Jay

Prince Norodom Sihanouk was living the life. He had ruled his fairy tale kingdom of Cambodia for twenty-nine years, first as an eighteen-year-old puppet-king, now as a forty-seven-year-old father-king. He was an adept, occasionally ruthless sovereign, a professional sax player, filmmaker, and actor. He spoke Khmer, French and English, kept a harem and entertained lavishly, infusing a Cambodian sensibility into all he did.

The prince played both sides of the Ho Chi Minh Trail—North Vietnam could build it and the U.S. could bomb it.

In March, 1970, while on a world tour, this cool cat was overthrown by a conservative faction led by Prime Minister Lon Nol and the military. They wanted the Vietnamese out—others weren't so sure—and just like that, Cambodia was on fire.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the grunts of Charlie Company were speculating on their next assignment. Capt. Jackson removed the contents of the manila envelope and flipped the switch on the tape player:

Good morning, gentlemen. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, involves the construction of firebase Jay, six miles from the Cambodian border which may result in certain death. As always, should any of you be caught or killed, the army will disavow any knowledge of you. This tape will self-destruct in ten seconds. Good luck.

Our first firebase! Jay would be one of ten temporary artillery camps hopscotched astride the Cambodian border infiltration routes—sure provocations and tempting targets for the 95-C North Vietnam Army Regiment now moving into the Dog Head.

It was a bit worrying. Our foes were experienced and capable, cunning as foxes and tough as nails. They could roar like the devil. Was the U.S. high command dangling live bait to entice the NVA into revealing their dispositions and strength? Goading them into unprofitable, suicidal attacks? Simply putting a thumb on them?

We packed for a combat assault and they lifted us to a scratch patch of virgin prairie in the jungle, a big open space the size of two or three football fields, seventy miles northwest of Saigon. The usual half dozen to a dozen 105/155 mm high explosive rounds had softened our LZ (landing zone), but what if the bush was hot?

We had a lot to do before nightfall.

What if they attacked before Jay was hardened?

Chinook

Shortly, a giant twin-rotor Chinook helicopter buzzed in, dangling a bulldozer from a heavy chain. The dozer dropped and the fun began—an oval perimeter fashioned from a dirt berm three to four feet high; a fire pit scooped out of the center; a trench for an ammo dump dug four to five feet deep at the far end of the enclosure, in the general area of the CP. The iron bull did all this while the Chinook came and went like an enormous bird building a nest, dropping a Mule (motorized cart), coils of concertina wire, mortars, five artillery pieces and beaucoup ammo.

The jungle heat came at us hard. Shirts came off in the hundred-degree heat and humidity. We filled sandbags and collected empty ammo crates for our bunkers. The air was hot and so was the ground. The sweat dripping down from our head and torsos soaked our pants. We dug foxholes—a steel sheet placed on top made a roof. The 23^rd artillery group arrived to man the mortars and the five-gun battery in the pit. Our M60 machine guns lay moored on the berm, their seasoned barrels pointed at the wood line.

The four-wheel mule dragged shiny coils of concertina razor wire outside the perimeter, releasing them in strategic locations between the berm and the forest; grunts unrolled these barbed Slinkys into seamless entanglements.

The brass arrived. No big deal. We followed instructions and took care of business.

After the last-light patrol sallied forth, battalion CO Lt. Col. Hannas, who was overseeing most of the activity, walked the perimeter of our rude fortress, to check everyone's night readiness.

Like a good neighbor, he would approach an infantryman,

Do you need anything?

Are you ready to go? 

Notice anything in the bush?

He had some guys fire their weapon. No jams allowed. When Hannas got to me, he pointed to a four-inch, fifteen-foot tree, a hundred yards away.

See that tree out there by the wood line. Try to get as close as you can.

M79 Grenade Launcher

I had removed the M79 grenade launcher’s sight system long ago because it was cumbersome and sure to get tangled in the jungle. Using nothing but dead reckoning, I calmly aimed and pulled the trigger. A direct hit ripped out a chunk of the tree, sending bark and wood high into the air.

Applause from the back row.

I guess you can't get any closer than that!

Or luckier.

Later, it was business as usual. As night cloaked the camp, we seeded trip flares and Claymore mines into the wire—at least 95-C  couldn’t be taking notes.

Next came the christening wild west show: big guns and little guns firing randomly at the trees; flares lighting up the night. Jay was alive!

As the cool night air crept in, we set out air mattresses by our bunker, pulled poncho liners over us, lay back and shot the shit. Hannas slept in a cot on the sheet metal roof over the CP. Weather nice, no rain on our private island in the middle of nowhere.

Our squad pulled guard throughout the night, rotating every hour. It was time to use our night vision training. When something moved, we radioed the mortar platoon to pop a flare.

At the break of day, our squad went on first-light patrol, beyond the wire into the tree line, tracing the same path as the last-light patrol had. Bob and I stirred up a hornet’s nest. And I don’t mean that in the metaphorical sense—we both got stung in the eye and they swelled shut. Using our good eye, we made our way back and tracked down the medic. His treatment took two or three days.

We earned the purple eye.

The following week, we had beaucoup down time between patrols and day to day activities. No humping. A chance to write letters home, listen to music and read books. Bob composed poems; I taped the mad minute. We had grown accustomed to Jay, but don’t get me wrong; Vietnam is not Disneyland. Most of us had no use for the army. We were just putting in time to get the hell out.

Still, what was next was straight out of somewhere.

First, Capt. Jackson woke up with heart attack symptoms. Before he left to be checked out, he shook hands with each of us. Nobody was happy that our beloved leader was leaving—Charlie Company had only two KIA during his entire five months.

Next, Alpha Company arrived—the poor souls man-handling a .50 caliber machine gun through the jungle—and our job here was over. After chow on 28 March, Charlie Company squeezed through a gap in the wire to an assembly spot and hiked into the woods under our new CO, Capt. Rice. 

Two Armies, One Firebase

We had gone only a few clicks when it was time to look for a RON (remain overnight position) and camp-out for the evening. Then, an hour before daylight, faint sounds of gunfire disturbed the relaxing sounds of the nighttime jungle air. Dark red clouds rolled over Jay, the baby built with our sweat equity.

At the onset of the assault, a mortar probably intended for the ammo dump landed right between Hannas’ legs. "Lost everything," according to the air waves. Quick work by the medics saved his life—not his legs.

The same round also took out the CP and fire control antennas, disabling Jay’s communications and artillery except for direct fire. Consequently, support from Cobra gunships, tactical air and supporting artillery were delayed until FSB Illingsworth noticed the red glow and contacted Brigade and Division.

Jay was under heavy attack. Rockets, mortars, recoilless rifles and RPGs rained down. Six hundred NVA swarmed out of the woods, blew gaps in the wire and threw themselves at the perimeter.

We prayed that we would not be sent to the rescue, which would mean walking back to Jay through pitch-black jungle, blind and vulnerable to ambush. I didn't know any guys there, but I hoped desperately that they would fight off the invaders and we would be left alone. The call never came. The brass probably figured Jay could handle the fight.

Jay defended with beehives, small arms, and grenades. Some of the insurgents managed to get inside, but all the raiders withdrew at first-light, leaving a whopping 74 unburied, three captured, at the charred and bloody scene. Jay's casualties were 14 killed, 52 wounded. The bunker we built took a direct hit from an RPG, killing two—that could have been us.

A strange mixture of relief and regret surged through me. A thousand eyes had been taking the measure of Jay that day, watching our eight-man squad patrolling out by the tree line, silently holding their fire.

Alpha Company was devastated, but our our Lucky Charms were still working.

Happy Easter.

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.