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.

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.