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MY KHE SANH EXPERIENCES
By James Dalto
Kilo Company 3/26 Hill 861
MED EVACTED
During the second
week of February 1968, Lang Vei was overrun and a big, silver
C-13O crashed and burned on the Khe Sanh airstrip. I was
assigned to a working party to dig a foot-deep trench from our
Platoon CP down in the main trench located at the Company CP
on top of the hill. This small trench would, hopefully,
protect the lima-lima line from shrapnel. The lima-lima line
was simply a field telephone wire, or land line, which allowed
instant communication between the Command Post. Shrapnel from
enemy mortars had a habit of regularly clipping said wire and
cutting off communications between the Command Post.
I was one of two
men assigned the task. The other Marine assigned had been
injured, and should have been in a hospital. He had become
robot like, and had to be ordered to seek protection when we
were being shelled. We decided that the safe way for us to
accomplish the mission was to complete the task ASAP. We began
digging like a pair of gophers and had finished about 25 feet
when we were hit by incoming. None of us was hit by shrapnel
but the concussion blew both of us into the trench line. The
Marine that was helping me, struck an empty grenade case and
suffered a deep gash across the bridge of his nose and was
bleeding pretty bad. I landed on my head crushing my face and
jaw and injuring my back teeth.
I remained
conscious and there was a lull in the barrage. A few seconds
later I could faintly hear Sergeant Strong hustling down the
trench, yelling, "Is everyone OK? Is everyone OK?" like he
always did after an attack, his concern for his men driving
him to get help to anyone who needed it ASAP. When he observed
us lying in the trench line he began yelling, "Ripple up,
Ripple up the coded call for a Corpsman.” As soon as he left,
mortar rounds started impacting in the trench. I was slowly
regaining some of my faculties and noticed we were only a few
yards away from gun bunker. After a few attempts, I was
finally able to speak legibly, yelling out, "You! In the gun
bunker! We need help” Sorry! We don't make house calls in
weather like this", came the disappointing reply.
Though I still
couldn't stand, I was by this time able to crawl, and angered
by their response. I managed to crawl over my buddy's body.
Then, using only my arms, lever his body over mine, closer to
the door of the gun bunker. Three times I repeated this
process, until I finally heaved him to the doorway. Two sets
of arms immediately emerged, the hands grabbing the shoulders
of his flak jacket and dragging him inside. I was completely
spent, I couldn't even crawl. I was able to rollover onto my
stomach, just enough for the men in the bunker to see one of
my outstretched arms. A moment later, strong hands gripped my
right wrist and I felt myself being pulled inside to safety. I
felt a great surge of relief, and then promptly passed out.
The next several
days were no fun for me at all. The conditions on 861 were bad
and I soon developed a raging infection in my gums. It was
bad and the Head Corpsman determined I had to be med-evaced,
ASAP. The weather gods, must have had it in for me, the cloud
cover rolled in again, completely enclosing the LZ for days.
By the time the LZ was usable again, I was feverish and
disoriented and it took several attempts to get on a chopper.
In fact, I don't even remember boarding any chopper.
I recall wandering
around the main Khe Sanh base, looking for the dentist's
office. This took quite some time, but I finally wandered into
the dentist's office. A dentist administered Novocain and the
pain went away. The dentist determined my crushed teeth and
swollen gums were combining to make it impossible for the
doctor to be able to extract the infected teeth. The
instruments he needed had been destroyed in the shelling so
he ordered me to be transferred to Dong-Ha for treatment. I
reported to the Landing Zone Master, who informed me that
there were no more aircraft flights due in that day; I'd have
to come back the next morning.
I made my way to
the Kilo Company rear area, near the Battalion Aid Station,
checked in, and settled in for the night. Things were going
fairly well until the Novocain wore off. The pain of
half-extracted teeth caused me pain beyond the bounds of one's
imagination. I spent that eternal night in what can only be
described as hideous pain. So intense that I was actually
begging people to shoot me, just to make it stop.
Morning finally came and some kind soul drove me down to the
airstrip, where the LZ Master took one look at my evac tag and
told me that there was a fixed wing due in shortly, and that I
was to run onto it the moment it came to a stop. Even in my
semi-delirious state, that sounded like the world's most
excellent idea to me.
I waited in a large
bunker full of other casualties, which was located adjacent to
a widened area of the runway; a turnaround area. As we waited,
members of the LZ party circulated among us, assigning teams
of ambulatory casualties to individual stretcher cases, with
instructions to carry said stretcher onto the plane once the
LZ Master gave us the signal to move.
Despite my pain and
delirium, I was able to reach deep down into my psyche and tap
into the last of my physical and mental reserves. Crouching
almost like a runner waiting for the starter's gun, I
concentrated, focusing all my attention on the LZ Master in
the doorway. The wait felt like an eternity, but was probably
no more than 15 minutes. Suddenly, the LZ master was signaling
us to move out, punctuating his hand movements by yelling,
"Move. Move. Move." with each wave of his arm. Parris Island
conditioning suddenly kicked in and I found myself up and
moving in almost perfect coordination with the other men
carrying our assigned stretcher. Out the door we burst, our
ears assailed by the beautiful scream of turbo-prop engines. A
camouflage painted C-123 loomed into view, dropping its rear
ramp as it moved. The plane jerked to a stop just as the first
of our gaggle reached the bottom of the loading ramp. Up and
in we hustled, barely noticing the disembarking replacements
moving past us.
Within moments,
everybody was on board, the Crew Chief yelled into his
microphone, and the plane jerked into motion, the rear ramp
rising as we moved. The pilots hustled that big bird down to
the end of the runway, wheeled it around like a Corvette
pulling out of a drive-in diner, then, without stopping,
pushed the throttles to the stops and we screamed down the
strip. The landing gear banged over the seams of the Marston
Matting at an ever quickening pace for a few seconds, then
went silent as we broke free of the ground. Almost immediately
the tail dropped as the pilots put the nose up and clawed that
beast up into the sky. As the plane spiraled upward, I caught
a last glimpse of Khe Sanh wheeling beneath us. Artillery fire
was hitting the airstrip.
Relief seemed to melt my bones at this point, and I, as the
saying goes, fell right through my ass, and collapsed to the
deck next to my assigned stretcher. I revived somewhat a few
minutes later, when the plane's crew began circulating among
us, passing out packs of Marlboros, smiling and nodding,
offering whatever non-verbal comfort they could. At that
moment, I actually loved those guys. I damn near cried.
It then occurred to
me that I had a full pack, 20 whole cigarettes. I ripped that
pack open, jammed a Marlboro in my mouth, and fired that
sucker up. I drew that first delicious drag deep into my
lungs, reveling as the nicotine buzz coursed through me and
started to dampen my shakes. Satisfied, I turned and grinned
at the guy whose stretcher I'd helped carry. In response, he
held up two fingers on his unbandaged hand in the wordless
universal plea, "Hey buddy, can I get a smoke?" I hesitated a
moment, noting the bandages swaddling his chest, then nodded.
I pulled out another cigarette, lit it off my own, and gave it
to him. We lay there together and chain smoked for the rest of
the flight.
A short time later,
the C-123 circled and began to descend, almost fluttering down
to a nearly glass-smooth landing on some huge airstrip. Once
we'd taxied to a halt, the engines shut down, and the ramp
came down. I could see a bunch of ambulances and several
helicopters parked along the tarmac. Air Force medics then
hustled aboard and began to gently move us off the aircraft.
My smoking buddy and I ended up together on a weird looking
silver Air Force helicopter. It had two tilted rotors, mounted
side-by-side on top, so the rotors moved through each other's
arcs, like the blades of a mix master. As we lifted off, the
thing flew weird; in a series of sort of juddering hops. It
was a bit unsettling.
We didn't have much
time to worry, in just a few minutes we were sitting on a
helipad in front of what was obviously a hospital, a real big
one. A stretcher-bearing party quickly hustled my smoking
buddy away, while a Corpsman took me by the arm and led me
into a nearby building. The blast of air conditioning that hit
my face when the door opened almost floored me. My escort
steadied me, led me over to what I assumed was a Corpsman, and
helped me into a chair next to the desk. The Corpsman leaned
over, grabbed my evac-tag, and carefully examined it. "You're
not supposed to be here." he said. "Huh?" I replied,
completely flummoxed. "This evac-tag says you should be in
Dong Ha." "I'm not? Then where the hell am I?" "You're in
DaNang this is the Naval Hospital at China Beach" he added,
giving me a look reserved for gibbering idiots. "You have to
get up to Dong Ha for treatment." "How do I do that?" I asked
in desperation. "Not my problem." he replied, with the
calloused tone of a born bureaucrat, and then waved me away in
dismissal.
Crushed, almost
overcome by despair, I rose to my feet and staggered away. I
was so disoriented by this time that I headed in the wrong
direction, toward a larger desk sitting by itself at the far
end of the office, some tears of frustration coursing down my
face. The man sitting behind the larger desk, a salty older
Master Chief wearing crisply pressed khakis, noticed my
distress. He rose, walked over to me and asked what was wrong.
He patiently listened to my tale of woe and, with a
sympathetic look in he eyes he reached out to touch my arm,
his mouth opening to make his reply. The instant he touched my
arm, however, his eyes widened in alarm and his hand flew up
to my forehead.
"Holy Shit!” he
exclaimed as the back of his hand touched my forehead, "This
man is burning up! A second later he spoke again, the tone of
command snapping out, "We're admitting this man, stat! Get him
a seat. Detail somebody to get him a wheelchair and take him
down to Dental Surgery! And, for God's sake, someone get him a
cup of coffee!" In a blur of activity, I was lowered into a
chair by gentle hands and a cup of coffee was pressed into my
hands. This done, The Chief laid a comforting hand on my
shoulder, leaned over, smiled, and said, "You just relax, son.
We'll take good care of you now.” instantly guaranteeing my
vote for his sainthood.
Less than 15
minutes later, I was sitting in a dentist's chair, with a
doctor and two Corpsmen prepping me for surgery. While one
Corpsman started me on an IV set-up, both to re-hydrate me and
bring my fever down, the doctor began to pump Novocain into my
gums, shot after shot, until my entire face seemed to go cold
and numb. The numbness devoured my pain, leaving me
practically wallowing with relief in the chair.
The doctor talked
to me the entire time, explaining in detail everything that
was going on. Drifting in pain-free bliss, I wouldn't have
cared if he'd started farting out Sousa marches; but I
listened raptly as the doctor explained, in a reassuring
voice, how he had the Corpsman starting huge doses of'
antibiotics through my IV set-up, and a number of other
procedures. I was too giddy with relief to give much of a damn
about anything.
Once he was sure
that the Novocain had taken effect, the doctor began the
extractions. As he worked, I became more and more amazed at
how easily my teeth were coming out. From previous experience,
I knew that pulling teeth took quite a bit of effort, but not
on this occasion. They seemed to be coming out with all the
effort it would take to pull the petals off a daisy. The
doctor showed me each tooth as it was extracted. The roots of
each one were covered, with some sort of white corruption. The
doctor explained that the white stuff was the infection
itself; and that the teeth had already been detached from the
jawbone by the infection, which was why they were coming out
so easily.
It took about an
hour until the doctor finally finished. He'd extracted all of
my top teeth and two of my lower back molars, which, he
explained, had been badly broken in my fall. Those lower
molars had been the most difficult extractions, since the
infection hadn't progressed as far as the others. They
weren't detached from the jawbone, but they were too damaged
to save. As the doctor stitched up my gums, he told me that
all of my remaining teeth had been severely traumatized, and
that I would probably lose the rest of them by the time I was
forty.
After a bit of rest
and once the doctor decided I was stabilized, I was helped
back into my wheelchair and taken down to a general ward. One
of the ward staff helped me into a hospital bed and I was left
in peace. Exhausted, depleted, pain free at last, I fell
asleep almost immediately. I woke up the next morning to a
blood soaked pillow with a Purple Heart pinned to the
pillowcase, and with absolutely no immediate memory of where I
was or how I'd gotten there.
FIELD EXPEDIENT
Once I'd been discharged from the hospital, I was sent back up
to Khe Sanh, until such time as a dental plate could be made
for me. On my return to Khe Sanh, I reported in at Kilo
Company's rear area, expecting to be choppered back up to Hill
861. Instead, after conferring with a doctor up at the B.A.S.,
Kilo's Top Sergeant told me that I had to stay down in the
main perimeter with the rear element Something about there
being no 'soft' foods up on the hill. I'd have to wait until I
had teeth again before I could return to the Company. Since
the Top Sergeant pointedly mentioned I didn't need teeth to
work, and I was otherwise unhurt, the Top decided to give me a
job. Assistant Supply N.C.O. For a moment, I was flattered. A
real job title and everything, an. ad hoc N.C.O.. My balloon
was popped a minute later, when the Top gave me a more
detailed overview of what my new job entailed.
It seemed that every day the CP up on Hill 861 would radio
down a list of specific supplies that the Company needed for
that day. The Top would compile, then scan the list,
separating out the items available within the KSCB itself,
then pass along the rest. He would then give this 'locally
available' list to the Supply N.C.O., in this case, another
P.F.C. named Brown (my boss), and order him to transport this
stuff down to the staging area down at the LZ. Brown would
then grab me up, we'd jump on the Mechanical Mule, and off
we'd go. Now, the
Mechanical Mule was a weird little vehicle which everybody
seemed to inexplicably, love. Why? I have no idea. This
vehicle was as low-tech as you could imagine. It was simply a
flat, rectangular deck surrounded by a short rail, with a
tubular-steel framed driver's seat welded onto the front. The
thing had a souped-up lawn-mower engine, a three-speed manual
transmission, and no suspension system; just four rubber tires
at the ends of two straight axles. Since Brown, like everybody
stuck in that beleaguered perimeter had developed a great
aversion to being out in the open, he tended to always drive
at top speed. That tendency, plus the lack of a suspension and
those myriad holes which seemed to magically appear allover
the place, meant that we spent a lot of our driving time
airborne. I had to maintain a death grip on the railing to
avoid falling off. I didn't complain. My attitude toward being
out in the open exactly mirrored Brown’s.
While both Brown and I worked together loading and unloading
our cargo, my main duty was to hold onto the cargo as we
bombed along. As for loading, we always strived to accomplish
that just as quickly as possible, since any supply point, like
the P.O.L. depot (petrol, oil and lubricants), or any ammo
dumps, were all prime targets for the NVA. As for unloading,
we worked out methods designed to cut a lot of time out of the
process, since the airstrip was the NVA's #1 prime target. It
was no place to linger.
The method we came up with was as we neared the painted circle
at the end of the runway which designated Kilo Company's
staging point, I would jump off the still-moving Mule and
running alongside, start to sling the cargo toward the circle
while Brown braked the thing to a stop. Sometimes I was able
to complete the unloading before Brown completed stopping. At
other times, when our cargo was delicate or more usually
liable to explode, we handled it a bit more carefully. That
was simply good common sense. While it did take longer,
especially when handling an item like a case of 106mm
Recoilless Rifle rounds, (which took two people to lift) we
would only take a few moments to unload. The LZ landing party
had the job of getting the stuff on a chopper or in a cargo
net so once we were off-loaded we were free to jump back onto
the Mule and bomb on home.
Like anyone else, when not working I tended to jump in a hole
and stay there. My hole was a small, tiny actually, one-man
bunker that I shared with one of the Company clerks, a
Corporal named Andrusi. There was just enough room inside to
set up a single folding canvas cot, which the two of us
shared. (Nothing romantic, folks.) Andrusi was a fairly
organized dude, so he had some amenities available; candles,
his own 5-gallon jerry can of water and a case of Kool-Aid.
His prize possession was a small, battery-powered record
player and maybe three 45 rpm records. Nowhere near all the
comforts of home, but all in all not too bad, considering. Add
a steady supply of cigarettes and we were in hog heaven.
The fly in the ointment in this little set-up was Andrusi's
best friend, another clerk/Corporal named Rogers. Roger’s main
claim to fame was his aversion to sleeping in a bunker. In
deference to his touch of claustrophobia, he'd set up a cot in
the large tent that served as the Company office. I always
thought of him as a bit of a sarcastic S.O.B., mainly because
he immediately nicknamed me "Fang" because of my severe lack
of teeth at the time. This raised a few problems for me
because Rogers, being Andrusi's best buddy, spent most of his
free time hanging out in our bunker. The two of them would
sometimes gang up on me, poking fun.
They used to heckle me mercilessly about being a grunt. While
most people are aware that inter service rivalries, like the
Marines vs. the Army, or the Navy, or the Air Force, exist,
they aren't aware that some rivalries exist within the various
services. In this particular incidence, the two of them were
what we grunts called “pogues”. Pogues were rear-echelon
types, the ones we grunts called "The guys in the rear, with
the beer and the gear.” They in turn laid nicknames like “bush
beast”, on us grunts. They always loudly proclaim that a dude
had to be dumb, or crazy, or both, to end up as a grunt. While
it wasn't anywhere near as intense as street-gang behavior,
they did manage to really tick me off sometimes. I began
thinking up ways to get back at them. Lowly grunt my ass.
Andrusi unwittingly provided me with the exact opportunity I
was looking for one morning. Brown and I were getting ready to
make our daily supply run when Andrusi asked me, in an almost
offhand way, to see if I could scrounge up some nails during
my travels. He went on to explain that he wanted the nails so
we could hammer them into one of the wooden support beams in
our bunker, so we could hang our gear on them rather than
throw the stuff under our cot. I immediately realized that
this was a fool's errand, we didn't have a hammer. Not letting
on that I'd realized I was the potential butt of his little
joke, I agreed that it sounded like a great idea and promised
to see what I could do. Of course, I had something completely
different in mind; a plan both diabolical and stunningly
brilliant, downright evil, in fact.
That was a terribly difficult morning for me. It was extremely
hard to keep a straight face while I was practically gibbering
with anticipation inside. Luckily there was no one in sight
when I finally did find some nails, so I was able to do a
little happy dance to tide me over through the remainder of my
little counter scam. I was also able to take advantage of the
few moments of privacy to perform the most important part of
my set-up; removing the blasting cap from my emergency frag, a
grenade that I always carried with me, hanging by its spoon,
which was inserted in the little pencil pocket on my flak
jacket. Arriving
back at our bunker, I took a moment to compose myself then
dropped down into the bunker, to discover that the set-up was
absolutely perfect. Both Rogers and Andrusi were sitting there
on the cot, grinning at me. "Hey man," I chirped, "I found
some nails!" I continued, pulling them out of my pant's pocket
and showing them to Andrusi. "Hey, great man!" he replied,
"Now we're all set!" "Yeah" I continued, "Now all I need is a
hammer!" "Hammer, we ain't got no effin' hammer!" Andrusi
said, still blissfully unaware that I was no longer the butt
of his little joke. He and Rogers grinned at each other in
anticipation, both of them obviously in on the joke.
Working up a 'thinking hard' face, I hemmed and hawed for a
moment, then did a 'Eurekal!' face. Then I took one of the
nails, set it point-first against a wooden beam, and, before
either of them could react, grabbed my emergency frag and
started whacking the head of the nail with the base of the
frag, hard enough to pierce the thin metal skin of the
grenade. For a moment the two of them froze goggling in
horror, then simultaneously bolted for the bunker door, where
they had a brief, but extremely vicious little fight to be the
first one out the door. Rogers won. He was a short timer down
to about two weeks.
I was still laughing several minutes later when the Top stuck
his head through the entryway and said, "Hey Dalto! Your
buddies tell me you're driving nails with a grenade Don't you
know that's dangerous?" “Not when you take the cap out first,
Top.” I snickered back, quickly unscrewing the ring and spoon
assembly and holding it up to illustrate its fuse free status.
“Just teaching those fool pogues not to mess with a grunt,” I
added. Though he
tried not to laugh, the Top just busted up at that. He head
back to the CP Bunker, shaking his head and still laughing. My
two victims returned to our bunker several minutes later
suitably abashed. No more special errands for me. The kidding
incidents also dropped in frequency, precipitately. They were
especially careful not to say the word “ crazy” around me
again. As for the nails, I used an E tool to complete
hammering them into the beams. Hanging up our gear was really
a good idea.
NEW TEETH
February slowly rolled into March, each day seeming to stretch
into years. Tedium and terror combined in mind-numbing
monotony while tales of close calls circulated among our
bunker society. In our Company area, delayed-action fused
artillery round had hit between us and the B.A.S. leaving an
unbelievably deep and wide crater, which gave anyone who saw
it quite the case of the willies. There wasn't a man among us
that hadn't had at least one close call.
I suspect it really was our own fault. Andrusi and I were
snugly ensconced in our little bunker, doing our Kool-Aid,
cigarettes, playing records thing; the Khe Sanh equivalent of
an orgy, except without the sex or booze. Dazed by this
non-debauchery, it never occurred to us that we were burning a
candle, and maybe our light discipline wasn't so good. I have
absolutely no recollection of what happened next, having been
severely and instantly rendered unconscious. In fact, the
entirety of the next two days is really fuzzy. When I try to
think back on this period, all I get is the impression that I
was inside this gigantic bell. Andrusi filled me in about the
details later, once I could hear him again.
According to Andrusi, one of those Katyusha siege rockets
exploded right next to our bunker. He said the explosion was
so loud he couldn't even hear the start of it. Just, all of a
sudden, his ears are screaming and me, he and everything else
in the bunker is airborne inside this chunky black cloud, then
all of it landing in a single heap in the far corner of the
bunker. Andrusi added that while he had not been knocked out,
he had most definitely been heavy-duty stunned, so it took him
a while to get his fecal material re-compacted and start to
make sense of things again. One of the first things he noticed
was that the really heavy thing on top of him was me.
Immediately his priority switched to my buddy's-hurt mode. He
said he worked on me about ten frantic minutes before I
finally came to. Then he dragged me out of there and up to the
B.A.S. The crazy
doctor went over me pretty thoroughly up at the B.A.S. other
than a nose bleed and various bumps and bruises associated
with taking an unscheduled flight inside a bunker, I was
physically unhurt. Most of my problems, including my screaming
headache, came from a double dose of concussion. Not only had
I taken a very large dose of the semi-solid wall of air type
of blast concussion, I had also, since my head had been in
contact with the wall closest to the explosion, taken the
equivalent of a right haymaker from ground concussion. There
was also the possibility that I had landed on my head at some
point. While at first I did get a smidgen of sympathy from the
crazy doctor, who's current insanity emerged immediately after
he'd been a tad too close to the first ammo dump that had
blown up back in January, such sympathy quickly evaporated.
The second he determined that my injuries weren't life
threatening, he completely lost interest in me. He told a
corpsman to give me a big bottle of Darvon and then told me to
go away. Like I said crazy.
Andrusi told me he'd taken me back to our bunker, where, he
added, rather than just falling asleep I immediately seemed to
lapse quietly into a coma. I was slightly more lucid when I
struggled back to consciousness late the next morning, and it
was no fun at all. My entire body, every last atom of it,
seemed to be vibrating; my head felt like I had an elephant
sitting on it. My hearing was like I had a thick gauze bandage
wrapped around my ears. I felt like screaming, but I
instinctively knew it would hurt too damn much. Andrusi, God
bless him, started feeding Darvon to me until the pain faded
enough for me to stand up. Bladder pressure then forced me up
and out of the bunker. When I turned to start toward the head,
I promptly fell into this God-awful crater. My cognitive
faculties weren't quite up to speed yet, and it hadn't
occurred to me that there might be a big hole nearby and I
should maybe look out for it. Luckily, I didn't wet myself,
but I was so discombobulated that I instinctively knew that I
had no chance of making it out of that hole with dry pants. I
was still in the process of relieving myself when Andrusi
wandered up, looked down at me, and said, "Yeah, that effin'
hole scares the piss outta me too."
He was right. That effin' hole was downright scary. The damn
thing was bigger than our bunker. The sight of our tiny bunker
seemingly teetering on the very edge of that chasm reduced me
to a weak-in-the-knees, gibbering idiot. One full layer of
sandbags was nothing but eviscerated ragged tatters. Bad as
our bunker looked, the company office tent was much worse.
Most of the shrapnel produced by the rocket had splashed
forward into the tent, chopping up all the equipment inside. A
good deal had hit Rogers' cot, reducing it to kindling and
shredding his poncho liner. Rogers hadn't been in his bunk
when the rocket had hit. He'd been visiting over at the CP
bunker at the time. He was short, less than a week away from
his DEROS, and his 'short timer's blues' had him at a level of
paranoia so intense that you could almost see an aura. This
incident didn't help him any. While it did instantly cure him
of his aversion to sleeping in a bunker, it now became a major
chore to get him out of a hole. When he did emerge, he
scurried a lot. As I
continued to eat Darvon like Tic-Tacs, life swiftly returned
to what passed for normal at the KSCB. Though Andrusi and I
were pretty tight by then, I was nowhere near the point of
forgiving Rogers for the Fang nickname he'd laid on me. I soon
reverted back to my normal pagan ways and tormented him in
every way I could, mainly tweaking his paranoia at every
opportunity. Every morning he'd wake up looking hopeful,
cheerfully chirping about how little time he had until the
sacred 'wake-up'. I'ld give him the hairy eyeball and say,
"You aren’t outta here yet. Those suckers are after your butt,
personal-like!” and then cackle like a crazed hyena as I
watched his bubble burst. Some people thought I should lighten
up on the dude, but he never did stop calling me 'Fang'.
Finally, one very, very good day, two sets of orders came in.
One set ordered me down to DaNang to get my new teeth. The
other set was Rogers' Freedom Bird ticket; he was going back
to the “World”. I hadn't seen a happier look on a man's face
since the first time a lady mistook my face for a saddle. He
almost instantly disappeared, then reappeared two minutes
later with all his gear in hand, literally dragging Brown
behind him, and giving me a "Why aren’t you ready yet?" glare.
You can't argue with a man when he's right, and all I had to
do was grab my rifle, so it was less than ten minutes later
when Brown dropped us off at the LZ.
After presenting our orders to the LZ Master, we were directed
to the staging bunker. We were organized into a boarding stick
and told to stand by; the first chopper would be coming in
once the ground fog cleared. The wait, like all such waits
when something good lies at the end of it, quickly became
interminable. Every second seeming to move through glue. Being
right next to Rogers was no great treat either. He spent the
entire time chain smoking and softly chanting "Lift, Goddammit!"
at the fog under his breath. As irksome as this soon became, I
didn't bust his chops about it. I figured that if something
bad happened to him at that point, it would probably also
happen to me. At long last we got the stand-up signal, then
the wave-out and bustled outside to see a beautiful Banana
Boat touch down as we cleared the bunker. Up the boarding ramp
we hustled !(Nobody, but nobody got on or off a helicopter
slowly at Khe Sanh.) The last man onboard raised his arm to
signal the crew chief, who then yelled into his mike, and the
pilot jerked that bird off the ground. Willing the thing up,
we passengers fixed our eyes out the back end watching the
ground race away from us. Right about the count of five, we
saw a mortar round explode in the exact spot we had just
vacated. There was a momentary flash of fear, then relief as
we continued to gain altitude without a hitch. A minute later
and we were in cloud. We could breathe again. We continued to
climb until we popped out above the cloud layer. Khe Sanh was
blessedly out of sight.
A short and fairly jubilant flight later and we were on the
ground in DaNang, a place widely believed by the average grunt
to be safer than, say, Cleveland. In contrast to the tension
we'd been under at Khe Sanh, we were now relaxed to the point
where we were able walk naturally, rather than march or run,
amazed at what a pleasure it was to walk erect. Eventually, we
sauntered into the M.A.T. (Marine Air Terminal) and presented
our orders to a clerk at the counter. Rogers was told that his
Freedom Bird was scheduled to take off early the next morning,
then directed to proceed to a transient barracks area located
near the Freedom Hill PX complex. I was to proceed to the
hospital at China Beach; and no, there was no bus. Rogers and
I, never expecting to see each other again, split amicably and
headed our separate ways.
I spent most of the rest of that morning asking directions as
I hitch-hiked across the DaNang perimeter, arriving at the
hospital about a half hour before lunchtime. Amazingly, I had
my new dental plate in time to still have lunch there. As good
as it felt to be able to chew again and to have things like
condiments available the greatest pleasure of the meal turned
out to be simply sitting in a chair, at a table. I felt like
Conan the Barbarian the first time he hit the big city.
Once they threw me out of the hospital mess hall, I started
hitchhiking back toward the airfield. At one point, I was
dropped off near a bridge somewhere around the Deep Water
Pier. As soon as I cleared the truck my antennae went up; I
could hear gunfire. Confusingly, the firing didn't sound
anything like a firefight. It had the steady deliberation of a
firing range. As I moved forward, I noticed a long line of
Marines spaced about ten meters apart the entire length of the
upstream side of the bridge. Each man, in no particular order,
was firing down into the river every few moments. Perplexed,
M-16 at the ready, I moved up to the first man on the line and
asked if he needed any help. Without ever taking his eyes off
the water upstream, firing slowly and steadily, the guy
explained to me that his unit was the bridge guard. He went on
to explain that the enemy regularly tried to blow up that
bridge by floating explosives down the river. The guards' job
was to shoot at anything floating down the river before it
came within 50 meters of the bridge. They did this 24/7, using
big spotlights at night. I left that place shaking my spinning
head at the complete insanity and perfect sense of their job.
I made it back to the M.A.T. around 1600 hours, only to learn
that there were no more flights up to the KSCB that day. I was
then directed to spend the night at the same transient
barracks that Rogers had headed for that morning. Still being
somewhat sane, I felt no great urge to zip back up to Khe
Sanh, so this sounded like an idea I could really get behind.
Cheerfully unlimbering my thumb again, off I went. Within an
hour-and-a-half, I was checked into the transient barracks.
I'd had a lot of people staring at me during my travels, very
probably because my jungle utilities were a different color
than anyone else's; the same rusty Khe Sanh's clay. As a
result, I had quite a few things planned; taking a long
shower, washing my filthy clothes, sleeping on a mattress,
with a pillow and sheets. All such plans were summarily
scuttled a few moments later when I ran into Rogers and his
new posse of short-timers.
They had several extremely interesting items of information
for me. First they told me that the big place across the road
was the Freedom Hill PX complex. Then, much more importantly,
they added that you could get California-style cheeseburgers,
French fries, and, wonder of wonders, beer. My immediate reply
was, "We ain't there yet?" We spent the remainder of that
evening rapidly drinking ourselves comatose( we called it the
Tooth & Freedom Party).
At 0500 the next morning, well before the first blush of dawn
some sadistic S.O.B. started pumping reveille through a bunch
of large loudspeakers at full volume, the noise of which
heterodyned disastrously with our crippling hangovers.
Startled into movement, we were herded onto what we called
'cattle cars' open flat-bed trailers equipped with rows of
wooden bench seats. Fifteen minutes later we found ourselves
standing in the dark very near the end of a line of men more
than 500 feet long. This line led into a large mess hall tent,
located near both the airstrip and the M.A.T.
Not a big fan of standing at the end of a very long line and
savagely hung over, I was not in a good mood. Rogers' cheerful
chirping about being so close to safety and already past the
sacred 'wake up' swiftly raised my bile. Overwhelmed by the
urge to ply the needle one last time, I said, "Hey man, you're
not out of Nam yet. Those effers could still get your skinny
ass!" No sooner were
these words out of my mouth than two large Katyusha rockets
exploded on the far side of the airstrip, more than a
quarter-mile away. The timing couldn't have been better if I'd
paid those gunners. The immediate reaction was complete chaos,
with hundreds of people scattering in every direction at very
high rates of speed. All except me. I'd only run a few
strides. Inured to conditions at the KSCB, enemy fire hitting
at that distance didn't worry me that much. Besides, I soon
noticed that no more fire was coming in so I stopped. I soon
found myself alone; everyone else had disappeared.
Since there was no longer a line of men in front of me, I
decided no one could hassle me about cutting in line if they
weren't there and hustled up to the door of the mess tent.
Looking inside I was amazed to find the place completely
deserted, even the cooks and servers had run off.
Incredulous, I drifted forward toward the serving line, almost
slavering at the feast laid out before meat, eggs, pancakes,
sausage, bacon, toast, butter, home fries, boxes of cereal,
tapioca pudding, fresh fruit, chocolate milk, for God's sake!
Smiling my brand new smile, I slowly scanned over the
delicious vista and announced, "Well, well, well! Looks like
the perfect chance for me to put my new teeth to the acid
test!" Then, rubbing my palms together in glee, I dug in. I
took some of everything I liked, just piling the food on my
tray, stuffing every pocket I had with fruit and boxes of Post
cereals, pouring myself an entire pitcher of chocolate milk. I
ate and ate and ate--some more. After awhile, the mess hall
staff filtered back in. They glared at me quite a bit, but I
didn't care. I paused only long enough to give them the
finger, then resumed eating. After a good hour of munching, my
jaws aching, I was finally done. Struggling to my feet, I
waddled out of there and over to the M.A.T., groaning with
pleasurable pain. As
for Rogers; even though I kept an eye out for him, I never did
see him again. I figure he must have dived into a hole
somewhere and pulled it in after himself; emerging only to run
up the boarding ladder of his Freedom Bird, probably cursing
me with every step, not that I blame him.
SETTING A RECORD
Like any of my days at the KSCB. Once Brown and I had finished
breakfast, we reported in to the Top, who gave us the welcome
news that all we had to do was pick up and stage some
engineer's stakes and we were done for the day. This had us in
a pretty good mood as we set off. Within a half-hour, we were
bouncing merrily along toward the airstrip, a dozen or so
bundles of short engineer's stakes on board. I didn't even
have to lay on the stakes to keep them aboard, so I could hold
on with both hands, the extra security definitely a plus in my
book. Down at the
LZ, our speed-unloading went perfectly. I had all the bundles
off and staged before Brown could get out of his driver's seat
and we were heading back, bombing along the end of the runway,
relaxing and doing some sightseeing. I was sitting
cross-legged, Indian-style, staring off to our right at a
weird looking armored vehicle called an Ontos, which was
parked along the perimeter bunker line. When I turned to my
left to impart this cogent observation to Brown, he wasn't
there. He'd stuck the Mule in neutral and bailed out on me.
A motion caught my eye and I looked up to see three fountains
of dirt, exploding enemy artillery rounds, at the far end of
the airstrip. The sound of the first explosion reached me
about the same time, punctuating the fact that the explosions
were walking down the middle of the runway, directly toward
me! I was off that Mule and sprinting toward the bunker line
cringing as the noise of the explosions got louder, ergo
closer, at a truly terrifying rate. By the time I hit the
trench line concussion was slapping at me. A heartbeat later
just as I was in the doorway of the nearest bunker, an
artillery round exploded right next to it, close enough that I
found myself deafened and flying through the air, enveloped in
the dust ball of the explosion.
Things turned pretty hazy for me then. I'd bounced off the far
wall of the bunker. Along with being pretty well jellied by
concussion, all I could do was wallow on the deck in sheer
terror, barely aware of the continuing barrage as it walked
back over the bunker line. After some time, I recovered a bit,
there was a lull in the shelling and I suddenly heard Brown's
voice, yelling, "Hey Dalto! You alive?" "Yeah! Still in one
piece!" I called back, clapping my helmet back on and sticking
my head out of the bunker door, just in time to see Brown come
pelting out of the trench. "Let's get the eff outta here!" he
called as he legged it toward the Mule, sitting, a few hundred
feet away still idling. Sounded like a great idea to me. A
stride and a jump and I was out of the trench, but Brown was
way ahead of me. He was in the driver's seat, had stuck the
thing in gear, and dug out while I was still more than 100
feet away. About the time Brown hit second gear, artillery
started coming in again hitting the airstrip. That inspired me
to reach down inside myself and hit stripe-assed ape gear,
gaining on the Mule. As Brown slapped that thing into third
gear, I caught up with him and dived forward, landing belly
down spread eagle on the flat deck of the Mule, grasping the
deck rail with a death grip as Brown kept the pedal to the
metal, practically flying through the shell holes.
Once we cleared the immediate impact area, Brown spared a
second to glance over at me, then did a bit of a double-take
and said, "Uh, Dalto ___ don't panic or nothin', but I think
you're hit!" "What! Where!" I yelled, my lips going numb with
panic. "Back of your left knee!" I craned around, frantically
scanning down my body, and saw a wet, red stain about halfway
down my left leg, setting off a molten wave of shock that
seemed to drop my stomach straight through the soles of my
feet. I spent the rest of that short trip cursing non-stop. I
have no idea what I said, but it made Brown cringe a bit. We
very quickly arrived at the Company area, whereupon Brown
stuck the Mule in neutral, switched off the engine, jumped off
the still-moving Mule, and dove into the CP bunker. I stayed
on the Mule until it coasted to a stop, worried about further
injuring my leg. With enemy shells still screaming overhead, I
sat there for a few minutes, carefully checking my leg. After
a very close inspection, I discovered that I was O.K., with no
holes in my pants leg or, more importantly, my leg. There was
some blood and tissue there, but I concluded it must have come
from someone else. Vastly relieved, I instantly became so
happy that it didn't occur to me for at least a week that I
had a piece of someone else on my pants leg.
Almost giddy, I hopped off the Mule and trotted over toward
the CP bunker. As I approached the doorway, I heard the Top's
voice angrily berating Brown about "leaving a wounded man out
in that shit," which was why I was laughing when I dropped
through the doorway. The Top spun around at the sound of my
boots hitting the deck and asked, "Dalto, you O.K.?" "Yeah,
sure, Top" I replied, happy as a clam in mud. "It's just a
piece of someone else," I added, turning and pointing to show
him the stain on the back of my pants leg. Giving me a very
weird look, the meaning of which went right over my head, he
added, "Glad you're O.K” " He then turned back to Brown and
continued chewing him a new, and much wider anal orifice;
amply proving yet again that senior Marine NCOs can really
cuss. I thought it was hilarious.
During another lull, I made it back over to my own bunker.
Shortly afterward, the NVA opened up again trying to set a
record.. This time they shifted fire, soon hitting the ammo
dump about 75 Yards away from our Company area. While they
didn't manage to detonate the entire ammo dump in one fell
swoop, they did set it on fire. As we watched, the fire began
to eat its way through the ammo dump, pallets full of ammo
detonating one after another every few minutes. The entry door
of our little bunker faced directly toward the conflagration,
almost giving us the illusion of watching TV, which is
actually a very accurate analogy. Andrusi and Rogers and I sat
side-by-side on that canvas cot/living room couch, sipping
Kool-Aid, smoking cigarettes, laughing and scratching,
whooping and hollering three dudes watching the greatest
fireworks show imaginable. And what a show it was. I'm
completely sure that most of the American population has never
witnessed a real explosion from relatively short range, mainly
because doing so is extremely dangerous. At the same time it
can be quite impressive as a Show, a spectacular form of
entertainment. For instance, a pallet of artillery ammo goes
off with an enormous flash, a big, rolling ball of dust, a
noise so loud you stop hearing it immediately after it begins
a slap of concussion like a hard left jab, and smoking bits of
metal arcing through the air. A simultaneous violent assault
on all your senses.
A pallet-full of rifle ammo, however, blows in a rapid series
of smaller explosions, maybe a box at a time; each burst
throwing out a glowing parabola of red-hot lead in every
direction. Though not a serious assault it was a visual treat.
The whole thing was enormously entertaining, made even better
by the caperings of the poor slobs who were fighting the fire.
Maybe we three were born without a sympathy bone; or maybe it
relates to the fact that I totally got it when Tolkein used
the phrase, "Mad for fun", but we thought it was hilarious as
explosions blew those guys off their feet and tumbled them
around. Here were brave men, with balls of pure forged brass,
trying to put out that conflagration by shoveling dirt on it,
some of them using E-tools, for God's sake, and we're sitting
there laughing at them until our ribs ached.
I guess it simply never occurred to us that those men were in
serious physical danger. In fact, the very idea of physical
danger never entered our heads until after a particularly
large explosion, the business end of a l06mm recoilless
beehive round skipped past the door of our bunker spewing out
flechettes, some of which flew in and bounced off us. From
then on, through the rest of that day, and all that night, we
listened to the rest of the show cowering on the deck in our
bunker. LAPES
The morning after that big shelling we crept tentatively out
of our bunkers to see our familiar landscape littered with
what looked like tons of expended ordinance. The WIA bunker,
home to Kilo's 'walking wounded; looked especially woebegone;
covered with soot, with many of its' sandbags shredded. We had
been very worried about those guys, since their bunker was
much closer to the burning ammo dump than ours. Gratefully,
our emergence was greeted by Crazy Tim's insane cackle and the
gleam of teeth as everyone inside grinned out of their powder-
smoked, grimy faces at us. We'd taken no casualties, an
intense relief to everyone. Once the Top had ascertained his
men were all OK, he surveyed the scene, tilted back his
helmet, scratched his head and said, "Well men, let's get this
area policed up." And that's how we spent the entire day;
sweeping back and forth over the Company area, nervously
picking up blackened bits of ordinance and carefully
depositing them in a nearby crater.
Routine quickly reestablished itself over the next several
days and our main priority, after staying alive, returned to
finding different ways of amusing ourselves. I had Rogers,
who'd developed a roaring case of the 'short timer's blues',
jumping into holes for an entire afternoon when I discovered
that tapping my boot heel lightly against a full 5-gallon
jerry can full of water perfectly reproduced the faint little
'bump' noise that announced that the NVA was sending us yet
another H.E. round in from Co Roc.
Most of the time, however, our main entertainment was supplied
by our flyboys. At any given time on a clear day, you could
see every aircraft in the U.S. inventory that could carry
armament making attack run after attack run all around the
plateau, dropping tons of holy, high hopping hell on the NVA.
I know that personally, the thought of the NVA getting their
collective asses waxed warmed the very cockles of my heart.
Not a very Christian attitude I admit: but those yahoos were
trying very hard to murder my young butt. So it was that I
regularly joined all the other troopies standing on top of
bunkers and screaming, "Yeah, get some" at every explosion.
I've always considered this air show the greatest morale
booster we had inside that beleaguered perimeter.
Our favorite part of the air show was, by far, the LAPES runs
(That's Low Altitude Parachute extraction System). LAPES was a
supply delivery system which did not require a fixed-wing
aircraft delivering cargo to come to a stop. This was very
important because, with plenty of practice, the enemy
artillery could eventually begin their shelling before a
fixed-wing aircraft could complete its' land-offload-takeoff
cycle. As a result the Khe Sanh airstrip had been closed to
fixed-wing aircraft since shortly after that big, silver C-130
had been hit, crashed and burned on the 10th of February.
Helicopters could still make it in and out safely, but they
couldn't carry enough to supply the 4,000 or so souls we had
at the KSCB. Choppers could bring in replacements and evacuate
our wounded, but it would take an entire squadron of Banana
Boats (CH-46s) to bring in one C-130 load; and we needed
several C-130 loads, every day, ergo LAPES.
The LAPES process itself is both fascinating and thrilling to
watch. The big plane would come in, wheels, flaps and cargo
ramp down, engines whispering on low power. Close to the
ground the ship would flare out: raise the nose, with the
landing gear seeming to grope for the ground like a bird
reaching for a roost branch. Inside the plane the crew would
release the stay chocks holding the roller-mounted cargo
pallets in place, then the Loadmaster would pull a drogue
parachute release the instant the back wheels kissed the
ground. Slipstream would drag the chute out the back end, with
said chute inflating almost instantly with a "pop", providing
the impetus to start the cargo pallets moving. At a command
from the Loadmaster, the pilots still keeping the nose up,
would crack the throttles up to a full-engine-power scream,
adding yet another source of inertia to the process. The cargo
skids, still attached to each other by a single, wide, nylon
strap, would slide out the back end and onto the runway, while
the plane would simply take off again; total of maybe ten
seconds ground time, and tons of supplies delivered. With not
much in the way of real entertainment at hand, we troopies
really looked forward to these LAPES runs, so we soon worked
up an alert system. There were always some men on watch along
the perimeter line. When one of these sentries would spot a
C130 pop out of the clouds that always seemed to be hovering
over the hilltops, they'd yell out, "LAPES comin' in!", which,
in true Marine fashion, would be echoed by everyone who heard
it. In the time it
took for the plane to get even with Hill 861, about four
clicks out, the tops of every bunker were covered with
spectators yelling encouragement. There was an almost festive
air to the whole affair, somewhat accentuated by the variously
colored state flags individual Marines proudly displayed over
their bunkers. Now even though a normal LAPES run was a great
spectacle, it was what happened after the skids cleared the
aircraft that everyone was actually looking forward to. Each
skid was not a single object, but a mating of three various
parts: the cargo items themselves, which were attached to the
second part, wooden pallets, several of which were, in turn,
attached to large, flat, thick, aluminum skid plates, forming
what we called skids of about 9 cubic yards. These multiton
bricks were moving at more than 100 mph when they touched the
runway, at which point all bets were off. Occasionally there
would be little irregularities in the runway, like one of
those pesky holes that kept magically, and loudly, appearing
all over the place. These would impart a touch of English to
the trajectories of the skids. They'ld curve. Many times, the
new curved trajectory would lead off the narrow runway. The
skid would then hit the dirt in a huge ball of rust-colored
dust, then an edge might collide with a ridge of hard clay or
something and complete chaos would result as the whole
assembly separated and scattered all over the area.
Sometimes the single nylon strap that linked the individual
skids would fail to break and a second skid would pile into
the first, instantly doubling our thrill. We'd whoop and
holler and grab-ass for a few seconds, then jump into the
nearest hole to avoid the inevitable barrage. NVA gunners
already had in the air, headed our way. A few desperate nearby
people might run out and steal, I mean salvage the aluminum
skid plate, hoping to beef-up a bunker roof, but everybody
else was back underground before the dust settled. Another
aspect of these LAPES runs that appealed to we troopies was
just how slick the operations appeared. That and the sensation
of putting one over on the enemy would put a grin on our
faces. The daring and skill displayed right in front of our
eyes was a distinct thrill, made complete by the sight of the
aircraft lifting off and steeply clawing back into the sky,
safe and sound, untouched. Safe and sound were the touch words
here. Those aircrews
were risking their collective butts to help all of us stay
alive. We admired them; loved them like brothers. Nobody hoped
to see the alternative to safe and sound. We had already seen
that on February 10th and while it had been spectacular, there
had been absolutely nothing approaching entertaining or fun
about it. Instead there was horror and regret and sympathy and
thoughts of families swamped with despair. Almost
superstitiously, we refused to think about something going
catastrophically wrong, for fear of jinxing them. |
