The officers and men of Charlie Troop, 1/9th Cav., 1st Cav. Div. (AM) had gathered in the dead space between our tin maintenance hangar and the chow hall to watch a movie, when the first rounds of NVA 107 mm recoilless rifle fire exploded in our midst. Beer got spilled, lawn chairs were scattered, and rocket box seats flew every which way while the movie played on and the race for the nearest bunker began.
I was headed for a berm near the corner of the chow hall and matching WO Miller stride for stride, heading for cover, when a brilliant white flash knocked us both to the ground peppering us with dirt. It had knocked Miller into full eyeball defilade submerging him in the horrific contents of the kitchen drainage ditch. Neither of us were hurt. My fresh uniform was dirty, but Miller had small shrapnel holes in his pants legs and was covered in the foulest smelling sun baked concoction of bacon grease, decomposing vegetables, and discarded powdered eggs, scented with rotten reconstituted potato flakes. The armor piercing 107 mm round had exploded between his legs on striking the berm and other than forcing him into the filth, had caused little damage.
Our brilliant President Johnson had announced yet another bombing halt on October 31st that had gone into effect a week earlier on November 1,1968. He had told the American public the halt would offer a ‘good faith’ gesture and bring the North Vietnamese to the table in Paris to end the war.
‘Goodfaith; my ass!’ was the feeling among the men of my unit. None of us were certified military geniuses but it didn’t take a genius to see what would shortly be happening. We were just a bunch of youthful warrior children doing the politician’s bidding and executing decisions that affected our very lives, which were being passed on to us by fools far removed from any danger to themselves.
Gary’s room after rocket attack – shared common wall inside.
With the Ho Chi Minh Trail wide open. North Vietnamese Army (NVA) logistics would immediately flow through Laos and into Cambodia ending up in our area of operation (AO) squarely between the Cambodian border and Saigon. The NVA that we were beating down gun by gun, cache by cache and battle by battle, would suddenly get their ammo bunkers topped off, have a fresh bunch of reinforcements joining their comrades sporting new load bearing equipment (LBE), clean pith helmets, and the latest AKM rifles festooned with Soviet and Chinese labels. That damn 107mm recoilless rifle would now have endless rounds to foul up our evening’s entertainment.
The morale just before Thanksgiving of 1968 had sunk to new depths after our unit area and flight-line got pummeled with a substantial barrage of Katyusha Type 63 107 mm High Explosive rockets.
Within the space of two weeks, Ungaro would lose his uniforms along with his shiny new Hong Kong suits, and I would get blown out of my bed. Gary would have his back broken. And one of our Hispanic RTO’s would take a flying rocket motor to the butt. His pain was so intense that we all held him down while the medic and Flight Doc picked rocket parts out of his flesh as we listened to him scream expletives in Spanish at the top of his lungs.
Ungaro’s Hong Kong Clothes
Christmas was coming, Nixon had been elected, and the Division thought it would be a great idea to give us all Christmas Cards with that big wonderful 1st Cav Patch, so we could send them all over the world and wish our family and friends a ‘Merry Christmas’ from Phouc Vinh.’
During a late-night bout of rowdy debauchery at our Officer’s Club, infused with Tennessee sipping whiskey and Pabst’s finest beer, we all thought it would be a great idea to write the newly elected President and just let him know once and for all how we all felt. After all, ‘What the hell could he do, shave our heads and send us to Vietnam? Fat Chance!’
So, I found one of those 1st Cav Christmas Cards and proceeded to write with large bold strokes; “Merry F**king Christmas Dick! From the Officers of Charlie Troop fighting the damn war that you don’t have the balls to win!”
There, that should do it! I put my 2nd LT APO SF 96490 return address on the envelope, we all signed it, dropped it in the mail sack, and sobered up in the morning, and thought little about the outcome.
My brothers and I had hurled an insult born from the anger and frustration we all felt over our personal circumstance and the pain we shared over the injuries and deaths of our friends.
In a couple of weeks, we received a personal message from the White House. The reply was a message of kindness and dignity that instantly defused most of our anger and left us feeling pretty small and petty beneath the power of the Office of the President of the United States.
The war droned on, more lives would be lost, but President Nixon would show strength and boldness that would eventually lead to the return of our POW’s and the extraction of American combat forces from southeast Asia. We can only muse over what the outcome might have been had his immense popularity, following his huge re-election victory, not been destroyed by the Watergate scandal and his subsequent resignation.
As Charlie Sheen’s lines from the monologue in Platoon goes, “The war is over for me now, but it will always be there the rest of my days.”
One of my life’s lessons that remains with me is that dignity, good manners, and grace in the face of petty misplaced anger thoughtlessly hurled in your direction; should always be the first approach to resolve a conflict. Richard Nixon taught me that. –J. Bruce Huffman