Vietnam 68-69

We will always miss you Ralph.  You were a great friend and a true soldier.  You gave your life for your country 41 years ago today.   The Rakkasan’s commemorate your heroism and that of the other fallen Rakkasans on Hamburger Hill, at a formal ceremony at the pylon on the Ft Campbell army base.  Your name is engraved on the wall for all to see and know the you are not forgotten.

While securing a trail leading up the middle of a ridge on west side of Hamburger Hill, Galen Brown and Terry Wender were shot and killed by enemy fire.  The day was May 13th, 1969, a day that I will never forget.  Galen and Terry had only been in country a couple of months when the 3/187th started it’s assault of Dong Ap Bia.  It was the third day of the operation and up to that point we had no enemy contact.   Our platoon had just stopped and we had just moved off the trail when shots range out.  With in seconds we were yelling for the medics.  Three men were hit, Galen Brown was hit in the chest and died immediately.  McCarthy was hit in the leg and up through the hip and need a medic.  Terry Wender was hit in the chest and was unconcious but still alive.  One medic was attending to McCarthy and our medic was at Terry’s side. He was applying field dressings to Terry’s chest wounds.  I was trying to help as the medic worked frantically trying to save Terry.  I could tell that Terry was slipping away and as kaous ensued around us, I sensed an abiding peace where Terry was, except for the medic who was very upset because he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to save Terry and was crying frantically.  As Terry slipped away the war seemed to come crashing in on us.  We consoled our medic and told him that he had done all he could do to try and save Terry.  I will always remember Galen Brown and Terry Wender, and that fateful day.

I promised that I would talk more about Hamburger Hill, and I will.

We were stationed at a mountain firebase.  One day we were trying to cut something with a razor blade.  Raines had the razor blade and I asked him to give it to me as I reached for it.  Raines jerked his hand back and cut my thumb open on the inside edge, from below the second joint, up and across to the side of  the thumbnail.  It started bleeding like crazy, but I don’t remember it hurting too bad.  I told the guys I needed to go see the medic.  Raines didn’t want me to go.  I think  he didn’t want to get in trouble.  He said he could sew my thumb up and went to get a sewing kit.  Well, I let Raines sew my thumb up with a needle and thread from the sewing kit.  It took a while, but it healed up quite well.  You can still see the scar to this day though.

View of Song BO River, where we ambushed vietcong in a sampan.

After striping down to his fatigue bottoms he dove into the river and swam out to where we last saw the sampan.  When reached the middle of the river he dove down and it wasn’t long before he located the sampan.  After a few more dives he came up with an AK-47.   He swam it to shore and then returned to dive a few more times, but didn’t find anything else to retrieve.

Our platoon leader wanted us to do some sweeps of the area on the other side of the river, so he requested helicopters be sent out to ferry us across the river.   We patrolled down the side of the river to see if there was anything before the helicopters arrived, then moved to an area where the helicopters could land to pick us up.  The Huey’s arrived and picked us up for the short hop across the river.  The AK-47 we recovered was given to one of the door gunners to be returned to Camp Evans.

Once everybody was on the ground we did a sweep of the area along the river.  We didn’t find any dead VC or anything to indicate that anybody made it out of the river.  While checking the shoreline, I found a piece of shrapnel from the big gun’s rounds.  The piece was about eight inches long and as sharp as a knife.  I showed it to all the guys and at some point trough it aside.  We were glad that none of us got hit by any of the shrapnel.

Our platoon broke into squads to RIF the entire area.  We spent a good part of the day looking for signs of the enemy, but found nothing.  Late in the day we picked out an area near the river the setup another night ambush.   The area was flat so there was room to set up a good ambush NDP.  Watch detail was assigned, those not on watch went to sleep.  I was one that didn’t have to pull guard until after midnight, so I went to sleep shortly after nightfall.  I’m not sure what time it was, but those who were sleeping were awaken by those on guard.  One of the men said they had seen two or three VC approaching our NDP, appearently they heard something from our position, turned and disappeared into the dark.   We went on high alert, not knowing if they would return and attack our position.  The remainder of the night was quiet.

The next morning we patrolled the hills above the river, looking for the enemy or their caches.  We didn’t find anything.  We heard that there was another platoon downstream from our ambush site.  We were told that they found atleast one VC body along the river.

When we returned to Camp Evans, there was an article about our night ambush in the Stars Stripes newspaper, it said the enemy body count was close to 400.  We couldn’t believe what we were reading, we thought maybe we killed 4 VC, not 400.

View of Song Bo river where we ambushed vietcong crossing the river in a sampan.

Our platoon was on patrol along the Song Bo river in the mountains somewhere near the lowlands.  The river was fairly wide and deep, and the water was quite clear.   We waited under cover up stream until after dark and then moved into an ambush position along the right bank of the river.  It was so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.  As we moved along the edge of the water the river made a left turn and then went straight along the base of a large hill.  We silently spread out and positioned ourselves on that hillside overlooking the water.  I thought about how exposed we were sitting on that hillside with no cover.  As we sat there straining to see in the darkness, there was just enough light to make out any movement on the river.   We were all quiet as the night as waited for any enemy movement.

  At about three in morning someone spotted a sampan coming across the river.  As the sampan reached our side of the shore one of the men started getting out of the small boat.  But he must of heard us passing the word that there was  a boat with men in it.  He shoved the boat from the shore and jumped back in.  As the men hastily paddle the boat back across the river the current moved them directly in front of our ambush.  Someone gave the order to open fire.  Suddenly the still of the night was shattered by a barrage of small arms fire.  We opened up with M-16′s, M-60′s and M-79′s.  Tracers were streaking into the water and ricocheting through the air.  I was firing my M-79 as fast as I could load it.   My rounds exploded as the hit the water and sent big columns of water in the air.  I heard splashing on the far bank and concentrated my shots in that area.  Jeff Crabtree felt something hot hit him, he thought he had been hit and fell backwards, firing his M-79 as he did.  It wasn’t long before we were given the order to cease fire.  It was then that Jeff realized he had been hit by hot brass from the guy’s M-16 to the right of  him.  We listened for movement but didn’t hear anything.  The sampan had disappeared below the surface of the water.

  I figured it was all over and was beginning to relax when the silence was broken by something other worldly coming towards us from behind and to the side of the hill that we were on.   High over our right side an ungodly howl moved through the night sky.  The sound was unlike anything I had heard before.   The howl was loud and sound like a small car flying at high speed through night sky.  The round was soon followed by more howling projectiles and they started hitting the ground on the far side of the river.  There were brilliant flashes of light and concussions of sound and shock waves, followed by the sound of huge pieces of shrapnel splashing in the river.   I was hoping that none of the shrapnel hit us.  I later learned that the rounds were fired from a battleship’s 18″ guns.

The next morning one of the guys in our platoon volunteered to dive down in the river to see what he could find.  (Story continued in Part 2)