“I copy that, Top,” Slim Brightly said. “Not to worry. We don’t shoot at the good guys.”
“Probably ought to wait ’til Baker’s a good six, seven hundred meters up range, huh?” MacCarty remarked more than asked.
“A klick would be better. Just to be on the safe side,” the Bull said.
They’re even bringing an ARVN battery in on it,” Brightly said, his handset to his ear.
“Better make that two klicks,” the Bull said dryly.
“Hell, Top, if they fall back two klicks, they’ll be sitting with us in the NDP!” Mac said.
“You’re right, Lieutenant. And I don’t know ‘bout the rest of you, but I’m gonna sit this one out in my hole,” Sullivan grunted.
A short while later, Sergeant Baker informed us that he and his patrol were out of harm’s way, having retired to a ravine a klick or so south of the 506. Moments later, Slim Brightly, smiling broadly, gave a thumbs up: “Rounds on the way!”
Then we heard the shrieking, screaming sound of artillery projectiles passing over our heads from the southeast. Suddenly the northern horizon lit up in multiple vermilion-and-white flashes, and moments later we heard the crashing sound of the projectiles exploding on Route 506. The earsplitting display of firepower lasted several minutes.
“Divarty requests some feedback on the mission, sir,” Slim said after it was over. “Wants to hear about piles of dead gooks out there.”
“Well, ain’t nobody going back there tonight,” I replied. “Tell ’em we’ll check it out at first light.”
Baker and his patrol did just that but found nothing. No dead bodies, no weapons, no blood trails—nothing. And neither divarty nor battalion was happy about that.
That night, after the log bird had departed and while the Bull and I were in idle conversation, we received a call from Colonel Lich’s executive officer.
“Comanche Six, this Arizona Five. Uh… we’re a little concerned ‘bout last night’s fire mission. You know, large expenditure of class V with nothing to show for it. Request that you try to ascertain whether or not there was actually a large enemy force out there or whether your people might have just been seeing ghosts.”
Why, you pompous, chair-warming sonofabitch!
“This is Comanche Six. Be advised that I am well acquainted with the soldier in charge of that patrol, and if he says there was enemy out there, there was enemy out there. And that’s all the ‘ascertaining’ I intend to do,” I said heatedly. “How copy?”
“Roger, I copy. Don’t know if that’ll satisfy higher, but I’ll pass it along.”
“You believe that, Top?” I said angrily. “Who the fuck is he to question one of my soldiers? And who the fuck made him keeper of Uncle Sam’s artillery stockpiles?”
“Now, take it easy, sir,” the Bull said, trying to calm me—the two of us reversing roles on this occasion. “The XO’s all right. Sometimes can’t find his ass with both hands, but he’s all right. Probably just trying to answer the divarty commander’s mail. Don’t let ’em get to YOU.”
“But shit, Top, what’s the great concern? I’ll bet they routinely fire these missions at a bunch of old tank hulls back at Sill trying to impress some fat congressman or civilian aide, and here we’re at war and they start counting rounds on us!”
“Well, you’re right there, Six. If the divarty commander is so goddamn interested in seeing where his precious rounds impact, why don’t he come and sit his ass on the 506 one night ‘stead of living in the lap of luxury back there at English!” he said, beginning to bristle.
“Right, Top!”
“I mean, just who the fuck is he to be questioning my commander!” he continued, his anger intensifying.
“Uh… right, Top, but actually we don’t know if he even… It’s just like I said the other night. These fat fucks sit back there in their secure fire base, eating their goddamn steaks and drinking their goddamn booze while snuffie here…”
“Whoa, Top. Let’s not get into another discourse on living conditions and the haves and have-nots, okay?”
He paused, smiled, and said, “Yeah, guess not. Guess we’ve pretty much covered that ground, huh?”
We sat in silence for a while, hearing only the low rushing sound emanating from the company’s radios positioned a short distance away.
“But shit, Six, I know I’m preaching to the choir in your case,” he remarked, picking up the conversation where we’d let it drop moments before. “Hell, you’ve paid your dues, what with this being your third tour and all. And I know you ‘green beanies’ suffered too, far as living conditions were concerned.”
I merely nodded.
“Well, what about it, sir? Was it worse out there with Special Forces than it is here with us?”
“No, not worse. Sometimes, in some ways, it was better. I mean as far as living conditions go.” Then, reflecting on it, I added, “And sometimes, in some ways, it was worse. But mostly, it was just different.”
“Yeah, different. I know what you mean there,” he responded. “At least here we got the whole fucking Cav behind us when we get into something. Whereas you all had what? Twelve men, brave and true, and a campload of gooks with no red leg or nothing else to back you UP.”
“Kind of like that.”
“Where were you anyway, sir? Not here in II Corps? You know they got a team over in Happy Valley.”
“No, not here. First time, back in ’62, there weren’t any ‘twelve men brave and true.” Back then I was a young staff sergeant stationed in Nha Trang, living a hell of a lot better than we’re living out here, Top.”
“Second time I was on the Laotian border, at earth’s end, not far from Khe Sanh.” I smiled, reminiscing. “You know, Top, this place was so isolated, we used to go to Khe Sanh for R&R.”
He grinned and asked, “What was the name of the place?”
“It was called ARO, although it beats the shit out of me why.”
Later that night, as I lay in my piece of Vietnam’s soil, my thoughts drifted back to those early years—so different, so young, so long ago.
8. Early Days Saigon, Vietnam: November 1962
The first of three four-engine C-124 Globe Master transport planes began its lumbering descent into Tan Son Nhut, the international airport located on the outskirts of Saigon, in the country of Vietnam, a country few of us aboard had ever heard of six months before. The descending Globe Masters carried an Army Special Forces element referred to by its planners as “Force 76T.” The seventy-six Green Berets aboard, however, referred to ourselves as the “seventy-six trombones,” which was also a song from the then-currently popular movie, The Music Man. The Force would exercise command and control over all Special Forces operational detachments, or “A” teams, serving in Vietnam, teams that were presently controlled by the Central Intelligence Agency and, in most cases, working with the country’s indigenous mountain, or Montagnard, tribes.
The C-124 taxied along Tan Son Nhut’s tarmac to the military off-load area, then shut down its engines and opened its massive cargo doors. The humid, hot, and sticky influx of air hit us like a sledgehammer. Our Vietnam experience had begun. It would affect each of us differently.
Some would rapidly grow to hate this country and everything about it—the climate, food, culture, deprivation, our mission, and most of all the country’s people. Others would fall in love with everything our colleagues loathed and in so doing develop symptoms of a Far Eastern disease referred to by French Foreign Legionnaires as “Yellow fever,” a love of the Orient in general and Indochina in particular.
We were quartered in an old and beautifully preserved French villa on the outskirts of the city just a hop, skip, and a jump from Tan Son Nhut Air Base. Actually, the officers were quartered in the beautifully preserved villa; the peons, myself included, were quartered in peasant hutches behind the lovely villa.