The Mighty Pen Podcast: Episode 4

Blue Devil resumes whacking through the hilly jungle. He reaches a ravine. The estimated location of the NVA regimental base camp is at least two and a half days away. Jungle travel time and distance are not measured easily. On the map, the platoons are not far apart and the destination seems close, but on the ground the undergrowth, foliage and elephant grass slow travel immeasurably.

Ben Jaeger is fresh from ROTC, a new second lieutenant. The genteel hillbilly is on his first combat mission. He is assigned to Platoon Two because Blue Devil is adept at finding the enemy. The company’s first sergeant, Gray Wolf, is not a good map reader, but he commands respect. Gray Wolf frequently travels with Blue Devil’s squad and leaves the company commander to go with Platoons One and Three who deploy together. Besides the company commander, there is no other proficient map reader in the understaffed company. Platoon Two is a seventeen-man operation, short four men. The 2/327 battalion commander, Thunderball, assigns Jaeger to Platoon Two because the unit does not need Jaeger’s leadership to navigate.

He is ambitious but a slow learner. Blue Devil tells Gray Wolf the unit can make up time here. The route is easier to travel than chopping through virgin brush. Gray Wolf explains the plan to Jaeger who loves the prospect of moving faster. Jaeger tells Gray Wolf he wants to impress Thunderball by getting to the NVA camp first. The orders require a coordinated attack on the NVA; if found, 2/327 Battalion HQ is to be notified, then Thunderball will coordinate the assault by radio. He designates deployment strategy so escape routes are sealed because mission success is a career-building bonus. Gray Wolf reminds Jaeger that Platoon Two is the vanguard of the entire Battalion; he entreats the overanxious neophyte to relax, to trust Blue Devil. “He’ll get us there soon enough.” Blue Devil’s levelheadedness is to be trusted.

Squad One proceeds down the ravine. The gully floor is sweltering despite the canopy and the recent rains. A familiar sweat soaks the troop’s lightweight fatigues. The weight and space in every rucksack is reserved for necessities like ammunition and food, not deodorant. An hour into hacking at the overgrowth, Blue Devil drops his machete and brings his weapon to the ready. He is transfixed. Before him is the khaki uniform of an NVA soldier, brown fatigue hat with a big red star. The soldier’s AK-47 and Blue Devil’s M-16 are muzzle to muzzle. Blue Devil can smell his sweat-soaked enemy. This is a boy; he can’t be more than fifteen. His skin is pimpled and tanned, his eyes are brown. NVA infantry are Chinese-trained professional soldiers who will die before retreating. Blue Devil’s slack man Guerrero interrupts the stillness and quiet: “What is it, Blue Devil?” Simultaneously a voice behind the adversary whispers in Vietnamese; the frozen boy’s blank face shifts to fear; he turns to flee. Blue Devil breaks the silence to kill him, unloads an entire magazine on automatic. He reloads while chasing other startled NVA soldiers down the ravine, past the dead soldier. He shoots another in the leg. The rest escape leaving a faint blood trail.

After things settle, Blue Devil’s squad teases him. They cannot believe he froze. He preaches immediate action but in the ravine standoff he hesitated, a shocking response. Months ago, Andy taught Blue Devil to learn to love killing or be a casualty. The day’s lapse for the troops is scary. They depend on Blue Devil’s aggressiveness. Andy taught Blue Devil to distinguish the smells of each environment for survival clues. When smelling something distinctive, wait for further clues; the enemy may be nearby, above or belowground. Jungle walkers have unique body odors, they cook and discard food with distinctive odors. These clues betray human presence. Listen to the animals, to the forest, for clues. Birds suddenly flying are evidence an enemy is near. Where they take off may reveal the location. These are interruptions of the jungle’s natural order. Blue Devil teaches others these pearls from Andy.

His squad mates’ confusion about the freeze bothers him. Blue Devil blames the dead soldier’s youthful look; he expresses remorse over the kill. Kenny Claypool, the unit grenade launcher, a nineteen-year-old military brat, reminds the small group there are children killing U.S. soldiers everywhere in country.

The ravine firefight is evidence that the NVA is patrolling nearby. 2/327 reports firefights with Vietcong and NVA warriors are growing more frequent. Thunderball wants a higher body count, so orders Platoon Two to set up an ambush. Blue Devil leads a recon mission to find a suitable site where the platoon can set up. Claymore mines are concealed on both sides of the approach to a small hill along an old jungle trail. Blue Devil’s squad is camouflaged on the hilltop to spearhead the mission. The other thirteen men are in teams of two, spaced twenty to thirty feet apart extending 200 yards.

The silence is deafening, whispers are not permitted in this hypervigilant wait to kill. Hours pass. The nobody-dies-today rain comes and goes. Thirty minutes after the downpour, an NVA infantry unit enters the ambush. Heart racing, Blue Devil resists the temptation to shoot. The enemy’s size is unknown; they could overwhelm the undermanned platoon. The enemy’s familiarity with the terrain gives them an advantage. The red star on each cap identifies them as more of the professional soldiers encountered yesterday.

Fleeing in the face of American forces is uncommon for NVA soldiers. The Claymore mines at the hill’s approach will help if there is a large force. Guerrero holds the switch but Blue Devil, the point man, will determine if it is triggered. Blue Devil alone initiates the attack. He waits until the last enemy passes—he has counted seven—before he starts the assault. M-16s blaze along the 200-yard stretch but there is no return fire, only futile attempts to run into the virgin jungle opposite the assault line.

Thirty seconds later the small NVA patrol is decimated. There is no transitory freezing today, no hesitation to kill. Fear wanes. Raging adrenaline subsides. The Claymores are not used. A traditional perimeter is established to await a counterattack and to communicate with Thunderball. The enemy bodies are strip searched, mutilated then left to rot. Legend has it that the Vietnamese have a superstitious fear of the ace of spades. Sharp machetes chop one ear from each carcass; the space is filled with the card. Blue Devil has never before participated in this ugly practice, but inexplicably, this time, he grabs the ear of one kill and swings his machete to cut it off. The blade strikes the skull then bounces off and cuts his hand, drawing blood. It’s barbarism, this act, but there is no rule of engagement against it. There is no command against mutilating enemy corpses. Andy railed against it. Blue Devil’s trusty blade has served him well, nipping his hand thus sparing him from taking part. He does not despise the Vietnamese.

The lone enemy survivor is another fifteen-year-old, who is treated then medically evacuated to battalion intelligence. The kills confirm 2/327 is near the enemy base camp. Thunderball expresses his pleasure and orders the platoon to resume locating the enemy camp.

Platoon Two returns to the route pursued before the day’s tactical detour. Evening approaches, and an exhausted Blue Devil searches for a bivouac spot.

Every evening the unit stops in time to dig shallow foxholes for the night before eating. They never sleep at dusk or dawn. Blue Devil usually conducts a perimeter recon that plots the path forward for the coming day. He is accompanied by the unit’s main radio operator who’s an eighteen-year-old enlistee, plus his Slack man, Guerrero, and Kenny. They form the core group Blue Devil trusts to accompany him on these treks, often venturing far from the night camp. The recon is critical to night safety and to craft the next day’s movement strategy. They search for the easiest way forward and for clues to enemy presence.

The recon mission patrols 1500 feet along the bank of the stream south to find a safe crossing spot. They discover why the stream is swollen. Ninety yards downstream is a beaver dam built from hundreds of small trees; below the dam is a perfect fording spot. Blue Devil asks his boys why he sees no evidence of beaver-gnawed trees in the approach on the bivouac embankment. The mystery is unsolved. Blue Devil’s attention is focused on the mental checklist he uses for each recon trek. He is not concerned with the beaver activity but searches for evidence of NVA activity like mines, booby traps, sniper blinds. He searches for signs of imminent danger; of enemy presence. Satisfied there is no threat, the squad rejoins the platoon.
Napalm bombing on the camp side of the stream makes it easy to see in most directions. There is no evidence of the bombing on the opposite embankment where the platoon will hunt tomorrow. Napalm burns everything to a black crisp. When the recon team rejoins the overnight encampment they, too, dig in. The sun sets behind the napalm destruction, a black, dead forest. The canopy is destroyed, and visibility is easy.

The group prepares C-rations and gets ready for the night. Thirty yards down an old trail, a wild boar eats a kill. The pig is pulling an arm from charred human remains; the arm separates from the charred remains easy as a chicken wing. Blue Devil witnesses this and tells the group. Kenney draws laughter when he says, “That damn pig is eating better than us.”
Nightfall brings renewed hypervigilance. Showers pounding their parkas make a different sound from the resonance made when rain strikes trees or the ground. Andy had cautioned against underestimating the Vietnamese cunning. “This is their land and they’re going to kick our asses out eventually. When they’re on the perimeter they’ll use their knowledge of the jungle to wipe us out. Sounds that are different from the jungle stick out like a sore thumb to them.”

Blue Devil sleeps without a parka cover; he fights the cold, wet night to stay ready. A more immediate threat comes from one of the platoon members.

Private Warnf from California goes to sleep on guard duty every night. Each time, Sergeant Barnes, a career soldier, hits him in the head with the butt of his M-16. Barnes hates Warnf because sleeping on guard duty endangers everyone. Barnes despises him more because Warnf is an educated, twenty-three-year-old, Northern California aristocrat. Blue Devil, Barnes, and other squad members openly discuss the danger he poses. Two-hour single man shifts rotate nightly but the higher risk of enemy attack occurs at dusk and at dawn when there are two-man vigils. Warnf dozes on any shift; he is afraid, so he sleeps.

Tension between the two escalates beyond the tipping point. Barnes wants to survive, and is prepared to beat compliance into Warnf or make him a friendly fire casualty. Blue Devil and Kenny share Warnf’s night guard duty to help him stay awake and keep Barnes at bay.

On duty overnight, Warnf confesses he does not shoot at enemy soldiers in combat. He shares the news in confidence but misreads Blue Devil. Blue Devil accepts Warnf’s sleeping because Warnf is fearful, but he seethes that the man is not shooting at the enemy.

At four in the morning, camped on the bank of a dammed stream near overflow from the monsoons, Blue Devil plucks leeches from the inside of his chest and off his legs and neck. Leeches thrive in the wet climate, they suck blood until they explode. Blue Devil has a scar under his heart, a reminder that these tiny creatures must be removed. Insect repellant or fire counteracts the blood suckers, but neither works during a deluge. Barnes is right; Warnf has to go. He tells Warnf, “Today I’m telling the squad and Barnes about your fucking pathetic ass.”

Allowing Warnf to remain is suicide. Reporting him means a court-martial and maybe a dishonorable discharge. Still, to Warnf, being reported is a fate better than dying in Vietnam.

He’s deadweight, literally and figuratively. Before the unit leaves, Warnf asks, “Nobody’s dying today?”

Blue Devil stares through him before replying, “Warnf, you’re a leech.”

The platoon performs this maneuver in every open field crossing. In turn, each man gives the same silent motion before crouch-walking into the open space. The slack man is also obliged to scour the left, the opposite direction of the point man. The third man searches a zone similar to the point but farther to the right. The fourth man searches farther left of the slack man. It is right-left spacing duty that creates overlapping search fields. Properly performed, the unit’s eyes cover the 180-degree expanse.

In an open space assault, the men flank to the right or left based on their right-left spot in line. Blue Devil silently signals “fan out” by extending his right forefinger, then his left. The soldiers race to their zones in a frontal assault. Each notifies the next to fan out.

Before leaving bivouac, they softly sound off “right” or “left” so that each knows where to assemble. Blue Devil asks every soldier his position. Since Warnf confessed that he will not shoot at the enemy, Blue Devil assigns the second left assault position to Paul Czuk; Warnf swaps to the rear. Placing Warnf at the rear is risky but forces him to fight or die.

***

Blue Devil hears youthful laughter; he sees Vietnamese playing with children. He slows, stalks lower, scours the area at two o’clock where the clearing ends. He hurries his assault gestures and, when done, fires his grenade launcher into the area of the laughter. Body parts fly.

He advances, rushing to keep the advantage. He empties his M-16 on automatic; while firing, he ejects the grenade shell, then reloads. Blue Devil steadies the weapon with his left hand, shoots another grenade, then reloads the M-16. He fast breaks the position. The fleeing enemy frantically grab bodies during their fallback. Amid the chaos they return fire; the onslaught presses. Blue Devil sees the entire battlefield like Willie Mays sees the seams of a pitch. One of his grenades blows a body in half; the enemy drags it in retreat. The point man has never seen this behavior in combat.

Blood is everywhere. The enemy scurries: hundreds of men, women and children, peripheral view left, peripheral view right. In the adrenal rush, Blue Devil leaps over a .50 caliber machine gun. In mid-leap, he barks assault directions to his men. He empties another automatic magazine. Trees temporarily prevent using his grenade launcher. He sees the main trail, wide as Fifth Avenue—busy. The dirt is red, littered with arms, legs, intestines, brains. The enemy is escaping. A grenade opening appears: destruction again, more blood. He barks more directions. The sanctum is huge, teeming with life: scores of abandoned weapons, cooking pits, clay pots, sleep stations, half-dressed humanity—fleeing. Blue Devil yells for “Terry” and “Ray.” The camp center is big enough for an outdoor track. He needs the machine gunner and his assistant for cover. The men don’t come or answer.

Blue Devil yells for Terry and Ray again. He searches to his rear. The entire platoon lays in the grass. They cling to tree stumps. He stops the assault. Keeping both eyes on the enemy, he creeps back fifty feet to the machine gun. He turns to his men, screams and waves for them to come. Their response is slow. Behind him, the enemy retreat goes on. The enemy is not shooting, but only covering their escape. Blue Devil’s soldiers creep to their feet, crouching to avoid phantom bullets. Screaming to heaven, he commands: “They’re getting away. Get your asses up here. We need the machine gun to advance; get up here.” Three speed up. Blue Devil jerks his head around to the rear again. He wants to engage the fleeing enemy. He waits for his platoon, for his machine gunner, for his slack man, for the enemy to take it all back.

The platoon arrives slowly. They rave about the assault. They heard bullets zipping overhead. How did Blue Devil shoot like that? This machine gun is awesome. It is inane babble. He gives them directions to spread out, to establish a perimeter; to protect against a counterattack. Jaeger is mute. His terror-filled eyes surrender leadership. Pressed to duty, the men deploy. They go past blood and body parts, eyes wide, mouths agape. They hesitate to enter the camp center. Dark clouds persist. No sun, nor rain.

A rock cave on the left of the clearing has an entrance two stories high. The platoon tosses in hand grenades before entering. There are hundreds of weapons in the cave, too many to spot-inventory. They find automatic Russian AK-47s, mortars, Chinese stick grenades, pistols, sniper rifles, ammunition of every type. The grenades do not blow the ammunition. Blue Devil reprimands two soldiers for prematurely using the explosives. Jaeger brags it was his order.

The post-fight silence creates hair-raising echoes. The mind bounds from fear to fear. Next to the cave, a blood trail rises up a hundred-foot ravine. A smaller stream of blood trails away east. Terry and Ray guard the road with the machine gun. Can the platoon withstand a counterattack? Maybe a retreat to last night’s bivouac site would be wise. The first sergeant and Blue Devil advocate retreat. They want Thunderball notified. Jaeger wants to give his commander a higher body count. The lull in the fighting seems to have awakened the young lieutenant; heroic possibilities sleep here. He orders Blue Devil to pursue the heavier blood trail.

The trek up the steep hill is deliberate, duly cautious. At the top stands is a boulder 200 feet tall and twice as wide. Blue Devil leaves the three-man recon team behind the boulder where the blood trails intersect. He belly crawls across blood-soaked leaves. He sees bloodstained tree stumps extending west into the uncut jungle. Scores of sheared stumps create a rectangular field, one hundred yards to the tree line, twenty yards across. The retreating enemy is visible in the thicket: too many to count. The overcast day projects a grey tone, like an old television show, over the enemy. Blue Devil’s vantage point is not good. He considers shooting a grenade but that will betray him. He crawls backward to the boulder to tell his men what he saw. They plead with him to return to camp. He needs a better assessment.

He crawls around the boulder for a safer view of the thicket from sparse cover. He inches behind the nearest tree. AK-47s crackle. Blue Devil jerks back his head. He goes motionless. A hail of bullets strike the tree; more zip by. The crackling continues. The enemy seems to be trying to fell the tree by shooting. The hill slopes below him, there is safety lower. He slides down two feet, still needing to assess the odds of a counterattack. The enemy is small-statured as they treat their wounded. Blue Devil could launch grenades, but this is war, not suicide. Time flies. This is taking too long. The enemy is not running. They are waiting.

Blue Devil crawls to the team where he greets panic-stricken eyes. The young radio operator is in tears. Guerrero repeats “Hail Marys” in Spanish.

Blue Devil gives his squad the assessment; he observed an enormous contingent. Some of the enemy treat the wounded, others flee, many wait. “Leave ’em alone,” Kenny blurts.

“Please, please,” Guerrero chirps in his native tongue. He seems to forget the team only speaks English, but the message is clear. Blue Devil tells them to pray there is not a counterattack. He assures his men they will not follow the blood trail. Screw Jaeger.

The men implore Blue Devil to rejoin the platoon. He takes the radio mic to call Jaeger. “White Fox, there is a skyscraper boulder. Beyond is a kill zone, like the approach. Request permission to return to your ballpark.”

“No, damn it, I told you to pursue that blood trail; get me a body count.”

The platoon huddles. Blue Devil asks why the unit is not ready for a counterattack. Jaeger says the platoon will chase the enemy. He assigns a different point man, Paul Czuk. Blue Devil is to bring up the rear, not Warnf. The lieutenant’s tone is nasty, condescending. Blue Devil has heard that tone before. From cops in the neighborhood, from store clerks fearful he is a shoplifter, from bus drivers and riders moving him to the rear. He checks his emotions; lives are at stake.

Blue Devil pleads for counterattack defense. He tells the lieutenant that their death waits beyond that boulder. He shares details of what he saw: the enemy is retreating but also waiting. There are scores of tree stumps; a kill zone. “You heard the AKs. I was pinned behind a tree.” Jaeger turns away. Blue Devil looks to the first sergeant, who shrugs. Orders are orders.

The men move. As they pass, some look puzzled—others terrified. Blue Devil tells them all, “Be careful, catastrophe waits; there’s a boulder, tree stumps, an ambush.” Urgency is in Blue Devil’s voice, close to panic. He needs them alive. He begs, “Be careful. Be careful.”

He returns to the lieutenant: secure the camp, wait for reinforcements. He explains the wait for help is going to be longer than map views suggest. He reminds Jaeger there are no unit casualties, that every man is needed to hold the camp. He warns that Thunderball will not be happy if the weapons cache, left unattended, is lost. Jaeger pauses, his eyes dart up and down, back and forth. He orders the recon team to stay, to guard the weapons, to defend against a counterattack.

He marches the other twelve men up the hill.

The platoon passes the boulder-ravine junction, then follows the blood trail left. They pass red-stained stumps. Jaeger orders a frontal assault. AK-47s crackle again: quickly, five soldiers are knocked down, maybe killed. The others run for cover. Most are pinned down behind stumps. A few retreat to trees right of the boulder. Clarence Way, the radio operator, is killed following an order to bring the mic to Jaeger behind a different tree. Way is green—less than a month in country. He recently turned eighteen. Shot in the chest, he radios for help while dying.

Blue Devil rushes to Way’s distress message. Warnf cowers alone behind the boulder. Rivers of tears roll over his half smile. He points to his right foot where a wound bleeds. “You are not getting a Purple Heart for shooting yourself, Paul. Way’s dead.”

“I’m hit,” screams Barnes.

First Sergeant Gray Wolf yells, “We need Puff or we need an airstrike.” The urgency in his shouts belies his normal cool. Puff is an assault helicopter that will spew .60 caliber machine gun fire with a tracer every fifth round. The tracers glow fire red; there will appear to be a stream of fire from chopper to target, so the nickname Puff the magic dragon. Gray Wolf screams like God is deaf:

“We’re gonna die without air fire. We’re gonna die without air fire.”

Blue Devil directs the platoon to fire at the distant jungle. He races thirty feet into the tree stumps to pull Sergeant Barnes to safety. He tells Barnes that Warnf is wounded. Barnes says he knows the motherf*cker shot himself at the junction. Blue Devil returns to the kill zone where he pulls another soldier to safety, then another.

He calls for Puff support. They survive for twenty minutes until the dragon arrives. The platoon tosses smoke grenades to mark their position. Puff strafes beyond the smoke. Enemy fire continues, the first sergeant yells for more air support. He is still prone behind a stump. There are no smoke grenades left. Blue Devil radios coordinates: platoon first, then enemy. Air Command demands confirmation. The proximity bothers them. Drop it now! A test bomb falls beyond the tree line.

The ground shakes. Fire for effect; fire for effect.

***

Jaeger continues to shrink behind his small tree. The monsoon never intervenes. The sun never shines. Dusk arrives. The siege ends.

Radio traffic confirms help is coming. Firefights and thick jungle delay their arrival. Frequent skirmish reports pour in from other units: the battalion plan works. Midnight passes. A unit is heard slashing through distant brush. Two hours later the company commander breaks through with two platoons. They describe ambushing the retreating enemy. Afraid to use lights for assistance, the reunited company waits for dawn before they depart.

The stench of Way’s decomposing blood makes a permanent place in Blue Devil’s brain. A friend passes the night with guts in hand. The medic arrives with the company commander. In the dark he administers morphine. The friend groans on. Blue Devil sits a night vigil with his wounded warrior.

Another company arrives at dawn. Perimeter guards are plentiful; they rotate on two-hour shifts. The enemy is never far away. By radio, the company commanders confer with an engineer. They agree a landing zone is impractical. A hover zone for transfers is blown using C-4 to fell more trees. The task begins at noon and takes hours. Additional C-4 is lowered by helicopter. When the hover zone is finished choppers bring ammunition, supplies and hot meals. Three intelligence officers arrive to assess the weapons cache. Manufacture sources may aid future decisions. They are fluent in Mandarin, Russian, and Vietnamese.

The lowering and raising of men and supplies is perilous and painstaking. A tow line from each hovering chopper lowers a loaded metal stretcher that is unpacked, then reloaded with the wounded and hoisted to the ship. Next, the dead transfer; there is no field ritual, no open grief, no prayer. The last helicopter takes Warnf. He is not permitted to ride with the wounded or the dead. Instructions that he is Purple Heart ineligible are radioed to staff.

Night falls again. The star-bedecked sky is close enough to touch, a pearl of beauty. Nineteen years she waited for Blue Devil to adore her. The sky over Vietnam is a source of brief and silent solace. The presence of two companies is comforting, too, like the heaviest monsoon.

The next morning, airlift shuttles resume. More hot meals arrive. Blue Devil is authorized a war trophy. He chooses a Chinese sniper rifle. It is tagged with his name and serial number to ship to the 101st Phan Rang base camp. Intelligence catalogs the weapons cache which is shipped to the forward base. Explosives seal the rock cave. The tasks take two days.

On the third afternoon, Thunderball visits. He commends the platoon for capturing the camp. The weapons cache is a distribution operation, a historic find. He announces an enemy body count north of one hundred. He is jovial. He expresses pride for his association with the First Brigade. He is happy the 101st legacy grows in Vietnam. He announces a memorial service to take place when the unit stands down in a few days.

Blue Devil fights tears. He detests the custom. A bayonet-mounted M-16 is planted between a pair of boots. A camouflaged helmet tops the rifle butt. The symbolic soldiers are lined up like crosses in Flanders’s Field. A standard eulogy praises freedom’s new martyrs. Taps blow, Pandora’s Box opens: tears gush in; memories find refuge. There is never healing, just pain. Emotions are survival’s mortal enemies.

***

Thunderball mingles with the men, drinking coffee, small talking. He departs with his intelligence officers. Gray Wolf and Thunderball are old friends. The first sergeant learned that Jaeger will be removed and replaced with a West Point graduate during the stand down. The revelation is a temporary morale booster.

There are wagers over the number of days before the enemy returns. Kenny and Ray tease Paul Czuk with a song. Czuk’s going home in a plastic bag. Do-dah, do-dah. Czuk’s going home in a plastic bag. Yea da-do-dah-day. The objects of this group folly shifts from hour to hour, day to day.

Seventy-two hours later, after twenty-six days of search and destroy, 2/327 stands down.