All Episodes
Previous Next
Dec. 16, 1999 - Bill Cooper
58:13
War on the River
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Wait a moment, little one.
Please be quiet for a little while.
Wait a moment, little one.
the the the
You're listening to the Hour of the Time.
I'm William Cooper.
Good evening. You're listening to the Hour of the Time. I'm William Cooper. Boy, it sounds
like I've got a little mic here.
Let me check some things.
Sounds like the mic's really low.
Let me get it a little closer.
That's better.
That's a little better, I think.
Of course, it could be this cold I have, too.
And I think tonight you're going to, well, I don't know.
I don't know what you're going to think of tonight's broadcast, to tell you the truth.
I hope it does something to you.
Although I don't know what that would be.
I'm going to read something to you.
Now here's the parameter by which you must listen to this.
You've got to be in a dark room because that's the kind of place we're going to visit.
Sort of moody and gloomy.
You've got to be in a dark room.
You should be in a comfortable chair.
You should be able to lean all the way back, put your head back, and close your eyes.
Because I'm going to try and evoke some pictures for you.
I want you to see the place where I'm going to try, I don't know if I can really do this, but I'm going to try to take you somewhere and let you see it.
It's an incredible place.
Maybe two or three of you will recognize it.
I don't think it could possibly be more than that.
But maybe two or three of you will recognize it.
And if you do, then you and I are very close, for those of you who recognize this place.
So, turn out the light.
Find a comfortable chair.
Sit back, close your eyes, and listen, and try to see what it is that I'm describing to you.
It should be an interesting evening, to say the least.
I'm not sure.
I'm A group of colorless shanties placed at odd angles and apart from each other dot the land.
The shacks are bound together by wooden pallets laid end to end forming walkways but leading nowhere.
Sandbags are piled high around each hut.
The boundary to the north is a river.
And to the east is the sea.
The south and west are bounded by Constantino wire, barbed wire, and mined fields.
A concrete ramp slopes gently down and into the river.
East of the ramp is a pier made up of ammi-barges fastened together.
The barges provide a resting place.
For six and eight boats, which bob up and down with the barges as the surf rolls into the river mouth.
West of the ramp are two additional piers.
The first is longer and shelters eight PDRs, Patrol Boat River.
They are Mark 1 PDRs of RIVDIV 543, and they bristle with weapons.
Farther west, just inside the wire boundary, is a 75-foot tower.
Where unseen eyes watch expectantly in all directions from this lofty nest.
At the foot of the tower is the last pier, alongside which are moored five LCPL Mark V patrol boats of the Dong Ha River Security Group.
Very old, vintage, with bullet holes providing ventilation here and there.
One new LCPL Mark XII bobs gently, rolling against its mooring lines.
The groan of mooring lines, the crashing surf, the haunting whisper of the cold sea breeze are the only sounds that one can hear.
The sandbagged shanty nearest the PBR pier is the medical sickbay, where the ill and wounded are treated by three tired Navy corpsmen.
And just to the south and underground is the command post.
Radio antennas reach up from between sandbags striving to touch the low-lying clouds.
Directly east and three huts down the walkway is a sign nailed over the door of a hooch.
It is black with a full moon in the center and a flying bat outlined against the moon.
Under the emblem it reads, Dong Ha River Security Group Night Fighters.
Two more huts to the east and on the other side of the boardwalk is another sign.
It reads, River Division 543.
It is a lonely outpost on the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam.
The sole purpose of the camp is to support the patrol boats.
The mission of the boats is to protect convoys of supply boats, LCUs bound for Dong Ha and Quang Tri, and to deny the enemy access to the river.
Across the river on the north bank is the 3rd Marine Battalion recon camp.
A few tents mark their position in the sand bounded on the east by the South China Sea.
West of the Marine camp is the village of My Loc.
Vietnamese men, women, and children, numbering about two hundred, live in the impoverished wooden homes which form the bulk of this small village.
Their loyalty is questionable at best.
West of the village is an Arvin, South Vietnamese Army compound.
They are poorly trained and normally retreat when confronted by the enemy.
Essentially, they are useless.
Farther west, about one quarter mile, is the rubble of a French colonial city, and up from the ruins rise columns attesting the architecture of a forgotten time.
No one knows when the city was destroyed.
Its history has been lost in the turmoil and misery of war and exploitation.
Immediately to the west of the ruins, a creek runs to the north.
The mouth of this trickle of water is strung with row after row of concertina wire.
The wire denies access to or from the creek by any boat or swimmer.
The mouth of the creek is called Whiskey 2.
On the south bank, across from Whiskey 2, is an old colonial home.
It is the headquarters of Coastal Group 11.
The force consists of three American Navy advisors, forty-three men of the South Vietnamese Navy, and seven junk patrol boats.
Each man in the Vietnamese junk force has a tattoo on his chest.
It reads, SACCOM.
The tattoo means, Kill Communists.
These men are loyal, dependable, and vicious fighters.
Their mission is to patrol the sea coast from the DMZ south to the Perfume River.
The junk boats in their unit bear witness to the superstitious nature of the men.
This is denoted by the eyes painted on the bow of each boat.
The Vietnamese believe the eyes guide them and ward off harmful spirits.
It is a common trait of the Vietnamese to belong to and practice several different religions at the same time.
Since death is so near, they reason, it is best to belong to them all.
If they practice only one, It may be the wrong one.
In effect, they believe in covering all the bases.
It is the monsoon season.
The wind courses from the north and east, cursing this place with cold rain and low, black, ominous clouds.
The light filtering through casts its drab finger on the land, striking shadows dead.
It is a perpetual twilight that eats at the soul and spreads the specter of doom.
Sand is everywhere.
Sand is everywhere.
Sand.
It's in the cots.
It's in your clothes.
It's in the food.
It's in the shacks.
It's in the boats.
It's everywhere.
Gritty, irritating, coarse sand invades all.
There is no escape from it.
It is so much a part of life that if it disappeared, one would miss it dearly.
The Takon River is dark and muddy.
The current is strong, grabbing all things, eating away the banks and plants and sweeps them down to the sea.
The rain in the mountains swells the river beyond its limits, flooding low-lying areas.
Sandbars lying just below the surface shift and change daily, like a mischievous child playing tag with the boats.
Water is dangerous.
Aside from the normal fish, it harbors sharks near the river mouth, and deadly water snakes permeate its entire length.
It conceals mines planted by the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong.
To the Vietnamese, it provides food and travel from dawn until sundown when curfew begins.
To us, it is a mysterious evil monster to be confronted each night, night after night, Night upon night, endlessly, without any break, every single night.
The river is strategic to both sides.
It is a natural barrier and an important supply route for Quang Tri and Dong Ha.
The river mouth is three miles south of the DMZ, which is the Demilitarized Zone.
The DMZ is a stretch of land running east and West along the 17th parallel from the sea to the Laotian border.
It is five miles wide and is the most desolate, devastated place on earth.
It is a gloomy, hellish area where nothing grows, nothing grows.
It is bombed often and sprayed with defoliants constantly.
No man, no animal, no plant will ever be able to live or travel this killing ground safely.
It is the surface of the moon, pocketed with bomb craters poisoned by chemicals and hiding mines everywhere.
But despite all these dangers, the North Vietnamese cross it as a matter of routine.
We also venture in from time to time, but it is insanity.
One mile west of Whiskey II, Jones Creek carries the deadly chemicals from North Vietnam and the DMZ and dumps into the river.
The creek was named after an American patrol boat sailor, the first American killed on the creek.
Jones Creek is narrow and treacherous, but navigable.
Thick vegetation lines the banks, providing convenient cover for sudden and very, very deadly ambush.
About 400 meters, four clicks, north of the creek's mouth is another marine outpost on the east bank.
Again, an old colonial home is utilized.
The outpost consists of one platoon of recon marines from the 3rd Marine Battalion and their officer, a green lieutenant.
Jones Creek is also strategic because it is a favorite infiltration route of the NVA and the Viet Cong.
This creek, Jones Creek, strikes fear, cold numbing fear, into the hearts of those who patrol it.
The enemy uses the creek frequently and has the upper hand.
The NVA and VC can pick the spot of confrontation and make good preparations.
The thick vegetation provides them with cover and can hide many things from the men on the boats.
Because the creek is narrow, very narrow, ambush is deadly.
Even though the enemy has the advantage, he fears the boats as much as the men on the
boats fear the Creek.
The arch-enemy of the men who patrol the Tocon River is the N.B.A. 125th Naval Sapper Regiment.
you It is a special unit trained in existing only to destroy the patrol boats and regain control of the river.
Eighty percent of all contact with the enemy on the Tocon River involves elements of the North Vietnamese Army's 125th Naval Sapper Regiment.
The remaining 20% involve other units of NVA and BC forces whose mission is unknown.
The headquarters of the NVA 125th Naval Staffer Regiment is on the coast of North Vietnam, about 15 miles north of the DMZ.
The Tocon River is divided into five patrol areas.
The first, called One Lima, begins at the river mouth and ends at Whiskey Two.
The second, Two Lima, begins at Whiskey Two and ends at the New Channel.
The New Channel is at the mouth of Jones Creek.
It is a shortcut carved through an island.
It is faster, enabling the boats to patrol the river more efficiently.
Three Lima is the adjacent patrol area running from the New Channel to Whiskey One Three.
It is the tip of a triangular island, a tributary of the river runs behind the island joining Jones Creek.
Whiskey One Three is the northwestern tip of the Triangle.
The island is covered with mounds.
The mounds are graves, hundreds of graves.
The Vietnamese bury their dead on top of the ground and then cover them with earth and
make a huge mound.
.
The island beginning on the south bank of the New Channel is also covered with graves.
Some of these have monuments of stone built above or around them.
Some of the graves are flat.
They could be French, Catholic burial places.
In any event, it is a scary, haunted place where strange things happen.
No word is ever spoken of it, but the men on the boats believe it is a bad place to die.
Four Limas Patrol Area begins at Whiskey 1-3 and ends at Whiskey 9, where the River narrows.
Whiskey 9 is a favorite ambush and fording spot for NBA and DC units infiltrating South.
The north bank at the spot is rocky, covered with very large trees and thick vegetation.
Whiskey 9 requires an alert crew and an extremely cautious attitude.
From Whiskey Nine to the bridge at the city of Dong Ha is Five Limas patrol area.
The patrol requires the same caution required of Four Limas.
There are two additional areas which are patrolled infrequently.
The first is Jones Creek.
The second is the river branch running from Whiskey Nine to Quang Tri City.
It is known as the Quang Tri Cut-Off.
During the dry summer months, the Cut-Off is not navigable.
The water level is too low for the draft of the boats.
At the southwest bank, where the quang tree cut-off begins, there is a small sampan city inhabited by boat people.
They are born, live, fish, and die on their sampans.
Some of them have never stood on solid ground in their entire life.
When daylight fades and night comes suddenly upon the river, death begins to reap its harvest, ghastly stalking those who venture out.
The cards are dealt.
Each man has his hand.
Some will win, some will lose, and some will break even.
The fireworks begin.
In the ghostly light of flares, the shadows dance.
Red tracers light up the sky.
In the distance, the brilliant light of a hundred explosions flashes as flying machines let go their lethal load.
It is a million-fourth of July's All in one night, every night.
Charlie creeps out of hiding to confront the boats.
Men are locked in mortal combat.
It is darker than dark.
The monsoon clouds smother all light from the heavens.
Adrenaline flows, and the specter of fear looms in the hearts of men.
The night passes slowly, oh, so very slowly, as if for eternity there would be no light, no warmth upon the earth.
Men strain to see in the black void which envelops them.
They listen intently for any warning which may save their life.
The sounds of battle are everywhere, some near, some far, but everywhere.
On this night, Tulema ventures into the new channel.
Red streaks of light suddenly cut the night.
The whoosh of rockets are deafening.
The boat responds with only yards between the two antagonists.
A fierce exchange takes place, and blood flows on the deck of the boat.
Blood runs upon the ground.
The cries of the wounded rang upon the air, and courage crumbles for some.
As suddenly as it began, it is finished.
The killing is done, and it is almost morning.
Yet it seems as if morning will never come.
The first thing that is noticed is the fog settling down to rest upon the earth.
As the sun creeps over the horizon, a little light—very little—filters through, and the boats begin to work their way home.
The men are weary and spent.
Some are dazed.
Some will sleep today, and some will not.
Some will awaken in a hospital somewhere far away.
Some will go home to their family in body bags.
But those alive will confront the monster again and again and again.
There is no rest and there is no reason.
No one in the world knows of this place.
It is only a small part of a large and terrible nightmare.
But it is reality.
Stark naked slap you in the face reality.
And here a hot beer tastes damn good.
Rice and sea rations are a gourmet meal.
Nothing is taken for granted.
For here, every day and every night, every moment, every second, life walks hand in hand with death.
of Vietnam, 1968.
♪♪ ♪♪
Well, the phones are open, folks.
520-333-4567.
520-333-4567.
520-333-4578.
If anybody out there recognized that place and was there, I sure would like to hear from you.
But, uh, I bet in this whole world, there's just a handful of people who were ever there And probably none are listening to this broadcast.
520-333-4578 is the number.
When the boy in your arms is the boy that you love.
When the boy in your arms is the boy in your heart.
Then you've got everything you need.
When you're holding the dream You can dream when you hold
You're as rich as a king So hold him tight
And never let him go Day and night
Let him know you love him so With the love of your life
Spend a lifetime in love Make him yours forevermore
🎵 So hold him tight
And never let him go Day and night
Let him know you love him so With the love of your life
Spend a lifetime in love Make him yours forevermore
Making yours forevermore.
Making yours forevermore Well, no one is called.
What I'd like to know is, were you able to see it?
As you sat in your chair, with your eyes closed, were you able to see what I was describing to you in what I was reading?
Did it materialize out of the mist?
Good evening, early groups.
The phone was ringing, but they hung up, I guess.
Too bad.
Incidentally, the name of the music that I played right after reading that piece, the name of it is Quaviet River.
So, somebody's been there besides me.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Uh-huh, Bill Spencer, Kansas City, Missouri.
Hi Spence, how are you doing? I am doing pretty good. That was quite the bit of writing. Whoever did that, whoever
wrote that. Did you like it?
Yeah in a way it was kind of horrible. At the same time it was just mesmerizing. Were you able to see it?
Yeah, yeah I swear I was, especially the beach part with the craters and it looking like the moon. I was kind of eerie
to tell you the truth.
Well let me tell you where the music came from. Did you ever see Born on the Fourth of July? Tom Cruise could not,
no I never did.
Well, Born on the Fourth of July is about a man who was wounded at Whiskey Nine on the Coivet River and became a
paraplegic, or quadriplegic I guess it was.
Was it paraplegic or quadriplegic?
I forget which.
Para, he had the use of his arms, I think.
OK.
That battle took place at Whiskey Nine on the river.
And you don't see it in the movie, but it was the boats, the patrol boats that brought those marines out of there alive.
And he was one of the men who I brought out on my boat.
You're kidding.
No, I'm not kidding at all.
That's why you hear that music a lot on this broadcast.
You know, I didn't even know that was a true story in the movie.
It's a true story, yes it is.
And the name of that selection that followed my reading was Quaviet River.
Who wrote it?
Did he write it?
No.
I wrote it.
Well, hats off.
I wrote it years and years and years ago.
And the name of that selection that followed my reading was Quaviet River.
Who wrote it?
Did he write it?
No.
I wrote it.
Well, hats off.
I wrote it years and years and years ago.
In fact, I wrote a whole book about the river.
That is not even a part of the book.
That's what you call an atmospheric treatise.
In order to set the groundwork for what you're going to write in a book, you sit down and you describe where you're at, as much as you possibly can remember, if you're writing something that's true.
If you're writing fiction, then of course you make it up all out of your head.
But what I read to you is true.
One hundred percent true.
The movie Born on the Fourth of July is true.
You don't see the river in the movie, and you don't see the boats.
I don't know why they did it that way, but they did.
And he was a part of the 3rd Marine Recon Battalion, which worked very closely with us.
I had a Marine Recon team assigned to my boat every night.
And I would take them upriver to my patrol area, and I would insert them somewhere, and then they would be under my command for the night.
And usually, so they wouldn't get hurt, I would I would not ever use them as an ambush, but as a listening post.
That's stuff I never once heard about you, except I knew where you were during the war.
That didn't sound like you, the writing.
It didn't sound like anything you'd done on your show.
No, it's not like anything I've ever done on my show.
At the time I wrote it, Oh God, I can't even remember when I wrote it.
It was many, many years ago.
I can tell you that.
And Doyle, actually going through the storage, our storage lockers, I asked him to, you know, look for a manuscript.
If you ever see anything that looks like a manuscript, get it and bring it back to me.
So he found it.
And he brought it back to me after all those years.
And, you know, for a year I haven't been able to talk about it.
I want to eventually finish the book and polish it and have it published.
Because I think people need to know what it was like, the war on the river.
There aren't too many books about the war on the river, you know.
Not that I've ever read.
On any of the rivers, as a matter of fact.
What do you mean for a year you haven't been able to talk about it?
No, I haven't been able to talk about it very much for most of my life.
But I'm talking about since Doyle brought the manuscript from the storage locker.
In fact, when he handed it to me, I just, emotions swelled up in my chest and tears started pouring out.
I'm going to have to ask Doyle about it.
But it was a very emotional experience and when I opened it up and began to read what I'd written all those years ago and all those memories came flooding back.
It's taken me this long to be able to talk about it on the air.
You know, Bill, that I've never been in the military and I've certainly never seen an armed conflict.
And it just brings to mind a lot of the boys out there playing and doing their supposed militia duty.
And we don't really have any idea what we're kind of playing around with, do we?
Well, somebody needs to learn that.
Really.
You know, the other night, I think maybe a week or two weeks ago, I did one movie, An Injustice.
I said that saving Private Ryan was not true to life, but that's not true.
In the first part of the movie, when they land at Omaha Beach, that's one of the most realistic pieces of war footage that's ever been filmed.
I think it's just about as close to true to life as possible.
When I said it wasn't realistic, I was talking about the later parts of the movie.
When they send all these men out to save one man, And they all get killed in the process, and that's supposed to be something noble?
You don't do that.
You don't kill twenty men to save one man.
You kill twenty men to save a thousand men, is the way it really works in war.
So that part of the movie was liberal nonsense, you know, Steven Spielberg bullshit, is what it was, really.
But the first part.
The first 30 minutes or however many minutes it was of the actual landings on Omaha Beach are absolutely true to life.
And if you want to know what it's like to try to take a heavily fortified beachhead, there's a saying in the Navy, and I don't know if the Marines have this saying or not, but in the Navy we have this saying that the first wave of Marines that hit a beach Or the shelter for the second wave to hide behind.
You know what I'm saying?
I hear you loud and clear.
They're dead.
The first wave is dead.
If one out of a hundred survives, he's lucky.
When the landing craft opened up their front doors, all I could think of was hamburgers.
Those .50 caliber rounds just tore into those.
Well, that's exactly what Omaha Beach was like.
If you want to see a little bit of what it was like on the river, get Apocalypse Now, but forget about the whole movie.
There's only two parts of that movie that were true to life.
One was the scene where they left the boat, went into the forest, and were attacked by a tiger.
I remember that.
I remember that.
That's true to life.
That is so true to life that it happened to several people on rivers, on boats.
Never get off the boat.
The rule is you never leave the boat.
Never ever leave.
We're sailors, for God's sake.
The only thing we know how to do is work that boat and fight that boat.
We don't know dip when we put our foot on the land.
That's for marines and soldiers.
So you never leave the boat.
You never, ever leave the boat.
What was the second part that was true?
The second part that was true to life was the rocket attack.
Remember when they were attacked by rockets and machine guns?
They were still on the boat, right?
They were on the boat, yes.
Traveling on the river.
And all of a sudden they were ambushed.
by rockets and machine guns.
That was very, very close to reality.
The only difference is I never patrolled during the daytime.
I only patrolled at night, so when it happened to me, it was always at night.
And at night, it's... if you can imagine it being 5,000 times worse than in the daytime, that's exactly what it is.
But the rest of that movie, you can trash.
Apocalypse Now is total bullshit, except for those two pieces of that whole movie.
Some of the scenes where they're surfing behind the boat on the lake, that's true.
I mean, we did those kinds of things.
We swam in the river, you know.
And we had the part where the boats passed each other and they threw C-ration cans at each other.
Yeah.
That's true.
We did that all the time.
But the rest of that movie was just total crap.
Total crap.
The thing I remember about the rocket attack was that you never saw any of the enemies.
No, you don't.
It's dense, thick jungle, and tree lines, and undergrowth, and they're expert at camouflage.
And that's why I say, you know, when Lieutenant Colonel James Will Grice calls me a coward, he wouldn't have the balls to ride on that boat with me during an ambush.
See, soldiers can dig foxholes and hide behind trees and all kinds of things.
Fighting on the deck of a boat on a river where you have nothing to hide behind is a whole different story.
Whole different thing all together.
The two things that come to my mind are, number one, your life hasn't changed a bit.
You're still a big target floating out there with people throwing rockets at you.
Well, I got used to it.
It wasn't just people.
Monkeys used to throw rocks at us, too.
And the second thing I was wondering was, why didn't you whip Bo Griffin's ass out there in Nevada that time?
It wasn't Nevada.
It was up in Utah.
I didn't have to.
He destroyed himself right in front of the crowd.
He just absolutely destroyed himself and slunk off with his tail between his legs.
It was a pitiful sight to see.
You don't hear much from that guy on a regular basis.
No.
I think he's got a radio show somewhere.
That's why, you know, when I judge people, and I don't mean judge them as people, I mean judge them as how They're going to be when the buffalo chip hits the fan.
I just asked myself, would I take that person up the river with me?
If the answer's no, I don't want them near me when the fighting starts.
If the answer's yes, then those are the people I want around me.
Sounds like a small circle.
Oh, it is a small circle.
I took our commanding officer up the river one night on patrol.
He wanted to go.
He'd never been on patrol before.
Did you know?
The first time that we were fired on that night, he hit the deck and never got up from a prone position the rest of the night.
And I spent the rest of the night chewing his ass out because he did it in front of my men.
And my men had to stand up and fight the boat.
And I was disgusted with that.
But he never rode my boat again.
That's one good thing about the Navy.
If you're the captain of a boat, you're God.
And nobody can tell you.
Unless you're relieved of command, nobody can tell you who can get on your boat or how you work your boat or anything.
That's your boat.
Sounds like a courtroom.
No, it's not a courtroom.
It's a Navy combat vessel where the captain is God.
And if you've got a good captain, you've got a good boat.
If you don't have a good captain, then you don't live too long.
What about the manuscript?
You got plans for it, I'm sure?
I don't know.
It needs a lot of polish, and it needs some work.
It's all done.
It just needs polish and work, and it's very hard for me to do that.
I gotta tell you, it really is.
Because most of it was written from my heart, you know, from deep down within my heart.
And it just poured out.
It just flowed out of me when I wrote it.
I mean, once I started writing that, I couldn't stop.
I just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and cried and wrote and wrote and remembered until I was exhausted and it was finished.
And it's very hard for me to go through there and do anything to it, but it's got to be done.
I'll eventually get around to it.
And if it's published, it'll be the only real book about the war on the river in Vietnam that's ever been published.
There's been other books that have touched on it, but they haven't really gotten really down to the nitty-gritty about what it was really like.
Nobody ever has.
And I know why they haven't.
It's hard to do.
It's really hard to do.
It sounds like the worst of the worst from Vietnam, to tell you the truth.
Well, it wasn't always the worst.
Sometimes it was the best.
I can remember coming off the patrol in the morning and just being so charged up with adrenaline and so wide awake.
And then all of a sudden, the seaman walks back and puts the ensign into its... You know, we have the ensign on the staff.
When we go out on patrol, we fly it.
When it gets dark, we take it down and put it in the cabin because we don't want to shoot up our own flag.
And in the morning, one of the first things he does at dawn is get the flag out of the cabin and unfurl it and put it in its place back on the stern.
And I can remember just being all charged up with adrenaline from the night's patrol and wondering how I'm going to get to sleep and coming out of that fog bank that was always there.
We always came out of a fog bank right at about the middle of Lima II.
And then seeing that flag flying in the first light of the dawn was just exhilarating.
Exhilarating.
And a beer never tasted so good in my life.
I can drink a beer now, it's nothing.
When I drank a beer there, it was like nectar from the gods.
And it was hot beer, to boot.
You know, it was different.
Life was different.
Life was more precious.
You enjoyed and saw and felt and smelled And notice things that you don't normally notice in normal everyday life.
Because that could be your last day on this earth.
Very easily.
Makes me think of all the time I've wasted chasing my tail.
Well, we've all done that.
I grew up there in Vietnam.
I became a man on that boat.
You never saw any land action actually in Vietnam then.
You mean on the beach?
Well, not necessarily, but based on your beach.
I mean, your patrol was never farther from the deck of your boat, was it?
No, but sometimes when we were back in the base camp, we would get rocket attacks.
In fact, some guys got wounded diving into shelters.
They would jump in and somebody, not thinking of how people get into a shelter during a rocket attack, they would put this big giant 4x4 pole right in the center of the doorway and guys would jump in there and crack their head wide open on this pole.
Another guy, a good friend of mine, his name was Laporte.
He was a boat captain and a brilliant boat captain.
I wish he hadn't gotten wounded the way he did and had to go back, but we were playing football on the beach.
And he got tackled and fell into the sand and there was a piece of a mortar round buried in the sand that just, you know, it was sharp and jagged and went right into his side and his stomach.
And so he was gone.
Gone?
That was a mortar that killed twice.
I mean, he wasn't dead.
I mean, it hit twice, I should say.
No, it didn't kill him.
He was seriously wounded.
Very seriously wounded.
In fact, he went out to the hospital ship.
I forget the name of the hospital ship.
Right off the coast there was a hospital ship all the time.
I think it was the Repose.
I think the name of the hospital ship was Repose.
He went to the Repose and then he went home.
Do you remember what it was like on your first day, when you first got there?
Oh, are you kidding?
I was scared to death.
I was petrified.
Well, the first day I got into Vietnam, I wasn't scared.
I wasn't petrified.
I didn't get petrified until I realized, you know, what the hell was really going on and what I was supposed to do.
And they sent me out to a place called Camp Carter.
I was attached to Naval Security and Intelligence, and they sent me out to the headquarters for Naval Intelligence and I-Corps, which was Camp Carter.
And I went in to see the commanding officer, and he told me that I was going to be a patrol boat captain.
I said, oh, really?
And he said, yes.
And I was thrilled.
I thought, wow, this is great.
I'm going to be a patrolman.
I'm going to have my own command, you know?
I'm a second-class petty officer, and I'm going to have a combat command.
You know, I wasn't thinking.
And then I went back and went to the barracks in Da Nang at Camp Tinshaw and was assigned a bunk.
And then I went down to the headquarters for Harbor Patrol.
And I was told to go out to three brand new boats that had just been unloaded from a ship that were at anchor and I was told to pick the one I wanted and then pick a crew.
I get to hand pick my crew.
How many people get to do that?
So I pick the boat, I pick my crew and we spent about three days getting the boat ready for patrol.
And then went on patrol, and then, you know, things got real.
Things got real, and I got scared.
And here was, you know, here's four guys, depending on me, to keep them alive, and tell them what to do, and I'm supposed to tell them the right thing to do, and I didn't know dip from doodah.
That was pretty scary, I gotta tell you.
And you're how old?
I was 24 years old.
And then I went up to Coivet on the DMZ and, you know, I was a seasoned boat captain by then.
And they gave me that new boat that I read about that I was reading about there, the Mark 12.
And I patrolled that river every night for all the time I was there.
And every night we had a fight with the enemy.
Every night.
How long were you in Vietnam?
About 18 months, I believe.
Bye.
Well, I don't expect there to be.
I mean, there are some people.
You know what most Americans don't understand is out of all the millions of people who went to Vietnam, Only about 100,000 ever actually saw combat.
Of all the millions of men who went to Vietnam, most of them were support personnel and supply personnel and people who worked on airplanes and people who worked barges and boats to unload ships and take care of security perimeters and things like that.
There was only about 100,000, maybe 150,000 of all of those men Whoever actually were engaged in real combat.
Yeah but that was over the whole period of the Vietnam War.
I'm talking about at any one time in Vietnam there were only about at any one time out of all the millions of men who were there at any one time there were only a hundred thousand Men who were actually devoted to actual combat duty.
Who actually saw combat.
And I'm sure that some of those never saw combat.
That's too bad because that's one of the most beautiful countries in the entire world.
And they have like a thousand miles of the most beautiful beaches you've ever, you could even imagine.
And the greenest, most beautiful Mountains and countryside.
It's just absolutely incredible.
It was a beautiful place.
The only time you don't want to be there is during the monsoon.
It rained all day, all night, every day, every night for three months.
Totally overcast.
Never saw a star at night.
Never saw the sun in the daytime.
Just rain.
Everything was moldy and mildewy and wet and damp and stinky.
After a while you get used to it.
You know, you spend the first month cussing it out and hating the monsoon.
Then the second month you would start to get comfortable with it.
The third month you'd feel totally comfortable in that environment.
You were used to it.
Except everything rusted and you had to do a lot of cleaning all the time.
And the M-16 was worthless for that kind of weather.
And then the sun would come out.
And then that would really piss you off.
What the hell is this?
I just got used to this stuff.
And now the sun comes out.
Now it's going to get hot and humid.
Now I'm going to be roasting every day.
What's going on here?
And then nine months later you have to go through it all again?
Yeah, but for nine months you're in 16 wooden rust.
Unless you dropped it in the river or got splashed or something.
You never could figure out the political purpose behind the war.
Well... I'm no stranger to history.
You know, there's been five million guesses, and your guess is as good as mine.
I think it had something to do with drugs and oil, to tell you the truth.
It certainly didn't have anything to do with communism.
Listen, I better let you go.
There might be somebody else out there who wants to call in.
I don't know.
I appreciate the time, Bill.
Thanks, Vince.
Take care.
Thanks for calling.
520-333-4578 is the number.
You know, it feels kind of nice to talk about this after all this time.
I mean, I'm really not all that comfortable with it, but yep.
It's kind of like getting something off your chest that you've been holding in there for a long time.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Semper Fi to you, sir.
Semper Fi to you, too.
I spent six years in the Marine Corps, and I served in Alpha Company, 3rd Recon Battalion, in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.
I'm 33 years old, and Mr. Bush gave me a Combat Action Reward, a star on it, for two dirty little campaigns towards the end of my tour.
Well, if you're a Marine and you're a member of the 3rd Recon Battalion, my friend, you're my brother.
I appreciate that.
And we may never meet, but I love you.
Thank you very much.
I feel the same way in some regards.
I'm apparently a new listener to you, actually.
As a matter of fact, when you related your story about your family the other night, it
finally gave me more of a proper perspective on it because I could sense the anger over
the past couple of months that you had.
I just didn't exactly know why it was.
I actually started listening to you right around that Columbine shooting.
And I just wanted to relate one experience to you.
Back in September of 1990, when I first got over to Saudi Arabia, we were building what
would later be known as Camp 15.
We had our little Hummer come up in a funny blue color.
And they, uh, asked us to take our American flag down and put up, uh, one of their flags.
Well, we promptly told them to get off quick before, uh, we did something bad.
Good for you.
And the best part about it was they never came back.
Yeah, well, they're, they're, you know, what have they got invested in what they represent?
Nothing.
Well, when I first came home from it, I was pretty confused at first.
It took a while, took a couple years, but I'm prepared to defend constitutional republic.
Good for you.
I just want to tell you that and I want to let you go now.
I hope you have a good night.
Thanks for calling my friend.
Good night.
Good night.
Oh yes, I have a great, great respect and tremendous admiration for the United States Marine Corps, and especially the 3rd Marine Recon Battalion.
Because, uh, I don't know how many times those guys saved my butt, and I don't know how many times I saved theirs.
But we were, we were a team.
Damn good team, if you want to know the truth.
520-333-4578.
We've got time for maybe one more call.
And then we're going to call it whatever it is that we're going to call it.
520-333-4578 is the number.
Going to get your two cents in?
This is the time to do it because that's all the time we have left.
Time for one call and then we're out of here.
We're going to shuffle off to where we're going to shuffle off to.
One of these nights if I get up the courage I might read you a chapter.
I don't know if I'm going to have that much courage.
That's pretty tough.
Just reading what I did to you was pretty hard to keep from choking up there in a couple of places.
I mean, it's a very emotional thing.
It's like going to the wall.
I don't know any Vietnam veteran who actually fought in Vietnam that can go to the wall without literally breaking down emotionally.
And I can't understand why that happens.
It just happens.
There's nothing in the world we can do to prevent it.
It's beyond our control.
And there's something there that means something.
Something to us that I don't think even we really understand.
I know I don't.
I don't really understand all of it yet.
Maybe I never will.
Maybe I'm not supposed to.
But, you know, at least I try.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yes, I'm calling for Lindy Longlegs, who was curious as to what it was that exactly happened to your family.
Well, that we don't... In fact, we don't have time left to discuss it here anyway.
But you just have to get the back tapes if you want to know that.
Very good.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Good night.
Good night, folks.
God bless each and every single one of you.
Good night, Andy, Kuhn, and Allison.
I love you.
The End I love you.
I love you.
The End
▲
Export Selection