“No, sir! Nothing like that,” the Bull said. “Mean, could’ve just as easily been us. And there ain’t no outfit in the division what’s kicked Charlie’s ass any harder than the Seventh. But every now and then, they just wade into something like this. I mean all the way back to LZ X-Ray in the la Drang. Must be the ghost of the Little Big Horn looking over their shoulders.”
“What’s a little big horn, Top?” Willie asked.
“Ah, Willie, I’m afraid that too is far above your head, but thanks for the java.”
As Sweet Willie Dubray walked off into the darkness, the Bull commented,
“Hate to hear that ‘bout the Seventh. Losing too many of our people in this war, too many of our NCOS. Good NCOS, irreplaceable NCOS, goddamn it!”
Uh oh! Here we go again on the NCO thing.
“I tell you, Six, we can’t keep fighting this fucking war alone!
Peacetime Army ain’t supposed to fight a war by itself! Mark my words, we’re gonna wake up one of these days and find we got all of those soldiers and officers out there, but no one left to teach either of ’em a fucking thing. Oh, we’ll have a bunch of people walking ‘round with stripes on their sleeves, but the old hard-core professionals will be gone. I mean, damn it, you just don’t produce an NCO overnight!”
“Well, that may be true, Top—shit, probably is—but if the powers that be are correct, we’ve turned the corner, and this thing’s gonna be history pretty soon; so we’re gonna save our NCO corps.”
“Yeah, perhaps so, if indeed victory’s now at hand. But you know how I feel about that. I’m telling you, Six, this thing’s turning sour! And what if it goes on another two, three years, huh?”
“Well, in that case, we’ll just have to keep on.”
“No, sir! Can’t just keep on for another two or three years by ourselves! The Army—the infantry—‘cause it’s all over here now, will turn itself inside out. You’ll take the best goddamn Army the country ever fielded and turn it fucking inside out!”
Not knowing how to respond, I said nothing, hoping he might change our conversation’s course. He didn’t.
“Hell, you know how long it takes to grow a good NCO, Six. You used to wear stripes, right?”
“Right, Top.”
“Served in the 82d Airplane Division, right?”
“Right, Top.”
“Right! ‘Course I never cared much for anything airborne, never understood why anybody would want to jump out of an airplane—just never made any sense to me. But the 82d’s a good outfit, and their NCO’s are sharp! Worked with one of their battle groups ten, twelve years ago down in Panama and never seen sharper sergeants. I mean you could ID ’em as NCO’s even if they weren’t wearing stripes.
“But the point is, Six, if this war goes on another two, three years, the fucking 82d ‘Airplane’ is gonna be ‘bout the only infantry division left with its NCO corps intact, ‘cause its ‘bout the only walking infantry that ain’t yet over here! Right?”
Oh, to hell with this. We’ve got to get some sleep.
“Top, you’re probably right, though I honestly think you’re overly concerned about it. But whether you’re right or not, it just doesn’t matter, ‘cause there’s nothing you or I can do about it. I mean, like they say, ‘Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to take Thon Can Nhi.’ In the morning, early in the morning.”
Grinning, he said, “Yeah, guess you’re right, Six. See you at first light.”
Getting to his feet, he noticed he was nearly ankle deep in water.
“Well, shit we may be seeing you before that. I’m fucking soaked, and ain’t nobody can sleep soaked.”
The Bull wandered off toward his piece of the Nam. Sixty-three days and a wake-up. I’ll really miss him, I thought to myself. I’ve learned a lot from him, and it’ll be difficult, uncomfortable, bringing a new first on board. And I would miss him, but not in the context I then thought. Because, although I had no way of knowing it, I only had three days and a wakeup before leaving the Nam.
“Six! Six! This is Two Six! Got a man hit! Got a man down. Over.”
“Roger, Two Six,” I replied, speaking into Andy’s handset. “How bad? Do you need dust off?”
“This is Two Six. Yeah, think so. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Doc’s working on him now. Stomach… uh… chest wound. Bleeding badly. Over.”
“This is Six. We’ll get a dust off en route. Hold tight! Out.”
Quickly changing handsets between Andy and Blair, I called for a medevac.
“Arizona Three, this is Comanche Six. Need a dust off. Got a WIA. Got friendly wounded on the ground at our objective. Serious. LZ is… will be green. How copy? Over.”
Arizona acknowledged the request, promising to have a medevac en route within minutes.
Up to that point the attack on Thon Can Nhi had gone as planned. But now, just minutes after leaving the LZ, approaching the outskirts of the village, Two Six was obviously in trouble. Moreover, since the village’s periphery was a maze of hedgerows and stick fences, intermingled here and there with an occasional mud hutch, we couldn’t see O’Brien and had little idea where the contact had occurred.
Moving with Four Six, we were nearly on line with, and between, the two attacking platoons. As I passed the handset back to Blair, I noted that One Six’s soldiers on our left were continuing to push forward, while Two Six on the right had evidently stopped in place. Turning to Andy, I once again changed handsets.
“One Six, this is Six. Need a quick sitrep. Over.”
“This One Six, Roger. We’re moving into the ville now. No contact.”
“Uh… monitored Two Six’s transmission.”
“This is Six. Okay. Two Six appears to be stopped in place. Want you to do the same till we can get their man out.”
“This is One Six. Wilco.”
“This is Six, ROger. Out… break. Two Six, this is Six. Dust off en route. Have you got an LZ, and are you green at this time? Over.”
“This is Two Six. Roger on the green. Must have been a sniper, single burst of AK fire. Stand by on the LZ… wait. Roger, we’ll bring it on the paddy to our rear. Over.”
After our injured soldier had been evacuated, we moved on through Thon Can Nhi, discovering nothing of any consequence except for a wounded child about seven or eight years old. Although no interpreter or Kit Carson accompanied us, it was obvious from the villagers’ gestures that the young boy had been hit by a stray piece of shrapnel during Blue Max’s prep of our LZ. The wound was serious but not life threatening.
Doc Heard patched it up, assuring the young boy’s hysterical mother that her son would be okay. I hoped he was right. Civilian casualties distressed me. Wounded children sickened me.
That night we set up our NDP in a cemetery on the far side of the village. After the log bird had departed and a wet, watery meal had been consumed, the Bull opened our nightly ritual by saying, “Sir, I know you don’t believe in omens, so I ain’t gonna say it. But today was a bad…”
“Don’t say it, Top! As you just pointed out, I don’t believe in omens.”
“Okay, but our wounded man was a bad… sign.”
We spent the next couple of wet and dreary days working the area east of Highway One in the vicinity of Thon Can Nhi. Then, on the evening of 8 March, Byson sent a warning order informing us we would air-assault the village of Xom Dong My the following morning. Locating the encoded coordinates on our maps, we discovered the village was nearly midway between Highway One and the coast of the South China Sea—right in the middle of Fall’s “street.” With this bit of information in hand, we found ourselves anticipating the attack with a certain relish, feeling that we would finally find I Corps’ elusive enemy.