1st Battalion 22nd Infantry Belis Stories Page 14

1st Battalion 22nd Infantry

Random Thoughts Of Life At Tuy Hoa

Our existence at Tuy Hoa in early 1971 was very strange for Infantry in Vietnam. As Infantry we were used to living in the field, or at base camps
that were sparse and relatively primitive. The base at Tuy Hoa had been built for the Air Force, and was as close to what a Stateside base could
be like in Vietnam. As such we enjoyed a level of comfort and attitude that most Infantry in Vietnam did not experience. This attitude also brought
Stateside problems.

Drug use was everywhere. I had done some heavy drinking, and considerable drug use, before joining the Army. I had continued such while
stationed in Germany. But by the time I was deployed to Vietnam, I had just about stopped both pursuits. I had no interest in doing drugs or
booze in the combat zone, as I personally felt both things could dull my reactions, which could get me killed, and had done neither for the first
four months I was in Vietnam. For the next four months or so that I was based out of Tuy Hoa there were only a couple of times when I took a
drink or smoked a joint, and the guys had to really twist my arm to get me to do so. Those few times I only did it when I was not on duty, and
as a Sergeant I always made sure that no soldier who was on a night ambush patrol with me was ever drunk or stoned.

Marihuana cigarettes were bought in packs, some laced with opium, and heroin was also prevalent. The drugs were brought into the base by
civilian workers, and could also be purchased along the perimeter wire, by tossing money to civilians outside the wire, who would toss the drugs
over the wire to soldiers. Heroin in the United States was cut with different substances, but heroin in Vietnam was nearly 100% pure. Some soldiers
re-enlisted and volunteered for Vietnam, just so they could get that pure quality of heroin.

The heroin was sold in small capped glass or plastic vials. One day a tall black soldier (not from my platoon) bought some heroin on the perimeter
line, and the seller tossed the vial, but not enough to clear the minefield that ran along the wire. The soldier wanted the heroin bad enough so that he
walked into the minefield to get the vial, even though he knew the mines were there. He stepped on a mine and blew the heel of his foot off.

Racial strife was strong at Tuy Hoa. Soldiers in the same platoon got along pretty good, for the most part. However, soldiers from different
Companies viewed people in other units as strangers, with no close ties. Rarely did black and white soldiers talk to each other about racial
problems. Once there were several of us from my platoon sitting in the barracks and talking, and a black guy said that if a white soldier was hit
and under fire, he, the black guy, would not go out to get him. When he left our group a couple of the white guys said that if that guy wouldn’t go
out to get a white guy, then they sure wouldn’t go out to get him if he were hit. I thought to myself that I hoped I would go out to get anybody who
was hit, no matter who they were.

There was a large Enlisted Men’s club that became a source of trouble. At the club black soldiers congregated together in a mass in the center of
the club, and would be loud and boisterous, making a lot of black power demonstrations. If white soldiers got too close to that mass, fights broke
out on the edge, between black and white. I could sense that something bad was going to happen, and I stopped going to the club.

One night, as I sat in our barracks with a couple of other guys, we heard an explosion coming from the direction of the club. I recognized it
immediately as the sound of a grenade going off. About a minute later the black guy who had said he wouldn’t go out to get a white guy, came
running into the barracks. He sat down on a bunk by me, looked in bad shape, and I asked him what had happened. He said there had been a lot
of fighting at the club, and a grenade exploded.

He said he thought he had been hit and pointed to under his left arm. I could see his shirt was torn under his armpit, and asked him to remove his
shirt. When he did I could see about an inch long open and deep cut, with very little blood, just below his armpit. I thought he had taken a piece
of shrapnel. Several of us brought him to the hospital on base, and waited while they worked on him. After a while a doctor came out and told us
the guy had been stabbed. The doctor said the knife had penetrated very close to his heart, and the only thing that saved the guy’s life, was that he
had been so loaded up on heroin when he was stabbed, that it had kept his body from going into shock.

The melee had been a full blown race riot, with 29 soldiers injured, six of them being hospitalized. Apparently it all started when several Charlie
Rangers began fighting with some black soldiers, and it escalated from there, spilling outside the club, where somebody set off a grenade. The
Army downplayed the racial aspects of the incident in press releases.

Tuy Hoa was right on the ocean, the South China Sea. The eastern side of the base went right down to the water itself. There was a nice beach
of fine sand. The water sometimes was beautiful, but often it was dangerous. The surf could be downright volatile at times. Guys would swim,
and bring inner tubes and their air mattresses to use as floats, but if they weren’t careful, that crashing surf and strong undertow could be life
threatening.

The heat at Tuy Hoa was different than it had been at An Khe. The base at An Khe was on a plateau in a mountain range. I don’t remember the
temperature at An Khe getting above the 90’s. One day at Tuy Hoa I saw the thermometer behind our platoon barracks reach above 120. On
operations in the mountainous jungle south of An Khe the humidity was extremely high. At Tuy Hoa in the lowlands, humidity was non-existent.
That 120 degrees was a dry, blistering heat. In contrast, the nights could be surprisingly cool and even chilly. With the night breeze blowing off
the ocean, the temperature could drop down into the 70's at night. That 30 to 50 degree drop in temperature could be difficult for a body to
adjust to, especially when laying out in the rice paddies all night on night ambush patrol. For that reason some guys would wear a field jacket
on patrol. I would bring my poncho and poncho liner. I would lay on the poncho and cover myself with the liner.

For a while at Tuy Hoa we experienced a monsoon type of rain. For at least a couple of weeks we could almost set our watches by the rain.
Every day at close to 4pm it would downpour for about an hour. It would even rain sometimes while the sun was out, something I thought only
happened in Louisiana. We had an American Indian in our platoon, who everyone thought was a strange character, and maybe even a little crazy.
He would look up at the sky, stretch out both his arms and cry out “Let there be rain!” And the downpour would begin. It was uncanny how
close to the start of the downpour his antics were.

On one occasion I was part of a group who were sent with a deuce and a half truck, to bring some damaged and discarded equipment and
materials to a garbage dump not far outside the south end of the base perimeter. I was not in charge of the detail. At the dump were a number of
Vietnamese civilians, who were rummaging through the garbage. Some conflict arose between a few civilians and our group, I don’t remember
what the conflict was about. Since our detail included leaving the base, we were all armed. As tempers flared and the situation intensified, I
readied my rifle, but the incident de-escalated, and once our job was done, we returned to the base. Another example of how the combat zone
could be menacing in so many ways, some of which had nothing to do with the enemy.

We alternated running night ambush patrols in the countryside around the base at Tuy Hoa, and pulling guard duty in the various guard towers
and ground level bunkers along the perimeter. Sometimes we would be in positions inside the base, guarding the ammo dump or fuel storage.
Very early in our deployment to Tuy Hoa a group from our platoon was right on the beach one day, either in a ground bunker or around it,
with our loaded weapons. Lieutenant Rosine was with us. A couple of civilian fishing sampans were out in the water and were maneuvering too
close to the beach. They weren’t supposed to be that close, so the LT told us to fire some M-79 grenade rounds at them, to warn them off.
We fired at them and made splashes in the water. They were about 100 yards beyond the range of the M-79’s so we didn’t hit anywhere near them.
That did however, make them divert back out to sea, and move away.

Firing at sampans with M-79 grenade launchers. The splash from one round can be seen in the middle of the photo.
At the right the splash from a previous round can be seen to be diminishing. To the right of each splash, the barely visible
dots in the background are actually sampans.

One night I was in a guard tower on the western side of the base. It was at a corner of the base, and there was a light pole illuminating the area
around the tower. I could see a snake crawling through the concertina wire. I shot at it several times with my rifle, hit it, and knocked it up into
the air. It caught on the wire and just hung there.

I was one of the few in the platoon who actually had a bayonet, and I fixed it onto my rifle, left my buddy in the tower, and went down on the
ground up to the wire. The snake was hanging on the wire, at a place where I could reach it, and I began to poke at it with the bayonet on the end
of my rifle.

After a while, I noticed a soldier coming up to me on my left. He was a black soldier, slowly walking toward me with his rifle held out in front
of him, in an assault stance. It was Gene McGray from my platoon. Gene had been in the ground level bunker to our immediate left. He heard
the shooting, and then saw me, illuminated by the light, poking into the wire. He cautiously came to investigate, thinking I had shot an enemy
trying to infiltrate into the base. As he came toward me, he was prepared to join in a fight with the Viet Cong, so he was much relieved when he
learned it was a snake I had been shooting at.

We were in the bunkers and towers on the western side of the base when a typhoon came through one night. I don’t remember which month,
it was either November or December 1970, or January or February 1971. This typhoon was constant rain and wind, with some impressive wind
gusts. I was with a couple of buddies in a tower.

The ground level bunker to our left was a two-story kind. It was built of sandbags with a roof. The roof was reinforced, and had more sandbags
around it, with a second roof, making an upper level bunker on top of a lower level bunker. The guys were in the upper level, when wind gusts
blew the roof off. They went down into the lower bunker, but saw a snake crawl into the bunker and join them. In the darkness of the bunker
they could not see where the snake was, so they left the bunker altogether and came to our tower. We all jammed into our tower and huddled
together against the rain and wind.

I had lived in southern Louisiana all my life, and was accustomed to dealing with hurricanes. None of these guys had ever seen this kind of storm.
A few were a bit scared when the wind gusted and howled. We all lamented having to be out in the elements like this. We figured the enemy was
most likely safe and sound in some shelter somewhere, and wouldn’t be foolish enough to try and infiltrate or attack us in this kind of bad weather.

One night I was Sergeant of the guard for the northern part of the perimeter line. I had a jeep assigned to me with Bo Bonnema as my driver.
We drove along the perimeter, stopping at each bunker and tower, making sure the guys were all okay. When we got to the corner of the perimeter,
where the northern side met the western side, there was a guard tower that looked out across the airfield.

The airfield at night was something to see. It had several different colors of lights outlining the runways and crossways. I had borrowed a 35mm
camera that had a long exposure feature, and I wanted to take some photos of the runway lights. Bo and I climbed up in that tower and joined the
guys who were assigned to it. I took a couple of photos, and then the Viet Cong attacked the South Vietnamese (ARVN) garrison that was along
the road about a mile north of our base.

We had a ringside seat watching the fireworks. I got some photos of flares lighting up the night sky, buildings on fire, and one bright explosion,
which may have been the ARVN ammo dump going up. A Huey helicopter gunship took off and flew over the ARVN garrison, firing at the
attacking enemy. I got a couple of photos of the gunship firing its mini-gun, its tracers making red lines in the night. I took some photos from the
tower, and some from on the ground, shot through the concertina wire.

Then the Viet Cong switched their attention toward us. Way outside the perimeter, in open countryside, mortar rounds began impacting. Each
successive round hit closer and closer to us, coming at us in a more or less straight line, heading right for our guard tower. It looked like something
you would see in a movie, as each explosion was closer, and therefore bigger, as each round came nearer to us.

Bo and I decided to seek safer accommodations, while the two guys assigned to guard duty in the tower decided to remain in the tower.
Bo flew down the ladder of the tower, with me right behind him, and we jumped in the jeep. Bo floored the pedal and drove us down the road
which paralleled the western perimeter, and pulled us in behind a sand dune inside the base. The mortar rounds stopped soon after, and never hit
inside our perimeter. The enemy had quit firing against us, and the attack upon the ARVN garrison was also over. Our headquarters sent additional
reinforcements out to the perimeter line, but for all purposes the night’s excitement was done.

Several nights later we went out on night ambush patrol, and our trucks had to pass right by that ARVN garrison. The burned and blown up
buildings were impressive, and the whole compound showed it had been the scene of some heavy action.

The ARVN ammo dump explodes at left center with a bright flash, as the garrison burns on the right with bright flames,
out of which smoke is coming.

At the end of my tour in Vietnam my Company had been sent out on a mission in the mountains around LZ Action. I did not go with them,
but instead was sent to LZ Buffalo at An Khe, to be part of the re-supply detachment for the Company. Since I was due to leave Vietnam the
first week of May, on April 22 or 23 I was sent back to Tuy Hoa, in order to get my affairs in order and begin to process out of the unit.
My Company would not return to Tuy Hoa for several more days.

There was hardly anyone at the Company area at Tuy Hoa. Most of Headquarters platoon was there, though the officers lived in quarters at a
different area on the base. The three rifle platoons and the weapons platoon were all still out in the field. On the night of April 24, 1971 the enemy
attacked the base at Tuy Hoa. I was still awake, in my 3rd platoon barracks, when I heard explosions inside the base, and small arms fire coming
from the western side of the perimeter.

I ran over to the Company headquarters to get my rifle out of the armory. I found consternation there. There did not seem to be anyone there
above the rank of Spec-4, and no one knew any details of what was happening. Since I was a Sergeant, I told the clerk who seemed to be in charge,
to get everyone he could, arm them, and get ready to defend our area if needed. I asked if there was a radio tuned into Battalion frequency, and
directed the clerk to call Battalion and find out what the situation was. Battalion answered there was an attack on the western perimeter, and for us
to sit tight and hold our position.

The explosions and firing had stopped, but we remained on alert for the rest of the night. A couple of Sergeants in higher rank to me joined us,
and were now in charge. The next day we learned the details of the attack. The enemy had fired about 10 mortar rounds into the base, aimed at the
fuel storage area, but missed the POL tanks. At the same time a squad of about 12-15 Viet Cong sappers attacked a ground level bunker on the
west side of the perimeter.

They apparently chose that bunker because it was directly opposite several civilian houses that were outside the perimeter, but in close proximity
to the base. Standing orders for guard duty were to not fire if civilian dwellings were in the line of fire, without first securing permission to do so.
The Viet Cong for certain knew about that standing order, and had chosen to attack this particular bunker because of it.

The base was in the process of erecting chain link fence barriers around the front of its ground level bunkers, as a deterrent to attacks by RPG's
(Rocket Propelled Grenade weapons, which in Vietnam were called B-40 rockets.) Hitting the chain link fence would cause the rocket to
prematurely detonate, before it hit the bunker. This bunker had the posts for the fence set in concrete, but the chain link fence had not yet been
attached to the posts.

The sappers had got close to the perimeter undetected, but by a stroke of incredible luck, when they fired a B-40 rocket at the bunker, it hit one
of the posts and was deflected to the ground, where it exploded, instead of hitting the bunker. The guys in the bunker thus were instantly alerted
to the fact they were under attack. They did not wait to secure permission to fire, but instead immediately opened up on the enemy with their
machine gun. The result was no American casualties, one enemy KIA recovered, and several blood trails leading away from the wire.

In a couple of days the Company returned to Tuy Hoa, and I was able to say my goodbyes to a few friends.

Eleven days after that attack at Tuy Hoa, I was a civilian and back home in Lafayette, Louisiana.

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