DEPLOYMENT
VIETNAM
PART 1
by
Herb Blanchard
Deployment Vietnam
PART 1
by Herb Blanchard
Copyright 2011 Herb Blanchard
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Cover photo by the author circa 1962
Also by Herb Blanchard published at Smashwords
An Okinawan Affair
Shuri Gate
Struggles of a Country Boy
My Life Before & Without Boomers & Yuppies
Coming soon
DEPLOYMENT VIETNAM
Part 2
DEDICATION
This book is dedicate to the officers and men I served with in the US Navy Seabees. In particular to the Seabees who served with me in Vietnam and made the ultimate sacrifice.
I still think about you.
PART 1
ONE
The distant ‘thump-thump’ of a Huey’s rotor blades sent a shiver up his back. Even over the bellowing exhaust of the road grader’s engine, the heavy reverberating ‘thumps’ were distinct and welcome.
It was mid-winter in South Vietnam and the heavy winter rain showers were a daily occurrence. The heavy military traffic and rain worked together to break up Highway 1’s original asphalt coated road bed and turn it into a pond of soupy red and yellow streaked mud the color of the surrounding soils. Dan Lee Davis EON2, was working on Highway 1, about two and a half miles south of Chu Lai, RVN. Since mid-January he had been struggling every day, seven days a week to keep this piece of highway passable.
Dan twisted partway around to look south to see if the helicopter was in sight. Though his hazel eyes missed little, he could see only about a quarter of a mile in the downpour of rain and ground hugging fog which was hiding the approaching helicopter.
A steady trickle of cold rain water ran off his olive drab foul weather gear streaming down his neck and soaking into the Navy issue wool jersey that he was wearing under green Marine Corp fatigues. His movements allowed more water to be squeezed out of his rain soaked wool watch cap which covered his very light brown, almost blond hair that he wore in a Marine Corp white sidewall cut, adding to the stream running under the collar of his foul weather gear.
He wondered if it was worth getting wetter to turn and search for the approaching chopper or wait until it came up beside of him. He sat down on the grader’s wide seat sliding his loaded M-14 which was wrapped loosely in an olive drab Seabee issue poncho to protect it from the persistent rain, to the rear against the back of the seat.
Dan stepped on the grader’s clutch, threw its transmission into neutral and pulled off the engine throttle in quick simultaneous movements. He stood again to scan the area around his spot on Vietnam’s notorious Highway 1 named the ‘Street of No Joy’ by the French. To his right were the low barren, wind rounded sand dunes covering the 200 yards between the highway and the US military installation’s sandbag bunkers and the concertina wire topped security fence. On his left, starting only a few feet from the edge of the road fill, was dense dead looking shrubs running off in all directions. From the height advantage of the Seabee, green painted road grader, he could see over the top of the almost leafless brush which was twice as tall as a man and reminding him of a patch of tall sagebrush. It was too dense to walk through except where man and other animals had created narrow winding paths towards the dark green jungle covered low hills of volcanic red laterite several hundred yards to the west where the dense fog rolling out of the mountains and off the closer hills started to obscure his vision.
Deep in his chest and stomach Dan felt the Huey’s rotor blades ‘thumps’ grow stronger. The drab green Marine Corp helicopter came in view about halfway between the concertina wire on his right, and Highway 1.
The helicopter’s left door gunner sat in an open door behind his M-60 machine gun. He waved a brief friendly wave as he scanned the area looking for unfriendlies who might be a threat to the lone Seabee.
The Huey slowed down traveled further down the road at tree top level before banking to the left to cross the road several hundred yards ahead of the Seabee. Barely in sight in the heavy rain and fog, the chopper reversed it’s course flying slowly south parallel to highway. It was a couple hundred yards to Dan’s left flying over the thick brush low enough to make the tops of the shrubs sway in it’s rotor wash.
“He’s trying to draw fire from Charlie if he’s laying up in the brush field.” He thought as the Huey crept by him before starting a turn towards the Marine Corp Air Facility on the Chu Lai base. The Huey leveled out several feet above Davis’s grader and passed the Seabee close enough so that the warm air from its turbines and the rotor wash blew across his face. The black painted US MARINE and star insignia were clear to read as well as red and yellow hazard warnings for the tail rotor and jet exhaust on the tail boom. The door gunner and co-pilot each smiled and gave him a ‘thumbs-up’ and quick sloppy salutes before the Huey picked up speed, rose to an acceptable military altitude and crossed the fence line into the Chu Lai cantonment.
All right! This was the fourth time in two days that a Marine Corp Huey had checked me out. Makes me feel more secure knowing they’re flying by once in a while. Brad said that he used to see the choppers almost every day and they would buzz him to be sure he was ok. He thought about his friend Brad Burgess another second class EO that he knew from their Adak deployment and later on Okinawa where Brad was at NAF Naha and he was at MCAF Futemma at the same time. They knew each other’s girl friends and were sometime drinking buddies.
TWO
“Reveille! Reveille!
All hands hit the deck! It’s 0500 hours!
Reveille!” The Seabee camp’s Master-at-Arms’ voice bellowed through out the hooches.
Christ! Shut up! Why are all Master-at Arms fleet sailors? Dan Lee thought with a mental smile as he peered through one half open eye.
“You going to breakfast, Dan?” Casey Jones a third class equipment operator, and part of the Highway 1 road crew asked. Jones was barely twenty with his brown hair cut with white sidewalls and barely 1/4” long on top, the Marine Corp cut, as many Seabees wore their hair especially in-country. He was a broad shouldered 150 pounds or so, an even 5’ 6” tall as he bragged that was the tallest member of his family with his dad being only 5’ 2” the same height as his mother and sister.
“Not right now Casey. I’ve got something to take care of first then I’ll grab a cup of coffee on the way to quarters.” He answered while throwing back the poncho and two wool blankets that he slept under.
“I’ll be glad when it stops raining and warms up a bit. If it wasn’t for putting a poncho over the blankets our racks would by soaking all the time.”
“Last night when it was raining I could feel the mist blowing in the side of the hooch and hitting me in the face.” Jones added to his squad leader’s remark about the rain.
“I talked to the mechanics after chow last night, Casey. Your bulldozer is ready to go. So stop at the motor pool and line up a tractor and lowboy to move it outside the wire first thing.”
As well as being a good friend of Dan Davis, Casey was the best cat skinner in Alpha Company after Dan himself and Dan’s best friend Brad Burgess.
“Shall I have them take it all the way to the quarry?”
“No-oo. I don’t think so. Just take it out the gate. Jump it off the trailer there and run down the drainage ditch on the east side of the road to the quarry site. The Marine mine sweeper won’t have got that far down the road so early, so it will take time to wait for them to sweep the road before anybody can take a tractor and trailer on it. You’ll save 30 minutes or more this way.” He had pulled on his Navy issue wool jersey even before his feet hit the floor. Next he slipped on tight fitting insulated white cotton underwear that wasn’t GI issue before he finished getting dressed in his tailored Marine Corp greens while he talked. On the point of each end of his collar was 2nd class petty officer chevrons which the Seabees wore with the chevron points pointing down at collar points and painted black instead of the customary polished brass that had been required on stateside bases. There were no creases in his greens nor spit shine on his black Air Force issue jump boots though they were blackened.
“Chief Thomas will meet you there as soon as he can. He knows where the boundary lines are for the new quarry and can show you so you can start stripping off the overburden.”
“Ok. I’ll see you out on the road later then?”
“Guess so. And stay away from the little Vietnamese girls and their baskets of goodies.”
“Yeah sure.” Jones replied with a smile knowing full well that his squad leader and crew boss really didn’t care if any of the road crew talked to and flirted with the girls who gathered at any point where a GI could be found outside the wire.
“Rainer.” Davis spoke to another member of his squad who was trying to duck out the back door of the hooch before the squad leader could say anything to him. Rainer was another second class driver, but didn’t do much operating. Seemed to Dan that he was kind of floating around Alpha Company going here and there with no specific job or position in the company.
“What do you want Davis? I have to get to the company early so make it quick.”
More attitude. As if I didn’t get enough out of him last night when I caught him in the bunker firing that little .22 pistol he carries. He thought and finished pulling on his jump boots and stood up to his full 5’ 7”. At 120 lbs. Dan Davis was not very big. Ruddy complexed from his many hours working out in all kinds of weather and was a natural leader.
“I don’t want you to forget what you agreed to last night. Get rid of that .22 pistol or I go to the company commander. I’m sure Mr. Roberts won’t appreciate hearing one of his petty officers is firing a weapon around camp.. I don’t care what you do with it as long as I don’t hear it or see you fire it again or even see it in this hooch again.”
“Yeah. I’ll take care of it. But I don’t know why you’re making an issue out of it.”
“You know damn well the answer to that. I shared all of that with you last night and I mean it. GET RID OF IT!” He raised his voice to emphasis the command. Stressing that it was an order, not a request. Though both men were second class petty officers Dan Davis was senior and the almost 6 foot tall, 175 lb. Rainer had showed signs of not liking that fact of military protocol.
As Alpha Company was falling in for quarters, Dan counted heads and realized that Rainer was amongst the missing. With just a couple of minutes before the Company Chief would be asking for a head count, he trotted into the company office to where he knew he would find the company clerk hiding out so he wouldn’t have to stand muster.
“Petty Officer Ryan, by any chance have you seen Petty Officer Rainer this morning ?”
“Yeah Dave, He asked if there was a courier run to Da Nang today. When I told him there was, he beelined it for Headquarters Company.” The freckled face, curly headed, tall and skinny clerk answered Dan. “Also said that he had some business to take care of in Da Nang before he went stateside.
You do know that his DEROS is next week don’t you? And this is his third trip to Da Nang in less than a week.” He added quickly.
“Actually I didn’t. Thanks Irish.” Dan spoke back over his shoulder as he hurried back outside to stand muster with his squad.
As usual, their platoon leader, a first class petty officer, was busy in the dispatch office. As squad leader of the first squad of the first platoon, Dan stepped in front of the platoon to take his place.
When the company chief dismissed them, Dan caught Chief Thomas’s eye so the chief would know that he needed to talk to him before they went out on the road. The 40 year old Chief Thomas was Chief-in-Charge of the Highway 1 road job and Dan’s friend. His dark brown hair was a bit longer than how most Seabees wore theirs’ with graying sideburns that were barely there. He had green eyes which danced in the light when he talked to you and were just plain friendly. He and Dan had been together on detachment on Adak about three years ago. Dan wanted him to know what was going on with his squad and in particular with Rainer.
“You ready to go to the Company Commander with it, Dan Lee,” Thomas asked him after being filled in .
“I was going to give him a chance to do as I asked, Tom. But these trips make me wonder what he’s up too and why he feels the need of carrying a concealed weapon. He’s taking it with him to Da Nang I’m sure.”
“Any signs of drugs?”
“He’s clean as far as I can tell. I didn’t want to bring that up yet. He doesn’t seem to have any connection to any of the dabblers in pot that I know of. Dan hesitated for a second. ”Could be getting it between here and Da Nang though. Or downtown Chu Lai.”
“I think that it would better if you let me take it from here. I have a bit more horsepower and since I haven’t dealt with him personally, I can be more candid with NCIS if need be.”
“You already know something don’t you, Tom?” Dan asked.
“You might say that there has been scuttlebutt being passed around the Company about Rainer and his trips to Da Nang.”
He was with the battalion in Da Nang on their last deployment wasn’t he?”
“That’s why no one gave it a thought at first, Dan. Thought maybe he had a girl friend there he was going to see.. Then he was seen in downtown Chu Lai on several occasions since January. So other people have got interested in his trips.
This is all between us. Nobody else needs to know anything about him.”
“Yeah, right Chief.”
“And Dan Lee, let me know if you see or hear anything going on out on the road.”
“Absolutely.”
“If it’s a case of you being able to handle it, with the younger, unrated troops, do it.”
Dan nodded and gave the Chief a casual wave watching him walk towards his jeep with his slight but obvious limp. Over four years before while Dan was in “A” school of NAVSCON, Dale Thomas was in blasting school, a NAVSCON “C” school when the story goes, somebody screwed up and the class had built a demonstration pipe bomb which had detonated prematurely injuring Thomas’s foot almost ending his Seabee career and being sure he would walk with a limp the rest of his life.
The sun was still only a bright red glow below the eastern horizon. In a couple of minutes the typical Southeast Asian sunrise would reveal the sun as a huge red globe against a maroon and orange backdrop with violent scarlet streaks in a full circle around the sun’s orb.
THREE
It sure isn’t much like being almost March anywhere else I’ve been in the world, Dan thought as he parked his grader next to the pagoda that he and his crew had been using for a several weeks to get out of the winter rains on breaks and lunch time.
Dan and Casey Jones were the only Seabees working on Highway 1 which ran from Saigon north up the coast to Hanoi, North VN. The rains had gradually been decreasing and he was starting to make headway against the mud on the road. With every day showing the progress of the mud drying up, he had decided that he could accomplish more to the road on Sunday when the traffic was light rather than sitting around his hooch in Chu Lai. He had recruited EON3 Casey Jones to ride ‘shotgun’ on the grader with him. He knew that neither Chief Thomas nor Mr. Roberts, the Alpha Company Commander, would allow him to work on the road alone, especially on a Sunday when there was very little military traffic on the road.
“Coffee’s hot Dan.” Casey hollered from the pagoda over the grader’s idling engine noise. “It’s lunch time anyway and you may have your pick of any of the delicious meals from the menu of twelve that we are featuring today.
We have a whole menu of government meals, AKA C-rations, to choose from.” He added as Dan jumped to the ground and made his way through the clinging red mud to the partially destroyed pagoda.
“Who’s that?” Casey asked listening to the high pitched whine of a military jeep coming from the direction of Chu Lai and pulling in behind the grader.
“Looks and sounds like a jeep, Casey. Maybe the Chief decided to take a Sunday drive so he could catch us screwing off.”
“Yeah. Like we’d work on our day off to screw off in the rain on Highway 1 amongst the booby traps, mines and VC.
You can be very weird at times Dan.”
“I would think you guys could find a better place to hideout than this.” Their Company Commander said with a smile as he came around the grader and stepped up into the pagoda.
There were no salutes between them which would mark the newcomer as an officer. His officer’s insignias were also painted black like the petty officer’s. But his greens were pressed and his boots spit shined. Both the sign of an office worker though few enlisted men would hold it against him. Mr Roberts was tall, 6’ plus or minus a bit, weighing in at a hard 170 or so. He was definitely in shape. His crew cut had white sidewalls but was almost long enough on top to be brushed up in a real crew cut. He was definitely among the top favorite officers in the battalion and a Mustang.
“Have some lunch, Sir?” Davis asked the Lieutenant.
“Your choice of any one of 10 meals fresh from the carton, Sir.” Jones added. “The other two are already spoken for.”
“In other words your guest gets the leftovers?” Mr. Roberts asked.
“Kind of. But Petty Officer Jones has just started to heat his . I’m sure he’d share with you.” Dan offered
“Thanks, Dan. You know that the beans and franks are my favorite.” Casey said with a bit of friendly sarcasm.
“Not to worry, Casey. I’ll happily settle for the chicken and noodles.
That is if I can heat it up?” The officer added.
“Sure Mr. Roberts. I’m through with my heater.” Casey handed the Lieutenant an empty M-2 ration can that had three triangular holes punched along the bottom edge with a church key. (beer can opener.)
“Heat tablets?”
“Here, Sir.” Dan started to hand him what looked somewhat like a square tube of slightly off white putty wrapped in wax paper. It was about 12” long, and about 3” square.
“C4?” Mr. Roberts asked with a smile.
“Yes sir, only thing that will get wet and still heat your coffee.
Here this should do it, Sir.” Dan offered breaking off a hunk of the plastic explosive about the size of a big gum ball and pulling a little tit on one side to facilitate lighting it.
“Why I came out here was that I was told that you two men knew what was going on with Petty Officer Rainer. Is that true? You turned him in as AWOL on February 23, Dan?”
“Yes Sir. He missed muster on that Thursday morning after taking a courier run to Da Nang on the 22nd which I believe was Wednesday the day before..
Petty Officer Jones only knew that he wasn’t in the hooch on Wednesday night and on Thursday he didn’t see him.”
“He did witness the incident with the pistol and knew of your intentions to let him, Rainer, take care of it himself before you wrote him up?
Did anybody find a pound cake for desert?”
“Here, Sir.” Casey handed the Lieutenant a can that he pulled from a ration box still in the carton.
“Thanks, Casey. Do you by any chance know what is in each of those meals.”
“SOP and self defense Mr. Roberts. We always pick through the rations and get what we want if there’s a surplus.”
“Also the way to get what you want to eat and the best of the mediocre.” Dan added with a smile.
“You’re correct, Sir. I was in the hooch during those times and heard everything that Dan said to Rainer. I also saw the pistol being fired in our bunker and later in the hooch.” Casey told the Lieutenant.
The Lieutenant picked up the thread of his conversation. “I just wanted to have you Petty Officers verify what I and NCIS had been told. There are no problems for either of you and I for one think you did what was right and what any Seabees should have done in this case.”
“Want some coffee, Sir?” Jones offered as he stirred a packet of instant coffee into a ration tin, faux cup, of boiling water.
“Please. Straight. No sugar or phony cream.
This isn’t scuttlebutt and I don’t want it turned into gossip like some old ladies sewing circle. Understood?”
“Yes Sir.” The two Seabees answered loudly and simultaneously.
“Rainer was arrested in Da Nang by NCIS and the Army Provost Marshal for selling greenbacks for military script. That was on February 22nd. That is what he was doing on the courier runs. They also got him for carrying a concealed weapon which they were informed, before the fact, he was carrying. Thanks to you guys.” He stopped talking long enough to take a drink of his coffee.
“That stuff is still terrible. How do you drink it all the time?”
“Pretend it’s a day old, over-brewed, burned and you have a bad taste in your mouth from a hangover.” Dan answered. “I don’t understand exactly what Rainer was doing, Mr. Roberts. How could he swap the script for greenbacks to take home? And why?”
“As I understand it, he had a couple thousand dollars in script which he bought for one greenback dollar for $1.50 to $1.75 worth of script. Sometimes as much a $2.00 in script depending on the market price at the time. He figured that when he got his travel orders to CONUS he’d exchange X number of script dollars here in our disbursing office for greenbacks at face value. Then go to Da Nang and exchange X number more, again at face value. If he ends up in CONUS at a place like Treasure Island with more script he can claim that he forget to exchange his script in-country so they’ll exchange the rest for him the same way. With this procedure he could probably get away with a couple or three thousand greenback dollars and a nice profit. The why is about at least 25% or more profit.”
“So he’ll be courtmartialed for trading in greenbacks?” Dan asked.
“A serious offense. The United Staes doesn’t want the North Vietnamese to get greenbacks to spend on the world market. And being charged with carrying a concealed and illegal weapon. As well as being AWOL. He’s going away for quite a while. As I said, you men did the right thing.
Now I’m going back to Chu Lai and take the rest of my day off after I clean the mud off my boots. Might even put on civvies and go have a beer in the club.”
“Thanks Mr. Roberts. I for one was wondering what was going on.” Dan said as he followed the Lieutenant to his jeep.
“Thanks for lunch, Casey.” The officer spoke while climbing into the jeep. “Don’t stay out here too long. It’s supposed to be your day off. Though I can see you are getting the road dried out and more passable than the last time when I was out here.”
The two Seabees stood in the mud next to the grader and watched the jeep disappear traveling back north on Highway 1.
“Nice guy isn’t he Dan?’
“Yeah. Yeah, he really is. I could see that he was ticked off that one of his Seabees would pull that kind of shit. Rainer is just plain stupid to think he could get away with black marketing greenbacks.
You want to get our stuff together and meet me on the road in a while? I’ll start laying some of the fill back on the road bed so we can head back into Chu Lai.”
“Gotcha. Go back in about 15 or 16 hundred?”
“Sounds good to me, Casey. Let’s make it 1500 or quicker. As soon as I can put a layer of laterite in the road.. After all it is Sunday, the day of rest.”
FOUR
“Gee, another day without it raining, Chief.” Dan Davis said to his crew boss, Chief Dale Thomas, as he turned away from the chief’s jeep and headed for his grader. “I’ll be on the road as soon as I get fueled up.” Nodding towards the approaching diesel fuel tanker.
“Okay. I’m going straight out to the bridge job. The drilling crew will be along with their rigs most scratch heading south to the ROK (Republic of Korea) compound in Binh Son. I want to be there to make sure they get around the bridge bypass all right.”
“It looked good on Saturday when I was out there, Tom. Windy made a couple of passes on it with his scraper and laid some more dry fill on it. I didn’t even have to hit it with the grader when he got through.”
“I know what you mean. We’re going to lose him in April. His DEROS is about the third week of April.”
“I’ve been avoiding thinking about it.
He’s our best scraper operator. I for one will definitely miss him, as a friend also.”
“He’s in your squad isn’t he?’
“Yeah. I never have to worry about Windy for anything. Hates the military but is a hell of a Seabee.”
The chief nodded in affirmation as he put his jeep in gear and started south on Highway 1 towards bridge #1 and the village of Binh Son.
About a quarter of a mile south of the cantonment gate Dan started rolling part of the berm of laterite that he had bladed onto the shoulder of the road yesterday back onto the roadbed. The only way he could keep the mud under control was to blade windrows of wet fill onto the shoulders of the road and hope it would dry out enough to blade it back across the road where maybe it would dry out some more during the middle of the day.
Best this muddy mess has looked in weeks. He thought as he eyed a covey of young Vietnamese girls carrying their baskets of salable goodies and chattering amongst themselves as they walked south on Highway 1 towards the Army’s Brigade headquarters a mile or so further along the road.
Oh, who is she?
Of the 6 girls walking ahead of the grader only one turned at the sound of the slowly approaching grader. She seemed to be walking by herself, bringing up the rear.
Never saw her before. Really cute. Actually very pretty. Taller than the others. More woman than girl
The girl who had turned to look and was trailing the others was obviously 2 or 3 inches taller which made her 5’ 1” or so, and prettier than the rest, also older by 4 or 5 years which did make her a woman.
Operating the grader not much speedier than a fast walk, Dan had time to study her. She turned away to look where she was going to avoid stepping on any wet spots of mud. She didn’t seem to be paying any attention to him or the grader. Unlike the other girls who were wearing the traditional peasants’ black cotton pants and white cotton shirts, she had on white silky looking pants which had legs tapered down to her slim ankles. Her pastel blue shirt was hip length, buttoned down the front and tailored to fit her waist and shapely hip, and outlined her small Vietnamese breasts without emphasizing them. Her clothes appeared to be newer, and washed less than the other girl’s clothes. Her cone shaped non la hat was of a slightly different style and newer than what the other girls were wearing. It had several pink and light blue silk flowers that matched her shirt on it. A piece of pastel blue floral silk ribbon was under her small chin to hold the non la on.
Several feet behind her he spun the steering wheel enough to move the grader a couple feet out closer to the middle of the road while his left hand pulled a lever sliding the blade away from her several inches. Doing so left the windrow that he had been picking up still on the shoulder of the road.
The grader blade was alongside her but about three feet away when she turned towards the big noisy machine next to her. First she looked down at the shiny steel blade passing her. With no change in the calm, soft look of her dark brown eyes, she slowly raised her head and met Dan’s eyes. For several seconds there was no change in her eyes until a small soft smile started to betray itself on her delicate pink lips. For just a flash of time, her eyes also seemed to smile and sparkle before she quickly looked away.
Dan also broke into a involuntary smile, and saw as she turned away the flash of white teeth and the soft upward curve of her mouth when her smile deepened. He could see a blush of embarrassment spread up the exposed, faintly tinted skin on the back of her neck becoming lost under the bob of shiny, healthy looking black hair gathered under her non la.
The other girls had crossed the road so he swung the grader back to pick up the windrow of laterite on the shoulder before turning back to look at the woman.
She had started across the road but stopped walking when Dan turned to look down into her pretty face from his vantage point on the grader. Her small soft smile crept back onto her mouth and in her eyes as she hurriedly looked down and away. At the same time her right hand raised slightly above the basket she was using both hands to hold and waved with a discrete small wiggling of her finger tips.
Is that a wave or my imagination?
He turned away from her for several seconds to make an adjustment of the grader’s blade before he raised his right hand above his shoulder and waved casually with small motions of his fingers.
Never saw her before today. Very nice to look at.
Was she’s flirting with me?
Not dressed like the others. Better. More like a city girl, not from one of these local villages.
Dan started to think about lunch. Checking the time and trying to figure how long it would take him to reach the bridge job. There he could relax and eat lunch amongst the bridge crew of Seabees and not have to be alert and on guard. If he stopped along the road to eat he couldn’t relax even for a minute.
Since there was quite a bit of Marine and other military traffic along the road today, he had opted not to take along a ‘shotgun’ rider to watch his back as he worked.
Maybe a bad decision not to take Thomas up on his offer of sending a ‘shotgun’ along.
The well-drilling convoy for the ROK camp in Binh Son had passed him 5 or 10 minutes ago. He hadn’t realized how many vehicles were involved until he pulled onto the shoulder of Highway 1 to let them pass. First, leading the way was a jeep with the battalion’s Marine Corp advisor Gunnery Sergeant Joe Simpson. Riding with him in the jeep’s front seat was a first class builder who Dave didn’t know. In the back seat, were two seamen from the battalion’s security forces armed with M14’s. Next was a tractor and low boy trailer which had some water tanks and other smaller equipment for the well drillers. It had a member of the drilling crew riding ‘shotgun’ with an M14. Third in line was the battalion’s wrecker. A second class driver was in the driver’s seat and riding ‘shotgun’ was a first class mechanic. Bringing up the rear of the convoy was the huge well-drilling rig itself with the first class equipment operator who was in charge of the drilling crew driving. One of his crew was in the ‘shotgun’ seat with two more riding on the back of the rig. All armed with M14s which Dave assumed were locked and loaded. All the Seabees looked big and bulky in their flak vests with steel piss pots on their heads.
FIVE
He felt the thump in the pit of his stomach before seeing a mixed black and red cloud swirling into the sky and hearing the explosion a couple miles further south down Highway 1 a few seconds later.
Oh shit! That wasn’t a mortar round.
I don’t see any of our aircraft around. Had to have been a mine.
Dan looked all around checking to see if there were any Vietnamese farmers in sight. A quarter of a mile or so behind him was a small village where the farmers who grew rice in the paddies on his left, the east side of the highway, lived and processed their crop. There was no one in sight. He knew that wasn’t unusual. There were more rice paddies out of sight of the road, behind the village further east, but it could also be a sign of VC in the area.. He felt the need to be on the safe side and reached behind him to pull his M14 toward the front of the grader’s seat. Without stopping the grader he lifted the rifle. Made sure the safety was on, then pulled the bolt back, released it and let a cartridge enter the rifle’s chamber.
Guess I’d better just keep working towards the bridge even if it means a late lunch.
After laying his rifle back on the seat his right hand pushed against the throttle handle but it was already opened all the way. He then put on his flak jacket taking both hands off of the grader controls to hook up the jacket’s zipper.
Each hand grabbed a blade control lever and made a couple of minor adjustments of the grader blade. He was grading by feel and instinct with his eyes constantly searching the area around him.
The violent red and black cloud had continued to climb for several seconds before changing to a tall black column of smoke. Dan kept glancing up towards where the cloud’s origin appeared to be. As he moved down Highway 1 the column slowly dispersed and drifted out of sight behind the low hills and tall trees he could see off in the distance..
On the south end of the half mile long straight away passing through another series of rice paddies he watched what appeared to be a weapons carrier approaching him. The weps was moving fast and in just seconds became recognizable as the Seabee green, road crew’s weps carrier. The vehicle slowed down as it drew closer to the grader and the driver, a third class builder from the bridge crew flagged Dan down.
Pulling off the throttle and bringing the grader to a halt next to the weps Dave saw how excited the builder was and several thoughts flashed across his mind. The VC blew the new, unfinished bridge!
NO! They’d wait until it was finished.
Charlie blew up the Chief’s jeep!
Oh shit! His original presumption came back. Charlie got the drilling crew!
The excited Seabee was talking at hyper-speed and Dan could only catch a word or partial word now and again.
“Slow down! Start over. What’s going on?”
“They blew up the wrecker! Chief Thomas wants you to get the grader there as fast as you can to fix the road and make sure the three dump trucks from the bridge job get to the laterite pit to haul fill for the crater.”
He stopped to catch his breath before going on. “The Chief said you would know where to get the laterite and where the loader would be.”
“I do. I need you to keep going towards Chu Lai about a mile and a half behind me and watch on the left for a short road going towards a Vietnamese rock quarry. Also look for 6X6 tire tracks coming onto the road. The loader will be in there a hundred yards or so off the highway. The dump truck drivers know where it is and will go there. Make sure the loader stays there and loads the dumps until a dump driver, the Chief or I, tell him what else to do.
And do me a favor after you get to the loader and are waiting for the trucks.”
“Sure, what is it, Dave.”
“Take that damn mortar round off the hood and get rid of it before it falls off and someone hits it with a tire.
Besides, it marks the weps as belonging to the road crew.” He added as an after thought.
A blue, spent 81MM illumination mortar round had been wired to the weapon carrier‘s hood a couple of days ago. One morning while waiting for the Marine mine sweeper to go through on Highway 1, a couple of Seabees had found the separated pieces of several mortar illumination rounds which had been fired the night before and thought it would be cool to wire it to their weps.
“Do you know where the dump trucks are?”
“Yeah, they should be along any minute they were getting turned around when I left the bridge and Chief Thomas was in his jeep going back to where they blew up the wrecker.”
Dan pointed towards the road. “I see ‘em. They’re just coming over the hill.
They didn’t get the well drilling rig?”
“No. We couldn’t see all of the convoy from the bridge. Just the well-drilling rig and it was okay. I think just the wrecker.”
Thanks and drive careful. Hurry, but not any faster than is safe. Okay?”
The young Seabee put the weps in gear and with a wave started down the road.
He felt and heard from somewhere behind him oncoming thumps of a Huey. Dan knew it wasn’t directly behind him, but somewhere off to his left over the rice paddies and moving fast. Twisting his upper body he watched the drab green Marine Corp Huey come into view and as it drew beside him he could see the bright red crosses on its nose and fuselage.
Medevac. Looks like it’s headed for the bridge.
Damn! Somebody was hurt by that mine.
He watched as the medevac slowed over the low hill where he had seen the cloud rising from the explosion. Then the chopper slowly settled down out of sight into a purple smoke grenade cloud.
I’d better hayaku out of here!
With that thought he reached for the gear shift pulling the lever down placing the grader in high gear, slipped the clutch out and push the throttle up the full distance of its travel and the engine responded with a belch of black smoke and burst of power. Speed being relative the grader was topping out at about 25 miles per hour but seemed to be flying low in a few seconds.
With quick deft motions of his hands and arms, he finished tucking the blade up tightly into the undercarriage of the machine. He made a finer adjustment of the front wheels so the grader would travel down the road in a straight line before sitting down on the wide seat and laying his M14 across his knees.
Movement at the low hill ahead of him caught his eye and he watched the medevac hurriedly lift high enough to clear the hill. The pilot then made a pedal turn to point the Huey’s nose towards Chu Lai before picking up forward speed. It seemed just seconds and the Huey passed him. The doors were open and Dan could see two litters on the cabin deck.
The grader slowed momentarily as the three dumps trucks passed with quick waves from the drivers and were soon around the next bend and out of sight.
Rather than going to the actual bridge construction site, Dan guided the grader to the left and onto the by-pass that had been built across the creek with two temporary huge culvert pipes and lots of fill dirt. A quick appraisal of the construction site told him that the chief was in fact gone and he was correct in his decision to go directly to the scene of the explosion.
This blast was unlike the first. Smaller, less intense and little more of a thump that he hardly heard and felt over the grader’s bellowing engine. He did see a cloud of blue black smoke and black mud flying from a rice paddy dike and two men in green were thrown back away from the blast.
A figure he hadn’t seen earlier jumped up from where he was lying on top of the paddy dike. As he drew closer he recognized Chief Thomas and realized the chief was pulling his .45 from its holster as he got to his feet and was jacking a round into the pistol’s chamber.
Dan stopped the grader behind the well-drilling rig which was parked on the right shoulder of the highway. He grabbed his M14 and cartridge belt before dropping to the ground from his grader and trotting towards the chief. Several other Seabees and a corpsman were running to the two fallen men.
“What happened, Tom?”
“Booby trap! Watch for an ARVN carrying an American carbine! He was heading that way when I saw him last.” He pointed towards a cluster of three thatched roofed Vietnamese hooches about 50 yards away and started towards them.
Dan followed closely behind with his M14 at the ready.
The chief continued as he hurriedly moved towards the hooches, “He was showing us the wire used to detonate the mine and where it was fired from. When we came onto the dike I realized he was holding the wire in his hand and was dropping back. I hollered and hit the ground just when he jerked on the comm wire. It had a grenade on the other end.
Obviously.” He added.
“The Gunny and Shaw didn’t have time to react. They were right on top of the grenade when it went off.”
A column of brownish painted Korean trucks pulled up before Dan and the chief reached the hooches. In seconds the Korean soldiers set up a perimeter around their trucks and the Seabee convoy. The officer-in-charge of the new arrivals looked around before hurrying towards Chief Thomas and Petty Officer Davis.
“Are you in charge Chief?“ The officer asked in perfect English. ”What happened and what can I do to help you?”
Thomas hurriedly filled in the Korean officer before he was interrupted by a shout from the corpsman who was attending the wounded. “We need another medevac Chief. I can’t do any more for these guys.”
“You got it,” Thomas answered as he broke into a run for his jeep and its waiting radio.
Without waiting for more details the Korean officer shouted to a Korean non-com who seemed to be in charge of the perimeter of soldiers. Within seconds the majority of the Korean soldiers formed a skirmish line and started to infiltrate the cluster of hooches and surrounding paddies. Several soldiers remained on the road to guard their vehicles and the Seabee convoy.
Dan watched as three or four Korean soldiers approached each hooch. One Korean kicked the door open. The two Koreans behind the kicker then quickly entered with their M16’s at the ready.
A burst of automatic AK 47 fire from behind the hooches shattered the quiet that had descended upon the scene. The AK 47 fire was quickly followed by shouts in Korean and several bursts of M16 automatic fire.
Dan dropped down into a kneeling firing position behind a banana tree which was more bush than tree. He felt rather than saw Chief Thomas drop next to him.
“See anything, Dan?
Damn! Look over there at the hooches.” The chief exclaimed.
He turned in time to see one of the Korean soldiers lift his Zippo lighter to the thatching of the second hooch’s roof. The dry under layer of thatch immediately caught in a burst of yellow flame and blue/gray smoke. He looked towards the hooch nearest to the road realizing that its roof had been torched from the opposite side. Flame and smoke was billowing over the roof’s peak and starting to roll out the door.
An elderly Vietnamese man and woman ran out of the second hooch their arms full of blankets and the woman had a large metal pot on her head instead of a non la. Seconds after they escaped through the door the interior of their hooch became engulfed in an inferno of yellow flames and black smoke. Turning back towards her home the woman screamed and cried as she threw herself to the ground a few feet from the flames which were reaching out for her. The man dropped his precious load of household items and blankets to drag his screaming diminutive wife to safety.
Two young Seabees with M14s slung over their shoulders ducked low, sprinted under the inferno that was swooping down on them. Scooping up the Vietnamese couple’s most valuable possessions the young Bees took the older couples life’s possessions out of reach of the furiously burning fire.
There was just the popping and crackling of the hooches burning and every few seconds a swooshing of heat and flames as a gust of wind passed through the burning hooches. The gunfire had ceased.
In four or five minutes passed before from behind the third burning hooch several Korean soldiers appeared dragging two black pajama clad bodies. One Korean followed the bodies carrying two AK 47’s, the favorite VC weapon, while another Korean carried what appeared to be two locally manufactured claymore mines. They were about as big around as a really large pizza and covered with black tar and felt roofing paper and each had a short piece of comm wire hanging from it.
The Korean officer walked around from the most distance of the flaming hooches and approached Chief Thomas.
In the distance the ‘thump-thump’ of an approaching Huey’s rotor blades became louder as the inbound second Marine medevac circled the area before settling down next to a green smoke grenade a Seabee had dropped on a cleared section of the highway.
“My men found these two hiding in the brush on the edge of the rice paddy. But they were unable to find the ARVN soldier who exploded the grenade.
I am sorry and hope all your wounded will recover. Seabees are very brave men. We see them out here repairing the road so that we can get supplies from the LSTs at the Chu Lai docks.”
The Korean officer was interrupted by the medevac winding up its jet engine to lift off the road and at tree top level turn sharply towards Chu Lai with one wounded Seabee and one wounded Marine.
“We’ll fix the road so you can be on your way as quick as we can. But it will be a while to get enough fill to build a temporary fix.” Chief Thomas told the Officer.
“That will be fine. We’ll stay with you until it is safe to resume your trip. I will have one truck lead you to our camp and a second to watch your back until you reach Binh Son.”
Finished with what he had to say, the Korean spun on his heel and signaled his troops to renew their positions around the two convoys. The two VC bodies were casually thrown onto the bed of the last truck in the convoy and the two Korean soldiers who had dragged the bodies from the paddy climbed onto the truck clamoring over the blood soaked corpses as if they were two sacks of rice.
Dan smelled burning wood and became aware of the light blue smoke drifting across the road from the remains of the burning Vietnamese hooches. Spastically a pop or hiss would come from the red hot ashes and a flame would flare up when the fires found fresh fuel to consume.
“There’s the first load of fill Tom. Want me to get him dumped then start fixing the road before the other two trucks get here?
I think I can make two passes with the first couple loads of laterite and get the Koreans and well drillers on their way to Binh Son.”
“Sounds good to me. After the two convoys get going you can take your time and as many loads of laterite as you need to fill the mine crater.
How many loads are they going to bring out?”
I told the builder that you sent in, to have them keep coming until we send the word back for them to stop.”
“Good deal. Unless you can see some reason to bring the loader out here, turn him loose with the dumps when you have enough fill. Chief Barrett needs some fill hauled for the road into the milk plant. So if they have time left before quitting time they can start hauling for him. I think Burgess has his grader there today.”
“Gotcha. I can’t think of any reason to bring the loader out here either, I can side cast the laterite into the crater until I fill it up enough to run loaded dumps on it for compaction after I build a nice little ramp in and out of the crater for the dumps.”
“Alpha Company has asked the Marines to send out a tank retriever to help us get the wrecker back into Chu Lai. He can also help us drag the wrecker engine and winch out of the rice paddy. As you can see there isn’t much left of the front end. No wheels, no axle. Engine and winch are out there in the rice paddy.”
“Couldn’t cut off the front end any better with a cutting torch, Chief. Where are all the pieces?”
“Look almost straight out about a hundred yards you can see the winch sticking out of the mud and water. Next to the paddy dike on the left is a pile of black dirt. That’s where the engine hit before bouncing over the dike and into the other paddy.”
“Shit. The engine went about 75 yards didn’t it? Where are the wheels and axle, Chief?”
“We haven’t really looked for them yet and I think that we have two very lucky Seabees that are still with us.”
“Yeah. Hurting, but still amongst the living. The wrecker driver had his left foot on top of the sandbag between the brake and clutch. Everything ripped apart and tore up so much that we had to cut the pedals off his foot with a torch the well drilling crew had. The shotgun had some bad lacerations and probably lost at least one ear drum.” Chief Thomas added before turning and heading for his jeep
With a quick smile and wave he told Dan as he slid under the jeep’s steering wheel. “Don’t find any mines today. Okay Dan? We still have to find the rest of the front end from this one. I’m sure it’s in small pieces scattered all over these paddies.”
SIX
The Vietnamese sun was warm with a light breeze blowing across Highway 1 and the mud had dried up considerably. Dan Davis was about a quarter of a mile south of the Highway 1 gate of the Chu Lai military cantonment. He felt that he was finally starting to make some progress in getting the road dry enough to start grading some fill to widen the road bed and repair the torn up shoulders. In a couple weeks the rock crusher would start producing enough crushed rock so they could put a finish onto a newly repaired highway.
Damn, the Vietnamese rock haulers are tearing up the laterite pit road again. Dan thought as he looked down the road leading to a Vietnamese rock quarry and the Seabee laterite pit. For several days the Seabees had been hauling 25 or so loads of laterite from the pit every day loading the military dump trucks with a front end loader. They were sharing the road with the Vietnamese rock quarry and its truck drivers and the operators of the quarry didn’t do much, if any maintenance on the haul road, maybe in hopes that the Seabees would do it.
I just as soon make a pass or two over it now since I’m here. Not that the Vietnamese will care or say thank you. Our trucks will make better time on it though and it will make the driver’s ride a little more bearable.
He swung the grader into the haul road and started grading the extreme right side of the road in hopes that he wouldn’t have to make more than three or four passes over the quarter of a mile of road going to the laterite pit.
Lots nicer to work the laterite now that the rain has stopped. Stays just moist enough to get good compaction.
Weird. There’s not a rock on the road bed. I guess the Vietnamese load their trucks so they don’t lose any.
Dan was looking all around as he worked closer to the turn off to the Vietnamese quarry coming up on his left. There were two medium sized Vietnamese trucks with flatbeds and about 18” wooden sideboards being loaded by hand. A group of women were carrying large, heavy duty baskets which they could barely lift above their heads and were dumping the full baskets into the head high beds of the trucks. One man, who he figured was the driver, was on the bed of each truck and as each basket was dumped he would spread out the pile of golf ball sized rocks.
The rest of the workers, male, female,and children were scattered about the site all busily doing their jobs. All the women and most of the children worn black pajama bottoms while most of the men wore black cutoff shorts which exposed their skinny, but muscular leg muscles. Contrary to the work especially dangerous to feet and legs everyone on the quarry site was wearing some sort of sandal like what we call zories or Ho Chi Minh sandals which were hand made from old tires. All of the women had on a non la and many wore an additional scarf of various colors to protect their face from the sun and long sleeve shirts to cover their arms. Dark or sun tanned skin was not a desirable thing to any Vietnamese woman.
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(Pages 1-48 show above.)