Chapter 9 Finding a Path in the Midst of Chaos 120624

      Deu. 30:19 says, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you, life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring may live”. Yet, how does one choose life over death in every situation including war? The answer to that is simple. Paul, one of the greatest leaders who ever lived, told us how it must be done, when almost two thousand years ago, he said to the Philippians, "I hold fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may rejoice that I did not run in vain or labor in vain". (Phil. 2:16) What if our war leaders during the Vietnam Era would have become true believers in Christ? What if they had then meditated long and hard on those words spoken by Paul through the anointing of the Holy Spirit? Would things have turned out in America’s favor? I believe the answer to that question is a resounding yes. However, many of our chosen leaders then and now have decided that such beliefs are the imaginations of a very backward way of thinking. Americans in general have turned a deaf ear to the inspired word of God.     

      It was nearing the end of February 1967and my battalion was spending a lot of time running patrols and pulling perimeter guard between Lai Khe and Phuoc Vinh. I now believe that we were held back from joining Operation Junction City on the first day, February 22, 1967, because division was waiting on our new commander to arrive. Most of the other battalions in the division were immediately moved up north on D-Day, nearer to the Cambodian border. Lazzell's 1/16th was air lifted by C-123's from Lai Khe to Suoi Da air strip the next day. It was located just east of the Black Virgin Mountain. Our new commander did not arrive until the first part of March. I cannot find a record of the exact date.

    Milliron, Bowman and I were stuck for several days in this run down bunker at Lai Khe. We began repairing it after clearing out a large number of scorpions that had made their home in the cracks between the sandbags. No one told us to do this. We just wanted something to do. After we were there for a few days, Bill got bored and took off one morning for town. Town consisted of nothing more than a row of tin roof huts made into bars stocked with liquor and prostitutes. Bowman had taken off to pull some kind of detail back at Di An. Sergeant Bartee had disappeared too. The Lai Khe complex was fairly large. It was the site of a large rubber tree plantation. The French had built some really well constructed and beautiful red tiled roof buildings in years past. There was also a large working swimming pool. However, I wasn't the inquisitive type, so I was usually the one to get stuck holding down the fort while Milliron did more and more exploring. He was really starting to feel comfortable with his pecking order within the squad.

     The air strip was to my front and to the left. The town, if it could be called a town, was to the right of our bunker about a half mile south on Highway13 (Thunder Road). Behind me was mostly rubber trees, crisscrossed with dirt streets. Dotting the dirt streets behind me were also a few rows of hoochs built by Brown and Root and used as operations buildings and sleeping quarters for troops like me. Lady Byrd owned a large interest in that company, and I am sure she shared the income with Lyndon. They never asked me if I wanted to get in on the deal. 

    The day went by. Hour after hour I sat there and waited with no sign of Milliron, who had said he would only be gone for a couple hours at most. That was a bald-faced lie. The afternoon past and I was forced to eat C rations because I was the only one at my post. That meant that I couldn't leave to get a hot meal. We had no radio in this position. It was really isolated, although I could see the other manned bunker's on each side of me. Yet, I had no one to talk to. The afternoon rainstorm came and went like clockwork leaving everything nice and steamy. I grabbed my poncho, not to keep dry but to keep the mosquitoes from eating me alive. It got later and later but there was no sign of Milliron. The sun started going down and still Milliron did not show. It was becoming abundantly clear to me that my "ole buddy" had abandoned me. Now, as several more hours past, I had plenty of time to think about the situation. If I let him get away with this little stunt, there would be no end to it. Besides, I was just downright mad. I knew I could beat the snot out of him, but I liked him too much to do that. As the sun was sitting, I sat on a sandbag, stewing in my own mental juices. I had no one to vent my frustrations to. My mind was racing, as I now stared intently at those same rows of banana trees where he had disappeared from view on the way to town. We had been on several security patrols in the area behind those trees. I knew the area well. It was all unoccupied scrub brush jungle behind those banana trees for several miles. The village was much further south and out of the line of fire, from my position on the perimeter. That was a good thing because I was beginning to formulate a plan which would include Mr. Bill on the receiving end of my M-14.  

     I reached for the ammo can. In that can I found a box of red tipped tracer rounds. I never used tracers, myself, but I decided to make an exception this time. I emptied one of my ammo clips and replaced those rounds with a full load of those red tracers. As I was doing this, a feeling of sinister joy seemed to replace my anger. After loading my M-14 with a twenty-round clip there was nothing left to do but sit and stare at the grove of banana trees. I sit and I waited, and I swatted mosquitoes, and then I sat some more. I knew Bill would be drunk. He always got drunk when he went to town. He was also funny when he got drunk. So, it would be interesting to see how funny he was going to be this time reacting to the little surprise which I had in store for him.

     The red sky across the clearing in front of me was within minutes of fading to black and the sun to my rear was well hidden behind neat rows of rubber trees, when I heard the drunken Bill Milliron yell loudly from the direction of the banana trees. "Hey Wayne, its Bill. Don't shoot. Don't shoot", he kept repeating. His drunken and slurred request was answered with silence by me. 

     At the same time, I thought to myself, "Well, here, here, don't shoot, you say", as a tingle of excitement ran up my spine. "Shooting" was exactly what I had planned for "good ole Bill". It was just what the doctor ordered to add a little excitement to the end of his day on the town. No amount of yelling from Bill was going to change the coming home reception I had planned for him! The selector switch on my rifle was already set to single shot instead of fully automatic. I could better control the recoil that way. Now, as Bill continued to yell "don't shoot", I punctuated the end of his last “Don’t shoot” with one red tracer round fired about fifteen feet over his head. Bill immediately hit the ground while screaming even more loudly, “Don't shoot, gxd dxxn it, don't shoot".  Two more red tracer rounds flew over his head. I knew from experience that on his end they would seem like they were going to go straight through him.

     What great fun it was watching Bill stumble and fall and then crawl part way toward the bunker in the mud. By the time I had finally emptied my clip, and Bill had figured out that I was just saying "Hi", he had crawled within twenty-five meters of the bunker. He never stopped cussing. When I stopped shooting, he got up and staggered into our position, then fell to the ground and rolled over on his back. Mind you, he did this while still clutching his own M-16 to his muddy chest. You see, we took our weapons wherever we went. As he lay there, he still kept cussing and laughing at the same time. "You S.O.B., you gxd dxxn S.O.B.", he kept repeating between chuckles, as he looked up to see the biggest grin that anyone would ever see on my face during my entire tour in Vietnam. "Hey Bill, want some hot chocolate?", I quietly asked as I looked down at him with the grin still on my face. "Hell no", Hell no, I don't want any hot chocolate", he responded as he shook his head wildly from side to side. He ended each "Hell no" with a little chuckle and then ended his final “Hell no” with a l little squeal. He then just laid still for quite a while in his drunken trance. I was left to pull guard for a few more hours until Bill came out of his drunken stupor. However, Bill never left me stranded alone again, ever, and when he did decide to take his next little break from the war, he was quick to let Bowman and me know ahead of time how he planned to do it.

     It was a doozy of a plan and one which he would have never let anyone know unless he trusted them implicitly. It involved getting his wife to mail him a fake "Dear John" letter so he could get an emergency leave to fly back to the world and it worked like a charm. However, it would be another three months before Bill initiated this little scheme of his. For now, we still had much more male bonding time ahead of us and our sister battalion, the 1/16th had a lot more mortal terror and death ahead of her.

     On the 23rd of February, as I have already mentioned, Lazzell's 1/16th was flown out of Lai Khe, and settled in, for the night at Suoi Da, located about thirty miles N.W. of us on the S.E. corner of War Zone C. While pulling perimeter guard that night the battalion lost two men in a mortar attack. However, those kinds of losses, although a tragedy, were largely unavoidable. One of those men was an officer, 1st Lt. Thomas Gray. The next day all three companies of the battalion were repositioned along highway 4 to provide road security for resupply conveys. Company A was positioned in an NDP off Route 4 and one and one-half miles south of a place called Prek Klok. B company's NDP was positioned to the south of them and C company further south of B. Battalion commander Lazzell's Headquarters people bivouacked in the NDP with B company. Each day for the next 2 days C and A company made sweeps with not much more than a hot sweaty march through the jungle to show for their efforts. However, the 1/16th had already started doing things much differently than the way our new boss would have us do business. These were seemingly very small differences which would definitely have gone unnoticed by the "lessons learned" analysts at Division headquarters.

     Here is just one example of what I am talking about. One report said that five reinforced squads were sent out by the 1/16th on the 24th, as ambush patrols. At the time, I would not have thought that there was anything wrong with doing it that way. Every fighting unit in Vietnam used night ambush patrols stationed from 500 to 1000 meters in front of their company’s side of the NDP. These acted as early warning for any enemy troop movements in the area. Beefing up a squad or reinforcing it with extra men, however, was not something our new boss had us do, even in areas where there were signs of heavy enemy troop movements. I never realized the reason he had us do it this way until years later. You see, those extra men for the ambush patrol had to come from another squad in the platoon, which may have seemed like no big deal to a naive tactician, but in reality this actually worked to weaken the unit’s perimeter defenses. Now, someone else would have to fill the hole they left in the perimeter and there were never enough of us to go around. We were always under strength. Besides, in these heavily forested and unpopulated areas of War Zone C an experienced squad of 6 men could actually perform objectives of an ambush patrol at least as well or maybe even better than 15 men could. They could travel more quietly, more quickly, and still provide the same intel that a beefed-up squad could provide. They didn’t need the extra fire power because they had the same availability to an umbrella of artillery as did a larger unit. I went on many ambush patrols after this new guy took over and I never took part in a single reinforced squad ambush patrol. Most of the time we never had the full squad compliment of ten men. It was usually just seven or eight of us, who were given the opportunity to enjoy the delights of trekking through virgin forests. Okay, maybe I am getting carried away. Maybe it wasn’t so delightful.   

     The report goes on to say that one of the five patrols of the 1/16th got shot up as they were setting up their ambush position for the night. This begs the following question. “What good did the extra men do to prevent this from happening"? I can't help but wonder if that situation could have been prevented by having a smaller number of men, in that patrol, who worked closely together day after day instead of having to work with extra guys whom they didn’t know that well. Like I said, this was just a small thing and somewhat speculative on my part, but it was the attention to these small details that our new commander seemed to pay more attention to. This was in contrast to the 1/16th commander. It didn't take but a couple weeks for the entire unit to begin to realize that our unit was having better out comes than when Denton was in command. We couldn't understand why, but we did notice one thing for sure. Our new commander seemed to think more like a grunt than a Lieutenant Colonel. Something was definitely brewing with this guy. Whether it was good or bad, it was still too early to tell. I also just naturally assumed that other units were adapting in a similar manner. When the grapevine brought us news of their trouble, I assumed it was just their bad luck. It wasn’t until years later that my extensive research revealed otherwise.                                  

     On the morning of the 28th, it was 1/16th, B company's turn to make a sweep. After running two days of company sized patrols in the area, Lt. Col. Lazzell had turned up nothing and sad to say he anticipated nothing. Today he stayed in the NDP (night defensive position), while his B company commander, Capt. Donald S. Ulm, led the patrol. According to one eyewitness report, at 0715 hours on the 28th, B company of the 1/16th walked south on highway 4 for four hundred meters and then started a two-column march through the not so thick triple canopy jungle. The patrol then turned east by northeast on a 65-degree azimuth toward Prek Klok Creek. The creek ran roughly parallel to route 4 at a distance of about 2500 meters.

     Instead of simply zigzagging, Division had devised a complicated way for a company sized or larger force to navigate through jungle terrain. It was called clover-leafing, and it involved stopping every five hundred meters and sending out patrols in front and then circling around toward the flanks. From the air, their route created the rough outline of a cloverleaf. Thus, the name. After studying many First Division battle reports I can find no evidence whatsoever to support this being a worthwhile tactic. On the contrary, I believe it stopped forward progress long enough to give the wily enemy much more time to set up their ambushes.

     It wasn’t long on this day until Lazzell found his enemy. Later reports called this an accidental run-in or in military terms a meeting engagement. The clover-leafing tactic did nothing but give the 101st NVA regiment more time to maneuver while B company was standing still for twenty minutes, waiting on clover-leaf patrols to complete their circuit.

      Contact between opposing forces, in jungle terrain, was a messy business anyway one wishes to look at it. However, when contact was made on this day things were made even more messy by those stupid cloverleaf tactics. When the shooting started, the cloverleaf patrols were further away from the main body of troops and much harder to rescue. Furthermore, our American boys had been programed from youth to never leave a wounded buddy behind. Without orders they would die trying to reach those cloverleaf patrols. Thus, more people would be killed or wounded further bogging the entire front line down and preventing it from maneuvering. Close-in artillery support would also have been greatly hampered. We would not have wanted to drop artillery shells on our own wounded.

     On this day, the enemy’s 101st regiment also had more than its share of snipers. They climbed trees like monkeys. Many of the men of the 1/16th would lose their lives, not to ground fire, but to the more accurate fire coming from those snipers in trees. That morning, before the patrol began its march, Lazzell had already set up his men to be ambushed. He plotted a straight-line route instead of zigzagging. Lazzell didn’t know it, but the enemy also knew how to draw a straight line. Lazzell’s straight-line route broadcast to the enemy commander exactly what location he needed to pick for his ambush.

     Let me be quick to say that B Company Commander, Capt. Ulm, like so many other junior officers, had no power whatsoever to change any of these bad tactics. If he had tried, he would have quickly been relieved of command. Sadly, the vast majority of officers in the First Division had no idea that these inapt tactics needed to be changed. Furthermore, the short six-month rotation period for field officers pretty much guaranteed that they would never have enough time to figure these things out on their own.

     It would have taken a strong two-way communications network to preserve and pass on the lessons to be learned here. At the time, however, that was nowhere close to becoming a reality. In 1967 no such network existed. To make matters worse just the opposite was true. Division G3 Jim Shelton confirmed what I am saying here. In his Book, The Beast Was Out There, Big Jim made this provocative statement. “The First Infantry Division in Vietnam was, however, the ass-chewingest organization I have ever seen in my twenty-seven years in the army". That statement says it all. It’s important to note That this type of communications breakdown is a cancer in any organization. It will shut down all dialectical reasoning within any organization as it did within the ranks of young American commanders throughout Vietnam. (Yeah, I know. Dialectic is a big word. It means “the practice of arriving at the truth by the exchange of logical arguments”) This other kind of negative communications also reinforced the character flaws of men like Ruffus Lazzell. Now character flaws are one thing but character flaws in those who lead our nations young heroes don’t need to be magnified. They need to be recognized and then rehabilitated.

     Big Jim went on to elaborate about the problem. "Over control is a real problem for concerned senior commanders who may be a stone’s throw away by helicopter, but who are unable to influence the action that is so near at hand". Let me interject the following here. Overcontrol should be taken as a warning that there is a breakdown in the proper kind of communications. In Jim Shelton's book, he goes on to systematically describe, with heartfelt passion, how the ubiquitous nit-picking in First Division's senior command helped turn one very good field commander into a jumble of nerves. That man became, in Jim's words, "almost paranoid" when having to give "sitreps" (Situation reports) to the brigade commander over the radio. Jim went on to say, "He had difficulty moving on the ground to exercise personal control over the action and leading the ground action". Jim Shelton makes it very clear here that badgering by senior command was prevalent in the First Infantry Division. When that happens in any organization it is a blatant warning that the cancer of poisonous communications has completely metastasized.

     It was 1030 hours when Capt. Ulm's men completed their second Cloverleaf and started forward movement again. That's when the lead platoon came under a massive amount of machine gun fire as well as small arms fire. November platoon leader 23-year-old First Lt. David Anthony was killed almost immediately. Every squad leader in November Platoon was also either killed or badly wounded in those first few minutes of the day long battle. This action would later become known as the Battle of Prek Klok I.  Platoon sergeant, Matthew Leonard was left to take command of the deteriorating situation of his point platoon. Fortunately, he did have buck sergeant John Worbington of Houston, and his fire team, who had just returned from a "clover leaf" patrol. They worked their way up front and started laying down some very accurate lifesaving return fire, and they did that for rest of the day.

     Here for the taking is a larger perspective of this battle. It was one of the first to mark a definitive change to the ongoing tactics of the enemy. By the spring of 1967, Duan and his war commander, General Thanh, had gained enough political power in the North to put into play their bold idea for winning the war. It meant that their tactics would now include continual “Big Battle Campaigns” which would draw us Americans away from focusing on their political war of terror against the South Vietnamese. At the same time China and the Soviet Union were stepping up their logistical support for the war which added wings to this idea. There was also an unlimited supply of fresh young bodies, men and women, to be conscripted in the North to make this plan possible. Sure, there had been big battles conducted before, but not on the scale and frequency which was now possible.   

     At this time, the 101st NVA regiment was staffed with more hard core communist than most. It was the unit chosen to shadow and protect COSVN leadership in the south. The 1/16th was dealing with numbed souls who could nonchalantly run to their deaths as easily as I can go to Kroger to pick up a carton of milk. Later, their replacements would consist more and more of conscripts, whose parents and grandparents had already been subjected to mass murdering by the communist soon after they gained full control of North Vietnam. Now, they were being programed into becoming "ghouls" for this new horror taking place in South Vietnam, where the communists would soon murder hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese farmers. Without God, the horrors of life always turn victims into perpetrators.

     However, this larger picture was seen by only a very few in 1967. What was noted by us grunts was how poorly we were led. We were also given a rifle that was totally inadequate. The lightweight M-16s either jammed or had their small 55 grain bullets ricochet off any twig in their path. On this day, enemy snipers had very accurate ten shot, 7.62mm Russian carbines and three very effective 7.62mm Chicom machine guns. By 1967 almost all NVA soldiers had weapons which performed better in Vietnam's harsh jungle environment than ours. The heavier bullets penetrated the thick brushy jungle much more effectively and there were no jamming issues.  

     However, while initially getting hammered, one veteran machine gun crew in November platoon was able to bring to bear some very effective fire. They killed all three enemy machine gunners. This reduced the volume of enemy firing long enough for sergeant Leonard to rally what was left of his little fighting force. He formed them into a semicircle. Other NVA crawled forward, trying to get their own machine guns operating again. Sergeant Leonard realized what was happening and was able to redirect fire on them and kill those replacement gunners. He did this three times. The fourth time another Cong was able to man his dead comrade’s gun successfully.

     In the meantime, Capt. Ulm very quickly maneuvered Mike platoon to advance and link up with November platoon. That allowed the line to be extended becoming a horseshoe perimeter on the right flank. Ulm also ordered lima platoon to advance and extent the perimeter on the left flank. While doing so Lima came under heavy fire from an attacking force advancing from the Northeast. Since headquarters people had advanced with Lima, Capt. Ulm's little group of people were also now coming under heavy fire. At this point, the lifesaving withdrawal maneuver had long since become impossible without leaving many of the 1/16th's wounded behind. Also, with key people killed at the very front of the column, artillery people were not able to receive the proper coordinates needed to carry out their missions. The NVA commanders were experts at hugging close to their American enemy for this very reason. To complicate things even more, air assets arrived and had to be used immediately. This meant that the fine tuning of artillery fires needed to be halted altogether until air assets had made their bombing runs. For safety reasons bombing runs were always dropped too far away, to be effective against an enemy who was hugging close.

     Lazzell, while commanding things from the unit's NDP really had his hands full dealing with the results of these bad tactics, while at the same time having to give "sitreps" every 5 minutes to a cussing bully of a brigade commander, who tended to second guess every decision Lazzell made.

     The cool and collected V.M.I. Graduate, Capt. Donald Ulm was dealing with the limitations besetting him as best he could. He was actually making some progress, as he placed his men in positions to provide more effective fire on the enemy attackers. His men on the newly established perimeter started doing some very fine shooting, especially the ones with the M-14s. That's when it happened. Exactly how I don't know. I can only imagine. It wasn't mentioned in any of the after-action reports. More than likely, it was a sniper's bullet that went through the side of Capt. Ulm's steel pot. He dropped to the ground like a lead weight. His body lay there completely motionless. The RTO immediately announced the news to Lt. Col. Lazzell, obviously so shaken, that he forgot to follow radio protocol when doing so. "Captain Ulm is dead", he said in a solemn voice. How much that contributed to the lack of effective air and artillery coordination in the next hour or so is unknown, but it did. Each battalion had an operations officer and an artillery forward observer but whether or not they went on the march or stayed behind in the NDP is unknown. It appears that there was just no one in the fight now who could fill Capt. Ulm's shoes. Ulm had the confidence of Lazzell. They felt very comfortable working together. At that time, commanders like Capt. Ulm were very rare commodities in the First Infantry Division.

     More than an hour went by before effective fires and air strikes could be dialed in accurately enough to disrupt the enemy's plans to encircle B company. The 101st were using a horde of fast climbing and very accurate tree snipers to shoot down on the Americans. However, the flank platoons were holding things together, while the decimated November platoon in the center was doing the same, thanks to men like sergeant Matthew Leonard and sergeant Worbington.

     Leonard was a thirty-eight-year-old Korean veteran. He was instinctively doing what he had told his wife and high school sweetheart he felt he was born to do. He felt he was born to lead men into battle. He had been close to retirement and did not need to be here now. He had volunteered. Much of his self-worth as a man was wrapped up in his career. As an army sergeant, that feeling was no doubt reinforced by his present position in ways that he could never hope to replace with another career. Lack of opportunities afforded black men like him, especially in the Democratic run state of Alabama, was appalling. Leonard didn't glory in the killing of other human beings. Like so many other American war heroes, he just wanted to save the lives of the men he had shepherded and come to love. In this present situation, his men had to be told to stop shooting wildly and focus on shooting low, using three round bursts. His men had to be told to retrieve more ammo from their dead and wounded buddies. Men had to be told to discard their jammed 16s and get another rifle from one of those discarded by their fallen friends. These are just some of the tasks being addressed by Leonard. With a lull in the enemy firing, however, and with men now online and firing back low instead of shooting up in the air, Leonard's attention went to a man screaming for help just in front of him. If he could get him back to the line, he could get help for him. At least he could calm his screaming. It was demoralizing to every other soldier on that line. It might even cause someone to do something stupid. In that case, he thought, why not be the stupid one. Leonard lunged forward in a half crawl and grabbed the man's arm, yanking him backward but as the sergeant whirled around to drag the man back, a sniper's bullet smashed through his left hand. The sniper had been aiming at his midsection, but Leonard foiled the kill shot by turning his body a second sooner than the sniper had anticipated. The enemy bullet shattered several bones rendering his left hand useless. Still, Leonard kept dragging the man with a powerful right-handed grip. A medic came to his aid but was directed by Leonard to help the wounded man instead.  

     Early on, Leonard's November Platoon had been getting consistent help from the likes of buck sergeant Worbington and his fire team. They were now struggling to keep their little perimeter from being overrun. Their very skilled return fire is what saved them. They timed their shots, and some even put their selector switches to fire single shots. That greatly conserved ammo. Some of the guys with M-14s began picking off tree snipers. The guys who had thump guns took out their share too. At one point, Worbington could hear NVA crashing through thicker undergrowth to the south of B company's right flank. Mike platoon could also hear them but couldn't see them at first. Before he was shot, Capt. Ulm had realized that he was dealing with more than a company sized unit and in less than twenty minutes after the first shots were fired he had air strikes dropping antipersonnel bombs (CBU) on his right and left flanks. However, as I have already mentioned they were dropped too far away to make any difference. Now, B company was hindered greatly in its ability to adjust those fires because Capt. Ulm was gone from the fight.

     Scores of enemy soldiers broke from the thicker cover on the right flank and tried to overrun Mike platoon. the men of Mike downed them all with some very accurate shooting. One of November's M-60 machine guns jammed about this time. That gave another enemy machine gunner time to reposition his gun to better rake the American lines. When Leonard realized what was happening he crawled toward the American machine gun to see if he could help fix the problem. As he raised the cover and checked the feed assembly for obstructions, Leonard felt a warm high velocity spray of blood spatter across his face. It had come from the mortally wounded machine gunner beside him. He had just been struck down by that enemy machine gunner who was positioned about forty yards away. Before Leonard could react, two more men on his right were hit by the same enemy machine gun. In that instant, a totally selfless transformation came over Leonard. It was a transformation fueled by a trait buried deep inside many Medal of Honor winners. It is an extremely rare trait, and it arouses within only a very few souls the type of sacrificial reaction which forever separates them from the rest of us. It’s the reason Generals salute them. Fueled by adrenalin and sensing nothing more than a blind desire to stop the killing of more of his boys, Leonard instinctively charged toward the threat. He cradled his rifle in the bend of his left arm, which was the one with the smashed hand. As he ran toward the enemy machine gun, he was able to squeeze off two three round bursts but without a proper grip, his shots went wide. Those shots did, however, draw the enemy gunner's attention long enough for him to return fire, catching the sergeant with two rounds to the chest. They were kill-shots which guaranteed that Leonard would bleed out in a matter of minutes, but they hit no vital nerves, so this hulk of a man kept moving forward. He shot and killed the entire enemy gun crew. He then collapsed between the large roots of an ancient jungle tree. Sitting there, leaning against that tree, Baptist Platoon Sergeant Leonard Matthew fell asleep for the last time here on this earth, to be awakened at the next coming of our Lord. He left a largely ungrateful nation, a grieving wife who never remarried and five children at home.

     On the third day of March, 2021, my phone rang, and it was Capt. Ulm on the other end of the line returning an earlier call. If he had not returned my call I would never have known that he was "killed" during the battle of Prek Klok 1. Now, that statement should get the reader's attention. So, let me explain. When the bullet passed through his helmet, it gave him a concussion, knocking Capt. Ulm out for forty minutes, but it did not penetrate his skull. Everyone thought he was dead until he later awoke and almost immediately started redirecting artillery and air strikes closer to the point of contact, where his men were still under attack by the enemy. Nothing about this incident, however, was mentioned in the after-action reports. I only learned about this from Capt. Ulm's phone call. During Capt. Ulm's nap, Lazzell had been too busy coordinating a rescue effort on the radio with Colonel Marks to be of much help readjusting fires to save his men's lives in B company. From studying the after-action report, it is obvious that some real overthinking of the situation was going on between Lazzell and Marks. This transformed Lazzell into practically an empty suit during the critical decision-making time, where his men needed his attention the most. It took Lazzell until 1600 hours to lead fresh troops to B company. He and colonel Marks chose an entirely new landing zone some six hundred meters away from the battle when they could have used their own NDP on Route 4 to land fresh troops. The NDP was only one thousand meters from B Company. Bombing runs could have cleared the way for the rescue unit to reach the beleaguered B Company. C130's with Gatling guns would also have been easy to get. As it was, the enemy had already withdrawn an hour before Lazzell arrived with a company of the 2/18th Infantry Battalion.

     Being the remarkable products of a "gun toting free society", those American Citizen soldiers were able to stand off the attack until it ended around 1500 hours. This was accomplished in no small part because of the actions of men like Matthew Leonard and of course the sound command decisions made by Capt. Ulm. B company sustained over 50% casualties, twenty-five dead and twenty-eight wounded while killing 167 NVA. Official reports credit the air strikes as having saved the day. That simply wasn’t true. In this case the air support was very ineffective. The large number of American dead and wounded and the length of the battle testify to that fact. Those bombs were dropped too far away to make any difference whatsoever. It was the good shooting of this veteran group of men and the leadership of men like Matthew Leonard who saved the day this time.

     A few weeks after the Battle of Prek Klok I, when we found ourselves coming under a possible ambush attack similar to the 1/16th, I was the lead point man. We were moving through triple canopy jungle very similar to that found at the Battle of Prek Klok I. Sergeant Bartee motioned for me to hold up. We were surrounded by huge jungle trees hundreds of years old. The place looked prehistoric. Bartee's squad radio squawked a couple times causing me to turn and look at him. He was standing behind me about ten meters. Neither Bill nor Glen were running point with me that day. I was the only guy up front. Suddenly, in what seemed to be one fluid motion, Bartee dropped the mic on the radio, looked up at me and yelled one word. "RUN". Before that one word made it out of his mouth, both he and the RTO began moving in the opposite direction faster than I had ever seen anyone move in thick jungle, ever. I followed their lead as fast as I could, while looking over my shoulder to glimpse the green and tan blur of a F4 Phantom Jet. It was pulling out of a dive. The buzz saw sound of its Gatling guns followed. Those sounds were soon drowned out by the explosion of what I believe was a 500 lb. bomb. It exploded directly behind me in the direction I had been travelling in before I was told to run. As I started clawing my way to the rear, debris rained down around me. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see a huge jungle tree coming down out of the sky. It shook the ground, as it landed behind me. It landed so close that I could feel a rush of air on my backside. I had moved as fast as I could, just barely making my way out of the path of that falling tree. If I had tripped on a vine or other debris crashing down around me, I would not be here to tell my story. After it was all said and done I realized that our new commander had saved me from something much more deadly than a falling tree. I was able to get out of the path of the falling tree but whatever caused him to call in that air strike that close to our forward progress was something that I would not have been able to avoid. We were most likely walking into an ambush similar to the one the 1/16th had walked into. To this very day I have no idea how he was able to recognize this threat and coordinate air, and artillery strikes so quickly. Yes, it was a close call for me, but I will always believe that I would have had no chance at all if we had continued on the way we were going.

     Ten days after the battle of Prek Klok I the 2/2nd mechanized unit of our first division was hit in the middle of the night on Highway 4 not far from where the first battle of Prek Klok I was fought. This battalion was commanded by Lt. Colonel Edward J. Collins. The battle would later be named the Battle of Prek Klok II. The location of both these first two battles was about twenty-five miles to the west of where we were at the time. When this unit was attacked, it had been providing security for the 168th Engineer Battalion, which was building a special forces camp in support of a Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) operating in the area. These militias were many times composed of indigenous peoples known as Montagnards and were some of the best fighters in the world. They absolutely hated the communist and for good reason. They had tremendous potential, if we had taken the time to equip and then utilize their prowess as jungle dweller, who could have ferreted out enemy strong holds for destruction long before our enemy ever had a clue. However, our errant war strategy designed to fight an industrialized war was not going to let that happen. How can I be so sure that these people who made up the CIDG camps would have been good ground to sow into? Well, for one, these Montagnard tribes realized that they were marked to become the next victims of genocide if the communists won.

     Tactically, the next battle during Operation Junction City, was a huge success, but so what? Communism 101 teaches that it is okay to allow the enemy to win every tactical battle if that somehow provides the strategic means to win the war. That's the way Duan and Thanh thought and that's the way communist leaders since Lenin have thought. Our faulty counter insurgency strategy rested on the belief that we could win if we could make the war so costly to our enemy that they couldn’t replace their ranks as fast as we could kill them. That was ridiculous. Our enemy had proved over and over that human lives were a cheap commodity to him and easily replaced. All we had to do was to examine the history of communism to know this. History also shows that only governments rooted in Judeo-Christian principles are able to stand against tyranny from within and without. Without adhering to those principles America will soon become as evil as her enemies.   

     In this next battle the Americans and the South Vietnamese irregular forces garrisoned near a special forces camp on Highway 4 killed well over 200 enemy, although the official report listed enemy losses at 197. At the same time, the 11th Cavalry lost only 3 men. This lopsided loss not only didn't matter in the least to Hanoi, but I believe they understood that these dead bodies would work to feed the vain hopes of us Americans, which is exactly what it did. Tactically, in a very small way, this particular battle was such a success, because it strayed from that premise of hunting down and killing as many other human beings as possible in the jungles. Instead, the 11th let the enemy come to them. We Americans helped the Vietnamese hold ground. In other words, we took dominion over a piece of earth and held it. Holding this defensive position allowed the DePuy bunkers with overhead cover to work with great effect to provide safety while the heavy 50 caliber machine guns on the tanks and armored personnel carriers took a terrible toll on enemy attackers. Our artillery had beehive rounds which devastated the attackers. Also, air support and artillery from other base camps had very accurate coordinates to dial in on. In comparison, pre-GPS era units roaming through the woods had to rely on guestimates when calling in artillery and air strikes. This was the case with B company of the 1/16th in the Battle of Prek Klok I. Even if we had won that battle without a single loss, we then gave up the ground, which allowed the enemy to come flooding back after we left. To add insult to injury, however, even these simple tactics which I just mentioned were not studied in any detail to be improved upon and added to our well of knowledge to be used in the next battle. Our leaders simply went back to repeating the same tactical mistakes time and time again. This inability to contemplate realistic changes to both strategic and tactical ideas was so pervasive in the mindset of our war leaders, that Westmoreland was still defending these failed ideas long after the war had been lost. By the way, Westmoreland was perhaps the smartest person to ever wear the uniform when it came to assimilating facts and storing them in his head. However, he lacked the understanding to make sense of those facts. Simply put, our leaders didn't know what they didn't know. They were groping in the dark. Isn’t it interesting that this was the decade when Americans in wholesale numbers started turning their back on the understanding which comes through God’s word. A statement like I just made will sound like nothing but 24 carat foolishness to many who read this. Nevertheless, it is the truth.       

     What would the Holy spirit of God have told our leaders to do to defeat Communism in South Vietnam if they had been willing to listen? In other words what would God have done through us? Well, for starters, since the past cannot be changed, God would and is saying that we are in a similar situation today. Today, as then, He is telling us to react to every conflict in life in love. God is love and all enlightened understanding is rooted in love. (1 John 4:16) As a matter of fact, every action which God takes in this age of His Church is motivated by love. General Petraeus would later demonstrate that enlightened principle of Godly love, which motivated him to provide 24-hour protection for Iraqi citizens to stabilize their homes and businesses.