August 1, 1968
I was the new guy. I just did what the other guys told me too. I probably thought I was supposed to go too the mess tent. That worked for about a month.
When I woke, the sun was shining, Marines were milling around and Anderson said, “hey man, let’s get some hot fucking chow over across the road which ran straight through the fire based..
While we were standing in line waiting to get our hot eggs and bacon, Anderson told me the Rock Pile was a fire base that had been hit by rockets and NVA ground assaults many times. The army and Marines were on the base. The army mostly just took care of the artillery. The Marines stood lines and provided security for the base and surrounding area.
We hate our soupy eggs and bacon, then headed back over to the bunkers where our gear was. When we got there, our fire team leader, looking all bent out of shape, asked us where we had been and then told us to beady to move over to the lines “right now.”
We picked up our gear and headed for the north end of the perimeter. L/Cpl Thomas showed us our fighting hole and we dropped all our gear and smoked a cigarette. As I was cleaning my rifle, L/Cpl Thomas came up and said, “Get all your gear together and be ready to saddle up in an hour. We are moving back up the road about half-way between the Rock Pile and Camp Carroll. There is a bridge there and we are going to provide security for it.” To that PFC Anderson said, “I wish them sons a goddamn bitches would make up their mother-fucking minds.”
I finished cleaning my M-16 and loaded, it packed up my cleaning gear and got my pack and the rest of my gear ready to go. We sat around for about two hours and shot the shit until we got word to move out. We walked back to the road and got on another convoy that was headed to Don Ha We rode about three miles down the road and got off at a bridge that two hills, one each side of the road.
First Platoon had to set up a perimeter on top of the hill between the road and the river. The climb to the top of the hill was almost straight up two hundred feet. Once we got to the top, our squad was assigned the part of the perimeter overlooking the river. There were hole already dug so that saved us a lot of work.
That night, I had second watch. I could hardly keep my eyes open, I was so sleepy - and finally I dropped off. I woke with water being poured on my face. It was my squad leader emptying a canteen on my head. He said, “If I had been a gook, you would be ead. Come by my hootch in the morning, I want to talk to you.
August 2, 1968
After I ate breakfast of pork slices, fruit cocktail, crackers, coffee and had smoked a cigarette, I walked over to Sgt McCoy’s hootch. Sgt McCoy points out in front of hist hottch and said, “I want you to dig me a hole right there.” I went back to my hootch and got my entrenching tool. I dug down about six inches and hit rock. It took me four hours of hard work to get the hole four feet deep, which was how deep it was when Sgt McCoy said I could stop. He also said, “I hope you think about this the next time you feel like falling asleep on watch. “ I said, “You don’t have to worry, I won’t fall asleep again on watch.”
That afternoon, it was our squad’s turn to go down to the river and take a bath. It felt nice to get that layer of dirt off my body. It was the second time I had washed since I came to Viet Nam. We also had to shave. I didn’t really want to since it was so hot and my face skin burns when I shave in hot weather. But, it reined at least once every day at that time of the year, so that helped cool it off a little.
I stood watch as usual, and was wide awake when Sgt McCoy came by to check lines. He told me he was glad to see me awake and that we were going to provide security for the mine sweepers, first thing in the morning.
August 3, 1968
On Mines
The mines could be either anti-personnel or anti-tank. An anti-tank mine would not go off from the weight of a human stepping on it. Later in the flatlands, ChickenMan saw a a truck trip one of those mines. The truck went up twenty feet in the air.
We were down at the bottom of the hill by 7:00 that morning, waiting for the mine sweepers to get ready to go.
We walked down the road heading north towards the Rock Pile in a squad size wedge with one M-60 machine gun crew and two men with mine sweepers walking point.
We cleared the road half way to the Rock Pile where we met up with the mine sweepers from the Rock Pile. I was sure glad we didn’t step on any mines. We sat down on the sided of the road and took about a ten minute smoke break before we headed back to the bridge. Once back at the bridge, we got a resupply of C-rations and some SP supplies which were cigarettes, soap, candy and letter writing gear. It was a bitch carrying all that shit up to the top of the hill. It had started raining while we were getting supplies. By the time we got up to our hootch, I was covered with mud and soaked to my bones.
I crawled into my hootch and warmed up some breakfast of spegetti and meat balls and smoked a couple of cigarettes. I watched an air strike off in the distance.
Nothing happened that night except that I had to sit in the cold rain by my hole because I couldn’t see out in front of my hole from my hootch.
August 4, 1968
While I was smoking my after breakfast cigarette, drying off in the hot sun, I got word from L/Cpl Thomas that we were going on a squad size patrol on the other side of the river. I finished my cigarette, cleaned my M-16 and got my gear ready for the patrol.
We walked and slid down the hill to the road. We walked inline about ten meters apart until we forded the river at a shallow spot. Then we got into a platoon-size wedge and headed northeast, in the general direction of the Rock Pile, following the valley floor through the elephant grass.
Due to a change in their natural habitat and mass hunting of these deer, in the sixties they disappeared from the wild. Now they only live in nature reserves and in captivity.
Vietnamese Sika Deer
We stayed out on patrol nearly all day, but most of the day we spend in a perimeter around a giant rock with jungle growing all over it while one squad climbed up about three hundred feet to the top and checked for signs of NVA. They didn’t find any. This gave me chance to read a book somebody let me borrow, “The Animal Farm.”
On the way back to the bridge, Anderson and I heard something moving in the brush off to our left; we stopped and were getting ready to shoot when a deer came running out from the brush. It was a great relief to see that dee intend of the NVA. We both smiled and kept on walking. This was the first wild animal I had seen in Viet Nam.
By the time we got back to the bridge, the mail truck had dropped off our mail. I got three letters that brightened up my day.
I climbed back up the hill from the road to my hootch and read my letters and heated up a can of beef slices.
Just as it was getting dusk, we heard rockets hitting the Rock Pile, so that we had to put our flack jackets and helmets on and get near our fighting holes with our rifle and ammo, just in case we started getting hit by incoming rockets or mortars. Anderson told me the NVA picked the time right before dark to shot the rockets and mortars because the spotter planes couldn’t spot them when the light was bad. It wasn’t dark enough for the flash of the rock to be seen from the air. The Rock Pile usually got hit once or twice a week just before dark and just after dawn.
We sat there until dark when the rockets quit hitting the Rock Pile. I took off my flack jacket and helmet. I crawled into my hootch and I crashed, since I had last watch and I wanted to get at least six hours of sleep.
August 11, 1968
I was on watch when the sun came up - it was the most peaceful part of the day. I could lean back, smoke a cigarette and enjoy all the color and beauty of the sunrise before everyone woke up and began milling around making noise.
Halfway through heating up my morning coffee, it started to rain. I moved my stove and coffee inside the hootch. All the noise I made woke the other two guys up. Since they were up and out of there, when I finished eating my breakfast of ham and mothers, I took a nap.
L/Cpl Thomas woke me up an hour later and told me and Anderson to go down to the Company CP. This was down by the road. He wanted us to pick up some cases of C-rations from Sgt McCoy. It was still raining, plus we had to wear our flack jackets and helmets and carry our rifles. We climbed part of the way and slid part of the way down the hill. Once we got to CP, we found a dry place to sit. We talked to some guys in one of the other platoons until it stopped raining. After the rain stopped, we climbed up the hill with two cases of C-rations, plus our rifles and gear. Climbing was a bitch since by now the trail going up was like soup. We were covered in mud by the time we made it to the top.
We got the word that afternoon, we would be leaving the bridge the day after tomorrow on a new operation We would leave the bridge tomorrow, but they were having a metal ceremony at Camp Carroll and some of the men in our company were going to get metals for things they had done before I got to Viet Nam in fire fights around Di Doe.
August 12, 1968
I found out the new operation was going to start at LZ Becky where I had landed the first time I went out into the bush. Today, every one who had been in Viet Nam longer than six months had to get a plague shot.
We also got a resupply of three day’s food and our squad leader made sure that every man in the squad had two dandlers of M-16 magazines and five extra bandoleers of M-16 ammo. We had to carry at least five canteens of water. I found out that I also would be carryon a can of machine gun ammo and a LAW.
In the evening, I got all my gear packed up except for my poncho which was still part of our hootch. I was having trouble getting all of my stuff into my small Marine issue pack when Anderson said, “Well, if we hit the shit, maybe you can zap a gook and get yourself a NVA pack. the hold a lot more shit.” He showed me his pack which was three times the size of mine, not even counting the three pockets on the outside of it. I said, “yeah, maybe I will.”
We stood watch that night with noting out of the ordinary happening.
August 13, 1968
When I awoke, the sun was burning away and it looked like a pretty nice day to be alive. I took my poncho down, rolled it up and tied it to my pack. I also attached my entrenching tool to the back of my pack. Once I had my gear ready to go, I warmed up my C-ration breakfast, drank my morning coffee and smoked my after breakfast cigarette.
Our fire team leader came by and told us we were leaving for Camp Carroll by truck as soon as our replacements got there. Then we would be flying chopper to a hill near LZ Becky. A few minutes later, our replacements got there and we took off for Camp Carroll in a truck convoy. Once were were at Camp Carroll, we just sat around some bunkers near the LZ, waiting for the choppers to arrive. Every once in awhile, someone would say, “Hurry up and wait, that’s all these fuckers know how to do.”
Finally the choppers came in and we ran through the blasting dirt and onboard the chopper. We were some of the last to land, and we had to be told which way to go towards our platoon. As we were walking in the direction of our platoon, I was noticing there seemed to be a lot more Marines than usual. I asked L/Cpl Thomas about it, and he said we were protecting the battalion commander on this operation.
Just as he finished talking, we heard a short burst of M-16 fire and we all hit the dirt. We didn’t hear any more shooting, so we got back up and walked to our platoon CP where we found out that someone in the third platoon had killed a NVA who was walking by as if we weren’t even there.
The area we were in was small, rolling hills covered in patches of elephant grass and bungle, our fighting would be in the jungle part. So first we had to back our way through the vines and small trees with machetes and entrenching tools to the the spot where our hole would be. Then we had to chop through about two or three feet of roots to dig our hole. After all of that, we had to clear a field of fire in front of our hole. About this time, the battalion commander, a major, came by checking the lines. I overheard him say to one of his aids that it would be impossible to defend these positions.
After hearing that, as soon as the major was out of ear range, Anderson said, "Fuck, man, let’s just rest.” We sat down and lit a cigarette and talked. Anderson said, We will probably be moving and have to dig another hole somewhere else. Sure enough, about twenty minutes later, we were back up on top of the ring of the hill we were surrounding. This time our hole would be in the elephant grass. It was a lot easier to dig the second hole, but everyone was pretty pissed off because we ll knew to begin with that the first place was a bad place to have the lines and because we had to dig two holes in one day and cover one of them back up.
By the time we got all our shit squared away and done all that had to be done such as setting out claymore mines, clearing the field of fire out in front of the hole, putting up a hottch - things we had to do every time we set out a new perimeter - it was dark and time to start night watch. The night went by calmly except for we were calling in artillery all around our area of operation to keep the NVA away.
August 14, 1968
I woke up refreshed, ate as usual and cleaned my rifle. I was wondering whether we were going out on patrol today, when we got word that we were going to have to saddle up and move out in one hour.
I was packed and sitting by my gear when L/Cpl Thomas came back from talking to Sgt McCoy. L/Cpl Thomas said that we were flying out to another area where some NVA had been spotted from the air. He also said that as soon as the choppers landed, we would set up a perimeter and that our squad would be on the south side of this hill.
About an hour and a half later we were in the air again. About two minutes before we were landing, we got word from the helicopter crew chief that the landing zone was being hit by mortars and that we better jump as soon as the chopper touched down.
I checked myself out to make sure I had all my gear ready to move fast. We were all facing the rear of the chopper by then. The chopper bumped the ground once and every one was moving toward and out the door. We were about seven or eight feet off the ground. I jumped, hit and rolled about twice, I stood up, heard a mortar round explode and hit the dirt again.
My fire team leader yells for us to follow him. We were about half way down a forty foot ravine between two fingers of the hill we landed on. The terrain is covered with about five-foot tall elephant grass and a few trees scattered around in groups of ten to twenty. The mortars keep coming in. We keep moving from one place to another in what seems to me like confusion until our squad leader got us all together, but not too close. We make our way around to the south side of the hill. Once there, we move away down into a clump of trees and rock where the mortars aren’t coming in at all.
The helicopters kept coming in and so did the mortars. Finally some phantom jets came up and made a few air strikes about two clicks (click equals one thousand meters square, or one grid square) away. The incoming motors stooped.
When things calmed down some, we moved back up closer to the top of the hill. Every hour or so, we would get the
