TRAVELS  WITH  THE  LEGENDARY  LODI  JONES  AND

HIS  MOST  UNFORGETTABLE  CHARACTERS  # 1

By Jim Campbell

A couple of months ago my dear friend Frankie Marshall asked me if I would from time to time write a column for the Ripcord Report. Many years ago when just a young undergraduate student at LSU I had considered a journalism career, but as most of you remember back in the mid-sixties, the country was involved in the space race with the Russians so I was forced to put my journalism career on hold as I chose for the betterment of mankind to enter the special honors program in nuclear physics and quantitative mathematics being offered at LSU to gifted students. Frankie=s request has once again generated my interest in journalism, and besides that, one does not reject the request of a great man. It is my intention with this column to on occasion follow the advice given me by that true patriot and well known muckraker Bill Williams whose motto is I Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.@

            I am quite sure that there are those who will not find my ramblings to be particularly memorable or worthwhile. Perhaps some will find them to be offensive. I am a man who has received a whole lot of criticism in his life from others, all of which criticism has been appropriately noted and then ignored. Therefore, if you are unhappy with my ramblings in this column, please forward your objections on to the editor and he can replace me with someone more talented and less offensive, and I will go gently into the night, comfortable in the knowledge that my career as a journalist would have failed.

When I was about 12 years of age, an old wise man once advised me while sitting on the front porch of his house in rural East Texas that if you choose a lifetime of drinking whiskey you are likely to make a fool out of yourself on a regular basis and  the best thing you can do when drinking heavily is to operate under an alias. It was advice that I chose to follow knowing that the consumption of whiskey and other spirits was a vice that would follow me the rest of my life. Over the years I operated under several aliases, one of which was the name ALodi Jones@. This was an alias given to me by friends during my single years after Vietnam while running women in Texas dance halls. After several years of covering a lot of wood in Texas dance halls with a multitude of female companions, the alias changed to AThe Legendary Lodi Jones@. Although I later married a wonderful woman who took my boots, cowboy hat, and spurs from me and made me settle down to a lackluster life with no time for visits to Texas dance halls, on those rare occasions when I consume a little too much alcohol, or on those frequent occasions when I am hanging out with Aknown fools@, I always go back to operating under the alias AThe Legendary Lodi Jones@. Since this column will probably appear foolish at times, I have chosen to adopt as my pen name my old alias AThe Legendary Lodi Jones@, as my reputation under this alias could not be more besmirched than it already has been.

            The Legendary Lodi has traveled all over the globe during his life and has been blessed with meeting many unforgettable characters. One need only travel about 90 miles east from Shreveport to Northeast Louisiana and you will find one of the most rural areas in the country that is inhabited by true country folk. This is a part of the world where a woman is measured by her love of God and family and her ability to fry chicken and make biscuits from scratch, and a man is measured by his integrity and truthfulness, his love of God and family, and by his hunting dogs. If you travel through this land of milk and honey and stop to ask anyone AWhose the best man in these parts?@, you will universally receive one answer. That answer will inevitably be the name of one of my most unforgettable characters, Layne Hammons. 

Now most of you know Layne from attending Ripcord reunions. He is the man who will invariably have a Camel cigarette in one hand and a Miller Lite in the other. Those of us in Charlie Company know Layne as the iron man who humped an M-60 machine gun in Sgt. Moyer=s squad in the second platoon. 

Stories about Layne are legendary and I feel obliged to recall a few. Layne is a man of few words, but when he speaks his words are profound and filled with great wisdom. A two pack a day Camel man since he was 12 years old, Layne is best remembered for his sage like advice on health care given late one evening a couple of years ago around the fire at deer camp when he stated  AL. T., it=s the filters that are killing everybody.@

A couple of years ago Layne, myself, and three other Ripcord veterans were sitting around my back yard doing the best we could to take out a 100 lbs of hot crayfish and see how much beer we could consume with them. After about 6 or 7 hours of eating and drinking, things began to get a little Amuddled@ for the group and one of the guys says to the rest of the group AWhat did y=all do your last night in the States before leaving for Vietnam?@ The bullshit began as we heard about how Ralph Motta had gotten drunk and partied all night with several women and how Chuck Shannon sadly was forced to end a long time relationship with a male friend. Then it came time for Layne to answer the question. He calmly took a pull on his Camel and says AIt was getting close to dark and I told Daddy that I wanted to hear the dogs howl one more time. Right at dark we turned the beagles out and it wasn=t long before they jumped a deer and the chase was on with the dogs howling. We chased them all night. It was music to my ears.@ Chuck Shannon then asked Layne AWhat did your wife think about you running all over the woods your last night before leaving?@ Layne responded AI don=t know, I didn=t see her til I come in to leave the next morning as it took all night to catch the dogs.@

             A little later in the evening after more crayfish and beer were consumed things became even more Amuddled@ and the talk turned to women. Someone foolishly asked the group AWhat did y=all do on your honeymoon night? I am not at liberty to divulge the responses of the rest of the group, but when it came time for Layne to answer he says ASandra and I got married in the early evening and after all the hoopla was over at the church, we went home, changed clothes, and went up the road about 3 miles to Lake D=Arbonne to run trot lines all night. We caught a mess of white perch and catfish and cooked um up for breakfast.@

               My friends this is true greatness in a man.

LZ  Kent  Island

by Chuck Hawkins

On April 10, 1970, FSB Ripcord was finally seized by ground assault by Charlie Company (2/506). Those first few days were not easy ones. —Chuck Hawkins

Dirt, dust, windswept mountain top.

Hueys come and go. Chinooks drop heavy loads of ammo, wire, blivets of water, fuel oil for the generators.

We labor under the sun, and wind, stringing barbed wire and concertina, and digging holes in the ground. Holes for our protection.

Something nags at us. Something inhuman floats above our labors and tugs at our souls. This is not a normal place to be.

Denny Heinz digs, and digs, lifting dirt from a place he will call home for the time we are here. Shovel full after shovel full.

He does not know, cannot know that where he digs has been dug before. Metal strikes metal, but he feels it not, and he lifts another shovel full of earth.

The grenade explodes.

Lifted to face level, it blasts Denny Heinz with the force of demons. How could he know it had been there since the last occupants buried it?

Doc Shepherd is there immediately, so is Foret, the sergeant, I am close behind. Heinz is shattered, dying.

Gasping, doc gives CPR. A medevac is called … anxious moments. The clatter of rotors slaps the air. Heinz will be saved.

I remember this as clearly as if it were yesterday. The medevac hovered over out position; we loaded Heinz on the chopper, fixed to a stretcher. The transfer from one medic to another took place. The medevac huey lifted off, and Doc began to cry, "Give him CPR, give him breath!" But it didn't happen. The chopper medic was too new, a cherry, and was shocked by the sight of his first casualty.

Doc was inconsolable, and for good reason. In a few minutes we knew. Heinz had died in route to the aid station in the rear.

There's a Wall now, in D.C. A place we go to remember heroes like Denny, a place we go to remember all those who died, serving their country in a dirty little war.

The Wall, too, is not a normal place to be. But it is there … for our protection.

ELECTRIC  CRAPPER  REVISITED

By Craig Van Hout

Many of you may have heard Phil Tolson, B 2/506, tell the story of the electric crapper at past reunions.  I witnessed to the first execution of that diabolical device and would like to pass on my version of the escapade.

We were on Firebase Rakkasan and, obviously, Tolson had too much time on his hands.  There was a crapper approximately 100 feet from our position.  For some reason Phil took a special interest in the crapper.  Granted, it was of far better design than the crappers we had on Ripcord.  The crappers on Ripcord were your basic box with a hole cut out on top so you could leave your deposit in a 50 gallon drum that had been cut in half.  You would just sit on top and go about your business and the whole world could check your progress if they wished.  There was an opening in the back of the crapper so the drum could be extracted whenever necessary so the deposits could be burned.  Now this crapper on Rakkasan was a deluxe model compared to those on Ripcord.  This one had walls on three sides and even had a roof to keep the sun or rain off your head while conducting your transaction.  It was situated so while seated you had a lovely panoramic view of the mountains.  I always wondered about that.  The crapper was constructed so nobody on the firebase could see if anybody was using the facility but an NVA sniper had a clear shot at you while you were exposed and in a vulnerable situation.  I figured it was probably designed by an officer who was probably a graduate of an ROTC program at a state supported institution of higher learning.  

Bravo Company was pulling perimeter guard duty on Rakkasan at the time, probably in the September/October 1970 timeframe.  The company had already been deployed to Rakkasan when I arrived at the firebase.  I was assigned to a position that included Tolson and 2 others guys, who I can’t remember.  The perimeter positions on Rakkasan were really quite nice in comparison to the other firebases I had visited, Ripcord and O’Reilly.  The sleeping positions were prefabricated units made from railroad ties.  Rakkasan was designed to be a permanent firebase, so the Army went the extra mile to go first class with the accommodations.  Now, the same cannot be said for the enlisted man’s VIP quarters that you slept in if you were passing through.  I had the opportunity to stay in the VIP quarters one evening on another visit to Rakkasan.  Basically, the enlisted men’s VIP quarters consisted of two of those steel culverts placed end to end that you had to weasel your way into and out of.  Sort of like sleeping in the tube of an MRI machine.  I always wondered what mental midget came up with that design.  Again, I figured it had to be some officer who was the graduate of an ROTC program at some state supported institution of higher learning.  There were three or four of these contraptions available for us low ranking enlisted men to occupy.  And they were strategically placed under the barrels of the 8 inch artillery pieces that were on Rakkasan.  Again, a true genius had to put them there.  If you have never heard an 8 inch artillery piece fire, imagine a case of dynamite exploding in your living room.  That’s about the equivalent of the noise level of an 8 incher.  To make your stay a memorable one, some Second Lieutenant, probably a magna cum laude graduate of an ROTC program at a state supported institution of higher learning, would decide to fire off a half dozen rounds from the eight incher at 0300 hours.  The first blast from the 8 incher would get you airborne, until you smacked up against the steel culvert and headed back down to the dirt.  Each blast from the 8 incher would provide enough momentum for you to bounce back and forth between the steel canopy and the ground six times.  Multiply that by a fire mission of 5 or 6 rounds.  I felt like a clapper in a cheap bell by the time the ordeal was over.  Then later on in the morning some NCO would think you were a smart ass because every answer to his question was “Huh?”.

But I digress, back to the electric crapper.  As I said earlier, by the time I had reported to Rakkasan, Tolson had taken a real liking to that crapper.  I don’t know what his affinity to the crapper was but he was like a proud papa when it came to the use of that crapper.  He established himself as the keeper of the crapper.  It was his self appointed duty to insure that nobody but the Bravo Company grunts were grunting in the crapper.  Sort of like the restricted membership in a Credit Union.  And if somebody other than grunts utilized the crapper Tolson would confront the offender and threaten them with bodily harm if they ever used the crapper again.  That alone was humorous because back then Tolson was about as big as a noodle.  The violators usually came from the artillery battery above us.  One repeat offender was an NCO, probably an E6 or E7, who was a cook for the artillery battery. 

Finally, Tolson had enough.  His devious and perverted mind went to work and he came up with a solution.  A little electric shock treatment to the offender would do the trick.  There was a toilet seat that was nailed to the top of the crapper.  (I told you this was a first class facility.)  Tolson took the wire from the field phone in our position and wrapped one wire around each nail.  He meticulously covered the wire with dirt as it led back to our hole.  The wait began.  Finally, the first offender arrived on the scene.  It was the cook!  The cook was an older, career Army man.  He was a tad overweight.  You could tell he was prepared for an extended stay at the crapper, he had a copy of Stars & Stripes with him.  The cook dropped his trousers and backed into the crapper to commence his business.  (For the record, let me say that I told Tolson not to do it.  Not to a senior member of the cook cadre!  Not to a career Army man!  Hopefully that covers me in the event of any litigation that may evolve from this story.)  Tolson got that gleam in his eye, that devilish smile creased his lips.  He attached the wires to the field phone and waited until the porcine cook was settled in.  Then he gave that field phone 5 or 6 spins of the dial.  Ladies and gentlemen, we had lift off!  That cook launched out of the crapper, trousers down around his ankles and Stars & Stripes flying in all directions.  He proceeded to do a poor imitation of an Arapahoe rain dance for a minute or two.  When the tingling ceased the cook pulled up his trousers and headed back to the electric crapper.  He had bad intentions.  He found the wires and started to rip them out of the crapper.  Tolson’s eyes bugged out.  This wasn’t part of his plan.  I don’t know which was funnier, watching the cook uproot the wire leading back to our position or Tolson unhooking the wires and trying to bury them outside our hole.  The cook finally made his way to our position and had a few words with Tolson about his creative genius.  Tolson made some lame excuse like Captain Peters told him to do it.  The cook headed back to his mess hall rubbing his posterior every few steps.  Needless to say I never used that crapper as long as Tolson was on the firebase, even though he promised he would never jolt a grunt.  That’s the true story of the first run of the Electric Crapper, as I remember it.

THE TROUBLING LIE THAT WON’T GO AWAY

by Chuck Hawkins

Current protestations over the recent U.S. war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq notwithstanding, America does not lightly or easily go to war. “America can become martial,” explains historian Robert Leckie in The Wars of America, but “she has never been militarist.”

 Indeed, the pacifist nature of Americans has been a factor in every war the country has fought.

 Yet when America gets its blood up its soldiers become some of the most lethal warriors in history. Firepower and individual initiative are two of the hallmarks of battlefield success.

 A post-World War II survey of German officers showed that they feared fighting Americans more than any other foe. During the war in the Pacific Army physician Captain James E. T. Hopkins attempted to assess the cause of death of Japanese soldiers, but he had to give up this gruesome study because so many different projectiles had riddled the bodies he examined that it was impossible to determine cause.

 Firepower kills, and American fighting men know it. They have no use for, and maintain a disdain of, biological weapons.

 Imagine then the surprise I and others felt at the assertion by a Chinese PLA general and head of an academic department at the prestigious Academy of Military Science that U.S. forces had used biological weapons against North Korean soldiers and civilians during the Korean War.

 The remark came during a semi-annual working meeting of The Military Conflict Institute in Alexandria, Virginia in 2000. The PLA general raised the subject as matter-of-factly as a dairy farmer would state that milk comes from cows. Clearly he believed what he was saying was true.

 A colleague who had served in World War II and worked at the Army’s biological and chemical warfare facility at Dugway Proving Grounds during the Korean War attempted to set the record straight from his personal knowledge. But this did little to persuade the general.

 Recent revelations by Kathryn Weathersby and Milton Leitenberg, working for the Cold War International History Project are perhaps more persuasive. Their analysis covers excerpts from a collection of Soviet documents in the holdings of the Archive of the President, Russian Federation published in January 1998 by the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun.

 In 1951 and 1952 the Soviet Union, People’s Republic of China and North Korea claimed that the United States had used a wide range of biological warfare agents. Although there was no basis in fact for the allegations, there was a case for believing them to be true, at least initially.

 After World War II the United States investigated Japanese use of and research on biological weapons in China. To gain cooperation of senior Japanese officers the U.S. granted them amnesty from prosecution for war crimes, and then denied that it had done so. This set the stage for the Soviet Union to warn China and North Korea that the U.S. might use biological, chemical and nuclear weapons during the Korean War.

 Chinese and North Korean field commanders, sensitized to this possibility erroneously reported use of biological agents when soldiers came down with diseases that were common in Northeast Asia after World War II—cholera and plague were two such infectious diseases blamed on the Americans. Then, after laboratory tests concluded that biological weapons were not responsible, Stalin decided that Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang should continue the deceit as propaganda.

 After Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953, the post-Stalin leadership in Moscow terminated the propaganda campaign on the grounds that the bogus effort, based on manufactured evidence, was damaging Soviet prestige. Beijing and Pyongyang were forced to follow suit.

 Fifty-one years afterward neither Moscow, nor Beijing nor Pyongyang has offered the United States an apology. Although it might be expecting too much for North Korea to do so, Russia and China might find it useful in light of current cooperation to rid Pyongyang of its nuclear weapons ambition.

 More detailed information is available at the Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, http://wwics.si.edu.

THE MAN WHO DIED FOR AMERICANS AND HIS COUNTRY

Memorial Day, 2004

by Chuck Hawkins

Cold War Files In Moscow Reveal the Truth: The U.S. Did Not Use Biological Weapons In the Korean War

Attached is an article I had published in Lianhe Zaobao in April, a Singapore-based newspaper.

It is said, “life is a journey, not a destination.” Along that journey there are many trails and paths that take us forward. Some are exciting paths. Some paths are dull and empty. There are trails that are full of sorrow, and others that give us joy.

 In coming here today I came on a path of joy. It is good to worship with friends and to renew one’s faith in God. But in being here on this Memorial Day, I am reminded of times past when the trail was fraught with danger, death and destruction.

 When I remember those sad times, when I look into the unutterable well of sorrow of the Vietnam War, I think long and hard about the sacrifices made by tens of thousands of young Americans.

 Tens of thousands died.

 Hundreds of thousands were wounded.

 Millions served in a far-off land, all trying to bring freedom to a nation-in-waiting.

 Sadly, it was not to be.

 Yet those young soldiers that gave their lives in the service of their country a generation ago are with us today. They did not shirk their duty, nor stain their sacred honor. And they left a legacy for all to learn by—a legacy not of failure and defeat, but a legacy of will and determination, of faith and courage.

 Today our great nation is engaged in a long and terrible war against terrorists and despots who would deny freedom and liberty not only to us but also to anyone who believes differently from them. Thank God for our soldiers today. And thank God for a legacy of courage and sacrifice that came from past generations of American warriors. American men, and women, such as those who have served and are serving now, will help to ensure America’s future.

 Now, I want to tell you a short story about courage and sacrifice.

 Sergeant First Class Long served in a rifle company in the famous 101^st Airborne Division in Vietnam in 1970. He was slightly built and wiry, with a ready smile for others. He came from a good family and believed in serving his country, even though times were difficult. He was 30 years old and had a wife and young daughter. He also had a gift for languages, and in addition to English he understood French and Vietnamese.

 SFC Long was both combat savvy and brave. He had been in combat longer than most of his fellow soldiers, and he would have been forgiven if he had sought a job in the rear, away from the toil and danger of the jungle. But he did not.

 Long possessed moral courage as well as physical courage.

 Once, he helped to capture an enemy North Vietnamese soldier at a firebase near the dreaded A Shau Valley in the rugged mountains of South Vietnam. When soldiers of a South Vietnamese artillery battery—which was stationed on the firebase along with American infantry—tried to abuse the captive, Long stepped between them and ordered the offenders back to their duty stations. Then he proceeded with the prisoner to the American command post. That took courage.

 Some time later the rifle company was committed to combat missions deep in enemy territory around another firebase. Fighting was frequent, fierce and brutal, but the company pressed on with its mission. SFC Long was in the thick of the action.

 Then, on a particularly difficult day, one of the rifle platoons came across an enemy telephone line in the jungle. A wiretap with a radio handset was rigged and because Long knew Vietnamese he was called forward to listen and transcribe what he heard.

 Under fire for the better part of the afternoon, Long’s transcripts of enemy conversations over that phone line were sent to higher headquarters. It was the hottest intelligence about the enemy the 101^st Airborne Division had received in months, and it helped to shape command decisions about the fighting that was underway.

 Long shrugged it off. He was just doing his duty.

 Two days after the wiretap, an enemy battalion struck the rifle company from three sides. In a long afternoon—during which the enemy used chemical weapons—the butchery of combat became savage, close and personal.

 Outnumbered four-to-one, the company was sliced to ribbons. One platoon was cut off and surrounded, while others were pushed back from their defensive positions. The company command post was isolated in the midst of heavy machine gun and mortar fire.

 As North Vietnamese soldiers boiled out of the dense underbrush they spied SFC Long, and gunned him down.

 Sergeant First Class Pham Van Long, Army of the Republic of Vietnam, died fighting for his country, and also for the Americans he had been assigned to assist.

 SFC Long didn’t receive any awards or citations. There is no statue in his honor. His name does not appear on the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial—The Wall—in Washington, D.C. His country no longer exists.

 His country no longer exists. Think about that.

 Courage and sacrifice are not enough. South Vietnam needed more men like Pham Van Long. South Vietnam needed more citizens to support the war effort. And South Vietnam needed an ally that wouldn’t cut and run.

 Long was a rare soldier. Perhaps that’s why he preferred to serve with Americans.

 Like all my soldiers, Long has a special place in my heart. That’s why I include him in my memory of others who served, and died, in a difficult war so long ago.

Major Mark (Zippo) Smith and the Battle of Loc Ninh

Baseball and The Vietnam War

In my childhood there was the red sweater with the green outlined letter from Lima Ohio, with varsity symbols for volleyball, basketball, track and softball. Softball? Yes, softball. This was not the high school sweater of my insurance investigator and Army Air Corps veteran father. Quite the contrary, it belonged to the personal coach and mentor of all athletically inclined children in the family: my mother. Dad wrote, typed and investigated. From helping the disadvantaged or working at All Tribes Indian School, in Bernalillo New Mexico to the ball diamonds of Southern California, Jean Smith came to play and you had better have the same attitude. Thus, I was raised with five constants in my life, continually drilled into my head:  GOD, COUNTRY, FAMILY, THE UNFAILING ABILITY OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY TO DEFEAT ANY ENEMY AND BASEBALL.                           

As a child who constantly put himself in harms way, the ability to recover from any injury was gauged against the impact on the baseball diamond. I do not mean minor injuries either. They started with riding a tricycle down two flights of stone steps to the sidewalk below, head first to running a coat hanger from my father’s dry cleaning, hanging over a chair, through my eyelid at age three in Toledo Ohio. Then the wooded campus of Great Commission Schools brought the opportunity for more self inflicted danger to my young inquiring self. As the older lads built a tree house above, I sat beneath until a dropped two-by-four split my head wide open. Then onto the forbidden bulldozer playing Army and the fall that drove a spike through my knee from the board lying nearby. The fall through the frozen pond’s ice cost me a real whipping right after the well attended rescue. But, at the same time I was dressed in corded double-kneed pants, because of my slides across the pea gravel of what served as a ball diamond for kids. I should have opted for a double seat in the pants as in my first year of elementary education I set the record for receiving six whippings in one day, from my good Christian teacher. Doubts were raised about my ability to survive to age eight. But, then one day there was baseball. I was heavy legged but I could hit a long way between strikeouts. ‘Keep your eye on the ball’, ‘Get down in front of it’ and ‘Break up the double play’ were all orders emanating from the sidelines from my mentor mom. Her attitude was that some came for glory, some for exercise, a few were forced and a handful came to play the game. I knew what was expected and what I wanted: I CAME TO PLAY. It has guided my entire life. I was never the fastest, strongest nor had the rifle I wanted for a left arm, but, I have always come to play. From sandlots and manicured diamonds to terrible battlefields, POW camps and high level political intrigue I have maintained one attitude, whether winning or losing:      ‘ LET’S PLAY TWO.’    

With some of my attitudes I suppose I should have been born a whole lot bigger than I am. Throw at my head and I do not care if you are Drysdale, I am coming to the mound. Brush-back? No problem, part of the game. But aim Mr. Rawlings or Mr. Spalding at my head, because, you were born large and wish to intimidate? I am coming to your office to chat about your attitude. I am standing here with my friend  ‘35’ from Louisville and you are going to throw at me? I learned early on all pitchers are not Einstein. This same attitude stayed with me when rifles provided me by the United States Army replaced my beloved bat. But there were a lot of games, ‘over the line’ and standing my young brother Greg up against a fence and letting fly, with a hard ball, when he was eight and I was sixteen. I had already put a large bump on his nose by throwing pop-ups for him to try and catch. I would never be the coach our mother was. He later went on to be an all-star catcher in high school and has played in leagues with his police associates into his fifties. Having the same coach Greg Smith also came to play.   

There was another distraction in California other than the beaches and baseball. There were girls! LOTS OF GIRLS!!   I was denied a drivers license for years after first eligible, because, of a perceived inability to keep my hands off the fairest among us. But the ‘ Boys Of Summer’ will always find a place. I was banished to a small Christian boarding school in the Eastern Kentucky Mountains: Mount Carmel. We had girls but the only interaction between the sexes took place at the dining table and this was closely monitored by the old ladies who ran the place. When I got some fellows together to play ball, windows were broken and that ended that. I learned a number of things at Mount Carmel and they certainly were not all bad. I was born into a Christian home, but I had never been directed to fall on my knees and cry out for the benefit of others, only for God. Some at Mount Carmel wanted to direct my life onto a mission field in the darkest reaches of the world and I just wanted to replace Gil Hodges at first base for the Dodgers. Neither of us would bend nor get our wish. They stood a sixteen year old young man on a country road with enough money for a bus ticket to Ohio in my pocket. I was a has-been ball player and a high school drop out all in one day. I felt my life was over. Then I saw the Paratrooper from the 101st Airborne in the Cincinnati Ohio bus terminal. I knew where my next stop would be: ‘Wonder if they play ball in the Army’?    

In a few weeks after many tears by family, especially my mom, I walked into the domain of a fat Army Sergeant First Class and he said two thing: ‘ Call me Frank, drop-out right’? I hung my head and admitted to my first real failure in life. After ascertaining I did not want to be a Nuclear Engineer and merely desired to jump out of perfectly good airplanes he was thrilled. After he took me to lunch I asked ‘Do they have baseball teams in the Army’? He lied and said every unit had a team. Jump out of planes and still play ball? ‘ Sign me up.’ I took the papers home to mom and after assuring her I would be a ‘ Nuclear Engineer’ and they had baseball, she and my dad signed. I was signed up for Airborne Infantry in Germany, but we all fib to our mothers at times like this. Do not wish to worry them about stemming the ‘Red Tide’ and playing teams from Stuttgart and Frankfurt. I thought, ‘ What league is that’? As it turned out there was no league, but along the way I found my other major professional love in this life: The United States Army.  

I served in Germany and ended up in the 1/509th Airborne and then down to the 10th Special Forces as a driver for the commander and training as a Light Weapons man. I had found a home and decided to stay until I died in the U.S. Army, unless the Dodgers called and Ron Fairly was hurt and they wanted me. The dream never died. There was always baseball.

I left Germany to attend Artillery OCS and ended up a husband and father at Fort Bragg, as a Corporal. The 7th Special Forces gave me the opportunity to earn Sergeant back by going to Ranger School. I took it and found out the Army did have some major league teams, but their specialty was war. I went to Dominican Republic and Venezuela with the 7th S.F. and found out their armies did have baseball. I got the opportunity to play ball and shoot in both places. Life was very good. Then I got one of the last TDY slots to Vietnam and was wounded in the left biceps, after only four months, while trying to replace a wounded medic at a camp in III Corps being over-run.   

When I returned from the hospital in Japan I was assigned to the First Infantry Division in the 28th Infantry’s 2nd Battalion. I was twenty and livid. I played for no “Minor League Leg” teams. I demanded and got an audience with Major General William Deputy, the Commanding General. Needless to say I ended up in the “Black Lions” of the 28th Infantry as first a Squad Leader and then as the Recon Platoon Sergeant. In 1966 when I was promoted to Staff Sergeant at age twenty, I was recognized as the youngest in the Army. Not bad for someone who had been a Sergeant E-5 twice. I also carried an aid bag to make use of the medical skills I had re-enlisted for in Special Forces. I found out they were a “First Division” team in every respect. They liked my style of play well enough to ask General Westmoreland to give me a Battlefield Commission during Tet 1968. They sent me back to the states after a minor meeting engagement with a carbine bullet, to attend the Officer Basic Course at Fort Benning, during the May Offensive of 1968. I had been in Vietnam for nearly two years and wanted back there; ‘Lets play two.’ 

I had a wife and a child, but I wanted back in the game. After attending a short ‘charm school’ in Washington and additional training at Fort Bragg I spent the first part of 1969 working for the Deputy Ambassador to Vietnam and then on to the Vietnamese Rangers. My second child Jeffery was born in my absence and my first child Misty Ann was only four but I wanted to fight. Like any ball player soldiers spend a lot of time ‘ on the road.’ I learned later that children sometimes get left behind when a father merely says ‘lets play two’ and stays in the game while the other fathers go home. Would I change the life I lived and how I played the game? NO!! Not many men can say that.                                    

It was about this time the United States was losing the will fight to the end in Vietnam and the adjoining countries of Laos and Cambodia. The attitude embarrassed me and made me determined to stay and try to win. It was the first time I had ever been around people who were at best hoping for a tie instead of winning. When I once heard a soccer player say a tie would be good enough I knew I would never play or even care to watch these guys. Americans are trained from childhood to play hurt and hide injury. Soccer players feign injury in hopes of getting an advantage off of a penalty. It will never be my game and I question whether American youth should be subjected to the attitudes of European players.   Want a game requiring talent and skill? There is always baseball. I would never feign injury and was very proud of myself. It was coming up on 1970 and in two years I would be more physically injured than I could have ever imagined. But, E Company and C Company of the famed 1/506th Infantry Regiment and the 101st Airborne Division beckoned me to I Corps.                                                                           

I extended again and went to command a rifle company of the finest men I have ever known. But, when I arrived at Camp Evans it was a different story. Dope and the so-called anti-war movement had invaded the U.S. Army. I took E Company and after C Company was hit bad on FireBase Granite I took over command of that unit. It was a simple matter really; ‘ C Company, I am Captain Mark ‘ZIPPO’ Smith and I have come to fight and you get to go along.’ I had put on twenty pounds on extension leave and they were less than impressed by my appearance. Then rather than the expected trip to the rear area we walked off Granite at night. Now they were just scared. One Soldier asked me when they would get to the rear and my answer was the same as heard on many practice fields of my youth; ‘When you    win.’                                                           

(PART II)

We commenced to do all the things I had learned between 1965 and 1970 in Vietnam. I was thankful for all the great coaching I had down through the years. Men like General Deputy and General Jim Hollingsworth, the famed ‘Danger 79er’ had made a great impression on me and I was taking those leadership skills to the enemy. LTC Menetrey taught me that one did not need to yell and scream in the middle of battle and that calm leadership in tense situations would make a greater impression. LTC Elmer Pendleton taught me to be brutally frank and that it can save lives. There were a few who taught me how not to act. These ranged from senior non-map readers to those who felt knocking up female American workers was part of the job description. Most were golfers and tennis players and not ball players. In some cases they were brave and competent. But, the extra-curricular activities did them in. Some managers and coaches might want to consider that. I thought how war was a lot like baseball.  

The problem was that by 1970 we were no longer swinging for the fences but were trying to bunt our way out of the game. So I decided to make my team different. Every man had a nickname and every squad was allowed to select the pattern of camouflage they desired on our frequent trips to ‘Eagle Beach’ the R&R center. Each awarded for killing the most enemy. Then they changed the rules so others had a chance. Same old game. Some take their cuts and live with the result. Others want another cut off the hitting tee, whatever that is. But, then the rules began to change and I was having none of it. People were so afraid of suffering casualties they built a timid attitude into their men. More men died through being timid during the period of 1969-73 in Vietnam than from any tactic our enemy employed. We suddenly had a team out there with no spirit or desire to win. I led my men against the enemy using his rules and some of my own. Whenever we met the enemy we fought with total uninhibited abandon. For seven months we led all others in killing the enemy and suffering the fewest casualties. We took it to him and one foggy day, by simply taking the time to watch and listen; we wiped an entire NVA Sapper Battalion off their commander’s roster of usable units. We suffered not one casualty in doing it. In war you are allowed to run up the score, without recrimination. I looked into the eyes of my scruffy, multi-uniformed troops and saw the gleam; I owned them.    

When I found I had a large segment of my unit in the rear because of the skin disease caused by small cuts during shaving in the field, I banned it. I also had Black soldiers who were given shaving ‘profiles’ and thus were not required to shave. It was fortunate that LTC Bobby Porter ‘ RAZORBACK’ came and saved my bacon more than once. He came to love my troops as much as I did. I did not care if they looked like Santa, By God they would all look the same. We dug in and sent out ambushes every night. By walking through the abandoned positions of other units, it was obvious they were doing neither. We were a team and I adored them and they loved me. They still do and we meet every year. My time as a Company Commander came to an end and with deep regret I had to leave. They were and are the greatest men I have ever known. Why? Because, in a time of great adversity and when the other teams were satisfied with a ‘tie’ or even a loss, they were winners and still are today. Yes war is an awful lot like baseball.                                                                 

 I spent a totally enjoyable ten months in the Ranger Department at Camp Darby and was able to be the Assault Element Leader on the Ranger Desert Test in White Sands and Fort Bliss. But I had a terrible nagging in my very soul; Men were fighting a war and I was not there. I felt like I was coaching guys with the potential to star and I was not in the game any longer. I felt as if I was growing old and training the young. I was twenty-five, with eight years service. I was impressed with the total professionalism of nearly every one of my fellow instructors. They were not only great Rangers, they were great men. O.K. lets play two. Put me back in coach, I got a feeling about this one. I was able to get orders for one more tour in combat as the war ground down. I was thrilled. I had no idea what I was about to face.  

I left Fort Benning in the middle of a class I was assigned as the TAC Officer for, along with SFC Roger Brown. It was a non-combat arms class full of West Point officers. Every Cadet with glasses was in that class and few realize the challenge for a Ranger student with glasses. They fogged up in inclement weather and made the term ‘secure equipment’ have a whole new meaning. But, Ranger Brown was always on top of things and kept me straight. Later he was commissioned and was one of the first officers assigned to the new 1st Ranger Battalion. Upon hearing that later I was intensely proud of him. He retired as a Captain and is a voice well known in Ranger circles. But, Vietnam was in the final innings and I wanted to be there as the transition to Vietnamese control took place. 

The Reduction In Force (RIF) began during this period. Officers commissioned in the Reserve were shown the door in an unappreciative and callous way by the very Army they had served with bravery and honor. General Westmoreland, then Chief Of Staff and our former commander in Vietnam gave an unfortunate speech at Fort Benning and angered both Reserve officers on active duty and our Regular Army counterparts. My impression was that he was describing those commissioned as Reserve officers, during the war, as basically ‘second stringers’ and ‘weekend help’’ He became defensive when I presented myself to him and pointed out he had personally told me, after commissioning in Vietnam, I need take a back seat to no officer. He lamely said there were ‘exceptions.’’  He was forced by circumstance to take the actions he took but he came off as arrogant in his delivery to us. That was not the eloquent Westy’s finest and best-received speech.     

But, I was still on the team and Advisory Team 70 and the 9th ARVN Regiment needed an advisor for all the battalions. One man would advise the four Infantry Battalions and the RECON Company. I was that man and was going back to Lai Khe where I had served with the 28th Infantry from 1966-68. I wondered if we would be operating around Loc Ninh, my old stomping grounds? I was about to find out in spades.                                                                          

We had a hodgepodge from the Army in Vietnam at that time. ‘Benchwarmers’ who had hid out for years suddenly appeared to get into the game, in the final hour and punch the proverbial ticket and very experienced ‘old hands.’ The Senior Advisor was Colonel Bill Miller and he was a legendary Soldier going back to World War II. Later his son commanded an A Detachment for me in the 7th Special Forces and is today a fine General Officer.                                                      

 My teammates were fine but one worried me. SFC Howard Lull and I knew each other from his many years as a Provincial Reconnaissance advisor at the training center for PRU at Long Hai. A former Marine, Lull was a bit too much of a self-promoter and considered himself a quasi-officer. He and I would have many showdowns, which I always won because I was a Captain in the United States Army and knew it. When I was a NCO in the Army I would not have belittled myself to try and be somewhere between commissioned and noncommissioned. Lull felt there was a slot for that and I knew there never would be.     

I got into the game and even finding the NVA was tough. You might kill them in ones and twos but no large unit actions. The 9th Regiment Commander, Colonel Vinh, was no go-getter but we got along well. Our Senior Advisor was LTC Dick Schott and he was a great leader and friend. The Deputy was Albert ‘Ed’ Carlson an Artillery Major and a recent grad school attendee. Last we had a young SF qualified Buck Sergeant named Ken Wallingford. He had been banished to our team by Colonel Miller for playing with our local barmaid. He would never forgive Bill Miller for that until the day he died. Bill Miller was horrified when he thought Ken had died later. My attitude was simple. You were told, you disobeyed and you get to come to the real war pal.     

The only advisors who actually went to the field with the battalions were Lull and myself. Lull went once and when he tried to take the handset of the radio out of my hand to ‘star’ ’ during a firefight south of Lai khe, I smacked him in the mouth with it. He then went secretly to the staff and lobbied for the Silver Star. That firefight should not have resulted in a strong handshake, let alone the Silver Star. In baseball this would be like being awarded a double for hitting a long foul ball. Howard always dressed for the game but he was no player. Later he would make the ‘Black Sox’’ look like saints and choirboys. But that was not known at that point in time. People were in Vietnam, in many cases, just to punch the clock and in some cases they were having a very good time. Lull was having a good time and wanted no part of a stateside Army.

(PART III)

The Vietnamese knew what was coming and tried to tell us something big was heading down ‘Uncle Ho’s’’ famous highway but our side kept trying to wish it away. We were satisfied to take on the bush league handful on duty in Binh Long Province and ignore that the ‘Hanoi Bomber’s’ had checked into a hotel just up the road and had come to play. Their equipment bag was full and their manager; LTG Tran Van Tra was an All Star. Colonel Bill Miller,  ‘Danger 79R’’ and I saw them coming in force with armor. The intelligence guys at MACV and the ‘soothsayers’ at House 10 and the embassy were reading a different playbook.  

Look at our situation today and you will see different faces but the same playbooks are being used and believed. In 1972 everyone wanted to blame the ‘owner’ just like today. ‘Once the first pitch is thrown or the first shot is fired the outcome will be decided on the field.’ But, like today I found the above to be a false axiom. There were then and are today, forces at work in the stands and certainly the press box none counted on.   

Strange looks began to come into the eyes of some of the leaders of the 9th Regiment. Colonel Vinh, captured with the French at Dien Bien Phu, was already talking like a beaten man. ‘Would the Americans help with the 1st Cavalry’’? ‘Don’t think so Colonel.’ Once this thing really got going, with the exception of airpower, we would stand-alone. I based this on the assumption the Vietnamese would attempt to use any time we could buy at Loc Ninh to prepare to defend more important targets farther south. Sometimes even the star player has to bunt and sacrifice his average for the team. The high command was looking at my camp as a bunt, not to advance the runner, but to allow him to stay in place at a little town called An Loc.                                        

I remembered the scissors-bridge we had put in place and left in the jungle, a few miles west of Loc Ninh. Everyone, Vietnamese and American, thought it was a splendid achievement. I thought it was the dumbest idea ever. Every time I flew over it I knew the only reason the NVA did not blow it up was simply because they intended to use it. It took me half a day to get it blown up on the first day of battle. By that time a whole lot of General Tra’’s T-54 tanks would have already used it. But, I did not know these things yet. I had other things on my mind. One was Major Ed Carlson.                                   

Ed was leaving and his wife was waiting in Bangkok, but, Ed had a Vietnamese Honor Medal, a Cross Of Gallantry and his going away party coming to him, scheduled for the night of 4 April 1972. The decision to stay for that would forever change Major Albert E. Carlson’’s life. Ed was a scholarly type and doted on his wife and their adopted son. He was not Georgie Patton or even Omar Bradley. Ed was a professional staff officer and he should have gotten out of there, but he chose to stay. In the Army staff officers are the equivalent of coaches, trainers, front office types and batboys. They are not players and what we needed right then were players. So at this point I had a disgruntled Sergeant E-5, who missed his girlfriend and a Major who would have been more comfortable figuring out the budget than the battle. Of course LTC Schott and I also had SFC Howard Lull with his eight years in Vietnam and his fat lip for trying to take my radio in battle. In the end, the disgruntled kid Sergeant and the staff officer Major would prove to be braver and better men than SFC Lull ever was. 

There were three other westerners on the roster of ‘good guys’’ for this fight. Over in the District compound adjoining mine, were Major Davidson and Captain George Wanat. They would be mired in a controversy among the powers that be. But, there is no ‘controversy.’’ As the Commander I will point out why. Last, but certainly not least, was Mick Dummond, former French skier of renown and at this time a well regarded photojournalist. He would go on to serve as an integral member of the team. I had invited him to the battle based on a standing request; ‘If you ever have something going on, let me know.’’  He tells me every year he treasures his participation. I treasure his friendship and am proud of his award winning work since.  George was a Norwich graduate and was proud to have graduated as a ‘Senior Private.’’  Later Norwich would be proud when George was awarded the DSC for his performance at Loc Ninh and his solo E&E of thirty-one days until captured. So the stage was set, the first pitch was being served up and this story will be related and the performance of each team member evaluated by the only person with the right to do that: ME!!                                                                                

There was no doubt it was coming and it started with a very loud bang. I got to the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) on the western perimeter. Major Carlson , Sergeant Wallingford and Mick Dummond were in our inner perimeter bunker, made of cement. They had a radio and when LTC Schott and I were wounded the first day by a 75mm Recoilless Rifle round they came and tended to us along with Mick Dummond. I remained on the radio and made trips to the bunker-line. Little ARVN was doing okay until he saw his first T-54 tank. Then he got rattled. But, a round fired by myself, with Dick Schott loading, stopped that big sucker dead on his tracks. ARVN Infantrymen applauded. I smiled and waved. I did not tell them that Dick and I got hit with RPG shrapnel while on top of the bunker manning the totally exposed 106mm. I also did not tell them we had exactly five more rounds of High Explosive Anti-Tank ( HEAT) left and fifty rounds of anti-personnel canister. The time to discuss supply problems with the troops had long past.      

As we turned to scramble back to the bunker I saw Lull peering at us from within. As we got to the door I looked in his eyes and said: >>>‘ Either man the radio or get outside and help.’’ He just stared at me and then said something reminiscent of words said to me on Fire Base Granite in 1970: ‘ When are we getting out of here ZIPPO?’’  My answer was the same:  ‘When we win.’ He was not a happy camper and he had no desire to ‘star’ now, just to live.  

Lull went into a funk to put it mildly. But I had bigger problems; I had just lost nearly one Infantry Battalion west of the camp. For the next day and a half, a lone radioman lay wounded and called in targets from the jungle and then he either died, was captured or his radio went dead. Do not tell me there were no brave Vietnamese. I never knew his name but I honor him in my personal ‘Hall Of Heroes.’ As I looked around my camp as the sun set, I had a hospital bunker full of wounded and was minus one full Battalion. Earlier in the day the Commander of the 1st ARVN Cavalry called Colonel Vinh and said he was surrendering. Vinh said he understood. I snapped and grabbed Vinh’’s radio handset and told the Cavalry Commander I would airstrike him if he did not fight on. He said he would ‘try.’  A few minutes later his own troops called and said he was heading west with most of his unit under a white flag. I ordered SPECTRE and the Forward Air Controllers (FACS) to now destroy any and all armored vehicles around Loc Ninh, with the exception of a handful trying to fight down to me on route 13. I took the handset off Vinh’’s internal Regimental radio. I handed him the handset for the 5th Division net and said: ‘Talk to your General and tell him I said you no longer command down here.’ ’ Now it was my team and it was dying fast. Things were not going well, but Danger 79R was up at all hours over the camp. Hell he had even chewed me out when I was blown away from my radio by the 75mm round. I had told him I would be back up on the net as soon as I had the holes in my head repaired. I thought my favorite General was going to die right there. In all the years it is the only time I heard him apologize to anyone: ‘I am so sorry ZIPPO but I need you.’’ I got back on the net. ‘Okay, let’s play two.’     

As day one closed I took stock of our situation. It was obvious we were in a world of hurt. I had well over one hundred wounded in the camp and not less than one hundred dead in all three compounds: 9th Regiment, Artillery and District. The District Chief was a Ranger and I had a lot of faith in him. That lasted about an hour and then he and his Adviser Major Davidson began to whine about me not spreading the air around equally and I was less than amused. We were all in this little ‘Hell’s Acre’’ and you want me to send more air your way? ‘Well get out of your bunker, two stories underground pal and give me some targets.’’ Captain Wanat was up running around and calling me with targets. His boss was whining. I hate that in battle and it is a communicable disease. I knew people were scared and no help was on the way. But, there are times in any game when you take the hit and drive on. I truly felt most of us were going to die and at some point you must make the decision to go out as a man and a Soldier or lay there and whine until they come and blow your head off. I chose to go out taking as many of Tran Van Tra’s minions with me as possible.    

As I moved around the camp I saw the enemy massing across the airfield. I got the lads ready and told them to hold until the air arrived. When five hundred NVA rose up to assault over the airfield my troopers engaged them and the FAC brought in CBU 24 and napalm: ‘Tran Van Tra meet ZIPPO Smith.’ ’ None got away. The CBU kept exploding and when someone tried to run another would go off and pepper them. During this entire time indirect enemy fire up to and including Russian 130mm and captured U.S. 155mm was raining down on Loc Ninh.Much of the artillery was sitting in Cambodia. No problem, I sent the air up after them. The problem was that we did not have unlimited air available. After all, America was going home and the Navy, Air Force and Marine Air were supporting countrywide.  

I had heard a lot about the ‘shock effect of armor’’ but it truly is something you must experience to understand. I recommend you forgo this experience if at all possible. ‘Clank Clank, I’m a Tank’’ is not recommended for Infantry entertainment. The other problem was that my troops seemed only able to destroy them with the M-72 LAW (Light Anti-Tank Weapon) from the rear into the lightly armored engine compartment. By now I had exactly one HEAT round left for the 106mm RR. But, I did have helicopter gunships and SPECTRE. With all that we were still feeling a tad naked on the ground and we were also running low on LAWS. Early in the morning two tanks drove right by the artillery compound and it did not fire. I decided to see what was wrong. 

The Artillerymen were on their guns but had not fired on the tanks. The First Lieutenant in charge told me they could not see the tanks through the sight at night. I had them crank the gun I was next to down to level with the ground and waited for another tank to show itself in the eerie glow of airdropped illumination. I ordered the breech of the big gun opened and by arm signals I had it traversed until the image of the tank filled the muzzle. I whispered to the Lieutenant:  ‘Can you see it now’’? and he whispered:’ Yes sir.’ I said okay ‘Kill it’! And kill it they did. Those little guys died manning those guns and trying to kill tanks and Infantry. Then a 240mm rocket, probably the most inaccurate rocket in the world scored a direct hit on the artillery ammunition dump and my artillery was gone, along with the brave Lieutenant. My personal ‘Hall Of Heroes’ got another inductee but frankly I was running out of horses. The heavy hitters in my line- up dissolved before my eyes.

The artillery, rockets, mortars and recoilless rifle fire never ceased for even a few minutes. At every juncture something was firing into our multi-compound complex. I was wounded on a number of occasions and my Vietnamese, Montagnards, Cambodians and Chinese were fighting and dying. They had the entire 69th Artillery Division firing on them and still they held.  

As I watched them die it was with a mixture of sadness and great pride. They tried for their country, even those who had never enjoyed full citizenship, fought for their families and for me. But, in the back of my mind there was a nagging thought and I had to deal with it. Every time Colonel Vinh talked about surrender, he excluded not only his own lower ranking soldiers, but all the ethnic groups in total. My three bodyguards were Chinese, Cambodian and Montagnard. I decided to get them all together after dark. I called by runner, for those at District and in my own compound. I told them quietly to secure black pajamas or even loincloths and stand by for my orders. These guys were from the Border Ranger Battalion and some of my stars.                                                                        

I started to feel like I was managing Kansas City back in the days they seemed to send every big name to the Yankees. Mine would hopefully bolster a town called An Loc and it was time for Vinh and the 9th Regiment to stand-alone. After all, it was their country.                                                                

“Are you out of your mind’’? SFC Lull was rising from the ashes of his shame and wanted out of Loc Ninh. He was willing to go with the ethnic groups when I released them, but I was having none of it. After all, he was a ‘star.’ In front of him, I told my Chinese bodyguard Phun ‘If Tuong Si tries to join you, shoot him.’’ He smiled and said okay. LTC Schott whispered to me with a smile ‘ Gee I don’’t know if we can spare him to be shot.’ ’ But, I could see in his eyes he was not saying all that he was thinking. He patted my shoulder, looking a little silly with the bandage on his head wound tied under his chin like a little bonnet, ‘I have never seen anything like you have done here.’’ Then he turned around and sat down on a stool next to me. God I loved that Soldier.    

All day the sixth the pounding continued. I had crawled out the night of the fifth and rewired the FUGAS drums in the minefield. I had no idea where any of these mines were. But, none had gone off as NVA Infantry and tanks came through the perimeter. Early morning the sixth I touched jellied gas off during a ground attack. A bunch were toasted in the wire. Just to let General Tra know old ‘ZIPPO’ was still around. But Dick Schott and I both were quickly running out of gas. 

I took a little inventory of myself. I had been blown up and shot on numerous occasions and had been required to bomb our positions just to get the NVA back into the rubber trees. My Artillery was gone and I was running out of soldiers. The ammunition dump was gone and I had a couple Americans who wished to be rescued. This struck me wrong. Who in God’s name ever told these guys you get ‘rescued’ from a battlefield? You do not get ‘rescued’ while even one five-foot tall, ninety-pound Vietnamese still fights. There were a couple I should have traded to Quan Loi for a big dog and an ARVN Private to be named later. I knew they were scared and doing their best but it still amazed me. It is tough getting people to fight when pride goes out the window first. You can have the best team money can buy but without pride you are a LOSER! Sports and war are very similar.   

As day turned into night I took the S-3 officer over to our underground hospital and got all those who could at least limp back onto the perimeter. There was no whining and no refusals, they just picked up their gear and helped each other back into the line. Damn I was proud of those men. Second class gear, no help in sight, running low on beans and bullets, robbed at the end of last month in the pay line and yet they stood to fight. God must have a special place for any Infantry Soldier or Marine. ‘Peace-KEEPERS’?  NO! They are strictly life takers and if required life givers, their own. I was wounded, they were wounded and they were Asians and I was an American. Yet, in this darkest of hours we understood what lie ahead and accepted it. We smiled and nodded to each other as if to simply say ‘I know.’  

I wanted badly to talk to MG Hollingsworth, BG John McGiffert or Colonel Bill Miller and explain how bad things were. I also wanted them to understand they had to expend their resources someplace with a chance of holding on. Loc Ninh was no longer that place. But I had destroyed even my minor secure capability as we were over-run on the first day. I knew the enemy was on my radio net and even worse so were my fellow advisers.  

With the exception of Mick Dumond (running all over taking pictures and helping the wounded), George Wanat at District (outside spotting targets) and Dick Schott and myself the rest were hunkered down and praying for relief which was not coming. Ed Carlson and Ken came over to the TOC the first time Schott and I were wounded. Mick and Ken came once to bring some food and medical gear. After that we quit giving our physical condition on the radio, the NVA were on the net. I saw Mick often running from place to place taking pictures. Nothing more distracting than fighting inside your own perimeter and see an arm pop up over a sand-bag with a camera ‘click.’ The man was a professional and brave but he scared the crap out of me a couple times.     

Just after dark either another huge rocket or a 130mm round scored a direct hit on the hospital bunker. All left inside, including dependent women and children, died in the blast. Hard men ran to try and save friends and relatives and recoiled from the scene. The blast was so huge the sunken interior looked like a ghastly, devilish pudding with arms and legs protruding. I and I am sure no other Soldier who saw it could compare it to anything seen before. The ceiling literally dripped with the blood and gore of the dead. War can be cruel and terrible to the most innocent and undefended.                       

Earlier George Wanat called and said that villagers were marching out of the village with an American flag. Later after capture, LTG Tra personally denied to me that he ordered this event. But someone did. When I reached the bunkers next to the airfield I could clearly see the children from the school and my friend the pretty teacher. Intermingled with them were NVA and black clad Viet Cong. They were forcing the students to march with their teacher toward my gate carrying an American flag given them by Special Forces or the 1st Infantry Division. My Vietnamese soldiers stood mute and unmoving staring at the spectacle. I quietly moved next to a machine-gunner and nodded. I picked up the muzzle by the bipod leg and elevated it on a sandbag. Then I had him fire over their heads. They trusted us not to kill them and knew the VC would if they did not keep marching. I looked into the gunner’s eyes and he shook his head through tears. I pulled him up and together we fired in front of the first rank and at the same time SPECTRE fired on the runway. The kids broke and ignoring the screaming VC ran back toward the village. But, too many including the schoolteacher died right there. Guilt? No but we took some hardy revenge on the VC left standing alone. A lot of ammunition was wasted on them after they were dead and we could not spare it. Yet, I knew then and I know now it was worth it.  

I quietly left the bunker with LTC Schott and sent Fun to call together any members of the Border Ranger Battalion he could find. We hunkered down next to a destroyed artillery emplacement and waited. Like ghosts they began to appear. I quietly told the First Lieutenant in charge to prepare what he had left to make a run to An Loc. I emphasized they were not running away, I was ordering them out. They stripped to loincloths or shorts and took AK rifles and five M-79 Grenade Launchers (I needed any RPGs left for tanks).  I said in Vietnamese: ‘I suggest you infiltrate west until past the tanks and Infantry and then turn south.’ One sergeant who spoke English asked if I was going. I just shook my head in the dark and said  ‘no.’   ‘Go now Rangers; you have done your duty.’ One small voice said: ‘What do we do if we meet the Vietnamese enemy’? I said simply ‘ Biet Dong Quan SAT CONG’ (‘ Rangers kill communists’). They smiled in the night and as each passed me at the wire, they softly patted my arm or squeezed my hand. That was reward enough for allowing to them try and live (I learned later that many made it to An Loc and fought with great bravery there). Now the Vietnamese, with we Americans beside them, could defend their own country to the last.                            

There were some very angry Vietnamese officers when they found out the Rangers were gone. I knew why and was not at all sympathetic: ‘You had plans to offer them up as sacrificial lambs and now you cannot.’ I should have known what the next question would be ‘What is a lamb’? I just said forget it; ‘You will not be trading them for your butt today.’  The Regiment XO had a strange look on his face but said nothing. As the sky began to awake from the night a strange silence reigned for just a few moments. The total quiet was so strange and it was as if God himself was making us hold our breath. Then the earth shook from B-52 bombers dropping ‘Danger Close’ but not close enough to keep the NVA at bay, for they were upon us in force. I grabbed the radio handset and for the first time I had no TAC Air or Cobra gunships and OH-6 little birds up over me. Before the FAC explained, I knew. They could not stay over the camp as the B-52s dropped their loads of ‘thunder.’                                 

To this day there are advisers who claim this is why Loc Ninh fell. Nothing could be further from the reality of that day. They had tanks and we had none. They had Direct Support Artillery and we had none. They had thousands of men and we had no more than two hundred effectives left on our side. That is why Loc Ninh would fall and not because, as some have claimed, the Vietnamese were sorry soldiers or that the American command allowed a ‘gap’ in airpower. Want to save the day or just yourself on any battlefield? FIGHT!! I know of only three Americans who fired their individual weapons during the battle of Loc Ninh: Lieutenant Colonel Richard Schott, Captain George Wanat and myself. No that is not totally correct. When I called Cobras in on the camp Ed, Ken and Mick were wounded while hiding under the tin roof over their bunker. This after a tank put the muzzle of its 100mm gun into the firing port. The choppers fired ‘Nails’ and some went through the roof and wounded my comrades hiding there. Contrary to stories told later, no ‘mini-gun’ wounded any of them. I know, I called them in and was outside being chased by a T-54 tank when it happened. Mick Dumond found coagulant in the medical locker and gave it to Ed because of his bleeding from the wounds. Mick gave it with just a little sterile water and then he and Ken had to flee the bunker as Ed saw NVA coming out of the floor and walls and fired his weapon in the cement bunker. This book is about baseball and war. The thing about baseball which gives it credibility are the stats. They do not lie. What gives war credibility? Those who were actually there and finally say: ‘ Cut the crap and your war story.’ Gentlemen that day has arrived.    

I returned to the TOC with Corporal Hen, my only remaining ‘cowboy.’ Fun and the others had finally agreed to go with the men from the Border Ranger Battalion. Hen had simply said: ‘I am Cambodian and I don’t like Vietnamese, Montagnards or Chinese, I will stay with you.’ I told him he had a much better chance to live if he went with the others. He answered simply  ‘ Everybody dies sir.’ Then a T-54 drove right through the main gate and started shooting. This was the tank, which stuck its muzzle into Major Carlson’s bunker. I told Hen and the Regimental Surgeon, who had now become my other traveling partner to stay put in the TOC. I was going after the tank.       

 I remember years before attending a class in the 7th SFGA and Major ‘Pappy’ Shelton holding up a new gadget and proclaiming: ‘Boys this is the new M72 LAW and this little gadget will stop any armor known to man.’  I spent years looking for a tank and now I had plenty available and found out we had to volley them off looking for a soft spot. We found it in the rear, lightly armored engine compartment. The problem for the Vietnamese and I was simple. The tank sat up high and we were all pretty short. None of this was known when ‘Pappy’ gave us the class at Fort Bragg.                                                                   

I ducked out of the doorway and headed for the gate to the inner-perimeter but oops here came the tank and around and round we went. I was hurt bad and running on empty. I considered just turning and taking my best shot but the little guy in the commander’s cupola, dressed in an Eisenhower jacket and leather helmet, also had a 12.7 heavy machine gun. Then a savior came. U.S. Army Lieutenant Richard Dey flying an OH-6 CAYUSE chopper, came buzzing into the compound and settled in a couple feet off the ground, directly to the right front of the tank. The tank stopped and turned toward Dey and I was able to maneuver behind it and jump in the air and fire my LAW. Scratch one T-54. The crew came out of the hatch and the bottom of the burning tank and I killed them with my pistol. I turned and waved to Dey and thanked my lucky stars and God Almighty for crazy chopper pilots. This would not be my last meeting with Dey and another brave OH-6 pilot named Whitehead that day.      

As I headed back to the door of the bunker, I saw Dick Schott covering me from the door. As I ran in and past him, he said: ‘I knew they couldn’t kill you.’ I smiled and said: ‘ I’m really tired sir.’ He gave me that funny look again and said: ‘ You are young, you don’t know what tired is.’ I knew one thing, we were going down fast and I had lost contact with the men on the inner-perimeter. Then Colonel Vinh in a white shirt and flack-jacket ran from the bunker trailed by his loyal bodyguards. He ran straight out the front gate and into the waiting arms of the NVA.They shot his ‘cowboys’ dead on the spot and ran Vinh into the wood-line. Then I heard Major Davidson on the radio begging to get out. He brought up spreading the air around again. I got back on the radio and said simply: ‘ I am in command here and the air is fine.’ Davidson came back with ‘I want my own FAC.’ I blew and up in the air DANGER 79R blew a gasket. I said simply: ‘Get off my command net unless you have a target.’ Suddenly Colonel Bill Miller came on the radio as he piloted his own C&C ship: ‘ Zippo, Littleman how goes it down there”? Then 79R came back to my own Commander with: ‘ Get off ZIPPO’S command net’! Now I had two fights going, one on the ground and one in the air. Everyone was quiet as the two World War II veterans went at it. Finally I said into the handset:‘ If you guys want to fight take it somewhere else, I am trying to fight a war down here.’ An unidentified station came on the net and chuckling said: ‘I don’t believe you said that.’ I said the type of thing both of these great men had heard from me before. I had the ultimate faith they would support ‘ ZIPPO Smith’ if I ran naked around that compound barking at the tanks.  

The Battalion XO jumped up and ran out of the bunker clutching a white T-shirt. He ran toward the inner-perimeter and arrived at our flagpole. He then began hauling down the Vietnamese flag and then ran up his T-shirt. I ran after him with the Doc and Corporal Hen on my heels. The Doc said: ‘someone should kill him’ as we ran. The man was a prophet. I got to the XO and said:’ Get that rag off my pole.’ He sneered at me and said:  ‘ My flag and I surrender.’ Not on my watch Willis. I made a move toward the pole and he put his hand on his .45 automatic. I drew mine and shot him between the eyes. My right? Damned right it was, I was the battlefield commander. We ran the red and yellow banner back up the pole and turned back toward the perimeter. It was lined with men now putting on the shirts they had taken off, after observing the XO’s actions. I grinned at the Doc and Hen:  ‘Looks like he died to save the camp after all.’  Our XO’s ability to call this game, early in the final inning had been somewhat overestimated.      

The pounding and attacks by Infantry and tanks on the ground kept coming and suddenly a Sapper team was throwing satchel charges down the steps of our bunker. They hit the bend in the stairway and went off blowing our eardrums but little else. I reported by radio we were overrun and requested that all available firepower be used to destroy our position. Another voice came on the net and screamed ‘ No napalm’! It was Major Davidson. This was the end and he wished to debate ordnance. Go figure. LTC Richard Schott sat down in front of the radio and said calmly into the mike: ‘ All is lost and we are overrun, but, there is one thing you must do and that is to get ZIPPO the Medal Of Honor for what he has done here.’ He turned in the swivel chair and smiled at me. I told him we had to get out of the camp. He said quietly: ‘ You go, I cannot make it.’ I said, ‘That’s it, we all stay.’ Without another word, my boss sat down in the swivel chair, turned away from me and blew his brains out all over my shirt and face, with his U.S. Army issued .45 caliber pistol.     

Just after Dick Schott killed himself the NVA began coming in force down the stairwells. I ordered the Doc and Hen to the Vietnamese side of the bunker and told Lull we had to go and try to find Carlson, Ken and Mick. He looked at me and said: ‘If you go into the inner-perimeter you go alone.’  I was stunned and just looked at him and then said: ‘ Lull you just saw what happened to the XO and a better man than you has just taken his own life so we can live.’ Then the NVA came in force down the stairwells. I saw Hen and the Doc fight out a doorway. Grenades and satchel charges were going off all around. Lull was lying under a cot facing the wall and appeared dead. I went out through a firing port and just got to my feet as a very large round, 130mm,tank 100mm or RPG blew me straight up in the air and twisted me violently. Though I did not know it at the time, my back was broken and shrapnel entered my lumbar spine. I crawled back into the bunker after throwing a grenade in and killed three NVA who were still moving. I grabbed a portable PRC 77 radio and climbed up the wall and onto the roof. I looked down and my bunker line was full of NVA. I squatted and started to use the radio on my back. A NVA sniper had scaled the tower in the center of the camp and shot me through the radio and into my back. My lung was penetrated and I spat out blood.        

After being knocked down on the tin roof, I saw a little helicopter flying directly at me. I saw the NVA below look at me and turn with AKs and RPGs toward the bird. I tried to wave him off, but Lieutenant Rick Dey was having none of that. Finally, in desperation I blew out his windshield at the last moment and he veered off to the south. In the back his regular gunner had been replaced when the Platoon Sergeant felt he should make the rescue run. After I blew out the windscreen Dey thought the Platoon Sergeant was dead, he had fainted.  

Then two T-54 tanks pulled out of the wood-line and drove directly at the bunker/building I now occupied. Two more fools in Ike jackets with hands on hips drove on either side of me and both just glared. I had emptied my AK so I shot them both in the back with my .45 as they passed and they flopped out of the cupolas like little soldier dolls. I went back through the roof and down to the bunker for another radio and another long gun or some ammo. 

The American aircraft were bombing the camps and heard NVA officers screaming ‘Di Ve’ and the Infantry and tanks able to move began to pull out of the camp. I went back to the roof with my AK, M-79 and .45 replenished with ammo. There was no movement in the bunker except for Hen and the Doc hunkered down at the far end. I had motioned them upstairs. In the fading light I saw some ARVN and advisers from District trying to fight a running battle across the airfield from me:  ‘God help them’ I prayed. I then went crashing back into the TOC bunker. Suddenly the place had two additional visitors and they had cut off LTC Schott’s collar with his rank and crossed rifles on it. As I came over the wall they were trying to behead him and had a sack for their booty on the floor at their feet. I killed them with my .45 and snatched the collar out of the dead tall ones hand. I shoved it into his mouth and slammed it shut on the ragged cloth. I looked at my poor dead boss and friend:  ‘That’s for you Dick.’    

Just when I thought I was alone the Doc and Hen descended from above and then twelve additional people, eleven Vietnamese and one American, came back to life: ‘ Screw you Lull, you sorry son of a bitch.’ What I did not know was there were three more live friendlies in the camp. Major Carlson, Ken and Mick had taken up residence in the roof under the tin and when I had tried to raise them there was no response. I had seen the fight between the people from District and the NVA across the airfield. What I did not know was an American Soldier was being left behind as he fired and the rest scampered. Captain George Wanat would disappear off of everyone’s map for the next thirty-eight days. He went into E&E mode and survived from help given him by Vietnamese villagers who risked their lives to assist an American. They would pay a terrible price and so would George. Major Davidson? He and some District folks showed up after E&E through the jungle. Davidson was not wearing much when he was rescued. That tells me he motored right along through that jungle. Those reading this may draw their own conclusions. The Major’s subordinate was not with him. I can only judge from attitudes demonstrated during the battle and the fact a subordinate, who was with him, was left behind. In other words, we are not talking about the Babe Ruth of war here. He was awarded the DSC for his battle performance and escape from Loc Ninh.    

At this moment I knew none of this. I have two brave men I could count on (HEN and Doc) and twelve who at this point had proved an exceptional expertise at playing dead. It was ‘What are we gonna do’?  So I said:  ‘Get your shit together and we are going to retake two bunkers on the bunker-line and hold them until dark.’ I led them out and to the right and we killed two NVA in each of two bunkers and two in each of the adjoining bunkers. This was on the west side of the perimeter and then I saw another OH-6 trying to get past NVA gunners in the wood-line.                                                                           

Captain John Whitehead was making one last attempt to get someone out of Loc Ninh.Then we heard another aircraft and no bombs were dropped but NVA and ARVN suddenly became nauseous and began puking. But, it was selective and I do not recall Lull, the Vietnamese S-3 or I puking. Frankly as shot up as I was I could have vomited and not noticed. They had dropped vomit agent as part of a vain rescue attempt. I had no radio but Ken was on the radio back from under the roof and in the corner cement bunker the tank had run them out of earlier. I always figured that Whitehead would have snatched them out of there if they had come outside. They did not and stayed right there until captured the next day as the NVA started pouring gasoline into the bunker and threatened to set it on fire unless they surrendered. They surrendered and I would see them again.     

John Whitehead would take his little helicopter south and rescue LTC Ginger and his team from a certain death or capture situation. Both Whitehead and Dey always felt that Ginger and his lads were much nicer and easier to rescue than ZIPPO. Not one of those advisers blew Whitehead’s windshield out. John would be awarded the DSC for his day as the ‘Miracle Worker’ south of Loc Ninh.   

As we got ready to move I was sitting on a bench behind the firing aperture of the bunker explaining the escape plan. I heard a light ‘thunk’ and thought it was a grenade thrown to the top of the bunker. But nothing went off. In fact it was a lightweight NVA Sapper and shortly he threw the grenade. Lull and the rest stared at it and I got up and kicked it out the door, where it exploded harmlessly for our purposes and wounded the NVA on top of the bunker who threw it. He then began to call for his friends and I had met about all of them I cared to meet that day. I called up to him in Vietnamese and said to shut up or I would kill him. I did not care to waste a bullet on a dying man. I should have because in another minute his little head upside down appeared in the firing port. Before I could get the big Colt up he shot me with a K-54 pistol through the upper thigh and into my groin. God that hurt! It was like payback time for all the times I hit little brother Greg with a hardball and messed up his nose and all. But, I said to myself: ‘ This farmer is just itching to see his handiwork to tell his friends about it.’ I held my fingers to my lips and even Lull shut-up for a moment. The top of the head appeared and then the eyes and I squeezed the trigger and blew the top of his head off. One bullet in the groin with a girly K-54 traded for a .45 slug to my enemy’s brain: ‘ I will make that deal every day dummy.’  Now it was time to get out of the camp.   

The suggestions ran from just dangerous to bizarre. Finally I pointed out that tanks and Infantry had been assaulting through our highly regarded minefield for two and a half days and I had even had to rewire the FOOGAS to make it go off. I said:  ‘ We go out through the minefield.’ Lull and the S-3 had the same idea at once: ‘ You lead’! I did not have any problem with that but the Doc was angry: ‘ This man has been doing for you for three days, he is wounded many times and now you want him to be the point-man’? I just said that time was wasting and Doc and Hen helped me up: ‘ Lets go.’ For the first few steps I walked gingerly and then I thought how stupid that was in the dark. I also thought of the NVA lurking in the rubber and SPECTRE up above with sensors. I just started walking with Doc and Hen as I prayed ‘ Lord please make me right about the mines.’ We got to the perimeter road as an airstrike, I assume was called by Ken, came in on the airfield. I prodded the others to get going. Lull said:’ I’m glad I am with you ZIPPO.’ I said nothing. In a few moments his ‘happiness’ at being with me would change forever.

Just on the other side of the dirt road next to the perimeter, I sensed movement in the darkness and then all hell broke loose. A squad of NVA or VC had set up just north of the small streambed just south of the camp. They fought us to the death with small arms and grenades. In the midst of it all I felt a hot and cold feeling in my lower abdomen. As soon as we had killed them I had to drop my pants and defecate blood and crap. A piece of shrapnel from a grenade or piece of bullet had penetrated my bowel.    

 As I squatted with Doc and Hen on either side, holding me up, SFC Lull and the S-3 walked up and Lull simply said: ‘You aren’t going to make it ZIPPO and one of us has to get out and tell what you did here.’ Through tears I quietly said: ‘Why don’t we all get out and tell what I did here’? He just turned and walked away with the S-3. All the others, except the Doc and Hen, would follow them. All looked back in sadness and some patted my arm or back as they filed by south. Lull and the S-3 never looked back. I said to myself: ‘ I will live if for no other reason than to see you hang Lull or shoot you myself.’ The Army claims he died a heroic death just north of the Cam Ve Bridge. They quote the Doc who was with me until our capture. He was not with Lull. LTG Tran Van Tra would recount a different story to me in a few hours. But, I did not know that yet.  

We stumbled and crawled into the streambed but we were not alone. I heard labored breathing from a number of areas along the wall intermingled with moans. I pulled off my red filtered flashlight to have a look.  

There was the true reason for the enemy squad fighting us to the death. In little caverns dug into the wall were horribly burned small soldiers, who just stared back at me, unable to do more. If I had anything to give them for their pain, I would have. For they were just poor wounded soldiers now and each was a better man than Sergeant First Class Howard Lull of the United States Army. I nodded to them in the eerie light and we crawled out of the streambed and continued on. Doc whispered in my ear: ‘ They were the lights in the dark, you napalmed last night.’ I just said ‘Yeah’ and stumbled on.  

I was very aware of the fact we had to find some type of cover before first light. I was driven by two reasons for this concern. I was sure the enemy would be looking for survivors trying to E&E but also without a radio or even a panel, I had only a LRRP mirror to signal aircraft. Then right at BMNT it began to drizzle through rain laden cloud cover. Until there was some sun the mirror was useless for anything but shaving. I rubbed my hand against nearly three days of stubble on my face and grinned to myself ‘General Deputy would be appalled.’     

Just as the first traces of a fleeting sun peaked through I heard and then saw a FAC and readied my trusty LRRP mirror. When he was off to the east I was able to catch a glint of sun before it was once again swallowed by grey. The 0-2 banked, lined up and I thought to myself ‘ By God he sees me’! Then he fired his ‘Wilson Picket’ rocket just twenty five meters between our position and the camp. The F-4s with CBU were not far behind and we were stumbling up the little rise before the rubber when they hit. I felt the searing hot pellets hitting the back of my legs and butt. We were all wounded but knowing napalm was coming, we found we had one last spurt of energy to try and steal home. We were about thirty meters up the hill when the nape hit bellow it. The heat itself brought back visions of horror from the creek-bed just outside the camp but we escaped the jellied concoction from which too many nightmares had been made.  

Just as we thought we had it made AKs took us under fire. We gave them all we had and within seconds my last AK ammo and last two M-79 HE rounds were expended. We threw our long guns as far away as possible and drew our pistols and continued up-hill. Then there was an almost surreal orange flash around my head as something felt like it had almost ripped my left leg almost off and then black nothingness. ‘ Well Lord here I come and I hope you pity this bullet riddled Soldier today.’ But then I saw a vision. Hen was spitting into the face of an NVA Soldier and they blew his head off. They were lining up the Doc and in Vietnamese I yelled  ‘ Anh la Bac Si.’ Doc looked down at me and sneered: ‘ You told them Zippo and I will not help them, I wanted to die.’ I thought I was paralyzed and could not move and then I realized someone was standing on my back. I reared up ready to join Doc in his wish, pulling the .45 from under my body as I came up and fired. Nothing happened, I had emptied it in the fight and the slide was back. An NVA merely patted my shoulder and took it away. They tied Doc and I up with commo-wire and tried to maneuver us up the hill and pointed to the sky indicating fear of more bombers. Then another NVA came running down the hill screaming and knocked me to my knees with his rifle butt across the bridge of my nose (Yes Greg Smith, I know how it feels). 

 Then another, dignified officer ran down the hill and slammed the first to the ground and swatted him with a stick over the head saying: ‘ Anh My bi thuong nhieu roi’ (The American brother is already wounded a lot). ZIPPO Smith, meet Lieutenant General Tran Van Tra, the ‘ Georgie Patton’ of the NVA. 

The General asked if I spoke Vietnamese and I said a little. He asked if I was hungry through his Doctor, who spoke perfect English. I told him I did not think I should eat as I had a stomach wound. He smiled and said simply ‘ If you eat you may die and if you do not eat you will die for sure.’ I said I would eat. He said he was sorry my commander ZIPPO had died in the bunker and that they would bury him. A glimmer of light was showing at the end of this tunnel. I said nothing and then they led Colonel Vinh up and he pointed to me and said ‘ He is ZIPPO’Tra smiled at me and said: ‘ You looked so young I thought the other man was ZIPPO.’ I thought how Vinh was a true asset to the end. Then he asked who killed the Bo Doi (communist soldiers) and stuffed the cloth in his mouth. I said I did because they were mutilating my commander by trying to cut his head off. His eyes narrowed and he spat out orders in rapid fire and said to me through the interprete‘ They will not do that again.’        

I asked if they had caught any other Americans. He said two and one French photographer would be along shortly and go with me to a ‘Liberated Zone.’ Then he said something shocking  ‘The other one does not want to go with you.’ I figured there was only one American would not want to go with me: Lull. So my good Sergeant had, according to the NVA, CG asked for a trade to another team. Then the Jeep drove up in first gear laboring along with Ed, Ken and Mick trussed up in the back. Tran Van Tra said ‘You go now but I will check on you.’ Twice he came to our prison and on one occasion rescued me from a hole in the ground and on another tried to release me early. He interviewed me in front of the other POWS and only spoke with me. 

They tied me to the floor of my own jeep and the guy had his cocked pistol pointed at me as some non-driving fool tried to go to Cambodia in first gear and second, shifted into without benefit of a clutch. The hot floor burnt me but also cauterized the wounds at the base of my spine and in my butt. This should in no way be interpreted as thanking him for the ride. I tried to talk to the others but was told to be quiet.  

We passed long lines of bicycles carrying wounded NVA to Cambodia. They had paid a horrendous price for taking Loc Ninh. When a SPECTRE flew over they stopped the jeep and got everyone out except me tied to the floor and left the engine running. Finally in desperation I yelled at the non-driver to turn off the engine. I had already seen what SPECTRE could do to a vehicle. At Tra’s headquarters they had taken my uniform and boots. Being a good Infantry Soldier I wore no underwear. Thus they gave me an old sarong and left me my socks. The others remained in uniform. We crossed the underwater bridge at the Montagnard village I had detected before the battle and drove us to the rubber outside Snoul Cambodia. There we were placed in a bunker and fed. The next morning they brought movie cameras and recording began as they bent me over a log and debreeded my wounds at the spine and buttocks with an old pair of scissors but I am just hoping someone recognizes that big butt.

The next evening we were put into the jeep and driven to near Kratie and there we were met by those who had been handling American POWS for years. This was not a nice group to walk through the jungle with. Not in my sox and a sarong anyway. Early the next morning we were chained up in the jungle but people were walking around all night as if preparing for travel. Little did we know that the folks leaving had been in these jungle camps for years. Ken leaned over and said      ‘Welcome to Klink’s Cottages ZIP.’

That night I think that it is April and the Dodgers are coming into Vero Beach. Will I ever see another game? Will I ever play again? I let my mind drift back to ballfields of my youth and my Mother ‘ Pick up your feet Mark Smith.’ I then decide that getting into your own mind will not be a good thing. This is reality and it must be dealt with. My body feels like the ‘Georgia Peach’ himself has walked all over it with spikes on. Since just over a day ago I did not expect to be alive I decided to treat every day after 8 April 1972, my then wife’s birthday, as gravy. I have. The other POWs are taken to a new camp and we are moved into their cages made of logs. We are all chained around the ankle with a log chain and given our instructions on camp rules. I know I am bowing to no VC and we never did. The food was a tiny square of pork fat the size of a stamp and a small plate of rice. This received in the morning and at night. This became less important to me as nothing was coming out the other end. The wounds, the charcoal pills and the walk into the camp had made the infections in my body settle in my bowel. Having had training I knew I was dying. Major Carlson was in the cage with me. He tried to help me and then the paperwork from the records in Loc Ninh arrived and they moved him out and until a few days before our release I never was with anyone again.      

They had a Doctor in the camp and he told the camp commander, a one-eyed veteran of French prisons that I was going to die unless he was allowed to help. It would not have been so bad except I understood most of what they were saying. There is no disabled list in a POW camp. You better be ready to play hurt or you die. Besides on day thirty-four I had an example of survival arrive in camp. George Wanat had been on E&E for thirty-one days until captured. My condition was allowed to deteriorate for thirty-eight (38) days. I know people who cannot go that long without ice cream. Every day they came and played us short wave broadcasts of the ‘ Voice of Vietnam’ with propaganda broadcasts of POWs in Hanoi making statements. They indicated that relief for my situation might be available in return for some type of statement. This was so dumb I just told them to forget it. I am going to sell my honor for a crap? That would make a nice headline in the hometown news. I know some who traded theirs for a lot less. 

On day thirty nine the Doctor and an aidman came in and bent me over a log and dug out my rectum with a nail and forced in water until I could feel a breaking up in my lower bowel. They freed a small amount of dried feces from my rectum and said they would see me in the morning. Then they brought a small amount of sweetened canned milk and mixed it in my little water bowl. I drank it and a short time later I vomited long strings of green infectious material. I lay in my hammock and thanked God for letting George live. A short time later I felt an uncontrollable urge to defecate. I fell out of my hammock and sat on the round bamboo tube we used as a toilet and I turned the entire camp blue with a putrid odor. The guard brought me some leaves and watched me do my first personal business in thirty-eight days. I looked them in the eyes and they knew that I was coming off the DL and was ready to play.

Here I was A Soldier who had done the Army pretty much his own way. I had dropped out of high school and joined the Army. I had been a driver, mechanic and fought to get my place in the Infantry, Airborne, Special Forces and Rangers. I had stumbled and recovered and always drove on. I looked back in wonder at how far I had come. But I also wondered if it would all end in this terrible, terrible place.                             

Then I had another thought ‘ Lets play two.’ I decided I might have little in my equipment bag but I never had a full one anyway. I was always smaller and not quite as fast as others were but I had trained myself to deliver. Nothing made a lot of sense in this game but I was not playing the Yankees. This was a bunch of farm team players in Kratie Cambodia. I smile to myself ‘ If that one eyed fool throws at my head I am coming to the mound.’ Then they brought in Johnny Ray from Nui Ba Den ( The Black Virgin Mountain) and his wounded leg smelled to high heaven. George Wanat was shaking with fever and trying to sew pieces of a mosquito net together so he would not die from the malaria which already afflicted him. They had plenty of full nets but they feared George’s escape abilities.      

The interrogation of the Vietnamese and Americans was not at all similar. I asked one young guard late at night what happened to all the Vietnamese soldiers from Loc Ninh. He quietly looked around and whispered: ‘ They die every day.’

Everything in our camp was to send a message. When we went down to take a bath there was an old U.S. ammo box to pour water into from a GI helmet with a bullet hole in it. I could get in a few words while bathing but not much. I tried to keep spirits up. But Johnny Ray’s leg was a real concern. The wound never closed and they would eventually bring in a doctor to operate after it had become so putrid and I feared he would lose it.            

The system seemed to be to bring you to the brink of death and then hope you would become more compliant in return for treatment. We thought and prayed for each other every day. George the agnostic became a believer again in that hellhole. They had taken Ed Carlson’s glasses away and his inability to see had a profound effect on him. He began to sink into a dream world we feared he would not come back from some day. Back in Loc Ninh I had talked about riding motorcycles. Ed was not a motorcycle guy and then one afternoon during lock-up we heard sounds like the imitation of a vehicle running up and changing gears coming from his cage. Some thought it was funny but I did not. Ed was deep into his own head and riding a motorcycle he never owned through the streets of San Francisco. Ed was no sports guy and searching for old stats in the recesses of his mind would not be there for him. Thus Ed entered the imaginary and dangerous world of the mind and escaped to ‘ The streets of San Francisco’ and his motorcycle.      

They brought Air Force Captain Dave Baker, a FAC, in during the summer and he was the victim of a rather unique injury. He had been shot down over Tra’s headquarters in Snoul. While trying to E&E he was shot with an AK in the leg. The bullet had entered and exited above and below the knee. The artery was damaged and no jungle doctor could repair it. So they plugged the entrance and exit holes and somehow the blood seemed to flow between the ends of the artery along the path of the bullet. Dave had been overweight and it took the enemy a while to realize the window frame from the 0-2 lodged around his bottom was not a secret device. Every day we prayed the two cork looking scars would stay in place. If one had popped he would have been dead in minutes. Where is a team doctor when you need one? Summer was winding down and I wondered how the Dodgers were doing. But I already had bigger or smaller worries depending how one looked at my new surroundings.  

They had brought me to a meeting with old ‘Deadeye’ the commander. He asked through the interpreter if I had intentions to escape and I merely replied that it was my duty to escape and his to guard me to prevent it. They took me alone to the bath point that day and once I was alone they walked away. I knew this was a trick but I felt I might not get another chance, so I walked away and a short distance away guards I had never seen before stood up and prodded me back to the bath point giggling. The original guards thanked them in rudimentary Vietnamese and they all giggled again.     

I had seen a couple the world would know later including the current Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Sen. I asked what happened to Hun Sen’s eye which was swollen and festered. He answered: ‘ Jungle bug ate his eye.’ I had just served as a training aid for Cambodian Khmer Rouge controlled by the NVA (Hun Sen would later claim at various times he lost his eye to a B-52 strike or B-40 RPG) 

They took me back to see the commander and there was an American present in NVA uniform with a Khmer Krom wife and two children. He glared at me. The guy in an NVA officer’s uniform was a well-known black deserter. I thought to myself: ‘ Weird league they trade themselves to other teams.’                                                                                 

They took me back to the camp and announced because I had tried to escape there would be less food and ‘privileges.’ I knew of no ‘privileges’ but I did know what ‘less food’ meant. But this was only the beginning and then they told me to gather my things. They led me to a lean-to type structure with no walls. I thought this was a good thing and then I looked down into a small dank underground bunker ‘ No darn way Charlie.’ They jacked rounds and I punched the nearest one in the jaw. Then they all came led by a very large Vietnamese named ‘Lurch’. They had no problem beating me down and throwing me into the dank bunker with my few possessions.  

The bunker at night was right out of a horror film. In the daytime bats hung benignly from the ceiling of mud just over my head. But at evening time they awoke and commenced their nighttime activities and hit against the net over my hammock just below them as they came and went. If they became entangled they became ferocious chewing through the net and anything else. I was scared to death of rabies from them and did every thing to keep my arms and legs away from the net over the skinny hammock. One communist guard we called ‘the kid’ would come at night and give me an extra cigarette to try and keep them at bay. He said he was as much a prisoner as we were and had been kidnapped by the NVA from a village near Song Be as a child. He also gave Dave Baker extra cigarettes, as he was one of those who wheeled Dave into the camp after his capture. The political types claimed An Loc had fallen but ‘The kid’ said it was a lie and the roads and trails were jammed with wounded from there. I hoped it was true. I did not believe anything a communist in that camp and on their radio said. They were acting exactly as I expected them to act. They and their leadership were cruel and mentally captured morons. I took the kids cigarettes and listened to what he had to say but I would have taken him out in a heartbeat to get out of there.       

Then Tran Van Tra came for a short visit and only talked to me. He asked me how the accommodations were and I told him they were bad. He looked at the cage in the corner they had taken me from and said it was not too bad. The interpreter smirked at me as he translated. I broke my rule and replied to him in Vietnamese that I did not live in that cage and indicated the bunker in the far corner. I thought the translator was going to die right there. Tra said to take care of myself and within minutes of his departure I was back in my cage and George, now nicknamed ‘pig pen’, had room mates for the first time. 

We knew something was happening because the air campaign in our area was heating up and ‘The Voice Of Vietnam’ was whining daily about the strikes in the north. I could care less what the communists said but POWs and anti-war types like Cora Weiss, Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clark really ticked me off. I believe they all should have been jailed upon returning to America and I mean those POWs not tortured, talking on the radio. You want to drop bombs on people and then get captured and claim it was wrong? SCREW YOU!   

I saw the effect the captivity was having on some of these men especially Ed. We would whisper words of encouragement to each other at the bath point. I decided to ask if we could have three minutes to bow our heads and pray on Sunday mornings. This was passed to one of the interpreters who asked you every morning “ Any demands’? It was a meaningless exercise as no request or demand was ever met with approval. But, there was an interesting response to my request to pray on Sunday mornings. After three days he came back with this answer: “ After considering your request to pray it was decided there is no need as now there is no God. Any response’? I just looked at him and said ‘ It is good to know we will not have to put up with you guys in heaven.’ It was he who now had no response.    

In the fall a very large contingent of guards arrived with a very large United States Marine. As skinny and sick as we all were by now, he looked huge to us. Captain Jim Walsh had been shot down while making a low pass over the airfield at Quan Loi in his A-6 Intruder. He had ejected and landed in an NVA hospital. He had emptied his pistol into the fist six armed patients who tried to capture him and then gave up his empty .38 to a guy on crutches with an AK. He had suffered head and neck injuries upon his high-speed ejection at very low altitude. He brought news the war was winding down. He was so big that he learned to fake a dizzy spell and appear to be ready to fall on our little guards and they would flee to avoid being crushed.

I wanted badly to ask him who was leading in the pennant races but there was no opportunity to sneak a question. I sat a few yards away and strained to hear what he and the others in that cage were talking about. I kept waiting for one of them to bring up the pennant race but nobody did. Heck had he been with me I would have asked that first, right after informing him ‘now there is no God.’ I figured with all the data he had that we didn’t this was a little tidbit he didn’t know.  

An Loc had held and they were still fighting and Kissinger was saying that ‘peace is at hand.’ When that did not happen right away Ed took a nosedive and now Ken decided to voice his frustration ‘ Yeah, they are just going to keep this thing going.’ The rest of us were stunned by this outburst and it certainly did Ed no good. I knew he was a better man than that but, there is no excuse for such undisciplined statements to be uttered, even if that is your opinion, in the enemy camp. He never said it again. I asked to pray with the others on Thanksgiving but there was still ‘no God.’

We were at times holding on by our fingertips but things were looking up. By the very presence of US aircraft constantly bombing there had been a reinforcement of air units and Jim was able to confirm this. Then Tran Van Tra returned to interview me only, again. This time in full view of the other POWs. He asked what I would say if I was released to go home. I said I would tell the truth. I would say I had been subsisting on almost nothing and that I had seen my Vietnamese soldiers flat executed. I also would relate that communism was godless in nature and even denied the POWs the right to pray. Lastly, I would not be going anywhere when men in worse physical shape were left behind. If they wished to release someone, release Baker because if his leg broke open he would die. Tra just shook his head and sent me back to my cage. Then a voice came from behind me: ‘ Sir (God I hated it when he called these dwarfs sir) will the commander be interviewing anyone else for release’? It was Ed and his mental condition was not improving. I saw the agony in his eyes when the interpreter simply said: ‘ No.’

Our negotiators had walked out of Paris because the communists were lying through their teeth and they were trying to hold out until the American Left got their guy McGovern into the Oval Office. To hear Radio Hanoi Nixon did not stand a chance. But, I could hear Jim Walsh say that McGovern did not stand a chance. Most unforgivable were the anti-war/anti-military types from America in Hanoi and broadcasting this lie directly to American troops in the field, who had other sources and to POWs who did not. Did this group help torture POWs? In a play on words from another group: ‘ A brain is a terrible thing to wash.’ Me? I still never believed anything they said and just turned it upside down to find a semblance of the truth. One of our men asked what I thought Nixon would do and I said ‘ I think he is going to bomb them until they quit.’ I made dirty little George Wanat so happy that day. But not nearly as happy as Dick Nixon was about to make him.                                                              

‘Now you will never go home and the criminal Nixon is bombing everywhere and killing mostly old folks, women and children.’ When the little twit known as ‘DRO’( Dining Room Orderly) made this spiel I thought to myself, ‘The President has told the ‘Doves’ where they can put their ‘peace symbols’ and is flat bombing the north.’ I was right but did not know how well he was doing it until the French Ambassador came on the radio and accused Nixon of sending B-52s north and mining the harbors, ‘That’s it we are going home in style.’ The next day the communists were heading for Paris and whining for a meeting. ‘Lost the Vietnam War’? Sorry ‘Victor Charlie’, Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, Ted Kennedy and all the rest of you quitters, I was in their camp the day they lost the war and knew it.                   

Any aircraft which could not get into the north because of congestion went to Laos or came to Cambodia and it was Christmas, By God Almighty !!! Twenty-four hours a day all the way around us, three hundred and sixty degrees. I looked into the eyes of my enemy and I saw fear. I almost said ‘Lets play two’ but I have to admit I was ready to go home. They prepared a special meal for us for Christmas as the beginning of fattening us up and for propaganda. They brought in a film crew and even allowed me to join the others. They felt we should bow our heads and thank the sons of Ho for the feast as the cameras rolled. I asked the brethren to bow their heads and asked God to deliver us, without sacrificing anyone else’s freedom and thanked HIM for the chow. During this entire time DRO was yelling ‘No, no, no’! He said I had thanked the wrong person and as I dug in with the others I said into his ear ‘ So shoot me.’ He said nobody would shoot me now and I just said between mouthfuls ‘I know.’ George and Dave Baker were exceptionally bad with their manners and attitude toward the NVA that Christmas. God Bless them, they made me proud. As we ate the bombs fell and believe it or not a B-52 can drop tons of bombs and make it sound like angels singing.

The bombing continued without let-up until the NVA caved and signed, on 27 January 1973 the war officially stopped. I have always thought another forty-five days would have been appropriate. But, much of our left felt we had been in extra innings since 1968. They were fools and have been trying to claim we got run out of Vietnam by a superior team to what we had ever since. Our front office let us down. We did just fine out on the field and then they quit.   

Because our camp and the one by the Mekong River were for those too sick or wounded to be transferred north, we were in the first release. They took us back to Loc Ninh and after delays because hundreds of VC and NVA hesitated at rejoining their old team, we boarded helicopters to Saigon and on to Clark AFB. I was selected to be the first U.S. Army POW off the plane in San Francisco. General Abrams was hurt by my insisting on wearing my Green Beret home, even though I had been with MACV when captured. He and I met later and straightened it out. Special Forces are part of the Army.                                                                                   

We received a lot of gifts and trips but the thing I most cherish to this day, is my lifetime free pass for myself and one guest, to all Major League regular season games. When they announced my attendance at one game over the stadium PA system I must admit my mind ran wild. They said:‘ Captain Mark A. Smith, Former POW and recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross.’ But in my mind I heard:‘ Now playing first base for the Dodgers, Mark Smith.’ In my life, whatever the circumstance, there was always baseball!  

THE END