This was going to be one very long year!
Chapter 4
Welcome to Eye Corps
The military had divided South Vietnam into four geographical areas called military regions—I, II, III, and IV. U.S. Marine units operated in the northernmost area, Military Region I, which was overseen by the ARVN and thus called “I Corps.” South of that was II Corps, then III Corps, and the southernmost IV Corps. All of these corps areas were referred to by their numeral designations, except for I Corps—One Corps was universally called “Eye Corps.”
At the northern border of I Corps was the Ben Hai River, which separated North from South Vietnam. On each side of the river was a 3,000-meter buffer zone, set up by a United Nations mandate in the mid-1950s. This neutral area was called the Demilitarized Zone—the DMZ—or simply, “the Z.” It should have been called the Militarized Zone, because it was anything but demilitarized. Our side bent over backward to honor the neutrality, but somehow the North Vietnamese never got the word. The DMZ became a Communist sanctuary, even on the southern side of the river. It fell within the TAOR (tactical area of responsibility) of the 3rd Marine Division, headquartered in Quang Tri.
One hundred and seventy miles south of the DMZ lay the large coastal city of Da Nang, home of the other Marine division operating in Vietnam, our own 1st Marine Division. When it came to the type of war each division was fighting, the 170 miles separating the two might as well have been 1,700 miles. The North Vietnamese Army troops along the DMZ were extremely well equipped, being in such close proximity of their supply bases. Third Marine Division troops didn’t have to worry themselves about flinging away an empty C ration can, but in the Da Nang TAOR, you didn’t dare throw anything away. Once Charlie got hold of it, yesterday’s empty tin can could become tomorrow’s homemade mine.
The fighting wasn’t any harder in one area than in another, just totally different. I didn’t know it yet, but in the bloody year of 1968 I would be one of the few Marines to fight with both the 1st and 3rd Marine divisions. Both divisions were facing the same enemy: hardcore NVA regulars reinforced by full- and part-time Viet Cong guerrillas. The major difference was that 3rd MarDiv (as it was also called) had to contend with North Vietnamese heavy artillery from the north side of the Ben Hal River. Their large-caliber guns—mainly 130mm and 152mm—shelled all the Marine fire bases at will, as far south as ten miles below the DMZ. One day in 1967, for example, Con Thien—an isolated firebase overlooking the DMZ—received more than 1,200 rounds of enemy artillery. Up north, it was closer to the kind of combat experienced in Europe during World War II than in any other part of Vietnam.
Outside Da Nang, 170 miles to the south, the NVA was far more resourceful and relied on psychological warfare by the placement of thousands of booby traps. They played a real head game on anyone who had to walk for a living; a grunt never knew if his foot would still be attached with each step he took. Tankers had to tie down their aerials so as not to snag booby traps placed up in the trees that were designed to kill the unwary tank commander.
FOLLOWING THE, GIANT cluster fuck of the sinking tanks in Happy Valley, Bravo Company received orders assigning its tank platoons to different combat bases southwest of Da Nang. All five tanks in our platoon were sent to support 2/27 (pronounced “two-twenty-seven,” which stood for 2nd Battalion, 27th Marine Regiment). They were part of the 5th Marine Division and had arrived in-country just weeks earlier; they were part of the same stateside reaction force to the Tet Offensive that we were.
We packed up our gear for a trip that took us past Hill 55 to 2/27’s newly established fire base. Fire bases were common to the Vietnam War and consisted of a defensive position that had at least a battery of artillery set up inside of it. Artillery’s role was to support the patrols that went out beyond the fire base as well as other fire bases within range.
Weaving throughout the Da Nang TAOR were countless numbers of rivers, which meant lots of bridges. If there was one truism in I Corps, it was that bridges always came in pairs. There was the wooden one you actually used, and the steel one that had been blown up a decade or so before. It seemed that the French hadn’t done a very good job of guarding the steel bridges. But that was another war, and besides, they lost theirs—something that we, early in 1968, couldn’t imagine ourselves doing.
The French influence was obvious throughout all of Vietnam, which was sometimes a little disconcerting in view of what we all knew became of them. But their most frequent souvenirs were the concrete bunkersor what was left of them—usually found at both ends of most steel bridges.
Our platoon was assigned an area within the fire base. The base was about two hundred meters in diameter, with plenty of room for our two large tents and our cots. Not bad, I thought. At least we wouldn’t be sleeping on the ground. Little did I know that we would almost never sleep on the cots. Once set up, we had to build an ammo bunker for storing extra tank ammunition. That hot, nasty job required the filling and stacking of thousands of sandbags. The temperature was still cool by Vietnamese standards—meaning that during the afternoon it was in the low 90s. As for the humidity, I was sure it could have been assigned a measure of viscosity.
It took us three days to build the ammo bunker and another day to unload and stack the spare ammunition that was brought in by truck. For that first week, we were still together as a complete tank platoon, but slowly we were introduced into the routine of Vietnam. At night, we always stood watch in our tanks on the battalion’s perimeter, and soon we began to accompany the morning road-sweep teams as a security force.
Every morning, all over The Nam, road sweeps took place at the same time—about an hour after sunrise. They consisted of two men waving mine detectors back and forth, seeking out little gifts that Charlie might have planted during the night. It was a slow process that required the presence of a security force to protect the sweepers. Generally, two tanks moved along fifty feet behind, their turrets pointing at opposite sides of the road in anticipation of an ambush. Following behind the tanks would be two or three trucks carrying additional grunts as a reaction force should we be ambushed.
Nights at the fire base were spent on the tank, usually assigned to one of several slots around the battalion’s perimeter. An earthen berm made up the fire base’s perimeter; each slot was a revetment into which a tank could drive, leaving only its turret exposed level with the berm. Occasionally, if all the platoon’s tanks were inside the perimeter for the night, we kept one tank next to our living area as a reaction unit, just in case it had to be summoned elsewhere on the perimeter. Embesi rotated the crews through that enviable reaction job. That meant that every fifth night I got to sleep on a cot and didn’t have to stand watch. In The Nam, you didn’t often get a full night’s sleep unless you were an officer or a senior NCO.
Occasionally, G-2, the division intelligence section, alerted the battalion to expect a possible attack on a given night. Such warnings guaranteed two things: first, that we’d get only four hours’ sleep because half the crew would have to be up and ready all through the night; and, second, that we wouldn’t get hit at all! G-2 was not known for its reliable intelligence.
There were hot showers within a short walking distance of our tents, and the mess tent was nearby too. We had left behind the luxury of the movies and the NCO Club, but—naively—I began to think this wasn’t so bad, that I could handle the twelve months that lay ahead. I had no idea how lucky we had been so far.