Earlier this year, a friend of mine died who had been the first subject of one of my upcoming books about people who lived through the Vietnam War. His name was Lance Block, and he'll be missed terribly.
I'm sharing his chapter of the book here in remembrance of him, and to show what's coming in the next year or two.
***
Chapter
One
Lance
Block
American
Infantryman
Aware
that he would probably be put in the military regardless of his own wishes,
Lance Block considered joining the Air Force.
Whether flying a plane, or working at a control center on the ground, he
knew it would be stimulating. However,
his interest really lay in architecture.
An expert with a pencil, Lance enjoyed designing and drawing three
dimensional images. His uncle was one of
the premier architects in the world, designing buildings all across the United
States. He drafted the third tallest
building in Chicago, and had laid out plans for the tallest one before the project
fell apart. Growing up, Lance
occasionally assisted him, and learned a lot as he did.
When he came of age, Lance went
to study mechanical drafting at the University of Santa Cruz. He was instantly successful. Between his experience with his uncle and his
natural talent, Lance was able to translate 3D images to drawings quickly and
precisely. When his class was required
to do isometric drawings of objects, he accurately represented them on the page
to the smallest detail, getting A's in every test, and surpassing all his
classmates.
This expertise would have kept
him out of the Vietnam War as college students whose grade point average
remained above a C were exempt from service.
He was tripped up, however, by his German language class. Lance had not needed to take German. In fact, his mother, who came from Polish
ancestry, discouraged it. But Lance had
an enormous interest in model tanks, and the best book on the market about
German armor was written in their native language, so he was bound and determined
to read it. Had he taken a less
challenging class, Lance could have avoided military service altogether, but
his inability to learn the language dipped his GPA just below a C-, and he
received his draft card in 1968.
His mother, incidentally, never
let him live down the fact that it was learning German that caused him to get
drafted. She and her three sisters
resented the language since World War II, in which Poland had been conquered by
Germany, was just over 20 years earlier.
The occasional guilt Lance felt interfered with his studies, which may
have been why he didn't do well in the class.
In any event, on his way to Vietnam, Lance threw the German book away
out of disgust.
The result of being drafted
rather than joining was that he would have less power determining which branch
to join. However, after going through a
physical examination to determine his fitness eligibility, Lance was given the
opportunity to take tests at the recruiting offices to see which branch was
most appropriate for him. He chose to try
for the Air Force and the Army. The
latter choice was because many of his family members had been in the Army,
including his father, who had stormed beaches in the Pacific Ocean during World
War II.
One of the few stories Lance knew
about his father was when his Wildcat Division was attacking the island of
Palau. The landing craft they were in
got stuck on a reef, and the captain, thinking they had hit shore, had the ramp
opened and ordered the men out. Lance's
father, who had a full, nearly 100 pound field radio on his back, dashed out
first and dropped into the ocean.
Realizing they hadn't reached shore yet, the captain ordered the boat to
back up, leaving Private Block behind to sink.
Block's best friend managed to reach into the water and pull him back
onto the craft before they left, however, saving his life.
Aside from this one account, and
a few other short stories, Lance knew little of his father's experience. So when he passed both the Air Force and Army
tests, he chose to go into the Army. The
Army then placed him in the infantry because Lance had written in his test that
he liked to go camping. "That was a
big mistake now that I think back on it," Lance now says.
He spent the first three days at
the Los Angeles Induction Center, a medical building near downtown. There he got to know eight guys who were
close in line because their names all started with similar letters. Dressed in only their underwear and carrying
their clothes and paperwork in their arms, the nine young men shuffled through
the multitude of rooms, following arrows on the ground that led them from
doctor to doctor who checked them out to make sure they had no diseases or
other disabilities.
They all had bunk beds near one
another, and they became close friends over the three days in LA. They then traveled together to Fort Ord where
they got their buzz cuts, and they went to basic training together at Fort
Washington.
One of the men that Lance became
particularly good friends with was a young man named Peter Borse. He had been the first person Lance met while
standing in line at the medical center, and the two of them had remained close
throughout training. Peter was the son of
a minister, and hoped to carry on in the same profession when he returned from
the war. He exemplified what he
preached, showing a genuine interest in other people's thoughts and
feelings. "You couldn't help but
like him," Lance says today about Peter.
The nine friends did everything
together, mostly going to see movies during their time off. It didn't matter what was playing, they
didn't have a lot of choices. They just
went to whatever was there. Before and
after the movies, they talked about everything from politics to regrets of the
past and plans for the future. They were
all very different from one another, coming from widely differing social and
economic backgrounds. Politically, they
were all over the spectrum. They
probably would never have met outside of the military.
Training included target practice
and sparring in hand to hand combat with other recruits. Lance was good with a gun. He figured that would be what's necessary in
modern combat. "In my mind, if you
have to use a knife or your fist, you've fucked up," Lance says. And he hoped it wouldn't come to that,
because he was terrible at melee, getting beaten down by nearly every trainee.
One of them, who had been a
fighter before the army, saw that Lance was struggling; so he went over to him
and gave him some pointers. They were
sporadic suggestions, as he could not linger long without being yelled at by
the sergeant.
During the three months, trainees
received paperwork that gave some idea of where they would be going and what
they would be doing. Those who received
orders to go to advanced training were on their way to Vietnam. Others would be mustered into American forts
either in the US or somewhere else in the world.
Lance and his eight friends all
got transfers to Fort Benning, Washington.
They would be going to advanced infantry training. "We all saw the writing on the
wall," Lance says today.
Advanced training was the same as
basic training, just more intense.
Lance's small band of friends were in different platoons, so they were
separated during their drills and instructions, but they continued to get
together and do things during their time off.
Lance was increasingly impressed by Peter, who, as far as he was
concerned, was already taking on the role of minister. He was the one who de-escalated arguments,
and who everyone turned to with their problems.
He was the ever-present voice of reason, and the group psychologist.
Lance continued to be bad at hand
to hand combat. One soldier got
especially aggressive while fighting him, and wouldn't let up after the
sparring was complete. Lance didn't understand
what the man had against him, but a day after their training sessions, the same
trainee wanted to be good friends with him.
Lance let him hang out with himself and his friends, but found the whole
experience unusual.
After advanced training, soldiers
were given time off to visit their families one last time before being shipped
off to war. Many were then sent
individually, but Lance and his friends were able to go over together, stopping
first at Fort Lewis for some final rifle training; then on to Hawaii, Japan,
and finally landing in Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam.
From there they were transported to Bien Hoa as replacement
recruits. This was another point at
which soldiers were generally separated as they were placed into units that
needed new soldiers. But luckily for the
nine friends, the First Cavalry was in need of a lot more soldiers, so they all
went to An Khe together in the central part of South Vietnam.
There, Lance and the other
soldiers went through additional training.
This time it was more specific to the environment and the tactics being
employed in the area. They trained with
helicopters, practicing landings and descending from ropes into the
jungle. They also trained in survival
methods, and learned how to use the equipment they would be utilizing out on
patrol.
The First Cavalry Division,
Airmobile, was one of the most decorated units in the military, and one that
exemplified the strategies employed in Vietnam.
The First Cav. initially grew out of the days of horseback riders to evolved
into a light mobile unit meant for fast strikes. It matured to include combined arms, and
served with distinction in World War II and the Korean War. With the inclusion of helicopters into the
military, the renamed "1st Air Cavalry" led the way into the new
tactical doctrine; flying troops into an area that had just been bombarded with
artillery, then controlling the territory with the support of combat
helicopters. The division was present at
the Battle of Ia Drang the first major engagement of the Vietnam War, and was
stationed in the most hotly contested area near the center of the DMZ, the
border between North and South Vietnam.
Lance and all of his friends had
expressed desires to serve in a combat zone for extended periods of time
because doing so meant they could get out of the army five months early. They had two year enlistments, and none of
them wanted to make a career out of the military, so they all wanted
early-outs.
Though they were all part of
Charlie Company, Lance was part of first platoon while the rest of his friends
were in third platoon, so they were separated in the enormous base. An Khe, (also known as Camp Radcliff, named
after the division's first casualty,) was a combination airfield and base camp
large enough to hold three divisions. It
had a 26 kilometer perimeter, nicknamed the Green Line with three-man
watchtowers every 50 meters. The
escalation in the area made it the largest helicopter base in the world, with
more than 400 helicopters on what was nicknamed the Golf Course because of how
level the ground was made to accommodate the aircraft. This field was bordered by a long runway
capable of landing enormous C-130 Hercules aircraft which flew in new troops
like Private Block and his friends.
Lance's quarters were inside a
bunker whose walls were made of sandbags held up by corrugated pipes. These were made to resist against the mortar
attacks that would occasionally come in from somewhere outside the base.
The first thing Lance noticed was
the same thing most soldiers noticed, how hot and muggy it was. Average temperatures were in the 80s, while
the humidity hung over 90%. To make
matters worse, he had flown in during the monsoon season. This meant that the rain started falling
about 3:00 in the afternoon, and continued late into the night.
Everyone in the base had bunkers
to hide in due to the sporadic mortar attacks from either the North Vietnamese
or the Viet Cong. Typically, no one
would ever learn which one it had been as either the attackers disappeared into
the forest before anyone could reach them, or their bodies were charred by the
counter-battery fire from the American base.
Soldiers in Lance's company
decorated their quarters with pine boxes they got from the artillery. These boxes had transported shells, and were
being thrown out after delivering their ordinance; but infantrymen noticed how
finely crafted they were, and how well they served as cabinets and chests,
storing personal items such as radios, framed photographs, and other
paraphernalia. They also served well as
tables, and, when filled with sandbags, made for good roof supports in their
bunkers. These disposable boxes were the
backbone of many homes away from home for the soldiers.
The other thing that stood out to
Lance at first, and that he noticed throughout the war, was the incompetence of
the leadership. Commanders had come from
West Point, where they had clearly not learned the same skills that the
soldiers who had been drafted or signed up at recruitment centers had. It seemed that their training was all
cerebral and abstract, not practical. They
seemed to have no idea how anything actually worked. They would give orders with little to no
understanding of how those commands could be implemented, and made demands that
served their egos, but accomplished nothing.
The root of the problem seemed to
stem from the classism which put the officers into their positions, and the
inherent narcissism that followed.
Students at West Point were typically taken from a pool of upper class
citizens who had the right connections.
They were accepted due to social status rather than merit. Their training then consisted of lessons from
traditional warfare fought on battlegrounds against large, identifiable, well
equipped enemies. They were taught discipline
and a rigid social structure, one in which they were told on graduation day
that they were at the top.
Thus, when a soldier trained in
the proper, modern use of equipment, and who had witnessed this new sort of
warfare firsthand, tried to inform the commanders of the reality of the Vietnam
War, they were met with deaf ears, and a stern dressing down. They also found themselves bypassed in the
chain of command by those who told the officers what they wanted to hear; thus
creating more leaders who were in denial of the realities of combat in Vietnam.
"Oh god, you couldn't tell
this son of a bitch anything," Lance says today, thinking back on some of
his commanding officers. "Some of
the guys who get into these places is because of who they know or their
pedigree. Doesn't mean they have what it
takes or should be."
One instance that exemplifies
Lance's point was when a captain ordered Lance's platoon to climb down a rope
ladder from a chopper directly into the woods that had not been cleared of the
enemy. The captain wanted to impress his
commanding officers with his plan to coordinate assaults from Chinooks. The back of the helicopters would open, and
the soldiers would throw cargo nets down, then descend quickly into combat
areas.
The plan would save the
helicopters from having to land, but when it was tried, the cargo nets flapped
wildly under the wake of the blades, and the soldiers who tried to climb were
tossed about. They struggled to hold
onto the ropes while also keeping hold of their weapons. Their 70 pound packs drug them downward, and
the rope ladders got tangled. The
soldiers were supposed to descend two by two, but many of them got twisted up,
causing a traffic jam that slowed everyone, and nearly caused many of them to
fall.
All this was not only a
humiliation in front of higher ranking officers; the company had been so noisy
coming in that if there was any enemy within the area they would have easy
targets to shoot down. And the
helicopters would still be at risk; not being able to easily gain altitude with
all that dragging weight, and with soldiers at risk of falling to their deaths
if they did get very far into the air.
Luckily for everyone, there was
no enemy nearby, and the entire platoon got down safely. But the officer chewed them out for taking so
long.
Lance was not long in-country
before he was sent out on patrol. The
typical patrol lasted 28 days, and it involved a company marching out into the
woods around the main base searching for enemy units or individuals. It was also intended to stop enemy operations
in the area.
Closer to the base, this involved
locating mortar emplacements used for bombardments. Further out, this involved finding Viet Cong
rebels, or North Vietnamese soldiers in a tactic called "search and
destroy." This could be interpreted
by individual commanders, but it typically meant killing enemy combatants because
the measure of success was counted in numbers of casualties.
To the soldiers, it usually meant
ferreting out enemy operatives and equipment so they could not be used against
the American base, the South Vietnamese soldiers, or the local villages. While some of these villagers were themselves
undercover operatives working for the Viet Cong, Lance found that most of them
he met were resentful of the North Vietnamese invasion, and were fearful of
their attacks.
During one of his early patrols,
Lance's company located radios the enemy had left behind when escaping. The soldiers were surprised to hear American
voices on these radios. The enemy had their
frequencies, and were listening in. From
that moment forward, Charlie Company tried to keep their radio calls to a
minimum, at least insofar as it gave away their position.
The soldiers carried three days
of dried rations at a time, which were called LRPPs, (Long Range Patrol
Packets.) Inside the packets was
dehydrated food with some seasoning.
There was also a miniature pack of four cigarettes for those who smoked. Those who didn't could trade them away with
those who did for food or something else they had.
If a soldier wanted to cook their
food or boil their water, there was a small powder blue bar that was the same
shape and size of a bar of soap which came with the rations. To use it, a soldier dug a small hole, placed
the blue bar at the bottom and placed a few sticks on top of it. When he lit it with a match that came with
the blue bar, a nearly invisible flame lit up.
During the most pitch black night, one could notice a faint blue glow
emanating from the source, but that was the only light coming from the
flame. There wasn't even a smell, smoke,
or crackling unless it came from the twigs.
The intention of this was to
remain hidden from the enemy, though this didn't seem to make much
difference. The American soldiers were
so loud as they moved through the woods, and especially when they set up camp,
that Lance figured the entire country must know exactly where they were at any
time.
Supply drops came in by
helicopter every few days, bringing food, ammunition, mail, and replacement
parts for any equipment they might have.
They also brought in two bottles of beer and two sodas for each
soldier. Lance didn't drink, and he
traded away his beer for more soda or food.
He likely got the best deal out of the trade since soldiers in the
jungle would sweat so much they wouldn't have a chance to get drunk or even
buzzed.
After a grueling 28 days in the
jungle, the company returned to camp for a few days off. They had been wearing the same clothes the
entire time without changing. When Lance
took them off, he found that they had grown so stiff that they stood up on
their own.
Lance was also the only member of
his platoon who wore underwear. Others
felt that it chaffed them and they threw them away, but Lance kept his. He ultimately ended up feeling more
comfortable near the end when others soiled their pants and had to keep wearing
them and Lance was able to discard his underwear when there was an accident.
Soldiers had only three days of
respite between each patrol, so they tried to make the time count. Though Lance's friends from training went out
on the same patrols as him, he didn't see much of them while outside the base,
so he got together with his friends during these respites. The first thing Lance noticed every time he
visited their part of the camp was Peter Borse counseling someone, or hosting a
religious service. He had quickly made
friends with other members of the platoon, and become known throughout the
company as someone people could turn to when they were having trouble coping
with the frightening and difficult conditions.
Lance's company was soon sent out
on an assault mission. The soldiers were
dropped off in a clearing just large enough for six helicopters at a time. The third platoon was dropped off in the
first wave, and they rushed into the tree line, securing the perimeter. Lance's platoon came in on the second
wave. They, too, hurried into the tree
line in a similar, but different direction than third platoon.
They were all under fire from the
enemy further in the woods. The
Americans returned fire, but did not call to one another using the radio. Ever since they had learned that the NVA and
Viet Cong were listening in, they kept radio silence; and instead used colored
smoke grenades to signal orders, send answers, and to mark areas where they
requested fire or movement from other squads.
First platoon had taken some casualties, and they requested both
reinforcements and fire support. The
request for fire support was red smoke, which they threw ahead of them toward
the enemy so the Cobra helicopter would know where to lay down a devastating
barrage.
Lance had the yellow smoke
grenade which was the signal that his squad acknowledged the reinforcement
request, and was on its way.
Unfortunately, the grenade was in his pack, and he had to pull it off
and go through the pockets to locate it.
Not finding the grenade immediately, he realized it was at the bottom,
so Lance held the pack upside down and emptied the whole thing to get to the
grenade. The sergeant was livid, standing
over Lance shouting at him for taking so long.
He wanted to be across that field already helping third platoon.
At last Lance found the grenade
and handed the canister to the sergeant.
As this was happening, someone threw another colored smoke grenade into
the clearing just behind third platoon.
It was a marker to show the corporal where his helicopter would
land. The corporal had wanted a color
different from everyone else's landing colors to denote his importance. He had chosen red.
Lance quickly scooped everything
into his pack, threw it onto his back and stood up. The sergeant ordered them forward across the
clearing to help third platoon. They had
made it one step when the entire area exploded.
The Cobra helicopters had seen the red smoke used to mark the corporal's
landing spot and had mistaken it for their firing orders. The resulting friendly fire devastated the
third platoon.
Despite the disaster, the
Americans held the ground, and that night they made camp. One of Lance's friends from third platoon
found him and told him the results. Most
of the people they had signed up with were dead or wounded. Peter Borse had been killed instantly. The soldier didn't say much else. He just returned into the darkness, back to
his platoon.
Lance was devastated. His thoughts swayed from the remorse he had
for his friend he would never see again, to the luck he had for having been
stalled by the buried smoke grenade, to the survivor's guilt, knowing he had lived
while so many men right in front of him had not.
When he returned to base, Lance
had little spirit left. To add to his
misery, he had contracted malaria. He
was sent to the hospital. When he
arrived, he saw other soldiers who had been wounded in battles; soldiers who
were bleeding profusely, missing limbs, some on death's door. Lance felt guilty for being there with a
fever. And it threw him into a tailspin
of emotion; thinking of his friends, of the people who had died right in front
of his eyes, and how he'd be with them if he hadn't screwed up the placement of
his smoke grenade in his pack. Then he
felt bad about thinking of himself.
Without work keeping him
constantly busy, and with his mind sick from malaria, Lance fell apart in the
hospital. He was now treated for mental,
as well as physical illness. A doctor
trained in psychology saw him, and he kept him in the hospital even after the
malaria was cured. Lance rested, trying
to come to terms with everything that had happened. While the loss of every life there was
devastating, it was the loss of Peter Borse that he could not reconcile. He was the best of all of them, Lance
believed; and if karma could not see fit to keep alive a man who was good to
everyone he saw, then no one was safe.
After two weeks, the doctor could
no longer keep him in the hospital.
Lance felt fine about returning, however. The work would make him too busy to be
haunted by the sadness and guilt he felt.
Soon, he was on patrol again.
Each time he went out on these
nearly month-long excursions he saw something unusual. One day the jungle seemed to open up into a
completely different land. The heavy
foliage disappeared above them and bright light shone down, revealing long,
thin emerald chutes which grew straight upward until they disappeared into the
white sky. The ever-present humidity now
seemed to hold a green glow in the air.
This was the bamboo forest.
The patrol traversed this
environment for half a day until they reached the old part of the woods. Here, ancient, dying bamboo chutes bowed into
one another until they formed giant trapezoids; like great works of
architecture or vast cathedrals. The
sunlight, beaming at an angle through the verdant leaves of the young trees,
splashed across the dead amber and hazel leaves of the ground and reflected the
old, beige wood to create a golden haze which hovered just over the forest
floor. All around them in the stillness,
an omnipresent clicking noise echoed as if the trees were talking to one
another.
Here, under the protection of
nature's tall structures, the unit settled in to camp for the night. They started by creating a circular perimeter,
laying out trip wires attached to land mines and claymores, which were mines
set off with a triggering mechanism.
They also set up flares which could be lit up to illuminate oncoming
enemies. First, third, and fourth
platoons created the circle, and third platoon set up in the center with the
mortars. Often the men had air
mattresses they would blow up, and the sounds of an entire company of soldiers
filling them with air at night and letting the air out in the morning were
noises that stood out among the jungle noises.
That night, as they dug their
foxholes, the soldiers began to find old artifacts left behind from World War 2. Lance found a Japanese helmet. During other patrols he had located artifacts
from other wars. It spoke volumes to
just how long fighting had been taking place in that region.
Another time that they came upon
strange foliage, Lance was walking point and got stopped by a strange and rare
plant which was incredibly difficult to chop through. He started to cut around it, but the sergeant
insisted he go straight through. Lance
and a few others continued to chop away at the plant, causing a great deal of
noise that would have alerted any enemies within earshot had they been there,
and holding up the entire company.
Finally, what would have taken ten minutes had they gone around, was
achieved after a half hour.
The men dreaded going across
rivers as they always came out with leeches.
They didn't feel them as they attached silently, and sometimes under the
clothes. It wasn't until a while later
when they would feel a soreness; and when they looked for the source, they
found the slimy body attached to a lump about the size of a quarter. The person could only remove it with bug
repellant, because yanking them out would rip open the skin and cause an
infection. Once the creature was taken
off, the bulge remained for as long as three months. Lance still had some marks on his legs for
years after the war.
One day, Lance's company was
relieved to find they would be walking across a natural bridge of huge logs
laying across a shallow pond. The water
beneath them was crystal clear; they could see all the way to the bottom.
They were about halfway across,
all of them single file, when the point man noticed a group of soldiers, also
single file, strolling across another bridge that was perpendicular to theirs,
heading in their direction. After a
moment, he noticed that they were enemy soldiers, so he fired and hit one of
them in the head. The rest of the enemy
soldiers went running, and Lance fell into the pond, getting a mouthful of the
water.
The sergeant yelled at Private
Block as he climbed back onto the log, throwing up as he did. The sergeant told him to toughen up, it was
just water, but Lance's true reason for throwing up was he had seen the young
man's head explode when he was shot, and the pieces had fallen into that clear
water that Lance had just swallowed.
Even though it had happened too far away to have gotten to him, the thought
of it wouldn't leave.
At one river crossing, recon
helicopters had reported that they had sighted bunkers on the opposite
side. It was a perfect location for an
ambush as there was a steep embankment on the side with the bunkers. Lance and about fifteen others were called up
to the front with grenade launchers, and they fired a host of barrages for
about five to ten minutes to clear the way.
By the time they were done, they had blasted away the tree line and
filled the embankment with craters.
When they ceased fire, the
company of nearly a hundred men rushed forward, across the river and up the
other side. There, they didn't find any
bunkers. They hadn't been destroyed,
they simply weren't there. As they continued
forward, past the destruction and into the tree line, they finally came upon
the bunkers. They were all still
intact. None of the plethora of grenades
they had fired had reached their intended targets.
Luckily for the company, however,
the bunkers weren't manned. Had they
been populated with machine guns, they could have all been shot down.
Each platoon was assigned a blockhouse
to investigate. Lance's commander was
angry at him, so he was sent inside first.
Just as Lance opened the door, he heard the snapping of a wire, the sure
sign of a trap. Lance jumped back,
certain there would be an explosion.
After several seconds, when nothing happened, he and some others peeked
inside. They found a grenade inside of a
sea ration can with a broken wire attached to it. The wire had rusted, and the trap had been a
dud. Lance had been saved by a recent
monsoon that had gone through.
His company had been on their way
to a village, something they regularly did.
Much has been made of the poor treatment that some American military
personnel gave to villagers, which did happen.
But the terrible treatment caused by the other side, which was far more
numerous, has been largely ignored.
Private Block's company sometimes came upon villages that had been raided
by the Viet Cong and NVA, and he heard stories of villagers who were threatened
and beaten by them.
While on patrol his company found
AK-47s, magazines, and ammunition found inside large straw rice bowls. Often, the soldiers kept a couple items they
found for souvenirs, but only the officers were able to keep most of them. Lance managed to return to the US with a
magazine of ammunition with the gunpowder removed.
Which villagers were complicit
and which were threatened and coerced was unclear. It seemed to Lance that most of them just
wanted to be left alone by both sides.
But if they didn't help the Americans, their houses were burned, and if
they didn't help the Viet Cong, they were killed.
Lance's company worked alongside
the South Vietnamese soldiers, known as ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam,)
during a six day sustained battle in which they were trying to remove NVA and
VC troops from a supply depot. The US
and ARVN forces fought on two separate sides of a river. Though the river kept them from easily
reinforcing one another, it ensured there would be little to no friendly fire
where American troops mistook ARVNs for the enemy.
Each day the US and ARVN troops
moved up until the enemy began firing; at which point a colored smoke grenade
was thrown forward and artillery and air power would come down on the
enemy. The Viet Cong and NVA troops
would pull back, and the US and ARVN would follow until fired upon again. Lance didn't see the enemy soldiers, but he
heard the shots and the orders to fire.
This process repeated over and
over throughout the week, typically 30 times a day. At night the enemy countered with mortar fire
that ran through the US/ARVN lines.
And thus the cycle continued
until one day when NVA and VC forces got bold and counter-attacked, coming
close to overrunning Lance's company.
The unit managed to hold them back and caused them to retreat. Even after they were long gone, though,
Lance's commanding officer ordered his men to keep firing. They did, shooting the unmanned trees and
bushes.
Lance saw the sergeant's canteen
sitting on the ground in front of him, so he fired a couple shots into it
during his barrage. When at last the
shooting was done, the sergeant found the holes in the canteen and declared
that the enemy had come that close to hitting him. He went on to tell that story to everyone who
would listen around camp.
After the battle was finished,
the two forces were transported by helicopter up to the top of an inactive
volcano. From this peak they could see
for half a dozen miles in every direction.
The US soldiers set up camp on one side, and the ARVN set up next to
them.
Many of the Americans felt bad
for the ARVN men when they saw what they had.
Their supplies were all in poor shape.
Their food in particular was rank.
Often, all they had to eat were fish heads. Once, when the US soldiers tried their water,
they all contracted dysentery. Whenever
the American soldiers wanted to complain about their own rations, they only
needed to look at their neighbors to realize how lucky they actually had it.
At night, Lance listened to his
radio while laying in a foxhole, (the armed forces had their own station,) another
luxury some of the Americans enjoyed as long as they wore ear plugs. One day he found that the radio was missing,
and he spotted an ARVN soldier who had it.
Private Block told one of the commanders about it, who informed the
Vietnamese sergeant. That officer
retrieved the radio and returned it to Lance, then gave a severe beating to the
offending soldier. He delivered such a
harsh punishment that Lance felt bad for having said anything. The chastened soldier was later placed on a
helicopter and taken off the mountain to face more severe punishment. The ARVN were extremely strict and met
dereliction with acerbity.
Going up and down the mountain
was a treat for Private Block. He had
never flown before, so whenever he rode on a helicopter, he sat on the side so
he could look down on the passing terrain.
Though this was dangerous, it wound up saving his life. Once when a helicopter he was on came in for
a landing with a tight formation of other choppers, the blades of his transport
hit the trees. This caused the body of
the helicopter to begin spinning, and it came down hard on the ground. Being at the doorway, Lance was thrown clear
while the motor crashed into the passenger section of the Huey, crushing those
still inside.
He had the misfortune of a second
crash when he was being extracted for R&R.
They had put too many wounded on board, and the helicopter was unable to
deal with the weight. Luckily, the pilot
was able to keep the Huey from coming down too hard and everyone survived, but
it cured Lance's desire to go up as much as he could.
On the ground, they cut their way
through the jungle, always blazing their own trails in single file to avoid
being ambushed on one of the more widely known paths. During one such excursion, Lance's unit
chopped its way out of the brush into a trail that ran perpendicular to their
route. This sort of discovery was
usually ignored, but there were no other American units in the area, and the
path looked wider and more heavily used than what was typically found, so the sergeant
ordered an inspection.
The platoon made its way along
the path. Soon the woods opened up into
a couple small clearings where they found a few small tables surrounded with
chairs. Then they came upon a long
banquet-sized table complete with fine linen tablecloth, ornate plates with
polished silverware, resplendent decorations, and an entire feast all set up to
be consumed. Steam was even emerging
from the cooked meat and soup. It was as
if dinner had just been served for a king and his court, and then they had
disappeared.
The whole scene was surreal. It looked as though the entire setup had been
transported out of a palace. The
soldiers checked the woods for an ambush or a trap, but the coast was
clear. They had apparently interrupted a
meeting for important dignitaries in the middle of the jungle who had heard
them coming and escaped silently into the woods.
The men of Private Block's
platoon wanted to eat the food, but were afraid. Their own rations left a lot to be desired,
but this food could easily be poisoned.
So the sergeant ordered it all to be destroyed. They set C4 charges along the table that were
typically used for destroying bunkers, and they blew the whole thing up.
No one ever knew what the banquet
had been all about, or for whom it was intended, but they knew that they had
scattered when they heard the Americans coming.
Though more prepared than their
enemy, the Americans were never able to surprise them. Commanders would occasionally try, such as
when a new captain arrived to Charlie Company and ordered his men to set up
along the sides of a trail he had discovered.
He intended to ambush the enemy when they traversed it. His men tried to inform him that the Viet
Cong or the NVA would have heard them and would not be coming, but he ignored
them and ordered them to dig in.
As they did, they found older fox
holes that had been dug by another American platoon that had tried the same
thing. They could always tell when it
was one of their own previous locations because of the junk left behind. Once they were in place, they waited all day,
trying to remain quiet.
That night, when they were
settled in place, the enemy revealed that they knew the Americans were there by
lobbing mortar fire onto them. It was
perfectly placed, and the explosions walked right over them, carpeting their
area. The trap had been set up for them,
not vice versa. Dozens were wounded,
including Lance, earning him the Purple Heart; and they had to be evacuated by
helicopter.
The captain didn't admit his
mistake. He was a West Point graduate and
they were just grunts. One of the
soldiers dropped a grenade into the captain's tent when he wasn't there,
blowing up all of his things as a warning of what could happen if he continued
to abuse them and put them into needless danger.
At night, platoons on patrol
tried to set camp as quietly as possible.
They set up claymore mines and trip wires along their perimeter, but
mortars could land on them if the enemy knew their exact location. One night, this cover was more than blown
when several soldiers accidentally hit their clickers that set off their
claymore mines. Someone else
accidentally set off their flares. This
worked like a domino effect with startled soldiers setting off their own mines
or flares, revealing to anyone within a kilometer exactly where they were. "It was a real fireworks display,"
Lance now recalls.
Though the mistake was made by
multiple soldiers, Lance, who set off one of his own claymores, was the one the
sergeant caught in the act, and upon whom he leveled his fury. After a thorough dressing down of the
private, he placed Lance on point for the next two weeks. This meant he would be out front of the
platoon in the most risky position.
During that time, the company set
out to investigate a bunker complex.
With Lance was a young man who had only been in country for about three
weeks and was eager to get into the fight.
Spotting something up ahead, Lance dropped to the ground. He wasn't sure what he had spotted, so he
crawled forward, followed closely by the kid.
When he got close, Lance realized
what he had seen was a large hole in the ground. He still wasn't close enough to look down
inside, but he could tell that its frame was perfectly cut, like a sizeable
doorway. The young man made his way up
next to Lance and pulled out a grenade, saying, "Let's frag it."
Lance said, "Now wait a
minute! There's something wrong
here. This hole is perfectly
cut!" Usually, the Viet Cong hid in
holes that were rushed, temporary, and roughly hewn. If a structure was well crafted, it usually
meant it was civilian; so he said there might be families down in the
hole. Lance had the kid go back to the
sergeant to retrieve a flashlight, and when he did, Lance shone the light into
the hole.
What he saw gave him chills. The spotlight revealed first a black
tailfin. Then, as he moved the light
further into the hole, it revealed that the tailfin was attached to a large,
2,000 pound unexploded bomb. If they had
thrown a grenade onto it, that would have blown up the entire company.
Visibility was always a problem
on patrol. Not only did it hide the enemy
from sight, but it caused problems for navigation, and in keeping the unit
together. While heading through the
jungle one day, one of the men got distracted for a moment looking in a
different direction. He lost sight of
the man in front of him, and he wandered off to the side; still heading in the
same general direction, but a couple dozen feet from the main line. The men behind him followed, so there were
now two lines walking parallel to one another.
Someone from the first line heard
movement coming from the trees, so he stopped the line. Believing they were about to be ambushed,
they fired blindly into the brush. The
other soldiers returned fire, believing they had been ambushed by the Viet
Cong. After a short while, they figured
out the mistake and ceased fire. By that
time, six men had been killed.
To combat this visibility
problem, the US set about trying methods of deforestation. Charlie Company came across several areas
where dead leaves carpeted the ground leaving the trees bare and visibility
clear. It looked like a fire had come
through, except the tree trunks and branches were still in place. The soldiers were grateful for this as there
was nowhere for the enemy to hide to ambush them. This was the work of an American chemical
called Agent Orange, intended to clear sections of the jungle of cover so US
and allied soldiers could pass without threat.
The unintended consequence was
that it made these soldiers sick. When
Lance later had serious skin problems, such as rashes, severe water blisters,
and peeling skin, he went to the VA doctor to find out what the problem
was. The doctor, without looking at him
and from across the room, declared that he could not have contracted anything
from Agent Orange.
Soldiers were granted two weeks of
R&R. They were provided with a list
of places from which to choose where they would be flown and would be provided
with room and board. Lance chose to
spend one week in Sydney and one week in Hong Kong.
In Sydney, Lance stood out with
his military haircut, his fatigues, and of course his American accent. This worked in his favor when he went to see
True Grit at the theater and the woman at the ticket counter let him in for
free. She even escorted him inside
because the movie had already started and it was dark inside.
He stayed in an area called
King's Crossing, and he was struck by how kind the people were and how
beautiful all the women were. He found
out why later in the day when a stranger approached him and said, "You don't
want to be here."
Confused and a little shocked,
Lance said, "I don't?" The man
then explained that he was in the red light district. That explained a lot, but it didn't really
talk Lance out of leaving the neighborhood.
However the stranger was
interested in showing Lance around town, so he got him on a bus and took him to
lunch, and then on to some of the city's most prominent features. They ended with dinner at the man's home.
The Aussie asked Lance about the
radio he carried around with him, and Lance explained that it was what he
listened to out in the field. It had
gotten wet and Lance was hoping to fix it while in town. The man told him to leave it with him and
he'd get it fixed and send it on to him.
Lance later received it, fully repaired, when he was back in Vietnam.
In Hong Kong, Lance was
constantly accosted by people on the street wanting to sell him something. Women hurled themselves out of bars telling
him to come inside "for a great time." The one thing he bought was a Banging Olsen
stereo system. At the time it was considered
top of the line and Lance could get it at a cheap price, so he had it shipped
to his parents back in the US.
When Lance returned, he was sent
to rear guard duty away from the front line.
Now finished with patrols, he had returned to life in a bunker decorated
with pine wood artillery boxes, bags, and metal pipes. This time, knowing that he would be there for
an extended period, Lance collected colorful sheets for the walls and made
shelves to hold books and cassette tapes.
At Christmas he got a small tree that went up next to his bed.
His jobs included guard duty,
building emplacements for the artillery, KP, burning waste from the latrines, filling
sandbags, cleaning weapons, and laying new barbed wire and land mines. The mines at the base were more involved than
those on the field. They involved
burying a barrel of napalm over a claymore mine. Detonating the claymore exploded the napalm
which took out anyone who was near it.
One of his jobs involved guarding
a garbage truck as it dumped its trash into a long trench. The children from a nearby village, who were
desperate for food, always came running when the garbage truck came. Lance and the men he was working with pulled
out anything that was edible and handed them out to the kids.
One of the soldiers he worked
closely with was an ARVN private who spoke no English. Lance spoke no Vietnamese, but they would
often sit together, share photos with one another, and point things out that
they saw. They each taught one another a
few words in their own language and learned what they could.
Once while he was pulling guard
duty in a watchtower, the base was attacked with mortars and rockets. One of the rockets hit the ammo dump, causing
a mighty explosion. The storage facility
where the American rockets were held was also hit, causing many of their
rockets to launch, hitting other parts of the base.
When one of the rockets flew at
Lance's tower, he jumped out, sliding down the railing, away from the
explosion. He and others dove for cover
until the explosions died down and the attackers were chased off.
It was the last time Lance saw
action in country. Soon after, he was
flown back to the United States. The
plane landed in the middle of the night at an airport near Sacramento. After everything he had been through, his
return was far from a hero's welcome. It
felt more like they were sneaking him home as he was driven into San Francisco
during the wee hours of the morning and put on a plane at San Francisco
International.
The reason for the subterfuge was
because protesters had been crowding the airports yelling at soldiers, calling
them "baby killers" and even hurling things at them. In a shameful display of their beliefs, these
protesters treated each soldier as if they were the worst of the war criminals,
and blamed men who were often drafted, or did what they saw as their duty,
instead of the politicians who caused it.
The irony was that not only were their actions hurtful to those who had
just returned from a harrowing ordeal, they were also useless. Their time belittling soldiers could have
been spent doing something productive toward ending the war, but instead they
wasted it attacking better people than themselves.
And so the flights to take
soldiers home were switched to night time when the protesters were too tired to
show up. (Their values seemed to
dissipate when doing something was inconvenient for them.) Lance was quietly placed on a plane back to
Burbank where his parents met him, and took him home.
He spent much of his life after
that working and traveling on trains, and photographing the places he saw. Lance went to the VA for treatment from a
mortar wound he had sustained, and for skin and muscle problems that stacked
up. He later developed Parkinson's
disease, a common side effect of Agent Orange, and other ailments. Treatment for these illnesses have been
irregular, as the government continued to deny health problems associated with
the powerful defoliant. Even after the
Agent Orange Act passed in 1991, granting veterans treatment for diseases
consistent with exposure to the herbicide, measures were later taken to deny
benefits to soldiers who had served across seas, the very place where the
exposure was the greatest.
In 2018, after four decades of
denial, a bill was at last on its way to passage that would recognize the
connection of Agent Orange to health problems.
The VA opposed the measure until its secretary, David J. Shulkin,
shifted course and called for the measure's passage. But before it could be voted on by the Senate,
Shulkin was removed from his position via Twitter by President Donald Trump. He then appointed a secretary who wanted to
fulfill Trump's desire to move the VA into the private sector. Since claims of health issues from Agent
Orange would cost a lot more money than it would profit, admission would cause
problems for this transition, and so the measure has been dropped, and denial
of claims from Agent Orange continues.
Lance settled down in an
apartment he purchased in Los Angeles.
Nearby, he met a Vietnamese man who owned his own water bottle shop just
around the corner. In speaking with him,
Lance learned that he had been a soldier in the North Vietnamese Army. Lance didn't tell him he had fought on the
other side, but he met him on several occasions, and genuinely liked him.
Lance always meant to talk to the
man about the war, but he was afraid it would boil up too many emotions in both
of them. He never forgot his friend Peter
Borse who had died over there, and he was sure the other man had lost friends,
too.
Eventually, he built up the
courage to go speak with him. But when
he walked around the corner, the business was closed, and Lance never got the
opportunity to speak with someone who had once been his enemy in a land so far
away that it no longer seemed real.
