Chap 10 Beginning Our Walk With Dick
Although we
were left behind in the initial launch, my unit joined Operation
Junction City on the 13th of March 1967. The "After Action" reports are
not clear on which location we flew out of. It was probably the air
strip at Phuoc Vinh or Lai Kai. Our new battalion commander had just
joined us. Facing this new challenge was not something that Lt. Colonel
Dick Cavazos was dreading. His entire life had been in preparation for
this moment, from growing up on the ranch, then graduating from Texas
Tech and later experiencing horrific combat in Korea as a junior
commander. Early on he had also found the love of his life when he found
Caroline. Without her undying support he simply would not have been
standing where he was standing now. Unlike most, he had not accepted
this coveted combat position just to get his ticket punched. He was
there because he was driven by that same driving force, which his father
had felt, after returning from World War I. That force had propelled
Lauro to confront King Ranch manager, Bob Kleberg, with the threat of
moving on, if he couldn't find a way to give him more responsibility.
Now, this same driving force had been passed on to Dick as he entered
his second theater of war.
As a junior officer, Dick had
experienced a certain feeling of recompense when he won a silver star
and a DSC in Korea. In the same action where he was decorated, one of
his superiors wanted to court martial him for withdrawing his men to
safety, instead of allowing them to be wiped out. Upon further review,
it was discovered that he returned to that point of contact and
singlehandedly led many of his wounded to safety. With that bit of
information coming to light, he was then given a medal instead of a
court martial. Still, growing up, he had witnessed enough ingrained
prejudice against Catholics and against Mexican Americans in the
“Valley” to realize that he was never going to be any tall, white,
Protestant General’s “fair haired boy”. Why? Because he was both a
Catholic and a Mexican American. Furthermore, he wasn’t tall but had a
build more like Winston Churchill’s bulldog. With these facts of life
being readily apparent to him, Dick realized that he had only one avenue
available to him in his professional life to get to where he wanted to
go. That avenue was only open to those who could do the job just as good
or maybe better than their boss. So, Dick’s mind was made up. He would
do just that.
I have just described Dick’s attitude
as he took command of our 1/18th Infantry Battalion. One of the first
things he did after assuming command was to change his radio call sign
from “Duchess 6” to “Dogface 6”.
I believe we were waiting around to
board C-130s so we could join “Junction City” operations further north
when the following incident happened. Our entire unit was crowded into
this air terminal building alongside an air strip. It may have been
Phuoc Vinh, but I cannot remember for sure where it was. With all our
combat gear, we were standing around waiting to load on those cargo
planes. Then it happened and it had nothing to do with combat. Yet, I
will remember this incident for the rest of my life.
To preface this narrative, let me say
that by this time in my tour, my unit's "down time" had consisted almost
entirely of pulling perimeter guard and running ambush patrols around
places like Lai Khe, Phuoc Vinh, Phu Loi and Quan Loi where members of
my battalion were routinely mortared, sniped at, booby trapped and
engaged almost daily in small squad sized shoot-outs. If no one was
hurt, many of these incidents would be totally forgotten in the years to
come. I realized this when I read after action reports years later. We
considered life spent in these base camps as breaks from the war because
we could sometimes slip away to town, watch movies at night, and eat hot
meals instead of C-rations. Yet, we may have been shot at or mortared
that same day while on patrols. Looking back this was so weird to feel
as though we taking a rest from the war. However, this duty was so much
more less stressful than the stress incurred on regular search and
destroy operations going deep into the jungles of War Zone C and D. At
forward bases, like Quan Loi, Lai Khe, and Phuoc Vinh we could get
showers, hot meals, and clean fatigues.
Now, we were standing around waiting to
leave what we thought was a comfortable place. C-130 cargo planes were
waiting to take us on the first leg of another trip to the boonies.
While waiting, I was about to cross paths with a very poignant reminder
of a totally different world. It was not just different from the one I
was living in now but different from any world I had experienced, ever.
Needless to say, I was about to experience something that I never in a
million years expected to experience in life, much less in a place like
this. Yes, we had heard of U.S.O. shows with big name stars but in our
minds that was just a fantasy to be experienced in dreams only. Very few
grunts got to experience something like that, ever. Then it happened and
it gave me the shock of my young life. It was a chance encounter with
the movie actor Hugh O’Brian.
Hugh and his entourage were also
waiting to be flown out to perform a show called "Guys and Dolls". They
were in their world, and we were in our world, when both those worlds
collided for just an instant in time. Most of the guys with me scattered
out to get closer to the girls in the group, but a sick little feeling
in the bottom of my stomach said, “Why bother”? As everyone around me
drifted away, suddenly, I somehow found myself staring Hugh O’Brian
eyeball to eyeball. He had been my boyhood hero when he played Wyatt
Earp on TV, but he was definitely not my hero now. Now, here I was,
standing in front of him, with a real rifle in hand. Machine gun ammo
belts were draped across my chest, Pancho Villa style, and a grenade was
clipped to each harness of my "web gear". There was a rocket launcher
sticking out in the back of my ruck sack. In a very weird sense, the
present reality seemed to draw a final curtain on my youthful fantasies.
However, it took a moment for that curtain to close as I stood there in
silence looking into his handsome face. That face was just as I had
remembered it. I no longer thought of him, as my hero, and that made me
sad.
I stood there staring much too long. He
too seemed uncomfortable as he continued to stare back. Finally, the
smile on his face disappeared. I said “Hi” but he said nothing. He just
continued to look me over. Quite frankly, his silence along with that
stare was somewhat disconcerting. Yet, I didn’t sense that he was being
aloft. No, not at all. I knew what “being aloft” was, and this was not
that. Finally, after continuing his haunting stare for much too long, he
grunted a “Hi” back at me and that was that. We both turned and walked
away from each other forever. However, the mystery of that changing
expression on his countenance, and his long stare would remain a puzzle
in my mind for many years to come. In the big scheme of things, it was a
little thing and something to be forgotten, yet it was not forgotten. It
would take years for the Holy Spirit to show me the reason behind that
strange look on his face. I thank God that He did. Like so many fleeting
events in times past, the Holy Spirit resurrects and restructures
thoughts in an anointed believer's mind so that I now have the truth
behind Hugh's long stare.
Hugh had served as one of the youngest
DIs to train marines in World War II. Later, he also became involved in
causes supporting those less fortunate in life in a variety of ways.
Armed with this revealing information, I now know that the long pause
and strange look on his face was his response to an all too familiar
look which his kind heart was able to discern on my face. That look on
me shocked the "day lights" out of him. Why? Because, he had seen this
same look many times before on other soldiers. He had seen it after they
had finished their training and were being sent on their way to face
death in the Pacific. The "look" is a detached "faraway look", a “going
to the grave” look, if you will, and it can only be recognized by others
who have the heart to recognize it. DIs like Hugh O'Brian certainly had
that kind of heart. Hugh also knew that there was very little chance of
engaging anyone who was wearing that look. He knew that nothing he could
say would be appropriate. I regret that it took me so many years to
realize that I had not been looking at the face of a dethroned boyhood
hero after all, but instead, I had been looking into the face of a real
live hero who helped save the world, by instilling in many others those
same unselfish values which resided in his own heart, and now, for that,
he will always be my hero. In a flash, This little group of thespians
went on with their lives and we just went on.
After action reports indicate that
operational control (OPCON) of individual units was assigned back and
forth a lot, especially at the brigade level. Of course, at a grunt's
lowly level, there was no effort to make us aware of these changes in
command structure. Knowing what I know now, however, I do not believe
any unit was moved around more than the 3/5th mechanized unit. During
the war, they were attached at one point to the Marines operating in the
northern provinces and in the far south near the Mekong Delta. On the
13th of March 1967, after we were flown to Quan Loi and the next day
inserted by helicopters near a bridge construction site on Highway 246,
we got to say hello to this unit for the first time. Here, along route
246, probably at the bridge, we met the fellows of A company of the
3/5th. Neither of our units had seen any major action and that was par
for the course. The men, of the 3/5th, were shipped to Vietnam by boat
so they knew each other, because they had trained in the states
together. At least these men had not had to deal with the effects of
feeling isolated and alone, as had been our case. When joined forces
that day, they had only been in country just a little over two months.
The absence of any major contact around the areas off Thunder Road had
helped give many of us in my unit the impression that this area was
relatively safe from any large enemy attacks. Of course nothing could
have been further from the truth. Phuoc Vinh, and Lai Khe, were much
farther south than An Loc, and seemed even safer. When operating around
Phuoc Vinh, I had several chances to go to town by myself and enjoy a
particular Vietnamese restaurant which had delicious fried rice patty
shrimp. In 1967, one would have been hard pressed to find any better
cuisine stateside than what this little tin shack produced. Looking back
now, I do not believe any of us grunts understood the danger we were in
as we casually went about these rare "downtime" forays. I certainly did
not realize that there was an entire NVA regiment lurking just a few
miles away, as I sat enjoying my delicious fried shrimp dinners. I
believed, like so many others, that we were mainly dealing with home
grown V.C. To reinforce that thinking, civilian traffic around places
like Phuoc Vinh and Lai Khe was very heavy during the day. Everyone was
seemingly going about their daily activities very peaceably.
Furthermore, we grunts knew nothing of the two large battles which had
already occurred, during Operation Junction City involving the 1/16th
and the 2/2nd. It would be over fifty years before I learned about them.
I certainly did not realize that in just a short time a big battle was
about to unfold between the NVA and these "damp but dusty looking" men
of the 3/5th who were now positioned alongside us on this bridge
construction. My personal and very naive observations had me believing
that these guys were just another mechanized unit, which I had to be
careful of, because they were prone to blast away at anything during an
attack, including us. I had absolutely no understanding of how important
men like these could be during some night attacks later in the year. One
of the reasons why I wasn’t concerned was because I didn't believe that
such an attack was possible.
I really had no desire to be around
mechanized unit much less be assigned to one. Seeing one of their crew
being blown up was enough for me. Besides, they always had the "damp and
dusty look" because they were always riding up and down dusty red clay
roads. Now, you may ask, "how can someone be "damp and dusty" at the
same time?". Here's how. A brief rain was starting to fall on us every
day late in the afternoon. However, it was not enough to completely
inundate the thick layer of red dust on those red dirt roads. There was
still plenty of this fine red powder to be stirred up by tracked
vehicles and then deposited on the sweat and rain-soaked jungle fatigues
of the men operating those vehicles. "Voila", I have now given the
recipe for the "damp and dusty" look. It was a "fashion statement" to
behold, but one I didn't want to wear.
In some ways, every grunt in every unit
in Vietnam was in their own "little world" whether we were twenty feet
apart or three hundred miles apart. One thing, however, that we all had
in common was that we made observations and formed opinions of the
bigger picture according to what we saw going on around us. Lasting
impressions were formed by personal experiences and by listening to the
grapevine, but the grapevine was severely limited. It was silent about
the Battle of Prek Klok I on February 28th where the Medal of Honor
winner, Sergeant Leonard gave his life for his men. Perhaps, if it could
have been beefed up enough to include news about Sergent Leonard, that
news would have mitigated my negative feelings about "lifer Sergeants".
The "grapevine" was also silent about The Battle of Prek Klok II which
happened on March 10th. This debilitating breakdown in the flow of
important Division news left the door wide open for some very naive and
foolish lifelong opinions to take root. Some of these false impressions
would stick with us for life and even spread to the rest of America,
helping to form many false impressions. Like me, many millions of
returning veterans formed wrong opinions because we were privy to only a
nanoscopic view of the battlefield. Some of my own preconceived, but
erroneous notions weren't toppled until I researched information to
write this book. Just imagine the negative effects millions of returning
Vietnam veterans had on the rest of America, at the time, because they
had formed erroneous opinions. In any organization, not continually
broadcasting publicly the good things that occur within that
organization is a big mistake. We were left in an information vacuum
making it next to impossible for the average soldier to form a truthful
understanding of the war. That vacuum was just waiting to be filled by
the many enemies of our cause. Let me make it clear that I am not
talking about broadcasting sensitive intelligence information, but just
basic communications. I now realize that I witnessed things which needed
to be reported but no one encouraged me to report those events. The
communist recognized the benefits of assigning special propaganda teams
to do nothing but "blow smoke" into the ears of their troops, day in,
and day out. How beneficial would it have been to assign special
communications officers to the task of covering and broadcasting the
good things we did, and the many atrocities committed by the communist.
Combat soldiers in the field were never
encouraged in any concerted effort to report what they witnessed. To add
to the problem, the appalling lack of factually oriented communications
people to become the 'Ernie Piles" of the day did nothing but strengthen
the position of our enemy. To make matters worse, a very self-serving
mainstream media was given free rein to become the preeminent reporting
entity. That media’s very nature assured us, that the real truth would
become obscured, because it could only present the American public with
a very one-sided view of the facts. Many veterans, themselves, bought
into this one-sided reporting. By the way, stories about the communist
atrocities were not that easy to get. Pursuing that angle was very
dangerous work. It was much safer reporting on the things we Americans
did wrong.
I believe that the very influential
Oliver Stone was one of those veterans who fell prey to this lopsided
world view in mainstream news reporting, but then, so did I. Yes sir,
ignorance contributed greatly to a lack of understanding of what a noble
undertaking we grunts were actually embarked upon. This left the door
wide open for an extremely distorted historical picture to be spun.
Here is a side note. No, I am not blind
to the much bigger problem which no amount of good communications could
have cured in Vietnam. However, the scope here is simply to present one
example of what good leadership and good communications can do even
while buried within a duplicitous foreign policy such as was the case
with our policy toward the Vietnam War. In a nutshell, that situation
can be described this way. We initially acted out of fear of eventually
losing our own freedom if we did nothing to stop the communist, but that
concern was soon overshadowed by the prospect of huge economic gains,
both to our nation and to individuals who had a hand in shaping national
policy for conducting the war. But wait. Let me also say this. Let him,
who has been involved in similar policy-making situations and has not
sinned, be the one to cast the first stone at people like Mr. Johnson.
With that said, let’s get back to my
story. Over 50 years after I served in Vietnam, I would learn that the
3/5th squadron, the one sharing our NDP on this night, was one of the
finest performing American units to ever serve in any war, not just
Vietnam, but all of America's past wars. I found this out through my
research of the hard cold facts and not through my own experiences or
the opinions of others. Studious citizen soldiers like me would have to
wait for the invention of the internet to learn these pertinent facts
concerning the magnificent performance of other units besides our own.
By then, however, most of us vets would be dead or too old to care.
Truth is, this mechanized unit and mine were just strangers passing in
the night when we bumped into each other at this NDP. They looked like
just another weather beaten and worn-down unit. Of course, I made this
assumption without any knowledge whatsoever of the facts. I really
didn't know where they had come from or how they got here, nor did I
care. I thought that we could fight our way out of anything those
communist guerrillas could throw at us. We certainly didn’t need the
help of this mechanized unit or any other for that matter.
To sour my opinion of mechanized units
even further, earlier in the year my unit had been on several operations
with different mechanized units. On one such operation, enemy patrols
had been trying to unnerve us by taking "pot shots" at our patrols and
then running away. Finally, in response, this mechanized unit's weapons
platoon, positioned behind us, started routinely firing mortar rounds to
the front of our patrol about 100 meters. The military term for that is
"marching fires".
I was running point with no other help
on this day. I would listen closely for the distinctive "thump" each
time a mortar round left the mortar tube and would stand still until the
shell exploded to my front. However, on this one occasion, as I heard
the "thump" and waited a few seconds for the round to explode, The Holy
Spirit spoke softly into my conscious mind. "You need to get down", He
said. So, I ran forward a few steps and squatted down behind a fallen
tree. If the round fell short, it would surely not fall short enough to
land on my side of the tree. I was wrong. The round landed directly
behind me and only about 10 meters away from me. If I had not run
forward those few feet to hide behind the fallen tree, I would have been
blown apart. Gee, I wonder who arranged for that fallen tree to be at
that exact location? I’ll bet it was God. Bartee and his RTO were
directly behind me and slightly to my right. They also were miraculously
spared, but 3 or 4 men in my platoon, including our platoon leader were
seriously wounded. This friendly fire episode became "strike one" in my
mind against mechanized units. Another time, while operating with
another mechanized unit, we received some sporadic enemy fire to our
front. A track behind us immediately open fired with his .50 caliber
machine gun. This caught put us in a crossfire situation. Those big .50
caliber rounds could go through a couple of trees, two or three men and
keep on going. that's how powerful they were. Fortunately, this time, no
one was killed, but now there was a real growing mistrust in our ranks
for mechanized units in general. This event became "strike two" and
things got worse. Shortly after the crossfire incident, the brass gave
us a night off and supplied a little too much booze. We were spending
the night in a small base camp in the middle of nowhere. Another unit
pulled perimeter guard for us. As usual in these rare situations, I was
getting some much-needed sleep, while many of my guys and the mechanized
unit's crews got drunk together. This was a recipe for disaster. Near
midnight I was awakened by the metallic sound of several of the .50
caliber machines guns being cocked and a lot of screaming going on. As
it turned out, the previous crossfire incident had become the catalyst
for the deadly event now unfolding before my sleepy eyes. Some of the
mechanized unit crew members, fueled by too much alcohol, had mounted
their tracks and were cocking their machine guns, coming within a hair’s
breadth of spraying G. I.'s like me with machine gun fire just to settle
an ensuing argument. Fortunately, a couple of cool-headed NCOs were able
to defuse the situation and Dick never again allowed us to mingle with a
mechanized units during down time. This was definitely "strike three" in
my mind for all mechanized units. After this I really had no use for any
mechanized unit whatsoever and that included A troop of the 3/5th
squadron, who were now deployed alongside us. Yes, it’s too bad that
these negative personal experiences became the only criteria by which I
judged all mechanized units.
It took over fifty years for me to
learn that in just a few days this "rag tag" mechanized troop spending
the night with us would repel a major and well-coordinated attack by the
so-called "hardcore" 273rd NVA regiment. Just before that battle, the
273rd had been camped within a stone’s throw of the restaurant on the
outskirts of Phuoc Vinh, where I had regularly been "chowing down ", all
by my lonesome self. One day, while I was having lunch there, I was
abruptly pulled bodily away from my dinner by three waitresses. They
forced me into a darkened back room while others shut doors and windows
in the front of the restaurant. It never dawned on me until many years
later that a marauding patrol of the 273rd regiment could have been
coming through, looking for American soldiers like me to take as
prisoners. I had no idea that such a force might be operating so close
by. So, I reported nothing when I returned to my unit. This same unit
was now getting ready to attack the 3/5th just north of Lai Khe on
"Thunder Road” not that far from Phuoc Vinh and near that same
restaurant.
When the 3/5th left us they camped out
for the night of March 19th on Thunder Road several kilometers north of
Lai Khe. They were led by Captain Raoul H. Alcala who’s squadron
commander, was Lt. Col. Sidney S. Haszard. The 273rd attacked them but
got shot to pieces in the process. The American troop lost only 3 men,
while the body count for the enemy was by all personal accounts
underestimated at 227. The fighting was "close- in" and the enemy
fighters were relentless. It became known as the Battle of "Ap Bau
Bang". The "after action" reports tell me a lot. Although the glory was
given to air power, it was the incredible amount of return fire from the
machine gun crews that won the night. Canister rounds from "on-site"
tanks "dusted off" other armored vehicles of their unwelcomed boarding
parties. There was also some very skillful maneuvering of squadron
forces by Alcala and Haszard, which blunted the determined "human wave"
attacks. The fighting was too close in for air support to be used
effectively. The perimeter was breached so quickly, that "offsite"
artillery support was of little help. It took some very agile thinking
throughout the night on the part of these American grunts led by a few
"lifer" N.C.O.'s to turn the tide. They literally wrenched away any
surprise initiative that the enemy had at the onset just as the 1/16th
had done at the Battle of Prek Klok I. The air strikes did help prevent
the enemy from reassembling, but it was the "toe to toe" defense by the
men of Troop A, which kept a wretched and dehumanized enemy, from
winning the night.
It’s too bad that "after action
analysis of this battle as well as that of many other battles fought by
our citizen soldiers gave them so little credit. These young Americans
were robbed of the respect which they had earned because our leaders
allowed a very naďve American media to be conned by a very smooth
communist propaganda machine into believing a host of false narratives.
It wasn't until I studied these major battles that I realized how
misinformed we Americans had allowed ourselves to become just at this
level alone. "A Troop" was awarded an exceedingly rare Presidential
Citation, for their actions that night, having been "in country" only a
little over two months.
Like me, most of my fellow grunts never
knew that a powerful NVA force like this was anywhere near Lai Khe. We
had combed the area around Lai Khe ourselves just a few days before,
thinking we were only up against localized guerrillas. Looking back, and
now armed with more facts, I realize that it was NVA patrols that we
were engaging from time to time, thinking they were just these local
home-grown guerrillas. I know this now because the "after action"
reports of the battle of Ap Bau Bang along with personal experiences
give me enough information to make these informed assertions. Some of
these reports mention that NVA attackers sometimes wore black. Yet our
common belief was that only local guerrilla forces, which we called Viet
Cong (V.C.) wore black and that the regular NVA soldiers wore green or
khaki uniforms with helmets. So, when we ran across enemy patrols, who
seemed to always be dressed in black, we incorrectly assumed that they
were just local inhabitants, who also had a day job growing rice. How
naďve could we be and still breath. The bottom line is this. The
communist were very good at spreading propaganda to further their cause.
The word for that today is disinformation. American soldiers like me
bought into that disinformation and then helped spread it. One major
false narrative was that a large segment of the population was hard-core
communist. Not true. Even today only 3% of the population in Vietnam are
card-carrying communists.
Before the Battle of Ap Bau Bang, we
had arrived at Quan Loi on the afternoon of March 13th and were then
flown by Hueys the next day into a secured landing zone near a bridge
construction sight on Highway 246 where we joined A Troop of the 3/5th.
Highway 246 ran west of An Loc. Every night while we were there the
probability of being attacked was high. The nights were especially
spooky. Each night artillery flares were dropped on our NDP.
They had a strange white glow
which created dancing shadows on the jungle landscape around us. It was
surreal to say the least. We were very close to the Cambodian border.
Instead of attacking us here, however, as one might expect, the enemy
chose to wait and attack A Troop A of the 3/5th much further south on
the 20th of March. It was a place on Thunder Road known as Ap Bau Bang.
Also, on the 19th of March two
companies of the 3/22nd battalion made a landing in a hot LZ code named
"Gold" and lost three helicopters with six others damaged. 15 men were
killed and 28 wounded. We were 15 miles northeast of them when this
event took place. The enemy attacked this unit again on the 21st of
March. That battle became the largest battle of the war to date. A force
of around 450 Americans was attacked by over 2500 NVA soldiers at fire
base "Gold". We Americans had 31 killed in action and 109 wounded.
Westmoreland was ecstatic. His
simplistic thinking told him that trading over 850 enemy dead for 31 of
our boys was not only a good deal tactically, but also a big step in the
right direction toward total victory. Instead of celebrating, however,
he should have been looking for answers to the following question. How
was our enemy consistently resupplying such large forces with food, men,
and materials so far south and east of their supply lines across the
border in Cambodia. Afterall their main means of transportation was ox
carts and human porters on bicycles. While Westy avoided this question,
I knew nothing of the occurrence of these battles in the first place
until I started my research to write this book. I certainly didn’t know
anything about the importance of cutting off supply lines. At the time I
still labored under the false perception that we were fighting "hit and
run" fire fights with a bunch of "home boys". Yeah, I realize that news
of these battles made it to the Army’s publication of “Stars and Strips”
but that newspaper was a little hard to read in the pouring rain. Come
to think of it, I don’t remember being supplied with anything to read in
the field and we were in the field almost all the time.
For the next couple weeks, we operated
in and around that bridge construction on Highway 246. My squad, as
usual, pulled our share of the ambush patrols, but time after time we
made no contact, and things were relatively quiet around the bridge.
Every now and again the sounds of machine gun fire and artillery shells
could be heard, but our focus was on the traffic coming and going down
Highway 246. The month of March was fast fading into April and my unit
had not been exposed to anything that anyone would consider trouble too
big for the three hundred of us to handle. Yes, we were ever vigilant
for snipers, small ambushes, booby traps and I.E.Ds on the roads, but
those were facts of life no matter whether we were patrolling down south
of near the Cambodian border. In this present location west of An Loc,
there were fewer civilians then down south. There were many more
military conveys. There were numerous tanks and APCs providing security
for these convoys.
Through the rest of March, we played a
kind of "musical chairs" with the rest of the battalions in Division, as
we moved back and forth between locations on highway 246. In reality, we
were just waiting on the music to stop and the enemy to hit one of these
locations with an all-out attack. Yet, no one told us grunts that the
threat of getting hit hard and big was increasing. Morale in our own
battalion was getting better than at any point since I had joined the
unit. The very real chances of my unit having to face off in some big
battles was growing every day. Yet, that was the furthest thing from
anyone's thoughts, except one. That person was Dick Cavazos. Russell
Johnson was killed by a booby trap, Donald Mills by an I.E.D., Alanzo
Matthews by a "short" round and Harold VanBuskirk by a sapper. People
were getting killed and wounded one or two at a time in ambushes, mortar
attacks and by sappers. Sappers were blowing up convoy vehicles daily,
but that had somehow become okay. I heard none of our people express any
concern whatsoever that we might be overrun in a human wave attack.
"Mushrooms" just don’t have much of a notion about anything. Dick did
have a notion and he was working feverously behind the scenes to get us
ready, but we didn’t know that at the time. At this point, all we knew
was that our new commander had given us a couple good pep talks. Since
we never got to go to any USO shows, most of us thought those talks were
very entertaining. He assured us that he was not going to have us stick
out our necks unnecessarily. Well, we’ll see. It seemed to me that I was
sticking my neck out “pretty far” already. However, the real truth was
that his routine actions were already beginning to bear fruit. He knew
how to pick people who could pick other people who didn’t get us lost.
That was a big improvement. That meant he could quickly fine tune his
artillery and air power. If one didn’t know where he was, he couldn’t do
that. I think I experienced his skill in that discipline "up close and
personal" during the "flying tree" incident. However, I am not real sure
what happened that day since I was just a “mushroom”.
The following has nothing to do with
any of these larger points, except that it happened around this moment
in time at the bridge, while I was riding on an APC. I am only
mentioning it so it can be recorded for my family to read. One day,
while riding down Highway 246 on top of this "mechanical death trap",
the driver got orders to reverse course, so he did a reverse turn in the
middle of the road, while never slowing down. Centrifugal force sent me
sailing over an embankment, rolling head over heels down through the
jungle. When I stopped rolling, I was standing upright with my M-14 at
the "present arms" position. I could have broken my neck, but I wasn't
about to let go of my rifle. It was my "dearest friend" in the world at
that time. Yeah, I know. That spot should have been reserved for the
Holy Spirit.
Let's move on. Being a grunt on any
operation was always filled with stress, but on March 28th that stress
level was ratcheted up a notch as we watched the 2/16th Infantry
battalion ride into our positions around the bridge construction. They
were riding on top of APC tracks. It was early afternoon when they
spread out to relieve us at each of our positions. They were now going
to get to enjoy our hard work, without having to shovel a single "shovel
full" of dirt. We were ordered to "saddle up" and load onto other ACPs.
They headed west on route 246. We soon arrived at another base camp. (It
was a location known as fire base C). After arriving, we stood around at
this new fire base for an hour or so, waiting on orders to replace the
present occupants as had been done to us earlier in the day. We were
really looking forward to getting settled in as soon as possible. It
would be nice to trade positions and not have to dig in. We waited and
waited for orders. Then I glimpsed Sergeant Bartee, walking back from
the meeting, which officers and NCOs routinely attended, each time we
arrived at a new location. However, this time his head was down, and his
feet were dragging a little more than usual. That told us everything we
needed to know, and it wasn’t good. As he approached the squad, out of
habit, we bunched together close enough so everyone could hear. "Don't
get too comfortable", he said, raising his voice just a little in
anticipation of some "moaning and groaning". We are waiting for enough
APCs to finish road security details so they can take us to another
location. The 1/2nd Infantry battalion guys standing around behind us,
were as quiet as "church mice". The bad news being delivered to us was
good news for them. They were the guys we thought we were going to
relieve, so they had good reason to keep quiet. They knew that we had
just drawn the short straw, and that we were the ones going to have to
leave and probable dig a new home somewhere else. They weren't stupid
enough to make any “off the wall” comments which could get a fist in the
face. It was getting very late in the day. We would be digging fresh new
bunkers in the dark, possibly in a remote area, with plenty boogie men
to go around.
As we loaded onto APC's and headed west
the sun was setting. There was no one on this narrow road but us. All
the American convoys had bedded down somewhere for the night. The jungle
came to the very edge of the road in front of us. As our vehicle
tunneled through over hanging branches, we were forced to duck,
periodically, or be swept off our ride. In that event, there would be a
good possibility that we would be run over by the APC following behind.
This entire episode began to give me a "downright" spooky feeling in the
pit of my stomach. Here we were, riding on "aluminum ten cans", making
enough noise to let everyone down that road know that we were coming.
They would have plenty of time to set up a great ambush. I remember
thinking, "Give me the closed-in concealment of the jungle any time, day
or night, instead of riding out here in the open on top of this "I.E.D.
magnet". Yet, on and on we went while the sun waning lower. Our
destination was only about five miles away, but it seemed like it was
much further than that. We had not had a hot meal the entire day, and we
had begun the day at 0500 hours. We had also been pulling patrols and
road security all day. Some grunts in my platoon had spent the night
before, on ambush patrols. Everyone was now “bone tired”.
Just before we reached our destination,
a bubble helicopter skimmed the treetops, and came straight at us. It
then circled out of sight, briefly reappearing over us again, and then
vanished for good in the distance down the road. When we arrived at our
destination, a twenty-acre clearing, the armored unit which we rode in
on held down the fort until we "dismounted" and established a perimeter.
To my surprise a hand full of mechanized 155 MM guns, which had
apparently been bringing up the rear of our convoy joined us and
immediately began to set up shop. Their crews began unloading the cargo
of several "duce-n-a-half" trucks which had also been following us. The
little bubble H-13 helicopter was now parked in the middle of the
clearing up a slight incline behind where my squad ended up being
placed. We immediately began building another "gorgeous" 1st Infantry
Division NDP. Two of the big guns, pulled in and parked on either side
of Dick's chopper. As I started digging in I noticed a stout framed Dick
Cavazos standing beside his chopper, talking on a radio. His radio call
sign of "Dogface 6". That sounded so much better than Duchess 6.
Very soon the night closed in around us
and it became almost pitch black. Flares began to "magically" appear
overhead, but it was not magic at all. They were delivered by flare
canisters being shot from the big guns of another fire base located
several miles down the road. Their lights illuminated the area so we
could see to dig in. The ground was extremely hard. It quickly became
clear to everyone that this job was not going to be easy. When midnight
came, we were still digging. The flares kept coming, making little
popping sounds as their parachutes opened above us. We were working real
hard but I don’t think anyone realized how hard those artillerymen were
working to keep the lights on for us. As they descended to the ground,
those flares created weird shadows which danced against the jungle
backdrop. The effect was enhanced by the flare itself, as it swung back
below its white parachute. These gave an eerie presence to our entire
surroundings.
One of the guys in my platoon was
especially perturbed about the situation. His wife had recently sent him
a "Dear John" letter and I am sure that aggravated his mood even more.
As he was digging, he started cussing louder and louder. He could be
heard a long way off by everyone on our side of the perimeter and there
was not a single N.C.O. who bothered telling him to calm down. As I
said, We were all "bone tired" and if the truth be known he was probably
saying nothing more than what the rest of us, including the N.C.O.s,
felt like saying.
As this loud cussing streak continued,
this "red faced man" began digging more and more in cadence with every
blow of his entrenching tool. H was so intent that he failed to see two
shadowy figures quietly approaching from the direction of the big guns
behind us. It was Dick and our B company C.O., Capt. Brown. They managed
to walk within six feet of the hole this guy was digging, without being
seen by him. Dick now stood directly behind and above the man, with his
hands on his hips, looking straight down at him. Oblivious to their
presence, the "cussing soldier" just kept digging and cussing away. It
seemed like a long time but was probably no more than fifteen seconds.
Finally, the man glanced up from his work long enough to notice that the
rest of us were standing "dead still" looking steadfastly at something
behind him. This caused him to stop digging and look to his rear. When
he did, he immediately threw down his entrenching tool, did an "about
face", stood straight up and saluted our battalion commander. This was
something we really were not supposed to do while in the field. There
was no return salute, as everyone including the cussing soldier waited
on the inevitable "dressing down". That “dressing down” never came.
Instead, as the soldier quickly lowered his salute, Dick, with a very
measured tone in his voice, beckoned the soldier to come up out of his
hole and face him face to face. The man meekly complied and climbed out
of his partially dug foxhole. Then, as the man stood very still before
him, Dick calmly began to speak as if he were talking to his own son. To
this very day, I have never forgotten his calm demeanor or the words he
said. They were not rebuking words. Nor were they angry or accusatory
words. They were just remarkably short and simple sentences which stated
the obvious facts. Dick said, "I know how tired you are and how hard
this ground is, but you have got to finish digging this hole. It could
save your life". Now, get back down there and finish the job”. As the
man turned to jump back into his foxhole, Dick then caught him on his
"rear end" with a gentle tap of his right boot. That was the icing on
the cake, in this modeled display of leadership. It was a leadership
display, which was not only for the benefit of the cussing man but for
the other twenty or thirty of us who were "standing around" watching. As
Dick tapped him with his foot, the "cussin man" responded perfectly,
with a loud fake grunt, which put a smile on all our faces, including
Dick's. There is no doubt that versions of this scene had been
repeatedly choreographed to perfection in Dick's past interactions with
his troops. In one simple interaction, for all to see, Dick had now
turned himself into a leader not to be feared but to be respected. There
is also no doubt that he had been predisposed to handle this cussing man
incident in the same manner he had witnessed his father, Lauro, handle
those ranch hands who worked for him. This display was also used, as a
way for Dick to model effective leadership before our "numb scull"
company commander, Captain Brown. It is too bad that Brown lost his
pencil before he was able to take notes. After the two commanders moved
on and everyone went back to their digging, far from being angry, the
cussing man kept looking around at the rest of us, with that same
sheepish grin on his face. That silly little grin “pretty-well” said it
all. It was convincing evidence to show how a seemingly insignificant
matter, which would normally be left to an NCO, could be exploited by
top leadership for the benefit of all concerned. It was also a good
example of how leaders can use the smallest of situations to bond with
those they lead. This bonding needs to take place long before facing
that first big battle. I have remembered this moment for over fifty
years, while forgetting many other times, when I was ordered around,
while being shot at and mortared by the enemy. This was proof of the
power, that a single small encounter can have on people good or bad.
Before the "cussin man" incident, every one witnessing his handling of
it realized that Dick was different. Now, we were thinking that there
might be something good about that difference.
As the sun was coming up the next day,
after hastily eating a hearty canteen cup full of dehydrated vegetable
soup, we were told to assemble by squads. I loved that soup and slurped
down a third cup before hurrying to join my squad. It was flown out to
us in insulated Mermite containers and served by our company cooks. By
this time in my tour of duty, I was so tired of eating C-rations that
many times this would be my only meal for the entire day. I would
supplement it with a can of apricots or peaches when I could find them.
Each night the enemy would mine the
road that we came in on and each morning squad sized patrols from my
unit would take turns walking inside the jungle on either side of the
road. The mine clearing crews walked down the middle of the road,
sweeping it with their portable minesweepers. It is important to note
here that the entire area was considered a "kill on sight" zone. There
were no civilians traveling on this road unless they were part of a
military convoy. That first day after patrolling each side of the road
while the mine sweepers walked the middle of the road, we sit inside the
jungle canopy some 20 meters off the road for the rest of the day,
providing security for passing traffic. In late afternoon, we would be
picked up by our platoon sergeant and led back to the NDP for the night.
That first night I listened as several other grunts in my platoon
described getting quick glimpses of camouflaged Viet Cong soldiers near
their security positions on the road. I was amazed at one grunt's
detailed account of what looked like a slow-moving bush gliding quietly
toward him and then slowly fading away. He said that he was so
mesmerized, that he was not able to act. He allowed the figure to melt
silently into the jungle and out of sight. Go figure. "You mean you just
sat there and watched as this "bush" disappeared from view?", I asked.
The soldier turned around and walked off, never answering me. Like him,
I was a PFC, so I felt I had no power to correct him on anything.
Although I was one of the oldest grunts in the platoon, and had
performed flawlessly up until now, not a single NCO "saw fit" to empower
me to correct the newer guys. I know now that this was not something
which commonly happened. However, I now believe it happened to me
because I was viewed by my sergeants who were only a little older than
me as not fitting their stereotype of what a man should be. I didn't
smoke. I didn’t drink. I didn’t carouse around looking for prostitutes,
and I certainly didn’t smoke pot. I was a narcissus and very
self-centered, but I think that
counted against me too.
In the middle of the night on the
second night at this NDP, which I later learned was named "Thrust", the
entire battalion was awakened and put on "alert". One of our squad
ambush patrols had gotten into a fire fight with an unknown number of
enemy troops. Several patrol members were shot up and the patrol was
forced to leave equipment and weapons in the jungle, as they were
ordered to return to the NDP. At least they were able to get everyone
back to the perimeter alive, even if they were wounded. It wasn't long
until a dust-off arrived and landed inside the perimeter to take those
wounded men away.
The next morning my squad joined "Mike"
platoon for a patrol to retrieve the gear, which had been left at the
ambush site. It was one of "Mike's" ambush patrols which had been hit
the night before and now my squad from "November" platoon was being
loaned to "Mike" to go on this one patrol to retrieve lost equipment.
"Mike" had just gotten a new platoon leader recently. He put my squad in
the rear of the patrol. That was a little disconcerting for me because I
was used to being up front on most of these small patrols. As our single
file column left the perimeter and
began to "snake" through the triple canopy jungle, "after action
reports" say that we would have been able to hear the sound of
bulldozers from the 1st engineering battalion led by Lt. Colonel
Kiernan. They were busy improving our firing lanes for our positions at
the NDP here at "Thrust". That was a good indication, in itself, that we
were probably not going to be leaving this location anytime soon. There
was another very good indication that we would be staying a while. The
jungle around us was "crawling" with enemy patrols.
The patrol of some 35 or 40 men seemed
to be taking a zigzagging course to get to the ambush site, which was
the smart thing to do. I don't believe the new platoon leader had enough
combat experience, however, to choose that tactic on his own. No, that
order came directly from "Dogface 6". I can be reasonably sure of that,
now, because of the way the rest of our day unfolded. Besides, new
Lieutenants just didn't know enough to know when and when not to zigzag.
If we had walked directly on a straight course to the site, we would
have been ambushed, for sure, before arriving at our destination, given
the amount of enemy activity which we had been experiencing in the area.
Many a new Lieutenant walked to his death this way because most
battalion commanders, themselves, didn't understand when to use this
tactic. Woefully lacking tactical knowledge like this could have been so
easily dealt with. Returning veterans could have been used to train
these officers bound for Vietnam but they weren't. Instead, junior field
officers were only trained in traditional maneuvering tactics which got
a lot of people killed in Vietnam's jungle combat environment.
Bartee didn't go with us on this little
outing, nor did Milliron. I believe Walker and Bowman were there. The
squad leader from the "shot up" squad took Bartee's place. My squad fell
in last and began to follow the guy in front of us on this meandering
course to the ambush site. The column slowed as we filed past a "Chinese
looking" guy sitting against a small tree to our left. His lifeless
hands were clutching a cloth tourniquet wrapped around his left leg. By
now, I had seen a number of dead enemy bodies, but this poor fellow gave
me an especially eerie feeling, which I will never forget. As we filed
by, everyone gazed at him without saying a word, but no one touched him.
He had thick bushy hair, and his skin was stained a dark red from living
in red earthen tunnels. He had probably been shot during the "fire
fight" with our ambush patrol the night before. He just sat there, with
that spooky "death gaze" on his face. What was he silently heralding to
each one of us as we passed by? Was he saying that soon some of us would
be joining him? Little did I know that this morbid thought was becoming
more and more of a reality and would have indeed become a reality if not
for Dick.
It was a very hot day and by the time
we reached the ambush site everyone was wringing wet with sweat. The
huge trees of the triple canopy jungle seemed to hold the smothering
heat in, but at least their shade also prevented the light starved
undergrowth from becoming as thick as it would have become otherwise.
All anyone wanted to do after securing the lost gear was to make a hasty
retreat back to our NDP. Since all the equipment belonged to "Mike"
platoon members, they were tasked with carrying it back to the
perimeter, while my squad remained "hands free".
After retrieving the gear, "Mike"
platoon leader had his point men shoot a compass reading straight to our
NPD from the ambush site. We then started following that azimuth home.
Since everyone was extremely hot and tired, including the Lieutenant, he
ruled out any zigzagging on our way back. For better or worse, we
followed a straight "bee line" course to within approximately 300 meters
of our NDP, when the men in front of me stopped and the entire column
stood still for what seemed like a very long time but was probably less
than five minutes. The more open jungle became closed in now with much
more dense foliage. The Platoon leader and the point men up front were
the only people in the patrol who had the map and the compass to plot
our way home. My squad in the rear of the column had no idea where we
were going or how far away our base camp was. For all we knew, we could
be on our way to Hanoi. We must have walked for about fifteen minutes,
before I saw the platoon sergeant and the platoon leader working their
way toward me from the front of the column. In a low voice, the platoon
sergeant said that we were getting ready to do an "about face" to the
left and walk about fifty yards to the road. For years, I have always
believed that the new Lieutenant had taken it upon himself to ignore
Dick's orders to never walk on any path including a road unless
it had recently been secured. However, we did the "about face" and all
walked "online" until we all reached the road at about the same time. As
I stood in the middle of the road, and squinted through sweaty eyes, I
could just glimpse the outline of a bunker and a 155 MM gun barrel
sticking up in the air down the road about 3 hundred meters. It was our
NDP. We were almost home, and it was much easier walking on the road
than clawing our way through the jungle. Now, in two columns, one on
either side of the road, we started walking toward base camp in what
could have very well been the last 300 meters of our lives.
My understanding of events like the one
which I am about to recant here have deepened over time. I believe it is
possible that Dick broke his own rule and allowed us to walk the road
that last 300 meters but only because he thought that he could use the
chopper to scout out things between us and the NDP. I saw his chopper
fly over my head past me and then it flew past me again in the opposite
direction back toward our NDP. It reminded me of a mother hen, trying to
keep watch over her chicks. Unfortunately, Dick soon realized that the
canopy of trees concealed the sides of the road too well for him to be
able to spot enemy soldiers hiding there. When he realized this, he
immediately ordered my company's "Lima" platoon to "saddle up" and start
maneuvering down both sides of the road to meet us. His experience told
him that anyone between us and the NDP, who was waiting to ambush us
would be prone to making one mistake. They would be so focused on
watching us coming within range that they would fail to notice anyone
slipping up on their "six". Those guys in “Lima” were really good at
being sneaky. They left the perimeter, walking in two columns, one on
either side of the road, just inside the wood line. They were inside the
wood line so they could not be spotted by the ambushers, until they were
on top of them from behind. Headquarters radioed our platoon leader to
let him know what "lima" was doing. That word was passed down to every
member of my patrol by word of mouth so we would not accidently shoot
them.
A point man acquaintance of mine was
leading the "Lima" column on the right side of the road, inside the wood
line, while the other half
came down the other side. This was a guy whom I had known for a while.
He was only about five feet six inches tall, but he was as "cool as a
cucumber" under fire. Recently his dad had mailed him a "Smith & Wesson"
revolver. When he got it, he was so proud of it, that he showed it off
to everyone in the entire company, me included. Little did we know at
the time, that a bullet from that revolver would be the first shot heard
in this upcoming fire fight. Indeed, as "Dogface 6" had suspected,
ambushers were waiting for our patrol to come within range. My point man
friend in "Lima" later told me that he was quietly walking toward us,
watching closely for any movement to his front, when he spied one of the
ambushers standing on his side of a small tree, and about ten meters
away from him. Without much hesitation, he pulled out the revolver from
a "makeshift" pouch attached to his ammo belt, aimed, and then squeezed
off three shots into the sapper. He hit him in the upper torso with all
three shots. The man had been so focused on watching us coming toward
him, that he had become completely oblivious to anyone who may have been
sneaking up on his "six".
Very quickly after those first pistol
shots rang out, I could hear rounds popping by my head and see dirt
being kicked up as the ambusher's bullets slammed into the roadbed
around my feet. Everyone started running forward as fast as we could,
while laying down suppressing fire on both sides of the road. The
ambushers didn't have long to shoot at us before they, themselves, were
forced to duck hot lead coming from the men of "Lima" platoon. "Dogface
6" had really put the veteran "Lima" platoon in the "catbird seat". All
they had to do was run two or three abreast, laying down suppressing
fire inside the wood line. Since that fire was directed inside the wood
line, there was very little chance of a stray bullet hitting us on the
road. This situation now left the ambushers with two choices in life.
They could either choose to stick around and be overcome by withering
fire, or they could go home. They very wisely chose to go home.
A man from "Mike" platoon, who was
running in front of me during the short fire fight was very nervous. He
kept trying to reload his rifle but kept dropping the magazines. As he
dropped one he would reach for another, then drop it too. Since we both
had M-14's I remember grabbing his dropped magazines on the fly and
using them myself. M-14 magazines were not that easy to come by and I
wasn't about to leave one lying in the dirt if I could help it. Later, I
don't remember ever returning those magazines to him. We soon met up with "Lima". All firing at that point had stopped. One man in "Mike" platoon received a flesh wound to the leg. Other than that, everyone returned to our NDP unscathed. The rest of the afternoon was more enjoyable than most afternoons. It seemed that experiencing narrow escapes always created a sense of euphoria afterwards. This harrowing event also reinforced the fact that "Dogface 6" was there in the thick of things, taking very sensible actions to help all his boys survive to fight another day. It was now the afternoon of March 30, 1967. |