Master Chief (5 page)

Later I ran into Lieutenant Boyhan at SpecWar’s Det Golf office. The lieutenant was Romeo Platoon’s OIC, and his platoon was located in a village called Rach Soi in Kien Giang province. Boyhan was one of the best officers SEAL Team 1 ever had, simply because he took very good care of his men. His platoon was, in return, very loyal and dedicated to him. Romeo Platoon was an effective, professional platoon in spite of occasional micro-management by the SpecWar staff in Saigon and the gross corruption and interference by Kien Giang’s province chief.

On the morning of June seventh I arrived at the Embassy House by 0745. Al S. had previously invited me to attend a week of “Case Officer’s Tradecraft” classes that he was to teach to PSB’s district case officers. Al had encouraged me to explain to the classes Lieutenant Fletcher’s ideas about desirable and undesirable targets. The class was attended by fifteen of PSB’s case officers from all seven districts of the province. After Al’s introduction, Chief Muoi entered the classroom and began shaming the case officers. He reminded them that the VC had been living under appalling conditions and, in spite of those circumstances, had successfully accomplished their duties and responsibilities, regardless of the risk. Muoi continued to rebuke the case officers and compared their lack of motivation and professionalism to their much harried adversaries’ successes.

After Al started the rather long process of establishing the level of ability of his new students, I noticed a pretty Vietnamese woman dressed in black slacks and the traditional
ao dai
, a white, full-length tunic that was split on the sides from bottom to the waistline. I’d seen her in the
past, but couldn’t remember the time or place. During a class break, I asked Al who she was.

Al grinned. “Don’t you remember, Smitty?” he said. “She used to be Trung Uy Loc’s number-two wife. Her name is Pham Thi Ly.”

Loc had been the PRU team chief from early summer of ’69 until midsummer of ’70 when he was killed while assaulting a VC bunker. Al went on to say that Miss Ly had been left out in the cold after Loc’s death because she was his concubine. At that time she had started living with a Vietnamese air force pilot.

The next day, Al stressed AO (Area of Operation) and target analyses. Later, I had the opportunity to talk to Miss Ly. She recognized me when I told her that I had been Trung Uy’s
co van
, or adviser, in ’69.

“Loc said that you were a good adviser and that you had tears in your eyes when the PRU gave you a going-away party,” she recounted.

Surprisingly, I had a sudden surge of emotion well up within me. I thanked her for her kindness and excused myself.

After Al finished the morning classes, he invited me to eat lunch at the Embassy House with the rest of the crew and General Timmings, who had arrived earlier from Region. Following lunch, I chatted with Mr. Ha, who was the maitre d’ of the Embassy House. He told me that his wife, Ann, was pregnant again and was still working in the Embassy House’s radio and reception room. Ha was a large, rotund Chinese fellow who had a great personality and a jovial countenance. Ha also spoke good English. We had been fast friends since ’69.

Later, I was fortunate to catch a ride with 525 Larry to Dong Tam in time for PT and a run with Dai Uy, Lieutenant Clapp, and Lieutenant (jg) Young. Afterward, Victor Platoon gave a wild going-away party that the Seawolf
crews and our MST/BSU buddies attended. Truly, SEAL team guys are perfect representations of the total depravity of mankind, myself included, I thought as I drifted off to sleep that night.

The next day Al taught “Penetration and Infiltration Operations” against targeted organizations. It was a great class. Al was an excellent teacher. Unfortunately, he and Bai had to secure the classes for that day and attend a briefing at the National Police’s compound at 1010 hours. Chief Muoi, the Province National Police chief, had briefed the Directorate General of the National Police about the successes and problems of the provincial police forces, which included the PRU and PSB.

After lunch, I was finally able to locate Sao Lam at the PRU office. After our initial handshaking and mutual compliments, I explained to him that I was not a
co van
anymore, that I had been assigned to a SEAL platoon and was living at Dong Tam. Sao Lam was very pleased and suggested that we get together at his home soon to celebrate our reunion. When I assured him that I would also bring a couple bottles of special American liquor, his face really lit up.

I hitchhiked back to Dong Tam with a couple of Army guys who were traveling to Can Tho. They weren’t sure of the route, so I gave them a 1:50,000 scale map covering parts of Dinh Tuong and Kien Hoa provinces and directions to Giao Duc district—the westernmost district in the province—where they would have to cross Tien Giang River on a ferry to Vinh Long.

“As long as you stay on highway QL-4, you won’t have any problems,” I told them. “However, drive fast and watch out for ambushes.”

They assured me that they would.

June eleventh was a day of mixed blessings. Al’s excellent case officer classes were completed that afternoon.
Al was a creative instructor; he maintained interest and curiosity by mixing a variety of humorous satire in his lesson applications and explanations. That was the good blessing.

“You are the most gifted instructor that I’ve ever sat under to date,” I respectfully told Al before I caught a ride back to Dong Tam. “Thank you for inviting me to attend this course.” Al was very pleased.

Later, after Dai Uy had returned from SpecWar staff in Saigon, he explained to me that NavForV was limiting all in-country SEAL platoons to VC military targets only. In other words, we would not be allowed to target civilian VCI. We were both very upset. That was the bad blessing delivered by our SpecWar staff.

Dai Uy decided that we had best go to My Tho immediately to notify NILO John, OSA Al at the Embassy House, and 525 Larry as to NavForV and SpecWar’s newest policy.

“The new policy won’t really affect your future missions,” John reasoned, “simply because you’ll be accompanying PSB operatives and their guide.”

Larry jumped in and said, “That’s right! Many of PSB’s targets are military in nature, and nearly all of mine are.”

“Well, Jerry,” Al said, “I’m certain the three of us will be able to offer you and your platoon enough legal operations to keep you busy until your departure in December.”

Dai Uy laughed. “Well, I certainly thank y’all, John, Larry, and Al,” he said. “All I have to do is somehow keep Staff from micromanaging myself and my platoon to death.”

June thirteenth found Dai Uy and me back in Saigon. While he was taking care of platoon responsibilities at Staff, I went to the marketplace with PO2 Van Flagg, the SEAL LDNN adviser, PO3 Gerson, and PO3 McGready
and looked at the snakes, ocelots, quail, finches, parrots, banana cats, dogs, and so on. One Vietnamese vendor wanted 20,000 piasters for an ocelot, which translated into one hundred bucks. Later, I was surprised to find a cobra for sale. The hair stood up on the back of my neck when I remembered my experiences with two cobras I’d seen in the Nam Can swamp last year with the Biet Hai. However, I did consider buying a five-foot rock (reticulated) python for about 3,000 Ps, or fifteen dollars, until I recalled what happened to Bolivar, my pet boa constrictor in Nha Be, back in 1967–68, and how Randy Sheridan killed his pet python and then tried to bite its head off in ’69 I even considered buying a monkey until I remembered Demo Dick Marcinko’s platoon giving their monkey a hand grenade and locking him in a safe constructed of steel and cement.

The morning of June fourteenth Lieutenant Clapp and his platoon pulled out for Saigon. All of Victor Platoon were excited and anxious to board a Navy C118 at Tan Son Nhut Air Base and return to their families and SEAL Team 1 near San Diego. The platoon conex boxes were forwarded to San Diego by ship after they had been cleared by customs.

The lieutenant (jg), Washburn, and his boat crew, along with Dai Uy and I, had spent the day preparing our gear for that night’s interdiction operation by MSSC (Medium SEAL Support Craft) at the mouth of the My Tho River between the provinces of Go Cong and Kien Hoa. Dai Uy and I had been in that area previously to meet with Major Bigelow, the district senior adviser of Binh Dai district’s subsector. He was an interesting fellow and highly motivated. As the DSA, he took his responsibilities seriously and did all that he could to help and advise his counterpart, the district chief.

Bigelow had briefed Dai Uy and me about sightings of
large Chinese trawlers and junks and one sighting of a submarine. Whoever had seen that submarine was besotted from
ba xi de
, Vietnamese rice whiskey, and/or La Rue “Tiger” beer, I thought, as I did my best to keep a straight face. When I was with UDT-12 in ’66 we had performed a hydrographic reconnaissance off the tip of the Thanh Phu peninsula, in Kien Hoa province, out to five hundred yards prior to the Deckhouse V amphibious operation. The gradient was so gradual that the man on the end of the flutter-board line, five hundred yards out, didn’t have to swim at all. The most distant source of the Mekong and Bassac rivers begins in China’s South Tsinghai province and travels for 2,600 miles to the South China Sea. Its many rivers and tributaries progressively washed soil into the South China Sea and gradually formed South Vietnam’s delta. I doubted that a Chinese or Russian submarine could safely navigate any closer than three or four miles from the coast, and even then the maneuver would have had to take place only during the night.

Regardless, Major Bigelow had notified Dai Uy that there would be several trawlers that night at the mouth of the My Tho River to unload medical supplies, weapons, and ammunition, and he requested that we interdict the Chinese Communists’ distribution to the local junks and sampans.

Considering that we and MST had little else to do, we departed Dong Tam by MSSC at 1915. It was an awful night in which to operate; we began the trip in a thunderstorm that rained sheets of water upon us constantly. Mr. Washburn and his crew doggedly guided the MSSC through the storm as it plunged, plodded, and bounced its way downriver to the Binh Dai pier, where we picked up two miserable National Policemen, Major Bigelow, and his Vietnamese counterpart. We continued downstream
to Ilo Ilo Island, where Demo Dick Marcinko’s SEAL squad spent hours crawling through the tidal flat’s deep mud early one morning in late ’67 We located and searched two junks but found only one fellow with no ID papers. Shortly afterward, Lieutenant (jg) Washburn turned the MSSC north for Go Cong province through the heavy rain and rough seas. We searched several large covered sampans without a sign of contraband. Undaunted, we returned to Binh Dai district’s coastline and searched more sampans and junks without results. It was an all-too-familiar wet, dark, and disappointing night.

“Major, I’m afraid that your counterpart’s informant had been soused on
ba xi de
and stoned on betel nut [opiate],” I teased while we were returning to the Binh Dai pier to drop the men off.

With his right eyebrow raised, Bigelow grinned, then replied, “Well, whoever he is, he’s got it all in a nutshell!”

We finally returned to Dong Tam by 0230, put away all of our gear, and crawled into wonderfully warm, dry, and secure sacks. After I snuggled into my bed, it struck me that happiness, after a bone-chilling and wet night on rough seas, is having warm, dry clothes, a hot meal, and a warm, dry bed.

June seventeenth was a very busy and exciting day. At 1000, Dai Uy, interpreter Son, Same Tam—the Kit Carson scout assigned to November Platoon—and I boarded the sector helo, a Huey slick, at the Seawolves’ helo pad and were dropped off at Ba To’s Hoa Hao hamlet. It was located, as a crow flies, four kilometers and due west of Vinh Kim village, in Sam Giang district and Kien Tuong province. Ba To and his hamlet were all members of the Hoa Hao “Reformed” Buddhist military and political sect, which was ideologically, politically, and militarily opposed to the North Vietnamese Communists in general and to the Communist-backed National Front for the Liberation
of South Vietnam (NFLSV) specifically. To put it bluntly, the Hoa Hao and VC/NVA bitterly hated each other, and for good reason.

Huynh Phu So founded the Hoa Hao religion in 1939 and named it after his hometown in Chau Doc province, located in the northwestern corner of the delta. He became the sect’s preacher, faith healer, and prophet by stressing elements of Taoist mythology and Confucian ethics. However, So longed for national independence from the French and the Viet Minh and became militarily and politically active by establishing his three instruments of revolution: religious fervor, a political party based on the principles of democratic and socialistic systems, and overt and covert armies. In 1946 the Hoa Haos refused to accept the Viet Minh’s totalitarian leadership. So was ambushed and killed by the Viet Minh on the Plain of Reeds in 1947. The French then armed approximately eight to ten thousand Hoa Haos and operated jointly with them against the Viet Minh until the French withdrawal in 1954. After South Vietnam’s independence in ’54 some of the Hoa Haos pledged support to the Emperor Bao Dai. This placed them at odds with the new national leader, Ngo Dinh Diem. However, these Hoa Hao units eventually rallied to Diem’s government under the Chieu Hoi program in 1967 and loyally resisted the Communist insurgency in the delta.

After the sector helo departed, the four of us started walking toward a prominent, open-sided hootch located about fifty meters from the hamlet’s large community bunker. Ba To was sitting in his wheelchair, in the shade of the hootch. His legs were gone; and only short stubs protruded from his hips.

Dai Uy and I walked up, bowed slightly, greeted him in Vietnamese and shook hands Vietnamese style, with both hands. Ba To was pleased. He welcomed us to his humble
village and invited us to sit down at his small table for warm tea. He quickly ordered his wife to heat water for fresh tea and to bring four clean teacups and snacks for his guests. After the initial amenities of tea drinking and snacks, Dai Uy opened the conversation through our interpreter, Son.