DEPLOYMENT VIETNAM -Part 1
Herb Blanchard
DEPLOYMENT
VIETNAM
PART 1
by
Herb Blanchard
Deployment Vietnam
PART 1
by Herb Blanchard
Copyright 2011 Herb Blanchard
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Cover photo by the author circa 1962
An Okinawan Affair
Shuri Gate
Struggles of a Country Boy
My Life Before & Without Boomers & Yuppies
Coming soon
DEPLOYMENT VIETNAM
Part 2
DEDICATION
This book is dedicate to the officers and men I served with in the US Navy Seabees. In particular to the Seabees who served with me in Vietnam and made the ultimate sacrifice.
I still think about you.
PART 1
ONE
The distant ‘thump-thump’ of a Huey’s rotor blades sent a shiver up his back. Even over the bellowing exhaust of the road grader’s engine, the heavy reverberating ‘thumps’ were distinct and welcome.
It was mid-winter in South Vietnam and the heavy winter rain showers were a daily occurrence. The heavy military traffic and rain worked together to break up Highway 1’s original asphalt coated road bed and turn it into a pond of soupy red and yellow streaked mud the color of the surrounding soils. Dan Lee Davis EON2, was working on Highway 1, about two and a half miles south of Chu Lai, RVN. Since mid-January he had been struggling every day, seven days a week to keep this piece of highway passable.
Dan twisted partway around to look south to see if the helicopter was in sight. Though his hazel eyes missed little, he could see only about a quarter of a mile in the downpour of rain and ground hugging fog which was hiding the approaching helicopter.
A steady trickle of cold rain water ran off his olive drab foul weather gear streaming down his neck and soaking into the Navy issue wool jersey that he was wearing under green Marine Corp fatigues. His movements allowed more water to be squeezed out of his rain soaked wool watch cap which covered his very light brown, almost blond hair that he wore in a Marine Corp white sidewall cut, adding to the stream running under the collar of his foul weather gear.
He wondered if it was worth getting wetter to turn and search for the approaching chopper or wait until it came up beside of him. He sat down on the grader’s wide seat sliding his loaded M-14 which was wrapped loosely in an olive drab Seabee issue poncho to protect it from the persistent rain, to the rear against the back of the seat.
Dan stepped on the grader’s clutch, threw its transmission into neutral and pulled off the engine throttle in quick simultaneous movements. He stood again to scan the area around his spot on Vietnam’s notorious Highway 1 named the ‘Street of No Joy’ by the French. To his right were the low barren, wind rounded sand dunes covering the 200 yards between the highway and the US military installation’s sandbag bunkers and the concertina wire topped security fence. On his left, starting only a few feet from the edge of the road fill, was dense dead looking shrubs running off in all directions. From the height advantage of the Seabee, green painted road grader, he could see over the top of the almost leafless brush which was twice as tall as a man and reminding him of a patch of tall sagebrush. It was too dense to walk through except where man and other animals had created narrow winding paths towards the dark green jungle covered low hills of volcanic red laterite several hundred yards to the west where the dense fog rolling out of the mountains and off the closer hills started to obscure his vision.
Deep in his chest and stomach Dan felt the Huey’s rotor blades ‘thumps’ grow stronger. The drab green Marine Corp helicopter came in view about halfway between the concertina wire on his right, and Highway 1.
The helicopter’s left door gunner sat in an open door behind his M-60 machine gun. He waved a brief friendly wave as he scanned the area looking for unfriendlies who might be a threat to the lone Seabee.
The Huey slowed down traveled further down the road at tree top level before banking to the left to cross the road several hundred yards ahead of the Seabee. Barely in sight in the heavy rain and fog, the chopper reversed it’s course flying slowly south parallel to highway. It was a couple hundred yards to Dan’s left flying over the thick brush low enough to make the tops of the shrubs sway in it’s rotor wash.
“He’s trying to draw fire from Charlie if he’s laying up in the brush field.” He thought as the Huey crept by him before starting a turn towards the Marine Corp Air Facility on the Chu Lai base. The Huey leveled out several feet above Davis’s grader and passed the Seabee close enough so that the warm air from its turbines and the rotor wash blew across his face. The black painted US MARINE and star insignia were clear to read as well as red and yellow hazard warnings for the tail rotor and jet exhaust on the tail boom. The door gunner and co-pilot each smiled and gave him a ‘thumbs-up’ and quick sloppy salutes before the Huey picked up speed, rose to an acceptable military altitude and crossed the fence line into the Chu Lai cantonment.
All right! This was the fourth time in two days that a Marine Corp Huey had checked me out. Makes me feel more secure knowing they’re flying by once in a while. Brad said that he used to see the choppers almost every day and they would buzz him to be sure he was ok. He thought about his friend Brad Burgess another second class EO that he knew from their Adak deployment and later on Okinawa where Brad was at NAF Naha and he was at MCAF Futemma at the same time. They knew each other’s girl friends and were sometime drinking buddies.
TWO
“Reveille! Reveille!
All hands hit the deck! It’s 0500 hours!
Reveille!” The Seabee camp’s Master-at-Arms’ voice bellowed through out the hooches.
Christ! Shut up! Why are all Master-at Arms fleet sailors? Dan Lee thought with a mental smile as he peered through one half open eye.
“You going to breakfast, Dan?” Casey Jones a third class equipment operator, and part of the Highway 1 road crew asked. Jones was barely twenty with his brown hair cut with white sidewalls and barely 1/4” long on top, the Marine Corp cut, as many Seabees wore their hair especially in-country. He was a broad shouldered 150 pounds or so, an even 5’ 6” tall as he bragged that was the tallest member of his family with his dad being only 5’ 2” the same height as his mother and sister.
“Not right now Casey. I’ve got something to take care of first then I’ll grab a cup of coffee on the way to quarters.” He answered while throwing back the poncho and two wool blankets that he slept under.
“I’ll be glad when it stops raining and warms up a bit. If it wasn’t for putting a poncho over the blankets our racks would by soaking all the time.”
“Last night when it was raining I could feel the mist blowing in the side of the hooch and hitting me in the face.” Jones added to his squad leader’s remark about the rain.
“I talked to the mechanics after chow last night, Casey. Your bulldozer is ready to go. So stop at the motor pool and line up a tractor and lowboy to move it outside the wire first thing.”
As well as being a good friend of Dan Davis, Casey was the best cat skinner in Alpha Company after Dan himself and Dan’s best friend Brad Burgess.
“Shall I have them take it all the way to the quarry?”
“No-oo. I don’t think so. Just take it out the gate. Jump it off the trailer there and run down the drainage ditch on the east side of the road to the quarry site. The Marine mine sweeper won’t have g
ot that far down the road so early, so it will take time to wait for them to sweep the road before anybody can take a tractor and trailer on it. You’ll save 30 minutes or more this way.” He had pulled on his Navy issue wool jersey even before his feet hit the floor. Next he slipped on tight fitting insulated white cotton underwear that wasn’t GI issue before he finished getting dressed in his tailored Marine Corp greens while he talked. On the point of each end of his collar was 2nd class petty officer chevrons which the Seabees wore with the chevron points pointing down at collar points and painted black instead of the customary polished brass that had been required on stateside bases. There were no creases in his greens nor spit shine on his black Air Force issue jump boots though they were blackened.
“Chief Thomas will meet you there as soon as he can. He knows where the boundary lines are for the new quarry and can show you so you can start stripping off the overburden.”
“Ok. I’ll see you out on the road later then?”
“Guess so. And stay away from the little Vietnamese girls and their baskets of goodies.”
“Yeah sure.” Jones replied with a smile knowing full well that his squad leader and crew boss really didn’t care if any of the road crew talked to and flirted with the girls who gathered at any point where a GI could be found outside the wire.
“Rainer.” Davis spoke to another member of his squad who was trying to duck out the back door of the hooch before the squad leader could say anything to him. Rainer was another second class driver, but didn’t do much operating. Seemed to Dan that he was kind of floating around Alpha Company going here and there with no specific job or position in the company.
“What do you want Davis? I have to get to the company early so make it quick.”
More attitude. As if I didn’t get enough out of him last night when I caught him in the bunker firing that little .22 pistol he carries. He thought and finished pulling on his jump boots and stood up to his full 5’ 7”. At 120 lbs. Dan Davis was not very big. Ruddy complexed from his many hours working out in all kinds of weather and was a natural leader.
“I don’t want you to forget what you agreed to last night. Get rid of that .22 pistol or I go to the company commander. I’m sure Mr. Roberts won’t appreciate hearing one of his petty officers is firing a weapon around camp.. I don’t care what you do with it as long as I don’t hear it or see you fire it again or even see it in this hooch again.”
“Yeah. I’ll take care of it. But I don’t know why you’re making an issue out of it.”
“You know damn well the answer to that. I shared all of that with you last night and I mean it. GET RID OF IT!” He raised his voice to emphasis the command. Stressing that it was an order, not a request. Though both men were second class petty officers Dan Davis was senior and the almost 6 foot tall, 175 lb. Rainer had showed signs of not liking that fact of military protocol.
As Alpha Company was falling in for quarters, Dan counted heads and realized that Rainer was amongst the missing. With just a couple of minutes before the Company Chief would be asking for a head count, he trotted into the company office to where he knew he would find the company clerk hiding out so he wouldn’t have to stand muster.
“Petty Officer Ryan, by any chance have you seen Petty Officer Rainer this morning ?”
“Yeah Dave, He asked if there was a courier run to Da Nang today. When I told him there was, he beelined it for Headquarters Company.” The freckled face, curly headed, tall and skinny clerk answered Dan. “Also said that he had some business to take care of in Da Nang before he went stateside.
You do know that his DEROS is next week don’t you? And this is his third trip to Da Nang in less than a week.” He added quickly.
“Actually I didn’t. Thanks Irish.” Dan spoke back over his shoulder as he hurried back outside to stand muster with his squad.
As usual, their platoon leader, a first class petty officer, was busy in the dispatch office. As squad leader of the first squad of the first platoon, Dan stepped in front of the platoon to take his place.
When the company chief dismissed them, Dan caught Chief Thomas’s eye so the chief would know that he needed to talk to him before they went out on the road. The 40 year old Chief Thomas was Chief-in-Charge of the Highway 1 road job and Dan’s friend. His dark brown hair was a bit longer than how most Seabees wore theirs’ with graying sideburns that were barely there. He had green eyes which danced in the light when he talked to you and were just plain friendly. He and Dan had been together on detachment on Adak about three years ago. Dan wanted him to know what was going on with his squad and in particular with Rainer.
“You ready to go to the Company Commander with it, Dan Lee,” Thomas asked him after being filled in .
“I was going to give him a chance to do as I asked, Tom. But these trips make me wonder what he’s up too and why he feels the need of carrying a concealed weapon. He’s taking it with him to Da Nang I’m sure.”
“Any signs of drugs?”
“He’s clean as far as I can tell. I didn’t want to bring that up yet. He doesn’t seem to have any connection to any of the dabblers in pot that I know of. Dan hesitated for a second. ”Could be getting it between here and Da Nang though. Or downtown Chu Lai.”
“I think that it would better if you let me take it from here. I have a bit more horsepower and since I haven’t dealt with him personally, I can be more candid with NCIS if need be.”
“You already know something don’t you, Tom?” Dan asked.
“You might say that there has been scuttlebutt being passed around the Company about Rainer and his trips to Da Nang.”
He was with the battalion in Da Nang on their last deployment wasn’t he?”
“That’s why no one gave it a thought at first, Dan. Thought maybe he had a girl friend there he was going to see.. Then he was seen in downtown Chu Lai on several occasions since January. So other people have got interested in his trips.
This is all between us. Nobody else needs to know anything about him.”
“Yeah, right Chief.”
“And Dan Lee, let me know if you see or hear anything going on out on the road.”
“Absolutely.”
“If it’s a case of you being able to handle it, with the younger, unrated troops, do it.”
Dan nodded and gave the Chief a casual wave watching him walk towards his jeep with his slight but obvious limp. Over four years before while Dan was in “A” school of NAVSCON, Dale Thomas was in blasting school, a NAVSCON “C” school when the story goes, somebody screwed up and the class had built a demonstration pipe bomb which had detonated prematurely injuring Thomas’s foot almost ending his Seabee career and being sure he would walk with a limp the rest of his life.
The sun was still only a bright red glow below the eastern horizon. In a couple of minutes the typical Southeast Asian sunrise would reveal the sun as a huge red globe against a maroon and orange backdrop with violent scarlet streaks in a full circle around the sun’s orb.
THREE
It sure isn’t much like being almost March anywhere else I’ve been in the world, Dan thought as he parked his grader next to the pagoda that he and his crew had been using for a several weeks to get out of the winter rains on breaks and lunch time.
Dan and Casey Jones were the only Seabees working on Highway 1 which ran from Saigon north up the coast to Hanoi, North VN. The rains had gradually been decreasing and he was starting to make headway against the mud on the road. With every day showing the progress of the mud drying up, he had decided that he could accomplish more to the road on Sunday when the traffic was light rather than sitting around his hooch in Chu Lai. He had recruited EON3 Casey Jones to ride ‘shotgun’ on the grader with him. He knew that neither Chief Thomas nor Mr. Roberts, the Alpha Company Commander, would allow him to work on the road alone, especially on a Sunday when there was very little military traffic on the road.
“Coffe
e’s hot Dan.” Casey hollered from the pagoda over the grader’s idling engine noise. “It’s lunch time anyway and you may have your pick of any of the delicious meals from the menu of twelve that we are featuring today.
We have a whole menu of government meals, AKA C-rations, to choose from.” He added as Dan jumped to the ground and made his way through the clinging red mud to the partially destroyed pagoda.
“Who’s that?” Casey asked listening to the high pitched whine of a military jeep coming from the direction of Chu Lai and pulling in behind the grader.
“Looks and sounds like a jeep, Casey. Maybe the Chief decided to take a Sunday drive so he could catch us screwing off.”
“Yeah. Like we’d work on our day off to screw off in the rain on Highway 1 amongst the booby traps, mines and VC.
You can be very weird at times Dan.”
“I would think you guys could find a better place to hideout than this.” Their Company Commander said with a smile as he came around the grader and stepped up into the pagoda.
There were no salutes between them which would mark the newcomer as an officer. His officer’s insignias were also painted black like the petty officer’s. But his greens were pressed and his boots spit shined. Both the sign of an office worker though few enlisted men would hold it against him. Mr Roberts was tall, 6’ plus or minus a bit, weighing in at a hard 170 or so. He was definitely in shape. His crew cut had white sidewalls but was almost long enough on top to be brushed up in a real crew cut. He was definitely among the top favorite officers in the battalion and a Mustang.
“Have some lunch, Sir?” Davis asked the Lieutenant.
