“Uh… yes, sir, I do. The LT told me all that.”
Oh!
“Sir, can I go back to my platoon now?”
“Yes, of course. And you should be proud of what you did on that trail. It was the right thing to do.”
A short time later, as we were waiting for Byson’s inbound flight of slicks to fly us to other parts of Binh Dinh, Lieutenant Halloway cornered me and asked, “Hey, sir, you get a chance to talk to Crumbley?”
“Yes, I did, but it didn’t seem to make any great impression.”
Byson set us down on Daisy, and within an hour or so we were once again confronted with the stench of our mountain. We need not have endured it, since this last day of General Giap’s three-day offensive was to be a day without sunshine for Charlie Company. We retreated from the high country that evening scoreless. By evening of that third day, the ‘68 Tet offensive was pretty much over in Binh Dinh Province. But there would be little respite for us. Although Giap’s great gambit had ended in utter failure throughout most of the country, his troops were still firmly entrenched in the ancient imperial capital at Hue—in I Corps.
And Charlie Company was on its way to I Corps.
20. Back to I Corps: February 1968
We spent most of the next week or so in the vicinity of Daisy doing what we did best, catching a still unsuspecting foe in our claymore ambushes. And our enemy body count climbed while we remained unscratched. But that would soon change.
One early February morning, Major Byson visited our NDP to tell us of what was then felt to be the probable outcome of Giap’s great gamble. I suppose other operation officers and their commanders were doing the same thing throughout Vietnam; it was a time “to keep the troops informed.” He was all smiles as he spoke to the Bull and me, our platoon leaders, and several of their platoon sergeants.
“Hell, probably the greatest tactical defeat ever suffered by an army in the field in the annals of modern warfare. Numbers are still being tabulated, but it appears he lost nearly five thousand of his folk in the first two days of the offensive, while our dead in the same period were under three hundred. Course, that’s a hell of a lot more than we normally lose in two days’ fighting, and it’s not setting very well in the Stateside press right now. But, shit, look at the kill ratio—nearly seventeen to one!”
Byson was right on both counts. We had kicked Charlie’s ass royally and were continuing to do so, but the whole affair would be viewed as anything but a triumph by America’s news media.
“And that’s only a small part of it. See, it appears, you know, from what we’ve learned from captured documents, prisoners, and so forth that General Giap had called for a general uprising among the country’s population. Well, that’s falling on deaf ears. Fact, it looks like just the opposite’s happening. Those that had been straddling the fence are now rallying to the side of the government.”
History would prove Byson correct on this point also. After the Tet offensive, the country’s populace did indeed rally to the republic’s cause—in droves!
“Moreover—and this is really significant, guys—it appears North Vietnam, you know, to bring about this general uprising, ordered their Viet Cong henchmen to surface countrywide. So this elusive foe we’ve been searching for, hell, for nearly two, three years now suddenly comes out into the open to do battle—and he’s being torn to shreds! He’ll never recover from it, never. His infrastructure is being destroyed from the bottom up.”
Again Byson would be proved correct. After the general’s great gamble, the Viet Cong would no longer be a prominent participant in the war. As it turned out, perhaps by design, he would also find himself left out of the peace that followed.
Major Byson’s optimistic, upbeat appraisal of the war was understandably contagious. We had fought the day-in, day-out battle so long without seeing any tangible results. It was extraordinarily uplifting to hear that a corner had now been turned, that something decisive had finally occurred.
“You mean it’s over?” Lieutenant O’Brien asked, straight faced.
“Hell, I just got here.” Then, turning to me, he asked, “Was I here long enough to qualify for my combat infantryman’s badge, sir?”
“You’ll get your CIB, Dick,” I replied as we laughed, collectively and somewhat nervously, at his comment.
“No, it’s far from over, guys,” Byson said. “Country’s in a hell of a mess right now, and there’s a lot of mopping up to do. Fighting a big battle up in I Corps, and Hue’s still firmly occupied by the NVA. But what I’m saying is we’re winning big time! Charlie’s getting his ass kicked from the seventeenth parallel to the Cau Mau Peninsula. And I think I can safely say, without fear of future contradiction, that this will prove to be the turning point of the war.”
Unfortunately, he was right again.
Ending his discourse on this high note, Major Byson pulled the Bull and me aside while the others returned to their platoons.
“Listen, fellows, what I mentioned about I Corps and Hue isn’t any joke. Our Marine friends are having a hell of a time up there, and there’s a rumor floating about that we may be pulled out of Binh Dinh and join the rest of the division in I Corps. I mention this ‘cause if it should happen, it’ll probably happen quick—you know, like everything else around here.”
Sergeant Sullivan and I nodded in agreement. Things did indeed happen quickly in the Cav. The tempo of our operations since the start of General Giap’s little ado amply demonstrated that!
“So keep it in the back of your minds and stay flexible. Just consider it one more contingency that you should be prepared for. If you receive a call from me saying I’m inbound for a long haul, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Means we’re heading north. Questions?”
“Yes, sir. If this does come about, will we be going back to Radcliff first?” the Bull asked, referring to the division’s base camp at An Khe.
“Doubt it, First Sergeant. If we get the word to pick up and move, I’ll probably extract you, along with the other companies, from wherever you’re then operating and put you down wherever the Air Force tells me to for a fixed-winged deployment. Probably Qui Nhon or Phu Cat.”
Very soon thereafter, while sitting in claymore ambush atop our mountain with Three Six, Blair passed me his handset, whispering, “Three’s on the horn, sir.”
“Comanche Six, this is Arizona Three. Inbound your location at one six hundred hours with zero, plus three, plus zero for a long haul. I say again, long haul. How copy? Over.”
“Solid copy. We’ll be standing by for pickup vicinity last night’s NDP.”
I turned to Lieutenant Halloway and said, “Okay, Bob, let’s pack it up and get off this mountain posthaste.” Then I made a quick net call, informing the other platoons to assemble at the NDP in preparation for “long haul.”
Retrieving his handset, Anderson asked, “What’s long haul mean, sir?”
“Think it means we ain’t gonna be killing no more NVA on this mountain, Andy. Think it means we’re going north to I Corps.”
“Great!” he responded, as the breeze shifted a bit. “Just hope to hell Charlie buries his dead in I Corps.”
He didn’t, of course; but on one occasion the Cav would.
Back at the NDP, we found the rest of the company in high spirits, looking forward to the long haul north. This, I suppose, is a natural phenomenon among infantrymen since they look upon routine, be it in garrison or combat, as their most hated enemy. It was not that they expected life to be easier or death less threatening in I Corps; indeed, quite the contrary proved to be the case in both instances. They merely looked forward to a change, something different.