Charles Gadd - Line Doggie: Foot Soldier in Vietnam

Copyright 1987 by Charles Gadd
Published by Presidio Press
31 Pamaron Way, Novato CA 94947

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the Publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to Presidio Press, 31 Pamaron Way, Novato, CA 94947.

eISBN: 978-0-307-82994-8

v3.1

There have been and will continue to be many books written about Vietnam. Some are historical accounts, some simply state facts and give data, some have tried to distort the truth, and others have attempted to reveal the truth. Many of these writings have painstakingly explained the tactics, war plans, and specific battles, with traces of politics sprinkled in, to try to make the reader understand the Vietnam War.

In the language of guerrilla warfare, there is only one way to describe what the Vietnam conflict was really like, and that is through the eyes of the main character in this dramatic event in American history. Call this individual the star, leading actor, main character, or whatever you wish, but think of him as the line doggie, a name he was proud to claim. This book is dedicated to all of those who served as infantrymen in Vietnam, especially to those who made the supreme sacrifice.

This is not an authorized history, but merely my story. It is written strictly from memories I have carried for many years and have finally decided to bring forth.

I must explain that this story is written in the first person in order to depict more clearly the horror, fear, joy, and sorrow that practically every line doggie experienced during his tour in one of historys most unpopular wars. Millions of other stories are even more dramatic than those in this book, and every trooper who carried a rifle and rucksack in Vietnam now carries around in his own mind a book full of stories similar to these.

Written some sixteen years after it took place, this story tells how I envisioned the Vietnam War during the late 1960s. I was young and inexperienced and had no doubts that my country was doing the right thing by its involvement in this faraway land. I knew practically nothing about the political relationship between this small country and mine, and merely accepted the fact that we were right and they were wrong and that was that. Being a product of the post-World War II baby boom, I was brought up hating communism even though I knew very little about it. Serving a year in Vietnam instilled in me the knowledge that communism was truly a reign of horror, and though I still feel our cause was just, I now have doubts and questions that I fear may forever go unanswered.

All of the names in this book have been changed to protect the anonymity of those about whom the stories are written, but all the stories are truejust as I saw them.

It was snowing lightly that morning of December 14, 1967, when our C-141 Starlifter ascended from the runway at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. We were a well-trained groupA Company, 1st Battalion, 501st Infantryan element of Uncle Sams proud 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles. Most of us were replacements from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, belonging to the 82nd Airborne Division and the 18th Airborne Corps. Back in July, our names had come down on a levy from the Department of the Army, which had assigned us to various battalions in the famous 101st. We were originally from every aspect of training that the Army had to offermilitary police, armor, artillery, mechanics, clerks, cooks, signal, and many othersbut three months of intense infantry training and schooling at Fort Campbell had honed us to the sharpness of expensive cutlery. By December we had trained together in weapons qualification, defensive and offensive tactics and maneuvers, ambush, night movement, and all the other types of training that make an infantry company what it should be. We were proud, gung ho, well trained, and most of all, anxious to leave behind the boredom of garrison duty in the States and find out for ourselves what combat was truly like. A handful of troops from our battalion was returning to Nam for a second tour, and we rookies sensed, through them, that our future was not to be as full of glamour and excitement as we hoped. Little did we know that these men knew what hell was like, for they had been there and back and were about to return.

We pictured ourselves as gallant soldiers going off to war for God, country, and the cause of freedom. None of us could guess that history would record our efforts as being fruitless, and that someday we would confess that Yeah, I went to Nam, but Id rather not talk about it!

We were a small part of a massive airlift of the remaining two brigades of the 101st Airborne Division that had not yet been deployed to Vietnam. The 1st Brigade had been in Nam since 1965, and now the remainder of the division was embarking for somewhere in Southeast Asia. (It always amused me that our officers were instructed never to admit that we were going to Vietnam. They always used the term somewhere in Southeast Asia.)

Since we were not traveling by commercial airliner, but by military airlift, we left the States in full combat dress, with helmets, web gear, and rifles stuffed under our seats, and footlockers full of ammunition and grenades strapped to the loading ramp at the rear of the plane. It was not a comfortable flight at all, since the seats had been crammed into this cargo craft and bolted down for the flight. There were no windows, but by some stroke of luck, I happened to sit by a door at the front of the aircraft that had a small circular porthole. During the flight, there seemed to be very little talkmostly sleeping, reading, and wondering. We stopped first in California for a meal and refueling, then on to that forgotten historic blemish in the vast waters of the PacificWake Island. It amazed me how even the radar at our pilots fingertips could pick out such a dot in the mighty Pacific. We arrived around midnight and laid over for about two hours for more refueling. Several of us walked down the beaches and stood in awe as we read the monuments to those brave few who had fought so gallantly during World War II for this small, desolate piece of real estate. I walked back into the terminal and bought a postcard to mail to my parents. I had suddenly felt lonely and thought maybe this would break the hollow feeling that welled within me.

The silence on this lonely island was broken by the howl of jet engines as a large plane landed. Some of our group shouted, Hey, its a Delta commercial flight. Maybe there are tourists aboard, and well get to meet some girls. Everyone nonchalantly walked outside to the stretch 8. Im sure most of us were feeling that this would be our last chance for a long time to be seen in uniform before American civilians, and to be able to say, without words, Yes, were going to Namplease be proud of us.