Vietnam War Memorial Post 639

Vietnam Story & Opinion 7/30/04                        Back:

In the late fall of 1967 a squad of marines were flown in to hold a hill north of DaNang Vietnam. Three others and myself joined them a couple days later. The chopper didn't usually touch down so as to keep the power up for a fast departure, but this time it landed, as the hill was secure. I helped unload supplies for our stay on this no name hill in the jungle. We were to serve as an observation post.

The intelligent reports indicated a large influx of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were maneuvering for the 1968 Tet offensive.  Reports like that seemed to be a daily event and after 9 months in country, I was numb to it all. It seemed that the trouble started when we didn't expect anything to happen.

We suspected that there would be an attack on DaNang.  No one really knew where the enemy would come from or when.  We only cared about us, and whether we would be in the way. I was a field radio operator; an FO (forward observer) while on operations. This time I left my backpack PRC-25 for a two-man foxhole.  A young lieutenant manned the radio, which was fine with me.  When calling in a fire mission, I normally would relay the messages from forward positioning, however, this time we were the forward position. We used the closest artillery battery, but sometimes the flyboys and even the Navy ships. The big guns from the Navy were great shots and they made a mess of the target.

Marine Corporals don’t have privy to the plans of the brass.  I was okay with that, but felt like a pawn in the chest game of war. I rationalized that the brass would be handed the prize should we find the enemy early before they could inflict major casualties in and round DaNang. That may look easy in a boardroom, but the jungle canopy didn’t give up secretes.  Marines come from assorted backgrounds and flavors; we all had our own ways of expressing the same thought. We were cannon fodder set out in the middle of the jungle to draw in the enemy. Long nights without sleep and the relentless rain made for dark imaginations.  Tempers were short.  Some of us talked of home and what we were going to do when we returned.  I was counting down the days when I would be coming home and considered myself a short-timer.

The early monsoon rain came down all day and night.  The foxhole had boot high water, and mud was everywhere. Through the daylight time we could barely see the hills and valleys of green vegetation.  A whole regiment of enemy could be moving round us and we couldn’t see them. I thought of soldiers from years past, World Wars, Korea, the American Revolution and the Civil War. Men that were so gallant in their struggles. They are a proud part of our history. We wondered if Vietnam would be recorded as well.  Would history record the time we stopped the spread of communism and saved this beautiful country, or would it be lost by politicians and in Washington?

The darkness was such that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. I lit a cigarette under my poncho with my head down from sight. It was silent other than the drip of the water. The tree branches, grass and mud soaked roof over this hole in the ground at best-stopped most of the water.  My poncho kept the water that dripped in from the roof off my rifle and most of me. We repaired daily the roof during any break in rain. There was no way anyone could stay dry. We stayed awake all night and tried to sleep during the day.  After three days we all were totally spent. I dreamed of a dry pair of socks, fresh clothes and a warm meal. I thought of the men at Valley Forge, how they suffered the winter without enough to eat and having to wrap their feet with strips of cloth because their boots were rotten and falling apart. I told myself to suck it up; it could be a lot worse.

Imagination was our worse enemy.  All this time in Vietnam without being wounded; I felt lucky.  Now it seemed to me my luck was running out. I could not control the pending fate caused by some military strategist. We were expendable and they were deciding who would be sacrificed for the greater good.  Maybe tomorrow the choppers would rotate us out and bring new replacements if we could get through one more night and have a break in rain. It always seemed that when hope was around the corner, everything went to hell. Attitude was not our best companion.

Radio messages came in that we could expect some action tonight.  We reset the claymores around the perimeter, distributed more ammo and the lieutenant gave my buddy and I a half box of fragmentation grenades. We loaded all 16 clips; banding two together with rounds exposed on both sides for fast reloads. The lieutenant told me tonight upon hearing anything to pitch a frag over the hill. On observation, one thing we didn’t do was draw attention to our position. I knew any Gook worth his salt had already figured out we were here, after-all the choppers had made two drops. The lieutenant insisted that our position was already known and it "wouldn’t matter if I pitched the whole damn box." At lease we agreed on that.

A feeling came over me that this was going to be the night I may die.  The seriousness of our pending fate sunk in.  Everything I did in my short life didn’t amount to anything. Life up to that point was meaningless and now I was going to be just another statistic, a white marker in a Veterans cemetery like the ones back home we played around as kids.  I thought about my parents getting that sober knock at their door. I wondered if my old girlfriend would have remorse from the Dear John I got three months into my tour. There was resentment from the reports back home about kids protesting our mission.  It was demoralizing.  I hated them and hated my life.

The last night the rain stopped and the visibility was remarkably good.  We could see the lights from what we assumed to be Northern DaNang or a coastal village. The jungle near us was silent and the night was cool and crisp.  In the distance we could hear a firefight and see the flashes of distant explosions. Conversation was light and whispered. This was going to be the night all hell would break lose. We didn’t have to say anything; we all felt the same.  About 03:00 we heard sounds about thirty yards from our position.  We both grabbed a frag and held with pin pulled. We strained for a visual, a shadow, anything.  Then we heard an empty C-Ration can rattle.  The enemy had to out there; we whispered 1-2-3 and we both pitched the frags. The double flash didn’t reveal anything in the thick under brush. The guys on ambush were silent, no one fired, and it was still.  I was reluctant to pop a luminary, as it would show our exact position.  We waited and waited; the lieutenant came from behind asking if we saw anything.  After an eternity, finally we could see the early rays of the sun. We survived another night, terror turned to joy as the sunlight turned our lowest of lows with high expectation. The choppers would rotate us out.  We felt like we won to fight another day.

No enemy, not a shot was fired.  What about the noise?  Down at the bottom of the hill we found a very dead monkey and assumed it was scavenging for food from one of hundreds of discarded Ration cans we had thrown over the hill.

This was not the night we got rocketed and mortared, this was not the night we lost several marines, this was not the night in Thong Doc, Chu Lai, this was not the night the mortars messed up my hearing or hill 10, hill 55 or the 11 operations or nameless hills valleys and places. This was the night a monkey had me convinced I was ending the night in a body bag.

Funny how the mind can shut out the horror, and find humor in an uneventful incident. Strange as it seemed, perhaps it was, a little reminder that God either had a sense of humor or was looking out for us; maybe both.  It all makes for the experience called war.  Only a veteran knows how sounds, visualizations or even a harmless trip to a zoo can bring back those memories.  We share in silence what happened so many years ago.  Our bonds are written in blood, etched in stone on troubled hearts.  It's easy to cry when the subject comes up. No war veteran ever gets over it. We don't have to talk of the times or places, we are war veterans. We would do it again with one exception, this time allow us victory.

Most people don't realize that Vietnam was won on the ground.  Politicians and a misguided generation lost it. No country should ever commit its young men and women to combat without a clear declaration of war and clear intention of victory. Upon that declaration of war, everyone has to be united behind our fighting men and women. It is criminal to politicize a war for personal gain; it gives aid and comfort to the enemy and cheapens the very lives lost and the bravery expected of our soldiers.  I cannot think of a more dangerous message to our enemies than to appear as a nation divided.  Armchair generals do not win wars; they are won by resolve.

Now we are faced with a war against a Muslim extremist enemy that attacked our country. This time the danger to our country is on our turf, but that hasn't stopped the opinion makers and political opportunist in their despicable willingness to sell out our security for political office and monetary gain. I pray for our troops and I pray for our country.

Kurt Watson USMC 1966-1968