Uncle Sam
Ain’t Released Me Yet
Memoirs of a REMF
Copyright©
2016 by Robert B. Martin, IV
All
Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express
written permission from the copyright owner, except for the use of brief
quotations in a book review or scholarly journal. I have attempted to recreate
events, locales, and conversations from my memories of them.
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Chapter
45
Break Time Is Over
“These
students are going to find out what law and order is all about.”…….…General
Robert Canterbury, Commanding General, Ohio State National Guard minutes before
his troops fired on students at Kent State University
The Vietnam War escalated once again on
the first of May, 1970. President Nixon announced that 30,000 U.S. troops,
along with an unknown number of ARVN’s, had invaded Cambodia, long a refuge of
the VC and NVA (Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army). He also called anti-war
students, “bums blowing up campuses.”
On May 3, 1970, all hell broke loose at
Camp Eagle as the NVA retaliated for the Cambodian invasion. More than a dozen
122mm rockets screamed into the camp and several hit the Cobra helicopter pad next
to our battalion area. I believe we had just eaten supper, but it was not yet
dark. Several of us were hanging out behind my hooch, shooting the breeze. We
were looking toward the Cobra pad across the road when one of the “ready birds”
(Cobra fully fueled, armed, and ready for immediate takeoff) was hit by a
rocket. The cobra exploded in a giant fireball that rose an estimated 200 feet
into the air. Another rocket then hit the aviation unit’s ammo dump and set off
3,000 rockets, 100,000 rounds of mini-gun ammunition, and 25,000 rounds of 40mm
grenades. The noise was deafening and rounds were flying everywhere. It was
like all of the Fourth of July firework shows I had ever seen all compressed together
in one show.
Instead of running to the safety of our
bunkers, we crouched behind a wall of sandbags and watched. It was spell
binding. Even with all of the ordnance exploding and projectiles flying around us,
it was impossible not to watch. Six more 122mm rockets flew into the flight
line and destroyed all of the remaining Cobras. Another two rockets destroyed
the hangar and one more hit and destroyed the underground TOC (Tactical
Operations Center). It was over just as quick as it began and no one in our
battalion was injured except for SGT Irby. He skinned his shin as he jumped
over a cot while running from the hooch to a bunker. Rumor has it that he
received a Purple Heart for his “wound.”
The next day, May 4, was another
intense day, only we wouldn’t hear about it for another day or two because it
happened back in the World. It was the Kent State shooting. Students across the
country demonstrated against the war’s escalation after President Nixon’s
invasion of Cambodia. Students at Kent State University in Ohio rioted and
demonstrated by shattering windows, setting fires, and damaging cars. The next
night, students set fire to Kent State’s ROTC building and prevented firemen
from extinguishing the fire by seizing the hoses and turning them on the
firemen. Governor James Rhodes declared martial law and ordered in the Ohio
National Guard to restore order. Rhodes ordered the guardsmen to prevent the
students from assembling in groups on the campus until the rioting was over.
Protesters began to stage another
antiwar rally on the Kent State campus on May 4 around noon. Several times, the
campus police asked the protesters to disburse. Armed National Guardsmen
advanced on them after their refusal to disburse. Some of the students began
throwing rocks at the guardsmen, who responded by firing tear gas (CS) at the
students. Apparently, in all of the confusion, one of the guardsmen “thought”
he heard a gunshot, prompting him to open fire on the unarmed students. Other
guardsmen followed suit once he began shooting. They fired a total of
thirty-five rounds directly into the crowd, which was only about twenty yards
away. When it was over, there were four students dead and eleven wounded. This
lit the fuse for hundreds of college protests and a May 9 march on Washington,
DC. The guardsmen were subsequently tried and found not guilty.
Vice President Agnew said, “Had the
rocks not been thrown there would have been no chance of the killing.” In other
words, he placed the blame completely on the students.
Neil Young immortalized the tragic
event in the song, “Ohio,” referring to the national guardsmen as “tin
soldiers.”
That month a Gallup poll asked, “Do you
think the U.S. made a mistake sending troops to fight in Vietnam?” Fifty-six
percent said, “YES.” In the 21- to 29-year old age group, 61% said “YES.” The
tide was turning against the politicians.
On Wednesday, May 6, the National
Student Strike began and students on three hundred college campuses began
boycotting classes. Over one hundred colleges were closed. All of these antiwar
demonstrations in the U.S. were having a profound effect upon the U.S. servicemen
in Vietnam. Nobody wanted to die in a war that lacked support back home. About
this time was when I learned that the 101st Airborne Division was scheduled to
be the last combat division to leave Vietnam. However, troop withdrawals had
already diminished the strength of many units to about sixty-five percent.
Still, the war went on and one of our
firebases was in trouble the same day the National Student Strike began. FSB
Henderson, six miles southwest of Cam Lo in the A Shau Valley near the DMZ was
attacked on May 6, 1970, at approximately 0500 hours (5:00 AM) and overrun by
NVA sappers. Sappers were well-trained NVA infiltrators who dressed in black
and sometimes painted their exposed skin black. They carried high-explosive
satchel charges and relied upon stealth to breach the perimeter.
It began with the NVA sappers tossing
satchel charges into American foxholes. Many GIs were killed before anyone knew
they were being attacked. The NVA outside the firebase’s wire began firing
mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and machine guns as soon as the sappers’
satchel charges began exploding. From beginning to end, the attack lasted
forty-five minutes. The sappers targeted the tactical operations center (TOC),
the 105mm and 155mm howitzers, and the howitzers’ ammunition dump. The ammo
dump explosion was tremendous and it was reported that a firestorm lit up the
pre-dawn sky. The U.S. suffered thirty-two KIA and forty WIA. Many of the U.S. casualties
were victims of the firestorm generated by the explosion of the ammo dump. This
was the highest number of U.S. KIA in Vietnam in one single day for the
previous twenty months. Three of the KIAs were from the 2/11th’s Bravo (B)
Battery. They were Michael F. Brown, John E. Granath, and David Yeldell. Only
fifteen NVA (North Vietnamese Army) soldiers were killed.
One of our battalion medics, Dennis
Hughes of B Battery, was sleeping beside the tire of a 155mm howitzer when an explosion
blew him into the air. A buddy sleeping near Dennis was killed and Dennis lost
his hearing, glasses, and medic’s bag. After he borrowed a pair of glasses from
another soldier and scavenged medical supplies from dead medics, he crawled to
the aid of two wounded soldiers nearby. One of the soldiers was on fire and
Dennis smothered the flames. He continued to expose himself to enemy fire by locating
and treating the wounded. He was blown out of a foxhole twice by satchel
charges as he was attending an infantryman who had lost both legs to a 122mm
rocket. The infantryman was alive when medevac’d off the firebase, but I don’t
know if he survived after his evacuation. Dennis was sent home as a result of
his wounds. For his actions, Dennis was awarded the Silver Star for Valor and a
meritorious 2-rank promotion from PFC (Private First Class) to SP/4 (Specialist
4th Class).
I have since learned that Dennis
continued to serve for over twenty years as an Army Reserve Officer with the
477th Medical Company and in 1991 saw service in Operation Desert Storm.
All six of Bravo Battery’s 155mm
howitzers were destroyed during the attack. A day or so after the attack, they
were transported back to the battalion area where they drew a lot of attention.
I went to see them and took a few photos. One of the 155s had a live M-79 grenade
wedged next to the tube (barrel) of the gun. A handmade sign on a sheet of
typing paper was taped to the barrel of the gun and read, “DANGER, LIVE ROUND
-- M-79 Next to Tube” with an arrow pointing toward the grenade. A second sheet
of paper simply read, “GRENADE” with an arrow pointing towards the grenade. You
had to get very close to read the signs.
The scuttlebutt throughout our
battalion placed the blame for the poor base security and ensuing attack on the
infantry troops providing firebase security. According to the rumor, the
infantry troops on the firebase had a marijuana party the night of the attack.
I have no way of knowing if that actually happened or not. I do remember some
guys from Bravo Battery saying they pulled their own guard duty because the
infantrymen had come in from humping the boonies and were acting like they were
on R&R (Rest and Recuperation leave).
I was awarded my second “I Was There”
medal amid the mayhem of May on Sunday, May 31, 1970. It was the Bronze Star
for Meritorious Service, another excellence in typing award.
June 1970 came and I had managed to
make it through ten months in Vietnam. At some undefined point, you became
known as a “Short Timer.” I was getting close to my DEROS and ETS (Expiration
of Term of Service) and kept a “Short Timer’s Calendar” taped to the door of my
rocket box locker. The calendar consisted of columns with the top of the left-most
column beginning with the number 365 and counting down one day at a time until
reaching zero at the bottom of the right-most column. Upon waking each day, I
would X out another number on my calendar. For example, if I marked out number ninety-five,
I would have “ninety-four days and a wake-up” left in Vietnam. You became a “two-digit
midget” once you reached ninety-nine days and a wake-up. We always knew exactly
how many days remained in our tour.
As I have already mentioned, the Army
gave an early discharge to anyone with 150 days or less remaining to serve at
the completion of their Vietnam tour. For that reason, I had chosen to add 39
additional days to my tour to make certain that I returned to the World with
only 150 days remaining on my two-year enlistment. Extending my tour in Vietnam
from 365 to 404 days meant I would have to add another 39 days to my short
timer’s calendar. That was very hard to do.
On Monday, June 22, 1970, the U.S.
halted the use of defoliants, including Agent Orange. On Friday, June 26, 1970,
Camp Eagle experienced not one, but two rocket attacks in the same day. More
and more NVA troops were successfully infiltrating through the A Shau Valley to the south. I believe they
could smell victory.
Continued in Chapter 46, The Orphanage in Hue.…
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