But John’s luck held. He was assigned to 3rd Tank Battalion. You might argue that wasn’t luck at all, for it meant that he was up north, on the DMZ. So while I was sitting on a bridge outside Da Nang, bored to death, John was in a flame tank on the outskirts of Hue while the Tet Offensive was still going on. He was supporting the 5th Marines, who were retaking the city, one block at a time, just as the Allies had in Europe during World War II.
In any war, street fighting is the worst and deadliest kind of combat, generating the most horrific casualties. During the Vietnam War, it was only seen during Tet in Saigon and Hue City, where it lasted several weeks. It was house-to-house, block-by-block—the worst scenario for a tank to be in. Several tank commanders were killed by snipers from windows and rooftops. Marines all over Vietnam were aware of what was going on, and for a short time the media’s coverage of Hue almost eclipsed the siege at Khe Sanh. Down around Da Nang, where we were, rumors had it that we were about to be drawn into Hue as well.
So if anybody could have used a bottle of Scotch, I thought it was John. Once more, I implored my mother to send a bottle through the mail. John never got the bottle, but to understand the rest of the story, you have to see the war through a mother’s eyes.
The year 1968 was the bloodiest year of the entire war, when the number of Americans killed easily exceeded two hundred a week. Today, it sickens us to hear of six deaths in Afghanistan or twenty-two in Iraq. But back then, the six o’clock news was crammed with film of the war. And once Tet got started, none of it was very good. Hue was still going on, as was the siege of Khe Sanh. On the DMZ, Con Thien had taken a heavy pounding. Fighting also picked up around Da Nang. Marines were taking substantial casualties.
Mothers of Marines lived as harrowing a year as their sons. These women were usually surrounded by oblivious strangers who went about their everyday routines, caring little about the war. Many sons were attending college or had draft deferments; a few had fled to Canada. But mothers of Marines in the field never knew what news lay around the corner. They dreaded the ring of the telephone or the contents of their mailbox.
One morning, a plain-colored car drove up my mother’s long narrow driveway. Looking through the curtained windows she saw that it had white government license plates. When she saw a uniformed man exit the car, she was certain that he was an officer bringing her news that I had been killed in action. Her knees almost gave way as tears filled the proud woman’s eyes as she tried to face the news.
Maybe I was only wounded, she hoped, knowing only too well that this wasn’t how families were told about WIAs. She could barely bring herself to open the door.
“Mrs. Peavey?” he asked.
“Yes,” was all she could muster as she held onto the door for support.
“Did you send a bottle of liquor through the mail?” he demanded.
She didn’t understand this question at all. “What?” was all she could ask.
“I’m an inspector for the United States Postal Service. We have a box with your return address on it that contained a broken bottle of liquor. You do know it’s a Federal offense to send alcohol through the U.S. Mail, don’t you?”
“What?” she repeated.
“Mrs. Peavey,” he persisted. “Do you understand why I’m here?”
Then it began to dawn on her. This wasn’t about me! Suddenly the gravity of federal charges meant nothing at all. She started to laugh as if he had just told her the funniest possible joke.
He had no idea why this woman was laughing in his face. After all, these were very serious charges! Finally she explained why she thought he had come.
He realized what he had just put this woman through, which made him feel like an idiot. Excusing himself, he awkwardly left her at the door with a polite warning.
Later, through the mail, I pleaded for her to try again, suggesting that she pour the Scotch into plastic baby bottles that wouldn’t break. Understandably, she was reluctant—for several months. But that’s a later story.
To this day, more than thirty years later, Embesi still breaks into a broad grin when he recalls the moment in which I replaced his bottle. Our drinking Scotch from a tin cup is one of his fondest memories of both of his tours in Vietnam.
But that pleasant moment was soon followed by a sobering one. The very next morning brought us the calclass="underline" A Marine unit had stepped into a hornet’s nest and was calling for tank support.
At first, it didn’t seem to be all that significant; we would be gone longer than anyone guessed, and we would see far more than any of us ever wanted to see.
Chapter 7
Allen Brook
We didn’t realize it, but we were entering the first week of what would become the bloodiest month of the Vietnam War. May 1968 began the start of the second phase of the enemy’s Tet Offensive, which was later referred to as Mini-Tet. Like its predecessor, this offensive would prove to be devastating to the North Vietnamese, but with it came a high cost of American casualties, much higher than February’s Tet Offensive.
It routinely reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit around noon, and I couldn’t help but wonder what July would be like. May 4 was the beginning of another hot day. After standing watch on the perimeter of 2/27’s fire base, we came off the line. Most of us had spent too many days on nameless bridges eating C rations, so we took advantage of a hot breakfast in the mess tent. Later, we sat around reading yesterday’s mail for the fifth or sixth time.
It was a real treat to be back at the fire base again, where the cool showers were rivaled only by the hot meals. Our living area remained unchanged, except that, because of the heat, the tent flaps had been rolled up. Compared to bridge duty, this was really living.
Rumors that abounded said we would be pulled into the fighting up north. So when Staff Sergeant Embesi and the lieutenant were summoned to a meeting at the battalion CP, we all waited in anticipation. Something was in the air.
They returned an hour later. “Want to join me on a helicopter ride?” Embesi asked me.
“Sure!” I agreed. “Where are we going?”
“We’re being assigned to an operation. We’re going to make an aerial recon of an area, to see if tanks can go into where they want us.”
I was flattered that he had asked me, of all people! And a helicopter ride sounded like fun. If nothing else, it meant a break from the boredom. But, as I threw a few things together, I couldn’t help but wonder why a staff sergeant asked a lowly corporal to accompany him. It would have made more sense for Embesi to ask one of the five tank commanders instead. But my feeling of pride that Embesi had asked me overrode any common sense I had gained in two months in-country. In hindsight, I realize Embesi must have known the answer any veteran tank commander would have given him—and he figured right.
But this was my first helicopter ride, and I was still naive. I thought I could snap some great photos from the air, so I grabbed my camera, helmet, and flak jacket and headed off to grab the submachine gun we carried inside Better Living Thru Canister. I wasn’t taking any chances in case some mechanical problem caused us to unexpectedly have to set down. I hadn’t been in-country long enough to learn that mechanical problems weren’t what I should have been concerned about.
Sitting on the LZ—the landing zone within the base’s perimeter—was a vintage Korean War H-34 helicopter, powered by a gasoline radial engine. It was one of those flying antiques that made up the bulk of the Marine’s chopper force, a helicopter the Army had done away with years earlier. By this time, the Army was using jet-powered Hueys, which were quieter, faster, and far more powerful. But that was the Marine Corps for you—making due with whatever the Army threw away.