1st Battalion 22nd Infantry Belis Stories Page 11

1st Battalion 22nd Infantry

First Days In Vietnam

I flew to Vietnam from Fort Lewis, Washington on a commercial airline full of other replacement soldiers like myself. We stopped in Alaska,
then in either Japan or Okinawa, I don’t remember which. We landed at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam in the daytime. I remember riding in buses
with screens over the windows, from the airfield to the in-processing station.

I spent two or three days at Cam Ranh Bay, waiting to be assigned to a unit. The processing station there consisted of wooden buildings,
two story wooden barracks, and cement sidewalks. Outside one building there was a big board that had a map of Vietnam, with the location of
major U.S. units marked on it. When I learned I was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division, one of the cadre from the station pointed it out on the
map and said I was lucky, as that unit was not engaged in as heavy action as some other units.

I flew on an aircraft, probably a C-130, to Camp Radcliff at An Khe, which was the headquarters of the 4th Infantry Division. For several days
a number of us replacements went through some training put on by the 4th Division, at what was obviously some kind of 4th Infantry Division
replacement training station. I was issued an M-16 rifle and zeroed it in on a firing range. It was there that I saw a bamboo viper for the first time.
It was at the firing line and a cadre identified it as a bamboo viper and a poisonous snake. He quickly ran from it, which sent us all running away
from it real fast as well. Also on the firing line a cadre fired an AK-47, to familiarize us new guys with what one of those sounded like.

We replacements slept in a single story wooden barracks building during the training. It was here that we learned about latrine facilities
at this base camp. For defecation there were small wooden structures called “shitters”, and for urination there were numerous tubes made of
artillery canisters stuck in the ground in various places, called “piss tubes”. One end of the tube was open so a guy could pee into the tube.

There were very few lights across the base, so stepping away from the barracks at night meant stepping into the darkness. The first night
I had to pee, walked outside the barracks, and realized I did not remember where the nearest piss tube was. So I walked into the darkness next
to the barracks and began to pee into the dark. Out of that dark came a voice, that said with what sounded like an oriental accent, two words that
sounded like “f**k you”. It scared the hell out of me. I thought it was an enemy soldier.

I remember that what went through my mind at that time, was that I had been in Vietnam for a little over a week, I was standing in the dark
with my Johnson in my hand, and I was now going to die. The voice repeated its mantra a couple of times. I zipped up and ran into the barracks.
I told some guys about it and they informed me it was a f**k you lizard. I would come to hear that lizard’s call many more times, but that
first time it really scared me.

Also at the replacement training station I experienced outgoing artillery for the first time. Late at night the air was shattered by loud booms that
could also be felt, as the sound or shock wave reverberated through the ground. We were told it was 8 inch guns shooting harassing and
interdiction fire at the enemy at night.

Once training was over, I was assigned to 1st Battalion 22nd Infantry and brought to that Battalion’s area on Camp Radcliff. I processed into
the Battalion in a room with about a dozen other guys. The guy in charge asked if anyone had experience working in a communications center
and I raised my hand. I thought I had fallen into a stroke of luck, and this would keep me in a safer rear area. However, someone else had their
hand raised, and when I saw he was a Staff Sergeant E-6, I knew he would get the job in the communications center, as I was only a Specialist
4th Class E-4. I did not get the job.

I was assigned to Company C, and was sent to their headquarters. The Company was out in the field at the time. A supply clerk had me turn in
all sets of jungle fatigues I had been issued back at Fort Lewis, except the one I was wearing. He said the fatigues would go into a uniform pool
and I would be given fatigues from that pool when I needed them. He then issued me a rucksack, helmet, and gear. He told me since it was the
end of the day, I would not be going out to join the Company until the next day.

The clerk packed my rucksack with c-rations, ammunition, canteens of water, and other items, and told me I would learn how to pack it myself,
with items I preferred or personally decided were necessary. He said I would sleep that night in an area across from the headquarters.
He helped me to sling the loaded rucksack over my shoulders, and directed me to a location where I would spend the night.

To get to that location I had to cross a bridge over a small stream. The bridge was a “swinging bridge” made of wooden slats with rope
handguards. As I walked across that bridge with that heavy rucksack on my back the bridge began to sway. As those pack straps cut into my
shoulders and that bridge began to sway I realized I had nothing to fear from the enemy. That rucksack and heavy load would kill me
all by themselves.

Swinging bridge at Battalion area at An Khe. Unknown on left, Mike Hernandez on right.

I don’t remember for sure, but I think I spent that night in a tent. The next day bright and early I was down at the helicopter pad with another
"new guy" with all our equipment as we waited to be told to board a chopper that would take us out to the bush. For what seemed like hours
helicopters came and went. Guys got on them. Guys got off them. Guys loaded stuff on them. Guys unloaded stuff from them. As we watched
the proceedings myself and the other new guy were ignored. At one point a guy came over and told us the Company had run into a large enemy
bunker complex and we would probably be going out just in time to join in some heavy action. There would be moments of intense activity at the
pad with choppers landing and taking off, then stretches of no activity with the quiet being almost deafening by contrast.

The other new guy told me his name I'm sure and he talked to me almost constantly through everything. I do not remember his name, or a thing
he said or even what he looked like. I was so lost that day with a million things running through my mind, a million worries about what I was
getting myself into, a million fears of what I was about to experience, a million questions of how would I act -- would I measure up if things got
rough, a million emotions ran through my mind all at once. I don't even remember that guy's face. It was as if I was all alone on the planet as I
waited my turn to go into the great unknown. I felt at that time it was exactly like that actor had said in that movie John Wayne made about the
Vietnam War ... "this trip was going to make LSD look like candy."

Eventually in the early afternoon a guy came and told us to get ready ... we would be getting on the next helicopter. We got on the next chopper
that landed and sat on the floor of it. The side doors of the helicopter had been slid back along the side of the aircraft and fastened there, so
as we rode we stared out through a big empty space where the doors should have been. The air rushing in through that big space coupled with
the deafening sounds of the engine, and whop-whop of the rotor blades was something I was not prepared for. I don't know how long we flew,
as this was my first ride on a helicopter and I was occupied with all the sights, sounds and visceral experiences of that ride. We flew over an
endless stretch of mountains covered with green puffy tree tops.

When we got to where we were going the helicopter turned 90 degrees on its side and then we began to go down toward the earth very, very fast.
My heart was in my throat as we turned on our side and I looked down at the ground a couple of thousand feet or more straight below me.
I could not understand how I didn't fall out through the open door. It seemed like we descended from several thousand feet in the sky to
just above the ground in only a few seconds as the aircraft righted itself and hovered a few feet off the ground in a small open clearing.
The door gunner motioned for me to get out. I looked down at long blades of grass waving in the downdraft of the helicopter blades and
estimated the grass was a couple of feet tall. I scrambled to the edge of the aircraft, put my feet on the skids and jumped. I guessed wrong
about how close to the ground we were, and I also guessed wrong about how tall the grass was.

It not only seemed to take longer than it should have, for my legs to stop dropping through empty air and enter the grass, but once they entered
the grass it seemed to take forever for them to actually hit the ground. Instead of being a few feet off the ground the helicopter was more likely
ten feet above it, and instead of the grass being only a couple of feet tall it was a little over five feet tall. With a hundred pounds of weight on me,
most of it being in the rucksack strapped to my back, when I hit the ground I hit hard and fell on my face. Using my rifle as a crutch and exerting
every ounce of my strength I could muster I somehow pulled myself up to a standing position. I was still trying to figure out how I had not
broken my ankles or any other bones in the fall, when I realized the loud noise of the helicopter was gone. As soon as we had exited the aircraft
it had taken off and flown away.

A voice called out "over here" and myself and the other new guy moved to a guy who was just inside the jungle at the edge of the clearing.
He pointed in a direction and told us to go to the Command Post. Once there we gave our names to someone who could have been the
Company Commander, First Sergeant, Executive Officer or just another slob like me for all I knew. He told me I would be assigned to
3rd Platoon and pointed in their direction. The other new guy was assigned to a different Platoon and I reported to mine. Again I gave my
name to someone who appeared to be in charge and he assigned me to 1st Squad, and again I got pointed in a direction.

When I got to the group of guys I had been steered to I was once again in that familiar position in the Army where a new guy was introduced
to the men he was going to be with for however long this assignment would last. I made the normal small talk about who I was, where I was from,
where I had taken training etc. The guys then told me that we were at the bottom of a hill and on top of the hill was an enemy bunker complex
that they had discovered a day or two before. They had engaged two enemy soldiers and killed one.

I was now an Infantryman in a war zone.

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