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Fox 2/3's Foxtrot Ridge
28 May 1968

by Phillip Ball
printed with permission

After three days of inactivity, we were beginning to think the report of a large NVA unit headed in our direction was just another false alarm. We had a lot of those in the bush -- "hurry up and wait" was often times the order of the day. It was extremely rare for a Marine rifle company to stay in one position as long as this, but the Battalion Commander was calling the shots from LZ Hawk, and he felt strongly about the information he had. Rumor was, if nothing happens tonight, we move out in the morning.

We were 3000 meters southeast of the Khe Sanh Combat Base and 1200 meters south of Rt.#9. Our ridge line position seemed to be a good one. With LZ Hawk and its artillery battery only 2000 meters to our northeast, fire support would be swift and accurate. With vertical slopes on all sides, surrounded by thick jungle and very heavy underbrush, some of us felt the enemy would lose far too many men to risk a ground attack so each day there, we simply dug our holes deeper and reinforced our positions. My squad-leader woke me up shortly after midnight, by whispering the one alarming word that immediately shocks the most sleepy-eyed grunt into action, "MOVEMENT!" One of our LP's (4-man listening post outside the perimeter) using a star light scope, spotted a few NVA on the southern-slope of the smaller piece of high ground, east of our ridge line positions. Because of its higher elevation and its excellent vantage points, we called this 13-man outpost the Crow's Nest. Manned by a squad of grunts, an M60 machine-gun team, and our artillery FO (Forward Observer) team, the small outpost had to be defended at all cost. Should the enemy ever gain control of the high ground in battle, they would gain a distinct advantage.

Our 60mm mortars began firing on the NVA, who immediately began to attack the Crow's Nest. Artillery from LZ Hawk began pounding the key areas that had been previously registered as likely avenues of approach. Utilizing heavy small-arms fire, grenades and satchel charges (blocks of TNT, wrapped with detonating cord and stuffed into a satchel of some kind), a platoon-size NVA unit attacked from the tree line. Bloody, close-in fighting took place for nearly 30 minutes, but the marines proved to be too much for the NVA. After losing the majority of their platoon, the enemy pulled out and dispersed back into the trees. Once again the countryside was graced with silence. The smell of smoke and burned gun powder lay heavy in the night air, and I heard the moans and cries of wounded NVA at the bottom of the hill. Waiting and wondering was the hardest part, we had no idea how many more gooks were out there, nor did we know how willing they would be to die. They had come a very long way on foot, through some of the most hostile terrain in the world, with a single purpose in mind. I doubt that they had had much time to rest before the attack, and perhaps that is the reason they were permitted to smoke marijuana and opium. We smelled the stuff early on. It was as if they were burning it on a fire for our benefit, trying to get us stoned so we wouldn't fight.

It wasn't until 0245H before they were once again ready to fight. This time they came up the opposite end of the ridge -- the western slope was a more gradual incline than any other side. Like a giant finger, it rose from the heavy jungle, approximately 100 meters before leveling-off to an open summit, covered with chest-high elephant grass. We smelled the drugs they were smoking, but we also smelled their rotten body-odor. They stunk up the whole place with their lack of hygiene. We were all reporting sounds of enemy movement, but nobody had actually seen a target until the 4-man LP, 20 meters down the finger, called in and said, "We got bookoo gooks comin' straight up the trail at us."

I was a PFC with just one month in-country. I didn't know too many guys outside my own squad yet, but the excited whispers of the grunt from the LP were very familiar. It was my best buddy Private Donald P. Schuck, a tough country boy from Indiana who I had first met back in boot camp. Don was as tough as nails, thus the nickname Nails suited him well. Immediately after reporting that NVA were approaching his position, Don requested permission to bring the 4-man LP back inside the perimeter, where he could find cover in his hole in 1st platoon's sector. I was shocked and angered when I heard someone tell him, "Just sit tight; do not move until I get down there for a closer look-see." Out there without a fighting hole for cover, the LP did not stand a chance if they were spotted by the enemy, and I hoped Don disobeyed the ridiculous order to sit-tight and was headed back in. Neither of us any longer wanted to be heroes, we only wanted to survive. We talked about it often, if given an order that might get us killed, we would not hesitate to do what we thought was right. We felt that too many officers were in it for the glory, and they did not care how many grunts had to die to get them the recognition they wanted. Of course all officers weren't bad, but you always have that 10 percent.

I began passing the word myself "Watch out for the LP coming in. Don't shoot, 4 man LP comin' in." With my head sticking above the rim of the hole, I whispered loudly to the position 10 meters to my right. It was in mid-sentence that I was stunned by three, practically simultaneous explosions that rocked the entire west end of the ridge. The blasts occurred right where I believed Schuck's LP was supposed to be. I had no idea what happened at the time, only later did I find out that 3 NVA with satchel charges, leaped into the 4-man LP position, killing themselves and 3 of the 4 marines. Private "Nails" Schuck miraculously survived the initial attack. Disoriented and possibly in shock, he struggled to get back to 1st platoon's lines.

The blasts triggered an all out attack on the western finger, and again up the eastern slope on the Crow's Nest. The Crow's Nest machine-gun team of L/Cpl. Bob "Hillbilly" Croft and his A-Gunner PFC Julio "Mouse" Espejio, had expended a huge portion of their belted ammo during the first attack and were in desperate need of an emergency resupply. Hillbilly asked that someone bring him all the ammo we could afford. This request immediately became top priority.

PFC Avan Lampkins, from Alabama, was the third man in my hole. He was a big, strong black marine who was openly prejudiced against all whites. 3-Alpha squad-leader L/Cpl. Fred "Chico" Rodriquez recently made Avan his assistant, because there was no other place to put him. He refused to get along with the whites in the squad, and the one fire team that was all black didn't want him either. Avan was not a team player, he did not take orders well, but only through Chico's keen sense of fairness and diplomacy did Avan become a valuable asset to the squad. He was like a one-man-army, in the tremendous loads he could carry. He humped more weapons and ammo than any two grunts in the field. Only because I was 3-Alpha's radioman and he was forced to share a hole with me, was I tolerated; grudgingly perhaps, but just the same, we were a team, 3-Alpha CP Group. Avan Lampkins never volunteered for anything in his entire, selfish life. That's why Chico and I were both so surprised when he stepped up and volunteered when Sgt. Pressller called over the hill without using the radio, "We need one, warm body up here, Chico. On the double."

My biggest fear at that point was that someone would tell me I had to get out of my hole for some reason, but Avan jumped up right away and scrambled to the Company CP as if he had no fear in him whatsoever. I admit, I was scared to death but because I was a Marine, I was not afraid to die. Actually, I planned on it. I just did not want to suffer. I did not want my body to be so torn up no one would recognize me at the funeral. I especially did not want to be burned.

With the NVA ground attack in full swing, came a relentless barrage of RPG's that pounded the entire length of our position. The somewhat crude 40mm Rocket Propelled Grenades were fired from various hills adjacent to us, making a blood-curdling, scream-like whistle as each one approached. It was only a split second warning, but by listening to the intensity of the whistles, we could sometimes judge approximately where they were going to hit. Our own artillery pounded at targets all around the ridge line, but nothing seemed to stop the human wave of NVA, especially up the western finger, where Schuck was still trying to get back to the perimeter, and where 1st platoon's lines were beginning to crumble under the pressure. After 1st platoon's machine-gun was knocked out by an RPG direct hit, killing both the gunner and a-gunner, things really went downhill fast. The mortar-pit, next to the gun-hole was next, when a chi-com grenade bounced into their position. The four mortar-men leaped out at the last instant.

Several NVA breached 1st platoon's perimeter and attempted to find Lt. Jones and the Company CP. PFC Allen "Chief" Walker, while fleeing the mortar pit, ran headlong into 2 of those NVA. He shot one in the head with his .45 automatic, while he struggled with the second. More and more Marines were being forced from their holes in 1st platoon's sector as some 60 to 80 NVA rushed up the finger, eager to occupy the abandoned positions. It was one of the Marines who spotted Chief fighting the hard-core gook, and he immediately rushed over to help.

Lt. Jones ordered 1st platoon to pull back, twenty meters inside the perimeter and to stretch out across the ridge, tying in with 2nd platoon on the north and 3rd platoon on the south. He ordered them to bring all the wounded and the dead out with them. 1st platoon suffered approximately 6 to 9 KIA's and 20 or so WIA's, in the first 5 to 10 minutes. That only left about a half dozen grunts that weren't killed or wounded, but not all WIA's were totally disabled and many continued to fight.

One was PFC David Kinsella, who was the last man out of the mortar pit before the enemy grenade exploded. The blast caught him in the soles of the feet and shrapnel penetrated his boots. He made several trips back and forth from the newly formed secondary line of defense, to within five meters of where the NVA were setting up their lines, and managed to help the WIA's back to a more secure area.

The NVA looked to have the strength and the momentum to overrun our entire company position. They had just gone through 1st platoon in 10 minutes, like a hot knife through butter. There seemed to be no letting up on their part. We had no chance of receiving reinforcements before sun up.

The enemy was using pop-up flares to coordinate their attack. I saw a couple of their green pencil flares soar into the night sky, but I didn't know what they were for. Lt. Jones and Gunnery Sergeant Larsen knew exactly what they were, and just to see what would happen, they fired a few of their own. What unfolded next was perhaps the very last thing anyone might expect. The enemy troops misunderstood our flares to be their own, they immediately stopped fighting, and started celebrating. They thought we left the hill, forfeiting a victory to them. They were really whooping it up, shooting into the air and yelling praises to themselves. They went through 1st platoon's abandoned packs and equipment, scavenging American cigarettes and C-Rations. It was this brief pause in the action that gave us the time we needed to regroup, and with all of 1st platoon's people pulled back a safe distance, our artillery was called in on the western finger. Swift, accurate and very deadly, the big guns at LZ Hawk fired a mission that fell as close as 35 meters at times from our own people. We all understood it had to be close to be effective, so we buried ourselves in our holes and toughed it out. The concussions were bone jarring, and I thought for sure one of those 105 rounds was going to land right in my hole, but it didn't, and we made it okay.

The NVA on the other hand, lost a hell of a lot of men, but they still didn't quit. They simply moved around the ridge and continued to attack wherever the artillery was not hitting. Using the same, familiar human-wave type tactics, they charged up at various places hoping to find a weak spot where they could breach our perimeter again. We all had our chance; they tested everyone, but we all held our ground, repulsing one attack after another. The ground attack was bad enough, but the unprecedented number of Rocket Propelled Grenades this reinforced NVA Battalion brought to bear was devastating us. It was estimated that more than 500 RPG's exploded on our small position between 0415H and 0600H. That comes out to one every fifteen seconds. It was during those two hours that the fighting was obviously the heaviest; and for me it seems like one big blur. Chico and I took turns sticking our heads up, a very dangerous proposition in itself. We had to quickly locate any immediate threat, and then attempt to dispose of it. Thanks to Avan's generosity, or rather inadvertent mistake, he had left a sack of a dozen or more of his grenades behind, and it was with those grenades that we were able to defend our position without the enemy locating us. We waited until we absolutely had no other choice before either of us fired a single round from our M16s. A muzzle flash at night was a road map to your position. We also used the three Claymore mines we set up in our field of fire. One extremely effective, catching about 5 NVA in-line.

At some point, radio silence had to be ordered, because the enemy got their hands on one of our radios. It wasn't that we were afraid they would listen and learn of our strategy, they were playing with the damn thing like school kids on a telephone. I heard them laughing and cutting up; they kept us from transmitting messages because they kept the microphone keyed. Radio silence added another dimension of fear and confusion; not knowing what was going on was troublesome. After a while, Chico decided that Avan had been gone too long plus we were hungry for information concerning the status of the rest of the company. Hell, we didn't know how many of us were still alive. Was a plan to retreat an option? It was shortly after O6OOH, that the RPG bombardment let up a bit. Chico scrambled out of the hole to go to the CP for info. I wasn't a bit happy about being left alone, but I knew my squad-leader would be within hearing distance if I needed him. All I had to do was holler. I remember sticking my head up and seeing a half-dozen NVA running up the hill toward me. One of them appeared to be waving a handgun as if to lead the charge. I had been waiting anxiously for just this scenario, so I could fire the claymore I had so meticulously tied up in the one tree between me and the tree line. The squad of NVA were literally cut to ribbons by the claymore. As I stood up to fire my M16,I felt something hit me squarely in the right side of my head. I thought Avan had clumsily kicked me, returning from his mission, but in fact it was a satchel charge, blocks of TNT they used so frequently that night as concussion-grenades.

The blast blew off my helmet and slammed me hard against the far side of the hole. I ended up at the bottom, twisted like a pretzel, lying on my back. Both my arms were bent around underneath me and my shoulders were tightly wedged between the front and backsides of the hole. I couldn't move anything but my legs, so I started kicking and digging my heels into the clay, desperately trying to flee myself. It took several, long seconds to regain my senses. At first I could not figure out where I was, or why I was there. My mind flashed back to a childhood memory of my mother and me, during more carefree times. I oh-so-yearned for those times again, when my mother's touch could solve any problem and sooth any pains. It was only because of my youth and my excellent physical condition that I was able to recover from such a devastating blow to the head as quickly as I did. I feared the enemy would jump into my hole at any second, and the only thing that mattered at all was that I get to my feet. There was no need to consider anything else at this point. If chewing off my arm would have freed me, I think I would have tried it. I arched my back and twisted around and I got my left arm free. I reached across my chest to remove a sharp object that had been sticking me in the side, and found it was my M16. I immediately raised the barrel to aim it straight up at the smoke filled sky. Suddenly the sweaty, distorted face of a young North Vietnamese teenager was looking down at me. I guess he couldn't see me in the dark, and he was reluctant to jump into the deep hole, because he just froze in that position for a split second. Time enough for me to positively identify my target, and pull the trigger with my left, index finger. A long burst of automatic fire erupted from the MI6 muzzle, illuminating the surprised expression on the unsuspecting youth's face. Several rounds hit him in the chest, then, more walked up and splattered his face. It all happened so fast, it was over before I realized it had actually happened. When it did sink in that I had just killed a gook, a very strange feeling came over me. I felt the victim's buddies would come after me in retaliation. It became real personal at that point. Using the M16 as a crutch, I grabbed hold of the warm barrel with my left hand and I raised my upper-body enough to free my right arm, twisted behind my back. I then struggled to my knees and began to stand up. Still a little woozy, I reloaded my weapon.

Just as I was throwing the M16 muzzle over the rim of my hole to fire, I was blind-sided from behind POW. Something very heavy came crashing in on top of me. I felt a sharp blow to the head, just behind my right ear. I collapsed to the bottom of the hole out cold. I don't know how long I was out, but when I started coming around there was someone or something stepping on me. It was Avan and Chico, they both came running back to the hole when they heard me shooting the gook. The first words I remember hearing were, "You alright ? Damn Butterball, we thought you wuz dead, man."

Avan tried to take credit for my "kill, saying that he had saved my life in the nick of time. I remember arguing with the big, soul brother about it. "You might have shot him after he was already dead," I said. "But I got him square in the face first."

Not long after that the sun came up behind the mountain. Hueys (helicopter gun-ships) began arriving. A half dozen machine gun shooting, rocket firing choppers circled the ridge line, picking off the now fleeing NVA. Those Huey door-gunners are a breed to themselves. They say you have to be half crazy to do what they do, and ice water in your veins. Tree top level at 120 mph, tethered only by a thin, leather strap, these courageous gunners hung outside the aircraft and fired down at the horrified enemy, who in turn were shooting back at the Hueys. The Hueys gained altitude and moved away to the north, giving plenty of space to the 500 mph jet Phantoms. F4s could carry 5000 pounds of high explosive, dumb bombs. Aimed entirely by gravity, and the direction of the aircraft, it was exciting to watch our Marine Corps pilots at work. Us grunts on the ground cheered loudly when our pilots risked their own lives to dive dangerously low in order to hit enemy targets for us. These jets dropped 92,000 pounds of ordinance that morning, rearranging the surrounding landscape in a big way, and saved our asses once again.

It was going on 1100H and there was still a handful of determined NVA holed-up in a large bomb crater on the western end of the ridge. Echo Company had arrived and was pursuing the fleeing enemy troops to the south and southeast. We had hoped they would come up the hill and flush-out these gooks who virtually had our whole company pinned down, but it was not going to happen. Instead of mounting an assault and possibly losing many more of our men, it was decided to drop napalm to bombs on the NVA in the crater. We had approximately 40 WIA's on the ridge, who unless they were lifted out very quickly, were going to be KIA's. We had to get them choppers in ASAP.

We were all told to stay in our holes and cover up with whatever we could find, "It might get a little hot," a voice on the radio stated. Mine must have been one of the only working radios on the southwestern portion of the perimeter, because I was instructed to switch over to another frequency and assist the pilot in any way I could. By the time I found the right radio frequency, someone from above was already talking to me."3-Alpha what is your location?-Over. Come in 3-Alpha." The voice was so cool and calm, not at all what I'd been hearing all night. I missed his call-sign, so I simply called him Phantom. "Phantom this is 3-Alpha. Be advised we are on the south side of the ridge,20 meters above the, about 35 meters east of the big bomb crater. Do you want me to pop smoke?-Over." Just as I finished my transmission, the high-speed Fast Mover streaked past at eye level, dipping into the valley and then pulling up hard at the last second.

"Negative on the smoke, 3-Alpha. I think I've got a visual. Is that you in front of that clump of brush?-Over?" Again his tone of voice was so relaxed I felt like I was talking to a commercial airliner back home. I turned around and saw a big bush I never even knew was there, then I confirmed his visual, "That's us. Over."

The Phantom pilot went on to say something to the effect that by the looks of things on the ground, we must have had "one hell of a party last night." He also apologized for taking so long to arrive. He told me he could see "a dozen or more bad-guys in the crater, and several more moving up and down the west finger."

One Phantom F4 circled high above, while another came in from the north. It really looked as if he was using me as an aiming stake, the crater target lined up between him and me. The big jet came screaming in over the top of us with a thunderous, bladder-emptying roar. I didn't think he dropped his bombs, but the records indicate he did. They exploded further down the hillside so I couldn't see them from my position. I did see the NVA's green tracer rounds erupt from the crater as the jet passed over, spraying the belly of the brightly polished aircraft, but doing no damage. The noise alone was enough to make me feel like the world was coming to an end, my body felt like it was going to explode from the high pressure, vibrating and tingling from the inside out. An awesome, terrifying experience indeed.The second jet immediately followed the same flight path as the first, diving at the ridge from a Khe Sanh approach. Everyone around me was yelling and screaming, "Get down. Everybody get down." Something was drawing me to watch the whole thing, I didn't freeze up. It was more like being mesmerized by the sheer power of it all. The Phantom came in just slightly over my shoulder. I saw two bombs released, one from under each wing. The one underneath the starboard (right) wing, must have hung up in the release mechanism for a split second, because while the first bomb fell directly into the crater, the second one soared past it altogether. The long cylindrical napalm canisters tumbled end over end, just once or twice before slamming to the ground. Reddish-orange flames nearly 100 feet tall enveloped everything. Black smoke as thick as paint rolled from the fire and blocked out the late mourning sun. Directly on target, the first bomb killed nearly all the NVA still on the ridge. I watched that second, slightly delayed canister sour past the target and disappear over the side of the hill right in front of my position. It must have exploded down near the tree line, about 20 meters away, because the flames rose so high as to come back down on top of us. The heat was immediately unbearable and it forced us to abandoned those positions that had served us so well to this point.

The NVA were on the run, but were still fighting as they fled. We didn't realize it at the time, but the majority of the gunfire and explosives that suddenly increased significantly after the napalm was dropped, was dud and unused ammo and ordinance on the ground that cooked off in the napalm. It wouldn't have made any difference to us if we had known, because this stuff will kill you just as fast as anything else will. Spinning and twirling in all kinds of haphazard directions, small arms rounds, grenades, mortars, RPG's, the whole" 9 yards" seemed to be happening all over again. In fact, we thought the NVA was coming back for another fight.

It probably wouldn't have been half as bad if the winds from the south hadn't all of a sudden started blowing and pushing the flames across the ridge in our direction. The tall elephant grass and heavy underbrush caught fire and quickly raged out of control. We tried to put it out, but at no avail. There was nothing left to do but jump ship. I grabbed my radio, which was still inside my pack, my M16,and a bandolier of magazines. I followed Chico and Avan up and over the ridge line, but I lost track of them in the smoky confusion on top. I was running so hard anyway, my momentum carried me down the steep, North Slope, past 2nd platoon's perimeter line. I couldn't get enough traction to stop myself in the loose, barren soil, until I grabbed a hold of something sticking out of the ground and I hung on for dear life.

2nd platoon was shooting at gooks in the deep gorge below, and the gooks were returning fire at 2nd platoon. I was out there in the middle, with absolutely no cover whatsoever. After being cramped up in the fox hole all night long, my legs felt weak and stiff. I tried with all my strength to climb back up that near-vertical cliff, but for every step up I took I would slide back down two. When enemy bullets began whizzing past my ears, and the high powered rounds of AK47's started cracking all around me, the situation quickly escalated into sheer panic. I did not want to be the last Marine killed in a battle I believed would go down in history as one of the most significant, company size fire fights in the Vietnam War, especially not after all I'd already been through. I wanted to live to tell my kids about it someday.

I said a quick prayer and asked God for the strength to get me out of this mess. I think I might have promised to turn my life over to serving him, perhaps become a minister. My prayer was answered immediately, and certainly none too soon. I couldn't even feel my legs as they catapulted me up the hill, back through the fire, and into the foxhole I wished I had never left in the first place. The flames were not as high as they were earlier, but I'm sure they came up to my chest or more. I did get a pretty good sunburn out of it, but no serious burns at all. Indeed another miracle. I saw small groups, 10 to 20 NVA running over the ridge south of ours. It also was covered with elephant grass on top, and we could clearly see them as they ran over the crest. A couple of Hueys were pursuing them all with fire, but I felt the need to keep shooting too, as long as I could still see them. At 500 meters, they were pretty much out of range for an MI6, but I tried to compensate by elevating the muzzle and leading each target a little bit. When Chico and Avan returned to our position, they too joined in on what was basically just target practice. That's when my hearing was first, permanently damaged. All night long my ears had suffered some pretty severe stuff, they were both ringing pretty badly, but now with Chico on my left, firing right-handed, and Avan on my right firing left handed, both their chambers were only inches from my ears. I knew damn well that my hearing was being damaged, from the painful, static that accompanied each discharge, yet my eagerness to kill one last gook prevented me from moving away. It got to the point where all I could hear was muffled sounds that cracked like a speaker with a loose wire. The static got worse with every shot, until the speaker itself broke all together. Like a sharp, ice pick piercing my eardrum, the pain was deep, and quite severe. It was only then that I decided to scramble out of the hole to lie down beside it, continuing my long range target practice.

All fighting on the ridge finally stopped around noon. We could still hear sporadic small-arms fire in the distance from Echo Company. The LZ was finally secured and the MedEvac choppers began arriving. 44 Fox Company casualties were taken out first. An emergency resupply of ammo and drinking water was brought in. As soon as I could slip away from my position, I walked down to the western, 1st platoon machine gun position and the 60ram mortar pit felt like "ground zero." The destruction and devastation perpetrated on the finger was unbelievable. It looked like a bull dozer had come through and scraped the once fertile ground bare, pushing the trees and brush down the hill against the tree line, An impenetrable wall of twisted, broken debris, fifteen feet high, was piled up where Don's LP was once sitting. Dozens upon dozens of dead gooks were strewn all over in every conceivable position of human distortion. I started looking at their faces for signs of life, but there were none. Some grunts were going through pockets and packs, searching for valuable souvenirs. Angrier Marines shoved bayonets deep into soft bellies, apparently feeling the need to kill the enemy more than once. I saw one grunt who was digging out gold teeth with his large, Bowie knife. A small crowd was beginning to gather. When I went over to investigate further, I saw that he had cut the ears off several dead NVA and was displaying them on his belt. I thought they looked too much like old, onion rings that had been smeared with a little catsup. I didn't feel well and I thought I might pass out. I got real dizzy and threw up. My head was pounding from a severe headache and both my ears were ringing loudly. I sat down next to a few Marines who were very quietly' staring at the ground, but there was nothing there that I could see. I asked if anyone knew Private Don Schuck. When they all replied negatively with a subtle shaking of the head, I asked if anyone knew what happen to the 4-man LP that had been left out in this very position the night before. Again they all answered "no" in silent ways. None of them wanted to talk, understandably shaken from the night's events, but I was persistent, having recognized one of the mortars guy from the night before.

When Don had led the 4-man LP down the trail, shortly after dark the night before, I watched him leave, and before heading back to my own hole I stopped to warn the marines in the mortar pit to be careful. "We've got a 4-man LP out there right in front of you guys," I said. "Be careful not to blow them away if they come running back in, in the middle of the night."

When I started feeling a little better, I stood up on top the pile of dirt in front of the mortar pit and looked back down the finger again. The dead NVA were dressed in green, or khaki uniforms. The green uniforms were not that much different from our own (camouflage was not issued to grunts until later that summer 1968). I thought Don could be anyone of those dead gooks so I started looking at faces again. There was one body right at my feet that I looked at several times and assumed it was a gook. Something about that long, clump of coal-black hair made me examine it closer. I couldn't believe my eyes, nor would my brain register the fact it was my buddy lying there. I wanted so badly for it to be a dead gook and not Don. I nearly turned and walked away. But I looked over at the mortar man I recognized from the night before and saw he was looking up at me with the sorriest pair of eyes I'd ever seen. I thought I saw him nod at me, and then at the corpse, but no words were spoken at all.

The body was lying face down and I could see the huge opening in the back of the skull, obviously the fatal wound. I knelt down and saw the inside of the head was completely empty of brain matter or blood. I believed then that I was staring at the inside of Nail's face, yet it still was not fully registering in my mind. How could it be? All that young life, full of energy and hope only a few hours earlier, was gone. I had a very hard time dealing with the loss of my friend, especially so early in my tour. I still had 12 more months to serve. I was left with a lonely feeling of vulnerability. If Don could be killed so quickly, then I didn't stand a chance.

I never learned how Schuck was killed until my very last day in the bush almost a year later. I was waiting for the chopper to pluck me off the top of a mountain somewhere near the Laotian Border and take me back to the rear in Dong Ha where I was to prepare to go home. It Was one of the happiest days of my young life, until that mortar man from Foxtrot Ridge approached me with tears in his eyes and told me there was something he had to get off his chest before I left and we would never see each other again. By this time we had become friends, but we rarely had the chance to spend time together. He told me that he had been sitting quietly the past 12 months, agonizing over Schuck's death every time I mentioned his name. I didn't realize that I had been talking about my lost buddy as much as he said I had. He told me I would probably hate him after he told me what he needed to say, and the reason he waited until now to tell me was that he expected me to, at the very least, hold a grudge against him.

I still wasn't sure what he was going to tell me that could possibly be that terrible, but judging by his obvious state of high emotion, I could tell it meant an awful lot to him. He said it was him and another marine in the mortar pit who accidentally shot and killed Schuck. He began apologizing and he was very upset, but he forced himself to tell me more. He said the NVA were coming so fast and furious, all they could do was keep shooting as fast as they could. "Schuck came running up right behind a bunch of gooks, and we thought he was one of them." He told me Dan fell right outside their hole and that's when he knew they had made a very big mistake. "He wasn't wearing a helmet and that long, straight hair made him look like a gook." He said he heard him yelling something when he was running toward them but could not tell what. "Now I realize he was probably saying "LP in. LP in." The sobbing mortar man told me he saw the outline of the weapon Don was carrying and it did not look like one of ours. The hand guard/heat shield around the barrel was blown off during the battle. It was an awkward moment for both of us. I think he was waiting for me to get mad at him, but I was in shock. This devastating news came out of nowhere and I really didn't know how I felt. My own emotional state was not really all that stable either, having been in the bush so long, but still the most important thing to me was to go home at this point and I did not want to deal with anything else. I boarded the chopper when it arrived and didn't see that mortar man for 25 years.

I was diagnosed with PTSD in 1991, the year after I stopped drinking and drugging. I discovered I had some "baggage" that needed to be dealt with, and my combat experiences had to be recalled in order to distinguish between my re-occurring nightmares and what really happened in Vietnam. At first it was a very painful process, but the more I learned the better I felt. My perspective began to change, from not being able to talk about Vietnam without crying, to not being able to shut up about it. Armed with the proper information and maps, I was literally able to trace my footsteps through nearly every single day I spent overseas. It was a very eye opening experience for me, and it helped greatly to deal with some of those PTSD issues I'd been avoiding the past 20 plus years.

Top Side

by Walter J. Smith

I functioned on adrenaline around the clock at Khe Sanh. I was happy to help old Sergeant Mantrell with his bottle of bootleg vodka at night. The constant incoming bombardment, combined with the huge rats in the bunkers, made sleep impossible. I knew I would never come out of that place alive, for every minute was pregnant with explosions of incoming rounds delivering death all around. I didn't even try to count the wounded or dead Marines passing before my eyes. Daily. I kept my eyes peeled for every possible barricade behind which I could dive, my ears attuned to the tone and volume of the incoming rounds, my nose twitching away at the smells -burnt gunpowder, fuels, decaying flesh. I was earnestly trying to team with the three men I went there with on how to handle the intensity and fury of battle. I wanted to survive this mission. I knew too well that I had more than eleven months remaining in this war, and this experience following my previous training told me I would see much more combat. Yet in all that deathly seriousness, a very humorous moment emerged. An incident so funny that it dangerously diverted my attention completely away from the constant explosions all around.

During the siege of Khe Sanh, we Combat Controllers, aka "Tailpipe Mike" stayed very busy. We were operating flights, keeping the American commanders abreast, via radio, of which aircraft succeeded and which ones failed to arrive, deliver goods and troops, and depart from Khe Sanh. Controlling the drop zone was a vital role in the resupply effort. The runway was so hot with incoming artillery, mortars, and rockets around the clock, that the aircraft landing there couldn't deliver men and supplies fast enough.

Aircraft that did land had to taxi in, off-load, upload and takeoff, all in about sixty seconds-- the approximate fatal time for an aircraft to be on the ground. It was fatal because the incoming artillery, rockets and mortars were so thick and intense that the average time it took one of those rounds to hit an aircraft while it was on the ground was about sixty seconds. The price for a ticket out of Khe Sanh on one of these aircraft, when you were properly relieved from duty, was that you had to drag a stretcher with a filled body bag onto the aircraft with you. No one ever objected. We took pride in helping those pilots land, offload, upload, and depart as rapidly as possible. We only lost one C- 123 and crew during the ten days I was there; and they got hit with Automatic Anti-Aircraft fire by that famous "Luke the Gook" after takeoff. We knew where Luke was dug in, a quarter of a mile from the approach end of the runway. We knew this because we had taken fire from him on our arrival, and also because he saw every aircraft we had come in as a target of opportunity and shot at it for all he was worth. We put air strikes on him daily, only to watch the tracers from his weapon fly back up at the Phantoms, Thunderbirds, and the other Fastmovers. He just kept shooting back, and no matter how many times we thought we had finally put him out of business, he proved us wrong. We had another motive for keeping our aircraft moving while an aircraft was on the ground, the barrage of incoming fire was most intense.

The drop zone also had a pair of fatal points for us controllers. First we had to get the mine sweeper, a Marine whose name we didn't know and whom we dubbed 'Peter Sparks,' to sweep the road out to the drop zone's impact point. This was necessary to avoid getting ourselves killed by stepping on or driving across a mine before we arrived at the impact point. I imagine we gave him that name for two distinct reasons: the shape of his tool and our fear of the way he used it. The minesweeper he used vaguely resembled a long penis with a fat head, extending from his waist out to the ground in front of him. He dutifully waved it back and forth as he swept along, reminding us of the little boys we once were, discovering that we could draw pictures on the ground by spraying urine around in patterns. We also feared that the rapid pace at which he moved was sure to result in the accidental hitting of a mine before it was detected. 'Sparks' was our name for this fear. The second most threatening area on the drop zone was the impact point, the point from which we controlled the drops, and the ideal arrival point for each drop. We had to rapidly dig out and crawl into a spider hole from which to work relatively protected from the Vietnamese who were shooting at us constantly -- snipers, mortars, artillery, rockets. We were proud of the speed with which we could dig these little holes out of that clay with our military-issue entrenching tools. Those entrenching tools hanging from our web belts were unique for Air Force personnel; a symbol of our superior combat status among Air Force peers who rarely heard the crack of a rifle off a training range. But we were also somewhat put to shame by the Marines recovering those loads we parachuted into the drop zone. Those Marines were never allowed to stop moving long enough to dig their own spider holes.

One morning Dave McGuire and I took the radio jeep, leaving Sergeants Tom Mantrell and Rusty Forte at the airstrip, and headed out for the drop zone. It was still very foggy, but we knew the weather pattern fairly well, and anticipated the fog would lift within an hour or so. I liked that fog. It prevented the Vietnamese from seeing into our camp and improving the precision of the artillery they were shooting at us. But the fog also made parachuting supplies into the base impossible. We couldn't keep eating or drinking water if the fog didn't lift. Surviving on a pint of water a day already, I found the fog as much a threat as a cover. We (actually the Marines and the Vietnamese allies and their Special Forces advisors) also couldn't keep shooting back at the North Vietnamese without the airdropped re-supplies of munitions. Dave and I drove over to Peter's foxhole, as was the routine, to get him to sweep the road for mines. As was his custom, Peter had his poncho covering his foxhole. Dave called out to him, "Hey Sparks, how about sweeping the road so we can open the drop zone?" We both noticed a slight hesitation in the answer but soon enough the response came back. The somewhat breathless voice was nevertheless clear.

"Fuck your goddamned drop zone road." I was perplexed by that answer, and the near-breathlessness was downright weird. This was the first time I had encountered full-fledged insubordination in the military. It was also the first time I had noticed someone who was breathless in a foxhole that wasn't hit with live fire. But almost everything at Khe Sanh perplexed me, so I looked up to Dave for the explanations. Dave had a wild-eyed, wide and devious grin on his face. That grin was hardly influenced by the endless stream of incoming mortars and artillery popping into the camp all around us. Khe Sanh taught me to distinguish between types of incoming as well as the likely fatal zones of each type. Dave, having already spent three months in this war, and much of that time in combat, was very keen on these things. I knew there was a laugh in the works, but Dave wasn't saying anything so I didn't know where the laugh was. I even feared it might be on me. I felt unsure of whether to smile as if I understood or just try to remain poker faced, so I opted for the latter, implicitly denying that I saw something curiously strange here.

Dave drove our radio jeep over to a nearby bunker and yelled inside, "Hey, lieutenant, we need your help getting the road out to the drop zone swept for mines." That statement was obviously true enough. But it wasn't enough of an explanation for that wild-eyed, toothy, frolicsome expression still on Dave's face. Nevertheless, Dave still wasn't saying anything more. I began to get somewhat self-conscious as a curious sensation came over me, the feeling that I was merely an appendage to Dave who was in the middle of the action. How could he know so much and me so little? How could he carry that huge, lighthearted smile while the artillery was screaming in on us non-stop? I had spent days and nights within arm's reach of him, yet at that moment I felt as different from him as a finger is from a whole body. I kept an eye on him.

Peter's platoon commander came out. It was the first time I had seen this guy, but that wasn't unusual since second lieutenants are about the most expendable commodity above the rank of corporal in the Marines anyway. The lieutenant, with a cleanly shaven, boyish face like my own and a clean but wrinkled uniform and shiny boots, unlike my own, leads us back to Peter's poncho-covered foxhole and yells down at him "Marine, get your ass in gear sweeping that drop zone road." I said to myself, "God, that oughta get him moving." I also found myself feeling contempt for those shiny boots.

How could shiny boots be a priority when you are getting shot at around the clock? I could only speculate -- he obviously was either stupid or had a bunker deep enough under ground to protect him from the artillery. I knew that artillery could penetrate through eight feet of Khe Sanh's clay, because our sleeping bunker had taken a direct hit two nights before, startling the rats as well as the rest of us. One of those rats the size of a small cat landed on my chest and ran up across my face. I was so terrified by that rat that it took me a few minutes to recover enough to realize it wasn't a piece of shrapnel from the artillery that hit our bunker. I slowly began to notice the stars shining through the dust and the eight feet of clay that until a few minutes before had been a roof held up with railroad ties. Then I slowly began to hear again the cursing voices of men exclaiming relief at living

through it. The first voice I made out was old Mantrell calling out our names in the dark, taking a roll call to see who was still alive. In that environment, who had time to waste shining boots?

I also knew that shine off those boots would reflect sunlight across the mountains to wherever the North Vietnamese spotters and snipers were, viewing our camp, making adjustments on their sights. It all of a sudden struck me that the reason second lieutenants were called 'mortar magnets' was so obvious this one deserved the worst of fates. I resented the lieutenant for that shine on his boots, and briefly hoped he would get his comeuppance right there in front of me. But the poncho-covered foxhole with the mysterious character inside was more commanding than that resentment. As with many other feelings, rather than resolve it, I stuffed it.

Following the lieutenant's command, there was the same hesitation, and the near breathless, yet clear response, "Fuck you and your goddamned drop zone road." The mirthful expression on Dave's face got wilder, his eyes sparkled wider, and now he was visibly having difficulty holding down a full-bellied guffaw. I was at a loss. What the heck is going on here? And what is going on here that is so obvious to Dave yet so unimaginable for me? All I could do was follow Dave's lead. I smiled as if I understood, but I suspect that by this time Dave knew I was hardly cognizant of what seemed obvious to him. Dave looked over at the lieutenant who was clearly unsatisfied with his unruly charge. Dave then looked back at me, leaned his head over and said softly into my ear, "Just keep quiet and watch." Well that is exactly what I was doing, so it was pretty easy to keep on doing it. But I admit the suspense was eating me up so that I was almost oblivious to the steady stream of incoming artillery. Almost, but not quite. I was also getting antsy about sitting above ground in a radio jeep parked next to a pair of sparkling boots that seemed to beg for pot shots. We made an obvious target of opportunity. This moment was simultaneously more fascinating and fearful than anything else I had thus far experienced at the carnage factory called Khe Sanh. And the audience was growing. A squad of twelve Marines approached us, the squad leader speaking to the lieutenant. "Sir, we are assigned to drop zone recovery detail today. Are you the Drop Zone Controller?"

"They are." The lieutenant speaks distractedly, keeping his eyes on the poncho, jerking his thumb toward the two of us. We are still sitting in our radio jeep, the engine idling, "white noise" coming from three of the four radios filling the back of the jeep.

Turning toward me, the squad leader says, "Sir, the recovery detail is prepared to move out to the drop zone." Perhaps he took my slick sleeve as sufficient evidence that I was an officer, and therefore Dave, with his three stripes, was my driver. My sleeve was slick because I had not yet had enough time at Tan Son Nhut to put on the double stripes of my actual rank, Airman Second Class. This was my third mission and I had been in Vietnam for just over two weeks. I was amused at the thought of being taken for an officer, but Dave didn't let me remain amused for long.

"Just hang on until we get the road swept for mines." Dave had an unnerving capacity for being as casual as a teenager parading his cool during high school recess, even in the midst of the unimaginably terrifying constant eruptions of the earth in every direction around us. The Squad leader responded to this with a jerk of his head and a puzzled look, as if to say, "Don't bullshit me, flyboy." But he quickly recovered his wits and before turning to his men, responded, acting convincingly like he meant it, "Yes, Sir."

He then commanded his squad "at ease," supposing such a thing possible here. Their eyes turned to the poncho-covered foxhole as if every one of them immediately sensed a drama unfolding. A few of the Marines lit cigarettes, but they all remained silent and poker-faced. Every one of them was covered red-brown with the thick clay dust, which, mingled with their sweat, formed a moist, featureless cast upon the molds of their angular bodies and made their eyes all look particularly bright against the remainder of their bodies which looked pathetically dull.

The lieutenant strutted off quickly, contempt dominating his face, and returned almost immediately with his gunnery sergeant. The Gunny was a small, wiry, crustylooking character. He might have been twenty years old, had enough fire in his eyes to burn off the fog that day, a face so dust-covered it revealed a dozen or so new, deep wrinkles reaching out from each of those black-ringed eyes, and two parallel, deep creases parting his brow. Those eyes were focused with such intensity that I was afraid he might look at me and pierce holes right through my flesh. I was relieved that he kept them aimed at that foxhole. He said nothing at first. He walked directly over, grabbed the head-cover, jerked the poncho, stakes and all, off Peter's foxhole and threw it into a heap at his feet. There before all our eyes was the full explanation for all the exuberant expression on Dave's face for the last fifteen minutes, for Peter's breathless insubordination, and for the rest of the curious confusion in this little scenario.

The foxhole was typically rectangular, about three feet wide and six feet long and maybe four feet deep. The walls are completely covered with Playboy centerfolds. Each one held into the clay bank with grenade pins. The olive drab, wooden framed cot in the bottom has a sleeping bag on it. On top of the bag is a completely naked, except for the dog tags on his neck, Peter Sparks. The sweat cuts squiggling trails down across the dusty paste covering his muscular back, which is partially turned toward us. His eyes are tightly closed, teeth gritting, a well-toned body curling in near convulsion, his right hand pumping madly on his full erection.

We had plenty of time to observe this scene as Peter was so devoted to the task in hand that he didn't seem to notice either the disappearing poncho or the audience. Dave turns his head as if to hide the visible mirth if not the sounds erupting from his throat. I am so stunned I can hardly turn my head away. I cannot imagine the courage to commit such an act so close to constant battle and so near to visible exposure. The lieutenant seemed at a loss for figuring what article of the Uniform Code of Military Justice of 1947 this act, in addition to the insubordination, might be violating. Several of the Marines burst into loud jeers, mockingly, cheering Peter on. Only the Gunny was unmoved. He immediately roared, with a cyclopean voice that drowns out all the other noise, including the exploding artillery, "GET YOUR PECKER OUT OF YOUR HAND AND YOUR MINE-SWEEPER IN GEAR, MARINE, NOW! MOVE IT!!"

Without waiting for a response, the Gunny turns on his heels and moves out. This, it seemed, was the only language to which Peter could, at that particular moment, effectively respond. He immediately jumped up from the sleeping bag, simultaneously pulling on his fatigues and lifting up the minesweeper. He jumped, sockless, into his boots, which he didn't bother to lace closed, and was out of the foxhole in an instant, his helmet landing on his head as he leapt up to where we were. He moved directly down that road, quick time, sweeping rapidly but carefully, as if nothing unusual had happened. I can still see the laces of his boots leaving tiny trails in the dust alongside his footprints. My eyes were glued to that road because the minesweeper was moving so rapidly I simply couldn't trust it to do its job. Dave and I followed him in total silence as he swept the road out to the Impact Point of the drop zone. The Marines assigned to the recovery detail followed along behind our radio jeep. We scraped out our spider holes, and controlled the Container Delivery System parachute drops for the day. We recalled the story for Rusty and Mantrell that night, the latter man rewarding us with slugs from his vodka while we sat in the bunker and watched the B-52 bombers deliver their arc-light strikes across the hills within a kilometer of our bunker.

Dave insists to this day to tell that he instantly knew what was going on in that foxhole. I cannot forget how astounded I was by it all. For the remainder of the time I spent in combat, every time I felt tempted to fondle myself, the image of that hardy young Gunny snatching the poncho cover from that foxhole would pop into my head, and the urge wilted.