The army seemed like the lessor of evils at the time so I went in with a pragmatic viewpoint, aiming to take the green machine one day at a time, grit my teeth and hope I didn't get sent to 'Nam. About 6 months and several "do I keep going along with the program or not?" decisions later, I arrived in 'Nam as an infantry rifleman, in time for the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. I had more or less gone along with the program thus far and this is where it led me-straight to the front lines. And for what?
My initial impression of 'Nam, Spring 1970, was of the powerful presence of the US military. During our in-country orientation at Bien Hoa, a huge army base as well as airfield, we were taken to a small Viet Cong-built bunker and tunnel complex. In 1965, U.S. troops had suffered a lot of casualties taking this complex; in 1970, it was surrounded on all sides by miles of American-built roads, repair shops, troop quarters, PX's etc. The Army's purpose in preserving this complex was to show new infantry replacements (a) what they would be facing in the field, and (b) how far the war effort had progressed since 1965. The physical contrast between this scraggly collection of bunkers and tunnels and the vast expanse of American technology, equipment, and facilities on all sides was indeed startling. My impression was, "how could the Viet Cong possibly hope to survive, much less think of victory, in the face of all this?"
Things are not always what they appear to be on the surface, however. My fourth day in the field was my first fire fight. We mounted a company-strength probe of a bunker complex just like the one I had been shown at Bien Hoa. The NVA waited until our lead platoon, on-line, was about 10 meters in front of the bunker line, which our officers had said was probably empty. Then the NVA opened up. The platoon sergeant called in helicopter gunships to strafe the bunker line. We were too close, however. We got shot up laying on our stomachs on top of the ground. The NVA in the bunkers were not hit. In a matter of minutes, the NVA slipped away, and we had taken 23 casualties, mostly from friendly fire. At this point I had about 350 days left in 'Nam and the question was no longer one of "how could the Viet Cong survive all this," but rather "how was I going to survive this?"
After about 9 months with the First Cav., I was transferred to a unit in the 198th Light Infantry Brigade of the Americal Division. The Americal was given the hopeless military task of "pacifying" the heavily populated coastal lowlands of Quang Ngai province, which I believe was the birthplace of Ho Chi Minh and, in any event, was a hotbed of mass, popular armed resistance to the U.S. forces. The war in Quang Ngai was a war of small unit ambushes and booby traps by the local NLF forces and basically a lot of combat sweeps, reprisals and roundups of villagers by the Americans. My unit discovered more booby traps in one day on the Batanguan Peninsula than I saw in the entire 9 months I was in the Cav going up against NVA regulars. GIs referred to the Americal as the "Ameri-kill" or the "AmeriCalley" because of what was going on down there. [Lt. Calley of the Americal division led his troops in slaughtering over 500 Vietnamese civilians in one day at My Lai. -Ed.]
Women were an integral part of the NLF networks and fighting units in this area, as I assume they were elsewhere in 'Nam. But in this area, with the absence of NVA regulars and the emphasis on people's war, the role of women was really apparent. We ran into them in a variety of capacities-as snipers, infantry, on mortar crews, planting booby traps, etc. Vietnamese women prisoners or suspects seemed to be treated more harshly than men. I witnessed a couple of instances involving gang-rapes by up to entire infantry platoons-as many as 22 or 23 American GIs going down on a single recalcitrant Vietnamese woman. I also saw an instance of a GI urinating in a Schlitz beer can and pouring it down the face and mouth of a woman suspect who spit on him. Gang-raping Vietnamese women was not in the slightest an act of lust or sexual desire; rather, the rapes were an act of impotence and fear and revenge on the part of the GIs who were incredibly threatened by these women and their refusal to "knuckle under."
I'll never forget one woman prisoner we took who, after being manhandled and abused, was tied up and thrown on the floor of the chopper to be sent back for more interrogation. It happened that I had to ride in such a way that when I looked down, I could see her face among our boots. This woman, who had been captured, assaulted, and now faced the possibility of torture and death, stared up at me with a look, not of fear, but of burning and righteous hatred.
At the time, I could rationalize firing at NVA soldiers as a survival thing, but I could never accept, rationalize or condone these brutal rapes and mistreatment of prisoners. But what to do? I found the great god "SKAG" (heroine) and mentally checked myself out of the war as much as possible. So did many others.
One night, near the end of my tour, we ambushed an NLF supply platoon with claymore mines and killed 13 NLF soldiers, about half of whom were young women. I found a brand-new NLF flag wrapped in plastic near one of the bodies. Later, GIs in the rear offered hundreds of dollars to buy it as a war souvenir. I refused to sell it but was ambivalent about what to do with it-take it home as a personal souvenir, or return it to the Vietnamese civilians somewhere. The flag seemed to concentrate the fact that this was not my war, and that the Vietnamese who died in that ambush were really not my enemy. My feelings toward the NVA/NLF were fear and respect, not hatred, even though my goal was personal survival. I felt that the Brass were even more of a threat to our survival, they kept ordering us out, and you couldn't always avoid contact when you were out. My hatred became directed at the Brass.
It was my last evening at Americal division headquarters at Chu Lai before going to Cam Ranh Bay for a flight to the states and discharge. Several of us pass a bong and stay up talking about going home and what we've been through, and what it all means. We felt cynical, angry at the Brass, disgusted and resentful, combined with relief that for us, "its all over now." Not quite. Three of us steal out of the barracks just before daybreak and locate a headquarters building with a flagpole. As dawn cracks over Chu Lai, three clench-fist salutes greet the flag of the National Liberation Front, flying from a flag pole in the heart of the giant US Army base.
Then we slip away. The Vietnam tour is nearly over, but for us, and for many other Vietnam vets as well, it is Only The Beginning.