Our Year of War Page 9

  While a good number of senior officers, paratroopers like Westmoreland for example, thought the M113s almost as good as tanks, the men who fought aboard the aluminum-hulled APCs had no such illusions. Mines and VC rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) posed significant threats. One solid hit and the track would rip apart or even flip over; sometimes the diesel fuel started on fire. Once heated up, aluminum burned, too. Tracks sometimes burned down to a pile of steaming silver slag. With this in mind, men rode on top when moving from point A to point B. “You didn’t find it particularly healthy to be on those armored personnel carriers,” Hagel found out. “There’s no point in losing six or seven men to one rocket. So it’s better to lose a driver and a machine gunner,” said Hagel. “If you’re going to lose men, lose two, not seven.” Even a new guy like Hagel learned that hard equation very quickly. If the unit expected contact, or deployed to clear a road, the riflemen got out and moved through the brush on either side, about a hundred yards out. Men on foot with mine detectors and sharp eyes—engineers if available—walked in front to check the route itself for buried munitions. It took an hour to move a mile like that.25 But it cleared the road and kept Americans alive.

  So it might have been Santa Fe, or Riley, or Akron, or a mission without a formal name on Route 1, somewhere between Saigon and Xuan Loc. After a week or so in country, Hagel knew the drill. As a PFC rifleman, he followed the man in front of him. The Americans moved slowly through the thick greenery. They could hear the tracks trundling along on the roadway, but if the troops looked over their shoulders, the heavy vegetation made it hard to see more than distant dark outlines. The soldiers had been doing this on other stretches of highway both day and night over the last ten days. Some other platoons had glancing contacts, pop shots, an old mine—French era—unearthed. But so far today, nothing.

  Supposedly, December counted as the dry season near Saigon. The humidity ran around 80 percent, an uncomfortable match for the 88° temperature. The taller trees shaded the rest, dimming an already dull day. Imagine walking through an abandoned greenhouse run riot—in a sauna—and you’ve got it. Under the gray, overcast sky, sweating, steel helmet bobbing on your wet head, you just tried to stay alert.

  The guerrilla enemy loved days like this. A U.S. unit droning along, midday, nothing much going on. It looked like they were pretty worn out. Flip to that page in the Mao Zedong hymnal, and sing along… enemy tires, we attack.

  The flat crack of an AK-47 sounded—first one, then three, then plenty, all from the front. After you heard it enough, you always recognized an AK. Those hot little 7.62mm slugs had a voice all their own. “The bullets were whizzing through the underbrush and trees,” Hagel wrote later. “You could hear and see them tearing the leaves a few feet over your head.” The rounds zipped as they broke the sound barrier near your ears. American drill sergeants like William Joyce always preached “shoot low.” A marksman can always adjust up on to target, watching puffs of dirt or bark or whatever. But high rounds just launch out into the atmosphere. Thankfully, most VC shooters didn’t get that class. PFC Hagel was learning the difference between hearing fire (common in country), receiving fire (less often), and receiving effective fire (uh-oh).

  Some of the VC got it right. “The guy in front of me was hit,” said Hagel, “then the guy next to me, square in the chest.” For a nanosecond, in that weird slowed-down sense of time common to firefights, Hagel thought he was next. But “the training kicked in.”26

  The U.S. riflemen curled near tree trunks and snuggled behind mounds of moist dirt. They shot back. A few M16s rattled on full automatic. Individual shots rang out, one after another, a metallic snap, snap, snap characteristic of the M16’s high-velocity 5.56mm bullets. Hagel pulled the trigger, facing outboard, not toward the road and the tracks. He couldn’t see any enemy. He didn’t know yet that you never saw them. You heard them, or glimpsed muzzle flashes, maybe. But in modern battle to be seen is to be shot. And that wasn’t good. So people on both sides tried very hard not to be seen. In the jungle, that was almost always the story.

  The M60 pig started snorting, its .75-inch-long 7.62mm bullets banging away. The experienced machine gunner ran through a belt, not the neat six- to nine-round bursts taught at Fort Ord, but a long rip, maybe a hundred rounds in one whack. Then, from out on the highway, one of the M113s opened up with its .50 caliber, pumping inch-and-a-half-long slugs through the greenery just in front of the beleaguered column of U.S. riflemen. That was enough for the enemy. They pulled away. The shaken Americans dealt with two wounded.

  This kind of glancing encounter happened often enough to be unremarkable, and Hagel would see his share and then some. The official 2-47th summary of the multiweek operation reads like a shopping list, with about as much drama. The battalion claimed “a confirmed body count of 300 VC/NVA,” a nice, round number. If any VC died in Hagel’s little skirmish, nobody found them. But then again, they always dragged off the bodies, right? In addition to the enemy casualties, 2-47th captured “100 pounds of salt, 11 pounds of documents, 3 RPG-2 [rocket-propelled grenade launchers], 200 rounds of AK-47 ammo, one 81mm mortar, and eight 81mm mortar rounds.”27 At that rate, the war of attrition might have wrapped up by 2067, give or take a few decades.

  Thus the VC introduced themselves to Chuck Hagel. The troops called them “Victor Charlie” in the military phonetic alphabet, and “Charlie” day to day. When the enemy got serious, they called them “Mr. Charles.” That’s who showed up for Tet.

  ONCE THE VC STRUCK in force along the perimeter of Long Binh Post, it took a while to figure out exactly what to do with 2-47th. Military school instructors counsel “tactical patience,” taking time to “develop the situation” before committing forces. Maybe the people under attack at Long Binh were doing that. The military police units and ad hoc gaggles of headquarters guys had their hands full with energetic VC. Sorting out how best to use a mechanized infantry battalion had to wait.

  At 3:35 a.m., battalion told Company B to prepare to move. Hagel’s commander, Captain Robert G. Keats, had only been in charge for a week. But the quick-thinking West Pointer knew what to do. He brought in the two ambush patrols, teams of four men out in the jungle to snare VC snoopers and provide early warning. The men began to roll up their concertina wire, circles of razor-sharp barbed wire that could be expanded or folded up just like an accordion. The track commanders stayed up on the .50-caliber machine guns and the riflemen continued to man their fighting holes. Nothing had come out of the jungle yet. But the VC clearly had stepped it up this time. So maybe they were baiting the Americans to move too soon. Then they could rush the fence.

  At 5:20, just before dawn grayed the sky, orders came by radio. Normally, the captain received a coded message. But this time, Lieutenant Colonel John B. Tower spoke in the clear, addressing all companies simultaneously. Company A and the battalion headquarters had to clear the village of Ho Nai, just north of Long Binh. Company C was told to go into the center of Bien Hoa city, near the U.S. airfield, to defend the ARVN III Corps headquarters. Company B drew the short straw—clean out the ammunition dump. And do it without getting blown into the stratosphere.

  When one of the company commanders asked about filling foxholes and pouring out sandbags, Tower cut him short. Leave it all. Move now.

  Keats did not hesitate. He ordered Company B to go. “We left—we left ponchos,” said Hagel. “We left everything right on the ground. And we grabbed guns and were on those APCs and down that road.” It was 5:35, twenty minutes before dawn. The first hint of morning twilight lightened the eastern horizon.

  Captain John E. Gross, commanding Company C, described the scene:

  As we turned right onto Highway 15, an unbelievable spectacle stretched before us. Having been struck by mortars or rockets, the fuel tanks at the air base, as well as several buildings throughout Bien Hoa, were burning brightly. Flames illuminated the clouds, forming an eerie glow; flares hung in the sky and helicopter gunships crossed back and forth firing red
streams of tracers into the city.28

  By 6 a.m., Hagel’s company, assembled into a long column of twenty-two M113s, pulled out on the road, en route to the Long Binh ammunition facility. Riflemen rode atop the tracks. They had to be careful, as the base’s defenders were trading bullets with various known and suspected VC. Of course, you couldn’t see any bad guys. But they were there. Random bullets zipped by and skittered off the pavement of Route 15.

  The Company B tracks drove hard for the ammunition dump’s gate. The lead platoon reached it at 6:38 a.m. Men jumped off the lead vehicles, running for the dirt-covered ammo storage bunkers. Where were the VC? Where were their timed charges? The racket of gunfire rose in intensity, most of it from the arriving Americans. The big .50 calibers hammered away. In a James Bond movie, the hero confidently located the right wire, snipped, and stopped the insanity. But that busy morning at Long Binh, nobody found any painfully obvious ticking time bomb with big red digits clicking down. The VC didn’t roll that way.

  Company B’s brave riflemen did identify a few bulky khaki backpacks, ripped out the time fuses, and flung the detritus far outside the compound. While frantic soldiers searched for more, the clock ran out. Evidently, VC sappers had placed enough charges, focused on explosives arrayed out in the open. A pallet of 175mm artillery propellant went first. Three others followed, then more. The immense concussions, fire, and smoke boiled up “like a nuclear mushroom cloud,” said Hagel.29 A nearby Long Binh headquarters soldier said, “We could see the shock wave coming through the foliage. Everybody ducked as it passed over, stirring up a tremendous amount of dust in its wake.”

  Hagel’s vehicle was just outside the fence when the eruption cooked off. The two tracks in front of Hagel’s M113 had dropped their infantry already—a lucky thing. When the ammunition went up, that pair of APCs were “essentially as vaporized as you can be,” said Hagel. Amazingly, all four men in the wreckage survived, though badly wounded. Smacked by the blast, Hagel’s APC leapt off the ground and slid into a ditch. Some aboard were burned, but nothing serious. It was only 7:39 a.m. 30

  Well, that was a hell of a start. The ammunition dump was toast. Sympathetic detonations and fires continued throughout that day and well into the next. No more could be done there. But the stretch of government housing across Route 316 seemed to be lousy with VC. If the ammo stocks couldn’t be saved, they could be avenged.

  Company B’s tracks turned toward Widows Village for the next round with Mr. Charles.

  THE SAIGON GOVERNMENT had built the little community as a model town for the wives and children of those ARVN soldiers killed in action. It appeared to be a Vietnamese version of suburban tract housing, eight rows of twenty identical little homes, stretched about a thousand yards along the roadway. The widows staked out concertina wire—thank you, America—to delineate their garden plots. Maybe seven hundred people lived there.

  In the days before Tet, ruthless VC elements infiltrated the village. They killed the troublemakers and cowed the rest. For Mr. Charles, attacking into Long Binh Post from Widows Village amounted to win-win. If the great offensive worked, all well. If the Americans counterattacked, they’d be compelled to smash through some of the most loyal South Vietnamese in so doing. It was insidious, but you had to tip your hat to the opposition’s chutzpah. They played at the big money tables, all right.

  The VC battalion commander’s orders for Tet instructed him to attack across Highway 316, smack into the II Field Force Headquarters on the northwest edge of Long Binh Post. Had that attack succeeded, Major General Weyand might have really had his hands full. But the VC officer lacked initiative. He’d been told to wait until several hundred rockets pummeled the U.S. base. When he only counted ninety, the VC commander chose to hold his position. His machine gunners opened fire, and so did a few snipers. But most of the enemy battalion just sat there.31

  Lieutenant Colonel Tower, by now up in a bubble-top OH-23 helicopter (very much like the kind used in the movie and TV show M*A*S*H), saw the opportunity. He ordered in both Company B and the battalion’s scout platoon. Part of Company B went first, with Chuck Hagel’s platoon trailing a ways back. First Lieutenant Henry L. S. Jezek brought his four 1st Platoon tracks on line and started working from southwest to northeast. He put an M113 on each narrow street and fanned out his rifle squads to check the silent houses.

  House clearing is one of the most difficult infantry tasks. The men checked each little building. If they suspected anything dangerous inside, the riflemen led with a fragmentation grenade, just as they taught you to do at Fort Ord. Of course, these structures stood on concrete slab foundations. If you tossed in an M26 grenade, you had better stand back or eat a faceful of your own frag. It took about an hour to clear the first third of the village. The VC lay low.

  Then they didn’t.

  In an instant, Mr. Charles opened up with AK-47s, a lot of them, a steady ripple of the all too familiar sharp cracks, some marked by the foe’s green tracers. (Americans used red tracers.) An RPD machine gun joined in. That thing was an AK-47 on steroids, firing the same deadly Russian-designed short 7.62mm slugs. Its gunner shot high. You could see the tracers winging overhead.

  Stunned by the fusillade, the Americans ducked and flinched. Riflemen scrambled behind the little buildings. A few crouched in the lee of the idling M113s. AK bullets pinged off the broad track fronts. One green tracer ricocheted straight up.

  In seconds, U.S. troops began to fire back. They couldn’t see much. But they shot anyway, aiming in the direction of the VC shooting. The U.S. M16s snapped away. An M60 pig fired, too, snorting out a belt of ammunition, one red tracer for every four unseen 7.2mm bullets. Shooting low—thank you, drill sergeants—the Americans tore up the bottom corners of a few suspicious houses. At this juncture, close was good enough.

  Then a VC rocket-propelled grenade streaked out, headed right for an M113 halted right near Highway 316. In the little turret, Corporal Robert A. Huie saw the thing coming—they flew slow enough to watch, but fast enough to get you—and he cut loose with the .50-caliber machine gun, aiming at the source of the smoke trail. The projectile hit in a shower of sparks, rocking the track. Huie didn’t let up. His .50 kept right on pounding.

  Another RPG lashed out. The second rocket warhead burst right on the turret gunshield, killing Huie. His long machine gun swung around, unmanned.

  Lieutenant Jezek ran to the stricken track. Along with Huie, clearly dead, Privates Donald Matchee and John Corrilla also lay dazed inside the stricken M113. They had severe wounds. An AK round smacked Jezek hard on his right side, then another RPG blew up near his head. The lieutenant went down in a heap. Somebody dragged him behind the disabled track. The cacophony of shooting kept right on going.

  Seeing the platoon leader bowled over, Sergeant First Class William Nelson Butler took charge. He knew he had one dead, one APC immobilized, and three badly wounded. Matchee and Corrilla both barely hung in there. Jezek look bad, too. His head lacerations bled freely, as such injuries often do. These guys needed medical evacuation, a dust-off helicopter.32 And the VC weren’t letting up.

  With their hands full, Butler and his men fought to hold their position, banging away at Mr. Charles. Butler’s platoon, three good tracks and a dozen sound riflemen, anchored themselves on a woodpile near Highway 316, right on the east side of the housing area. They faced an aroused VC battalion. The platoon awaited the arrival of the rest of the company, including PFC Hagel, and the scouts.

  In this kind of situation, the stationary U.S. platoon usually called in artillery to pin and beat up the enemy force, lest they break contact and escape. Overhead, Lieutenant Colonel Tower wouldn’t allow any artillery fires. He worried about the South Vietnamese civilians potentially still hiding in Widows Village—and in fact, there were a few. Sergeant First Class Butler’s men hadn’t seen any locals, innocent or not. More ominously, one American grenadier actually sighted a fleeting armed figure and pumped out a 40mm round, scoring a direct hit. If the
VC had the guts to show themselves, that couldn’t be good.33 Butler’s men kept up the fire. So did the VC.

  But in the clear light of midmorning, as the VC machine gunners and AK-47 guys kept at it, Mr. Charles began to slip away, right out of the guerrilla playbook. Enemy advances, we retreat. Overhead in his little OH-23 helicopter, Lieutenant Colonel John Tower saw the hostiles exfiltrating by threes and fours, hopscotching away from house to house, creeping down the drainage ditches, and crawling behind the folds of red dirt. Tower had been to this rodeo before. If only he could have used the big howitzers to flail the Cong. But how many widows and children was Tower willing to sacrifice? None, if he could help it. Still determined to catch the withdrawing VC battalion, Tower urged his other units into the fight.

  The rest of Company B was way behind. PFC Chuck Hagel and the rest had gotten entangled with some stubborn VC shooters en route to Widows Village. At 10:15 a.m., during the firefight, Captain Keats reported nine wounded in action. It took a while to clean that up. PFC Hagel did his part.34 Nothing was easy. It all took longer than anyone wanted. Every movement got somebody else hurt.

  Meanwhile, about the same time, First Lieutenant Brice H. Barnes and his eight scout platoon tracks rolled in to link up with Sergeant First Class Butler’s guys. In most battalions, the scouts comprised the top lieutenant, the sharpest sergeants, and the best junior soldiers, all in an oversized combat platoon with extra radios. In conventional warfare, scouts went out front to locate the opponents first. In Vietnam, the scouts served almost like an extra rifle company, handy for the battalion commander to use to make a difference. That sure held for the pugnacious Barnes and his guys in 2-47th.