John Burford - LRRP Team Leader: A Memoir of Vietnam

I looked up at the trail and there was an NVA walking along. I told Looney Gooks!

He told me I was seeing things. I looked again and there were five more men following the first one I saw. The lead man saw us and started to run. I didnt say anything to Looney. I just grabbed both claymore firing devices and squeezed. In a blink of the eye the trail disappeared in a gray-black cloud of exploding C-4 as the claymores spewed their deadly shower of steel balls into the enemy. The rest of the men fired their claymores and more explosions ripped the air. I dropped the clickers, picked up my rifle, and started firing at the bodies on the trail. Over all of the racket I heard Looney saying, Contact, I say again, the team is in contact, over.

A Presidio Press Book
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright 1994 by John Burford

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Presidio Press is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

randomhousebooks.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 94-94035

Ebook ISBN: 9780307775269

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THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO:

Dr. Patricia E. Davis, English Professor Kennesaw State College
You rekindled my self-confidence and helped me start writing again, but more than that, you challenged me. Every day before I worked on the book, I would look at the note you wrote to me, Let me know when you get it published. Well, here it is.

A VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU TO:

Marsha Burford
Thank you for helping me out during a hard time, and for the countless hours you spent correcting my terrible spelling.

Don and Jeannie Harris
Your hours of editing were a great help, and your encouragement meant a lot to me.

John Looney
For all of the help and tons of encouragement.

Gary Linderer and Kenn Miller
The path is never smooth for the people who go first. Thank you both for blazing the trail.

In the years after I came home, I lived my life in a way that I thought was normal. When anyone asked me if Vietnam bothered me, I would laugh and tell them no, but I knew something was wrong. There was something missing, and I felt like I had a big hole in me. I had gone through two wives and one girlfriend in the last twenty years, and life was anything but normal.

One day in 1985, I came back to my office to find a note on my desk telling me that Soldier of Fortune magazine had called and left me John Looneys phone number. Months earlier, I had made a donation to one of the many causes supported by the magazine, and I made the donation in the name of all the men who served in Company F, 58th Infantry (LRRP), in 1968. I did it hoping someone from the unit would see it and contact me. Don Lynch had started his effort to get the company together, and my name got to him. He called John Looney, and John called SOF to get my phone number. The magazine wouldnt give John my number, but they took the time to call my office and pass on Johns phone number. I will always be indebted to them for that act of kindness.

I called John, and we decided to meet. I was taking a business trip to Washington, D.C., and I told him that I would swing over to Wheeling Friday afternoon to meet him at his house. I left Atlanta on a Monday morning and started working my way up to Washington. On Thursday, I had a nagging feeling, and I was looking for any good reason to call the trip off and go home. I wanted to see John, yet a large part of me was holding back. I called John Friday morning to let him know I was still coming up, and I could tell by the conversation that John was having the same feelings. I didnt make a special effort to set a time that I would be in Wheeling, and John didnt say that he could get off early and set a time for me to meet him.

It was almost 8:00 P.M . when I pulled up to a gas station to call John and let him know I was in Wheeling. John came over to get me, and we went straight to his house. When we got to the house, Johns wife, Gail, came into the room, said hello and left. I couldnt help but admire how perceptive she was; she knew we needed to be alone at that time, and she made sure it was that way. We sat on the couch in Johns living room and talked. By the third do you remember, the wall came tumbling down, and it hit both of us like a bright light.

The reason we had felt so much apprehension at meeting was peer rejection. We needed approval for our actions; we needed someone to tell us we did a good job, and all of the wives, girlfriends, family, or counselors in the world couldnt do that. The only person who could give us that approval was a man who had been there with us. I dont mean a person who had been in Vietnam, or even in the same type unit in Vietnam. I mean a man who had stood by your side, who had served with you, and who could say the magic wordyou were a good team leader, or radioman, or point man. After John told me he thought I was a good team leader, and I told him he was the best radioman I had served with in the seven years I had been in the army, a wave of relief swept over both of us. The real healing process had started.

I had planned to drop in to visit for an hour or so, and then head back towards Georgia that same night. We quit talking at 4:00 A.M . and went to bed. We got up the next morning at 7:00 A.M . and talked until 4:30 Saturday afternoon. When we wound down, Gail popped back up, and the three of us visited for an hour before I had to leave. The drive home was great, and I set about planning how to see Chambers and Don Harris. John told me that Don Lynch was working on a plan for a reunion of the company in 1986 at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

June 1986, in the Holiday Inn, Clarksville, there was a small gathering of Eagles. I stood by the door and watched as the men came into the lobby. The men who hadnt met face-to-face before would come in slowly, and I could understand what they felt. I guess it was best summed up by Command Sergeant Major Burnell. He got to fly over to Fort Campbell with the XVIII Airborne Corps commander and parachute in. Later that afternoon, the Corps commander told Burnell to go to his reunion, and had a couple of his men bring Burnell over in a jeep. Burnell and his escort came into the lobby of the Holiday Inn, and he was mobbed by a double handful of lurps. He was hugged, mugged, and given a beer, and when he turned around and told the young soldiers that brought him over that they could go back to their barracks, he was home now, I knew we had made it.

We have a get-together every year, when we can, and I go as often as I am able. I have seen some wonderful things happen to me and to some of the others. There is a small core of us who have drawn close, and we know that with each meeting, we will pull more of our friends together. Today, the saying Lurps dont leave Lurps behind is as strong as it ever was under fire.

If you are a Vietnam veteran, go find your buddiesit can be donemeet with them. Remember, they have your ticket home in their hands.