FicWad

Origins of a Hero
Chapter Seven
"Incoming!"
-xxx-

Pleiku Special Forces Fighting Camp

August, 1970

Well, folks, our field training at the camp was uneventful for about a month. Doggie and I hung around Pleiku, picking up some of the local customs and a generous helping of the Vietnamese vernacular, which helped us communicate better with the fighters in the units we shared space with.

We worked in the trenches with the guys, building hooches, treating injuries, and running laps around the helicopter pad. Because of new orders from higher commands, the 2nd MIKE Force's Roadrunner teams didn't mount too many patrols, leaving much of the seek-and-destroy work to the ARVN Airborne Ranger outfit that lived with us.

It was strange that for much of the month, other than engagements with our seek-and-destroy patrols in the field, the Viet Cong were leaving our camp alone. The Seventeenth Cavalry's base got hit several times by harassing mortar attacks, but every time we saddled up to kick some VC butt and relieve the horse soldiers, they were already gone.

Roadrunner Nine took on four new guys, which was all the 2nd MIKE could spare. That brought us up to eleven men in our little outfit. We hadn't met the newbies on the team, since Candy and Sparks were busy training them, and they had been kept separated from Doggie and me while we learned about the team radios, mortar targeting and field medicine from the numerous support people and senior sergeants.

Occasionally, we would come across Duc, Hong, or Tranh on work details, but never had much time to spend with them. Everyone was busy. The 2nd MIKE Force in general, was bleeding like a sieve. Casualties were starting to mount because the larger formations were being ordered onto the offensive. American units were being stretched too thinly to cover their sectors, and the MIKE battalions had to start filling in the gaps, serving as air-transportable "fire brigade" outfits.

There was talk about disbanding the Roadrunner teams, in order to form conventional rifle companies out of the local fighters and their advisors, since the escalation of violence was considered to be beyond the need for reconnaissance. The Intel boys had our little headquarters worried about attacks on our fighting camp. So, we began to pull round the clock watches in the battle trenches.

Doggie's troubles with the local drug trade got progressively worse as the month dragged on. He believed all of the bullshit the 2nd MIKE's resident troublemakers were dishing out, in spades. He must have really taken a hit in his confidence during our first Roadrunner patrol, and he never fully recovered from it. As much as he spent time with me on work details and training time with Candy and Sparks, or having chow down in the platoon hooch that we were billeted in, Doggie started taking a lot more time of his own. And he was very secretive about it.

Not that I fault the guy for wanting to spend time sorting this mess of a war out for himself, but I was pretty damn sure that he was seeking his escape in hashish or marijuana. I chose to give Newman and Goodland a wide berth, while keeping a watchful eye out for shenanigans they might try to pull. Sparks also pointed out a few of the other bad seeds that word might spread to. Of course, I couldn't memorize all their faces. I just hoped that I wouldn't have to take action. I hoped that Doggie would figure things out for himself and kick his exploration into drugs before it became an addiction.

Honestly, I think Doggie wasn't cut out for real, gritty, "kill-'em-all-and-let-God-sort-'em-out" combat. It's a shitty thing to say about a fellow grunt in the field, but for his sake, I ended up keeping my eyes open for both of us.

-xxx-

The sunlight was waning early as it dipped below the hilltops and ridges to the west of Pleiku. Duke was still on the camp perimeter, keeping watch over a squad of CIDG recruits and a combat engineer who was directing them as they dug out trenches that had caved in from the last VC attack. He was trying his hardest to stay alert, but the work shifts building up the camp defenses and the guard duty was taking its toll in fatigue.

To some degree, Duke had begun to wish for a new Roadrunner assignment. At least the team was sure to get a fair amount of rest and a limited amount of exertion in the field. The danger wasn't much of a concern for him, even though the idea of being discovered deep in enemy territory did make him think about being careful and alert at all times.

Much of the camp had quieted down already, as the Vietnamese indigs that lived within the perimeter settled down for their evening meals, with many of the CIDG fighters. Master Sergeant Draper and his ARVN counterpart were setting out the early evening watch's sentries, and the machinegun bunkers sprinkled around the fighting camp were being manned. An alert squad of Special Forces sergeants laid themselves out in the 81mm mortar pits, grousing about having drawn the duty of keeping the camp's best support weapons ready to go.

Duke scanned the closest sector of the hewn-back tree line with his binoculars and gnawed at a piece of freeze-dried beef from his ration pack, wishing that his guard duty would be ended by the engineer NCO deciding that his laborers were done for the day. The patrols were in, the Roadrunners were out, and the pair of big bulldozers that were used to keep the jungle a safe distance away were parked inside the camp. A little sleep would've hit the spot...

-xxx-


Let me tell you this, dear friends. I don't care if you've heard the same thing a thousand times, from a thousand people who never have set foot in a combat zone. I am here in living color to prove that two key principles run rampant during wartime, out in the field.

One is that Murphy - you know, the Murphy's Law guy - had to have been a grunt. I say this because the worst possible things happened to grunts when they least expected them. That's why I have always lived my life alert and on the sharp edge. Some of the head shrinkers, Psyche-Out included, think that I am wound up too tightly. But I say that I'd rather be alert and alive than slacked off and dead. I'm not gonna knock my policy now - it kept me alive for all these years.

The other given is that war for the grunts is long periods of boredom and menial activities, punctuated by short bursts of sheer terror. I was about to have one of those "coming to Jesus" moments. Obviously the first times you experience a new face of death, those are the ones you never, ever forget. You won't have time to remember the one that ends up getting you - because you'd be a corpse if you ever let it happen.

-xxx-

The sun finally dipped below the horizon and darkness began to creep across Pleiku. The clanging of the picks and shovels belonging to the CIDG squad continued to work under the urging of the American combat engineer in charge. Some of the indigs had broken into song, spurring themselves on to complete the progress they were tasked with faster.

Duke took a moment to sit down on the sloping ground to give his legs a rest, munching away at the remains of his ration pack. In the corner of his eye, inside the tree line, the buck sergeant caught a flash, and a streak of white smoke rising into the air.

When the starburst flare popped its red chemical propellant and burned in the air, Duke knew what was going on. Someone had approached the perimeter from someplace other than the safe lanes known to all the patrols. It had to be the Viet Cong.

"Cảnh giác ðề phòng," Hauser yelled in Vietnamese. Be alert!

"VC tấn công các vị trí ðịch!" The Viet Cong are attacking our positions!

The CIDG fighters heard Duke's warning and scrambled into their half-excavated trench, trying to quickly exchange their picks and shovels for the motley collection of WWII-vintage rifles stacked in the floor of the finished section. The engineer, who had been casually walking atop the ridge formed by the front of the trench, dove inside, shouting frantically for someone to find his helmet.

Duke looked around for cover of his own. Although he figured lookouts in the camp center would spot the red flare, someone had to guide the reinforcements as they swarmed out to meet the VC push. The mortars needed an observer to call down fire.

Unfortunately, Duke didn't have a radio handy. The camp only had a limited number of PRC-77 patrol radios, and with many of them in states of disrepair, they had to be issued by priority to the patrols and Roadrunners who needed them the most. However, Duke knew that one of the machinegun bunkers was close by. They all had sound-powered telephones that were wired up to the commo hooch. He could report from there.

Keeping his attention on the tree line for movement or enemy fire, Duke scrambled along the uneven ground to the machinegun bunker, a low structure lined with triple layers of sandbags for protection. He kept low, in case tripping the flare was done on purpose, and VC snipers were looking to pick off any sentries they saw before the main enemy attack.

His heart thumping hard in his chest, Hauser slid into the trench that allowed access to the machinegun bunker. It was darker inside, and hard to see without his flashlight, but he was able to feel his way to the telephone box. Raising the handset to his ear, Duke unslung his M-177 carbine and cranked a small handle that energized the set.

"Bunker sixteen to commo hooch," Duke said into the phone. "I have a trip flare in my sector. Have not observed VC movement out of the tree line. Sound the camp alert!" Hauser got to his feet, holding the handset in one hand and the barrel of his carbine with the other. Raising his eyes over the sandbags, he looked at the tree line once more.

In the commo hooch, Master Sergeant Draper heard Duke's report and scrambled into the camp commander's office.

"Sir!" Draper said excitedly. "We have a trip flare near bunker sixteen. Sergeant Hauser reports no further movements. Should I mount a patrol?"

"Are we expecting anyone back through the perimeter tonight?"

"Negative, sir. All of our Roadrunner missions are still active, and the ARVN ambush patrols won't be rolling back 'till dawn. No one radioed for assistance from the field."

"Alert the defense company and get the trenches and bunkers manned, Draper," the captain said. "Make sure your mortar men are ready to dish out some steel."

"You got it, sir," Draper replied, turning on his heel and reaching for the red button that set off the camp's air-powered alert siren.

-xxx-


In combat, timing is everything. If you're off by even mere seconds, you could lose the critical advantage you need to win a battle. When I heard the siren echoing across the camp, I knew that the enemy knew we had our BVD's down around our ankles.

Before the security teams and the defense company could go from their hooches to the bunkers, that was when I saw it.

Human waves. A line of Viet Cong in their black pajamas rolling out of the tree line like wraiths. They didn't stage their attacks with tanks on the rolling hills and open roadways. They came at us like Medieval foot soldiers, hoping to win victory by sheer numbers.

The skirmishers came first, led by shouting NVA officers in their dark green uniforms and tan pith helmets. They came in small bunches, to occupy what cover they could, and pepper our trenches and perimeter sentries with sub-machinegun fire. They would be followed by the breaching parties, which carried hand-hewn bamboo ladders in teams of four, unarmed men.

The ladders were for throwing on top of the coils of razor and concertina wire that we strung along our outermost perimeter. Sometimes, they used the ladders to bridge gaps we dug in the ground and lined the pits with sharpened punji stakes. The stakes were a trick we learned from them, just like they figured out how to use our own unexploded ordnance against us.

Once lanes were carved out in our defenses, the main body would burst out of the tree line like a Mongol horde, screaming and firing in all directions. Sappers with explosives would try to hurl them into our trenches, to carve out entire squads at a time. Squads of nine riflemen apiece would hammer at our defenses, cutting down everything that poked up just a little flesh to blow off.

And there were always the snipers. The best VC marksmen would climb up in the trees, and even with antique bolt-action rifles, they would plink at our officers and senior non-coms as they tried to rally the defense. Despite the images of careless throwing away of lives in direct assaults, the VC always had a plan. And for them, it worked quite often.

The veteran weapons instructors had gone through gory descriptions of the VC camp assault tactics, and to this day, some of the things I saw repelling those en masse/ waves of charging men (and even women sometimes) are no less horrible. /

-xxx-

Kalashnikov rounds buzzed by the bunker like hot, angry hornets with a deadly sting as Hauser crouched behind the sandbagged front wall of the entrenchment. The skirmishers had to be halfway across the open ground, in Duke's estimation, from the proximity of the shouts and occasional painful screams as charging Viet Cong fell into the randomly positioned mantraps outside the wire.

He dared for a moment to raise his head and look at the enemy onslaught for the first time. The image reminded him of one of his favorite John Wayne films. Just like whooping and hollering Indians coming across the plains, the VC stormed out of the jungle.

Hauser unsafed his M-177 and began firing. He took single shots at the skirmishers, dropping three into the loose dirt and gravel. But for the three he hit, scores more were following right behind. He heard the reports of .30 caliber rifle fire from the trench system behind his bunker, as the CIDG fighters began to gather their wits and started to repel the assault.

Shouts of other Special Forces soldiers, in both English and Vietnamese, carried over the sounds of the warning flares going off in the tree line and the firing of the enemy assault teams. All of a sudden, Hauser heard the sounds of shifting gravel and heavy footfalls right behind him.

Swinging around to bring his carbine to bear, the sergeant kept his trigger finger in check when he saw three American troopers diving into the bunker. The men were Bunker Sixteen's assigned machinegun team, one of whom had the heavy barreled M-60, the second reaching for the sound-powered phone, and the third dumping out boxes of ammo belts for the 'sixty.

"What the hell?" the M-60 "pig" gunner yelped, skidding onto his knees to set the machinegun up in the bunker's firing port. "This is our fuckin' bunker! You can't get under foot!"

"I called in the alarm, slick!" Duke retorted, nudging the machine gunner to one side of the firing port and finishing off his first magazine of his own ammo at nearly full automatic.

"There ain't no room for you in here, rookie!" the ammo porter, a black man tall enough to be a basketball player, shouted while he loaded his own M-16 rifle. "Get your narrow ass out in the trench! Ain't room for more than three guys workin' in here!"

The third man on the MG team was rummaging around on the floor of the bunker, with the sound powered phone against one side of his face. "How close are they?" he asked his teammates with a nervous voice. "Are they in the wire yet?"

The pig gunner opened up with a volley from his M-60, sending a mix of ball ammo and tracers skipping across the VC assault lanes. His fire began to cut down the skirmishers, while the riflemen filling up the defensive earthworks accurately picked off some of the breachers with their ladders before they could throw them onto the razor wire.

"They're still fightin' their way to the wire," the gunner shouted in between long bursts from his M-60. "Make sure you can find the damn clackers we wired up out there yesterday morning!"

"I think I have 'em," the man on the phone said, before turning to send a spot report to the commo hooch.

Hauser heard the eerie whistle of mortar shells arcing over the bunker, just when the black ammo porter shoved him toward the exit. "I told ya to get the hell out, rookie! We can't be trippin' over you in here! Get out there and fight!"

The VC only had light 60mm mortars, with limited range. The fire they delivered began to chew up the open ground just ahead of their advancing fighters, while reports from all along the perimeter guided the camp's 81mm heavy mortar platoon in its process of laying down accurate support for the defenders.

High explosive and canister rounds burst along the perimeter wire, blasting entire assault squads of VC into fiery cascades of dirt and scorched body parts. Hauser scrambled out of the bunker and into the trench network, keeping his head down and oddly wondering for a moment where Doggie, Candy and Sparks had ended up in all of the chaos.

VC mortar rounds broke Duke's reverie about his friends, bursting against the hillsides that protected the trenches. Soft mud and black soil spilled into the trench and all over Sgt. Hauser while he tried to return fire with his M-177. Unable to bring his head too far over the top of the trench, he desperately held down the trigger of his carbine, guiding the barrel in a side-to-side spraying motion by holding its metal stock, until the second magazine of ammo was expended.

Hauser didn't know if any of the rounds had hit their marks, and more showers of mud and dirt crashing onto his head and shoulders made him duck to the trench floor. In the orange light of the exploding mortar shells, he saw that his rifle bolt was cocked open once more. It was time to reload.

Fishing through the baggy pockets of the ammo pouches hanging from his web gear, Duke kept track of how many clips of rifle ammunition he had already used. With two gone, all of sixty rounds, he only had seven left. Two hundred and ten bullets didn't seem like they would last very long if he was unable to find some friends with whom he could take up position.

-xxx-


Your worst enemy in a firefight is being alone. Second worst is running out of ammo. I say this because when you run out of ammo, you could strip the dead, steal from the enemy even, or borrow from a pal to share what was left of the wealth. Even without ammo, your rifle, entrenching tool and combat knife make great close-quarters equalizers.

But when you're alone, the psychological impact is horrible. You feel like you could get surrounded at any moment. No friend is there to lean on if you get hit. No one would know if you bought it right then and there.

One might think, "Hey wait a second, Top. You were in a fighting camp, with a couple hundred buddies around. You just got tossed out of a bunker by its machinegun team. How the hell can you expect to feel alone with all that?"

My answer is, "It's totally possible, slick." That's right. In the dark, with bullets flying, mortar rounds cooking off, and every manner of audible input coming from every direction, you don't know which way is up, unless someone is close enough to reach out and touch. And you have to know he's friendly.

Most of the camp companies were still in trenches behind me. I was facing down the VC almost on my own. At least, that's how I perceived my situation. And it's not the kind of story you tell your grandkids about. That kind of alone is bad news, friends.

-xxx-

Hauser skidded to a stop after reloading, ready to fire again. As he swung the barrel of his carbine into a small break in the trench, he could still pick out the streams of tracer fire from bunker sixteen.

Duke opened up, the familiar punch-punch-punch of his carbine sounding sweet in his ears. He pinpointed a sapper team and took down their ladder bearers, making the ones with satchel charges hit the ground to fire back.

A hellish white-orange glow began to fill the sky as the mortar crewmen launched star shells into the air to light up the battlefield. One by one, the six tubes started to lay steel between the outer perimeter wire and the tree line, further chewing up the Viet Cong assault formations.

As some of the Viet Cong fighters were cut down, others filled their places, or propped them up to keep charging. Under the glow of the parachute flares, a team of VC sappers had crept in close enough to bunker sixteen to lob three hand grenades at the fortified position.

With an earth-shaking concussion, the inside of the bunker was smashed by at least one of the grenades, and black smoke started pouring out of the trench exit and gun slits. Moans from the dying soldiers inside carried through the trenches, as Duke saw the VC skirmishers advancing inexorably closer to the wire.

"Medic!" Duke screamed, hoping that someone in the trench network had heard. A handful of silhouettes moved forward into the perimeter line where he was standing his ground, but his voice didn't carry over the explosions and weapons fire.

Without the bunker to guide the mortar battery's suppression fire, the VC assault teams were able to renew their advance, while their support troops used grazing fire to hold the trench defenders in their places. Duke knew that he was closest and had to try to get communications with the main camp back in order.

Bending over into a crouch, he sprinted back to the bunker entrance and choked back the urge to throw up from the acrid smoke and strong chemical smells inside. Wrapping his sweat towel around his face, Duke crawled inside, groping his way around the dark structure.

His first discovery was soft and pliable, but he found he could lift it. When it was close enough to inspect, he dropped the object and withdrew his hand. It was the leg of one of the machinegun crew, severed from the grenade blast, and coated in scorching and drying blood.

Reaching around the bunker, he found the corpses of the gun team. They were all dead by the time he tried to feel for a pulse on them. Then his fingers clasped around the sound-powered telephone. He brought it up to his ear and tried the transmit button.

"Bunker sixteen to mortar pits," Hauser said. "Bunker sixteen to anyone. There are zips approaching the wire!"

"Who is this?" replied a hollow voice. "Where the hell is Murphy?"

"The gun team is dead," Duke said. "I'm Hauser."

"Get on the sixty, Hauser, and if you can find the Claymore detonators, fire those fuckers off double-quick! That'll keep them back!"

Yanking the phone cord out as far as he could, Duke climbed over the dead M-60 gunner and tucked the stock of the machinegun into his armpit. He checked the feed, keeping his head down as a few AK-47 rounds ricocheted into the firing slit. When he was satisfied the weapon would fire, he straightened up, aimed at the approaching wave of Cong, and opened up.

The M-60 chattered in Duke's grip, spitting out volleys of fiery rounds downrange. Hauser shifted to steer the fire of the machinegun into the charging sappers and skirmishers.

"Hauser!" the voice on the phone yelled. "Bunker sixteen! Hauser!"

"I'm here," Duke said over the metallic chatter of the M-60.

"Where are they? Give me a reference point to fire the mortars at!"

"They're spread out, about five meters from the wire!" Hauser yelled, shooting at a cluster of sappers that were trying to breach the outer wire. "All the way back to the tree line!"

"We can't fire that close to the trenches! Use the Claymores, dammit! Use them or we're gonna lose the perimeter!"

Duke stopped firing the M-60 and dove to the floor of the bunker, scrambling around over the dead corpses and trying to feel under them for the detonators. Near one of the corners, he finally found them, four small handgrips with triggers.

There was no time to check the wires and connections. Hauser yanked the safeties on the detonators and squeezed the triggers one after the next until he heard the first of the series-wired Claymores go off.

Duke picked up the phone and returned to the gun slit, preparing the M-60 to fire again. He watched the Claymore mines hurl thousands of tiny ball bearings into the attacking VC fighters, tearing their lines to shreds.

"Claymores detonated! Fire for effect!"

After the mines decimated the assault teams, the 81mm mortars began crashing into the tree line, blasting large swaths out of the enemy push. The volume of friendly fire within the camp's trenches grew, as reinforcements poured into the outer trenches. Squads heavy with machine gunners and grenadiers with M-79s, now well in range to engage the remaining VC, fired viciously into the routed formations.

-xxx-


We beat them off this time, but it was close. Had they made it through the wire, it would've gone hand to hand, and I would've been alone. I doubt the bunker would've stayed up if the sappers got to it while I was still inside.

After the mess was finished, another hour of shooting and reloading, and shooting once more, I finally got to crawl out of the bloody mess that I had been crawling around. Some of the medics thought I had taken a few rounds, but I assured them that there were men in worse condition than I was.

Security teams went into the blasted-out zones to try and count the VC dead. Apparently, there were very few remains to speak of. Some of the enemy must've carried off their comrades. Others were probably blown to bits where they lay by the high explosive and canister barrages from the mortar pits.

Intelligence suspected that they threw a whole battalion out at us. It sure felt like it was just myself against a whole VC battalion.

All I wanted to do was go back to the hooch, find out if Candy, Sparks, Doggie and the squad were okay, and then catch some shut eye.

I don't think anyone cared that I never got relieved from my sentry post. At least, not until Draper debriefed me after a good nine hours of rack time and a cold beer from the medical hooch's refrigerator.