By Wayne Murphy

The ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) was finally extricated from Laos and we were alerted to prepare for blocking positions if the NVA (North Vietnamize Army) moved on I Corps.  Several units set up in the Ashau Valley and to the north to block any attacks. The NVA were hurt as much as the ARVN, I guess.  My guys were not deployed.  My recollection of the timeline gets fuzzy here, but then I was concerned that I had not heard from Mary Ellen on our baby’s birth and was getting anxious – her due date was when I was up north and that had passed.  I was so bad with worry that the Chaplain arranged a call to her via Saigon from Camp Eagle – a real telephone call!  I talked with her and she told me all was well – the baby was just late.

Sometime around this part of the tour we got what was a short in country R&R (rest and recuperation) at the division’s center called Eagle Beach east of Hue on the South China Sea.  It was just a bunch of hootches on the beach, with a recreation center with a show and bar.  We had to turn in all our weapons and were guarded by division security troops.  Infantry guys got this in country R&R and not engineers, but we were there to repair and rebuild some of the facilities and got to rest after work.  The show at night was a Filipino band with two very young go-go girl dancers (they looked 12-15).  They did all the current songs – but you have not lived until you heard “Ploud Lary – lollin on the liver” sung very loudly!

 

As I recall after we returned, we were given a civic action mission in Thua Thein province east of Hue.  (Area was just south of the French Indo-China war era stretch known as “The Street Without Joy.”)  We were to repair a road and some bridges through the flat rice paddy country and sand dunes to help the local bus company connect a bunch of small villages.  The area was very safe, and we worked out of a local ARVN base, manned by the Ruff Puffs (local regional troops something like local militia).  Down the road we ran into an Australian Special Forces Detachment whose mission was advising the local forces.  They were great guys and the only “Allies” I ran into during my tour. 

The Ruff Puffs did some night work and caught two supposed VC.  They had been killed in a fire fight and were staked out on a mound as a warning, or as a trophy, I guess.  The bodies were discolored and bloating.  As we worked near another village, we uncovered some more bodies hastily buried by the other side.  When one of my guys ran an entrenching tool into the ground, he cut right into one.  The smell was bad, and the flesh had the look of corned beef.  That was exactly what we got flown to us for a meal later that day.  It was years before I could eat corned beef again!

 

Our work went well except for two instances.  One involved the replacement of a pier for a bridge over a canal.  The water was mostly stagnant.  We waded in to work on the pier and when we got out, we had several leaches attached.  We quickly removed them with cigarettes.  I remembered the scene from “The African Queen” when Bogart has to go back in the water.  We did too – and it was not easy.

The second involved a culvert we put in the road between two paddies.  It was fine and the local farmer dammed it to control flow.  About 100 meters along, we found on successive mornings a trench dug across the road.  We filled it in and each morning it returned.  We finally got an interpreter to talk with the locals.  It seems another farmer was jealous of our “giving” a culvert to his neighbor and wanted one, too.  Although it was not called for in the plans, we added one for him in the spot he kept digging up.  He seemed pleased.

This was the closest we came to the locals who just wanted to live and ignore us and get the crops in.  They had small ponds near their homes and some raised fish in them.  The dikes were used as paths and latrines.  I sure did not want to eat any of the fish.  The Vietnamese would squat with their feet flat and actually rest in that position – we would fall over.  The older folks had terrible teeth and they would smear betel nut over them to kill pain and give you quite a look when they smiled.

Our work required some fill (additional soil) and we established a borrow pit near QL1 (main north-south route in I Corps) using some guys from our headquarters equipment platoon.  One ran a front loader and filled the 2 ½ ton dumps we borrowed from the HQ Company with fill we used to repair the road.  This was as close as our troops got to the locals, and the local ladies were plying their wares.  The loader operator was participating in an active exchange when LTC Rodolph’s LOH appeared overhead.  LTC Rodolph landed and pulled the man off in “mid debauch.”   Needless to say, we did not think that was very sporting when reported to us.

The 101^st field troop access to the local ladies was very restricted.  First, we operated in the hills where there were no locals, and second, to a small extent, some were afraid of the “Black Syph.”  The myth going around our unit was that the enemy had developed a very virulent and fatal form of syphilis.  If you got it, you were transported to isolation on an island off the coast and your family was notified that you were missing in action – never to go home.  It was very far-fetched, but we had some of Lyndon Johnson’s Project 100,000 soldiers (aka “MacNamara’s Folly” that enlisted men with less than required mental or physical capabilities) still and they would believe anything.

One evening as it was getting dark, one of the trucks ran off the road into a rice paddy.  To get it out we had to set up a dozer and cables.  We did a job on a small portion of the paddy.  I reported the damage to division and, as was the policy, the division assigned a JAG officer to pay an equitable claim to the owner of the field.  I had to accompany him to meet with the farmer.  The Vietnamese farmer had essentially claimed the entire field’s crop of rice.  We had maybe destroyed 5% of the paddy.  The payment was in the local currency, piasters, which had an official value way above its actual black-market rate. We used US Army currency we called script among US troops and stores (PX).

We went to the farmhouse – a thatched hut with a dirt floor.  The owner showed up as a former ARVN soldier with one arm.  Not sure if he was actually the owner or the “stand in” to gain more sympathy.  He showed us his discharge and medals.  We offered the appropriate amount; the farmer was very distraught.  After consultations, the division officer offered him about 25% of the field’s yield.  He took it and we shook hands and left.

We also got to play with some new mine-clearing gear brought in country by Waterways Experiment Station folks from their Corps of Engineers lab.  It was a lesson in a good technical idea that would not work.  Two civilian scientists were field testing a new nonmetallic mine detector and my platoon was to support them.  We had detectors that could find metal mines and detonators, but plastic explosives in wood containers would go mostly undetected.  Our existing nonmetallic mine detector equipment was essentially a stick to look for booby traps.  These guys had a new piece that sent out a signal and measured the changing dialectic constant of a material – a change in density and therefore, theoretically detect non-metallic mines.  You had to keep the head of the sweeper perfectly parallel to the surface – a hand turn would give a signal. 

We set up a stretch of road and buried some target nonmetallic mines.  The sweep started and we got readings every few inches – rocks, shrapnel, or wood.  We took an hour to clear a few feet.  The scientists still could not find the target mines we had placed and complained the test was unfair.  The road was not homogeneous enough.  I told them that was the condition of most roads in our areas.  We left them still trying to find the targets.

Back in base camp, I was really getting nervous about our baby and Mary Ellen – and a bit hard to live with.  On 8 March I was called in by CPT Fisher who read me a Red Cross telegram that Mary Ellen had given birth to a boy on 4 March and all was well – later I learned that Sean’s delivery was difficult, and Mary Ellen had to have a C-Section.  With the news I was ecstatic!  Wrote Mary Ellen a letter that minute – talked about little league, PTA, and how much I loved her. 

The Red Cross telegram had been held up by a Western Union strike on the west coast supposedly.  Steve, my younger brother, had delivered per our arrangement the yellow roses on time so Mary Ellen had no idea I had not been told.  

Mary Ellen had sent me a package with cigars for this moment and I opened it. The climate had taken its toll and only some were useable.  Still, I got some more from the PX and gave them out.  All I wanted now was to get home and see Mary Ellen and Sean.

When the aftermath of our air losses in Lam San 719, and of the ARVN in troops, had run its course in most of the area, I was chosen to head up a Vietnamization (efforts to turn over war to Vietnamize forces) fire base construction in our Brigade’s area of operations.  Best job I had in country. 

The main mission and reason to reoccupy Khe Sanh was to build a forward base capable of supplying the two ARVN Divisions who would cross into Laos and “cut” the Ho Chi Minh Trail. That meant a new C-130 capable airstrip. In the interim, supplies would be sent by chopper in to the existing and damaged strip that was parallel.

We started clearing the grasses and the surface immediately upon return from opening QL9 (the land route from Quang Tri) to the plateau. It was a joke to think that the small airmobile earth-moving equipment that I had could handle this size job – a great deal of cut and fill would be needed to make an air strip.) We would be reinforced by construction equipment from a real Army Corps Engineer Battalion (27^th Engineers) that was brought in over QL9 – but as far as I understood they continued to work for, and were under the command of TF 326 (our 101^st  Abn Div engineer task force).

We supervised some work and my guys dug in the infantry and our own men on the perimeter. It was dicey as we kept encountering marine anti-tank mines.  We would blow those in our way in place.

One of my most frightening exercises turned out to be trying to locate a water point. We wanted to try to limit sling loads coming in to us so, if we had a water point, we could cut that a bit.  We noticed on the map what appeared to be a stream on the south side of our position. I sent a small dozer (M450) to cut a path through the high grass. Soon, my guys called that the operator had come on barbed wire with a mine warning sign (triangle).  Only problem was that the sign pointed the wrong way – the dozer was in the mine field!

I went to the path the dozer had cut. Sure enough, we could see some mines that had been unearthed with time just off the track marks. I walked out to the dozer stepping on the track marks and climbed on. We called for a Medivac chopper to be in the area with a jungle penetrator (hoist to take us up) if things went wrong, and we started to back the dozer out –exactly as he had entered. We made it, but no water point.

We then went off the plateau a bit to the east and found a waterfall! We (me and two of my guys) decided to take a shower.  As we soaped up, out of the jungle came some black clad Vietnamese.  Turned out they were ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) Rangers – but I tightened up a bit as we were several feet from our weapons.

At the east end of the new airstrip, we encountered more mines and debris. I had the job to clear a path and we decided to use several boxes of bangalor torpedoes. These were pole-like charges linked together and pushed along the ground across a barrier. You probably remember them from the movie “The Longest Day” used to breach a barrier and get the troops and Robert Mitchum off the beach.

 

We set quite a few charges. About this time, a flag officer from 5^th Mech landed about 200 meters from our site. We asked that they move the chopper, but they said it was clear of our work – and it was for the bangalors.  So, we gave our warnings, popped red smoke, and set things off. Boy, did we ever! The explosion apparently included a lot of rounds left and buried by the Marines in 1968 in unmarked ammo storage. The blast looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off with a mushroom cloud and all. Choppers were veering left and right, and the general’s radios had been knocked out of the mounts in his chopper by the concussion. We slinked back into the high grass.

The work continued nonstop as the ARVN invasion (Lam Son 719) was to start with or without the base. We completed the dirt strip in four days, having compaction problems with the very moist laterite soil, as the monsoon had just begun to end. The Air Force brought in the first C-130.

It landed but at the end of the runway the soil turned plastic (permanently deformed) as the wheels sunk a bit. To get the aircraft off we had to turn it using dozers and cables.  The AF was NOT HAPPY. It was clear we had to do a surface treatment to spread the load more evenly and the decision was made to use matting (MX-19) to stabilize the surface. It was trucked in along QL9 — all the aluminum matting in country, and it seemed that all of the available trucks were used to haul it.  We got to lay it down.

We started at the center and had to precisely lay the first rows perfectly perpendicular to the center line of the strip (as any angle other than 90 degrees would take the extended matting as it was laid off the runway at the ends).  We then worked towards the two ends. We had three platoons and other operators, so we made two teams and worked round the clock trying to beat each other to the end.

We did not complete before the ARVN invasion, so everything was initially brought in by helicopter – literally hundreds of Hooks and Cranes (large helicopters CH-47s and CH-54s). The ground dried a bit and the dust was unreal. I lost my goggles (used for airmobile operations) early on and essentially “sand blasted” my corneas. I still have effects.

The air cavalry was based at the old Marine strip. They came in with Cavalry hats and spurs and a lot of bravado. They were impressive. Lam Son 719 kicked off and the situation turned badly.  We were told the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) had placed radar controlled .51 caliber guns in triangular positions. No matter how they were attacked, by Army gunships or AF jets, the attacker was broadside to a machine gun. The Cav took heavy casualties and the hats and spurs our cav guys initially sported disappeared.  A more somber tone prevailed.

Our project got a firsthand look. We had finished almost half the matting when we got a call that an observation fixed wing pilot was pretty shot up and was going to try to land.   His aircraft was a small piper cub type and he landed in a few hundred feet and taxied to us. The plane was full of holes and the tail section held together by no more than a wire. He was glad to see our partially completed strip and walked away!

(Let me add a word about my experience with the “American” press in country. I never saw an American. We did have TV film crews at Khe Sanh after a while. They were all Thai or Vietnamese, or some other Asian ethnic background.  I asked a division officer about it. He said the US press guys usually stayed back in the cities at this time in the war where there were hotels and added their piece from a hotel garden of brush as if they were on the line. We did not seem to have the brave guys that were on the ground in 1967 like Galloway.)

During the initial invasion my platoon was sent one afternoon when we were resting from the construction job forward towards the old Special Forces camp at Lang Vei to put in an LZ (landing zone) fuel site to help alleviate the traffic at Khe Sanh.  Lang Vei still had burned out hulls of old Soviet tanks from the battles in 1968. We created the LZ and storage areas for fuel – and set them up.

We were then directed to stand by to assist as necessary to cut out any downed pilots with an aero-rifle platoon from the 101st (infantry troops assigned to the cav unit) commanded by my classmate Harrison “H” Lobdell.  Again, it was like old times.  An ARVN Ranger platoon would go in, if the pilot went down in Laos.  You see American troops were to stay on the Vietnam side of the border (except pilots and engineers, I guess).  Never was sure where that border was. Anyway, we sat for a while at the LZ and then returned to Khe Sanh.

When the airfield was completed, the C-130s started to come in.  My relief platoon arrived with them. We got to load up on a C-130 with our gear and flew out to Phu Bai. The whole thing lasted about three weeks for me. Lam Son 719 turned even more badly for the ARVN. They ended up losing most of two divisions (each had over 10,000 men), our guys ended up getting shelled at Khe Sanh from probably the same positions the NVA used in 1968.  We did not stay.

My attitude towards the whole Army thing was a bit jaded by now. And the next incident reflects my belief I was getting out after five years (new class motto – Army No More in 74). When we got to Camp Eagle and our engineer Sea Bee camp, we got the first real showers in weeks.  My fatigues could literally stand by themselves. I went last with my NCOs and as we soaped up the water was turned off.  I was told my current CO had ordered it to conserve water and power – apparently, we had exceeded our time allotment. I was furious and stormed up the hill to his CP in soap and a towel. I asked why the showers had been turned off and he reiterated the “battalion policy.”  I told him we had no idea. He told me that was our problem. I got rather heated and told him what I thought of it – and that if the water was not on in five minutes he and any other consummate REMF (Rear Echelon Mother F$#@%), might find out what real combat was like.

Someone intervened (the First Sergeant, I think) and the water was turned on.  The CO gave me a benefit of the doubt this time and did not charge me with anything, but we never really clicked after that to say the least.

In 1990, as an exchange officer serving in the State Department, I was involved in arms control negotiations and treaty compliance issues between our country and the Soviet Union.  One aspect was the a diplomatic “tit for tat” unspoken rule – whatever we allowed or did – they did.

Under the ABM Treaty we constantly met on compliance issues and a “big” one at the time was the legal placement of Long-Range Phased Array (LPAR) radars.  They were by treaty to be on each’s periphery and facing “out.”  They complained about our upgraded one at Thule, Greenland as not being on our soil (we said it was “grandfathered” before the treaty and could be upgraded).  We complained about theirs at Krasnoyarsk as not being on the periphery and overlooking Siberia (in truth their construction of such massive buildings had to be not on permafrost and its location may have been chosen for that reason.)

In the relaxed tensions after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we engaged in “confidence building measures” with our Soviet counterparts.  One such was the idea of trips to each other’s LPARs to demonstrate only early warning capabilities.  In the Fall of 1990, we engaged in one that I had a part in developing.  We took them to Thule and they took us to Pechora above the Arctic circle in Russia. Both radars had essentially the same capability but were quite different in size and construction. Since theirs was clearly “legal” then we got the added admission that ours at Thule was too – reciprocity in action.

We went first and hosted them in Washington for a week of sightseeing, shopping, and meals.  Their delegation was populated, as was ours, with intel and military experts and not the standard diplomatic types.  That was interesting as most had never traveled to the West before and exposure to our country was quite the shock.

We put them up at the Dulles Hilton and took them to the Tysons Mall for a shopping experience.  They thought the mall was a “Potemkin Village.”  (A Potemkin Village was a Russian Czarist era phony “show place” created to deceive the viewer.) So, we took them to the Springfield mall the next day to show them the reality of the commercial shopping. The DC area traffic also amazed them – so many privately- owned vehicles of all types. They could not believe the abundance in the stores – or the wide variety of products.

We then flew them to the US base at Thule, Greenland with the Danish Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission along to further emphasize the “legality” of the Thule radar although not on “our territory” but on Danish territory.

Soon it was our turn and we went to the Soviet Union for a week of sightseeing and dining in Moscow – followed by a flight to Pechora.  It was eye opening as the Soviet economic system was still in place – although the black market thrived.

Our Russian hosts were very accommodating allowing us the same ability to see and even video things at the sites we had given them.  So, we saw the socialist paradise at its best.  A few anecdotal events were illuminating – and central control of economy exposed.  They needed a cost mechanism called “price.”

My first observation was at a dinner at our hotel, a Stalin-era structure.  We could not get service or the attention from any waiter, and those who did around us got it very slowly.   The waiter got paid whether he served us, or did not serve us, I guess.  We loudly complained that we thought that our host (a KGB general) would not be very pleased with our treatment.  We were then served immediately.

Our rooms were quite spartan.  The toilet paper was soft as a paper bag.  We had brought several rolls of our own and these proved to be very well received “tips” for the maids.  The floor had an old woman seated in the hall.  Our room keys were tied to a very large object and we had to give them to her when we left.  I guess so they could be sure when we were out and were free to “inspect” our rooms.  Also, there were no shower curtains around the tub and shower.  This concerned our female members of the delegation.

Going to dinner in Moscow, we noticed the embassy van had the windshield wiper rubber blades removed.  Apparently, these were in short supply in the community and would be taken if left on the vehicle.  As currency rates were grossly inflated officially (rubles were worthless except “officially”), we had to be very careful of the use of dollars and rubles.  So, we also carried Marlboro cigarettes, a very favorite of the many chain-smoking Russians.  A few packs were offered to bystanders to watch over our vehicle while we dined in the restaurant.

Our shopping trip was not to GUM (state department store in Red Square) but along the Arbot.  A street allowed to trade in basically black market and bartered exchanges.   There were many lines along the state shops and stores with many empty shelves.  Folks would line up when any shipment came into a state store.  For instance, if boots arrived all would be gone in a moment – even if the customer did not need boots or they were not his size.  They were material for bartering for what he did need.

One very interesting site was a Pepsi-Cola vending machine.  The Soviets had purchased the rights to bottle it as an alternative to the national drink – vodka.  But the system had its planning flaws as there was a shortage of paper cups.  So, there was a metal dipper chained to the machine as a drinking cup.  One dropped in the kopeks and used the dipper to catch the Pepsi and drink from it.  There were not many takers for the community ladle.

We spent some time at the old American Embassy.  The newly constructed one could not be used for any sensitive business as the Russian and Polish construction crews had managed to make listening devices part of the concrete pour.  The new one did have housing, a bowling alley, and recreation areas.  During the week, I observed a road repair crew fixing a single pothole in the street we crossed each day.  It was probably an hour job, but these guys managed to take four days – no incentive to getting the job done early.

Much of the trip dealt with information gathering on their radar capabilities and answering our questions on their massive structures.  Suffice it to say, the separate transmitter and eleven-story receiver buildings housed massive tubes and floors of old 1960s computer racks.  They essentially got the same definition on their screens as our smaller arrays and laptops, but at what a cost!  They simply did not have cost or efficiency measures to worry about. And all designs were the same, no matter where they were built.  I used the restroom on the top 11^th floor at Pechora site and it would not flush.  Embarrassed, I reported the problem to my escort.  He had a soldier go down and get a bucket of water.  Apparently, the local water tower was well below the 11^th floor level – but the state design called for a restroom on each floor!

So, as we contemplate any socialist state these days, we must beware of central planning, and its consequences and inefficiencies.  Incentive is lost and the lack of the simple valuable element called “real price” makes for poor allocation of resources.

 

 

 

FIRST DAY

The next morning, we deployed around the LZ. Our small, “air mobile” earth-moving equipment, ¾ ton dump trucks, jeeps, M450 bulldozers, D5 bulldozer, and scrapers were broken down for sling loading. We were also sharing the assault lift with an infantry battalion of the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized). The pathfinders (forward troops who controlled our aircraft loading) were all set.

Then, as I guess happens in war, chaos takes over. The sky was cloudy at dawn and the largest group of slicks (Huey helicopters) I had ever seen approached the LZ. They landed but had their numbers in the windows all mixed up. My guys shouted, “what do we do?” and I answered get on one of the birds as they were supposedly all going to the same place. We jumped on with our enormous rucks and weapons and lifted off.

Khe Sanh was actually on a plateau and as we looked at the hundreds of choppers of all kinds in the air, we could see that a low cloud cover had just lifted enough to provide a “tunnel” up the main valley along QL9. Our pilot turned slightly north and landed on a hill top. I asked what was up and he told me he could not risk the congestion and would wait until things cleared a bit. He was right — the air traffic was unreal. We broke out some C-rations and ate lunch at about 0800. We finally got clearance and went to Khe Sanh. I later found out that the XO (Executive Officer) had made it through and had listed our birds as “missing in action” for a while. I thought that news had better not get to Mary Ellen before it was corrected.

We landed on the old matted air-strip and jumped out. One of my NCOs, SSG Vance, was a short stocky guy and fell over on his back. The ruck was so heavy he could not right himself and was flailing around like a turtle. One of his guys was yelling “they got Sarge.” I recognized no rounds were heard and shouted, “He’s OK, help him up!”

We secured our area and met with the XO. The old Marine matted airfield was full of holes and had a destroyed sub-grade material base under matting which was the result of NVA bombardment in 1968. Using it for C130 landings would require taking it up and completely rebuilding it. It would become our air cavalry squadron’s helicopter landing area. The decision was made to build a new strip parallel and just south. We started to try to clear through the elephant grass and along the road using detectors looking for the “booby traps” – none were found. We did see some infantry guys loose legs to the Marine mines – nobody apparently had a map or location (which was doctrine in the Army) and the mines seemed to be all around.

The opening of QL9 was taking more time than planned. So, I was told we would work back toward our other platoons. We gathered our jeep and some ¾ ton dump trucks and assembled a D5 bulldozer. We started down the road from Khe Sanh to QL9. We decided to drop the rucksacks and take ammo, detectors, and weapons only. The sweep along the dirt road was too slow. The shrapnel in the ground from all the previous fighting gave readings every few feet – but contrary to our intelligence briefing we found no booby traps, nor did we encounter any NVA. I decided we had to do a “visual” sweep and get moving. The road was slightly overgrown but could be seen. I mounted the front of the jeep, my legs dangling over the grill, and told my driver, SP4 Martin (a great 19-year-old kid) to move out and stop immediately if I yelled. If I missed something, he would never know it, anyway. We made progress.

Just about dark we hit the intersection of the main road and LTC Rodolph landed in his LOH (Light Observation Helicopter). He told me the other platoons had put in the bridges and had approached the last site (bridge #36) before Khe Sanh some kilometers from my location. I needed to get there that night – in other words perform a night mine sweep and road repair in the dark through what may be an enemy infiltrated area. We would be on our own as there was no infantry support available. He said he would like to be with us on our endeavor but that division “needed him in Quang Tri” that night. He took off as the sun set. My platoon sergeant rendered his LOH a single finger salute as he flew away.

The road was an old French hard surface, probably a mixed bituminous treatment and overgrown, but findable. We set the D5 bulldozer to the front behind a couple of point troops to mark the way. The D5 had a light and we had the jeep and two ¾ ton dump trucks. The mufflers were off the trucks, so they sounded quite noisy. We certainly would sound intimidating as we moved along. At this point we really did not believe the bobby trap threat although our other platoon working farther east had taken a casualty from mines on the road.

We started off to make our link up. It was a sight — all our guys (about 35) chugging along behind the bulldozer and trucks making as much noise as possible. We probably sounded like an armor outfit. We hit some snags when we came to a spot that had been pulverized, probably in 1968, by B52 500lb bombs. The craters were quite large, and we had to snake a route around them.

(I witnessed only one such B52 raid in country. They were called “Arc Lights” and we had to be at least 4 kilometers from the target. You never heard the planes which flew from as far away as Guam, or the falling bombs. The ridge would simply erupt with explosions and you could see the condensing of the air from the shock waves around the explosion. It was said that if the NVA survived many were found dazed and bleeding from the ears.)

We then came to a spot where a number of folks were running around in the dark shouting in Vietnamese. We kept moving forward, they ran, and not a shot was fired! We speculated they were probably NVA support troops as there were not supposed to be any ARVN in the area yet.

Finally, we were moving downhill to the last bridge site. On the hill above, fires were burning from earlier air attacks and we heard what sounded like weapon discharge. We kept moving. I was in contact with John and Steve by radio and they were dug in along the road on the other side of the river. At this point Steve had only a few guys as many had dropped off at the other bridge sites. The old French bridge abutments were way too far apart for our helicopter- delivered bridge frame. We needed to blow some rock with demo charges to create abutments and use the bulldozer to cut a bypass to drop the bridge frame on. Steve and John had the panels to fill it out. We decided that placing charges in the dark and trying to survey the needed work was not a smart thing. My guys were exhausted, and we were concerned that whomever we had “met” along the way or was on the hill above might give us a problem. We made a one rope river crossing ala Ranger School and took refuge behind their positions and got a couple hours rest. We reported our link-up to battalion headquarters.

SECOND DAY

Just before first light, we re-crossed the river, secured our stuff, and planted the charges and cut the bypass. We blew the rock, used the bulldozer to help complete the makeshift abutments, and we called for the bridge. It had to be dropped in by a CH 54 crane.

I sent the bulldozer and the bulk of the platoon back along our route to fix the B52-cratered area so the tracks could pass. The path we used in the dark was quite serpentine.

About this time a slick (Huey helicopter) carrying a one-star general of the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) landed on the abutment. He was furious. His column was strung out and stopped all along QL 9 back to Quang Tri he said. When were we 101st Airborne Division idiots going to get the damn bridge completed? At this moment the crane with the bridge, accompanied by two cobra gunships, was orbiting the site awaiting clearance to bring the frame in. I kind of lost it and told him “Sir, as soon as we get that f*%$kin bird out of the way.” He glared, asked my name, and got in his chopper.

The bridge went in and Steve’s and John’s troops began filling the frame. I scrambled to catch up to my guys. We fixed the road at the cratered site as best we could and welcomed the first Mechanized Infantry vehicles as they came up the road. They had signs proclaiming to be the First to Khe Sanh – my guys took issue with the claim.

We returned to Khe Sanh and started the airbase construction phase. It was quite a couple of first days of the operation. Some of us would later get the Bronze Star with a “V” (for valor) as well as a Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star for the events of these days.