I arrived in Vietnam in late May 1968 (just weeks into the seven-month rainy season) on a chartered Trans World jet, stewardesses still aboard, that landed at the US airbase at Bien Hoa 12 miles northeast of Saigon. I half-expected mortar rounds or rockets to land on the tarmac, but was greeted instead by an atmospheric blast of heat and humidity in a glare so bright I had to squint behind my Bausch & Lombs.
Focus of my war (map courtesy of National Geographic Society; see slow-to-load Tour Map for greater detail)
Melodramatic though it may sound, I had readied myself to die as I watched San Francisco pass beneath me moments after saying goodbye to my step-father at the curb of a Travis Air Force Base terminal. He had driven me there from our family home just up the road in Sacramento where I had been on leave after Jungle Operations Training School in Panama.
A Second Lieutenant (Military Occupational Specialty code 1193, Field Artillery Unit Commander), I was assigned to the 2nd Battalion 35th Artillery, the "Moving Battalion", in Second Field Force Vietnam's 54th Artillery Group.
Second Field Force Vietnam shoulder patch
2nd Battalion 35th Artillery crest
Firing Battery
I remember joining C Battery 2/35 Artillery at Husky Compound (the battalion's headquarters) on the eastern edge of Xuan Loc five days after my arrival in country. I came equipped with an M-14, a steel helmet, a flak jacket and jungle boots and fatigues, all embarrassingly new, that had been issued me at various supply depots around USARV (United States Army, Vietnam) headquarters in Long Binh just east of Bien Hoa.
I remember C Battery a week later convoying its six M-109 155mm self-propelled howitzers, ammo carriers and other vehicles, including an M-577, nicknamed "Chaos", that was the FDC (Fire Direction Center), to a series of FSBs (fire support bases) along the Dong Nai River and Highway 20 some 15 miles north of Xuan Loc. We occupied FSB Kelly (10-12 June), then FSB Ferrel (12-20 June), which was situated in an abandoned village. After a brief return to Xuan Loc, we occupied FSB Mike (23-26 June).
FSBs Kelly, Ferrel and Mike (approximate locations; scale is 1:250,000; see slow-to-load Tour Map for context)
Following M-109 in convoy (with rusting hulk of rocketed bus off road and O-1 Birddog flying cover) (June 1968; road to FSB Mike)
Fire Missions
I remember authorizing, as one of the FDC's two FDOs (Fire Direction Officers), countless calculations for deflection and quadrant, as well as for charge and fuse, that provided our gun crews with the information they needed to execute fire missions radioed to us. These missions included supporting friendly forces in contact with the enemy (contact fire missions), harrassing and interdicting the enemy with apparently random fire (H&I fires) and preparing landing zones for troop insertions (LZ preps). Calculations for these missions were made by a person called a "chart operator", who wielded a range-deflection protractor over something like a drafting table covered with maps and chart paper, and by a person called a "computer", who manipulated a set of something like slide rules. Their calculations were double-checked on a just-introduced Field Artillery Digital Automatic Computer (FADAC, as it was called, had less computational power than today's cheap programmable calculators!). Into FADAC, we fed meteorological data radioed to us several times a day. Our procedures were much like those in other FDCs. When we were not conducting fire missions, someone always monitored the radios and a full crew stood by to calculate firing data on a moment's notice.
Confirming firing data in the FDC (August-September 1968; FSB Horseshoe Bend)
I remember each of our six M-109 howitzers (among the 18 of our battalion, and among the 108 in South Vietnam at the start of 1968) could hurl 95 lb. projectiles up to nine miles away at a sustained rate of one round per minute. Fused for detonation at a time in flight, or at a sensed height above ground, or at impact, these projectiles could be high-explosive or HE (to destroy by concussion and shell fragment 50% of what lived and stood within the 50-60 meter width of its burst), white phosphorus or WP (to terrify by combustion), smoke (to mark or obscure a position), or illumination (to light the night sky on a parachuted descent).
NOTE: You can glimpse the horror of WP and HE impacts in a 5.58 MB video clip appropriately named "impact.avi" filmed at Fort Sill's firing range. You need an .avi player to view this clip, and if you have a sub-woofer, you ought to turn it down...
FSBs Kelly and Ferrel
I remember my first "Mad Minute" at FSB Kelly, during which all small arms in the battery were fired outward from the perimeter for no apparent reason for a full minute, whether or not these weapons were authorized in the battery's Table of Organization and Equipment. I remember firing a Thompson machine gun I had foolishly bought from an NCO going home alongside authorized .50 caliber machine guns, M-60 machine guns, M-14 rifles and handguns. I later learned that a Mad Minute amounted to an announcement to the neighborhood that we were in residence. Come visit if you dare!
I remember kids from the village near FSB Kelly rummaging through the garbage pit outside our perimeter to reclaim and fight over what we cared not to eat in our three hot meals a day. Kids also ran out to our convoys wherever we went to retrieve discarded cigarette butts for the last few puffs as well as for other things the men of the battery would intentionally toss them. Tropical Hershey Bars were often tossed back.
I remember we uncovered a Viet Cong flag in a jar as we pushed up a protective berm around the guns at FSB Ferrel, which seemed to support intelligence we had that a VC base camp had been in the area.
I remember watching wide-eyed as AH-1 Cobra helicopters tore up the jungle with miniguns and rockets to get at an NVA/VC force 1000 meters from FSB Ferrel's perimeter.
I remember we stopped H&I fires at FSB Ferrel that we had been conducting north of the Dong Nai River because a LRRP (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol) team, fleeing an NVA/VC mortar attack, had lost its bearings and could not tell us where not to fire. Mortar fire from a unit of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade sharing our position covered this team's extraction once it had found itself.
Weather Consequences
I remember I stopped wearing underwear and socks at FSB Ferrel to dry faster after daily downpours (I didn't wear any again until I put on my khakis to return home). Even so, I developed a good case of crotch rot, which I scratched at for months, sometimes with great pleasure.
I remember thick red mud was everywhere and on everything, and the deluge that produced it came with an intensity that could drown out a conversation. In the dry season, this thick red mud would become thick red dust that was everywhere and in everything.
FSB Mike
I remember directing a pair of US Air Force F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers to enemy in the vicinity of FSB Mike (I have admired this aircraft ever since), then later watching, again wide-eyed, as an AC-47 Gunship lighted up the night sky with parachuted flares and tracers from miniguns it had trained on enemy still in our vicinity. Two days before our arrival at FSB Mike, the NVA/VC had blown a nearby bridge and had dropped 47 60mm mortar rounds on the hill we were to occupy. We were there to support units of the 18th ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) Division and the ARVN 36th and 52nd Rangers (I would later serve as an Artillery FO with each Ranger battalion, but did not know it at the time). I remember we fired 500 rounds in one day in their support. The 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, based at Blackhorse south of Xuan Loc, provided I Troop for our perimeter's defense, which probably explains why we had no probes of our position in spite of all the activity around us. Those guys could kick ass and take names.
Husky Compound
I remember C Battery returned to Husky Compound at Xuan Loc on 26 June and stayed there until 22 August to undergo maintenance and two major inspections (a Command Maintenance Management Inspection and an Annual General Inspection), as well as to provide H&I fires and artillery support to units operating in range of us, such as the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. There, I learned an OCS classmate, Dave Bolton, from Marysville, California, had been killed in action.
I remember taking a sniper round in the right front fender of my jeep while driving with two other vehicles down Highway 1 from Xuan Loc to Long Binh on some errand, perhaps to pick up the battery's payroll in my capacity as payroll officer. Being personally targeted really shook me up, and pissed me off, too.
The Delta
I remember convoying through Saigon on 22 August (the date I would eventually marry Barbara, who I would not meet until my military days were over) and setting up FSB Horseshoe Bend (also known as the "Fishnet Factory") just outside Binh Chanh at the northern edge of the Mekong Delta. Here, we not only supported manuevers of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade and a battalion of ARVN Rangers, but also plotted and calculated lots and lots of H&I fires into designated free-fire zones. The gun crews executed H&I fires almost nightly.
I remember sleeping undisturbed through H&I fires at FSB Horseshoe Bend on my nights off. But I also remember that the ceaseless anxiety of authorizing incorrect firing data had caused me to develop quite a stammer, which simply got worse. Two events after our arrival in the Delta illustrate why. On a jeep trip in September farther into the Delta, toward My Tho, I had seen five soldiers of the 9th Infantry Division being put into body bags, the result of friendly fire from one of the Division's own artillery units. And, soon after, I had authorized firing data for an H&I mission that was correct in every way but its direction. I lived every FDO's nightmare; I caused my battery to fire "180 out". Fortunately, the 10 rounds we had fired fell harmlessly into a rice paddy, or so I comforted myself when we heard no complaints.
FSB Horseshoe Bend near Binh Chanh
(approximate location; scale
is 1:250,000; see slow-to-load
Tour Map
for context)
FDC (M-577 with sandbagged sleeping quarters under tent at rear and canvas veranda at side) beyond M-109 muzzle brake (August-September 1968; FSB Horseshoe Bend)
Gun no. 2 "Mighty Duce" (August-September 1968; FSB Horseshoe Bend)
"Joe" bunker (August-September 1968; FSB Horseshoe Bend)
Hooches of gun crews amid gun emplacements and ammunition bunkers (August-September 1968; FSB Horseshoe Bend)
Mortar attacks were not uncommon at FSB Horseshoe Bend but were rarely accurate. Wayward Chinese-made 107mm rockets sometimes landed near us, also.
Acquaintances
I remember my battalion's Commander, a feisty cigar-smoking Lieutenant Colonel named Maxwell Thurman, who would later mount the Army's "Be All You Can Be" campaign, command the politically-suspect invasion of Panama and be considered, before succumbing to leukemia, for promotion to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
I remember my battery's Commander, Captain Albert Carlson, who would later be captured on a second tour, which I learned to my astonishment while watching him deplane during the televised return of POWs in 1973.
L to R Captain Carlson, Lieutenant Colonel Thurman, and Lieutenant Davis (August-September 1968; FSB Horseshoe Bend)
I remember my battery's Executive Officer, First Lieutenant Tim Cusick, who was a pharmacist from Saint Louis, Missouri and one of the most "together" guys I've ever met (I only vaguely remember his predecessor, First Lieutenant Jim Seavers, from Chico, California, where I spent a disastrous first year in college before joining the Army). I remember my battery's Maintenance Officer, First Lieutenant Jim Davis, another of the most "together" guys I've ever met (who, Mel Moffitt tells me, later entered the FBI). And I remember Second Lieutenant Bill Cleavelin, an OCS classmate from Biloxi, Mississippi, who became Junior FDO when I filled Tim Cusick's shoes as the battery's Senior FDO.
L to R Lieutenant Cusick, me, and Lieutenant Davis (August-September 1968; FSB Horseshoe Bend)
I permanently lost a substantial range of hearing in my left ear at FSB Horseshoe Bend when the blast from a prematurely-fired howitzer's muzzle brake hit me like a fist.
I was reassigned at the beginning of October 1968 to Headquarters and Headquarters Battery 2/35 Artillery where I would serve as an Artillery AO, among other duties.