dozing in the morning sun,
while I watched a mongoose scurrying around the jungle floor, making
those familiar rustling sounds in the leaves. These cute little fellows
made very distinctive sounds, which had become very recognizable to us.
Bill woke up and "got on a roll", describing to me the beautiful rose
gardens in his hometown of Santa Barbara. I listened to him with one
ear, but ever the point man, I was also listening to the sounds of the
jungle with the other ear. Mid-morning, I detected something which
didn't sound right. It was a crunching of leaves followed by a long
pause. The pauses was too long to be made by a mongoose. Those little
creatures were too
hyper to wait that long. It became deathly quiet, except for
the low mumbling of Bill's voice, as he continued to talk about Santa
Barbara, as if he was some kind of travel guide. I interrupted him by
pointing to the jungle in front of us. "Listen", I whispered. "Do you
hear that?" After hearing two or three crunching sounds for himself, he
looked at me as if to ask, "What do we do now?" Without answering, I
grabbed one of my hand grenades. I then whispered in a low voice, "I
think It’s time to run a little "recon mission". Bill grinned knowingly
and reached for his own hand grenade. We pulled the pins. He threw his
to the front but slightly left, and I threw mine slightly to the right.
We were careful not to
bounce our grenades off several big trees to our front. The exploding
grenades served two purposes. They stopped the crunching sounds, for the
rest of the day, and they also told every other road guard within
ear-shot to wake up and
pay attention. Later, in early afternoon, we heard
the faint sound of machine guns firing, followed by distant explosions,
to the northwest of our position.
The sounds were coming from the direction of Pete Petersen and the
battalion recon patrol. At 1300 hrs., they had run into one of many temporary base
camps for the 70th Guard and were now in a fire fight with hundreds of
enemy soldiers. They were 800 meters north-northwest of their own base
camp at "George" when it happened. Sapper teams had been aware of the
patrols straight line movements, from the moment the patrol left its own
perimeter at 800 hrs. that morning. The 271st NVA unit was also nearby,
preparing for a later attack against Haig's NDP.
Fact is, there were just too many people in this thirty-man patrol to
slip through the jungle unnoticed. A single
squad could have performed the same task and made a lot less noise. A platoon made at least three
times as much noise, moved much slower, and provided three times the
number of
targets, as a squad. In the years to come, we
Americans would improve reconnaissance tactics and navigation equipment
greatly, but by then, it would be too late for men like Pete. Making
these longer reconnaissance probes into enemy territory was the primary
job of this recon platoon. They were assigned to the battalion
headquarters company and were different from the long-range
reconnaissance companies (LRRP) authorized by Westmoreland on the
brigade or division level. In a perfect world, their main objective was
to collect intel, and avoid fire fights. However, on this day Pete's
"little band of brothers" would break that rule in just about every way
it could be broken. Years later, "Seal Teams" did this kind of
reconnaissance work and did it better with eight men, than the battalion
recon patrols could do with thirty men. During the Vietnam War, however,
it was "seat of the pants" stuff, which Pete had no choice
but to go along with. Later, Haig would very briefly, but poignantly
summarize what I just said, by putting it this way. He said, "In Vietnam,
strategic factors hardly applied. Tactics was all, and the name of the
game was not chess, but a demented and bloody form of hide-and-seek".
No final ordeal in the final moments of any American soldier's life,
provides more evidence for the validation of Haig's words, than those in the
final moments of Pete Petersen's life.
Before the shooting started, Pete approached a large heavily used trail.
He followed it a few feet to examine something, which caught his eye. It
was a paper sign, like the ones, which the platoon had encountered
earlier in low hanging branches of trees. Like the others, it said, "GO
BACK OR DIE, AMERICANS!" only this sign had been intentionally placed in
a firing lane of an enemy bunker, completely concealed and about twenty
meters away. That bunker was tied-in with interlocking firing ports to other
bunkers and connecting trenches, filled with hundreds of unseen enemy
soldiers. Pete didn't stand a chance. The enemy machine gunner covering
the firing lane, where the sign dangled, waited long enough to see if
more people would congregate around the sign. However, the veteran members of
this patrol were too savvy to fall for that trick. The gunner eventually
got tired of waiting, and "open fired" on Pete. Pete went
down almost immediately. Dead branches were everywhere, left over from
the construction of the overhead cover for the bunkers. As the firing
intensified, tracer rounds set these dead branches on fire, causing a
brief, but intense wildfire to erupt. The fire did temporarily disrupt
the intended maneuvering of the enemy, but it also made it impossible for anyone to
rescue the badly wounded Pete Petersen. He was unable to escape the path
of the fire and was engulfed in flames.
The platoon leader, First Lt. Richard Hill was a veteran who had been in
his share of fire fights. He immediately recognized, from the amount and
type of incoming fire, that he was facing an over whelming enemy force.
He radioed that fact to Haig, as he ordered the withdrawal of most of
his men to a safer distance from the bunkers. However, Richard, himself,
hesitated just a moment too long, probably trying to figure out a way to
help Pete. That hesitation was a death decision for the lieutenant. A
random bullet found its mark. Unnamed NCOs, however, as well as Hill's
veteran RTO stepped into the command gap. The NCOs continued organizing
the short withdrawal and the establishing of a semi-circle firing
perimeter, while the RTO gave Haig some very accurate coordinates for an
initial artillery strike. Haig did the rest with flawless precision. He
made sure the artillery did its job first, followed by low flying
antipersonnel bombing next. The heavy bombing came behind that, which
broke apart staging areas. Without accurate adjustments called in to
Haig by the RTO, however, none of this would have been possible. From
their prone positions, the recon patrol now offered very small targets
to the enemy, while at the same time its new position forced the enemy
to leave the protection of their bunkers to get at them, before American
artillery and air power could make "mincemeat" of them and
their bunkers. The little band of about 28 recon platoon men,
outnumbered by at least ten to one, performed in a
way which should have earned each of them at least a bronze star for
valor. Why? Because they held that line with such effectiveness, using
controlled return fire, for the next four hours, without losing a single
man. Many of them were using the M-14, which contributed greatly to
their ability to "pull off" this incredible feat. It was hardened and committed communist party
soldiers, of
the 70th Guard, and not conscripts, who charged the men of this recon
patrol. however, they didn't stand a chance. They either ran into recon
platoon's bullets to their front or they were mowed down by the shrapnel from
our big guns at "Thrust" and Fire Base Charlie. In night dreams, years later, some of this little band of soldiers would still hear Pete's agonizing screams, while the very courageous and twice wounded Vietnam veteran, Oliver Stone, would later be deceived into making a movie, which would tarnish the names of men like Pete Petersen and Richard Hill. He depicted them as murderers of innocent women and children, as well as each other. Fact is, the murderous events, depicted in the movie "Platoon" never happened in the unit Oliver served with. Why would such a brave and very intelligent man like Oliver Stone defile the national memory of his brothers? If America had possessed the heart to stay the course, that decision would have brought freedom to a beautiful people, instead of enslavement and death to millions, which only occurred after we gave up the fight.
Upon hearing that the recon patrol was under
attack, by a large enemy force, without checking with Haig, B company's
commander ordered his men, who were just returning from security patrols
at "George" to head toward the shooting. It’s amazing how these young
company commanders would mindlessly respond to a situation without
thinking. I saw this happen over and over, while I was in the field.
When they impulsively did this, they usually got themselves and their
men shot to pieces. To make matters worse, Haig took to the air to try
and coordinate air and artillery support, from his two-man bubble
helicopter, only to be shot down shortly after arriving over the
fighting. Fortunately, he and his pilot made it out okay, only to become
exposed to a wall of gun fire, as he ran to catch up with B company.
Except for the recon patrol RTO, nobody had a clue about their own
"where-abouts" on a map. Everyone in the relief elements had simply started
running toward the sound of gun fire without giving a single thought to
keeping track of their own location. In Vietnam it was extremely import
to know ones location coordinates on a map, at all times. That
information was extremely important, so we could quickly direct
artillery and airstrikes. Because we had no GPS, we had to keep track of
our location by using a compass and counting paces. Haig's chopper crash
had caused him to lose track of his location. B Company's commander not
only lost track of his position but also threw all thoughts on tactical
maneuvering out the window, if he ever knew any in the first place. However, the nameless
recon patrol RTO saved the day for both Haig and B company. He had kept
track of his Platoon's location and was able to communicate with Haig
and give him the correct coordinates to direct fires, not only onto the
enemy, but also to enable Haig to keep friendly fires from falling on
his own men. Haig was a very cool tactician, and though inexperienced,
he had been blessed with the ability to think quick, while under extreme
pressure. He did an
exceptional job of "calling down the world", on enemy
positions, as guided by the recon RTO. If not for that RTO, however, he would not
have been nearly as quick on the draw with those fires. After his
chopper crashed, he too had run toward the battle "halfcocked", losing
all sense of direction and recklessly exposing himself to enormous
volumes of enemy gun fire. I hate to think what would have happened to
his men in the major battle they were yet to fight had Haig gotten
himself killed on this day. Haig later admitted
that it was a real miracle that he wasn't killed in that hail of bullets. In my opinion it was the unnamed recon platoon
RTO who saved "Haig's bacon" on this day.
Amid devastatingly effective artillery and air power this devoted but
demented battalion of the COSVN's infamous 70th regiment still managed
to keep the attack going all afternoon. They followed their
usual tactic of trying to flank both sides of the recon patrol, where
they soon ran into the charging B company reinforcements. This created
heavy casualties for both friend and foe alike. I say again that the recon
people were the lynch-pin defense on the American lines this day. They
gave everyone else a stable rallying point. Enemy soldiers, who were
caught between the recon patrol and the artillery fires were
annihilated. However, B company did not fare well, because they were
standing up like papier-mâché targets, as they rushed toward the
fighting. This was just plain crazy. Five B company people were
killed outright, and most of the thirty-eight
wounded were also among their ranks. The First Infantry Division rarely
fielded more than a hundred men in a company. With that information, its
not hard to suppose that B company lost at least twenty five percent of
its fighting strength, in a matter of moments. A
company was also called on to join the fight. However, they did not have
a single man killed. This is good evidence that A company arrived at the fight, after
the remainder of B company people had established effective counter
fire positions. A Company was also the beneficiary of effective
supporting artillery fires. Those fires where already having a devastating effect
on the enemy by the time A Company arrived. Still, it was a long hard fire fight, lasting most of the
afternoon.
So, there you have it. This is my personal "after action" analysis done
fifty some years too late. If this analysis had been done at the time,
by an "ole" NCO warhorse instead of a newly minted clerk, with
interviews of witnesses, and had that analysis been presented, as a case
study for improving tactics, maybe more lives could have later been
saved. However, that's a lot of "maybes" and all "water
under the bridge" now. The noise made by bombing and gun fire, coming from Haig's troubles three miles away was of very little concern for Milliron and me. He and I finished road guard duty that day and returned to our NDP in late afternoon. Back in camp, with no OP or ambush patrol duties for the night, we had nothing better to do than hang out beside our holes and wait for the night to close in around us. It would be over fifty years before I would realize what the "Blue Spaders" had been through on this day. "Heck fire", I didn't know that a unit called the "Blue Spaders" even existed. We were a battalion of three hundred guarding a fire support base of mechanized artillery and that was my world. Little else going on in the distance around me mattered. Yet, there were more than three thousand enemy troops nearby and less than 400 of us. We grunts, however, never dreamed that was possible. At this point, we thought that we were fighting a bunch of unorganized gorilla forces and all the NVA troops were further up north, looking to kill marines. We certainly didn't realize that there were large enemy units which were continually being reinforced daily with more conscripts, AK-47 assault weapons, more RPGs and 122mm rockets, as well as antiaircraft machine guns. Oh yes, I knew that there was a very good chance I could be killed, but at this juncture in time I never thought for one minute that my entire battalion could be wiped out.
This same day, Greg Murry, with A company of the 1/16th, was in Lai Kai
for what he thought would be a few days’ rest. It was late afternoon
when his unit got the call for help, from Haig. Haig determined
correctly that he was going to need more reinforcements. He already
strongly suspected that
this attack on his recon platoon was just a precursor to something
bigger. Like us, the 1/2nd was close by, but couldn't help because they
too were tasked with
protecting the road used to bring in supplies. Each day, the guys in my
unit and the 1/2nd would be scattered
up and down Route 246 guarding conveys bringing in these resupplies.
Like I said, at the time, however, no one told us "mushrooms" anything. When the two companies of Lazzell's 1/16th
were flown in from Lai Khe, they
landed just to the west of Haig's "Blue Spaders". The landing
was unopposed,
though they could see and hear the fireworks, coming from Haig's
beleaguered men fighting in the woods to the north. Not long after landing,
however, Greg's unit was mortared repeatedly. Actually, I believe that
mortar attack was fortuitous for Haig and maybe us too. You see, some of those
enemy mortar teams were located and done away
with, by air strikes, leaving the enemy a little short on mortar crews, when they launched their main attack
on Haig the next morning. Maybe that's why we never got mortared during the main attack.
As the sun was setting, the noises of the daylight combat events tapered
off. The NVA had pulled back by then. Except for those grunts on ambush or listening post (LP) duties,
we "Dogface" boys in the 1/18th were in our holes, for the night. The
1/2nd were in their holes for the night, and Greg Murry with the 1/16th
was still digging his hole. Jack Toomey, however, had just learned that
he would not be in his hole on his first night in the field.
He and two other new guys were told to man a listening post (LP) fifty
yards in front of their battalion's perimeter. Though Jack has now
forgotten many of his youthful forays with the 1/2nd, he remembers this
first night in the field as if it happened yesterday. He remembers exactly
who he was with, where he was, and what he
was doing the entire night. Why? Well, for one, he remembers
because it would be the first time, he
would have another human being trying “real hard” to kill him. That,
in itself,
made it a "night to remember".
A couple hours after darkness fell, Jack and the two new guys with him
heard rustling noises in the jungle to their front. As they sat in the
darkness, they also began to hear Vietnamese voices. Immediately, they
broke radio silence and relayed this information to their platoon RTO.
It wasn't long before the company commander was monitoring their
transmissions. Jack's companions soon became frightened enough to ask if
they could return to the safety of the perimeter, but their request was
denied. Jack now became scared. He realized that nothing here reminded
him of "Kansas" any longer. The two guys he thought were
soldiers where really the "Scare Crow" and the "Cowardly Lion". It was a
little overwhelming, so he did what most of us did on our first day
in the field. He "just went with the flow", while asking
himself this one question over and over. How had he gotten himself into a "fix" like this
in the first place? This combat thing was quickly becoming, by far, the
"biggest deal" of his young life. Fifty-some years later, the
then
retired judge Jack Toomey would say in a public interview, that
situations he faced in combat were the most life-changing events that he
would ever experience. Having said that, let me also say, that the
twice decorated machine gunner, Jack Toomey, obviously faced some big
challenges after returning from Vietnam to become a judge in his own
hometown. Jack was from Long Island, New York. However, he just as well could have been from "nowhere" for all the good that past life was providing him to deal with his first night in the field. As Jack struggled with an earthquake of new emotions, the Vietnamese voices got louder. Then the “begging to come home" pleas started,, coming from Jack's two companions. Their pleas soon became more like the whining tone of a child. While these guys whined over the radio, Jack had an epiphany. he realized for the first time that he was not going to be able to fully trust anyone, but himself. He also realized for the first time that he was going to have to look at life a lot differently if he ever wanted to have any chance whatsoever of going home alive. It quickly became painfully obvious to Jack that no one had bothered to show these new guys how to conduct themselves on LP. Jack also realized that he knew next to nothing about it either, so that made three. Like most new guys, Jack and friends were scared but they also loathed killing another human being. Put those two facts together and it becomes easy to understand why it was hard for them to visualize how quickly a few well-placed grenades will make people stop talking and run away. They also had Claymore mines which they could have used. With the enemy being that close there would have been no second guessing from their superiors for taking such actions. Instead, Jack's buddies allowed these seasoned sappers, to hear their anxious voices on the radio, resonating fearful tones, which could be recognized in any language. The very breaking of squelch, itself, was enough to give their location away. It was a game of sorts, and a game where "Jack and friends" had just become the prey. Bullets started popping over their heads, slamming through the vegetation all around them. When that happened, Jack's company commander immediately gave his permission for the LP to pop claymores and return to the perimeter. Why didn't these men do that in the first place? We didn't need permission to do that when there was a known enemy presence. The savvy sappers then quickly withdrew a safe distance, only to reappear again, during the night, to harass other spots along the battalion's perimeter. Jack was now as wide awake as he had ever been in his entire life and would remain that way all night long. His adrenalin was flowing, but the crash would catch up with him later. However, for now, he was experiencing the same rush that every new guy felt, after being shot at, for the very first time.
Six
klicks away from where the main attack would take place,
I was starting to enjoying a few hours, of quiet, as the big tracked 155
mm guns behind my position went silent for a while.
After the day's events, Haig's men took full advantage of the respite,
Haig included. The most underrated but certainly a vitally important
ingredient in successfully commanding a combat unit in Vietnam, or anywhere, for
that matter, was, and is the ability of a commander to recognize, when
and how, to take advantage, of a thing called sleep. I am talking about
doing nothing, but
turning the mind off, and "slumbering away". Haig had mastered this
skill in Korea, but there was a catalyst which allowed this
restful sleep to occur in the first place. That catalyst had a name, and her name was Patricia
Fox Haig, Alexander's wife. His wife, "Pat", had kept the home fires
burning brightly since the beginning of his military career, and would
continue to do so, year after year, assignment after assignment,
including those very dark and trying Whitehouse assignments to come. Americans
like "Pat" were and are truly the unsung heroes of this age. However, with the assault on the family unit, which is
the elemental building block of all free societies, their numbers are
dwindling.
Sometime after three am in the morning, the person manning the radios at
Haig's command bunker started receiving calls, from all three company
commanders. The reports said over and over that many of their listening
posts were hearing noises. (Haig had intentionally not posted ambush
patrols on this night, which showed an incredible amount of forethought)
It was probably his faithful operations officer, George Joulwan, who
woke him up. Joulwan would have known when to do that, but just as
importantly, he would have also known when to let him sleep. As Haig sat up, rubbing his face
with both hands, he was given the news. He immediately gave orders for
each company mortar platoon to go to work, dropping rounds on positions,
where the noises were being heard. This was something that Jack's
commander should have done, when Jack's listening post began hearing
voices. Dick would have given that order before those enemy voices had a
second chance to say, "Ho Chi Minh". The previous day's attack on Haig's recon
platoon had already alerted Haig's keen mind, to the fact, that an
all-out attack on his perimeter lines was imminent. That's exactly why
he posted no ambush patrols on this night. Haig was one of those rare
guys, who had a knack for figuring things out, no matter what mess he
was thrown into. He reasoned correctly, since the "Blue Spaders" were
very close to Cambodia, that enemy supplies and conscripts could
be moved quickly, from protected staging areas just across the
international border. The border was only three or four kilometers
away. Whether he won this next upcoming battle on April 1, 1967 or not, it was going to be "a beautiful day in the neighborhood" for the evil minded General Thanh. His field commanders had busied themselves all night sneaking into locations around Haig and Lazzell's battalions. Other sapper teams surrounded Jack's 1/2nd battalion, which was located 2 klicks away, as well as our own. These more hardened sappers monitored and harassed the 1/2nd battalion and ours mainly to make sure that we stayed put. Large numbers of conscription forces, on both sides would be used in the battle of Ap Gu, as well as all the big battles fought during 1967. The huge advantage which Thanh's side had over Haig's, however, was the lack of concern he was required to have for basic human rights. Thanh had no moral restrictions personally or otherwise, on how he could use human flesh to fuel his war machine. To him and his cohorts that was a beautiful thing as well as a very difficult factor for our own generals to correctly contemplate. Throughout the war years the communists maintained large numbers of conscription forces in the South with death being the only end date to their plight. Victory for the communist would allow less than twenty people to share absolute control over the Vietnamese people. They would rule as they pleased with no restrictions. Their only worry in life would be each other. Each of those twenty would forever have to keep a close eye on the other nineteen, if they did not want to fall prey to the "ole knife in the back" trick. Personally, I would rather have a constitution like ours to be beholding to, rather than live like that. NVA conscripts were composed of youngsters, who were fed one lie after another starting long before their nightmarish trip south began. No controlling actions, including summary executions, were off-limits to get them to become more compliant. Most of the time, however, the very clever propaganda talking points distributed regularly throughout all the units, by communist disinformation specialists, worked wonderfully to keep these "deplorables" in line. To further that effort they were divided into cells of three. Each of those cell members was forced to regularly critique themselves and the other two, viewed under the watchful eye of a more well groomed NCO. Truth is, less than 3 in one hundred of their parents belonged to the communist party and this lack of motivation to become a card-carrying member did nothing but add to the distain, which Thanh felt for his own people. Deep down he thought less of them than he did Westmoreland and Haig's "Blue Spaders". The communist action plan had always been to rid themselves of two problems, the one from within and the one from without. Over and over, in the war, communist leaders like Thanh, who wielded complete control of the citizenry in the North, would intentionally sacrifice the lives of these conscripts just as quickly, as he would kill a fellow like me, and maybe quicker, because I had some pretty devastating ways of fighting back. Here is the evidence for saying what I just said. The proof is in the pudding. History tells us that every single communist ideologue who has ever come to power has become involved in the wholesale murder and incarceration of his own people. I challenge the reader to name one who hasn't. I further believe that Thanh viewed the lives of these young conscripts as having no greater value than to be sacrificed on the alter of a cause which would give unlimited power to him and a few of his associates". If one has ever studied Stalinism, he or she would know that it is reasonable for me to say what I am saying here. The Vietnamese communist mindset, largely schooled under Stalinism, considered the sacrificing of these young rice farmers as nothing more than "just atonement" for the nearly unpardonable sin of being politically neutral. Even today, only 3% of the Vietnamese population belong to the communist party and here is a "dirty little secret" about all those who embrace a communist mindset. All communists are haters first and communists second. That hate drives them to continually look for ways to turn perceived sins of omission into apostasies. Thus, these politically powerless rice farmers were viewed by elitists like Thanh to be the "deplorables" of their day. Like all communists, Thanh was a hate filled creature who directed that hate first against his own people, whom he viewed as spineless. Why did he do that? Was it because they had no wish what-so-ever to substitute their innocuous pursuits of growing rice, peacefully raising their children and honoring their ancestors, for a twisted life like Thanh's. I believe it was. Their natural "bent" was not to follow the amoral inhuman initiatives of the communist party. They instinctively saw communists for what they were. Yet, fear of death dealing retribution from these ruling elites kept them in check and hateful psychopaths like Thanh learned quickly how to finesse this powerful control mechanism called "fear" for their own personal gain. He took many of his classes in the use of that fear, from the murderer, Stalin. Then and now, the more this power is wielded, the more it makes an elitist "hater" become ever more drunk with hatred. That hatred will then always be directed at every fellow human being, who does not think exactly, as he or she thinks on any given day. It wasn't a huge mental leap, for the "Haters of Hanoi", to figure out a quicker way to improve and expand their utopian state. They would take the children of these "deplorables" away from their families, at no cost to themselves, and place them onto a bureaucratically powered conveyor belt called the Ho Chi Minh Trail". As these hapless youths were herded into South Vietnam, they would then be dashed against an antiqued but powerful American military, whose leaders were still stuck in a World War II mindset. When they reached their jungle holding pens in the south, before being led to the slaughter, they would be drilled night and day. One of the many drills to be taught was how to instantly respond to the different blasts of a bugle or whistle. One of those blasts would signal the "death charge". In this way, Thanh's "big battle" strategy accomplished it's two objectives. Number one, it deceived the strategically and tactically challenged Westmoreland into an illusion of victory, through body counts. Secondly, it got rid of a whole bunch of rice farmers who would be forced at gun point to die in support of Thanh's more ideologically committed cohorts. This action plan also allowed the communist to keep killing more young Americans, which worked to throw more wood on the fires of a growing anti-war sentiment in America. At the same time, these poor counterfeit communist youths, dressed in brown and green uniforms and videoed double timing in formations down ox cart trails gave our World War II vintage generals the illusion that they were up against a monolithic wall of true believers. This was just the kind of monolithic wall that they were comfortable dealing with because they had done it before. They had done it with Hitler and Mussolini and Tojo. Thanh's cleverness in choosing this "big battle" strategy, whether fully conceptualized or not, wound up being just the right ticket, to annihilate both his enemies from within and from without, leaving him and his communist mafia friends unscathed and in complete control of a beautiful people's every breath, to this very day. The Montagnards were completely annihilated after the communist took over.
As Murry finished up his last guard of the night, and was falling fast
asleep, a single registration round fell a short distance from Haig's
bunker. Haig, already awake, heard it, and guessed correctly, that a
full barrage would soon follow. He had his entire battalion on full
alert and called Murry's commander, Lt. Col. Lazzell, advising him to do
the same, with his "Rangers" (the 1/16th nick name). Haig didn't have
long to wait for the main attack to begin. In a matter of about twenty
minutes over 300 rounds of 60 mm, 82 mm and 120 mm mortar rounds fell on
Haig's position and probably an equal number on Murry's "Rangers". 75 mm
Pack Howitzers and mortars were used to shell Fire Base Charlie. We had
just come from there a few days
earlier. The 75mm pack Howitzers were obtained from the Chinese, who
obtained them from the United States, during the second World War. The
shelling of Fire Base Charlie hampered, somewhat, that fire base's
efforts, to provide fire support for Haig. It was located about 12 klicks to the east of "George"
and was also
2nd brigade headquarters. The brigade commander, Col. James Grimsley was
wounded by shrapnel and had to be evacuated. He would later go on to
become a major general. The resulting enemy mortar attack on the 1/26th,
the 1/16th and fire base Charlie was one the most ferocious, of
the entire Junction City operation.
Just before things got hot for Haig and Murry, I sat in the darkness,
pulling the last hour of my guard time, and anticipating some of the
dehydrated vegetable beef soup, which "Tiny" had started preparing for
us, to be flown out to supplement our morning coffee. There would also
be freshly made donuts, which were better than any I had ever tasted in
the States. This was in addition to the hot meal which Tiny made for us
later in the day, day after day, while we were in the field, under
Dick's command. We didn't get anything nearly this appetizing, while
good "ole C-ration Denton" was running things.
Suddenly, the gun crews behind my position came to life. Within two or
three minutes, after I witnessed their crews scurrying around behind me,
those big 155s began blazing away, waking up everyone, who was still
trying to sleep. We had a star light scope in my position with fresh
batteries, so Bowman and I started using it to search the wood line to
our front about 75 meters away. In just a few minutes flares under
little white parachutes started popping open over our heads. I believe
they were coming from the guns of the 173rd Airborne unit to the south
of us. We put the star light scope back in its case and started watching
the skyline toward the northwest where we were able to hear large
explosions. Bill had wandered off again, to be with Bartee and his RTO
so they could monitor the radio. Bowman and I held down the
"fort", sitting quietly, saying nothing to each other. Bill was a
Californian and Californians always seemed to be more sociable, than
mountain boys, like bowman and I. Bowman was so quiet, that, at times, a
stranger could have easily mistaken him for a "mute".
Jack's unit was spared a mortar attack. We were too. It was another
story for Murry and Haig, however. Hearing mortars leaving their tubes,
snapped the veteran Murry out of his dreamland state barely in time to
dive into his bunker, before a mortar round turned him into small body
parts. He was now wide awake and looking for his rifle, while his
foxhole buddy was screaming for him to get off his back, literally.
Still looking for his rifle, Murry scrambled off his "buddy" and crawled
out of his hole into another hole made by a mortar round, the one, which
would have blown him apart, had he been just a "tad" slower in the "low
crawl". He grabbed his rifle and reentered his bunker to assume his
shooting position. His buddy was already blazing away, as if he was
putting on a show for Walter Cronkite's camera crew. That's when it
happened. It was a nightmare which was repeated over and over for our
fighting men in Vietnam and a needless one I might add. Murry's M-16
jammed, making him one more testament to how sorry the M-16 was. I can't
help but wonder how many Washington palms had to be greased to make sure
the contract for these inferior weapons never got cancelled. However,
that touches on another story about another swamp, nearer to home than the
swamps of Vietnam.
While Murry low crawled from his bunker one
more time, to the next bunker over, trying to find a cleaning rod to
knock the jammed cartridge out of the breach of his rifle, Haig was
faced with a much bigger problem. Every action taken by Haig from this
point on, during and after the battle of Ap Gu would forever be placed
in one of three columns of the world's scorecard, including his time at
the White House. Now, there are only three headings on the world's score card
for
any leader, whether that leader is leading a squad, a platoon, a
company, a battalion, Microsoft, or a nation. Those three columns are
labeled "victorious", "defeated" or "who cares". I don't believe I need
to tell the reader in which column all American leaders in Vietnam were
placed. It wasn't in the column labeled "victorious" or "defeated".
This being said, every young leader should chose to make his or her most logical
decisions under the scrutiny of a loving God and Him only. Let the score card be damned. If that rule is not ardently
followed, the soul of that leader will not be able to bear the consequences
of allowing themselves to be graded by the world. Maybe not today,
nor tomorrow, nor next year, but at some point in time, regardless
which column of the score card has the most checks, the consequence of
just taking the test, itself, will always be the same. Those
consequences will be manifested in the form of a certain kind of
terrible insanity, and it matters not, which column of the score card
the world places that leader's efforts. Instead, let God do the testing
and him alone. It seems to me, after studying Haig's life, that this
truth was not lost on him. It was still Friday evening back in the States. Many Americans were just beginning to unwind from a hard week at work. While LZ George was lit up with bombs, mortars, and tracers, many Americans were intently focused on adjusting the "rabbit ear antennas" on the TV, so they could view more clearly their favorite Friday evening TV show. Others were busy preparing to chase their Friday night passions in all sorts of other ways. At the time this battle was taking place, as well as others similar to it, most Americans were quite unaware of the suffering in Vietnam. There certainly were no Ernie Piles around, as in World War II, to record the everyday life and raw courage of a unit like the 1/26th. Instead, every major news network seemed much more disposed to catch us citizen soldiers, with our pants down, or better yet, an enemy ear or two in our pocket. Communist officers, by this time, had moved their disposable conscripts as close in, as possible, just before the mortar attack was launched. They had picked the best spot on the Northeast side of the perimeter for the main attack to take place, and it was the same spot Haig had been concerned about. A few conscripts, who were deemed more complaint, during their harsh training, were given satchel charges and instructed beforehand, on how to use them to blow up a bunker. It would not have been lost on these very intelligent "young deplorables" just how slim their chances of survival were. However, they had no choice. A quick summary execution, by a bullet to the brain awaited them, if they refused orders. Worse yet, one American, whom I interviewed, said that after the battle, his squad found a dead NVA conscript chained to the limb of a tree. "Dear ole Walter" never reported on this. He had obviously been punished this way as an example to his fellow conscripts. This action said in no uncertain terms just what was in store for anyone who refused to die the way their communist overlords had planned. Can the reader imagine the immense emotional agony, which this young human being, who was created in the image of God, must have experienced, as he waited for what must have seemed like an eternity to die either of exposer, a bullet, or a bomb.
The night before the
main attack,
Haig held the recon platoon's 28 men in reserve, having them spread out between the command
bunker and the B company's east side perimeter, where they could fill in
the ranks of the wounded which had to be evacuated earlier.
Haig never heard the enemy bugles blow at 0520 hrs., signaling for the main human wave attack to begin against his northeastern perimeter. Neither did he see the flashes from the satchel charge explosions, which destroyed two of his C company bunkers, instantly killing the C company men inside. He had been much too focused on making sure that the officers, NCOs, and their RTOs now crowded around him in the command bunker, had their wits about them. That trait in Haig, which allowed him to assess and steady his people, in times of severe stress, like this, was a rare trait indeed, in the "Big Red One". Haig had that ability and so did Cavazos. Fortunately, Haig had the "right stuff", but he had not been in command of the "Blue Spaders" long enough, to have made sure by now that most officers and NCOs, affecting his command, were up for the task. To be honest, Haig was just a little too concerned with trying to make the best with what he had. Dick, like DePuy, didn't have that weakness. The draft provided many good people so why should Dick settle for less.
However, like Dick, Haig excelled at tactics. Here
is just one example. Everyone knew, at the
beginning of a fight, that most of the time, unless otherwise ordered, he always wanted artillery to have preference
over air strikes close in to is men. The big bombs, on the F4s, were to
be used to bust up enemy assembly areas a little further back, but not
as far back as the arbitrary 1000-meter S.O.P. called for. Now, while
the sound of mortar blasts were subsiding outside the command bunker and
that of rifle pops was increasing, Haig began to focus intently on each
of the multiple streams of radio transmissions around him. He was good
at spotting and dealing with the slightest "hiccup". Tactical
errors would be spotted in those transmissions and addressed
immediately, but not as harshly, as the ghost of General Ned Almond, may
have desired. It wasn't long before Lazzell's voice became one of
those transmissions. It wasn't a "hiccup". It was just
good information. Lazzell was verifying what Haig had
already suspected would happen. "We are receiving a lot of incoming small
arms fire on the northeast and east side of our perimeter", Lazzell
reported in the best command voice he could muster. Though he said
nothing to anyone, including Lazzell, Haig knew this was probably a diversionary attack
which meant that his
"Blue Spaders" could expect the full force of General Thanh's wrath,
on their eastern perimeter, and not between the
two American battalions where this incoming fire was originating. Another radio report
was now saying that fire base Charlie was being shelled. A FO (forward
observer) was
already on the horn to one of our artillery officers at "Thrust", asking
him if he could take up the slack, until Fire Base Charlie could get a handle on
things. I say all this to say that the command bunker was a busy place,
with command personnel doing what they should have been doing in a situation
like this. In other words, people were working "the crap" out of those radios. Haig, was
tuning into conversations, as needed, to keep abreast of developments
unfolding,
when suddenly he heard the distinctive voice of his C company commander,
Capt. Brian Cundiff, saying his northeastern side of the perimeter was being overrun.
This was conformation of the main attack, which Haig had been expecting. He grabbed the mic
from the hand of his "Romeo 6" and started to address Capt. Cundiff, by
his radio call sign, "Charlie 6". Cundiff abruptly interrupted him.
"The b- -t- -ds are in the bunkers with us", Cundiff blurted out, for
all the world to hear. Upon hearing that, Haig immediately reassured his junior officer, letting
him know, that help was on the way. Without saying a word, Haig reached
down and grabbed his AR-15 and then charged out of the command bunker,
while his radio operator scrambled to keep up. In a few seconds he was
starring into the face of that nameless recon platoon sergeant, telling
him to have his recon platoon "saddle up" and follow him. He had walked the lines
enough to know exactly where he was going, and now, just like the
day before, Haig ran, while facing a hail of bullets, toward Capt. Cundiff's position.
There was a real danger of a "friendly fire
situation, if those recon guys following Haig did not pick their targets carefully.
However, just like the day before, recon platoon's fire control was flawless.
Dawn was breaking. Targets on the ground could be more easily
identified by soldiers doing the ground fighting. However, low hanging
clouds were still preventing the big jets from dropping their ordinance,
as close in, as Haig now realized they needed to be dropped. It seems to me that communist planners had "goofed a bit",
when they started their assault about the same time the sun was coming
up. This was about an hour too late, to take full advantage of the
darkness. Haig had wisely let the NCOs of recon know beforehand, to
ready themselves, as his reserve, to be used anyway he saw fit, if and
when an attack came. Now, in the twilight, with bullets popping by
everyone in the open, recon people united with C company and everyone
spread out around their "Ole Man". They carefully picking off anyone trying
to get at them or their buddies. Some hand to hand fighting ensued. It
was the kind of fighting and killing almost unheard of in jungle
warfare. The lines were quickly reestablished, with recon people filling
in the gaps along with C company soldiers. These deadly shooters had
eliminated every threat inside the wire, without getting a single recon
man killed, while losing only eight men in C company, during the entire
battle of Ap Gu. All but one of these, were killed by fragmentation
wounds, which would seem to indicate that the gun slinging shootout was
a one-sided affair. This low casualty rate, alone, speaks volumes to the proficiency of this little
band of citizen soldiers.
Low hanging clouds, preventing the Air Force from bombing, wasn't the only problem Haig faced. The perimeter had been reestablished for the time being, but Haig knew it couldn't withstand another human wave attack. Both my NDP at "Thrust" and "Fire Base Charlie" where getting low on munitions. C company and recon were now very effectively preventing further intrusions, on their lines, but they were also running low on ammo. The huge volume of incoming small arms fire said that there was still a large force, hiding in the grass, just outside the wire. This strongly suggested that another large scale human wave attack was imminent. Now was the time, like never before, to get those air assets moving, but exactly how was that going to happen? The answer to that question now rested solely on the shoulders of Alexander Haig, and Haig alone. Brigadier General Hollingsworth, second in command of the Big Red One, was circling above the battlefield in his Huey gunship. Other gunships were peeing red tracers toward the ground, which I could see all the way from my position at "Thrust". "Puff the Magic Dragon" was also circling overhead of the battle. I could hear the buzz-saw sound of it's mini-guns. One Arial report, coming from one of the circling aircraft, later said that they saw wounded NVA soldiers, helping other wounded soldiers, not to retreat, but to make death charges against the American line. When my research discovered that information, like many others, my first thought was to be amazed at how committed these NVA soldiers were to their cause. That thought, however, was a misconception. Almost all of these brown or green uniformed NVA were not committed communists, but nothing more than teenaged conscripts, suffering from advanced stages of a communist induced Stockholm Syndrome, who were led by their communist handlers to the slaughtering pen. Their heart was not in winning this battle, but in staying alive for just a few more minutes. How can I be so sure, what I have just said here is true? The evidence is in the outcome of such attacks as at Ap Gu. Not a single recon platoon member was killed during the numerous shoot-outs, yet they were, at one point, out in the open, engaged in a "good ole fashioned" O.K. Corral type gunfight. Capt. Cundiff shot six enemy soldiers, himself, at point blank range. The after-action report says that 34 enemy bodies were later found inside C company perimeter. However, not a single member of recon and only one C company man was killed by gunshot wounds. This would have been impossible, if they had tangled with the more experienced communist killers, like those sappers which we routinely faced on patrols and perimeter probes. Sappers, were the more trusted troops and were the ones my unit skirmished with, on a daily basis. However, the poor souls, who had been commanded to charge Haig's lines, in response to a bugle, were "throw-a-ways", cohered by hardened communist ideologues, to perform suicidal acts. On this day, as in many other battles, these teenagers were drugged before the battle began. Most had no heart for killing. Unspoken horrors awaited them, and their families, if they did not obediently die as told. History shows us over and over that human flesh is cheap commodity under the communist ideology, regardless of who is in charge, and its own governed peoples suffer the most. Shortly before 0700 hours, Hollingsworth was still circling overhead. He had managed to redirect more artillery fires on the northeastern and eastern side of the perimeter. By now, Haig had returned from leading his recon platoon, to shore up the breach in the lines, and was squatting in front of the opening, to the command bunker. He could hear the loud shearing sound of our big 155 artillery shells, cutting through the air and exploding just in front of C company's bunkers, but he knew more needed to be done. This was the moment where Haig proved beyond a shadow of a doubt what a fine field commander he was. Haig turned his head slowly from one side to the other, while issuing his next order to all officers and NCOs in ear shot, including his "Top Sergeant", who had also been by his side all morning. "Have all our mortar platoons lay down phosphorous rounds forty meters to the front of the eastern perimeter. (Burning phosphorous gives off white billowing clouds, which could easily be spotted from the air.) While still kneeling, he then turned his entire body toward the battalion's air officer, Capt. John Buck. Buck was crouching down on the other side of the command bunker. "Captain Buck, I need you to drop napalm on top of those phosphorous rounds". He then addressed his RTO in a subdued tone. "Get General Hollingsworth on the horn." Without hesitation, his RTO broke squelch a couple times and voiced the radio call sign for Hollingsworth over the airways. Haig motioned for him to hand over the mic to him. "Holly, I don't care how you do it, but I want cluster bombs dropped on top of the napalm I have ordered to be dropped along my eastern perimeter. Bring them right up to the perimeter". Haig fully realized the implications of this public request, which he had just spoken for all to hear. Those words to his boss shifted liability, for creating a friendly fire incident, from his superior officer, "General Hollingsworth, to his own shoulders. It also did something else. That request, which followed a course of sensible actions, unburdened the load, on his boss's shoulders, which freed the general up, to become an asset, instead of a hindrance. This is an excellent example of the kind of interactions, which competent leaders should strive to have with their boss. Since they are closer to a problem, they should always suggest a course of action, before their superior has to spend valuable time, trying to come up with one, themselves. Why? Because Hollingsworth had other responsibilities and could never be as tuned into Haig's situation as Haig, himself. The ranks of the 271th Viet Cong Regiment, waiting in the tall grass, to mount their next human wave attack, were devastated by the resulting anti-personnel bombing. The enemy was "sent packing" and by 0800 hours, the Battle of Ap Gu was over. However, the godless communist leadership wasn't concerned in the least, for the loss of life, of their own countrymen. A good communist will never grieve for anyone or anything. They will, however, always blame others for what they are doing, themselves. As these poor Vietnamese youth were killed in the most terrible ways imaginable, already more very young Vietnamese men and women were pouring into the training camps just over the border in Cambodia. In a few weeks, I, myself, would have a close encounter with a battalion sized unit of these NVA 271st soldiers, who, by that time, were fully resupplied and refitted. I would face them, with seven men, and the voice of the Holy Spirit of God. Before the morning had ended, Haig was ordered to replace the wounded Col. Grimsley. Hollingsworth's helicopter was soon ferrying him to second brigade headquarters, where he was given command of that entire brigade. He was also immediately promoted to full colonel. At some point, during the morning, I began working on my second, or maybe third helping, of dehydrated vegetable beef soup. It would be over fifty years, before I would realize what had just witnessed at LZ "George".
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