Hopelessness Reigns

Chapter 6 Hopelessness Reigns

The month of February was filled with a lot of disjointed memories for me. We were pulling road guard somewhere one day where the jungle had not been cleared away from the edge of the road. I remember writing home to my mother around this time and telling her how senseless our missions seemed to be. For an example I mentioned how we would move from place to place all the time and leave things pretty much the same as they were when we arrived. We were on Highway 13 now and tanks and armored personnel carriers (APC) were going past my position which was just inside the wood line. I could hear them but I couldn't see them. Suddenly, one day there was a large explosion directly behind me on the road just as an APC went by. I could feel the blast and see foliage drifting to the ground all around me as metal parts from the explosion sliced through jungle branches and peppering the jungle floor all around our position. The APC had obviously hit a mine or had been hit by a sapper with a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) as it drove past my position. I wasn't able to see anything and other people from who knows where responded to the situation, as best they could. Everyone in the vehicle was probably killed and the vehicle, itself, totally destroyed, I am sure. The reason I could not see clearly what was going on around me was because my position was located in thick jungle. All I could do was listen to the large commotion as people cleared the damaged vehicle off the road so traffic could get through while others worked to clean up the mess. I know so little about the details of that particular event, how many were killed, etc. although it happened only a few yards from me. Yet, the memory of it still remains. I have no idea why. One thing was for sure. Death and destruction were now becoming a common occurrence in my life. It was happening all around the little group of men in my platoon. Yet, it never touched us.

As I have already mentioned, I remember another day when we were walking through open countryside and since we always seemed to be short of water, we were knocking coconuts off some coconut trees so that we to get the juice out of the coconuts. Very soon, Sargent Rook interrupted us and made everyone leave the coconuts alone. He said that they could be booby trapped. It looked to me like there was only one "Booby" and it wasn’t by the enemy's making. It was “good ole” Sargent Rook, himself, continually doing his bad impersonation of “Sargent Stryker” from the movie "Sands of Iwo Jima". Anyone with half a brain should know that there were at least a hundred better ways of booby trapping us than by booby trapping coconuts and taking a chance of blowing up their own people. Of course I kept this thought to myself, because there was no arguing with Sargent Rook. Walker and I got into the habit of just shaking our heads and walking on when he would start his "stupid act" being careful to not let him see us.

Another time, I remember everyone jumping on the “band wagon” and buying hammocks from the young teenaged civilians who came up to us as we walked along the open countryside. The idea of sleeping in a hammock rather than the hard ground really caught on fast. I bought one but only used it a couple times. Why? Well, because one night while many of us were sleeping in our nice comfy hammocks in some dense jungle, bullets started popping by our heads and some ricocheting across the hard laterite ground going everywhere. Several guys were wounded and after that incident was over, orders came down for us to lose the hammocks and start sleeping on the ground again. Of course, I wondered why Sgt. Rook had not said something to us about sleeping in hammocks even before this incident happened, but he hadn’t. However, if anyone was starting to get the idea that he was going soft, the next incident which happened several days later would make us think again and at the same time set the stage for not only the guys in my squad to start thinking differently about Rook but for the entire 1/18th Battalion to start thinking differently about everything we were doing in the performance of our daily combat duties. As a whole, after this happened, never would the men in this unit, at this time, take things for granted again, or halfheartedly drag their feet because some Sargent like Rook had given us an order we didn’t like. A bigger picture was about to emerge in the minds of most of the men of the 1/18th from the officers on down, and it would help to reshape the mindset of each one of us from the officers on down.

On this day, we had walked deeper into the area just west of the northern most tip of the Iron Triangle. Operation “Cedar Falls had been over for at least two weeks, or maybe more. We were now in a free kill zone which simply meant we could shoot anyone we saw. There were no civilians to be seen anywhere. After studying old maps, I believe now that we were possibly making a sweep through the Hobo Woods on the western side of the Saigon River across from some rice fields leading up to where the village of Ben Suc had been located before it had been destroyed. Ben Suc had occupied both banks of the Saigon River. However, my unit never saw the village or realized that it had even been destroyed. I am sure a few officers may have known exactly what happened but the men in my unit had no idea that the entire population in the area had been relocated since we were further south when all this took place and therefore played no part in the actual removal. As I said earlier, we were acting as a blocking force protecting Saigon during Operation Cedar Falls. Other elements of the First Infantry Division and the 25th Infantry Division were actually involved in sealing the village off, providing security and helping with the removal of civilians.

Some 50 years later I would learn more about Operation Cedar Falls, which had ended January 26, 1967. I learned that it had rounded up around 6,000 residents in the Iron Triangle in and near the town of Ben Suc and removed them and their belongings from the area. They were relocated about 20 miles further south down the Saigon River to a refugee center near the town of Phu Cuong. Many of these people were rice farmers so the Army moved all their farming equipment including their water buffaloes with them. Ben Suc, the largest hamlet in the area was then burned to the ground and the enemy tunnel complexes located underneath the town were destroyed by dropping the biggest bombs the Air Force had on top of the town site.

Before I was forty years old, I must admit that I had very little “common sense”. However, after turning my life over to God on my fortieth birthday, one of the first things which The Holy Spirit started doing was to develop some “common sense” in me. Now, thirty two years later that “common sense” begs to ask the following question concerning the planning of Operation Cedar Falls. What would be one of the quickest way to turn folks into lifelong enemies? Wouldn’t at least one way be to forcibly remove that person from the land their family had farmed for centuries and from the only way of life which they had ever known, then place them in a holding pen somewhere else along with their water buffalo? Yeah, you heard me right! The U.S. Army loaded up their water buffaloes which they used to farm the land and shipped them out with these farmers. Now what in the world were they suppose to do with these water buffalo now that they had no land to farm? For those readers who may not know, water buffalo were used to plow the rice fields. Common sense cannot help but tell anyone who has half a brain that 6,000 completely dependent people on government handouts will now have nothing but time on their hands to think about how to get even with the people who did this to them. I feel very fortunate that God shielded me and the other men in my unit from becoming involved in that part of the operation.

Also, there was a very small cadre of top Communist leaders operating out of this area around the Iron Triangle using these tunnel complexes as their base of operations planning for the takeover of all South Vietnam. They would move from complex to complex in the area as needed to avoid capture and thus maintain continuity of command. It is now thought that if this very small number of top Communist officials could have been caught or killed that the Communists would have lost the war because these people could not have been replaced. I don't know if I believe that or not. It is true that the North would not have been able to easily replace them but the South Vietnamese government, which we Americans were propping up, was extremely corrupt, making outcomes much too complicated to predict. As soon as Operation Cedar Falls kicked off, this diabolical cadre of "dyed in the wool" murderers of the inalienable rights of mankind moved from tunnel to tunnel down secret trails toward the safety of Cambodia to sit out the entire operation. They knew the Americans would pull out as soon as the operation was over allowing them to return with impunity and that is exactly what happened. For the time being, however, the men of The Big Red One would enjoy the month of February, making sweeps like the one I was a part of now, without having to worry about walking into large ambushes because "Cedar Falls" had scared these enemy leaders into literally "heading for the hills". There was no one left in the immediate area with the wherewithal necessary to plan the larger attacks which we would experience later in the year.

Now, fast forwarding, it was probably more than a month since Operation Cedar Falls had ended and on this particular day our unit was still combing the general area West of the Iron Triangle, looking for any enemy units which could have been displaced and hiding in places like the Hobo Woods. I didn't realize it yet, but I would soon be getting a grunt's eye view of an enormous enemy tunnel complex. That experience has forever left me with the following impressions.

For one, through this experience, even while still a teenager, I was amazed at the lack of understanding of our military leaders as to the important contribution which tunnels were making to the enemy war effort. Militaries have and always will be more impressed with bright, shinny metal and high tech tools of the trade than they are with dark, dirty and low tech stuff like hand-dug tunnels, as they should be, and I get that. However, Vietnam was not most cases. Therefore, the tunnels had now given this insurgency enemy an enormous advantage because they provided a potent tool to counteract the efforts of a high tech foe. To deal with tunnels affectively it was going to take a much more comprehensive plan than just training a few "tunnel rats" and then giving them a "forty five" and a flash light. It was going to take a plan which would erase the motivation for digging and living in tunnels in the first place. One of the basic truths taught in the bible, however, is that when the over all plan does not line up with the word of God then all the other plans necessary to accomplish the goal tend to fall apart too. I believe that our plan for dealing with enemy tunnels was a good example of this.

Here is a brief overview of how and when America started precipitously sliding off her sure foundation, causing the Vietnam situation to become the biggest losing proposition in American history until then. In light of what I am going to say, the tunnels were really always a mute issue. It was in the sixties when the influence of Judeo-Christian values started a more precipitous decline in its influence on many American minds. With this, American politics could do nothing but follow suite. More and more National policies in America became bad policies for a majority of her citizens, because she was voting into office more and more corrupt politicians. These politicians were not always corrupt in following the letter of the law, but corrupt in their ability to believe in the higher standing of God's laws over their own corrupted viewpoints. More and more, future laws would be shaped by these evil views. They could increasingly justify deceiving voters and themselves into believing whatever the shifting sands said they should believe. History teaches us that nations which are better at making and following laws according to Judeo-Christian precepts rise to become much more free and productive and a lot less susceptible to corruption and tyranny. There was a good reason for the Vietnamese becoming prey and falling into the clutches of the tyrannical and corrupt ideology of communism. That nation was only 7% Christian. That meant that no matter whether we were able to establish a democracy with free elections or not, Vietnam would never have become free of tyranny and corruption. Only nations rooted in the godly principles of the bible can become, and remain free, from tyranny and corruption. When the sixties began, America was still largely a Christian Nation. What I mean by that is that the overwhelming majority of her citizens actually believed in these godly rules for living life, which are taught in the bible. They were not necessarily following the leading of the Holy Spirit as Henrietta King did. Yet, many American believed, as Richard King believed. They believed in those Holy rules for life, whether they confessed Jesus Christ as Lord of all, or not. And that natural belief can have a very positive effect on governments of this world if enough people are taught them and then believe in them. I have already given an example of how these principles worked in the life of the unbeliever, Richard King. However, as a nation's pool of people who have little or no respect for these godly percepts grows, so does the pool of elected politicians who have little or no appreciation for these values as well. When politicians make decisions, without regard for these principles, bad things happen. I can give the reader two great examples of this within two different presidential administrations. A contractor named Brown and Root made a fortune working on various construction projects during the Vietnam war. President Johnson's family owned a major part of that company. Johnson and the people supporting him benefited greatly from this. Did he break any laws? No, I really do not think he or they did break any laws. Did this cloud his thinking to be able to objectively make better decisions regarding the war? Yes, I absolutely believe that it did. A similar thing happened when Vice President Chaney's oil service company was chosen as a major contractor to service the oil fields of Iraq. The wisdom necessary for becoming successful at everything we do in life, either personally, or running a government, does not come by just being obedient to the letter of the law. It comes from gaining a deep appreciation for the principles espoused in the bible, which teach us how to be self reliant without becoming self serving. Laws made by mankind can be changed like shifting sand. Laws made by God cannot. Simply put, The Vietnam situation was a national debacle of the blind leading the blind. Our leaders had strayed from that sure foundation. Oh yes, I do believe good intentions were mixed in with the bad, somewhere, but you know what they say about good intentions.

Now, as I get back to telling my story, the Communist had been digging and expanding these tunnels for years. There were actually thousands of miles of them and enough hollowed out chambers below the ground to provide cover, housing and storage to provide the logistics requirements for a large segment of the entire Communist operation in the South. This included storerooms for rice, storerooms for weapons, hospital facilities and even weapons manufacturing facilities. They had been continually expanded since the 1950’s when the Viet Minh were fighting the French. The youth in the area were made to work on these tunnel expansions and were required to meet a digging quota of three feet a day by the Communist shadow government controlling things in the larger communities throughout South Vietnam. The youth of these villages like Ben Suc and Cu Chi were also made to attend political indoctrination classes. Today some of those same tunnels around Chu Chi have been turned into tourist attractions. However, I will not be one of those tourists. Domestic or foreign, a communist will always be my enemy. That’s not to say that I don’t love my enemies and certainly do not purpose that we go to war with every enemy we have in the world but nevertheless when a fellow American loses the ability to know the difference between an enemy and a friend he or she is in sad shape. When enough Americans fail to recognize enemies from friends, the entire country is in for big trouble. By the way, there are basic criteria for being able to recognize a friend from an enemy and that criteria is written down for us in that ancient book, the bible.

On one particular day, instead of guarding a road all day long, we were making a sweep through an area where there were only small trees and a lot of thick dense bamboo and other smaller jungle growth. An armored unit was with us, following along behind as we cleared the woods in front of them. I believe it was elements of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. This was slow hot work but although I had started walking point a couple times for my squad patrols my platoon was not in the point position on this day. So, today, I was in the middle of the formation which made it a little easier because the guys in front of me were breaking a trail ahead of my squad. It was extremely hot so we were glad to stop and set up a perimeter around noon. Word came down that we were getting a hot meal flown out which was really good news since we had been eating C-rations for several days.

Very soon, the sound of a helicopter could be heard descending into a clearing somewhere nearby. Everyone stopped what they were doing and immediately perked up. A grunt could fall asleep almost anywhere during a five minute break but at the sound of that beating blade sleepy eyes became wide awake. A couple guys who had been lying on their backs and completely “napped out” immediately jumped to their feet when they heard the chopper. Why? Because that sound meant that a hot meal had arrived. However, I never flinched an inch. I just kept leaning back at a 45 degree angle against my ruck sack which was allowing me to stay propped up enough to look around but inclined enough to bow my head and shut my eyes if I wanted to. My M-14 rifle was cradled in my right arm with the butt touching the ground between my legs and the end of the barrel pointing over my right shoulder. For brief stops while on the march I always took my steel pot off my head and sat in it to keep from being stung by the black ants, but not today. Today, it seemed as though we were going to be in this location for a while. It had also been a long hot walk getting here. Therefore, I was willing to chance a sting or two from black ants before I would be willing to give up this more comfortable position. After the bunker debacle, I had added an M-72 rocket launcher to the other stuff which dangled from my ruck sack as well as a very welcomed poncho liner which actually had come through resupplies several weeks before the bunker incident. All this plus an entrenching tool and a machete made this affair look like the strangest pillow in the entire world.

Our squad Radio occasionally crackled and poped nearby and loudly blared its distinctive electronic voices, in short verses, which sounded much too complicated for me to ever begin to master. My perfectionist mindset had already determined that the humiliation stemming from the multitude of glaring errors I would most surely make if I had to communicate over one of these things would be just too unfathomable to imagine. The gigantic inferiority complex which I had carried around with me almost from birth could never have handled the stress of saying the wrong thing over one of these olive drab boxes, especially since I was smart enough to know that I would be heard by a multitude of the most judgmental people in the universe, people who held my life and death in their hands. I ignored the radios completely and now years later I realize what a big mistake that was.

I said all that to say all this. At this instant in time I had absolutely no intention whatsoever of heading for the chow line and getting caught up in the crowd. Not me. I had it all figured out to a tee. I was quite comfortable and if I waited until I could be one of the last ones in line I could have a much better chance of talking the servers into giving me a double portion because what was left over would have to be thrown out anyway. It was a great ploy and one which had consistently worked for me in the past. However, I suppose Sargent Rook had been taking notes on how well it had been working for me too and since he was especially bred on another planet somewhere far, far away from earth and raised for no other purpose than to put the finishing touches on making this miserable life of mine even more miserable, why should today be any different? “Wade”, he yelled, “Go get in line”! Although there were several other guys still milling around near me this was a shot over my bow and my bow only. There was no, “Hey guys, go get in line”. There was simply just one sharp blast aimed directly at me. I responded by putting on the best pretend voice that I could muster so it would sound like I was completely unfazed by being singled out by him. In my best calm voice act while my inner voice was screaming its lungs out, I explained how I didn’t mind holding down our position while the rest of the squad went to eat. To me, this very adult argument for not obeying his first command just sounded so unselfish. How could he not change his mind and come down off his high horse? Even a crazy person like Rook should be able to see what a model squad member I was trying to be by offering to go last. “Wade”, he now yelled, “I am not telling you again. Go get in line!” He sounded really angry this time. How embarrassing, as I faced him now with those words hitting me full bore in the face. There was nothing left to do but roll over off my ruck sack pillow, stand up with my rifle clutched in my right hand and start walking in the direction of the chow line. At the same time I was at least able to calm my ruffled feathers by reminding myself of two things. Number one was that my sentence would be shortened by one more day if I made it through today and that Sgt. Rook was truly a Neanderthal so he really didn’t know any better way to act than that of the fool he was.

When I arrived at the end of the chow line the insulated food canisters had been placed on the tracks of a parked tank and people were helping themselves. This was great! I could help myself to double portions without having to ask. That was already taking away some of the agitation caused by Sgt. Rook’s rude behavior. It only took a couple minutes to get my food and head back into my squad area to continue my sojourn with “the good ole” Sargent, but not before I was able to take this opportunity to scope out the area were the tank was parked with a line of maybe three or four APC’s parked behind it. The tank’s gun was pointed down what looked to be a recently cleared path which was a little wider than the tank itself. I instinctively glanced down the length of that cleared pathway for any signs of movement. It’s just something which I had learned to do while hunting game in the Virginia woods and something I did subconsciously. Interestingly enough, it was bred from a very dysfunctional mindset, at least for the century I was living in at the time. Maybe I was the Neanderthal and was too naïve to realize it.

Neanderthal or not, my introverted mindset would not let me believe that there was but one other person in the entire unit who was able to better maintain their situational awareness in the woods. I was just as sure that most guys in my unit had never idolized Daniel Boone, growing up, the way I had. I was also sure that very few had even heard the name Jack London, who had written my all-time favorite book, “Call of the Wild”. This self inflated wilderness mindset, no doubt, was responsible for causing me great hardship later as I struggled to make the transition to a functioning adult man,living in twentieth century America,but for now, though falsely assumed, it was probably exactly the naive thinking needed to stave off debilitating fear. Actually there was some logical thinking for feeling this way. From childhood I had taught myself to spot the slightest movement in the woods around me, or for that matter, the tiniest object, which seemed out of place, while doing a lot of squirrel hunting in the Virginia woods. I was so sure that I was the most prepared guy in the entire unit when it came to situational awareness that I would have bet a month’s pay on it. I would have bet on it, that is, if that list of other guys excluded the name Dennis Winstead. Dennis had also grown up with a love of hunting wild game back in Virginia. He was a great shot with a rifle and was in great physical condition. He and I had breezed through basic training and as I said before we were the only two people in our training platoon to be picked to become 11B10 riflemen. I now believe that was because we both listed camping, fishing and hunting as our favorite pass times. We also had excelled in every aspect of our field training at Fort Jackson. His situational awareness in the woods was as good as it gets. Yes, I would definitely have had to leave his name off that list before taking that bet.

I moved through the serving line quickly after getting a double serving of everything and then headed back the way I came. This would be the only meal that I would eat today and actually the hot meals we got in the field were excellent. As I returned to my position where I had left my ruck sack lying on the ground, I now pulled off my steel helmet and laid it upside down beside the ruck sack. I then sit down on top of it and began eating. I was sitting in my helmet to make absolutely sure that I wouldn’t be interrupted by a stinging black ant in the middle of my meal and taking a chance of spilling it all over the ground while fighting the ant. After finishing most of this hot meal and then reminding myself that there was no ambush patrol scheduled for my squad today, I was starting to feel pretty good. I finished the last bits of food, grabbed my entrenching tool and looked for the softest spot close by to dig a swallow hole to bury my paper plate. Several other guys saw what I was doing and robotically walked over and dropped their trash in also. This could very well be the makings of one more very hot, tiring and boring day with the hot meal being the highlight of that day and I was finally learning how to appreciate a day like this, if Rook would just mind his own business and leave me out of it.

In the meantime, Winstead, who was in a different platoon, and who didn’t have a Sgt. Rook to hurry him along was just now heading for the chow line. At about the same time that I had just finished my meal and buried my trash, Dennis had worked his way through the line to the front and was now standing at the front right edge of the tank. I am sure his mouth was watering and just as sure that he couldn’t wait to get back to his position inside the wood line so he could start enjoying his meal but that wasn’t to be. Winstead didn’t know it yet, but he would be eating C-Rations today instead of the hot meal he had in his hand.

While the other guys in the line behind Dennis had been intently focused on scooping food from the canisters and nothing else, Dennis noticed something else. Like me, he had been conditioned from childhood to continually be “checking his six” so that is exactly what he was doing as he turned with his plate of food to walk away from the tank. Any skilled hunter will tell you that he or she instinctively checks his or her six all the time whether actively hunting or not. What does that mean exactly? It means that Dennis was using his peripheral vision to detect movement in a radius as far out and as far around him as possible, and not just looking behind him. That awareness which could have only been perfected over many years of hunting was about to pay off big time. His peripheral vision detected movement about a hundred meters or so down the cleared path in the direction the tank’s big gun was pointing.

At the same time that Winstead noticed movement and I was in the process of squatting down beside my ruck sack after burying my trash, another man in my platoon, but in a different squad named “Porky Morton” was about to get the fright of his life. He was sitting in his position with the rest of his squad around him and no more than thirty meters from me. While blissfully chowing down on his hot meal, it happened. About fifteen feet away to his front he actually saw two arms rise out of the ground and each arm flung two little black objects into the air in his direction. Of course, “Porky’s” plate of food went flying as he jumped to his feet and turned to run. Everyone else who saw it did the same. The black objects were chicom grenades and the blast lifted “Porky” off his feet and propelled him forward causing him to land flat on his face. One piece of shrapnel went through “Porky’s” ample right buttocks. Other than that, he was okay. The Explosion was heard by everyone. People like me who were close by hit the dirt.

In the meantime just before that first grenade exploded, wounding “Porky”, Winstead was taking action. The movement was definitely a man in black pajamas so Dennis never hesitated. In one fluid motion, except for intentionally spilling his plate of food, he stepped clear of the tank and dropped to one knee while at the same time he raised his rifle to his shoulder. The food fell out of his hand and landed upside down in the dirt beside him. That didn’t matter because the business at hand had become much more important than saving a hot meal. He now realized that he was looking at a Viet Cong soldier running fast toward the tank with a grenade in each hand. The Cong also had an M-1 carbine slung over his back which many enemy soldiers carried. A kneeling Dennis Winstead now had the butt of his rifle pressed firmly against his right shoulder with his left hand holding the stock while his left elbow rested solidly just forward of his left knee cap. An appreciation of the quick skill involved in Dennis’s reaction to the threat could have been lost on a casual observer but in reality, it had taken years to perfect. What may have seemed natural was really the practiced craft of handling a rifle in all types of situations while hunting white tail deer in the Virginia back country. Others around him were much slower to react and were somewhat confused at first when he dropped the plate of food because they still had not seen the Viet Cong charging the tank. Would the Cong have made it to the tank if Winstead had not been there? I can’t answer that question but I can say that it was an easy shot for Winstead especially since the man was running straight toward him. Like me, he carried an M-14 that could either shoot one shot at a time or with the flip of a switch it could fire fully automatic. One shot at a time was better. Anyway, it would have taken too much time to change the setting. Breathing out and holding his breath after he quickly lined up the front and back sights on the mid-section, he squeezed the trigger. The man instantly dropped dead in full stride, sliding a little ways across the ground as the thirty caliber full metal jacket bullet passed through his chest and hit the hard laterite ground behind him causing a little spark. This threat was now eliminated but it was not over; not by a long shot. The tank crew scurried up the side of the tank and into the hatches to assume their battle positions. Food canisters went flying off the right track of the armored beast as it lurched forward a couple feet. One container bounced by Winstead’s head just as he was rising to his feet.

For the next thirty minutes or so there was sporadic gun fire throughout the battalion area punctuated every now and again by exploding grenades, as Cong popped out of their "spider holes" to throw hand grenades, in various locations within our perimeter. It soon became very apparent that we had accidently established our entire battalion’s position directly on top of a massive tunnel complex which had protective one man “spider holes” running throughout the area. Later, it would become a well-known fact that tunnels in this area were as much as three stories deep and served as command control and planning centers for all COSVN activities in the region north of Saigon. These nerve centers kept intelligence records, produced printed propaganda materials for indoctrinating the South Vietnamese and were responsible for the coordinated mortars attacks on Saigon which welcomed me to the country as well as the sapper attack which wiped out our mechanized recon patrol on January 9th.

It was a chaotic scene for a few minutes. I stayed put, laid low and waited, as did the rest of the guys in my squad. The enemy had obviously gotten nervous when we accidently camped for lunch on top of them. Whoever was in charge of the Cong had then hastily put together this plan of attack, hoping to cause confusion among our ranks, and it seemed to be working, although I am not sure that it was the best plan on their part. It was highly unlikely that we would have discovered this tunnel complex if the people hiding inside them had just laid low and waited for us to move on. There were no raised bunkers or other obvious signs anywhere to give their location away and it soon became apparent that there was no standard operating procedure (SOP) for dealing with a situation like this. So, Denton was left to address the problem in whatever way he thought best and coming up with solid tactical ideas on the spot was not his strong suite. However, he was in good company, because the entire United States Military, itself, was severely lacking in that "department". One only has to review various engagements throughout the war to realize what I have just said is accurate.

Things became muddled in a hurry. I and a few other individuals from different squads were the "lucky" winners chosen to "come on down" and play the game of "Muddle Mania". Now, I am sure. Lt. Col. Denton was a very organized and detailed thinker as well as a very brave person when it came to standing his ground in extremely life threatening situations. He had already proven that in Korea. But he had also proven something else to the men of his present command. He had proven that he was quite capable of ordering others to charge headlong to their deaths, with very little thought given to the outcome. Whether one is at the helm of a fortune five hundred company, a mom and pop operation, or a combat battalion, a great leader will never command his or her people to sacrifice everything for the "cause". Patton, one of the greatest generals in history, sums up what I am trying to say here when he said, "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his". (The "bastard" he was talking about can take many forms in life) To get to a place where a leader is capable of causing this dynamic to consistently work in his or her domain, he or she must possess an uncluttered mind, free from worries of fitting into a peer group or pleasing superiors. A great leader has already made sure that an organization's cultural values match his or her own, before signing on, in the first place. That doesn't mean that a pragmatic approach is never used when dealing with different individuals in the organization. However, a great leader has already made sure that core values are already in sync beforehand. This leaves a great leader's mind free to concentrate on addressing the problems at hand, instead of allowin their thoughts to be cluttered with thoughts of ways to fit in and who to please in the organization. Lack luster performance, at best, will always be the result, when this mindset takes over the resources of one's mind. Notice, I said, "address the problems", not find solutions to the problems. Of course some working knowledge is needed in any human endeavor. However, great leaders stay focused on leading the people under them to find solutions. A great leader must also possess enough realistic self confidence to believe that he or she is just as capable of leading others as any other human being in the organization. Something amazing happens when we are able to trust ourselves this way. As leaders, we are then able to trust others to do the job we have assigned them to do. Later in life, Denton proved to be spectacular in working with community organizations to get things done for the benefit of veterans. However, In the here and now, it was painfully obvious that he did not have a basic understanding of these core leadership principles. His mind was clouded with wrong thinking, but he wasn't the only one. The entire military was being schooled by the wrong "think tank" and it showed in the manifestation of one bad result after another.

Obviously, we needed to move, so Denton ordered us to withdraw. Everyone around me started rounding up their gear and prepared to move out, looking suspiciously at the jungle floor around them as they did so. However, just as it had happened before at the enemy bunkers, shortly after making that decision, the fog of war seemed to settle like a thick black mist upon those involved in our unit’s decision making process. I have no idea who came up with the next move, whether that was Denton or someone higher up in Brigade, but it was half baked at best.

After assembling together with the rest of my platoon, Sgt. Rook, walked up to me with a stony look on his face. He was returning from a little distance away, where he had been in a huddle with our platoon leader of the week. Rook now singled me out for a second time in one day. The first time turned out to be a good call. This time he had personal reasons for choosing me although I will never know what those reasons were. Whatever his reasons, this would be the last time, while in the service of my country, that I would be singled out again by anyone wearing strips or bars or oak leaves or birds or, for that matter, stars. It’s possible that the Holy Spirit had noticed that His little blind sheep was being picked on just a little too much for his liking and that’s something He will never tolerate. You see, mature Christians are able to handle levels of persecutions which would crush little blind lost sheep like me. However, I am not sure that Rook picked me because he wanted to persecute me. He may have thought that I was the best man for the job. Ha! Ha! Yeah, I really believe that was the case. Not! What I am sure of, is that this was without a doubt the last time in my military service that I would be given an assignment that was not part of the routine duties of every other member of my squad as well. Here is something else that I know for sure. Those, who, by rank or privilege, choose to engage in the persecution of one of Christ’s "little ones" would do well to stop that sort of behavior because it will be continued at one's own peril. A good example of what I am saying here is recorded in the story of Queen Esther, were Mordecai was persecuted by Haman.

Shortly after this incident, my individualism would be restored, even as I continued in my present condition as one of the lowliest members of one of the most conformist institutions in the entire world, the 1967 United States military. It is important that I let my Christian readers know what I mean when I use the word “individualism” here. It is more than individualism. Every Christian who has ever lived on earth is a sovereign being in spirit to all other living beings except God. Ultimately, we answer to no one but Christ. Now, before my Christian reader goes off half-cocked, thinking they now have enough evidence from my own mouth to certify me as a bona fide megalomaniac, here is the other side of this great truth. While living in these natural bodies here on earth, although we are sovereign in spirit, we are also commanded by Jesus Christ to put on the attitude of a servant to all other human beings whom we come in contact with, including our enemies. Yes, for me, that included the Viet Cong. That is a godly principle, which is "plain down crazy" to the carnal mind. Believe you me, I did not have this part of the Christian walk down then and I still have a long way to go with it today. After clarifying myself here, I am sure that the same readers who were beginning to think that I was a megalomaniac will not think that anymore. Instead, most of those readers will now think that I am just "down right crazy". How in the world is a Christian soldier going to be able to maintain the attitude of a servant to everyone he or she meets, including their enemies, and still be prepared to blow their brains out. The answer is simple. We can’t. Its impossible. However, what is impossible for mankind is possible with God. As a matter of fact all things are possible with God.

Had the Holy Spirit really had enough? I don’t know for sure. I do know that I was nearing the end of my rope but I had a short rope to begin with. A neat thing that I have learned about The Holy Spirit is that he always intervenes in the lives of those who will at some point turn to his will for their life no matter how far in the further that is. In my prodical years I would come to the end of my rope more times than I care to count and He always made a way of escape. But this time Rook was still stretching my rope. I was, now told by him to report to the area were several tanks had gathered and follow their commander’s instructions. As I remember the tanks were setting pretty much in the same place where they had been setting when the shooting started. The rest of my fellow squad members disappeared with the battalion as it withdrew and I now found myself standing in the midst of a little group of no more than 20 11B10 riflemen like myself who were total strangers to me as well as each other. They had also been singled out. We were told by a buck sergeant, whom we had never seen before, to line up in a single line about a 100 meters wide and wait until the tanks ran over and mashed down the jungle growth, in an area about the size of a football field. So, that is exactly what we did. It was an easy job for the tank and APC crews because they were heavy enough to smash down the small trees and bamboo groves which consisted of nothing larger than 3 or 4 inches in diameter jungle growth. . It was also a relatively safe job for them because we kept close enough to them to draw and return fire on any Cong who would decide to pop out of their spider holes and engage us.

As we spread out in a single line perhaps 60 or 70 meters long, and waited on the armored vehicles in line with us to slowly move forward with us, I had plenty of time to think about the situation which I now found myself in. This was the second time under Denton that I had been separated from my squad while on an operation. The first time was while pulling road guard duty which I have already talked about. No combat soldier likes to be singled out to go into combat with complete strangers. This is a given. I was beginning to trust the members of my squad in the field to respond in predictable ways. Although I was still very much the introvert, my working relation with the others in the field seemed to me to be coming together. I cannot stress how important that feeling of trust is to men in a combat unit. Most of the "ole guys" still did not talk to me about anything personal, but they were starting to respect my presence as a fellow grunt. I had never been a part of any organized group of my peers, ever, nor was I encouraged to be, by my parents. Therefore, I had become a loner. Now, sad to say, my combat squad members had, against all reason, starting to give me a sense of belonging, for the first time in my life. Basic training couldn't do that because it was so temporary. I was not at all friends with anyone, except Walker, but there had been a growing trust with every single guy in my squad, many of whom would be going home soon. Now, suddenly, I found myself basically going into combat alone. Any good feelings that I had just recently developed were being ripped from me, in one fell swoop, and they were the only good feelings I had in the world, at this point in time. As I stood there listening to diesel engines and the crunching of jungle foliage under the tracks of these armored vehicles, a dark hopeless feeling began to flood over me. I had no idea what the guy on my left or right was going to do, if we ran into trouble,and he had no idea what I would do. Would he hesitate too long pulling the trigger if a Cong popped up to shoot at us or would he be too trigger happy and shoot me if a Cong ran between us? These where the kinds of questions running through my head, as I am sure were also running through the other soldiers' heads who had also been singled out for this combat mission, adhock also.

Now, years later, here are some personal thoughts I have when thinking back on the situation which we grunts found ourselves in as we executed this relatively simple combat assignment before us. For one, the dehumanizing way we were being commanded to perform this relatively small action was just a symptom of a bigger problem, and it was an attitude problem. This present combat situation which I found myself caught up in was just one more very small display in a sea of ongoing incidences, small and large, shaped by wrong command attitudes at every level of command all the way to the desk of the president. Denton had enough resources, command control options and personal experience in combat to have shaped his battalion into a formidable force if he had only possessed the right attitude, but he didn't. Like the average battalion commander in the military at the time, he was a "yes" man to his superiors and a "drill sergeant" to us grunts. These two types of ingrained attitudes should have no place in leadership anywhere but especially in combat. Denton was a really smart guy who made great contributions to his country later in life but being a battalion commander in Vietnam was not one of those contributions. He didn't have the right attitude to be a combat leader, but then neither did I. By the way, being the wrong person for the job is not a sin but voluntarily continuing to try to do anything one is not "cut out" to do is a sin. Everyone who keeps trying to do something which they are not fitted in life to do has the wrong attitude and lacks understanding, understanding which the Holy Spirit seeks to give all those who are "in Christ". Looking back years later, with the luxury of being more objective, I am convinced that this wrong attitude in any leader will always and "for evermore" be a big problem, not just for the United States Army, but for every large organization run by human beings. The difference between entrusting war leaders with bad attitudes and other leaders in less lethal endeavors is the indelible punctuation marks made on human souls who are forced to experience the much more graphically grotesque consequences of these bad attitudes.

The order to assemble strangers from the far flung corners of the battalion, who had never worked together, but now were expected to somehow instantly start working together as a team, was 'nuts". The most important ingredient of a combat unit is the bond forged between individual soldiers. It's very important to know that the other guy "has your back". We had now been picked individually and placed under the command of a cavalry unit commander whom we had never seen before. He was just a guy on a megaphone who could be taken out with a single shot and than where would we be? We didn't have a single squad leader or team leader among us to take over command. I was surrounded by complete strangers "for goodness sakes". Sergeant Rook's face would have been a welcomed sight at this point. This move had to have been approved by our battalion commander, Denton. It was his battalion to command so for years I have wondered why Denton allowed this to happen as I have also wondered why he allowed individuals from different companies and platoons to be picked to work with engineers as road guards. This type of thing only happened to me twice but both times were under Denton's command. Was Denton so weak that he was allowing his command presence be routinely infringed upon, by other officers in the brigade? I can't answer that, but as I look back now, it sure seemed that way. These types of very subtle but very destructive command choices were not spontaneous events affecting just me. I had my own issues to deal with, for sure, but these were not that. Whatever was causing the incompetence we were experiencing was endemic to Denton and it wasn't going to go away until he went away. This was a morale busting negative command attitude which affected the entire battalion and not just me alone. It was pervasive throughout the battalion and continually being fed by the man at the top, Lt. Col. Denton. It defined him. Every grunt in the unit could sense deep in their bones that something was wrong. While the cause of that wrongness eluded our young brains, the wrongness, itself, bred an atmosphere of mistrust of all leadership, which now hung over the entire unit like a black cloud. It was a feeling not unlike the reader would have if he or she was trying to get somewhere and at the beginning of each leg of the journey the reader would be directed by a traffic cop to drive down a one way street in the wrong direction, for just a little while. Each time we did this someone in our caravan would crash and die but each time the rest of us made it, we would "such it up", take a "big sigh of relief" and continue on while living with that gut wrenching feeling inside which constantly whispered that it was just a matter of time until our turn to crash and die would come.

Gone now was my security blanket which had been slowly knitting itself together during the last few months and it was time to just put one foot in front of the other as a stranger finally gave the order to start walking on line toward our front. It wasn’t easy. We had to climb over and under a tangled mess of broken down bamboo as well as other small trees and bushes which had been squashed by the big tanks and APC’s. As we moved forward, within less than a minute, I heard a burst of gunfire coming from the right end of the line but I knew better than to turn my head to take a closer look and risk the danger of not seeing, in time, the threat which could come from my front, as enemy combatants materialized from under the ground in front of us. So, I just continually scanned an area from the man on my left to the man on my right and about ten yards out. I could hear one of the armored vehicles to my rear take off in the direction of the gunfire. On a gut level, I now knew it was more imperative than ever to keep scanning the area to my front. I used my peripheral vision to stay lined up with guy who was about fifteen yards to my right and ten yards or so to my left. We all slowly moved forward and had gone maybe fifty yards when it happened. A dark human form popped out of a patch of flat ground about ten yards in front of the guy to my left. It was a Cong. He slung two grenades upward into the air. They landed between this guy and myself. While the grenades were still in the air and half of the Cong’s body was still exposed, this guy to my left instinctively let loose with a three round burst from his M-16. There wasn’t enough time for me to turn and shoot. I barely had time to dive face down on my belly to minimize the effects of the blasts from the two hand grenades when they exploded. As I was falling forward, I saw one of the bullets from the M-16 strike the Cong in the face. I saw a little piece of something flying from the back of his head. He fell backward into the hole which he had just popped out of. In those days we weren’t taught to continually shoulder our weapons while investigating a threatening area so this other soldier had shot from the hip. I am sure that it was purely coincidence that he hit the Cong while firing like that.

Now, the tank behind us saw the action and started moving toward the uncovered spider hole. When the driver got within about 10 yards the tank commander traversed the big gun downward and fired into the mouth of the hole at point blank range. I have always thought that this was a really dumb move but what do I know about tanks? I do remember that there was no explosion as the shell hit the top of the ground close to the entrance of the spider hole. The impact sent red laterite dirt flying in all directions. The tank then spun around again and again tearing up the ground where the spider-hole entrance was located and covered up everything so that it was impossible to tell where the entrance had been. "Oh yeah, that'll show em". I thought to myself, "How stupid"!

Shortly after this incident happened, our single-line advance suddenly halted, although I heard no orders from anyone to do so, I followed along. The grunts from both ends of the line started walking toward the tank, which had now come to a standstill about ten yards to my right. I followed suite and joined the rest of these soldiers standing around the tank. Several APC’s then also positioned themselves around the tank and we were given orders to get aboard. After everyone was aboard and sitting on top of the carriers, away we went, traveling a few miles down a dirt road and arriving at a high walled compound in the center of a large village. No one said a word while we were being transported to our destination. From the leader of this little motley pack to the lowest ranked soldier, the feeling was the same. It was an anticlimactic feeling which was betrayed by a generally blank matter-of-fact stare on each of our faces as our bodies rocked back and forth going down the rough road. We grunts were covered in the smears and smells of red earth on drab uniforms resembling a picture not unlike that of a bunch of earthy convicts riding their farm equipment back to their jail cells for the night after toiling in the hot sun all day on personally pointless labors which did nothing to advance an inmates position in life except for time served. Just like them, we were retiring from a day of vain toil while our time served sentences would now be reduced by one more day or totally erased if we were blown up on the way home.

The Communist shadow government in the South would soon return to use these same tunnels and others just like them to hide in while they carried out their three prong tragedy for taking control of South Vietnam. One prong of that strategy was military force. Another prong was the use of political initiatives which included every type of life threatening terror imaginable. The third was educational indoctrination into the ideology of the godless communist party especially targeting the village youths. By the way, people with the same evil mindsets are using this third phase on American school children today but they a gotten a lot more sophisticated with their techniques. Certain labor duty assignments were thrown in for “good measure”. One of these labor assignments was to demand that these youths dig three feet of tunnel per day in support of the cause. Today some of these same tunnels have been turned into tourist destinations where the tour guides brag about the history they represent. There wasn’t a single grunt riding down that road who didn’t sense that our leaders had just gotten us involved in something that they really didn’t understand. We couldn’t articulate what that “something” was but we felt it, nevertheless. There was a much bigger going on here than any of our political leadership wanted to admit existed. Frankly, I felt like I had just experienced becoming a character in another episode of the twilight zone where the natural order of things no longer applied. I couldn't help but ask myself why our lives had been put at risk for a bunch of tunnels that we were now going to just abandon without any further ado? We grunts had no idea what the next logical step would be, but it wasn’t very hard for even the brain of a naive nineteen old like me to understand that there were still enemy soldiers hiding in this massive complex of tunnels and we were now just driving off and leaving them to their own devices. Years later I learned that the Central Office South Vietnam (COSVN) high command used tunnels just like these as their command headquarters to make a final push into Saigon. On this day the murderous General Vo Nguyen Giáp, himself, could have been hiding just below our feet but we would never know.

I remember being driven through the gates of a compound where we were reunited with our individual platoons and squads after being ordered to stay behind and fight the war without them. I believe the name of our destination was a place named Phu Loi. The compound where the mechanized unit dropped us off was completely walled in by at least twelve foot high buildings on all sides, which looked a little like modern day parking garage structures. The growing depression which I had been experiencing started lifetfing ng feeling which had been haunting me for a while now lifted somewhat as the unit started to experience some welcomed changes which actually started taking place during my brief absence. The first uplifting surprise hit me square in the face soon after jumping off the idling clickety-clack APC which I had been riding on top of. It immediately became apparent that everyone of the old guys in my squad were gone. Now, a crop of new guys had taken their place. Good riddance! Best of all, Sgt. Rook had vanished too. Alleluia! I never found out what happened to him and to be honest, at that time, I really didn’t care. In his place was a five foot nine, sandy haired, blue eyed E-6 with a pleasant smile on his face. His name was Sgt. Bartee from Roanoke Virginia, which was just a few miles down the road from my Grandfather's farm. Also, in the twinkling of an eye, Walker and I had now become the oldest guys in the squad for time served in country. Our squad leader, Sgt. Bartee, unlike Sgt. Rook, had not been transferred from another combat squad. He was a completely "fresh as a daisy" “new combat sergeant”. This fact instantly elevated us "ole guys" to a position of respect with him which would never have happened as long as Sgt. Rook remained squad leader. Beyond that, we would soon learn that Bartee just naturally had a much more easy going way about him, then did Sgt. Rook. I instantly liked him and I never liked Sgt. Rook as the reader may have guessed by now. As time went by those feelings for the two men would somewhat reverse themselves but for now I felt as though things were really improving. There were also hot meals prepared by "Tiny", himself, and make no mistake, our cooks were highly respected by us grunts in the 1/18th Infantry Battalion. There were showers and clean clothes to boot so let the good times roll.

Almost instantly after meeting the new guys, the mood of the entire squad started changing for the better as well. I have already said, that a big reason for this change was because Walker and I, simply by virtue of being the oldest guys, were now in a position to set the tone to usher in an entire new level of respect between squad members which had not existed before. If leadership in an organization needs the right attitude then so do the members of that organization also. In this particular case there had existed just too much of a gap between old and new when I first showed up. The "ole guys" had seen too much combat and the rest of us had seen too little. Individual personalities were also involved in the mix. Just the simple respect that one human being should have for another was completely missing in the squad for a long time after I got there. Now, there was a new Platoon leader too, a West Point graduate, who took over our third platoon. He had a very uplifting manor about him, more so than any officer I had come in contact with thus far. He actually talked to us like we were human beings I do not know how he handled combat, because he was only with us two weeks before taking over our unit's long range reconnaissance patrol (LRRP) platoon but I can remember him being instantly liked by almost the entire platoon, including our sergeants. The demeanors of our NCO's changed remarkably while he was with us. They displayed a much improved disposition, as they passed down routine orders. For the first time the new Lieutenant addressed the entire platoon with a very upbeat pip talk. My nineteen year old mind was feeling the joy. Rook was gone. I was feeling good. Everyone else in the squad was feeling good too. To top things off, another very friendly older draftee named Bill Milliron from Santa Barbara, California was among the new recruits. He was twenty six and way ahead of the rest of us nineteen year olds in his ability to manipulate his circumstances to favor himself instead of the Army. I would soon learn that the wheels were always turning in Bill’s head even when the rest of us were knapping. I instantly liked him and so did everyone else. It really was quite amazing how morale in the unit could turn on a dime.

Not only was everyone, including me, liking the personnel changes, but we also liked the hot food, showers and clean clothes. The showers were rigged under some hastily installed water tanks made from bomb shells. We also got sundry supplies and letters and packages from home. I got an applesauce cake from my mother. The next operation, “Operation Junction City”, would last from February 22nd until May 14th so the showers and clothes would have to last us almost three months. "Junction City" would go down in history as the largest ground operation of the war. The Communist spies in Saigon already knew a lot about it before it ever got off the ground. For now, however, clean clothes, hot meals and no perimeter guard was as good as it would get for my squad as well as the entire battalion for the rest of the year.

During this down time, it didn’t take very long at all for Sgt. Bartee and Bill to “buddy up” to one another. They had three things in common which helped speed up that bonding process. They were both about the same age. They both loved alcohol and they also loved "pot". Because they had these three things in common I suppose it was only natural for Bartee and Milliron to hit it off right away, but the friendliness between them was extended to the rest of the squad too so I don’t think any of us saw this as anything other than a good thing. Another one of the new guys, from Kentucky named Glen Bowman was quiet and stuck close to me at first but after a couple days at this compound he started really warming up to the gregarious Milliron. So did everyone else in the squad, including me. Glen was my age. He was every bit as withdrawn as me but with one exception. When the affable Milliron would say something pleasant about his home town of Santa Barbara or his wife or his family, Glen would break out in an easy going smile. Now, a smile makes all the difference in the world, but it would take years for me to realize that simple fact. I never smiled. It wasn’t because I didn’t feel like smiling sometimes. In my case, not smiling had a lot to do with having extremely crooked teeth and I was very ashamed of the way they made me look when I did smile. Little did I know that not smiling sometimes made people feel uneasy around me. Smiles are important and can have a powerful calming effect on others around us if used properly. They should never be used in a sneering or mocking way.

For Glen and me there seemed to be nothing to do while staying in this place but eat and sleep. Bill and Bartee were more adventurous. On the second day they disappeared from the squad area for quite a while. When they returned, they had goofy smiles on their faces which I can see in my mind’s eye to this very day. Bill walked over to where I was sitting and laid down in the dirt beside me and then rolled over on his back. During our time together this would become his signature move after returning from each of his little forays into sin. He seemed especially drawn to me for some reason. Most guys his age projected a critical attitude toward guys my age, expecting them to forever be proving themselves, but that aggravating characteristic was missing with Bill. The entire time that I was with him in the squad, he always had a calm easy going demeanor around everyone. Although he would become known as the “ole man” to the rest of us, he never let his naturally more mature 26 year old mind come between him and the rest of the squad. Many times in these relationships, the older guy would use their greater degree of life experience to try to control younger guys. Bill didn't do that, unless you count winning at poker. He did seem to win a lot. Yes, everyone liked Bill, including Bartee. Because I liked him, it was somewhat enjoyable for me to listen to him as he kept rambling on non-stop about “little or nothing”. While Bill rambled, Bartee stood beside us looking a little zombiefied. As he stared off into space, I noticed he had that same goofy look that Bill had on his face. Then, without saying a word he turned and walked toward his RTO leaving Bill still lying beside me on his back while Bowman continued to sit quietly on my other side. I had been around drunks before but this was different. A little later Bill explained to me what "whacky tobacco" was. He may have shown me his supply at some point. I can’t remember. Bill, I believe, was the first person ever to roll one in front of me. I wonder now if he realized how bad I considered that habit to be. I saw it as a human weakness, not for any moral reason, but from the perspective of a perfectionist, who wanted nothing to do with something which would weaken my body or impair my judgment. I thought it very strange that many of these men were willing to do harm to their bodies by getting drunk and high on pot. I never considered smoking a single cigarette much less smoking pot. However, in a crazy way it did raise my self-esteem just a notch by being around so many others who did smoke and drink. Why? Because self loathing is a horrible sin which actually is soothed when its victim can be in the company of those who have perceived human flaws, which the victim does not have, themselves. During these down times I found myself occupying my spare time day dreaming about my family and friends back home and about finding the right girl and finishing college. I had no idea that I would be in my mid-forties when I found the right girl and I would never finish college.

More than any other American war in the past, the great lie formed in the minds of many Vietnam veterans was that they did not fight for a righteous cause. That is a "bald faced lie" straight from the "pits of hell" but never-the-less that is what was believed then and now by many. The truth is this. Young Americans were commanded by the elected leaders of a free nation to go to war against one of the most diabolical ideologies ever dreamed up by Satan, which is the ideology of communism. All Americans who served in the fires of the Vietnam War fought against this very evil tyranny. We lost that war not because we fought for an unrighteous cause, but because our leaders made wrong choices, one of which was whether we should have ever gone to war at that time, in the first place.

To be completely successful long term, any nation or organization must be led by leaders who are capable of making righteous choices and one cannot learn to do this by getting a degree at Harvard. First off, one can only become righteous enough to live forever, by being born again as a brand new spiritual person, but anyone can behave more righteously, by learning of and then reflecting those values taught in the word of God, as was the case with Richard King. A short list of those values can be found in the ten commandments. A quick way for an observer to evaluate whether one is reflecting those biblical values or not, is to observe whether that person is treating others the way they would like to be treated, or not. Quite frankly, some unbelievers reflect biblical values better than some believers. That certainly was my case in 1967. I had the perfect righteousness of Christ in my spirit, but in my soul (mind, will, emotions) I thought of no one but myself, even more than most unbelievers around me. It was fortunate for me and others as well, that I was never in a leadership position. Unfortunately for America, however, there were many others, who were in leadership, who also thought like me. At least I had enough sense to act righteously by following the directions of the Holy Spirit in the extremely dangerous times. However, the nation's political leaders and generals had no such pressure cooker, as combat, to bring them to that point of submission. Their subconscious minds realized that they would still be around to make up all kinds of lying excuses to tell themselves as well as others after the dust settled. Westmoreland later wrote a lengthy book of lying excuses for his failures. I must admit he was quite convincing, if I had not had God's word buried deep within my mind by the time I read his book, I may have bought what he was saying, hook, line and sinker.

This principle I just described applies to all leaders in every facet of leadership everywhere as well as to the individual. However, when Christian leaders reject the leading of the Holy Spirit, as magnified by God's word, they will not only fail personally, but will also cause those they lead to regress down paths domed for failure, perhaps sometimes with the best of intentions. Flagrant rejection of The Holy Spirit eventually becomes not only a personal disaster for the individual but on a large enough scale, a national and world wide catastrophe. America now sits on the brink of this national catastrophe. This principle was ignored "big time" by Christians in America during the Vietnam Conflict, but nothing like it is being ignored today. What I have just described is a universal principle laid down by God which cannot be circumvented. The Holy Spirit will always show a nation's Christian leaders first the path to victory with steps for them to follow to enlighten a victorious path for others. Here is another little twist to think about. When we try to stand against evil in our own power, we can very easily become just a different version of the same evil which we are trying to conquer. Thus evil conquers us. That is what happened in Germany leading up to World War II and that is also what happened, albeit in a more limited way, in Vietnam. However, "I am here to tell ya" that these evil tyrannical swells were minor compared to the waves of destruction brought on by this next evil Tsunami, which is headed our way. Although anyone can find themselves on the righteous side of events from time to time, consistently winning the battle over evil, requires something more than just struggling against that evil in our own strength. We may win a few battles that way, but we won't win the war. Lasting victory in any righteous struggle requires Christian leaders who consistently follow the leading of The Holy Spirit step by step. Christian leadership is where everything starts to get better or get worse. Christian leadership, since the sixties, has more and more become seduced by spirits of this world. No battle of any kind is purely physical. There is a supernatural power which goes before us when we fight the battles of life through a righteous relationship with God. Without that Godly relationship and the supernatural power which comes with it, a nation will sooner or later be relegated to the trash dump of history. Rome is a good example of what I have just said. The Holy Spirit already knew that our leaders were not going to listen to Him on the handling of the Vietnam situation. He knew before the earth was created that America would lose that war because they were going to reject His help. He also knew something else. He knew that the vast majority of the American public would not seek His wisdom when choosing their leaders today. He has already planned for that, as well as for the major crisis which those choices will soon bring upon our nation. (And some would say is already is bringing). When the dominoes start to fall, the big question will not be, "Where is God?" but rather, "Where are we?". In the coming crisis, are we going to do things His way, step by step, and save this free nation or are we going to do it our way and lose our freedom.

Interestingly enough, in my Vietnam experience, God did make a way of escape for me and many others who would listen to His Holy Spirit in the middle of the chaos, death and destruction. I also believe He would have done this for any enemy combatants on the other side of the battle field as well, if they had chosen to heed His voice, as incredibly far fetched as that may sound to shallow minded followers of Christ. You see, God will move mountains if it will save one soul from hell, and extend life in this body as we then choose to become a witness for Him. However, Its important to note that He is all about building His kingdom, not ours. Yet, He does share His kingdom with all who choose to become part of that kingdom through the new birth. Let it not be said, however, that those who served with me in Vietnam, or anywhere else for that matter, died because they didn't somehow listen to God's Holy Spirit. That would be a very presumptuous statement, indeed. Here is what I do know. All mankind dies to this physical body once. I will soon be joining almost everyone of those 185 men who died in my battalion, which regularly fielded a little less than 400, but I will not be joining them in death. I will be joining them in life, because all but two believed in Christ. My concern now is not for them. My prayer is for their loved ones, that they will make that right choice, so they too can one day be reunited with these, their beloved, never to be separated by death again. (2 Timothy 2:12, Rev. 5:10, 20:6, 22:5)

That plan of escape for me spanned historically recorded events going back well over a hundred years. They were events which shaped our next Battalion commander into a life saving replacement for Lt. Col. Denton. God's saving grace is always beyond human understanding so my physical salvation did not come by way of our next commander only but also as a result of the infusion of just the right citizen soldiers. I am sure there were other divinely appointed details that I am not aware of just as I am sure that there were others, whom He did many things for because "God is no respecter of persons". The Holy Spirit of God has a perfect plan for everybody, but its up to us to voluntarily follow the steps of that plan, one step at a time. Now, by the time we left Phu Loi, we had the right grunts. All we needed was the right commander.

The phrase, "Hurry up and wait" was used a lot in the Army. We did a lot of that in Vietnam. Looking back now I realize that while we waited in this compound, big wheels were being put into motion at division headquarters. However, we were just the tread on the tires. When things were put in gear, we would “hit the ground running” but as treads on a tire, we would only get a "tread's eye view" of the operation, which we would become involved in executing. We were the very embodiment of the well worn phrase, "where the rubber meets the road". From that vantage point we never got to see what the wheel really looked like, much less the rest of the car or even the landscape we traveled through. To gain insight into the bigger picture I would have to wait almost a half century for something called the internet to be invented. But what many of us newly minted veterans did see, all too clearly, was how little our leadership was willing to use common sense, when implementing tactical maneuvers against the enemy. Actually, the way we would be forced to do stupid things over and over, which from a tactical standpoint, not only made little sense, but bordered on incompetence, was especially frustrating. Little did I know that at this time there was a young high school student who would later pour over some of the same after action reports which I am reading now, and would recognize many of the mistakes made, as compared to the way things needed to be done, in accordance with those time proven percepts in the word of God, which can be summed up by saying, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". That young man's name was David Petraeus.

Never mind getting right a winning strategy for the entire war. It was obvious, to most of us grunts who had been there any length of time, that it would take an absolute miracle for most of us who regularly walked at the front of the pack to do that for a solid year and still come away in one piece. Still, we were expected to get down to business or be thrown in the jail at Long Binh. So, as Operation Junction City started, we had new replacements who had to learn the basics of how to stay alive just one more day. Us veterans in the unit would have to continually be learning new ways to not only 'dodge the bullet" from the enemy, but also from the proverbial bullet of those in command. There was no one else but us "ole guys" to step up to the plate. A trickle of naive new guys would continue to come through, but one thing was "for sure". Now, as long as I was in the squad, at nineteen, I would still be the oldest guy there, in terms of combat experience. Yet, I knew next to nothing about how to survive the deadly situations we were were "fixing" to get ourselves into. I knew even less than nothing about become a role model for the rest of my squad. Quite frankly, I was still looking for one of those, myself, and I was looking in all the wrong places. Quite frankly, I had thrown the best role model anyone can ever have away when I was thirteen. Fortunately, though, He had not thrown me away.