Tanks for the Memory

You never know what you're gonna run into breakin bush in the middle of a war. One fine April day, the jungle was jungle. Then, presto mundo—a three-acre clearing.

A road ran through it. No bush on the sides of the road. No leaves on the trees. Somthin happnin here. When you see a turtle on top of a fence post you know it didn't get there all by itself.

Agent Orange was up to its old tricks. The entire area had been bladed to the ground and sprayed extensively. Busybody U.S. engineers had left a wasteland, except for a big pile of logs and brush on the far side of the road next to a termite mound.

As the lead elements of Charlie Company stepped into the clearing, Lt. Martinez shouted,

We're makin a combat assault on the road!

We glanced at each other.

Huh?

We formed up along the road in a hundred-yard line and began to cross like Civil War soldiers.

Someone said to Bob,

Look, over by the wood pile.

What are you talkin about?

The soldier pointed to a group of men next to the brush pile busy attaching leafy branches to their bodies. Light bulbs lit up—a camo party. No friends of ours!

Before they could get into costume, we emptied the punch bowl with our M16s and frags. Wood chips flew everywhere. They threw their gearshifts into reverse and vanished into the jungle. This'll keep 'em off the streets.

Bobby Parris, a fellow squad member from rural Georgia, had done a peck of bird hunting. He had a U.S. Army Remington 12-gauge special issue pump-action shotgun, a supply of 00 (double-aught) buckshot in a sack draped on his belt opposite a razor-sharp 6-inch buck knife from his mother.

Bobby approached the wood pile. Twenty feet away, he halted and blasted several rounds of buckshot at the logs. After the dust settled, we pulled out a dead NVA. A BB from one of Bobby's shells was trapped in the guy's canteen, making it sound like a toy rattle. Bobby still has it.

Charlie Company was still in the zone. We had escaped casualties twice—when we crossed the road all strung out and when Bobby got too close to the wood pile.

While the rest of us stood around, arms at the ready, a squad reconnoitered the area. After they returned, we gathered at the wood line on the far side, formed a column and followed the escapees into the jungle.

One dead monkey doesn't stop a circus.

The Mouse Trap

Later that day, we ran across another man-made feature, a path with an over-sized log lying across it. Instead of pushing deeper into the jungle, we stopped and camped thirty yards away (don’t ever sleep right next to a path).

While others set a standard security perimeter and dug foxholes, J.R.'s squad reckoned it was time to make donuts. They had trained with demolition and explosive experts and had been experimenting with ambushes all along. Like Wily E. Coyote eagerly opening his parcel from ACME Blasting Products, they were gonna lay a clever trap and beat Charlie at his own game.

A kill chain is intricate, sensitive work. Stressful. A trip wire is strung over a log and connected to a specially designed fuse, det cord and an array of Claymores mines set in series along the path, concealed with the utmost pains.

The plot was blood simple: the enemy point man would pause to climb over the log and his colleagues would pause behind him, lining everyone up with the mines. As he steps over the log and trips the wire, the fuse breaks, the det cord ignites, the mines blow and the entire patrol is dead bananas.

In any event, we built our nest, posted the usual guards at the perimeter and went to bed on pins and needles. Dawn finally arrived along with a rude blast from beyond the trees. The trap was sprung. Animal, vegetable or human? That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.

Our squad was closer, but the honor fell to J.R. His squad had set the trap. They knew the score. Too many cooks can kill the cooks.

J.R. approached the path with an M60 machine gun. Suddenly, a sniper bullet hit one of his men in the head. The squad immediately opened up and dove for cover, but J.R. ran along the path walking fire from his cock-high M60 like Rambo.

Mexican Standoff

Now that the pig was out of the python, neither Capt. Jackson nor anyone else knew exactly what we were dealing with. A few stragglers or an entire regiment? They weren’t talking.

Our soft-spoken captain wanted no more surprises—one seriously injured man out there was too many. The U.S. 11^th Armored Cav Division was just around the corner, so he ordered up a Big Boy.

If you could swing by, it would be greatly appreciated.

Patton Drops In

Just what the doctor ordered. Before long, the faint sound of a diesel in the distance grew louder. The ground began to shake. The sound of falling trees and a dull, angry roar echoed through the jungle until out came a monster from the deep—99,000 lbs. of 5th Cavalry steel grinding to a noisy halt in the dirt in front of us. We gazed up at the iron beast like grasshoppers, dumbstruck by an M48 Patton battle tank in the middle of the jungle.

These guys were notorious for running down NVA and tossing grenades at them from the turret—straight out of Kelley’s Heroes.

A man popped out.

You rang?

Sure did.

While the nearest medical facility at Bien Hoa was receiving timely updates from the medic treating the wounded man, we explained the situation, emphasizing that J.R. and friends were still out there.

The armored knight slowly ambled up to J.R.'s squad, knocking down trees and running over eleven NVA bodies along the path. Were these clowns at the woodpile? Who knew? Who cared? Charlie Company had just set the ambush record.

J.R. suspected two had survived—one in a tree and one in a bush.

A tree? We worshiped the ground.

For the plat du jour, the master blaster recommended the Beehive (90 mm M377 canister) instead of the HE (high explosive). A Beehive round breaks apart when leaving the gun barrel, propelling 5,600 flechettes (little steel arrows) in a dispersal cone, like shot. Its melliferous name comes from the soothing sound the arrows make flying through the air, exenterating thickets of vegetation, dense foliage, and everything else with startling ease. Range, 1200 ft.

Flechettes

Flechettes were first used in Vietnam in December, 1966. A landing zone in the Kim Son valley had been overrun and had taken numerous casualties. The officer in charge ordered the last artillery piece to be loaded with Beehive ammo and aimed at ground level. He took out two hundred NVA with a couple of rounds, saving the day. After that, the popularity of flechettes soared and reports of enemy soldiers nailed to trees en plein air began to appear in the press.

The tank bowed and turned its turret before lowering its gun barrel to finish off the two stragglers. Swoosh!!—we had just been insured by the 5^th Armored Cav, funeral arrangements still pending.

Now God’s own lunatics could be brought in to airlift our injured comrade from hell. Charlie Co. prepared to move.

Not so fast. Earlier in the day, an M551 Sheridan light tank had lost a wheel to its mortal enemy, an AT (anti-tank mine) and a soldier riding on the rear with his legs dangling down lost both his. Our tank needed to rendezvous with the damaged tank and the rest of his group in a clearing only a click away.

Part-tee

We arrived at the encampment at the same time. Three M48 (Patton medium tanks) and four APCs (armored personnel carriers) had circled the damaged tank, like elephants do with their young. The APCs were for transporting ammo, parts, tools, food and supplies, not people.

Damaged M551 Sheridan in repair

While a repair crew worked on the tank, the rest of us partied to our transistor radios, sheltered by our combined arsenals. We didn't bother setting up a security perimeter or digging foxholes; nobody would be crazy enough to bring such massive firepower down on their heads. To prove it, a tank riddled the wood line with flechettes, cutting down a cloud of trees in one big whoosh.

We checked on our injured comrade throughout the day, built bonfires, slept alfresco, and pulled guard duty. Bob and I guarded the disabled tank and sacked out inside for the hell of it.

In the morning, tanks went their way, we went ours.

During the daily hump, we learned that our injured comrade hadn’t made it. Upsetting? Absolutely. Though we were all pulling for him, grieving would wait until evening camp. Diverting our minds and our senses in the jungle could be fatal.