Master Chief (6 page)

“Mr. Ba To, Captain Campbell at Vinh Kim has told us that you need help to fight against the VC and that you were severely attacked just four weeks ago by forty men.”

Ba To nodded his head in acknowledgment as Son translated. “Yes, we fought bravely. There were only myself and six other men to fight them and protect our families. One of my men was killed. I personally killed three VC with hand grenades when they tried to kill me. We have few weapons—a few M-16s and M-1 carbines—and little ammunition to protect ourselves. The district chief refuses to give us weapons or ammunition to fight the VC. We have no machine guns or mortars. We have no recoilless rifles or grenade launchers. We have no more grenades. We are very poor. Yes, we need help. Can you help us?” Ba To asked.

Dai Uy and I were both touched by his plea.

“We will be very happy to help you protect your village,” Dai Uy promised. “We also need your help. Will you tell us where the VC units are located and where their families live?”

“Yes,” Ba To said, “my men know where many VC live near here. We will show you where they live and where they operate during the day and the night. I know where the VC District Security section’s sabotage subsection chief lives.”

“Good!” Dai Uy replied with a big grin. “We will pay you rewards for all VC we kill or capture, and for weapons and caches too. Smith will be contacting you in the future,” Dai Uy said as he placed his hand on my
shoulder. “He has worked here in Dinh Tuong as
co van
of the PRU in ’sixty-nine and the Vietnamese SEALs in ’seventy. He will be returning to your village soon with supplies,” Dai Uy promised.

Afterward, Ba To opened up and told us about his past. He had lost both of his legs in 1962 when he was working for the Company as a member of the predecessors of the PRU called CTs, for counterterrorists. Ba To had been with a small group of CTs patrolling toward their target when a VC unit ambushed them, detonating an antipersonnel claymore mine. Ba To was severely wounded from his thighs to his feet. The CTs managed to drive the VC away and were able to carry Ba To to the hospital, where the doctor amputated his legs.

I believed that Ba To was a sincere and honest man. He had to be a good leader, I thought, or the Hoa Haos of this hamlet wouldn’t follow him. Ba To reminded me of the ancient military maxim that “a man must become a good follower before he can be a good leader.” I also believed that he and his hamlet sincerely hated the VC. Sadly, all that they had wanted was to be left alone to build their homes, to farm and fish and raise their families in peace. Unfortunately, there are always those who seek power over others through dishonorable forms of control and manipulation, I thought as I reflected on what Ba To said about the district chief’s lack of support.

After our visit, we returned to Dong Tam by sector helo. Shortly after our return, we were heavily mortared for about two minutes, with most of the rounds landing near the Navy Seawolves’ helicopters. No doubt, the VC mortar squad were members of the 309F Main Force HW Battalion, which wasn’t far from Ba To’s hamlet. Fortunately, the 82 mm HE (High Explosive) mortar rounds had done little damage.

Dai Uy and I had little time to concern ourselves with the
aftermath of the VC mortar rounds. Fletcher had received a message over our KY-8/VRC-46 secure voice radio from NILO John that PSB had an informant who would guide us to the location of ten VC guerrillas and several weapons caches located in Binh Phuoc district of Long An province, north of Dinh Tuong province. We wasted no time in driving to My Tho and the National Police compound, where we talked to Hai Binh, the informant, for an hour. Dai Uy and I decided that Mr. Binh’s information was good enough for a helo op the next afternoon.

After our return to Dong Tam, Lieutenant Fletcher contacted SEAL Team 1’s Quebec Platoon OIC, Lieutenant Taylor, at Ben Luc, located in the northern part of Long An province, and asked for volunteers to go on our op the following day. Chief Marriott, Doc Johnson, and two other SEALs, plus two SAS Aussies and two LDNNs, arrived in time for lunch.

On the morning of June eighteenth Dai Uy called Lieutenant B., of SEAL Team 1’s Detachment Golf OIC at Binh Thuy, and asked him to request two Huey Sea Lord slicks from HAL-3 and two OV-10 Black Ponies from VAL-4, and asked that the pilots arrive at our location early enough to attend Lieutenant Fletcher’s briefing at 1530. Dai Uy Fletcher also requested two CBU-55B fuel/air bombs to be used to soften up the VC bunker complex before our insertion, in order to reduce our casualties. Fletcher also described to him how we were going to mark the bunker complex with smoke grenades and/or 2.75-inch and five-inch Zuni rockets to insure that the bombs would land exactly on target. Dai Uy assured Mr. B. that he had previously arranged to use the bombs on a mission with the executive officer of VAL-4, Lieutenant Commander White, on June third. Fletcher’s primary reasons for utilizing the CBU-55B were to clear a small area of brush and trees for a helicopter LZ, if needed, clear the target area of
booby traps, and neutralize any VC resistance to our insertion by helicopters and our capture of the weapons caches. Lieutenant B. assured Dai Uy of his assistance and that he would attend Dai Uy’s briefing at 1530.

In the meantime, I had run over to the ARVN 7th Division’s G-2 for a 1:4,000 split vertical mosaic of the op area for our study and for Dai Uy’s briefing. It was particularly useful for Mr. Binh’s aerial orientation and recognition of the target before our VR (visual reconnaissance) and insertion by the Navy Sea Lord slicks. When Mr. Binh and the two PSB operatives arrived, they, Dai Uy, Son, and I boarded a Seawolf and flew to the target area for a VR. The target was located within very thick vegetation and under double-canopy forest. However, Binh was able to recognize the landmarks and had no difficulty pointing to the VC bunker complex. Dai Uy and I were confident that the CBU-55B bombs would be dropped exactly on target. Upon our return to Dong Tam, Dai Uy requested and received clearance of several AOs (Areas of Operation) within Long An province. Only one of them would contain our target, which was located in Binh Phuoc district.

All went well until Dai Uy’s PLO (patrol leader’s order) briefing at the Seawolves’ hootch with the Seawolf and Black Pony pilots, two PSB operatives, Mr. Binh, our interpreter Son, Lieutenant B., and me. In the middle of his thorough briefing, Fletcher explained that the twelve of us were to insert approximately five minutes after the CBU-55B was dropped.

Then Lieutenant B. spoke up, saying, “There won’t be any CBU-55B bombs dropped today because there are no fuses.”

Poor Dai Uy! I thought. I bit my tongue. Why didn’t Lieutenant B. tell Dai Uy before the briefing? I wondered. Amazingly, Dai Uy handled it without any sign of anger.

“Very well,” he replied coolly. “We’ll go ahead and give it a try anyway. Mike, Jim Bob”—senior Seawolf and Black Pony pilots—“I would like y’all to work out your own plan to prep the target for a few minutes until you give me the word that you’re ready for us to insert. I’ll be in the lead helo with Smitty, Son, and the three VNs. The second slick will come in close behind and insert Chief Marriott and his men approximately fifty meters to my right flank. We’ll set up a simple skirmish line until Mr. Binh and the two PSB men are ready to move in toward the bunker complex. At that time the line of march will be Mr. Binh as the point, followed by the two PSB fellows, myself, then Smitty with the radio, and Son. Chief Marriott, you and your men will fall in behind us as we work our way toward the caches. Let’s grab our gear and load up.”

After the Seawolves and Black Ponies took turns raking the bunker complex with 2.75 and five-inch rockets, 20mm cannons, .50-caliber machine guns, 7.62mm GAU-2 miniguns, and M-60 machine guns, we headed in toward the target. I was the first off the starboard side of my slick. I took about four steps, tried to jump over a large puddle, and went in up to my neck. Out of the corner of my right eye I watched Dai Uy try his luck at getting over a similarly deceptive puddle. He failed miserably and went completely under and out of sight. It was embarrassing! I bet the pilots are getting a good laugh at our predicament, I thought.

Mr. Binh and the PSB lads also fared poorly, falling flat on their buns in another seemingly innocuous mud puddle. To make matters worse, we were receiving AK-47 rifle fire at two o’clock from our position and at a range of one hundred meters. That just happened to be where our target lay.

Dai Uy instructed me to call for 7.62mm minigun and 2.75- and five-inch rocket fire. Afterward we moved toward the cache until we came to a heavily booby-trapped
area with signs saying min, or mines. Mr. Binh began having nervous stomach problems and started complaining that the VC had changed the booby traps’ locations and that he didn’t want to guide us to the caches anymore.

“Okay, Smitty. Call in the Sea Lord slicks for extraction,” Dai Uy ordered. “It’s time to go to the house, boys.”

After we returned to Dong Tam, Lieutenant B. turned to Dai Uy and said, “Jerry, be sure my name is on your SpotRep,” or after-action report.

After Lieutenant B. left, I went over to Fletcher, put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Well, there’s always another day, Dai Uy, huh?”

“You can count on it, Smitty,” he replied emphatically.

“Well, on the bright side, the Seawolf guys have just invited us over to their hootch to eat a couple of juicy steaks and chase it down with free beer. I don’t know about you, but I like the thought of a steak so thick that I’d have to flip it with a pitchfork,” I teased.

“I agree!” Dai Uy replied with a giant grin on his face. “However, I think I’ll start off with a six-pack of beer before I dive into a large, rare steak.”

The next few days were an enormous pain in the butt. On the morning of June twentieth, Dai Uy and I, along with Son and Juan, our interpreters, headed for Saigon in a dilapidated jeep to pick up our platoon, which was supposed to arrive that afternoon. We got as far as Cholon when we had a flat tire. Fortunately, there was a Vietnamese sidewalk tire shop nearby. An old Vietnamese man fixed the tire within an hour.

When we reached SpecWar, we did a little research on the CBU-55B cluster bomb, which seemed to irritate some folks at Staff. Strangely, initiative seemed to threaten a couple of them. From there we went to Tan Son Nhut Air Base to pick up the platoon at 1600.

About 1700 hours, Dai Uy called Guam by autovon to
check on the whereabouts of the platoon and was told that the aircraft had just departed Midway and wasn’t due to arrive until the morning of the twenty-second. Unfortunately, we were unable to locate Lieutenant Clapp’s platoon; however, Dai Uy called Staff and notified them of the delay.

On our return to SpecWar, we had another flat. We called the MACV motor pool approximately fifteen times over the next three hours before they brought us another tire. We finally made it back to SpecWar at 2030, where we met up with Lieutenant Clapp and Lieutenant (jg) Young. They had just returned from Tan Son Nhut after having received the bad news that their plane had only recently left Midway Island with November Platoon.

The next day, Staff told us that our platoon would be delayed in Subic Bay for an additional two days while VR-21 was tasked to ferry chickens to Vietnam for the Vietnamese Accelerated Turnover Plan.

“In other words, the chickens have a higher priority than our combat troops,” I remarked to Dai Uy.

Dai Uy shook his head, saying, “I’m afraid so, Smitty.”

“It’s no wonder we’re losing this war,” I muttered to myself. I looked at Dai Uy and started laughing, “Well, at least the guys will have a ball in Olongapo during their stay at Subic Bay.”

“I’m sure Chief Bassett will take good care of Mr. Kleehammer,” Dai Uy replied, laughing.

Dai Uy decided that it was time we headed back to Dong Tam. We certainly didn’t want to stay anywhere near Staff any longer than we had to. It was just too easy to get into trouble.

It wasn’t until June twenty-fifth that the rest of November Platoon arrived at Tan Son Nhut and Lieutenant Clapp’s Victor Platoon departed for CONUS. It was sure good to see and be with the guys again. The slightly
hungover scandalmongers were full of hilarious tales of their four-day stay at Barbers Point, Hawaii, and five-day stay in Olongapo. As Dai Uy had previously inferred, Chief Layton Bassett had indeed taken good care of ENS Kleehammer. EN1 Gary “Chambo” Chamberlain and HM1 Tom “Doc” Holmes were the senior petty officers and had their hands full while trying to keep track of BM2 Rick Knepper, RM2 Roger Hayden, BM2 Ron Quear, RM3 Gordon Compton, RM3 Dave Eberle, EM3 Leonard Same, ET3 Terrence Waneous, and ETSN Timmy “Bear” Barron.

Once the rowdy lot of us arrived at the SpecWar staff offices, we learned that some folk on the staff didn’t feel that they were responsible for making arrangements for the platoon’s berthing and messing that night and the next day. I had a few words with the staff’s commander and Lieutenant Van Heertum about the issue and was quickly shouted down. In deference to their rank I said nothing more. I had never seen such arrogance and gross disregard for the welfare of the men as I did that day. There is no doubt that authority improves some men and ruins others, I thought to myself.

With that in mind, Dai Uy and I started looking for beds. I contacted the NavForV photographers’ mates that I had known from ’70 and was offered three spare bunks in their hotel rooms for the night. Dai Uy managed to locate eight bunks elsewhere. By the afternoon of June twenty-sixth we had loaded our gear and were headed for Dong Tam. It was like a breath of fresh air to depart Saigon.