My Vietnam Year

Dedication

To my mother: Geraldine (Gypsy) Stuart Forbes-Robertson Hines; a tough, old, right wing, autocratic Aussie who told a friend that she’d only cried twice in her life; when I left for the Army and when I returned.

To my kids, Nick and Bobi: LEOMTAWCES.

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

My Vietnam Year

My Story

My 1936 Ford

High School Debate

Change of Plans

Boot Camp

Execute Orders as Given

Gas

Shots

Moon Landing

Escape and Evasion

Shake n’ Bake

Armored Personnel Carriers

Grenade Training

Church Services

Ranger School Training

Slide for Life

Warrant Officers (WO)

Alligators

Oreos

Locals

Fungus Among Us

My Last Patrol

End of Ranger School

The Inevitable Trip to Southeast Asia

Ranger Classmates

Area of Operation

Mountain Leeches

Marine Snipers

Mountains

Agent Orange

Female Stowaway

M-16

My Hated M-16

Separate AOs

Officers, Here and Gone

Kit Carson Scouts

Booby Traps

Platoon Leaders

Passion

50 Cal.

The Cook

Los Banos

NVA Activity

Charlie in the Perimeter

New AOs

Defense Targets

Radios

Illumination Rounds

Our Booby Traps

Artillery Support

Helicopters

Coastal Villages

Red Man

Favorite Race Story

Obedience

Guilliams

Doc Pease

Blaylock

I don’t gamble

Sleep Walking

Cycilo Girls

Railroad Bridge Repair

Chasing No One

1st Squad Pot Heads

Snakes

Poor Leadership

Friendly Fire

New Lt.

Ambushes

Ambush Success

Aging Vets

Our Villages

French Villas

Dublin

Night Scope

Gas Masks

.45 Cal. Pistols

LAWs

Monsoon Season

Hooch

Monsoon Village Time

Scout Dog

Seasonal Supplies

Buffalo

Viet Cong Camp

Grenade Fishing

Fisherman’s Boat

Tru Lu

Ho Chi Minh

MPC

Vietnamese Cuisine

Regional Forces

Morale Mid-Tour

R&R (Rest and Relaxation)

Bob Hope

Aid Station Visit

Eagle Beach

New Territory

Morale

Luscious Johnson

Hearing

McNamara’s Gizmos

Mortars 101

Operation Lam Son 719

Our Push North

NVA Regiment Ambush

First Casualties

The Visit

Heroes

Clearing Route 9

ARVN Base Khe Gio

Failing Operation

Strange Orders

Deadly Mortars

Sniper

Hmong Women

Tour Ends

Home

Reflections…

The Long Road Back

You are Already Dead II

Vets

Photos and Extra Items

Hmong Crossbow

Emergency Room Visit 9-15

Vietnamese Men Holding Hands

22

Left Eye of God

About The Author

My Vietnam Year

This all started with an interview by Dr. Steve Feimer for his University of South Dakota, Vietnam Veterans Project. Somehow I ended up on his list of local vets. Answering his questions stirred up memories I hadn’t visited in decades.

I’m writing this first for myself; kind of a cataloging of experiences. I was amazed how some of these past memories appear to me now. This ‘story’ unexpectedly became a personal life review. Perspective wise, I needed this.

My kids are next; as I’ve related some, but not all of these stories and we’ve become especially close. I might not get another opportunity to share these thoughts with them.

And then, welcome to you, who has somehow bumped into this tale. I’m not familiar with the online stories world and how you arrived here. (Amazing how many folks aren’t familiar with the term ‘Luddite’) Regardless, come along for the ride.

A very dear, ‘physically’ published friend, counseled me recently when I mentioned this project, Don’t expect to make money with this! I told her that if 5 people downloaded it, I would consider it a smashing success.

My Story

Looking back, I’m seeing these stories through older and, hopefully, wiser eyes.

ON PATROL

I never lost a man in my platoon or hurt civilians that I am aware of. I was spared those truly ugly, graphic events. I am grateful. I sleep at night.

So, this story is certainly no gory shoot fest. Some of us sneaked in and out of this travesty fairly unscathed. Tens of thousands of GI’s never came home and millions of Vietnamese perished while their small country was ravaged. I’ve never lost my belief in a protective bubble that surrounded our small unit. That bubble was obviously unable to encompass the entire conflict.

This is my experience during a year in 1970-71 in this multi decade conflict. It also covers just a small geographic area in this vastly diverse region. My basic operating unit was an infantry platoon of 20 US soldiers from multiple US backgrounds operating in the hills and coastal villages of I Corp, the dividing line between North and South Vietnam.

I’ve come to believe that all men, at some moment in their life, will confront their dark side, privately or with group identification, through anger, fear, race, sex, politics, religion or country. It’s in our genes. This was my moment.

War hangs a unique, primal picture in a veteran’s memories. Occasionally, you will pass down that hallway. In that picture frame, youthful you stares back. In this conflict, whether a volunteer or whether you consider yourself coerced; whatever your particular conflict ‘job’; let’s be honest; it’s a killer’s image. This brief segment in your life will forever flavor your perceptions in all that follows. Who stares back now?

After graduation from a Sioux Falls High School, this 1969 Graduate used a special program, ‘Volunteer for the Draft’, to join the Army for just two years rather than enlisting, which required a minimum three year commitment. His options were ‘cook’ or ‘infantry’. He made the recruiter’s day by asking for the infantry. He knew he would be going to Vietnam and approached his service wanting to do his duty to ‘save the free people of South Vietnam from the Commie hoard of the North’. – USD Veteran’s Book excerpt

Bear with me. I was originally asked about my wartime experiences by my friend, Dr. Steve Feimer, a USD history professor. The questions asked covered the day I arrived on foreign soil to the day I left. That interview started a cascade of images from those youthful years that I just couldn’t squeeze into a neat folder. Quite literally, paper notes I’d write started piling up, so I’ve added some extra memories on both ends.

There are several hundred thousand personal Viet Nam stories from both sides. This is mine.

My family moved to South Dakota when I was five. Dad was selling steel to contractors building the Corp of Engineers’ hydroelectric dams along the Missouri River in the1950’s. Sioux Falls, SD moved us closer to these massive projects. My folks met at Benson High School in Omaha. Dad remembers this recently arrived Aussie girl staring out the classroom window at her first snow. Her father, Henry Forbes Robertson, had died during WWII. He’d managed a palm oil plantation for Lever Brothers in the Solomon Islands, making him an ideal coast watcher. He radioed Japanese ship movements to US naval forces. Both grandmother and mother maintained for years that he’d struggled hand to hand with ‘Japs’ to his demise. Our recent ancestral history search indicates instead; a post service aortic aneurism while managing a Sydney restaurant. So, the big D (Divorce) led to grandmother, flamboyant and eccentric, snagging an Iowa, farm boy Yank; an aid to General Douglas McArthur’s Brisbane staff.

Many young, Australian men died in service to their Mother England. Aussie great grandfather ran an artificial limb factory. It was undoubtedly quite busy post WWI. Impossible Obstacle, you say, old chap? Send in the Aussies!! So there is military history on mother’s side, however, none on father’s.

My birth saved Dad from visiting Korea. Married and now with one child kept the draft at bay.

My uniformed career began with Cub Scouts. Dad was our Pack Master. He wore a Native American (‘Indian’, then) looking headdress (mother’s touch for the dramatic) for our monthly Pack Meetings. Of all the skits, games and songs, my only pack meeting recollection is Dolly S. opening her shirt and nursing her baby. Every little Cubby’s eye was locked on that wonderful, amazing site. Breasts actually existed under those Sears Catalog bra ads! Dolly’s were ample. I checked with little brother on the event. Yep, same memory. He remembered exactly where she was sitting almost 60 years ago. Dolly’s family was called Holy Rollers, a derogatory label for any Pentecostals by the areas dominant, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist and the other white, Protestant sects, which included my Presbyterian family. Holy Roller also created a vivid image for we wee ones. Would these people actually roll around on the floor at their church service?! It seemed taboo to ask. Dolly was my wonderful Den Mother. I didn’t connect my mother’s sudden den mother role enlistment with Dolly’s natural life approach until recently. Why now? Mother’s slipping upstairs and long held conservative, judgmental worldviews keep dramatically popping up. In mother’s eyes, Dolly would have qualified in Spades.

CUB SCOUT PACK. I’M ON FAR LEFT. BROTHER’S ON FAR RIGHT. DAD IS PACK MASTER.

In Boy Scouts, pubescence reigned. In my tent, on my first camp out, two older boys climbed into the same sleeping bag and proceeded to grunt and roll around. I just thought they were playing some game. Keith Perkins, my mentor neighbor, kept stopping by to check on me. I was flattered. Finally, he said, We put a snake in your sleeping bag. Pulling the bag’s top down, revealed a bull snake curled on my warm chest. I calmly replied I never noticed it., (true) while pulling the bag back over the snake. He and his buddies looked baffled, but were soon off to terrorize other vulnerable newbie’s. (My brother and I had tamed dozens of the local snake species; Garters, Bulls and an occasional Hog Nosed.) Perky did get me later. I waited almost 2 hours for a Snipe to run by. I was mocked by both his and my mother and others when I returned ‘Snipeless’. I didn’t need to pass that experience on. My son asked What’s a Snipe? Interested? Check out ‘Snipe Hunt’.

Now, in Scouts, I did bake a Goose Berry pie and I was once left with the wiggling tail of a Skink lizard. (What an amazing, evolved, survival tool!) We had one, SD, mid-winter campout. What the hell were we thinking?? Part of a three boy color guard for Dick’s campaign arrival at the Sioux Falls Airport, Pat Nixon walked over, patted me on the cheek and kissed me. You must be cold! she offered motherly. She was correct. Summer uniform shorts and knee high socks weren’t adequate for that windy tarmac. We just thought the uniforms looked cool. That kiss was a more impressive comment decades ago. Dick lost to Kennedy but his chance to lead arrived during this story.

If you could repeat a basic study pattern and accumulate 21 Merit Badges, symbols of varying extra, woods lore knowledge, you became an Eagle Scout. It proved you had withstood the hormonal cries of anarchy and debauchery. Parents loved this. The Protestant version of a Bar Mitzvah is celebrated; a ‘Congratulations’ white cake and Kool Aid are served, some old man corners you to sell Life Insurance and your picture is in the local Argus Leader paper, awards covering your chest.

A dapper High School dresser; sometimes my shirt buttoning wasn’t correct. Or, You’re wearing different colored socks! (Usually brown and black; the same color on groggy, dark, winter mornings.) You know, I have another pair just like these at home! was my best, embarrassed response. (This still happens occasionally.) Spray painting my Dark Green Wingtips black helped match them to more wardrobe choices. Every local band played Louie, Louie. The only two schoolboy colognes: English Leather (brother Mike) and Jade East (me). How we both stank!

High school’s major interest was fixing up my old car. Besides the amazing personal freedom provided, it also allowed occasional parking in the country for a smoochfest with a couple of nice gals. Interest wise, the car trumped the girls. Sorry girls.

My 1936 Ford

MY 1936 FORD. ALMOST THE WHOLE FAMILY INCLUDED.

Ah, my first car, a 1936 Ford. I paid $115 for it in Valley Springs, a few miles east of Sioux Falls. Mother rode shotgun for my 75 mph trial run down rural, 26th street near our home. The wooden floorboards were missing below our feet which added to the adventure. It had a ‘53 Ford flathead V8 with NO motor mounts. The V8 was just bolted to the transmission and laying in the frame. What was that ticking sound on acceleration? The engine’s torque moved the V8 forward and the fan blades just barely touched the radiator. The blades left a circle on the cooling ‘fins’ but didn’t cut into the cooling ‘tubes’.

The AM radio was a 4 tube, power hungry box under the dash above the steering column. Its operating cables ran up to the dash board control knobs. The significance here is that parking required a spot on a hill, as the tube radio would drain the 6 volt battery. Ready to go? Release the brake, get a good downhill roll going and pop the clutch to start. I suspect I missed another car parking downhill from us in a passionate moment. I flipped on the lights just in time to avoid rear ending them. Whew!

My genuine Hollywood Wolf Whistle operated on engine vacuum, allowing a variety of ‘Calls of the Wild’. (Don’t waste your money on electric versions.)The wipers were also vacuum-operated. In a heavy rain, occasionally letting up on the gas allowed the wipers to clear a quick view of the road. All fixed up, I sold it for $300 when I left for Basic Training. My thinking; I was off to become a man and needed to part with my toys. Some regrets but I have the memories parked in storage. Those short jeans in the photo tell me my hormones had finally kicked in.

High School Debate

Our 1969 High School debate topic was, Resolved: That the United States should Establish a System of Compulsory Service by all Citizens. Basically, this meant drafting every young American for a period of some kind of service. Options like the Peace Corps or infrastructure work, like the 1930’s WPA (Works Project Administration) and CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), were included but the Vietnam War was always the elephant in the room. We debaters (Master Baters as we called ourselves) quoted McNamara, Johnson, Rush, Westmoreland