Eagle Days: A Marine Legal/Infantry Officer in Vietnam

13. Thanksgiving and a Trip to Saigon

13 / Thanksgiving and a Trip to Saigon 18 November 1968 This past week was one marked by sameness of routine: paperwork at the of- fice, workouts, administrative work on the Provisional Rifle Company, and so on, until night before last. Once again, as the siren’s wail shook us from our sleep, we were sent stumbling and crawling to the bunkers in the middle of the night. At 1:30 am the VC hit the air base with ten rockets that were obviously fired close to FLC because several people saw the flashes as they were fired. There were no casualties. At the same time, bands of NVA infiltrators attacked traffic and police stations inside Da Nang. Lieutenant Steve Carney, a motor transport officer, was in Da Nang at the time and just barely missed an ambush where a jeep with three Vietnamese National Police of- ficers was shot up, killing them all. At 4:30 am the alarm screeched again, and this time another ten rockets impacted in the shore party’s area and the Seabee camp. At each alarm, I scrambled into my clothes and sprinted to the COC to muster with the company and see whether we would be called out. The second trip to the bunker was more personal for my people; we learned that a seven-man patrol of First Battalion, Twenty-sixth Marines, operating within one hundred meters of the limits of our tactical area, was overrun and all of its men killed. Apparently, they had already set in their ambush site when they were overrun. I imagine they went to sleep, but it is only a guess. This is a grim warning to the men about complacency because it could have been us instead of them. Thanksgiving and a Trip to Saigon 95 The VC have redoubled their efforts in our area recently by setting numerous booby traps. One of my patrols was led to a cache of Chicom grenades near our base three days ago. Local children told the Marines where the weapons were located, and they also told the Marines that the VC had been active recently in the nearby villages. The VC also apparently told the villagers to stay off the islands in the nearby rice paddies because they were booby-trapped. One boy said he saw a stray dog go across one island and detonate an explosive device. Yesterday, Sunday, 17 November, I took my men to the beach area of NCB-22 (Seabees) for a day of rest. We loaded up on steaks, beer, sun, and interplatoon competition. Teams competed in volleyball, tugs-of-war, tackle football, and beer chug-a-lug contests. The laughing and cheering troops threw the platoon commanders and me into the ocean. In tackle football we banged heads with fierce abandon, helped by the fact that most were forti- fied by liberal amounts of the suds. It was a perfect day. We returned to base in time to have another muster at the COC because of a new alert condition in the Da Nang area. Again last night, the VC hit our area. They fired mortars on the Army helicopter pad across the road from us about 1:30 am. What disgusts me is the fact that the enemy mortars were operated out of the same village where a South Vietnamese PF group and a Rural Development Unit are stationed for pacification purposes. They have been there about three weeks and have another two weeks to go. Our wonderful allies reek of either rank incompetence or outright treachery. In this case, probably both are true. In the meantime, I am being kicked upstairs here in the legal office and being transferred from the defense section to the prosecution section. I am a “cop” now, and “Dirty Jack” Provine gives me hell about it. That is the price one has to pay for respectability! 28 November 1968 Today is Thanksgiving in Vietnam, and I have been pondering my many blessings. I treasure life so much more now and want very much to live through these times. I hope that I will never again be overly concerned with the minor problems of life nor take for granted the simple luxuries we enjoy. I know that this will always be a period in my life of which I will be fiercely 96 Chapter 13 proud. In the meantime...