Accidental Soldier

[Readers of this blog should know by now that I served in Vietnam. This year is the 35th "anniversary" of that service so I have been blogging about it from time to time. So it's become somewhat of a series. Previous posts are here, here, here, here, here, and here. I suspect there will be more. Here's the latest.]


For much of my time in combat, I felt like an accident waiting to happen. Or maybe just waiting for an accident to happen. Anticipatory dread was a pervasive feeling. I knew that my purpose was to attack and destroy. I knew also that another force was “out there”, or maybe just on the other side of that rock or bush, also pursuing the same purpose. Something was bound to happen. It just did not seem possible that I could spend an entire year in the bush and not encounter some serious mayhem.

What I did encounter was random chance which, most improbably, meant that nothing serious happened to me personally. Being reassigned to the rear as company clerk took me out of combat for the second half of my tour but I can only recall one action that led to significant casualties for Alpha Company after I got that rear job. Maybe if I had actually been in the field, I would remember other events but I was still part of the companyand pretty aware of what was happening. I saw weekly casualty reports, mostly minor. But then again, I’m looking back 35 years now so my recollections are hazy.

What I do recall with some clarity are the accidents, since those were my most direct experience with the chaos of combat rather than actual contact with the enemy. Remembering accidents is all the more appropriate because by 1971, America recognized that its policy in Vietnam could only be sustained if the South Vietnamese did all the heavy lifting. My war was somewhat of a rearguard action, a transition to complete Vietnamization of the combat. America would continue to provide support but troops on the ground was something that was well on its way out. Serious combat operations were far less prevalent in 1971 than in previous years. Total combat deaths that year were just under 2,400, well below the peak of 16,600 dead in 1968 and not even half of the 6,000 plus who died in 1970.

Nonetheless, Americans–including yours truly, were carrying all sorts of explosives and weaponry through Vietnam’s jungles in 1971. Like the proverbial gun in the first act of a play, something was bound to go off in subsequent acts. Dinner on my second day in the field was interrupted by an explosion on the other side of our perimeter. Being the dumb new guy that I was, I just waited, expecting someone to tell me what was going on. No one did. I and my fellow new guys simply sat there. Later, my squad leader informed us that two guys from Second Platoon blew themselves up while setting up an “automatic ambush” on a nearby road. An automatic ambush is two or three claymore mines strung together to be triggered by a trip wire. It seems the guys wired it incorrectly, detonating the mines on themselves. Two dead. Not me but a sobering reminder of what I was in for.

A few weeks later, a patrol returning to our perimeter was shot by our own guys as it approached. Apparently someone did not get the word. One guy was wounded and evacuated Then came The Fall, when Deacon fell out of a medevac chopper. We had been climbing some godforsaken mountain on a very hot day and stopped for a break. As I heard, Deacon cut himself, reportedly while chopping bamboo to make a bong. Our medic rated the wound serious enough for evacuation and called in a chopper. The chopper couldn’t land due to the heavy canopy and steep terrain so Deacon was hoisted up on a jungle penetrator which was essentially a seat attached to a cable that winched him up. I watched with great envy. He was getting out of the field. Even if he returned in a few days, he had that much time away, was that much closer to going home. It seemed like the perfect “sham” (any excuse to go to the rear and out of combat).

It was good until he came plummeting back to earth, landing pretty much where he started. Now was dead, not shamming at all. He made the mistake of putting his feet on the chopper’s skids to lift himself into it–a natural reaction when suspended by a thin cable attached to a vibrating helicopter. Instructors had specifically warned us not to do that. His mistake wouldn’t have made too much difference except that the safety latch on the hook was broken, allowing him to lift the jungle penetrator out of the hook. Gravity took over from there. His return to earth is forever etched into my brain. So is the image of his body wrapped in a poncho and strapped to a litter being hoisted. This time there were no mistakes. They got Deacon into the chopper.

A few weeks later my platoon lost what I call the Battle of the Trip Flare Fire. As usual, we put our claymores out as soon as we set up our night defensive perimeter. This was standard operating procedure. Claymores out immediately. Tripwires and flares in front of the claymores later, at dusk. Retrieve the flares at first light and the mines as we moved out. Lately, though, we added another step: putting trip flares under the claymores. We had recently discovered claymores missing between the time we retrieved the tripwire and flares in front of the mines and the time we went back for the mines. The new drill required scooping earth from under the claymore, placing a trip flare in the depression, setting the mine on top of the spoon and carefully removing the pin (trip flares worked much like a grenade). The idea was that if anyone moved the claymore, the flare would alert us and we’d blow the mine on them.

This night we set out the claymores on top of the trip flares. So far so good. Toward dusk we set out the trip flares and wires. Someone–not me, thank god–tripped on his claymore, setting off the flare. We were maybe four months into dry season at the time, so the heat ignited the dry material on the jungle floor. We immediately began trying to put out the flames, stomping them with our booted feet. Everyone was so concerned with their immediate area no one noticed the overturned claymore surrounded by flames. My squad leader, Charlie Brown, finally did and yelled a warning just before it blew. Fortunately, the claymore was face down so the blast and shrapnel went into the ground. The force of the explosion extinguished the flames but it left Charlie Brown and Jackie dazed and deaf. I was okay. We called a medevac and they were soon gone. I never saw Jackie again. Charlie Brown ended up in the rear for the remaining few months of his tour as some kind of courrier.

Not long after that we fought another claymore ignited fire, this time from an intentional detonation as a platoon attempted to ambush a group of NVA on a road. They detonated the claymore and opened up with the M60 when the group noticed a trip wire and began to move off the road. It was still dry season and the explosions ignited the dry jungle duff. We quickly extinguished the flames and sent a patrol in search of the enemy. We had choppered into the area the day before to relieve Delta Company who had been ambushed badly. Coming in was like walking through Hell. The area had been napalmed in response to the ambush and was still smoking as we moved in. Everything was black and charred, a scene of pure desolation. It was as if we had attacked the jungle since we were so completely unable to deter the NVA. As for the group we ambushed, four of the five escaped. The one guy we caught had been hit in both ankles with M60 rounds but still managed to crawl a hundred meters away. Had we not been fighting the fire, maybe we’d have captured all of them.

This was my last accident in the field. Shortly afterward, I was assigned to be company clerk. From then on, the only accidents I had to worry about were typos and paper cuts. Much, much easier to deal with.