St. Barbara

The Magic Mountain

Jutting thirty-two hundred feet above jungle and farmland, Núi Bà Đen (Black Virgin Mountain), a spectacular cone of solid granite honeycombed with caves, dominates Tay Ninh Province. It's not alone; floating around the dark mountain are two legends of Bà Đen:

Some say she married for love, not for the rich Mandarin who was hot for her. After her husband went away into the army, she would take the six hour climb to visit the magic Buddha at the peak. When kidnappers cornered her, she leapt off the nearest cliff to save her reputation. To this day, she haunts the mountain, recounting her story to anyone who'll listen.

Others say she was a devoted Buddhist, a virgin of tender age betrothed to a notable against her will. One day, she ran off and hid on the mountain. Searchers found a leg, but a Buddhist priest built a shrine to her at the top and afterward saw her walking around on both legs. I'll take this one. 

In addition to Bà Đen, a U.S. SIGINT (signal intelligence) operation and a Special Forces camp called The Rock, was planted on top. The radio antenna and nighttime lights, clearly visible from St. Barbara, made it a watchtower of sorts. The VC (Viet Cong) and (North Vietnamese Army) owned the rest of the mountain and the surrounding countryside. As long as we were up there, they weren't comfortable; they made numerous attempts to capture the summit, lobbing rockets up there until snakes (Cobra gunships) arrived to politely ask them to knock it off.

A French Fort

Fresh from humping the jungle, Charlie Co. arrived at FSB (fire support base) St. Barbara at the edge of the Black Virgin Mountain before Christmas, 1969. We are the Airmobile 1st Cavalry Division. We handle armor, artillery, infantry, or anything else they throw at us. What's for lunch?

'Round the mountain we came, six Huey helicopters at a time in tight formation, twenty yards apart, six grunts to a chopper. Aside from two pilots, a door gunner crouched behind a pig (M60 machine gun) at each of the two open side hatches. A grunt hung on next to each gunner, legs dangling out the door, 2000 feet in the air. The 100 lb pack on his back was a counterweight securing him in the chopper. Four other soldiers sat on a bench in the back with their packs on.

Six Hueys are bad company. They can bring a dozen pigs to bear on a buzzard, a water buffalo, a hot LZ (landing zone) or most anything. Ours were rarely attacked, although a thousand others were gunned down during the war.

The choppers landed on the barren ground outside the gate without incident. The soldiers wiggled and jumped out, struggling to stay upright, but low enough to avoid the blades. They hustled into the base through the gate, balancing their packs on their backs.

Between us and Tay Ninh, home of Charlie Company and the 1st Calvary stood the mountain. St. Barbara lay astride a major NVA infiltration route, twenty miles from the Cambodians, the people who created the legends of Bà Đen.

Built on the site of a French colonial fortress, the seven-acre gated community of men, machines and sandbags was ringed by a high earthen berm, an extensive minefield and angry concertina razor wire. Surrounding that was an Agent Orange wasteland, churned up by artillery, barren to the tree line, a full click away. No trees, no bush. Nobody went out there.

The unit we were replacing had already left. The bunker assigned to our squad formed part of the perimeter. It presented a seamless, windowless front to attackers; a portal in the rear opened to the interior of the fort and a great view of the mountain. Sandbag walls, steel plate roof, half underground, roomy enough, although my six-foot one-inch body could barely stand up straight. We slept on our air mattresses set on makeshift wooden bunk beds fashioned from ammo boxes. It was home for now.

Squad bunker

FBs (firebases) and FSBs grew from lessons of the Indochina War. The French hit on the idea of a mooring point for their forces, a tempting target for the enemy, but with enough firepower to knock down all ten pins. Why chase the enemy around the country if you could get them to come to papa? Unfortunately, it went badly for the French at Dien Bien Phu. Limited maneuverability, intelligence, troops and air support doomed them. Oh, add overconfidence, incompetence, isolation and poor communication.

U.S. strategists sought reversal. Helicopters would revolutionize warfare; telecommunication networks were all the rage. By the end of the Vietnam war, the U.S. had a network of a thousand interlocking sites for artillery batteries, air-land operations and jungle fortresses, not all permanent. Those sitting ducks were often attacked, yet seldom overrun like Dien Bien Phu.

Batteries Included

A mix of long range and short range artillery on a FSB could make artillery raids on distant bunkers, antiaircraft batteries, artillery and rocket positions, bridges, buildings, boats, vehicles, supply dumps, tunnels, foxholes, trenches, infiltration routes, and the enemy. Artillery could bail out maneuvering units in the field or other bases such as The Rock. It could even repel direct attacks on the base itself by firing the guns at ground level, like the Union in the Civil War against Pickett's Charge. An occasion to shoot down enemy aircraft never presented itself in this war.

Still, St. Barbara, the patron saint of artillerymen, had been attacked last September in a 3 am raid. Sappers made it as far as the top of the bunker line, but were repelled, leaving behind 21 NVA dead.

A resident company of soldiers enabled LRRPs (long range reconnaissance patrols) and raids, while providing adequate protection for the artillery, communication, engineering and other support personnel.

Our bunker was sandwiched between two noisy neighbors: A Quad-50 and a  Duster (M42 self-propelled antiaircraft gun).

The Duster looked like a fully tracked small tank, with automatic twin 40 mm guns firing alternately at the rate of 120 rounds per minute. The twin "pom-pom" guns are the same ones you've seen in old Victory at Sea footage, shooting down Kamikazes.

The fearsome Quad-50 was a modern, big-time Gatling gun: 4 x Browning M2 .50 caliber meat grinders mounted together on a deuce-and-a-half flatbed (M35 2 1/2-ton truck).

Both guns were secured in forward sandbagged emplacements, part of the perimeter, facing outwards. Each night after midnight they would let loose for a mad minute to establish our dominance, rip any attackers, and convince the rest that we were psychos. Rounds skipped and skimmed along the bare ground, ricocheting, and churning up the dirt until they cracked against the tree line. Once, when Bob fired his M16 during the mad minute, he accidentally blew a mine. Not funny like in the movies.

After ceasing fire, the Quad-50 had filled the deuce with brass shell casings. In the morning, the guys loaded the brass onto a M.U.L.E (military utility light equipment) and took it to the dump, two hundred yards beyond the gate.

Mortars, 105 mm howitzers (resembling Civil War guns), 155 mm big guns and many vehicles were also based in St. Barbara. However, none could compare with the awesome, self-propelled M107 175 mm gun. The 37-ft. barrel fired a 147 lb. high explosive round, heavier than most Vietnamese, at a speed of 3000 ft. per second up to twenty miles away.

Akin to a tank, it flew down the road like one, too. It took a crew of thirteen, even though the rounds were hydraulically loaded. It split your head and shook the ground under your feet when it fired. It could ruin your weekend. Thank God, this awful dragon only fired twice while I was there. I’ve never seen another before or since.

The big guns consecrated this grim little patch of real estate, policed the neighborhood, and butchered the enemy like flies. Each had received a presidential citation for killing five hundred or more foes. They put the love down on any provocation from enemy guns.

Periodically during the night, mortar crews shot off flares to illuminate the surrounding area bright as daylight. Whenever we found hand flares, we shot them off, too. MP (military police) types took over guard duty at night, after the gate closed.

The main assignment for our squad was guarding the gate for a few hours during the day, a respite between our jungle patrols. Pretty decent duty, three hot meals per day and enough free time to promote idleness. Instead, we pulled guard around our bunker, climbing a ladder to perch on the roof to relax, smoke and scope out the area. Some idiot could be creeping up. Always, you want to feel you're doing something. 

Choppers came and went all day long outside the gate on makeshift landing pads. There were no patrols for us, no trips on the seldom used access road, leading to the mountain and into Tay Ninh. Like the French, we held the strong points, even cities, but couldn't travel between them without armed guards or air support.

The village people came to us. They scavenged the dump, looking for unspoiled milk, bread, and other leftovers. They salvaged brass, turning it into souvenirs and perhaps even hostile rounds. Few adults loitered around the gate, except for prostitutes and vendors.

GI want soda?

You want beaucoup boom, boom?

I splashed the cash and bought a necklace with a peace symbol and a bracelet with Vietnamese characters from one of the vendors hanging around the gate. They protected me from negative vibes, so I never took the talisman off while I was in country.

One of the hookers was a sixteen-year-old French-Vietnamese knockout. The guys went nuts over her, lining up for sex. But like the other girls, she'd rather go out in the weeds with our blond, good-looking RTO (radio operator). When the helicopter pilots caught them in flagrante, they would hover over the pair, knocking down the weeds to expose them. He retaliated by standing up, shaking his fist and screaming profanities.

Linda

Kids also came to the gate. Among them were two curious twelve-year-olds, Linda and her best friend Kennedy, after John F. Kennedy. Linda and Kennedy in her conical rice hat hiked in from their village after school every day in their sandals, looking for Bob and me. They loved Americana and they pumped us endlessly. We gave them all we had as well as candy and gum. One day, they brought us a treat that tasted like unleavened Italian bread.

We looked forward to the girls because it was fun, even after that crazy little seven-year-old boy, who usually came with, punched Bob in the nuts. They spoke perfect English. Linda, who had the best gift for gab, kept wondering,

Why don't you speak Vietnamese?

Some kids made a habit of catching minnows in the dirty ditch water by hand and squeezing the eggs out of them for a quick caviar snack. Yum!

A buddy who means the world to you but who you
Sometimes despise and is a pain in the Ass to have around
Small children in rags, filthy who you have pity for
But in defense of your life could kill easily with
Anger at a turn and still hold pity and feel sorrow for

—SP4 Bob Jackson (1970)

For Christmas, we put a three-foot tree in the bunker and feasted in the mess hall. Two lucky guys were plucked out to see Bob Hope at Long Binh, seventeen miles from Saigon, not far from us. For New Years, the homesick guys threw enough multi-colored smoke grenades to envelope the entire base in smoke. The beautiful, Technicolor sight brought the base commander down on our backs.

For chrissake, the enemy could walk right in here!

One morning, after New Year's and before Tết, the great Tết Nguyên Đán Vietnamese New Year celebration, we marched out of the French Fort on foot. Upon reaching the tree line, we left the access road and St. Barbara forever.

We were home, home again, humping the jungle.

What's the point?

Formations come in all shapes and sizes. Geese fly in a V. Elephants walk trunk to tail in single file with their calves in the middle. Wildebeests rest at night in linear bedding phalanxes, ten to twenty animals deep with a clear aisle between their ranks.

Soldiers goose-step past the reviewing stand. The Greeks used the wedge and the phalanx in battle. Roman legions fought in three parallel lines consisting of widely separated maniples (blocks) of 120.

In the jungle, a single file, three feet apart, is appropriate. A nervous point man leads. If he screws up, he could get a hundred guys killed. Our CO travels in the middle of our column with the 1st Sergeant and an RTO (radio operator).

Our senses are tuned to the jungle. The point watches for tigers, snakes and alligators. He checks trees; looks forward, right, left, up, down, like in the cowboy and Indian movies you saw as a kid. A detective in motion, wary as a cat, he has no idea what's about to go down. He interprets ambiguity.

When he's forced to hack through thick bamboo with a machete, the column slows to a snail's pace. Unusual movement, smells, sounds, broken branches or footprints are tell-tale signs in virgin jungle. A cough, a sneeze, a click, a snap. He freezes.

Man-by-man the column halts, coiling behind him like a snake about to strike. The CO has no clue why the column stopped until someone at the front radios back. We stay on our feet because it's an ordeal to get back up again with a ninety-pound pack on your back. When the point starts again, the snake uncoils.

If the column stops for a ten-minute break, then we drop to relax. A few of us stay alert.

If the point spots debris, a trail, a village, an old campsite or any other man made sign, our CO sends out a patrol before moving on. If the point finds a booby trap, we mark it with a stake and pass the word back. Usually they were old, out of commission.

Our Kit Carson scouts usually fell in with the point squad, near the front, not quite on point. They kept to the background, searching for bad situations, booby traps, anything out of place, volunteering information only when necessary. One actually claimed he could smell the enemy.

Less Traveled

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

—Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken (1920)

Our main opponents were the NVA (North Vietnamese Army). They were legit—didn't want to get zapped by their own traps, much wiser than the nut-case VC (Viet Cong).

We never followed old trails, new trails or middle-aged trails, always breaking new ground to avoid booby traps and ambushes. If we came upon a trail, we passed the word back. We didn’t cross rivers unless we had no choice, only followed them. We never visited the same area twice, never operated at night, always skirted villages. So, we avoided snipers.

Sometimes it seemed like we were roaming the countryside looking for a lost civilization or buried treasure.

We advanced in a straight line, blazing a trail through rain forest, grassy plains, bamboo and elephant grass, rivers, swamps and mountains. We didn't listen to transistors (radios), talk or joke; our time was spent concentrating on who we were, where we were and what we had to do, maintaining silence despite our heavy loads. This was a WAR zone for God's sake! Those who forgot could become casualties. No screw-balling either, surprising in a company with an average age of nineteen.

In the bush, I had to figure it out for myself because I came with no point training. Unless I was using a machete, I talked to the guys back of me, especially if they were experienced. I wasn’t alone in the world, but I wasn’t used to looking for signs either. The slackman training me a few steps behind was old boots—a vet experienced in country.

The more point I took, the more prepared I became, like a Boy Scout.

The Boogie Man

The first time Bob took point, he missed an NVA coming out of a bomb crater. The man got clean away. Pissed off the vet behind him.

Another time, Bob spied a land mine. He dropped to one knee to present a smaller target. The column came screeching to a halt. The vet behind chastised him for reacting as if it was the enemy, came up to look for himself and dropped to one knee for the same reason. Panic at the disco.

After they informed the CO, a small squad, with its own point man, sallied forth to investigate. The mine was ancient, so they marked it, passed the word back, and on we went.

Prof. Dennis H. Mahan, who taught most of the top officers in the Civil War, introduced the idea of the point to West Point (no pun intended):

The apex, or most advanced point, may be formed of a staff, or other intelligent officer, under the escort of a few horsemen . . . —Elementary Treatise on Advanced-Guard, Out-Post and Detachment Service of Troops (1861)

The first time I walked point, I got yelled at for my excess caution in open grass. Fine! I kicked it into high gear. The column behind me could barely keep up but at least I stopped their bitching.

I never came face-to-face with the enemy, but point was too stressful, layered on top of my other constant worries; life, family, and comrades.

The M-79 grenade launcher was a specialized weapon, ineffective for the point and exempted those who carried it. After I had been on point a couple of times, a guy with the M-79 grenade launcher went back to the world. I jumped at the chance to trade my M-16 and point for the clumsy M-79, despite the weight of the fifty grenades that came with it. In no time, I became an expert with it. Yesactly!

Who's Point?

Point is an unpopular position filled by rotation during the CO’s morning meeting.

Who had point last?

In turn, the leader of the lucky squad christened one of his guys point—often a disposable FNG (fucking new guy).

The officers used compasses and read maps and map coordinates, but the point followed a stream of simple orders from the CO which made its way up the line by radio or word of mouth.

See that big tree 1000 mikes (meters) down there? Head for it.

Roger that.

Point also sent his notable observations back down the line, but he didn't communicate with the CO every time he stopped.

It could be heavy going. We had a famous case in elephant grass. PFC Puget had been breaking bush with his machete in the one-hundred plus degree heat for a couple of hours when he collapsed. We waited while Doc Howe re-hydrated him. Just add water. Captain Rice called the meat wagon (helicopter ambulance) and we continued.

Everything seemed hunky-dory until we found out that CBS had rushed the tape to New York. His mother freaked when she saw her son on the nightly news with his tongue hanging out. The army had been taking the browns to the Superbowl and hadn’t got around to her. That’s how you start a congressional investigation.

Meanwhile, the meat factory (hospital) gave Puget a clean bill of health, informed his mother and he was back in field after his two-day vacation.

Point was not a fan favorite, but neither is suicide.

No one wants to be the kink in the band of brothers.

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