LAWRENCE OF VIETNAM
VI.
"IT'S A BEAUTIFUL MORNING"
We had no trouble that first morning at Delta 4 sleeping after the sun came up, we were beat. Eventually we got up and around and fixed some C-Rations for breakfast. From sun up to sunset Armed Forces Radio was always playing on one or more transistor radios scattered around the compound. At that time there was a hit song out called, "It's a Beautiful Morning". I think it was by the Rascals. That song came on and I had to say aloud, "Right".
In the light of day I had a chance to check out the compound a little more carefully. Delta 4 located in a clearing between two villages. There was a road that ran east and west going through the middle of the compound with wire along both sides of the road and openings in the middle of the compound. North of the compound perimeter wire was a wide expanse of open rice paddies. The South side of the compound ran along a river with a fairly steep bank. Across the river was a wide expanse of open rice paddies. The ground was loose river sand, which we would soon discover was 'just dandy' for filling sandbags. In September the weather was still hot with frequent afternoon showers, so things were damp.
The North side of the road inside the compound was the side of the unit that had been hit the hardest on September 11th. The West bunker was completely burned out on the inside of its wood walls and the sandbags had been blown down on the ground. The East bunker on that side of the road had completely blown-up and collapsed, it was just a pile of sand, sandbags and shattered timbers. That bunker would soon become my new home.
One the South side of the Road there were fighting positions dug around the inside of the perimeter about twenty feet from the wire. Along the river on the South side of the compound were two big bunkers in fairly poor condition. The sandbags had taken a lot of hits and were collapsing. The only bunker undamaged during the attack was the Comm Bunker. It was built up about three feet off the ground with wooded interior walls. Just West of the Comm Bunker was a small Ammo Bunker that was used only to store ammunition, claymores and satchel charges. Next to the Ammo bunker just North of the Comm Bunker was a lister bag on poles for our drinking water. South a short distance was the pride of the compound, a shower. The shower was an airplane fuel tank setting up on timbers. It was a little primitive looking but it worked.
Throughout the compound lean-to structures and tents were everywhere. That was what the 'Grunts' and the P.F.'s called home at the time. I also started noticing we weren't very well supplies with automatic weapons or anything heavy. The CAP unit had one M-60 Machine Gun and the 'Grunts' had one M-60. The P.F.'s had one BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle). All the Marines had been issued M-16's and the P.F.s had World War II M-1 Grande Rifles with a few M-2 Carbines. Most of the CAP Marines had scrounged up some kind of pistol, including me with my civilian Colt 45 automatic. We also had one M-79 Grenade Launcher. This did not escape McEvoy's attention or mine and we immediately starting thinking of ways to beg, borrow or steal more automatic weapons and a mortar if we could find one somewhere. A 106mm Recoilless Rifle was discussed because I had been trained on them as an Ontos Crewmen but they are big and awfully had to steal.
After I had eating some chicken noodle C-Rations with the real treat of apricots I made my way to the Comm Bunker. As I walked in I notice 'Doc' was still asleep, he'd been up on Radio watch for several hours. Torres and the Sarge were looking over the map for the upcoming Daylight Patrol. They nodded as I walked up into the bunker.
I said, "We've got to do something about a better radio for patrols. "The Sarge looked up and said, What da ya mean?" I went on to explain all the problems I had with the PRC 10 the night before. I asked it we couldn't rig the PRC 10 with a bigger antenna in the Comm Bunker and let the patrol use the PRC that was sitting the Comm Bunker. I'm not sure what arrangements were made but a few days later I was given a PRC 25. Of course in the meantime we had completely lost radio contact on a few patrols. We even had extra batteries. More than likely the 'Grunts' got the radio from their home unit, they didn't like being out without radio contact either.
After my bitching about the radio I strapped it on and we were off on our stroll through the West Village, which I was informed right away was the 'friendly Ville'. The Ville looked like most of the villages in the I Corps of Vietnam. Thatch roof, bamboo walls with the occasion pop can tin roof and walls. There were a few masonry structures but not many. The narrow dirt road ran from the West side of our compound all the way to Highway One. There were no other roads in our TAOR, just foot paths. The foot paths ran from the road down to the river on the South side of the village and ran out to the rice paddies on the North side of the road. The were a maze as they twisted and turned through the village hooch's.
This was my first experience actually working with the P.F.'s and it was obvious they didn't feel very kindly toward us, especially the 'Grunts' and the Marines, especially the 'Grunts' didn't trust them. Mac and I saw this had to be change and quickly if we were going to survive out there. We both went out of our way to show every courtesy to the villagers and our P.F.'s that first day. The village kids of course thought we were all great and even the 'Grunts' loved them and the Cokes they were selling or trading. It was also obvious that Torres knew we had to improve relations with the Vietnamese, he too went out of his way to befriend them. He and the Sarge had already established a fairly good repore with the village chief and our P.F. 'Honcho' Staff Sergeant 'Chow'.
I could understand the 'Grunts' hesitation at warming up to the Vietnamese or even the CAP Marines. They had just come in form Operation Swift and before that Union I and II. They had lost a lot of friends and a few of them had lost their best friends. I got to know there leader Corporal Wilson right away because I carried the radio. I also got to know there point man, a kid from Manchester, Oklahoma. Manchester is near Byron where I had spent my summers on my Grandparents farm. That kid was one of the best point men I encountered in Vietnam, he could smell the enemy 100 yards away. He wasn't a very big guy and not at all the poster Marine type but he knew his stuff. As I write the account I can't remember his name but I'm working on finding it out.
Those first night and daylight patrols went by very uneventfully. The Engineers would come in and mine sweep the road from Highway One everyday. Then the Seabees would show up to work on the frame work for our new bunkers. I might add we would walk down the road to meet them at Highway One before the road was swept. Their Lt. J.G. felt sorry for us every evening when he left to go back to his base camp. I know he was genuinely worried about us out there. One day when we were visiting I mentioned it seemed a little stupid for us to patrol all night then have to get up and go meet them on a road that had not been swept for mines yet. That was the last day we did that.
The Seabees built our bunkers out of big timbers and culvert halves. We, the CAP Marines and some of the P.F.'s filled sandbags, ran patrols, filled sandbags, ran patrols and filled sandbags. We got very little sleep and generally we thought things were pretty tough, but the worst was yet to come.
VII.
"THE RAINS OF RAUNHCY POUR"
After a few weeks the Seabees had finished the bunker frames for two new bunkers. Then it started, the Monsoons. It rained early in the morning, it poured in the afternoons and 'it rained cats and dogs' at night. Nothing stayed dry. Then the river started rising right over it's banks and the rice paddies were completely flooded. The village and our compound was under about three feet of water. That's when things got interesting.
At first we tried to send patrols out but eventually that proved futile. We tried to find high ground to setup defense positions but soon there wasn't enough space for everyone on the higher bunkers and the new ones weren't completed. Mac, another Marine, a P.F. named 'Bone' and I were place out on the Blown-out bunker on the Northeast side of the perimeter on the North side of the road. We tried to pile up sandbags and use timbers for a floor for the M-60 but we had to keep building it up until we were out of sandbags. The only dry place was on some boards and it would only accommodate the guy on watch and the M-60. The rest of us were leaning up against the sandbags up to our waists, and one night our shoulders, under fast moving, very cold water. The only critters that didn't seem to mind the cold water were the leeches and they made things really interesting. Those were the most miserable nights of our young lives. I wrote a letter home to my Mother during this period.
***
Dear Mom,
You would never believe where I
am now - I'm on top of a primitive
tent we made out of sand bags, tent,
one piece of plywood and some old canvas.
We are completely surrounded by water,
the only things not underwater are the
bunkers. I'm at my new home now,
incidentally, C.A.P. Delta 4, it's pretty
messed up right now, but eventually
we will build it back up again.
Living conditions are pretty miserable,
constantly wet, and eating only C-rations
and we have a hard time geting
supplied with them. Actually
I don't care how bad it gets here
because on the 27th I'm going to
Australia on R & R - YEAH! - round
eyed girls. I never looked foreward
to anything more in my life.
Well I don't have much more
to add, don't worry about me I
enjoy living in the bush like
this, anything is better than working
in an office. Write soon and if you'd
like to send something send canned soup
and tea bags. Bye now.
P.S. My new address:
L/CPL S. A. Markley 2294637
Hq. Bn. (Rein) Suite 1, C.A.P. DELTA 4, 1st MAR. DIV.
F.P.O. SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. 96602
***
We were extremely fortunate nothing major happened during this period, the enemy must have been just a miserable as we were. There was the occasional burst of fire or shadows around the perimeter at night but for the most part everyone was just trying to survive the elements. The villagers were having a miserable time with their homes and livestock. We couldn't be re-supplied so after more than a week of this we were running out of C-Rations. On several occasions during the day we would wade our way out into the village and eat with the families of some of our P.F.s. To this day I don't know why we thought they were any better off than we were but they were gracious enough to feed us.
The up side of things during this period was the inability to fill sandbags but that was about the only benefit. As the water subsided we tried to get things around the compound back in order and started going back out on patrols. When the roads were finally passable the Engineers came back to complete work on our bunker and more importantly we were re-supplied with C-Rations. We were even allowed to send one Marine in a least once a week to Danang for cigarettes and other odds and ends he could carry back in a one hitchhiking day trip.
We also had a new Sergeant, our former Sergeant had been a cook and just didn't feel he was cut out for the command of a CAP unit, we agreed. Our new Sergeant was a tall thin blond haired guy from somewhere in the South. He seemed really 'Gung Ho' but in a way we appreciated. He would go out on night and daylight patrols with us. He seem to have a plan or an answer for every contingency and that was a vast improvement over the past. Things seemed to be going fairly well but we knew it couldn't last.
McEvoy and Clay were transferred to CAP Delta 5 over on the Coast East of Hoi An. Then the word came down. The two squads of 'Grunts' were going back to their Company. We had gotten some replacements in for 'Mac' and Clay but we had gotten no extra P.F.'s, there was only about 20 of them, 10 Marines and 'Doc' John. One of the new guys Bill Edmunds, was assigned to Torres squad with me. We were starting to get really concerned then the word came in on the Radio. We were getting about 50 R.D.'s ( Revolutionary Development Team members ) that night.
We said goodbye to the 'Grunts,' by now many had become friends. They were worried about us being left out there and we were worried about where they might be sent next. I told the kid from Manchester I'd look up his folks if I got home before he did and he'd look up my Grandmother in Byron and Tom and Phyllis Clark if he got home first. (The 'Grunts' ended up at Hue before and during the Tet Offensive. I saw a few of them in the Hospital later.)
