“Coming from the northwest. Looks to be… oh, say, 5200 mills.”
As he sent this azimuth through his fire-control channels, I did the same via the battalion’s command net. You’re right indeed, Willie. Binh Dinh was never like this.
A few days later we were relieved of our defensive responsibilities at Evans in order to start working the boonies of I Corps. Our initial operational area was a stretch of coastal plain referred to as the “street.”
22. The Street to Hue
Bernard Fall’s Street Without Joy was not a street at all but a coastal area in the northern part of the republic bordered generally by the city of Quang Tri on the north, the ancient imperial capital of Hue on the south, Highway One on the west, and the South China Sea on the east.
As Fall notes in his book, this area was usually a hotbed of insurgent activity, controlled initially by the Viet Minh and later by the Viet Cong and NVA. In Tet’s aftermath, the enemy used the street—so named by the French Expeditionary Force during the first Indochina war—to reinforce and resupply its 5th and 6th Regiments, which had captured Hue on 31 January. Later it served as a route of withdrawal for these units. Allied responsibility for interdicting this route of resupply and regress rested with elements of the First Air Cav. We were one of those elements.
In these waning days of February, we worked the street generally from the city of Hai Lang in Quang Tri Province to the village of My Chanh in Thua Thien Province, conducting usually fruitless search-and-destroy missions during the day and trick-or-treating Highway One at night. On one of the first search-and-destroy forays, I accompanied One Six as they worked the area east of Highway One between Hai Lang to the north and the river Hoi Dao—which was little more than a stream—to the south. It was another walk in the weeds.
Around two o’clock in the afternoon, we halted our futile trek, taking a break next to a cluster of hutches, under a dark overcast sky that continued its constant drizzle.
“Coffee, Willie,” I said in jest to Dubray, who was again filling in for Anderson.
“Coming up, sir.”
“Hey, Willie, I was just joking.”
“It ain’t no problem, sir. ‘Sides, I’m wanting a little myself. This here weather’s chilling me something awful. Need something hot.”
I smiled. Goddamn, you’re a better man than me, William Ambrose Dubray. When this is all over, and you get back to Arkansas, I hope every good thing in your world happens. “Okay, as you wish. Carry on, Willie.”
Blair looked on as Dubray took one of his makeshift Cration-can stoves from a cargo pocket, lit a heat tab and dropped it in, and then put a partially filled canteen cup of water over it.
“Willie, I never thought I’d say it, but you’re right,” Blair said. “I Corps’ climate does call for something hot. And I never thought I’d say it, but a couple of porksausage patties would taste kind of good right now. Jesus, this weather!”
Dubray smiled mightily. “Well, I ain’t got no porkers, but I got a can of ham slices. Want to share ’em?”
“Yeah, Willie, I’d be honored,” Blair said, grinning.
“You think the sun’s ever gonna shine again, sir?” Lieutenant Norwalk said.
“Beats the shit out of me, Bill. Hope so. We could use a little drying out.”
He looked at me in silence for a moment, as if thinking “a little drying out” was a major understatement. Then he said, “I don’t know, sir. Never seen anything like it in my life. You know, back in the States, in the spring and summer it’d rain like hell, but then the sun would come out. Or it’d rain for a while, and then you’d have these drizzling skies for a day or so. But here, it comes down in buckets intermittently and then just dribbles forever!”
“Yeah, I know, Bill. And we’re nigh constantly soaked. By the way, you checking your people’s feet?”
“Yes, sir. Squad leaders are doing it, and I’m checking theirs. No problems so far. Every other stitch on us is wet, but we’re making sure all our men have dry socks once a day… on those days the log bird flies.”
Yeah, and that’s a problem. Cav’s lost too many of their birds from rockets at Evans. Whereas they logged us nearly every night and morning on the plain, they’re skipping many a night up here.
“Shit, I don’t know, sir,” Norwalk continued. “Wish the Army would come up with something ‘sides the poncho to keep a man dry.” He paused, smiling. “Funny, isn’t it. They give you a shelter half to make a tent, and it’s not worth a simple shit—and a poncho to keep you dry, and it won’t, but it makes a super tent.”
“Yeah, I often wondered who sold the pup tent to the Army. It’s undoubtedly the most worthless piece of gear in the inventory, yet it seems to have been around forever,” I replied.
“Coffee’s hot, sir,” Sweet Willie announced a few minutes later.
So, on a dismal afternoon in I Corps, the four of us sat in Quang Trios wet sand sipping coffee from Willie’s canteen cup as he and Blair shared a can of ham slices and a pecan roll.
“Heard about Sergeant Major Cooper, sir?” Dubray asked.
“Captain, exSergeant Major Cooper? No, not recently. Why do you ask, Willie?”
“He’s dead.”
Shit, not Cooper!
“Where? What happened? Where did you hear this, Willie?”
“One of the fellows what was coming back from An Khe the other day, he say Ser… uh… Captain Cooper was shot while he was commanding a mech company down south. Say Charlie put a round right through his heart.”
“Damn, hate to hear that,” Norwalk said. “I liked the Coop. Gonna miss his cocktail parties.”
“Yeah. Hell of a note,” I said. What else was there to say?
“I saw one of our own get it the other day, sir,” Norwalk said. “First time, and it wasn’t a pretty sight.”
“Where was that, Bill?” I asked, baffled by his remark. I knew we hadn’t lost anyone.
“Last day at Evans. You know, when we were pulling the roadclearing detail.”
“Oh, yeah. Providing security for the engineers opening the highway in the morning, you mean.”
He nodded. “Right. Anyway, had some of my people on their dump and the rest of the platoon trailing their sweepers on each side of the road, forty, fifty meters back. And suddenly we heard a boom! And the guy sweeping the right side of the road was no more. Don’t know what he stepped on or why his detector didn’t pick it up, but it sure made a mess of him. And shit, sir, he was just a kid.”
“They all are, Bill.”
But it ages them fast. How old are you, Lieutenant? Twenty-three? Twenty-three and referring to a younger dead soldier as a kid! War’s made you older than your years, Bill.
“Well, what say, Bill, we ‘bout ready to continue our stroll north?”
He nodded, got to his feet, and signaled his soldiers to do likewise. And once again we began our sluggish, phlegmatic movement northward toward Hai Lang. Twenty minutes later, Blair handed me his handset. “Our Three’s on the line, sir.”
“Comanche, are you in a posture for a pickup? Over.”
“This is Comanche Six. Negative. Have two of my subs working sector.
The other’s at last night’s NDP adjacent to the big red.”
“This is Arizona Three. How long to consolidate? Over.”
“This is Comanche Six. About six zero.”
“Okay, Comanche, I’ll be inbound with four, plus two, plus two in six zero. Make that sixteen hundred hours for the pickup. Gonna put you in at point of origin PORE, I spell Papa, Oscar, Romeo, Echo, left three eight, up one three. How copy? Over.”
“This is Comanche Six. Roger. Papa Oscar PORE, left three eight, up one three.”
“This is Arizona Three. Good copy. Got reports of some activity west of the ville there. Want you to check it out and then sweep generally northeast. You can log somewhere in that vicinity tonight.”