Suddenly, the machine gun on the short southern side of the L opened up!
Simultaneously, the claymores exploded, and everyone began firing into their assigned sectors of the ambush’s killing zone and, those who were postured to do so, in the direction of the two NVA outside of it—but they were no longer there.
Within a matter of seconds all firing ceased, and an eerie silence settled over our smoldering NDP. Lieutenant MacCarty looked at me, smiling broadly.
“Good show, Mac, let’s sweep it,” I said.
He and I trailed the squad composing the broad side of the L as its soldiers began sweeping across the killing zone, while the other squad remained in position as a covering force. Midway through this maneuver, I happened to look at the soldiers on my right and left; in a certain respect it was as if I were seeing them for the first time.
Faces blackened, green foliage covering their helmets and protruding from their webbed gear, weapons at the ready, they moved across the killing zone, cautiously, silently, with the cold and sure confidence of men who knew they were good at what they had been called upon to do.
These men are professionals! I thought. These eighteen-and nineteen-year-old draftees are professional soldiers who can outfight and outfox the North Vietnamese regulars! The image of those soldiers at that moment remains as clear in my mind today as it was then, nearly a quarter of a century ago. I was very proud of them at that moment, proud to be one of them.
Our kill was an NVA lieutenant in his early twenties who, having been shot several times in the mouth, was without much of his skull.
Searching him, we found some documents and a photograph of him in an austere NVA dress uniform standing next to a rather plain young woman holding a small child. We laid him out neatly, compassionately, on a paddy dike and folded his arms across his chest. Then one of our soldiers placed a black-and-gold Cavalry patch in the center of the NVA’s chest.
Meanwhile, one of MacCarty’s squads was pursuing the two more fortunate enemy soldiers, at least one of whom had been wounded.
Regrettably, the blood trail soon petered out, and the squad returned empty handed.
I queried our machine gunner as to why he had opened fire before the claymores were detonated, as their detonation was to initiate the ambush, and learned he had had little choice in the matter. Having located himself in dense shrubbery on the southern left flank of the ambush, he was little more than five feet from where the NVA lieutenant met his maker. While our man waited, hoping that the other two enemy soldiers would step into the killing zone, the NVA lieutenant stooped to pick a pack of Cration cigarettes up and, in doing so, just happened to look directly into the muzzle of the machine gunner’s M-60. The instant the doomed man opened his mouth to shout a warning, or scream in terror, snuffie squeezed the machine gun’s trigger.
Later that day we rejoined the company in our new area of operations astride Route 506. The following morning, after an uneventful night, we were airlifted from this location and inserted into yet another AO known throughout the division as “Happy Valley.”
That evening, our first in Happy Valley, I reflected back on our four days in the boonies, trying in the process to evaluate the company’s performance. With four confirmed “hard” kills to our credit and suffering not as much as a scratch in return, we had done rather well, I concluded. Of course, the demise of four NVA soldiers would have little impact on the war’s outcome; however, it was the method by which these soldiers had been dispatched that counted right now. For these were not red-leg (artillery) or air-strike body counts; these were good, clean, warrior-to-warrior infantry kills. Even the company’s most doubtful soldier now knew he was every bit as good as the enemy he opposed. In little more than seventy-two hours, we had all gained enormous confidence.
Shortly after dusk, as I sat pondering all of this, the Bull strolled over for his nightly parley.
“Hell of a good score today, sir. First time I ever saw a false extract work without helicopters.
He paused momentarily, introspectively, and then added, “First time I ever saw a false extract work, period. Snuffle loves the shit out of it. Morale soars tonight, boss!”
“That’s my sounding, Top,” I replied. “And, Top, you ought to have seen ’em! I’ve never seen a better ambush laid in. Never seen soldiers do things more right than ours did today.”
“Well, shit, sir, I could’ve told you that. Like I said, we’ve just had some bad luck lately. But today was a good omen.”
“And like I said, Top,” I responded, smiling, “I don’t believe in luck or omens.”
He smiled in return, and after a short lull, I asked him why Happy Valley was called Happy Valley.
“Beats the shit out of me, sir. There sure as hell ain’t anything happy about it!”
5. Happy Valley to Binh Loc
No, Happy Valley wasn’t a very happy place at all. In fact, its few inhabitants seemed to be some of the unhappiest people on earth. In every village, there was always a faint but discernible fright in the eyes of those we met, as if at any moment they expected the next ax to fall, the next unfortunate turn in their lives to occur. This wariness on their part was well founded, for the people of Happy Valley were “twilight people.”
Most areas of Vietnam were actually relatively stable: the daily routine of living, of nurturing families, and so forth was rarely interrupted by the war. For example, in and around the larger cities and provincial capitals, as well as throughout much of the country’s coastal plain and, by 1967, most of the Mekong Delta, the people were only sporadically disturbed by enemy intrusions. And in much of the country’s hinterland—previously the Viet Minh’s and now the Viet Cong’s stronghold—life was interrupted only infrequently by aerial bombings or, at times, by allied incursions. Happy Valley and much of Binh Dinh Province, in contrast, rested in a twilight area between these two extremes, with neither the republic nor the Viet Cong able to fully and consistently exercise control over the population therein. The area’s strategic location, midway between the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and the southern tip of the Cau Mau Peninsula, meant that both sides continued to fight over it.
This back-and-forth battle for the hearts and minds—and taxes, recruits, porters, laborers, rice, cattle, and so forth—of the valley’s people had been going on since 1946, twenty years before. As we worked the valley, we could imagine what it must be like to live in such a life-threatening political milieu. Currently, the republic, thanks to U.S. intervention in the form of the First Air Cavalry, had the upper hand.
But when the First Cav departed, as of course we did following the Tet offensive, the Viet Cong would return. And there would be reprisals against the people of Happy Valley.
We had been working the valley for about a week with little to show for our efforts. We were therefore anxious to return to the mountains above Daisy, where we felt the hunting was better. One late afternoon, as we were somewhat lethargically searching for an NDP, Blair passed me his handset.
“Three’s on the horn, sir.”
“Hey, Tall Comanche,” Major Byson said, a touch of excitement in his voice, “we got a big fight going on farther up the valley. I’m inbound for pickup and short hop insert in one zero with four, plus two, plus two. Will brief you en route. How copy? Over.”
“This is Comanche Six, solid copy,” I replied. “We’ll be standing by with smoke.”
Passing the handset back to Blair, I asked Anderson to give the platoon leaders a call-up and, once they were assembled, quickly relayed to them the gist of Byson’s message. Then I turned the whole affair over to the Bull, telling him only that One Six was to conduct the assault.