War Story 16: Quick Kill, Hide & Seek

It was the kind of beautiful summer day in New England that made you feel good about life.

Walking across the little park in the center of Natick, MA, to the Post Office, I noticed some young boys playing hide-and-go-seek. Two of them sought a hiding place behind the Civil War monument, crouching down and whispering to each other. Boys having innocent fun, I thought. I remember those days.

Their parents were nearby in deep conversation with friends, hardly noticing their children’s antics.

I stopped, sat on a bench, smiled, and drifted off to another time. It was the summer of 1970, and I was not a child anymore.

My platoon of 23 soldiers was dropped from U.S. Army Huey’s into a “free fire zone” to patrol areas that were designated as enemy territory, and we were free to shoot anything that moved. It was “Injun” territory where the Viet Cong roamed freely. We were taught “quick kill techniques” during Fort Polk and Fort Benning training. When you and the enemy met by chance in the jungle, it did come down to who was quicker at the draw.

I was in Vietnam for only three months, but I was already the most experienced platoon leader in the Company. The sad fact was true due to the short life span of infantry lieutenants in I Corps, the northern sector of South Vietnam, assigned to the Americal Division and its 196th Light Infantry Brigade.

Most of the casualties had been to booby traps or explosive devices with trip wires that could easily take off your legs or more in an instant. They seemed to be everywhere. Every step could be your last one. I learned that when I was wounded on my very first patrol when a booby trap crippled two soldiers immediately in front of me while patrolling in a rice paddy. It seemed more about luck than skill. It only added to the constant pressure and tension we all felt as we patrolled for hours with full packs and weapons.

It was also the area just a few miles north of My Lai where the infamous massacre of civilians took place against old men, women, and children. One of the reasons cited was that the soldiers were emotionally frustrated with constant death and injuries from an unseen enemy deploying such booby traps. I was at Ft. Benning in training during 1968-69 when Lt. Calley was preparing for his court-martial.  It was front-page news across the U.S. and fed anti-war groups with evidence needed for their protests. The controversy was fresh in my mind.

Under a searing hot sun and high humidity, we were fortunate not to be in the infested rice paddies and were moving swiftly over solid ground. We moved in a single file. This wasn’t the jungle terrain I spent the last month patrolling, but still, it had exotic plants for this out-of-place Bostonian.

Eventually, we came upon a collection of grass huts and approached cautiously; our senses were on full alert. We were told to expect that anything that moves can be considered the enemy, but it was implied that we use common sense.

As we approached the huts, I kept asking myself why on Earth there would be a village with civilians in this so-called Free Fire Zone.

Soon, I yelled, “Hold fire!”. We saw little kids and some small goats, and then some women came out to greet us. Lots of chatter was heard, but I did not understand anything they said.

Then I heard some yelling and saw one of my soldiers holding his M-16 on a very old woman and his finger on the trigger. A younger woman was pleading, but we could not understand her. Our Kit Carson Scout, a former Viet Cong guerrilla fighter who surrendered to Americans, spoke rapidly to the women in Vietnamese.  Finally, the old woman slowly pulled up her shirt to expose a large bowl tied to her abdomen with a piece of cloth that wrapped around her body.

“A grenade?” my sergeant yelled.

Motioning to her, she unwrapped the bowl and showed us what she was hiding. It was a two-foot section of her intestines jutting outside her stomach wall. The Kit Carson Scout told us it was a months-old injury from bomb shrapnel.  I could see the wound was dirty and oozing fluid.

I asked our medic to do what he could for her, but we had to move on. He just shook his head in a futile attempt to help her. All he could do was clean the wound and give her some powder to prevent infection. This was a distraction I did not need.

What bothered me was that there were no men around.

We could not leave the area too soon, I thought, and several hours later, with nightfall, we set up a night logger position amongst some bushes and banana leaves. I worried the women might tell their men about our location, so I doubled the guards that night.

Finally, we got a chance to get some rest and eat our “C-rats” or cold canned food, and get some sleep on the ground with our rucksacks for pillows. I did not want to dig foxholes, which would make too much noise.

The next day, we continued our trek - over hills, through thick brush, avoiding cow paths; it was tedious and exhausting. We were alert for booby traps and wires, ambushes, or the stray enemy soldier that saw us before we saw him.  But we knew it would be only a matter of time before all hell would break loose.

I walked third in the line of march. Suddenly, our point man dropped to his knees and opened fire.

His cover man, the second in line, opened up as well - firing into the bushes.

I yelled to stop firing. I did not hear the unmistakable sound of the AK-47.

The two soldiers went with a squad leader to check out the two “Viet Cong in black pajamas” seen running into the bushes.

They came back with blood drained from their faces, totally dismayed, one swearing to himself and one in tears.

It turned out to be two little boys dressed in black pajamas, apparently hiding, maybe playing a game, or even tracking us for the enemy. We would never know.

I thought, “My God, where the hell were their parents? Why are they out here?” I also had to control my emotions. I could not cry for them now, even as tragic as it was. Death is ever-present. As the 23-year-old leader, I reminded myself to “stay focused”! I had to anticipate the next actions - by us and the enemy. My mantra was, “anticipate, anticipate, anticipate!”

My two soldiers were distraught, but we had to re-focus and move on. Rotating others into their positions, we marched on looking for the enemy and finally came to a river. We patrolled quietly alongside the riverbank.

Again, more yelling erupted, this time from behind me, and shots rang out.

We were lucky. We saw him first, I thought. We cornered him amongst some rocks before surrendering. He was poorly equipped but had the requisite AK-47. One of my soldiers asked me if we could just kill him on the spot.

Surely, many jumped to the same conclusion that he was responsible for setting the booby traps that killed and maimed so many over the past few weeks.

Instead, I called for a helicopter to airlift him back to Division. “Let them figure out what to do with him,” I said.

Swiftly, a Huey came in fast; we loaded the prisoner, and off he went. I never heard what happened to him. What I did hear were the groans of displeasure for not being able to “take care of him” ourselves.

On we went following the river. While walking alongside some brush with thorns that was between us and the river, many of us could clearly hear the scrambling in the thick bushes beside us.

It really startled us. I heard the loud rustle of noise continue.

“Ambush?” Everyone dropped to their stomachs and pointed their weapons at the bushes; more rustling and then a splash. Some fired, and then more joined in.

“They’re getting away, jumping into the water!” one yelled.

My M-60 machine gunner, the “Pig Man,” opened up blindly and tore the bushes to pieces.

I yelled cease-fire and listened…then someone said, “Oh, no! Looks like we got him alright…it’s a freaking huge water buffalo!”

After some chuckling and feeling a bit foolish, we learned that someone had hidden the buffalo in a pen next to the river, completely hidden from view even as we were just a few feet away. It was a good hiding place.

Well, it did break the tension a bit.

Now I was worried again as all the firing could be heard for miles.  We moved quickly and several hours later, I selected another night position in a triangular batch of trees near an open field that would give us good visibility on two sides. At the other side that led into the forest, I ordered that our own booby traps, Claymore mines connected to trip wires, be set up on two possible approaches to our position.

Sure enough, at about 4 am, our reflexes jerked us violently from our dreary sleep when we heard “Kah-BOOM!” as one of the Claymores exploded, sending steel balls into the kill zone. No one moved, but all strained to see what would happen next. My heart was pounding, with sweat dripping from my nose.

Waiting for early daylight, we learned we had nailed two enemy soldiers trying to sneak up on us. Their bodies were torn apart. Blood trails proved other havoc we inflicted on those who would sneak up on us.

They lost the game this time. I was keeping score.

We needed to get moving again to keep the enemy guessing. This game was relentless.

This was the daily grind of “hide and seek” we played day after day.

If you won, you got to go home alive instead of in a grey body bag.

I remember thinking that day, I still have nine months to go…