An infantry battalion moving through
hostile jungle is a lumbering beast, even one as short-handed as we were -
the 2nd battalion, 28th Infantry regiment, attached to the 1st
Infantry Division. We were the Black Lions of Cantigny, a name that the unit
won by being first into that town in World War I.
And the division was the Big Red One.
We were proud of both of those symbols. And we were shorthanded, like
every other unit in-country, I suppose.
My platoon was under half the strength it should have had, and hadn’t
ever been full strength as far as I could remember.
Every other platoon was about the same, according to the other sergeants
that I knew
Never-the-less, once the battalion
moved out it would not be stopped by a sniper, or a bunker, or a swamp.
It made a straight track through the jungle, over the hills, across the
occasional grassy fields, and through the edge of the forest.
The trail we walked was made by the hundreds of feet in front of us and
the path – well the path was laid out by a couple of enlisted guys at the
very front of each line – one with a compass, the other walking where he was
pointed, totally absorbed in what was in front of his feet, in the bushes to
the side, or ahead as far as he could see - the point man.
No one wanted to be a point man except the point man, who thought that no
one else would do it as good as he could.
The entire parade moved slower than a walk, quietly as possible, no
smoking or talking, each man a few meters behind the next.
The battalion moved in three widely
separated lines, and each line was made up of three smaller, closer lines.
The main, middle line was longest – it had a company up front, then
the Battalion command group behind.
To either side, a click or more away (a thousand meters was a click)
was another company, paralleling the main path.
Each of the companies used this same formation in miniature with a
point platoon out front followed by the Company command group with another
platoon to either side separated by ten meters or so.
The companies rotated each day or so to make sure that no one had to
pull point all the time. My
Recon platoon was getting a ‘rest’ from patrolling on our own during the
previous few days and had been assigned to guard the battalion command
group. For once, we got the plum job of walking in the center of all this
power, close to the Colonel and Sergeant Major, as safe as anyone could be.
If you were a bird (there weren’t
any, by the way) looking down at this straight path laid out in the jungle,
you would be surprised every once in a while by a sudden jag in it - a
perfect right angle to one side or the other, five meters of straight path,
then another right angle to take up the proper direction again.
Each subsequent diversion used the opposite direction so that the
trail always came back to the proper path.
The battalion would not be stopped
by force of enemy action; at least it hadn’t been lately, but the whole show
could be stopped dead by an ant.
Thousands of ants, actually.
Fire ants, we called them, since there weren’t any natives to teach
us their real name. They nested
not on the ground but in bushes and low branches.
Hundreds would grab leaves and hook themselves together to pull the
limbs into a shelter with the whole colony inside.
Nests like that were what the point men avoided with those short but
dramatic departures from the path.
Woe to the soldier who decided to
take a shortcut instead of following the crooked path. When they were
disturbed, it seemed like they all let go at once and the release of the
branches would throw a cloud of ants at whatever caused it. They bit and
hung on. They crawled into
every opening of our loose uniforms. They had no respect for private areas.
The rest of the battalion would have to stop while the lucky soldier
stripped naked and flailed at them.
Not a lot of sympathy though since #1 it had to be a FNG (F---ing New
Guy) to do something that stupid and #2 it delayed us by 15 minutes or so of
reaching our goal for the day’s march where we could stop, dig in, and have
supper.
Every few days, if we were lucky,
some helicopters would re-supply us with water since there was none to be
had at this time of year and location.
Flying in fast and low they flung out plastic bags of water, which we
rushed out to get. You might
wonder how that worked, since a bag of water should either burst upon
hitting the ground or rip apart as it fell through the trees and bushes.
These were long bags, three feet or so, but not wide, perhaps only six
inches across when full – a water sausage.
One bag was stuffed inside several others and it was only partially
filled with water. The top was
tied leaving lots of empty room in the bag, and then the each of the outer
bags was tied individually so that there were layers of plastic.
When a bag tore or broke, the water simply leaked into the next bag
and then into the next. It was
seldom that all the plastic layers were damaged at the same time or in the
same place so we generally got most of the water to use.
Very clever - I often wondered who came up with that idea, but
considering the way we were fighting the war - ‘the last man standing wins’
– it wasn’t too far from that concept.
We had been walking all day and it
was late afternoon when we heard some action start up to the left of us.
Far away explosions, automatic weapons fire, rifle fire.
Usually that kind of event would be brief, the attacker would run
away, and we would evacuate our wounded and move on.
The rest of the battalion didn’t even stop.
But the noise continued and the radio chatter in the command group
heated up. A halt was called
while the problem was handled, except that it couldn’t be handled.
The fire continued, less, but still steady.
Someone was taking a hell of a beating.
I was able to glean some information
from listening to one side of the radio conversation –the point platoon of
the company to our left had been ambushed.
I guessed that it was probably that of my NCOCS classmate, Sgt John
Pellegrino. It was a nasty
situation – the enemy fire was so heavy and so accurately placed that the
rest of the company couldn’t move up to help them.
Heavy casualties were already reported, not including the point
platoon. Gunships were on the
way and artillery was inbound, but artillery in jungle was dangerous -
usually the fighting was so close that you ran the risk of hitting your own
troops as well as the enemy.
The battalion slowly repositioned to
come to their assistance.
Slowly, because we were strung out for over half a mile.
Slowly, because the company on our right had to come back to our
position before we could even begin to turn to the left.
Slowly, because we had to expect that we were being drawn into an
even bigger ambush. The fire
continued but the sun began to set.
Radio contact with the platoon had failed, and the Cobra gunships
reporting enemy swarming over the last reported position of the point
platoon were given permission to fire on them.
All quiet returned soon after.
The artillery was a South Vietnamese
unit and they started lighting up the night with parachute flares, one or
two at a time, just enough to keep some light on the ground so that we could
keep moving. As it got darker,
the contrast between shadow and light became more pronounced.
At the darkest of night, when a round failed to light, we stopped,
frozen in place until the next one blossomed.
Only patches of light made it through the trees and you could see
almost anything in those shadows.
The movement of the flares as they slowly fell out of the sky made
the shadows ever changing – eerie and frightening. We marched on, slowly,
cautiously, very aware that Americans never moved at night because the night
belonged to Charlie. No stops
for rest or food were allowed.
A join of the battalion and the company in trouble was arranged and was
successfully completed after some tense and cautious movement through the
dark.
Late in the evening, perhaps 10 or
11 pm, word came that the point platoons had reached the locations they
believed the ambush to have happened but they could find no one.
The artillery was about out of illumination shells and the risks
finally became too great to continue.
We halted in place, simply dropped to the ground, and tried to rest.
I remember laying my poncho liner
out over top of whatever was on the ground.
When my turn came to rest I stretched out on it and tried to sleep
but there was some strange noise coming from near my head.
No one else could hear it and I thought that maybe I was going crazy.
Finally, in the pitch darkness of a canopy jungle, I lifted the
poncho liner by my head and felt the ground with the flat of my hand.
I was not crazy – there was a stream of army ants moving along the
jungle floor just under my head.
Their soldiers reacted to my ‘ambush’ exactly as I would have – rush
and attack. I jerked my hand
back and sat up, but not before a couple of nasty bites.
The night slowly passed and, as
light appeared, I could smell coffee that someone had made in their canteen
cup over a heat tab from our C-Rations.
Shortly after, we prepared to move out.
Very soon, word came back that the platoon had been found.
There were no survivors.
Some of my men and I went forward to help carry the bodies out to a place
where helicopters could pick them up.
The site was a wreck.
Trees down, limbs everywhere, leaves almost gone, shell casings scattered
thickly. The firefight started
with mines, progressed to machine guns, then rifles and grenades, eventually
to artillery, air-to-ground rockets and finally minigun fire from the
Cobras. Signs of many enemy
dead - lots of blood trails disappearing into the jungle - but the bodies
had been retrieved in the night.
Medics had already located the GIs
and brought them to a central position, placing them on ponchos and covering
them. We picked them up – four men to a poncho - and I discovered that I was
carrying John. We struggled
down the little hill and out to a small clearing where two helicopters
landed. As I helped place him on one of the choppers, his helmet fell to the
ground and when I bent to pick it up I saw some writing on it.
I remember showing it to the door gunner but he didn’t react, way
more concerned about getting out of there, I expect, than the irony.
I placed the helmet marked “Caution: war can be hazardous to your
health” on top of John’s body and turned back to the war.
In ten minutes we moved out.
It was a long time ago, and memory
plays funny tricks on me, but I think that this tale is a reasonable
description of what happened that day.
Because I played such a very small part in it, I was able to ask my
wife to read the story. She
remarked that it was a good buildup but only to an anti-climax.
That’s true, and actually a good analogy to the war.
There was never a movie-style climax.
After a battle, the enemy left and
soon we did too. No flags were
planted; no towns were liberated; no terrain captured and held.
I didn’t even know where we were other than on the particular
large-scale map of the immediate area I carried on each mission.
Although I could point out exactly where we were on that map,
I’d have been hard pressed to point at the same place on a map of the whole
country. It didn’t matter.
The days ran into each other, only the terrain and the weather
changed. Stay alive; keep your
buddies alive… for one year.
Our mission was always to find the enemy, kill them, and move on.
I’ve heard historians give
descriptions of battles where they told who moved where, when each man was
hit, and even why they moved this way or that, but I couldn’t begin to
describe this fight. I wish
that I had the skills, and the time, and most of all the presence of mind to
study the battle scene while I was there.
I hope that one of our officers did that and told others so that we
wouldn’t walk into the same trap again, but I really don’t know.
I doubt that the actual battle site could even be located now, after
the jungle has reclaimed the area.
I can’t tell you whether John died early in the battle or was the
last; whether he died with his comrades or fought alone at the end.
I do know that he died fighting beside men he respected, wanted to
protect and even loved.