Download PDF of this full issue: v7n6.pdf (8.5 MB)

Recollections from Vietnam

By VVAW

"OLD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE..." -- IT'S THE YOUNG ONES WHO DO!

The episode printed here is only one example of the kinds of experiences that vets had in Vietnam. Vietnam Veterans Against the War hopes to print a book of such recollections, whether from Vietnam, from basic training, from being stationed in Korea or anywhere else around the world--actual happenings as remembered by the vets who saw them or lived them. Given the flood of publications and movies about the Indochina War, we see the need to have material which goes beyond the idea that the war was a "terrible mistake." We invite veterans to think back over their collection of "war stories." Write them down and send them in. The exact nature of the final book will depend on the contributions we get, but we believe it can be a powerful statement of some of the experiences which helped us come to realize why we should "Fight the Rich, Not their Wars."

Tet, 1968, broke across Vietnam like a thunderbolt. The Viet Cong and NVA launched a major offensive that liberated major cities, claimed a major portion of the countryside, and sent American and allied troops reeling. It wasn't as if we did not know it was going to happen. In early December, our battalion had launched on offensive of its own in the jungles west of Tam Ky. On the operation we killed the Intelligence section of the 2nd NVA division and captured intact the plans for the Tet Offensive including overlays. It was an incredible coup that enabled us to bomb supply routes, station troops at strategic locations and build up our defenses.

Despite this advance knowledge and the fact that the Vietnamese attacked where the plans said they would, we were beaten back. 285,000 troops from the National Liberation Front broke the myth of American invincibility as half a million American, one and a half Saigon, and 100,000 Korean, Australian and Taiwanese troops were battered from one end of Vietnam to the other. My unit, the 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry, 196th Brigade was put under command of the Marines outside of Da Nang. We, like others at Hue, Saigon and the Delta all felt the wrath of those fighting against the foreign invader and his mercenaries.

Our unit, the 196th, was developed especially for Vietnam. It was logistically self-sufficient so that we could be moved from one area to another without putting a strain on the unit we were being controlled by. This meant moving from one hot spot to another. We also lost a lot of our own men due to stupidity, incompetence and glory-hogging officers. And all this led to our becoming know as the 196th Light Suicide Brigade.

When Tet came we were sent to plug a hole. Our whole battalion moved out online early in the morning. We were looking for the Vietnamese before they could reach Da Nang proper. We found them--or they found us--as we reached the halfway mark of an open rice paddy area about 100 yards wide. A whole company of hardcore VC opened up; re-enforced by a rocket platoon they rained hell on the battalion from a dug-in position slightly rising out of the paddies. Most of the battalion fell back, leaving seriously wounded and dead alike. A small detachment made it to the VC trench but were cut to pieces.

The entire staff was assembled in the TOC (Tactical Operations Center), getting support from gunship assaults (helicopters), air support (Phantom jets) and artillery. The battalion commander issued orders trying to see if the line of Vietnamese could be breached or cracked. As the day wore on, 5 artillery batteries came in for support, gunships sprayed the area with rockets and machine gun fire, and 3 flights of Phantoms dropped fire and bombs on the guerillas. The Vietnamese held. We took more casualties. Men died, equipment was destroyed. Despite our numbers, our superior firepower and equipment, they would not move.

We could not understand it. There was no doubt in our minds that under similar circumstances we would have fallen back. As a matter of fact that was always a topic of conversation after an air strike--What the hell would we do if instead of F-14's MIg's came screaming down? How would we get out? But then again we all kept short-timer calendars (marking off our 365 days in country) while the Vietnamese could not stop until they had kicked the foreigners and their mercenary armies out.

After 6 hours of intense fighting, we were losing, a fact taken in by the battalion commander, a West Point colonel. All of a sudden he decided he must talk to brigade headquarters and left. Next, the battalion executive officer, a West Point major, left "to see the Colonel." He was followed by the Bn Operations officer, also a West Point major, who had to "check personally with Bde operations." This left the supply officer, a West Point captain, and myself, a 20-year-old very junior 1st Lieutenant, who was acting intelligence officer and had only recently been pulled in from the field. Soon, the captain left to "arrange supplies." Here in the midst of the heaviest fighting of the war were on OCS junior-grade officer and assorted enlisted RTO's left to direct the battalion. It wasn't hard for us to grasp what was happening. The lifers sensed a defeat and like rats scurrying off a sinking ship, were looking to be out of the area when it happened. The lives of the men didn't matter, only finding a scapegoat and protection that next promotion.

The battle continued. We took more casualties. The mend who had been wounded and caught in the rice paddies were screaming, trapped between the crossfire of American and Vietnamese troops. It was only a matter of time until they were hit again or bled to death. The American troops who had made it back were cursing or crying. There was nothing they could do. To venture out into the open paddy was certain death.

Above all of the flew the Brigade Commander in his helicopter. He must have just seen the "Green Berets" because he came up with a plan which could have worked only in Hollywood. "Crawl on your bellies across the rice paddy until you reach the enemy, throw hand grenades and then run back!" It was suicide and the men refused to move. "Move out! Crawl, crawl!!" The men stayed put. "You are all cowards!" The men began to curse, not the Vietnamese but that fool colonel flying over them screaming into the radio. The colonel gave up his scheme but not before he had himself put in for the Silver Star for bravery for flying over the battlefield. And the men on the ground, fighting and dying in the mud? They got nothing. After all, they were "cowards." The fighting continued into the night. Under the cover of darkness the Vietnamese pulled out, taking their dead and wounded with them.

The next morning the battalion moved over the area, the battalion staff returned and the Brigade Commander's Silver Star was announced to his hometown papers before it even had time to clear channels.

My Mother mailed me a newspaper clipping; it seems my unit had won a great victory outside of Da Nang with many enemy killed and few American casualties.