The B52s

Keep off the path, 
beware of the gate, 
watch out for signs that say 'hidden driveways' 
—Private Idaho, The B-52's (1980)

In hundred-plus heat, a company of sweat-soaked grunts, a few officers and a couple of scouts, are humping—walking through the jungle single file, muscles tensed under ninety-pound packs, stopping occasionally for a ten-minute break. A nervous point man leads them. The CO (commanding officer) travels in the middle.

Charlie Company was a diverse bunch, with ten blacks and a dozen Hispanics. A lotta guys hailed from the rural U.S. and many were good trackers. There were no lifers in my squad, but my company had two—the 1st Sgt. and the CO.

Soldiers stick to their squad of eight and squads stick to their platoon of twenty-five, commanded by a lieutenant. The battalion commander flies around in his helicopter, maintaining radio contact with his COs so their units don't bump into each other. Think of a corporation following an objective.

We rarely pissed in the jungle heat because the human body conserves water, except what it discharges as sweat. The march doesn't stop to shit, either. Smoking on the move was the exception, not the rule. Lunch was over a ten-minute break. Many skipped breakfast.

The heat and the stench of the air
A sick feeling in your stomach, day after day
The smell of body odor 
and the chocking dust in your throat
Eyes that burn from sweat 
and are tired and painful from squinting
The ache in your back and neck 
while you stand waiting to move
A pause for a minute and a quick cigarette
That deserted second from reality
when your whole body reeks with tension
at an unknown sound or a shadow in the Bam-Boo 
—SP4 Bob Jackson (1970)

Our main opponents were NVA (North Vietnamese Army) conventional units of patient, patriotic men in for the duration, who liked to fight and endured ridiculous hardship.

My thoughts kept returning to where I had been and where I was going. Over and over I played the "what if we make contact?" game in the back of my mind. Do I drop to one knee or move out and seek cover or wait for directions? Think of a center fielder in a baseball game with the bases loaded and one out. He can’t wait for the coach. He's got to know what to do in case of a fly ball, a ball hit in front of him, over his head, in the gap. Anything.

Kit Carson

Thousands of Vietnamese in their late teens to early fifties joined the Kit Carson Scout Program. They wore the same uniform, back pack, and boots as the soldiers. They carried Colt M16s, traveled in the same milieu, mixed with the soldiers, and made the unit more effective. Our company always took the same two scouts; we never fired them. No effort was made to extract them after the war.

Lup, a fifty-two-year-old Papa San and former Yard (Montagnard mountain man), had built Punji pits for the VC before he defected.

A diabolical Bengal invention, Punji pits are lined with sharpened bamboo sticks and smeared with toxins or feces to infect the wound. The sticks are fixed to the sides of the pit and pointed downward so that a victim caught in the pit cannot be extricated without severe damage to his leg or the rest of his body.

The column had to stop for the painful extraction, lost valuable time and became highly vulnerable to attack until the victim was evacuated by helicopter. We never hit a Punji pit, thanks to the grunts and scouts.

We used to rib Lup about his habits of puffing on his pipe and eating anything he came across. He would smile and move on, eating alone, friendly enough. If he came across a turtle or a lizard, he would cut it up and cook it. "Chop, chop." One time, he acquired a baby monkey and asked Bob to build a fire, but Bob answered. "To hell with you, you're not gonna burn that monkey. No way!" His gourmet meal foiled, Lup let the monkey go.

A hard-core smoker, Lup would pick up the brand-new packs of unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes that nobody wanted and fieldstrip them for his pipe. No big deal, because discarded items were destroyed or buried to keep them from the enemy. And each time he rotated back home, he would come back on with an old, worn out pair of boots so he could get a free new pair. Nobody blamed him for that, either.

Ty, a seventeen-year-old scout from ARVN (South Vietnamese Army), held a grudge against the VC for shooting his father in the stomach after Ty refused to join them. He was always highly pissed and wore a magic talisman on a necklace, an evil eye against the VC. He even claimed that he could smell 'em and wanted to slaughter as many as he could. Bob and Ty were good friends.

Food and Fashion

Virtually everyone wore plain OD (olive drab) jungle fatigues without unit ID, patches, or rank. Why wear anything else? On log (resupply) day, a heap of large sizes would remain until the end or until the scouts claimed them. Baggy clothes were hazardous. Besides, the small ones fit everyone, even the big boys. Underwear caused chafing in the sticky heat, so we did without.

Some wore their OD green t-shirts all the time. Our steel helmets had a reversible camouflaged brown or green cover, wearer’s choice. No one sported camouflage makeup (or any type); it quickly bled down your face in the heat and humidity.

Stop the column! I gotta freshen up my makeup.

Everyone wore combat jungle boots, black and green bottoms with a fabric top to absorb moisture and dry quickly, with or without socks. Most looked like crap. Instead of laces, mine had heavy-duty zippers I picked up from a Vietnamese flea market. They went on and off easier and I never had to worry about tripping over the laces. While setting up for the evening, many soldiers changed into something more comfortable: sandals, boonie hats and t-shirts.

CBS

John Laurence won an Emmy for his coverage of us in the field, The World of Charlie Company (1970). He led a small CBS news crew attached to Sgt. Dunnuck's squad. The sound guy liked to set out alone and record the jungle; one day he didn't come back. We moved on.

Our foes wore Ho Chi Minh slicks (clever, well-constructed sandals made from tires and inner tubes), faded green fatigues, and carried AK-47 rifles.

We could travel light because every three days we dialed room service: a Huey chopper with combat-ready C rations (canned, pre-cooked rations) and LRPs (dehydrated Long Range Patrol meals), warm beer and soda, mail and sundries like shaving gear, candy, cigs, etc. New clothes every other time, new boots only if you had ordered them. Smokers grabbed cigarettes. To keep them from the enemy, leftovers were chopped up with a machete or buried.

Water came in various containers, most notably in elephant rubbers (rubber tubes 8-10 inches in diameter and 5 ft. long). When pitched out of the helicopter, they would bounce crazy across the ground. Water sometimes came in artillery canisters tainted with gun powder. Yuck! It also came in anything and everything and believe it or not, even in regular containers.

Time permitting, cooks came along, set up a field kitchen and tables for the food canisters, and we all got a good hot meal. Mucho grassy ass—we roared! (inside) The Hueys didn't hang around. They got the hell out before attracting too much enemy attention.

A lot of our stuff had multiple functions. For example, we didn't take showers but kept ourselves reasonably clean by drying our sweat off with a towel. Afterward, the towel could cushion the frame that stabilized your heavy backpack. Mine had the older lightweight aluminum frame.

NDP

On the march in enemy territory, the Roman army sent out advance scouts to select an advantageous resting site. The legion would arrive at the designated location in mid-afternoon. For the passage of one night, they dug a ditch around a square, circle or triangle as required. The turves that they cut out of the ground would be raised into a rampart and topped with stakes or wooden spars, enabling the soldiers to rest securely in their tents without fear of ambush.¹

Like the Romans, each night we constructed a fortified NDP (night defensive position) in the bush. That way we could hide in the jungle and not expose ourselves to rocket and heavy weapon attack. Setting up camp took about two hours.

The battalion commander, the CO and his platoon leaders put their heads together and selected a spot on the go. Inadequate cover, security, proximity to trails, odds of a better area or anything else, would send the troop onward.

Charlie Company had been humping the jungle all day when the column halted mid-afternoon. The word came down the line—we would setup here for the night.

Since each soldier carried his own food, water, and supplies, we needed only provide cover. Platoons and squads were assigned sectors within a circular perimeter. The twelve squads were spaced 20-25 feet apart around and within the perimeter.

The CO, 1st Sgt., and the RTO (radio telephone operator) would set up smack dab in the middle of all this, in the secure CP (command post) hole.

We went to work like Romans. We dropped our packs, helmets, ammo belts, and five to seven quarts of water. Weapons were propped up against our packs. Shirts came off. Boonie hats went on. Everyone took part setting camp or guarding the forward and rear areas, regardless of rank.

Some guys shoveled dirt into sandbags, piling them three or four high to make a rectangular rampart for their squad. Once the makeshift bunker was built, weapons and ammo were stacked inside and together.

Others strung trip wires, hooked up flares, and set antipersonnel Claymore mines around the perimeter, about 30 yards out from our defensive rectangle.

Claymore mine.

We placed Claymores on the ground atop their tripods, into interlocking fields of fire, facing outward toward any potential enemy. Each mine or group of mines could be blown individually with a "clacker" (detonator). Each squad controlled their own sector of flares and mines within the 360-degree company perimeter. Every angle and square inch was covered. A bug couldn't get by unnoticed.

If a flare was tripped in his sector, the guard blew the mines in his sector, sending a lethal barrage of steel balls, .00 buckshot, screaming bloody murder through the bush. We scored a fair number of kills this way.

Next, each man used a machete to clear an area next to the rampart where he could sleep. The sleeping areas were close together, defended with squirts of bug juice; we avoided red ants at all costs. Air mattresses were inflated with a heroic effort, the camouflage poncho liner set on top for a blanket. If needed, an OD poncho was tied to the surrounding trees to provide shelter from the rain or mist.

Finally, we could rest and recuperate. The guys got casual with sandals and t-shirts. If you had to take a shit you put on your helmet, grabbed a shovel, and went outside the perimeter. No Pentagon toilet seats here. Some guys borrowed my .45.

Everyone was his own chef for the big meal; the secret ingredient in his kitchen was a bottle of Tabasco sent from home. C rations were opened with the awesome all-purpose P-38 John Wayne can opener, the greatest invention since the fork. It doubled as a screwdriver or a knife; we kept it on our key chains.

Spaghetti, crackers and cheese, and candy bars were OK. Tuna, eggs, and ham, not so much. In a highly unauthorized, but universal practice, C-4 plastic explosives dug out from a Claymore mine instantly heated a can of C rations or a canteen cup full of water for coffee, hot chocolate, or LRPs (Long Range Patrol rations).

LRPs weighed much less than C rations and were a welcome change, except for one small detail—they required water, a precious commodity in the field! So, I only ate them occasionally. Most of us stored our C-4 supply in an empty LRP bag to keep it dry.

The canteen cup could be washed with relatively clean ditch or bomb crater water. Some even used it for their LRPs. I never did. It was famous for parasites and bacteria.

Fed and watered, we could now kick back and reflect. We commenced smoking with cupped hands over the tip, listening to transistor radios with earplugs, reading and writing letters.

War Is Beautiful

The sun setting turning the sky a blood-red
The stars at night hold you like a satin blanket.
While a fuck-you lizard does his thing
Each night laying there staring at the stars
Gazing at all God's beauty and goodness.
Knowing that these same stars umbrella over everyone
and everything you love
Nights that seem eternal and ominous
—SP4 Bob Jackson (1970)

All was quiet as the stars took their places. Lying on my air mattress, arms folded behind my head, I awaited guard duty. Gazing up at the incredible night sky, a brilliant star moving across the heavens caught my attention.

I whispered to Bob, my closest squad member,

What is that?

A B-52. Operation Arc Light.

B-52 Heavy Bomber

Suddenly, the heavens blazed orange and the ground shook—a multitude of thousand-pound bombs had dropped from the sky.

My beautiful Star of Bethlehem was a Death Star. 

1 compiled from Vegetius' de re militari, Book III