13th Valley Read online

  Chelini had been in-country for fifteen hours. He had traveled over half the land, and yet he had seen nothing except distant mountains, sand and U.S. military installations. Below him was the city of Da Nang.

  The Chinook stopped at various landing pads on the city’s outskirts. Newspapers were dropped at each location. Soldiers boarded and disembarked.

  Chelini saw large portions of Da Nang from an altitude of three hundred to four hundred feet and a ground speed of thirty to forty knots. He saw the large parabolic bay sided by mountainous ridges and he saw the wide river which ran inland between the ridgelines. Straddling the river, the city seemed to be thriving.

  At the edge of the bay, and running as far as Chelini could see way from Da Nang’s congestion, glistening white sand beaches were partitioned by concertina wire. From the air he could see a riverfront street and a market packed with food and wares and men and women bustling about. Rising above the market were three and four storey French Colonial buildings, which looked like Jackson Park in New Orleans. Small secondstorey wrought iron balconies extended over peasants carrying provisions—dried fish, live chickens, bread, cans of oil—in baskets suspended from the ends of bamboo sticks which they balanced across one shoulder. Chelini laughed, enthralled by the sight.

  The aircraft banked back over the east side of the river, above a sampan village, then landed near a shipyard. Several wooden trawlers were in various stages of assemblage. To the north of the shipyard Chelini saw shanties built almost on top of each other from scavenged ammo-box wood and government-issued tin roofing.

  The CH-47 flew away from the coast, to the sea and north. To Chelini, in his mixed state of fatigue and excitement, the trip became a fantasy, an exotic travelogue.

  The helicopter banked left over the beaches and sand dunes. The dunes swelled and withered and were separated by waterways. Nestled here and there, small hamlets seemed isolated and random in a sea of sand, as if someone had thrown seeds from an earlier helicopter traveling over this area long ago and the seeds had fluttered down in a gentle breeze, scattering, some germinating and growing into hamlets, some germinating and withering in the sandy soil, some never germinating at all. As the land leveled, clumps of green and brown brush overwhelmed the mounds. Hundreds of tiny temples and tombs and small pagodas cluttered the piedmont. Between the monuments and sometimes coinciding with them, bomb and artillery craters pockmarked the land. Water filled the craters and they appeared blue or mudbrown. Chelini saw it all but he did not understand. He did not associate the sights with war.

  At Phu Bai the crew chief directed Chelini to the 101st Airborne Replacement Station. Engulfed by the activity of the receiving area he walked hesitantly as men hustled briskly or jogged toward destinations. Everyone wore a division patch on his left shoulder, a black shield with the white head of an eagle with gold beak and red tongue. Over the shield in a black arch were the gold letters AIRBORNE.

  On the morning of 2 August Chelini was transported in the back of an open topped trailer truck from Phu Bai 50 kilometers north on Highway One to Camp Evans for proficiency or P-Training at SERTS. He had slept yet a tiredness lingered in his muscles and mind. The highway passed through the suburbs south of Hue. The truck rolled north through Hong Thauy, Phu Long and Phu Loc. It crossed a temporary wood-beamed bridge spanning the Song Loi Nong. Downriver a new bridge of steel I-beams and reinforced concrete was under construction. Up-stream a steel-truss bridge lay bent, twisted, ripped from its concrete footings. Chelini shuddered in awe. It thrilled him to see this: it was the first evidence of war he understood.

  The trailer truck jolted at the end of the bridge and descended into a major marketplace. In the market Chelini could see hundreds of small women squatting beside piles of raw fish or rolls of bread. His eyes were shining with excitement. The world was new and fascinating. The truck rolled on skirting the scarred and shattered walls of the Citadel of the old Imperial City at Hue. There really was a war here, he said to himself. Inside the Citadel’s gates he could see ancient cannons.

  North of the city the truck passed fields with peasant farmers working knee deep in water or plowing behind water buffalo. They passed villages with thousands of children and hundreds of peasant hootches—some colorful, some dingy—and peasant shops which were busy selling everything from soda and soup to motorscooters.

  In one village the elders came to the roadside and smiled and waved and Chelini waved back. He imagined himself as a part of the liberating armies coming into France or Belgium in an old World War II movie. At the next village the truck paused. Beside the road was a mud brick shack. To one side was a hedge, to the other, a barbed wire fence. The front of the shack was a tattered piece of canvas which opened as an awning to expose the interior. Inside, several middle-aged women stood chattering while they washed old brown bottles. Four children—a girl about six holding an infant, and two smaller boys—came shyly from behind the fence and approached the truck. The littlest boy removed a frayed baseball cap and held it out toward the truck. The boy was gazing directly at Chelini and smiling. His older brother waved and held up his right hand in a peace sign. Chelini smiled back and returned the hand gesture. The little girl with the infant approached the truck. She lifted the infant’s arm and waved his hand to the soldiers. Chelini stared at her. He did not know if other GIs on the truck were watching him and the children. He imagined the children calling him “Papa” because he had brought them peace, prosperity and the knowledge of ways to ease their existence. A soldier threw two cigarettes toward the children. The boys dove for them. The soldiers on the truck laughed and began throwing gum and more cigarettes. Chelini had a sudden urge to cry.

  Camp Evans was named for a Marine killed in an ambush along the Street Without Joy in 1966. At that time the base was a sparse crude outpost of tents and foxholes. In 1969 the Marines withdrew and turned the base over to the 3d Brigade of the 101st, who since their arrival had not ceased building.

  SERTS training at Camp Evans intensified Chelini’s fantasies of war though it was still only an exercise to him.

  Chelini was assigned to a hootch and bunk and was issued an M-16. The bunk next to him had been issued to a rotund in-country transferee named Will Ralston who would become Chelini’s closest friend for the next seven days. Ralston had been stationed just outside Saigon with a supply unit. “Dude, I had one gettin-over job,” Ralston said by way of introduction. “We were attached to this other unit that controlled this small complex, see? But they didn’t have direct authority over us, so we didn’t pull guard or have any details. Then they decided to close the place up cause of the withdrawals and they sent us up here to this godforsaken hole. Fuck withdrawals, Man.”

  Will Ralston had arrived at Evans the day before Chelini was trucked in. He had spent the night on guard duty along the camp’s east perimeter. “Dude, you aint gonna believe this place,” Ralston cracked. “Down around Saigon they’d give us a 16 and three rounds just before guard. This place looks like they expectin to fight a war. You aint gonna believe the shit they got on the berm. They must be expectin deep shit, Man.”

  “You know how to operate that thang?” asked the Black Hat, a staff sergeant member of SERTS’ cadre.

  Chelini grabbed the M-60 pulled the bolt to the rear lifted the cover and put the belt into the feed tray. “Yeah,” he said. “One of the sergeants came over and showed me.”

  “All right,” the man said. “You know the rules of engagement?”

  “Yeah,” Ralston said.

  “I think so,” Chelini agreed.

  “You put out your claymores?”

  “Seven of em.”

  “Okay. You ought to have fifteen frags, twenty-one magazines each for your 16’s. You got 1500 rounds for the 60 and 50 rounds for the 79. If you have to use that 60 one of you feed while the other fires. Only if yer name’s Wayne or Murphy can you fire it by yourself. Do you have any questions?”

  “Can we get some bug repellent?” Ralston asked.
r />   “There’ll be a track around pretty soon with repellent and coffee,” the Black Hat said. He walked off heading to the next foxhole. Every forty meters around the perimeter at Camp Evans there was a guard-duty station, a foxhole. The foxholes were designated into sectors of the perimeter and each sector had a tower for the captain of the guard and every foxhole was connected with its command tower by ground-line communication. Guards were instructed to use the phone system only in emergency or in response to the guard captain calling for a situation report. Of the next ten nights Chelini and Ralston pulled guard on six.

  “Oh, Man,” Ralston said, “look at this dump.” It was Chelini’s first night on guard and the foxhole had six inches of muddy red water in the bottom and one end was caving in. Ralston was jumpy. He attached the firing devices to the claymore mine wires and arranged them in order across the front of the hole and grumbled, “If I see anything out there—if any crazy gook thinks he’s goina sneak up close—I’m goina blow his shit away.”

  “Calm down, Man. There aint going to be anybody out there,” Chelini said. “What time do you got?”

  “It’s about ten after nine.”

  “You want to sleep first or stand watch?”

  “You sleep. I’ll stay up.” Ralston laid a bandoleer of magazines for his M-16 in front of his position just behind the clacker firing devices for the claymore mines. He picked up his weapon, put a magazine in the well, pulled the bolt back and chambered a round. “Goddamn rain. Goddamn sand. This whole country aint nothin but Goddamn sand.”

  “Hey,” Chelini said. “You wake me if you think you see something.” Chelini lay down on his poncho on the sand behind the foxhole. “And if you get sleepy,” he added, “get me up early.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Don’t worry about it. I’m not goina sleep with Charlie out there.”

  Chelini lay back using his helmet as a pillow. The sky was black with gray patches where the clouds reflected a dim half moon. It was raining lightly. A warm breeze came up from the moist fields below, outside the base. It smelled of dung. Chelini closed his eyes. He felt silly lying on the hard ground with his lead in his helmet, his chest crossed by bandoleers, his thighs crossed by his rifle. He smiled. A single warm drop of water rolled off his lip and into his mouth. It tasted salty. He sat up. This must look really stupid, he thought. Like playing soldier. It was getting darker and he could feel the mist condensing on his face. The breeze was just beginning to turn cool. I’d like to have picture of me, he thought. A picture of me like this.

  The quiet rolling sound of a small truck broke in upon his thoughts. He opened his eyes. Approaching through the darkness from a fighting position farther up the perimeter was a three-quarter-ton truck. The truck’s silhouette was barely visible against the night sky. The only light from the vehicle was a tiny subdued red glow at one fender. The truck stopped. “You guys want some coffee?” the driver asked quietly.

  “Na,” Ralston said. “You got any bug repellent?”

  The driver threw them an olive drab aerosol can.

  “These damn mosquitoes,” Ralston whispered as he sprayed his ears. “They like to get right inside yer fuckin head and drive you fuckin nuts.”

  “Pass it this way, Man,” Chelini said. “Hey, where you from?”

  “You mean in the World? Here,” he threw Chelini the can. “California, what about yerself?”

  “Connecticut,” Chelini said. He sprayed the back of his shirt then down the front. “What time’s it getting to be?”

  “Nine-thirty. You better pick up some Zs. You got it eleven to one.”

  “Um,” Chelini groaned. He lay back down and shut his eyes.

  “Hey, Man. Get up. It’s ten-past.” Chelini woke to Ralston shaking his boot. “Come on, Man. It’s yer turn.”

  “Okay. Okay.” He shook the sleep from his face and sat up. “Everything quiet?”

  “Shit. It’s so dark out there Mister Charlie could come slip right up here, tap you on the shoulder, give you an engraved invitation to your own funeral and you still wouldn’t ee-ven know where he was.”

  Chelini slid to the foxhole and checked the box of fragmentation grenades, the M-60 machine gun, the claymore wires and the firing clackers. He checked it all by feel. He put his face very close to the 60, trying to make sure the belt was in right, but he could see nothing. “Okay, Man,” he said. “Go to sleep.”

  It was very dark now. There was no way to distinguish the ground from the sky. In the field before him several spots seemed darker than the surrounding blackness. Chelini picked up his M-16 and aimed it on one of the spots. It did not move. Will Ralston had lain down and was already snoring lightly when Chelini turned around and looked at him. He was a spot only a little darker than the ground. Chelini turned and looked back at the dark spot which now seemed to be in the perimeter concertina wire. The spot changed shape. Very slowly Chelini moved forward. Noiselessly he picked up his rifle and clicked the safety lever from safe to semi-automatic to automatic. He shouldered the weapon again, sighted in on one dense spot and froze on it for what seemed like an hour. Then he switched his aim to another spot. The darkness crept slowly in an amoebic flow. There was no way to distinguish a target. Chelini could feel his pulse beating heavily in his neck and wrists. What the hell am I supposed to do? he asked, frustrated, frightened, furious that the army had not lighted the perimeter. Somebody could come up here and drop a frag right here in this stinkin hole with me and I’d never know it. Maybe I ought to check with the tower. Goddamn. I hope there’s nobody out there. Blow a claymore first. No. Throw a frag first or pump out a round from the M-79. No, throw a frag. That won’t give away my position. He stood waist-deep in the hole, the protective earth surrounding him. His hands searched the ground before him for a fragmentation grenade. He found one and lifted it, hefted it to get the feel of its weight. He fondled it to find the pin. Then he just held it and stared into the darkness slowly sweeping his gaze back and forth in a 180° arc like he’d been taught in basic training, sweeping from right to left and then farther out from left to right and still farther out and back again. Then he started the sweep again, not aiming his weapon but his eyes and ears and always fondling the grenade and feeling the butt of the M-60 against his shirt front though he did not touch it with his hands and feeling the butt of his M-16 against his side as it lay pointing forward and ready.

  A few minutes past one he woke Ralston for the one-to-three shift. He climbed out of the hole and sat on the poncho behind it and then lay back with his M-16 across his legs. He thought it would be impossible to sleep. His body was taut with tension and his mind was very alert and awake and his eyes were open, staring up now into the misty blackness seeing no more than if they were shut.

  The night passed without incident.

  On 5 August a marathon of classes began with emphasis on airmobile tactics, basic weaponry, the official view of the war effort, the tactical situation and Vietnamese culture. Despite grunts and groans and whispered “bullshits” by many students Chelini would come away convinced of the sincerity and competency of the instructors.

  The first training period was the round robin. Chelini had never fired any of the round-robin weapons and the power of each enthralled him, changed him, made him desire to fire them again. He volunteered for every demonstration; he constantly asked questions. First he fired an M-67 ninety-millimeter recoilless rifle. He lay beside the weapon and sighted in on a fifty-five gallon drum across a ravine in the firing range. His assistant gunner loaded an HE, high-explosive, rocket into the tube. “Gentle-men,” the instructor said in metered syllables. “This pro-jec-tile is ca-pa-ble of pier-cing seven-teen inches of the tough-est steel known to man-kind or three feet of re-in-forced con-crete or six thick-ness-es of sand-bags. Gen-tle-men, you do not want to be on the ra-ceiv-ing end of this in-stru-ment.” Chelini wriggled in closer to the weapons. He laid his head on the sighting pad and re-aimed. He squeezed the trigger device. The rocket exploded. Flames shot back ten feet. The
noise stung his ears. He clamped his eyes shut. The projectile sailed wide of target and blew a crater into the soft dirt of the opposing hill. Chelini’s heart pounded.

  The second round-robin weapon was a LAW, a light anti-tank weapon. Somehow, Chelini thought, the army managed to issue every one of its instructors the same voice. “Gen-tle-men,” they all start out, “da-dot da-dot da-dot da-da”.” They all keep cadence with their speech. Chelini volunteered again.

  “This wea-pon, Gen-tle-men,” the second in-structor was saying, “is ca-pa-ble of pier-cing e-lev-en inches of the toughest steel known to man. Gen-tlemen, you do not …” The M-79 grenade launcher or thumper was next. It looked like a sawed-off shotgun with an inch-and-a-half bore. It fired forty-millimeter shells either directly at a target or lobbed in an arc like an artillery piece. Chelini stepped forward. “What’s your MOS?” the instructor asked.

  “I’m a wireman,” Chelini answered.

  “Let some of the infantry guys fire this,” the instructor said and motioned him back. “You can fire the next one.”

  The last round-robin weapon was the M-60 machine gun. “Gen-tle-men … this fires seven-point-six-two mil-li-me-ter bul-lets at a rate of five-five-oh …” Chelini slid to the front of the line at the last moment and behind one of the practice weapons. To him this was the most ferocious weapon of all. He came away beaming, imagining himself holding a hill alone, a hero.

  Next, Chelini’s group was marched to a rifle range for M-16 battle-site zeroing, then to the Cobra show.

  The Cobra is a narrow assault helicopter which carries its pilot and gunner in tandem. The class began with the instructor radioing in a fictitious request for close-in tactical support.

  “Holy Christ,” Chelini screeched when the helicopter dove from above the group and unleashed rockets, grenades and mini-gunfire against simulated targets. “Holy Christ,” he repeated. The class exploded in applause as the helicopter raked the target range.