Chapter 5 The Boy Dies 120324   

     It was now the middle of January and operation Cedar Falls was still in progress. I remember my battalion crossing a large expanse of rice fields in Bien Hoi Province. That province was just to the east of Saigon. Our New battalion commander, Lt. Colonel Earl Denton, was in front of our line of march. He was surrounded by his headquarters people. I believe that this was my first glimpse of him, ever. I did not know his name.

     I was in the middle of the formation and still wading through a rice field, about a quarter mile away. Our entire battalion snaked toward a jungle ticket in the distance. I had to watch every step, trudging through the smelly muddy mess. It was replete with human waste as fertilizer. In my peripheral vision I noticed a black speck in the brilliant blue sky. It was moving very fast, but I couldn't focus on it because I also had to be careful where I was going. As my squad finally approached the edge of the jungle ticket, we began to congregate. More and more of us were trying to squeeze into a small clearing on the edge of the rice field. There was a slight rise in the topography of this jungle landscape of maybe twenty meters. That small speck turned into a jet followed by another one. They kept circling some distance away. We were now on dry ground and entering an area covered in secondary jungle growth. I could see several radio antennas bobbling in the air. Two or three radio operators moved back and forth among a little cluster of headquarters people. My entire platoon squeezing in close behind them so they could have dry ground to stand on. Radio chatter intensified behind me and also to my front. However, it was unrecognizable chatter. I couldn't understand a single word.

    What happened next and what was probably causing a lot of the radio chatter definitely qualified as one of the most exciting moments in my life until now. The event which began to unfold before my eyes would have been what many of my generation would later call a Kodak Moment. One of the jets grew larger as it came toward us. It was an F4 phantom jet making a bombing run and I had a front row view to the show. It flew very close to the ground and passed over our heads. This was the first time that I had witnessed anything nearly this spectacular. It was thrilling to watch. As it passed over us a black object tumbled from under its belly. There was a tremendous explosion a few seconds later. The shock wave from the explosion pelted my body, although I was at least three hundred meters away from where the bomb was dropped. The second phantom jet followed the first. Debris from the explosions flew into the sky and fell to the ground in all directions. As this was taking place, my platoon of mostly new guys just watched in awe. We were still just on the edge of the rice fields and still had a good view behind us, for thousands of meters across those rice fields. It was a vast area of river bottom land, which ran for miles on both sides of the Dong Nai River. My squad soon learned that the reason for the bombing was because one of our forward elements had made contact with an enemy bunker complex situated in this patch of jungle where we were now standing.    

      Seven big black water buffaloes suddenly burst from the wood line to my left. They were being chased by an old man with a long stick. He was herding them out into the open expanse of the rice patties, behind us. It was obvious that he was trying to keep them safe from the bombing. He had probably led them into this area earlier so they could graze on the rich patches of grass found throughout this area. These beautiful animals were precious to him and to his entire family. He and farmers like him could not have worked those expansive rice fields without them. Generations of the old man's family had lived on this land and worked it in the same manner for hundreds of years. Then, without warning, outsiders would come. The Americans were different. They said that they wanted to help. However, it soon became apparent that they had no understanding whatsoever of the delicate balance shared between him, his family, his animals, and the land. They came and they destroyed, not as did the barbaric Japanese, but with an almost total lack of understanding for the collateral damage which they were causing. It's true, they were more approachable and seemed to want to present themselves as the very picture of benevolence. They used kind words, and even provided free medical services. But their kind acts were nothing more than enticements, not to enslave, but to convince him of their good intentions. Acts of kindness without understanding, however, sooner or later become a very cruel hoax. He soon realized that we Americans whom he so openly welcomed at first understood nothing of the delicate balance of life being disrupted by our war machine. Most of my fellow grunts were city dwellers, and even I, who had lived on a farm , did not understand. I certainly gave no thought whatsoever to how important these huge black beasts were to him and his family, and to his way of life. The old man could not afford to lose his animals to the callous carelessness of us Americans any more than he could to the vicious violence of the communists. So, he risked his life and came running earlier to save his animals from the impending destruction. He came alone, refusing to allow his sons to help, because he did not want to risk their lives. Though they begged to come, he made his sons stay behind.

    I couldn't always see the jets each time they made their bombing run, but I could still hear explosions just a few hundred meters from our present location. Then things got quiet for a while. Several hours went by but we never established a circular night defensive position. Since we formed no base camp, I was only aware of my platoon's position. God knows where the rest of the battalion was located. I am sure that they were close by, perhaps spread out in the patches of open ground intermingled with thick jungle. Incredibly, we would stay in this place for five days. During the first three or four days, bombers would come and bomb the same area. It was a forty or fifty acre patch of jungle surrounded on three sides by those vast rice patties.

     Here is my best account of the events as they unfolded. The date of this little debacle was from January 15, 1967 thru January 20, 1967. The fire fights which we became involved in here were not mentioned in the after-action report for Cedar Falls. My account is taken from solely eye witness accounts and my own memory. The record of dates of the men killed here are my time stamp.    

     Here are details as I remember them. Just before our unit discovered that enemy bunker complex in the area, our entire battalion had been scouring through Bien Hoa province on foot, looking for the enemy anywhere that we might find him. Since our recon platoon was often used to scout ahead, I am guessing that on January 15, 1967 they ran head long into that enemy bunker complex. P.F.C. Medic Nathaniel Bullock and rifleman David Miles were killed in the initial contact. Both were listed by some web sites as B Company people. Yet, I was with B Company, and I know for sure that we had no part in making that initial contact. I believe that they were listed with B Company because they had been recently transferred, but their personnel records had not had time to be changed.

      When my B company reached the wood line, contact had already been made and the bombers were making their runs. We learned about the situation with the enemy bunkers piecemeal, through the grapevine. We didn't get the whole story, but we soon realized it was bad. We did not realize our battalion had already sustained casualties at first contact. At sundown, on that first day, each company would have sent out an ambush patrol. We also ran security patrols during the day. The next day, my records show that a B Company machine gunner, Kenneth Otte, was killed by shrapnel. He was most likely hit while returning from ambush patrol. Sappers were good at ambushing the ambush patrols as they returned to the main body the next morning. They could have used Claymore mines because Kenneth was killed by shrapnel.

    On the second day, I glimpsed a group of headquarters people moving up the gentle rise as they stopped in a small open area between patches of thick jungle. Our battalion commander was moving amongst them. He seemed to have a Patrician air about him. He was as cool as a cucumber. I remember looking upon him as one would look upon a god of war. I thought, "Just look at all the power which this man controls. I was in awe of him, as much as I was of those powerful phantom jets. At this moment in time there was no doubt in my boyish mind that I was in capable hands. I remember thinking that this man had to possess vast leadership capabilities to lead such an awesome war machine as the one I was witnessing now. Boy, was I naive? People were being wounded and killed all around us and I had no idea how bad things really were. Instead, I was expecting at any moment to hear that our godlike leader had made mincemeat of those poor souls in the bunkers. If it was taking him a little longer to do that, so what? I believed with all my heart that he would do it. My hero would get the job done, and he would do it using those big powerful phantom jets, while we watched. Then we would go through the area and count the bodies. This was my thoughts. However, it was the thoughts of a nineteen-year-old boy. I had grown up in a safe neighborhood with protective adults all around. How could I not be safe here, huddled under the wing of such a high-ranking American leader?

       My childish mind was incapable of realizing the dangerous complexity facing me. I thought that our commander's great skill alone would guide those planes to the target and that would be that. It would be years later before I learned about a person called a forward observer or about spotter planes. I certainly didn’t know anything about generals circling high above, second guessing everything a ground commander did on the ground.

     I don't believe that it was that unusual for a grunt like me to have had such a vague perception of what was going on around him. I now believe that senior leadership believed that this ignorance in the ranks was not worth the effort to address. They certainly did not believe that it was a factor in winning and losing wars. At this point in my military service, not a single officer had spoken three complete sentences to me personally. Yet, at this point I trusted them with my life. Why? Because I and many others like me were still boys. We were boys who had been raised by the Greatest Generation. We had been taught to keep our mouths shut when adults were talking. However, those same adults had also earned our trust. They were the generation who didn't run away with their secretary and abandon their family. They trusted God and were trusted by God to save the world. The generation which raised us was the most trustworthy generation in our country's history. Now, we green recruits just naturally trusted those in authority over us. Many of my generation who did have a problem with trusting their parents were back in the states, attending liberal arts classes and planning their next anti-war protest. We grunts, however, just naturally did what an adult told us to do. Now, the adults in our lives were our officers and NCOs.  

       If my own childhood had left me unable to realize how incompetent our leaders could be, then so was my lack of understanding about my own abilities. Could I be brave in combat? I believe most of the other new grunts were asking that same question. We had no idea what to expect of ourselves because we had never had to routinely face the prospect of kill and be killed. I did know one thing for sure. I was never going to throw myself on any live hand grenades, to save my buddies. They might get a “Run boys!” out of me but that would be it. It was also a good thing that I didn't know how brave our commander, “Duchess 6” (radio call sign for our present commander) was. If I had known how brave Earl Denton had been in the past, it would have given me even more cause for concern about my ability to measure up. Earl Denton had voluntarily entered the very heart of hell on earth as a 2nd lieutenant, during the Korean conflict. He cut his teeth in the killing cauldron of Pork Chop Hill. The horrific combat he experienced there provides irrefutable testimony of his courage under the most horrendous combat conditions imaginable. He won a Silver Star. He volunteered for both Korea and Vietnam. As a nineteen-year-old kid, I didn't know much, but I did know this. My authority figures had always expected me to become like them. In this case, if I had known Denton's history, I would have immediately thought that there was no chance, whatsoever, that I would ever measure up to him nor would I have ever tried.   

    Finally on January 20, 1967 B Company was chosen to assault the bunker complex. My platoon was chosen to go first. I thought at the time that we were the first to assault the bunker complex. It would be years later before I learned that A Company had already probed the location of those bunkers on the 17th and the 18th. Victor Torres was killed on the 17th and Thomas Narum was killed on the 18th. Both were killed by Claymore mines. Each time contact was made, Denton had that platoon withdraw, and the point of contact would be bombed. However, the sappers who ambushed our assault teams were not near the bunker complex. They would position themselves within the wood line where the probe was being initiated. Then they would ambush our probe with Claymores as soon as it entered the wood line. Watchers around the area were able in various ways to communicate the location of our assembly areas for the probes. I also believe that their intelligence operations had already let them know that we were operating without artillery coverage. They probably used wired communications and runners to keep track of our every move. These guys were not NVA conscripts. They were pros. They knew how to set up an ambush in a matter of minutes. Now, on the 20th it was our turn to make a probe. I now believe that all our artillery was being used further north in Operation Cedar Falls and that’s why we had no artillery available for us.  

     Even then, I thought that the situation was absolutely crazy. It was not only crazy. It was insane. Sometimes crazy will work but insane never works. Insane thoughts push every other thought aside. The order itself is still indelibly imprinted into my brain. It was at this moment that the boy inside me died. In five seconds, our battalion commander went from being my hero to my zero. Why would any competent field commander order young men to die so needlessly? He had the might of United States Air force at his fingertips. Anyone with half a brain could see that they could take care of our problem in less than five minutes. All they needed was for someone to read a map and show them where to drop their bombs. Yet, the order would stand. 

    Since we were moved into position for the assault, without the support of armor or artillery, there is just no other way to say it. This was undeniable proof to us grunts that our battalion commander didn’t have the foggiest idea about what to do next. He had cavalierly assigned us a suicide mission. Some of us would not live to see the sun go down. Many more would have their lives shortened by the grievous wounds which they would soon receive. All this for nothing. Those bunkers had very thick walls, and small gun ports, which faced out to create enfilading fields of fire. There were underground munitions storage chambers as well as connecting tunnels between bunkers. We were armed only with rifles, a few M79 grenade launchers and two light machine guns. Even if we reached the bunkers there would not be one chance in a million of taking them man to man. At least the rebels had rocks to hide behind when trying to take Little Round Top during the Civil War. We had nothing. Patton once said, “No b*****d ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making some other poor dumb b*****d die for his country”. Had "Duchess 6" never heard that speech? If he had, he was definitely getting the roles reversed. He was having us play the role of the "poor dumb b*****d.

     At some point Sergeant Rook tried to explain the situation to us in the most concerned and comforting tone of voice which I had ever heard him use. In fact, it was the most comforting tone I had heard anyone use since stepping off the plane onto the soil of this God forsaken country. He spoke almost in a whisper, with a softness I never dreamed he possessed. As he talked, he looked directly at our little group and said nothing that we didn’t already know. “The bombs have probably not destroyed the bunkers” and then, he went on to say, "It is impossible to know for sure whether they have or not because the jungle is so thick. Now, the Colonel wants us to take those bunkers". After he finished talking everyone got really quiet. We had already been told the same thing by the platoon sergeant. Sergeant Rook's words were redundant. His demeanor and the tone of his voice was strangely quieting, but there was no comfort in his words. We were dead men, and we knew it. At least for the first time he wasn’t talking to us like a drill sergeant. He was talking to us like we were human beings. It seems that the realization of one's impending death tends to make equals of us all.

     It was on this day in January 1967 that I became a man. No matter what else would happen to me on this day, I knew that I would die a man. Not only did I become a man, but I became a man, who was sure that he would never trust another living soul, in uniform again. I also no longer believed that officers were gods.

    While we were still assembling and getting ready for the final order to start our advance on those bunkers, something else happened which I have never forgotten. I remember standing there waiting on orders to move out. I glanced over at Walker who had rubbed me the wrong way when he first joined the squad. We had been in the same squad now for several weeks and although I didn’t like him at first, I couldn’t help but notice that day after day he was always the same poised, and confident person he was when he first joined the squad. Since his arrival I had also found him to be very reliable. He had a lot of common sense to boot. Looking back, I believe the main reason why I didn’t like him was because I was still a boy, but Walker was already a man. Yet, we were the same age. I also misinterpreted his self-assured attitude as cockiness. Furthermore, Walker was a City Slicker, and I was a Hill Billy. However, in a matter of minutes I was about to learn how really far apart Walker's world had been from mine. At the same time, I would bond with him for life, although I would lose all contact with him after leaving Vietnam.

     Neither Walker nor I knew much about workable tactics in jungle warfare. Now, it was obvious to everyone that our commander knew even less. The entire battalion also knew next to nothing about how to fight this new kind of war, against such a foe.

    The platoon leaders, sergeants and squad leaders were still huddled in front of us discussing the details of our final assault plan as I found myself standing face to face with Walker. This allowed him and I to really talk for the first time. We both had been contemplating the day that we would see our first combat. Now that day had arrived. The hard veneer, which Walker had worn in my presence before completely collapsed. I saw the fear in his eyes, as I am sure he saw in mine. There was a few uncomfortable seconds where we just stared at each other. Then, to my shock, he started talking non-stop. It was like we had been old friends all our lives. He never took his eyes off mine. I stood frozen in place, listening, as he started giving a general description of his life back in the big city. He said he had been a pimp. He had nice cars and all the money he needed to buy nice clothes and other nice things. Well, you could have bowled me over with a feather. He went on to say, "Before I was drafted, my girls took care of me. I never had to struggle much for anything. But this is the first time that I feel like I am doing something that really counts. I am serving my country, and I AM PROUD TO BE HERE". Well, I am here to tell "ya", that those few words coming out of his mouth and the very idea of him choosing to say them to me, and me alone, pierced something deep inside of my soul. I never looked at Walker the same way again, and I have never forgotten him. The totally self-centered intellectual part of me could only see our current situation as being a very stupid way to die. In contrast, the way Walker felt could be no more noble. This discovery was not only shockingly provocative, but strangely uplifting. What was even more unexpected was that he had said these words to me, a person who was so different in so many ways from him. It would take many years for me to recognize this for what it really was. It was an expression of great unselfishness in its most raw and pure form. I was witnessing something very special and how would I have ever known, except for this conversation. Yes, here I was, standing in the shadow of a great patriot and he didn’t look anything like John Wayne.

    It is really strange how the mind focuses on such narrow details when facing a dangerous situation. I can remember Walker’s face and the green towel that he always draped around his neck. I can remember it as clearly as if I had just seen him yesterday. Yet, I remember nothing about the others in my squad. I am sure that they were engaged in all types of activities, but I don't remember a single detail. Everyone in my platoon handled this gut-wrenching news in their own way. In my case, I stopped thinking altogether. That was quite a new experience for me. However, it allowed me to really hear and understand what Walker was saying not with his lips but from his heart. At the end of that conversation, superficial barriers between Walker and me collapsed. They were the same barriers, which we all have in place when facing the normal everyday circumstances of life. They tend to keep us at arm's length. Of course, combat is not a normal circumstance. Walker and I were preparing to share a barbaric undertaking, which God never intended for anyone to experience much less share with another human being. What was the trigger which propelled Walker and I to come together like old friends at this moment? We were the oldest guys in the squad, in time served. I think that had something to do with it. Unknown to either, a mutual bond had already been forming. We had subconsciously been drawing closer, through the daily hardships. However, this life threating situation would now become the glue which would cement Walker to me for life. Traumatic events can do that. They can cause walls to collapse. Walker felt comfortable enough to reach back in time and talk to me about his personal life. That life had been a life of independence. He had been in control. I had never been in control. I had never lived independent of my parents. Furthermore, I had only lived my life vicariously through the lives of those adults who raised me. This was a big shot in the arm for my self-esteem, to have an obviously independent guy like Walker show me enough respect, to be willing to share his life's story. Winstead had been the only other person who had ever shown me that much respect since being drafted. Even facing such dire circumstances, I found Walker's shared conversation about his former life to be very comforting. I was still going to get killed in a few minutes, but now I would go out knowing that at least two of my peers had returned that same respect which I felt for them. The rest could kiss my rosy, red you know what.

    We advanced in two columns abreast with each column 3 or 4 meters apart. I was one of those first few men leading the approach. My platoon’s advance was suddenly halted. We were now no more than 40 meters from the enemy bunkers although I wouldn’t know that until the shooting started. I was in the lead in the right-hand column when one of our N.C.O.’s ordered us to halt. Immediately, everyone kneeled to make a smaller target of ourselves. It was a very tense moment, waiting to receive the order to make the final advance. Suddenly, however, 1st platoon (radio call sign “Lima”) which had originally lined up somewhere behind us came bursting through our ranks, in single file, between our two columns. As I watched, they continued on at a very fast pace led by a staff sergeant. This was unusual because staff sergeants usually had better things to do then be the first man to get himself killed. Within seconds we heard several explosions and started receiving gun fire coming from the direction of Lima platoon. All I could see was thick jungle to the front and an occasional bullet shredding jungle foliage around me. It wasn’t heavy fire. We hunkered down unable to return fire because “Lima” platoon was now between us and the enemy. To this day I have no idea why my platoon was told to halt, and “Lima” platoon was chosen as the sacrificial lamb to move through our lines and make the assault. Did Duchess 6 intentionally choose to do it this way? I will never know the answer to that question. All I can say is that from the very first day, things had been very confusing. It became very apparent to everyone that Earl Denton did not have the foggiest idea about how to handle this situation. If he did, then he was allowing someone else in brigade to override him. 

    The explosions we heard were probably claymore antipersonnel mines which would have been detonated by the enemy. If we had continued on instead of Lima platoon, since I was in the lead, I believe I would have been killed. Instead, Staff Sergeant Billy Davis and P.F.C. Pablo Contreras were killed by Claymore mines. Although the jungle was too thick for me to observe a single downed soldier, I could hear the Med Evac Hueys (Dust-Offs) landing on the far side of the rise opposite the bunker complex. They arrived very quickly after the shooting started and continued coming in for some time. There were at least four or five grunts who were badly wounded for every soldier killed each time we attacked the bunker complex. The exact location of the bunker was discovered and successfully bombed only by accident after five days of trial-and-error tactics. Someone one died each time we made an assault. Many others were badly wounded.   

    Just before darkness fell on January 20, 1967 my platoon along with the entire company was again ordered to make a probe into the area where the latest bombing had taken place. Fortunately, this time the bunker complex had been destroyed by the bombing. I remember approaching the bunkers. As I clawed my way in and around the tangled mess, I was very impressed with how well constructed those bunkers were. They had connecting tunnels between them just as I have described. They were exposed by the bombs ripping open the earth around them. I am sure that they had underground chambers which could store all kinds of weapons, equipment, ammunition, and food. The overhead cover was made of several layers of large bamboo logs with earth packed between each layer of logs. This was the first time for me and the other guys in my squad to see dead enemy bodies.

    Shortly after surveying the destruction caused by the bombing, we moved to a clearing which was close by and there we set up a night defensive position. The next day tanks and armored personnel carriers (APC) met up with us in a nearby village on what looked like a main road. We were loaded onto the APC’s which then headed north further into the Iron Triangle. I now believe that we were on highway 13, which was better known by its nickname, Thunder Road. During my tour in Vietnam, I would spend a lot of time on and near this road where we would run many security patrols and carry out company sized operations in the virgin jungle on both sides of it. It ran about 80 kilometers north from Di An to Loch Ninh, a small village very close to the Cambodian border. This red dirt highway also ran parallel to the eastern leg of the Iron Triangle whose southern-most tip was maybe 20 kilometers northwest of our base camp at Di An.

      During the month of January, the 1/18th Infantry Battalion sustained almost as many casualties as did all five battalions involved in Operation Cedar Falls. Yet, we were not part of the operation and as far as I can tell no record was kept by the government of our activities during this time.   

    The federal code for issuing a CIB says, “a soldier must be personally present and under fire while serving in an infantry or Special Forces unit as their primary duty assignment, during the time period in which that unit is engaged in active ground combat, to close with and destroy the enemy with direct fire”. Everyone present when we attacked that bunker complex now satisfied those requirements. The federal code doesn’t say anything about having to shoot back at the enemy. My military records show that Walker, myself, and the other new guys in our platoon received a Combat Infantryman Badge on January 28, 1967, the same day that Operation Cedar Falls came to an end. I believe sergeant Rook was the one who passed on the news to us. We would no longer be considered new guys but that didn’t seem to matter much to sergeant Rook. He had miraculously gotten his drill sergeant’s voice back and he was once again treating us like raw recruits. However, I must admit that I didn't feel the same as before. I might even venture to say that every member of my squad, including me, looked at Sergeant Rook with just a little more respect. Through this terrible experience, we had witnessed another side of him which made him more human, after all.  

    The C.I.B. is the medal coveted by more soldiers than any other medal issued by the United States Army. It is pinned on a soldier’s dress uniform even above the Medal of Honor. However, here is a truth of much higher significance. Medals won in battle are only as honorable as the cause. If the cause is not righteous, then in God’s eyes that medal is nothing more than a dark stain on a soldier’s uniform. America’s war in Vietnam was righteous and not because I say so, but because it passes God’s litmus test. That litmus test is simple. It only requires us to answer one question honestly. We must ask ourselves which side’s victory will bring more individual freedom? That side is the righteous side. Can anyone objectively say that the communist victory in Vietnam brought more individual freedom to that nation than if America had won? I don’t think so. Therefore, our cause was righteous. Yet not every soldier understands that simple truth. For a long time, I certainly did not.          

     As an individual, however, I was far from walking in the will of God and wasn’t supposed to be serving in Vietnam as a soldier. Never mind that I was fighting for a righteous cause. In an absolute sense, there was no justification for my actions no matter how many medals I won, because I was not seeking the will of God for my life. However, the cause, itself, was not made unrighteous by my bad choices. Nor is an unrighteous cause made righteous, by the good choices of those who fight for it. A cause stands on its own merit.      

     When a Holy Spirit anointed believer makes a willful decision to reject God’s guidance and begins to live life on their own terms, as I had chosen to do at age thirteen, they cease adding to their divine legacy. Nothing good came from my own efforts after that. It was only when I stopped and listened to the Holy Spirit, as I had done on that river bank that night, that good things happened. However, in order to create our God ordained legacy in Him, God needs for us to listen and continually obey the Holy Spirit and not just in times of trouble.   

    We stayed on a highway that I now believe was highway 13 and we stayed there for several days. I believe a mechanized unit transported us there. During the day we pulled road guard while engineers cleared swaths of jungle on both sides of the road. I also remember watching large Rome plow bulldozers cutting down large trees throughout this area which had already been cleared of small jungle foliage. It was a terrible waste of natural resources. Big, beautiful trees were dismembered, pushed into piles, and burned.

    I had nothing else to do but watch my surroundings. Sometimes I would just stare at the bulldozers as they knocked down tree after tree. The road was just behind me and the jungle to my front about 150 meters. There was a lot of road traffic during the day, both civilian and military. We were located just a little south of a place called Lai Khe on highway 13 about 50 kilometers or so north of our base camp at Di An. We were here for several days. It was lonely work because my squad was spread so far apart. I was actually manning this position with two engineers who hardly said a word to me. There were no hot meals and water was scarce. I remember having a very lonely feeling and I still remember that feeling 50 years later. I was separated from my unit and had no idea what these two guys would do if trouble broke out. The position that we were manning had a 50-caliber machine gun. An infantry battalion like mine had no heavy machine guns like this. Infantry units like mine would be used alongside mechanized units in these types of Rome plow operations to protect the engineers doing the work, but at this point in my tour I had not worked alongside those guys. Later, when I did work with them, we usually manned the fixed positions while the engineers had other work to do. In this particular case, however, there must have been a shortage of road guards, so these two engineers were there with me all day long. They seemed to be convinced that I was some kind of alien from another planet. I wouldn’t realize the reason for them acting this way until months later. It was because I was a grunt. Us grunts did most of the fighting. They had other jobs, that usually didn't require them to fight. They were just naturally in awe of a grunt like me. At the time, I just thought that they were acting weird.     

     The position itself was in poor shape. I just naturally stationed myself behind the 50-caliber machine gun. There were only a few sandbags stacked up in front of it with no bunker emplacement whatsoever. We were out in the open and an easy target for an enemy hiding within the wood line. Mechanized units were usually stationed inside that wood line to protect the Rome plows but at the time I didn’t see any evidence of them being deployed there. Maybe they were there because there was a lot going on. The average grunt like me was informed of very little. The two engineers watched my every move each time I touched that 50 cal. I could tell that they wanted nothing to do with it. 

    You would think that I would have asked questions of these guys to try to better understand my present circumstance, but I didn’t. I felt uncomfortable, and I really don’t know why I felt that way, but I did. I remember clamming up in the presence of these two guys or maybe they were the ones who clammed up on me. I can’t remember. Either way, it was disconcerting and uncomfortable duty for me. These few days after that bunker episode were definitely giving me lots of food for thought.      

     My father had not only taught me to shoot straight at the age of 7 but he had also taught me to hunt small game. Later, he also taught me not to be afraid to hike for miles in the vast expanses of the George Washington National Forest in the dark and how to follow game trails through thickets in rough terrain. He taught me to navigate the darkness with a small silver compass which I still possess today. He also taught me to listen to every sound around me while also scanning for any movement. With this background, when it came time to learn about the 50-caliber machine gun in basic training I was all eyes and ears. Now, feeling uncomfortable, I was just naturally drawn to that big gun. Handling any gun could take me to the very center of my comfort zone. Now, with these two weirdoes looking at me like I had just arrived from Mars, moving a little closer to my comfort zone seemed like a real good idea. I did not know how long this gun had been there or what unit it was assigned. It was already there when we arrived. Maybe it needed a cleaning or maybe it didn’t, but I needed to find out. I had paid close attention to the 50-caliber machine gun class in basic training but that had been a while back. Nevertheless, I started breaking it apart and immediately felt comfortable doing so. I had no problem remembering how to completely disassemble and reassemble it. There was burnt powder residue everywhere. I found some old rags and made do with the rifle cleaning stuff which I had in my ruck sack. I always carried gun oil, solvent, and a ram rod in that ruck sack. The rod was for a smaller bore, but I used it anyway to clean the inside of the barrel. After about 30 minutes I had cleaned the entire gun and had its action working as slick as a whistle. My father had drilled into me the importance of keeping a gun clean. I had been cleaning guns since the age of seven, long before the Army got hold of me. Cleaning a gun was a very deeply religious act for me.  Any gun I possessed had to be cleaned as soon after being used as possible. After cleaning this weapon with solvent, I coated the inside workings with a very light coat of gun oil. However, I applied a heavier coating of oil on the outside parts including the barrel. That better protected those surfaces against rust and the environment while a heavier coating on the internal parts would have caused them to gum up.

     Now, the road behind me was a dirt road with a lot of traffic going past my position. It was the height of the dry season and the thick layers of dust on the road were continually being kicked up by passing convoys. They created such heavy dust clouds that we were forced to wear bandanas over our nose and mouth while they were passing by. Quite frankly, this was some of the most miserable road guard duty which I remember performing during my entire tour of duty.      

    I did start to feel more relaxed after I finished cleaning the 50 Caliber machine gun and I was especially glad that I had been able to break it down so successfully and then reassemble it. It refreshed my training on the particulars of the weapon, since we didn’t get to handle one of these babies very much, if ever. I was also starting to hope that we would stay long enough, so I could test fire it. Maybe I would be on duty when some commander ordered a mad minute. That was the name given to a designated minute for everyone to fire at once. However, if I was starting to feel better about myself and my self-initiative, it wouldn’t last long.