There is no title. Yet.

[Gimpy_Fac]

Many thanks.

Your cruising the canals and rivers of South Vietnam was no different than I doing the same on a Mike boat, other than I had to contend with the dangers of war. Had it not been for those dangers it would have been an exceptionally pleasurable experience, for the Vietnamese people are friendly and welcoming, as are the vast majority of the world’s population, when left to live out their lives in peace.

Unfortunately, the politicians, and others, always seem to find a way to frustrate the fulfillment of what is the most basic of human desires.

Take care.

Bernard.

[Gimpy_Fac]

Bateau de la Mort


“An AK 47 has a powerful reputation; is brutally simple, easy to operate, and has a noticeable popping-rattling sound when fired. But don’t go picking one up on a battlefield, for I will guarantee that due to its distinctive noise and silhouette some dumb fu*king cherry will blow your brains out, thinking you are Charlie! “

Weapons of your enemy orientation lecture, Port Everglades, 1966.



When going on missions in the Plain of Reeds, our Mike boat normally set out from one of the forward support bases which were some distance away from our main base at the Colonial boat yard. Lying close to our areas of operation, the forward bases were heavily fortified and defended by artillery and mortar capability.

Some of the forward bases were built in the style of the old French forts, which were triangular in shape. The bases perimeters were a mass of barbed wire tangle-foot and razor wire, interspaced with claymore mines. Some had foo-gas, a mixture of explosives and napalm in fifty-gallon drums buried at the points of their triangles, or a particular strategic point, which would be detonated in a last resort scenario, such as in the event of the base being overrun. When the war visited these forward bases it proved to be medieval in its barbarity.

A couple of Vietnamese teenagers had come to a forward base our boat was operating from with an intriguing story about one of our boats lying empty in the river, and not very far from their village. They were Hoa Hao Buddhists; a sect that was fiercely anti-Communist, so could be trusted. A gunship, armed helicopter, was dispatched on a reconnaissance flight, and true to what the teenagers had said, there she was, lying against the river bank. It required recovering, and our boat pulled the detail.

There had been a thin, mist like drizzle falling from an unexpectedly gloomy sky as we approached the grounded Tango boat. All that could be heard was the rhythmic rumble of our motors pulsing away at the lowest revolutions that could be set. The jungle on each side of us had taken on a look of foreboding, as if it was a haunted house, daring us to enter at our peril.

Hung-up on the riverbank she looked abandoned, and to any landsman, probably seemed a wreck, in the way a proud ship would, having been caught in a storm and driven ashore, there to be left broken and discarded. The Tango boats’ gently fluttering and wind ragged ensign gave off a sense of loneliness, as if she missed her crew who had taken themselves off somewhere never to return.

Stopping our motors to drift alongside we passed mooring lines on to her, tying them off swiftly using half-hitches, easy to put on, and just as easily taken off when in a hurry if any rounds came our way. All the time speaking with low, soft voices, as though desperate not to break an atmospheric spell by any loud talking. Then, exercising great caution we boarded the grounded boat, with weapons off the lock and at the ready, our movements slow and quiet.

What greeted us could not have been expected by anyone, for there was no sign of life and the Tango boat had the look of a homicidal maniac having been let loose on her. There were great pools of semi-congealed blood that moved with feasting maggots, their parent flies rising in buzzing clouds, annoyed at being disturbed when doing their natural work. Her blood spattered mounted weapons were pointing skyward, as when used in an air-defense role, and spent cartridges of varying calibers, by the hundreds, were scattered everywhere. But there was no crew; she was a river Marie Celeste! My mind, although stiff with the mystery that now filled it, knew that it was not possible for all hands to be lost in that area without someone knowing the reason why!

Our boat had been dispatched to recover the Tango boat, not to go traipsing about the jungle looking for her missing crew, but we did it anyway, after spotting what looked like blood trails. We moved through the scattered scrub of the riverside, then thickets of bamboo, and on into the secondary jungle following the recent trodden path. I had felt a wave of nausea sweep over me, for beneath the shadow of some sapling trees we had found them, lying in a rough pile, like cut wood destined for a stove, and naked as when born, other than socks.

Regardless of whoever had stripped them, or why, it was of everything else. To me that pitiful pile bore all the hallmarks of an action by the Dac Cong, the Viet Cong Special Forces, and the Delta District’s Mobile Company, a large and ruthless Viet Cong fighting unit. Both were amongst the most evil minded motherfu*kers that could be encountered in the Vietnam War.

The cadavers had taken on that gray-green porcelain look specifically reserved for the recently departed when starting out in the process of mortification. The stench of death mingling with the sweet smelling blooms and fungus funk of the jungle made me gag; overpowering aromas never to be forgotten. A head count revealed one man was missing from the crew of the Tango boat, if he was a prisoner there was nothing to be done, if not, and in hiding, or lying dead somewhere, it was beyond our immediate resources to find him. It had to be faced without any feeling of guilt, as I had to concentrate on recovering the grounded boat, and more importantly, the dead.

There were no glad bags, body bags, on either boat, so poncho liners were used to wrap them in, and each securely tied off with cut lengths taken from a heaving line. Waving palm fronds to disperse what seemed like billions of flies, all the time retching uncontrollably at the foulness, for even with wetted rags tied around our faces, in such a way to cover the nose and mouth, there was no escaping it, we set about the disgusting work of transferring each dead man from the bloated pile onto a poncho liner.

My conscience, eventually getting the better of me over the missing crewman, made me decide to give the near-area a swift sweep. He had crawled to a tree and lay there, propped up against it and waited for the end. With a terrible wound to the abdomen, it must have taken a heroic effort, and I wondered how many horrors he had witnessed during the deaths of his shipmates as machine guns rattled, and rounds whined and whirred through the air. The Poor fu*ker looked as if he’d never made it a day past twenty. One long nightmare of pain before dying alone in a stinking jungle at the a*s-end of Vietnam, what an epitaph!


“No one can tell how much future they may have, so if you are killed or wounded the next rank in line will take over. There is no need to be a hero, just do your duty, nothing more is required of you,” had said a barnacle of a Chief Petty Officer during a lecture on marine craft operation. Well, the sailor propped against the tree had done his duty and was killed doing it, but there were no ranks on his boat to take over, that was for sure, the next rank in line had to come from our boat.

Searching for, and recovering the Tango boats’ crew meant I had taken, by far, too much upon myself by irresponsibly placing my boat and crew in what could be claimed at a later date as unwarranted harms way. For during the Vietnam War everything had to be done exactly by the book, grunts had been court-martialed for even a minor deviation from orders, or the Rules and Regulations, and ended up in the stockade at Long Binh. Regardless of what may have come later, the decision had been made.

When in the final stages of loading our cargo of dead brothers-in-arms onto our boat, laying each one down in the well-deck, with as much respectful deference as could be mustered, considering the stomach churning stench, there came from far off, deep within the jungle, the unmistakable sound of a 14.5 mm KPV heavy machine gun being fired, accompanied by muffled, undetermined excited shouting, and the sharp barking of a dog.

An aircraft with its motor giving off an unstable sound, and oily black smoke dribbling from behind the propeller, came barreling over the river from the direction of the firing. It was a Skyhawk with South Vietnamese Air Force markings, the “Crazy Water Buffalo” as their pilots called them.

We could clearly see the pilot staring down at us, and lifting a hand in the form of a salute. There were holes in the fuselage made by large caliber rounds, then the dribble of smoke burst into a flame-studded swirling cloud as its’ motor gave one noisy cough and stopped! Heading off in the direction of the coastal airstrip, it glided on out of sight, a few moments later there was the thump of a small explosion, and a sliver of ochre colored smoke rose in the distance.

The crashed aircraft was the herald for an urgent departure, flushed with success upon success, Charlie would be hunting for new victims, possibly by blocking the river where it narrowed a couple of klicks up from where we were by using a makeshift log and chain boom, it had been done before with stunning results. A couple of PBR’s, Patrol Boat River, had struck one when traveling at speed. Being hung-up on the boom and unable to break free Charlie had set about chopping them into chunks with recoilless rifle fire, and although giving a spirited defense the majority of their crews were either wounded or killed.

If a Mike boat hit such a boom I knew there need be no fear of the result, because its mass alone would probably break the chains. However, as the Tangos motors would not start-up, our Mike, acting in the way of a towboat, would make hitting one a completely different ball of wax. Quickly readying for the tow, a bridle was fastened onto the bow cleats of the Tango boat and a heavy steel-wire towing warp shackled onto the centre of the bridle, and made fast to our boat.

Then, with our hull shuddering and shaking under the strain, we hauled her out for the hopefully event free long run home. But along came a disaster, when there was an ominous loud “twang”, accompanied by the clang of metal being struck, and the hull lurched with such force it made me stagger, for as in some farcical sketch the wire towing warp had parted, allowing the Tango boat to shoot-off on its own! Carried along by the strong river current she grounded hard on a mid-stream sand bar before our boat could catch up with the runaway, and refused all our efforts to pull her off.

Outwardly I gave the impression of sheer frustration at not being able to recover her as ordered, but inwardly I was jumping for joy. I couldn’t believe my luck at the parting of the tow wire and the Tango deciding on going her own way. No towing meant a faster run back, depending on Charlie not screwing it up! The only chores left were to remove her weaponry, and flood out her motor room by cutting the main cooling pipes. Eventually, she would be either salvaged or destroyed by aircraft targeting, either way, we were done.

As some of the crew took a “Gods Shower” in what seemed as never ending rain, I stood at the stern of our Mike next to the crewman on the aft quad 50’s watching the now half sunken Tango fade into the misty distance, the boat looked even more forlorn, for not wanting to give Charlie a war trophy the crewman tasked with retrieving her weapons had also removed her ensign. I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out a small pack of blood smeared letters from home. On my final quick look around onshore I had found them lying next to the river’s edge. The first few lines of the top letter told me they were from a mother to her son.

I pondered on the faceless admin officer who would write to, and forward the sons personal effects to his mother. He would write using melancholy words, saying that her sons place in the military would not be easily filled, and expressing manifest feelings of sorrow over his untimely death. Even though he had never known of his existence he would act as if he had served with him. I dropped the blooded letters into our churning prop-wash. The quad 50’s gunner caught my eye, and gave a little nod of approval.

My thoughts then turned to a very dangerous subject by starting to wonder who would write such a letter to a dead VC’s mother. Thankfully, my training took over and I immediately rejected such foolish thoughts, for we had been taught in the Marine Corps that to give a human face to the enemy seriously reduced your ability to kill him, and therefore, by that measure, increased his ability to kill you!

[Mike Tevion]

That is another classic story Bernard. The brave South Vietnamese pilots who flew Skyhawks were undervalued, underfed and underpaid.

Mike.

[Gimpy_Fac]

Many thanks mike.

Take care.

Bernard.

[Gimpy_Fac]

Une âme perdue


“Insects, and botulism bacterium, poison molecules injected when bitten or stung, malaria, typhoid and cholera. These are but a few of your worst enemies in the jungle. Forget about Charlie, he is tame compared to these little suckers; anyway, bugs bite and kill him, just as they will bite and kill you! “

Riverine survival lecture 8, Florida Everglades, 1966.



The living area on our Mike Zippo was small, adequate, even considered by others as unfairly comfortable. Minimalism in military life is an absolute requirement, just as civilian boat living is. Clutter just gets in the way of efficiency, so claimed the Marine Corps training manual.

One great advantage we had over the land Marines was that we did not have to sleep out in the mud and rain when operational in the boonie. With the exception of when any jungle time came our way, and if that time came when the monsoon season hit, then our life turned into a soaking wet, mosquito biting, insect ravaged, fu*king misery!

There is no need for someone to go on a seek-and-find mission aboard a spacecraft, whizzing around the outer reaches of our solar system, or beyond, and boldly go to find a planet inhabited by frighteningly strange looking, vicious and deadly life forms. All they have to do is crawl around in a jungle, right here on this planet called earth, and I absolutely guarantee they will not be disappointed.

Rain! Again! Torrential rain, which dumped so much moisture into the fetid air to be found under the jungle canopy that it felt as if we were drowning with every breath we took! Standing on our boat’s deck stark naked, and taking one of “god’s showers” in warm tropical rain was one thing, but squatting for dubious shelter under a broad leafed plant in the jungle, whilst being pissed on by the very same warm tropical rain, as it cascaded down in a Niagara Falls like torrent from the upper canopy, and bringing with it a myriad of all sorts of nasty, weird and biting bugs, was quite another!

As soon as these washed down bugs hit the jungle floor, and recovered composure, their little legs carried them at speed to the nearest available food sources. Needless to say, that those food sources which they eagerly sought after being us, for indeed they proved ravenous.

I was absolutely furious at out latest NFG, new fu*king guy. For, acting like a damn tourist he had gone wandering off from the boat into the jungle when we had stopped to clear her propellers of river trash, a regular requirement, especially in the monsoon season. One guy had seen him leave, and had not thought the NFG’s action of leaving the boat important enough to report it at the time.

Rightly so I was furious with our wanderer, and at the guy who should have told me, for they had not acted in a proper military fashion, and had placed my boat and her crew in an unwelcome, and extremely dangerous situation, by forcing us to remain static for longer than was prudent, in an area know to be hot with Charlie’s aggressive fighting patrols. In addition, the Vietnamese jungle was, and still is, no place in which to get lost, either in war or in peace. You can wander in circles in any jungle anywhere until you just drop from exhaustion and expire, and you may never be found.

Taking two of the crew along with me, one of whom was the crewman who was amiss in not reporting the NFG leaving, we entered the jungle at the point where the wanderer was last seen. After an hour or so of fruitless searching, and as night was closing fast, I decided to wait until first light before continuing, one halfwit adrift being enough! Anyway, there would be little, if any, spoor to follow. The waterfall like downpour saw to that.

That night spent in the jungle proved to be a living nightmare! We fought what seemed as a losing battle against an army of bugs. I felt that I was beating myself to death, as if caught up in a form of demonic ritual, for I slapped at myself until near senseless in that bug war. Had any of us been an entomophobic, they would have experienced such a panic blow-out at the sheer size of some bugs that were scuttling around, at times over us, they would have run off screaming in the style of a mental asylum escapee, into the jungle. As it happened, none of us were.

We fought those bugs in a near pitch-black environment. However, occasionally a break would appear in the downpour, allowing silvery beams of moonlight to spear down through the canopy, and illuminate the jungle floor in a green-tinged, spectral light. When that happened, the larger of the bugs, would scamper away and gives us a small respite. Unfortunately, those few moments of big, bug-less, bliss, were sparse in appearing.

Morning’s first glow forced the vast majority of the bug army to retreat, probably to re-group for another major assault when darkness returned. However, I had no intension of allowing them their will. We were utterly exhausted from lack of sleep, and above all we had no coffee! There was a critical need for coffee when out in the boonie, just like a drugs dependant smack-head needs their morning fix, we needed coffee! It would instantly start to strip away the tiredness and nervousness. It was a fact of life that grunts could barely function without it. C ration coffee was atrociously disgusting stuff, horribly bitter. However, just breathing in the aroma could have a near magical effect on a grunt’s morale.

Accompanied by squadrons of mosquitoes, and a black mass of various flying insects, which dived in with glee to attack any exposed skin, we set off to start the search again. A few hours into it, and thousands of bug bites later, I was just about to call off and return to the boat when an excited shout went up, "Hey! Look at this!" One of the crew was holding a “Steel Pot”, a helmet, aloft in triumph. "I told you Sarge, this would be a likely place to look!” He added loudly. I stopped, turned, and said in response to his cockiness, “So what, do you want a numba-ten mamasan in reward? Knock off the self congrats and keep on looking, with mouth firmly shut!”

Noise in the jungle can be heard hundreds of meters from its source, and there I had an idiot shouting at the top of his voice, and probably scaring the crap out of everything that relied on hearing as a form of defense. Worst of all, if Charlie was sniffing around, then that one careless shout would act as a homing beacon. We now had to head for the boat soon as!

Infantry training encourages a commander, at whatever their rank value, to pick the ground on which to stand and fight, thus denying the enemy an advantage. Fighting bugs in the dark on their chosen ground, well, ok. However, fighting Charlie on his home ground in the dark, and with no chance of support, then, no way! The likelihood of loosing more guys in an unfavorable skirmishing fire-fight wouldn’t find the one who was already lost through his own irresponsible actions.

The other crewman found an M16 rifle in near pristine condition, and then noticed he was standing beside an indentation in the jungle floor; he looked around and could see another similar to the one he was standing beside. "Hey, guys, what do you think these are?" he asked in a low voice, pointing out the depressions on the ground. “Probably old shell scrapes" said the helmet finder with confidence, but this time he also kept his voice down. "Looks more like graves to me!" said the indentation finder warily.

I looked down with a frown at the grave like indentations on the ground, but instantly dismissed them. For if they were graves, they were too old for one to be holding the guy we were searching for. Anyway, Charlie only buried our dead Special Forces, in an attempt to keep us guessing as to their whereabouts. So I took a grid reference for them, just in case some SEAL team or other had been reported adrift. Charlie never wasted time, nor expended valuable energy, burying our dead grunts. In normality he just left them where they fell.

As the light started to fade, the finds of discarded gear grew more infrequent, like the paper trail of a game running out. But that was no game to be played, that was deadly serious. Literally, for the missing guy, as the time I had allotted to the finding of him was truly up. To search longer would have been pressing our luck just a little too far for comfort.

That time our luck held, for no weapons firing had been heard from the direction of the river. If Charlie had attacked the boat, then the remaining crew would have returned fire, opened the throttles and pissed off, leaving us to our own devices. With all that in mind we made one last visual sweep, and then I ordered a speedy return to the boat, before evenings black blanket fell upon the jungle, and its bug army set out on their nightly foraging.

[MANICHAEAN]

Bernard, there are those that write from imagination, and then there are those that write based on experience. Yours is the latter. But it is something more. There is an intensity in it which gets my attention every time, combined with a flow that would be the envy of many writers. This is especially so regards the responsibilities of command under the most adverse of conditions. There is the cold reality of the Marine code, but you always introduce in there, the human qualities.
Best regards
M.

[Gimpy_Fac]

Hi M.

Many thanks for your kind words.

Take care.

Bernard.

[Gimpy_Fac]

Ordres Mouvement


“The best plan in the world will fail if you cannot communicate it. Similarly, a poor plan can be saved by good confident orders. Only competent orders will leave a Marine in no doubt as to what is expected of him.”

Selections board, NCO leadership training, 1966.



The sun appeared, rising above the horizon like a giant shell-burst, laying a line of gold along the top of the surrounding trees. It replaced a night of torrential rain with a day of glorious sunshine and wispy cirrus clouds. From the blue-gray wash of the false dawn our Mike Zippo had been used by gaggles of iridescent dragonflies as a bug aircraft carrier.

Those wondrous insects had dried their wings and preened themselves like birds in the sunbursts tendrils of light, preparing for feasting on the first appearing flies of the day. As if a signal had been given they suddenly rose amass into the air, all facing the same way, and hovering like helicopters absorbed the early sun’s energy giving warmth, before some individuals started breaking up the formation by spearing-off after prey.

As was becoming the norm, our boat had been ordered straight into another detail without respite. I couldn’t sleep, for even in my exhausted state sleeps velvet embrace was eluded, and I had taken the deck watch upon myself, leaving my crew deep in their comatose like slumber. However, it was more through a case of selfishness that I had left them to their dreams, or nightmares, for I dearly cherished those little snippets of solitude away from my fellow crewmen. Everyone had some means of leisure time employment; otherwise the individual could quite easily trespass close to insanity, my own was a craving for solitude.

It was the smell of coffee that brought the crew to life, and they heard our orders with sick hearts, for they knew it was going to be a highly dangerous situation we would find ourselves in, making their scorn for our superiors whom they considered incompetent click up another notch. Such was the dearth of suitable boats our orders to move had been left nigh-on too late as usual, even though the situation for the South Vietnamese Marines relying on us was deteriorating hour by hour.

On such a fine morning the river was packed solid with traffic and all going in various directions without any heed for the “rules of the road”. A small fleet of Sampans which got in the way of a charging ferry were swamped, spilling their market goods as they slowly sank, PBR’s and Swift boats darted about like terriers chasing rats, an ancient river dredger blocked the channel when her boiler blew. With all this and more going on, it took an absolute eternity for our boats to muster into any resemblance of order before heading off to find a suitable spot for embarking the SV Marines. The sheer volume of troops waiting to be recovered made the use of helicopters completely out of the question, the only way was by boat, and it was down to us.


The raging battle had lasted all day and the casualty rate had been awesome, in the region of four hundred dead and as many wounded, yet still more Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars had been thrown at it again and again, trying to force the battle front. The critical part was that their training had been insufficient so they had no idea of a need in battle for independent action, but their zeal for the communist cause made them idiotically brave, as if it was a virulent infectious disease that drove them to self-sacrifice, as their numbers were decimated by the SV Marines more rushed in to take their place.

To win, modern infantry must fight an aggressive war of fluid movement, one where even the smallest of opportunities are seized upon, and then ruthlessly exploited. In such fighting the section commanders initiative becomes king, but Charlie hung on to the futility of frontal mass attacks, and although success with press of numbers went into military planners trash cans decades before, the NVA senior commanders still clung to it. Rushing forward with a grand hurrah! And the blowing of tuneless bugles to boost moral, only resulted in their troops being slaughtered. The moving spirit behind such an outmoded tactic was the North’s General Giap

From the moment our boats sailed into view from around a bend in the river, machine guns rattled and rifles cracked, as Charlie opened fire on them from along the line of a low ridge. Following the cardinal rule “Obey the order first, ask questions later” that had been drummed into each and every one of us, the Tango boats, braving a deluge of fire which included mortar rounds and B40 rockets, dropped their bow doors onto the riverbank. The SV Marines having held out for over a day against phenomenal odds, soaked, miserable and hungry, awaited the order to withdraw, but instead received a hopeless disarray of counter orders, or lack of orders, and leaving behind those beyond help flooded aboard the Tangos, all the time returning fire as they went. To my sheer surprise they managed it without taking further casualties.


Lending our armaments to the covering fire, and standing there like a Marine in a recruiting poster, with incoming rounds banging and sparking off the gun-shield, our gunner had become battle-crazed. As the forward fifty’s sprayed the ridge two more black clad figures of a machine gun crew skidded and cart-wheeled down the slope, their bodies torn and bleeding. One stood up, then staggered and fell, and the next burst smashed him to a bloody pulp. Another burst from the 50’s towards the ridge was immediately followed by distant shouts of “ ban thiu quy - chung ta giet bạn! “, “dirty devil - we kill you!” as the return fire intensified and kept on coming in regular bursts. It became so heavy it rattled off the hull like hail stones hitting a tin roof! One round passed through my shirt just below the armpit as I dived headlong for the steel sanctuary that was the well- deck!

Charlie’s machine gun crews proved not to be the mad rushing fools of their infantry, instead they were amongst the best trained, and had taken on a personal battle with our gunner, whose own prowess at reducing their numbers had been proven. To concentrate an apex of rounds on him, they had begun “walking” machine gun fire over the riverbank towards our boat! There was something surreal in watching rounds trimming the grass and marsh plants, with a cricket-like chirping sound, as if an invisible gardener was at work.

Just on the point of my bringing our flamethrower into action, and although Charlie was out of range for an effective display, it would act as a distraction against the ever increasing rounds being directed at our boat. When, throwing everyone into confusion, and without explanation, the firing suddenly ceased, apart from the odd rifle going off. At first I thought my senses were playing tricks, as just audible to the ear came the sound of jet whine, which, in what seemed like no more than a second, grew into a whooshing roar as a “V” formation of fast movers, F4 Phantoms, flashed over the now near silent battlefield. Wiggling their wings as a signal for us to keep our heads down they came back running parallel to the river on what looked like a strafing run over Charlie’s positions, making him come back to life and start concentrating his gunfire on the fast movers.

Ye who challenge the Valkyrs, let all hope abandon! For completely ignoring the small-arms ground fire and the occasional rocket propelled grenade, the lead aircraft came in low and fired rockets, the second dropped 25lb bombs, which detonated with a thunderous rumble and the blast waves made the air rock and quiver, the third blanketed the rocket and bomb carnage with napalm. At slightly higher ground behind the low ridge a line of little dark figures appeared in the distance, dancing and cavorting in mortal agony as the liquid fire engulfed them, a scene which chilled the blood! Carried upon the air came a nauseating smell, that of burnt flesh, and the sound of crackling flames mingled with pitiful screaming. Thankfully, billowing, dark brown smoke, full of flying sparks, lifted into the sky, blotting the horror from view.

With the surviving SV Marines and their casualties finally secured aboard the Tango’s I started our diesels and opened the throttles, drawing our boat away from the riverbank meant we had become sailors once more. To the crew I looked for signs of enthusiasm, but there was none, for no one could possibly come away from such military actions without eyes older than their years, and a mind dazed and bludgeoned. The battle had died with an immense sense of utter futility, and as such, was mourned by no one.

[LongCharlieSlim]

Brother, you tell it as it was! I laughed at the “Orders”, clear and precise were hard to come by. During the battle of Hue we advanced up to the shrine of the warrior, and then withdrew from it, eight times each way in one hour due to cr+p “Orders”.

[Gimpy_Fac]

Yes Charlie, I at times wondered how the hell some were actually allowed to play so fast-and-loose with grunts lives the way they did when giving out “orders”.

[Gimpy_Fac]

Lutte à la Corde.

“There is an ever increasing danger of boats being ambushed by the VC. Our main bases are now fairly secure, but that danger will escalate the further out you travel from them. Obviously the best way to avoid such a risk is to travel in convoy as lone boats are a prime target. But since the vast majority of our military operations are a compromise between capabilities, resources and cost, you will just have to accept that risk. “

Mike boat operations oversight briefing, Colonial Boat Yard, Vietnam, 1967.



The laughter was highly infectious as it rippled along the landing stage amongst the other boat’s crews, like a distant ship’s bow wave as it finally reaches the shoreline, for we were reading within the “Stars ‘n’ Bars”, Stars and Stripes newspaper, the latest offering of jingoisms from the politicians, sitting safe, snug and secure within their plush surroundings back in the world, the USA.

Sailing orders had always been a subject up for conjecture by the crew, and that trip proved no different, for uneasy rumors abounded as to where we were going, and what we would be doing when we got there, but three things were guaranteed whatever the truth behind those rumors, there would be mosquitoes, oppressive humidity, and Charlie! There was a nasty feeling in the air that we were about to be sent into harms way on one more seemingly pointless whimsical errand.

The plan was to be a very simple one, and my interest instantly picked up at such a bold claim, for I thought, but hell, are not all military plans supposedly so designed? What concerned me greatest was the part of the briefing which stated that no alternative plan was required. At NCO school, they had told us that when planning any action there must be an alternative plan ready to go, just in case the enemy fu*ks-up the original plan by doing the complete opposite of what was thought he would! In fact it happened quite often during the Vietnam War, and I never heard of any American military commander truly capable of understanding the oriental mind, as their unpredictability made it quite impossible to know which way they would jump next. Consequently, the western habit of predictability definitely proved to be one great disadvantage in the war.

So, sure, there it was, the errand! Two Mike boats, a “Zippo” and a “Lawnmower”, detailed to escort an iron tug of dubious vintage, which had survived longer than her builders ever intended. The creaking maritime relic, looking as though she had been paroled from an asylum for end-of-life steam tugs, would be towing a dumb barge, packed to the gunwales with construction material, nearly one hundred klicks up a Charlie infested river to one of our furthest out forward operations bases, and hopefully back, without any contingency to back us up!

The briefing officer’s response to the boat commanders’ objections was that our military resources were, as he put it, “required on more tactically important tasks”. However, he did suggest that if things turned bad we should use our initiative and improvise, which we would do anyway! Unfortunately, the ability to improvise was no substitute for reliable military support when such was required.

Everyone serving knew that all military plans must be kept simple, because under pressure men’s minds get tired, and they also knew that there were some real dumb-a*s “Butter Bars”, Officers, serving in Vietnam who could take what seemed like a lifetime to absorb even the most basic of plans. Once they did, their enthusiasm for the fight would run away with them by believing that the plan would overcome all difficulties. Unfortunately, most of the time they were proven disastrously wrong in pinning their faith to something that proved no more than false premises and great optimism. Just as an over-complicated plan is more difficult to change, and will usually end in failure, so is a simple one without an alternative written into it!

To make matters worse for our boat, we had been saddled with an overly keen young “Butter Bar”, one of the beardless boy churn-outs from an ROTC College, a real “Shake ‘n’ Bake” type. His grandfather had been amongst the great philanthropists, but that particular inspirational part of his supplied gene-pool had unfortunately been lost to him. However, he did consider himself as being “born to lead”, but such arrogance of self belief could hardly inspire anyone.

On deciding that our Zippo boat was to be his “war teething ring”, as he liked to term it, had taken over the helm, much to the dismay of the crew who reckoned that he wouldn’t be getting many bets on becoming, “The Officer most likely to succeed in the Corps”. A good Officer, amongst other required attributes, leads by the respect from others, “notices” what is going on around him, has an inquiring mind, and can express himself clearly, whereas that guy walked around with a cold-as-ice attitude towards subordinates, and like a horse wearing blinkers saw practically nothing, but thought he already knew absolutely everything, and gave out orders that were muddled and hard to understand.

He soon found out that our particular Mike Zippo was no daddy’s motor boat cruising around on the Chesapeake in the heat of a summer’s day, the subaltern’s vessel and place of previous boating experience, but could be frighteningly unpredictable if not handled with extreme care. She had a general unruliness about her when answering the helm, and a tendency of sheering-off heavily to starboard when going astern, was playfully skittish when making any form of headway, and for no reason, nor warning whatsoever, would decide to sail broadside on when fully laden with flamethrower fuel!

Her stern gear was so temperamental it was liable to fail at the most inopportune moments, such as going alongside a jetty packed with visiting senior ranks. But when handled well she never got into any serious mishaps, and so it came to pass that after a few heart-stopping moments when we nearly ran aground, collided with the other boat, and rammed the barge, our intrepid “Butter Bar”, to our immense relief, and taking the river-Pilot with him, jumped-ship by going over to the elderly tugboat.

Once aboard he caused a furious argument between himself, the tug’s Vietnamese owner, who was also her skipper, and our local river-Pilot, by demanding a right to command, which was firmly and thankfully, declined! No surprises there as both had witnessed his distinct lack of prowess at Mike boat handling. But he did win one crucially important command decision, and that was which of the three vessels would be the vanguard, he chose the tug. Up to that point she had been where any escorted civilian vessel should have been, in the middle of the flotilla line, but our “Butter Bar” was obviously one determined to lead from the front.

Fifty klicks, and the halfway mark was reached, then passed, and still no appearance of Charlie. In defiance of the tropical sun, some fingers of low-lying mist still lingered on the river, and settled on any steel surface making it drip with moisture. In the water laden atmosphere helmets and weapons became slick and slippery to the touch, and we uncomfortably clammy and sticky with damp and sweat. Everyone became isolated in their own little oasis of differing fears and apprehensions, as if at any moment they would be delivered into the open arms of the antichrist. More so after reading the note penciled in on the margin of the river chart supplied for the trip upstream, “This river is liable to radically change without warning!”, whatever the hell it meant no one knew, but was enough to get any sailors naturally occurring superstitions fervently active in his mind!

The sun grew hotter, tempers grew thinner, and helmets became like tiny ovens slowly cooking the heads they covered, so to take my mind off the heat-seared irritable crew I settled my interest on the river-Pilot, who now stood on the tug’s wheelhouse roof giving out to the Mike boats helm directions in the way of hand signals, and shouted orders to the tugboat's coxswain as the river rapidly narrowed, and the bottom became shallow and treacherous. Depth soundings bore no relation whatsoever to those displayed on the chart, and in addition mud bars, rocks and snags appeared where clear passage was claimed. Then it quickly deepened again as enormous steep banks rose up forming a previously unknown narrow winding gorge in the way of a mini Grand Canyon, our motor noise bouncing and echoing off its walls.

Ahead, as the gorge fell-away, the country opened up again and we could see a range of low hills off in the distance, at the foot of which lay our destination. A huge detonation quiver was felt throughout our hull, and the deck bucked like a startled colt beneath my feet as the tugs complete bow section flew into the air, amidst a giant water spout, before going through an impressively perfect summersault to land with an almighty crash in a low lying swamp, all as if it was a trick from a conjurer’s grand finale! The remaining part of the tug sailed on for a moment or two before gracefully sinking, and gently took to the river bottom where it remained upright, as a submarine would on a practice dive. The barge, now securely at anchor using the wreck, sheered around like a nervous puppy on a lead before settling down to the influence of the river current, and quietly lay there peacefully, as a yacht would on her moorings.

It was now glaringly obvious why the VC had let us to sail on in their claimed territory such a distance in peace and without interference. For knowing of the deep gorge and the narrow navigational channel, they had, with joyful minds, placed in the river’s mud a 25 lb bomb converted into a magnetic bottom mine, the type our Air Force seeded in their Northern waterways and harbors, and thus returned it to its rightful owners with spectacular results. But instead of sinking a Mike boat with the bottom mine, thanks to our subaltern, their return for such a grand effort was a floating scrap-heap!

I had the vision of terrified drowning men trapped within the wreck, and in their desperation to escape pounded on iron bulkheads with blooded fists, but there were no trapped men, all the tugs crew had survived, as did the river-Pilot, having been blown from his navigational perch on top of the wheelhouse by the blast. Our “Butter Bar”, well ahead of the splashing mob, was striking for the riverbank using a snappy style any Olympic swimmer would have envied. I watched him with a mix of reluctant gratitude and disdain, being of the certain knowledge that his unwavering demand for the right to command had unwittingly saved us, but would shortly blight our lives once more.

The note on the chart’s margin had proved accurate after all; the river had indeed radically changed without warning, as it now had a fresh wreck completely blocking the narrow fairway. The tugs smoke-stack, black and spindly as was Abraham Lincoln’s Chapeau, stuck above the surface, pointing towards the heavens like an accusing finger, and for a fleeting moment I though the God of War was roaring with laughter, but no, it was only large bubbles of escaping steam from the now sunken tugs boiler as they burst on the surface, with sounds similar to that of raucous guffaws.

After countless decades of boringly uneventful service, the old, worn-out tug had been destroyed. Not being left to fade away as a river hulk, or at the hands of ship-breakers, she had died with dignity.

[Gimpy_Fac]

Pieux de Renseignement



“Top priority must be given to capturing Eastern block and Chinese advisors. Remember, they are of great intelligence value to the Agency, so don’t go killing them if it can be avoided, but if it can’t be avoided we still want the body!”

CIA Directive, US Embassy, Saigon, Vietnam, 1967.


The CIA’s contemporaneous intelligence based war had become more complex. Units would be put together for specified tasks, those that proved successful were given more work, those that didn’t were disbanded and their members dispersed amongst the more successful units. It was an innovative approach and extremely effective.

Mirroring a British Second World War concept, and using their excellent training facilities in Malaysia and Hong Kong, local tribesmen and other minority groups within Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were recruited and trained in behind-the-lines warfare to form a secret army, eventually reaching numbers in excess of 60,000 by the time the South Vietnamese were abandoned to their fate by the US Congress.

And it was into this clandestine war within the Delta, and many times beyond, our boats were slowly drawn, by ferrying, supporting, and resupplying various counter-infiltration groups in the way of heavily armed Fire Force teams.

On one such detail a Fire Force team had been after a North Vietnamese sapper unit, part of the D65 group, who were known for their expertise with land mines and booby traps. The area map was covered in red dots marking out previous mine explosions, and needless to say everyone feared mines and booby traps. The NVA and VC were no different than any other grunts when it came to either of those nasty devises, for when involved in a firefight there was an even chance of survival, but not when it came to mines!

If you set a mine off anything might have happened, but the best that could be hoped for was to only lose a foot. Unfortunately, Charlie’s mine layers had a real dirty little habit, for they buried together with a mine glass bottles and jars filled with all types of disgusting material, such as human or animal feces, urine, and putrefying flesh. They had also been known to fill them with gasoline, diesel or acid. Not only did this practice possibly increase the mines kill radius, it also reduced the victim’s chance of survival through secondary infection as glass was hard to detect with X-rays. D65 sappers had also been known to crawl into our own defensive minefields and change the shape of them by expanding the boundaries and closing the safe lanes.

During the previous night there had been a confused contact, then in the early hours there was another with the NVA sapper unit, that time it was short but vicious, just a flurry of rounds, but enough to leave one of the Montagnards wounded, and blood trails to follow. There was something wildly unreal about those short battles; some lasted but a few seconds and others minutes, but none ever longer than ten minutes, during which time a phenomenal amount of ammunition could be blasted off with practically no result in the way of seriously wounded or killed for the rounds spent.

When following blood trails you had to keep the pace to a slow steady walk, but too slow and Charlie would have time to set a stay-behind crossfire ambush, or melt away. Too fast and you would quickly catch up with him, and end up in an unknown number firefight. There was only one way to learn the correct pace, and that was on the job practice, so only the most experienced acted as a pace-man, and led the group who followed the trails.

The primary aim of any military advisor is to survive, but the one the blood trails led to hadn’t managed it. He was found lying partially camouflaged by hastily cut fauna on the edge of a track, and in life he must have been tall and smartly dressed, but in death he looked like a battered scarecrow. Beside the corpse lay a West German made Heckler & Koch HK4 pistol, which was an unusual find to be had on an Eastern block advisor as the Nagant M 1895 revolver was their normal sidearm choice, and although rounds for it were hard to find during the Vietnam war it was still highly prized by our grunts, for the heavy 7.62 mm round was a true “man stopper” of the same quality as was our Colt .45 automatics.

However, the advantage any revolver has over an automatic pistol is that it has few working parts, thus making it practically devoid of stoppages and consequently far more reliable in a close combat situation, where one pistol round can make the difference between your survival, or oblivion. It truly was an impressive revolver, for due to the Nagants sturdiness it could still fire in the harshest of conditions, even underwater!

I did consider keeping the H&K pistol, but that would have opened a massive can of crap to be poured over my head if the agency ever discovered such a move, and in truth they undoubtedly would have, for they had an uncanny ability when it came to uncovering those with devious intent.

Unfortunately, having to follow the CIA’s protocol of recovering all dead enemy advisors meant it was late in the evening and darkness had fallen by the time the one we had found was placed in an Agency supplied special container, for his journey on to Saigon. Our accompanying Tango boat had taken an unusual length of time to embark their Fire Force troops, and it was going on midnight before the boats started on the long sail back to the forward operating base.

A harvest moon shone through thick dark clouds giving an eerie look to the canal’s surface, and the landscape around us. The crew and I were bone weary; there was a lassitude about us, for we had been on continuous details for several days, being heavily involved in various Fire Force actions. The task of navigating a Mike along a boat-width canal was hard enough in daylight, at night when exhausted was terribly difficult, and the passage of time seemed to stretch into infinity as we burbled along with the motors at low revolutions, and a heaped on burden was trying to do it inconspicuously. Unfortunately, two seventy five foot long diesel driven boats, cruising along a narrow canal, couldn’t possibly hope to blend into the natural environment.

Two thirds of the distance into our journey found us approaching an extremely large and deep bomb made hole in the middle of the canal, formed during an earlier B52 strike, the periphery of which had eased an unusually sharp bend in the canal. As we scraped along the canal bank to make the turn there was with startling suddenness, and the strange dreamlike quality which accompanies any sudden violent action, tracer rounds began streaking all around and passing over the boats! At the same time there was a massive explosion which brought down into the canal a couple of towering mature trees!

We were now unable to execute the first rule for those in boats who have been ambushed, don’t stop until you are clear! Then Charlie appeared, running forward out of the dark shouting Communist slogans and firing RPG’s, and short, well controlled bursts of between three and five rounds from their automatic small arms! Which meant our only chance of survival was by the second rule for those being ambushed, an immediate aggressive reaction, in our case it was in the way of an artillery fire mission!

The Fire Forces radio man on the Tango began screaming his lungs out for the fire mission, but as not a trained artillery spotter the first shells sighed overhead and landed in the canal, blasting the blocking trees bare of their leaves, and as luck would have it, out of the way to leave clear passage, which we couldn’t take advantage of due to the Tango coming under intensive machine-gun and rocket fire! Charlie had picked his ambush point perfectly, and knew if he sank the Tango we were trapped like fish in a barrel, and all would be destroyed at his pleasure. A wet peppery stink of high explosive filled the air as the second salvo blew out the canal bank directly in front of our Zippo, flinging clumps of earth, stones, and splintered rock whining like shrapnel in all directions!

Someone on the Tango boat with more savvy on gunnery directives had taken over the radio and gave proper corrections to the distant gunners, thus making the third salvo hit the intended mark, and wrought havoc amongst the NVA and VC, who were cut down by white-hot shards of steel, but still they continued to advance, yet more cautious than before with their lives.

The tide or war turned and ran against them as the shells continued to hammer at their ranks, it seemed impossible men could withstand such an awful onslaught, however, they did, but going inevitably to their deaths! Once they had passed through the curtain of shell-fire, and into the hail of rounds produced within the boats direct fire killing zone, they might as well have never existed.

On the realization and acceptance that their ambush was a fail, Charlie’s survivors melted away like smoke caught by a breeze, leaving their dead and dying on the land and ours on the boats, like pieces of wreckage on a shore. Corpses bobbed and nodded in the canal, and one badly wounded VC, who had made it to within a few paces from our boat, sat weeping on the shell-flayed earth.

Being ahead of us, the Tango had borne the brunt of the ambush assault, and the misplaced artillery rounds. She had great shrapnel and fist-sized punched holes everywhere, lumps of steel had been torn away, a cavernous blast made dent in her hull, and her wheelhouse had been practically flattened by a gigantic boulder, which had proved true the adage of what goes up - must come down. For after being blown into the air by the second salvo it came roaring back out of the night sky like a meteor, and smashing into the Tango with the force of Thor’s hammer crushed her helmsman flat, as a bug would be under a thumb.

Our own boat hadn’t escaped unscathed from the artillery barrage, and Charlie’s valiant, albeit seemingly failed attack, since there were ragged shrapnel holes of varying sizes in the bow door, our hulls portside was riddled like a colander from high velocity heavy machine gun rounds, and I could smell diesel fuel. One of the forward 50’s was missing, including its mounting, a curled-back deck plate indicating where it had been, the crewman who had manned it was lying in two ragged halves. He had lived neat, his allocated space never wasted, personal gear stowage well thought out, and everything was exactly where it should have been. But his ability of living neatly could not help him in those final moments of life, for death in war is untidy, messy, but above all wasteful!

I stared, mesmerized, as our engineer whilst smoking a cigarette, and looking entirely unmoved, calmly stowed the two halves of the bow gunner in a glad bag, body bag, and cleared away the remaining foulness by kicking it over the side. There was something wrong with my left foot, for every step I took felt as if I was walking over broken glass, and blood seeped from a split in my boot, but seeing to it had to wait as we couldn’t rest on our laurels for even one second, and so, with the massively damaged Tango down to the use of one motor, the Zippo hemorrhaging fuel, we had limped on our way, like cripples needing crutches.

At the forward operating base the dead were landed, and the wounded cared for. I was desperate for sleep, and our Zippo badly required boatyard repairs, but it was not to be, for our boat had been given a task, an uncomplicated and straightforward one to deliver the Agency’s container to Saigon. We were not even given the time to eat, nor to flush away with the deck-wash hose the garish stains up forward, just enough for a rushed refuel of the undamaged diesel tank, and an ammo-up. The thought and realization made me angry, but food and rest was not be the answer for driving fresh memories to the back of the mind, that would take alcohol, and lots of it!

In balance there was always an upside to look for in every sailing order, and that particular one gave me certain latitude. Therefore, in Saigon, there was a chance of going into the City to purloin some brain numbing booze, but that would all depend on the some good will from the CIA. I just hoped the contents of their damn fancy shipping container would bring some, and prove worthy of the sacrifices, for as in a Greek tragedy, the heroes, and what little glory they gleaned from the action, had not long since departed.

[Gimpy_Fac]

Combattant pour gagner

“This Assault operation must be supported by the maximum small arms fire available! Which means all squad machine gunners must produce overwhelming firepower to win the fire-fight, and let you gain the initiative! The position you will be attacking has no depth, therefore, a straight aggressive fight through! That is all, and good luck! “

Squad commanders briefing, pre deliberate attack, Plain of Reeds, Vietnam, 1967.


Once more our Mike boat was out in the boonie working with the South Vietnamese Marines on one of their expeditions into the Plain of Reeds, a place so vile that the least false move could mean drowning in its putrid waters, where rifles, machine guns, and side arms became jammed with fermenting vegetation based mud, and into which men laden down with equipment sank up to, and at times above, their waists. To the Grunts who had to fight there that area of the Delta gave over the impression it was floating on a sea of glue-like slime!

Two other Mike boats made up the numbers of our little attack flotilla, both being Tangos, the standard troop and cargo humpers carrying the main attacking force, and the chosen landing point for this force was thick with tall reeds and elephant grass, which in turn was infested with large red ants and mosquitoes, and the stagnant water was nearly heaving with enormous leeches, which, to we the Delta grunts, were considered the devils own spawn! Those vampire-like aquatic parasites fastened tightly to flesh, as would a limpet mine to the hull of a ship, and were just as hard to remove.To avoid infection their removal had to be done carefully, by either douching with "bug juice", insect repellant, or by the old tried-and-tested method of burning off with a lighted cigarette.

Peering out through our cover within the elephant grass, and into the man-made clearing, it was the first close-up look I had of North Vietnamese Regulars. Unlike the irregulars of the VC those enemy grunts had an air of capability and self-sufficiency about them, and appeared tough, fit, and disciplined. All were armed with new Chi-com, Chinese Communist, AK rifles, with their fighting gear, uniforms and pith helmets well cared for. In essence, that time we had been up against properly trained and dedicated soldiers.

I caught some movement out the corner of my eye, but it was only our squad's machine-gunner squirming into a firing position with his M60, digging his toes into the mud against the weapon's recoil which would come once he opened fire. He was lying in a little watery dip in the swampy ground, a good natural weapons position which reduced his ground profile to practically zero. However, he was soaking up water like a sponge, and probably collecting leeches at the same time. Anyway, adrenaline always overcame discomfort before an anticipated fire-fight. His only other companions, besides the leaches, were red ants and the ever present mosquitoes, the usual cloud of determined insects that seemed to follow us everywhere when we took to the land.

The M60's gunner, just like all others awaiting the attack order, ignored their annoyance, and did not react to, nor swat at them. To the trained eye, even the slightest movement can be spotted, so breathing shallow, we lay there, under cover, letting the leaches, red ants, and mosquitoes feast away on us. But better a drop of blood to them than risk an enemy weapon round hit, and its probable resulting fatal bleed-out.

It was late in the afternoon when two young NVA grunts, that looked no more than fifteen years of age, began walking towards our cover, as if without a care in the world. The M60 gunner, hidden from their view, must have been waiting in hope that they would about turn and head back the way they had come. Alas, it was not to be, for he waited until the strolling pair was no more than 100 yards from him, and then opened fire. One of the NVA grunts was hit in the lower abdomen, the other on the point of his left shoulder, which spun him into his now crumpling buddy.

As always in these situations, there was a second of complete silence after the machine gun fired, as if the world was holding its breath, then mayhem erupted! The NVA grunts who had been hit by the M60's burst of fire started screaming, and their buddies in the clearing, who had stood like statues in a park when the automatic weapon fired, came to life, and started firing their own weapons in all directions, unsure of the exact direction from where the attacking threat was coming from.

Within that split second of indecision on their part we had taken advantage of it and were up on our feet. Then, running forward, began firing by instinct at any target that suddenly presented itself, at the same time trying to avoid hitting any South Vietnamese Marines, or our own guys, if possible, as the attack force flooded into the clearing. The attack squads quickly broke down into rifle pairs, and then to individuals as the fighting turned from a controlled action into a muddled melee, and I could see that the inevitable hand-to-hand fighting had already started as the NVA tried to make a fighting withdrawal, and the SV Marines being just as determined to stop them. Personal survival, being of the utmost in the mind, made these small individual battles extremely vicious, as each man tried to gain the upper hand over his opponent by kicking, punching, biting, and using any weapon available to hand, even helmets!

In these skirmishes, if one of your opponent's buddies ran past, he would fire at you, or slash with a fighting knife to assist. Otherwise, if left to the original gladiatorial pair were fought to a standstill, either through exhaustion on either side, or the death of one, or both, of the combatants, just as in the games arenas of ancient Rome. To anyone who happened to pass by, these struggles would probably have resembled a Saturday night drunken fight, resulting from idiots spilling from the bars into the highway, completely wrecked out of their skulls from the consumption of alcohol, and full of fighting bullsh*t. However, these particular little personal battles were by far more deadly!

A hard faced NVA non-com, with a Nagant revolver in his hand, who, whilst ignoring the stray rounds that were flying around looking for a non-intended target, was standing bawling at his men in the knowing that their situation was becoming desperate as we had experienced little difficulty penetrating deeply into their positions. It appeared, at least to me, that he was trying to form a fighting withdrawal line, exactly as any other experienced non-com would have done. For the last thing any commander wants, regardless of rank status, is a mad scramble by the herd to the rear, and possibly beyond. Anyway, you can never tell if the fight could be turned around, for it is all about the judgment to make your counter-attack at precisely the right moment, and a battle win could be secured.

But he may just as well have been shouting at the wind due to the battle din, which seemed to poise in the air as if it were a natural atmospheric phenomenon and not a product of war. The din was made up from people shouting and screaming orders, or in pain, machine gun and rifle fire, sharp bangs from detonating grenades and the dull thump of pistols being used at extremely close range. At so close a range people's clothing smoldered as a result of a pistol's muzzle flash, after it was pressed into their torso when fired!

Pistols were immediately discarded after having a "smoke-stack", or any other form of blockage which rendered them useless until cleared. You simply didn't have time to go fu*king around trying to clear any weapon of a blockage; you just brandished it in the way a medieval club would have been, or dropped it. If discarding was the choice, then, pulling your bayonet from the scabbard, or fighting knife from its sheath, you got right back at it, full of the fighting madness!

The NVA non-com, in obvious frustration at his orders not being heard, or disobeyed, fired his revolver at a fighting pair, hitting an SV Marine in the back of the head. Unfortunately, the heavy round from the revolver traveled straight through the Marines head and smashed into the face of the NVA grunt he was struggling with. Both went down immediately like pole-axed cattle!

At that instant, from my left, a figure ran at me, and as I turned to fire he came in at me unchecked like a football lineman would, hitting me so hard it knocked the wind out of me. As I went sprawling from his body check my rifle flew from my grasp, I scrambled onto my back, and at the same time tried to pull my pistol, but my attacker was on me in a flash! With a knife in one hand, and a US La Gana tomahawk in the other, in all probability a battlefield find, he started to slash and hack at me with the ferocity of the demented!

I dropped my pistol in the rush to free it from its holster, just as a swinging blow from the tomahawk cut deeply at the base of my left thumb, and a knife stab went into the muscle on the side of the palm. As I tried frantically to fend off the attack with my left hand, his knife blade made a deep cut on the inside of that wrist, just missing a vein. All of this was going on as I groped away frantically for the pistol with my right hand! In that instant I was already starting to lose the fight, so abandoned the pistol idea to one of defense only.

Kicking, trying to dislodge my attacker, who had a leg grip on me like a professional wrestler, and trying to grab for the knife, also fending off more attempted tomahawk blows all at the same time, I understood how a murder victim must feel during a frenzied knife attack for my stamina and strength were fading fast, as I fought to defend myself from a fatal stab, or life finishing blow from the tomahawk.

If I had been an actor playing out a scene in a Hollywood movie, or in program made for TV, then I would have come up with a fantastic martial arts move, which won the day. Alternatively, a novel hero, whom it appears, is a super-soldier capable of killing his enemies by just using a thumb. Even if I had been capable of using these far fetched, unbelievable magical methods, my left thumb was in a bad way from the tomahawk blow, and my other hand was busy trying to grab at my attacker's knife wielding hand.

The Marine Corps taught us some great self-defense moves; no doubt about that, and they may have proved very handy in a more controlled situation. However, they taught only one form of self-defense move when unarmed, and then attacked by a battle crazed nut wielding a knife and tomahawk, and that was to run, just as fast as your legs could carry you, and don't look back, nor trip. Similar to running from a bear in the woods, except trying to keep some self respect and not scream, unless caught. If caught, and can stay on your feet, you may just have a chance to break away, and start running again. But once down on the ground, your defense becomes extremely limited, as it was in my situation.

When on the ground and someone is on top of you slashing and stabbing away, your immediate reaction is to limit the attack result by blocking with your hands and arms, trying to protect your vital organs and face. The size of your attacker can be a major hurdle to overcome, but it is frankly an irrelevance, as you must survive to win! It becomes a battle of wills, and stamina, rather than one of strength.

My attacker was smaller, and of a lighter build than I, but I am no giant either, being considered small by American standards. But I was strong and fit in those days, and gave me just that modicum of an edge in trying to save my life. As the next knife stab came, intended for my face, I just managed to dip my head sufficiently allowing my helmet to take the blow, and my attacker lost forward balance slightly as the knife glanced off the steel. Lifting my head again, the rim of my helmet accidentally caught him under the nose on the philtrum! Luck is luck, whatever shape it comes in, and you should always be grateful when it appears.

Had I not fastened my helmet before the assault on the clearing, which I seldom did, it would probably have been lost in the struggle. That accidental blow was sufficient enough to break his determination for a split second, and enable me to muster one last supreme effort, and kick him off me, and on to his a*s!

Rather than come back at me before I could recover sufficiently for a more spirited defense, he jumped to his feet sporting a spectacular nose bleed, which had resulted from his nose encountering my helmet, and ran off towards the far side of the clearing after his retreating buddies, who were now doing a controlled fighting withdrawal, and off into the elephant grass he went. Sitting there with legs outstretched, and so physically fu*ked I couldn't even find sufficient energy to pull over my pistol, as it lay there not a foot from me, and fire it at the little fu*ker as he ran after his buddies.

It is ineffable as to why he did not press home his advantage, for it must have been obvious to him that I was seriously on my chinstrap, and vulnerable from the damage to my hand. It could have been that he had felt vulnerable being out in that open clearing, and fighting alone, whilst his buddies took to the cover of the head-high elephant grass, either trying to make good their escape or to re-group for a counter-attack. Then again, his nose must have been blindingly painful, but regardless of the reason, I was mighty thankful for it as I was when no immediate counter attack materialized.

If you could, you had to see to yourself after being wounded otherwise whoever got to you first would help you. Lightly wounded men could carry on fighting once treated, and were actively encouraged to do so. An encouraging word from a Corpsman could get them going again, but sometimes it could take some physical encouragement like pushing, slapping, or a good kick in the *** to motivate them.

Self-help for me came in the form of making up a strong saline solution from my salt tablets and water bottle contents, and dowsing my wounds with it as a hopeful preventative measure against infection. Then I stuffed my hand into a semi-clean spare sock, and strapped up the whole thing with electrical tape which most of our guys carried, as a roll of it was ideal for tailoring or repairing gear. My hand now looked as if it were encased in a black winter mitt, but I have to say that I was really quite proud of my fist-aid effort, as not being a combat medic. Looking around the clearing I could see there was still the occasional running SV Marine and NVA figure, and here and there a few dazed, bloodied wounded, slowly and painfully trying to crawl away, others just standing stupefied in battle aftershock.

Whilst our Corpsmen helped both friend and foe the carnage wasn't over. It was obvious that the NVA had no available reserve squads to bring into play, or they would have used them to break our battle momentum. However, we had, and still within the cover of the elephant grass witnessing the spectacle of their buddies in the life or death struggles, and being relatively newcomers to such a close fought action were in all probability praying to whatever god they worshiped that they wouldn't be required!

However, being in a state of nervous tension, and thinking that a large group of wounded NVA was in fact a counter-attack; our reserves opened fire and killed most of them, including one of the attending Corpsmen, before the ceasefire order was eventually given. Everyone longed for the relative cool of the evening as the day's heat had become stifling, and many a wounded mans raging thirst was quenched by water taken from the dead.

Starting from the first round being fired and the fighting finally dying away, people had discovered that contrary to their basic training it was by far more important to shoot fast than accurately, that a knife or bayonet had much greater value in close proximity fighting than did rifles or pistols, and even something so simple as a good hard punch could save your life!

After the struggles of the day were over it also became obvious that our main strategy, being a war of attrition, was not going to result in a win for us in the marshy lands of the Delta. For when we cleared out one stronghold, Charlie just made another, but stronger and more impregnable than the one prior. As his Command and Control structure became more astute in battle planning they chose the fighting ground well, and fought with an admirable idealistic bravery in the effort to retain it.

[LongCharlieSlim]

Brother, that is a prime description of close fighting in battle.

[Mike Tevion]

Bernard. I agree with Slim, and I know many veterans would do likewise.