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RECOLLECTIONS: The Last Grunt

By VVAW

After They Were Dead, Really, They Would Still Take 3 or 4 Steps Forward

The captain comes around to our position and says, "You guys are getting to be celebrities back in the world; the lifer times or somebody is sending our correspondents."

He Leaves. We have been in this hell-on-earth for six or seven days, I no longer know. So many have died that I don't know anything anymore except that sooner or later North Vietnam has got to run out of bodies to feed to the fires of hell.

Battalion says we have killed over 700. The Air Force is claiming a thousand. Hanoi Hannah says they had sent a battalion to wipe us out but they could not do it, so next will be a regiment and hell, we have already had to butcher at least one regiment, it seems to me.

I don't know anymore. Every night they probe or attack and every night they kill some of us and we kill all of them. You go 500 meters in any direction and you see maggot-covered bodies, burnt bodies, dismembered bodies, pieces of bodies—just flesh, and it is everywhere, everywhere. Every night, and more every morning we have to go out and collect more weapons, more webb gear. I have been in this country for 21 months, through Tet of '68, through sniper fire, 51's, barrages, mines. And through all of Vietnam—the mud, the leeches, the night marches, the CP's the OP's, the long-range patrol, the ambushes. I have been already from 100 meters inside North Vietnam to 40 klicks south of Saigon and never before and never again will I see anything like Ni Ha.

It is a study in utter gore. The dead just keep piling up. No matter how many there are, there are always more. No wonder the Marines could not hold this bit of hell. The stench of it alone is enough to kill any normal man, let alone the NVA artillery, rockets, automatic weapons, mortars, cannons—they have got more firepower than we do except for the air.

Hell, they have never sent a correspondent to this unit before and I think they will regret that they do now. The captain comes by and says, "Well forget the correspondent; they zapped his bird. I think it was for CBS or somebody, but hell, I don't know. Anyway, he ain't comin' now"

"Did they get out of it?"

"Don't know; they went down somewhere next to the old marine positions. They're sending armor out for what was left now."

"Well hell if wouldn't make any difference. They ain't goin' to show the people back in the world this."

That's what we say to ourselves. They never did. Nobody ever heard Ni Ha. Nobody ever saw what Hamburger Hill or 882 or 881 or the A Shau Vally or Kontum or Hue or anywhere else that was really bad. But hell, we did what we had to to live through it. But hell, nobody every gave a damn about a grunt. Nobody ever gave a damn about those poor bastards out there or us.

So we go out and collect webb gear and weapons again. And I'm taking the steel pot off one NVA about 20 I guess; he'd been hit about 100 times or so—par for the course. Anyway, the top of his head comes off when I pull the pot, and his brain falls on my boot and I feel sick, but hell, I just kick it off and get the rest of the shit, throw it in a poncho, and start back before they start sniping or shelling or whatever they try next.

I see a GI laying on the ground pukin' his guts out and I say, "Take it easy, man," but he doesn't even hear me. He just gets up and runs back toward the CP and I see he got a camera and hell, I guess he was the correspondent— I don't know. They medivac him, whatever he was.

We go out and get more webb gear. They'll be back tonight. Damn it, they're back every damn night and hell, the only thing here is what's left of a village—a church steeple, god knows how many dead men, a graveyard; the "street of no joy" to our backs and the damn sand.

There just ain't nothing else left. Hell, if I know why they want it so bad. And shit if it was up to me they could have it. I would be damn glad to leave but battalion says hold, so we hold. But, like every other damn thing in this place, it is stupid, pointless and insane.

This stinking piece of dirt ain't worth nothing, but before it's done, close to a company of Americans will die here and battalions of North Vietnamese and for absolutely nothing. We will leave and two days after we do, the NVA will take it again and then walk off of it and never come back, to the best of my knowledge, at least. That's all; it was a stupid game of tag the generals wanted to play with pawns that nobody gave a damn about. And though I don't really know the exact number, a hell of a lot of those pawns died at Ni Ha. You could not just kill the NVA, you had to disintegrate them to stop them. They were absolutely out of their minds; you hit a guy with an 18-round burst and he just kept coming. After they were dead, really, they would still take three or four step forward.

—The Last Grunt