The Trail

For the times they are a-changin'—Bob Dylan 

The seasoned vets of Charlie Company were mighty unsure of the future under Capt Rice. Neither were Keith Kay, James Clevenger and John Laurence of CBS, embedded in Sgt. Dunnuck’s squad. 

The bare statistics of twenty-four-year-old Al Rice were these: a southerner, a gungho ranger and a martinet. After lavishing praise on Capt. Jackson just two days before, Rice had taken over Charlie Company and been acting odd—not stopping soon enough to set up an adequate NDP (night defensive position) and making map reading mistakes.

Friendly artillery might rain down on us any minute!

Circling overhead in his Cobra, Battalion CO Lt. Col. Trobaugh had scheduled us to be plucked out of the thick jungle today, but first we had to find a suitable LZ (landing zone) for the lift ships (helicopters). 

Bob took point; when he crossed an old, overgrown APC (armored personnel carrier) track and emerged onto a single-lane dirt road lined by thick foliage on either side, footprints in the dirt seemed to jump up and hit him between the eyes. 

Fresh NVA (North Vietnamese Army) slicks (sandals)!

Battalion had steered us smack onto the Ho Chi Minh Trail! Why hadn’t Rice told us last night and why hadn’t we been told how close we were to the trail? 

We were used to Capt. Jackson’s wise old ways—no trails, never! He had learned his tricks from a crafty South Vietnamese colonel: how the enemy thinks, how to keep your people safe, how to fight the enemy on your terms. Scrupulous, time-tested methods which had served us so well during the last five months. 

Bob stopped. The squad stopped. Our whole platoon stopped. Bob brought our squad back into the safety of the bush. 

Kay and Clevenger ceased to be lookers-on and rolled film as Dunnuck moved up to observe the road for himself. Dunnuck wholeheartedly agreed with our squad. 

Any number of men could be lurking behind the thick foliage and trees. The road is only six or seven feet wide, too tight for birds [helicopters] but plenty wide for NVA tracks, everywhere, plain as daylight. 

Our platoon leader, 2nd Lt. Eggleston, radioed to Rice back of us. Rice copied Trobaugh straight from the bird, 

Go to the left and walk the company down the road 3/4 of a mile to a possible LZ. 

This time Dunnuck went ballistic.

A fuckin' road!! Any NVA would be invisible five feet from the road, on either side. We'd never know it. Wipe us all out. Booby traps. We don't take trails, let alone a fuck’n road. It's suicide. Not gonna walk down it. No! That's it.

Dunnuck took his misgivings back into the bush.

Trobaugh, Rice and Eggleston—the entire battalion chain of command—were rookies; the company was a walking poison pill. 

  

Capt. Jackson wasn't here anymore, but his spirit was. 

We're not gonna be killed by a bunch of FNGs (fucking new guys). 

Roll more tape. While Kay and Clevenger went up and down the column with their camera, the battalion clock was ticking—counting down fifteen minutes. Rice came up for a look and confabulated with his platoon leaders. Everyone opposed the road, but Rice squeezed, 

We're gonna move out on the road. Or I'm gonna take point if I have to. We've got a job to do and we're gonna do it. It's not half dangerous as some of the crap we've done in the boonies a while ago. At least we can see what we're doin'.

Ridiculous. We had Rice for only two stinkin’ days. 

Rice kept picking from a buffet of futility,   

Either move out or I'll move out and they can sit on their butt right here. It's that simple. All right. Let's move out. Make up their mind. Or I'll send some people back for 'em, which won't go over big. What we have here is extremely safe. 

He had yet to absorb the lessons that Capt. Jackson tried to teach him and he wasn't about to listen to us, either. Eggleston made a last-ditch attempt to talk sense into him, but Rice would have none of it; he summoned the dog team and the RTO (radiotelephone operator).

Dog team

The dog refused to move!

And that is how it came to pass that only a poor RTO—wondering if this was the last day of his life—accompanied Rice down the road. 

Was Rice the Lone Ranger or Don Quixote? 

Neither. He returned after only a few yards,   

The longer we sit here, the worse it gets. 

Was he throwing in the towel? 

Not really—his elongated southern vowels weren't working. 

Then a miracle. Battalion changed their mind, 

Go a hundred mikes (meters) to the right to a notch on the side of the road. Cut an LZ. Get out ASAP. 

Nobody on the ground, including Rice, knew that a massive B-52 Arc Light mission had been scheduled that day, three hundred mikes from our LZ. Fifteen hundred mikes is the smallest margin of error for Operation Arc Light munitions. Not a time for duck and cover. 

Laurence to Dunnuck,   

What do you think of this operation?

It's crazy. It's senseless, walkin' down the road?

What's the problem? 

I don't wanna walk down the road. This is one of the things I told ya about when we were wondering what a new CO was going to be like. This is one of those things you don't want him to be like. Ducks in a shooting gallery. Tracks all up and down this morning. Bad. We'll have to go in and see what happens. 

Charlie Company single-file down the trail

The interview was over. Charlie Company spread out and edged down the road toward the new objective. At last, the men found the notch on the side of the road and set about hacking an LZ out of the small trees and brush. 

A single chopper squeezed into the roadside clearing as soon as it was wide enough. It would take the first six GIs. At that rate, it would take over an hour to evacuate the company to Firebase Wood. 

Through the magic of radio, Battalion kept in continuous touch with Charlie Company and Arc Light. With two minutes until the bombay doors opened, only forty-two troops had been lifted out to safety. 

Battalion to Division,   

Abort Arc Light!

Did you say abort?

Roger.

Mission aborted. 

That’s how on April 6, 1970, Capt. Rice had become infamous at the Ho Chi Minh trail, the same day, one hundred eight years earlier, that Gen. Grant was becoming famous at the Battle of Shiloh. 

News travels fast, too fast for poor Lt. Tuck at the battalion information desk. He waited until the next morning to brief brigade. That kicked off a sloppy weekend for the army. 

The army brass panicked. Brigade CO Col. Ochs summoned CBS for a noon meeting in the air-conditioned VIP lounge at Tan Sun Nhut AFB (Air Force Base), Saigon. CBS was outnumbered five to three. Ochs wouldn't let it alone, he forced Laurence to read the script of the rebellion aloud. Every word. He pleaded with Laurence not to release the tape. He twisted arms and words, spun and threatened. 

Maj. J. D. Coleman, Battalion PIO (Public Information Officer) warned Laurence, 

You better keep your heads down. 

Laurence was unbowed—he had a goldmine. Besides, the story was already on its way to New York. CBS brass were ecstatic. Walter Cronkite ran the six-minute-and-forty-second bombshell on Monday's April 9 edition of The CBS Evening News. The April 20 Asian edition of Newsweek carried the headline,  

JUST DOWNRIGHT REFUSAL 

The last straw. 

Trobaugh cleaned house in a classic Gambino-style roll-up. Tuck was banished to a rifle platoon in the field; Rice requested reassignment; Eggleston was driving a water truck; Dunnuck never got the supply job he coveted. 

Within a month, Ochs was relieved of command, a death warrant for his career. Capt. Jackson? Doing fine at his desk in Phuoc Vinh as CO of brigade headquarters company. 

As its reward, CBS was expelled from Charlie Company and reassigned elsewhere within the battalion. They were only allowed back in the field bugged and accompanied by minders. After their movements had been made difficult, if not impossible, they got the hint and relocated to Cambodia. 

When Laurence was scooping the invasion of Cambodia by U.S. forces on May Day, he ran into us again. A month later, he was out and back at Tan Son Nhut, hospitalized for fever, dehydration and exhaustion. But at the end of June, he was home in Manhattan, nonstop editing a one-hour documentary, The World of Charlie Company, which ran on July 14 opposite the NBC All-Star game. 

The infamous incident ended with no KIA or WIA. The collective knowledge of the vets—real people solving real problems in real ways—had kept us safe. 

Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few—Spock, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) 

Charlie Company had spit the bit. The old army of lifers and compliant conscripts was dead. 

Long live Charlie Company!

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.

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.