Shake n Bake Sergeant Book Vietnam War Barney Tharp 9

Dwight Davis LZ Action

On January 5, 1970, we left Camp Radcliff on trucks, which took us to LZ Action, which was about 20 miles outside Camp Radcliff. It was a forward firebase on Highway 19 which was the East-West highway across the middle of South Vietnam. LZ Action was a tanker firebase and it was named for a goat that had been a pet there for almost a year. As I recall, the mission of the unit assigned there was to ensure that Highway 19 was open for U.S. military traffic. In general, tanks did not make much sense in Vietnam because the terrain usually made it impossible to use tanks. Even tanks can get stuck in the mud and that happened regularly to the tanks in Vietnam. LZ Action was unusual in a couple of respects. First, it was a permanent firebase so it had a mess-hall and Hot A’s every day. The firebases we were used to were used for a few weeks then abandoned out in the boonies. Second, the perimeter at LZ Action was mostly made up of tanks rather than bunkers and, although they had artillery there, they also used the tanks for H&I fire since they had 90 millimeter main guns.

One night they let us Grunts get into the tanks with the tankers and fire the main guns. That was amazing. The shell was large and heavy. You inserted the nose into the breach then pushed it all the way in with the top of your fist. That way you did not lose fingers when the breach automatically slammed shut when the round was completely in. Then when you fired the gun you had to be sure your body was to the side because it would recoil the length of the cabin and crush you if you were immediately behind it. These guns did make impressive booms and we thought they were neat.

I took a bunch of dumb photographs while we were at LZ Action including one with me in a black T-shirt holding a machete in my mouth and an M-60 machine gun pointing toward the camera. By this time I thought my mustache was looking fine. Since it did not make sense to carry film in the boonies nor photographs, it was my practice to send film home to my folks who got it developed on my behalf then mailed it back to me so I could see the photographs. Then I mailed the photographs back to them occasionally writing explanations of the context on the back of the photos. On the back of one picture I wrote: “What do you think of my mustache.” My Dad wrote back: “What mustache?” Of course, being essentially a red head, my mustache was red and blonde in color and probably not as cool as I thought it was, except when we got filthy when you could see it real well.

Our primary mission at LZ Action was to pull night ambushes along Highway 19. The theory was that we would catch bad guys planting mines in the highway which happened frequently. We did that for a week and, as luck would have it, no ambush involved any contact which was fine with us. One morning; however, when the tanks went out to secure the highway, we found that mines had been planted in the night. It was not near one of our ambush sites so we were not guilty of doing a bad job. The commander of the tank unit, a captain, grabbed hold of me and my lieutenant and led us out to the site where the mines were. He then instructed us in how to disarm them. This was tense. Essentially, we cut wires with finger nail clippers. We knew almost nothing about mines; however, we thought we remembered being taught that some can be set off by trying to disarm them. That was a tense hour. The captain joked: “This is why they pay us the big bucks.” Of course, in reality, I was making only about $365 a month and that included the $65 a month combat pay.

After several days of duty at LZ Action, I got to see my one and only “Tac Air” strike. This refers to three jets being guided by a forward air controller (FAC) flying an old small propeller driven plane who acts like a forward observer for the artillery giving guidance where fire should be put. The strike was on some hills about a mile from us and it was impressive. The FAC was up there floating at a fairly low altitude and from out of nowhere come three jets in line, which dropped napalm, boom, boom, boom. That made an impressive sight. I was to learn later that napalm was an effective weapon not only because it burned stuff up but also because it burned up oxygen. We found dead bad guys in an area that had been napalmed who were not burned at all. They died of asphyxiation. After the jets dropped their napalm they soared up above the clouds then, shortly thereafter, came in again from a different angle and shot rockets. Again, they disappeared into the clouds then came in from yet another angle firing their machine guns. Us Grunts thought that was the way to fight a war. To hell with charging the hill with rifles. Several of us thought they should napalm

Vietnam

from the Chinese border to the Southern tip. Everything would die; we could declare victory and go home.

It turned out the Tac Air strike was based on intelligence that there was a large bad guy unit operating in the area. The next day, January 9, 1970, we teamed up with tankers to attack the hill where they were supposedly holed up. In fact, they were. The object of our assault was a fairly impressive hill about 200 meters from Highway 19. Trucks took us to this point on the highway and we got out and lined up. This turned out to be the closest thing to a John Wayne experience I had in

Vietnam

. My entire company got on line with tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) after about every 8th man. Then we assaulted the hill.

It did not turn our very well since we saw no more than four or five dead bad guys and we took a couple of KIAs (Killed in Action) and about 4-6 wounded. Up to that point we had generally envied the tank guys because they lived well and could carry extra stuff on their tanks that we could not carry on our backs. After this firefight we changed our minds because the tank guys comprised most of our casualties and both KIAs. It made intuitive sense because the tanks had 90 millimeter main guns and 50 caliber machine guns. As a consequence, the bad guys concentrated their fire on the tanks since the tanks posed the greatest threat to them. The APC (Armored Personnel Carriers) were really bad news because they could be pierced with heavy machine gun fire not to mention B-40 rockets. The B-40s were very deadly since, after they pierced the wall of a tank or APC, they set stuff on fire inside. The second problem we had were bad guys in “Spider Holes”. Spider Holes were actually very small holes that a man could barely fit in which were covered over with brush so you could not see them. What happened was that we walked right past a bunch of Spider Holes. When we passed by these positions, bad guys popped out of these holes and shot at us from behind.

One of the guys who got wounded was a squad leader in my platoon whose name I cannot recall. He was an odd duck. He was a Sergeant E-5; however, he was on his third tour in

Vietnam

. He had somehow concluded that he liked it there better than back in the World. He used to wear a white scarf made out of the small parachute that went with an artillery flare which was very swashbuckling but not too bright because it presented an easy target. I cannot recall what his wound was; however, he never returned to the platoon.

My company commander, who was a 1st Lieutenant from Kansas, did a great job during this fire fight. His name was John Hayden and he ran up and down the line getting guys in line and providing them encouragement. He put himself at risk throughout all this. He was later awarded a decoration for his acts during this firefight and it was justly deserved. He was a great guy and a hard charger. He had his wife disassemble one of his personal shotguns from home and mail it to him which I believe was illegal. Since point men occasionally used shot guns he could get ammo from our supply. Once he got the shotgun that is what he carried in the boonies with a claymore bag full of shotgun shells. We were impressed by that bravado. We generally referred to him as "Shotgun Hayden" thereafter.