January 1969
The Republic of South Vietnam
2nd platoon, Delta Company
1st of the 501st, 101st Airborne Division
W
e made an assault into an area southeast of the "eight-click-ville",
and into an area of recent VC sightings. There were probably four or
five helicopters and five to six people per chopper. The choppers go in
quickly, and soldiers were quick to get out. Choppers have a tendency to
draw fire and we want to be out of those things before the chopper ever
lands.
We are dropped into a rice paddy that is one or two feet deep in water thicket next to the rice paddy. If the enemy is close, they will want to catch us in the open, and we want to find cover. There is no hostile fire, and the choppers are gone in an instant.
We stayed in a platoon-sized unit that day and that night. I was getting used to the people in the platoon and they were getting used to me. We were all getting used to the new area we were working in. I had just taken over the platoon, but I had been a platoon leader in other units since August of 1968.
The people of the platoon were quiet and professional. They knew their business and there was nothing I could tell them about fighting the Viet Cong. The next day as we took a break, I explained to Sergeant Rios, the platoon sergeant, that we would split the platoon at night into two separate ambushes. We would be in the same general area, but we would stay five-hundred to one-thousand meters apart. This would be our normal routine each night while we patrolled the villages in the coastal plain around Hue.
That afternoon, Rios and I took out separate patrols to scout our night ambush positions. We agree, generally, where we will look so that we do not get too close to each other. There are many villages interspersed throughout the rice paddies and we know the VC are moving through the area during the night. We are easy to spot during the day, so the real trick is to make them think we are in one place while we are really in another. I related hunting VC to hunting white-tailed deer in my native Georgia. Each side knows the other is there, but it is a matter of catching the other off guard. Of course, the deer did not have the ability to shoot back as the VC did.
Around five in the evening, the platoon came back together; cleaned weapons, grabbed a little rest, and had the last chance to eat anything until the next morning. People generally ate one meal a day during the mid-morning break, and then possibly ate a few crackers or a piece of chocolate before the evening ambush. Food was not high on the priority list. our separate directions. We each knew where the other would be, and we had reported our ambush positions to the battalion command post with the idea that other platoons in the area would not overlap with us.
We moved along quietly and each person knew what he had to do. When a new person did come into the unit, this cherry would be assigned to a veteran and that veteran would look after and train the new person.
We moved completely through our night ambush position, and the word was passed to where each position would be located. If there were twelve men in the ambush, then we would have four three-man positions or sometimes three four-man positions depending on the terrain and the situation. As we moved through the ambush site, we dropped two people off; the rest of us went one to two hundred meters and waited until after dark. Once darkness fell, we then moved back to the ambush site. The idea was that we were always being watched and this way may confuse the enemy a little. This also prevented us from being ambushed or setting off booby traps after dark.
On this night, my ambush was set up just outside a village in a small bamboo thicket. There was a rice paddy to my front and a trail on a dike coming out of the village on the other side of the rice paddy. The trail was probably thirty to forty meters away from our position. There were three of us in this position and there were three other positions with our ambush for a total of twelve people. We had three positions watching the trail and one position watching our back to form a crude perimeter. We seldom dug any type of foxhole since the noise would give our position away.
After we moved into the ambush position after dark, each position set out trip flares and claymore mines in appropriate areas. The trip flares would help protect us with blind spots outside our perimeter and the claymore mines could be fired when the ambush was triggered.
About midnight, Snuffy Smith was on guard and gently shook me. I was dozing but not sound asleep. He also shook Jones, the machine gunner that was with us. I knew it was not just a change of watch when he woke both of us. Snuffy put his finger to his mouth to tell us to be quiet, and then he pointed to the edge of the village where the trail came out across the rice paddy in front of us. I did not see anything at first, but then I saw movement and finally I saw a person walk out onto the trail in front of us. Jones was already behind his weapon and ready. Snuffy had his rifle up and was tracking the person walking across the dike in front of us. I was watching the tree line for more movement. The guy was obviously not aware of our presence, and he continued to walk boldly down the path. I kept watching the tree line for more movement, but I see nothing. I gently touch Snuffy's shoulder; he fires his rifle and shoots the person walking down the dike.
I called for artillery flairs from Firebase Sandy, and the flairs are quick to come. The area was suddenly lit up as if it was daylight. There was a VC laying on the trail to our front. I tell the Jones to pump a few rounds into the VC just to make sure he is dead. He pumps five to six M-60 rounds into the body. We can clearly see the tracer rounds hit the body.
The flares go out and things get quiet. We are all nervous and alert, for we obviously have given our position away. Everyone is awake. An hour goes by, we look out on the trail, and the body is gone. We fire a flare from an M-79. The body is definitely not there. We stay in our place until first light the next morning. I am amazed at the boldness of the VC to be able to retrieve their dead right in front of us.
The next morning we move out and search the village. An old man comes up to us and points to a small storage building made with bamboo and straw. We surround the small building and somebody pulls one wall down and immediately fires into the small building. Inside is a round mat but we cannot tell what is in it. Everybody has his rifle ready. There are probably four or five of us in the immediate vicinity while the others are searching the rest of the village. Someone pulls out the mat and unrolls it. There is a dead VC in the mat. We are not sure if it is the VC from the night before or if it is a new kill. We really do not give it a lot of thought.
I give the old man some c-rations, and I thank him for his help. We do not really understand why he has helped us, but we don't give that a lot of thought either. We search the body for papers or weapons and leave it where it lays. We move on and search the remainder of the village. We find no other sign of the Viet Cong during our search.
Later that morning we link up with the other half of the platoon, and we start our day all over again. We will walk six to eight kilometers to get out of the immediate area we were in the day before. We will then search for night ambush sites and continue our routine. It was just a typical day.
John
Herschelman
D/1/501
1969