The P.H.O.T.O. (VOL 1) The Search

CHAPTER ONE

POLEI KLENG, REPUBLIC OF SOUTH VIETNAM

1900 (7 pm) Hrs Thursday Night 7 September 1967

Sarge!! Sarge!! Yelled the Lieutenant (LT), Incoming!!! Incoming!! Get the men under cover!!"

Master Sergeant (MSG) Robert Edward Scarburg, Sr., was the focus of the LT's excitable outburst. Scarburg a lifer (career soldier), with 26 years military service, a Special Forces (SF) medic, MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) 91B4S, just recently released from the 75th Field Hospital at Pleiku, Vietnam, and assigned to this hellhole in the jungle with the unpronounceable name - Polei Kleng (nicknamed Pole Cat), a Ranger camp close to the Cambodia/Laos border.

The Americans occupied Pole Cat in the early ‘60s under U.S. Command and Control Central, as part of the II Corp area under MacVee (MACV, ‘Military Assistance Command, Vietnam). Now the Viet Cong (VC) had decided they wanted Polei Kleng. The Americans didn’t want to give it to them.

Roger that LT!! INCOMING!! (artillery shells) Sergeant Scarburg yelled in his strong authoritative military voice. A voice that always demanded immediate attention.

"Get you’re asses in them ‘fraid holes NOW!!

As his last words echoed across the compound, he dived, head first, over a stack of sand bags into a hole that he was about to share with three inches of muddy, murky, who knows what had been in there, water. At least most of his vital parts were below ground as the first mortar shells began exploding, erupting into an ear-splitting blast throwing a hell of a lot of rocks, dirt and shrapnel in every direction. The hint of sulfur hung heavy in the hot muggy night air.

The odor of gunpowder was nothing new to Sergeant Scarburg – he had encountered it many times before. Different times, different places, different wars but the stench was never different. Gunpowder, blood and death, mixed together, always elicits that nauseous effect on the nose. It is the same regardless of what country you happen to have the misfortune to be in, and regardless of what nationality deliverers it.

Grabbing his green beret and pulling it close to his head seem to give him the misplaced assurance this piece of thin wool cloth offered some kind of protection from the rocket and mortar shells that were falling all around him. Holding his beret tightly he mumbled to himself, between prayers, why the hell (sorry God I meant ‘heck’) do I keep doing this? How many times do I find myself lying in a hole in some god-awful place with mortar and rocket debris falling all over me? At least this time it’s ON me and not IN me. And why, someone please tell me - why do these friggin’ holes always include this stinking muddy water? Can’t I ever pick a dry one?

The detonations shook the ground next to him. He’d seen and survived much much worse, but at this very moment, he couldn’t exactly remember when. Sarge didn’t think the Viet Cong were using the big 120 mm (millimeter) Russian jobs, this sounded and felt similar to its little brother the 81/82 mm mortars; however, he knew if either of them centered you in their crosshairs you was fixin’ to have a bad friggin’ day.

As soon as the shelling slowed up a bit Sergeant Scarburg pulled his head from the mud and water. Staring him directly in his face, the letters FTA (F**k the Army) and a peace symbol - both hand drawn on a sand bag with a black felt-tip marker.

A momentary thought popped into his head – ‘I wish the s.o.b. who wrote those had a peace of 'Charlie's' (VC - Victor Charlie) last mortar shell stuck up their ass.’

It was only a fleeting reactionary thought - he certainly didn't mean it.

Sarge thought all these young troopers were just a bunch of whooshes anyway, but with all his gruff and growl he still wanted to see them get back home to their mothers, wives and girlfriends alive, and not in one of the Army's damn rubber body bags.

He hated those black rubber zip-up ghoulish things. They looked like someone had cut up a bunch of automobile inner tubes, glued them together and sewed two rubber handles on each side. He hated the sight of them! He hated their smell! Oh! How especially, he loathed their rubber powdery essence.

Sarge thought, 'It is one of those scents you want to forget but know you never will.'

* * * * *

The shelling, though not as intense as before, continued. Scarburg, through all the commotion, did not realize he had been sharing his foxhole with a young smooth-faced Specialist 4th Class (Spec 4) ranger tabbed paratrooper grunt.

His nametag read DAVIS, but the DAVIS was barely legible above his right fatigue pocket.

Its black, mud smeared, letters could hardly be identified on the cloth’s muddy white background. The gold color of the black lettered U.S. ARMY label over his left pocket was also obliterated underneath all that dank mud of the ‘Nam.

Davis shakily managed to gain his composure and pulling himself up onto his muddy, sloshing wet jungle boots muttered to Master Sergeant Scarburg, Sir, thanks for letting me share your hole with you.

Don’t call me Sir son, I work for a living, now get the hell out of my hole and secure your position. As he carefully eyeballed the young soldier, Sarge thought, ‘Hell, these kids they are sending us now are nothing but cannon fodder!!’

Yes sir… I mean… yes Sergeant, Spec 4 Davis frighteningly yelled as he jumped out of the muddy hole. Scampering side-to-side Davis dodged the mortar shells still being lobbed into the compound. Thinking to himself, ‘Never, I mean never jump in a foxhole with anyone braver than your are!’

After watching Davis arrive safely on the other side of the shelled area Sarge looked down into his and the young trooper’s recent refuge of safety and there propped against the side of the foxhole stood the soldier’s M-16 rifle. ‘Body bag material,’ thought Sarge.

Sarge grabbed his M-5 medics aid-bag and started running toward the communications bunker, which from first glance, appeared to have taken the brunt of the rocket and mortar barrage.

He grabbed the first ARVN (Army of the Republic of Viet Nam) trooper he met - How bad? Sarge asked. "Boo coo (many) hurt and wounded bac si!" the soldier replied as he continued running toward the break in the concertina wire (razor wire) which surrounded the compound.

‘I never thought the VC would have gotten this far inside the wire’, Sarge pondered to himself, thinking of defensive remedies that had to be implemented immediately.

It was ingrained in him: Special Forces first, medic second.

He was Sarge or simply Doc to his Special Forces buddies… some of the ARVN used the same titles but most called him Bac Si, which closely translates to Doc or Medic. His really, really close buds simply call him Big S.

Big ‘S’…? Big ‘S’...? At first blush you would think this is an easy play on his name Robert Scarburg, Sr, right…. you would be dead wrong!! Nothing could be farther from the truth. Only his closest (and he decides who the closest are) friends use the name Big 'S'. Most people’s nicknames are given to them for some rhyme or reason, this one is no different…. but there is a story behind this moniker, a really… really... interesting story… more later...

CHAPTER TWO

BATTLE OF POLEI KLENG CONTINUES

Thursday 7 September 1967

Republic of Vietnam

When the LT yelled, MSG Scarburg was in the middle of a live or death firefight with the NVA at the jungle surrounded U.S. Army Ranger base called Polei Kleng or Pole Cat, west of the Province of Kontum.

That piece of worthless Vietnam real estate was his duty assignment stated in the official U.S. Army Orders contained in the manila envelope given to him upon his release from the 75th Field Hospital at Pleiku, South Vietnam – he had been ordered to Polei Kleng and was to assemble, train and prepare team ODA-113 to execute OPS-35 plan ‘Photo Search’

He was glad to be back with his guys but he missed his nurse Chief Nurse Major Margaret O’Sullivan at the 75th, maybe someday he’ll get back to Pleiku and drop in on ‘Sully’. No… no… she was a short-timer, she has probable hit her DEROS (Date Expected Return from Overseas), meaning she was probable stateside and not in country any longer. ‘Oh well’, thought Sarge, ‘she was a good trooper!’

* * * * *

No time to reminisce over the past - no time to lie in a hospital bed - he was back in the real war.

He heard the moans and groans of the wounded and dying. Hollering orders to no one in particular Sarge said, Get those poles back under that aid tent canvas, set it back up, grab cots from those hootches, get blankets, get another squad with the fifty (.50 caliber machine gun) over on the right flank, get more ammo up to the perimeter!! Right now he had double duty. The company’s first shirt (First Sergeant) was wounded and out of action and Sarge the next ranking NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) in the Special Forces camp and the only medic - had to rapidly respond to both responsibilities at once.

He entered, what had once been the Commo (communication) bunker. It was almost impossible to tell the wounded from the few that were unscathed. The bunker had taken a direct hit. Blood, body parts and that awful death's smell were everywhere and everyone seemed to be shouting, Doc...! Doc...! Over here…! Help me please! Medic! Medic! Oh God I don’t want to die!

Soldiers with severed arms or legs barely attached with mere scraps of bone and tendons lay bloody and dying everywhere. Gapping, sucking chest wounds or severe head injuries greeted him as he looked to the others that were still alive.

Sarge thought, ‘Calm down… work on the ones that can be saved…. save all those you can!’

Hey! Sarge screamed, someone get on the horn (telephone) and get HQ (Headquarters)… tell them we need at least two... no three Med-Evacs (Medical Evacuation helicopters) out here ASAP (As Soon As Possible)!! Tell’em we need more medics too! One of the walking-wounded radio operators found a working phone and radioed in Sarge’s request. In the meantime the aid tent had been put back upon its support poles; wounded bloody bodies were filling the cots as fast as they were being set up around the tent.

Sarge, exhausted, wouldn’t stop but he felt he had helped all the wounded he could as the only medic. His mind keep telling him to keep going but his body was about to quit on him. As he was about to collapse he heard that familiar, Whomp… whomp… whomp sound of a Huey med-evac helicopter arriving. As fast as one ‘copter landed the medics jumped off, the wounded speedily replaced them and the Med-Evac, blowing dirt and debris everywhere, lifted back into the air.

The sun long since had dropped from the sky when Sarge finished sewing up, bandaging and body bagging the last of the dead and wounded. He walked out of the aid tent and sucked in a lung full of the night’s moist humid air. The smell of gunpowder was still floating on the slight breeze, but, ‘God Almighty,’ thought Sarge, ‘can’t I ever get to a place where the damn odor of gunpowder, blood and guts don’t ruin the rotting jungle’s stinking aroma of the night air?’

With this lament, he shucked his pack of Winstons from his lower leg jungle fatigue pocket, shook a cigarette out, flipped open the top of his trusty ol’ Zippo with its ‘De Oppresso Liber’ (to free the oppressed) Special Forces insignia on its side and touched its hot flame to the unfiltered end and fired up. Looking at the insignia before snapping the lid shut on the lighter he turned and gazed out across the mangled compound of death and destruction and wondered, ‘who in the hell are the oppressed we’re supposed to free?’

He breathed in deeply, let all the air out then inhaled the longest drag on his cancer stick his lungs could hold. Holding the smoke in as long as possible to get the full effect of the nicotine he slowly exhaled, watching the faint blue smoke drift slowly out into the warm wet darkness. He figured he might, at least, cover up the nauseous smell of death with the pungent cigarette scent – and for the moment allowing his mind to fog up, to dim his memory and help ease the pain of this horrific, seemingly never ending bloody night.

The time was 0415 hrs (4:15 am). Sarge had been at it for over nine hours. He was exhausted. Sleep, he needed sleep - the sun was less than two hours from turning this dark bleak night into light again so sleep even if just for a couple of hours would be wonderful.

Walking across the compound, stepping over pieces of spent shrapnel, making his way around artillery shell holes and avoiding smoking pieces of canvas and wood to get to his hooch; he had to get to his JD (Jack Daniel’s Whiskey).

No... ! Damn it, no... ! Sarge said out loud. Sitting directly in front of his green canvas tent was a burning hulk of a M151 U.S. Army Jeep. Through the smoke and fire of the jeep he could still see the fire consuming the mounted 106 mm recoilless rifle.

God No! Not my hootch! I've got to have me some JD! He approached the burning jeep and cautiously walking around it, discovered luck was with him. His hooch was perfectly intact.

In a destroyed hootch several meters away a battery-powered radio could still be heard playing a country drinking song on Armed Forces Vietnam radio. The lyrics fell heavy on Sarge’s heart as he approached the entrance to his ‘house’. The cowboy singer was strumming and wailing a mournful tune about dying if he didn’t get some corn whiskey - Sarge knew exactly what he meant.

One verse mentions a tree falling on the singer but Sarge was in no danger of having a tree fall on him, not one was left standing after the recent heavy barrage, but he needed that drink - a big drink - NO he needed the whole bottle - whiskey and more whiskey. Entering his hootch he could barely hear the last refrain, Corn whiskey, corn whiskey, corn whiskey I cry. He figured a lot of Tennessee’s finest was the only mechanism he had readily available to ease, even for a little while, the memory of that last thing he observed as he zipped up the final black body bag with that powdery rubber smell.

If he lives to be a hundred years old the vision of this last patient he couldn’t save will always be imprinted upon his subconscious – Damn that rubber smell!! he yelled out loud. The hell with it all! he yelled out loud again while taking another drag on his cigarette and kicking a one-fifty-five (155 mm) shell casing so hard he hopped around on one foot thinking he might have broken a toe.

The last image he witnessed zipping up the body bag on that long dreadful night, were those black blood smeared letters barely legible above the right fatigue pocket. The nametag was a trooper he knew but for a few brief minutes but his name would be imprinted on Sarge’s mind forever: DAVIS

CHAPTER THREE

THE BEGINNING

Battles, medics, sergeants, Vietnam - how did all this get started, and where do I start to explain it?

Where does one begin a chronicle so outlandish as this?

A saga, where, if you let the mind wander, you might almost hear Rod Sterling, star of the old television cult hit "The Twilight Zone say, no matter what, it’s a journey into a wondrous land, whose boundaries are that of the imagination." Is this adventure tale unbelievable, oh yeah, and after reading my exposition you or no one else will give credence to the reality of my recollections; but yet the events I’m about to relate to you are so real I cannot erase these vivid pictures from my thoughts. Space aliens, Area 51, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" all will seem conventional once my journal has been revealed.

This account is so far-fetched I’m reminded of the immortal words of, I believe, the Bard, ‘there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ I would surmise, quotes this good, must belong to old William in a drama perhaps, but a truism nevertheless. I alone, and the ones to whom I will introduce you, were, at one time, the only possessors of this unbelievable information; now you, the ones reading over my shoulder, are on the verge of sharing, with me, this tidbit of knowledge.

This information I’m about to reveal to you has an air of fantasy about it.

Fiction it is not! Reality? Yes, a definite yes!

I did not concoct these annals; I wish I had never stumbled upon this amazing adventure. Oh, this revelation you are about to receive is authentic for sure, the people aren’t figments of someone’s imagination, the events which happened are certainly irrefutable but where is the authentication you say?

This concrete evidence or ‘proof’ too is real but hidden where we cannot physically view it or touch it - deep in some cold, damp and dreary basement achieves of some undisclosed U.S. government vault, stamped Top Secret, in bright red letters. The records custodians possess orders which will not allow the documentation to be de-classified or presented for public viewing until the passing of many many years, seventy-five to be exact. Yes, therein lies the actual documentary proof, but only after this progression of time can it be finally proven whether this fantastic narration actually happened as I tell it or was it just my idle ramblings.

I thought of the motto, cave quid dicis, quando, et cul, but I decided to tell you my story regardless. Okay I won’t make you search for a translation: Beware what you say, when, and to whom.

Not to worry. These scores of years will eventually arrive; however, everyone mentioned or referenced herein will either be dead, taken on new identification or long since been hidden away in something similar to a government 'black ops' program in a godforsaken place; for revelations such as this cannot be allowed to go public. In most stories, The names have been changed to protect the innocent. In this tale no names had to be changed because no one claimed to be innocent. I’m assuming those individuals in my saga do not care whether or not I reveal their identity - you’re not going to believe me anyway, calling this a fabrication. The government will not prosecute me for violating any Government Secrets Act; to do so they would be admitting to their part in the cover-up, so Cave quid dicis, quando, et cul..

Over the years I have pondered whether this chronicle should be told. I have tried to balance my sanity between knowing I had this knowledge buried deep within the recesses of my brain against contemplating if my conscious would better served if I told the world my family’s secret. Finally I came to this conclusion: the attempt at the pursuit of knowledge, whether good or however sinister, should be at the discretion of the reader.

I leave this decision entirely up to you, if your interest is peaked sufficiently, read on, if not,