One of those stories that happens in war, and a “how to” at the end.
The first battle at Loc Ninh, Oct.-Nov. 1967
More thoughts from John McCoy -
"The famous snake capture! That is a story all by itself. It was a LARGE Python. I mean a really huge Python. It took about 8 or more men to pick it up. It was at least 12 feet long, maybe a lot longer. I have never seen a longer or bigger Python before or since. We were out on patrol, headed back in to the NDP at the south end of the Loc Ninh airstrip, when Lt. Fortenberry walked up, holding the front of the snake, followed by several men from his platoon trying to hold the rest of this enormous constrictor. He informed me that we had all just walked over the snake. That didn't make me feel too comfortable. The snake apparently had eaten recently, as it had a bulge about the size of a small pig about three or four feet back from its head. We all speculated on what it had eaten. Lt. Fortenberry managed to find a large cardboard box, about the size of a refrigerator, and put the snake in that. They named the snake 'Lurch.'
"Either that night, or the next night, we came under attack again. I remember Fred Hill and I were heading for our bunker when the first mortar rounds started dropping in on the runway. Fred looked over at the box that had held Lurch, and realized the box had been tipped over somehow and Lurch was loose. When Fred brought this to my attention, I hesitated to jump in the bunker, as I figured Lurch just might be in there. The mortar rounds were moving down the runway, falling closer to our bunkers, so I opted to take my chances with the snake and jumped in the bunker. I may have let Fred go first. Lurch wasn't there, and we never saw him again. I hope he crawled out to the rubber trees and scared a few VC to death.
"One thing I remember about Loc Ninh - we were trying something new so the jet pilots and gunship pilots could identify the perimeter of the NDP at night: we had been told to take an empty C-ration can and fill it 3/4 full of sand, then saturate it with either diesel fuel or gasoline. When darkness came and the attack started, we were to reach as far out of the firing port of our bunker as we could and place the can there, then light the fuel. The pilots could see the burning fuel in the cans from the air, but it was not visible to the VC on the ground. This trick seemed to work very well. Those pilots never fired inside our NDP, but sure hugged up close on the outside of the NDP a few times. I am convinced that those pilots saved our lives."
http://freepages.military.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~realmccoy/locninh.html
What country you guys from? Oh. That one.
http://www.pbase.com/d_berry/image/92343413
(I wasn’t anywhere close to Loc Ninh in Oct-Nov 1967, but had been at Lai Khe (28 Inf base camp) a few months before. It’s a funny thing – You can be in an area and a month-long fight happens, but you don’t know anything about it. People back home probably knew more about Loc Ninh from TV and newspaper news than we did, some 100 kilometers away.)
Showing posts with label Infantry soldies in Vietnam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Infantry soldies in Vietnam. Show all posts
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Saturday, July 7, 2012
A History of Luna County
This is part of a chapter I wrote several years ago for A History of Luna County, the history far from complete, more an ongoing idea. Priscilla said I should put together all my research on Red River County. Luna County is the result of that suggestion -- historical research, plus people I met.
Nathan Bullock
Nathan would have been beyond surprise had he known April drove down that street hoping to see him there.
As much as Nathan thought about April, he never considered whether she thought about him. In the war, a few months after reading of Tom’s death, Nathan did wonder, but those thoughts came when he thought about April, when the tears threatened, because to think of April was to think of goodness, and there was none of that in the war. Those times, Nathan sat alone, sometimes on ambush in the jungle -- his reclusive nature made others avoid him -- or at a fire base when the company was in from the bush a few days and everyone had at least one night of drunkenness. Sometimes there would be more than a few days, occasionally a week or ten days. Most soldiers became uneasy when in from the bush longer than a week. Officers and sergeants too often decided soldiers needed reminding they were part of the army, and that the army survived by regulations and standard ways of doing things. What the officers and sergeants could not understand was that, yes, they were part of an army, but most of their soldiers were not. The soldiers were part of a great, efficient killing machine. Some soldiers considered themselves only a cog on a small gear in the machine; others knew their true place as an essential part of the machine, that without them, the machine could not function. Those men were very good at their job. Nathan knew his place.
When Nathan sat alone in the war, he read, oftentimes books of history, although he yearned for books of poetry. When such works were available at the fire base library, Nathan borrowed the books, read and reread the poems, then studied favorite poems assiduously. In August 1968, Nathan discovered Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. It was a momentous discovery. He had not known such writers existed. In his senior year of high school, Nathan read The Waste Land. That poem opened his mind to style; Sassoon and Owen led him to content. Nathan tried his own hand, writing several short poems, reading and revising. He discovered in those early attempts too many dead bodies. In late August, the company went back to the bush. In that three-week period, Nathan discovered the death of a single person as meaningful as the deaths of thousands. The first night of the company’s return to the fire base in the bush, Nathan took a pad and a pencil and wrote:
“The old woman shuffled to the village gate,
“And Wizard made her dead.”
Nathan wrote many lines that night and in nights that followed. He declined to term the lines poetry, instead considering what he wrote as running prose with natural breaks. Poetry was a delicate thing and should consist of endearing terms. What Nathan wrote that night was a hammer, pounding a piece of metal, red hot and recently removed from smoldering coals.
There were delicate writings, but those always were of April. Those lines Nathan wrote when on ambush or in night defensive position, taking quietly a small notebook from a pocket, sometimes writing in total darkness, translating the scribbles when the sun rose. At times, though, Nathan wrote of April, and his love for her, on fullmoon nights and he could see the words. In one such writing, he told of the difference between Texas and Vietnam in the rising of the moon, how the moon appeared full grown above the trees, with no glow on the horizon to announce its imminent arrival. On those nights, Nathan achingly remembered the moon at home, of the paling on the horizon, of the sky satin and the moon easing through thin clouds edged with gray lace. At times, he closed his eyes and saw April standing before such a moon, her profile in sharp detail. On those nights, Nathan compelled the tears to remain where they belonged.
Nathan kept all the writings in an ammunition can in his tent at the fire support base. Some notebooks were damaged from heavy rains and Nathan’s sweat. Writings in those books he transcribed in ink on lined pads. Notebooks bought at the small PX were almost useless in the humid jungle. Nathan began taking small items from the VC and NVA he killed, exchanging with the company supply sergeant North Vietnamese currency, belts and knapsacks for army notebooks. Those notebooks had thick covers and pages relatively water resistant.
When Nathan left the war, he wrapped notebooks and pads in plastic and wound large rubber bands around the packages and packed them in the middle of his duffel bag. Inspectors at Long Binh did not ask about the notebooks and pads; they were interested only in finding drugs, weapons and military equipment.
Nathan Bullock
Nathan would have been beyond surprise had he known April drove down that street hoping to see him there.
As much as Nathan thought about April, he never considered whether she thought about him. In the war, a few months after reading of Tom’s death, Nathan did wonder, but those thoughts came when he thought about April, when the tears threatened, because to think of April was to think of goodness, and there was none of that in the war. Those times, Nathan sat alone, sometimes on ambush in the jungle -- his reclusive nature made others avoid him -- or at a fire base when the company was in from the bush a few days and everyone had at least one night of drunkenness. Sometimes there would be more than a few days, occasionally a week or ten days. Most soldiers became uneasy when in from the bush longer than a week. Officers and sergeants too often decided soldiers needed reminding they were part of the army, and that the army survived by regulations and standard ways of doing things. What the officers and sergeants could not understand was that, yes, they were part of an army, but most of their soldiers were not. The soldiers were part of a great, efficient killing machine. Some soldiers considered themselves only a cog on a small gear in the machine; others knew their true place as an essential part of the machine, that without them, the machine could not function. Those men were very good at their job. Nathan knew his place.
When Nathan sat alone in the war, he read, oftentimes books of history, although he yearned for books of poetry. When such works were available at the fire base library, Nathan borrowed the books, read and reread the poems, then studied favorite poems assiduously. In August 1968, Nathan discovered Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. It was a momentous discovery. He had not known such writers existed. In his senior year of high school, Nathan read The Waste Land. That poem opened his mind to style; Sassoon and Owen led him to content. Nathan tried his own hand, writing several short poems, reading and revising. He discovered in those early attempts too many dead bodies. In late August, the company went back to the bush. In that three-week period, Nathan discovered the death of a single person as meaningful as the deaths of thousands. The first night of the company’s return to the fire base in the bush, Nathan took a pad and a pencil and wrote:
“The old woman shuffled to the village gate,
“And Wizard made her dead.”
Nathan wrote many lines that night and in nights that followed. He declined to term the lines poetry, instead considering what he wrote as running prose with natural breaks. Poetry was a delicate thing and should consist of endearing terms. What Nathan wrote that night was a hammer, pounding a piece of metal, red hot and recently removed from smoldering coals.
There were delicate writings, but those always were of April. Those lines Nathan wrote when on ambush or in night defensive position, taking quietly a small notebook from a pocket, sometimes writing in total darkness, translating the scribbles when the sun rose. At times, though, Nathan wrote of April, and his love for her, on fullmoon nights and he could see the words. In one such writing, he told of the difference between Texas and Vietnam in the rising of the moon, how the moon appeared full grown above the trees, with no glow on the horizon to announce its imminent arrival. On those nights, Nathan achingly remembered the moon at home, of the paling on the horizon, of the sky satin and the moon easing through thin clouds edged with gray lace. At times, he closed his eyes and saw April standing before such a moon, her profile in sharp detail. On those nights, Nathan compelled the tears to remain where they belonged.
Nathan kept all the writings in an ammunition can in his tent at the fire support base. Some notebooks were damaged from heavy rains and Nathan’s sweat. Writings in those books he transcribed in ink on lined pads. Notebooks bought at the small PX were almost useless in the humid jungle. Nathan began taking small items from the VC and NVA he killed, exchanging with the company supply sergeant North Vietnamese currency, belts and knapsacks for army notebooks. Those notebooks had thick covers and pages relatively water resistant.
When Nathan left the war, he wrapped notebooks and pads in plastic and wound large rubber bands around the packages and packed them in the middle of his duffel bag. Inspectors at Long Binh did not ask about the notebooks and pads; they were interested only in finding drugs, weapons and military equipment.
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