During all of our wars, at least through WWII in Europe, one problem facing commanders has been looting. Grant’s staff picked Mr. Mc Lean’s parlor clean after Lee’s surrender. Many officers and men in the American armies in Europe sent home German silver, art, and other artifacts that they had taken from private homes as well as German offices.
Looting while hostilities are still underway, is a serious problem. In addition to giving the enemy additional cause to fight to the end, troops who abandon the fight to loot seriously impede the war effort. Thus, under military law, a commander can establish or issue a “safeguard” with respect to enemy or neutral property. The Manual for Courts-Martial defines a safeguard thusly: “ A safeguard is a detachment, guard, or detail posted by a commander for the protection of persons, places, or property of the enemy, or of a neutral affected by the relationship of belligerent forces in their prosecution of war or during circumstances amounting to a state of belligerency. The term also includes a written order left by a commander with an enemy subject or posted upon enemy property for the protection of that person or property.” So serious is this matter that when Congress adopted Article 102, UCMJ “forcing a safeguard,” it was adopted as a capital offense.
“Article 102. Any person subject to this chapter who forces a safeguard shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.”
Article 103 makes criminal any failure to “secure all public property taken from the enemy for the service of the United States, and [to] give notice and turn over to the proper authority without delay all captured or abandoned property in their possession, custody, or control. This article has a different motive—protection of Uncle Sam’s pocketbook. By definition, captured enemy property becomes the property of the United States. And it leads to a major leadership balancing act.
Looting was not a problem in the largely rural wars in Korea and Vietnam, but retention by troops of “war souvenirs” is an ancient tradition. The Marine who has taken a weapon or other article of military equipment from an enemy he has killed or captured ought not be punished for failing to turn it over to some REMF bean counter. (Under international law, certain items cannot be taken from captured troops: money, personal photos, and their personal clothing and protective gear, i.e., cold weather clothing and helmets so long as they are still subject to hostile fire. Diaries and papers that are of intelligence value may be taken.)
Accordingly, in all of our modern wars, procedures have been established to help troops account for, but retain, bona fide war souvenirs.
My first exposure to the issue of war souvenirs came shortly after I got to Vietnam. While searching a ville, I found a SKS rifle. The SKS is a Russian-designed semiautomatic rifle that fires the 7.62x39 caliber round, the same round fired by the AK-47 and the RPK light machinegun, both of which were in wide use by both the VC and the NVA.
Unlike the AK-47, the SKS was semiautomatic and thus could be lawfully possessed without a Federal firearms license, making it a very popular souvenir. It was, I was to learn, also rare, because the AK-47 was the primary weapon of the NVA and the VC.
One of my troops, a Tet survivor who was only a couple of weeks away from going home, admired my find. In a fit of generosity, I handed it to him and said, “Here, you take this one. I’ll keep the next one.”
I never captured another, and finally got my SKS from our Clerk of Session who was selling one his two rifles. (As we exchanged rifle and check in the church parking lot after services, the Pastor walked out, took one look, shook his head, and walked back into the church.)
I only saw one NVA pistol, a Russian Makarov PM, with red-star hand grips.It went to the Marine who found its previous owner, either the CO or the Political Officer of 2/90 NVA) dead in a bunker when we recovered the downed medevac bird in the Arizona.
Other popular souvenirs were cap badges (a red enamel star), belts (made of leather or the hide of the endangered “nauga”) with belt plate, canteens, and Soviet compasses which were better than ours. The Soviet compass had a small wheel in the base that was marked for various map scales (1:50,000, 1:25,000, 1:12,500). Running the wheel along a route gave you a pretty accurate measure of distance.
Another popular item, especially for Marines with small feet, were Ho Chi Minh sandals. These were rubber sandals made from old truck tires. The tread was the outer face of the sole. It was easier to get Marines to air their feet—as a preventative for warm water immersion foot—if they had sandals.
I still have the NVA belt and hammock I took from a NVA soldier who would never again need either. He was also carrying a set of US wire cutters, still in the original canvas belt pouch, which he had probably taken from a dead ARVN (South Vietnamese) soldier. I still use those.
Other than weapons, we rarely bothered to send the small stuff back for accounting. There was a major problem with pilferage—REMFs would take weapons or other equipment as their own souvenirs. I had personal knowledge of one such instance.
A couple of weeks after I became the S-4, a Marine reported to me as the S-4 clerk. He was actually an honest-to-goodness school-trained 0431 Logistics Clerk.
He joined the rest of the rear echelon as a candidate for the regimental reaction force. Each night, the various units at An Hoa would provide Marines to serve in a reaction force of platoon strength. In essence, the reaction force was the regimental reserve. Many nights, the duty was no more onerous than having to sleep in fighting gear in a bunker in the CP area. But if one of the combat base sectors was penetrated or, heaven forbid, overrun, the reaction force was the outfit that got to do something about it.
Sane was tagged for the reaction force his very first night at An Hoa. It was the night of the final game of the 1969 World Series of which I have already written. One of the Sergeants from S-1 was also on the reaction force that night, and I asked him to keep an eye on my new Marine. Then I headed for Alpha Sector.
When Sane got to Regiment, he was assigned to a squad for the night. The Squad Leader, an experienced Sergeant, told him “You stick with me. kid.”
When Echo Sector was attacked later that night (interrupting the ball game, I might add), Sane's squad was sent down to the line to help push the enemy back. The attack was by a force of NVA sappers (engineers/demolition men), apparently intent upon destroying the guns and ammo supply of Battery E, 11th Marines.
As Sane and his Sergeant moved down to the wire, a chicom grenade exploded between Sane and the Sergeant. Both were knocked from their feet, and the Sergeant suffered some shrapnel wounds to the head.
As Sane regained his feet, a flare popped overhead. There, standing in the wire, wire cutters at the ready, was an NVA soldier.
“Sergeant,” Sane yelled. “There’s a gook in the wire. What should I do?”
“Kill him.” He did.
The Sergeant then regained his feet and the two of them cleared the wire, taking a couple of satchel charges and the NVA’s weapon. Sane took a really nice bone-handled knife from the dead NVA’s belt.
The next morning, as the troops were being formed to be dismissed and sent back to their commands, a Lieutenant spotted the knife. He took it and walked into the Regimental Commander’s Office where he gave it to the CO, “as a souvenir.”
Fortunately, the Gunny who had been the platoon commander saw what happened. He immediately informed the Sergeant Major.
The Sergeant Major walked right in to the CO’s office, as it was his privilege to do.
“Look, Sergeant Major. Lieutenant ____ gave me this NVA knife. It’s a beauty, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Sir, it surely is. Except it ain’t the Lieutenant’s to give. There’s a young PFC out there who killed the gook that was carrying it. May I return it to him?”
They said you could hear the ass-chewing the Colonel gave that Lieutenant all the way to Hawaii. I don’t remember seeing his sorry ass around the CP after that.
But I know of an even better instance of souvenir retribution.
In early 1969, about the time President Nixon announced his policy of “vietnamization,” a rumor began to spread, and it was apparently also rampant on the other side. The gist of the rumor was that on a particular date, a cease fire would be announced and whichever side’s flag, either Republic of Vietnam or National Liberation Front, flew over a particular ville or hamlet that morning could claim it as theirs.
Tom Peachey told me that shortly thereafter, his company overran a VC flag factory. There were literally hundreds of finished VC flags, and hundreds more that were in various states of completion. After giving each Marine in the Company two completed flags and two unfinished flags, the rest were sent back to Regiment. Now, these were obviously very desirable souvenirs. When Regiment learned that the troops (who had captured them) had been given “first dibs,” Tom was hauled on the carpet. The Regimental S-2 informed him in no uncertain terms that henceforth, any captured “enemy items” would be sent to S-2.
A few days later, one of his patrols captured a small bobcat. It was obviously a belligerent. Recalling the explicit instructions of the S-2, Peaches had the wriggling, spitting, clawing beastie put into a wooden grenade crate and returned to the S-2.
That afternoon, word went out that company commanders could exercise discretion in returning captured materiel to the rear.
© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label vietnamization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vietnamization. Show all posts
03 April 2010
31 March 2010
“I’M CLEAN, I’M CLEAN.”
The S-4 shop was located in a prefabricated bunker at the top of the battalion street, where it joined the regimental street. Prefab bunkers were designed to be erected quickly. They were above ground, a real benefit in the rainy seasons. The standard prefab bunker was made of 12 x12 posts and beams, sheathed in 2 x 12 boards on the walls and roof. The floor was plywood. The bunker was 12 feet by 20 feet. Ours was a double wide (24 x 20), which we shared with the S-3 shop. It was then protected by a wall of sandbags that was 6 feet thick on the sides. At the roof level, there were three layers of sand bags, a layer of steel runway matting, another 3 layers of sandbags, another layer of matting and a final 3 layers of sand bags. I was told that there were some 25,000 sandbags on and around this one bunker.
We felt that we were fairly secure from mortars and rockets.
One afternoon, a couple of Marines from Bravo Company walked in. “Sir, our CO told us to bring this to you.”
He proffered a steel tube that looked strangely familiar. “What is that?”
“It’s a blooper barrel, Sir.”
Oh, yeah. The M-79 40mm grenade launcher was one of the weapons carried by a rifle squad. It was nick-named “the blooper” because of the sound it made when fired. “What am I supposed to do with it?”
“He says it needs to be cleared, Lieutenant.”
I looked down the muzzle, expecting to see light. Nope! There was a high explosive round stuck half way down the barrel. “Clear the bunker, dammit! Call EOD.” I very gently put the barrel on the deck and beat a hasty retreat. All I could think of was the terrible effect an explosion would have had confined inside our little fortress.
The EOD techs arrived and nonchalantly took the tube away. (Because the round would not arm until it had spun a significant number of times, it was probably safe, but I was short.)
Marines. Ya gotta love ‘em.
As vietnamization continued, it was becoming clear that the leadership of the Marine Corps was looking to the day when we would all be out of country.
General Leonard F. Chapman, USMC, had assumed the Commandancy in 1968. Among the many things this great leader of Marines did in his tenure was to prepare the Corps for the end of the war. Having served in WWII and Korea, he was familiar with the pains of a post-war reduction in personnel and funding. As a result of plans and policies he put into place, the Marine Corps did not suffer the Army’s angst in the mid-70s when it forced officers to resign or retire as part of a reduction in force.
Even in 1969, it was apparent that we were returning to a peace-time mentality—at least in the area of logistics. The embarkation conference in Danang in August was but one harbinger of new times. We began to see requirements that we account for the equipment that had been sent to the battalion.
Now, I do not mean to suggest that there was any malfeasance involved. It is just that in wartime, supply accounting can get a little loose. When a man is killed or wounded, his shattered helmet or torn flak jacket may be discarded and never returned to supply for proper accounting. Things get blown up or are lost in the confusion of battle, or just wear out. Very understandable.
Of course, rifles were another matter. A Marine’s rifle either went on the med-evac bird with him, for collection at the receiving medical facility, or it stayed with the unit and was returned to the armory. Even so, rifles were sometimes informally exchanged in the field, and the paperwork might not catch up. When I checked out of the battalion, I turned in the pistol that I had been issued in December 1968.
“Uh, Lieutenant, there’s a problem with your pistol,” the Armorer said.
“Really? What’s wrong?”
“Well, Sir. It’s got the same serial number as the one you checked out. That just don’t happen much, ya know?”
At any rate, word filtered down from Division G-4 that we should begin looking at our supply accounts and getting them into some semblance of order and accuracy. You can imagine how that might go over in a rifle company in the field. Here you are, a Company Commander, in contact with the enemy, trying to accomplish your mission and keep your troops alive, and some REMF wants a list of the serial numbers of all of your weapons. More than once I was told to “be fruitful and multiply.” Or words to that effect.
Two particular incidents stand out.
During the eight days in the rain, the company providing the palace guard was attempting to move. As part of a field test of equipment, the battalion had been assigned a small tracked vehicle that was being considered as a replacement for the mule. Approaching a stream that was now a surging river, the company commander halted.
“Musk ox, this is Charlie 6, over.”
“Musk ox Charlie 6, Musk ox.”
“Musk ox, I need to speak to the 3, over.”
“Charlie 6, this is Musk ox 3, over.”
“Three, this is Charlie 6. We are at the west bank of the stream. The vehicle commander does not think he can cross the stream. He says the banks are too steep.”
“Charlie 6, this is Musk ox 3. Nonsense. He can make it. Now cross that stream.”
There was a pause of about two minutes. “Musk ox 3, this is Charlie 6. At this point, the stream is 18 feet deep. I can tell that because the vehicle’s antenna is 20 feet tall, and I can see about two feet of it above water.”
“Charlie 6, this is Musk ox 3. Damn!” No one was hurt, but the vehicle was gone.
But that is not the end of the story. A couple of weeks later, the officer assigned to do the JAG Manual investigation into the loss—a routine affair that every lieutenant has performed at one time or another—came to see me.
“I know why the vehicle sank,” he proudly announced.
“Hell, we all know that. The banks were too steep and when it hit the water, it just kept going.”
“Nah, Mac, there’s more. It was overloaded.”
“Oh, yeah? By how much?”
“Well, as near as I can tell, by about 70,000 pounds!”
Thirty-five tons? Not bad for a vehicle with a capacity of three-quarters of a ton. It seems that every piece of gear assigned to Charlie Company and the Command Post group that could not be accounted for “must have gone down on that vehicle.” And who could argue?
A couple of days later, at about 1645, I was preparing to go over to the mess hall for supper. It had been dry and windy for a couple of days, and the regimental street was already dusty. Suddenly, in the distance, I heard a familiar ker-ruuump of a mortar round detonating. One of the batteries must be adjusting its pre-planned fires.
Ker-ruuuump. KER-rummmp. KER-RUUUUMP. WHAMMM. BLANG. I was huddled on the deck in the bunker as five more 120mm mortar rounds walked across An Hoa. The fifth round sounded as if it exploded right outside the bunker and the last was behind us.
I ran to the back entrance of the bunker that led to our police shed and paint locker. There was a towering plume of smoke just beyond the police shed. Two Marines were standing on the sandbagged roof of the police shed, taking pictures. I could hear smalls arm ammunition cooking off and an occasional round passing overhead.
“Get down , you damn fools, before you get shot.” They did. “Now, get some buckets from the police shed and follow me.”
We moved cautiously over to 3/5’s area. The battalion armory, located in a strong-back tent, had taken a direct hit and was now a raging inferno. The battalion Supply Chief, who I knew, was shouting for people to stand clear.
“They are all OK. They went to early chow. I was covering the armory. There’s no one inside.” He was discouraging anyone from taking unnecessary risks by trying to rescue the armorers. We had lucked out.
Just then, 3/5’s Supply Officer came running up. He was a mustang First Lieutenant (an officer commissioned from the enlisted ranks). He took one look and then turned and ran into his office. A minute or two later, he came back out carrying a drawer from a filing cabinet.
A couple of his clerks followed, similarly laden.
He ran over and tossed the complete drawer into the blazing armory. Turning, he took another drawer from a Marine’s arms and sent him back for more. Into the fire went drawer after drawer of records, followed by the empty file cabinets.
All the while, I could hear him gleefully shouting “I’m clean! I’m clean!”
Happily, no one was killed or wounded by the mortar attack. Three-five’s armory was the only structure hit and was, of course, a total loss, but the fire did not spread. After the “tragic” loss of all of 3/5’s supply records which, as the JAG Manual investigation revealed, “were stored in the armory for security,” 3/5 did a wall-to-wall inventory and reconstructed its records to reflect only the supplies and equipment that were then on hand.
Clean as a whistle. “Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.” Henry VI, Pt. 3, act II, sc 5.
The Bard must have been a logistician.
We felt that we were fairly secure from mortars and rockets.
One afternoon, a couple of Marines from Bravo Company walked in. “Sir, our CO told us to bring this to you.”
He proffered a steel tube that looked strangely familiar. “What is that?”
“It’s a blooper barrel, Sir.”
Oh, yeah. The M-79 40mm grenade launcher was one of the weapons carried by a rifle squad. It was nick-named “the blooper” because of the sound it made when fired. “What am I supposed to do with it?”
“He says it needs to be cleared, Lieutenant.”
I looked down the muzzle, expecting to see light. Nope! There was a high explosive round stuck half way down the barrel. “Clear the bunker, dammit! Call EOD.” I very gently put the barrel on the deck and beat a hasty retreat. All I could think of was the terrible effect an explosion would have had confined inside our little fortress.
The EOD techs arrived and nonchalantly took the tube away. (Because the round would not arm until it had spun a significant number of times, it was probably safe, but I was short.)
Marines. Ya gotta love ‘em.
As vietnamization continued, it was becoming clear that the leadership of the Marine Corps was looking to the day when we would all be out of country.
General Leonard F. Chapman, USMC, had assumed the Commandancy in 1968. Among the many things this great leader of Marines did in his tenure was to prepare the Corps for the end of the war. Having served in WWII and Korea, he was familiar with the pains of a post-war reduction in personnel and funding. As a result of plans and policies he put into place, the Marine Corps did not suffer the Army’s angst in the mid-70s when it forced officers to resign or retire as part of a reduction in force.
Even in 1969, it was apparent that we were returning to a peace-time mentality—at least in the area of logistics. The embarkation conference in Danang in August was but one harbinger of new times. We began to see requirements that we account for the equipment that had been sent to the battalion.
Now, I do not mean to suggest that there was any malfeasance involved. It is just that in wartime, supply accounting can get a little loose. When a man is killed or wounded, his shattered helmet or torn flak jacket may be discarded and never returned to supply for proper accounting. Things get blown up or are lost in the confusion of battle, or just wear out. Very understandable.
Of course, rifles were another matter. A Marine’s rifle either went on the med-evac bird with him, for collection at the receiving medical facility, or it stayed with the unit and was returned to the armory. Even so, rifles were sometimes informally exchanged in the field, and the paperwork might not catch up. When I checked out of the battalion, I turned in the pistol that I had been issued in December 1968.
“Uh, Lieutenant, there’s a problem with your pistol,” the Armorer said.
“Really? What’s wrong?”
“Well, Sir. It’s got the same serial number as the one you checked out. That just don’t happen much, ya know?”
At any rate, word filtered down from Division G-4 that we should begin looking at our supply accounts and getting them into some semblance of order and accuracy. You can imagine how that might go over in a rifle company in the field. Here you are, a Company Commander, in contact with the enemy, trying to accomplish your mission and keep your troops alive, and some REMF wants a list of the serial numbers of all of your weapons. More than once I was told to “be fruitful and multiply.” Or words to that effect.
Two particular incidents stand out.
During the eight days in the rain, the company providing the palace guard was attempting to move. As part of a field test of equipment, the battalion had been assigned a small tracked vehicle that was being considered as a replacement for the mule. Approaching a stream that was now a surging river, the company commander halted.
“Musk ox, this is Charlie 6, over.”
“Musk ox Charlie 6, Musk ox.”
“Musk ox, I need to speak to the 3, over.”
“Charlie 6, this is Musk ox 3, over.”
“Three, this is Charlie 6. We are at the west bank of the stream. The vehicle commander does not think he can cross the stream. He says the banks are too steep.”
“Charlie 6, this is Musk ox 3. Nonsense. He can make it. Now cross that stream.”
There was a pause of about two minutes. “Musk ox 3, this is Charlie 6. At this point, the stream is 18 feet deep. I can tell that because the vehicle’s antenna is 20 feet tall, and I can see about two feet of it above water.”
“Charlie 6, this is Musk ox 3. Damn!” No one was hurt, but the vehicle was gone.
But that is not the end of the story. A couple of weeks later, the officer assigned to do the JAG Manual investigation into the loss—a routine affair that every lieutenant has performed at one time or another—came to see me.
“I know why the vehicle sank,” he proudly announced.
“Hell, we all know that. The banks were too steep and when it hit the water, it just kept going.”
“Nah, Mac, there’s more. It was overloaded.”
“Oh, yeah? By how much?”
“Well, as near as I can tell, by about 70,000 pounds!”
Thirty-five tons? Not bad for a vehicle with a capacity of three-quarters of a ton. It seems that every piece of gear assigned to Charlie Company and the Command Post group that could not be accounted for “must have gone down on that vehicle.” And who could argue?
A couple of days later, at about 1645, I was preparing to go over to the mess hall for supper. It had been dry and windy for a couple of days, and the regimental street was already dusty. Suddenly, in the distance, I heard a familiar ker-ruuump of a mortar round detonating. One of the batteries must be adjusting its pre-planned fires.
Ker-ruuuump. KER-rummmp. KER-RUUUUMP. WHAMMM. BLANG. I was huddled on the deck in the bunker as five more 120mm mortar rounds walked across An Hoa. The fifth round sounded as if it exploded right outside the bunker and the last was behind us.
I ran to the back entrance of the bunker that led to our police shed and paint locker. There was a towering plume of smoke just beyond the police shed. Two Marines were standing on the sandbagged roof of the police shed, taking pictures. I could hear smalls arm ammunition cooking off and an occasional round passing overhead.
“Get down , you damn fools, before you get shot.” They did. “Now, get some buckets from the police shed and follow me.”
We moved cautiously over to 3/5’s area. The battalion armory, located in a strong-back tent, had taken a direct hit and was now a raging inferno. The battalion Supply Chief, who I knew, was shouting for people to stand clear.
“They are all OK. They went to early chow. I was covering the armory. There’s no one inside.” He was discouraging anyone from taking unnecessary risks by trying to rescue the armorers. We had lucked out.
Just then, 3/5’s Supply Officer came running up. He was a mustang First Lieutenant (an officer commissioned from the enlisted ranks). He took one look and then turned and ran into his office. A minute or two later, he came back out carrying a drawer from a filing cabinet.
A couple of his clerks followed, similarly laden.
He ran over and tossed the complete drawer into the blazing armory. Turning, he took another drawer from a Marine’s arms and sent him back for more. Into the fire went drawer after drawer of records, followed by the empty file cabinets.
All the while, I could hear him gleefully shouting “I’m clean! I’m clean!”
Happily, no one was killed or wounded by the mortar attack. Three-five’s armory was the only structure hit and was, of course, a total loss, but the fire did not spread. After the “tragic” loss of all of 3/5’s supply records which, as the JAG Manual investigation revealed, “were stored in the armory for security,” 3/5 did a wall-to-wall inventory and reconstructed its records to reflect only the supplies and equipment that were then on hand.
Clean as a whistle. “Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.” Henry VI, Pt. 3, act II, sc 5.
The Bard must have been a logistician.
24 March 2010
OF BIRTHDAY CAKES AND RIFLES
In early November, the Battalion once again returned to the Arizona. The reinforcements we had received really helped, and there was no need this time for the provisional rifle company.
We also received word that as Vietnamization got moving, areas of responsibility for those units left would be changing. In December, 1/5 was to move its forward CP to Hill 65, located north of the Song Vu Gia.
But first, there was the Birthday.
The Marine Corps Birthday is the Day, and it matters not where you are, you mark it. Along with every other S-4 in the Marine Corps, I arranged for the companies to get a hot meal (steak, baked potatoes, vegetables) and a Birthday Cake. After I was sure that they had been sent out, I caught a chopper to Hill 65. Delta Battery was there and Dick Rollins was Battery XO. I got a look at the place and then Dick and I had our Birthday dinner. After dark, he found a couple of bottles of wine and we sat on a bunker on the east side of the hill, looking down into a rice paddy where an ARVN unit was engaged in a firefight that lasted for about an hour.
I was also monitoring the battalion tactical net. At about 2100, Jim Webb called the Old Man on the radio. Delta was the palace guard at the time. “Hey, Sir,” Webb said. “Look up.”
Almost immediately, a ring of 12 60mm flares popped around their position. “Happy Birthday, Sir. We just lit the candles on the cake.”
I returned to An Hoa the next day. A couple of days passed. At about 0200, one morning, I was called across the road to the Regimental S-4 shop.
“OK, Lad,” said a grim-faced Major Castagnetti. “I knew this was going to bite you in the ass. We just got word from Division that they need to send excess rifles to the South Vietnamese. This comes from the White House. We need those rifles back, and we need them within the next 24 hours.”
Damn! (Pronounced "die-yum!")
I went straight to the battalion comm shack and called the Old Man. He was not pleased, but after talking to the Regimental Commander, he cooled off—a little. By then, I had the armorer on the job and the Supply Section was busy confirming just how many of our rifles were “excess.”
In the next 24 hours, we exchanged a number of rifles for .45 pistols, and Regiment was mollified, but it was exciting. Major Castagnetti, bless his heart, never actually said the words “I told you so,” but I got the message loud and clear.
© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.
We also received word that as Vietnamization got moving, areas of responsibility for those units left would be changing. In December, 1/5 was to move its forward CP to Hill 65, located north of the Song Vu Gia.
But first, there was the Birthday.
The Marine Corps Birthday is the Day, and it matters not where you are, you mark it. Along with every other S-4 in the Marine Corps, I arranged for the companies to get a hot meal (steak, baked potatoes, vegetables) and a Birthday Cake. After I was sure that they had been sent out, I caught a chopper to Hill 65. Delta Battery was there and Dick Rollins was Battery XO. I got a look at the place and then Dick and I had our Birthday dinner. After dark, he found a couple of bottles of wine and we sat on a bunker on the east side of the hill, looking down into a rice paddy where an ARVN unit was engaged in a firefight that lasted for about an hour.
I was also monitoring the battalion tactical net. At about 2100, Jim Webb called the Old Man on the radio. Delta was the palace guard at the time. “Hey, Sir,” Webb said. “Look up.”
Almost immediately, a ring of 12 60mm flares popped around their position. “Happy Birthday, Sir. We just lit the candles on the cake.”
I returned to An Hoa the next day. A couple of days passed. At about 0200, one morning, I was called across the road to the Regimental S-4 shop.
“OK, Lad,” said a grim-faced Major Castagnetti. “I knew this was going to bite you in the ass. We just got word from Division that they need to send excess rifles to the South Vietnamese. This comes from the White House. We need those rifles back, and we need them within the next 24 hours.”
Damn! (Pronounced "die-yum!")
I went straight to the battalion comm shack and called the Old Man. He was not pleased, but after talking to the Regimental Commander, he cooled off—a little. By then, I had the armorer on the job and the Supply Section was busy confirming just how many of our rifles were “excess.”
In the next 24 hours, we exchanged a number of rifles for .45 pistols, and Regiment was mollified, but it was exciting. Major Castagnetti, bless his heart, never actually said the words “I told you so,” but I got the message loud and clear.
© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.
19 March 2010
BLEST BE THE TIES THAT BIND
October was a busy month. One afternoon, Tom Pottenger walked into the S-4 bunker and said, “C’mon. You’re gonna want to see this.”
We walked out into the battalion street to see a large group of Marines milling around outside the H&S Company CP.
“What the…,” I muttered?
Pot grinned. “We’re being reinforced.”
As the 3d Marine Division was being pulled out of Vietnam in the “Vietnamization” process, Headquarters, Marine Corps had decided that only those Marines with more than 9 months in country would go to Okinawa. The rest would be sent south to build up the strength of the 1st Marine Division.
Second Battalion, Third Marines was sent to the 5th Marines, and each battalion received one company. As I recall, 1/5 received G/2/3.
This made sense. Bonding in combat is in my estimation one of the closest relationships ever to be developed, stronger than all but that of mother and child. Consider that a baby is helpless in a huge, dangerous world and must rely on one person above all for survival. In combat, one is again in a dangerous world and must rely on shipmates for survival. Just as removing from his mother a baby who has forged the bond is traumatic, so, too, is breaking the bonds forged in combat.
Read any of Steven Ambrose's books and one theme is that the vets in a unit were leery of bonding with new arrivals. They had already suffered the loss of buddies with whom the bond had been forged and many could not bear the thought of re-bonding and losing again. So the Marine Corps policy was sound; it ensured that these troops would know at least a few people in their new units.
At the same time, the leaders in 1/5 were facing a task of re-orienting the thinking of these new joins. Their identity was with the Third Marines. Fortunately, they were joining the most illustrious battalion in the most illustrious regiment in the pre-eminent Division in the Corps. They were "movin' up," even if it took us a while to convince them of that fact. (Many of them are members of the First Marine Division Association and attend our reunions. It is their right and privilege to do so. What is interesting is that few of them are also members of the Third Marine Division Association. They consider themselves--and they are--Marines of 1/5 and the 5th Marines, a fighting organization that accepts as its peers only Caesar's Legion in Gaul and Jackson's Brigade in the Valley.)
But again, I digress. When we got close, Tom called the group to attention. “I’m Lieutenant Pottenger, the S-1. I want all the officers to come with me. Whoever has the SRBs (service record books) of the troops, bring those, too. This is Lieutenant McCarty, the S-4. He’ll explain the drill for tonight.”
There was a small sandbagged bunker next to the H&S Company CP tent, a shelter in case of rocket or mortar attacks. I jumped up on it, and explained that we would get them to chow right away (it was about 1600) and then would billet them in GP tents for the night. I then asked, “Are there any questions?”
Every hand shot up. Damn!?!
“OK, Sergeant?”
“Yessir. We been humping the mountains up north against the NVA. We heard that down here in VC country, you run into booby traps. The NVA don’t use booby traps. Are there a lot of booby traps down here?”
Now there was an interesting question, in so many ways. The Third Marine Division had convinced itself that their war was the bad one--and it was a bad one, in the mountains with triple canopy against the NVA. But the idea that we were merely toying with a few guerillas rankled. Recall that we destroyed the 90th NVA Regiment in June.
“Well, Sergeant, the short answer is ‘yes.’ I don't know what line they have been feeding you in the Third Mar Div, but there are NVA here, too, and even they plant booby traps. My best advice is this: even if you have been in country five or six months, even if you are an NCO, this is something new. Listen to the Marines who have been here, even if they are junior to you or have been in country for a shorter time. If everyone in the column walks to the left of a tree, you walk to the left. Recently, 2/5 had a lieutenant that decided to walk to the right and now they’re short one lieutenant.”
“Another thing,” I continued. “If you enter a ville and look down a path and see a nice new flak jacket, or a helmet or a cartridge belt just laying there, leave it alone. Call for an engineer. A while back, 3/5 had a lieutenant who decided that he should save the taxpayers money and retrieve a flak jacket that was just sitting next to a well. He’s dead, the flak jacket was destroyed, and the taxpayers paid for his funeral. Use your heads, listen to the people who have been here, and you’ll be fine. OK?”
He nodded.
“OK, who’s next?” No one moved. It dawned on me that they had really been beat over the head with the threat of booby traps. A good thing, too, because the NVA and VC were masters of the trade.
By the next morning, they had been parsed out to the companies and they fit in just fine.
In 2005, we finally got a group of 1/5 Marines from the 1969 time period together at the reunion.
The guys from Tet '68 in Hue City had been the strong core of the members from the Vietnam era 'til then. They made us feel welcome, but that bonding thing was still strong. At the 1999 reunion banquet, I was sitting with them because no one from my time was present. At dinner, they were passing around a copy of the Life magazine photo of an amtrac bringing casualties out of Hue City. One Marine is cradling another in his arms, the wounded man smeared with blood and a battle dressing tied across his chest. Even in the photo, his skin was greying.
I remember that issue and that photo. It came out right after Mom had gotten the response to her letter to the President. I devoured the issue, seeing myself in every photo. Mom refused to look at it again.
At the reunion, they were pointing out Marines they knew. The man sitting next to me was identified as the one holding the casualty.
"Did he make it," I asked?
He paused, teared up, and then shook his head. "Nah. He died at the BAS (battalion aid station)." He paused. "Aw, Fuck!" This time, that one word was uttered as a prayer, and I believe that our loving and compassionate God, the Father of the Great Lion of Judah, received it as just that--nothing more or less.
He stood up and walked away. One of their Corpsmen, a question on his face, looked at me across the table. I nodded, and Doc took off to console his brother. I felt like a base intruder into a family still in mourning, a stranger, a distant cousin who was merely showing up for the wake.
Soon, we reached out to guys from "our year" and we now attend in in strength. It is easier when you are with family.
At dinner during one of "our" first reunions, we were trying to place each other. Suddenly, one guy looked at me.
“Hey, you’re that tall skinny lieutenant who talked to us about booby traps.”
After all those years, it was still all about those damned booby traps!
Semper Fi.
© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.
We walked out into the battalion street to see a large group of Marines milling around outside the H&S Company CP.
“What the…,” I muttered?
Pot grinned. “We’re being reinforced.”
As the 3d Marine Division was being pulled out of Vietnam in the “Vietnamization” process, Headquarters, Marine Corps had decided that only those Marines with more than 9 months in country would go to Okinawa. The rest would be sent south to build up the strength of the 1st Marine Division.
Second Battalion, Third Marines was sent to the 5th Marines, and each battalion received one company. As I recall, 1/5 received G/2/3.
This made sense. Bonding in combat is in my estimation one of the closest relationships ever to be developed, stronger than all but that of mother and child. Consider that a baby is helpless in a huge, dangerous world and must rely on one person above all for survival. In combat, one is again in a dangerous world and must rely on shipmates for survival. Just as removing from his mother a baby who has forged the bond is traumatic, so, too, is breaking the bonds forged in combat.
Read any of Steven Ambrose's books and one theme is that the vets in a unit were leery of bonding with new arrivals. They had already suffered the loss of buddies with whom the bond had been forged and many could not bear the thought of re-bonding and losing again. So the Marine Corps policy was sound; it ensured that these troops would know at least a few people in their new units.
At the same time, the leaders in 1/5 were facing a task of re-orienting the thinking of these new joins. Their identity was with the Third Marines. Fortunately, they were joining the most illustrious battalion in the most illustrious regiment in the pre-eminent Division in the Corps. They were "movin' up," even if it took us a while to convince them of that fact. (Many of them are members of the First Marine Division Association and attend our reunions. It is their right and privilege to do so. What is interesting is that few of them are also members of the Third Marine Division Association. They consider themselves--and they are--Marines of 1/5 and the 5th Marines, a fighting organization that accepts as its peers only Caesar's Legion in Gaul and Jackson's Brigade in the Valley.)
But again, I digress. When we got close, Tom called the group to attention. “I’m Lieutenant Pottenger, the S-1. I want all the officers to come with me. Whoever has the SRBs (service record books) of the troops, bring those, too. This is Lieutenant McCarty, the S-4. He’ll explain the drill for tonight.”
There was a small sandbagged bunker next to the H&S Company CP tent, a shelter in case of rocket or mortar attacks. I jumped up on it, and explained that we would get them to chow right away (it was about 1600) and then would billet them in GP tents for the night. I then asked, “Are there any questions?”
Every hand shot up. Damn!?!
“OK, Sergeant?”
“Yessir. We been humping the mountains up north against the NVA. We heard that down here in VC country, you run into booby traps. The NVA don’t use booby traps. Are there a lot of booby traps down here?”
Now there was an interesting question, in so many ways. The Third Marine Division had convinced itself that their war was the bad one--and it was a bad one, in the mountains with triple canopy against the NVA. But the idea that we were merely toying with a few guerillas rankled. Recall that we destroyed the 90th NVA Regiment in June.
“Well, Sergeant, the short answer is ‘yes.’ I don't know what line they have been feeding you in the Third Mar Div, but there are NVA here, too, and even they plant booby traps. My best advice is this: even if you have been in country five or six months, even if you are an NCO, this is something new. Listen to the Marines who have been here, even if they are junior to you or have been in country for a shorter time. If everyone in the column walks to the left of a tree, you walk to the left. Recently, 2/5 had a lieutenant that decided to walk to the right and now they’re short one lieutenant.”
“Another thing,” I continued. “If you enter a ville and look down a path and see a nice new flak jacket, or a helmet or a cartridge belt just laying there, leave it alone. Call for an engineer. A while back, 3/5 had a lieutenant who decided that he should save the taxpayers money and retrieve a flak jacket that was just sitting next to a well. He’s dead, the flak jacket was destroyed, and the taxpayers paid for his funeral. Use your heads, listen to the people who have been here, and you’ll be fine. OK?”
He nodded.
“OK, who’s next?” No one moved. It dawned on me that they had really been beat over the head with the threat of booby traps. A good thing, too, because the NVA and VC were masters of the trade.
By the next morning, they had been parsed out to the companies and they fit in just fine.
In 2005, we finally got a group of 1/5 Marines from the 1969 time period together at the reunion.
The guys from Tet '68 in Hue City had been the strong core of the members from the Vietnam era 'til then. They made us feel welcome, but that bonding thing was still strong. At the 1999 reunion banquet, I was sitting with them because no one from my time was present. At dinner, they were passing around a copy of the Life magazine photo of an amtrac bringing casualties out of Hue City. One Marine is cradling another in his arms, the wounded man smeared with blood and a battle dressing tied across his chest. Even in the photo, his skin was greying.
I remember that issue and that photo. It came out right after Mom had gotten the response to her letter to the President. I devoured the issue, seeing myself in every photo. Mom refused to look at it again.
At the reunion, they were pointing out Marines they knew. The man sitting next to me was identified as the one holding the casualty.
"Did he make it," I asked?
He paused, teared up, and then shook his head. "Nah. He died at the BAS (battalion aid station)." He paused. "Aw, Fuck!" This time, that one word was uttered as a prayer, and I believe that our loving and compassionate God, the Father of the Great Lion of Judah, received it as just that--nothing more or less.
He stood up and walked away. One of their Corpsmen, a question on his face, looked at me across the table. I nodded, and Doc took off to console his brother. I felt like a base intruder into a family still in mourning, a stranger, a distant cousin who was merely showing up for the wake.
Soon, we reached out to guys from "our year" and we now attend in in strength. It is easier when you are with family.
At dinner during one of "our" first reunions, we were trying to place each other. Suddenly, one guy looked at me.
“Hey, you’re that tall skinny lieutenant who talked to us about booby traps.”
After all those years, it was still all about those damned booby traps!
Semper Fi.
© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.
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