Gary Linderer - Eyes Behind the Lines: L Company Rangers in Vietnam, 1969

Closson quickly corrected, Left five-zero, drop five-zero. Fire for effect! The fire control officer called back for verification, warning Closson that the rounds would be almost on top of our position. Affirmative, thats where the enemy is, Closson told him. We ate dirt as we flattened ourselves into the depression that served as our NDP. We knew that final drop five-zero would put the next salvo just outside our claymores. And if that didnt stop them, theyd be in the perimeter with us.

Seconds passed, then we heard the deafening whoosh that accompanies a large steel projectile as it punches a hole through the sky. The incoming rounds sounded like an express train with us waiting at the depot. I nearly ruptured my eyelids as I clenched my teeth and waited for the end of my life.

By Gary A. Linderer:

THE EYES OF THE EAGLE: F Company LRPs in Vietnam, 1968

SIX SILENT MEN: 101st LRP Rangers: Book Three

PHANTOM WARRIORS: Book I: LLRPs, LRPs, and Rangers in Vietnam

PHANTOM WARRIORS: Book II

A Presidio Press Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright 1991 by Gary A. Linderer

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Presidio Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Presidio Press and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.presidiopress.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 91-92201

eISBN: 978-0-307-57465-7

v3.1_r1

I had to smile at the irony of it all as the C-130 slammed onto the runway at the Phu Bai airstrip near the imperial city of Hue. Only seven months ago, another C-130 had delivered me to this same hot, sticky, strip of tarmac situated on the coastal plain in the northern part of the Republic of Vietnam. Back then, I had been a green twenty-one-year-old, sold on the idea that I was one of Americas finest, answering my countrys call. I was full of piss and vinegar and ready to take on Uncle Ho and his whole Asian horde. I had volunteered for airborne infantry, advanced individual training, and Jump School in an attempt to get into Officer Candidate School; my two years of college and ROTC had not impressed the army enough to select me as a candidate for the program. However, it did impress them enough to send me halfway around the world to attend a one-year seminar in combat survival.

I had been lucky enough to be assigned to the famous Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division and had opted for fraternity life by volunteering for special operations duty with F Company, 58th Infantry (Long Range Patrol).

The army had done an excellent job of pumping all of us full of massive doses of self-confidence. Back in the States at Fort Gordon and Fort Benning, the cadre had hot-wired my buddies and me into believing that we were indeed the baddest motherfuckers in the valley. We developed a heightened sense of immortality and esprit that caused many of us to say a prayer each night that the war would go on long enough for us to get over there.

Some of our instructors threatened us with stories about how tough Charlie was and warned us that he would blow us away in a minute if he caught us half steppin. They promised that if we fell asleep on guard, wed wake up wearing an extra smileone cut from ear to ear. We figured they were probably just bullshitting us. After all, we were Airborne, and the baddest motherfuckers in the valley. Airborne didnt half step, and we sure as hell didnt sleep on guard. Mr. Charles had better watch his ass when we got to the Nam.

My first seven months in country had exposed the lie. The cadre hadnt been bullshitting us, and we werent the baddest motherfuckers in the valley, either. The damn valley was full of bad motherfuckers. Upon our arrival, we quickly discovered that we were as green as the stiff, chafing new jungle fatigues they issued us. The months of training back in the States had been woefully inadequate for what we would experience in the Nam.

The first few weeks proved to be a twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week cram course, How to Stay Alive in a Hostile Environment. And no training, in any amount, could truly have prepared us for the actual trials and tribulations of combat. Combat was its own finishing school. But we learned! Slowly but surely, we became jungle-hardened LRPs.

We developed the ability to perform under adverse conditions and in situations that would have destroyed lesser men. Those who couldnt cut it were quickly and quietly weeded out of the program and sent to other units. There was no place in the Long Range Patrol for the weak, the timid, the unmotivated. In time, our greenness had faded, just as the color had bleached from our uniforms and the rest of our gear. The dense, mountainous jungles and the constant sun/heat, sun/rain, sun/sweat, sun/dust cycle that was Vietnam had leached the parade-ground perfection out of each of us.

Humping the steep mountains of the Annamese Cordilla with hundred-pound rucksacks on our backs had increased our endurance. We learned to stalk the thick vegetation flanking the enemys high-speed trails with the stealth of a panther. We learned how to wait for the enemy along those trails, and to strike with the speed and deadliness of the cobra. We made an alliance with the jungle. It soon became our friend, providing us with shelter and cover as we sought out our enemies. We conquered our fear of the darkness, and learned how to use it to conceal us from the searching eyes of the NVA. We had studied the enemy at his own game. After a while, we had become its master.

For years, our six-man teams had infiltrated silently into the enemys staging areas to gather intelligence and to find him and kill him where he thought he was secure. Swift but deadly ambushes had left numerous NVA patrols no more than fly-blown heaps of carrion along the jungle trails. Many NVA couriers and VC political officers had died while moving between the lowland villages and the distant mountain sanctuaries. Ammo caches had exploded in the faces of unsuspecting NVA soldiers attempting to resupply themselves. Base camps and supply depots had been destroyed by sudden artillery barrages and well-plotted B-52 Arc Light bombing runs. Numerous troop concentrations had been destroyed in sudden assaults by Cobra gunships or airstrikes by fast-flying U.S. fighter-bombers.

The NVA knew that this death and destruction was not the result of mere chance. Someone was out there watching them! The enemy had come to fear and hate, yet respect, the men with the painted faces. We had adopted their style of war. They had always preferred to pick the time and place to engage their enemies in combat. The men of the Long Range Patrols had taken that option away from them. They were being taught the same demoralizing lesson that they had forced our soldiers to learn: death was everywhere in Vietnam. There were no havens!

A couple of weeks before I reached the hump, the midpoint in my twelve-month tour, the NVA took back their option. It was my fourteenth mission, a twelve-man heavy team recon patrol into the Roung-Roung Valley.