Last Man Out (24 page)

When I got back to battalion headquarters area the colonel was at the center of activity. To his right Dunn and Burke were busy taking his orders and relaying them on the radio. Panton, on his left, was plotting a map. I was sitting on the commo box when the wounded men from my old platoon came in with the two body bags. I told Bob that we needed a dust-off. Burke looked over and gave me a thumbs-up. Soon Bob told me to take some
purple smoke and go out into the field near where we had landed. A medevac helicopter was on the way.

I led the group out, threw smoke, and stood aside as the chopper landed and the men boarded. Castro and Beck waved from the helicopter as it lifted off, bent its nose down, and gained altitude. Both would be back in a couple of days.

Ayers’s wounds were light, and he stayed. I sent him to join the battalion guard unit until we linked up with Alpha Company again. I slapped him on his broad back as he walked away.

The various units of the attacking force maneuvered in the area for three days and then moved out into separate tactical areas. The division killed 119 VC and wounded many more, in addition to capturing five hundred tons of rice, one hundred tons of salt, mortars, bombs, and mines. We were becoming better at our jobs, but at a price. Even very good units have casualties in war.

On the fourth day my old platoon came by the battalion area. Trost stopped in to see Panton. Ayers was leading the column and I nodded to him as he passed. Bratcher was midway down the column. I made eye contact but did not smile. I blamed him for letting the platoon walk out into that field. He dropped out and came to stand in front of me, his neck tightening occasionally.

“Goddammit, you told me to let the man alone.”

“You dumb fucking asshole. Don’t come over here with any fucking excuses. You don’t let people walk out in an open field like that.”

“We were told the other side was secure.”

“Who said that, Sergeant? Goddammit, all the time we were together, we didn’t trust anyone else. We took nothing for granted. Someone says the other side’s secure? Fucking show me.” I paused. “You don’t go putting your people at risk trying to get to some fucking staff officer’s rally point on time.”

Trost walked by and I looked away. Bratcher turned and followed him.

That afternoon we received mail, cold beer, and hot food. I had a letter from Pete, who was convalescing in a hospital near his home of Lincoln. He was in the same ward with Ray Ernst and they both sent their regards. Pete said being wounded wasn’t all bad. Some of the nurses loved wounded GIs.

As usual, that evening a duty roster was drawn up to monitor the battalion’s radios throughout the night. Each man had two hours. I had 0200 to 0400. Dunn had 0400 to 0600.

At 2300 the mortar platoon fired a short round that landed in the area where Company B was dug in. Several men were wounded. The battalion surgeon, another of the staff officers ordered into the field that day, worked to keep them alive. He said they had to get to a hospital soon or they would not make the night.

We got the men in Company B on their feet and moved them to a clearing a half mile away. After they secured the tree line, we stood in the field, with the monsoon rain falling, and shined flashlights at the sky to guide in the medevac helicopter. We put the three wounded men aboard and retraced our steps to the battalion perimeter. By then it was almost 0200.

I fell on my mattress but had not slept for more than fifteen minutes when I was awakened for radio duty. I went over to the radios and made a note in the journal that I had taken over radio duty. There were sitreps every half hour from the various companies in the battalion. The mortars continued to fire H&I periodically. I labored to stay awake. At 0400 I went over to Dunn and told him he had duty.

After fourteen days in the field, we were heli-lifted to Tay Ninh for a C-130 flight back to Phuoc Vinh.

Dunn and I were the last to leave the LZ. We had to coordinate on the heli-lift out and make sure the men were lined up in the right numbers and that no one was left behind. The sergeant major had found several sets of tanker goggles to keep debris out of our eyes. They were perfect in the turbulence of the helicopters.

As we trudged up the road from the airfield at Phuoc Vinh, our goggles pulled down to our necks, we looked like raccoons, with clean rings around our eyes. Our fatigues were dirty and sweaty from the two-week operation, plus from all the debris they had collected from the dozens of helicopters in the lift. Our hair was matted with dirt and grime. We were tired to the bone and we trudged along with our heads down.

When we arrived at our tent we found devastation. A river from the monsoon rains had run through our section of the tent. Bob’s cot had been swept to my side. Our clothes, hanging on the
mosquito netting of the tent, were mildewed. A package of cookies from home that had been ripped opened and destroyed by rats was lying on top of my cot. Mud was six inches deep across the floor to Moubry’s elevated section.

Moubry had added an easy chair and a rug. The light over his desk was shining down on his open Bible.

Still carrying our guns, we walked around our area of the tent in mud up to our ankles and tracked it across Moubry’s new rug, out into the company street, over to the supply tent, and behind the counter. Moubry saw us and went out the back. Going down the line of supplies, we pulled out new fatigues, new skivvies, new socks, new sheets, and new pillows. We went back to our tent and put our supplies on Moubry’s bed. On a revisit to the supply tent we picked up shipping pallets to put on the floor of our tent section.

After showering, shaving, and dressing in our new fatigues, we went to the mess hall and persuaded Cookie to make us some sandwiches, even though he had long since closed the line for supper.

Later at the officers club, Dunn and I were joined by 1st Lt. Frank Bradley, who had taken the recon platoon from Pete. We sat by ourselves and stacked beer cans five levels high until Dunn knocked them over. Then I went to my old tent in the Alpha Company area and retrieved the picture of the nude from behind the bar.

Back at the battalion officers club, I put the painting of the nude in a position of honor behind the bar and proposed a welcoming toast to her. Bradley, drunk, stood up, staggered to get his balance, saluted the lady, and left. He stumbled down the battalion street as he tried to light a cigarette. He was so intent on lighting his cigarette that he lost his way and weaved off between two tents. Finally getting the cigarette lit, he found the tent that he shared with the communication officer, 1st Lt. Larry Lingel, who was in bed but not yet asleep. With the cigarette still in his mouth, Bradley stumbled to his cot and pulled up the mosquito netting. He turned around, sat down heavily, and reached forward to undo his shoes. He couldn’t. He came halfway back up and fell back on the cot, his legs still off the side.

Lingel had seen the cigarette in Bradley’s mouth, but he didn’t
know what happened to it, so he turned on a small bed light over his head.

Bradley started to breathe deeply. A couple of seconds later the cigarette rolled off his chin and landed on his neck.

A few more seconds went by.

Suddenly he jerked forward and became entangled in the netting. He swung his arms around and became more ensnared—fighting, twisting, kicking. The cot turned over and he fell over backward with his upper body completely wrapped in the mosquito netting. He thrashed around on the floor for a few more seconds and then lay still.

Lingel, propped up on one elbow, looked down without expression.

The cigarette began to smolder inside the mosquito netting at Bradley’s back. He lashed out again, jerking and struggling, and rolled across the floor away from the overturned cot. Coming to rest in a ball in the middle of the tent, he lay silently.

Finally, from inside the netting, came a faint voice. “Lingel, Lingel, save yourself, I’m done for. Can’t get away.”

  ELEVEN  

Within a couple of days we received orders for “Operation Adelaide,” a search and destroy mission in the VC-held Ong Dong jungle. The operation began with an overland move down the road south of Phuoc Vinh with armor from the 1st/4th Cavalry attached. 1st/4th, always referred to as the “Quarterhorse,” employed medium-size M-48 A3 tanks and armored cavalry assault vehicles (ACAV) outfitted with a .50-caliber machine gun in the commander’s cupola and two lighter 7.62mm machine guns at the top rear. Additionally, M-113 armored personnel carriers modified as flamethrowers, referred to affectionately as “Zippos,” were included in most cav formations. A Quarterhorse unit of tanks, ACAVs, and Zippos was an awesome fire and maneuver force, unlike anything ever deployed in war before.

Because we were moving to a forward position on all-weather roads, the battalion would use the command van for the first time in Vietnam. Mounted on a standard deuce-and-a-half chassis, the van itself looked like a refrigerator container. The only door let out to the back. Inside on the right was a console for eight or nine radios, with two tables beneath the radios. A walkway on the left led to a large map board fastened against the front wall and an area large enough for a half dozen men to stand before the map.

Burke drove the van. Dunn and I were in accompanying Jeeps behind the colonel. Halfway to our objective we drove by Alpha Company, which had moved south the previous afternoon to help secure a bridge. Bratcher was sitting on a berm with Castro. I gave them a thumbs-up as we passed. Bratcher smiled back and gave me the finger. Infantrymen did that to staff officers in Jeeps.

We turned off the main road and traveled down a smaller dirt road past several clusters of huts where stone-faced villagers
stared at us. Ten miles down the secondary road we arrived at a large field that had been secured by advance elements of the battalion. We drove across the field with Panton, who was responsible for locating and setting up the battalion CP (command post). Dunn and I were drawn to a large tree with low, sprawling branches inside the far tree line, and we convinced Panton to set up the command van nearby. We dropped our web gear and went back to the edge of the field. Dunn motioned with a big wave of his arm for Burke to drive the van over to the tree.

Because Burke was not large, he was flung around behind the wheel of the van as it bounced across the field. He looked out of place, overmatched, and the van was traveling too fast. Dunn and I jumped out of the way as Burke passed us heading into the woods.

“Hey!” we yelled. “Hey, slow down!”

Burke stopped the van near the large tree, but not before it had rolled over our gear and mashed most of it into the ground. It almost seemed as if running over our stuff was the reason for his haste.

“Sorry,” he said when we came up beside him, “couldn’t stop.”

Other members of the command staff, seeing the van stopped inside the wood line, figured that’s where the CP would be set up. They began to unload nearby trucks parked in a semicircle in the field.

Dunn told Burke that he almost killed us. Besides, he was in backward. We wanted him to back in so the entrance to the van would be under the tree.

Burke said, “Okeydokey,” and tried to find reverse. He finally popped the clutch, and the van jerked quickly backward. Dunn and I jumped out of the way as it ran over our gear again. Burke looked somewhat confused. He almost impaled himself on the steering wheel when the van hit a tree. We saw him grab his chest and shake his head. Suddenly the van lurched toward us again and ran over our gear for the third time.

“Hey!” we yelled.

Burke was crashing through the jungle when the colonel came up. Like a rampaging rhinoceros, the van rumbled through the trees and passed us as it went out into the field. It almost ran over some men getting out of their vehicles.

“Why is Burke in that van?” the colonel asked. “He’s from New York City. I don’t think he can drive. He’s going to crash.”

Burke did a turn in the field and the van headed back toward us.

“Holy shit,” I said, “he’s coming back.”

The men trying to form the battalion perimeter looked up and scattered. Burke ran over some commo gear and finally stopped, well out in the field. I climbed up on the running board.