Sarge quickly covered the details of the mission, told the men to pack lightly with enough rations to last a week. Hump (carry) as much personal extra ammo as possible, in addition to their 'basic load' (7 magazines of 20 rounds each), but remember he said, "We’re going light. We want to ‘shoot and scoot’.
The Pig is staying in its pen.”
The ‘PIG’, was just Army slang for the M-60 squad automatic weapon. A 7.62 mm, belt fed, machine gun; however, the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) required three men to properly operate and fire it.
One - the gunner carrying 200 to 1000 rounds (depending upon his ability), two - the assistant gunner (AG), carrying a spare barrel and as much ammo as his ability allowed him to carry and three - the ammo humper, carrying the tri-pod plus additional ammo.
The rest of the men carried at least 100 pre-linked rounds with them for additional support. Leaving the M-60 allowed lighter, faster movement but reduced much needed firepower, if required.
The mission was simple: slip over the border, contact a few villages that some of their Vietnamese scouts knew, and try to convince them to work for us. When the opportunity arose snap pictures of areas and trails that the Viet Cong (VC) might find useful, including map coordinates.
Simple, and straightforward, avoid enemy contact, do the mission and get their asses back to base. While out and close to the Ho Chi Ming Trail (Ho's Highway), they were to plant some listening devices to allow HQ (headquarters) to hear and keep track of when the VC were coming up and down Ho’s highway. Sarge told them the Met message (weather report) was for rain (who could have guessed!) and for them to get their shit (gear) together and re-assemble in 'three-oh' mikes (30 minutes) at zero five hundred (5 am).
At the appointed time the team assembled themselves in the compound as instructed and Sarge gave the orders, “Saddle Up - Lock and Load.”
They moved out quietly and in a few minutes they were out of the safe zone and totally enveloped into the massive dense jungle.
* * * * *
Everything went according to plan for the first few days then without warning they stumbled into an ambush consisting of a full compliment of NVA regulars. How many? Sarge could only guess, but in scientific military terms, he thought “a shitpot full!”
Sarge had been running point with one of his scouts, Kam Louh. A slight built Vietnamese who understood English much more than he put on, was the slack man (2nd man in line on patrol).
Sarge knew he and Kam Louh were better than this - they could always sniff out an ambush.
What went wrong this time?
Something was not right, they had encountered many ambushes before but they were never caught this much off guard. It seemed the NVA anticipated their ever move, was this an inside job? And Kam Louh wasn’t acting right. Was he still on our side?
This NVA unit seemed to be well trained, applied correct tactics, had plenty of arms and ammo, and their commanders appeared to be quite capable. This enemy unit was different from most units Sarge’s patrols had come up against before. The VC unit had sat up a perfect ambush, and had done so skillfully.
‘They caught us flatfooted this time’, thought Sarge.
Sarge’s small, lightly armed and equipped force put up a good fight for a while, but the odds were impossible being so outnumbered and out-gunned. ‘Damn’, Sarge thought, ‘I hope the Pig is warm and dry back at base, we sure could give him some needed exercise about now. But shit I can't blame that one on anyone but me!’
Sarge put his hand to his ear with his thumb and little finger extended (hand signal for the radio man to come forward). Staff Sergeant Jason Harbin a redheaded, freckled faced kid who was much older than his youthful appearance indicated was Sarge's RTO (radio/telephone operator).
Harbin came double timing (running) up to Sarge with his AN/PRC-25 (Prick 25) radio strapped to his back.
Sarge shouted, “Get Six (Headquarters) on the horn (‘phone), now!!” Normal patrol procedure would have had the 'slack man' carrying the radio but Sarge wanted one of 'his' (American Special Forces) men toting the Prick.
Harbin, grabbing the handset keyed it and breathlessly yelled, “Echo Six! Bravo-Fox-Trot, Break!!” (Static... no reply), again he frantically called, “Echo Six...! Echo Six...! Bravo-Fox-Trot... How copy...? Over...! Echo Six... Bravo-Fox-trot. This is Photo Shoot...! Repeat - Photo Shoot...! Break!”
Keying again he shouted, “This is Photo Shoot! Photo Shoot! Taking fire!! Need one-fifty-five (155mm artillery) ASAP (as soon as possible)." Hardin then called out their map coordinates. The radios only response... frying noise of static….
Hardin cupped his hands around his mouth to enable Sarge to better hear his report, “Sarge… negative…. nothing!”
Sarge yelled back, “Keep trying, we’ve got to have one-fifty-five support! And we need it yesterday!”
Sarge thought, ‘Even with the long range antenna the “Prick 25” had a maximum range of 18 miles or so but he thought there was supposed to be a retrans (re-transmitter) radio a couple of klicks (klick = 6/10th mile) closer to the border but on the Vietnam side, so contact to base should be established’. He further believed they could not be much more than five to ten miles across Vietnam’s border.
“Come on Harbin, get you’re ass in gear, get me Six!”
“Roger Sarge, I’m trying!” but Harbin knew it was useless, but he tried one more time - response, same as before, same crackling static. It was obvious no one was receiving him on the other end, no response was acknowledged… nothing was received but… but… static. They were on their on now.
One thing Sarge did know: Green Berets do not run.
Retreat is not in their vocabulary, and Sarge wasn’t going to let history show he was the one who first broke their unwritten rule. He hollered to his men, "Alamo...!! Alamo...!! (A military slang to form up into a defensive fighting position). The men all lightly armed, circled up in a defensive position and were determined to give’em a fight, no matter the odds.
Sarge was tenaciously resolute that he was going to be the last man standing.
Just as that fatalistic thought occurred inside his head the outside of his head was violently slammed with an AK-47, 7.62 mm FMJ (full metal jacket) bullet that ricocheted off the side of his head knocking him instantly unconscious. Slumping as he fell toward the ground another piece of hot steel penetrated his left side but fortunately Sarge felt no further pain.
Sarge’s head would have been better protected had he been wearing his steel pot (helmet) but Sarge never wore the ‘pot’ he always preferred his green beret. As soon as Sarge was put out of action, MSG Howard automatically assumed command, but he was hit and immediately and went down also. Sergeant Howard, a big ox of a man, with the disposition of a wounded bulldog made a big target especially while standing up.
The only American left standing was Sergeant Hardin. He was next in order to command the team, but in his mind he had already made a command decision. He believed the best policy was to live to fight another day. He did not agree with Sarge’s John Wayne tactics. It was fortunate for Harbin that Sarge was presently in his comatose condition. The thought of 'running' would have given Sarge a good excuse to administer Hardin a good ass kicking! Green Berets don’t run!!
Sgt Hardin instructed the men to grab Sarge and Howard and he made another command decision - the best course of action was to ‘di di mau’ (hurry, fast or faster) right now, try to escape and evade the enemy forces until he could re-establish radio contact. He knew if, or when, they were captured the team had been supplied with SOG maps that had international boundary lines that were intentionally drawn wrong. In case of capture the maps provided plausible deniability that they were not over the border in Laos.
He also understood that anyone KIA (killed in action) in Laos HQ would report as a casualty in South Vietnam. Sgt Hardin certainly didn’t want to be a casualty anywhere but especially in Laos. And he certainly didn’t want his family notified he had been
killed in Vietnam, when he was really lying dead somewhere in the weeds and grass of the wrong country. He reasoned maybe one or two of his men might escape and get back to tell his family where his final resting place might be. He thought, after the war, they might even come and disinter him and carry him back to the good ol’ U.S. of A.
After slipping out of the ambush the remaining team pushed their way through the wet rain soaked vegetation, trying to remain as silent as possible as they stayed slightly ahead of their ruthless, relentless pursuers. This worked for awhile but being surrounded and vastly outnumbered Harbin knew it was only a matter of time before his small force was captured or killed.
Sergeant Harbin was half right - captured they were.
MSG Scarburg was lucky in a way, only a few of his men had slight injuries, himself and Howard included, on the downside three of his team had been killed and now the rest were all POWs (prisoners of war) in the hands of his merciless enemy.
He had a concussion and a bullet hole through the fatty part of his left side. It was a t and t (through and through), so unless infection set in, he should be okay. MSG Howard had an arm wound, but it didn’t seem too serious. Both their wounds weren’t life threatening, they just hurt like the blazes; however, their physical hurt couldn’t erase the mental anguish that three of their men had been killed and they were all now POWs.
As Sarge slipped in and out of consciousness his groggy mind thought he heard, in the background, indistinct radio transmissions. He rightly reasoned, the VC were relaying messages of their prize catches back to their HQ. Sarge’s fogginess cleared long enough to realize that his team had been captured and were now under the control of the force that he had earlier been fighting.
‘Was he dead,’ Sarge thought? No, he hurt to bad to be dead. His head was pounding, his vision was blurry and there was a bloody rag, posing as a bandage, wrapped around his lower torso.
Their captors grabbed Sarge and pulled both his arms behind his back despite the obvious pain this caused to his wounded side. Sergeant Howard moaned, but didn’t cry out, as they jerked his arms behind his body, and simultaneously bound the other team member’s wrists together. After being trussed up, their captors blindfolded their eyes, and secured them one to another with rope.
A crash of thunder sounded off in the distance - the men began their long arduous march to-who-knows-where. Wherever they were going, Toto they were definitely not going back to Kansas.
There were a couple of other things on Sarge's mind: his head throbbed like hell and his side hurt like hell too, plus it was bleeding profusely. All-in-all Sarge thought, ‘This is turning out to be a hell of a bad day!!’
CHAPTER TEN
THE MARCH
The procession walked in single file. If they remained on their feet and walking things proceeded okay. If they fell they were dragged. If they didn’t get up quickly they were severely beaten with the butts of their captors AK-47 or SKS rifles.
This torturous march went on for the better part of a week. Their only rest came at the once a day mealtime, when their slant-eyed captors consumed the teams PIRs (Personal Indigenous Rations). The captives subsisted on the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) rice balls, only given to them during the one and only daily break, and then just one small rice ball per man.
A week earlier Sarge's injuries had keep him from focusing on anything but the pain, now he had his panties in a wad over the VC eating their PIRs. This was good; at least now being angry showed he was improving.
Sarge’s mind drifted back to FOB 5 at Nah Trang before they left. He had stashed some ‘trading material’ in his ruck’ in addition to his own PIRs. Before they left base camp and before his order to ‘saddle up, lock and load’, Sarge had stashed away, in his ruck, cans of ‘Beans and Dicks’ (as the troops call them), most of the others loaded up on the PIRs which were lighter and were developed for the Long Range Patrols (LRPs). Some preferred the C rations and carried some of these; however most stocked up on the PIRs.
Actually Sarge's 'traders 'were just plain old Beenie Weeners packaged in an OD (olive drab) Army can, but everyone loved them. What everyone hated was those god-awful big white beans and that… that…. ham (as least that’s what it was supposed to be! - it was) which floated in a bucket full of grease on top of the beans. However, Sarge, being an ol’ Alabama boy, loved his beans and ham, but they had to be heated to melt the grease. Sarge, practically raised on them as a kid of the Deep South, called them ‘white butterbeans’; they were considered good eating back in his part of the world.
Sarge would cut off a small piece of C4 (plastic explosive), set this little chunk of wax under the C ration can, take out his Zippo and fire the C4 up. The C4 burned with such a hot heat, it appeared almost invisible in daylight. Sarge would then search around looking for some wild green onions to add to the beans, once heated a feast fit for a king. ‘Who would eat such a concoction’ the others always thought as Sarge enjoyed his ‘butterbean’ feast. He only wished he had some cornbread to go with his beans!
And a funny coincidence - no one ever shared a two-man tent with Sarge on these bean-eating nights either, if you catch the drift (well its best not to catch the drift, you’d be much better off if you stood up-wind from him). The beans served two purposes for Sarge: one - he got to eat something satisfying that he enjoyed; two - he got the entire tent to sleep in all by his lonesome.
Someone jerked on Sarge's constraint rope and his thoughts quickly snapped back to the present and he remembered how pissed he was about those slant-eyed bastards consuming his good eats!
Sarge estimated they had been traveling close to 10 klicks (6 miles) per day, based upon this rate he reasoned they had traveled close to nearly 40 miles in the week they had been moving. As close as they had been to the Laos/Cambodia border when captured, Sarge, now believed they must be in Cambodia, or was headed in that direction.
At night he could hear the thunderous rumblings of Arc Light strikes on his six (rear), indicating their direction of travel was definitely away from the border.
Operation Arc Light was a code name given to B-52s, flying out of Guam, used as Close Air Support (CAS) of ground tactical operations. These strikes occurred along the Laos/Cambodia border or within Vietnam itself. Sarge knew the weak sounding explosive ‘thump’, ‘thump’, ‘thump’, of the falling 500 pounders told him they had to be at least 25 to 30 miles away. Normally, he could have seen the flash of the bombs, start counting one-thousand one... one-thousand-two... When he heard the first sound of the explosions he would divide his count by 2, the answer was approximately how far away the Arc Light raids were occurring.
On the occasional day with no rain Sarge could feel the hot sunlight falling upon his face during the morning and afternoon, and its heat on the side of his sweaty, dirty face indicated to him the direction of travel.
The trail they were following was just a thin ribbon of mud woven into the dense jungle undergrowth. Sarge knew he was in the jungle since he recognized the jungle odor of rotting vegetation and decaying wood; then there was the constant dripping of water, not only from the plants he brushed against but he could hear it falling from limb to limb from the canopy of the overhead trees. Most days the foliage was so dense Sarge could not feel the sunlight on his face to obtain his bearings. It was only April but the seasonal rains had already begun. Normally the rainy season started around May and lasted until October, but as Sarge thought, ‘in this miserable part of the world nothing was ever normal.’
Most days were filled with the constant downpour of rain, the crashing of thunder and the constant ‘didi mau, didi mau’ (faster, faster) as they tried to negotiate, blindfolded, the narrow, slippery jungle trail. Even with the inevitable physical violence they knew would follow, Sarge and his men were continually stumbling, slipping and falling. At each fall a blow from a rifle butt or a kick to the ribs was swiftly delivered. Several times rifle fire accompanied the falls with the inevitable ‘didi mau, didi mau’ . Sarge could
only expect the worst, since they were blindfolded and not allowed to converse between themselves or their captors.
When Sarge began this ‘Photo Shoot’ mission he had Sergeant Harbin as his RTO man. None better than this guy, young and green, but repairing a PRC-25 radio using only his Swiss army knife and a piece of chewing gum was his specialty. Electronics was his game, he talked it until they would tell him to “just shut the hell up!’ His second in command, another American SF on the team - MSG Steve Howard was Sarge's Intel (intelligence) guy. Back home in the world Steve had gotten into a club (translated - gang), saw trouble coming and quickly enlisted. Once in the Army, he found Special Forces just the thing he was looking for, he fit right in with those “Sneaky Petes." He, like Sarge, was a “lifer”. The rest of the team were a couple of scouts and the other eight (five now) were Vietnamese Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) troops.
* * * * *
At the end of the weeks’ horrendous trek Sarge and his men arrived at a wide cleared area. He would later find out this cleared area contained a large wooden structure hidden deep within the mountainous forest. The whole area around the clearing was under an umbrella canopy of dark green trees so thick that sunlight seldom found its way to the ground. If the walking, dragging and beating were not punishment enough, it rained like pouring piss out of an Army boot most all the way to this god-forsaken rendezvous point.
Sarge believed, in his gut (and his gut was seldom wrong), they were being taken to meet Mr. Big. But who would Mr. Big be? Who knows, but this bunch of Goodyear (VC shoes made from car tires) sandal-wearing gooks were not the sharpest pencils in the drawer, you know. Someone smarter had to be waiting for them. The distance and direction of travel indicated to Sarge that they had been taken somewhere into Cambodia.
* * * * *